Recorded: Canterbury Tale 5: The Bean-Counter's Tale

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"Sales is a numbers game" - is it? Click below to see on our next compelling webinar, and find out...

WATCH RECORDING of The Bean-Counter's Tale.

For this and all other recorded webinars currently available on ModernSelling.com, you will need a free download of Windows Media Player - click here.

Doesn't add up? Watch webinar to solve problem

At its most basic, this "numbers game" tends to infer that if you contact enough people, in any way and at any time you choose, with any offer you have to hand, one of them will buy something, sooner or later. And the expectation is then that you use your "persuasive sales skills" to make more of those sales happen for you, than for colleagues or the real competition.

Is it really as simple as that though? What about all the time, trouble and expense your marketing colleagues have put into your brand, market and prospects? Have they not saved you countless hours of exploration and research, by unearthing and bringing to your door the select few "best" prospects each day? Or maybe you are required to do that for yourself – but then who is "best"? And is sales a team sport, or something at which you need to excel (Excel – geddit?) personally?

Then consider for a moment the truly frightening modern costs of arranging a physical visit. A tank full of petrol in a rep-mobile these days is the best part of £100, but which itself is only "peanuts" when salaries and other "cost of sale" items are factored in, like is this visit going to take an hour, or a day? So how do you even know that you are spending the right time, selling the right things, to the right people?

  • On Target Earnings?
  • Return on Investment?
  • Commission?
  • Q4?
  • Budgets?
  • Discounts?

Yes – this is our "language" in selling and sales management, but can we speak it - fluently?

Jeremy Spiller
Jeremy on LinkedIn

Fear not, help is at hand. Back, by popular demand after The Marketer's Tale, Jeremy Spiller has spent most of the last 20 years driving vast numbers of suspects, prospects AND customers to "sellers" as diverse as Pete Townshend (of The Who) and Bill Gates (of Microsoft), or for products and services as varied as Rolls Royce cars to Royal Opera House seats. So he knows how to turn millions of punters into £millions on your top line.

Alan Timothy
Alan on LinkedIn

And Alan Timothy is a "Chief Scientist" as well as a consummate sales leader and sought after speaker and expert, with a geek-like grounding in data and statistics. Sitting on his desk are the detailed results from over 7,000,000 field sales visits completed by his clients at i-Snapshot (e.g. 3663 Foodservice, Exide Technologies, Makita and Nestle Professional) – so he knows what works and what does not, and has some surprising insights for you.

Whether you're still giving it 110%, hoping just to retain 5% more customers this year, or praying that you can avoid that dreaded £0 in the sales box on the spreadsheet, this is the webinar for you...

I agree – let me see The Bean-Counter's Tale please

For this and all other recorded webinars currently available on ModernSelling.com, you will need a free download of Windows Media Player - click here.

And don't forget that you can also start the lead-in and follow-on discussions on here too. Just Login with LinkedIn (and find your way back to Webinar Corner here – bottom left of the home page – sorry about that, it's on our "to do" list), and post your question or comment below...

    Questions & Comments

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    Quick Login with LinkedIn demo...

    I've also put this webinar in Panel 1 on the right hand side of the home page (just spot Alan's smiling face) so hopefully folks can find their way back here, having performed the couple of clicks it takes to login with LinkedIn.

    And the end result is that we can all then click on each other's names to get to LI profiles and connect quite easily on there, if that becomes desirable.
    Posted by Neil Warren on

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    Proud sponsors

    This educational webinar will look into improving your effectiveness in sales rather than just always running faster -- and what can be done to keep up with recent trends. We do hope you can join us for this educational webinar and please do feel free to connect with me through LinkedIn, if you have any further questions you may like to ask.
    Posted by Andrew Wise on

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    No calculators or notebooks needed

    I'm just seeing the slide decks now as we head to rehearsals, and I think you'll find that if you just pay attention, and take the opportunity to ask any of your specific questions (dear reader), now, during or after the webinar, you'll be able to learn a lot.

    And we record them all, of course, like these...

    http://www.modernselling.com/news-and-events/webinar-corner.aspx

    ...so you can easily come back and review or share.

    Booking / reservations page is here...

    http://learn.gotomeeting.com/forms/12Oct11-EMEA-G2M-Sales-WBR-S?ID=701000000005pl0

    ...if you missed it.
    Posted by Neil Warren on

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    If bean counting works for top football teams is sales different?

    Data is now used extensively in football to hone the talents of those fit gifted players, why are companies not using the same techniques? It is not about tools to beat the individual sellers, it is about tools to improve the overall team by understanding the impact of every action and then replicating those that work.

    Or, like, a well known premiership player and his manager do we have a lot of language barriers that prevent the sharing of knowledge and winning.
    Posted by Alan Timothy on

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    Inbound marketing and sales measurement

    Just one more day to register. In my "bit", we'll be covering social media and other inbound marketing methods and how to use them and apps to best advantage to measure success ie the "show me the money" of this. My "bit" is only be for 20 minutes so after Alan's talk there'll be 20 minutes for you to have your say and ask questions. Even though I say it myself, this looks to be a good session so see you there :)

    Any pre event questions please post here and will do my best to answer them.
    Posted by Jeremy Spiller on

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    My sales life has been nothing but numbers!

    I've just been sending out the final invitations for us here, and it made me think that, all the way back to classified section Lithoprinter magazine, my life in selling and sales management has been nothing but numbers!

    Column inches, quarter pages, 2-page-spreads, total page count, page yield in £'s, number of exhibition stands, total sq metres, dates, deadlines, databases, numbers in target market, open rates, click rates, conversion rates, gross sales £'s, profit, salary, dividends, costs of sales, etc., etc..

    Think I might learn something myself here, therefore, and thanks again Jeremy and Alan for putting in the numbers of hours preparing, and numbers of years learning all this stuff.
    Posted by Neil Warren on

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    If it is good enough for Bill!

    Malcolm Galdwell, well known author, wrote a book on what made great people great, and amongst others such as the Beatles, he included Bill Gates. Reading Neil's comment brought back to me one of Malcolm's conclusions: People who did great things and were expert had spent at least 10,000 hours perfecting the skill which made them great. Not sure I have reached my 10,000 hours yet, maybe I should be counting, so I can shout about it when I get there.

    But on the build up to 10,000, I can share my 6P's, my 5 CAPS, and few other numbers and formula used to count beans
    Posted by Alan Timothy on

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    On setting Goals, Targets, KPI's (and sporting analogies)

    For you Alan (specifically) but All (sharers, readers etc.) - I should note that Syed in the webinar...

    http://www.linkedin.com/pub/syed-shah/1/3b6/924

    ...was also a bit concerned that your soccer analogies might not engage the fairer gender (or even some of us rugby-boys and oarsmen!).

    Fair point - I just didn't think it worth discussing in the short time allowed in there, and when you couldn't do or say much about it.

    This morning's emails though contains a keep fit and basketball (like netball ladies) analogy from John Doerr of RAIN Group in the US, which I thought also slam-dunked a few of your points...

    http://www.rainsalestraining.com/blog/setting-and-achieving-sales-goals/

    ...so I thought I'd share that too.
    Posted by Neil Warren on

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    My first boss was a barrow boy, my second (and third) an accountant...

    Ah yes, Rodney and Colin (1976 - 79), I remember you well, "well-hard" salesmen through and through. Not sure I ever met the BIG Boss No 2, and No 3 was editor of Accountants' Weekly before he & I set up yet more accountancy publications (and an exhibition), so we can hardly hold his number-addiction against him.

    I do honestly believe that selling is more than just a numbers game though, especially if the challenge is to get buyers / prospects, sellers, marketers, bean-counters, channel-partners AND our customers, ALL on the same team, and pulling like a well drilled rowing eight, in the same direction.

    So what's the best role for "The Boss" then?..

    I know - what about the little fellah at the back, the cox? (sounds a bit like "coach" to doesn't it?). Steering, cheering and s/he gets thrown in the deep end, when we win.

    Come along to the grand finale of The Canterbury Tales, The Boss's Tale, seat reservations now available...

    http://www.modernselling.com/news-and-events/webinar-corner/boss-tale-workshop-webinar-discussion-series-neil-warren-jeremy-spiller-20114049.aspx

    ...and tweet or megaphone the rest of the team, tell us how you're winning (or losing), by how much, what that's costing, and how you intend to use the numbers to explain the rest of the game (or find out if you're not 100% sure yet).
    Posted by Neil Warren on

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