Tag Archives: outside sales

Consistent Effort is the Key to Better Sales Results

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Consistent Effort is the Key to Better Sales Results

One of the primary reasons salespeople produce sporadic results is because their actions are equally sporadic. Their effort isn’t consistent enough to produce the results they want—or need. It’s zero effort for a long time, and then it’s time to play catch up. But that doesn’t work.

You can’t go long periods without prospecting and then prospect like crazy. You can’t make up for lost time and cram to get results. Building a pipeline doesn’t lend itself to sporadic activity. To build your pipeline, you need consistent effort over a long period of time. Anything less gives you wavy results—it if it gives you anything at all.

You build a pipeline through consistent prospecting.

You can’t follow your sale process for a little while and then abandon doing what you know to be effective in hopes of succeeding by taking some easier actions. There are all kinds of occasions to fall out of your sales process, especially when what you are seeing means you have to get creative. But not following the sales process means poor results, longer sales cycles, and lost opportunities.

You win sales opportunities by consistently following your sales process, by making it your standard operating procedure.

Speaking of prospecting, nurturing is another area we can produce an inconsistent effort. If you only make a call every 90 days, you aren’t nurturing the relationships you need—you’re neglecting them.

You only open the relationships with a frequent and consistent effort to create value.

It’s easy to ask for the commitments you need when it feels like the answer will be in the affirmative, and it’s easy not to when you fear the answer will be no. By failing to ask for what you really need, you go without information that you need to create and win an opportunity. You also go without the access to stakeholders that you need. Then, you’re surprised to learn that you lost an opportunity for which you are perfect.

By consistently asking for the commitments you need, you improve the likelihood of winning the opportunities you create.

None of this is true for sales alone. It’s true in whatever your endeavor, for whatever result it is you hope to achieve. Consistency is the key. It’s the daily stacking up of your efforts, brick upon brick, which ultimately produces results.

Questions

What do you do most consistently? How are your results in that area of your life?

What do you do only sporadically? How are your results different?

What do you need to commit to doing more consistently to produce the results you want?

What do you need to stop doing so consistently to produce the results you’re after?

 

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What We Can’t Measure

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What We Can’t Measure

Did you create value during that sales call? How much value exactly? What was your dream client’s perception of the value that you created?

Did you influence the buying process? Did you create trust? How much trust?

Does your dream client like you? Are you more likable than your competitors? What is the depth of your relationship? Is it as strong as it should be? What metric are you using to determine the strength of your individual relationship?

Did you uncover your prospective client’s real motivations? Is the worldview they described really their view, or is it the company line? Is the buying criteria they described what will really be used to make the decision? Or is it really a price decision with the criteria serving to justify a lower price later?

This list could continue on interminably.

The world is ruled by invisible forces. Most of what effects our lives, including the outcome of a sales opportunity, can’t be seen. We can measure much, but what we can glean from those measurements doesn’t often reveal anything we can rely on with anything that resembles a scientific certitude.

Keep Your Processes and Methodologies

But none of this is to suggest that you shouldn’t follow a sales process and good sales methodologies. It doesn’t mean that generalizations and patterns aren’t valuable. There are many generalizations worth capturing and implementing. In fact, much of what we do in life is following patterns that work (or worked at some time).

If your dream client agrees to take the next step with you, then there is some good, even if less than scientific, evidence that you created value during a your sales interaction. If you are denied that future appointment, there is some evidence that you might not have crated value.

We capture this agreement to advance as proof positive that enough value was created. Scientific? No. Close enough for rock-n-roll? Absolutely.

If you ask for and obtain the information you need to help your dream client, then there is some good evidence that you have established some level of trust. If you are denied the information you need, then there may be some evidence that your dream client doesn’t trust you with the information–or they don’t trust you to do anything worthwhile with the information.

When you acquire information, it likely means you can close some gate in your sales process. Does this mean your dream client trusts you like their oldest friend? Well, not necessarily, but nor must it. It means that, as far as your sales process is concerned, you’ve earned enough to move forward.

We can’t measure most of what’s really important. But the questions at the beginning of the post, difficult as they are to answer, are the important questions. The best we can do is capture and measure some outcomes that give us some evidence that what we are doing is working–and what we are doing that isn’t.

Questions

Because something is difficult to measure does that make it unimportant?

What are the important factors that lead to a sale that can’t be measured?

What do we measure instead?

How do we align what we can measure with what we can’t measure?

 

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Why a Shorter Sales Cycle Isn’t Always a Better Sales Cycle

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Why a Shorter Sales Cycle Isn’t Always a Better Sales Cycle

I recently had occasion to pick up an old copy of Spin Selling, still one of my favorites – which I’d recommend to Sales Management and Sales reps alike. Something caught my attention that I didn’t see the first time around — fast sales cycles are not always the goal. Now, if you’ve been managing your team by providing KPIs around the timing or linearity of deals; your might take pause at a counter-intuitive idea such as this one.

But it stands to reason, doesn’t it?

The reason sales cycles are fast is usually that there are fewer total individuals involved. That includes fewer of your sales team, and fewer unique individuals on the customer end of the engagements.  Fewer people involved usually indicates that deals are smaller. That which can be approved by one or two people is usually smaller than that requiring six or eight people.

Would it then be prudent for Sales Management to analyze sales cycles within their organizations and keep trying make them shorter? I don’t expect that this is the right goal. In and of itself, a consistently diminishing sales cycle mean is probably not a good thing. Why? Because it is probably accompanied by a diminishing total average deal size within your sales organization. This could mean your sales reps are selling the solution short, going for the quick win.

How much bigger could the deal be if you allowed them the extra time? There are many variants on this question. Generally speaking, for sales cycles, the goal for sales management needs to be – watching for patterns – determining how long most sales cycles are. And how do sales managers, in this regard, determine how one individual rep compares to the average for the organization, the region or the product?

How do your new reps compare to your existing reps? This is key for sales managers in reorganizing sales teams or in hiring new reps. Most sales organizations will have some rule of thumb about how long it takes for a new rep to “get up to speed.” But this measurement is very likely tribal and anecdotal. To measure sales cycles by rep, by product; would be a great judge of how long it REALLY takes to get up to speed. I’ll bet most sales organizations would be surprised.

Net/net, it is a great idea for sales management to measure sales cycles, especially if you can compare it apples to apples across your organization. The question is why? You can motivate your sales teams, better enable them, and better and gauge pipeline – as a result.

 

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AIDA: Attention-Interest-Desire-Action

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“Free gift inside!”

“Dear Jim, You have been specially selected.”

“Calling all Parents.”

Every day we’re bombarded with headlines like these that are designed to grab our attention. In a world full of advertising and information – delivered in all sorts of media from print to websites, billboards to radio, and TV to text messages – every message has to work extremely hard to get noticed.

And it’s not just advertising messages that have to work hard; every report you write, presentation you deliver, or email you send is competing for your audience’s attention.

As the world of advertising becomes more and more competitive, advertising becomes more and more sophisticated. Yet the basic principles behind advertising copy remain – that it must attract attention and persuade someone to take action. And this idea remains true simply because human nature doesn’t really change. Sure, we become increasingly discerning, but to persuade people to do something, you still need to grab their attention, interest them in how your product or service can help them, and then persuade them to take the action you want them to take, such as buying your product or visiting your website.

The acronym AIDA is a handy tool for ensuring that your copy, or other writing, grabs attention. The acronym stands for:

Attention (or Attract)

Interest

Desire

Action.

These are the four steps you need to take your audience through if you want them to buy your product or visit your website, or indeed to take on board the messages in your report.

A slightly more sophisticated version of this is AIDCA/AIDEA, which includes an additional step of Conviction/Evidence between Desire and Action. People are so cynical about advertising messages that coherent evidence may be needed if anyone is going to act!

How to Use the Tool:

Use the AIDA approach when you write a piece of text that has the ultimate objective of getting others to take action. The elements of the acronym are as follows:

1. Attention/Attract

In our media-filled world, you need to be quick and direct to grab people’s attention. Use powerful words, or a picture that will catch the reader’s eye and make them stop and read what you have to say next.

With most office workers suffering from e-mail overload, action-seeking e-mails need subject lines that will encourage recipients to open them and read the contents. For example, to encourage people to attend a company training session on giving feedback, the email headline, “How effective is YOUR feedback?” is more likely to grab attention than the purely factual one of, “This week’s seminar on feedback”.

2. Interest

This is one of the most challenging stages: You’ve got the attention of a chunk of your target audience, but can you engage with them enough so that they’ll want to spend their precious time understanding your message in more detail?

Gaining the reader’s interest is a deeper process than grabbing their attention. They will give you a little more time to do it, but you must stay focused on their needs. This means helping them to pick out the messages that are relevant to them quickly. So use bullets and subheadings, and break up the text to make your points stand out.

For more information on understanding your target audience’s interests and expectations, and the context of your message, read our article on the Rhetorical Triangle.

3. Desire

The Interest and Desire parts of AIDA go hand-in-hand: As you’re building the reader’s interest, you also need to help them understand how what you’re offering can help them in a real way. The main way of doing this is by appealing to their personal needs and wants.

So, rather than simply saying “Our lunchtime seminar will teach you feedback skills”, explain to the audience what’s in it for them: “Get what you need from other people, and save time and frustration, by learning how to give them good feedback.”

Feature and Benefits (FAB)

A good way of building the reader’s desire for your offering is to link features and benefits. Hopefully, the significant features of your offering have been designed to give a specific benefit to members of your target market.

When it comes to the marketing copy, it’s important that you don’t forget those benefits at this stage. When you describe your offering, don’t just give the facts and features, and expect the audience to work out the benefits for themselves: Tell them the benefits clearly to create that interest and desire.

Example: “This laptop case is made of aluminum,” describes a feature, and leaves the audience thinking “So what?” Persuade the audience by adding the benefits”.giving a stylish look, that’s kinder to your back and shoulders”.

You may want to take this further by appealing to people’s deeper drives”… giving effortless portability and a sleek appearance and that will be the envy of your friends and co-workers.”

4. Conviction

As hardened consumers, we tend to be skeptical about marketing claims. It’s no longer enough simply to say that a book is a bestseller, for example, but readers will take notice if you state (accurately, of course!), that the book has been in the New York Times Bestseller List for 10 weeks, for example. So try to use hard data where it’s available. When you haven’t got the hard data, yet the product offering is sufficiently important, consider generating some data, for example, by commissioning a survey.

5. Action

Finally, be very clear about what action you want your readers to take; for example, “Visit www.mindtools.com now for more information” rather than just leaving people to work out what to do for themselves.

Key Points:

AIDA is a copywriting acronym that stands for:

Attract or Attention

Interest

Desire

Action.

Using it will help you ensure that any kind of writing, whose purpose is to get the reader to do something, is as effective as possible. First it must grab the target audience’s attention, and engage their interest. Then it must build a desire for the product offering, before setting out how to take the action that the writer wants the audience to take.

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Tie-Downs Are Critical To Sales

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If you knew two little words that could improve your sales, you’d use them, wouldn’t you?

When you see your customer has some reservations, it makes sense to get the issues out in the open, doesn’t it?

And after the ink is dry on the deal, you should make every effort to make sure your customer is satisfied, shouldn’t you?

So why all the questions?  They illustrate a simple technique – sales tie-downs – that can help you improve your sales.  By getting your customers to agree with you in small steps along the way, you have a better chance of reaching agreement when it’s time to do business.

The salespeople who effectively use tie-downs are more successful.  The ones who don’t aren’t nearly as successful.  It’s that simple.

So what exactly are sales tie-downs?

They are short phrases that can be added to statements to turn them into questions that get your prospective customer to start saying yes long before you go for the close.  You ask these little questions throughout your sales presentation to engage your customer and get them used to saying yes.  Psychologically, they will then be more likely to say yes when you ask for the sale.

John Eliason, CEO of First Financial Merchant Services, a credit-card processing firm in Minneapolis, gives the analogy of Gulliver’s travels.  When Gulliver goes to the land of little people and falls asleep, he wakes up and is tied down to the ground.  Gulliver is the sale and all these ropes are the tie-downs.  John says, “If there were only one or two ropes they would not be strong enough to tie down Gulliver.”

Too often, sales reps just regurgitate their presentations and expect that strategy to work.  It doesn’t.  People tune them out because they aren’t engaged in the process.  The remedy is to ask little questions along the way, and monitor the feedback.  Doesn’t that make sense?

You know what I mean?  Are you following me?  These are tie-downs.  End statements with questions like:  Wouldn’t you agree?  Is that right?  This simple technique serves to tie a statement down.

Tie-down questions can be as simple as:

  • Aren’t they?
  • Can’t you?
  • Isn’t it?
  • Shouldn’t it?
  • Won’t they?

Perhaps you have been using these questions with your customers all along and didn’t know there was a name for this technique.

Tie-downs have to become a natural part of your conversation before you can use them in your sales presentations.  Be aware of your tone so the questions don’t sound threatening or argumentative.  Learning how to use tie-downs effectively takes rehearsal.  Practice tie-downs on your spouse or friends.  Have some fun using them in role-playing exercises with other sales professionals.  That will help you develop a rhythm that will include enough, but not too many tie-down questions.

Unfortunately many people in sales don’t ask these little tie-down questions and lose their customers at some point during their presentations.  Give your customer a chance to respond and ask questions of you.  Pay close attention to their reactions, because that will lead you to your next tie-down.

There’s another benefit to tie-downs as well.  They keep you in control and confirm that your customers understand what you are saying during your sales presentation, and that it’s okay to continue.  Are you with me?

Most often, sales people use tie-downs at the end of sentences, but they can be used at the beginning of a sentence as well.  For example, if you are selling an alarm system you might ask:  Isn’t it important for your family to have peace of mind?  Can you see how this will provide safety?

A lot of sales are based on price, so you want customers to agree that savings are important.  You might ask:  Saving money is important to you, isn’t it?  If I could show you ways to save, is that important to you?

Another benefit of using sales tie-downs it that you don’t need a big close, as many sales reps believe. You risk losing your customer when you save all the good stuff for the end.  Keep the customer actively involved throughout your presentation and watch your results improve.

Now let me ask you again, if you knew two little words that could improve your sales, you’d use them, wouldn’t you?  I think you know the answer.

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Six powerful prospecting tips

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Why is it that some sales reps consistently earn a six-figure annual income while other reps, putting in the same hours, selling the same products and trained by the same sales manager struggle each month financially to make ends meet? The answer to this question is painfully simple: the six-figure sales reps spend more time on the phone and never forget to ask for referrals!

Top producers don’t need to be told to ask for referrals or follow up on hot leads, because they understand that prospecting is a necessity and not just an activity. The good news is that prospecting for new business, like any other skill, can be trained and developed into a habit.

Here are six powerful prospecting tips to build your business.

 1. Don’t forget to ask for referrals

When it comes to asking for referrals, timing is everything. Research indicates that the most effective time to ask for referrals is right after you’ve made the sale or provided a valuable service for your customer.

Asking for referrals prior to closing the sale is a big mistake and may even jeopardize the sale itself. Once the sale has been completed, your customer will be on an “emotional high” and far more receptive to the idea of providing you referrals.

2. Train and reward your advocates

An advocate is a person who’s willing to go out of his or her way to recommend you to a friend or associate. Most customers are initially reluctant to provide referrals without some basic training and motivation.

Once you’re given a prospect, it’s a good idea to take the time to role-play with your advocate to demonstrate how to approach and talk to their referral. A brief role-playing exercise will build your advocate’s confidence and keep them from over educating their referrals. During your role-play session, be sure to prepare your advocate to expect some initial resistance. This training will pay big dividends by making your advocate more effective and less likely to become discouraged when faced with rejection.

Always take the time to thank your advocates and give them feedback on the status of their referrals. I recommend that you call them and then follow up by sending a thank you card and or gift.

3. Strike while the iron is HOT

Prospects, like food in your refrigerator, are perishable and therefore need to be contacted quickly. Each day you let slip by without making initial contact with your referral dramatically reduces the probability of you making the sale. Develop the habit of contacting your referrals within two-business days or sooner.

Have a system to keep track of your referrals so they don’t end up falling through the cracks. It’s critical to have a computerised client contact management system to record your remarks and track future contacts and appointments. Relying on your memory alone is a very poor business decision that will cost you dearly.

 4. Schedule a minimum of two-hours a day for phone calling

Make your phone calls in the morning while you and your referrals are both fresh and alert. Treat your prospecting time with the same respect you would give to any other important appointment. This is not the time to check your emails, play solitaire on the computer, make personal phone calls or chat with your associates.

Avoid the temptation to try and sell your product or service over the phone. Your objective for every phone call is to create interest, gather information and make an appointment. If your prospect asks you a question, get in the habit of going for an appointment rather than giving a quick response.

Don’t shoot from the hip; use a script. It’s important to use a phone script when you contact your prospect so you don’t leave out any key information. It’s a good idea to role-play your script over the phone with your sales manager until he or she feels you sound confidence and professional.

 5. Qualify your prospect at maximum range

Unfortunately, not every prospect will be interested or qualified financially to purchase your products or services. Successful sales reps don’t waste time chasing after low-probability prospects and know when it’s time to cut their losses and move on.

 6. Don’t take rejection personally.

Selling, like baseball, is a numbers game, pure and simple. Rejection is to be anticipated as a natural aspect of the qualification process, so don’t take it personally. Learn from rejection by using it as a valuable feedback mechanism. Salespeople who take rejection personally lack perseverance and seldom make the sale.

For the majority of salespeople, prospecting for new business is without a doubt the most challenging and stressful aspect of the selling process. Selling is a contact sport and daily prospecting for new business is the key to every salesperson’s long-term financial success. By integrating these six powerful prospecting tips into your daily business routine, you’ll be able to keep 

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The power of positive thinking in sales

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In aviation, the word “attitude” is a term that refers to the angle that the plane meets the wind, if the wings are level with the horizon and whether the aircraft is climbing or descending. The pilot who fails to take responsibility for the attitude of his or her aircraft is in serious trouble. And likewise, any leader who fails to control his or her thoughts and take responsibility for their attitude runs a similar risk.

As a sales manager, you not only set the pace for your sales team, but you’re responsible for setting the tone as well. For better or worse, the leader’s attitude is contagious and permeates throughout their organization. Positive, upbeat companies are always led by positive, upbeat managers. While we’re not always able to control our circumstances, we can and must control how we respond to life’s difficulties, setbacks and challenges. We have a choice about how our day is going to be.

What do you say?

How often do you talk to yourself and what do you say?

Research in the field of psychology indicates that the average person maintains an ongoing mental dialog, or “self-talk,” of between 150 – 300 words per minute. Unfortunately, not all of these thoughts are positive. In fact, it has been estimated that of the thousands of thoughts we have each day, approximately 40% of them tend to be negative and self-critical in nature. Most of us are generally unaware of this negative background chatter, let alone its sabotaging effect on our emotional state, performance and well-being.

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Choose your words, for they become actions. Understand your actions, for they become habits. Study your habits, for they will become your character. Develop your character, for it becomes your destiny.” – Anonymous

Earl Nightingale, co-founder of the Nightingale-Conant Corp., concluded that life’s “strangest secret” is that you become what you think about all day long. If you want to know where your predominant thoughts lie and what you believe, look at what you’re experiencing in your life. Your thoughts are creative by nature and express themselves through your emotions, which in turn, drive your actions. Everything you say both positive and negative is in fact an affirmation and reflects your belief.

Whatever you think, feel or say about your life today is the scaffolding that builds the events you will experience in the future.

Affirmation and positive self-talk

William Shakespeare said, “Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” The first step in the process of changing your belief system is to monitor your thoughts and the next step is to control them through the power of choice. Once you become conscious of the critical aspects of your internal dialogue, you can choose to reframe your negative thoughts by substituting affirmative statements.

World-class athletes understand the value of affirmation and recognise the impact of their mental preparation on their physical performance. They use the power of positive affirmation to reduce anxiety and increase their expectation of achievement.

To be of maximum benefit, an affirmation must be simple, encouraging and stated in the present tense. By repeating an affirmation over and over again it becomes embedded in the subconscious mind.

Do affirmations really work and can they propel a person to greatness? As a teenager beginning his boxing career in Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay would frequently affirm, “I am the greatest of all time!” While many considered him boastful and few took this 89 nine pound, 12-year-old seriously, Mohammad Ali used the power of affirmation to become the greatest boxer of all time and arguably the most recognisable sports figure in the world.

Henry Ford was right when he said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t – you’re right.” Your belief system, like your computer, doesn’t judge what you input; it simply accepts it as the truth. The key to cultivating and maintaining a positive mental attitude is to use your power of choice and take control of your thinking. It’s a challenging task to develop a calm, focused mind, but well worth the effort.

Action plan

Here are some suggestions to help you have a good day every day.

Establish the habit of getting up early.

Upon rising, read or listen to something positive and inspirational. Clinical studies indicate that our mind is most receptive to suggestion during the first 15-minutes upon awakening. Here are some books that will help you start your day off on the right foot.

How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Sellingby Frank Bettger

The Magic Of Believingby Claude M Bristol

You’ll See It When You Believe Itby Dr Wayne W Dyer

The Power Of Positive Thinkingby Dr Norman Vincent Peale

Think and Grow Richby Dr Napoleon Hill

Psycho-Cyberneticsby Dr Maxwell Maltz

Take a few moments to consider the upcoming activities of your day. Visualise events flowing. See people accept your ideas and your day unfolding in a harmonious and productive way. This is a good time to verbalise your affirmations.

Take time for some physical exercise.

At noon, take a 10-minute mental break to relax and replenish your energy

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Keep calm and sell more

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‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ was a propaganda poster produced by the British government in 1939 during the beginning of the Second World War, intended to raise the morale of the British public in the aftermath of widely predicted mass air attacks on major cities.

Personally, I think that this was a brilliant move during times of distress and great fear and I wish that the slogan would be applied more often, especially during times of stress.

Sometimes, I feel that sales is viewed as a practice where practitioners are expected to hassle and scramble rather than taking a step back, taking a deep breath and carrying on with the plan. Especially, in a consultative sales environment panic appears when sales don’t happen because the sales cycle is typically longer.

What happens if sales don’t happen?

Usually, panic. And panic leads to more panic. When sales don’t happen, very often the CEO thinks s/he needs to step in. Then you have situations in which CEOs are doing the sales training, or CEOs being on first sales calls and getting involved in everything and anything that has to do with sales. They fear for their company’s survival and that’s understandable.

And what about the sales managers in these situations? Well, as there is no success to show they often panic as well. In these cases they often just give in and let their CEOs take over instead of putting their feet down and demanding to stay on track. They tend to go along with their CEOs rather than providing clear measures, guidelines and leading developments in the sales process.

This can have a snowball effect on the sales team. The sales people might fear that they could lose their job or that they won’t be making any money.

The sales managers do both. They panic and fear, both for their team, for their compensation and for their reputation.

Why don’t the sales managers keep their CEO in check?

I have always wondered in situations like that why sales manager wouldn’t stick to their guns? Is it because they are afraid of repercussions or is it that they are not confident enough to make a case for a structured and meaningful sales process?

Or is it because CEOs are used to being powerful leaders and end up steamrolling their team? Or could it be that CEOs are not always good at allowing other opinions?

It’s probably a combination of all of the above but in all fairness, it really shouldn’t be the job of a CEO to establish or drive the sales process. When they take control it’s usually stems from lack of results and trying to be helpful.

Sales managers need to manage their CEOs

Sales managers are tasked with building and managing an effective and successful sales team. To be most successful, though, they will need to build an effective and successful relationship with their CEO. That includes open and full communication, documentation and also managing your CEO’s expectations. Embracing the CEO’s vision but also making sure that your CEO understands and embraces the sales process you put in place. Provide reports on progress, share success stories but also reasons why sales might stall. This will help you as a sales manager or sales person to support your credibility and it will help your CEO understand why things might take a bit longer.

What is the solution?

Stay calm and on-track. If you have a plan, success will follow. It might just take a bit longer. It’s better to wait a month or two as oppose to changing everything and getting derailed completely. When CEOs feel that things are structured and on track, they will go back to doing what they do best, rather than dictating the sales process. Sales people and managers need to manage up.

CEOs often don’t have a background in sales management, so help them understand the process, manage expectations, stay positive and Keep Calm and you will Sell More!

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Intelligent consumers influence sales, marketing tactics

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You will have difficultly finding an organisation that gives you a non-biased story; they are not going to tell you the negative points about their product or service, only the positive points.

Being interrupted by a brand so that they can give you their sales or marketing pitch is a pet peeve of many consumers. Online media platforms, such as Facebook try and resolve this by offering advertisers contextual advertising, whereby consumers only see adverts that are relevant to what they are currently doing. And on the personal engagement front, how often do you have to tell a store assistant that you are “just browsing” when they interrupt you in a store, resulting in you being able to avoid the one sided sales pitch.

Let’s face it, people do not want to be sold to anymore, they want to feel like they are in control of their buying decisions. Even if you see a contextual ad on Facebook, you probably still feel irritated with that brand and may make a subconscious decision not to buy from them, like I do.

Online research

For most purchases, both for individuals and for businesses, the average buyer conducts a fair amount of research online to narrow down their choices and allow them to make an informed decision. This is why, so often, when you are approached by a sales person, and you ask an intelligent question, they then need to refer you to the product specialist to answer it, because they are not ready to deal with your intelligent questions.

The fact that buyers now turn to the internet and become educated before they begin looking at potential suppliers means the job of the marketer has changed. Marketer’s need to educate potential buyers through content that can be trusted, they need to add perceived value to the buyers and they need to capture the buyers attention way before they begin evaluating suppliers.

Marketing strategies need to evolve from incumbent outbound marketing whereby messages are pushed out that interrupt people, hoping to find someone wanting to buy, to inbound marketing strategies whereby buyers find brands through the outstanding content they have provided.

Likewise, sales strategies need to evolve from the outbound approach whereby potential consumers are approached in-store and hurled with the standard sales pitch, or randomly cold called and also flung a sales pitch.

Larger responsibility for revenue generation

With an inbound sales and marketing strategy in place, marketing teams take a much larger responsibility for revenue generation. Not only do they take care of creating awareness and generating leads, but once that lead is found the marketing team can nurture that lead until they are ready to purchase, and only then hand over to sales to conclude the deal.

Globally, inbound strategies are being adopted by marketing teams and in many cases the separate functional areas of sales and marketing are being merged to form a single powerful revenue-generating unit.

For these new content driven strategies, and particularly for those brands adopting them in Africa, special consideration needs to be given to mobile platforms. A large portion of research would take place on a mobile device, and so awareness building, lead generation and lead nurturing content must be mobile device friendly.

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Sales rehab: how to make targets and rest easy

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A lot of B2B companies are using the truculent economy as a scapegoat for many of the ills that plague them. At the end of the day, they’re not making as much money as they used to or perhaps they’re even running at a loss. The fact is, though, that an economy resembling a wounded sloth only serves to highlight and magnify the problems that already existed.

And every company has problems.

It’s no secret that, in times of plenty, companies are protected by the fat but when times are lean, there’s little lard buffering the harsh realities of retrenchments versus the unbounded joy of swelling coffers.

It’s also no secret that it’s then that sales managers begin to bald prematurely, wake up in the dark of night in a cold sweat, and quaff one consecutive coffee after another while chain-smoking like a legionnaire.

Needn’t be the case

The reason for their accelerated ageing is that they don’t know what to do to remedy the situation. But that needn’t be the case.

The causes for lacklustre revenues range from misalignment of sales people with sales management to few sales people meeting their targets, poor forecasting, underused vendor relationships, poor closing ratios, non-existent or ill-defined sales methodologies, and no or poor differentiation, or a poor sales strategy.

What sales and business unit managers in complex sales environments must do is gain visibility into their sales processes because it is then that they can start to take appropriate, relevant and effective actions to do something positive for sales.

They will know, for example, which leads offer immediate potential – if any at all – based upon factual metrics derived from accurate sales data, and distinguish them from those that will not be closed in the immediate future.

Where to focus sales effort

That will tell them where to focus their sales effort to get the maximum returns. They will gain the ability to differentiate their service or product.

It’s not as easy as it sounds.

Sales environments become increasingly complex as organisations grow in size. The larger the business, the more territories in which it operates or offices it maintains, the more sales people it employs, the more divisions it spans, the more products or services it offers, the greater the complexity. It can be an epic task to drill down into the data and learn what’s really happening.

And when managers do try to look into the reasons for poor performance, they are often stymied by the poor forecasting that runs riot through most businesses. Forecasts are typically based on past performance; they’re based on supposition, they’re an enigmatic brew of science and art, thumb sucks, bum covering, and the whole gamut of corporate ethics, mixed as they are.

The plan

So how is a sales manager or business unit manager (BUM) supposed to come up with a plan? And while they’re at it, how do they come up with a plan they’re pretty sure will succeed?

First, they need to know what’s going on. Without a sales methodology, process and proper tools in place, they cannot even begin. Those three components give them a common language and qualification that leads to qualitative selling. But not without coaching that will allow sales managers and BUMs to put the three components to proper use.

Take those steps and sales people ultimately end up with clear differentiators and compelling reasons why clients should choose them, which means they don’t have to resort to the unsustainable business practice of discount selling. Sales managers and BUMs gain visibility into where to maximise impact through focused, appropriate, and effective actions. Sales people cannot fudge forecasts and activities.

Sales people become more productive and more effective – or they leave. It’s the ugly side of sales performance management but right-sizing can cost companies an inordinate sum unless the situation can be reversed.

Clear and factual metrics

Clear and factual metrics will identify under-performers and top performers without prejudice, and under-performers without the will to change typically leave of their own accord once it becomes clear.

Those that do wish to remedy the situation, however, will know precisely where to make an effort and how to do so and sales managers will be able to support them as they become more productive for the business. It’s the most attractive option for everyone because, ultimately, companies exist to make money and any working person, particularly a sales person, is no different.

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