Selling Power Blog

The Deep Connection between Gratitude and Sales Success

In sales, we talk a lot about success. And, because the sales team is the revenue engine for any company, we often connect the idea of success with how much money we’re making for ourselves and our companies.

Salespeople love the rush that comes from closing a deal. That makes sense – after all, it feels great to win! However, evolved sales professionals know that, when we are at our best, we are not just chasing deals and dollars. We’re chasing opportunities to help clients and customers find solutions to their problems. We make ourselves valuable by making their lives easier. As a result, we create revenue and profits.

In other words, the money we make from closing deals is not the be-all, end-all. On the contrary, financial success is actually a byproduct of helping other people.

Making money is a sign we’re doing well. But it’s not necessarily a sign of inner happiness. That is why fame and fortune do not necessarily guarantee happiness. Yes, wealth can provide us with amazing experiences and fun possessions. But, if we lack the right mindset, we won’t truly be happy.

This is why gratitude is such a powerful force. This characteristic runs strong in people who lead both highly successful and deeply fulfilled lives.

At the last Sales 3.0 Conference of the year, in Philadelphia, I took a few moments to record a video of Aly Brandt, president (US) of DoubleDigit Sales, and one of Selling Power’s longtime and great customers. One of the reasons I love this video is that Aly pairs the concept of financial success with the emotion of gratitude. As she explains, her company’s association with Selling Power and Sales 3.0 has connected DoubleDigit Sales with one of the top producing orgs in the Fortune 500 (and one of their biggest clients). For this, she says: “I’m grateful, so thank you.”

It has often been said that selling is about relationships. Even in this highly tech-driven, digital era, selling is still about our human connections with one another. As we reach the end of 2017, I encourage you to think about these three things to set yourself up for fulfillment and success in the next 12 months:

1. For which relationships are you most grateful in your life?
2. How do you express that gratitude (if at all)?
3. What can you do in 2018 to amplify your feelings of gratitude – and express them more frequently, with more people?

Why Your Focus Needs to Be on Mental Performance Rather than Outcomes

Today’s post is by Jamie Crosbie, an accomplished senior executive with a proven record of sales leadership success. A certified Peak Performance Mindset trainer, Jamie helps companies of all sizes increase their sales productivity by training them to think – and therefore act – differently. Contact her today to learn more – jcrosbie@proactivate.net or 214/720-9922.  

If you are a sales manager, you have probably heard of the 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle. The 80/20 rule states that as much as 80 percent of positive results are really driven by 20 percent of causes. The idea, then, is to isolate and identify the 20 percent that is working and eliminate the 80 percent of wasted effort that is not producing the desired results.

That rule can be applied to teams as well. Simply put, the bulk of the performance of your team often comes down to a few key players. In many cases, that can mean you have just one sales team member that is a guaranteed, move-the-needle rainmaker you can count in in sales droughts. This is also where another 80/20 rule applies – because 80 percent of all sales activity is mindset driven.

The Value of Mindset Is Hard to Overstate

You read that right. The bedrock of all performance is based on the overall sales mentality and mindset of the individuals within your sales team. That means that, by altering the underlying mindset of each team member and creating a culture of success, you automatically increase the overall productivity of the group.

So, in order to make an effective team, you must focus on helping them create the mental scaffolding that supports the sales process, rather than focusing solely on outcomes.

To increase productivity and profits, you must provide the tools they need to create positive outcomes as a matter of routine. There is a saying in the military: You fight only as well as you train. Top athletes understand this. They focus on creating an ideal mental performance state that works with and enhances their physical abilities and talents.

Their training often includes the formation of crystal-clear goals (and the whys behind them), self-talk, simulation training, mental workouts and performance visualization, as well as internal focus, self-determination, and present-focus awareness. Like high-performance athletes, top sales earners often use the same methods to achieve sales goals as well.

Many successful sales team members do this intuitively, creating a focused inner urge and vision for themselves that allows them to perform at peak levels while avoiding burnout. It is, however, often hit-and-miss for the rest of a given group. Too many companies and sales managers make the mistake of placing more value on the outside factors of sales rather than the inner mental springboards that allow top sellers to go higher.

How Mindset Helps Reps Overcome Sales Obstacles

Once you reset the mental GPS of team members, the sales come almost as a by-product. The mental side of sales is much more critical to sales than almost any other factor. With a proper mindset, team members will adapt and overcome sales obstacles with innovative thinking and determination instead of being stymied by ongoing challenges.

There has always been a debate as to whether sales professionals are born or made. While some sales team members may be more naturally gifted, research has shown that the skillsets accompanying sales success can be learned and replicated.  

The key is not only to identify the traits and mindset that create the most benefit, but to immerse the sales culture of your team in it so it becomes the modus operandi of the sales team. Stay tuned for more about creating a peak performance mindset within your sales team.

Where’s the Return? A Look at Modern Ways to Efficiently Track Sales Training ROI

Today’s post is by Mark Magnacca, president and cofounder of Allego.

 

 

While the majority of (if not all) sales organizations recognize the importance of sales training and enablement, the true value of these practices can be hard to quantify. Anecdotally, the value is there, but how can these investments be justified before, during, and after implementing new training tools and programs?

While quantifying ROI is a highly specific task that will vary depending on unique business goals, there are a few standard metrics that can help sales trainers champion the benefits of new tools and training techniques. Keep reading to discover the ROI insights we’ve gathered that deliver the most bang for the buck when it comes to more thoroughly capturing and measuring the business impact of sales learning investments.

New Standards in Sales Training ROI

Activity and engagement metrics, while important, aren’t actually any type of “R.” Cost savings – particularly related to travel or the decrease in lost selling time from training that takes reps out of the field – is the easiest and most commonly measured type of ROI. And it’s “hard” dollars, the kind CFOs love. However, these metrics do not represent the full ROI of sales training programs.

Teams looking to implement new training programs have the potential to revolutionize the way they measure ROI. So, how should you go about it? In short, it’s all about getting the right systems in place so employee feedback and performance can be easily tracked.

Here’s the deal. Increased revenue comes from faster proficiency with new sales content – boosting sellers’ competency and providing better, faster access to relevant content. To put a dollar value on this, sales organizations can capture specific deal impact, before-and-after metrics upon implementing a new tool, and use A/B testing and control groups to measure against different regions or sales groups.

Let’s look at an example from the financial industry, where a single deal can bring in millions of dollars. Tracking the impact of new training techniques on a specific deal can be done by putting a robust win reporting program in place, where teams can more easily capture how that deal was won and identify the knowledge and training that went into it, such as how a specific objection was handled. Concrete examples such as this, when collected on a large scale, can paint a picture of true ROI for a specific training tool or practice.

Another way to track ROI is to identify a specific metric and then track improvements to that metric over time. This is called lift. Focusing on improvements among low to mid-level performers before and after a specific tool or technique is implemented can be especially telling.

For example, a medical device company we work with looked at quota attainment before and after a new training tool was introduced. Region by region, they divided reps into high, mid-level, and low performers and, year over year, looked at performance after changes were made to their training programs for insight into how their new training program was performing. Other metrics to measure lift include pipeline growth, sales productivity, win rate growth, and ability to hit quota.

To further confirm that these year-over-year metrics are not inflated by an external influence (for example, industry changes or the closing of a competitor company), a new training tool can be rolled out to a specific group while training in a control group remains the same. This type of ROI tracking is the gold standard for measuring lift and can provide sales organizations with the most conclusive evidence that a training program is (or isn’t) effective. These metrics demonstrate improvement because a certain action was taken – a more meaningful metric than simply tracking anecdotal deal closings or quota attainment.

Conclusion: Sales Training Creates More Engaged Sellers

Hard cost savings provide the most concrete and easy-to-quantify ROI for sales learning technology. But we hire sales reps to bring home the bacon, not save on beans! By more rigorously assessing the business value sales training creates, sales trainers can separate what works from what doesn’t, prove their team’s impact, be a more effective champion for initiatives, and win additional resources.

Additionally, when teams sell successfully, they feel more fulfilled and engaged – and having happier, more engaged sellers lowers costs and further boosts revenue. Clearly pointing to positive impact lets training and enablement teams more effectively advocate for the tools that will make a real difference. And, upon a closer examination, teams may realize they’re delivering even more ROI than they thought!  

Why You Need a Great Mentor to Succeed in Sales

As we reach the end of 2017, I’m thinking back on one of the conversations I recorded with Keith Krach earlier this year. Keith is the chairman of DocuSign and his track record of building highly successful companies is widely admired.

In this particular video, we talked about the importance of mentorship. As Keith put it, the world of business is primarily about friendships. At the end of the day, business is done on the basis of trusted relationships.

This is important to remember right now. This year we spoke a lot (particularly at the Sales 3.0 Conference for sales leaders) about the disappearance of traditional sales roles and the increasing need to develop sophisticated selling skills among your sales team. As technology starts to replace sale functions, the quality of human interactions will determine your level of success or failure in sales.

Salespeople with highly developed selling skills – those who understand how to sell value in a consultative way – will have job security.

This is also what makes mentorship so important. Technology can enable, support, and facilitate many amazing aspects of how we conduct business, but there is no substitute for real relationships and human connection.

In his late 30s and early 40s, Keith was running a successful tech company, Ariba. He was told he should have a mentor. Serendipitously, he connected with John Chambers, executive chairman of Cisco. John invited Keith to get together once a month for breakfast mentorship meetings. As Keith explained, these meetings became an invaluable resource of support and learning for him:

I remember he said, “You can ask me anything. Anything you want at all.” And I asked him everything under the sun, and he was just a great mentor. About a year into it he walked in and he said, “Keith, I know what you’re thinking! You’re thinking, ‘Why am I doing this?’” And I remember I asked him: “Why are you doing this for me?” He said, “Because somebody did it for me.” He didn’t ask anything in return. Just pay it forward and give back.

As Keith put it, if you want to learn to be a great leader, the best model is the “hybrid model.” That means you don’t model yourself after just a single leader. You learn from as many people as you can. Especially people who have been practitioners in the field, doing what you want to do.

Watch my video interview with Keith below and learn more about how great mentors influenced his thinking and leadership style.

When Is Chaos Good for B2B Sales Teams?

There are so many changes going on in B2B sales all the time. Our old selling habits and routines are continually being disrupted by technological innovations.

At the Sales Enablement Society conference in Dallas last month, I sat down to interview Ori Brafman. Ori has written a great book, The Chaos Imperative: How Chance and Disruption Increase Innovation, Effectiveness, and Success. In it, he shows how even the best and most efficient organizations can benefit from allowing a little unstructured space and disruption into their planning and decision making.

For example, think about your typical sales meeting with reps. You probably have this meeting every week, and it lasts about an hour. How many times during that meeting do you pause and allow everyone time for reflection? According to Ori, this simple practice can lead to major cognitive breakthroughs. As he explains, when your brain is allowed to rest, it activates what scientists call the “default mode network,” which gives us more creativity and more insight. As Ori said:

We are almost prisoners [of] control. We think that the more we control, the more effective we’re going to be. But, in reality, we pay a cost for control – and we’re missing out on all the upsides that can occur when we introduce a little bit of white space, a little bit of organized serendipity…  

For the past several years, B2B sales has become more about science than art. While we have more tools than ever before to help us sell effectively, we’re also drowning in complexity. Ori believes we can respond to this in one of two ways:

On one level you can say this is becoming a really scary world – [and] how do I navigate this world? On the other, I think the reason that the mood [at the Sales Enablement Society conference] is so high is that people realize there’s a lot of change happening in the world. By bouncing into each other – by having these unexpected connections – we can actually figure out the changes together.

The more technology we have in the selling profession, the more alignment we need to drive organizational effectiveness. Watch the video to learn more from Ori, including his thoughts on the future of the B2B sales profession.

The benefits of "Pockets of Chaos" with Ori Brafman https://t.co/Lu28NC8uNC via @YouTube

— gerhard 20 (@gerhard20) November 16, 2017