Thoughts on Sales Transformation

The rewards of hard work and continuously investing in training

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 23 May 2022 15:54:48 GMT

There may be a little self indulgent content in this post, but I make no apologies

A couple of weeks ago my son and some of his schoolmates completed the Ten Tors Challenge, walking 35 miles unaccompanied across Dartmoor. His team came in smiling after over 19 hours walking and sleeping two nights on the moor, carrying all their food and kit. It's an achievement to make any parent proud.

But it got me thinking about the rewards of investing in training. They had spent alternate weekends over the last 18 weeks training for the event, sacrificing their other interests (yes, grassroots football; and yes, grassroots rugby) to do so. It was all about incremental improvements, starting with modest <10 mile walks rising to a full rehearsal.

Do you give up your evenings or weekends to better yourself? To train to be incrementally better than you were last time you completed some activity for work? Is suffering the pain of trying something new, because it might help your performance at work, something you've embraced or something you've avoided?

Do you make yourself proud by investing in yourself? Do you make your boss proud of your self improvement? Perhaps most important, would your parents recognise and be proud of the effort that you are making to train yourself to higher levels of competence and capability?

Recession? Downturn? I'm not an economist but...

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Tue, 26 Apr 2022 21:28:15 GMT

If there is a downturn on the way what should a sales leader do first?

I'm hearing first hand very conflicting things about the state of the global economy. I'm not an economist, and don't worry this won't be an article to bore you with economic arguments. But it will look at the first thing any sales leader should do if there appear to be economic headwinds, either at the macro level, as some claim now, or at the micro-level in their own business, industry or ecosystem.

So what is it: double down on keeping existing customers happy. Do all the things you should always be doing, so go the extra mile, impress upon every department in your business that every client is precious and needs to be 'loved'.

Dust off those account plans (what's that, you don't have any? Maybe give me a call then) and remember that most businesses survive recessions by maintaining revenue from existing customers. New customers may still turn up, but will be fewer and further between. If you definitely still need them, it really is time to get an outbound strategy in place rather than relying solely on marketing for lead gen.

I'm not convinced there will be a downturn never mind a recession. Almost all my clients across all industries are absolutely flat out busy, and I have never been so busy since starting my own consultancy. I thought the days of 3:45am starts were well behind me since my children grew up! I didn't realise that sheer workload would get me back there. I hope you are flat out too and loving your business as much as I am.

Enjoy the long weekend in the UK if you're reading this here.

[Image from https://www.thewealthadvisor.com/ ]

Electric vehicles for sales people?

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 08:10:01 GMT

Can you make electric vehicles work for your sales team?

Slight change of tack for this week's thoughts. With the buzz around electric vehicle launch after electric vehicle launch coming almost daily now, I've been thinking about when to make the switch myself and when sales team fleets could reliably switch.

I would have already bought an electric car to be honest, but where I live for several months of the year I need a 4x4, and due to the size of the family I also need 7 seats. I'm sure large electric SUVs will eventually make it onto the market, but the Tesla Model X while desirable has build quality and overpricing issues in my opinion.

So could your sales fleet switch to electric vehicles now? The factors to consider seem to be:

Price/performance of the vehicles on the market
Ease of charging, both at employees' homes and while travelling
Tax, especially if your team still has company cars.

To avoid becoming a full time car reviewer, let's assume the first point is largely dealt with, except for people like me with specific requirements.

With respect to charging, public charge points at motorway services to suit salespeople on longer journeys are largely well maintained and plentiful, but a good electric vehicle will have sufficient range for most sales trips rather than needing to be charged on route. The question mark is whether the destination, the customer premises, will have a charging facility that the sales person can use while in a meeting. Anecdotally I don't think many offices are so equipped yet but I'd love to hear your own experiences if you think I'm out of date.

With regards to tax, I'm not a tax advisor and offer no advice, but the tax advantage of a company electric vehicle over a company fossil fuelled car or even personal car seems to be significant in the UK at the moment. I'm worried how long that advantage will last before a Chancellor feels compelled to act to raise revenue. It is certainly commonplace for employers to be asked to offer salary sacrifice schemes for electric vehicles so that all staff can benefit from the tax advantages, and a number of schemes have sprung up to make this easy for employers.

My feeling is that the recently announced electric cars, some with more realistic driving ranges, will move electric company cars off the green agenda and into the mainstream during 2022.

I shall close by noting that there is no cross reference to my previous post about track day incentives in which electric cars were conspicuously absent...

One minute sales tip - speed of response

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 12:13:36 GMT

One minute sales tip - speed of response to new enquiries

You've got your inbound marketing sorted, am I right? You are inundated with high quality leads so don't need to treat them carefully or with respect to maximise sales?

No? In which case, you'd better look after the few hard-won inbound leads that you do generate as best you possibly can. Which can be measured to give you an RoI. According to close.com and in my experience, if your team phone an enquirer within 5 minutes of them submitting a web form, emailing your sales team or receiving a phone message from them, they are 100 times more likely to accept your call back.

I'd actually go further: if you call a prospect within 15 minutes of their enquiry, they are not only more likely to take your call, but will also still have the browser window open so can accurately tell you their keywords for all important lead source tracking, as well as the project still being front-of-mind and a priority for them. Even better, I have known it happen that the sales rep can call to qualify the prospect, arrange a meeting, hold the meeting, prepare and present a proposal over the next week or two, and still be the only vendor to have responded to the prospect's enquiries by the time the prospect is ready to make a decision on your proposal.

So get your sales team onto a strict rota for responding to inbound leads, then set them an SLA to respond within. And automate as much of the process as possible: do not rely on them checking their email for new leads when they walk out of a meeting, make sure your systems have sent them an SMS alert which they are much more likely to check even if in a rush.

One minute sales tip - Use of language in sales

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 09:17:43 GMT

One minute sales tip - use of language in sales

Two weeks ago I was driving south on the Fosse Way in Somerset on a lovely sunny winter's afternoon on my way home from a really productive meeting with a client. I passed a cider farm advertising "Cider for sale" which got me thinking about use of language in sales.

I advocate using the client's language wherever possible: in meetings and proposals mirror the client's use of language if possible, so for example don't talk about a spade if they've called it a shovel. This isn't as simple as it first appears, as it's not just about appealing to them at the surface but also reprogramming yourself or your team to think in the client's shoes.

Remember, the buyer doesn't want to do a project for its own sake, or to help you sell more cider for that matter. They want to achieve a business goal or outcome, or perhaps want some refreshment.

So when you're writing for business, don't copy that farm's mistake and say that your equivalent of cider is for sale. How about "Refreshing cider to take home" to make the language about the buyer's needs.

[Image from the Dorset Echo ]

One minute sales tip - period end gimmicks

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 12:02:48 GMT

One minute sales tip - period end gimmicks

Today is the end of my financial year in Effective Interim Ltd. Luckily I don't have a plethora of investors to report to, to keep happy and demanding ever higher returns. I answer only to myself. So nothing is ever good enough!

But it happens to every business every month, quarter and annually: financial periods end, and sales leaders are either satisfied with their teams performance or dissatisfied by underperformance, but either way probably want just a bit more.

So should you offer incentives or gimmicks to prospects on days like today at the end of a financial period just to get the deal over the line?

It might work in retail and product businesses, with stock to sell and obvious benefits you can offer.

It might work in certain sales situations where a buyer is not showing urgency in their own business and where you've failed to convince them of urgency already, or where you know there is a competitive problem and you need to secure the sale before a competitor does.

But in general, I'd say that in complex B2B solution sales all you'll achieve by offering a month end deal is giving away margin, sacrificing control of the sale, and looking weak in the buyer's eyes.

So don't do it.

One minute sales tip - What should you reveal on your website about your people

Mon, 24 Jan 2022 08:48:36 GMT

One minute sales tip - What should you reveal on your website about your people

It's an age old dilemma, and sometimes argument. How much detail, if any, should a company reveal about its people on its website?

Some staff will say they don't want to be featured, and refuse permission for their photo to be used (yes, it happens). Some won't care. Those may relate to demographic extremes, and plenty of others won't mind as long as it is in some way helping their employer succeed.

Some employers think it is a mistake to divulge any information on their team for fear of poaching by competitors. I have a strong opinion that only weak employers feel like that. A strong employer won't have any fear of poaching or resignation because they treat their team well, give respect and earn respect. Therefore I encourage posting plenty of information about your team on your website; anyone can get it from LinkedIn anyway these days. So follow the example of professional services firms who mostly get this right, and boast away about the quality of your team.

And specifically for salespeople, remember they will be interacting with more 'strangers' than the rest of your team, so give your prospects a chance to research your representatives before meeting by showing them off on your website. Never just showcase the board, how boring is that and why would a prospect want to know who the Finance Director is but not who the woman that's meeting them tomorrow is?

One minute sales tip - Annual sales kick off meetings

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 07:33:54 GMT

One minute sales tip - annual sales kick off meetings

As promised last week, some thoughts on what makes a good sales kick off event.

2022. The year we put the pandemic behind us and GROW GROW GROW, right?

Well, I'm not going to predict that my kids' sunflowers are going to do any better this year than last year, nor that the pandemic is finally becoming endemic, but I will predict that if you organise a fantastic sales kick off event then you'll see better achievement of target by your team than you might otherwise.

It might not be possible to have a face to face kick off, depending on current restrictions when you operate, but online events can save travel expenses and time, giving you more money to underpin either a keynote at this event or a future event when everyone can travel. Plus, less travel equals more selling time.

Far too many sales leaders and marketers believe a kick off is about conveying data to their team: the company's achievements last year, the business plan headlines this year and therefore what each sales person's target/quota is this year. Impersonal, boring and probably using PowerPoint.

I find that you get the best results from making those formal comms as informal, and incidental, as possible. Make anything backward looking no more than 10% of time on the agenda. Instead, focus on (safely) getting the team together to learn best practice from each other, deliver training that they find valuable to help their sales technique but by far most important to motivate them .

Roleplay

How to motivate a sales team? Refer to last week's blog for one idea. Remember that motivation can strike an individual from any number of subconscious places as well as from incentives; conveying an idea how to increase their average deal size could motivate someone just as much as offering a driving day. Your sales leaders should know your individual sales people well enough to know what to put on the agenda to motivate them.

"Roleplay?" I hear you and your team wail. Maybe get an external expert to help (no, not me, an actor) play a prospect, and the sales leader should observe to deliver feedback alongside the actor afterwards. The single most useful skill to teach subliminally? Active listening. Measure with a stopwatch (or online tools can do it during a Teams meeting) what percentage of the mock sales meeting the sales person speaks compared to the prospect. Get them to roleplay a blind qualification call that you know the outcome they should reach by identifying, probing and listening, but the sales person doesn't at the outset. Then, if qualified in, roleplay the first face to face meeting.

Improvisation

Another useful way to teach active listening is to get a world expert to do it for you. Nowhere is a person more exposed than on stage doing an improv gig where they forgot to listen to the actor delivering the line that should prompt them. I very highly recommend asking John Cremer to deliver his famous half day improv session to your sales team. I've done it before and the results in terms of teaching old sales dogs how to listen are remarkable. Plus, John will make sure everyone has a real laugh, one of the best motivators and best retention tools I've come across.

Sales kick offs may involve other team building events, but alcohol mixed with improv will be more fun than mixed with PowerPoint!

If you focus on motivating you'll achieve more than focusing on delivering formal data. I can't promise growth, growth and more growth to my kids or to your business, but I can promise to help you make it all seem a bit easier and more predictable. Everyone prefers forecasting certainty and reliable growth over uncertainty and feast and famine sales results, so contact me now to transform your sales.

[Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva from Pexels ]

Happy new year - what should a sales leader do first?

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Tue, 04 Jan 2022 08:02:11 GMT

Happy new year 2022 - what should a sales leader do first?

You've had a good break, I hope. You and your team are dragging yourselves back to your laptops at home or in the office and probably making a slightly stronger coffee than usual.

Of course your team need to catch up with each other and gossip a bit, but far too many companies seem to accept that the first working day of the calendar year is unproductive. For some, it will also be the first day of a new financial year, so what's the first step a sales leader should be taking to set the year up right?

It seems obvious to suggest that cold prospecting will be nigh-on impossible on the first day back to work, and I would advise against tarnishing your brand by contacting buyers who aren't ready to talk as it's also their own first day back to work. But existing prospects may be easier to get hold of than usual today, so you could direct your team to follow-ups. My recommendation, though, especially for sales teams who are working remotely, is to introduce some competitiveness to the team - don't let them hide behind the excuse of catching up on email all day, instead set your team a competition with a decent prize for the first to achieve something.

I favour a Red Letter Days type ' Drive a Porsche ' type reward if that would motivate your team, giving a day at the Porsche Experience Centre to whoever achieves the first new logo sale in 2022 - but customise the incentive and reward to your business targets.

More next week on kicking off the year in the right way, looking at organising a sales kick off.

[Header photo from Porsche Experience Centre website , body photo by Anastasia Shuraeva from Pexels ]

1 minute sales tip - Four types of partnering

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 10:24:14 GMT

1 minute sales tip - Four types of partnering

Partnering, sales channels, call it what you will, partnering is an important part of the marketing and sales mix for many B2B businesses.

Partnering can mean a number of things:

A simple referral relationship, which might be one way or
two way, or
A strategic partnership where a partner resells a vendor's products or services, adding value for their customer, and often receiving incentives for sales volume, or even
A joint venture, where two businesses form a jointly-owned subsidiary to offer relevant products/services usually with a cross-selling opportunity into their existing customer bases as well as potential equity value.

And, in my opinion, far too many vendors, especially targeting financial services verticals, grandly use 'partnering announcements' to obfuscate and make grandiose an announcement about a new customer signing. Signing a contract with a customer for them to pay you for your products or services is not partnering, it's normal course of business.

Partnering can open up a world of indirect sales opportunities by leveraging the partners' existing client list and own marketing efforts, but done wrong can simply cost you margin. There are many many details to consider and nuances to explore when setting up a partnering arrangement. For example, it's important when considering introducing partnering as a route to market not to compete with your existing direct sale model, or vice versa. The share of revenue between the vendor and the partner is also crucial to get right: how to avoid pricing your offering above competitors', but retain a good profit margin for both the vendor and the partner? How to incentivise the partner sufficiently that they recommend your solution over a competitor's who they could potentially also partner with. How to manage your partners, because they need nurturing and strategic input just like key accounts... the list goes on.

You know how to contact me to explore this or anything else sales related.

This will be my last blog for a little while due to the Christmas break, have a very good break from work if you're celebrating.

[Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com . Main image from Microsoft.com ]

The science of KPIs

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 16:35:09 GMT

The science of Key Performance Indicators

180m

76m

Four random numbers? No, the 3 KPIs I measure myself on, and one element of credibility I add to help convince prospects.

£180m of pipeline generated for my clients.

£76m of additional revenue won by my clients as a result of my advice.

20 satisfied clients.

24 years' complex solution sales experience.

The ratio of 2.46:1 pipeline to deal is disappointing on the face of it, but in reality not all of that pipeline is closed lost yet. The best performers I help go on to achieve a 90% win rate. I'll just leave that there.

Is the number of clients important I hear you ask? Yes, but not necessarily important to grow it quickly, more important to keep clients satisfied.

What KPIs (and I really mean KEY, so no more than 2 or 3) do you use to run your business? Notice the common theme in mine? They are about impact on my clients, not internal measures of my business.

Clients get it. I received this testimonial from Matthew Westaway of Voyc recently "Thomas helped us prepare for a large sales presentation and transform our existing sales & product materials into a repeatable set of sales enablement materials. Furthermore, Thomas advised us on how to handle the sales process and what to expect in our interactions with the various stakeholders from IT to procurement.

He was generous in his advice and shared numerous nuggets of wisdom. Overall he was a pleasure to work with and quickly responded to last-minute questions until our successful client presentation. We feel privileged to have met him and look forward to working with him going forward."

1 minute sales tip - Do independent consultants need CRM?

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 12:09:27 GMT

Does an independent consultant need a CRM system?

There are far too many CRM products on the market, some better than others, some remarkably expensive, some free. Some integrate well to the other tools you probably use daily, such as LinkedIn, others exist in perfect isolation without a lot of effort.

Bigger companies, those I typically write about here, need CRM. It helps those companies centralise a single version of the truth in terms of contact details, records of contact with customers (and ideally suppliers and advisors) hence helping with compliance, and if used right can help drive growth and revenue.

But many one person companies don't bother with it. They rely on their accounts software, LinkedIn or the contacts app on their smartphone, presumably alongside email filing,

Most CRMs are far from perfect. None that I'm aware of integrate with modern forms of business communication such as WhatsApp, SMS or other instant messaging apps, but they provide very useful functionality, especially around sales pipeline management and forecasting, which even independent consultants ought to be exploiting. You will see an upturn in orders and revenue compared to working without a CRM system. If you aren't benefiting from CRM in your consultancy or larger business, contact me for advice .

[Image courtesy of CRM.org ]

What a view...

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 09:44:20 GMT

Nothing work related, but made me stop and think

I have had the pleasure of working for a new client based in Clevedon recently, and took the chance of snapping a quick couple of photos out of the meeting room window. What a view to work with! Cardiff Bay across the Bristol Channel.

I've had the fortune to enjoy working in some prestigious buildings in many places over the years, notably my own company's office in Totnes and many of the iconic buildings in the City of London - my kids get bored of hearing "I've been there" whenever a TV news reporter is anywhere in the City - but few are as noteworthy for their views as this one.

Maybe I should consider the noteworthiness of the office as an added qualification criteria when agreeing to work with new clients... Or maybe not!

Where have you most enjoyed working?

The merits of interims versus consultants

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 12:35:36 GMT

What would better for your business? An interim sales leader or a consultant?

The challenges you face in your business are probably always numerous but vary from time to time. When those challenges relate to sales, sometimes the incumbent in house team can't find a solution on their own.

So what are the merits of finding an interim versus using a consultant to help? After all, the same individual might be able to offer either approach - me included.

Consultants give you:

Fixed scope, fixed price projects, and thus predictable costs
No perceived threat to your existing team, rather, assistance and advice to overcome the challenge themselves
CPD/training opportunities for your team
No tax or employment issues.

Whereas interims give:

Full or part time dedicated attention
The equivalent of a temporary extra pair of hands to tackle the challenge
The ability to get the work previously done by underperforming members of your team completed to a better standard
The ability to hit the ground running very quickly, rather than needing weeks to recruit and onboard a permanent resource
To overcome possible tax issues, interims now tend to prefer fixed scope, fixed price projects rather than day rate work. This works in your favour including reducing the perceived threat to your existing team.

In sales disciplines, requests for interim roles are surprisingly rare, and consultancy is much more common. Both have their place, and it's worth discussing your challenge with an expert before deciding which solution is right for your business.

Am I alone in preferring Google phones to any fruit-based or other brand?

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 14:28:36 GMT

The Google Pixel 6 & Pixel 6 Pro are released later today

Bit of an off topic geek out today.

Am I alone in strongly preferring Google's Android phones over any other brand or OS? I've owned several Android-powered HTCs, then having seen a family member's Google Pixel 2, switched allegiance to the Pixel 3 XL, which I've been using for 2½ years now. Since then I've bought a Pixel 5 5G which I use for a data connection on the train and away from home, to benefit from the better Vodafone coverage on the railway to and from London than EE can offer, whereas EE is much better for local travel around where I live.

Today, 19 October 2021, the Pixel 6 & Pixel 6 Pro are due to be launched. I have my fingers poised to pre-order the Pro. The leaked features suit me perfectly and I'm due a new phone anyway.

Am I alone in preferring the Google devices and Android OS over the alternatives? Most people I meet seem to be Apple users, a few Samsung. Please comment on this post to tell me why that is. Google's phones offer better value, better customisation in the OS, less tie-in to their ecosystem... I could go on. Why buy anything else?

P.S. I always buy outright instead of as part of a carrier deal. It works out cheaper and avoids carrier bloatware slowing down my phone or new firmware releases.

1 minute sales tip - How to come up with blog topics

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 08:49:54 GMT

1 minute sales tip - How to come up with blog topics, or, Overcoming writer's block

I have been sat in my favourite brand of coffee shop for an hour now, catching up on emails and intending to write this week's blog post prior to spending the rest of the day in a client meeting.

I am rigorous in the way I capture blog topics. As an avid user of Evernote , with it installed on all my devices, whenever inspiration for a blog topic strikes I capture it in a pinned note which I can refer to when I make time to blog. However today none of my saved ideas inspired me. It might be the lingering fog that pervaded the area this morning reflecting my mood I suppose.

So instead I'll tell you how I suggest you come up with blog topics, with three top tips:

Be organised, capture any idea whenever it strikes
Be prepared for an idea at any time, anywhere. Many of my best ideas come while walking the streets of London, just seeing buildings where discussions in previous meetings remind me of topics I could write about which might be useful to some readers
Never seek inspiration at the last minute, never sit at your laptop with a blank screen expecting to write content. Instead, seek inspiration in everyday life. That discussion with your spouse about the brand of coffee you regularly buy at the supermarket could ever prompt a good idea!

It might be time to go back to the counter for another hot drink...

[Image credit unknown - please contact us for attribution ]

1 minute sales tip - should your account management process be the same as your new business sales process?

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 07:47:51 GMT

Should the account management team's process be the same as the new business sales team's process?

No.

Okay, let me expand on that. No, not ever.

Find this format of blog post boring? That'll be to illustrate my point: some approaches to certain things just don't work, and using the same approach to service, manage, nurture and expand your existing customers as to win new logo customers just won't work. Your existing customers don't need convincing of your credibility, whereas your new prospects do. Your existing customers need reassurance sometimes, issues and escalations to be managed, they need to be nurtured to make sure they know your business's full repertoire of services, they can be a source of referrals to sister companies and to others. And your account management team should be growing revenue from existing customers according to the targets you've set them.

Many companies, especially in complex B2B sales situations, need a highly skilled salesperson to build rapport with them, and then extend rapport into a trusting relationship over a period of months. Their technique can be codified into a sales process, but it is extremely rare that the same individual can handle new business and account management - if you've got one hold on to them at all costs! In the same way, it's extremely rare for one documented process to suit both repeat and new business.

What's that - you don't have a process at all? You'd better talk to me .

1 minute sales tip - The merits of having a sales process

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Fri, 20 Aug 2021 08:57:15 GMT

1 minute sales tip - the merits of having a sales process

In smaller businesses in particular, sales leaders and their teams often question the merits of having a documented sales process. Indeed they even question the point of having any sales process.

But it is widely known that high performing salespeople bring in most deals: in fact, in a statistic heavily copied across the internet (e.g. Neil Patel's blog ) it is asserted that 13% of salespeople bring in 87% of revenue. Whether the exact metric is correct worldwide, the 80/20 rule does typically seem to apply.

So why on earth wouldn't you, or your Sales Manager, want to develop a sales process which captures, codifies and documents what those high performers do every day, and hence allowing the rest of the team to copy their successful behaviours? Sadly, in some cases I have literally heard sales managers say that producing a sales process is boring. What on earth does that matter if it helps your whole team overachieve target? Firstly, if you find it boring to learn from the best, you're probably doing something wrong. Secondly, if reaping the rewards of hard work isn't exciting, I'm not convinced you are a natural sales leader.

So go out there, capture the magic of your best sales people, document how they do it, and replicate across your whole team. You may need variants for account managers compared to new business, by the way.

If you're still daunted or don't have any high performers to learn from, get me to help .

[Photo by Christina Morillo from Pexels ]

1 minute sales tip - how to ask for referrals and actually get them!

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 14:28:26 GMT

1 minute sales tip - How to ask for referrals and actually get them!

The most popular topic I speak on - remarkably often - is how to ask for referrals. And there's a good reason for that, they are the best possible lead source. Recently I had the pleasure to present my popular webinar on the subject to The Consultancy Growth Network , and as is so often the case I learnt something new: apparently referrals are four times more likely to order than a cold lead.

Most organisations do not have a systematic process that they have trained their team to use. But it really is so simple to generate lots of leads using referrals. There are two golden lessons you can learn from me:

Remember to ask!
Stop using the usual style of a request for a referral, instead adopt a structured way to ask so that in the moment your trusted contact identifies someone to refer you to.

If you arrange for me to present my 'How to ask for referrals and actually get them' webinar or seminar to your team, you'll see a flood of quality new leads that you'd otherwise probably never have come across. Contact me and it'll probably stay my most popular topic.

1 minute sales tip - Recruiting sales people

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 15:33:51 GMT

1 minute sales tip - Recruiting sales people

[Page icon from Goran Babic on Iconfinder ; sub-image from Pexels ]

Received wisdom is that recruitment is more daunting for the candidates than the recruiter: all the stress and heartache falls on the candidates searcing for, applying for and not hearing back about vacancy after vacancy.

In reality finding the right candidate for your business is hard. Get it wrong and your business can be held back, growth delayed, customers lost...

And recruiting salespeople is very hard. Interviewing them nigh on impossible. They should after all know the product they are selling in an interview - themselves - inside out.

For a founder who has always been his or her business's best salesperson, recruiting a salesperson is the second hardest role they'll ever try to fill, only finding a founder's successor as CEO is harder.

To sort the wheat from the chaff, my recommendations are:

Rigorously compare the CV with the LinkedIn career history, and reject any sales candidate with discrepancies between the two. Attention to detail is essential if they are to represent your company well, so it's the least you can expect from them
Use a one way video interview initially, getting candidates to answer a few set questions. This allows you to compare more candidates from a longer list. Tools like Sparkhire and Workable include this functionality, but videos recorded by the candidate using their mobile phone will do
Only interview candidates you would buy from and that you already consider a good representative of your company
Use structured interview questions prepared in advance so that you can compare candidates, define model answers before you start (or at least keywords you are looking for) and if a candidate omits those keywords or at least the spirit of them, lose them from the process
For complex solution sales roles, use roleplays as part of the face to face interview to assess the candidate's sales technique 'live'. Most especially, examine their ability to listen and ask to see their notes of the 'meeting' they've roleplayed.

1 minute sales tip - How quickly should you respond to an enquiry?

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 11:07:40 GMT

1 minute sales tip - How quickly should you respond to a new business enquiry?

(Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com )

We've all been there: deluged with work to do, and the phone won't stop ringing with new enquiries. Well, I hope you've been there.

I have already written on the subject of who should qualify new leads : always a sales person.

There are many differing schools of thought on how quickly your sales team should respond to new enquiries. In general for complex B2B sales, I have a rule of thumb that has served me well over the years. Your marketing team may well have spent hundreds of pounds of budget to generate the one lead, so don't waste it!

Assuming your sales team are not all in meetings, someone should be picking up the phone to any new lead quickly, I've always set my teams the target of doing it in around 15 minutes , i.e. very soon after the prospect submitted their enquiry. That gives time to research their company a little, look the individual up on LinkedIn, and hence prepare your initial line of qualifying questioning.

This has a number of advantages:

You are almost certainly the first company to speak to them
You look eager, professional (but no, you don't look desperate)
The project or need is still fresh in their mind
You know they were at their desk very recently, so chances are they should be able to answer the phone
Phone qualification is much more successful than on video calls, the prospect is usually more revealing
They often still have their browser tab open and can answer the critical question of what keywords they used to find your company by simply clicking back in the browser. This should always be captured and reported to marketing.

I strongly disagree with the notion of some sales teams that this looks desperate. I have never had a prospect respond negatively to a fast callback; on the contrary, I have heard many positive responses over the years, and have even been told that following the first call, the subsequent meeting and then proposal have reached the buyer before any other company they made an enquiry to at the same has even got back to them. For complex solution sales, the buyer's window for decision making is often surprisingly short, so reacting like this compared to your competitors can give you not only a first mover advantage but a sole mover advantage: wouldn't you prefer to bid without competition?

On that point about responding unless there's a meeting, I recommend your sales team should have a rota to cover new enquiries, and the individuals who are on each day should not be organising long meetings or calls to keep themselves free.

Tools I find invaluable for digital marketing and sales collateral

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 08:55:13 GMT

Indispensable tools for producing sales collateral and digital marketing content (yes, including this blog post)

There are thousands if not millions of blog posts on the best tools to use for online marketing - Google's giving me 21.6 million to the query "marketing tools" but 2.7 billion to marketing tools . I don't want to enter that competitive arena so instead am just sharing what tools I use to produce sales collateral (19+ million results) and digital marketing content.

For blog images, I either create my own using Canva or use free images, most often from Pexels including the image in this post. Of course we all have to be careful of licensing restrictions hence using tools which are explicitly free.

There is an invaluable site for creating presentation-ready screenshots of websites, software or whatever else, and its mercifully easy to use to create very high quality images which I routinely use in sales presentations: Mockuper was used to create the image of one of my training presentations on an iPad at the top of this blog. It has recently reduced the range of background images available but remains a joy to use.

Out of kilter with the rest of this post, I do have a paid licence for Paint Shop Pro , desktop image editing software that is easy to use and great value. I don't need to use it very often for blogs, but routinely use it for extracting client logos from their website background or whatever when I'm preparing presentations.

Finally, an under used way to nudge the audience of any presentation is the word cloud, and I use Wordart to create them whenever I can justify one in a presentation. They somewhat contradict the adage that images should be used in presentations to reduce the tendency for the audience to read instead of listen, but can be powerful if you get the right combination of words and your key word or two are sized correctly.

I'm sure there are dozens of other categories of tools I could have included, but I wanted you, the hard working sales professional, to see a handy list that you can use and benefit from today without having to do any learning.

Just for the avoidance of doubt, as implied above, yes I think every B2B sales professional should be contributing to content creation for their business. They listen to customers and prospects every day and should therefore know more about what their future customers might want to read about than any marketer can hope to do.

1 minute sales tip - Dealing with a Prospect who is Hiding or Stuck

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 15:46:16 GMT

1 minute sales tip - Dealing with a Prospect who is Hiding from your Sales Team

Every salesperson on the planet has been there: a prospect with whom they were having a sensible, professional, courteous and potentially rewarding interaction suddenly stops responding to calls or emails.

There are a multitude of reasons why they do it, sometimes genuine and sometimes due to reluctance to keep engaged with you. It usually happens after you've sent a proposal to the prospect.

In my experience there are three primary causes:

They've decided to select another vendor and don't want to break the bad news to you - this is especially common amongst the reserved English buyer;
Something has gone wrong in their internal process, such as the buyer you're dealing with never actually had the authority to commit, or they've lost or misunderstood their budget so are engaging in internal dialogue but don't want to admit as much to you, or they didn't like any bids and are re-opening the process to additional vendors, so will string you along in the meantime; or
They are genuinely busy and are not prioritising the project at the present time.

The solution is the same, first you must get a response from them. I suggest using one of four techniques:

Approach your friendliest contact in the prospect's organisation, and ask them for advice or to get the key contact to get in touch with you
Escalate to the key contact's boss (this is risky for obvious reasons)
Fall on your sword, in other words admit that you made a mistake even though you haven't, to save their blushes. I suggest sending an email worded such as "I must have misunderstood, I thought you had intended to [make a decision, or whatever commitment they'd made] by [date]. Please can you explain the process from here on?"
Threaten to "close their file" if you don't hear back from them. You must then be willing to do so, but this will flush out the buyers who are stuck due to the third cause above. And you can only really use this approach once during a sales process with any one prospect.

Of course, all this can be avoided if you have agreed the process of producing a proposal in the right way with the prospect. For advice on how to do so, contact me .

1 minute sales tip - Using Credibility to your Advantage

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 06:53:19 GMT

1 minute sales tip - Why using credibility can create unbeatable competitive advantage, and more sales

I start most of my new business meetings with the assertion that selling is first and foremost the art of conveying more credibility than your competitors. Because buyers tend to make their decisions emotionally and post-rationalise for their own or their boss's sake, it is up to your sales team to offer them the necessary credibility that they can use to justify their emotional decisions.

Credibility can take many forms: a salesperson seeming to know the buyer's business and/or industry; relevant case studies or testimonials; awards and market recognition; press coverage. Ideally all of the above.

If you document your credibility to make it evidence for your audience and useful to your sales team, you will win more orders, even against your biggest competitors, when you are not the cheapest bidder or when aspects of your bid are weaker.

For help to improve your process for conveying credibility, contact me now.

Are we facing a productivity crisis?

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 14:19:31 GMT

Are we facing a productivity crisis when all staff return to work?

(Cartoon licensed from CartoonStock )

So in the UK all staff can return to their workplaces over the coming months.

I am worried that when we can finally allow our teams back into offices they will of course want to catch up with each other: around the water cooler, kettle, reception, everywhere else they were able to gather before the days of Teams and Zoom. Impromptu longer lunch breaks to see each other for a pub lunch. Hearing each others' news, views on the pandemic, a whole season's storylines in popular soap operas, the last year's sports results, and so on. And I don't for one minute think any good employer would want to curtail that. It will be good for everyone's mental health.

But could it result in an appreciable negative impact on productivity? I am worried it will. People who are gossiping aren't doing their jobs, or earning revenue. It will be temporary, hopefully a few weeks after offices and other workplaces reopen every permutation of groups of colleagues will have had the opportunity to bump into each other and catch up on each others' news.

There's an unquantifiable risk that the likely future model of hybrid remote/office workers will result in a productivity drop on days in the office for the same reason. Many people have observed that despite the interruptions of childcare and household chores, their productivity is better at home thanks to working when they would otherwise commute, and reduced interruptions from the phone or colleagues passing their desks.

Salespeople are likely to want to get out of home and into the office to see their colleagues too. Who can blame them, some of the most social animals we employ have been cooped up for a year, give or take. I would encourage sales people to travel to the office for a few days after lockdown ends to re-bond the team and ensure your operational team continue to trust them to sell wisely.

But there is a strong likelihood that sales people will also have itchy feet to get back on the road to visit prospects. This is the point at which you, as a manager of salespeople, have to carry out a delicate balancing act. Any 'real' prospect should be visited and cultivated - your competitors will be. But as always it would be a big mistake to let salespeople travel to weak prospects, it would waste time and expenses. As a sales manager, make sure your team can evidence that they have applied your qualifying process rigorously, specifically for every lead that they want to visit in the first few weeks or even months after they start travelling to clients again.

If you need help to strengthen your qualifying process or sales management in the next few challenging months, contact me for advice.

1 minute sales tip - who should qualify leads first?

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 18 Jan 2021 15:25:29 GMT

1 minute sales tip - Who should qualify a new lead first, marketing or sales?

Every lead generated by marketing comes at a cost, possibly a considerable cost. One of my businesses used to be very pleased with metrics that marketing generated about 80 leads per month at a cost of £ x , and after qualification the cost per opportunity was over £800. £800! But as the average first contract value to each new client was well over £100k, the business worked. And continues to work.

It's a question I'm asked a surprising amount though, "Which team should initially qualify new leads?" There is only one answer I'm willing to entertain, and I'm emphatic on this. The sales person who is likely to own the lead later must qualify it. There are three primary reasons for this:

Efficiency. 'Marketing qualified leads' as some supposed-sales experts call them are never fully qualified, so sales people have to re-qualify and repeat many questions to understand the client's needs. Eliminate the inefficiency by having salespeople do the first qualifying call.
Disclosure. This is the most important one. On the very first interaction that a prospect has with your company, they will be open, answering your fact finding/information gathering questions honestly and with their guard down. On all subsequent calls or meetings they will have their guard up, believing the vendor is by then in 'sales mode'. The context, guidance on how to win and other titbits that can be gleaned from that first call are invaluable, and must be done by a competent sales professional. With all due respect to marketers, they can't glean as much value. Just train the sales team to capture lead sources accurately during the call!
Customer experience. Related to my first point, having a single call is clearly a much better use of the prospect's time than two, especially as there is likely to be repetition between them. Offering you the least useful tip of the day, take every opportunity NOT to annoy your prospect ��

1 minute sales tip: the Sandwich Technique

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 09:53:39 GMT

Improve your coaching of salespeople using the sandwich technique (no food bribes involved)

(Image courtesy of PCRM )

Last week I wrote about keeping sales people's spirits up in the dark weeks at the beginning of the year, and as promised this week I'll write about the sandwich technique.

No doubt you've heard about it before; rather than criticising or even giving constructive feedback in isolation during a one to one feedback session, sandwich your core (possibly negative) message that you want your sales person to learn from between two compliments/praise/reassurances.

A good, experienced sales person may spot it and know you're doing it, but nevertheless it still works wonders. Remember we are aiming for subconscious, psychological reassurance here. It doesn't have to be smooth or worthy of a politician on a Sunday morning chat show, it just has to leave the individual feeling secure, confident and thus best able to go out and sell your wares on your behalf.

For the avoidance of doubt, it is unnecessary to hold this sort of meeting over a buffet lunch ��.

2021 minutes sales tip - only kidding, happy new year

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 04 Jan 2021 08:56:57 GMT

Happy new year, but what will it hold?

(Image courtesy of the BBC )

As we all watched the stunning images from the BBC of the drone and firework display in London this year, presumably at home with only our own households, some people may have wondered what their medium-term future holds. Will 2021 be like 2020?

From a sales perspective, how can we equip our teams to thrive during the uncertainty that at least the first part of the year will hold?

My starting point to answer that question has to be by making a hopefully uncontroversial assertion: that the first few months of 2021 are likely to be very similar to the second half of 2021; lockdowns by another name, worry, homeworking and trying to stay positive.

That last point is the most relevant to sales professionals, and as sales managers we must strive to keep individuals in our teams feeling mentally strong and performant. A sales person who is feeling down or lacking confidence rarely sells as much as one who is feeling strong. I recommend not talking anyone down in the dark weeks of January in any year, but especially this year. For the next few weeks, find a way to praise them rather than criticising poor performance, and if you must convey negative messages, use the sandwich technique , which I'll blog about next time.

1 minute sales tip - Handling Objections

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 16:15:18 GMT

Handling objections is about getting to the truth

On balance, do you (or your sales team) believe prospects tell you the truth?

According to Hubspot's 2021 Sales Enablement Report 35% of salespeople find handling price objections to be their biggest obstacle to winning more deals. I contend that some of those 35% aren't being told the true objection by their customer.

It's my experience and my strong recommendation that you need to ask a prospect for "any objections" at least three times and possibly as many as five times before they reveal their true hesitation that could stop them buying. You can test this with the classic "If I find a way to overcome [objection x] for you, would anything then stop you proceeding with us?"

For example, price or being "too expensive" is an easy one to fall back on, and may be the truth, but it can also be used as a convenient excuse to end a conversation quickly which the prospect perhaps doesn't want to have. It may be that the true objection is that the price exceeds their personal budget authority, and they don't want or can't be bothered to seek approval from someone more senior. If you knew this was the true objection, you'd handle the solution very differently, and as a result your chances of a successful close would be very different.

Only once you've asked a number of times and the prospect stops revealing new objections can you assume that one of the latter objections is actually their biggest blocker to ordering. Armed with all their objections, it's a whole lot easier to overcome them each, and close the sale.

If this rings true, I'd appreciate a comment or feedback.

1 minute sales tip - The power of referrals

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 23 Nov 2020 09:06:32 GMT

The power of referrals for businesses

I've had an incredibly busy few months, which serves as explanation rather than justification for my silence here on my blog. I have been working flat out for a wide variety of interesting clients who all had one thing in common: they found me to assist with their sales transformation challenges via my network; in effect, via referral.

All of my clients are thriving this year, I don't know any who aren't flat out dealing with buoyant demand. Many of them have had training from me on referrals and that forms a big part of their demand generation strategy. Only ten days ago I gave training on how to ask for referrals to a couple of talented teams at Software Solved , where I am non-exec Chairman. The very same evening, I received an unsolicited referral from a former patron into a potential new client for Software Solved. The salesperson I gave the referral to spotted the irony that I'd been first to get one after the training.

If your referral strategy relies more on luck than judgement or consists of a wait and see approach instead of proactively seeking referrals, get in touch with me for help.

The difference between account management and account development

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 21 Sep 2020 18:05:39 GMT

The difference between account management and account development

Since homeworking became the norm how many of you have attended formal meetings on Teams or Zoom dressed like I did recently?

More pertinently, how many of you have such a good relationship with your customers, and know that your account managers have such a good relationship too, that you could joke with the customers about your shorts under the desk?

Account managers on high value, long term contracts should know the individuals they are dealing with so well that they can get away with cheeky moments like that. It's inherent, and a skill that should be cultivated in those who have it.

Account managers hand-hold existing customers, accepting new orders, changed requirements, handling issues and complaints and so on on a month to month basis. They are likely to secure low-ish value repeat business, new orders from the same team and be essential to protecting existing revenue.

Account developers on the other hand are very different. They should be farming client accounts for new opportunities outside the existing relationships, seeking referrals into different teams, departments, even different group companies. They are closer to new business salespeople than account managers, but exploiting the strength of an existing relationship. They tend to bring in higher value orders, sometimes new logos, and be essential to exploiting the strong relationships cultivated by your account managers.

If you don't have both skill sets on your account handling team, why not? They should be targeted separately as components of your overall demand generation targets. If you don't know where to start, contact me, or if you do, I'd appreciate a comment to hear your approach to separating these functions.

1 minute tip - how frequently should you blog?

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 07:43:33 GMT

How frequently should you blog?

I have just returned to my desk from a week long staycation - but I thought the stock photo my blog software provides of palm trees was for once vaguely relevant.

My time away from my laptop got me wondering this morning. Should I feel guilty for not blogging last week; have I hampered my own sales lead gen performance by not posting; should I have prepared a post before I went away?

My quick conclusion was no. Blogging is not the be all and end all of lead gen or even digital strategy, and if everything else has to give while the person responsible is away, why should a blog matter more? It clearly doesn't, even if it's perhaps more visible to the outside world. Stick to an average of weekly blog posts, with the occasional gap, and I think you'll be doing fine and maintaining your reach.

If there's one thing you don't want to let slip as a manager of salespeople, it's followups. Before each member of your sales team go on holiday and as soon as they return, make sure that you know their workload so that you can gently enquire about the status of followups on the key tasks; not every client will be on holiday simultaneously and this year of all years, August should not be a write off for any salesperson.

1 minute tip - should sales people be bloggers

Mon, 27 Jul 2020 07:31:30 GMT

Should you ever expect sales people to contribute to your blog?

It's a question that is seldom asked: should sales people contribute to their employer's blog?

There is one primary argument either way.

In the "Yes of course they should" corner, sales people have a responsibility to generate new leads. You'll see elsewhere on my site some ideas about networking, but how can a sales person network online (in this new normal) without having the credibility of a professional LinkedIn profile, a decent profile on your website (I'll blog about that another day) and some content written by them to show off their personality.

In the "No, over my dead body" corner, sales people are notoriously poor at using English grammar correctly, and there is nothing more off-putting to an educated buyer than poor written English. Perhaps more important, some managers argue that sales people should be on the road, not behind their desk "doing admin". In 2020, travelling time is no longer an excuse to avoid other tasks.

My view is that you shouldn't employ sales people who can't write adequately, as they will be representing your company in written proposals and so on. How carefully did they bother to proof read their CV before applying to you? Therefore, yes, sales people are a valuable resource to contribute to your blog and outbound marketing. They bring a valuable different perspective to the messaging you present to your customers, as they are probably your people with most contact with those customers.

1 minute sales tip - being on time

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 13 Jul 2020 07:20:48 GMT

What does being 'on time' mean for a salesperson?

Salespeople have multiple opportunities to be on time, or to be late:

Arriving at meetings (or video conferences)
Sending proposals
Following up when they said they would
Answering the phone when a prospect said they'd call (a particular bugbear of mine).

Do your team ALWAYS set a good example, and represent your business well, by being on time? Look at it this way, your team will never annoy a prospect or customer by being on time, but they could annoy quite a large proportion of prospects by being late. Bad traffic, another meeting running over, poor planning are all unacceptable excuses. Trains being delayed is probably the only excuse that does stand up to scrutiny, in the UK at least/

So don't let your sales team represent you poorly: during routine one to ones, occasionally ask what time they arrived at some recent prospect's reception (the right answer is two minutes before the appointment so that reception dial the person they are meeting just at the allotted time), or what time they dialled into a video conference (again, 2 minutes before the start time is best). If they didn't, delve into why, and get them to plan better next time.

And it's probably best to set an example yourself ��

1 minute sales tip - Top 5 Ways to Generate Sales in a Recession

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 29 Jun 2020 07:21:08 GMT

"Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them yourself." Eleanor Roosevelt

A simple Top 5 this week: the top 5 ways to generate sales in a recession. Whether we are facing a V-shape or a depression, I don't know anyone who doesn't accept a contraction is happening, with commensurate need for sales people to work smarter and harder to win new orders.

My top 5 methods to generate sales during a downturn are:

Re-engage with existing customers
Accelerate your existing pipeline (form a planning group to brainstorm how in each case)
Seek referrals (I run highly regarded 1 hour sessions on this very topic)
Run an outbound LinkedIn campaign
Only then rely on traditional outbound marketing, but qualify any leads as hard as ever, don't waste time on timewasters.

Good luck. If you need help, as always, give me a call .

1 minute sales tip - Handling Rejection

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 22 Jun 2020 15:27:18 GMT

How to repurpose a rejection to benefit your people and your business

All salespeople need thick skins. All salespeople, and their leaders, face almost daily rejection. In office-based roles with lots of outbound telephone calling, it is an hourly occurence.

How can you equip your business and your people to cope better with rejection?

Firstly see any rejection as an opportunity. A "no" is as good as a "yes" in terms of pipeline certainty. Embrace that, and move on to concentrate on winnable deals.

Secondly, introduce a process around rejection. Train your team how to handle a no. Briefly, for this media, have a way to decide whether a lost order was big enough or any other lesson can be learnt to justify a loss review, internally or even with the client. You should have a process for loss reviews.

And also implement a rock-solid process for asking for a referral every time you get a no. Make it second nature for your salespeople to seek a new lead out of any no. For the prospect to have got as far as considering your proposal, they have understood your proposition and know who it might suit. No harm in asking!

1 minute tip - introductory emails

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 15:40:08 GMT

How to make introductory emails more effective

We all do it all the time; for some reason, we need to introduce one business acquaintance to another, perhaps to make a referral. Since LinkedIn retired their excellent functionality that did exactly this, the easiest media to use is email.

It's relatively easy to write the email: send it to both contacts, writing a paragraph addressed to each explaining the reason for the introduction. Precede it with a brief call to the person who isn't already expecting it, and as the third and last paragraph make clear the action falls to them: "Over to the two of you." is my preferred approach.

But what if you receive this sort of introductory email? A few rules of thumb:

Reply to both, thanking the sender, and personally I move the introducer to the email bcc field, telling both recipients I've done so to protect their inbox from a potentially lengthy thread.
If you don't already know, research the person you've been introduced to on LinkedIn, and then explain briefly what you do that might be relevant to them, and ask if there's anything you could do for them. Again, use an explicit call to action, such as "Shall we schedule a call to explore this?"
Whatever you do, reply promptly to any introductory emails you receive. I get cross when a mutual acquaintance has gone to the effort to introduce me to someone who obviously wants to sell to me but then doesn't reply for days or weeks. I was introduced by a colleague to someone in just such a way a few weeks ago; I haven't heard from the person yet, even though I had a sales opportunity for me, so he is never going to get an order from me now.

1 minute tip - "Happy ears"

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 08 Jun 2020 07:26:29 GMT

The problem with many salespeople... or how to detect happy ears

Too many salespeople have so called "happy ears", as in they hear their prospect say what they want to hear. "I'll think about it" somehow becomes "Put it at 80% and include it in the forecast".

The trick to spotting happy ears is two-fold:

Listen for salespeople who use wishy-washy words in sales meetings/one-to-ones. Phrases such as "I think", "I feel" or "[The prospect] said they'd probably..."
Objectively analyse their forecasting performance over time. Any salesperson who consistently overestimates the total sales they'll bring in, or even just underestimates how long it will take to secure a prospect's written order, may be guilty of having happy ears.

In both cases, challenge them. Their line manager should literally interrupt them in the middle of any sentence that is wishy-washy to call it out and ask for clarity or certainty. Most salespeople quickly wind back from a forecast at this point, which may be no good for revenue but is good for forecast accuracy.

Present each salesperson with their forecasting track record and explore the reasons for inaccuracy, especially in this case any time slippage. This often presents an opportunity to coach them on active listening.

Good luck!

1 minute tip - good qualifying statistics

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 01 Jun 2020 07:29:54 GMT

What constitutes "good" in sales qualifying statistics?

I'll leave How to Qualify for a longer blog topic sometime soon, but in the meantime, what statistics could be considered good for your qualifying process?

Let's assume leads are generated both by your marketing function and by your sales team doing some sort of outbound campaigning, whether phone, LinkedIn or whatever. In the former case, the sales team will qualify leads passed over by marketing before actively selling to them. In the latter, hopefully the sales team have qualified as they went through their own lead gen process. So let's concentrate on leads generated by marketing, and assume marketing don't qualify them first (another bone of contention).

I can't actually tell you what your statistics would be without meeting you and learning about your business, but I can tell you the best stats I've ever seen: in one technology client, following my process, the sales team qualified OUT 90% of leads, but of the remaining 10% they actively sold to, they won 90% . Imagine that, being able to walk into any sales meeting or presentation knowing you have a 90% chance of winning it, because you've applied your sales process correctly up to now. It also means you can trust your sales forecast to be accurate, somewhat of a holy grail.

1 minute tip - is a no as good as a yes?

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Tue, 26 May 2020 08:43:39 GMT

Is the classic saying from salespeople still valid?

The most successful salespeople say that a "No" is as good as a "Yes" from a prospect who might be about to place an order. Are they right?

Put another way, sales managers dislike uncertainty in the forecast, but also dislike shrinking pipelines. In these circumstances, is closing an opportunity 'Lost' worse than 'Won'?

Salespeople often bemoan customers who 'hide', failing to give a clear response to a proposal or quote. This behaviour is the common outcome of a poorly implemented sales process; if there is a good qualifying step, and good rapport built, with a good business case, talking to the decision maker and budget holder, then hiding doesn't happen, the prospect will readily tell the unsuccessful salesperson as quickly as the successful one.

So, while hiding is annoying, it also costs the vendor money, in wasted time for the salesperson repeatedly 'chasing' the prospect, and in unreliable sales forecasts with all the potential knock on effects of that.

Therefore, for me a "No" is as good as a "Yes" especially if it helps avoid a long drawn out "No".

How to pivot if your business really is dying

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Tue, 19 May 2020 08:29:19 GMT

How to pivot if your business really is dying due to the coronavirus pandemic

As we all recognise and come to terms with a new way of working, with plenty of businesses unlikely ever to permanently return to their old ways, I think it goes without saying that the best businesses to be in for the next few years will be Insolvency Practitioners, house builders for the middle classes who already have designs that incorporate quality home office space, and perhaps best of all manufacturers and installers of garden office buildings...

For the rest of us, with a global recession upon us - I was going to write looming but think we are already in it - many of us can survive with some creative thinking, by implementing smarter sales practices and products and propositions, or by pivoting to alter our business to reflect and exploit the new reality.

If your current business is foundering, and you know in your heart that even after an economic recovery it will never fulfil your dreams, how could you pivot your business? To pivot is well defined in this Quora answer as "A pivot usually occurs when a company make a fundamental change to their business after determining (usually through market research) that their product [or service] isn't meeting the needs of their intended market." Of course what you pivot to depends on what you are already doing and what subjects or markets you, or your team, know sufficiently well to be credible.

The most successful pivot of all time was arguably by YouTube; did you know it was originally intended as a video-dating site but early on it pivoted to a general video-sharing site, eventually acquired by Google for $65billion... Nice work if you can conceive it.

That is not a total volte-face, but an evolution of an idea to exploit a more profitable product offering. The most extreme examples of pivoting tend to happen for individuals rather than businesses, often as part of a mid-life crisis where someone gets fed up of their career and switches to something completely different that fulfils them.

We will have heard or read about plenty of pivots in the first few weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, from clothing manufacturers switching to mask and gown manufacturers (evolution not revolution) to gin distilleries producing hand sanitiser.

So how should you come up with a new direction? Consider all these aspects or characteristics of your business, which could change:

Commercial offer: simply put, change your pricing model, e.g. stop charging up front and monetise your product or service some other way, through advertising, or selling the data you gather about your customers.
Market: maintain fundamentally the same product or service but offer it to different market(s), e.g. continue to offer an online library service but pivot from the professions who refer to textbooks, and instead lend books to grandparents for them to read to their grandchildren over a video conference service.
Product (or service): the biggest pivot and hardest to stomach for a founder who has invested huge energy and money, possibly not his or her own, in the outgoing product, e.g. although not a pure pivot, Amazon's switch from being an 'ecommerce company' to a provider of cloud data centres with the original business being a sample use case/case study.
Go digital: perhaps the most obvious, switch a bricks and mortar or face to face business to an online distribution model, e.g. traditional training companies are basically content creators, so can create an app to deliver that content in a novel way that avoids the restrictions of lockdown.

Which one is not only within your capability and budget, but also offers a desirable market with the potential to make more revenue than your current broken business?

If pivoting to manufacture garden offices all seems too much, remember that the old saying "if you keep doing what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got" may not be true anymore.

Best of luck.

1 minute tip - how to nudge a prospect over the line

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 18 May 2020 08:05:13 GMT

You can't take the decision maker out for drinks to secure a win, so...

I think we all have to accept that 'normal' social interactions, especially between different companies' employees, are not going to resume for months rather than weeks. So what is the best way to nudge that prospect that your sales team think is about to order into doing so? There was a time when the two senior people from the supplier and the prospect would meet for dinner and drinks, to thrash out any remaining points and a handshake would seal the deal, to be completed later by their teams. I must emphasise I was never an advocate of doing business using those techniques, though admit they have their place.

But I don't see anyone being keen to resume that behaviour for a few months at least, and it could be years. So how can a business that is trying to move forward despite the pandemic seal that win, and free up its salesperson to move on to the next one?

For me, closure should be a natural consequence of following a good sales process. The prospect should be ready to order before you ask, your salesperson should know when to ask and what answer to expect. Do you think yours do?

In a one minute tip I can't cover the whole process, but it starts with qualifying so that you only spend time selling to the right prospects, and ends with your return on investment and benefits statements being so strong that they blow your competitors out of the water.

If that sounds sensible but you don't know how, that's where I come in.

1 minute tip - dress code for sales by video conference

183:722962308 (Thomas Coles) — Mon, 11 May 2020 09:51:44 GMT

Pyjamas, shirt, suit, tie? Or the feminine equivalents...

What is the right outfit for a [insert your preferred video calling service here] meeting when homeworking? Does it differ from a video call held in your office?

I'm sure you've all seen the amusing short clips online of people suffering their under-dressed partners or children wandering into the back of shot on formal calls, but if not, the best examples must be from BBC News (be warned strong language) and Facebook .

I seem to be out of step with most people on this: while I would never advocate pyjamas even on a Zoom call with friends, I've tended to wear any top with a collar (usually a polo shirt) for most internal and external meetings during lock down. Only twice have I had meetings that I've felt warranted a more formal shirt, though quite often I've been slightly under-dressed compared to others.

Equally, is it ok to initiate an unscheduled video call using WhatsApp, Teams, Zoom or anything else? I recommend against it; audio calls are less intrusive into someone's personal space, and appearance, than a video call.

The key thing here is does your homeworking outfit choice affect your ability to sell? Personally I don't think so; it conveys personality and prompts concentration on the message not superficial matters. As long as you have a strong proposition, benefits statement and can genuinely help the customer at the right price, they will buy from you anyway.

On a related note, can anyone advise me the correct term for a meeting held by video conference? I've been using 'meeting' and 'video conference' interchangeably, but if I say meeting, I perceive disapproving thoughts from whoever I'm talking to, and hurriedly suffix it with mention of Teams or Zoom.

1 minute tip - commission versus incentives during lockdown

Mon, 04 May 2020 07:32:38 GMT

Don't be fooled, people are still buying out there

It is not just the supermarkets who are still making sales during this crisis. Any business that is not completely mothballed requires supplies; from the commodity like a ream of A4 paper to the specialist that only your business can supply.

A decent sales team should be seeking out the economically advantaged prospects and pursuing them. So what incentives should you be offering to your team for outperforming in the short term rather than blaming circumstances?

While the value of any incentive has to be based on the total contract value of making a sale, the principle applies that the incentive needs to motivate your particular team; a voucher for a romantic weekend away with a loved one might suit a late 20s salesperson with no responsibilities, but a voucher towards a family trip to a domestic activity holiday would suit a slightly older salesperson better. Just make sure the vouchers have long validity periods!

But does driving a Ferrari for a day incentivise better than cash? It comes down to the value: a few extra pounds soon get lost in a payslip, or might seem to trifle compared to the commission the salesperson used to earn, while being best for those with financial commitments. But an incentive that the salesperson can brag about on the next evening Zoom call over drinks with their mates will probably have more meaning to a younger workforce. And in future, as the Government starts to rebuild the public finances, no-one will be able to complain about paying the tax on an earned incentive.

Either way, accept no excuses; remind your team that supermarkets are still buying, so who in your markets is the equivalent of Tesco right now?

What will the 'new normal' look like for sales teams?

Tue, 28 Apr 2020 09:33:01 GMT

Can your sales team ever hope to function the same way again?

What will your sales team do without all those business travel expenses and all the calories they consume in coffee shops and at train stations on your account?

While out for my daily exercise the other day I realised I had spent most of the walk pondering whether sales techniques will need to change after lock down ends.

The world has changed very quickly, in some ways temporarily, but there is widespread hope and optimism that we won't go back to the old habits. Some things will have changed forever. Do you wonder how to adapt your sales team's behaviour for the short, medium and long term to ensure continued success?

Sales transformation isn't just about the good times.

Most companies' pipelines have dropped off a cliff, with prospects reigning in spending or themselves all furloughed. So rebuild your pipeline with better leads for when the world restarts. In the immediate future, redeploy those subsistence and travel expenses into a LinkedIn subscription for each salesperson; get them actively identifying and approaching the right prospects for your business. For many, me included, LinkedIn Premium is sufficient, but there are the Sales Navigator options for individuals, teams and enterprises. A well planned and executed outbound campaign using LinkedIn can secure a 30% response rate from decision makers, why wouldn't you want that?

Medium term you need to stand out amongst your competitors. Thousands of companies that survive the economic turmoil will be clamouring for limited spend by their target markets, so your message and proposition needs to be more compelling than anyone else's. It is my belief that prudent businesses will rebuild their cash reserves before releasing the spending floodgates, so this need to stand out will persist for a reasonable time.

Right now do you have a decent proposition? If not, review, review, review your proposition and USPs to make sure you stand a chance. Think in your buyer's shoes. Once you are confident there's still a reason for them to need what you offer, start to think about making it compelling: this should be about benefits to the customer and ideally return on investment. If you are training your sales team to routinely have ROI conversations with their prospects, you will stand out amongst the many competitors who don't, significantly aiding your closure rate.

In the long term, don't let new habits slip. Sales professionals, as distinct from sales execs, will continue to apply good techniques to help generate and win more sales. Make sure you manage them to make sure of it.

Don't forget to make clear to your team that after the world reopens, any pent up demand for 'coffees to catch up' must be matched with pipeline progression; you don't want to see expenses rocket without a return.

1 minute tip for sales during lockdown - spelling!

Tue, 28 Apr 2020 08:25:54 GMT

My one minute tip for this week? Check your spelling! I have been appalled at the prevalence of poor grammar and even incorrect spelling in supposed professional communications since lock down began. And not just on social media, but in emails and elsewhere. Working from home is no excuse for you or your team to fail to use commonly available tools to overcome mistakes.