Do Simple BetterThe quote on a t shirt worn by Joe Maddon, the Manager of the Chicago Cubs (an American baseball team) inspired me. It said “Do Simple Better”. Professional athletes focusing on how to do the simple things, better.

Hmmm, Do Simple Better. What does that mean to your team? In Sales, this is what the focus should be on, and as fundamental as it sounds, doesn’t always happen in the heat of identifying, developing and closing a healthy Sales Pipeline filled with qualified Opportunities.

  1. Understand the Prospect/Customer’s Primary Business Objectives (PBOs): what is the Decision Maker hoping to accomplish if they purchase your product or service?
  1. Identify the Challenges: what is happening in their business today that inhibits them from reaching the PBO? And what is the impact, financial and otherwise, if they don’t make a change?
  1. Align Your Capabilities: how do your capabilities help the Decision Maker to address the Challenges? Be specific in matching the capability, and make sure the prospect identifies the VALUE they could obtain through the use of your capabilities. If they can’t, you should be able to help paint the picture on value.
  1. Agree on a Clear Next Step: what is the next step that the prospect and you are taking to move forward?  My colleague John Golden calls this an advance, as opposed to a continuation. Are we advancing this opportunity to the next step, or in a stall with one of the above mentioned items incomplete?

Items # 1 through 4 are the SIMPLE, or The Basics for sellers in early Opportunity development. They should all be discussed, documented and agreed to with the Decision Maker BEFORE sellers create a quote, write a proposal, ask for technical support or Marketing resources, build a presentation or respond to a tender/RFP.

 

Sales Leaders, it’s time to Coach your sellers to get the Simple right. Right now.

We just concluded the fourth of four SKO meetings with our customers over a five-week period, and we ready for a nap. The cities included Sedona, AZ, Tampa, FL, Cleveland (Aurora), OH and Kingsport, TN. How much knowledge, excitement, reflection, presentations, awards, conversation, redundancy, partying and planning can be packed into a 3- or 4-day session? Well, it turns out that A LOT is the answer. 

There was your regular run of the mill events at each of the four, but also tremendous highlights as it pertains to new team members, capital infusions, product launches and laser like focus on customers and emerging markets.  Our part was to contribute to the continual learning for the Sales teams, and other individuals in customer facing roles. While all companies embraced their own “theme” for the meeting, we intertwined and reinforced the fundamentals on the tactical execution of sales success as it relates to our customers’ commercial strategy.  

Many of our competitors are working on the next, new shiny object in selling; not us. In the sales training business, some are looking to offer the silver bullet, or latest trend on what can appear to be a fashion industry-like approach. The leaders of the companies we work for are focused on executing the basics well, then taking it to the next level. But we have to get the fundamentals right, and we help them to do that in all skill set capacities.  

To the teams we recently trained: now that you’ve let all that information you received at your SKO settle in, and got back into your regular routine, pick up your Sales Tool Kit, review the on-line modules of your sales process and get ready to have better conversations with customers and prospects. And Managers, it is your job to make sure your sellers are improving their selling skills, one opportunity at a time. Let’s get going! 

coaching selling skills

How’s that title for a “Challenger-esque” way to tell first-line sales managers what they need to be doing with their sales team? Does it inspire you? Or have you already checked out of this article, turned off by being told what to do, despite whether you are doing it or not?

For those of you sales managers who are coaching selling skills on a regular basis, you understand the importance of why, and the rewards that come from doing so. Your salespeople no longer come to you with the following requests and/or challenges, because you’ve already developed their skills:

  • End of the month/end of the quarter discount requests to “close a deal” (rarely does price prevent a seller from a getting a yes)
  • A request to review a presentation full of proprietary information that is directed to the wrong key player
  • Rationalization of why your technical specialist should go out to do a demo
  • Explanation of the features and benefits of a product or service without a clear understanding of the commercial objective the customer is looking to address

 The Training Department Won’t Improve Skills

All sales managers are “deal coaches”, meaning they help their sellers to organize the right product/service mix, plan the delivery/install/training, and set prices/margins, all of which are very important to winning business. But too many managers rely on their training departments to improve rep skills, or they leave this job to the reps themselves. While some degree of this is okay, managers must also take it upon themselves to continually assess and develop the skills of their team. One of my favorite managers used to say: “if you are coasting, you’re usually going downhill”. I love this quote in relation to skill development – it drives home the point that if you’re not actively improving your team’s selling skills, it’s likely their skills are rusty and adversely affecting sales performance.

 Getting Started on Skill Development

It’s easy to agree in theory that improving selling skills is important, but much harder to know where and how to start developing your team. Every team is different, and no two coaching plans look the same. To get started, email me at john@drive-revenue.com, and I will forward you a simple Selling Skills Self-Assessment that will give you clear and concrete direction on where your coaching should begin.

Many sales managers think they are good at managing sales people because they excel at selling. Because they are good at it (or so the logic goes), they can just manage their reps by example. They go on sales calls with them and show them how…. “Just do what I do.   

After all, Einstein says, “Example isn’t another way to teach, it’s the only way to teach.”    

Sorry Einstein.  According to a recent study, nearly 90% of organizations train their sales managers to improve their coaching skills.  Progressive organizations recognize that teaching frontline managers how to deliver personalized training targeted specifically at sales rep skill deficiencies has a greater impact on overall sales performance than an investment in training the sales reps alone. 

Unfortunately, training and coaching are activities that can get pushed aside as managers revert to where they’re most comfortable: the selling expertise that got them promoted to their leadership position in the first place. They’re good at solving problems and closing deals for reps, but in successful organizations, there is a clear link between effective sales coaching and sales performance.  Being a sales skills development coach may not be in a sales manager’s job description, but it certainly come with the title. 

Recently, we worked with an organization whose new sales rep team was being managed by their superstar-salesman-first-line-sales-manager we’ll call Ken.   With his compensation tied to his team’s revenue numbers, it was understandable that Ken wanted to “make it happen.”  He was involved in every account, micromanaging the reps, asking for updates every other day, solving problems, and often eventually stepping in to “save the sale” as the quarter end approached.    

It was exhausting yet rewarding for Ken, and although the compensation was good for all of them, the reps on his team felt unappreciated, unmotivated, unfulfilled and ultimately, unable to continue working under such conditions. The turnover was high and the organization was not producing skilled reps who could achieve their revenue growth through their own efforts. 

This organization hired us. Our first priority was to teach their first line managers how to coach their direct reports on sales skills.  We helped them link their sales process to practical, teachable, selling skills, setting up a structure for skills coaching based on individual sales reps’ needs.  

The change came slowly but steadily. Because the managers were trained around conversations on current account strategies and within the parameters of their busy schedules, they developed the “muscle memory” of new coaching skills through practice with their teams. And the results followed, with an 11% increase in revenue from existing customersa noticeable increase in the new opportunity pipeline, and a happier, more productive team. Now that’s what we call a win-win…..win! 

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One definition of selling is “the ability to move others to exchange what they have for what we have “(Dan Pink, To Sell is Human).  A seller can help to facilitate that exchange in ways that are based on value and not just around the product he sells.  When a client engages me to help their sales staff, I ask to interview their top performers.    My purpose is to decode their selling DNA and identify the markers that make them so successful.    These people help others to meet their objectives by selling business value.  There are 3 tactics these top sellers employ:

  1. Get to the cost of the problem today.  Buyers will face any number of problems.  Great sales people help buyers define in totality all the costs those problems bring.  The cost may be non-monetary like low morale or frustration, but costs that strike the bottom line are numbers that are heard by every person involved in making the buying decision.   We worked with a company whose industry is becoming saturated with competitive products, driving down the prices.  When you are the high priced product in the market place it seems every buyer asks about prices first.   Great sellers can shape and frame conversations around the costs of buyer’s problems, not on the price of their solution.   These early conversations around costs helped them sell more and maintain margins in the end.
  2. Tell stories. Stories help the buyers discover for themselves the problems they are facing or the solutions that are needed.  Great sales people have several stories, personal experiences that they share depending on the situation or desired outcome.  They share stories when the conversation lulls and the buyer is unable to articulate problems.  Stories have purpose and you begin them by framing who they are about, their problem, a turning point and a resolution.  We worked with sales people from an internet company who were experiencing problems with buyers who were unable to articulate clearly the problems they were facing.  Sales people began sharing what other buyers in their industry have problems with.   They found that by opening up and sharing some successes and failures of peers that it gave voice to the buyers and they were able to begin sharing.  Stories not only get to problems, they can be used to describe how others use and derive business value from your products.  Stories help people understand.  Great sales people use them and use them in many ways.
  3.  Summarize the conversation in writing. This is a point that all sellers will tell me that they do, but few do it well.  I sell my services to many companies in different industries.  I am constantly referring to the emails I’ve written as follow up after our conversations.  These emails summarize the problems they are facing the costs these problems are causing, the solutions we discussed and value of those solutions, and, of course, the next steps as discussed.  This helps the customer and me keep the focus on the problems we are trying to solve.  Great sales people don’t rely on memory they simplify, write it down, share it with the customer, and allow the customer to give feedback.

These are three techniques that great sales people practice that help them sell on the business value their products will bring.

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