No matter who they speak with in your business – in their eyes they are all ‘the company’.

In a pre-digital world, there were salespeople and everyone else. Now a prospect can understand a business across a myriad of social media channels before they speak to anyone in your business. They read comments posted online, they judge the quality of your content, the reviews of your products and how the company responds. This is all before they speak to a ‘salesperson’.

No matter who they speak with in your business – the receptionist, customer service, someone in the delivery dock, an engineer – in their eyes they are all ‘the company’.

The client doesn’t care about the job titles of the people they come into contact with. What they will notice is whether everybody in the organisation is in synch with the ‘brand’ or not. Being consistent across every touchpoint builds trust.

So everyone in your organisation has a shared accountability for how the business is represented and how attractive the company is for people to want to buy from them.

When it is understood that every person in your business is in sales, it becomes obvious how customer experience and customer service is the new sales.

To be in synch means everyone in the business understands:

• Exactly what the business does,
• How it delivers value to its customers,
• The commitment the business has made to service its customers,
• How imperative it is to HELP a customer or prospect,
• What it means to BE the brand.

When everyone is ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’ it supports:

• Customer satisfaction and retention,
• Staff alignment,
• Stronger teamwork and
• Business growth!

Imagine if every person in your business had the same training as a salesperson. How valuable would it be if everyone understood the power of?

• Active listening
• Insightful, open ended questions
• Adaptability
• Accountability
• Negotiation
• Presentation
• Language
• Confidence
• Helping

Next time anyone says ‘but I’m not in sales’ – ask them what they think a salesperson actually does. Because salespeople don’t just sell, they build relationships, they build trust, they listen and solve problems. They help people. Isn’t that the philosophy that everyone should be adopting so customers want to buy from you and stay with you?

Sales training for the entire business. Now that is evolutionary!

The post Everyone In Your Organisation Is In Sales appeared first on Head Of Sales.

The past year has changed sales. A lot. The key question now: How much of this change is permanent?

“Everything,” says Julie Thomas, CEO, ValueSelling Associates.

LinkedIn’s “State of Sales 2021: United States & Canada Edition” dives into these changes that are challenging the world of sales. Based on survey data of more than 400 buyers and 400 sellers, analysis of LinkedIn platform data, and interviews with dozens of sales leaders, the fifth annual State of Sales report identifies seven key trends, which have only been intensified by COVID-19:

1. Virtual selling is good for sellers; it’s even better for buyers. 

During the pandemic, virtual selling essentially became selling. It was the only way to reach prospects. Buyers don’t seem to mind this new reality. In fact, our survey found that 50% of buyers say that working remotely has made the purchasing process easier.

“The digital world is here to stay. The inefficiency of travel, of in-person business meetings, and of late-night dinner appointments will make face-to-face meetings less common and not necessary in many cases. Organizations will use more data, more video, and more telesales. I do not believe we will go back to the world that was.” — Shaan Hathiramani, CEO, Flockjay

2. Sales organisations are preventing their sellers from putting buyers first.

Almost two-thirds (65%) of sellers say they “always” put the buyer first. However, only 23% of buyers agree that sellers “always” put the buyer first. Sellers know they should be putting the buyer first, but in our survey data, they indicate that their sales organizations are a barrier to implementing buyer first behaviors. For instance, only 39% of sales professionals say their sales org delivers the buyer first behavior of providing free and easy access to product reviews “all the time.” Similarly, just 43% of sales professionals say their sales org stays actively engaged after the sale to ensure value delivery “all the time.”

3. These are the sales behaviors that are killing deals.

In our survey, buyers also identified a number of behaviors from sellers that were immediate deal killers. Each of the top three revolved around the seller providing accurate information and having a clear understanding of the situation:

· 48% Delivering misleading information about a product, its price, etc.

· 44% Not understanding my company and its needs

· 43% Not understanding their own product or service

“Top performing salespeople spend far more of their time researching their industry, learning about their competitors, understanding trends, reading about ancillary things that affect their industry and being thought leaders and consultants in their space than they do pounding phones, sending emails, and prospecting.” — Sahil Mansuri, CEO, Bravado 

4. Sales orgs and sales managers must adjust — now — to a remote working world.

A significant majority (86%) of sales managers agree that the capability to cope with change is more important than it was five years ago. In the previous edition of the State of Sales, just 70% of sales managers agreed that coping with change was more important than five years ago.

Change is coming at sales professionals faster every day, and one change that is likely to stay with us is the rise of remote work, a situation that sales managers are finding difficult, with two-thirds (67%) of them saying that overseeing a remote sales team is more challenging than they anticipated.

5. Sales technology provides the key pathway to building trust.  

Historically, sales professionals have built trust with prospects by meeting face to face. The pandemic blocked that pathway, so salespeople turned to sales technology. Tools such as Gong or Chorus enable sales professionals to analyze transcripts of sales calls to understand the typical customer’s state of mind and to anticipate their objections.

It’s no surprise, then, that our survey indicated that investment in sales technology is increasing. In fact, 77% of sales professionals say their sales organization plans to invest “significantly more” or “more” in sales intelligence tools. 

“Overall, virtual selling has driven rapid digital transformation in sales. Early adopters were ready technologically for the sudden move to virtual, and now laggards are investing in technology infrastructure to support their reps. The early days of the pandemic were really the ultimate test.” — Craig Rosenberg, Distinguished VP/Analyst, Gartner 

6. For sales organizations, data is more crucial than ever.  

Research shows that about 25% of buyers change roles every year. It’s crucial for sellers to stay on top of any data about their prospects’ moving on or moving up. In our survey, 85% of sellers say they lost or delayed at least one deal in the past year, because a key client stakeholder had changed jobs. One-third of sellers say they had lost or delayed at least three deals due to a stakeholder leaving. 

“Data is table stakes now. I mean, you can’t sell without data.” — Matt Heinz, President, Heinz Marketing

7. Buyers and sellers are ramping up their use of LinkedIn.

Since the start of the pandemic, sellers, who can no longer prospect at in-person conferences and events, are boosting their reliance on LinkedIn. Almost three-quarters (74%) of sellers say they committed to expanding their LinkedIn network in 2021.

“Posting content to LinkedIn and engaging with others on LinkedIn is my primary source of demand generation. So many people see LinkedIn as a waste of time or see LinkedIn as not an opportunity to drive true business development when, in fact, it couldn’t be more the opposite. LinkedIn gives me an opportunity to share my subject matter expertise on a daily basis.” — Sam McKenna, Founder, #samsales  

Keep your eye out for the Asia-Pacific (Australia, India, and Singapore) edition of the State of Sales schedule to be released in the coming weeks.

The post 7 Insights From The LinkedIn State of Sales Report appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Get off the 3rd appendage. If aliens descended they’d be confounded with why humans have only one hand. The entire society is glued to a piece of plastic, silicon circuits, and flashing light through gorilla glass. It’s unnatural, unhealthy, and sociologically inept.

We’ve already ruined society so why ruin Modernized Selling too? What’s wrong with this picture? Probably everything!

When I walk through a company from startup to corporation, my first mandate is to listen: not to the platitudes of executives asking for cutting edge new “closing techniques” but for the tenor and tone of the sales floor. If the culture is a closed door, sanctuary, with an “open office layout” oxymoron of nobody talking to colleagues or prospects on the phone, I know that something has truly gone awry in Denmark.

Sales floors should be loud. No exceptions.

This image looks like a blast, but this is not selling. This is leisure people!

If you are sitting near a strategic seller, and it sounds like a zen spa in the background, be wary. That rep is not busy or doing their job. Top reps that prospect like Terminator are crazy busy. Top sales floors are filled with the noises of hustle and bustle, not the thump of muted techno while the keys fall like acid rain. Top sales establishments have their own conference rooms packed with clients. Their reps are either pounding the phones standing with headsets, or out in the field face to face with customers.

What I’d really like to construct is something like an Applause-o-meter from old black and white TV game shows. A Sales-o-meter where I can monitor the sound from 1 to 10, from a traditional church to Monster Truck Rally!

It’s really easy to immediately challenge the organization I’m consulting.

If you’re having a problem with revenue, why does your sales floor sound like a funeral procession?

Energy, this is what’s missing in modern sales. Passion! Try as you might to convey this with your next spammy email, InMail or DM on Twitter but it gets lost in translation of the white wall of noise enveloping the modern prospect.

YOU will separate yourself from the next 999 reps if you always err to the phone.

Dig through the deadwood in your CRM and call all the numbers. Don’t ping your warm opportunities in the funnel with “touching base” and “checking in” emails. Get on the phone and call them. Call them again. Leave them tailored messages that are short and sweet, and that focus on them and their industry rather than what you’re selling.

I’ve got one rep I coach who got reprimanded for disrupting the sales floor with outbound prospecting. The CSO asked him to book a calling pod and ensure that any time in the POD is logged on the Google calendar.

Constraining when reps can call and forcing them to book time on calendars is the absolute height of inanity insanity! STOP the madness!

If you’re reading this and agree, get up and let out a Billy Idol rebel yell at your desk now. Start standing up while you make outbound prospecting calls. Get live and loud! Tell your boss you’re going to double your pipeline by using a phone strategy. Then get ahold of phone numbers, as many as you can – from business cards, from autoresponders, from Data.com, ZoomInfo, Google Searches – WIT – whatever it takes! I dunno, even open the cobwebby CRM thingamajig!

Always err to the phone. Inbound lead… Call. Email follow up… Call. Top, Middle, Bottom of funnel… Call. Step one… Call.

If I ran a modern sales team again, I’d buy a Polycom for every rep and put a few per room and they’d round robin making prospecting calls with headsets and coaching each other as they sharpen the sword of value and insight.

It’s remarkable to me that SDRs are not on the phone. It’s remarkable to me that modern Strategic Sales Executives show up to work, get coffee, complain about the leads, check the sports scores and never once even pick up their cell phone. (Yes, the one the company is reimbursing for primarily Facebook and LinkedIn fluff.)

Late addition from comments made to this post by the legendary Mark Hunter: “I had an inside sales manager tell me he had to get rid of the gong he had on the floor. Each time one of his team members made a sale they got to ring the gong. He was asked by HR to remove it because another sales manager said it was too noisy for his team. Note to HR…fire the other sales manager! Note to the CEO – fire HR!” I agree Mark! They should install a ‘rock concert grade amp stack’ to play this cowbell track every time someone wins a deal.

Now I’m not denigrating Social Selling; I’m advocating making the PHONE the central pillar of that strategy too. Pull up Sales Navigator, check your common connections, school in common, contacts in your own company that know them, triggers like press releases, expansion, M&A, product innovation, job changes but then pick up the phone to tell them about it. Google their name, pull a quote and call their cell phone to talk about how the quote links into a business case.

This is why I absolutely love video-based email like BombBomb. Record a video that shows you did even 30 seconds of social stalking (research) and send the image of you speaking, inflection, body language and all. This is the undiscovered country, the next frontier. You need to be more human than a human. You need to crack the cyborg “digitalfication” of everything in sales and become organic matter again.

There’s a counter culture movement happening right now in sales that reminds me of CrossFit. Sellers just can’t guzzle the corn syrup like gerbils on the spinning wheel of Social anymore. It’s time to get real, get live and get loud. Are you with me? Come on feel the noise!!!

The post All Sales Floors Should Be Loud!!! appeared first on Head Of Sales.

We’ve all been there: a sea of people, pulled together from across the country or region, locked in a windowless room with artificial light, seated at round tables with mints and water, patiently waiting for the parade of presenters to finish their ‘Death by PowerPoint’ presentations so we can get to the coffee station during the day and then the bar at night to start really engaging with our colleagues. During the day some relief can be found in the smartphones that everyone will be less and less discreetly looking at repeatedly, checking messages and social media for something to actually engage in, as the show drags on.

Every now and then the boredom is punctuated by some lively motivational speaker who tells us ‘You can do anything!’ (insert FIST PUMP), ‘Just believe in yourself’ (insert HIGH FIVE), ‘Be positive and great things will happen for you’ (insert VISUALISATION EXERCISE), ‘Now turn and tell the person next to you why you are so awesome and deserve endless riches’ (insert GROUP ACTIVITY), ‘Think about the challenges you have overcome that made you who you are’ (insert STORYTELLING). And so on.

This interlude is like a sugar hit. Perks people up for a short while, and then fades again.

The sales conference may have a big awards night or extracurricular activities, an entertainment extravaganza filled with lots of fun things to do, lots of food and drink, lots of prize giving, etc. That is fine, that can be appropriate. On top of that, participants simply might enjoy the location, the hotel, meeting colleagues, getting some time out. But is this what the conference should be all about?

So let’s start to rethink why and how we run sales conferences.

Why have a sales conference?

They are expensive to run and time consuming so we had better make it worth our while. Be clear about what you are actually trying to achieve. If the purpose is to get people together, interact, have a good time away from work, fine. But if it is about selling, sharing or generating knowledge, or any other topics relevant for everyday work, you cannot leave achieving such a goal to chance, or PowerPoint.

Purpose & Context

• There must be an overarching purpose to running a sales conference, a meaningful story and context that people can relate to.
• Set clear goals. What are you trying to achieve by running the sales conference?
  • Launch a new game changing product or service?
  • Reset the culture and team dynamics?
  • Launch the new sales strategy?
  • Bring the team together to focus on new capabilities, competitive edge, etc.?
• Have a plan. A good conference follows a logic thread, a storyline, it systematically builds something up and guides people to this result.

Make sure you are very clear about what you are trying to achieve. And any motivational speakers you bring into the mix must serve this purpose and context. Any extracurricular activities can still add flavour to this mix if planned and done well.

How to run a sales conference

There are a number of simple guidelines to follow to get your sales conference right:

• Actively engage people from the outset. Make it clear that they are not meant to be passive recipients of whatever kind of messages.
• Set context and purpose, and then create the right environment for active engagement. Make sure your preparation work has identified not only what is important to the organisation, but also what is relevant for the participants.
• Creating meaningful engagement acts as a catalyst for positive change and momentum. Giving your audience the chance to participate and contribute creates more buy-in than most motivational speakers.
• Rather than talking at the audience and telling them what we want them to hear and do, why not turn it around and make the audience the content providers, the active participants and the bringers of wisdom? Turn the audience into active contributors.

We have helped many companies turn around their sales conferences into dynamic actively engaged events that ignite opportunity and lead people to the future where they feel a sense of ownership and can-do moving forward beyond the conference.

Designing activities that stimulate communication and tap into the wisdom of the room in more concrete, meaningful ways is key.

Here is an example:

Recently, we started working with a new client who had just taken over the role as head of sales. We helped him prepare the new sales strategy, including their value proposition, sales messaging and a new solution sales approach. He had an upcoming sales conference for 150 people to kick off this new strategy. This was a make or break situation as the previous sales strategies and sales conferences had fallen short of expectations and went nowhere in the long run. Yet his people were desperately wanting direction and purpose; they loved their company and wanted to see it succeed.

Our client wanted the sales conference to deliver the following:

1. Re-energise and focus the sales teams to a true customer centric sales strategy and get them excited about how they fit into it.
2. Explain and align them to the company’s purpose and values.
3. Give them one view across all of the businesses and organisational capability.
4. Set out a high level sales strategy and plan, and then set some goals for the year, for both managers and their teams.
5. Help team members have a clear understanding of each of the key customer value propositions across their offerings.
6. Ensure the team members understand what they will be prioritising in the coming 12 months, and what success looks like if they achieve those priorities.
7. Get individual teams started to develop their own plans for how they will contribute to the overall plan.
8. On top of that ensure that everyone will have fun along the way.

Our client wanted to hear people saying:

“That was the best and most inspiring sales conference I have ever been to”.

“I know where I fit in, and what I’ve got to do, and I’m excited about the future”.

And that is what he got.

We designed a sales conference that was full of enriching activities that all linked back to his goals for the team. Day 1 set the scene and Day 2 became an active ‘market place’, a beehive of purposeful activity, focused on starting the transition from a culture of transactional selling to a solution selling culture.

Case study driven and focused on diversity, teamwork, learning and active communication, the teams were empowered to learn all about what their company offered their clients – products, services, solutions, people and value. Instead of enduring a dozen slideshows about company division, products and services, 150 people worked simultaneously and actively in small teams across the day assessing situations, solving problems, learning about new opportunities and solutions, learning from each other, getting to know each other.

As a ‘side-effect’ they also gathered all the information that otherwise would have been presented to them in the traditional way. But in the context of real life case studies they could immediately contextualise and use this information. It stuck right away. The owners of all this information also were happy, because they had the opportunity not only to present, but to engage and interact with their audience and hence position themselves much more effectively.

At 4pm on Day 2, the conference was still pumping. People were on task actively engaged and supporting each other. The energy was focused and aligned. It never waned from 8.30am on Day 1.

We had many people come to us saying how wonderful this was. How happy they were. This energy has carried over into the workplace. Now active work is happening to bring about the changes needed and everybody is on board and wanting to make it happen.

A sales conference can’t change everything overnight but it can ignite opportunity, purpose and agency. It’s about engaging the very people who attend and making them the active participants and leaders of change.  When sales conferences are designed with the participants in mind they can:

• Help develop and reinforce a culture and team that is highly engaged and performing in the market place.
• Create a sense of belonging and understanding of where they fit in, and mutual obligation to each other to deliver for customers.
• Build confidence that there is a plan in place for teams to follow and be supported to deliver, but also that there will be accountability for outcomes
• Present a clear direction of what is expected of everyone and where they fit in.
• Present the opportunity to be supported and challenged by each other
• Create a sense of ownership and engagement over what everyone is accountable for.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

The post Igniting purpose across the sales team appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Let’s look at the merit of nerd-geek lead sales recovery first.

The 21^st Century world is getting more difficult to navigate. Gone are the days of being first to market with a new product and having a reasonable lead time to win the hearts and minds of our target markets by spruiking the obvious benefits of our offer to all and sundry and making easy sales.

Today, in a sea of overwhelming choice, discerning buyers are looking for leverage, a leading edge, better productivity and cost control, business value, surety of supply and so on. They are looking to engage with people who have a depth and breadth of knowledge in their area of expertise, people who can engage in business discussions that respect complexity and offer ideas and solutions that address the opportunities of both today and the future. This requires a higher order of thinking and a skill set that allows for effective communication and collaboration. 

Many 20^th century salespeople have found the move to more complex thinking and business solution selling difficult, relying on old forms of persuasion, charm, friendship and showmanship; however, many have been found wanting by their clients and are likely destined for obscurity if they don’t transition to a higher order thinking.

Step in the wide range of engineers, technicians, mathematicians and scientists who are schooled in higher order thinking. As cited in the 30 June 2016 FINSIA article, ‘Solving the STEM Paradox’, overall, individuals with STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) backgrounds and training are able to be better problem solvers in technology-rich environments — they’re better equipped for new business models, new markets and new sources of economic growth, academics suggest.

The irony ‘Solving the STEM Paradox’ highlights is that ‘They’re supposed to be the most desirable candidates in the employment market: the saviours of services-driven economy, the diviners of economic growth. And yet individuals with education and backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, remain underemployed compared to the broader population.’

Addressing the STEM paradox and building better sales teams

I want to suggest that one way to address both the STEM paradox and crafting and generating better sales teams is to bring in more engineers, technicians, mathematicians and scientists into our sales teams.

I have found with the vast majority of technical people I have met in my life (and that’s a lot) that they love solving problems and being useful. However, many of them were not taught how to be ‘user friendly’. They confused telling with helping which often alienated people so we have been training and coaching them in how to make effective contact with people and understand where they are coming from before they fix anything, and it’s working very well. What we have done is equip them with a whole new skill set that complements their technical assets.

Solution Selling as a team sport that pays big dividends

Get these techies, geeks and nerds working with account managers and BDMs as key members of client facing teams and then the magic really begins to unfold.  One of our key clients in the mining and construction space has ensured that all their client facing people –sales leaders, account managers, technical managers, customer service representatives and technical site supervisors– have all been included in the roll out of their sales strategy and go-to-market action plan; instructed in their sales process map and levels of accountability, and then trained and coached over 10 months to take their value proposition to market.  This has resulted in a range of positive outcomes for the team/business including being the only division in the world that is ahead of budget and making profitable sales in a declining market and having a tight, unified team that knows how to sell real value and find and win profitable business opportunities when everyone else is dropping prices out of desperation. This team knows that harnessing its depth of technical knowledge and industry experience combined with skillful sales/key account planning and solution selling capabilities are their secret weapons in the race to win share of mind and profitable business with their customers.

So here is a whole new career path for the engineers, technicians, mathematicians and scientists and whole new recruitment pool for employers and sales leaders.

I would take advantage of this if I were you. With the barrier between customers and the rest of the organisation disappearing, more technical people are finding themselves engaging with customers directly. Whether in direct selling roles, technical support roles, on-site technical roles, let’s engage with more of our technical colleagues and give them the gift of good selling skills and resources.

The post Engineers & Scientists Would Make The Best Salespeople appeared first on Head Of Sales.

There are millions of reasons that salespeople fail, and there are even more ideas about how to help them improve and succeed. But the primary reason that salespeople fail is something that is irreparable; it is something for which there is no available remedy that can be administered. Training won’t help. Neither will mentoring or coaching.

Here are five telltale signs that indicate that a person is really an order-taker and not a salesperson.

1. You Don’t Do Any Prospecting

The first sign that you are an order-taker is a serious lack of prospecting activity. Order-takers don’t embrace the fact that the value that they create for their organization and their clients begins with opening the relationships that open opportunities.

Order-takers talk a good game. They know someone at such-and-such company. They met someone at a party; it’s sure to work out as a deal. Someone’s brother works as a supplier to the big dream client. It sounds too good to be true—because it isn’t true.

Order-takers avoid prospecting like the plague. They buy the hype that there are easier ways to build a pipeline because they desperately need to believe it. It means they can keep the lie that they are really a salesperson and that they can succeed without prospecting.

2. You Love and Embrace the RFP Process

Real salespeople struggle with the RFP process. In an attempt to create a level playing field (something that salespeople know isn’t likely to benefit either them or their clients), the RFP process eliminates the salesperson’s ability to create the value that they create for their dream clients.

Order-takers love the RFP process. They feel like a real opportunities, and they provides a lot of work that makes the order-taker look and feel busy. But instead of prospecting and creating real opportunities, these so-called opportunities find their way to the order-takers desk, allowing them to avoid prospecting.

3. You Try Desperately To Take Credit for Other People’s Work

Because they have too few real prospects in their own pipeline, order-takers try to insert themselves into other deals. They work on clients who are already being pursued by inside sales or by their operations team members.

These opportunities don’t need their attention, and in some cases their involvement only makes things worse. But their involvement gives them something to talk about and something to put on their sales reports.

Order-takers want to make a contribution. They just don’t want to do the real and difficult work that is sales.

4. You Are Great In Front of Clients and Can’t Wait to Present

Order-takers believe that they are great in front of prospective clients. They believe that because they are personally likable, that this translates to effectiveness in and of itself. It doesn’t.

Order-takers aren’t tremendous value-creators because they don’t have enough appointments to get better at making sales calls. They don’t have the business acumen to really diagnose their dream client’s needs, and they don’t follow an effective sales process.

When an order-taker is fortunate enough to find themselves face-to-face with prospective clients, they present. They believe that by telling their prospective client what their company does, they can make an effective and compelling case. They can’t. It doesn’t work.

5. You Work On Renewing Existing Client Accounts

Existing clients will need to have their contracts renewed. And there is no reason to win an account if you aren’t going to do everything in your power to work on increasing and improving your wallet share and retaining the client.

But sales is about the acquisition of new clients, not just the maintenance and renewal of existing clients.

Order-takers make way too much of renewals, pretending to themselves and to everyone else that renewals are time-consuming and complicated affairs that need their direct attention.

These are all telltale signs that the person in question is an order-taker—not a salesperson. Salespeople don’t wait for deals to walk themselves in; they go out and make it rain.

Conclusion

The primary reason that salespeople fail is because they aren’t really salespeople. These people have job titles that suggest that they are in sales, and they work in the sales department of an organisation. They even report to a sales manager. But even though all of these things are true, they are salespeople in name only.

The reasons this group of people who we call salespeople fail in their role as salespeople is that they have never embraced selling. They don’t embrace selling, and they don’t see themselves as professional salespeople.

They are uncomfortable prospecting because they don’t believe in what they are doing. They suffer call reluctance because they don’t feel strongly enough about what they are doing; they don’t feel right asking for an appointment.

They are uncomfortable asking for and obtaining commitments, and they reject using any commitment-obtaining language.

Occasionally, they make some deals because they are good, hard working people. But because they never embrace sales, they never really succeed. Instead they move from one sales job to another sales job, usually because they want the high rewards that come with success in sales, rewards they never obtain.

The post Five Signs You’re An Order Taker And Not A Salesperson. appeared first on Head Of Sales.

I keep company with sellers… a motley crew of misfits on ‘Promised Land’ island. This article is not about seller’s flagrant bedside manner, it’s instead about whether they should work for a particular tech company or not. Pay close attention.

If the product doesn’t fit the market, you MUST quit. You cannot pivot your way into serving a marketplace where there is zero demand. It’s vaporware! 

So many sellers are A-team players working for C-grade companies. Lured with promises but inevitably they end up like the guy in the main image above… prayer or despair? If you’re selling ‘file sharing’, get out because it’s commoditised and crowded. If what you’re selling is a ‘nice to have’ and you know in your gut that there is no compelling business case for your buyer to change state, also get out! I doesn’t matter if you only have 4 months on your CV in your current role…

If the product/market fit isn’t legit, you must quit. Sounds a bit like Johnny Cochran (RIP) I know:”If the glove doesn’t fit, you must equit” 

I’m not placating you or blowing smoky platitudes but look, who are you fooling… really? Your entrepreneur CEO drank the kool-aid and raised 80MM in 5 rounds and they are still pre-revenue. No one is going to come along and give you a billion dollars to bail out a bad Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Maybe you’re traded on the NASDAQ as a penny stock.

Sellers need absolute clarity and must immediately DO what Lee Bartlett swears by: Survey the market before you jump from the frying pan into the fire. Look before you leap and don’t be a sheep. Sheeple are everywhere!

I had a bizarre conversation with a rep recently who was moaning about a SaaS company where nobody hit their target. He ended up jumping ship to another company where I already knew there was a bad product/market fit and wait for it… nobody hit their comp plan OTE (on target earnings) there either! The poor soul. Months of agony only to double-down on a previous mistake.

So how do you prevent disaster? What’s wild is that I’m not recommending something that’s easy to do. So many start-up companies are smoke and mirrors and promising top reps the world to save the revenue line, bail them out of jail, or create a Christmas miracle.

Too many ‘career management pseudo sales leader’ proffer up apples, carrots and sticks of 50/50 splits on comp plans where the sales cycles are elongating, Average Selling Price (ASP) is reducing and fuelling the malaise. Low morale and attrition are like an infectious disease, sinking in like for the failed Presidential campaign on inauguration night when they don’t get to release their balloons and fireworks.

Before you make any career move, you’ve gotta back-channel. You’ve gotta find reps that were at the company and get them to confess. Get them on the phone or if they’re in town, get them to lunch. They may have a ‘mutual non-disparage’ clause in play so they can’t ‘legally’ {pretty hard to enforce} tell you just how demoralising it was working at Mega Evil Virtual Corp!

This is where Glassdoor is your best friend. If Glassdoor says: “Management is asleep at the switch with bats in the belfry and blow-torching the staff while cackling like Lord Voldemort,” you probably want to give it credence. Especially if there are multiple candid comments like this. Run for the hills!

If Glassdoor is squeaky clean, still don’t trust it. Go the extra mile and verify. Get on the horn and get at least a few former Account Executives or VPs of Sales to come clean about what really went down there. Why have they churned 3 CROs in under a year? Why has the entire sales team turned over in 2 years? Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to look at the total employees and sort it by “past employees” and do some back of the envelope math to look for anomalies. 

You’ve gotta then find the top rep who won President’s Club and then left the company. Did they get equity? Was the company acquired? Was comp in line with performance? Why did they leave? Is the product disruptive enough and early enough to fit a market where you can make a bonafide killing? 

Now here’s the kicker and why Lee Bartlett is TOP GUN: Go call their biggest customers and find out how well that company serves them. Are they past customers that churned? What was it really like working with the sellers and and fulfillment team? A totally honest, open and constructive question. It’s still a free country. (Or, so I hope you’re reading from one!)

I think it’s gutsy to employ the above tactics. It’s also not for the lazy, faint of heart Caspar Milquetoast. Lazy is to put on your happy ears while the HR team, recruiters, and sellers all seduce you into Lord of the Flies meets Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, seller euthanisation machine. Oh, and it’s cloud based and SaaS!

Don’t listen to the Lost Boys and think you can actually thrive in Never Never Land without ever growing old. Aka needing commissions to pay for stuff like yeah, that family of yours (alimony), insurance, kid’s education, mortgage. #realtalk

Serious sellers: you can’t go to the “bro” culture company living off base, ping pong and a kegger. You really need to take the OTE seriously and vet it out. Can (or any carbon based bipedal) can actually make the hard dollars you want, as promised? Are only 5% of this company’s best sellers making quota? And was the ramp really 90 days or it more like 18-24 months? How often is the comp plan changed? Have they moved from Services to SaaS lately? Are they pivoting with you rotating on the spit of “move fast, break things” like perhaps the shattered dreams of fallen sellers everywhere?

I recently heard a recruiter say flippantly, “Well, the max we’ll pay is $15,000 less than the competition but we need people that ‘get Enterprise selling’ and can do seven-figure engagements to Fortune 1,000 C-levels on an 18-month sales cycle. Oh, and bring your Rolodex of CXOs.” Translation: “Would you like to openly break your non-compete while taking a pay cut for 18 months so that you can get a measly 9% on a pilot deal from a whale you reel in nearly two years from now?” That’s completely insane if you ask me. Get ready to live off frozen dinners and like you have no wife, kids or dreams to support!

Everybody should read Lee Bartlett’s book “The No.1 Best Seller” as he’s the first person I’ve ever seen talk sense about this. Before Lee, no one in world history told the truth. Apparently, his Editor pruned the book because it was so hardcore REAL about what’s actually going on in these high-tech companies. He lowered the veil and opened the kimono and the censors stepped in. I desperately hope this is not the case with my new book, COMBO Prospecting, as it goes through the editing process with AMACOM.

Better margins led to the avaricious marginalisation of frontline sellers, moving more profits to the C-suite at all costs. Costs were cut even further by employing interns or recent college grads in a revolving door of BDRs to SDRs masquerading as “path of advancement.” Your CEO shouldn’t be getting paid $600,000 a year if the company is in $30M of debt and raised a $40M round just to keep the lights on. Oh yeah, and that’s all just so they’ll get acquired. “It’s a lifestyle business, Goose!”

You don’t want to get kicked out the door and be writing a $25,000 clawback check. Trust me on this! 

Quit while you’re ahead. Be that quitter. Recruiters will respect you. Bounce now and do your due diligence on where you’re going. Be ready to take a haircut on your base salary if all the top reps are clearing $300,000 per year. That’s okay, you can easily go from the gutter of flight school to the stars of TOP GUN by doing homework and contacting all these people. Take the risk; get in the Mig for the 5G role.

Put down those cigarettes and get on a treadmill. Selling for flash-in-the-pan start-up companies is as addictive as street drugs like K2, aka “The Spice!”

And make sure the Equity is real. Get $25-50K in equity that has a realistic vesting schedule! Every sales commission plan favors the company. They keep shifting gratification into allowing Procurement’s pilot and POC so more and more revenue comes in on renewals (for deals you brought in), where Client Services people are paid a lower percentage. They’re allowing customers to PILOT because ‘The Man’ is making it on the back end. It’s Black Jack and the house is winning baby! 

I saw a seller get a $1.2M quota moved to a $4M group target. The company has only ever done one 7 figure deal. This is sheer lunacy!

If the product doesn’t fit, you must quit! Repeat after me.

I hope you have a technical family member or best friend who can just look at the open source code and tell you it’s a dog. Lee Bartlett’s book is loaded with cautionary tales from the crypt the Vulture Capitalists on Sand Hill Road who don’t want you to read this… and he nails the global ethos precisely, even from the UK, with eloquent glass-shattering Brexit fervor! – “The game is rigged, Mav.”

Much of happiness in life, or not, comes from who you marry. Oh yeah, marrying a n’ere-do-well company can be even worse! I feel bad for all the frontline sellers at Enron and rest my case.

Elon Musk gets it! We need to be building nanotech to cure cancer and figuring out how to colonise Mars as we burn this planet to a crisp. Let’s not build or seek to sell more photo sharing apps that will disappear. Let’s get serious people. Stay out of the “sexy” verticals and go SELL something of REAL VALUE. Do it consultatively with something that actually revolutionises the revenue and efficiency of real CUSTOMERS. Or get out – yes you! 

What have been your horror stories and real world drama experiences with all of this? Help your fellow sellers avert career suicidal disaster and perhaps for the good of future humanity! Marlon Brando summed up the future state of Global Sales Compensation in Apocalypse Now: “The Horror!”

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“Their business model was destroyed by digital photography”

Human beings, by and large, are notorious for staying with what is familiar to them and not wanting to ‘rock the boat’, instead chasing the familiar quick fix, the easy option, that which feels safe and comfortable.

‘Why not get as much out of today as I can and to hell with the future’. Boom and bust mentality.

‘We’ve always done it this way, no need to change’. Staying in our comfort zone mentality.

‘If it’s not broken, why fix it?’ Not keeping an open mind to new innovations, ideas, challenges, etc.

Sound familiar?

Well, this approach didn’t go well for Kodak.

Their business model was destroyed by digital photography and the irony is they invented the digital camera in 1975. Why? One of the reasons was Kodak’s senior management were stuck in time and were myopic. As the Wall Street Journal reported, “They never fully grasped how the world around them was changing. They hung on to now obsolete assumptions about who took pictures, why and when. Kodak always thought that people would never part with hard prints and that people valued film-based photos for their high quality. In other words, they saw digital as a direct substitute for film based photography.”

In 2013, hundreds of thousands of people lost their livelihoods and with that went over 125 years of history – most of which was defined by amazing innovations and many memorable ‘Kodak moments’ for people and families all over the world. What a waste of opportunity, talent and fortune.

By not stepping back and looking at our businesses from all angles, challenging preconceived ideas and exploring what’s possible and how our markets, clients, society and environment are changing on a regular basis, we are putting ourselves and our companies at risk of creating our own Kodak moments. With obsolescence the only option.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

A Selling Better Case Study

It’s with this backdrop that I want to share with you a case study about a very large, by Australian standards at least, publicly listed company that was staring into the abyss of rapidly declining sales and share price, unhappy customers and a business and operations model that was just not working as it was supposed to.

There had been several attempts to ‘right the ship’ by a previous leader; however, these attempts were more decorative in their approach and did not invoke the fundamental changes required for the necessary changes in the marketplace or create the right business and sales strategy, the value proposition, the offer, the sales force structure, sales operational framework and so on.

In late 2017 I met with the newly appointed leader of this business. He had been with the business for some time but in finance, not sales and he knew things weren’t right. He was looking for options and a better way forward that would secure the business for the future. But where to start, what to do?  

I listened to him for 90 minutes as he explained his dilemma, priorities, goals and objectives. I asked questions in order to stake out the various concerns of his – from business and sales strategy, sales team structure, market segments, ideal clients, backend operations, culture, and trends.

There was a lot to consider and it wasn’t going to be a quick fix. We agreed that we needed to rethink the whole way this business went to market and how it operated. We agreed that he needed to get everyone on board, not just the sales team, if the business had any hope of resetting itself as the business could and moving forward successfully. 

Begin with the end in mind

So we looked forward to the future and imagined what an ideal state would look like:

• Implementation and execution of effective sales strategies that delivered real value and sustainable competitive advantage;
• A business culture and reputation built on trust, engagement, commitment and high performance with all employees, clients and suppliers; and
• A sales system that develops sales mastery, and minimises sales execution risk and operational risk to deliver consistent and sustainable revenue and growth
• Leading to happy, engaged and satisfied staff, customers and suppliers
• A partner of choice

This was a change management programme beyond the traditional sales training formula.

We acknowledged that this was a company-wide initiative that would pivot the business into a new and better direction. So we needed buy-in from the start. We knew that this would cause disruption, change and potentially put some people’s noses out of joint but everyone was invited to participate and have their say.

There was no turning back, this was necessary in order to avoid the Kodak Moment of failure.

Clarity, Communication and Consistency are key to building Trust, Commitment and Results  

Here are some of the steps we took:

1. A sales strategy & operations audit to benchmark all the elements affecting sales and service, customer engagement and results: this was, in short, a major risk assessment. People from all areas of the business were asked to participate in the audit and then, using the results, the executive leadership team unpacked every area and developed a go-to-market strategy that would deliver a compelling value proposition (and real value) to the company and their clients alike. A detailed action plan was designed that addressed many areas of the business and what it had to do in order to deliver on its promise to clients and shareholders. This created Clarity – clarity of purpose, expectations, direction, areas of accountability and a long term plan of strategic intent.
2. Change Management Plan: this included branding the new project, creating a project team, mapping and building out sales processes (how we sell around here) and tools and resources, refined market segmentation and localised go-to-market action plans, a learning and development plan including delivering the right content to the sales team, sales leaders and broader business about ‘how we sell around here’, communication plan so that everyone across the business knew what was happening, when, and why. This delivered Consistency in terms of standards and execution and Communication by keeping everyone involved and interested in how they were making a difference.

The work is still continuing and there are more people to engage directly across the business but results are very promising.

With clarity of purpose and direction underpinned by a stable sales operating framework the business has achieved a number of things:

• Quick profitable wins: By resetting the sales team structure, resetting the strategy and up skilling the sales team have been able to identify and engage with the right kinds of businesses which have already started to deliver over $200M per annum of new revenue from new clients within 2 months of launch plus all the repeat business they are now able to retain more easily.
• Ditch unprofitable clients: Upon examination senior management made the decision to let go of a very large client who was not profitable, took up too many resources and was very difficult to work with; this was a brave move; however, it freed up an enormous amount of working capital and time which could be redirected immediately to more profitable business. The shortfall of immediate revenue loss has been quickly made up by winning over better quality clients.
• Long term view: As I mentioned, it’s not been easy but with the leaders determined to deliver their over-arching strategy based on sound logic and business economics, the business has been able to weather the storm of short-termism by news outlets and shareholders and stay the course for positive change.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

The post Case Study: Sales Transformation At Kodak appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Why are some individuals and some organisations unbelievably successful, as if, everything they touch turns to gold, compared to others in the same industry, where nothing seems to work? Is it the products and services they sell, or how they sell them? Is it the individuals within the business that make the difference or is it something else? In looking at successful sales teams, successful businesses and even successful sporting teams, there is a common thread that runs through each and every one of them that consistently and sustainably delivers outstanding results – and that is a great culture.

Show me any company that has delivered long term results and I will show you a great culture. Sure, there are sometimes exceptions to the rule, where companies may experience a high level of success, however, this success in the vast majority of cases is short lived. And in these organisations, it is often the people who pay the price, with attrition and turnover being the result. When this happens, this result is often a drop in sales and revenue, and the cycle continues.

What these organisations overlook is the critical importance of culture within their business because for a lot of people, ‘culture’ is often a soft target, something that doesn’t deliver the end result. Actually, the opposite is true. In fact, from a sales perspective, a great sales culture is everything. Not only will you see great results being delivered on a consistent basis, you will also see that the engagement of the team is high, the turnover or attrition rate of the team is low, and the overall energy of the team is exceptional.

Teams like this become a destination that others want to be a part of. Yes, these teams have a robust sales process and methodology they follow, and unlike other organisations, this process and methodology does not change drastically over time. It is consistent. Why? Because these organisations understand that it is their sales culture that drives the organisation. They understand that a great sales culture is everything. When studying these organisations, there are a number of components that make up a great sales culture. Here are 5 critical elements that every great sales culture has. Does your team have these?

1. Crystal Clear Vision & Purpose – many organisations and definitely many leaders, pay lip service to this element, to their detriment. Every great sales culture has a crystal clear vision and purpose. They know why they are doing what they are doing and why it matters. These organisations invest time in developing their environment and bringing every member of the team together, aligned to a common objective. And this vision and purpose is bigger than any individual. When it comes to bringing on new members to the team, the vision and purpose is one of the big filters that the leader utilises to select new talent. If the individual aligns to the vision, there is a match. If they don’t, the process ends there. For your team, what is your vision and purpose? Get really clear on this – it is the foundation of a great sales culture.
2. Excellent Positive Attitude – in great sales cultures, the leader and each member of the team maintain an excellent and positive attitude. They understand that attitude drives mindset, which drives behaviour, and therefore results. As Zig Ziglar said “Attitude determines altitude”. The glass is always half full, the team are constantly looking at the positive side of every situation, and understand that the world is filled with opportunities and possibilities. Now the key here is that these teams do not live in ‘Fairyland’ where everything is rainbows and unicorns. They still face challenges and obstacles. The difference is they are better placed to handle these challenges because they possess an excellent attitude and are crystal clear on why they are doing what they are doing. How would you describe your attitude and the attitude of your team?
3. Clear Standards Of Behaviour – all great sales cultures establish and then implement outstanding standards of behaviour, which become uncompromising and non-negotiable. And these standards are founded in excellence. Some typical examples of standards include returning customer phone calls within 24 hours, being early for meetings, treating key stakeholders with high levels of respect, maintaining engaging eye contact when communicating face to face, just to name a few. All of these standards must be sustainable, replicable and non-negotiable, and executed consistently, irrespective of whether the leader is there or not. And these standards deliver consistency for clients and build trust and credibility quickly. When you look at your sales team, what clear and consistent standards do you have in place?
4. Clear Daily & Weekly Activities & Metrics – many organisations and teams focus all of their attention on the end result. It is all about the numbers. Now, understand that the end result is important and successful people will always begin with the end in mind – they know what their goals and objectives are. However, great sales cultures focus their attention on the daily & weekly core activities, more than on the result. They understand that a daily focus on what needs to be done each day and each week, will lead to the end result, if done correctly. Achieving success is a process, a journey. Daily and weekly monitoring of progress enables the leader to alter direction as required, knowing that the end result will still be the same, it just may mean that there is a different path that will lead there. In great sales cultures, if the right things are done well, the end result will take care of itself. As a sales leader, are you focused on the end result or on the core daily and weekly activities? Focus more on the daily and weekly activities than the result.
5. Ongoing Training, Coaching & Mentoring – within all great sales cultures exists an uncompromising focus on training, coaching and mentoring, and with that, a high level of accountability. To stay ahead of the game, it is critical that not only sales leaders but sales people constantly update their skill set and knowledge. This is a priority. When other organisations reduce spending on training and development, especially when sales and revenue are plateauing or dropping, great sales cultures ramp up their focus and investment in training and they make it a priority. This is what separates them from the competition. Sales leaders make coaching and development of their people a non-negotiable part of their daily activity, and through this, they develop an exceptionally high level of accountability. As a sales leader, where does coaching, training and mentoring sit on your level of priorities?

There is a specific difference between teams and organisations which achieve sustainable & consistent success, and those that achieve hit and miss results. And this difference is the sales culture that is developed, cultivated and maintained. Yes, sales strategy is important, however, it pales into insignificance compared to the importance of sales culture. So as a sales leader, focus on developing a strong and vibrant sales culture and brace yourself for levels of success that will blow your mind!!

To your continued sales leadership success.

The post Why a Great Sales Culture Is Everything appeared first on Head Of Sales.