Archive for September, 2012
Thoughts on Integrity and Leadership
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on September 28, 2012
Anyone can easily say they are “leading with integrity,” but the challenge lies in actually following through. The majority of us have had the importance of being honest instilled since we were children. Unfortunately, some people struggle more than others to live with and exhibit integrity, no matter how many times they hear it.
But what does “integrity” actually mean? Most of us could easily define the word and have a pretty good idea of what that really looks like— or could we?
Integrity can be defined most simply as “being honest” or “following moral and ethical principles.” Integrity has also been defined as being when “a person’s behavior is the same, whether someone is watching them or not.” Integrity is not a characteristic you can demonstrate occasionally, or most of the time. Leading with integrity means you’re demonstrating it all of the time. I like to consider integrity to be like an eggshell that must be protected at all times in order to keep the egg (or your integrity) whole. Once an eggshell has even a slight crack, the structure can no longer be depended on to handle the pressure of the environment. It is simply a matter of time before the egg is completely compromised. A leader’s integrity (or eggshell) is the exact same thing: a leader can do the right thing 100 times, but if on the 101st time they choose to deviate, their integrity comes under scrutiny from those around them. Even though we may live a life of integrity throughout the first 100 situations, if we choose to act incorrectly the 101st time, the way people perceive us can change forever.
If we want people to follow our lead, there must be a strong level of trust. Keeping your word and living with integrity are two critical pieces to this process. Trust is not something built overnight; however, it can be lost instantly. The easiest way to come across as not being honest is to say one thing, but do something completely different. When people choose to follow us, they need to know the words we speak are genuine and that we will not deviate from what we said we would do.
Some people believe if they always handle the big issues with integrity, the little issues don’t always need to be handled the same way—especially if no one will know the difference. This couldn’t be any farther from the truth. A person who leads with integrity will always keep their integrity untarnished and will not waver, regardless of the size of the issue at hand or whether or not people will ever know what they did.
There is nothing worse than listening to someone speak about what they plan to do when we know their actions will not match what they said. This type of dishonest behavior is what usually creates the first crack in what is sometimes called: “The Trust Foundation”. It’s the bedrock upon which the leader/follower relationship is based. As a leader today, the challenge is for us to live the true lifestyle of a leader with integrity at work and outside of work. When people see us acting differently in public than we act in the workplace, our genuineness becomes questionable, as does our integrity. Show the people who choose to follow you what kind of leader you are by keeping your word and always living with integrity.
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This article was originally posted by Mike Camp on Human Resources iQ on April 19, 2012
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The Value of “You” in the Sales Process
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on September 28, 2012
Any sales professional today will agree customers are smarter than ever. They’re doing their homework aided in full by the internet and the social media. The big question now is: How has your “sales pitch” changed to keep up with your customers and the changing sales environment?
The term “sales pitch” invokes the image of a hard sell. But in this context, a sales pitch is short for the story you tell. A good sales pitch is one you tailored to your customer’s needs and helped to differentiate your offering from the competition. But today, because customers are educating themselves on your products and those of your competitors through the internet and conversations with other customers, the product knowledge gap you filled in the past is getting smaller.
Sure, you have to talk about your capabilities, but the how and when of such a dialogue has changed. Nothing will ever reduce the need for you to understand your products and your customers’ needs. As a matter of fact, you need an even a deeper understanding of both. Beyond that though, you must bring more to your customers than the ability to differentiate your capabilities. Customers expect you to be more proactive and more creative in solving their business issues.
What you bring as you – the value you add to helping customers meet their business objectives, your ability to help them see a broader perspective – is as important, often more important, than what your products will do for them.
Lately, there has been a focus on the need for salespeople to increase their business acumen — and rightly so. Customers expect you to engage them in broader business dialogues, and that demands business acumen. The internet and training resources can help you build business acumen. But one of the best seminars on earth is your customer’s office. Take advantage of your customer’s knowledge. Don’t shy away from asking broader, more strategic questions. If you are prepared and it is a value-based give and take, customers will share knowledge with you. Ask questions to understand how your customers see their business and what they want to achieve. Not only will you be better positioned to customize a winning solution, but you’ll learn from the exchange and be smarter for this customer and the ones after. The successful call is one in which both you and the customer learn something.
Customers value industry knowledge. They value competitive data. They value research and metrics. They value being helped to broaden their perspective. Customers’ product knowledge gaps are getting smaller and smaller, but the areas where you can provide value have changed and expanded. When your product capabilities are framed with what customers’ value, they will reward you for it.
After your next call, ask yourself what you learned that broadened your knowledge and built your business acumen. Make this as important as what your customers learned from you. Together you will build winning solutions.
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This article was originally posted to the Richardson Sales Training Blog on September 28, 2011
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The Importance of Call Planning
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on September 26, 2012
Although sales people may not do it as often as they should, most would rally around the notion that call planning is a good idea. In this discussion a distinction is made between call planning and account planning. Exploring account planning is a topic that deserves its own discussion. What this post does cover is the two components of call planning – pre-call and post-call planning.
Let’s begin with some best practices for pre-call planning.
Determine the call objective. The first step in pre-call planning is setting the objective for the call. The objective should be formulated in terms of the commitment desired from the customer that moves the sales cycle forward. Examples include: an appointment with a more senior person, an opportunity to present your solution to the buying committee, or a trial placement of your solution. The appropriate commitment is determined by where you are in the sales cycle and the person with whom you are meeting.
Keep it simple. If sales people are asked why they don’t do a better job of pre-call planning, the answers heard most often are “No time” or “Too much paperwork.” Sometimes the complaints are partially justified but when some sales people say “I just do it in my head” – that doesn’t hold water. You have to write stuff down. The key is keep it simple – no format for a pre-call plan should be more than one page or take more than 15 minutes to create.
Adopt a standard way of pre-call planning. This idea is correlated with the “keep it simple” notion. Standardizing pre-call planning is a great way to keep it simple and to get better at doing it. Here are six topics that work well as the basis of a pre-call plan:
- Call objective
- Questions you want to ask
- Questions you might be asked
- Points to communicate
- Likely objections
- Possible advances or commitments
Rehearse key calls. In a major sale, all calls are not of equal importance. Those one or two key calls during the sales cycle that are most important demand more attention when it comes to pre-call planning. On these calls, top performers not only complete a pre-call plan, they rehearse the call in a role-play with a colleague or sales manager assuming the customer role. Yes, it takes time but this is one of those cases where time is well spent. A small difference in how a specific segment of the call is conducted can make a huge difference in the outcome.
Now let’s turn to post-call planning. Although most sales training programs and sales managers give a fair amount of attention to pre-call planning, post–call planning is often the forgotten country cousin. Yet in a major account, it’s a big deal too. So, let’s take a look at a couple of best practices.
Do it now. Perhaps the biggest trap is either not doing it at all or postponing post-call planning so long that it just turns into an exercise of completing a call report form. The best idea is to complete the post-call planning right after the call to ensure nothing falls “between the cracks”. When the call is still fresh in the sales person’s mind it’s easier to decipher what the notes and scribbles penned during the call actually mean. Again 15 minutes should be all that is needed.
Assess next steps. Think about what happened on the call and assess what needs to be done next. Analyze how the results of the call might impact the overall account strategy for moving forward. Remember great account strategies are always a work-in-progress.
Play it again. One insight that can be gained from post-call planning is determining what went right and what went wrong. Ask the question: “If I could do this call again, what would I do differently?” Since “this call” will probably occur again in another account this brief call assessment should result in the call being executed a little bit better the next time.
Top sales performers are always getting better – call planning is one simple way to execute on this concept. Call planning is not just about what you write down or key into your CRM. It’s about taking the time to systematically think about what you are about to do and to learn from what you just did. The larger the account, the more important the process of planning becomes, and the greater the payoff.
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This article was originally posted to the Sales Training Connection blog by Richard Ruff on September 19, 2011
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Confronting an Under-Performing Sales Rep
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION, SALES LEADERSHIP on September 22, 2012
Every sales coaching workshop that I deliver I ask sales managers, “How many of you have a performance problem with a sales rep that is just unacceptable, and you know you need to address the situation?” Everyone raises their hand. Then I ask, “How long have you known this?” The answer I hear is often months, and occasionally years. Clearly, many sales managers have tremendous difficulty confronting an under-performer, and so they keep putting it off.
There are a variety of reasons why sales managers avoid this most difficult of all conversations. Sometimes it’s just a time management issue – the sales manager has many other more pressing issues to deal with. Another reason is that the sales manager blames him or herself for the salesperson’s lackluster results – “I haven’t provided the salesperson with enough ongoing coaching” or “I need to provide this person more training.” So the sales manager accepts personal responsibility for the rep’s performance problem, but that’s not right.
The simple truth for sales managers is that your team is only as strong as your weakest performer. You can say all you want to about sales performance, but your actions speak louder than words. Everyone on your sales team looks at the lowest producer as the minimum level of sales production necessary to stay on your sales team.
When you fail to address a sales performance problem you send a message to everyone else on the sales team – that you tolerate mediocrity. Face this issue now. Have the tough conversation. Don’t let another day go by without addressing this performance problem. And before you have this “positive confrontation” conversation, jot a few notes down next to the following checklist so you are properly prepared:
- What aspect of this person’s performance (and/or skills and attitude) is unacceptable? Be very specific about what the person must change. Be prepared to provide examples.
- Why has the person not been performing up to expectation? As the sales coach, you must assess the performance problem. Is it the rep’s lack of skill, a lack of will, or both? During the meeting, ask questions to either confirm or disprove your analysis of the situation. You never know what might come out here. I once had a salesperson break down in tears in my office about his marital problems.
- Why should the person make these changes? Remember that Skill + Activity = Sales Results. All too often sales managers, when communicating expectations to the team, focus on the outcome expected (sales quota) rather than the inputs necessary to achieve the outcomes, and the importance of each step in that process. When you explain “why” a certain task must be accomplished with a certain amount of quantity or quality, you are also explaining why it cannot be avoided.
- What should the consequences be if the salesperson does not make these changes? Another conversation with the manager? A written warning in their personnel file? Termination? You must be prepared to explain in very clear terms exactly what will happen if the changes are not made.
- The “Two-Roads” Discussion One sales manager with whom I’ve worked refers to this is the “Two Roads” part of the discussion. “Ms. Or Mr. Under-performer, you have reached a fork in the road. If you continue down the path that you have been on this is what the consequences will be… However, there is another path for you to choose, and it leads to greater sales performance, more money, etc.” Ultimately, the responsibility for change is the rep’s responsibility, not yours. If coaching or training is required, or would help the situation, then do it now.
Peak performance sales managers do not accept mediocre performance. They realize that their entire sales team is watching how they handle the under-performer. They accept the responsibility for their role, and if someone is not performing up to expectations they address the problem sooner, rather than later.
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This article was originally posted on the TopLine Leadership Blog by Kevin Davis on September 18, 2012
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Does Your Sales Dashboard Have The Right Indicators?
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION, SALES LEADERSHIP on September 20, 2012
The idea of a sales dashboard is appealing. What business manager wouldn’t like to run their company like a well-oiled machine, with the help of a few select indicators? But in practice, it is ironically the choice of these indicators which can stall the effectiveness of the sales dashboard…
Every company is certainly different, and it goes without saying an industrial equipment maker cannot manage its sales process (for example) like a travel agency, or a service provider. However, here’s some tips on zeroing in on the right indicator can be helpful in the majority of situations.
Choose indicators which are useful throughout the sales process – As the saying goes, you shouldn’t count your chickens until they hatch. Nevertheless, you want to manage your sales process continuously, not just once a quarter. It’s important to avoid indicators which only become meaningful at the end. For example, “Actual/Projected sales” is more useful when compared to its historical average at that stage of the quarter.
Be selective – you start with the laudable intention to stick to the essentials, but find yourself a few months later with a computer screen that looks more like a spacecraft cockpit than the clear-cut dashboard of your dreams. To be more selective, ask yourself this question before adding another indicator to your sales dashboard: is it directly related to what your company is trying to achieve (i.e. prospects progressing along your pipeline), or is it merely informative?
Choose actionable indicators – avoid indicators which look sexy but don’t bring anything tangible to the table. A traditional indicator that clearly points you in the right direction is better than a “sophisticated” one which needs to be explained to everyone and even leaves you scratching your head.
Favor dynamic indicators – one which measures a sales team’s progress. A static indicator only measures an activity. For example, “Number of leads qualified/Week” is a dynamic indicator, while on the same subject “Number of qualification calls/Week” is a static indicator. From this example we can infer that a dynamic indicator is naturally outward-looking (i.e. focused on prospect dynamics) while a static indicator is often inward-looking (i.e. concerned with your team’s processes).
Beware of environmental indicators – those which are focused on your company’s environment (e.g. “Number of RFPs in my sector”) are most certainly outward-looking. Yet, do they belong on your sales dashboard? Not especially. You’re interested in your company’s performance, which only indirectly depends on its environment. Environmental indicators are rarely actionable, unless you are matching them to a triggering threshold. For example, you could decide to re-contact your existing client base systematically when the number of RFPs in your sector falls below a threshold of ten per month.
Certainly there are others, more specific to your particular situation. The objective here is to give you a starting point. Get you thinking about what’s key to steer your sales process to success. As always I’m interested in what you think and what you’ve found to be effective in your sales dashboard. I invite your comments, ideas and suggestions.
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Increase Sales with Consultative Selling
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on September 17, 2012
When consultative selling, a sales professional should act more like a consultant than a conventional salesperson. Rather than pitching the features, advantages and benefits, of a product or service, a consultative sales person should make recommendations based on the buyer’s most pressing pains and desires.
By acting like a consultant rather than your stereotypical salesperson, consultative selling enables sales professionals to create long-term relationships with customers which are based on trust. This adds significant value to each and every sale, making customers all the more likely to buy from you instead of a competitor.
Here are 4 quick sales tips which will get you on the right path to mastering consultative selling:
Tip 1: Be a Problem-Solver:
Consultative selling requires salespeople to approach selling in the same way that they would to solving a problem. They need to treat any customer pain, need or desire as a problem that is there to be solved.
Here a commanding knowledge of your own company’s capabilities is necessary to align the customer’s problems with the right product or service. However, it is important for salespeople to open discussions around the customer’s pressures, pains and desires before aligning them with the product/service’s features, advantages and benefits. To become a problem-solver, salespeople need to qualify with their customers that the problem exists and can be solved before pitching their solutions.
Tip 2: Become a Trusted Advisor:
When consultative selling, moving the discussion from the customer’s problems to their desires will transform the salesperson’s relationship with customers. By applying a consultative selling technique, the salesperson will be perceived as a trusted advisor by the customer. By acting like a problem-solving consultant, consultative selling can transform the buyer/seller relationship into a novice/trusted advisor relationship.
Tip 3: Probe with Open Questions:
To truly master consultative selling, salespeople need to be great at asking the right questions about their customer’s pressures, problems and desires for improvement. By asking open-ended questions (i.e. who, what, where, why, when…), salespeople can probe their customer’s deepest motives, feelings and attitudes towards the solution. By probing the customer’s pressures, the implications of failing to respond to these pressures (the potential pain), and the customer’s desire for improvement, the customer’s needs can be shaped and urgency can be created.
Consultative selling through asking open-ended questions enhances the salesperson’s understanding of the buyer’s situation. This makes them better equipped to qualify sales opportunities and align the buyer’s pains and desires with the solutions they sell, thus giving the customer confidence in the salesperson’s recommendations.
Tip 4: Give the Customer Added Value:
As part of the final step to mastering consultative selling, salespeople must learn to create added value for their customers. Here salespeople need to enhance the value that their solution will give the customer in order to differentiate their offer from that of the competition. Added value comprises the tangible advantages and benefits that your company offers over and above the product or service that it is proposing. This may be a ‘right-first-time’ delivery guarantee that you know is better than that of the competition, or a managed implementation service that you can deliver across the region.
Each ‘value-added offer’ must be specific to the selling organization’s capabilities and will increase the value of the overall solution to the client so long as it has been aligned directly to their most pressing need. When aligned directly to this need, added value will not only enable you to differentiate your offer from competitors, but will actually allow you to charge a premium. You will be able to not only increase your chances of winning deals but you will also find it much easier to up-sell or cross-sell during the meeting.
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Consultative selling enables salespeople to gain a clearer understanding of the customer’s world. By achieving a clearer understanding of the customer’s most pressing needs and desires, salespeople are able to play the role of a consultant who aligns their solutions with their customer’s problems. By implementing an effective consultative selling methodology, you will be able to determine you customer’s most pressing pains and desires and respond accordingly.
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This article was originally posted in the Sales & Business Development Blog by Steve Eungbut on November 11, 2011
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Key Ingredients of a Successful Salesperson
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on September 14, 2012
As a salesperson, your goals are to become as personally and professionally successful as possible. Successful salespeople have a true commitment to their company, products or services but more importantly, have an unwavering commitment first to their customers and then to themselves.
Here are some ideas, when put into practice, will help you to become a more successful salesperson.
Plan your day the night before – it’s safe to assume that if you don’t plan your day the night before, then when you arrive at your office you’ll be more apt to spend much of your time reacting instead of acting. You might be able to sleep better at night knowing that you have a plan in place and ready to go before you hit your desk. More importantly, it will be much easier for you to avoid distractions that will keep you away from achieving your goals.
What to do with your day after you’ve planned it – seems like an easy answer but can you effectively manage your day if you can’t manage your time? Time management is essential. In the world of business, no matter how successful one becomes, time is one thing that there is not enough of. All of the successful salespeople that I’ve worked with practiced disciplined time management and they spent the majority of their time on tasks that made them money and little time on things that were a waste of time.
Research and read every day – the importance of reading and researching your market every day cannot be overstated. I read the online version of my local newspaper, along with a handful of national news services, and I pay particular attention to each business section. There are opportunities that present themselves in companies who both rise and fall and when you read between the lines, your product or service might provide a solution that’s at the right time and place.
Do your homework before you pick up the phone – like reading daily, it is equally important to research the company and individual who you are about to speak with. Thanks to Google, you can find out as much about a company, their products, services and the prospect you are about to speak with as you want and you just might uncover a clue or two that will help you to break the ice before moving to your sales pitch.
Conscious repetition – do you use the same old cookie cutter opening statement every time you contact a prospect or do you mix and match your delivery to fit who you are calling? The oil and gas company your about to call has a much different corporate culture than does the medical instrument manufacturer who is next up in your call rotation. Each prospective customer is a different animal so you need to tailor your message that speaks to their needs and not yours.
Are you in a “helping” or “selling” mode?- most salespeople have adopted the principles of ‘sell’ and ‘close’ because that’s the way they’ve been trained. When you approach a prospect over the phone or in person with this mind-set, there is a high probability that s/he will be able to sense your intentions. When s/he does, it won’t make any difference what you are selling and at what price point, you’ll be out the door as quickly as you came in. Think of changing your thought process to “how can I help this person” and see what a difference it makes in your close ratio.
Don’t look and sound like your competitors – before you meet face-to-face with a prospective customer, you’ve uncovered some ‘buying signals’ that suggest your prospect is interested in learning more about your products and services. Let’s assume that there will be other competitors that will be invited to the table vying for the same piece of business. If all of you are pitching the same value propositions such as “We’re the biggest and best”, “We’ve been in business for 20 years”, “We’re the leaders in our space”, then your prospect has no other alternative than to choose one of you based upon price. Avoid this situation at all costs!
Build relationships across the customer organization – if you want to get a leg up on your competition and close more sales you must develop a business relationship with both the decision-maker as well as others who the decision-maker is directly or indirectly connected with. Successful salespeople never are satisfied with just one point-of-contact within an organization and are continually look for ways to build relationships and credibility with other members of the network.
Endeavor to develop your business and personal skills – when was the last time you ran into Joe the sales ‘expert’? Joe has tons of experience and knows his product inside and out. In spite of this, many of the Joes of this world consistently under-perform because they do nothing to expand their skill set or learn anything new. When was the last time you ran into a Joe who is now working for another company? Joe “left” that company because he was passed over by a more successful salesperson who consistently sharpened his axe (business and personal skill set).
Following up with customers – there are some salespeople who are great at staying in touch during the sales process but virtually never ‘check in’ with you after the sale is closed. They’ll be happy to include you in an email blast (this is called a shot gun approach or ‘trolling for leads’) but can’t quite find the time to pick up the phone and ask you how your event went. Successful salespeople understand that the customer/salesperson relationship doesn’t end with the closing of the sale. Following up with customers will ensure a higher level of satisfaction, generate repeat business, and foster relationships that may turn into referrals.
Make one more sales call before you turn out the lights – we all have good call days and bad call days. When you’ve heard your fill of “No thanks” then make it a point to make at least one more call or keep calling until you get a “Yes” before you call it a night. It will do wonders for your psyche and may move you that much closer to making your quota.
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This article was originally posted by Tom Costello on the iGroupAdvisors blog July 12, 2012
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Five winning strategies of the world’s top sales organizations
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION, SALES LEADERSHIP on September 12, 2012
The team at McKinsey and Company evaluated the results of over 700 sales projects and identified the companies that consistently delivered industry-leading sales performance, that is companies which grew their revenues an average of 48% faster and their EBITA 80% faster than their peer groups over a five year period.
What were their common characteristics? It turns out that size, geography and what they sold had little effect on performance. It was how they sold which drove the differences.
Here are the five common strategies which McKinsey determined characterized the top performers:
They found growth where their competitors could not. Top-performing sales organizations tended to both look far ahead – an average of 10 quarters – and uncover growth opportunities in the near term. Perhaps most telling, top performing sales organizations practiced micro-segmentation. They divided their potential markets into as many as 100 or more cells and identified areas where significant growth potential existed even when the overall market growth appeared slow or stagnant.
Key take-away: take a look at your current approach to market segmentation and targeting. Are you looking at a sufficiently granular level to identify the pockets of segment-leading growth potential?
They sold the way their customers wanted to buy. There’s no excuse any more for basing your sales process and sales pipeline stages around sales activities, rather than stages in the buying decision process, and the results of the top sales performers validate this strategy. In a striking validation of the “Challenger Sale” philosophy, McKinsey also pointed out that top performers focused their attention on the prospects for which they had something original to offer.
Key take-away: even if it means dramatically restructuring the way you manage your marketing and sales processes and pipelines, you must refocus your efforts on understanding, tracking and facilitating your prospect’s buying decision process.
They freed up their sales people to sell. Sales people in the top-performing sales organizations tended to spend far more of their time on customer-facing front-line sales activities rather than wasteful back office administration, and it’s no accident that these organizations used technology and process as key weapons to make their sales people more productive.
Key take-away: look carefully at what your sales people are currently spending their time doing, and systematically eliminate or offload any tasks that are not directly contributing to the customer sales experience.
They focused on developing their people. The top-performing sales organizations not only recruited thoughtfully, they also implemented induction programmers that served to turn “rookies into rainmakers” far faster and more effectively than their competitors. They established a tempo for reporting and targeted intervention that helped the sales people with potential to realize that potential faster. They inoculated the whole sales organization with the winning habits of their top performers, and they refused to leave new hires to “sink or swim”.
Key take-away: the consequences of making a bad hire are horribly expensive. First, make sure that you recruit for attitude and not just experience. Then, involve every new hire in a carefully crafted skills transfer, induction and mentoring program.
They expected exceptional performance. The top performing sales organizations drove growth from the top. They set stretching targets, challenged the status quo, established role models, and created a culture that expected results. The pains they took to equip their sales people to be successful were balanced with the expectation that their sales people would succeed, and persistent poor performance was constructively addressed.
Key take-away: if you have taken pains to establish a winning environment (and only if you have), and invested in recruiting and developing the right team, it is reasonable to expect your sales people to rise to the challenge.
So there you have it: five winning strategies which have driven exceptional results for the organizations that have put them into practice. Together, they make a smarter approach to accelerating revenue growth. It should be noted: none of these winning habits require huge budgets or large staffs. All they require is smart thinking, focus, discipline and willpower. So if your organization hasn’t yet put every one of these principles into practice, what’s holding you back?
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This article was originally posted by Bob Apollo in the Inflexion Point Blog on June 12, 2012
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Turning Customer Complaints into Productive Communication
Posted by Rick Pranitis in CUSTOMER SERVICE on September 10, 2012
Fielding complaints is often considered the most difficult and least enjoyable part of a career in Sales and the Customer Service profession. However, in their book Complaint Management: The Heart of CRM, Bernd Stauss and Wolfgang Seidel assert that it is also the most important element for any successful business. The authors found that effectively handling complaints doesn’t just keep a company from losing customers – it actually builds happier, more loyal customers. In short, someone who lodges a complaint and walks away satisfied becomes a better customer than those people who keep their gripes to themselves.
Dealing with a fired-up, dissatisfied customer doesn’t have to be a nightmare. In fact, when handled with skill and understanding, these interactions can be rewarding experiences, both personally and professionally. Here’s some advice to keep in mind to help you keep things positive;
It’s Not Personal – anger is an off-putting emotion. It pushes the recipient to respond in kind and leap to a defensive position before launching a counterattack. Customer service professionals know better. They step back and assess the situation. What do angry people need? First and foremost, they need to blow off steam. They need to feel they have the listener’s attention, that they are being heard and understood. They are not angry with an employee; they are angry with the product or service that has failed to meet their expectations.
During this initial phase, it is important to give affirming verbal cues. If the customer is lodging a complaint in person, the recipient’s body language should be open, understanding and earnest. As is often the case in any business interaction, keeping quiet is probably wise at this stage of the game. In the best-case scenario, the customer will talk himself/herself through the problem and may even reach a solution that works for all parties involved.
Work to Understand – effectively managing a complaint is dependent upon accurate and insightful fact-finding early in the conversation. Asking the right questions shows the customer that the company’s representative is anxious to resolve the problem. It also should elicit feedback that will help the company improve its product and process. As Stauss and Seidel make clear, there are two objectives in handling a complaint: to satisfy the customer and to aggregate and report data provided from these interactions to prevent future occurrences.
Assuming the customer service professional stayed calm and listened to the content – rather than the emotion – of the complainant’s opening salvo, this step is the logical follow-up. If parts of the complaint didn’t make sense, this is the time to fill in those gaps and get a complete picture of the situation.
Genuinely Empathize – the most important aspect of customer service is taking responsibility for the customer’s experience, from initial contact to resolution. That means making a personal connection. In today’s automated, hyper-segmented business world, consumers can feel adrift in a sea of buck passers. True customer advocates are rare and valued.
As the management training company MTD Training discusses in its e-book Dealing with Conflict and Complaints, if a company has not implemented or acted on a strategic complaint management system, there is a good chance a customer service rep has dealt with the same complaint multiple times in the same day. The trick is to beat back complaint fatigue and step into the customer’s shoes. It may be just another call to you but to the person on the other end of the line, it’s a make-or-break deal that will dictate future business decisions.
Know the Corporate Culture – everyone has heard the cliché: “The customer is always right.” It sounds good but it may not be de facto policy in all companies. In order for customer service professionals to be effective, they must be familiar with the decision-making models and tools at their disposal. In general, small, up-and-coming businesses will do whatever it takes to retain a loyal customer base. In contrast, large corporations have the flexibility to undertake a more complex cost-benefit analysis, asking the question: “How much is the continued business of this customer really worth?” It sounds harsh but it may be the reality for some big businesses.
Customer service employees must understand what their supervisors expect of them and how much authority they have to resolve complaints. That way, they can steer angry customers toward officially sanctioned solutions, whether that means refunds, replacements, store credit or other perks. Ideally, managers will give their employees the autonomy to handle conflicts. Not doing so simply creates a cumbersome bureaucracy of middle management, not to mention increasingly agitated customers who are weary of demanding to “speak to a supervisor.”
Communicate Openly and Follow Up Often – again, it’s all a matter of taking responsibility for a customer’s dissatisfaction to ensure they feel they have a trusted friend on the inside. If the complaint and proposed resolution are complex and require a supervisor’s approval, it is vital to stay in frequent contact with the customer and provide status updates. If the matter is simpler, a quick synopsis of the plan of correction should suffice, with a follow-up call to ensure all went as expected.
Successfully defusing an explosive situation can provide a feeling of great accomplishment. In many ways, customer service professionals are the frontline heroes of the business world. Not only do they keep customers satisfied and coming back for more, they provide the rest of the company with crucial data necessary to improve operations and increase the all-important bottom-line.
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This article was originally posted on the CustomerThink Blog on August 9, 2012.
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Sales Pipeline Review and Evaluation
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION, SALES LEADERSHIP on September 6, 2012
An important and vital responsibility of a Sales Manager is a regular review of their sales peoples’ pipeline. But repeated pipeline reviews are often a source of stress between sales managers and sales people. As you might expect, there are the usual focus points when it comes to questions at a typical pipeline review:
- What deals will close this month?
- What cover does the sales person have to meet their quota?
- How much of the pipeline is new business versus add-on?
- How does the pipeline feel relative to other months?
- Is marketing delivering on their lead gen targets?
- What are the next steps in the sales process?
- Is senior management from the prospect engaged?
- What is the average deal size?
- Where is the competition on individual deals?
Invariably most sales people, who are under pressure to deliver, will try to concentrate the discussion on Marketing’s contribution to inbound leads. While this may be a valid concern it can quite often hide the fact the salesperson’s own management of their pipeline is poor. A good salesperson will generate continued input to their pipeline in the absence of leads from other sources. A bad salesperson will hide behind Marketing and try to mask their under performance by inflating their pipeline with opportunities which are not likely to close.
So what is a good leading indicator of this, or where should the manager look? The place to start is the average age within the pipeline of new business. If the average age of closed/won business is significantly lower than the average age of open or closed/lost opportunities, then it’s highly likely the sales person is holding onto deals which won’t close instead of creating and adding new opportunities to their pipeline. The tendency to “beat a dead horse” rather than cold call is very strong in inexperienced sales people or those who are accustomed to a regular supply of leads from Marketing. A simple view of the average age of the pipeline by sales stage will highlight if there is an issue. If the average age of open opportunities is more than one and a half times that of closed/won deals then further investigation is required.
Encouraging and training the sales person in understanding a better use of their time would be to do their own demand generation through cold calling or cold connecting in the social world is key. The salesperson will defend why different opportunities deserve to stay open. But ultimately if your company has a particular set of sales cycles/close rates/sales velocities then these are not likely to shift dramatically over time. The reality however is too many managers neglect to focus sufficiently on age when reviewing their sales peoples’ pipeline.
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