In June, I went on a 7-day fishing trip to Lake McCrae Ontario, Canada with 3 friends of mine. 2 weeks later, Linda and I spent 5 days in Falmouth, Massachusetts and 2 days in Boston.

My vacations have provided some insights that correlate very well to what it takes to be successful in selling. To make this a little easier to digest I will take the 11 Lessons from my summer vacations and break them down into two articles.

The 5 Sales Lessons from My Canada Fishing Trip

#1: Anticipate an unexpected turn of events and prepare to respond

Lake McCrea is very remote. There is no cell or phone service. Last year was my first trip there and I was concerned that if something happened or if something happened at home there wouldn’t be a way to get help or leave if I had to. To prepare, I rented a satellite phone.

#2: If you change how you view things, you will see something different

Gerald was pointing out to me the structure of the rocks below the surface of the water. The sun was shining, the water was crystal clear and I could see in detail what I needed to see in order to be more successful at casting in the right areas. I immediately thought of salespeople and their relationships with prospects. I thought “if salespeople would just change how they view selling, they would see better what it would take to convert a prospect into an opportunity and perhaps a client. But many salespeople have a myopic view and look at all prospects the same and thus treat them all the same. Example: If the view is ‘prospects want to save money’ then the sales person will approach all sales the same way.

#3: You can’t force big sales to happen

I managed to hook 3 monster Northern Pikes. The first was 40 inches long and at least 15 pounds. I was fishing with gear suited for fish that might have been 3 pounds. Not wanting to risk losing the monster fish, I set my drag and took my time. This catch took 50 minutes to boat.

#4: Learn from mistakes and successes

Two days later, I hooked another fish about the same size but learning from the first big catch I managed to bring this one in the boat in 25 minutes. A day later, I caught the granddaddy –a 48” Northern. I managed to get that one in the boat in 20 minutes.

#5: Create more opportunities – make more sales

My fishing partners have been making this trip for over 2 decades. They are really experienced and rarely get their fishing jigs caught in the rocks hidden beneath the water. I, on the other hand, had some trouble in this area and so I spent more time re-tying jigs and lures then they did. Subsequently they threw more cast and caught more fish.

So there you go, my sales tips from my 10-day vacation in Canada. Be on the lookout for part 2! Send a picture of your summer vacation to tony@anthonycoletraining.com and you will receive a free, 30-minute pre-call strategy session with me to discuss a sales meeting you have coming up or a post-call debrief for a prospect meeting you already had.

You may recall hearing in one of our videos or reading in one of our blogs the importance of identifying your zebra to build your business. In the unlikely event you did not, the purpose of identifying your zebra is to bring focus and clarity to your prospecting efforts so you don’t end up chasing or pursuing opportunities that aren’t the best use of your most asset . . . your time.

Of equal importance is to know, and clearly articulate, what isn’t a Zebra for you. If you know that as well, it helps to bring clarity and specificity to your network and prospecting efforts. I can think of one instance in my 3.5 years of selling with Anthony Cole Training when I had success working with an account that wasn’t a zebra for me. Here are some reasons why knowing what isn’t a zebra is so important:

It Eliminates Ambiguity

• If you aren’t specific it’s hard to get introductions. When I’m trying to make introductions for people and they are vague about what they are looking for, it makes it difficult for me to think of someone to make the introduction.

It Reduces Frustration with Your Centers of Influence

• If you aren’t crystal clear on what you are looking for and what you are NOT looking for, your COI’s might make an introduction for you, only to find out you can’t help the person they introduced. When working with my introduction partners, I say “This is what type of business I’m looking for”. “Of equal importance, I really can’t help these types of businesses . . . and here’s why.
• That brings clarity to the conversation.

It Reduces Your Opportunity Cost

• Your opportunity cost is simply this . . . If you called on Company ABC, that means you AREN’T work on Company XYZ. Your opportunity cost is what you aren’t working on that might be more viable for you and your organization.

So, in closing if you know what you don’t want and the reason why, it could reduce the quantity of opportunities in your pipeline, but the quality should increase dramatically.

Watch our Sales Guy Unplugged video on "Calling Quality Over Quantity" to help further understand the concept and importance of identifying prospect zebras. Also, visit our website for additional tips, tricks and tools. 

In 1975, I was Junior offensive lineman at UConn. On the team that year were a group of seniors that knew that their playing days were pretty much over. Younger players had been recruited and they were starting ahead of them. Those seniors formed a bit of a club – the Coast-to-Coast Club. 

The thinking was this: “We are not going to see any action on game day but I have to keep playing to keep my scholarship though I don’t want to get a serious injury just practicing. So, I will coast from the beginning of practice to the end of practice."

Years later when I was developing our content for our Sales Managed Environment ® Certification Program, I included a segment on commitment. In this article, Dave Kurlan discusses the difference between motivation and commitment. It is a crucial difference. You can do some things to help people become motivated but when it comes to commitment, a sales manager can’t teach it, or coach it. Commitment to success in selling is something the sales person must bring to your organization. You can demonstrate it, explain it and expect it but you cannot make someone more committed to success than they want to be.

Over the years I’ve discovered there are three levels of commitment. 

The first one is Coast-to-Coast commitment. These are the people that really do coast from the beginning of the day, week, month and year to the end of the time period. They show up and look busy but at the end of the day they didn’t break a sweat, didn’t do any harm, didn’t call anyone of significance and certainly didn’t move the sales needle. In other words, they’ve retired and just haven’t told anyone yet.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are the WITs – ‘whatever it takes’ commitment.  Let me be clear- when discussing WIT, or, doing everything possible to success, we always mean doing everything while abiding by legal, ethical and moral standards.These are the people that do the work, take risk, fail, succeed, exceed goals, take on challenges, push the envelope, challenge the status quo and continue to reach higher and further. They make themselves do uncomfortable things and sometimes they make others uncomfortable by asking difficult questions and having fierce but effective conversations.

Then we have the Hawaiian group – The WITALAIITU. These are the people in the organization that look like WITS but really are closer to being coast-to-coast club members.  They embrace new ideas but don’t execute. They are excited about training but never develop.  Do a great job of pre and post-call strategy sessions and role- playing but fail to execute in front of a prospect. They will give you the thumbs up when you attempt to implement a strategy of getting introductions from clients but never ask because it will make them uncomfortable when their client resists and they have to ask why.

It's important that you understand the commitment levels of your sales team and coach them accordingly.  That should be YOUR commitment.

If you’ve been in our training, you know what WITALAIITU means. If not, give it your best shot!  Email me your guess at tony@anthonycoletraining.com and I’ll give you the answer. If you send me the correct answer, I will send you a gift.

There are a number of reasons why a person might choose to pursue a career in sales. For one thing, sales jobs tend to be more plentiful and, therefore, easier to find and get. Additionally, even though some of us are more naturally gifted at selling than others, sales is a type of career in which virtually anyone can learn and thrive.

But that doesn’t mean a career or job in a sales environment isn’t without its drawbacks. Shopping online is increasingly the norm for many consumers, which effectively removes salespeople from the equation. And considering that salespeople are competing with the wealth of information — e.g., product reviews, YouTube videos, demonstrations, etc. — that is available online, there’s immense pressure on salespeople to be a valuable resource for customers. As a result, a career in sales can result in a significant amount of stress that makes it difficult to achieve a health work-life balance.

As it happens, there are actually a number of ways to ensure that your sales team is able to achieve a great work-life balance while hitting or even exceeding their sales goals.

A unified tool for customer relationship management

It’s not easy to be a salesperson, especially for a larger company. For customers, the best sales experience happens when the salesperson has some basis of knowledge for what the customer needs or wants. But this is often hard to achieve with a sales team of hundreds and a customer base of thousands or tens of thousands of people. And when the onus of offering this tailored experience is on the sales team, it can result in immense stress that will inevitably affect their personal lives. So how do you alleviate this problem?

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is a great solution to this conundrum. Typically, customer relationship management software serves as a centralized database in which to store an in-depth profile for each individual customer, both existing and prospective. With a great CRM program, sales team members have easy access to customer profiles as well as each customer’s transaction and communication histories, allowing sales members to better serve customers’ needs. Additionally, CRM software eliminates a major stressor in a sales environments.

There are lots of customer relationship management solutions available to meet a wide variety of company and sales personnel needs. And many CRM programs available offer a number of complementary features that enhance sales interactions.

No mention of customer relationship management software is complete without Salesforce, which continues to be one of the most popular programs in its category. With a solid TrustRadius score of 8.0 out of 10, Salesforce tends to be particularly well-suited for sales teams due to its combination of client data with a suite of workflow, communication, and sales opportunity management.

GreenRope is a program that has garnered immense favor among sales teams from a wide variety of different industries. Consisting of a combination of robust CRM and marketing automation features, GreenRope has an impressive TrustRadius score of 9.2 out of 10 and is frequently lauded for its low cost, great support team, and an increasingly user-friendly interface.

More robust talent management

Your sales team is important because they facilitate and pursue transactions. For all intents and purposes, the sales team of your company is what ensures your company’s longevity and success. Considering that your sales team is so important, it’s a good idea to make sure you’re utilizing each team member’s strengths in the best way possible.

Talent management systems are programs that ensure your company is utilizing your personnel in the most effective ways possible. By consolidating data and protocols pertaining to recruitment, acquisition, onboarding, training, development, performance management, and compensation, you can compile an in-depth profile for each member of your team, allowing you to best allocate each team member’s strengths while addressing weaknesses.

In turn, your team members become more successful and experience less stress on the job — stress that will inevitably bleed into their personal lives — as the TMS helps you tailor their job duties to their unique talents.

UltiPro consistently ranks as one of the best talent management software options available. With an impressive TrustRadius score of 8.4 out of 10, UltiPro aggregates virtually every type of personnel data you can imagine, including demographics, employment history, benefits information, workflow charting, payroll history, attendance records, performance reviews and improvement plans, and the list goes on and on. Plus, the program has robust reporting options, allowing you to use the data for actionable strategies and planning.

Workaday HCM (Human Capital Management) is another great option for managing your sales team as effectively as possible so as to offer the best work-life balance. Though it doesn’t offer quite as many data-tracking and reporting options as UltiPro, Workaday HCM has a solid 8.0 out of 10 and is highly recommended by users for its scalability and flexibility.

In my previous blog article, I discussed the importance of looking at your sales production in terms of the 80/20 rule and flipping it so you can see the impact your bottom performers are having on your overall sales growth goal. If you have not already done so, click here to read the article.

With all of that said, here are some analytics of organizations we work with.  Before we begin our engagements I ask for production reports so that I can get a feel for how the team is actually performing. This starts the process of gaining an initial ‘augmented view’ of the sales team. The more in-depth augmented view comes when we complete the Sales Effectiveness and Improvement Analysis.

Note: Company B:  Investment Advisory (Above 300,000 is considered above goal)

Note:  Many, if not all, of those in the bottom quintile were reassigned to a different business unit of banking that was more consistent with their skill set and level of expertise within their newly assigned market. In other words, they had good people on the bus but they were just in the wrong seats. But aside from that, it’s difficult to ignore the rest of the data. 

If we eliminate the bottom quintile as a relevant factor, we still need to look at the 3^rd and 4^th quintile and wonder what is happening with this group. They are being outperformed by the 1^st quintile 4.67 to 1 and 10.42 to 1! Normally, in banking, what I hear is that the most successful lenders are the most experienced-- as you can see here that is not the case. The years of service is insignificant other than the 3^rd quintile which has almost as much experience as the first four quintiles.

Here is a final note on this group before I get into the actions taken to begin addressing the sales growth opportunity. The top 1/3 of the group is responsible for 83.6% of the loan production and the bottom 1/3 is responsible for 6% of the production. If you were on my board and I made this announcement to you about my sales team, what would be your reactions, questions or comments?

Suppose this was reflective of your team as well?

If you haven’t already done so, download our e-book "Why is Selling So #%&@ Hard?" If you need additional information, check out our e-book on "Why is Qualifying A Prospect So #%&@ Hard?"