I’ve been working on growing sales for over 30 years. First with Nautilus Exercise Equipment, then in the insurance business and for the last 23 years with Anthony Cole Training Group. It’s been at least 25 years since I heard David Sandler, on a cassette tape, say; “there’s no such thing as bad prospects, just bad salespeople.” Not bad as in character, morals or integrity- just bad a selling.

But as I read Dave Kurlan’s blog this morning about choosing between bad salespeople and bad sales management it got me thinking about what Sandler said those many years ago and what we continue to hear from salespeople today when discussing opportunities won and lost. Let’s take a look at what’s happening or not happening. 

List of reasons for not getting the sale:

• They had a long-term relationship/incumbent matched our proposal
• The decision maker wasn’t involved 
• Out pricing wasn’t competitive/ we didn’t have the right products
• The timing wasn’t right

There are many, but in a nutshell the overall question to a salesperson would be; “When you asked them about, discussed, made sure that...(fill in the blank with any of the reasons listed above) What did they say?  What was their reaction?”  

As you read this as a sales person you might be thinking one of a few things: 

1. I’m not asking those questions 
2. Those are good questions to ask
3. I should be asking those questions 
4. I would never ask those questions 

If you are thinking #4, then your reasons for not getting the business are never going to change! That is what Sandler and Kurlan are talking about when they discuss bad salespeople. You cannot blame the prospect for having objections to buy. Heck you have your own set of objections/reasons every time you decide not to buy or change. 

But what about the sales manager? Where does that person fit into the equation? Simple: at the beginning, middle and end of every sales opportunity, sales meeting and coaching session. 

Solution #2: Pre and Post Call Sessions and 1-on-1 Coaching

Pre-call coaching sample questions:

• What buying process questions will you ask? (These are questions about compelling issues, stage in the buyer’s journey, options they are exploring, others solution providers they are exploring and solution selection criteria.) 
• What answers do you anticipate?
• How will you handle those answers?
• What questions are you anticipating?
• What will your response be?
• What objections, delays or stalls should you anticipate?
• What is your response?

Unfortunately, what we do know from the 1,000s of sales managers assessed for coaching skills is that less than 10% of them have adequate skills to be effective at developing sales people. 

What does this all mean?

1. To eliminate bad prospects - which really don’t exist - eliminate bad salespeople. 
2. To eliminate bad salespeople- eliminate bad sales management/ lack of sales coaching
3. To eliminate bad sales management- hire people that have the skills to be effective in the role 
4. Don’t use sales management as the next step in the career path for successful salespeople
5. Provide the training, development and coaching your managers need to be effective

Need further assistance with the post-call session? Click HERE or the button below to view our Post-Call Debrief Analysis Worksheet.

In a remarkable show of grit, the University of Alabama clawed back from a 20-point deficit against the University of Minnesota, though they eventually lost by 5. Most of you are probably thinking 1 of 2 things:

1. I don’t care about Alabama basketball – that's just something that happens between football season and spring football practice.
2. They still lost so why is this relevant?

It’s relevant because of a detail you wouldn’t know about unless you watch college basketball or follow sports shows regularly. For those totally out of the loop, in basketball each team has on the court at any one time 5 players. Due to an injury, a player fouling out and several players being ejected from the game Alabama played the last 10+ minutes of the game with just three players on the court!

Avery Johnson, the head basketball coach for Alabama, was asked to explain how he believed his three guys managed to pull off the most amazing loss in NCAA history. His response was that they practice a lot of defensive 5 on 3 basketball. There is no reason to go into the details of that here other than these two important things:

1. Understanding the situations you know you are going to be in at some point during the game is imperative.
2. Coaching your players on how to react and what to do in those situations is crucial for your success.

How is that any different than sales? The short answer is that it is not. So why doesn’t it – coaching the team that you have - happen?

• Hiring managers believe they are hiring people with the appropriate skills and know how.
• Most managers don’t believe that their salespeople need practice of basic fundamental sales skills – if they did, more sales training and 1-on-1 coaching would be taking place and more people on the sales team would be hitting their goals.
• More time is spent on crafting the ‘deal’ then on practicing what to do when:
  1. The decision maker doesn't’ show up for the presentation
  2. The company hasn’t committed to leaving their current supplier, relationship, banker, insurance broker
  3. The prospect wants you to ‘sharpen your pencil’
  4. The prospect wants to ‘think it over’
• Most sales managers – yes this might include you – haven’t been trained on effective coaching, don’t schedule time for coaching opportunities, don’t demand role-playing in sales meetings and confuse performance management with coaching.

Our assessment and research of dozens of companies with dozens of sales managers tell us that less than 10% of sales managers have the appropriate coaching skill set.  As you can see from this Sales Effectiveness and Improvement Analysis snapshot of this sales organization the sales managers who are employed there have 44% of the required skills and are 59% effective when coaching. 

My wife Linda and I were recently in Columbia Maryland visiting family. While having a mid-afternoon lunch at Clyde’s I happen 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 for many years 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 of what has happened and what we think will happen. It’s another thing to build your CRM so that you get reporting that tells you how sales people are performing against the sales success formula developed for each individual. Without comparative data then truly all a company or manager is doing 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 pro-actively no one will notice. No one will notice because the numbers are either: Not being monitored. 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, the 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 and all you 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 sales people 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. 

Subject Line: EPAS Demo

I’m sure 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?

A lot 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 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’re given, won’t try and uncover other 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 identifies. 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 salespersons job, though difficult to do, is not difficult to understand. There are 3 major components: go out in the marketplace and uncover opportunities, qualify those opportunities and close for the business. 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. Also, listen to the recorded live broadcast of Anthony Cole Training Group’s President and Chief Sales Officer, Mark Trinkle, covering “How to Create, Cultivate and Convert Sales Leads".

In today’s world of marketing and sales, a significant key to unlimited leads is a company’s ability to get potential buyers to find them.  There is an entire industry dedicated to inbound marketing and one of the leaders in the industry is HubSpot. 

If you go to their site you will find an endless number of ‘free’ products and services to use to help you drive potential buyers to your site, your blog, and the variety of social networks you might be using.  My good friend Pete Caputo also has a company, Databox, that provides a dashboard to help you make sense of all your data.  All of this is important but the systems and processes don’t stand-alone when it comes to having impact on internet traffic to your company.

What is still needed is powerful messaging.  Messaging that captures the attention of the market.  Messaging that helps the market become aware of one of two things:

• A problem or potential problem they where unaware of
• A growth opportunity or positive outcome that is available

Mark Roberge, in his book The Sales Acceleration Formula, describes this first step in the prospects buying process as the ‘awareness stage’.  Effective marketing helps create that awareness.  But there are multiple stimuli that could cause someone to buy, change behavior or take action:

1. A neighbor raves about a new movie – you go see the movie
2. A friend suffers severe water damage in their 25-year-old home, hires a company to repair the damage and relates the story to you– you call the company to inspect your basement to head off potential problems.
3. A co-worker talks about completing a financial plan that will help them secure their future – you want to know who they are working with and you call that advisor to set up an appointment.

These leads for the movie, the basement sealant company and the financial advisor take place as a result of great reviews by current clients.  This informal introction has been, is today and probably will always be the best way to get GREAT leads.  But what else should you be doing, must you be doing to generate leads that don’t come from introductions and referrals?

You must have your own message that stands alone; a message that when read, heard or seen causes the awareness that takes a buyer from passive to active. The question becomes – “What must that message say to procure this transition?”

Let me start with something that George Emmons, former president at Key Community Bank, described as a ‘blinding glimpse of the obvious’.

There isn’t a single marketing message that will tell a prospective new buyer:

• The company’s products are very expensive,
• Should you need support after purchasing, the support will be poor,
• Should the product fail to perform or should it break, there is no guarantee,
• The people you will be talking to are not competent, are biased in the approach and do not have experience

When I have this discussion in my keynotes and training programs everyone starts to chuckle and at least smile because they all know it to be true.

No one communicates to the market place the negative aspects of their products. Everyone has:

• Top of the line products,
• Great pricing,
• Un-paralleled service,
• Guaranteed or your money back,
• A professional and courteous sales associates who cares only about you and your family

With that as the back drop the question can become “What is the one thing I can do to get the market’s attention?” 

The answer? “Deliver a message that doesn’t look, act or sound like everyone else’s message.  Communicate in such a way so that people instantly think ‘This is different’.”

• The elevator pitch
• The value proposition
• The 30-second commercial
• The unique sales approach
• The brand promise

The message has many names, but it should communicate, in a brief, appealing and effective manner, how the company and product will work for the end user.

Apple – “We make great computers. They are beautifully designed and easy to use.”

The Late John Savage (Insurance professional) – “I deliver buckets of money when people need it the most”.

Geico – “15 minutes or less can save you 15% or more on your car insurance.”

Anthony Cole Training Group – “We provide answers to the most common business question – How do we grow sales?”

Your compelling message should elicit one of the three following responses.

“Tell me more.”

“How do you do that?”

“That’s me (us). How can I fix it?”

The best way to create a powerful message is to listen to your message as a prospective buyer.  When you deliver your message to you, do you look, act or sound like everyone else?   If so –change the message.  You want it to cause people to react—“Tell me more.” “How do you do that?” “That’s our problem. How can I fix it?”

If your message is not having this effect, change it. 

If you’d like more information, send me a text or call at 513-226-3913 – Provide your name and refer to USA (Unique Selling Approach). I’ll be happy to help.