Inside Our Head

Preparation is important, but it’s not everything. You also need to understand how to work effectively during the heat of the moment when you are confronted with a skilled negotiator.

Specifically, you should understand the guidelines for effective negotiations and conduct your activities in accordance with them—listening for your customer’s interests, creating innovative win/win alternatives, and gaining commitment.

The negotiation will begin in earnest when your buyer presents a demand. The first demand is often an extreme one. At precisely this moment, many salespeople make a big mistake: they immediately react. As human beings, when someone pushes us, our knee-jerk response is to push back. When we push back, we react emotionally in some way. We either confront and “fight it out,” or we concede immediately in order to end the conflict. Either way, it is bad for us.

Salespeople need to change their attitude about a buyer’s initial demand. Don’t confront it, welcome it. Tom Crum, the author of The Magic of Conflict, says we need to change how we respond to confrontation. Crum uses the martial art of Aikido as a metaphor for handling conflict. The purpose of Aikido is to render an attack harmless without harming the attacker. This is the result you want from your sales negotiations.

In Aikido, you handle an attack by moving toward the source of the attack, not away from it. Think about it. A punch is relatively harmless if your face is two inches away from your attacker. Another example might be how you regain control of your car in a skid. You turn your wheels toward the skid, not away from it. You go with the energy, not against it.

When presented with an unrealistic demand in a sales negotiation, don’t dig in and fight. Instead, use indirect action, the opposite of what your buyer thinks you’ll do (and what you feel like doing). Accept their demand as a positive development.

Today we're going to cover the The Doctor’s role in sales training. The Doctor’s role in sales is to ask questions for two essential reasons: to find out what kind of prospect you’re working with, and to establish their needs, problems and opportunities.

Your prospects (patients) fall into three categories: sick, fairly healthy, and "in-denial."

Sick patients know that they are falling below normal performance levels. They will describe their symptoms freely.

Healthy patients may be experiencing acceptable levels of performance but they seek the opportunity to improve. They speak in terms of making a good situation better.

"In-Denial" patients believe their performance is optimal but they are mistaken. Perhaps they resist change. Maybe they don’t want to admit to a need. These are the toughest patients to help.

A word to the wise: don’t waste too much time, but keep in touch. You can prescribe medicine but if they don’t take it, what’s the benefit? Often, a crisis will be required to change their thinking, moving them to real discontent, and thereby away from denial.

THE DOCTOR OF SELLING
A good doctor seeks to "do no harm." He/she asks questions to establish problems, uncover big needs and prescribe solutions.

There are five types of questions a good doctor uses in selling:

Question 1: History questions
Your goal here is to identify optimal vs. actual performance levels.

Question 2: Symptom questions
Your goal here is to identify discontent.

Question 3: Cause questions
Your goal here is to define the real problem.

Question 4: Complication questions
Your goal here is to clarify the seriousness of the problem.

Question 5: Cure questions
Your goal here is to identify the prospect’s expectations of value.

You can increase your sales and enjoy greater customer satisfaction by changing your approach to match your customers' changing perspective throughout the sale. Our sales training summarizes the eight specific roles that match customers' needs at each of the eight buy-learning steps. Click the link below to learn more.

Sales Roles That Match Buying Behavior

A common mistake sales managers make in sales training, is to give salespeople a laundry list of things they need to improve upon. However, most salespeople only have the capacity to improve one or two things at any given time. You don't want to overwhelm them because you may hurt their self confidence - not good.

The solution? Years ago I learned a great technique for diagnosing performance problems from Andy Grove, the former CEO of INTEL, in his book High Output Management. Grove suggests you pull out a clean sheet of paper and on the left side write down as many positives as you can about the sales person and down the right side list all the things that the rep needs to improve. Then look at the whole thing and try to pick out the common threads among all the items listed.

For example, suppose a rep's strength is a high amount of prospecting activity. But weaknesses include low lead conversion rate and a low quote-to-close rate. Now, look for the common thread. Potential common threads that tie these observations together include:

a) The sales rep isn't asking 2nd or 3rd level diagnostic questioning. If so, why?

b) Perhaps he/she is spending too much time talking about the exciting capabilities of your product/service, rather than focusing on underlying customer problems.

c) Perhaps he or she lacks the self confidence to engage C-level prospects in a thought-provoking way.

d) Does the salesperson lack business acumen?

Companies interested in increasing the professionalism and productivity of their sales force often select a sales training program to solve this need. This decision, however, places the cart before the horse.

The success of a company’s sales training initiative is absolutely affected, both positively and negatively, by the company’s sales managers’ ability and commitment to coach and reinforce the sales training after the event. Our clients have come to recognize that improving the coaching skills of their sales managers is a necessary precursor to delivering effective sales training that achieves lasting results.

Recently, one of our clients, a $10 billion industry leader, conducted and in-depth assessment of their sales managers. First, they asked their sales reps to grade their manager’s abilities on several sales leadership skills. From a collection of 35 skills, the top three weaknesses identified were:

• My sales manager doesn’t identify my obstacles to performance.
• My sales manager doesn’t provide ongoing coaching, encouragement and feedback.
• My manager doesn’t review my performance on a regular basis and make plans for me to improve.

Obviously, for a sales training initiative to succeed each of the above three skills must be performed effectively by sales managers. So, it’s easy to see why so many sales training initiatives fail: they fail because the sales managers don’t possess the skill and will to coach and reinforce these new behaviors in the field. Investing in a sales training program, without managers who are committed and capable at holding salespeople accountable for implementing those new skills, is just an expense.

So, the solution is simple, right? First train sales managers to coach the sales process, then deliver sales training to the field. Right? WRONG! The same client previously mentioned also asked their sales managers, "What are the top challenges you face that prevent you from being more effective on the job?" The top four reasons were:

• Too much time on email.
• Too much time reacting to unplanned events.
• Too little time available to devote to my sales reps.
• I’m unsure- where should I spend my time so as to have the greatest impact on goal achievement?

The four preceding barriers to effective coaching have nothing to do with coaching the sales process! Rather, they are related to self management skills – the sales managers’ ability to manage themselves differently: to eliminate time-wasters, be more proactive, build more self reliance in salespeople so the manager is not perceived as the chief firefighter in charge, have a plan and stick to it, etc.

TopLine Leadership’s Solution: Phase One

This is where TopLine Leadership’s comprehensive solution comes in. Our first component, Sales Management Leadership, is an intensive two, or three-day workshop that provides both the self management skills as well as the sales process coaching skills that sales managers need to make sales training stick.

Over 35,000 sales managers from many of the world’s most successful companies have participated in our program. The goal of our program is to provide sales managers with the skill, tools, and process for managing themselves differently, and coaching salespeople more effectively. Click here for more information, and a course description.

To help our clients achieve maximum impact we will often deliver a three-day Sales Management Leadership workshop as follows:

• Course pre-work
• Two-day session (during which each manager completes a 90-day implementation plan.)
• Conference call reinforcement at 30-day and 60 day and 90 days intervals after the initial session.
• Approximately four months after the initial training a second workshop, one day in length, is delivered. A second 90-day plan is created, which often includes how to successfully implement a sales training program.
• Conference call support

Phase Two: Sales Training

The second phase of our solution is Getting Into Your Customer’s Head sales training. For years, the focus of sales training has been on the selling process – while ignoring customer buying behavior. But tomorrow’s big winners in sales will be those who learn to join customers in their buying process.

When it comes to selling, have we had it all wrong?

At TopLine Leadership, our sales training programs are designed to help your sales team to think and feel like a customer, that is, how to get into the customer’s head. In short, your sales team will learn how to sell based on how customers buy.

The buying process unfolds in a series of eight predictable steps that your salespeople can anticipate.

Our sales training programs teach your salespeople eight easily understood sales rules that correspond directly to the steps of the buying process. Our sales rules: Student, Doctor, Architect, Coach, Therapist, Negotiator, Teacher and Farmer, provide a disciplined, repeatable method for closing more sales, faster, while your competition wonders why they lost out.

Most of our clients have salespeople who make complex sales – selling to multiple decision-makers for a single sales opportunity. For these clients we add on our Winning the Complex Sale.

Getting Into Your Customer’s Head is a sophisticated sales approach made simple.

Many of our clients are looking for a common language, a consistent and measurable process for solution selling. Without a common language salespeople tend to sell on their instincts, and some wander aimlessly through a sales process without a plan, missing many opportunities during the buying process to intensify the customers’ needs and differentiate your solution.

At TopLine Leadership, we understand what it takes to improve your team’s closing ratio – a thoughtful sales training strategy combined with effective sales tactics on each and every sales call. Our sales training programs will show your salespeople how to add more value, sooner, to your prospects and customers. Reinforcement tools include a hardcover book, CD book, Coaching Guide, and even a customizable web application tool.

Is your sales team lagging well behind where they should be? You’ve no doubt heard the saying, “success breeds success.” Unfortunately, the reverse is also true: failure can breed failure.

Here are some specifics about how you can turn around a lagging sales team. Even if your team is doing fairly well, you’re bound to pick up some tools and techniques for immediate sales improvement. Below are a few of the topics we will discuss at our upcoming Sales Management Training Seminar:

• How to set minimum standards with consequences for poor sales results.
• How to gain the buy-in for team development by involving your top salespeople in setting standards.
• De-hire those not making a positive contribution.
• How to leverage your best people to contribute more to the team’s development.
• How to manage yourself better, and make better decisions about how you allocate your time.
• Lead from the front. Get out in the field and make coaching salespeople your #1 priority.
• How to create a contest that will get everyone fired up and focused on making those extra sales calls that can make the difference.
• Coach sales skills. Coach sales strategy.

Click here for more information on our Sales Manager Training Seminars.

Webster’s defines the word solution as “the answer to a problem.” So why is it that so many sales organizations fervently believe that they are the “preferred solutions provider” in their marketplace, but their sales proposal document makes no mention whatsoever of the customer’s problems and issues? How can we call ourselves solutions providers if we don’t specify in our proposals the problems customers have that we can solve?

When I engage with a new sales training client my first request is for the client to send me what they consider to be their three best sales proposals. The sales proposal is the salesperson’s opportunity to communicate his/her solution to the customer, and sales proposals help me gain a better understanding of how that client’s salespeople sell. Nine times out of ten, I receive a sales proposal that is a comprehensive description of the seller’s “solution” but there’s no information whatsoever about the customer’s current situation and problems! More specifically, the capabilities of the seller’s solution are not linked to explicit customer needs (needs that your customer has described to you, in your customer’s terms). For example, one proposal I read recently espoused “Our focus will be on raising the bar within your Operations Department and empowering your personnel with robust data that can be used to reduce charge backs.” My questions about this “big fat claim” were:

1. What problems typically exist within the Operations Department that you can solve?
2. Specifically why does this client currently experience charge backs? What types of charge backs would be reduced by your more robust data, and by how much?
3. Your answers to questions 1 and 2 need to be differentiated from competitors, both major national competitors as well as “regional low-balls.” Remember, every capability that you present that is not differentiated from your competition moves you no closer to winning the sale.
   If your sales proposal is outdated, and does a poor job of communicating your solution to prospective customers, give me a call.

Paul Nutt, author of Why Decisions Fail, studied 400 decisions made by senior executives in medium and large businesses. Decisions studied include Disney's EuroDisney failure, various components of the Denver International Airport construction, etc.

Nutt's research found that fully half of the decisions had failed. A decision "failure" was defined as a decision that either was not implemented or a decision that was not still in effect two years after it had been made.

Professor Nutt found that the primary reason for decision failure is that decision makers make a premature commitment. They "latch-on" to the first solution, the quick fix, and that many of the buying process activities occurring after that are actually only efforts to justify their ready-made solution. Decision makers become anchored by the first information they observe and give it more weight than information that arrives later on.  

Is your sales team performing far below potential?

Mine was. As a first-time sales manager many years ago, my office ranked dead-last out of 64 offices. We had ten salespeople, nine of whom had less than one year of sales experience with our company and were performing far below standards. The lone exception was Norm, an 18-year veteran with the company, who was selling more than the other nine salespeople combined.

Eighteen months later the office had moved all the way up to #5, having posted the biggest increase in sales of any office in the company. Here are steps that you can take to turn around your sales team.

Step 1: Do not tolerate mediocre sales performance.

You must have high expectations of your salespeople, or they will not perform. You must make the decision that if one or more of your salespeople is not performing, you must address the situation. Some sales managers allow underperforming salespeople to continue their underperforming ways, by avoiding or delaying without confronting the situation. You must provide them constant feedback.

Poor performers must make a decision themselves to either recommit themselves to the necessary behaviors and activities, or leave the company. And you, as a manager, must decide to commit yourself to providing the direction for the poor performer to perform these duties.

Your team is only as strong as its weakest link. You cannot tie your ship to your poor performers' anchor. The classic line in the movie Network said it best: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." As a sales manager, your responsibility is to grow sales. If you have an under performing sales team, it is up to you to turn it around. Ask yourself the hard questions.

Step 2: Do Nothing

Take the time to understand your organization's situation, and gather information about the people involved. Analyze your problem(s).

My problem was that my salespeople didn't believe in themselves. They hadn't yet experienced success, and there was no role model -- someone whom they could say, "Yea, there's somebody like me who's making it." Sure, Norm was making great money, but new salespeople couldn't relate to Norm and his 18-years of company experience.

When a new hire signs on with you, which salesperson(s) do they look up to? What kind of example is that person setting for your new hires?

Step 3: Find your role model.

Some salespeople avoid accepting responsibility for their poor performance, they had a variety of excuses: lousy territory, poor pay plan, etc. But what they really lacked was a success role model.

Who do your salespeople look up to besides you?

I knew I needed a success role model, and that person unfortunately, was not already on my team. So, I began recruiting like mad. I knew that my next hire was my most important hire. When I found him, I told Bill Zeeb "you'll probably hear some stinkin thinkin from some of our other salespeople... and you need to ignore it. If you stick with me, do exactly as I teach you to do, you will succeed."

Step 4: Set and install performance standards for your salespeople.

Raise the BAR: with Behavior, Activity and Result standards.

For example, one behavior standard was to arrive in the office every morning by 8AM. An activity standard could be to make a minimum of 25 telephone prospecting calls every day. A result standard could be that a sales rep with 7-9 months sales experience must sell a minimum of $15,000/month. On result standards, I recommend a lower "keep your job" standard, and a higher quota standard.

If a salesperson falls below his/her minimum standard for a three month period, he/she is placed on probation. If sales don't pick up, that person is fired.

Step 5: Identify training needs

Find areas you can add more value to your prospects and customers. Install a common language your salespeople can use. Without a common selling language, your salespeople tend to sell on their instincts, and some wander aimlessly through a sales process without a plan, missing many opportunities during the buying process to intensify the customers' needs and differentiate your solution.

Step 6: Let your worst performer go.

Your salespeople will be wondering, "Does he/she really mean it?" And, "As long as I sell more than John, I'm safe." The first person you dehire will send a message, loud and clear, that you walk your talk.

As my former boss told me, "There's only one thing worse than someone who quits and leaves, and that's someone who quits and stays."

Step 7: Stay the Course, Things are likely to get worse before they get better.

Bill knew that I was counting on him, and he didn't let me down. In his fourth month he produced 200% of quota. Overnight, the attitude in the office changed from, "lousy territory", "poor pay plan", to "what's Bill Zeeb doing?" That's when individual salespeople who wanted to believe in themselves first openly questioned themselves. That's the day when they stopped making excuses and finally accepted responsibility for their own poor performance.

Sales Results = What you do? + How you do it?

First, let’s look at how you sell relates to the care you show the customer during the sales cycle.  Since customer care is now a commodity, how you do things is no longer a source of differentiation.  That leaves what you do on each sales call, and the planning you put in to each sales call, as the remaining portion of the sales results equation that you can differentiate.

What you do during the sales process is comprised of the specific questions you ask, and your ability to get your sales process in sync with the customer’s buying process.  You need to persistently pursue.

I have a book published by Harvard Business Review titled Business Classics: Fifteen Key Concepts for Managerial Success.  The book contains the 15 articles in HBR’s history that have sold the most reprints.  One article, published in 1964, was titled, “What Makes a Good Salesman,” by David Mayer and Herbert Greenberg.  The author’s research found that there are two qualities that make an effective salesperson: ego-drive (or personal ambition) and empathy.  Empathy is your ability to project yourself into the heart and mind of your customer to see things as our customer sees them.

And yet, nearly five decades after that article was published, salespeople are seldom selected for or taught empathy.  The predominance of sales training literature is still focused on the steps of the sale, the things that salespeople need to do to sell the customer: prospect, approach, question, qualify, present, handle objections, close, etc. Are we still in the 1950s or what?