Selling Power Blog

Why Your Salespeople Actually Need Downtime to Succeed

Today’s post is by Jamie Crosbie, CEO and founder of ProActivate. Jamie is a certified peak performance mindset trainer. Contact her at jcrosbie@proactivate.net or 214/720-9922 to learn more about how her training can help your sales team reach peak performance levels.  

 

Research has consistently shown that planned downtime and vacations actually increase, not decrease, overall productivity. In some studies, there was a whopping 82 percent boost in productivity. That kind of beneficial rebound can go a long way in fortifying your bottom line. If taking care of yourself and your sales team really works, then why don’t more companies encourage it?

For the very same reason that people have to be reminded on flights to place the oxygen mask on themselves first during an emergency. Panic – sheer, unadulterated fear that taking even a microsecond away from work will cause the entire sales plane to fall from the sky and go boom.

While not paying attention to your clients’ needs will cost you, burning your sales team candle at both ends may actually cost you more.  

How Can Lack of Downtime Damage Sales Teams?

Well, for starters, you can lose your best and brightest. Allow me to explain: You are not a machine; and, unless you are working with next-generation robotic sales cyborgs with built-in networking, multitasking, and coffee-making capabilities, neither are the members of your team. To have a clear head, they need to be able to rest – even if only in short bursts. This can reduce stress and increase your team’s energy as well as boost team morale.

Happier salespeople, in turn, can dramatically improve sales staff retention. It takes thoughtful planning, but  adding enough balanced downtime and mental “rest stops” can help you attract and keep the best salespeople. You might think offering higher bonuses and goodies will do that, but the truth is that money does not fix everything. People stay when they feel valued and supported. Not only that, but happy salespeople tend to create happier customers, too.

How to Implement Planned Downtime

Erika Bernhart, owner of Strelitzia Floral Design in Austin, TX, noticed her team was lagging. Her company provides elegant arrangements for corporate clients as well as local brides – a demanding role that often requires exhausting workloads. To help compensate and encourage her tired team, Erika began bringing in professional masseuses to do 30-minute massages during the week. She also worked with her employees to create livable schedules interspersed with built-in micro-breaks. In the end, everyone benefited.

Her team of sales consultants, floral designers, and setup crews were more rested and happier. They were also more creative and adaptive – performing well even under the intense pressure of perfectly-timed, large-scale corporate events. Even though the work is mentally and physically demanding, her people are doing better than ever. Judging by the increase in her sales, the clients are happy about it, too.

Create a Downtime Plan that Works for Your Sales Team

The question, then, is not if you should take breaks, but of finding ways to do it effectively so your team can speed along like a sleek sports car hugging the tightest sales curves with ease.

Here is where it gets really tricky, because there is no simple, universal template that fits every company in exactly the same way. To be effective, you have to create a plan that works with your team, your industry, and your client needs.

Before you can do anything, though, you need to get a good idea of where you really are. Try talking to – or even anonymously surveying – your people. Ask them honest questions to understand their needs. You can also ask for suggestions about ways to take small breaks. In some cases, that may be simply bringing in lunch once a week or encouraging people to use their vacation and off days.

In others, it may mean allowing them to take brief play breaks like Google does. Google employee perks include a wide variety of mental distractions that allow team members to play – such as video games, billiards, and foosball – as well as onsite dry cleaning and doctor services. Of course, many companies can’t hope to rival anything near what Google offers, but the idea is the same: take care of your people and they will take care of you and your customers.

Find out more about peak performance, developing a superior mindset, and improving your top line by contacting me at jcrosbie@proactivate.net or calling 214/720-9922.

Three Ultra-simple Ways to Succeed That Most Salespeople Miss

Today’s post is by Brad Shorr, director of content strategy at Straight North, a professional SEO agency headquartered in Chicago. With more than 25 years of sales and marketing experience, Brad has been featured in leading online publications such as Forbes, Entrepreneur, and American Marketing Association.

 

If you want to catapult up the ladder of sales success, these three ultra-simple tips will help you get the job done. At first glance, these techniques seem so simple, so obvious, that they are hardly worth reading about. But, as you read, let me ask you to reflect on your experience as a buyer and think about how many times the lack of these techniques has led you to buy elsewhere – and possibly infuriate you in the process.

The fact is, most salespeople I have dealt with (I’ve got 25-plus years of B2B buying experience) do not do these three things. They may do one or two, but rarely all three. If you do them all, you’ll make more sales and keep customers longer.

1. Respond to Email and Phone Messages Immediately

There’s no such thing as responding too quickly. In fact, you should make it your first priority. When a buyer or prospect wants something, the speed of your response matters as much, if not more than, the substance of your reply. For an urgent message, an immediate response is required – unless you’re landing a helicopter or delivering a baby.

Buyers are busy people. Do you know what they hate? They hate to wait. The longer an item sits in the “open” pile, the lower you sink as a supplier or potential supplier. Fast response is proof of top-notch service, because the buyer knows you are on the job. You are going to be there when something goes wrong, and you are going to take care of it. You may not have all the answers, but the buyer knows you’ll track down the answers.

There’s a lot of lip service given to “making you feel like our only customer.” To actually follow through on that ambitious value proposition, this is how.

2. Take Notes

Buyers are detail oriented. A sales rep without a notepad makes them nervous. No notes, no assurance everything I’m telling you is going to sink in, no assurance everything I’m asking you to do will get done.

The mere physical act of taking notes inspires confidence in buyers. Note taking is proof of diligence. And note taking facilitates the very important sales quality of full and accurate follow-up. When a buyer asks for 10 things, doing nine isn’t much better than doing three. Buyers are detail oriented – 10 means 10.

3. Listen  

The perceptive marketer Simon Sinek said, “There’s a difference between listening and waiting for your turn to speak.” Salespeople are easily caught on the wrong side of this difference!

Listening (greatly enhanced by note taking, by the way) involves emptying your mind of everything except what the buyer is saying – and how the buyer is saying it. But there is so much more to it than even this. What is the body language telling you? The tone of voice? What is not being said? Great salespeople can distinguish a minor objection from a major one just by observing the twitch of a lip or a tremor in the voice.

Full-blown listening is the only way sales reps can understand what buyers need – and, further, the only way they can present their offering in a way that effectively speaks to those needs.

Listening is a difficult skill to master, but much has been written about it, many classes are available, and self-training techniques such as meditation can work wonders.

Hone These Skills

At the top of this article I asked you to think about how many times you, as a buyer, have been put off by sales reps who follow up slowly, follow up inaccurately, and don’t understand what you’re looking for.

If you’re one of the (few) lucky ones who has not encountered these vexing issues, glance at negative online reviews for any business. You’ll most likely find that a great many of them are complaints about lousy follow-up and lousy communication. They never understood what I wanted. They took three weeks to get back to me. All I got was the corporate runaround.

A sales rep can have the greatest products in the world, but it won’t matter if buyers are thinking (or saying) things like this. No service, no deal. Great service – your greatest challenge in listening will be the cash register ringing in the background.

How to Lead a Successful B2B Sales Team

Today’s post is by Tim Rockwell, national sales manager at Imperial Blades.

 

 

Leading an effective B2B sales team is less about managing productivity and more about managing mentality. If the attitude and mindset of your team are healthy, productivity is a byproduct. As sales managers and leaders, we need to be mindful of how quality salespeople are motivated and make sure we are feeding their emotional beast in a way that yields high performance.

The question is: How are we as sales leaders investing in the culture of our department in a way that fosters healthy mindsets and inspires high performance?  

A healthy, high-performing B2B sales team needs to be built on three pillars: compensation, competition, and comradery. These are three simple yet measurable foundations that, when built upon, will inspire your sales team to maintain the highest level of productivity and performance regardless of circumstance. The trick, however, is to hire salespeople you can motivate in these tangible ways.

In my interview process, I always ask candidates several questions that get to the root of what motivates them. I need people who are motivated by money (compensation), driven by performance (competition), and encouraged by teamwork (comradery). If these fundamentals are not significant motivators in a person’s life, he or she probably isn’t a good salesperson and will either crumble or be crumbled by the following three pillars of a successful B2B sales team.

Pillar #1: Compensation 

If you want to see an interview end quickly, watch a salesperson tell me their number one professional motivation is “helping people.” Call me heartless, but we all know the best salespeople are coin-operated machines that only want to eat what they kill and kill what they eat. That does not make them greedy monsters – it makes them effective salespeople.

Let me break it down for you. A sale is a transactional experience. It is literally the exchange of something of value for something of value. For salespeople to truly participate in this transaction, they need to be incentivized to do so. That incentive is called “commission.” They trade their ability to successfully sell in return for payment. Value for value.

You have to understand, compensation equals participation. This philosophy seems so simple, yet so many organizations get it wrong. We as sales leaders need to make sure we are doing everything we can to invest meaningful thought into the compensation style and structure of our salespeople. Keep in mind: Financial incentives should go far beyond a basic commission for a sale and receiving a bonus for hitting a goal – although those rewards are crucial. Compensation can and should bleed into every task requested and required of a salesperson.

The most effective way to get salespeople to do what you want is to incentivize them for the exact behavior you desire. Make them view productivity as monetary. If you want to see your salespeople become experts in the areas you believe they lack, connect improving those weaknesses to their compensation structure. With salespeople, creative compensation will equal completion.

Pillar #2: Competition

If you want to achieve something great, you have to measure every step along the way. Simply put, that which is measured is accomplished. Competition is an essential piece of accomplishment because competition – by its very definition – is measuring one thing against another. The best salespeople are driven by measurable comparison. They measure themselves against their competitors, their colleagues, and, most importantly, themselves. Just as it would be unwise to hire a salesperson who isn’t motivated by money, it is equally foolish to hire salespeople who aren’t competitive.

Competition, in its purest form, is an obsessive pursuit of better results. The beauty of a competitive sales team is that the standard of excellence is constantly being elevated. Competitive people are wired to be better, to do better, and to link success to improvement. What a gift to sales leaders!

Pillar #3: Comradery 

Comradery is the healthy view of a team. Comradery sees the value in others that fills the void of self. Comradery is the pleasure and security taken from working with others to achieve a common purpose. Motivation, safety, and protection are found within a healthy team, and the greater the investment in a culture of comradery, the more confident and higher performing your team will be.

It is so important that your sales team, more specifically, is healthy because it is the engine that drives the organization. It not only markets and sells the product but it is the public, visible thermometer that reflects the culture of the company. 

It’s no coincidence that the word “comradery” is used as a military expression. There is no way a soldier would enter a mission without the support, security, and guidance of his team. The same is true in any business or organization. The beauty of a team fueled by comradery is that it takes people with limited ability and creates a unit of limitless potential. As Dale Carnegie said: “Team is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.”

How to Shift to Positive Self-talk for Increased Success

We all have a constant inner monologue happening inside our heads. Most people pay little to no attention to this monologue. However, it is often a key factor that is sabotaging your ability to achieve success.

In the sales profession, we see negative self-talk crop up all the time – usually due to very common challenges and obstacles. Say someone hangs up on you during a cold call. Or a prospect suddenly goes dark after a promising email exchange.

When these things happen – and they happen to all salespeople – it’s very natural for negative thoughts about yourself to enter your mind. This can happen in a very subtle way. In fact, these thoughts might be either so subtle or so routine that you don’t even notice them. For example, if a prospect hangs up on you, you might have thoughts like:

• “Wow, that was unpleasant. I wonder what I did wrong.”
• “I must be really bad at making cold calls.”
• “That person must not have liked my voice.”

If you don’t stop and check your negative thoughts, they can start to build up and gain momentum. When that happens, your thoughts might reach a more serious level:

• “I’m horrible at cold calling.”
• “I’m terrible at my job.”
• “I’ll never make quota or win President’s Club.”
• “I am not good enough.”

Negative self-talk is a natural mechanism in our brains. The driving force behind it is fear. When we fear we’re not good enough, smart enough, talented enough, or liked enough, we leave ourselves vulnerable to negative self-talk. Eventually, these thoughts can become so energetically heavy that we diminish our own capacity to let our talents shine and become successful.

Luckily, negative self-talk can be reversed with positive self-talk. If you’re just starting out, understand that simply slapping a happy face on a negative feeling will not do you much good. In other words, if you’re truly feeling terrible about yourself, saying, “I’m a good and talented person” won’t cut it.

If you’re really feeling knocked down, experiment with more neutral language that describes the situation: “I did not get to finish my conversation with this prospect.” You can also use language to acknowledge that this situation is temporary: “I have not achieved the success I wanted to achieve in this moment.” This kind of statement leaves you open to realize and embrace the fact that you will have other moments – and other opportunities – to create success. When you feel the negative feeling lift, quickly move to replace negative self-talk with positive self-talk.

• “There is still time for me to make quota and win President’s Club. If I need help to achieve this goal, I am capable of finding that help.”  
• “I am perfect and enough.”
• “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.”

If you want to hear more advice about positive self-talk – specifically, how to psych yourself up before a sales call – check out my recent conversation with B2B sales leaders and experts Daniel McGinn, Karen Kennedy, and Michael Altshuler in the video below. You can also subscribe to watch weekly peak performance mindset talks on my YouTube channel.

Chaos Theory: Re-Framing the Struggle of New Sales Managers

Today’s post is by Michelle Vazzana, founding partner at Vantage Point Performance, a global sales management training and development firm. Vazzana is also co-author of Cracking the Sales Management Code.

 

When a top sales rep is promoted to sales manager, there is usually a honeymoon period during which the new manager’s enthusiasm keeps him or her afloat through the seemingly endless waves of new demands and pressures. But then…there is the onslaught of emails, reports for higher-ups, requests from marketing and HR, and the needs of individual reps. Many new managers get through their first months on adrenaline, caffeine, long hours at the office, and hope for a better future: Surely, things will get better once I’ve learned the ropes!

Here’s the problem: Without specific training on how to prioritize all the demands and establish a cadence for the job, things tend not to get better. That’s why, within just a few months, many new managers find themselves burnt out and looking longingly in the rearview mirror at their previous position. As sales reps, they were stars. They were in control. They knew how to do their jobs better than anyone else. Now they feel as though they are drowning, which leads many to question themselves: Maybe I’m not as good as I think I am.

Why is a successful transition from seller to sales manager so elusive for nearly every first-time manager? What results in so little room for what’s really important: coaching and developing reps? Why do so many managers’ great intentions – to grow their reps into a team of high performers – stay unrealized?

Unfortunately, organizations themselves are to blame. They exert pressure on the manager from every direction. Demands on sales managers come from the following areas.

Sales Leadership. At least two layers removed from the field, sales leaders are hungry for information about developments on the ground. They have no direct control over rep activities so they seek to feel like they have control by demanding more and more information from managers about what they and their sellers are doing. Responding to requests for information from the boss – and the boss’s boss – can consume as much as 25 percent of a manager’s week.

Human Resources. While HR is responsible for ensuring the right people are hired, much of the burden of assessment and development falls to the sales manager. HR wants managers to develop competencies for hiring reps, interview potential hires, onboard and develop them, document performance, and much more. These are important tasks but they often are pushed aside in favor of more urgent demands.

Marketing. When marketers run campaigns or launch new products, they need information. And they need it from sales managers. Or they need it from the CRM system, but they usually don’t trust the CRM data and want it scrubbed – by the sales manager. Requests from marketing can consume many hours of a sales manager’s week.

Sales Operations. While this group ensures the sales force has whatever it needs to succeed, it also puts its own set of demands on the frontline manager. Tools and systems deployed for rep productivity are costly and frontline managers are constantly judged on their usage – and urged to improve results.

Sales Team. By the time a manager has completed informational and administrative tasks and also dealt with direct customer interactions, there is very little time left for reps. And what time there is available for the team is usually consumed putting out fires. Reps need help with pricing, proposals, resolution of customer issues, and other reactive issues. Coaching and individual rep development – which should be the manager’s first priority – are pushed aside. They become an elusive ideal.

With all these organizational demands, it’s no wonder sales managers are so overburdened and burn out so quickly. Since the demands aren’t going away, how can managers create an effective working cadence amid all the pressure and chaos?

The answer lies in Chaos Theory, which deals with complex systems whose behavior is highly sensitive to slight changes in conditions. Small alterations can give rise to significant consequences. Recognizing the chaotic, fractal nature of our world can give us new insight. An understanding of the interconnection between systems can help us avoid actions that may end up being detrimental to long-term goals. This is good news for sales managers trying to survive in a chaotic environment. By making a few small changes to their current conditions, they can produce wildly improved results down the road.

What small changes should managers be making? We’ll examine these in part 2.

Sign up for Vantage Point’s newsletter to stay up to date with the latest sales manager research and best practices.

How to Optimize Your Prospecting with Geo-Productivity Software (GPS)

Today’s post is by John Stewart, CEO of MapAnything. Get a complimentary copy of MapAnything’s eBook, 2017 State of Field Sales Survey: Reaching State of the Art Performance for Field Sales Organizations.

 

In a world where reducing customer defection by just 5 percent can increase profit from 25 to 80 percent (Salesforce State of Sales Report, 2016), anticipating your customers’ need is not only good business, it is essential to your bottom line.

Geo-productivity software, which is available on mobile devices and online, combines predictive analytics, data, and map-based route planning to help you do just that – in new and interesting ways. Here are three examples of how GPS can vastly improve your ability to prioritize and visit customers at the exact time they are most likely to buy – while optimizing prospecting activities each time you’re in the field.

Breakthrough #1: Predictive analytics and IoT can enable need-based selling.   

Now, virtually everything that can be sold can also be connected to the cloud through sensors – also known as the “Internet of Things (IoT)” or “smart devices.” Collected data from every product, device, sensor, Website, and customer interaction is now captured in CRM in real time through these devices.

This is a powerful new dynamic for sales professionals. As your customers use your product or engage with your company online, sensors track activity and predictive analytics identify selling opportunities. Using this information, you can anticipate the right time to contact customers for the next sale.

Geo-productivity software helps by automating this process. For example, when a customer has used all the seats available in his or her software subscription – or a renewal date is coming up – CRM can alert you so you can contact the customer for renewal or upsell. If you sell a consumable good, CRM can alert you when the customer is down to the last 10 percent of your product, indicating it’s an optimal time to contact them for a new order. IoT devices built into equipment or fleet vehicles can track maintenance requirements and end-of-life of a product, letting you know when it’s time to schedule a maintenance or sales call.

As more and more data is collected about the rate at which your customer uses your product, predictive analytics can predict when your customer is “likely” to need more of what you sell – not only this time, but next time and the time after that. This gives you a better understanding of not only what you can sell this quarter, but it indicates future pipeline as well. Finally, you can build customer loyalty as you are able to better anticipate and meet the needs of your customer.

Breakthrough #2: Geo-productivity software links customer need to optimal route planning.

Everyone knows the ideal time to sell is when the customer needs the product you offer. Now that you have prioritized customers by need, you can prioritize your field sales visits by optimal route planning using geo-productivity software. For many products, a meeting is the most effective driver of business – face-to-face sales calls build trust between buyer and seller, offer an opportunity to show products first hand, and allow you to build personal rapport with your customers and prospects. However, field sales can be inefficient.

The answer is properly planning all field sales activities and executing to that plan. Geo-productivity software leverages CRM data to prioritize customers’ visits and then provides optimal route planning within a geographic area. Now you can plan a day of sales visits prioritized by customer need, travel time, and geography.  

Geo-productivity software calculates the optimal meeting schedule, route, estimated time of arrival based on traffic and weather, and all customer data contained in CRM. It also enables CRM updates on the go. Using GPS, you are able to plan, schedule, and execute more productive days in the field.

Breakthrough #3: Conduct geo-prospecting via geo-productivity software.

Geo-productivity software is not only effective for scheduling visits with existing customers; it is ideal for identifying new prospects. Geo-productivity software uses data to reveal the location of prospects who meet sales criteria within a specific geography. Using this information, each trip into the field can be scheduled with the right customer meetings and augmented with visits to prospects within the same geographic area. Adding two or three prospect visits helps you expand your base, cultivate pipeline, and increase productivity each time you’re in the field.  

Geo-productivity software leverages CRM data, predictive analytics, optimal route planning, and prospecting data to prioritize field sales activities and optimize each hour in the field and each mile driven. It enables need-based selling, simplifies face-to-face prospecting, and reduces wasted time behind the windshield. This type of technology-assisted selling is rapidly separating high-performing sales reps from the rest of the pack.  

Download this complimentary eBook and learn how sales leaders today are successfully managing geographically-dispersed field sales teams: 2017 State of Field Sales Survey: Reaching State of the Art Performance for Field Sales Organizations.

Are You Being Ubered Out of Your B2B Sales Career?

Today’s post is by Jeff Seeley, CEO of Carew International. Register now to hear Jeff speak at the Sales 3.0 Conference in Las Vegas on September 18, where he will present “Building the Perfect Sales Beast.”

 

Much has been written about Uber’s recent troubles, culture issues, and their general inability to get out of their own way. It’s a shame, because these crises cloud the bigger story of the astonishing impact Uber’s innovation has had – and will continue to have – in the transportation business and in many other industries, including housing, RVs, boats, vacation homes, and even the sales profession.

Imagine if B2B sales careers were impacted by a substitute process/resource the way Uber has disrupted cab drivers. To put the impact into perspective, in 2014 a New York cab medallion (operating license) was selling for $1.3 million. Today, you can find a New York medallion for $250,000.

Can you imagine the impact of Uber in London, where it takes four years of training and the purchase of a black hackney cab (approximate investment of $60,000 USD) to be a certified cabby? Even before Uber, the cabbie industry was a bit arrogant – slow to adapt and relatively neglectful with regard to the customer experience, from payments systems to traffic knowledge, quality of vehicles, and customer engagement. Their complacency made them all the more vulnerable to a paradigm shift.

As Uber turned the for-hire transportation industry on its ear, the initial reaction was to attempt to legislate Uber and others out of business. We are now seeing transformation of these businesses to adapt and adjust to their new business reality for the sake of survival. I think back to my mother’s advice: “Never get in a car with a stranger.” Maybe it would now be modified to, “Never get in a car with a stranger – unless the stranger is on an app.”

What can anyone in B2B sales learn from major disruptors like Uber and Amazon?  

Another formidable disruptor in the current business landscape is Amazon, which has upended big-box retail establishments by changing the rules of engagement. How might it feel to be in the crosshairs of Amazon? As part of its current expansion, Amazon is entering the MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Operations) business to compete against Grainger and Fastenal – both strong competitors. Right out of the gate, Amazon will have a significant competitive advantage on the distribution side since it owns an airline and pay almost $5 billion annually for shipping to FedEx, UPS, and USPS. Amazon has an annual revenue of $136 billion, compared to Grainger at $10 billion and Fastenal at $4 billion.

What does Uber or Amazon have to do with B2B sales? Well, everything, because technology and innovation can eliminate dead space in a hurry. This is where sales professionals and leaders must look forward, assess the playing field, and pro-act (vs. re-act) to avoid being “Amazoned” out of a career. The key is understanding your unique value proposition as well as those customer needs that simply cannot be met by technology or a substitute process.

For example, Amazon can provide many solutions; but, currently, they cannot align solutions with my unique needs to manage the outcomes. This is the one thing technology solutions cannot do, period. They cannot understand the driving force behind how or why the customer makes a decision. The greatest artificial intelligence and computing power in the world (think Watson) can only look at trends and crunch data. They can give multiple outcome scenarios (spray and pray), but they can’t understand how that outcome applies to the customer’s circumstance. They certainly can’t act as a business advisor for competitive advantage.

How do you survive and thrive in the Uber and Amazon world?  

The number of sales professionals who are still relying on the customer to uncover, understand, and ultimately order their products and services is quite alarming. Those at risk and who put your business at risk are sales professionals who have gotten comfortable in their approach and business, who take too much comfort in thinking customers depend on them, that they are irreplaceable, or that disruptors such as Uber and Amazon don’t relate to them.

With this complacent mindset, by the time a shift is noticed, it is usually too late. I suspect a host of big-box retail legends thought that same thing.

Sales professionals have the greatest skill set in the world when it comes to communication, diagnostic capability, marshalling resources, and, most importantly, providing expertise that does not reside within their customer organizations. Shame on us if we get comfortable and stop using them! And shame on sales leaders who believe they can jump-start the sales team with inspirational challenges, a new CRM, revamped sales compensation, or even skill training.

Certainly, all of these play a supporting role in our efforts to connect, understand, and consult with customers, but job one is to use these tools to offset the prevailing culture that is deemphasizing the in-person or live customer experience in favor of technology.  

There will be no transactional sales positions in the coming years. We do not need them and they add zero value to our customers. The future is now, where sales professionals are going to the next level with expertise beyond their own field, the ability to leverage internal and external resources, and the capacity to think beyond the solution of their product or service to the impact they can have in many areas. This level of career thinking provides the best immunization against Amazon and other would-be disruptors.

Going Beyond Zig Ziglar's SMART Sales Goals

Today’s post is by Leanne Hoagland-Smith, an author, clarity strategist, keynote speaker, and sales coach who turns tomorrow’s goals into today’s results for her clients. She can be reached at 219/508.2859 (MST), coach@processspecialist.com, or on LinkedIn.

 

In the 20 years I have been working with salespeople, my research indicates well over 85 percent know of SMART goals, originally defined by Zig Ziglar about 50 years ago. My guess, based on listening to his presentations and reading his books, is that Ziglar probably had at least seven important but unstated criteria for SMART sales goals.

#1 – Your goal should be stated in writing.

We all know what happens when we fail to write important actions down – such as the common everyday grocery list. When we fail to take our written list to the grocery store, we end up

• Buying more than we need.
• Spending more than we planned.
• Failing to purchase all items on the forgotten list.
• Wasting more time attempting to remember what was on the list.
• Feeling rather dumb for not remembering the list.

In 2007, 3M conducted some research and discovered 42 percent of the people surveyed are more likely to complete a task they have handwritten. Many of us know the power of the written word when we take notes as salespeople – we are more likely to remember what was said.

#2 – Express your goal in active language.

Think for a moment about your sales goal. Is the first word an action verb? Thinking about and writing down our goals with action verbs subconsciously works with us to achieve the goal. Action verbs remove the sense of the future (such as “I will”) and make the present (as in “close”) more real. For example, here are some action verbs:

• Close
• Increase
• Improve
• Secure
• Collect
• Identify
• Build

#3 – You must own the goal.

How many sales goals are set by sales managers and not the individual salesperson? When salespeople own the goals instead of just hear the goals, they have a greater internal desire to achieve the goal.

If you disagree, think back to being a child and being told by your parents what to do. Do you remember some internal resistance to those parental commands? Since human beings are creatures of conditioning, possibly your sales manager subconsciously has replaced one of your parents and now you are internally resisting?

Presumption #4 – You must cultivate the right mindset to drive you to achieve the goal.

Zig Ziglar was a highly internally motivated person. He had the mindset to keep going. Just listen to any of his presentations and you can see he understood the necessity to master his craft, be autonomous, and relate to others.

I have given self- assessments to hundreds of individuals, including salespeople, and my own findings confirm that, when it comes to motivation and mindset, salespeople who are driven by financial rewards have the necessary mindset potential to achieve sales goals – more so than those who are not driven by financial rewards. That said, salespeople who place financial rewards in the lower 50 percent of their internal drivers can still be successful, provided they have clarity around these drivers.

#5 – Your goal must be very specific.

My sense is Ziglar was very specific in his sales goals. Possibly he did not write all the specifics because they were intrinsic to him. However, what I have learned is the more specific the goal, the greater likelihood of success. Also, what I know to be true after working with salespeople and business professionals is the majority of sales goals lack specificity.

#6 – Your goal must be aligned.

Sales goals must be aligned to the salesperson’s purpose, passion, and overall sales plan. Misalignment creates misguided decisions and misdirected actions.

In working with salespeople, I have come to realize that, when individuals connect their purpose (why are you here?) and their passion (what moves you?) to their overall sales plan there is far greater likelihood of success. My sense is one of the undiscovered reasons for sales burnout is a lack of this alignment.

#7 – Your goal must be clear.

Ziglar had clarity. He knew where he was going and how he was going to get there. What I have now discovered is the majority of people, including salespeople, do not have such clarity.

This lack of clarity from misalignment to weak specificity prevents salespeople from achieving their sales goals. Additionally, if people from sales managers to executive leadership lack clarity, this clarity gap only makes it more difficult for salespeople to achieve their sales goals.

Presumptions Create Problems

Most of us have experienced the problems with presumptions. We fail to see the entire picture or we presume facts that are not evident. This is one good reason to update SMART goals to what I call “WAY SM²ART” goals and eliminate these presumptions.

W = Written
A = Actionable
Y = Yours

S = Specific (Very)
M = Measure times Mindset
A = Aligned to Purpose, Passion, and Plans
R = Realistic Stretch
T = Target Date, Time Driven

WAY SM²ART Comparisons to Traditional SMART Goals

Change is not usually the reason goals fail. The reason can be traced to adapting to change. Adaptation is “How do I do what needs to be done given what I now know?” Here are two comparison examples of how to write a WAY SM²ART goal so you can be more successful in sales:

WAY SM²ART Goal = In the next 30 days, close 10 percent more sales from my sales funnel than in the past 30 days by not giving up – by staying true to my purpose of being the trusted authority for my clients. (Traditional SMART Goal = I will close 10 percent more sales in the next 30 days.)

WAY SM²ART Goal = In the next seven days, identify 20 new qualified sales leads to keep my sales funnel full, thereby demonstrating my passion as a committed salesperson with an unstoppable mindset. (Traditional SMART Goal = I will find 20 sales leads in the next 30 days.)

When you compare these two examples, which one gives you greater clarity and possibly even inspires you more to be a goal-driven and goal-achievable salesperson?

Yes, change is good and you can now change with this update to the traditional SMART goals. Now that you know how to write a WAY SM²ART goal, just do it. Take action to be one of the few to achieve your sales goals instead of one of the many who continue to fall short.