5 key-ways-to-breathe-new-life-into-your-sales-performance
17
5 key ways to breathe new life into your sales performance
-
Upload
jo-andrews -
Category
Sales
-
view
62 -
download
0
Transcript of 5 key-ways-to-breathe-new-life-into-your-sales-performance
5 key ways to breathe new life into your sales performance
Sustainable sales growth.It’s the Holy Grail of businesses from Amman to Zürich. As a concept it’s simple to understand. As a deliverable it’s infinitely more difficult to achieve. So why is it that sustainable sales growth remains the domain of such a select percentage of super achievers? Why is it that some businesses in a niche continually outperform their competition? Why is it that some businesses continue to grow their sales quarter on quarter, despite disparate economic conditions?
Just as every marketplace has its own set of unique challenges, there is no magic formula that can set your business on the path to sustained sales growth. However, by looking at certain pitfalls that can be avoided and a number of processes that can be put in place, this paper aims to turn sustainable growth from a mere concept to a deliverable for your business.
In the following pages we will examine a number of the most common mistakes made by business leadership and offer up practical processes that can be put in place based on the best practices of those super achievers.
Prepare to breathe new life into your sales performance...
Contents
Introduction Sustainable Sales Growth
Issue #01 A Lack of Appropriate Sales Management
Issue #02 A Lack of Essential Sales Skills
Issue #03 A Lack of Formal Process
Issue #04 A Lack of Self Belief
Issue #05 A Lack of Focus
About Breathe A Commitment to Sales Excellence
I N T R O D U C T I O N – by Nicholas Ledingham
0504
5 KE
Y W
AYS
TO B
REA
THE
NEW
LIF
E IN
TO Y
OU
R S
ALE
S PE
RFO
RM
AN
CE
Does your organization suffer from a lack of clarity and predictability when it comes to sales results? Is there always some well-accepted rationale as to why things aren’t better than they are? Sales leadership is fundamental to achieving your organization’s goals. Get things right at the top and best practice will soon filter its way through the sales processes of your entire team.
Promoting From Within
The most common recruitment mistake made by sales leaders the world over is to reward their top performing salesperson with a sales management role. Apart from denying their sales team of their number one earner, they’re rolling the dice by placing an untried manager into a management role – a role that not all sales professionals are cut out for. Often with the benefit of hindsight, it’s not even a role that the top earner particularly covets.
ISSUE #01 A LACK OF APPROPRIATE SALES MANAGEMENT
If decisions have been made to promote from within your sales force, leadership may be better served considering one of the sales team’s lesser lights. A team member who possess skill-sets more aligned with a position in management. Skills such as the ability to define weaknesses in others and strategize ways to help overcome them, to help in adhering to a structured sales process and to build self belief. You may uncover a management gem and replacing a mid-tier performer is a much simpler task than landing another super achiever.
Better still, sales leadership should seek candidates with management experience, perhaps with a background in sales management if that remains an important factor.
When a sales leader is promoted without the skill, temperament, time or ability necessary to effectively coach their team, it’s important to augment the team with a qualified individual to implement then oversee the development coaching, quality monitoring and mentoring duties.
Salespeople Sell, Managers Manage
Conversely allowing sales managers to take on active selling roles when times are tough is just as counter-productive. If hitting target has your management team itching to hit the sales floor, perhaps that’s where they belong, permanently.
An astute sales manager will forego the short term gains that may be made by actively selling in order to ensure the long term goals of the team are met via coaching, training, mentoring and adherence to process.
Rewriting Management Job Descriptions
If sales management claim they lack the time and resources required to effectively train and develop their sales team, it’s time to take a closer look at their roles and responsibilities as outlined in their job description.
If they proffer the argument that they are too busy ensuring their team hits target it’s easy to counter that via training and development the very same goals are being addressed.
Over the decades the sales manager’s role has evolved from evaluator to developer. No longer is it enough to merely assess a sales team’s performance and push for better returns, today’s management is responsible for steering the continuous developmental growth of their sales staff in the ultimate pursuit of organizational goals.
Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty four hour days.
Firms where salespeople use the company’s methodology and get consistent coaching
see 73% quota attainment
06
5 KE
Y W
AYS
TO B
REA
THE
NEW
LIF
E IN
TO Y
OU
R S
ALE
S PE
RFO
RM
AN
CE
It’s hugely important for sales leaders to have management in place that understand the intricacies of their role. Empowering your sales team with the skills necessary to excel in their job – be it through mentoring, coaching or formal bespoke training – is a fundamental responsibility of sales management. It’s also the single most effective avenue to ensuring the continuous long-term success of your sales team.
Lack of Skills and Resources
Often management understand the need for continuous staff development, but lack the resources to implement an effective training and development program. Add to the mix the fact that management needs to develop a range of salespeople at different levels of skill and ability and the job at hand becomes even more complex and costly.
With so many hoops to climb through to push for development funding, it’s often easier for an already overwhelmed manager to avoid broaching the subject of staff development with leadership at all.
Enter Proactive Sales Leadership
Sales leaders need to be able to step up to the plate and provide the financial resources and framework necessary so management can continuously monitor and assess their staff, and provide ongoing training and development opportunities as required.
It shouldn’t be necessary for management to come begging, an appropriate sales development framework should be part of any progressive modern organization and its implementation should be initiated from the top.
Developing the Developers
Sales leaders need to recognize that it’s not only those on the selling floor that need ongoing training and development. In order to manage efficiently and utilizing the most up to date methods and processes, management too needs constant training and development.
Creating a Coaching Culture
In order to effectively compete in today’s markets it’s vitally important that no time is wasted, that no stone is left unturned in the pursuit of efficiency. By fostering a coaching culture – where every interaction management has with their sales staff is seen as a potential learning opportunity – management is making the most of limited time. When management can couple formal training and development opportunities with a ‘coaching in the moment’ philosophy, new skills are likely to be reinforced and have a much greater likelihood of becoming habitual.
Get Management Right and the Rest Will Follow
By recruiting management trained in the art of management – who embrace the fact that the ongoing development and professional growth of their staff is their primary role – sales leadership is paving the way for continued sales success. By providing the necessary frameworks and funding to the right caliber of management, leadership can help turn a development ideology into a workplace reality.
Over 50% of sales managers are too busy to train and develop their sales teams. Sensible investment in recruiting and developing real sales talent produces amazing returns.
RecommendationsDefine the sales role clearly
Profile the type of person you want
Measure the strengths and weaknesses
Instill a disciplined internal coaching regime
Create a ‘learning organization’
Encapsulate industry best-practice
Reward compliance
Drive organizational consistency
Expectations
Increased skill levels
Growing confidence
Higher revenue
Enhanced closing rates
Greater customer satisfaction
More repeat and referral business
ConclusionIt’s important to remember sales management is a function of the business, not an individual. It’s a critical component in the battle for exceptional performance. It’s vital to understand it needs to stand alone as a function and not be causally associated to selling, marketing, human resources or recruiting.
Like any business unit that is expected to perform at the highest level, sales teams needs to be continually coached using high- quality methods and materials that create a learning dynamic and self-fulfilling performance imperative.
Arguably the most important role of sales leadership is to facilitate the constant development of sales management. By ensuring management remain at industry cutting edge via a tailored development program, leadership can be confident that the on-the-job development of their sales team is in safe hands. The upshot is a highly skilled and motivated sales team continually meeting expectations – and that’s good for management, leadership and the shareholders.
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
0908
5 KE
Y W
AYS
TO B
REA
THE
NEW
LIF
E IN
TO Y
OU
R S
ALE
S PE
RFO
RM
AN
CE
Is there a discernible performance disparity between individual members of your sales team? Do you find you’re having to exercise excessive care when allocating new clients to sales staff to ensure they get the quality experience they deserve? Maintaining a team of capable, consistent sales professionals is essential for creating and maximizing opportunities.
Training: Then
Rewind 20 years and it was not uncommon for organizations to subject new recruits to month on month of induction training, and it didn’t end there. Training was ongoing, with blocks of time set aside each month to add new skills and to further refine those skills already acquired.
Training: Now
Today’s recruits are often lucky if they get a quick guided tour of the office before being emailed an induction pdf.
Okay, that’s simplifying the state of play a little – we could be accused of choosing an example from the shallow end of the data pool – but for the vast majority of organizations, induction training and ongoing training and development isn’t provided at anywhere near the magnitude it was just two short decades ago.
Why the Change?
So, what has changed? Well, nothing and everything – a somewhat vague answer to a very specific question, but bear with me as I explain.
Training Can be a Hard Sell to Investors
When broken down to its profit and loss sheet fundamentals, training can come across as costly. It’s an expense that can easily offset by an increase in revenue, however when dealing with simple numbers on a company’s accounts, there’s little or no scope for explanation.
ISSUE #02 A LACK OF ESSENTIAL SALES SKILLS
Today, with the Internet allowing unfettered access to company accounts for shareholders – and for publicly traded companies, anyone with an net connection – there’s far greater scrutiny on company spending. If a dollar can be saved in the name of cost-cutting, it will be and often it’s at the expense (excuse the pun) of an investment in personnel (training). It’s more often than not a false economy, but cuts in spending on training are a simple way to keep shareholders happy.
Investment in training is not an expenditure that bears fruit overnight, but ultimately those long-sighted organizations that are prepared to invest in the long-term growth of their personnel, gain advantage in a number of ways.
Training Today: The Management Perspective
From the management perspective, maintaining a well trained, highly qualified sales team if anything, is more important than at any point in recent history. Digital age buyers are super informed when it comes to product and competition. If your sales team doesn’t cut the mustard, your buyers have plenty of options to work with suppliers that do.
Ensuring your team is at the top of its game is as much about keeping them up-to-date with industry movements as it is with selling processes and techniques. The need for management to facilitate ongoing training and development programs is key to the success of any organization with a product or service to sell.
Training Today: The Sales Professional Perspective
From the individual’s perspective, a profession in sales is more complex than it has ever been. Today’s sales professional needs to master an arsenal of relationship, opportunity, personal, time and technology management skills while maintaining up-to-date product, business and market trend knowledge that’s forever changing. Continual targeted training is essential.
The need for prolonged induction training may have lessened to a degree. Markets move more quickly in the digital age, making continual training and development in small chunks much more desirable than large blocks of time spent away from the selling coal-face.
90%
90.47% say their salespeople struggle to keep a proper balance between prospecting, presenting, negotiating, closing and managing an account– 57.42% struggle
– 33.13% sometimes struggle
– 9.45% never struggle
67%
67.21% are not doing or sporadically do sales
coaching/development
– 25.32% not doing sales coaching/development
– 41.89% do sales coaching/development sporadically
– 22.36% do sales coaching/development weekly
– 10.43% do sales coaching/development monthly
011010
5 KE
Y W
AYS
TO B
REA
THE
NEW
LIF
E IN
TO Y
OU
R S
ALE
S PE
RFO
RM
AN
CE
Skills grow rusty over time and if they’re not kept in check by management, old habits often resurface. Continuous training and development that address any shortfall in the sales professional’s armory will help to refocus their efforts.
So while optimal time spent and training delivery methods may have evolved over the decades, sales training and development is as important, if not more important that at any time in the past.
Mobility Rates
However, and here’s the kicker, job mobility rates are at an all time high, particularly in the sales industry. And in that respect, the playing field has changed dramatically.
When was the last time you met a sales professional in their 40s or 50s who’d held the same position for a decade or more? Gone are the days of a job for life. Gone is the security those days offered employees, but gone too is the security that those days offered employers.
So, we’re agreed, despite soaring mobility rates, having a highly trained, professional sales force is still imperative for business success.
Management’s Recruitment Choice
Sales management now has a choice to make when it comes time to equip their sales team with the very best talent available. Do they recruit raw talent and train it up from scratch or do they lay down the lucre and attempt to attract the industry’s best performers? Let’s take a closer look at those two options.
Sales Training Ain’t Cheap
Taking on a raw sales recruit and training them up from scratch is an expensive proposition. And like any business investment, employers want a return on their training spend.
During that initial training phase the recruit, in all likelihood won’t go close to bringing in the revenue required to cover the training and remuneration expense worn by the employer. The employer is playing the long game, doubling down on the likelihood that after their recruit has attained the necessary skills to earn and earn well, that they’ll stick around and provide that return on investment.
But how often does that fledgling sales professional use a company that has been generous with its training and development program as a stepping stone to securing a more lucrative appointment a little further down the track.
Is the raw but cunning sales professional playing their own long game – planning to forego remuneration in the short- to mid-term in order to master the skills of their craft, before moving on? The likelihood of this very situation playing out is of constant concern to management.
Shopping for a Big Fish
So, if it’s been decided that training up a raw new sales recruit from scratch is a prohibitively costly proposition, the challenge then becomes sourcing highly trained sales staff from elsewhere. Top performers tend to attract top money and by their very nature are often difficult to lure away from the lucrative packages they currently enjoy.
Attracting and Retaining Sales Talent
Success breeds success. In order to attract the best sales professionals in your niche, you need to be the best employer of sales professionals in your niche. You need to provide an environment where your sales professionals can grow to excel and you need to reward them appropriately for their efforts. If you do all of that, retention will take care of itself.
Rolling the Dice
When our organization does manage to land a big fish, how do we know if their past sales success will translate to selling success with our organization? Are their current sales skills even relevant to our industry? As an individual are they adaptable in their approach and able to work using the methods and approaches outlined in our consultative sales process document?
Bringing on board a proven performer still comes with an element of risk, not to mention the cost involved to match or surpass the remuneration package they enjoyed in their previous position.
It’s Management’s Call
Ultimately the decision between training up recruits from scratch and targeting top line talent from elsewhere, falls to management. Often the most successful sales team utilize a combination of both.
Whatever way you proceed there are a number of measures you can put in place to attract the best talent (raw or experienced) and keep them. When you can do that, you’re well on your way to putting together a sales team that will be the envy of your industry.
Training as Part of a Clear Career Development Path
According to research by the American Society for Training and Development, those organizations that offer their sales staff opportunities for ongoing development are ten times more likely to produce peak performing professionals.
As a sales manager, the ultimate goal must be to oversee a team of well trained, successful sales professionals, working to your consultative sales process who are unlikely to entertain offers to work elsewhere. By offering a tailored training plan aimed at promoting professional growth you should attract a high caliber of sales talent to begin with.
Ensure your training is relevant to the individual, tailored to address diagnosed performance gaps and reinforced in the workplace by management actions.
Mentoring Builds Skills and Fosters Team Unity
By assigning a junior salesperson a senior mentor, you’re providing an informal channel for ongoing development, as well as fostering team relationships that enhance the sense of belonging and which can even lead to an increase in the level of staff retention.
Ensure your mentors are personable, high achievers who work to process and you’ll be fast-tracking the development of your team’s junior members in no time.
The benefits to the protégé are clear for all to see but often there are benefits that accrue to the mentor that go largely unseen – a newfound sense of pride and the likelihood of adherence to company processes when they know they’re actions are being viewed as benchmarks.
Continuous training gives 50% higher net sales per employee
55% of all people making their
living in sales don’t have the
right skills to be successful
012
5 KE
Y W
AYS
TO B
REA
THE
NEW
LIF
E IN
TO Y
OU
R S
ALE
S PE
RFO
RM
AN
CE
RecommendationsIdentify the strengths and weaknesses
Create buy-in with the employee
Build a disciplined internal coaching regime
Ensure constant reinforcement of knowledge and skills
Create a ‘learning organization’
Encapsulate industry best-practice
Reward compliance
Ensure organizational consistency
Expectations
Increased skill levels
Greater consistency
Higher employee satisfaction
Enhanced KPIs
Greater customer engagement
Reduced employee turnover
ConclusionSales performance development is a two-headed beast – you need the right people to begin with, you then need to build, develop and hone their skills utilizing an on-going, relevant and habit-forming program.
By ensuring leadership and management are intimate with the sales skills development program in place, they can respond to changes in the team dynamic, the industry and the market environment as required, ensuring a sustainable process that is at once cost-effective, iterative and productive.
By effectively developing your sales personnel you’re enhancing their ability to function as a member of a team, which leads to a stronger team culture and lessens the likelihood of executives seeking employment opportunities elsewhere.
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
Coaching Reinforces Training
Along the same lines as mentoring but perhaps a little more structured in process, coaching provides management with the ongoing opportunity to reinforce those processes and skills learnt in training, ensuring that over time they become habit.
Management can keep their group coaching sessions fresh by mixing up their range of presenters – utilizing senior members from their team, management or perhaps even respected employees from other departments, or highly regarded outsiders to give presentations from an original perspective. It’s a great opportunity to think outside the box a little and couple your message with an element of fun. Nobody said coaching had to be boring.
Ensure there’s a coaching element to your daily, weekly and monthly sales meetings. By keeping delivery consistent you have more chance of turning best practice theory into habit.
Like training, coaching should be tailored to address individual shortfalls in delivery against criteria set out in your organization’s consultative sales process.
Recognizing Sales Excellence with Performance Incentives
By backing up that training and development commitment with a remuneration package that rewards high performance, you’re reducing the risk of losing your top talent to competitors.
In effect by providing the training, coaching and mentoring that will lead to higher sales and larger bonuses based on those higher sales, you’re creating a workplace environment that becomes increasingly difficult to leave. It’s the ultimate employee employer win-win.
Your team increasingly feel a sense of workplace commitment as they’ve been backed from the start of their professional development – or at least, very well looked after in regards to your more experienced recruits. And happy sales staff are less likely to stray.
Keep in mind the gearing of remuneration packages. They must entice executives to adhere to your organization’s consultative sales process. All too often packages that are not sensitivity tested cause adverse effects to the performance, service quality levels or consistency of the sales process
Train, Train, Train to Stay in the Game
Today’s markets move at a million miles an hour. If you’re not prepared to keep your sales team up to date with the knowledge, skills and processes they need to compete in the digital age, you’re effectively out of the game.
By coordinating a sales staff development program that incorporates coaching, mentoring and training to address specific individual needs and coupling it with a bonus scheme that rewards staff for adherence to process and high performance, you’re not only providing the tools for continued team success but you’re increasing the likelihood of retaining your super achievers for many years to come.
The salesperson’s job is not to convince people. The salesperson’s job is to build an outstanding buying experience so that they are convinced on their own.
“”
014
5 KE
Y W
AYS
TO B
REA
THE
NEW
LIF
E IN
TO Y
OU
R S
ALE
S PE
RFO
RM
AN
CE
Are the processes and methods employed by individuals within your sales team a hotchpotch that’s been cobbled together over the years of their selling career? Is there a perceptible lack of process consistency from one sales team member to another? That lack of consistency is often the leading cause in leadership’s inability to define what’s working and what’s going wrong in their pursuit of team sales goals.
It’s only when a set of robust, consistent, tested processes are put in place and become habitual that an organization is in a position to continually meet and exceed expectations.
A Sales Apprenticeship
As sales professionals we’ve all done an apprenticeship. Not necessarily in the master craftsman’s mold – with hammer and chisel in hand – but we’ve all held our share of sales positions, be it one or many. We’ve all learnt aspects of the science of selling. But how much of the learning process has been planned and structured? And how much has been left to observation and having to adapt to what’s thrown up on the job?
Lack of a Standardized Industry Recognized Formal Qualification
Accountants, lawyers, teachers, engineers and medical practitioners – I could go on – are all required to complete structured formal training before being allowed to practice professionally. Theirs is a development path that ensures they are well-versed in all aspects of their profession. That no glaring holes exist in their professional makeup. That they are ready and capable of dealing with all their profession can throw at them from day one on the job.
Sales professionals however are often unleashed on the market with no background of formal training or development, whatsoever. In the vast majority of cases, after a little induction training – if they’re lucky – they’re thrown in the deep end and expected to start producing results from the off.
Hiring Blind
With no qualification to demonstrate their selling ability, a sales manager may make a hiring decision based primarily on a prospect’s unverified sales figures from their previous position or a subjective reference from a complete stranger. When it doesn’t work out, they’ll repeat the recruitment process until it does. It’s a major reason why high turnover rates are endemic in the sales industry.
The Onus of Sales Training and Development Falls on the Employer
The lack of a standardized formal training requirement in the sales profession is a conversation best left for a different place. But without that legal requirement, the onus of sales staff training and development falls squarely on the employer. And studies have conclusively shown that those organizations that take that commitment seriously, benefit enormously in the mid- to long-term.
Lack of a Clearly Defined Sales Process Inevitably Leads to Missed Opportunities
In a recent study conducted by Nightingale Conant, more than 82% of sales manager respondents claimed their organization did not have a consultative sales process in place or were not following the one they did.
Far too often talented salespeople are left to formulate their own path to sale completion, based on their own experience, with little or no input from sales management. They may get there in the end, but way too often it’s a convoluted process that’s riddled with missed opportunities.
Often they’ll follow a route where they’re performing those tasks that deliver short-term wins and neglecting the necessary but laborious tasks that ensure long-term productivity. Rarely are they working to their own formal plan to systematically move a sale towards a timely completion with every client interaction.
Irrespective of the caliber of your sales staff, if they’re left to their own devices with no formal sales process for guidance, there will be wasted resources and missed opportunities resulting in diminished returns.
”
“If you want to teach people
a new way of thinking, don’t
bother trying to teach them
Instead, give them a tool, the
use of which will lead to
new ways of thinking
RICHARD BUKMINSTER FULLER
AMERICAN INVENTOR
ISSUE #03 A LACK OF STRUCTURED PROCESS
017016
5 KE
Y W
AYS
TO B
REA
THE
NEW
LIF
E IN
TO Y
OU
R S
ALE
S PE
RFO
RM
AN
CE
Lack of Success Breeds Lack of Success
On the individual level a lack of sales success tends to feed on itself. When efforts to sell don’t come to fruition in a timely manner, a level of desperation can creep into a sales professional’s processes. As a result they’ll increase the hours they’re committing to meet expectations while all the while working less and less efficiently. Their actions may become increasingly ineffective as they skip steps such as buyer qualification in order to expedite a sale that had little or no chance of succeeding to begin with.
Even if interim increased input from a sales professional reaps limited success, the method is hardly sustainable past the short term and never efficient as it needs to be to be cost effective for an organization moving forward.
Usually the result is increased sales costs and diminished returns from a discouraged sales force. If left to fester, sales staff turnover will often result.
Enter the Consultative Sales Process
By providing your sales team with a tightly tailored sales process to follow, and actively managing them as they work through that process, you’re maximizing your team’s ability to sell.
What is a Consultative Sales Process?
At its heart a consultative sales process should document in detail the step-by-step actions that define the sales process for your organization; from the initial phase of prospecting through to after-sales service. It should outline the meetings and calls your sales staff need to be undertaking, the materials they should be using during those interactions, the issues that need to be raised and resolved, along with a series of tangible goals that need to be achieved at different points during the process. If followed to the letter, the document should outline the most efficient path to goal attainment; to achieving a sale.
In essence, a successful consultative process framework shifts sales methodology from the concept of merely selling a commodity to anyone that will buy, to one where the needs of the prospective buyer are studied then met through a cooperative process. This ensures their buy-in to the ultimate solution.
But a consultative sales process can and should be much more than a mere document. It should form the framework of your sales team culture. It should define expectations. It should provide confidence for staff in testing economic times and it should be the go to document when process problems arise. It should be the basis of identifying training and development needs at the individual level. It should provide management with the perfect blueprint to go about their business in the most efficient manner possible.
To be done well, a consultative sales process needs to be created in consultation with all invested parties (management, sales staff and clients), be realistic in its scope and it should be tested and tested again before becoming company doctrine.
Most of all, if followed to the letter, it should work.
It’s only when a realistic, formal sales process is in place and being fully utilized by all staff, that management can effectively measure activity, progress and results at both the individual and group level. The document also provides organizational standards by which any issues may be assessed. By ensuring staff adhere to the processes outlined, management can easily identify process shortfalls in staff and organize measures to ensure they are addressed.
But We Already Have a Consultative Sales Process in Place
Many sales managers may argue that their organization already has a consultative sales process in place but its benefits are negligible. It’s often a photocopied document that was borrowed from a sales manual that now resides tucked away in a drawer somewhere. And while it may have started out as an authority document, over time it has lost its prominence as members of the sales team slipped back into old habits. Which is all good and well provided those old habits involved smashing target month-in and month-out but when they don’t...
Sales Super Achievers and Adherence to Process
It’s the super-achievers that make their documented organizational sales process part of their selling mantra. It’s the super-managers who ensure their team members adhere to the well-thought out processes contained within their consultative sales process.
Implementation Traction
Even the most inspiring consultative sales processes can face problems gaining traction.
Embracing change is not an issue confined to the workplace. It’s embedded in human nature and it affects all aspects of life. In fact a University College of London report debunked the claim that new habits can be formed in 21 days, claiming a new benchmark of 66 days. So ensure you stay the course when implementing change in your workplace.
41%41.48% say that their salespeople are performing below expectations
– 41.48% below expected standards
– 50.40% have scope for improvement
– 8.13% consistent peak performers
82.29% say they don’t have a consultative sales process or are not following the one they have
– 32.74% do not reflect a consultative sales approach
– 48.65% have a consultative sales process in place but are not following it
– 18.60% have a clearly identified consultative sales process that has identified competencies for each step in their sales process
82%
The sales process should be as natural
and fluid as a well choreographed dance
019018
5 KE
Y W
AYS
TO B
REA
THE
NEW
LIF
E IN
TO Y
OU
R S
ALE
S PE
RFO
RM
AN
CE
Old Habits Die Hard
Sales professionals in particular often have a set way of getting things done. Their personal processes may have worked well for them in the past, so they see no reason in changing the way they do things in the future. Even when those changes are almost certain to result in a productivity boost personally and for their team.
And it’s not just frontline sales staff that can throw up resistance. Management too can be just as set in their ways and unwilling to embrace new processes. This is particularly evident when early in its implementation the new consultative sales processes are yet to bear fruit.
Dubai Wasn’t Built in a Day
Dubai wasn’t built in a day and tweaking and perfecting your process may take a little time but it will certainly be worth it in the mid- to long-term. But be patient and have faith in the processes you have formulated.
If you have modeled your processes on the very best, you’ll be rewarded in time.
As sales managers it’s your leadership that will ensure that your new consultative sales processes gain the required traction, become doctrine and eventually benefit your team as a unit and your organization as a whole. There are a number of ways you can help make this happen.
Industry Best Practice
It’s been said that mockery is the highest form of flattery and when producing a set of consultative sales processes, it’s certainly a quote that’s worth keeping in mind – with some reservations.
If you’re selling printer cartridges business-to-business (B2B) then there’s probably only so much you can take away from looking at the processes of Apple or Uber as a model. However, if there is an obvious competition leader in your niche, glean what you can from their processes and incorporate what works into your own and dismiss what does not. Be creative in your approach.
Use Your Sales Staff
Within the four walls of your own organization, you have access to sales staff who know the sales industry as a whole and your niche in particular, and know it well. Use them. Question them extensively, not only on what they do now and what they believe works well, but also on what processes they view as a waste of time.
Ensure you question them extensively on processes they’ve been asked to follow in previous positions and their view as to their effectiveness.
Ask them to list up to five processes that could be implemented, irrespective of cost, that would enable them to achieve more sales or close out sales in a reduced time-frame. You might be pleasantly surprised by the results. And by getting input from your sales team and making them part of the consultative process early on, you’ll be ensuring that when it’s time to implement your new set of processes they’ll be on board with an often unexpected level of buy-in.
Invite Candid Feedback From Your Clients
You’re ultimately in the business of keeping one group of key players satisfied; your clients. We can dissect best practice in our industry, question management and sales staff and read and re-read reports on formulating a kick-ass set of sales processes but without the candid, warts and all input from our clients, the whole exercise lacks any real gravitas. It’s like disco dancing with your sister.
Keep it Relative
Use any combination of tools at your disposal to collect client feedback. These may differ from business to business and industry to industry and can range from simple discussions to surveys to full blown focus groups. Run with what feels comfortable and keep things relative. If you run a small electrical appliance store, asking someone who popped in to purchase a toaster to fill out a ten page survey may be met with a blank stare at best. But asking if they mind answering three carefully constructed questions will deliver the desired results in the great majority of cases.
In the world of B2B sales, where business is often repeat business it’s vitally important that your processes never rub clients the wrong way. A mistake made once is forgivable but if it’s part of a defined process and repeated ad-nauseam on a B2B client, chances are they’ll be on the move to your competition before too long. Remember, invite candidness and you’ll get things right (or close to) to begin with. Any short-term hurt feelings can be overcome with a long term relationship in which all parties remain happy and content.
An organization that is seen to be making real efforts towards becoming totally customer-focused in their outlook, will only ever receive kudos from their clients for their efforts.
An Added Bonus – Competency Development
The ultimate aim of creating a consultative sales process is to enhance your organizational bottom line by utilizing a proven and efficient path to sale for your sales team. As an added bonus, by creating a detailed consultative sales process you are laying the groundwork for the implementation of a competency measurement and development program for your entire sales team.
Over time using the consultative sales process as a benchmark, management can assess the performance of individual sales staff against core competencies and tailor bespoke training and development as they see fit. This knowledge can then form the basis of a clear career path progression plan for individual team members.
Serendipity and Super Achievers
When an organization implements a consultative sales process for the first time, often it throws up results indicating that there’s scope for marked improvement in efficiency in from all their sales team including their super achievers.
Monitor, Tweak, Repeat
Don’t expect your initial attempt at producing a consultative sales process document to result in a final copy. It could be argued that if it does, you’re not monitoring its implementation closely enough. Time, observation from management and feedback from sales staff and clients will dictate any tweaks that are required to be made to going forward.
Only 13% of customers believe a sales person can understand their needs.
93% of buyers state that the typical salesperson talks too much, and 74% of buyers said they were much more likely to buy if a salesperson would simply listen and understand them.
Only 61% of sales professionals report feeling good about their ability to uncover customer problems and those professionals are 28% more likely to achieve quota.
018
5 KE
Y W
AYS
TO B
REA
THE
NEW
LIF
E IN
TO Y
OU
R S
ALE
S PE
RFO
RM
AN
CE
021020
5 KE
Y W
AYS
TO B
REA
THE
NEW
LIF
E IN
TO Y
OU
R S
ALE
S PE
RFO
RM
AN
CE
And stay open to change. Don’t forget your market transforms over time, as does your organization’s dynamic, your personnel and economic conditions in general. To adapt to those changes going forward your processes need to maintain a sense of dynamism too. Just like a web site, your sales process document should never be viewed as complete document, rather an ongoing work in progress.
Ensuring the Success of a Consultative Sales Process
The likelihood of the long-term success of a consultative sales process is increased dramatically when it is implemented in conjunction with a number of other key elements and processes.
Computerized Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRMs) have transformed the way we track client relationships over the last decade. When our CRMs integrate seamlessly with actions laid out within our consultative sales processes, the likelihood of a resultant boost in sales efficiency is multiplied. As well as tracking the progress of individual sales leads, CRMs allow management to gain an insight into the ability of their sales staff to adhere to the processes laid out within their consultative sales process document.
For your average sales professional, the implementation of a new consultative sales process within an organization can often come across as all stick and no carrot. There are ways to soften the transition as we’ve touched on already, but still it’s commonplace for sales professionals to feel overwhelmed when asked to shelve practices that have served them well over the years.
Enter Performance-Based Compensation
If management can relay to their sales staff the likelihood of increased level of sales success by running with the processes laid out in their new consultative sales process document and couple that with a generous new performance-based compensation package, it’s a win-win situation.
Whenever a new consultative sales process is introduced inevitably there will be shortfalls in performance. Some of these will be made up over time as employees learn the ropes and come to grips with the resultant change in routine, while others will need to be addressed by management.
One surefire way to ensure the best chance of success for any fledgling consultative sales process, is to couple its introduction with a round of bespoke training designed to reaffirm the benefits of running with a new consultative set of processes.
By hitting the ground running and fully trained up, energy levels amongst your sales staff should be sky high, particularly if they feel they have the tools to succeed, the backing of management to help them get there and the performance-based compensation to make it worth their while.
Embracing a Consultative Sales Process on the Organizational Level
Just as the results delivered by your sales team are intricately tied to the performance and success of an organization as a unit, for a consultative sales process to really form the basis of your organization’s sales operations it needs to be embraced by your organization as a whole.
Every employee of your organization should be invested in the success of your sales arm. Either directly or indirectly their actions should always promote the likelihood of your sales team completing a sale and never impede that process.
When non-sales employees maintain at least a tacit understanding of your organization’s sales processes, you’re promoting organizational harmony and the sharing of knowledge so that every department works openly and efficiently together to support the overall sales process.
Laying a Solid Foundation
A well thought through, thoroughly tested, consultative sales process that has been produced in conjunction with all invested parties and evocatively sold to your sales team, lays the foundation for a future punctuated by sustainable sales growth.
As well as increasing sales efficiency and cutting costs, a solid consultative sales process ensures your organization is molding a formidable sales team brimming with super achievers who are able to adapt to changes in circumstance and are likely to remain loyal to your organization based on the support they receive from management and the high performance environment in which they operate.
RecommendationsDocument the sales process
Execute and ‘police’ the methodology
Coach your sales teams about process
Implement a consultative sales process
Create a ‘learning organization’
Encapsulate industry best-practice
Identify staff strengths and weaknesses
Ensure organizational consistency
Expectations
Better client qualification
Identifying more opportunities
Higher revenue
Reduced sales cycle
Enhanced buyer relationships
Greater customer satisfaction
ConclusionFor the vast majority of organizations, sales processes performed at the individual level notoriously lack any real planning, structure or consistency. Left to their own devices – and with little or no direction from management – sales professionals will revert to processes that may have served them well over the years, but upon closer inspection deliver far less than optimal results.
It’s those organizations that take control of their sales process by formulating a structured and systematic approach that best position themselves to realize their sales goals.
In the process they are putting an end to the inconsistent ‘free-style’ culture, that inevitably evolves without responsive management intervention.
A truly consultative sales process identifies, clarifies and answers the needs of clients, while enhancing the probability of sale completion.
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
Sales is a
science not an art
023022
5 KE
Y W
AYS
TO B
REA
THE
NEW
LIF
E IN
TO Y
OU
R S
ALE
S PE
RFO
RM
AN
CE ISSUE #04
A LACK OF SELF BELIEF
“Success will be within your reach only when you start reaching out for it
Rather than wallowing in a mire of self-doubt when the sales just aren’t materializing, don’t you wish certain members of your sales team – or management for that matter – would put their self-defeating market preconceptions aside, take a leaf from the playbook of high achievers and concentrate on building a sale to completion.
Being able to empathize with a buyer is a necessary skill, but when that empathy – based on our own buying preconceptions – is allowed to hinder the sales process, it needs to be urgently addressed by management.
In order to excel at selling we need to leave our personal preconceptions at the door and believe wholeheartedly in the processes we’re following. It’s only when we open up our minds and see beyond our own personal preferences in the buying process that we can become great at selling.
Self Belief: The Constant Companion of High Achievers
It was Henry Ford who said, “whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.” Chances are he was waxing lyrical about early attempts at industrialization but he could just have easily been speaking of succeeding in sales.
You Can’t Fool the Subconscious Mind
Self belief is the constant companion of high achievers in any sphere of endeavor, but particularly in sales. When a sales professional possesses a high level of self belief it radiates from them during every interaction. When they believe in themselves, their team, their product, its price and their processes, their very presence can foster a level of confidence in clients that should never be underestimated.
When dealing with a sales professional who is brimming with confidence, clients often inexplicably feel that they are in good hands.
They come away from a meeting feeling confident about their dealings, often without being able to put their finger on a single defining reason. Subconsciously they’ve been wowed and the results have carried over into their conscious.
The opposite is also true. A sales professional lacking in self belief rarely promotes confidence in a business relationship. As a direct result of that lack of self-belief – be it in themselves, their processes, their product or its price – often they’ll approach a potential client without their genuine best interest in mind. The sale becomes the be all and end all. To get there, they may come across as too pushy or too accommodating in their dealings, in effect alienating any potential client and perhaps even pushing them into the arms of the competition. In extreme cases it may even lead to a salesperson acting unethically, quoting prices that can’t be met, or making promises that can’t be kept.
Typically it’s those salespeople that believe the prices they are quoting are too high, that attract the most price objections from clients. Just as the salesperson high on self belief exudes an aura of confidence, the price skepticism of the salesperson lacking self-belief has a way of permeating the mood of a meeting, irrespective of what is actually being said.
A salesperson that suggests a prospective client should take the time to consider a purchase or consult with a partner, is allowing their own beliefs to cloud their process – they’re displaying excessive empathy with the prospect and in effect are hampering their own efforts in closing that sale.
They have allowed their personal beliefs to derail a sales process that has been carefully crafted, tested and perfected over time.
Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done,
really believe, your mind will find the ways to do it. Believing a solution
paves the way to solution.
022
5 KE
Y W
AYS
TO B
REA
THE
NEW
LIF
E IN
TO Y
OU
R S
ALE
S PE
RFO
RM
AN
CE
”
024
5 KE
Y W
AYS
TO B
REA
THE
NEW
LIF
E IN
TO Y
OU
R S
ALE
S PE
RFO
RM
AN
CE
Management’s Challenge: to Foster Self Belief
Although often seen as a genetically inherited rather than a learned characteristic, self-belief can certainly be gained over time. Management’s challenge becomes providing a nurturing environment where attitudes and beliefs can be modified where necessary and self-belief can ultimately flourish.
Every sales professional maintains their own very unique set of beliefs, some empowering them in their professional life, others restricting. By nurturing those empowering beliefs and challenging those restrictive beliefs, management can start to mold the confidence levels of their staff. As they’re not always plain to see, the first step is to identify those restrictive culprits.
Identifying Restrictive Self Beliefs
A casual but frank one-on-one conversation is a great place to start. Take it off-site to a cafe or the like and keep everything up front. Make it clear that no judgment is being made and that the whole process is an exercise in promoting self-improvement. Often sales staff will feel a sense of relief in being offered a non-critical forum in which they can share their perceived self-belief shortfalls with management.
Sowing the Seed of Change by Asking a Probing Question or Two
From the management perspective, sometimes starting an employee on the road to improving self-belief is as simple as posing a well thought out question or two and allowing them a little time to mull them over. “Why do you think you’re unsuccessful at cold-calling?”, “what steps do you think you need to take to become better?” and “is there anything we, as an organization can do to help you improve?”
While changes in self-belief using this method may not be instantaneous, by putting a few well thought through questions out there, you’re sewing the seed for change and opening employees up to the possibility of working through issues they may have previously believed to be insurmountable.
Tailored Training to Enhance Self Belief
Undertaking a training course to address limiting self-beliefs is a safe first step following any initial discussion. Ensure the training is tailored and ongoing and anything that is learnt is reinforced in the workplace.
Assigning an Experienced Mentor
On that note, assigning a carefully selected mentor whose strengths correspond to the weaknesses defined in the mentee is a method that has proven to produce results. Ensure your mentor is willing and able to provide the time to work through any issues and that they possess the patience and character traits suitable for the role. When applicable, reward the mentor, particularly if their work reaps tangible bottom line results for the team.
Peer Groups Exert Positive Pressure on Their Members
Keep in mind that peer groups can exert positive pressure on their members. An astute sales manager will utilize the individual strengths of all of their team members to benefit the group. If a team member in particular possesses an empowering self-belief that could set the group standard, allow them the opportunity to share their perspective with the team, along with the evidence that supports it. By highlighting at least one such quality in each of your team members you are at once building self belief on an individual basis as well as defining a set of desirable belief benchmarks for all team members to aspire.
Through the use of proven identification methods, training, coaching and mentoring, the self belief can be fostered and even fast-tracked. Organizations that invest the necessary time and resources into developing the self belief of their sales staff will reap the rewards in terms of higher performance, staff satisfaction and staff retention.
RecommendationsUnderstand the internalized beliefs
Defined what type of behavior you want
Demonstrate the potential to improve
Identify the personal development required
Gain their commitment to change
Monitor and measure the changes
Incorporate peer group learning pressure
Reward compliance
Expectations
Improved KPIs
Growing confidence
Greater staff satisfaction
Enhanced team interaction
Greater customer engagement
More repeat and referral business
ConclusionIt’s inevitable; how we as sales professionals approach a prospect will always be flavored to a degree by our own experiences and expectations. It’s programed into our psyche.
The high achiever has the ability to separate their own buying preconceptions from the selling process. It’s only when a salesperson can remove themselves emotionally from the process in this way that they can avoid allowing empathy with the buyer to impede their progress towards the completion of a sale.
When a sales professional is questioning a time-tested sales process by agreeing with a buyer’s objections or excuses, a course of training, coaching or mentoring is required to reframe their outlook. By allowing these limiting preconceptions to persist without intervention, management is in effect placing a ceiling on their current and future ability to earn.
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
It’s not about having the right opportunities, it’s about handling the opportunities right.
026
5 KE
Y W
AYS
TO B
REA
THE
NEW
LIF
E IN
TO Y
OU
R S
ALE
S PE
RFO
RM
AN
CE
A focused efficient sales team is a modern business imperative. If your sales team seems disorganized or their output is not commensurate with the money, resources and opportunities being afforded to it, it’s time to take a closer look at operations, to recalibrate its focus.
The Importance of Time Management
Earlier we touched on the workplace complexities facing the modern salesperson. Juggling tasks and processes is part and parcel of the day-to-day life of today’s sales professional. But not only do they need to be adept at performing a growing range of disparate tasks, they need to excel in time management to bring the whole shebang together.
Recognizing Dead Ends
Too often salespeople get caught up in those processes they feel the most comfortable performing. Often those processes just don’t yield results or present a poor return on their time investment. It’s a skill in itself to recognize when a lead is a dead-end or when a form of prospecting just isn’t paying off. It’s management’s role to step in and nip these actions in the bud, but as a sales professional it pays to be able to identify these yourself, without the need for intervention.
With so much on their plate, it’s imperative that the modern sales professional is able to track each individual task they perform during a given day and to quantify how much that task progressed a sale toward completion.
And while needs will often dictate a salesperson’s daily priorities, it’s the high achievers who always allocate the necessary time to those more menial tasks. The phone calls to organize upcoming appointments, the reading required to catch up on the latest developments in their product line – the type of tasks that ensure maximum efficiency, a pipeline full of genuine prospects and ultimately, sales figures ticking over.
Today’s Work Equals Tomorrow’s Results
It’s important to remember that it’s the sum of work that a salesperson produces today that dictates tomorrow’s results. Those prepared to stick to plan and diligently work their processes give themselves the best opportunity for ongoing success.
The Pareto Principle, Working Smarter not Harder
Often high achievers will work the Pareto Principle – also known as the 80–20 rule, the law of the vital few or the principle of factor sparsity – which dictates that for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Applying the Pareto Principle to selling, 80% of your sales will come from 20% of your prospects. The upshot: know your prospects well and prioritize those that show the most promise.
It relates directly to the old adage; work smarter not harder. Successful selling is not necessarily about giving more to get more. It’s about careful prioritization based on a well defined sales process and an extensive working knowledge or your product, your industry and your market.
Prospect Criteria
Not all prospects are created equal. By implementing a bespoke prospective client rating system or prospect criteria, you can prioritize those prospects that offer the best chance for conversion.
Your system should be tailored to the needs of your business and to the particulars of your niche but could include criteria such as the level of perceived business need, potential market size, estimated budget and their likelihood of conversion.
In today’s online world much of the homework can be completed online. In the case of publicly traded companies, delving into company reports can reveal a wealth of timely, relevant financial information.
By using a points system and assigning scores based on weighted criteria, it becomes a simple process to come up with a single numeric rating on which to base your comparisons and build your prioritized prospect contact list.
Goals aren’t enough. You need goals plus deadlines: goals big
enough to get excited about and deadlines
to make you run. One isn’t much good
without the other, but together they
can be tremendous.
ISSUE #05 A LACK OF FOCUS
028
5 KE
Y W
AYS
TO B
REA
THE
NEW
LIF
E IN
TO Y
OU
R S
ALE
S PE
RFO
RM
AN
CE
Time Allocation – New Versus Existing Clients
It’s the age old sales conundrum. How do you divide your time between servicing existing clients and attempting to attract new clients? There’s no right or wrong answer. Circumstance, a concise consultative sales process (and a proactive sales management team) will dictate the best way forward.
As a result of a successful career with the same employer, high achievers will often have a healthy list of current clients. It goes without saying that the more current clients they are servicing, the less time per client they have available. For those in such an enviable position, time management and prioritization take on an even more important role.
While it’s important to allocate some time each month to servicing all existing clients (even if some months it’s just a courtesy call), keep in mind it’s a balancing act that needs constant adjustment as your client base changes and the goals of your sales team evolve.
It’s important that the initial flurry of activity that greets a new client does not disappear just as quickly. It’s human nature to be excited during the fledgling days of a new business relationship but never allow that period to provide the high water mark of the relationship.
Utilizing Sales Support Staff
Keep in mind that many of the menial tasks required in servicing a client need not be actioned by sales staff personally, but they do need to be actioned in a timely fashion. With competent sales support staff in place, frontline sales staff can be free to pursue the more active roles of selling, while support staff deliver on those tasks necessary to keep all parties satisfied.
Obviously circumstance and the depth of your current client list will dictate to a degree how you split your time, but it’s worth remembering that it is those who are working to a disciplined, future-oriented plan for generating new contacts that ultimately excel in the selling game.
When Management Asks For More, Efficiency is the Answer
There’s rarely enough hours in the working week for the modern sales professional to complete anywhere near the amount of work they’d like to get done. When management comes calling and asking for more, there’s only one option; it’s time to work smarter, not harder.
By working to a concise process plan, sales staff are unlikely to waste a large percentage of their time chasing dead-end leads or low percentage plays.
By employing a bespoke prospect criteria system, sales professionals can identify those prospects that are most likely to have a genuine need for their product or service. By utilizing Pareto’s Principle and ensuring ‘those most likely’ are atop their contact list, they’re turning the tables on inefficiency.
By efficiently working their processes today, the sales professional is effectively creating a full pipeline of opportunities for tomorrow.
RecommendationsIdentify the optimum activities for sales people
Carefully analyze how individual time is spent
Manage balanced activity from team
Map your opportunity universe
Map your opportunity pipeline
Ensure sufficient resources to serve well
Encapsulate industry best-practice
Be ruthless
Expectations
Greater clarity
More opportunities to do business
Less wasted energy
Enhanced staff satisfaction
Quicker sales cycle
Greater customer engagement
ConclusionYours is a selling organization not an organization with a sales team. When an organization can come together as a single unit with sales as the ultimate priority, the sales function will be afforded the status it rightly deserves.
From the moment a potential client enters reception, every touch-point they have with an employee of your organization is part of their buying cycle, and your selling process. Every customer interaction allows for an opportunity to over-deliver, to wow.
All employees need to be intimate with the sales aspect of their particular role. Only when an organization works toward the ultimate goal of sale completion in concert, can organizational sales efficiency be achieved.
By defining where effort is placed, by whom and at what stages your organization is promoting the delivery of a superior customer buying experience.
Know too that markets are in a constant state of flux. Those organizations that commit to ongoing rigorous testing and refining of the sales process are best placed to outperform this month and next.
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
Customers don’t care at all whether you close the deal
or not. They care about improving
their business
030
5 KE
Y W
AYS
TO B
REA
THE
NEW
LIF
E IN
TO Y
OU
R S
ALE
S PE
RFO
RM
AN
CE
EXCELLENCE About Breathe
A commitment to sales
Organizations and salespeople who have one hundred percent commitment to doing whatever it takes to elevate their sales to a whole new level are the ones most likely to succeed. Trying to operate a sales organization without total commitment is like trying to drive a car without fuel. Every organization has the potential to harness the power of their salespeople just as surely as oxygen pumps life into the human body.
WHAT WE DO
Sales Capability
Knowledge – Build knowledge in sales leaders, managers and executives
Skills – Support ongoing sustainable skills development
Behaviors – highlight, correct and reinforce winning behaviors
HOW WE DO IT
Sales assessments
Sales training
Sales e-learning
Sales coaching
Sales gamification
Sales certifications
Sales academies
Sales apprenticeships
All underpinned by International Professional Sales Standards
WHY BREATHE?
We’re different from other sales training companies:
We guarantee a minimum 15% sales uplift
Completely sales specialized – we are not a generalist training company
International sales development experience
Over a decade of experience in the MENA region.
And of course it’s essential to life
030
5 KE
Y W
AYS
TO B
REA
THE
NEW
LIF
E IN
TO Y
OU
R S
ALE
S PE
RFO
RM
AN
CE
GET IN TOUCH
breathe
breathe new life into your sales performance
Breathe help organizations build better sales capability
through sales assessments, sales training and sales
coaching. We guarantee our clients a minimum 15% uplift in sales results.
Get in touch to start building better sales capability in your
business. Call us today:
971 4 514 8243
www.breathesales.com
COPYRIGHT © 2016
Europe Office #34
67-68 Hatton Garden
London EC1N 8JY
United Kingdom
Head Office 2nd Floor, O14 Tower
Burj Khalifa District
Business Bay Dubai
United Arab Emirates
Asia Pacific Unit #19-08
Prudential Tower
30 Cecil Street
Singapore 049712
