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.

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“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.)

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“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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

There are many signs that the economy is turning for the better; the Dow Jones index is at a three year high, consumer spending is also at a three year high and from my own perspective, my entire [more...]]]> Guest post by Kevin Temple of Enterprise-Selling. A special post just for the B2B Sales Lounge. Thanks, Kevin.

There are many signs that the economy is turning for the better; the Dow Jones index is at a three year high, consumer spending is also at a three year high and from my own perspective, my entire customer list exceeded their operating plans for 2010. No small feat for a group of companies that was responsible for over $3 billion in revenues for 2010. Surprisingly, as the economy continues to improve, the transition can catch many sales professionals on their heels if they don’t keep the contrast in perspective. Although it seems counterintuitive, their productivity can decrease as the economy improves. This article is about one of those potholes.

With purse strings loosening up, there are many B2B buyers who now have a little money to spend, but not always enough to warrant your time, or enough to cover all the solutions they need to improve their business. This creates a risk in time management and overall productivity. While these buyers may feel empowered because they now have the green light to start spending a little more, they could end up being a waste of time for many sellers.

During a slow economy, many sellers hone their qualifying skills, but during a positive economic transition, sharpening their disqualifying skills may be just as important. Disqualifying is the skill of determining when to walk away from a prospect, even when they are demonstrating strong interest. After all, a prospect who doesn’t buy is actually robbing the seller twice. First they take your time without a return on your investment, and second, they take your time away from another prospect that could have made a purchase.

To understand disqualification, we’ll start with the definition of a qualified buyer. In the simplest terms, a qualified prospect has to have enough money available (notice I didn’t say “budget”, since this can be overcome with higher authority levels), and has an urgent issue that needs to be resolved because it’s costing their company money or lost opportunity.

Using this definition, consider getting answers to the following three questions:

1. What business issue is driving you to look at this solution?
2. What underlying people/process/technology challenges are making this business issue difficult to resolve?
3. What’s the impact of addressing or not addressing this issue?

The first question helps to uncover if there is a strategic aspect to the situation. This helps to open doors higher in the organization to secure executive level sponsorship, especially if lower level budgets are not sufficient to cover the cost of your solution. The second question helps you to establish the basis for your differentiation in the face of direct competition. You are looking for problems that only your solution can address, or addresses better than the competition. And the third question helps to prioritize your initiative over other initiatives that may not be directly competitive to your capabilities but are competitive as an alternate use of funds.

Should you find yourself in the common situation where the prospect contact doesn’t have the answer to any or all of these questions there is a fall back question:

1. Can you introduce me to someone who could answer these questions?

The answer to this question is the true test of the potential for a wasting your time. If the contact denies an introduction and can’t answer all of the first three questions effectively, you have a high probability for a “no decision” outcome. This is a situation where you should finesse them back into the lead nurturing queue and target them for follow up next quarter or the one after. If they agree to take you to another contact in their organization, repeat the same process until you are able to qualify the prospect.

As the economy heats up, you are bound to have more people that are willing to talk to you than you probably encountered in the previous three years. While this may feel great and be an encouraging sign, it can also become a productivity challenge, especially if your quota assignment has increased significantly. Disqualifying those contacts that don’t have a high probability for a purchase can open up more time for prospects than can buy, and buy in higher amounts.

One of our clients is citing 20% more deals per rep as a result of their focus on disqualifying leads that can’t answer these basic questions or refuse to engage other stakeholders that can. They are also tracking 19% higher average contract value by focusing on opportunities where they are more strategic to the customer’s business. Imagine what your productivity would be if you closed 20% more opportunities than you did last year with a 19% higher contract value!

Are you committed to avoiding one of the most significant sales potholes in 2011? Then start disqualifying some of your prospects.

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

This post was particularly interesting to me because of my online presence and the fact that 8 out of 10 buyers claim [more...]]]> I found this post at Miles Austin’s great blog Fill the Funnel. To read the original post, please visit: The Invisible Sales Rep. We thank Miles for giving us permission to reuse his great post.

This post was particularly interesting to me because of my online presence and the fact that 8 out of 10 buyers claim they found the seller. How can they find you as a seller – if you are not there to be found?

While most salepeople have nothing, a select few have things like a blog, website, Linkedin Profile, YouTube channel, Slideshare Channel and more. As he pointed out, it takes far less time than most think. Yet Miles points out here most salespeople fail to embrace the online world. As a result, they are invisible.

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Why would any sales rep make the decision to be invisible to customers and prospects?

• To intentionally block a company from learning of you and your capabilities?
• Are you waiting for your company to provide training for you?
• Have you adapted the “see no evil, hear no evil,  speak no evil” approach toward your online presence and your use of social tools?

I was asking myself these questions after completing a review of a technology sales company and their current competitive positioning.  They wanted my opinion as to which areas of their sales strategy and tactics need to have a new focus.  The organization is made of up nearly 100 outbound technology sales reps and their management team. Collectively, they are responsible for approximately 500 million in annual sales across North America.

Having weathered the turmoil over the past two years in reasonable shape, they are expecting 2011 to begin the uptick that we have all been hoping for. They are hoping that there is enough pent-up demand for their products that sales revenue will start coming in more quickly than in the past, and their sales cycle will shorten from that experienced in the past.

What I realized after digging into this project was that they were likely to fall short of their goal of shortening their sales cycle and increasing sales through new client acquisition, primarily for one glaring reason - The reps have virtually no presence online.

Here are some of the statistics from 66 of the sales reps in the study:

• Average # of LinkedIn connections per Sales Rep: 92.6
• Average #  of LinkedIn connections per Sales Manager/leader: 307
• Average # of LinkedIn recommendations per Sales Rep: .86 (less than 1 per rep)
• Average # of Groups on LinkedIn: .6 (less than 1 per rep)
• Largest # of LinkedIn connections: 832
• Total # of Employees from this Company on LinkedIn: 165
• # of Twitter users: 11
• # of Blogs (suitable for business audience): 0

This is a seasoned sales team with several years of experience individually.  They have been around the block and the industry.  How do you compare?

My observation: They are invisible to a majority of their prospects.

The social web is not a fad.  It is not going away, but rather has fundamentally changed, and will continue to change the way business is done.  That includes Business to Business direct selling.  By not acknowledging these changes, and continuing to use excuses for not actively participating in this social web, you are becoming less relevant and less visible to your prospects and customers.

These were some of the “reasons” offered for the lack of involvement by this team:

“I don’t want my competition to know what I am doing.”

“I am too busy to spend time on this stuff.”

” I value my privacy and don’t want to expose it online.”

” I don’t have anything to offer.”

” I have established customers, so it doesn’t matter.”

” I don’t know how to do it.”

Any of these sound familiar to you?  Hopefully not, but the odds are that many of you reading this are using the same reasoning.  You are making a big mistake.

Your customers are online, and they are active on the social sites.  They are asking questions, sharing experiences and making recommendations.  They are seeking help and knowledge.  They are seeking providers for their needs.  And they are not going to find you.

Your competition is visible, they are engaged and they are benefiting from your lack of involvement.  They are answering questions that your customers are asking on Twitter or LinkedIn Groups.  They are reading blogs that are providing the latest solutions and changes in their industry.  They are following and interacting with each other on Q&A sites like Quora.com and Focus.com.  They are garnering recommendations and sharing openly for others to see.  They are building relationships and booking revenue while you are on the sideline. They are building their reputation as an expert in their field. They are building relationships.  Why is that not driving you crazy?

If you want to shorten your sales cycle and improve your sales results, you need to put your excuses aside and get in the game. Your current success will be short-lived as your relationships run their course.  Your current buyer will eventually go away and their replacement will not have any idea who you are.

Buyers are searching and reviewing your LinkedIn Profile every day.  Look at your statistics on your LinkedIn home page-right hand side. It will tell you how many people have visited your profile.  What are they seeing when they stop by?  Based on the results referenced above, they will see someone with few connections, no recommendations, no interest or activity in their industry or yours, no photo and no real reason to buy from you.  Especially if they are connected to others who are using these tools for what they are capable of – to help them buy what they need and not listen to a dozen sales pitches every day.

Example: If you are selling to healthcare, why are you not a member of the HIMSS Group on LinkedIn? This group enjoys a membership of almost 38,000 members, all interested in healthcare.  (Hint: there is a group of almost 300 that belong to a sub-group titled HIMSS Senior IT Executives.) Here is a question that has been posed within this group in the last week:

“At HIMSS Orlando, I’m curious if HC providers are trending more toward accepting cloud storage for medical imaging?”

If you are a provider of this solution to healthcare, wouldn’t you want to weigh in with your thoughts on this?

If you want to take off your invisibility cloak, now’s the time to engage.  Invest in your future earning power now, before you become permanently erased from your industry.

David Brock wrote a thought provoking piece a few days ago about Sales People blogging ( he thinks it is a bad idea) and Koka Sexton, from The InsideView Blog responded with his own thoughts and a different perspective.  It is worth the time to read both posts.

Am I off base?  Am I blinded by my involvement in these services and in using these tools myself?  Would you want to be competing against some of these sales reps?  What do you think?

What do you think? We love your comments and reply to every one. We also like it when you share on social networks.

When you call customers or prospects do you leave a rambling, boring or informal message? Or even worse, do you simply hang up if they do not answer?

“Maybe that’s why these people (and maybe even some of your friends!) don’t call you back,” says Ron Karr, business [more...]]]> by Ron Karr (bio and contact info at end)

When you call customers or prospects do you leave a rambling, boring or informal message? Or even worse, do you simply hang up if they do not answer?

“Maybe that’s why these people (and maybe even some of your friends!) don’t call you back,” says Ron Karr, business development expert and author of Lead, Sell, or Get Out of the Way: The 7 Traits of Great Sellers.

“With Caller ID, regardless if you left a message or not, they know you’ve called. Plus, if you didn’t feel your call was worth a message, why would they want to waste any effort in calling you back?”

Ron advises sales executives, professional service providers and entrepreneurs:

• If you are going to call a business contact, be prepared to talk – don’t hang up.
• Know what you want to say and keep it brief.
• Leave a message that is customer-focused, not self-focused. Give them a reason to call you back.
• If you’ve called several times without getting a return call, change your message – it’s not working.

If calling your spouse, friend, relative or someone you know very well, the act of hanging up can merely act as a silent code between the two of you that says, “Hey, it’s me. Call me back.”

If calling a prospect, customer or someone you don’t know well at all, hanging up is simply too risky. For one thing, they have not established that silent code with you.

Secondly, people hang up thinking “if I don’t leave a message, they will never know I called.” Hello! Is anyone home in your mind? Of course they know you called!

In fact, because the relationship is not all that strong, you have now given that person carte blanche to come up with their own reason as to why you did not leave a message and create their own message. Messages that often lead to false assumptions, emotions and actions based on those false assumptions.

Here’s the problem with most voice mail messages and why they don’t generate callbacks. They are self-focused vs. customer-focused. Every time you hear a message, you make the mental decision as to whether or not that caller deserves more of an investment of your time. Leaving messages that record your name, company name and the request to call you back simply does not motivate many people to call you, especially if you are someone they don’t know. Leaving messages with the above and talking about a product or service will not get a callback either.

So how do you get callbacks? Simply change your message from being self-focused to being customer-focused by putting an outcome in the message. A result the person will get from calling you back that will benefit them.

“A client of mine was selling x-ray technology. Getting frustrated that the radiologists were not calling her back, she changed to message to: ‘Please call me if you want to put an end to the irate calls you are getting from the Docs because of lost films.’ She claims to have gotten 70% of her calls returned. Would you appreciate 70% of your voice mails being returned?” commented Karr.

“Bottom line, if you want your voice mail messages returned, then give the receiver a good enough reason to do so.

“Want to learn how to get your calls returned and get people to buy your ideas? Then make the investment and get the book Lead, Sell, or Get Out of the Way: The 7 Traits of Great Sellers,” added Karr.

Want to double, triple or quadruple your sales revenues, I highly recommend this program Lead, Sell, or Get Out of The Way Boot Camp. Sign up now as seats are limited.

About Ron Karr:
Ron Karr is the President of the business consulting firm Karr Associates, Inc. Ron specializes in helping organizations and professionals generate remarkable sales and operational results. Ron has been interviewed by Entrepreneur Magazine, Bottom Line Business, and Selling Power, as well as Bloomberg TV, CBS Morning Show in New Orleans, Joe Connolly’s Wall Street Journal Report and many other shows.

View Ron’s recent interview on The Rhode Show on FOX TV in Providence, Rhode Island:http://www.ronkarr.com/media

Contact:
Ron Karr
Office (201) 666-7599
Cell 201-914-3895
ron@ronkarr.com
www.ronkarr.com

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

Hope you enjoy it. And thanks Mike and John.

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About 50% of sales people won’t prospect. That’s the research. In our experience, the percentage of consultants who won’t prospect is even higher.

While most people will tell you [more...]]]> RainToday published this great blog article by Mike Schultz and John Doerr. You can see the original article at http://www.raintoday.com/pages/6669_offers_that_convert_website_visitors_into_qualified_leads.cfm

Hope you enjoy it. And thanks Mike and John.

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About 50% of sales people won’t prospect. That’s the research. In our experience, the percentage of consultants who won’t prospect is even higher.

While most people will tell you that creating conversations is important and must happen if you want to succeed in practice growth, the dynamics of how it works baffles many. Where should you start? What tactics will work for you? How do you reach out to prospects who don’t know you?

To help to improve your prospecting success, follow these five steps.

5 Steps to Improve Prospecting Success

1. Refine Your Targets

The foundation that underpins prospecting success is the strength of your list and the precision of your targeting. Professionals and salespeople often call too low in the organization and try to start a groundswell by working their way up. Reach high to the decision makers. Make sure that your list is clean and ready to go before you start, or you’ll find that your day is lost in fits and starts. (Editor’s Note –  iSell by OneSource is a great pre-call research tool.)

2. Provide Value in Every Touch

When you sell, no one wants to hear your capability pitch, your history, or your life story right off the bat. They’re looking to find out how their lives can be enriched by working with you.

When you think about providing value, don’t think only about the value you will eventually provide when the prospect buys from you. Think about the value they’ll get just from speaking with you. Eventually you’ll sell your company, your offering, and yourself. But first, sell the idea that the prospect’s time will be well-spent if they elect to speak with you.

3. Make the Right Offer

Your ultimate offer might be a particular consulting methodology, a type of software, legal advice, operations plan, or marketing tactic. But the interim offers—the offers you make and they accept before they buy from you—must be crafted with the utmost care.

4. Don’t Use Tricks

Plenty of business success awaits you with your high-integrity approach. There is no need to use tricks, bend the truth, or cut corners to generate an initial conversation. Anything that you wouldn’t feel comfortable telling your children about when you tuck them in bed at night, leave out of your prospecting efforts.

5. Touch Prospects Multiple Times in a Variety of Ways

It takes more attempts than most people think to get through to top prospects. It can often take seven, eight, nine, or more touches to get through to someone. That number goes up and down—across different industries and when you reach out at different levels. What’s always true, though, is that it takes more attempts to get through to your targets than you think.

Cold calling works well alone, but it works even better with mail (yes, we are talking snail mail here) and email touches. Use a variety of touches to reach out and warm up your prospects—and make sure each touch has value in and of itself (see #2).

Follow these five steps, and you’ll be well on your way to prospecting success. At the very least, you’ll be leaps and bounds ahead of the 50% of people who will not prospect at all.

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

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The Phoenix Effect

Looking back [more...]]]>

Kevin Temple of Enterprise Selling is a good friend of the B2B Sales Lounge. With the recent difficulties in the selling environment, we thought this article would be timely and helpful. If your interest lies in improving the flow of quality sales leads, check out iSell and our other blog, Fearless Competitor.

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The Phoenix Effect

Looking back at the previous economic downturn can shed some light on our opportunities during the current economic crisis. When the dot com bubble burst a few years ago, two companies weathered the resulting economic storm much better than could have been predicted.

Cisco Systems was at the heart of the Internet economy. Being the leading provider of networking equipment not only put them in the heart of the internet growth cycle; it also put them at the higher end of the risk spectrum when the cycle retracted. After the dust settled, however, Cisco only had a 15% drop in revenue from 2001 to 2002; better than most of the internet dependent market. This feat of leadership could easily go unappreciated until it’s compared to the competition: 3Com and Nortel both suffered revenue drops of over 40% during the same time period.

In a parallel story, Dell Computers also rode the internet growth cycle with impressive results. However, when the rug was pulled out, they too recognized a slowing demand for their flagship products; personal computers. But their retraction and subsequent growth profile looks even more favorable. Dell’s revenue dropped 2% year to year during the retraction, but rebounded over 13% in 2003. In contrast, Compaq experienced a 21% decline.

So the question is, what did Cisco and Dell do to avoid the significant calamities that other companies suffered?

To answer this question, let me start with what we didn’t see.

Sales Weaknesses Revealed

When the economy is healthy, and demand is up for new business solutions, a variety of sales skills usually suffer from neglect. This is not a critique on any particular organization; it’s simply a matter of which effort brings the highest return. In Cisco’s case, during the run up of the Internet market surge, demand was so strong for their products that their sales teams rarely engaged customer stakeholders outside of the customer’s IT organization. Related to this, they also rarely took the time to gain an understanding of the customer’s business challenges or help the customer contact justify the purchase with return on investment discussions. Their time was best spent educating their customers on the latest products, negotiating contractual commitments, and managing the quarter end closing drill to higher and higher levels.

Dell was no exception to the lack of sales discipline across the board during the internet run up. The “1-800″ business model which created a multi-billion dollar enterprise developed strength in marketing advertising, catalog distribution,custom product configuration and fulfillment. The demographic of their sales force was largely recent college grads that entered a culture dominated by a clock, visible in all call centers, displaying the time a customer was placed on hold while waiting to order. Responsiveness was valued most of all.

Like the first example, skills like gaining access to key stakeholders, developing financial justifications, or creating need for complimentary products were not highly valued skills at Dell during the run up. Nor were they necessarily needed.

Leadership

When the market retracted, both organizations recognized that passively riding out the storm was not an option. Without delay, Cisco implemented a leadership driven campaign to adjust their sales behavior in light of the slowing market conditions. When they engaged my services, they were well versed in their strengths and weaknesses.

They knew they needed to break their dependency on the I.T. sponsor and gain access to the business unit “real” customer to overcome the general spending freeze that a large number of their best clients imposed. They also cited the lack of skill in selling other products and services outside of the main switch and router product lines. In other words, they felt that they were leaving money on the table by not selling other products that might be applicable to the customer’s situation.

But now they had the motivation to take action on the situation.

With the help of many senior executives in the company, we jointly created an initiative to sell internet business solutions directly to the business unit management of their customer targets. The rationale was that even during spending freezes, a company still spends money. They simply do a more diligent job of prioritizing where they spend their money. Cisco’s job was to create need for their solutions with the business unit decision makers that were in the best position to prioritize a purchase of networking solutions.

The initiative was very successful. The early wins included a 300% increase in the post meltdown pipeline. And they cited many examples of large opportunities that came out of the ashes of spending lockdowns.

On Dell’s side, they were also equally adept at describing the skills that were not valued during the good times. They realized that their culture created a very responsive organization that was lax in need creation skills. Previous attempts to introduce other products were described as lackluster, at best.

I was asked to help Dell execute on a leadership campaign to integrate a wider array of new, related products into their sales opportunities. One of the key results of the campaign was a dramatic increase in the “attach metric”; a measurement used to track the sales of servers, storage and services. Currently, these other products now account for over $14 Billion in additional revenue, contributing over 23% of the total $61 billion in 2008 revenue. Not a bad payoff for an initiative born out of crisis.

The Devil is in the Details

The summaries of the leadership success of Cisco and Dell in their rebound efforts following the popping internet bubble may sound like it was easy, but both cases required a significant amount of leadership to produce a return on their respective initiatives.

Here’s a high level list of the types of leadership steps they implemented to produce a major change in sales behaviors:

o Develop the Vision

o Brand the initiative

o Train the troops

o Define early wins and communicate success

o Re-align the environment

o Remove Obstacles

o Upgrade the team

For the remainder of this article, I’ll expand on each item, however, initiatives of this complexity can consume far more paper for the overall plan that this short article will use if you decide to print it out. For this reason, I’ll footnote this section with an acknowledgment that I will probably under serve each topic simply because the length and scope of this article isn’t intended to concisely relay the particulars. Please refer to our other white papers on sales transformations for more information.

Develop the Vision: Although it seems like a simple task to diagnose the situation and communicate a solution, there are several opportunities for the process to get off on the wrong foot. Most important is to ensure that enough of the senior management is bought into the initiative to support the transition. According to sales people, one of the key reasons they resist a change in behavior is when they detect their superiors don’t walk the talk.

An effective visioning process should include a group effort with the entire senior sales leadership contributing to the definition of the objective, problem statement and solution strategy. It’s very common for an initiative to die for lack of buy in from the same leaders that would be responsible for overseeing the execution of such an initiative.

Another critical aspect of the visioning step is to communicate the vision in terms that represent the company as well as the individuals who will be called on to make changes in their daily behavior. If the sales person on the street does not understand why they should change, they will find ways to passively or actively resist the campaign.

Lastly, it’s all too easy to under communicate a leadership initiative. In his ground breaking book, “Leading Change”, John Kotter estimates that failed leadership initiatives under communicate by factors of 10, 100 or 1000. One memo is not enough to support the communication requirements of a behavior changing initiative.

Brand the Initiative: There is a significant value in branding the initiative with a catchy phrase, icon or other simple labeling option like an easy to remember acronym. If the branding is effective, it will conjure up the entire vision statement each time it’s used so that the participants are regularly reminded about the objective, the problem and the solution without having to reiterate the details.

Train the Troops: Behavior change begins with awareness, but the recipe also requires a skill development component. Where ever possible, use training that not only conveys the concept, but allows the participants to develop the new skills with relevant exercises. When using outside resources, it’s important to ascertain their ability to customize the skill development exercises to your products, your customer situations and your sales skill challenges.

Early Wins and Communicate Success: If the objective for the initiative is something that will take some time to achieve, it’s critical to define some early wins that indicate your team is on the road to success. For instance, if your objective is to increase revenue growth by 15%, the results may not show for a quarter or more. Pick a set of early wins that indicate you’re on the road to success; perhaps a pipeline increase or forecasted orders for a new product for example. Select something that can be achieved sooner than the overall goal, but is truly a stepping stone on the way to success. Then take the time to acknowledge, communicate and celebrate the success.

Realign the Environment: When a company matures over the course of many years, the systems, processes, and cultural norms form to support expected behaviors. If new behaviors are identified as crucial, the environment should be analyzed for realignment opportunities. Examples might include forecasting terminology or milestones, marketing messaging topics, communication formats, meeting agendas, previously acceptable cultural norms and more.

Remove Obstacles: Although the topic above is a form of obstacle identification and removal, in this section I’m referring to people obstacles. Every significant transformation of behavior will have its fair share of detractors; people who don’t want to change, and will passively or actively resist the change. In some cases, they form coalitions, groups of people resisting the change and working together to undermine the initiative. The critical action for the leader of the initiative is to identify the detractors, attempt to neutralize their stance, win them over, or remove them. Sales people are very adept at “waiting out” leadership initiatives. Nothing short of a direct focus on this issue will provide any relief.

Upgrade the Team: There are two facets to this concept. The first is to communicate expectations for required skill levels, provide development opportunity, measure, and deliver feedback. In other words, upgrade the skills of the team. The second facet incorporates the process of replacing members who are incapable or unwilling to improve their own skills.

Skills and Leadership

In both the Cisco and Dell situations, the skills that were not valued during a growing economy, but became especially critical during the retracting economy included:

o Creating need for other products.

o Accessing influential stakeholders outside of the infrastructure group.

o Uncovering impact to help the customer justify and prioritize the purchase in economic terms. Sometimes referred to as ROI selling skills.

o Preparing proposals that speak for themselves. A price quote might suffice in a growing economy, but a persuasive business proposal is required to pass the muster of a penny pinching sign off authority.

But skill development alone is not enough to change behavior. Consider all of the forces that work against the individual who needs to change:

o Customers push the seller to present product capabilities, limit access to decision makers, and may not understand the impact enough to create their own justification.

o Many company’s have product training that does just that, providing training on product features, not customer usage situations that would benefit the seller in creating need, building justification and establishing executive level credibility.

o The sellers own comfort zone is an impediment to change, especially if has worked for him or her enough to make their quota goals in the past.

o If your website and key marketing collateral are hyping product capabilities, but you want your sales teams to call on executives, there is an opposing force in play.

The list is actually longer, but the point is that leadership is the critical ingredient in causing sales behavior to change. More specifically, leadership is required to help the team overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of changing behavior. Creating and communicating the vision, role modeling expected behaviors, defining early wins, removing obstacles, navigating resistance and revamping the team are all leadership skills. I often suggest that skill training is less than 10% of the requirement to cause behavior change. When contrasted with the other leadership activities required to bring about change, the actual training event is a small portion of the overall pie.

So if your team could benefit by augmenting their selling skills during this difficult market, this article is intended to encourage you to consider the leadership planning and execution that will be required to help them benefit from the change. A majority of failed sales transformation efforts can be traced back to underestimating the scope of the leadership contribution required. Just remember that behavior change is 90% leadership!

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No matter how persuasive, compelling or brilliant you may be, it’s difficult to build a relationship with a prospect if you can’t [more...]]]> Colleen Francis of Engage Selling wrote a great blog post called 12 Ways to Get Your Prospects to Call You Back. With her permission, we have reprinted my fave 4.  Enjoy and Engage!

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No matter how persuasive, compelling or brilliant you may be, it’s difficult to build a relationship with a prospect if you can’t get them to call you back.

Most sales people use boring, outdated voice and email methods, which leave them sounding just like every other sales person in the world. If you want to get more return calls from your clients, then you have to do something different from everyone else out there – you have to stand out, be likeable, and actively deserve a return call.

Here are 4 of the best ideas we’ve found to help you stand up, stand out and make your clients want to return your calls:

The main point, to behave as if the prospect is already a customer, is greatly assisted by the insight you get from tools like iSell by OneSource.