Sales Laundry

Archive for the ‘Sales Training’ Category

Getting ready for the Austin IT Symposium on Tuesday I made a few calls trying to find a 30” monitor for our table to loop a great video clip related to virtualization.  I was also on a mission to find something nice to raffle off as part of the event.

First stop, the AV company providing the equipment for the event, figuring this would be the easiest option with the least amount of work for me.  I was right, but I was not counting on the fact that $250 was the going rate to rent a monitor for 1 day.  That is the approximate price as a new TV/monitor.  Something is wrong with that model but that is a topic for another day.

Cut to Best Buy….

At Best Buy I admit I had high expectations and was not disappointed by the quantity and brands of televisions on display.  However, even with four+ Blue Shirts in the area and another guy trying to sell DirecTV systems, I could not get any assistance.

Cut to Sam’s Club…

At Sam’s Club, I was greeted in the TV section and asked if I needed any help.  He did a nice job of explaining the features and helping me figure out what feature/function trade-offs happen at different price points.

I asked him how he came to know so much about TVs and he said he did a little research on his own and asked the guys at Best Buy to explain the pieces he did not understand.  Sam’s guy got his TV education by walking down to Best Buy at the other end of the shopping center, but that is not the most interesting part.

A few more minutes of conversation revealed the guy did not even work for Sam’s Club.  He worked for DirecTV and was there to sell satellite systems.  Once I had my TV for the event he asked me if he could explain how DirecTV could give my new HD TV more HD channels, a lower monthly price and true 1080p HD quality that I was not getting from my cable provider.

I said yes.  Yes, because he earned it helping me.  Yes because he helped me solve a problem that many would say it was not in his best interest to do.

Through blind luck or careful planning, he discovered that helping me solve my problem of which TV to buy created an opportunity to talk about DirecTV.

Helping me solve my problem created a problem he could solve.

Contrast this guy with his counterpart at Best Buy selling Direct TV.  That guy was not interested in helping me buy a TV; he was only interested in selling DirecTV.

The lesson here is that even if you are the best and most knowledgeable sales professional on your particular product or service you are still going to miss opportunities if there are problems your customers need to solve before they can focus on your offering.  Get good at identifying the problems that keep your prospects from even considering your offering, learn how to help them solve those problems, and your sales efforts will be rewarded accordingly.

I heard an interesting quote today on a CIO Magazine webcast from Steven John, Strategic CIO of Workday, speaking about “The Cloud.”

“If you are doing what someone else can do then what only you can do is not getting done.”

Steven John, Strategic CIO, Workday

Steven’s point, that if another organization is more capable of doing what you are doing, give or take some due diligence, push the work out and focus your efforts on what you are uniquely skilled to do as an individual or a company, makes sense.

So much sense, in fact, corporations in this country have been following the strategy of pushing out jobs to the other side of the border and the other side of the world because the skill is there, the pay is low and they work while we sleep.  In short it does not make sense or cents to do the work here.

C-level executives are wrestling with this “Cloud” problem figuring out answers to “Cloud 101″ questions today like how to best deploy their human capital.  Tomorrow they will also be fighting upstart competitors in “Cloud 201: How not to get eaten by the little guy that has a lower cost basis than you and no legacy gear to work around.”

OK, so what does this have to do with you?

It is time for you to take stock and figure out what “only you can do” and get busy getting good at it before the Cloud comes and rains on your parade.

If you are an IT executive, look for opportunities to free up your IT resources.  Create an internal cloud; use a public provider or some hybrid model pitched by VMware and Citrix to push the things you don’t need to be doing, the commodities, to the line of business or a strategic partner.

Consultant?  Find and focus on your niche and push off everything else including and mowing the grass on those days you work from home to specialists if your revenue stream permits.

There are real live schools contemplating replacing teachers with computers in some specific test cases, how far could behind could a sales or consulting job be that is built on the model of being paid to educate others and demonstrate expertise?

As I build up the territory I am in, I am facing a similar problem today.  To hit my self-imposed targets for the year the math tells me I need to do more research and make more new contacts than it is practical for me to make in a day and still work on the rest of what I do.

I spent four hours building a nine page spreadsheet detailing every aspect of my business and defining the ratios I need to monitor to stay on track.  (in retrospect, probably should have farmed that task out)  Now I am faced with three choices.

1.  Keep doing what I was doing, and go look for my Ignorance is Bliss T-shirt.

2.  Focus on where I am strongest, building my community of customers and growing those relationships, pawn off low level client research and paperwork tasks, and follow my plan.

3.  Try to straddle the fence and will myself to do it all, not let anything fall through the cracks, maintain exceptional customer service, toss a hand grenade into my personal life and get “We miss you” cards from my kids at work because I am never home.

The quote I led off with and my spreadsheet exercise really opened my eyes.  This morning I would have said I was on track to have a great year.  Now I realize to hit my personal stretch-goal I need an assistant to help me find and research 2200 prospect firms with at least one of ten pain points, with a certain organizational structure and head count so I can have 200 meetings to earn 43 net new clients.

And I need to streamline my process so that this activity level will be practical and my own best intentions do not blow up in my face.

Can you make the changes that will let you find and focus in on what only you can do?

I’m ready.  Are you?  To the Cloud!

Q&A’s are excerpts of questions I have answered as part of Sales Laundry or other forums that I am apart of. If there is a relevant sales message for the masses I post it here to share, gather feedback and discuss.

Q: We have a strong sales guy, excellent with Small/Medium Enterprise accounts, but is obviously struggling to land large enterprise accounts and failing to sell them on our services.  He has not closed a single large enterprise opportunity.

I would appreciate any help in steering this guy in the right direction, any issues you feel they may have with these account types, and what plans/procedures/proposals may be put forward to resolve this issue. Thanks

A: The absolute best way to get to the bottom of the problem is to go with him on some SME account calls where he is excellent and some large account calls where he is struggling and see first hand where the challenges are getting the best of him.

The good news…

He is able to at least get an appointment with the Large Enterprise accounts, so he is able to convey value over the phone (I assume) to a viable company contact and get the meeting.

The fact that your sales professional is excellent with Small/Medium Enterprise accounts tells me he does have the ability to convey your products value to a prospective customer and secure a signed contract.

Areas to look for an answer…

The fact that he is struggling to land a Large Enterprise account does suggest some potential problem areas worth investigating.

1. SME accounts will almost always have fewer decision makers involved in making the ultimate decision to purchase your product while large accounts may have a handful of individuals scattered across the organization that need to be collectively convinced.

Look at who he is meeting with at the large accounts, is he uncovering all of the potential people involved in making the purchasing decision?  He might need help identifying who the key players are in large corporate environments and developing a successful strategy to get in front of all of them.

2. While he may be getting meetings at the large enterprises, I would evaluate his efforts at qualifying the person he is meeting with making sure they can make a purchasing decision vs. being an internal advocate that cannot influence vendor/product selection.

3. The problems of the SME customer may not be the same as the large enterprise customer.  If he is selling to the same pain points in a large enterprise as a SME account, he may be missing the mark by trying to solve problems the large enterprise does not have or are of too low a priority to garner immediate attention.

Ask him what pain points/problems he is trying to solve for the large enterprise and evaluate his answers with other sales professionals successfully landing large enterprise accounts.

4. Look at your historic sales cycles.  It is not uncommon for a sales cycle to be longer with a large enterprise account vs. a SME account because of the bureaucracy and volume of departments and decision makers that have to be won over to your offering.  Benchmark the sales cycle you went through to land your other Large Enterprise accounts and SME accounts and compare them to this sales professional’s benchmarks.

From my experience, the answer you are seeking is most likely somewhere within these four suggestions.  If, however, none of these seem to address the problem, pinpoint the specific areas (from first call to signed contract) where your sales process differs between your SME and Large Enterprise accounts.  Systematically work through each one of those identified areas with your sales professional as it is almost a certainty that one or more of them are the source of his struggles.

In twelve minutes, John Nese, owner of Galco’s Soda Pop Stop, is going to make you want a bottle of soda pop.  John is also going to teach you something that will change the way you look at soda pop from this day forward, and make you want to buy that bottle of soda from him.

A business focused on a niche makes for focused sales people.  Focused sales people become niche experts and niche experts, in many cases, sell circles around sales generalists without really trying that hard.

I like the way John said it better.

Ready for that soda pop?  Head on over to the Soda Pop Stop and say hello to John for me.

Networking.

Historically just saying that word out loud has made me think of smarmy business card exchange exercises with people that have a paper-thin layer of genuine friendliness masking unfathomable depths of desperation and a near unstoppable urge to smack you over the head with their latest product pitch just because you happened to be standing suspiciously out in the open, unprotected, and dared to make eye contact with them at a business after hours event.

Just typing that makes me want to go wash my hands.  Yuck.

Why then do we even entertain the idea of slapping a plastic grin on our faces and moving about uncomfortably stuffing our pockets with random business cards?

We do it because we have been told that “networking” is important to our careers.

Which it absolutely is.

Unfortunately, who ever tossed out that bit of sage advice failed to leave proper instructions on how to “network” properly.  Thus the “biological business card dispenser” model was born, and the mere thought of attending a networking event is met by most with the same level of disdain reserved for the drill at the dentists’ office.

We have been bamboozled, my friends.  That is  not “networking.”  That is just a more polite form of Rockum Sockum Robots I like to call “notworking.”

The right way to network

So how can anyone build a solid network of people to help their business without feeling like they have been collecting business cards while wading chest deep in a pool of snail slime?

Networking for me got a whole lot less “slimy” when I stopped thinking about “me” and about the important stuff I had to say and started listening to the person I was talking to, and thinking how I could help them solve their problem/be more successful.

With the simple change in mindset of looking to help someone else first, dozens of new opportunities to genuinely connect with people began to present themselves.

As you listen to someone talk you will discover some of the things that are really important in their lives and you will find some new paths to connect with them outside of tradeshows and seminars where you can form a relationship that can help you move right past the gate keeper when it is time to talk business.

Here are a few ideas to get the wheels turning:

Start with the small stuff

Everyone in the room has something in common.  They are people.  (Godzilla and Bigfoot do not typically attend these things.)  They are people that have, more or less, the same problems and daily challenges you face.  Start with the small stuff, share something personal, and let the conversation unfold.

Listen for all of the opportunities to help, not just the ones your company’s product or service can fix. Is their child having a hard time in school or looking for an entry level job?  Offer to connect them with someone in your network that can help.  Are they relocating?  Buying a car?  Need a new cell phone?  Need some contacts to get their business going?  Planning an anniversary?  Need help pulling off a customer appreciation event?  There are opportunities to connect at some level in all of the “stuff” we fill our lives with.

Figure out who you want to network with in advance. Do your best to figure out who you want to meet at an event and position yourself to make that acquaintance instead of randomly trolling about the room.  Research them online so you can pick up some of their specific interests and have something relevant to say.

Prepare a small secondary event. For the handful of people you meet at an event that you would really like to get to know better, invite them all to join you for dinner/drinks after the event to continue the conversation.

“Networking” does not have to be a negative experience that leaves you feeling like you just ate a four pound bag of French fries.  It can be a very rewarding experience to know that someone is better off in some small way because of your selfless actions.  I would sum it up this way:

“Listen and give and you will get more than you gave.”

There are some fantastic thought leaders on the topic of networking I urge you to explore.

Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone and current NY Times best seller Who’s Got Your Back is a great resource.  You can also tap into the Never Eat Alone LinkedIn group, of which I am a member, as well.

Andy Lopata, which someone in my network pointed out to me, also known as “Mr. Network” in the UK and author of two books on the subject of networking, Building a Business on Bacon and Eggs and …and Death Came Third! You can catch more good stuff from Andy’s blog Connecting is Not Enough.

Image courtesy of http://www.marriedtothesea.com

I was posed this problem recently so I thought I would open up discussion to you and get your input.  What is the best path to grow sales for this company based on what we know below?

A company is manufacturing and selling 25 different products.

Company sales are split approximately 50/50 between wholesale and retail channels.

Sales cycles are short, the company is on cash terms with most of its suppliers, but the five year old company is making a 20% profit annually on just under a million in revenue.

The manufacturing facility is at 100% capacity with no ability to outsource and does not enough cash/assets to leverage for expansion.

50% of company sales come from one product and demand is increasing.  The remaining 50% of sales is split evenly among the remaining 24 products.

Removing any one product from the lineup will anger some segment of the customer base and potentially impact sales to some unknown degree for every other product.

Cash flow is tight because the company is still paying off the last expansion and the largest customers want the company to extend Net 10 terms to Net 30 and some are asking for Net 60 terms on payment.

The sales team is being actively pushed to sell the entire product line every day.

You are hired as the companies first VP of Sales charged with overseeing a sales staff of 8 retail and 2 wholesale sales representatives and finding someway to get past these issues and grow the business to a point where the company can afford another expansion.

The existing retail sales staff is working at maximum capacity, and just able to cover sick days.  Customer service is at an acceptable level.

The wholesale sales staff is getting irritated because their income has been capped by the manufacturing facilities inability to increase supply, and competitors in the market are promising no such problems for sales staff working in their facilities.

If everything holds steady with no significant equipment breakdowns or cash expenditures, the President has told you it will be 3 years before the company can afford the necessary expansion.

What would be your solution to this problem and how would you grow the business?

Image courtesy of jefftzucker.wordpress.com

Big or small, we should all be actively working to prevent our products and services from sliding in importance for our consumers and being recategorized as a low priority as our customers retrench and re-shuffle priorities in this new economic climate.

What are you doing to raise your profile with your prospects and customers, compelling them to spend their hard earned dollars with you instead of sitting on the sidelines waiting for better days?

In this downturn, some huge companies are pushing new innovations to enhance the buying experience.  A few others are trying some far reaching ideas to connect with customers in a meaningful and personal way to gently nudge them into continuing to purchase their products.

Previously, I have written about what Kellogg’s is doing to make a bowl of breakfast cereal more important by tying breakfast cereal to our children’s education.  I have also written about Domino’s Pizzas use of technology to enhance the pizza delivery experience.

Today I noticed Microsoft paired itself with the infamous Jack Welch and Suzy Welch as co-hosts of a new online program (everybodysbusiness.msn.com) delving headlong into the problems faced by brand name (Hertz & Domino’s Pizza so far) businesses.  Jack and Suzy guide a diverse executive group in identifying some real challenges the company faces and then leverage the groups collective experience to find some legitimate solutions in a very candid way that makes you the viewer feel like you are sitting in the boardroom with them, watching and listening to an honest conversation you would otherwise never get to hear.

With the help of Jack and Suzy, Microsoft delivers valuable entertaining content that stands on its own, but still manages to drive the company message and squeeze in a stealth mini case study.  I for one am happy to report I did not feel like I had just swallowed a twenty minute Microsoft infomercial.

After watching this was I compelled to run out and setup a server farm driven by Microsoft products?  No, but I now understand in a subtle way that a lot of the technology Domino’s has in place across almost all of their stores, including their powerful online pizza delivery system is built on Microsoft technology, so Microsoft can probably handle the needs of my business.  I am not certain, though, how Microsoft fits into the Hertz solution by watching the show.

I just consumed a Microsoft case study reframed as (and rightly so) as a content rich business dialog with Jack Welch, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Enough about Kellogg’s, Domino’s, and Microsoft, how can we make your product a more compelling purchase?  What can we tie your offering to that enhances you brand and ultimately sales?  How can we take a product that has dropped in priority with your buyers and get them snapping up your goods again?

I know several of you out there, so I am going to offer up a few ideas that will hopefully get you and everyone else reading this to expand your thinking.

Mortgage Industry. – Could you put together real/virtual seminars providing honest advice and resources for people struggling to pay their mortgage and help them save their homes?

If you could help me keep my home, or cross the great divide from renting to home ownership, helping me avoid the pitfalls along the way, you would earn my loyalty in a way the cheapest mortgage rate on Bankrate.com never could.

Copier/Office Machine Industry. – Every business of any size has some form of copier they bought/leased, right?  Could you setup business forums introducing clients that could benefit by doing business with each other?  Could you setup a lead exchange program identifying a need at one client business and passing that information along to another client business to potentially fill that need?

Bringing my business real leads and I just might be more likely to accept a slightly higher price for my supplies.  Real leads would certainly inspire my loyalty more than a cold-call walk-in four-legged (the new copier sales guy and his Sales Manager, typically) sales call ever could.

Can you think bigger?

Annual charity drives to collect reams of paper for a local school district or charity organization in your region?  Could you put together a toner cartridge recycling program for your city?  Have a big service fleet of vehicles?  How about delivering or augmenting Meals on Wheels efforts?

What about every other business?

How can you raise your importance to your community and the need for your product?  What programs or partnerships could you put in place to positively change the perception of your business and its support of your community?

Think out loud about your business and how you can raise customer loyalty and the priority of the problems your product solves in your customer’s eyes.

Think until you hear a “Wow” in your head, then tell me about what you came up with and let me know if I can help.