Posts

Flannery Sales Systems at ProMat Show in Chicago this week

John will join his long-time customer ID Systems  at ProMat in Chicago this week. Mark Stanton, GM of IDSY has invited John to the show to speak with the ISDY Dealers, and see how they can benefit from the use of the IDSY Sales Process.

We know how strong the Dealer network is for IDSY, and look forward to exploring additional ways we can help them to grow their revenue in 2019 through the usage and deeper connections in the sales process.

If you are attending ProMat, or are in Chicago this week and would like to meet up with John, text or call him at 858 518-7039.

/by

Sales Pros Must Attend Continuing Education: Sales 3.0 Conference in SFO

 

John is attending the Selling Power 3.0 Conference in San Francisco on Monday and Tuesday of this week. The purpose for spending 2 full days out of the field is to gather information that will help Flannery Sales Systems’ customers to drive revenue.

As a great Sales Manager once said “If you are coasting (in your career), you are usually going downhill.” Don’t let that happen to you!  We are committed to learning and sharing important new information from Sales 3.0 with individuals in all customer facing roles, not just sales.

 

 

 

Here are two thought provoking concepts from the conference:

  • Relationship sellers are 63% less likely to ask tough questions of customers and prospects because they have an overriding need to be liked
  • Growth and comfort never co-exist

If you’re attending this conference, or in the Bay Area and would like to speak to John about how to improve your revenue generation, give him a text or call at 858-518-7039    #salestraining #salesconference #salesleadership #S30C

/by

Stop Presenting

In three separate conversations, I was contacted by 2 sales representatives and one entrepreneur who asked to provide a critique of a presentation that they were taking to a prospect. While the circumstances around each were different, there was one common challenge I identified following each conversation-information around a solution, product, or service was being presented way too soon! None of the three understood how the prospect ran their business without the recommendation that they would prescribe. And only one realized how this approach would lower their chances of a successful outcome, even if they did (for some strange reason) win the business.

A sales presentation is often the prelude to closing the sale.  Stop for a minute to think that the sales presentation is more like third base.  Understanding how a prospect would use your product or service, what their title was, what the decision making process is, what problem is solved by buying from you are all the issues that will get you to first or second base.  Jumping right to the boilerplate sales presentation is one sure way to be knocked out of the game.

Today’s marketplace is very unforgiving.  Buyers have more information and less time than ever before.   Asking the right questions and taking the time to listen and learn about how to help solve a buyer’s problem is the road to success.  Sellers will have fewer opportunities to be “at bat” so make sure that your presentations count.  Make sure your sales organization is not squandering those opportunities by practicing “spray & pray”.

Flannery Sales Systems helps organizations develop and implement a repeatable sales process.  Improving the effectiveness of your sales organization is a key success strategy for the coming year.  We would welcome an opportunity to explore your needs and understand where you could benefit from an improved skills and processes.  Only then would we consider making you a presentation!  Flannery Sales Systems works with a broad cross section of industries and we are confident that we can enhance your results.

765qwerty765
/by

Flannery Sales Systems to attend PITTCON Conference

Flannery Sales Systems to attend PITTCON Conference

We are  pleased to be participating in PITTCON,  the world’s leading annual conference and exposition on laboratory science. Pittcon attracts attendees from industry, academia and government from over 90 countries worldwide. We will be attending the conference this Tuesday and Wednesday, March 19 and 20 in Philadelphia. John E. Flannery, President of FSS will be on hand to speak with Sales and Marketing leaders about fine-tuning their efforts to drive revenue.

“We help all individuals in customer facing roles with the tactical execution of their GoTo Market strategy, which equates to one effective customer conversation at a time” says Flannery, who has worked for customers within the laboratory science sector. The inclusion of Sales, Marketing, Customer Service and Technical Expertise in the execution of sales process has proven invaluable in meeting and exceeding revenue objectives.

For an individual conversation with John, contact him at 858 518-7039 or john@drive-revenue.com

/by

Building Patience into the Sales Process

have-patience-hs-blogIt may sound counter intuitive, but patient salespeople are always the most successful.  The stereotype of the sales person who won’t take no for an answer, who repeatedly closes and who is relentless about cold calling may make entertaining television, but the evidence points to the patient sales person as the role model for an effective sales organization.

Look at your quarterly or year end results.  Did your sales team discount heavily in order to make the quota?  Has your pipeline of opportunities been cleared out to hit the numbers “at any cost” with that cost being a huge hit to your margins?  I’ve seen this in organization after organization where the sales team and management have not focused on effectively managing their sales process and opportunities throughout the quarter only to resort to panicked, premature closes to many opportunities.  More often than not, this “haste” lays “waste” to your margins and bottom line.

Taking the time early in the quarter to assess your pipeline and schedule business development activities on an ongoing basis is the first step to building patience into the sales process.

Being prepared to listen to the customer to determine their goals is another skill that requires a sense of restraint among the average seller who is too often quick to spray the buyer with product offerings and features hoping for a quick close.  If the seller doesn’t take enough time to fully understand how the customer will use their products, the buyer may get confused about irrelevant features or feel they are buying features they don’t need.

Buyers don’t often like to be told what to buy – particularly by sales people who they feel have a bias to push the sale regardless of the fit.  By listening to the customers needs, sellers are better able to establish the value of their solution.  By being patient, the seller is able to propose usage scenarios to the buyer which positions the seller as a credible consultant and the buyer is more likely to share the values of the alternative usage scenarios.  By exploring the value of the seller’s product usage more fully, the buyer can calculate the benefit of buying the product and the savings of buying it sooner versus later.  Often times the cost of operating without the seller’s solution can be significantly greater than the benefit of negotiating longer for price concessions.  Once the buyer determines that is the case, the urgency to close the deal increases.

Key Points:

  • Listen to the customer’s needs
  • Let the customer establish a goal
  • Establish value for your offering
  • Don’t close prematurely
  • Patience provides strength in negotiation

Developing a sales organization that respects a process that takes the time to better understand the customers need will result in a more predictable revenue stream, a higher win ratio and better margins – all rewards worth being patient for.

Flannery Sales Systems (www.Drive-Revenue.com) helps organizations develop and implement a repeatable sales process.  Improving the effectiveness of your sales organization is the key outcome we provide to clients.  We would welcome an opportunity to explore your needs and understand where you could benefit from improved skills and sales processes.  Flannery Sales Systems works with a broad cross section of industries and we are confident we can enhance your results.

 

/by

Attitude Adjustment

attitude_1

Too many salespeople show up with an attitude. It sounds like this. “I’ve got the best solution available, and my job is to convince my prospects that I’m right. This is the “try harder” syndrome. This attitude just doesn’t work well any longer. Here’s a list of the beliefs that salespeople have that will do them more harm than good and what you should be believing instead.

Faulty Belief: I need to educate my prospect; presentation skills are my most effective tool.
Winning Belief: Your job is to qualify your prospect and investigative skills are your most effective tool. Let’s face it, no one ever lost a sale by listening too much.

Faulty Belief: Everyone needs what I sell; hearing “no” is a failure.
Winning Belief: A more productive belief is that not everyone is a prospect for
what I sell and “no” is not a failure as long as I’ve qualified the opportunity adequately.

Faulty Belief: When the prospect says, “I need to think it over,” there’s still a chance.
Winning Belief: You should be skeptical (not reassured) when your prospect tells you that he needs to “think it over.”

Faulty Belief: My features and benefits differentiate me from my competitors; they give me an advantage.
Winning Belief: If you rely on features and benefits, you’re probably going to sound just like everybody else, and your prospect may conclude that what you sell is just a commodity. When you’re perceived as a commodity, price becomes the most important buying criteria.

Faulty Belief: My job is to convince my prospect that he would benefit from purchasing from me; I need to be a good closer.
Winning Belief: It’s the prospect’s job to convince you that he has a problem, the budget and the decision-making ability to fix it and needs your help. Try this attitude on your next sales interview and see how it will change your approach.

Faulty Belief: Financial considerations are the most important factor in determining who gets the business.
Winning Belief: If you can help them increase their business or save them money, your price is relative to their gain.

Faulty Belief: If my prospects like me, they will buy from me.
Winning Belief: The real issue is whether or not the prospect thinks you can solve their problem. If they do, you’re likely to get the business.

Key Points

1. Your attitudes and beliefs are very important; they dictate what you do and how you do it. Ultimately, your attitudes and beliefs control your results.

2. Hearing “no” is not a failure; not everyone is a prospect for your product or service.

3. You should believe in the Law of Abundance – there’s plenty of business out there. Don’t hang on to a prospective client when the odds of being successful are slim. Find another opportunity.

/by

3 Ways to Change Your Sales Approach to Keep Up With Technology

We’ve all experienced a lot of technology-driven change in our lives. Just how much change depends on how old you are.  People in their 50s can remember a time before the Internet.  People in their 30s can remember life before Uber. And twenty-somethings just might remember when their parents carried flip phones, not iPhones.

If it seems like technology only evolves faster and faster, that’s not your imagination. It’s true—meaning we can expect more disruption and change in the near future, even in the field of sales. But when you work in sales, you have to make sure you’re looking at those changes through the right lens. There’s how technology has changed sales, and then there’s how technology has changed how we sell.

How Technology Has Changed How We Sell

Technology will keep changing sales. Vendors will develop new apps we can’t even imagine yet. Software will automate sales processes. Artificial Intelligence will score leads. Chatbots will handle online queries…and so on. All of us in sales will be on a constant learning curve to keep up. But if we’re not also thinking through how we must change our approach to sales, that tech might not do us all that much good. So here’s a look at three ways technology has changed how we sell—and how we must adapt…

  1. Buyers go looking for information on their own.

These days, when buyers have a need, they go looking for answers on their own—and they’re not calling a sales rep to get those answers. According to Forrester:

  • 68% of prospects prefer to research on their own online
  • 60% prefer not to interact with a sales rep as their primary source of information
  • 62% say they can develop selection criteria or finalize a vendor list based on digital content

What does this mean for you and how you approach sales? You need to understand where the buyer is in the sales journey, and you need to be ready to offer them help and content appropriate to where they are in the process.

  1. The channels we use have changed.

Millennials do not like to use the phone. OK, they like to use their mobile phones, but not for phone calls. They use their mobile devices as communications tools, but for them that means texting, messaging and emailing.

What does this mean for you and how you approach sales? You need to know more about your prospect so your efforts are targeted, and you need to know how your prospect wants to be approached. Is email better than a phone call? What about a LinkedIn message? Do you have a mutual connection who can make an introduction?

  1. Social media is commonplace.

Salespeople used to build relationships in real life. Now we build them online as part of “social selling.” We network on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter and build relationships that way. In addition, customers are also turning to social media when they’re researching possible solutions to their problems—and the vendors that sell them.

What does this mean for you and how you approach sales? You need to be where your customers are. Research shows that salespeople who use social media outperform their competitors. Get active on the social platforms used by your prospects and build a presence—and relationships—there.

Technology will continue to transform how we live our lives, both personally and professionally. The upside is, we have more time to sell when processes can be automated and data drives our sales efforts. So let’s take that extra time we’re getting back to make sure our approach to sales is keeping pace with the technology—and equal to our customers’ expectations of us.

/by

Discounting Does Not Buy Loyalty

Reflecting on the past is a common occurrence.  Did results meet expectations, what improvements can be targeted for the future, what learning took place in the past?  These are all common questions that managers and leaders should be asking themselves.

More precise metrics are also available to judge past performance.  Were margins and profits sacrificed to meet sales quotas?  Quarter end and year end discounting are not uncommon but they do tend to diminish the margins that had been targeted in the profit plan.  We believe that this is an avoidable trap that can be addressed with advance planning, discipline and training.

The time to protect your margins is now.  By reviewing the opportunities in your pipeline you can determine the following:

  1. Do you have enough opportunities to provide you the revenue that you will be targeting at quarter end or year end?
  2. What is the confidence that those opportunities will close on the targeted timetable without needing to offer a steep discount?
  3. Do you have enough bandwidth to focus on all the potential opportunities or are you better served by grading them and focusing on the highest margin opportunities?  Let your competitors dissipate their resources chasing the low margin deals.
  4. Do you need to dial up business development to get more opportunities in the pipeline?

During a phone conversation with a VP of Sales, he told me that his team was busy “cutting deals” to hit their annual revenue plan. This is not selling, and the words chosen made my skin crawl. If your team seems to rely on discounting to get orders, maybe you need to focus more attention on your sales process and developing your team to sell value.  The value the customer will receive by using your product or service, not the discount they will get from price list.   Building the discipline to ask the customers the right questions to qualify them as a high or low margin opportunity is a learned skill.  It takes restraint for sales people who have been conditioned to close, close, close.  We know that margins can be improved with well trained sales teams and we’ve seen that happen hundreds of times.

Maximizing your profit margin doesn’t happen by accident.  It won’t happen by sending out a memo targeting desired margins for the coming reporting period either.  It is a result of leadership identifying the development plans needed for the sales team, providing the training, giving feedback on performance and ongoing coaching to reinforce the process that has been identified to close deals without needing to resort to deep discounts.

Revenue is important and sales quotas are an important part of a business plan.  Discounting adds risk as it increases the amount of products to manufacture or services that need to be delivered to achieve a given profit goal.  Start today to protect your margins in future quarters.  Having regular deal reviews will open your eyes to the reliability and quality of the opportunities in your pipeline.  Want to buy some margin insurance?  The time is now.

Flannery Sales Systems helps organizations develop and implement a repeatable sales process.  Improving the effectiveness of your sales organization is the key outcome we provide to clients.  We would welcome an opportunity to explore your needs and understand where your team could benefit from improved skills and sales processes.  Flannery Sales Systems works with a broad cross section of industries and we are confident we can enhance your results.

zp8497586rq
/by

MANAGING SELLING EXPENSE

salesIn the song “Cheaper to Keep Her”, the words spell out the trials and tribulations of whether to stay in a bad relationship or make the painful decision to cut ties.

Companies are always looking for a big finish; then the analysis begins.  The bottom line seems to get all the attention.  Did we make more money than we did last year?  Every expense gets the once over.  And the biggest expense in selling is walking around on two legs: the sales force.  The compensation, training, travel and entertainment and benefits all add up to the overall expense.  How can companies rationalize the investment in sales people?  When do Managers make the decision to stick with an average contributor, or move them out of the organization?

The three quantitative measurements in relation to expenses that Management needs to look at are total revenue produced, margin on sales, and the mix of products sold.  There are also important qualitative measurements that should be considered, and they will be addressed in the next article.

1.  Revenue Production:  The most common quantitative analysis done on sales people is at the macro level; did they hit their revenue number for the year?  The challenge is that some of the sellers who drive revenue have huge salaries and some do not.   In sports, the salary (expense) does not necessarily correlate to how well the athlete performs.  In business, the total expense associated with the revenue production must make sense.

2. Margin: A week after Q4 ends, most management teams can see what the net effect of last minute discounting when the reps buckle to pressure to close year end business. The exercise to protect margins should be built into a coaching formula that includes opportunity review. Once this is embedded, the mechanism should allow managers to know the profit that reps can obtain in closing situations.

3.  Product (and Service) Mix: Product mix will show if the sales person is selling the right products to the correct customers.  Let’s say a sales person consistently sells low on a medical device but the consumables for the device are sold at full price.  It will take twice the volume in consumables to make up for a discounted sale of the device.  These numbers tell a story and will point dramatically to drags to the bottom line.

After watching Moneyball,   the movie that documented the notion that winning in baseball boils down to how many players get on base during a game, you would think there is a scientific formula that could provide the answers to controlling selling expenses.  The good news is, for our customers that mechanism is in place.

Once fully implemented, a well created sales process can provide managers with a lens to look at these, and the related qualitative measurements, to determine if they should invest more time in developing sales people. In this capacity, “Cheaper to Keep Her” means continuously developing the skills with the seller to bring their performance up to speed in relation to the 3 areas mentioned above. Otherwise, it may be time to part ways with that employee, and begin the arduous task of replacing them with new talent.

zp8497586rq
/by