Harder Or Smarter? Art Or Science?

The Sales Director's number one priority
How can you measure the effectiveness of your sales team?  What should you measure?  How important is it that you measure it?  I guess the answers are mostly, "Not sure", "Not sure" and "Very"!  And although the second might be more specific, are the specifics quoted the right ones?

A survey of Sales Directors in 2008 showed 'measuring sales team effectiveness' to be their number two priority, which seems to justify my claim of 'very' as the third answer.  So what was their number one priority?
That was 'increasing revenue' which possibly implies a disconnection between sales and marketing as 'increasing gross profits' would have been mine!

But coming back to measuring the effectiveness of the overall sales function, we need to consider whether working harder or smarter is the better strategy.  On top of this we need to decide whether sales is an art or a science.

What areas and functions may be easiest to measure and then improve?

How can you measure the effectiveness of your sales team?  What should you measure?  How important is it that you measure it?

Sales is an art, and not a science
Unsurprisingly, the general opinion is that smarter is better than harder.  The expression 'busy fools' came up quite a lot, apparently.  Also we need to recognise that sales is an art, and not a science, as things that work once may not work every time when repeated.  But having said that, sales is a highly 'teachable' art, where practitioners get better with practice, and where coached and mentored practice is more effective than unsupervised repetition.

This leads on to the idea that there is no single 'magic pill' that will cure all ills.  Smarter will mean making smaller improvements across many areas, so what are the easiest for the Sales Manager or Sales Director to measure and then positively influence?

Lead Generation
This is essentially a Marketing activity, so the sales team shouldn't be being asked to do it all.  But neither should their performance be judged acceptable if they do none of it, and recognise that when they do so they will be wearing their 'marketing' hat!

In generating leads, the emphasis must be on quality rather than sheer quantity.  There must be better, earlier filtering of 'no hopers' and 'time wasters', with self-disqualification being particularly effective.  Marketing have a big responsibility not to attract rubbish in the first place!  The Marketing function should also be providing all who wear a 'marketing hat' with one or two simple differentiator/qualifier questions to further eliminate, at the time of first contact, those who will waste valuable resources.

Sales is a highly 'teachable' art.  Practitioners get better with practice.  Coached and mentored practice is more effective than unsupervised repetition.

Background Research
When following up a sales lead, before first human contact, there is a lot that can be done to research the prospect and thus colour the form of the response.  The internet provides a wealth of free information and a lot more at very moderate cost.  This is an insignificant investment when compared to the time and effort wasted on enquiry follow-ups that should have been seen as hopeless from the start.  Therefore it is a crime not to make use of it.

The sales team can be given simple, efficient tools to access this information, and be motivated to do so.  The lead generating function could even do this for them and supply the results with the lead.

Qualify and Prioritise
This continues the theme of the first two points.  If you're going to lose, lose early!  Don't waste time on no-hopers.  Unsurprisingly (but not always commonly seen) weeding out a list before you start working on it will improve your conversion ratio!  Qualification should become a habit.

These thoughts apply too when following up a lead.  Building a relationship, building rapport and trust, and getting commitments at every step is in itself a filtering process.

When following up a sales lead, research the prospect.  This is an insignificant investment compared to time wasted on no hopers.

Cross-Sell and Up-Sell
This should be a 'no brainer' but is it always thus?  Getting people to buy more is one of the only three ways of growing sales, gross profits and your business, so again it should be a habit, shouldn't it?

Oddly enough, this appears to be more of a problem in businesses with large product ranges.  It is reported that product training doesn't seem to be as effective as you might imagine, but I could find no information on how well the training was constructed or delivered!  Most effective is the sharing of what works.  So many internal sales meetings seem to focus on what went wrong, and skim over what went right!  The balance should be the other way round, but never lose sight of the fact that one size doesn't fit all.  The answer is to adapt and adopt, test and measure.

Get More From Existing Customers
I won't even bother with the cliché!  Suffice it to say that Account Planning and regular communication is a good idea, but don't plan for planning's sake.  Only do it if, and only do it in a way that, you can demonstrate it is helping.  Despite the cliché, you need to have a balance between first time and repeat business, and you should keep this balance under review.

Many internal sales meetings seem to focus on what went wrong, and skim over what went right!  The balance should be the other way round

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OK, I Can Spare You A Minute

Build credibility and rapport
When you first get the chance to have a conversation with someone in anything that might turn out to be a business context, there are several important things you must establish extremely quickly.  You need to start building credibility and rapport; you need to start allowing the other party to decide whether a 'relationship' with you might be of value to them.  You need to be 'interesting' and 'interested'!

You need to start building credibility and rapport.
You need to be 'interesting' and 'interested' for this.

Train your sales team
When this rapport has got off the ground, you may need to start 'training' this possible member of your 'surrogate sales team' to spot others who may find knowing you of value.  The ability to do this part clearly and succinctly is often referred to as an Elevator Pitch.

"An elevator pitch is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project.  The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds and 100-150 words)." - Wikipedia

Start training your 'surrogate sales team' to spot others who may find you of value

Where to start?
Before you can start constructing and refining your elevator pitch you must have the following information available to you about your business.

• Who is your ideal customer?
• What problem do most of them have?
• What pain(s) does having that problem cause?
• What good does your customer get out of what are you selling?
  i.e. How does no longer having the pain make them feel?  All the ways!
• Why do your customers choose you, and not one of your rivals?
  All the ways!

Note which of these are singular and which are plural!

Just one ideal customer type should be defined purely by information in the public domain.  For example, there isn't an SIC code for companies with cash-flow problems!  We all know you can work with other types but you have to pick one at a time.

Their biggest problem is unlikely to be voiced at first, but finding and fixing this will remove their pains far more effectively than merely relieving one 'symptom'.  Understanding their symptoms will lead you to your diagnosis of the underlying 'disease'.  It will take a conversation with an individual to discover whether or not they display these symptoms.

Define your ideal customer by public domain information.
It will take a conversation to discover their symptoms.

Size matters!
Now you can start to construct your 'Elevator Pitch'.  In fact I believe you need several elevator pitches: 60 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 breath, 1 word or phrase - all have their place.

Practically you'll have to start long, then distil and refine.  You just won't get it right starting short and trying to expand.  You'll need to test and measure to see if your messages are coming across, and being received and understood.  Get a friend to ask someone what you do!

If you are a regular networker, you may feel the need to vary your pitch so you don't seem repetitive, but this risks confusing your listeners.  Getting the one-phrase version right, and then using this every time as an 'Anchor', you become known for that phrase, people aren't confused, and you can safely ring the changes.

You need several elevator pitches: 60 seconds, 30 seconds,
1 breath, and 1 word or phrase

A helping hand
One possible template for a longer elevator pitch is:
"I work with (ideal customers) who (widely held problem) which means that (widely suffered pain).  I help them (pain relief) so that they (life without pain)."

An alternative opening might be:
"You know how (ideal customers) are always (widely held problem) which means that ......"

Go on!  Give it a try.  Confidence come from practise, not further study!  Use the one-breath version as your intro on cold calls too, for instance.



Both of these ideas steer miles away from:
"I am (what it says on the second line of my business card).  I can do (a list of all the things you ever have or ever might have done)."  Followed by the unspoken, "What do you think?"  Or more likely, "No, please don't walk away from me.  Surely you can't go and find someone more interesting!"

I work with (ideal customers) who ...
I help them (pain relief) ...

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The Toughest Sell Is To Yourself

A great new idea

Often, when you come across a new idea or a new way of doing or explaining something, you think it sounds great.  You feel you want to adapt it and adopt it for yourself because you really think it will make a difference to you, and quite possibly to those around you too.

“You come across a new idea that sounds great.
You think it will make a difference to you.”

Imagine doing it yourself

So then you start to imagine yourself implementing your adaptations and guess what?  Suddenly it doesn't seem quite as right for you as you thought it did!  It still looks great for other people but, for some reason (that you get better and better at explaining - largely to yourself), it won't work for you!

“You start to imagine yourself doing it and guess what?  Suddenly it doesn't seem quite as right for you as you thought!”

Shattered confidence

The technical term for this is fear, and the biggest fear generally involves you!

With most new things the toughest sell is to yourself.  You worry about all the things that might feel uncomfortable, that might go wrong, and you've shattered your confidence before you've even started.  You don't doubt the value of the idea; you just doubt your own ability to implement it.  You need to build that confidence that was shattered before its very conception.

There are many reasons for lack of confidence, but many boil down to either a fear of getting hurt or a fear of looking stupid.  Even the fear of losing money is really only a combination of these two key fears - You'll be hurt and you'll look daft!

“You worry about all the things that might feel uncomfortable, that might go wrong, and you've shattered your confidence before you've even started”

Essential survival mechanism

These fears are largely the 'flight' part of the 'fight, fright or flight' that is hard-wired into our behaviour as a survival mechanism.  We probably need to be taught or to learn from experience that hot objects, ferocious beasts, fast moving heavy machinery and sharp tools can cause pain.  But once we're aware of a few specific examples, we can translate these into generalities, so then we can evaluate new potential threats when we meet them for the first time.  Essential survival mechanism as I said.

“Survival time.
Three choices.
Fight, fright or flight.”

The little voice in your head

Often however, the little voice in your head that's telling you not to do something becomes too arrogant and dogmatic, and tries to wrap you in cotton-wool with its CYA* policy, and you develop fears that are counterproductive to both your survival and your success.

To overcome this and gain confidence it is frequently a good idea to replace, rather than try to eradicate, this little voice in your head.  Try telling yourself that actually it's rather good to be doing this thing you're trying to do, that you'll feel great once you've done it, that it will be a pleasure and not a pain
to do it.

“The little voice in your head tries to wrap you in cotton-wool.
Don't eradicate it, replace it!”

Tell the face in the mirror

And here's the clue to increasing your confidence: "Tell yourself"!  Confidence comes from practise, not further study.  Look in the mirror and tell the face you see there the things you need to be able to tell other people.

If the highest price you've ever quoted is £1,000, tell the face in the mirror, "My price is £5,000."  Did you start to grin or laugh?  Getting in first with the laugh in the face of our own (perceived by us) silliness is a natural defence mechanism to mitigate the pain that comes when the other person laughs first at our misfortune.

Keep practising in front of the mirror until you can say, "My price is £5,000" with a straight face and mean it.  Then you'll have all the confidence you need to say it to customers!

“Tell the face in the mirror what you need to tell others.
Confidence comes from practise, not further study”

*CYA - A well known policy; it stands for Cover Your Arse!

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Be Interesting; Be Interested

I am making a huge leap of faith here.  I am going to assume that you don't want to be viewed as being dull and boring!  Or do you think you will be better liked and stand more chance of getting referrals if you are?  Was I right?  I sincerely hope so.

If people aren't already telling you that you're one of the most interesting and friendly people in the room, then you might want to do something about it.

Back in summer 2009 there was a lot of talk about a Swine Flu epidemic, but why do you suppose are there only epidemics of bad things?  Epidemic actually means 'a larger number of cases than expected', so how might you create an epidemic of people who think you're interesting?

Some of the ideas discussed in my 'Pricing By Value' Workshop are definitely applicable here.

To be interesting and memorable you must provide what the other person regards as valuable, for a very reasonable investment on their part, and receive in return something you rate highly profitable.  This applies whether you are meeting someone for the first time or re-encountering an old friend.

Taking the second of these ideas first, you may think the reasonable investment will consist of the other person taking the time to listen to you tell your tale - so you'd better not take too long.  But this is very 'me-centred' and is time-based, and thus cost-based.  How would it be if the other person's 'reasonable investment' was taking the offered (by you) opportunity to tell you about their business?  To recruit you into their surrogate sales team and train you?  Wouldn't this show you to be 'interested'?  Surely this is one of the components of being 'interesting'.

This takes us back to the first idea above.  One value outcome for the other person would be to have recruited and trained a new salesperson.  Additional value may have been perceived through your probing questioning, where you ensured you fully understood their market and product, which has helped them understand it more too and hence become better able to explain it to others in future.  But how might this be profitable for you?

By behaving in this way, which is so unlike the way most people behave, you are seen as being highly memorable by being highly interesting as well as highly interested!  But this won't be the end of the encounter.  Having derived so much value from you, the other person will feel obliged to reciprocate, and if they don't you may wish to do a little prompting.

Now their 'reasonable investment' is listening to you, so reply in a way that answers some of the questions you have recently asked them.  Do resist though, the temptation to do this without a break.  Part of the value to the other person is being allowed the opportunity to practise the questioning skills they have just heard you use, knowing how nice is was to be treated in this way.

Their value outcome this time results from their very clear understanding of how you help your customers, who they are, and the good they get out of you doing so.  The fact that they can add to their own value to their clients by bringing you in when appropriate is part of this value.  And your profit this time is in having another well-trained member of your sales team.

Of course it's possible to swap 'you' and 'other person' in all of this and it reads just as well, and is just as true!  Genuinely win-win I'd say.

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The Customer's Route To Your Sales Team

At some point, every single one of your customers was totally oblivious to your existence and to the products and services your business provides.  And I hope you will agree with me that your best customers are those who not only buy a lot from you, very often, but who are also active members of your 'surrogate sales team'.  If you could get more of the 'oblivious' to become 'sales team', that would be good wouldn't it?

If only there was a clearly defined, well signposted route available to them, don't you think that many of them would get a long way down that path?  By understanding the sections this route needs to have in its construction, you can make it easy for them to do so.

The first thing is to register on the prospective customer's senses, to achieve consciousness.  You need to provide several means by which this first perception can happen, and you should be doing so in places where you know your ideal customers are likely to be.  You can't expect them to come to you at this stage.

Next, the prospect has to have a better acquaintance with you and the things you can provide.  This could be provided by the other 'consciousness' messages which they happened not to come across first.  Equally it could be the repetition of a message.  In either case, the prospect will not start to absorb your messages until they have this acquaintance with you.

Now, with prospects very aware that they know of you and are familiar with you, they are in a position to absorb what good they will get out of doing business with you and what sets you apart from your competition, your distinctiveness.  If you try to ram your messages down their throats before they have arrived at this point, your efforts will have been wasted.  And 'ramming' is unlikely to be productive at any point!

Now the prospect has an interest in possibly purchasing from you, and you need to make sure there is a simple and obvious means for them to communicate this interest back to you.  All the previous effort will be wasted if the prospect has to 'jump through hoops' in order to indicate that they'd like to know more.

The fifth step is to convert their interest into an initial sale, and for now all I will say is that this is a subject of its own, and that yet again there is not one fixed 'one size fits all' mechanism for doing this.

Having bought from you once, you will be trying to get the customers to buy from you again, to gain repeat business from them.  As before, there will not be just one single tactic that will work on every occasion.

Maybe after their first purchase, or maybe later, you would be hoping that your satisfied customers will be letting their contacts know how good you are and how pleased they were to have used you.  To achieve this you must not neglect the need to provide the means and the encouragement for them to do so.  In other words you need to recruit them into your sales team and then 'train' them.

Several things now become apparent from this route from 'oblivious' to 'sales team'.  Firstly, that it is actually a circular path, because the activities of the 'sales team' will introduce previously 'oblivious' new people at the 'consciousness' level.  Secondly, that enabling a prospect to journey through consciousness, acquaintance, distinctiveness and the cultivation of interest is Marketing; from interest to sale and to repeat business is Sales; and that through repeat business, sales team and full circle to new consciousness is Marketing once more.

Thirdly, the three 'mores' of growing a business can also be mapped onto these ideas.  The first part of Marketing is getting more customers; the early part of sales can also focus on getting them to buy more; and the later overlap of Sales and Marketing to achieve repeat business can also encourage buying more often.

Out of all these thoughts is born your Sales and Marketing strategy!

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How Does Your Garden Grow?

On the basis that most if not all business owners could easily shrink their business, let us focus on how to grow it instead.

To start with, what does 'grow' mean here?  If you grow sales, is this the whole answer?  Well, if each sale loses you money, then obviously not!  So is it growing profits?  Well, yes, but you can only go so far with cutting costs, so you need to grow profitable sales.

But will profitable sales grow your business if your customers never get around to paying you?  Of course not!  Your business will die through lack of cash!

Leaving debt collection aside for another time, let's look at growing sales, bearing in mind we'll need to ensure they are profitable too.  There are only three ways to grow sales!  Sales growth comes from a combination of:

• More Customers
• Spending More
• More Often

And that's it!

Your strategy for sales growth should consider all three 'mores'; how easy it will be, how much you will need to invest to get the return you seek, how profitable it will be.  Your strategy will be unlikely to focus on just one of these mechanisms either.  Almost certainly it will be a balance of all three, probably with one playing a larger part than the others.

Attracting new customers who've never bought from you before will involve promoting your name and your marketing messages, and is unlikely to produce instant results.  Your 'new customer' strategy will need to take your messages to where your ideal customers will see them.  You can't rely on strangers coming to find you where you are.

These strangers will probably need to receive your messages several times before they start absorbing much more than your name, however compelling your messages may be, so this needs to form part of your 'new customer' strategy too.

Persuading customers, be they first timers or repeat buyers, to spend more relies on having 'more' for them to buy!  Not exactly earth shattering, but nevertheless often ignored!

It may be that you can persuade them to 'upsize', or you could 'upsell' by convincing them to add extra products or services to their purchase.
Whatever you do, you need to have the 'more' available for them to buy.

When it comes to the upsize, you will almost certainly be able to do this yourself by adding extra value to your basic offering, checking of course that these extras are actually seen as being of genuine value by your ideal customers.

Providing products and services to be 'upsold' does not however have to rest entirely with you.  This is an area where Strategic Alliance Partnerships can be very important.  If your partner's products complement yours, it is reasonably likely that your products complement theirs, so you can help each other.

Lastly, there is the question of how to persuade customers to come back for more, and get them to do so more frequently.

As existing customers, they are already know you and presumably remain happy to have bought from you in the past.  Your task is to ensure that the next time they want what you supply, they will come back to you, isn't it?

Well, yes, of course, but it goes beyond that simple picture.  They may only be aware of the narrow range that they actually bought from you previously, and not your entire 'repertoire'.  And this repertoire may have changed since they last purchased from you any way.

You also need to be in the front of their minds at the time they decide to take action to satisfy their new want.  In this regard 'a miss is as good as a mile' in terms of the timing of your messages, and there's the clue.  You have to be in the front of their mind shortly before they make their decision.  As you have no idea when this may be, you have to regularly remind them of your existence and capabilities.  In short you need an effective 'keep in touch' system.

As a parting thought, what if you consider yours to be a one-hit business?  As my friend the Undertaker reminds me, he doesn't sell to the deceased!  He sells to their family.  And guess what?  They're all going to die one day too!  So maybe yours isn't a one-hit business after all!

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Can Your Team Really Ever Be A Team?

Previously I've used sporting analogies to talk about business folk in general and then Sales people in particular.  This time I'm returning to business people generally, though maybe with a slight bias towards Marketing and Sales.

Let me ask you, is a sporting analogy appropriate in every instance?  Or is it true that every group of people striving to reach a common goal is a team?
Is the Three Musketeers' cry of, "All for one, and one for all" appropriate all the time?

In your Sales team or your Marketing team, do you view your colleagues as team-mates or competitors?  If you get an order, does this mean that one of your colleagues hasn't got it, or have you only deprived a competitor company of the business?

If one of the team achieves what they set out to do, is this seen throughout the organisation as the team achieving what the team set out to do?  Or does the reverse apply, where the individual may have reached their goal but the rest of the team are seen not to have reached theirs yet?

Let's look at this from a sporting perspective.  If a rugby player scores a try, the team gets the points.  If players from the same team score many more tries than the opposition, the team gets lots of points and, in the absence of penalties, the first team win the match.  This then is definitely a team sport.

If a racing driver starts from pole position and stays in the lead until the chequered flag, or has passed all the cars that are in front of them by the end of the race, they are the winner, but is it a victory for a team or an individual?  Of course it is a victory for a team!  All the 'supporting cast' will have had to play their parts to perfection too for their driver to cross the finishing line in first place.

In fact it would be hard, if not impossible, to think of any sport that isn't a team sport, even if there is only one performing athlete in the mix.

Back in business though, things can be subtly different.  The skill sets and the rewards structure may be such that one person can meet their target and be rewarded, whilst another doesn't and so doesn't get rewarded.  They may well be part of a group who all report to the same person, but compared with our sports example, they don't appear to be a team, however the office jargon may describe them.

So how should we describe that group?  A useful alternative in this case is to call them a 'Committee'.  A team is where all win or no-one wins; the team's performance matters more than individuals' performances.  A committee is where one person can win but others can lose.  If you have a committee, the sports analogies actually ring very hollow, especially those about team spirit!

Is your team focused on short-term goals, as with a sports team, with importance and intensity characterising the members' behaviour - a desire to win the current game - or not?  Do they give their all for today and let their position in the league table take care of itself?  Are the elements of competition and results strong in your 'team'?

Most business scenarios do not have this same degree of short term intensity.  Instead they are complex and there are obscure links between cause and effect.  Even in competitive industries, many of the people in one organisation never get to meet their competitors, and the evidence of the results of their work is usually not as strong as in a sports team.  Many cannot see how their individual efforts contribute to the overall result.

If only the 'team' behaved more like a team, there may be more to be gained from these analogies.  A relay squad knows its job it to get the baton to the finishing line, but that only the runner on the anchor leg will actually cross the line with the baton.  Good communication, the mutual trust to pass clients from expert to expert as their needs change throughout the sales process, and the knowledge that the only thing that matters is the order, not who gets it, would stand many business teams in a lot stronger position.

We need to use sporting analogies with care here then.  Plus, there will be people in your organisation who hate sports, for whom competition is anathema, and indiscriminate sports analogies will alienate those people, not include them.

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