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The Successful Sales Manager’s Magic Word

May 25, 2015 //
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What’s the successful sales manager’s magic word?

Buffer.

Building buffer buys benefits for the sales manager.

I mean buffer in a money sense, not a time sense. Building a buffer into deadlines is always wise, regardless of your profession, to insure against the inevitable slips, trips and falls on the journey.

You should always have a buffer between your team target and the total of your people’s individual targets, because not everyone is going to hit target every month. Even in well-performing companies you might see a third-third-third split between those above target, those around target and those below target.

For example, to keep the maths easy, let’s assume you have 5 sales people on your team, each with a sales quota of $1,000,000 per year. Industry variances aside, your team target should be in the region of $4,000,000. Similarly, your sales director, if they have 3 managers with the same team target reporting into them, should have a sales organisation target of around $10,000,000. And so on, through the roll-up to the top person.

You want your people to hit target, and your Director wants you to hit target. That’s how successful companies retain successful sales professionals, rather than creating a constant need to replace churning staff.

Notice that I’m not talking about forecast buffer here. Building padding into your forecast makes it really difficult for the company to do meaningful measurement and planning.

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Categories Communication, Planning, Sales, Strategy

Commission Plan Commitment

May 22, 2015 //
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Commission is the financial incentive you give to sales people to help them meet or surpass the sales targets you set for the business. Many sales people receive a base salary and can earn commission on top of that base by achieving their monthly or sales quota. You want your sales people to hit their sales targets, right? If you do, there are a number of things you need to ensure to keep your sales people – and your company – happy.

Is your commission plan easy to work out? If it’s easy for your sales people to understand the commission they will earn by closing a certain deal, this will make them pre-disposed to do well. If your commission plan is an intricate, esoteric set of formulas requiring an advanced degree in pure maths to fathom, then you’re going to engender confusion and distrust.

Does your commission plan give your sales people a fair chance of achieving target? If the targets are reasonable and your sales people should hit them with a reasonable amount of effort and ability, that’s great. If you know they’re not achievable, then something’s wrong with either your people or – more likely – your business model or the need for your product or service. You need to take a long hard look at the root causes of the failure.

Is your commission plan correctly aligned to the long term goals of the business? You need to make sure your salespeople are chasing the right business for your business. Sales people, quite naturally, will look for the easy wins and the path of least resistance to achieving target. Some products and services are easier to sell than others, and if your people are concentrating on those easier-to-sell items that are not in the strategic interest of your business, you’re building a rod for your back. You need to make sure that your commission plan is structured in a way that is fair to your sales people while also enabling your company to grow in a stable and sustained manner.

Commit to a fair and wise commission plan and your people and the company will commit to you.

 

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Categories Communication, Sales, Strategy

Perspective

May 20, 2015 //
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It was Tom Peters who said that ‘perception is all there is’. I’ve talked about this quote before, and its importance, but for me there’s something also inviolably true, and it’s a bit like the other side of the coin.

Perspective is all there is, too. Perspective is your perception of the world, and, more importantly, someone else’s or something else’s perspective. I was reminded of this in the most mundane way recently. Having made myself a cup of tea, I was bringing a soggy tea bag over to the bin, supported by a spoon and, under it, my free hand to catch the drips. The spoon looked full of tea in the side I could see, so I tilted it away slightly. As I tilted it away, it dripped tea from the side I couldn’t see, which was obviously fuller, or at least as full, as ‘my’ side. I hadn’t checked the other side.

It always pays to try and understand the perspective of the other person, in a transaction, in politics, in pretty much anything. Once you get their perspective, you get the wisdom to agree with them, or the ammunition to persuade them to agree with you.

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Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales

How to Sell vs How to Use

May 18, 2015 //
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There is a big difference between demonstrating how to use something, and selling that thing itself. Yet it’s amazing how many salespeople confuse the two. Either they show everything the thing does in the hope that something will catch the buyer’s eye, or they will say ‘this bit does this, and this button does that, and oh, watch this, it’s quite cool.’

Who cares? When you’re not sure what to show people, it means you haven’t figured out what problem they’re trying to solve. When you’re not sure how to show it to people, then you need to figure out the correct scenario that will best show off how you fix a specific problem better than anyone or anything else.

When you’re selling something, don’t show them how to use it. You will bore, frighten or otherwise deter them. Instead, show them how that something will make them money, save them money, save them time, or help them comply with something that must be done.

Of course, you need to know enough about your something to be able to demonstrate how you help your buyer, so learn the handful or two of user scenarios or ‘use cases’ that your buyers have, and learn how to demonstrate how your something addresses each scenario elegantly and efficiently.

You don’t need to be a power user of what you sell, with a deep understanding of every nook and cranny. You need to know it well enough to show how it solves a range of problems or capitalises on an opportunity.

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Categories Communication, Customers, Planning, Sales

Go Map Yourself

May 15, 2015 //
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Do you want to be more successful at B2B sales and marketing? Then you need to do three things.

First, figure out how your customers want to buy from you. What do they want to do, when, in what order? If you don’t know, ask them. If they don’t know, consult with them and help them.

Second, map your roles, processes and systems to how they want to buy, so you can deliver that perfect buying journey for them. Then, adapt your roles, processes and systems accordingly.

Third, involve your people in steps one and two so they understand why it’s in everyone’s interest to adapt and come up with some great suggestions for how they can best get there.

Go map yourself. You’ll be glad you did. But not as glad as your customers. In some cases they may not buy what you have very often, and so you have to listen to what they’re trying to do and guide them through the steps they need to get there.

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Categories Communication, Customers, General, Planning, Strategy

The Knife Edge of Change Management

May 13, 2015 //
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Change is hard. We all know that, as individuals and companies. People naturally resist any changes that break their routine, especially if they don’t understand or buy into the reasons.

At the same time, you can’t simply draw a line in the sand and expect people to change the way they do things overnight. It’s not in their nature, and it’s not in the interests of their business.

That’s because they have a job to do, objectives to meet, targets to hit, or a business to run. The clock doesn’t stop running while we try something different.

Successfully changing the way people do things is a very delicate balance between small, consumable exposures to the new ways and getting the day job done. That way you can effect a smooth, gradual, and above all measured transition that has a strong chance of being successful. You give people the chance to help shape the new ways and the time to ease into the process. Then the knife edge of change management is cutting for you, not into you.

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Categories Communication, General, Planning, Strategy

Before You Start, Measure

May 11, 2015 //
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When you’ve decided to make a change or kick off a project, it’s easy to want to dive straight in and get started. After all, looking ahead is the right way to approach things; you can’t change the past.

I used to work with a company that used to make quarterly marketing plans and against each campaign they’d put the target number of leads, opportunities and revenues. They would do this every quarter, but they would never look back to the previous quarter to see how they actually performed against target. They would sweep things under the carpet and move forwards.

Before you start, you need to measure where you’re starting from. Sounds super obvious, doesn’t it? Yet, not enough companies do it. Sometimes they can’t measure the key things, other times they can’t be bothered.

Knowing where you’re starting from allows you to review and measure how far you’ve come at a later date. Instead of drawing up a plan every quarter, figure out how successful the last quarter really was. Then you have the information you need to learn from it and make a better plan next time.

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Categories Communication, General, Planning, Strategy

Communication is not Engagement

May 8, 2015 //
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It’s easy for us to think we’re doing a great job of staying close to our customers or our staff. We’re sending regular emails, having regular meetings, touching base as often as we can.

We tend to forget one simple, inalienable fact. Communication does not equal engagement.

Your customers are not buying from you because they’re not engaged.

Your staff are not changing the way they do things because they’re not engaged.

It’s a question of commitment. Think of eating your egg and bacon. The chicken was involved, but the pig was committed…

Communication does not equal engagement, and engagement is what you need, if you want to achieve or change something. You need to start involving people earlier, getting their buy in, and asking them the why questions, starting with why they’re not engaged, why they’re not committed.

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Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales, Strategy

Opening a Bank Account

April 27, 2015 //
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Opening a bank account in 21st century Ireland is a tortuous exercise. Let me put this another way: starting a relationship where you are trying to be a customer of a financial institution and give them your money so that they can make interest off it in return for a meagre few services is a tortuous exercise.

I know there are money-laundering regulations to be complied with, and processes to go through, but come on, there has to be a better way. I won’t tell you which bank, but they’re all pretty much the same. I was recommended by my accountant to go with a specific one, which I did, but these were some of the hoops you have to go through to become a paying customer. As someone who advises companies on how to work hard to attract companies to you, I’m always boggled by how difficult life is made for someone who wants to become your customer.

I suppose it’s because they’re all as bad as each other, and they’re pretty set in their ways, but if there’s one industry that’s prime for disruption, this is it. Anyway, here are some of the things I find amazing:

– You can’t apply for a business bank account online. The lady I spoke with in the bank said there’s more paper involved these days than there ever was

– You can’t take the application form out of the branch

– You have to make an appointment to apply in person (I’m not making this up)

– If it’s a limited company, all of the directors need to attend in person, to be verified in person for ID and address. For small companies who have maybe two directors, one of which is a spouse working somewhere else, this means they need to take a holiday to get to the bank, for the next reason

– The bank’s opening house are 10am til 12:30pm, and 1:30pm til 4pm. On Mondays they push the boat out and stay open til 5pm

– Once you’ve negotiated the application process, which has to be done in real time, your time, with the bank person, they send it off to head office, where it takes two weeks – yes, two weeks – to process

As the Irish would say, it’s mad isn’t it? Except the Irish simply shrug and get on with things.

As I said, ripe for change, this industry…

 

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Categories Communication, Customers, Strategy, Technology

The Loss of Win/Loss Analysis

April 24, 2015 //
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Most companies talk about the importance of win/loss analysis, yet few of them do it. Win/loss analysis is the business of analysing the deals you won and those you lost. Setting up a formal call with your customer to analyse why they bought from you is a very useful exercise, as it builds both a qualitative and quantitative picture of what makes you successful.

Setting up a formal call with a non-customer, or an existing customer who didn’t give you the new business, to analyse why they didn’t buy from you is even more successful, since – yes you’ve guessed it – you can learn what contributed to your being unsuccessful so that you can improve your approach and win more business.

Even fewer companies do the loss analysis than the win analysis, and there are lots of human reasons for this. You can learn so much from a lost customer, however, so here are some things I’ve found useful when doing them:

– Get someone not in sales to do the call. It’s easier to get the call, and less confrontational, so it’s easier for them to open up. Sometimes they simply didn’t like the sales person

– Offer to arrange an appointed time for the call, but ask them if now is a bad time, as you only need a maximum of 10 minutes and then you might get to do the call right then

– To secure the call, emphasise that it will be a short call, you’re not trying to reopen the business – though that might happen if you do a stellar job on the call – and that it will help you improve your service in future bids

– Have your questions in writing before the call. If the person is a touch monosyllabic in their answers you can use the questions as prompts to avoid an embarrassingly short call

– Have some suggested answers to some of the questions that can also be used as prompts. For example, for ‘what was it about our proposal you didn’t like’, you might prompt with price, service, track record, solution fit, project management and so on

– Sometimes they prefer to fill something in than speak to you, so be prepared to send in a form with your questions on it, and be prepared to chase to get it back

– Ask them to be as honest as possible in their assessment of why you were unsuccessful. You will get subjective answers and objective ones. Your job is to figure out if they’re giving you a different answer to the true answer. Probe if you have to

– Try to distinguish between personal and subjective answers that you can’t do much about – like ‘we didn’t get on’ – and more objective answers that you can feed back into the business or use for coaching. Example of these include: ‘I felt she was unprofessional’, ‘I didn’t like his approach’, ‘she didn’t understand my business’ and ‘they were too pushy, I wasn’t ready to buy’

– It’s not that high a priority for the person you’re calling, so be prepared for them not to pick up the phone at the appointed time. Be persistent and polite

– After the call, send the person a hand-written note or a small gift thanking them for the feedback, mentioning how valuable their feedback was

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Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales, Strategy
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