salespodder: sales blog with musings and tips from inside sales

I’ve spent a large part of the past few days writing a business plan for a friend.  Although to do a proper one (and lamentably few people ever attempt one at all preceding a new venture) is notoriously tricky, it’s a fantastically rewarding experience when you complete.

I’ve not yet discussed the intricacies with my pal, but one of the key considerations involves staffing.  The initial commercial idea was conceived after identifying a gap in the market.  After this dawning though, were the ambitions centred around pure money-making, or enjoyment along with profit?

I mention this as at the same time, I happened across the Spectator Christmas edition.  Best-selling author Tony Parson wrote a page about how you can only write a novel that flies from shelves by the barrow-load if your heart is truly in it, and it is never, ever an exercise in unfettered cash generation.

I quite enjoyed his postering.  It really resonated with me as I’m always going on about people who really achieve do so because they follow success.  And it is the subsequent accomplishment from which riches truly flow.  Yet if you simply chase the dollar, you remain unfulfilled.

This is relevant in the context of my consultative business plan authoring, as the endeavour requires some management resource to be found.  And their attitude is crucial to results.  Also, in sales we all know that this is now the time of year when most of our ‘clocks go back to zero’, and many re-appraise where they’re headed with their career once the new target kicks in.

Parsons cites all sorts of literary mega-stars as starting out because they loved what they did, rather than seek enormous recompense, and, he contends, they’re all the better for it, including these debutants who seemingly scraped by before hitting the big-time:
JK Rowling (Harry Potter)
Mario Puzo (The Godfather)
Helen Fielding (Bridget Jones)
Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code)
Peter Benchley (Jaws)
Erich Segal (Love Story)
John Grisham (A Time To Kill)
And his final quote is annoyingly accurate for success in sales mentoring, about James Bond’s creator:

  

It is will, not greed, that makes you write a bestseller | The Spectator via kwout

I do like that House episode where the eponymous misery’s forced on a date with Allison Cameron.  Before the big event, House gets advice from his pal James Wilson.  And sweetly it has a cool reminder for first-time sales meetings.

As House moans about the uselessness of performing ritual small talk dances, Doc Wilson explains the drill; compliment her appearance before moving onto DHA.

Dreams Hopes Aspirations.

I speak to people heading up sales teams all the time.  We’re always discussing some pressing need they have right then and there.  Yet I hardly get to talk about where they’re headed.  I do try, yet these days expectations of tenure are such that people are considered freaks if they stick it out in the same leadership role at a company for longer than even a couple of years.  Getting the conversation onto this kind of subject is a real winner, as at the worst it should help pinpoint the number one aim for the fiscal year.

I often blog about how piss-poor far too many retail experiences tend to be.  In the places I’ve spent my time over the past couple of years, the problem is compounded by immigrating workers paid minimum wages by uncaring management (London, New York) and all-round general insouciance (S Africa, Australia).

I hired a van from Europcar in central London just and was dealt with by a Slovak, Pole & Nigerian.  All of them seemed thoroughly decent.  Yet where was their training?  Who is the regional manager responsible for this depot?  They should be shot.

They knew the corporate patter off pat, yet all it achieved was winding up several punters, and caused the servers themselves unnecessary stress.  Two glaring issues surfaced:

Heading Off Obvious Trouble

24 Dec was clearly their busiest day of the year.  So busy, that an enormous transporter wheeled in a fleet of extra motors.  Yet walk-ins hoping for hire still had to stand in line for over 20 minutes only to be told there were no cars available for hire.  You can imagine the exasperation.  Why wasn’t there a sheet of paper evident explaining there was unfortunately no room at the Inn? 

This issue was added to by the often irritating ‘extra sheet’ problem with UK driving licences.  As well as our photocard (say a big fat ‘no’ to the disgrace that is ID cards by the way) there’s an added paper with endorsement history for validation.  People unsuprisingly misplace this document, so face an extra admin charge for the car hirers to call the issuing authority.  Yet on 24 Dec, the government body concerned shut at noon.  Again, collecting punters waited for ages, only to discover no paper, no hire.  Tempers mounted.  How about a notice on the door explaining the issue? 

The two messages could’ve been combined, and who cares if they were hand-written?  Initiative and common sense sorely lacking.

Simple Closing

At the counter, you go through the ridiculous charade of an upsell.  “You’re covered for 3rd party, collision damage waiver with an excess of £600.  This means you pay for any damage up to £600, even if it’s not your fault.  You can reduce this to £100 by paying £7.33 a day.”  This is shocking.  At best, it’s a ‘fear-uncertainty-doubt’ approach.  Yet in all the times I used this company (& I won’t again as they stiffed me on the fuel this time) I’ve never heard anyone take up this ‘offer’.  Again, someone must surely be responsible for generating insurance revenue from this.  I wonder what the stats are on prangs?  Just a gentle alternative close would make them tons more dosh: “Okay, you’ve a choice on the insurance… as it stands, you’d pay for any first £600 of damage, regardless of circumstance.  You can keep this as it stands, or pay just seven quid to only be liable for the first £100, that’s £500 less.  Which cover would you prefer?”

Bob Geldof isn’t renowned for his subtlety.  So I was surprised to hear him say on a tv documentary (The Pink Floyd Story: Which One’s Pink?) that in order to get the 4 band members back together again, after their acrimonious disintegration, he couldn’t bring himself to give David Gilmour the ‘hard sell’ to get him to agree to the Hyde Park Live 8 finale.  (The background being that the two guitarists, Gilmour & Waters, had long fallen out, seemingly irreparably).

It was a fascinating insight to the lot of a solution salesrep.  He met first with the person he suspected was the main block.  And he could see in his eyes that he desparetely didn’t want to do the big show.  So Geldof goes on to say how he constructed his pitch around 4 simple bullets:

1. no-one feels you ever said goodbye as a band properly
2. it’s only 20 minutes, just 20 minutes
3. let’s have none of this ‘you’re going on tour’, spare me
4. don’t tell me that Pink Floyd getting back together won’t seize the world, and be the thing that makes the whole event

Gilmour still said no.  Undeterred, Geldof next approached Roger Waters.  So he went to the one man that could potentially soften the blocking stance.  Several long distance chats ensued between the pair of former band-mates.  Later, Geldof received a phone call from Gilmour, quietly and begrudgingly saying ‘yes’.

Geldof then delivers an awesome metric; 20 million kids are now in school ‘cos of what went on that week and emblematic of that week was this signature group burying the hatchet for the cause.

Enjoyed reading an article in yesterday’s FT about Cheshire flooring entrepreneur Dawn Gibbons.  Part of it recounted the tale of how she met her favourite marketing consultant.  It’s a great story of how he, Dennis Humphries from nearby Candy Creative, sent a champange lunch for her office as from “a secret admirer”.

What task is more difficult for a salesrep than getting your foot in the door?  This approach worked like a treat.  I instantly recalled two examples I’ve seen of such ilk.

Limo Delivery

A door-opener at one-time English computer vendor ICL couldn’t penetrate an account, so rocked up to the offices in a hired limousine, parked right outside reception and wouldn’t budge until his target came down to personally collect his product lit.

D’oh Donuts

Newton Abbott is a small place in Devon.  I worked there for a week on a job once in a freezing Janaury.  Car hire firm Enterprise had just opened.  They traipsed ’round all the businesses they thought could use their services, and if you talked to them about possible rentals, they’d give you a box a donuts on the spot.

I’m now racking my brains to think of similar ways to stand out from the crowd and bang a few extra goodies into the top of our funnels.  How can I approach people that head up sales teams in this kind of manner?

Here’s a technique one of my customers uses to align what they can offer to where their prospect states they want to go.  They call it the Business Window, and in the words of their Head of Sales, Dave, a chap I’ve a lot of time for, the info is hard to get, but when you do, it’s gold-dust.

Think of the standard 2×2 matrix, and the cells are filled with the following:

Philosophy, Objectives, Markets/Products, Organisation

Philosophy is all about what they are trying to achieve (& their vision and values), Objectives features their strategy, Markets includes what they do in detail and what they provide and Organsation is how they gear up to achieve it all.

Examples include ‘being perceived as #1 in…’ (philosophy) and reducing cost by 10%, quickening customer response times by 20%, increase win rate by 5% (objectives).

When it works like a dream, it can show why systems in place are barriers to all of the above, and that your offering is a simple resolution.  And one final benefit to the vendor, is that it’s proven to keep your price premium in place.

We all know the 2 biggest wastes of reps’ time; coming second & fire-fighting.  So it was heartening to hear of a tale today where a rep at one of my clients went to sort out post-sales doldrums to great affect.

The solution delivered had (unusually) proved unreliable.  So rather than let the episode fester, he convened a meeting.  Also, instead of the main ‘decision makers’ (in a sign-off fashion), he made it with the 4 ‘users’.

He let them spill out all their frustrations, which made for an uncomfy session.  They then paused for breath and let him come up with an action plan.  From it a process review followed, and an opportunity for further sales.  The result was 14k more margin.

Eating humble pie was never a forte of mine.  Particularly when a different dog messed up the dinner involved.  Yet in taking this approach the rep (Tim) succeeded in uncovering that his firm remained the preferred partner and that the situation could be improved.

Another example proving the old adage ‘a great time to sell to people is when they’re thinking of going elsewhere’.

Loved the one-year-on Gerry Robinson back at the NHS show last night.  I blogged on his findings before and again there are a couple of terrific pointers for reps.

He gave a talk to NHS staff saying “it isn’t the big picture stuff” that creates success.  Instead, it’s the little things that go well each day that add up to success.  Any rep that’s got towards the end of the quarter, wondering where the time’s disappeared to and how come the funnel is empty should reflect on that one.

Then his exasperation surfaced about why a new government policy had to appear every two years.  What a waste of time, when the previous policy hadn’t been pursued properly.  The problem is that a policy is made, yet it is never managed.  I’ve seen this one in sales teams.  You want more calls per day, how’s it going to be managed?  New product push required, how’s it going to be managed?  And we’re not talking about just an incentive, followed by email reports.  Proper management is required, the kind that keeps track in real-time, provides genuine on-going support, with regular feedback and scoreboards.

It’s not often I get a sales lesson when in m’local chippy, but amazingly that’s what happened the other night.  Working late, although not realising it as in London at the mo’ it’s getting dark just after 4 cooking lacked appeal.  I popped down the road to gorge on fish ‘n chips.

It’s an old-schol vibe in there.  You can still ‘eat in’.  I was impressed to see my ‘medium’ cod was enormous.  Although it’s wierd how spoiled you get once you’ve had similar meals in Oz & S Africa, as cod is relatively tasteless compared to their stocks, and we shouldn’t be plundering the North Atlantic breeds to extinction either…. Anyway,

The downside of this big chunk, was that a section in the middle was cold, wet and transparent.  It was clearly larger than normal, so the fryer hadn’t taken this into account when cooking.

I thought this was a genuine oversight, so took my plate to the fella to suggest a remedy.  His disdain was incredible.  He said it looked fine.  He refused my suggestion to taste it himself.  And made it clear a refund was out the question.  As I pointed out, the rest of the fish was to their usual high standard.  If a replacement grated, then simply knock a couple of quid off.  I emphasised I wasn’t being funny, but got zero change.  With several alternatives in close proximity, the result is they’ve needlessley lost a once loyal customer.

There are times in every ‘farmer’s’ life when something will go pear-shaped.  In the past, I too have felt myself caught between two magnetically opposed solutions; stick to your guns and defend to the hilt doing nothing, or give all their money back.  Maybe it’s just not in our nature to find a compromise that makes everyone feel good….

At a customer sales meeting recently, they ran a session on the pitfalls of Sam Salesperson.  Sam was struggling.  After one promising quarter, the next two missed target.  The problem was an age-old one; not enough prospects.  This proved to be a double-edged sword, for not only did it mean that their funnel was never quite deep enough, it also meant that they spent far too much time trying to progress deals that, frankly, should never have been pursued that far in the first place.

The solution discussed involved striving to gain a ‘luxury of choice’.  The idea is that you can never have too much on the go.  The more you have to chase after, the more likely you are to enjoy the benefits of brutal qualification.  And dramatically improve overall close rates.

So, the killer question, how do you obtain a luxury of choice?  For these guys, it meant knowing where every single prospect on their patch was on their current buying cycle potential.  They wanted to look at a kind of ‘gap analysis’, and pick out the prospects with a profile that typically suggests acceptance of their ideas.