Selling Power Blog

Key Actions For a Healthy Pipeline

Today’s post is by Ken Valla, President and Co-Founder of The Valla Group, a modern sales training organization. Follow The Valla Group’s LinkedIn page for sales effectiveness insights.

 

The term pipeline management is commonly cited by sales leaders as an area of concern. However, like “trusted advisor” – another frequently used term – pipeline management doesn’t seem to have a common definition. Sales leaders often say: “We need our people to focus on pipeline management” with little detail about what that really means. So, let’s give it some structure.

First, pipeline management is not something a salesperson does on command. Similar to health, a person trying to become healthier wouldn’t say: “Monday’s are my healthy day,” as this would not yield long-term lifestyle results. Pipeline management is the same. Sales leaders should never have to ask their salespeople to focus on it because it should be part of their everyday routine to be successful. 

Pipeline management is a continuous process of decisions that influences how a salesperson works and sells each day. There are three components to successfully and effectively managing a pipeline: Evaluating, working, and filling.

Evaluating

Evaluating a pipeline is the foundational action for effectively managing it. The evaluation has historically been boiled down to a salesperson adding up the total pipeline value to see if they had 2.5X or 3X their total annual goal in the funnel. While common, this approach lacks the detail required to truly make good decisions. It suggests that if a seller shoves enough opportunities in one end of the funnel, there should be enough coming out the other end to achieve their goal. This is a pure quantity play, which is only one element of a comprehensive pipeline evaluation.

Factors such as deal quality and velocity are critical in today’s market, but other key evaluative factors – such as deal size and product/service mix – should also inform a salesperson about their pipeline health. However, the evaluation is not about the pipeline itself. It’s about the decisions a salesperson is making each day which are driving pipeline health. Either way, they provide the insight a salesperson needs to make adjustments to how they think, work, and sell.

Working

It’s not enough to simply evaluate the pipeline; a salesperson needs to be able to act on the insights—or work the pipeline. This has a couple dimensions to it. The first is related to how a seller makes decisions about which existing opportunities to focus on. Some critical decision points include:

• Which opportunity has the greatest potential for a “Return on Time”?
• How does the seller leverage resources (technology and people) to advance the opportunity?
• What percentage of time should a seller direct toward customer interaction versus strategic thinking on key opportunities?

The second dimension of working a pipeline is continuously creating and updating a pipeline plan. This plan is then adjusted based upon results from the seller’s evaluation of their pipeline. Salespeople get used to receiving their goals from leadership and jumping right into working their opportunities. This is a huge miss. Those annual goals need to be more than just financial measures. They also need to translate into quarterly objectives which should become part of an ongoing decision-making process. This is how a salesperson ensures they are working on their business and not just in their business.     

Filling

When a salesperson has a plan and is effectively working on their business, it directs them to the third action: Filling the pipeline. This comes down to defining how much prospecting and business development is needed to achieve the goals. The answer is based on the goals, the plan, and the evaluation of the pipeline.

While filling a pipeline is a continuous process, it’s important to figure out how much time to dedicate to it through clear planning. For example, salespeople need to be clear on where to find new opportunities. They may ask themselves: “Should I search for a new opportunity in an existing account or seek out a new logo?” The answer depends on the plan and the priority order of their accounts.  In my experience, salespeople who play fantasy football spend more time ranking their players for a draft than they do ranking their accounts for business potential.

Finally, filling the pipeline is about ratios: the ratio between the number of contacts needed to achieve a meeting and the ratio from first meeting to an actual sale. These ratios should inform how much the pipeline needs to be filled to achieve the overall goals. By the way, remember deal size and velocity from the evaluating action? Those play a role in the amount of filling required. So this entire process is integrated and comes full circle.

Pipeline management is important for sales success today. It’s a cornerstone of the job and should be an everyday occurrence. It doesn’t have to be a challenge, just focus on a few key actions.

To learn more about effective pipeline management, click here.

People First, Sales Second. Customers Need Calm

Today’s post is by Clay Hall, Vice President of Sales of Reno Type.

 

 

In the midst of a global pandemic, those in sales roles might feel like pests. Unless you’ve lucked into selling plastic barriers, masks, or personal protective equipment (PPE), many of us felt like we were knocking on doors at a time when physical distance was top priority. 

And yet, salespeople are vital to the longevity of their organizations. They support their company’s ability to satisfy payroll and protect against layoffs at a time when keeping a roof over one’s head is essential. They support their clients’ ability to continue fulfilling their expectations, keeping brands afloat as businesses repeatedly take hits. While we likely haven’t experienced a pandemic in our lifetimes, I can confidently say that sales is a critical exercise despite one of the most turbulent economic periods in recent history. The way to ride it out is to remember: Prioritize people first. Sales will follow. 

Over my career, I’ve worked with such brands as FedEx, SiriusXM, and Honda, helping generate new revenue and grow existing revenues. Small brands or large, I always ask what value I can add to a clients’ process. While skill sets vary, we all have the power to contribute one precious thing to each of our clients: calm. 

Consider it a commodity. Though priceless, it has intrinsic value and is often exchanged for currency. Those who offer calm to customers will earn a spot as confidant and counselor when clients might perceive other salespeople as pests. 

There are a few ways to do this successfully. 

1. Get into the mindset

The pandemic thrust us all into different and atypical modes of operation. While some thrive in crises, many feel frazzled. When we let our brains fire off in chaotic directions, our actions follow. Try to acknowledge the fight-or-flight feelings you’re having. If you do, it will be easier to put them aside. Then, remember a time when things were going well. Sales were skyrocketing; you were happy, healthy, and fulfilled; client accolades flowed in. Pay attention to this feeling. Can you map out what circumstances contributed to your success? Was it a steady diet and consistent exercise? Was it a disciplined and consistent sales call calendar? Work on identifying the process and see if there are any components you can re-integrate into your current routine. And be graceful with yourself. If you’re only able to bring back one or two components right now, you should celebrate the micro-success as a means of getting back on track. 

2. Listen

In customer and prospect conversations, it’s essential to take a back seat. Listen to your discussion partner. What are their pain points? Where are they looking for new revenue opportunities? Sure, you want to hear them because it will help inform how you counsel them, but your customers truly need a safe place to vent. Perhaps they can’t confide in their spouse because the fear is too tangible at home and they both share the same stress. Maybe they can’t confide in their boss because profits are razor thin and raising additional concerns could position their head on the chopping block. Perhaps they simply don't know what the future holds, and they're collecting feedback from everyone possible to identify a safe path forward. Listen as an act in and of itself. To listen to your customer’s concerns is to draw closer, create a more collaborative relationship, and better understand how you can provide them with means to navigate through turbulence.  

3. Speak low and speak measured

Studies suggest that individuals perceive speakers with lower-pitched voices to have higher levels of competency and trustworthiness. A measured cadence can also contribute to your listener’s sense of calm. For example, dentists have been using speech patterns that mimic hypnosis for centuries to build trust, ease fear, and relieve patient anxiety. Clinical research aside, simply be mindful of your vocal range and see what happens when you drop it down one or two notches. Additionally, observe the reaction when you take a beat longer than normal to formulate responses. Some studies indicate we have a tendency to take on the speech patterns of those we agree with or respect, meaning you may see your client’s patterns start to mimic your own. 

4. Remember: This, too, shall pass

I’ve been in sales and sales-adjacent positions for decades. I waded through the heartbreak of September 11 and the subsequent uncertainty that followed. I managed through the worst of California’s fallout after the real estate bubble burst. I helped clients through the 2008 recession and, today, I’m helping my customers get through the worst of the pandemic. All this to say: This, too, shall pass. I say this with confidence so that you can also say it with confidence. Remember this and share it with your clients, calmly, steadily, and frequently. Fear only contributes to more erratic buying habits, so relaying a positive outlook to your customers can help them re-center and refocus, ultimately benefiting their bottom lines. 

In the uncertainty of 2020, many of us have allowed our emotional responses to lead the way. I don’t say this to criticize, but to illustrate to you that if you can lean in to calm as a commodity, you will become an influential counselor on behalf of your clientele in 2021. People first, my friends. The sales will follow.

Insight is the Cornerstone of Conversational Sales

Today’s post is by Ken Valla, President and Co-Founder of The Valla Group, a modern sales training organization. Follow The Valla Group’s LinkedIn page for sales effectiveness insights.

 

Perhaps you’ve heard the old saying, “This product sells itself.” Unfortunately, B2B products don’t sell themselves, and enterprise selling efforts often fall flat precisely because salespeople over-emphasize product-focused sales interactions. Thus the reason most customers do not want to meet with salespeople during the early stage of a buying process: Sellers don’t bring value to the conversation!

At a foundational level, salespeople create value when they share insights that cause buyers to rethink their approach to key business challenges. Doing this goes a long way toward earning the right to influence your buyer’s decision-making process.

Types of Insights

It stands to reason, then, that sharing insights requires more than a confident attitude. To gain respect and confidence from your buyers, you need to become an effective storyteller in your conversational sales approach and share a point of view that resonates with your buyer.  Read on to find out how to do these effectively.

Storytelling in Conversational Sales

Virtually every B2B website is full of case studies that are typically focused on ROI, usually at the expense of differentiation. These are, for the most part, the same customer stories that salespeople share with buyers: long on products and results, but short on business focus, differentiation, and insights.  

Unlike typical case studies, effective storytelling is a key part of a conversational sales approach. It focuses on each buyer’s unique journey, and it demonstrates your knowledge and experience working with organizations who share similar business issues as your buyer. Each story should be concise and well organized, uniquely relevant, and involve a relatable character. It should have a beginning, middle, and end, and convey a clear, easily understood point.

Another attribute of an effective story is that unlike the conventional wisdom, it can include both positive and negative experiences. Share lessons learned from approaches that worked, and also share insights about hurdles—both minor and major—that required new approaches, and the lessons learned from those experiences. Buyers know that solving business problems can get messy, and they respect salespeople who demonstrate that they’ve been there, learned important lessons, and helped their customers get through it.

Sharing a Point of View

The value of sharing stories in conversational sales is that a good story gives you credibility, but that’s useful only if you follow it up with a perspective that adds value. Knowing what a similar client went through without relating it to your buyer is a lost opportunity. By adding your point of view, you can elevate the conversation beyond your product to focus on their business. Buyers want this perspective; they often pay consultants to share the same information about competitors and markets that good salespeople encounter every day. The key to synthesize in-field experiences—both individual and organizational—into a point of view that resonates with your buyer. How do you do it? There are two paths:

• State a position that strongly advises a customer to follow a specific approach. A position is aggressive by nature, asserting to the buyer that there’s one right way to achieve their business result. It’s like coming to a fork in the road—you have to go one way or the other.
• Share a perspective, which demonstrates knowledge of several different approaches, providing insights into the tradeoffs among them. Returning to the driving metaphor, it’s like coming to a four-way stop—different paths will lead to different results, and you can help them choose the best option for their needs.

Which point of view you choose to share depends on the situation, your credibility, and your understanding of where the buyer is in their decision process. As a result, you can’t take a cookie-cutter approach to establishing a point of view.

By incorporating effective storytelling and a well-considered point of view in your enterprise selling efforts, you’re much more likely to establish credibility among senior-level buyers.  Keep in mind that today’s B2B sales involve many stakeholders, so you must be prepared to share insights in your conversational sales interactions that are germane to the unique business interests of each stakeholder.

To learn more about sharing insights to gain credibility with buyers, click here. 

Winning Traits of Best-in-Class Virtual Sellers

Today's post is by Justin Zappulla, managing partner at Janek Performance Group.

 

The foundations of sales – engaging clients, understanding needs, providing solutions, and building relationships – are the same whether selling face-to-face or virtually. However, sales pros should be mindful of some key differences. Here are several traits sales pros can utilize to get the most from selling virtually.

Get Creative

Many sales pros have benefitted from creating comfortable virtual stages. Personal effects – our homes,  books, pictures, and even pets – help us share with clients, as it invites them to share with us. By getting creative, such as experimenting with camera angles and setting an effective background, sales professionals can engage clients more personally than they did in stale conference rooms.

Be on Time

Punctuality is extra important in a virtual world. As remote meetings tend to include participants who join from their own computers, it’s good practice to start meetings a few minutes early. The casual interaction before a formal start builds rapport and often provides insight into relationships. Also, periodic reminders are essential to avoid the inevitable no-shows that are a byproduct of virtual.

Have a Plan

Because time is important, sales pros must be prepared. Set and share an agenda before the meeting. This not only helps the sales pro stick to a schedule; it also helps establish a comfortable pace. In addition, it orients clients and lets them know where they are in the process. As this improves engagement, it also helps sales pros proceed confidently and cover all their bases.

Captivate Clients

Virtual makes it easy to check out. To keep attention, make your virtual interactions engaging. A big part of this is maintaining eye contact. As often as you can, look directly into the camera. Scan participants and reach out to those who seem withdrawn by asking a question, or say their name and admit you’re just checking in.

Practice Mindfulness

In virtual, sales pros must be mindful and keep clients from getting distracted. Within the pace of your presentation, pause and check-in often. Make sure everyone can hear you and there are no technical issues. While polite, it also prompts participants to speak up or give a virtual wave or thumbs up, and engages attendees who have their video off. Also, note their words and phrases, so you can speak your client’s unique language.   

Listen Actively

Virtual environments can make it difficult to read body language. Often, we are limited to closeups of faces. As such, salespeople should fine-tune their active listening skills to catch the subtleties of their client’s speech. Do they start but not finish sentences? Do they self-correct or seem unsure? These clues help salespeople identify problems that need additional discovery.

Adapt and Do More

Whereas salespeople can often just show up for face-to-face meetings, virtual has more moving pieces. From screen sharing to whiteboarding to reading rooms and engaging, there’s a lot to do. In addition to multitasking, best-in-class virtual sellers must adapt quickly to issues or glitches that arise and successfully transition back to their presentation. Though it can seem like a lot, it just takes practice.

Know Your Tech

Though virtual selling does not require tech wizardry, a little tech goes a long way. As anyone who has been on a virtual call knows, there will be glitches, like a persistent hum in the audio or a sync issue in video. These little things can interrupt the pace of your meeting, and it’s helpful to have handy quick fixes to keep things moving.

Adjust and Flex

More than anything, virtual selling requires sales pros to adjust and be flexible. Whether it’s scheduling virtual meetings with four decision makers in three time zones, losing audio during an important question, or a persistently playful cat perched on your shoulder, best-in-class sales pros must bring it all together. As virtual takes on greater importance and organizations combine virtual with face-to-face engagements, flexible sales pros will best accommodate their clients’ changing needs.

While some sales professionals stressed over the shift into virtual selling, many didn’t realize the possibilities. As with all change, it will take time, but soon, most will realize that the virtual environment has opened new and exciting ways to connect with clients and sell.  Happy virtual selling! 

For more helpful advice on how to advance your selling and sales management skills, visit Janek's resource library.

Overcoming Three Common Mistakes in Virtual Selling

Today's post is by Ben Taylor, MBA and content marketing manager at Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

 

As more businesses embrace virtual selling an imbalance is beginning to occur. Sales professionals are becoming fixated on form rather than content.

Form refers to the way in which material is presented. Content refers to what the material says.

As more selling conversations unfold in a virtual setting the form of the communication is commanding an outsized role at the expense of content. As a result, many sales professionals have embraced the look of selling rather than the logic of selling. This trend may be leading to a norm in which the medium, rather than the message, drives the sales process.

In a virtual environment it is easy to succumb to one-way communication in which the customer’s gaze is repeatedly turned to slides and data. It is more effective to use the opportunity to learn more about the customer and their needs. Simply, success lies in avoiding the missteps that prevent two-way communication. Here we look at the three most common mistakes and how to overcome each.

Develop a Buying Experience That is Meaningful, Not Just Memorable

Virtual engagements are a visual medium. Therefore, it is easy to get lost in the visual aspect of selling and prioritize what is memorable over what is meaningful. Doing so is a mistake because even the most memorable content is no guarantee that customers will buy. We know this to be true because even the $5.6 million price tag of a 30-second Super Bowl advertisement will “fail to increase purchases or purchase intent,” according to findings from the research firm Communicus published in the Harvard Business Review. The solution is to build messaging that is designed for resonance, not merely recall.

This process begins with active listening, which is the act of concentrating on another person’s words to fully understand the intended meaning. The listener must resist distractions that pull their focus away from the person talking. A presentation-focused approach to virtual selling undermines this crucial step. Active listening works because it allows the customer a forum to express their goals and concerns. These details become critical to success later when the sales professional is preparing to position a solution.

Seek Collaboration That Rises Above Cooperation

The customer’s collaboration in the buying journey is more valuable than their cooperation. The reason: Cooperation signals agreement with the solution, but collaboration signals ownership. This sense of ownership comes from the act of participating in the process, underpinning the solution’s worth. Or, as research published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology states, “labor increases valuation.”

This conclusion came from a small team of professors at Harvard Business School, Yale University, and Duke University. They learned that when a consumer exerts effort by participating in the creation of a product, they hold the outcome in much higher esteem. Simply, “consumers believe that their self-made products rival those of experts.” The researchers call this the IKEA effect because so much of the do-it-yourself furniture from IKEA requires the customer’s participation.

This finding has important implications for sales professionals. When the customer is involved in the process of shaping the solution, they will have a greater allegiance to the product. This happens when they engage in a dialogue that reveals underlying needs and challenges. In this setting the customer is doing more talking than the sales professional because they are not only articulating their requirements, they are also crystalizing their own conception of an ideal solution.

Create Conversation Rather Than Control the Customer’s Focus

Visuals are clean. They are safe and comfortable. They are also a shield. In the volatile business environment of today, it is easy to see why some feel that this shield is necessary. It provides an alternative to asking the incisive, sometimes uncomfortable questions that reveal the customer’s underlying concerns.

Questions, not visuals, will reveal the path to the sale. The digital tools available in virtual selling have made it too easy to bypass this initial first step. Sales professionals, eager to demonstrate their value, leverage the visual medium to its fullest extent. This approach, however, circumvents the opportunity to capture the details of the customer’s needs. Sales professionals need to work in close contact with the customer and shape the customer journey.

Succeeding in a virtual setting means avoiding the common pitfalls of digital engagement. At Richardson Sales Performance we are working with sales leaders to discover the consultative path to the sale. Learn more about our approach with our eBook Success in the Era of Virtual Selling.

Trying to Call Higher? Here Are Six Ways To Do It Better

Today's post is by Ken Valla, President and Co-Founder of The Valla Group, a modern sales training organization. Follow The Valla Group’s LinkedIn page for sales effectiveness insights.

 

B2B sales reps have all heard the refrain from their managers: You’re not calling high enough. Companies usually cite examples where executive relationships generated huge contracts, so they encourage salespeople to aim high in their enterprise selling efforts. But getting a bigshot on the phone is not enough to guarantee success. In fact, you can damage your chances if your interaction with an executive falls flat. 

How do you engage executives successfully? Prepare, understand, anticipate. Students who study well do better on tests because they know what to expect before they walk into the classroom. If you think about your executive conversations the same way and follow the six steps described below, you’ll do better too.

Executive Calling Conversation Strategy

1. Conduct research

Executives don’t want to teach you about their company or industry. Before reaching out, identify their highest priorities, such as regulatory issues, competitive pressures, financials, or new product releases. Learn about their go-to-market strategies, how they do business, and their biggest challenges so that you can engage in consultative selling that’s worth their time.

2. Reach out to others

If you have the choice between calling your executive target or starting with someone lower in the company hierarchy, we recommend the latter. It may seem counterintuitive, but the more insight they can share about the executive—how that person thinks and communicates, their hot-button issues, current projects in motion, or topics to avoid, the better off you’ll be in future conversations.

3. Be ready to share value

You don’t have a second chance to make a first impression. A consultative selling approach requires you to share valuable insights that your executive wants to know, including:

• A point of view on industry trends, operational improvements, strategic planning, and other topics that can stimulate business-level (rather than product-level) conversations
• Customer stories that demonstrate how working with your company can be a profitable endeavor, or cautionary tales that show how inertia led to negative business outcomes
• Insights from trusted sources (i.e. analysts, thought leaders, executive peers from other companies) about new business ideas that will get the executive to pay attention

4. Know where you are in the executive’s journey

Developing a rapport with any buyer, particularly a senior executive, requires you to provide information that aligns with where they are in their journey. What is the executive trying to accomplish organizationally and where are they in that journey? Before contacting an executive, know if they’re actively considering your type of solution, are aware of it, or know nothing at all. Getting them to consider a business approach that’s not on their radar requires a vastly different conversation than speaking to them when they’ve done some research and are already considering alternatives.

5. Don’t talk about your product

Remember that proper consultative selling techniques with executives do not include unsolicited product pitches. Executives respond much more favorably to conversational sales approaches that focus on their business outcomes, not your products. Connect to the business outcomes they will achieve by working with you, not what your product does, and they’ll see you as a resource instead of just another salesperson.

6. Plan your outcome

Simply getting to know a high-level executive is not a viable objective. Instead, use a consultative selling approach based on objectives that will advance your cause. These may include:

• Putting your company on their radar for evaluation
• Receiving a sponsored introduction to key stakeholders
• Gaining a better understanding of business issues facing the organization
• Plotting a roadmap of the buying process and next steps
• Overcoming an obstacle that has stalled a sales cycle
• Assigning realistic timelines to your efforts

For more insight about planning a successful revenue blueprint to differentiate yourself from the competition, click here. 

Resilience: How to Embrace and Learn from Mistakes

Today's post is by Mark Petruzzi and Paul Melchiorre, co-authors of Selling the Cloud: A Playbook for Success in Cloud Software and Enterprise Software Sales.

 

Rejection and adversity are commonplace in sales. We get knocked down, and we get up again and again. Most salespeople will hear “no” more than “yes.” You will be stood up and ignored, but behind each closed door is a priceless lesson—the sales greats are those that take the time to pause, reflect, and absorb and apply those lessons.

To perfect the art of sales is to channel the art of resilience. Here are four strategies to embrace failure and learn from it.

1. Overcome Adversity

Our mindset greatly influences how we react to adversity. The important thing to remember is that rejection does not equate to worth. Failure always hurts, but it is not permanent. The key to resilience is considering every loss an opportunity to grow.

Next time something does not go your way, ask yourself two questions to reset your mindset:

1. What can I learn from this loss/failure/negative experience?
2. What can I do differently next time?

It is also important to remain calm and take responsibility for the role you played in the failure. This requires patience, self-awareness, and confidence, and it may be something you work toward over time.

2. Take “No” for an Answer

Whether we are asking someone out to dinner or pitching a deal, “no” is not an answer we want to hear in our personal or professional lives. Unfortunately, an “anti-no” culture has become so prevalent in sales and is the primary focus of countless sales training programs. In fact, one of the basic belief systems in selling is, “Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” Now ask yourself, honestly—how do you feel when you say “no” to someone who will not take “no” for an answer? No one wants to be strong-armed into something they do not want or need.

A good salesperson is one that knows early on when a “no” is a “no,” and focuses his or her efforts on the leads that promise a potential “yes.”

Accepting “no” allows us to hit our full revenue production potential because it frees up more room for clients who are better fits. So, try accepting a “no” and see if it gets you a few more shots at “yes” down the road.

3. Don’t Focus on Closing

In many industries, being dubbed a "closer" is the highest accolade a sales professional can achieve. The term encapsulates the skills and traits necessary to become a top-level performer. Closers are the most highly recruited and sought after—the true elite. However, most of us don’t even like to be considered salespeople—much less closers!

This is true despite the fact that we can close with the best of them and that many sales executives consider closing important. Many senior partners or CEOs have said, “If only we had someone around here who can close, we’d have a lot more business.” But the reality is that sales close themselves if they’ve been worked properly throughout the sales process.

4. Learn from Every Deal

Every deal, whether it is won or lost, is worth dissecting and learning from. Strong sales organizations build a process around this. Lost deals are not all bad. In fact, you learn a lot more from lost deals than won deals. In our experience, the best sales deal reviews are not done in a vacuum, but with a team. One strategy is to have a sales rep give a presentation about a great win or a tough loss in front of the entire company. It is a vulnerable task, but incredibly helpful to the rep and to the entire organization. Ultimately, the process can become a great sales enablement tool and an opportunity for company-wide engagement.

Remember, failure always hurts, but it is not permanent. The key to resilience is taking every loss as an opportunity to learn and grow.

Selling the Cloud: A Playbook for Success in Cloud Software and Enterprise Software Sales provides strategies individuals and organizations can apply to boost sales performance, help customers succeed, and grow careers and businesses. Order your copy today.

Three Essential Attributes of a Modern Sales Effectiveness Solution

Today's post is by Ken Valla, President and Co-Founder of The Valla Group, a modern sales training organization. Follow The Valla Group’s LinkedIn page for sales effectiveness insights.

 

You’ve seen the research: Companies engage with B2B salespeople later and later, and involve more stakeholders than ever. Add in the challenges of remote sellers and tightening budgets, and it’s easy to see why enterprise selling is tougher these days. To succeed, companies need customized sales effectiveness approaches that directly improve sales performance.

Yet most traditional sales effectiveness solutions and sales methodologies are one-size-fits-all affairs that ignore the fact that every company has different values, needs, and problems. This often results in an expensive consulting project that never gets integrated into the client’s sales strategy.

To get the best results from your enterprise selling efforts, look for a modern sales effectiveness solution with the following three attributes.

Treat clients like partners

There’s no cookie-cutter fix for each company’s sales effectiveness challenges. Most sales methodologies and sales training companies lack the customization necessary to identify and correct what’s driving a company’s poor sales performance.  

For example, one team may have pipeline management issues, while another struggles to drive early demand. Traditional sales methodologies don’t dive into organizations’ unique challenges and deliver bespoke solutions.

In contrast, modern sales effectiveness solutions go deep into a client’s unique needs, focusing on understanding how sellers think, work, and sell, and then delivering customized sales training approaches that pinpoint improvement opportunities with the most potential for impact. The end result is a partnership that’s built to work best for each client—and vastly improve sales performance.

Create demand via early-stage selling

B2B buyers engage with vendors later in sales cycles, but what do salespeople do in the meantime? It’s tough to find a B2B salesperson who’s made quota on leads alone, yet many salespeople still over-rely on their BDRs. As a result, pipelines shrink and salespeople grasp at unwinnable deals to keep their activity metrics high. These efforts typically increase sales activity at the expense of sales performance.

In contrast, a modern sales effectiveness provider will empower salespeople to drive top-of-funnel demand themselves, working with leaders to:

•       Identify why and how salespeople can establish credibility with buyers early
•       Create custom messaging for key stakeholders
•       Box out the competition early
•       Increase pipeline and deal velocity

Shape better conversations during mid-stage opportunities

Banking on the efforts of one or two internal champions isn’t enough for B2B salespeople to succeed. Almost every enterprise sale is a complex process that involves many stakeholders, all of whom need focused attention in order to maximize value, increase deal velocity, and eliminate surprises. When salespeople cut corners and go for the close without involving all the key stakeholders, they end up with undersized or stalled deals.

Modern sales effectiveness solutions look at how to shape successful outcomes through conversational sales interactions with all the key stakeholders in an account. Each of these conversations must be personal, situational, and collaborative—focused on the unique needs of each stakeholder. In contrast to scattershot sales efforts, conversational sales approaches ensure that deals aren’t upended by surprise roadblocks, and that value for each stakeholder is maximized—resulting in more and bigger deals. 

Implementing a modern sales effectiveness solution over traditional sales methodologies ensures that your sales training will meet the unique needs of your sales organization, align more closely with your sales strategy, and lead to improved short- and long-term sales performance. 

To learn more about the value of a modern approach over typical sales methodologies, click here.

Sales Coaching in the New, Virtual World

Today's post is by Justin Zappulla, managing partner at Janek Performance Group.

 

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, many sales teams quickly adapted new skills to sell in the virtual environment. At the same time, however, many were ill prepared for the challenges of coaching remotely, such as the time required to coach a dispersed team. In an office, coaching opportunities present themselves organically. Managers sit at a rep’s computer or teams gather in conference rooms and even cater lunch. However, it’s different in a virtual world. Coaching practices geared toward in-person interaction did not readily translate, and for virtual coaching to be effective, managers had to find ways to sufficiently engage their reps. Here are a few ways sales managers can meet the challenges of remote coaching.

Actively engage reps

To coach successfully in a virtual environment, managers must change the dynamic. An overly prescriptive coaching engagement, where the manager speaks most of the time, will be even less effective virtually. Managers should encourage reps to speak up, invest in the coaching, and buy in to the desired outcomes. A basic tenet of sales has always been to believe in your product. Virtual coaching practices that encourage participation increase commitment, making reps stronger representatives for their customers and clients. This also aids retention as reps develop a stake in the organization’s long-term goals.     

Create an open environment

Key to creating engagement in virtual coaching is adapting how managers and reps communicate. In virtual, it’s essential to utilize open-ended questions. Similar to how successful sales reps use open-ended questions to uncover a client’s needs, managers must communicate honestly, build trust, and foster a willingness to engage in the coaching initiatives that increase performance and drive sales. Combined with open-ended questions, closed questions can provide confirmation and indicate buy-in. By themselves, however, they can make reps defensive. Remember, many reps already feel anxious from the isolation of working remotely, so employing a combination of open-ended and closed questions makes for a comfortable and enjoyable coaching experience.

Focus on quality communication

In virtual coaching, written and verbal communication require greater attention. As sales managers rely more on email, they must avoid miscommunication that stems from carelessness. While reps can readily note a manager’s joke in person, it’s easy to misconstrue a comment in an email. Without the benefit of body language, isolated reps might find themselves stressing over a misinterpreted comment that the manager meant humorously. Also, managers should read emails aloud to ensure their tone isn’t short, curt, or out of alignment with their intended meaning.    

On video, managers should reassure remote reps they are valued and appreciated. On the phone, without facial expressions, meaning can blur, especially when criticizing or critiquing a rep’s performance. As in face-to-face coaching, virtual coaching should always seek to build a rep up. In virtual, this requires a little extra awareness to preserve feelings and ensure a productive coaching experience.

Embrace technology

Today, technology is essential to coaching. Sales managers must be able to communicate and collaborate with remote reps through video and other conferencing applications. They must share data from their CRM, review recorded calls, and listen to live calls in real time. In addition, as technology is only as useful as its functionality, both managers and reps must troubleshoot the issues common to virtual interaction and prepare a network within their organization to ensure remote reps have access and support if something fails. Also, both managers and reps should be proficient with the tools of virtual collaboration, such as screen sharing and whiteboarding, to get the most from virtual coaching.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, it’s easy to see how sales coaching took a backseat as organizations struggled to maintain sales in the remote environment. Gradually, as organizations adapted and the need for coaching grew, it became clear the old way was no longer effective. Instead, as their teams adjusted to sell virtually, sales managers modified their coaching practices to suit the changing needs of their remote sales force. Going forward, as the virtual model continues to grow, successful managers will consistently update their coaching to ensure the productivity and success of their sales teams.   

For more helpful advice on how to advance your selling and sales management skills, visit Janek's resource library. 

Preparing to prospect in 2021: What we already know

Today's blog post is by Lead Forensics editorial team.

What happens when everything sales leaders know about the industry dramatically changes in a matter of months? There’s been uncertainty around every corner in 2020, and the organizations that are still standing strong and successful today must prepare to adapt their approach on a strategic level in 2021. While we can’t predict the future, we can use what we’ve learned to inform our strategies and maximize prospecting potential in the year ahead.

Develop a real-time response culture for following up with prospects

According to Harvard Business Review, firms that contact potential customers within an hour of receiving an inquiry are almost seven times more likely to qualify the lead than those who try an hour later—and more than 60 times more likely than those that wait 24 hours or longer. B2B buyers are consumers in their personal lives, and consumers demand immediacy. We’re used to instant responses from chatbots—we expect rapid replies, next-day delivery, and real-time updates. Your follow-up approach to prospects needs to cater to this, and a company-wide culture of immediacy is the only way. Lead Forensics for example, provides real-time alerts of website visitors and helps your reps act quickly on sales-ready leads.

Sales reps must embrace agility

Digital transformation isn’t a new concept—before the pandemic, buyers were already becoming accustomed to digital experiences, online purchases, and even using big-name vendors like Amazon to make their B2B purchases. According to Forrester, B2B e-commerce sales are expected to account for as much as 17% of all B2B sales by 2023. This makes sales prospecting a little more difficult. Your business must be agile in its approach. Ensure your sales team is prepared to sell to remote buyers; identify new, unique selling points to meet the needs of a changing market; enable on-site purchasing where possible; and embrace digital and social platforms to reach a younger, digital-first audience of B2B buyers. 

Data-fueled decisions for sales leaders     

According to the Salesforce “State of Sales” report, two-thirds of sales teams prioritize leads based on data analysis rather than gut feeling. This is critical—to convert the most customers and deliver an extraordinary experience, data must play a significant part in your strategic decisions. Your prospects can access all the information they need in seconds, so they’ll spot a generic email a mile away. In 2021, customization and relevance are key—whether it’s gaining a deeper understanding of your ideal buyers, personalizing your follow-ups with enriched data, or using behavioral analytics to identify the most engaged leads. Read our new eBook to optimize your 2021 sales strategy.

Website intelligence and automation: The secret to a full sales pipeline

EY recently reported that 41% of companies are investing in automation acceleration to prepare for the post-crisis business world. Automating or improving your prospecting process with powerful SaaS is a sure-fire way to build your pipeline—and investing in your business website might be the best way to do that. Reverse IP tracking software reveals the identity of your website visitors and tracks their on-site behavior, providing you with a bounty of new leads for the top of your pipeline along with large quantities of data, all in real-time. Lead Forensics, for example, eliminates the need for on-site conversion; sends instant website visitor alerts; and provides accurate business names, decision-maker contact details, and key firmographic data so that sales reps can reach out in seconds – try it free for 14-days.