salespodder: sales blog with musings and tips from inside sales

I remember thinking Greg Norman was great.  In my formative years, my sporting heroes were all True English Leaders; David Gower, Trevor Francis, Seb Coe.  Legends one and all, with similar charismatic, elegant and unconventional qualities.  Then I discovered golf.  England could only produce personality-devoid characters (although amazingly Nick Faldo has now developed a wonderful persona as evidenced by his witty insightful commentary, yet his style of play was akin to a Keegan, Ovett, Steve Davis - all workman-like and endeavour rather than panache and lateral thinking).  Then along came Seve.  Wow!  And hot on his heels, Greg Norman.  I remember staying up late to watch him somehow lose to Larry Mize’s bizarre chip-in at Augusta’s play-off in 86.

I’ve only ever seen him play on telly, but you can still pick up a lot about his attitude from the on-course mics.  One time, he overhead one of the world’s pitifully awful commentators, Peter Allis describe what he should do, Norman stopped and laughed, joking with those near that the advice was rubbish.  And another time, he was struggling to work out a shot to get out of difficutly, and his caddy could be overhead to say: “Greg, just picture the shot in your mind, and play it”, which I always thought was terrific advice.

Norman’s turned his personal brand (the shark) into a multi-million business.  And on a Qantas flight (he’s an “ambassador” for them at present, nice work if you can get it) bringing me back after witnessing part of the Ashes debacle, I read an in-flight mag article reviewing his latest book.  So, apologies for in effect being a review of a review, but isn’t it nice when someone’s already done half your work!  In terms of lessons for selling, here’s a few pointers I picked out:

As with all “The Big I Am” books, it’s bound to have stuff you like, and stuff you don’t, so here’s my listing.

Good

• The odd obstacle doesn’t matter if momentum is maintained
• Play your own game
• Set high standards to drive you to succeed
• Do it now, Do it properly
• Learn value of preparation
• Dreams are blueprints of [future] reality
• Be willing to change in order to succeed

…and a couple of neat tips from golf course design

• treat every dollar as if it’s your own
• keep future maintenance costs down

not-so-good

• work at weaknesses rather than strengths
• do not heavily invest your own capital
• separate business and personal wealth management
• identify your niche and fill it

A wholesale/distributor with 250 telesales agents, and around 40 road-reps, I’ve spoken to about even more sales effectiveness during January are enjoying ahead-of-target sales as the new year gets underway.

They’re investing millions with in-house programmers, sister Indian company development, customisation of the leading industry finance software and bespoke analytical capabilities.

Yet as we spoke, the guy at the helm of sales, reckons only 30% of his salespeople are currently (and perhaps will use in the future anyway) using the considerable gear they can tap into right now.

The rest all cite the usual excuses; ‘too busy’, ‘don’t you want me selling’, ‘it takes too long to use’, ‘it’s not relevant for me’.  Why is it so few salesguys see the enormous benefit of just a couple of minutes a day devoted to engagement in these areas?  And no-one seems to be making them do so?

And a further damning hunch I was also privvy to:

“if I sent an email out now, and said responses today earn fifty quid, only a third would reply on time - another third would do it later in the week, and the final third would never bother saying they were either too busy or never got the email!”

Here’s an interesting angle for getting your foot in the door.  I met a decent chap at a prospect, called Stuart Berkeley who shared some happily experienced views of selling.  We got to talking about how lazy buyers can be.

Surely when your job depends on showing you’re on top of everything (whether technologies or tactics) and someone says they’ve something ‘new’, it’s got to be in your best interests to see what it’s all about - even if you stipulate now probably isn’t a time you’re actually in the market for such wares?

So why is it that so many buyers say ‘no, clear off’ to us when we say we’ve something new to offer.  It is indeed a mystery.  I guess a counter argument, could be the old chestnut of “….if I saw everyone that called me up I’d get no work done blah blah blah…”.  In reality, how many people are calling up and saying, genuinely, “here’s something new you won’t have seen before”?

I went to a direct mail seminar over ten years ago where their advice on mailshot writing (in the days before email) was plaster the communication with the word NEW, as it was proven to be the most effective word in getting buyer attention!

So, I reckon as well as offering something ‘new’, you can also try and engage with ‘how would knowing about the latest revelations/innovations/developments help you achieve your ambitions?’

Here’s a funny thing.  How many sales organisations have a form that you’re supposed to fill in after every sales call?  US mag Entreprenuer suggests one, as evidenced by this pdf.  Bear in mind this mag is aimed primarily at people who want to either start a business or grow a recently born one, and focuses quite a bit on franchising.

I’ve seen several of these types of sheets in my travels around all my customer and prospect sales teams, usually appearing after a newly appointed sales manager rocks up, or some funky training’s just heralded the ‘new way forward’.  I’ve never seen one take hold.

Manifold reasons for this exist.  Primarily, salesguys resent having to do admin of any kind, especially such which they see little direct benefit in for themselves.  This is a touch wierd, as often you’ll be in a situation where you really wish you could tap in to some deeper documentation about a conversation, meeting, benefit, requirement, opportunity, or the like.  Also, just about everyone is expected to fill-out some form of software these days.  Whether it be on a simple spreadsheet, or a new-fangled on-demand crm, the problem is that what you see on the screen is nothing like what your preferred call report would look like, and retrieving info is a nightmare.

With one of my boiler roomers recently becoming pregnant, I was sent into the cauldron of a new business first meeting yesterday.  Having plenty of time on the train to prepare and dust off the festively enduced cobwebs, our meeting began with a discussion on the delights of crm.

This furniture vendor currently use Act.  Or more accurately, do not use Act.  According to the guy in charge of sales I met, the reps ‘don’t even enter a one-liner about when they should speak to the prospect next and what about’.  And he found it no different when he was in previous roles where his guys used Maximiser and Pivotal.

So, why exactly then do people buy what’s now generically termed CRM?  It really is a mystery sometimes.  The two main reasons in reality are:

• Policing - management want to have a closer eye on what everyone is upto, whether on an activity tracking wavelength or forecasting slant
• Paranoia - and if someone leaves, you wouldn’t want to lose all knowledge of their contacts, would you?

Yet so many other options for solving these two issue exists…..

And feel comfortable in the knowledge that this malaise is not unique to crm.  My guy yesterday inherited some quote generation software (incorporating space planning kit).  It cost roughly £400 per person per month, and isn’t even “on-demand”!  Anyway, he’s canned it now, mainly because of two reasons; it was taking up too much time of the salesguys that did engage with it which should have been selling time, when they could have passed details onto in-house designers, and the other reason, is that did I say salesguys?  I should have said “salesguy”, singular - only 1 of the team managed to get to grips with it!

The Beeb’s approach over the past decade to pop-business shows is laudable.  The only series I can recall being a dud was the Adrian Chiles pathetic ‘what do you do all day?’ nonsense.  The rest all pursue a Radio4, Broadsheet type agenda, yet put across in plain English, and this addition which I’ve seen over the past couple of nights is a worthy addition.  As I’m off out tonight and will miss the final show, I thought I’d review it now.

Gerry Robinson is the latest in a long line of business ‘troubleshooters’.  Now passed the Autumn of his business career he tackles other people’s problems.  His task here is reducing infamous, unnecessarily long waiting lists within the “world’s third largest employer”, the National Health Service.

Most of the show is devoted to highlighting the canyon-wide differences between all major categories of players, and saying that ‘good old fashioned proper management’ would sort it all out.  Although more of a general business study, certain sales tactics have shone through that Gerry uses, and here are a few nuggets:

Meeting Venues - Why is it that every meeting we tend to have as salespeople is always in the same place?  Most often, a comfy purpose-built room around a conference table?  Gerry decided a major issue was the almost permanent emptiness of the most precious resource; operating theatres.  So to get his point across, he convened a meeting confronting the problem in the environment which exposes that problem, those very same empty operating theatres one Friday.  If you know an issue can be highlighted in some way this ’strikes me’ (a favourite Gerry phrase!) as a good way to get movement your competition wouldn’t have latched onto.

Uncovering Solutions - If you’re in B2B solution selling (like me) then you’ll love his line “as always the people doing the jobs had the answers”.  Which means should you need to generate more proof for your argument, remember to ask around as many people as possible and you’ll find support.  And one killer way he tried to uncover such solutions was to ask “please give me a sense of what you think’s going on here” which is wonderfully disarming.

Sales Management - “the role of management is to provide an environment where things can and will happen”  Are you doing this as a sales manager?  Should your sales manager be doing something to make this happen?  Also, the Chief Exec was berated for his lack of ‘walking the floor’.  Gerry told him doing this half-a-day a week would let him know all the problems, and then, many of the solutions as well.  A good tip for anyone heading up a sales team with layers of management everywhere.

Seeking Progress -  He felt the behemoth sprouted meetings where everyone agreed on something, then nothing ever happened.  In frustration he once cried “what’s stopping us meeting next Thursday to run through the numbers?”.  A cracking close when you want breathing space and some genuine action.

Got reminded today of what a nasty little shock can hurt like, when a decent-looking prospect suddenly ran aground.  I went on a sales training session run by the internal ’sales ops’ guys of a software house I sold for in the early Nineties.  One theme of the day was on ‘process’, and they put up a slide of the worst sales campaign you could imagine.  With graphics to rub it all in, you can probably picture how it’d go.  You’re at the wrong level (in those days cases, at IT Manager rather than preferred CFO/CEO), the named budget is way too small, no business drivers shape the wish-list, after the first meeting you can’t get through to anyone, your competition get quoted at every turn, and on it goes….

It’s an intriguing Training pointer as well, that if you run a similar training session yourself, get the audience to say what characterises their ‘campaigns from hell’, and when the same kind of list appears, you can then knock over each one for them.

Momentum & Urgency

Anyhow, for what I sell there tend to be two reasons why deals stall in total frustration.  The first is about momentum, where everyone is excitedly jumping around in the initial meet, yet nothing ever happens after, and the second is more on urgency, with key business drivers that should kick-in quicker/easier not being pinned down.

So I’d certainly recommend as one sales tip, understanding what you want to avoid to ensure a smooth progressing campaign, and work out what you can do to head them off.  For me, one simple tool is the Close for a follow-up meeting in a few days time, to verify you’ve captured the benefits sought, provide extra credibility/proof we can indeed help, and to consider the best way forward with approaching others requiring involvement in the decision.

How soon into a new salesperson’s time do you terminate their contract on the basis of a lack of performance?  Well, here’s a story to send shudders down any recruiters spine.

It’s set just now in Jo’Burg.  And as the world knows and connives, ‘affirmative action’, whilst laudable in principle is in reality being implemented disastrously.  (Ask Kevin Pietersen).  Anyway, this isn’t a rant on educational priorities, but on what happened when IBM there took on a new account manager.

For the first month, the sales manager tried to keep tabs on the new lady.  Repeated requests for activity updates went unproduced.  Then meetings arranged for the mornings went unattended.  With no activity, meeting nor communication, a sacking was surely inevitable …..yet the local labour laws made IBM’s HR whince away from action at that time.

Then one morning, after another false meet date, the boss arrived to stifled smirks and smiles all-round in the office.  That morning’s JoBurg paper ran a feature on up-and-coming black women, already making their mark.  And there for all to see was one, citing their account manager position at IBM as commercial credence, along with her other job….. reading the weather out for a major local radio station.

Unbelievable.

And what’s worse (S Africa watchers take note) is HR still shied away from sacking her due to the legislation imbalance, and were lucky she got given more airtime shortly after so jacked them in of her own accord.

The New Year’s kicking in.  All my customers don’t seem to stir from their slumber ’til next Monday, so I’m taking the opportunity to do those chores salespeople hate; housekeeping.  During my tidying up, I’ve already come across some docs I picked up at a customer sales conference eons ago.  It was provided by their training company, a group of guys I always quite liked although no business ever came of it for either of us despite promising discussions.

I considered their intellectual view of the questioning process to be excellent, yet it was destined to be forever beyond the grasp of the average wholesale/distributor salesrep.

Simplifying a tad, the idea was you breakdown your pitch for each aspect of what you sell (for both product and service elements) into:

Features - headings that explain what you have
Advantages - as many as you can conjure
Proofs - anything that provides credibility

The trick then is to devise a series of questions that help expose an answer which’ll allow you to propose what you’ve got as a no-brainer.  So, as a random example, taking one ‘element’ as Installation:

Feature

it could be Project Management (through dedicated personnel, single point of contact and supplier having ownership of project).

Advantages

examples include:

1. smooth running of job - seamless
2. time effectiveness
3. transfer responsibilty to supplier
4. confidence in getting problems solved
5. less worry/hassle/opportunity cost
6. eliminate delays and subsequent penalties

Proofs

such as References from other 3rd parties & detailed completed project plans.

This intel then allows you to create questions that lead the prospect to you.  For example taking each of the first three advantages, questions that can introduce glory include:

‘how important is it that the installation runs smoothly and to schedule?’
‘what are your experiences of how well items are installed to spec?’
‘what have been your experiences of damages after the event?’

Fairly regularly I get to rant about the prevalence of all-too-abysmal forecasting routines.  A pal of mine (congrats on the new baby, Bren!) currently has his charges attribute one of these tags to deals: 

1. Drop Dead (you don’t miss this)
2. Commit (deals you feel will come in this month, although not 100% sure)
3. Best Case (deals that if all the moons align and you get a tradewind behind you could make it this month)

 - Obviously 2 & 3 should become 1 & 2 the next month.

And I’m delighted to report it seems to be working well in their tech sales to CIOs.