What your salespeople must ‘have’ to be successful at uncovering value.
From a sales strategy and process perspective, positioning value not only requires a great VALUE PROPOSITION but also supporting Will to Sell, Sales DNA, and Sales Competencies.
Using data from just one of our dozens of community bank clients, this is what we found out about top 25% of the team vs the bottom 25% of the team.
First and foremost, longevity may have some impact, but consider that the average years of service for the top 10 was 25.22 years the bottom 10% still had significant years of service of an average of 18.44 years. Do you really expect someone with 18 years experience to be outperformed by an average of 4 to 1?
The top 10% outperform, are better at, and are more likely to execute than the bottom 10% in the following areas.
- 69% more committed to succeed in selling – willing to do everything possible to succeed assuming legal, ethical and moral standards
- 41% more comfortable discussing money issues
- 46% better at qualifying prospects
- 50% better at asking questions
- 100% better at getting introductions to new prospects.
- 75% better at getting a real budget
- 44% better at positioning the companies value proposition
- 80% better at protecting margins (selling value)
In addition to these findings, our own personal experience in talking to, role playing, and during pre- and post-call debriefing sessions during 1 on 1 coaching sessions, we find the following to also be true:
Top sales people understand the value of telling stories, using analogies and proof of concept examples.
- They pre-call plan and prepare
- They post-call debrief to make sure they covered all the steps in their sales approach
- They ask the right questions, the right way at the right time AND if they find that they missed a question they do NOT hesitate to re-engage with the prospect to get closure on open items.
Year in and year out, continue to scratch their head trying to figure out why:
- Sales growth is such a struggle
- The sales team pushes back when ‘new goals’ are established
- How to protect margins and pricing strategies
- How to flatten the performance bell curve so the success of hitting the sales goal doesn’t continue to fall on the backs of the few
Some of the answers to those questions can be answered by understanding the make up of your sales team. Additionally, companies that we work with have bought into the idea that spending money on sales training without investing in a solid approach to a ‘Sales Managed Environment’ is a waste of money, time and resources.
The sales leadership and sales management team must be capable of positioning, teaching, and coaching sales people the concept of selling value instead of just telling them to sell value. The recruiting effort and the development effort of the company must address items that you see in the chart below.
Let me close part II of this three part series with this:
There hasn’t been a single company that we’ve worked with for 30 years that has a strategy to be the low cost provider, beat the competitors price to win deals, and compete with a commodity mindset or go-to market strategy. No one’s strategy is:
- We are the most expensive solution you can find
- Our people aren’t very good at what they do
- Our service model is terrible.
- We hope you buy from us
No, not a single client or prospect we’ve talked to approaches the market with those bullet points. EVERYONE is talking about
- We value our customers
- We are competitively priced
- Our people go out of their way to make sure you are 100% satisfied
- Our people are well trained and ready to serve
- Our product offerings are top shelf, best in class and guaranteed
So if everyone in your market is pitching the same pitch how do you differentiate yourself. Be ready for part III. But be really ready because it WILL require a changing in thinking and doing which will require a change in coaching, training, behaviors and skills.
Can’t wait for part III? Need to talk to someone now? Call or text me (513) 226-3913
