Sales Trigger 7: Invoke Fear

Fear is an incredibly powerful motivator. You’ll see everyone from marketers to politicians to bosses to parents using fear to get people to take some specific action. They do it because it works.

Now, I’m not saying you have to act like Freddy Krueger from the horror movies and scare the bediddles out of your prospects. Not at all. Instead, all you have to do is lightly touch the fear trigger to make a significant impact.

Here’s how to do it:

Create a Fear of Missing Out

This phrase (fear of missing out) has become so popular recently that it has its own acronym: FOMO. Typically this applies to people who can’t stop looking at their smartphones because they have a fear of missing out on some Facebook post, pop culture trend, or even an invitation to go out.

You can take this natural fear and funnel it into your sales system by creating a somehow limited offer. For example:

• Limit the proposal to a set number of people. For example, perhaps you set up a PLR membership site with a strict membership limit of just 250 people. Or you can offer a bonus or discount to the next 100 people who order now.
• Offer a discount or bonus for a limited amount of time. For example, you can offer a 50% discount that ends in 72 hours.
  As you can see, there are many different ways to create scarcity, boost urgency and in general, develop a sense of fear. These include:
• Coupons.
• Discount sales.
• Flash sales.
• Dime sales (the price goes up every day or after every purchase).
• Early bird offers.
• Introductory special rates.
• Holiday sales.
• Grand opening sales.

I could go on with this list. In all cases, the offer is somehow limited. This creates a fear of missing out on a great deal, which in turn boosts your conversion rate.

Here’s the second way to create fear:

Remind People of Their Fears

One of the best examples of this comes from the marketing you see from insurance companies. They get prospects to imagine what it would be like if they lost everything in a fire, and they didn’t have insurance.

You don’t need to sell insurance to remind people of their fears. No matter what you’re selling, you can remind people of what might happen if they don’t order now. For example:

• If you choose to do nothing and leave this sales page, you won’t lose weight. The ridicule might continue. People might give you disapproving looks when you’re out on the street. You’ll hate what you see when you look in the mirror.
• This problem is not going to get better if you ignore it. Those few fleas you see on your dog now might multiply. Soon your entire house might be infested. Insects might infiltrate the carpet, the furniture, and even your bed.

Do you see how this works? Create a limited offer or remind people of their fears, and you’ll see a boost to your conversion rate.
Now the next conversion-boosting triggers:

Sales Trigger 8: Radiate Authority

You’ve probably heard of the old Stanley Milgram psychology studies, where average people were told by an authority figure – which was a researcher in a white coat — to deliver electric shocks to someone else whom they couldn’t see.

Of course, there weren’t real shocks getting delivered, but the subjects of this experiment didn’t know that. They got told the shocks were real, and they could even hear someone screaming and pleading in the next room over not to shock them. Yet these research subjects kept delivering shocks, all because an authority figure told them to do so.

I’m not suggesting you run around trying to get people to deliver electric shocks to others. Rather, you can use any authority you might own to help build your credibility, get people to listen to you, and get people to do what you want.

Here’s how:

State Your Credentials

If you have some position of authority in your niche, then be sure others know about your credentials. This might be a degree or career paths, such as a doctor, lawyer or law enforcement. If you have a photo to back this up – such as you in judge’s robes or a uniform – include this with your content.

Borrow Other People’s Authority

If you don’t have a position of authority, you can still use influence to your advantage by borrowing other people’s position of authority. How? By doing joint ventures or even just getting testimonials from authority figures.

For example, maybe you have a diet guide. You can have medical doctors and nutritionists review it and offer their testimonials.

TIP: This is like the advertisements where they state something like, “four out of five dentists agree.” That’s using borrowed authority to boost sales.

Radiate Authority

You don’t have to have any specific credentials to position yourself as an authority in your niche. If you’re an expert, then act like one. Be a strong leader. For example:

• Speak (write) with confidence. The more confident you sound in your articles, sales letters, blog posts, and other content, the more likely it is people might follow you without question.
• Position yourself as an authority. This means blanketing your niche with content. Write guest blog posts. Write and publish a book. Give talks. The more people see your excellent content, the more they’ll associate you with authority in a niche.

So the bottom line is thus to set up yourself as an authority, show your credentials when applicable, and borrow other people’s authority when possible.

Together, these tactics could boost your conversion rate.

Next up:

Sales Trigger 9: Be Honest

I know it seems like common sense that you should be honest. But the truth is, a lot of people seem to think that marketers and salespeople aren’t trustworthy. Just ask anyone what their impressions are of used-car dealers. That’s an entire profession where everyone tends to get lumped into the “dishonest” pile. Those writing ads of any kind aren’t far behind.

Of course, salespeople don’t help their own image. While the majority don’t tell outright lies, many of them skirt around the truth with “errors of omission.” In other words, these marketers and salespeople don’t let prospects know what’s wrong with the product.

Now here’s a trick to boost your conversion rate: be honest with your prospects, tell them all about the flaws, and then turn these perceived flaws into assets.

Just that you’re being honest about a product or service is going to make people trust you more, which in turn boosts sales.
However, the other part of this is that you’re handing an objection by turning a perceived flaw into an asset. As you learned earlier in this report, handing objections is another good way to boost your conversion rate.

Let me give you a real-life example of turning a liability or flaw into an asset.

Listerine is a mouthwash that’s known for having a strong taste. Scope (a mouthwash competitor) directly attacked Listerine by saying that using Scope produces fresh breath without “medicine mouth.”

So now Listerine is having a perception problem in that prospects think their product is going to taste yucky, like medicine. Listerine responds with ads that say this: “Listerine: You can handle it. Germs can’t.”

Boom. Listerine is saying in these ads that the strong taste is what kills the germs. And by inference, they’re saying that any mouthwash that doesn’t have a strong taste probably isn’t killing bacteria.

See how that works? Listerine didn’t hide the fact that they have a strong-tasting mouthwash. Instead, they turned that perceived weakness into a strength of the product by suggesting their product tastes strong because it kills germs.

Now you can boost your conversion rates and sales using this same strategy. Simply be honest no matter what you’re selling (your product or an affiliate product), and turn perceived flaws into assets when possible.

For example, maybe you’re selling an ebook that seems a bit thin compared to other ebooks on the topic. Some people might feel like they’re not getting their money’s worth if the book is too short. You can turn this perceived flaw into an asset by saying this book is for busy people – there’s no fluff, no filler, just meat.

So go ahead and think about what’s wrong with your products and the affiliate products you’re selling. Don’t hide these flaws in your sales copy and product reviews. Instead, put ‘em front and centre, and turn the perceived deficiencies into strengths.

Next up:

Sales Trigger 10: Evoke Consistency

People don’t want to view themselves as wishy-washy flip-floppers who change their mind when the wind blows. People like to see themselves as consistent and committed. You can use this psychological fact to boost your sales.

How? By using the foot in the door technique.

It works like this:

You get your “foot in the door” by getting your prospect to perform some small action or do you some small favour. Then later, you ask them for a bigger favour. Since they want to appear consistent, they’re likely to do your bigger favour.

Researchers have examined this psychological trigger, and they’ve found it truly works. Researchers started by asking people in a neighbourhood to put a big, ugly sign in their front yard. Naturally, the majority of people said no.

Then these researchers did a test with another group of folks. They asked this second group to put a small placard in their window that promoted picking up trash or some other neutral activity. Many people said yes because it was an easy way to support beautifying the neighbourhood.

A couple of weeks later, researchers returned to those who displayed the placard and asked if they’d also display a yard sign. You got it – that yard sign was the big, ugly one. And you know what? A bunch of these people said yes because they wanted to stay consistent.

So here’s the point: if you ask for a big favour right away, people will outright say no. But ask them for a small, easy favour first to get your foot in the door, and these folks are more likely to say yes when you ask for a bigger favour later.

For example:

• Ask people to join your mailing list first (easy favour), and then later ask them to buy your entry-level product.
• Ask people to buy your entry-level product, then ask them to buy your home study course.
• Offer an upsell to those who’re in the process of buying your course.
• Ask people who’ve “liked” your social media content to share it with their friends.
• Propose a small, easy joint venture with a partner first, and then later propose a more significant joint venture project.
• Ask your prospects to enter your free contest, and then later ask them to register for a webinar.

You get the idea. Get your foot in the door with small requests and see if you too don’t get a bigger response rate when you make larger requests.

Now let’s wrap things up:

Conclusion

What you’ve learned in this report is like pulling back the curtain to see how the world’s best marketers, salespeople, and politicians seem almost magically to lead people to do what they want. And now you too can boost your sales and response rates by employing the following ten psychological sales triggers:

• Reciprocity
• Curiosity
• Specificity
• Objection-Handling
• Credibility
• Conformity
• Fear
• Authority
• Honesty
• Consistency

Now the key here is to not cherry-pick through these methods and merely use a few of them. Instead, put as many of these methods to work for you every time you write a sales letter, publish a newsletter, post something on your blog, or write any other type of persuasive content.

These are potent triggers that researchers have proved time and again work like crazy to boost your response rates. But don’t take my word for it – try them for yourself to see what kind of results you’ll get. I think you’ll be amazed!

Just in case you miss the first two chapters:

Chapter 1 covers Reciprocity, Curiosity And Specificity.

Chapter 2 covers Handle Objections, Credibility and Social Proof.

Publisher’s note – this article was originally published at Richtopia as A Comprehensive Guide on the Psychology of Marketing and Sales.

The post Sales Psychology – 10 Triggers To Become Highly Influential (Part 3) appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Sales Trigger 4: Handle Objections

If you’re selling something, then your prospects are already figuring out reasons why they shouldn’t buy it. These are called objections.

Common objections include the following…

The price is too high. Here the person may be able to afford the product or service, but he still thinks the price is high compared to the value you’ve demonstrated.

You can fix this by demonstrating more value (sharing benefits) and clearly stating your USP (unique selling position). You can also explicitly give people a reason the price is so high.

For example: The price for this inner circle membership is higher than what you’ve seen elsewhere because we only want serious business owners in this élite group.

TIP: Want to see how to prove high prices? Then start reading ads for luxury goods and services, such as Rolex, Mercedes, Bentley, Armani and similar goods. In most cases, you’ll see the price justification is based around their branding and USP.

The price is too low. Low prices sometimes get equated with the product or service being “cheap” or “junk,” so this objection makes people wonder why you’d price the item so low. That’s why you need to justify low prices, too.

For example: I know what you’re thinking – this price is crazy low! You might even be thinking something is missing from this package.

Nope, you get the FULL course for a fraction of the price.

Why?

It’s because I want to make this course affordable to everyone. It’s not fair if only rich people can afford this course. So for a limited time, you can get this course for a song – but hurry before this special offer ends!

I can’t afford it. This objection isn’t that the price is too high, but instead that the prospect is thinking he shouldn’t spend his money on that particular item right now. Sometimes that may be true. Sometimes that’s just an objection you need to handle because it’s nothing more than an excuse.

The solution? Justify the price. An excellent way to do this is to compare it to other activities or products which show why your product is a good value.

For example: If you hired a ghostwriter to create this report, you’d pay at least $750 for it. But if you’re one of the first 100 people to act now and get a PLR license, you get full rights to this report for $50. You can’t afford to pass up this steal of a deal!

Another example is to point out how the item is comparable to some small thing the person regularly purchases.

For example: You get this complete report for the price of a small pizza. You won’t find a better way to invest $9, so click the order button below now.

I’m not sure if it will work for me. For this objection, you offer a guarantee (AKA risk reversal).

For example: I’m so confident you’ll love this product that I’m willing to back this offer with an iron-clad 100% money-back guarantee. If you’re unsatisfied for any reason whatsoever, email me, and I’ll promptly issue a full refund – no questions asked.

So you can see how this works. Be sure to handle those common objections you just learned about. However, you need to take it a step further: you’ll need to look at your specific product and figure out what people might object to so you can handle those objections as well.

Next trigger:

Sales Trigger 5: Build Credibility

You need to give your prospects a good reason. In other words, you need to build your credibility. Whenever your prospects are reading your sales letter or other content, they’ve got their defence shields up. They’re sceptical. And one of the thoughts that will be floating through their head is this: “Why should I listen to this person?”

You need to give your prospects a good reason. In other words, you need to build your credibility.

Let me give you some examples of credibility-building statements:

• Why should you listen to me? Simple: because last year my business generated $1,117,922. I know how marketing works, and now I want to share my secrets with you.
• I lost 50 pounds using this diet plan, and I’ve kept it off for three years. I’ve helped 388 other people just like you lose at least 50 pounds too. This plan worked for me, it works for others, and it will work for you too.
• My books have soared to the top of the USA Today Bestseller’s lists three times in the past 18 months – so you know this novel-writing course is the real deal.
• I’ve spent ten years honing my copywriting skills. My sales letters have pulled in $200 million worth of frontend sales and created countless backend opportunities. Now you too can put my experience and expertise to work for you.
• Dr Simon has spent the last two decades learning everything to know about human metabolism. You won’t find a better-researched book or a medical doctor with more experience in this field.

So the bottom line here is to give your readers a reason to listen to you. Do you have experience? Credentials? A degree? Specific results in the field? Awards?

Whatever it is, build your credibility by sharing it with your readers.

Next up:

Sales Trigger 6: Use Social Proof

Here’s something to understand about your prospects:

They’re unsure of themselves. They’re not sure what to do. They prefer to see what others are doing and then follow along.

That’s right; people tend to be a little conformist.

I’m not making this up. Scientists have proven that people like to conform with others. For example, let me ask you which line is longer:

Line A: —————

Line B: —————————

There’s no question, right? Obviously, Line B is longer. You can show these lines to anyone with normal vision, and they’ll all tell you that Line B is longer.

So let’s imagine you have a guy named Joe who’s judging line length. Three other people in the room are also judging line length, and all three of them say that “Line A” is longer. These three people are shills – they work for the researcher.

After Joe hears all these other people say Line A is longer, he now has to give his answer.

Guess what?

Joe is more likely to say “Line A” is longer, even though you can see it in his face that he knows that’s not true. He is merely conforming with the group because it makes him feel more psychologically comfortable to go along with what everyone else is doing and saying. (Hint: This is why “peer pressure” makes such a significant impact on people.)

You can use this tendency to conform to your sales process. All you have to do is show your prospects that everyone else is buying your product, joining your mailing list, or “liking” your social media posts. This is called social proof.

Let me give you specific examples:

• Testimonials. Your prospects don’t always believe you (they figure you’re biased), which is why testimonials work so well to boost sales. What’s more, testimonials help trip that conformity reason as well, which also pushes people towards the conformity button.
• Tickers. This is where you show people buying a product or joining your site in a live ticker. Of course, you can’t share specifics, but you might have something such as “John from London just joined… Suzy from
  California just joined…” If you have a lot of sales, subscribers or registrations coming in each day, it’s a powerful way to use social proof to boost your conversion rate further.
• Numbers. Think of how McDonald’s Restaurant signs used to say things such as, “Over one billion hamburgers served.” That’s social proof using numbers.

Social media has social proof built right in. For example, anyone visiting your Facebook Page can see how many fans you have, and how many people like, share or comment on your posts.

You can share other numbers as well, such as how many customers you have, how many subscribers, etc. E.G., “3287 satisfied customers can’t be wrong, so order now!”

So here’s the bottom line: show your prospects and visitors that OTHER people are buying your products, subscribing to your newsletter, following you on social media, and other activities. This social proof will get even more people doing the same thing.

Chapter 3 covers Fear, Authority, Honesty and Consistency.

And just in case you missed, Chapter 1: Reciprocity, Curiosity And Specificity.

Publisher’s note – this article was originally published at Richtopia as A Comprehensive Guide on the Psychology of Marketing and Sales.

The post Sales Psychology – 10 Triggers To Become Highly Influential (Part 2) appeared first on Head Of Sales.

A lot of marketers look at successful sales letters and then try to mimic the words they think will boost sales.

That’s right; they use a swipe file. And then they wonder why their swipe-filled sales letter isn’t generating any sales.

Here’s the thing:

If you don’t understand the psychology of selling, then the words are going to fall flat if they’re not used in the right context.

If you put the components of a sales letter in the wrong order, sales will tank.

If you’re not pushing the right psychological triggers at precisely the right time, the conversion rate could be pretty low.

The point is, to start getting more subscribers and sales, you need to understand why your prospects behave the way they do, what they’re thinking, and how you can get them to act in the desired direction.

That’s precisely what you’re about to discover in this report, where we’ll look at ten psychological sales triggers you can put to work for you starting as soon as today.

You can use these mental triggers in your sales letters, blog posts, newsletters and more.

You can use them to get more subscribers, get sales, get referrals, or whatever else you need to grow your business.

Sounds good, right? Let’s jump in.

Sales Trigger 1: Evoke Reciprocity

Reciprocity works like this: if you give your prospects something valuable, they’ll feel obligated to provide you with something in return. This “something” might be a referral, a sale, an email address, or something else of value to you.

The reason this works is that we tend to get psychologically uncomfortable when we feel like we owe someone something.

TIP: This doesn’t work on everyone. Some people have an entitlement mentality, and you could deliver valuable stuff to their door all day long. And yet they’d have no feeling whatsoever that they owe you anything.

On the flip side, you can’t be a conditional giver. In other words, you can’t give with the expectation of receiving something back. So give freely and don’t worry about whether others are giving you anything in return. Help your prospects, even if you aren’t rewarded for it. If nothing else, this will give you a great reputation in your niche (which, in turn, will boost sales).

Let me give you a real-life example:

Let’s imagine you call up a couple of friends and invite them out to dinner tonight. You take them to a lovely restaurant, and everyone enjoys appetisers, a nice meal, and even dessert. When the bill comes, you snatch it off the table and insist on paying. Your friends argue a bit – after all, this was a lovely meal – but eventually, they relent and then graciously thank you for the meal.

So what happens next?

If you guessed that your friends are going to take you out for dinner some night, you’re right. If they didn’t, they’d start to feel psychologically uneasy. Their unease would grow if you did something else nice for them in the meantime, like bought them a cup of coffee or took them out to the movies. They only way they can get rid of this psychological discomfort is by returning the favour.

Listen, your prospects are the same way. If you do nice things for them, they’ll feel a compulsion to return the favour.

So how do you work this into your marketing?

The easiest way to do this is by offering a free lead magnet product, and then sending good content to your mailing list. You can also share good content on your blog and social media platforms. These simple steps will trip the reciprocity trigger.

Take note:

The key to making this work is to remind people of the trigger when you ask them for a favour.
For example: “Since I’ve given you this free video, I’d like you to do a favour for me – click this link to tell your friends about the video. They’re sure to love it just as much as you!”

See how that works? You remind people what you’ve given them, and then you ask for what you want. It’s an “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” sort of concept. And yep, it works like crazy to boost response rates.

Now let’s have a look at the next sales trigger…

Sales Trigger 2: Arouse Curiosity

Curiosity is a powerful motivator. That’s because when you inject it into your content, it’s like creating an itch that your readers need to scratch. And the only way they can scratch this itch is by taking some specific action (such as joining your list or buying a product).

Do you ever remember the original BluBlocker sunglasses and their advertising? Marketing expert Joseph Sugarman eventually took over the marketing for these glasses, and they sold tens of millions of pairs. One thing Sugarman did was create curiosity in the original TV ads.

How?

By showing the reactions of real people as they looked through the sunglasses for the first time. They usually exclaimed, “Wow!” And then they’d go on to talk about how everything looked so amazing, and how they’d never worn sunglasses like this before.

Sugarman admitted that they could have slipped a BluBlocker lens over the camera lens to show the home audience what it’s like to look through those sunglasses. But they didn’t do it, because they wanted to arouse the home audience’s curiosity about what it’s like to look through those glasses.

The only way to scratch that curiosity itch was to order the sunglasses by mail. It worked! The BluBlocker company sold millions of pairs of sunglasses in their first few years.

Now you too can use curiosity. Let me give you a few examples:

Example 1: Use curiosity to make sure people keep reading.

Whether it’s a blog post, email, report or even a sales letter, you can evoke curiosity in the beginning or even the middle to keep people reading until the end.

Let me give you a few specific examples:

• Build anticipation in the introduction. This works well for content such as blog posts, newsletter articles, and reports. Simply tell people what they’re going to learn in the story or article, and arouse curiosity in the process.
  For example: You’ll find out what exercise the world’s most élite militaries have used for 500 years to train their best soldiers!
• Tell a story, but don’t quite finish it. This arouses emotion, which is a good thing. But if you don’t finish the story right away, it also arouses curiosity.
  For example: So you’re probably wondering if Jane met her goal and lost 50 pounds. You know what? I think the results are going to surprise you. I’ll tell you all about them in just a few minutes. But first, let me share with you the #1 mistake dieters make that stalls your progress.
• Wet their appetite for what’s coming. You can do this anywhere in a sales letter, article or report.
  For example: Jane got amazing fat-loss results using the same secret your favourite Hollywood celebrities use when they need to shed the fat fast.

You’ll discover this secret in just a moment. But first:

Example 2: Make people curious about a product.

Let’s say you’re selling a book about how to get traffic. You might arouse curiosity by saying something like this:

You’ll discover the closely guarded traffic source that’s never been revealed before – wait till you see how much traffic it could bring!

You can bet anyone interested in getting more traffic will be a bit curious about this little-known traffic source.

Here’s another example that would make a great benefit statement in a bulleted list:

You’ll find out which common herb reduces fine lines and wrinkles – you may already have it in your cupboard!

So you can see how this all works. Make people curious, and you’ll keep them hooked on your content, joining your list and buying your product to satisfy their curiosity.

Now the next powerful sales trick:

Sales Trigger 3: Be Specific

People are always a little sceptical when they’re reading bold claims in ads or other content. However, there are ways to cut their scepticism and make them more likely to believe what you’re telling them. One of these ways is by being specific about your claims.

The best way to explain this is with an example. Take a look at these two statements:

Statement 1: You’ll find out how Jorge made $5000 last month with Facebook ads, and how you can too!

Statement 2: You’ll find out how Jorge made $5223 last month with Facebook ads, and how you can too!

Those statements are precisely the same, except for the dollar amount. The first one is an even $5,000, where the second statement is unequivocal.

Guess which statement is more compelling?

If you guessed Statement 2, you’re right. That’s because it’s highly unbelievable that someone made precisely $5000 last month. It’s far more believable that they made $5223. Because the claim is specific, it seems more plausible.

This sales trick doesn’t just work for dollar amounts – it works for almost anything where you can be specific about a number. This includes:

• Length of time. For example, “31 days” is more accurate than “one month.”
• Weight. “Jack lost 63.5 pounds” is more specific and believable than “Jack lost 60 pounds.”
• Other dimensions, such as length and width. “The plants grew 13 inches tall” is more specific and believable than saying they “grew about a foot.”
• Number. For example, “15,955 subscribers” is more specific and believable than “about 16,000 subscribers.”

So you get the point. Whenever you can be specific about a number or any other detail, do so because people are more likely to believe particular claims.

Chapter 2 covers Handle Objections, Credibility and Social Proof.

Chapter 3 covers Fear, Authority, Honesty and Consistency.

Publisher’s note – this article was originally published at Richtopia as A Comprehensive Guide on the Psychology of Marketing and Sales.

The post Sales Psychology – 10 Triggers To Become Highly Influential (Part 1) appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Today’s information-rich buyers are increasingly unresponsive to yesterday’s sales techniques. This is making it more difficult than ever for salespeople to get through to prospects and decision makers on the phone, let alone to get them to attend physical business events or trade shows. Yet, without that person-to-person contact, they are unable to gauge prospects’ level of interest through traditional means such as body language and other non-verbal cues.

As so many salespeople watch their performance numbers ebb, they face a dilemma: either they adjust to the market by learning an entirely new set of skills (including how to work in concert with Marketing), or they continue to rely on those customers (an endangered species) who still seek out pre-millennial, old-fashioned pitchmen. Naturally, the wise money is on the former.

To put it mildly, the information-saturated, point-and-click world that is the Internet has forever changed customers and their buying behaviors. The buyer has taken control of the buying process away from the traditional sales rep. In the days of the Sales Cycle, it was the sales rep who was in a hurry to close the sale and move on. These days the buyer and the sales rep have swapped places. Today’s buyer is the one who is in a hurry to get to the satisfaction point of a purchase – once, that is, they have identified a need and researched their vendor options.

Sales training vendors have reacted to the new paradigm with a myriad of supposedly new training programs. To be fair, twentieth- and early-twenty-first-century sales training programs – thorough products of their time – worked well in the days of the Sales Cycle (provided they were implemented and managed appropriately). Now that the paradigm has shifted, there has been no small amount of scrambling on the part of sales trainers, who are doing their level best to hammer some old square pegs into some very new round holes. Yesterday’s techniques are being rebranded or adapted to supposedly suit the market’s new realities, but the changes seem mostly at the level of language.

In their essence, sales strategies (some of them now decades old) have remained unchanged. At the risk of potentially doing my sales training peers a disservice, it is my perception that the supposedly new and disruptive sales techniques are really little more than reinvented variants of yesteryears’ methods. A little more modishly dressed up, presented and packaged, but essentially the same. To me they look suspiciously like they are still channeling the basic elements of Neil Rackham’s SPIN method from 30 years ago. The difference being that we no longer expect our prospects to answer a multitude of situation-exploring questions before we attempt to sell them something. Prospects these days are far less patient and they expect modern reps who have done their homework.

The days of the charismatic but tactical salesperson are getting behind us, particularly in B2B sales. A winning personality still goes a long way, but today’s buyers aren’t looking for slick pitchmen. What they are looking for is a subject matter expert, somebody who knows exactly why buyers are solution-hunting in the first place, someone who has insight into their situation and solutions that are tailored to their most pressing issues. They don’t want to hear, “I’ll get back to you on that.” They want answers, and they want them now. Buyers are no longer looking for a sales rep; they are looking for an advisor. After they have conducted all their own research, they want to deal with someone who knows even more than they do about the problem they are trying to solve and the offering that they are most interested in. A poorly prepared or under-informed sales rep is likely to get very short shrift indeed. Don’t get me wrong, there are still buyers out there – particularly B2C buyers – who prefer to walk into a shop and buy from a sales rep on the shop floor. However, the trend is moving away from this long-familiar scenario.

During a guest lecture to the Executive MBA class of the Sydney Business School, I posed the following question to the attendees: How did you conduct your last major purchase? One of them described how he bought a big screen TV simply by walking into a popular retail store and asking the first rep sell them one. A small handful of other respondents cited similar or identical buying behaviors, all of them in a B2C context.

The vast majority of attendees, however, followed a very different path. To cite a single example, one lady in the front of the room said she had recently purchased a new family car. She described how she first went online to explore which cars were available that covered her needs within her price range. Then she went on to look at online vehicle test report sites and checked her impressions against the opinions of her friends, acquaintances and peers. Finally, she looked online at the personal perceptions and experiences of people who had previously purchased the same model that she was now considering.

By the time she was ready to speak to a sales rep she had already decided, not only what brand and model she wanted, but also what color it was to be, what options she required and what price she was prepared to pay. She told the class that she would have been quite prepared to even order the car online if that option had been available to her and that pretty much the only reason she and her husband visited a dealership was to take a test-drive in the car that they had decided to buy.

In summary, she had completed far more than 80% of her decision-making process before she contacted the car dealership. All that the salesperson could do was to take her order and to deliver the car. Can you see how the poor rep in the showroom had next to no control over the sale? All the power remained in the hands of the buyer. That is the power of the Buyer’s Journey.

We are now seeing signs that the above B2C mindset is starting to infiltrate the B2B sales world. Storytelling and sales presentations remain important pillars of the selling game, but they are increasingly trumped by situationally adept consultational skills that are complemented by extensive market insight and specialist solution expertise.

Modern information-rich pre-sales consultants are driving future sales. Even call centers are adjusting the way that their telemarketers or tele-prospectors work. Having traditionally been the light infantry of sales teams, they are changing their tactics, honing in on breaks in the line opened up, not so much by cold calling, but by highly targeted marketing campaigns. There is focus like never before on working the trigger points, i.e. those points at which the prospects’ buying journey and the vendors’ sales content or expert staff intersect.

At these intersections, the savviest of today’s vendors are erecting what I call ‘beacons of expertise’, which vendors are using to attract buyers during the online research phase of their journey. These take a variety of shapes: webinars, white papers, interviews, and sophisticated multi-channel social media engagements. While in the past these have largely been the exclusive domains of marketers, more and more salespeople are beginning to cross into these unfamiliar but bountiful waters. At the very least, salespeople are learning to turn their own familiarity with the same materials that their customers are encountering online to their advantage, especially when the prospect reaches out and initiates contact, perhaps with questions that relate to this content. If the salesperson is able to display much more than just a passing familiarity with the subject matter, they can start to assist the prospect through the final stages of the Buyer’s Journey and direct them away from competitor offerings towards their own.

However, not all salespeople are ready to adjust to the new world order. As sales managers who have been around since the days of Palo Alto Laboratories and the innovations that arrived in the 1970s can tell you, the reality is that many senior salespeople are little inclined to adjust their methods or mindset to fit new paradigms. This reluctance to metamorphose into the new sales environment is a substantial factor in the diminishing bottom line for many sales-based organizations.

Many of my executive clients tell me that they need to evolve from a product-centric organization to a customer-centric, solutions-oriented one, but that their own reps are unable or unwilling to make that transition.

In one of the largest technology vendor organizations that I have worked with, management had come to realize that future sales margins were going to come from selling solutions, not hardware. They tried, as gently as possible, to move their sales reps into pushing software to go with the hardware as a kind of ‘thin end of the wedge’, something that could slowly but surely transition their selling practices more towards solution-selling. The prevailing attitude of the died-in-the-wool hardware sales reps, though, was that, “Software is only 10% of the revenue, but it is 90% of the trouble. I’d rather sell another piece of hardware (colloquially referred to as a ‘box’) than any software.” The sad reality for this organization was that fewer than 20% of their reps were realistically capable of adapting to the new solution-selling paradigm. In no time at all, they were left without options. They were forced to transition out about 80% of their reps and sales managers and replace them with new blood. There’s no way to sugarcoat this: the financial and emotional costs were immense.

Drastic as the move may have seemed to the terminated staff or to uninformed outsiders, it was absolutely necessary for the future prosperity of the organization. For the organization in question, adapting to the new paradigm meant an almost complete overhaul of their sales department.

The alternative is worse. Old-school sales techniques being applied to new-school customers manifests itself in closure rates plummeting, too many sales leads remaining unattended, and too may ‘stuck deals’ in the sales pipeline that are not moving forward.

Here are three things the most successful of the new-school salespeople are doing consistently and are doing well:

Here are three things the most successful of the new-school salespeople are doing consistently and are doing well:

1)     They are using social listening and in-depth research to catch buyers during their discovery and consideration phases

2)     They are surprising and delighting potential buyers with data or insights that interrupt or divert their journey away from competitors

3)     They are positioning themselves as subject matter experts and trusted advisors, rather than as sales reps

The first of these requires world-class communication between sales and marketing teams; the second demands significant dedication and flexibility on the part of salespeople, who need to broaden and deepen their scope if they are to adapt to today’s customers and their needs; the third requires the ongoing development of new skills and aptitudes. The demand for sales consultants who fit this mold is far outstripping supply, making it more difficult than ever for organizations to get out ahead of the rapidly swinging pendulum, which is swinging towards a vital new breed of sales reps who are as much subject matter experts and consultative solution salesperson as they are company representatives. These twenty-first-century salespeople are the avant garde in the ongoing revolution of sales practices.

Takeaway

The world of Sales has changed significantly over the last few years, and the boundaries to Marketing are beginning to blur.

Clearly, significant challenges abound and only a collaborative mindset is the way of a successful future.

Read part 1 – The Evolution of The Buyer’s Journey (Part 1)

Note from author – this is an excerpt from Peter Strohkorb’s book “The OneTEAM Method”.

The post The Evolution Of The Buyer’s Journey (Part 2) appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Digital disruption has pretty much forced both sales and marketing departments to adjust to the new world that both sellers and buyers now inhabit.

“The sales profession is in the midst of a radical change. Simple sales are inexorably moving to the Internet. The selling that remains is sophisticated and demanding. The salesperson of the future will become a business equal of the customer, a creative problem-solver and a value creator. These changes demand a high level of professionalism.”

Professor Neil Rackham, one of the pioneers of modern research into sales performance and methodology.

This means that the tried and true sales methods of old are being overthrown in favor of softer, advisory approaches. At the same time, hitherto proven marketing techniques – especially those that relied on print media to communicate with customers – are adapting in ever-changing ways to massively popular digital platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Facebook, and others, as well as some new ones that are still emerging.

This change to the way that marketing is conducted has profoundly influenced the way that sales are made as well. In particular, it has created a new class of customers that is more responsive to the techniques that used to be applied almost exclusively in the B2C (business-to-consumer, or retail) world. These techniques are now becoming more prevalent in the B2B (business to-business or corporate) world. Combine this with the advent of data-driven marketing and big data analytics – both of which are also being felt in both sales and marketing departments – and you have a myriad of changes that are rippling through today’s vendor organizations.

Charting a course through these unclear waters has resulted in a wide range of experimentation into sometimes-unconventional practices – some of them successful and some of them not. Not the least among them is the practice of extending the paradigm of process-specific alignment to a more holistic paradigm of true collaboration between Sales and Marketing.

As Sales and Marketing adapt to new market realities and opportunities, they are often presented with a choice regarding their operational structure: either they continue to operate in discrete silos or they adapt to cooperate in ways that will not only make them more alert to their changing markets and customers, but will also allow them to become increasingly nimble in terms of adapting to the shifting market trends of the future. Organizations that use collaborative strategies to address the long-standing complaints of Sales about Marketing and vice versa will be powerfully equipped to compete in, and even dominate, their markets in the years and decades to come.

Those who doggedly refuse to release their grip on the sales methodology and terminology of yesteryear (which we’ll turn to next) will be those that will be left in their more nimble competitors’ dust.

The Gradual Obsolescence of the Old Sales Cycle

Previously, whether a customer would buy from an organization or its competitor depended almost entirely on the sales rep and his or her ability to build and maintain relationships with potential customers. The best salespeople were those who were able to constantly expand and persuade those within this sphere of influence. Salespeople thus propelled the selling process forward (or, in the case of poor salespeople, stalled the process or even sent it backwards).

We used diagrams such as the one here to describe the stages in this process that we called either the Sales Cycle or the Selling Cycle.

We liked to describe it as a cycle because we thought that as soon as we had finished making a sale, a new potential customer (a ‘suspect’) would be waiting at the top of the cycle and we would begin an identical customer-winning process with them, thus converting them into a new prospect. Also, when upselling was a possibility, the same customer could go through the sales cycle multiple times so that their potential as a customer could be maximized.

We also used these descriptors to measure sales progress and estimate the likely interval between stages in the cycle for reporting and forecasting purposes – otherwise known as the ‘Contact to Cash’ process. Potential customers are re-named at each stage: initially, they are targeted within their pre-defined market segment as ‘suspects’, approached by salespeople as ‘prospects’, and, once they have made their first purchase, they are, of course, customers’. You are probably familiar with the concept of the Sales Funnel or the Leaky Funnel: suspects are fed into the wide end of the funnel; some leak out, leaving the prospects behind. Some of these leak out again; finally, the remainder become buyers.

The Sales Cycle, with its organizationally inside-out perspective and language, was utterly vendor-centric. The power to move the sales process through its various stages was largely attributed to the sales rep, not to the prospect. Consequently, sales consultants and sales training vendors offered a myriad of sales techniques that could, they said, rapidly accelerate the sales cycle.

This was the halcyon era of “objection handling” and of “closing techniques,” and of more comprehensive, market-research-based programs, such as Neil Rackham’s “SPIN Selling” and Miller-Heiman’s “Blue Sheet,” “Gold Sheet,” etc. plans. But informed buyers and their online research have disrupted the old Selling Cycle, creating a new purchasing paradigm, to which twenty-first-century sellers must adapt. Let’s turn now to this new purchasing paradigm – the Buyer’s Journey.

The Buyer’s Journey (Buyer’s Perspective)

As the illustration below makes clear, when it comes to the Buyer’s Journey there is distinct criticality for the vendor around the timing of contact and the messaging to the suspect or prospect. In other words, it is now critical to be proactive, to send the right messages and information and, importantly, to do so at precisely the right time. Vendors now need to be seen by buyers as experts in their field and they need to stand out from the crowd in order to be noticed and accepted by the buyer on their journey.

Early in the Buyer’s Journey, vendors have a narrow window of opportunity to create a sense of desire/demand/need for their offering in a suspect’s mind. This is the time where Marketing is most likely to play the biggest part in attracting new business as it can utilize its armory of channels and positioning messages to help suspects to discover our products and services over those of our competitors.

In the days of the Sales Cycle, a suspect contacted sales reps to obtain more information on a product or service. However, in the era of the Buyer’s Journey, the buyer follows a very different trajectory. They are most likely to go online to conduct their own research, examining – often in meticulous detail – what the market is offering. Promotional materials (marketing collateral) play a part in this, but so do independent reviews and test reports.

Content marketing (which I’ll discuss in much greater detail in the next chapter when we take a closer look at the Marketing landscape) is playing a large and still-expanding role in these early stages of the Buyer’s Journey, and these effects are passing downstream to Sales. Sales reps who answer the phone are no longer expected to inform the client, at least not to the degree they once did. What the potential customer is seeking is not broad strokes but clarification. This means that sales reps are now expected to possess not only high-level selling skills but also a wide range of subject matter knowledge.

Any reluctance or inability on the part of the sales rep to provide the information that the buyer is after (i.e. instant value-add) will likely lead to the buyer continuing their journey with another organization.

The Buyer’s Journey is, make no mistake, far less predictable and controllable than any of the purchasing paradigms that predate it. Just one disgruntled buyer is enough to spread the message far and wide and to poison the well. Bad reputations go viral in a heartbeat and the entire organization may have to expend untold energies on damage control.

Numerous studies have shown that by the time a buyer is ready to contact a vendor they have completed somewhere between 60% and 90% of their decision-making process. That means that by this time they have already whittled down their list of prospective vendors to a short-list. It is absolutely crucial that, at this time of the buyer transitioning from focusing on Marketing’s messaging to sales rep contact, the handover is seamless and that both Sales and Marketing speak with one and the same voice. So much as a sniff of inconsistency and credibility can be damaged and the sale can be lost.

Let me make this point in no uncertain terms:

Sales+Marketing Collaboration has become mission-critical.

Allowing Sales and Marketing to speak different languages with buyers and the market at large can put the financial security of the entire organization at risk. Without collaboration, buyers lose respect for, and interest in, the vendor. When they walk, through the power of social media they can (and often will) motivate other to do the same. It’s game over.

Now that we’ve looked at the Buyer’s Journey from the buyer’s perspective, let’s turn to the same journey, but this time from the perspective of the vendor.

The Buyer’s Journey (Vendors’ Perspective)

The most obvious difference in the way that vendors are approaching today’s buyers is where vendors are attempting to intercept buyers in the midst of their journey. Visibility is not as easy to find as it once was (when, for instance, print media could be relied upon to reach a wide swath of potential customers). Niche markets and segments are the new targets for visibility – particularly when these areas are rich in customers in the early stages of their journey. These are the buyers that today’s vendors are focusing all of their efforts to intercept. Effective and on-point messaging all the way from the epiphany stage (i.e. their identification of a need or requirement) to the end of the consideration/research process is now seen as the best way to win (and keep) their attention.

Back in 2012, ITSMA reported that over 68% of B2B technology buyers identified this stage as the one in which they preferred to be contacted by sales reps (https://www.itsma.com/research/results-from-itsma-how-buyers-consume-information-survey-2012/). This is where salespeople can take on the crucial advisory role that sophisticated buyers are responding to, and are even actively seeking. While they were assembling research for their recent, cutting-edge sales manual, The Collaborative Sale Keith M. Eades and Timothy T. Sullivan found that vendors who engage with buyers at these early stages in their journey were five times more likely to win business than those who waited for buyers to initiate contact (http://www.amazon.com/The-Collaborative-Sale-Solution-Selling/dp/1118872428).  Simply put, informed customers are raising the bar that they then expect vendor company reps to clear for them. As shown in the illustration vendors need to become more proactive in charting the journey for the buyer to follow all the way to a successful sale, and beyond.

Since salespeople used to be the ones who were most immediately engaging with their customers in the age of the Sales Cycle, they have now been the first to experience the challenges of this newly raised bar. The vendors who are having the most success are those who increase the run-up to this bar by shifting their focus to catching buyers’ attention early in their journey. When it is a high-value product or a complex solution that is on the table, sales have never been easy to make, but increasingly informed buyers have compounded this difficulty for salespeople. One thing is sure: addressing savvy twenty-first-century customers requires sales techniques that are more sophisticated by far than those that were successful as little as a decade or two ago.

The relatively recent vocabulary shift to the Buyer’s Journey underscores the need for a sales process that empathizes with the customer – seeing the sales process through their eyes – and fortifies the points at which the customer engages with sales reps or marketing-generated content. Digital Age buyers are armed with a different set of questions, some of which are catching unprepared organizations off guard:

• Do you know what my challenges are?
• What do you know about my competitors?
• What do you know about your competitors and my relationships with them?
• What ROI (Return on Investment) can I expect?
• What don’t I know?
• Besides ROI, how are you adding value?

Each one of these questions represents an opportunity for sales reps to demonstrate the consultative and customer-centric approach that buyers are now looking for. However, while the Buyer’s Journey offers opportunities, it also harbors its own set of challenges.

First of these is being able to gather, assess and act upon customer feedback. A 2014 research report by Aberdeen Group showed that best-in-class performers were those that consistently focused their resources in a customer-centric way, i.e. the ones that are opening feedback channels and who are meticulously managing the actionable data that lies therein.

According to Accenture in a very interesting paper, called “Connecting The Dots On Sales Performance” 67% of these best-in-class performers enabled and encouraged customer feedback at every touch point, whereas only 46% of leader-trailing organizations did the same. The importance of the new customer’s voice cannot be overstated. More than anything, the new customer wants to feel that their feedback influences the way they are approached, addressed and acted upon by the seller.

Others put this figure as high as 80%, meaning that by the time the buyer makes first contact with the vendor the customer has often already covered most of the ground that used to be the territory of salespeople. Buyers are initiating contact with sales reps merely to verify what they’ve learned through their own research. It’s no surprise, therefore, that as much as 63% of sales are going to the first vendor with which customers are engaging.

According to Bob Apollo of Inflexion Point, today’s time-poor buyers are beginning to feel that yesterday’s sales model is a waste of their time (http://www.inflexion-point.com/Blog/bid/67962/B2B-Sales-and-Marketing-Is-Misalignment-Taking-10-Off-Your-Sales):

• 33 percent say they are regularly presented with too much information that is not useful to their search for a solution that suits their needs
• 29 percent complain about a lack of relevance to their specific situation
• 24 percent say that the information provided fails to address the needs of all the members of the buying team
• 23 percent feel that there simply isn’t enough truly educational content
• 23 percent believe that the information provided isn’t in a form they can share with others

Not only are vendors finding new customers an increasingly rare species in competitive markets, customer loyalty is harder than ever to obtain. The reasons for this change are, for the most part, reasonably predictable.

This means that there obviously needs to be a great deal of strategic alignment between what Sales and Marketing promise and what the organization delivers.

This consistency is expected in follow-up, but it is also demanded at every touch point in the pipeline. Organizations that can deliver a uniform experience from first touch point to last are those that are most likely to pull away from their competitors in leaps and bounds. Whether it is the sales experience, the marketing presence, or their after-sale service, new customers are highly attuned to corporate culture, and they want to feel that, from the top down, every facet of the organization is aligned, and aligned to their needs at that. Even a slight deviation is often enough to make prospects and customers start exploring other options. Ubiquitous vendors and abundant choice brought on by the Internet means that just one bad customer experience at any of the touch points – or even the perception of a bad experience – has viral potential.

We now understand that a single mismanaged touch point, one poorly aligned Marketing to Sales hand-off, even an off-message rep can poison the well in an instant. Effective inter-departmental alignment can dramatically reduce or even eliminate such inconsistent customer experiences and thus avoid disaster.

Finally, the new breed of tech-savvy customers demand a technologically sophisticated, convenient and information-rich interface from the organizations they are considering doing business with. This is putting substantial pressure on vendors to respond to these expectations with an expanded social media presence, mobility options, data analytics, and cloud capability (SMAC), but also on the new breed of sales rep, who are as much subject matter experts as they are company representatives and solution-oriented salespeople.

As we will see later on, technology is not in itself the answer, but it is definitely one of the doors through which customers might beat a hasty retreat if vendors should fail to meet their expectations.

Digital-age customers undoubtedly expect sophistication, but the higher the purchase price, the more they expect that sophistication to manifest itself in organizational service, not just in technology per se. The longer the likely tenure of the post-sale relationship (e.g. when buying a new IT backend system or outsourcing service), the more scrutiny the vendor will come under and the more they will need to respond with timely and relevant information and personalized service. It is easy to see how there is a fine balance to be struck here and that every organization may strike it differently.

The most successful organizations that I have encountered are invariably those that have adapted their people, practices and technologies so that they can look authoritative at every stage of the Buyer’s Journey and with a high degree of uniformity. In large organizations, it is not unusual for management to devote entire teams to ‘CX’ or Customer Experience. These organizations can boast people and technologies that are nimble and adaptable; they are able to deliver a consistently high-quality customer experience, and their customers are rewarding their efforts.

Read part 2 – The Evolution of The Buyer’s Journey (Part 2)

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Throughout his career at media agencies and publishers, Ricky has worked with major global and local brands within prominent categories, including FMCG, auto, finance and retail.

Prior to joining Twitch, Ricky was the Managing Director of Unruly (News Corp/Tremor) for three years where he led the sales, operations and other business functions. During Ricky’s tenure the business grew to be one of the most profitable (EBITDA) in the APAC region. Before changing lanes into the sales side, Ricky spent 11 years at the buyers’ side. He was at GroupM, with the last years leading Maxus (Wavemaker) investment nationally as Head of Investment.

1. What was your first sales role and in which industry?

My first sales role was as an account exec for Mediasmart, the publisher of for the Yellow and White Pages—talk about the heydays of digital advertising!

2. What was the first lesson you learnt on the job?

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. This is a cliche for a reason—networks are incredibly important in the sales field.

3. How or why did you become a sales professional?

From my early days selling lemonade in front of my parents’ house to being named employee of the year for customer service in my teens working at McDonald’s, I’ve always had a knack for sales—it’s seemingly built into my DNA. I love conversing, building connections and creating positive outcomes with people in all parts of my life. This coupled with my real passion for commercial acumen and hustler soul made jumping into sales a no brainer.

4. How would you describe your approach to sales and what are the values that you live by?

The two most important mantras I live by are:

• Progression before perfection. I truly believe in this manifesto as time is our biggest, most sacred commodity. Everything you as an individual or a team do has to be accountable—there should be a value proportion attached to your work, with you ready to sell it at any given time. This thinking also helps to continually improve new iterations of your offerings rather than waiting for the perfect solution, as there’s no such thing as ‘being perfect’. For example, steam engines haven’t been reinvented since the 17th century—they’ve instead been consistently evolved in line with customer needs and modern technologies. This analogy should be applied to everything we do.

• Be your biggest devil’s advocate. This is the only way to keep up and remain relevant as times change. I fundamentally believe that we need to stop sitting in meetings where everyone agrees with everything said, like the group thinks the world is full of waterfalls and rainbows. Don’t kid yourself! Instead, throw tough questions in, be ready for uncomfortable situations and pressure test every scenario. If there is one thing we’ve learnt in 2020, it’s that there’s no such thing as future-proofing!

5. In your view, what are the three most important factors that determine sales success?

Without a doubt, relationships, honesty and transparency.

6. What did/do you love about sales?

Outside of hitting targets and the multiple benefits attached to this, I get such adrenaline when there’s an all-round positive outcome for every party involved. Any sale is ultimately the byproduct of hard work, multiple meetings, negotiations, contracts and everything else in the middle that’s agreed upon along the way. So at a macro level, you could almost attribute a sale to eternal ‘happiness’.

7. What did/do you dislike about sales?

Winning and losing are essential elements of every sales process. However, my biggest dislike has to be not receiving feedback from a lost deal as it means you can’t truly unpack why you weren’t successful in converting the deal and learnings can be missed. There’s so much emphasis on winning, yet the biggest insights come from losing.

8. Tell us about your most memorable sale and why.

This has to be unlocking one of the biggest FMCG clients in a previous role. After spending no money with my team for several years, they became one of our highest-value clients in the ANZ region. This didn’t happen overnight—it was off the back of constantly asking the client for feedback on why they didn’t see us as a partner in the first place. We worked constantly on their feedback and it paid off. I’m proud to say we became their best partner in recent decades.

9. What is the best piece of advice a sales manager passed on to you when you were in sales?

‘People with problems need solutions’. Some time ago, I attended an Elkiem High Performance Masterclass, and this sentiment has stuck with me ever since. Solutions are fairly easy to locate within your arsenal once you know what the exact problem is, so spend time sharpening your axe!

10. What do you wish you had known when you first started out in sales that you know now?

Know your audience. One size fits all has never worked in the fashion industry and will never work for any organisation trying to keep its customers happy. Be agile, be dynamic and always bring the customer lens to everything you do.

11. What traits do you believe are critical for success in sales management and sales leadership?

The three key attributes of a successful leader are:

• Trust
• Respect
• Like

My advice is to spend your time on the first two elements—once your team trusts and respects you, the last likeability will come automatically. Too often can leaders spend time on getting the team to like them, however, this doesn’t necessarily mean they trust or respect you.

12. What is the secret for sales leaders to get the best out of their teams?

Your words should never travel far away from your actions. To foster a high-performing sales culture, you need to lead by example in everything you do. Soft-skills are essential here—empathy, emotional intelligence, resilience for your team and clients are all just as important as objection handling. Success starts from the top, so walk the walk.

13. How has your industry evolved in the last 10 years or so and what changes do you see coming in the next 10 years?

Embrace the disruption or be disrupted. Across my advertising career, I’ve tapped into so many industries and have to say this applies to everything we’ve seen in the past decade and what’s coming up over the next 10 years. I’m sure some in the taxi and hotel industries are still scratching their heads on what went wrong, but really, most could see the dominance of Uber and Airbnb coming miles away.

This ladders back to the importance of creating a culture of self-critique. Put your own ideas, offering and solutions through a pressure cooker, then view them through the customer lens. If you’re struggling to be your best devil’s advocate, bring in a third-party for some brutal honesty. Reflecting even on the events of 2020, it’s clear that every organisation needs to have a strong focus on the ‘why’. The stronger the reasons, the wider your choices.

All this said, I’m really excited to see what the next 10 years have in store and I truly believe Twitch is the future of entertainment. Throughout the shelter-in-place restrictions, we’ve experienced an unprecedented surge in the number of hours our audience is watching and all-time high levels of engagements with not just gaming content but also sports, music, entertainment—you name it. People want connection and it’s what our powerhouse community does best. My big, hairy, audacious goal is to cement our place among Australia’s biggest media networks, so watch this space!

14. What are some of the biggest challenges in moving from management into executive leadership?

As your career progresses, you move from a part-time to a full-time delegator and spending time on being proactive than reactive. This is all while being accountable to every function within the organisation. To find true success, you need to embed a leadership team at the management level who are respected and trusted by business and reflect your wider decision-making process.

15. How do you balance life and work?

To be honest, my work-life balance isn’t great at the moment. With the work from home arrangements, I’m still learning to differentiate between where work finishes and home starts. However, I’m getting better at this every day. What’s helping me is to implement walking meetings, move away from my desk every hour or so, and shut all devices for a minimum of three to four hours when the ‘workday’ finishes, like I do when physically working at a place.

16. What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

I’m really gifted to be surrounded by some amazing friends and family. Usually, my spare time’s filled with hanging out with them, which sees my wife and I enjoying lots of breakfasts, dinners and even house parties. By no means am I a pro at golf, but I love to hit the greens every now and then. Really, I love a good workout—there’s nothing better than working up a sweat at the gym and getting the endorphins pumping to destress.

About Twitch

Launched in 2011, Twitch is a global community that comes together each day to create multiplayer entertainment: unique, live, unpredictable experiences created by the interactions of millions. It brings the joy of co-op to everything, from casual gaming and world-class esports to anime marathons, music, and art streams. Twitch also hosts TwitchCon, the biggest community event of the year, where tens of thousands of people come together to celebrate and connect with others who share their interests and passions. We’re always live at Twitch. Stay up to date on all things Twitch on Twitter and on our Blog.

The post Leadership Q&A – Ricky Chanana appeared first on Head Of Sales.

1. What was your first sales role and in which industry?
My current role is actually my very first role in sales! That said, having come from a marketing background, I have always worked closely with sales-based colleagues.

2. What was the first lesson you learnt on the job?
Alignment – both internally and externally.

3. How or why did you become a sales professional?
I was the Marketing Manager at Hyne when the National Sales & Marketing Manager’s role became available. The business wanted to promote from within, and I had a vision (that had been developed over my previous 4 years in the business) – supported by a track record – for where we needed to be and how to get there.

4. How would you describe your approach to sales and what are the values that you live by?
My overarching approach is to a) think ‘strategy first’, b) understand the data, fact and detail of your subject matter, and c) be very clear and honest with people.

5. In your view, what are the three most important factors that determine sales success?
A sound strategy, well documented and communicated planning, and buy-in from all of the key people involved.

6. What did/do you love about sales?
At times, sales can feel like the toughest job in the world – which actually serves to make the good days great; a feeling of reward that I’ve not yet found elsewhere.

7. What did/do you dislike about sales?
The constant pressure to perform is always there, but it’s also what makes a sales role so exciting!

8. What is the best piece of advice a sales manager passed on to you when you were in sales?
The best advice I was given was to “… forget trying to be everything to everyone!”. This is sometimes hard for sales professionals to accept in the customer space, but the reality is that it’s simply not possible at all times. A well-constructed strategy and planning should assist in providing this direction i.e. what we are not doing, and with who.

9. What do you wish you had known when you first started out in sales that you know now?

The art of the humble enquiry.

10. What traits do you believe are critical for success in sales management and sales leadership?
Drive, organisational discipline, knowledge of your subject matter and excellent communication skills are the 4 cornerstones in my view. It’s also important, I believe, to have the ability to inspire your people.

11. What is the secret for sales leaders to get the best out of their teams?
Understanding what makes each individual team member tick. I do this through monthly 1-on-1 discussions where the topic is the individual and how they’re going, not the outcomes of the job that they’re doing.

12. How has your industry evolved in the last 10 years or so and what changes do you see coming in the next 10 years?
As an Australian manufacturer competing in a global commodity market, it’s become hugely important to leverage the available data and technology. This is absolutely true in the sales space also, where closely watched customer performance measures demand the best possible service level at the lowest possible cost base. Importantly, interpersonal relationships are far less influential and for many salespeople, this pivot towards a data driven customer decision-making process is a challenge. But for those who are agile enough to stay ahead of this evolution, an opportunity.

13. How do you balance life and work?
The more important something is, the greater the need to plan for it. So if having a balance in life is important, in my experience, you need to make sure your calendar reflects that accordingly. Time with family and friends, to spend on hobbies and simply to relax is always scheduled and within reason protected in my calendar.

14. What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
Eating out with family and friends, attempting to get fit and riding motorcycles!

About Hyne Timber

Hyne Timber is one of Australia’s largest producers of sawn timber products, a leader in preservative treatments and an iconic supplier to the Australian construction industry. Operating throughout the Eastern Seaboard and exporting timber to a number of global markets, Hyne Timber is a leader in technology implementation, product development and quality control with a world class manufacturing capacity and environmental standards that underpin our unwavering commitment to sustainably grown plantation timber production and supply.

For more information visit https://www.hyne.com.au.

The post Leadership Q&A – Jeremy Mead appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Jo is a straight talking, values led, results driven leader, coaching her team for high performance through EQ development, accountability and strategy.
Leadership in servitude, both for customers and team alike, is her true north. 

With a richly diverse career spanning start-up to corporate, Jo was a 4 x Awarded entrepreneur by 25, and has worked in National Account Management, Buying, Product Development and as Chief Rainmaker for a Business Accelerator. 

1. What was your first sales role and in which industry?

My first sales role was for the company I started at 25 in costume jewellery design. As an entrepreneur, I started out doing everything. Without sales, you’re dead in the water. Needless to say, I learnt how to swim pretty quickly!

2. What was the first lesson you learnt on the job?

That everyone has a story.

“You never know, what you don’t take the time to know”.

After serving 38,000+ paying customers over 7 years in business, I’m convinced that working in retail is tantamount to a pHD in humanity!

Skills in rapport building, forging connections quickly, with almost anyone, have been lifelong lessons, not just in sales, but in every relationship.

Sales are a type of relationship. They’re beyond a transaction.  Ultimately, it’s your ability to shape someone’s thinking, through asking the right questions; the sharing and incepting of ideas.
Sales are a reflection of your power to influence.
                                                                  

3. How or why did you become a sales professional?
I never set out for a career in sales. But I was always passionate about business; about entrepreneurship in particular. The intersection where imagination meets pragmatism.

I discovered my talent in sales almost by accident. But that’s a story for another time. Essentially, I love people, and I’m endlessly fascinated by consumer psychology. We’d all like to believe we’re rational creatures, deciding by logic but the truth is, we decide with our hearts.

And I stem from a long line of entrepreneurs, brought up on my grandfather’s philosophy, that “people do business with people”. I see myself as a lifelong student of the mastery of human connection, empathy and influence.                                

4. How would you describe your approach to sales and what are the values that you live by?
My approach to sales is a little contrarian and unorthodox.
I don’t believe the customer is always right, as not everyone is the right customer. 

“I don’t believe getting to ‘yes’ is the be all and end all”.

If you had to pigeonhole me, I am a Challenger salesperson. I believe the fastest way to YES, is through NO and I actively seek out my prospects’ objections.

I’m also big on selection criteria. My prospect and I mutually assess one another, ensuring there’s a solid partnership and values synergy. I don’t want to do business with just anyone. It has to be a right-fit. 

My top 3 values are: connection, growth and authenticity.
                                                                 

5. In your view, what are the three most important factors that determine sales success?
1. empathy
2. powerful listening and insightful questions
3. a willingness to serve.
                                                                  

6. What did/do you love about sales?
I love meeting new people; the privilege of meeting them where they’re at, through curiosity and empathy, and then reverse engineering a solution to realise their ambition, or solve their problem.

7. What did/do you dislike about sales?
There’s genuinely nothing I dislike about sales.

There are some approaches to sales management, however, that I’m not a fan of :

• Carrots and sticks as ‘motivators’. We’re not donkeys.
• Nonsensical KPIs. 
• Sales processes that aren’t customer centric.

8. Tell us about your most memorable sale and why.
I once met a client, the eve before her surgery to remove malignant tumours. She was dreading the months ahead in hospital. So she  asked to set her up with several design projects to pass the time and distract her from the pain.
It was the most meaningful sale as I knew we were contributing to her mental wellbeing, and that her finished projects would create tangible joy.

9. What is the best piece of advice a sales manager passed on to you when you were in sales?
Glen Carlson, from Dent Global and KPI taught me, “people will only pay for value they can SEE and RECOGNISE”.                                   

10. What do you wish you had known when you first started out in sales that you know now?
To never, ever take anything personally. Rejection and objections are not to be feared. They are the ticket to the game. It means your sale is on the right track and is just beginning.

And to spend at least 85% asking questions and listening.
The trusty adage of “we have two ears and one mouth.
Use them in that order, and ratio.”                                                              

11. What traits do you believe are critical for success in sales management and sales leadership?

• Empathy; a genuine interest and care for the humans on your team. Take the time to understand their external interests and talents, and see how you can leverage that in their role. 
• Imagination and enthusiasm – people want to follow people on exciting missions. How you show up every day, is critical. Your team takes their cues from your energy; it’s contagious in fact!
• Pride – if you’re a values led organisation, then imparting the nobility of the profession should be a cinch, and it’s imperative. If you’re confident what you’re selling makes a positive impact in people’s lives, then you’re not a salesperson, you’re an evangelist.
                                                                    

12. What is the secret for sales leaders to get the best out of their teams?

• Psychological safety for your team; permission to bring their authentic selves to work.   
• Empower them through autonomy. Build upon their confidence and skillset so it’s exciting and liberating, not daunting and overwhelming.
• Invest in developing their EQ through coaching.
                                                                    

13. How has your industry evolved in the last 10 years or so and what changes do you see coming in the next 10 years?
It’s changed dramatically with a focus on VALUE and content marketing has been a big proponent in the scramble to cut through the noise. Messaging and comms has become far more sophisticated, and more personalised with powerful CRMs. Sales feels more like humans talking to humans. 

I believe empathy is finally getting the focus it deserves. It’s the heart of all things sales. As it’s at the heart of all healthy relationships; mutual value exchanges.

As companies hone their focus on values and purpose, sales are going to become less transactional and the power balance is going to shift to more of a partnership ethos. 

Microniching, thought leadership, influencers are also all major themes on a J-curve.
                    

14. How do you balance life and work?
By putting proverbial compression pants on work! Work will expand to whatever size you afford it, so I’m firm on my boundaries. When I ran my own show, I was working 110 hours a week. I learnt the hard way that burnout is long and expensive. For me now, being a high performer is not just about work, it’s about having a rich, full life where I invest in myself. If I am healthy and balanced, then I can be in flow, bring my A-game everyday and support my team.

15. What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
I train 3-4 times per week in boxing and weightlifting. That for me is my meditation. I also paint portraits, love to cook and am a big fan of Blinkist, the app that allows me to ‘read’ several books a day, mostly on leadership, high performance and personal development.

About True

True is a full service advertising agency, best known for growing companies by creating and amplifying their brand stories. They use their bespoke methodology to solve the communication problems worth solving.

True believe that businesses should be a force for good in the world and that belief has been the catalyst for their alignment with the United Nations Global Goals for Sustainable Development. Their latest quest is #1millionhoursofpower, where every transaction with clients and key milestones within the business result in providing renewable energy to communities in need. Their goal is 1 million hours in the next 12 months.

Ultimately, True exist to help companies craft and amplify their business narratives to the right people with the right intent at the right time, so they can grow and do more good in the world. Paying it forward because that’s how they roll. 

For more information, visit www.truesydney.com.au

The post Leadership Q&A – Jo Schonheim appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Leaders build and protect the culture of their team. Culture is made up of what your company is on the inside. It is critical that what you are on the inside is different than what is outside.

Outside vs. Inside

Outside

Outside, your people are bombarded daily with negative messages. The news and their social feeds are predominantly negative. Your people are continually barraged with news stories designed to create fear, angst, and unrest. The talk of recessions persist years after a recession ended. Stories of loss open every newscast, regardless of medium.

Your people are told that they’re not good enough, that they are somehow broken. They are told that they can’t be more, do more, have more, or contribute more. They are messaged by marketers in ways that drive them to feel as if they are inadequate and incomplete.

Inside

You have to have a message that inoculates the people you lead from negativity. Your message has to be optimistic and future-oriented. Inside has to be a place where people feel safer than they feel on the outside. Hope, promise, and possibility needs to live inside your four walls.

Inside, you must have a message to contradict and counteract these infections. A leader sees something in the individuals they lead that they don’t see in themselves, and makes it visible. They see something in a team that the team doesn’t see and brings it to light. A leader sees something in a company that the organization can’t yet see, not only making it visible, but making it possible.

It has to better inside your company than it is outside. You have to create greater certainty and greater psychological safety. You have to create a sense of community and belonging that no longer exists in neighbourhoods. You have to help enable a sense of meaning and purpose that some of your people won’t bring with them, and many won’t find outside.

No one knows if Drucker really said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” If he didn’t, I believe he would support the statement—and its ramifications for leaders.

A Culture That Is Safe for Constructive Conflict

Even though they can make some people uncomfortable, disagreements and arguments are a critical part of business. Without disagreements and arguments you get groupthink, and you end up with mediocrity. When you have constructive conflict and disagree about what is right, you get a chance to explore new ideas, even ideas that make some people uncomfortable.

But constructive conflict needs to be done in a way that is safe and beneficial to the organization. “Safe” means it can’t harm the individuals that make up the organisation.

Handling Conflict

Assume good intentions: When someone disagrees with the way something is being done and engages with others around that issue, it is imperative that you assume that person has good intentions. By assuming they have good intentions, you can shift your focus to the value of the idea, instead of evaluating the individual who is brave enough to bring up the idea.

Don’t blame people for mistakes, problems, or challenges: A personal review is something different from constructive conflict, even though it might include some constructive conflict. When you blame the individual for the mistakes, the challenges, or the problems your business is experiencing, you cause people to operate from a place of fear. If you have to operate from fear, you are going to avoid constructive conflict because the repercussions are likely bad for you. Blaming people keeps organizations from solving their deepest problems, and it keeps them from growing.

Focus on generating new ideas, withholding a judgment about any idea: When you do have constructive conflict, it’s easy to dismiss another person’s ideas without giving them a fair hearing. You can very quickly get to all the reasons that something can’t or shouldn’t be done. But this isn’t how you solve problems. You solve problems when you generate new ideas and explore them before you choose one.

The healthiest cultures invite arguments and disagreements. A culture that is strong can withstand the idea of change. There are no sacred cows that must be protected. And every issue is seen as an opportunity to grow, not something to be avoided because egos are too fragile or feelings too easily hurt. Constructive conflict is necessary, and it’s incredibly valuable when done well.

Leaders Communicate the Culture

I was speaking at a conference when the CEO of the company leaned over and whispered in my ear. He said, “I am giving the same speech I’ve given the last two years. The stories are different. The examples are different, too. But it’s the same message.”

The CEO wondered whether he was wrong in doing so, and asked me what I thought. I told him, “Your message was right three years ago. It was right last year. And it’s right this year. As soon as you change your message, your people are going to be confused about who they are and where they are going. You aren’t delivering change. You’re doubling down.”

Great Leaders Relentlessly Communicate Their Message

Mission: Great leaders relentlessly communicate their company’s mission. Those who never speak of “mission,” never capture the hearts and minds of the people they have the honor to lead. Great leaders aren’t afraid to communicate about the difference their organization is making, and they remind their teams of that mission with a steady stream of examples.

Vision: Great leaders also take every opportunity to remind the people they lead where they are going, how they are going to get there, and who they are going to become. They communicate this vision, knowing that they win converts slowly and over time.

Values: A leader leads through her values. What is important to her is important to her organization. What she ignores, they will also ignore. Great leaders draw a line in the sand separating “who we are” from “who we will never be.” I know one leader who refuses to make money from his vendors, money his competitors take. I know another who never stops talking about caring. Their companies live those values.

Who We Are: Effective leaders talk about their competition. They explain to the people they lead how they are different from their competitors, why they do things different, and why it matters. By talking about these things, they help the people they lead understand their place in the world.

As a leader, it is impossible to over- communicate in any of these areas. It is possible to cause people to lose their enthusiasm if you don’t bring these ideas to life with stories, anecdotes, and examples of people getting things right. Your culture is based on actions, but it is also built on words – your words and the vision you create for your people.

A Leader’s Legacy

A leader’s legacy is easily visible. That legacy is the leaders that she has built while she had the responsibility to lead. You can’t be a leader if no one is following you. But the measure of your success as a leader isn’t the raw number of people you lead. Success isn’t measured by what you’ve accomplished with and through the people you have the honor to lead. If you produce outstanding results for your company as a leader and leave it unprepared for the future, you have failed as a leader.

Your legacy is going to be the quality of the people you led, and that is most easily measured in the quality of the leaders you have helped to build.

The best leaders help others realize their potential. A leader sees something inside some of the people they serve that those people often can’t yet see for themselves. One of the ways they build new leaders is by continually giving these high potentials assignments and responsibilities that stretch them. They push the high potential to take on a little more than he is ready to take on. And each time the high potential grows into his role, the leader pushes him into something that once again tests his boundaries.

Great Leaders Share These Traits

A Compelling, Inspiring Purpose and Vision:

If you are going to lead, you are going to have to create followers. So, where are you taking us? Why should we want to go there, and more still, why should I want to go there? A leader provides a clear, compelling vision that inspires others to act. Without that vision, you aren’t a leader; you’re an administrator.

A Burning Desire to Win:

For my money, I want a leader who loves a good fight. I want someone with a fire in their belly and an insatiable desire to win. A leader knows that her organization is competing, maybe against direct competitors, maybe for attention, maybe for donations. A leader can’t be someone who is okay with the losing; they have to hate losing, learn from it, and go back and compete again.

An Unshakeable Optimism:

No one wants to follow a pessimist. No one wants a leader who believes all is lost. That isn’t something a leader can be. A leader can’t be the person who is full of fear and loathing when it comes to the future. Optimism is what allows you to act. A leader recognizes negatives as a burning platform and makes the decisions to move the organization she leads into a better future.

Impatience and a Sense of Urgency:

Leaders know they are playing against a clock. They never believe they have enough time. A number of U.S. Presidents (maybe all of them) have had calendars with the days they have remaining. They know that whatever they are going to get done has to be done now—if not sooner. They have to be impatient for results and lead their organization with a sense of urgency.

An Extraordinary Emotional Intelligence:

There are countless stories about great leaders who were nasty, foul, and completely lacking in emotional intelligence. They are exceptional, not so much as leaders, but in that they are the exception. Great leaders have very high emotional intelligence. They can work a room. They rely on their powers of persuasion and not their formal authority because they know persuasion is more effective. A leader is in the “people business,” and that means they need an extraordinary emotional intelligence.

A Desire to Help Others Grow:

A poor leader from a dominator hierarchy looks at their people as a means to an end. A great leader looks at their people as the end. They focus a good part of their time and attention on helping the people they lead grow and develop. A leader builds future leaders. They pull people up. They nurture people and teach others to do the same. A great leader knows that their legacy is how the organization performs after they are gone.

Great leaders know that they are building a leadership factory. They build leaders who in turn work to build new leaders. They pass on to the leaders they are building all that they have learned, their vision, their mission, and their values. These new leaders do the same, building the next generation of leaders behind them. Creating leaders propels the whole organization forward and helps the organization to reach its full potential–along with all of those within it.

Did you miss?

Part 1- The Do’s & Dont’s?

Part 2 – The Non-negotiables and Accountability

Part 3 – Managing People

The post An Expert Guide To Sales Leadership (Part 4) – Protecting Culture & Legacy appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Joining Commvault in 2020, as Regional Vice President of Partner and Alliances, Dino is responsible for managing the company’s partner program, strategy, and execution, across Asia Pacific and Japan.

1. What was your first sales role and in which industry?

I’ve always been in the IT industry. I started as a programmer writing code in a room for eight hours a day, back before smoking in enclosed spaces was regulated. After two years I moved into my first pre-sales role as a Sales Engineer. Here, sales reps would bring me into meetings as the ‘technical person’, but because they were technical sales, I always tended to be the person talking the most.

One day I said to myself, ‘Hey, I could do this sales role without the rep’. Funnily enough, not long after, the sales lead was out sick for week and I was brought in to look after the account — during this time, I closed the deal! This is probably the biggest deal I’ve ever closed in my sales career, and it wasn’t even me as the salesperson so I didn’t get the commission! It was my first real taste of what could be, so from here I went from pre-sales into a full sales role carrying a quota.

2. It was the first lesson you learnt on the job?

During my pre-sales days, I experienced so many different personalities and it soon became clear that the most successful salespeople were empathetic with their customers. These reps were  good listeners, who also put themselves in the shoes of their customer to understand what their needs were from both a business and personal perspective. In understanding the customer in a holistic way and establishing a rapport, it became clear that these relationships opened up other opportunities with the customer.

3. How or why did you become a sales professional?

What really struck me about sales was the dynamic nature of the role. My time as a Sales Engineer helped me realise that developing quick rapport with customers was one of my core strengths and something I enjoyed.

The aspects you’d expect, like making a lot of money and solving customer’s challenges, came after. I was based in Sydney, working across the CBD and regions state-wide, which challenged me to adopt different approaches for each customer. To diversify and create new relationships, I had to actively apply critical thinking, new strategies and understand the market.

Sales is anything but stagnant, and I thrive with the interpersonal relationships — had I know this sooner, I likely wouldn’t have become a programmer!

4. How would you describe your approach to sales and what are the values that you live by?

Three values that underpin my approach to sales are:

• Accountability: It’s the number one tenet I uphold in everything I do, and I expect it from my team as well
• Be well-prepared: From a customer meeting to a quarterly business review and even an internal planning session, I’ve learnt the hard way that you can’t be prepared enough
• Empathy: Being empathetic to your customers but also to the team you manage as a sales leader

5. In your view, what are the three most important factors that determine sales success?

Integrity, accountability and transparency. These factors are all important in establishing credibility with customers as ultimately, they want to do business with people that they trust.

Holistically, sales success is often determined by the numbers — and yes, this is important — but customer is more important. A customer will always remember the things that you do for them, and these may not necessarily relate to back to meeting your quota.

Back in the 90’s, I had a customer who was in trouble with their network — it was down, and they needed help to get it back up. It was the Australian Olympic Committee when they were preparing for the 2000 Olympics and I knew they didn’t have any budget for this project, so I corralled another technical-minded person and we went out to help them get back up and running. It was a weekend job, it wasn’t an easy fix and we didn’t charge the customer, but we were happy to do it.

We didn’t hear from them for about three months, but down the track they came back remembering this moment. They valued the effort that we went to and our trust went through the roof — all because we put the customer first before our quota, before the numbers. Ultimately, if you put your customers at the forefront and look after them, everything else will fall into place.

6. What did/do you love about sales?

Frankly, I sold myself short when I became a programmer — I thought I was an introvert, but boy, was I wrong! I love how you build friendships through your relationships with customers, in fact, I still talk to my former client from AOC to this day.

I love that you get to meet customers, understand their business and personal needs, then take on the challenge of coming up with a value position that helps them achieve their business goals and grow their career. Sales has taken me across continents, from working in California to speaking at conferences across the Asia Pacific, so it really is borderless.

7. What did/do you dislike about sales?

I dislike when the business and customer aren’t aligned, meaning we can’t put the customer first. I’ve worked at an organisation where our business as a vendor was like ‘putting a square peg through a round hole’ — what we were trying to sell wasn’t aligned to what customers wanted or needed, and we were trying to force the sale.

This is an interesting example, as the company wasn’t always like that — this change was driven by a revenue number, and to hit the sales targets they changed their approach and put the customer last. Fortunately, this changed the next quarter, as the business realised it was impacting their customer retention.

The takeaway is that not putting the customer first can have a long-term negative effect on your organisation.

8. Tell us about your most memorable sale and why.

Back to the late 90’s when I was a SE and went out to take care of an account while the sales rep was out sick for a week, I really had to dive right in and fill the sales person’s shoes.

I worked probably 10 hours a day trying to close the deal as the customer had a hard deadline that we needed to meet. This deal had been in the works for six months, so the hours of work that’d been invested were weighing heavy on my shoulders. I closed the AUD$2.5 million deal, which at that time and for an organisation of that size was a big deal.

What’s so memorable about this experience isn’t the commission — which went to the sales rep — it’s that it gave me a real taste of what sales was like. I was exposed to the CEO, CIO and procurement to negotiate, and I had to learn on the job as there was no one to show me how to talk too these people, but I was able to. This was a real pivot point in my career that showed me there was more than just pre-sales — there was a bigger opportunity out there, plus a bigger commission check.

I have to say, the sales rep was very generous when he came back from sick leave. We celebrated the success and told the whole world about it, including giving me kudos in front of our organisation. He celebrated the success with the people who deserved it, which showed me the importance of revelling in the wins and providing the accolades to everyone involved.

And yes, he took the team out and I don’t think it was just dinner either. He bought a watch for me too because he realised he was making a commission while I wasn’t and thought, “Okay, this guy deserves it.”

9. What is the best piece of advice a sales manager passed on to you when you were in sales?

The customer relationship is everything, so being empathetic, understanding the customer’s needs and putting them first is essential for any salesperson. I learnt the importance of transparency early on — always being open and honest with the customer about what you can and can’t do and setting realistic expectations.

I’ve always approached sales by getting to know my customers on a personal level and building genuine, authentic relationships, which reinforce that you’re not just in it for the revenue. At our core, we’re all human and we often relate to hobbies and personal passions outside of the office as opposed to our day-to-day work.

I look after Asia Pacific and Japan, so how I approach this varies per country. Australia’s a sports-mad nation, so I always make an effort to understand what sport and team the customer follows. I’m a rugby coach and referee in my spare time, so this comes easily! I have a note on my phone where I jot this down, and my customers are always surprised when I bring up recent news about their team or what’s happening in the sport itself. In Japan, it’s all about the saké, while karaoke is big in Korea and China, so our dinners always include something extra! I always try to give the Korean & Chinese songs a crack and make a fool of myself, but I think my customers like me more for this! – a willingness to understand and assimilate into their culture.

10. What do you wish you had known when you first started out in sales that you know now?

To always put the customer first, before the number. It’s easy to get wrapped up by the revenue targets and your potential commission, so that it consumes your life. But, this can have consequences for long term customer relationships. If I’d known this from the beginning, it would have helped me a great deal.

If I were  to give any advice to a new salesperson, it would be to live, breathe and die by the customer. When you’re focused on the customer, everything else will fall into place.

11. What traits do you believe are critical for success in sales management and sales leadership?

There are a few key traits I believe are essential for sales leaders:

• Empathy, not just for your customers, but also your team
• Passion and belief in what you do and the goals you’re targeting
• Being highly engaged – if you’re not, how can you expect it from your team or customers

Goal alignment is also critical, and there are nice parallels to my rugby union coaching here, as there’s a lot of strategy involved. I was a rugby coach before I was a sales leader, and the mentoring aspects are quite similar. Before we go into a match, we’re talking about what our goal is and breaking down the strategy to achieve this. I also speak to each individual about how their role on will help to reach this goal, which fosters that ‘one team’ mentality. I use a similar approach with my sales team for meeting our quarterly targets — we talk through the strategy together, and make sure each team member understands how their role contributes to the overall success of the team and the business.

One area many leaders can overlook is celebrating the successes, but taking the time to revel in the wins, acknowledge each individual who contributed and share the accolades with everyone in your organisation is critical for a high-performing team.

At Commvault, we love to celebrate the successes. With COVID, we haven’t been able to get people together, but we still share accolades on Zoom and email with the wider team. We’ve also sent t baskets to team members as a thank you of their hard work and effort to hit some big targets. I do miss the in-person celebrations and my team is full of extraverts, so we’re itching to get back out there when it’s safe to do so.

12. What is the secret for sales leaders to get the best out of their teams?

Like with rugby coaching, it’s all about having a plan and communicating with each individual what their role is to help the team reach the overarching goal.

One thing I’m excited to implement at Commvault is a social justice program where our teams can work with a local organisation like Habitat for Humanity or a soup kitchen to achieve a shared goal outside of work. Everyone is human, and there’s an innate part within us where we want to do good and help. Initiatives like this are priceless for building culture within a team as they bring out the best in people, while bringing everyone closer together.

13. How has your industry evolved in the last 10 years or so and what changes do you see coming in the next 10 years?

The last 10 years has seen drastic and rapid advancement for the data market, fast-tracked by the pandemic this year. Data volumes are growing exponentially, and with 5G underway, data will grow at even faster speeds.

For businesses, if the right data management approach is not taken, we will have a big problem. Public awareness and spotlighting of data privacy have grown dramatically with data breaches making headlines and data privacy becoming a hot topic across the world.

The pressure is on for businesses to map out a clear data architecture for access, management, privacy and security. Particularly with remote work trends, mandating the use of devices that are secure and cloud-based systems where data management discipline can be applied will be high on the agenda for businesses.

There will be an increased focus on analytics as we recognise the value of our data and focus on abstraction in IT. Data analytics will increasingly support intelligent decision making, and strengthen compliance stances within organisations. In the coming years, expect more businesses to make analytics a priority as we customers realise new data opportunities and the possibilities enabled by AI and ML.

14. How do you balance life and work?

If there’s one thing that’s important to me, it’s making time for my family. I have four boys, all in their teenage years, so it can be a real challenge to spend quality time with each of them. Luckily, we share a love for rugby union and we’re all members of the East Rugby Club where we can enjoy each other’s company while the boys are on the field, and I’m refereeing.

There are games every weekend and trainings twice a week, so incorporating this into my schedule means I have dedicated time outside of work ensure I don’t neglect my relationships with my kids.

15. What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

The free time I do have left, I spend with my wife — without her the whole thing would fall to pieces. We’ve been married for 21 years now, and the secret to our success has been enjoying a weekly date night. This standing date night is usually on a Friday or Saturday evening, where we spend two, three hours without the kids, just chatting and we do this without fail.

About Commvault

Commvault is a worldwide leader in delivering data readiness, enabling customers to intelligently manage data with solutions that store, protect, optimize and use data. Commvault software automates mind-numbing IT tasks and makes data work harder for customers— so they can gain invaluable insights for their businesses. Commvault solutions work across cloud and on-premises environments, leveraging the digital tools and procedures already in use. Commvault software, solutions and services are available from the company and through a global ecosystem of trusted partners. Commvault employs more than 2,300 highly-skilled individuals across markets worldwide, is publicly traded on NASDAQ (CVLT), and is headquartered in Tinton Falls, New Jersey in the United States.

For more information visit https://www.commvault.com/

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