Gretchen is an award-winning Sales Management blogger who specializes in solving sales problems for clients. She is the President of Braveheart Sales Performance.
You’ve talked about how a sales team can’t solve the needs of an individual until they are understood. To start, what are some ways that you determine what an individual’s needs are, so you can best solve them?
The best way to uncover individual needs is to engage with prospects and ask thought-provoking questions that help to not only uncover but also understand the issues that face them. This seems obvious and very basic, but it is actually more complicated than just asking questions. The secret to gathering useful information through questioning starts with the salesperson’s ability to quickly build rapport. Rapport gives the seller a better chance to be respected and trusted. When the seller is trusted, then they can ask more hard-hitting questions exploring areas that might trouble the prospect.
Further, when trust is present the seller has a far better chance of getting truthful answers, and there will be less game-playing and misleading by the prospect. The key to good question asking is to be genuinely inquisitive about the problems that face the prospect. The seller must ask “why” questions and “how” questions so as to better understand what matters to the prospect. If the seller can use information they already have about a particular lead then they don’t have to waste precious time on the basics, rather they can get down to the nitty-gritty more quickly, which allows for deeper and better conversations. Salespeople will likely have far better sales results if they focus in on the compelling reasons why an individual prospect would do something and how they go about making decisions.
All of this assumes that the seller gets to have a conversation with the prospect. In the digital marketing world, one can potentially have some insight into what is troubling the prospect based on the type of content that attracts them to act, either by downloading material or by completing information. The one pitfall is that salespeople may assume that because a prospect downloads a certain piece of content, that they must have a need addressed by that content. Salespeople would be wise not to assume anything when following up on these types of leads. They should rely on their questioning skills rather than jump to conclusions.
The ability to customize sales approaches like this seems to be as a result of digital marketing strategies and resources, which also have a number of downsides. What are some ways that you help your clients stand out, in an incredibly competitive and saturated market?
Some of the downsides associated with digital marketing are problematic if the salesperson assumes too much about the lead in terms of what they want or why they were drawn to the company in the first place. The way we help our clients stand out is not through traditional marketing. Rather we help clients’ individual salespeople take responsibility for their own prospecting and marketing action plans. We cause them to engage with targeted prospects in a highly customized way. Rather than utilizing mass marketed approaches, we help salespeople engage personally with their prospects so that they can enable the conversation where the seller can ask the hard-hitting, potent questions as suggested previously.
Nobody likes to be sold to. However, prospects do appreciate knowledgeable, helpful salespeople who can help them solve problems or attain particular outcomes. Therefore we would encourage salespeople to use all the resources available to them through inbound marketing and research, but to also be sure to personally connect with leads and targeted prospects. Using the information available to take it to a personal relationship is really the key to separate oneself from others.
Another down side of digital marketing is not knowing where to spend your time and energy most effectively. Can you share a few thoughts on how to stay focused and productive, in a digital environment?
Sellers need to stay focused on their targets. This assumes they have either a clearly defined target list or, in the absence of a focused target list, then they have a very specific description of the ideal type of target. Next, each salesperson should have specific sales goals that are tied to their own personal goals. And then, once those are established, the individual must create their own action plan to produce enough conversations to produce the appropriate results. Whether a BDR or an account executive.
It is imperative that sellers stay focused on the goal and that they take stock of their actions and behaviors on a very regular basis (hourly if necessary) to make sure they are staying focused on the important activities. It is so easy to get distracted that without a clear vision we can all find ourselves wasting time and brain power on unnecessary digital distractions. Managers can help by also inspecting the key activities that predict results. They must be focused on first holding salespeople accountable to enough of the right behaviors. Once there is confidence in this aspect, then sales managers can focus in on improving the quality of the dialogue the salespeople are having.
You’ve also talked about how sales is an inherently honest honorable profession, which is quite different from most people’s conceptions of the industry. How can a sales team or a company help portray themselves as trustworthy, without appearing boastful or proud?
I think sales teams should be proud and should not be bashful about portraying themselves in that manner. From a purely sales perspective, I am absolutely against spewing ones’ features and benefits. I understand that companies’ marketing messages can support trustworthiness, but from a sales perspective, it is one of the worst things a salesperson can do to tell a prospect how great they or the company is.
What causes a prospect to believe someone or some company is trustworthy, stems from the prospect feeling as if the salesperson really cares about the issues the prospect faces. The way to cause a prospect to trust is actually to care; to be genuine and to keep the prospect’s interest and well being as the number one priority. There is not a trick or tactic to earn trust.
One earns trust by being honest, even to the point of backing away from an opportunity where it isn’t a good fit.
Braveheart Sales uses state-of-the-art evaluation tools to identify areas that need to be worked on. What are some common areas that you find need improvement? What are some signs that you look for?
The symptoms that business leaders seem to struggle seem to be consistent and fairly universal.
Top Symptoms of Underlying Sales Problems
Excessively long closing cycles
Ineffective sales management
Lack of velocity in the pipeline
Lacking sense of urgency
Unwillingness to prospect consistently
Inability to qualify efficiently.
These are all symptoms of underlying issues. Frequently, there are multiple issues at work that are the cause of the symptoms we see. We often encounter individuals who need to be liked more than they need to close business. This causes individuals to care a little too much about what the prospect thinks about them, or they worry too much about how the prospect will react.
This particular problem tends to be part of the cause of many of the symptoms previously mentioned. It can cause an individual to experience long closing cycles, an unwillingness to prospect, and an inability to qualify efficiently because they won’t push back on prospects who string them along. These are all fixable, but most often the salesperson doesn’t even know that the underlying cause is their inherent need to be liked or need for approval. That is why we start with the state-of-the-art sales evaluation tools that we do. We can diagnose the underlying causes of the symptoms that business leaders complain about so that we can pinpoint solutions and a roadmap for improvement.
You mention how a once-a-year training seminar isn’t that useful, as far as implementing new practices are concerned. You advocate for a customized curriculum, reinforced over time. For sales managers looking to polish their sales team, can you give an example of what reinforcement over a span of time might look like?
For some situations, the problem can be overcome relatively quickly, but for others, such as the need for approval discussed previously, it can take many months of consistent work to improve. We favor an approach for development and improvement where the evaluation is conducted to diagnose the issues, then the outcome or goal is articulated. Then the individual is exposed to a new process, a new skill or a new way of doing things.
The best scenario is where the manager asks the individual to set activity and behavior plans and has them create their own action plan and commitment for what they will do to improve.
The key to individual team members improving is practice, practice, practice. Sales managers can engage in practice with their team members before they are in the live selling situation. Next, it is especially important for the sales manager to establish a habit of planning calls and prospect interactions. Sales managers can influence the salesperson’s growth by asking them what they would say in certain situations or how they will respond when the prospect says certain things. Rather than always telling them what to say, they will help the salespeople grow by causing the salesperson to think for themselves. Then, finally, sales managers must debrief calls and conversations and ask targeted questions highlighting behaviors the salesperson should have engaged in with the prospect. Unfortunately, it rarely works for sales managers to just tell salespeople how to do it. They need coaching, oversight, and practice.
At Braveheart Sales, you guarantee a ROI, which is one of the hardest things to do in digital marketing and sales. What kind of targeted ROI do you seek when working with sales and marketing organizations?
Obviously, the most precise measure of ROI is to measure actual closed sales dollars from the leads generated. Because there are many moving parts when you combine marketing and sales to try and determine an ROI, companies need to just put a stake in the ground and make a decision about what costs are included in the ROI calculation. Purely from a sales perspective, we would suggest that companies should target somewhere between 3x and 5x a salesperson’s compensation as an ROI target. So when we work with clients, we calculate how much more revenue a sales team can generate and specifically how much more each individual can generate based on their individual strengths, skills, and weaknesses.
For recurring revenue types of services, we would suggest calculating the average client life expectancy to help in that determination. Every sales leader should have a handle on these metrics.
Additionally, it is not enough to just measure leads generated and sales closed when calculating ROI on marketing and sales. We need to dive in and determine the type of leads generated. How closely do they align with our targeted customer? There needs to be some qualitative analysis of the leads generated to determine if the marketing engine is producing the right leads. Then, if the right leads are being provided, closing ratios should be measured to determine effectiveness by the sales team. I would suggest that just a single metric for the closing ratio is not appropriate. More scrutiny of the type of service sold, the source of the lead, the type of client etc needs analyzed as well to determine the true ROI. For instance, it doesn’t do much good to have a great closing rate on less favorable products and services and poor closing rates on the favored products and services, so analysis in a very granular fashion is advised.
One thing that’s particular about the way business is done today is that salespeople encounter customers at all stages of the buying cycle. What are some different methods for separating customers at different stages in their buying journey? What difference can that make?
Rather than putting prospects into buckets solely on where they are in the buying cycle, based on them filling out a form online, we feel it is necessary to have a conversation with a prospect that is more directed to how compelling their need is to do something. One could potentially structure an online form to ask questions regarding this, but it likely is better handled verbally with the prospect. Whether we think the prospect should buy because they are a perfect fit doesn’t really matter. What matters is whether or not the prospect first has a compelling enough reason to do something about their situation, second has the appropriate money to spend, which inherently means they must value the solution greater than what the current situation is costing them, and finally they either must have the authority to purchase or can influence the purchase.
Where marketing can help is getting additional folks into the funnel and potentially doing some demographic qualifying. Where we tend to make mistakes and think a buyer is further along in their process is if they are willing to fill out the forms to get the information.
Salespeople must realize that they still need to qualify based on compelling reasons, money, and authority. Salespeople would do well to approach any lead or prospect with the mindset to disqualify them. They will waste far less time with leads who are not yet ready to buy if they focus on why the lead won’t do business with us.
Talking about your Market Focus, you mention you “believe that it is best to be specialists in well-defined niches rather than trying to be all things to all companies.” Why is it a good idea to specialize in a specific niche? And how might a sales team decide on which niche to put their energy into?
By focusing on niches, salespeople can get very precise in their marketing and sales efforts. They can personalize the connection between themselves and potential clients. By so doing, salespeople can much more easily position themselves as experts. If we keep in mind that the best most successful salespeople will distinguish themselves from the competition by providing value to their clients and perceived value to their prospective clients, then it is essential that they establish this level of trust and respect first with leads and prospects. Salespeople will gain credibility because the leads will believe that the seller understands their situation.
In determining what niches to focus on, a sales leader should analyze not only the upside potential of a specific niche but also the relative competitive landscape. Ask the question as to whether we can differentiate from the existing competitors. Is the market growing and can we benefit from that growth? What market share would we need to capture to make it meaningful? Then from an individual salesperson’s perspective, they might want to consider markets where they have specific contacts, or where they could seek referrals from existing clients. To really be excellent they should have a genuine interest in the industry or segment, which causes them to be naturally inquisitive about the segment and enthusiastic about it. Individuals can then more easily become experts in their fields.
One last challenge facing today’s sales professionals is having data coming from so many places. What are some of the benefits of having all of your sales data and campaigns in one place, at one time? What are some potential benefits, of having all of a company’s channels working together efficiently?
The benefits of a combined, consolidated effort are probably too numerous for me to articulate, but what I would highlight is that sales teams operate most effectively when it is easy for them to interact with prospects, when marketing resources and materials are easy to access and share, and when there is a sequential process to follow. In fact, just having sales reps follow a repeatable sales conversation process should increase sales. Common belief is that sales will increase as much as 15% if all the sellers follow a repeatable, systematic process for their sales conversations.
Then if there is a systematic workflow based on what we find out about leads, which combines both sales and marketing assets, the team can maximize its efficiency. The more that every element of the marketing and sales process can be consolidated into one spot, the more streamlined the process becomes, which allows more time for sellers to have more and better conversations with leads, which should drive sales results.
Photo credit: Katie Montgomery,
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