Archive for the ‘Sales Management’ Category

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Is Relationship Selling Dead?

Tuesday, April 10th, 2012

No, of course not. Relationship selling – selling through building and nurturing strong personal and professional relationship – will never go out of style. But are Relationship Building sales reps the top producers in today’s sales organizations? No. In fact, they are the lowest in ranking amongst the top sales producers.

This disturbing information surprised the researchers as much as it might be surprising you.

Last month we wrote how today’s top sales performers are predominantly reps who teach, challenge, and bring insights to their prospects and customers. These so called Challenger Reps, as highlighted in recent breakthrough research by the Corporate Executive Board, are distinct from 4 other sales rep profiles: 1) The Hard Worker, 2) The Relationship Builder, 3) The Lone Wolf, and 4) The Reactive Problem Solver. Challenger sales reps bring deep customer business knowledge combined with bold and innovative thoughts and ideas. This rep profile represented 40% of all the top sales producers; Relationship Builders represented 7%.

So what’s wrong with traditional relationship selling? Nothing in particular. But in today’s tough selling environment, one has to do better than be known and well liked by the customer. Top reps today challenge and teach for differentiation, adjust appropriately per the various contacts and titles they engage, and assertively take control, willing to have tough conversations and dig deep early before moving on to the logical next step. Relationship Builders, seeking to please and advocate, typically don’t rock boats. Challengers stir the waters with insightful customer business provocation and impact customer learning.

Given that buying environments today involve consensus decision-making, while important, individually strong relationships don’t hold as much sway as in the past. Reps who drive insightful customer learning as part of the overall sales experience are more effective than reps who rely on their own individual attributes, or relationships.

Are you challenging customers while building relationships?

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CEO Conversations

Wednesday, March 7th, 2012

So you want a sales meeting with the prospect’s CEO? Not so fast. While a decent strategy, don’t venture out when you’re not prepared. Senior executives don’t suffer sales fools, but they are susceptible to an intelligent conversation steered by an effective and prepared salesperson.

CEO’s are people like anyone else, but they carry a burden that keeps them focused on things besides the products of salespeople. What’s on their mind are risks impacting their market share, customer base, revenue stream, control of costs, retention and acquisition of top talent, achievement of quarterly numbers, their opportunity window for growth, merger or acquisition. The lists goes on.

And the salesperson wants to talk about their products? Won’t happen. At best, if the CEO is patient and civil, he or she may kindly redirect the salesperson to a lower level staff. At worst, it goes downhill from there.

There are four keys to an effective executive or CEO call:

1. Do your homework - lay the groundwork with research and preliminary conversations
2. Speak executive language – not that of your product. It’s about their issues, not about you and your fixes
3. Paint a business picture – verbally or literally of their world’s relevant challenges that you can help address
4. Get sponsorship – confirm next step meeting with their recommended team member (you’ve earned it!)

Having good executive conversations?

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Quarterly Sales Upgrade – a 90-Day Strategy

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

We still maintain that you can conduct an effective 90-day salesperson or sales team upgrade without a lot of money, fanfare or wholesale change-out. It’s done through 4 core areas of focus:

1. Territory Scrutiny
2. Target Shooting
3. Message Crafting
4. Activity Analysis

We get many requests from many executives and sales leaders seeking help in improving sales revenues through sales training and consulting. They say “Our team needs more sales discipline” or “Our team needs more qualified sales opportunities” or “Our team needs to improve customer questioning skills” or “Our sales pitch is inconsistent.”

Of course, these are all legitimate concerns and competency areas that can be improved, however it’s not telling the whole story. An honest assessment of one’s territory opportunity set and priorities, focused customer targeting, up-level-ing of all occassion sales messaging, and obsessing with (quick) daily and weekly feedback analysis are the keys to sales upgrading.

It’s a new year. Q1 is here – how’s your team going to perform in Q2?

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New Year Selling

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

We wrote a couple of months ago about the end of the “Solution Selling” era. This month we’ll address the rebirth of sales enablement across progressive selling organizations. A new day (year) is upon us as enlightened companies, consultants and sales trainers develop and implement sticky, adaptable and scalable selling systems that help organizations run like fine-tuned, ultimate sales-driven machines.

The next wave available to companies is an explosion of sales effectiveness and new efficiencies. Prepare for a 10-year run of sales team upgrades and resets.

This new era of sales enablement is already underway in many companies like Citrix, Fujitsu, Adobe, Boeing and VMware, to name a few, that are investing in re-optimized sales tools and practices for their modern updated sales teams.

There are 4 components* to a revamped sales enablement program:
1. Strategy (where to go)
2. Messaging (what to say)
3. Process (what to do)
4. Leadership (how to coach)

* DSG Consulting, an MXL Partners affiliate partner firm.

The redevelopment and integration of each of these component areas into carefully tailored sales 2.0 manual and automated playbooks is opening up an exciting new frontier in a land filled with opportunity. We’ll break down each component in this SalesNote.

Are you “revamping” enablement of your sales organization?

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Tebows and Turkeys

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

It’s November and we’re deep into the fall sales quarter, football games and we’re fast-facing the holiday season. Just this past weekend we witnessed the game of century (LSU vs Alabama), Tim Tebow highs and lows, and depending on your favorite team, a slew of great and weak performances as teams vie for bowl games and playoff berths.

Reminds me of salespeople and sales teams as they wind down these last 2 months of the year. There are those that step up and those that check out; those that live up to the hype and those that disappoint; those that overcome adversity and those that crumble under pressure. We watch it every week on TV. And we watch it every year as it’s crunch-time season in the sales arena.

Tebows and turkeys abound.

Regardless of what you think of Tim Tebow’s NFL prospects as a productive quarterback, he’s a winner. What he did this past weekend in Oakland, CA is a great example of one stepping up, living up to the hype, and overcoming adversity. A VP of Sales would love to have a whole team full of Tim Tebows who can face knockdowns, disparagement, failure and come roaring back with tenacity, hustle, appropriated skill, mental and physical toughness, and a gracious winning attitude. Sorry if you’re a Florida, Tebow or Denver hater – gotta love a gutsy winner with heart.

In our business we can teach sales skills, process and prowess. We can’t teach heart. Heart can be developed over time but must come from within. You know when you see it. It’s a great thing to watch in any field of play.

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Rethinking Solution Selling

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

With all due respect to Michael Bosworth, author of Solution Selling, it’s time to rethink “solution selling.” Both the selling world and customer interactions have changed and require adjustments to common selling motions.

Besides, after all the books and training over 15 years, try to find one VP of Sales or Account Executive who can tell you what the 9-Block Vision Processing Model is or even what exactly are “the 9 Boxes.” While brilliant in theory and profound for a past generation, the practical application is often lost in the reality of today’s dynamic sales arena. There’s also a new generation selling in a different era.

While my sales, management and consulting career grew up with Rackham and Bosworth over the past 30 years, today I’m seeing 4 challenges facing salespeople relative to selling methodologies:

1. Shorter Conversations - customer conversations are often brief and on the phone. Reps need to be agile and skilled in the managing of short selling conversations.
2. Blended Conversations – lead generation improvements require clear distinctions between call introduction, qualification and discovery. Reps need clarity of process and conversation flow.
3. Convoluted Questioning – sales call questioning process fundamentals have been lost, forgotten or confused. Reps need talk tracks grounded in simplified questioning fundamentals.
4. Mistargeted Discovery – discovery conversations are often given short-shrift, prolonging or derailing sale cycles. Reps need clear discovery plays or templates that are simple, planned, manageable and trackable.

Do you need a revamping of your “solution selling” methodology?

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Sales Training Truth

Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

It’s our 10th Anniversary. MXL Partners has been providing sales consulting and sales training for companies for a decade. We’ve worked with sales reps and managers from over 150 companies in almost 200 engagements.

Over past years we’ve seen sales training change in the following ways:

  • It’s not about packaged sales training programs.
  • It’s all about custom-built and focused sales training.
  • Experienced sales reps need and appreciate relevant training.
  • Rookies need, want and seek practical and helpful training.
  • Sales Managers want a return to strong sales fundamentals.
  • Value Propositions are best as custom sales messaging built for specific target buyers.
  • A well-defined, well-taught selling process drives best behaviors.
  • Sales Management training is an effective and repeatable sales leadership/coaching system.

Do you have a clear and modern perspective on today’s approach to sales training?

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Coaching Makes Perfect?

Friday, June 17th, 2011

When it comes to sales productivity, sales coaching certainly comes into play and is crucial for a successful sales organization. If you’re going to make adjustments, the team has to to be coached to understand the new game plan. Likewise, individual contributors may need sales coaching to fully develop their field effectiveness.

But which ones? Your stragglers, high-performers, or future high-performers? Logic says leave the high performers alone and coach the others. After all, the manager/coach is there to manage and help, right? Watch your logic.

CSO Insight’s 2011 Sales Performance Optimization – Sales Management Analysis rated managers’ ability to proactively identify which reps needed coaching or mentoring. The percentage of firms rating Needs Improvement was 37%, an all-time high, and the Meets Expectations group was at 44%, an all-time low. Firms rating Exceeds Expectations grew to almost 16%.

What does this mean? Means there’s lots of room for improvement. Yes, you’ve got to coach, but do it wisely. The best firms (effective sales management) coach to metric bars and performance analytics set by their top performers, then proactively identify (dashboard visibility) players that need help. The coaching is objective and helpful, not belittling or damaging. High-potential players develop; weaker ones become clearly identified for a new opportunity, elsewhere.

Interesting also that there is a correlation between rep turnover and effective coaching visibility. There was a 10% higher turnover rate for Needs Improvement vs. Exceeds Expectations firms.

Better coaching environment; lower turnover.

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Mid-Year Redirect

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

Getting close to mid-year (non-calendar fiscal year excepted, of course). Should be pretty clear now whether you’re hitting the number, over-achieving, or missing the mark. Go heads down, all out and finish strong. No arguments there – but open your eyes and see a looming 2nd half.

You’ve got enough At-Bats through previous quarters to make intelligent sales adjustments at this point. The new product is gaining or not gaining market acceptance; the sales message is or is not resonating; the territory re-alignment is working or not working; the new sale hires are starting to cut it or are struggling. Keep at it this month but with an observant eye toward the future.

Tough calls here require clear wisdom and discernment. The danger is to jump the gun and not see the slow ramp of a genius strategy or pull the trigger on a weak and sorry mistake. If you care, your reputation can be at stake in environments and cultures where knee-jerk reactions are frowned upon or lauded.
Great salespeople and effective sales leadership see the trends, sense the momentum or stall and see the big picture. They’re already tracking activity metrics and numbers and already have a hunch of what has to happen after this quarter ends to finish the game with a win.

Yes, plan your half-time talk and half-time adjustments. There’s not a lot of time between halves.

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