selling value in sales

In a volatile business environment, sales has to adapt.  It is not just reaction to change that we need, it is anticipation of change. That means that a variety of thinking skills are needed:

• The ability to analyse what is happening to customers and what it means for their suppliers,
• The ability to create new scenarios and solutions for them,
• The ability to reflect and learn from failure and consolidate on success.

Whenever do we get time to think about selling value in sales?

When times are hard, the pressure is on to do, do, do.  But if you are doing the wrong things, that only upsets customers more.  Sales management in the 21^st century is a great deal about leading and coaching the professional development in salespeople that customers admire.

Productivity is always important, but efficiency comes after effective courses of action have been identified.

Has the sales function adapted effectively to commoditisation, globalisation and recession as fast as our counterparts in purchasing?  Supply chain management has become a sophisticated science.   The purchasing profession has increased its strategic value over the past twenty years.

Meanwhile, sales has been pulled in two directions.

At one end of the spectrum, highly qualified account managers forge strategic plans with major customers, and are supported by cross-functional  international teams.  At the other end, tele-sales or even streamlined customer portals provide the low-touch, easy-to-use access to commodity purchases.  Although some companies still seem reluctant to embrace low-touch channels, they must be an option for customers.  Then, of course, there are the exceptions to all general rules.  Solution and commodity purchases can co-exist in the same customer, creating challenges for consistency of approach.  Also, customers can and will change.

Individual customers are not static and the mix of customers cannot be static.  The first step may be to analyse today, but tomorrow needs movement.  Even in recession, when the focus of time investment is on customer retention, there must be some investment in customer acquisition.

The initiative to develop customers showing signs of growth is also valuable. I can remember in the recession of the 1980s doing an awful lot of cold calling.  Of course, it was better than expecting customers to call me.  But not surprisingly, it was an awful lot more successful when I started trawling the business news, looking for companies who were moving, merging, winning contracts or changing senior managers.

From small scale prospecting to large scale account planning, success depends on providing value to customers when they find themselves doing something differently. Alternatives are always considered in the face of change.

Forget those smooth lines on revenue growth charts and start looking at scenarios for chunks of change.  Anticipating change leads to more productively targeted activity.  Analysis, imagination and reflection are building blocks that contribute a great deal to the effectiveness of Sales DNA. They need both space and time in everyone’s schedule which will result in a greater incidence of selling value in sales.

A note from Peter O’Donoghue about our guest blogger – Beth Rogers

Beth is a leading sales academic and author of the book ‘Rethinking Sales Management’ which you can get from amazon. Beth is also the programme manager for the MA in Sales Management at Portsmouth University – The premier European postgraduate degree for Sales Managers. Beth adds an amazing breadth of experience and expertise to the blog and I thank her personally for contributing. Why not connect with Beth and learn more about sales through her linkedin  page – here

This is a fantastic sales force motivation video by Daniel Pink on the changing impact financial rewards have in motivating people. His key phrase is “Science knows and business doesnt apply it”.

Sales Force Motivation Research

This research may surprise you because it draws on cutting edge  research that shows that in many cases the ‘carrot or stick’ method of motivation is at best innefectual and at worst will act as a disincentive  to your sales force motivation team.

Watch the full 18 minutes – you will be glad you did.

More about sales training in our blog. If you know other stuff about Sales Force Motivation, glad if you could share in the comments below.

Most people in my sales training or sales consulting can do a lille bit better when defining their sales process. It isno surprise, because there is not much attention generally paid to teacjing salespeople about sales processes in companies.

Very often when there is no sales process in place the salesperson might end up wityh one or more of the following types of  situations by default:

• Prospect Selling: The customer leads the sales process and the salesperson follows.
• Experience selling: This is the process of hoping that past experience will lead to future success.
• Catch-up selling: The competition directs the sale and then you have to play catch up all the time
• Bad sales manager selling: The sales manager enforces the “do it like I did” method.
• Situational selling: The sales person is “winging it and praying” on every call.

If this type of thing happening in your company then there is a huge amount of things you can do to take control of your sales process and dramatically increase your sales effectiveness:

• Spend time understanding your marketplace and why and how people buy. Traditional sales tactics focus on developing the sales approach with very little understanding of why people buy. Don’t fall into that trap and work out what the buying process is.
• Map out graphically the process that most people go through when they buy from you and ask yourself at every point – “How can i ethically and positively influence this step to ensure the sale hapens?”
• Don’t be afraid to put some tough qualification questions in beginning part of your sales process such as “Do you really think ???????? will achieve what you are looking for?”  or “why are you looking at this now?”
• Spend time understanding the motivations of your buyers as well as the process they go through.

Todays top performers in sales spend much of their time understanding how people buy as well as the more traditional ways of selling such as closing techniques and objection handling.

My view on time management, activity planning and delegation took  a dramatic upheaval when I went through an exercise I found in a book by Dan Kennedy called “Time Management for Entrepreneurs”. I guarantee that your view of your own personal worth will never be the same again either!

Are you productive all of the time?

I guarantee that you are not. At best you are actively productive one third of your working day. That is engaged in activities that are going to make you money as opposed to firefighting. If you think you are productive 1/3 of the time then use that number in the example to follow. Be honest as you are only cheating yourself if you don’t. The rest of the formula works on the basis that there are on average 220 working days per annum and this is our ‘money making days. If yours is less than this because of extended vacation or lifestyle aspirations then again be honest with yourself and reduce this number.

An example of the formula is:

Target Earnings Example For Someone wanting To Earn £50,000

Your Example:

If your situation doesn’t lend itself to this way of calculation then make it work! For example take the total profitability of your business directly attributable to you and use that figure.

Hey, it might not be precise, but it’s a starting point that you can use to quickly evaluate what you are doing with your time.

The 60 second coaching tool that the video shows you is by far one of the most powerful sales coaching tools available to motivate and inspire sales staff.

60 Second Sales Coaching For Sales Managers, Sales Directors and Team Leaders

How To Motivate, Inspire and Propel Your Sales Staff To Maximum Efficiency

1) Opening Statement

I want to Talk to you about———-The Area Of Performance

2) Observation

I have noticed that ————–Describe The Performance or Behaviour

3) Impact

The Impact is ——-Describe The Impact on the Job being done.

4) Request

From Now On I would Like You To——–Describe How To Improve Performance Or Behaviour

Example:

1 . I have received your last weeks call statistics and would like to talk to you about your call numbers.

2. I have noticed that after 3 months with us most telesales staff are making 80 calls per day and You are currently making 50

3. The impact to the telesales teams sales targets is quite significant as 30 calls per day usually brings us 2 sales of around £500 each, so we are losing around £1,000 per day as a result.

4. What I would like you to do is work with me to develop a personal plan of training and coaching we can commit to that will get you to your 80 calls per day.