Selling Power Blog

8 Steps to Convert Your Sales Team Into a Digital Selling Powerhouse

Today's post is by Jeff Davis, an international keynote speaker and author of the award-winning book Create Togetherness, a strategic roadmap to help B2B revenue leaders accelerate revenue growth by strategically aligning their sales and marketing teams. You can learn more about his work at meetjeffdavis.com or by following him on Linkedin, Instagram, and Twitter.

 

Digital disruption has had a major impact on the sales profession, and it’s important to adopt new ways of working r in order to stay competitive. One area where this is true is customer acquisition and sales productivity. Forrester has shown that 90% of B2B customers start their journey with digital search, meaning sales leaders must focus on making the company and product as visible as possible through multiple channels, all while collecting feedback from customers throughout the process so that they can better serve their needs. It might seem like a daunting task, but a structured approach like Digital-First Selling™ can set you up to transform your sales team into a digital selling powerhouse.   

What is Digital-First Selling™?  

Digital-First Selling™ is a process that leverages digital tools, content, and channels to identify, target, and seamlessly engage buyers throughout their entire buying journey. This approach leads to higher engagement and acceleration of speed-to-revenue. Its primary objective is to help sellers get into the right conversations, with the right people, at the right time.  

Some of the key benefits of this strategy include:  

• Improved lead quality 
• Shorter sales cycle length 
• Growth of inbound leads 
• Increased sales rep productivity  
• Improved ability to connect with key decision-makers in the buying group  

The Digital-First Selling™ Blueprint  

As a sales leader, you must become the change agent for the organization to adopt these new digital selling principles. Here’s how:  

Step 1: Understand the Digital-First buyer mindset  

Increase revenue leaders’ knowledge about how the modern buyer’s preferences have evolved. This can be achieved through activities such as attending workshops, developing a reading list, or working with a consultant.  

Step 2: Develop a 360-degree view of the buyer  

Connect all sources of customer data (i.e. email, CRM, web leads) to develop a holistic picture of the buyer and establish a single source of truth for the organization. This involves strategic alignment across all customer-facing functions.  

Step 3: Establish cross-functional alignment on Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)  

Leverage cross-functional data to determine which customer types provide the most significant ROI for the organization and prioritize targeting other companies like them. Consider metrics like customer lifetime value, customer acquisition cost, and average order value.  

The profile should include standard firmographic identifiers such as annual revenue, geography, and industry as well as business fit metrics such as complimentary software being used, tech adoption maturity, and key business objectives. 

Step 4: Orchestrate a cohesive lead-to-revenue process  

Map the buyer’s journey based on feedback from actual customers. Ensure the map expands across all customer-facing functions (i.e. marketing, sales, customer service). 

Step 5: Develop buying interactions that build confidence 

Identify where gaps exist in content and/or other types of buyer interactions that empower the buyer to progress through the different stages of their journey. Ensure each function clearly understands the different stages of the modern buying cycle and how their role can best add value to the customer during each of them. 

Step 6: Optimize digital selling tools and the revenue tech stack  

Audit both the sales and marketing tech stacks to ensure you have the optimal mix of tech for your business. Also be sure that sales reps have the right digital tools they need to be successful, such as video conferencing, sales enablement, and automated meeting scheduling.  

Step 7: Create a digital sales playbook for reps 

Create a resource that helps sales reps understand how to incorporate all the different selling channels that are available to them to have a cohesive conversation with target buyers. There will most likely also be a need for digital sales training. 

Step 8: Establish a formal feedback loop 

Schedule a consistent cadence of cross-functional revenue team meetings to focus on pipeline health, sharing business intelligence, and adapting to changing market dynamics. 

To be successful in this new reality, sales leaders must help their sales reps increase their digital acumen. Adopting an approach like Digital-First Selling™ can provide your company with an edge over competitors who are still stuck in the old paradigm of solely cold-calling or emailing prospects that have yet to show any interest and low intent to buy.  

Your CRM Can't Fix Underperforming Sales, But Sales Performance Management Can

Today's blog post is by Taj Mian. He is Managing Director of Canada, Board International.

 

For sales leaders, getting the tech stack right can be a challenge. On the one hand, the B2B sales space is flooded with solutions that each solve a different problem, so it’s easy to overcommit to a stack that speaks so many different languages that eventually it’s impossible to get a clear picture of what’s going on in the sales organization. And this is clearly a top of mind issue for many sales leaders. In a recent Selling Power survey of more than 150 B2B sales leaders, two thirds reported that they’re already using at least two to four systems and are hesitant to add more. 

But using the wrong solution is just as problematic as using too many solutions. Trying to force one solution to solve every sales performance management issue plays a major role in the fact that on average only 8% of sales reps have met or exceeded quota in the last 24 months. This often plays out with CRMs. Let us first say that CRMs are an unquestionably important part of any sales organization, and we don’t need to spend a lot of time explaining why. CRMs are often the foundation of the B2B tech stack - but they’re not a silver bullet for sales performance management. 

However, many sales leaders are still trying - and failing - to make CRMs work for monitoring and improving sales performance. CRMs are critical for managing day-to-day sales team activities and capturing customer data, but they have significant gaps when it comes to holistic sales performance management. On the flip side, a sales performance management (SPM) solution can help sales leaders look at the big picture - including quotas, territories, forecasting, compensation, hiring, onboarding, and coaching. A CRM will report what happened in a customer interaction, while an SPM solution will show the sales leader what the actions they need to take to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their sales organization. Yet 66% of companies we surveyed are not currently using an SPM solution, and less than 4% of their reps are meeting quota. For those using an SPM solution, though, the number of reps hitting quota was more than four times higher. 

What Sales Performance Management can do that a CRM can’t

Integrate data

An SPM solution does not replace your CRM (or other systems). Instead, it pulls data from each source in real-time, seamlessly aggregating the information in a single point of access, and providing a holistic, tailor-made view for leaders and reps alike. The entire sales organization can regain trust in their data using SPM.

Fast, reliable reporting

CRMs are limited in terms of reporting functionality, and require consistent and reliable data input from each sales rep. Even when done well, this takes so long that leaders are missing out on real-time performance insights. They’re then diverted from other important activities trying to chase down, clean up, and analyze data from their CRM and other tools. SPM solutions automate reporting so that sales leaders can quickly and easily access the info they need to make decisions for their sales teams.

Data-driven coaching

Daily activities and customer data only tell part of the story when it comes to rep behaviors, which makes it nearly impossible for leaders to know who top performers are, what they’re doing well, and how to coach under-performers to improve. This often leads to retention and morale issues when top performers realize they’re under-compensated and are being rewarded the same as under-performers. SPM enables leaders to actively monitor performance, pinpoint the behaviors of top-performers, and provide coaching to the entire sales organization.

Let us be clear: CRM remains a key pillar in the sales stack. However, sales leaders who want to achieve real growth should invest in SPM to ensure that their teams are set up for success with the right territories, compensation, coaching, and more. To learn more about the survey data referenced in this blog post, download the full report: How Sales Performance Management Enables High Performing Sales Teams.

Overcoming the Sales Obstacle Course

Today's post is by Nick Smith, President, CEO, and Founder, Saile Inc.

 

These days, “lead” is a muddy word that can mean almost anything or invoke all sorts of emotions. Leads can be good, leads can be bad. Leads can be cultivated, developed, or handed directly to you. Sometimes they are based on inside tips or first-hand information, like a lead story a reporter is chasing. While other times they might be a half-baked product of a colleague’s daydream (brainstorming, right?). 

In my advertising career, a lead could be as simple as a billboard that sparked an idea. At their worst, leads were dead-ends that took a long time to go nowhere.   

But, at their best, a lead — regardless of its backstory — is an opportunity. 

Opportunity, it’s still why we as salespeople wake up every morning to go fight for the products and services we believe in. But as you know, those opportunities don’t always get handed to you with their name and email available, and if they do we probably don’t want to go into the bounce rate. 

What does it take to get a lead?   

Sales leaders today have to jump through many hoops brought to you by marketing automation systems, email look-up finder tools, and third-party subscriptions galore, all before the first cold call or email even happens. 

Think about this: Is using an email lookup tool really that different than thumbing through the Yellow Pages?   

Sales leaders are longing to spend their time where their company needs them most, but too often it’s spent navigating the sales obstacle course. 

Sales Obstacle Course 

What is the sales obstacle course? Trust me, you know it all too well. It’s embedded in the salesperson’s DNA. 

Here is an eye-opening visual into the hurdles the sales leader has to overcome just to get to the actionable opportunity.

Too often, sales leaders spend more hours than they realize navigating all these obstacles just to get in the prospect’s voicemail or inbox. Let the rinse and repeat cycle begin while we forget about all the wasted time spent on redundant prospecting tasks that went nowhere. And let’s not forget how this piecemealed sales stack is draining the marketing budget. 

What’s worse is that this sales obstacle course produces results. It actually works. So at the end of your long process all you remember is the win, not all of the time you spent on dead ends that went nowhere. Instead, consider thinking about the type of opportunities you really want and need. Is there a way to receive these regularly? How can you start at the result and work backward to regularly produce a steady flow of incoming actionable opportunities? 

Sales leaders, you have a funnel to fill and your time is valuable. Prospecting should not be your badge of honor. Closing should be. And you’re the best at it!  

The Solution

The time is now to defeat the sales obstacle course by implementing an all-in-one seamless solution for your sales team. It can mean the difference between spending endless, grueling hours prospecting or focusing that time on what really matters: closing! 

As the sales world becomes more complex, AI is being adopted as a trusted source to streamline the process. Sales leaders, make sure you are looking at the broader picture and avoid setting up more hurdles in your sales obstacle course to ensure your team is sailing towards success!  

Learn how to start using an all-in-one solution to defeat your sales obstacle course and produce Actionable Opportunities with Saile. 

AUTHOR BIO 

Nick Smith is the President, CEO and Founder of Saile Inc., the maker of patent- pending Sailebots. Today, he invites you to embark on the journey that is sales prospecting and learn how it’s being reimagined. Nick is a speaker at the upcoming virtual Sales 3.0 Conference on October 6-7, 2021. 

Does Your Sales Team Have Enough Pipeline to Make Quota?

Today's post is by Julie Thomas, President and CEO of ValueSelling Associates.

 

Sales managers, there’s no way to sugar coat this: Most B2B sales leaders (69%) reported that their teams did not have enough pipeline to hit quota.

Don’t get me wrong — I realize that sales managers have the hardest job in our profession: Revenue executives have an insatiable appetite for data; HR demands ongoing coaching and training; and the sales reps themselves need assistance daily with customer issues, moving deals forward and crafting proposals.  

It’s extremely easy to lose sight of fundamentals when you’re swimming in a sea of demands, data, and deteriorating sales productivity.  

What’s the solution? A strategic prospecting strategy that enables you to separate the shoppers from the buyers. 

Building a Sales Prospecting Cadence 

B2B buyers are inundated with messages from individuals who do not know the first thing about their business or unique challenges. To break through the noise, your sellers will need to build cadences that leverage the way our brains work and present themselves as a value-added interruption.  

Step One: Consistency 

Encourage your team to carve out non-negotiable blocks of time on their calendars — aiming for two hours daily or 10 per week. 

Sure, fire drills will inevitably come up, but remember that you’re aiming for habit creation. Stress the importance of never cancelling that prospecting time but, instead, moving it to later in the week.  

Step Two: Research 

Sellers need to know industry trends, company finances, and likely business challenges that are already on an executive’s radar.  

Research practices can be as simple as setting up Google alerts and listening to the latest earnings call or as complex as leveraging AI-driven tools that comb search engines and aggregate vital information such as likely pain points and recent technology investments.  

At the end of the day, company intel only gets you so far. Top performers know to research the role/individual, and develop messaging that resonates on a personal level.  

Step Three: Structure 

Sales reps should incorporate phone calls, requests to connect, InMail messages and voicemails — and never forget to add value. The first few touches are all about thought-leadership and sharing valuable content from third-party resources — reps must resist the urge to immediately ask for a meeting.  

To stay top-of-mind, sellers should never go more than five business days between touches — and while length and frequency will vary according to sector, product type and sales cycle length, a typical cadence involves 15 to 17 attempts across 20 to 24 days. 

It’s advantageous to automate cadences so that you run these at scale, but be careful not to sacrifice personalization — volume won’t help if you alienate your target buyers along the way.  

Separating the Shoppers from the Buyers 

We’ve all seen salespeople waste weeks — and even months — clinging to opportunities that will never close. Whatever the reason, the result is a padded pipeline and a false sense of security that can prove disastrous come Q4.   

To avoid this fate, drive home the fact that prospect qualification is an ongoing process. Recent research by LinkedIn shows that 82% of reps lost or delayed at least one deal in the past year because a prospect or key client stakeholder had changed jobs. Your CRM is not the single source of truth. Help your team continually evaluate opportunities with these questions: 

Should they buy? 

• Consider where your organization has had success in the past. Is there a match in terms of business issues? 

Is it worth it? 

• No matter what you’re selling, you’re selling change — which is frightening. To counteract this, reps must uncover meaningful value — the kind that solves high-level business issues and creates urgency.  

Can they buy? 

• All too often sellers cling to prospects who do not have the authority to allocate funds or sign the purchase order. 

When will they buy? 

• Build a plan to realize value: Modern selling is all about understanding the buying process and mapping to it.  

For more information on the behaviors that fill the funnel with winnable opportunities and how to instill these habits across your sales force, check out our latest playbook: Your Guide to Powerful Sales Prospecting. 

Why Territory Planning Will Make or Break Your Sales Strategy

Today's post is by Taj Mian, Managing Director, Canada, Board.

 

 

Sales leaders are under enormous pressure to hit targets. In recent years, targets have become more aggressive while markets remain uncertain and competition increases. Now is the time for sales leaders to take a step back and figure out if their teams are set up for success. But how do you best prepare your teams for success? 

The five pillars of sales performance 

The best place to start is to define what you are trying to accomplish. An organization has many types of targets, such as growth, sales, and revenue. Those targets are established by the leadership and then filtered down to the rest of the organization as action items. Once your organization determines its goals, then you can figure out how to make it happen. This means understanding and defining your addressable market, determining your sales strategy, creating a sales forecast, defining sales territories, establishing incentive and compensation plans, and determining the KPIs you will track to monitor performance.  

A big mistake many sales leaders often make when it comes to these five pillars is handling each one in a silo. However, to be successful each pillar must be mapped out in an integrated way that supports the overall strategy and targets defined by leadership.  

One pillar often entirely overlooked by sales leaders is territory management. Your entire sales strategy for the year ahead could hinge on whether you have correctly set up territories. If you don’t meet the challenges of territory planning, your sales team could be confused, inefficient, and not motivated to ensure targets are hit and your sales strategy is successful. 

Reps need achievable sales targets 

As a leader, you must ensure that you create balanced sales territories and quotas. It is demotivating for a sales rep to feel they have a sales territory that does not allow them to reach their quota. If they feel demotivated, the effectiveness of your entire sales organization suffers. You want to ensure your sales organization is aligned and motivated, which means setting up equitable territories, so all your sales reps feel they have an achievable target. Mapping your sales territories properly will ensure they support, not hinder, your sales strategy.  

Your territory mapping may be causing an unnecessary sales turnover issue

Territory mapping is often one of the most overlooked pillars of sales performance. It is usually done quickly, by spreadsheet, without alignment to the overall sales strategy. This hasty process does not result in adequately weighted territories. Most sales organizations share a common pitfall that territories are heavily weighted for a handful of top reps, leaving 70-80% of reps with subpar territories. The reps with subpar territories do not perform well, so they end up leaving for a better opportunity at another organization. This leads to attrition issues; sales rep turnover has a huge impact on your organization because it causes your sales cycles to stop and start too frequently.  

Unbalanced territories also hurt your top performers. Active sales cycles are often given to closers, which overburdens them and limits their ability to handle their territory effectively. Therefore, a fair and equitable distribution of sales territories from the beginning is critical as your sales territories have a direct impact on your ability to accurately predict revenue.  

You need a system that gives you an integrated view of your sales data

Your sales strategy does not stand alone; it is intertwined with forecasting, territory mapping, incentives and compensation, and KPIs. If you, like many sales leaders, are managing data for each of these activities in separate spreadsheets or disparate systems then you are running your sales organization with a huge handicap. Siloed information will never provide an accurate representation of the effectiveness of your sales organization. Each pillar of sales performance is connected to the other, you need an integrated view that shows accurate and integrated data. 

Identifying the source of a problem is often as hard as implementing the actual solution. Sales leaders are constantly overwhelmed with an abundance of data and information – information that is often changing – and many sales leaders may not realize that the true source of their issues are being caused by inefficiencies across their sales team.  

The solution 

The problems you can face with either not having properly set up territories or not having integrated territories with your overall strategy can be the difference between success and failure for your sales team. Therefore, it is crucial for sales leaders to address this and ensure that their sales teams are motivated and working efficiently towards hitting organizational targets. 

Few sales leaders are aware of the possibility to have one comprehensive platform covering all key areas of your sales performance management. As the world of sales becomes ever more competitive, disrupted, and challenging, sales leaders need to make a change to support their strategies and ensure their teams are best placed for success for the years to come. 

Learn more about how Board can support you, and your organization with our integrated end-to-end platform.

Formal Sales Coaching: So Irresistible, Why So Hard?

Today's post is by David Pearson, CEO of Level Five Selling, the creators Of The Level Five Coaching System.

 

 

People knowledgeable about sales excellence know that coaching is worthwhile—it can make a difference; it needs to be a priority. Most sales leaders agree about the importance of sales coaching, yet would also admit “the job isn’t getting done.” A lot of great companies start coaching initiatives with tremendous energy and commitment. Far fewer exit the other end of the tunnel.   

Three propositions increase the urgency for a renewed dialogue about coaching. 

• Sales force performance is a bigger piece of the competitive advantage puzzle. Today it is challenging to sustain a competitive advantage by product alone. Even if you have a winning product, the competition is likely to bring to market one that is just as good, cheaper, and in half the time it took several years ago.
    
• Sales excellence is more difficult to achieve. Not only is superior sales performance more critical than ever, but it’s also harder to get there. Today’s salespeople must develop their knowledge and skills to an unprecedented level. Now top performers have to know more and know it at a higher level of competency than ever before. 
   
• Skill development cannot be an event; it must be a process. Parachuting salespeople into any training event and expecting them to learn and integrate the complex skills to create value in today’s markets is unrealistic. It simply will not happen regardless of how good the program is, or how talented the trainer. Skill development needs to be a process, not an event, and coaching is an essential ingredient for making that happen.  

Superimpose these developments on one of the most transformational and disruptive periods in recent history, and you create a picture that explains why market-leading companies are taking a second look at getting coaching done and getting it right.  

At Level Five, we have had the privilege of working with great sales leaders.  Here are some of the best practices these great sales leaders are doing on a good day for getting coaching right.  

Improving the diagnosis 

Unfortunately, most people struggle to construct an accurate self-assessment of their abilities. In fact, most people seek out evidence that confirms their positive opinions and ignores evidence to the contrary.   

It’s challenging to travel the performance improvement road unless everyone agrees on where the journey is beginning. Recognizing the myth and achieving a better beginning diagnosis is one of the best opportunities for improving the coaching process. Some specific ideas:    

• Change the standard against which the salesperson is self-judging—shift to a best practice standard versus “what everyone else is doing.”    
• Discuss specific behaviors like “asking questions” or “active listening” when coaching ideas like “selling value.”    
• Coach how to leverage strengths as well as how to correct deficiencies.     

Helping salespeople learn versus teaching

A traditional sales coaching model sounds like this, “I’m the leader–I’ll suggest what you should do to improve your performance. Your job is to practice–my job is to give feedback.” This model is about teaching people how to fix a performance problem.   

An alternative model says, “You’re the one responsible for the learning.  As your leader, I’m responsible for helping you become more aware of your strengths and weaknesses, expand your alternatives for improving, and increase your understanding of how you’re doing.”   

This latter model helps explain why top coaches ask more than tell–and listen more than talk. 

Coaching both account strategy and call execution

Account strategy formulation and call execution skills are critical for any world-class sales team. Hence, they both should be a top priority for coaching. 

But in many companies, account strategy coaching is underemphasized.  If you select the correct accounts and establish a rigorous coaching protocol, performance improvement per unit of time spent on sales strategy can significantly impact sales productivity.  

The importance of having a superior sales team is increasing, but you can’t just “buy” one. Having a great group of front-line leaders who are masterful at coaching and get coaching done are necessary parts of the answer.  Only five years ago, you might have been okay at putting this “getting good at coaching goal” on the back burner for other priorities. However, in today’s market, that decision is more difficult to justify.

How to Retain Top Talent and Drive Productivity with Sales Training

Today's post is by Julie Thomas, President & CEO of ValueSelling Associates.

 

Sales managers are bombarded with administrative tasks, the day-to-day running of eight to 10 direct reports, and the pressure to meet aggressive revenue goals. Plus, they’re expected to fulfill the sales training and coaching needs of teams composed of last month’s hires, 11-year veterans and everyone in between.  

Then there’s the question of how to manage and sell effectively through digital channels. According to research by Gartner, 80% of sales interactions will occur in digital channels by 2025. While many sales leaders have already embraced this digital-first mindset, the divide between digital-savvy sellers and others is still expanding—and it’s blatantly apparent to prospects.  

How can sales managers engage their fully remote or hybrid sales teams, provide the development that’s demanded by top performers, and drive sustainable results? Nothing pays off quicker than customized and actionable sales training. 

Increase Satisfaction, Motivation, and Retention 

Many organizations walked away from 2020 significantly battered—while others flourished. In early 2021, we surveyed 256 sales leaders and L&D decision makers to find out if sales training played a role in the success of the companies that experienced high-revenue growth. 

The results were striking: High-quality sales training impacted business growth beyond sales results, particularly when it came to:  

• Employee satisfaction: Salespeople are hunters, especially your top performers. When you provide the resources they need to succeed, you’ll cultivate a satisfied and loyal sales force.  
• Employee motivation: Training and development creates an environment where sales professionals challenge and motivate one another. Support them appropriately, and they’ll be more inclined to exhibit the discipline that drives results. 

• Employee retention: The salespeople who have been able to hit their numbers in the face of economic uncertainty know their worth. If you don’t actively demonstrate your support through strategic development opportunities, they will seek those opportunities elsewhere.   

However, for sales training to be effective it must be tailored to your industry and unique challenges, centered around a buyer-first approach, and easy to put into practice on day one. Otherwise, reps will view it as merely the newest “flavor of the month”—especially the seasoned veterans.   

Meet the Demands of Your Top Performers 

Long gone are the days when managers could get by on impromptu coaching and training sessions over coffee. When you’re operating remotely or in a hybrid model, you must offer fully imagined learning pathways that strategically develop rep skills.  

After all, it’s what top performers crave, and a key tactic for retaining these individuals long term: Together with Selling Power, we surveyed more than 150 sales leaders on what makes top performers so effective. When we asked how open these sellers are to sales training and coaching, nearly 75% rated their top sellers at 7 or higher on a 10-point scale. This contrasts sharply with the data on the middle and low performers, who the majority of sales leaders rated at 6 or lower.   

Build Productive, Empathetic Teams  

From the rep who religiously updates the CRM to the lone wolf who runs on post-it notes, experienced sales managers have seen it all. You know how challenging it can be to create a tight-knit team that deliberately creates, qualifies, advances and closes opportunities from a group of hit-or-miss sellers. 

Sales training provides your team with a common language and a shared methodology. This in turn leads to two key benefits: 

Increased sales productivity: Train sellers on a simple, repeatable sales process, and you eliminate the floundering caused by confusion over next steps, which means more time spent on crucial selling activities like cold calling.  

A renewed focus on human-to-human connection: Relationships built on authentic human connections get deals done. When sellers are trained in a buyer-first approach to selling, they listen, accurately diagnose a prospect’s needs, and then provide a prescription that solves the most urgent business issues and ensures value realization.  

For more information on the mindsets, attributes, and behaviors of top performers and the value of instilling these habits across your entire sales force, download the latest research from Selling Power and ValueSelling Associates, “7 Actionable Habits of Top Performers.” 

Julie Thomas, President and CEO of ValueSelling Associates, is a noted speaker, author, and consultant. ValueSelling Associates delivers sales training and coaching that helps sales organizations compete confidently on value, not price. The company has been positioned as a Leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Sales Training Service Providers.

How to Develop Trust with Your Technical Sales Counterparts

Today's blog post is by Chris White. He is the author of The Six Habits of Highly Effective Sales Engineers. Chris is also the founder of DemoDoctor.

 

If you’re in software sales – or sell any other complex technology solution, for that matter – chances are good that you depend on sales engineers (SEs) to close business and hit your numbers. Maybe you don’t know them as SEs; maybe you call them “presales engineers,” “solution architects,” or “solution engineers.” Regardless of what you call them, however, your technical sales counterparts – arguably the most important colleagues in your sales process – may confuse you, confound you, and even frustrate you.  

Let’s be fair, though: We probably do the same to them. 

I’ve spent over 15 years developing and observing the sales-SE relationship – as a sales engineer, an account executive (AE), a sales enablement leader, and now a sales trainer. If I’ve learned anything, it’s this: The AE-SE relationship is arguably the most challenging in all of sales. Challenging because, in many cases, you could not bring together two more mismatched individuals and ask them to work together – on something critically important to the survival of the business, no less: generating revenue. We all know how hard it is to close enterprise technology deals, but it can be equally challenging to develop effective lines of communication and a foundation of trust with our sales counterparts.   

How do we get there? If you are struggling to communicate and collaborate with your SEs, here are three things you can start doing now to improve both the relationship and, more importantly, your results. 

1. Understand what’s important to them. 

The goal of sales is to close business and generate revenue. We are measured fundamentally and primarily by one thing – hitting our numbers. In the context of any given deal, what do we fear the most? Losing the deal. However, our technical sales counterparts’ goals are less clear-cut. Although they are responsible for contributing to the success of a deal – and, in many cases, their compensation is tied to the number – they are not directly responsible for the number.  

While they care about winning deals just like sales reps, they care a great deal more about their own personal and professional reputation. While we fear losing the deal, they fear losing credibility. That’s why they are often reluctant to say anything that could be misleading. When working with SEs, be sure to recognize and acknowledge them for their expertise. Demonstrate to them that you value their expert opinion and recognize the importance of their professional reputation. Help them understand that a solution doesn’t have to be a 100% perfect fit to still be the right solution for the prospect or customer. 

2. Respect their time. 

Want to develop a trusting, collaborative relationship with your technical sales counterpart? Respect and value their time the way you would with an important client. The one thing SEs value more than their reputation is their time. In most organizations, SEs are spread across multiple account execs and BDRs. They have a constant flow of requests for discovery calls, demos, RFPs, implementation discussions, etc. While SEs enjoy being brought in as the experts to provide valuable information and insight, they abhor feeling as though their time is not being respected. Avoid asking them to sit in on meetings for which they are not needed – or to do something a rep should be doing. Value them as the experts they are. Respect their time. Demonstrate that you are bringing them into activities that require their unique knowledge and skills. You’ll be amazed at how eager they become to support you. 

3. Provide them with detailed information. 

As sales professionals, we survive by learning how to operate with incomplete information. When asked a question, we tend to do what I call “round up.” When making decisions, we typically don’t need every detail in order to make what we would consider an “informed decision.” Our technical sales counterparts are not necessarily the same. SEs tend to operate in a world of precision. We tend to be quick to extend the benefit of the doubt. Our presales counterparts? They tend to be skeptical at first. In fact, they make a living out of not being too quick to jump to conclusions. They typically need logic and details before they can be reasonably convinced. 

When you need to bring an SE into a deal – for a demo, discovery call, implementation discussion, etc. – provide them with as much information as you can. If they seem skeptical at first,  give them the opportunity to speak to the customer themselves – to do some discovery of their own. This way they can collect the information they need in order to assemble the right demo, respond to the RFP, etc. And be patient with the process. Give them the benefit of the doubt – again, just like you would a customer. At the end of the day, while we in Sales can be a pretty quick “sell,” our sales counterparts usually are not. Give them as much information as you can and don’t be put off if they’re not as immediately excited as you are. 

In summary, if you work closely with sales engineers and rely on them to hit your numbers, chances are good you’ve had some great technical sales counterparts and some not-so-great. And, if you haven’t, you will. If you find yourself scratching your head wondering how to improve the relationship – and ultimately close more business – begin with the three steps outlined in this blog and see what it does to the relationship and your results. 

Don't Make These Motivation Mistakes

Today's blog post is by Richelle Taylor. She is One10 VP Strategic Marketing, is a leader in performance improvement and marketing services in North America. Richelle oversees One10’s go-to-market strategy and its Incentives & Recognition business segment which includes global rewards as well as technology development for One10’s proprietary performance improvement platform, PerformX. Richelle brings a seasoned background to One10, having held leadership positions in marketing, sales, and product management for enterprise recognition and incentive technology solutions.

 

We all like to be rewarded for a job well done. Whether it’s a good performance review, a service award or a contest, rewards motivate teams to stay engaged and do more. Thus, motivation is critical to improving your sales results and increasing your bottom line.  

There’s no denying that salespeople are naturally competitive. It’s this competitive nature that helps them excel in their sales roles and continues to produce the ROI you desire. But, motivation isn’t as easy as it looks. There’s a science to the art of motivation. If not done properly, attempts at motivating your team could fall flat, leaving you with less than desirable results and an unhappy workforce. 

Here are four motivation mistakes to avoid: 

1. No strategy

Thinking about throwing together a last-minute sales promotion? Motivating your team and driving results requires strategically planning and designing a sales incentive program. To begin the process, it’s important to have the end in mind. What are your overall business objectives? Your objectives could include increases in units, revenues, profit margin, steps to the sale, and other factors. After identifying your objectives, you can determine what specific behaviors need to be modified to make your sales incentive program a success. To help you get started, we’ve created this Ultimate Guide to a Killer Sales Incentive Program. 

2. Relying on cash bonuses

Everyone is motivated by cash, right? Wrong. Cash isn’t king when it comes to motivating your team. Multiple studies show team members actually place a higher value on non-cash gifts. Why? Cash is transactional and used for everyday purchases like gas or groceries. By the time you’ve spent all the cash you’ve earned, you’ve likely forgotten how you earned the cash in the first place. On the other hand, rewards are lasting and memorable. The key to motivation is to create a good rewards mix that appeals to the variety of personalities on your team. To do this, look for a points-based system that gives your team the choice to earn and spend on their schedule. 

3. Lack of communication

A secret incentive program will never be a successful one. Therefore, ample communication is critical to keep all of your audiences engaged and ensure you meet your program goals. But who is your audience? Is there more than one audience you need to target? Everyone can play an important role in your sales incentive program. Consider all job roles in your internal and external teams. Communicating differently with each audience is important. Consider varying the copy, imagery, and format of your communication to reach everyone effectively. A multi-pronged approach to communication is also important and includes using a variety of communication tools to share your program messages, like printed material mailed to homes, digital communication, and text/SMS messages.   

4. Not having the right technology to manage your program

Gone are the days of using multiple spreadsheets to track the performance of your team. This only leads to disparate data and frustrated participants. Advanced technology can take your sales incentive program from good to great. Look for technology that keeps your team connected through an online portal so they can easily track their progress and stay motivated to exceed their goals. We’re always on the go, so technology that is specifically designed for mobile devices is important. Think about how frustrating it is to navigate a website on your phone that hasn’t been optimized for a mobile device. Don’t frustrate your teams in the same way. Our PerformX® SaaS technology gives you greater flexibility, a mobile-first UI, and a seamless experience for your participants.   

When done well, your sales incentive program will engage and motivate your team, while also increasing sales for your employees and partners. Poorly designing and executing your sales incentive program can be more damaging than not having a program in the first place. But, when you turn to professionals who have the expertise and technology, they can typically help you get going quickly.  A company that specializes in incentives will focus on delivering ROI and enhancing your bottom line.  

Five Components of an Effective Predictive Revenue Strategy

Today's blog post is by Taj Mian, Managing Director, Canada, Board International.

 

Revenue growth is a key metric for all sales teams. In order to achieve consistent growth, sales leaders must create a revenue strategy that allows them to create and execute on reliable, accurate forecasts. Historically, most organizations relied on their managers’ experience and intelligence to manually create revenue forecasts. However, experience among managers can vary greatly from person to person, creating inconsistent forecast accuracy. Further, without data and analytics, it’s hard to identify where an organization is having revenue challenges, such as a need for more coaching, low pipeline, or low close rates. Each of these requires a different approach and focus. 

Enter predictive revenue. Predictive revenue planning is a data-driven approach, which leverages historical sales data and forecasts revenue based on advanced statistical methods. Statistical forecasting has been around for a long time, dating back to General Motors in the 1930s. But today, powerful computing capabilities that can instantly calculate complex forecasts models based on massive amounts of detailed data are both ubiquitous and cost effective. A predictive revenue strategy can help sales organizations accelerate their revenue by incorporating more transparency and predictability into the forecasting process.

In this post, we’ll explore five key components of an effective predictive revenue strategy.

Clean, quality data

Predictive models rely on historical data to highlight deal archetypes and add intelligence to forecasts, so it is paramount to ensure that data is clean, unified, and harmonized. Bad data is a challenge for most companies. Products, customers, and channels are often defined multiple times across systems, with different IDs, making it nearly impossible to have a single source of truth on the organization. Simply put, bad data will result in bad forecasts. And without historical data, predictive models aren’t possible. 

Accurate forecasting model

Most forecasting software will offer a choice of predefined statistical models, but it’s still important for sales leaders to have solid foundational knowledge of statistics and forecasting methods. Without this, it will be difficult to effectively interpret, question, and act on the forecasts. Knowing how the model works—and that it’s statistically accurate—is critical to differentiating the forecast from pure magic. 

Test-and-learn approach

Implementing a predictive revenue strategy doesn’t mean that traditional revenue forecasts are obsolete. In fact, collecting both traditional and predictive forecasts over time will uncover accuracy trends that give management confidence in their predictive revenue models. Another component that organizations must consider is that creating a predictive revenue strategy is not a one-time event. There must be leadership willingness to frequently test, evaluate, and adjust the models to best fit the organization and its specific business needs. 

Talented salespeople

At the end of the day, statistics aren’t perfect, and they require talented human counterparts to reach their full potential. An effective predictive revenue strategy is enabled by high-performing salespeople and leaders, who know when unique situations require the model to be tweaked, or when to make customer-specific exceptions to the rule. 

A comprehensive platform

Implementing a successful predictive revenue strategy often means adopting a platform that brings all of the necessary data into one place. Sales leaders should look for platforms that are user-friendly and easy to understand, which increases the likelihood that salespeople will enjoy using. Built-in analytics can provide visibility into planning, budgeting, forecasting, and scenario planning with simple and actionable dashboards and workflows.

Overall, adopting a predictive revenue strategy is a significant undertaking that requires a long-term commitment from leadership. In order to be successful, organizations need to have the right data, models, expertise, people, and platform. With these components and a growth mindset, sales teams can consistently and reliably accelerate revenues.

To learn how Ricoh Group transformed sales performance across millions of sales activities with Board, download our case study.