Sales Roles After the Pandemic, and The Dawn of the “Fisherman”
Sales methodologies have evolved over the years. We saw Relationship Selling in 1936 followed by Needs Satisfaction Selling in 1968. In 1988 we were introduced to SPIN Selling closely followed by Solution Selling in 2000. The Challenger Model emerged in 2011.
In response to the pandemic most sales teams evolved into a Virtual Sales Model out of necessity and market constraints. We experienced a strong rise in Social Selling as discussed in last months’ issue of Soar to Success.
No matter what sales methodology teams were using, one constant was the two types of sales roles: Hunter and Farmers.
For years we have quickly classified salespeople as hunters or farmers but in response to the pandemic we saw a new sales roles emerge: The Fisherman.
Let’s take a closer look at sales roles….
Hunter
The primary role of the hunter, as the name implies was to hunt for new business. This valued role is constantly prospecting for new customers and closing new logos for their companies to serve.
Farmer
The primary role of the farmer is to grow and retain current accounts. This highly valued skilled salesperson designed and builds customer centric business development plans and leverages data and their relationships to grow their share of wallet.
Fisherman “NEW”
New to the sales role category we have seen The Fisherman emerge.
Fishermen as the name implies have a customer on the line and their role is to reel this opportunity in.
The fisherman plays a key role in maximizing the return on investment of marketing dollars.
In response to the pandemic many organizations doubled down on their digital marketing investments.
The focus was customer retention early in the pandemic and now they are now leveraging digital marketing for prospecting and adding net new customers.
“The problem for most manufacturers and distributors is their once face-to-face salespeople suffer from QDD…quick to disqualify disorder.”
It is not unusual for manufacturing and distribution salespeople to disqualify up to 70% of the leads marketing invested in to drive sales growth.
Enter the fisherman…
The fisherman’s role is to respond to marketing driven inquires and quickly qualify a nibble from a bite and reel that new revenue into the boat.
Market leading organizations have adapted and 27%, according to a recent McKinsey study, are coming out of the pandemic stronger than when they went into it.
Markets leading sales teams ensure they hire the best people and place those people in the right roles based on their sales skills, motivations and beliefs.
If you would like to assess your sales team and use data to identify hunter’s farmers and fisherman, let’s schedule a call.
What is the Future of Sales and How Should We Strategically Adapt?
We have experience a great deal of disruption due to the pandemic over the past year. Some businesses were closed, others deemed essential were open but their teams worked remotely. Buyers were not meeting with current vendor salespeople not to mention new salespeople trying to win their business.
What will the future of sales look like?
Will we go back to normal like the pre pandemic model?
Will sales be forever changed?
What will the future of sales look like?
The above questions I am hearing often enough to produce webinars and speak at sales conference on the subject of what sales will look like in the future.
Before I share my prediction I want to share some research data by McKinsey:
70%-80% of B2B Decision Makers Prefer Digital and Virtual Human Interactions
77% Of B2B Decision Makers Prefer Video (Zoom, Teams) To A Phone Call With New Suppliers
89% Of B2B Decision Makers Said Likelihood of Virtual Human Interactions Will Continue
The next data set comes from working with my clients and observing them strategically pivot how they sell based on market constraints.
We conducted voice of the customer research for a large distribution company in the B2B space and over 63% of their clients preferred virtual sales to face to face.
Why?
Efficiency
The customers shared the liked virtual engagement because it was quick efficient and they could invite a number of purchase influencers to meetings. They went on to share it has bothered them for years that salespeople would show up without an appointment and consume hours of their time and distract their other team members.
Working with large manufacturers in the B2B space we also experienced some change.
Cost of Sales
A number of my manufacturing clients experienced flat sales compared to prior but a significant decrease in the cost of sales. Without airfare, rental cars, hotel stays and client entertainment the cost of sales decreased significantly and sales continued at the same pace if not increase after April of 2021.
Last we need to consider customer satisfaction and customer experience.
Customer Experience
Completing customer research for customer satisfaction and net promoter scores the numbers actually improved for two of my clients.
Dawn of the Hybrid Sales Model
Based on customer feedback, lower costs of sale and in many cases improved customer satisfaction I believe we will see a Hybrid Sales Model in the future.
How we serve accounts will be much more strategic and salespeople must improve their skills to conduct business face-to –face as well as virtually.
The challenge becomes 60% of once face-to-face salespeople are struggling to sell virtually.
What skills does a Hybrid salesperson need to success in the future?
Empathy
Strong discovery and qualifying questions
Business Acumen
Value messaging based on buyer persona
Leverage Data
Technology Savvy with online meetings and CRM
Social Selling Competency
If you would like my help assessing the current state of your sales effectiveness and developing a plan to strategically improve your sales results lets schedule an introduction call.
Do This One Thing to Increase Sales Revenue and Profits
Do This One Thing to Increase Sales Revenue and Profits
If you could only do one thing to improve your sales revenue and profits, what would it be?
In this post I will share how capturing and leveraging the current voice of your customers is that “one thing.”
When your team understands your customers – how they buy and what they need to buy today – you will experience the following:
- Increased sales
- Increased profits
- Increased market share
- Improved sales close rate percentages
- (Oh, and much better board meetings!)
Why do most sales plans fail? The most common reason I have experienced is a dated value proposition. What worked years ago are not working now due to some change or shift.
Think about all the changes businesses have gone through in the last 12 months.
When was the last time you captured the voice of your customers?
As the authors of the book The One Thing share, we achieve more when we go small. Each of us can make a long laundry list of things we could do, but that dilutes focus.
The most powerful thing sales leaders can do are equipping sales teams with a repeatable sales process, sales training, and sales tools to hit their numbers based on how buyers buy today.
- What do you need to know?
- Why do customers buy from you today?
- Why don’t customers buy from you today?
- What is your buyer’s buying process today?
- What buying criteria must your buyers have today?
Emphasis is placed on the word “today.”
Many of the teams I have served have been in business 10-20-80+ years.
We serve dynamic markets that are always shifting and we need to adjust to those shifts or realize stalled or declining sales. How do we capture current customer voice and market truth?
We contact our top 100-200 or even 400 customers and we conduct one on one interviews.
We ask open-ended questions to gain actionable insights.
We listen for what customers are promoters, neutral and detractors who are unhappy and preparing to leave.
The time to save a detractor is before they leave and this data equips your sales team to do so.
It can’t be that simple (I hear some of you saying).
Yep, it is…
What are some questions I have found produce good feedback?
- If you were the president of our company, what would you have us do to win a larger percentage of your purchases?
- What do our competitors do very well? How important is that to you?
- Is there anything we are doing now you wish we would quit doing?
- Have you experienced any changes in the past 6-12 months that have changed how you make buying decisions?
- When you search for products or services, where do you look?
I still feel some doubters out there. Below are some companies I have helped leverage the voice of their customers and the results they experienced:
- A plastics company that made mechanical security devices grew more than $38 million in 18 months.
- An adaptive automotive vehicle manufacturer realized a $50 million sales increase over six years and realized a 6 percent increase in gross profits.
- A custom metals fabricator grew sales 160% in 8 months
- A custom tube and pipe builder added over 200 new customers
- A machine shop strategically leveraged the voice of their customers and sales grew 156% in 6 months
I hope I have convinced you there is a power in understanding your buyers today.
In today’s competitive markets you must
- Understand the current voice of your customers and markets.
- Develop a repeatable sales process that mirrors how your buyers buy today.
- Create sales tools that proactively provide answers to the criteria buyers must have to buy today.
Understanding your customers today is that powerful “one thing” that will position your team for profitable future success.
If you would like to capture the voice of your customers today and gain actionable insights please reach out and we will schedule a call. In most cases we can get the answers you seek to develop a buyer centric sales and marketing strategy in 30 days.
Want to learn more here is a link to my ebook https://otbsalessolutions.com/voc/
Pat, maybe use cover of my eBook as the graphic?
How do you reboot your business in 2021?
Your business has successfully grown year over year for (you fill in the blank) years.
Your customer base has grown and over time you and your team developed systems and processes and procedures to give your customers the best buying experience and a healthy bottom-line for your shareholders. .
You wanted to invest more in digital marketing, improving your website, sales skills training and targeting new markets …but you were busy.
We can argue what month Covid-19 impacted most businesses and for the sake of keeping our conversations flowing lets just agree the impact of Covid-19 was felt by many businesses in March and April of 2020.
What did we experience?
Think about all the changes and new processes and procedures.
How have your buyers adapted to the constraints of Covid-19?
Prior to 2020 approximately 45% of all sales occurred virtually not face-to-face. Fast forward to December of 2020 and 96% of sales occurred virtually.
Prior to Covid-19 as much as 76% of the buying process was over before buyers spoke with a salesperson.
On a call with the leadership team at a mid market manufacturer this week I was asked: How do we write a sales plan for 2021 in a time of so much change and uncertainty?
My advice? …Reboot your business!
If you were to launch your business today what would it look like?
Chances are you would use the same process someone used when they first launched your business.
- Clearly understand your current market, buyers and how buyers make decisions
- Look for urgent common unresolved market problems
- Design products and solutions to solve your buyers problems
- Create processes, systems, and procedures to help people with those problems find you
- Create processes, systems, and procedures to help your team deliver the greatest return on customer experience
- Constantly listen to your markets, buyers and targeted new buyers sensing any shifts in how they buy, the criteria they use to buy and adapt quickly
- Measure what matters – you have identified what is important to your customers and the behaviors your team must execute to win business and meet your shareholder expectations
Do you need to reboot your business in 2021?
Maybe you are one of those blessed organizations that had record sales and profit year and your biggest challenges are how do we beat sales and profits in 2020?
The best research I have seen shared approximately 50% of business saw a sales decrease in 2020 of 4% to 35% while the other 50% of businesses realized sales similar or greater than the prior year.
If you want to reboot your business where do you start?
Data!
The first data sets we need to see is sales transaction data and strategically analyze that data. What customers realized sales increases, what markets are they in? What products had sales increases and what products declined? Who are the 20% of our customers that represented 150% to 200% of our net profits and who were the 20% of customers that were profit-leaking accounts?
Second we need to engage with our customers and accounts we want to be customers with voice of the customer research. How are your buyers buying today? Where do they turn for new solutions for current problems? What criteria must that have to make a buying decision? Of your current customers who are your raving fans, and what customers are you in jeopardy of losing if things don’t change?
Last we need to improve the skills of our salespeople. We must assess the overall sales effectiveness of our sales team, systems, and process and close any gaps we discover.
One you have the above data sets you have what your team needs to strategically reboot your business in 2021 and have a profitable year.
I have led a number of teams through this process over the past 36 years and if your team would like to explore rebooting your business for a profitable 2021 let’s schedule a call.
Improve Virtual Sales Close Rates Focusing 5 on Sales Skills
“How do we improve our virtual sales close rates?”… Is a common question I have been hearing from business owners and sales leaders?
They have spent the time and investments to bring in opportunities and their sales teams’ quote customers but they have low sales close rates. They want and need more sales opportunities and they want to improve their close rates so more revenue flows to the bottom-line.
If you couple low sales close rates and teams that do not have a continuous prospecting cadence your sales results will be a roller-coaster ride and very frustrating for business owners and sales leaders alike.
In my no smoke and mirrors process working with sales teams we reach out your customers and prospects to understand how they buy. Then we assess the sales team’s skills in 21 competencies then prescribe training and coaching to close any sales skills gaps we discover.
Improving sales closing skills is often #1 or in the top 3 of sales skills that consistently needs improvement.
Would it shock you to learn just over 50% of salespeople have never received sales skills training? (No wonder they struggle with selling based on value and closing!)
In this post we will share five sales skills to improve your virtual sales close rates.
Since April of 2020 I have helped a number of sales teams adapt and become stronger in virtual selling skills.
Five skills your sales team will want to improve for virtual sales include:
Building Rapport
Since moving to a virtual sales model and Zoom video meetings becoming the norm I have experienced salespeople skipping key steps like building rapport at the beginning of the call. Make sure and take the time to build rapport. Focus on people first products and solutions second. Every engagement is an opportunity to build your relationship with your customers.
Build Virtual Relationships
Approximately 60% of once outside salespeople are now struggling with virtual sales. They are finding it particularly difficult to build virtual relationships as easy as they once did face to face. I often speak at events and co-host training with best selling author Ed Wallace. Ed’s book: Business Relationships That Last provides five clear steps to strategically build relationships and they can be applied to building virtual relationships as well.
Discovery Questions
Create a list of great discovery questions you feel comfortable asking. Your goal is to ask great questions to discover if your customer or prospects has unresolved problems your product or service solves. Include industry terminology and make the questions open-ended so the customer shares their current challenges. Your team can have a list of questions they all need to ask but again make sure each person uses words and phrases they commonly use and ideally your buyer’s use.
Active Listening
To clearly understand the needs of your customers and prospects your sales team must develop active listening skills. From helping salespeople improve their sales effectiveness for over 35 years I have found most salespeople listen to reply not listen to learn. Building active listening skills is key in any consultative sale and is particularly important in virtual sales.
Qualifying questions
Once you have actively listened to your customer and clearly identified challenges your product or service solves we need to qualify.
An old school system I suggest teams use that still provides salespeople a great deal of value today called BANT.
B- do they have a budget or will you be helping them create a business case to win budget?
A – Authority, does the person, team, you are speaking with have the authority to make the purchase and if not who does?
N- Do you clearly understand the need and how they will measure success? What is the economic impact of not solving this need?
T– Timing, when do they need this problem solved, how long has this been a problems?
“By the nature of your question you can demonstrate industry experience, competence and build trust”
– Mark Roberts
If you need to significantly improve your close rate on profitable sales:
- Improve Rapport building
- Building Virtual relationships
- Create Strong Discovery Questions
- Active Listening Skills
- Equip your sales team with BANT Qualifying Questions
I plan to unpack each of the above five skills in the weeks to come so stay tuned.
I recently shared a short video to help teams adapt to virtual sales and you can access here. What many teams have discovered is once successful outside sales producers are now struggling to meet quota selling virtually. The good news is this is a sales problem we can solve with training, coaching and sales tools.
If your team needs to improve your virtual sales close rates, let’s schedule a call.
How To UP Skill Face-to-Face Salespeople for Virtual Sales?
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?
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
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.
