In business, especially in sales; delays, misunderstandings, and communication can go awry. Sometimes, even with the influx of technology and communication tools, it is easy to misinterpret what a prospect, or salesperson, says. 

So, how do we make these communication lines more efficient?

“What we have here… is a failure to communicate.”

You may recognize that line from one of my all-time favorite movies, Cool Hand Luke. If you get nothing else out of this blog, do yourself a favor and go rent that movie. You will be glad you did.

Strother Martin’s character in the movie Cool Hand Luke makes that statement when the prisoners don’t do what is expected of them. This same problem can occur during the sales process and it can cause problems with moving the sale to a timely close. It usually manifests itself when something like this occurs—“I think I know what you are going to do" and "You think you know what I’m going to do, but neither one of us knows for sure what the other one wants or needs."

Thus, the need for the AWATE.

The AWATE stands for the As We Agreed To Email. It’s a brief correspondence that the salesperson can send out to clearly indicate what the expectations are (for both parties) in terms of what is needed and expected. It can be used early in the process, throughout the middle, and is extremely effective just before you present your solutions to the prospect.

The AWATE process is pretty simple but can be very effective. It’s a bullet-point letter or email, which spells out the go-forward expectations for both the salesperson and prospect. It also contains date-specific deadlines to make sure the process doesn’t get stalled or delayed. 

Everything works better with deadlines and that is especially true when closing sales. As mentioned, it can be very effective just before your closing presentation. The important elements of the AWATE include:

• The problems that you have uncovered (the ones your prospect needs to be fixed)
• The budget you need to stay within
• All the decision-makers will be present
• Finally, and most importantly, the agreed to and anticipated date when a decision will be made

As sales professionals, you should try to control as many aspects of the sales process as possible.

We believe the AWATE can help you accomplish that goal, or at least help eliminate any misunderstandings that may hinder you from closing more business. 

In the final installment of our No Assembly Required Hiring series, we discuss the importance of having a strict and detailed onboarding process when bringing new sales talent into your organization.

For this segment, I thought it would be best to interview Anthony Cole Training Groups expert on hiring, Alex Cole-Murphy. We tricked Alex into leaving a great job at a recruiting firm to join ACTG and run our Hire Better Salespeople program. As part of that segment, Alex spends a great deal of time helping our clients onboard new salespeople into their organization.

Question 1: Alex, I’m sure there are many contributing factors to successfully onboard a new salesperson, regardless of experience. What would you say are the three most critical steps included in a successful onboarding program?

Answer: I would say that the three most critical steps in the onboarding process are:

1. 1. Using a sales-specific pre-hire assessment, like the one from Objective Management Group, as a training and development tool. The assessment helps to pinpoint some of the skill gaps that a new hire would need additional coaching and help with. It can save you a lot of time, energy and will help get the new producer up and running more quickly.
   2. Having strict, black-and-white goals and metrics to track. Specifically, a success formula that the new salesperson can live by and the manager overseeing that individual can hold them accountable.
   3. And lastly, weekly coaching and training focused on improving their sales skills and gaps in competencies (which you would identify using a pre-hire assessment). Most organizations know and understand that training around company policies, techniques, products, etc. is critical. But for the new hire to successfully sell for your business, problem areas within their sales process also need to be addressed.

Questions 2: Without the sales-specific pre-hire assessment information, how difficult would it be for anyone to effectively onboard a new hire? Additionally, without analytics like their personal Sales DNA or Will to Sell, what does the typical coaching look like or sound like between the manager and new hire?

Answer: The short answer is very difficult. Here’s why- all salespeople, regardless of experience, come with some gaps in skills or personal beliefs that impact their sales process. If you don’t know what those specific problem areas are, it becomes a matter of guessing, which is never effective. You could have hired a highly competent salesperson, but if you don’t know how to address and coach their weak spots, they will struggle to succeed in your business. The coaching that does take place when things like Sales DNA or Will to Sell aren’t available tends to be more general management. The manager or coach of this new hire will often listen to a problem, assume they know the exact cause based on their personal experience and correct the new salesperson in a “this is how it should be done” fashion. Eventually, the new hire and the sales manager become frustrated because very little progress is made. The job becomes much easier when you start with this information in front of you.

Question 3: You mentioned as one of your three factors the idea of having a goal that the salesperson owns and building a success formula to match. Tell me more about those two things and why it’s critical to successful onboarding.

Answer: The goals set for a new salesperson are often too general. Typically, success standards for a new hire can leave a lot up to interpretation. The common thought from a management perspective is “we’ll put these goals in place, but if they don’t hit them… Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.” And that’s a dangerous, perpetuating cycle. That’s how you end up keeping unsuccessful salespeople on your team long after they should be let go. Having specific metrics in place lets everyone know right from the start that if certain things are incomplete after the first 90 days, the new hire has not been successful, and they will be penalized. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy; simple metrics like attending every sales meeting, completing all internal and product training within 90 days, making 50 calls a week, etc., should be considered non-negotiable. If they're unable to hit these standards, that gives you a pretty clear idea of what working with them for the long run is going to be like. Using a success formula helps you identify what those standards and metrics need to be.

Question 4: Every week, for a minimum of 13 weeks, you talk to and coach new hires. What I find interesting is that you schedule just 15 minutes each week. Our readership might be wondering, why 15 minutes and what can you possibly accomplish?

Answer: To start, 15 minutes is about 5 minutes beyond the attention span of the average salesperson. Anything much longer than that, and they start to lose focus and interest. My goal is to make our short time together as impactful as possible. We specifically focus on current opportunities in the pipeline and game planning for the next step with those prospects. I help them develop their process and pre-call plan, and we spend time roleplaying. I also listen for and refute excuse-making so we get to the real issues as quickly as possible. A coaching session that lasts more than 15-20 minutes is not going to be hugely effective as there is a lot of information for this person to digest and then try to implement. Biting off a piece at a time is going to be your best bet.

Question 5: In closing, what would you offer our readership, perhaps to help them improve the probability of success for future new hires?

Answer: I said it once, but it’s worth repeating- start by using a pre-hire assessment, preferably a sales-specific assessment. It will give you many of the details and analytics you need and provides you with a good roadmap for training and development. If you are interested in a tool like the one from Objective Management Group, click here or the button below for a free trial. Lastly, develop a plan and the success metrics we discussed earlier and commit to them! It will immediately start to positively impact your onboarding process and the success of your new hire.

The most successful salespeople are always challenging and adapting their personal sales process to be more effective and increase sales. However, they don’t challenge the notion of the importance of making prospecting their "A" priority every week.

They know that no matter how successful they are, if they don’t continue to add new relationships, that eventually, their business will decline. If you really want to increase sales this year, you MUST block off time every week for prospecting new clients.

As we think about all of the things as sales professionals that we're supposed to do, it really comes down to three things that actually get us paid: 

1. Find Opportunities
2. Qualify prospects
3. Get a decision

I want to focus on the first thing we get paid to do and that's to find opportunities. There are many ways we can find opportunities⁠—cold calls, drop-ins, direct marketing, social selling (LinkedIn and Twitter), getting introductions, etc. 

Although there are many ways we can prospect, some provide a higher return on the biggest investment we can make, and that’s our time. In a previous blog, I tried to debunk the “time management” problem. It isn’t a time management problem, it’s a priority management problem. 

As we focus on prospecting, the least return on our investment is cold calling. For all the time you invest in cold calling, the actual return (speaking to a decision-maker) is extremely low. We know it’s a necessary evil, but not a permanent problem. On the other hand, it is a proven fact, the highest return on our prospecting time is in getting introductions.  

So here is what I would like you to consider:

• Do you have time set aside each week to prospect? If you don’t, you would be well-served to block time to prospect

Allocate your time within the time block you’ve scheduled

• If you have allocated an hour a day, my recommendation would be:
• If you have allocated 15 minutes to cold call, you should be able to get 15 calls in within that time. If you call 15, you will probably speak with two people. How long does it take to NOT talk to 13 people?  You can make a lot of calls in 15 minutes if you are focused.
• 15 minutes for social selling to find introductions—maybe not sell, but find introduction opportunities.
• LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Blogging—whichever you are allowed to do within your work rules, do it on a regular basis.
• 30 minutes on getting introductions
• Calling people and saying “I’m looking to expand my base of contacts” Or “I’m looking to meet great people such as yourself, when can we get together to determine if we can help each other?”
• Identify your 15 best clients and make it a goal to get three introductions from each of them. How much success would you have with 45 new names to call?

This is just a rough outline on what you can do but the big takeaways are this:

1. Prioritize prospecting—make it a significant part of your week.
2. Prioritize how you are prospecting—get introductions—it will provide the highest return on your time invested.

Someone needs what you do, so go find them and start prospecting today to find more of them!

Most salespeople are afraid of silence because they perceive it to be awkward or a sign that the prospect has mentally checked out. But that's simply not the case! It is critical that you let silence do some of the heavy lifting during your prospecting conversations.

Ah, the unmistakable sound of silence. Wait a minute…does silence make a sound? If you are a professional salesperson, you would say it absolutely does. Susan Scott, the author of the wonderful book, “Fierce Conversations”, offers up some great advice when she suggests, "To make your conversations more impactful, allow the silence to do the heavy lifting."

I think what Susan could have in mind are the hundreds of thousands of salespeople who treat silence like it is a bad virus; they instantly run away from it. But, what if silence was good within the context of having a powerful conversation? What if silence took you to a deeper level in a conversation with a prospect?

Most salespeople are afraid of silence because they perceive it to be a) awkward or b) a sign that the prospect has checked out on them. But, remember that you can speak much faster than people can listen, so sometimes they just need to be given time to allow their internal processor to catch up.

Here’s one more thing I have observed with salespeople- they ask a great question, the prospect goes radio silent, and then the salesperson ruins the moment by collapsing like a poorly dug prison tunnel.

Let the silence do the heavy lifting.

I know it will be a strange feeling at first, but sometimes strange is actually a good thing. Give your prospect some space to process the questions you ask them.

Now, go do some heavy lifting…actually, let the silence do the heavy lifting for you…and sell like a champion today.

When you get to the offer step in your hiring process, it can be tempting to rush ahead and get your candidate contracted. However, this is a critical point in your system that cannot go overlooked. 

When was the last time you went to a movie, and the movie didn’t live up to the trailer you saw on your television or online?

It’s like that with recruiting talent as well. In our previous article about the 11 deadly sins of interviewing, I mention that the candidate has one thing in mind – convince you that they are the right person for the job. That is what the trailer is designed to do – convince you that this is a must-see movie. So, what happened to the candidate that seemed to be perfect but isn’t working out in the first six months?

DON’T BLAME THE NEW HIRE!

Before you condemn yourself, the candidate, or your hiring team, you must take a look at the steps and processes in place that are responsible for reviewing the role and your expectations. How do you communicate these details to a candidate as part of your offer and contract steps? Too often, companies that are either hiring lots of people to leverage market opportunities or are desperate to fill a chair are so excited about having a candidate they rush to contract and skip this important step.

Confirming the role and your expectations

1. Once you make the offer and the candidate accepts, you want to give them a chance to back out. You ask them, “Are you sure?” They are going to say yes. You tell them it’s going to be hard, and they will say I know or no problem. Then you ask, “Does that mean you’re willing to do everything possible to succeed assuming ethical, legal, and moral standards?” They will say yes.
2. Review the role. This includes but is not limited to; hunting for opportunities within your target markets, executing the prospecting plan at 100%, and entering all activity and opportunities into your sales enablement tools. It may also include managing current relationships in the portfolio or book assigned to them, as well as cross-selling into other business units within your organization at agreed-to standards.
3. Review expectations when entering opportunities in the CRM and keeping it up to date, attending and participating in all sales meetings, and completing your onboarding training and development program.
4. Quarterly reviews of goals, activities, and year-to-date results.
5. Participating in all pre-and post-call assigned meetings to discuss opportunity strategies.
6. Review consequences for missing targets and execution.
7. Review the compensation plan and rewards for success.
8. Let them know that all the parts to their onboarding are more than suggestions; they are requirements that you expect to be met at 100%.
9. If they miss a target or fall short of an expectation, you will have a discussion. It’s understood that a miss within the onboarding period (whatever length of time you establish) is a strike.
10. You take a baseball approach to manage this process – 3 strikes, and you’re out.
11. Finally, you ask the question, “Is there anything about this you don’t understand or have questions about?”
12. Depending on how that conversation goes, you ask them to repeat back to you what you just heard.
13. Ask them how they will make sure they execute this plan and will avoid “strike” conversations.
14. Finally, if all goes well, you ask, “Okay, do you still want the job?”

Here is what I assume. 

• You read this and said; that’s crazy, and no one does this. I would respond that you are probably right.
• You’ve had problems in the past with candidates not working out. I would say that your contracting and onboarding process is perfectly designed for the results you are getting.
• You feel this is too extreme. I would tell you that it might be and suggest that you find your middle ground. But whatever you do, make sure you confirm that the candidate clearly understands the role and expectations before signing the final employment contract.
• You may not have all the steps in place to carry out this kind of onboarding process. Give us a shout, and we’ll walk you through how to get that done.

Enjoy the movie!