Selling Power Blog

Facts Every Sales Manager Should Know about Motivation

Today's blog post is by Christopher Cabrera, CEO of Xactly Corporation, the industry leader in sales compensation automation.

 

Xactly just wrapped up our third annual CompCloud user conference in San Francisco last week. It was great to spend a few days listening to our customers and sharing our plans for the next year or so.

We were pleased to go into more depth with them about our new products and services, including Xactly Insights, which I wrote about in March. We’ve analyzed eight years’ worth of anonymized customer data from hundreds of companies to establish benchmarks and best practices in incentive compensation and motivation.

Our principal compensation strategist, Erik Charles, will detail some of our findings on Wed., May 22, at 10 a.m. Pacific time in a free joint webinar with Selling Power. He’ll discuss quota attainment, and what our data shows on issues including:

• Quota timing, and why short and long measurement periods can deliver different results
• What to look for when determining the true total cost of a sale
• How you can hurt performance by measuring too much

The benefits of having this “big data” analysis are very real. Michael DeLeonardis, our VP of Insights and Benchmarks, says that “companies that use data always get a better ROI.” Imagine, for example, if you had two similar territories with a $1 million difference in spend. A deeper look could pinpoint the cause and help you get expenses in line.

DeLeonardis says that when strategic business decisions are driven by data, he’s seen revenue increase by 10 percent, productivity by 30 percent, and margins by a significant amount.

One of the most powerful applications of our Insights data is that it can be used to drive behavior much more effectively than by simply making assumptions about how to improve sales results. Our data highlighted three factors that are widely assumed to drive behavior, but in fact seem to have a negligible effect:

• Holds and releases: Sales reps commonly aren’t paid their commission when they make a sale; they’re paid at a later date because the company wants some secondary behavior, such as invoicing or collection. Some companies use holds to influence sales behavior as well, but our data found no evidence that that’s the case.
• Plan components: Some customers have designed compensation plans with 10–15 measures. Our data validates the industry belief that two or three measures are ideal, and that performance drops at five.
• Credit assignment: Examples in which many people were credited on deals also showed no improvement in sales behavior.

On the other hand, some that drive behavior effectively:

• Quota timing: Shorter, more frequent periods can improve performance. A higher percentage of reps meet quota when they have monthly or year-to-date quotas than if they’re measured quarterly or annually. The exception is for products with very long sales cycles, when it’s not realistic to shorten the time.
• Pay mix: The mix between base salary and variable pay does have a correlation to performance. The ideal mix varies by sales role, industry, and other factors.
• Capping: The practice of setting a maximum amount that sales reps can earn, regardless of their performance, has a negative impact on sales behavior. Caps prevent reps from reaching their peak performance, and indirectly encourage them to relax after their quotas are met.

These are just some of the ways we’re using data to develop our Insights services. I hope you’ll join our webinar on Wednesday for more on how Big Data can help you incent your sales team to attain and exceed quota.

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What about That Myth That Selling Is Getting “Tougher”?

Talk to sales managers about their jobs, and chances are, you’ll hear four common “complaints” about how they perceive today’s selling climate:

1. Selling is tougher than it has ever been.

2. Selling is more competitive than it has ever been.

3. Selling is more complex than it has ever been.

4. Selling is more stressful and not as much fun as it used to be.

How true are these statements? That’s a trick question. Believe it or not, these four responses don’t always reflect the state of the economy. More often, they reflect the state of mind of the responder.

I know a group of successful sales executives who say, “Selling has become more exciting than it has ever been.” These are the top performers who make things happen. They think differently because they see things differently. They know that it takes only a small shift in perception to achieve a big shift in performance.

Managing perception is what good selling is all about. A great salesperson is able to offer the customer a new perspective on an old problem. That, in turn, leads to a shift in attitude, a shift in the customer’s decision-making process. And that leads to a shift in the salesperson’s performance curve.

Top performers seem to be more effective when it comes to managing the selling’s “inner game.” While average salespeople unconsciously allow their fears to grow, top performers consciously challenge themselves to outgrow their fears.

Top performers don’t wish for less complexity, they learn to master more complex challenges. Like mountain climbers, they know that they won’t get better by seeking out gentler slopes. They have to find new ways to master greater degrees of difficulty.

Great CEOs don’t complain about the tough competition. They revel in the challenges that confront them. They meet those challenges head-on and no holds barred. Top sales leaders don’t wish for easier customers, but they build a better process for hiring more “A” players and helping them develop greater skills.

While average sales achievers automatically think that selling is getting harder, top achievers habitually take a harder look at reality and discover new ways to make selling easier for them and more authentic and enjoyable for their customers. They relate to their customers without pretense, and they don’t wear masks that prevent people from knowing who they really are.

When there is a crisis with a customer, the top performers rely on their inner reserves to see the opportunity within the difficulty, and they use a crisis to develop a more rewarding relationship with the client. How do top performers stay calm in a crisis? They take a half a step back and tune into their zone of productive awareness.

Top performers know that we can’t change reality, but we can choose to change our perception of reality. While average achievers know this as a fact, top performers live by this fact. Top performers are always aware of the secret to high achievement: as soon as we change our perception, we change our performance.

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How Managers Can Go Beyond the Carrot and the Stick to Motivate Reps

Today's blog post is by Christopher Cabrera, CEO of Xactly Corporation, the industry leader in sales compensation automation.

 

Many sales leaders hope to drive performance by enticing their reps with one tempting financial incentive after another. And that makes a certain amount of sense: what salesperson wouldn’t work just a little bit harder to earn a nice bonus? Seems like a no-brainer.

In fact, the link between money and performance is more tenuous than you might expect. One expert whose work I like in this area is author and journalist Daniel Pink, who has written a number of books on shifting trends in the way we work. His book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us uses 50 years of behavioral science to overturn the conventional wisdom about human motivation. Based on his findings, he asserts that “when cash incentives are offered in this type of problem solving, it dulls the brain and blocks creativity.”

That’s not to say money isn’t a motivator at all. Of course it is. People who feel they’re underpaid aren’t likely to strive to do their best. But when they’re paid enough that money isn’t an issue, Pink says, it clears the way for them to focus on their work.

The carrot-and-stick approach to motivation fails to recognize the following key motivators for salespeople.

1. Autonomy

Autonomy is the desire to be self-directed, to have enough freedom to try something new every so often. Pink found that companies that wanted to spur innovation got better results when they gave employees freedom to do what they wanted rather than offered an innovation bonus.

One notable example of autonomy at work is Australian software company Atlassian’s “ShipIt Days” ­– hack-a-thons that give employees 24 hours to deliver a project of their choosing.

Sales leadership tip: In sales, autonomy might mean letting reps set open-ended goals after they’ve hit the company quota. Instead of capping commission, let sales reps achieve (and earn) as much as they want. Give reps the opportunity to prove their way into increased sales responsibilities.

2. Mastery

Mastery, of course, is simply the drive to get better at whatever it is you like to do, whether it’s playing a musical instrument, writing code, or selling widgets. Tap in to sales reps’ competitive nature. If you want them to master a particular skill, hold a contest or offer a SPIF.

Hand-in-hand with mastery comes the natural desire for recognition, which is too often overlooked. In a 2011 survey, Globoforce found that 69 percent of employees would work harder if they were recognized more.

Sales leadership tip: Mastery is easy enough to orchestrate for a sales team. Recognize accomplishments on public leaderboards, via email blasts or social/mobile technology, or at weekly team meetings.

3. Purpose

Purpose can be lofty, as in working to make the world a better place, or as down-to-earth as a salesperson’s wanting more from a job than just the next commission check. Sales leaders can lay out a career path that rewards reps for their successes, moving them from inbound to outbound calls, for example, or from SMBs to larger and larger firms.

Sales leadership tip: Successful salespeople might aspire to be seen as experts in their vertical or become coaches to less-experienced colleagues.

For more on motivating your sales team with more than just dollar signs, see my SlideShare presentation, “Insights on Motivation.”

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Remembering Zig Ziglar – America’s # 1 Motivator

This morning we learned that Zig Ziglar passed away at the age of 86.

Zig Ziglar has been a positive thinker and professional motivator for many decades. His electrifying speeches had a reputation for drawing standing ovations and leaving audiences spellbound. And he relished every single word of his famous punch line, “You can get everything in life you want if you help other people get what they want.”

During our first interview I realized that Zig Ziglar was more than a motivator. He was a person with a strong, well-established guiding philosophy, one that had enduring value for everyone. Ziglar was his own best success story. It began in Yazoo City, Mississippi. He was born one of twelve children. His father died when he was five, leaving his mother with five kids too young to work.

He became one of the most successful cookware salesmen of all time but quit knocking on doors when he recognized his ability to motivate others. Here is a transcript of my first interview with Zig that was originally published in Sept 1982.

Q: In one of your speeches you mentioned that negative thinking is as common as the cold. Did you find a cure for negative thinking?

Ziglar: If you feed your mind with positive thoughts, if you are selective about the things that you choose to read, look at, or listen to, then you are taking effective action against negative thinking.

Q: So you are saying that there is a direct link between negative thinking and negative input and that people can become more selective about the input?

Ziglar: Absolutely.

Q: What is your definition of success?

Ziglar: I believe that you're successful when you've dealt with the physical, the mental and the spiritual man successfully. If I made millions and destroyed my health in the process, or if I become the best at what I do but neglect my family, I wouldn't call that success.

Q: One of your claims is that your attitudes in life determine ultimately how successful you become.

Ziglar: Yes. Dr. William James said the most important discovery of our time is the realization that by altering our attitudes we can alter our lives. There is also a Harvard University study that points out that 85 percent of the reason people are hired or get ahead in their jobs is directly related to their attitudes.

Q: I once read a magazine article about motivational speakers that stated, "Speakers are superficial on the subject of motivation - like cheerleaders at a high school rally. Thin on content, heavy on performance." How do you respond to that?

Ziglar: I think they are right on the button. A lot of people do leave without any real meat. Excitement, yes, but nothing they can chew on the next day.

As you know, the Bible is my great source, because God's plan deals with this dilemma: He never makes a promise unless he gives you a plan. This translates into the principle that motivation without direction is very frustrating. You need to have a plan in addition to the motivation. Motivation without a goal doesn't get you anywhere. Personally, I never make a promise in a book, a speech or a recording unless I give a plan so my reader or listener can achieve the promise.

Q: What is your theory of self-motivation? How do you develop it?

Ziglar: When I build a fire in my fireplace, it will burn for a while. Then I notice that there are no flames. It has died down. I get up and take my poker and shake up those logs. All of a sudden, we've got bright flames. Now, all I did was just poke them, which created some motion. The motion creates a partial vacuum and new air is pulled into the fireplace. With an additional supply of oxygen, the fire ignites, and now we've got a flame. If I hadn't done some poking, there would have been no flame.

Now, this business about all motivation being self-motivation is only partially true. You can choose among many different sources to rekindle your motivation. In other words, the environment you select and the people you associate with become large contributing factors.

Q: Do positive input and the positive attitude need to be supplemented with a sound business plan and professional skills?

Ziglar: Absolutely. Positive thinking is an optimistic hope, not necessarily based on any facts. Positive believing is the same optimistic hope, but this time based on a sound reason. Here is an example. It would be positive thinking if I said I could whip George Foreman. It would be an idiotic action if I tried to do it.

Q: I've heard many sales managers express doubts about the lasting value of a motivational seminar.

Ziglar: They're absolutely right! Motivation is not permanent. Neither is bathing. But if you bathe every day, you're going to smell good. Fifteen minutes a day of motivation from a good audiocassette or a book can make a tremendous difference in your life and give you a motivational lift every day.

Q: You said once that life is simple but not easy, and that too many people are looking for quick and easy solutions.

Ziglar: Right. I firmly believe that the best work is often done by people who don't feel like doing it.

Q: Why do you recommend that salespeople listen to your books on tape 16 times to completely absorb the full message?

Ziglar: There are several university studies revealing that two weeks after you've learned anything new, unless it's reinforced, you only remember about 4 percent of it. That's the first reason. The second reason is that while we are listening we may experience a certain mood, and our minds will seek out messages that relate to that particular mood. On another day, let's say you just made a sale; you'll be in a different mood, and a whole new range of messages of the same recording will become clear in your mind. So by listening 16 times, the odds are that you will have absorbed the entire content.

Q: Let's say I've listened 16 times to your tapes on motivation. Do I know then how to motivate myself?

Ziglar: Yes.

Q: Do I master the skills sufficiently so that I become independent of your recordings?

Ziglar: Only if you've been practicing the things we've been advocating. It's like driving a car. You don't learn to drive a car by watching.

Q: Can I graduate in self-motivation, ever?

Ziglar: I don't think so, and I don't think I've graduated, because I constantly read and constantly study. I think you could draw an analogy with eating. You can't graduate in eating. You need to continue to make choices about your input. The same is true with self-motivation. You need to continue to make choices about what level of self-motivation you want to maintain.

Q: Many salespeople have a tough time in this economy. What thoughts can you offer to approach these tough challenges more positively?

Ziglar: A good friend of mine, Calvin Hunt in Victoria, Texas, said, "You know, Zig, it's an absolute fact that when we are in an economic slump, 50 percent of all salespeople literally slow down rather than speed up their efforts. They are not motivated to do something. They lose that enthusiasm.

"Now," he continued, "when that happens, it simply means that if business is down 20 percent, but 50 percent of the salespeople are not nearly as active, your own personal prospect list is considerably higher than if there was no recession."

Q: And the winners still keep winning.

Ziglar: Absolutely. It's their discipline, their commitment to maintain a high level of motivation and their sense of direction that gets them to the top.

Tomorrow: Zig’s Keys to Sales Success and his most memorable quotes

Using Emotional Intelligence to Close

Today's blog post is by Greg Ferrett, CEO of Exceptional Sales Performance, based in Melbourne, Australia, and author of Selling to the Seven Emotional Buying Styles: Make Every Sales Call Pay by Selling to Emotional Need.

 

Closing techniques were drilled into me since my first day in sales, and I loved trying out new ones. I have a unique collection of closing techniques that were taught as far back as the Vikings’ 13^th century, as well as “snake oil” techniques from the 1800s’ mid-West and today.

When I ask salespeople about their favorite or most successful closing technique, the most common response I get is, “It depends.” I would have thought with hundreds of years of development the better techniques would become favorites.

When a person is about to make a decision, according to modern scientific research, the part of the brain where emotions come from is awash with chemicals – and the more complex the decision or higher impact it has, the more chemicals the brain produces. These chemicals are the drivers of emotion, and what science is telling us is, as a decision point approaches, the emotional chemicals in the client’s brain are making the decision. Wouldn’t it be nice to know which closing techniques trigger the release of these chemicals?

It turns out there are seven emotional genes, and for each there is one dominant emotional driver as well as “green” and “red” emotional buttons.

Emotional Buying Style	Dominant Emotional Driver
The Normal	For social acceptance
The Hustler	For material success
The Mover	To communicate
The Double Checker	For security
The Artist	To be creative
The Politician	To win
The Engineer	To complete projects
* Download the full table of emotional buying styles at www.exceptionalsales.com.au

Paul, division head of Australia’s largest telecommunications organization, was a difficult client. We had the perfect solution for him, yet no matter what technique I tried, Paul was just not going to budge. Each time I tried to move the sale forward with a question or trial close, he would just sit there quietly with a strange smile on his face and say as few words as possible as I slowly agreed to his every point.

I shared my experience with Ken, Paul’s counterpart in the user community who had some influence on the decision. He let me in on a secret: Paul was regarded as one of the sharpest negotiators in the organization and had a reputation for getting deals through when no one else could. Ken suggested I restructure my offering in a way that reinforced Paul’s reputation of getting things others could not.

In our next meeting, I asked a simple question: “Paul, if your division could be the first organization outside the United States to implement this new technology without increasing the price above the initial estimate, would that allow you to achieve your goal of staff time to productivity?”

I watched his face, and for the first time I saw a flicker of life.  He quickly composed himself and in his normal dry tone of voice asked, “Could you do that?”

Paul has “The Politician” emotional gene. His primary emotional driver is to win, and this win was typically a sharper deal or better terms. In this case, I provided him with an opportunity to win by doing something no one else had done. This enhanced his reputation of getting things no one else could. By pressing his “green” button (showing how the idea would help him look good), his brain started to flood with emotional chemicals, creating a compelling urge to like my idea. Of course, if I had tried the same technique with “The Double Checker” or “The Normal,” this would have pushed his or her “red” emotional button with exactly the opposite effect. If Paul’s emotional gene was “The Hustler,” I would need to add something like “…increasing your value on the employment market.”

When a salesperson responds with “it depends” regarding his or her favorite closing technique, that tells me this salesperson needs to determine the best way to work with a client. Using a simple tool to help unlock the client’s emotional buying style will reveal how the client will respond as the decision point approaches. Pushing “green” buttons early makes closing so much simpler.

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Arthur Ochs Sulzberger - he turned around The New York Times

 

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger passed away today at age 86. He ran The New York Times from 1963 until 1997, growing the company from $100 million to $1.7 billion before quietly handing over the reins to his son.

In January 2000 I got the opportunity to interview Mr. Sulzberger. I was immediately struck by his self-deprecating humor and his endearing stories. As I sat across his desk I noticed a desktop computer on the left side and an old fashioned typewriter on the right. I asked, “what do you use more, the computer or the typewriter?” He smiled and said, “They taught me how to use the computer for my email. Now, the typewriter is another story. When I started at the New York Times in 1963 every reporter had a typewriter and we had a staff of 100 people that serviced the typewriters for over 1,000 reporters. The other day I sent someone out to buy a new typewriter ribbon but the young man could not figure out how to replace that ribbon. I had to show him.” Then I asked him when he last used the typewriter and he said, “Just last Sunday I picked up a copy of our paper and noticed that in the science section there was some color missing so I typed out a note to the production manager asking, ‘did we supply crayons to our readers?’”

I have always been curious about the family business that runs The New York Times. In 1896, Adolph Ochs took over the reins of the struggling newspaper that, at the time, competed with more than a dozen New York dailies. With a total circulation of only 9,000 copies, Ochs had to move quickly. Fortunately, he was an astute salesman.

He lowered the price of the paper from three cents to one penny and promised to publish "the news impartially, without fear or favor." The experts of the day were astounded. Ochs added greater value with better editorial content. He cut out fiction. He cut stale columns. He targeted the paper toward "men in business." He also launched an illustrated Sunday magazine with half-tone photographs and further set himself apart from the competition by heavily advertising the slogan "All the news that's fit to print." By taking the high road in quality and the low road in price, Ochs soon increased The Times’ circulation to 350,000.

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger was nicknamed “Punch” after the puppet characters Punch and Judy. Punch remembered how his grandfather shared his passion for publishing with family members and dinner guests. After dessert he would hand out copies of stories that were to be published in the next morning's paper. He distributed the articles without titles and asked his guests, "What headline would you assign to this story?" After everyone took a stab at it, he proudly revealed the title as it would appear in the paper the next morning.

A shaky start

In 1963 at age 37, Punch assumed the title of publisher of the New York Times.  At first glance, Punch did not fill the bill. He performed poorly in school – having attended six private schools before quitting at age 17 to enlist in the Marines – and did not excel as a cub reporter in the family business. In fact, while he worked for the newspapers’ Paris bureau in 1955, one incident illustrated his shortcomings. On a weekend outing with friends to the Grand Pix in Le Mans, Punch witnessed a fatal accident when driver Pierre Levegh's Mercedes crashed into the stands, killing the driver and 83 spectators.

 

Not only did Punch pass up the once-in-a-lifetime reporting opportunity, he even failed to notify the news bureau of the accident. "It was unbelievable," Punch says of the accident. "I must have been a block or so away. It was my day off, so I left the story for somebody else. I wasn't the greatest reporter. But you live and learn."
 
The Pentagon Papers

The most difficult decision Punch faced came in the 1960s and early '70s when America's involvement in the Vietnam War set the stage for a showdown between The New York Times and the United States government. When Times reporter Neil Sheehan acquired his own copies of the Pentagon Papers – a series of reports by U.S. Department of Defense analysts describing how, for decades, the government hid from the American people its increasing commitment to the South Vietnamese cause – Times editors and lawyers debated the merits of printing the documents.

"There was no internal debate excepting at the highest level," said Sulzberger. "We did it so secretly that most people didn't know anything was happening. At the final debate, everybody from The New York Times was urging me to publish it." He did, and the first installment appeared in the Sunday, June 13, 1971, edition. Immediately, President Richard Nixon's Justice Department procured an order of prior restraint to prohibit The Times from publishing any more of the Pentagon Papers. President Nixon was incensed. His words to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger included "People have gotta be put to the torch for this sort of thing..." and "Let's get the son-of-a-bitch in jail."

The Times resisted, and the case went to the Supreme Court, which voted six to three to lift the order. "Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government," wrote Justice Hugo L. Black in a concurring opinion.

Punch considered winning the case of the Pentagon Papers to be his proudest accomplishment during his tenure.

The Times's story is the story of a family that has chosen to perpetuate Adolph Ochs' passion for quality with a greater dedication to public service than many other great American families. While such powerful families as the Kennedys reached the limelight through short-lived triumphs and long-remembered tragedies, the Sulzberger family always took pride in perpetuating their product without much bragging. Arthur Sulzberger was part of the family dynasty behind The New York Times. Like a great actor becomes invisible in the portrayal of a character, Punch has channeled his life’s energy with courage and authenticity into the indomitable character of the paper.

 

 

 

 

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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Where Can Salespeople and Sales Managers Get Advice That Works?

Today's blog post is by Christian Maurer, a consultant for B2B sales leaders wanting to improve the productivity of their organization with solutions based on modern philosophies.

There have never been more sales-information resources available than there are today. Seen from a quantitative aspect, this is certainly true to the point that we have to fear information overload. Considering the quality aspect, however, the picture is quite different. Despite all the books, magazines, Websites, blogs, specialized social media, and discussion groups in general social media, it is difficult to identify a commonly accepted body of knowledge about selling. Just pick a discussion group about selling on LinkedIn or browse through Amazon.com at book titles about selling; you will quickly find a lot of contradictory advice. For example, search for “cold call” on Amazon.com. On the first page of results, you will find a book entitled Never Cold Call Again: Achieve Sales Greatness without Cold Calling by Frank J. Rumbauskas Jr. A bit farther down in the list, there is a book called Cold Calling Techniques (That Really Work!) by Stephan Schiffman. If you look a bit closer, you will further notice that there are many texts rehashing the same old principles, just using different words.

How Did We Get Here?

There are three reasons that come to mind:

1. While there is no doubt that a lot of advice is well meant and might even have led to success in certain circumstances, it is presented without this context. This leads to useless arguments among experts based on their own experience and observations trying to prove each other wrong.  I remember a discussion in a LinkedIn group on the topic of lead management. You would not believe the tone one contributor used trying to prove another one wrong.  Calling the other person “old fashioned” was one of the kindest descriptors I could find.
   
   
2. Many self-declared experts confuse frequently observed practices with best practices.  The fact that a misconception is believed by many people does not make it true. Consider the myth that the win probability of an opportunity can be associated with a sales stage: nothing is further from the truth, but you would be surprised to see how often this association is still implemented in CRM systems.
   
   A best practice is a codified behavior that, statistically, produces better results than other behaviors. In other words, there is a positive correlation between a codified behavior and a desired outcome. But even people who understand this fall into the next trap: confusing correlation and causality. A positive correlation does not mean that one has found the reason why the behavior produces the outcome. The best illustration of this fact is the observation that sometimes behavior in total contradiction to the best practice delivers the same or even a better outcome. Again, different contexts often cause this phenomenon. 
   
   Consider, for example, the BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeframe) qualification criteria.  You will find plenty of studies trying to prove that having good BANT qualification increases the win rate. To qualify an opportunity, you will ask the customer if she or he has a budget.   Yet this very same question can kill a deal. Imagine that you have adopted a provocative sales style, helping potential customers identify a burning problem. What would happen if you ask this question? The answer, logically, can be only no. In order not to lose credibility with the potential customer, you will avoid this question. Yet you still should have a very high close rate, but for a different cause: helping the customer early on in the buying cycle creates loyalty, which is an important competitive advantage when the customer makes the vendor selection.
   
   
3. Most texts, in whatever media, are not written with the general intent to contribute to the body of sales knowledge. The authors want to grab attention in a cacophony of sales advice; therefore, the focus is on differentiation for marketing purposes. Have you ever noticed the many terms such as “sales enablement” or “total revenue management” or “revenue cycle management” in sales literature? Or the many new sales job titles, such as chief revenue officer, customer success manager, or customer experience manager?

What Can Be Done About It?

1. Do not take the abundance of available information as reason to reduce training and coaching efforts.
2. Create your own mastermind peer group, selecting trusted advisors from academia and sales research experts (CSO Insights, Forrester, Gartner, etc.). Join new collaboration sites, such as www.salesopshop.com. 
3. When selecting blogs, consider whether or not there is an editorial control for comments. This usually is an indicator of quality.
4. Turn your organization into a learning laboratory. Get your peers to submit ideas on an ongoing basis so you get a set of useful resources (books, blogs, collaboration sites, and social media groups).

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Are You Giving Away Your Power and Selling Your Soul?

Today's blog post is by Sharon Parker, a 30-year sales professional and trainer, and the author of Selling with Soul, Version 2.0: Achieving Career Success without Sacrificing Personal Integrity or Spiritual Growth, available in hard and soft cover and ebook formats.

 

 

When I ask people to describe a salesperson, I get the usual:  pushy, greedy, self-serving, dishonest – and these answers come from salespeople! The biggest challenge I face in teaching B2B salespeople isn’t the material; the salespeople are eager to learn it. The challenge is their own secret belief in the stereotype. Their business cards seldom read “sales.”  When asked what they do, they give their company name, rather than their position.  Their own families may think what they do is slightly disreputable. They are disrespected so often by customers and managers alike that they come to disrespect themselves.

It’s time to recognize that selling is the only job that creates more jobs. Good engineering can result in a warehouse full of stockpiled inventory. Good manufacturing can fill that warehouse faster. Nothing happens, no one benefits, until something is sold. Selling is the very lifeblood of business, and business is the heart of our economy, so why the disrespect? Does selling really mean selling out?

No dramatic moment comes when we sign a flaming contract with the Devil and carry away a big bonus check. There are daily choices, and when our choices contradict our core values, a small piece of us is chipped away.

• Your manager wants you to offer your customer a 10 percent discount to close now. You know the issue isn’t price. Your customer is completing the buying process, and a price cut now will hurt your credibility later, but you go along to get along. Chip.
• Your customer signs the order for a fast-track project. You suspect delivery will be late. You don’t say anything for now. Better not cause concern. Chip.
• Your customer makes an unreasonable demand, and everything in you is saying, “No, that’s not a good business decision for us,” but your head starts nodding and your mouth says yes. After all, the customer is always right. Chip.

We may blame the manager, customer, or industry practices for our choices, but we are the ones who teach our customers how to treat us. If we believe our customers know more and have more power than we have, then we must do what they ask of us to win, right? But you are knowledgeable, professional, and powerful, and you have the right to make good decisions for yourself and your company. We all start with confidence, knowing we are committed to taking care of our customers and putting integrity first. We feel empowered by our experience and industry knowledge. We know our value.  Then, choice by choice, decision by decision, we give away that power and, along with it, our sense of confidence and value.

We are more than the products and services we represent. The ability to stand confidently in our expertise and recognize our value is crucial to building mutual respect and trust with our customers. We need to retrain them. The ability to say no when faced with unreasonable or questionable demands tells customers that we respect ourselves and will not allow them to disrespect us. Calling at the executive level because we know we have to understand the bigger goal to do our job – and we don't really need anyone’s permission to do our job – teaches the customer that we are business professionals committed to successful outcomes. Standing firm at negotiation because we know our value teaches the customer that we price it right the first time and don’t pad proposals just to give it away later.

By respecting ourselves and renewing our commitment to integrity every day, we stop the erosion at our core. And when we own that power, we can go home at night knowing we’ve done our best work for our customers and ourselves – and that we’ve done it with integrity as our guide. That’s selling with soul. 

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5 Ways You Can Use Data to Motivate Reps

Today's blog post is by Christopher Cabrera, CEO of Xactly Corporation, the industry leader in sales compensation automation.

 

 

The data you already collect is your company’s secret to creating a competitive environment where salespeople thrive and departments collaborate.

Here are five ways we at Xactly have seen this work:

1) Deliver real-time results with individualized reports.

When salespeople have access to their up-to-the-minute progress toward quota, they're motivated to work harder to reach that next accelerator or bonus—especially if it’s in a location where they spend a lot of time already, like Salesforce.

2) Post results in a public place—and publicly recognize your top performers.

Like athletes, salespeople are naturally very competitive people. The more you publicly recognize your winners, the harder your team will work to win. For example:

• Send out a simple results dashboard to your team every day via email, like Cascade does—you’ll probably see incredible results.
• Display contest results on TV screens near your sales cubicles or offices. We do this at our San Jose office, so we know how hard everyone works to be at the top of the list.
• Post news of closed deals on Chatter. It’s like giving a virtual trophy.

3) Customize reports to view results by product, service, and SPIF.

Dive deep into your analytics to better understand what you’re doing well and what you can do better. Analyze data across multiple periods—months, quarters, years—and also by product, territory, role function, or even internal contest.

4) Use your data as a tool to train people.

Data means nothing if it doesn’t give you insight. Find out what your best performers do differently than the rest; then share these best practices in team meetings. Look at each rep’s performance individually, and use that insight to improve your sales coaching.

5) Give both sales and finance teams what they want.

Finance wants controllable costs. Sales wants to earn a huge bonus. With the right incentive rules, you can make both departments happy. Virtually test new incentive plans to make sure you’ll meet forecasts—while offering motivating rewards to your top reps.

You’ve worked to get your data. Now it’s time to make it work for you.