Selling Power Blog

How to Solve Your Sales Performance Problems

Today’s post is by Leff Bonney, vice president, research and product innovation, at VantagePoint and a professor of marketing at Florida State University. Leff serves as director of executive programs for FSU’s College of Business and its Sales Institute, which has been recognized as the premier university sales program in the U.S. 

 

When organizations experience a sales performance problem – and most do –  they look to one of two places for the solution: their sales processes or their sales methodology. The underlying idea is that improving process or methodology to create consistent sales execution will solve the sales performance problem.

This has been the common approach to sales force improvement for decades. But it’s still not working. While sales results are changing, it’s not for the better. According to the LinkedIn State of Sales Report:

• Over the past five years, investments in tech and training have all increased – to the tune of $28 billion
• Over that same period, quota attainment, rep turnover, productivity and sales VP tenure have all decreased
• 65 percent of sales reps are missing quota

Consistency in selling only works if the right things are done consistently well. Until now, companies have operated on the assumption that the “right thing” means choosing the best sales process or sales methodology and requiring salespeople to stick to it.

New research has discovered that not only is this assumption faulty, but it is also causing the very problems companies are trying to fix. According to the findings of a multi-phase study by the Florida State University (FSU) Sales Institute, by investing significantly in a singular sales methodology, organizations are investing in the creation of an average or underperforming sales team.

There Is No Best Sales Methodology

Initially, FSU researchers set out to determine the answer to a question they are frequently asked by sales leaders: “What is the best sales methodology?”

Four studies and a year later, it turns out the answer to that question is: none.

Here’s how they got there. In the initial study, the FSU team asked 783 sales reps from eight different industries to self-identify their individual sales style. They then correlated those styles with sales performance. The thinking was that whatever method/style was chosen by the most high performers would be declared “best.”

The results: High performers were most likely to identify as Challenger or consultative sellers while low performers mostly identified as product or relational sellers. These results, which validated prior research done by the Sales Executive Council, seemed to indicate that a disruptive or consultative approach to sales yields the best results.

FSU might have stopped there had it not been for a thought-provoking comment by a top-performing seller who’d been asked to participate in the study. He told researchers he found it hard to answer the questions because the type of seller he was depended on the situation. This got researchers thinking: Was the same true for other high performers? And had they simply checked one box to get the study off their to-do lists?

The seller’s remark caused the researchers to question the validity of the initial study and changed the course of FSU’s research. Operating on a new hypothesis, the research team designed a new study that, instead of asking participants to self-identify their selling style, asked them to describe the various selling situations they face and explain their approach for each situation.

The results of the new study were very different – and gave researchers the “Eureka!” moment they’d hoped for.

Top Sellers Align Their Approach with the Sales Situation at Hand

The second phase of the study, which evaluated 1,500 salespeople from three different industries, found that the scenario dictated the type of approach high performers used. Where low performers’ toolkits had only one or two approaches to selling, high performers revealed significant variance in their tactics, using up to five different strategies depending on the situation. In this second study, no single method dominated.

These were extraordinary findings in a profession that has long believed that finding the single right approach for a specific company and using it consistently is the formula for winning sales performance.

To validate these groundbreaking findings, the researchers created a third study. They wanted to see if the problem lay in the situation, not the approach. The research team created situations they felt represented accurate depictions of what sales teams face every day, then asked salespeople to describe what they would do in those situations.

They also asked respondents to explain the details of both a successful and an unsuccessful opportunity pursuit for each scenario. The results were the same. High performers changed their approach to match each situation while lower performers used a singular style of selling regardless of the sales situation.

In the final phase of the study, FSU built a training program aimed at teaching sales agility at a company that agreed to alter its sales approach based on FSU’s findings. Researchers learned the company’s high performers used four distinct selling strategies to reach five distinct types of buyers.

After documenting the five buyer types and the selling strategies that worked best in each case – then training all sellers in the company to identify a buying situation and leverage the correct approach – the results were overwhelmingly supportive of the earlier conclusions. By using an agile approach instead of a single approach, win rates soared and a significantly higher number of reps made quota.

The conclusions were inarguable. While many high performers have long been seen as “rogue” agents who don’t stick to company-directed methods, it turns out the “deviant” selling behavior that has long plagued managers is actually the key to their success. High performers:

• Don’t use a cookie-cutter approach
• Adapt their sales strategy to each unique situation
• Use the strategy with the best chance of success
• Are least likely to use a singular sales methodology
• Have a very different-looking pipeline than lower performers

Based on this research, sales leaders need to stop seeking the “best” sales methodology for their company and instead ask, “What three to five methodologies are right for the three to five situations our sales teams face on a regular basis?”

As more and more companies are discovering, that’s the millions-of-dollars question that’s the key to turning around lagging sales performance.

How to Create a Sales Culture That Keeps Improving

Today’s post is by Duane Sparks, chairman and founder of The Sales Board. He is the author of Action Selling, Customer Relationship Professional, and Action Selling Leadership. Contact him at dsparks@thesalesboard.com.

 

The primary role of all sales leaders is to deliver profitable revenue to the company. To be a great sales leader, therefore, you must focus on how that can best be done. If you want your sales team to function as a well-oiled machine for producing revenue and great margins, you need to do a great job of creating an environment for success.

In other words, you need to create a great sales culture. To do that, you have to put the people and processes in place to produce enough revenue and profit margin to achieve the goals set in front of you. The key word there is “processes.”

A process is a set of linked actions that are taken to create a desired outcome. When it comes to the sales leadership process, our desired outcome is profitable revenue. Just like Total Quality Management (TQM), Six Sigma, Kaizen, or any other continuous-improvement methodology, sales management needs to be a process...a set of linked actions designed to function within an overall sales improvement system.

Here’s a great example of a complete sales leadership process:

The nine “Acts” are linked actions – sub-processes, if you will – that support the three primary roles of a sales leader (plan, organize, and coach). Put them all together, and you have a great sales-management process – one that lets you create a sales culture that just keeps getting better and better.

At this point, let me just offer a few observations about the critical importance of processes to effective leadership – and to sales leaders, in particular.

• Every outcome is the result of a process.
• The most successful leaders manage processes, not people. Good processes allow you to better manage the people who work for you.
• Documented processes are necessary for achieving high-quality results. If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t understand what you are doing.
• Only a process can give you continuous improvement.
• The best people can be brought down by a bad process. Fix the process, and good people will succeed in their work.
• The greatest sales gains occur when every employee who has contact with customers is able to follow the same sales communication process. That’s when a great sales culture emerges.

Not all processes are critical. The most important are those that are executed often, have a direct link to individual sales performance, and underlie business growth. If sales leaders are going to be great at the key roles of planning, organizing, and coaching, they’ll need to deploy processes like those described in “The 9 Acts of Leadership.” These are the most critical processes to the long-term success of every sales leader:

1. Goal setting process
2. Sales cycle process
3. Hiring process
4. Process for measuring results
5. Sales call process
6. Sales coaching process

Because these processes are performed repeatedly, small improvements in them can add up to huge benefits. Take your sales cycle process, for example. A tweak in how well salespeople orchestrate their sales activities can get you significantly more sales, a sizable acceleration in sales cycle velocity, and an improvement in gross margins. Fine-tuning your sales cycle process can produce big gains as small improvements are consistently applied.

Just like an effective TQM methodology, the best sales cultures have common processes that are reliably deployed. When these processes are consistently completed, sales goals are achieved, an unbeatable sales culture is developed, and your sales team runs like a well-oiled machine.

Which Is the Best Lever to Pull for Sales Performance Improvement?

Today’s post is by Jeff Seeley, CEO of sales and leadership training company Carew International, as well as a frequent keynote speaker, columnist, and blogger. Find him online or connect with him on LinkedIn.

 

Sales leaders are always searching for the fastest, surest route to improved sales performance.

Many ponder the role of digital sales automation and enablement tools in their quest for sales growth. Do sales enablement tools represent the solution to our sales pain, or are they a distraction from other high-impact factors?

The answer will be different for each organization – and largely depends on where the greatest gaps in your organization’s sales process exist. A thorough examination of your current sales capabilities and pain points is essential to select the best route for sales performance improvement across your sales team.

The Link between Sales Performance and Sales Process

First, consider the weakest links in your sales operation and organization. Do you see flaws, bottlenecks, or limitations in the operations process itself? Or are you seeing a low percentage of “wins,” suggesting selling skills may be the issue? Insight on this initial consideration will help you set priorities.

Sales enablement and automation tools – like CRMs, market intelligence, and prospecting tools – really focus on the efficiency of your process, saving sales professionals’ time for “high-value” customer interactions and expanding each sales professional’s capacity for all sales activities. These tools can also be very effective in identifying problem areas and weak spots, like logistical problems related to shipping, billing, or reporting.

On the other hand, skill development addresses the effectiveness of your sales team during customer interface – building customer relationships, diagnosing customer needs, and delivering winning sales presentations.

What Does Your Sales Team Need to Win More?

Do your salespeople need more opportunities to sell – or better skills and a higher close rate when they do get opportunities? In conversations with sales leaders, I often approach this consideration with the following baseball analogy: Which is most needed by your sales team – more “at bats” (opportunities) or a better hit (close) rate with the opportunities that cross the plate? A severe weakness in either realm will significantly hamper sales growth efforts. If a batter can’t hit the ball (or close a sale), it doesn’t really matter how many at bats (or leads/opportunities) he or she gets. Likewise, the best batter in the world won’t score any runs (or close any sales) if they don’t get chances at the plate.

Both baseball and sales require specific skills for success. Whereas, on the baseball diamond, field skills and batting average define the player, in sales, professionals need core communication skills and processes to build relationships, diagnose customer needs, cultivate trust and credibility, and maximize influence with customers. But, in both cases, enablement tools can create an environment for success – that point leading up to and surrounding application of skills and knowledge.

Coaches observe every pitch/at bat for strengths and weaknesses, things a player can improve upon, or things they did well. Sales managers use the ride-along approach in much the same manner – to observe strengths and weaknesses. Baseball managers also watch the data very intently for trends and patterns, as should sales leaders. Sales enablement tools, much like Sabermetrics in baseball, can show rep trends across myriad metrics related to stages in the sales cycle, buyer types, purchase habits, etc. This insight can indicate if skill development is needed to further define which skills are the priority.  

Prioritize Your Greatest Sales Performance Needs

Sales and baseball are both endeavors that rely on key insights as well as exceptional skills for winning sales performance. In a perfect world, sales leaders and sales professionals alike would love more opportunities and a higher close rate, but limited time and resources typically force us to prioritize and focus on our greatest need – be it improved selling skills or sales operations.

Sales enablement tools can identify trends and gaps, increase the efficiency of your overall sales and delivery operations, and potentially improve customer satisfaction as a result. Sales skill development is deployed to improve the win rate with the sales opportunities presented to your team, improve customer relationships, and extend the customer life cycle.

How to Align Sales and Customer Service to Drive Higher Revenue

Today’s post is by Anita Greenland, vice president of sales at The Brooks Group, where she brings 25+ years of customer service, sales, sales management, and sales training experience. Anita is responsible for leading and executing The Brooks Group’s sales growth strategy.

 

Excellent customer service translates into increased revenue for your organization. When your customers are happy, they’re more likely to stay with you, spend more, and refer your business to others.

Be sure you’re maximizing the benefits of happy customers by aligning your sales and customer service departments with these six tips.

1. Build a customer-focused culture.

Most customer service team members understand that their job is to help the customer by solving the problem or providing support.

Extend this customer focus to your sales team as well by encouraging a culture in which every interaction with a client has the goal of providing value.

Coach your salespeople to continue relationships with customers even after the sale has been made. They should reach out to ensure expectations were met, and schedule regular relationship, business, and strategy reviews.

2. Clearly define your promise to the customer.

Everyone in your organization should be crystal clear about what value your offerings provide your customers, and the promises you make to them in your marketing, sales, delivery, and service processes.

Too often, sales teams make promises that customer service reps can’t deliver on, or customer service representatives are unaware of the needs and demands that customers communicate to sales teams.

By clearly defining what you offer and how it benefits the customer, you help teams create a clear and unambiguous experience for each client.

3. Create open lines of communication.

Sales and customer service shouldn’t operate in silos.

Create open lines of communication and hold both service reps and salespeople accountable for sharing problems and challenges with each other, as well as knowledge and insights. Encourage team problem solving and reward collaborative behavior among departments.

When a customer has a problem, a well-trained service rep can often both solve the problem and guide the customer toward more products and services. It’s critical that your service reps are skilled at identifying untapped revenue opportunities and handing the customer over to sales when necessary. 

4. Identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities.

Customer service reps spend their time helping clients resolve issues, which provides the perfect chance to identify untapped revenue opportunities.

Coach your service reps to ask probing questions to truly understand the customer’s needs and what they value, and consider providing resources to help them map complementary options. They should be very comfortable with your product offerings and skilled at when and how to work in an upsell or cross-sell.

5. Make problem solving a team effort.

Successful customer service teams have the ability to defuse potential issues. Your team should be equipped to turn an otherwise negative situation into a chance to build customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Train your customer service reps to respond quickly and adapt their communication style to match the client they are dealing with. Then, be sure the issue is recorded and communicated with the client’s sales rep (and any other team members who may interact with the client).

It’s possible to recover and even benefit from a customer complaint. In fact, a study by Harvard Business Review found that customers who have a complaint handled in less than five minutes go on to spend more on future purchases.

The key is to have all hands on deck when an issue arises, and work as a team to deliver the best solution.

6. Invest in customer service training.

According to Marketing Metrics, the probability of selling to an existing happy customer is up to 14 times higher than the probability of selling to a new customer. However, a large majority of customer service departments lack the skills necessary to positively influence customers’ future buying decisions.

IMPACT for Customer Service is a training program that teaches your team how to serve and delight customers – and translate their efforts into additional revenue for your organization.  

Whether you’re looking to train a dedicated customer service team or would like to improve the effectiveness of any of your client-facing team members, this program can take your organization’s customer service from average to remarkable.

Learn more about the IMPACT for Customer Service program and request an info packet here.

How to Improve the Way You Coach Millennial Sales Reps

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

 

Millennial sales reps don’t always see the world the same way as their sales managers.

Technological advancements often signify divides between generations. But there may be no sharper divide than that between the Information Age Gen-X/baby boomers and the Digital Age millennials.

The globalization of digital information, awareness, and communication has created a generation far different from its predecessors. As a result, astute sales managers will recognize that coaching millennial sales reps will require tactics different from older sales reps.

Three Ways to Adapt Your Sales Coaching Style

Here are three basic tips to help you adapt your sales coaching style to millennial sales reps.

Tip #1: Use structure and guidelines.

Many millennials grew up in an environment where their day was carefully plotted and scheduled, with many after-school activities, sports, etc. Their educational system emphasized standardized test scores, resulting in teaching to exams – a process that necessitated instruction in a specific structure and format.

For a considerable portion of millennial sales reps, hearing the phrase “figure it out” can be alarming. When your formative years had a built-in structure and clear guidelines, you might naturally find the open waters of uncertainty and vagueness disturbing.

When coaching sales reps of this generation, use structure and guidelines – both in the sales coaching session itself and the skills and accounts being coached to. It will make things much easier for your reports and it has the side benefit of forcing you, as a sales manager, to clearly articulate and define a given skill or your organization’s processes and expectations. This, in turn, will have positive effects on the rest of the sales team.

Tip #2: Make technology your friend.

To paraphrase Bane from the recent Batman film franchise, millennials were born in technology, molded by it. This extends into the generation’s daily life, where a large portion will look up how to do something via YouTube instructional videos, for example.

You, too, can use technology to your coaching advantage with millennials. (Explanatory videos not only appeal to this age group but will aid older visual learners on your team.) Also consider gamification apps for sales training reinforcement, and using technology to provide feedback, disseminate data, and distribute metrics information.

Tip #3: Give consistent and frequent feedback.

It’s inaccurate to say millennials have poorer interpersonal communications than previous generations. Rather, the form of communication has changed. Rather than face-to-face, much conversing takes place via text, social media platforms, and other forms of digital communication.

In fact, there’s even more communication in the digital, global society than we’ve ever had before – it’s just that less of it occurs face-to-face. Given this increased, real-time discussion, particularly against the background noted in our first point, your millennial sales reps will expect consistent, frequent feedback on their performance.

So provide that feedback on the expected timelines. It’ll make you a more effective sales manager because you’ll be able to 1) spot issues before they become serious and 2) develop a closer relationship between you and your team members.

Adapting to Sales Coaching Changes

Yes, sales managers are being asked to adapt during a time of massive change. (Don’t forget: Generation Z also began entering the workforce last year.) But change also brings opportunity. Try these tips and you’ll strengthen and improve your company’s sales coaching culture, and get a greater return on your efforts.  

For more advice on how to advance your sales coaching skills, visit Janek’s resource library or sign up for our free monthly newsletter.

The New Skills You Need to Win in Selling

Today's blog post is by Tracey Wik, president of GrowthPlay’s Sales Talent Consulting business. If high-achieving leaders are not meeting their number, Tracey helps them understand what sales talent they have, what talent they need, and how to use data to inform their decisions. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

 

Customers have high expectations. If you want them to buy from you, you need to manage the relationship, understand their business (including their markets and customers), and provide value beyond the features and benefits of your offering.

In short, today’s customers want salespeople to be trusted advisors. With all that in mind, do most salespeople take the right approach when trying to win deals?

Three Common Selling Approaches

Let’s examine three potential approaches sales professionals can take with prospects.

Approach #1: Decrease costs

Perhaps the salesperson discounts an offer by 10 percent below the prospect’s current vendor. This usually happens when the rep doesn’t fully understand all the aspects of the deal, including the customer’s concerns, and the salesperson simply hopes the existing vendor won’t be willing to match the discounted price.

Approach #2: Sell solutions

The sales professional finds out the prospect wants to save 5 percent. The salesperson then finds ways to align the product’s features and benefits to the solution that will fit into that savings percentage;  this helps the customer achieve an important corporate goal.

Approach #3: Establish a strategic partnership

The salesperson hopes to be more to the prospect than just a solution provider.  Accordingly, in addition to using Approach #2, the salesperson offers comprehensive solutions, including ideas to increase the prospect’s efficiency in unexpected areas of the business.

The Best Approach to Win the Sale

So, which among these approaches is best?

Sure, many companies sell through aggressive cost slashing. But this approach is difficult and often ineffective. Discounts generally result in price wars, which is a game no one really wins: In today’s age of Amazon, customers can quickly gather comparative price data. As a result, discounting and other price-driven sales strategies have grown increasingly useless against price wars and narrowing margins.

Of course, solution selling will help profit the seller’s company, and there’s also no doubt a strategic partnership is much more likely to help shape a long-term mutually beneficial relationship that will continue to make money. However, strategic alliances can place more demand on the salesperson to get to know larger business issues, well beyond the scope of what their offering may be able to address.

We know salespeople are no longer walking catalogs who spew out information and populate order forms. Today, sales professionals are more intimately involved in developing new products and services, supply chain management, and strategic planning. And not just within their own companies – but also inside the companies of their customers.

Today’s Salespeople Act Like Entrepreneurs

To win deals today, salespeople need the skills of an entrepreneur. Sales professionals need to analyze a client’s current business, recognize areas for improvement, and then match up those resources in a way that can solve the customer’s problem and help create value.

Salespeople must also have deft interpersonal communication skills and a deep understanding of the business issues that affect their prospects and customers. (Even salespeople who went to business school will definitely need to stretch beyond the lessons they learned there!)

Prepare for Team Selling and Conducting Research

Another change with the sales environment is the call for team selling. Buyers assemble in teams, so sellers need to as well.

Buying and selling as a team creates a collaborative relationship that helps ensure long-term, successful business relationships. Sellers must create situations where their functional expertise and perspective become strategic to the buyer’s long-term success; and this idea exists outside the domain of conventional sales training.

Sales success requires salespeople to conduct extensive research about a prospect’s business. Sales jobs now demand both general business knowledge and greater integration among other departments, including marketing, engineering, and accounting – inside both the prospect’s company and the seller’s company.

The best approach to win the sale will require far more than offering the prospect a discount or selling solutions. Establishing a strategic partnership is getting close – but the real winners will be salespeople who can extend their value even beyond what their offering might currently be able to provide.

Register now to join Tracey Wik at the Sales 3.0 Conference on April 1-2 in San Francisco, where she will present “Customer Success Management: Inside the New Talent Analytics.”

How to Master Away-game Selling to Win More Sales

Today’s post is by Lance Tyson, president and CEO of Tyson Group. Lance is a seasoned entrepreneur known for training sales talent for some of the biggest names in professional sports and entertainment, including Topgolf, the Dallas Cowboys, the Miami Dolphins, and the National Basketball Association. As the author of the bestselling book, Selling Is an Away Game: Close Business and Compete in a Complex World, Lance is a leading authority and recognized speaker and trainer who draws on over two decades of sales experience to educate others on how to succeed in sales.  

 

I’m addicted to my Fitbit. It keeps my diet on track, helps me work out longer and more frequently, and basically keeps me on my game regardless of whether I’m at home or on the road.

But the thing I love the most about my Fitbit is that it’s mine and mine alone. Even though the basic hardware is off the shelf, it feels like it’s been tailored just for me because it uses my unique data.

Devices like Fitbit have inspired a wave of interest in products and solutions that feel tailored. In this era of 24/7 connectivity, the sales process needs to be tailored in a similar fashion.

Buyers are armed with more information than they would have been in the past, which gives them an advantage. When buying a product online, 92 percent of consumers spend time reading online reviews ahead of time – and 40 percent of those consumers form an opinion by reading just 1-3 reviews. They read those reviews, insert their own confirmation biases, and make quick decisions based on how well they believe that product or solution will be customized for their own pre-determined needs before they even speak with a salesperson.

The ready availability of information is fundamentally changing how they buy, across the board. The biggest challenge for salespeople today is having to make constant decisions on the fly as they adapt to the needs of the buyer.

These are just a few of the factors that have turned selling into an “away game.” Just like a sports team must overcome a disadvantage when playing on the opponent’s field, salespeople need to be prepared to play on a dynamically changing field, adapting to what the buyer already knows or wants.

The Four Elements of Away-game Selling

In away-game selling, successful salespeople need to be more like the Waze App than a printed map. They need to constantly adjust in real time, based on the feedback they receive from the buyer and from other drivers, and continually update with relevant, customized information depending on where the buyer wants to go. That said, it’s essential for the salesperson to have a predictable process with repeatable steps.

There are four interrelated elements to the away-game sales process, shifting dynamically to accommodate one another in real time. Here are tips on how to succeed:

1. Understand the buyer’s mindset. The buyer’s mindset is like a prism through which to view the decision-making process. To align with what is in the buyer’s mind, you need to mirror every action that person would normally take when buying something: get the attention of prospects, qualify them to see if they fit the business parameters, engage them in some kind of request for their time, ask them a series of questions, and create a scenario in which you can present ideas and start to create an opportunity.
   
   
2. Develop a strategy. To adapt to the buyer’s mindset, you need a sales strategy that is flexible enough to be tailored to individual clients, yet sturdy enough to be scalable and repeatable. Find a way to engage buyers in conversation and convince them you are a person worth listening to.
   
   
3. Employ battle-tested tactics. Your sales strategy needs to be supported by a set of tried-and-true tactics: “If this, then that.” For example, if you get someone’s voicemail, what will you say? How will you start the sales conversation? If you encounter an objection about price, how will you respond? It’s important to have a deep repertoire of tactics for every step of the sales process, but it’s equally important to stay in the moment and continue looking for opportunities to adapt to the buyer’s mindset.
   
   
4. Hone your skills. You need a skill set that is versatile enough to support your process. The basic toolkit should include a range of skills, including verbal brevity, selling time and awareness, communicating value, resolving objections, facilitating, and selling over the phone vs. selling in person.

To win this game, you’ve got to be like the Waze app – find out where your buyer wants to go and identify and eliminate potential roadblocks or other issues that might get in the way. Learn more about the landscape continuously so you can adjust your strategy accordingly. Then, use your acquired tactics and skills to help buyers reach their destination.

To learn more about how away-game selling can give you a competitive edge, contact Tyson Group at https://tysongroup.com/contact/.

How You Can Instantly Close More Deals by Being More Likeable

Today’s post is by Austin Ries, a content marketing manager for Zoho CRM. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.

 

When leads turn cold and commission checks shrink, it’s natural for salespeople to overcorrect – insisting that, if they just tweaked their sales pitch or mentioned one more product feature, they’d finally break through and close more deals.

This reflex to overanalyze may seem constructive, but, like many problems in life, the solution to less-than-stellar sales numbers is often the simplest one. Wielding Occam’s razor—the scientific principle that the correct solution is often the simplest one—to cut away the fluff and uncover the real reason people aren’t buying is far from easy. It requires a long look in the mirror and the boldness to ask yourself an honest question: Am I likable?

“Trust is continually being built or destroyed in the sales process, and people will always buy from people they believe, like, and trust,” said Scott Welle, author, speaker, and founder of Outperform the Norm.

Some people possess this level of likability naturally; but, for those who don’t, there’s good news. Like many character traits, you can learn to be more likable and close more deals if you know the right behaviors and practice them daily.

Stop Talking and Listen

Think back to the last unpleasant interaction you had – one of those conversations you would have done anything to escape. A conversation where you’re helplessly scanning the crowd for someone, anyone, to notice your distress, throw over a life preserver, and pull you to safety. Chances are, the person you were speaking with did one of, or maybe all of, these things:

• Showed zero interest in you.
• Wouldn’t stop talking about him or herself.
• Interrupted you when you got a chance to speak.
• Insisted on talking about topics only he or she cared about.

“For me, it comes down to being aware that I should be more interested than I should be interesting,” Akash Karia, speaker performance coach, and author, told The New York Times. “People would forego money to talk about themselves.”

Believe it or not, this is true. Research shows that, when people talk about themselves, they receive the same amount of pleasure as when eating a delicious meal or making more money. The study from Harvard neuroscientists Diana Tamir and Jason Mitchell suggests that “self-disclosure was strongly associated with increased activation,” in the brain regions responsible for motivation and desire for rewarding stimuli.  

Salespeople can use this to their advantage by resisting the urge to talk, actively listening to what the person is saying, and asking questions based on those responses to move the conversation along before, ultimately, closing the deal.

“If you listen, ask about themselves, and give them a chance to express what they’re feeling, they’re gonna like you – and you didn’t have to say much,” said Mike Schultz, RAIN Group president, best-selling sales author, and sales trainer. “When you’re dismissive or act like you’re in a rush, people won’t like you.”

It may seem far-fetched for someone to enjoy talking to a salesperson, but being likable boils down to being genuine and, more importantly, being interested in a person’s life, business, and pain points. So, unless someone desperately needs a product or there are no other options: Buyers don’t do business with salespeople they don’t trust or like.

“People buy from whom they like, and people like people who are genuine,” said Judy Callaway, sales manager at Elite Business Ventures Inc. “Anyone can ask a question, but you have to be willing to listen to the answer.”

Find Shared Similarities

It’s a common misconception that small talk is unpleasant and a waste of time. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The first moments of an interaction are where you wade into the conversation, find similarities, and build rapport.

“If you share genuine similarities with people, as cheesy as it sounds, you tend to like that other person,” Schultz said. “You have to take the time to do those things and be authentic, and then you can start applying them to your sales interactions.”

Many times the best small-talk conversations start with a little preparation or even the information you have on hand. For example, talking about the weather is cliche, but it can work if the connection is authentic. So, before picking up the phone, take 10 minutes to look over his or her LinkedIn profile or social media accounts. People aren’t shy about disclosing facts about themselves, and you can find a lot of useful information about their interests, past work experience, who they follow, and even articles they’ve written with just a few clicks.

Developing these skills takes time and deliberate practice. The good news is that you can work on it with every conversation and interaction – from the office to your next dinner party. So, when friends or coworkers are talking, resist the urge to interrupt with the first thought that enters your head; instead, shift your focus to listening. Not only will you be more likable and close more deals, but you may also be a better person too.

Gaining the Attention of Executives by Selling to Value

Today’s post is by Michael Leimbach, Ph.D., vice president of global research and development at Wilson Learning Worldwide, and David Yesford, senior vice president at Wilson Learning Worldwide.

 

Pat leaves a meeting with her long-term customer (or, should we say, her former customer) and wonders where she went wrong.

“Pat, we’ve done business together for a long time,” her customer told her.  “But we have decided to go in a different direction.” The customer went on to explain that ABC Company, one of Pat’s biggest competitors, had worked with them to integrate ABC’s solution into the customer’s systems, resulting in faster inventory turns with fewer shipping errors, and they had been able to demonstrate how this would increase margins and profit.

How did this happen? The ABC Company’s salesperson sold value; Pat did not.

If you’re like most sales leaders, your team probably has the same difficulty Pat experienced. For many salespeople, it can be tough to have the kind of business conversations with executives that result in wins.  

If you want your salespeople to have conversations prospects find valuable, then your team needs to learn the Selling to Value™ approach. Selling to Value (what we call S2V™) focuses on aligning your conversations with executives’ priorities and the business value your company creates for their customers.

The most challenging part of S2V is in the Discovery phase, during which the natural tendency of salespeople is to focus on uncovering the specifications and requirements that lead to the salesperson’s product or service. The traditional approach to Discovery is to ask leading questions that direct the conversation toward your pitch. This approach allows the salesperson and the customer to address a need. There is nothing wrong with that and, in fact, it often works well.

In today’s marketplace, however, sales organizations need an approach that focuses on advancing the customer’s business to be competitive and remain relevant. They must shift from the needs-based approach to more of a Selling to Value approach – an equal dialogue between a salesperson and a customer. An S2V conversation creates a vision that defines the customer’s desired situation. To have a value-creating conversation with executives, salespeople need three key capabilities:

1. Salesperson’s intention: Recognizing that the purpose of a business is to solve a problem in the marketplace, salespeople need to come to the Discovery conversation not with the intent to sell something but with the intent to help the buying executive create new value for their customers.
   
   
2. Understand the science of value creation: The conversation must be structured around questions that demonstrate the salesperson’s understanding of the executive’s business, not the salesperson’s product. A conversation centered around the core elements of how the organization creates value for their customers moves the salesperson closer to creating value with the executive.
   
   
3. Practice the art of asking the next question: Value is created not when a salesperson asks a Discovery question, but when the salesperson leverages his or her knowledge of the business with the executive’s experience to ask the next question that expands the conversation toward value creation.

By understanding how to create value with your customer, you strategically connect to your client’s business and hold a competitive advantage. If you think value creation discussions with executives will bring your company more sales and profit, focus your energy on developing these three capabilities of S2V in your salespeople.

To learn more, download our ebook, Selling to Value: The New Standard for Sales Discovery or visit WilsonLearning.com.

How to Shop for the Best Sales Training Company

Today’s post is by Lisa Gschwandtner, editorial director of Selling Power.

 

Hey, who’s interested in spending $954,070 on sales training this year?

That’s the average amount sales teams spend yearly on training, according to research quoted in one of our recent white papers, “How to Plan and Budget for Sales Training Success.”

But is it really necessary to spend that kind of money on sales training? Each year?

When I interviewed a sales training expert recently, he essentially told me: yes.

The thing is, sales training is rarely a burning issue. If your salespeople don’t get trained today, right this second, your organization probably won’t collapse in a giant heap.

In that way, sales training is like exercising. If you skip your workout a few times, you’ll be fine. But skip it for a few months, and you’ll feel some negative effects. Skip it for years, and you may develop health problems that exercise alone can’t solve.

This puts a lot of pressure on sales leaders to invest in training consistently – and to choose a training partner wisely. How can you find the right sales training company? Here are five insider tips.

Tip #1: Clearly identify the type of training you want and need.

Sometimes sales leaders tack on training as an afterthought to another thing they happen to be doing (a user conference or a sales kickoff, for example). That’s just about guaranteed to get poor results.

Don’t jump into a sales training initiative just because you can. Make sure you have concrete reasons for the training. One-off workshops and just-in-time training have their place and are not necessarily less valuable than a long-term training engagement rolled out over several months, but any investment needs to be backed by clear goals and priorities. (That will help you track ROI.)

Ask yourself: “Can we do this thing we’re planning (onboarding, for example) for our salespeople appropriately and effectively if we don’t engage in some kind of training?” The answer will help you define your purpose.

Tip #2: Examine sales training content.

Content is the heart and soul of what a sales trainer will offer. Look at it carefully. Will it make sense for your team, given the kinds of customers they speak to? Also, is the content easy to access and engage with?

If you don’t feel a strong connection with the content or think your salespeople would find it confusing or irrelevant, keep looking.

Also, as someone who writes for the sales industry, I know the pace of change in selling is rapid and hard to keep up with. Look for content that reflects the reality of how your salespeople need to function in front of customers. That could include up-to-date communication tips or simply selling scenarios that accurately represent how your prospects think. If you’re in an emerging or high-growth industry, longstanding sales-training content from legacy providers might not be the most appropriate choice.

Tip #3: Look for accolades, awards, or recommendations from trusted sources.

Ask your personal network of sales leaders (and don’t forget social media) to see what kinds of training companies they’ve partnered with and if they’ve gotten good results. Industry conferences and professional events aimed at sales leaders are also great places to conduct an informal poll of your peers.

You should also ask for references from any provider you’re considering. Ideally the company you’re considering will have worked with teams that have needs similar to yours.

Annual awards and lists can also help you narrow your search. (Every year we publish the Selling Power Top 20 Sales Training Companies list.)

Tip #4: Investigate facilitators.

Any good sales training company will have a roster of strong facilitators to choose from. Ask for reviews and bios of each potential facilitator, and think about what kind of instructor is likely to resonate with your team. At least one learning and development consultant I’ve spoken with says he looks specifically for facilitators who have worked in sales and who have an entrepreneurial background.

Tip #5: Consider your delivery needs.

Most sales training companies today offer a lot of options when it comes to how they deliver content, so expect to see offerings that include some combination of

• Live, in-person events,
• Live online events,
• Online learning experiences offered on demand, and
• Digital content (video recordings, quizzes, or other content assets).

Recently one of our guest bloggers, Jeff Seeley, wrote a great post about the popularity and pitfalls of online sales training. As he pointed out, in-person events are dynamic, highly engaging, and can also be a “lasting bonding experience” for the participants. However, other content delivery systems, including online learning, can be key components of a highly successful initiative. Again, the best solution for you will probably involve a mix of different delivery methods.

For more advice on how to get the most from your investment in sales training, download our complimentary white paper, “How to Plan and Budget for Sales Training Success.” The white paper features expertise provided by experts at DoubleDigit Sales, which is featured on the Selling Power Top 20 Sales Training Companies for 2018.