skip to Main Content

Voice of Market Identifies “Roundabouts” in your Sales Process

The voice of your customer (VoC) and the voice of your market (VoM) are powerful data points if leveraged correctly. Your customers and your markets are eager for suppliers who take the time to understand them, their buying process, and the criteria they need to make buying decisions. Market-leading companies are constantly assessing how buyers buy and any shifts that occur in their markets and they adjust. One common outcome of the voice of the customer work is changing your repeatable sales process and eliminating any roundabouts in the sales process where sales stall or get lost.

I was asked to help the leader in marketing and product training develop a seminar on how to help companies tune in to their markets. The owners wrote a best-selling book titled Tuned in. (a must-read if you have not read it yet) This is what I have done my entire career and I was so excited for the opportunity to help thousands of companies and serve this market-leading team. Then 2008 hit. We like many companies experienced a large market shift, particularly in the tech market space and it was not the right time to launch a new seminar.

After that market shift of 2008, the company experienced a significant drop in their on-site customer-specific training. They offered public training where we would fill a conference center and train people from many different companies. One result of the public training was often someone coming forward after the class asking if we could do the same training but just for his or her team. We historically had a very high close rate when this occurred and we would provide an amazing onsite training experience. On-site training is a great way to get an entire team aligned and using the same framework.

Once the stock market dropped we saw a significant decrease in onsite sales. The company asked if I would help lead sales out of this recent sales decline.

We conducted win-loss calls with all our recent customers and the customers we recently did not win. (Just as we taught in our training) We asked open-ended questions about how they bought now after the stock market crash.

Was their process different?

Did they require new criteria to make buying decisions?

Who else in their organization was involved, if any in the buying decision? And so on…

What we learned was the following:

  • Human resources no longer could make buying decisions alone over a specific $ value
  • Human resources now had to sell the CEO and CFO on why they should invest in this training
  • The customers we won shared how they would prefer speaking with one of our instructors much earlier in the sales process

Based on the above and much more feedback we mapped the buying process and next to it our repeatable sales process. What we looked for were common roundabouts where the opportunity to serve our clients spun out of control. These roundabouts are always opportunities for new sales tools. For example, since the human resources group now had to internally sell the CEO, we proactively provided a short slide deck written for a CEO buyer persona as a sales tool.

We introduced our instructors much earlier in the sales process as they requested and often asked human resources to invite others who could authorize the expenditure.

We developed a new sales process with new sales tools and trained our sales team.

Within 3 months sales started to climb and after 12 months we realized a sales increase of over 150%.

How about your company…

When did your team last capture the voice of your customers?

Did it result in a new sales process?

Did you identify new sales tools needed to help your buyers buy?

When did your team last capture the voice of your market?

strong>Did you map how your buyers are buying today? Notice any changes?

Did you adjust your sales process based on how buyers are buying today?

Do your markets have new problems that need to be solved since the last time you did a value proposition audit?

We serve dynamic markets that continue to shift and change. How many changes has your team identified in the last year? Two years? Five years? Did you adjust to those shifts strategically or did you, like many teams tell sales to “just make it happen, work harder”?

If you have not recognized any market shifts nor changed your sales process or designed new sales tools it is broken but there is still time to tune in to how your buyers are buying and the market voice.

Spend time in front of your customers and understand how they are buying today, what they must-have today and make the necessary adjustments. I estimate as high as 60% -70% of companies are not actively listening for the voice of their market today. Of the 40%-30% who are, less than 10% will actually adjust their sales process and design new sales tools.

Why wouldn’t your team want to be one of those top 10% who hit and surpassed their sales numbers next year?

There is power in capturing the voice of the customer and how you use what you have learned to adjust your repeatable sales process. Simple often-minor adjustments can have a huge impact on your sales close rate. Adjusting your sales process to how your buyers buy today creates a GPS for your salespeople to follow to the sale.

Leverage Customer Voice into “Explosive Sales Growth”

Understanding your customers and markets today is the first step in business development plans that result in explosive sales growth. In my last post, I shared an example of one company that took the time to understand its market and doubled its sales in 18 months. In this post, I will share the same process and how critical it is to understand who your real customer is.

After the plastics company in the last post was sold to a private equity firm for a multiple much higher than industry averages I needed to find a new team to serve.

A company contacted me: Vantage Mobility. This company manufactures vans with the floors lowered so consumers in wheelchairs can drive again. This was one of my favorite jobs because we were changing lives with each sale.

When I met with their owners I heard common pains they wanted to be solved:

  • Increased distribution
  • Increase sales
  • Increase market share
  • Improve bottom line

After joining the team as the VP of Sales and Marketing I set out to use the same process that helped Alpha Enterprises realize explosive sales growth:

Go out into the market and meet customers

Listen for problems that needed solving

Understand how they buy today

What they need to buy today

Then shape a sales process that mirrors what we learned, train and coach the sales team on how to use it

The leadership team said their customers were independent mobility dealers who bought their vehicles then sold them to consumers in wheelchairs. What I heard was: mobility dealers were their channel distribution partners but the customers are consumers in wheelchairs. This led to some … let’s say lively discussions with the new guy “who obviously did not understand the dealer is the customer because they send us checks!”

My first objective was to add distribution in markets we were not adequately represented. I conducted a number of four-legged sales calls with my regional sales managers calling on our independent dealer distributors and the dealers we wanted to add. While my regional managers were focused on hitting their sales numbers (as they should) I asked open-ended questions to learn more about their business, how they buy, what they buy, and why today. They openly shared why they bought from the 800 lb gorilla competitor: Braun. Braun pretty much invented this industry. Their founder set out to solve a problem: help consumers in wheelchairs drive again. Because he was in a wheelchair himself, he intimately understood the needs of consumers in wheelchairs.

One of the questions I always use that produce great feedback is:

What does our competitor do really well?

This will produce items that are important to your buyers and key criteria they consider when picking a vendor. What buyers often expect is a competing salesperson talking about how the competitor sucks. (We had a few regional managers who used this approach and that was quickly changed). What salespeople must understand is when you use the approach of “the competition sucks” you are basically telling the buyer there is a fool for the buying decisions they make and really do not know how to do their job. Once this occurs the opportunity to build a relationship with the buyer is over. Once this occurs the opportunity to learn what is important to the buyer and how they buy is over.

Another question I always use is:

If you were the president of our company, what would you do?

In this case, you are doing the opposite of challenging the buyers’ past purchase decisions. You are basically saying…you have been in this business for a while, you are smart, I respect you and I really would like to hear your thoughts because I believe they will help me…

After about three months we gathered all the information, grouped it and we prioritized it, and offered what we heard the independent dealers wanted and needed. We trained our regional managers on how to present our offerings. I worked in the field with our salespeople making sure they adapted to this new behavior and coached them when they struggled. Our number of distributors increased. This led to increased sales and an improved bottom line.

However, to solve the companies next three pain points we really needed to understand the true customers: consumers in wheelchairs. (In tech markets we refer to them as end-users)

  • Increase sales
  • Increase market share
  • Improve bottom line

I continued the four-legged sales calls with our regional managers and coaching but changed my focus. Every mobility dealer sold accessible vans. They also provided amazing service for those vehicles and additional products to make the vehicle overall use experience the best it could be. They added innovative products like hand controls and transfer seats as well as conducted routine maintenance. While our regional managers were calling on mobility dealer owners and helping their salespeople demonstrate vehicles, I sat in the lobby and talked to consumers in wheelchairs. I was amazed how little I knew, how little my regional managers knew, about consumers in wheelchairs and how they made buying decisions and the process they went through. They shared things like:

  • On average consumers in wheelchairs make about 25% less than those not in wheelchairs and have less disposable income due to medications and medical devices. “It’s hard for us to get new car loans, and these custom vehicles are expensive
  • The vehicle’s reputation for quality is critical. Specifically, their fear was that should their vehicle break down, the tow truck driver can town their vehicle, but no tow trucks are equipped to transport a consumer in a wheelchair so they could be left in their wheelchair on the side of the road.
  • The closest relationships they have at mobility dealers are with the people who service their vehicles. “If Frank tells me brand X is the best because they rarely come in for service then that’s what I buy.”
  • How vehicle presentations at their home are so valuable for first-time mobility vehicle buyers (they may not have any way of getting to the dealer after their recent operation or accident)
  • One young lady said something that I did not expect: You think consumers in wheelchairs are ugly! What? Your brochure, your website all uses models who are obviously not people in wheelchairs…I can tell by this woman’s muscle tone in her thighs or this guy here the muscle tone in his legs and the bottom of his shoes are scuffed. (Never expected that concern)
  • We learned that all consumers in wheelchairs were not the same. We had four prominent buyer personas: Quadriplegics, paraplegics, some but limited mobility, and caregivers. Each had his or her unique criteria and requirements when purchasing a mobility vehicle or device.
  • My favorite comment came from a veteran who has had his vehicle serviced at our Akron Ohio dealer’s location: “You folks are not that smart you know? These vehicles are so very expensive when you buy a new van then convert it. If I were you I would buy as many used vans as I could and modify them and bring down the retail price so more people who need what you are selling can afford one…” ( as the new guy why wouldn’t we do this?) 
  • We learned a number of our dealer salespeople came from the automotive sales industry and the strategies and tactics they were taught there not only did not work but caused consumers to leave the mobility dealerships. The mobility vehicle sale is a custom solution sale not selling numbers or as one referred to it as “moving iron”. This sale is about serving people with a life-changing solution.

We brought all the current market data we gathered back to the owners, board, and executive team. This is the hardest part of my process because I am often seen as a heretic, not loyal, telling them their baby is ugly, or I just don’t get the vision, you obviously don’t know how we have been doing things around here for the past ___years. (Well if what you have been doing was driving the sales growth you needed you wouldn’t have hired me? ..never said out loud)

Over time we made some adjustments based on what we learned:

  • We used actual VMI customers in our photoshoots creating an authentic connection in the community in our brochures, marketing, and website
  • Our tech services group dug deep into the most common service issues and solved them with engineering’s help, and our dealer’s field tech teams became raving fans
  • We proactively offered in-home demonstrations when we learned it was a first-time buyer
  • We taught our dealers to proactively reach out to every past customer right before their vehicle warrantee was about to expire because consumers valued having the warrantee so much, and it created an inventory of used vans
  • We changed our website. The first step when you entered our site was to identify what buyer persona you were and we took you through products that met your needs and requirements.
  • We started buying fleets of used vans from rental companies and converting them driving down the retail price and binging an entirely new set of buyers into our dealers
  • Our dealer tech training did an amazing job and won the hearts and minds of dealer service technicians, one of the leading influencers for consumers in wheelchairs buying their next vehicle
  • We created and trained our dealers in a new way to help consumers in wheelchairs buy mobility vehicles. It was called the Certified Mobility Consultant program and it is still in use today

Vantage Mobility experienced “explosive sales growth “after tuning in to their distributor partner’s needs and the unique needs of their top buyer personas. We stopped focusing on what the 800 lb gorilla competitor was doing and we started tracking “lives changed” instead of vehicles sold.

Today VMI is seen as a high-quality conversion van manufacturer and key partner with their dealers. Used van conversions grew to over 60% of the vehicles sold within five years. Because they are a privately held company when I served them ( recently sold at a strong multiple ) I cannot share the specific sales and profits, but I can share their sales today are estimated at 9X-10X the sales they had in 2000. They continued to listen to their dealers and consumers and converted new vehicles like Hondas and Toyotas.

How about your company?

Are you actively listening to your channel partners AND customers?

Are you counting on your distributors to share customer feedback with you? Or is someone on your team asking?

When was the last time you asked one of your customers what your competitor is doing right?

Is your team experiencing explosive sales growth? Would you like to? 

What do your customers need to buy today and what process, what journey are they using to make buying decisions today?

Are you interested in 9X or 10X sales growth?

Once your team understands your buyers and sometimes channel partners, what they need to buy, and how they buy you can leverage this into an explosive sales growth business development plan like VMI executed.

There is a power in the voice of your customers, voice of your markets, leverage it!

A number of companies tell me they know their customers, we have been serving them for 20 years….you might but don’t you want to be sure?

OK, let me ask you a question: When you buy something today, has the journey you take to the sale changed in the last 10 years? Are there new criteria important to you today that might not have been on your list 20 years ago? The reason why your business exists today is you intimately knew your buyers, how they buy, and what they needed to buy back then. Just as you now may use the Internet today to do research before you buy something today, so too are your customers. I am not trying to be a Heretic, I am working hard to serve your company and help you grow profitably!

Once we leverage the voice of the market today you will experience explosive sales growth!

Fix Sales Problems With The Power in the  “Voice of the Customer”

In my last post, I shared how market-leading organizations provide their sales teams with a repeatable sales process with tools that resonate with their buyers. Understanding the voice of your customers has power. Why do your buyers buy? Why don’t they buy? What process do they use on their buying journey? What criteria must your buyers have to make a buying decision today? Once you have this information you can design a business development plan that creates explosive sales. In this post, I will share an example of a company that grew $38 million in 18 months using the voice of the customer.

In the 1990’s I was the VP of sales and marketing for Alpha Enterprises Inc. We were a plastics injection molding company that provided plastic packaging and mechanical security devices for the music retail industry.

In the mid-1990s the music industry experienced a significant shift in how music on compact discs was going to be distributed. Prior to this time music on compact discs was distributed to music stores and other mass merchants in a 12” cardboard package. This cardboard package was designed to be easily merchandised in what were once record album fixtures. Secondly, it added size to prevent and or slow down retail theft. Alpha Enterprises manufactures mechanical security devices in plastic for audiotapes and videos at the time. We had a design for a compact disc package, but we had very little sales.

Recognizing this large shift in how compact disc music was going to be distributed, we hit the road meeting with as many music retailers, mass merchants, and other companies that provided music to locations like book stores and so on. Our competitor also had a security package design and did a mass mailing to all of the retail stores with a product sample, prices, and asking for a commitment. We met with music companies like Sony, music retail accounts like Music Land and Tran world Music. We met with mass merchants, bookstores, warehouse clubs, and other retailers that sold music. In these meetings, we were capturing the voice of the customer and the voice of the market.

In our meetings we discovered a number of people in each organization that influenced the purchase of mechanical security products:

Merchandising

Loss prevention

Store design

Purchasing

Operations (specific to companies to provide music to stores and they used automated machines that loaded the compact discs into packaging)

We met with purchasing at each of the accounts we identified that could use our help due to this big shift, but also all the other people who helped influenced the purchases.

We found each influencer was also primarily concerned with theft since compact discs could easily be hidden in someone’s clothing. We also found each influencer had specific requirements and criteria they were looking for pain and problems they needed to solve.

For example:

Merchandising – ability to use current fixtures, new market entering music retail at the time were bookstores. They required a package as small as possible but protected the security tag from being removed by a consumer.

Loss prevention – reduce theft, re-use security tags, the speed at check out

Store design – maximum inventory in the smallest footprint, customer flow, particularly speed at check out

Purchasing – availability, a supplier that could guarantee to meet their volume needs and grow as their inventory grew. Devices that could use the current keys to unlock audiotapes at check out. The material the product was made of, for example, mass retailers wanted consumers to take the package home and cut it to remove the music disc where music retail wanted a durable and reusable package. Price, the price was important, however, the biggest pain point buyers had was the promise of availability.

We took all these requirements back to our engineering team and decided the best way to serve the voice of the markets we heard was to design and develop three security products based on the market and customer’s requirements.

When our competitor mass-mailed a sample and a cover letter bound with a rubber band ( really I saw it on buyers” desks), we spent the time clearly understanding the pain this market shift would cause. We segmented customer types by similar pain and requirements. We designed and manufactured three unique products with specific sizes, materials, and locking mechanisms. We added a compartment in our devices to house a security tag. We even went as far as to create an Excel tool that calculated how many retail transactions needed to occur and reuse the security tags so the reuse of tags paid for our devices. When buyers challenges our prices, and they did particularly one device made of Lexan, we asked them to complete the Excel sales tool to use with their supervisors and owners to show how the devices would be free after so many retail transactions.

There is power in capturing the voice of your customer and the voice of your market.

Most companies launch with what I refer to as mullet marketing. They “think” they know what the customers want and need, and how they buy, what they need to buy today…and they launch. About six months into the launch and the CEO is asking why sales is failing to execute the sales plan, they decide to do market research and find out why. Our competitors in this example did the same thing. They thought they knew the market since they served it for over 10 years. They thought they knew how their buyers would react and how their buyers would buy. They failed to ask; they failed to do the market work gathering the voice of the customer, the voice of the market. After we secured each key customer that matched our ideal customer profiles, we heard our competitors were asking for meetings to understand why they lost the sale and determine what they could do to possibly win the orders. The trouble was, since the top pain of purchasing was a guarantee of orders shipping on time, we had all the key accounts tied to a multi-year purchase commitment.

What was the result of gathering the “Voice of the customer”?

What was the sales growth impact from gathering the “Voice of the market”?

What impact did the “voice of the customer” have on our bottom line?

We experienced a $38 million dollar sales increase in 18 months!

We sold our products at a market competitive price but we were not the cheapest.

Two of the new products we designed resulted in gross sales margins exceeding 55%. (Unheard of in the plastics market at the time)

Did we see any other unforeseen benefits of the voice of customer work?

  • We established strong relationships of trust with leading US retailers that eventually led to our launch of a line of consumer storage products that grew to over $69 million in 5 years. The accounts knew us, trusted our ability to execute.
  • We started receiving international inquires for our new product designs and this led to an international product expansion and additional revenues
  • The video game industry was watching and eventually approached us for security packages for video games and software games resulting in additional sales revenues

This is just one example of the explosive sales power when you understand what your buyers want, how they buy, and what they need to buy today. I emphasize “today” because how buyers buy and the criteria they use to buy change as your market changes.

So how about your company….

Do you understand the voice of your customers today? Are you Sure?

Recognizing in most companies your customers represent about 30% of your market….

Do you understand “the voice of your market” today?

Is someone on your team asking questions and listening for buyer pain? Who?

What impact would an incremental $38 million have on your bottom line at over 55% margins?

What sifts are your markets experiencing right now?

Capturing the voice of your customers and the voice of your market is a powerful tool that many companies fail to utilize. The voice of the market becomes the foundation for your business development and new product development plans and strategies.

Without a current understanding of how your buyers buy and what they need to buy, your sales will not reach the explosive sales growth they could.

One last question… let’s say I have not sold you on investing time and resources into understanding the voice of your customers and markets….

What if your largest competitor is doing this process right now?

If so you are about 24-36 months away from a sales and profits death spiral many companies never recover from.

PLEASE take the time and dedicate the resources to clearly understanding what your buyers want and need to buy today and the process they use. Once you do.

PLEASE create a repeatable sales process that mirrors what your buyers want and need to buy today.

That is the No Smoke and Mirrors process I have used for over 30 years and it has always driven profitable sales growth.

Do not “sell” buyers I help them buy!

Fix Sales: Knowing Buyer’s Journey is like Creating a GPS for Your Sales Process

The quickest path to creating a repeatable sales process that drives sales growth is understanding the journey your buyers take today. How do your buyers buy? Why do they buy? Why don’t they buy? What do buyers in your market need to have to make a buying decision today? Once we have answers to these questions we can create a repeatable sales process that drives profitable sales growth. A sales process that mirrors how your buyers want to buy becomes a GPS for your salespeople.

I was asked to speak at an event for business owners and leaders. I prefer interactive discussions so I asked the room what problems they would like to solve? We wrote problems on the whiteboard then consolidated the list.

What we agreed as the top three problems these business owners wanted to solve were:

  • Finding and hiring good talent
  • How do we get found on the internet
  • Making sales more predictable and efficient

We agreed I would share my advice for solving business problem #3: Making sales more predictable and efficient because this is a topic I have experience solving. In this post, I will share the advice for creating a powerful repeatable sales process that drives sales results.

I asked the business owners and leaders to share how this problem is seen and felt in their organizations

  • Financial results
  • Service experience
  • Overall buying experience
  • Turnover –customers and employees
  • Margin loss – in an effort to serve the customer we run overtime, we purchase expedited freight, our cost of inventory is too high
  • Sales decline
  • Morale decline – throughout the organization
  • Brand damage

This group was really sharing some great ideas and the above we agreed were the top 8 ways not having a market-driven repeatable sales process hurts their business.

Next, I asked what one thing could we do that would make this entire list go away? (This question came from one of my favorite books: The Power of One Thing)

The room grew very quiet.

So I asked a simple question:

How do I get to the airport after this meeting is over?

One gentleman started with directions: turn left out of the parking lot, at the second light turns right. Stay on that road until it dead-ends and take a left, merge onto the highway and drive North for about 11 miles and look for the airport sign. Exit the highway on the left and follow the signs to the airport and car rental return.

A young lady said I would not send him that way, …and she proceeded to list a series of turns and it had me on the highway much sooner with fewer turns.

The last person first asked me a question: What time of day will you be driving? If it is between 4 pm and 6 pm you want to stay off the highway and proceeded to give me a very lengthy and complicated series of directions.

I then challenged the room: Why did you all assume I wanted directions from here?

I went on to share how this is the most common problem we have when trying to sell current customers as well as new customers…we assume where the buyer is starting from. After they challenged me that this was not fair we moved on.

I pointed to the maps I drew of each of the directions I was provided with all the turns and so on.

This one, the one with the least amount of turns and steps is what it’s like to sell a current customer. They already know you, your company, they have some level of trust and they have a logical series of steps they use to buy, and criteria they need to have to make a buying decision. As you can see it has many fewer steps and is hard to get lost.

On the other end of the scale is the direction that did not have me using the highway. This had the most steps, turns, and twists to get me to my final destination. This has the highest probability of me getting lost. This is what it is like selling a new customer who has never done business with your company before, never heard of your company before. You will have many steps the buyer will use to build trust. Some of them may feel odd to you. Depending on the study you read, buyers today are completing between 53% and 70%b of their buying journey BEFORE they speak with one of your salespeople. We must know what they are doing!

The last direction resembles selling a current customer a new product or service. The number of steps the buyer takes is more than the short journey but less than a buyer who never heard of you before. They trust you and your company but must be assured this new product or service will completely solve their problem.

Not knowing how your buyers buy and what they need to have to make buying decisions today is a sales sin. (Note sin means “missing the mark”)

It is second only to asking your salespeople to achieve sales growth goals with a dated value proposition that no longer resonates with buyers.

I went on to share your business has common buyers we need to group into buyer personas. Once we do we need to understand how each of these buyers buys and what they need to buy when in the buying process. The more you understand about each of your key buyer personas the more your repeatable sales process and the tools your salespeople are presenting at just the right time will connect.

Eventually, an older distinguished gentleman in the third row said: OK I see where this is interesting and important but how? How do you map this process and gather so much information?

Keeping with the spirit of the power of one thing I answered: ASK!

I shared the process I use to interview current customers, customers you lost and potential customers my clients have always wanted to sell. I shared my top 10 questions I use that work in every industry. The only people you do not interview are those currently in the quote process.

roundabout-39394_1280

What I asked everyone to do is ask the open-ended questions and listen, really listen. What you need to listen for is any place in the buying process the buyer enters a roundabout and goes round and round not making a decision. Listen for any time the journey slows down. . Red lights, if you will, in our driving example. What criteria does the buyer need to have and when? This is like me looking for the airport sign on the highway with enough time to still change lanes. Listen for any road construction that has changed how they buy in the last few months causing them to detour from their old buying process.

I closed our discussion with:

The best way to make your repeatable sales process effective and efficient is taking the time to understand your buyers, the process they are using and the criteria they need, and when in today’s market.

Put another way….

“Knowing your Buyer’s Journey is like creating a GPS for your Sales Process.”

– Mark Allen Roberts

Your salespeople’s and marketing’s activities will mirror how your buyers want to buy and provide buyers the tools they need at just the right time in the buying journey to close more sales. When I used this process with a  company their sales to close % increased over 20 % and we added over 250 new customers in the last 18 months… (but I am getting ahead of myself as that is my next post)

How about your company?

Do you have a repeatable sales process? Are you sure?

How is it working? Are you hitting your sales numbers?

Does someone on your team clearly understand how your buyers are buying today? Who? 

Does your team clearly understand what your buyers need to buy and when?

strong>How effective is your team’s sales process?

How efficient is your team’s sales process?

Does your team know when a buyer is entering a roundabout, and what to do to get them back on the buying journey?

Is your team showing any or all of the above symptoms of not having a defined repeatable sales process?

Could your buyers be taking a detour while your salespeople keep selling the same way and unaware?

The markets we serve are dynamic. We must tune into how buyers buy and what they need to buy today. Market shifts and other changes happen all the time that can cause sales growth to stall. Market leaders are constantly asking their markets how they buy and what they need to buy. Leaders identify detours early and adjust.

In my next two posts, I will share examples of how adjustments to the sales process and adding new tools resulted in increased sales results and lowering the cost of sales.

Are you sure you need to hire “more” salespeople?

Many businesses are as busy or busier than they were pre-pandemic.
My clients share they want to hire more salespeople to keep up with demand and give their current customers the best buying experience possible.

What I often ask my clients often surprises them: Are you sure you need more salespeople?

Having led a number of sales teams over the past 36 years and now provide sales consulting, training, and coaching I have experienced some interesting trends, data points if you will.

In most sales teams I serve 20%-30% of the people in a customer-facing quota carrying sales roles should not be in sales.

Another 34% of salespeople are in the wrong roles based on their skills, beliefs, and motivations.

Salespeople today are spending less than 20% of their sellable time selling.

Over 50% of salespeople have not received any formal sales skills training.

25%-30% of sales teams have not updated their sales structure in over 12 months.

Buyers shared in a recent survey in a typical one-hour meeting with a salesperson only 6 minutes were actually valuable to them, the buyer.

So, let me ask you again…Are you sure you need more salespeople?

Or do you need to improve the overall effectiveness of your current sales team?

Before you invest in more salespeople, I suggest the following to ensure your current sales team is as effective and efficient as they could be.

I.Assess sales skills

Conduct a sales skills assessment to determine the current state of your salespeople by sales role.

Do you have Hunters, Farmers, and Fishermen?

Do you have the right people in the right roles?

Do your people have the right skills, motivations, and beliefs for the role there are in?

II. Train and Coach

Prescribe training and coaching to fill any skills gaps discovered in the assessment.

III. Measure what Matters

Establish key performance indicators that drive the results you want and need. Far too many teams are tracking lagging indicators alone like sales and profit per sale.

The teams I work with track indicators like:

New client contacts attempted

New client conversations completed

Future meetings booked

Quotes presented

Close rates on quotes

IV. Reinforce Accountability to goals

Develop and manage a sales accountability process.

So, one more time, let me ask you the question: Are you sure you need more salespeople?

Or would you first like to understand how effective your current sales team is and determine how effective they could be with training and coaching?

If you have done all of the above and determine you need more salespeople, I can help you find top sales performers to add to your organization.

If improving sales team effectiveness is something you would like to learn more about let’s schedule a call.

 

 

One Data Point Most Sales Teams Miss When Restructuring the Sales Organization

In an earlier post, I shared insights from an excellent article published in Harvard Business Publications. Why this article was timely and needed is several CEOs and CFO’s as well as business owners are all having discussions on how to reduce costs, improve profits, grow market share, and structure our sales organization for the future.

I shared a tool to help business leaders consider much more than revenue by the salesperson when rightsizing and retooling their sales teams in my last post. There is one critical data point everyone must consider in addition when reorganizing and restructuring sales organizations but sadly most will not.

In this post, I will share what this last piece of critical information is you must capture to strategically pivot, reset, retool and reorganize your sales organization to survive today and thrive post-Covid-19.

As I work with business leaders they are frustrated and often anxious about the future of their business.

If you have been in business for a while like me, you have lived through economic disruption and challenges. You adjusted and survived in 2008 and the stock market volatility. You may have seen some revenue disruption after 911 but your team adjusted and grew through those challenges.

What makes this current disruption so unique and hard to navigate?

Covid -19 was not a single event we experienced and worked through. It is an ongoing event with new information daily. Not all businesses have been impacted the same. Some businesses have seen little disruption, some have experienced an increase in revenue and many have seen orders drop off 30% or more. Many businesses are dealing with canceled orders they built products for, customers having difficulty paying their bills on time not to mention the emotional toll this crisis has had on employees, their families, and coworkers.

We adapted with virtual selling, and Zoom calls became the norm for many once outside sales professionals.

Salespeople are using this time to upskill and adjust how they serve their customers by leading with empathy and improving our active listening skills to truly understand how our customers are dealing with this crisis, how have their businesses been impacted and how can we best serve them today?

As I shared in my last post teams are gathering data as fast as they can and searching for trends to develop scenarios and identifying specific trigger events that will activate their future plans.

Teams are pouring over KPI data-hungry for insights to develop plans and lead their teams through this disruptive market condition. The trouble is many leaders have a vision looking at lagging indicators and need to have a much broader and creative view of this situation to develop the right strategic plans for the future.

As I alluded to in my last post there is one major data point I always consider when retooling and reorganizing sales most teams most leaders are not considering.

What is this elusive data point most teams are failing to consider?

Your customer’s voice!

Now is the time to intimately understand your customers and be able to answer questions like:

Why do customers buy from you?

Why don’t customers buy from you?

What do your customers consider your value proposition to be today?

How are your buyers buying?

Has your buyers’ buying journey changed in the last 30 days?

Do your buyers have new buying criteria they did not have 30 days ago?

What do your buyers want and expect today?

What are you doing today they no longer value but are adding to your cost to serve?

In a Harvard article titled: The Most Important Metric You are not Tracking Yet, the author shares how most organizations consider themselves to be customer-centric, but they are failing to take into consideration how their customers’ needs and expectations have changed since Covid.

Many teams again are pouring over inward-facing KPI’s looking for insights, but they are failing to understand CPI’s.

What’s a CPI?

A CPI is Customer Performance Indicators.

The author shares there are two elements for something to be a CPI:

  1. Outcomes customers say are important to them
  2. Outcomes are measures in increments important to the customer

What are some increments that are important to customers?

  • Time
  • Convenience
  • Options
  • Dollars Saved
  • Value Delivered

Many people think CPI’s are the same as your Net Promoter Score. Your NPS is one of your KPI’s and measures if someone would recommend, refer others to do business with you. NPS unlike a CPI however does not provide the connection to single intended customer outcomes.

Who in your organization might value a current CPI?

  • Marketing – how customers are buying, where are they shopping? How they are making buying decisions? What are their exit criteria today?
  • Sales– what do buyers want and need from salespeople today? What are their expectations on services like the speed of quote, minimum order quantities, terms, returns…?
  • Product Management– understanding product use cases and identifying if product requirements have changed
  • Customer Service – customer expectations on metrics like first-time issue resolution, ease of accessing someone, ability to resolve issues quickly and completely
  • Operations – customer expectations with regards to order accuracy, turnaround time, shipping orders complete?
  • Finance – tracking and reporting the value you have provided the customer with your product or solution

To make strategic decisions in such a volatile and uncertain business climate we need to consider various sets of data, not emotion.

We not only need to gather internal data and customer voice insights but we also need to do so quickly because in many cases if it takes you months to gather the information it will be too late by the time you try to use it.

Companies that will survive and thrive post-Covid -19 will gather data quickly, capture the voice of their customers and establish current CPI’s then assess their sales and other teams on their ability to deliver to the customer’s stated needs and expectations.

Sales organizations that will not only survive but become market leaders post Covid-19 will gather data quickly accessing many data points and develop strategic plans for today and post-Covid -19. They will be Agile and adapt and often pivot long before their competitors in fear mode making decisions based on emotion.

It’s time to gather your internal and customer voice data to help your team develop your strategic plans to weather the unpredictable market conditions and come out stronger and more effective when it passes.

My goal in this post was to coach everyone to find the voice of their customers today when shaping their sales and service organizations for today and the future.

Leveraging data coupled with the voice of your customer feedback is a proven no smoke and mirrors process I have used for over 30 years to help organizations experience explosive sales and profit growth.

If you would prefer my help providing unfiltered, unbiased data in let’s schedule a call and I would be honored to serve your team and position your team to become stronger today and a market leader in the future.

Need to Improve Revenue? Run a MRI on Your Business Today

By Mark Allen Roberts

When I ask CEO’s and Sales leaders: “how do you plan to end 2020 strong and hit the ground running in 2021?”…I receive a variety of responses. Some have plans and specific strategies and tactics but the majority are more focused on this month and this quarter.

I spoke at the NAW event in Washington DC last year before the pandemic and asked a room of CEO’s and business leaders to raise your hand if you felt with 100% certainty your sales organization has the skills to hit your sales and profit objectives in 2020…. not one hand was raised. This was concerning but not surprising.

I have helped organization improve their sales and deliver more shareholder value for over 30 years.

CEO’s and CFO’s have always expressed a concern that sales are more of a dark art than a science.

For years I have heard: Why can’t sales run more like my plant with systems, processes and deliver predictable results?

In this post we will discuss how to run an MRI for your business now and strategically pivot and lean into the data to structure, train and coach your sales team to drive the outcomes leaders desire.

You have a smart team and with good, up to date data you can build strategies that deliver the results you want and need.

There was an interesting article in the Wall street Journal some time ago about a reporter who wrote about healthy lifestyles discovering he had a blocked Carotid artery although he was not currently showing any symptoms.

As I read this article it reminded me of how many teams I have served were experiencing small symptoms of problems but needed to dive deeper to find the root causes and heal them.

Many CEO’s and sales leaders I speak with have issues just below the surface in their businesses that need a business health MRI to identify them.

Let me ask you a few questions:

What if we could provide a data driven scan for the health of your business today?

What if this scan could predict your business’s future health if things remained the same?

What if we used a scan of your businesses health today that could help us prevent your business having a stroke and or going out of business in the future?

What if we had a Business MRI and we could scan your business and share specific areas that need to improve before they become fatal?

For over 35 years of my career I was hired to “fix sales problems”. The first thing I would do with each client is gathering and assessing data from various parts of the business and your markets and determines the organizations’ overall health.

Organizations have strong leaders and senior leaderships teams who if they had unbiased, unfiltered data can and will create short term and long term plans to adjust to current market constraints.

 This process has been the same with each team I have served and I believe it is more critical now than ever given the change so many of us have experienced.

Could common sales clots be forming in your pipeline today that will cause a sales and or profit stroke in your business or worse?

If we could run a diagnostic scan of your sales and your overall business health what would we look for?

I would suggest seven areas of your organization to scan to give your leadership the data they need.

Voice of your customers

Here we capture things like how your buyers buy and why they buy from you and why they don’t. What is your net promoter score? Capture how your buyers are buying today and what criteria they need to make a buying decision. We spend time understanding your customer’s business and their economic drivers as well as whom their customers are.

Systems and Processes

Does the team have a Sales Plan?  Do you have a formal Sales Process that is buyer centric? Are the systems in place to support profitable growth that provide salespeople valuable insights to prescriptively growing their business? Do you have a CRM and why or why not are sales using it? Do you have a strong sales support focus to ensure customers have a strong buying experience?

Marketing

Does the team have a strong digital marketing competence? (If not you must accelerate this now) I suggest running a value proposition audit to ensure you clearly understand what your buyer’s value after the last 90 days of disruption. Do you clearly understand the various buyer personas of your customers and decision makers and have you equipped sales with the right tools and messaging for each? How active is your website? Is your website found and does your site speak in the language of the channels you serve?

Sales support

Here we look at all the sales support tools ,systems and processes to ensure they are aligned to drive profitable sales growth while making it easy for customers to buy from you. Do you have a sales enablement function? If not who is responsible for helping sales improve their success? Does sales have the right tools for each stage of the sales process? Does your sales process mirror your buyers buying process today or is it out-dated? When we look at sales support we also look at the skills of sales management and sales leaders. Have they been trained in the new skills to grow from rep to manager? Do sales managers know how to coach? Do they want to coach and more importantly how effective is their sales coaching?

Sales Mindset

We want to determine things like what do your salespeople believe about things like: pricing, quality, selling, business outlook, accountability and motivation? Ultimately we are determining if your sales team knows how to sell and will they sell? Do they have a high emotional intelligence and empathy? Is their focus to produce value for their customers as trusted advisors or are they commission junkies just focused on their goals?

Sales Skills

The main focus here is to determine by salesperson and sales manager if they have been trained and do they have the sales skills needed in your market of today? Do they understand how to sell based on value and not just price? Do they feel comfortable asking strong qualifying and discovery questions to get to the root of the buyer problems? Do the sales people know how to negotiate and close? Can they shape their conversation style based on the personality of the buyer? Are they comfortable creating a business case and talking about money? Do they know how to have insightful conversations with various influencers all the way up to the CEO? Are the right people based on skills and mindset in the right roles?

Metrics and Data

Here we dive into the data often buried deep in your servers and CRM. We look at things like on boarding new sales associates and time to revenue. We review KPI’s (leading and lagging indicators) and are they the right ones for the business today and in the future, by sales role. Naturally we look at sales, profits by salesperson, by customer and by channel. What is the cost of sales? Cost per lead? What is your net profit by customer today? What is our close rate average and by team member? What is our market share and share of each key customers’ wallet? What were our planned and unplanned sales associate turnover in the last 24 months? Does your team have a strategic pricing system or just a common margin for all products and services?

Once we scanned your organization for all of the above, we diagnose the overall health of your business today and predict the future success of your organization. We are establishing a data driven current state for your business health.

Most of the teams I have served have a much clearer vision of their future state they desire than the current state they are working in today.

We look at your business and customers today then create a plan and connect the dots between your current state today and where your team desires to be in the future.

I hear some of you saying: Wow Mark that’s a lot of work, I am already buried in work and so is my team how will we find the time to gather this information? “

Or another common concern: ” This sounds like a pretty big change and we are not typically strong at change management.”

My challenge is if not now when?

If you have been following any of my articles or attending my webinars there is a powerful sales effectiveness instrument and data gathering process to gather the above.

We leverage technology to gain the insights we need to shape a healthy strategic business plan for the future.

If you want to DIY your business health assessment have at it. Many teams will try to gather everything they need but find themselves distracted by today’s challenges and the flaming trashcan of today.

Another challenge to doing this data gathering yourself is with the rate of change we are experiencing in this VUCA economy by the time you gathered everything yourself it may not be relevant anymore.

o alt text provided for this image

The other consideration you must assess is the organizations culture if you want to DIY your sales and profit health project.

Your organization culture is like the blood flowing throughout your body. It touches every organ or as in this case every person, process and system.

Culture 

When we assess a culture we look for things like: Is the culture innovative or are they defensive and protecting the fort? What is the team’s comfort with change? Do the senior leaders have a fixed mindset…” the way we have always done things around here”…or open to new ideas and a growth mindset? How is the organization structured? Do they have business silos? What is their decision making process? Do they have a continuous learning culture? We need to understand any deep biases early and introduce data before we begin developing our business health plan. 

My recommendation is you want a 3rd party to give your business a BMRI so the data is not biased.

There is a tremendous value of hiring an outside heretic when it comes to adding value to your bottom line. They gather the data and share it without a filter and politically correct biases.

“Smart experienced teams when presented unfiltered data make strong strategic sales and profit plans.”

– Mark Allen Roberts

If you want help running an MRI for your business now and have the data to make strategic pivots let’s chat.

Healthy businesses will survive now and thrive in the years to come!

How to stop Killing Sales Deals You Should Have Won

 

 

By Mark Allen Roberts

 

Many sales teams are adapting to the Covid-19 challenge. For some outside salespeople they are making virtual sales calls for the first time. Some teams are training their sales teams how to build virtual relationships and conduct virtual sales professionally, but sadly many are not. In addition to adjusting to working from home and its challenges, your sales team must have the right sales mindset to deliver the maximum results. The new book: Stop Killing Deals by George Bronten will help you quickly unmask deadly sales deal assumptions your sales team may have and help you correct them strategically. You will get to the root of your sales teams’ assumptions, reframe those assumptions and then gain a competitive advantage by viewing sales through the lens of human interaction.

 

I have to admit the current sales environment is the most challenging I have seen over the past 36 years. What I find to be one of the biggest challenges as I work with sales leaders and assess their sales teams is the teams’ sales mindset. Sales teams today are often not performing due to limiting beliefs and assumptions that are holding them back from helping their customers in their greatest time of need. These limiting beliefs are resulting in salespeople killing deals they should have won, and not even in conversations on sales opportunities they could have won.

The author shared a great quote:

“ Assumptions are your window to the world. You need to scrub them every once in a while or the light won’t come in.”

  • Jsaac Asimov

So what are some assumptions and limiting beliefs that are killing sales deals for your team today?

  • I’m not good at cold calls
  • I hate cold calls
  • Cold calls do not work
  • No one wants to speak with salespeople today
  • No one has budget
  • Everyone’s business is hurting today
  • I might loose my job, so I better start looking

What is a belief?

A belief is a thought you repeat over and over again. Notice I did not say a true thought. The way our brains work is they log every thought without measuring if it’s true.

Social science says our thoughts, feelings, memories, and processes that take place below the level of consciousness drive most of our behavior.

We are unaware of what’s happening in our unconscious mind where we harbor self-limiting beliefs. If that were not enough the author also shares how cultures and organizations also have limiting beliefs.

What I found fascinating in Stop Killing Deals is the discussion on organizational limiting beliefs I have observed that negatively impact sales effectiveness like…

  • Salespeople are born not made
  • Salespeople are disciplined
  • Buyers and sellers are logical

The author does an excellent job of unpacking each of the above limiting organizational beliefs.

For example: How do you know if your organization believes salespeople are born and not trained?

  • Unreliable business results
  • Slow or non existent sales growth
  • EBIT lower than your competitors
  • High sales turnover
  • High customer defections
  • Missed sales forecasts
  • Unhappy stakeholders
  • Fast sales leader turnover

The author also shares how to determine if your sales organization is disciplined and why most buyers and salespeople are not logical.

Stop Killing Deals also helps us understand the 5 most common things that drive decision making that every sales leader must understand.

Do your salespeople have limiting beliefs that are kills deals?

The author provides numerous excellent online tools to help you and your team improve.

I cannot think of a sales team I have served over the years who would not value the insights and tools of this book to help improve their sales teams’ effectiveness.

Are your salespeople able to work remotely today? (are you sure? The data I am seeing is more than 30% of salespeople cannot work remotely without some skills training)

Do they have the discipline to work remotely?

 

What limiting beliefs does your sales team have today?

 

I highly recommend Stop Killing Deals for every sales organization and regional teams that want to become market leaders in sales effectiveness skills.

 

If you would like to identify limiting beliefs your salespeople have today and create a plan to change them so your salespeople stop killing deals give me a call.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wholesale Distributor and Manufacturer Sales Training Must Transform Due to Market Perfect Storm

 

By Mark Allen Roberts

I enjoy training and coaching salespeople, it’s a passion mine. I led sales training for a global manufacturer, helped develop online training as well as flipped classroom training. I have often helped train wholesale distribution sales teams and coach sales managers. There is a perfect storm brewing that will capsize most manufacture and whole distributor training programs ROI if learning and development teams do not make some strategic course corrections now and batten down the hatches. This post will share the top 4 forces quickly converging on how train and we onboard manufacture and wholesale distributor salespeople.

 

There was a great movie based on a true story titled: The Perfect Storm. This movie shares the story of courageous men and women who risk their lives on rescue vessels and fishing boats. On Halloween night 1991 a fishing boat faced three raging weather fronts that unexpectantly collide to create the fiercest storm in modern history. If you have not seen the move here is a movie trailer. The experienced crew has weathered storms at sea before but never three storms converging all at once making the Perfect Storm.

 

Having trained manufacturer and whole sales distributor sales and sales managers I see a perfect storm, a sales problem brewing on the horizon and in this post I will share the 4 converging forces that will capsize the ROI of sales training if you do not transform your sales training programs now. The bigger impact of this perfect storm will be felt by manufactures and distributors alike in the next five to seven years and will be seen as:

 

  • Sales growth quotas not achieved
  • Lost sales you should have won
  • Decline in customer experience
  • Decline in customer satisfaction
  • Reduced profit margins
  • Higher sales unplanned turnover
  • Large account defections to new competitors
  • Poor Training ROI
  • Manufactures not happy with their distributors
  • Distributors not happy with manufactures

 

So what are these four converging forces about to rain down on how we train our sales people?

 

  1. New Generation of workers: Millennials and Gen Z
  2. Buyers changing how they buy and what they need to buy
  3. The Amazon affect and how it’s shaping buyer service expectations
  4. Top sales talent leaving the workforce

 

 

I think you will agree any one of these would have an impact on your salespeople and how we need to train them differently. However, all these 4 forces are converging over the next few years to make a sales training perfect storm.

 

Let’s unpack each a little more.

 

New Generation of Workers: Millennials and Gen Z Workers

A new generation of workers are entering manufacturers and distributors. By (2025) they will be the majority of your sales team. Each generation is influenced by their education, experiences, technology and geopolitical environment. That is why each generation has its own unique characteristics.

 

On an article titled: 7 surprising traits that make millennials excellent employees the author shares Millennials are:

 

  • Curious
  • Individualistic
  • Want Financial Stability
  • The digital Generation/ tech savvy
  • Want and need regular feedback
  • Like to Collaborate with others

 

Other things to consider is they plan to stay with employers 24-36 months and move on to new roles that teach them new skills. They expect their employers to invest in training and if employers do not, they move on quicker.

 

Let’s take a look at Gen Z workers.

 

The Warton University article shares this about Gen Z in the workplace:

 

As a group, they are “sober, industrious and driven by money,” reports the Wall Street Journal, but also “socially awkward and timid about taking the reins.” They are risk-averse and more diverse, says Inc. magazine. Forbes says they “want to work on their own and be judged on their own merits rather than those of their team.”

 

 

 

Another article shared these traits for Gen Z:

 

  • Preference for traditional communication
  • Work individually
  • Mobile first habits
  • Motivated by Stability
  • Naturally Competitive
  • High Priority for healthy work life balance

 

Millennials and Gen Z workers will need new forms of training and managers will need to provide frequent coaching and not micromanagement. Both generations want to know the why of what they are doing and they plan to change jobs often.

 

Buyers Changing How They Buy

 

Due to the Internet Of Things buyers can and do conduct online research like never before.

 

  • 70% of the buying process is over before they speak with a salesperson
  • 44% of buyers have already made their buying decision
  • 20% of buyers are only speaking with sales to finalize the shipping and other transaction information.

 

Buyers today want and need salespeople who are trusted advisors who provide valuable insights they cannot find online. 85% of buyers in one survey shared they expect salespeople to connect the dots from what they are selling to the impact it will have on the buyer’s bottom line and sadly only 15% of salespeople are meeting that expectation today.

 

In the past buyers made decisions based on regional proximity. Today with two clicks buyers can buy from all over the world opening up many new competitors you never faced in regional markets.

 

The Amazon Effect” and how it’s shaping buyer service expectations

 

Entreprenuer.com article shared the Amazon Effect as:

 

it generally refers to the difficulty many stores — particularly brick-and-mortar outlets — face when they compete with Amazon. The online retailer’s vast selection, fast shipping, free returns, low prices and “Prime” subscription service all serve to create high customer expectations for any retailer hoping to compete.”

 

More and more of Amazon revenues are from B2B sales each year impacting both manufacturers and wholesale distributors alike.

 

When buyers leave work and they go home to their families they are consumers. Each month 197 million consumers get on their devices and visit Amazon. They are experiencing what frictionless purchasing feels like and they can’t help but let it shape the type of experience they expect from their vendors at work.

 

Is buying from you as easy as two clicks?

 

How much friction do your buyers experience when buying from you?

 

Top Sales Talent Leaving the Workforce

 

Each day 10,000 boomers are leaving the workforce. This generation (my generation) often are in leadership positions in manufacturing and whole distributors. We did not grow up with technology but most of us adapted but many did not.

 

I just met with a sales branch manager at a distributor that has a 3-ring notebook with all his key account business cards, vendor sell sheets and a handwritten targeted account list. By the way he consistently is in the top 3 producers in his company. The challenge becomes he has so much what I would refer to as tribal knowledge. Because technology entered into his world at a later time the majority of what he knows is in his head. If you ask him how he consistently delivers the results he produces each year he often cannot tell you. If you complete a top producer analysis assessment you will discover the knowledge and sales competencies that he has.

 

In distribution in particular there are so many vendors, and SKU’s and nuances you just learn to know that are often not captured and it should not surprise us some distributors find it takes a new salesperson as much as six years to truly become effective generating incremental revenue. The manufactures I have served typically see a new salesperson deliver incremental revenue in 12-18 months on the job.

 

What are common characteristics of top performers today?

 

The business owners play book shares how to identify top performers and future leaders:

 

  • Quality – if you are going to do something do it right
  • Skills Development– continuous learning
  • Fearless decision making – they leverage data and make decisions
  • Desire input from others
  • Self-Directed – they have a plan and work the plan
  • Emotionally intelligent-cool under pressure
  • Strong people skills– interpersonal communication and listening skills

 

Boomers who often lead departments and are top performers will be leaving over the next five to seven years. One distributor shared with me they estimate over 50% of their workforce will be retiring over the next eight years.

 

I hear some of you saying: “This is all interesting and I knew most of this, so what about this perfect storm again Mark?”

 

Glad you asked.

 

Your sales training and onboarding must change to support the audience you are now training.

 

You must immediately start capturing that tribal knowledge digitally today.

 

Some key characteristics of modern learning?

 

Asynchronous

Online and flipped classroom application

Trainee is in charge

Fast paced

Just enough

Relevant to the sales role and customers

Just in time with workflow

Mobile friendly

Peer to peer learning critical component

Interactive

Gamification will appeal to the new generations

Virtual Reality and Augmented reality will become the norm

On the job tool and learning aids will be critical

 

If you would like to learn more about modern sales learning programs I wrote a whitepaper titled: 17 training innovations for the future and you can download a copy here.

 

Other consideration before we close?

 

You don’t have the time (6 months) to train new salespeople like the past.

 

Death by PowerPoint instructor led training alone does not work with new workers.

 

Instructor led one and done training without reinforcement or application exercises does not stick.

 

You don’t have 6 months to train salespeople who plan leave in 24 months.

 

On the job training is great if managers do it (50% of the time they do not)

 

The new generation wants coaches not managers.

 

Your sales managers will need strong coaching skills.

 

With every new challenge an innovator will design and deliver new solutions to meet the challenges.

 

What will sales training look like in the next 5 years for manufacturers?

 

What will distributor onboarding and sales training look like?

 

How will these converging four forces impact your sales?

 

What will sales training need to look like if employees only stay 24 months?

 

So there you have it. All the above forces are quickly converging and will create a perfect storm for training manufacturer and wholesale distribution salespeople.

 

What do you think?

 

Is my argument that sales training must change all wet?

 

Is there something I forgot to consider?

 

How does your team plan to weather this storm like we have never seen before?

 

I see this as an urgent and pervasive problem that is growing each month and must be solved.

If you have some ideas how to solve this perfect storm of a sales training problem I would enjoy chatting.

Back To Top
Verified by MonsterInsights