One of my most treasured memories of my younger days was buying and trading baseball cards. Perhaps I am being a bit too nostalgic, but those days were good days, and growing up in Cincinnati during the 1970’s I was a huge fan of the Cincinnati Reds and the Big Red Machine.

I particularly remember studying the back of each baseball card because it told the story of each player. And I can still recall the quote “everybody plays to the back of their baseball card” which is a reminder that year over year statistics can be used to forecast future performance.

In our business, one of the greatest sales challenges that most companies face is how to properly gain insight from sales data. Some companies just chase a bunch of data without any regard for the story that the data tells. Other companies struggle when they launch sales coaching without any data at all which means they are simply guessing on both whether their people can improve and what it will take to cause that improvement.

Pull-Through Rate

All of that leads us to what we call the “pull-through rate.” Let’s start with not getting this confused with your hit ratio or close ratio. Both a hit ratio or a close ratio are computed in the same way by dividing the number of wins by the number of presentations or pitches. This sales data insight means a company that delivers 100 presentations and wins 30 new clients has a hit ratio of 30%.

What is Pull-Through Rate?

A pull-through rate is a different sales data insight altogether. It is calculated by comparing the relationship between first-time or initial sales calls and the number of wins. For example, a salesperson who has 200 first-time sales appointments and who winds up with 30 new clients has a pull-through rate of 15%. For years Anthony Cole Training Group has taught that most prospects are not qualified to do business with you and the numbers across the country support that conclusion. In fact, our own pull-through analysis supports that conclusion as our pull-through rate runs around 20%. Nearly 80% of all the firms we have initial conversations with never become a client of our firm.

Pull-Through Rate Example

Finally, one of the most interesting parts of the pull-through sales data insight is that it allows your sales team to “dollarize” each sales call. For example, if your average sale is $50,000…and your pull-through rate is 15% then every time your team goes on that first initial call, they are in theory making $7,500 every single time they run a sales call.

Conclusion

I still have my baseball cards (at least the ones my mom did not throw away). And the back of each card still has the statistics that tell a story. What does the back of your salesperson’s card look like? Do you like the story it is telling you?

Create a Motivating Environment

The first step to motivating your sales team is to recognize that motivation is an “inside-out’ job. When the topic of motivation is discussed, we typically think about incentive compensation, sales contests, and recognition programs. All of these certainly encourage sales teams to focus on generating new business because these are rewards. However, you will gain true engagement and enthusiasm if you create an everyday environment that encourages each individual to identify and visualize their own internal motivation.

Salespeople do not care about corporate shareholder value unless they are shareholders themselves. What they care about is food, shelter, clothing, recognition, paying for college education or a wedding, buying a vacation home, etc. These are personal desires and make up the vast majority of things that are important to people. Therefore, the solution is to create an environment where this internal motivation can take place. See The Dream Manager book by Michael Kelly.

A salesperson’s motivation is one of five key factors that make up their Will to Sell. The Will to Sell Competencies measure a salesperson's overall drive to achieve success in sales. Without strong Will to Sell, it is difficult for an individual to change their habits or learn new skills. When hiring or developing salespeople, a manager must uncover how motivated they are to succeed in selling. We recommend a sales assessment by Objective Management Group, the pioneer and leader in the industry.

How to Set Motivational Goals for your Salespeople

The next step to motivating your sales team is to help your salespeople identify what is important to them, their goals. Make the effort to set up time off-site that is dedicated to planning and spend time developing each individual’s dreams and goals. This is time that you and they will spend ON your business instead of in it.

Create a process where people can establish personal goals because this is where true motivation, passion, and desire are born. Hence, it is from this process that each salesperson’s business plan must evolve.

You might position this process as though you are the coach and the salespeople are players on a competitive baseball team. Each of you has a part to play so that the whole team wins. When someone objects to the dream building exercises by saying something like “You are just going to provide a goal for me anyway so why do I have to do this?,” tell him that, as with a baseball team, each player must excel at his job so that the team can win and go to playoffs. Salespeople will understand this. If someone does not get this, he or she may not be suited for selling. Selling requires desire, commitment, and a need to win. Selling is a competition.

Create an environment where people get a chance to unplug, sit down and outline their goals and dreams; a time when both of you can establish timeframes and attach financial values to these items. Once you have attached financial values, you will know what level of prospecting and selling activity is necessary for each salesperson.

Create a Process to Track your Team’s Sales Success

It is not enough just to establish goals. A strong manager will create accountability measures to track performance along the way. We recommend holding weekly Huddles that are focused on the burning platform metrics that will drive success. Each company must establish what those metrics are. All must be present for the Huddle and report on the 4-6 metrics. This provides transparency of effort and success and provides you, the coach, with the essential real-time information you need to determine who needs coaching and in what areas.

Don’t forget to reward your people when they have a success. At our company, we have a big bell in the hallway that we ring every time we bring in a new relationship. It is LOUD and that is just the way we want it! As your people go through this process and identify their goals; as you sit down and establish your own personal and team goals, be sure to specify how you will reward and recognize your people as each of them achieve these goals.

Download your Personal & Business Work Plan below: 7 pages of free planning tools!

With today’s current interest rate environment, inflation and intense competition, many banks are struggling with a flat or declining deposit forecast. There has never been a more critical time for setting the strategy, implementing a plan and leading the charge for deposit growth. Here are 3 steps your bank can implement that are working for community banks across the country to drive growth.

• Set the Strategy: Leadership must be clear as to the best strategies to drive growth and communicate those clearly, train around the strategy and monitor results. Several current growth strategies include focusing your people on deposit rich industries and creating teams of expertise for serving those clients. Small and mid-size businesses are looking for experts and advice in their industry so this is a long-term focus. Another strategy involves the much needed “financial wellness” advantage that banks inherently have but do not often leverage.
  
  Recent studies indicate that less than 40% of consumers think they are on track to meet financial goals. Your people must be trained on how to navigate from a transactional event to a broader exploratory conversation.
  
  A third strategy to consider is better utilizing the power of rewards checking programs. Having well trained frontline personnel ready to effectively communicate the benefits to adding additional accounts to receive benefits can be a game changer. In fact, one recent study validated that there is a direct correlation between the success of a rewards-checking program and the level of employee engagement. Setting the strategy is crucial to leading the charge for customer acquisition and driving deposit growth.
  
  
• Implement the Plan: Keeping the plan simple and visible are two keys to its’ success. Implementing a Success Formula by region, branch, and individual like the sample below is one way to clearly establish the goals and gain the engagement from the branch CSR, as they help establish the activity goals. 

The Success Formula helps the individual and the bank understand where the problem areas are, such as not enough outreach or not enough appointments. By monitoring and updating the Success Formula, the branch manager can help coach their people for skill development, which of course is the long-term goal. Implementing a plan to establish goals and monitor success is key to achieving success with client acquisition and deposit growth.

• Leading the Charge: Often referred to as Shadow of the Leader, one impactful way to lead the charge is to engage and share how you, the leader will contribute to the growth goals. In most markets, bank execs are very connected to the community and have enormous opportunity to connect and drive new business and growth. Leading the charge should also be through holding Huddles with your teams focusing on specific, established burning platform metrics.  Everyone attends the weekly huddle, reports on activity, no excuses. It is a great way to keep the focus on this important initiative and can create a team friendly and competitive environment.
  
  The most important component in leading is the ability to not accept excuses. When faced with reasons why they cannot perform, consider asking your people this question; “If I did not allow you to use that as an excuse, what would you do differently?” You may well be surprised with what your people can do when they are forced to take responsibility for their activities and goal attainment.

Raising-the-bar ultimately begins with you taking responsibility for those you are currently managing. What must you do to help generate their best performance?

Step #1 – Take responsibility for your own performance or lack of. Make a commitment to do whatever is necessary to get best performance.

Step #2 – Make your people responsible. Starting immediately, do not accept excuses for lack of performance. Make sure there are consequences for salespeople who show up late or miss meetings. Do not accept excuses about lack of prospecting activity. From now on, when a sales person uses an excuse, respond with: “If I didn’t let you use that as an excuse, what would you do differently?” and “What should you do differently in the future?”

Step #3 – Communicate expectations clearly. Tell your salespeople exactly what you expect. Ask them to repeat what they heard. Ask them to describe how these expectations impact their day, week, month, quarter and year. What will they do, or change, in order to meet these expectations? 

Then ask if they will accept the responsibility of meeting these expectations. They will say “yes.” But ask them if they are “sure.” Again, they will say “yes.” Warn them “It will be hard.”

Next ask them if they are willing to do everything possible to succeed. They will say “yes.” Finally, ask them what you should do if they fail to meet these expectations.

You have now raised the bar on expectations. You must now raise the bar on performance.

Step #4 – Establish ambitious goals and make them known in advance. Often the reason individuals and companies fail to perform is because minimal standards are set and people do only what it takes to meet them. This minimal goal approach sets you and your team up for failure.  Starting today, or as soon as you begin goal setting for your next fiscal year, eliminate minimal acceptable standards of performance and embrace a new and different path, one that includes extraordinary standards of performance.

Learn how to set extraordinary goals – download our ebook below!

The ability to understand a prospect or client’s industry and their market allows a B2B salesperson to understand the big picture. In order to have business acumen, salespeople must understand the forces and factors that impact their industry and it's impact on their clients and potential customers. This knowledge also helps them to differentiate their approach in the sales process. Salespeople with highly developed business acumen are not focused on the sale at hand, but on the broader goal of being a partner and advisor for the long-term.

For those in a producer’s role, whether it’s sales or business development, cultivating business acumen is essential. It allows salespeople the ability to uncover and articulate the challenges faced by the customer or client before they do. This skill involves understanding their problems, the impact of those problems or opportunities, and seeing the world from their perspective.

Business acumen is the key to perceiving the hindrances and challenges impeding their business growth. It’s about comprehending their aspirations to strive and thrive. Every company owner, CEO, or division manager is striving to overcome challenges, bring in new talent, and expand into new markets. Simultaneously, they are thriving by increasing revenue and optimizing costs to enhance the bottom line.

By demonstrating a deeper understanding or business acumen, a salesperson can position themselves as a trusted advisor who comprehends their world. One exercise to test business acumen is to see how long it takes for a salesperson engaged in a conversation with a prospect or customer to introduce their products, services, or company. Are they able to extend the conversation for two minutes, 20 minutes, or even two hours by focusing on the prospect’s needs and challenges before pushing their own solutions?

Developing Business Acumen

In addition to using every industry tool at hand, a well-thought-out pre-call plan can guide a salesperson to organize and articulate the relevant points during the conversation. Instead of entering a sales interaction with the sole aim of making a sale, a salesperson must shift their perspective to building a relationship. They should ask themselves, “How can I establish a meaningful connection with this person?” Developing and exercising their sales superpower – business acumen – is crucial for success in this endeavor.

We partner with Objective Management Group (OMG), the pioneer and industry leader in sales evaluations. According to OMG, these are some of the qualifying competencies that contribute to helping salespeople develop business acumen:

• Able to Stay in the Moment
• Self-Limiting Beliefs Won't be an Obstacle
• Knows Why a Prospect Would Buy
• Asks about Everything
• Not Vulnerable to Competition
• Meet with Decision Maker
• Uncovers Actual Budget
• Will Discuss Finances
• Knows Decision-Making Process
• Can Influence the Decision-Making Process
• Handles High-Ticket Pricing
• Need to Be Liked Doesn't Get in the Way

Salespeople who are successful at developing their business acumen superpower have a frame of reference of continual learning. This includes their desire to fully understand their client’s goals and objectives. In fact, according to Amazon CEO, Andy Jazzy, the second a person thinks they know it all -- or even just enough -- is the second their career generally starts to stall out. Those who continue to grow into greater and greater success, on the other hand, remain hungry for learning. "The biggest difference between the people I started with in the early stage of my career and what they're doing now has to do with how great they were at learning," states Jassy.