Sales and Sales Management Blog

January 13, 2009

Book Review: Making the Number: How to Use Sales Benchmarking to Drive Performance

making-the-numberMaking the Number. How to Use Sales Benchmarking to Drive Performance. By Greg Alexander, Arron Batels &  Mike Drapeau; Portfolio, 2008

Greg Alexander, Aaron Batels, and Mike Drapeau have written a very serious book for very serious sales leaders.  The authors have tackled one of sales great issues-tracking ROI on sales investment, and packed a great deal of wisdom and challenge in a relatively modest 288 pages.

Although many still view sales as far more art than science, leaving little room for serious number crunching of performance and production factors, Making the Number sets out a detailed process for establishing and analyzing sales metrics-and more importantly, the real world impact and change such a process can bring to a company and a sales team.

One of the few but growing number of sources that seeks to address the process of benchmarking sales in depth, Making the Number should be required reading for any sales leader who is seriously interested in full accountability for and development of the sales department.

The authors try to bring their theory down to the real world by illustrating their concepts through case studies of Discover Financial Services and FranklinCovey, as well as several other companies.  This is a theory book-but also a very practical application book.

By far the most irritating aspect of the book for me (although one that has become the norm in the business sector of publishing) is the repeated reference to–and by inference promoting of–the author’s company, Sales Benchmark Index.

No matter what level of sales leader you are, I would encourage you to get a copy and work your way through it.  It isn’t a weekend read by any means.  As I said, it’s a serious book for serious sales leaders with serious results for those who implement what they learn.

January 9, 2009

Guest Article: “New Year Resolutions For Sales Leaders,” by Dave Stein

Filed under: management,recruiting/hiring,sales,Sales Management,selling — Paul McCord @ 8:32 am

New Year Resolutions For Sales Leaders
by Dave Stein  Originally published on Dave’s blog

Pick one or more of the resolutions below.  Commit, execute, enjoy the results.

1. I’ll never hire another sales rep who can’t get the sales job done. First, completely understand the position and the skills and traits required to be successful.  Evaluating whether a candidate meets those requirements requires a series of two to three structured interviews.  There are no perfect candidates, but if you understand gaps between what capabilities the candidate possesses and what is required for the job, you can train, coach or support that new rep to success.

2. I won’t spend another dime on technology for my sales team without knowing specifically how it will help my reps win business. In general, what companies receive in return for their investment in CRM technology is significantly short of expectations.  Before you make any investments in CRM, Sales 2.0 or other emerging technologies make sure the primary recipient of value is the salesperson. There has to be a direct, proven connection between the software application and the salesperson winning more business.

3. I will teach and then continue to encourage my reps to look at selling strategically. Many salespeople don’t think past the next meeting or phone call.  You will be doing them (and yourself) a big favor if you can coach them into seeing the big picture-the next five steps in the sales cycle or what the customer’s situation might be in six months when they expect to make a buying decision.

4. I will look at sales performance improvement strategically. You should know by now that tactical, event-based sales training doesn’t really provide any long-term value.  So why are you still wasting time and money on it?

5. I will implement a formal coaching function to support my sales reps’ growth. Coaching is not a sales manager closing a deal for a rep or telling them what to do in a tough competitive situation.   Coaching is a mission-critical, formal, ongoing activity that is required for significant sales performance improvement.  If you don’t know where to start, send me an email.  I’ll point you in the right direction.

6. I will run my sales organization like the business that it should be. In order to be successful, businesses require business plans, process, discipline, documented responsibilities and accountabilities, quality assurance and measurement of output.  I’m not suggesting bureaucracy here.  Just the appropriate measure of formality and seriousness.  If seat-of-the-pants ever worked in B2B selling in the past, it certainly doesn’t any longer.

7. I will provide my sales team with the leadership they need and deserve. A few questions for you around one area of leadership:  Is marketing not getting the job done?  Does the CEO set unrealistic revenue targets?  Are customers angry due to product problems?  Do your products or services not meet the needs of your market?   These and other challenges can stop the best sales team in its tracks.  It’s your job to get issues like these addressed and resolved.  If you don’t have the required leadership skills, get them.

8. I will advance my team considerably further than foundation Sales 101 skills so they can really be competitive. Winning these days requires more than just basic selling skills.  Make sure your sales process includes advanced components, such as political mapping, selling to senior executives, and competitive strategies and tactics.  Find the best approaches in those areas that fit your business requirements.  Train your people.  Sustain improvement with coaching and other post-training reinforcement.

9. I will elevate the importance of my team’s knowledge about our customers’ businesses. Many customers of yours are buying only what will help them survive this economic crisis.  If your salespeople can’t position your products and services in terms of contributing to your customers’ success-from your customer’s perspective-they aren’t going to sell very much.

10. I will commit to understanding my weaknesses and improving those capabilities as a sales leader. There is no shortage of intelligence, research, best-practices, coaches, consultants and just plain good advice.  Avail yourself of the best of them.

Before founding his sales consultancy, The Stein Advantage, Inc., in 1997, Dave Stein served for more than 20 years in various corporate executive sales and marketing roles. Now, through his coaching, speaking, and training, Dave provides companies with substantial diagnostic and remedial expertise enabling them, among other capabilities, to readily overcome tough competitors, refocus their selling efforts resulting in new levels of credibility and differentiation with high-level executive buyers, and to hire the right sales professionals, all leading to greater and more consistent revenues. Dave is the author of the Amazon best-selling business book: How Winners Sell: 21 Proven Strategies to Outsell Your Competition and Win the Big Sale, (Dearborn Trade Press, May 2004). For more information go to his website, www.HowWinnersSell.com

January 8, 2009

Jan 12 Seminar–From Contact to Contract: The Ladder Approach to Managing a Sale

Benefits

Most salespeople follow a chaos theory of managing a sale – whatever happens, happens. Consequently, after leaving an initial meeting with a prospect they wonder how, when and why they should reconnect with the prospect. Not only does this lead to lost opportunities, even with prospects who do become clients the process is difficult, fraught with worry and uncertainty, and wastes a great deal of the salesperson’s time and energy. Managing a sale need not be chaotic. The ladder method is a logical progression process that will allow you to maintain complete control of the sales process, save time and energy by keeping your prospect engaged and committed, shorten the sales cycle, quickly eliminate nonprospects, and create additional and add-on sales and generate quality referrals (in conjunction with the PWWR Referral Generation SystemTM).

Register at Lorman Education Services

Agenda

  1. From Contact to Contract
    1. Understand the Logical Steps From Contact to Contract
    2. Construct the Ladder Before You Hit the Wall
    3. Create Engagement and Qualifying Criteria Prior to Meeting With a Prospect
  2. Create a Sales Path During the Initial Meeting
    1. Determining the Contact Is a Real Prospect
    2. Gain a Firm Grasp of Where You Fit Into Solving the Prospect’s Wants, Needs or Issues
    3. Agree Upon the Next Step – Should Be a Face-to-Face Meeting
    4. Agree Upon the Goal for Next Step
  3. Build Value for Your Next Contact
    1. Value vs. Benefit
    2. Prospect Centered vs. Self-Centered Value
    3. Going Beyond Your Agreed Upon Task
    4. Demonstrate Competence, Professionalism and Trustworthiness
  4. Turn Each Subsequent Contact Into a New Step of the Ladder
    1. Add Extra Value at Each Contact
    2. Gain Agreement That the Task Meets the Client’s Request and the Previously Agreed Upon Goal of the Contact
    3. Agree Upon the Next Logical Step
    4. Agree Upon the Next Step’s Goal
  5. When There Is No Place Else to Go
    1. Prospect Not Ready to Purchase
      1. Can Occur Anytime in the Process
      2. Gain an Understanding of Why the Prospect Isn’t Ready to Buy
      3. Get an Idea of Their Time-Frame
      4. Agree Upon Maintaining Contact Via Your Normal Communication Process
    2. Nonprospect Connection
      1. Typically Determined at the First Meeting or Very Early in the Process
      2. Determine the Reason: No Need, No Money, No Interest, Cousin in the Business, Whatever
      3. Determine Whether or Not Contact Is Worth Including in Your Normal Communication Program
      4. If They Are, Agree Upon Maintaining Contact
      5. If They Aren’t, Thank Them for Their Time and Move On
  6. Create a Communication Program for Prospects Who Aren’t Ready
    1. Every Contact Must Have a Prospect-Centered Purpose
    2. Every Contact Will Train Them to Pay Attention to You Because You Bring Value or to Ignore You Because All You Do Is Waste Their Time
    3. ‘Touch’ Each Prospect at Least 12 Times a Year Via Various Media
  7. Grow the Relationship After They Buy
    1. Maintain Contact Through a Consistent, Client-Centered Communication Program With at Least 12 Contacts a Year – At Least One Via Phone
    2. Learn the PWWR Referral Generation SystemTM to Generate a Large Number of High Quality Referrals From Each of Your Clients and Prospects
    3. Make Follow-Up and Add-On Sales Via Education Rather Than a Direct Sale

Register at Lorman Education Services

Faculty

Paul McCord, McCord Training

Paul McCord, of McCord Training, has more than a quarter century of in-the-trenches experience as a salesperson, manager, executive and business owner in the construction, publishing and financial services industries. His experience is both broad and deep. From selling millwork to apartment and commercial builders and home centers, to wholesaling insurance and securities to NASD broker/dealers, to selling mortgages on both a retail and wholesale level, his background encompasses the full spectrum, from retail to wholesale to direct to business sales and sales management.

Mr. McCord’s heavy sales and management experience across a broad swath of the sales world combined with his years of experience training and consulting with companies of all sizes in dozens of industries has given him a unique understanding of the problems, issues and opportunities salespeople, managers and companies face.

Mr. McCord is the author of two best-selling sales books, Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals (2006), which was selected as an offering by the prestigious Forbes Book Club and is quickly becoming recognized as the authoritative text on referral generation; and SuperStar Selling: 12 Keys to Be Becoming a Sales SuperStar (2007). His third book, Connected: Turn Your Connections into Your Most Powerful Business Building Tool, will be released in the Spring of 2009.

A prolific writer, his articles, interviews and quotes appear regularly in numerous business and industry publications such as Forbes, Business Week, Selling Power, Advisor Today, Sales and Marketing Excellence, Advisor Today, Hotel and Motel Management, Airport Business, Enterprise Week, SalesForceXP and many others. Mr. McCord is also the author of the highly popular Sales and Sales Management Blog which is often picked up in syndication by Fox Business News, Reuters, Nielsen Business Media, Hoovers and the Chicago Sun-Times.

Mr. McCord’s work with salespeople and companies includes coaching; conducting sales training workshops and seminars; and consulting with companies on a variety of issues such as designing company sales training programs, training managers, and designing and overhauling districts, regions and entire departments.

Mr. McCord’s clients range from small to mid-size companies to behemoths such as GE, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, New York Life, Siemens, Merrill Lynch and others. In addition, he is a frequent speaker to business and industry associations such as The National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, REALTOR® associations, marketing and public relation associations, and government groups.

January 7, 2009

Guest Article: “Selling a Price Increase in a Soft Market,” by Mark Hunter

Filed under: business,sales,selling — Paul McCord @ 6:32 am
Tags: ,

Selling a Price Increase in a Soft Market
by Mark Hunter

Selling a price increase can be difficult in nearly any type of situation, but trying to sell one in a soft market can be downright brutal.  Yet, as unpleasant as it can be, it is often essential.   The problem of selling a price increase in a soft market usually stems from the fact that the salesperson and the customer are coming at the situation from different perspectives.  Especially in times like this, it is imperative for the salesperson to understand that regardless of what the market or economy is doing, if a price increase needs to be sold, it needs to be sold.  This means that the salesperson can’t go into the sales process believing that the customer is going to reject the price increase unless the deal can be saved by offering some type of discount.  If they approach the meeting with this attitude, they almost guarantee failure because a customer will never pay more than a salesperson tells them to.

In these types of situations, the first thing that often happens is a comment from the customer about how soft the economy is, how prices are really going down, and therefore, how a price increase at this time doesn’t make any sense.  When the salesperson hears this, they usually agree because they hear and see the same thing.  However, as soon as they do this, the battle is lost and 9 times out of 10, the only thing that can save it is some type of discount.  To counteract this problem, when the salesperson hears the customer make this type of statement, they should ignore it.  Yes, ignore it.  The reason?  Many times the customer merely wants to get it off their chest and by telling it to you, they feel better.   The first response the salesperson should make is to ask the customer questions about how they intend to use what they’re buying and whether or not they’ve been able to achieve the results they’re looking for.

If the customer continues with their line of discussion about the economy and they can’t accept the price increase, then the salesperson should ask about the steps involved in their buying process.  The objective is really to get the customer talking.  Initially, this can be a little scary because the customer may begin ranting about how they always go for the low price.  After they get done explaining their process, the salesperson should question them about how their own customers decide to buy from them.  It’s in this part of the discussion that the customer begins to see how and why quality and confidence are such big items in any purchase decision.  A good salesperson will then pick up on these two items and reinforce them with follow-up questions that get the customer to further explain the importance of quality and confidence.   When the customer sees what they’re buying in this light, the price increase becomes a much smaller issue.

Sometimes even after this conversation, there will be customers or purchasing departments who will still not accept the price increase.  They usually comment that they will find another vendor to buy from.   This is often a veiled threat to get the weak-kneed salesperson to cave in with a discount.  For the salesperson, this type of discussion is best thwarted by ensuring the end-user fully understands the value and benefits they will receive from their product, as well as by clearly communicating the amount of pain the customer will go through should they decide to switch.  First, the cost of converting to a new vendor is always much higher than initially thought, so the discount the new vendor has to offer needs to be significant.  In addition, it might be easy for a customer to find a new vendor at a lower price, but on many occasions, the lower price vanishes after the initial order and, suddenly, the new vendor is at the same price as the original one.  Furthermore, the new vendor will not have nearly the knowledge or expertise as the original company about how to service the customer, so the switch often winds up costing more money in the long-run.

As a final line of protection, I strongly believe the salesperson communicating the price increase should not have the authority to make any price concessions.  When this power is taken away from the salesperson, it’s amazing how much tougher they are in executing a price increase.  By requiring the salesperson to get approval from someone else, it also takes the salesperson off of the hot seat and, many times, as soon as the customer is aware of this, they will stop badgering for a discount.

Selling a price increase in a soft economy is certainly harder than selling one in a booming market.  However, as professionals, salespeople need to take the time to know and understand how to sell a price increase in all types of markets.  It doesn’t require herculean skills.  It requires the diligence and patience to keep the discussion focused on the benefits the customer is looking for from both the product and from you, the salesperson.

Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter”, is a sales expert who speaks to thousands each year on how to increase their sales profitability.  For more information, to receive a free weekly email sales tip, or to read his Sales Motivation Blog, visit www.TheSalesHunter.com.

January 5, 2009

2009–The Year of the Hunter

If you’ve been selling for the same company or in the same industry for a number of years, you’ve probably ‘advanced’ from being a hunter to being a farmer.  You’re probably quite comfortable with hoe in hand, turning the fertile soil of your client database, getting the occasional referral, mining the network you’ve built over the years.  Life is good.  Maybe you’re not a top producer, but you’ve reached a point of security and comfort with a predictable income.

Likely, your days of trudging the open plains with shotgun in hand, seeking any viable prospect that wanders within sight are over.  You leave hunting to the youngsters.  Those days of leaving the comfort of your office in the morning wondering where your next meal will come from are long gone.

If this is you, you may be in for a shock this year.  You may well find that the fertile fields you’ve been plowing aren’t quite so fertile this year.  You may discover that no matter how hard you hoe, you can’t keep up with the weeds that grow like-well, weeds–in what used to be well groomed fields.  This year the soil may be rocky, the irrigation insufficient, the sunlight too scarce to generate the crop you have become comfortable with.

You might have to put on your hunting boots, take up your gun, and hit the trail once more.

And it might be the best thing that could happen to you.

Many of us take great pride in having developed our business to the point we no longer have to be hunters, constantly prospecting for new business, turning over every rock, looking behind every tree, spending countless hours cold calling and roaming the halls of networking events hoping to corner a live prospect.  That, we believe, is for new salespeople, those who don’t have a ‘real’ sales business, who must scratch and scrape for a commission check.  We are beyond that.

Sure, we get new business–not a great deal, and certainly not by hunting.  Our business is found by existing clients coming back for new products or services, or a client sending a friend or colleague our way.

New salespeople are faced with the challenge of creating business.  If they want to eat, they have to go out and find their food.  To this end they must spend the vast majority of their time hunting their next commission check.  They hit the phones.  They haunt the networking events.  They stick their business card on bulletin boards in cafes.  They desperately email spam, fax fliers all over creation, and do anything else they can think of that might produce a prospect.  They are hunters by necessity, not by choice.  They’ll take business wherever and whenever they can find it.  They’ll take good business or bad-and often it’s mostly bad.

Farmers, on the other hand, have made a choice-a choice of comfort and ease.  Farmers are comfortable   Farmers have reached the point where they work with those they want to work with and pass on those they don’t.  They knowingly, willingly, pass on business because they don’t want to engage in the activities they would have to engage in to generate new business.

But in economic environments such as we face this year, farmers run a very real risk of discovering their fertile soil has been blown away by the current economic dust bowl, leaving their fields insufficient to generate a full crop.

Farmers have three choices in today’s economy:

Move On: Like the proverbial Okies of the 30,s, a few will choose to move on, looking for the Nirvana of California, in this instance, another industry or another career.

Dig In: Others will try to dig in, work the soil harder, tighten their belt, and determine to just survive.  If the recession is short enough, they just may succeed.

Return to Hunting: Others, hopefully you and I, will relearn to become aggressive hunters once again.  We must reacquire those once well honed prospecting and hunting skills that originally got us where we are today.  We must step off the comfortable farm and get back into the hunt to grow our business.

Although the idea of becoming a hunter once more may at first be unappealing, there are a number of benefits we can realize by hitting the hunting trail once again:

  • Expand our business.  For most of us, no matter how large or well tended our farm, we could always do with more business.  Our business hasn’t grown as quickly as in the past because we’ve moved from a growth oriented salesperson to maintenance oriented account manager.  It isn’t that the business hasn’t been there, it’s that we’ve chosen not to pursue it.  And new business is there in today’s marketplace also-we just have to go get it.  And when our clients recover as the economy recovers, our original farm of business will still be there, ready once again to buy, only the farm will have been expanded, giving us more income and greater security for the future.
  • Sharpen Our Sales Skills:  Many of us have lost some of our selling skill as we’ve shifted from hunter to farmer.  During this time when we must once again become hunters, we must sharpen our selling skills also.  Not only must we polish those skills we’ve allowed to rust, we must learn new skills.  Many of us will have to catch up to a new world of social media, more sophisticated and critical prospects, and new opportunities to find and connect with potential prospects.  These newly acquired and polished skills will go with us as the economy improves–and if we’ll continue to use these skills as the economy improves, we’ll be able to grow our farm much quicker than we have in the past.
  • Serve Our Clients Better:  Whether we like to admit it or not, many of us farmers have become far too comfortable with our level of product knowledge-comfortable to the point that we are now lagging well behind many of our competitors.  In today’s environment as we hit the trail hunting for new business, we’ll have no choice but to sharpen our product knowledge.  We will be forced to become experts once again.  And that will allow us to serve our existing clients even better than we have in the past.

This year will be tough.  It will challenge even the most well established salespeople.  If we want to thrive instead of just survive, we’ll have to get our butts out of the office; we’ll have to become salespeople once again.  But if we do it, we’ll find that our business-and our clients-will be thankful for the changes it brings about.

January 2, 2009

Leveraging Your Advantages to Set Yourself Apart from Your Competition

Filed under: business,marketing,sales,selling,small business — Paul McCord @ 6:01 am
Tags: , , ,

The executive team at Ford Motor Company has given us a number of lessons in how to take a small advantage and leverage it to set ourselves apart from our competition.

Ford was the only one of the big three that declined the ‘bailout’ loan offer from President Bush.  While GM and Chrysler jumped at the offer, Ford said, “thanks, but no thanks”-at least for right now.

While far from being cash rich, Ford believes they have enough in the bank to allow them to say ‘no’ to government loans. While facing much the same situation as the other two auto manufacturers, Ford’s management team made a wise decision to maximize the little leverage they had-more dollars in the bank than GM or Chrysler thanks to the decision to divest some assets in order to gain a stronger cash position in anticipation of a rocky road ahead -and decline the loans that are so vehemently opposed by most Americans.

Ford’s management is betting that they can get loans if need be, but by passing on them at this time they:

Garner goodwill amongst the buying public. Americans for the most part hate the ‘bailout’ idea-particularly after they feel they were duped on the financial institution bailout.  By foregoing the loans, Ford stands to gain a great deal of goodwill with potential buyers.

While GM and Chrysler are trying to mitigate the damage by buying ads to apologize for their past sins (GM) and to thank the public for ‘investing’ in them (Chrysler), Ford is touting its ‘strong’ position and its understanding that the company, not the taxpayer, should be responsible for its success or failure.

Both GM and Chrysler’s attempt at PR spin have backfired.  Not only do both companies look weak, taxpayers have voiced resentment that GM’s management admitted past quality issues only out of desperation to garner goodwill with taxpayers and that Chrysler has ‘wasted’ part of their emergency loan dollars in a thank you advertising attempt, not to mention the ads focused on the taxpayers ‘investment’ in the company-an investment they didn’t want to make but was forced upon them by government.

Ford, on the other hand, gets to be the good guy-the one who will live or die on its own, who will be true to the free market system, who will suck it up and survive without burdening the taxpayer.  Ford’s truck motto of “Ford Tough” has become the unspoken motto of the company-an independence and self-reliance that the tax paying public respects.

Gain the same restructuring benefits GM and Chrysler will get. Whatever concessions GM and Chrysler gain from their vendors and unions will be passed on to Ford-without Ford having to suffer the humiliation and embarrassment of succumbing to Congress’s demands.  They’ll get 100% of the benefit without any of the cost.

Freedom to work out their own problems. While GM and Chrysler will be forced to submit to the demands of Congress, Ford will retain its independence.  Although good portion of the auto industry is run by Congress through regulation, each of the auto companies has had the freedom to manage their own companies within the regulation framework set out by Congress.

GM and Chrysler will have to forfeit a good deal of that freedom.  The same institution that has proven incapable of managing itself much less any of the thousands of programs it creates and that has been the creator and caretaker of the Social Security Ponzi scheme will now be one of the primary business planners of GM and Chrysler.

Ford’s refusal to take the bailout loans frees it from the same oversight fate that GM and Chrysler face.  GM and Chrysler may die-and Ford may follow suit, but without congressional oversight, Ford’s demise will probably be slower, more orderly and less circus like than GM and Chrysler’s.  It is also very possible that while GM and Chrysler are driven further into the ground by congressional mismanagement, Ford may be able to restructure itself into a profitable company once again.

Ford’s fortunate position today is due primarily to it having a small but important advantage over GM and Chrysler-a few bucks in the bank.  More importantly, Ford understood how to leverage that small advantage and set itself apart from GM and Chrysler.

It would have been easy for Ford to have taken the loans.  It would have given them additional funds to help them in their restructuring and a bit more breathing room, and it wouldn’t have put them in any more of a negative position than the other two companies.

In fact, their original position was to join GM and Chrysler in the effort to get government loans-until they realized the immense value of the one advantage they did possess.  They had the foresight to look beyond what additional funds would do in terms of making their life easier in the short-term and instead took a long-term view of how they could capitalize on their one strength.  Their belt-tightening may have to be more radical than their competitors, but the rewards from a PR and independence standpoint far out weigh the short-term advantage of a bigger bank account.

What advantages do you have that you can leverage today?

Whether you are a single salesperson, a sales leader, or the CEO of a corporation, you have advantages you can leverage.  They may be small, they may be large.  You may have multiple advantages you can exploit, or, like Ford, you may be neck deep in serious problems and possess only one small advantage over your competitors.  The real challenge is how you can take your advantages, whatever those advantages may be, and finding a way to leverage them to set yourself apart from your competition.

Paul McCord is president of McCord Training, an international sales training and consulting firm located in Texas.  The author of two best-selling books and the author of numerous sales and management articles, Paul has trained thousands of salespeople and managers around the world.  He is the author of the popular Sales and Sales Management Blog (http://salesandmanagementblog.com).  He may be contacted at pmccord@mccordandassociates.com or visit his website at www.mccordtraining.com

Copyright 2009, Paul McCord.  May be reproduced without change, with proper attribution and brief bio.  Notice of when and where article is to appear to pmccord@mccordandassociates.com

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