Why Everybody Needs a Sales Coach

Everybody needs a sales coach, even the most experienced deal maker.  A second opinion about strategy and tactics always adds value, even if it’s just cause to check any assumptions.

But that’s not the point of this particular article.  The sales coach we’re talking about here is the internal coach – somebody on the inside who wants to buy and will help the sales person know what’s being said inside the prospective customer, and how to respond.

We explain this in some detail in the Principles of Professional Selling describing the three emotional phases the buyer goes through during the sales process.  At first the prospect is quite open, ready to talk about requirements, and selection process, and influences.  In the second phase the prospect becomes more guarded, offering less information about how colleagues are thinking.  Provided the progress of the buy/sell process builds confidence the buyer will move into the third phase – coaching the sale.

In the background the buyer has decided a particular vendor’s offer will meet the needs and persuaded others involved in the decision to agree.  Now her job is coaching the sales guy into shaping the deal to something acceptable to all of the interested parties.

The sales representative who understands how this happens has an advantage over the competition.  Recruiting the internal coach becomes a milestone in the sales plan.

This should be built in to every sales strategy.  Deals in which there is no internal coach rarely result in contracts.  Recruit a coach and the reverse is true.

The first question sales managers need to ask in the bid review is “who will be our coach?”.

The Role of Questions in Your Sales Process

Asking questions is fundamental to your sales process.  That’s become an accepted fact in sales training over recent years.  Long gone are the days when trainers coached sales people in only asking questions the prospect would respond to with a Yes, thankfully.

There’s a couple of articles in Customer Collective which suggest the role of questions is establishing a conversation with the buyer.  Dave Brock tells us It’s Not About The Questions, It’s About The Conversation and Paul McCord writes about Questioning the Value of Questions in the Sales Process.  Both report on the same discussion, with their own perspective on the subject.  And of course they’re both absolutely right, but there’s another perspective we can add to the discourse.

Only a couple of weeks ago Bob Apollo asked Is Your Organisation Paying the Penalty for Poor Sales Qualification.  His contribution explains why sales people need to look for the reasons why prospects are in buying mode.  Knowing why an organisation is buying  - the business imperative – is critical to both a decision to bid and the strategy for the sale.  Of course, we agree.

This is where the two streams of thought come together.  One says we need to create a conversation with the objective of engaging the client.  The other suggests we need to create the conversation to find out why the customer will buy, something.

Our contribution to the topic is we need to ask questions to find out How the customer will buy.

Dave and Paul rightly explain this interaction is about turning You and We into Us.  Bob explains there’s a basic dimension of Why.

And our addition is sales people need to find out the How.

1. Is there a budget?
2. Who makes the final decision?
3. When will the selection of a vendor be made?
4. Who will be considered for that selection and why would you buy from them?
5. How will that selection be made?
6. What do we need to do to get the decision in our favour?

This is a completely different set of questions which achieve 3 objectives.

• We agree with the prospect a joint Buy/Sell process.
• We can decide whether we are in to win it, or keep somebody else honest.
• We can work out how we are going to win it – our sales strategy and our sales plan.

Sales people who ask questions create a new level of relationship with the prospect .  They can decide whether to bid, or walk away.  And if they decide to engage they’ll be able to plan how they’ll win. We describe this as Sales Probability Process Management.

On it’s own conversation won’t guarantee the sale.  Knowing why won’t either.  But engaging in a conversation about why and how sets the foundations for a win for both buyers and vendors.

New Sales Manager in the 1st Quarter

So you took the promotion to sales manager.  Congratulations.  Well done.  But a word of caution.  Life at work is going to be considerably more difficult from now on.  Luckily in the 1st quarter everybody will give you some time to get settled, I hope at least.  Now’s the time to set the agenda for the rest of your tenure.  Get the relationships and processes right now and you’ll always be in charge.  On the other hand using this  time to win friends (and influence people)  will put everybody else in the driving seat, with you carrying responsibility without any authority.

Our Succeeding in Sales Management tutorial will give you a head start on both the sales team and your management.

It explains the dynamics in this unusual situation – who will try to do what, and how you can respond.  It suggests positive attitudes and actions you can take, and ways you can explain to both sales team members and your management  how you’ll make a difference.

The sales manager’s challenges come from both sides of the coin.  Reps want a manager who will fix their perceived problems with product, and pricing, and marketing.  Management want a manager who’ll get the sales people doing what they’re told, by Marketing, by Customer Service, by Human Resources, and by Accounting.  The 1st quarter is their opportunity to influence the new sales manager and set the agenda in their interests.

What they actually want is leadership.  Somebody who can point the way to improved business results without the usual tensions between those who make the money and the others who spend it.

That’s what the new sales manager can, and needs to, do in the 1st quarter.

Best of Luck

Sales Strategy Role for Value Proposition

What role does value proposition play in a sales strategy? Or maybe what is a sales strategy, and what is a value proposition, and why should anybody care? The answer to those questions depends on how much you enjoy kissing frogs.

You’ll remember the Brothers Grimm fairy tale where the princess kissed the frog, and the frog turned into a handsome prince who married her. The happy couple lived together in marital bliss for the rest of their lives.

Unfortunately that silly story has influenced sales management philosophy ever since it was written. All any sales person has to do is call enough people, pitch the product as confidently as possible, and pray – this frog might be the prince. Pucker Up and ignore the smell. Still a frog never mind – and on to the next.

Sales people who like the taste of frogs need read no further. Off you go the nearest street corner.

Those who don’t enjoy the prospect of green lips will be pleased to know there is a better way. We’ll call it a value proposition with a sales strategy for selling and delivering it.

The value proposition needs to be a clear, credible and unique explanation of how the customer will benefit from whatever the vendor wishes to provide. Defining a value proposition can be a tougher job than you might think, because it must be about customers, it must be real, and it must be unique.

Now that’s tied down, the value proposition directs the development of the sales strategy.

The target customer is already defined, so any business which doesn’t fit the demographic isn’t going to be a prospect. There’s no point in calling or even pitching.

Since the target proposal is similarly defined, the other dimensions of the strategy need to be developed, tested and refined. These will all be about process – how people within the demographic will find out about, understand, and take advantage of the benefit promised.

Of course it takes a lot of work to figure all this out and doesn’t feel quite as active as cold calling every name on the list. It doesn’t quite sit with the folklore about hot shot superstar sales people. But it does work.

Using this approach sales leaders can make sure every frog they talk to is a prince.

Is Your Sales Strategy Easy to Buy

Every sales strategy needs to be easy to buy.  Sorry if that’s perverse, or trite, or over intellectual consulting speak.  It isn’t meant to be.  But let me explain.

Your sales strategy needs to be easy to buy by everybody in your business, and especially to your sales and customer service teams.  It needs  to be easy to buy, by your customers and prospects and it needs to present the value proposition in a package which is easy for those prospects to buy.

The sales strategy needs to present exactly who will benefit from the proposition, why and how those people will buy from you, and how you’ll deliver it to assure the customer maximum benefit at minimum risk.

Here’s the detail.

Your Teams

Everybody in the business needs to buy into the proposition, believing in the genuine value it will deliver.

There’s nothing more destructive to sales operations than a bunch of mavericks selling a different story, just because they don’t like it.  Every sale exists within a market, and people within that market talk to each other, one way or another.  If one sales person pitches cost, another pitches quality and yet another promotes convenience, everybody gets confused.  Confused prospects rarely make good business partners.

Except maybe the customer service team can be more destructive.  The service rep who tells complaining customers “I wish they’d stop telling customers that” undermines everything you’re working to achieve.

Your Customers

Explaining to customers the detail of your sales strategy may not sound a good idea.  Why go into that stuff when the prospect only cares about what’s in the proposal for her.

Customers like to feel comfortable when making that final vendor selection.  They have to find ways of justifying to themselves the decision they’re about to make.

When your entire business model is focused on delivering value to the customer’s specific demographic that comfort comes easily.  Explaining to customers how your thinking specifically targets them and their needs makes them feel part of a special group, and more confident in your ability to deliver.

Your Value Proposition

This is the dimension you’d expect.  Prospects rarely decide to buy when the contract, or delivery is complicated.  That complexity simply gives them more reason to delay the decision.  When the value proposition is clear, credible and attractive the only barrier can be the buying process.  Simplifying that process makes you an attractive partner, because you are easy to buy from.

Sales Strategy

There are many more dimensions to developing an effective sales strategy than the ideas presented in this article but making it easy for everybody to buy into is fundamental.  We’ll look at the other dimensions in future articles.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Sales Guys

by stevensreeves

in SPPM

What’s the difference between good and bad sales people,and how can you assess them. Is it activity rates, close rates, total sales, or margin, or customer satisfaction? Maybe it’s just making target quarter after quarter.

The red meat issue, for those who don’t know about selling, is activity. It’s a simple measure, and easy to use when pushing the sales team to work harder. It makes sense doesn’t it – the more calls you make the more business you’ll take.

Does that mean the one making the most calls is the best of the bunch? Not in my book. There are far too many variables, and too often the bad sales rep will win business while the good professional doesn’t.

The best way to assess sales reps’ skills is how they use your sales process. That process is designed to bring in quality business, with good margins and an expectation the customer will be satisfied with what’s delivered; and it should do all that at a reasonable cost of sale.

Sales Probability Performance Management shows managers how well the reps use their sales process. We’ve built Fayol’s management principles into the workflow with milestones, and added colour coding to make the review element intuitive.

Here are examples of prospect lists from the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly sales people. The list is ordered by expected close date with next to close at the top. Probability is calculated based on the number of milestones completed. Deals under 50% probability are presented in red. Those between 50% and 70% are presented in amber while deals over 70% are presented in green.

We’ve kept the customers and values the same for each example to help illustrate the differences.

The Good

The good, or professional, sales rep’s prospect list shows how deals progress through the probability curve as the close date nears. Sales opportunities at the top of the list are shown in green whilst those further away need more work.

The Bad

The bad, or unprofessional, sales rep’s prospect list shows a different story. At the top of the list the deals are showing little or no probability whilst a couple in the middle are at 60%. This rep isn’t using the process to control the sale. Any success will be down to luck, not expertise and application.

The Ugly

The ugly is what you’ll find in most prospect lists – a mixed bag of deals at various levels of probability, with little correlation to close date. This rep uses the process at times but not always. The opportunities in red at the top just shouldn’t be there. S/he should have decided to give up on those and spend the sales time progressing the ones shown in amber. Instead s/he’s left them in the prospect list to pad out the total.

The Sales Manager

This methodology for forecasting sales helps managers identify reps who need support in the sale, or additional training, or a different job.

When the team’s aggregated prospect list looks like the Bad or the Ugly there are problems with the product and the sales strategy. Effective sales operations management will get the whole team’s list looking the Good. That’s how you’ll know the strategy, product, process are right for the business.

Successful Sales Management

Check out our Sales Management tutorials for more coaching in strategy, tactics, processes, systems and tools; all explained in short courses to help you improve the performance of your sales operations.

5 Ways to Forecast Sales – Which One is Yours?

by stevensreeves

in Sales Forecasting

How many methods or techniques are there for sales forecasting? There are 5, in my experience, offering varying accuracy and utility. Here’s the background and a short explanation of each.

We all know forecasting sales is a tricky business. It always involves some element of hope, combines a little fear, and is based on some level of confidence. And it always goes wrong. Accurate forecast is an oxymoron – a combination of words contradicting each other.

Nevertheless forecasting sales, revenue, profit and cash flow is the most fundamental of business processes. Everybody has to do it, so all the other business decisions can get made.

Quite how it gets done varies, depending on who does it, and decisions to be made based on the results. For example, the under performing sales rep is hardly likely to forecast no sales and keep the job for long. Likely response to forecasts results can have as much influence on the numbers as can the facts.

Here are the 5 methods I’ve seen used.

1 – Hope

Of course trying to do anything requires a degree of optimism – some combination of aspiration and hope. If you’re selling stuff, or employing somebody else to do that for you, aspiring to reach a given level and hoping to achieve it is an admiral approach to setting targets. But its no way to set a forecast, on which you or anybody else will base decisions. Aspirations are targets not forecasts.

2 – Fear

Fear of the consequences of forecasting is a powerful incentive to self delusion. The under performing sales rep will keep her job for another quarter if the forecast promises to make up for past failings. The struggling business owner will get an extension to his credit line for another six months if the cash flow is positive in the future. Both will have to face reality one day, but at least not today. Forecasts based on fear only delay the inevitable by making matters worse.

3 – Guesswork

Accurate forecasting is impossible, so the only sensible approach is a simple guess. Will that customer buy? Will the competition do something silly with price? Will the CFO provide the budget. Most sales people don’t know the answers to these questions, so they guess – yes, no, or maybe.

4 – Confidence

Most professional sales operations use Confidence as the basis of sales forecasts. Recognising nobody gets every deal on the prospect list, sales managers will apply a factor to the estimated value of each sale to get to a weighted probability adjustment. For example Customer A has a proposal for $100k. The sales rep is 70% confident of winning so the estimated value is adjusted to $70k. The aggregate of weighted probability adjusted values is more likely to be accurate than the other three methods. But it’s still based on a guess. The adjusting Confidence factor is a guess, so the result must be equally a guess. It just sounds more scientific.

5 – Process

Our Process method adds real science to the preparation of sales forecasts. It can be standardised across all sales opportunities and improved through closed loop feedback. It’s more accurate than any other method, and actually adds value to sales operations, being tightly aligned with the sales strategy and process. It becomes a competitive advantage for teams adopting the concept.

Breaking the sales process down into milestones creates a logical progression from first call to contract. Assigning a percentage value to each milestone, and adjusting the forecast value by that percentage as the milestone is reached, increases the weighted value of the forecast. The only way the sales rep can get an higher forecast is by achieving the milestones, each of which make the successful sale more likely.

In this example the list is ordered by close date – next to close at the top – and colour coded for probability.  As deals move up the list they should progress from Red, through Amber to Green.  This colour coding draws attention to the at risk deals.  Any red at the top of the list tells you to get to work on the deal or get ready to lose it.

We’ve built on 30 years experience managing sales operations by adding management science to develop our sales forecasting methodology. Our Sales Probability Performance Management method can be adjusted to suit any business, and improved as managers learn from what it tells them about sales reps, prospects and processes.

Successful Sales Management

Check out our Sales Management tutorials for more coaching in strategy, tactics, processes, systems and tools; all explained in short courses to help you improve the performance of your sales operations.

What is sales forecasting to you? What does it for your business? How do you calculate your forecasts and act on the results?

Most people don’t understand the point of it, because usually it doesn’t work, for them at least. But with the right techniques, sales forecasting can make a big difference in any business. Here’s how.

To me sales forecasting is fundamental to any business plan, and business owners, investors, accountants and bank managers all agree. Without some understanding of future sales, planning cash flow is impossible. Planning customer service is likewise difficult. Deciding how much to spend on variable costs – wages, materials and equipment – is gambling without a form book.

There’s another, and equally important, reason to forecast sales. Figuring out who will buy what and when, then checking what actually happens is the best way owners, managers and representatives can figure out what works for their business, and what doesn’t. And that includes just how good the sales people really are.

To summarise – without sales forecasting the business is like a ship without a rudder. There’s no way of controlling where it goes, and the wind usually blows ships onto the rocks.

Disaster is ever present for any business, or sales person, who doesn’t forecast sales. Regardless of whether the planning works out, or whether the forecast turns out to be accurate, or the type of business, failure to plan future income with sales forecasting is planning to fail.

Interested in finding out more about what sales forecasting is and how to use it to your competitive advantage, and business success? Our tutorial Sales Probability Process Management will lift your game in the race against competition.

We’ve developed sales forecasting from art into science and embedded in a total philosophy for sales management, including philosophy, strategy, tactics, processes, systems and tools all explained in our Success in Sales Management series.