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Five things sales people can learn from sports

Jan 12th, 2010
by mark.
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Five things sales people can learn from sports
Is it just me or does it seem to be the case that most sales people I know have either played sport at some time, or are obsessed by it? Just looking back at the sales people I’ve worked with over the years this seems to be the case. Thinking about it I think I can see why this might be…
Firstly selling is by its very nature competitive. You are always either competing against a quota or a competitor. So it’s not great surprise that people who revel in the excitement of competition are attracted to selling.
Secondly I believe that the social skills that are learnt on the sports field and afterwards in the bar are invaluable in creating the kind of rounded person who fits well in sales.
So what can we learn from sports…
1. Training. It amazes me that someone can expect to get to the top of their profession without training. Do people really think that because you’re good at something you can stop training? Does Tiger Woods train (when not busy elsewhere)… you bet. But often I’ve been on sales training courses where half of the people are there under sufferance; they’ve been there, they’ve done it, end of story. If you want to be good train, and train hard.
2. Goal setting. It’s been statistically proven that setting goals helps people achieve higher. Setting increasingly challenging goals is the key to high performance. If you don’t set a goal how do you know when you get there! You might want to take a look at this article on setting goals for 2010.
3. Resilience. If you’ve ever played sport you will know what it’s like. It’s raining, the sun’s going down, you’re losing, you’re sore in place you didn’t know you have and the opposition is looking to rub your nose in it. But you have to pick yourself up for the sake of the team and your own pride. Sport teaches people that kind of gritty determination to get stuck in when you least want to.
4. Teamwork. In sales everyone wants to be a star, which in itself is not a bad thing. But sometimes the task is just too big and you have to ask for help. In fact in key account sales if you’re not a team player you’re at a real disadvantage.
5. Magnanimity. As Rudyard Kipling said in his poem “If”…
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same
When we do win let’s play it cool and if we lose let’s be magnanimous. When you don’t get the order (which does happen occasionally to us all) be willing to shake hands with the customer, wish them well and promise to be back… we will do business sooner or later!
Coming through! Sometimes you just have to press on...

Coming thru! Sometimes you just have to press on...

Is it just me or does it seem to be the case that most sales people I know have either played sport at some time, or are obsessed by it? Just looking back at the sales people I’ve worked with over the years this seems to be the case. Thinking about it I can see why this might be…

Firstly selling is by its very nature competitive. You are always either competing against a quota or a competitor. So it’s not great surprise that people who revel in the excitement of competition are attracted to selling.

Secondly I believe that the social skills that are learnt on the sports field and afterwards in the bar are invaluable in creating the kind of rounded person who fits well in sales.

So what can we learn from sports…

  1. Training. It amazes me that someone can expect to get to the top of their profession without training. Do people really think that because you’re good at something you can stop training? Does Tiger Woods train (when not busy elsewhere)… you bet. But often I’ve been on sales training courses where half of the people are there under sufferance; they’ve been there, they’ve done it, end of story. If you want to be good train, and train hard.
  2. Goal setting. It’s been statistically proven that setting goals helps people achieve higher. Setting increasingly challenging goals is the key to high performance. If you don’t set a goal how do you know when you get there! You might want to take a look at this article on setting goals for 2010.
  3. Resilience. If you’ve ever played sport you will know what it’s like. It’s raining, the sun’s going down, you’re losing, you’re sore in place you didn’t know you have and the opposition is looking to rub your nose in it. But you have to pick yourself up for the sake of the team and your own pride. Sport teaches people that kind of gritty determination to get stuck in when you least want to.
  4. Teamwork. In sales everyone wants to be a star, which in itself is not a bad thing. But sometimes the task is just too big and you have to ask for help. In fact in key account sales if you’re not a team player you’re at a real disadvantage.
  5. Magnanimity. As Rudyard Kipling said in his poem “If”…
    If you can meet with triumph and disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same
    When we do win let’s play it cool and if we lose let’s be magnanimous. When you don’t get the order (which does happen occasionally) be willing to shake hands with the customer, wish them well and promise to be back… we will do business sooner or later!

Posted in: sales culture.

What’s a Fair Sales Quota in 2010?

Jan 5th, 2010
by mark.
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Here’s an interesting article on quotas by Susan Greco from Inc.com. We’ll take a closer look at quotas this year.

Posted in: sales management.

Five tips help you set your 2010 sales goals

Dec 29th, 2009
by mark.
1 comment
Achieving 2010 sales goals

Achieving 2010 sales goals

It’s now late December and either you are on vacation or in the office catching up on your paperwork. Most customers are doing the same, so now is an excellent time to sit down and set your goals for the coming year. Here are some goal setting tips for you…

  1. Top Down. If you have objectives set by your management they should, of course, be in there. If you have larger personal or life goals they should also feed into your 2010 sales goals.
  2. SMART. Make your goals SMART ones…

    3. S = Specific. What, why, and how?
    M = Measurable. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it!
    A = Attainable. You probably won’t really commit to a goal that’s out of reach. Too easy and you won’t get that sense of achievement when you get there.
    R = Realistic. Is it something that is under your control? If not it’s a hope not a goal.
    T = Timely. Set a timeframe. Include milestones along the way… don’t just set a year-end goal.

  3. Make your goals tangible. What will it feel like to achieve those goals? Imagine what you will buy with the commission, what will you do on your President’s Club trip, how will it feel when you get presented with the Sales Person of the Year award at the next annual sales meeting? Use all of your senses here… imagine what that champagne will taste like!
  4. Include professional goals as well as sales targets. What job do you want to be doing this time next year? Do you want to move to another company? Do you want to set up on your own as a rep? What new skills do you want to attain in the next year?
  5. Learn from your mistakes. Take the opportunity to look back on 2009. What did you do well, what could you have improved upon and how? What will you do differently this year?
  6. Reward yourself along the way. Regardless of what your company’s reward policy might be, give yourself some treats along the way for goals/milestones achieved.
  7. Keep the number of goals manageable. Nobody was ever one-sixteenth committed to anything. Better to have two really crunchy, very specific, achievable goals than sixteen flaky goals including how often you should back-up your PC.

The observant amongst you will notice that I promised to give you five tips and actually gave you seven… now that’s what I call value! More on exceeding the customer’s expectations in 2010.

Happy New Year and good selling in 2010!

Posted in: time management.

A Christmas Tree salesman on Mariatorget in Stockholm

Dec 24th, 2009
by mark.
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A festive salesman hard at work! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to our readers…

Posted in: sales culture.

Are small businesses prepared for 2010?

Dec 22nd, 2009
by mark.
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I recently came across this survey undertaken by Win New Customers on the freshbusinessthinking.com site. I was stunned by the responses from UK small businesses (I’m guessing small businesses in other countries aren’t much different). Of the participants…

  • 83% said they needed more telephone sales skills to grow their business.
  • 73% said they needed more face-to-face selling skills.
  • 61% had a sales budget under £250.

They then go on to say that “whilst there was a whole host of information on sales and marketing on the Internet and available at free seminars, etc. this information tended to focus on the why and what of sales and marketing activity rather than showing them how to do it”.

This suggests to me that…

a) there is a vast un-tapped opportunity to provide basic sales training for small businesses

b) there also a great opportunity for sales agents and reps who can fill the gap highlighted by this survey.

Posted in: sales agents, sales training.

Analysis Paralysis – Part II

Dec 18th, 2009
by mark.
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Analysis Paralysis

Analysis Paralysis

You’ll remember that in Analysis Paralysis – Part I we talked about what happens when paperwork, reports and forecasts get out of hand. The process can be quite insidious with the request sneaking up on you disguised as “an information request” or a “quick summary”. We also gave some ideas on what sales managers can do to keep this under control.

Here are some more ideas for sales teams and sales managers on how to keep the reporting overhead to a minimum.

  • Try and get into a forecasting/reporting rhythm.
  • This should be “written in stone” so everyone knows what information is needed and when. They can their plan their sales activities around it.
  • If you batch your reporting, you minimise the time taken and the distraction. Otherwise you will have to continually stop and spend time to dig out the information you need, set up the spreadsheets, etc.
  • When a request comes in for a new, regular report or forecast push back a bit.
  • Often new Sales VPs don’t feel certain enough of their position to protect their teams time and will go along with almost any request from finance, marketing, ops…
  • How often will it be needed? Press for monthly rather than weekly, quarterly rather than monthly.
  • DON’T WHINGE. But sell your boss on why it’s not such a good idea, remind her of the opportunity cost and suggest an alternative.
  • Keep your records and those of your team up-to-date on an ongoing basis. If you do so then a lot of the information can be easily or automatically extracted from, for instance, your CRM system.

Finally remember, to run any business you need to know what’s happening, so reporting of some sort is inevitable. When you have to do that forecast don’t procrastinate, get on with it, do a good job, get it over with and get back you your selling.

Posted in: sales management, time management.
Tagged: ·

When the deal gets to legal…

Dec 14th, 2009
by mark.
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Will it get signed, or go into the long grass?

Where deals to to die.

A legal black-hole. Where deals go to die.

You’ve worked with the customer for months, closed the big deal, even enjoyed the adulation and now the agreement is with legal. A month later the agreement is still with legal and you’re getting nervous. A conference call is arranged with the customer’s lawyers to go over it. Someone is off sick, so it gets postponed. You finally hold the conference call, a few amendments have to be made, nothing major. Three months later the agreement still isn’t signed, you’re worried about the deal unravelling and are losing the will to live. Oh dear!

In many companies the sales team regard the legal department as a black hole where deals go to die. This may or may not be true but there are a few reasons why it might be…

  • Sometimes legal can deliberately delay signing agreements. If you have an ongoing customer they will be buying products using your standard terms and conditions (or an old agreement) until the new one is signed. Thus the new agreement is kicked into the long grass.
  • No sense of urgency. Legal are rewarded on a completely different basis to you and have their own goals. What is a critical deal for you is just another project to process for them. Sales and legal work on completely different timescales. Sales people by their nature want results now. As anyone who has had dealings with lawyers personally or professionally know, they work on more glacial kinds of timescales.
  • Sometimes there’s something fundamental in the agreement that the legal person objects to but they have been over-ruled. They will not outright refuse to do it, but will just drag their heels every single inch of the way.

So what can you do about this? Bite your nails, lose sleep, have a screaming hissy-fit in their office. All possible, but I’d suggest the following…

  1. Firstly you need to do some inside selling here. Make sure you’ve sold to the legal person how important the deal is for her, for you, for the whole future of the company.
  2. Escalate, escalate, escalate. Not by moaning to the legal person’s boss directly, but make sure your boss is fully primed and everyone up to the very top of the organisation. Ensure that everybody at a senior level in the company knows the importance of this deal.
  3. Keep agreements that you negotiate on the company’s behalf as simple as possible. For instance a bi-lateral agreement is easier to conclude than one involving you, the customer and two other supply partners. Base any agreement on an existing one if possible. It makes things simpler and leaves less loose ends to negotiate over.
  4. If you have a legal negotiation with the customer make sure that you have some senior people in the meeting along with legal. It makes it more difficult to kick something into the long grass if a CxO has already agreed to it.
  5. If there isn’t a natural deadline on the agreement make a deadline. A good one is to tee-up a CEO-to-CEO meeting with the customer in x weeks, and make sure all parties know this is for the official signing. Even legal can be prodded into action when the CEO doesn’t want to look a fool.

Posted in: sales culture, sales tips.

Analysis Paralysis – Part I

Dec 11th, 2009
by mark.
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Analysis Paralysis

Analysis Paralysis

We’ve all been there haven’t we? The boss has to present at the board meeting and needs a special report from his managers so that he’s got something to fill his 10 minute slot. This ususally is requested with the minimum of notice, despite that fact that the board meeting has been scheduled for months. Just to add insult to injury all of the information is in the weekly reports that the team submit but he can’t be arsed to go through them, so he needs it spoon-fed to him, custom sliced & diced.
Here’s another all too common scenario. A new regular report is required. It may be that you provide monthly revenue numbers and now in the economic downturn the management team is nervous so we must have weekly revenue numbers. I’ve never met a sales person worth her salt who enjoyed doing paperwork and so this kind of request is normally met with a barrage of complaint… and what is the response?
“This should only take a few minutes…”
“You can do it at the end of the day/at the weekend/waiting at the airport  [insert your own here].”
“A good sales person should have this info at her fingertips.”
Now this is all well and good, but there is an unavoidable fact… we all only have 168 hours per week… that’s you, me and even Warren Buffett. We can’t change that, so when we have to add a new activity to our schedule there is what we call an “opportunity cost” involved, that is the value of the activity that we have to fore go to do the new one. So for instance a new monthly report that takes a couple of hours to compile will cost a sales person 1.25% of her time. Make that a weekly report and that’s 5% of her selling time eaten into. And in sales, more so than any other profession, time is money.
Times may be hard, but if we’re not careful we may end up in a “death spiral”. Management are nervous so ask for more reports, in more detail on what’s happening out there. Sales people spend more time doing this and hence less time selling. Business gets worse, this has to be analysed in even more detail… you get the picture.
So, if you’re a sales manager, what can you do about this? Here are some questions to ask yourself before spamming out that new forecast or report to your team:
Do I really need this information, or is this simply a brain-fart?
Do I have the information already? Maybe an admin can take existing data and rework it for the report I need.
What is the opportunity cost of requesting this report?
If I do need it, what can I do to make it as quick and easy as possible for the sales team to complete?
Do I need this report/forecast forever? You should review the reporting procedures for the sales team regularly to make sure they aren’t spiralling out of control.
[to be continued]

We’ve all been there haven’t we? The boss has to present at the board meeting and needs a special report from his managers so that he’s got something to fill his 10 minute slot. This usually is requested with the minimum of notice, despite that fact that the board meeting has been scheduled for months. Just to add insult to injury all of the information is in the weekly reports that the team diligently submit but he can’t be arsed to go through them, thus he needs it spoon-fed to him, custom sliced & diced.

Here’s another all too common scenario. A new regular report is required. It may be that you provide monthly revenue numbers and now in the economic downturn the management team is nervous, so we must have weekly revenue numbers. I’ve never met a sales person worth her salt who enjoyed doing paperwork and so this kind of request is normally met with a barrage of complaint… and what is the response?

  • “This should only take a few minutes…”
  • “You can do it at the end of the day/at the weekend/waiting at the airport  [insert your own here].”
  • “But, a good sales person should have this information at her fingertips.”

Now this is all well and good, but there is an unavoidable fact… we all only have 168 hours per week… that’s you, me and even Warren Buffett. We can’t change that, so when we have to add a new activity to our schedule there is what we call an “opportunity cost” involved, that is the value of the activity that we have to fore go to do the new one. So for instance a new monthly report that takes a couple of hours to compile will cost a sales person 1.25% of her time. Make that a weekly report and that’s 5% of her selling time eaten into. And in sales, more so than any other profession, time is money.

Times may be hard, but if we’re not careful we may end up in a “death spiral”. Management are nervous so ask for more reports, in more detail on what’s happening out there. Sales people spend more time doing this and hence less time selling. Business gets worse, this has to be analysed in even more detail… you get the picture.

So, if you’re a sales manager, what can you do about this? Here are some questions to ask yourself before spamming out that new forecast or report to your team:

  • Do I really need this information, or is this simply a brain-fart?
  • Do I have the information already? Maybe an admin can take existing data and rework it for the report I need.
  • What is the opportunity cost of requesting this report?
  • If I do need it, what can I do to make it as quick and easy as possible for the sales team to respond?
  • Do I need this report/forecast forever? You should review the reporting procedures for the sales team regularly to make sure they aren’t spiralling out of control.

[to be continued]

Posted in: sales management, time management.

It’s rude to point!

Dec 7th, 2009
by mark.
No comments yet
Tonight I was happening to be vegging out in front of the TV (sorry… call planning for tomorrow) with a glass of Valpolicello Repasso. The programme happened to be a thing called “Antiques Roadshow”, which I’m sure most Brits will be familiar with. The debaniar presenter was holding forth about the exquisite nature of the georgian snuffbox that he was waving before the camera. Unfortunately my attention wasn’t on the antique, but was drawn to the poor guy’s thumb nail which looked like it had been beaten repeatedly with a sledgehammer for about five hours. I think the cameraman may also have noticed because he kept trying to pan across so that the thumb was out of shot, but the presenter kept waving the snuffbox to and fro and bringing the offending digit back into focus.
One of the more prosaic sales tips that I’ve come across during the many trainings I’ve attended is that of not using your finger to point when presenting to the customer. In a similar fashion to my Antiques Roadshow friend you do not want to distract the customer’s attention from the document under discussion… so use a nice clean pen to indicate. This advice may, of course, be a bit dated nowadays when you could well be using a projector to present, however if you are one-to-one and showing something on your laptop it still applies.
It's rude to point! sales tip

It's rude to point!

Tonight I happened to be vegging out in front of the TV (sorry… call planning for tomorrow) with a glass of Valpolicella Repasso. The programme was a thing called “Antiques Roadshow”, which I’m sure most Brits will be familiar with. The debonair presenter was holding forth about the exquisite nature of the Georgian snuffbox that he was waving before the camera. Unfortunately my attention wasn’t on the antique, but was drawn to the poor guy’s thumb nail which looked like it had been beaten repeatedly with a sledgehammer for about five hours. I think the cameraman may also have noticed because he kept trying to pan across so that the thumb was out of shot, but the presenter kept waving the snuffbox to and fro and bringing the offending digit back into focus.

One of the more prosaic sales tips that I’ve come across during the many trainings I’ve attended is that of not using your finger to point when presenting to the customer. In a similar fashion to my Antiques Roadshow friend you do not want to distract the customer’s attention from the document under discussion… so use a nice clean pen to indicate. This advice may, of course, be a bit dated nowadays when you could well be using a projector to present, however if you are one-to-one and showing something on your laptop it still applies.

Posted in: sales tips.

Five ways to build trust with your customers

Dec 2nd, 2009
by mark.
No comments yet
You will always have a problem selling if your customers don’t trust you. In fact if you are selling products that have a long sales cycle or managing major accounts you will be dead in the water without trust. Here are five ways to help build trust…
Have the customers best interests at heart. If your customer can see that you truly want to achieve a win-win situation they will be far more likely to open up and work with you.
Liar liar. Don’t lie to the customer. If you don’t understand something or if there is some confidential information you can’t share say so. If you make a habit of lying to customers you will eventually get caught out, at which point you may as well give up and go home.
Warts and all. When you present your product it’s often a great credibility builder if you admit (openly and frankly) a minor weakness, or missing feature that you know isn’t too important to the customer. Customers are so used to powerpoint-jockeys coming in and claiming every single feature of their product is world beating. They know it’s unlikely your product is perfect, better that you proactively admit a minor wart and gain lots of cred in the process.
Respect her time. If you have a 30 minute slot with a prospect or customer, make sure that you stick to it. If you are still there an hour later working your way through every feature on a datasheet what do you think happens next time you try to make an appointment for “just” half an hour?

No… you’re a liar, liar. An obvious one, but don’t call the customer a liar or imply it. I once had an appalling visit with a technical marketeer who ran out of control during his presentation, making boastful comparisons between our product and the competition. The customer (who likely had the competitor’s product in his lab) helpfully tried to correct him on some of his facts and was told that “no” he was wrong. Fortunately for him, the presenter was across the table

out of my reach!

Trust

Trust

You will always have a problem selling if your customers don’t trust you. In fact if you are selling products that have a long sales cycle or are managing major accounts you will be dead in the water without trust. Here are five ways to help build trust…

  • Have the customers best interests at heart. If your customer can see that you truly want to achieve a win-win situation they will be far more likely to open up and work with you.
  • Warts and all. When you present your product it’s often a great credibility builder if you admit (openly and frankly) a minor weakness, or missing feature that you know isn’t too important to the customer. Customers are so used to powerpoint-jockeys coming in and claiming every single feature of their product is world beating. They know it’s unlikely your product is perfect; better that you proactively admit a minor wart and gain lots of cred in the process.
  • Respect her time. If you have a 30 minute slot with a prospect or customer, make sure that you stick to it. If you are still there an hour later working your way through every feature on a datasheet what do you think happens next time you try to make an appointment for “just” half an hour?
  • Liar liar. Don’t lie to the customer. If you don’t understand something or if there is some confidential information you can’t share say so. If you make a habit of lying to customers you will eventually get caught out, at which point you may as well give up and go home.
  • No… you are a liar, liar. An obvious one, but don’t call the customer a liar or imply it. I once had an appalling customer meeting with a technical marketeer colleague who ran out of control during his presentation, making boastful comparisons between our product and the competition. The customer (who most likely had our competitor’s product in his lab) helpfully tried to correct him on some of his facts and was told that “no” he was wrong. Fortunately for him, my colleague was across the table out of my reach!

Posted in: sales tips.

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