How Sales Process Helps with Focus and Execution

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What will you do differently in the next 12 months to drive revenue?

Now more than ever, your sales organization must be able to focus and execute on key opportunities for success. The approach that you took over the past two years may not work in the new business environment. As you refine your plans for the balance of this year, let’s make some reasonable assumptions:

 

  • Your customers may spend only where they “have to”.
  • Companies with the most clearly defined value (as agreed to by their customers) will excel.
  • Weaker organizations may not have the resources to compete.
  • The competition may be gunning for the embedded revenue that you currently hold.
  • You must have a way to protect your base while pursuing targeted accounts.

We help organizations to define and implement a repeatable process for revenue generation. To recalibrate, we have moved some of our client’s resources to “refine” their efforts towards a new approach.

Are you positioned to proactively identify and go after those situations? Standing on the sidelines “waiting” for something to happen won’t get you there. Here is how we begin that process with our customers, aka FOCUS:

  • What mid-sized opportunities reside in the competition’s hands that we could make a play for?
  • Once this is determined, how well do we match up in a comparison of capabilities?
  • What are the most profitable opportunities we can develop?
  • Who in the target organization do we need to speak with to facilitate a change?
  • What internal and external resources do we need to compete?

Once these questions have been answered, we then develop a tactical approach on how to EXECUTE on these revenue opportunities from both the sales and marketing capacities.

Are you ready? Let’s get started.

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Feet on the Street: What Rowan Zorilla Can Teach You About Skills Development

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There are no shortcuts, no easy ways of getting around how to improve and sharpen your skills. Whether you are a doctor (continuing medical education classes), a fireman (drills are a regular occurrence), a salesperson (training followed by Managerial Coaching) or an up and coming world class skateboarder (ride, ride, ride), you have to put the work in to keep on top of your game. In his book “Outliers: The Story of Success”, Malcolm Gladwell cites the need to put in 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. That’s a full time job (2,000 hours per year) for 5 years; think about that when measuring your professional status!

Well, it just so happens that my nephew, Rowan Zorilla, aka RoZo, is in his breakout year as one of the hottest new riders on the Vans Skateboarding team (http://www.vans.com/team/skate/rowan-zorilla.html). In fact, on April 21st, Rowan and a small group of his elite team will be featured in a worldwide release of the Vans skateboarding movie called Propeller, which will be shown in 11 cities over a 3 week period. Check out www.vanspropeller.com for more information.

And how did Rowan get to this point in his young life? It’s the same way that an aspiring singer gets to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice! Since he was 8 years old, Rowan has lived and breathed skateboarding. He participated at a competitive level in soccer and baseball, but at the age of 11 decided that skateboarding was his passion. Rowan has surrounded himself with a group of young men, kids at the time, who know skateboarding, and he had the good fortune of meeting Tony Hawk, and Tony’s son Riley several years ago. Rowan has learned from the best, as Tony is the global leader and ambassador of the sport.

There were, and still are, no shortcuts for Rowan. He skates to most of the places he goes to, and aside from a period with a banged up knee, he practices his trade on a daily basis. In high school, he maintained a high grade point average, as his parents (my sister Anne and her husband Dan), made sure that their son kept his options open for other educational and career opportunities.  He has also been provided great tools to work with, whether that be the boards he is sponsored on, or the shoes he is wearing, Rowan is ready to hit the street flying on a regular basis.

So what can we can we all learn from this? Dedication, focus, practice, tools and mentorship/leadership; it’s no different than what my customers ask of the sales professionals from their teams on a regular basis. Vans provides it to Rowan, and he runs with it. What are you doing with the skills and tools provided to you?

And there’s no way I can wrap up this article without saying how proud I am of Rowan. When he made this leap 2 years ago, it seemed like a tough goal to get to from my perspective. I am happy to report that I was wrong, and pleased to say what a great young man this nephew of mine is today. Finally, I am REALLY thrilled to say that I will join him at the premier in London on April 30th. Look out RoZo, here comes your loud and proud Uncle walking into the Prince Charles Theatre!!

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On the Road Again

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In April, John is at home in Solana Beach with Dan Albaum, Director of Marketing, Americas for Precor. Click on the video link below to hear how Dan describes how his marketing team helps drive the sales process. Dan is one of the Management Leaders who helped to build out the Precor Sales Process, and continues to evangelize the use of the process as a way to focus on the customer.

 

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Business Model Innovation with Brian Tracy

 

 

brian_tracyAs mentioned in the December newsletter, Brian Tracy has invited me to collaborate with him on a project he is developing on Business Model Innovation. With the rapidly changing technology landscape, the globalization of markets and the emergence of new markets in foreign countries, Brian sees a need to assist Senior Leaders in making adaptations quickly.

 

 

The early phases of the work on this project evolve around two key questions:

  • What is the Customer Value Offering your company provides? This means, what business objective does your product/service help your customers to achieve? And if they can reach those targets, what value does this bring?
  • Who Is Your Customer? Having a clear picture of who the customer is, and what phases they go through from being a prospect to your customer is critical. If you haven’t hit refresh on describing who your customer is, now may be the time to do so.

While doing research to contribute to this project, I came across an excellent article in the Harvard Business Review (HBR, July-Aug 2014) that asks the readers to consider a few questions around similar topics that Brian is exploring. These include the following:

  • What mix of products or services are you offering? Keeping a narrow focus on your offerings, and searching for commonalities across products was suggested in this capacity.
  • Who are the Decision Makers when it comes to selecting your product or service? This ties into #2 that Brian cites above, and is part of knowing your customer.

Next, we will move into the solution building phase of describing how Brian will help his customers to address these areas above, and we will share the answers to innovation related questions posed above. We would like to hear from any of you who have recently gone through this exercise, and are willing to share what modifications you made, and what the results were for your company. Contact us at info@drive-revenue.com.

 

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The Buyer’s Tactics

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If you’ve ever thumbed through an airline magazine you’ve seen the ads for negotiating workshops. They appeal primarily to buyers and, consequently, buyers often are far more prepared than most salespeople.  Let’s explore some of their tactics.

  • Playing one supplier off against the other.

This is the oldest trick in the book.   But it’s an effective one since salespeople tend to take the prospect at his word, despite the fact that occasionally prospects mislead salespeople.  Unfortunately there’s nothing in the rulebook that says the prospect has to be able to prove they have a better offer from a competitor.

  • Getting the salesperson to make the first offer.

“You’ll have to do better” is a statement often used by the prospect to get the salesperson to state a position.  Falling into the trap, most salespeople will suggest an alternative, such as a 5% price reduction.  Having made that “offer” now becomes the best price you will ever realize on this deal, and often the negotiation starts from this new level.  This is bad news for the salesperson.

  • Splitting the difference.

If the prospect is successful in getting the salesperson to make the first offer, and then counters that offer with something lower (“I was thinking10%, not 5%”), splitting the difference can seem like a “fair” way to resolve the issue, and offers the prospect of getting the deal done without further negotiation.  The problem is that the deal will be done on the prospect’s terms, not yours.

  • The flinch.

This maneuver strikes fear in the heart of most salespeople, putting them on the defensive immediately, and giving the prospect the advantage.  It’s such a simple move.  If you’re not familiar with it, here’s how it plays out.  When the salesperson quotes the price to the prospect, the prospect immediately responds by saying, “Wow, that’s a lot more than I thought it would be,” or words to that effect.  Accompanying the words with the appropriate body language and tonality, the message to the seller is clear – lower your price or this will be over quickly.  Almost reflexively, sellers respond with some sort of price concession in an effort to stay in the game.   These tactics can be viewed as manipulation on the part of the prospect, but no one said it had to be a fair fight.  Recognize it for what it is and deal with it.  Remember, knowledge is power.

By the way, you can use the very same tactics on the buyer; you just have to be proactive and use them first.

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