The Ultimate Sales Executive Resource (TUSER)

The Second Dimension of Learning Goals for Sales Training Initiatives

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 16:16:00 +0000

In my last post, I suggested using Bloom’s Taxonomy with 6 levels of learner’s sophistication to define Learning Goals. I also mentioned that formulating Learning Goals at sophistication levels three (apply) and higher is necessary but not sufficient for Sales Training Initiatives having a sustainable impact on sellers’ performance.

The Scale of Learners' Proficiency

The second dimension, to be considered, is the scale of learners’ proficiency from Gloria J. Gary (Gary 1991). There are six levels of skill outcomes where Familiarization is the lowest level, followed by Comprehension, Conscious Effort, Conscious Action, Proficiency and Unconscious Competence as the highest level. I consider that the first two levels of the proficiency scale are passive and will not lead to actions. The level of Unconscious Competence is not a level to strive for if we want sellers to remain reflective about their actions and to continue learning. Very often, you find sellers who are not able to articulate what makes them successful (unconscious competent). For a transformational initiative to be successful, they must first accept the conscious incompetent status before they can attain a new desired conscious competent state (proficiency).

A combined view on Learners’ Sophistication and Proficiency

I found Julie Dirksen’s (Dirksen 2016) approach, to position Learning Goals in a space defined by the two axes (Level of Sophistication and Level of Proficiency), very pertinent for a holistic understanding of setting Learning Goals. However, as indicated above, I doubt that the complete space formed by the two scales in their entirety is exploitable for setting Learning Goals leading to Sales Training initiatives delivering sustainable results.

The exploitable space on the sophistication axis starts therefore at level 3 (apply). Sophistication levels for Learning Goals depend on the complexity of the task a learner is expected to perform to support the execution of business strategies.

For sales tool training, level 3 is sufficient. However useful actions cannot be derived by simply using the tool. As the man said, “A fool with a tool remains a fool”. Additional training initiatives (process and methodology) with higher sophistication levels up to Create are needed.

I have seen many CRM implementation failing because the initiation of the sellers to the system was via the tool training. For a successful CRM implementation, these higher-level goals have to be reached before the goal for tool training has any positive effect.

The exploitable level of the proficiency axis starts also with level 3 (conscious effort). This is though also the highest level that can be attained by following a cognitive training event. Reaching higher proficiency levels can only be obtained and sustained through active, continuous involvement of managers in their coaching capacity. However not all tasks need the full proficiency level. Striving for higher proficiency levels will however increase productivity.

For activities geared at preparation and planning, a seller can already reach an initially satisfactory performance at the conscious effort level although with limited productivity. The challenge for managers is to see to it that sellers start immediately after the training event to integrate into their daily work routine what they have learned. Which means, for a friction free adoption, the management practice must be adapted to the new Learning Goal at the latest at the end of the initial conscious training event. The re-enforcement does not come by refreshing what was taught. The only effective way is seeing to it in a supportive manner that the newly acquired skill is used. This is also the only way how sellers can experience that they can create more momentum in their deals by using that new skill. This experience is the best motivator to continue using what was learned. Pablo Casals, the world-famous cellist, answered, when asked why he continued practicing at the age of 80, “I feel to still making progress”.

For skills that are used in an interaction with synchronous presence of the customer and the buyer (e.g. face to face meeting, video or phone call), the full proficiency level is immediately required from the seller for such an interaction having a chance of being successful. Gary’s model shows that this full proficiency can be reached in a training event with simulation. In the selling environment, simulations take the form of role plays.

For the full proficiency level to be sustained, managers should thus prepare sellers, in a continuous manner, by role plays in the cadence of about to occur customer interactions. Take a fire brigade as your role model. Firemen and officers maintain full proficiency levels through spaced exercises practicing their skills in realistic simulations. Also remember the title of David H. Sandler’s Sales Classic “You Cannot Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar”.

The 2 lowest levels of the sophistication and proficiency axes are to be considered unexploitable for successful Sales Training initiatives. It is though not uncommon to find training initiatives in this space. Standard, off the shelf training events, organized with the intent to motivate the salesforce are prime candidates to fall into this space. Such events are also recognizable that the success of the event is measured with smiley sheets or in the best case with multiple-choice tests. Multiple choice tests measure the capacity to memorize. Yet according to Elaine Biech (Biech 2017) “real learning is not memorization”. This confirms the conclusion of my article about on the relevance of Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve

With the framework of the exploitable space for Learning Goals, I can now also explain my intuitive decision for allowing open books for exams in my graduate courses. In this manner, I test the students’ mastery of the required sophistication level with conscious efforts. Interestingly enough, some students prepare for the exam by making job aids to reach the proficiency level of Conscious Actions. This level provides for higher productivity and students at that level almost never complain that they were under time constraints for writing the exam.

Conclusion

Sales Managers can use the framework of the exploitable Space for Learning Goals to:

· Test whether their ongoing approach to Sales Training contains Learning Goals in the exploitable space
· Negotiate Learning Goals with Training providers to get to sustainable impacts of training
· Adapt their management practices to contribute their non-negotiable part in the initiative needed for sustainable impacts of training

Suitable Learning Goals are an important foundation for training initiative leading to sustainable improvement. However, their definitions alone are not sufficient for managers to assess whether the goals are reached and maintained. How to recognize this will be the subject for my next post.

Literature:

(Biech 2017) Biech E. The Art and Science of Training, atd Press 2017

(Dirksen 2016) Dirksen J. Design for How People Learn, (2^nd edition) New Riders 2016

(Gery 1991) Gery G. J. Electronic performance Support Systems Weingarten Publication 1991

How Relevant is Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve for Sales Training Success?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Mon, 17 Jun 2019 16:58:00 +0000

An important advice for your sales trainings to have a lasting impact is: “Do not look at it as an event, but as a process” This process consist in essence of periodical reinforcements and refreshers of the taught materials after the initial event. Refreshers and reinforcements are to address our brain’s limitation to retain information.

‘The forgetting curve’

In 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus published the results of experiments he performed on himself, trying to understand how long he could remember a list of 3 letter nonsense words of the structure: Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (e.g. BUP, TOV, RUI etc.). The graph, he plotted from this experiment, is known as Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve’ (see here) . Looking at the curve, mathematicians conclude that forgetting happens exponentially. Here is the formula describing the curve:

R = e^-t/s (R = Retention, e = Euler’s constant, t = time elapsed after initial learning, s = strength of memory)

For the rest of us, this means that forgetting happens not proportionally to time elapsed. After a relatively short time, a big portion of the words is already forgotten and only a small proportion is retained over a longer period. Typically, 20 minutes after initial learning of the list of words, only 60% of them are retained. After one hour, the proportion of retained words drops to about 40%. After one day, the proportion is around 30%. After 31 days, the proportion of retained words has dropped to about 20%. These levels can vary with the strength of the memory of the test person.

The Good News

Spaced reviews of the list of words slows down the forgetting curve. With a first review one day after the initial learning, it will take 2 days until the retention level has dropped to the same level reached 1 day after the initial learning. A next review after these 2 days will then extend the time to 3 days after the first review for the retention level to drop to same level as after 1 day of the initial learning. After 5 reviews, the acquired knowledge can be expected to be permanent. E-learning platforms claim providing value in providing these spaced reviews. I also taught this in my graduate courses on sales management, when discussing sales training, until I was confronted with the revised Bloom’s taxonomy for Learning Goals.

The Bad News

This made me understand that fighting the forgetting curve does not make sales training more effective. Bloom’s taxonomy defines 6 cognitive process dimensions. These process dimensions (remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create) can be understood as sophistication levels of the learner; whereas “remember” is the lowest and “create” the highest level (more details here).

Ebbinghaus’ experiment is a scientifically sound but I hope you can agree with me that fighting the forgetting curve stabilizes only the lowest sophistication level of Bloom's taxonomy (remember).

The British Philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820—1903) is known for his quote: “The great aim of education is not knowledge but actions”. Transposed to Bloom’s taxonomy, this means that education must at least reach level 3, the first active action word in the taxonomy (apply). So, I have set this as the minimum required for learning goals of my graduate courses. To give you an example: For my graduate course “Structuring an International Sales Force”, I have formulated the learning goal as:

Students can apply the ‘Design for Six Sigma’ process to analyze the voice of the customer, evaluate appropriate channels and levels of relationships to create the best suited ‘Go to Market’ strategy.

Conclusion

I posit that for sales trainings in the field to be successful, learning goals must be as stringent as those for sales education at universities. This is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a sustainable effect of sales trainings on sellers’ behavior. The second condition for reaching sustainability merits though its own article. So, please stay tuned.

Sales Enablement Definitions for Taste

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Fri, 06 Oct 2017 16:55:00 +0000

Sales Enablement has become a trending topic in Sales. From a peek preview of CSO’s insights forthcoming Sales Enablement Report 2017, I have retained that 59% of the respondents claim to have some form of Sales Enablement. A search on LinkedIn for people having sales enablement skills - done on September 27, 2017 - produced 293 300 results. At the recent Sales 3.0 conference held in September 2017 in Las Vegas Sale Enablement was a prominent topic. Top Sales World held their first European Sales Enablement Summit this week. The Sales Enablement Society will hold their second conference later in October this year. From an article on LinkedIn reporting on academic research, I have retained 12 major definitions of Sales Enablement.

Is there a need for a generally accepted definition?

With so many “cooks in the kitchen”, there is a danger that the meaning of the term Sales Enablement becomes increasingly foggy. Another data point from the CSO’s insights Sales Enablement Report 2017 – only one third of undertaken Sales Enablement Initiatives are considered as being successful – seems to illustrate that this danger is real and confirms the need for a common understanding what Sales Enablement is.

Initiatives to find a generally accepted definition

The Sales Enablement Society is currently running a project to come up with, what I understand, is to be an all-encompassing definition of Sales Enablement. On their website, I have come across a survey where members of the society were invited to choose their preferred definition from a subset of the aforementioned 12 definitions of the term. The definitions to choose from originated mainly from analyst organizations.

The academics who had established the list of 12 known definitions of Sales Enablement have come up with a coding scheme to classify these definitions. The proposed coding allows for a discussion about the usefulness of a definition from the respective viewpoints defined by the codes. So, we might very well end up with a set of definitions of Sales Enablement. The condition for this set of definitions to be useful is though that the included definitions must not contradict each other. I conclude from this that these and other definitions circulating among Sales Enablement experts are not directly comparable. I therefore would expect the results of the survey to be biased by the respondents’ view point and the findings being highly sensitive to the demographics of the respondents. Trying to find THE right definition in this way might well end up in a dead end.

On the sales Enablement Society’s website, I have also seen a draft spreadsheet making an attempt to establish evaluation criteria for judging the growing number of definitions on Sales Enablement floating around. From the criteria listed in the spread sheet, I infer that the evaluators expect to judge definitions mainly on how well thy characterize the Sales Enablement function: The deliverables, how deliverables are defined but also how the function is perceived by outsiders and indications on by what metrics the success of the function should be judged. I do not question the relevance of any of the listed evaluation criteria I have seen there. IMHO catering to all these criteria will produce a definition which will be quite a mouthful. There is a high chance that one of the evaluation criteria - the definition should to be short and crisp – will not be met.

Obstacles on the way of finding a generally accepted definition

The attempts being made to provide clarity must be appreciated. However, I am afraid that throwing clever sounding legalese wordsmithing at each other will not help us to get our arms around the phenomenon of Sales Enablement. Most of the cleverly polished definitions are also assets for their creators to promote the contributions they claim to make helping companies to make their Sales Enablement initiatives successful. It is therefore quite understandable that the creators of such definitions will react defensively to suggestions for modifications and extension. The creators can perceive these suggestions as criticism devaluing their assets by minimizing differentiation. This makes the task of finding a generally accepted definition for Sales Enablement more difficult

I must admit of having participated in the discussion triggered by the aforementioned article on LinkedIn reporting on academic research and having offered my own definition. Here is what I came up with in a knee jerk reaction for making my voice heard in this important discussion: “Sales Force Enablement helps sellers to have impactful interactions to facilitate the customer's journey by providing the right message at the right moment in the right way to the right person within a customer's organization and it helps sales managers to coach sellers to deliver impactful interactions which provide a positive customer experience”.

I made an attempt to focus on the people whose job is supposed to be made more effective (Sellers and Sales Managers) by services offered by the Sales Enablement function. Reflecting on what I did, I discovered that my proposed definition of Sales Enablement implies a definition of what Sellers and Sales Managers ought to do to be effective. I am sure there is a plethora of Sellers and Sales Managers out there that might not adhere to this implied definition of their roles (facilitate a customer journey, coaching sellers to have impactful interactions, focus on providing a good customer experience) and therefore might reject my proposed definition of Sales Enablement. I am convinced that the implied definitions of what Sellers and Sales Managers ought to do will lead to higher sales effectiveness and I probably could also find a group of likeminded experts. But this does not make my proposed Sales Enablement definition more useful. A Sales Enablement initiative, based on my implied role definition, risks being considered as not being successful by those Sellers and Sales Managers not adhering to my implied role definition how they ought to work. Such an initiative would simply be perceived as not positively impacting THEIR way of working.

Conclusion

Maybe in a first step, Sales Enablement professionals should strive for a common understanding on what the ideal behavior of the targets, for whom they want to provide services, ought to be. From this common understanding, useful Sales Enablement services could be deducted. We could then look for models and means how these services can be defined and implemented and their impact measured.

At this point in my thinking process, I believe that simple prose might be more suitable than clever wordsmithing to gain more clarity on the above-mentioned topics. I, therefore, plan to publish a series of blogpost, describing various aspects about Sales Enablement, hoping to contribute to a discussion to find a generally accepted understanding of what Sales Enablement is. My ultimate goal is to help increasing the percentage of successful Sales Enablement implementations.

Quota Attainment – a 2P Performance - Who Cares?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 09:18:00 +0000

According to CSO Insights World Class Sales Practices Report, quota attainment averaged across all geographies, industries and size companies has dropped from 63% of salespeople in 2012 to 53% in 2016. In the same period Revenue Plan attainment dropped only from 89% to 85.5%

Who is to blame for this downward trend?

I discussed this question already almost 9 years ago in this blog post: Sales Quota Attainment: Who's Performance is Measured? I consider what I wrote then is still a correct analysis of the situation and is sound advice how to curb this downward spiral of performance. However today, I am more outspoken about who is to blame for this abysmal performance and I am aware that my advice could only fall on deaf ears.

When the corporate leadership defines the top line targets without providing clarity about the target customers and not being able to deduct a realistic market potential and the target then is simply cascaded down in the form of quotas to the sales force, individual quota attainment is not a KPI for individual contributors. Instead quota attainment measures a corporation’s ability to set attainable quotas for the individual contributors. It is thus the corporate leadership who delivers the Piss Poor (2P) Performance.

Corporate Leadership sees a rosier picture

The corporate leadership’s main concern is that the top line number (Revenue Plan) announced to the financial stakeholders is met. With the right balance between under- and over-performers, this can be achieved despite the underlying poor performance of almost half of the individual performers of a sales force. Seen from this perspective, the quota attainment ratio is also a misnomer. We actually measure what percentage of a sales force makes or overachieves the quota. How else can we explain why the quota attainment ratio is lower than the Revenue Plan attainment ratio.

For only about 1 out of 7 corporations, the leadership is faced with the problem of not making the top line target. If the top line number will not be met, the knee jerk reaction is to outsource the blame for the missed target to unforeseeable trends in the “market”. If the financial stakeholders require visible actions to avoid missing the number again, the highest-ranking sales officer, to whom the target is very often handed down without any consultation, will be fired.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

If corporate leadership does not see the problem, advice how to improve the performance of quota attainment will be ignored. I have to blame myself for having not considered this aspect in my post mentioned above. Reading it again, I feel, sounding like a salesperson rattling down a features and functions list to somebody who is not even aware of the problem.

Conclusion

If we want the performance of quota attainment to improve, we first have to find means to explain to corporate leadership how this poor performance affects KPIs they care about. Examples that might get their attention are negative impacts on the bottom line:

· Due to high voluntary and involuntary churn rates on all levels of the sales force caused by quotas mismatched to the revenue potential for a given area of responsibility.

· Excessive compensation cost caused by compensation plans tolerating and incentivizing quota overachievement.

· Investing in performance improvement programs for individual contributors hoping that unrealistic quotas become achievable.

I am aware that this last point might, at first glance, might be a thorny issue for the sales consulting and training industry as it negatively impacts their revenue potential for their services. There is, though, an alternative potential to curb the shortfall, by offering services helping corporate leadership to come up with more effective quota setting procedures first and then delivering programs to improve the performance of individual contributors.

The Average Number of Customer Stakeholders Is Higher Than Ever! - So what?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Wed, 16 Aug 2017 12:52:00 +0000

I recently came across a post written by Aja Frost on HubSpot’s Blog. In there, she writes that according to Brent Adamson, principal executive advisor at CEB, the average number of customer stakeholders involved in a B2B purchasing decision is 6.8 -- up from 5.4 in late 2014. In itself this an utterly useless data point.

Why do I put the relevance in question?

Not having the details of the research that led to this statement, I cannot exclude that the trend is, at least partially, caused by changing demographics in the audience surveyed. If there were more respondents with transactional sales in the research carried out in 2014 (usually fewer customer stakeholders involved in a buying decision) compared to this latest research, carried out 18 months later, this fact alone can lead to the observed trend everything else remaining the same.

I also have a general aversion against averages on numbers of people. I am still waiting to meet a “.4 “or a “.8” person.

Why is the statement nevertheless relevant?

Notwithstanding this rant, sales leaders should ask themselves whether the fact of the involvement of more than one stakeholder in customer purchasing decisions is reflected in their current selling system. Ignoring this question can be the major reason for a high percentage of deals that end in a “no decision” by the customer.

The road-map below outlines how sales leaders can analyze to what extend their selling systems is designed to help sellers to cope with the involvement of multiple customer stakeholders in a purchasing decision.

Listen to the “Voice of the Customer”.

Common answers by customers asked for reasons why a deal ended in “no decision” are:

“We underestimated the number of stakeholders involved.”

“It became just too complicated to align all stakeholders.

“We could not agree whether purchasing a solution would bring the expected business benefits.”

“The decision was vetoed by a stakeholder we had not expected to be involved or affected by the decision.”

“The decision became too risky.”

“We could not get an agreement on the urgency of purchasing a solution.”

These are all symptoms that more than one customer stakeholder was involved in the decision. These symptoms also show that customer’s themselves are often not aware of their actual decision process.

Brainstorm the root-causes

Sales leaders can use the following questions to determine possible root-causes within their organizations leading to a high proportion of forecast deals ending in “no decision”.

1. Is our sales process mapped to our customers’ journey?

2. Does the customer journey, we apply, provide for considering the involvement of more than one stakeholder in the buying decision?

3. At what point in the customer journey is the involvement considered?

4. Do we have a methodology in place helping sellers to map the political landscape of the relevant customer stakeholders?

5. Does this methodology consider the following aspects:

a) The culture of the purchasing organization

b) How decisions are reached (consensus, majority, decision by highest executive in case of a tie in the voting)

c) The formal and the informal relationship between the customer stakeholders

d) The power constellations (fighting fractions within the purchasing organization)

Conclusion

Following this road-map, sales leaders will know if and how well their selling system helps sellers to navigate deals where multiple customer stakeholders are involved. There are process designs and methodologies available for addressing these root-causes. However, to be effective, these need to be tailored to a customized solution.

Training the sellers in the use of this customized solution will not be sufficient. Sales managers must at least buy into the insights gained from the analysis outlined above. They must also be convinced that the customized solution will lower the percentage of forecast deals ending in “no decision”.

Finally, the Sales Managers’ willingness to adhere to and coach the customized solution can be improved if they are involved in the root-cause analyses as well as in the choice and tailoring of the customized solution

Do salespeople become obsolete? That’s the question.

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Thu, 18 Aug 2016 15:29:00 +0000

If you look to sales experts to give you the answer, you will be disappointed. There are two fractions. One fraction of experts predicts that due to the internet, many sales jobs will disappear in the coming years. There is another fraction which has researched the numbers and comes to the conclusion that the number of people in sales or sales related occupations is surprisingly resilient to the influence of the internet.

For economists, there is nothing wrong in this contradiction. In economic debates, you find almost always a fraction lead by Nobel laureates having one explanation about what happen or is going to happen in the economy, and another fraction of equally smart people, also lead by other Nobel laureates, coming to a contradictory conclusion (A statement from Olivier Blanchard the former chief economist of the IMF).

Why is this question relevant?

One of the fundamentals of the philosophy of science is that if something is considered true, the opposite cannot be true at the same time. We are thus in a philosophical dilemma, having though very real consequences for sales people worrying whether they still have a job in 5 years’ time or for students wondering whether engaging in a sales curriculum at university level will provide sufficient job opportunities after graduation. For me, this is also a question of professional conscious as I teach “Sales” at two universities in Germany.

It is not a debate about being right or wrong

I could be happy to take side with the fraction of experts having looked at the numbers and having found a surprising resilience of the sales occupation to the influence of the internet. What data have they looked at? They have looked at statistics from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In these statistics, they have found that the number of workers in sales and sales-related occupations has slightly increased over the period from 1999 to 2014. This statement has to be interpreted with caution. The Standard Occupational Classifications for these statistics have changed twice between 1999 and 2014. It is reported that the classification of sales and sales related occupations has changed with these revisions. So are we sure that we compare apples to apples in this long time series?

When we listen carefully to the fraction predicting that many sales jobs will disappear over the next few years, they never talk about the obsolescence of the sales occupancy as a whole. They look at a more granular level. On that level, they predict that the number workers in some sub categories of sales and sales related occupations will shrink. They also predict that some sub categories will grow over the same time. I do not know whether the categories used by the fraction of the experts, who predict a disappearance of many sales jobs, can be reconciled with the Standard Occupational Classifications. This fraction’s view is however that the overall number of sales people is expected to shrink.

I prefer the more granular view as it is well known that looking at data at a highly aggregate level bears the risk to miss underlying trends. This phenomenon is well explained in the book “Granularity of Growth,” written by a group of McKinsey consultants.

Let me illustrate the importance of granularity with an intuitive example. Take sellers of advertising space. I do not expect the number of this category to shrink anytime soon. For this category, the type of advertising space they sell changes. Instead of space on pages in newspapers and minutes on TV channels, they now sell space on Internet pages. Take clerks in bookstores as contrast. I think nobody will contest the fact that many bookstores have gone out of business, or their existence is put in danger due to the number of books bought directly via the internet. The jobs of those clerks, therefore, have already disappeared or are at risk to become even fewer.

I also prefer this granular view for my professional conscious. I prepare students to be able to fit into sales jobs in the category where the experts expect the number of jobs to grow.

The fraction of experts defending the resilience of the sales occupation also have some more intuitive arguments for their optimism. They rightly observe, that the introduction of a new category of communication (e.g. from Radio to TV) has never lead to the obsolescence of an already existing category.

This was also true for many years for a new form of sales occupation. When people started to sell over the phone in the B2B environment, there was a general expectation that this would have a negative impact on the number of sales people selling face to face. For many years, the number of people selling face to face was not negatively impacted by those selling over the phone. However today, I think it has become difficult to deny the trend that the number of field sales people (face to face) is at best stagnant while the number of inside sales people (phone and internet) is significantly growing. So we might be faced with a considerable latency before impacts of the Internet become statistically visible. As the example above shows though, on a sufficiently granular level, we have anecdotal evidence that the number of sales jobs is shrinking in certain categories due to the internet.

Conclusion

Instead of debating on a macro level about the evolution of the number of people in sales or sales related occupations, I prefer to look for underlying drivers that could have an impact on specific categories of sales occupations. For this purpose, I have created the AH4RJ customer type. This acronym stands for a customer who appreciates help for rational justification. For this type of customer, sales people can provide value. Sales people operating in this sphere do not need to worry about their jobs becoming obsolete. To the contrary, this is the space where I expect a growing number of jobs. However, sellers serving customers, who consider they do not need help for a rational justification of their purchasing decision, should carefully watch if their position risks becoming obsolete.

May I introduce you to customer type AH4RJ?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 07:48:00 +0000

AH4RJ defines a customer who appreciates help for rational justification. As a seller, you can add value to this customer if you help with this rational justification. However, this help is only appreciated if it is given from an attitude of service and contribution.

I discovered this customer type AH4RJ while reflecting whether the statement: « B2B decisions are rational and B2C decisions are emotional » is true. I came to the conclusion that this statement is false and here is why.

Your decision dynamics as a Consumer

Just think how you as a consumer take decisions. Some of them are simply rational. For example, I cannot see much emotion in the decision that you have to buy gas for your car. Other decisions are simply emotional. You buy something on impulse with no further reflection as long as the purchase fits well in your budget of discretionary spending. For these two simple cases, you do not need the help of a seller.

Then there is a third type of decision which is initially emotional but then needs rational justification.

You make this type of decision when there is a perception of risk or fear. Before making a major investment like buying a house, you will need answers to questions such as:

· Can I afford to pay the mortgage?

· Is my job situation stable enough?

If family members are affected by the buying decision, you also might need a rational justification to gain a consensus. Here a seller can add value by helping the consumer going through this rational thought process.

Your decision dynamics as a Buyer in a business context

If you buy on behalf of a business, there are simple rational decisions. Routine or replacement purchases can be made without further justification; unless there are doubts about the initially made principal decision. For these simple decisions, it is hard to imagine that a seller can add any value to the decision-making

However also in the business context, there are more decisions which are initially emotional and then need a rational justification. Complex buying can be understood as a change management process. This process usually starts with frustration (emotion) about the status quo. The purchasing decision can only be made with a rational justification. We might think this justification is imposed by business rules. Also in this context, the basic need for a rational justification is founded on perceived risk and fear. The purchaser wants to minimize the risk of ever being accused of having made a bad purchasing decision. Sellers can add value to the buyer as a person by facilitating the thought process leading to the rational justification.

Conclusion

Sellers need not bother whether they sell in a B2B or B2C context. In both environments, they have to look out for the AH4RJ customer who appreciates help for rational justification. To these customers, they can provide value if help is given with a mindset of service and contribution. Dealing with customers not appreciating or needing this help for rational justification is a waste of time. Many of them are anyway no longer accessible to sellers. These customers buy from automates and e-shops.

Is this Social Selling? (A Rant)

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 15:12:00 +0000

To be honest I still struggle with a good definition for Social Selling; even though LinkedIn is telling me that my SSI is 82, not extremely high but in the top 1% percentile of my peer group and in the top 5% percentile of my network.

So today I cam across this e-mail where the use of LinkedIn as a tool is pretty obvious.
I am sure you must have seen similar e-mails as this example here below:

Objet : Saw you on LinkedIn, Christian

Hi Christian,

I hope you don’t mind me reaching out. I’m an executive at … and the former head of global recruiting for…..

I researched your profile on LinkedIn and was hoping to discuss with you an issue about which I’m sure you’re painfully aware: Hiring talent is at least as hard, if not harder than it’s ever been for recruiters today.

It’s no secret that most hiring processes are manual and use databases filled with stale, out-of-date data. In fact, it’s estimated that almost 80% of a recruiter’s time today is spent on low-value, repetitive, laborious tasks.

The result? In this market, the good hires are getting away, a fact a fast-growing business can ill-afford.

That’s why I’m reaching out. My company, …., provides an end-to-end hiring platform that finally allows busy recruiters to spend time on what matters most – building relationships with candidates and hiring the right people, faster.

We’re not another Applicant Tracking System (ATS), job board, or some hard-to-use software tool. Our solution really does the job – across 16 different hiring service functions. In fact, we provide the industry’s largest and most accurate database of both active and passive candidates anywhere.

Christian, if the pace of business requires that you find, nurture, evaluate and hire the right talent faster, let’s talk about how …..would work for you. Please let me know when you’re free to jump on the phone and I’ll get right back to you.

Best,

……
…..

If you would like me to remove c_a_maurer@ceoexpress.com from my outreach, please click here.

Is this social Selling?

The only thing social I can see here is that the sender found my contact details on LinkedIn instead of a phone book or another directory. Had the sender researched my profile, as pretended, it would be pretty clear that I am far from being an ideal target for what he has to offer.

To me this is social selling like "lipstick on a pig" (Seth Godin).
It seems salespeople are not willing to learn. They just transpose their ineffective behavior to the next new fad.

I would be interest in your opinion on this.

The New Account Sales Challenge: The 5 Ugly Questions Helping You to Protect the Health of Your Business

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Fri, 05 Jun 2015 11:01:00 +0000

In the CSO Insights 2015 Sales Performance Optimization study, “capturing new accounts” made it to the top of sales objectives for 2015. Kim Cameron recently published a post “Overcoming the New Account Sales Challenge” here.

Before addressing the valid challenges, mentioned in Kim’s blog, you should though make sure that your initiative of “capturing new accounts” eventually does not hurt your business by causing these undesired effects:

· Expected growth targets are not met

· Profitability drops

· Customer satisfaction drops

The 5 Ugly Questions

This list of questions can help you to diagnose whether your “capturing new accounts” initiative might negatively affect the health of your business.

1. Have you clearly defined the ideal accounts you want to capture?

The lack of this definition exposes you to all three undesired effects. In absence of such a definition, salespeople will decide on their own, where to go hunting and the chances are high that they miss the attractive accounts.

More information on this phenomenon can be found in Frank V. Cespedes excellent book Aligning-Strategy and Sales

2. Is an adequate value proposition available for these ideal accounts?

In absence of such a definition especially profitability and customer satisfaction are endangered.

3. Do you know how many of the ideal accounts have never before bought the category you want to sell to them?

Not knowing the answer to this question can particularly hamper profitability. Furthermore it might take longer for your initiative to meet the expected growth targets.

Accounts, never having bought the category you want to sell to them, have a different customer journey than accounts that are new only to you but have previously bought the category from competitors. Therefore, you need different strategies matching the respective customer journey.

In the first case you can gain market share if you can penetrate the account by facilitating the “buy learning” journey.

In the second case, you have to displace the incumbent competitor (“buy wallet share”). Displacement of incumbent competitors most often results in price wars.

If your company does not have an operational excellence strategy in place, which provides for a systemic and sustainable lower cost structure, profitability is highly endangered.

Product superiority with according value propositions is another alternative to displace incumbent competitors without risking your profitability level.

4. If you have to attack accounts held by incumbent competitors, do you now their purchasing strategy?

Ignoring this question can lead to overoptimistic growth expectations. Many purchasers follow dual vendor strategies. They know that for remaining a valuable account to the second vendor, they have to leave them a part of the wallet share attractive enough so the vendor does not “fire” the account.

5. The follow on question then is: Does your expectation of the wallet share you must aim for, so the account is attractive to you, match with what you can realistically expect given the competitive situation in the account?

Knowing the answer to this question makes you more selective of the new accounts to pursue and is the basis for setting realistic growth targets.

Conclusion

In absence of a company strategy, where ideal customers, appropriate value propositions, market saturation level, competitive strategies and purchasing strategies of the ideal customers are known and aligned, “capturing new accounts” risks to be detrimental to the health of your business.

Call to Action

Answer the 5 ugly questions. They are ugly because you might come to the conclusion that “capturing new accounts” is actually a less attractive objective than you had hoped for. You might then be motivated to find more suitable alternatives to grow the top line without jeopardizing the health of your business.

Should you need help, you can give me a call.

What is a reasonable number of contacts in your social network (2)?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 08:56:00 +0000

This is the second post based on a keynote I presented at the 10^th annual RiiM conference in Paris on the beginning of April 2015.

The previous post looked from an anthropological perspective for clues how to find the right balance between the quantity of contacts and the quality of relations. In the age of Social Selling, imbalances can lead to wasted efforts and mitigated results.

The neuroscience perspective

A monkey or ape belongs to a social network if it maintains grooming relations with other members of a clan. The main reason for maintaining grooming relations is however not to keep it each other’s fur clean. The action of grooming releases endorphins which are a “feel good” hormones. For humans verbal exchanges can have the same effect.

A researcher in California has discovered in one experiment that human interactions via electronic “social networks” release oxytocin, also known as “cuddle hormone” thus causing “good feelings”. Interactions in cyberspace can thus have similar effects as interaction in physical social networks. Physical proximity and the unity of the moment for the exchange seem thus not to be a prerequisite to produce the “good feeling” From this perspective, human interactions in physical and electronic social networks can be of similar quality

In another study, a correlation was found between the use of electronic “social networks” and the concentration of gray matter in three areas of the human brain. These three areas are though different from the areas being active when having interactions with physical social networks. With their findings, the researchers are though faced with a chicken and egg problem. Does the concentration of gray matter enable the use of electronic “social networks” or causes the size of the electronic “social network” an increase of the gray matter in these areas. As mentioned in the in the last post, we therefore cannot yet answer the question whether the cognitive limits determining the size of physical social networks can be overcome with electronic “social networks”.

Why does this matter?

Skeptics might jump on the discovery that the use of electronic social media releases the “cuddling hormone” and will see the danger that the use of electronic “social networks” can cause addiction and can thus negatively impact work productivity. We touch here also on a generation issue.

For Millennials, who grew up with those electronic tools, the danger might be considered as particularly high. A recent article on the HBR Blog however, suggests a positive interpretation of the oxytocin effect. We might have to take into consideration that the oxytocin effect makes Millennials, through their use of electronic platform, to natural team workers. Millennials, at the stage of their brain development, seem also to have a higher tolerance and a higher integration capacity of multiple streams of information. The tools (smart phones, tablets etc.) that Baby Boomers might see as elements of distraction, are considered enablers for collaborating and innovating in real-time by Millennials.

As a lecturer in a Master program for Strategic Sales Management at a German business school, I remember a recent anecdote to this effect. One evening, around 10 p.m., one of the groups, discovered, that they were missing a photo of an essential flip chart we had developed in class a few weeks earlier. As this hindered their progress on a work assignment, they used WhatsApp for an enquiry with their other class mates geographically dispersed over Germany. They were able to find the missing photo within less than 10 minutes and also proudly told this to me (a Baby Boomer).

What are the consequences for sales managers?

Millennials are getting things done differently than Baby Boomers. Teams composed exclusively of Millennials should therefore be held accountable for the outcome of their activities. How to get to the outcomes should though be their free choice.

The successful interaction between Millennials and Baby Boomers being it in customer-seller or in work relations poses some coaching challenges:

Millennials are more willing to share information and to collaborate. In interaction with Baby Boomers, they are very sensitive about the reciprocity of sharing. If they feel their willingness to share is abused, collaboration will become difficult. Young sellers have confide to me that they often feel that older colleagues tend to abuse their willingness e.g. to share customer contacts. They also feel that older colleagues hide information from them.
Millennials tend to use electronic “social networks” at a higher intensity. As long as we do not have scientific evidence that human brains can adapt to larger electronic “social networks”, intensive users of social networks and Millennials in particular, need to be monitored for distraction effects which can hamper work productivity. Should negative impacts on productivity occur, we should keep the Dunbar number as a guideline for the amount of people with whom they interact frequently in electronic “social networks”.
Millennials need guidance for productive interactions with Baby Boomers. In my experience with my students, I found that they are more receptive to systemic approaches focused on the underlying mechanics of human interactions than on simple recipes how things should be done. They are interested in the “Why” and doubt whether just imitating “How” Baby Boomers do, or have done it, is still an effective approach in the rapidly changing world.

What is a reasonable number of contacts in your social network?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 13:40:00 +0000

Photo credit Noneotuho CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0), via Wikimedia Commons

This post is based on a keynote I presented at the 10^th annual RiiM conference in Paris last week.

Why should you care?

The above question actually implies the search of the right balance between the quantity of contacts and the quality of relations. In the age of Social Selling, imbalances can lead to wasted efforts and mitigated results.

A look into statistics

The average number of contacts maintained by a user of LinkedIn was recently reported as being 60 contacts. For Facebook, I found an average of 350 contacts. The median values are in both cases significantly higher indicating that the distribution curves are skewed and averages are not very conclusive. I therefore reverted to what I have learned as an engineer. An engineer can only create successful constructions if he/she respects the limits of the material used for the construction. This leads though to the question what is the material of a social network? It is not servers, software applications, PC’s, tablets, smart phones nor bandwidth. A social network is first and foremost created among humans. So who could know about whether humans have limits regarding the size of the social network they can handle? Anthropology and Neuroscience seemed to me possible sources to search for an answer.

The anthropological view

Anthropologists study social networks not only since we have electronic social networks. It did not take me long to stumble over the Dunbar number which says that humans can manage at one given time a social network consisting of about 150 members.

Robin Dunbar a, British evolutionary psychologist found this number through two totally different studies. First, he found that for primates (monkeys and apes) there is a correlation between the relative size of the neocortex compared to the rest of the brain and the size of the social network the different species can maintain. Extrapolating this curve to the human race, he concluded that humans can maintain social networks of about 150 members.

How can the size of the social network of primates be measured? For the monkeys and apes it is the number of grooming relations and individual animal maintains. This metric obviously cannot be applied to humans.

To verify the extrapolated number, Dunbar observed how humans send Christmas cards (before the electronic media time). Maintaining a relation through sending Christmas cards requires a certain effort. The postal addresses of the targets must be kept up to date, cards and stamps have to be bought and the cards need being written and then taken to a post box. This effort is taken as a substitute of the grooming efforts primates invest in maintaining their social network. Dunbar found that an individual human sends out Christmas card so that about 150 people can be reached.

Dunbar also offers a simple rule thumb how to determine the size of someone’s social network. “150 is the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar.”

Preliminary conclusions

Compared with the size of physical social networks, many people maintain oversized electronic “social networks”. This raises the interesting question whether electronic platforms allow us to overcome the natural limits imposed for the size of physical social networks? As we will see later, this cannot be totally excluded but we certainly do not have enough scientific evidence to answer with a firm yes.

I suspect that the relations listed on those electronic platforms do not have the quality level requested to be qualified as social network connection in the traditional sense. The number of people we know is evidently larger than the number of relations of social network quality level we maintain. Those platforms are thus more used as store for our address lists or a 24/7 asynchronous networking event or distance independent chat at the virtual “coffee corner”. They can though also contain at least a part of our social networks.

Why does this matter?

In the age of Social Selling, there is a danger that sellers might unconsciously try to mimic physical social network behavior to a much larger number of individuals in electronic “social networks”. In our data driven world the number of connections could also become a simple numbers game. Both these effects result in distraction and wasted efforts.

Electronic tools certainly improve efficiency but only their intelligent use provides effectiveness. The effort to arrive at effective Social Selling might be underestimated and thus lead to unsatisfactory results. The reach of messages disseminated through “social networks” might also be overestimated. Deliberately following someone on an electronic “social network” takes some effort.

Sales Management needs thus to coach sellers to make productive use of these tools. Thereby it is less the total number of contacts in their respective electronic “social network” than the number of relations where a high intensity is maintained that matters and can negatively impact performance.

I will present what I found from a neuroscience point of view in a next blog post.

Sales Tools - a Curse or a Blessing for Sales Productivity?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 11:21:00 +0000

This webinar was given on September 10 2014 you can now access the replay here
https://www.brighttalk.com/r/RmJ.
You will see that it is less about the technology itself but more about the use of it. Distinction of efficiency, effectiveness and productivy is an essential part of understanding how to use tools successfully, as is to understand the exact context in which these tools are to be used.
But listen for yourself and please let me know your thoughts

What Professional Selling Truly is All About

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Wed, 16 Apr 2014 07:03:00 +0000

I am proud that Robert Terson is sharing his wisdom on this blog.

All too many salespeople believe selling is all about maneuvering a prospect into purchasing a product or service, never mind whether that product or service is in the best interest of the prospect. It’s a job, a way of making a living; in other words, the prospect is there to fulfill the salesperson’s needs, not the other way around. Practically every agony these amateur salespeople experience (and a good many of them are in agony; I’m talking to them every day) can be traced back to this erroneous, half-assed attitude.

Professional salespeople understand that selling is not about the salesperson or the products/services she is offering. It’s about the prospect/customer; about solving the prospect’s/customer’s problems, fulfilling their needs, being a partner to them to help make their world a better, more successful place. A true professional knows her success is in direct proportion to her ability to help others get what they want. That’s what her goal is: help others get what they want, help them get what is in their best interest.

So let me suggest you take stock of your attitude regarding what selling is or isn’t, because more than likely if you’re not happy with your work, if you’re fearful of making those cold calls, fearful of dealing with all those prospects/customers, settling for a third of the presentations you should be giving, blaming every external imaginable for your lack of success, it’s because you don’t get it—you’re looking at the selling process through shaded lenses instead of the clear ones you need to turn your selling world around.

Do you want to remain an amateur or do you want to become a professional? An amateur goes out on a presentation and dives right in, telling the prospect/customer all about her wonderful wares—its history, what it’ll accomplish, on and on without pause. The professional does extensive research before going out on the presentation, and then, before saying word one about her products/services, asks a series of pertinent questions, in effect interviewing the prospect/customer, to ascertain the information necessary to accomplish the goals spelled out in paragraph two above.

To really understand what we’re talking about here, ask yourself how you like to be sold (or how you like to buy?), what kind of salespeople do you like to deal with? Would you buy from you, or would you run like hell from yourself? Do you believe in the Golden Rule? More importantly, do you believe in Dr. Tony Alessandra’s Platinum Rule?—“Treat others the way they want to be treated”? All the answers to solving your selling agonies begin here, I promise you.

As is always the case, your attitude is the starting point for finding the answers to your most pressing difficulties. Take a hard look at yourself; what do you see?

About the Author:

Robert Terson has been a sales professional and entrepreneur his entire adult life. He retired from his advertising company in 2010 after 38 years in business. Today, Bob writes, speaks and generously shares his time with others. Bob also does some LIMITED coaching and training. He lives in suburban Chicago with his wonderful wife Nicki. He blogs regularly at SellingFearlessly.com and you can follow Bob on twitter @RobertTerson and LinkedIn. His book "Selling Fearlessly", released in October 2012, has received rave reviews and is available at Amazon.com.

Stop Moaning About the Changed Customer Behavior

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 14:58:00 +0000

We all have read reports about research telling us that people are about 60% or more through their buying process before they first contact a seller. There are organizations using this factoid to propose methodologies allowing the seller to get earlier into contact with potential customers. This certainly is an option but not the only one.

What has gotten us here?

Before we take action on such a factoid, we should probably know how it was created. As for most factoids of this type, surveys are used; in this case asking buyers about their opinion how far they are through the buying cycle before getting into contact with a seller. As there is no commonly accepted definition of a buying process, we generate an average of subjective opinions. Trying to solve business problems based on averages brings us usually also average (mediocre) results.

However if one has a closer look, the changed customer behavior did not come onto business. Businesses have created it. It is not the internet that has changed customer behavior. The customer has adapted to how businesses use the internet. More exactly, how marketing functions saw the internet as a new way to push information out to customers. Customers intuitively like this new access to information without having to reveal their identity immediately and not being dependent on a seller as the exclusive access to information.

It is however too easy to put the blame on marketing alone. Seller’s behavior has also its share for changed customer behavior. We all have our stories about when we felt being manipulated by sellers. So it is no wonder that with new ways to access information, customers tend to steer clear of sellers as long as they can.

Prospecting not being the most favored activity of sellers and their endless complaints about receiving leads of poor quality have also added that marketing is today so prominent in the customer’s buying cycle by way of marketing automation. With it came new terms and principles such as content- and inbound - marketing as well as qualified, nurtured leads that are supposedly ready to buy. This approach is also considered cheaper than having sellers cold calling to generate leads. In consequence though, marketing automation keeps the potential buyer even longer away from the seller.

What can you do as a sales manager to get your organization there?

Accepting Einstein’s insight that problems cannot be solved with the same thinking that has created them is probably the first hurdle to jump. It will not be without pain because you have to go out of your comfort zone.

Then you should probably get aware of the fact that today’s top sellers approach their job from a point of serving and making a contribution to their customers’ business. Making a quick deal with the next pay check in mind is probably no longer a viable approach. Make though no mistake, closing deals fast is hugely tempting for many salespeople. Put yourself in your sellers’ shoes. If you perceive getting late into the sales cycle and you are told that you are given well qualified leads from marketing combined with the pressure to make your numbers, how would you react? Isn’t it though the seller’s main responsibility to close deals? Yes, but not just closing any deal, especially if customer loyalty is put at risk.

Who do you think will be blamed when a customer, after the purchase, discovers that what was bought does not provide the expected outcome? Humans in business have a tendency to « outsource » mistakes by blaming factors outside of their own control for unpleasant situations.

So there is a high likelihood that the blame will fall on the company and more precisely on the seller that has sold the solution. The danger that this might happen is bigger than we probably anticipate.

Customers, today, suffer from information overload. They tend to overestimate their competency of gaining the right insights for solving their problems. This opens an opportunity for sellers to add value to cases even though the buyer considers having well advanced in the buying process. A seller with the right mindset can help the customer to gain clarity and choose the right solution to the problem.

Current sales processes are though not built for this type of seller behavior. As a sales manager, you should rethink your sales process. If the sellers are to be able to be of service to their customers and make a contribution to their business, the primary purpose of the sales process has to be the facilitation of the customer’s journey. The factoid that customers have gone through 60% of the journey before contacting a seller is though not a terribly useful starting point for a redesign.

A more valuable insight is to accept that sellers today, when contacted by potential customers or having to act on leads given to them, have a high uncertainty of knowing where the customer is in its journey. A sales process addressing this issue has to provide for a diagnosis as an initial step whenever the customer and the seller get into first contact. The purpose of this step is though not to discover potential pain as so often recommended in traditional sales processes. It is simply to know where the customer is in its journey. This allows synchronizing the seller’s activities with the customer’s journey. Years ago, I proposed the term Triage for this step. It does not matter whether the first contact is initiated by the seller or the customer.

In many cases, the contact will be established by the seller after having received a lead. For the triage to be effective, sellers must however know what entry point the customer has used to get into contact with your firm. This is the most vital information marketing has to provide when forwarding a lead to sales. This will enable sellers to hold meaningful conversations with their potential customers.

Good cooperation between sales and marketing is required for this information transfer to be effective. This point has been high on the agenda of sales managers for years without much progress being made. Yet, coordinated actions between the two departments have never been as essential for success as now. A way forward in this matter could be to stop haggling about who has the supremacy in facilitating the customer journey. Decisions on who does what should be based on who is perceived as more capable, by the customer, to facilitate the journey to get to the next stage.

Conclusion

An effective response to the changed customer behavior requires sales managers to change their beliefs first and then to execute on improving their peoples’ thinking. The challenges posed by existing sales processes and relations with marketing should then be addressed. It is not knowledge but execution which will provide progress.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 11:17:00 +0000

It seems pretty obvious that the profound shifts in customer behavior render traditional sales processes obsolete. Why then do so many managers still insist on the compliance of their people to such processes? Most sales managers perceive any change proposed, on how to assure making their numbers, to be as risky as open heart surgery. Declaring the death of the sales machine (as a metaphor for the traditional sales process) and proposing more reliance on intuition of the sales people might therefore involve too much risk for sales managers. They prefer to stay in denial that what got them here will not get them further. Maybe a metaphor comparing the adaptation to the new customer behavior with the evolution from using automates (machine) to using robots might be less daunting.

A robot differs from an automate in two aspects. A robot has sensors to be able to recognize context and is built for agility to adapt to and to act within this context. Automates are built to work only in one context. However, the behavior of robots is still guided by rules and principles programmed into the robot.

The new sensor system for Sales

We first have to accept the fact that a single customer can choose different journeys when purchasing goods and services. As sellers, we need thus to develop a sensor system which allows us to predict which journey the customer is going to choose, to recognize evidence on what journey the customer is on and where the actual position in this journey is.

This implies that we have a set of standards, allowing us to determine the customer evidence needed to answer those questions in an unambiguous way within an entire sales organization. Checking the adherence to these standards, instead of asking for compliance to a given sales process, is then the new foundation for managers to assess whether they will make their numbers. To assure managers that such an approach will work, we can find evidence in research from CSO Insights which shows that continual tracking of customer behavior leads to higher forecast accuracy. This sensor system is actually implemented through comprehensive diagnostics going much beyond the simple process of just probe for a pain in order to be able to offer a solution.

Using principles to achieve agility in Sales

Within a customer journey, there are still logical sequences - the very characteristic of the existence of a process. Ignoring these sequences will have a detrimental impact on the outcome of a sales effort. However spelling out these sequences on the level of granularity of individual activities is ineffective. Therefore, we should work on the level of principles which allow for flexibility on choosing the activity best suited to perform on these principles. This will Increase the agility of the sales organization.

The sensor system will be used helping sellers in selecting the right sequences of principles that should be applied. By using the proper sequence of principles, the seller can provide added value in guiding the customers through their different journeys. This increases the likelihood of winning the deal. Customers tend to decide in favor of the offering of the sales person having provided the most added value in the journey.

Here is a proposed list of such principles: Rapport Building, Triage, Pain Creation, Vision Engineering, Vision Re-Engineering, Establishing Confidence that expected business outcomes can be obtained with the proposed offering and Value Confirmation. Triage might be an expression needing some clarification. It is used, prior or during the initial customer interaction for a single sales case. It determines the customer’s choice of the journey and the position within that journey. Triage, Pain Creation, Establishing Confidence and Value Confirmation are needed in this exact order to help navigate through any customer journey.

The need for Rapport Building is limited to situations where no relationship exists yet between the seller and the buyer. If used, it must precede Triage. Value Engineering or Value Re-engineering are also only relevant as alternatives in some journeys. Value Engineering is needed for customers who have not spent any money neither with us nor the competition for a particular category. Value Re-engineering is used when the customer has spent or currently spends money with competitors for a category where we have to offer viable alternatives. It is also used when we recognize that the customer has adopted a vision before our initial contact with them. To make the right choice on the alternative, Triage is a prerequisite.

On the level of these principles, there is no freedom what needs to be done when. There are also clear rules when and how to use optional principles. This provides a framework for managers how to coach their salespeople on the application of those principles. In this coaching framework, there is room for intuition when determining the actions on how to best execute on the principles.

Conclusion

Given today’s Customer behavior, replacing the classical sales process by a framework based on standards and principles helping us to become more agile within a well understood context, seems a viable alternative to throwing out the sales machine and depend on more intuition. Establishing this framework however does not guarantee success. Competencies of salespeople and particularly sales managers must equally be augmented for successful execution. The framework helps however to understand the capability gaps.

This article appeared first in the December 2013 issue of Top Sales World Magazine

80% of sales jobs will change in the next 3 years

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 10:32:00 +0000

It is a fact. Many sales experts and commentators are telling us that 80% of sales roles will change by 2016.

That doesn’t necessarily mean 8 out of 10 salespeople will lose their jobs, but it does mean that most of us are going to have to change the way we sell.

We already know that the way we communicate is changing. We are having far less face-face meetings than before, as we begin to utilize the array of online conferencing tools available to us.

The way we learn is changing, as we use the internet to research and keep up to date – how long before newspapers and books disappear altogether?

The way we develop relationships is changing: We now connect through social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter.

And of course the way in which we buy and sell is changing forever …
Are you ready to change?

Isn’t it time you started hanging out with the winners?
Top Sales World is a unique site dedicated exclusively to the profession of sales. TSW draws the industry’s best-known sales experts – including me – who provide unparalleled information in the form of how-to-guides, articles, and web-based Masterclasses and Roundtables, plus so much more.
TSW is the world’s first online “sales hypermarket,” with the shelves stacked with every conceivable resource front-line sales professionals and their managers could possibly need – and it is all free

You might already have watched the video above
After you have watched it, get yourself over to Top Sales World, and join with thousands of like-minded sales professionals, who are committed to winning – you will not find many losers over there!

How peddlers made humans’ fear of loss work for them

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Sat, 24 Aug 2013 15:39:00 +0000

I noticed that Gerhardt Gschwandtner, CEO of Selling Power and SalesOpShop, put up a new video on youtube entitled « The Past and the Future of Selling in America ».

What’s the story?

About half way into the video, the story of the peddlers, who, in the 19^th century, sold the first mass produced clocks throughout America, is told. At the time, a clock was a substantial investment for a household. It must have been difficult to make a quick sale. That’s probably why the peddlers would ask potential customers if they would allow them to store the clock for a few months at their homes. If permitted, the peddlers would then set up the clock to use in the potential customer’s home. When the peddlers returned back a few months later, wanting to collect their clock, most of the potential customers preferred purchasing the clock instead of giving it back. They could not live without it anymore.

What’s the point?

I recently read « How to Get People to Do Stuff » by Susan M. Weinschenk. There, I learned about the importance of fear of loss as a motivator. She writes « Our instincts are so alert and averse to loss of any kind that we are unconsciously more motivated to take action based on the fear of loss than on the anticipation of gain ». Behavioral economists have shown this effect in many experiments. To me, this effect was used intuitively by those peddlers in 19^th century America to sell their expensive clocks.

So what?

Seeing the « freemium » concepts used so often on the internet, it looks to me as the peddlers’ wisdom has been forgotten, and empirical evidence is ignored. A « freemium » concept provides a limited set of functionality or service to the user for free. More functionality or services can then be had by paying a subscription. The underlying hypothesis of the concept being, that constant use of service and not having access to advanced features will cause frustration and ultimately make the user to upgrade to a paying subscription.

Well if you want to sell to me “freemium” has a small to succeed. The frustration created is rarely unbearable, and if it is, I rather look first for another free alternative, offering more functionality, before spending money.

To me « freemium » tries to motivate with the anticipation of gain (more functionality). I wonder how I would react though if I were given a tool with full functionality for free for a limited period of time to learn to appreciate all the marvelous things it does for me. After the trial period, I would then have the choice between giving it up or paying a full subscription for it. To me this provokes a fear of loss situation. I think I would be much more inclined to take out a paying subscription than in the “freemium” model.

What’s your opinion?

Please share your thoughts, as I am interested in knowing whether I am an outlier or if businesses are leaving lots of money on the table with their « freemium » concepts.

Are you a Sales Manager or a Sales Leader?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 10:52:00 +0000

In a post on the HBR Blog network, Vineet Nayar proposes as one of the criteria to distinguish managers from leaders their attitude towards value. Managers count value. Leaders create value.

How does someone in a management function in sales determine whether he/she counts or creates value?

In most B2B Sales organizations I know, there is a list of ”top deals”. The kind of deals listed thereon, and the questions asked in “cadence calls” to review the list, will indicate whether you count or create value.

You count value….

…when your list contains the biggest deals to be closed on short term. You will have made sure that everyone throughout your organization is aware that these are “must win deals” as they are essential for your organization to make the number on short term (e.g. end of current quarter.) Your standard questions in “cadence calls” are then:

· Are you sure the deal will close as forecast?

· How can I help to close the deal?

You create value…

…when your list contains the deals with the highest potential value that are in a very early stage in the customer journey. You communicate to your people that you appreciate their willingness to reveal potential deals very early, and you want to help them to spend their time as wisely as possible on deals that will allow them to be successful. Your standard questions in “cadence calls” are then:

· Do you need my help to get to the right people in the customer organization?

· How can I help you to assess whether this deal has a high likelihood of being winnable?

Why is this so?

Unless you are ready to give an additional discount hoping that this will stimulate the closing of the deal, there is little else you can control at this late stage in the process. Actually with your eagerness for closing the deal you risk destroying value for your company by granting discounts.

When you get involved early in the deals, you can provide guidance on the qualification, on the approach that will increase the likelihood of winning well qualified deals and you can accelerate the deal in an early stage by helping your people gaining appropriate entry into the customer organization. Being early in the deal and moving purposefully in early stages of the customer journey also increases your chance to win against competitors and avoid deals that end up with no decision by the customer.

Conclusion

Applying these criteria, I see many more Sales Managers than Sales Leaders. As long as this remains so, I am not very confident that the performance of sales organizations will improve anytime soon.

How do you assess the situation?

Gain exclusive insights into global B2B Sales and Marketing research by contributing to study

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 14:11:00 +0000

In 2005, MathMarketing and MarketingProfs set the debate about alignment alight when they published the findings of their global study on Sales and Marketing alignment. With 1,390 sales and marketing professionals from 84 countries taking part, their research found that businesses that achieve alignment have a significant competitive advantage over those that don’t.

Their findings have helped to shape the worldwide debate on Sales and Marketing alignment and the repercussions of the findings are still being felt today (e;g. see the presentation "Does your Sales & Marketing Tandem Drive or Inhibit Growth")

But as the business environment keeps evolving, so should the research of this topic.

This time, MathMarketing is teaming up with Marketo, a leader in marketing automation, to revisit this topic and determine the role that Sales and Marketing alignment is playing in the growth being achieved by B2B businesses today.

You are invited to participate in the research. There are some fantastic incentives for you to participate. Aside from getting the opportunity to contribute to leading global research, you will receive a full copy of the report, enabling you to leverage valuable benchmarks in your own business. The organizers of the research recognize that your time is super-valuable, so they are going one better.

As a participant in this landmark study, you will also receive an invitation to attend their exclusive Sales and Marketing Alignment summit, hosted by MathMarketing CEO Hugh Macfarlane. During this on-line summit, which will be free but open only to survey participants, Hugh will lead a discussion on the research findings, and then take your questions on the study, the findings, their recommendations, or anything else you want to discuss.

You know how it goes: the power of major research like this lies in getting a good number of well-considered responses, so please join them to uncover the state of alignment in 2013. Please click here to complete their survey, and help shape the future of B2B Sales and Marketing alignment.

Warning to CEOs: Resist the Temptation of Believing in Silver Bullets……

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 12:58:00 +0000

…… especially when trying to address performance issues of your sales force.

On February 6, 2013 Sales training industry experts Brian Lambert, Geoffrey James, John Roy and Scott Hudson discussed “The good, bad & ugly of Challenger Sales Model”. The Model is described in the book “The Challenger Sale, Taking Control of the Customer Conversation” by Mathew Dixon and Brent Adamson of the Corporate Executive Board. The model is gathering significant attention not least from the way the book is marketed.

Brian Lambert mentioned in the introduction to the discussion some serious performance issues that sales forces need fixing. Yet one of the main conclusions of the experts’ discussion was that there is no such thing as a silver bullet to fix these sales performance issues.

Why should you care?

Every year, billions of dollars are spent for sales training. A big portion of these training efforts does not show adequate returns. In many cases, this lack of return is caused by executives having the newest concept for Sales introduced into their organizations with the hope of having found the silver bullet to solve sales force performance issues.

Why do we need to be reminded of this?

The way the book, “The Challenger Sale”, is marketed, fosters this illusion of being a silver bullet to improve sales performance. Just have a look at the jacket of the book. There, Neil Rackham, the author of SPIN Selling, praises “The Challenger Sale” as: “The most important advance in selling for many years”.

Neil Rackham developed his SPIN Selling model on the basis of an extensive research. When it was first presented, it drew a lot of criticism from the then established sales trainers because it put into question many of their believes and teachings. In hind side, we know that, for many contexts, these teachings have proven to be inadequate.

The Challenger Sales Model is also based on research though not as extensive as the one undertaken by Rackham. The Challenger Sales Model also is often put in questions by today’s sales experts. The discussion by industry experts, mentioned above, is just one of many examples. Can you see the power of putting Neil Rackham’s quote on the jacket? For those knowing the industry, it is a clear message: If you criticize the Challenger Sales Model, you risk being seen like those trainers critiquing SPIN Selling in an attempt to protect their turfs.

The article published in the Harvard Business Review on the Challenger Sales Model is another element of how the book is marketed. In this article, Dixon et al. announce nothing less than the death of Solution Selling. For the benefit of the doubt, let’s assume they meant Solution Selling as a generic term. “Solution Selling” is also a registered trademark of a widely used commercial sales methodology. You can imagine that the owners of this methodology were not exactly happy about this article. From my perspective, the research done for “The Challenger Sale” actually confirms a very basic concept of “Solution Selling”, namely to focus on prospects who are not yet looking for a solution. That is essentially what a challenger does.

Last week, I found yet another example s of the marketing strategy for the book. This example is on audience targeting. In the British Airways magazine “Business Life”, I found this article discussing the book. This last example triggered the idea for the title of this blog post.

Why is an airline magazine well suited to diffuse the message about “The Challenger Sale”?

Many executives are frequent flyers. They often do some background reading while traveling by plane. Articles, like the one in the British Airways magazine, draw easily their attention. Most executives are rather displeased with the performance of their sales forces and this for good reasons when you look issues presented by Brian Lambert. During the experts' discussions, one of the panelists mentioned that most executives have not risen to their position through the sales ranks which makes them though particularly vulnerable to believe in messages transmitted in such articles.

At first glance, and especially if one has not had much exposure to the sales function, articles such as the one in the British Airways magazines appear rather plausible. Inspired by the article, executives might next buy the book or immediately have somebody looking into how this apparently new great model about sales could be introduced to their company’s sales force. As mentioned above, there is a high likelihood that such an initiative will end up in another disappointing experience of a sales training initiative not producing the expected results. Here is why.

The definition of Sales might look simple

In an earlier post, I already made an attempt to present a simple definition. Thanks to a discussion with my friend David Ednie, I found a more refined and comprehensive version:

Sales means having interactions

• with the right person

• about the right subject

• at the right moment

• in the right way

to reach mutually beneficial decisions for the seller and the buyer.

Mastering Sales is less trivial

To understand who the right person and what the right subject is, one needs methodologies. To know when it is the right moment to interact, one needs a process. Skills are needed to know the right way how to interact. Already this little list demonstrates that there are many facets to be mastered by a well performing sales force. There is simply not one book that can cover all these aspects.

Recommendations

First, remember that books are primarily written for authors. Especially in the sales training industry, which is largely lacking a body of scientific knowledge, books are written to establish ones authority about the subject. Content presenting an apparent comprehensive model or system based on own research seems to be best suited to establish credibility. Yet content alone does not sell the book. You need clever marketing. The way “The Challenger Sale “is marketed is an excellent show case how to boost sales for a book effectively. Whether this goes to the detriment of credibility, is a different subject.

Second, we need executives being more involved in initiatives to improve the performance of sales forces. Yet we should stop creating allusions that one book contains the silver bullet how to do it. Doing so, we set them up for failure.

Third, in most books written about Sales, you will find some aspects worthwhile to be considered. Only wise and careful integration of such aspects into a current selling system has a chance of bringing the expected improvement of performance. Integrating does though not mean adding. Usually some edges need be filed off from the new concept and elements from the existing system need to be removed or modified. In case you consider the whole system described in a book as being attractive to deploy in your organization, just be aware that integration of a whole model is more complex, and the chance for causing disruptions in the current selling system, negatively impacting performance, is increasing.

Commercial Sales Methodologies are evolving at a slow pace

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 17:18:00 +0000

Yesterday, I attended a presentation about Sales Performance International's (SPI new “Solution Selling 2.0” program.

The one and only sales process does no longer exist

From what I heard, I think “Solution Selling 2.0” might help sellers to be more effective to help customers in their buying process. I found most interesting that the company, probably owning the most process oriented commercial sales methodology, had to concede that in today’s world, using one and only one sales process is no longer effective. I could not help to chuckle when I heard this. I had already written about the need for a multiple process approach in 2008.

Since then, others, such as McKinsey have shown that the customer buying process are different in function of customer loyalty (McKinsey Quarterly 2009 No2.) Also for quite some years, CSO insights consider that best in class companies have a dynamic sales process. Which to me indicates that also they consider that a one size fits all approach is no longer effective.

Implications for Sales Management

The need for several sales processes increases complexity for sales management. It is no longer sufficient to inspect that the sales process is followed. Managers now need to be able to inspect that the most suitable process is followed. While the design of these different processes can be delegated (e.g. to sales operations), managers must be able to judge which process is the most suitable for a given buying situation. Universally applied criteria for the selection of the right process must be defined and applied.

The need for an outside-in view

To come to meaningful selection criteria for the appropriate sales process, a mapping to the customers buying process is fundamental. It is relatively simple to see if the customer buying process is considered in the sales process. I usually look how sales stages (the top level definition of a sales process) are labeled in the CRM system. If you do not find any terms reflecting the customer situation, then there is a high likelihood that your sales process is internally focused. You would be surprised how often you still find this situation in running CRM implementations. If you find yourself in this situation an effort must be made to understand the customer’s buying behavior (outside in) before even contemplating to move to a set of various sales processes.

Call for action

Moving towards various sales processes to be more responsive to different customer situations is a change management process. Sales Leaders and Mangers are the first targets who must adhere to this change. Are you as leaders and managers willing to make this effort?

52 Sales Management Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 12:44:00 +0000

Today launches Steven Rosen's book "52 Management Tips". It is a concise companion for sales managers dealing with issues frequently encountered in their management practice.

Here is one of the tips to give you a flavor of the contents of the book:

Tip #50: Beware of Failure to Impact Syndrome

Time and time again I see it. Sales reps going through their daily activities like robots. They have little impact on each call, but show up and expect the business. I call this “failure to impact syndrome.” It is contagious and can spread throughout an entire sales force. It works as long as the business grows. Everyone gets high fives and there is no need to dig any deeper.

But what happens when sales are off and senior management starts asking questions. Sales managers struggle to come up with the answers and reps get nervous.

The cure: Get out in the field and inspire your reps to be innovative. Just like a car you need to be behind the wheel to drive it.

About the author:

Steven Rosen, MBA is the CEO of STAR Results, and is a widely sought after executive sales coach, advisor and speaker. Steven is the author of 52 Sales Management Tips - The Sales Managers Success Guide.

Steven is passionate about assisting sales executives and managers to FOCUS on increasing sales and achieving STAR results in their personal and professional lives.T

he eBook 52 Sales Management Tips The Sales Managers Success Guide is available at Amazon.com. To find out more go to www.52SalesManagementTips.com

Helpful Dashboard Applications for Sales Departments

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Guest post by Anthony Lo

Ever felt like your sales operation is hounded by too much information? You aren’t alone. CRM technology has empowered companies with the ability to collect a plethora of information on their clients and consumers. However, making sense of that data has proven to be a challenge.

The Salesforce AppExchange offers approximately 70 dashboard and reporting add-ons that make it simple to interpret data. These apps help companies with quick decisions by making sales performance metrics easily digestible.

We, at Software Advice, recently put together a list of five sales visualization add-ons that you should check out. Mashmatrix, Sales KPI Dashboard 1.0, and Sales Mobile Dashboards for iPad are three particularly useful add-ons. Mashmatrix has a slick drag-and-drop interface that makes dashboard customization easy for every individual in an organization. Sales KPI Dashboard 1.0 is ideal for sales managers analyzing team-level KPIs. Salesforce Mobile Dashboards for iPad enables users to see Salesforce dashboards on their tablets. Get the total scoop on these affordable applications, plus two others, by clicking here.

How do you define Sales?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:33:00 +0000

have gone quiet on my blog for a while. One of the reasons is that I am preparing and teaching a course on “Methods for Complex Sales” in the Master Program “Strategic Sales Management” at the ESB Business School at Reutlingen University, Germany. Preparing and delivering this six days course is quite an undertaking consuming much of my time not devoted to delivering consulting projects. Over the next few week, I will write about my experiences in preparing and teaching the course. Today, I would like to share my thoughts I had when preparing for the first lesson. It thought it would be good practice in a university class to start with a definition of what sales is.

Oxford Dictionary for the Business World
I started by consulting the Oxford Dictionary for the Business World where I found:

“Sale 1 exchange of a commodity for money etc. act or instance of selling

2 amount sold
3 temporary offering of goods at reduced prices

4a event at which goods are sold

4b public auction
On or for sale: Offered for purchase [Old English]”

I felt that only the first definition would fit with the subject of my course. Yet the “exchange of a commodity...” bothered me immensely. Although we see strong trends toward offerings become commodities ever faster, I could not see how I could my conviction that successful sales people by bringing value to their customers can curb this trend would fit with this definition.

So I tried the entry

“Sell-v.

1 exchange or be exchanged for money

2 stock for sales (do you sell eggs)

3 sells for, has a specific price
4 sell (reflective) betray or prostitute for money

5 advertise or publicize
6 cause to be sold '(name alone sells well)

7 sell a person (colloquial) enthusiastic about an idea”

I did not think that this entry helped me further. So I tried the American Heritage Dictionary where sale is defined as “the exchange of goods or services for an amount of money or its equivalent [or] the act of selling”. I liked this definition better than the one in the Oxford Dictionary, but I still felt that it did not describe much of what salespeople do.

Other Refrences

then looked up the definition Tim Ohai and Brian Lambert give in their book “Sales Chaos...” They say that the word “sell” is derived from the Icelandic word “selja” and the Anglo-Saxon word “syllan”; both meaning to serve or to give. While I like this definition, as it indicates what I believe to be the needed mindset from which successful sellers should operate, I found it described more what salespeople ought to do than what they often do.

After this excursion into the linguistic world, I finally concluded that I had to come up with my own definition telling more what sellers actually do. For this, I was inspired by what the students were told in the first semester of their program that selling essentially is communicating.

My Own
Building on this, I came up with this definition which I now use in the course:

Selling is communicating

To the right person
At the right moment
About the right subject

So an informed decision can be made.

I feel that this definition is a good foundation for discussing sales process, sales methodology and relationship management, core topics of my course. My feeling seems to prove right. So far, this definition has helped tremendously giving a structure to the course. I will explain how in future posts.

Conversations with Economic Buyers

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:56:00 +0000

We know that successful sellers are able to provide value to each interaction they have with prospects and clients. If you want to provide value in conversations with economic buyers, you need to have Business Acumen. “Bottom Line Selling” by Jack Malcolm describes the observable behavior you need to display if you want others to be convinced that you have Business Acumen.

The first part of the book introduces you to the fundamental business concept of productivity including the velocity aspect and provides lots of actionable advice about what needs to be done to understand the customer as an organization, but as the saying goes: It is people not organizations who buy.

The second part of the book discusses how you can apply the situational knowledge gained by following the advice of the first part of the book. You will be introduced to different formal roles within a prospective or client’s organization and how to adopt your conversations accordingly so that your message is heard and your vis-à-vis will perceive the value you contribute to the conversation. The book then also covers the ingredients of a convincing written proposal.

You will gain the most value from reading Jack’s book by not being content to know more about what Business Acumen is, but to act on the advice. This will lead you to talk about the subjects customers care most about - how you can provide value to their business- and to refrain to start conversations with the topics you know most about – functions, features and benefits of your offering.

Sellers are at ease talking about their offerings, because they are better trained on this topic. Jack Malcolm provides you with the guide on how to increase the knowledge about your prospects and customers to become equally conversant on topics which are of foremost interest to your customers.

“Bottom Line Selling” is in its second extended edition. I found a few passages throughout the book where I asked myself whether the statements or references are still relevant for today’s economic climate. You should though not be bothered by this. The fundamentals covered in the book are very relevant for the current times.

Reading the book is thus time well invested if you want to start to differentiate yourselves from all those sellers who still try to stay in their comfort zone and are talking mostly about functions, features and maybe benefits of their offerings. Staying in this comfort zone implies the risk to become irrelevant to customers and prospects that have so much information at their disposition through the internet.