Inside Our Head

Sales Management Leadership Seminar: July 14-15, 2010

Does your company have one or two sales managers who would benefit by learning new skills to develop an elite, hi-performance sales team?

Just nine seats are still available for our next open enrollment Sales Management Leadership workshop at the Peppermill Hotel in Reno, Nevada. This session will sell out, so call us, or sign-up today.

A similar questioning track can help you, the sales coach, diagnose sales skill deficiencies.

For example, you could debrief a rep's first meeting with a prospective customer by asking the salesperson:

What problems does that customer have that we can solve?
Why is the customer experiencing these problems?
What will happen to the customer if they don't do anything about them?

Now, listen to the quality of answers you hear. Did the salesperson perform diagnostic questioning as effectively as you could have done? If not, why not? If the sales rep doesn't get better at this skill, how will it impact their sales results? The answer to these questions must be understood by not only you, but each salesperson on your team.

You will improve your effectiveness as a sales coach by slowing down, asking more questions and developing needs. Sound familiar?

Most sales managers coach too fast. When coaching, we don't help sales people find their own answers.

Managing a sales team is a much different set of skills than selling, but in at least one respect, the same skills which helped you become a great salesperson can, when applied, help you become a more effective sales manager, too. Your ability to diagnose customer needs can and should be applied to help you become a better sales coach.

While coaching salespeople, we sales managers often don't listen to everything salespeople want to tell us - we jump in with a "diagnosis" and "prescription" before they're done talking. Just as slowing down the sales process can help your customers buy faster, slowing down as a sales coach can help your sales people learn and develop faster!

As a salesperson you asked a) about customer problems, b) why the customer was experiencing this problems, and c) what will be the likely effects on the customer if they do nothing to solve these problems?

Cure questions help you identify your prospects' expectations of value. In other words, is the solution you offer, and its associated cost, worthwhile in the prospects' mind? Have you demonstrated need and built sufficient discontent within the prospect to justify the cure?

Examples of Cure Questions:

Suppose you could (fill-in-the-blank). What would that enable you to do?
How would that help?
Would (fill-in-the-blank) have any other advantages?
How much would you save if you could (fill-in-the-blank)?

You may be wondering what is the difference between a complication question and a cure question? Think of it this way: the COMPLICATION question gets the prospect to speculate about negative impacts and costs of problems. Whereas the CURE question asks the prospect to speculate on the potential value of the solution. Complication questions are bad news. Cure questions are good news.

Cure questions are usually more effective if phrased as "open-ended," meaning they invite conversation and elaboration. The answers you receive will give you an idea of what is important and valuable to your customer.

OFFERING A PRESCRIPTION
In this final phase of the Doctor role, you must carefully manage the information to communicate to the prospect. Naturally, the prospect wants to hear your solution, if you've done the job of building discontent. However, if you unload the whole prescription at once, there is nothing preventing the propsect from going to your competitor, and there is no reason for further communication.

Word to the wise: present only those features and benefits which address specific problems you have discussed previously. It is not time to outline a total treatment plan. That comes later.

Your competitor can often offer the same features and benefits. As you move into the Research step of the selling process, you begin the work of differentiating yourself. This is where you demonstrate how your product and service are uniquely able to accomplish the prospect's goals. Setting and achieving Sales Call Objectives is how you accomplish the task of differentiating yourself.

Here's a common scenario being played out in hundreds of corporate offices every day.

A salesperson suffers a bad month, so in swoops the sales manager. The necessary sales training and encouragement is given and voila! - the sales rep is sent back out to reverse their fortunes.

But is this what the top 1% of sales managers do? Nope. The top 1% don't react to the needs of their salespeople. Instead, they anticipate them. They identify Key Performance Indicators, those observable characteristics of effective sales performance. Top sales managers don't want to know a sales rep had a bad month. Instead, they want to know in advance, in time to take corrective action.

At TopLine Leadership, our coaching model actually is in the form, in the acronym, the word coach: C-O-A-C-H.

At the center of the process is Commitment. It's commitment both on the sales manager's part and also on the sales person's part as well. That's the center focus. If we don't have commitment on both ends, it falls down. Basically the model falls apart, that's why it's the central focus: C.

The O in the word stands for Observe. Observing is the starting point as it relates to the coach's process itself. All we need to do is examine both: the behaviors and the activities. So, the O in the coach acronym stands for observe, we've got observe both behaviors and activities.

The A in the model is to Assess. What are we assessing? Two things: competence and willingness. However, it's not just the competence and the willingness of the sales person, it's the competence and willingness of the sales person as it relates to each task that they are performing. We said that they might be a 5-5 at one level, five-two at another, a two-five at another level. So we're going to access the competence and willingness based on the task at hand, or the task that we're going to coach them on. Then we're going to communicate effectively.

The second C in the coach acronym is Communicate. There's actually going to be four different types of sales coaching approaches. So, before you engage in that one-on-one sales coaching process, you're going to take a step back and say: What's the level of competence and willingness? And, what coaching approach am I going to use?

The H in the model is Help. We're going to help our sales people by providing empathy, feedback, and follow-up.

So there you have it C-O-A-C-H. Commitment is where it starts, its our central point, observe , assess, communicate, and help. That's the process and that's the model.

What are your Sales Coaching strengths? Areas to improve?

There's something I want you to do: define what your sales coaching strengths are, and what coaching areas should you improve?

Next, I want you to tell one other person in your organization, two of your coaching strengths, two things that you do really well.

One of the things about the being an effective sales manager is to be open and honest, including what you think you’re good at. And, define two areas you think you could improve in as a coach.

Actively defining your areas of strengths--and areas of weakness--will help you become a better sales manager.

We are now offering a 3-Day Sales Training Seminar! This sales seminar will help you Sell More & Sell Faster.

By attending our sales training seminar, salespeople will sell more profitable solutions and increase their win-ratio.

• Our sales training programs are designed to help your sales team to think and feel like a customer.
• Learn how to sell based on how customers buy.
• Thoughtful sales strategy combined with effective sales tactics for each and every sales call.
• Our presenters take time prior to your sales training workshop to learn about your specific needs and customize your sales training program.

Take your sales skills to the top with TopLine Leadership's Sales Training program!
Enroll today in our 3-Day Sales Training Seminar

Need to sample before you commit? We understand. Download and review our FREE report: Top 12 Mistakes Salespeople Make by clicking the link below:
Download our free report: Top 12 Mistakes that Salespeople Make

"The best way to predict the future is to create it."
Peter Drucker

As the Student you studied the changes affecting your prospects. This was during the Need stage of the Buy-Learning Process. Then, as the Doctor, also during this Need stage of customer focused selling, you diagnosed "little problems" and uncovered BIG needs.

When the customer recognizes a real need to buy, they have moved from the Need stage to the Learn stage.

Now you are ready to fulfill your role as Architect as the focus shifts to selecting the solutions that best meet your buyers' needs. The objective now is address the buyer's fear of making a mistake, and keep your competitors out.

THE ARCHITECT DESIGNS UNIQUE SOLUTIONS AND DEMONSTRATES INCOMPARABLE CAPABILITIES SO THE COMPETITION IS STYMIED.

Sometimes you don't get involved in the deal until after the Need stage has been completed by one of your competitors, and so you have to play catchup. Other times, if you are the only sales person involved up to and through the Learning stage, you still are not immune from competitive interference because soon your prospect will take time to Compare and consult your competitors. Playing the Architect role is pivotal regardless of your circumstances because it gives you the best opportunity to influence the prospect's buying criteria.

For more information, please visit our sales training section of our website.

Selling is the process of uncovering urgency, and defining it, in the mind of your customer. The more momentum you generate early on in the process, the greater the probability that you’ll make a sale.