From the location of his first sales training meeting in 1987, and the Olympics in ’96 to today, John is in Atlanta, Georgia.
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As humans, we tend to want to swoop in and fix things, often starting with the things that are most broken and most in need of repair. As sales managers, we pride ourselves on being fixers and judge ourselves on our ability to effectively coach our teams and give them the resources they need to be successful.
But, just as not all salespeople are created equal (see Bottom Third Sales Coaching) nor are the opportunities they put in the pipeline. In both cases, though our tendency may be to start with the team members and opportunities that are most in need, this impulse is often detrimental to our overall success. Just as with the bottom third of our sales reps, the bottom third of our opportunities will rarely move the needle regardless of how much time or energy we put into them. Often these are opportunities that have not been well qualified and are not well suited to our product or service capabilities. Additionally, despite equal or greater time investment, they may not have the revenue potential that some of the other opportunities have.
So, what’s the answer? As difficult as it can be, the answer is to put less time into your bottom third. Instead, focus your time on B and C opportunities. Why not your A opportunities? Because your top 10% of opportunities are so well qualified and such a good fit, that they’ll likely close with little to no involvement from you. So, spend your time on the B and C opportunities, helping your reps understand how your product or service will help their prospects increase revenue, decrease costs or mitigate risks. Spend time thoroughly qualifying these ones up front so they have a higher likelihood to close.
Neglecting the bottom third of your opportunities is not shirking your sales managerial responsibilities; in fact, reallocating your time to focus on the 60% of your core B and C opportunities will be the best way to support your sales reps going forward by helping them move the needle.
An excerpt from San Diego Voyager Magazine.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Flannery Sales Systems, LCC – What should we know?
At a cocktail party or BBQ I say we do Sales Training. What we really do is help our customers to refine and implement a repeatable process to drive revenue. If I say the latter at a social event, people walk away (joking). But if I am speaking with a Commercial Leader of a mid to large size organization, they get it.
Because the work we do is fundamental to the tactical execution of the GoTo Market strategy. And companies spend millions on getting their strategy right. We help our customers to improve the quality of the Sales opportunities they develop, and to increase the overall revenue in their pipeline. All Sales organizations are focused on this, and we enable it with a skills-based program that is custom built for our customers based on the markets they compete in and how organizations BUY, not how they should be selling.
Sales effectiveness is about understanding buying, not refining your sales pitch. The source of pride for us is twofold. First, we have helped the individuals in our customers’ organizations to improve their success. This is important monetarily, but even more so when you hear the effect it has on their families – that makes my heart sing.
And second, there are seven customers who have come back to buy from us again: four have bought from us twice, and three have done so 3 times. It may not be seen like a lot, but we only have 3-4 customers at a time and have worked with 56 overall, so the repeat business says we are doing something right.
What sets us apart is our team. I know that may seem trite or overused, but people buy from people, and we have super individuals at FSS who make the difference.
Flannery Sales Systems is grateful to have completed a successful virtual sales process and sales skills training workshop with Pathtech Pty Ltd. And surprise guest, Australian Gold Medalist Kerri Pottharst showed up! Thank you Ashley Goodman.
Last week, the new owner of our office building (so glad to NOT be working from home) put our logo on the glass door out front (see the photo attached). It looks great, although they changed the logo color for the name “Flannery” from blue to purple. I like it. A lot.
It reminds me that many things are simply not the same right now. It’s strange, and I am grateful for the opportunity for perspective in this environment.
We just conducted another virtual Sales Process Workshop through Zoom for a new customer in Australia , and it went very well by their account. Their participants were engaged, the exercises were given full attention, and they will get results from their efforts. It’s not the same as face-to-face, but it works. I’m grateful for the technology.
In the absence of being able to travel, we welcomed the new customer in cyberspace and built rapport as best we could. I miss travel badly, as it is part of the grand adventure of creating relationships in customer organizations and helping people improve. And for my personal growth, travel allowed me to be readily seeing new places, people and things. For now, it will have to be virtual, across the screen in various global time zones; I’m grateful for our customers’ willingness to embrace the experience.
Sitting atop the door in the picture is the prominent COVID 19 warning sign, the ones you are seeing all over the place to remind us to take all precautions we can to stay safe. And most of us do take those precautions—remarkably, some still do not. Selfish. We live and work in a beautiful part of the country where much of life happens outdoors, providing opportunities for gratitude all around us.
If I get stuck in the trap of comparing the ways things were “before” to the way they are now, my learning stops and my ability to grow is limited. By embracing the shift, and seeing what’s possible with the human spirit, gratitude floats.
*Article title inspired by John Lennon’s song “Nobody Told Me”. Have a listen here.
This guest article was written by Chris Bullick. Chris is a Principal Consultant who is the Creator of the Sales Diagnostic Questionnaire (“SDQ”), he provides analysis and strategy for go to market strategies, corporate messaging, pipeline metrics, relationship building and winning presentations.
I was speaking with a wildly successful colleague recently and she relayed the story of her latest accomplishment. The company she was selling to was not necessarily in buying mode. They reached out to a few vendors to conduct general capabilities presentations. She had never met the buyer.
My friend’s presentation blew the doors off the buyer. The buyer immediately put the wheels in motion to contract with my friend’s company to provide services to his and they never talked price until the actual closing.
When I asked my friend what did the trick, she said her team prepared as if it was biggest and most important finalist presentation they had ever participated in.
Best Practice: Treat every meeting like a finalist presentation. Learn how to prepare for the big day.
She brought the team who would service the account, the potential account manager, a regional executive and a video from her company’s CEO imbedded into her PowerPoint that was customized for the prospect. She noted that her biggest competitor was presenting right after her. They sent one person and she learned later that their presentation was a generic one-page marketing piece.
Best Practice: Bring the team. It’s great practice for those who are not in front of customers every day. If you don’t win, you still may be setting the table for the future with that prospect. Learn how to get your whole team comfortable presenting.
Imagine that! Allocating resources full bore on a deal with a low probability of success. Do other organizations do that? The answer is not many. A lot of organizations handicap themselves out of deals. They look in their CRM and see that they have tried to sell to that buyer in the past without success. They think the buyer is just kicking tires or leveraging them on price. Another great excuse is they haven’t met the buyer yet. They place a low percentage of winning in the CRM.
The organizations that handicap themselves will not allocate resources on a low percentage deal. They will tell their sales people not to spend so much time on a deal like that, don’t burden marketing, don’t take anyone important and use generic marketing materials. In doing so, they take the passion, urgency, energy and enthusiasm out of the deal. They have set themselves up to fail.
Best Practice: Don’t skimp on preparation and resources. Learn how to prepare the right way and bring the right resources to every meeting.
Winning companies tell their sales people to jump in with both feet. It’s alright to drop everything, muster your resources, and prepare with a mindset that you are winning the business right then and there. When you present with conviction and purpose it reveals your company’s attention to detail, planning and execution.
Many sales executives are laser focused on filling their pipelines for the year. Successful sales leaders know that a pipeline filled with qualified opportunities is essential to building sustained and repeatable revenue results, which is ultimately the fuel that drives organizational success.
But the path to get to a healthy pipeline is not necessarily well understood and includes a number of variables, including the talent of the sales reps, market shifts, government regulations, and the competitive landscape. Despite these factors, there is one element that remains constant – selling skills. In order to have sales reps who successfully fill the pipeline with qualified opportunities, they must know how to identify, qualify, develop opportunities.
Most sales managers are well versed in deal coaching. This means they know how to help their reps assemble the right mix of product and pricing to meet a customer’s requirements. While this is important, it does not address the fundamental need to understand how well the rep has qualified the opportunity, identified key players, and aligned your product/service offerings to meet the prospect’s business objectives. Each of these three steps requires specific skills, and managers who help their reps improve these skills are ones that will see the biggest impact to their overall sales pipelines and year-end results.
Want to understand what prevents your sales managers from prioritizing skills coaching? Check this article out. And Look here for tips on successful skills coaching strategies.
Virtually all the experts would agree that the following mistakes are commonplace when salespeople start to negotiate. Awareness of these challenges may improve your ability to negotiate considerably.
- Getting emotionally involved. This one tops the list because, above all, your attitude toward something determines your success. If you appear needy, conveying the message to your prospect that you’ll do almost anything to get the business, your prospect will sense this weakness and exploit it. Avoid statements like, “We’d really like to get this done,” “I need this to make my quota this month,” and “What do we need to do to get you to buy from us?”
- Making unilateral concessions. A unilateral concession is agreeing to a prospect’s request too quickly, and without asking for something of equal or greater value in return. For example, your prospect asks you to lower your price by 5%. Your response is, “Sure, we can do that.” Put yourself in your prospect’s shoes and reflect on what message your response sent. First, he or she is undoubtedly thinking that since you agreed so easily, he or she should have asked for more. Second, he or she knows that since you dropped your prices so easily, you’ve probably overpriced the product or service. This creates doubt about the overall quality of what you’re selling. Finally, you’ve demonstrated your inexperience as a negotiator, opening yourself for more abuse as the negotiation goes on.
- Not understanding the prospect’s pain and alternatives. This is your “ace in the hole” and without it, you are defenseless. As we’ve previously mentioned in this book, most salespeople qualify poorly, betting on their powers of persuasion, features, and benefits, and charming personalities to get the job done. That doesn’t work. It’s very difficult, if not impossible, to stand your ground if you don’t know what the prospect’s business objectives are, and the downside if the problem is not fixed. Therefore, you must uncover how severe their pain is, how it impacts both the company and the individual you’re negotiating with, and what happens if the problem doesn’t get resolved through negotiations.
- Talking too much. When you are monopolizing the conversation it’s impossible to “read” your customer or learn what their specific needs are. You’re giving information, not receiving it. Falling into this trap is a sure way to lose.
- Not understanding your objectives and value items. Failure to have worked out, in advance, your list of primary (best case) and secondary (fall back) objectives will create confusion and indecision for you. If you don’t, you’ll just end up winging it, which is a surefire road to disaster.
Want to read more about negotiating? Try our earlier blog posts 5 Ways to Turn the Tide When Negotiating and The Art of Making Concessions.