ACTG Sales Management Blog

Sales & Sales Management Expertise Blog  

Alex Cole-Murphy

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Make the Business-to-People Sale

Posted by Alex Cole-Murphy on Tue, Apr 14, 2020

Most Sales Managers would agree that completing prospecting activities and hitting sales goals are critical to success.

However, what happens when we focus too much on the numbers and not enough on being a resource for prospects, we impact (or lose) the human element of our business. 

In today's blog, we discuss what it means to be in the B2P industry and how you can impact people each and every single day as a salesperson.

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In general, there are two different types of classifications in sales; Business-to-Business (B2B) or Business-to-Consumer (B2C). B2B — meaning you supply a product or service directly to an organization — i.e. you provide a chemical coating that will be sold to an aircraft manufacturer and applied to rotors. B2C — being that you provide a product or service directly to the end user — i.e. you sell anti-aging skincare products using social media and your network to women 30+. But what if what you do falls somewhere in-between?

What if you are in the B2P (Business-to-People) business?

I believe that Anthony Cole Training Group fits within that category. Before we get too far into this topic, I do realize that B2C sales technically describes what we are about to discuss below, but for the sake of this article, I ask that you expand your realm of thinking. See, we (ACTG) primarily provide sales hiring and production training for financial institutions.

We usually work with pre-existing sales teams to uncover the problem areas they face and build our training and development around addressing those problems. But at the end of the day, it is the people that we impact first, not the organization. I would imagine 99% of the organizations that are considered B2B still have to sell to a real, living, breathing person who is responsible for making a decision.

So, at the end of the day, you’re in the business to people game too.

Download "9 Tools to Increase Sales" Whitepaper

So why does this matter? Sometimes, we get so caught up in our day-to-day activities of producing, prospecting and checking off our individual tasks, that we forget we're here to help people. We focus more on the RFP (Request for Proposal) in front of us than on the company and people behind it.

Typically, in B2C sales, the salesperson shares more of a personal relationship with the prospect as well as flexibility around conversations and decisions. In B2B sales, there is usually more restriction to the branding, marketing and positioning of products or services, as well as how we can approach people in the market.

Now I’m not suggesting we should throw the handbook out the window, but I am suggesting that those of us in the B2B space can probably benefit from a healthy dose of “authenticity” and “the human element”.

Don't you think?

At the end of the day, you must remember that you are impacting people, regardless of the type of work that you do. The aircraft manufacturer that is buying your chemical coating still has a team of people they are responsible for, so they must confirm that the chemicals are safe and regulated—so talk with them about that. Not only why your coating lasts so much longer than your competitors’ brand!

When we stop focusing (solely) on the next sale, the next dial, or the next commission check; and instead focus on being a go-giver for our clients and prospects, more sales will occur. Be in the Business-to-People, or B2P, business.

It will be your most rewarding sale.

 

Topics: sales effectiveness training, banking sales training, consultative sales coaching, corporate sales training, sales force performance management, online sales management training, sales training workshops, sales training seminars, sales training programs, sales force performance evaluation, insurance prospecting system, assessment tools for salespeople, life insurance call script, sales team evaluation, keys to selling success, prospecting personality definition, star sales training, keys to selling, consultative sales coaching cincinnati, consultative selling cincinnati, banking sales training cincinnati, corporate sales training cincinnati, hire better people cincinnati, sales coaching cincinnati, sales management training cincinnati, sales productivity tools cincinnati, sales training programs cincinnati, sales training workshops cincinnati, train the trainer cincinnati, hiring sales people cincinnati, increase sales cincinnati, professional sales training cincinnati, sales candidate assessment cincinnati, sales effectiveness training cincinnati, sales force performance evaluation cincinnati, sales performance management cincinnati, sales training cincinnati, sales training courses cincinnati, sales training seminars cincinnati

The 5 Keys to Sales Coaching

Posted by Alex Cole-Murphy on Thu, Jan 16, 2020

In this article, we discuss the "5 Keys to Sales Coaching", or 5 critical steps you must know and execute in order to get the best effort and results out of your salespeople, to help increase sales in 2020 and beyond.

They include:

  1. Insight
  2. Feedback
  3. Demonstrate
  4. Practice
  5. Action Plan

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Coaching salespeople is hard work and it helps to have a consistent and effective process to help keep you on course.

As a sales coach, there are five critical steps you must know and execute in order to get the best effort and results out of your salespeople.

These are the 5 Keys to Sales Coaching below:

1.) INSIGHTAs a coach, you must be able to see what is happening and what is not happening out in the field.  Without real insight into what is going on, you will have difficulty understanding your salespeople's choke points.

10 Sales Management Insights

 

2.) FEEDBACK - As a sales coach, you must continually give your salespeople specific feedback on their activities.  This includes both positive and constructive feedback.  If you ask your salesperson if they will allow you to coach them to help them reach their goals, you will usually gain permission.  And that makes the journey better for everyone.

5 Effective Ways to Coach Your Sales Team

 

3.) DEMONSTRATE Part of a sales leader’s job is to be effective at demonstrating the behavior they want their salespeople to execute in the field.  And they must take time out of their busy day to schedule time with their team members to demonstrate specific situations from a sales call or meeting, role play with their team, identify gaps in the selling process, ask specific questions, and most importantly, coach their salespeople to become better salespeople!

The Top 10 Behaviors of High Performing Managers

 

4.) PRACTICE We have all heard the saying, “Practice makes perfect”. This is particularly true in selling. Practice is essential in improving selling skills, specific techniques, interpersonal skills, and attention-to-detail in the selling process.  Without practice, your salespeople will only go so far, and as a sales coach, you must role play with your salespeople in order for them to practice and achieve success!  Be prepared, they might not like it but they must do it.

8 Sales Role Play Exercises

 

5.) ACTION PLAN - It is essential that YOU as a sales leader take time to sit down with your salesperson and establish an action plan – what are the specific prospecting and networking activities that they must do in order to reach their goals? 

This will undoubtedly include utilizing LinkedIn, attending association meetings with the intent to meet the right target profile client, etc.  This action plan SHOULD include getting introductions from current clients.

31 Tips for Using LinkedIn for Sales

 

Follow this link below to learn more about specific opportunities we offer to help grow revenue!

Sell Better. Coach Better. Hire Better.

Topics: effective sales coaching, Sales Coaching, sales coaching skills, consultative selling, sales effectiveness training, banking sales training, consultative sales coaching, hire better people, train the trainer, 5 keys to sales coaching

5 Keys to Sales Coaching

Posted by Alex Cole-Murphy on Fri, Jul 19, 2019

In this article, we discuss the "5 Keys to Sales Coaching", or the five critical steps you must know and execute in order to get the best effort and results out of your salespeople.

They include:

  1. Insight
  2. Feedback
  3. Demonstrate
  4. Role Play
  5. Action Plan

5 keys-1

Coaching salespeople is hard work and it helps to have a consistent and effective process to help keep you on course. As a sales coach, there are five critical steps that you must know and execute in order to get the best effort and results out of your salespeople.

These are the 5 Keys to Coaching!

 

  • INSIGHT As a coach, you must be able to see what is happening and what is not happening out in the field.  Without real insight into what is going on, you will have difficulty understanding their choke points so that you can coach them.

        5 Keys to Coaching - Insight

 

  • FEEDBACK - As a sales coach, you must continually give your salespeople specific feedback on their activities.  This includes both positive and constructive feedback.  If you ask your salesperson if they will allow you to coach them to help them reach their goals, you will usually gain permission.  And that makes the journey better for everyone.

        5 Keys to Coaching - Feedback

 

  • DEMONSTRATE Part of a sales leader’s job is to be effective at demonstrating the behavior they want their salespeople to execute in the field.  And they must take time out of their busy day to schedule time with their team members and demonstrate specific situations from a sales call or meeting, role play with their team, identify gaps in the selling process, ask specific questions, and most importantly, coach their salespeople to become better salespeople!

       5 Keys to Coaching - Demonstrate

 

  • PRACTICE We have all heard the saying, “Practice makes perfect”. This is particularly true in selling. Practice is essential in improving selling skills, specific techniques, interpersonal skills, and attention-to-detail in the selling process.  Without practice, your salespeople will only go so far, and as a sales coach, you must role play with your salespeople in order for them to practice and achieve success!  Be prepared, they might not like it but they must do it.

       5 Keys to Coaching - Practice

 

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  • ACTION PLAN It is essential that YOU as a sales leader take time to sit down with your salesperson and establish an action plan – what are the specific prospecting and networking activities that they must do in order to reach their goals?  This will undoubtedly include utilizing LinkedIn, attending association meetings with the intent to meet the right target profile client, etc.  This action plan SHOULD include getting introductions from current clients.

      5 Keys to Coaching - Action Plan

 

To learn more about the 5 Keys to Coaching and our specific available coaching packages, check out the link below!

5 Keys to Coaching

 

You can also subscribe to our weekly Sales Brew emails here:

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Fishing for Sales Prospects

Posted by Alex Cole-Murphy on Mon, Jul 01, 2019

Sales and marketing go hand-in-hand.  Without leads, salespeople will have a hard time selling.  Without marketing, salespeople will have a difficult time sharing their product and features with prospective clients.  

But how much is too much?  In this article, we discuss the difference between giving salespeople every lead and teaching them how to cultivate their leads to strengthen their pipelines and their careers as a whole.  

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I’m sure a majority of people have heard the Chinese proverb, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”

This, of course, means it’s more worthwhile to teach someone to do something (for themselves) than to do it for them (on an ongoing basis).

Well, I’ve created a new proverb. A sales proverb, if you will:

“Give a salesperson a prospect, and you strengthen their pipeline for a day. Teach a salesperson to prospect, and you strengthen their pipeline for their career.”

Makes sense, doesn’t it?

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Several of the companies we partner with supply their new, or tenured, salespeople with leads consistently. In theory, this sounds great but it can cause problems in the long term. If you are feeding leads to your salespeople on a regular basis, we encourage you to continue to do so.

However, your salespeople can’t, and shouldn’t, rely on them as their main resource for potential business. They should be capable of replicating the process and generating their own opportunities. If they produce solely off of inbound marketing leads, the salesperson will just survive, and not thrive within your organization. If they don’t know how to effectively create, cultivate and generate leads, they will only do what is required of them to sell and close the leads they are given.  They won’t try to uncover new opportunities and in the end, you, the sales manager, and the salesperson, will be disappointed with their performance.

And it’s not just a matter of teaching them how to prospect, but how to prospect effectively. Anyone can go out and get a list of names but how they contact those names, what they say, what questions they ask all play a role in effectively “fishing” for leads.

So how can you help your salespeople?

Start by setting a new lead expectation. Making it mandatory to produce fresh opportunities on a weekly basis will force your salespeople to go out and make the dials. Next, identify your “Zebra” or ideal prospect persona. For a better understanding of the concept and best practices on identifying “Zebras” watch this short Sales Guy Unplugged video. Don’t let your salespeople call on anyone other than those that fit the personas identified.

After, research the best ways to reach your ideal prospect. Is it via email or phone call? Is LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter their preferred social media platform? Knowing how and where to reach your target persona will positively impact your salespeople’s’ ability to hunt, qualify and discover potential new business.

A salesperson's job, although difficult to do, is not difficult to understand. There are 3 major components:

  1. Go out in the marketplace and uncover opportunities,
  2. Qualify those opportunities and close for the business.
  3. Don’t let your salespeople get by on just your internal leads  fishing for prospects is 33% of their job.

Need more help? Download our free E-Book “Why is Qualifying a Prospect so #%&@ Hard”. This book is packed with practical information that you can put into practice today to immediately increase your sales.

Looking for more sales tidbits, techniques, and video content?  Subscribe to our weekly Sales Brew email below!

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Topics: qualifying prospects, sales prospecting, contacting prospects, reaching prospects, prospect engagement, prospect outreach

Enough is Enough

Posted by Alex Cole-Murphy on Thu, Apr 18, 2019

Complacency in selling is not a new phenomenon.  In fact, it has been going on for a number of years with salespeople accepting their status, their shiny new toys, and their numbers in the business, while exclaiming,

"Enough is enough.  I've accomplished it all!"

In this article, we discuss three keys to help sales managers bust the myth that “enough is enough” and continue to get the most out of their top producers.

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Too often, highly successful salespeople reach a point in their career where they become complacent and “enough is enough”.  This happens for many reasons, but one of the main causes I've observed is because "they've made it".  It doesn't matter what the gender or tenure may be — all that matters is that one day the sales person wakes up, takes a look around, and discovers that all of the things they strived for when they entered into the business have been accomplished.

For example:

  • They have the big house
  • They have the right car
  • They have the club membership
  • They are either empty nesters or they have the kids in private schools

In the past, Dave Kurlan at Objective Management Group has said that highly successful salespeople are motivated by earning more money. Recently though, Dave has done some additional research to indicate that money is NOT really the primary motivator, especially with today's younger generations.  

With this in mind, I don't want to focus on money as the motivator, but I don't want to totally discount the idea either - Money does help people achieve the other extrinsic motivators that are important to them. However, it is actually the specific goals of the individuals, that provide the motivation for earning more money.

For example, let's suppose you have a sales person who says spending time with the kids in extracurricular activities is important. I would suggest that being successful in selling "buys" one the time to have balance in their life and “buys" the ability to make the choice to go to a field hockey game at 3:30 in the afternoon. This freedom of time and choice might require your sales person to succeed at a higher level. People who are actively dreaming and motivated to reach their goals will continue to work towards financial success to fulfill those goals.

Here are 3 Keys to help sales managers bust the myth that “enough is enough” and continue to get the most out of their top producers. And if you are a top producer yourself, these are three areas you should question and reflect on for yourself.

  1. Ask the right question(s). It really isn't about money - how much they want to make, how much they want to have, when they want to retire, etc. The better questions focus on helping your highly successful salespeople determine what they would like to have to shape and define their lives. Ask them to rethink their goals to include some things that would be important to them to have as a legacy regarding who they are and what they accomplished.
  2. Create an environment where goal setting is also goal sharing. Too often, sales managers don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what it is that motivates their salespeople. As a sales manager you may argue this, but the OMG data shows that 75% of all sales managers do not feel it is important to know what motivates their people. However, once you know what is important to you then, then you are more effective as a mentor and a coach.
  3. Build the company sales revenue plan from the ground up. Start working with your people and help them identify what their requirements are to have a lifestyle filled with happiness, success, and financial freedom. Document their individual requirements and provide a process to translate those requirements into a selling success formula. 

I've explained to salespeople that if the company has a bigger goal for them than they have for themselves, they shouldn't blame the company. The salespeople need to blame themselves because smaller expectations are a clear indication that they have stopped dreaming and stopped setting goals. I’ve explained to executives that it isn't about shareholder value. Their salespeople, unless they own shares, don't give a hoot about shareholder value. They care about sending their kids to school, buying a place in the mountains, paying for the weddings, etc.

When you have an environment where your people can continue to make their dreams come true, then you have something special where “enough is enough" is never an issue. 

Topics: motivating sales people, effective sales management, salespeople, sales opportunity, driven, complacency


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    Anthony Cole Training Group has been working with financial firms for close to 30 years helping them become more effective in their markets and closing their sales opportunity gap.  ACTG has mastered the art of using science-based data and finely honed coaching strategies to help build effective sales teams.  Don’t miss our weekly sales management blog insights from our team of expert contributors.

     

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