I love this clip from “Back to School”! Not only is it funny, but is also very instructive. Academics all over the country are trying to add their two cents in the discussion about the course of action we should take with our economy. Business professionals that were trained by these people have infiltrated corporations all over the world. Let’s take a look at what these “elites” have given us.

1. Credit default swaps- it was the Ivy League trained brain trust that came up with this gambling approach to our markets.  Boy has that worked out well!

1. Keynesian economics- developed by King’s College graduate John Keynesian, this theory basically says that the private sector cannot be trusted and therefore the government should spend our way to prosperity. The wonderfully unsuccessful stimulus package was developed, in part, by fellow Ivy League economist Paul Krugman and is based in Keynesian theory. Politics aside, I think we can all agree that this thinking has failed miserably.

1. Community Reinvestment Act- a well meaning program designed to encourage investment in urban areas as a way to fight “urban flight”. 30 years later, Ivy League economists, lawyers, and politicians, used this legislation to justify lending practices that lead to the housing bubble.

1. GLOBAL WARMING HYSTERIA- thought to be a man made caused phenomenon, it is now widely understood to be a manipulation of climate data. Driven by governments and PhD’s to reallocate wealth, this hysteria is predicated on the “hockey stick” chart showing an alarming increase in global temperatures. One problem,  even the leader of this movement Phil Jones, head of the British Climate Research Unit, says that the data is not only wrong but that we haven’t been in a warming trend for 15 years. Never mind the facts; the academic brain trust forges ahead with a plan to handicap American business predicated on the threat to our climate.

These are just a few examples of the world of academics hurting business everyday. Now apply that to your own organization. The “smartest one in the room” theory is completely subjective. If the smartest one in the room gained their knowledge in the context of theory and conjecture then they are not the smartest one in the room. As Thornton Mellon so gracefully shows us, business is done in the trenches, not in the classroom. This applies to sales more than any other area of business. Finance issues deal with regulation, capital flow dynamics, and a series of complex and concrete realities that require the ability to recall and employ very specific maneuvers. An MBA may be a better candidate for this position. Sales however, require a completely different skill set conducive to adapting to dynamics that change in real time and without notice. Interpersonal dynamics play a much larger role here. Therefore, hiring a person that has a natural aptitude for this situation is much more important than their academic prowess. Seriously, when was the last time that a sales rep required the ability to solve a linear equation? Which skill is more important to a VP of Sales; understanding the operational flow or understanding the market needs and buying triggers? The ability to drive numbers remains in the office of the VP of Sales while the ability to schedule implementation should remain with operations! Operational control of sales is like having a sales rep handle the accounting. Both scenarios will set you up for failure!

At the end of the day, smart companies hire skill sets and talent levels not pedigree and academic prowess.  Job seekers beware, companies that hire based on academic credentials will hamper your ability to employ your natural skill set. There is nothing worse than working for a VP that has no earthly idea of what it takes to close deals and is clueless when it comes to the demands and desires of your prospects. The board room should read the bored room in a lot of cases. Most sales meetings are a direct result of an academic needing to be clued in on what is going on. Good sales meetings should focus on market realities, objections, sales plans, and support issues. Anything else is a colossal waste of time!

        

Truer words were never spoken! Through the entire sales process, you will never sit in front of a stock symbol or a tax ID. It is always the people that represent a company that drive and make decisions based on a myriad of factors. Sometimes it is all based on ROI and sometimes it is based on specific functionality. More often than not, buying decisions are based on the rep they are dealing with and the feeling of confidence that a rep can convey. The myriad of factors that drive these buying decisions are what we should focus on if the goal is to maximize closing percentages. While smart sales tactics can get you in the door, “tactics” will not get the sale closed. Relationships, similarly, are not enough for a decision maker to move forward with a large purchase. Remember that when representatives on any level decide to spend or recommend the spending of money, they put their name and reputation on the line.  Their best friend could not convince them to buy something that will not be of benefit to their organization. The facts are simple; relationships get you in the door, using smart sales tactics will get you to the right person, and intelligent selling will close the deal.

Smart reps understand that selling is a very situational dynamic. The closing techniques that worked last year will probably not work this year. The only closing technique that works all of the time is often overlooked; knowing what matters to the target. If you are selling security software and get a meeting with the CEO, you must know why they think they need security software. Technical jargon will not get the deal done!!! It is imperative that you understand what they think matters. Having a better mouse trap is useless if you don’t know that they have a problem with mice. A perfect example is the evolution of technology. While a software rep may know that the current software being used is vulnerable to hacks, the prospect may not care or agree. Therefore, in order to sell them, you must understand why they were willing to sit down with you in the first place! I am not talking about “needs based selling” or any other walking cliché! Needs based selling identifies a need and attempts to use it to drive a sale. What if the prospect is unaware of the need you identify? What if the need you identify is based on a technical need that your prospect does not understand? What if your prospect is aware of the need, understands the need, but does not care about that particular need? What if your prospect took a meeting with you simply because they are ticked off at their current rep? Have you ever walked out of a meeting wondering why your prospect could not understand their need for your service or product? If it happens a lot, you need to find a new profession. You can’t blame the economy and the unwillingness to “spend the money” forever! Smart selling is not something that can be taught. It requires an understanding of situational dynamics and the natural ability to drive a conversation towards revealing a specific buying trigger.

At the end of the day, selling is a process more than a set of tactics. The natural inclination of most sales management teams is to drive the “latest” popular tactics and teachings that come from the terminally unskilled. It is always the terminally unskilled that create these clichéd tactics and try to brand them and market them. There is no specific tactic that works across the board. It does not exist! The sales dynamic is driven by those people that posses a natural business acumen and interpersonal savvy.  While there are cases of people that posses this “raw talent” that need formal training as it relates to specific sales dynamics, there is no such thing as the ability to take people that lack these skills and “train” them to success. It is not only a waste of time; it is also detrimental to both the personal goals of the rep and the sales goals of the company attempting this training. The harsh reality is that it is better for everyone involved to dismiss those without talent and continue to recruit those that posses a very specific skill set.

This is the reason that we talk a great deal about education VS talent. An age old corporate tradition is to put an academic in charge of building a sales staff. Then allow them to hire candidates that mirror his/her background. Most of these people could not spot a hunter if we were wearing camouflage, a bright orange vest, and had a rifle in our hands. The cycle continues to play itself out. Numbers go up and then come back down. Competitors grow at an 11% clip while you grow at a 4% rate. Growth relies heavily on the revenue production side of a business and it makes sense that companies hire reps that are wired to generate revenue.

        

The number one failure that can be found in most companies is the diligence applied to doing their homework. Sales rep expectations are high, as they should be, but support is low. I’m not referring to Post-it notes and cell phones. Instead, I am referring to the basic market analysis that can make or break a sales team. Companies pride themselves on demographics they have acquired and they may even have a good feel for the make up of the decision makers in their industry. Things like age and income are of great help to reps that are dumb, but supporting a sales team means much more than that. A rep can get a grip on the basic demos of the CEOs in about eight minutes on their own. Real support comes in the form of profiling every layer of the sales process. For example, most reps start with the person that answers the phone. Even those of us that use top down selling must get through a gatekeeper at some point. Let’s walk through a typical sale.

First, we must understand the person that answers the phone. Some might say that I am overly analytical, but my reps will tell you that the receptionist can be an ally instead of an obstacle. If you want the dirt you talk to them and having them in your corner is a huge advantage. Don’t believe me? Have you ever made dozens of follow up calls only to find out you are being dodged? Not my sales staff. The receptionist will almost always tell us when our calls are avoided and usually why. If there is a competitor, we know. If the budget is short, we know. If the person we have been dealing with is in hot water, we know. Understanding the receptionist is wildly important because they can save you time and money. 99 percent of companies do little or no homework on this group of people! I sat in a waiting area waiting for the VP of Sales for a company about four months ago. My sales rep had made a friend out of the receptionist and as we sat there, it showed. Just before we went into our meeting she whispered something to my rep. We were shown into a conference room where we were to wait another 15 minutes for this guy to show his face. My rep leaned over and told me that Darlene (their receptionist) told him that the entire point of this meeting was for this guy to snag a few free ideas from us and that he had no money in his budget to hire us. Apparently, he had bragged to the entire office that he had the ability to get free information from firms like ours and that is why he had never hired a consulting firm before! The same rep 6 weeks later was told by another receptionist as we waited, that we were going to see more of her because she overheard the management team discussing how they were going to pay for our services. Both pieces of information drastically changed the tone of those meetings. So what did we know that our competitors didn’t? We knew that the majority of receptionists in this market were long time employees or they were older women that were not working for the money. In both cases, a large percentage of them had raised kids and playing the “I’m new and could use your help” card would work.  Without giving away our methods completely, I will just say that it is incredibly helpful to sales reps that you arm them with “actionable intelligence”. Profiling all of these layers that sales people must deal with can put them in a power position over their competitors. It just makes sense. Think about your industry. If you need to contact consumers at work, wouldn’t it be helpful to understand these kinds of dynamics? For those of you in B2B sales, how many people do you deal with to make a sale? Think about office managers, HR departments, gate keepers, department heads, operational staff, sales staffs, middle level management, custodial/maintenance staff,  executives, IT staff, and on and on. The different levels you deal with in a company can have a bigger impact on your success than the ultimate decision maker. After all, you have to get to the track before you can race!

Let’s try something new to this blog. Those of you that are interested in seeing exactly what I am talking about, tell me what you sell. I will have my staff do a little homework using our methods and give you some inside information about your dynamic! Just leave me the product or service and a way to get back to you and you can report back whether or not this stuff works! Believe me when I tell you, the results will amaze you!

        

In this blog, we talk about real truths that relate to sales and marketing. It does not take a genius to understand these principals but it does take a certain amount of willingness to fight the PC police and the typical corporate culture. If you are in sales or hire sales reps, then you know exactly what I mean. Month after month we attend our sales meetings and hear how difficult “the market” is. We hear all the reasons that certain reps cannot meet their quota or how and why they are struggling. Meanwhile, many of us meet and exceed all of our sales goals. Usually, these goals are far beyond the quota because they relate to specific financial goals we have for ourselves. Those that struggle have already met their financial demands because the salary the job offered in the first placed took care of those concerns. The system is literally designed for failure. However unintentional this may be is irrelevant. Nothing makes me laugh more than to read a sales job posting that outlines educational requirements and builds in a heavy salary package. Let me ask you this; if education dictates success in sales, why offer a salary? Think about it. If your candidates are “well educated” and that tells you that they are more talented or better suited for sales, why do these candidates need salary? If the elites are better qualified, why do they need a guarantee? A B.S. simply means that they were able to tolerate academic dribble that has little relevance in business. The average length of employment for a professor is 20 years plus. That means that even those professors that came from the business world did so, on average, 20 years ago. Most came from the academic world and gained their knowledge of business from books and seminars. Ha! Just writing that makes me laugh!

The point

My point is not that college has no inherent value, or that professors are all worthless. Instead, I only aim to reveal what makes a good sales rep good; talent. If I went to “baseball college”, would that make me a good baseball player? I can recite for you the fundamentals that make up a perfect swing. That does not mean that I can hit a curve ball or even get a bat on a 95 mph fastball. Business operates the same way. Those with a degree are not necessarily bad and those that did not attend college are not necessarily good. That is the whole point. Companies lean on pedigree and education for qualifiers only when they have a management staff that cannot recruit or hire based on those qualities that make sales people successful. It becomes a crutch. When reps fail you will hear,” Gee, I don’t know what happened. He/She had a degree from…” There are many reps that sell at the highest level that were educated in our colleges and universities. Conversely, there are even more sales reps that did not go to college capable of selling at that same level. Socioeconomic backgrounds drive college graduation rates far more than talent. The baby-boomer generation went to college in a time that admission was difficult and often told the story of kids that worked hard in high school. Now, most colleges will accept you with a 2.0 or higher. Not quite the impressive accomplishment admissions once were. Sales is a game and the good players bring to the table an aptitude and skill set conducive to winning that game. You cannot teach aptitude nor can education give someone a natural skill set. Qualifying or disqualifying candidates based on such arbitrary criteria only serves to ensure that your company stays behind the recruiting curve. Ask yourself this question: would you prefer mediocre talent with pedigree or reps with high levels of talent without the pedigree? In other words, would you rather hire less productive reps that have impressive backgrounds or reps that simply perform quarter after quarter? If you want reps that think of performance in terms of sports cars and big houses instead of meeting quota, look for talent and let the chips fall where they may.

What this all means

Sales recruiters simply gather candidates based on your criteria and are paid to meet those criteria. Conversational recruiting remains the most effective way to acquire new talent. We come across genuine talent everyday. The difference between organizations that build strong sales teams and those that cannot is the ability to spot that talent. Some of the strongest sales reps that I have recruited for my company and my clients have come from places like AT&T wireless stores, Best Buy, bartenders, and other low key places that you would not expect to find people capable of closing million dollar deals. These places all have one thing in common; people. Watching people interact with other people instead of looking down at them for the perceived lack of accomplishments, acts as a window into how they will interact with your clients. Any CEOs buy a cell phone, a new TV, or a drink? How about HR directors or Doctors? What about office managers or Sales executives? Gathering resumes does not offer this kind of insight. Interviewing only tests a person’s ability to mirror your concerns and reflect what they think you are looking for. If you want a great interview, watch people in action! That is the only way to determine a person’s natural skill set and aptitude for interacting with other people. There is nothing more rewarding than extrapolating somebody with the exact skills you are looking for and watching them succeed in an environment they have not been in before!

The bottom line

Choose the people you want when you are looking for new members of your country club. Choose people that mirror you if you want a group of people to follow you around agreeing with you. If you want tenacious, skilled sales people, you must recruit people that come to the table with the traits that are required. The bottom line is just that; the bottom line. The best way to affect that is to hire people that are built to do just that! Snobby elitism is not only based in ignorance, it is also counter productive to revenue generation.

        

It is normally at this point that a weaker and more politically correct writer would begin by excluding groups of MBA graduates from this statement. Even though that would weaken ones stance to do so, watering down bold statements is just not my style. If you have an MBA and you are in charge of a sales and marketing department, you need to read the following words as much as the companies looking to replace or grow these departments. The proverbial bottom line is exactly what is called for here. The pursuit of new business and increased revenue from an academic perspective will only add layers of red tape between your sales staff and its’ collective goal. The reason for this is simple. If learning business strategy in a classroom predicated on books and the world views of professors, you must suspend the most challenging aspect to business; the rapidly increasing speed in which our markets are evolving. As you read a book about finance relating to venture capital for example, what you are actually reading is, at best, several years old. Chances are that the author spent 2-3 years doing research for that book, another year writing it, and then there is the process of editing and printing the book. Plus you need distribution time and time for the professor to acclimate themselves to the “new” material. So what we are talking about is 4-6 years from the time the data was actually relevant. In finance, that may be acceptable. (Probably not but I am not a finance expert) What I do know is that any specific sales strategies that are “learned” in traditional academic settings are inherently flawed because of the common challenge we all deal with in sales and marketing. What is working today will not work nearly as well in two years. This relates to the process strategies, the marketing strategies, the closing techniques, and even the vehicles we use to disseminate our message. Effective managers stay ahead of the curve instead of chasing the leader. The academic process both as it relates to the classroom dynamic and as it relates to the approach is simply out of touch with market realities.

This is true as it relates to the way MBA graduates are taught to analyze the processes themselves. The tools and methodologies in this area evolve and improve with technology as well. A perfect example can always be found within the real world applications. One of my clients has an MBA as their “Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing”. I never did meet their junior VP or even their regular VP of sales and marketing but that is indicative of the problem. After delving into their market dynamics, we saw a “seem” to exploit. Our client, along with most of their competitors had hired sales reps with impeccable backgrounds that were deeply rooted in industry circles. The problem, as we saw it, was that these circles were comprised of executive vice presidents and the like. The decision maker for their product was primarily office mangers. Essentially, everyone had surrounded themselves with elitists to sell to a middle class psychology.  They were not incapable of selling but we knew that changing our clients’ sales dynamic would greatly lesson the resistance. We wanted to pursue reps that were currently working in retail. I won’t get into why but the psychology just made sense. This recommendation was met with stringent objections from our SVP of Sales and Marketing. Even after detailed explanations, she fought us on making this change or addition. Their industry had operated this way for 50 years and she was not about to buck the trend. We went to the CEO and asked that she allow us to hire two or three to test our theory. Within the first two weeks it was obvious that we were not only right but that the failure to implement this across the board would simply cost them money. Lesson learned. The fact that we won is not what you should focus on. Instead, focus on the fact that we almost lost the argument. Academic elitism is flatly counter productive in the one department of your company that needs the ability to innovate quickly and adapt to real time data in real time. Red tape is not “careful deliberation”, it is costly and will weigh down your sales staff.

Two pieces of advice:

1. Never hire a man wearing spandex shorts, a white tank top, and hat that says “I’d rather be…….” For your next CEO.
2. Never hire someone for the most innovative part of your company that basis their decisions on CYA and “industry best practices”

        

You know your market. You know your prospects and their challenges. You know what they need to hear and what dynamic creates a good selling environment. What you are probably not doing, is articulating this formula for success in a way that allows your team to duplicate it. Imagine a major league baseball pitcher on the mound in a playoff game. The count is 2-2 and there is a runner on third with two outs. In the history of baseball has this scenario ever occurred? Has it ever occurred for this hitter, this pitcher and these teams? Of course! The pitch selection will not be based on what the pitcher feels like throwing. Instead, it will be based on statistical analysis of the hitter’s tendencies. Before he got to the plate, the pitcher, the catcher, and the manager already know what is most likely to get him out based on his past at bats. Business should operate this intelligently as well.

In order to elevate your sales game, you must build a system that is designed to engage your market. Hiring prospectors that can probe for information while qualifying prospects will allow you to tailor each sales pitch for specific dynamics. As your reps receive escalated leads from the sales machine, they also receive the kind of details that will tell them exactly how to close each lead. For example, I am sure that you are aware of how your competitors sell against you and how they sell to clients. That would mean that you also know where they fall short of your company. So therefore, knowing if your competitor has spoken to a client or if a prospect is using a competitor will allow you to pitch solely based on the advantages you bring to the table. This kind of comparative selling can be very effective given the right dynamic. However, if your reps are not aware of these details and they walk in to sell based on advantages, your client is now informed that there are other companies that not only do what you do, but that are obviously competitive. That is a very surface level example, but one that I know sales reps deal with all of the time.

Here is a better example that requires the tools that we use at Defiant Sales. If you are in a competitive selling process with a client, chances are good that your reps are trained to go in and sell predicated on “raw” product or service advantages. The problem with that can be illustrated by you spending five minutes online. Look at the articulated sales arguments that your company puts out. Now go visit your competitor’s web sites. See anything similar. Let me take a guess; better service, better quality, accreditations, number of years in business, client referrals, fast delivery or implementation, etc… These are all “me too” statements. While they may vary from industry to industry, the premise is still the same. Everyone is selling on the things that your industry perceives to matter to the prospects in that market. Now ask yourself this question; “How old is your industry?” Is there a chance that newer concerns may have surfaced in the last 30 years? How about 20 years? How about 5 years? It’s time to start doing your homework. What if the number one concern is the transition process itself? What kind of advantage would that be to your reps if they were the only company addressing what actually matters to the people you aim to do business with? Imagine four other companies talking about the “me too” statements put out by the entire industry. In walks your rep, addressing the real concerns and they are the only one even talking about them. Who has the upper hand? That’s right, you do! Delving into market dynamics and extrapolating meaningful data is a tool that we bring to the table.

Now imagine building your company’s market positioning around the actual things that matter to your prospects. Imagine plugging that into a sales machine that contacts hundreds of prospects a week and escalates the leads that are “warm” to your sales staff. The sales process you will have built cannot be touched by your competitors because they have no idea what you are doing! By the time they catch on, the market will have cycled and new elements of your industry will be the concerns of the day. Again, you will know, they will not! These are the kinds of advantages you must have to dominate your industry. Elevating to number one does not happen by blending in with your competition! It only happens when you are smarter, and more aggressive.

        

While most companies think they have a firm grasp on their internal sales process, very few do. The natural inclination of sales management is to exert a modicum of control over their reps and their reps actions. By doing this, they are able to report on things like daily movements of their staff, customers that appear to be close to buying, leads that are currently being worked, and the level of effort they get from members of the team. Given a few basic tools, they are even able to create reports on the progress and effectiveness of their staff. You take all of this and throw it in a mixing bowl and PRESTO!; you have what appears to be a very competent sales manager! If you are thinking that you are able to track more sales related details than this, I would say to you…..Purely semantics! The fallacy here is in thinking that somehow, success is directly correlated to statistical production. Granted, contact rates and closing percentages matter. In fact, there are a dozen relevant stats that can help guide decision making. But as a matter of management, there are more significant hurdles to deal with and track.

For example, if you send a rep out to sell predicated on the market position your company has developed, you must track the effectiveness of that positioning throughout your entire staff. The failure to do so says to your reps that the entire sales dynamic raises and falls with there ability to march in the exact manner that you have prescribed. There is no other way to get the statistical analysis to come out in their favor. Those of us that have been in sales for longer than 5 minutes understand that interpersonal dynamics are highly fluid. And a company that does not account for or support this fundamental fact simply does not understand what they are up against. Think about this; if consumer markets are cycling faster now than at any other time in our history, how long is the same market position good for? How long will the same approach, the same sales arguments, and the same sales process work? The only honest answer is that nobody really knows. That is, without doing the homework to find out. It is exponentially more important to have control over your message and methods than over your staff and the minutia of details that can be extrapolated from specific tasks. While boots on the ground will always be part of any sales process, the critical question to ask is, at what point in the process do they come into play? From the prospective of effectiveness and efficiency, companies must first create a process flow of everything sales related to begin understanding the market trends they are up against. The first priority is to understand the things that matter to your customers.

Selling based on a nut and bolt comparison may be an effective way to create a contrast between you and your competitors. It may also just serve to bore your prospects. Your prospects may not care about the difference in quality, service, years in business, reliability, raw material advantages, etc… Sometimes, there are assumptions made by the entire market. For example, safety is assumed in markets that it should not be. But the reality is that consumers feel that if you are in business, you must make a safe product. Otherwise, you would not be in business because the government wouldn’t allow it. No matter how wrong that thinking may be in a given industry, the facts are the facts! To this kind of company, it is imperative to understand what does matter to the prospects! When companies understand these kinds of market based elements, they are better able to prepare their sales staff for the sales environment. That’s control! The ability to send your rep out armed with the knowledge of what his prospects actually care about can and will be the difference in attaining high marks within your statistical analysis. This kind of understanding is relevant in every industry and can be applied with the same levels of success. Imagine selling an intangible service. Knowing the specifics of your market becomes the only way to stand out.

Your methods will dictate the success rate of your staff in very much the same way. Knowing what matters to your prospects is critical, but knowing how to talk them will determine if you will even get the chance to start the discussion. From psychological information you gather in the first part, you can determine the vehicle that will best drive your message to them. Markets are fickle so the selection of your approach must not be taken lightly. The age old tactics of huge contact rates does not apply anymore. Would you rather have your reps talk to 100 prospects to sell 10 or talk to 15 to sell 10? The answer is obvious and your choice of method will literally dictate the success rates. Often, a combination of different contact methods will be the best way to go but you must understand the order and process by which this will take place. Understanding why will help you make the necessary adjustments as your market begins to cycle. There are as many ways to contact your market directly as there are things to say once you get their attention. Smart companies take the selection of this process very seriously and our clients will tell you that it makes a big difference. At Defiant Sales, we build these kinds of processes and profile for specific buying triggers. I can tell you first hand that these two components are the most important parts of your sales process.

When it comes to gaining control of your revenue generation, it is more important to understand what drives business. While sales reps can offer a positive impact, they are far less effective without the tools that matter. All companies should strive for control in this dynamic. However, real control comes from a diligent pursuit of the aspects that make everyone successful. Knowing what matters to your prospects and how to make meaningful contact will put you ahead of your competitors in any industry!

        

If you have ever wondered how a company can have a talented sales staff and still struggle with sales, you are not alone. The reason for this is because they lack a good process. As our economy continually evolves, so to do the individuals within in it. Attempting to engage prospects in the same way and with the same methods that worked five or ten years ago is asking for trouble. The introduction of so many multi media sources in our lives along with the natural cycles that consumers go thru has sped up the desensitization of marketing and sales tactics. The failure to recognize and adjust to these changes will cause a sales system to stagnate. Even when loaded with talent, a sales team will struggle if they are using tactics that have lost their effectiveness. Imagine a car dealership that goes door to door to generate sales. Imagine a printing company that uses residential telemarketing to increase its’ sales. Although these are exaggerated cases, not contacting your market in a meaningful way will have the same results.

If advertising for leads has been the model for generating leads in the past that does not necessarily mean that is the best way to do it today. People become desensitized to tactics over time and the sooner you can recognize this, the better off you will be. In the past, many companies have been susuccessful sending sales reps into the offices of their prospects. As the pace and speed of business continues to increase, this becomes less effective. Who has time to stop working and sit down with a sales rep anymore? This has been especially true in the medical profession. As doctor’s reimbursements have continued to decline, they have had to see more patients to make the same amount of money. What are the chances that they have the time or the inclination to talk about new products in the middle of their day? Our clients in this industry have had to completely redesign their sales structures to accommodate this situation. Those that have made the changes are successful while their competitors continue to knock on doors and deal with a very low contact rates.

For companies that must advertise for leads, they have seen the productivity of ads diminish. Whether we are talking about web based marketing, print ads, TV ads, or any other advertising source, the statistics tell the story. While a lot of companies think the solution is to have better ads, our clients focus on creating higher closing percentages. The internal process is often the culprit in ad based productivity. When the volume of qualified leads is reduced it is time to look at your internal sales process and focus on selling more of the leads that you get. It’s always about the process but when companies enjoy high volumes of leads, the need to get better at selling a higher percentage of them seems less important. These are the companies that struggle the most when the economy turns south.

The best way to tell if your company needs to review its’ sales process is to simply look around your industry. If you have competitors that are growing in a down economy while you struggle, you need help. In a good economy, your competitors should not be able to grow at a faster pace than you are. If they are, you need to evaluate your sales process. Putting its sales team in a position to be successful is the smartest thing a business can do. Your sales process will influence the outcomes of your sales team more than any other component of the revenue generating arm of your company. Understanding what kind of changes should be made requires an outside perspective as well as a level of expertise rarely found in the confines of an existing sales staff. Defiant Sales Consulting can offer this expertise and we will analyze your sales process for free.

        

Too often, sales people sell based on raw advantages of their product or service without qualifying the reason for their presentation. A detailed explanation may be accurate and may have merit but what this kind of selling lacks is a point. The first few moments of a pitch should directly address the reason for consideration and should be used to apply your product or service to the clients business. In other words, it should be about your client and not your company. You must face facts and realize that nobody cares about your business nearly as much as they do their own. Understanding this very simple premise is paramount to your success. If a client sees your company in the context of your market, you have lost them. Helping them see your company in the context of their market not only keeps them interested but also puts the entire pitch in a context that they can understand.  Start with the premise that you are there to make them more successful or that you are there to make their jobs easier. Whatever the case may be, you must position things in terms that they are familiar with; their terms. Let me fill you in on a little secret; nobody cares how great you are or how successful you have been in the past. If you don’t directly address the challenges facing your client they will show you the door and wonder what the hell you were talking about. Let me illustrate this using Defiant’s own sales process.

When our reps meet with clients, their first job is to gain an understanding of the market they are selling to. In other words, my reps do their homework. Walking in with a handful of testimonials and pictures of past projects only serves to prove that we are a company. That’s it! What every CEO understands is that past performance does not guarantee future results!!! Also, just about every executive thinks that their industry is unique and requires “special” consideration. Explaining how great you were last month means far less than a detailed account of how you fit into their picture right now. Once our reps have done industry based analytics, we begin to form a picture of the trends and dynamics that directly impact our client. Knowing what they face allows us to understand what they need to do in order to meet these specific challenges. That combined with getting their perspective makes for a powerful tool.  We spend the majority of our time with prospective clients in a conversational format. Engaging them shows that we are interested in meeting their challenges and not in applying past sales models we have used. We do this even when we know what they need to do and even when the solution that will work for them is obvious to us. This level of engagement helps to ease the tensions for our clients and also allows us to ensure that our analysis is correct. Putting together a “canned” pitch in a power point format for example, only serves to lecture clients. Again, nobody cares how great you think you are or successful you have been in the past!

No matter what kind of product or service you sell, it must make sense to the buyer if you are going to be successful. Learn how your product affects your target whether you are selling to a business or a consumer. Once you understand what matters to them you must mirror those concerns and address them in the context of their dynamic. Phrasing the same statements in the context that is relevant to the buyer will have a substantial impact. After all, how do you make buying decisions?

        

Needs based selling, branding, top down selling, and 100 other solidified tactics crack me up! The mere assumption that selling can be done in the parking lot before the meeting ever takes place is laughable. Let’s take some of these one at a time.

Needs Based Selling; the name gives it away. Identify the need and then sell them that! The problem with these kinds of tactics is that they remove situational dynamics. For example, what if you have done an extensive amount of research and know that they need “X” but they are sure that they need “Y”? This situation happens all of the time. Just the other day I was in the office of a prospect that told me they needed more “branding” and that the path he sees as viable is through print ads. The problem with this is that his conversion rates are horrible so the ROI on any campaign will not be good. Should I sell him something that will not work very well, or explain the merits of building an internal sales machine that will use his current lead generating efforts to grow his business and will have a lasting and sustainable effect? The “Needs Based Selling” principals tell me to do a few ads for him and let his marketing budget shrink over the next year thus losing him as a client.

The other situation not addressed by “Needs Based Selling” that comes up as often is the client that thinks they have no need for you at all. This situation can be volatile and can stem from a protectionist point of view.  Often, employees view outside vendors as a threat. “Needs Based Selling” will simply not work in this situation. In fact, the more probing questions you ask the more defensive they will become. The only thing these people “need” is for you to go away!  Forging ahead with qualifying questions will act as a catalyst to being shown the door. Furthermore, assessing their need is only fruitful if you already have a good idea of what it is. Going on appointments or sales calls hoping to run into the right people according to need is ridiculous.

In fact, walking into a prospects office with a predetermined strategy is ridiculous. “Top Down Selling” is another great way to sabotage your sales efforts. Like “Needs Based Selling”, it works with some of the people, some of the time. Kind of like fooling them! The theory here is that you sell the premier level all of the time and walk them down if you have to. This way, goes the theory, more of your customers walk away with the top level of your product or service. There are flaws with this theory. For example, this theory completely ignores economic conditions. As arrogant as we want to be, nobody is immune to more people and companies searching for price reductions. Even the best of the best are forced to deal with the situation as it is and not how we want it to be. Secondly, there are buyers that will never go for the premier level even if they need it. It is important to remember that losing a sale is losing entire referral networks. For companies that are need of cash flow, taking some over none is the difference between staying open and closing the doors. Again, a canned approach is less effective almost always.

I have new sales tactic! Let’s call it “Hire people with a natural aptitude to think on their feet and persuade other people, feed them qualified leads, and then put them to work in a system of accountability……..selling!!!”. I like it. This one works every time and yet for some reason, our profession can’t seem to stay focused on it. By constantly coming up with these canned tactics, all we accomplish is extending an overtime period to the terminally unskilled. These tactics aren’t designed for productive reps that produce year in and year out. They are designed to do one thing; make money for seminar hosts that prey on people that are searching for anything that will help them sell. The problem is that the people seeking these kinds of tactics do so to fill the huge void where genuine talent normally resides. These people don’t need this stuff, they need a career change. I wanted to be an astronaut but I can’t do all of the wildly difficult math! I’m a sales person!