If you have decided the best transfer option that will meet your goals and objectives is an internal sale, you may now be wondering to whom and how. As we have discussed in our previous blogs, selling your business internally has many advantages over external options, but one common challenge is deciding to whom. Let’s consider the likely candidates.

Selling to Employees  Many times an owner would like to reward all his or her employees but feels there is no viable way to accomplish rewarding them all. One often misunderstood transfer option is the Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or ESOP. Contrary to the name, this does not mean selling stock directly to each employee, which would create a management nightmare. This method does involve selling all or part of the owner’s shares to a trust for the benefit of all employees. BUT the owner can maintain operational control. It provides the owner liquidity, a built-in buyer, and some great tax advantages. We discuss this and the other internal-transfer options in more depth in our book, Cashing Out of Your Business, Your Last Great Deal.
Selling to a Key Manager

As the name implies, you may have an employee who has been your right-hand person for a period of time and you feel he or she would be best suited to take over the reins. Many times, however, a key manager may not have the necessary skills or abilities to handle the chief role. There may be additional training, mentoring, and/or additional team development needed to assist the person in growing into the new role.

Selling to Family

This may be the choice in many cases, but it also requires the utmost in objectivity and care. Too many times it is assumed that a family member should be the successor just because he or she is family. In addition, family members can feel a great deal of pressure to step into this role and may be hesitant to voice their reservations or concerns. As with any internal sale, identifying a successor’s strengths, weaknesses, and abilities is key, not only for the individual’s future but also for the continued success of the company. The blending of family and business is never easy, but when a transfer is considered, it can become even more important to involve impartial, professional assistance.

Selling to a Business Partner

If you have one or more partners, don’t assume that they want to buy you out. They actually may be planning that when you retire or move on they will as well. This can be true regardless of age or age differences. When there are partners in a business, it is even more critical to conduct comprehensive transition planning for all parties. Since the business is most likely the largest asset for all partners, devising a plan that will achieve multiple owners’ goals and enable the business to continue and thrive will take planning, communication, and time.

No matter the successor chosen, you will need adequate preparation, objective support and advice in accomplishing an internal sale. One of the major challenges in the internal-sale option may be setting aside your emotional ties to the individual or individuals you are considering selling to. This can cloud objectivity, reason, and sound decision making. The stakes are high.  The continued success and profitability of the business Will be dependent upon your internal sale. Consider working with an objective transition advisor who can help you think through this very important decision.

In our recent whitepaper, 2014 Guide to Selling Your Business Internally: Ensure Your Legacy Continues, we discuss some of the complexities, challenges, and advantages to the internal-sale option. As with any transition, there is no substitute for time. Planning 3 to 5 years in advance will give you time to positively impact the outcome.

You can download the guide by clicking below.

There is so much noise out there on how to be your most productive as a seller that I think sometimes people get confused or perhaps paralyzed in what to do.  Instead, you keep doing what you’ve done before and you’re getting the same, less-productive results.

Change is hard for most of us. We are comfortable in the “what kind of works now” and so working to change and improve is less comfortable, right?

Total perfection in managing your time is impossible – so try for a 1% improvement in keeping this focus:

Important activities that lead you to more / better sales opportunities and ultimately to new revenue

I’ve created a list of tips and ideas to help you improve productivity – focus on the highest and best use of your time – it is designed for you to scan and find one or two areas to begin with.

Also, consider listening to a recent webinar on “How to Eliminate Bottlenecks to Your Sales Team’s Productivity” which I participated on. It is a free webinar and I think we share some great ideas.

Before You Begin:

• Think “micro” productivity improvement separately from “macro” productivity improvement.
• Micro improvements: self-improvement – finding ways to personally motivate yourself, for example.
• Macro improvements: overall process and methodology improvement – your whole team adopts a new process to streamline deal identification and qualification, for example.

Micro Sales Productivity Tips

• Use the timer on your smart phone to time yourself doing specific tasks, like research or adminstrivia.
• Identify the “why” of your work – if you have a reward of some type, like a trip or a new home, get photos of that and put them up where you work so that you are visibly reminded daily.
• Tag any email you send that needs a reply so that you can easily find those and save hours doing so.
• Create email templates for various buyer types and stages of the sales cycle.
• Set 20 or 30 minutes in your calendar on Monday and Friday to review goals and accomplishments.
• Have a note pad at your desk or use a tool like Evernote to track every commitment in one place. Your brain will now be more freed up, knowing that there is a trusted place other than your brain in use.
• Use a consistent routine every morning to help you set up your work day.
• Have a macro routine that opens the same programs in your browser (if you use a PC) each morning.
• Create a specific time of the day to check personal email or deal with personal issues.
• When prospecting, do research in chunks of time rather than going back and forth with calling. This is one idea that will save you literally HOURS of time weekly if you do it.
• Read “Getting Things Done” by David Allen and create process for all you do at work.

Macro Sales Productivity Tips

• Customize your CRM for your sales team so that they don’t need lots of keystrokes to get data entered and updated.
• Get your sales force on tools that save time, such as Timetrade (for booking appointments or demos)
• Have a corporate mandate to focus on “highest and best use of time and resources” as a culture.
• Lead by example.

I recently posted on how to Use Big Rocks to get focused on what is important in your sales week.

Remember, the idea is that as a seller you have MORE time for actual conversations with potential buyers and less time chasing paper or discussing anything that does not lead you to more potential deals.

What are your tips for success? We’d love to share them and you can post them as a comment below.

This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Lori Richardson is recognized as one of the “Top 25 Sales Influencers for 2013″ and one of “20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management for 2013″. Lori speaks, writes, trains, and consults with inside and outbound sellers in technology and services companies. Subscribe to the award-winning blog and the “Sales Ideas In A Minute” newsletter for sales strategies, tactics, and tips. Increase Opportunities. Expand Your Pipeline. Close More Deals.

email  lori@scoremoresales.com | View  My LinkedIn Profile

The post Improve Productivity to Grow Sales Opportunities appeared first on Score More Sales.

The increasing trend of having marketing take over the MDR or lead qualification role of inside sales has been hotly debated and tested in recent months. I still think it’s a good idea, but needs certain expectations and circumstances across sales & marketing to work long-term.

Here are four advantages of having marketing own the inside sales function, followed by four reasons why it might not work. At minimum, if you’re already trying or considering trying this shift, it’s important to have these in mind.

The Pros

Revenue responsibility
Simply put, marketing by definition puts itself closer to revenue by owning inside sales. The more marketers take ownership of revenue in partnership with their sales counterparts, the better.

Sales focuses their time only on active, qualified opportunities
Does this mean your sales team could be smaller and generate the same or higher sales results? Perhaps. Will this make them more efficient and focused on deals that actually have life in them? Undoubtedly. If your inside sales team is focused on qualifying leads, make that a marketing function and allow your sales team to focus on selling.

A more efficient, lower cost revenue generation engine
Marketing often complains that sales ignores good leads, thereby decreasing what should be a higher conversion rate. So if marketing owns the MDR function, they can put their money (literally) where their mouth is. With marketing owning the lead generation & qualification, I would expect to see higher conversion rates and lower per-opportunity and per-sale costs with flat resources.

Higher lead to SQL conversion
Similarly, marketing now owns the entire lead capture & follow-up process. They control and can coordinate follow-up activities and messages across channels – online, via email, via phone, etc. I would expect this to generate higher conversion to sales qualified leads immediately, as well as in the short and long-term as those leads are nurtured and mature over time.

The Cons

Little/no sales management experience
Managing individual contributors in marketing, and managing inside sale reps, are completely different skill sets. Sales can be an emotional job, and some of your best reps may also be some of your most high-maintenance employees. Simply put, sales management is a skill that few marketers have. And that can make for a bumpy road.

Managing inside sales can be a full time job
Unfortunately, most of the time I’ve seen inside sales handed over to marketing, it becomes part of a manager or VP’s job to manage that team. They’re expected to spend 20-25 percent of their time managing inside sales, and the rest of their time on their “regular” marketing duties. In reality, managing the inside team can take the majority of your time. And if you don’t give it the time it needs, results will suffer. Few marketing organizations plan for or expect this kind of time commitment.

The sales team might not give this up easily
Despite the advantages of giving up inside sales to marketing, the VP of Sales might not exactly like the idea of having someone else run part of “her” sales organization. Will they still use the same CRM systems? Share the same sales trainers? Who pays for resources that are needed or used jointly by sales organizations that now report into different executives? Not always easy questions to answer, and often these complexities are used to maintain the status quo.

More staff & CMO bandwidth is needed
Several people in marketing will need to devote time and energy to making the inside sales team successful. It’s not just he who is directly managing the team, but also the creative and content needs to support their prospect follow-up, the CMO or VP who needs to tighten coordination across a broader swath of the demand generation waterfall, etc. Owning lead qualification sounds good in theory and on paper, but the reality of long-term resource and focus needs (and the lack of organizations to fund that) can lead to this little experiment failing for the wrong reasons.

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Matt Heinz, President Matt Heinz brings more than 15 years of marketing, business development and sales experience from a variety of organizations, vertical industries and company sizes. His career has focused on delivering measurable results for his employers and clients in the way of greater sales, revenue growth, product success and customer loyalty. Matt has held various positions at companies such as Microsoft, Weber Shandwick, Boeing, The Seattle Mariners, Market Leader and Verdiem. In 2007, Matt began Heinz Marketing to help clients focus their business on market and customer opportunities, then execute a plan to scale revenue and customer growth. Matt lives in Kirkland, Washington with his wife, Beth, three children and a menagerie of animals (a dog, cat, and six chickens). You can read more from Matt on his blog, Matt on Marketing, follow him on Twitter, or check out his books (listed below) on Amazon.com.

• Modern Marketing Field Guide
• Successful Social Selling
• Successful Selling
• Are You Selling Pants, Or Selling A Dream?
• Move The Mouse & Make Millions!

Your customers will use time against you if you allow it.

If you put an offer on the table and the customer is quiet, don’t let this silence and passage of time make you nervous.  Do you make the negotiation mistake of jumping in to fill the silence and start making concessions that kill profit?

Instead, learn key skills to actually use time to your advantage.

To see what I mean, check out the video…

Copyright 2014, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Selling: Win the Sale Without Compromising on Price.

Click on the below book cover for more info on boosting your profits!

It’s a tough question that every sales leader faces.  Losing a sales manager can disrupt your sales organization.  As a sales leader, you need to focus on getting to your number.  That means surrounding yourself with a team that can get you there.  Keeping a mediocre sales manager because you don’t have a replacement hurts you.  It can impact you missing your number or worse cause morale issues.  Senior management is looking to you as a leader.

Ask yourself this; “If I was paying this manager out of my own pocket, would I keep them?”  If you waiver or second-guess that decision, you know the answer.

Typically most sales leaders assess their managers through the following:

• Attainment against quota
• Forecast accuracy
• Employee turnover
• Attitude
• They do all the right things

These are important, but there are other factors that you need to look at.  Download the Sales Manager Assessment Tool to learn what else to look at.

The tool will provide 3 Key benefits to help you:

• Outline the 7 warning signals you need to know
• Assess and score against best practices
• Provide guidance on areas you see gaps and how to improve

Here is 1 example of a warning sign:

Lack of Sales Rep Promotions: People development is critical to long-term success.  Lack of coaching, feedback and mentoring leads to complacency.  Not having one rep eligible for promotion within 6 months should be a concern.  It’s vital that managers and leaders are looking to move individuals through an organization.  Complacency leads to lackluster performance and teams not being aggressive.  Promoting from within is the number one source for building the virtual bench.  If your managers are lagging in this area, RED FLAG.

Ask yourself the following:

• Are reps complaining they get passed over for promotions?
• Do you constantly hear, “Rep A isn’t ready,” but they continue to overachieve
• What has the turnover been on the team?
• Is the manager fostering an environment of WE or ME?

To see the other warning signs, download the Sales Manager Assessment Tool.

Don’t fall for KBS

Many sales leaders get caught up in the KBS- Kiss Butt Syndrome.  The manager that constantly agrees with everything you say or do.  Make sure you see through the “niceness” and focus on performance metrics.   Politics are always part of today’s corporate culture.  It’s important to understand the internal dynamics within the sales organization.  Make sure that you judge your team putting politics aside.

Utilizing a PIP

Use the Sales Manager Assessment Tool to get a readout on your management team.  Then get tactical and focus on filling any gaps.  Many sales managers can be coached and trained to perform.  Once you have identified the gaps, develop a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP).  The key components of a (PIP) include:

• Identify the performance or management issue
• Discuss the gap or shortcoming
• Develop an action plan on improvement
• Define how improvement will be measured
• Set the timeframe for improvement
• Discuss with the employee

Performance Improvement Plans are a powerful change tool.  When used correctly they can help an employee turn things around.  Consult your HR team to ensure you are using appropriately.

The balls in your court

Sales management performance is key to hitting your number.  Utilize the Sales Manager Assessment Tool to see how your management team stacks up.  Then take the appropriate action to manage up or out of the organization.

Author: Josh Horstmann

Follow @HorstJosh

Follow @MakingTheNumber

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I just returned from sunny Marco Island, FL where I was speaking to a group of business owners about sales management.  Actually the title of my program was “Ineffective Sales Management Kills Growth… Duh”.  The group included both business owners who directly manage their sales teams as well as business owners who have dedicated sales managers.

As I usually do I discussed the 5 essential skills of effective sales managers:  Coaching, Motivating, Holding Salespeople Accountable, Recruiting and Mentoring.  By the way you can download my new eBook, The 5 Essentials of Effective Sales Management, on this topic here.   Without fail, when I talk to groups of business owners, they understand what I am saying.  They know that either they or the designated sales manager needs to spend the bulk of his or her time doing these things.  As I have discussed before, they really need to spend 80% of their time on these five essential skills.  So I polled the group to find out where they think their sales managers spend the bulk of their time.  Here is the list I gave them, from which to choose:

• Coaching
• Motivating
• Recruiting
• Holding Salespeople Accountable
• Crisis Management
• Internal Company Issues
• Managing Compensation Plans
• Organization/Reorganization
• Strategy
• Direct Selling

The vast majority of the group, I mean two-thirds to three-fourths of the group, said that their sales managers spend the most time on Crisis Management.  Oh holy crap.  That is horrible.  So I have let that sink in overnight, and have determined why that is.  I am not sure I have the complete answer but I think it is something like this.  Most business owners cannot get their arms around the fact that sales success is fairly scientific and they tend to believe that it is more of an art than a science.  They therefore do not have prescribed KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) for sales managers.  There may be KPI’s for salespeople in the form of closed business, closing ratios, calls and appointments, attempts, etc.  But KPI’s for sales managers, it probably just consists of closed business for the group.  So what do we expect?  When we just give people an end goal, without a roadmap to follow which would enable them to more effectively reach that goal, they are left to their own devices to determine where to spend their time.  The recommendation I have is that sales managers need detailed roadmaps.  They need to know what the expectation is regarding coaching frequency and scope, regarding motivating and how, regarding holding salespeople accountable, etc.  AND, they need to know what is and is not acceptable regarding crisis management.   If your sales manager is spending a large portion of his or her time on crisis management then you need to know about it and the problem needs fixed.

There are 5 important categories to measure from a reporting standpoint to ensure top performance from your inside sales team. The goal is to push your reps to excel in all 5 categories to guarantee their optimal success. The most important categories to pay close attention to are:

Prospecting Skills

Prospecting skills describes how resourceful your inside sales reps are and how quickly they can get to the decision maker. The more quality conversations or talk time your rep has speaking with the correct person, the better their prospecting skills are. An inside sales rep who spends more time speaking with contacts in an account opposed to blindly leaving voicemails and emails will get to the correct person more quickly and identify an opportunity faster.

Measure each team member’s Connect Rate: The Connect Rate is the amount of quality connects and conversations your rep has in comparison to their call volume. While continuing to maintain a healthy volume, a successful inside sales rep has around a 12-15% connect rate each day. Quality connects and conversations signify progress. Whether your rep is pointed to the decision maker or has a healthy conversation that will progress the sales cycle with an account, an increase in the connect rate will lead to an increase in opportunities.

Information Gathering Skills

One of the most important skills for an inside sales rep to develop is their ability to gather important information as it relates to the target accounts they are calling. Inside sales reps need to gather Critical Account Intelligence (CAI) from their prospects, such as the appropriate decision maker and title, what current technology/solutions they have in place, and what their time frame for re-evaluation is, assuming there are no active projects. This data is extremely valuable to your sales and marketing team as they prepare future targeted campaigns and nurture programs.

Phone Skills

The best inside sales reps are fast at creating next steps. Opportunity Conversion Rate will help to determine how many conversations they are converting to opportunities. The higher this rate, the better your inside sales reps will be at generating interest and converting accounts to opportunities based on their conversations.

Measure each team member’s Opportunity Conversion Rate: The Opportunity Conversion Rate is the amount of leads your rep uncovers in comparison to the amount of connects they have. While it is important that your rep has a lot of productive conversations, it is essential that a healthy rate (5-7%) of these connects are being passed over as qualified leads. If your rep has a high Connect Rate, but low Opportunity Conversion Rate, you may want to sit in on scheduled calls and hear if they are having difficulty creating next steps with qualified prospects. If your rep has a low Connect Rate and high Opportunity Conversion Rate, this means that they are great at converting their conversations to an opportunity. In that case, it is time to circle in with them and strategize on how to bring in more quality connects each day.

Work Ethic

While inside sales prospecting is not merely a numbers game, it is important that you are ensuring a consistent flow of outbound activity with each of your reps. Make sure you are staying on top of the activity number and consistency with average calls/day. The best inside sales reps go the extra mile with their outbound activity on a consistent basis and not only make a large quantity of calls, but infuse those calls with quality resulting in passed qualified leads.

Measure each team member’s Average Activities/Day: Average Activities/Day is the amount of outbound activities your inside sales reps are completing on a daily basis. This should be a combination of conversations, voicemails, and emails. With all outbound activities combined, it is important for a successful inside sales rep to achieve at the minimum 100 activities/day. For this to be most effective, at least 70% should be calling efforts as opposed to email activity.

Competitive Drive

Most importantly, any high-performing sales rep is competitive. With all of the other skills in place, you should see that excellent inside sales reps are always meeting or surpassing their goals. The desire to win the prospect over and be the best among their peers will influence their selling ability. In order to increase your inside sales reps’ competitive drive and motivate them further, it might be a good idea to incorporate sales contests that advocate for friendly competition and/or keep a visible lead board so inside sales reps can measure their progress against others.

The post is an excerpt of a chapter from our recently published eBook, The Ultimate Inside Sales Prospecting and Management Success eBook. If you’re interested in reading the 35-page handbook, click the link above.  

What reporting metrics do you use to measure your inside sales team’s performance? 

Salespeople loathe sales training.  It takes them out of the field and away from closing deals.

As a sales enablement leader, you know when training is adopted it’s a win-win.  Implemented training is directly related to real sales dollars.  In turn, it makes training a success.  Your value proposition is defined and justifies the need for future sales training.

Apply this 3-step process to demonstrate how maximizing sales training adoption gets the wins.

Download the Sales Training Adoption Estimator to protect your investment.  The tool employs three dimensions to compare certified to non-certified salespeople.  Use the estimator to assess the value of sales training adoption.

Step #1: Create a Sales Certification Program, not a Certification Program

A Certification Program is awarded to attendees of a course for just showing up.  Knowledge and comprehension are not tested.  A Sales Certification Program assesses the skills and competencies achieved.  It’s a prestigious connection to your sales training.  It validates the training program.

Have your salespeople complete a final exam at the end of sales training.  Make sure the correct answers require them to adopt their learnings to be successful.  Certify those who score 90% or greater.  Then re-test them annually.

Does Sales Certification really have an impact on results?  Will it help with field adoption of sales training?  The answer to both questions is “YES”!  Here are a few benefits of a Sales Certification Program:

• Point of difference.  Anything that separates you from the competition is powerful.    
• Commitment.  A Sales Certified salesperson demonstrates professional commitment.  They show they are creditable and knowledgeable about current trends and best practices.     
• Confidence.  Becoming an expert elevates your salespeople to a higher conversation level.  They are poised in their sales delivery and overall demeanor.
• Visibility.  Incorporate your Sales Certification acronym into all external correspondence to stimulate a conversation.  This includes email, business cards and social networking sites.
• Higher compensation. Confident and expert salespeople sell more.  They communicate more effectively and produce greater results.  

So if you don’t already have a Sales Certification Program, establish one.

Step #2: Create an Enhanced Variable Commission Program

Nothing gets a salespersons attention more than money.  They are a competitive group.  Offer more earning potential to your higher performers to drive greater results.  An effective way for you to do this is through a variable commission structure.  Create a program where Sales Certified salespeople earn a higher commission rate.  Keep it easy to calculate the payout.  Don’t dilute the impact with a complicated formula to determine the commission.   

This will accomplish two things.  First, this motivates the certified salespeople to implement their learnings.  Second, the non-certified salespeople will study harder to become certified.  A 5% to 10% commission payout difference between certified and non-certified salespeople is recommended.

Step #3: Quantify the Benefit

How do you determine the value of sales training?  How do you separate the performance of certified from non-certified salespeople?  The answer is to use a scorecard to measure the benefit.  Consider these three dimensions to estimate worth:

• Revenue Performance:  Measures the total revenue generated during the time period.  This is a quick way to separate results between certified and non-certified salespeople.  It is important to quantify the difference in productivity between the two groups. 
• Variable Compensation:  Offer certified salespeople a higher variable commission percent on each sale.  Easy way to separate variable commission payouts for analysis purposes.
• Ramp-Up Time:  Uncover the number of days it takes for a salesperson to reach their goal.  This component brings visibility to a key sales training indicator.      

A total score is computed from the sum of the three dimensions.  Gaps between certified and non-certified salespeople are recognized.  Normally, certified salespeople score higher than the non-certified group.  Evaluate the final results to assess the value of sales training adoption.  Then share them with sales and executive leadership.    

In summary, capturing the value of your sales training program will increase adoption.  The 3-steps above will help you get there.

Download the Sales Training Adoption Estimator to determine your score using the three dimensions.

Author: Tom Maloney

Follow @tommaloneycro

Follow @MakingTheNumber

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If you’re a B2B marketer, your foremost focus is generating qualified leads, and you may have a demand generation team dedicated to whipping up leads that meet the right criteria. But even when you and your team are working hard and doing everything right, lead generation efforts can sometimes fall short, not producing the number of sales-qualified leads needed. Maybe a conference got cancelled, or some events did not have the attendance that you expected. But the sales team doesn’t hear excuses, and they’re pressuring you for more leads. What can you do?

The solution may be right under your nose – your Return-to-Marketing (RTM) leads. These are the leads that your sales team pursued in the past, then categorized as “not yet ready,” then returned to marketing for more attention. For most marketers, the RTM leads are a major component of your lead nurturing database.

Normally, you’ll wait for the RTM leads to achieve sufficient lead score by showing more interest in your services before you release those leads to the sales team. However, in a crunch situation, you can proactively identify the high-potential leads and release them to the sales team or include them in a special promotion to tease out the sales-ready leads.

Identifying high-potential RTM leads

The best way to identify the high-potential RTM leads is to investigate your past reopened leads that were converted to sales. History will show the way. Are there key characteristics that made some re-opened leads convert better than others? We did an analysis of a specific use case. We checked several parameters that could be relevant such as Title, Industry, Business Size, Annual Revenue, and so on. However, the two parameters that were most relevant were “Age” (i.e., days from last sales call) and “Lead Score” at the time of reopen.

To identify high potential RTM leads using Age and Lead Score, we recommend the following steps:

Step 1

Look at the wins from reopened leads from RTM for a specific time period (say, one year) and enter the counts in a grid as below based on the Age and Lead Score at the time of reopen. (Select the groupings that are most appropriate for your business.) This data is from an actual customer use case, but the numbers have been masked:

Step 2

Enter the counts of all current RTM leads in a similar grid:

Step 3

Divide “Wins” (Grid 1) by “Counts” (Grid 2) to create ratios, similar to the one below. These ratios represent the probability of an RTM lead in a specific cell converting to a win at some point. Identify the cells with higher than average ratios. This enables you to target the RTM leads in these specific cells, starting with the cells with highest ratios first.

From our experience, the high potential RTM leads identified using this methodology are at least half as effective as a new marketing-qualified lead.

Extra Credit Exercise:

You can estimate targeting efficiency, like “Identify X% of leads in the RTM database that would give Y% of possible wins from RTM”, by using the following steps:

• In Grid 1, find the ratio of “number of wins in the targeted cells” to “total wins”. This is X%
• In Grid 2, find the ratio of “number of contacts in the targeted cells” to “total contacts”. This is Y%.

An example of targeting efficiency is – “We identified 5% of contacts in the RTM database that would give 25% of possible wins from RTM.”

Share Your Experience

Hopefully, this methodology comes in handy for you when you need a batch of hot leads in a hurry. Have you used this type of analysis before? Do you have something different that works well for you? Please share your thoughts in comments section below.

And if your shortage of qualified leads is chronic rather than acute, please visit Act-On’s Center of Excellence for resources to help you manage leads for greater profitability.

Sales Training Article: Are Your New Reps Prepared for the Real World?

Your company is growing quickly. You have an aggressive number for the year. The only way to make it is to hire more heads. But you're worried: How long will it take for them to be Customer ready? What instruction do I need to give them? How can I ensure their success?

One of the big gaps between a mature and young organization is onboarding time. Mature organizations typically have a robust training program. However, much of this training is wasted on corporate policies and internal systems training. Young organizations are very different. Onboarding is simple and fast. Many times it's a rep being assigned to a high-performer for a week. Then they are thrown into the pool.

Neither of these approaches gives the reps the preparation they need to be successful. To gain traction quickly, reps need to learn about their customers. Each type of buyer has unique objectives, fears, metrics and objections. "A" Players have internalized these key characteristics through years of experience.

Without a customer focused onboarding, new reps learn through trial and error. This is a critial mistake. Many VPs miss their 1st quarter simply because their talent is still learning about their customers. Opportunities slip through the cracks. Territories underperform.

Give your new hires the chance they need to be successful. Download our New Rep Onboarding Checklist document for 4 weeks of successful training. Have your new reps attend a sales training workshop to make sure they're started on the right path to sales success.

Here are the 4 Components of a Successful Sales Onboarding:

Customers: This is the most overlooked portion of a typical sales training. Every sales rep should know their customers care about. Personas and buying process maps should be studied to ensure buyer alignment. The rep should come away with a full understanding of key persona:

• Objectives and Job Responsibilities
• Buying Process Maps
• Common Objections
• Fears
• Key Metrics They Follow
• Social Engagement (Where do they connect and talk to peers?)

Product: The key to a successful product training is to teach how the customer views the product. Don't get hyper-technical unless your customer demands it. Key product trainings should include:

• Your value proposition
• Key differentiators from the competition
• Features important to each Persona
• "How it Works" for each product sold (At the level the customer asks about)
• How these products improve the customer's success metrics

Job Responsibilities: Your job responsibilities should be more than just table stakes requirements. Pull your "A" Players into the training. Ask them how they have achieved so much success. Here are some key factors:

• Time management (How does an "A" Player structure their day?)
• Activity responsibilities (and how to prioritize them)
• Sales Process, including Tools to help
• Skills that are vital to the role
• What metrics will used to determine their success

Systems Responsibilities: Systems training is known as "necessary evil" in Sales Training. It doesn't have to be. Equip your CRM with valuable tools and marketing materials to enable your new talent. Show them where they can access key customer data. CRM system adoption is critical to managing sales reps activity. If reps won't use it, the manager is coaching in the dark.

• CRM system Expectations and Training
• Activity Entry
• Opportunity Entry
• Dashboard and Report training
• Phone and Email set-up

Ensure that your reps get the training they need to be successful. This means focusing on your customers. Give your reps the knowledge they need to be productive. Download our New Rep Onboarding Checklist.

Need some help with your sales performance? Take a look at the sales training workshops available to you and improve sales performance.

Read more sales training articles from CustomerCentric Selling® - The Sales Training Company.

Do you want to get the week started right and then ride that momentum through the week?

Then call one of your best customers TODAY!  That’s right!  Even if you don’t have a specific reason to call one of your better accounts, pick up the phone and call them anyway.

You likely will be surprised at how happy they will be to hear from you!

More importantly, you’ll be pleased to see how it builds your confidence and momentum to call even more customers and prospects.

Check out the video to see what I mean!

And if you want more videos like this, go to this page:  YES!  I Want to be Motivated Every Monday Morning!

Copyright 2014, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Selling: Win the Sale Without Compromising on Price.

Click on the below book cover for more info on boosting your profits!

30 Questions To Inform Your Sales Plan is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

Do you want to know how you might improve your sales game? Here are thirty questions you can use to inform your sales plan. What you are missing might just be what’s missing.

1. Do you have dream client targets?
2. Do you have a plan to engage them?
3. Is this plan a campaign?
4. Does your plan try multiple channels?
5. Does your plan include multiple stakeholders?
6. Does your plan lead with value?
7. Does your plan include touches for every potential stage of their buying cycle?
8. Does your plan include asking for a referral or introduction?
9. Are you doing enough prospecting work to build a pipeline of real opportunities?
10. Do you have the ability to create value if your dream client is satisfied?
11. Does your process make you collaborative?
12. Does your process align with your dream client’s needs?
13. Do you have an arsenal of high value discovery questions?
14. Do you have the ability to help your client make their own discoveries?
15. Does your process allow you to gain the education you need?
16. Re you taking the necessary steps to learn your client’s business?
17. Are the needs of different stakeholders captured in your process?
18. Are the needs of different stakeholder groups captured in your process?
19. Do you know everyone who will eventually vote on your solution?
20. Is the way you sell making you known as a trusted advisor, a value creator?
21. Is the way you sell proof positive that you care?
22. Is your team engaged in the sales process, learning what they will need to do to execute for your dream client?
23. Does your plan include your having a presence and gaining trust over time?
24. Does your plan include engaging your dream client contact’s vision in your proposed solution?
25. Do you pre-present your proposal to acquire changes and modifications?
26. Is your proposal your story, their story, or “our story?”
27. Do you make the risks and obstacles abundantly clear?
28. Do you explain how you will mitigate those risks?
29. Do you confirm that your dream client understands the necessary investment throughout the process?
30. Have you earned the right to ask for your dream client’s business?

You should only read this if you believe that your level of success is largely up to you. Yes, it’s impacted and influenced by external events, but it’s not your sales manager, employer, customer, product, partner, bank manager or religious leader who ultimately determines your destiny. It’s you, and in difficult selling times, that’s the first principle that you have to accept.

There are few professions where the inner strength of the individual protagonist is as critical as that of an individual salesperson. During each sales call, you put your own credibility – and that of your company – on the line. Most likely, you are the primary arbiter of success or failure, and you always face the risk of failure or rejection. But when you win, the sense of achievement and personal gratification are amplified just because you are always putting yourself out there.

There are 7 principles that winners exhibit more frequently than others.  These are not best practices, processes, methodology, or selling skills – but rather personal choices that you control to define your personal purpose – the ‘why’ you do what you do.

1. Ambition: To achieve your ambition, you first need to be very clear as to what it is. There are two main questions you should ask yourself;

1. “Do I know what I really want to achieve?” and
2. “Is my goal ambitious enough?”

A ‘shoot for the moon’ goal is a wonderful motivator. By figuring out your personal outrageous goal – conceived in a moment of suspended reality – you see what might be possible. Then you can plan to achieve that ambition by breaking it down into attainable and realistic steps. Winning sales professionals do this in small ways every day as they strategize how to maximize revenue from an account, or win a specific deal. Then it is the art of the possible, planning the realization of the ambition.

2. Commitment and Resilience: How badly do you want it? Will you stay the course? Invariably you will see seemingly ‘lucky’ people for whom everything just works out. Evidence of their hard work is sometimes hard to see. Enduring hardship is frequently the bedfellow of success, so you’ve got to be committed to your goal and both resilient and relentless in its pursuit. When you continue to do the right thing, and stick with it, good things invariably happen.

3. Honesty and Integrity: These are two of the least understood, and most under-valued, personal and business assets. A reputation for being honest or having high integrity is priceless. It brings trust and openness, deeper relationships and more productive engagement. Trust is ‘truth delivered over time’. It is hard to win but easy to lose. The sustained value of these assets cannot be overstated.

4. Inquisitiveness and Learning: In sales, as in life, it is better to be interested than it is to be interesting. You need to be inquisitive and curious about what matters to others and less focused on what ‘interesting’ stuff you have to say. When you have earned the right – you can then be interesting.

If you are in the right job/company/industry, being interested in your customers’ business/industry/market comes easily to you. You have a natural passion for what you do, choosing to continuously self-improve. Without this passion to learn, you will find it hard to be naturally inquisitive. Then you’re possibly in the wrong job/company/ industry – and probably stuck in mediocrity.

5. Empathy and Perspective: Without Empathy you can’t possibly appreciate what’s important to your customer or your own support team. Remember the last time you complained about your marketing / product department, ‘I just don’t understand why we never seem to get … [Insert leads, new features, competitive analysis, better pricing]. Usually when you start a sentence with ‘I just don’t under stand why …’, it’s usually just that – you don’t understand. Arrogance is usually bred from ignorance, and that’s never pretty or productive. Consider the other Perspective.

6. Vision: Innovation and Leadership: Ambition without vision is dangerous and usually counter-productive. Vision elevates ambition to a higher place, one where your insight, founded on innovative thinking and thought leadership (informed through Inquisitiveness and Learning), propels you to the front. (There is another V for Velocity – click here to learn more)

7. Enterprise: You’ve got to work hard, really hard, no really, really hard. Come up with the right strategy to fulfill your ambition, and then through your own initiative and resourcefulness, determine how you best execute your plan. Unless you have the requisite Commitment and Resilience you won’t reach the uncommon heights you’ve visualized in your ambition.

When you put these principles together – Ambition, Commitment, Honesty, Inquisitiveness, Empathy, Vision, Innovation, and Enterprise – you can choose to A.C.H.I.E.V.E. your goals.

It really is up to you.

By Tibor Shanto - tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

Price is a ‘big’ subject for all in sales, right from those developing product, to marketing, all in the sales organisation, and as important as any, the customer. We all have an economic and emotional involvement in it, yet it often continues to be a challenge for all in the chain.

I think one reason is the message many sales leaders send their teams, and their peers in the revenue generation process. I think in some terms, it is the mixed messages they send that confuses and leads to undesired results.

One obvious factor and lever is incentive. I keep hearing, as I have heard throughout my sales career, that incentive drives behaviour, if so why do so many companies (senior sales executives), continue to reward sales people on the price they get, rather than the profit that sales person contributes? I used to work with someone who kept insisting that companies go out of business due to lack of sales. He would never accept that in fact businesses go under due to a lack of profits. Even when I showed him that many businesses had their best revenue days when the bankruptcy trustees were holding liquidation sales.

I have fund that companies who incent their sales people based on gross profits are consistently better aligned with their reps, and achieve mutually better results. But many continue to base incentives on top line gross revenues, others on some proxy for revenue or some model of potential residual revenue stream to materialize in the future, even when the incentive is paid out now.

Sellers who are paid on revenues only, are more likely to discount, and advocate for the buyer, rather than drive mutual value. As we all know, a $500 discount on a $10,000 piece of equipment, can have little impact on what the reps gets paid, but could be a huge part of the gross or net margin.

One has to wonder why in today’s economy anyone would pay out based on top line vs. GP. One company I worked with couldn’t really tell you what their margins were, as a result they went with paying on the top line, which only compounded the issue, as they didn’t know if commissions were wiping out the last bit of profit, or… At the end of the quarter they were either profitable or not, but either way not by design. This may be an extreme example, but I don’t think it is rare.

It is not just about the company’s profits, but many who pay on GP, are able to attract and develop better sales people. Sales people who want to and sell at full value, a true win-win-win situation. The same instincts that allow sales people to choose a discount when paid on top line, drive sale reps paid on margin to deliver value for all three key parties. No value for the client, no sale, no commission; no discounts offered, because those come as much out of the seller’s pocket as the company’s. Clients don’t get gouged, because there would be no sales, no commission.

There is no doubt that switching from top line to margin payouts cause reverberations, and push back from sellers. But I am willing to bet that only from those who can’t survive on the crumbs they leave in any given deal. Sometimes you need to shake things up, thin the herd to make room for those who want to feast along with the customers and their employers.

The saying goes, “if the shoe fits, wear it”. But what if the shoe almost fits, so you cram your foot into the shoe and go to a party and spend the evening in ill-fitting shoes? Things start off pretty good, walking gingerly and already knowing that you really wish you picked the larger shoes. By the end of the party you have a blister despite your best intentions.

Sometimes being an inbound marketing sales person can feel like putting on shoes that are a size too small: you know what your team brings to the table (the foot) but you aren’t entirely sure of the client (the shoe). You may be able to make your company fit with most leads, but should you?

Every opportunity to talk to a lead is valuable. Every chance to spread the word about your organization and test the fit with a potential client could mean a sale. But how could you be improving your approach so that every shoe you try on is a perfect fit? Not only does it make the outfit look great, but you can be confident that at the end of the evening your feet will be intact and blister free.

Enter the buyer persona- the key to successful prospecting and inbound sales.

Not only are buyer personas vital for the success of your marketing program, they are also integral to sales success. They are at the very core of “smarketing” and the alliance between your marketing and sales team.

As a sales person, knowing and agreeing upon buyer personas will save both time on the prospecting end and also give you traction in your sales calls.  Not all leads are qualified leads, and knowing exactly who your marketing team is targeting, how the buyer persona relates to your organization, and where your company can help them is going to create the framework for a great relationship between your sales team and their leads.

Whether your sales team makes cold calls (you are still making cold calls? We can talk about this later) or are prospecting on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook, you don’t want to approach every single lead out there; you’ll be burning time on potentially disinterested or ill fitting leads.

Knowing your company’s buyer personas will give your sales team the upper hand, making sure they are talking to the right audience and going directly after prospects that are an ideal fit. For example, your buyer persona research might reveal that you should be prospecting to c-suite executives rather than management level employees. And by knowing that information you are able to differentiate quickly between an ideal client who can be a perfect sale and a poorly fitting prospect who may not ever close or be a client you can truly support. Knowing who is a good fit and who is not will save you from spending valuable time on sales calls that you shouldn’t be.

Equipping your sales team with your organization’s buyer persona research will allow your team to refocus themselves on qualified leads that will go from prospect, to sale, to a valued repeat customer.

So keep in mind, not all leads are created equal. In focusing on your company’s buyer persona you will focus your energy on a lead that will have a higher likelihood of being a shoe that fits rather than one that leaves you at the end of the night with bad blisters and wishing you hadn’t forced your feet into the wrong shoes.

Photo Credit: Frederic Poirot via Compfight cc

Inherent to consumerism is the assumption that more choice is better.

Indeed, psychologists have long contended that the provision of choice can increase the individual’s sense of personal control and feelings of intrinsic motivation (Rotter, 1966; deCharms, 1968).

Whilst that might be true, the problem is that it doesn’t necessarily follow that presenting an abundance of options results in an increase in sales. 

In this post I’ll explain why you should test presenting less choice in order to boost your conversion rate.

The famous 'Jam Experiment' 

Psychologists Iyengar, Jiang and Huberman hypothesized that we are more motivated when we see lots of options because we believe that our chances of finding the right one for us are increased. 

However these psychologists also hypothesized that: 

...the very act of making a choice from an excessive number of options might result in 'choice overload', in turn lessening the motivation to choose and in some cases resulting in failure to choose at all.

Put simply, seeing more options attracts our attention and makes us excited but often results in failure to make a choice at all.

This behaviour is most famously demonstrated in the Jam Experiment (Iyengar and Lepper, 2000) in which a tasting booth for exotic jams was set up at a grocery store in California.

As customers passed the tasting booth they encountered a display with either six or 24 different flavoured jams.  

The researchers counted:

• The number of people who approached the display in each condition (6 or 24 different jams options).
• The number of purchases made from each condition.

What they found was that the display with 24 jams was approached 150% more frequently than the display with only six jams.

However, when they considered the number of purchases made they discovered that 30% of people purchased from the 'six-jam display' while only 3% purchased from the '24-jam' display.

The findings from this study show that whilst an extensive array of options can at first seem highly appealing to consumers it can actually reduce subsequent motivation to make a choice and commit to a purchase.

This behaviour can be explained in part by what is known as 'Cognitive Load': the demand placed on our working memory.

Deck and Jahedi (2013) write in their paper:

The effect of cognitive load on economic decision making is that people tend to become increasingly risk averse under conditions of high cognitive load. 

Cognitive load in the case of the jam experiment is the mental burden felt by consumers when presented with so many choices of jam and the subsequent difficulty of having to compare and choose between them.

In the ’24 jam’ condition, more people simply gave up and chose to walk away thereby avoiding the risk of making the wrong decision altogether.

The Godiva chocolate experiment

This 'choice-overload' hypothesis was further explored by Iyengar and Lepper (2000) with their 'Godiva Chocolate' experiment. In this experiment one group of participants were asked to choose from a limited selection of 6 chocolates while another group were asked to choose from an extensive selection of 30. 

Unlike the jam experiment, participants weren’t just measured solely on their behaviour. They were asked qualitative questions before selection, during selection and after tasting their selection. 

This difference in experiment design is important because it adds a layer of qualitative insight which helps to explain why the choice seems harder when more options are present and why this can result in failure to make any choice at all.

1. Before selection they were asked to predict how satisfied they would be with their choice:  'satisfactory' or 'among the best'.
2. During selection they were asked to provide ratings of their enjoyment, difficulty and frustration experienced during the choice-making process.  
3. And finally, after tasting their chocolates they were asked to provide ratings describing their subsequent satisfaction or regret.

This is what the researchers discovered:

• The group who were asked to select from a display of 30 chocolates reported enjoying the process more than the group selecting from the display of only six.
• Subsequently however, participants choosing from the selection of 6 expressed more satisfaction with their choice and were more likely to choose their selection again, as compared to participants choosing from a selection the 30.  

This is what they concluded:

Collectively, these results suggest that choosers may experience frustration with complex choice-making processes.Also, that dissatisfaction with their choices - stemming from greater feelings of responsibility for the choices they make, may lead to a lower willingness to commit to one choice.

This behaviour might help to explain cart abandonment

My own hypothesis here is that if you ask your visitors to 'add to cart' from a vast array of simultaneously presented options they will feel a greater sense of responsibility and mental fatigue as they attempt to move forward into the checkout process. 

It follows that this can spawn a nagging sense of doubt that leaves prospects feeling like they should do more research to better understand the options they overlooked to reaffirm that the selection they have made was not made in haste and was in fact the right one for them.  

The result? Cart abandonment.

Decision making can be hindered by perceived risks 

A vast number of experts in the fields of both psychology and behavioural economics have concluded that choice overload or 'paralysis' may be further exacerbated in situations where the perceived costs or risks associated with making 'the wrong choice' are much higher; and/or when substantial time and effort would be required for choosers to compare all options and make a completely informed choice.

(Zuckerman et al., 1978):

The more choosers perceive their choice-making task to necessitate expert information, the more they may be inclined not to choose at all.

This last finding is quite useful as it reinforces what we already know about influencing human behaviour, namely the influence of authority.  

Cialdini teaches us that we are pre-programmed to follow the edicts of a perceived authority figure and even more willing to do so when this absolves us of the responsibility for making a wholly independent decision: “the expert said it was the right choice so I obeyed.”

With these findings and hypotheses in mind, here are some suggestions for testing:

The concept of choice paralysis is important but also complex to test as it is unlikely to be a ‘simple case of showing people less options’ because your business model might not allow for something quite as straight forward.

I do however believe that it is possible to design an alternate experience which reduces the cognitive load associated with the decision making process. Your tests should include these five metrics:  the frequency with which your visitors 'add to cart', subsequent cart abandonment, conversion rate, average order value and revenue per visitor.  

Here are some ideas to get started with:

• Reduce the number of choices you present simultaneously. 
• Reduce the complexity of the choice by limiting the number of 'points of comparison' within each option and making comparable items directly comparable.
• Absolve visitors of the 'responsibility of choice' by providing an authoritative recommendation or social proof.
• De-risk the choice by providing post-purchase 'undo' or escape clauses such as guarantees and returns policies.

As an interesting aside, energy companies are about to fulfil some of these recommendations by law. The Ofgen report issued Aug 2013 will require UK energy companies to limit the number of tariff options presented to customers from March 2014 onwards.  

The report states that this is being done to make it simpler for consumers to understand and select the tariff that is right for them. The maximum number of tariff options presented to customers will be four.  

Also, energy companies will also be required to standardise their tariff structures to enable easier comparison between providers.

I wonder how long it will be before other industries are either required to follow suit or do so willingly?

As a business grows, you have different ways to expand. You could hire all of your own sales representatives, or you could use a sales channel. Let’s say that you have already reached that point and decided that your best growth strategy is to work through a sales channel. You might work with independent reps, manufacturer’s reps, or partners. Call them what you like, channels present great opportunity and similarly, many challenges. In the past week, I worked with several different companies on their channel strategy. Here are some pitfalls to avoid that can help you attain optimum value from your channel.

Know How They Make Money

You know how you make money, but how does your channel partner make money? Do they simply make a percentage of the sale? Do they sell additional services? Let’s say your product sells for $30,000, and your partner earns 30%. This means that they earn $9,000 gross on each sale. However, they might perform additional services or sell add-on products to the client that totals another $20,000. So, each time the channel partner sells your product, they know they’ll make $9,000 from you, and another $20,000 based on what they deliver.

The next quarter, you come out with a new version of your product that customers just love. In fact, it reduces the complexity of implementation significantly. You still sell it for $30,000. But, it only needs $5,000 of services. Instead of excitement, your channel partner is thinking “Darn! Now I make half as much for the same sale.” What is good news for the customer might not be as well received for your channel partner. Consider how they make money from your product. The first thing you should discuss with a potential channel partner is how others are making money based on your offerings.

The Channel: An Extension of Your Sales Force

One of the first mistakes I see is when companies share limited information with their channel partners. If you can’t trust them, then they should not be in your channel. Once you make the decision to use that channel, treat them as an extension of your sales force. Keep in mind that unlike your internal sales force, your channel has other things on their plate. If they struggle to get information from you, they might recommend the competitor’s solution because it is “easier.” Be sure that you communicate with your channel partners as often as you would your internal team. Speak WITH them not AT them. Here are some good questions to ask:

1. Ask questions about what projects are going well, and where you could help them be more successful.
2. Ask about what other vendors do that helps the partner sell more effectively.
3. Ask about what they like and what they wish they could change about other vendors.

More HOW, Less WHAT

When speaking with CEOs of companies that use channel partners, they confirm that the most effective partners are not necessarily masters of each feature. Rather, they are subject matter experts in specific fields, and they have a mastery of the sales process for that type of solution.

If your sales training or enablement is all about your features and benefits, you are not arming the channel with the right tools. Instead, focus on WHY people would purchase your products and services over alternatives.

1. Help them understand what types of situations would be a good fit for your solutions, and what have you found to be the catalysts for fast sales.
2. Engage them to define the best entry points into an account that would lead to a quick success.
3. Identify which opportunities are a good fit, and which ones are not worth the pursuit.

Conclusion

Your channel partners have many things competing for their attention. If you help them discover how to make the most effective use of their time and put more money in their pocket working with you, then you’ll have their attention. Treat them like a member of the family, and work together for mutual success. When you master this formula, your channel can deliver extraordinary value to grow your business.

It’s Your Turn

What channel experiences have you faced (good or bad)? How could you change your program for the better?

Quarter-end Contracts Slip-sliding Away? Check Your Sales Process!

Negotiations went well. You made your case to your buyer, and you have their assurance that the deal will close by the end of the quarter. You update your forecasts and just sit back and enjoy. Nothing can go wrong. Or can it?

There is a term you should know … slippage.

Fast forward now to the second-to-last week of the quarter. Your buyer still hasn’t returned the signed contract, and you’re feeling the heat to get it signed. You call to get a status update, and you learn from the buyer that IT still needs to complete its security audit. You’re in the queue. A week goes by, and there is still no signed contract. Now, your buyer tells you that a purchase of this size will need to go through procurement, and the CFO will likely need to sign off personally. The problem is that the CFO is on vacation and doesn’t share your sense of urgency to sign the deal by the end of the quarter. Now, your deal and your forecast are in serious trouble. At this point, there is little you can do. You can pray that the slippage is just temporary, that the whole deal has not gone south, and that your forecasts are not just off but gone. Otherwise, it is just damage control.

The best way to avoid the need for damage control is to avoid damage. There are several steps you can take to avoid slippage. Start with a sound sales process that is aligned with the customer’s buying process. Following a well-defined sales process will let you know what to expect and when to expect it. Keep in mind that you sell your products, services, and solutions all day every day, but your buyer might only make this purchase once in his or her career. You need to know what to expect. You need to anticipate challenges to a smooth buying process. You need to work with your buyer to anticipate problems before they arise and should then move through with little or no problem.

The process should include buyer-centric “verifiable outcomes.” This is a big word for clear activities your buyer has taken that verify where the buyer is in the buying process and where you are in your selling process.

Start with knowing the key players and buying processes with the company. Valuable things to learn include:

• How familiar is the customer with your product, service, or solution? Have they bought something like it before? If not, educate them in how others buy.
• Who makes the final decision? Who signs the contract?
• What role, if any, will the CFO or the finance people play?
• Who are the other major players that influence the purchase? Every department affected by a purchase, particularly if they might have to change the way they currently work, could have some impact on the decision-making process. Find out sooner rather than later.
• Can your contact do more than just recommend you to the decision makers? Does his or her opinion carry real weight?

You should learn decision maker priorities. They may need or want what you offer but may need something else more. You have to learn decision maker problems. You have to be able to convince the decision makers that your product or service will solve problems and meet needs — that what you offer will become a solution.

Be especially aware when key personnel in a buying organization change. What if the supportive decision maker leaves the company? What if a higher up, even the CEO, is replaced? New “powers that be” at a company may come in with a new agenda. At the very least, they will want to review operations and get to know the company, or part of a company, they inherit. When this happens, it is not uncommon for major purchases to stall while the dust settles. If you smell smoke, there may be fire.

Find out about regulatory and compliance issues that need to be satisfied. If you are selling something like machinery, you already know to ask about environmental issues. But what about IT? Security is a huge issue. No company wants IT problems. A company is going to want to be especially sure IT problems do not make the national news, like Target. Not good for the career of anyone who signed off on Target’s IT security buying decision.

Finally, and this sounds simple but people forget the simple, look at a calendar. Are any holidays coming up that might delay contract signing? Foreign companies have different holidays than in the United States, so you will want to check. Check religious holidays. Vacations are also a factor, particularly if a decision maker has one planned. Times to be particularly careful are the weeks of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s when a lot of people may take time off. The latter two are international holidays.

Design your sales process with the buyer in mind, and ensure that you are tracking with your buyer throughout the process. Anticipate the challenges to close the deal, and proactively take measures to avoid slippage.

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COMPLIMENTARY REPORT

Organizations invest substantially in sales training and development. This complimentary report from Training Industry and Richardson summarizes data and provides recommended strategies for maximizing the impact of sales training over time. Click here or on the image below to download this report.

The post Quarter-end Contracts Slip-sliding Away? Check Your Sales Process! appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Enjoy these cartoons from the March issue of HBR, and test your management wit in the HBR Cartoon Caption Contest at the bottom of this post. If we choose your caption as the winner, you will be featured in the next magazine issue and win a free Harvard Business Review Press book.

“It’s neither new nor improved, but we could charge more.
Perhaps that would be a good differentiator.”

Crowden Satz

“It’s not exactly a retirement plan.”

Scott Masear

“Why hire me? Because I’m passionate about detergent brighteners.”

Crowden Satz

And congratulations to our March caption contest winner, Paul Nevels of Kingwood, Texas. Here’s his winning caption:

“To reverse the trend, we all need to be on the same rampage.”

Cartoonist: Paul Wales

NEW CAPTION CONTEST
Enter your own caption for this cartoon in the comments below — you could be featured in the next magazine issue and win a free book. To be considered for the prize, please submit your caption by February 13.

Cartoonist: Susan Camilleri Konar

Do you have customers who abuse your services, cost money or otherwise damage your business? Here are 5 steps to tackle these thorny issues.

Sales are vital to any business, naturally. But sometimes even paying customers can be too much trouble.

A New York City McDonald's franchise recently made headlines after employees attempted to shoo away customers who tend to camp out for hours on end. Zappos's female teenage customers are throwing "try new shoes" parties, where they order shoes online and then return them for free thanks to the Web retailer's free-returns policy.

Such examples merely scratch the surface of the difficulties small businesses face daily. You obviously want to please customers, but you also need to make a living--and at a time when the economy is still recovering from a major financial crisis, that's not easy.

Decades of reinforcing the message that the "customer is always right" haven't helped, either. A generation of consumers--now armed with social media--is trained to hunt for good deals and at times takes unfair advantage. Suddenly, a change in policy that is perceived by the masses as “anticonsumer” can ruin a company's reputation in minutes. (Remember when Netflix unbundled its mail and online business?)

Things get even trickier for McDonald's franchise owners, in large cities especially, who need to contend with a serious loitering challenge. This is a far greater dilemma, as it includes community, humanitarian, and business issues. Still, the heart of the issue is the same: Can you change your overall customer strategy and still keep a strong relationship with your good customers?

If you’re considering changing your relationship with some or all of your customers, try the following:

1. Define your core customers. Who are your key, valuable customer segments today? What do they need, and how might that change in the future? This will help to influence both this and future customer- centric efforts.

2. Understand the bad eggs. What are the problem customers after? How do their needs match or conflict with what you offer? Is there something you’re doing to encourage their "bad" behavior?

3. Assess the damage. How much do the bad eggs cost your business today? What are the potential long-term business and brand implications if it continues? Are there any long-term benefits?

4. Classify the problem. Is the problem occasional or endemic? Is it within or outside the control of your business alone? How easy is it to change? What kind of damage might a change cause for your business? What is the upside? Resolving these questions will help you determine what measures to take.

5. Plan and take action. Depending on the above, your next steps may be minor or radical. Consider your stakeholders’ reactions (customer, employee, broader community, media, etc.) when you decide to enact change. Run small pilots first, to test a variety of approaches, before launching a business-wide change.

Consumer relationships are more personal these days, and consumers feel they deserve a real voice in the corporate arena. Social media is their megaphone. This isn’t a bad thing. It just poses new challenges for businesses. When you’re running a business like McDonald’s, changing the rules for visitors may entail working through major social, ethical, and business implications. McDonald's and other such establishments must take into consideration the broader community and support systems available to help local business owners thrive while staying sensitive to the needs of the patrons.

What happens if you don’t address the issue? Having staff spend time and attention on the bad eggs means that you’re neglecting the needs of those people who truly support your business. Unless you are a charity, "bad customers" can seriously drain your profitability and can destroy your business in the long run. If you and other firms don’t thrive, it means that many more other people will suffer as well.

-Co-authored with Nicole Adams Kraus, principal at Decision Strategies International

If you don't like the answer, it's time to walk away.

The fast-talking salesman is a convention of popular culture. But selling is more like taking confession or practicing psychology: It is a listening profession. The entrepreneur's job is not to pitch his product. Rather, it is to get the potential buyer to clearly articulate her needs, budget, time frame, and desired outcomes. Only by truly listening can the entrepreneur match what his startup offers to what the client specifically seeks.

There are two elements to making the match: determining fit and proposing. Determining fit means understanding the prospect's circumstances and judging whether the company's value proposition aligns with them. This is the heart of the selling process, where both parties agree that it's worth having a conversation. As with qualifying, determining fit requires asking great questions that make the prospect think hard about how this product will be used and why that's important for him now. They frame the engagement, pinning down scope, timing, deliverables, and risks. Are the economics right? Can the requirements be fulfilled? Is the promised value attainable? Perhaps the most important question to ask is, "What exactly do you expect from this relationship?"

Entrepreneurs are often tempted to promise the moon because, in the flush of a sales conversation, the moon seems eminently deliverable. If the customer's expectations are beyond what the relatively untested startup can deliver, it's better to cut bait than to risk disappointing. Proposing applies everything the entrepreneur has learned from qualifying and determining fit to the specifics of the engagement. For most entrepreneurs, writing proposals is the most comfortable part of selling. Back in their caves, they are tempted to reiterate the wonder of their features and benefits when that does nothing but add pages and complexity. The best proposal is a concise document that captures the key points already established in the selling conversation. That's it. The proposal should use the customer's own language, emphasize her priorities, and review the specifics of her environment. Reading the proposal, she will know she has been heard and understood.

If you want to be successful, not all advisers can help you. Here's how to identify the right adviser at the right time.

Most people in business want to achieve success. But let's face it. It's not easy, and though many business people have intelligence and talent, few have all the knowledge and understanding to make the right decisions without outside guidance and advice.

As a consultant and mentor to many, I have learned that many people choose advisers on the basis of style over substance. They focus on personality fit or whether they are friendly. Not all great advisers are warm and fuzzy. Though these factors may make it easier for you to be open to someone's guidance, they are less important than the actual value the adviser can bring to your journey. There is no need to subject yourself to unnecessary abuse, but often the truth hurts and the best guidance can seem harsh even when delivered in a constructive manner.

Ultimately, the value of guidance you receive is your responsibility, and you will only get the adviser you truly want and deserve. It helps to know, however, the options. Below are three key types of guidance and some questions you can ask yourself to gauge if an adviser you are considering is worthy of continued engagement. The best advisers, of course, provide all three.

1. Supportive Guidance

This is the most common form of guidance. Supportive advisers are much-needed cheerleaders. They are encouraging and help give you the strength to move forward and take action. They make you feel better when times are tough and help with morale. This guidance is necessary in the early stages of the journey and establishes a foundation of security and self-confidence.

Eventually, however, at high levels of accomplishment, this guidance becomes less valuable. At a certain point, you become your own best cheerleader and have a strong sense of self-worth that drives you forward. Additionally, advisers at this level do not need to be highly invested in your success, so the value is limited in scope. You'll be craving something more practical than Atta girl! or Atta boy! Here are important questions to evaluate the supportive adviser.

• Is the adviser truly familiar with you and your needs?
• Does the adviser listen actively and show understanding of the objectives?
• Is the adviser authentic and specific in communicating encouragement?

2. Corrective Guidance

This guidance is commonly labeled as criticism, constructive or otherwise. Advisers give you specific corrective action to fix a problem or get you back on path. They will point out mistakes, give you tips and tricks, and share tidbits from their experience and observations that will help you move forward. Depending upon the thickness of your skin and their bedside manner, style can play a big part in your receptivity of their critical nitpicking and constant adjustment. This guidance can solve up to medium problems but can often conflict with them and needs to be weighed in light of all the other observations and advice provided. Corrective advisers are great for when you have a verified plan in place and simply need to adjust for performance.

Challenges occur when problems are systemic and require a greater level of analysis and adjustment. Advisers must be vested enough in your success that they take the time to listen to your specific need, or their advice will have little merit. These advisers are usually only vested to the point at which their top-of-mind knowledge and guidance will solve an immediate problem and you are open to their solution. They are not generally interested or capable in constructive conflict or deep problem solving required for top-level achievement. Here are important questions to evaluate the corrective adviser.

• Does the adviser have relevant expertise?
• Does the adviser provide feedback with relevant and specific details?
• Does the adviser give practical steps that can be implemented quickly?

3. Insightful Guidance

This is the most valuable and yet most difficult guidance to obtain. Advisers can only provide deep insights into your journey if they are fully vested in your vision and success. They need a comprehensive understanding of who you are and where you want to go. They can see the path before events occur and have a wealth of knowledge about how to master the journey.

The biggest challenge to benefitting from this guidance is you. You must be worthy and open of learning from this master. Most likely this adviser will show you, albeit painfully, the systemic flaws in your plan or character. Hence the reason this person must be fully vested. Most likely you will resist the massive change and work it will take to perform at the top level. It's only when you prove you are worthy that this adviser will invest in your success. You'll know you are ready when the adviser donates his or her most valuable commodity, time.

• Does the adviser show experiential wisdom in addition to knowledge?
• Does the adviser tailor the commentary to your particular listening style?
• Does the adviser create a genuine paradigm shift or perspective change?
• Does the adviser make your objectives a priority over your relationship or compensation?

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Content marketing has proven to be essential in today’s marketing world – particularly with B2B marketing – it is the term du jour. Yet many marketers struggle to understand it or use it.

Creating content – its planning, development, production and measurement – can feel like a treacherous journey into unknown territory. And it’s true; content marketing is more reminiscent of the publishing world than the advertising world.

If you struggle to understand content marketing, or make a case for it within your marketing spend, then this article is for you.

Why start content marketing?

Why? Because the customer journey has changed. The rapid evolution of social and digital technologies has made information abundant, and your customers are turning to these channels first. Today’s business buyers do not contact suppliers directly until 57 percent of the purchase process is complete. Do you want them to find information about your business? Or do you want to leave a empty space that either your competitors will fill with their own helpful content, or your would-be customers will fill with damaging complaints or feedback on your organization?

You don’t buy advertising space without ads to put in it.

And you don’t start making content unless you know what the purpose of it is. Content marketing is all about your customer. I’ll say that again for emphasis: You’re creating content that your customer needs and wants. The goal of content marketing is to create helpful, informative pieces (from white papers to animated gifs) that your audience finds valuable, in order to drive positive engagement with your customers, whether that be increasing sales or reducing churn. There are numerous ways to understand what your buyers want, so structure your content purposefully to ensure it performs; particularly social content which is proven to increase brand consideration, site traffic and conversions.

Where to start content marketing.

Take a look to your marketing goals. Are you trying to increase sign ups? Decrease customer complaints? Next, look to your audience, and understand what their needs are and create informative and helpful pieces that demonstrate how your offering meets these needs. The result of your customer action, as promoted through the information in your content, should line up with your goals.

For example, if your goal is to reduce call center volume, you might consider creating resources that answer the top 10 customer questions or complaints. If done properly, and distributed well through social channels and help desk forums, your customers will be able to help themselves, alleviating the strain on your call center.

Plan ahead and budget for content production.

Grab a calendar. Grab your marketing plan. Look at what you need to achieve the next year, month by month and quarter by quarter. You know your marketing objectives. Now, flip your mindset around to that of your audience. What are they looking for? And based on their needs and pain points, start to plan out pieces that show how what you have to offer can meet these needs or solve their frustrations. For B2B audiences this takes a lot of education. You may need several different types of content on one topic. My advice is to start big. Start with one piece quarter a quarter (we call these “keystone” pieces at HootSuite), make it your theme, and build off of it so everything you’re creating ties to that theme. Calendar the release of each subsequent piece of content and plan for distribution. Schedule content alongside advertising campaigns and events to help fill the gaps between the ebbs and flows of traditional marketing plans. You’ll see themes start to emerge around holidays, or major releases. Build on these themes by creating more, and different types of content related to each theme. Keep scheduling it in. Before you know it, you’ll have a content marketing calendar.

The tricky part is the resourcing and the budget. If you can’t produce in-house (and many cannot) look to a company like Scripted or Contently to help you out. SEO is also a huge factor in discovery of your content, so invest here as well.

Build a social story.

Look at all those juicy content pieces you have scheduled in your content marketing calendar. Each one can have a storyline written for it on social. Plan to have at least 3-5 different tweets for each piece, released the week it goes live. Ask for feedback on Facebook. Add an excerpt to your Google+ page and engage subject matter experts to create a discussion. Add it to your company page on Linkedin. Share it with your colleagues, and let them share it through their social networks too. If it helps, pre-script the tweet for them to make the sharing even easier. Standardizing your organization on one social relationship platform (like HootSuite) makes content amplification even easier. When you can leverage your employees as advocates, you increase your reach exponentially. The more touchpoints out there you have to reach people with, the more successful your content marketing will be.

Noah Bier, of Percolate, said it well:

The major social platforms have a clear message to marketers: We have the scale and ad products to allow you to reach any consumer segment for a reasonable cost. The marketer’s job, then, returns to creating content that captures their attention and achieves the brand’s objectives, whatever those objectives may be.

MEASURE your content performance.

Remember how you created content around business goals? Make sure to check in to ensure that it’s performing as intended. You can track the success of each piece and report back on it. Usually this involves the use of additional technology. Uberflip does a great job of letting you track engagement, and captures customer information too, should you want to include lead generation forms, plus it ensures that each piece is indexed on your sight for better SEO juice.

When you’re sharing on social, always append tracking codes to your links. As I believe whole-heartedly in HootSuite (being an employee and evangelist – full disclosure here) I recommend using Ow.ly link shorteners in combination with Google Analytics. This gives you insights into the success of your messaging using click-through rates, and tracks on-site metrics as well.

Once you’ve gotten the basics of measurement, start incorporating more sophisticated social intelligence using both HootSuite and uberVU, a powerful content marketing weapon that identifies trending stories and relevant content to post directly to social media accounts. With the actionable insight gained, you can better understand your audience by identifying key influencers on relevant topics, easily detecting real-time spikes in engagement (with insights on sentiment, location, and demographics), and highlighting important mentions.

The more messages you send, the more data and results you’ll have to inform you. So publish away!

Content marketing takes time and money.

Some years back, as a young marketer starting out at a design agency, my first producer educated me to the ways of the world. Her philosophy was: Everyone wants things better, faster and cheaper, but the reality is you can only ever have two out of the three. This is especially true for content marketing. It takes effort. Don’t be fooled on that front. If it’s going to be good, you either need to invest time or money.

Any marketer knows that the landscape is changing rapidly, and my prediction is that it’s not settling into a new norm, change is the new norm. Content marketing is not a miracle potion. It works because it takes a considerable amount of information and effort, but it creates something of value for your audience, that helps them make decisions around whether to buy from you, or use your services, or whatever your mission is. Put simply, content marketing is a tool that works. Why wouldn’t you use it?

Pinterest has rolled out a new feature which promises to make the user experience all the more personalized and engaging. But trust us, this boon for consumers on Pinterest is good news for brands too. The new tool, called Interests, surfaces content in an aesthetically pleasing grid that is customized based on what users pin to their boards. Say you really love Paleo recipes — instead of bubbling up general cooking content, the Interests feed will show you a group of pins dedicated to the Paleo diet.

It’s clear that one of Pinterest’s main goals is to feature relevant content to users at the right time. So, as a brand, what are the implications? Now, more than ever, it’s important that pin-optimization a priority to ensure your content is being surfaced in users’ Interest feeds. Here are 3 ways to make sure your product pins are as discoverable as possible in Interests!

1. Integrate Rich Pins

Users don’t solely log on to Pinterest for inspiration — they’re doing it to shop. According to RichRelevance, Pinterest drives 25 percent of retail referral traffic, and pinners are spending more too. And now, pins can do even more work to drive users to your ecommerce site. Pinterest’s fairly new feature, Rich Pins, enhances images with information — so, in the case of product pins, you’re informed of the price, whether or not the item is in stock, and where to buy it. So when Target adds a Rich Pin of an ankle boot on its Pinterest page, the people who repin it (and want it) are just one click away from making a purchase. If they’re on the fence, Pinterest actually notifies them when the price changes — so they can jump at the chance when it goes on sale. (This is especially awesome for a brand like Etsy, who needs to manage a lot of products owned by third parties.) It’s no wonder that Target’s retail website saw a 70 percent increase in sales after they implemented Rich Pins. Why are Rich Pins even more important now that the Interests tool is in play? Again, users that are already interacting with products like yours will be exposed to your stuff, so be sure you make it easy for them to hit buy next.

2. Optimize Pin descriptions

You want your pins to be at the top of their game so that they’re more discoverable and at the top of everyone’s Interests. One way to do that is through a clear, rich description. Use captions that speak to the product and relate to the consumer who would use it. Consider how your description will frame your product when the user discovers your pin out of context — namely, through the Interests tool. And since this new tool is so specific, make sure your captions are precise too. A “dress” won’t reach the right interest groups as a “white polka dot dress.”

Luckily, Curalate is making that much easier for you. Our new product feature, Top Keywords, displays the words consumers most commonly use when pinning your image. Now, you know exactly what users are thinking when they see your product — for instance, insights from Top Keywords found that users were unexpectedly pinning a bulletin board craft with the words “child,” “toddler,” and “room,” revealing their intention to use it in their kid’s room (and that’s just one of the many ways to leverage Top Keywords). Findings like these will help you create smart, optimized pin descriptions that connect with your specific consumer, so they’re way more likely to interact with your pins when they come across them in Interests.

3. Become More Pinnable

If you don’t already have Pin It buttons on your ecommerce site, this may change your mind. After displaying the Pin It button on their site, brands like Ikea and Target generated nearly 1 million shares (pins and repins) from their sites. And it can’t be a coincidence that eight of Pinterest’s top 10 retailers prominently display Pin It buttons on their sites. The Pin It button reminds your customers that they want to purchase your item, and it’s a simple way to expand your brand’s presence on social platforms. Plus, Pinterest makes it very easy to integrate their buttons and widgets throughout your site (visit Pinterest’s Business Center to get started). The more pins you have out there, the more likely it is that your product will bubble up as someone’s new “Interests” view. While Interests is still very new, there’s a lot to be excited about — if you play your cards right, users that are more inclined to like your products could be introduced to them for the first time. Just make sure that the pins they’re seeing are the best quality possible with gorgeous images, engaging captions, and rich pin technology, and this update could be a very good thing for your brand!

Calculating future growth is just as important as looking at your current cash flow.

Any business owner seeking to sell his or her company can benefit from an understanding of the basic math behind a buyout and the variables that drive the valuation of a company.

Let’s look at a quick example to see how a buyout fund considers the value in your company and what your company can do to make it an attractive investment for that investor.

Let’s say your company has $4 million in annual revenue and $400,000 in annual net income. Just to keep things simple, let’s assume your net income is the same as your EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization). You have been increasing your sales about 10 percent a year, and your EBITDA has always been about 10 percent of that top line.

Here are the five things a buyer considers when doing the math on your company:

The investor thinks of the value of your company as a multiple of EBITDA. They are considering what the future stream of cash flows from your company will be worth. A simple way to think about the value of your company, in this framework, is to assign your annual cash flow a multiple. In this example, let’s say a buyer thinks your company is worth five times EBITDA right now, or $2 million.

Your company has grown well over time, but the investor most likely will consider a scenario in which that growth isn’t quite as fast. In this case, assuming a 5 percent compounded annual growth rate, your revenue will grow from $4 million to $5.2 million over the next five years.

Let’s call your EBITDA divided by your revenue your EBITDA margin. Right now, it is 10 percent. Because your company will be valued as a multiple of EBITDA, growing EBITDA by either increasing revenue or increasing your EBITDA margin is very valuable. Let’s assume you are able to make your company a bit more efficient over time, so your EBITDA margin climbs to 12 percent by the end of five years, yielding EBITDA of $610,000.

The investor is likely to use debt to purchase your company, as the company has nice cash flow and can service that new debt. Let’s assume the investor will finance half of the purchase price of your company--$1 million of the total purchase price of $2 million.

Finally, you and your investor need to negotiate how much of the company they are actually buying. If they buy 80 percent of your company, and your company is valued at $2 million, they write you a check for $2 million. They will ask to roll over 20 percent of the equity also, so you will put $200,000 back into the company (and they will invest $800,000, with the other $1 million being debt). Another way of thinking of it is the investor buys 100 percent of your company, and you buy 20 percent back on the same terms that the investor has.

There are other drivers in the financial model: tax implications; cost of interest on the debt; whether there will be a mezzanine layer of financing; and identifying the best projections that best represent the company’s prospects.

So why does the buyout investor invest? We need to run the same valuation model when you each sell the company to the next buyer to figure that out.

Let’s give you both a little upside by saying that in five years, with your 5 percent annual revenue growth and by increasing your EBITDA margin to 12 percent, your next buyer is willing to pay six times EBITDA. That translates into a purchase price of $3.68 million.

One million dollars of that purchase price pays off the debt the previous investor borrowed to finance your original deal, leaving $2.68 million to be split between you and the investor. Your $200,000 has now turned into $540,000, and their $800,000 is now worth $2.14 million; you both have made 2.7 times your investment. The $1 million of debt creates value for the investor and for you. If that piece of debt were replaced by equity, the investors would still sell the company for the same price, but their return multiple would drop from 2.7 times their investment to 1.8 times, as they have to put up more capital for the same return.

Now, all buyouts don’t go like that. If things don’t go well, you and your investor can get wiped out, and you could be fired, too. But you can see the attraction: Take some money off the table now, keep your company growing, and then sell it for more upside later.

As in any transaction, you will need to find the right long-term investor and create a competitive situation so you get multiple bids. But do the math, and you can see why a buyout might make sense for your company.

Understanding your buyers journey (alternatively known as buying cycle) is essential if you are trying to market and sell effectively. A lack of understanding will mean your marketing efforts and budget will be wasted, delivering minimal ROI. Here we show you what you need to know in order to market efficiently and sell more in order to achieve your business growth goals.

Depending on what source you read, the Buying Cycle is broken into 3, 5 or even 7 stages. We have chosen the 5-stage version, as it is the most illustrative and effective introduction.

The 5 stages are as follows:

1. Awareness
2. Information Search
3. Evaluation of alternatives
4. Purchase Decision
5. Post-Purchase Behaviour

Here is a brief introduction into the B2B buying cycle and how to adapt your marketing strategy to match it.

1. Awareness

The first stage, involves the buyer becoming aware of an unsatisfied need, a problem or a promising opportunity. Many marketer’s frame this stage as culminating from a negative stimuli, but it is entirely possible a company may become aware of an untapped potential that is not causing them a problem.

This means you need to do your research about how your buyers start their journey, learn what they need and provide it, in order for your buyer to become aware of you and cut through your competitions marketing noise.

2. Information Search

Now the research begins, your buyer starts to hunt for information about their problem, that will help them define what they need. This is the groundwork phase; all the foundations for future decisions are laid down here. This is where your prospects are weighing up options and the pro’s and con’s of different solutions for their particular organisation. They may even create criteria or checklists of features they are looking for.

Marketing at this stage involves providing material that helps inform your prospects by creating content including checklists that the buyer can use.

It is important to remember that this is not a sales conversion zone. You will struggle to successfully pitch your solution to someone who feels uncomfortable about their lack of knowledge on what they are looking for and what is available on the market. It is important across the entire buyer’s cycle, and in particular this stage, to continue to help the buyer connect the dots. The journey should be a smooth process, self-directed but positioning you as the go-to company for that particular solution.

3. Evaluation

This is the first sign of prospect decision-making. Buyers begin to eliminate candidates and narrow down their choices based on the established but slightly fluid criteria they created in the earlier stage.

Marketing at this stage involves providing information to help them through this stage, such as comparison documents. Having collected data from your leads by this point through the forms they fill out to download your helpful content, you can create highly tailored comparison documents, tailored to your buyers situation.

4. Decision

The phase when the buyer makes their final decision, checking referrals, finalising scope and negotiating the terms of engagement. This phase is not as simple as it may seem, you need to be prepared for objections and have strategies to counter any problems that arise. Identifying common objections and proactively addressing them will instill confidence in your prospects.

5. Post-Purchase Behaviour

Now the hard part begins, you have to meet the buyer’s expectations and demands. There will inevitably be a positive phase following the purchase decision but you need to follow through on all your promises or things can quickly become ugly.

Additionally, the prominence of social media has merely made the influence of recommendations more visible. 92% of people will consider recommendations from others before anything else. So while you are honing your offer to each of your buyers, remember that they represent more than just their own organisation, they represent their whole network of friends, family and acquaintances.

Journey Regression

Finally, throughout the buyer’s cycle it is important to distinguish between the individual’s journey and the average journey. In general, we conceive of each buyer linearly progressing through the buyer’s cycle, but individually buyers show a lot of deviation from this standard path. It is not odd to see a buyer regress to an earlier stage or leave their journey completely and come back at a later date. You need to remember that each buyer has unique problems and a unique personality. Thus a large part of your role is balancing your general campaign with a customised user experience. For this exact reason, there are automated lead scoring platforms to keep track of where your buyer is in their journey, and serve the relevant information to push them through their journey and increase your marketing funnel velocity and therefore ROI of your marketing budget.

Learn More

If you would like a more in depth view of the Buyer’s Journey and the marketing strategies you can use please download our free eBook below.

Think it's impossible to shift into hyper-growth mode? Nonsense. Just take a look at how these entrepreneurs made it happen.

Every entrepreneur’s dream is to catch lightning in a bottle and see their company’s revenue explode seemingly overnight. Could you double your sales this year? We found members of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization who were able to accomplish that feat, and asked them to share their secrets.

"Through our corporate tithing program, through which we put part of our net profits back into other community organizations, we received a tremendous amount of PR and recognition. We found that the doors of potential client companies were much easier to open. It was also important for us to identify boards and committees within the community where we could make a difference. Working side-by-side with other professionals and other companies toward a common goal allowed us to build lifelong relationships."

Michelle Fish, EO Charlotte

Founder/CEO, Integra Staffing & Search

"I operated my digital marketing studio for 13 years trying to grow incrementally, but I struggled to break through a revenue plateau that we'd experienced for several years. We rode the revenue roller coaster, and as a result, purchased another complementary marketing agency that doubled the size of our business overnight. It has immediately opened up opportunities to not just cross-sell services, but to also take on substantial new business. This opportunity made me realize that incremental growth is not always the only, or even the best, way to inject momentum into a business."

Aaron Lee, EO South Florida CEO, Illuminati Studios

"Our video production company doubled its sales by targeting ad agencies that already had relationships with large clients, but did not have in-house video production capabilities. By offering an 'agency rate,' we were able to create a win-win-win for all parties involved. Our agency partners receive high-quality video production services at a fraction of the cost normally required, and the agencies set their price points accordingly with their clients. All in all, we created a cycle that has long-term profitability for our agency partners, their clients and our studio."

Hussain Manjee, EO Dallas

President, Dallas HD Films

"Where some companies have raced to win on price and turn technology expertise into a commodity, we've gone the other way and built our company to be a premier destination for both clients and talent. Instead of looking to find margins with outsourced workers, we've gone upmarket and raised prices. All of our work is done in the U.S. and, in short, we're who Silicon Valley calls when they have a problem."

Bryan Delaney, EO Charlotte Co-Founder and VP, Skookum Digital Works

"The most effective tool we used to double our ad agency's sales was the strength of our existing client relationships. Being a full-service firm allowed us to dive deeper and garner more business from the business we had already earned, which helped us save time on our business-development cycles. Plus, it's easier for clients to say 'yes' to new contracts when they're dealing with a proven commodity."

Veronique James, EO Arizona

President, The James Agency

"We've doubled our annual sales twice--once in 2006 during our second year in business and once last year when we jumped from $9 million to $18 million. The first time around, I hired friends to go out on the trucks and do the actual labor so that I could work on the business instead of in it. Last year, we invested in top-notch personnel, as well as a brand-new corporate headquarters, website, and internal tracking/communications platform. Through organization and strategy, overhead is kept low and sales can continue to rise."

Nick Friedman, EO Central Florida Co-Founder and President, College Hunks Hauling Junk

Sales Training Article: How Social Prospecting Helps Forecasting

It's a topic that won't go away. Marketing is not driving the quality sales leads the field needs. It is causing your pipeline to clog. Very few leads from marketing convert to accounts. You're hearing it from your Sales Managers and reps. Your VP of Sales is sick of the excuses. He tells you to produce more consistent forecasts ASAP. You must come up with an effective fix. Identify where the pipeline is clogging and fix it.

Register today for a sales training workshop to improve sales performance and increase sales.Connections
Your team needs to take more responsibility setting appointments with prospects. The number one way teams are doing this today is through Social Prospecting. Chances are this is a big area of opportunity for your team. Creating a strategy for leveraging LinkedIn should be a top priority. These 5 Steps to Social Prospecting will help get the ball rolling. Reps that can execute Social Prospecting win for 3 reasons.

1. They have a large pool of prospects with direct access to key decision makers
2. They have the ability to gain referrals through trusted connections
3. They have an efficient way to generate insights on buyer's habits and preferences

Sales Operations should implement this strategy to help manage the funnel. Creating appointments through LinkedIn will ensure qualified leads. Knowing leads entering the funnel are strong will help conversion rates. Going forward, a larger pipeline will ensure more closed opportunities. Here's a few examples of how this can be done.

Manage the Large Pool of Prospects
How: Have your team go through their connections and categorize them into buckets. If your organization has done buyer persona work, bucketing by persona is effective. The LinkedIn Tagging feature allows you to create these categories. Chances are reps have hundreds of connections from college friends and family. Tagging cuts through the noise and identifies titles and roles to target.

Impact: Without investing a dollar, you've created individualized prospect lists. If your reps are posting content, they're already nurturing that list. Creating a strategy for engaging these prospects is essential. It will ensure a quality list of leads entering the funnel. Your sales team will have faith in these leads.

Set Appointments through Referrals
How: Find the prospects that are in your team's Dream List. Have your team mine their connections to identify mutual connections. Reach out to those mutual connections and ask for referrals. NOTE: Reaching out to mutual connections is easier if your team regularly creates social debt.

Impact: Your team builds its network overnight. This is especially helpful in current accounts. By digging deep and wide into an account, cross sell and upsell opportunities grow.

Buyer Insight
How: Buyers are online looking for help to solve their problems. When they find the solution, they often share it with their network. Makes them look like an authority. Gives them credibility with their customers. Listen to the buyers through the News Feed. Engage in buyers' discussions; offer them a different take on a similar subject. Note what articles are trending and keep the pulse of the market.

Impact: Understanding a prospect allows you to sell the way they want to buy. By engaging online with a prospect you differentiate early in their process. When you differentiate early, you can charge a premium for your services.

These are low hanging fruit. With 15 minutes of effort per day, each rep can begin to generate qualified leads. The VP of Sales will see the impact in the funnel. Your forecasts will be more accurate and your goals more attainable. This is mission critical. Customer intimacy begins online. It gets your team into appointments as trusted advisors. Stop depending on Marketing. No more excuses.

Need some help with your sales performance? Take a look at the sales training workshops available to you and improve sales performance.

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