sales training | No Smoke and Mirrors

Leverage Customer Voice into “Explosive Sales Growth”

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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”

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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

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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.

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?

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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

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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:

Outcomes customers say are important to them
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.

How To UP Skill Face-to-Face Salespeople for Virtual Sales?

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Sales teams are adapting to the new normal and many once face-to-face meetings are being replaced with virtual meetings.

What challenges are sales teams experiencing and how do we coach and train salespeople to be effective in a virtual sales environment?

Prior to Covid-19 salespeople achieving quota has declined each year since 2016 and I predict less than 50% of salespeople will achieve their sales goals in 2020 if they do not adapt quickly.

If you have not trained your once F2F salespeople how to sell virtually it is very likely 60% of your sales team are struggling today.

We recently conducted customer research for a distributor and just over 60% of their customers shared they preferred virtual selling to face-to-face meetings.

What are the top sales skills virtual sales teams must improve?

#1 Sales Mindset

The first place we need to start to gain any sales velocity is to understand your sales team’s mindset and reframe any limiting beliefs.

“You are helping your customers solve problems and overcome challenges not selling them something they do not need!”

#2 Sales Skills

Sadly less than 50% of sales teams have received sales skills training.

I suggest you assess your salespeople and pay particular attention to skills needed in virtual selling like: Qualifying, Active Listening, Comfort using various online meeting tools and the ability to deliver a concise business case based on value.

#3 Value propositions

Do your salespeople have a current value proposition designed for their ideal customer profile today?

Does your sales team have messaging for each buyer persona?

Sadly most Sales teams I find are using a dated value proposition and are growing frustrated and often not engaged when what has always worked no longer resonates with customers.

#4 Industry Knowledge

What buyer’s want and value today are insights and advice not found on most company websites.

Buyers value the salesperson’s market experience and learning how others in the industry have solved problems they are facing now.

Have you equipped your salespeople with success stories that highlight the value your products and services provide?

#5 Know How Your Customers Make Money

Buyers share on win loss calls how they want and need sales reps to become trusted advisors connecting what they are selling to the impact it has on the buyers bottom line…but sadly only 15% of salespeople have mastered this skill today.

The current market challenges have made serving your customers more difficult.

Sales teams must adapt and understand how their customers want and need to be served. If your sales team would like some help up skilling your team please contact me and let’s schedule a call.

What Sales “Broken Windows” Does Your Sales Team Have Since Adapting to Virtual Sales?

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Is your sales team prepared to win and achieve their sales goals today? Do salespeople consistently exhibit the discipline to drive profitable sales growth? Do your salespeople clearly understand your expectations and they are accountable to them? Are your salespeople training in product and sales skills?

One way to ensure your sales team breaks the growing global trend of sales teams not achieving sales growth goals is to fix broken windows in your sales organization. In this post we will discuss where to look for broken windows that are hurting your sales performance.

Having disciple and being accountable is not about doing 1,000’s of things perfectly. Being accountable and having discipline is about is having clear goals and expectations on how you will achieve those goals. As the sales leader it is about inspecting what you expect and understanding the behaviors and attitudes to support key goals.

Some time ago I wrote a post to improve sales effectiveness inspired by my son who is a police officer. It was titled: Increase Sales” Fix Broken Windows in how your team sells.

My son who is a police officer shared something called “Broken Window Theory” and I thought it was fascinating. Broken window theory suggests that visible signs of crime like cars stripped and up on blocks in the street, street signs missing, traffic lights not working, people consuming alcohol in public and other anti- social behaviors create an environment for more crime and more serious crimes.

The theory suggests that policing methods that target minor crimes such as vandalism, public drinking and others create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness, thereby preventing more serious crimes.

It made me think about how I have seen poor sales behaviors if not checked early can hurt a sales teams’ performace

In the 1969 a psychologist named Philip Zinbardo from Stanford ran an experiment.

The findings from the study?

Unintended behavior leads to a breakdown of community controls

One broken window leads to many if left unaddressed

Disorders drives fear and withdraw from community laws and norms

Even the best citizens in a community can start bad behaviors if the behaviors are left unchecked

“Ok Mark, this is all interesting … but how does this apply to driving profitable sales increases year over year?”

I thought you would never ask!

How many broken windows exist in your company’s sales organization?

Do you know where to look?

Are there new “Broken Windows” since the challenges of Covid-19?

Does your team have a formal sales process?

Is your sales team using it?

Are your sales managers coaching?

Many broken windows have been broken for years and they became “ how we do things around here”. New team members will see them immediately but if they want to survive they learn to look the other way.

Instead of repairing the broken windows teams try to just cover them up. However when we experience a market disruption we can become aware of broken windows if we know how and where to look.

Let me share the broken windows that I have seen since Covid- 19 has impacted our customers and how many of us sell today.

Majority of salesperson’s time spent in non-sales activities

Salespeople starting each day without a plan

Salespeople not trained in virtual sales technology so customer experience online is poor on Zoom calls

Salespeople not using cameras on Zoom calls

Sales people are listening to pitch and not listening to learn

Salespeople using Zoom for all calls when a phone call or email would have been a better mode

No pre-call plans

No CRM entry for future meetings or past meeting notes

Outdated company content and value propositions used in calls that no longer resonate with buyers today

Poor or no customer follow up

Not following up on leads provided, QDD disorder ( assuming they are bad leads)

Customer email not responded to in 24 hours

Out-dated sales process

No plan to achieve their sales goals

Showing up late to weekly meetings

Salespeople playing feature and benefit bingo in Zoom meetings and not asking questions

Not being prepared for customer meetings with data

No cadence for how often they visit with each key customer

Not completing expense reports timely

Poor interpersonal exchanges with team members from other business groups

Talking too much in meetings with customers

Salespeople who have never been trained in sales (product-yes, sales skills-no)

Not understanding their customers’ businesses

Not understanding their market or market language

Not understanding how your product or service impacts your customers’ bottom line

Not qualifying potential customers

Not updating sales stage in CRM

Asking poor discovery and qualifying questions in meetings

Poor listening, talking over customers in Zoom calls

Selling on price not value

No ideal customer profile so everyone could be a customer

Poor to no relationship building plans at key customers

Key account budgets/goals… but no strategic growth plans on how to achieve them

Only knowing the buyers at key accounts no relationship with other influencers

Sales pipeline bucket not a funnel

No formal sales process for virtual sales

If you see some of the above you have broken windows in your sales skills that need to be repaired before your team can experience profitable sales growth.

The above are some broken windows I have observed but there are plenty more I am sure.

How about you…

What broken windows have you observed in your sales teams that are negatively impacting your profitable growth plans?

Do you have associates in key sales leadership roles that have not been trained to lead salespeople?

If we allow sales broken windows in how we sell they hurt our ability to drive profitable sales growth and increase shareholder value.

We are not recommending everyone has to be perfect at 1,000’s of things.

What we are saying is we need discipline and accountability in our sales teams with the right sales skills and behaviors today.

As the leader you need to set the expectation and ensure compliance. If you observe a behavior that is not consistent with what your team has identified as your core values you must be safe to address it and correct it. If not the little broken windows become chaos and good team members in your sales community will start behaving in ways counter to driving profitable growth.

If you would like to find your sales broken windows in less than 7 days and create a plan to fix them let’s schedule a call.

What Sales Skills Can We Develop That Makes Salespeople Automation Proof in a Digital World?

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By Mark Roberts

Your mindset is critical to your success in sales. (Any job really) I work with a many sales teams and there is a fear just beneath the surface with many salespeople negatively impacting their performance today:

“Will my job be eliminated with automation?”

“Will e-commerce and digitalization be the end of salespeople?

“Will virtual sales be the final death blow to face to face selling?”

The reality is some transactional sales roles that involve order entry and or order verification and communicating ship dates will be replaced by automation, it’s just a matter of when. However, there are skills our sales teams need to develop that the Bots cannot replace.

In this post we will share skills that will help your salespeople become “automation proof”.

The future of work looks grim for many people from a recent Harvard Article asking if you are developing skills that won’t be automated. The author predicts 10% of jobs will be automated this year.

A recent study from Forrester estimated that 10% of U.S. jobs would be automated this year. Deploying automation is reshaping the jobs of human employees. In 2019, Forrester predicted that automation will become the tip of the digital transformation spear, impacting everything from infrastructure to customers to business models.

In another report from McKinsey estimates that close to half of all US jobs may be automated in the next decade. Automation technologies including AI and robotics will generate significant benefits for users, businesses, and economies. About half of all work activates globally have a technical potential to be automated by adapting current technologies.

No wonder some sales teams are fear filled.

The trouble with fear is it does not motivate but cripples’ salespeople. When you are afraid the creative problem-solving part of the brain that is strategic and delivers key insights shuts off and blood is rerouted to the oldest part of the brain that is about survival.

Buyers today are sharing what they want from salespeople and it is product and market insights they cannot find in online searches today.

Buyers are hungry to meet with salespeople who can connect the dots between what they are selling and how it will impact the buyers’ bottom line.

The trouble is many sales teams are not organized to meet the needs of buyers today and the sales value pyramid.

This leads us to the question:

What skills can we develop in our sales teams that are automation proof?

In a previous post I shared what author Anita Neilson’s new book: Beat the Bots, How your humanity can future proof your tech sales career offers as excellent insights on how sales must adapt. Salespeople today must develop their skills in human to human (HTH) skills not only survive and thrive, and they will be in high demand for years to come.

The author shares a great deal of advice you can apply.

Some of my favorites are:

· The critical importance of personalization

· Understand and be able to communicate your value is critical

· Active listening and understanding your buyers, their challenges and the business of their business so you can provide valuable insights to add value is imperative

· 3 types of value (General, Company, and Personalized)

· How psychology is at the heart of all sales

· If you capture rational and emotional forces at work in your buyers’ minds you develop messages that resonate with them.

One big takeaway I will always remember from this book is the metaphor the author uses of how driving behavior change is like the story of the rider, the elephant and the path.

The rider relies on evidence, data, and analysis to pick the direction. (Senior leaders)

The elephant’s behavior is influenced by experiences and feelings. The fear of risk, loss and pain are huge in how the elephant makes decisions. Elephants hate change and like sameness. (Salespeople)

We quickly see the conflict that goes on in most of our brains and based on the elephants’ size and power who do you think wins most of the time?

Is it any surprise the status quo costs sellers more sales than competitors?

Why this metaphor is so powerful is every B2B sale I have ever made involved change.

· Change the vendor partner

· Change in process

· Change in relationships

· Change in pricing and terms

Our job today as modern sales leaders are to shape and coach the path strategically understanding both the rider and the elephant.

In an article by Global Banking and Finance the author shares 10 “automation proof” skills. Below are some from that article that apply to salespeople.

Judgement

More specifically, automation won’t be able to mimic our innate ability to tell what’s right from wrong.

Conflict negotiation and resolution are two other skills that will remain intact in the face of AI and robotics.

Communication Skills

According to Statista, an average adult American spends nearly 12 hours consuming media. That’s lots of information, implying that communication skills will form an integral part of our everyday life in the future.

The truth of the matter, however, is that people still prefer their news and information to be written in a compelling and sensible way.

Content Creation Skills

The ability to create original and captivating content will still be in high demand. In fact, it’ll be hard to automate original content creation – the art of being able to communicate about a given topic in a succinct and refreshingly unique way. As such, if you have a combination of the skills and expertise to deliver new knowledge, you will be able to keep robots at bay.

Creative Skills

Having great imagination and a knack for creativity means that you will be able to invent new solutions and create new concepts that don’t already exist. Bots cannot beat human creativity.

The good news is that creativity can always keep you a step ahead of the pack, including robots. Whether you have a way with words or a knack for creating innovative products, your skills and crafts are in safe hands.

Empathy

If there’s something that makes us human, it’s empathy. True, robots can carry out simple human interactions like reply to an email or offer customer support via an automated answering machine. Even with top-level AI, they cannot empathize with someone. In other words, robots cannot truly understand nor connect with people on an emotional level.

Planning Skill

Being able to plan ahead fast and accurately is an incredible skill that can come in handy in just about any business or career. But that’s not something robots can do. Yes, they can schedule appointments, but they cannot anticipate shifts in priorities, unknown outcomes, and missing information.

Tech Management Skills

It might seem counterintuitive, but it’s true. It is somewhat laughable because most at-risk skills are those associated with technology. But when all’s said and done, we still need someone with the skills required to manage and stay on top of the automation tech itself.

Teaching Skills

Proliferation of technology has made it possible for millions to access information and educational materials in an instant. However, teaching as a skill calls for understanding the context. That’s why talented tutors, coaches, and teachers will remain the cornerstone of our education system despite automation.

Leadership and Social Skills

Nothing will change the fact that machines/robots are soulless. That’s why their interaction and connection with us will always feel “fake” and cold. As such, they’ll not cultivate or exercise leadership. Good leaders, as they say, have an affinity for caring, empathizing, and connecting with others on a personal level. Nothing of the same can be said of robots.

What sales skills and competencies is your training program focused on today?

What sales skills do your salespeople have and what skills do they need to develop for today?

Do you need to restructure and up skill your sales team?

Are your salespeople “automation proof”?

We have shared skills that automation won’t replace in the foreseeable future. These are the “human to human skills” author Anita Neilson discusses.

They all have a foundational emotional element in one-way or the other. AI and robots might actually help us sharpen these skills but won’t replace them.

From my experience buyers’ value trusted advisors who listen authentically and deliver value in every interaction.

Buyers want and need powerful market and business insights that will impact their bottom line.

My advice to those salespeople and some sales managers that fear their jobs may be eliminated is focus on developing skills that are automation proof.

If you are curious about your sales team, the skills they have and the skills they may need in the future please contact me and let’s discuss how we can quickly answer those questions and help your team become automation proof.

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

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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.

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!

Are Your Salespeople Selling Naked Today?

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By Mark Roberts

As companies adjust and learn to sell in the midst of a pandemic we need to clearly understand our buyers and the problems they have now and the skills our salespeople need to be effective. Unfortunately many salespeople are using dated value propositions, sales processes, sales tools and lack sales skills training …they are selling naked.

One of my favorite children’s is a book: The Emperor’s New Clothes. If you are not familiar with the story: there once was an emperor who spent a great deal on money on clothes. One day two swindlers came to town and said they would make the emperor clothes the most beautiful he has ever seen, but if anyone could not see the clothes they were unfit for their positions.

The deception begins and the emperor does not want to admit he can’t see the clothes so he pretends to put on this invisible garment. His minister does not want to admit they do not see it in fear of being judged unfit so they pretend to see it and they compliment the emperor.

The emperor proceeds to walk around town naked and no one tells him until he comes across a little boy who is our heretic in this story and shares the emperor is naked.

I was recently asked to be a guest on the popular podcast MFG Out loud and the hosts were intrigued by this idea of salespeople being forced to sell naked and they asked I unpack this topic a bit. In this post we will discuss the 7 signs your sales team is selling naked.

1.) If your sales team cannot quickly share your repeatable sales process…they are selling Naked!

Let’s start with the sales process itself.

The process of sales does not need to be as difficult as we make it.

Market leading organizations understand it all starts with understanding your market, buyers, and the process and criteria they use to make buying decisions.

Once you have a clear understanding of your buyers you position your product or service in your market with a value proposition that resonates with your buyers and you are on a path to a sale.

When I work with sales teams we discover with our skills assessment they do not have a formal repeatable sales process and this is an interruption for most CEO’s. Their salespeople are basically winging it each day, with each customer and on each call.

I refer to winging it as “random acts of sales.”

(no wonder CEO’s are frustrated that sales seems like more of a dark art than a science)

As businesses reset and retool we can’s afford random acts of sales and must give sales teams a system to follow that drives the profitable outcomes we expect.

This can quickly be corrected with voice of the customer research and conducting a sales skills assessment.

Once you develop a sales process based on how your buyers are buying you must train your sales team and coach them to use each step..

2.) If your sales team cannot share your value proposition …they are selling Naked!

If your sales team is using a dated value proposition it will no longer resonate with your buyers and will damage the buyers perception of your salesperson’s competency and their ability to trust them.

When your sales team lacks a current value proposition and distinction from competitors they are being asked to sell naked.

We can create a value proposition that connects with your top buyer personas and train your salespeople when and how to use them as we develop their selling skills.

3.) If your sales team has not received sales skills training…they are selling Naked!

With as high as 50% of salespeople not receiving any sales skills training we should not be surprised when we observe clogged or non existent sales pipelines.

We should not become angry when salespeople sell on price and not value.

We should not become disappointed when salespeople lack the ability to strategically grow their current customers.

The good news is this is easily corrected with sales skills training and prescriptive analytics.

4.) If your sales team has not received business acumen training …they are selling Naked!

Today’s buyers want and value salespeople who deliver ways to add more value to their bottom-line.

How can your salespeople sell based on value if they do not have business acumen training?

Are your salespeople speaking the language of business and able to create a compelling business case?

5.) If your website has not been updated in the last year…they are selling Naked!

With as high as 70% of the sales process being over before a buyer speaks with your salesperson your website is more critical than ever.

The difficulty arises when companies have a website that is more of a virtual brochure about them and not the problems that they solve for their customers and not leveraging digital marketing best practices.

Buyers are searching for solutions to their problems. They are looking for companies and salespeople who can provide more than a transaction.

Does your website share the problems you solve?

Do you offer e-commerce for buyers who know what they want and can quickly and easily buy?

In the last 90 days have you adjusted your value proposition and messaging on your website based on the needs of your buyers today?

6.) If you have not provided virtual sales skills training…they are selling Naked!

Covid-19 has impacted the way we serve our customers.

Many states implemented constraints that caused salespeople to sell virtually.

A big issue we need to unpack is almost 60% of salespeople will have difficulty working remotely without training and coaching. (This statistic comes from the sales skills assessment tool I use that has assessed over 2 million salespeople globally.)

Have you provided your salespeople virtual sales skills training and the technical tools to be effective and efficient in virtual sales?

Have you trained and coached your salespeople how to build meaningful business relationships virtually?

Are your salespeople calling all your current customers and implementing a retention strategy?

7.) If you have not assessed your sales teams’ skills by role…they are selling Naked!

How effective is your sales team today?

How much more effective could they be?

How long would it take to improve their sales effectiveness?

What impact would improving your sales team’s effectiveness have on your bottom line?

Are your salespeople selling based on value or just price?

All of the above and much more can be answered by conducting a sales skills assessment. With this valuable information you can quickly make sure you have the right people in the right roles and develop sales skills training to close any skills gaps you discover.

With all the changes we have seen in the last 90 days it’s imperative you have the right salesperson in the right role with the right skills.

As I shared in a recent podcast, Warren Buffet’s quote is particularly relevant in today’s business climate

“ When the tide goes out you can tell who has been swimming naked”

90 days ago the biggest challenge most businesses had was finding and retaining employees to support their growth

Business was good and growing.

Many leaders had plans to invest in sales skills training, digital marketing and exploring inside sales models. But sales were coming in and they did not want to rock the boat. They were so busy in the business they did not have time to work on the business.

As the revenue tide went out for many businesses, it became very apparent their sales teams needed training and coaching.

With as high as 50% of salespeople not receiving any formal sales skills training in skills like: qualifying, discovery, up selling, cross selling, consultative sales, how to build strategic business relationships, negotiations skills, value based sales skills, closing skills we should not be surprised many sales people are struggling and selling naked today.

Unlike the king in our story the sad reality is your salespeople in many cases know they are selling naked.

They may not call it “selling naked” but what they have always done is no longer working today

The sales team and sales managers know something is wrong but they do not know what it is

Some are just trying harder and working longer hours making more phone calls and growing more stressed, frustrated and fearful each day.

Are your salespeople selling naked today?

If any one of the 7 signs I shared is happening in your organization your team is selling naked and losing sales they could have won.

Spend time assessing your sales teams skills and the voice of your customers and provide your salespeople the training tools and coaching to help them stop feeling naked and afraid when calling buyers today.

If you would like my help assessing your sales skills, net profit by customer and understanding the current voice of your customers let’s schedule a call.

To learn more about selling naked you can visit this post titled: Stop Asking your Salespeople to Sell Naked

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