Sales Blog for Sales and Sales Management

Not long ago I spent a few minutes on the phone with a friend of mine who 18 months ago joined a car dealership here in Cincinnati.  By most standards it is one of the best run by one of the best dealer groups in the area.  I asked him to email me his thoughts about selling in that environment so that I could blog about it.  Here is some of his email:

I had a few thoughts after our conversation that I would like to share with you. You made the interesting comment that car salesmen don’t enjoy the most favorable reputation, and that’s undeniably true. As is the case in similar situations, we bring it on ourselves. The result of that is, and this is one of the big challenges of this profession, that customers arrive at the dealership with that very outlook and then try to make that reality come true regardless of how we try to dissuade them! It takes a strong self image to stay out of that trap! So what does one do to avoid that trap?  

1)      Make a decision to be different. (Don’t look, sound, act…)

2)      Educate and  motivate yourself  using books, CDs, movies, music, whatever works.

3)      Strive for effective communication first- if the customer will become a friend, too.

4)      Be accountable for your activity

5)      Ask for introductions anytime value is given and perceived.

As we discussed, not so different from other sales position.

Sales Management Issues:

I think we talked about the pervasive industry problem of lack of accountability management, the bottom line being the primary measuring stick, and the over abundance of “seagull management,” the boss flying in, crapping all over everyone, and flying out. And, the schedule is a bitch until one can establish his referral prospecting business, sell 20+ cars per month consistently, and earn the right to make his own schedule.  

However, there is huge potential for someone who can hang in for two or three years and understands the value of prospecting and building a business based introductions.

I have developed the philosophy that I work for myself; that the dealership creates the space for me to do that, and therefore have the right to benefit from my success. Therefore it is in their best interests for me to succeed! That gives me the right to demand the things I need to succeed!

As I think about his comments, and the conversation we had, I come to the conclusion once again that selling is selling.  It is about seeing people no matter how you have to go about seeing people.  It is about qualifying those people that you see - what is it that they want, why do they want it - why do they want the features and benefits they say they want - and finally can they afford what they want?

Is that all there is? No, not anymore.  How come? So much of what the seller used to do is now being done by the buyer on the internet before they ever call you, step into your showroom, or go to your website.  You've become part of a buying process that you have no control over. However - you do have control over one thing - what you do next.  The most powerful statement my friend made was his decision to be different and be commited to not being linked to other dealerships or car salespeople that his prospects have had to suffer through before.

Sales managers that is a decision you can make - be different at the moment of influence.  At that moment - how well do your people perform?

• Do they look, act and sound like all other sales people?
• Do they execute an effective sales process that focuses on the prospect?
• Do they quickly establish trust and confidence?
• Do they qualify before attempting to solve problems - drive the car?

I grew up on a blueberry farm in Hammonton, NJ.  Back then it was known as Four Lane Farms. Today it is owned by one of my high school friends Paul Macrie and Paul's company is DaCosta Blueberries.

I got to thinking about the farm the other day when I was in a discussion with one of our clients who was telling me that his sales people where suggesting that the compensation model be changed so that they could make more money on a particular product that they sold.  The conversation reminded me of the one I had wiht my dad when I was a kid.  I started picking blueberries when I was five.  Me, my sister Teresa and my brother Ray would go out in the fields early in the morning with the rest of the workers, take a short break for lunch, go back into the fields until 4 or 5 in the afternoon.  We'd call it a day and walt back to the house.  I did this until I was 10 after that I moved into the 'packing house' and started getting paid 'by the hour'.

You see in the fields we got paid by 'piece work' - you did a piece of work, you got paid.  Kind of like selling.  You sell something you get paid.  I don't remember how old I was but I remember going to my dad who was the foreman on the farm and explained to him that I thought we should get paid more. The work was hard, the conditions were dry and hot, the boxes of blueberries where heavy and I just wanted to make more money.  Back then we would get paid 8.33 cents per pint of blueberries. There where 12 pints to a crate of blueberries therefore we got paid 1 dollar per crate.  The goal for us kids was to pick 100 pints per day - 12 crates plus 4 extra pints.  $8.33 for a full day's work.  I explained to dad that I wanted to make $10.00 a day and so we should get a raise to 10 cents a pint.

Dad said, "you want to make ten dollars a day?"  Yep I said.  He said good, pick ten crates a day and you'll make ten dollars.

I didn't know it then but I know it know. That was my first lesson in sales and sales management.  Sometimes in sales if you want to make more you just have to work harder.  When all else fails hard work works.  The other lesson was that in sales managment you don't have do anything different just because your sales people suggest you should.  My dad kept me focused on the right thing - making more money.  Do the same for you people.  Don't get hung up in the weeds trying to reinvent what is already working.

Being a sales manager is not an easy job so it comes as no surprise to me that Bill Eckstrom identifies a research survey indicating that 90% of the sales managers are doing 'stuff' wrong.  Here is the blog posted by Bill Eckstrom from EcSell Institute - an organization dedicated to helping sales managers do more of the right stuff, the right way at the right time.  To put my spin on this - read his article - assess how you are doing - ask yourself; what you need to keep doing, stop doing or start doing and then take action.  

Your job as a sales manager is to get things done. A study done by academics Heike Bruch and the late Sumantra Ghoshal  from London, investigated what they called "decisive purposeful action." Most companies, far from being hives of busy, effective executives, could instead be seen as "a few isolated islands of action amid an ocean of inaction," the researchers found. Does this ring any bells? Here are the highlights from their study.

Read the full article "Study: Most Managers are Ineffective"

Only about 10 percent of the managers took purposeful action." The remainder were busy, just not very effective: 40 percent were energetic but unfocused; 30 percent had low energy, little focus and tended to procrastinate; and 10% were focused, but not very energetic.

No wonder most businesses are so unproductive. What all of this suggests, is that we waste most of the human resources we hire. The people around us are either unfocused (they don't know how to use their energy), uninspired (they've lost their energy), or distant (they'd rather think than do.) Leadership is about galvanizing this potential and getting it to move effectively in the right direction.

The 40 percent who are energetic but unfocused are the ones you have to work on. They want to do useful work and are up for a challenge. They just don't know where to start or how to prioritize. When you have a coherent strategy, you give this energy meaningful direction. Unfocused energy is rarely the fault of the individual. Rather, it's an indication that your strategy isn't sufficiently understood or being translated into goals.

The 30 percent who have low energy and little focus are tough nuts to crack. Did they start well and just run out of steam? Are they in the wrong jobs or the wrong company? There's a high likelihood they started out in the energetic 40 percent cohort but became disillusioned and disengaged by their inability to have an impact. Your best hope is that galvanizing the 40 percent creates enough draw within the organization that the best of these get swept along.

You have the power to change this! 

1. Take the first step by making a commitment to yourself and your team around professional and personal development. 

2. Understand what actions have the greatest impact on sales performance.

3. Learn how to lead coach your team with purposeful intention, using the right skills.

If you need help with all this, that is where EcSELL Institute can help.  Learn more by visiting ourwebsite and/or take that first step and attend our Summit which is focused on developing your coaching and leadership skills.  Or attend our Sales Management Academy. We will teach you how to motivate your team to take purposeful action.

Why do you think only 10% act with purposeful intention?

I am currently at the Grand Floridian getting ready for a Keynote. My topic is: Accountability - the 14 Letter Word for Sales Success. My process has been the following:

• Talked to the client to discuss what they want the participants to leave with when they leave the conference
• Asked the client what the theme was for the conference so that I could tie my content to their theme
• Asked the client for any information they could provide me so that my presentation would be credible and support their objectives 
• Created the deck for the presentation
• Had our staff review to make suggestions and changes
• Wrote the script for the deck
• Practiced the script
• Re-wrote the script where changes needed to be made
• Arrived to the conference early so that I could meet the team
• Met some of the attendees and listened to other presenters
• Reviewed my notes, my script and made adjustments including changing, adding or deleting slides
• Practiced the opening and closing over and over
• Prayed on my delivery and message so that it was consistent with the goals of the client and ours as a company

I will leave here in a few minutes to do the sound check and make changes to the deck as needed. I will then come back to the room one more time to do a quick review of my presentation to anticipate reactions and stories I might tell to help make points I want to make. I will then leave for the keynote to visit with my client Scott of HotSpring Spas to make sure we are aligned and ready to go. I plan to then go up on stage, layout my notes, make my introduction and deliver my keynote, not really knowing if everything I've practiced will get said and not knowing if the audience will respond how I have anticipated they might.

But the key is I have prepared even though I've done this now for over 10 years, delivered this content countless times to sales organizations and have given keynotes to all sizes of groups in all kinds of industries. I still prepared hours for a 1 hour presentation. The reason I do this is that the client does not care about how good I may have been in the past. They care about from 2:15 to 3:15 today. They expect me to be my best. I owe that to them and to my company that counts on me to represent our brand promise of "Changing the way companies succeed".

The reason I wanted to post this today is to gently remind you as sales managers that no matter how many times your sales people have presented a proposal - they need to practice so that they can be their best. No matter how many times you have had a coaching session or conducted a sales meeting you should prepare to be your best. That is what you should expect from yourself and that is what your people expect of you. I will give you a post - call debrief when I finish the keynote.

 Here are a few tools to help you and your team do a great job of planning for your next sales call:

Pre-Call

Post-Call

Did you call on the decision maker?

Where they unhappy with their current banker?

Do they have a budget?

Will you follow up next week?

Are you sure this is a client that we want to have?

Is there a way to get in front of the committee?

These are all questions I have heard sales managers ask their sales people during post call debriefing sessions.  When our sales development experts, Mark, Chris or Walt deliver a sales management session on coaching or a session on the "Art and Science of Asking Questions" they focus a great deal of attention on asking closed ended questions.  They role play, they drill for skill, they work with sales people to develop a strong interview approach that uses the right questions, asked the right way at the right time.  More times then not the sales manager is there in the room listening to the same message and practicing the same stuff.

But then it is time for the sales manager to coach the sales person and what happened in class is lost and closed ended questions are what get asked.

Why is this a problem?  It is a problem for many reasons but the one I want to focus on here is:  Shadow of the Leader.

When you demonstrate a behavior to your sales people there is a high probability that they will duplicate that behavior.  If you tell them to ask open ended questions but demonstrate closed ended questions what they see gets done, not what they hear.

Make sure that as you are coaching your people to successfully navigate through the sales process you instruct them, coach them using questions but using the right questions the right way:

When you told your contac that you had to get to the decision maker what did they say?

When you asked them if they were unhappy enough to leave their current banker how did they respond?

Tell me about the budget discussions?

What was the discussion for follow up that included getting a decision instead of a think it over?

How does this prospect fit our perfect prospect profile?

When you asked who on the committee would tell her 'no' to making a change and then asked to get in front of that person prior to the committee meeting what was the response?

Chances are that your sales person will tell you that they didn't ask these questions.  This allows you to ask, 'why not'?

After 3 or 4 meetings like this your sales people will get the hint that maybe they should be asking these questions, they will ask the questions, they will have better qualified opportunities, close more business and you will have effectively coached your sales team to improve the skill of asking questions.

Helpful Links:

Sales Learning Center Demo

The Art and Science of Asking Questions Audio 

Coaching for Success Workshop

What are the key focus areas for sales success in 2012?  According to a recent article from Mark Gibson at Advanced Marketing Systems which sites a recent survey from Chief Sales Officer (CSO), the following five are the path to success this year:

1. Ability to show benefit/value

2. Optimizing the sales process

3. Reaching people with power

4. Increasing customer loyalty

5. Differentiation from competition

I see the value in each and every one of these and over the last 20 years that we've had our sales development practice I can tell you that not much has changed as it relates to what sales officers feel there teams need to improve.  In addition to the list, I continue to hear the following requests:

1.  How do I keep my people motivated?

2.  How do I help our people see more people?

3.  How do we utilize and leverage the CRM tools that we've invested in?

4.  How do I hire better people?

5.  How do I motivate top performers?

Imagine trying to deal with all ten of these!  You'd be like Dr. House in the TV series - all of these symptoms and not a clear clue as to why they exist.  And that is where I believe most sales executives miss the mark. Year after year, companies attempt to treat the symptom instead of solving the root problem.  If this were not the case then why do companies still suffer the same symptoms year after year?

We have a client that when we first engaged with them told me that they had spent millions of dollars on sales training with little to no impact.  They felt that their biggest problem was with the sales management and sales leadership group - no one had coached the coaches on how to be better coaches, recruiters, mentors and motivators.  The sales leaders where great sales people that were promoted or hired because they where great bankers, insurance agents, accountants or some other highly competent professional but had virtually zero training and coaching to be an effective sales leader.

Additionally, the problem is that when time is invested and money is spent it is invested and spent on the wrong end of the problem.  In the research we do prior to engaging with a new client we find the following:

1.  Typically only 65% alignment of sales, business and marketing strategies between executives and sales people

2.  On average, 66% of sales people make excuses for lack of success either in overall results or for losing an individual sale

3.  Usually, 25% of sales people hired lack the required desire and or commitment to be successful as sales people

4.  Roughly, 65% of all sales people have problems dealing with prospects that want to think it over, compare, shop and buy low cost.  Additionally 60% have a hard time talking to prospects about money

5.  On average, 50% of sales people do not feel it is necessary to uncover budget or the decision making process prior to making a presentation for close

6.  Over 95% of sales people have difficulty establishing a strong relationship on the very first call

7.  Over 95% believe that prospects are honest

8.  Over 80% of the sales people believe that a prospect that "thinks it over" will eventually buy from them

9.  More than 35% of sales people are making inappropriate presentations to unqualified prospects

10.  Typically only 50% of the opportunities in the pipeline have a medium probability of closing

The work required to fix the top five focus points identified by CSO does not start with more training on how to fix those problems. The work required starts with finding out why the problems exist, who has them and who with training, appropriate coaching and alignment with strategies has the ability to change when training is provided.

Additional resources:
1.  Ebook - Why is Selling So #$%&* Hard?  

2.  Objective Management Group - Sales Force Evaluation

3.  CSO website - 

4.  Sales Grader

5.  Ebook - 9 Skills for Effective Sales Managment

As I think about successful coaching at almost anything I have to believe that the coach must at some level be able to demonstrate successful execution of what they are asking the participant to perform.  If the coach cannot do that then they must have a resource that they can count on to demonstrate the ideal execution of a skill or behavior.

Imagine for a second that you are about to take flying lessons only to discover that your trainer has crashed several times.  You would not be too likely to hire that trainer.  And so it is with sales manager and being able to effectively demonstrate effective selling.

An effective selling process will accomplish the following:

1. Discovery of what the prospect wants and needs
2. Agreement from the prospect that they will make a purchase or change
3. An agreement for the required investment of time, money and resources
4. An agreement on the decision making process
5. A presentation that provides the exact solution the prospect is looking for, within the budget they have
6. A decision at the conclusion of the presentation

Effective sales call debriefing is a not only a skill required to be an effective coach but it is also a sales management process that MUST be part of your daily life of a successful sales manager.  Day in and day out you have sales people on sales calls.  In a B2B world of selling there are many variables that need to be handled if your sales professionals are going to turn a suspect into a prospect, into a qualified buyer into a client.

The key to effective sales call debriefing actually begins with effective pre-call preparation.  Again strong coaching skills are required and this has to be a process that is standard operating procedure for all calls your sales people have.  Every call should be preceded by a pre-call planning session.  This can be done individually or as a team depending on the size and complexity of the sale but you should expect this to be done on every call.  The important 'sales strategy' steps to a pre-call are:

1. What powerful discovery questions is the sales person prepared to ask.  What are the anticipated answers and how will the sales person deal with those answers.
2. What are the questions we can anticipate from the prospect, how will the sales person deal with the questions.  (Remember that when you role play this with your sales person you should expect them to answer questions with at least one additional qualifying question)
3. What curve balls can we anticipate and how will we deal with those.
4. What has to happen, what is the expected outcome, that would cause everyone involved to say that the meeting was a great meeting?

Consistently coaching skills and behaviors is the second most important skill that a sales manager / coach needs to have if sales success is their objective.  

The reason that 'consistently' is part of the skill description is that spaced repetition is a fundamental learning principle to help people of all ages learn, change and improve skill.  Think back to your days in elementary school when you were learning the '3rs'.  Remember flash cards?  Every day the teacher would break out the flash cards and as memory and skill improved then the frequency of using the flash card for 2 + 2 decreased, while the flash card for 11 x 12 continued until the class remembered the answer of 132.

Your commitment to consistently coach is only trumped by what your focus on long term skill development and behavior change.  Unfortunately most of the coaching that takes place is 'in the moment coaching' - coaching 'the deal'.  This takes place during pre or post call coaching sessions. Though that is critical is does little or nothing to actually improve skill.  In the moment coaching is like calling a time out - to run a specific play or to take a specific action.  It solves an immediate problem but does nothing to improve long term skill or to improve a behavior that keeps a sales person from needing to call time outs every time they get in to a jam with a sales opportunity.

If you want long term successful sales people then the development strategy has to be long term in addition to in the moment coaching.  This requires the following (click this link to listen to the 2 minute audio on consistent coaching) :

1.  Collect meaningful data around sales metrics using huddles

2.  Gain insight from the data to determine choke points a sales person has in the selling

3.  Pro-actively allocate time for one on one coaching with sales people

4.  Schedule one on one coaching weekly wiht sales people to work on skills and behaviors

5.  Implement a disciplined approach when a sales person is failing to execute behaviors

6.  Follow up on actionable items that you have assigned the sales person to execute

7.  Repeat as necessary

Make this part of your development strategy and you will have a team that sells more business, more quickly at higher margins.

It could be 3 keys, 6 keys or 9 keys to sales success.  I don't want to get hung up on the number of keys to sales success.  What I do want to focus on and what I would suggest sales managers to focus on is this:  Of these 9 keys which ones are you familiar with, executing on and have the right skills for?  It's one thing to be aware of what you should be doing, it's another thing to be aware and executing, it is REALLY quite another thing to be doing the right things the right way.  Ultimately that IS the key to coaching your team to sales success. 

Here are the 9 Keys that we focus on;

1. Consistently coaches skills and behaviors
2. Ask sales people quality performance and results questions
3. Effective at getting commitments from sales people and prospects
4. Effective sales call preparation and debriefing
5. Effective joint calls with reps
6. understanding and coaching of major performance factors that influence sales skill execution
7. Understanding and coaching of the crucial elements that drive sales results and sales growth
8. The ability to demonstrate and role play effective selling steps
9. Effectively attracts, identifies, hires and on-boards new hires.