The Growth Guy – Interesting insights for those of us in sales

I met the Growth Guy Verne Harnish on Wednesday at a Mastering the Rockefeller Habits event. That was a great opportunity to compare the sales priorities and strategies being employed on both sides of the Atlantic in this time of economic turmoil.

No surprise, the list is almost identical. Just to show how identical I made a list of some of the points Verne raised:

• Forget selling benefits, restructure your benefit statements into messages that focus on loss avoidance. Present the opportunity that could be lost. Verne referenced a book called High Stakes Negotiation that I plan to read over the coming weeks.
  

• Never email a proposal, always arrange a time to review the proposal either face to face or over the phone, ideally face to face. I know some sales people find this one hard to swallow, but I can tell you from experience of working with hundreds of sales people this is an important point. The sales people who make sure they review proposals face to face win more.
  
  
• The single most important thing you can know about the person you are selling to is how their bonus plan will be measured. You don’t need the numbers you just need to know the areas he/she needs to affect.
  
  
• Avoid discounting, use a good, better, best approach. When you are asked for a discount ignore it. If that doesn’t work, be absolutely clear on your differentiation and points of value, then present options along the lines of a good, better, best approach. Make sure you go back to the people you sold your solution or service to and review the value with them. More often than not they will acknowledge the value you deliver. Remember buyers are being asked to call everyone not just you.
  

• As sale professional we have the toughest job in the world, no doubt. We have to face rejection more than any other profession in the world. I would suggest that up-to 70% of sales people stop communicating with a hand picked prospect after 3 or 4 attempts. Verne referenced research that shows you need to maintain a keep in touch mindset, reaching out to prospects up-to 15 times with relevant/insightful material. The KIT approach delivers sales.

• As sales managers, we need to be leaders and coaches. We need to sit with our sales people regularly. We need to talk to them about what they are learning in the filed from customers and prospects. Then we have got to remove the barriers they feel are in their way. I use the word feel because successful sales people sometimes put barriers in their way that are based on their feelings. Sales people attitude is everything. In fact 80% of the characteristics of effective sales people are attitude based. Worth a thought.

• Sales people need to read more. What was the last sales book you read? How many sales books did you red last year? Most sales people read on average one to two books a year. The best sales people read upto 12. They are always looking for new tips and techniques that will help them sell more professionally and more effectively. So you might want to pick up one of the best selling sales book in the US right now - The Ultimate sales machine.

• Marketing should not report to sales and most great marketers have an engineering mindset. Where does marketing report to in your company.

• How often do we seek feedback from the people we have sold to and delivered to? In my experience sales people rarely revisit customers to get feedback unless they are looking to cross sell or up-sell. Verne suggested 4 key questions we should ask our customers:

1. How are you doing
2. What is happening in the industry right now?
3. What have you heard about our competition?
4. How are we doing?

Whether you agree with these questions or not is not the point I guess. The point is customer feedback is crucial; it will help you identify patterns and real market needs. It will also help you understand what marketing and sales tactics your competition are adopting. And remember your competition are calling on you customers.

• Intense listening, asking interesting and relevant questions will position us ahead of our competition. Have you the intense listening skills required to sell in this environment?

I could probably keep writing for another few hours on all the points Verne Harnish highlighted, and do recommend next time Verne is in town you should take the day out to hear what he has to say. Thanks to O’ Kelly Sutton and 4^th Option for hosting the Verne event.

John O’Gorman - sales activity, sales growth, sales insights

'Conventional wisdom is obsolete'

A new book has been published that puts into words a lot of what we have been thinking.  It turns the traditional view of economic turmoil and recession on its head pointing out that this present climate can be the beginning of something new and innovative for each of us and our businesses.

'The New World Disorder' by Joshua Cooper Camo points out that this is a time of great possibility.  Complexity and change are a given in the new market space, with old ways of doing things and old ideologies giving way to a new practicality.

The result is an ideal time for people to reinvent themselves and their companies  because all ties with the past have been cut.  It is no longer about last year’s sales result, your past history, etc.  That is less relevant now that before, the future is anybody's to create.

Camo points out that revolutions, like that of today, don’t just destroy, they also create – that is; new markets, fortunes and champions.    Those champions see their role as innovation and invention, or what he calls positive disruption.   

It is that disruptiveness that characterizes the most successful business, social and political organization, naming Google to Hizb’allah just to mention two.   And the present environment offers more power to disrupt through invention and reinvention than ever before.   A vital ingredient is a resilience and adaptability that enables disrupters to live with unpredictability and lack of equilibrium.

The present business environment is, for many, terrifying and worrying.  But there is also great opportunity and promise. As Camo emphasizes that this is an incredibly optimistic moment.  So remember 'if change is to slow make it your job to accelerate it'.

The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us And What We Can Do About It by Joshua Cooper Ramo 

 

Be a business development stone cutter

I have been looking for an analogy for ages that would help our clients who have committed to increasing sales activity levels, but are struggling to keep the momentum going. In particular, to provide a little encouragement on those days when there are lots of calls and call-backs made, but there are few results to be seen.

In the mind game that is selling, managing our expectations and staying the course can be a challenge, particularly on those frustrating days when nobody seems to be available, or even interested.

We are continually saying that activity gets results and that everything counts - every email, every telephone call, every conversation, etc. The objective is to make the calls, to send the emails and to dial the number. In most cases selling is inevitable, if these other things are happening. But that does not seem to be enough to get the message across.

Then it struck me that the perfect analogy is that of a business development stone cutter – you have to keep chipping away if you are going to crack a market, or an account. But it is difficult to persist, because maybe the next blow will do it, or perhaps another 20, or 30 are required. One thing for sure, it will require more perspiration than inspiration. In fact, no matter what finesse you bring to it, a while lot of effort will be required.

Each time you diall a number, talk to a prospect, send an email, or have a sales meeting is the equivalent of a hammer blow bring you one step closer to carving out the opportunity you want.

However, if you stop chiseling away the stone will never crack. If you stop now all you have done is made the job a little easier for the next salesperson that comes along. Maybe you need to replace, or improve your tools, but you absolutely need to keep hammering. If you do the result will inevitable come.

When you have cracked that account, or that opportunity, it may appear to the outside world to have been easy, but only you will know how much effort it took. Only you will have the satisfaction of knowing that, in spite of temptation, you did not give up.

It is not the number of hours you work…

I learned with sadness today of the passing of a friend and former colleague who taught me was that ‘it is not the number of hours you work but what you bring to those hours that matters’.

Audrey exhibited unbounded energy and commitment, evident in a tremendous professional drive, as well as a deep personal generosity.  She could rise to any challenge, always putting the ‘best foot forward’ and demonstrating a confident outward glow. 

We have written elsewhere about the importance of intensity, commitment and enthusiasm in sales and how it is often sadly lacking.  Most people pour themselves into their family and their hobbies.  Only a minority truly pour themselves into their jobs.   Audrey did both.

Even more finite than the number of hours in any one day is the amount of ourselves we can give.  That well of enthusiasm and energy at our core is a bounded resource, so it is very important to how we decide to allocate it. 

Even more important than the number of hours in the day is the energy and enthusiasm we can bring to them.   So, if you cannot begin your day with by exclaiming  ‘let me at it’ then either you need to change your attitude, or change your job.  If you cannot let that innate life force that is in you come through your work, then maybe you are doing the wrong thing. 

 

 

Please don’t ad lib on your prospecting calls

One of the things we struggle with is to convince salespeople of the need to write out what they plan to say before they pick up the phone to talk to a prospect.  That is not to suggest that the parroting of a script is going to make their calls any more successful.  However, it is clear that the act of planning and practicing in advance what they are going to say is vital to calming their nerves, as well as gaining their prospects interest.

In a world where poorly trained telemarketers have made life more difficult for us all, we much prefer to talk about using a conversation guide than a call script.   That simply means having what you believe to be the best way to communicate your proposition written out in front of you before you call, including how you will answer any questions, or objections you may encounter. No the objective is not to read it, just to have it to refer to as required.  Anyway once you have made a dozen calls what is on the paper will be so familiar that reading it won’t be necessary.

Please don’t ad lib, even though you feel you know your product back to front and can hold your own with any buyer.  It is not a conversation, although you might like to think it is.  The conversation will only come later, that is if you manage to rouse the prospect’s interest.  Your telephone call, on the other hand, is going to be short, shallow and quick – not the best environment for getting your traditional benefits and features rich message across.  In fact it could not be any further from the nature of a typical sales meeting. 

Your objective is to poke the prospect in the eye with the headline message of your proposition in a credible manner and see if he, or she is interested in finding out more.  Achieving that in a 2-3 minute phone call, where you have just over half the prospect's attention (the rest is on emails, tasks to be complete, etc.), is a major challenge and one that you won’t rise to unless you have a carefully crafted and rehearsed message at your side.

Another reason for having a conversation guide is that you can keep track of what works and what does not and enabling you to make constant revisions that reflect the changing interests of buyers and new angles in terms of your proposition.  It will also ensure a more scientific and systematic approach, allowing others to adopt a standard approach that has proven results.

3 creases in the pants - Could it be time to revamp your presentation?

It is terrible I know, but it is difficult to avoid judging a book by its cover. That applies to the salesperson with scruffy shoes who did not get past the first interview and the consultant that was eliminated because of the 3 creases in his suit pants.

You don’t get a chance to make a first impression - that is as true as ever. However, over the last decade we have noticed that the general effort put into business attire has slipped. Casual Fridays have become an everyday reality and the internet boom entrepreneur has set the new standard for business dress.

Presentation is everything. Your clothes and personal grooming say a lot about you. They shape how others see you, as well as how you feel about yourself. Yet, it is easy to let it slide and as a consequence something that we all need to reappraise from time to time.

With crèche runs, long commutes and a quickening pace of life generally, we can all fall victim to the scruffy sales kit, brief case or laptop, the worn shirt collar, the scruffy shoes, or shiny suit. But sales people have to dress to a higher standard than their colleagues, or their customers.

Set the standard higher than your colleagues and dress like a dragon in the dragon’s den, or the chairman of the board of a Fortune 1000 company. Get a new tie, a new shirt and a new suit twice or three times a year and put a full length mirror somewhere that you will see before you leave your home, or your office.

A client of ours took this issue so seriously that he put a giant mirror at the top of the stairs right before the entrance to the company canteen. In our view it worked, with the company’s sales force being notably well groomed.

Don’t forget to book your space on twitter, facebook, etc.

Business web sites have started to talk back, reaching out in the hope of building a community from among your customers and prospects. 

Well, that is the aspiration of the next generation of web marketing - web 2.0.  How quickly it will be achieved and how soon all this will have an impact on your revenue figures is open to debate. 

However, take care not to be left behind.  We were aghast today when a luddite like marketing consultant exclaimed ‘I don’t believe in all this blogging and stuff’. 

That is a mistake you don’t want to make which means you have to do some homework to get familiar with the new arsenal of online marketing tools.

Our advice is to do this sooner, rather than later, making sure that you stamp your mark Wordpress / Blogger, Linked-in, Wiki, Facebook and Twitter. 

Just as in the case of a .com domain, set up an account on each of these to make sure that your company’s name or ideal keywords are not lost to somebody else.  Once they are gone, you may not have a change to get them back.

Sell don’t tell: How improving your listening skills will increase your sales success

Great sales people are not great talkers:

Contrary to popular opinion great sales people are not great talkers, but great communicators. The difference is the ability to listen.

When the sales person listens he/she will be told things that will help sell. Real selling takes place in conversations, as opposed to monologues, in the two-way exchange of ideas, as opposed to formal presentation, and the joint exploration of problems, as opposed unilateral proposals.

We live in an age of sound bites, Instant feedback and direct response. With too much information and not enough time we want the conclusion without reading the report and the headlines before reading the article. The only problem is that conversations don’t work that way. There are no summaries, no headings and no bullet points. Often the person talking has to verbally reason their way through the detail before you get the headlines you need. You may have figured out the solution within the first few minutes of listening, but the other person has not finished talking yet.

Great talkers out number great listeners ten to one:

Listening is not easy, or else everybody would be doing it and we would live in the type of world described by John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’. Here is the problem: talking results in immediate gratification of the ego, listening on the other hand does not. The little show off in us all wants to be heard, wants the listener to know how much we know and wants to have our opinions aired.

The goal is to learn about the prospect’s problems so that you can sell your solutions. But it is also to make the person feel better, to show you care and to build rapport. By asking questions and listening to the prospect you build awareness of the problem, as well as ownership the solution. These are two vital ingredients of your sales success.

Tips To Improve Your Listening:

· You must earn the right to listen and encourage the prospect to open up, by owing that you are credible, trust-worthy and attentive. You must also tell the prospect that you want to listen and why. For many buyers this may seem unusual, or even unwelcome, with the sales person expected to talk rather than listen and the consultant suspected of repeating back what he/she has been told.

• Listening is an attitude – it is built on openness and respect for the person talking. To listen well you need to be genuinely interested in the other person and what they have to say.
  
  
• Listening is active, not passive. It is also a full body activity:

- Give visual encouragement to the speaker - face the speaker, maintain eye contact, nod your head as you listen, etc.

- Give non verbal feedback to show that you are listening - using words like "yes", "I see", etc.

• Listening requires patience and discipline. Because we listen and process information faster than others can talk we must resist the temptation to interrupt, or to jump in. Your challenge is to let the speaker tell the story in his/her own words and at his/her own pace.
  
  
• An intellectual understanding is not enough: great communicators empathize. They also understand the emotional context - reading the emotions and the body language of the person talking.
  
  
• Beware of making judgments and try to remain objective and open-minded. Having been around quite a bit you most likely hae seen it all before. Yet, to really engage with the person talking it is important to sweep away your preconceived notions.
  
  
• Probe by asking open questions (e.g. how do you feel about that? and, in particular, to explore the implications of what is being said.
  
  
• Take some notes. This will aid your concentration at the time and assist your recall after the event. It can also demonstrate that you are listening.
  
  
• Check regularly to ensure that you understand what is being said, paraphrasing the key points to confirm that it is correct and that you understand the importance, or emotion attached to it.
  
  
• Put your ego in your back pocket, this is essential if you are going to listen effectively. Remember it is not about you, it is about the buyer. It does not matter whether what is being said is 'right' or 'wrong'. Resist the temptation to show that you know more than the buyer and protecting the prospects ego at every turn. Remember listening is also a manifestation of confidence on the part of the listener to be able to listen without interrupting.
  
  
• Key to being a good listener is to demonstrate trustworthiness and making it safe for the buyer to open up.
  
  

I Love Recession!

Last week we met several business mentors and advisers who were struggling to stay positive. But one stood out from the crowd by loudly proclaiming ‘I love recession’.

Crazy, well maybe not. As mind guru Tony Robbins would put it, he was reframing the situation so as to empower himself. So, while the mere mention of recession sends most people in to a tail spin of depression, the ‘I love recession’ sales coach is using the term to trigger an altogether different and more empowering set of emotions.

Most conversations about the recession focus on lay-offs, shrinking markets and stalled buying decisions. However, our ‘I love recession coach’ has a very different assessment of selling in a downturn, focusing instead on

· It is a level playing field – even industry giants like GM are feeling the pain, making room for industry upstarts to steal the game.

· There are no rules – in this turbulent market anything goes, you can innovate and rewrite the rules to suit your company.

· It is survival of the fittest – in a Darwinian way the recession will ‘sort the men from the boys’ with those companies who embrace the challenge coming out on top.

You have often heard it said that it is not the reality of the situation that matters, but how you interpret it and more to the point whether that interpretation empowers, or holds you back. Key to changing your attitude, is to reframe the situation in question and ‘I love recession’ is the perfect example.

Sales Alchemy: From Reactive to Proactive Sales Organization

Changed Times Requires Changed Companies

What made your company successful in the boom, is not enough to ensure its survival in the downturn. Times have changed and that means the fundamental character of your company must change too.

In a constricting market, the customers you get are the customers you pursue, with creativity, energy and vigor. That means your entire organization needs to be more active and more proactive about sales. That means more sales calls, emails, meetings and so on. It also means a switch from business development by the few (i.e. sales and marketing), to grass roots and senior managemnet involvement in sales.

A New Era of Pro-activity

After a decade of customers walking in the door and RFPs arriving in the post, responding and reacting are no longer enough. Your organisation’s efforts must switch to the proactive pursuit of customers.

Your organization must make an alchemistic transformation from reactive to proactive – from inward looking to outward reaching. It must become more innovation in the solutions being offered and more flexible in term of how they are packaged and priced.

The objective is to magically transform what has been common, into what is uncommon and of great value. A change of attitude and behavior is required, from the top to the bottom - from the board room to the sales office and from customer service to administration। Also required are the appropriate underlying business metrics, systems and processes.

Making the transition

Henry Ford famously said ‘your business, like a chicken, is at its healthiest when it has to do a little searching for its food.’ However, we have become accustomed to having our food served on a plate and at regular intervals. Going back to the old ways is going to come as a bit of a shock.

For many organisations making the transition from reactive to proactive in terms of the changing marketplace requires rewriting the organization’s DNA. We have watched the transition in sales organizations, as well in professional services organizations, manufacturing businesses and retail organisations. Some have employed a bullwhip to drive staff to adopt more proactive and sophisticated approach to sales, while others have offered gentle encouragement. Neither is guaranteed success.

Lessons from those who have succeeded, as well as those who have failed

Here are some of the lessons from those who have already made the transition, as well as those stumbled in the process.

For most companies the transition will not be easy, as it involves changing deep rooted organization habits and cultures laid down over many years. The main reason it will be painful: because it requires people moving outside their comfort zone – for example it requires sales reps, customer service and other staff to increase the level of sales activity and in particular to undertake some element of cold calling.
1. Many organizations, having endured the trauma of downsizing, lay-offs, lost business, etc. find themselves at a low ebb currently. However, those organizations paralyzed by negativity and reeling from shock find it most difficult to rise to the challenge. Keeping in tact the essential esprit de corps of the organization is key. Managers must win hearts as well as minds.
Managers tell us they are tired of telling staff of the urgent need for more sales activity, but that the message is not getting through. But prophesies of doom, fear of redundancy and constant nagging fall short of empowering staff to take up the baton for a more proactive approach to sales and run with it.
How to make it easy for people? The answer is to provide the support required, ensuring that people have the confidence, skills and tools, as well as the encouragement and leadership that is required. Also required is to identify and remove, ahead of time, any barriers that may exist. The most important one of these is not having the time, but there are many more.
Arguably most important of all is to set modest/realistic expectations at the start. That includes a slow and modest take-off in terms of the level of activity, rather than a mad burst of activity that quickly dissipates. That often means focusing on the activity required as opposed to the target to be achieved. For example, remedying a sales deficit (250,000) based on targeted conversion rates becomes less daunting and more meaningful when it is couched in terms of each person on the team talking to an extra 10 potential customers per week, or spending the necessary 6 hours per week calling potential customers.
Leadership is the vital ingredient in the success of any program of proactive sales and marketing, once off as well as ongoing. That is not to be mistaken for ‘charging over the hill leadership’, but the most subtle and more effective forms that entail coaching, as well as setting an example. Quite simply managers have no legitimacy in asking staff to do things that they themselves have not demonstrated themselves willing to do the same. That is why it is important in sales meetings and progress reviews that the manager are first to report on what they have done.
If managers want something from staff (more calls, more activity, etc.) they have to be willing to give something in return. That goes beyond the obvious rewards and recognitions to include new levels of openness, honesty and communication.
It is important to rally activity around a sales campaign that provides a new reason to contact customers, or prospects, including perhaps a new message, or a special promotion. It is also important to combine a number of sales and marketing ingredients together, for example supporting cold calling with direct mail, or PR for example.
Getting started won’t be hard, but maintaining momentum that is tough. That is because as management attention turns to the next immediate priority sales activity and pro activeness will return to its previous default level. For this reason regular coaching of staff, ongoing meetings, revisions to the sales campaign, new initiatives, etc. are required to keep the oxygen of flowing to revitalize sales. It is vital that the manager regularly 'drops by' to enquire how things are going, show interest and offer encouragement.
Inevitably there will be casualties along the way, with some staff being simply unable to meet the challenge at this point in their professional lives. There will be other setbacks and disappointments too. For example a sales message that fails to tempt buyers, a target sector that proves to be dry, etc. All this is to be expected - the success requires experimentation and ongoing correction. Many successful business development initiatives are borne out of a false start, with the ability to start again with enthusiasm being key.
Job descriptions are being widely rewritten, with the addition of business development to the tasks and responsibilities of so many. However, even though the balance of power has swung very firmly in favour of the employer, care is required to avoid an arbitrary change of employment terms that could result in a a claim of constructive dismissal, or unfair selection for redundancy. Now, in our view sales is everybody's job, however it is a mantel that people must take up for themselves, as opposed to one that is forced upon them.