Selling Power Blog

2022 Outlook: An Old School Selling Model Becomes Cutting Edge

Today's blog post is by Mark Boundy, CEO of Boundy Consulting. 

 

 

In 2022, some organizations will realize they’re automating the wrong thing: a sales model that isn’t how their customers would like to engage. 

Research (CSO Insights, 2018 and Sales Mastery, 2021) shows that while some customers are fine with an optimized sales process with dedicated cold-caller/appointment setters, demo specialists, and closers, they also found that some customers want much more. Some welcome expert “trusted advisor” sellers. 

The near-universal buying process has variations 

Let’s reacquaint ourselves with customer behavior. The customer journey is the same it’s always been, but has two main variations, one of which is being called “the new way customers buy”. To understand each option, take a moment to study the persistent buying process: 

When a customer knows all about what they’re buying 

When a customer is repeating a familiar purchase, the first step above seems like it’s shortened or even eliminated entirely. We’ve heard the research: Many buyers self-inform before engaging with vendor salespeople, who simply need to respond efficiently to an already-underway buying process.  

This isn’t actually an abandonment of the persistent process; the customer is simply repurposing some of last time’s decision, and to outsiders, it just looks like the truncated diagram above.    

Here’s the twist: When salespeople don’t add value, customers commonly self-inform elsewhere. When buyers perceive sufficient information availability (and scarcity of good sellers) they conduct the beginning of their process in stealth mode: it still happens, just without your salespeople allowed access. 

Many in the “sales industrial complex” tell us that this shortened buying decision model is the new normal. They sell us tools to automate “quickly getting in line with self-directed buyers to win our share of business”. We’ve all been pitched with a highly automated sales model for customers who are well informed and highly confident in their ability to make a decision.

The “divide and optimize” model divides selling into discrete steps, positions specialist jobs in each portion of the selling process, and optimizes automation and performance within each step. Here’s the thing: This “divide and optimize” model works great for well informed customers. That isn’t all customers, though, is it? What if it’s not yours? 

For many buyers, what’s old is new again

The CSO Insights and Sales Mastery research shows that many customers consult much earlier in the buying process if the decision is: 

• New to me or my company 
• Risky to me or my company 

Under these conditions, the customer slows down, and their process looks like the full-length persistent process—that is, fully front-weighted.  

They are willing to consult with anyone who rises to the level of trusted expert. They don’t care whether that’s your salespeople or someone else—they just want value added to their decision process. Whoever comes in and establishes their worth wins a “trusted expert” seat at the customer’s conference table. If they elevate your seller into that seat, the sales model will look much different than the divide and optimize model:  

Customers willing to engage a trusted advisor won’t settle for script-reading cold-callers. In fact, most outreach specialists generally provide ample proof that your company isn’t the one who deserves a trusted advisor seat at the table. Maybe a competitor has salespeople who pass the test. 

Choose wisely in 2022 

Before you go into 2022 with a poor-fitting sales model, figure out where your offer’s buying decision lies on a customer’s “willingness to engage” scale. If your customers need a “trusted advisor” selling model, you may need to invest in your people, not your tech stack.  

When you do, you’ll find that it improves your sales, your pricing integrity—and profits— informs better marketing, and sharpens your product strategy. I’m happy to help you figure out how to do it in your world, using your language. 

To your success!

Get access to a tool that will help you navigate the “willingness to engage” scale. It only takes a few minutes to complete. Email me for a copy. If you don’t want to reach out, you can get started by reading my book, Radical Value: How to Take Your Company to the Next Level Through Radical Customer Centricity.

How Top-Performing Sales Managers Drive Results

Today's post is by Michelle Vazzana, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, VantagePoint Performance.

 

All sales managers want to get it right.  Everyone wants a definitive solution. The bad news is it doesn’t exist. The good news is that top-performing sales managers aren’t magical. They are focused in ways their lower-performing peers are not. 

What do focus and simplicity have in common? The best sales managers know they can’t do everything. In fact, time can be a sales manager’s biggest enemy if not harnessed effectively. Research from the 2012 Thought Leadership on the Sales Profession Conference indicates that the average sales manager only spends about 32% of their time managing their team. How that 32% of time is used makes all the difference.

The three most important questions 

The research published in our books, Cracking the Sales Management Code and Crushing Quota, show that sales managers cannot manage outcomes, only the activities that lead to those outcomes. But which activities should they manage, and how is that different from measuring activities? How does this relate to coaching? Top-performing sales managers use a specific framework to focus their efforts. They answer three critical questions to isolate the highest impact efforts:

• What should my salespeople be doing?  
• What should I as their sales manager be doing to best enable and equip my salespeople to succeed? 
• How do I know if it is working?  

What should my salespeople be doing? 

This is the foundation for laser-focused sales management. Top-performing managers are diligent about tying the activities they expect their salespeople to execute to the sales objectives or KPIs that matter. Those sales KPIs are meaningfully connected to the business results the sellers are held accountable to achieve. 

Once these high-impact activities are identified, top-performing sales managers ensure that tasks are clear for their salespeople, implementing standards that remove ambiguity. The most typical standards involve quantitative expectations for activity execution. Make 10 sales calls per day. Deliver 20 proposals per quarter. This is the easiest part of activity management, but it is not the most important part. The critical standards high-performing managers provide are qualitative. They clarify what “good” looks like and over-communicate the vital elements of effective execution for the activities that matter most. 

This diligence enables sales managers to tackle the next question: How can I enable my sellers to succeed? What is my role? 

How can I enable my salespeople? 

Creating clarity of task for salespeople is critical, but only the first step. Top-performing sales managers apply the same laser focus to their own efforts, ensuring that the effort applied will lead to results. Of all the things a sales manager could coach, which ones should they coach? The high-impact activities. Managers can’t and shouldn’t attempt to coach every sales activity. 

Top-performing sales managers make time for what matters most and pay far less attention to everything else. In fact, our research indicates that many ingrained beliefs about effective sales coaching are just plain wrong.  

Top-performing sales managers don’t coach their salespeople more frequently or spend more time in the field. Once the highest impact activities are identified, top-performing sales managers determine how frequently each individual salesperson should be coached and the most effective content of those coaching conversations.  

So, if once per month is sufficient, they don’t coach an activity every two weeks. This goes against conventional thinking for over-achievers who want to set “stretch” goals. More is not always better, certainly as it pertains to effective and realistic sales coaching. Identifying the most important sales activities to coach and coaching them consistently ensures that effort is applied in the right amount and in the right way. The next thing top-performer sales managers do is determine which needles need to move and by how much to achieve the team’s goals. 

How do I know if it is working? 

This last critical question forms the final element of an effective sales management framework. It replicates how top-performing managers simplify their coaching tasks and get more of their salespeople to quota; 35% more as compared to their lower-performing peers, according to Crushing Quota. When they’ve done the heavy lifting of making direct connections between business results–sales objectives/KPIs–and high-impact activities, the path to progress becomes clear. These managers don’t wait until sellers are far behind quota to take action. They monitor the sales KPIs on a regular basis to ensure that progress is being made, and they take needed action when it isn’t. 

They look at things like win rates, time in each deal stage, and level of opportunity qualification. They look at the contents and progress of their seller’s pipelines, and coach accordingly. This is how top-performing sales managers use data. If the right activities are being executed in the right way, the right needles should be moving. If they’re not, adjustments are made. 

To learn more about coaching practices of high-performing managers, check out our most recent book Crushing Quota: Proven Sales Coaching Practices for Breakthrough Performance on Amazon. Download the first two chapters of Crushing Quota. 

Follow VantagePoint On LinkedIn 

Michelle Vazzana is the Chief Strategy Officer and Co-founder of VantagePoint Performance, the leading global sales effectiveness firm. She is the author of Crushing Quota: Proven Sales Coaching Tactics for Breakthrough Performance and co-author of Cracking the Sales Management Code: The Secrets to Measuring and Managing Sales Performance.

 

How (and Why) to Write a Meeting Summary

Today's blog post is by John E. Flannery, President of Flannery Sales Systems.

 

Ideally, when you’re involved in a sales call, you will get into conversations with buyers that offer opportunities to discuss many things, including their primary business objectives (PBOs), challenges they face, and the capabilities your organization offers to help them. However, in many circumstances, you won’t be able to cover all parts of the “discovery map” in one call, as time may have been limited, you were missing a key stakeholder, or you had to focus the agenda on one area for longer than anticipated. While running out of time in the first meeting might seem like a negative, it can actually create an opening for you to keep the sales process active and moving forward.

If after that initial call you think there’s an opportunity to re-engage the prospect at a future date—such as delivering a capabilities presentation or speaking to another key decision-maker—you’ll need to be able to clearly and concisely communicate what was discussed in the first meeting. This is where a meeting summary comes in. In this post, we’ll explore the key components of a meeting summary and how to leverage it as a tool in the sales process.

Setting the stage for the summary 

Before you end a face-to-face meeting or call with any of the sales leaders you are engaging with, let them know that you plan to send them a summary of your discussion. Ask for their feedback on the summary as well as a time to meet to discuss next steps. This not only lets them know to expect the summary, but it also engages them by asking for their input and paves the way for a follow-up meeting.  

How to write your meeting summary 

A typical outline for a meeting summary includes the following components although this should be determined primarily by how much information you learned during the first meeting. The summary should include only the parts covered in your initial meeting and leave the open items as next steps. 

• Salutation 
• Expression of gratitude for their time on the initial call
• Identification of primary business objectives 
• Challenges they are facing in reaching the objective and the impact of those challenges (financial and others) 
• Capabilities that would address the challenges (meaning your solutions or offerings) and the value that the capabilities would provide 
• The timeline for the implementation of a solution 
• Other key players who would need to be involved 
• The budget that has been established for the project 
• A clear request to schedule the next meeting  
• A request that the recipient respond in writing to the meeting summary 

Make it a habit to follow up after each important sales call or meeting with a meeting summary. It will let your prospects know that you clearly understand their needs—or clarify if you don’t—and it will keep the sales momentum going. If you’re concerned that writing these summaries after each meeting will be time-consuming, dedicate some time to creating several different templates (such as meeting type, client industry, etc.) with a standard format and content to repurpose for similar meeting summaries for other clients.   

Want to learn more about meeting summaries and how sales process and training can drive predictable revenue? Schedule a 15 -minute free conversation here. To learn more about Flannery Sales Systems, visit our website at drive-revenue.com.