THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS: MICHAEL NICK, BERNADETTE MCCLELLAND, MATT HEINZ,TAMARA SCHENK, COLLEEN STANLEY, CHRISTIAN MAURER, PHIL KREINDLER, JAY MITCHELL, ART SOBCZAK & TIM RIESTERER

FROM TOP SALES WORLD JANUARY 2016

ALSO INSIDE: 2015 Top Sales& MarketingAwards Resultsplus 2015Review

Jonathan Farrington interviews Rich Blakeman the ManagingDirector of Channel Sales Center of Excellence at MHI Global

The HybridSales Channel

T P SALES MAGAZINE

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 20162

Building a SalesStrategy fromDiscoveryMichael Nick

13I Forgot To BeWho I WasSupposed To BeBernadetteMcClelland

16

How to trainyour customers:Six steps tobetterrelationships &outcomesMatt Heinz

18

Building A Casefor FrontlineSales ManagerDevelopmentTamara Schenk

20

Three WaysSales EQImprovesBottom­LineSales ResultsColleen Stanley

22What‘s theMatter with SalesPerformance?Christian Maurer

25

Is YouProceContrPhil K

2

ur Salesess Underrol?Kreindler

28How to Put anEnd to StatusQuo Wins Jay Mitchell

30

Prospecting andSales is NOT aNumbers Game.It’s a QualityGameArt Sobczak

32A Win for theWhiteboardTim Riesterer

34

ContentsJanuary 2016

Editors: Jonathan Farrington JF@topsalesworld.comLinda Richardson linda@lindarichardson.comDesign: Bill Jeckells bill@billjeckells.comPublished by: Top Sales World A JF INITIATIVE

The Hybrid Sales ChannelJonathan Farrington interviewsRich Blakeman the ManagingDirector of Channel SalesCenter of Excellence at MHIGlobal. PAGE 6

Featured Solution of theMonth PGiPAGE 36

2015 Awards Results plus2015 ReviewPAGES 37 ­ 39

TOP SALES MAGAZINE

Top Sales World is Sponsored by

Surging into 2016 …Jonathan FarringtonPAGE 4

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016 3

TSW

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 20164

Looking back is not something I do often ­ thefuture is always so much more exciting, don’tyou think? In this instance I am however

prepared to make an exception, because for TopSales World it was an “Annus Mirabilis” in virtuallyevery respect.

To begin with, we achieved “balance.” That is tosay, we found the perfect blend of partners (wenever use the term sponsors because we have strongpartnerships with those organizations who supportus). We also have an incredible team of contributorsall chosen for their breadth of experience, vision andcommercial bandwidth. Add to that the launch of

several exciting new initiatives and thepreservation/improvement of the old favorites andyou have the perfect mix.

Any review of TSW has to begin with Top SalesMagazine because we are, as one would expect,immensely proud of how it has developed and grownin popularity. Presumably, as you are reading this,you agree – unless you are a masochist of course…

This year we published 42 editions, whichincluded some superb interviews by my co­editor,Linda Richardson, hundreds of genuinely substantialarticles from the team and lots of news and gossip.We even received many compliments on the qualityof the adverts!

From an editorial perspective, deciding totransition from a weekly publication to a monthly onewas a no­brainer for us. We have always focused onquality rather than quantity, and so in October wemade the switch. Interestingly, since then thenumber of subscribers has gone through the roof.

However, we also wanted to retain weeklycontact, which is why we launched “Around TopSales World in 7 Days” and this newsletter affordseveryone the opportunity to catch up with all the

Surging into 2016 …

I do hope you will excusethis diversion from myusual musings andobservations, but as this isthe last edition of 2015, the

temptation to reflect and then hopefullyexcite with news of our plans andambitions for 2016 was too strong.

Editorial

World highlights. If you haven’t discovered it yet,here is a link to the latest issue.

Other weekly initiatives that we retained includedTop 10 Sales Articles & Top 10 Blog Posts becausethey remain as popular as ever. We added, Top SalesSolution, Top Sales Book and Top Sales Interview andall of these have been very well received.

Our annual events, such as Top 50 SalesInfluencers and Top 50 Sales Blogs, always createconsiderable debate and discussion, despite the factthat we have virtually removed subjectivity from thedecision making process – but differences of opinionare very healthy. Oh, and this year, we also addedTop 50 Sales Books.

This year’s Top Sales & Marketing Awards hasbeen the most closely contested in the competition’shistory and we are so grateful to the expert judgingpanel for the time they dedicated to ensuring that theright people were awarded the medals, because theyhad some tough decisions to make in most of the 14categories. If you haven’t yet checked out all thewinners and runners up, you will find the results here.

Finally, in reflecting on our 2015 achievements, Ihave to compliment the extremely high qualitysessions that were delivered for Top Sales Academy.We presented 27 of them in two phases and it was ahuge personal honor to host all of them. The decisionto record, rather than stage live events was fullyvindicated as some of the installments have beendownloaded more than 10000 times! On Pages 38 &39 you will find a full list and you can register for freeto listen to any or all of them.

I am already looking forward to recruiting nextyear’s faculty and delivering another high­qualityprogram.

OK, it’s time to give you a glimpse of what newtreats we have in store for next year:

Very early in 2016 we will launch the new VIPArea, which will house the TSW Library to begin with.This gigantic repository of sales resources willcontain articles, webinars, podcasts, eBooks, whitepapers, videos, interviews … Need I go on? It willbecome the largest research resource for frontline

sales professionals and their managers anywhere onthe planet. Gradually, we will add lots of otherfacilities, which we are currently working on, so moreabout those very soon.

In May, we will be delivering Top Sales WorldVillage at the Sales Innovation Expo in London. This isthe largest and most successful sales­related event inEurope – in fact, in terms of visitor numbers, it issecond only to Dreamforce – and I have persuaded afew very good chums to participate. You can see thekeynote speaker line­up here.

We are also negotiating to bring TSW16 to theUS, because it has been an ambition of mine for along time. I think it will happen next year. From there,we absolutely must take the show on the road toother parts of the world if we possibly can.

Also look out for Top Sales Jobs, as we create ourown jobs board facility – this is also way overdue.

As I reach the end of my allotted word count,having thanked our incredibly loyal and generouspartners who have wholeheartedly bought into myvision, and the wonderfully talented contributingteam, I must also say a big thank you to my small butamazing team who have been with me since thebeginning of this project. They continue to producework of the highest order, on time and often withinvery tough deadlines.

Our primary objective from the outset was tocreate a location where all sales professionals, salesmanagers and the people they report to could comeand find fresh resources, created and delivered bythe world’s leading experts every day – for free. Ibelieve we are achieving that, but we have so muchmore we want to do. I don’t want to talk aboutjourneys and destinations and other such clichés,rather I like to think about “missions”.

Thank you for your support and I very much hopeyou will stay on board for the next stage of thisremarkable journey. n

To read more of Jonathan's articles, posts,white papers and thoughts visit his

personal site ­ here

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016 5

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 20166

JF: Now what we've got to talk about is your brandnew book ­ The Hybrid Sales Channel. I really doappreciate you giving me the opportunity, a coupleof months ago, to read a pre­edited manuscript. Ithoroughly enjoyed it and, since it's just hitting themarket right now, it's helped me to frame somequestions for you. Let me begin by asking you giventhe plethora of sales books out there right now andgiven the time needed and the investment required,what made you want to write this book? I guess

what I'm really asking, Rich, is ­ why this, why now?

RB: Well, you know our company probably as wellas anyone Jonathan and we are absolutely focusedon the end customer. This book was not writtenbecause of some view that I have, or we have, thatwe know better. This book was written because ofwhat's going on in the market place right now, andthat's because buyers are changing their behaviorand they're also changing in number. There are morebuyers than there have ever been in the past inevery complex sale. They're requiring more ROIproof, a more disciplined process and more value. Atthe same time, the companies that the buyers areworking for are systematically requiring their ownleaders to organically grow their companies, and notgrow through acquisition.

All of that leads to companies and our clients

The Hybrid Sales Channel

Jonathan Farringtoninterviews Rich Blakemanthe Managing Director ofChannel Sales Center ofExcellence at MHI Global.

The Jonathan Farrington Interview

having the need to really look at their coveragestrategy to say, "How are we going to organicallygrow our business in light of how customers aredoing this?" And that's where we came to a hybridway of looking at a coverage strategy, rather thantraditional, separated, indirect and direct saleschannels.

JF: One of the things I came away with, after I readit for the first time, is this isn't one of your usual salesor sales methodology books at all.

RB: At the end of the day, it's a coverage strategy.It's how to look at your territories, down at theterritory and customer level ­ not up at a very highlevel ­ of how you're going to approach a broadmarket place or region geography, but rather howyou're going to look down at the territory andcustomer level, and how you're going to leveragethe unique strengths of your direct sales force andyour channel partner, down to the individual partnersales rep, to get the best coverage in order to ignitegrowth.

JF: Absolutely. I think the book has a veryinteresting and original approach. I'm going to askyou about Dominique, Jorge and David very shortly,of course, as you'd expect me to. But first, let me askwhy you chose that approach?

RB: I think you've hit it on the head Jonathan, andthat's being able to bring it to life. There are lots ofbooks that will talk about why you should dosomething and then never talk about how. There arealso lots of books that'll talk about how, withoutgiving you a context to why…

And there are a very small number that can wrapit up in something that can make it understandable,by putting it in the context of a story or a setting thatis similar to something that you may be goingthrough, or that other companies that you work withare going through. So, to me, we had to go throughall three phases of that. Get through the why, get to

the how, and give some meat that would put it alltogether.

JF: Sure. I understand that, because it's extremelyimportant and significant. We both know thatthere's an awful lot of people out there that will tellus this is wrong, but actually don't have thecapability, the knowledge or the experiencethemselves to tell us how to put it right.

RB: I completely understand. It was no small journeyon my part, on the front end, to try and take a wholelot of stuff that comes from years of experience andtrying to decide how to sort it in a way that might bepalatable.

JF: And that comes through Rich. This is awonderful platform for you to finally demonstrateyour incredible and vast experience of the salesspace. I think you grasp it with both hands. Nowlook, before we go any further, I've got to know this,is this a real company? Is it a hypothetical company,or is it something else?

RB: You know, if it was a real company I'd never say.I will tell you that I know a minimum of sevencompanies that I could name which are exactly likethis company.

I know one in particular that is precisely like thiscompany, but its characteristics have existed in myexperience for as many as 30 years, and haveincreased in their frequency over the last 10 years atalmost logarithmic proportions!

So, it's a little bit of each. It's a blend, it's somevery specific companies, and it's a trend right now.And based on the reactions that I've had at a coupleof conferences I've spoken at recently, it's a trendthat is really seriously present in the market, which iswhy we're in the market with these concepts rightnow.

JF: What I found very interesting is that you'vestruck a balance. In other words, half of your focus

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016 7

seems to be on the leadership framework, from theboardroom to the senior executives, and the otherhalf is on the execution ­ between a first­linemanager and territory direct salesperson. I mean,that was obviously conscious, wasn't it, to createthat balance?

RB: More than conscious. In this kind of change, youcan't do one without the other, and I'll take it in thereverse order that you mentioned. The first­linemanager is the most under­appreciated, under paid,over­pressurized resource in any company, and yetthey're the one that makes change happen andmakes change stick in the relationship between thefirst line manager and their direct reports.

So if you're going to do a different coveragestrategy, down at the territory and sales rep level,which is where you touch the customer, then you'vegot to get that right. But if you don't do that inalignment with the initiatives of the seniorexecutives, then it's a waste of time! And likewise, ifyou get alignment of the senior executives and allyou do is publish memorandums, PowerPoint slidedecks, monthly updates and beautiful KPI charts, butnever engage the first­line managers ­ either ofthose two will fail.JF: What we're talking about here is total buy in,aren't we? Because without that, you just cannotguarantee success.

RB: Yes, it's top to bottom and it has to be complete.Then, if you add in the partners... It has to becomplete.

JF: At the moment, many companies are workinghard to separate their direct sales from their indirectchannels. Yet you believe that growth will comefrom exactly the opposite ­ a hybrid. So this is a bigleap for a lot of people. Can you help me with thecore reasoning here? How did you arrive at that?

RB: Well, the arrival is really more about what thegoal is. The goal of separating direct from indirect is

traditionally about cost structure. And the coststructure of a direct and indirect sales force iscompletely different. You may choose speed tomarket or coverage in some emerging markets oremerging countries as another goal, but primarilyover the years, companies have used cost as themeasuring stick for developing direct versus indirect;and that's not today's goal. That won't take us wherewe need to get and that won't create organicgrowth. If anything, it is the antithesis of organicgrowth!

And if you use growth as the measure instead ofcost, then in order to create growth, you mustmaximize every resource and put every resource towork in concert with each other ­ not in oppositionto each other.

And to do it in concert with each other, you'vegot to do that down at a very close level to thecustomer, not at some high level of orchestrationwith rules of engagement that will never work andcan't be followed to begin with, and aren't fairlyadministered… But all the way down at thecustomer, where you can take this person's uniquestrength, and that person's unique strength, and putthem to work in concert. That can create growthwhen done together.

When done separately, all you can do is maximizeyour cost ­ but you won't grow…

JF: I think that's spot on Rich. I read a post of yourson LinkedIn recently about this book, and what yousaid was, "This isn't the annual rearranging of thedeck chairs"… and I certainly know all about that!

So how can this kind of change be accomplished,without it seeming to fall into that category, in anycompany?

RB: Well, it's a great question, I appreciate youpaying attention to my social media. Jonathan, ifanything, the biggest challenge is getting people(including your partners) to understand thefundamental change and the reasoning for makingthese kinds of changes, and not having it appear by

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 20168

The Jonathan Farrington Interview

all of the actions from first­line managers, throughsenior executives, through the partners that youengage, to be just the program. That this is a pilotwe're going to try. It's very difficult to pilot this kindof work, because you're going to engage outsidebusiness partners ­ and business partners talk toeach other... They work in many differentgeographies.

So if you pilot it over here, and don't pilot it overthere, they don't understand those kinds ofdifferentiations the way you might as an enterprisecompany. You really have to be able to demonstrateto your people where the goal line is, why this is adifferent goal line than just, "Well, we're going toreorganize." This isn't about reorganization. This isabout a new philosophy for doing coverage, and ifyou can't wrap your head around that and tie it toyour corporate goals for growth, then it's difficult toget this change made.

JF: Yes, this isn't something you think about, as yousuggest, half­heartedly. This is a completelydifferent change of mindset, philosophy andstrategy. And if you're going to do it, I think it's likeall things in life, isn't it Rich? If you're going to do it,do it to the best of your ability and give it everythingyou've got. If not, why bother?

RB: And it's not that you can't do it in a country orthat you can't do it in a region. But if you're going todo it, you have to do it top to bottom inside thatorganization to make it work. It's not that you can'tdo it in SMB and not do it at Enterprise. Of courseyou can, you can segment it and find the placeswhere in your company this will work for you. Butwhen you decide to go this direction, you go all inthat segment for the right reasons and that's why ittakes some readiness assessment. It takes thealignment of the executives. It takes getting thefirst line management team prepared. You don'tjust read a book, send a couple of people through alittle bit of preparation, and say okay we're ready togo now!

JF: I like the book very much Rich. It’s timely! Iwanted to ask you, now that it's published and outand you stand back looking at it, you must do so withan enormous amount of pride?

RB: Well, I am. But I will also tell you that I do it withan enormous amount of humility. I'm sitting in myoffice and, just like in yours, I have 75 sales books onmy shelf and for the majority of them, I know theauthors personally.

I'm not any smarter today than I was yesterday,because I published this book. And I'm not anysmarter than any of these other people whopublished their books. But at the same time, I'mextremely proud of the work that went into this, andthe amount of experience that it took from a lot ofpeople working with a lot of clients, to be able to pulltogether all of the work that's embedded in this, andI'm very excited about the future of where we cantake this to help our clients grow their business.That's really what I'm excited about. And we haven'tcrossed a goal line ­ we've just really started a race...

JF: I think that summed it up, and I will leaveeveryone with this final thought…

This is a substantial book. Rich Blakeman isn'tsomeone that needed to write a book in order toimprove his status. He is already where he needs tobe and brings all of that experience to bear. Throughthis book, he's given us new thoughts, new ideas ­and it's so refreshing!

Like many people, I get to read a lot of salesbooks. I get an awful lot coming across my desk toreview. And I can say, with my hand on my heart, thisis a genuine book. I've learned a lot, and for that I'mvery grateful Rich.

You can listen to the full­unedited audio version ofthis interview here. n

Find out more about Rich Blakemanand MHI Global here

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016 9

Join us for MHI Global’s new one-day

SPIN® Selling Conversations

workshop and learn how we can help

your sales force develop the skills to

BE READY to lead highly effective

sales conversations.

FROM TOP SALES WORLD

Magazine ReviewThis magazine now has more than 260k subscribers and hasbecome the most popular, most read and most significant salesrelated journal available.

During early 2015 we continued to produce a new edition everyweek but then at the start of Q4 we made the transition tomonthly versions and this has proved to be a very popular deci­sion. The new design and modern look, coupled with even morequality content has resulted in a sharp increase in sign­ups.

If you missed any publications during the year, you now have thechance to visit the Top Sales Magazine Archive and catch up.

T P SALES MAGAZINE

Sales Rep a TSee How You

Top Performeu Can Make E

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Sales Rep a Tpp Top Pepp rformeer

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TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016 13

Michael Nick

Buildinga Sales Strategyfrom Discovery

Selling today is so muchmore difficult than it wasjust a couple of years ago.Why? Is it the economy?Corporations have more

cash in the bank than any other time inhistory, so the answer is likely no.

Is it Wall Street? Probably not, the majority ofbusinesses are not public, and are not required toanswer to shareholders. Could it be saturation or lack of innovation? I rather doubt it, mostly because this is the most

technologically advanced generation ever.Or could it be competition?I thought yes for a brief moment. You see there is

far more competition than ever. The internet,international competition, and always theopportunity to “build it themselves” will slow down,or even stop a sale in its tracks.

Attitudes, opportunities, competition, or justlousy sales professionals all contribute to thedifficulty in selling in today’s environment. I don’tthink there is one single answer to the question.Therefore, I don’t believe there is a single solution tothe problem.

There is no “silver bullet” to sales success. Ittakes a good strategic process, diligence, tenacity,drive, product knowledge, and a little luck. Or maybea lot of luck. The jury is still out. Aside from theadjectives describing the needed personality traits Iwant to begin this discussion on process.

A sales process differs from a sales methodology.

A sales methodology is a formal training program(3rd Party) that is taught to your sales force.Companies like Miller Heiman, SPIN Selling, SolutionSelling, and Sandler top my list of salesmethodologies. A sales process is a series of stagesthat a sale passes through on the way to a close.Each stage should have steps (or gates) that must becompleted before a sale is advanced to the nextstage.

The foundation for a sales strategy begins with agood sales process. The reason for this is you mustcomplete these four gates or steps to begin to thinkabout creating a strategic plan.

1. Qualification – Is the prospect qualified to buyfrom you? (Motivation, Money, Marketingcriteria)

2. Discovery ­ Have your performed discovery toidentify the key issues, pains, and goals?

3. Current State ­ Have you determined currentstate?

4. Solution ­ Do you have a solution that fitswithin the estimated or anticipated budget?

Once you are sure the prospect has met all of the

previous criteria you can then determine a strategyto close the business. The strategy must align withyour stages however. Here is an example of howyour process should drive your strategy.

In each of the three examples the standardcriteria must be met to move from stage to stage,however to really impact a sale you need thestrategic criteria to drive it forward. The standardtasks are the minimum criteria most salesmanagement want to see; the strategic tasks on theother hand can ensure you know exactly where youstand in a sales situation. Building a strategy beginswith great discovery.

Discovery is a key part of all sales success. Mostsales professionals have difficulty with the discoveryprocess especially collecting the necessary data for astrategic plan. This is where a sales methodology canbe very helpful. Sandler for example teaches greattechniques for discovery. The Nine block modeltaught in Solution Selling is very effective too. Theproblem I see with most sales methodologies is theyare very rigid. They teach the way the inventor ofthe methodology intended. There is little room forexceptions.

Sales tools are the key component to building astrategic plan. Each step of the sales processrequires data collection and data sharing. If your goalis to get your sales professional’s to think more“strategic” and less “standard” then your first stepshould be to put sales tools in their hands that willdrive their behavior.

Here are ten steps that need to be taken totransition your sales process to a more strategicapproach.

1. Use a qualification document to determine theviability of the prospect. Ensure you include thedifficult questions right up front. Questions like:Whose budget is this purchase coming from?Who is the final decision maker? What is thebuying process? etc.

2. Implement a high quality discovery program.There is absolutely no substitute for greatdiscovery. You must be sure you collect theissues, pains, and goals along with the cost ofcurrent state or status quo. There is no way toprove value unless you have a starting point.Status quo is the starting point. This is the mostimportant step in strategic planning.

3. Use a status quo report to share the findingswith your prospect. Update the report once youboth have reviewed the results. This documentmust be accurate and accepted by the prospectas the gospel for their current situation. I like toadd graphics like a dashboard to really illustratethe issues and costs of those issues.

4. Extrapolate the current costs over a 3 to 5­yearperiod. This will set up your strategic discussionon tipping points and give your prospect thevision of current state versus future state. Thisis a strategic discussion you will want to have.

5. I suggest you add this next step to yourstrategic plan and dashboard. Add a line chartdisplaying the current cost year over year. Showhow status quo is not free. This will come in

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 201614

Process stages Standard criteria Strategic criteriaQualify Do they meet marketing criteria,

have a budget, and a compellingreason to buy?

Whose budget is going to pay forthe project?

Discovery Identify issues, pains, and goals. Calculate cost of status quo, andcost of decision delay.

Due Diligence Provide references, site visit. Use a TCO to compare status quoto your solution, to a competitor.

Michael Nick

handy later when you will want to overlay valueand debt service.

6. Demonstrate your value and establish goalsagainst the current state. Here is where you willwant to paint a vision for the future. A strategicplan must include what the future state will looklike including cost reductions, revenueimprovements, and possible cost avoidances aswell as risk aversion. Add your value points toyour graph showing cost over time versus valueover time.

7. The biggest part of strategic planning for salesprofessional’s is having the ability to spell outwhat you have learned, and provide a roadmapto the future. In this step you must be able toreport the issues, pains, and goals, yourprospect has agreed with you on. Calculatecurrent cost and future cost, along with cost ofstatus quo, and cost of decision delay. Nextarticulate the future and what value (economicimpact) that future has on the prospectsfinancial health. Your strategy must includeinformation on direct impact and corporateimpact. All of this information should bedisplayed on a dashboard for presentation anddiscussion. You may consider a ValueHypothesis document.

8. A strategic plan must not end with thepresentation of a Value Hypothesis. You mustthink like your buyer and provide insight intowhy buy now, and why from you. Being marketsmart and product smart just isn’t enough intoday’s B2B buying environment. You need tobe able to distinguish yourself from thecompetition. Make yourself unique for thebuyer. Be ready to do a side by side TCOcomparison with status quo and competition. Infact, I suggest you build it out for your prospectbased on the value propositions you havearticulated in the previous steps. If you are the

seller who created all the documentation onissues, costs, values, etc., then line item yourvalues and align status quo to you, then leave ablank to add the competitions information. Ifyou have done this correctly, your value shouldfar exceed the competition.

9. A major part of your strategic plan must includethe investment. It is critical that you have usedreports in each of the previous steps in yourprocess. Each report you provided to yourprospect ensured they agreed with the valuehypothesis you presented (current and futurestate specifically). If you did not get buy­in, oragreement as to the value of your deliverables,then you are in for a rocky negotiation.

10. Finally overlay the investment on the graph thatis displaying current costs and value. By addingdebt service, it will show how costs willcontinue to rise, value will continue over time,and debt service will become either a smallerpart (ASP software for example) of the pictureor disappear entirely (Purchase out right).

Creating a strategic plan must include a great deal ofresearch too. I suggest looking at financial trendsand benchmarking data for comparisons andreporting. The more you know about your prospectthe better off you will be. I also suggest you do somedue diligence on the buyer’s persona. This meansunderstanding what is important to your buyer, howare they compensated, who influences them, andwhy they would buy from you, what is theirmotivation?

A strategic plan is not the silver bullet, but it willhelp you succeed in the future of selling. n

Michael Nick is an author and CEO ofROI4SALES. Find out more by visiting here

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016 15

theme across all cultures, ages, roles andgeographical borders...

People are, quite simply, scared of what otherpeople will think of them preventing so manyopportunities from occurring.

They are frightened of not being enough whichfeeds into:

l a fear of rejectionl a path of massive procrastination l a lack of authentic connection andl a level of personal stress and anxiety.

It is one of the biggest saboteurs to sales success (yetmost think it is because they can’t close a deal orovercome an objection!).

My question is ‘have you ever stopped to considerwhat is so stunningly right with who you are and whatyou offer?

Have you ever considered ‘What is so flawed aboutknowing and believing you are the right person at theright place at the right time for your role?’

If not, it’s worth taking a few minutes to thinkabout it!! Like right now!

By you living with this illusion that you don’t quitehave what it takes to be in your role, that perhaps youare an imposter, that perhaps you might get caughtout for not being enough, due to any number ofreasons ­ age, gender, experience or any otherperceived limitation you choose to use and cover up:

l You run the risk of becoming a “yes” person whenyour buyer wants someone to speak their truth.

l You run the risk of polarising people because wecan all sniff inauthenticity a mile off.

l You show a level of discomfort when asking thosehard questions.

l You might be seen as weak by your buyer as aresult of the mask slipping and your lack ofconfidence with authority peeking out.

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 201616

Imight have toyed with the idea a long time ago,but soon realised it was going to be exhaustingand serve no one, especially me. So when you

read my words, hear me speak, experience mycoaching or sit opposite from me when I sell – whatyou see is what you get! Imperfections, scars, wartsand all and I’m now OK with that because mystrengths and commitment to you will outnumber myweaknesses every single time...and we need both tobalance ourselves out.

With the ongoing sales psychology work that I dowith sales teams in the UK, NZ and Australia, (where Iam I hope, a beacon of hope ;)) there is a common

Hang on, am I supposed tobe this super successful,sales guru/expert/authority who knows whatshe wants in the world, is a

beacon of hope for salespeople and salesleaders and puts on a mask to show thatshe has it all covered?

I Forgot To Be Who I Was Supposed To Be

Bernadette McClelland

l It might mean you agree with something you haveno idea about because you don’t want to be seenas having absolutely no idea! (Ever laughed at ajoke and someone said ‘what did they say?’ andyou had to admit you were laughing at somethingyou didn’t even hear or understand? Awkward!)

l It might mean you compromise your personalvalues or your business’ values because youbelieve backing yourself might scare someoneaway.

Basically, it means you are being someone you’re notand that weakens you, your spirit and your personalbrand.

But what if you forgot to be who you were‘supposed’ to be?

What if you dropped the pretence of beingsomeone you weren’t?

What if you forgot about measuring yourselfby someone else’s yardstick, lost the attachmentto what your perception of other people’sthoughts really were and just got on with life andbusiness?

We don’t need to be fixed or change who we are– no one is broken. We simply need to adapt some ofour behaviours; the operative word being SOME notALL. We might need to take on board some wellmeaning feedback (about our behaviour, not aboutus!) and make some slight tweaks to tighten or loosenour rules. That’s called growth and innovation;something businesses need more of, and yet theanswer is oftentimes found in their people, at noadditional expense!

By being the real you, would you piss somepeople off?

Yes, but they would probably never have beenaligned to your values in the first place so take themoff that invisible pedestal! Don’t get swept up in theirnarcissism, their ego, their bullying, and their disdainfor you, their constant testing, their lack of respectand the feeling you have adopted that you are notenough.

By being the real you, would you attract peoplewho shared your views, your values and your voice?

Definitely, and this would strengthen your level ofconviction and self belief even more!

Our customers know when someone is real,especially in today’s competitive and transparenteconomy, and they will cut you some slack if youshow you are there to serve them.

Inauthenticity is not sustainable. You might beable to put a front on for a while but when pressuresarise, social situations crop up or relationshipsdeepen, then people’s true colours will show throughsoon enough. People will either trust you more, ortrust you less as a result. And good business is basedon practicing trust and agreement.

Businesses need people to be sustainable, not justbottom lines.

If you aren’t being you, you are selling yourselfshort. Hedging your bets by ‘faking it till you make it’, isnot fair to you. It is you giving people someone elseto like until you feel it’s safe for them to like the realyou, if you last that long.

In coining, ‘mistake it till you make it’, I believedoing your best work, preparing, learning,researching, thinking differently, asking for help andshowing up as someone who exhibits transparency,vulnerability and humility is the real deal worthy ofbell ringing.

There is nothing more refreshing than to be withsomeone who owns their value, except to be thatperson. To focus on those strengths you know yougive yourself permission to have, as well as beingaware of your weaknesses, will work wonders for all.

If you want people to trust you and lean on youand call you up before your competitor, then as scaryas it is to some and as foreign the idea may appear toothers, it’s time to forget showing up as the personyou think you are supposed to be, and proudly showup as you!

Be Bold and Brilliant! n

Find out more about Bernadette atBernadette McClelland Consulting here

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016 17

Whether you’re selling professionalservices, software or anything inbetween, here are six steps I’ve found

valuable in creating better, more successfulrelationships.

1. Ensure a clear understanding of expectedoutcomes up front

Literally define what success will look like. Mostoften it’s a number – but do you agree on what thenumber should be? Do you agree what you’re evenmeasuring, and in what intervals they will bemeasured? How quickly do you (or they) expectsuccess will take?

This is a case where lots of people assume – they

assume the other side expects the same thing, theyassume the client will be reasonable even if resultsdon’t come in as high as expected. Better to getthose specifics on the table up front. Even if youdon’t do that in the contract phase, ensure it’s a partof your kick­off and early conversations.

2. Ensure a clear understanding of the internalwork required to achieve success

Too often customers buy something and expectresults to magically happen without their input. Theyexpect marketing automation to be….automatic.They expect agencies to deliver without requiringinput, review, feedback.

When these misunderstandings occur, I blame

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 201618

How to train your customers: Six steps to better relationships & outcomes

I’ve addressed in previous columns how buyers should follow certainguidelines and best practices in how they select and manage their vendors,consultants and agencies. But it goes the other way as well. Consultants,vendors and agencies who don’t set clear expectations and “train” theirclients & customers up front are more liable to experience friction andfrustration down the road.

Matt Heinz

the seller, not the buyer. It’s the seller’sresponsibility to make clear up front what will berequired to exceed objectives – including input, timeand resources from the customer. Too often theseller is afraid of losing the deal by exposing howmuch work will be required internally, or now trulycomplex a solution is to implement and achieveresults.

But if you win the deal only to ultimately lose anunhappy customer later, was it worth it? Better to beclear (and establish credibility that you know yourstuff at a detailed level) up front.

3. Ensure a clear understanding of the expected &necessary timeline to achieve results

When you buy something, there’s often a level ofurgency behind the results you need. Of course youwant the results now. Sometimes that’s possible,sometimes not. Really important to make sure thecustomer knows how long it will take to dosomething successfully.

If they’re looking for a different answer, it mightnot be because they have unrealistic expectations –it might simply be because they don’t have all theinformation they need to know what it will actuallytake. This is your opportunity as a seller to educate,which only serves to make you look smarter andmore confident as the right decision for the buyer.

4. Escalate any concerns, frustrations or questionsimmediately

I highly recommend that sellers bring this up andreinforce it often at the beginning of a relationship,to ensure clear lines of communication and toensure that your clients know you mean it. You mayhave to force your buyer to voice a negative orconstructive opinion early on, but make sure youaccept that and make the necessary adjustments toget back on the right track.

If frustrations fester, they can create long­termproblems and perceptions, sometimes without the

ability to get back into a productive state. Bring upthe “hard” conversations early, don’t hide behindemail or unrealistic expectations that they will “goaway” if you just ignore them. They may go away –but only after you’ve been fired.

5. Ensure a clear understanding of standardboundaries (with exceptions)

This goes especially for service organizations. Youwant to please the client, but that doesn’t meanfive­minute response time for emails on a Saturdaynight. There will occasionally be emergencies andfire­drill situations, but those should be theexception to the rule. If you start responding overweekends, you’ll train your buyer to expectresponses on weekends. If you want to preserveyour personal time, respond Monday morning andtrain your buyer to either 1) ask the question onFriday, 2) escalate in the rare condition that it’surgent, or 3) wait. Most things can wait.

6. Insist on a regular meeting and communicationstructure

The cadence and depth will depend on what you’redoing, but a regular rhythm of scheduledcommunication is important. Could include weeklystatus meetings, Friday afternoon written reports,Trello boards, whatever. Just decide that up front,be explicit about changes made during theengagement, and keep the lines of communicationand updates going.

When you have separate sales and accountmanagement teams, these best practices areparticularly important to ensure expectations setbefore the sales are fulfilled after, and that serviceexpectations are met as well.

I’d love to hear your best practices and horrorstories relative to these tips… n

Matt Heinz is President Of Heinz Marketing.Find out more by visiting here

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016 19

In the hands of a master composer, theseassembled notes can tell a compelling story. That’sthe same with building a business case for frontline

sales manager (FSM) development.

Foundation: Four main reasons to invest infrontline sales managers

l FSMs are the linchpin to performance: They havethe biggest leverage effect in any salesorganization, based on their span of control.Additionally, they have to navigate multiplepriorities at the same time, across three oftencompeting dimensions ­­ customers, business andpeople ­­ in a constantly changing and complex

environment, sandwiched between leadership andthe sales team.

l Coaching can increase win rates by 9%: Coachingis not a required capability for individual salesprofessionals, but it is the key leadership capabilityfor FSMs to develop salespeople’s untappedpotential. Our CSO Insights 2015 SalesManagement Optimization Study shows thatcoaching, closely connected to the sales processand methodologies, can improve win rates forforecasted deals by 9%.

l Shifting the FSM’s focus: As sales leaders shifttheir focus more towards what’s coming into thepipeline (see CSO Insights 2015 Sales ManagementOptimization Study), FSMs have to shift their focusas well to the early stages of the customer’sjourney, to prospecting and creating newopportunities. Furthermore, FSMs also have towalk away from only measuring results tomanaging the right activities and coaching therelated behaviors throughout the entirecustomer’s journey.

l Forecast accuracy is key to sales effectiveness:Organizations with higher forecast accuracy havebetter revenue plan attainment (2014 MHIResearch Institute Sales Performance andProductivity Study). The better the forecast, themore focused an organization is on the deals theycan win, and the deals they want to win (e.g.,resources, investments).

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 201620

Building A Case for Frontline Sales Manager Development

If I were to play a note on an instrument, you wouldn't immediately classifyit as music. Even several notes, played at random, would still just be noise.It's only when notes are assembled into a specific arrangement that theycan properly be called music.

Tamara Schenk

Additional components: key influencers, datain context and current FSM maturity

Based on the four main reasons to invest in FSMs,three additional ingredients are required. A group ofkey influencers and early supporters must be created.Ideally, this group will consist of salesenablement/training, sales operations, and HRprofessionals as well as a few high­performing andinterested FSMs. The reasons for FSM developmentas detailed above must be connected to theorganization’s context by mapping the businessstrategy to the current sales execution plan. This willhelp identify strengths, gaps, and weaknesses.Additionally, the organization’s current FSM maturitylevel should be assessed to establish a starting pointfor development and to identify priorities. The CSOInsights FSM Maturity Model can provide guidance.

Composing the Business Case

Just as a piece of music has structure, so does thebusiness case for prioritizing FSM development. The"right" structure depends heavily on the audience andsetting, in this case, the sales leaders' personalities andpreferences and the organizational context in whichthe case is being made. However the case isstructured, it needs to answer these questions:

Why should we reprioritize investments? Theanswer to this question connects the dots betweensales strategy, current sales challenges, ongoingstrategic initiatives and the FSM assessment resultsand conclusions. Bringing data in the organization’sspecific context, that’s the key challenge here.

In what are we investing? The business case mustprovide at least high­level details of where salesleaders are being asked to invest and what will bedelivered. For many organizations, this is a roughoutline of an FSM development program (modules,sequences, content, etc.) that is based on the initialassessment and connected to the organization’schallenges.

How much do we need to invest? Sales leadership

will need to know how much they are being asked toinvest in FSM development. Most organizations find ithelpful to break this down into an average per FSMper year. Details on annual investments can be foundin the CSO Insights 2015 Sales ManagementOptimization Study. These investments should also bemapped to the expected results.

How will we develop and deliver the program?What combination of e­learning, m­learning (mobilelearning) and classroom training will the programoffer, and how much time will FSMs need to spend intraining per year? Additionally, how will theseprograms be developed and delivered – with internalresources, with partners, or completely outsourced?

How will we measure success? Metrics has to bedefined for both the expected behavioral changes andthe business results. For example, if the initialassessment determined that coaching needed to beformalized and the related coaching capabilitiesdeveloped, then coaching must be measured, e.g.,coaching time, frequency, purpose and quality. Then,the expected business impact, such as increasing winrates, can be measured and put into context.

How will we get there? Not only is a commonvision of success required; sales leadership also needsto be shown how they will reach their destination.The roadmap should outline the differentdevelopmental phases for each of the different FSMtarget groups, including pilots and roll­outs acrossadditional regions and business units.

Logically, it makes sense to invest in FSMs, asthey are the linchpins to sales performance.However, sales leadership's natural bias towardinvesting in individual sales professionals is a hurdlethat must be overcome. This requires a compellingbusiness case composed of research and a thorough,current state analysis that shows sales leaders howreprioritizing investments can help them reach theirbusiness goals. n

Tamara Schenk is Research Director at CSOInsights, a division of MHI Global. Visit here

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016 21

Maybe it’s time for your sales organizationto look at the best predictor of success:hiring and retaining salespeople with a

high degree of emotional intelligence. Dr. Reuven Baron, an expert in emotional

intelligence, defines EQ as an “array of non­cognitive capabilities and competencies thatinfluence one’s ability to succeed in coping withenvironmental demands and pressures.”

And let’s face it: Sales is competitive anddemanding. That’s why the most effectivesalespeople possess a high degree of Sales IQ(knowledge and expertise) and Sales EQ, the abilityto handle pressure in an ever­changingenvironment.

There are three emotional intelligence skills tointerview for and seek in your next sales candidate.

#1. Assertiveness. This is defined as the ability tostate what you need nicely. Salespeople lackingassertiveness tend to go along to get along, and thatoften shows up in the budget and decision stage ofthe sales cycle.

For example, a salesperson asks the prospectwhat they’ve set aside in their budget for theirproduct or service. A common answer is, “I have noidea. Just put something together.” The non­assertive salesperson goes along to get along, andinvests hours writing a proposal for a prospect that

CEOs and sales managersalways are looking for theone or two things that willset them apart from thecompetition. They invest in

innovation and new products; they meetand talk about branding and marketing.

22 TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016

Three Ways Sales EQ Improves Bottom-Line Sales Results

Colleen Stanley

may not be willing or able to invest in his services. They present the proposal to the prospect ­­

only to hear, “Hmmm. This is more than I want toinvest.” Chalk up another practice proposal lostbecause of lack of assertiveness. The salespersonwas unable to state what she needed in order toinvest her valuable time in writing a proposal. Whatshe needed was to figure out if this prospect waswilling to write a check to solve his problem orachieve his goal.

Sales managers emphasize meeting with all thebuying influencers, but a salesperson that isn’tassertive enough to ask for that meeting winds upwriting another practice proposal. The salespersonknows what to do, but lack of assertivenessprevents them from stating what they need. “Ms.Prospect, we’ve had our best results when we meetwith this title, this title and this title. Can you helpme get those meetings set up?”

Lack of assertiveness dramatically affects salescultures. Non­assertive people tend to be “salesvictims.” Everyone is taking advantage of them.They always have a bad territory, bad boss, badfriends and bad life. No one is taking advantage ofthese folks. Their lack of assertiveness turns theminto business doormats and whiners.

#2: Impulse control. This is the ability to delay aresponse or reaction, and to put in the work to getthe reward. It’s the antithesis of instantgratification.

Poor impulse control creates poor timemanagement. The instant­gratification salespersonshows up to the office without a plan. And theywaste time: It’s easy to waste at least one hour aday due to lack of calendar blocking and action itemlists. That’s five wasted hours per week, 20 hours ina month. Gee, is there a possibility that more salescould be achieved with 20 additional hours in amonth?

Effective salespeople possess the EI Skill ofdelayed gratification and plan their weeks. Open uptheir calendars and you will see to­do lists, calendar

blocking for account management and proactivebusiness development.

Instant gratification affects pre­call planningbecause there isn’t any. The low impulse controlsalesperson chooses to apply the “wing­it” salesmethodology. He shows up at the meeting notknowing who the incumbent is, and has not createdcompelling questions or customized valuepropositions. The sales call goes downhill quickly.No preparation, no sale.

#3: Self­regard. Good sales managers invest thetime to teach their team ways to identify and accessthe elusive decision maker. Then at the next win­loss analysis review, the sales manager discoversthat the salesperson still is defaulting to meetingswith non­decision makers. The reason: Thesalesperson lacks the confidence to reach out to thereal decision maker.

The low­self­regard person has masterednegative self­talk. “This prospect will never see me.I won’t know the answer to a question ­­ theprospect will think I’m stupid.”

This salesperson has the sales knowledge, solack of results is not because of hard selling skills.The root cause for poor sales results is lack of self­regard, which prevents him from executing the hardselling skills.

Lack of self­confidence also creates status­quosales cultures. People with low self­regard don’t likereceiving feedback on their performance andgenerally get defensive when hearing ways tochange or improve. As a result, no one gives themfeedback because of their emotional response. So,no one gets better and “good enough” becomes thesales organization’s theme song.

Hire for Sales IQ and Sales EQ. Soft skills doproduce hard sales results. n

Colleen Stanley is the founder and Presidentof SalesLeadership, Inc. Find out more here

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016 23

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Christian Maurer

Where you might expect causation (CRMinvestments improve sales performance),you will not even be able to see a positive

correlation. There is less data available on spending on sales

training. If sales training followed the general trendof corporate training over the last few years, there isno positive correlation to be found between thattrend and sales performance either. Although thereare studies (e.g. CSO Insights) reporting somepositive correlation between sales training and salesperformance improvement. But it is only for a small

Whether you plot theevolution of quotaattainment over the lastfew years (CSO Insights) oryou prefer to plot sales

forecast accuracy as a metric to expresssales performance and compare this withthe trend of spending on CRM systemsover the same period of time (Gartner), youwill be in for a surprise.

What‘s the Matter with Sales Performance?

percentage of firms which seems not significantenough to break the overall pattern. There is otherdata available (Objective Management Group)showing that on an aggregate level, despite massivetraining investments, capabilities of sales people, incertain domains, have even decreased. Furthermore,there is an abundance of anecdotal evidence thatgeneralized sales programs have a low yield ofperformance.

Hypothesis

It looks like sales leaders are doing thesame thing over and over again(investing in systems and generalizedsales programs) and expectingdifferent results (higher salesperformance). This is Einstein’sdefinition of insanity. Einstein alsorecommends some remedy: “Noproblem can be solved by the samelevel of consciousness that created it.You must learn to see the worldanew.”

Is there a way sales leaders cansee their world anew? Karen Flaherty,in her contribution “StrategicLeadership in Sales’” in “The OxfordHandbook: Strategic Sales and SalesManagement” sees a necessity for a‘systems’ perspective rather than a‘best practice’ approach to salesleadership.

‘Best practice’ approach

The ‘best practice’ approach is at the heart of mostsales training content and sales technology. These‘best practices’ are deducted from studies showingpositive correlation between particular approachesand improved sales results. To be consideredstatistically relevant, these studies aim at having ahigh number of respondents from a wide industry

spectrum and with a high geographical diversity. Inmy view, studies conducted in this manner identify‘most commonly used’ practices, which is not thesame as ‘best practices’.

Selling being very situational, the question thenis: How well do these ‘most commonly used’practices fit in a particular context? Frank Cespedesin his book “Aligning Strategies and Sales” reports ona finding about star performers changing employers.Despite staying in the same industry they never got

back to the performance level theyhad with their previous employer. It isestimated that 50% of theperformance of sales people dependson the context they are working in.‘Most commonly used practices’disguised as ‘best practice’ initiativesare therefore less successful thananticipated.

The ‘system’ perspective

I personally use ‘system thinking’ toget a ‘system perspective’. The lackingpositive correlation betweeninvestments to improve salesperformance and the actualimprovement of sales performancecan be seen as being on the patternlevel in ‘system thinking’ terms.Beneath this level we find the‘structure’ level. Implementing salestraining programs and tools can be

considered as initiatives changing the design on the‘structural’ level.

Improving sales performance requirestransformational initiatives (the behavior of salespeople and sales leaders needs to change). Thishappens on the ‘mental model’ level of the ‘systemthinking’ model. The ‘system thinking’ model is oftenillustrated with an iceberg model. The ‘mental model’represents the part of the iceberg deepest in thewater. Figuratively speaking, it is dark and very cold

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 201626

“Sales is a

totally differentworld, isn’t it?

There arepractitioners

applying ‘lean’concepts to sales

and marketingorganizations

producingimpressive

improvements ofresults. ”

Christian Maurer

if you dive down there. So it is no surprise thatleaders hate having to dig that deep forunderstanding and breaking ‘undesired’ patterns.

Often applied ‘system’ thinking level bymanagement

Many leaders do not even go to the ‘pattern’ level.They remain on the ‘event’ level (the visible part ofthe iceberg) and react directly on the events theyobserve. When they detect ’undesired results’ ofsales performance, their standard remedies are:either fire sales people or sales managers, investingin mostly generalized training programs for the salespeople or investing in new sales toolsto be used by the sales people. Salesmanagement is rarely considered insuch initiatives; leaving them theoption to continue doing the same oldthing. The only way for such initiativesto become sustainable is though theactive involvement of sales managersas coaches. This cannot be achievedwithout enabling sales managers tostep up into this role.

‘Lean’ principles to the rescue

‘Undesired results’ (UDR) is a termused by ‘lean’ practitioners. The ‘lean’ conceptcomes from manufacturing. Sales is a totallydifferent world, isn’t it? There are practitionersapplying ‘lean’ concepts to sales and marketingorganizations producing impressive improvementsof results. Instead of reacting to events withinitiatives which take long time to implement andshow rather mediocre results, they focus oncontinuous improvement of the daily work of sellersand sales managers. With the help of systemsthinking, root causes of UDR’s are detected andbased on these insights, theories of improvementsare defined. These theories are then immediatelyput in practice and their effects are being measured.

They focus on small chunks having the mostimmediate impact on performance and being easilyimplementable. This leads to early success which is agood motivator for any transformation initiative.

Applying the ‘lean’ approach to sales makestrainings specific to the particular sales force (inopposite to generalized sales programs). Learninghappens in digestible chunks. Fighting the forgettingcurve of standardized sales programs is not needed.Each puzzle piece added is easily adopted into thedaily work of sales managers and sellers becausetheir positive effect becomes immediately visible. Ifno improvement can be seen, the puzzle piece isimmediately reworked or considered as not causal to

for the addressed UDR. Organizationsapplying the ‘lean’ concept arecontinuously experimenting which isconsidered a prerequisite to attaincausation between behavior andresults. Implementing a lean conceptis less risky than investing in the nextorganization wide generalized salesprogram or a new sales tool. Youdon’t need to wait months or evenyears and to invest huge sums ofmoney hoping for a positive outcomeat the end of the initiative. As thefigures show, the likelihood for this tohappen is rather slim.

“Hope is not a Strategy”

In 2009, Dr. Akande, an economist, scholar, and theDean of the Business School at Webster Universityin St. Louis used the phrase "Hope Is Not a Strategy"as the title of his letter to President Obama. Themain goal of the letter was to advise PresidentObama how to bring life back into the economy ofthe United States. Could this also be true forbringing back life to sales performance? n

“It is estimated

that 50% of theperformance of

sales peopledepends on thecontext they areworking in.

”

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016 27

Find out more about Christian Maurer andThe Ultimate Sales Executive Resource here

The truth is most Sales People do not takecharge of the Sales Process. The reallyworrying thing is – they think they do.

Perception vs. reality

When we ask workshop participants to complete apre­course questionnaire one question is designed tosee how confident they are about taking charge ofthe Sales Process. In most cases their answer reflectsa high degree of confidence that they are in charge.But when we start working through an opportunitythey are currently working on (we always use real liveopportunities in our workshops) it becomes clearthey are often not in the driving seat and theopportunity is by no means as certain as theythought.

The questionnaires have their place but in realitythey only demonstrate the mismatch betweenperception and reality. There is only one way toeffectively identify if you are really in charge of theSales Process and I will come on to that later.

It happens to the best people

I just started working with a large internationalsoftware company. Because of the growth in digitaladvertising, they have developed a new softwareproduct that will help marketing managers toimprove the effectiveness of digital advertising andimprove ROI. The best Sales People have beenrecruited, and the Business Unit Manager hasexcellent contacts in exactly the sort of companiesthey need to target. This is the way the Sales Processhas been going so far.

The Business Unit Manager uses his contacts toget a first meeting with the Chief Marketing Officerof the target prospect, a company already spending alot on on­line advertising. The CMO of the prospectcompany then invites a few relevant people along tothis first meeting ­ this is when things start going outof control.

The CMO of the target prospect usually invitesalong people who are already managing on­linemedia space buying and using competitors’ software.

How the meeting generally goes

My client goes in with their team and makes apresentation to people they have never met before.The people invited by the CMO ask fairly aggressivequestions about our client’s product because theyare comfortable about the product they are using.They don’t get to meet the people who may have realpoints of pain.

They don’t get to ask questions about thestrengths and weaknesses of the incumbent and theydon’t get to find out who is really in the BuyingCentre. But, because the prospect CMO has arelationship with my clients Business Unit Managerthe team goes away with complimentary feedbackand some to­dos. Then they go back to the office andenter the opportunity in CRM as qualified with aprobability of 30%. But there is no commitment to anext step from the prospect and over the next fewweeks interest fades.

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 201628

Is Your Sales Process Under Control?

If you are not in charge ofyour Sales Process yourforecast will be no morethan guesswork and youwill lose opportunities that

you thought you were going to win.

Phil Kreindler

Their pipeline is full of these supposedly qualifiedopportunities that are going nowhere. The salesforecasts are unreliable and the Business UnitManager keeps having to go back to his internalinvestors and explain why the new business unit isfailing to meet crucial milestones.

And this is how our workshop went

Everyone in the Sales Team along with the BUManager came to the workshop. The Sales Teamstarted out being pretty confident about their abilityto achieve their targets but the BU Manager wasmuch less happy. Understandably because he wasresponsible for a team of carefully chosen SalesProfessionals who were going to meetings withexcellent prospects but not closing deals.

We started looking at the Buying Centre in a keyopportunity, one with a high probability of winning. Iasked ‘who in the customer organisation has themost to gain from your product?’ The answer?Category and Product Managers. Then I asked ifthese were the people they were talking to? Theanswer? No.

This served to make the Sales Team think hardabout exactly what they were doing and we startedto make progress.

Then I asked them if it might not be better to startwith a one­to­one meeting with the CMO of theprospect and explore the challenges andexpectations of his internal customers.

How the Sales Process will go from now onAfter the one­to­one meeting with the CMO the

Sales Team will interview the people with the most togain. Then they will replace the old “shooting­in­the­dark” presentation with a customer­specific one:

1. Point of Departure Our understanding of whereyou are today and what needs to be improved.

2. Point of Arrival Where you want to be in 18months.

3. Transformation Roadmap a step­by­step plan forhow to get from the Point of departure to the

Point of arrival.4. Business Case based on the questions asked in

the interviews.5. Project Approach The next steps to validate the

proposed solution and the value proposition.

Our client has started to put this fully customer­specific approach in place. By taking charge of theSales Process I am confident that the team will turnthose excellent leads into real sales.

Time for an opportunity review

I mentioned earlier that you can use questionnairesto try and assess how confident a Sales Team is thatthey are in control of the Sales Process, but theydon’t really work unless the team and the Salesleader have an unusual degree of self­reflection. Sowhat can you do?

My recommendation is a detailed OpportunityReview with a well­qualified outsider. You can pay aconsultant to do this or you may be able to ask aSales leader from somewhere else in yourorganisation. You need someone to take a criticalview of how your Sales Team is currently working in areal opportunity.

In my experience, more often than not, the reviewwill reveal that the Sales Team is far less likely to be incharge than they think. This is a good starting pointto get the Sales Process under control.

Questions you can ask yourself that will revealhow in control you are

l Are your Sales forecasts at least 80% accurate?l Do you often make presentations without

knowing the needs of most of the people in theroom?

l Could you describe what ‘in control’ looks like inyour organisation? n

Phil Kreindler is the CEO and Founder ofInfoteam. Find out more by visiting here

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016 29

Who is the biggest competitor in your salescycles? If you are like most sellers, theanswer is undoubtedly not who, but what:

Status Quo — AKA “No Decision”. Why doorganizations, and their leaders, stick with thecurrent state — no matter how bad that may be —rather than embrace the opportunity to enhancetheir success? The answer lies more in how thoseorganizations are sold to than in how they buy.

“Delays transform into lost opportunities, andadhering to the status quo is frequently unjustifiedgiven advantageous alternatives. Still, individualspersist in seeking default no­action, no­changeoptions.” (“The Psychology of Doing Nothing” byChristopher Anderson)

In a quota­driven, “what have you done for melately” sales culture, it is easy to lose perspective ofthe true PURPOSE of selling — to solve aproblem/pain. The outcome of a sale is 1) a problemresolved for the buyer and 2) revenue for the seller.That is the value equation in its simplest form, yet itis easy for sales professionals to be overwhelmed by

the pressures around them, like securing a contractsignature for the week/month/quarter. When aseller falls into this trap, the tendency is to rush thesales cycle and race into solution pitches beforehelping the buyer understand there is a problem thatneeds to be solved. When the value equation startswith “no problem/pain”, the end result is inevitably“no solution/gain”, and thus no contract.

Sales professionals are often missing the mark inthe discovery phase of the sales cycle— this is thephase where the buyer is trying to understand whythey should make any changes, and why they shouldmake them now.

Most B2B sales professionals approach thediscovery phase laser­focused on gatheringinformation about their prospect. This is anabsolutely critical component of discovery, andsomething you should do to the point of exhaustionbefore meeting with the prospect. But, if weconsider the buying journey, the buyer’s goal at thispoint in their process is to gain a betterunderstanding of their need(s), and in many cases,

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 201630

How to Put an End to Status Quo Wins

Do you ever feel like your deals are heading down the track toward success,but then somehow end up not closing? What is happening between point Aand point B that is causing your deals to fall apart? In this article, we aregoing to look at the most common issue causing deals to miss the mark:Status Quo Wins.

Jay Mitchell

into the solution.The best way to bring insight to your buyers is to

help them gain a more accurate reality into the painstheir underlying need is causing. There are threecategories of pains that sellers need to activatewithin the buyers:

l Business pains are typically associated withsymbols, such as % and #. They aremeasurements including: declining customersatisfaction levels, deteriorating departmentreputation, lost market share and higheremployee attrition.

l Financial pains are typically associated withcurrency symbols such as $, €, £ and ¥. Theyoften are directly correlated to the businesspains, and include performance metrics likehigher operating costs, lower revenues andincreased customer acquisition/retention costs.

l Personal pains are typically associated with thesymbols :( , :) and !, and this is ALWAYS the painthat matters most to a buyer. Examples include:reduced compensation/bonus/equity payouts,increased threats to job security and reducedpersonal time/quality of life.

Targeting buyers with characteristics and attributesthat are battling the underlying challenges andissues your solution addresses is foundational. But,as sales professionals, it is equally, and maybe evenmore fundamental that you embrace theopportunity to help the buyers recognize theyeven have a problem in the first place. It is difficultfor your buyer to choose you as a solution whenthey do not believe they even need a solution. Allthe signs may be pointing to it, but unless you enablethem to internalize the true pain of their currentstate, Status Quo will continue to win. n

Jay Mitchell is the President of Mereo.Find out more by visiting here

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016 31

determine if they even have a true problem thatneeds to be addressed. They are asking themselvesquestions like: “Do I have a need?”, “How is that needimpacting my organization/my team/me personally?”and “Who is impacted by NOT addressing that need?”

Knowing these are the questions a buyer isconsidering while interacting with you, the seller, itis critical you take this opportunity to help them gaina better understanding of their need(s), and theconsequences that need is having on theirorganization, their team and them personally.

We can crystalize the objectives for thediscovery phase of a sales cycle to three steps:

1. Identify the critical issues the prospect is facing.2. Surface and intensify awareness of the pains

associated with those issues.3. Help your buyer internalize the pain.

If you take these three steps, you will help yourbuyers realize Status Quo is an unacceptable optionfor them to consider. And although you may nothelp them choose your solution over anothertangible competitor, you will undeniably establishand deepen your trust and credibility with thebuyers as you help them discover a path towardsuccess.

There is also a physiological element to StatusQuo winning that needs to be considered. In hisbook Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and theHuman Brain, Neurologist Antonio Damasio says:“Scientific research is clear: without emotions,humans are incapable not only of rational thought,but are rendered unable to pull the trigger on eventhe simplest of decisions.”

In other words, HOW you sell (you behavior) isjust as important as what you sell. Arguably themost significant driving force for every buyer isselfishness. Through dialogue, if you help the buyergarner insight into their real needs – not just thesymptoms they are too often experiencing daily –they win, and thus you win. In fact, you are likelypositioned to win the pursuit without even getting

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 201632

Coach: "I need you to throw the long bomb on everyplay. Every time just toss it as far as you can. I don’tcare where, put it up."Player: "Uh, coach, shouldn’t we mix it up, try tomove the ball downfield, be selective, run strategicplays?"Coach: "Nope. I want lots of passes. It’s a numbersgame. Another Player: "Coach, we have a better chance ofscoring when we run good quality plays." Coach: "The more passes you throw, the morechances you have of scoring. Give me passes!”

Baseball Spring Training starts in a couple of months(not soon enough for me!) I’ve played and coachedbaseball, follow my Kansas City Royals obsessively,and can bore you with what is happening on everypitch during a game. I can say with confidence thiswon’t happen in any team’s dugout:

Manager: "Guys, I want you to swing at every pitch.The more times you swing, the better your chances."Player: "Well, uh, coach, if a ball is out of the strikezone, we’ll either miss and strike out, or it won’t be asolid hit."Manager: "It’s a numbers game. You’re not gettinghits if you’re not swinging the bat. And for everymiss, just tell yourself you’re that much closer to ahit."

I’ve been a sales rep for large corporations. I workedphone jobs in high school and college. I’ve been asales manager. I still sell every day. I’ve trained tensof thousands of sales reps in hundreds ofcompanies. I can say, WITH CONFIDENCE, that thisDOES happen in some form daily:

Manager: "Get out there and pound those phones.Make those calls. I need (pick a number) calls perhour."Rep: "Uh, boss, wouldn’t it make more sense to putmore emphasis on the quality of the calls?"Manager: "The important thing is calling. The moretimes you dial, the greater your chances."Another Sales Rep: "If we invested a bit more timeon our pre­call planning and doing research,

Football bowl and playoffsare here. I can pretty muchguarantee NO coach issaying this to hisquarterback:

Prospecting and Sales is NOT a Numbers Game. It’s a Quality Game

Art Sobczak

wouldn’t we be able to place more focused, relevant,value­filled personalized SMART calls, tailored to theperson and organization we’re speaking with?"Manager: "That wastes time. It’s a numbers game."Yet Another Sales Rep: "How about talking topeople other than the ultimate decision maker to getuseful info? Like other people in the department, orusers of our product? Or executive assistants?Wouldn’t this help us put together better, moreinteresting opening statements and voice mails?"Manager: "You’d place fewer calls. I need numbers."Rep: "When I invest a bit more time on a call,questioning, identifying needs, going deeper into aproblem, my calls are more consultative and I’m ableto offer a better solution. These calls take longer."Manager: "And you’re not hitting your calls perhour."Rep: "But I’m hitting sales quota."Manager: "Doesn’t matter. I’m measuring calls perhour."

The first two scenarios are a bit absurd. Sadly, thelatter happens. Too often. Maybe you’ve seen it. Orare living it.

A few points:

l Sales is NOT just a numbers game. It’s a qualitygame.

l Activity, for the sake of activity, indeed givesnumbers. It also contributes to burnout, poorcalls, bad morale, resentment of managers, andturnover. (And by the way, bad calls are not like atree falling in the woods that no one hears. Badcalls do damage your brand and company image.)

l The most important number at the end of a day,week, month, or year is sales and resultingprofits.

Just think if the "throw it up against the wall and seehow much sticks" model was used by otherprofessions: Surgeons. Airline pilots. Cooks.

Bankers… crazy notion, right?So why is this "numbers game" thinking in sales

so prevalent?As one wise manager told me, "Counting calls (or phone time) is the easiest way to

quantify what a sales rep is doing every day. However,putting a focus on quality means investing a lot moretime in people … one­on­one coaching sessions, trainingmeetings, monitoring calls or recordings, really rolling upyour sleeves and developing people, understanding whysomeone produces at the level they do, identifyingwhere they can get better, then helping them get there.Just counting calls is ‘managing by computer screen orCRM’."

I know that some managers will violently disagreewith me and this article. I don’t care. I would askthem if they are too lazy to work with their people. Iwould also encourage them to take a look at theirown operation and ask what is really best for theirpeople and department.

So is there a "right" number of calls in a day, orper hour?

How would I, or anybody outside of yourorganization know that answer? It’s like whensomeone asks, "What is a good direct mail responserate?" One percent? Three? Ten percent? Actually, itcould be anything. The REAL answer: anything thatmakes the most money over time.

And that could be your answer for the number ofcalls as well.

(Note to Sales Reps: Please don’t forward this toyour manager with a "See, I told ya so. Look at whatthis guy says." There still is a definite correlationbetween being on the phone and making sales.Doing research and making quality calls AND highactivity are not mutually exclusive.)

Numbers are used to measure activity. Focus onmaking it quality activity and you’ll see the numberyou want the most: increased sales. n

Art Sobczak is the CEO and Founder ofBusiness By Phone Inc. Find out more here

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016 33

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 201634

A Win for the Whiteboard

Intuitively, you probably know that when it comesto telling a story that prospects remember, onetold with words alone won’t measure up to one

that includes visuals. In the academic world, this isknown as the Picture Superiority Effect, a principlethat, by my count, has been validated by more than adozen studies.

One of those studies found that peopleremember only 10 percent of what they’re told justtwo days after hearing it. But, if you accompany that

story with images, that recall figure jumps to 65percent.

But you probably don’t need a study to tell youthat great visual storytelling can make a difference inthe areas of engagement and information recall,both so vital to great customer conversations. Butthe question is, what kind of visuals actually have thegreatest effect on your sales interactions?

In other words, how do you make sure you’remaximizing the power of the Picture SuperiorityEffect?

Recently, I teamed up with Dr. Zakary Tormala, aprofessor at the Stanford Graduate School ofBusiness, to put that question to the test. For theexperiment, more than 700 participants were askedto watch a selling message delivered in one of threeonline videos. Each video included the exact same

Not all visual presentationsare created equal; here’sthe research to prove it.

Tim Riesterer

visual story ranked the best?According to Tormala, the whiteboard­style

presentation outperformed the PowerPointpresentations by a statistical significance of morethan 10 percent across all of the followingcategories:

l Retention – Participants demonstrated higher,greater and more accurate recall.

l Engagement level – Participants found thewhiteboard story more thoughtful and engaging.

l Validity – The whiteboard presentation wasfound to be superior in trustworthiness andexpert credibility.

l Quality – The whiteboard story measured higherin clarity and was shown to be more compellingthan the PowerPoint presentations.

l Persuasiveness – Participants in the whiteboardcondition indicated they were more likely toshare the information or persuade others.

Maybe the most telling discovery: The impact of thewhiteboard story, unlike that of the two “static”presentation conditions, was felt by those whowatched it even days after viewing the story. In fact,the study found that participants, two days afterseeing the presentation, were significantly morelikely to say they’d changed their own behaviors as aresult of what they’d seen and heard.

So, what does this experiment really mean? It’ssimple: If you want to make the impact you need tomake in your customer conversations, it’s time todrop the clicker, turn on the lights, pick up a markerand deliver a more engaging and memorable visualstory. n

Tim Riesterer is the chief strategy andmarketing officer at Corporate Visions.

Find out more here

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016 35

story told the exact same way. The only difference? The visual used to support

that message. The three types of visuals were:

l The traditional PowerPoint technique, usingsimple bullet points and stock photography.

l The “Zen” PowerPoint technique, which featureda large, metaphorical photograph with onesymbolic phrase.

l A presentation using whiteboard­style visuals,delivered as though a presenter were drawing itlive in front of the audience.

After viewing the presentations, participants wereasked a series of questions and told to retell whatthey’d heard. This sequence was given immediatelyafter participants viewed the video, then repeatedtwo days later.

Retention, engagement level, validity, quality andpersuasiveness—these were the areas the questionswere designed to measure for each video. So, which

TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 201636

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TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 201638

Factor: Why Customer Experience isthe Big Thing in Salespresented by Barbara Giamanco

How to Coach Salespeople Like a Propresented by Dave Kurlan

The Sales Management Disconnectpresented by Steven Rosen

Be Bold and Win the Salepresented by Jeff Shore

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TOP SALES MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016 39

The 2015 Top Sales Academy wasour most popular yet. Ourdecision to provide recordedsessions only was fully vindicatedas some of the presentations havebeen downloaded more than10000 times. This was our 2016program …

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