Without meaning to, my friend Jeb Blount created quite a clamour on LinkedIn. The poll he posted asked which medium to use first in a prospecting sequence: phone, email, social media, or an in-person visit. He argued (and I agree) that the phone should start your sequence. The reason is simple and straightforward: if the person who answers your call agrees to a meeting, you no longer need a sequence.

The comments on Jeb’s poll were both revealing and incredibly disappointing. Cold calling has consistently been a lightning rod on social media, with a few salespeople advocating for an “all of the above” approach, including the telephone. But I want to set aside that debate for a few minutes, because the comments highlighted a much larger potential threat: fear of sales.

The Mass Infection of Fear

One vocal opponent of cold calling, an entrepreneur, commented on Jeb’s thread that his approach was to buy ads on Facebook, providing a link that a prospective client might click on. Only after the prospect clicked the link did this person believe he could reach out them. The problems with this approach would overflow a week’s worth of posts, so in the interests of time I’ll just note a couple. First, one-to-many messaging is marketing, not sales. Second, no individual salesperson has a Facebook pixel and a budget to run ads. Relying on Facebook ads may be the right choice for entrepreneurs but its awful advice for a salesperson. What’s underneath that advice, however, is worse: the entrepreneur was too afraid to call his prospective clients.

Other comments suggested that one must warm up the prospective client by sending them an email, claiming that it is important for the client to see your name on an email before they get your call. To be honest, I’m having trouble following that logic. How exactly does getting a cold email create the desire to speak to the person who sent it? Unless you spend your day starting at your phone, hoping against hope that the people who just spammed you will call you to spam you again, then you cannot possibly believe that an email makes it safer to dial a prospect’s number. And there’s the rub: when email-first salespeople talk about safety, they broadcast the same fear of calling a stranger. An odd thing, that, given that every good thing that ever happens to you in sales is the result of meeting a stranger.

Finally, one person suggested that the best way to start a prospecting sequence is with a warm referral. His response gave a very long explanation of how to respond to an introduction over email or on LinkedIn, again emphasizing the asynchronous communication tools that so many salespeople hide behind. The same people who are afraid of calling a stranger are also reluctant to call up their clients and ask for a referral. They worry about imposing on their client, so they avoid asking for the referral in a real conversation and instead defer it to email.

With all this fear floating around, here’s a reminder: no salesperson has ever been scarred for life by making a cold call, although many have experienced incredibly negative consequences because they didn’t create enough opportunities.

The Long-term Harm of Fearing Your Clients

There are deleterious effects of teaching salespeople to fear their prospective clients. If a ten-minute phone conversation is so dangerous, then I can only imagine how much the salesperson should fear advising the client on what they need to do to improve their results. And just imagine those poor salespeople working on big deals, with multi-year, multi-million dollar payoffs, the kind that require the salesperson to negotiate with the client, or worse, their purchasing department. Terrifying, I tell you. Just terrifying.

This fear-based approach goes hand in hand with the idea that marketing is responsible for creating sales opportunities and that sales appointments should be handled by crude robots. Conflict aversion is harmful to the development of a salesperson, simply because embracing conflict is the only way to make a positive difference for your clients. No one is ever going to find a compliant, conflict-averse, namby-pamby, order-taker to be consultative, nor will they ever find them to be a trusted advisor.

What makes one a trusted advisor is their willingness to tell the truth at any price, even the price of the deal. The need to be liked is not the same as being likable. The first is detrimental, the other is an advantage. But the advantage of being likable is not available to one who fears their client, especially when it prevents them from having the necessary conversations around change.

A New Hope

In my view, the new hope is the SDR. While salespeople in this category are rarely deployed as effectively as they should be, at least they aren’t being infected with the result-crushing belief that they should fear making a phone call: cold, hot, or indifferent. Their willingness to keep making cold calls will help them develop crucial character traits for sales effectiveness: comfort with conflict, understanding how to trade value for time, unafraid of proposing next steps, able to handle objections, and unaffected by what others would call rejection.

For a long time now, I have been telling sales leaders to prioritize the development of their sales force. Those who take this advice are doing well. Those who don’t often arrest their salespeople’s development, whether it’s by giving into fear or falling for other get-out-of-work-free promises by faux-experts—few of which even consider the long-term effects of their decisions or recommendations.

Do Good Work:

• Look for advice that serves your results.
• Avoid people who would infect you with their fears.
• Never be afraid of calling anyone when you believe you may be able to help them—even if they reject or ignore you.

The post The Fear And Generational Shift Against Cold Calling appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Sales Directors, are you often at loggerheads with your marketing counterparts, being questioned about leads, MQLs, SQLs? Do you wish the conversation would shift to marketing helping you generate pipeline and revenue? If so, Account Based Marketing (ABM) could change your life – but a word of warning – it is not suitable for every organisation.

We are seeing ABM playing a strategic role in delivering growth and innovation here in Australia, but it requires close cooperation of business, sales and marketing leadership. Why? The overall business strategy forms the North Star for any future ABM programs.

This article aims to help you gain a basic understanding of “if” and “how” you and your Sales teams can benefit from ABM.

Sales Directors – how to help your marketers help YOU?

Account Based Marketing is a slightly outdated name for what we now see more accurately described as ABE “Account Based Engagement”.  What’s the difference between ABM/ABE and the traditional B2B marketing approach?

• Traditional B2B is about reaching your total addressable market and generating individual “leads”.
  
• ABM focuses time and resources on a handful accounts with high revenue potential – consistently developing and nurturing relationships with multiple stakeholders across the account – over time. ABM/ABE is about achieving the “Collective yes”.
  

Another major difference lies in the approach: ABM is NOT something marketing “does to sales”. ABM is all about close Sales and Marketing collaboration throughout the process. This is often the biggest hurdle to remove when starting with ABM, as the two organisations sometimes tend to operate in siloes.

ABM enables modern B2B marketers to play a strategic role in delivering revenue growth and innovation but demands a lot more of them – to be successful, marketers need to understand not just the value proposition, but also your sales cycles, processes, points of entry, barriers, and more. This is a great opportunity for Sales to open channels of communications, mentor your marketers and bring them into the fold – believe me, they will enjoy being part of the Pipeline and Revenue generating gang! What can you do to help?  Firstly, start including your marketers in your Account planning, QBRs, some forecast calls, and wherever possible – have them present during conversations with customers and prospects.

Understanding each other’s challenges will make it much easier to align your KPIs and to collaborate. 

ABM – what it is, what it is not

While there are a few interpretations of ABM, the main objective is very clear: Generate revenue & increase footprint in Target Enterprise Accounts, by growing relationships, reputation & trust. After practicing ABM for 7 years here in Australia and New Zealand, my short definition of ABM is as follows:

“Account Based Marketing helps companies that sell complex solutions into Large Enterprise space focus their time & resources on developing relationships & trust in accounts that matter most.”

ABM harnesses deep account and contact insights to design tailored value proposition, treating each account (or an Account cluster) as market of one.

It is a LONG term, coordinated account centric approach to marketing and sales.

As ABM-ers, we are:
1. Focusing on few significant accounts that best resemble our “Ideal Customer Profile”.

2. Enabling Sales to engage, develop relationships and influence the entire decision-making committee.
“Lead” is a dirty word.  In ABM – we are focusing on ALL decisionmakers and influencers in the decision-making committee. Why? The inability to build consensus within the buying committee is likely to be a major obstacle to closing complex deals.

3. Tailoring marketing initiatives around client insights and their strategic objectives.This requires a deep research at an Account and Contact level – what are the strategic goals our solution can help solve at an account and individual level? What are the contacts’ KPIs, drivers and personal preferences? How can we incorporate those in our sales reach out, so that they resonate with the recipient well enough for them to let us build a strong relationship?

4. Marketing & Sales collaborate closely throughout the sales cycle to increase deal velocity and size and the Life-time value of the account. ABM is a team sport, and success is largely dependent on the quality of intel exchange and collaboration and ability to orchestrate initiatives based on the Target Account current needs.

Is ABM a good fit for your organisation?

It is proven that ABM can deliver substantial ROI by building trust, relationships, and reputation in high value accounts. But is it the silver bullet that will work for everyone?

The answer is no – ABM is certainly not a good fit for every organisation. Why? For ABM to deliver ROI, certain criteria must be met:

1.  You are selling complex solutions to Enterprise accounts (high value accounts)
2. Your sales cycles tend to be long and you are engaging and influencing multiple stakeholders (decision making committee).
3. Your deal size (or potential revenue) is large (in ANZ, typically 500k+) to justify the investment.

If your sales approach is largely transactional and you do not see a need to develop strong, long-term relationships in the organisations you are selling into, ABM is most likely not the right fit for you. In fact, using ABM in a transactional sales environment is a waste of time, effort, and resources.

Measuring success – how do we know it is working?

Since Marketing and Sales KPIs are aligned at the start of the ABM process, it is incredibly easy to measure success. As the picture below illustrates, we track the number of total opportunities, pipeline and revenue generated from ABM target accounts.

As you know, working with large Enterprise accounts with long term sales cycles (for example: a software platform solution for FSI vertical, with deal value between $3 and 15 million, with average sales cycle of 20 months), results will not appear overnight. We recommend setting up also interim KPIs related to improving relationships with key decision makers. You can measure increase in engagement, quality of relationships, penetration into new BUs etc.  

3 key takeaways:

1. Your overall business strategy is the North star of your ABM – if ABM is the right fit for your organisation, it provides a substantial opportunity to deliver revenue from high value accounts.
2. Marketing and Sales collaboration is crucial to the success of ABM.
3. Forget “leads”, revenue is the result of strong relationships and trust. ABM enables Sales to effectively engage and develop relationships with key stakeholders across the entire decision-making committee.

Hopefully this article has brought some clarity and basic understanding of ABM and whether you and your teams can benefit from it. ABM is a long term, coordinated account centric approach to marketing and sales, not a tactic, campaign or a sales method.

The post ABM – The Zero Waste Strategy For Revenue Growth appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Most salespeople would be engaging with Josh and concentrating on how to get to Sarah.

They may just call around Josh or even ask Josh to include Sarah in the meeting. Basically, their emphasis and focus is on connecting with Sarah.

This way of thinking will lose sales.

Essentially, the person your salespeople are actively engaging with is the first decision maker. This is the juncture where most salespeople fall short. They don’t accept this first contact person as a decision maker at all. In fact, ‘ole school’ will tell you to get around this person, go above this person – do all to get to the ‘real’ decision maker.

Josh is aware of their intent by their body language and tone, and probably earlier in the relationship they may even have asked ‘who is the decision maker’ (implying ‘it doesn’t sound like it’s you’). And therein lies their error. The salesperson doesn’t get the business. Even their boss says ‘it’s because you didn’t get to the decision maker’ reinforcing that was the sole person to focus on.

By accepting that Josh has been assigned to find a supplier, we need to recognise Josh as the decision maker, because, he actually is. We refer to him as a KPI – Key Person of Influence – and at this point we respect that he is making the decision, realising that it is his judgement that will determine what final proposals will be put forward.

Sales Proficiency: All done in conjunction with being the absolute professional which means doing the following:

Due Diligence

Combing the client website and Li for all that the company is posting about: what’s their philosophy and mission, what interests Sarah (noting her profile, her posts).  We might see she values ‘integrity’, as it’s scattered across much of her posts and profile. As our company holds and is renowned for the same values – it’s a core mission statement –  you may decide to run a campaign to demonstrate that point. It needs to be genuine, honest and authentic. Not forced or fake.  That means you will post about it and repost your company’s related articles. If you post about something that’s of relevance, you may decide to message and highlight this to Sarah– assuming you are at a relationship point where that’s acceptable.  ‘Hi Sarah, today I posted about the top 3 things to look out for when training your team on xyz, I hope it brings you value (happy to share the link or email you the fuller article)’,

Reach out to shared contacts, is there anyone else respectful that we know who works in the same company. Could we engage with them? They may be able to relay a good word (to both Josh and Sarah).

Authority

Being the authority in your field, the subject matter expert – this is a mindset thing – are you standing tall and confident and have certainty (not feeling ‘lesser’ or subservient)?

Preparation

As part of our meeting prep, research and due diligence, being mindful of:

Intent is there to help (not ‘sell at’).

How you turn up: are you early, looking prepared, using the right language?

Listening: great salespeople do less talking and more listening to truly understand.

Questions

Asking the right questions, questions that no other supplier has asked – thereby understanding the client and their situation better than anyone else. Great questions loop onto further insightful, intelligent questions no one has yet asked which leads to a heightened understanding, such that at one point the energy shifts and Josh will lean in and say ‘yes, good point – can you help with that’.

Trusted Advisor

Having earnt that right you can be in a position to guide and educate them on what they need to consider, what other options there are etc.

Transfer

This is when Josh realises you know your onions and he willingly, and because it feels natural now to do so, will introduce you to Sarah

Behind the scenes

Josh will be deciding who is the right supplier, based on many key factors, of which price is rarely one of them. In fact, it often holds the lowest rating. Typically, it’s about looking for someone who is an expert, who will be reliable, that can be trusted, who does what they say they are going to do. It’s important to realise this, as many reps promise something (say, an email or first draft proposal) then are late – which would be giving Josh the impression that they are already falling short in their commitment, and if unable to follow through at this vital point, a time when they should be all over it, creating doubt that things are hardly going to improve once the business is on board.

Summary

The focus of your efforts is about being the authority, being prepared and being professional the whole way through – not just pushing to meet with the ‘person behind’.

Read more about Business Development in our 6 Steps Business Development check list.

The post Are You Selling To The Decision Maker? appeared first on Head Of Sales.

The cynical view is that all too often the decision has already been made and an RFP only serves as a compare and contrast document internally.

Why companies go to market with an RFP are due to a number of reasons. Obviously, government, not for profits and some businesses are required to be seen to run a fair and honest process. Alternatively, they may want to allow for procurement to feel comfort in the decision making or provide an opportunity to gather as much detail as they can in a formal structure. Although it can be deemed as a way to reduce risk, we would argue the opposite.

We have been asked to be involved in twice as many RFP’s this year compared to the whole of the 18 months prior to that. Some we have said no to as we were not allowed any contact with the decision makers and that does not fit well with us. The others we have a mixed bag of results, we have won some and lost some. What I would like to share however, is that time and time again it is highlighted to me is that in our industry (and I am sure in most others) that these are not a smart way for either a company to choose a supplier or for a business to win clients – both sides are not giving themselves the right opportunities for success.

A friend of mine is in advertising and in that industry especially the standard process is a brutal process of pitching for business. Large companies go out to a selection of advertising companies and ask them to ‘pitch’ which involves a huge amount of time, energy and money to be spent for the opportunity to work with this company. These businesses are effectively receiving free creative work at the cost to the advertising business, often into the hundreds of thousands. It can take these agencies a year of working with their new client to recoup their investment and then guess what happens? The company will go out to pitch again!

What a way to start a business relationship, you are on tenterhooks that the client will leave you and you can’t help but be a little bit aggrieved that the power of the relationship sits with the client. To me a good client relationship has to start with an open relationship so that both sides can learn about each other’s values, the way each other works, a consultative approach that allows the company to share with the client a different way of doing things. If you don’t allow a business to guide and push a business into potentially a better way then why call on an expert?

Here are a few reasons why the RFP process is (in my view) flawed in many situations:

1. RFP’s don’t allow for companies to truly understand each other
2. Decisions are often made on the wrong basis such as reducing cost or reducing risk as opposed to adding value,
3. Decisions are made by committee which is most of the time ineffectual
4. No opportunity to build an even relationship, the company answering an RFP usually feels like they have less power
5. When you win an RFP you are often wedded to the proposal, meaning that it is often difficult to make changes as you make discoveries
6. Whenever you properly engage with a supplier there is an opportunity to learn and improve your understanding of their needs which are limited in a formal process
7. Sellers can waste a huge amount of time going into an uneven process

The post 7 Reasons Why The RFP Process is Flawed appeared first on Head Of Sales.

1. Be a market expert

A successful Business Development person knows the playing field of their industry. They understand the ebbs and flows of the market. They know the key players and their respective unique selling points.

Most salespeople know information on their own business, but not necessarily that of the competitors whom they are up against. These are the alternatives that your prospect may be weighing up and comparing you to. When you know the fuller picture, you know what questions you need to ask, you know the types of problems the client may be encountering. You know how those problems can be fixed and which businesses (including yours) can resolve them.

As you ask better questions (and knowledgeable of the pain points and solutions) your value increases and the client see you as an industry expert.

Be and act as thought leader of your field – be seen as the authority

2. Mindset

Success, your opinion of the world and how you operate, all starts in your own head. It starts with how you decide to view the world.

Empowered are those that have decided to adopt the stance of:

‘I choose how I view my situation’,

‘I’m in charge of my thoughts’

‘I don’t let what is happening outside of me affect my mindset’.

Seeing each interaction as a lesson of how you could have made better choices – being able to rise above and think ‘what can I learn from this, what can I improve next time’.

Planning and practising what you could say next time to hard wiring the circuits of your brain and reprogram your mind to choosing a better future response.

Take time to breathe, to slow the mind down. Ditch what may not be serving you, be it alcohol, caffeine, bad choice of foods, recognising and managing any other negative influences. Reframe yourself positively on what you do have and look at the situation through new eyes. Take care of your number one asset – you.

Adopt a position of gratitude, put things into perspective.

3. Be aware of your value

Often, we get caught up in our own product that we don’t see what the implications are for the buyer. To know this, you need to know innately what pain your prospect is experiencing, for how long, what solutions they have tried, what they liked and didn’t like. Be informed about the different solutions available to them and the uniqueness of each.

What do you personally bring to the table? Are you professional, reliable, consistent, helpful? People ‘buy into’ people. They are buying into you to trust what you are selling them. Ensure you are always operating at your best, so they (and indeed your colleagues) see the best version of you.

4. Work smart

Working smart starts with planning days, weeks and months ahead.

“He who fails to plans is planning to fail”. Winston Churchill

Know who to target, when, how much time it will take. Know which prospects and clients will have the biggest positive impact on your bottom line. Prioritise the most profitable clients and focus on how you can engage with and bring them value.

The best Business Development people remove distractions. They know what approach to take and have practiced and refined what questions to ask and what compelling solution(s) they can put forward.

5. Get more business

Do what others will not do.

The client says ‘no’. So what? Learn, be resilient and move on. The world will not stop spinning. Lessons are everywhere. Opportunities are far and wide.

When you are with a potential client, abandon all assumptions and baggage of what they will or will not buy. Be present and focused on them and their situation. The more you understand them, the more you can help them.

Unfortunately, most salespeople are too preoccupied with getting their own message across, without first fully understanding the client. This mistake means the client doesn’t feel heard, isn’t fully understood and all opportunities to serve them are missed.

If you are regimented in your engagement you will be running the meeting your way, missing signals and not putting the client first. Your job is to run every engagement in a meaningful, relevant way – make it about them.

The person with the most behavioural flexibility gets the sale.

6. Take action consistently

Most salespeople are stuck in a reactive mode and not in a proactive mode.
Knowing that when you engage with more people, you will get more business. This means you have to carve off time to focus on giving the more profitable potentials more of your time and energy.

Conclusions

Sales is a profession. To demonstrate to the client that you are professional, trustworthy and a leader in your field, you need to act likewise.

Sales is an intelligent interaction where you are using sophisticated interpersonal skills and communication methods to help a client solve a problem.

The post 6 Steps For Business Development Success appeared first on Head Of Sales.

While I consider you my sisters and brothers, we need to talk. Every day, you fill my inbox and my LinkedIn inbox with notes straight pitching me what you sell. No one wants you to succeed in sales as much as I do, including you, and whomever it was that taught you that pitching over email is your best choice for acquiring new clients or customers.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with pitching under the right circumstances pitching strangers without any context or conversation is extremely poor form. An approach that starts with pitching is what one does when they either don’t know better or when they hold weak beliefs, specifically the idea that everyone is a prospect (everyone is not a prospect).

As far as one can tell, the negative feedback and poor results do nothing to persuade you to change your approach. Please accept my advice in the spirit in which I deliver it, as one who wants you to succeed in sales if that is indeed the path you have chosen.

Selling Is Other-Oriented. You Are Self-Oriented.

When you pitch your product or service by describing what you sell in the first paragraph of your email, you project that your email is about nothing more than you gaining a sale. Your approach has a significant problem that causes most people to tune you out. Your first problem is that you repel people because you appear to be self-oriented.

When the sale you make is about you, it’s about the result that you want for you. You would improve your approach by focusing your conversation about what your client wants and needs, their challenges, their opportunities, and their goals. Acquiring what you want is only possible when you help someone else get what they want, as Zig never tired of reminding us.

You will improve your approach by becoming other-oriented. Instead of focusing on straight pitching people, you might spend the time to understand their world, develop a theory about what they might be struggling with, and develop an approach that speaks to what they might want. You’ll also want to slow down.

Don’t Sell Too Soon.

If what you sell is something people buy all the time, and if there is no serious consequence for making a mistake, by all means, pitch away. Maybe you sell batteries in a convenient store, the example Rackham provided in SPIN Selling. There is no reason not to ask for a sale if there can be no adverse consequences.

When the opposite is true, when your prospect doesn’t make the purchase decision you are going to ask them to make frequently, and when bad choices come with significant consequences, pitching means you are selling too soon.

When you pitch in email or Linkedin, requesting a meeting at the end of the note does nothing to mitigate the fact that your approach is transactional, as are all “spray and pray” approaches to sales. To sell a prospective client, you first have to create an opportunity by prospecting.

If you want a better, modern approach to prospecting, please see Mike Weinberg’s New Sales Simplified, Jeb Blount’s Fanatical Prospecting, Mark Hunter’s High-Profit Prospecting, Tony Hughes’s Combo Prospecting. Also, please read the first three chapters of Eat Their Lunch for a consultative approach for complex B2B sales, especially one that requires you to displace a competitor to win new business. Win customers away from your competition. Check out Eat Their Lunch

And then, there is the question about the value you create.

No Value Creation

B2B selling has changed quite a bit over the last decade. You may have heard advice about “social selling” or “the digital transformation of sales,” or some other overhyped fad that captured salespeople’s attention by promising that the new toolkit would make selling easier.

For all of my criticism of social, no one who believed in “social selling” would recommend you pitch people directly. The first rule of social selling is to do no selling. No one would train or teach you to do what you are doing now.

One of the most substantial changes in sales has been the b2b buyer’s expectations about the value they expect salespeople to create through the process. Your email does nothing to create value for the contacts you spam each day. There are several prerequisites to creating value.

First, you have to possess the business acumen to be able to understand your business, your contact’s business, and the intersection that is how you create value for them. These things are necessary to consultative sales. Second, you need to trade something of value for the time you are asking your contact to give you.

The only thing you need to sell at the start of your relationship with a connection is a meeting. Please watch this video about trading value about the time you are asking your contact to give you.

It is poor form to sell over email in your first communication with a contact. A contact is not a prospect, and you will not create an opportunity before you acquire a meeting. It will be helpful for you to think about this as “sell the meeting,” “sell the process,” and then “sell your solution.” Reversing the order here also reverses the outcome.

Stop Taking Bad Advice About Lead Generation

Almost daily, I receive an email pitch from someone who wants to mine LinkedIn for qualified leads. The people sending these notes mistakenly believe that anyone upright, breathing, with a body temperature in the neighborhood of 98.6 degrees, is a prospect. Why they think people want to spam other people as a way to acquire the new relationships that might result in a new opportunity is baffling. Please stop taking bad advice about lead generation.

B2B salespeople, please do your homework. Read books, take courses, get the training and development you need to succeed in sales. Become someone people want to buy from, not someone that repels people by spamming them over email and LinkedIn.

The post What You Need to Know About Pitching Over Email appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Finding new opportunities and creating them are two different outcomes. Those who struggle to create enough new opportunities often believe that they need to find opportunities when they need to create them, something that requires a different approach.

Finding Opportunities

The idea that one is trying to “find opportunities” starts with the belief that your prospects are already unhappy and that they are open to changing their solutions and their existing partners to improve their results. The belief that your prospective clients are already compelled to change drives your approach.

The primary idea here is to ask questions that will elicit the client’s existing “dissatisfaction.” The question that best describes this approach is the question, “What’s keeping you up at night?” This question is an attempt to fish for some “gap” you can use to start a conversation about your solution. The approach requires that you get your prospect to acknowledge some areas where they need better results.

There are still industries where this approach is valuable. There are also occasions when your contacts are well aware of their problems and are looking for someone to help them improve their results. You should not believe that because more powerful approaches sometimes replace this traditional approach, it isn’t valuable. You need different approaches for different scenarios, and this approach is still available to you when it enables the right sales conversation.

This traditional approach to discovery is about eliciting the client’s existing pain points, or hot buttons, or dissatisfaction. Here, you are trying to find new opportunities.

Creating Opportunities

What do you do when your dream client doesn’t believe they are dissatisfied? How do you find an opportunity when your prospective client doesn’t think they have any reason to explore change and that speaking with a salesperson is a waste of their time? What do you do when your contact doesn’t believe there is a gap?

The world we now find ourselves in is very different from ten years ago, let alone the forty years that have passed since some of the processes and methodologies we use to sell effectively were observed and documented. Evolution tends to transcend what exists while including what is still useful, which is true about b2b sales approaches. When change is more difficult and more disruptive, when it requires more time and consensus, and when the risks are greater, you will not be likely to find opportunities. Instead, you must create them.

The realities of business now require access to a different approach, one that allows you to have a conversation about change. It opens up the possibility of exploring change and creating an opportunity. You do this by helping your clients understand why they might need to change, by showing them the future implications of their status quo and illuminating their future potential. Asking the client what they believe their existing partner might do better falls flat when the change is going to require time and energy and consensus and risk. Your contacts aren’t likely looking for disruption in their business without an upside worth the effort of change.

To create new opportunities, you have to provide your clients with a higher resolution lens through which to see their business, assisting them in making decisions about the future of their business. Without the ability to show your clients why they should be compelled to change, you lack an approach that serves your client—and one that would allow you to create a new opportunity.

How to Stop Falling Behind

One of the reasons you fall behind in creating new opportunities is that you have fallen behind by not updating your sales methodologies, processes, and approach.

The new role of sales is built on creating compelling, differentiated value throughout the sales conversation, which serves the client and causes them to prefer the person who helps them understand their world, the decisions they need to make, and how best to make those decisions. The new role of sales is to provide insight and a higher resolution lens that provides a new vision of their business, potential, and future.

The ideas here are necessary for creating opportunities. When your approach to new opportunities starts with the idea that your clients are already aware of their problems and all they need to do is get them to admit their “pain,” you will limit the number and quality of your opportunities. When you use an approach that allows you to shape your client’s thinking and their view of their challenges in light of all the internal and external factors they haven’t considered, you open the possibility of creating opportunities, improving your results. This is the only way to succeed in sales.

Not Mutually Exclusive

If you aspire to be a trusted advisor, you will need the advice to accompany the trust. One of the ways to create the trust that your advice is sound is by demonstrating why you are offering the advice and how you came to that conclusion.

You don’t have to choose between the traditional approach and a modern approach. You do have to recognize when one approach might be better than the other and how to execute the approach that most benefits your client.

The post Why You Need Create Opportunities and Not Just Find Them appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Many so called “experts” claim that there are two types of salespeople – Hunters and Farmers.

Salespeople, so these experts claim, are either one or the other. Consequently they fit one sales position or another. In my experience, having spent decades working with salespeople at every level in a wide variety of segments, salespeople don’t fit into these neat stereotypes.

The myth about Hunters and Farmers in Selling has been overtaken by a business reality.

Before we crack the myth let’s take a look at where the concept came from in the first place.

The person credited with starting the concept of ‘Hunters and Farmers’, which has been adopted by some sales managers and many business leaders, was the American sometime radio talk show host and psychoanalyst, Thom Hartmann. He initially proposed the farmer / hunter metaphor to explain the origins of what we now know, as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD*) to help his own son (who suffered from ADHD) adjust to the condition.

Some of the characteristics that have been defined for people who have ADHD include:

Find it hard to concentrate; makes careless mistakes; does not seem to listen; avoids difficult tasks; becomes easily distracted and are disorganised and forgetful; does not follow through on instructions and can’t finish work.

This (hunter / farmer) theory was extrapolated to those salespeople who are labelled Hunters implying that they have ADHD and anti-selling contradicting characteristics. However, there is no proof to assert that ADHD and Hunters are associated in anyway. This is how myths start. What we do know is that salespeople come in all shapes and sizes and many can be successful given the right conditions.

The term Hunter has become a default term for new business development. It is not uncommon to hear sales managers describe Hunters as hard selling, cold-callers who deal with buyers where benefits are limited to narrowly framed needs. Farmers on the other hand are often viewed as being more “customer-centric”, solutions oriented and able to develop trust. If one listened to the “experts” Hunters are brutish, self-centred and uncaring, and Farmers are gentle focused, sensitive and trustworthy. If that wasn’t bad enough, many recruitment consultants conduct personnel assessments to identify if a candidate is either a Farmer or Hunter.

A popular tool used to assess sales personalities and identify “the right kind of personality for a salesperson” is a ‘personality profile’ assessment known as DiSC**. This assessment comes up with these same conclusions, though it doesn’t make use of the descriptive titles Hunter or Farmer. Usually, these reports are delivered with a bullet-point summary about the characteristics of the person and the kind of work that should be assigned to the individual.

The reports include recommendations for hunters and those candidates who are farmers similar to this:

The candidate is mostly a Hunter and is best suited to:

• Bringing in new business
• Working in new sales territories
• Focusing on prospect conversion
• Sales that require minimal post-sales follow-up
• Tends to sell best when on his / her own
• Comfortable in pushing for a close

The candidate is mostly a Farmer and is best suited to:

• Optimising sales in existing accounts
• Comfortable in identifying additional buyers
• Proactive in building relationships
• Matches product benefits to diverse needs
• Good at solving customer problems Demonstrates attention to detail Meticulous in fulfilling administrative responsibilities

Here is the challenge. If one assumes that Hunters have specific characteristics that Farmers don’t, and vice versa, then:

• Hunters aren’t interested in solving customer problems and farmers aren’t interested in closing deals; yet, in today’s market place, salespeople unable to help buyers solve problems and then offer solutions with some degree of confidence, aren’t likely to succeed.

• Farmers have some unique ability that gives them exposure to senior executives and hunters can’t develop trust that is the foundation of a sound business relationship with C-Level decision makers and yet, if salespeople can’t get to build trust-based relationships with decision-makers they aren’t likely to get the business irrespective of whether they are hunters or farmers.

The costly consequences of maintaining the Hunter / Farmer Myth

These conclusions (made by various consultants) make no sense whatsoever. Employing hunter and farmer sales teams increases costs and often confuses buyers. In addition, the potential benefits of shared knowledge, experiences and synergies are lost. Worse, sales managers, already under pressure to manage complex sales teams, are now being asked to lead two diverse groups, often with conflicting objectives (hunters with a supposedly new business focus and farmers with a relationship focus).

Effective sales development has demonstrated that with the right training and coaching in a sales organisation that is strategically aligned, and where sales managers are doing their job in leading (rather than merely managing) the sales force, coaching and mentoring, then the right type of profile for professional salespeople is a more realistic blended characterisation of both hunter and farmer.

Those organisations who have a better understanding and develop their own benchmark for what ‘good salespeople’ should look like, and should be doing, are the ones that are gaining incremental share of spend and capturing more of the support of their target market, simply because buyers are working with people who are professionals rather than people who have only half the competence needed for the job.

*we acknowledge that the medical jury is out about the authenticity of ADHD as an actual disorder.

** DISC is simple quadrant profiling system and is similar to MBTI. They are most useful in helping people understand different communication and decision making styles of people. These tools were never designed as proper psychometric assessment tools and they do not provide an in-depth analysis of the intricacies of personality. However, many people still use them when recruiting

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(1) PREPARE YOUR ENVIRONMENT

Even though a customer can’t see your workspace, they can still notice when you’re distracted. So, set aside an area of your home to make calls from, and make sure it’s clean, tidy and clutter-free. Then set clear boundaries with your family or flat mates, and ensure they understand to not interrupt you when you’re on the phone or at your computer.

Define an office space in your home.

(2) PREPARE YOURSELF FOR WORK AS NORMAL

Yes, you’re at home, and you are working – so tell your brain ‘it’s work time’. Perhaps you used to have breakfast each morning, put on business wear and leave for the office, then have a cup of tea once you got there.
Maintaining a routine is critical for achieving a level of performance right now. For years you’ve been following that ‘pre-work’ routine and those events triggered your brain each day that ‘it’s time to work’. In Neuro Linguistic Programming we call this chain of unconscious behaviours ‘anchors’. Now those anchors are gone you need to replace them with others.
You need to follow your old routines as closely as possible so you can switch your brain from ‘non-work time’ to ‘work time’ even if that only involves moving from the couch to the dining table.

Create a positive routine to anchor the start of your workday.

(3) STRUCTURE IS KEY TO ACHIEVING MORE

Plan both your day and your next few weeks. Clear structure defines who you are going to speak to and what about. It creates clear priorities, focus areas and deadlines. Those that plan effectively are 3 times more productive, they know what they have to achieve and by when. When thinking about the best time to ‘call’ now, more than ever, you need to be strategic and flexible in your approach. The times your clients used to be available at, are likely to be different now. You need to be open to calling at all sorts of times. Most clients will be attempting some ‘rhythm’ to their day so be prepared to be ultra-flexible and maybe call out of ‘normal’ hours.

Structure and flexibility are your best friends.

(4) DO THOROUGH RESEARCH

Before you dial, make sure you’ve read your client’s website, company profile and LinkedIn page at least. Try to do enough research so that you have a good understanding of them and their likely pain points. Get enough information together for you to feel confident in striking up a meaningful conversation with whoever picks up the phone.

Build up a solid background on your client before you call.

(5) PRACTICE ALL VARIABLES

The number one thing that has the biggest effect, is also the number one thing people overlook. Practice.
If you don’t practice, then when on the phone to a client you’ll risk your mind wandering, distractedly searching what to reply or ask next. This prevents you from being ‘present’ with your client and they will sense that.
Think ahead about what you are going to say, think about what the client may ask. Speaking aloud practice pitches in the shower, in the car or walking about in your home. Get familiar with the words. Practice allows you to really ‘walk through’ and ‘talk through’ different scenarios and check if it’s understandable, makes sense, is clear and lands the way you want. Does it succinctly explain the message you want to convey?
If you prefer to ‘write out’ (script) what you intend to say, remember that the written word is not designed to be spoken out loud, so it sounds unnatural in a conversation. Instead, put down key words as prompts so that your conversation remains natural. Again, practice so well that the sentences are ingrained, and you won’t need the prompts.

Practice makes perfect.

(6) EAT SMART AND HYDRATE WELL

It may sound strange to talk about food in an article on sales skills. But what – and when – you eat affects your blood sugar and brain chemistry. You don’t want to feel sluggish and tired when you speak to a client –nor do you want to be frenzied and manic. So, get into the habit of eating small, healthy snacks throughout the day, and stay hydrated to keep on an even keel.

Eat frequent healthy snacks and drink plenty of water.

(7) DON’T EVER CALL A CLIENT WHEN YOU FEEL DESPERATE

If you call a customer in this mind state, they’ll be able to hear your neediness on the phone. You might even find yourself discounting heavily ‘just to get the sale’. If you start feeling desperate, step away from your workspace, revisit the general mindset techniques in the first section. Get back into the right frame of mind before picking up the phone again.

Always call when in a positive mindset.

Once you’ve prepared extensively for the coming call. You’re in the right mindset, and you know everything possible about your client.

Part 3 covers 18 ACTIONS THAT GENERATE RESULTS.

Part 1 covered Mindset.

The post Telephone Sales Techniques For Success (Part 2): Pre-call Preparation appeared first on Head Of Sales.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the sales environment you and your team are in
right now is different to anything you’ve experienced before. Suddenly you’ve gone
from meeting customers face-to-face to making all your sales calls remotely – most
often, by telephone.

Without warning, you’re in the dark. A whole swathe of information which you
used to simply be able to ‘read’ from the customer – and communicate to them – is
suddenly just… gone.

For example, when you’re face-to-face you can:
1. See your customer’s body language
2. Notice their reactions to your words
3. Demonstrate what your product or solution can do
4. Use body language to reinforce your credibility

When you’re on a phone call, all that goes out the window, together with a lot of
the ‘old’ techniques associated with conventional sales. You know – the ones where,
as long as you’re bubbly, extroverted, ‘gift-of-the-gab’ talkative and likeable’, you
can get by.

Instead, on a phone call, you just have one main sense – sound – that you can use
to both ‘read’ and communicate with your customer. That means your sales skills
have to be top-notch – because if they’re not working at 100%, you’re going to find
it tough.

Before we delve into specific telephone sales techniques, we need to talk about mindset. A strong mindset is the foundation of everything you do. Once you genuinely come from the right mindset, all these techniques will be easy.

How exactly, do you work on your mindset?

1. A POSITIVE MINDSET INFLUENCES THE SUCCESS OF YOUR DAY

Make a point of acknowledging the importance of your mindset. Don’t just think about it in the moments before you sit down to make a call – focus on it the rest of the time too. Think of your mindset as being the bubble for your day-to-day life.

So, are you generally a positive person? Do you focus on the things you’re grateful for? If so, great. But if you tend to be cynical and negative, pointing out the downside of any situation, you’ll need to work harder to generate a positive mindset before you get on the phone. And trust me: your client will know immediately if you try to fake this.

Cultivate a positive mindset by:
• Being grateful for what you have
• Developing a thick skin so the word ‘No’ doesn’t flatten you
• Remembering what lights you up about what you do

With calling out on a cold call, be bold and courageous thinking ‘well what’s the worst that could happen? Optimistically thinking ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’.
Embrace your positive mindset to start your day. There will of course always be ups and downs, yet it’s how you choose to react to those challenges that will strengthen your resilience and therefore heighten your positive mindset.

Embrace your positive mindset, it determines everything. Commit to focussing on it every day.

2. ENSURE YOU’RE 100% SOLD ON YOUR OWN SOLUTION

Do you want your client to understand how amazing your product or solution is? You need to 100% believe it yourself! So be very clear on what your solution does for them.

Know exactly what problems and pain points it solves – what value it is to them. You need to have 100% certainty. Remember, your client is buying into you, not just what you’re selling. If you’re not confident about it, how can they be?

Get clear on your USP and elevator pitch too – not just as rote words, but as concepts that unambiguously prove how different it is what you provide. Those concepts need to be etched into your subconscious so you can always pull out the version that will most appeal to the particular client you’re speaking with at the time. Unless you’re clear about what you’re talking about, your client can’t be either.

If you’re 100% sold, your client will be too.

3. REVIEW MESSAGES FROM HAPPY CLIENTS

One practical way to both lift your mindset AND remind you what’s so great about your solution is to review comments from satisfied clients. Make sure you keep a file of your own of ‘happy client’ messages, reviews and testimonials, and ask your colleagues to share theirs with you too. Regularly read through them. Motivation may wane when working remotely, away from your team, but right now you need to be on the ‘up’ more than ever.

Celebrating small wins is critical to maintain motivation. And let’s face it, emails from clients who are thankful about what they bought from you are well worth celebrating! This positive reinforcement will propel you to take action and pick up the phone more often.

Pump up your mood with happy client feedback.

4. AVOID NEGATIVE MEDIA OR LIMIT YOUR INTAKE

The media have a vested interest in making everything sound as dramatic as possible, because drama gets people reading or watching. And unfortunately, many media sources focus almost exclusively on negative events – completely ignoring anything positive, upbeat or inspiring.

You, however, can’t afford to let that doom and gloom enter your bubble to unwittingly end up projecting it onto your customer. So, notice which media sources spew non-stop negativity and cut them right out of your life. Then switch off any other media at least 30 minutes before your workday starts, and instead focus on abundance, gratitude and everything that’s going well.

Seek out positive stories so you yourself are positive.

5. REMIND YOURSELF THAT MONEY IS STILL OUT THERE

Even if you switch off the media, negative comments may still penetrate your world. You’ll hear about job losses, economic slowdown and times being tough on social media, from friends or family, and possibly even from the odd client. It can be easy to believe that all the money that ‘used to be out there’ has suddenly dried up.

The truth is, for many of us there are clients who need what we’re selling, and are very willing to pay for it. Don’t ever assume you know a customer’s situation better than they do. Even if your first few calls of the day involve clients caught up in negativity spirals, don’t pass their mindset on to clients you speak to later.

Money is out there, keep looking.

Once you have your general mindset under control, it’s time to look at how you prepare your week. Be organised, be clear on your structure, focus areas and priorities.

Read Part 2 Telephone Sales Techniques For Success: Pre-call Preparation.

Skip to Part 3 Telephone Sales Techniques For Success: 18 ‘On-The-Call’ Actions.

The post Telephone Sales Techniques For Success (Part 1): Mindset appeared first on Head Of Sales.