Selling Power Blog

How to Address Five M&A Sales Effectiveness Challenges

Today’s post is by Mark Donnolo, founder and managing partner of sales innovation consulting firm SalesGlobe, and Michelle Seger, global sales strategy and change management leader at SalesGlobe. SalesGlobe provides a range of sales effectiveness services that include sales transformation, sales strategy, sales organization and talent, sales compensation, and quotas.

 

Blockbuster mergers like CVS and Aetna, Amazon and Whole Foods, and Cigna and Express Scripts have been in the news lately. M&A activity is up with the economy, and numerous companies across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific are taking advantage of this growth to make deals. Reuters reported that global mergers and acquisitions totaled $1.2 trillion in value in Q1 2018 – the strongest start ever. Business leaders expect this trend will continue as companies look to obtain new technologies and expand their customer bases.

Mergers and acquisitions offer great opportunity and carry great risk. A recent Harvard Business Review study showed that 70-90 percent of mergers fail to achieve objectives. One of the reasons we see for that is a gap between the merger’s vision and execution – particularly in the sales organization, which should be driving growth. SalesGlobe has seen an increasing focus on sales organization integrations as leaders look to gain the expected M&A benefits.

In our integration work, we’ve found five common challenges sales organizations must address early to avoid losing great talent and failing to achieve the expected ROI:

1. There is conflict between the cultures of the sales organizations (e.g., demographics, heritage, sales orientation, and values) – and the merged organization is not acting as one team.
   
   
2. There is confusion over sales roles, alignments, rules of engagement, and how to successfully integrate the two organizations into a common structure.
   
   
3. There has been no increase in cross-selling or sales synergies, and the strategy, sales process, and benefits of the combined organizations may not be realized by the company.
   
   
4. Sales incentive plans don’t align. Pay levels, upside, measures, and philosophy aren’t aligned.
   
   
5. Customers don’t understand the benefits of the acquisition – and communications from the field are unclear.

Imperatives for Sales Leaders

To address these challenges, sales leaders should focus on managing the message, motivating the team, defining the measures of success, and executing the strategy.

Getting the leadership message out quickly, clearly, and consistently is critical. As soon as the merger is announced, the organization will start speculating about its fate. Top sales performers concerned about job security and career progression are the most likely to look for options elsewhere. Letting the acquired sales team continue “business as usual” – without a clear message about the plan ahead – is a recipe for turnover risk and loss of focus. We worked with one company that sold a technology component that worked well with systems sold by a younger, larger organization they had acquired. While the systems company found it counterintuitive to acquire and lead the component company, the CEO acknowledged the strengths of both cultures and clearly articulated how they would go to market together.   

Assess the acquired company to validate the merger strategy and business plan and develop a detailed integration plan. Sales leadership can align teams only if the entire leadership team – including frontline management – works together to

• Develop and execute an integrated strategy.
• Align the team and change behaviors through a combination of leadership, segmentation, sales process, and incentives.
• Understand the measures of success and motivate the team toward those.

Plan to Create Sustainable Results

Creating sustainable results to support an integration requires a well-planned execution strategy focused on four areas:

1. Develop a coordinated communications campaign that starts early. Leaders should understand what matters to both companies’ employees and tailor messages that address
   
   
   • Why the merger is happening
   • How the benefits will be realized
   • What changes will occur – and when
     
     
   Communicate on a campaign calendar via multiple channels, as messages must be heard three times to be fully understood. Talk with both companies’ customers to understand their viewpoint about their needs and the risks of the merger. Explain how the new company can help them. 
   
   
2. Conduct a sales effectiveness performance assessment that evaluates and integrates the sales strategy and key priorities, total combined addressable market and cross-sell opportunities, alignment of strategy to sales roles, sales process and rules of engagement, and incentive compensation plan match to the roles and strategy. Understanding and improving performance across the key sales disciplines is essential to effective execution.  
   
   
3. Inventory and upgrade talent. Understand the requirements for success in sales roles by developing a role profile to support new hires – establishing key success metrics and engaging high performers in the process. This helps with hiring and retaining the right talent and minimizing errors in an environment that can be emotionally charged around people selection.
   
   
4. Measure, reward, and reinforce. With the program in place – and aligned to the vision of the merger – measure (and course-correct) as needed, reward the team financially and through public recognition, and reinforce the program through regular education and coaching.

Do You Know How to Sell to Women Buyers?

Today’s post is by Katie Bullard, CGO of DiscoverOrg.

 

 

The consumer world decided years ago that female buyers need to be marketed and sold to differently from men. Based on research, companies like Lowe’s (which you might assume would target male buyers) redesigned their stores in the early 2000s to be more visually appealing to women, because women make 80 percent of all home improvement purchasing decisions.

And what about the B2B buying space? DiscoverOrg recently partnered with leading sales linguist Steve Martin to examine, over the course of nine months, gender differences in B2B purchase decisions. We looked at the responses of more than 350 B2B professionals through four different surveys. Male and female buyers participating in the study answered questions that compared various aspects of their personality; how they interact with salespeople; how they behave in evaluation committees; and their opinions on real-world sales scenarios.

The study found there are, indeed, differences in the way men and women view salespeople and selling styles, evaluate and select vendors, choose products, and agree on what to pay for them. But how should this inform the way salespeople approach and engage with prospects?

To find the answer to this question we shared the survey results with three well-respected sales experts  (Jill Konrath, Nancy Nardin, and Lori Richardson), who offered their perspective on the findings and provided some key recommendations for using this new information most effectively.

Value vs. Prestige in Vendor Selection

Perhaps most interestingly, the study found that men tend to choose the most expensive product from the best-known and most highly reputed vendor, while women are more willing to choose lesser-known vendors whose products have greater functionality and a lower price.

According to Nancy Nardin, this indicates that women, more driven by value over prestige, may be willing to give new and upstart vendors a chance to show they can deliver, while men could be a more difficult sell when the vendor doesn’t have a longstanding track record or industry reputation. “I think [this study shows] that women look at things more on balance, and are more willing to take a risk,” says Nardin.  

Women Demand a Deal

Just as women can be known for their relentless pursuit to find the best deal on personal items, they are also determined to pay the lowest possible price for a product they purchase on behalf of their company. The study showed that, for a $300,000 technology purchase expected to save their company $1 million, most men expected to pay $270,000, while women pushed to pay $230,000 – almost 20 percent below their male counterparts.

Notes Lori Richardson: “It’s interesting that the study shows women will offer less in a buying situation.  It’s smart – and women should take this strategy and apply it to our salaries, which continue to trend lower than our male counterparts.”

The bottom line is that salespeople should be aware that women will push for the price they think is fair, so have a counter-strategy at the ready.  

Vendor Selection by Committee

Another finding of the study: In purchasing decisions evaluated by a committee, men are more likely to push for a specific vendor if they believe that product will be most beneficial to the company. To get the outcome they want, men are more likely to use their political skills, whereas women more often try to put politics aside.

So how can a salesperson deal with a committee in which different members may have conflicting agendas? Says Jill Konrath, “If you look at B2B decisions today, a huge percentage stall out because it’s so hard to get people to agree. There’s a big opportunity for a salesperson to look at that phase of the decision and say, ‘How can I help everyone to move forward?’” This requires understanding the organization at multiple levels, and knowing as many players as well as possible. Fortunately, this kind of data is now available at sales teams’ fingertips through a variety of tools.

Selling Styles and Conflict Avoidance

The study also found that female buyers tend to work with salespeople who make them feel comfortable, and they generally prefer to avoid conflict. Nardin believes there are specific reasons for both: “Women are emotionally intelligent,” she says, “and we’re used to having to control situations in our everyday lives. But we don’t want to have to do that with a salesperson. We want to be sold to by someone who we truly believe is concerned about meeting our long-term interests.”

Nardin points out that 58 percent of the men surveyed said they avoid conflict, as well, compared to the 76 percent of female respondents. She commented: “I don’t think anyone really likes conflict – and we don’t want to deal with it in the workplace if we don’t have to, because we deal a lot with it in life.” In light of this, Richardson’s advice to salespeople is: Make sure you truly add value, and don’t be too pushy or aggressive.

So, while the data shows there may be differences in the way men and women engage throughout the purchasing process, perhaps most enlightening of all is that all our sales experts agreed that salespeople don’t ever have the luxury of making blanket generalizations, and must strive to keep an open mind about differences in each sales prospect, regardless of gender. At the same time, sales professionals should try to inform their sales approach with as much hard data and facts as they can find, in order to make strategic decisions and – perhaps ironically – temper their own biases. 

Because, as Konrath notes, when you’re selling, “anything that sheds light on how people are different than you is always important.”

Read the DiscoverOrg report, “8 Key Differences in Selling to Women & Men.”

Cutting through the BS of the RFP

Today’s post is by Paul Cherry, author of The Ultimate Sales Pro: What the Best Salespeople Do Differently. He is also the founder of the sales (and sales leadership) training firm, Performance Based Results.

 

I don’t know who invented the request for proposal (RFP), but it’s one of the biggest rackets in business today. A company sends out a vague document – often with no actual commitment to buy anything – and sits back while vendors fall all over themselves responding.

Ultimate Sales Pros (USPs) don’t take RFPs seriously. They see RFPs for what they are: BS, smokescreens, and façades that buyers hide behind.

That doesn’t mean USPs ignore the RFP. But they feel no obligation to follow rules they never agreed to. They only use it as a springboard for conversation.

If an RFP arrives on their doorstep from a company they’d like to do business with, they don’t start filling out the forms. They pick up the phone, call the person whose name is on the RFP, and say, “Hey, thanks for thinking of us. I have a few questions about that RFP you sent over.”

Their questions are designed to find out what’s really going on. Why did the company put together the RFP? What triggered it? With some direct questions, you can usually flush out the truth.

What’s the Real Reason for the RFP?

Perhaps something is going on with the existing vendor relationship. Or maybe there’s just a new face in Purchasing who wants to justify his or her job by shaking things up. Ideally, there are real business reasons driving the effort: some underlying threat in the market or some new opportunity. If the contact can’t or won’t give you a straight answer, figure out how to reach a key decision maker and have a real conversation: “So, about this RFP…what are you trying to do?” “Tell me more about…” “Why is this an issue all of a sudden?” “How is this problem affecting you, your company, your colleagues?”

You get the idea. USPs use the RFP to build a relationship, weave things together, and find out something other vendors don’t know. So, when you make a recommendation, the buyer is thinking, “Wow! You know us better than we know ourselves. You’ve identified problems we never even considered. You made us think.” At that point, the RFP is pretty much irrelevant.

However, some folks don’t want you looking under their covers – whether because of shame about how they run their business, lack of desire to really resolve the issue, a hidden agenda, office politics, a desire for free consulting, or because they don’t want to tell you they just need three quotes before they give the business to the vendor they really want to use.

You don’t have time for that. If someone wants to do business with you, they have to give you the truth.

Does that seem too aggressive? Will it put off the prospect? Well, what do you have to lose, really? You’re not likely to win the business, anyway, if you don’t have good information. You might get lucky. But, if you want to roll the dice, go to a casino – the odds are better.

The Courage to Say No to RFPs

The other day, someone called and asked me to come in and meet with his executives about putting together a sales training program. It seemed like a great opportunity: a prestigious company. Close to home. Talking to decision makers.

Then, he asked, “So, what do you charge?”

I gave him an honest answer: “I don’t know what I’d charge, because I have no idea what you need or want. But, since you raised the question, let me ask: What kind of budget are you working with?”

Long pause. “I don’t know. My boss hasn’t set a budget.”

This is a game I no longer play.

“Look, I said. “If you don’t have a budget, I’m not comfortable coming in for a day to spend time with you and your people trying to diagnose your problems. If it turned out the budget is too low, then there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be a good fit. It wouldn’t be fair to waste your execs’ time. So, before we set up a meeting, why don’t you go back to your boss and get some ballpark numbers?”

I was being diplomatic, but I was saying no. I was basically telling him, “You’ve got to give me information if I’m going to give you a day of my time.”

Guess what? He did. And he had no hard feelings. I’d simply explained the rules by which I operate. The numbers were workable and we were off to a great start.

So how about you? Have you ever evaluated a prospect’s current operations or system, spent hours to diagnose the problem and develop a recommendation, only to have them take your proposal and shop it around to other suppliers to get a cheaper price? Or leave you hanging without ever making a yes-or-no decision?

If so, repeat after me: “I will never give away my knowledge and expertise without getting something of equal value in return.”

USPs learn to charge for their services. I’m not necessarily talking about sending them a bill for your time; but, if you’re going to give something, ask for what you want or need in return – a meeting with a decision maker, a promise not to shop your solution around, a commitment to move forward if your proposal makes sense.

Of course, a prospect could always renege. But, when you 1) make your expectations clear and 2) get agreement, you activate the law of reciprocity. Most prospects will feel obligated to balance the books.

Here Are the Traits of Top Performing Sales Teams

Today’s post is by Mark Magnacca, president and co-founder of Allego.

 

Watching and learning from the best in the business is a sound strategy for improvement in almost any endeavor – and sales learning is no different. In a recent survey conducted by Allego and ResearchNow, we asked sales leaders to identify the skills and training tactics they saw as most important.

We defined top performing sales teams as those that self-identified as achieving 100 percent of their quota, as well as having 74 percent of reps reach their individual quotas. Not surprisingly, we found that the highest performing sales teams have some things in common. Across industries, top performing teams share habits, best practices, and attributes that predict sales success. By looking at the qualities top performers possess, sales leaders and teams can incorporate these best practices into their own success stories.

Here are the top five traits of top performing sales teams.

Trait #1: Ramp Reps Faster with More Manager Coaching

Overall, our survey found that top performing sales teams were able to onboard new hires faster than peers in their industry. How are they able to do it? High-performing teams rely on the power of manager coaching. While ramp time depends on the industry and product complexity – reps selling more complex products take longer to ramp – increased manager coaching was a successful strategy to reduce new employee ramp time across industries and independent of product complexity.   

For new reps, the learning curve is steep and training time is a precious commodity. Revenue opportunities disappear every day a new rep spends in onboarding. A faster ramp means better revenue performance more quickly, so accelerating time to sales competency is a must. Increasing and capitalizing on manager coaching opportunities gives new reps the benefit of an experienced sales professional’s perspective on the best ways to close deals.  

Trait #2: More Peer Coaching, Less Boot Camp

Along with manager coaching, one of the most effective routes to sales team success is peer coaching. In fact, our survey found that high performers put at least 10 percent less emphasis on boot camps, replacing it with 15 percent more focus on peer training and 20 percent more focus on mentorship programs.

The value of learning from experienced peers is substantial. A colleague who has learned how to handle a tricky objection to a newly rolled-out product – or what language resonates best with a certain type of prospect – is an invaluable resource. Peer-to-peer coaching unburies the treasure trove of information each team member possesses and allows new team members to borrow nuggets of proven value rather than testing out new strategies on prospects.

Trait #3: Assess Sales Messaging to Improve Performance

Message consistency and competency in the field is a key component of sales success, and top performing sales teams make sure reps have their messaging down cold. Overall, high-performing teams believe that sales messaging is the most important sales competency to assess, with 80 percent of them assessing their reps on product messaging versus only 53 percent of the general population. The best teams create processes to ensure they capture and share the right messages. By clearly defining what “best” looks like in this context, the entire team can benefit from the experience and talent of the top performers.

Trait #4: Assess Continuously, Not Episodically

New information is best retained when it is reinforced regularly and continuously. The same holds true for assessment. The very best teams constantly take stock of what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. The proof is in the numbers. When asked how often sales leaders are measuring their sales reps’ performance, 70 percent said they measure it regularly, in an ongoing fashion, with only 30 percent measuring quarterly or less. High performers, however, assess sales team competency more frequently, with 85 percent measuring weekly or monthly.

By objectively measuring performance at each stage of the sale, top performers can understand their own strengths and weaknesses and use that information to improve.

Trait #5: Address Competency Gaps with Training

When a manager identifies a gap in competency, the default reaction of many organizations – 50 percent, according to our survey – is to create a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). Top performers, however, are three times more likely to use increased training to address gaps. This focus on training shows both the value of continuous assessment and how a commitment to training leads to improved achievement overall.

The Bottom Line: Habits Matter

The habits of highly effective sales teams are a blueprint for consistently achieving quota. These practical yet achievable best practices show the importance of frequent assessment, as well as manager and peer coaching to address competency gaps and improve performance. This continuous process of assessment and training enables organizations to be proactive, stay ahead, and create a culture of competency and success.

Has Social Media Changed Sales Management? Not Really.

Today’s post is by Jason Jordan, a founding partner of Vantage Point Performance, a global sales management training and development firm focused on training sales reps and sales managers. Jason is a recognized thought leader in the domain of business-to-business sales and co-author of Cracking the Sales Management Code.

 

I sometimes do random things. Occasionally I’ll take my wife’s dog for a hike on the nearby mountain trails (which buys me goodwill with both the dog and wife). Now and then I’ll buy my daughter sushi from the gourmet deli (though she rarely eats it). I just bought a bunch of vintage t-shirts of 1980s rock bands (though I’m not sure where I can wear them). And, recently, I decided to investigate the impact of social media on sales management.

I awoke one morning with random, obsessive thoughts about social media. Actually, it was more of a random insecurity. At Vantage Point, we’ve spent the past decade trying to elevate the performance of frontline sales management. In all that time, I’d never really thought about social media’s influence on this role, even as “social selling” became a buzzword that I myself toss about (recall my penchant for random behavior). Had I somehow missed a meaningful innovation in sales management that was right in front of me? Had I not registered a change in management behavior because it wasn’t happening – or because I wasn’t paying attention?

That morning I decided to conduct some informal “research” into the issue. I searched our newsletter database and selected 5,000 sales managers…at random. I sent each of them a brief email asking only two questions:

1. Has social media had an impact on your role as a sales manager?
2. If so, how?

Informal as it was, my little research project served to greatly reduce my personal anxiety.

Foremost, a relatively low percentage of the sales managers even bothered to respond to my email – lower than we would expect for such a communication. To me this signaled that social media wasn’t an intensely hot topic for them; otherwise, it would have generated greater excitement.

More surprisingly, almost exactly half of the active respondents replied no to my first question. Given the pervasiveness of social media and its buzz in the sales blogosphere, I had been expecting to receive an avalanche of fervent yeses. Didn’t happen. Apparently, the wave of “social selling” has left most sales managers unaffected.

Then there was the half of the respondents who replied yes. In almost every case, the sales managers declared that social media had changed their role by enabling them to conduct research on their prospects, prepare for upcoming sales calls, stay up to date on customer news, or network to uncover new leads. In other words, social media had changed the way these sales managers sold, not the way they managed. Interesting.

The only legitimate sales management function that seemed to be improved by social media was recruiting and hiring new salespeople. For that purpose, social media is invaluable. LinkedIn is a free, real-time database of every salesperson in the world who has access to the Internet. Twitter and Instagram are windows into the personal lives (and indiscretions) of nearly as many people. For researching and recruiting your next team member, these are gifts of technology.

But only a small minority of managers cited this function – around 10 percent of the already small group of respondents. No one claimed that social media had made them a better sales coach. Or helped them build healthier sales pipelines. Or helped them create more accurate sales forecasts. Whatever you consider to be the central responsibilities of your sales management roles, social media appears to be a bit player in their lives.

In fairness to social media, I’ve seen several social media applications that could surely help with each of these legitimate management functions. And, as CRM and social media platforms become more integrated, emerging functionality will provide sales coaches with new insights into salesperson behaviors and performance. The social media story is still unfolding for sales managers, but we’re not there yet.

As it stands now, if your sales managers moonlight as sellers, then social media can help them manage their customer relationships more fully. But, if your sales managers actually manage, then social media is probably relegated to just a small corner of their desktops or mobile phones. My informal investigation revealed that its presence at the sales management level is tangential, and its impact to-date has been minimal – at least according to 5,000 random sales managers who received an unexpected email from me on a day I chose to do another random thing.

How to Use AI to Find Sales Talent and Motivate Teams

Today’s post is by Fabio Ronga, CEO of beqom. He drives the company strategy and makes sure everyone understands it and is equipped to contribute to it.

 

Next-generational tools are making it easier for businesses to hire and retain salespeople and motivate sales teams. Here are some ways sales managers can leverage the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to create, keep, and incentivize teams to close the sale.

#1: Earn their trust.

To recruit and retain top talent, you need to make sure employees know they’re fairly compensated for their work. Sales managers can leverage AI-driven data to benchmark compensation, identify flight-risk employees, and personalize bonuses and rewards based on an individual’s key motivators – whether cash bonuses or additional vacation time – without having to rely on “gut instinct.”

For example, sales managers 10 years ago might have responded to an employee’s resignation notice with a counter-offer. Today, by using AI and predictive analytics, employers can identify “flight risks” – before they become unhappy employees – based on a variety of factors (a dip in performance, low engagement, frequent tardiness or absenteeism) and take actionable steps to modify those behaviors with incentives such as a bonus, work-from-home benefits, or more vacation time.

Using AI-driven compensation technology can mitigate the risk of employee turnover, which costs businesses as much as 33 percent of a worker’s annual salary to replace them.

#2: Eliminate unconscious bias.  

Sales managers can take the guesswork out of rewards, bonuses, and compensation by leveraging AI to create fair and accurate compensation strategies based on education, experience, certifications, and more (but not age or gender).

This is not only key to retaining top talent, but significant when you consider how biases have defined and perpetuated career-debilitating constructs like the gender pay gap. The fact is, employee performance is inextricably linked to a company’s commitment to diversity, inclusion, and transparency – with reports showing that the combination of employee engagement and gender diversity resulted in 46 to 58 percent higher financial performance for business units above the median on both engagement and gender diversity.

Finally, when it comes to employee satisfaction and retention, younger generations expect their employers to take a firm stance on issues like diversity and pay equity: Among workers ages 18 to 35, 75 percent expect employers to take a stand on equal rights, climate change, immigration, and constitutional rights.  

#3: Boost engagement.

This final step – motivation and engagement through incentivization – is pivotal to accurately reward the sales talent that managers have worked so hard to win. Business leaders and sales managers alike can improve the employee compensation experience – and, ultimately, boost engagement – by applying AI-driven tools like self-service payroll chatbots and natural language processing.

These tools are helpful in various scenarios – from empowering employees to gain a full understanding of how their sales performance impacts their salary, to enabling employees to receive compensation-related answers in real time, to improving HR responsiveness and reducing support costs. For sales teams specifically, this technology can also lead to optimized territory and quota allocations to maximize sales performance.

Providing employees with the tools and transparency to understand how their work is being compensated will not only motivate them to boost performance, but will also help solidify their loyalty to your company.

Improved sales performance is the result of a happier, more motivated, and aligned sales force. These core tenets – trust and transparency, investing in the issues that matter to employees, and fair rewards for hard-earned work – are key to keeping your salespeople motivated and dedicated employees for the long haul.

When Considering Sales Training, Think like a Judge

Today’s post is by Eric Esfahanian, chief revenue officer of Gryphon Networks.

 

Sales training is always one of the first things managers look to for increasing performance. But the number one reason managers are reluctant to invest in training is because they know that – four or five weeks after the trainer walks out of their classroom – salespeople go back to old habits. Studies show almost 80 percent of the value of training is lost within 90 days of its conclusion.

It is no longer enough to conduct sales training to establish the process framework for salespeople. To achieve optimal sales effectiveness, you must use the “rule of three”: technology and sales coaching in addition to training will work together to make training actually valuable in the long term and drive results.

Sales Coach or Judge?

Let’s first look at the impact of good sales coaching. According to the AA-ISP, managers spend less than 20 percent of their time on coaching – even though Selling Power reports effective sales coaching can improve win rates by as much as 25 percent.

The stats are in on the importance of establishing process and supporting them with coaching:

• Almost 75 percent of sales organizations waste resources (CSO Insights, 2014) due to random and informal coaching approaches. Only one-quarter leverage a formal and dynamic coaching process.
• Overall quota attainment for companies with informal coaching processes is 84.7 percent – while companies that have implemented a formal coaching process see 91.2 percent of overall quota attainment (CSO Insights, 2014).

Sales coaching is all about interpretation. Interpreting the processes is no different from a judge interpreting the law and individual behaviors/motivations to take impartial and decisive action.

The Sales “Justice System”

Which brings us back to training. Though not training or coaching is never an option, it must be augmented with technology that enforces the learned principles and processes every day automatically.  

To establish a sales management program that is sustainable, your training, coaching, and technology-driven accountability system needs to work like the American judicial system.  

Sales training is the “rules and regulations.” Technology – specifically, call activity tracking and attainment tools – should act as the daily “enforcement” of the team’s rules. What good is the law if there are no police to enforce the law? Finally, sales coaching makes a manager the “judge” to analyze and interpret both the law as well as behaviors and motivations of the people (your reps).  

All three are essential, and none can exist without the others. Coaching and training without technology makes as little sense as creating laws but having no police to enforce them – and having no ability to interpret or put them into context.

Good training programs set the foundation of activity. Technology ensures the principles from training are maintained on a day-to-day basis. Sales coaching will verify and optimize training principles for real-world selling in context.  

When working together as an integrated system, you will not only improve effectiveness, but establish a blueprint for continuous improvement that is proven and measurable in any situation.

Visit Gryphon at https://gryphonnetworks.com.

Three Mistakes That Can Sabotage Your Sales Process

Today’s post is by Eric Morse, CEO and founder of Sales Result, Inc. (SRi), a boutique sales consulting firm. With a passion for sales, Eric has been a “change agent” delivering real sales results for his clients.

 

So, you’ve established a sales process – congratulations! But is it actually getting successful results?

We recently worked with a company where the leadership team was convinced it had the right sales process. Before finalizing the process, the company leaders held several meetings with the sales team to brainstorm, gather feedback, and gain buy-in that the sales process made sense for the company.

They were shocked to find out that, even after all the meetings, each sales rep was using his or her own version of the sales process. Further, everyone had different ideas about who was responsible for what, and the activities reps chose to focus on didn’t move leads forward through the sales process. The result? Poor forecasting, no predictability, and high loss rates.

Sales process missteps like these are not uncommon. At Sales Result, we find that addressing the following three mistakes can lead to a repeatable, winning sales process.

Mistake #1: Not mapping the sales process to the buyer’s journey.

Today, any good sales process needs to map to the customer’s buying journey. According to Forrester, “62% [of B2B buyers] say they can now develop selection criteria or finalize a vendor list based solely on digital content.” Therefore, when outlining your sales process, involve the marketing department to ensure the front end of the buyer’s journey is effectively addressed. Also, hold regular sales and marketing meetings to ensure the two departments are working in cohesion.

Likewise, it’s important to re-evaluate the sales focus to make sure reps are adding strategic business value to prospects. Otherwise, sales reps risk boring prospects by regurgitating information prospects already know.

Mistake #2: Skipping steps or key activities within sales process stages.

No sales process should miss key activities and steps that move sales forward. If it does, sales reps are likely to get stuck or waste time on activities that don’t have significant impact in driving leads to close.

To ensure your sales process includes the right activities and steps, analyze the existing customer’s buying journey. Think about the following questions:

• What problems was the buyer trying to solve? Why did they consider you? Why now?
• What kind of questions did the sales rep ask that lead to a good conversation?
• What did the sales rep say that the buyers responded well to?
• What activities or collateral helped move the lead through the sales process?

Once you’ve identified the activities that moved previous sales to close, clearly explain and define them in your sales process. To keep all sales reps accountable for performing each activity, tie KPIs to these activities and periodically listen to calls and go on ride-alongs to make sure sales reps are following the process.

Mistake #3: Lack of training on steps, activities, and tools in the sales process.

Even if the sales process is perfectly mapped to the buyer’s journey and is focused on the right activities, consistent results are unlikely if sales reps are not trained and enabled to properly execute each step and activity.

Conducting regular training sessions and developing sales tools and relevant marketing collateral will be important to enable the sales team. Start by identifying key skill gaps to lead training around and develop sales tools and frameworks that would make it easier to perform key activities.

Many of our clients find that sales playbooks that define what you sell, who you sell to, and how you sell it mapped to the sales process help reps become more effective at moving the sale forward and closing deals.

Conclusion: The Benefits of a Great Sales Process

By eliminating these mistakes, sales organizations can expect to increase their forecasting accuracy, regain connection with prospects, and repeatedly beat the competition. However, the sales process is only one of 12 key elements we’ve identified as critical to building successful sales organizations. To find out what these elements are, download our free eBook, The 12 Elements of a Winning Sales Foundation.  

The Most Frustrating Leadership Challenge: Change

Today’s post is by Jeff Seeley, CEO of sales training company Carew International, Inc., and a popular keynote and motivational speaker. Find him on Twitter @jeffreybseeley and on LinkedIn.

 

I recently saw a McKinsey blog on changing mindsets and behavior, one “nudge” at a time, and it got me thinking about the level of reluctance to trying new things and strategies in the field of professional sales.

Change and the Power of Habit

I have had the privilege of working with Gerhard Gschwandtner on Peak Performance Mindset™ and examining how the power of negativity and habit have created cultures of underperformance. Old habits die hard – especially when we reinforce those old habits ourselves.

The McKinsey article notes an example of having someone hold a warm mug to make the person you are interacting with friendlier. I think of the television show, The Big Bang Theory, and the quirky, emotionally-challenged, and insensitive Sheldon, who always offers someone a hot beverage when they are in distress. Little did I understand that I was getting a basic psychology lesson from a sitcom.

As we assimilate this to leadership in sales, it is clear that leaders are in a constant struggle to promote and facilitate among their teams an endless parade of process and mindset changes: CRM engagement, new products and services, shifting strategic objectives (market share vs. profitability), competitive environment, desired sales role (trusted advisor vs. challenger vs. consultative), optimizing team dynamics, improved sales strategies, pipeline management, prospecting, social selling, etc., etc.

What’s the Best Coaching Strategy to Tackle Change?

Is a constructive “nudging” coaching strategy to change behavior feasible when the challenge of adaptation is so formidable? First, the list of changes coming at our sales team is exhaustive and never ending. Second, from a sales team member’s perspective of, “doing as I have always done is easier,” maybe the proposed changes don’t seem all that compelling.

I believe the answer for leaders is to resist loading all these initiatives on our sales teams at once and, instead, decide which single thing is most important and might also relate to other initiatives and facilitate other positive changes.

For example, finding one aspect of the CRM that is valuable to a sales professional and encouraging its use may then lead to additional CRM adaptation – pipeline creation or improved management. Incremental nudging will facilitate change over time.

Each small item or benefit you identify can change the team mindset to one of positivity and openness. If changing one small behavior results in one benefit realized, the recognition of positive change begins to build upon itself to create an anticipation of positive changes. Most importantly, individual changes accumulate and lead to significant and sweeping change.

Conclusion: Take Change One Step at a Time

Sales leaders can’t expect to change their sales teams’ entire situation at once (and that is so often the expectation), but we can change one behavior – and build on that to create a culture that embraces change and development.

How to Crush These Five Stubborn Barriers to Setting High-value Meetings

Today’s post is by Deidre Moore, director of demand generation at TimeTrade, where she devises new ways to save the world from bad meetings while making the process for setting appointments easier and more productive for all.

 

What exactly is a “high-value” meeting?

For many sales professionals, this label is most commonly defined by the size and strategic value of the company involved, while others will focus on the titles and roles of the people attending – specifically C-level decision makers.  

While both definitions are valid, I’d like to suggest another definition: A high-value meeting is any meeting that moves a deal or a relationship forward – and ideally accelerates it – regardless of the company or the roles of the people involved.

How do we overcome the barriers to setting more of these high-value meetings? Try these five tips.

Barrier #1: Not getting past gatekeepers.

The gatekeeper’s job is to protect the boss’s calendar. In this case, politeness and empathy can go a long way: Acknowledge the gatekeeper is simply doing his or her job, and ask for some friendly guidance on the best way to reach the boss.

Another option is to be direct: “I’m calling for [Name], please. I’ll hold.” At that point, the gatekeeper may just put you through.

You can also simply try other channels, including email and social engagement, to connect. Sometimes the best way to get around gatekeepers is to do just that: go around them.  

Barrier #2: Asking for too much, too soon.  

Salespeople often create unnecessary barriers to setting high-value meetings by asking for too much, too soon.

If a prospect has just downloaded an eBook from your Website, for example, don’t immediately ask for a meeting. Instead, create value. For example, you could quickly follow up with a “thank you” email in which you acknowledge his or her busy schedule and summarize some of the key takeaways from the eBook to save time. Once a dialogue has been started, now you have permission to ask more questions, uncover needs, and, ideally, get the meeting.

Barrier #3: Not understanding the other party’s role, persona, or priorities.  

Reps today must be problem solvers, not pitch machines. The best way to solve problems is to understand the motivations, requirements, and priorities of the prospect – and place those first above those of the salesperson.  

Once those dynamics are well understood, it’s about tailoring your solution’s features and benefits to address that prospect’s specific concerns. For example, ease of use is a benefit that may be extremely important to an everyday end user; but, if you’re C-level executive, your bigger concerns are likely focused on team productivity and efficiency, shortening the sales cycle, and ROI.

Here are three quick questions that can help you get into the mindset of the buyer and frame a more compelling conversation: 

1. “Why buy anything?”
2. “Why buy your solution?”
3. “Why buy now?”

If you can answer these questions, and tailor your messages accordingly, you’re much more likely to get the appointment.

Barrier #4: Not having clear, shared goals for the meeting.

A clear, shared set of meeting goals helps both salespeople and prospects understand, “What’s in it for me?” Be explicit about your specific objectives for the meeting, and get agreement on the agenda and desired outcomes in advance.

For example, you can say, “Ms. Customer, during the meeting our goal is to show you our solution in action. During that demo, we also want to ensure this is applicable to your business and addresses your specific requirements, which I understand to be [X]. Did I get those right?”

The best reps use sales demos as an active part of their discovery process, which, in turn, helps create a dialogue that leads to more – and more successful – meetings down the road.

Barrier #5: Making it too difficult to request or schedule a meeting at a specific point of need.

Make it as easy as possible for prospects to meet with you. B2B buying is an increasingly complex process, and often involves multiple stakeholders. This forces reps to spend hours each week just managing calendars. Solutions like TimeTrade give each of these stakeholders the power to engage proactively, on their timeline, with real-time access to view your availability and book an appointment – complete with virtual conferencing details. Many of our customers have even taken the step to replace the Request a Demo or Contact Us forms on their Website with a Click-to-Schedule link, speeding the cycle from inbound request to confirmed meeting with impressive results.

Get the Meeting, Get the Sale

It’s no secret that, if you can’t get the meeting, you can’t get the sale. And, in a SaaS-dominated world, if you can’t also keep customers engaged, happy, and connected to your brand for their entire lifecycle, then you can’t sustain that relationship – and the associated revenue – and build loyalty for the long term. While it’s critical to get those all-important first meetings, the reality is that a healthy customer relationship is about all the meetings, both pre- and post-sale. Use these tips to make sure you secure more high-value meetings so you can win more deals.

Interested in how other sales innovators are overcoming these barriers and setting more high-value meetings? Check out our Resource Library, or schedule your own appointment to learn more.