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

grow sales

How Top-Performing Salespeople Leverage Social Selling 

Let’s face it, how we sell today differs from how we sold even five years ago.

Salespeople are finding it harder and harder to engage with decision-makers.

Why?

What are some reasons, and what can sales and marketing people do about it?

Five years ago, we saw 2-5 decision-makers involved in a buying decision.

Today, when we conduct voice of customer research, we find as many as 6-10+ people involved in the buying decision.

Decision makers are busy.

Most teams have been run very lean since the pandemic, with fewer people being asked to do more.

We also see the impact of technology.

Companies once could make a high net income serving customers in their region of the country.

However, the IoT has changed the game.

When you might have had 2-3 local competitors in your region, today, you are competing with thousands just two clicks away.

Finally, a big reason salespeople are having a more challenging time connecting with decision makers is what I refer to as …

Salespeople Behaving Badly.

Just over 50% of salespeople have never received sales skills training. They have the product, applications, and company systems training, but they lack sales skills like having conversations that lead to revenue.

Salespeople who have never been trained in sales skills call decision-makers and give them a terrible experience.

Florida State did a study with buyers, and they asked buyers in a 60-minute meeting with a salesperson how many minutes were valuable to them.

Are you ready for it? They said 6!

Only 6 minutes.

A new study relaced last month shared that 33% of buyers chose not to engage with a salesperson.

How do we market and sell in this new digital world?

That’s what this post is about.

Social media marketing is one of the most effective ways to grow your business. If you are a new business and haven’t been utilizing social media, you may not know how to navigate this sometimes complicated road.

The good news is that your social media marketing will be on autopilot once you get the hang of it. Here are some things you need to remember to ensure that your social media marketing is effective.

Reduce Your Sales Pitch

Since your ultimate goal is you are trying to sell more, you should not sell on social media. It may seem strange not to include a sales pitch in every post. However, selling every time is the last thing you should do. You need to make sure that you balance your content.

Your content should educate, entertain, and sell to your audience. Make sure you do more educating and entertaining than selling.

This is the best way to ensure that your content is well-balanced. When you give people a lot of free valuable information, they are more likely to purchase from you when it is time to sell them something.

People are on social media because they want to connect with their friends and family and be relaxed. Bear this in mind when you try to sell.

Focus on Brand Awareness

Another thing you should focus on is brand awareness. People must get to recognize your brand through frequent postings.

They will also share your most popular posts with your friends and family, which will help increase your brand awareness. Make sure that you brand your content on social media with your logo and website URL so that when your posts are shared, people can go to your website if they want to find out more about your products and services.

You can run ads to sell your products on social media, but you can also run ads solely for brand awareness. While you may not make a sale immediately from brand awareness campaigns, when you run these ads, you are putting your business in front of a receptive audience interested in what you provide.

In the future, if they ever need a service, your business may be the first one that pops into their head.

Choose Platforms Wisely

When it comes to social media, your business must be everywhere. However, with this being said, you need to ensure that the people you want to buy your products and services are on these platforms.

When you’re a new business or even a more seasoned business just getting into social media, you will need to look at what your competitors are doing.

Chances are if your competitors are active on social media, they already know what it takes to drive engagement. Look at their platforms and the type of posts they use to generate interest.

You can incorporate this into your style in a unique way that matches your brand.

Be Consistent

What’s Omnichannel marketing, and what do you need to know?

Omnichannel marketing is about having your message in many places, both inbound and outbound.

The key to Omnichannel marketing success is that each message says the same and feels the same to the decision maker.

One thing that you must do on social media is to be consistent. Even if you only post once a week, you must ensure you get it done. Although, if you want to grow faster, it is always best to post more often, especially when dealing with a platform such as Instagram.

Your posts on Instagram do not last as long as they would on platforms such as Pinterest or YouTube. You always need to keep your content fresh to satisfy your fans.

Remember that short-form video content is viral right now. Instagram promotes reels more than any other post type, so if you want to grow your social media following, it is always best to consistently do reels on Instagram.

When I post a short video on LinkedIn, for example, I receive 5-10 times the views, comments, likes, and shares of an article. YouTube now has shorts, and Pinterest has idea pins. This means you can make one short-form video and cross-promote it on all these platforms.

Conquer Social Selling

Over 70% of the top-performing salespeople leverage social selling in their sales process.

Conquering social selling is a must if you want to be of the top-performing salespeople today. You need to engage with your audience as most of them will be on social media.

Try several things on social media to see which strategy works for you. Once you find a strategy that works, the best thing you can do is rinse and repeat. This will give you the most success.

If you sell B2B products, you will find Linkedin a great way to identify and connect with new prospects.

We developed some short training and coaching courses to help salespeople adapt and sell in a digital world.

To be one of the top producing salespeople on your team, you will need to develop your skills in social selling.

If your team needs help adapting to the digital world, give us a call.

 

 

When Life’s Storms Hit (and they will) Look for Rainbows Not Lightning

Since the Covid-19 hit many states have asked nonessential businesses to close. I am speaking with many anxious and fear filled leaders. These are people I have known for years and some I served with over 30 years ago. Interestingly many business leaders share their sales have not been interrupted and some have seen an increase in business by refocusing their teams on industries that are busy. There are common concerns for what the future may bring. Other conversations start with them sharing their concerns, all the lightning they see in this storm letting out their fears that haunt their thoughts and they end with: What do you suggest we do? We discuss adapting to today’s normal and leave the calls with an action plan with things they can do. Since so many businesses are different, what advice can I give to serve those in need?…” Look for a rainbow.”

What is working now? 

What customers, markets do you serve that are busy and need your help? 

What does your data show over the past week?

What insights can you gather in terms of your buyers and what they are buying and how they are buying?

Whenever I feel stress or anxious thoughts, I read my Bible.

I look for what the Bible says for how I am feeling at that moment and the below advice is perfect when businesses are facing challenges and need hope.

“I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” Gen. 9:13

Deuteronomy 31:6 Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.

What do we know?

We live in the best country in the world with some of the most innovative minds on this earth.

We will get through this challenge and many will come through this storm stronger than when we entered it.

Some businesses are not only surviving but thriving in this crisis.

Buyers still need to buy.

Businesses still have problems (more) they want to solve.

What other advice do I give callers even in businesses deemed to be essential?

1.    Make sure your team is following Covid 19 safe practices is #1… Keep everyone safe.

2.    Interview your top 20 accounts today. What do you know to be true? What have we seen to be true in the last week? Act on truth not emotion and not hysteria.

3.    What customers need your help today? (maybe more than ever)

4.    Who are your top accounts that generate 80% or more of your profits? Stay very close to them, listen for new challenges and offer to serve them. Develop plans for each account.

5.    Make short term playbooks for sales and adjust plays when you learn something new.

6.    Have senior leadership alignment meetings.

7.    Create scenario plans.

8.    Develop a frequent all company communication cadence.

9.    Develop a frequent all client communication cadence.

10. Focus- the more you can focus your people on the behaviors you want and need them to do, ( based on your client research) the less time for worry.

11. Build sales accountability with clear expectations, processes and accountability feedback loops- “inspect what you expect”.

12. Use this time to build new relationships at your key accounts in other departments and higher in the departments you call on. Connect with purchase influencers in your key accounts. What challenges are they facing today?

13. If you serve the following markets: food, health care, medical supply, energy, utilities, trucking, public transportation, cellular, emergency support… interview your accounts, find out how buying has changed and adapt, what are their greatest challenges today and find ways to serve them. (assume nothing)

14. Training- the number one reason salespeople give for not training is they do not have the time. They have the time now in many cases and use this time to make them stronger so when this crisis passes, (and it will) they come through it stronger.

15. Training- as teams work remotely, train your teams how to use virtual meeting tools to keep their relationships strong with their customers.

16. Sales Manager training and coaching tools- use this time to help your managers become coaches. (when this is over you will be glad you did)

17. Give your salespeople and sales leaders prescriptive data, data they can use to have business discussions with their customers.

18. If you are looking for a great book all salespeople should read, have everyone read Trusted Advisor. Follow up with a virtual book review.

 

I participated in a webinar with Selling Power recently about helping your team assess the skills they need for the next 60-90 days you can watch it here .

I was asked by best-selling author Ed Wallace to join him on his webinar on: How to Build Virtual Relationships, and still hit your numbers this year… and you can access the recording here.

Author Anita Nielsen just posted an excellent article: Sales in the time of Coronavirus every salesperson and sales leaders should read and you can find it here.

How can I help your team in this challenging time?

What do you know to be true over the last week or so?

What does your data tell you?

What are your accounts telling you?

What is your formal process to capture and share this information?

How will you modify how you serve your customers based on their needs today?

As we closed the last webinar, I shared the following:

“people are not going to remember the people who sold them in this crisis they will remember those who authentically cared, served them, and helped them through the most challenging time most of us have ever faced. Be that person! Be the light in the dark for someone today. “

If you feel stressed and concern and need someone to speak with let’s chat!

I might not have all the answers but working together I am confident we can help improve sales effectiveness for your organization even in this challenging time.

 

 

Wholesale Distributor and Manufacturer Sales Training Must Transform Due to Market Perfect Storm

 

By Mark Allen Roberts

I enjoy training and coaching salespeople, it’s a passion mine. I led sales training for a global manufacturer, helped develop online training as well as flipped classroom training. I have often helped train wholesale distribution sales teams and coach sales managers. There is a perfect storm brewing that will capsize most manufacture and whole distributor training programs ROI if learning and development teams do not make some strategic course corrections now and batten down the hatches. This post will share the top 4 forces quickly converging on how train and we onboard manufacture and wholesale distributor salespeople.

 

There was a great movie based on a true story titled: The Perfect Storm. This movie shares the story of courageous men and women who risk their lives on rescue vessels and fishing boats. On Halloween night 1991 a fishing boat faced three raging weather fronts that unexpectantly collide to create the fiercest storm in modern history. If you have not seen the move here is a movie trailer. The experienced crew has weathered storms at sea before but never three storms converging all at once making the Perfect Storm.

 

Having trained manufacturer and whole sales distributor sales and sales managers I see a perfect storm, a sales problem brewing on the horizon and in this post I will share the 4 converging forces that will capsize the ROI of sales training if you do not transform your sales training programs now. The bigger impact of this perfect storm will be felt by manufactures and distributors alike in the next five to seven years and will be seen as:

 

  • Sales growth quotas not achieved
  • Lost sales you should have won
  • Decline in customer experience
  • Decline in customer satisfaction
  • Reduced profit margins
  • Higher sales unplanned turnover
  • Large account defections to new competitors
  • Poor Training ROI
  • Manufactures not happy with their distributors
  • Distributors not happy with manufactures

 

So what are these four converging forces about to rain down on how we train our sales people?

 

  1. New Generation of workers: Millennials and Gen Z
  2. Buyers changing how they buy and what they need to buy
  3. The Amazon affect and how it’s shaping buyer service expectations
  4. Top sales talent leaving the workforce

 

 

I think you will agree any one of these would have an impact on your salespeople and how we need to train them differently. However, all these 4 forces are converging over the next few years to make a sales training perfect storm.

 

Let’s unpack each a little more.

 

New Generation of Workers: Millennials and Gen Z Workers

A new generation of workers are entering manufacturers and distributors. By (2025) they will be the majority of your sales team. Each generation is influenced by their education, experiences, technology and geopolitical environment. That is why each generation has its own unique characteristics.

 

On an article titled: 7 surprising traits that make millennials excellent employees the author shares Millennials are:

 

  • Curious
  • Individualistic
  • Want Financial Stability
  • The digital Generation/ tech savvy
  • Want and need regular feedback
  • Like to Collaborate with others

 

Other things to consider is they plan to stay with employers 24-36 months and move on to new roles that teach them new skills. They expect their employers to invest in training and if employers do not, they move on quicker.

 

Let’s take a look at Gen Z workers.

 

The Warton University article shares this about Gen Z in the workplace:

 

“As a group, they are “sober, industrious and driven by money,” reports the Wall Street Journal, but also “socially awkward and timid about taking the reins.” They are risk-averse and more diverse, says Inc. magazine. Forbes says they “want to work on their own and be judged on their own merits rather than those of their team.”

 

 

 

Another article shared these traits for Gen Z:

 

  • Preference for traditional communication
  • Work individually
  • Mobile first habits
  • Motivated by Stability
  • Naturally Competitive
  • High Priority for healthy work life balance

 

Millennials and Gen Z workers will need new forms of training and managers will need to provide frequent coaching and not micromanagement. Both generations want to know the why of what they are doing and they plan to change jobs often.

 

Buyers Changing How They Buy

 

Due to the Internet Of Things buyers can and do conduct online research like never before.

 

  • 70% of the buying process is over before they speak with a salesperson
  • 44% of buyers have already made their buying decision
  • 20% of buyers are only speaking with sales to finalize the shipping and other transaction information.

 

Buyers today want and need salespeople who are trusted advisors who provide valuable insights they cannot find online. 85% of buyers in one survey shared they expect salespeople to connect the dots from what they are selling to the impact it will have on the buyer’s bottom line and sadly only 15% of salespeople are meeting that expectation today.

 

In the past buyers made decisions based on regional proximity. Today with two clicks buyers can buy from all over the world opening up many new competitors you never faced in regional markets.

 

“The Amazon Effect” and how it’s shaping buyer service expectations

 

Entreprenuer.com article shared the Amazon Effect as:

 

“it generally refers to the difficulty many stores — particularly brick-and-mortar outlets — face when they compete with Amazon. The online retailer’s vast selection, fast shipping, free returns, low prices and “Prime” subscription service all serve to create high customer expectations for any retailer hoping to compete.”

 

More and more of Amazon revenues are from B2B sales each year impacting both manufacturers and wholesale distributors alike.

 

When buyers leave work and they go home to their families they are consumers. Each month 197 million consumers get on their devices and visit Amazon. They are experiencing what frictionless purchasing feels like and they can’t help but let it shape the type of experience they expect from their vendors at work.

 

Is buying from you as easy as two clicks?

 

How much friction do your buyers experience when buying from you?

 

Top Sales Talent Leaving the Workforce

 

Each day 10,000 boomers are leaving the workforce. This generation (my generation) often are in leadership positions in manufacturing and whole distributors. We did not grow up with technology but most of us adapted but many did not.

 

I just met with a sales branch manager at a distributor that has a 3-ring notebook with all his key account business cards, vendor sell sheets and a handwritten targeted account list. By the way he consistently is in the top 3 producers in his company. The challenge becomes he has so much what I would refer to as tribal knowledge. Because technology entered into his world at a later time the majority of what he knows is in his head. If you ask him how he consistently delivers the results he produces each year he often cannot tell you. If you complete a top producer analysis assessment you will discover the knowledge and sales competencies that he has.

 

In distribution in particular there are so many vendors, and SKU’s and nuances you just learn to know that are often not captured and it should not surprise us some distributors find it takes a new salesperson as much as six years to truly become effective generating incremental revenue. The manufactures I have served typically see a new salesperson deliver incremental revenue in 12-18 months on the job.

 

What are common characteristics of top performers today?

 

The business owners play book shares how to identify top performers and future leaders:

 

  • Quality – if you are going to do something do it right
  • Skills Development– continuous learning
  • Fearless decision making – they leverage data and make decisions
  • Desire input from others
  • Self-Directed – they have a plan and work the plan
  • Emotionally intelligent-cool under pressure
  • Strong people skills– interpersonal communication and listening skills

 

Boomers who often lead departments and are top performers will be leaving over the next five to seven years. One distributor shared with me they estimate over 50% of their workforce will be retiring over the next eight years.

 

I hear some of you saying: “This is all interesting and I knew most of this, so what about this perfect storm again Mark?”

 

Glad you asked.

 

Your sales training and onboarding must change to support the audience you are now training.

 

You must immediately start capturing that tribal knowledge digitally today.

 

Some key characteristics of modern learning?

 

Asynchronous

Online and flipped classroom application

Trainee is in charge

Fast paced

Just enough

Relevant to the sales role and customers

Just in time with workflow

Mobile friendly

Peer to peer learning critical component

Interactive

Gamification will appeal to the new generations

Virtual Reality and Augmented reality will become the norm

On the job tool and learning aids will be critical

 

If you would like to learn more about modern sales learning programs I wrote a whitepaper titled: 17 training innovations for the future and you can download a copy here.

 

Other consideration before we close?

 

You don’t have the time (6 months) to train new salespeople like the past.

 

Death by PowerPoint instructor led training alone does not work with new workers.

 

Instructor led one and done training without reinforcement or application exercises does not stick.

 

You don’t have 6 months to train salespeople who plan leave in 24 months.

 

On the job training is great if managers do it (50% of the time they do not)

 

The new generation wants coaches not managers.

 

Your sales managers will need strong coaching skills.

 

With every new challenge an innovator will design and deliver new solutions to meet the challenges.

 

What will sales training look like in the next 5 years for manufacturers?

 

What will distributor onboarding and sales training look like?

 

How will these converging four forces impact your sales?

 

What will sales training need to look like if employees only stay 24 months?

 

So there you have it. All the above forces are quickly converging and will create a perfect storm for training manufacturer and wholesale distribution salespeople.

 

What do you think?

 

Is my argument that sales training must change all wet?

 

Is there something I forgot to consider?

 

How does your team plan to weather this storm like we have never seen before?

 

I see this as an urgent and pervasive problem that is growing each month and must be solved.

If you have some ideas how to solve this perfect storm of a sales training problem I would enjoy chatting.

Accountability is not a 4 Letter Word When Fixing Sales Problems

 

 

Are your salespeople accountable? When I ask you that question what is the first thing, first emotion, you feel? Why do you think that is? Did less than 60% of your salespeople hit or exceed their sales goals last year? Has someone on your senior management team said: “ we need to hold our salespeople more accountable “? How do we improve accountability and achieve the profitable sales growth we want and need?

 

If you have experienced discussions about sales accountability lately this post is for you and your team and you all need to read: How Did That Happen by Roger Connors and Tom Smith of the Performance Group.

 

I was asked to help a company whose sales had stalled for the last five years. In the first senior management team meeting I attended I heard:

 

The furious young President and CEO shared: “We need to hold our regional sales managers accountable to their growth goals”

 

Marketing quickly chimed in: (or threw kerosene on the fire…you pick): “Why can’t our salespeople follow up on the good leads we send them, if they did we would be hitting our numbers?”

 

Engineering decided they had best pile on: “Why can’t sales sell the innovative new products and features we launched”? 

 

Which triggered the CFO to look up from his laptop and share: “ We need to start getting a return on all the investments we made to grow this business”

 

The COO needed to contribute; “Why can’t sales provide accurate forecasts? Its killing our manufacturing efficiencies, inventory costs and on time shipment goals”?

 

The Partner from the Private Equity Firm who is now attending meetings due to poor financial performance added: “ When will we see results? What specifically are you doing to turn these results around? Do we have the right salespeople?”

 

Their HR Vice President added: “Our salespeople who work from their homes need to stop cutting their grass and golfing and get out in front of customers and make some sales, they need to put in 12-15 hour days like we do”

 

I wish this was a rare meeting and the comments were unusual…but they were not and unfortunately I have heard the above or something similar with many of my past clients. Everyone assumes the solution is sales just needs to work harder and become more “accountable”. Some managers assume salespeople hate to be held accountable, as if it will somehow hurt their motivation. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“Top Performing Salespeople Hold Themselves Accountable”

– Mark Allen Roberts

The reality is top performing sales super stars love to be held accountable and serve on teams of accountable leaders. Sales super stars are like elite athletes. They are very competitive, they train relentlessly, and they are always learning and practicing their craft. From my observations over the past 35 years, most elite salespeople were athletes and now sales is their sport. Top performing salespeople own their goals and strive each day to hit their objectives and drive profitable growth for their organizations.

So where’s the disconnect? …And more importantly how do we fix this problem quickly?

The authors of How Did This Happen do an excellent job of explaining that accountability has two sides:

Taking Accountability For Yourself

 Holding Others Accountable

What we often quickly assume, as the team above thought was a sales accountability problem is actually an organization wide accountability issue. (Sorry) While all of your team is firing missiles from their silos, the true problem is your entire organization lacks a culture of accountability and this must be corrected.

 

Have you ever worked for someone who assigned you very specific objectives and held you accountable to your goals but they never follow up on emails, signatures needed, budget approvals and other tasks they committed to? How did that make you feel? Were you more or less motivated to achieve your objectives?

 

So if our manager is accountable it impacts our performance? ….Absolutely!

 

The good news is your team is motivated by meaningful work. They want to help the organization grow profitability and in the process contribute and one day retire from your organization.

 

The elite salespeople are accountable. They are out everyday hunting for opportunities to serve your current customers and searching for new accounts with problems your organization solves.

 

Still doubt your salespeople are accountable?

 

Let me ask you a few questions…

 

Where else in your organization are people as accountable as your salespeople?

 

  • Their sales are tracked real time, you can see their activity and results
  • You can see what they plan to do next in the CRM
  • You can read what happened in the last meeting in the CRM
  • In your weekly call in meetings they share what they set out to do, what they did, what they will do and what help they may need from you
  • You can see who they are selling, what they are selling them and at what price
  • You get reports showing profit by customer, salesperson, region, district, country (there is no hiding in sales)
  • Their expense reports tell you if they are making good decisions based on return on investment, if they are managing their time appropriately and you can see where they have been and how long they were there
  • They often do weekly call reports
  • You complete customer surveys and ask about their service
  • Other executives attend customer meetings with them
  • If they do not make the sales to achieve their sales goals they do not make the targeted income they were promised

 

So again, are you sure you have a sales accountability problem?

 

The book: How Did This Happen is brilliant!

 

It introduces the concept of an accountability sequence that is broken down into two parts.

 

The first half is the outer ring as they call it. Here is where you form, communicate, align and inspect expectations. This is where most managers fail. This step is about your managers setting clear reasonable expectations.

 

The second half is the inner ring where you engage in accountability conversations in a professional way to deal with unmet expectations. (Emphasis on words professional way)

 

What I enjoyed most about this book is it sets the tone to lose all your emotional assumptions about accountability and it teaches you how to be and lead your teams in a professional and accountable way.

 

This book provides many tools and assessments to help you determine where your team is in the competency of accountability and guides you how to improve.

 

The book shares five reasons people do not hold others accountable:

 

  1. Fear of offending someone or jeopardizing a personal relationship
  2. The feeling they lack the time to follow up
  3. A lack of faith that the effect will make a difference
  4. A worry that by holding someone else accountable their may expose their own accountability failures
  5. A reluctance to speak due to fear of potential retaliations

 

(Did any of the above resonate with you and your team?)

 

Lets get back to the small company. The senior management team meeting ended and the CEO and CFO asked I stay in the room. They were concerned I was taking notes but did not offer any advice or solutions. I shared I have a process and I have noted everyone’s concerns assumptions and perceptions and now I need the voice of your customers and your salespeople and we will develop a strategy to improve your bottom line results.

 

What did I find after spending just under six months in the market traveling with their salespeople and and doing voice of customer interviews with top distributors and end customers?

 

  • Customers openly shared how difficult the company was to work with
  • Their order follow up was poor and orders often had pricing errors
  • On time delivery was under 60% hurting distributor relationships with their customers
  • Their product was plagued with quality issues resulting in warrantee claims
  • Warranty claims just after purchase negatively impacted distributor relationships with end users
  • New products over the past 5 years were historically launched before they were ready. Distributors now wait at least 18 to 24 months before buying new products because they feel the company will have “worked all the bugs out by then“
  • Their salespeople, regional managers and distributors were never trained in commercial selling skills
  • Their salespeople were exhausted and spending more time of tracking late orders and warranty parts than selling
  • Their customer service team was never trained and over 70% of incoming calls went to voicemail
  • Their sales compensation plan was so complicated their salespeople did not understand it, trust it, and often found the company made errors in their commissions and it often took over 90 days to correct them

 

Did this company have a sales accountability problem or a company wide accountability issue?

 

In chapter 9 the authors give you a simple yet brilliant model to assess accountability. It starts with asking: Is the person above or below the line

Above the line

  • Do it
  • Solve it
  • Own it
  • See it

Below the line

  • Wait and see
  • Cover your tail
  • Blame others and finger point
  • “Not my job”

Accountability is not a 4-letter word to elite salespeople. They hold themselves accountable and they must know you are accountable as well. They are constantly training, learning and practicing to improve their skills.

We must also understand accountability moves above and below the line for your people ( and yourself) . Once you have read this book you will quickly identify when a victor has become a victim and you are provided tools to help coach them to get them back on track.

I highly recommend you add this book to your library, read it, share it among your leadership team then share it with your sales managers and salespeople.

As for the company above…their sales grew from $14 million to over $80 million in the next 6 years once everyone understood their customers expectations and aligned their strategies and goals to achieve them. We became customer centric and when we did the silo’s went away. We all shared cross functional goals and the bottom line became healthy. So healthy they were acquired a few years later.

 

I saved the tough questions for last.

 

How accountable is your team?

 

How accountable are your salespeople?

 

Has anyone on your team said: “Our salespeople need to be more accountable”?

 

How accountable are you?

 

If the last question hit a nerve then you really need to read this book and help your team understand what accountability is and how to hold others accountable in a professional way. We all drift above and below the line of accountability. This book helps you identify it sooner and provides many tools and coaching ideas to getting your team back on course to profitable performance.

How to Overcome The Top 10 B2B Sales Challenges

 

 

The number of salespeople meeting and or exceeding sales quota is dropping each year. Why? If you were in the quality department and not sales you would find root causes. What are the top 10 root cause problems B2B salespeople face and how to you solve them?

 

Thomas Williams and Thomas Sain just released an excellent book: The Seller’s Challenge to help salespeople and sales leaders fix common sales problems.

 

Why is The Seller’s Challenge relevant to every B2B seller and their leaders?

 

Take a look at some of the common sales problems this book discusses and gives you applicable advice to solve.

 

  • What is the best way to sell multiple buyers?
  • What is the best way to research and execute a sales call that moves the sale?
  • How do I influence buyers who are strongly committed to a different course of action? (they are happy with what they have)
  • Why are y sales calls bombing and how can I fix this sales problem?
  • What is the best way to address gatekeepers?
  • Why is the status quo my #1 competitor?
  • When should I participate in an RFP?
  • Why is selling to committees so hard and what should I do?
  • What is the best way to manage price and discount demands?

 

Do I have your attention now?

 

The authors captured my attention because I frequently was asked to solve a number if not all of these sales problems in my career.

 

Not only did I find the content extremely relevant to solve seller challenges, but the way it is written is brilliant.

  • A summary of the sales challenge
  • A story to help you quickly emotionally connect to it
  • Discussion of the challenge and all the dynamics involved
  • An illustration or model to resolve the sales problem
  • A solution and best practices
  • Summary of key takeaways
  • Commitment and action steps quickly after the content for the reader to apply what they just learned
  • Chapter addendums illustrating exactly how to implement the best practices

If you are like me and have been in a sales role or leading sales teams you will agree sales has changed a great deal over the years. I find companies continue to be prisoners to outdated sales processes and they fail to identify the root cause of their sales problems they face each day. The result? Sales teams continue to fail to achieve sales and profit quotas year over year.

 

What do most sales managers recommend who have not read this book?

  • Try harder
  • Try more
  • Sign up for Sales training

Or my personal favorite: “Just make it happen!”

 

And how’s that working for you?

 

Be honest its just us…

 

I highly recommend The Seller’s Challenge as a strategy roadmap to help your sales team achieve and surpass their sales quotas by fixing some of the most common root cause problems they face in todays marketplace.

 

 

 

 

Fix Buyer Problems With Value Based Sales

In my last post I shared how a Value Based Sales approach helped a marketing and positioning serve firm land a whale account. This was an example of how to sell a “to buyer”. A  “to buyer” wants to move to a future state. In this post I will share how a value based sales approach helped “away buyers”, buyers who want to move away from pain and how it resulted in a $38 million sales increase in just 18 months.

As we meet with buyers we need to quickly determine if they are a “to buyer” or an “away buyer”.

A “too buyer” wants to improve something, wants to be innovative and has an emotional attachment to a future state. As a salesperson our job to create a value based sales proposal to help them get to this desired future state. In my last post I shared how we helped a client enter a new market and increase incremental sales and profits.

The other type of buyer is the “away buyer”. An away buyer wants to avoid risk, pain if you will. They are singularly focused on moving away from current problems and avoiding future ones. As a salesperson once we clearly understand what they want to avoid it is our job to create a value based sales proposal that helps them move away from problems.

In the 1990’s I was the VP of sales and marketing for Alpha Enterprises Inc. We were a plastics injection molding company that provided plastic packaging and mechanical security devices for the music retail industry. (you know those plastic boxes and devices that have to be removed at the checkout counter? That was us)

In the mid 1990’s the music industry experienced a significant shift in how music on compact discs were going to be packaged. Prior to this time music on compact discs were distributed to music stores and other mass merchants in a 12” cardboard package. This cardboard package was designed to easily fit in what were once record album fixtures. This original packaging also added size to the compact disc jewel case to prevent and or slow down retail theft. Alpha Enterprises manufactures mechanical security devices in plastic for audiotapes and videos at the time. We had a design for a compact disc package, but we had very little sales prior to this market-packaging shift.

Recognizing this large shift in how compact disc music was going to be distributed, we hit the road meeting with as many music retailers, mass merchants and other companies that provided music to locations like book stores and so on and did voice of the customer research.

In our meetings we discovered a number of people in each organization that influenced the purchase of mechanical security products:

 

Merchandising

 

Loss prevention

 

Store design

 

Purchasing

 

Operations

 

We met with purchasing and all the other people who helped influenced the purchases.

 

We found each influencer was also primarily concerned with theft, since compact discs could easily be hidden in someone’s clothing. We also found each influencer had specific requirements and criteria they were looking for as well as pain and problems they needed to avoid.

 

For example: Loss prevention’ main goal was protect the small CD packages in some way to reduce theft and if possible help them reuse security tags that were costing them 6-11 cents per purchase.

 

Purchasing at mass merchants and music stores wanted devices that protected their product at the lowest cost. (and that was not us) They told us they did not have budget to buy loss prevention Keepers.

 

We took a value based sales approach to fix this sales problem.

 

Value based sales is about understanding the business of your customer’s business so we asked a lot of questions:

 

On average how many compact discs do you plan to merchandise per store?

100,000

 

What is your current loss due to theft for audiotapes and videos that have no security protection?

About 15% without a security package but we expect CD’s could be as high as 25%

 

We have heard some theft is internal, other words your employees, and do you have an estimate for those occurrences?

Yes about 2%-3%

 

One solution is to lock the entire product offering behind glass. Have you studied the impact on sales for product displayed live verse behind glass?

Yes, sales increase over 70% if product is merchandised live

 

Talk to me about those security tags you buy. What one do you use, why, and how do customers defeat them?

We use this brand and the customers defeat them by pealing them off or deactivating them.

 

And every security tag is deactivated at check out and leaves with the purchased product?

Yes

 

If I might ask, what do those little security tags cost you?

I won’t give you my exact cost but lets say around 6-11 cents

 

Help me understand your inventory turns how many turns do you want, do you see today?

They shared this number

 

We took all their data and created a value based sales proposal that included risk dollars based on their own numbers. And cost dollars of security tags.

 

We calculated the cost of security tags based on inventory and anticipated turns and shared that number.

 

Then we shared our hypothesis, a creative business idea as their business partner helping to solve this huge risk they wanted to avoid.

 

We created spreadsheets for buyers to plug in their actual numbers in each field to calculate their projected losses and some of those meetings became emotional. (this tool helped establish the cost of doing nothing)

 

Then we shared what we learned in our VOC work and how we redesigned our product to protect and reuse security tags as well as the compact discs.

 

We shared the test results other retailers like them experienced when using our devices and how it drove down their theft %’s.

 

Our buyers to win budget internally to fund our product purchases used our spreadsheets. Our presentations demonstrated the ROI for purchasing our products and it was often a 100% pay back within months.

 

When our competitor mass mailed a sample and a cover letter bound with a rubber band (really, I saw their direct mails on buyers” desks), we spent the time clearly understanding the pain this market shift would cause and the businesses of our customer’s business.

 

What was the result of gathering the “Voice of the customer”?

 

What was the sales growth impact from creating a value based sales proposal and not just selling on price?

 

We experienced a $38 million dollar sales increase in 18 months!

 

Or to put it another way: Market Dominance!

 

What happened next was even more fun.

 

Retailers started calling us because we did such a good job with music CD’s to solve other high theft problems. They shared other products they wanted to see 70% sales increase for but are behind glass but they wanted out live. They shared items in their store that had high theft rates that they needed to lower.

 

 

Large companies like Nintendo, Microsoft, and so on heard about us and asked to meet to understand how our products could increase sales for their retailers.

 

 

This led to many successful new product launches. Eventually this division was acquired by one of the world’s leading security tag manufactures at a high multiple and is thriving today with products.

 

Why?

 

We listened to our customers.

 

We qualified their fear and risk into real $’s.

 

We spoke the language of their business: sales, profits, ROI, inventory turns, shrink (how they described theft)

 

We had business discussions about how our products could impact their sales, reduce theft, reduce the cost of labels and increase net income. (Create value)

 

We showed them how to avoid a problem and pain.

 

After the sale we quantified value.( shared the impact of their purchase decision)

 

We did not “sell” our customers we “helped” them.

 

So how about your company….

 

Do you understand the voice of your customers today? Are you Sure?

 

Is someone on your team asking questions and listening for buyer pain? Who?

 

Have you turned the buying process into a value based business discussion and share how you can impact their bottom line?

 

Do your salespeople understand how to help “to buyers” and “away buyers”?

 

What sales tools have you provided for each buyer type?

 

What impact would an incremental $38 million sales increase have on your bottom line with high gross margins?

 

What shifts are your markets experiencing right now or in the future you can help solve?

 

What if your largest competitor is doing this process right now? (Ouch now that you’re your attention)

 

 

PLEASE take the time and dedicate the resources to clearly understanding what your buyers want and need to buy today, and the process they use. Once you do.

 

PLEASE create a repeatable sales process that mirrors what your buyers want and need to buy today.

 

The above is a value based No Smoke and Mirrors process I have used for over 35 years and it has always driven profitable sales growth. When one client converted to a value based sales approach their close rates went from 42% to over 80% in 18 months.

 

What impact would it have on your bottom line if your sales close rate were over 80% with profitable sales?

 

This strategic business development process always ends with a value based sales proposal and we discuss how what we are selling solves their pain and problem and we connect the dots to how what we are selling impacts their bottom line.

 

Do not “sell” buyers I “serve” them buy with a value based sales methodology!

 

 

Fix Sales Problems With Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

 

 

 

 

A few Salespeople have “IT”. They all need “IT” to achieve their sales numbers. ..What is “IT”? In this post I will discuss Emotional Intelligence and the role it plays in helping our salespeople achieve their profitable sales growth objectives. In the book:  Sales EQ, How ultra-high performers leverage sales-specific emotional intelligence to close the complex deal by Jeb Blount. 

Leading and coaching salespeople you find some salespeople just have “it” and some do not. It’s hard to describe. It is more of a feeling than a word you can use to describe it…at least until now.

For years I have assumed it was experience, product knowledge, sales skills, personality, communication and presentation skills but they just did not completely cover what I was experiencing. What I was seeing is called Emotional Intelligence.

I shared another book on this topic some time ago: Emotional Intelligence for Sales Success by Colleen Stanley.

In that post I shared Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others. It is generally said to include 3 skills:

  1. Emotional awareness, including the ability to identify your own emotions and those of others;
  2. The ability to harness emotions and apply them to tasks like thinking and problems solving;
  3. The ability to manage emotions, including the ability to regulate your own emotions, and the ability to cheer up or calm down another person.

So the topic of Emotional Intelligence is not new. Solvey and Mayer first introduced it in 1990. However it really did not pick up steam until Daniel Goleman a Harvard trained psychologist wrote an article in 1995 for the New York Times about his book: Emotional Intelligence.

To add to this discussion I just competed an excellent book by Jeb Blount titled: Sales EQ, How ultra-high performers leverage sales-specific emotional intelligence to close the complex deal . Like the other books mentioned this book is a must have in every sales leaders library. Why? Why this book now you might ask? The short answer is to adapt to a shift that has occurred in “power” during a sale.

The author shares…

“ Technology has disrupted the traditional sales process by giving buyers unprecedented access to product and industry information, more control over the sales process, and more choices of products and vendors…To differentiate yourself from competitors and hold the short-lived attention of buyers, you need to be a master of emotions, interpersonal skills, influence frameworks and human relationships ”

–       Jeb Blount

For years I have helped companies Fix Sales Problems.  Many companies believe if we just train our people in products, markets and selling skills we will achieve our profitable sales growth goals. However what they all were missing is something that was often a disruption for their leaders to hear:

“Buyers buy with emotion and justify their decisions with data”

Let that sink in a minute….

So we have been training salespeople for years…in my case over 30 years in product features and benefits, sales processes, closing techniques, how to overcome objections, the challenger model, the sales consultant model, value based selling…and the list goes on but how many of us work on the Emotional Intelligence of our salespeople? Not many I am afraid.

Jeb Blount captures this later in the book…

“Managing disruptive emotions is the primary meta-skill of sales. The combination of situational awareness and the ability to consistently regulate disruptive emotions is what puts ultra-high performers on a pedestal above average salespeople….We know that the buyer’s emotional experience along with the buying journey has as much( or more) impact on their propensity to buy from you as anything else…the paradox of emotions is that the same time they are your most powerful ally they’re also your greatest enemy”

Let me share a real example ( from my youth)  where I blew it and I hope helps bring the importance of emotional intelligence home.

It was early in the 1990’s and I was leading the retail division of a plastics packaging company. We made retail loss prevention devices to prevent the theft of music and we made video storage packaging for video rental. The video rental market had shifted and we introduced a new product to meet that need I branded: The Squeeze Box. The name described how it worked…you squeezed the bottom of the plastic storage box and the video tape would slide out. I named it that after the song,..mama’s got a squeeze box..but changed the lyrics ..and my competitors can’t sleep at night.

The industry was so excited about this new product we could not make them fast enough. One mold became two, two became four and the demand kept growing. It was an exciting time and did I mention it was also the most profitable product we were selling? We priced it based on the value it gave the end customers not our costs.  Because of the high demand we used this product to gain share leveraging availability based on buyers giving us more of their base business our main competitors owned.

One of my largest accounts was a distributor in Iowa, who was later acquired by Ingram Entertainment. I had a great relationship with this account, its executive team and the buyer. The buyer helped me in the gathering of requirements for this new product design and in our market verification. I helped them use this innovative new product to land large video retailers and some targeted grocery accounts they always wanted. A real win-win relationship.

I was calling on the buyer and he said: “Mark, I am moving to a new division and I would like you to meet Frank (not his real name) he comes from purchasing in our electronic accessories business and has made quite a name for himself here …”

He walked me to Frank’s office and we were introduced. Frank was very rude with my past buyer, almost dismissing him. I sat down to start trying to understand his needs and goals and he quickly said: “what are you doing, I don’t meet with salespeople in my office , this is where I get work done, go find a conference room and we will meet there”

Huh?

“You heard me, I am a busy guy, I manage millions of dollars of inventory and its time someone whipped you and your company into shape. “

I connected with the executive assistant for all the buyers who had become a friend over the years and asked for an open meeting room. She said: I suppose it is for a meeting with Frank? Sorry you got him Mark he’s kind of a jerk but quite the climber around here” (and she rolled her eyes.)

Frank came in, sat at the head of the table as I guessed he would and started…

I understand we are your largest distributor in this space.

My guess is you use my volume to be competitive with many people in this market?

To increase the sales of your products we need to increase the advertising allowance and we will not be providing you proof of ads as we have been doing. I have done this for 5 years and I know what I am doing.

I see you have been winning more and more of our overall category purchase dollars? …That ends today.

The last buyer was way too easy on his vendors, …I am not.

Your prices are too high and must be reduced immediately and I expect an adjustment for the entire inventory we have on hand. Here’s a report of our current inventory. I need to see the credit transaction in the next 5 days.

As a salesperson you probably do not understand the business we are in and I would not expect you to. Just give me what I need and we will get along just fine. Make me look bad and I will make you pay.

I hear you have a hot innovative product called a Squeeze box? We need an exclusive on it and we will sell it to our competitors.

The rep for your competitor is a golf buddy of mine and his line of plastic boxes comes from a much bigger and more impressive company than your little Ohio company.

Who are your large video chains buying this now direct? That is going to end and you will send them through us too.

The Squeeze box is twice as expensive as the other boxes we buy from you. I weighed it and it’s actually lighter than the other products you sell for ½ the price…you need to drop our price at least 30% immediately. I will not be a push over buyer like my predecessor (your buddy) .

I understand you have independent sales reps calling on all my locations? That stops today and I want their compensation paid back to us as a 5% year-end rebate.

If you do not have to power or you are not smart enough to understand what I am asking for give me the owner of your companies’ name and office number….tell you what… just give me his name I can tell you do not understand strategy…

Well?

( my blood was boiling)

I shared how we have grown with his company based on service and training his salespeople how to sell our products. I personally trained his telemarketers every quarter and his field salespeople. I shared the issues we helped his company with like; on time delivery, just in time inventory, new products we developed for them, training his salespeople, helping his people close large accounts and so on.

I shared I heard each of his requests…and was about to answer them one by one….

“Oh, you think these were “requests” do you? ( he stood up and slammed his hands onto the conference table) No.., you will do what I told you to do or you and I will have a problem, or don’t you understand this?”

You are going to do this right? You want our business right?

 

No!!! (I stood up nose to nose with him and I lost my temper).

How I was feeling inside was like I was in another street fight with a bully. I shared we do not do business this way, we value working with his company because they shared the same values and ethics as our company and I would like to speak with Earl, his boss now, who I have known for years, had dinner at his home,  so we can work this out.

 

Get the F@#ck out of here!… and don’t come back until you give me what I want,… if you call Earl …your sales here are over, do you understand?

 

As I left the meeting room I passed a number of people who obviously heard our heated exchange. I was angry, confused, surprised …and now worried how I will explain this to the president of our company.( dead man walking)

 

Why did this meeting go so bad?

Why did this new punk get to me so much?

 

Working with a coach later in my career , and receiving training and coaching I discovered my emotional triggers are:

 

  • Bully me

 

  • Bully someone who cannot defend themselves or are not there to defend themselves

 

  • Threaten me …fine no big deal, my family? My company? Or someone I care about…game on!

 

  • Treat me like I am stupid, inferior mentally

 

What Frank did in our first meeting was pretty much trigger all my emotional hot spots I was not aware I had at the time. This resulted in a reflex response of threatening him back by bringing the merchandise manager (his boss) into the equation. My voice became louder and my tone became attacking to mirror his. My face became red and the veins in my throat and forehead were enlarged. My physical size was much bigger than Frank so when he stood I stood nose to nose so to speak …all the things I did, I did not think about, they happened as a reflex like when the doctor taps your knee with the rubber hammer at a checkup.

 

I can vividly still remember this meeting as if it were yesterday.

 

Why?

 

Emotion!

 

I let the meeting get personal to me and I reacted with reflex and not strategy.

Frank made our company pay for about 6 months with significantly less orders.

Eventually Earl heard about how I was treated and intervened but Frank and I were never friends. He lasted about 2 more years and was let go. Who was the new buyer? My friend the administrative assistant who rolled her eyes when she booked the meeting room with Frank. She said I was one of the few “Factory Guys” who treated her with respect over the years and would appreciate me helping her be successful in her new role. As the years went by we grew to be a preferred vendor, and won almost all of their purchase dollars in our category.

Your salespeople will be in negotiations that build to red-faced moments.

Are they prepared?

The great news is Emotional Intelligence can be a learned skill and this book : Sales EQ, How ultra-high performers leverage sales-specific emotional intelligence to close the complex deal by Jeb Blount will help sales leaders and salespeople understand and leverage Emotional Intelligence.

Salespeople who are trained in Emotional Intelligence sell more at higher profits.

Leaders with high Emotional intelligence drive stronger team performance and are more resilient team members as the US Army found in their studies.

I highly recommend everyone add this book to your business libraries and apply the author’s practical advice.

Are your salespeople emotionally intelligent?

Are you losing sales you could have won with Emotional Intelligence training?

Is there a reason you might not want your salespeople trained in EQ?

As the number of competitors grows and buyers push to commoditize products and service, how your team sells can be your market differentiation.

Buyers today are hungry for authentic knowledgeable salespeople who have a strong EQ so working together you can work through those red-faced moments in negotiations.

I just met with an interviewed a senior level purchasing director with over 35 years of experience on the other side of the desk in a sale. In my next few posts I will share the strategies he teaches buyers to use to disrupt salespeople’s emotions to win lower prices, better service and a number of free services that companies typically charge for.

 

 

 

 

 

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