04/19/12 by Mark Christie | Sales Management | No Comments »
Most sales managers I know are responsible for bringing sales revenue to their companies and they do this by remote control through salespeople. I say remote control because most sales managers don’t have much direct control over their salespeople (don’t we wish!).
The problems start when the sales and revenue aren’t coming in. There are a number of potential reasons for this drop in sales. One reason might be general market conditions. Certainly in the past couple of years, as we slowly recover from 2009, many industries have seen a downturn in sales that has nothing to do with their products, services, or the selling abilities of their salespeople.
If there are no real market reasons for your let-up in sales, the next thing to do is to look inside the company at your people. If selling in a tight market is a challenge for them, you may have a skills problem and perhaps they need some advanced sales training. Or maybe they’ve gotten complacent and need a refresher to bring them back up to speed. If training is the issue, it’s a good idea to conduct a pre-training readiness test to assess whether or not your environment will support a training program.
If, on the other hand, they already do know how to sell but aren’t doing it, you may have an attitude or management problem and you need to spend more time providing hands-on management to the team. Attitude problems can often be helped with team building and other motivational events. The old adage that the beatings will continue until the morale improves rarely works, unless you’ve hired a group of masochists.
This leaves managing them more effectively. Managing salespeople is a bit like pushing a string, difficult but not impossible to do. It’s sort of like herding cats. If you don’t keep an eye on them, they get into trouble.
Start by determining if your people are making enough sales calls, either by telephone or face-to-face. If a salesperson is making enough calls but the sales just aren’t there, then it’s time to see and hear what’s actually going on during the calls.
This may be the time to get out from behind your desk and start riding with your people (if you’re not already doing it). See what they’re doing right and uncover those areas where they might need help or a bit of fine-tuning.
If your people are making the required number of calls to make the sales but no sales are coming, check to see that they are calling on the right people. Some salespeople like to make what are called comfort calls. They will call on people they like and who like them. This can be particularly prevalent when they have their sales manager tagging along. They’re trying to impress you with what a great rapport they have with their customers. I’m all for a great rapport but it’s sales that we’re really looking for. People don’t have to like someone in order to buy from him or her, although being liked can really help, particularly in a tough competitive situation.
As soon as you catch on that you’re being taken to selected accounts, put a stop to it. Ask in advance what the salesperson wants to accomplish on the next call. Who is being called on and why? What’s the purpose of the call? What does the salesperson want to happen, or what does the salesperson want the prospect to do as a result of the call? If you’re not getting good answers, you’ve got a problem and just asking these questions will help you solve it by getting the salesperson to put his mind in gear before he opens the door. You’ll also want to consider introducing a formal call planner to your team. We have one called PAIN DOC and its bullet proof. You can ensure that your reps are prepared for each call they make by asking to see a copy of this planner before you head into the call.
Address any problems as soon as possible. I suggest you do it in the quiet of your vehicle just as soon as you’re finished the call and before you turn on the ignition. Review the situation pointing out any positive aspects of the call and then focus on those things that need attention. If possible, use the very next call as an opportunity to see if your correction has taken hold. Now you’re managing your people.
You’re the seasoned pro, the coach, the person responsible for helping the people who work with you get the sales you need to keep the others off your back. This is one of the keys that separates leaders from managers.
Authored by Brian Jeffrey, co-founder of SalesForce Training.
SalesForce Training & Consulting is a professional services firm and Salesforce.com training firm based in Toronto, with training centers in Boston and Chicago, helping sales teams develop and use the right tools for the job at hand.
04/17/12 by Mark Christie | Sales Management | No Comments »
Have you ever hired someone who looked good, smelled good, and sounded good, only to later find that the only thing the person could sell was themselves? You’re not alone. Join the club.
As a sales manager, one of your responsibilities is to hire people who will get the job done properly. That means finding the right person for the job — hiring REAL salespeople! And therein lies the challenge. Finding competent salespeople is easier said than done.
What is a competent salesperson? It’s someone who knows what he/she must do, how to do it, and has the drive and desire to do it.
If only there was a simple way of assessing this. Auto mechanics, for instance, must go through a four-year apprenticeship to join their trade with a certificate of competency. Unfortunately, when it comes to selling, there is no universally accepted process in place to certify that a person is capable of performing as a salesperson. Anyone can claim to be a salesperson whether or not they know how to sell, and in fact, too many do just that.
Most salespeople get into sales by accident. How a person gets into sales, however, isn’t as important as what they do after they’re in it. If they are serious about the profession, they will either get some sales training or do a lot of reading about the nuts and bolts of selling.
While there is no single secret to finding competent salespeople, here is an idea that will help you separate the wheat from the chaff during the hiring process and come up with potential winners.
If I was hiring an auto mechanic, I’d want to be sure that he knew what the timing chain was for, the firing order of the engine, how to adjust the brakes, etc. In other words, the extent to which he knows the basics of his trade. The same applies when hiring a salesperson. I want to be sure that he or she knows the basics of selling.
Here are 10 questions you can ask to determine if you have someone who knows something about selling. Some salespeople will claim to know the answers to these questions but when push comes to shove, they don’t. That’s why they often screw up more sales opportunities than they close.
I’ve listed the questions in order of difficulty. If you don’t get reasonable answers to the first four easy questions, I wouldn’t bother to ask the rest. Why prolong the pain and agony?
Here is my Mini-competency Test for Salespeople.
1. What three things do you HAVE to know to qualify a prospect?
The three things a salesperson absolutely needs to know in order to qualify a prospect are need (or want), ability to pay, and the authority to buy.
Note: I find that people either haven’t a clue and give some very creative answers, or get two out of the three. Of the three factors, most people will usually miss “authority.”
2. Give an example of two popular closing techniques.
The four most popular closes are the Assumptive close, Alternate Choice close, Minor Point close and the Direct Question close.
Note: Don’t worry if the person can’t give the actual names. They get points for describing how a particular close is executed and even more points if they describe a favorite closing technique that they use. If they can’t, they may not be attempting to close very often. If a person doesn’t know what or how to do something, chances are they aren’t doing it.
3. Define a trial close.
A trial close is an opinion‑asking question, the answer to which indicates where you are in the sale or how responsive the prospect is to your proposal.
4. What is the fastest way to get a prospect’s favorable attention?
Talk about something that is of interest to the prospect. The best way to do this is to ask questions pertaining to the prospect’s wants, needs, or interests. Ask about the prospect.
Note: The real sales pro will get this one. Others will say that the best way to get the prospect’s attention is to tell the prospect about the product/service. These are the people who think telling is selling.
5. When you are describing your product or service to a prospect, what is the prospect listening for?
Benefits! More specifically, benefits to the prospect, a reason to buy.
6. What is a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) or “elevator pitch?”
The USP is a short statement that clearly and simply expresses an obvious reason for the prospect to do business with you. It often answers the question. “Why should I buy from you?” A good USP differentiates you from your competition.
7. What is the main reason for the price objection?
The prospect doesn’t see the value. There are three reasons why the price objection usually comes up. They are:
1 ‑ Your price is too high.
2 ‑ The prospect can’t afford it.
3 ‑ The prospect doesn’t want to afford it.
8. What is the first thing you should do when you get an objection?
Acknowledge it. Too many salespeople start to answer the objection without first cushioning it with an empathetic statement. A simple, “I understand how you feel,” or, “That’s a good point,” will go a long way towards smoothing out the objection‑answering process.
Note: This is a simple question so look for a simple answer. Many people turn this question into a disaster just like they turn simple objections into a disaster.
9. When are the four times you can handle an objection?
• Now – when the objection arises if the objection is a potential sales-stopper.
• Later in the sale if it’s trivial or a put-off.
• Never for trivial objections. (Acknowledge but don’t answer.)
• Before it even arises for those objections that you know are going to come up.
10. When is an objection NOT an objection?
Objections are often confused with rejection or requests for more information. If an “objection” appears very early in the sale, it might be rejection on the part of the prospect. An “I’m not interested” at the early stages usually indicates a failure to get the prospect’s favorable attention and is rejection, not an objection.
If the prospect says, “I don’t see how this would fit into my operation,” he might be requesting more information, not raising an objection. In this case the prospect is requesting clarification, not confrontation.
If a sales candidate can’t answer at least half of these questions to your satisfaction, beware! You may be hiring a problem, not a solution — a wannabe salesperson, not a REAL salesperson.
Authored by Brian Jeffrey, co-founder of SalesForce Training.
SalesForce Training & Consulting is a professional services firm and Salesforce.com training firm based in Toronto, with training centers in Boston and Chicago, helping sales teams develop and use the right tools for the job at hand.
03/16/12 by Mark Christie | Sales Management | No Comments »
A
s managers, it’s likely that most of you have gone on joint sales calls with your salespeople. And it’s also likely that many of you have found this to be one of your most painful experiences — particularly if it’s been with a salesperson that hasn’t been doing so well. It’s also painful for the salesperson, I might add. Why? Because many sales managers mishandle the joint call.
Many sales managers have come up through the ranks and were made sales manager because they were good salespeople. Unfortunately, some of them haven’t made the transition from salesperson to sales manager and this can cause problems. It takes more than being a good salesperson to be a good sales manager and sometimes your best salesperson can make your worst sales manager.
Good salespeople are often outgoing, ego-driven individuals who enjoy being center stage. Problems arise when these qualities are carried over to the sales manager’s position. When this happens, joint sales calls become a battle of egos at best. At worst, the joint call destroys any remaining vestige of self-esteem that the salesperson has as he/she watches the sales manager take over the call.
Even with all my years of experience as a sales manager, I still find it painful to make a joint sales call with someone who is botching up the call. The temptation to jump in and “save the day” is almost overwhelming. When this happens to you, my unequivocal advice is, DON’T DO IT! You may save the sale but you’ll lose an excellent opportunity to coach your salesperson to even greater success down the road. It’s your chance to change a lost sale into an investment that can pay off big time in the future.
Succumbing to the temptation to jump in on a sale going bad doesn’t help in the long run. You simply can’t be there on each and every disastrous sales call so you must coach and train your people to recognize when something is going wrong and help them develop the ability to correct it on the fly.
Be a Coach
Your job is to observe. Then after the call is over, constructively comment and provide insightful coaching on how the salesperson can improve for the next call. Comments like, “You sure blew that one out of the water,” are not considered constructive! And insights like, “That was one of the worst calls I’ve ever been on,” aren’t too helpful for the long-term development of your salesperson.
Like military peacekeepers abroad, on joint calls your job is to observe only and to fire only when fired upon (by the customer). Even then, your job is to see how well your salesperson reacts under fire. The coaching process begins when you’re back in the car or some other private location. Use the standard three-step process:
- Comment on something the salesperson did well.
- Comment on the area that you feel needs attention.
- End the coaching session with another positive comment.
Limit your coaching to just one or two points in order to avoid overwhelming the salesperson.
Draw Out Ideas
When making suggestions for improvement, try to draw ideas from the other person rather than telling him what you feel he needs to do. Questions like “What are some other questions we could have asked to qualify the prospect? What do think would have happened if we had done…? If you were going to do the call over again, what would you do differently?” will all help the salesperson save face while he or she learns from the experience.
As I mentioned, if you detect several areas that need attention, limit your critical comments to only two. After two smacks at their egos, most salespeople will begin to become defensive and the coaching session will degenerate into a bitching bout.
The joint call can be a real pain but it provides an opportunity for real gains in terms of personal and professional development.
One of your tasks as sales manager is to develop your people. This means putting your ego and biases on hold, making sure that your people, not you, are in the spotlight, and that you build on their strengths.
That’s why the best salesperson doesn’t always make the best sales manager. It isn’t an easy job but it’s a critical one if you are to get the best from your people.
Authored by Brian Jeffrey, co-founder of SalesForce Training.
SalesForce Training & Consulting is a professional services firm and Salesforce.com training firm based in Toronto, with training centers in Boston and Chicago, helping sales managers become more effective at coaching their sales teams.
Discover why traditional sales training doesn’t work.
03/14/12 by Mark Christie | Sales Management, Sales Training | No Comments »
Too many companies still insist on pumping their new hires full of product knowledge and then dumping them on unsuspecting prospects, fully expecting the new salesperson to sell up a storm.
These “talking catalogues” start running around “telling” instead of “selling” and the expected storm decays to a light drizzle. The salespeople get depressed at their lack of success, become unmotivated, and finally quit only to be replaced by a second line of newly hired replacements and the cycle repeats itself.
Product knowledge is good but it’s not enough by itself. People need to be shown or trained on how to properly communicate the knowledge to qualified prospects.
While formal sales training is good, it doesn’t need to be formal. Using the old blind-leading-the-blind technique, where you send the new person out with a successful oldtimer, is certainly better than simply dropping the new salesperson into the deep end of the pool and hoping the weight of all the product knowledge doesn’t prevent him from resurfacing.
In addition to product knowledge training, time should also be spent covering company policies and procedures as well as providing some basic sales training that is specific to your particular marketplace.
Sales Training
This is a key area that is often overlooked when bringing a new salesperson up to speed. Keep in mind that most salespeople you hire will have had no formal sales training and probably don’t know what they don’t know. You can help them by either providing formal sales training, or as a minimum, enough information to get up to speed from a selling point of view. Sales training can be broken down into three broad sections:
1) Customers/Prospects/Suspects
- Who are the current customers?
- Are there any house or protected accounts?
- Are there any split or shared accounts?
- What does a typical customer profile look like?
- Who has bought these products or services in the past?
- Who is a typical prospect for the product or service?
- How do I identify a suspect?
2) Sales Territory
- What defines my sales territory?
- What assistance will be provided in helping me organize my sales area?
- Will I have assigned accounts/clients/customers?
- Is there any historical sales information available?
- Who was handling the accounts previously?
- What problem accounts are there? Why?
3) Selling Techniques
- What are some proven sales techniques for these products?
- What are some of the things to avoid?
- What prospecting techniques have worked in the past?
- What questions do I need to ask to properly qualify a prospect?
- What common objections am I likely to come up against and how do I handle them?
- What are some time-tested closes that work in this business?
- What do your best salespeople do well?
- How could your best salespeople be even better?
- What selling habits should I avoid?
Joint Sales Calls
Should you send the new salesperson out on joint sales calls with more seasoned people? Yes, but only after he or she has had a chance to get acclimatized to the company and the other salespeople. This will probably take a few days to a few weeks. I know you want to get the person into the field as soon as you can but don’t send him into battle prematurely.
If you do decide to send the new salesperson out on joint calls, I suggest you debrief him after the joint sales calls. Ask him what questions he might have as a result of the joint call. Also debrief the salesperson who travelled with the new body. What were his impressions of the new person? Were there any potential problems that arose? Determine if you have a keeper.
Don’t depend on joint calls to provide any real sales training. The best that can happen is the new salesperson gets to see how the old salesperson does it, and there’s no guarantee the old salesperson is doing it right.
Don’t Do It All Yourself 
There’s no reason why the sales manager has to carry the whole burden of the new salesperson’s training. If one of your existing salespeople has aspirations towards sales management, give him an opportunity to prepare himself for a future promotion by taking on some of the responsibility to get the new person started on the right foot.
Not only does this remove some of the responsibility from your shoulders, it provides the new person an opportunity to meet and get to know others within the firm.
Take the Time To Do It Right
A common response to this list is, “It’s going to take a lot of time to go through all this with the new salesperson and I don’t have the spare time.” You’re right. It is going to take a lot of time, and nobody has any spare time anymore.
This is not a spare-time project; it’s a prime-time project. That’s why you have to plan it out in advance. That’s why you have to clear your slate so you will have the time during the first few days (or weeks) to get the new salesperson up to speed as quickly as possible.
Your investment will increase the chances that your new salespeople will succeed and definitely reduce the odds of failure.
Authored by Brian Jeffrey, co-founder of SalesForce Training.
SalesForce Training & Consulting is a professional services firm and Salesforce.com training firm based in Toronto, with training centers in Boston and Chicago, helping organizations build better onboarding programs to get their new hires productive faster.
Discover why traditional sales training doesn’t work.
02/15/12 by Mark Christie | Sales Management | No Comments »
If you display at trade shows you may be wasting your time and money. Actually, you may not be wasting it, but your salespeople might be. How? By ignoring potential sales opportunities. Let me explain.
Sales Lead Bonanza
Trade shows draw anywhere from 5,000 to 100,000 or more attendees and provide a valuable sales and marketing opportunity. Check the math. Let’s assume a show draws 20,000 visitors. If only 10 percent of the attendees express an interest in your product or service, that’s 2,000 leads you didn’t have before the show. Even if your closing ratio were only 10 percent, you’d have 200 new sales.
So why would anyone throw away an opportunity like that? Would it surprise you to know that many do?
Statistics indicate that 80 percent of trade show exhibitors don’t follow up on their show leads. In order to check this out, our founder, Brian Jeffrey, did his own survey. His methodology was simple. He printed up some phantom business cards and hired a person to distribute the cards to exhibitors at a major business show asking that a representative follow up after the show.
Surprising Results
Given these relatively tougher economic times, we thought that companies would be anxious for good leads and so expected fairly good results from the survey. What came next was a huge surprise!
Of the exhibitors visited, 85 percent obviously didn’t need new prospects because they never followed up in any form. Of the 15 percent who did follow up, some took over 50 days to do so. By that time, any interest a prospect might have had would be long dead.
Why Invest In Trade Shows
In our opinion, the number one reason for participating in trade shows is to get as many qualified leads as possible. It’s nice to meet other industry cronies and former customers, but you should want leads, because leads mean possible sales.
At SalesForce, we try to slot each lead into one of three categories — A, B, or C. “A” leads (hot) are contacted within five days after the show, first by phone, then e-mail, and a week later a second phone call. “B” leads (warm) get our standard after‑show mail-out and a follow-up call within two weeks. “C” leads (cool) get a mail-out with a follow-up as time permits, but no later than 30 days after the show. Potential Time-wasters are disposed of quickly.
When the booth gets busy and we can’t chat with every visitor, we simply get a name or business card and consider it as a “B” lead until we contact and qualify the person.
Our post‑show activities are planned in advance so we don’t waste any time. The leads are entered into a database and the follow‑up process begins.
The Survey Results
Back to our survey. As you read the results, keep in mind that in most cases our phantom attendee spoke to the salesperson and requested a follow‑up.
The phantom attendee had been instructed to hand the business card / swipe her attendee badge to the salesperson in the booth stating that she couldn’t talk now and would like someone to call her after the show. By the end of the show, she had left her card at 90 percent of the exhibitors’ booths.
Only 15 percent of those exhibitors followed up with us. Of those 15 percent, 77 percent did so within three weeks. The rest dribbled in over the next seven weeks. During the first three weeks, most of the contact (76 percent) was by phone. The strategy changed during the last seven weeks with the majority (62 percent) using e-mail marketing or mail. Of the companies who followed up, 68 percent did so by phone. The remaining 32 percent used e-mail / regular mail with 3 percent following up the e-mail with a phone call.
The material we received by mail was interesting. It ranged from an expensive package containing glossy literature and a CD, to a letter written in French that we couldn’t read. Many of the companies didn’t know what we were interested in so they used the shotgun approach and sent us one of everything.
Interestingly enough, none of the companies who spent money sending us expensive literature (to say nothing of the CD) bothered to follow up with a phone call. We can only guess they expected their literature to do the selling. If only!
Speed is Critical
The fact that 62 percent of the firms who followed up did so within two weeks was heartening. These firms obviously recognize that a lead, even a hot one, can quickly get cold. Timely follow up is critical.
To illustrate: Following a recent trade show, a client of ours told his salespeople they were to do nothing else but follow up their hot leads and set up appointments. The result — one of his salespeople turned 20 of 21 show leads into appointments. In the past, this client’s salespeople would take three to four weeks to follow up their leads. By then, many of the prospects would have forgotten about them or simply lost interest. His salespeople would have been lucky to get eight to ten appointments after a two‑week delay.
Protect Your Investment
Here are 4 steps to help you avoid wasting your trade show investment.
1. Ensure that everyone manning the booth knows his/her primary purpose is to get qualified leads, not make sales. If they happen to make a sale, so much the better but taking too much time “selling” often results in losing potential leads that can be closed after the show.
2. Have a system in place to handle show leads quickly.
3. Mandate your salespeople to follow-up all show leads within 5 days.
4. Track the results to see if the show is worth investing in again.
And What About the Rest
And what about the 85 percent of companies who didn’t bother to follow up this lead? We can only assume they don’t need any new business (or perhaps they’ve gone out of business!).
Don’t let this happen to you. Stay on top of your show leads and stay ahead of your competition.
Authored by Brian Jeffrey, co-founder of SalesForce Training, and originally published in the Targets newsletter.
SalesForce Training & Consulting is a professional services firm and Salesforce.com training firm based in Toronto, with training centers in Boston and Chicago, helping sales leaders achieve truly lasting behavior change amongst their sales teams.
Discover why traditional sales training doesn’t work.
02/14/12 by Mark Christie | Sales Management | No Comments »
Sales reps - do they love us or hate us? That’s the million dollar question.
The truth of the matter is that if you are truly loved as a sales manager, you are probably being taken advantage of. When salespeople love you, in all likelihood it means that there are not many consequences for non-performance and that is almost certainly affecting sales effectiveness.
And, don’t get us wrong. We’re not saying that its better to be hated. That would be worse, far worse. Your reps would never do anything for you. But being loved is not the ultimate sign of a good leader either.
Hey, we all want to be loved. It’s a universal human condition. But it leads to a dangerous president when you are managing a sales force and your job is to hold sales representatives accountable.
Sending Messages
What message do we send our people when there is no consequence for non-performance? I’m not just referring to missing sales targets; I’m referring to things like not getting expense reports in on time (or just in, period!), showing up late for meetings, not completing sales reports, or simply not doing what they said they would do.
Apart from the fact that some of these things show a blatant disrespect for the sales manager and other members of the sales force, they help create an environment where this type of performance (or non-performance) is acceptable.
Like Children
Those of us who have, or have had, small children know that they’ll constantly test the limits set by their parents and if you give an inch, they’ll take a foot and go for the whole yard if they think they can get away with it.
It’s often the same with salespeople. They’ll constantly test the limits and guidelines you set for them until they learn, like kids, that they can’t get away with what they are trying to get away with.
Consequences
One of the consequences of allowing poor performance is that the good performers often start to slack off. That’s when Val, your star performer tells herself that if Peter, the slug is still here after consistently under-performing, why should he bust his butt. Someone’s also going to figure out that no one seems to hold old Jim’s feet to the fire because he hasn’t learned to input his call information into salesforce.com, so they’ll back off awhile to see what happens. If nothing happens, they’ve just saved themselves the aggravation of inputting call reports. They win and you lose. Sure, they might love you for it…you’ve just made it easy…for them. But not for you. In fact, by not confronting this behaviour early, you’ve just made your job very hard for yourself.
Consistency Counts
Another bad habit some sales managers have is that they’ll cut their top performers some slack while still holding others accountable for performance. All they are doing is sending a message to the sales team that if you perform well you don’t have to be as accountable. Not a good message.
If you’re going to set rules for the team, they should apply to the whole team, not just selected members. I’m not saying you shouldn’t reward performers. I’m suggesting that you reward them in a way that sends the proper message to the rest of the team.
Why No Consequences?
What do you do if people don’t enter their call information into Salesforce? What do you do if they don’t complete their expense reports on time? What are the consequences for constantly missing a sales target? Do you fire people? Maybe, maybe not.
One of the main reasons that sales managers lead without setting consequences is the fact that they want to be loved, and instead of managing, they try to be a friend to their people. Remember though, you’re not hired to make friends, you’re hired to manage.
Meeting Sales Targets
If you’ve set reasonable sales targets and some of your people aren’t meeting them, then you first try to correct the problem through coaching and/or training. If that doesn’t work, then you have to consider replacing them. This is always a difficult decision. Salvage first, replace second. Do everything you can to make it work but, in the end, you have to do what is right for both the person and the company and assist them in getting a new career.
The truth is, that to do anything less, is the wrong consequence. This is not a popularity contest, its business.
Authored by Brian Jeffrey, co-founder of SalesForce Training, and originally published in the Targets newsletter.
SalesForce Training & Consulting is a professional services firm and Salesforce.com training firm based in Toronto, with training centers in Boston and Chicago, helping sales leaders achieve truly lasting behavior change amongst their sales teams…without having your salespeople LOVE you.
Discover why traditional sales training doesn’t work.
02/13/12 by Mark Christie | Sales Management | No Comments »
Here’s a terrifying thought for you: Are bad sales calls destroying your bottom line?
We’re not talking about sales calls that went bad; that can happen to anyone. We’re talking about bad sales calls, the ones that shouldn’t have been made in the first place or calls that should have been terminated before they got as bad as they got.
Some of those calls are probably being made by people who shouldn’t be in sales in first place. If this is your problem, you have our sympathy because a serious housecleaning may be in order. As a sales manager, that’s never a nice predicament to find yourself in.
Causes of bad calls
Here are the four major reasons for bad sales calls. We’re sure that there are others, but these are the ones we see most often.
1. Calling on bad prospects
These salespeople waste time and make bad calls to and on people who have no intention of buying. They seem to operate under the philosophy that a bad prospect is better than no prospect and it’s better to be trying to sell a bad prospect than get off their a*s (the lower part of the anatomy) and find a good prospect.
Compounding this problem is the fact that some salespeople have no idea of what a real prospect looks like. In their mind, if the person is breathing, he’s fair game for a pitch. They figure that if they pitch enough balls, one is likely to hit the target, whatever it may be.
As a sales manager, you need to help these salespeople recognize who is – and equally as important, who isn’t – a good prospect. Then you need to be sure that they take the time to qualify before they start selling, not when they’re trying to close the deal.
2. Talking too much
Some people get into sales because they like people. They like meeting people and they like talking to people. In fact, they like talking period. These are the reps who wouldn’t listen at all if they didn’t think it was their turn to talk next. And once they get talking, it’s hard to get them to stop. It’s as though they don’t even pause to inhale; they just keep on going and going like the Energizer Bunny.
These overly social salespeople are really nice people as a rule. It’s just that they seem to think that they have two mouths and one ear instead of the other way around. They will talk to anyone, anywhere, anytime, about anything, and the anything rarely includes getting the sale.
If you’ve got one or more of these salespeople on your team, we’ve got some bad news for you. They rarely change. Their ability to gab is built in. It’s inherent. You’re stuck with them or at least until they move along or you move them along, usually for non-performance.
3. Not listening
A close cousin to the overly social salespeople are the ones that don’t listen. It’s as though they didn’t have any ears at all. It doesn’t seem to matter what the prospect tells them, these salespeople carry on trying to sell whatever it is they sell without much regard to what the prospect wants.
For whatever reason, you’ll find a lot of these people making telephone solicitations. We still try to be polite when these people call and interrupt our meal, our tranquillity, or whatever, so when we say, “Thank you, but I’m not interested,” we expect them to hear what we said and terminate the call, equally as politely. There is a big difference between being persistent and being a pest and after the third, “I’m not interested,” we have been known to resort to asking, “Which part of I’m not interested didn’t you understand?” before terminating the call.
Companies who employ this type of salesperson and use these sales techniques stand a strong chance of alienating and annoying their prospects. Here’s a gem of wisdom for these companies — annoyed prospects don’t buy from you, not ever. In fact, many will go out of their way to buy elsewhere.
4. Turning off the prospect
Some salespeople just don’t get it. They don’t grasp the concept that people buy from people they know, people they like, and people they trust. Consequently, they make no effort to build rapport with the prospect before trying to extricate money from the prospect’s wallet. These are the sales reps who have commission breath and the prospect can smell it a mile away. Everything these salespeople do smacks of trying to make a sale. They seem to think that selling involves verbally arm-wrestling with the prospect until the other person cries “uncle” and gives in and buys.
Like the salespeople who won’t listen, these people can perform but at what cost to you and your company’s reputation?
If you’ve got one of these people on your team, take heart; they can often be moulded into a professional with the proper care and feeding. Your best bet, however, is to avoid hiring them in the first place.
What can you do?
Get out of your office from time to time and make calls with your salespeople or sit with them when they are making telephone calls. Simply observe and resist the temptation to play a major part in the call. If it’s a bad call, let it go. Talk with your salesperson after the call is over and use the event as a learning experience.
Help your people learn and grow because every sale these salespeople don’t make because of their bad calls impacts directly on your bottom line.
The bottom line is — you need to protect your bottom line.
Authored by Brian Jeffrey, co-founder of SalesForce Training, and originally published in the Targets newsletter.
SalesForce Training & Consulting is a professional services firm and Salesforce.com training firm based in Toronto, with training centers in Boston and Chicago, helping sales leaders achieve truly lasting behavior change amongst their sales teams.
Discover why traditional sales training doesn’t work.
02/07/12 by Mark Christie | Sales Management | No Comments »
Sales managers or sales leaders do joint calls with sales people pretty often (or at least, they should be). What we find however is that sales managers or leaders rarely coach the sales person, but rather they mentor them, or they enter the this-is-what-you-did-wrong mode and let-me-tell-you mode. Here’s what it looks like:
Sales Manager: So what did you think of the call?
Sales Person: It was O.K., there are a few things I could have done differently.
Sales Manager: Agreed. One of the things I spotted, for example,remember when the prospect said “X”, you probably should have replied with “Y”.
Sound familiar anyone?
Sales Managers or leaders must learn the fine art of questioning.
Here are some ways to be more effective at sales coaching and debriefing after the sales call.
Sales Manager: So what did you think of the call?
Sales Person: It was O.K., there are a few things I could have done differently.
Sales Manager: That’s great that you are aware. What exactly do you feel you could have done differently?
Sales Person: Well, that one time when the prospect said “X”, I could have probably probed for a bit more information.
Sales Manager: (do NOT go into – oh yeah, and you should/might/could also have said “Y”)
Sales Manager: That’s a good observation. So, how could you have probed the buyer for more information?
See how it works? This way the sales person will think for themselves and they own the responsibility for the results of the call. Sales people (just like prospects) like to be asked, not told. As sales mangers, we must be tactful in our approach. Long gone are the days of bossing people around (if they ever did exist). We need to lead people – inspire them – coach them – for maximum performance and bring the best out of them.
Sales Managers – stop talking … and start coaching!
SalesForce Training & Consulting is a professional services firm and Salesforce.com training firm based in Toronto, with training centers in Boston and Chicago, helping sales leaders achieve truly lasting behavior change amongst their sales teams.
Discover why traditional sales training doesn’t work.
01/23/12 by Mark Christie | Sales Management | No Comments »
There are probably a lot more than five sins of sales management, but here are the ones we see committed the most as we work with our clients. How many are you guilty of?
Sin #1
Not hiring the right people.
Or more importantly, hiring the wrong people. Many sales managers, either under pressure or in desperation to fill a position, will plug in any warm body that can walk and talk at the same time and then despair when the person doesn’t work out.
Not everyone is suited for sales. In fact, some people shouldn’t be in sales, period. A recent study found that fifty-five percent of those people who earn their living from selling should be doing something else! When we inadvertently hire one of these people, it’s like taking a fish out of water and watching it flop around until it finally goes to the great aquarium in the sky. There are two reasons this happens in business. One, we hire the wrong person off the street or two; we have the wrong person forced on us from above such as a relative of the boss.
Another scenario is when your company is downsizing, right sizing, or whatever, and your manager asks you to take Joe (or Josephine) from manufacturing (or even worse, accounting) and put him into sales. After all, he tells you, Joe has lots of product knowledge. Your manager also informs you that if you don’t “give him a chance,” Joe will be laid off and his kids will starve, etc.
Despite their excellent product knowledge, there are a lot of Joes in the world who couldn’t sell their way out of a wet paper bag. You and I don’t do these Joes any favour by putting them into a position where they’ll fail.
Even people who have a natural flair for sales may not be suited for your type of selling situation. Making the proper match between the individual and the position is one of the sales manager’s most critical challenges.
If nothing else, hire for attitude and train for skill.
Sin #2
Failing to train your people.
It’s critical that new salespeople get started on the right foot. Just like a sale can be made or lost in the first four minutes, first impressions count with new employees. If those first four minutes (or four hours, days, or weeks) are spent wandering around in the corporate wilderness, the new person is likely to become discouraged. Remember, these people may still have resumes floating around the marketplace and if they’re not happy with where they are, they’ll jump ship at the first convenient port that looks better.
It’s up to the sales manager to provide proper training. There are three key training areas: policies and procedures, product knowledge, and sales training. Breaking in a new salesperson is like breaking in a new car engine. The more care you take, the longer it will last and the fewer problems it will give you.
So make sure you “break in” your people with the proper training.
Sin #3
Failing to manage the sales process.
A lot of people think sales just happen. Not so. There’s a start, middle, and hopefully, a happy finish to the sales process. Many sales managers don’t take the time to map out their particular sales process. It’s like planning a trip. If you don’t know where you’re going, it’s hard to get there (except by accident and frankly, too many sales are made by accident).
Take the time to define each step of your sales process (usually 5-9) and then establish pre and post criteria. Determine what has to happen before a step can occur and what is supposed to happen after a step done. A well‑thought‑out sales process becomes your road map to sales success.
Understanding your sales process gives you the edge in managing your sales team by assisting you to help them close more sales.
Sin #4
Failing to lead your people.
Not all managers are good leaders and not all leaders are good managers. Over the years we’ve come to believe that the major difference between managers and leaders is people skills. A manager becomes a leader when he or she has earned the right to have followers.
Leadership is particularly important in tough times. People need someone they can look up to, not hide from. There are certainly times when the KITA (kick-in-the-you-know-what) approach to management has merit but, in our experience, the carrot and stick approach works best, particularly if you’re using the stick to dangle the carrot, not beat people.
How are your interpersonal skills?
Sin #5
Failing to fire when necessary.
As sales manager, you’re responsible for the revenue‑producing portion of the business and your salespeople are the tools you use to produce that revenue. If one of those tools isn’t (or never was) productive, you have to either repair or replace it. The longer you delay, the worse your numbers will become. Unless you’re Atilla the Hun and enjoy destroying people, one of the hardest things any manager has to do is fire someone ‑ which is probably why we don’t do it soon enough.
Next to hiring the wrong person, failing to fire the wrong person for the job is one of our greatest sins. Hanging on to sales deadwood is bad for morale, bad for sales, and bad for business.
Are you spending too much time managing the wrong people?
Sin No More!
The first step to getting better is to find out what is standing in the way. If any of these sins are standing in the way of you becoming even more successful, then sin no more. Or, if you can’t sin no more, at least sin a lot less.
This post was originally written by SalesForce Training founder, Brian Jeffrey.
SalesForce Training & Consulting is a professional services firm and Salesforce.com training firm based in Toronto, with training centers in Boston and Chicago, providing sales leaders with the direction and support to ensure that they sin no more.
Discover why traditional sales training doesn’t work.
01/19/12 by Mark Christie | Sales Management | No Comments »
There is likely nothing more challenging than managing a sales team. It is a role that requires a unique set of skills, probably none of which are learned in that person’s prior role – in all likelihood, a super salesperson. Sales managers are responsible for such a wide range of tasks – managing their team’s sales funnel, holding their entire salesforce accountable, forecasting, recruiting and hiring, planning, admin, and coaching (of which we’ve seen very few sales managers actually do!) On top of that, they need to manage a team of people that are typically A-personalities, head strong, egotistical, and remote! How’s that for challenging?
So, given all this, and given he massive importance to any organization of sales revenue continuing to flow in, there must be some pretty top notch sales management schools out there. Right?
Wrong!
Unlike other disciplines, like marketing, accounting, general management, and even HR (for goodness sake), there are painfully few courses on sales management. Additionally, few companies offer comprehensive sales management training programs for their front-line sales managers.
No, the sad reality is that most sales managers learn how to manage directly on-the-job. More often than not, sales managers are former sales representatives (often star performers) who get promoted into management with little or no training in managing sales teams.
For whatever reason, organizations tend to assume that successful salespeople will make successful sales managers. Now, they very well might, no doubt about it. But, to assume that they will become an instantly strong sales manager without any training, direction or support is folly.
We see this same scenario play out all the time in professional sports. Ted Williams, Wayne Gretzky and Bart Starr are just three famous examples of phenomenal players that ended up being mediocre coaches. Likewise, great sales representatives often have a hard time making the transition to coaching.
It is often been said that promoting your top sales rep into a sales management role accomplishes two negatives. 1) You lose a great sales person; and 2) you gain a poor sales manager. We see this time and time again when these newbie managers are simply overwhelmed with the problems associated with supervising people and holding them accountable, spending time fixing customer problems or closing the big deal themselves, instead of showing their reps how to do it.
Why is this so? Well, simply put, it is that each role requires a completely different set of skills.
Given the massive range of skills required to effectively manage sales teams, it is imperative that sales organizations provide their sales managers with the requisite knowledge, skills and tools to succeed. And yet, many organizations remain hesitant to invest in sales management training. We suppose it’s because of the recent wave of budget cuts and hiring freezes, as organizations face increased pressure to achieve
sales goals with less and less.
What so many companies fail to realize however, is that investing in sales managers is actually one of the single best training investments an organization can make. Great sales managers produce better sales results, since a great manager can continually improve the performance of their team and harness the true potential of the salesforce.
SalesForce Training & Consulting is a professional services firm and Salesforce.com training firm based in Toronto, with training centers in Boston and Chicago, providing sales leaders with the direction and support to ensure positive behavior change in their sales teams.
Discover why traditional sales training doesn’t work.
