Did the internet really kill the telesales star?
If you think it did, you're right. And if you think it didn't, really, you're also right. Sean McPheat explains and is happy to discuss...
3 CommentsSales Expert Comment
Are we insulting our prospects?
I've been insulted twice today, actually. And I'm very worried that you could be a sales person or manager who is working for the type of company that's insulting all your prospects too...
2 Comments
WRONG RESOLUTIONS
Sales Training - Wrong resolution to improve performance?
3 CommentsGyms and Sales Training Companies both seem to benefit from New Year's Resolutions. But just as signing up for gym membership won't do you any good unless you keep up an exercise routine, taking your team through sales training won't improve their performance unless you consistently reinforce the principles they have been taught, argues Bob Apollo.
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
SO - YOU THINK - YOU HAVE A SOLUTION - YOU SELL?
0 CommentsThought leadership isn’t about what your company does or sells, suggests Bob Apollo. It's about what you understand about the challenges and opportunities that face your customers and prospects, and how you might help them address them.
I attended SirusDecisions’ excellent inaugural European summit in London this week. It was packed with essential information and insight for anyone concerned with improving their organisation’s sales and marketing alignment, and offered compelling evidence for the benefits of getting sales and marketing working collaboratively towards a common goal.
One of the highlights of the event was the presentation of SiriusDecisions’ annual survey of B2B buyers. The study tracks buying attitudes amongst the key players in complex, high-value B2B technology buying decisions - champions, influencers, CXOs, uses, evaluators and ratifiers. They were able to compare trends over time - and presented some fascinating conclusions.
DEFINING VALUE
WHAT'S IT WORTH?
0 CommentsSo often when we talk about adding value this is just so many words, argues Colin Roberts of the NOVO Sales Consultancy.
So what is value? The dictionary says ‘worth in monetary terms or the degree of usefulness or desirability’.
Many salespeople talk about adding value, value-added, delivering added value, adding perceived value, but does this actually mean anything? Often they are just words; poorly thought through embellishments to the pitch to persuade the client that there are intangibles that might make this a better offer.
Throwing value into the equation and failing to quantify it comprehensively could throw your sales presentation completely.
PERSONAL BRANDING
SELL YOURSELF
0 CommentsCarole Railton has an enviable track-record in sales. She argues that we need to establish our own personal brand to be successful at selling.
Lets take a step back.... Question: why do people go into business. Answer: to make the world a better place for us all.
People such as Richard Branson have a dream of opening up space flight to everyone, Steve Jobs at Apple is passionate about making the use of technology simple with style and, of course, Avis ‘try harder’, so we all get what we want when we hire a car.
It is this bigger picture that allows us to generate the passion and enthusiasm needed for successful sales. It is those who understand their dreams and the bigger picture, who will actually make it: the rest of us have the vision but find reasons why it did not work out the way we had imagined....
LEADERSHIP
NATURAL BORN LEADERS?
0 CommentsAre effective leaders born or can everybody in business learn the necessary skills? Tina Lofthouse argues that, while life experience is important, the great leaders of history were born with something special.
Are leaders born or made? It’s a question that has been asked down the centuries, but in today’s tough business environment the need for strong, visionary leadership is greater than ever.
While there is broad agreement on some of the characteristics that make a good leader, the debate rages on over whether these are traits that can be learned or if they are something you are born with. As with the broader nature versus nurture debate, it is a complex area and science is still looking for answers.
SALES PIPELINE MANAGEMENT
CLOGS AND LEAKS
0 CommentsDoes your sales pipeline need a massive clean-up operation, asks Bob Apollo?
BP has been getting a great deal of adverse publicity for the recent massive leak in its Gulf of Mexico oil pipeline. It’s taken an age to address the underlying problem. The clean-up operation is clearly going to take much longer and cost billions. The fortunes of the Bubba Gump shrimp company and many others like it may never recover.
Those of us who manage sales pipelines know that they rarely run freely. Many are clogged with deals that are going nowhere and which only serve to slow the progress of more promising opportunities.
POST-RECESSION SELLING
QUALIFIERS AND CLOSERS
0 CommentsTouching your toes to please your prospect doesn’t make them respect you any more than it makes them like you, warns Marcus Cauchi.
Discounting frenzies, beauty parades and ‘quoting and hoping’ is killing businesses. CEOs (chief executive officers) and business owners who are encouraging these self-sabotaging behaviours are the victims of their own bad habits and beliefs.
They fail shareholders, staff and customers because a non-profitable business is no business at all. Shareholders, owners and investors who allow senior managers to let these behaviours continue only have themselves to blame when they lose their shirt.
ASSESSMENT
SALES MANAGERS UNPREPARED
0 CommentsAndrew Dugdale argues that we’re simply kidding ourselves if we expect selling to ‘get back to normal’ after the recent downturn.
It is a shocking but true fact that the rate of business change has not simply stayed constant from 2008 to 2009, but has actually increased in pace quite significantly. Indeed, DowJones in its 2010 chief sales officer survey found the following: ‘Five of the six areas surveyed report higher percentages of significantly increased change in 2009 compared to even 2008….’
STAFF MOTIVATION
RE-ENGAGING EMPLOYEES
0 CommentsThe Glengarry Glen Ross sales ethos of ‘Always Be Closing’ may have hit something of a brick wall over the last 12-15 months as sales executives will, no doubt, have struggled to meet targets during this difficult recession. Firing under-performers, however, is never an ideal solution. Instead, a strategy of employee engagement may be more beneficial, argues executive director of P&MM Motivation, JOHN SYLVESTER.
Employee engagement has been the popular management concept of the recession. From the incentive, motivation and sales industry media to the HR (human resources), PR (public relations) and internal communications sectors, everyone has their angle on it and it is widely used when discussing issues on staff motivation, loyalty, retention, rewards and recognition.
SALES TECHNIQUE
POST-RECESSION SELLING
0 CommentsWill you be using SAS-style tactics or engage in the same tired old sales trench warfare, asks Greg Anyon?
At some point in the not-too-distant future we will get off our knees, having crawled the equivalent of the Paris-Dakar. We will officially be out of recession and, once we have liberally applied the Savlon, the happy journey back to prosperity will begin.
SALES PROCESS
IT TAKES A CHANGE
0 CommentsIsn’t sales just about change management, asks author of Brilliant Selling, Tom Bird?
When you think about it, there is very little that is new in sales. If we strung every story about rapport-building or asking questions together I am sure we could reach the moon and back!
In my view there are lots of different ways to sell and engage with the selling process, but, fundamental to success, is a cooking pot that contains remarkably few ingredients that add up to any one of a number of successful recipes. Beliefs, prioritisation and rapport are all in the pot but something that is not considered as regularly in articles is the fact that selling is about change and, to some extent, a salesperson has to be good at change management.
SOFT SELLING
A SOFTER APPROACH TO SALES
0 CommentsYou do not have to be pushy to be successful in sales, argues soft-selling advocate Richard White. Here, he outlines the principles of soft selling and how tactics such as story-telling can help build lasting relationships.
You do not have to be pushy to be successful in sales! The majority of the time, hard-selling actually destroys customer relationships resulting in a loss of sales.
The philosophy behind soft selling is that people do not like being sold to, but they do like to get help in solving their problems. Soft selling is a way of doing business where the buyer does not feel like they are being ‘sold’ to. Everything is done in a professional and adult manner where the long-term relationship is key.
TOUGH TIMES, TOUGH MANAGEMENT
A FISH ROTS FROM THE HEAD DOWN
0 CommentsCompany heads must take responsibility for poor sales performance, says Marcus Cauchi.
Bad selling and management habits are rife in today’s businesses. Company heads that allow these behaviours to persist could be leaving money behind that is equal to or greater than their current profits.
Stuck in traditional selling paradigms, many company heads are actively encouraging these inefficient behaviours. Tough times need tough, disciplined management.
B2B NETWORKING
OPEN DOORS WITH SOCIAL SELLING
0 CommentsMore than just a buzz word, social selling represents the next generation of B2B social networking, argues Tom Aley from Dow Jones. He explains how to find that elusive connection through social networking.
Over the past year, social networking applications have proliferated across many departments in the corporation. Sales departments especially are groups where ‘who you know’ can mean the difference between success and failure.
Let us take that thought to the next logical level – it is not just whom you know, but whom you and your colleagues know that will enable your pipeline to grow. This is the first piece of what we now call ‘social selling’– being aware of every person to whom we are connected and having the information that tells us when he or she may be ready to buy (a trigger).
RETAIL SALES
CHEER UP, IT'S A RECESSION!
0 CommentsDespite losing a massive customer, like-for-like sales are up at JML. Times of adversity are also times of great opportunity, argues group managing director Ken Daly.
I must admit at first I was surprised when I read recent reports that the trend for consumers to trade down to own-brand products is rapidly declining. In fact, rafts of shoppers are now apparently trading up to premium lines. Household goods company Reckitt Benckiser for example is in rude health, reporting recent hefty rises in profits as a result of the growing sales of its iconic brands.
But then I reflected on our own company. JML has traditionally seen strong sales during recessions. We are an innovative consumer product brand, and we sell items that ‘make life easier’, mainly in the housewares, DIY and health & beauty categories.
COLD CALLING VS SOCIAL MEDIA
MAKING APPOINTMENTS IN 2009 AND BEYOND
0 CommentsIt’s neither all about cold-calling nor social media, declares Peter O'Donoghue of Sales DNA.
It is extremely interesting to read the latest buzz around the area of cold calling and telemarketing dying a death due to social media and other modern prospecting methods. I’m going to be upfront, here and give my opinion: cold calling will never disappear and that is a good thing.
LEADERSHIP SKILLS
LESSONS FROM REAL LIFE
0 Comments'Are you responsible for the way others behave,’ asks Peter Brook?
The ability and skills to guide individuals to perform better in their roles is perhaps one of the key ingredients in highly effective managers. Having the determination to achieve results through a team by developing their skills and behaviour provides a sound platform to drive profitable business performance.
Yet the measures of line managers, particularly those with profit and loss accountability for sales, are often more focused on the more tangible areas of measurement like deployment of sales teams, adherence to company strategy, successfully activating activity at the point of consumer or shopper purchase, achievement of targets and the identification of new channels of business as opposed to the primary focus being on the development of their teams.
FOCUS ON THE SERVICE SIDE
RECURRING REVENUE
0 CommentsEveryone needs a competitive edge, especially when times are tough. If you earn your living as a sales professional, that edge may lie in your ability to mine and manage service contract lifecycles and service contract expiries, says MaintenanceNet’s Scott Herron.
In a down economy, focusing on the services side of your business should become a targeted sales strategy for a number of reasons. First and foremost, service contracts and extended warranty sales represent a high-margin, high-profit recurring business. They allow companies to increase revenues with existing customers, and strengthen ties with those same customers over the long term.
It is also no secret that finding new customers, especially in this economic climate, is much more costly and challenging than selling and marketing to existing customers.
SALES TECHNIQUE
WHAT'S FOR AFTERS?
0 CommentsThings are very different now: budgets slashed, different buyers, longer sales cycles, less repeat business. Yet, many things are also exactly the same: companies, after all, are hardly sat there doing – and spending – nothing. Britain’s Sales Trainer of the Year, Andy Bounds explains why these companies will spend their money with you.
No matter what you sell, no matter who you sell to, there are three things you need, to sell more:
- to have the right mindset;
- to meet with the right people; and
- to say the right things to them.
If any one is missing, you’re less likely to succeed.
Wrong mindset? No sale. Say the wrong things? No sale. Say the right things to the wrong person? No sale.
You need all three. Especially when the current climate is making everyone raise their game. And here’s how to master them.
REVIEW MANAGEMENT
OUTPACING CHANGE
0 CommentsWhen the business environment hardens, the natural tendency of the sales expert is to call for better sales effectiveness programmes and skills development. This seems logical. Yet this is not the solution to this recession the majority of the heads of business seek, writes Keith Francis.
An annual survey of chief executive officers (CEOs) across the world*, conducted at the end of 2008, showed they considered their top challenges to be excellence in execution, consistent execution of strategy, and the capability of their companies to speedily flex and adapt to change. These they placed above their anxiety for global economic performance and financial risk.
This is understandable, because unless a company can change quickly and effectively to meet today’s changing and unpredictable economies it will likely die.
SALES SHAKE-UP
LOOKING INTO THE ABYSS
0 CommentsSales guru Professor Neil Rackham on what lies ahead….
I’m old enough to have seen some big and hairy recessions – and, so far, I’ve lived to tell the tale. But I’ve never seen one like this.
I live in Washington DC, where the few people who aren’t politicians seem to be economists. Two months ago, these pundits were talking about when the recession would end; today many of them are asking if there will be an end. Pessimism is everywhere. We are living, they say, on the edge of an abyss.
SALES FORECASTING
WHY BOTHER FORECASTING?
0 CommentsBy any rational measure, and compared to almost any other business function, most organisations’ sales forecast accuracy is lamentable says Bob Apollo of Revenue Insights.
Last year CSO Insights, in a worldwide study of over 1,500 sales leaders, found that on average less that 50% of deals in any given quarter came in within the time-frame or at the value originally forecasted – with clear consequences for an organisation’s ability to accurately plan the allocation of people, resources or budgets.
Forecast accuracy is getting worse
There’s good reason to believe the situation has deteriorated since then. In our own more limited UK survey conducted at the turn of the year, respondents told us that fewer than four in ten deals were now coming in as forecasted (time and value). The only ray of hope seemed to be was that (as far as they could tell) they weren’t losing any more deals to competitors than they had been previously. The most common challenge is now the buyer deciding to ‘do nothing’.
It’s clear that buying cycles are getting longer, more people are involved in decision making and buying behaviour has become more risk averse. The old certainties have broken down, and exhorting sales people to ‘sell harder’ is hardly likely to improve the situation – salespeople need to be coached to sell smarter, and to focus instead on understanding and facilitating the buying process.
SALES AND MARKETING HARMONISATION
CUSTOMER TURF WARS
0 CommentsJan Binke, Chris Taylor and Beth Rogers (pictured) discuss the balance of power between sales and marketing and whether harmony can ever break out in the battle to own the customer.
Fast-moving, uncertain business environments and the increasing focus on customer retention as the foundation on which any company should base its plan have led to a flurry of research about integrating sales and marketing activities. Companies have to put the customer ‘at the heart’ of their organisational structures to stay competitive. It is considered desirable to integrate sales and marketing, because academic and industry research on this topic promises financial benefits; it has also been linked with improving both employee and customer satisfaction.
From business strategy through to detailed implementation, sales and marketing needs to run smoothly and in tandem. In business-to-business sectors, the sales function is starting to take a more strategic role because of the importance of key accounts. Account managers need market knowledge to drive long-term solution delivery. Meanwhile, marketing can drive tactical sales from innovative customer portals. Traditional roles are getting blurred. So where is best practice?
COMMISSION SCHEMES
WHOSE PLAN IS IT ANYWAY?
0 CommentsJohn Stuart of OpenSymmetry looks at the complex political processes involved in optimising sales force commission plans and explains how to keep sales, HR and finance all happy.
Money is said to be the biggest motivator in sales. The formula seems simple enough: if you want your sales personnel to perform, you offer them the right incentives.
But who decides what these ‘right incentives’ are and how commission plans should be set up in order to make sure sales efforts push in the right direction and are in line with the overall company strategy?
Hot debate
More often than not, the team responsible for sales compensation find themselves in the middle of a regular and hot debate about company restructures and which director should take control. Trust is often called into question at this time as sales commissions for large organisations can extend into the millions-of-pounds bracket.
SALES ASSESSMENT
IT'S ABOUT TALENT, STUPID
0 CommentsCan scientific sales assessment techniques drag companies out of the dark ages, asks Andrew Dugdale?
A paradox plagues modern business – perhaps the business paradox of the 21st Century.
How is it that with the greatest computing power in history at the disposal of business, with technological marvels that fuel the engine of production far beyond the dreams of the great tycoons of the past, many firms still employ 19th century techniques at one of the most critical nodes of their business?
The paradox baffles us, and the paradox is this….
At the point of entry and development of its front-line sales force – the key personnel responsible for generating revenue, the very life-blood of the company – even the largest and most sophisticated corporations on the face of the planet may still be found using methods developed haphazardly more than 100 years ago: the unstructured interview, with its hit-or-miss questioning, or even worse, good old intuition. The fact is that so-called role model, ‘world-class’ corporations often have no structured way of measuring the capabilities of their sales force.
SALES PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
WHY VISIBILITY IS KEY TO SALES PERFORMANCE
0 CommentsThe problems caused by a lack of visibility into incentives and their unintended consequences are currently all around us, says Callidus Software chief executive officer, Leslie Stretch.
We see one financial institution after another succumb to an untimely, but ultimately avoidable, demise. This is due to an incentive culture that rewarded excessive, short-term risk taking and ignored the long-term financial consequences. Staff were incentivised heavily to hit short-term targets, such as in the sub-prime mortgage market, without taking account of future risks to banks’ balance sheets.
In all this turmoil it isn’t clear exactly what the UK government can and will do to rein in incentives beyond attacking the ‘fat cat’ culture in the City itself. The Financial Services Authority has said that it will look at banks’ reward and incentive frameworks, including taking this information into assessments of how much capital banks need to guard against exposure to potential losses. This will clearly take time to implement, meaning that banks need to act now to be in position to better manage their incentive programmes.
However, this is just one facet of the market’s inability to get a hold on managing the sales force and their actions. On a day-to-day, basis too many organisations don’t have a clear grasp of what their sales teams are doing, leading to missed opportunities, a failure to hit targets and regulatory and legal challenges.
CAREER PROGRESSION
RISING TO THE TOP
0 CommentsVivek Thomas on the sometimes bumpy transition from sales boss to chief executive.
The responsibilities of a managing director (MD) are ever-broadening. Whether it be overseeing a deal, managing resources, or running an operation, MDs are constantly faced with challenges from every direction.
My experiences as a business development manager (BDM) provided me with a solid foundation to draw on when I became managing director, EMEA, at Maximizer Software. The drive, determination and mental attitude which helped me succeed as a BDM have been paramount to my career progression.
Not easy
However, this is not to say the transition was particularly easy; in fact, this could not be further from the truth. Those hoping to progress from a sales-oriented role into a board-level position must understand the advantages and pitfalls that come from having a sales background.
EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT
LOOK AT ME, PLEASE!
0 CommentsChairman of Meta-morphose International, David Baker explains why we should recruit more ego-maniacs.
My first proper job in sales was in the world of art. Not art in the sense of selling an original Renoir for millions at auction but art on paper for the masses. From Lichtenstein to Constable, we covered the lot and, if you got bored with what was hanging on your walls, for a few pounds you could change your whole environmental ambiance. They were good days.
It was during these times that I discovered that I had an ego as big as a house. Not happy with being the rep on the area, I had my own business cards printed – ‘highly irregular’ – that stated that I was the territory sales manager, thus convincing myself that I was much more valuable an asset to all who encountered me. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
This affectedness on my part gave me a real insight into genuine motivation, however, and stood me in good stead when, a few years later, my aspirations were fulfilled. Not just salespeople but all people are motivated by one thing – which is all-consuming – and that is recognition.
PROSPECTING
ARE SOCIAL NETWORKS THE LAST NAIL IN THE COFFIN FOR COLD CALLING?
0 CommentsCold calling has been served notice, a new era beckons and with it an altogether different way of working. Social networking has arrived and will soon replace cold calling as the predominant method of prospecting in business, argues Matthew Brazil.
I have profoundly changed the way I do business and have firmly embraced social media and the networking possibilities it has created. To that end I have reduced to a very small percentage the amount of time I spend cold calling.
As someone who has been in sales all of my working life, has been a sales director and managed large teams of sales people, I know many people will think that there is no replacement for activity, specifically picking up the phone. Yet, no matter how intelligent you are about cold calling, it is what it is – speculative, scatter gun selling, not to mention costly and increasingly ineffective.
SALES SYSTEMS
DOES MY SALES DIRECTOR HATE SELLING?
0 CommentsCotoco sales director Steve Smith asks whether sales systems ever really deliver.
Just stop for a second and think back to the good old days when you were a young, enthusiastic and motivated salesperson. The pick of the bunch… do you remember?
‘I didn’t join up to do admin, I’m a salesperson, and a good one! I want to be out talking to customers, that’s what I’m best at. How is filling out back-office forms going to help persuade a new prospect to say yes? If I show the slightest hint of my biggest prospect, I’ll just get micro-managed to death… I know, I’ll just shove in a low figure for now. Forms, forms, forms, surely there’s a better way!’
Nothing has really changed, so why have you?
Cumbersome
The current crop of corporate ‘sales’ tools are back-office systems designed to capture data and collate forecasts – from the sales teams, for the financial teams. They are generally cumbersome and tiresome and only as good as the potentially inaccurate data that is entered. They are available online but not remotely, ie they aren’t available in the field, where a salesperson might actually need support.
The fundamental flaw of these sales back-office systems is that they do not assist your salespeople to actually sell. They do not make it easy for a customer to say ‘yes’, where it matters, on the frontline. And yet, sometimes forcefully, you insist that these systems must be used daily and in earnest for ‘the good of the company’!
SALES TRAINING
IS SALES A NEUROSIS?
0 CommentsWhat future for sales training asks Reed Learning’s managing director, Hugh Greenway?
If you type ‘sales training’ into Google you get over 18 million hits. This is compared with 64 million for ‘management training’. However, if you want to advertise the fact that your company sells sales training you currently need to pay £3.75 per click to get into position four in Google’s paid-for list; this compared with £0.85 for management training.
Competitive market
All this clearly suggests that the market for sales training (on the supply side at least) is very competitive. And yet companies buying the training remain sceptical, if not downright cynical, about the benefits of it. This may be, with apologies to all salespeople for this, due to the fact that salespeople bend the truth for a living (is this entirely fair – Ed?). Thus, salespeople who train other salespeople must be so far removed from veracity as not to be trusted at all.
SALES EFFECTIVENESS
SELLING THROUGH THE CREDIT CRUNCH
0 CommentsAndrew Dugdale of ICDL asks: if companies have stopped spending, how are we to survive?
Where have all the buyers gone? A salesperson told me just the other day that the only response they seem to get from customers today is ‘budgets are on hold until we see how the “credit crunch” is going to affect us’.
That’s a challenge, because if companies have stopped spending, how is everyone else going to survive?
CRM SYSTEMS
WELL, THEY 'SHOULD' WORK
0 CommentsPeter Elgar asks why CRM system implementations sometimes fail in a sales environment.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems should (note the word ‘should’) improve productivity throughout the sales cycle.
From choosing the right prospects, lead handling and appointment setting to producing quotes, converting them to orders and forecasting future sales, they should streamline the whole sales process. They should be at the heart of the majority of successful sales departments, and, once implemented, they should leave sales staff wondering how they ever coped without one.
In fact, if you believe some of the hype of the past few years, they should do almost anything a salesperson wants them to bar buying them a drink after work.
It’s that word ‘should’ that’s the problem. According to research from Gartner, as many as 60% of all CRM implementations fail. So given that CRM systems can help in many aspects of a salespersons’ role, why do they go wrong?
SALES PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
THE BLACK ART OF PERFORMANCE
0 CommentsCallidus Software’s VP Europe, Bill Schuh explains why managing sales performance is key to sales professionalism.
Scratch the surface of poorly performing sales teams and you’ll find any number of reasons for not hitting targets, from low morale, heavy competition, lack of belief in the products or company, to incentive programmes that don’t work – or just plain bad management. Whatever the cause, the main issue for sales directors is having the facility to see what is happening within their team so it can be fixed before it damages the bottom line – rather than after the end of an unsuccessful sales quarter.
Traditionally, sales organisations have struggled to measure performance in real-time and, in many cases, haven’t been expected to on an ongoing basis. After all, sales is something of a black art that can’t be quantified: someone is bound to pull the multi-million pound contract out of the bag in the last hour of the last day of the quarter, aren’t they?
STANDARDS
BEST PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
0 CommentsHead of the national standards setting body for marketing and sales, Dr Chahid Fourali asks whether we will eventually need a licence to sell.
It is hard to imagine the existence of any profession without established standards of good practice. Whether we are talking about driving, dentistry or brain surgery, the ‘qualified’ person must have met some established standards of best practice. Selling is no different.
EDUCATION
TEACH KIDS HOW TO SELL
0 CommentsIt’s time to equip school leavers for the world of work and introduce a sales GCSE, argues Russell Ward of Silent Edge.
The sales profession is estimated to comprise 750,000 individuals and is the largest business sector in Britain. Beyond this core of people directly involved in sales, many other activities also incorporates some aspect of selling. Despite this central place in our lives, salesmanship barely registers in the national curriculum, and even graduate trainees can present themselves for employment in sales environments without any knowledge of selling.
Vulgar?
Perhaps the problem is our native diffidence; the belief that selling is rather vulgar and not an appropriate subject for academic study. The view would seem to be that selling is an ability a person is either born with or picks up on the hoof. Unfortunately this laissez faire approach is proving a disaster for British business: research from Silent Edge and the Cranfield School of Management shows that only 12% of salespeople adhere to best practice and fewer than half possess ‘closing’ skills – which means that only one in five deals gets successfully closed.
SALES VS MARKETING
DRAGON WITH TWO HEADS
0 CommentsThe Chartered Institute of Marketing’s director of research and information, David Thorp argues that there’s much that the sales and marketing functions could learn from each other.
There’s frequently hostility between the sales department and the marketing department. Sales often perceives that marketing is insufficiently focused on the end customer, using its budgets on expensive promotional campaigns and focusing on intangibles instead of securing hard, measurable outputs – like sales! Marketing, on the other hand, often sees sales as being too narrowly concentrated on the individual sale.
Yet there’s much that each could learn from the other. A little more understanding of the mind of the marketer could help the salesperson speak more confidently about how the company’s products and services are better than the competition’s. Marketing can demonstrate to sales how intangibles create real value for the company, by showing the customer that there’s more to the desirability of a product than function and price.
PRIVACY POLICY
SHOULDN'T WE KEEP IN TOUCH?
0 CommentsIs it one rule for the large corporates and another for the rest of us when it comes to prospecting, asks ModernSelling.com publisher Neil Warren?
When I first started selling in the 1970s (Haymarket Publishing – Lithoprinter Magazine – classified sales executive – fabulous!), I inherited a bunch of contact cards that frequently noted the objection of the prospect with a hopeful summary coded ‘KIT’. I learned it meant Keep In Touch.
Cold calling
Most businesses need to undertake some kind of prospecting and cold-calling activity: quite often this turns up potential customers who are not immediately ready to buy our product or service, so, indeed, we do have to keep in touch. Lithoprinter, in common with the majority of small enterprises, did not have much else supporting its sales activity – certainly not a limitless and sophisticated marketing budget with numerous channels – so it was down to me to make those repeat calls and grow the business as and when it was opportune for our customers. That mostly produced successful advertising – and over time the section was built up and regular accounts established.
SALES TEAM ANALYSIS
KNOW THY SALES TEAM
0 CommentsThere’s way more to the modern sales team than meets the eye, says SHL’s Nick Hallwood.
It’s not often that you open a newspaper or business publication without seeing navel-gazing articles on leaders and chief executives. Are they being ignored, are they inspiring leaders, are they understood? One could be forgiven for thinking that the only person of any importance to the success or failure of an organisation is the person at the very top!
Critical to success
However, we all know that the team that is critical to a company succeeding is the sales team. Whatever their products or services, most companies are in business to sell something to an individual or another organisation. But how well do companies know the people who are stoking the fires in this all important engine room? Surely it’s time that the sales professional role took its turn on the couch for deeper analysis. Without that enquiry, how do companies know what a good sales person looks like and therefore how to recruit and develop new sales talent?
BUSINESS STRATEGY
TIME TO GET INVOLVED
0 CommentsBeth Rogers explains why sales professionals should learn to do ‘strategy’.
When a distinguished speaker stood up at a conference and exhorted marketing to get more ‘strategic’, I thought it only reasonable to ask what he thought sales should do. He replied that sales was ‘operational’, and implied that the sales function should just get on and do what marketing felt was necessary.
I sat down to fume, and decided that the time had come to rebut the view that salespeople are just pawns to be driven by the great thoughts of others. Having worked in both sales and marketing, I know from bitter experience that, unless sales managers are involved in strategy making and salespeople believe that their feedback about customer demand has been taken into account, there is little chance that the strategy will be realistic or that it will be implemented.
ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
SALES - COMPANY PHILOSOPHY OR DEPARTMENTAL SILO?
0 CommentsHuthwaite International’s Steve Thurlow says your whole organisation should be ‘Living Sales’.
At the end of a recent training seminar, the sales director of a major company was heard to remark: ‘I thought we only had eight salespeople here. I now see that we have hundreds.’
This reflected a dawning recognition on his part that, throughout his organisation, there are many employees who can influence a sale to some degree, either positively or negatively.
GRADUATE CAREERS
ANYTHING BUT SALES
0 CommentsIn fact, selling is becoming increasingly popular as a career of choice for Britain's top graduates, says Jonathan Fitchew of graduate recruitment specialist Pareto Law.
How often do people try to make their job out to be anything but selling, when a simple analysis of their day-to-day routine shows that selling is what they do?
Estate agents – salespeople with tape measures; recruitment consultants – salespeople selling other people; advertising account executives – salespeople with delusions of creativity; IT account managers – salesmen who would have been techies but for lack of an anorak; City traders – salespeople with a taste for Bollinger. The list goes on.
Forget all the misconceptions. People who disown the sales label are those who don’t understand what a fantastic career it is, both in terms of hard cash and lifestyle choices.
SOFT SKILLS
GIVE SALESPEOPLE A SPORTING CHANCE
0 CommentsSome of the more fundamental sales recruitment problems have their origins in our schools, says managing director of Omni Resource Management Solutions, Robert Leggett.
The fact is that the majority of sales managers, when recruiting, tend to look first and foremost at ‘hard’ factors such as degrees or school grades, work experience, literacy and numeracy skills. What GCSEs does the candidate have? What sort of work experience? Can they read and write well, and are they OK at maths?
This is normal – after all, GCSEs, degrees and other qualifications are easy to verify – they come with certificates! – and work experience can also be easily documented and checked, while basic tests for reading and numeracy are fast and simple.
Sales potential and soft skills
However, sales employers are increasingly testing candidates’ non-academic soft skills: the growth of psychometric testing in the UK illustrates this. They know how critical it is to identify the right personality traits from the start – traits that are right for business and right for sales. For too long we’ve been over-reliant on catchwords like ‘graduate-calibre’, when so many other life skills are vitally important. Unfortunately, now that organisations have fine-tuned what they’re looking for, they’re finding that there isn’t enough of the ‘right’ type of graduates out there.
In recent months, there’s been extensive press coverage of new candidates coming into the marketplace but struggling to find meaningful roles for themselves. This is certainly true in sales, and I wonder whether that’s because we’ve been investing so much time in the UK into making education a so-called ‘level playing field’ (to use a common sports metaphor). Our focus, for too long now, has been on getting young people into college, with an almost ‘university-come-what-may’ attitude. Yet, ultimately, schools and colleges are not producing the type of candidate that sales employers want to see.
SALES TECHNIQUE
IF...
0 CommentsIt seems that sometimes sales training experts can be so moved by the muse that is selling, they feel compelled to resort to poetry! Bob Hazell of Advanced Training offers this advice to the younger generation of sales professionals.
With apologies to Rudyard Kipling...
If you can plan your work, when all about you
Are missing out on sales and muddling through;
If you can keep your records working for you
And set reminders to do follow-ups too;
If you can lift the ‘phone and not be daunted
And being told a ‘no’ not get depressed;
Or having got objections not be thwarted
Without the need to think that you’re the best;
SETTING OBJECTIVES
A POSITIVE NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION
0 CommentsFounder of Ontrac Training, Lee Burton defines a realistic path to holding onto those all-too-easily abandoned good intentions.
Thinking back a few days to 31 December, eating the last of the dried-up turkey in a sandwich, contemplating the party later in the evening and wondering why my child’s expensive ‘must have’ and ‘can’t live without’ toys are now discarded in favour of playing imaginary games in the large boxes they came in, suddenly the thought occurs: how often do people think of a New Year’s resolution, only to forget it or discard it after a few days or weeks?
All too often, resolutions are like the setting of objectives. Sometimes they are either weak or unrealistic. Most times they fall by the wayside because they are too rigid and leave no room for manoeuvre and we give them up.
Using a structured approach would be a better method.
EFFECTIVE MEETINGS
BREAKING THE CULTURE OF SILENCE
0 CommentsBusiness development director of Grahame Robb Associates, Richard Pound encourages the sales team to speak their mind. Here is his advice on how to get those ‘crucial conversations’ going.
I’m sure we have all been in a sales meeting where the sales manager has just made a ridiculous suggestion… but nobody says a word. The idea lingers like an elephant in the living room – everyone knows it’s out there and soon to wreak havoc – but nobody speaks up.
Fear of rejection
Or maybe you’ve seen one of your sales colleagues offer up an idea in a brainstorming session and several people immediately dismiss it. The person says nothing for the rest of the meeting and vows never to share another idea for fear of being rejected.
SALES FORCE OPTIMISATION
GENERATING ROI FROM THE SALES FUNCTION
0 CommentsIn sales, people tend to talk about ‘efficiency’ and ‘effectiveness’, without really thinking about what they mean, according to managing director of SalesRus Jim Bradley.
Although efficiency and effectiveness describe two very different things, in current parlance they have become almost interchangeable. To be correct, in business terms efficiency tends to be about ‘doing things right’ whereas effectiveness is about ‘doing the right thing’.
So, for instance, many companies have invested in predictive dialling systems for their telemarketing sales teams which improve the efficiency of their operations by enabling them to make more calls every hour. Others have looked at how to cut the cost of mailpacks in bulk direct marketing mailings and how to improve Mailsort discounts.
However, if these communications are targeted at people or companies who are unlikely to be interested in your products and services, doing more of them at less cost can only provide limited business benefit.
SALES STANDARDS
WORLD-CLASS STANDARDS MEAN MORE BUSINESS FOR UK PLC
0 CommentsImplementing national standards for sales people can deliver sustainable competitive advantage says Beth Rogers.
Robert Louis Stevenson said that ‘everyone lives by selling something’.
It is hard to imagine any activity more fundamental to the economy than selling. Selling makes the world go round.
Fred Hassan, himself once a field sales representative and now a chief executive who has achieved several successful corporate turnarounds, said recently that no strategy will succeed in the long-term without focus on ‘the top line’ – sales*.
ONLINE MARKETING
HAVE YOU CLICKED YET?
0 CommentsTraditional sales techniques continue to work as they always have, but newer, more technologically-savvy sales performers can steal a march on their old-school rivals simply by talking the consumers’ language, says Daniel Jupp of online consultants Top Position.
The UK is the largest internet ad market in Europe: the way in which our consumers source products and information has changed for ever.
Consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers proved this in no uncertain terms with their 2006 online advertising first quarter revenue report; this shows internet advertising revenues reaching a new record of $3.9 billion, up a massive 38% on the same period in 2005.
GUEST VIEW
DON'T PHONE HOME, BT
0 CommentsDeborah Orr calls for the human element to be restored to telemarketing.
Some call centres, in an effort to make telemarketing premises more attractive to the public, are being referred to internally as ?contact centres?. Which is unfortunate really, because contact centres already exist, and are notoriously the places where estranged parents have short, awkward meetings with children they are accused of being a danger to.