skip to Main Content

Increase Sales and Profits ; Create Distinction

The most common question I hear is; how do I increase sales and profits quickly? If you have read any of my other posts my answer will not surprise you; understand current market truth, understand your internal truths, and communicate with buyers how you uniquely solve their problems in a way that resonates based on the way they are buying today. Wow, quite a mouthful and I just wrote it. After meeting Scott Mckain recently and reading his book; Create Distinction I now will answer that question much more concisely.

If you want to increase sales and profits quickly you must Create Distinction!

This book does an excellent job of identifying four pillars of creating distinction and the author provides a summary and action items after each chapter that helps you regardless of your experience or inexperience in creating distinction. Having been tasked with increasing sales and profits quickly for over 30 years now I wish I would have had this road map much sooner.

It was the late 1980’s and I was asked to help a small plastics company increase sales and create a repeatable sales growth process. At the time video rental was beginning to grow rapidly. It seemed like video stores were popping up on every corner. Our company made two primary product categories; manual security devices to prevent the theft of music at retail stores and video protective packages. Before I get too far I need to share we were very small and we faced an 800 lb gorilla of a competitor in a company; Amaray. They were so entrenched in this market our customers would fax us, Alpha Enterprises, orders for Amaray boxes. Ouch!

As video rental continued to grow the number of independent rental stores grew to over 28,000 locations. For those of you much younger than me there were no Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, and Red Box was just a crazy idea in its inventors mind. Even libraries started adding video inventory and you could check out a movie, like a book and the best part they were free!

I received a call from an angry librarian in Nashville Tennessee one day. (My local dealer was kind enough to give her my direct phone number we did not have cell phones back then) She was very upset that our video rental boxes were not lasting and the VHS tapes inside were being damaged. As an aside you have not been chewed out until you have been chewed out by a highly educated, underpaid librarian.  So I decided to visit her Library to better understand how this could be happening. When I arrived I was shown our boxes behind the counter in cabinets with the tapes securely snapped inside. Then she showed me to her 24 hour book drop return and I quickly saw the problem. Unlike video stores who only have other videos drop through the night return slot, in libraries they have books and journals of various sizes dropping approximately three feet onto whatever was returned recently including video boxes. The return tray was littered with shards of plastic and I observed a damaged VHS tape with the tape spilling out. I assured the librarian we would find a solution to this problem and we would make it right.

When I returned to our offices I met with our engineers and purchasing department and shared the new criteria, new conditions our video boxes needed to perform in. Working together our engineers changed our designed and reinforced the inner hubs that held the tape securely in the case and tightened the latch that kept the case closed. Our buyer did a great job working with our plastics vendor and we developed a blended material that would make our boxes almost have a rubbery bounce. We tested our product, refined it then launched; The” Alpha Case” with the new exclusive polyduralyne material. We shared how we improved our video boxes and launched a campaign that made sure all our dealers, dealer salespeople and their customers were aware of what we did. I wrote a pretty basic PR story that was featured in the industry trade magazine at the time.  The next thing we knew we were receiving calls from Library distributors like Demco, Highsmith and Gaylord wanting to buy this new video box that lasts in library 24 hour drop boxes with polyduralyne.  Polyduralyne is a name I made up , it was much more interesting that saying X% of this resin, X% of that resin…. The other thing we did was increase the price for “Alpha Cases” to 48 cents. This was unheard of as you often lost orders to competitors for 1 cent price savings and the market price for video boxes was around 36 cents.  Word spread to video retail stores as well and the next thing we knew we were seeing sales climbing 150% per month. In addition we realized a 25% increase in profit margins! Back then I did not know we were creating distinction; we were just focused on being the leader in the market.  We knew were onto something when our rep from our resin supplier called one day….” Mark, what the hell are you doing? And what is Polyduralyne? My boss is getting calls from your competitors wanting to buy this material!”

What our team did back then was take a product, considered to be a commodity and we created distinction. As a result our sales continued to climb and we reinvested those additional profits in other new innovative solutions. Eventually we grew larger than our 800 lb Gorilla Amaray, and we eventually bought their business in the US! Flash forward and we eventually sold our once $ 3 million small plastics company to a venture capital firm for over $300 million!

If you do not create distinction for your buyers, they will use price as the only distinction.

Scott McKain’s book; Create Distinction provides you a common sense road map to drive similar results in your business.

Is your sales team facing price pressures?

Has your product or service been determined to be a commodity with your buyers?

Does your business need to create distinction?

How often do you find in your win loss calls you lost an order due to price?

What has your business done to create distinction in the minds of your buyers?

If your business would like to experience increased sales and profits you need to read Create Distinction. If you would like to see your sales growing 150% per month and your bottom line 30% greater than others in your market you need to buy yourself and everyone on your team a copy of Create Distinction. ( or you can worry your competitors are reading it and applying its road-map today) There has only been one instance, in 30 years now where this did not work and that was due to a company culture that did not want to accept they needed to change…but that’s another future post.

How to Create “Sales Velocity”; Turn “Street Legal Salespeople” into Servant Salespeople

It's not enough to just be "street legal"
It’s not enough to just be “street legal”

 

I am often asked by business owners and leaders; “What is the best way to create sales growth that becomes repeatable and predictable?” I prefer to phrase this somewhat differently to achieve what the business leaders really want;

How can I create real Sales Velocity?” 

When I hear someone say;

I want more sales

I need more sales

How do I increase sales quickly?

What I immediately think is ; how do we create sales velocity for this team? In this post I will share one way to insure you build a foundation for achieving and often surpassing your sales goals by creating Servant Salespeople .

 

So what is “sales velocity”? In a previous post I said;

 

Sales Velocity is Sales Acceleration, with Direction and creates Momentum.

 

Sales velocity is not just “more sales”. When you ask your team to “go get more sales”, or my favorite with regards to hitting their sales growth goals; “just make it happen you are in essence saying any sale is a good sale. We all know this is not true, but what will happen is sales will take a shotgun approach to the market and often bring in business you may not want and worse yet may not be able to execute effectively and create brand damaged buyers. In addition to often permanently damaging your brand in the marketplace you also run the risk of turning your salespeople into “snake oil salesmen” and they will make all kinds of promises your product or service was never meant to do. If left unchecked you will receive crazy orders you never should have received from customers you will never extend credit to and your team will jump through costly hoops to try to fulfill them.

 

When I used to conduct sales and marketing seminars, I would share the worst kind of business to win is one order. Once you win that “one order” you now have the liability of servicing it, hearing customer complaints (often now through social media), and sales assumes the position you want more orders like this.

 

I was in church last Sunday at Grace United Methodist Church and Pastor Don was talking about how it’s not enough to be a “street legal Christian”. Don does a great job of telling stories that have analogies to help people understand the message. In this message he shared how he and a buddy when they were 16 years old had this old beater of a car. He shared how the steering wheel had about 90 degrees of play in it and how the floorboards were all rusted out and you could see the pavement while driving. They had a rear brake light broken out so they covered it with cellophane and used red paint to make it look and somewhat work like a brake light. The car had all kinds of issues but technically it was “street legal”. The car met the basic requirements to be on the road, but really should not have been driven as it was an accident waiting to happen.

 

Don later pulled this analogy full circle and shared how Jesus taught us we are not to just be street legal Christians that go to church, maybe read a bible once in a while and go through the motions. As I drove home it dawned on me I have seen this many times over the past 30 years in leading sales turnarounds with “street legal salespeople” too. They have the title of sales and they go through the motions of sales but really do not have the heart to serve their clients and solve their customer’s problems.

 

What is a Street Legal Salesperson you might ask?

 

Received some basic product training.

 

They have some understanding of how to reach buyers.

 

They want to hit their sales goals and corresponding commission checks.

 

They often have some bad sales habits.

 

They come close to hitting their sales goal each year, not terrible but not sales super stars.

 

They try hard.

 

They are often commission junkies. (not their fault by the way)

 

At or below the acceptable targeted profit margin for your product or service.

 

Have problem customers, who complain, pay late or not at all.

 

When you hear them on the phone with a customer you cringe, but if it works… ah what the heck…

 

They go through the motion of sales…

 

The role of sales has evolved over the last 30 years from my perspective. At one time the salesperson was the keeper of the information keys. They did not need to be as good at listening and understanding customer needs as they needed to be aggressive and persistent and know their product inside and out. The salesperson had all the product information and used their sales product binders to answer questions as they arose. They worked hard on relationship selling. Back in the day we taught salespeople the objections buyers would probably make and how to overcome objections.

 

Next we saw sales consultants/ consultative selling emerge as product experts who would help buyers understand how their product or service might solve the buyers’ problems. In essence they were sales translators who translated what their products did in a language buyers understood once they found a problem they can solve.

 

Then the internet shifted the power from the salesperson to the buyer. The buyer now can Google almost anything and now has access to the product information keys. We have seen social selling emerge as buyers investigate products and their salespeople with tools like LinkedIn, blogs, online case studies and industry group forums where they openly share poor buying experiences. Buyers are connecting with companies who are seen as thought leaders and they make it their quest to understand buyer problems, criteria and buying processes.

 

I believe the next sales person emerging is  the Servant Salesperson.

 

What are the characteristics of Servant Salespeople?

 

They understand the various buyer personas in their market.

 

They understand why buyers buy and how buyers buy.

 

They understand the buying process and criteria buyers use to buy.

 

They are constantly sensing their market for any changes in how buyers buy.

 

They listen for problems buyers’ share that can be solved by their product or service.

 

They have a continuous improvement approach to both product and sales training.

 

They do online research prior to reaching out to a potential customer.

 

They have large social networks with many customer referrals praising their service.

 

They ask open ended questions to understand buyer problems.

 

They seek first to serve and believe if they solve customer problems income will follow.

 

The days of snake oil salesmen promising their products and services do whatever the buyer needs is over. Buyers are seeking authentic sales servants who seek to win their business by completely solving their problems,providing the best total buying experience, and salespeople who help them buy. Buyers today see a commission junkie coming from a mile away. Aggressive salespeople are blocked and filtered with email, voice mail and gate keepers. Buyers are looking for salespeople who are focused on serving them.

 

What stage of selling is your sales team in today?

 

Would a “servant salesperson” be welcome in your organization? Why or why not?

 

Why wouldn’t a buyer in your industry welcome a “servant salesperson”?

 

Just as we are not designed to be “street legal Christians” buyers today do not want “street legal salespeople” who go through the motions of trying to solve the buyers problems.

Servant Salespeople create sales velocity because they authentically seek to solve buyer problems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Increase Sales; Take a Snake Oil Salesman Test and Implement Corrective Action

snake oil sales

 

In my last post I asked the question if your team’s execution is turning your sales consultants into snake oil salesmen. What I found interesting is the calls I received from past teams I have served. They sounded something like; “Hey, what are you doing sharing our dirty laundry in your blog? Everyone here knows you are talking about us…” In this case I shared that I am writing about a common problem I have observed over the last 30 some odd years that I would say most companies have in some degree or another. This post is for the business owner, and or leadership team to quickly determine if your salespeople tasked with driving revenue are perceived as “snake oil salesmen” in your market and how to quickly fix this sales problem to insure your sales team hits your growth goals.

 

As I shared in the last post, snake oil salesmen in the Wild West would travel from town to town selling their snake oil. They would make a number of promises and few were actually true so they could never return to the same town twice. They were knowingly being deceptive to close the sale. What I have observed as a common problem that prevents sales teams from experiencing explosive growth is when salespeople are selling based on what they understand to be true, have been trained that is true, and often what was once true but no longer true. If your salesperson is knowingly lying to customers to close the sale and make his or her commissions you do not need a blog to advise you on what action to take.

 

How do we know if our salespeople are unknowingly perceived as snake oil salesmen today and what can we do to quickly repair this and build a foundation of trust required to serve your markets?

 

I look at each new team in three ways;

 

Observe and Listen

 

Unfiltered Data

 

Open Ended Questions with Buyers and Market Influencers

 

 

 

Observe and Listen

 

I live in the markets I serve. So go out and meet with 10-12 customers and observe what your salespeople say, promise, and listen to what your buyers say. These four legged sales calls are critical as nothing speaks the volumes as current market unfiltered comments.

 

What do your buyers have to say…?

 

Did your last order ship on time?

Did you last order ship complete?

Did your product solve the problem your salesperson said it would solve?

Was the problem solved completely?

Did the buyer receive timely follow up from your salesperson, customer service, others?

When the bill arrived was it correct at the promised sales price and terms?

 

In one industry buyers told me: “your salespeople are the used car salespeople of this industry”…ouch!

 

 

Unfiltered Data

 

What does the data say? This is where, particularly new teams struggle with my approach to seek truth. Seeking truth by the way is the first step in my next book as it is a critical step in serving any market and building a strategy on a strong foundation. In the seeking unfiltered truth step you may be labeled a Heretic as I have been,…but let it go as your critics will all love you down the road when their bonuses grow 2X.

 

What kind of truths do we need to look at?

 

What is your actual on time shipments?

What is your current order turnaround capability?

What % of your orders ship complete?

What is your quality problem occurrences as a % of total orders shipped and total parts shipped?

What do customers say? Specifically, did your product or service completely solve the problem it was promised to solve?

Does your product or service solve the problems your web site and sales literature says it solves?

 

 

Open Ended Questions with Buyers and Market Influencers

 

Last we gather open ended buyer feedback. Our goal is to capture our buyers and leading influencers’ perception, feeling, confidence in our brand promise. Are we living up to our brand or are we branding backwards? Have we successfully planted our brand and executed it….or are we branding by default and the frustrated market thinks we do one thing and its no wonder we are losing business because that is not what we do( anymore). To gather this information I highly recommend you ideally meet with customers and potential customers your team has called on without the salesperson in the room. Your goal is unfiltered feedback. If meetings are too difficult and or costly, then conduct phone win loss interviews.

 

Some questions that have served me well over the years include;

 

So tell me some of the challenges your business is facing today? ( I am listening for problems we solve and the buyer is unaware we have products and services to solve them)

 

When buying what are the top criteria and considerations you use in choosing a vendor partner?

 

How did our team do in meeting those important criteria and needs?

 

Have you and would you refer us to someone in your network as a great vendor? Why or why not?

 

There are many win loss questions I have used but the top three are at the core and will get the conversation started. If you want other open ended questions you can go here , as well as here. There are a number of excellent thought leaders in this space and their web sites are below if you prefer to hire an outside firm to conduct win loss.

 

http://www.zhivago.com/revenue-growth-services

 

http://www.healthtrendresearch.com/about-us

 

http://under10consulting.com/about/

 

* there are many more firms that help teams with win loss but the above individuals I know and are confident you would have a great experience with if you are looking for win loss analysis.

 

So you have determined your salespeople are in fact (like many) perceived as snake oil salesmen?

 

What do you do?

 

  1. Determine what your capabilities actually are today.
  2. Communicate those capabilities to your sales team, buyers, and market.
  3. Do what you say you will do, consistently over and over again.

 

If you determine what you are currently doing and capable of doing does not meet the market criteria and requirements of today you must create a roadmap to quickly be able to serve your market as they now require.

 

So how about your company?

 

Do you do what you say you will do? Consistently?

 

Does your team consistently execute your brand promise?

 

Do your products and or services do what you promise on your web site and sales literature?

 

Are your salespeople told to “just make it happen” and they are promising things that were once true but are no longer true?

 

Do your salespeople know disconnects between what your brand promises and what you deliver but feel it’s “politically incorrect or safe” to share them?

 

Do you have a sales force sink hole brewing just below the surface of your sales team?

 

 

When you boil down why buyers buy and why buyers do not buy the root is always: Trust. The quickest way to establish or reestablish trust is do what you say you will do.

Improve Sales: Stop Creating “Snake Oil Salesmen”

 

making promises you can not deliver on
making promises you can not deliver on

 

 

The role of sales is a difficult one. You face more rejection than acceptance and have to break through the many roadblocks in connecting with potential customers you can solve problems for. We are paid to “make it happen” often in environments that are not conducive to sales growth both externally in our markets but also internally, in our own organizations. A common problem organizations face today is they are turning their sales consultants into “snake oil salesmen” because their operations is failing to do what they said they would do.

When you study why buyers buy as I have, you hear things like;

I buy from people, companies who take the time to understand my needs, the problems I am trying to solve, and who “do what they say they will do”.

… let’s boil this down a little more;

I buy from people who listen, hear, and I can trust.

We have seen many changes in our markets over the past 7-8 years in how buyers buy as I have discussed in past posts. The reality I hope everyone will agree with is that how buyers buy has changed. As I have shared ; If you have not changed your sales process in the last six months….it is broken and you are losing sales you should have won.

We have seen many changes within our organizations in the last 7-8 years;

Less People

Less budget

Less time to do our jobs

Less inventory of finished goods

Less product in work in process

Less inventory at our customers

Less time to deliver, just in time

…and more competition, often from competitors who are so aggressive it feels like they must not truly know their costs ( or they are that mush better than we are)

My challenge in this post is with all these changes do you really know , based on your capabilities and market realities of today, what your organization is able to do? able to execute regularly, consistently, predictably? If not your salespeople in the market working with you most valuable assets; customers and potential customers and making promises you can not deliver on. To put it another way;

When your company fails to do what it says it does and or will do, you turn your sales consultants into “snake oil salesmen” and it negatively impacts your trust factor.

Back in the days of the wild west there were traveling salesmen who would stop in a town and sell snake oil. When we Google the term “snake oil salesmen” we find;

” a snake oil salesman is someone who knowingly sells fraudulent goods or who is himself or herself a fraud, quack, charlatan, and the like.”

Snake oil’s origins are believed to come from an oil the Chinese laborers brought to America made from a Chinese water snake believed to cure joint pain.  However the snake oil salesmen of the wild west were known to plant people in the crowd who would lie and say how the oil cured their various ailments. Snake oil salesmen had a sales process of basically traveling town to town and never selling the same people twice because once you bought the snake oil and found it failed to do what you were promised, you did not trust that salesmen.

When your salespeople serve customers , win an order from buyers it is based on a foundation of trust. Buyers naturally , because they have been burned so many times over the years ( by other traveling snake oil salesmen) do not trust salespeople. So trust must be earned and the simplest way of earning trust is execution. ( doing what you say you will do in the small things and the big things, over and over again) When your operations team fails to execute what the sales people have been told to promise, it immediately breaks trust and creates brand damage.  This is particularly a urgent problem when you fail to deliver on promises to new customers as we only have one chance to have a “good first date”. ( first order experience)

The unfortunate reality in the world your salespeople live in day in and day out is their buyer’s perception is the reality they must deal with. The buyer rarely talks to your shipping department, plant operations group, your purchasing department, quality, and they are not aware of the internal challenges your team may be facing nor do they care. What they do care about is buying from companies who consistently do what they say they are going to do.

So let me ask you again;

Is your current operational performance turning your sales consultants into snake oil salesman in the eyes of your customers? 

Are your salespeople making promises based on a dated information set that was probably true five years ago but not true today?

Is your team aware of operational issue but treating them as politically incorrect secrets you hope your buyers and salespeople do not discover? 

Are the competencies you share in your brochures and web site still true today?

What expectations do your buyers have, and how is your team performing to those expectations? 

If your team is not focused on understanding what your buyers need, what your salespeople are promising, and what your organization is capable of executing today you need to be and you need to reboot your business.

In my next post I will share how to quickly access if buyers believe your salespeople are snake oil salesmen and how to quickly repair this perception.

 

 

Increase Sales Quick Tip; Breaking Through the New Gate Keeper…No Gatekeeper at All

 

lobby

 

I was asked to share some quick tips that are in my seminars and coaching calls so once per month I will share what I will call; “Increase Sales Quick tips”. Keep in mind “I “did not make these up, these come from working in the market and observing what works.

 

The first quick tip is; how to break through the new gatekeeper; no gatekeeper at all. In this post I will share a technique for finding and connecting with the right buyer when you enter a prospect’s building and you are greeted by a few chairs, a phone and a call list.

 

If you follow my content you know I am not a big fan of “cold calls”. I feel with technology today there really is not excuse for a cold call. You can do some quick research on your smart phone, identify key contacts through linked in, and even send an introductory email or make a phone call prior to the traditional cold call drop by. But let’s say you are still not sold, and have grown your sales by “dropping in” on prospects in your market, often near appoints you have already booked. A new gate keep that keeps many salespeople from connecting with the buyer and or key contact is the lack of a person in the lobby.

 

You have decided to drop in at an account near one of your customers, you walk into the lobby and you are greeted with a few chairs, a phone, and a locked door…now what?

 

While working with a Gary, a salesman in Knoxville I observed a great technique; call the HR manager. If you do not have a receptionist to guide you to the right contact and buyer, one of the most helpful people in most businesses is the HR manager. When this salesman does a cold call and is greeted with a phone in a lobby, he finds the HR manager and in most cased the HR manager connects him directly with the right person. The right person picks up because the call is coming from the HR manager.

 

Although we all know there are no excuses for making “drop by cold calls” today ….we all still do them. If you find yourself greeted by an empty lobby, try contacting the HR manager to improve your odds of connecting with the right person.

 

What area(s) of sales, sales management, marketing, business development do you struggle with?

 

Please share the roadblocks you encounter to hitting your sales goals and I will answer them in this quick tip post format.

Increase Sales: Turn your “Sales Bucket” into a “Marketing and Sales Funnel” That Generates Revenue

Steve Patrrizi new sales funnel
Steve Patrizi new sales funnel

 

In my last post I shared what CEO’s and business owners often share about sales: Why can’t it be more predictable, more systematic? The good news is it can. The unfortunate thing is most companies believe they have a marketing and sales funnel when in reality they have a sales bucket. A “sales bucket” is when all your opportunities, prospects and leads are all floating around together and many dying because you lack a process to help them buy. In a sales bucket opportunities that should become sales make a big splash when they enter your system but fail to leak out the bottom as a sale.  In this post I will share how I have helped companies turn their sales buckets into revenue generating marketing and sales funnel generating revenue on a consistent and predictable basis.

 

When I hear a business leader say: What we need is a repeatable sales process. We need the sales guys to be more efficient at closing business and bringing in the revenue.  What I hear them saying is : Why can’t my sales and marketing be more of a science and less of an art form? …it is too random, too unpredictable and it drives me nuts that I can’t count on the sales forecasts I am given.” These made me want to do some more research and answer the question: What is science?

 

At its very foundation science seeks to identify patterns. Through identifying and watching patterns, scientists uncover laws that are ultimately translated into math equations. These patterns follow one of two interwoven features; physical laws and environmental influences. With the common pattern of as high as 96% of leads going unsold…what is the pattern and what can we do to improve?

 

For companies who lack a marketing and sales funnel over the years the current market has only made this problem even worse. It used to be, back in the day, back when sales was the “keeper of the keys of product information” , marketing just had to dump prospects and leads into the top of the funnel and sales was responsible for pulling them through to a sale. The funnel and the function of the funnel changed as Steve Patrizi points out here. Today buyers are more informed and as much as 60%-80% of the buying process is over before they contact you. I read an article recently that shared the most important number in B2B marketing is 60%.

 

What does this figure mean for Marketing?

  • 60% …  This is no man’s land: a gap in the purchasing funnel that neither commercial function currently addresses.
  • The 60% mark is in that part of the mid-funnel that is critical in terms of driving the buyers’ consideration of a supplier for a potential purchase.
  • 60% also means trying to build a dialogue with customers without having the advantage of a Sales rep’s one-on-one commercial interaction.
  • Finally, 60% means moving beyond the “qualified lead” mindset.  In essence, once we have moved past the early stages of the funnel, we need a strategy for persuasion and attention-grabbing mechanisms.

Our job today becomes understanding how buyers buy, what common problems do they have, and turn our sales bucket into a slippery marketing and sales funnel that helps buyers buy.  So how do we do that? What have I seen work? Below is the process I have used to help take the art out of sales and make it a much more predictable, forecast able, outcome.

  1. Establish a common language – what does your team mean by a; Prospect, Inquiry, Opportunity, Lead?
  2. Go into your market, ideally on four legged sales calls and clearly understand how your buyers buy and the criteria they need to make buying decisions.
  3. Identify market truth’s
  4. Map Buying journey
  5. Create a marketing funnel that helps buyers buy
  6. Stop the “sales insanity” and map a repeatable sales process that turns leads to sales
  7. constantly sense and refine, adjust , be agile as your buyers change their processes change with them
  8. Measure, measure, measure…
  9. identify “the canary in your coal mine”, your lead to close %
  10. Nurture your leads, improve your lead to close % by helping them slide through the funnel with what they need when they need it.

make sales funnel slippery

Do you have a sales bucket with opportunities that should become sales (leads you paid good money for already) dying?

Do you know why buyers buy from you and why they don’t?

What do your buyers need today to make buying decisions?

Do your sales people have the right sales tools to make the sales funnel slippery or is buying from you like sliding down a sliding board lined with sand paper and splinters?

 

 

 

 

 

“Lead to Close Percentage”, The Canary in Your Coal Mine for Sales Forecasting

knowing your lead to close percentage is key to improving sales
knowing your lead to close percentage is key to improving sales

If you want to get CEO’s talking, one of the hot topics is what I have referred to earlier is the “Great Disconnect” as it relates to sales execution. Some common burning problems that CEO’s often share with me on their drive home at night are about their frustration with regards to sales performance…

Why is sales an art and not a science in their organization given all the technology available today?

 

How can I get my sales team to operate like my plant?… more manageable, more predictable?

 

 

How can I tell quickly and early enough that my salespeople will or won’t hit their sales goals each month?

 

How can we drive the variability of sales forecasting out of our current sales forecasting process?

 

How can we get a greater return on marketing dollars invested?

 

The question I use that often makes the phone call grow quiet with that all too familiar pregnant pause is: What is your team’s “lead to close percentage”? Your lead to close percentage is the canary in your coal mine of sales and acts as an early predictor of future sales performance. When you ask salespeople how to grow their sales they will say; I need more leads. The reality is you do not need more leads you need to improve your lead to close percentage on all the leads you already have.

 

My grandfather grew up in West Virginia and his father like many men back then was a coal miner in addition to having the family farm. My grandfather used to share with me how miners would bring canaries down into the coal mines as they were a quick early warning sign that there were toxic unhealthy gases seeping into the mine and they needed to leave the mine quickly. Canaries are particularly susceptible to toxic gases like carbon monoxide and methane found in the stale air of mines back then. The life of a canary in a coal mine was often short but meaningful. Your lead to close percentage indicator is the canary in your sales mine.

 

So what is the “canary in your coal mine of sales”?

 

Your “lead to close percentage” is one of the best indicators of future sales performance.

 

57% of companies in a study indicated converting qualified leads into paying customers as their top funnel priority (Marketing Sherpa)

 

50% of leads qualified but not yet ready to buy (Hubspot)

 

Do you know your “lead to close percentage” for your sales team? …for each salesperson?

 

It is difficult to manage, fine tune, and improve something until you make it a Key Performance Indicator that you track. Once you start tracking your lead to close percentage for your team and each salesperson you will quickly be on a path to taking the frustrating variability out of your sales forecasting process.

 

In my next post I will share specific ways to improve your lead to close % one you have agreed to make it a key performance indicator your sales team will track and report on.

Want to Improve your Sales and Profits? “Reboot Your Business”… (and yourself)

crtl book

 

If you have been in business for a while like I have one thing we can always count on is “change”. Markets change, the way buyers buy changes, and how customers find you have drastically changed over the past 10 years. Like it or not, there has been a huge shift in power from the company and salesperson to the buyer who can now find more information about your company and products (and you) with a few simple mouse clicks. Has your business been agile and identified these changes and adapted? Or are you waiting for business to get back to normal as I hear so many say? Well, I hate to be the one to tell you, this is the new normal! If you are one of those business leaders that recognize changes have occurred but are having a hard time getting your head around what to do about it, there is a brilliant book by thought leader Mitch Joel titled; Ctrl Alt Delete, Reboot your business. Reboot your life. Your future depends on it.

 

 

My wife and I had a plan over the July 4th holiday. We invited all my wife’s relatives and my daughter’s college friends over for an old fashioned July 4th cookout. We planned a simple menu per my daughters request with hamburgers and hot dogs, baked beans, my wife’s aunt Shannon’s famous potato salad and my daughter planned to make another one of her creative desserts. I bought charcoal and decided to grill old school instead of over gas. We bought the supplies, invited everyone, and planned an afternoon out side that included some bocce ball, Frisbee, and watching the fireworks from the deck. We had a plan.

 

Ohio weather decided to change our plans with rain on and off all day. I hoped it would stop long enough to grill the food but around 4:00 pm I needed a plan B. So I moved the grill under the shelter of the front porch and although “no one grills on their front porch” we adapted, the food was great and everyone had a great time together.

 

porch gill

 

This experience reminded me of the book I just finished this week; Ctrl Alt Delete. It reminded me of how environments and business landscapes change and will be changing again and we must and need to adapt or we risk going hungry. I wonder why it is so easy, second nature for us to adapt in our everyday lives but in business we struggle to change, we fight the tendency to be nimble and agile. Why? Is it hubris, laziness, and or even fear? Or is it something deeper, something that was blended into my generation’s’ DNA? I was born in the early 1960’s and my father started out his career as a meter reader with the local natural gas company. His company sent him to college at night and after 25 years of moving up the corporate ladder  held a senior level financial position when he retired. This is the way we were taught how it works, how it was supposed to be… right?

 

So imagine how I feel, and how my dad must scratch his head with the crazy life I have led. I have served many companies over the past 30 years as you can see from my Linked In profile. My titles have included Account Rep to VP of Sales and Marketing, from COO for one assignment to Managing Director for another company. I have been a sales coach, entrepreneur,  marketing strategy consultant, author, and public speaker. I led a few start ups and turnarounds as President and CEO. However admittedly if I am being totally transparent with you (and myself) a part of me has felt there is something wrong with me. Why have not I not been able to do what my dad did and work for one company for 30 + years retire with a pension, benefits and winter in Florida like everyone else from Ohio? In the second part of Mitch Joel’s book he discusses how we as individuals must also adapt and change. He calls it embracing the squiggle. The squiggle is what I have done….a number of different roles based on the problems to be solved, many different industries and if you were to graphically plot it it would not look like my fathers straight line career trajectory, but would be a squiggly line with little if any ability to plot or predict the next data point.

 

Another area where I feel I do not fit in and quietly has made me feel anxious and sometimes guilty is… I like to work. I enjoy bumping into problems to be solved. I have developed over the years the ability to see around corners as I share with my children. I use this gift of pattern recognition and shape strategies that work. What I do for companies does not feel like “work” but more like my sport, play, my art. In the early 2000’s I even branded it “the art of thoughts” trying to explain the service I provided but quickly stopped using that description as my customers and market were not quite ready for it yet. This book shares how today and the future will challenge all those leave it to beaver work  life models we have had woven into our DNA and how there now is a blend of work and non work life. Technology enables us, affords and empowers us the ability to work anywhere, anytime, and because of this make more time for our families if we use it correctly. The future strategies that will drive explosive sales growth will not be developed in boardrooms but in coffee shops deep in the markets you serve.

 

Not since David Meerman Scott’s book: The New Rules of Marketing and PR has a book grabbed me like Ctrl Alt Delete and I wanted to share it with you. I highly recommend if you have been waiting for your  business to get back to normal, searching for a crystal ball that will give you some hint of what the future has in store you, or like me have seen and felt a blending of your work and non work life, …you  buy and study this book.

 

How about you…Have you too seen and experienced major changes in your business?

 

Have you adapted and embraced social marketing?…or do you still think it’s a fad?

 

Has your business raised the surrender flag and admitted you no longer have the power, or have you dug in like Colonel Custer who also had a plan?

 

 

The reality of today is buyers can now find more information about your company, product, salesperson, and the leaders of your organization with a few simple mouse clicks. How buyers buy, how consumers shop, and how employers search for and hire new team members has forever changed and will continue to evolve and change. Will you adapt and survive or dig your heals and do it the way we have always done it around here? ( and how’s that working for you?)  It truly is your choice; I hope and pray you chose wisely.

 

 

 

Are “Politically Incorrect Market Secrets” (PIMS) Stalling Your Sales Growth? Six Quick Questions to Find Out….

 secret

We are at the half way point of your sales plan. How is your team doing to plan? I have heard statistics that state 70% of salespeople will miss their sales plans this year. Why? Can your team afford to let this happen?…I did not think so. In this post I am challenging you, right here in the privacy of your computer. If this post pertains to you and you are a driven, dominant type leader that is so focused on the vision you believe to be true, (that may have actually been true 10 years ago) this post is going to make you feel uncomfortable. If you are market leader it will reinforce the importance of why you must wake up each day humble seeking current market truth and create a culture where it’s safe to tell you what your asking the team to do or say  is nuts.

 

One of the reasons sales plans fail to create sales velocity is “Politically Incorrect Market Secrets” salespeople are afraid to share with you. Trust me, every business, (even yours) can do better. In the dynamic markets we serve today changes are occurring every day and sales teams that have a culture where it’s safe to share current truths, are agile, and they adapt and thrive. Sales teams with culture built in the shadow of a dominant leader(s) that lack the emotional intelligence to consider their vision may be wrong or dated fail. They fail because one of the key components of having an agile sales process is “stand up meetings”. The value of this process is shut down before it begins when your team is only sharing the politically correct answers and not what is really occurring. It’s that simple.

 

The role of sales is a tough job. Each day you will be rejected more than accepted and you need the internal strength to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and make another sales call. However when that fear of rejection is both external in the market and internal within your own team, sales people shut down. They stop looking, listening, sensing and communicating shifts in how their buyers are buying. They stop sharing customer complaints and problems and what they need to achieve their sales goals. When salespeople feel it is internally politically incorrect to share real current market secrets…you have already lost.

 

In a recent blog post that listed 10 reasons why great business plans fail to deliver the top reason was the plan itself was not a good plan. How can this be? You are smart enough…your did your three day get a way of strategic planning…you did not get to the position of senior management by creating plans that do not work. If your culture is one of Hippo’s (highest paid people in the room) leading by intimidation and making it very clear to you sales team what the “right” answers are before the questions are asked…you will fail to achieve your sales plan. As this post goes on to share; great plans count on a deep understanding of your customer’s needs and problems and not gut instinct and the tribal knowledge of your senior management team. I addressed this common problem in a blog post years ago titled; Attention leaders: Don’t look now but your lack of market knowledge is showing…

 

 

In another post in the Harvard Business Review discussing “40 ways to crash a new product launch” the number one reason why your new product launch will fail, and sales will miss the sales plan is; no market research was done. Why? I believe smart people make good decisions and can shape market leading strategies with current unfiltered market data. If your team does not feel it is safe to share current data, you have a big problem.

 

How can you quickly tell if your sales team has tuned out?

 

  1. Do your salespeople openly share shifts in how buyers are buying on a frequent basis?

 

  1. Do your salespeople share buying experience problems your customers are having?

 

  1. Is it “safe” in your organization to be a Heretic?

 

  1. Have you asked a question and the room full of typically vocal salespeople and everyone becomes silent?

 

  1. Do your salespeople communicate ways your buyers are asking for new and improved service?

 

  1. Are salespeople who share “politically incorrect market secrets” welcomed or chastised in your sales meetings?

 

If you can not say yes to the above five questions, I promise you a number of your salespeople are going through the motions. If you can not say yes to any of the above questions you have a BIG problem. If you honestly can not say yes to all of the above your salespeople  have already shut down and like a robots are showing up and throwing up in front of customers what they hear from you and not listening to your customers. They have lost all accountability for their sales goals because you have emotionally beaten it out of them. Mentally they are saying; “screw it, nobody wants to here the truth, if I share the truth I am criticized in front of my peers and may risk my job security so I will do it ____’s way, I might not hit my goal but at least I will have a job”…and you have lost them. Is that who you want?…salespeople going through the motions or do you want and need sales super stars?

 

Ya, that’s what I thought….

 

The good news is you can change and adjust. The reality is there was a time you were tuned in to your market, your buyers, how your buyers bought and the criteria they used to make buying decisions. You did not achieve a senior leadership position based on luck but on hard work and achieving results. Let’s rekindle that spark that propelled your career and let’s position you to lead your team and blow your sales goals out of the water. Are you in? If so the quickest two ways I have used to help senior leaders clearly understand the markets they serve is booking what I call four legged sales calls. On these calls, working in the field with your salespeople your main goal is to seek to understand. You are to be a sponge listening and asking open ended questions. The second is from this day forward creating a sales culture that keeps and attracts sales super stars.

 

Don’t ask, don’t tell sales leadership is not a proven method to achieve profitable sales growth.”

– Mark Allen Roberts

 

Are you a salesperson who feels it’s unsafe to share the truth? If so please comment…

 

Are you a leader who feels I am totally wrong and your team is to do what you tell them to do?…bring it, share your thoughts…

 

Do you have sales meetings where its very obvious politically incorrect market secrets are not safe to share?

 

Are you a sales performance consultant or a sales coach and you have seen this problem? Please share how you have helped the leader and team create a culture where it was safe to share market secrets.

As the leader what do you really want more? to win and achieve your objectives?…or have a team of robots scared to share market truths and fail? …

When I find myself personally struggling with this, I am reminded of Proverbs 16 and how we are instructed; Pride comes before destruction.

 

Will a “Sales Force Sink Hole” cripple your plans for what should have been a strong sales year?

sales sink hole

 

The year is starting to show some strong sales velocity potential. Customers have a lot of cash to spend and need to solve problems they just lived with when the economy was so poor. Sales are picking up and the cost cutting you have done over the past 3-4 years is now producing strong profits. This year is projected to have strong sales performance right? ( at least that is what you told the board) Not so fast….Nothing hurts and sends a sales growth trajectory spinning out of control like losing a sales superstar or a few star sales people. When a sales superstar leaves, studies show at a minimum two more will follow shortly there after. In a study done a year ago on general job satisfaction; 60% of employees plan to leave their current job once the economy improves. The economy is showing improvement and a number of companies are  investing in plants and equipment, new technology and creating a strong foundation to support their market growth opportunities. What if all that investment is built on a” Sales Force Sink Hole”?

 

The recent story in the news of a family who had just gone to bed like any other day then had one of their bedrooms sucked into a sink hole under their home and killing a family member Jeremy Bush in an instant was sad and frightening. The sink hole opened up under his home with no warning and literally swallowed the bedroom of their home in an instant. My parents now live in Florida and they too are now worried …” do we have a sink hole under our home that could just swallow our home and possibly hurt or kill us?”  Sink holes are depressions in the earth caused by water eroding the bedrock below the surface. Acidic water slowing works on dissolving small amounts of bedrock and washes it away and then one day a sink hole  emerges when there is nothing left of the foundation of bedrock that normally would have supported the weight of layers of earth and sediment. Rain following long periods of drought often triggers sink holes (I hear some of you saying….enough with the geology lesson…what’s your point Mark?)

 

I am concerned… I see number of companies vulnerable, even as their market conditions that suggest the sales drought is over that will fail because they have a “Sales Force Sink Hole” about to open and swallow any chances they had of having a profitable year. (and negatively impact their bottom line for years to come)

 

Why do sales superstars leave?

 

What causes a sales supper star to leave and often have 2 or more other sales stars to leave as well?

 

When I ask senior leaders why as sales super star left they often quickly dismiss my question with: they left for more money…is this true?

 

I decided to tackle this question like I would for a business development challenge. The first place to start is gathered market truths and do not assume anything. So I reached out to a number of Linked In groups and asked sales leaders, salespeople, marketing, and business owners why good sales people leave. Once we gather the market data, we will group it into common causes, then develop a product (strategy in this case) to solve the unmet, urgent market problem. In this first post I will share just the raw market data I gathered. If you have other reasons why you have seen sales super stars leave an organization (often at the worst possible time) please add to the discussion in the comments section. In following posts I will group common problems, identify ways of predicting sales force sink holes and how to prevent them from occurring.

 

Below are the results from recent questions I posed on Linked In and personal interviews with salespeople on why sales superstars leave your organization. Buckle up I plan to go fast…

 

Inadequate training

Consolidating markets

Brand damaged product

Trust broken with management

No defined sales process

Don’t believe in what they are selling anymore

Stress

Ethics

No sales on boarding process

Don’t want to be on a B or C team, want to be with other winners

Bad Boss

More money

Lack of freedom

Asked to learn on the fly

Poor compensation model

Capped commissions

Change in commissions

Change in compensation model

Change in benefits

Poor product quality

Lack of support

No training

No clear future growth opportunity

Not feeling motivated

No marketing support

Operations driven organization

Engineering driven organization

Accounting driven organization

Job was not what I was told it would be

Understaffed support

Too hard to sell what we have

Micro management

New CRM

Change in Strategy

New company leadership disconnected with what really happens in market today

Lack of sales tools

Dated sales tools

Asked to do non sales activities

New Culture does not match salesperson anymore

No new products

New products that do not work

High sales goal for new products that do not launch on time

Comp plan designed around hitting new product goals, product not ready

New product launched with quality issues

Asked to sell something I know is not what we promise

Unrealistic goals

Cut in my expense budget but bigger goals

Work harder to make the same (often less)

Account conflict

Spend more time trying to keep sales I made than making new ones

Change in customer service

Raised prices above market price with no perceived benefit to buyers

Competitors beat us to market all the time with new innovative products

New products that fail

No clear target or goal

Changing goals and priorities

Something in their personal life changed

Desire to grow skills and responsibility

Growing quotas with shrinking commissions

No leads

Not feeling senior management values the role we play

Not feeling valued by my boss

Internally focused and not market focused

Poor company leadership (making same mistakes over and over again)

Playing favorites (treating some salespeople on team differently, not same standards)

No recognition

No praise for job well done

Told “just make it happen” without proper tools

Do not feel appreciated

Not paid what was promised

Not paid expenses timely

Capped commissions

Poor leads

Poor job Satisfaction overall

Change in territory

Asked to chase payment

Change in products I can sell

Unstable company

Company just sold

Company for sale

No common agreement on what is a “sales lead”

Company up for sale

No empowerment to make decisions in market

Slow response to needed answers to close a sale

Channel conflict

Rude, ego driven new leader

Asked to be a farmer when I am a hunter

Disconnect between Management Expectations and Market Reality

Wrong strategy

Market shift

Market I built reassigned and asked to build new territory

Bad strategy

Treated like sales is a necessary evil

No strategy

Change in go to market strategy, dealer model now selling direct

Dated strategy

Told we make too much money

Failure to innovate

Because I hit my goals; given unfair share of new team sales quota

Burn out

Hostile work environment

Change in a benefit like company car taken away, company credit card taken away

Lack of freedom

Lack of respect from company leaders and immediate boss

Not paid based on size of sales I produce

Mature Market

Bored

Treated like we are disposable

 

The above are a list of raw feedback when I asked why sales supper stars leave. To make sure we are on the same page I am not discussing why poor performing salespeople leave as I believe we should try to improve them and if that does not occur we should encourage poor performers to leave. The topic I am exploring is why Bill, who has been with you for 12 years, consistently blows away his goal year after year, who you think you are paying well , up and leaves and joins a competitor….how and why does this happen?

 

How about your company…does any of your salespeople share the above?

 

How many of the above concerns would your sales people say are occurring in your sales team today?

 

Is your future corporate financial performance at risk to a Sales force Sink hole? ..you sure?

 

Is your company at risk?

 

Have you lost a sales super star in the last six months? Why?

 

Do you account for the loss of good salespeople in your cost of quality meetings?

In the following posts I will group the concerns into common issues and themes then close by sharing how to develop a culture sales leaders are attracted to and want to be a part of.

Back To Top
Verified by MonsterInsights