A quick blog on a mid/late Nineties survey into how the average sales person spends their time.

Attributed to sales trainer Cargill, it encompasses five straightforward possibilities.

34% Admin tasks

32% Waiting, Travelling

15% with Customers

14% with Prospects

5% Service Calls

Recognise these figures in your routines?

Despite being from the days mainly before sales software (even though I used my first such system in 93) you can, according to subsequent findings, now include system updates and account research in a similar Admin bracket.

Anything that can switch this state around is welcome. And don’t say ‘crm’ is the saviour, please. For all the good things it (all too rarely) does, freeing up time is not among them, on either input or retrieval.

I’ve blogged on such surveys before, and whilst the precise numbers may differ, there remains little change in the overall picture. Sales people hardly spend any of their time truly selling. Even today you come across similar (or worse) findings, such as this American research organisation’s twitter feed (http://twitter.com/SiriusDecisions) that on 19 October 2010 stated,

According to our research only 18% of a #b2b salesperson’s time is spent selling. #sdse10

Here’s a couple more quick examples reinforcing the constraints.

Industrial Performance Group’s November 2006 survey of 1,502 reps across 17 N American manufacturing & distribution sectors found the following, with fascinating breakdowns as featured on the above link:

38% on revenue-generating activities
39% on the day-to-day operation and management of a territory
23% on “questionable utilization” — activities the company could potentially prevent or handle in other ways

Indeed, practically any google search incorporating the words “selling time” can unveil an alarming study into true sales activity breakdown, such as this one with its delightful “decontamination index” berating management for sidetracking salespeople, also suggesting a top sales achiever utilises almost 60% more selling time than their averagely performing counterparts (Sibson Consulting’s 2006 Sales Force Effectiveness Survey of 1,200 reps at 60 major technology & telecom outfits).

---

As a footnote, the same person also then found that;

48% of reps quit after one attempt

each sale requires 6.7 touches per year

73% of reps have no plan for their top 5 accounts, and

the #1 reason for sales failure is not competing for orders that go elsewhere

Here’s a reminder of a well-used and highly effective presentation tactic. This time it comes via dusty old notes from a 1998 Chicago conference I attended. The speaker was then assessing sales system projects, called Timothy McMahon at Labyrinth Research.

Outlining his optimal ‘7-step implementation plan’, he sought to define his “advantage model”. His eleventh (of 23) slide splashed this in big letters;

“I could create Competitive Advantage if I could do ___________ better!”

I’ve both seen and used this trick many times. It usually works well. Take a decent question, with more than one answer, in large font and invite responses.

You do though have to be on your guard for a few things when posing any such question. Here’s a quick quintet from my experience:

1. Just because you throw it open doesn’t mean someone will answer. Have a back up plan so that if silence overwhelms you (which you’ll think is worse/longer than it really is), there’s something else to say or prompt.
2. Beware the comedian. There’s always one. A sarcastic (right through to caustic) comment can derail you. Again, have a plan for anyone that isn’t taking your wisdom as seriously as you’d expect.
3. Most times I see this deployed, the questioner rushes through this bit, probably through anxiety that the above will occur. Don’t be afraid to slow things down. Allow ideas to percolate. Let thoughts breath. Delving into responses deeper is fine too.
4. Have examples of what other people said. It can kick-start engagement and be played off against responses.
5. Finally, make sure you remember the point of why you’re asking the question. If you’re not trying to expose differences of opinion or a knowledge/action gap, then why ask at all?

Here’s a way to end the year. Celebrate when you’re over 100% of target. Throw out a wadge of old papers. The latter generated a week’s worth of blogging too. Happy New Year!

I cleared out an old box of work gubbins, only to find a huge phone-directory sized collection of professionally bound presentations from 1998. It was from the Sales Force Automation Conference & Exposition in Chicago. Perhaps I should test its value on eBay. By way of dating, the circa 1,500 slides within it from 57 speakers did not once mention the acronym ‘crm’.

I remember the week well. It was so cold on the streets my first weekend that as I walked up Michigan Avenue I began to see ice crystals in my eyes when walking too long into the freezing windchill.

As I thumbed through the various talks, I was struck by how many were bullet-only. Any graphics that did exist were usually way too complex and impossible to digest. And whilst there was painfully frequent clipart, only a tiny handful of logos were shown and not a single photo image was displayed.

Another theme was very much around striving towards increasing customer loyalty. I named this post after one of the first presentation’s threads when I noted this trend. Written by a David Raab.

I wondered if anything written over a dozen years ago – a world where Amazon only merited one isolated namecheck and many were talking up data warehousing and automatic sales agents – would still have resonance today on this theme.

I was comforted that many of the facts surrounding customer retention remain valid. A couple of times the good old cost implications in serving the two types of client were plastered across the screen. Obviously with slightly different numbers but you know the kind of thing;

it costs between 5 and 20 times more to win a new customer than sell to an existing one.

Then there were incredible stats to show that not only costs, but profits benefit from stemming customer attrition. I’d forgotten these, first from Thomas A Stewart as apparently quoted from Fortune, 1996, After all you’ve done for your customers, why are they still not happy?

“Raising customer retention rates by five percentage points increases the value of an average customer by 25-to-100%”

More still to back this up from a Bain survey. Here’s how they found profits climbed in various b2b sectors when 5% more clients were retained.

30% Auto Service Chain
45% Industrial Distribution
45% Industrial Laundry
50% Insurance Brokerage
40% Office Building Management
35% Software

And to rub it in, if you didn’t think this applied to you, the Harvard Business Review was quoted as finding,

“the average company loses 50% of its customers every 5 years”

I did like the way some first tried to define the scope. An Alan Anderson defined customer loyalty (in a modern-day tweet-friendly manner) as,

“the exceeding of your customer’s expectations and your competition’s capabilities”

Whilst Mary Committe evoked Deming.

“it will not suffice to have customers that are merely satisfied … profit in business comes from repeat customers that boast about your product and service, and bring their friends with them”

A Victor L Hunter was the only speaker encouraging you to calculate how much you were at risk to defections. He intriguingly proposed you determine where your clients sit on a scale from “Terrorist” to “Apostle” moving through “Zones” of “Defection, Indifference & Affection”. Make a “market at risk calculation”, in two parts;

overall % experiencing problem
x
% specific problem frequency
x
% customers not likely/willing to re-purchase
=
% customers at risk

% customers at risk
x
number of customers
x
remaining value of customers
=
‘economic model’

So problem and opportunity sufficiently outlined, any solutions forthcoming that still ring true today?

Moving swiftly on from the obvious one most presenters offered (‘buy my software’) non-technology remedies were unfortunately sparse. I counted just five, a pair each from the aforementioned David Raab and Mary Committe and one from Carla McEachern:

1. Have more contacts beyond purchasing
2. Understand event-based triggers.
3. Cultivate a learning relationship with your customer
4. Stage experiences so that they can’t wait to interact with you again
5. Weave customers into fabric of your company

Not a lot from such a mighty tome, yet definitely stimulates a cracking exercise by territory seller or team leader over the coming months.

Has there been a more one-sided Ashes day’s play in living memory? Not one single observer seems to think so. England’s dominance over woeful Australia was as superior as it was surprising. With the Perth hammering metered out by the hosts, you’d have though momentum was all theirs. Yet after Adelaide it was the other way around. Cricket truly is a wonderful game.

Trying to explain the swing, commentators recalled events of 2009. With England on top, they folded at Headingly. Yet despite a huge victory, Australia were then routed at the Oval. Although the slowness of the groundstaff to cover the pitch during drizzle handed Stuart Broad the perfect conditions in which to skittle them out.

Here’s a widely reported quote about what happened from English captain, Andrew Strauss.

“I think we all kind of got caught up in that [the hype], and we didn’t focus on what we’d done well to that point, which was to keep it very simple, play a session at a time. We started thinking about the overall goal.”

This is so similar to what can happen during a long sales campaign it’s startling.

Many a rep (and their management) gets so wound up with the worth of the final signature that they forget to put into perspective individual elements leading up to it.

They consequently lose vital focus and ultimately the deal itself.

Avoid this and you, like England’s cricketers, can prevail against the odds.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the festive bash of a company in Cape Town the other night. The Chief Exec gave a rabble-rousing review of the year. He described how their sales growth had come in the face of much larger multi-nationals, all with huge, better funded salesteams.

Given the African setting, he used the following image to talk about how such achievements could continue into next year.

if you’re fighting with crocodiles, don’t do it in the water

What followed were many of the typical steps you’d expect smaller competitors to deploy. Build relationships, act with speed, keep tight and close to clients.

One further tactic involved the frequency of activity. A supposedly weaker organisation in terms of size can outflank larger competition by not only doing more things, but demonstrably doing them more often.

Whether it be more visits, more updates, more product releases, more maintenance or more communication in general, there’s a raft of measures which can be vigorously pursued with success.

The business network site LinkedIn recently published its assessment of the most overused buzzwords among its 85 million personal profiles. It recommends that you overhaul your pitches quick “and lose those clichéd terms”, “those ambiguous ones that really don’t tell you anything”.

The Big Offending Four, each of which plumbed the major depth inside 11 countries, to rip out are:

The worst in America include these with half-a-dozen more:

1. Extensive experience
2. Innovative
3. Motivated
4. Results-oriented
5. Dynamic
6. Proven track record
7. Team player
8. Fast-paced
9. Problem solver
10. Entrepreneurial

It goes without saying that simple English should be swapped in where required.

Which begs the question, with what do you replace these kinds of words?

Well, I’m not one for plundering the nearest thesaurus. Instead, I recommend the approach should shift. Each of these terms are all about ‘me’. They are solely from the subjective viewpoint of the person promoting themselves.

Also, how can you introduce fact? Do you complete work ahead of time? Under budget? Over sales target? When have you found new markets? Introduced new processes? Done something good never done before?

This isn’t just a valuable pointer for salespeople’s CVs.

Think too about how your standard Proposal reads. Then how your off-pat pitch sounds. And what your standard slides look like.

Time to cull the buzzwords right across the board.

I only ever seem to see the Reader’s Digest in health centre waiting rooms. I recently discovered their intriguing 100-word story competition. It alerted my sales antennae for two reasons.

I’d blogged before about the hundred words approach and its importance in getting your message across (from Margaret Thatcher). I am already sold on the merits of this idea.

Then I read the five examples on offer. The best two were by Irish novelist Maeve Binchy and punctuation terrorist Lynne Truss:

What made them stand out was the clarity of their tale and the punch of their ending. All five of the established authors deployed pretty much the same design.

Each set the scene, moved the piece along one step, then used the final sentence to surprise.

Moving on from the power that a one hundred word discipline brings to any pitch, it is their ending twist which is surely a winning weapon in your business storytelling.

After I read them just the once, a week later I was able to recount my preferred two to a friend, not in their entirety but that didn’t matter. I could still nail the last line. They were both memorable. And all that preceded could follow.

When you’re describing your latest problem, framing it as a solution-in-waiting, what’s your equivalent final line memorable surprise?

My final of third reference to the “life-hacker bible” as lived and preached by author Tim Feriss. An easy reading manifesto for ditching the Nine-to-Five trudge that urges the pursuit of experiences over cube-dwelling, one fascinating section discusses the appropriateness of goal setting.

Its System Reset chapter starts with reference to this Alice In Wonderland conversation.

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
Alice: I don’t much care where …
Cat: Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.

The gist is that goals are worthy. His hammer is that unrealistic and unreasonable goals are the easiest to achieve.

He believes this for two main reasons; Most people settle for mediocrity & Realistic goals are uninspiring. Here’s a flavour.

The level of competition is thus fiercest for “realistic” goals, paradoxically making them the most time- and energy-consuming.

If the potential payoff is mediocre or average, so is your effort.

And for a kicker, how about his two examples to prove his point?

• It’s easier to raise 10 million rather than just 1m
• It’s easier to pick-up the one Perfect 10 in a bar rather than any of the five 8s

Do your sales goals inspire you to get going? Do they inspire you to act beyond the first setback or two?

As the book suggests, rather than ask  ’what is your goal’, instead test what truly fills you with excitement.

Here’s a fascinating example of a successful new product launch. I got it from my copy of 4-hr work week, pp145-6, and is my second successive posting based on this book. It’s from the wholesale trade. The supplier pushed a single item into a major retailer.

The product apparently became one of America’s best selling sports supplements; NO2 from MRI. The store chain featured is GNC. Here’s the process.

1. Before production, a low-priced related-content book was offered through sector-specific press ads to establish end-consumer need
2. With plenty of book orders secured, Price was deliberately set at the most expensive end of the marketplace ($79.95)
3. An exclusive deal was made with just one nationwide outlet

This is recounted as “smart testing, smart positioning and brilliant distribution”.

It is the concept of shelf exclusivity that the author chooses to examine further. He believes this is a total winner when launching anything in this distribution arena for two main reasons.

• It prevents competing resellers chopping your price to better each other (which renders your product extinct and further product development instantly necessary)
• Preferential supply should cement preferential custom (better margin, marketing and payment)

If you don’t go this route, what’s the alternative? The author insists this is the only way.

Otherwise, rogue discounters on eBay and mom-and-pop independents will drive you broke

In terms of product success, the makers claim over 3m users and the world’s #1 status.

How applicable is this treatment for your distribution product? With attendant minimums agreed up front, to avoid all sorts of heartache later on, I’ve seen this approach be a winner when the channel was involved in the design process, so perhaps it could also suit other developments.

I’ve decided to offer up a trio of consecutive posts on a book I recently read by Tim Ferriss. I must confess that the idea behind taking it in was to assess time management insight. For those so inclined, this book offers so much more towards a lifestyle changing roadmap.

The next couple of days I’ll highlight specific areas that have relevance to the b2b solution seller from the realms of goal setting and wholesaling. Today, I’ll take three separate pointers that emerged of a more general nature.

Time Management

My original reason for reading, the thrust is that if you share the aspirations of what the author calls the “New Rich”, then you can achieve more than you do at present with just a fraction of the time. Here’s one such couplet to bear in mind when embarking on a task.

1. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important
2. Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important

Then there’s this over-riding mantra. The same creed, in two flavours.

• Am I being productive or just being active?
• Am I inventing things to do to avoid the important?

Velvet Glove Close

The chapters are littered with specific phrases to use to aid getting one’s way. Although I’m not given to proclaim quick-fixes in the pursuit of sales process perfection, this is probably the most juicy overtly selling one.

is that reasonable?

As the author states, any decent person would have trouble in finding anything you suggest unreasonable.

Cold Call Script

This really did whirr my brain. On pp161-2 of my copy, the vexed issue of approaching someone of a “celebrity” nature was tackled.

The context is in asking for personal assistance, but I got wondering how applicable this framework would be if you wanted to grab an audience with a prospect CEO. A leader with who you’d never normally get a chance for a chat. Here’s the rough script, in this case as spoken to a gatekeeper but similar to when put through.

I know this might sound a bit odd, but I’m a first-time author and just read the interview in [fancy publication].
I’m a longtime fan and have finally built up the courage to call for one specific piece of advice.
It wouldn’t take more than two minutes of time.
Is there any way you could help me get through to him?
I really, really appreciate whatever you can do.

This, it is claimed, gets results. In the cacophony of cold-callers, it appears to stand out because it’s human over salesy, apologises for itself and gets the listener on your side.

Whilst it isn’t necessarily transplantable directly into solution selling, it does also seem to be an approach to keep in mind when progressing your more personal, career ambitions.