Today, our customers are bombarded with sales, marketing, and advertising pitches from companies all hoping to win their business. They’re overwhelmed, or, in most cases, they simply tune us out.

So, we try to reach as many potential customers as we can, but our salespeople spin their wheels and end up stuck in the same place, week after week, month after month, or year after year.

The problem? We’re not sure who we’re trying to reach. Many of our potential customers view their time as their greatest, most valuable asset, and so should we. We can protect that asset by having a clear understanding of who our target customer is.

Identify What a Zebra is:

In order to hone that understanding, we have to begin with first identifying our “Zebra,” or our ideal prospect persona.

 We can do that in three easy steps:

1. Begin by segmenting our business’s book into thirds. For most companies, that top third brings in 90% of the company’s revenue. They are generally the best clients.
2. Look for common traits and demographics in that top third. Ask questions like:

·      What do these customers have in common?

·      What industry are they in?

·      Who is our main point of contact?

·      How do we contact them?

·      What is the size of their organization?

Having the answers to questions like these helps identify other potential customers in the market.

3. Once we know what traits we’re looking for in that top third, we should commit 2/3 of our time to looking for, or attracting, customers from this group.

Identify What a Zebra Isn't:

Of equal importance is to know, and clearly articulate, what isn’t a Zebra for us. If we know who doesn’t fit our ideal customer persona, we’ll bring clarity to our network and prospecting efforts, and again, continue to value time as our greatest asset. Here’s why it’s important to know what a Zebra isn’t:

1.    We eliminate ambiguity

Introductions have been proven to be the No. 1 way that top producers grow their business. But if we aren’t specific about who we serve best, it’s hard to get those introductions. We need to be specific and clear about what type of zebra we serve best.

2.    We reduce frustration with our Centers of Influence (COI)

We want to capitalize on our COI’s relationships, but if we’re not crystal clear with who we’re looking for, our COI may make an introduction to someone we can’t help. When working with our COI, it’s helpful to articulate the type of business or individual we’re looking for, along with what we’re not looking for and why.

3.    We reduce our opportunity cost

Our opportunity cost is what we’re not working on that might have been more viable for our organization. If we’re calling on Company ABC, we’re not working on Company XYZ. Are we losing out on better business, because we’re not calling on the right prospects?

If we know what we don’t want and the reasons why, it might reduce the quantity of opportunities in our pipeline, but the quality will increase dramatically. 

 Cultivating Zebras

Once we’ve determined which customers are and aren’t Zebras, we need to understand the best ways get in front of them and build relationships.

Start by doing some research.

Should we call or email them?

What is their preferred social media platform – LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter?

Knowing how and where to reach our target persona will positively impact our ability to hunt, qualify and discover potential new business. Undoubtedly, our most effective approach is to utilize the relationships we have with our top third by asking them to introduce us to others they know, who will most likely fall into that ideal customer profile.

It takes work to find these prospects and then contact them, but it’s well worth the effort. Our chances of success are now much higher because we know we’re reaching the right audience, the Zebras who become our best clients.

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In this article, we offer solutions for your CRM system and provide 5 concrete steps in helping your salespeople improve their numbers and ratios so that a sales manager can more accurately identify choke points in the sales process.

My wife Linda and I were recently in Columbia, Maryland visiting family. While having a mid-afternoon lunch at Clyde’s, I happened to see a “LifeLock” commercial on the bar TV. All I caught was the following caption:

“Why Monitor If You're Not Going to Fix It”?

Forbes contribution editor, Will Burns, writes about the absurdity the Lifelock ads point out. He even does us the favor of including the Dentist, Robbery and Pest Control ads in his article.

Many companies, probably including yours, have monitored pipeline opportunities. The idea is to have information about the opportunities being created by the sales team. Companies want to know: 

• What stage in the sales process is the opportunity
• What the next steps are to move the opportunity through the pipeline
• The likelihood of winning the business based on a probability % either calculated or assumed based on the sales stages
• The future sales revenue of all the opportunities in the pipeline.

There are normally at least three problems with the use of CRMs and pipeline management:

1. Validity - The true accuracy (validity) of the predictive nature of the CRM is dependent upon making sure that a milestone centric sales process has been mapped and made to be part of the CRM being used.
2. Credibility – Even if you have the right sales process mapped and documented, there is still the element of GIGO – Garbage In, Garbage Out. If your sales team is entering opportunities into the pipeline to keep management off of their back and assuming that the opportunities have met the criteria for each step in the sales process, then you still have a predictive problem with your pipeline.
3. Lack of helpful business intelligence – It’s one thing to enter data and get raw numbers from what has happened and what we think will happen. It’s another thing to build your CRM so that you have reporting that tells you how sales people are performing against the sales success formula developed for each individual. Without comparative data, then a company or manager is monitoring activity without identifying, if in fact, there are any problems.

What a company should be looking for, so that it’s in a position to ‘fix it’, are critical numbers and ratios so that a sales manager can clearly and more accurately identify choke points in the sales process for each individual.  Additionally, the data can and should, tell the manager and the organization if training and coaching is required, or if the current training and coaching is having the intended impact: Improving the effectiveness and results of the sales team. 

Let’s assume the following sales effort and effectiveness performance model: 

•  The sales person that is failing to hit sales targets is supposed to:
  • Create 10 new leads a month
  • Convert 50% of those into opportunities
  • Convert 50% of those into presentations
  • And get 50% of those presentations to turn into sold business
  • Additionally the average size sales is supposed to be $10,000.00 

• Lets assume the following actual sales effort and effectiveness:
  • 9 new leads are being created but we don’t know why 9 instead of 10?
  • 50% of leads are being converted to opportunities
  • 50% of those opportunities are leading to presentations (but keep in mind over time there will only be 90% of the planned for opportunities because of failure to hit the lead goal)
  • 45% of the presentations turn into sold business instead of 50%
  • And, the average size sale is $9,000.00 instead of $10,000.00

If this is monitored and not addressed/fixed, then this sales person will be short of their goal in access of 25%. This will be a gradual event because, unless the CRM is built to provide this information, no one will notice. No one will notice because the numbers are either: not being monitored or not being addressed because they are ‘close enough’ (9 instead of 10. Management sees this as being 1 off of target rather than 10% off target). Or, coaching to fix the problem falls into the category of ‘do more’ instead of "let’s coach you on how to do better."

Does any of this look or sound familiar? It may not, especially if you have enough of the right people (about 33% of your sales group) doing enough of the right things. With 33% of the team carrying the load, you will still end up with about 90% of your goal.  Then, all you will need is a few of the remaining 67% of the team to contribute something to the production number. You will be close enough.

“Fixing” it has to be part of the investment when investing in sales enablement tools, systems and technology. Fixing the problem requires the following 5 steps:

1. Building a milestone centric sales process that is part of the CRM
2. Creating sales success formulas for each sales person based on their historical actual performance and agreed to sales goals
3. Timely monitoring and updating of sales effort and sales execution data so that you can ‘catch them early’ in real-time when their performance is a negative variance from the plan
4. Using the data to develop intentional coaching strategies to help your salespeople deal with the specific challenges they are having in either effort or execution. No more ‘run faster’ coaching
5. Use metrics to determine your success: 
   • % of sales people hitting effort target increases to 100%
   • % of people hitting conversion ratios improves
   • Production from each of the sales team segments (1/5s) improves year over year
   • The 80/20 rule starts to shift to a 70/30 > 60/40 rule
   • Validity and credibility in your pipeline prediction improves
   • Adaption of your CRM is at 100%

Call To Action: 

Request a 30-minute live Emergency Pipeline Analysis Session to evaluate current opportunities in your pipeline. What you will get/learn.

• Complete instruction on how to more effectively evaluate the validity and credibility of your pipeline opportunities
• How to more effectively identify choke points in the sales process
• A method of intentional coaching to improve the probability of closing current opportunities.

Email:  tony@anthonycoletraining.com if interested.  Thank you for your time!

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Disconnect in the business world is pretty common. But, that doesn't mean it should be. Specifically in sales, your job as a leader is to create a model that benefits both the company and the salespeople that work there. So, how do you do this?

This article will provide you with a list of questions to ask yourself, and your producers, when your sales team is underperforming and improvements need to be made.

I recently met with a firm that was struggling with its sales team hitting sales goals. Sound familiar? And talking to the president, she shared with me her frustration over this and the various attempts taken to correct the problem, and nothing seemed to work. The most recent strategy was to change the compensation payout on one of the products being sold. Keep in mind there wasn’t a change to the amount being paid out, just the way the payout would occur. 

You would have thought that she was reducing the comp schedule by 50%, changing the 401K match and eliminating the contribution schedule to the employee health insurance plan all in a 24-hour period. The reaction from the sales team was negative and swift. For days, salespeople were focused on:

• Why is the company doing this?
• This isn’t fair, I’ve always been paid within 30 days of the sale.
• Is this a punishment?
• This doesn’t motivate me to sell more!

As I’ve been thinking about this for the last week or so I wondered...

1. Would any of this be a problem if in fact the sales people had hit their sales goal in 2018 and so their payouts would be consistent with their personal financial needs?
2. Would this be a problem if year to date each of the sales people was on track to hit their goals for 2019?
3. And finally, if the 2019 sales goals were being met, and cash flow met the requirements of the business plan, would the president have been put in a position to do something in an attempt to light a fire under the pants of the sales team?

I believe the answer to all of those questions would be no.

Dealing with sales problems within an organization is no different than dealing with a specific sales opportunity that is stuck in the pipeline. Too often a sales person attempts to put pressure via constant emails and calls inquiring about "Where are you in the process of making a decision to move forward with this”?  This is the wrong end of the problem in sales. If a sale is stalled or is not made, the sales person with the help of the sales manager has to work the right end of the problem. The right end is examining what happened or failed to happen at the beginning of the milestone centric sales process that the company developed as part of the sales enablement and CRM strategy?

1. Was there a compelling reason to act?
2. Was the incumbent eliminated from the process?
3. Was the capacity to invest time, money and resources discussed and agreed to?
4. Was there an agreement for the prospect to pay more if required?
5. Did the sales person fully understand the buyer’s buying journey / process and what stage they were in?
6. Was the sales person in front of decision makers: users, implementers, finance, IT etc.?
7. Was there urgency?
8. Was there an agreement to decide at time of presentation?
9. Was the company in a position to solve the business problem for the prospect based on the prospect’s selection criteria and priorities?
10. Was the prospect given several opportunities to back away from the discussions?
11. Did the sales person ‘own the room’ when they made the presentation?
12. Was the presentation compelling and designed to lead to an obvious conclusion to buy?

These are just a few examples of steps in a milestone centric sales process as described in this audio blog – A Suspect Remains a Suspect Until.

Back to our president and the company. The challenge here is to ask the sales team the questions I asked above. Get to the right end of the problem and you can avoid many problems closing opportunities and growing sales in your company.

The sales process, albeit its own animal, shares certain similarities with the monster that is March Madness.  From prospecting, qualifying, taking the big shot, closing, assessing the opportunity to win, and much more, selling and sport's greatest tournament are linked in more ways than meets the human eye.

This might be the biggest stretch ever in the history of my blog. How can I possibly tie the NCAA Basketball Tournament (also known as March Madness) to selling? Honestly, I’m not sure…so I will be making this up as I go. Let me begin by setting the stage for selling and how I see it is similar to the event of March Madness.

• Prospecting > Games that are played by all Division I teams throughout the year.
• Qualifying > Selection Sunday – based on performance of the teams, 68 teams qualify to make the tournament.
• Assessing the Opportunity to Win > Selecting your teams from the ‘brackets’ that you think have the best chance to win OR the teams you want to win OR the teams you think will be the upset and give you a chance to win the office pool.
• Presenting > The Madness begins on Tuesday and Wednesday night in the "First Four" games.  On Thursday, the real fun begins, with a full slate of 16 games where the participating teams play their hearts out, and let the ball bounce where it may.
• Closing > In some cases, the game is over before it begins (or so it seems that way).  In other games there are more questions that need to be answered (Overtime) before a victor is declared.  In some cases, an unexpected outcome – an upset – a 16 seed beating a 1 seed (looking at you - UMBC - and you, Virginia!)
• Get a decision > The loser goes home while the winner savors the victory before facing the next big challenge.

And as Paul Harvey used to say, “And now… the rest of the story.”

Think about some of the outcomes of the presentations you’ve made where you were the top seed, or where you were the one in the game with all the right things in place to help you win the business. You have the talent, bench strength, great coaching, and preparation in place.  You have presented to the prospect what you said you would present but then… in the final seconds… someone throws up a “buzzer beater” and there goes your sale.

What happened?

• The prospect let the incumbent come in and they matched my price.
• I couldn’t get underwriting to change a covenant.
• They took it to the decision maker and that person didn’t want to change
• They said it was too expensive
• They are thinking it over
• Etc. etc. etc.

And just like in the ball game, it’s easy to point to the last play in the game that seals the upset – RJ Hunter’s 3 pointer with less than 2 seconds left to win the game for Georgia State comes to mind:

But, when the losing coaches review the game tape with their team, they point out to their players that there were several opportunities that, if the team had performed better ordifferently, the outcome would not have come down to the last shot.

The same is true in selling. It hardly ever comes down to the last shot when determining if you will win or lose the game:

• Matching price – You should have uncovered earlier who was going to win a price tie.
• Changing covenants – You should know beforehand the exact specs you need to get the deal done and, if you cannot meet those specs, you don’t present.
• Decision making – You should know the decision making process before presenting.
• They said it was too expensive – Why didn’t you know the budget before you presented?
• Think-it-overs – You must eliminate this as an option when discussing the decision making process.
• Other – Uncover in advance what can go wrong and deal with those things prior to attempting to present and close.

As the sales manager/sales executive, it is your responsibility to:

• Put the best possible team on the court.
• Make sure you have provided your team the resources they need to win.
• Prepare them with a solid strategy to win.
• Practice what you expect them to perform.
• Debrief after they perform so you can help them change behaviors and improve skill

Once you do your job, and you do your best to make sure they are doing their job, then get them on the court and see where the ball bounces.

Additional Resources:

Sales Management Environment – Building the structure to improve your chances for winning.

Sales Talent Acquisition Routine – Hire Better Sales People - get the right people to come to your team to play and WIN against the opponents in your market.

Goal Setting and Business Plan Development – Build a foundation so that your team has the required internal motivation to win in all market conditions.

In a business world filled with an abundance of technologically advanced CRM tools, there are 5 tools that salespeople must use and sales managers must implement throughout their day-to-day activities and agendas, in order to be successful.

They include:

1. Effective Personal Goal Setting
2. The Ideal Week
3. Sales Process
4. Huddles
5. The Success Formula and the 10% Difference

Do you have all the sales tools you need to succeed? If yes, then forget about this article and go to The Truth About Prospecting.  If you feel you don’t have the tools, or the tools you have are not getting you to your desired sales results, then read on.

I was first introduced to sales tools when I was recruited into the Life Insurance business by David Zimmerman. That tool was the One Card System developed by Al Granum of Northwestern Mutual Insurance. Al’s process of tracking and holding insurance agents to a formula for success is legendary in the Life Insurance industry and is the basis for most CRM strategies used today. Simply stated, Mr. Granum’s research identified that an agent needed 10 leads (suspects) to generate 3 prospects (who will participate in a full fact-finding meeting) to get 1 client.

Over the years, I have seen many variations of this but ultimately the objective is the same. Help a salesperson understand exactly what they need to do to hit their objectives. But this tool by itself is not nearly as effective as when combined with other tools.

Despite all the fuss with sales force automation, lead generation and pipeline management, we know the following to be true: 

• 33% of the production team is responsible for over 90% of sales results
• 67% of the team is responsible for less than 10% of the sales results
• None of the 67% were hired NOT to succeed

So, what is the problem? Why the variance of performance when all these tools purchased and implemented were supposed to fix sales? Here are the 5 commonly overlooked tools that salespeople must use and sales managers must implement.

#1: Effective Personal Goal Setting- Too often companies establish goals for their sales people and then 3 months later the argument ensues about ‘whose goal it was’.  Goal setting must be a personal activity. This is what drives internal motivation and it is internal motivation that keeps your people focused on shareholder value. Spending a day with your people with a thought-out plan to help them focus on personal goals and a corresponding work plan is the bases for the other 4 tools. 

#2: The Ideal Week- We conduct a full-day session on helping companies drive internal motivation and eliminating the excuse of - “I don’t have time”. The reason salespeople don’t have time to do the required and necessary lead generation activity is because they don’t control their business. They sacrifice pleasing outcomes for pleasing behaviors. In other words, instead of sticking to their schedule and making calls at 10:00, they take the inbound customer service call.

#3: Sales Process- Our data shows that over 85% of elite sales people (only 7% of all sales people) use a milestone-centric sales process. The first step in the journey is to get a name, the last step in the journey is to get a decision. Everything else in the middle must be identified as a step and measured.

#4: Huddles- Think of huddles as a communication system that allows the user and manager to collect real time information so that real time feedback can be given, or realized, and real time coaching and instruction can take place.

#5: The Success Formula and The 10% Difference- This is simple math based on the theory of Mr. Granum but a little more granular.