________________________________________

Recently I had a chance to read The Truth About Leads, [more...]]]> We had an opportunity to review an early release of this terrific book. And Jill Konrath of Selling to Big Companies recently had an opportunity to interview the author. If you enjoy this, we suggest you share it internally with your sales and marketing leadership team.

________________________________________

Recently I had a chance to read The Truth About Leads, a new cut-to-the-chase book written by Dan McDade. He’s the CEO of PointClear, a company that does outsourced prospect development for B2B sales organizations. As you might imagine, he thinks, eats and breathes “leads.”

Since it’s such a hot topic today, I knew you’d want to learn more about his thoughts on lead generation. Enjoy my interview with him.

JILL: Why did you write the book “The Truth About Leads”?

DAN McDADE: It’s because the word “lead” is so misunderstood and that misunderstanding is so costly. Most companies find other words or phrases to replace the word “lead”. Qualified sales opportunity, sales-ready opportunity, marketing qualified opportunity, suspect, prospect, opportunity, pipeline and scores of other words or phrases are used to replace the word “lead.”

Why? Because the very word has developed a negative connotation. Leads are the life blood of any organization; the lack of clarity about what a lead is, how it should be generated, by whom and how it should be worked and tracked is what causes most companies to suffer setbacks or failure.

Too, the process of defining, generating, working and tracking leads is a lot more complex than most people think because there are a lot of moving parts and there are a lot of interactions between people that are missed and/or misunderstood.

I had to write a book because I simply could not stand back and watch so much money being wasted. If you are tired of watching your company or companies’ waste money, the book tells you what to do about it.

JILL: In The Truth About Leads, you talk about the gap between sales and marketing. Hasn’t that gap shrunk in the last several years?

DAN McDADE: The short answer is no. Marketing has been rendered powerless in most companies.This function is often seen as one dimensional, responsible for trade shows, advertising, brochures, websites and in some cases, social media. Marketing is given a meager budget and a mandate to generate an impossible number of leads.

The sales force, on the other hand, is frequently filled with people who are misused or wrongly deployed. Companies don’t capitalize on their sales people’s strengths. Instead, hunters (also called closers) are expected to generate leads and farmers (relationship specialists such as account managers) are expected to close deals. People are being asked to do what they aren’t good at—and the result of those requests is inefficiency and ineffectiveness. The responsibility for leveraging the strengths of the team starts at the top.

Finally, I believe that it is impossible to fix the sales side of the problem without first addressing the marketing deficiencies.

JILL: So what should companies do first?

DAN McDADE: I call it the Five-step Program to Close the Marketing Gap

1. Stop the carousel on marketing programs.

Take a look at all of your planned programs—advertising, trade show promotions, direct marketing, webinars—and stop or cut back the ones you can while you take the time to evaluate their effectiveness. Don’t keep the merry-go-round going just because they’re already started.

2. Plan to crawl, walk and run.

You will not be able to roll out tested marketing programs next month. No company can effectively impact current quarter results with current quarter marketing. Don’t try. Instead, plan carefully and execute thoughtfully for long-term sales success.

3. Pinpoint your market.

For example, one client used a market research firm that determined that the prospect universe exceeded 80,000 companies. That’s too much. After analyzing their business, we focused on the best 22,000 opportunities and we’ll continue to work the universe down based on the appropriateness of the fit and the potential margin to our client.

4. Test your market, media and offer before investing.

Before spending significant dollars on a marketing program, it is imperative that you test your list or database (market), the communication platforms you plan to use (media), and your price, package, terms, guarantee, differentiators, etc. (offer). Simple as this seems, it almost never happens. This simple, practical testing step can hugely impact sales and save tens of thousands of dollars.

5. Measure your results. If you do not have a process to track and measure the ROI of your marketing programs you are just throwing darts. Only by quantifying the success of each program can you know if your efforts are worthwhile. In fact, you may be surprised to find that anecdotal evidence does not align with the facts.

JILL: One of the chapters in your book is called “The Truth About Sales”.  Can you summarize that chapter for our readers?

DAN McDADE: First, there are some basic misunderstandings about managing a sales force:

1. Hunters, farmers and beaters.

Do you know what type of salespeople you’re hiring? Are you expecting hunters to beat? When you look at your sales force do you find 80 percent farmers and 20 percent hunters? If so, you’re not alone.

2. Sales methodology.

Most of the salespeople you hire to hunt today really do not know how. Regardless of which sales methodology you use, the key is to integrate it with reporting systems and to follow through and follow up. Event training simply does not work. A sales methodology has to become a way of life.

3. Sales motivation.

Do you want to know why there is never any movement in the forecast? Why is it that there does not appear to be any progress until an account is either won or lost? The first and main reason is that salespeople do what you pay them to do, not what you want them to do. Sales executives are driven by control, credit and compensation. All three of these elements are strong motivators that can quickly turn into de-motivators.

Sales reps want credit for everything. They will deserve credit if you can motivate them to comply with a true closed loop system that tracks prospects through the buying cycle (I suggest rewarding reps that do this). Sales executives will often hide the steps in the sales process between lead acceptance and close. They fear accountability and being blamed for a loss, so they provide little visibility (except for wins) unless they are forced to do so.

Managers who understand and manage on the basis of both the art and science of sales can greatly impact the outcome of sales opportunities.

JILL: Any last recommendations?

DAN McDADE: These are what I call the Final Words of the book:

Executive and C-level management owns responsibility for providing high level market, message and media strategic direction. If you are a C-level executive today, and have given your team the direction that “our market is the Fortune 500” or “we sell enterprise solutions” (as examples), then you may be partially responsible for gaps between expectations and actual results.

Tight, vertical and geographically defined markets are always necessary. Always. If you do not have a handle on this, from a deployment and message perspective, you are wasting time and dollars. The strategic-level messaging most companies use does not work.

If you cannot explain what you do with a simple story and/or analogy, you need to work harder on carefully crafting just what you need to say. Close to 95 percent of most marketing investment is wasted due to marketing’s focus on short-term leads and failure to value and capture the long-term leads.

Also, frequently lost is information about companies that are qualified, but have no immediate opportunity—valuable information that results from the process of finding short-term leads. Gathering market intelligence and applying the learning’s in the context of a thoughtfully planned nurturing program delivers significant return.

If you have an inside sales group, it is likely that they are either glorified administrators, or making 35 or fewer dials per day due to other pressing issues. That means that for every person you have in inside sales, every day you are settling for 65 percent less productivity than you should.

You can’t afford anything less than a dedicated group of trained professionals focused 100 percent on sales. An advocate is someone who will, without prompting, speak well of you and your company—and in essence, help you sell. Initiatives to keep customers happy can help you make money. Since buyer’s remorse starts the moment the deal is signed, the activities, events and programs designed to create advocacy need to start then too.

________________

Dan McDade, author of The Truth About Leads, founded PointClear in 1997 with the mission to be the first and best company providing outsourced prospect development services to companies with a complex sales process.

To learn more, visit PointClear.com, read his Sales Lead Generation Blog or follow him on Twitter.

I quietly approached one of the sales reps in the office. I was careful not to alert him of my presence because I wanted to observe him in his natural habitat. I no sooner made it [more...]]]> Great post by Paul about the need to never give up. To read the original article, click here.

I quietly approached one of the sales reps in the office. I was careful not to alert him of my presence because I wanted to observe him in his natural habitat. I no sooner made it to the cubicle behind him (admittedly I might have been humming the James Bond theme) when he completed the call and tossed out the lead sheet. Then in what only can be described as a “rinse and repeat stankfest” the dude kept calling, getting rejected and then throwing out the lead sheet (and don’t get me started why the company didn’t believe in CRM) Before he could continue, I sprang out from cubicle #3 and yelled “What the hell are you doing?” As a side note, it was in this moment that I learned that you should never jump out at anyone who has Irritable Bowel Syndrome but hindsight, right?

I’ll spare you the entire conversation (and cleanup in cubicle 2!) and cut to the chase which was “They all told me they weren’t interested” That was it. One freakin No and we have now slammed a door shut for all eternity!

Fast forward to an older, balder Uncle Paul. I get a voice mail from someone who claims to be a cold calling genius (I’m taking some creative license here because I don’t want to be unprofessional and get specific). I get busy and never respond. Well that and quite frankly, her message bored the hell out of me. A week later, like clockwork (as if now I’m the Tuesday, 3:00 call in their CRM) I get another call. I decide to blow that one off too. They start with the emails ( 2 I believe) then I shoot back a response of “Thanks, but no thanks” I never heard from them again and yet they teach cold calling skills.

Basically . . . she gave up!

And that’s about right because studies tell us that the average rep gives up after only 3-4 attempts.

In the spirit of some tough love, forgive me for asking . . .

IS THAT ALL YOU GOT?

The next time you want to throw in the towel (I don’t care if its after one “NO” like “Mr. IBS” in the first example or after the standard 4) consider the following:

1)   Your competitor loves it when you quit. Your acceptance of a “No” gives them a “Yes” on a platter!

2)   Colonel Sanders took 1009 “No’s” before his first “YES” in launching KFC!

3)   Chicken Soup For The Soul received over 140 rejections!

4)   The Rocky script was rejected something like 1300 times

Kind of makes 4 attempts look like baby sh*t along side these, huh?

And don’t get me wrong. Persistence is never a license to be a pain nor should we cling to the old cliché of “knowing how to take a punch” or “my money is on the guy who gets up after getting knocked down”

Didn’t we just describe a human punching bag?

My money is actually on the person who knows why they got knocked on their ass, gets up and then goes back with a better strategy.

Otherwise, the little voice in my head still asks

Is that all you got?

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Thomas Edison (a dude who took something like 10,000 “No’s”)

Today you are cordially invited to keep trying!

Bonus points if you immediately call someone back who told you “No” at some point!

To check out my ridiculously cool Linkedin group click on the rock star

To get free, lethal sales tips click on the Jedi

We thank Kendra for this great article. Her contact info is below and the permalink for her original post is here.

Early in a new year is a great opportunity to examine your successes from the previous year, determine what you want to replicate, what you want to change and [more...]]]> By Kendra Lee, President, KLA Group

We thank Kendra for this great article. Her contact info is below and the permalink for her original post is here.

Early in a new year is a great opportunity to examine your successes from the previous year, determine what you want to replicate, what you want to change and then set some goals for the new one.

Because setting attainable sales goals can be a lot trickier, and more stressful, then people tend to think, I’d like to offer a step-by-step guide to help you set and reach your yearly target.

_____________________________________________

Selling is tough! There’s no doubt about it. Customers demand more at the same time their loyalty is plummeting. Cutthroat competitors seem willing to practically give things away just to get the [more...]]]> What separates top sellers from average sellers?

Great post by Jill Konrath of Selling to Big Companies. The permalink for Jill’s original post is here.

_____________________________________________

Selling is tough! There’s no doubt about it. Customers demand more at the same time their loyalty is plummeting. Cutthroat competitors seem willing to practically give things away just to get the business. Even setting up meetings with new prospects is a major ordeal. Busy decision makers don’t want to “waste” their time with product-pushing peddlers.

There are a hundred million reasons why you can’t sell today. I’ve heard them all. Yet some sellers are having their best year ever. They’re not one bit smarter than you are. Nor are their product or service offerings superior to yours.

But they do think differently from you. Here’s what you can do to be like the “best of the best.”

Be Personally Accountable

Top sellers regularly encounter the same challenges you do, but steadfastly refuse to blame the economy, competitors, marketing, pricing, or even customers for lackluster sales results. These are simply obstacles that must be overcome. They assume personal responsibility for their future, believing they can impact it—a simple decision with far-reaching consequences.

When faced with difficult situations, average sellers bemoan their miserable fate then pose questions like these:

• When will management do something about these problems?
• Why is our quota still the same when it’s obvious the economy is down?
• When will marketing get their act together?
• Why can’t our prospects understand our products value?
• When will they offer us some good training?
• Who came up with that ridiculous promotion?
• When will customers stop being so demanding?

Perhaps you’ve even voiced questions like this at some point in your career. Thesewhy, whoandwhenquestions ensure blame is deflected towards others. If “they” do something different, then you can be successful. This puts you into a victim mode. You’re stuck with a lousy situation over which you have no control. No wonder you can’t succeed!

But if you talk to top sellers, you’ll find they ask very different questions. For example, you might hear them asking:

• How can I meet my numbers despite the difficult market conditions?
• What can I do to help customers understand why our products are a better long-term value?
• What new skills do I need to learn to be more successful?
• What can I do to help marketing realize I need different tools to sell more?
• How can I use my customer’s demands to solidify our relationship?

Because top sellers accept the responsibility for their success, their questions start with “How can I” or “What can I?” These kinds of questions also stimulate thinking. You’ll be amazed at how many new ideas you can come up when you change the question. Your brain will kick into gear, making connections with other strategies you’ve used previously to overcome similar problems. Simply by changing the question, you find solutions you didn’t even know existed.

Say I Will, Not I’ll Try

This may sound too easy, but it’s a key step. In these turbulent times, what you’ve always done to be successful in sales may not work as well as it used to. Acknowledge this and make an “I will” commitment to change. Not I’ll try, but I will—there’s a big difference.

For example, have you ever said you’lltryto lose weight? Did you? Losing weight means doing things that make you uncomfortable—like watching what and how much you eat, and exercising on a regular basis. If you’re like most people, you lost some weight initially but after awhile returned to your old habits and the pounds came back on.

The same thing happens in selling.Many sales professionals know new ways of selling are needed. Theytrynew strategies or tactics they’ve heard worked for others. But the first time theytrythese new behaviors, they’re miserably uncomfortable and feel like a novice again. When immediate results aren’t forthcoming, they quickly revert to their comfort zone convinced the new techniques don’t work—at least for their customers.

Top salespeople say, “I willfigure out how to succeed in today’s crazy market.” When trying new behaviors, they feel the same discomfort as you do but accept it as a natural consequence of learning. They keep practicing till they’ve mastered the new skill. If the desired results still don’t come, these top sellers continue searching for knowledge and skills that lead them to success.

Do you see the difference? Top sellers don’t say, “I’ll try.” They know change is difficult, takes time and is an on-going process. Their “I will” commitment keeps them going even when times are tough.

Take Action

Last, but certainly not least, top sellers don’t just come up with a bunch of ideas. They act on them. If they feel their selling skills need to be enhanced, they sign up for workshops. If the company won’t pay, they use their own funds. If customers don’t value their products, they try different approaches until they find one that works. If a customer’s service problems affect future sales, they do what it takes to resolve them. If better sales tools are needed, they work with marketing to develop them.

If top sellers are stymied by a sales situation, they get help from a variety of resources. They brainstorm with colleagues. They seek their boss’s advice. They call internal or external consultants who might have valuable insights. They enlist corporate leaders to make high-level sales calls. They explore new ways of working with business partners.

Do you do that when the going gets tough? Or do you talk at length with fellow sales reps, lamenting the dire economic conditions, competitive pressures and miserable state of affairs in your company?

Everyone gets down occasionally and blows off steam. But top sellers don’t wallow in self-pity. Very soon they ask “How can I” or “What can I” questions to stimulate options and move themselves to action. Meanwhile, their less successful counterparts are still on the phone playing the “Ain’t it Awful” game.

An easy way to get started on this process is to analyze a sale you’ve recently lost. Ask yourself:What could I have done differently to increase my likelihood of success?Dissect your sale in detail, looking at every stage of the sales cycle to identify where mistakes may have been made, steps omitted, the process rushed or important information overlooked. Think about what else you could have done or how you could have handled things differently.You don’t have to do this alone; your colleagues can provide valuable insight based on their unique perspective.

Write down all your thoughts, ideas or suggestions on paper. Then analyze the list, separating symptoms from root causes. Try to determine where changes in tactics or strategy could have impacted sales success. Again, get input from others.

Finally, commit to growing from this valuable learning experience and take action. Perhaps you need to strengthen your presentation skills—get a book, watch a peer, or role-play with your manager. Perhaps you need a better grasp of customer needs—write down questions to ask for tomorrow’s sales call. Perhaps you need to call on higher-level decision makers—do it now on an in-process sale. Whatever you learn in this process is an incredible opportunity for personal development.

The Reflection in the Mirror

Being brutally honest with yourself can be painful, but top sellers willingly do it on a regular basis. To be like them, you need to take a good hard look in the mirror too.

During tough times, do you ask “How can I” and “What can I” questions or do you point fingers to assign blame? Do you say “I will” and commit to change or do you say, “I’ll try”? Do you take action or wait for somebody else to do something?

No one can make you do things differently; the decision to change is yours alone. However, to be a top seller, you must commit to personally accountability for your success and act on it. There aren’t any shortcuts or quick fixes. It’s a life-long process of growth and development. But if you make this commitment, you will be a top seller—maybe not overnight, but over time and consistently. Results are guaranteed.

What do you think of what Jill said? We love reading your comments and respond to every one.

______

Jill Konrath, sales strategist and bestselling author ofSelling to Big CompaniesandSNAP Selling, is a frequent speaker at annual sales meetings, kick-off events and professional conferences.

For more articles like this, visitwww.SellingtoBigCompanies.com. Sign up for the newsletter and get a BONUS Sales Call Planning Guide.

Read more:http://www.sellingtobigcompanies.com/content_display.jsp?top=8494&mid=8546&siteObjectID=18233&pf=t#ixzz1EENi2bzd

__________________________________________________

What is the first thing a potential candidate sees when they are job hunting?  Many times it is the name of the role, followed closely by an elaborate, seemingly never ending job description.  Who cares?  You should, if you are [more...]]]> Great post in the Salesforce Effectiveness Blog. To access the original article, click the permalink here.

__________________________________________________

What is the first thing a potential candidate sees when they are job hunting?  Many times it is the name of the role, followed closely by an elaborate, seemingly never ending job description.  Who cares?  You should, if you are trying to attract top sales talent.

Remember, you are hiring sales professionals.  They are looking for an exciting career, with huge upside, and a competitive, fun environment.  Many job postings are about as exciting as watching Judge Judy on a Tuesday afternoon.  They include a bunch of HR policies and mumbo jumbo that make Sales Reps run in the other direction.  Also, listing 50 different requirements doesn’t make the job sound more important. Sales professionals think they are going to be bogged down doing so many non-selling activities that they may never make a single dollar in commissions.

So what do you do?

1. Cut out the noise
2. Include only the key competencies (focus on scorecard)
3. Put the HR requirements in the back and minimize them

Cut out the noise:

• Bad: We need a team player to execute the corporate strategy while focusing on core business objectives that will lead to long-term success.
• Try Instead:  Need experience team selling with a track record of exceeding quotas

Include the Key Competencies (focus on scorecard) required for the job:

• Drive new business growth through aggressive prospecting
• Minimize customer churn by executing ABC company’s client retention game-plan
• Increase market share within existing client portfolio

Put the HR requirements in the back and minimize them as much as possible:

• These can be a necessary evil, but do whatever you can to shrink, compress, and eliminate them.  No sales person in the history of mankind has been attracted to a job because it was a requirement to be able to lift 25 pounds and have a driver’s license.

What have we learned?  Having clear and concise role definitions can help weed out the people you don’t want to apply and attract the “A” players that are looking for a dynamic and challenging sales career.  Are you wondering why that post on Monster only drove 2 applicants and 1 of them is currently mowing the neighbor’s lawn for a career?  Read the job/role description again and put yourself in the candidate’s shoes.  Are you inadvertently screening top talent?

What do you think? We love comments and you sharing on social networks.

___________________________________________________

Every business pundit has said at [more...]]]> In our opinion here at the B2B Sales Lounge, value propositions are critical and one of the hardest things for sales managers to create. So when we found this post at RainToday, we decided the readers here would enjoy it. To read the original article, check out the permalink here.

___________________________________________________

Every business pundit has said at one time or another, “There’s no more misunderstood, argued about topic in business than <insert topic here>, but it’s really not that complicated. Here’s the secret to understanding it.” The concept of value proposition falls into this same category.

On the one hand, it’s a pretty simple concept to grasp. But like all simple, important concepts, it takes some thinking to understand it deeply and use it to your advantage. Let’s first look at a definition of a value proposition, then we’ll look at the three major components that comprise it so you can put it to work for you.

A value proposition is the collection of reasons why a person or company benefits from buying something.

This, at least, is our definition, and we put it in Professional Services Marketing (Wiley, 2009). Not everyone agrees.

From Investopedia:

What Does Value Proposition Mean?

A business or marketing statement that summarizes why a consumer should buy a product or use a service. This statement should convince a potential consumer that one particular product or service will add more value or better solve a problem than other similar offerings.

Investopedia explains Value Proposition

Companies use this statement to target customers who will benefit most from using the company’s products, and this helps maintain an economic moat. The ideal value proposition is concise and appeals to the customer’s strongest decision-making drivers. Companies pay a high price when customers lose sight of the company’s value proposition.

You’ll note that the Investopedia definition and explanation reference a value proposition as a statement. Thinking of a value proposition as a statement does more harm than good for consulting firms. With these definitions in mind, firms head down marketing messaging and communication paths that just aren’t helpful, leading to Quixotic and circuitous journeys by marketing and firm leaders to find a sentence or two that encapsulates value of the firm while at the same time is different from all competitors. They invariably end up with some pap about how they’re an experienced, client-focused, results-focused, trusted partner, yadda yadda yadda (example – nickelharpa).

If you think of a value proposition not as a statement, but as a concept about why people buy something, then you’ve got a lot more to work with. It’s from that concept—the collection of reasons why people would want to buy from you—that you can put your marketing and sales to work much more effectively than if you try to boil it down so far that there’s little substance left.

The reasons why people buy typically fall into three major buckets that, in sum, form the three rules of winning value propositions:

1. Potential buyers have to need what you’re buying. It has to resonate with them.

2. Potential buyers have to see why you stand out from the other available options. You have to differentiate.

3. Potential buyers have to believe that you can deliver on your promises. You have to substantiate.

The 3 Legs of the Value Proposition Stool

What happens if you don’t follow all three of the value proposition rules?

As you can see from the graphic above, take any of the rules away and it makes it much more difficult to sell.

• Remove resonance, and people just won’t buy what you’re selling.

• Remove differentiation, and they’ll pressure your price or attempt to get your service someplace else.

• Remove your ability to substantiate your claims, and while clients may want what you sell (you resonate), and may perceive you to be the only people on the planet that do what you do (you differentiate), they don’t believe you and won’t risk working with you.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not against statements that encapsulate the mission and value of a firm. “We at RAIN Group help companies that sell complex products and services to improve their sales performance. If you want your professionals, business developers, and sales people to sell more, we can help.” This is the umbrella under which we operate. The purpose is to help our clients and the market wrap their heads around the general area where we help, and to know when they might want to work with us.

Ultimately, this is why our clients buy from us; because we’ll help them increase sales success. But there is always a set of underlying factors that swayed them to choose us versus a) doing something themselves, b) choosing someone else to help them, and c) choosing to do nothing at all.

Too many firms don’t investigate the various underlying components of why clients buy from them. They stop at “we’re trusted partners” or “we help you reduce your overhead costs” and it doesn’t serve them well.

If you want to resonate, differentiate, and substantiate, you need to do much more than write a short sentence…or a long sentence, or a paragraph, or a page. While you can sum it up, the summary itself doesn’t carry much weight. It just stands to do a little positioning for you. Your actual value proposition—the collection of reasons people buy from you—is woven into the fabric of the firm and your relationships with clients. Then it’s communicated through the collection of messages you bring to the market.

Instead of trying to come up with a brilliant, simplified value proposition statement, focus on understanding all of the components that make up the three legs of your value proposition stool. Then you can really get your value across in your sales conversations. You can sum it all up in a short statement, too, but you’ll be way ahead of your competitors that stop there and think they’re done.

For more tips on how to increase your sales success in 2011, download the new free report: The New Rules for Selling Consulting Services in 2011.

It’s absolutely the best way to get ahead of your competition in the New Year.

Download the new free report here: http://www.sellingconsultingservices.com/newrules.html.

Mike Schultz and John Doerr are co-Presidents of RAIN Group, a sales training, assessment, and sales performance improvement company that helps leading organizations improve sales results. They are founders of RainToday.com, named the Top Sales Resource site in the world in 2010 and are co-authors of Professional Services Marketing (Wiley, 2009) and Rainmaking Conversations: Influence, Persuade, and Sell in Any Situation (Wiley, 2011).  You can reach Mike at mschultz@raingroup.com and John at jdoerr@raingroup.com.

_________________________________________

We love your comments and respond to every one. We also appreciate you sharing our content on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Delicious, Digg, Tumblr, etc.

__________________________________________________________________________

“My salespeople need to get better at closing,” the Vice President of Sales said to me shortly after I arrived in his office.

If I’ve heard that line once, I’ve heard [more...]]]> Customers hate being giving a hard close. So when I saw Jill’s post, I though “you really ought to hear this.” (Jill’s bio follows the article.)

__________________________________________________________________________

“My salespeople need to get better at closing,” the Vice President of Sales said to me shortly after I arrived in his office.

If I’ve heard that line once, I’ve heard it a hundred times. Despite being on an important sales call, I couldn’t help but cringe. You see, I will never, ever train people on closing techniques if they sell to the corporate marketplace.

Why not? When you analyze what happens when you teach sellers how to be great closers, you’ll understand my perspective.

–

So right now, I want you to imagine yourself as a decision maker in a large organization. Perhaps you’re a manager or even an executive.

You agree to meet with a seller who’s been trying to set up a meeting with you for several months. When she mentioned the business results her firm was achieving with your competitor, you decided it was time to learn more.

But you’re still a bit leery. You’re absolutely swamped with a workload that’s so big you can’t seem to get out from under it.

After a 10-minute discussion with her, you start to notice that nearly every other sentence ends with a question: “Don’t you agree?” or “I’m sure you’ve experienced that?” or “Is that true here?”

(Because she’s been trained to “always be closing,” she starts using the “Constant Close Technique” right away. This method is designed to get your head bobbing up and down. The more “yeses” you say, the easier it’ll be for her to get your business.)

After sharing a bit more about her offering, she begins to implement the “Little-Decision Close” by asking:

- Do you usually start out with weekly or monthly orders?
- Can you get this through purchasing fairly easily?
- Do you agree that this methodology would be helpful?

(By getting you to agree to small things first, she’s warming you up for the big close.)

Inside, your head is spinning and these thoughts are racing through your mind: “I’m not ready to get started on anything right now. I’m just learning. Besides, I don’t know if it’s even worth it to make a change. Shoot, it could be really disruptive right now with all the new initiatives going on in our company.”

But the sales rep persists. She’s really good at closing. She moves into the “Assume-the-Sale Close.” With a winning smile on her face, she says to you, “We can get going on this by mid-month.”

If you’re normal, by now you’re feeling a little pushed – or maybe even a lot pushed. You’re not ready to make any kind of decision on the spot like this. Who does she think she is???

Trying to politely get out of this mess, you ask, “How much money are we talking about?” No matter what she says, it will always be too much!

When you tell her that, she chimes back in with the “Better-Act- Now Close”.

Petulantly, she looks at you and says, “We’re really busy right now. So many people are ordering. If you don’t go ahead right now, I have no idea how long it will take or even if the pricing will stay the same. I’ve heard it’s going up.”

You tell her you’ll have to take your chances, because it’s out of the question for you to make decisions so quickly.

Not to be deterred, she comes right back at you with her best “Referral Close.” Pulling a list of testimonials out of her briefcase, she lays them in front of you one-by-one.

“Look at all the great companies who we work with,” she says. “They love us. We’ve done great things for them.”

Glancing quickly at your watch, you say, “I’m sorry. I have to run to a meeting right now. Thank you so much for your time.”

“If you act now, we’ve got this great promotional offer,” she says using her best “Last Ditch Close”. “We’ll throw in 20 hours of free training and a new iPod.”

Enough already! At this point, all you can think about is, “Get this woman out of my office.”

–

That’s what happens when you train someone on closing skills. They close and they close. At the same time, they tick off their prospective customers royally.

Whenever someone talks to me about their salespeople needing to be trained on closing skills, I have to redirect their thinking.

The inability to close is a direct result of poor needs development. It is the symptom of the problem, not the actual problem itself.

The very best salespeople don’t employ any special closing techniques at all. They simply focus on understanding their customer’s business and helping them achieve their desired outcomes.

Instead of talking about their product or service, they ask a ton of questions. They keep their focus on their prospect’s business challenges and the gaps that need to be closed to achieve their objectives.

Then, knowing that corporate decisions take a while to make and often involve many people, they simply suggest the logical next step.

So please, don’t talk to me about your salespeople needing to improve their closing skills. I can’t help you with this.

If they’re selling to big companies, the more they close, the less successful they’ll be.

————————-

Jill Konrath helps salespeople get their foot in the door and win big contracts in the corporate market. Sign up for her free e-newsletter at http://www.sellingtobigcompanies.com . You get a free “Sales Call Planning Guide” ($19.95 value) when you subscribe.

______________________________

We love your comments and respond to every one. We also appreciate you sharing our content on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Delicious, Digg, Tumblr, etc.

All [more...]]]> Undoubtedly, many of our fans do a lot of outbound calling. This means they leave lots and lots of voice mail messages. Improving the effectiveness of those messages would help a lot. So we want to share this post by a good friend that ran at RainToday. The permalink to the original post is here.

All effective voice mail messages have one thing in common: they focus on a potential problem that the prospect might have. Stay away from talking about you, your company, or your services, stresses Kelley Robertson in this excerpt from his webinar Ditch the Sales Pitch: How to Master Sales Conversations and Win More Deals.

“Most of the messages [that executives receive] focus on the selling company or the seller’s company—there’s no reference to the prospect’s company and potential problems,” Robertson says. “So, focus on the potential problem that your prospect might be experiencing, allude to how you might be able to give them a solution, and keep it really short.”

Master Sales Conversations Learn more about how to lead effective sales conversations. Watch Kelley Robertson’s webinar Ditch the Sales Pitch: How to Master Sales Conversations and Win More Deals

And before you leave a voice mail, call your own phone and leave it and listen to it. If you wouldn’t answer or return your phone call, the prospect won’t either, he says.

Listen as Robertson provides an example of a good voice mail, discusses the best times to call prospects, and explains how to conduct sales conversations that are not face to face.

Listen to the Recording:

(Time: 11:11)

Download the MP3
(Right click and ‘Save Target As’)

(Note: It is a large file and may take several minutes to download)

We love your comments and respond to every one. We also appreciate you sharing our content on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Delicious, Digg, Tumblr, etc.

All of Jill’s contact info is at the end.

_______________________________________________________________

Several years ago, while scouring the business section of my local newspaper, I came [more...]]]> We thank Jill Konrath of Selling to Big Companies for this great post. It’s illustrates the remarkable power of trigger events and the importance of tools to help sales take advantage of trigger events.

All of Jill’s contact info is at the end.

_______________________________________________________________

Several years ago, while scouring the business section of my local newspaper, I came to a screeching halt when I noticed a small headline. It read, “Local Firm Acquires eBusiness.”

“Very interesting,” I thought. The company, an international manufacturer, was not in my targeted market segment — but this high tech acquisition certainly was.

Because my prospecting antennas were twitching, I committed to staying abreast on what was happening at this firm. I sent for their annual report, periodically checked their website and kept up on any press releases.

After 18 months, the manufacturer announced it was spinning off several divisions — and the eBusiness I’d been following was one of them.

Bingo! That was the day I knew I had a new client.

“Jill Konrath helps salespeople get their foot in the door and win big contracts in the corporate market. Sign up for her free e-newsletter on her website at http://www.sellingtobigcompanies.com . You get a free “Sales Call Planning Guide” ($19.95 value) when you subscribe.

_______________________

We love your comments and respond to every one. We also appreciate you sharing our content on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Delicious, Digg, Tumblr, etc.

Thanks to Brent Holloway for this guest post. Brent is a regional sales director for Verint Systems Inc. and coauthor of “Sales 2.0.”

According to CSO Insights data, [more...]]]> The B2B Sales Lounge is a big fan of Anneke Seley of the Sales 2.0 Advocate. Contact info at end of post. The original post can be found here.

Thanks to Brent Holloway for this guest post. Brent is a regional sales director for Verint Systems Inc. and coauthor of “Sales 2.0.”

According to CSO Insights data, fewer reps are achieving quota, yet quotas, on average, are going up. At this time of year, many of you may be looking at your headcount and budget plan for 2011 and evaluating which members of your existing sales team should be counseled to find a new job. With more reps falling short, what should we sales managers do with reps who are not cutting it? This is, of course, a subjective question, and the right answer depends on many factors, but I feel it’s fair to suggest we should all have a methodology and process to follow — not just for a termination process, but also for the time leading up to a possible termination.

Performance improvement plans, or PIPs, are often given to sales reps who are performing below expectations. By integrating Sales 2.0 principles into your PIPs, you can optimize the opportunity to turn around and improve the performance of a rep who may be struggling. Here are four suggested steps for PIPs:

1. Have a process. After X quarters in a row (X will depend on your company), present your PIP. Be clear about how long the rep has to turn around his or her performance. Set a clear expectation about the time-frame.
2. Know your team’s best practices, and share them early and often. Give under-performing reps every chance of success by giving them specific ideas for how to improve.
3. Include measurable objectives. Your PIP should give reps specific and attainable metrics you have identified as necessary for achievement. This could include number of weekly calls and number of demonstrations, as well as goals related to adding new pipeline and booked orders.
4. Get feedback from your reps. You can increase their buy-in if they are included in setting the goals.

Based on feedback from some of my peers across a wide range of companies, general consensus seems to be that, while PIPs are positioned as tools to help an employee succeed, they are often viewed — and used — as tools to justify termination and prevent lawsuits. I believe PIPs can serve both objectives, with an emphasis on giving the employee every reasonable opportunity to succeed — if they are written fairly and presented well.

Presumably your sales reps know what is expected of them based on their compensation plan; the objectives in a PIP, when necessary, are often more tactical. A PIP can also be used as a commitment test, giving a rep a chance to “self-select” and resign before getting fired if he or she is not committed to improving.

I have experience giving a few PIPs, and one recent one resulted in a successful turnaround. This may not be the norm, but I feel it’s worth celebrating and sharing. After two years of consistently missing his quarterly goals (sometimes by a little and sometimes by more than 50%) and being at the bottom of his peer group, an employee was given a formal PIP at the start of Q4 of last year. The plan had clear pipeline-building and revenue objectives, and the rep is now thriving with three straight quarters of excellent results. I can’t give all the turnaround credit to the performance improvement plan, but from eight missed quarters to three good ones in a row, plus good progress so far this quarter, the plan clearly had a role. I think it forced him to focus more, and it was clear that he became more proactive and creative in his selling.

How are other people using PIPs? How do you determine the appropriate time to present one?

Interested in B2B lead generation and marketing? Then visit our other blog, Fearless Competitor.

Contact info:

Anneke Seley

aseley@phoneworks.com

(415) 986-6300

linkedin.com/annekeseley

twitter.com/annekeseley

Brent Holloway

brent.holloway@verint.com

We love comments and respond to every one. We also invite you to share this with others on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Digg, Delicious, etc.