Selling Power Blog

Sales and Golf

Today's blog post is by Steven Comfort, VP of business development at Radius Intelligence Inc. His golf handicap is 2.

Most of us have heard the adage, “The big deals get done on the golf course” (or sometimes, “on the 19^th hole”). A lot of selling happens on golf courses, but the sport teaches its players many of the qualities that are shared by the best salespeople. Here are a few of them.

It’s Just You

Because the golf ball doesn’t move before it’s struck, whatever happens to it is your doing. Your opponents are on the same course playing in the same weather conditions.  

In sales, your opponents want the same deal as you do, and the economic conditions (weather) apply to all. It’s up to the salesperson to decide on a strategy (club choice, shot direction, mechanics) and execute it.

If you chose the wrong clubs (company or product) or executed poorly, there’s only you to blame. Conversely, when you do well, success is overwhelmingly because of your individual effort.

There’s Always a Better Player

Soon after establishing a playing index in golf, you’ll want to lower it.  Despite your initial improvement, you’re forced to face the fact that you have a lot of skills to work on if you want to keep making progress and lowering your index. There’s always another shot to learn or improve on – and golf is a lifetime sport.

Salespeople typically have some natural strengths (presenting to large groups or prospecting, for instance) and other areas that they’d be well served to try to improve (perhaps writing, active listening, or entertaining). There’s always another trick to learn from your fellow salespeople, but you’ll never know it all, just like no golfer can master all the shots.

You Have to Be Able to Scramble

Good golfers can hit good shots in good conditions. Great golfers can hit passable shots in horrible conditions. Golf games are honed on the practice range, where the ball’s lie is always favorable and conditions are consistent. Scoring in match play depends largely on the golfer’s ability to scramble – to come up with a decent shot when the conditions are conspiring against him or her (for instance when a tree branch is blocking your path to the pin, or when your ball is stuck deep in a sand trap, aka “a fried-egg”). These are the scramble shots that are rarely, if ever, practiced.

In sales, the call rarely goes just the way we anticipate, and of course, sometimes things really go awry. Keeping your head about you when things get wacky is the key to escaping a disastrous call with a chance to win the sale. The best salespeople can scramble on a call and almost take a perverse pleasure in dealing with unforeseen obstacles (e.g., facing strong objections).

The Truth Comes Out in Time

There’s a saying that states if you really want to know about people, play a round of golf with them. Within the course of a round, you’ll be able to watch how a player competes, interprets the rules of the game, socializes, and performs. By the end of 18 holes and about four hours of play, you’re going to have a general sense of the person’s character: Does this person cheat? Is he or she loosey-goosey with the rules, gracious, calm under pressure, fun to be around?

In sales, the truth about you also comes out in time: Do you make good on your promises? Are you strategic, consultative, relevant, fun to be around?

There’s no faking in golf or in sales; the truth always comes out. But because these are both lifetime sports, you can always hit the range and the putting green to work on your game.

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What's Ahead for Sales Organizations in 2013?

How clearly do you see the road ahead? When we are driving down the highway, we notice that, the faster we go, the more the view begins to blur – yet the dashboard is clear and bright. This also applies to sales leaders. While the speed of change accelerates, many sales leaders become confused by the rapid shifts in buying behaviors. While some customers act as if they’re in a boom cycle, other customers react and prepare for tougher times in the road ahead.

As we plan for 2013, salespeople demand more clarity of vision from their sales leaders. An overarching vision has three elements:

1. A guiding vision. It begins with an accurate appraisal of the present. Salespeople want to know the answer to these questions: Where are we now? What are our strengths? What makes us vulnerable? What threats are we facing?

2. A guiding fiction. Nobody can predict the future, but effective leaders have an uncanny ability to direct followers to imagine and find the best opportunities in the market. Uncertain times demand leaders who can stimulate the imagination so that their followers can clearly focus on winning more business month after month. The best leaders are merchants of hope.

3. A guiding process. Salespeople need a continuously improved and accelerated process for everything from generating leads to closing the sale. Successful sales leaders need to constantly realign people, process, and technology. 

In many companies, there are as many sales processes as there are salespeople. World-class sales organizations follow a process that’s based on A) the know-how of their best salespeople and B) how customers want to buy. Many sales leaders believe that their well-thought-out sales process reflects the customer’s journey.

While the economy continues to challenge, confuse, and surprise decision makers, effective sales leaders ignore the noise on the sidelines and get busy improving sales productivity across the organization. According to a survey performed by the SalesOpShop, sales leaders’ top two priorities for 2013 are 1) topline growth and 2) improved sales process. To achieve these goals, sales leaders need to become more innovative when aligning people, process, and technology. The challenge in most organizations is that people are often too slow, processes are often too old, and technology is often too complex. To meet that challenge, we need to invest 60 percent of our effort in helping people change, 30 percent in improving our processes, and 10 percent on implementing simpler and better technology. The key to winning in 2013 depends on expanding the innovative capabilities of the organization.

Albert Einstein once said that imagination is more important than knowledge, because knowledge tells us what was, whereas imagination tells what will be. What will be in 2013 depends on adaptive and creative sales leaders, who drive people’s capacity to change and lead them to execute on a customer-focused process that’s accelerated by the best technology available. Your success will also hinge on what you believe you can achieve. 

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Planning for 2013: Six Fatal Mistakes to Avoid

Today's blog post is by Ron Snyder, President of Plan 2 Win Software, which provides apps that enable salespeople to create and manage territory and account plans in their Salesforce.com environment to dramatically improve sales results.

 

As you prepare for success in 2013, here are six common planning mistakes to avoid to ensure you achieve your goals. Those sales managers engaged in complex, value-based selling should be especially vigilant to avoid these fatal mistakes. You need a plan to win!

1.    Not Having a Plan

Many salespeople feel that they don't need a plan, that they understand their market and how to sell to their customers; however, in a complex selling environment, there is so much to consider and keep track of that a plan is essential to success. Otherwise, the salesperson is strictly in reactive mode and is going to miss opportunities and spend more time on opportunities that will be unproductive.

2.    Not Analyzing Your Target Market

Simply working through a list of target accounts, opportunities, and contact information is not sufficient to achieve sales goals in proactive, value-based selling. Analyzing your target market and customer profiles will determine the best sales approach. Without this analysis, the sales rep is likely to pursue accounts in a very opportunistic fashion, often creating the selling proposition on the fly. This leads to a very inconsistent approach and results. Your team must have clear criteria about the target prospects, their needs, and your value proposition. They must prioritize accounts and opportunities so they spend their time and limited resources wisely.

3.    Not Connecting Strategy to Action

Territory and account plans must be based on the trends in the industry, geography, and/or vertical market. From here, strategies are generated to optimize results and form the framework for the action plan. Each strategy must be linked to a set of tactics and actions that will yield the results you intended. This must include plans for each critical sales call (i.e., call objectives, participants, and their roles; issues to be prepared to address; and the intended next step), focusing on letting sales actions drive the strategy.

4.    Not Responding to Change

Every plan must be a living document, enabling the salesperson to adjust to changes in the environment. In order to do this, the plan must live in your CRM and be readily available to use and fine-tune as needed. To support this, there should be reports and dashboards that highlight progress on critical success factors and regular plan reviews that provide input from sales management and others on the team.

5.    Not Using All Available Resources

In today's selling environment, one person cannot know everything that is going on in any account or territory. Effective and efficient use of all resources and tools will enable the sales team to compete and win. Confirm that your sales reps know what resources are available and how to use them most effectively in each stage of the sales cycle. These resources include extended team members, (i.e., from technical, marketing, and support) and partners. Using the most effective sales collateral available without having to create it from scratch will provide more selling time. Finally, there should be a coordinated effort to leverage references across the organization.

6.    Not Making It Easy

It is important that the manager make it as easy as possible for the sales team to create and implement the plan. Provide training to make certain the team understands the key ingredients of a successful plan and is capable of creating one. Using a readily available template (i.e., a template that exists in your CRM system) can guide and shape the thinking that goes into creating an effective plan. Finally, there must be coaching, especially in the initial phases, to help people as soon as they get stuck.

Salespeople must see how planning improves their results. The manager must socialize how specific plans have contributed to sales results, having successful sales reps share their experiences with the team. This is critical to ensure that the planning process is adopted by the team.

Creating an environment in which salespeople generate plans that are consistently implemented and produce desired results is one of the key jobs of management.  Avoid the mistakes listed here and win in 2013.

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Using Technology to Sell

Today's blog post is by Jonathan London, author of Using Technology to Sell: Tactics to Ratchet Up Results and the founder of Improved Performance Group (IPG).

 

Technology and data are exploding in every facet of our lives to the point that we can feel overwhelmed or confused by all of our options. What does this explosion mean to the world of sales?

The Internet; computing power; faster and more available bandwidth; mobile devices and their apps; higher-resolution screens and cameras; more sophisticated hardware, software, and imagery; voice recognition; GPS; and more all provide greater capability than ever before to help people sell and prospects to make decisions.

Technology advancements also allow companies to expand their markets or sell in numerous ways that they had never been able to before. And keeping up with technology and knowing which to use where, how, and when is a challenge for businesses of all types in all industries.

Because information and analytical tools are so widely available, more logical and informed purchasing decisions can be made. More prospects than ever before are using data, metrics, and measurements as part of the decision-making process.

A recent study by Forrester Research established that people who are making business decisions rely on their own research and input from people they know rather than from vendors. This is having a dramatic impact on people’s buying behavior, since they are much better informed; therefore, the best salesperson needs to emphasize different insight, such as deep knowledge of a client’s industry and the most productive applications of his or her solution, rather than just spew generic benefits or regurgitate reams of data. The terms “subject matter expert” and “trusted advisor” reflect an ability to share such insight.

Because prospects are better informed, they have a better filter to decide if what you are saying is valid, valuable, and true. People no longer have to rely on brochures or proposals.

Perhaps the best example of this phenomenon is buying a car today. You can go online and find out exactly how much a dealer has paid for the car you want to buy and what incentives the manufacturer is providing. You can therefore go into a car dealership knowing the exact costs to the dealer. That puts buyers in a much better position to negotiate and choose from whom they want to buy. (One adaptation: many dealers now sell more used cars because this information is not as available, and they can charge more for them.)

What does all this mean for you, the salesperson? Two things to consider:

1. You need to be ahead of the curve in using technology to your advantage.
2. You need to understand people, i.e., your target demographic and how they buy using the Web, which methods they prefer (visual, text, PDF, graphics), what they need to know (the content itself), and when in the sales process they want information to make a decision in your favor.

The ubiquity of technology and information is a double-edged sword. On one hand, the sheer volume of information can make selling more difficult. It can become unwieldy, confusing, and overwhelming to you and your prospects, thus hurting your sales efforts. If you know how to control and use it, however, know which bits of information are important and which are a distraction, you are in an enviable position to sell more. How you best engage with technology and information and use it to your advantage to get the optimal return is addressed thoroughly in my book. As you’ll learn, salespeople need to become master craftsmen, better able than their competitors to use the tools they have. This has always been true but is more so now than ever.

Used properly, technology allows you to expand your skills and markets, get greater exposure, and create more sales opportunities.

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A New Sales-Intelligence Tool to Sell More and Sell Better

Paris, France: At 6:00 a.m. today, Marc and Nicolas at IKO System pushed a button to launch their new sales application online. Two years after the initial release of their sales intelligence solution and after massive changes in the selling world, which has become increasingly social and mobile, it’s time to create more “wow” and value for the user.

This innovative French company, which is competing head-to-head with Silicon Valley cloud apps, is driven by the simple ambition to change the way sales reps capture prospects and close deals.

The IKO System app connects CRM solutions with social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter).

The basic concept is simple: IKO analyzes all the connections between a company’s prospects, clients, and competitors to generate sales-trigger events.

The solution not only helps users find prospects using social referrals, but it also maps the best connections to each target account. What’s best is that users can pool their networks between all team members so that each person can gain access to many decision makers through instant referrals.

The application offers another key feature for greater insight throughout the sales cycle: as salespeople follow their contacts and accounts in their CRM system, they get instant access to current business news, job changes, and newly hired executives.

IKO founder and CEO Marc Rouvier told Selling Power, “Salespeople have a dual challenge: on one hand, there is a growing amount of CRM data decay; close to thirty percent of B2B contacts change jobs every year. On the other hand, there are fresh profiles and relationship data on LinkedIn, but sales reps don’t have the time to harvest the data from social networks.

“Recent studies show that more than eighty percent of decision makers accept meetings only through referrals, and relationship and trust come back as the key factors in selling. We needed a sales-intelligence software to collect and map the relationship information and deliver business insight to the sales reps. This didn’t exist, so we built it.”

As of today, IKO System has been adopted by some big players (McAfee, Oracle, SAP, Red Hat, and CBRE), but also SMBs and start-up companies.

Marc noted that in a socially networked world, sales success depends on making the right connections and having the right conversations. IKO System is a sales rep’s best friend when it comes to making the best connections and a sales rep’s smartest friend when it comes to having the best conversation with the right prospect at the right time.

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A Fresh Look at the Elevator Speech Concept: You Don't Have to Score on Every Play, Just Advance the Ball (a Sneak Peek inside Small Message, Big Impact)

Today's blog post is by Terri Sjodin, principal and founder of Sjodin Communications. In her newly updated book, Small Message, Big Impact, Terri Sjodin offers her time-tested strategies for crafting clear, concise, compelling presentations. She includes outlines, worksheets, a sample elevator speech, evaluation forms, and more.

 

You're in the airport waiting for a flight, burning time by checking your BlackBerry or iPhone and reading the paper. You just want to get home. Then you catch a glimpse of the CEO you've been wanting to meet with for weeks. He's standing against the wall, also waiting for his flight – your flight! Hmmm, wouldn't it be great if you were seated next to him? Should you walk over? What would you say? You don't want to be intrusive, but gosh, it's a great opportunity to talk with him and introduce yourself. There's no secretary to screen you out. All you have to do is walk over and hand him your card.

Your pulse quickens and your mind races. "What will I say?" you ask yourself. You decide he doesn't want to be bugged. "I'll leave him alone." Then, over the loudspeaker, you hear that first-class passengers are invited to board the plane. He is gone, and so is your shot.

Bummer.

We've all been there. A new opportunity presents itself. You might have only one chance to share your message. You feel the pressure. The clock is ticking...

Will you be ready, or will you just wing it? When you make the most of that unique opportunity or meeting, your path could change forever. In this age of information overload, no business skill is more essential than being able to communicate well, get to the point, and connect with others quickly.

Enter the elevator speech effect...

Do you have an effective elevator speech? Do you need one or even want one? In today's competitive market, the answer is yes. Note: Don't think of an elevator speech as just a generic tool that you use in chance moments. Consider it a strategy to manage multiple talking points, as well.

How do you get started?  

To reach any goal or complete any task, you must first define your intention. What do we mean by "intention"? The American Heritage Dictionary defines intention as "a course of action that one intends to follow; an aim that guides action; an objective."

So what is the desired result of your elevator speech or brief message? It's not to close the deal; it's to start a conversation.

I recently shared this idea with one of my dearest friends, Brad McMillen, who is a former state championship quarterback turned Internet sales executive. He offered this analogy:

"When you mentioned your concept of the three-minute elevator speech and intention, the word 'intention' reminded me of when I was playing football. Our intention was to score eventually. As quarterback, I would go to the line, ready to throw a pass. I had a system of reads, depending on the defense. The first option was to throw long. If that was covered, as I dropped back to throw, I looked at my secondary option. If he was covered, I threw to my third option. If he was covered, I just threw the ball away or ran for my life.

"In the end, I kept the same overall intention – to score points with my team. This progression is called 'checking down,' and it's what quarterbacks do. They check down but always with the ultimate goal of getting to the end zone. The point is, you don't have to score on every play, just advance the ball."

Similarly, the point of the three-minute elevator speech is not to close the deal. Its goal is to advance you to the next point in your sales process.

It's beneficial to keep your intention in mind at all times, not solely when you have a presentation on the horizon. When you strike up a conversation with someone you don't know, that person doesn't have to be a designated target. Simply keep your message out there, sharing it with people who know other people. Your message is important, and you have to let it be heard. Believe in it, share it, and practice communicating it with clear, concise talking points that help you move toward your intention, and it becomes a natural part of your communication.

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Seven Things to Change TODAY If You Want to Make Your Number in 2013

Today's guest post is by Dan Perry, a principal at Sales Benchmark Index. 

 

 

 

 Sales forces today face a huge challenge: The buyer has been permanently changed. Expectations have been elevated. Decisions have been forever altered. Your world has changed – forever.

Our firm, Sales Benchmark Index, conducted extensive research this last year during our 6^th Annual Sales Benchmarking Study.  Analyzing more than 12,000 buyers, 10,000 sales reps, and 4,500 sales managers, and benchmarking 1,100 sales metrics, we have found seven major things your peers are doing differently this year. These are seven major ways your peers are allocating people, time, and money to make the 2013 number – seven things you should be doing now to keep the revolutionary pace and hit the number. Here's a preview of the new research:

More than 55 percent of a customer's buying process has already been determined by the time your sales rep engages (source: Sales Executive Council). Problems have been determined, needs identified, and options chosen before the sales rep walks in the door. To net it out, standard sales methods are in trouble. Sales reps bore buyers to death with "discovery" meetings, which are held because that is what they've been trained to do. Let's face reality: Buyers are educating themselves in a self-directed way. What should you do?

Here are 7 things you need to do today to make the number in 2013:

1. Realize that buyer behavior has changed forever. You need a customized sales process mapped to the way your buyers purchase. Identifying where they are in the process is critical to hit the 2013 number.
2. Lead generation will determine your future. Does anyone answer his or her office phone anymore? Buyers now investigate you long before you know it. The key is to get enriched content into demand generation so that when prospects look, they like what they see, which stimulates interest in you and your products.
3. Talent management and the quest for the "A" player have never been greater. Talent is always at a premium. But how many of you have had your number raised without adding any sales reps? You need better talent to make the number in 2013.
4. Time management needs improvement. Customer-facing time is at a premium, yet only 42 percent of a sales rep's time is spent with customers. Improve by 10 percent (on average, that's only four hours per week), and you could sell 8 to 10 more deals a year. Do the math: Increase your sales reps' selling time and win more deals; you need them to hit the number next year.
5. Compensation mix has changed. It's all about the variable next year. As the variable component goes up, quota attainment should increase. We have noticed a significant change from 2012. Variable now makes up more than 50 percent of compensation plans.
6. New product launches come with additional quota, but not much else. Is the new product going to save the day? Not if your sales force can't sell it. World-class sales forces are spending time ensuring that their reps can sell the new product. Sales enablement is a top priority for companies releasing new products in 2013.
7. Inside sales is growing exponentially. What you had to sell face-to-face during the last decade now can be sold virtually. Why? One word: Internet. This lower-cost resource can increase revenue (and margin) and directly impact the 2013 number.

Research shows you are worried about 2013. CEOs indicate that they will increase investment in their sales teams in search of top-line revenue. Head-count budgets are expected to increase, demand generation spend is forecasted to double, sales training efforts are on the rise, and OTE for sales reps is expected to increase. Are you keeping pace with your peers?

Educate yourself in this year's Make the Number Tour. Start thinking in a new way; it will increase your chances of making the number in 2013. It will be here before you know it.

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How Do You Get the Prospect's Direct Line?

Today's blog post is by Steve Richard, co-founder of Vorsight, an award winning sales training firm focused on prospecting, qualification, and discovery.

Sell more by calling the prospect's direct line. Here is how.

At Vorsight, we call on directors, VPs, and C-level execs at large organizations. We tracked six of our associates over three months on two key areas: percent of direct lines on their call list and number of appointments completed that month.  Though I’m no statistician, I do know a straight line when I see it.  

Associate	Average Meetings Per Month	% Direct Lines on Contact List
Pete Best	11	51%
Ringo Starr	13	45%
George Harrison	20	76%
Paul McCartney	22	74%
John Lennon	29	87%
George Martin	33	97.6%

The moral of the story: You can triple the effectiveness of your outbound-calling effort (or lead-qualification effort) if you double the number of direct lines on your calling list. 

Why is this so?  There are four reasons why you get more people on the phone with direct lines:

1. Caller ID looks different. If you are a heavily solicited exec, would you pick up a call that shows as coming through the switchboard or reception?  Not a chance.
2. Sometimes the dial-by-name directories are turned off after hours. That’s precisely when you have a better chance of catching execs.
3. You avoid call routing. You can always bypass the switchboard and sometimes even bypass the assistant.
4. You can make more calls quicker. When you hit that magic window of 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and you want to crank out a lot of calls (on a tool like the Insidesales.com Power Dialer), the last thing you want to do is fumble around with dial-by-name directories.  

How to Get Direct Lines

Though I'm not willing to reveal all our secrets (you have to see one of our sales prospecting training workshops to learn it all), I will offer three primary places to get direct lines:

1.  Sales intelligence tools – There are tons of paid sources for direct-dial phone numbers, with varying degrees of accuracy.  If you sell into IT departments, you need to have a look at DiscoverOrg,which boasts 94 percent direct lines for contacts in its database, and RainKing,  which offers a bunch of direct lines, as well as deep intelligence on IT execs, projects, and systems used.

Not selling into IT?  Check out InsideView, which offers a bevy of direct lines, as well as aggregated information on the company and contact, pulled in from all over the web.  Vorsight is a big user of InsideView's sales intelligence tool for doing 3x3 Research prior to calling.  ZoomInfois an interesting data source based on Web crawlers that constantly refresh the data.  In the same vein is NetProspex, which also uses human beings to verify each record (novel concept, right?).  Finally, data.com (formerly Jigsaw, but now owned by salesforce.com) is another source of names and direct lines. 

These data sources are all great, but they get you only to first base in the quest for direct lines.  To up your percentage, you need to call into the target account.

2.  Calls into the account – If you close your eyes and think of an executive assistant, does an image of a big, burly bouncer at a nightclub pop into your mind?  For every professional gatekeeper, there are 100x more people who have access to the same directory and have not been trained in the ways of the gatekeeper.  As a salesperson, you need to be savvy enough to find these people and ask them for the info in just the right way to get it. Try calling into some of the following places and probing for direct lines:

• Switchboard operators at different locations or different countries
• Floor receptionists or admins that don't directly serve the executive but still sit near the executive
• The IT help desk
• Sales and customer service lines
• Random employees who really don't care
• The mail room

Calls into admin and support people at a target account are the surefire way to get accurate direct lines.

3.  Voicemail systems – If you have been in sales for any period of time, you likely have heard, "Your call is being answered by Audix."  Next time you get into someone"s voicemail and hear that, punch in **6.  It will say, "Enter last name followed by pound sign."  You key in R-I-C-H-A-R-D-# and, voilà, you hear, "Steve Richard, extension 4237."  Many voicemail systems have codes that take you to an automated directory that spit out direct extension numbers.  You then need to determine the area code and middle three digits – called the exchange – in order to put together that magic, 10-digit direct line.  Vorsight has identified eight voicemail systems with corresponding codes. 

Though getting direct lines can be a bit of effort up front, the time is paid back in spades with the increases in quality conversations you have directly with executives.

I'll offer this little story:  Vorsight does custom, on-site sales training workshops for clients.  Rather than center on PowerPoint presentations, our workshops center on live calling into target accounts.  We prove that our techniques work, instead of just talk about it. 

ABC ERP asked us for a prospecting workshop in 2010.  One of the reps challenged us to get the CFO of a $200m manufacturing firm to book a meeting.  She told us that there was absolutely no way we were going to get him.  She had been trying for more than two years, with no luck.  We pulled up the contact record in her company's CRM system: no direct line to the CFO, only a switchboard number.  We then called the IT help desk and got the direct line.  We prepared for the call by doing our 3x3 Research to customize the talking points to this CFO at this company.  Turns out, the CFO used to work at a company that was a big user of ABC ERP's software – a great conversation starter.  We dialed. One ring, and that CFO picked up.  All we had to do was say the name of the client, "Hi, this is Steve Richard from ABC ERP," and the CFO said, "I'm glad you called.  I'm talking to Oracle and SAP right now and have been looking for a third option." 

We landed a meeting that turned into a seven-figure opportunity for ABC ERP.  The sales rep was stunned.  We accomplished in two phone calls what she couldn’t in 100 or more over two years.  All it took was one direct line.       

Try out these ideas and have fun with them.   

 

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Social Proximity

Today's blog post is by Al Campa, CEO of Reachable. He is responsible for the strategic and operational leadership of the company. 

With all the changes in business, one thing remains the same: business is about people. Despite globalization, technology revolutions, social networks, and razor-thin competitive margins, business is still about people working with people. People who can’t connect effectively with others rarely do well in business.

Consider sales, for instance. We buy things from people we have positive relationship with, people we like and trust. And if those relationships stay positive, we keep buying from them over many years. So one would assume that when companies assign sales territories and determine which sales reps will sell to which accounts, they would consider the strength of social relationships in their assignments.

In reality, however, most sales territories are determined by geographic boundaries and physical proximity. Sales reps are assigned to nearby zip codes or area codes, or they are assigned by state boundaries where they live. Yeah, who cares about whether they have good connections, solid relationships, and reliable networks? If the zip code matches, well, anyone can see that’s what’s important, right?

Yet in the age of conference calls, WebEx presentations, and Skype, social proximity becomes a far more important tie to an account or prospect than geographic proximity.

To make the best use of this social proximity, Reachable has created an online solution that helps businesspeople leverage their personal contacts and the contacts of others in their organization, to broaden their professional network and reach people they need to know – people to people, rather than area code to area code. Our research shows that having an existing relationship with an account or prospect makes the likelihood that you’ll be able to engage that prospect or account three to four times higher.

At Reachable, we believe that social connections and relationships are solid gold for a sales organization and should be leveraged as much as possible. We make it possible for a company to leverage and manage the connections of all its employees, as well as its customers and partners. And we integrate these connections into the sales process. Assigning leads and accounts by social proximity, rather than geographic proximity, will increase account engagement and account knowledge and increase close rates.

Social Selling

Reachable offers a number of capabilities that make leveraging social selling easier for reps who have contacts spread all over the map. Considering that reps probably have contacts in one or more email address books, social networks, databases, etc., Reachable brings together these contacts so reps don’t have to check different places to see if they have a connection with a lead or within a target account. Once a user has imported his or her contacts, Reachable scours all contacts to find potential connections.

In addition, being able to leverage the networks of others can extend one’s reach dramatically. Reachable’s ShareGroup feature lets salespeople leverage the contacts of trusted associates on their sales or executive teams. Users opt-in to be a part of a ShareGroup and are able to leverage one another’s network as if they were their own. Contact information (email, phone numbers) are not shared but can be requested from the contact owner. This lets users take full advantage of the collective network within their company while maintaining contact privacy.

Many salespeople spend much of their day working within their CRM system.  Reachable is tightly integrated with such popular CRM systems as Salesforce, so salespeople never have to leave their CRM app to take advantage of Reachable. Within CRM systems, Reachable uses proprietary algorithms to automatically rank leads, contacts, and opportunities by the strength of a user’s relationship to them.

Sales Insight

Salespeople now have much more information at their fingertips than they had even a few years ago. Company information is available via Hoover’s, Thompson Reuters, or Google. Information about people is available via LinkedIn. Facebook and Twitter provide social information. But in spite of this deluge of new information, close rates may not be improving. Cycle times are not decreasing. Sales teams are not getting more productive, because critical insight, rather than background information, is the key to engaging prospects and closing sales.

Insight is a window into company goals, key business problems, and the critical initiatives a company is launching to achieve its goals, as well as the key people internally who are assigned to make it all happen. The insight on a company’s business problem can come from only a trusted internal source, not Twitter. If you don’t have relationships in an account, you are never going to find out what its key initiatives are and how you can help solve them. It’s all about the people you need to reach, the information you need to have at your fingertips, and the ability to engage with those key people to help solve the problems they deem critical.

These are just a few of the Reachable capabilities that can help salespeople become more people-to-people effective. To find out more about the Reachable solution, go to www.reachable.com.

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The Art of Exceptional Conversations

Robert King is a conversation coach, keynote speaker, and author of Are You An Exceptional Salesperson? (Exceptional Publishing, 2006). If you would like to learn how to turn your important presentations into seamless conversations, visit www.BetterPresentationsBlog.com.

You've heard people say, "Ditch the pitch."  What is your reaction to that statement?  Do you consider it blasphemous or treasonous?  Does it insult your sales sensibilities?  Is it possible that presentations have become passé? 

So that we're all speaking the same sales language, let's clearly define our terms:  a "pitch" or "presentation" is when you, the salesperson or company representative, stand in front of an audience of four or more in a conference room, town hall, or general session or sit across a table or desk speaking to one, two, or three.  Usually this act involves you speaking, often uninterrupted, and sometimes either using visual aids or slides projected on a screen.

But if your prospects/customers are no longer interested in seeing your pitch or presentation, in what are they interested?  Could it be as simple as wanting to have a conversation, a platform where they can express both their frustrations and dreams and feel like they are being heard and understood by a third-party resource who may be able to help them achieve their goals? Yes! Conversations are the answer. Conversations are the future.  Consultative selling was the last decade.  This decade, salespeople, is all about conversations.

As your conversation coach, allow me to provide five ways to turn your presentations into conversations:

1. Be interactive.  The very word "presentation" sounds like a performance.  Make sure that your conversation is a dialogue and not a monologue.  Monologues were great for Hamlet, but Hamlet wasn't carrying a bag.  Hamlet didn't have a quota. Banter. Discuss. Engage. 
2. Listen. It's harder to listen when you're the only one talking. Side note: We salespeople/sales managers/sales trainers can learn an awful lot from our friends the actors.  The best actors are the best listeners.  They are in the moment.  They are not thinking ahead.  They are listening and watching intently, responding accordingly to every stimulus.  In a conversation, we are jointly participating with our prospect/customer to reach a desired solution for both. 
3. Be generous.  "Presentations" have primarily become all about the speaker's product, services, or company and much less about the customer's wants, needs, or desires.  Consultative selling was supposed to solve all this.  But that process is still front-loaded.  Don't consult, converse.  Plus, change your paradigm to see the world through the customer's experience, not through your desperation to win the business.  Conversations are audience-centric, customer-centric, and your-company-centric.
4. Question. Interrogation vs. conversation. We know that you know to ask questions.  We know that you understand, teach, and have implemented the tactic.  Now, through the prism of conversations, we ask you to employ a strategy, an innate strategy that you have practiced since preschool.  Don't stop asking questions, just do so in a less caustic and obvious way.  Less selling, please.  More conversations. 
5. Close naturally.  Examine the conversations you have with your friends and colleagues on a daily basis.  How do they end?  Is it fair to say that action steps are clear for everyone involved?  "We're going to meet at the movies at seven o'clock."  "Don't forget to close the garage."  "All expenses are due by the end of the day."  Action is a natural conversation progression.  Please do not think that if you're having conversations that nothing will happen and you will not close.  You will close, but it will happen organically and won't feel forced or pressurized.  The close to a conversation is the easiest way to gain commitment to the next right step, whatever that may be.

If we are going to ditch the pitch, then let us all adopt a more palatable measure – conversations – and serve our audiences in a way that is unique, extraordinary, differentiating…in a word – exceptional.

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