Corporate Developments: 15 Voicemail tips to get you past the gatekeeper

Corporate Developments: 15 Voicemail tips to get you past the gatekeeper: 1. If your goal is to get the phone call returned, don’t leave information that would allow the person to make up thei...

How to Beat the 80/20 Rule in Sales Performance (Part 1)

Sales managers frequently moan “80/20” performance on their sales teams, where approximately 80 percent of sales are produced by 20 percent of salespeople. Of course, the ratio is not always 80/20. Sometimes it is 70/30, 60/40, or even 90/10. However, the situation the ratio describes is always the same: the vast majority of salespeople produce a FRACTION of what top performers on the same sales teams produce. What are the reasons behind these performance disparities? What is it about top sales performers that enables them to achieve superior results? Can ANYONE achieve top performance in sales? 

Certainly there are some sales skills that ANYONE can learn. For example, it’s easy to teach how to ask reflective questions.

(Reflective questions are questions that begin with “Who”, “What”, “When”, “Where”, “Why” and “How”. If you ask reflective questions instead of questions that can be answered with “Yes” or “No”, prospects usually share more information with you. This increases your chances of uncovering “pain points” that can eventually lead to sales.)

You can learn how to ask reflective questions by participating in a simple role play. In this role play, you’ll play the salesperson and I'll play the prospect. Every time you ask me a “Yes/No” question, I'll answer “No”. Getting stonewalled with a bunch of “No’s” will break you of the Yes/No questioning habit pretty quickly!

Other sales skills are tougher. A good example is teaching salespeople how to ask questions and “follow the thread” in the answers. To explain this concept, let’s use another role play. Ask me reflective questions. I'll respond with answers that contain some “pain points”. If you recognize the pain points and drill down into them deeply enough (by asking additional questions), you'll eventually be able to “sell” me.

Do you know what my experience has been with this role play? Some salespeople learn how to “follow the thread” easily. Others struggle, but they eventually catch on. However, some just never get it, no matter how hard they try!

Why can some people learn this critical skill, but others can’t?

I struggled with this question. I used to believe that anyone could succeed at anything if they wanted it badly enough and were willing to work hard enough. However, my experience with the "follow the thread" role play made me start to question that belief. As I continued researching, I eventually uncovered two pieces of information that really opened my eyes.

DISCOVERY #1

In their book, "Now, Discover Your Strengths", they report that great managers and average managers have different expectations of their people. Average managers assume that "each person can learn to be competent in almost anything", while great managers assume that "each person’s talents are enduring and unique".

Most sales books take the “average manager” point of view. In other words, they assume that ANYONE can learn how to sell. Their unspoken promise is that all you have to do is invest enough time and effort to learn the skills they teach, and if you do this, you will eventually succeed in sales.

Unfortunately, there are countless examples of books and training courses not producing the desired improvement in performance. Think about some salespeople you know personally. How many of them are struggling to make their quotas? Why are they struggling?

* Is it the state of the economy? (If other salespeople are making their numbers, blaming the economy won’t earn them much sympathy.)

* Is it because they don’t work hard enough?

* Is it because of their product knowledge?

* Do they need to work on their selling skills?

* Do they need more coaching?

By Charlie Rudd

M.D. Corporate Developments.

Corporate Developments: What are the main things within Business Developme...

Corporate Developments: What are the main things within Business Developme...: What are the main things within Business Development that challenge you? Brand awareness? Identifying new approaches to generate bus...

What are the main things within Business Development that challenge you?

What are the main things within Business Development that challenge you?

Brand awareness? Identifying new approaches to generate business? Identifying Business partners and potential providers of Value Added Services? How do you make sure that the implementations you want to bring in actually take off? 

I've been in business Development and sales for over 15 years and It gets increasingly frustrating to Identify new markets, new resources and implement changes. 

An effective way for me is to stay fresh, make sure all customer facing material is up to date, keeping relevant buying reasons fresh in an end clients mind and by working with strategic partners to generate new business. 

Post your successes (and failures!) here to see if we can identify successful techniques to make what we do more effective.

By Charlie Rudd

Sales Director, 

Corporate Developments.

Corporate Developments: Innovation.

Corporate Developments: Innovation.: Defining Innovation How do you define innovation? If I were to ask a room of people (from the same organisation) how they de...

Innovation.

Defining Innovation

How do you define innovation?

If I were to ask a room of people (from the same organisation) how they define innovation, the changes are that each person will provide a different answer. In order for companies to execute innovation through the launch of products or services with value to their target audience, they have to have a clear definition of innovation, which is clearly communicated across the organisation.

A definition of innovation needs to have an alignment with the overall company strategy. Without this alignment and a sense of strategic intent, innovation can prove difficult to accomplish, due to lack of understanding and direction from people who are active in innovation within the organisation.
However, do be aware of a mistake that can be made – viewing innovation as a strategy; instead, innovation should be viewed as an enabler to a strategy.

To aid in defining innovation, it can be useful to think of aspects such as; are you wanting to execute incremental (small changes based on existing products and services) or game changing (completely new changes to the market) innovations?

One of the clearest definitions of innovation I have read is 3M's: The use or application of creativity to generate a new or novel output having value for customers.

What is your definition of innovation?

By charlie Rudd.

Understanding the Sales Force

You are driving down the highway and see an enormous truck in your side mirror.  The truck is moving very fast - twice your speed - and closing in quickly.  You continue to look in the mirror and because of the way your side mirror is shaped, it appears that the closer the truck gets, the more likely it seems that the truck will simply run right over you.  You accelerate a little, keeping watch on that mirror and then it happens.  You miss the sharp bend in the road and drive off the cliff.

This short story is the real-world equivalent to something which often occurs with your salespeople.  There are new opportunities to be targeted, as well as opportunities which already populate the pipeline.  The most promising of the existing opportunities seem to get most of the salesperson's attention.  One particular call causes the salesperson to become so excited that she devotes the rest of the week to developing an appropriate solution, value proposition, ROI, proposal and presentation.  She is so focused on this opportunity that she forgets all about what is up ahead.  Post-presentation and proposal, she begins making follow-up calls and over the course of the next month goes into full-chase mode.  When it finally sinks in that this prospect is not returning calls, has gone missing, and won't be buying anything from her soon, it's too late.  She neglected to continue filling her pipeline, has neglected to line up new opportunities, not stayed in touch with other opportunities in her pipeline and drove off the cliff.

It happens all the time.

It's not the salesperson's fault.

That's what sales managers are supposed to be doing.  Sales Managers must not only help, but hold their salespeople accountable to being focused on the right activities and behaviors, at the right time, on the right opportunities, and for the right reasons.  They must also provide coaching on each opportunity so the salesperson can see what is in front of them and avoid falling off the cliff.