Archive for December, 2014
Five Reasons You Should Never Be Afraid to Ask Questions
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on December 29, 2014
An ancient Chinese proverb says, “He who asks question remains a fool for five minutes. He who does not ask, remains a fool forever.”
One of the biggest ways people are handicapping themselves today is by being too afraid to ask questions. While there is plenty of knowledge all around us to be gained, it would be foolish to think we can simply gain everything we need to know from first-hand experience. We need to rely on the knowledge of others around us to pass along information and assist in broadening our horizons of ignorance.
While it is very easy to talk about, it is often very hard for many of us to take the leap of faith and ask questions. In a study from Harvard Business School, they cited multiple reasons for people’s reluctance to ask questions but the most prominent response was due to fear of negative evaluation. While I don’t find it all too shocking, I do find it very concerning and therefore I have compiled a short list of reasons you should never be too afraid to ask questions:
1) You Don’t Know Everything
No matter what you may think, you do not know everything there is to know about a certain topic area, let alone life in general. While there are experts all over the world for any given focus, they themselves would tell you that they still have a lot to learn. As the great philosopher Socrates once said, “The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing.” Coming from such brilliant man who has provided us with so much information in the past, this quote should speak volumes about the importance of understanding how little we really know. It should also create a sense of humility, allowing you to feel comfortable about asking questions.
2) You Aren’t The Only With A Question
It is highly likely that if you are curious about something, so is someone else. When you are in a meeting of colleagues, it can be intimidating to see everyone around you looking engaged and comfortable with what’s being discussed. However, if you have any doubt whatsoever in the subject matter, someone else in the room is likely feeling the same way also. With that being said, not only will you be helping yourself out, but you will be helping those around you by raising questions as well.
3) Questions Facilitate Discussion
By raising questions in a group setting, you are often times enabling a further discussion within that group. Maybe what you asked will spark a thought of someone else or maybe your question was something the rest of the group hadn’t thought about yet. You shouldn’t feel like your questions will take away from productivity or be a waste of time. If anything, asking lots of questions and brainstorming will likely help the team get better and make sure you have everything covered.
4) Educated People Respect Your Desire To Learn
The most educated people in the world would never scoff or look down on someone with a desire to learn. In fact, in many of my experiences, leaders have a very high level of respect for those who show interest and ask questions. While you may be worried that it makes you look LESS intelligible, it is actually making you look MORE intelligible. Your desire to learn shows and the questions you ask are the first step in fulfilling that desire.
5) The Internet Isn’t Always Right
With the advent of services like Google and Answers.com, people sometimes think that they should be able to find everything we need to know via the internet. However, that is not true. Nowadays it has become extremely easy to host websites and circulate unverified information to the public that it can be a tall task figuring out how to filter the good info from the bad. This is where a trusted human element needs to come in. Reaching out and finding respected educators or topic professionals can be a great way to find the answers you are looking for. Aside from purely finding information, reaching out to credible sources can help to create new relationships for the future – something a computer and WiFi can’t replicate.
As a part of our constantly evolving society you should take pride in your lack of knowledge and find a comforting humility in knowing that you have so much left to learn – whether it is at work, at home, or just life in general. So I challenge you to stay curious, challenge the unknown, and certainly ask more questions.
Besides, would you rather be a fool for 5 minutes or a fool forever?
This article was originally posted to the Business 2 Community Blog by Colin Jordan on December 2, 2014.
Six Soft Sales Skills Critical to Sales Success
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on December 24, 2014
Asking questions. Selling value. Handling objections. Crafting sales strategy. Closing. Analyzing the competition. Check out any sales training program and you’re likely find some of these sales skills being taught. They are the fundamentals and they are critical to sales success. And just because they are fundamental does not mean they are simple to learn. To perform them skillfully requires a lot of practice and feedback.
But to borrow a phrase, these skills are “necessary, but not sufficient.” A study by Millennial Branding and American Express, for example, reported that 61 percent of managers surveyed felt that soft skills were more important in new hires than hard skills, or even technical skills. In fact, the same study showed that the top three characteristics managers looked for when promoting Millennials were the ability to prioritize work (87 percent), a positive attitude (86 percent) and teamwork skills (86 percent).
The study goes on to report six soft skills most often cited as critical to success. Although the report was focusing on professionals in general, we thought the work held merit for those concerned about developing sales success.
- Communication – Communication moves beyond sending emails, texts, and Instagrams. Everyone inside companies must be able to effectively engage people face-to-face. Nowhere is this more critical than for salespeople who must engage a wide variety of customers across a varied set of situations.
- Teamwork – B2B sales increasingly are moving away from salespeople as the lone wolf to sales teams – whether multiple salespeople, technical specialists, etc. This means salespeople must develop the skills required to both lead and to participate in sales teams.
- Flexibility – Flexibility provides some unique challenges for salespeople. Beyond simply being flexible about schedules and responsibilities, salespeople increasingly are being called on to marshal internal resources and to be part of – or manage – sales teams. In today’s environment salespeople are required to play different roles at different times during the sales process.
- Positivity – This one is no surprise – people like to be around positive people. And, this is certainly true for salespeople. Salespeople need to learn how to leverage praise from people for what they do and avoid overreacting to criticism and bad news. But, salespeople have a special challenge – not only do they have to work with colleagues, they also have to work with prospects and customers where it’s easy to say “yes” – but yes is not always the right answer. Salespeople must learn how to effectively say “no” or disagree or present a different view to prospects and customers and have the customer view that interaction positively.
- Time management – Whether new to sales or a veteran, time management is an obstacle all salespeople must tackle. Learning how to prioritize and manage time is important for all salespeople. A good idea for any salesperson is to periodically assess the percentage of their time they are actually selling vs. doing something else. If one can increase that number by 10%, which in most cases is very likely, a whole lot of good things happen.
- Confidence – Confidence is an underpinning of every salesperson’s success. Salespeople must learn to display confidence – it’s at the heart of building their credibility and credibility is a key for success. When someone is new to a company or new to sales, building confidence and credibility can be tough to do. One answer is leveraging your company’s capabilities and success stories until you develop your own tales of success.
If one believes the soft skill story, then a real challenge emerges for sales managers. It’s likely that most salespeople would not on their own, over time, develop these soft skills. As a matter of fact in some situations, time may actually degrade the skill. For example, a salesperson could very easily lose confidence due to failures vs. learning from the failures as to what to do next time.
Once again this is why sales management coaching and modeling are so important for developing and sustaining a successful sales team. Yet, how often do the soft skills make the short list for sales coaching?
This article was originally posted to the Sales Training Connection Blog by Janet Spirer on November 21, 2014.
©2014 Sales Momentum®
Five of the Biggest Sales Mistakes You Are Making
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on December 19, 2014
Making sales mistakes can be detrimental to your company’s bottom line. In order to rectify sales mistakes, you need to know what they are and be able to identify them within your own sales department. So, here are five of the biggest sales mistakes you are making, and how you can fix them.
- Hard Selling
Your sales department’s key selling tactic should be that of nurturing relationships with clients to make the sale, not pushing the products or services onto them. This is one of the most disastrous sales mistakes your company can make. If your sales reps are still hard selling to customers, they will come off as rude, pushy, and demanding. That type of selling died out in the past. Relationship nurturing is now the best way to increase your sales numbers. Build your reputation, and create long-lasting business relationships with clients. If you see that your sales people are still cold calling, they’re making sales mistakes. It’s time to re-evaluate your selling strategy.
- No Calls to Action
Your sales reps shouldn’t leave a conversation or a meeting with a client without a call to action being set in place. It’s the sales people’s obligation to ask for a commitment-they shouldn’t leave things open-ended. At the end of every meeting, the sales person should be asking for a firm date on a next meeting or another commitment that can make the client move forward in the buying cycle. Without proper follow up, these leads can get cold. Sales mistakes like this can cost you sales.
- Focusing on Your Own Needs
Hopefully, your sales reps are excited about the products or services that they are selling. However, if they keep going on and on about what they’re selling without listening to the client and letting him talk, they won’t be making many sales. Customers are interested in how your products or services can help them solve a problem or address a particular need that they have. Therefore, all selling should be based on what your sales rep can do for the customer. Focusing on your own needs instead of the client’s needs is one of the most common sales mistakes you can make.
- Making Promises
When it comes to closing deals, some sales reps can get ahead of themselves and promise things that they can’t actually deliver. This enthusiasm can be detrimental to your company’s image. It can cost you repeat business, which is why it’s one of the biggest sales mistakes. Your reputation can be tarnished if clients can’t believe what your sales people are telling them. It’s not useful to promise a client the world if you can’t deliver-you won’t get the deal in the end and you will likely lose that customer for future deals, too. You should have clear guidelines set out for how far your sales reps can go in negotiations, so they know not to overstep their boundaries and make promises they can’t keep.
- Not Being Organized
No one likes having his or her time wasted. But, if your reps are going to meetings unprepared and unorganized, this is exactly what they’re doing. Getting a meeting is your chance to create a relationship and explain to the client that you have a solution to his problem. If you’re spending the whole meeting learning the fundamentals about the client’s company, his job, and his needs, you’re not leaving yourself time to actually build rapport. This is one of the most destructive sales mistakes. Before any meeting or conversation, your sales reps should be performing research on the prospect and his company and preparing answers to questions that might come up-whether about his needs or about your own products, pricing, or timelines. Don’t waste the opportunity for a first great impression by being unprepared.
Avoiding these five sales mistakes can help you close deals and build long-term relationships.
This article was originally posted to the SalesForce Search Blog by Brett Evans on November 27, 2014.
Consultative Selling and Selling Consultatively – Don’t Confuse Them!
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on December 15, 2014
Every once in awhile in any field it is useful to get down into the weeds – explore language, word usage, and other things that go bump in the night. In this case, the weeds involve drawing the distinction between the term consultative selling and the concept of selling consultatively.
As starters, Mark Hanan established the branding of this term in his book Successful Market Penetration: How to Shorten the Sales Cycle by Making the First Sale the First Time (Amascon Books – October 1987). Because of the branding, Consultative Selling has become one of the “ings” in our field like: SPIN Selling, Conceptual Selling and Solution Selling?
Now, why is it worth making this point about confusion in regard to selling consultatively? There are at least two reasons. One relates to the just noted language distinction; the other to an important trend in the world of buying. Let’s first look at the language point.
Language. The failure to draw the language distinction becomes important because it can be assumed a sales model other than the branded one is not somehow as well designed for selling consultatively – and that is clearly not the case. Take, for example, SPIN Selling. The SPIN model for questioning, as well as, the other techniques in the program are fundamental for selling consultatively. We would suggest this is equally true for the best of all the modern day selling models.
In regard to this distinction point, the really important distinction is between all the models which provide help for selling consultatively and those approaches that are mainly about tips, tricks and product pitches. The latter are not about selling consultatively; they are basically about manipulation.
Buying trends. The second point relates to an important trend in the world of B2B buying and it is the strategic reason for making a big to-do about selling consultatively. Recently Ian Altman published a Forbes article entitled – Top 10 Business Trends that will Drive Success in 2015.
In the article the author makes the following point when discussing trend Number 1: “customers don’t value old-school high pressure manipulative sales methods. In fact, many executives say they have decided not to select a vendor because of a negative sales experience. Customers value subject-matter experts. As customers increasingly value subject-matter experts, salespeople need refined consultative skills.” In 2015 and beyond sales teams will need to be able to sell consultatively at a very high level of competency in order meet customer expectations and to differentiate you from the other guys who have gotten the message. This means you have to be very good at the following:
Consultative Selling Skills. Today customers have changed dramatically in regard to their expectations of the role of the salesperson. They are not looking for a product facilitator. They want a trusted advisor that can help bring fresh ideas for redefining their business challenges and new insight for formulating innovative solutions. You have to be able to position the value of your solutions and company for being a business partner helping to solve business challenges. This requires competency in at least three consultative selling skill domains:
- Fundamental consultative selling skills. These are the competencies that are addressed in those aforementioned programs. They are based on great questioning and active listening skills – the ability to determine fit between the customer’s decision specifications and preferences and your capabilities and emerging skills like: working effectively and efficiently as a member of an expert-based team and being able to leverage the new technologies for designing and delivering value-based customer interactions.
- Second-level product knowledge. First-order product knowledge is all about features and functions. The second-order refers to the application of product knowledge to the customer’s business challenges. How do your products individually or collectively solve the problems likely to be encountered by your customer base? How do they impact productivity, risk, expense and revenue? Can you relate a customer story or describe the research that demonstrates your product does what you say it does? And can you fine-tune these narratives based on whether you are talking with a Marketing Manager or Engineer or Chief Information Officer?
- Customer knowledge. Today, customers expect salespeople to know more their company and industry than ever before. They expect sales reps to provide new ideas, imagination, and insights to: manufacture products more quickly, improve product quality, shorten order times, or improve the customer service experience.
Consultative skills. The second set of skills relates back to Ian’s point in the article. Selling consultatively requires more than selling skills; it requires consulting skills. Here is a short list:
- Subject-matter expertise. If you are selling enterprise software, then you have to understand the technology and applications in order to bring the expertise required to help the customer solve their business challenges.
- Business acumen. Being able to integrate a business and economic perspective into customer interactions.
- Adaptive thinking. Coming up with creative and innovative solutions that are not rule-based.
- Computational thinking. Being able to translate vast amounts of data into useful information.
- Trans-disciplinary Knowing how to integrate knowledge and concepts across disciplines and areas of expertise.
As VPs of Sales and Sales Training Directors sit down to explore the training needs for 2015, we would suggest that meeting customer’s expectation in 2015 does indeed require your sales team to be able to sell consultatively. If one buys the notion, then the 2015 sales training for most companies needs to be more than just a little adjusting and upgrading here and there. While it is it is easy to learn tips and tricks; it is extremely difficult to learn to sell consultatively.
This article was originally posted to the Sales Training Connection Blog by Richard Ruff on December 12, 2014
How To Deal With A Stall In Negotiations
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on December 10, 2014
When you get to a point in the conversation with a customer where you have to negotiate on price or some other issue, remember one thing: the vast majority of negotiations occur because you haven’t identified the value of doing business with you earlier in the conversation.
I have found that if you uncover the needs, wants, desires ad motivations of customers early on, the whole aspect of having to negotiate starts to change. Because you are aware of how the customer will value your offering before you present ideas, you know exactly where you may need to give more than take. Negotiations most often occur when the customer has not had all their needs dealt with, or the value of your offering has not been built up enough before presenting solutions.
Having said that, it may well be that you get into a negotiating scenario that requires you to give and take. How do you know exactly what will be important or valuable to the customer?
Well, it may be that the two most powerful words in any negotiation are “What if?”. Using this question works because it allows the other person to consider possible solutions without committing to them. This way you can avoid making an offer before they have signaled a willingness to accept it.
To put this technique into action, suggest a possible solution by saying, “What if our solution involved distributing to other warehouses? Is that something that might work for you?” Then listen closely to the response, and change the suggestion if necessary, remembering to phrase it as a hypothetical (”What if?”) and not a formal offer.
Don’t commit to a solution before confirming that it works for the other person. Ask, “What if?” to test ideas before making formal offers.
A good way to prepare for this stage might be to ask yourself what combinations of options would make an attractive solution to both you and the other person. Should you present options independently or package them as one solution? Also, ask yourself whether you, personally, are willing to accept the solutions you’re suggesting.
It’s important to position this technique in the customer’s mind before you try it out. Saying something like, “We’re probably not ready to commit to an actual solution yet, but I have some ideas that we could discuss to see if we can get closer here. Would you like to hear them?” would allow the customer the chance to see if there were options that would be satisfactory to them.
The objective of this technique is to get the customer to see how different approaches might or could work for them, and offers opportunities for them to test out hypotheses before making decisions.
This article was originally posted to the MTD Sales Training Specialists blog by Sean McPheet on November 19, 2014.
First Line Sales Managers – The Heart of B2B Sales Success
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on December 2, 2014
I know many CEO’s believe that hiring the best sales people is the recipe for sales success, and of course, they are partly right. But there is a critical missing piece to that puzzle – and it’s not just about giving your new hires the right sort of product training.
The critical success factor – and it ought to be blindingly obvious, if you think about it – turns out to be the effectiveness of your first-line sales managers. Yet that’s often the place where sales performance problems have their roots.
You’ve probably seen the situation play out dozens of times: a vacancy emerges in the sales management team, and a top performing sales person gets promoted to fill it. After all, they can lead by example – can’t they?
And that assumption, of course, is where it all breaks down. Because it turns out that being a top sales performer is a hopelessly invalid predictor of that individuals’ ability to successfully lead a team of sales people.
Avoiding the obvious mistakes
Sometime the reason is predictable, and the issue avoidable. You probably know who your “lone wolf” sales people are, and you’ve learned to live with their anti-social behaviors, because if they didn’t keep the orders coming in, there’s no way you would tolerate them.
It’s blindingly obvious that promoting them would be a bad idea all around, and if they had any sense, they would probably refuse the promotion even if you were foolish enough to offer it to them. So organizations typically manage to avoid that most obvious of mistakes.
No: the real problem lies with high-performing sales people who appear to be well-integrated with their colleagues, and who behave like good corporate citizens – it’s just that a critical part of the front-line B2B sales managers’ skill set is missing.
Coaching – the pivotal skill
The ability to coach – to help sales people learn how to succeed through their own efforts rather than have the manager take over when the going gets tough – turns out to be a pivotal front line management skill. Yet it is so rarely taught.
Some of your front-line managers might have more of an innate talent that others, but experience has convinced me that intelligent new front-line managers can develop strong skills in this area with the right guidance and training.
So here’s the problem: even organizations that invest regularly in sales training often fail to invest in their front-line sales managers. It’s not that they are not involved in the same training as their sales people are – it’s obvious that they need to be.
Preparing your front-line leaders
The issue is the lack of specialized training and mentoring in the key skills needed to be an effective sales manager. Coaching is a big part of this, but it’s not the only area where development would often be beneficial.
What about running effective forecasting and pipeline review meetings? What about conducting continuous performance assessments? And what about opportunity and team coaching, as well as 1:1 sales person coaching?
What about the skills and techniques necessary to support the implementation of the company’s defined sales process? What about the effective use of the organization’s CRM system? And what about the regular reinforcement required to make your company’s chosen sales training methodology stick?
A pivotal role
Your front line sales managers are pivotal in achieving all of this. But how much time and money are you allocating to their professional and personal development? My bet – in most cases – is that the answer is “not enough”.
And yet these are the very people you are relying on to make sure the numbers are made, to ensure that your expensive sales training investments deliver the desired results, and they are your critical change agents when driving new initiatives.
This article was originally posted to the Inflection Point Blog by Bob Apollo on November 18, 2014.
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