How to Stop the Spoon Feeding and Start Coaching Sales Reps to Remove Obstacles for Themselves

What’s preventing your sales reps from being successful? Are sales coming slower than expected or being blocked altogether? What obstacles are standing in the way of your sales reps, and how can you help overcome them?

Obstacles get in the way, slow you down, and force you to change direction, settle for less, or flat-out stop in your tracks. In short, they prevent you from achieving your goals. In business, these barriers to success can be physical, but they are more often process-oriented, procedural, or behavioral in nature. What obstacles are in the way of your sales team, and how can you help your sales reps to overcome them? How much revenue are you losing from obstacles due to slow, low, or no sales?

There’s no app for this — Google Maps can’t help you reroute to circumvent the obstacle blocking the path. By their very nature, obstacles deter or impede progress, which in this context is selling. The key is to start coaching sales reps to resolve the issues for themselves in order to overcome them in the future.

Coaching, Not Doing

Sales managers can’t do it all. They can’t see every client, ride along with every sales rep, or make every decision to be made throughout the sales process. Here are five steps sales managers should take to help their sales reps to overcome obstacles to selling.

1. Identify the obstacle. What behavior is getting in the way of the sales rep’s success? Try to understand the sales rep’s perspective. Every person is unique and possesses their own backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, while each client (even in the same industry and geography) is similarly distinct, meaning that an obstacle for one person may not hold someone else back. Embark on a questioning dialogue in a manner that leads the sales rep to identify the obstacle. You might have a theory, but they know more about the situation and variables than you do, so don’t assume. Besides, if you do it for them, then the outcome will seem like your idea and directives akin to an assignment as opposed to something they uncovered on their own (albeit with your help).
2. Coach the sales rep to remove or circumvent the obstacle. Once you agree on the obstacle that’s in the way, the next step is to determine the best steps to take to overcome it. Again, this isn’t a time to be directive (even if you have something in mind). Take a page from the lawyer’s handbook and “lead the witness” if you must, but really try to get them to own the solution.
3. Individual follow-up — ensure changed behavior avoids these obstacles. Their numbers should be an indicator, but don’t assume that no news is good news. Take a long-term interest in your sales reps’ development, and follow up with them in regular intervals to make sure they’ve truly moved on from their old habits.
4. Look for patterns among your sales reps. When you see many sales reps struggling with the same issues, sound the alarm and get help for your team. Perhaps training is necessary to get them over the hump. Don’t ignore warning signs of larger problems.
5. Rinse and repeat (watch for new obstacles). Just because you’ve helped sales reps overcome an obstacle doesn’t mean that’s all there is or ever will be. In the same way that problems and rewards get bigger as a child becomes an adult, so too do issues grow in significance as you sell bigger solutions to bigger companies higher up the food chain. There will always be some kind of obstacle that could get in the way. Help your sales reps — no matter how seasoned they may be — to recognize and avoid new blockades.

Gone Fishing

The critical factor here is to start coaching sales reps to help themselves. Yes, you might be able to do it for them or give them the answers they need in order to proceed, but that’s enabling them to repeat the same behavior that led them to this predicament. This ancient proverb sums it up best:

“Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.”

At the beginning stages of the coaching relationship, your role should be more extensive and directive. However, over time, your role as a coach should diminish as the sales rep learns to self-assess and then self-coach. Regardless of how much you direct, keep the responsibility for identifying and removing the obstacle with the sales rep.

The objective is to coach in a way that makes the sales rep responsible. As the sales rep learns to figure out what the obstacle is and how to remove it, less direction will be needed. Your role is to add value, refine the solution as necessary, critique and modify, and offer guidance to help the sales rep successfully develop the best solution.

You must leverage your time and abilities across all of your sales reps to get them to help themselves to overcome obstacles they face. It’s the only way they’ll grow as professionals, and it’s the best way to grow your revenues.

The post How to Stop the Spoon Feeding and Start Coaching Sales Reps to Remove Obstacles for Themselves appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

I’ve been meaning to write this for a while but because I’ve been very busy re-starting the business after Christmas…

Does that resonate with you? I found myself writing a variant of that email a dozen times last week.

When you get back to your desk after a break, it can be daunting to find that the list of open sales dialogues is long and un-changed during your absence.

So what are the best ways to get those conversations moving forward?

Overcome objections and become a priority

A lovely PR lady from Salesforce sent me this link to their top tips on how to get past the “We’re too busy” objection to new business proposals.

Timeliness: “We’re too busy right now.”

You’ve likely heard this, or something to the tune of “Contact me in a few months when we have more budget.”

This objection happens particularly around the holiday season. In this scenario, you must make it so compelling for them to buy—right now—that they feel as if they’ll truly regret passing up the opportunity. Simplify the buying process in some way, and lay out attractive terms that are only available in a very specific window of time. Make it clear that “waiting until the first of the year” will mean missing out on a great opportunity.

Before jumping into the conversation, however, be sure to follow up with the customer to find out if you are simply calling at a bad time or if there is an actual business problem overloading the customer.

If its a bad time, find out a better time to call. If it’s a business problem, that gives you the information you need to show how your product will make the customer’s life easier.

They don’t owe you the business

Remember also that no customer prospect owes you their business. You have to earn it.

BUT they do owe you an answer… so whether that’s a yes, a no or a maybe – put the pressure on to get your opportunities moving again and build that pipeline.

Read other blog posts about Enabling business development processes to make your new business HAPPEN.

In a recent post, I discussed 5 reasons sales leaders should consider inside sales. This post is for sales leaders looking for further education on inside sales. 

Perhaps this is a strategy worth consideration to help make the number. Or, maybe the current inside sales team isn’t attaining its goals.

Here is a 30 minute webcast called Building Inside Sales for Growth. It provides 9 tips for building a successful inside sales force.

The Advantages of Inside Sales

Deploying inside sales in a B2B sales environment is a best practice. Modern technology decreases the need for a rep to be “in the room” selling. Companies that do not leverage some form of inside sales are now outliers. There are too many advantages, such as:

• Higher productivity and/or lower cost per sales head
• Easy reach across states, time zones, even countries
• Speed
• Agility

Here are a four learning opportunities from the webcast:

1. Minute 0:47 – How the changing buyer landscape is increasing the need for inside sales. In other words, why a sales leader might consider this in the first place.
2. Minute 2:37 – 3 customer examples of the broad applicability of inside sales, regardless of industry type.
3. Minute 4:59 – Job growth stats on inside sales hires, indicating this is not a trend.
4. Minute 5:48 – How inside sales can drive down customer acquisition cost (“CAC”). How sales organizations are aligning sales resources based on these costs.

Exploring Your Options

A critical strategy decision is determining how inside sales should be organized. The webcast discusses several organizational models you might consider. Here are 5 tips worth reviewing:

5.  Minute 7:33 – An introduction to 6 potential organization models for consideration. A description of potential models with examples for each.

6.  Minute 8:00 – A review of the pros and cons of each model. Examples of how these models have become more prevalent in inside sales.

• In a stratified organization, the line between inside sales and outside sales has moved. Inside sales can now sell significantly larger deals than they used to. As a result, companies are increasing headcount here to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Examples like this are provided for each org model.

7.  Minute 17:42 – Learn why a hybrid approach is deadly for inside sales organizations.

8.  Minute 18:37 – Understand how to determine the right inside sales model. 3 phases to implement a world class inside sales team.

9.  Minute 21:45 – An extensive Q&A with the webcast participants. Thinking through inside sales raises many new questions. This portion of the webcast answers several of them.

Winning with Inside Sales

When done correctly, inside sales is an incredibly powerful revenue generator. Many sales leaders give up if a first attempt is not successful. This is a mistake.

Buyers continue to evolve, requiring fewer, shorter and more immediate interactions with sales reps. The presence of inside sales will continue to grow in order to serve these needs. Take advantage of this webcast to learn more about making inside sales a success.

Author: Ryan Tognazzini

Follow @RyanTognazzini

Follow Sales Benchmark Index @MakingTheNumber

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I recently returned from an industry conference. The speakers were excellent and it was great to get away from my desk, connect with the attendees, and have the opportunity to step back and think big picture about what I need to be doing to drive success in my position. I returned with all sorts of notes, to-dos, and grand visions for change.

On my first day back in the office I was energized. Then the phone started to ring, the emails came flooding in, and my schedule filled with meetings. Two weeks later, while I had made some progress on my aspirational list of to-dos, by and large I was back to doing what I had always done.

The problem for me was that there was no support to make the change when I got back to the office.

The same thing happens after even the best sales training programs, especially if the training is structured as an instructor-led, event-based, one-time only affair...

Your customer database is a powerful sales tool – this four-stage process will help you leverage it for increased profit.

Regardless of the product or service a business offers, its greatest asset is its existing customer base. To keep in touch with this important group of people it is absolutely essential that your customer database is:

·       Fit for purpose.

·       Contains relevant and accurate data.

·       Provides the information you need to create targeted, personalised marketing campaigns.

Here are four simple steps to achieve those goals.

1. Clean

‘Dirty’ customer data is virtually useless for sales and marketing efforts. Where contact data is out of date, your sales team will find:

·       Calls go unanswered.

·       Targeted offers are no longer reaching the correct person due to internal promotions or departures.

·       Your company begins to develop a bad reputation as a cold-caller, and your staff appear ignorant of their customer base.

Cleaning data involves deleting or updating records to ensure that the information is accurate. When calculating the cost of data cleaning, try factoring in:

·       How any investment in mailing lists or suchlike is wasted if the data is poorly maintained.

·       The cost of potential sales lost because contact data means the sales team cannot contact the right person.

·       The damage caused to your brand when the sales team appears ill-informed or incompetent.

·       The cost of potential fines arising from breaches of the Data Protection Act by not keeping legally-compliant records.

Dirty data may be more costly to keep than it is to clean. You should also seek the services of a professional data cleansing specialist to see how they could reduce the potential overheads of getting everything up to scratch. However, don’t underestimate the importance of this activity as database accuracy can increase B2B messaging effectiveness by 38%.

2. Analyse

Once clean, your customer database is a veritable gold mine of useful information. As well as details of how to get in touch with each contact, your system should allow you to record additional information for further analysis.

Each sales account manager will have notes about conversations and buyer intentions, but you can also glean additional insight:

·       Do certain customers buy in cycles? - If your typical customer buying cycle lasts around nine months, why do your campaigns last only three?

·       Which of your clients have unresolved complaints?

·       Which of your clients could be sold add-on products or services based on their purchase history?

Analysing your data in this way will help you identify the clients and products with which your sales team will have the greatest chance of success.

3. Maintain

Once data has been cleaned, it must be maintained to prevent it from becoming stale and inaccurate. This could include:

·       Implementing filters that check contact data when it is added or amended, to prevent typos or other errors from being saved.

·       Organising regular data cleaning routines to catch errors early and reduce the need for a major database overhaul.

·       Assigning a member of staff to act as a ‘data controller’ who can advise other workers on best practices, perform data clean-ups and check that information is being entered and updated correctly.

Routine maintenance is the best way to avoid repeating the ‘clean’ stage of the customer database management process. Failure to maintain data means that the information stored is less likely to be relevant, and any messages sent based on it will be less successful.

4. Act

Armed with insights generated from clean data, it becomes possible to make informed marketing decisions and begin the process of reaching out to contacts and customers. At this point, your sales team will be able to:

·       Create targeted campaigns based on customer segmentation, thereby increasing the chances of success.

·      Collect data from each campaign that helps give additional insight for future efforts – what worked? What didn’t work? What could be improved?

The customer database should provide far more than a large list of contact details. It should also be the starting point for any and all sales efforts.

‘Segmented campaigns distinctly improved email-newsletter performance.’

Effects of List Segmentation on Email Marketing Stats – MailChimp

·       Open rates were 14.4% higher with segmented marketing messages.

·       Click-through rates were 14.9% higher with segmented marketing messages.

Putting it all together

Your customer database should be a major asset to your sales team and company as a whole. To make sure that is the case:

·       Get your customer data cleaned up. Seek professional assistance if required.

·       Get creative with your data analysis to identify new opportunities for sales.

·       Put systems in place to keep data clean and accurate.

Problem Statement: sales stages don’t provide much utility if the intended outcomes of each are not clear. Also, you know a sales stage isn’t accomplishing much if the percentage of deals that close within that stage isn’t significantly higher than the previous one.

Recommendation: start by calculating the percentage of deals that will eventually close within each sales stage. Define the intended outcome of each stage in terms of both the buyer and seller perspective. Define what is considered evidence of the intended outcome. Provide tools and resources that help the buyer do their job.

As sales reps gain experience they start to tune out sales stages. They develop comfortable routines and habits for managing their pipeline—some more successful than others.

The Sandbaggers

You’ve got your sandbaggers, who hold onto information about their opportunities until they feel pretty confident that they will close. They fear increased visibility will raise unrealistic expectations and they’ve learned that mismanaged expectations lead to getting fired. The sandbagger’s deals seem to suddenly appear out of nowhere and then rapidly progress through your sales stages and close in record time as if by some miracle.

The Mirage Seekers

More common are the Mirage Seekers, who drag deals along in their pipeline that will never close. They fear the verbal lashing that comes from their sales manager when they finally break the bad news that a deal has gone bad or was discovered to be weak from the beginning, so they naturally put this off as long as possible. The Mirage Seeker’s deals crumble at the end of the quarter due to “unforeseeable” events that were completely “outside of their control.”

Both of these behaviors result from sales managers who:

A. Give lip service to the idea of tracking deals from the very beginning but in reality develop unrealistic expectations too early in the process.

And/or

B. Say they want to hear bad news early and often but then when they do become negative and even abusive.

Successfully implemented sales stages can cut out the drama and subterfuge. The key is to define what constitutes evidence that each stage is complete. If your organization hasn’t defined what constitutes a tangible outcome of achieving each sales stage then you will never get past the soap opera of the “Sandbaggers” and “Mirage Seekers.” And, your sales managers will continue to reinforce these behaviors without clear outcomes to focus on for each sales stage.

So, how do you get started?

Start by defining your metric of success such as calculating the percentage of deals that will eventually close within each sales stage (step 1). You need a baseline to measure your ongoing progress and you need to see where your biggest spike is. Most organizations have 5-10 sales stages but only one where there is an appreciable spike in the probability of deals closing. Up until that point the deals are moving through the pipeline but the percentage of deals in each stage that will eventually close barely moves up a percentage or two. Then you will likely see one particular stage where there is a sudden spike. This is the stage where your managers threaten “Do or Die” because it gets forecasted. The other stages aren’t helping you understand what’s going on and therefore aren’t accomplishing much of anything.

Next, define what is considered evidence of the intended outcome of each stage from both the buyer and seller’s perspectives (step 2). Remember the good ol’ Stephen R. Covey habit #2: Begin with the end in mind. It really makes sense because until you have a clear consensus of what you expect to happen in each stage you won’t make much progress on the next step. Take a good look at the distinguishing characteristics of the deals you are consistently closing as a guide for defining your outcomes for each stage. Talk to your Sandbaggers to find out what is really going on with their deals as they progress.

Finally, provide tools and resources that help the buyer do their job (step 3). These tools should produce something tangible—what Project Managers call “completion criteria.” To define the completion criteria ask: What is the format of the completed thing (email, notes from a meeting, project plan, RFP template etc.)? Also, as much as possible provide resources that move the process along from the perspective of the buyer. Ask yourself: “What are the outcomes the buyer should be achieving?” Then provide generic templates and tools your reps can provide to their internal champions that accomplish those objectives. One of the biggest reasons deals don’t close is the buyer’s lack of experience with managing a complex procurement process. Solve this problem for them and you’ve already proven your value as a solution partner.

In order to eliminate frustrations and lack of results, marketing and sales have to work together.  Beginning with everyone being on the same page with the end goal, there are certain points that will greatly increase the likelihood of success for everyone.  Below are three ways to bridge the gap between marketing and sales.

Establish SMART Goals

First and foremost, your organization needs to have overall corporate goals. It will be impossible for your sales or marketing department to establish their goals if the organization as a whole hasn’t identified its own.

The other problem without having SMART Goals is that you can confuse activities with results. We often speak with companies that come to us wanting to do something better online. These companies tend to be frustrated with internal attempts or other outsourced vendors. It is hard for them to articulate exactly what they want, but they know why they are frustrated – lack of return on marketing.

Once you have your organizational goals established, the next step is to determine what strategies and tactics will support them. If your corporate goal is to increase revenue by 25% with 75% of this coming from inbound leads, then your marketing team will be able to establish exactly what they need to do to support this.

Based on the above and looking at past performance, marketing may determine that “they need to increase website visits by 50% (5,000 per month to 7,500 per month) by September 30th, 2014”*.  So, what makes this a SMART Goal?

Specific: They have determined that visits are the metric they will measure

Measurable: Increase by 50% – 5,000 per month to 7,500 per month

Attainable: Based on historical data, they can conclude that this is an attainable goal.  If they looked at the data and realized that an 80% or 90% increase in visits was needed to hit the organizational goal of increasing revenue, they could have a discussion to see if there were other ways to grow, or adjust the revenue goal.

Relevant: With this tying back to the overall organizational goal, it makes it worth doing.

Timely: By placing a specific target date it leaves a hard deadline, not just an ongoing item that would be “great if we did it”

*The above example comes from HubSpot Academy

Develop Buyer Personas

Is your sales team complaining about bad leads?  If so, it is probably because your marketing efforts are attracting the wrong leads. In order to get the right leads in the hands of your sales team, you need to sit down and establish Buyer Personas. These are semi-fictional representations of your ideal client.

In order to develop these personas, sit with your sales team and identify your current ideal clients. In order to develop a persona you need to look at common behaviors and pain points, identify their goals and include general demographic information.

It will be important to “sell” this to your sales team so it is not viewed as a cushy exercise.  Once the persona is developed, all of your content and activity has to be aimed at them.

Eliminate the Black Hole

It won’t matter how well your marketing does if sales doesn’t know they have leads to followup on!

Not much else will guarantee your failure like letting quality leads falling into the black hole between marketing and sales. We have seen so many companies make this mistake. In order to eliminate this, there has to be some form of agreement in place.

Things to consider are how marketing presents the leads to the sales team, the non-optional amount of time between conversion and first contact, and the communication through the sales process.

Research shows that more top-level companies are focusing resources on digital/mobile marketing.  They are also placing more importance on their marketing departments to achieve their overall corporate goals.  If you eliminate the gap between marketing and sales, and develop a solid plan, you will have great success in 2014.

Sales managers – how does your sales team spend its time? If you’re like most, it’s likely that your salespeople are attending too many unnecessary meetings and responding to too many unnecessary requests for information. And on a bad day maybe even being dragged into saying, “yes” to participating in projects that have nothing to do with selling. You can’t sell if you are not selling and most sales reps spend too much time not selling.

Sound familiar? Simply put, there are roadblocks that every sales rep faces that are time-sinks. They happen throughout the year – but we’re raising the concern now because it seems these roadblocks are particularly challenging at the start of the year when companies begin new initiatives in Marketing, Sales Support, IT, HR, etc.

In assessing whether this is a problem worth addressing it is informative to look at some success statistics. Recently the TAS group in partnership with SalesforceWork.com published a study on how well things are going out there. One of the telling statistics was – 67% of professional salespeople do not obtain their individual quotas. That is understandable when one considers that 50% of sales reps close less than 40% of their qualified opportunities.

There are numerous reasons for such depressing statistics. Some are tougher to address than others. One, as a sales manager, you can directly impact is the amount of time spent doing something other than selling – start playing the role of a roadblock remover.

One way sales managers can help their sales teams capture more time to focus on sales is to help them handle requests from others – most notably other divisions and corporate staff. When requests come in, sales managers can serve the role of a filter – not simply funneling everything directly to the sales team.

After all, some of the requests are frankly irrelevant and can be skillfully ignored, some can be handled by someone other than a salesperson and some can be quickly put to bed by the sales manager themselves. Is this one of those things worth attention? This is best answered by speculating what would be the different in terms of revenue if your sales team spent 10% more time selling.

Sales success in major accounts hinges on salespeople spending time crafting and modifying their account sales strategies and executing sales calls. To increase 2014 sales, one resolution every sales manager might consider is: remove roadblocks to free up more time for salespeople to sell.

If you found this post helpful, you might want to join the conversation and subscribe to the Sales Training Connection.

Lies, Mistruths, and Fabrications In Your Sales Forecast is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

Any opportunity scheduled to close on March 31st, June 30th, September 30th, or December 31st should be removed from your forecast on principal.

These “close dates” are your sales quarters, and they have nothing whatsoever to with the date that your prospective client is going to buy, implement, take delivery of, or otherwise purchase what you sell. With the exception of budget found at the end of a fiscal year, your client doesn’t feel any pressure to make deals on the last day of a quarter.

The date your prospective client want to buy from you is Tuesday the 11th and 11:15 AM. The only time they can get their team together of a kickoff meeting is the following Thursday the 20th at 9:00 AM. They don’t have any idea where they are going to find time for you to train their team members. The whole process has already taken longer than they hoped it would, and they sometimes wish you’d get through your process faster.

They haven’t seen a schedule of of events leading up to implementation because you haven’t shown them one. If you had, they’d be happy to argue over dates and times and come to some agreement. If they had this implementation plan, they’d use it to hammer their people in the legal department to move on your stalled contract.

The truth about opportunities and closing dates is that they’re messy, that there isn’t any reason to try line them up with dates that only make sense because they answer the question “So what are you going to close this quarter?”

Show me a deal with a March 31, June 30, September 30, or December 31 close date and I’ll show you a deal that can be closed before that date but is likely to get pushed into the future.

Questions

How do you choose the close date when you enter an opportunity into your sales force automation?

How do you determine the real date your prospective client is going to buy?

What would you have to do to dial in a real date? How would dialing in a real date help both you and your prospective client?

Sales Training Article: Jaded Buyer

By John Holland, Chief Content Officer, CustomerCentric Selling® - The Sales Training Company

Image courtesy of Pakorn at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The sales job I enjoyed most was representing a company that competed with IBM for mainframe storage devices. As the company grew it became clear we needed to hire technical people to support our sales efforts. A candidate was hired and joined our company as a Systems Engineer (SE). His only experience was as an end user. He had limited exposure dealing with vendors and salespeople but as you'll see had drawn made some conclusions about them.

Shortly after he came on board I was working on a large opportunity and had to make a recommendation on a complex configuration. I asked Paul if he would make a call with me. He said he'd be glad to and then asked: "What do you want me to tell them?" I was taken aback by the question and responded that he should make whatever recommendation he felt would best meet the client's needs. If he didn't feel our offerings were a fit, he should say so.

He was as surprised with my answer as I had been with his question, but it goes a long way in explaining the strained buyer-seller relationship that has existed for decades. The perception of many people within accounts is that sellers are only interested in earning commission and have little regard for what's best for their customers. As evidenced by Paul's perspective this is true even for people that have had limited or no contact with salespeople.

This attitude is alive and well today. People within organizations spend hours doing research on websites for complex B2B offerings without allowing or seeking help from salespeople. In many ways B2B vendors have earned this type of attitude because they haven't institutionalized how sellers should interact with knowledgeable buyers. The fact is that a sales approach should be different for buyers that think they know their requirements vs. buyers that are not familiar with offerings. Traditional selling approaches will yield poor buying experiences for prospects that have done their homework.

That said how likely is it that people can select the best vendor(s) for complex offerings merely by visiting websites? Competent sellers concerned about meeting customer needs can help qualify opportunities. Determining early if there is sufficient value/payback can prevent buyers and sellers from wasting precious time.

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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.

I had a great conversation with a friend and business colleague today. He is an absolute ace when it comes to raising money and I was picking his brain about how to best approach outside investors. Not surprisingly, we also happened on the subject of sales – about which I am the ace and he is the proverbial babe in the woods.

As with many prospective clients (and anyone who will listen) I was trying to dispel some of the many beliefs and assumptions that business owners hold to be true about the sales skills that make a great salesperson. I was doing this in the hopes of helping him avoid some of the painful mistakes we see made with respect to hiring sales talent.

Most people believe that the best sales skills are industry knowledge, relationships, charisma, and that most nefarious of red herring – experience – and that they are what make a sales resource successful.

You may be asking yourself – ‘Did he just say that sales skills like experience, industry knowledge, and relationships don’t matter?’

(Note: The purpose of this entry is not to give all the answers but simply relate the analogy offered up by my friend.)

The crux of my position was the notion that it is easy to be misled by factors that would seem to predict success for a sales resource. Stated simply…looks can be deceiving.

Michael’s response was infinitely more insightful: ‘You mean like getting in a fight?’

Those of you familiar with the Ultimate Fighting championship (UFC) may grasp the profundity of Michael’s statement. The UFC was started in 1993 as an attempt to find and showcase the world’s best fighters.

Practitioners of various martial arts (Karate, Thai-Boxing, etc) and traditional fighting styles (boxing) were matched up – often with great differences between their size and weight.

This was a big deal because up to that point in time, it was a commonly held belief that the predominant factor in the success of a fighter was size. So when 170-pound Royce (pronounced ‘Hoice’) Gracie submitted the 275-pound wrestler Dan Severn it was unprecedented. What most fans didn’t know was that Royce Gracie practiced Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which was created by a couple of 120-pound brothers (also Gracies) who had adapted traditional Japanese Jiu-Jitsu because many of the moves required strength they didn’t have. Fundamentally, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was founded on the principle that a smaller and weaker person using leverage and proper technique can successfully defend themselves against bigger, stronger assailants.

What my friend Michael stated so eloquently was the fact that technique – which is most often not visible to the naked eye – can easily trump those ‘sales skills’ which are valued simply because we can see them at first glance.

——————————————

By Townsend Wardlaw

 

 

 

 

 

 

With tours of duty at AT&T, BDM, TRW Technology Services, Lucent, and Avaya, Townsend Wardlaw had his share of large corporations and left a secure job and hefty salary to start his own company, Three Value Logic. For six years, he ran his own sales consultancy and sales outsourcing company that, at its peak, delivered millions of cold calls and many more millions in revenue for our clients. Since shutting Three Value Logic down in 2009, he has lived the glamorous, profitable and relaxing life of the sole proprietor. His boutique consultancy works with Founders and CEO’s of companies earning between $1M and $10M to help them lead happier and (more importantly) more profitable lives.

@TownsendWardlaw  @Linkedin  @Twitter

 

Newsflash: Dangerous fugitive ‘Last Year Plus Ten,’ known to many as “Sales Quota,” is on the run. He is armed and extremely dangerous. Do not approach! Ok, so maybe I’m getting a little carried away, but the reality is, if you don’t entirely understand it, setting a Sales quota can be rather ambiguous to approach. Let’s think about it. What’s considered a normal quota per sales rep? And are you talking revenue? Or gross profit? Is it lifetime value or one-time value or one-year value? But what you do know, at least, is that if you want to improve yield, you just hire better reps. Right…? Unfortunately, the longer you remain confused, the harder the elusive Sales Quota becomes to catch. In his latest blog, Hugh captures Sales Quota in an ultimate show down and simplifies the whole approach. He explains why you need to focus on inputs (or more specifically, meetings) and comparing these inputs to the outputs required to run your business. He demonstrates how alignment of inputs to the Buyers’ Journey facilitates clarity in the Sales quota model and ultimately helps improve the overall yield from Sales. 

read more

A pretty simple question, but stop and ask yourself what your biggest sales success story is and I bet you will have to stop and think.

I love asking salespeople this question, and I’m amazed at how few times people can quickly call out what their biggest success has been.

Reason I like asking people this question is because I think knowing your success stories will help keep you motivated when things aren’t going the way you want them to.

Take a few minutes and think back over your entire sales career regardless of how long or short it might be.  Think of what those successes are.

As you recall them, start writing them down. It’s important to record them.  Write down the details, the things you had to overcome, how you felt during the process, and of course what the results were.

Writing down your success stories in detail will give you some of the best motivational content a person could ask for.  It’s awesome because it’s yours!  It’s what you’ve done before which means you can do it again.

Once you’ve written down all of your success stories, keep them handy not only on your computer but also print out a couple of copies and keep them handy near your desk or in your car.

Place a couple of them inside a folder or whatever you take into a sales call.   No, you’re not going to show them to a customer, what you’re going to do is use them as reminders of what you’ve been able to accomplish in the past.

Beauty of having this information is when you’re faced with a tough phone call or a meeting that is not going the way you want or expect, you can glance at your success stories as a way to motivate you.

In the end, you are responsible for your own success and your own motivation.

The best way to ensure success is by leveraging your own success to achieve more.

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!

What prevents a sales organization from achieving success?  After studying hundreds of sales organizations, I have found the answer to this question is directly related to the challenges associated with their development stage.

Every sales organization can be classified based upon whether it is in a “Build,” “Compete,” “Maintain,” “Extend,” or “Cull” stage.

The Build stage is when the sales organization is first establishing itself. If successful, it will proceed to a high-growth Compete stage and then to Maintain stage that is contingent upon stable, predictable success. As the sales organization ages, it will either Extend its prior success and enjoy longevity, or it will suffer decline and be forced into the Cull stage where it must reduce its size.

Obviously, the top sales challenge always is exceeding the monthly, quarterly, or yearly revenue target. However, the sales challenges that inhibit a company from achieving revenue growth vary based on the sales organization stage. This is due to the “push” versus “pull’ market characteristics of each stage. For example, in the Build stage a small group of salespeople must push themselves into new accounts and introduce their solution and its benefits. Conversely, a well-known company in the Maintain stage is pulled into new sales opportuni­ties because of its market position. The different sales organization challenges in the Build, Compete, Maintain, Extend and Cull stages are reviewed below.

The Challenges of the Build Stage

The top sales challenge in the Build stage is creating sufficient sales coverage to push the product into the market. It takes time to hire, train, and build a critical mass of capable salespeople who can penetrate new accounts. It is during this stage that the sales model is first established, whether the sales organization will sell directly via outside field salespeople, over the phone with inside salespeople, or through channel partners.

“We are continually learning from every sales cycle and adapting our message to be more effective when we are in front of cus­tomers. We are trying to create a repeatable sales process but our product focus is changing as much as our sales model.” Vice President of Sales, Build Stage Company

The Challenges of the Compete Stage

The Compete stage challenge revolves around quickly scaling the sales organization so that it can compete effectively against more established competitors in existing markets or grab as much market share as possible in new greenfield markets. In this stage the sales organization begins to develop its collective intuition of where it can win new business and where it is likely to lose. If these attributes are not instilled into the new sales­people, “organization-thrashing” occurs. The newer salespeople will chase business they cannot win and precious pre-sales resources will be wast­ed. They won’t make quota and are likely to either be let go or leave on their own merit because they lack a sufficient pipeline of business to make commission. In this situation, there is organization-thrashing because of the continual replenishment of new and under-performing salespeople.

“My biggest challenges relate to scale and growth. We’ve been hiring so many people so quickly that we are challenged to recruit the right people, get them up to speed quickly, and retain them. If we don’t get them up to speed quickly, we will likely not retain them.” Vice President of Sales, Compete Stage Company

The Challenges of the Maintain Stage

The sales challenge changes radically during the late Compete stage and into the Maintain stage. The focus shifts from scaling the organiza­tion to maximizing sales productivity by lowering the cost of sale and increasing the average sales price. This may result in moving business from outside sales to inside sales or less expensive partner and distributor channels. Another challenge revolves around the predictability of revenue and the size of the sales organization. Since the sales organization is fully staffed and the territory coverage model is complete, the challenge is where to find the additional revenue to meet the growing annual target. Since territories have been split numerous times, the answer revolves around specialization. The sales force is segmented by size of company to be called upon, national accounts are segregated, and industry vertical sales specialists covering finance, government, retail, distribution, healthcare, etc., are created.

“I have to balance capacity with productivity. What this means is how do we get more leverage from the sales model? When you start a company, it is about going as fast as you can to separate yourself from the pack. Now we have to take the next step as a company and say, “What are the sales per employee? What’s the cost per rep? What commissionable costs are we paying? All of these things become relevant. The only way you can have an impact on those is to increase productivity and lower cost.” Vice President of Sales, Maintain Stage Company

The Challenges of the Cull Stage

In the Cull stage the company has been leapfrogged by competitors who provide superior offerings. How does a demoralized and marginal­ized sales force revitalize itself? The Darwinian answer is to cull the herd and remove the bottom performers and those with disenfranchised attitudes. The attitude of entitlement must be eliminated for the spark of the competitive spirit to be reignited. Equally important, key ex­isting accounts whose run rate revenue is central to the survival of the company are separated out and placed in “Revenue Care” programs where they receive dedicated account management, customer support, and executive level access.

“The other shift we are making is getting some of our more experienced and seasoned salespeople who really know the industry and solutions well, to be a little bit more provocative in their approaches. We want them to add more value to the sales cycle. We have a successful older sales team that is kind of set in its ways. The business and times dictate that we shake this model up.” Vice President of Sales, Cull Stage Company

The challenges sales organizations face is dependent upon the stage of their development. In this regard, the vice president of sales is one of the most important people within a company because this person is in charge of creating and executing the sales strategy that ensures success.

Ever made a big whopper of a sales mistake? I sure have! Let me just share one.

When I began selling at Xerox, one of the first things we had to do was to memorize a demonstration script that included everything you needed to know about using a copier. We had to learn it perfectly before we were allowed to make sales calls.

Many years later, I still remember how it started: "Mr. Prospect, for years Xerox has designed copiers to satisfy the needs and requirements of all our customers. Our experience and success in the marketplace has shown that regardless of specific needs, four basic criteria that need to be met – quality, ease of operation, reliability and flexibility.” Not bad, huh!

It took me a long time to memorize it verbatim. But I did. I practiced and practiced. I drove in the car with the script in front of me on the steering wheel. I tape recorded [my speech] as I was driving along.

And finally, I was able to pass the test with my boss. "Mr. Prospect, for years Xerox has designed copiers.... Mr. Prospect, is there any other concerns you have. Mr. Prospect, does that seem easy enough?" And I went through it flawlessly. Which was great because I was finally released to go out to the real world and start cold-calling.

And very shortly after this I schedule my first real demonstration. I was so ready. When he came in, I gave perhaps the best demonstration of my entire life. I nailed that script! At the end, I asked if he had any questions. And he turned to me and he said, "Jill, my name is not 'Mr. Prospect.'" 

Now I don't remember if he ever bought that copier or not; all I know is that I was so embarrassed that I called him "Mr. Prospect" that I never made that mistake again.

I’m convinced that 2014-15 will be the year we’ll finally see companies looking seriously at social media as a B2B sales tool. I’m seeing increased interest in and requests for our social sales training and I’m seeing a lot more social selling questions posted in my social media streams. So today, let’s start with the basics of how you can use social media networks in your sales prospecting process.

Establish Your Brand as an Expert

Social Media platforms make it really easy to create and publish content on topics your sales prospects are interested in learning more about. You can create content on a blog and then share it over social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+ to begin linking your brand to that content.

You can repurpose content, such as sales or conference presentations, on sites like Slideshare to further link your brand to the relevant topic in a way that suggests expertise.

Or if you don’t have much time, you can simply curate relevant content and share it across social platforms. The mere act of sharing the content will associate it with your brand and begin to create the appearance of expertise or at a minimum, well informed knowledge leader.

Over the years I’ve found it takes about 9 months of focused creation, curation and sharing to fully establish yourself as a thought leader or expert on a chosen topic.

Identify and Profile Qualified Sales Leads

Twitter is the best social media platform for identification and qualification profiling. Not only can you search by keywords (within tweets) but you can also search Twitter profiles for keywords and/or titles. Both of these searches will usually result in a list of possible leads.

LinkedIn is also a great tool for this kind of search and profile work. I find Facebook isn’t nearly as good due to it’s default setting of Private and most folks have figured out how to properly set their public Facebook profile so that it shows only the bare minimum of information.

Nurture Leads

Once you’ve identified those targeted leads, create a Twitter List and load it into a product like Hootsuite to make it easy to follow all the Twitter activity generated by members of the list. Then look for opportunities to engage. In some cases those opportunities may be of a professional nature but in others, it might be as simple as talking about the weather.

If you want to step your lead nurturing up a notch, sign up for a service like Nimble. Like Hootsuite, you can load in Twitter Lists and use the platform to track and engage in conversations.

Nimble is also a lightweight Social CRM tool that makes it really easy to see all of your sales prospects’ social media chatter in one screen. You can also tell the software to remind you to reach out to your leads on a predetermined schedule – weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.

NOTE: as of the writing of this post, that feature seems to be glitching. It still reminds you but for some reason the reminders aren’t clearing themselves when you do reach out and touch that prospect. This starts to devalue the feature because you have to manually remember who you did and didn’t touch.

The software will track all of the places you can touch that lead — on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or even via email. That feature combined with Deal Tracking (where you can create and monitor sales opportunities you’re working) makes this a wonderful and inexpensive alternative to SalesForce.com for sales and marketing folks that just need a basic CRM tool to make lead nurturing easier.

Learn How To Leverage Social Selling To Close More Business

Here’s two additional resources you might want to check out — BOTH FREE:

Click Here to Download my 2013 MarketingProfs B2B Forum Presentation where I explain in detail how social media, email and web content work together to make sales prospecting painless.

Click Here to Download a FREE chapter of my new book, The Invisible Sale.

What prevents a sales organization from achieving success?  After studying hundreds of sales organizations, I have found the answer to this question is directly related to the challenges associated with their development stage.

Every sales organization can be classified based upon whether it is in a “Build,” “Compete,” “Maintain,” “Extend,” or “Cull” stage.

The Build stage is when the sales organization is first establishing itself. If successful, it will proceed to a high-growth Compete stage and then to Maintain stage that is contingent upon stable, predictable success. As the sales organization ages, it will either Extend its prior success and enjoy longevity, or it will suffer decline and be forced into the Cull stage where it must reduce its size.

Obviously, the top sales challenge always is exceeding the monthly, quarterly, or yearly revenue target. However, the sales challenges that inhibit a company from achieving revenue growth vary based on the sales organization stage. This is due to the “push” versus “pull’ market characteristics of each stage. For example, in the Build stage a small group of salespeople must push themselves into new accounts and introduce their solution and its benefits. Conversely, a well-known company in the Maintain stage is pulled into new sales opportuni­ties because of its market position. The different sales organization challenges in the Build, Compete, Maintain, Extend and Cull stages are reviewed below.

The Challenges of the Build Stage

The top sales challenge in the Build stage is creating sufficient sales coverage to push the product into the market. It takes time to hire, train, and build a critical mass of capable salespeople who can penetrate new accounts. It is during this stage that the sales model is first established, whether the sales organization will sell directly via outside field salespeople, over the phone with inside salespeople, or through channel partners.

“We are continually learning from every sales cycle and adapting our message to be more effective when we are in front of cus­tomers. We are trying to create a repeatable sales process but our product focus is changing as much as our sales model.” Vice President of Sales, Build Stage Company

The Challenges of the Compete Stage

The Compete stage challenge revolves around quickly scaling the sales organization so that it can compete effectively against more established competitors in existing markets or grab as much market share as possible in new greenfield markets. In this stage the sales organization begins to develop its collective intuition of where it can win new business and where it is likely to lose. If these attributes are not instilled into the new sales­people, “organization-thrashing” occurs. The newer salespeople will chase business they cannot win and precious pre-sales resources will be wast­ed. They won’t make quota and are likely to either be let go or leave on their own merit because they lack a sufficient pipeline of business to make commission. In this situation, there is organization-thrashing because of the continual replenishment of new and under-performing salespeople.

“My biggest challenges relate to scale and growth. We’ve been hiring so many people so quickly that we are challenged to recruit the right people, get them up to speed quickly, and retain them. If we don’t get them up to speed quickly, we will likely not retain them.” Vice President of Sales, Compete Stage Company

The Challenges of the Maintain Stage

The sales challenge changes radically during the late Compete stage and into the Maintain stage. The focus shifts from scaling the organiza­tion to maximizing sales productivity by lowering the cost of sale and increasing the average sales price. This may result in moving business from outside sales to inside sales or less expensive partner and distributor channels. Another challenge revolves around the predictability of revenue and the size of the sales organization. Since the sales organization is fully staffed and the territory coverage model is complete, the challenge is where to find the additional revenue to meet the growing annual target. Since territories have been split numerous times, the answer revolves around specialization. The sales force is segmented by size of company to be called upon, national accounts are segregated, and industry vertical sales specialists covering finance, government, retail, distribution, healthcare, etc., are created.

“I have to balance capacity with productivity. What this means is how do we get more leverage from the sales model? When you start a company, it is about going as fast as you can to separate yourself from the pack. Now we have to take the next step as a company and say, “What are the sales per employee? What’s the cost per rep? What commissionable costs are we paying? All of these things become relevant. The only way you can have an impact on those is to increase productivity and lower cost.” Vice President of Sales, Maintain Stage Company

The Challenges of the Cull Stage

In the Cull stage the company has been leapfrogged by competitors who provide superior offerings. How does a demoralized and marginal­ized sales force revitalize itself? The Darwinian answer is to cull the herd and remove the bottom performers and those with disenfranchised attitudes. The attitude of entitlement must be eliminated for the spark of the competitive spirit to be reignited. Equally important, key ex­isting accounts whose run rate revenue is central to the survival of the company are separated out and placed in “Revenue Care” programs where they receive dedicated account management, customer support, and executive level access.

“The other shift we are making is getting some of our more experienced and seasoned salespeople who really know the industry and solutions well, to be a little bit more provocative in their approaches. We want them to add more value to the sales cycle. We have a successful older sales team that is kind of set in its ways. The business and times dictate that we shake this model up.” Vice President of Sales, Cull Stage Company

The challenges sales organizations face is dependent upon the stage of their development. In this regard, the vice president of sales is one of the most important people within a company because this person is in charge of creating and executing the sales strategy that ensures success.

Every now and then our recruiters will come across a strong candidate who has only recently joined a new employer, but is already considering moving on.

It takes significant effort (or considerable luck) to find and hire great sales people so it is hard to imagine that an employer would let someone walk away shortly after  hiring them, but this happens and there are several reasons why.

In some cases a new sales hire was led to believe that the job, company and goals were different from what they actually are. Once reality sets in, the new hire is left frustrated and looking to pursue their career elsewhere. In other cases, the new hire simply made an error in judgement and feels they belong with another employer.

Another reason for early departures is a feeling of neglect. The new hire is brought on board and then provided little guidance, support or training. Many employers hire reps and expect them to simply start producing sales. Unfortunately sales success doesn’t occur this way. It takes a team effort. But this is where disasters can be avoided.

The ideal time to provide lots of guidance and support occurs while the new rep is still getting to know an employer and the relationship is developing . Smothering the rep with attention is not a bad thing at this stage and over-communication is not possible.

By following a structured on-boarding plan and carefully nurturing the relationship a new sales rep , you will never have to worry about a rep leaving your company because you pay enough attention to them.

To your success!

photo via imagerymajestic | freedigitalphotos.net

As sales leader in a small or medium-size company, your resources are limited.  Many times there’s not a process to get stuff done.  You get one or two chances each year to execute an initiative.  Even if you pick the right one, how can you pull it off?  How do you ensure it will work?

 

Far too many organizations spend more time on strategy than execution.  This is a mistake.  A good game plan outlines an end result, sure.  But it also includes all the sub-tasks that need to be completed.  This year, make sure that the strategy or project you decide on gets executed. 

 

To do this, you need a tool.  Something to help you think about the work that needs to get done.  A way to visualize who on your team will do what.  Download the SBI Perfect Initiative Planner.  Use it and you will get things done.  Your initiatives will be:

 

• Clearly defined
• Organized
• Well thought out
• Understood by your team

 

The Perfect Initiative Planner (PIP) isn’t a project plan or a schedule.  It specifies what will be done, not how or when.  It takes a strategy and subdivides the actions and tasks needed to get there.  You get smaller, manageable packages of activities.  This gives your initiative a path.  It’s a simple tool to help ensure you have thought about everything.

 

The PIP is a deliverable-oriented grouping of project elements.  It organizes and defines the total extent of your project.  Each descending level shows an increasingly detailed definition of your project’s components.  A PIP can be based on requirements, activities, deliverables, or a combination of the three. 

 

The PIP is structured from a life cycle perspective.  Each high level component of your PIP will match a major project phase.  You’ll think about all the deliverables you need to produce to complete each phase.  You will start with high-level outcomes.  Then you’ll decompose all the deliverables into high level activities. Finally, you’ll break down every key activity into smaller sub activities.  Download the Perfect Initiative Planner to see an example.

Then comes the fun part.  After you’ve filled out the PIP to the sub activity level, start assigning the boxes.  This is where you decide who does what.  Some items may go to sales ops, HR, or Marketing, depending on the initiative.  But don’t just assign activities to a department.  Assign every one to a specific person.  You’ll also assign many activities to yourself.  This brings great clarity to how team members specifically contribute to your initiative.  It allows you to hold individuals accountable.  It lets your team know exactly what will be required of them.

 

It's a scramble to make the quarterly number.  Some sales leaders have a tendency to blow off planning.  Instead they rely on “gut feel.”  But gut feel doesn’t always produce results.  And great execution does.  It also gets you promoted.  Your CEO loves to see it. 

 

We’ve all had initiatives fail in the past.  It’s a part of figuring out how to be a good sales leader.  Think about it, and you’ll realize most failures occurred for one of three reasons.  Either the plan was bad, the timing was wrong, or the execution failed. 

 

Most of the time it is number 3.  The SBI Perfect Initiative Planner will fix this.  It’s the critical component you need to help you get stuff done.

Author: Mark Synek

Follow @MarkSynek

Follow @MakingTheNumber

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There, I said it. Your message stinks. Technology has made it cheaper and faster to get in front of prospects, but somebody forgot to make sure you understood that what you say and how you say it wins the e-ticket ride to the next step in the sales process – OR NOT.

Competition for your prospects attention is tougher than ever. You know that. Isn’t it time to find a way to break through the noise cloud? Stop being so lazy!

Your sales message should be targeted to the receiver and laser focused on what they care about. The power of the internet and social networks makes easy to find out what matters to the people you want to approach. Prospects are bombarded with phone calls, direct mail and emails in ever increasing rates with messages that stink as much as they always have. I challenge you to be different!

Where is the value? Show prospects that you know something about them. Stop assuming you know what they care about. Stop insulting people. If you want a sales meeting, up your odds of a yes when you tailor and target your message.

Just to illustrate my point, my point that most messaging sucks – automated ones to boot… here’s a little jewel that arrived in my inbox today. By the way, it came through my website and was copied exactly as written.

“Dear Manager,

How are you doing? Does 1000TVL camera gains a lot popularity in your market? Hereby recommend you 1000TVL camera for your reference.

CHYI Advantages:

Service:

1) Defective rate≤1‰.

2) Fast delivery time: 5-7 business days

3) Excellent quality with 2 years warranty, during this period, after the normal failure is confirmed, free components or even new products can be sent together with your next order.

4) Refund of the goods is available in 7 days after package received(not including shipping cost),     just make sure the goods & inner packages are intact.

Products:

1).24 hours aging test.

2).strict dustproof,waterproof,high temperature test.

Would you like to order some for testing the market? Look forward to hearing from you soon.”

Let’s call this email it what it is… stupid. That’s actually being gracious.

Message matters my friends. You have one shot as a general rule. Sending random messages to lists and through websites is pointless.

A suggestion to the gal (or anyone reading this post) who sent this email through my website.

Read my website first to learn about me. A little detective work is always a good idea. A message that looked a little more like… “I see that you are big in leveraging social in your business and helping your clients do the same. High quality photos taken in the moment can help build strong powerful brand recognition. While phone cameras are great, here’s why our camera delivers something so much more powerful…”

Now that message would probably catch my attention.

Here’s what’s sad. I didn’t think that hard. I don’t know the camera business, but I can do better than the sales rep selling the products. With a little more thought, I could craft something way cooler. Why is it so tough for sellers (and marketers) to understand that boilerplate, one-size-fits messaging just doesn’t work?

Want to engage prospects more effectively to secure meetings?

Target the message to the right buyer and focus on what they care about, not what you want to sell.

Do your homework.

Check your facts.

Check the grammar and spelling. Don’t use jargon that only people in your company understand.

Get the person’s name right.

You have one shot to differentiate yourself. Don’t blow it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barb Giamanco heads up Social Centered Selling. She’s the co-author of The New Handshake: Sales Meets Social Media – the first book published on social selling. She is the author of the Harvard Business Review article Tweet Me, Friend Me, Make Me Buy published in the July 2012. Barb has a proven, 30-year track record in generating sales and capped a corporate career at Microsoft, where she led sales teams. Throughout her sales career, Barb has sold $1B in products and services.

@BarbGiamanco  @Linkedin  @Twitter

Unless you’re a policy wonk, electoral reform is hardly the stuff to set your pulse racing, even if it does involve limiting how much politicians can spend. But if you have a few moments this week, it would be a good idea to get in touch with your inner wonk.

I recently had an excellent conversation with my friend Greg Alexander, CEO of Sales Benchmark Index, about how marketing and sales can work together more effectively.

I spent most of my career in business-to-business marketing, although for four years I was in B2B sales. So I’ve seen both sides.

Back in the mid-1990′s it was hard to find evidence of love between marketing and sales. At many B2B companies the relationship was downright adversarial. Often, the tension extends all the way up to senior management.

It all stemmed from the sales process involving a “handoff.” Marketing generated leads, handed them over to sales, and then the sales team owned them until close.

So Greg and I chatted about how sales and marketing work effectively together. We discussed the new buying process and what that means for salespeople, marketers, and their management teams.

In my simplistic first stab at this, I offered that marketing must create the content that salespeople need to be successful in the selling process. It could be in some repository somewhere where salespeople could access it or it could be free on the web. But the salesperson knows how to get it where it’s located.

This means that what the marketing team does is important for the entire sales process, not just for the top of the funnel as was true just a few years ago, because salespeople are using content all the way to closing the deal.

It is, I said, the salesperson’s job is to understand each individual buyer or existing customer so well that they know precisely which bits of content should be pointed to them.

Adding Context to Generate Magic

But Greg took it much further.

“What the salesperson has to do is implement context,” Greg said. “This is where contextual content marketing actually happens. The marketing department is doing everything you just said, which is huge because salespeople don’t have the time to do all that. And sometimes they don’t have the skills.”

In Greg’s view, the salesperson, as the expert in the customer, takes what the marketing department creates and then personalizes it for each buyer or existing customer and passes it on in whatever method is best: LinkedIn, Twitter, email, or even the good old telephone. It is a reason to make contact.

“Sales reps take the information and say: ‘How does this idea, this theme, this concept apply to my account and my decision-makers inside those accounts?’,” Greg says. “’How do I make this real to them? How do I provide context for it?’ That’s where the magic happens.”

Are you making magic?

Image via Shutterstock

Business marketers are finally beginning to get it: success depends on social media.   If you’re not using social media, then your competition is leaving you behind.  If Facebook were a country, its ‘population’ would be the third largest on the globe.  Also, it boasts one of the most comprehensive databases for storing personal information and preferences, so that advertisers can pinpoint their target audience.

From a marketing perspective, it is the perfect weapon.  Essentially, Facebook’s power is two-fold:

• First, Facebook is a massive series of friend networks, and these networks are woven together with common interests, associations and relationships.  This means that someone using Facebook to market his or her business can harness ‘word of mouth’ like never before.  If 8 of your friends ‘liked’ something, wouldn’t you want to check it out too?
• Second, Facebook is in the business of collecting the data of its users and categorizing it in such a way that they can come up with advanced algorithms.  Then, they use these algorithms for the most effective mass target marketing campaigns in history.  Basically, Facebook advertising would allow your business to find a certain demographic, right down to their ‘likes’ and geography, and advertise directly to the people who are most likely going to buy.

So, how are businesses going to be able to harness these two advantages in 2014?  What we are talking about are Facebook “growth hacks” –strategies that will help business maximize their marketing potential on Facebook.

Growth Hack #3: Sweepstakes and Contests

Not many strategies have the potential to bring the buzz the way Facebook contests can.  These can work like a charm because with every sign-up someone ‘shares’, ‘comments’ or ‘likes’ your page, which only makes it pop up in the News Feed more often.

The name of the game is exposure, and Facebook sweepstakes and contests excel at just that.  The reason this works is because of the interwoven and social nature of Facebook’s massive series of networks.

However, you should bear in mind that this is not something you should plan today and launch tomorrow (especially if this is your first time running this kind of campaign).  Also, you need to follow the rules, or you might get into some serious trouble with Facebook.  For instance, you must mention that Facebook is not, in any way, sponsoring or involved with the contest.  Also, make sure that you see the additional rules for any apps that you use.

Growth Hack #2:  It’s About the Content

Facebook is constantly evolving but one truth remains constant: it’s all about having good content.  If your content is cheaply conceived, and appears like nothing more than a keyword-stuffed attempt at picking up ‘likes’, then Facebook will be able to identify that tactic and kick your post further and further down the news feed.

Good content, however, is receiving far more attention these days, whereas advertisement-looking posts will not be noticed.  For instance, around the end of 2013, Facebook changed their news feed algorithm to not only bump ‘low-quality content’ down on their list of priorities, but now older ‘related’ articles can be seen under the newer ones for a blog or news site.

However, there are some who say that you still need to keep your ‘visual’ game up to par.  Why?

According to the Huffington Post, posts with photos receive 53% more likes.  This is a huge difference, as even tweets with photos will get 150% more retweets.

In my last Business2Community post I showed how brands can create memorable social media messages. Here’s an example that solidifies the statistic from the Huffington Post:

This was found on the Victor Pest Facebook page and shows how a business doesn’t have to shove their products down their followers’ throat. Instead, they play on the cat and mouse theme with funny memes. This makes their brand more personalized/humanized so we view them as an actual Facebook friend – not a brand. I know that seems a bit counter-intuitive, but the psychology and engagement metrics are enough reason to know this is vital. I would much rather trust a brand that “gets” social media, as opposed to a brand that uses it as a place to spam advertisements.

Having photos with good content will not only establish credibility, but with the way Facebook is setup now, the good content will be rewarded with more traffic than ever before.

Growth Hack #1: Apps

If you are running a business using any type of social media, one of the best things you could do is use the apps available to you.

No, believe it or not, we aren’t talking about creating custom apps for your business.  In fact, there are quite a few marketing gurus that are no longer convinced that someone will use your app just because you have one.  People download apps because they are useful in some way.

However, using apps to assist your Facebook marketing effort is one of the best ways to harness the power of both advantages that we discussed above.  For instance, there are some apps that will actually automatically send rebates …if your happy customer does certain actions on social media.  Basically, your customer purchases something, then if they wish to get a coupon for a purchase of another item, then they must ‘share’, ‘comment’ or ‘like’ certain posts, display your business on their timeline, etc.  This does three amazing things…

First, it utilizes word-of-mouth-style advertising.  A person endorses your business on their timeline, creating the ultimate form of credibility in their network.

Second, it ensures that you will have a repeat customer, because he or she did all that work to get the coupon.

Third, it actually builds tons of backlinks, meaning that your business, fan page, etc., gets picked up on the search engines.

Apps are the key for harnessing the power of social media, and this is going to become very evident in 2014.

There’s a reason why everyone screams and giggles like little schoolgirls at a Justin Bieber concert when they hear the words “Big Data.” It’s because they understand the importance of knowing their audience. Unfortunately, however, many marketers are so overwhelmed by the volume of data that’s out there, they don’t always know what to do with it.

While many journalists fear that audience data might distract from, or tarnish the traditional image of journalism, there are those who understand its importance. But instead of focusing on increasing page views, these journalists are fixed on appealing to consumers.

The biggest advantage of Big Data? Its ability to help journalists better contextualize their stories. According to Raju Narisetti of News Corp, there are tons of reasons why a story may not get a lot of eyeballs. Sometimes, big stories simply don’t appeal to the general consumer. A major event such as political protest in a tiny European country may make headlines, but it won’t attract readers unless it satisfies one of their content niches.

While some would argue that a given topic shouldn’t get covered, Big Data can help make it relevant. By using information about their audience, journalists can find ways to make “boring” stories more engaging.

At The Atlantic, the same theory is applied. Instead of setting traffic goals each quarter, they use data to discover new areas of interest that readers didn’t even know they had.

In this way, a company’s goals and the audience’s goals are co-aligned.

This popular perspective on Big Data is gaining ground among journalists, but that doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone; data gives businesses an opportunity to grow on numerous levels and there are a variety of ways in which data can be used to a company’s advantage. In fact, a study from Infogroup Targeting Solutions discovered that more than 60 percent of marketers expect to increase their Big Data budgets this year. However, the concern—one that journalists understand all too well—lies in the moment when the focus on numbers supersedes that of content.

And we’ve already seen this happen—cue flashback to the Huffington Post’s article on what time the Super Bowl started and CNN’s coverage of the Twerking epidemic.

So how can content marketers find a happy medium?

Instead of chasing after traffic numbers, go after your audience. Use data to find interesting topics, but also take note from journalists. If you know a topic doesn’t appeal to your audience, find a way to craft it so that it captures their attention. By doing so, you’ll not only gain loyal consumers, but you’ll also find ways to transform dull topics into engaging ones (a common fear of businesses who doubt content will work for them). And if you’re not sure where to get your data from, try using an analytics tool, such as Google Analytics or Parse.ly.

When it comes to content, the goal isn’t to increase ROI. It just happens to be a fantastic side effect.

With the holiday shopping season officially over for a few weeks now, I am surprised I have not seen many pundits trying to determine whether social selling actually works. This recent AdAge article however caught my attention. It cites a study conducted by the e-commerce analytics company Custora that found social media yielded just 2% of online holiday retail sales.  The study looked at how many social posts with a ‘buy now’ call-to-action were clicked by consumers. Do you see the issue with this premise?  What about the customers that interacted with your brand through organic search, your ads, banners, social posts, etc. and then decided to purchase your product?

Marketers call this ‘last-click-attribution’, and while straightforward to explain, it can be extremely misleading. Attribution theory in marketing is not new and has its roots in psychology.  It was first developed by Fritz Heider in the early part of the 20^th century and according to Wikipedia, “The purpose of marketing attribution is to quantify the influence each advertising impression has on a consumer’s decision to make a purchase decision, or convert”.

Don’t get me wrong. The convergence of paid, owned and earned media is making attribution of social media to sales very hard.  As a matter of fact, according to this Forrester Research study from last summer, 38% of marketers still struggle with measuring ROI from social media.

So what you should do if you are a marketer investing significant resources and need to demonstrate business value to your CFO or CEO?  These are 3 principles that have served me well over the years:

1. Think marriage, not a one-night-stand:  This was the title of a post I wrote back in 2010 and it is as true now as it was back then.  You need to think about how to build relationships with your prospective customers.  Stop looking for a magic bullet to magically solve your lead problem by posting social ads. I firmly believe that while consumers do express intent in social media, that number is minuscule as compared to the opportunity this medium presents to nurture relationships that will ultimately convert to sales.

2. Stop thinking social (only): Social media is a means to an end rather than an end in itself .  Unfortunately too many marketers still view social as a silo and are focused on the vanity metrics of fans, followers and likes with no understanding of how social media can further #1 and ultimately their revenues.  If you are still treating social as a silo, now is a good time to break down these walls.  Go talk to your colleagues in marketing communications, PR, product marketing, or alas your marketing campaigns team.  Ask them what problems they are trying to solve and work together to help them.  You ‘d be surprised at the opportunities you might find to truly influence your business.

3. Think big, start small, fail fast: Yes this feels trite and obvious, but it is also true and under-appreciated.  They key is to experiment and fail fast but always keep the goalposts (i.e., strategy) in sight. Don’t try to ‘embed social media across marketing’ initially. Instead focus on one specific problem your colleagues are trying to solve and help them.  For example, help with a new product launch, leverage social media for one of your customer events, or add social media into the mix of one of your marketing campaigns. By the way, you will fail and that’s OK since that’s how most of us learn.  I can go on with all the mistakes I have made, but that’s probably left for another post.

What has worked for you in the past? As always I look forward to your thoughts and comments.

P.S. If you are interested in learning more about attribution theory, I recommend reading either this post by Avinash Kaushik or this one by Michael Wiegand.  Not for the faint of heart, but definite must-reads if you are facing challenges trying to measure the ROI of your multi-channel campaigns.

Technology companies create solutions that are complicated, have various levels of functionality as well as varying levels for usage.  Whether verbally or through content creation, marketers and sales professionals will run into a consistent issue: How do I explain this without rambling on and on?

The most common actions in practice have been:

Let’s host a webinar and drive attendance so prospects can hear technical experts speak about the solution and the environment

OR

“We need more literature.” This includes whitepapers, case studies, Gartner press releases, etc.

That’s all well and good, but the overwhelming liveliness of this digital era is quite obvious.  People would much rather watch a video than read a 3-page whitepaper. Some of my most successful email campaigns included an embedded link to a short video explaining the product or service. It was a 2-minute video with layman’s terminology that explained exactly what the technology did and what problems it solved.  I got more from that video than any technical jargon drenched document.

Companies are slowly trending toward the action of producing better quality and higher volumes of video, which means they understand the direction content marketing is headed toward.

At the very least, technology companies should incorporate a brief video synopsis that creatively covers what the technology does, smack dab on the front page of their website.  It doesn’t have to have the quality of a million-dollar Nike ad, but it also shouldn’t have a Siri-like voice monotoning over 2-D graphics either.

People don’t want to take an extra 20 seconds and click an extra few tabs to find out more.  Instant gratification, instant access. Mankind has grown pretty impatient through these years of technological advancement.

Now on the topic of video, I have a question for you.  I’ve been hearing that a lot of salespeople have been using video as a platform to introduce themselves to prospects and clients.  As an inside sales rep, how would you feel about having a recorded video of yourself being freely distributed throughout your target accounts?

And on the flipside, putting yourself in the prospect’s seat, how would you feel watching a video of an inside sales rep introducing themselves and their solution via video?  Would it be more personable, more intrusive, or would you just ignore it?

This is by no means common practice, but it is something that is occurring more frequently than I anticipated, so I’m all ears about how you view video and the role that will play for sales and marketing efforts.

An out-of-the-way Pennsylvania hotel scores business through a tried and true strategy.

Reading may have a spot on the Monopoly board through its railroad that went bankrupt in the 1970s. But a hotel in this city an hour's drive northwest of Philadelphia should give it a place on the economic map when it comes to the timeless power of great service to produce great sales.

A few weeks ago, I experienced service at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Reading that went beyond the word "excellent." From the moment you walked into the hotel you were greeted by Craig Poole, the hotel manager, like you were visiting family.

I'm sure at one time or another you've experienced great service, but something was different here. It was so genuine and natural without the typical forced smile that you see when boarding a plane. This was probably because everyone from the manager on down seemed as though they loved their job.

When employees have great attitudes and go out of their way to make you feel important, they are demonstrating the most important characteristic of great salespeople, one that will always have you coming back. (And this hotel gets plenty of repeat business, including from locals.)

What Craig and his team did was what every top salesperson needs to do--whether it's 50 years ago, today or in the future. It come down to this: People buy from people they like, trust and respect.

This seems to be the most common statement made by the best sales people in the business when I ask them to share their secret for sales success. So I decided to call up Craig and ask him how he turned all his employees into great salespeople. These are his five secrets:

Focus everyday on selflessness.

"It's not about me. How do I make my customers more successful. We make sure everyone from the front desk, restaurant and housekeeping to sales and catering are embracing this philosophy."

Understand your customer’s needs.

"Our goal is to engage the customer and find out the reason and purpose of their visit. Is it a convention, funeral, sports team? And then how to make it more successful for them. At 9 a.m. we have a general meeting and discuss everybody who's coming in and what they're coming in for. Our breakfast room, bar and restaurant all know what's going on and are involved in the sales side of the business, even housekeepers."

Do the little things.

"If I see someone sitting and maybe reading the paper, I will ask them if they would like some coffee and bring it over to them personally. Everybody here has that focus on the customer. We have one client that needs a special pillow every time he stays with us. We customize rooms for key clients."

Hire people who have exceptional sales skills and great attitudes.

"I only hire people that have that ability, that mind set. It took three years to weed out the people who did not fit in."

Add that special touch and differentiate yourself from the competition.

"We have a 260 room convention hotel that we run like a bed and breakfast. … We have bus tours. Every time a bus comes in, we all go out and meet everyone on the bus, and I introduce myself as Willy Wonka. ... Chef and waiters come out and sell this like a Willy Wonka experience. Everybody gets involved including the controller--everybody."

Craig says sales success is about customer engagement, creating an emotional link, understanding customer' needs, being a problem solver, being genuine, having a passion, having a great attitude, and demonstrating drive.

That's not a bad recipe for sales success.

Problems can’t stop you, obstacles can’t stop you, and most of all, other people can’t stop you. Only you can stop you. -Jeffrey Gitomer

If you’re going to step into the sales game, you’ve got to be true to yourself. Before you can focus on metrics, cold calls, and emails, you’ve got to reflect on what you’re working for.

Whatever it may be, make sure you can answer these eight questions to establish your behaviors in the sales arena.

Here they are:

1. Do you have a compelling belief in yourself, your corporation, and what you have to offer customers?

Have a vision of what you and your business will be and how you can successfully meet the needs of all your customers. Explaining big picture value beyond outright features and benefits will make you a stellar salesman.

2. Do you have a really great attitude and project yourself as confident and knowledgeable without appearing arrogant?

A positive attitude goes a long way. Even if you’re having a tough day, maintain confidence and composure. Your buyers will recognize the strength and solidarity.

3. Are you a person of sincere intent?

While insincere sales have never been a good thing, in today’s informed buyers will be able to tell if you’re only interested in a profit.

4. Do you have purpose in the way you invest your time and interact with others?

Make an attempt to be sharp and on the ball at all times. Everything you do should be geared towards achieving your vision. Use every second of your time effectively.

5. Are you fully engaged every time you meet someone?

Active listening is an invaluable skill. Give your prospect some feedback and guide their concerns and questions in a helpful manner. Regardless of a conversation’s length, try your best to make a good impression.

6. Do you plan to ask great questions?

If you like to be the only one talking, your sales relationships are going to suffer. Asking questions and letting your buyers know you’re listening, sincerely interested, and compassionate all set the groundwork benefit on both sides.

7. Are you habitually disciplined in your approach to the sales process and do you have solid work ethic in doing the right things at the right time?

Sometimes helping people is inconvenient. Working through this inconvenience is an important way to make your prospects happy. The little things like lightning fast responses and troubleshooting help will set you apart.

8. Are you tactically capable of execution?

While the mindset may be there, it’s important to be able to use technology to bring your sales together. If your technical skills aren’t up to par, explore ways to improve them. You should work towards being a CRM guru and master of cold emails.

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What were your answers? Hopefully these sales behaviors helped you gain a little insight into how effective you are. Let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Inspired by the Joshua Principle: RSVP Selling

While Facebook may still lead for revenue per visit, social network and blogging platform Tumblr is quickly growing its own revenue per visit and has nearly surpassed the social network giant.

Adobe on Tuesday released its Q4 2013 Social Media Intelligence Report, and revealed that Tumblr’s RPV increased by 340% year-over-year.

In the chart (shown above) the blue bars represent Q4 2013 and the gray bar is based on Q4 2012 numbers. As you can see Facebook’s RPV rose from $0.71 to $1.22 (72% growth) and Tumblr’s RPV leaps from $0.25 to $1.10.

While Twitter and Pinterest are still below a $1 RPV they grew by 131% and 244% respectively.

With Facebook showing only a 72% growth in its RPV investors are likely to feel a bit weary about the company’s growth potential in the near-term. Facebook faces a dilemma in which the company can only show so many ads without over populating the news feed and other areas of its products.

Facebook faces another problem, in that referral traffic from the site has also been on the decline, while competitors including Pinterest and Twitter continue to gain ground.

The Adobe report did reveal that Facebook’s ad click through rate (CTR) is up 365 percent year-over-year and the company’s CPM increased by 437 percent over the same time period. The company’s CPCs remained even year-over-year with a modest 29% increase during the holiday season extending from October 2013 through end-of-year. Facebook also improved its ad click volume by 125 percent. While volume was up, Facebook was also serving a larger user base which helps explain the decline in per visit numbers based on volume.

Facebook continues to win the brand war with social engagement for companies increasing by 180 percent year-over year. Brand impressions also increased by 150 percent.

Adobe also offers a quick tip for Brands. Images inside of posts yielded a 650% increase in engagement over regular text-based posts. Link, text, and video posts yielded a lower return.

I can’t say I’m surprised by the numbers, there is a point when “Liking” something on a page doesn’t hold the same weight it used to. Who honestly has the time to look at every single thing their friends “Like.” I find myself navigating to several of the same sources to read interesting pieces of information and then ignoring most of the other social engagement on my Facebook page.

Today's guest post is by Justin Shriber, vice president of products at C9, the Revenue Performance Company. Recently, I connected with the head of marketing at a global technology firm. He has a great track record for rolling out strategies that drive top-line growth. So I found it ironic when he said, “The toughest part of my job is convincing the sales folks that I’ve got something to offer when it comes to pipeline-management strategy.” My friend’s experience is not uncommon. Unfortunately, when the chief sales officer (CSO) and chief marketing officer (CMO) aren’t wearing the same jersey, nobody wins....