Ask any group of sales people what they want to achieve with their buyers, and a vast majority will tell you they want to build rapport and establish a “relationship” with buyers. It seems like the Politically Correct thing to say, sounds nice, sounds safe, and frankly sounds easy; all the ingredients that the 80% are looking for. Now don’t get me wrong, having a relationship with your buyers and customers is important, but when measured in results and revenue, not all it’s cracked up to be.

Myself, and I believe the 20%, would rather achieve being “important” to their buyers and clients. Because when they want to achieve important things, they turn to the people they believe and perceive to be important for the task, regardless of the relationship. How many times did you think you had a relationship, while the other company ended up with the order?

Read on…

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

One common objection sales people face when making prospecting calls, is when the potentially prospect says “now is not the right time”.  While timing is important, and understanding how specific triggers can help improve your timing, the fact remains that perfecting your timing will only help you in a very (very very) small way, in a very narrow part of you potential prospect segment.  Here is why.

Timing is only important with two buyer groups, Passive, those who have realized the Status Quo no longer meets their requirements, and have decided to learn or check out “what’s out there”.  Not actively looking, but getting feelers out, looking at some web sites, information, getting acclimatized, hence Passive. The other group are those Active buyers who have decided to buy, even what to buy, is now just down to where and from whom; this is where the order takers thrive.  But together these two groups are a small part of the market, maybe 30%, but the remaining 70%, the Status Quo, timing, will by definition always be off.  As a result, you have two choices, the popular choice for many whose business cards say Sales Representative, is to avoid prospecting and fully engaging with these potential buyers; taking the advice of some questionable experts who will encourage them to “nurture”.  “After some nurturing, when they are ready, they will call you, since you stuck with them.” OK

So if you want to really change the outcome, read make more sales and generate more revenue, you need to work on the Status Quo, the 70% where you will always be too early, the 70% where other fear to tread.

The reality of timing is it will ALWAYS be either too Late or too Soon.  If they are Passive or Active buyers, it will always be too late, and if they are in Status Quo, it will always be too early, because they do not perceive a “need”, until something changes and it needs to be NOW.

That being said, it is not as difficult to overcome the challenge as some will make you believe.  First resolve to engage the entire market, including those currently removed from the market.  Because you not only know that their circumstance will change, and what may seem too early becomes, “I need it now”, but given your experience you know what is likely to be the catalyst for that change, the challenges they will face and the solution they will need to resolve it.

How?  By studying and understanding what led to that moment in the past with existing clients, prospects, and deals that did not go your way.  Once you know this, by tracking deals you’ve won, lost and those that ended in no decision.  You will understand what events led up to and caused the change, with that you can prepare, position and act.  It takes work, sometimes boring work, but with the right tools, and right approach, you can take timing and turn it your way.

By studying past outcomes and inputs, you can take proactive steps to ensure that you don’t enter the fray too late, and always capitalize on opportunities other sales people and prospects will say is too soon.

It is never the right time if you relinquish control, and always the right time if you are willing to put in the work, and ask, “is it ever the right time?”

Next Step

• Call everyone, not just the easy targets
• Understand where they may be based on experience
• You dictate the time

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

There a host of things you can focus on to master to improve your sales execution and results, but none more than the need to master time.  We all start with 24 hours at the start of the day, and how we use it will determine our success more than anything else.  I have never heard a sales person, no matter how good, tell me they have run out skills, but at one point they have all run out of time.

There are however a few simple things you can do to tilt things your way.  The key is keeping it simple, which is not easy, especially for people in ‘complex sales’; oddly and often, what makes the sale complex is inefficient  time allocation.  The other is actually taking specific planned steps, rather than putting things off forcing people to multi-task, a really stupid concept.

Chunk It – It is safe to say that most people’s attention is challenged throughout the day, but sales people, well we seem to have a special form of ADHD, jumping from thing to another, then multi-tasking (what a stupid concept), to try to catch up and get things done. It is a lot more practical chunk your time and focus on one specific task at a time.  Rather than making a call, then sending that same person an e-mail; then “researching” before the next call, then checking voice and e-mail.  Make your calls, then do all the e-mails you committed to send, do your research for all your calls at once, and so on.  If your memory is failing, then make notes and do them all at once.  Simple, but you need to do it, and bank the time you save.

Shift your tasks – There are certain things need to get done at a specific time, while other things can float, meaning they have to get done, but as long as they are done by deadline, doesn’t matter when it gets done.  Simple but to the point, you need to make your calls when the buyers are around, but I can write a proposal any time before I need to present it.  A proposal written at 2:00 pm is not better than one created at 6:00, but chances are better that a prospect will be open to meeting at 2:00 more so than 6:00.  This is also true for research, list preparation, product updates, and Starbucks.  Simple, but you need to do it, and bank the time you save.

Protect – Speaking of Starbucks, you don’t have to go when ever your buddies go, especially buddies who haven’t made goal the last few years.  People do not see time in a tangible way, as a result, they don’t always value it the same way as say food, or money.  We are social creatures, and therefore susceptible to group thinking, and if you believe the 80/20 rule, the unproductive 80%, seems to have a lot of time, and a lot of pull.  Just because they want to discuss every call in last nights game does not mean you have to.  Stick to your agenda, you can talk about the game at a time that suits you, not the 80%.  Ask yourself why they always seem to have time for that, but not for making quota.  Simple, but you need to do it, and bank the time you save.

Next Step

• Know what you have to complete to be successful
• Allocate your time to those success factors
• Do it

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

If you’re a basketball or hockey fan, you are (should be) enjoying the playoffs. For the most part the level of play, intensity and excitement of the game is at its highest level (most of the time).  Every play counts, it is do or die time, and it brings out the best in players.

Some players have made a career out of being clutch playoff players, think of “Mr. October”, Reggie Jackson, and others who have distinguished themselves with their post season play.  But while pro athletes can afford to or even thrive in being sporadic in their playing, as a sales professional you simply cannot.  You have to bring your A game, you playoff game everyday.

Team players may not want to go through slumps, others on the team can step up to fill the void, even solo athletes can survive a lull, but as a seller you can’t.   Easing up on you focus and intensity even for a short time can have devastating consequences now and in the future.  No where is that more evident than in prospecting.

Letting up on your prospecting to look after other “more important things”has an immediate negative impact, in the form of a light pipeline.  With a lack of prospects, there is greater pressure to close what is in your pipeline now, leading you to take desperate measures to close deals that you may not even pursue if you had a bounty of prospects in your funnel.  Deals you would disqualify, now you try to compromise, and let’s face it in sales speak “compromise” means discount. Discount means lesser margins, less reinvestment opportunity for your company, and more. The pressures of an empty pipeline are immense, regardless of the cause, it is a lot like falling behind early in the game, then using all you energy and skill to catch up, but not enough energy to put it away.

Further, you will the impact again at a predictable point in time in the future, in fact that point in time is exactly the length of your sales cycle.  If you have a three month cycle, and you don’t put anything in your funnel today, you’ll be getting little more in three months; and if you have a 3:1 closing ratio, you best be putting three things in your funnel just to have a chance in regulation time.

While the Habs may make some trades, pick up a draft choice and look to next season, your VP can’t trade, but he can fire, so you need to sell like its the playoffs everyday.

Next Step

• Know you ratios
• Make sure they are right for the entire cycle
• Don’t let it go to sudden death

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

This past Saturday, I had the great pleasure of spending the day with some of North America’s brightest sales thinkers. You can track them through my tweet stream @TiborShanto, and there is a list below. These 20 or so sales thought leaders are a subset of a larger group that has collaborated a number of ways online and in the socialsphere, I have worked with some for years, but this was the first (of many I hope) time we got together in one room to focus on and move a common agenda forward.

Without getting into detail, we made great strides in specific areas with concrete executables. While we had done things in the past, it paled in comparison to the quantum leap in progress made around the table in a few hours. This was not a surprise, nor a shock, in fact it was predictable, it just had to happen. People with a common purpose accomplish more together.

This is true for sellers and buyers, you can accomplish way more, especially at crucial points, working directly, together, in the same space.

Now this is not a negative post about social selling vs. traditional selling, or virtual selling vs. live direct selling; this about how things work together. Many valuable relationships start in the social media, but in most instances, especially in sales, it needs to progress to a direct interaction to fully flourish. The advantages to mastering both, the social and the direct interaction are many, especially when you perfect the timing of the transition from social and direct interaction. But there is no question you need to master both to win, and relying on one over the other, limits your options, repertoire, and success.

One of my greatest take away from Saturday was the quality of the interactions. Again, not a surprise, but always great when it happens. People were open, shedding veneers and pretence, things that are easy to hide behind or get lost behind in a purely social media based interaction. People want to help people, and do that much better face o face, not that the intent is absent in social media, but live it takes on dimensions that fuel success.

So get social, but also get live, you relish the experience and success.

Thanks to:

@scoremoresales
@saleshorizons
@CharlesHGreen
@mike_weinberg
@CoachLee
@StevenARosen
@SalesDuJour
@RobertTerson
@donfperkins
@babettetenhaken
@TheSalesHunter
@douglaserice
@milesaustin
@fearlessselling
@iannarino
@BlueprintSMS
@ZeroTimeSelling

Next Step

• Get Social
• Get Live
• Get Sales

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

As good as a qualification process is, none are perfect, and as a result, we do at times end up in meetings that could have waited or completely passed on. Many sales people bitch and moan about the lost time, and while that may feel good it doesn’t change things.  But there are steps you  an take to make some of these meetings have value to you moving forward, it comes down to what you can learn and apply back into the way you sell based on everything you professionally experience.

On a simple level you can learn what in you  current qualification process misfired and allowed you to spend time with an unqualified buyer. Again, perfection is a lofty goal, but improvement needs to be a constant objective. By implementing a planned questioning strategy, and reviewing the results, you will begin to identify areas that will allow you to qualify, or better yet disqualify opportunities more effectively and earlier  in the future.

Many is sales are accustomed to won/loss/no decision analysis at the end of a deal, but the same principle can and should be applied to successful and unsuccessful first appointments. By improving how and who you engage with,  it will also lead to better if not more sales.

A more important thing to learn and take away from these so called “useless” meetings, revolve around specifics of the role and or industry of the unqualified prospect.  These meetings provide a great opportunity to learn specific elements and nuances, things such as jargon.  Speaking the language your buyer does, can only be good.  By the same token, you can learn how they view things, some time by adjusting you view, seeing something from a new angel, will help you be a more effective communicator with more of the right people.

This also applies to certain common practices, especially as you expand your range and call on new people and new roles within the target account.  The other side of the coin, is the ability to experiment and try techniques you may be reluctant to try with more established or qualified prospects; after all, if the meeting is going nowhere, there is little to lose but the chance to experiment and grow.

In the end, one big thing you can learn is how to qualify better and decrease a drag on your precious time, your most valuable and none ons forenewable resource.

Next Step

• Make more appointments to minimize the impact of unqualified buyers
• Feel free to experiment
• Review and refine reasons for unqualified buyers

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Believe it or not, voice mail has been around since the late 1970’s, and for all the advances mankind has made since then, voice mail still seems to puzzle and cripple the success of many B2B sales people.  Further, it seems that some sales people don’t want to figure it out and master it for sales success, to borrow a term from a recent commercial, they see voice mail as “an enigma wrapped up in a conundrum“.

But it doesn’t have to be, I and others have shared road tested proven methodologies for using and leveraging voice mail for sales success.  As recently as a few weeks ago I had someone spend time questioning the method and success, without ever trying for themselves, go figure!

As a result of that adventure, Kevin Gaither of This Week In Sales invited me to elaborate on the use of voice mail and break down some common fears and myths.  So here for your pleasure and profit is that exchange with Kevin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbI3vg2hzoI

Next Step

• Understand the goal of voice mail
• Be counter intuitive
• Stop making excuses and leave a message

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

If you are in sales you have likely seen or participated in a discussion about whether sales training works or not.  You have likely heard that it works when there is follow-through, or if there is buy in from front line sellers, or the degree to which management is committed to supporting the new training.  While these and other factors do play a role, I see a variation the last point as key.

While most have framed their reasoning and discussion around the argument of
management/leadership commitment, I believe it comes down to something more profound
and less often discussed, intent.

Just as intent will differentiate sellers in their buyers’ eyes, intent is more often than not the determining factor is sales training success.  Many companies embark on a training program because it is one of the things they (feel they) have to do.  While there is the underlying understand that training is a good thing and does lead to improvement at some level, it is often something that is done to satisfy a KPI, or is one of the things that was an initiative on the calendar for that fiscal year.

I recently was involved in a discussion with a company that typified this approach.  Several times we talked about the “need” for training, but when we tried to dig down and understand what were the specific objectives for the initiative, the discussion was held to a superficial level.  Any attempt to understand what the underlying factors were, how they wanted to see the team be different as a result of the initiative were met with generalities, “more revenue”, “better interactions”, “more profitable relations”, and more.

When we tried to take the discussion to a deeper more specific level, we met with surprise about the questions, and told that it was part of a greater plan.  We felt that if we were going t contribute to their success, it would be integral for us to understand the plan, what had already been addressed, if or how was it adopted, we were met by surprise for the question, rather than specific answers.

As part of any engagement we like to meet with reps and managers in advance, as an informal assessment (we often will conduct formal assessments), yet this is at time seen as a foreign request.  When it is, I have become suspicious about the intent and nature of the commitment.   It is as though they were telling us that the important thing is to have training, not necessarily to help the team sell better.

To me if the intent going in is wrong, the results will not be far from that either.

Next Step

• Understand what specifically you intend to get as a result of any training
• Spend longer sourcing the training than it takes to deliver it
• Share your goal with the chosen training partner in advance, not after

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

We have all faced the situation where the person we have been working with on a sale turns out to be the wrong person, or more often an obstacle to moving the deal forward.  While it is OK to be frustrated, you also need to act, and when you step back the only logical thing to do is escalate things, go higher, or what sales people commonly call “going over their head”, for me the only smart way to get the deal.

But a lot of sellers have difficulty accepting this move.  There are all kinds of reasons (excuses), mostly boiling down to the fact that they have drank the relationship Kool Aid, and would rather make friends than sales.

So let’s look at your options if you want to make sales, friends and money.  First you should have gone high in the organization at the same time you prospected Mr. or Mrs. I Can’t Make Decisions, by contacting everyone involved in the decision instead of just the front man, you open the door to having options when faced with this dilemma.   Again, the point here is not to call one versus the other, but to plan in advance and putting yourself in a position to help them make a decision, and in some instances, facilitate a consensus, after all you are the expert.

But you know what they say about the place laid plans, and you find yourself in having to go over their head, how do you do that without insulting and setting them off; how do you do it without sounding like whiny loser, or a lost sheep.  Simple, call the senior person, no matter their title or role, they are people and have an interest in delivering success to their company.  When you talk to them, simply ask for their guidance.  Sounds simple, but it works, first you are giving them the respect they expect, they love to give guidance, especially since they ultimately benefit, and in the process of getting proper guidance, you have to lay out the situation.  This allows you to get them involved, without whining or bitching about someone in their organization.  Just tell them you need their guidance about a situation, you want to address/understand their strategies and priorities, so you can align with them.

Executed right, it is all about them; done right, they will get involved; done right it works, operative word here is done, as in doing, executing, not excusing.

Next Step

• Resolve to know who is involved in the decision
• Call them
• When stuck, call them back, park you ego, and ask for guidance

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

A couple of weeks back, I was asked about value, and provided a firm definition for value.  The definition is step one, it provides the direction for the seller, next sellers need to learn how to surface it and leverage it for the mutual benefit of the buyer and the seller.  As a follow up I was asked:

So working with that definition of value, that is removing obstacles that stand between the buyer and their objectives, how does a sales person know or determine the buyers’ objectives?

It takes a bit of practice but here we go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FISRA6Wuxw

Next Step

• Develop a process for capturing specific client attributes
• Learn to key issues that have driven clients to engage and buy
• Develop questions, after all, based on the above you know the answers

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto