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!

        

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!

        

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?

        

Sometimes, calling a duck a duck is harder than it should be. Sales departments all over the country have resigned themselves to a statement that can be catastrophic to their company’s long term interests. That statement is everywhere. “After the market comes back…” This is pure unadulterated genius. They may as well say what they are really thinking. “It’s hard right now so let’s just wait until it is easier”. Make no mistake about this mindset and the damage it will ultimately cause; it is pure corporate treason, plain and simple. At the same time, it is also great for our business. As companies make the decision to sit on their collective hands, companies like mine are innovating their competitors. Although I can only speak for Defiant Sales, we are a “non-participating company” as it relates to the recession. Your company? It should be. When markets contract and companies wait for it to come back, you should be laying the groundwork to dominate right now!

We get the same question all of the time, “How can we grow when the market size is shrinking?” The answer is simple and requires a complex solution. The answer is to take business from your competition and then use that new business to catapult yourself to number one when the economy comes back. Seems simple enough and yet so many companies think that the better play is to wait. These are the same companies that will complain about having too many competitors, or being at a price disadvantage, or ….. Fill in an excuse here. Remember, it is always business that brings us out of a recession. The “sit and wait” approach is great if your plan is to go out of business but nobody plans to do that intentionally. So the question becomes really simple,” Are we going to make the moves to win later and grow now?”

There are differing opinions on how to best approach this dynamic. The most effective way is almost always the most direct. Causing prospects to take action is the goal and advertising is the least efficient way to accomplish this. Conversely, speaking directly with your market is the path of least resistance. Where most companies struggle is in developing the vehicle to take your message directly to buyers. Consumer markets and b2b markets require the same approach in the crafting of a message but require very different vehicles to drive action. However, both need a systematic approach that removes the reliance on individual performance. There is no better way to ensure high contact rates and strict follow through than to implement a system for both. Tracking vital stats and managing them properly can have a huge impact on outcomes. The knowledge that comes with statistical analysis provides such a competitive advantage that companies employing these tactics find themselves light years ahead of their competition. It is literally the attention to detail that will reveal the most effective messages, the best and worst sales people, the best lead generation sources, and many other areas of concern for sales. If you cannot recite the closing percentages of your reps, or the conversion rates of your lead generating sources for example, you are missing the boat. While there are dozens of moving parts in any given sales force, it all starts with understanding where you are in key areas of selling. The difference between good and good enough is often the difference between staying in and going out of business. There is no better time to get serious in your approach to selling than right now. While others wait for the recovery, you should get busy causing it!

        

You have to admit, it would be great if you could read your prospects minds. Knowing exactly what they are thinking about as they make a decision to do business in your industry would be a huge advantage. Your sales reps would know exactly what to say and what to do to close all of them. But even if you had all of this knowledge, would you take advantage of it? You would be surprised to know that the chances of you or your sales team exploiting information of this kind is probably very low. In fact, when given the exact reason that a prospect will make a buying decision, your team will almost always ignore that reason and sell based on what they have always sold on.

This may seem strange to talk about, but the discussion could not be any more relevant to your sales success. Why? The answer is both incredibly complex and overwhelmingly simple; habits trump knowledge every time! The truth of the matter is that if you did know exactly what your prospects thought about before making a decision your instinct would tell you that they are wrong and that you need to show them why. By doing this, you create a sales dynamic that is next to impossible to overcome with any consistency. Sure, you can sell some of them and the mere fact that you are still in business proves that. But the difference between companies that carve out a small niche to survive and companies that dominate an entire industry boils down to a simple concept. If your prospects think it is important, it is. No matter how silly or irrelevant the issue may actually be, it is the difference between closing and not. A great example of this concept lies within many industries. Companies whose primary task it is to get prospects to switch from one service to another often attempt to convince the market that they offer a superior service. That is to say that we do “this” better because….. What market research shows in a lot of industries is that many choose not to switch because of one simple thing, the transition itself. New technology and unfamiliar people can make companies nervous. Sometimes, it simply boils down to the work involved in transitioning from one company to another even when the benefits are obvious. Attacking this issue is best done by positioning yourself as transition experts. Talking about how easy the transition is or how involved your company is in this process can often address these kinds of objections before they even surface.  Winning the battle is often done in the opening and not in boardroom.  Understanding that prospects are inundated with solicitations that often say the same thing allows you to exploit the seams that lead to closing deals.

Do you know what makes your prospects move? Do your reps know what to say in order to hit buying triggers? Chances are the answer to both of these questions is no.  Chances are, your reps and your marketing are still attempting to explain why your products/services are better.  Chances are, you need to talk to Defiant Sales Consulting.