1- 330-413-8552 Mark@NoSmokeAndMirrors.com

Sales

Are you Enabling your Sales Force or Emasculating them?

 

Market leading Sales forces are singularly focused: to sell stuff.

Sales are one of the most accountable areas of the organization and often are under the constant microscope of senior leaders as they have a significant, immediate, and direct impact on the bottom line. Companies must enable their salespeople and not  emasculate them. Over the past 25 years I have always preferred to hire the sales stallions over order taking geldings. Stallions require you to have a high emotional intelligence, and they will often try to get your goat, however they consistently produce and add value. While geldings wait to be told what to do, how to say it, and where to go. Stallions are saying get out of my way or I will run over you.

 

Market losing organizations myopically manage every sales activity and create approval thresholds that slow the sales cycle when the heat is on and the market dries up.

 

I thought it would be helpful to get inside the mind of a salesperson today, in this economy…so I interviewed a few and below is a summary is what I heard…

It’s simple really, as a salesperson our job is to; Sell. Yes you ask me to do all kinds of little side projects, write reports, and conduct market investigations gathering data to insure what marketing is telling the CEO is actually what’s going on out here in this mystical place called “our market.” However at the end of the day my compensation is specifically tied to: selling stuff. The more stuff I sell the more money I make. My job is to “make it happen” with whatever you folks at corporate throw over the wall.

I tried telling you the reason that last product launch failed was because you created a product because you could and not because you should…but you said I was just making excuses and I needed to “sell through objections…and hit my numbers”

My pay, my commission rice bowl if you will, is about selling as much as I can, as quick as I can, and building relationships that plant seeds for future sales. With the internet my customers are more knowledgeable than they have ever been before about our products and services, (they often know things about our company before I do these days and this really makes me look bad in my market) so my job is really to help buyers solve their problems with the stuff I sell, and help them buy from us. I don’t like to discount our product unless I have to because my commission is based on the selling price, and the more I discount the more units I will need to sell to hit my targeted compensation.

My buyers are really it playing close to the vest right now;

· My buyers have to justify every expenditure to the “higher ups” who they do not have relationships with

· C-level executives need to sign off on all orders

· I have to speak with all kinds of people I never had to sell before; CTO, CMO, CEO, CFO…

· Customers are not stocking up and they are taking much longer to buy, our programs give customers the incentive to buy volume, but they want Just In Time

· My buyers have the C-suite recommending all these competing vendors to our products and my buyers are spending time chasing these leads the C-suite read about or heard about at the country club…versus keeping a close eye on my inventory…so now I am checking our inventory for our customers

· Since you have changed my compensation, I am working twice as hard, twice as long and struggling to make what I made last year

· After the headcount reductions we had at corporate, we have dropped the ball a number of times over the last six months and I am being pulled to fix past sales issues in ;customer service, billing and quality issues ( you see I am out here, I have to stand belly to belly with these folks called “customers” and I can’t hide behind voice mail, email, or transfer them to someone else, if I do not solve these past sales issues they will not buy until the problem is fixed.

· My family life is strained, you see we established a lifestyle based on my past compensation, and when you changed it, it not only affects me, but it touches my entire family. My wife and kids felt I spent too much time working as it was however they justified it because I am a work-a –holic and we were making good money, but now they pressure me..” why work so hard after what they did with your pay..You need to go someplace where you are appreciated like XXXX used to.”

· About 70% of what marketing gives me I do not use. I know it will piss you off, but what I have been doing is writing my own stuff and using some of what Mike also created up in the North West region, you see it is old, but it works!

· I lost another customer last week because we out sourced XXXX to china. I know you said we make more profit and their cost is 1/3 of what it would cost us to make it, but if it’s junk what’s the point. Besides, I have been selling him a lot of other products and now I lost the entire account over the stuff we outsourced?…I know sell through it…

· The young “Hitler youth” you hired in accounts receivables has pissed off a number of my key accounts. I hear the CFO told him to trim 15 days off the receivables aging? Well if he keeps threatening my customers, you won’t have to worry about receivables much longer! Is it true you have him on a commission of what he collects? No wonder he put my largest account on hold for $3500 12 days past due…it’s hard enough out here guys!

· That launch of xxxxx was great, but now we are on back order and my buyers are calling to check on their orders versus buying more.

 

So for all of the leaders out there who never have carried a sales bag, I hope the above was enlightening.

(do you still think a monkey could do it?)

Having led salespeople for 25 years, what they said did not surprise me, but what took me back was the energy, anger even, in the way they said it. Are you listening and observing the challenges your salespeople are experiencing? Are you creating sales enablement tools to help keep conversations flowing to a sale? Or are you telling them to stop making excuses and “just make it happen”?

I was also taken back by the disconnect that seems to have grown wider when the teams became challenged by current economic conditions.

Market leaders grow closer through challenges and emerge stronger.

Market losers conduct Blame-storming that adds no value and if left unchecked cripples a team.

This disconnect should not surprise me really because I frequently speak with business owners and senior leaders who say things like;

· “I make sales come to me personally with each “deal” they want to give away “Why? “Well because, if I told them upfront the range I am willing to work in they would all sell at the lowest price, and give away the farm” [for what it’s worth this is a trust and respect issue not a pricing issue gang] 

· “Saying the economy is tough is just an excuse, when I carried a bag….” (he carried one 20 years ago)

· Marketing ; “ we just spent six figures on the re-launch of xxxx and sales is not using any of the tools we developed, we need to hold them more accountable”[ no, how about understanding the market and the buying process and creating tools to keep conversations flowing?]

· I heard a marketing executive say; “sales is like water, they take the path of least resistance to a sale” [how would that make you feel if you were in sales? Does this sound respectful to you?] 

· A CFO said recently; “with what we are paying them they should be working 18 hours a day.”[Really? In most organizations sales is compensated with a base and a commission. Most commission rates vary from 5% to 15%. So Mr. CFO , you should look forward to cutting those commission checks because for every nickel you pay, you get ninety-five cents]

Tough times cause the true nature of people and teams to emerge. Market leading teams use adversity to become stronger.

 

Market losing organizations “eat their young”.

 

How about your organization?

 

What behaviors are you seeing when your team becomes stressed?

 

What other comments have salespeople heard that show a lack of respect for sales?

 

What comments have salespeople made that show a lack of respect for other departments?

 

Do you feel silos (kingdoms) are healthy, or negatively impact bottom line results?

 

Market leading teams tear down silos and align their entire team to a specific mission and establish key performance indicators that measure what matters. Market leading teams reward cross functional behavior and crush kingdom building.

 

What kind of a company do you work for?

Is your Email Marketing sending business to your Competitors?

If you feel a poorly executed email marketing campaign is better than no email marketing at all; you are wrong!

Email marketing if properly executed helps buyers buy and can reinforce your message with prospective buyers for future purchases. If poorly executed you will also make an impression, a negative one that will not only last, but spread.

I can tell when the end of the month is approaching by the amount of email spam I receive. Below is an email I received today that illustrates a number of mistakes you must avoid in email marketing.

Dear Customer,

We are dominant player in the Business List Industry with over 40 Million B2B contacts and 200 Million B2C contacts. We have all varieties of business records that come with complete contact details including working business email addresses.

We can assist you in reaching out to your target audience in multiple ways. We can provide you with updated information such as contact name, email address, phone number, fax number, mailing address, job title, etc…

Job Title Scope: Reach top-level executives like CEOs, CFOs, CTOs, COOs, CIOs, Presidents, Chairman’s, GMs, Mid level Managers, Sales and Marketing Managers, HR, Managers, Finance Managers. 

Our products and services are:
Email Appending, Email List Acquisition, Email Blast, Email Lead Generation, Data Appending etc.

If the in-house database that you has information that has gone bad or is incomplete, we can update it with the above mentioned fields. Let us know the criteria for your target audience and a sample file will be mailed. Can you give me some specifics regarding your target audience? 

Example: In business, are you interested in only a certain type of business?  Are the gross revenues of the company important? Do you prefer to target companies with a particular employee size? Do you need the contact name and title of someone at the business you wish to target?  If consumers, do you want to target people with a certain income level, occupation, children at home, etc.

If you would prefer to advise me of your requirements via email, my email address is XXXXXX

Please let me know of a convenient time for a quick call, looking to talking to you soon.

 

Regards,

[I removed the name]

Business Development Manager

We respect your privacy. If you want to stop receiving emails from us, please send a reply with the email subject line as “Leave out”.

My thoughts;

· First, I am not your “customer”, I do not know you and to use a generic “Dear Customer” quite frankly is insulting. What it means is you have no clue who I am and you have already lost me. You do not know me, care about me or my needs.

· Next, as I read through your message you provide, sell; email contact information, and you go on to say you have a core competency in reaching top executives…Really? If your product is so good, why didn’t you use it when trying to engage with me?

· “Email Appending, Email List Acquisition, Email Blast, Email Lead Generation, Data Appending etc.” …OK you have explained “what” you do, but what problem do you solve for me? Oh I get it; I am supposed to figure that out on my own…

· “Are you interested in only a certain type of business? “ OK, yes, I am interested in certain types of businesses, again if you have a competency in this area why didn’t you demonstrate your knowledge in my type of business?

· “Are the gross revenues of the company important?” Are you kidding me? Now you are insulting me again. I also reflect; what if I asked the CEO of one of the companies I would like to help this question, it would be a disqualifier.

· You did provide your email that I X’d out in case the CEO of your company is reading this post, but you failed to provide your phone number?

· Good job you did do one thing right that I will use; “We respect your privacy. If you want to stop receiving emails from us, please send a reply with the email subject line as “Leave out”.´

· And to add insult to injury when I try to close this message I am prompted that you want to know if I read this? NO! Shame on you!

After receiving this message I will never buy from this company, never! Not only will I not buy, I am so shocked by this poorly executed message I will tell a number of those in my network this story and I am sure they too will not want to partner with you.

If you are using email marketing, learn from the mistakes in the above and;

· If you do not know a contact name, title, do not send

· “eat your own dog food”, in this example, if you sell contact names for email marketing you had best demonstrate a competency in the space you play

· Give me an opportunity to opt out

· Know something about your customer, their industry, and more importantly know your market and it’s most pervasive problems.

· Once you know those problems, share how your product or service solves them

· Don’t ask questions that insult my intelligence

· Provide your phone number, what if I did want to call you?

How about your company?

Are you participating in email marketing? If so share best practices.

Would you buy from this vendor?

Technorati Tags: email marketing,marketing,email,sales,business developemnt

What are we supposed to do when the Heat is on and our market dries up?…SOW!

The bible is very clear that we are to SOW in the dry spells, in the time our business hits a dry spell, yet so many market losers do the opposite.

It was 114 degrees yesterday, here in the Arizona, and I know people say it’s a “dry heat” but that does not seem to console me…it’s hot. Simple errands seem to drain you, suck the life out of you even. For example in this time of the year all the trees are dropping their pods full of seeds. Although the animals welcome the food, they quickly make quite a mess. So there I was at 6:00 am (102 degrees) picking up pods in my yard before it got hot. How ironic that the trees are dropping seeds when we are in the hottest part of the summer, where’s natures wisdom in that? Actually it is smart because when the pods fall they are baked in the desert sun and they crack open allowing their seeds to fall into the earth. When the rains return, the seed is now in an environment to take root and grow.

I was thinking about the wisdom in this as it relates to what we as business people must do when our market becomes dry and the heat is on to hit our numbers. The Bible is very clear we are to “SOW” in these times. What does it mean to “SOW”? At Dictionary.com the definition is;

1. to scatter (seed) over land, earth, etc., for growth; plant.
2. to plant seed for: to sow a crop.
3. to scatter seed over (land, earth, etc.) for the purpose of growth.
4. to implant, introduce, or promulgate; seek to propagate or extend; disseminate: to sow distrust or dissension.
5. to strew or sprinkle with anything.

The Bible has a number of lessons about sowing. It is very clear we are to;

 

“Sow in the midst of suffering”

“There may be no fruit now, but the grains of love and faithfulness you have scattered will produce a rich harvest”

“Let your eyes be on the field which you reap”

“Each will receive what he has earned.”

If you feel your market has dried up, it’s time to start sowing. Ironic however that I see a number of companies doing just the opposite; cutting back on marketing and sales travel. Market leaders are taking this time to sow.

As I explore this deeper it is often the result of not having and understanding of what marketing and sales activities actually produce fruit and what are just “ Activities”. To ensure you are sowing to produce the greatest harvest the first thing you must do is understand how your buyers buy. What makes their soil fertile, and what causes the seeds you plant to be washed away? What marketing initiatives are you doing today that are falling among the rocks and will never take root? What marketing and sales activities are you doing today that are falling among the thorns only to have sales spend time on them as “good leads” only to have the life choked out of them before they produce fruit?

The key is to know your market and more specifically your buyers.

How about your company…

How well do you know how your customers shop for your product?

What do your buyers use as buying criteria?

Where do your buyers go when they have a problem they need solved?

Who are the key influencers that impact your buyer’s ability to purchase today?

Answer the above and compare the answers to what your team is currently doing and you will be well on your way to a bountiful future harvest.

What a Dentist, a Car Wash, and an Auto Repair shop can teach us about marketing in a difficult Economy

What’s a business to do when their phone does not ring as often or stops all together? Sure the newspaper says you need to run an ad, and the local direct marketing firm says you need to do a mass mailing. You have a friend who “knows a guy” that makes these pens with your logo….The problem is each of these tactics to reach buyers who have problems you solve cost money and have uncertain results.You are going to have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince. Don’t these sales reps know your business is hurting? If you knew, for sure, what they were trying to sell you worked, and would help your target buyers find you, you would do it.

First,please keep in mind you may know more than you may be aware. Have you run ads in the local paper before? How did that work for you? Market leaders measure every marketing expenditure and track the results it generates. If an ad in the paper or yellow pages has driven revenue, then by all means keep doing it, heck you may want to do more!

The secret is to intimately know your market buyers, the process they use to buy and where they hang out. When you engage with new leads, qualified leads as well as service past customers …ask. Ask why they choose you. Ask who influenced their decision; learn as much as you can about them and how they found you.

Here’s a couple of good examples. So I wander into my gym at 5:00 am with serious bed hair and after checking in I see a standee advertising a Dentist. It’s not a flier, or an inexpensive poster, but a very well designed free standing floor display. It turns out this is my families’ dentist Dr. Zana Alnaqie of Smiles by Design…how cool! My family is very happy with their service and the creative I am viewing does a good job of illustrating their high quality as well as friendliness. As I walked to the lock room I thought …how smart! People who work out at Gyms on a regular basis obviously care about their health and how they look. One of the profitable services for dentists is the  dental cosmetics and or whitening services. One of the reasons I do not smile often I am very self conscious about how my teeth look. So as I walk into my gym, I see a friendly reminder about my professional dentist who is friendly and the picture has a beautiful smile. I am reminded of my last cleaning and how she explained they can fix teeth like mine. In addition to having good creative that matches the buyer demographic for those that frequent this gym, her office is within a mile of this gym.

Another example occurred when I took my car to the carwash this weekend. I do not remember washing my car so often when I lived in Ohio, but out here in Arizona people seem to wash their cars often. In addition when I did wash my car in Ohio I would go through a carwash at a gas station or I would pull in to a self service bay, drop about six quarters and power hose off the salt and dirt before my time ran out. Here in Arizona you can spend from $11.99 to $18.00 to $24.00 per wash. Add a detail, and you will be spending well over $100.

While at McDonald’s recently I noticed a standee with various local retailer coupons. I saw a coupon for $4.00 off at my favorite car wash called Francis and Son’s. So Saturday I used my coupon, and received a good wash, hand dry, clean windows and interior dusting for $7.99. After they motioned that my car was ready I got back in my car. (and my seat was in the position I left it in). Is it just me, or do clean cars run better? As I drove home I  notice a neon green promotional flier on my console…interesting. When I returned home I read the flier assuming it was a bounce back coupon, but instead it was a promotion announcement from another local business that does auto repair and body work. Smart! So I am a consumer who cares about my car. As I get back in my car after a great experience from someone I trust, I find a flier for someone to make those nasty car door dings go away, and this same guy can help me with the tune up I need. The flier was nothing expensive, but connected with me when I was thinking about my car,while in my car,  again…very smart.

 

 

So what did we learn other than Mark is cheap, has bad teeth and needs a new car soon?

 

Marketing through complimentary businesses , influencers, and your referral network makes sense and provides a much greater return than traditional ; “ throw it out there and see if it sticks” marketing.

 

So what are some considerations if you want to try this strategy?

· Relevance – the more relevance the better, window cleaners leaving behind maid service fliers, and maid services leaving behind the window cleaner

· Proximity – if you lack or have limited relevance have proximity

· Quality – when you refer another business, whether you mean to or not you are endorsing them. Do not work with partners who do not have a high quality standard

· Trust – make sure if you work with another business , make sure they do not use the marketing to bait and switch those who respond

· Inspect what you expect – before you agree to work with someone, visit their business and shop it. How well did they treat you? Does their customer service mirror your standards?

· Creative must support your brand – my dentist hired someone to make a high quality free standing display. An auto repair shop can get away with a neon green two sided flier, but my dentist could not

· Know your buyers– Get to know your buyers and you will find complimentary products and or service that you could be working with today

As I drove home tonight I needed to pick up some groceries, so as I entered Safeway (because I no longer shop at Albertsons since they cut my trust with a customer loyalty program) I see my dentist’s creative on each shopping cart. Awesome!

How about your business?

 

Who has complimentary relevant products you could work with?

 

What businesses have proximity to your business that could be a high quality referral partner?

 

Who are key influencers that shape your buyer’s attitudes and perceptions of your buyer and how can you equip them to talk about you?

I can hear the big company executives in my head saying …” yah, well this is great for little small businesses but this does not add any value to me”. You could say that…but you would be wrong! Challenge me, post a comment about your type of business and I am sure we can find referral partners.

“Our Competition Sucks Selling”, one of the signs of a Market Loser versus a Market Leader

One of the things that used to drive me nuts as a VP of Sales and Marketing was if one of my regional managers or a independent representatives used “Why our competition sucks” selling. You know the guy, he talks about the competition more than his own product. He shares “horror stories he heard from other customers” about your competitoin that may or may not be true.

This out-dated style never impressed me, and today with a sales enablement 2.0 environment, it actually creates an interruption. Interruptions  turn customers and possible customers into shoppers. The internet has given buyers the ability to see behind the black curtain of sales product information and they can conduct research without talking to a salesman. When your rep challenges a competitor, particularly when that competitor is a current vendor of that buyer, he is actually challenging the buyer. Do you want your sales rep saying “Hey, what are you an idiot or what for buying ______?” no, I didn’t think so.

The recently published Razor Fish report indicates what influences buyers; “Trust plays a key role in influencing a consumer’s interest in purchasing a product” Peer networks and influencers play a major role in the buying process today. So when your rep is selling against a particular vendor, he is not only challenging the buyer’s decision making, he is also “calling out” that buyer’s peer and influencer network who he went to before he made the purchase.

If you have rep(s) using the “why our competition sucks” method it must end. To turn these reps around use the following guidelines;

· Product knowledge– make sure your salesperson understands your product and more importantly the problems it solves for buyers as well as the process buyers use to buy your type of product

· Listening, as I wrote in warning….. Buyers share why they don’t buy, reps who do not listen was the #1 reason buyers do not buy, NOT PRICE

· Conversation distribution – they say there’s a reason the Lord gave us two ears and one mouth. If you are talking you are not listening. Monitor buyer meetings with particular focus on the amount of time your rep talks in relation to the buyer. A good rep will have no more than 30% of the conversation time

· Echo – when you learn customer pain, echo back what you heard. This does two things; first it tells the buyer you are not like the 90% of other reps calling on him as you are listening. Secondly, it will help clarify your understanding if the buyer corrects your echo of what you heard.

Besides, market leaders are focused on serving their market. They do not focus on what the competition is doing as much as solving customer problems. After all, if you focus on beating your competitor, you are limiting your success based on how good your competitor is. Companies who obsessively focus on competitors assume their competitors are smarter than they are. What if your competitor is also launching products that no one is buying? Following competitors often results in a “follow the leader death spiral” that becomes very difficult to pull out of.

Understand your buyers, their needs, and how they buy and you will quickly outpace your competition.

Let your competition spend time studying and criticizing you instead of listening to your buyers and understanding their needs.

Let your competitor salespeople keep using : “Our Competition Sucks Selling”, while your team listens and solves customer problems…..while breaking sales and profit records for your team.

Are You “Spinning” the Wrong Marketing and Sales Formula and getting nowhere fast?

I have been trying to lose weight for years as I discussed in my post: Do you need to “Detox “your business before it can hit your goals? If you have struggled with your weight as I have, you know it is very frustrating. I have tried a number of diets and workouts independently .One of the workouts I tried was “Spinning”. If you have not tried it, spinning is a very intense workout on a stationary bike. It was not unusual for my heart rate to exceed 160 beats per minute and the calorie counter would show 600-750 calories burned in each workout

When I first started spinning, I did lose some weight. After a few weeks of spinning my weight loss hit a plateau. So what do we do in situations like this? Well type A’s like me…we work harder! I added more resistance to the stationary bike and after the 50 minute spinning class I would go into the weight room and work out for another hour. Again, I saw some weight loss and again I quickly hit another plateau…very frustrating.

What I lacked was the right formula for weight loss. To have sustainable, repeatable weight loss the formula is 65% your food intake and 35% your activity level, your workouts. One without the other and you will not reach your goals.That explained why working out harder and not significantly changing my diet did not help me achieve my weight loss goals.

This reminded me of how most businesses lack or have the wrong formula for sales and marketing. I have worked with businesses in different industries and varying sized revenues; from under $1 million to $300 million, as well as over a billion and I have seen teams frustrated in each. They keep working harder, spinning faster and faster in sales adding more training but 40% still miss achieving their sales goals. They lack the correct formula to feed (marketing) their sales  in relation to their selling activities.

When I worked for Frito-Lay I was fresh out of college. I would say the formula back then was; 30% marketing and 70% sales and service. Marketing did research and generated brochures and sales would pick and choose the tools we thought would work. Frequently we would create our own tools borrowing what we liked from what marketing created. This model may have made the marketing team at Frito-Lay cringe, but it worked in the 1980’s. My Unit of route salesmen realized huge sales gains year over year and our team was recognized in Frito-Lay’s national magazine with yours truly standing in front of a bridge display we sold to Giant Eagle stores that spanned the entire back of their store for July 4th weekend.

That formula; 30% marketing/70% “bare knuckle selling” worked in the 1980’s The problem today that is the 30% marketing/70% sales formula is dated and backwards. The change that caused this formula to flip flop was the internet. The advent of the internet changed how buyers gain information. Salespeople are no longer the” keepers of the product knowledge keys”. Buyers now demand; instant, accurate, authentic information at their finger tips 24/7. Not only must we provide this, but we must provide product information in the voice of the buyer so they quickly can find solutions to the problem(s) they are trying to solve. Fail to clearly state the problems you solve and the buyer “clicks” their way on to the next website.One of marketing’s key roles is now sales enablement.

Today the formula for most businesses should be 70% marketing and 30% sales and service.

Peter Ducker said: “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” To achieve this definition a considerable amount of time must be spent in understanding your market.

Buyers like to buy; they do not like being sold. (Truth be told they probably didn’t like being sold a bridge display that spanned 15 isles) Sales today have a responsibility to start conversations and lead buyers throughout their buying process until they are ready to buy. Salespeople must now “serve” their clients as opposed to “sell” them. I discussed the top concerns buyers had with salespeople in my post titled: WARNING: Buyer’s say what salespeople do wrong? PRICE is not on the list! Buyers today want salespeople to listen and understand their problems before presenting what’s in their bag.

When I speak of “sales” and “marketing” I am discussing the roles and not titles and people. In some of the smaller companies I have served my title was “VP of sales” but I performed a marketing role in identifying customer needs and pain points. The smaller companies I have helped did not have marketing departments and we outsourced the development of sales tools to ad agencies. As companies grow they segment and define roles more clearly. I really do not care what you call the person that does it, but someone must understand your market and how your buyer’s buy.

How your buyers buy has changed since the 1980’s and market leaders have already made the sales and marketing flip flop to insure buyers move quickly through their process to a sale.

Stop “Spinning” the wrong sales and marketing formula, working out harder and harder only to miss your goals.

Find out how your buyers buy and create a winning formula for how your buyers buy today…

… or keep spinning with your heart rate racing while your competitors adjust their formulas to the market of today and leave you in their dust.

How about your company…

If you had to guess, what % is your companies’ energies are spent in the roles of sales and marketing?

Are you still “bare knuckle selling” or are you helping buyers find you, and supplying what they need to buy from you?

Do you know how your buyers buy?

Weight training and Sales training, how doing them wrong adds no value and may even hurt you!

Each morning I start my day with a workout at the gym. I like to start each workout with the elliptical machine. I listen to music and watch others training on the various machines to make my 30 minutes go by quickly. One machine almost everyone does wrong is the lower back machine.

Each morning I watch people plop themselves down on the machine without making adjustments based on their body. Some sit too high in the seat and some are seated too low. Some move the weights very quickly and some let the plates slam in-between repetitions. Not executing the exercise correctly not only fails to isolate the area you are trying to develop, but may also cause injury to the individual and the machine. There are two older gentlemen who train together each morning and not only do they fail to adjust the machine settings for their body size, but they do the exercise, (the training) completely wrong. They select the maximum weight and they begin.( double the weight I use) The weight is so heavy they are no longer sitting on the seat midway through the movement, and they are pressing the weight with their legs as they aggressively pull the weight back with their arms. Once one gentleman finishes I see his training partner execute the training in the same way. My guess is they have used this machine in this way for years and each assuming they are doing it correctly. They are so focused on looking impressive with the amount of weight they are lifting they lost the original objective of using this machine.

This machine was designed to provide training for an isolated area of your body, the lower back. To use this machine correctly and realize the maximum benefit the first thing you should do sit and adjust the machine settings so you are exercising in the proper range of motion. You are supposed to slowly push the resistance back, hold, then slowly return to the starting position while not allow the weight being lifted to rest. If done correctly, and balanced with lower abdomen exercises, you will develop a strong lower back and core.

As I watch these two older training partners each morning, I am reminded how most companies execute sales training wrong. I can speak from experience as I have done it wrong myself. A new product is about to launch so we bring in all the sales troupes to corporate for training. Marketing presents PowerPoint slides covering the market size, and they share the creative support materials, the sales tools they developed to help my team hit their goals. Then the product manager presents the product and reviews each feature and sometimes shares the benefits of the particular features. Far too much time is spent discussing why our product is better than our competitors and not enough time is spent helping my team understand the problems this new widget solves. We may visit the manufacturing facility and see the product being assembled.

At some point I would present our team goals, and each region’s individual goals. Over the years I would develop specific regional play book drafts with objectives by market by account. These play books would illustrate the opportunity in their market my current and targeted new accounts and if every tactic was completed would result in the salesperson achieving 150% of their goal. I would ask each salesperson to review the plan for then report back on how they plan to achieve their revenue targets. We would have specific discussions that resulted in adjustments to the play book. I would often present some competitive information, and share how to overcome objections we may face when trying to displace our competitors, and or gain placement for this innovative new widget. We would establish key indicators the team would be tracking that we believed would drive our desired revenue targets.

About 15 minutes into the training you can see salespeople checking their emails and excusing themselves for incoming calls from “one of their key clients”.

WE HAVE ALREADY LOST THEM!

How do market leaders conduct sales training to produce the maximum revenue in the shortest amount of time?

· Share what market problem the new product solves

· Explain how big is this problem

· Share market data

· Explain what buying criteria buyers use when making buying decisions

· Share the process buyers go through when purchasing

· Position the sales tools developed for the specific steps of the known buying process

· Provide the sales team the buyer persona(s)

· identify the key influencers to the buyer personas, and who also may be involved in the buying process, and provide guides on how to start discussions with them

 

What I am describing is not “Sales Training” (like I did in the 1990’s) but “sales enablement”. Sales enablement is defined as:

Sales enablement is the process of arming an organization’s sales force with access to the insight, experts, and information that will ultimately increase revenue. It is a term that has gained momentum in the last decade. It is often used to describe a variety of tools, processes and methodologies that are applied to enable a sales force, both direct and indirect. The terms “sales effectiveness” and “sales readiness” are sometime used interchangeably to denote Sales Enablement as well.

In David Daniels’ recent blog he states:” According to the “Business-to-Business Launch Survey Executive Summary” conducted by the Center for Business Innovation at Babson College and Schneider Associates, 55% of companies rank sales enablement as critical to product launch success.”

When salespeople were the “keepers of the keys” for product information one could argue how the way most companies conducted sales training was OK. However the internet and the instant accessibility to information have changed sales forever.

Salespeople must become experts at starting and keeping conversations going with buyers. Today salespeople must be experts at understanding the buyer’s process, and what sales tool to use when.

Market leading sales organizations teach their salespeople how their product or service solves market problems.

Market losing organizations continue to spend more time convincing their sales teams how easy their goals are …”even a monkey could do it.” Market losing teams practice “marketing roulette”. They create a ton of sales tools and sales is supposed to use them ALL until they figure out which one works. If none of the tools work, sales will create their own. (A REALITY, BUT VERY DANGEROUS) Market losers are still teaching their teams how to overcome objections.

Market leaders understand the importance of listening to objections.

Stop sales training and start sales enablement today.

Remember people like to buy, but do not like to be sold.

Tell me about your organization.

How does your organization conduct sales training?

When salespeople leave your training do they understand when and where to use the sales tools in the buying process?

Is teaching salespeople how to overcome objectives smart?

How many minutes into your last training were salespeople checking their Blackberries and excusing themselves for an “important call?

“Wet your sales team’s shields”… before they go into battle in your marketplace

 

Back in the days of the Roman Empire the warriors would prepare to go to battle by placing on their armor, gathering their weapons, and most importantly carry their shields. Their shields were obviously a tool to protect them in hand-to-hand combat, but also for  arrows shot from far distances where they often did not see the opponent who fired them.

Shields originally were made of wood wrapped tightly with animal hides. Some enemies however understood that shooting flaming arrows into opponents troupes long before hand-to-hand combat was a strong tactic as the outcome was often the destruction of the opponent’s shields. Without a shield the warrior was at a significant disadvantage in combat, and more likely to fall to random arrows fired from afar.

Experienced warriors would wet their shields prior to battle in anticipation of the flaming arrows. In today’s economy, salespeople are now receiving a number of flaming arrows that were not a part of the sales process in prior years.

· Longer sales cycles

 

· More people involved in the buying decision

 

· Need to have a stronger ROI to support the purchase

 

· Higher level executives within the customer’s team now must approve purchases

 

· Headcount reductions , so buyers are busier and more difficult to reach

 

· The internet, buyers now Google for solutions instead of calling their sales rep

 

 

My challenge is what are you doing to help your sales warriors go to battle in this marketplace? Have you created new sales tools to help them “wet their shields” before battle? Some of your competitors may even be equipping their teams with metal shields that not only defend against flaming arrows but also are much more efficient in the day to day hand-to –hand engagements.

 

The reality of today is just hoping the flaming arrows do not connect is not a strategy for success.

 

What new tools has your team created to help your salespeople win?

 

Have you identified the flaming arrows being shot at your sales team today?

 

Do you plan to use this time to move to more efficient tools and processes?

Should you hire an Independent Sales Representative?…the right firm is a key partner, not a necessary evil

I recently answered a question on linked in with regards to working with independent sales representative firms (ISR) that is all too common. The Vice President who posted the question mentioned his frustration with independent sales representative firms. He went on to say “how do you hire good representatives as he has to change representatives often, and none seem to be opening new accounts and growing our companies’ market share?” I really do not have enough information at this point to answer his question.

I have hired independent representatives for over 15 years of my career. Good independent representatives are worth their weight in gold. The company that chooses to hire an independent sales force needs to understand the role of these professionals. The main role of independent reps is to use their current relationships, established through supplying complimentary product lines they represent, to get your product placed. They have built trust with buyers in their market, and their relationships with their accounts will ALWAYS be more important than your rep contract…and their relationship with you. Factories come and go, but the accounts in their market limited. Just as you may feel risk when you hire an independent representative firm, the firm actually has a greater risk. Each product line they represent is both an opportunity to become more important to their buyers and increase their income, as well as a risk. Should they agree to represent your products and your company fails to do what they say they would do, and or your product fails to meet your brand promise, the local sales representative not only loses potential commissions, but they run the risk of a break in trust. (Their most important asset they have with buyers)

If you are thinking of hiring independent sales representatives, I would ask you to answer the following questions…

So tell me…

· What market are you in?

· What problem does your product solve for that market?

· The representatives you choose, how did you choose them?

· Did you profile complimentary products that touched the same buyers, and then hired those representatives that had those lines?

· What is your commission structure in relation to the industry, other lines the representative carries?

· When you hired the independent representatives, where did you get their names?

· What % of the independent firms overall income do you represent in relation to the time required to sell your product?

· How well do you know the buying process for your products?

· Do you have sales tools you have developed to help the sales process match the stages of the buying process?

· Do you have written buyer personas?

· How does your competitor(s) sell? Direct, or with independent representatives?

· Did you hire them with base revenue in each market, or will they only “eat what they kill”?

· Do you have any “house” accounts in their market?… you know, the big guys you don’t pay independent representatives commissions for?

If independent sales representatives wanted to be “managed” they wouldn’t be “independent.” As a manufacturer, a “factory” your role is to provide products that solve unresolved market problems. Your job is to understand the market potential for your product and build obtainable goals from the market up. Unfortunately the majority of factories establish goals by extrapolation. (In other markets we have sold z units, and you have y number of those accounts, so your goal should be z times y…right? Wrong!

I am looking forward to hearing from those companies contemplating the hiring of independent sales representatives.

 

Please answer a few questions for me;

 

How did you establish the goals for their territory? Was the independent firm involved in the building of the territory goals?

Do you have written buyer personas?

Have you mapped the buying process?

Do you know the sales process for selling your products?

Have you identified sales tools for the steps each persona takes in the buying process?

 

If you answered “no” to any (all) of the above then your problem is not finding the right independent sales firm, it is what you lack, and it is how you have set your sales representatives up to fail. Independent sales representative have instant access to goal achieving accounts if equipped and set up to win. What independent sales representative are not…they are not magicians, nor are they your product management, development or marketing.

In my next post I will share how to find and hire independent representatives that add tremendous value quickly. I will discuss how hiring the right independent firm is the most cost effective investment you will make. I will discuss how even the biggest bean counting CFO will be thrilled with the ROI produced by independent sales representative firms.

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