Neil Rackham: focus.

The world’s leading professor of professional selling, Neil Rackham has warned that the recession could see one in five companies go to the wall.

The way to avoid this is to be more focused, he told the audience during his keynote address at the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management’s Successful Selling Conference at Birmingham’s International Convention Centre on 15 October.

Mistakes

Professor Rackham kicked off started by asking: ‘What are the three biggest mistakes that salespeople make in a recession?’ Having asked the audience to discuss the question before moving ahead with his presentation, he reminded them of the old Chinese proverb: ‘If you chase two monkeys, both will escape.’

The temptation, he said, was for businesses to chase more and more opportunities. The result, though, is that they win more small orders but lose big ones, because they are spreading their resources and efforts too thinly.

Assess the odds

Smart companies assess their opportunities carefully. If there is less than a 35% chance of winning an order, they pull out and concentrate on the potential customers where the odds of success are better.

‘In a recession’, he said, ‘the successful people focus on the big opportunities, not the smaller ones.’

Price-cutting

Professor Rackham also advised delegates that price-cutting does not necessarily help in a recession.

In a downturn, customers are more interested in security and safety. They may fear that a vendor making too many concessions is about to go under.  It is an approach which shows anxiety, creates mistrust and just makes the customer ask for more.

Sellers who negotiate late, he advised, do better than those who negotiate early.

Professor Rackham’s advice was very timely. As he pointed out, only a third of salespeople working on business-to-business accounts today will have worked in a recession, so they may not be aware of the mistakes that were made last time round.

Turning round the team

The day’s opening speaker was the inspirational Paralympic swimmer Marc Woods, who has won four gold medals. Marc explained the psychology of turning around the ambitions of the relay team which won the gold medal in Sydney, showing a video of the occasion and getting the audience to cheer the British team on.

Delegates: treated to strong speaker line-up.

His message was that two members of the team had previously been content to come second and that he had motivated them to be happy with nothing less than gold. ‘Competition is brutal,’ said Woods. ‘But you owe it to yourself and your family to be as good as you can be.’

Time for CRM?

Following him, John Nash from Microsoft explained the consequences of globalisation, newly emerging markets, ageing populations and rapidly changing personal and working lifestyles.

Business nowadays, he said, operates very largely in a single world market. The speed of evolution is faster than it has ever been. 85% of people born today, he predicted, would end up doing jobs that are unknown at the moment.

In such a fluid and uncertain world, technology can be an empowering ally, helping to solve macro-economic problems like climate change – as well as addressing business and personal issues. The challenge is for individuals to stay abreast of technological advances and open to the benefits and solutions they offer business and society. (I heard this mantra from the major technology companies throughout the 90s and on into the 21st century and it was usually a pitch to sell their latest piece of kit – Ed! Here it comes….)

Larry Winget: 'lighten up'.

Great apes

Allan Pease, the Australian known variously as ‘Mr Body Language’ and the ‘King of Communication’, was next on stage. He gave a highly amusing demonstration of how to convince clients to do business with you – and how not to, based heavily on his studies of the body language of great apes. Pease’s serious message is that salespeople must ‘know their numbers’ to succeed. He has based his entire sales career on a simple 5,4,3,1 ratio – on average, five calls will lead to four meetings, of which three will take place and one will result in a sale. ‘How many doors are you knocking on?’ he asked delegates.

Pitbull

American motivational guru, Larry Winget (the self-styled ‘Pitbull of personal development’ – Ed) called for a down-to-earth, commonsense approach to success in work and in life. In a hugely entertaining performance, he urged delegates to 'lighten up', keep life in perspective and become winners.

He demonstrated that we are all responsible for our own successes and failings. ‘Your life is the way you want it to be’, he claimed. We should ‘deal with it’, facing up to our deficiencies and taking action to change for the better.

Farming

The afternoon kicked off with a lively session from the self-styled ‘beermat entrepreneurs’, Mike Southon and Chris West, who explained how to make maximum use of different types of sales talent. In a recession, when new business is hard to come by, ‘hunters’ – or aggressive salespeople – may bring as little as 15% of sales into a business, while ‘farmers’ – handlers of existing accounts and support staff – may be responsible for 85 per cent.

‘In a recession, concentrate on your existing customers and make good use of your farmers,’ said Southon. He then demonstrated the networking skills they need to be effective with clients.

Team management

Director of consumer sales at Vodafone, Tom Devine showed why his company’s shops provide the best customer experience among the phone retailers on the high street, and enjoy the highest sales per employee. He explained how staff are given accurate and timely information, and how their behaviour can be changed through coaching, measurement, reward and recognition.

‘We make sure people know where they are and we reward the behaviours we want to see,’ said Devine.

Never give up

Another inspirational speaker was professional adventurer Debra Searle. In an emotional address, she spoke from the heart of her lonely, exhausting solo voyage across the Atlantic in a two-man rowing boat.

ISMM: organised conference.

Searle had no previous rowing experience but she had begun the trip with her then-husband Andrew, a 6’ 5” experienced oarsman. But when he developed an uncontrollable fear of the ocean and had to be rescued from the boat, the 5’ 5” novice courageously chose to continue alone on a voyage that ultimately took over three months.

She was awarded an MBE for her extraordinary achievement. It was an inspirational account of triumph over adversity and ultimate self-fulfilment. ‘I was stuck in the middle of the Atlantic for months on end,’ says Searle. The only thing I could choose was my attitude – I really believed I was going to make it.’

Less is more

The conference chairman was Paul Sloane, the author of 17 books on lateral thinking and leadership and a business guru in his own right. Throughout the day he not only introduced the speakers and summarised their key messages, but also challenged the audience with his own thoughts.

The one-time IBM sales manager began with a sobering one: ‘In tough times, companies will need fewer, but better salespeople’.

Summing up the conference, he told ModernSelling.com: ‘It was an excellent event with one of the strongest speaker line-ups ever.’

To see an earlier ModernSelling.com interview with Sloane, please click here.