Pre- Sales Checklist :The Secret to Hitting Your Sales Number
Salespeople who are prepared for meetings outperform others who just show up and throw up; it’s as simple as that. We all know this right? Not being prepared for buyer meetings is one of the top reasons over 50% of salespeople will fail to achieve sales quota each year. Our markets and how buyers buy has changed significantly with as much as 70% of the buying journey being over before a salesperson meets with a buyer. In this post I will share how I coach salespeople to prepare for sales meetings to drive the maximum sales results in an authentic way.
I have led sales and marketing teams for over 30 years and I am a practitioner of what Pragmatic Marketing refers to as “NIHITO”. This stands for: Nothing Important Happens In The Office. Therefore I travel, check that, …I travel a great deal in the market doing four legged sales calls with my sales teams.
One area that is a common sales coachable skill is pre-sales call planning.
Traveling often I have taken a number of flights. As sales leaders we can learn a lot about being prepared for our mission of increasing sales profitably by watching airplane pilots. Before each and every flight pilots conduct a pre-flight checklist.
They have a standard checklist that starts at the left wing tip and they walk around the plane, checking each wing, each tire, the tail section, the nose of the plane, the cockpit instrumentation panel. They check the fuel manifest to insure they have enough fuel to fly safely to their destination.
Ben Franklin said:“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
Why do salespeople fail?
There are 3 major reasons that salespeople fail.
- Lack of mental preparation
- Lack of physical preparation
- Poor quality of conversations
… all of them involve being prepared.
What are the top five things sales super stars do to prepare for each sales meeting?
- They’re prepared for anything – especially the negative circumstances
- They’re genuinely interested in their prospects
- They check their ego at the door
- They master the art of managing expectations
- They have done their research
The below checklist must be completed before trying to start a journey with a buyer today.
Buyer information
- Who will you be meeting with?
- What is their role, and title?
- How long have they held this position?
- How long have they been with their current organization?
- Where did they go to school?
- Where did they work prior to this company?
- Do you share any mutual contacts, if so call them and ask them about this buyer
- When was the last order?
- Do you have a buyer persona for this type of buyer? If so read it.
- Is there a current order in the system?
- If so when will it ship and arrive?
- What is the status of the accounts payments, do they have any money past due that may interrupt service if not paid?
- Has the buyer and or their teams experienced any quality issues with products and or services in the last 6 months and were they resolved?
- How is the buyer measured?
- What are your buyers’ key performance indicators?
The account
- How long has your company sold this account?
- What are your current sales with this account, and how does this compare to last year?
- Does this customer buy predominantly one or two products or do they support your full line of products and services?
- When was the last buyer call or phone discussion on the CRM?
- What was the topic of the last conversation and action items?
- Were the action items completed?
- Visit their web site, click on “press” and or “news’ …what is the most recent news event they posted?
- What are your customers value proposition to their customers? You can gather this by cutting and pasting their landing page copy into an I cloud service and see prominent words.
- Who are their competitors? Do you sell them?
- Who else is involved in buying decisions?
The Industry / Market
- Google this industry read top three articles.
- What is news worthy in their industry in the last three months?
- Visit industry trade association web pages and read last three news articles. What is news worthy in trade groups?
- Is the customers’ market up, down, or flat?
- What are the future projections for this market?
- How is this customers market segment performing for your company?
- Is this customer’s sales performing at the industry average, below, or above and why?
- Have competitors introduced any new products or programs in the last six months?
- Prepare two to three questions that illustrate you know the buyers’ industry, what is happening and can be used to build trust.
- Is their industry consolidating or highly fragmented?
Competitor information
- What other companies like yours also sell this account?
- What are their strengths?
- What are their weaknesses?
- What are your competitors’ value propositions?
- Do any of your other customers also use these competitors and if so what have they shared with you?
- Visit competitor(s) web sites, what is new?
- How do your competitors market their products and sell their products?
- Know your competitor price strategy.
- Does the competitor provide products you do not?
- Do you have unique and or patented products your competitors do not offer?
- What is your competitor’s service history compared to yours?
- What are your competitors shipping and delivery policies?
Your Strategy
- Why are you meeting with this account?
- Why did the buyer agree to meet you?
- What is the buyer’s expectation for this meeting?
- Is meeting with the account in person the best form of communication based on your objectives?
- What sales tools will you need to be successful?
- Will you require any video or computer presentations?
- Will you require access to the Internet? If so bring a device to give you access in the event the company cannot allow you to access their connection.
- What is your value proposition? Answer the question: Why your company?…and or your product?
- Who are your competitors at this customer and what are the strengths of your competitors and their products?
- What are the perceived weaknesses of your competitors’ products?
- What case studies should you bring to support this sale?
- What STAR stories will you share in your presentation to build trust?
- What will you leave with the buyer?
- How many copies will they need for other influencers in their company?
- What is your buyers buying process?
- What criteria must your buyer have from you to make a buying decision?
- What does this account, this buyer’s journey look like?
- What are your 2-5 challenger questions for this meeting?
- How will you judge if this meeting was a success?
- What are typically next steps in the follow up process you can offer proactively in this meeting?
I hear some of you saying…
“but mark that’s a lot of information to have before we meet with someone! On a normal trip I can meet with up to 8-10 customers…do you expect me to have all of the above for each meeting?”
My answer is YES!!!
The markets we serve are dynamic and competitive pressure is only growing. In your buyer’s world they too are experiencing pressure and demands on their time. Buyers want to meet with salespeople who do their homework and understand their account, and their markets and any challenges they may be facing. Buyers are hungry for authentic salespeople who want to understand and help buyers and their companies solve urgent market problems.
The days of …Hi how are ya meetings …are over!
The days of just dropping buy, or my personal favorite…. buying two dozen donuts are over!
…“But Mark I want to build my relationship with this buyer….”
Then do your research prior to your buyer meeting and demonstrate the following:
You know the buyer and have an interest in helping them
You know the industry and share how you help buyers like them
You understand your competitors
You know the buying journey
You know the criteria your buyers must have today to make a buying decision
You understand your products and services and the problems they solve
You build trust with buyers by being prepared
Doing your pre-flight checklist before each buyer meeting will insure a safe buying journey and help you land are your desired goals.
Are your salespeople prepared to meet with your buyers?
What is your cost of sale today?
Do you believe having a pre-call checklist can improve your sales cost as a percent of sales?
Does your team have a pre=call checklist?
How often are your salespeople prepared for each buyer meeting?
Have you experienced a buyer meeting that took a nosedive because your salesperson was not prepared?
Below are some great articles on preparing for a sales call.
Pre-call planning the forgotten step https://www.customercentric.com/news-and-resources/articles/pre-call-planning
4 tips for effective pre-call sales planning https://www.jillkonrath.com/sales-blog/bid/130501/4-Tips-for-Effective-Pre-Call-Sales-Planning
7 steps to ace pre-call sales planning https://www.jillkonrath.com/sales-blog/bid/130501/4-Tips-for-Effective-Pre-Call-Sales-Planning
Pre-call planning: It’s more than just research http://www.sellingpower.com/content/article/?a=2847/pre-call-planning-it-s-more-than-just-research
Finally–a Sales Pre-call Checklist That Will Help Your Opportunities Soar! http://customerthink.com/finally_a_sales_pre_call_checklist_that_will_help_your_opportunities_soar/
Three Steps to better Pre-call Planning http://www.sellingpower.com/content/article/?a=1458/three-steps-to-better-pre-call-planning
How to prepare for a winning sales negotiation https://www.salesreadinessgroup.com/blog/how-to-prepare-for-a-winning-sales-negotiation
Preparation and Sales Success http://blog.anthonycoletraining.com/Sales-Training-Sales-Brew/bid/30683/Preparation-and-Sales-Success
Pre-call planning strategy checklist http://www.mentoru.com/sanfilippo/pre-callplanningstrategy.pdf
8 Steps to successful sales call https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/207016
Develop your companies’ pre-sales call checklist and watch your sales and profits soar!
Are Your Salespeople “Bare Knuckle Selling?”
It is an old-school sales approach from the 1950s through the mid-1980s. Your sales team was given a goal, and they were to just make it happen.
Business owners were focused on the objective of achieving the financial performance goals they needed and wanted hungry sales teams chasing, catching, and wrestling buyers to the ground to win purchase orders.
It was all about what we wanted.
It felt wrong to even then, but that is what we were paid to do. It was much like the movie; Fight Club, and the #1 rule of fight club is… “Don’t talk about fight club!”
For years salespeople went out with their sales bags full of brochures and returned with orders, and we often didn’t want to know how. It was like sales was some dark art business owners did not want to know about.
They just needed the profitable sales volume.
The trouble arises when sales teams today approach buyers as they did 10-15 or 30 years ago.
In my sales seminars, I used to refer to this sales method as Bare Knuckle Selling.
Sales teams who rely on bare-knuckle sales today fail to execute the sales plan and miss the profit objectives for their companies. As the Book Insight Selling shares, buyers today do not want to be sold. They want to be presented with innovative ideas.
Teams with no strategy are forced into bare-knuckle selling; each year, their performance toward sales goals suffers.
Bare Knuckle Sales involves your sales team cold calling buyers who should need the products they sell ( you have no idea if they do).
Teams who practice bare-knuckle selling focus on their goals and not their customers’ problems. They sound like commission junkies needing their next fix (and buyers today pick up on that within the first few seconds of a call).
Bare-knuckle sales teams have little if any marketing and sales strategy, and their websites are virtual brochures that often share how great they are and how long they have been great, but fail in SEO Key Word Optimization, have no content strategy, and never speak in a voice of the problems you solve for your customers.
When you challenge the leaders of a team like this, you will hear phrases like; “we don’t need a content strategy. We have been in this industry for 20 years and never needed it before” and “we need our salespeople to overcome objections and close not ask a bunch of questions…” and my personal favorite; ” we cannot afford expensive marketing!” Since the people who often challenge you most are accounting and finance types, we need to redirect the conversation to the opportunity cost of not having a marketing strategy.
Are your salespeople Bare Knuckle Selling today?
How would you know?
Below are ten quick questions I would ask you, and let’s see how you would answer them.
- Do your salespeople clearly understand the problem(s) your product or service solves?
- Have you seen your gross margins increase in the last three years?
- Do you know your close rate on quotes? And why did you win or lose?
- Have you produced new sales tools in the last 12 months?
- Has your website been updated in the last six months?
- What are the top 3 market segments your team should target this year and why?
- Does your team have a sales strategy and process other than cold calling?
- Do you have a lead nurturing program?
- Can you tell me the process and criteria your buyers are using today?
- If I asked your sales VP what the ideal customer for your product or service can they answer me?
How would you answer the above questions?
If you answered “no” or “I don’t know” to six or more of the above questions, your team is Bare Knuckle Selling and losing new business you could and should be winning.
Please share your thoughts and experience….
Is your team Bare Knuckle Selling?
Would you like a road map on how to stop Bare Knuckle Selling and start hitting and blowing by your crucial performance objectives?
Sales teams today do not need to be like Fight Club.
The #1 rule of sales today is openly discussing your repeatable sales process, and your team must constantly assess how your buyers are buying and what criteria they must have to make buying decisions.
Preparing Your Family for Entrepreneurship
Becoming an entrepreneur and starting your own business is a big step for you, but it is also a big deal for your family, and the more you can do to prepare them for what is likely to come as you build your business, the easier it will be for you all to adjust.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few key things you can do to prepare your family for entrepreneurship.
Talk them through your plans
It’s easier for your family to support you and feel secure in the risk you are taking if you take the time to talk them through your plans for your new business venture, what you aim to do, and how you think it will work If they know what you are doing snd why you are doing it; if you have a clear vision and a plan to make it happen, they will feel much better about the whole thing in those tough early days, and that will benefit you all.
Secure your finances
Becoming a business owner is always going to mean some degree of financial insecurity, but if you can do everything you can to protect your family from the worst of it, this will really help to show them you are thinking about them and reassure them that things will be ok, Whether you talk to a mortgage broker about a new deal, ring-fence some of your savings for family emergencies or work out a split financial situation that helps to protect family money better, anything you can do in this area will be of huge benefit to your family at this time.
Be open with them
It’s always best to be open with your family about your business plans and how things are going. It might be tempting to conceal any setbacks from them, but chances are they will know something is wrong and they will be upset and confused that you are keeping it from them, Dialog should always bed open because not only will it help them through it, but then they will be able to support you and your business goals too.
Bring them into the business
Letting your family members come to work with you to see what you are doing; allowing them to help with big and small decisions as and when appropriate and even letting your kids come to your office with you will all help to make them feel more comfortable with what you are doing, and it will probably get them just as enthused as you too. Make it a family business and it will be so much better.
Your first steps into entrepreneurship are always going to be uncertain but if you do all you can to prepare your family and make a sensible plan to see you all through, it will be so much easier on you all. Family is important so don’t forget about them when your head is filled with dreams of making it big in business.
Seven Innovative Ways to Drive Strategic Growth
The lifeblood of any company is its ability to grow and expand. Without growth, a company will eventually stagnate and die. This can be difficult for business owners, as it requires creativity and innovation. This blog post will discuss seven innovative ideas for company growth. Some of these may be familiar to you, while others may be new concepts entirely.
Diversification
Renew and update your business model
Voice of Customer Research
Focus on Customer retention
Invest in technology
Expand your Marketing Efforts
Sales Training and Coaching
1) Diversification.
One way to ensure growth for your company is to diversify your products and services. This can be done by expanding into new markets or developing new products that appeal to a broader customer base. By doing this, you are not putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak, and therefore reducing the risk of stagnation.
Diversification can be difficult as it requires detailed market research and a thorough understanding of your target audience. However, if done correctly, it can lead to significant growth for your company.
Some ideas for diversification include:
- Expanding into new markets
- Developing new products or services
- Offering customized solutions
- Focusing on niche markets
- Expanding your business through Franchise Direct to reach and increase your customer base
2) Review and Update Your Business Model.
Another way to spur growth for your company is to review your business model. This means taking a close look at the way you do business and seeing if there are any areas that could be improved. This could involve anything from streamlining your processes to changing the way you market your products or services.
Reviewing your business model can identify areas where you may be losing money or customers. Once these areas have been identified, you can then take steps to rectify them, leading to increased growth for your company.
What should you keep doing?
What should you start doing?
What should you stop doing?
3) Capture the Voice of Your Customers:
Think about all the changes businesses have gone through during and post pandemic. How much has your business changed? Market leading organizations are conducting voice of customer research to better understand how buyers buy, what criteria they are using today to make buying decisions and understand your customers overall satisfaction. We recommend having a third party conduct this research to remove the concerns with bias. However, we recognize some clients cannot afford to engage our firm, so we wrote an eBook to help you Leverage the Voice of your Customers to increase revenue.
4) Focus on Customer Retention.
Acquiring new customers is important for any business, but it’s also important to focus on retaining the customers you already have. This can be done by providing excellent customer service and developing long-term relationships with your clients.
In one study 89% of CEOs shared having strong relationships with their clients is key to their success but sadly only 24% of those CEOs provided sales skills training on how to build business relationships.
Focusing on customer retention can ensure that your current customers remain loyal to your brand. This loyalty will lead to word-of-mouth marketing, which is one of the most effective forms of marketing. In turn, this can lead to increased growth for your company.
Some ideas for focusing on Customer Retention:
- Developing long-term relationships with clients
- Offering excellent customer service
- Focusing on customer satisfaction
- Building a solid brand identity
- Leverage data and build win-win
- Build multiple relationships with key account decision makers
5) Invest in Technology.
Technology is always changing, and it’s important to stay ahead of the curve. Investing in new technology can improve your products and services, making them more efficient and effective. This can lead to increased growth as your customers will be more satisfied with your offerings.
It’s important to note that you don’t need to invest in the latest and greatest technology; sometimes, simply investing in updating your current technology can be enough to spur growth.
Some ideas for investing in technology:
- Audit your current sales tech stack
- Updating your current technology
- Investing in new software or hardware
- Automating processes
- Improving website design
6) Expand Your Marketing Efforts.
Another way to encourage growth for your company is to expand your marketing efforts. This could involve anything from increasing your budget to launching a new marketing campaign. By developing your marketing, you will reach a wider audience and generate more leads, which can lead to increased sales and growth for your company.
Some ideas for expanding your marketing efforts:
- Increasing your advertising budget
- Update your value message by business persona
- Launching a new marketing campaign
- Investing in digital marketing
- Developing a social media strategy
- Speak in the language of your customers
- Market solutions not products
7) Sales Training and Coaching
Buyers have spoken and 33% chose not to work with salespeople today and the numbers are growing. In one study 85% of buyers shared they expect a salesperson to connect the dots between what they sell and how it can impact the buyers bottom-line. Sadly, less than 15% of salespeople do this today. In a one-hour meeting with the average sales rep how many minutes were valuable to the buyer and or decisionmaker? SIX! Only six minutes because salespeople show up, throw up and they pitch slap their customers when they should be having conversations that lead to revenue.
Some ideas to train your salespeople
- Complete a sales effectiveness assessment
- Identify sales skills gaps
- Train salespeople to close gaps
- Equip sales managers to coach the new sales skills
In conclusion, there are many ways to encourage growth for your company. By implementing some of the ideas listed above, you can take your business to the next level. So, what are you waiting for? Get started today and see the results for yourself!
As always if your tea needs help let’s schedule a tie to chat.
Leverage Video to Grow New Opportunities and Revenue
The results are in, and top sales performers are growing their skills with technology like creating personalized videos and social selling. Is your SEO producing the leads your team needs to hit its goals? If not, you may want to consider adding videos to your website and business development campaigns. Video marketing is proven to increase your online engagement and conversions. The Google algorithms like video help your rank. This article explores ways video can improve your incoming leads and revenue.
Improved SEO
Let’s face it, we are swamped, and few people read anymore. People regularly search for short videos that answer problems they are facing. Countless surveys show that people are more engaged with video content than written content; video content is a little more passive; it requires less engagement from your target audience, which helps to deliver a message more effectively. It’s one way to improve your site’s SEO.
Of course, video marketing is not the only SEO strategy you need; you must have researched effective keywords, optimized your on-page SEO for a better user experience, and created content that provides genuine value to your target audience. But video promotion helps.
When building your video content strategy, use the data you have gathered from SEO research on keywords and phrases, top words and phrases your competitors use, and so on.
Working with clients, we often build a content map for the next three to six months based on the word, phrases, and problems clients are searching for.
Better Engagement
Video content allows your users to engage with the website for longer and increases the chances of converting customers. It also conveys your culture and how to you help customers in a way the written word cannot. The key is to be authentically you, and your content must educate and have the worthy intent to help others watching it.
People buy for two reasons: competence and trust. A video content strategy will build trust, and if you map your content strategy strategically will demonstrate competence and your experience.
Brand Engagement
Videos require less thought and, therefore, more engagement for users. Although written content can be designed to capture the audience’s attention and deliver a call to action, video content is far more effective. Years ago, I shared a short video on where CEOs turn when they have a business problem.
So many business leaders shared this short video my discovery calls were full for 60 days, and many of those calls turned into clients.
Of course, you don’t want to be too promotional regarding your brand message; you want to provide your customers and prospects with a value-added service that offers high-quality content relating to your brand without promoting brand identification.
More Conversions
Make no mistake; conversions increase with video promotions on your website. People love to see someone promoting a product or service they are already interested in. If you have their interest to this point, chances are you can move them over the line with video. I shared this short video about how “sales reps” must evolve to be trusted advisors.
The secret is to have a clear video cut in all the right places to increase the punch of the message. Like conventional selling, you want to keep the target audience engaged with the product without overwhelming them with a sales pitch. Always offer additional value with video.
Better Shares
Video content is very sharable. These days there are many platforms people use for personal and commercial sharing. If you want to make your brand more visible in digital spaces, get in front of the camera and start creating video content. It engages viewers more quickly, helps to build your brand, and is more shareable than conventional written marketing formats.
If you want our help strategically designing your video content and messaging strategy, please call us, and we will be happy to help you.
How To Improve Your Sales Training: 5 Top Methods
Every company needs to ensure its sales team works as effectively as possible. That means ensuring everyone’s highly trained in all aspects of the sales process, products, systems, and tools. Sometimes, sales training does not deliver the desired results.
Why?
- You train salespeople on all products and skills, not knowing the ones they need
- Death by PowerPoint, no interaction
- One and done, one training and no reinforcement or applications
- No skills assessment to guide needed training
- Wrong delivery mode
- No peer-to-peer learning
- No new behavior changes
If that’s the case, you’ll need to know how to improve your sales training.
You can do this in multiple ways, some of which might be more practical and effective than others. Five of these stand out, as they’ll impact your training process more than others.
They’ll have your sales team closing more deals before you know it.
1. Assess the Skills, Motivations, and Beliefs of the Sales team
How effective is your sales team? How much more effective could they be? What if you identified sales skills goals and closed them? What would be the impact on your net income to increase the sales effectiveness of your team?
These are all great questions a strong sales assessment instrument will answer.
The instrument we use reviews 21 sales competencies while identifying motivations and beliefs.
Once we review the team sales effectiveness and improvement analysis report, we can prescribe specific sales skills training, coaching, systems improvements, and needed sales tools.
2. Make It Flexible
Your employees will naturally be busy. If they’re already on the job, they’ll likely have customers to see and deals to close. You’ll need to be flexible with your sales training to ensure you can work it around their schedule.
We recommend you prescribe blended, stacked sales training programs that leverage asynchronous online learning, live virtual training, instructor-led training, content quizzes, and application exercises.
For example, employees won’t be able to learn effectively if they’re worried about the sales presentation they’re missing out on. By building flexibility into your sales training, you also give them the time they need to learn in a way that best suits them.
It also makes the training more convenient for everyone involved.
3. Provide the Right Resources
Employees will need a certain number of resources to learn how to sell. You wouldn’t get into investing without trading guides, so why expect your employees to sell without selling guides? They must learn how to sell with your company by giving them the resources. You make things much easier.
That goes beyond giving them an employee manual and expecting them to make some sales. Learning materials, guides, software, and similar resources will all be vital.
That makes their training much easier while giving them something to rely on long-term.
We often use the application exercises after each training module to build sales playbooks and battle cards.
4. Offer Cross-Department Training
While the training should primarily be sales-focused, your employees must understand how they fit into the rest of the company. They mightn’t be able to do that without knowing how the other roles work and what other employees do.
By offering cross-department training, you can help them with this. You give them more empathy for their colleagues while building team spirit. You also let them understand that everyone’s working toward shared goals.
5. Good sales skills training facilitates peer-to-peer learning
Every sales team has recent employees, employees who have been in their role for 5-10 years, and seasoned salespeople with over 20 years of sales experience.
Leading sales training facilitates the exchange among salespeople to learn best practices and how to handle common objections.
Often, we find that veteran salespeople with over 20 years of experience have knowledge not captured anywhere, and we must capture it and teach our entire teams how to use it.
Other benefits include:
- Increasing employee skill sets
- Avoiding skills gaps
- Improving communication between departments
- Increased sales
- Increased market share
- Increased profits
The advantages of cross-department training make it more than worth it.
How To Improve Your Sales Training: Wrapping Up
You could reach a plateau with your team if you don’t know how to improve your sales training. They mightn’t convert as many customers as you want them to, so you’ll miss out on a noticeable amount of revenue. This is revenue you could have and should have won if your salesperson was trained in selling skills. Over 50% of salespeople today have not been trained in selling skills. Their training was focused on products and systems.
By offering cross-department training, making it flexible, and providing the right resources, you’ll be much closer to increasing your sales and creating a more effective sales team. You’ll see more revenue in time, making your business more profitable and successful.
The training sticks when sales training is delivered in different modes based on the skills the salespeople have and need, coupled with application exercises and times to practice their skills.
Would you like to assess how effective your sales team is today?
Would you like to close skills gaps that are costing your sales team sales today, like closing skills, negotiations, and discovery skills?
Let’s schedule a call to chat about your sales training program and how we can improve your sales team’s results in a shorter amount of time.
