In the fourth of a series of short articles setting out seven realistic and effective strategies for maximising revenue this quarter, Fiona Challis explains how to help your team sell what the customer really wants.

Strategy 5 – Get your team out of the mentality of ‘If I call enough customers some of them will buy’.

An old classic that I see happening in many sales teams is salespeople calling up customer after customer telling them about how good their product or services are, when really what they need to be doing is asking customers the right questions to establish the value-add that the product or service will bring them.

Yet, we all know that customers do not buy products or services: we know that either they have a real business gain from using your product or service or they have a business pain that they need your product to reduce or remove.

In the third of a series of short articles setting out seven realistic and effective strategies for maximising revenue this quarter, Fiona Challis explains how to turn on your revenue tap.

Strategy 4 – Identify your revenue tap and turn it on

There are two main ways to gain increased revenue by the end of the financial year: first, you have your existing customers that you can gain additional spend from; and, secondly, you have new business customers.

The best approach for you to take and focus your time and efforts on will be heavily dependent on the products and services you sell. However, before you decide on the course to take I would urge you to consider the following....

In the second of a series of short articles setting out seven realistic and effective strategies for maximising revenue this quarter, Fiona Challis underlines the importance of introducing a prime selling time.

Strategy 3 – Introduce a prime selling time

In sales it is simple, the more customers you talk to, the more likely it will be that you will hit target. For me this is a ‘no-brainer’; however, I see so many who are actually spending a lot of their time on non-sales-related activities and in the prime business hours they are doing admin instead of calling the people who can help them to hit target – their customers.

In a series of short articles, Fiona Challis sets out seven realistic and effective strategies for maximising revenue this quarter. Here are the first two points to consider....

Strategy 1 – Are your salespeople working harder or smarter?

Work harder or work smarter? The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

With many companies’ financial year ending in March, the pressure is on this quarter to generate as much revenue as possible. There is no time for slacking, and managers want to see their teams being productive and taking positive action each day towards achieving team targets.

However, despite this increased pressure to perform, are your salespeople really taking positive action that will actually help them achieve targets or are they simply keeping busy?

Cultivate a positive prospecting culture or face extinction, Marcus Cauchi warns managers.

If Darwin were alive today, he would probably say that recession is Mother Economy’s way of weeding out those who cannot adapt. His advice: put yourself in danger of making some sales or face extinction.

Nobody likes cold calling. The cold hard truth, if you don’t cultivate a positive prospecting culture in your organisation, you could go the way of the Dodo.

The new collaborative selling environment demands innovative ways of measuring performance, setting targets and designing incentive plans. Performance targets, incentive plans and performance measures cannot be considered in isolation as they are highly interrelated, recent research from CRANFIELD SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT has found.

Cranfield today (2 December) unveiled a new framework designed to support organisations in the target-setting process. Called the ‘Cranfield target-setting wheel’ it aims to help businesses ‘transform their existing performance management and incentive systems to reflect the sales environment that staff operate in and establish targets that will generate the expected behaviours’.

Portsmouth Business School’s Beth Rogers reports from the Global Sales Science Institute conference.

Sales 3.0: modern sales & sales management in an interconnected world was the theme of the 3rd Global Sales Science Institute conference held this month at ESC Clermont, an FT Top 50 business school based in the capital city of the Auvergne district of France.

The sky’s the limit for a Midlands telecommunications company after it secured a lucrative contract with a major chamber of commerce.

Midlands telecommunications company Bluu Sky Connections is celebrating after securing a deal to become the preferred provider for the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce’s 3,000 members.

The company was set up three years ago and managing director Geoff Seymour, 52, admits times were hard in the first year.

Things 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.

World-class sales organisations don’t just do one or two things well; they do everything better. The most successful organisations maintain a high level of performance across all of the selling and sales management activities required to support the sales process.

That’s one of the major conclusions of Miller Heiman’s latest benchmark survey which saw almost 4,000 sales professionals contribute to its sixth annual study of the trends, issues and opportunities in a complex selling environment. The 2009 Sales Best Practices Study focuses on the selling and sales management activities that have the greatest impact on producing results.

Fiona Challis asks whether you are committing the seven deadly sins of sales management.

So what exactly are the ‘seven sins’? They’re a set of beliefs which sales leaders may commonly hold but very often fail to recognise in themselves: these beliefs influence a sales manager’s attitude, which in turn, affects how the sales team is managed and, ultimately, determines the performance of the individual team members.

Why are they sins? They’re ‘sins’ because these common beliefs can limit a team’s performance rather than maximising it!

While the ground rules for holding an effective meeting seem like common sense, they’re much harder to put into practice. Tina Lofthouse takes a look at how you can actually make them work…

Sales meetings may be virtually the only time when members of the field force come together to discuss customer reactions to products and promotions, feedback market information and trade war stories. Such get-togethers play a vital supportive role, helping individual members feel part of a team, sharing and solving problems and instilling a sense of common purpose. They also help to channel a two-way flow of information: market intelligence back from the field and product and company data to the customer.

But the rest of us – whether we’re in telesales, marketing or management (and particularly in larger organisations – Ed) – can spend a great deal of our working lives in meetings, many of which are unproductive, with egos jostling for air-time, speakers wandering off-topic and boredom quickly setting in among unengaged attendees.

Readers probably best know KRISTINA GRIMES as runner-up to Simon Ambrose in the third series of The Apprentice, where she starred alongside the notorious Katy Hopkins. A former pharmaceutical sales manager, she now runs a business performance company with fellow Apprentice contestant Jenny Celerier (series four). Here are her top three sales tips.

The new sound of the business jungle or a gathering of headless chickens? Nobody seems quite certain about Twitter. One thing’s for sure: it’s not just bird brains flocking to the latest social networking phenomenon. Jeremy Spiller explains what to do when you have something to crow about.

With the UK in the grip of Twitter fever, after Stephen Fry’s now legendary tweets while stuck in a lift, now would seem a good time to offer a few tips on how to get started with Twitter.

For those who are not quite sure what all the commotion is about, Twitter is a micro-blogging platform which asks participants one simple question: ‘What are you doing?’ You can post information on what you’re doing, watching, reading, listening to or, even, thinking but all answers must be within 140 characters. Your posts can be sent via mobile phone text, instant message, or the web.

‘Simplicity has played an important role in Twitter's success. People are eager to connect with other people and Twitter makes that simple,’ according to the sites founders, who sum up the concept like this: ‘In countries all around the world, people follow the sources most relevant to them and access information via Twitter as it happens – from breaking world news to updates from friends.’

Here are ten tips on how to get started. 

Creating high-performance sales teams is essential for any business wanting to achieve sales growth: proactive, positive, consistent, new-business-winning teams and salespeople are the holy grail of any sales organisation, writes GAVIN INGHAM.

As managers we all have our own unique ways of motivating, managing and leading our sales teams yet, from time to time, we also have problems keeping our teams on target, focused and ‘up for it’. Here are five of the most effective motivational strategies and techniques that I have used to help many of my clients to achieve their personal, team and business goals.

Sometimes the biggest resistance to innovation comes from the person who should benefit most from it – the customer, writes Paul Sloane.

Customers can be very conservative. When you come along with an unorthodox new product or service they are often initially unimpressed. Why should the buyer take a risk with your unproven new gismo? He knows that new products often have bugs and he does not want to be the guinea pig on which you experiment. He is familiar with the current method – why should he change?

Indeed, who would want to have been the first customer for a fax machine or, indeed, for a telephone? It seems ridiculous now but selling the first few telephones must have been really difficult. And how about laser eye treatment? How would you find the first person to try it this safe alternative in a pair of spectacles?

There’s an interesting debate on closing techniques on the LinkedIn networking site at the moment. (I can recommend the various sales-related groups on LinkedIn, including our own, as they offer a wealth of advice from the coal face – Ed).

Trainer Sean McPheat of MTD Sales Training & MTD Management Training posed the question ‘What’s the best closing line you’ve ever heard?’ in the SalesBlogcast.com group. He says: ‘Personally, I never use the same line on each prospect because you need to be totally flexible and need to approach the situation differently because of all of the variables at play but have you come across any one liners or phrases that made you say: “Hey, that was pretty kool!”.’

Opinion is pretty evenly divided between the school of thought which says that, if you’ve prepared the ground properly, you shouldn’t have to close and those which have their preferred approach depending on the context. The former can be summed up by a contribution from George Polak, who describes himself as accomplished international B2B sales and marketing leader. ‘If you’ve worked through the sales process properly, I find the deals tend to close themselves when they’re ready to close with a simple: “Well, what do you think?”.’

Here is an edited version of a posting from one of our Reader Forum contributors. You can view the actual posting and make a comment here. We think it is worth sharing….

Booking appointments is one of the most important skills we need to master as salespeople.

Step 1

Begin with your planning. Research your hit list of the top 100 customers you would like to do business with.

While sales is generally becoming a more efficient and increasingly specialised practice, there are major skills gaps in the workforce and too many applicants with poor skills and motivation, according to a new report from the Marketing and Sales Standards Setting Body (MSSSB).

How a Lancashire-based training and development company has turned its expertise to managing stress in the workplace.

For many years the business world has been an increasingly stressful environment for many people. Deadlines shorten, margins tighten, expectations rise: whatever your level in the corporate world, it is likely that you feel under significant pressure. What’s more, these pressures intensify during an economic downturn,

At the best of times, stress causes a huge problem for businesses. Each day, over a quarter of a million people in the UK take time off due to stress, accounting for 40% of all absences. 

Just as concerning are the effects stress has on employees whilst they are still at work. Research suggests that stress reduces employee performance by up to 70%, resulting in a real drop in productivity, causing a marked rise in poor decision-making and casual errors, and adversely affecting the quality of workplace relations and customer service levels.

Sales teams

During times of recession, pressures are piled onto sales teams and their managers. Selling in tough times can often feel like an impossible challenge and everyone involved – from field and telesales representatives to managers and directors – really start to feel the heat.

In times of recession and cutbacks, staying ahead of your targets becomes even more imperative. It’s time to be objective; stand back, assess your good points and bad points and look at ways to improve, says Paul Sloane. As a seasoned practitioner, he argues that many salespeople have similar flaws and, when orders are falling, it is time to shape up and eliminate those weaknesses.

1 – Leads are gold dust

If your marketing efforts are turning up leads then treat them like gold dust and react to each as quickly as you can. Many of the leads may be duds but, if you treat each one as important, you will not miss the pearl in the oyster.

If there are not enough good leads coming in then you should turn to generating your own. Most sales people would rather do the entire office filing rather than take the plunge and cold call, but they are probably missing opportunities. Cold calling is about being in the right place at the right time – and you have to make the calls to give yourself a chance of this happening.

The rejections are many but do not be disheartened. Treat each knock-back as a step on the path to that one breakthrough and the large order that will make it all worthwhile.

What is the difference between order-takers and great salespeople, asks Mike Le Put?

Order-takers get business in good times. Great sales people generate business all the time, because they know where it is and they know how to get it.

Thomas J Watson of IBM was asked this question by a young salesman: ‘How do I accelerate my career in sales?’

The answer Watson gave was: ‘Go out and double you failure rate.’

Professional Sales Development Ltd founder, Stephen Lewis-Brammer explains how to keep selling in the current tough economic climate.

Doom and gloom! At least that is what they are saying in the newspapers and on the television and, if you are not careful, it may be what you will be thinking too.

Before you go into your own version of a depression, though, here is a positive thought for you to contemplate: cometh the tough times, cometh the hour of the professional salesperson.

Rather than being something which we should all be worrying and panicking about, tough times really present a golden opportunity for you as a professional salesperson to prove your worth – while it may be more difficult to win business it is possible. In fact, tough times are actually professional salespeople’s opportunity to remain consistently successful (even to increase their levels of success) whilst lesser mortals around them fall by the wayside.

We’re more clued-up than ever before when it comes to non-verbal communication and we reckon we know how to read people’s ‘hidden agenda’. But are we really as savvy as we think, asks Tina Lofthouse?

Only 7% of how we communicate is down to the words we use – so claims a body of research that stresses that it really isn’t what we say, it’s the way that we say it.

Some experts have gone further, reckoning that, if we can master body language and how we communicate non-verbally, then the world is our oyster – providing the key to greatness; many a business training course extols the virtues of the likes of mirroring and powerful handshakes.

But is it really that simple and how much of it can actually make a difference to the salesperson trying to develop that all-important rapport, for instance? The reality is that, while being aware of body language is crucial, most people know when it is not natural and is being used to manipulate a situation.

Professor Colin Coulson-Thomas of Cotoco discusses what separates the winners from the also-rans in a competitive bid situation.

Most businesses would like to win more of the contracts they bid for. Bidding is a tough game. Intense competition and falling barriers to entry strengthen the negotiating position of buyers. As more contracts are put out to competitive tender and new entrants are invited to bid, the prospects of winning a particular opportunity can fall. 

As expectations rise, responding to invitations to tender becomes more demanding and expensive. The cost of lost bids has to be recovered out of a squeezed margin on those won. Companies that win too few bids are driven out of business. Enterprises need to succeed in competitive bid situations.

Is your sales force fit for purpose during an economic down-turn, asks Peter O’Donnell of Ergon?

When designing a new office building, the first step is to describe its intended purpose, overall shape and dimensions.

The detail of the building becomes more specific in ensuing phases but, at all times a standard language is employed, especially for detailed dimensions and engineering specifications. These building standards are required for coherency of design, to minimise error, guarantee fit and integration of components, health and safety, efficiency of build, and for ongoing maintenance and support.

Fit for purpose

You might now be asking: ‘What has an office building and the sales force got in common?’ The answer is that, if either is not fit for purpose, despite the money and effort spent, buildings will fail to deliver what is required and, in recessions, only the fittest sales organisations will survive.

Legislation, globalisation, competition – it’s a jungle out there. Suddenly, it seems that sales has lost its way and ‘old-skool’ training is not equipping us for the tough new business environment. It’s time to sign up for a proper sales education, says Nick de Cent as he hacks a path through the maze of sales-related NVQs, VRQs, diplomas and degrees.

Let’s face it, salespeople and formal education don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand! After all, why sit in a stuffy classroom cramming books when you could be out in the wider world of business closing deals and earning a good salary?

Obtaining an accredited qualification can help you climb the career ladder faster, but finding your way around the mass of sales qualifications is complicated. Here is our guide to what is available and how they fit into the National Qualifications Framework. Remember also that accredited qualifications may be subsidised by the government, offering a considerable saving on course fees.

ICDL’s Andrew Dugdale asks why the selling community is so confused about sales effectiveness.

Almost inevitably ‘no’ is the answer to the question ‘Are two head better than one?’ when talking about sales headcount… especially in light of recent evidence from consultants IDC showing that, on average today, between 1.5 -2.2 salespeople are employed to deliver the same results that could be achieved with one fully effective salesperson, is it any wonder that CEOs (chief executive officers) are looking at the sales function with ever-increasing interest.

The so-called Dragons from BBC’s Dragons’ Den like to strike terror into the hearts of the business start-ups pitching for their hard-earned cash. But they’re pussycats at heart... and very free with advice for budding entrepreneurs. Here are some of the Dragons’ best tips: all are equally applicable to the sales arena as they are to the fledgling business.

Many of us will have been on a time management course, but sometimes it pays to have a little refresher…

Professional sales people take it for granted but many owners of small businesses hate selling. Or think they do. Here’s how to tackle the process.

We all have to sell to generate revenue and, as we know, revenue is the lifeblood of the business.

The fact is that many people outside of sales have a skewed vision of what the selling process is all about. It’s not about conning people or persuading them to buy something they don’t want; it’s all about helping people to buy the products, services and solutions they actually need.

To this end, the most successful salespeople would offer the following advice. Be yourself, and always be true to your values. Protect the values of your brand, and the integrity of yourself and your company.

Beyond that, look at each opportunity to sell as the beginning of a fruitful, two-way relationship.

Here is a ten-point checklist to help non-sales professionals understand the process. It’s also a useful basic guide for managers to use with junior members of their teams....

Manipulative closing techniques make for miserable customers.

It’s better to set up the conditions for a natural, painless close. Here are six ways to influence the process by helping customers make the decision to say ‘yes’ (assuming they truly want and need to buy your product or service).

Checklist

Ask yourself the following questions to see if you have fulfilled any of the criteria...

Interesting to see how Tycoon and Dragons’ Den luminary, Peter Jones organises his sales team. On his website, ITV’s 41-year-old face of business programming offers a seven-step guide to ‘how my team sells’.

1 Focus on clear targets, objectives and rewards

Jones claims one of the biggest reasons for the success of his own company, is that it delivers more per capita head than the competition. ‘We’ve got a very small sales team but we focus on that team going out to the market under a specific plan of attack,’ Jones writes.

If you want to optimise the performance of your organisation’s sales function, first of all you’ve got to ask the right questions. Bill Jackson of AchieveGlobal provides a checklist.

1 Define your company’s value proposition

What is the range of products and services you want to invest selling resources on in order to bring value to your customer? What do you want your sales professionals to focus on selling?

2 Segment your market

Which customers have the highest potential to invest in your products and services? Who needs most of what you are selling? Who values your participation throughout their buying-decision process? Should customers be placed in channels according to their relative potential value?