I’m talking about ‘Automatic Talking Machines’ – also known as salespeople. This bothersome but necessary part of every economy has been in use since trade began over 15,000 years ago. You may remember a cartoon of a general with a sword telling his staff that he doesn’t have time to talk to a “pesky salesperson” (who was selling a gatling gun). He had a battle to fight. And so, that is the story of salespeople and selling. Salespeople are defined as being pesky, and potential buyers are always too busy. But to my point…

So why do I call them ATMs? Well, because they operate in pretty much the same way. When using a banking ATM, you provide a code, and the ATM gives you money. 

A suspect, prospect, or potential buyer provides one of many codes to get salespeople to give them information, and salespeople just start talking. Automatic Talking Machines. Don’t believe me? Give it a try with your sales team in your next one-on-one coaching session or sales meeting. Here are some of the codes that prospects use and you can use them to test your ATMS:

• Why should I do business with you?
• What makes your company different?
• How much does it cost?
• Your competitor is cheaper, I can get it for less?
• What happens if I want to exchange for a different…?
• How long have you been in business?
• Do you have any references I can call?
• Tell me about your product and how it could help me?
• What is the service model? Does it have a guarantee?
• What is your unfair advantage against your competitors?
• Why should I change companies?

I promise you most of your sales team will start talking with an answer to the question. You can expect perhaps 10% to 15% of your salespeople to not give up the information. So, with a team of 40 or so about 5 of your people will respond ‘better.’

‘Better’ is anything that is like: “That’s a great question. Before I get into that can I ask you something?” If your salespeople are not taking control of the conversation by asking a question, then you have ATMs.

Give a shot!

Keep Doing
An important distinction in the financial advisory world is that when you “sell” something to your clients, you are, in fact, helping them reach their financial goals and financial security. This is a motivating and positive mindset that helps advisors do the necessary sales activities on a consistent basis, and in turn, helps them grow their business. But we need to make sure our salespeople stay on top of their priorities and activities. This is not always easy, and it sometimes takes courage.  To execute as sales managers, we must be keep having fierce conversations with our reps when activities aren't being performed. We must continue to manage our own activities and yet be strong and flexible enough to function as a team. We must keep encouraging each other when we have fallen behind. We must have the endurance to do this day in and day out. 

It’s easy to get discouraged and frustrated when sales activities don't lead to results immediately.  But, if your business plan is solid, your sales activity success formula is based on real data, and you review and manage these sales behaviors regularly, these good business practices will lead to the accomplishment of your goals. Keep doing them!

Start Doing
As a sales manager, you need to help your people start doing what they must do to be more successful at selling. Here are some activities that can lead to success in selling and to which you should start doing if you are not already:

• Determine specific goals and include personal as well as professional goals. Start with 100 goals, boil that down to the top 10 and then filter out the top 3 non-negotiable goals.  Remember, people achieve sales goals to reach personal aims, not company targets. Download our 100 Personal Goals Worksheet Here
• Advisors should have a specific plan to reach their goals. If they don’t have a plan, help them create one. The plan should include specific activities required for success and set “standards” for each of these activities and you must keep them accountable to those standards.
• Have a process of reporting activities and results; we suggest a weekly sales huddle as the venue. There is nothing as powerful as being part of a group. Peer pressure is hugely motivating.
• Be a life-long learner. Being in the business 20 years is not good enough. You and your advisors have to be better and more knowledgeable today than you were last year.
• Adjust to the marketplace. This goes beyond dealing with the volatile economic climate.  Today technology has changed how many people receive information and buy. There was a time when consumers relied on the salesperson to provide virtually all the information to make a decision. Now, most of the information (as well as the ability to make a purchase) is available online. Today’s manager role is to help clients identify their financial goals, make the right choices to reach them, and then implement the appropriate steps.

If you take the time to help your advisors analyze their business practices to identify what they need to do in order to be successful, you will have taken an important step toward accomplishing your goals.  So, start now. 

Stop Doing
Several years ago, I heard Verne Harnish, author of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, speak. As part of his presentation on the “1-Page Business Plan”, he challenged the crowd with the following question: “What will you stop doing?” Typically, when companies (or individuals) create a business plan, they focus on the things they are going to start doing when what they really need is to focus on what they will stop doing. 

I know that you can relate to this. We have worked with thousands of sales managers over the last 30 years, and the number one reason given for not spending sufficient time coaching their people is time. Their time is eaten up with other priorities, such as operations, paperwork, or meetings.  However, you have to rise above this. You must determine what you will stop doing.

To help you get started, here are some potential “stop doing” activities you should consider:

• Stop allowing your salespeople to make excuses for their lack of activity. Discontinue those lengthy conversations and refocus them on getting the activity done.
• Stop getting so immersed in operations and finance. Find the right people in your organization with the perspective to understand what they must do and what you must do to get the whole job done.
• Stop dropping and doing everything for your salespeople. Schedule a specific time for discussions with your reps and avoid those interruptive drop-ins. By doing that, you will help them to solve many of their own issues. Your door cannot always be open.

It’s your turn now to determine what you need to “Keep Doing, Start Doing and Stop Doing” in 2024!

One of the more interesting principles upon which the book is based is the idea that when the economy is down, decisions go up. This means that decisions that were made at lower levels of the company in a good economy are now likely to be made at more senior levels of the company when the economy is challenging. No doubt that risk aversion plays a role in this trend.  And have you checked out the economy lately? It is not very good.

Objective Management Group has a considerable amount of data that shows the importance of sales skills as compared to the difficulty of the sales assignment.  In short, your skills do not matter nearly as much if you are selling a product that people are coming to you to buy as opposed to a conceptual sales context where you are selling a service to a person you had to go find.  Here is a sports analogy – you might be an excellent basketball player in high school in Small Town USA…but what happens when you are faced with the increase in competition at UCLA, Duke, Kentucky, or Kansas?

It is no different in selling. If you want to venture in the C-Suite, you will want to remember the following keys.

4 Keys to Selling to the C-Suite

1. You better get referred or better yet introduced by someone in the senior executive’s network. Several studies have shown that senior level executives do not engage with salespeople that have not been referred to them.  One study went as far to conclude that only 1 in 5 senior executives will even talk to a salesperson they don’t know.
2. You better get there early. By that I mean early in the sales process.  If you get there late and the ship has already sailed, you will likely find your path to the C-Suite blocked by lower-level executives who are not interested in returning the boat to the dock so you can board.
3. You better think like senior executives think. They think big picture and they think about opportunities for growth, and they think about the threats that could interfere with that growth.
4. And finally, you better have your sales game in order. You must be confident, and you must be consultative.  If you act like a traditional salesperson, you have no chance.

Ask yourself one question – if you were a senior level executive, and you called on yourself…would you take the call? As Socrates once said, the unexamined life is not worth living.

How many of your people are really committed to sales success as it is defined above? Commitment requires strong personal desire to achieve personal goals. Companies continue to set sales goals for producers without ever knowing if these people are motivated to reach their own personal goals. This is a big mistake.

We must get commitment from salespeople, even top producers, to execute at the high levels necessary. And more importantly, we must get each individual’s commitment to perform the activities required to reach his/her specific personal goals. Without this customized goal plan, your company sales goals are destined to fall short.

Salespeople commit to what is important to them.  While they may understand the benefit of shareholder value increasing, this is not what will drive them to do the activities. What will motivate a salesperson is his/her own set of nonnegotiable personal objectives, goals and ambitions. As a sales coach, your job is to help each individual uncover these personal goals and help him/her understand that, if committed, how he/she will reach these goals.  

Next, we must help each salesperson discover his/her “current state,” or where they stand relative to these goals. When there is a gap, as when the personal income forecast from current sales pipeline and closing ratio will not be sufficient to buy the dream house, we must help the salesperson discover the pain and disappointment that will occur if he/she does not achieve this goal.

To do this, we must use a series of probing questions, questions that will illuminate what his/her future looks like based upon current production. This process is an important part of helping a salesperson stay committed to sales success and achieving their goals.

Once we have gone through this initial discovery and questioning process, we arrive at the salesperson’s ultimate desired outcome. In the case of a salesperson who is underperforming or failing to execute effort or skills, we must get him/her to agree, voluntarily, that failure to achieve the desired outcome is not an acceptable option. 

It is important that the salesperson desires and verbalizes this. It is not effective for him/her to answer a leading question that you might pose such as “You don’t want that to happen, do you?”  Instead, you must ask “Is that a problem? Are you sure that’s a problem? And is it compelling enough for you to make changes?”  Only after the salesperson verbally acknowledges that he/she wants to change and needs to change, can we move to the next step. Only then can we get the salesperson to agree to some form of disciplined structure around the necessary sales activity.

Once we have a salesperson’s commitment to fix a problem, we must get them to commit - to agree to do everything possible to succeed. At this point, we can implement a sales development program that will help him/her move toward their goals.

A disciplined sales development program will probably be harder on you than it is on the salesperson because you will need to inspect along the way. Example: If the disciplined program for filling the pipeline includes making phone calls every Thursday morning at ten o’clock, you will need to be there to hold the salesperson accountable. Or if you expect the individual to ask for introductions daily, you must inspect these reports at the end of each day. That is your commitment to their sales success.  

Do not ask for a salesperson’s commitment and fail to do your part. If you are to be an effective sales coach, helping your people to achieve their goals, you must make your own commitment to do whatever is necessary. A lack of consistent performance in sales coaching and management on your part will translate into a lack of commitment in your salespeople.

There are assessments in the marketplace to help people identify if they have what it takes. We use Objective Management Group’s (OMG) Sales Manager Evaluation. Three key findings are identified and scored:

1. The Will to be Successful specifically in the role of manager or sales leader
2. The Sales Manager DNA
3. The Sales Manager Competencies

In this series, we will break down several of these 3 findings to help sales managers zero in on what might be preventing you from achieving sales team excellence.

The Impact of Supportive Beliefs

OMG's research has found that high self-awareness is especially important for sales managers. Self-awareness helps you better understand the belief systems that you are consciously or unconsciously bringing into interactions with your salespeople or any customers you directly interface with. It also helps you understand how you might interpret a salesperson or client's response to you. Below we've listed 7 Self-Limiting Beliefs that could be preventing you from achieving sales team success, along with the corresponding Supportive Beliefs that you can develop with training and coaching.

Self-Limiting Belief: I don't need to manage my salespeople's daily activity
Supportive Belief: It is my job to manage my salespeople's daily activity

Self-Limiting Belief: I don't need to know what motivates my salespeople
Supportive Belief:  It is important to understand my salespeople's personal goals and financial needs

Self-Limiting Belief: I don't need to upgrade the sales force
Supportive Belief: It is important to regularly recruit new salespeople

Self-Limiting Belief: Raising my people's self-esteem is not a high priority
Supportive Belief: I must encourage my salespeople to get the most from them

Self-Limiting Belief: Prospects that need time to think before making a decision will eventually buy from us
Supportive Belief: Prospects that need time to think before making a decision will not end up doing business with us

Self-Limiting Belief: My salespeople need to make presentations
Supportive Belief: My salespeople should make presentations to fully qualified prospects and only when necessary

Self-Limiting Belief: I don't need a strong relationship with my prospects in order to sell them
Supportive Belief: I am able to quickly develop strong rapport with prospects

As you review and reflect on these 7 beliefs, how do you score on each?  What can you and will you do differently to change your coaching behavior and skill levels?  In our world today with the many digital and AI-programmed interactions, we have entered into a new reality when it comes to achieving sales team success. In order to stay ahead of the competition, companies need sales managers or coaches with supportive belief systems who can track each individual’s sales activities, coach, and hold them accountable to behaviors that will sustain and grow revenue.