I have been asked to touch on a specific subject by some of my readers and although I usually don’t do that, this subject seems to be timely.

The only thing that will hurt your sales efforts more than the “hard” close is the “no” close. Too often, reps assume that a prospect is not ready to buy and the tiny window of opportunity closes shut; sometimes forever. It’s understandable that reps are hesitant because of the economy. Nobody wants to look over eager to close but by the same token, today’s economy does not lend itself to very many lay down sales either.  What’s a rep to do? It’s like trying to heat water to an exact temperature. By the time the thermometer shows the right temp, it’s too late. You slide right past it. Turn the heat down and again, you slide right past it going the other way. There is no doubt that selling in today’s economy can be tough but… If it were easy, everybody would do it! If it were easy, there wouldn’t be thousands of postings for sales people all over the job boards in a tough job market. We didn’t get into this profession to take it easy or to “coast”!  So let’s regroup.  Here are some important things to consider while approaching your market.

1.    No whining- It’s contagious. Your bad day or bad meeting does not need to turn into a negative office attitude! Conversely, if somebody else is whining, get away from them ASAP!

2.    Trust your instincts- That is, if your instincts are normally good. Veering off of your normal sales rhythm is dangerous. Not only can it blow your sale but it can also shake your confidence and ruin your career. It is very difficult to get your “sales mojo” back once you have lost it. SO DON”T. I tell my reps every day to lose the sale because of closing too hard before losing it because you bored the client to death! I cannot emphasize this point enough. Whether you know it or not, selling is a very rhythmic process that coordinates a lot of moving parts. If one aspect is off… well, you know.

3.    Fundamentals- I know it sounds contrite but when things get tough, always go back to the fundamentals. Things like trial closes, qualifying questions, needs based selling, etc… These things served us well in our early days; they will serve you well again. Refreshing ourselves with these simple, yet very poignant tactics can often times improve your overall approach.

4.    Technology- Use it, own it, know it, and demand to have it at your disposal. Here is a quick list of tools that you should be using if you aren’t already: Hoovers, Jigsaw, Netprospex, Gist, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc… I’m sure you are using at least some of these, but are you using them to gain expertise with your prospects? My reps know A LOT about everyone involved in a decision before the first meeting. Want to separate yourself? It doesn’t take much. Starting a presentation off with, “I’ll talk slow since we have a Cornell grad in the room” will get a laugh and can be the difference. Just a small example…

5.    The Close- Sometimes a tough market can rattle your confidence just enough to be visible to your prospects. Closing strong is the only way to close. I don’t care what industry you are in or what the economic conditions are like! Make them say no; don’t hope they say yes! My diving coach used to say,” If you took the time to get out of bed and put your shoes on, you may as well be perfect!” How true that is, coach! Nobody is kind of pregnant! Similarly, nobody is kind of closed! They are in or they are out and it is your job to put them in one of those two clubs. Either one is ok, just as long as you know!

The bottom line is that as sales and marketing people, it is on our backs to keep the companies we work for in business. Ever see an operational person generate revenue? Ever see the CFO add anything that wasn’t created by the sales team? You never will. The economy is bad… I get it. Don’t let it ruin your career and don’t let it ruin your disposition! Forge ahead and do what you do best. Selling smart will always pay off in the long run and without a doubt, things will get better!

        

Have you ever sat through a long sales meeting that sounded more like a support group? If you have been in sales for more than 5 minutes, I am guessing the answer is yes. The manager or owner stands in front of the sales team and goes around the room. “What do you have going on?” “Are you having trouble closing?” “What kind of response are you getting?” It goes on and on and on. If you are like me, you sit there thinking, “Do I really need to be here for this?” These meetings are the direct result of management that is terminally clueless hiring sales reps that are terminally unskilled. What a waste of time! A sales meeting should have 3 components to discuss and should never run more than an hour. Anything else is purely academic.

1. Now- What is closing now? This is important for the purposes of coordinating operational aspects with each new client’s needs.
2. Next- What is coming down the pipe next? Not in three months and not next year. What could close between now and our next meeting?
3. Last week’s next- Why didn’t you close the accounts that you said were next last week?

Everything else relating to strategy should be put forth as directives and followed up on as such. These three issues are most directly correlated to immediate success that builds long term success. As positioning changes and strategy needs to be adjusted, separate meetings should be used to drive and implement these changes. After all, if we are really being honest, not everyone’s input is equal. Not every rep should be in attendance at these higher level brainstorming sessions. If you want to make the less skilled reps feel warm and fuzzy, buy them a fur coat! For the rest of us, we would much rather spend the time selling and making money. The creative process does not require the participation of foot soldiers and more to the point, the input of foot soldiers to the creative process is counterproductive!

The majority of sales meetings are geared to cover the hind end of the management team. Think about it. They put forth and idea, good or bad, and then spend the rest of the meeting convincing you to agree with it. That way, when it fails, they can point to it as a “team” failure. This is the “MBA” style of business. Assemble the team, share your genius, and then cover your ass! The problem is that the genius being shared is developed by the people that sit on the sidelines and read reports instead of the people that are in the trenches on a daily basis!

Intellectual honesty would require that each meeting start with the admission. “I am the VP of Sales or Owner and I am a meeting-aholic!” The reality is people that know how to get things done should be left to get things done! Let the “brain trust” theorize while the rest of us make it happen. Need a professor anyone?

Here is a 12 step program to share with your boss:

1. If it doesn’t affect sales, we don’t need to discuss it.
2. If you have to cover the same topic twice, YOU don’t get it.
3. Tools and support are all we need!
4. If a problem exists with a specific rep and not the group, OUR meeting is not the venue!
5. If a rep has problems closing, please fire them.
6. Get out of the way!
7. We are not a sounding board for your bad ideas. Telling a group does not make them good ideas.
8. If you haven’t been in the field in the last year, SIT DOWN!
9. If you covered it last week, we don’t need to discuss it this week.
10. YOU hire, YOU train, and YOU market. Own your own decisions or fix them!
11. If you have time to hear every detail of every prospect from every rep, you need a job!
12. GET OUT OF THE WAY!

While you may not want to give this article to your boss, we will. Send us their email and we will send a copy directly to them and then lose their email address!

        

It never ceases to amaze me. Companies look for very specific qualities in sales reps that have nothing to do with selling. After a while, these new reps struggle to hit their numbers and to save face, everyone agrees to bring in outside sales training.  Usually the VP of Sales will seek outside consultants to bring in and, as is par for the course, will make their selection predicated on all of the wrong attributes. It’s amazing that in this day and age, companies still don’t know what it takes to be successful in sales. “Big personalities” and “ultra aggressive” candidates either intimidate or overly impress interviewers. The sales profession is not just about likability; at least not as much these days. Decision makers have more pressure to be both fiscally and operationally responsible and that puts downward pressure on every decision they make. Technology has sped all of our lives up so the impending result is that the offer to play golf is not what it used to be. Most executives think that if they get time to play golf, they would rather do it with their own peers and not with a sales rep that is going to spend 18 holes touting the reasons to do business with their company. Recreation time has become a rare occurrence and therefore, most would prefer to utilize that time to extrapolate themselves from business. The bottom line is that the old school, antiquated tactics of the past do not work in today’s business dynamic, regardless of the personality employing them.

The ultra aggressive reps will tout their ability to make 50 cold calls in a day and they are telling the truth! Wow! They can light up the phones. Work, work, work!  Money by numbers, success seems inevitable!  They are never in their office because they are always out on sales calls. This is the kind of dedication is exactly what your company needs, right?

The big personality reps may not make the same number of contacts each day, but every client seems to like them. When they do get in the door, you can pretty much start counting the money! They have “clozer” on their license plate. While they don’t generate a very impressive sales funnel, they don’t need to because their closing percentage is so high. The numbers are good and this kind of rep is absolutely what you need, right?

Not so fast. The ultra aggressive rep is blowing through good leads to “cherry pick” the easy deals. While that may be great for now, in the long run, that will hurt more than help. The economy turns a little south and business becomes harder to come by. As business gets tight EVERY rep for every company gets this aggressive and now this tactic becomes insolvent. With no real sales funnel to fall back on things get tough. What looked like good business practices yesterday just looks desperate today. No more cherries to pick because companies are looking much harder at the need and ROI for every dollar spent. Uh oh!  The big personality rep is in trouble too. The lack of daily contact has put this rep in a very tight spot. Personality means less when the economy turns south. Pricing starts to matter more and nobody wants to make the decision to buy that could cost them their job. With nothing in the works and a reliance on selling what’s in front of them they quickly realize, there is nothing in front of them. As markets transition or as the economy contracts, these reps are always hit the hardest, the fastest. If you think I am wrong, ask sales recruiters what kind of reps are looking for jobs right now. That is when you realize that you have been looking for a Ferrari when what you really needed was a Suburban.

See, the Ferrari looks better and goes faster, but it can’t protect you an accident and it’s just not practical. The kind of reps you need to hire and train are of the practical variety. I’m not talking about people with no drive and no personality. Instead, I am talking about the people that are willing to work smart and go for the big prize; long term income stability. Let me illustrate this by going through the typical day of sales professional. Rep 1 will make a ton of calls before lunch from leads that are given to them or that they generate on their own through traditional lead sources. Rep 2 will network their way into warm situations. These come slowly and in small numbers but will close faster. This is good in the short term but as is often the case, these reps dislike cold calling. Likeability will only go so far in competitive situations.

Compare that to Sara. Sara is the kind of rep that we recruit and train. Sara starts her day the night before. She looks at the core market for her product and then outlines the vertical markets that are exponential. She lists, in order, the specific markets she wants to attack and then signs on to her online lead qualifier account, for example. She downloads a couple of hundred leads and begins to compartmentalize their corporate hierarchy structures. Knowing what layer she needs to sell to, she isolates their names and begins to create a list. This list will last her a month or two. She made it in one evening. The next morning, Sara will get to her desk, set her coffee down and turn on her computer. She pulls out her list and signs into her computer. Next, she goes online to access her corporate contact account. This account allows access to contact information for her prospects specifically i.e. email accounts, cell phone, direct line, etc… She looks up 25 people and is able to get their direct contact info (you have to love resources like these!). She will not make 25 calls today. Instead, she will find out very specific information relating to her prospects. She goes on to LinkedIn and finds out some great details about a number of the people on her list. Next, she snoops around Facebook. Now, she is armed with real information. Her first call lasted 35 minutes and ended with an appointment for next week. She makes 5-7 calls like this every business day of her life and after a few weeks, cannot make any more calls. Her schedule is booked. Sara makes 25-35 calls every week and never walks into an appointment ill prepared. After every meeting, she sends out a connection request on LinkedIn and every Monday posts something good about her product for all of them to see. Sara never stops selling her prospects but they don’t know it. Sara will finish the same way she started; way ahead. See, after 6 months of staying committed to smart selling, Sara has a sales funnel that is chocked with prospects that are at different levels of the sales process. The other reps feast or famine! Not Sara. She moves forward with her prospects everyday of her life. The long term prospects are good because she knows what it takes to be successful. She was trained right. Sara was trained by, and works for, Defiant Sales Consulting.

The proverbial bottom line is that this is a new market. What we are talking about here is a psychological profile. We are talking about a mixture of skill sets that exists in a lot of people. Identifying, hiring, and training them the Defiant way, will dictate outcomes. I don’t care what you make, sell, distribute, import, solve, implement, teach, etc… Yesterday’s “sales training” is today’s water cooler jokes! Unless you are selling to yesterday’s market you need today’s techniques.

        

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!