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Guest post by Scott Miraglia
2019 is another year in an era that is seeing rapid-fire advancements in technology. That means there are more channels than ever before in which to appeal to potential customers. It’s an exciting time, but one with an undercurrent of anxiety. For example, according to a LinkedIn survey of B2B sales challenges in 2019, respondents cited such things as pipeline consistency and having more meaningful interactions with customers as their prime worries.
These are all valid concerns. What’s interesting is that trends we’re seeing right now are poised to alleviate this stress and solve many of these issues in one fell swoop—provided sales teams leverage these trends wisely and effectively. Below we list how.
This first trend gets right to the heart of the 800-pound digital gorilla in the room: big data. This is much more than a simple buzz term or fleeting trend—it’s the overarching theme of information accumulation in today’s world. Human beings generate a staggering 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day, and, needless to say, your typical sales team can’t manage that data and extract crucial insights from it on their own.
This is where artificial intelligence enters the picture. With advances in machine learning over the past few years we’ve seen AI go from being a sci-fi pipe dream to a real-world component of many sales and marketing solutions. There are AI-powered tools that can help sales and marketing teams do everything from schedule meetings (X.ai) to ad retargeting (Shoelace) to workflow automation (Troops) to A/B testing and website personalization (Convertize) to… well, you get the idea.
But AI powered big data solutions also help B2B sales teams in three fundamental ways:
1. Generating new leads
2. Allowing for the creation of personalized marketing campaigns
3. Guiding product pricing
To the first point, AI is facilitating lead generation because no longer do individuals have to sift through market research statistics, survey forms, email lists, and social media info for actionable insight into customer profiles. With so much new data coming in every day, AI shoulders the burden by dealing with many mundane tasks, which frees up salespeople to better develop initiatives to reach their target audience and generate leads.
AI can then further sift through these massive data lakes to glean insight into market price points, which will help companies set product prices. But AI trends further benefit sales teams to the point we’re now seeing it become an extension of the team. More on this below.
2019 is poised to become the year when artificial intelligence evolves from being a handy tool to a bonafide sales team in its own right. Enter AI and, specifically, chatbots. This is a global market that’s ascending like a rocket, as chatbots are expected to be a 1.2 billion-dollar industry by 2025. Indeed, chatbots have been around for a couple years, but the reason they’re becoming integral to the sales strategy now is simple: people finally trust AI.
According to Forbes, a majority of both baby boomers and millennials actually approve of the customer service provided by chatbots. These little virtual assistants can answer most questions instantly, and, most crucially, they operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week without a break.
The only question left is, are chatbots as helpful for B2B sales teams as they are in the consumer-facing world? Can they handle more nuanced and technical queries put forth by companies in the fields of information technology, software, manufacturing, and others? The answer is yes.
All chatbots use machine-learning algorithms to fuel their interactions, thus the more a chatbot interacts with a customer—in any field—the more effective it gets. Any small, medium, or large-sized B2B business with a solid CRM data-management tool in place might only need a few months to implement a customer-service-ready chatbot.
Above we mentioned how even a basic chatbot can handle complex customer interactions when it has access to well-managed CRM data. That’s where AI enters the picture yet again. Just like machine learning is powering chatbots, it’s also powering advanced CRM solutions as well, helping companies of all sizes to manage data that humans simply aren’t capable of.
But while sales teams now have a welcome assist from the aforementioned AI, the onus is still on people to turn all this data they accumulate into something useful. In other words, how deeply salespeople look into CRM data is going to determine how effective their strategies really are. How to do this involves going beyond sales forecasting and tracking interactions. It means gaining a single 360° view of customers across all channels. Doing so yields many advantages, such as:
– The ability to improve customer interaction and build better relationships
– More accurate customer segmentation
– The knowledge to provide better customer service based on buying habits
This is particularly vital for B2B operations, whose sales cycles are notoriously long. In the enterprise-facing world, it takes time to build a relationship with prospects and move them down the sales funnel. Being well-armed with comprehensive knowledge of a prospect’s interests and behaviors, as well as what channels they are using and when, puts your sales department in prime position to achieve the three goals listed above.
Conclusion
The most crucial lesson to take away from the points listed above is that of integration. These trends are facilitating the success of sales teams in today’s world—but only if the CRM in question is properly integrated. There’s an alarming report by Forbes that states many companies have data spread out across a whopping 35-different info-gathering systems. Not so surprisingly, these companies are unhappy with the results. The only way to solve the problem is to fully integrate your CRM, and let AI do the heavy lifting where it concerns big data.
Scott is the CEO of Elevation Marketing. Scott is dedicated to helping his talented teams develop unique and effective integrated marketing programs that help employees realize their full potential while serving up impressive business wins for clients.
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SPOTIO is the #1 field sales automation and performance management software that will increase revenue, maximize profitability, and boost sales productivity.
Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.
A bell curve is a performance management technique that is used to assess and measure the performance and hold people accountable. This technique can be applied to many facets of life and business, and a sales team is no exception.
A bell curve is an important business tool for sales reps and their companies, something that determines where leaks exist in the sales funnel and where improvements can be made; helping companies define how many of their sales representatives are high-performing, middle-of-the-road, or low-performing. All of which can help management to redefine training and improve sales quota attainment.
By implementing a bell curve, companies can easily identify the performance level of every employee. This provides a straightforward system for ranking employees; something which is critical in the evaluation of employee performance including improvements, declines, and regular maintenance.
With a bell curve, the biggest disadvantage is the fact that managers are forced to segment their employees by performance. This could unfairly place employees in a lower-tier simply because they have to distribute a specific percentage of employer performances into each range. Sometimes using this scale to rate salespeople is simply too rigid and it can cause negative competition among employees which could in turn impact morale.
When organizations rank their sales teams along a bell curve, employees are divided into different levels based on their performance:
Those who fall under the high performer category are employees that a company wants to keep happy, they want to retain them because high performers don’t require any coaching and are very effective when working independently.
Companies that achieve high performer levels for the majority of their employees tend to focus more heavily on consistently achieving high performance across their sales team. Within the high performer category, many employees on the opposite end of the spectrum might leave the company simply because they know they can’t keep up with the level of talent that surrounds them.
Average performers are employees, with coaching, could rise up to the high-performance tier. Conversely, without coaching, they may drop to the low/non-performer tier. It’s best for organizations to be in this situation because it paves the way for serious potential and optimizes growth with the right tools.
An organization with many low/non-performers is usually the result of making bad hires. These are probably people who aren’t a good fit for sales so even if you do train them it’s not going to result in a lot of improvement.
Situations like this mean that management should take a step back and recognize that sales issues are caused by the sales staff specifically but rather by bad hiring tactics by the management. Most of the time poor management is a critical problem here and these problems compound with time. The bell curve continues to shift to the left because top performers will leave the company and work with a better organization. Obviously, this is something that should be avoided and rectified.
Ideally, it is best for a sales performance bell curve to be heavily situated around the mid-performance level; or a 20, 70, 10 ratio or a 10, 70, 20 distribution ratio.
The difference between low-performing and average performing reps is minimal, but the difference between top performers and average performers is very significant. Achieving a 5% performance improvement from your middle 60-70% of employees equates to over 70% more revenue than you would get if you achieved a 5% performance improvement from your top representatives.
This is why bell curve adjustments are so important. Focusing resources on your mid-tier is going to get you the greatest return on your investment.
To optimize productivity with an optimal bell curve, you can use software like SPOTIO. SPOTIO makes your sales team 46% more productive. It does this by shifting the bell curve forward toward improved productivity for everyone. Software like this helps to improve your bell curve on a general level which has been correlated to increased productivity.
There are key features that you want to look for in the software you select. You want to be able to track trends and establish your bell curve. You also want the data that can be applied to your sales staff to help establish, define and refine the perfect sales bell curve.
How is this achieved?
Productivity is defined by three important things:
1. Shorter Sales Cycles
2. Increased Conversion Rate
3. Increased Revenue
When you use sales software it engages your entire sales team and provides reliable information to help sales reps achieve performance goals. The ideal bell curve can only be achieved when sales reps have clear visibility into the needs of their customers alongside the analytics that helped them to get the appropriate products to those customers.
The KPI’s from software like SPOTIO show managers what percentage of sales reps are making their plans, what the composition of the pipeline is. For sales representatives this might not be something that affects their job today but it can enhance their career long-term by providing them with a sales strategy and sales execution that work in tandem. When everyone in an office works toward the same goal, revenue and profitability increase for years to come.
In the end, using sale software as a manager will give you the ability to improve the performance of your middle-tier sales reps. Tools can be provided, reliable data can be viewed, and everyone in your sales funnel can work together toward the same goals.
By improving the performance of your mid-tier employee you can yield the highest ROI for your organization.
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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.
SPOTIO is the #1 field sales automation and performance management software that will increase revenue, maximize profitability, and boost sales productivity.
Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.
Download our weekly sales report templates if you need a spreadsheet to begin crafting insightful daily and weekly reports for your team.
Our interview with sales guru Jeff Johnson discusses how you should evaluate your sales pipeline. In this video, we discuss:
What must your pipeline contain in order to be most fruitful?
How often should you review and refresh your pipeline?
Is there a magic number you should always have in your pipeline?
How do you ensure success of your pipeline just across the board?
[beginning of recording]
Speaker: Okay, we are back with our sales guru, Jeff Johnson. Welcome.
Jeff: Well, thanks, I like to be referred to as a “guru.”
Speaker: You did it yourself.
Jeff: Okay.
Speaker: This is the second edition of our radio expert series. The last time, we discussed selecting your “A” players. Today we’re going to discuss how to evaluate your sales pipeline. So, enter Jeff, if you wouldn’t mind giving us a brief introduction, and we’ll get started.
Jeff: So, about myself. I’m a sales consultant. I work with small-to-medium sized companies, and we’re all about building sales teams to be more effective and really being the leaders in our space and enjoying what we do, and being very successful. So, that’s what our mission and goals are.
Speaker: Perfect. We will get started. Okay, first question. So, we’re going to talk about sales pipelines: how to keep them full, how to keep them fruitful, and keep everyone selling better. What must your pipeline contain in order to be most fruitful?
Jeff: Okay. That’s a very good question. I wish it was a simple answer; there’s a lot to it. So, I’m going to start with the foundation. When you start with the pipeline, you really need to have very well-defined milestones, and these milestones really should define the key things that the prospect must experience to be a qualified opportunity. And, typically, to give a quick review, initially, it’s pain and power, and it really depends upon how complex your sales cycle is, but the baseline is pain and power. Pain means that there’s some kind of powerful consequence that the prospect is experiencing that they want to get rid of, because every prospect loves to look at demos, hear sales pitches – sometimes, but it doesn’t mean that they’re always going to buy.
The foundation is: is there a consequence that they need to resolve? The second piece to that, if you have a larger, more sophisticated sale, you need to make sure you’re the decision maker. So, negotiating the power is always a very important piece of that. So, I would say your first milestone is pain and power. The second piece is it’s the investment. It’s not just the money. Depending on the solution that they’re buying, it’s really the investment in dollars and effort. Are they really willing to invest the effort that they need to invest to get the results that they’re looking for? So, that’s the second milestone, and the third one is assuming that all of that lines up, is what is the decision-making process from here to get to close, that we kind of have a go, no-go steps, a demo, a technical review, whatever that might be, and then we have an agreement that we’re going to go through that together, for the end purpose of making a purchase.
The final one is a verbal “yes” that you are the chosen vendor. Now, I think that there’s one piece to that that is very important, and that is this is all about what the prospect is experiencing and what the prospect is doing. It has nothing to do with how we feel about this sales cycle or any emotions.
The one thing that we want to keep out of a pipeline to make it fruitful is that we want to make sure that there’s no bloat, and that essentially means that we’re working on opportunities that have little or no merit that are going to drive these opportunities to closure, because if you have salespeople that are working on opportunities that you know early are not going to close, that salesperson is heading for disaster, essentially, and it’s our job, as leaders and managers, to guide them away from that. So, I call that “happy ears.” We want a sale, we have a quota, and Walmart calls and says, “Oh my gosh, we need X, Y, and Z,” and you’re hearing from somebody who’s got no power to buy, who really is just getting your information to negotiate with someone else. These are the kinds of things that you need to stay away from if you’re going to make sure you have a meaningful, fruitful pipeline.
Speaker: Great. So, you have your pipeline established, a good one, so you go about reviewing it. How often should you review, refresh, kind of checks and balances to your pipeline? Or, should it be perfect from the get-go, and in order to make the pipeline, you’re good?
Jeff: Wouldn’t that be nice? I’ve been doing this for 15+ years. As a consultant, I’ve never met a perfect pipeline. So, we can wipe that one off the board. Frequency, I think is, I’ll call it “situational.” So, situational is, you’ve got a new rookie, right, and to me, a pipeline review, I know that a new person is not going to be successful unless they can get new, qualified opportunities consistently into the pipeline with the right velocity. So, a new person, I’m going to have a pipeline review more frequently, and really focus in on qualifying new opportunities, and do they understand the underlying messages and processes to be able to do that, because I know, number one, if they can’t do that, they’re not going to be successful. So, that’s a type of pipeline review.
The second one is, I want to look at key deals. Obviously, there are some that are more complex and more important than others, and your pipeline review on those should really not be time-bound, it should really be stage-bound. So, when they reach a certain stage, before someone goes forward, let’s get the best thinking and strategy together on this and make sure we do the right thing upfront before we do it, versus let’s have a pipeline when we’ve done the wrong thing, and it’s gone sideways. That’s the most important thing to do.
And then, the third one is, yeah, you need to figure out – there’s an accountability piece to this. We should have a weekly, or biweekly, and it should be a normal course of review for everyone. So, I would say those three types of pipeline reviews would be the ones I would recommend.
Speaker: Great, okay. Any key metrics you focus on? Is it just MRR, ARR, or potential deal sites down the road?
Jeff: Very good. That’s a good question. So, when you’re looking at a pipeline, what I want to be able to do is I want to see the real value of the pipeline, and when we talk about milestones – and, everyone’s different, but it’s pretty close. I want to place probabilities at each milestone, and if I hit the milestone correctly, like the first one, normally a standard would be it’s a 25% probability to close. I’ve got pain, meaningful consequence, there’s a good reason to buy from someone who actually has the power to buy. One out of four times, those are going to close. Now, actually, we do a lot better than that, but it’s a pretty conservative view.
So, from a metrics perspective, what I always look at is the weighted value of the pipeline – not the full value, and this goes to forecasting. So, what I’m going to do is essentially take my opportunities, and multiply them by the probabilities, if I were to look at what’s going to happen this quarter, I would multiply that out, and that would give me my weighted pipeline for the quarter. If you’re doing it correctly, you should have a pretty darn accurate forecast. I think there’s one little free extra piece that I want to put in here, because there’s one little “getcha” in the pipeline, is the close date, and a lot of times, salespeople will put a close date in the pipeline, and that close date is their close date. It’s not the prospect’s close date, it’s their close date, because they’ve got a quota. It’s their close date, because they really want it to close then, and, oh, by the way, I’m going to get a bonus there, if I accomplish that. The close date should always be the prospect’s close date, and the prospect should tell us not only what the date is, but why that date is important. So, that’s another piece, just to make sure that your probabilities are correct and you’re not getting bloat in those kinds of things.
Speaker: Is there a magic number in the pipeline you should always have a threshold, how many potential opportunities? Or, is it in a flow?
Jeff: Another very good question. So, there’s kind of two pieces to that. Let’s say you have a million-dollar opportunity. Of course, we’d all love to have one of those, but let’s say you have a salesperson with one million-dollar opportunity that’s at the 25% stage. That’s a problem. Even though their quota may be $250,000, the probability would say you have $250,000 of weighted value in the pipeline; unfortunately, you don’t have a critical mass. The critical mass there would be four, because 25% means one-fourth is going to close. So, if I want to have an accurate pipeline that meets the probabilities, I need to have that critical mass that meets those probability requirements. Does that help?
Speaker: Yes, definitely.
Jeff: Great.
Speaker: For people just starting off building pipelines, for people who want to improve their pipelines, any just kind of parting words? How do you ensure success of your pipeline just across the board? I know it’s more complex than that.
Jeff: Yeah. So, here’s a recommendation. Actually, I’ve just started to blog a series on this, and it’s called – it’s a really good title: “Managing the Chaos in Your Sales Organization,” and it’s the pipeline series. The first one came out, so you can go to www.jeffjohnsonsales.com and go to my blog and look for it, and there’s no give, you can just download it. It lists out all of the milestones and definitions. That’s where you really need to start, because you can put things in the pipeline, but you have to know what it means. You really need to start with those milestones, understand what they are, and everybody needs to know – and not generally, everybody needs to know them by heart, because it’s very, very important. So, that’s where you start, and then when you do a pipeline review, the next thing is, you need to look at the key things. There’s nine of them, I think that comes out in the second episode, but off the top of my head, I would say if I’m doing a pipeline review, the things that I look at are: weighted value against the milestone’s stage, so I want to look at the pain; I also want to look at the next step, because a sales cycle is not a sales cycle unless there is a clear next step defined and agreed to between you and the prospect. So, the next step becomes very important. And, I also want to look at the age. So, given a milestone, there should be a sales cycle. If it’s real and moving forward, it’s consistent, and it’s going to be within a reasonable time frame. So, if something gets stale, you can immediately say either, “We need to get an agreement to go forward,” or, “We need to pull it out of the pipeline so we don’t get bloat.” So, the pipeline report, the milestones, those really are your foundational pieces to start with, is what I would recommend.
Speaker: Yeah, and we’ll be sure to link you guys so you can get the milestones and pipeline report and get your situation situated.
Jeff: There you go.
Speaker: Great. Well, any parting words, things you haven’t covered that you feel are important?
Jeff: Well, if I’m growing and managing a sales team, you just can’t do it without a good, solid pipeline. That’s foundational. I mean, I would call it a playbook. Here’s a truth that I see happening over and over: you give someone a goal, so, here’s your goal: go out and get 25 stage one opportunities, and here’s the definition. All of the sudden, your sales people on your team have a goal, and they’re probably going to start asking questions: “Where do I do this?” Well, that’s where sales process comes in. What’s your messaging? Who am I calling on? All of these things, and then you start building a process underneath it, but it always starts with this pipeline, which defines your sales process and milestones. So, that’s where you being, and without it, I don’t know how in the world you do it. So, if you don’t have one, get one, and it doesn’t matter if it’s www.salesforce.com, or Pipe Drive, that’s a good simple one. Remember that all it is is a container, that’s all that is, and we need to put the right information in to really understand the reality of what’s going on in the field, and it gives us the ability to be able to say, “Hey, this person needs some coaching, and I need to help him before it’s too late.” There’s many things that it does for you. So, I guess that would be my parting advice.
Speaker: Well, thank you very much for your time.
Jeff: It’s always a pleasure Jennette, thank you.
Speaker: I appreciate it, and we will be back next time with a new important topic. Alright, thanks Jeff. See you guys.
Jeff: Bye everyone.
[END OF RECORDED AUDIO]
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SPOTIO is the #1 field sales enablement platform designed specifically for outside sales managers and reps to squeeze every drop out of their field sales efforts.
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The SPOTIO team recently had the opportunity to discuss recruiting and retaining sales talent with James Peuster, CEO of The Route Pro, a sales route consulting program that specializes in helping dry cleaning companies increase revenue by establishing a route service. James has nearly 20 years’ experience consulting and building dry cleaners across the country. He is a best-selling author and accomplished seminar speaker.
According to Peuster, one of the most challenging parts of recruiting door-to-door sales talent for roles in dry-cleaning or similar industries is the stigma associated with the term “door-to-door sales.”
“When we first started advertising for door-to-door sales positions, we had two main issues,” Peuster said. “First, you would get responses from door-to-door junkies who love this kind of work but tend to hop from job to job looking for the next pot of gold.
According to Peuster, these candidates usually love door-to-door sales but are a risk for leaving the company after you invest in their onboarding.
“Second, you would see a lack in response because of a stigma associated with door-to-door, even though most people find after doing the job that it can be a rewarding and lucrative job.”
“It’s not that we are trying to trick them or that we’re psychologically trying to fool them into taking a position,” Peuster said. “We want to make it known that there is a door-to-door aspect but there is more to the job.”
According to Peuster, in the dry-cleaning industry and other similar industries, door-to-door sales in not a job, it’s just one responsibility that’s part of a job. With the help of smart prospecting tools like those offered by SPOTIO, traditional door-to-door sales is less common.
“Sometimes it’s just ‘door’ sales because it’s not walking up to one door after the next, but instead canvassing only those with qualified leads.
By eliminating the term “door-to-door” from job postings, Peuster finds that he’s able to reach more candidates who wouldn’t have realized this role is a good fit for their skills and career.
According to Peuster, technology offered by platforms like Indeed.com have changed the game for talent sourcing.
“Indeed has a head-hunting program that allows you to turn around traditional recruiting,” Peuster said. “Instead of traditional recruiting where you post a job and wait for applicants, it allows you to set parameters and alerts you when candidates who meet your parameters update their resume or create a profile.”
According to Peuster, this functionality provides him with a daily pipeline of qualified candidates. Since you’re looking at candidates who just updated their resume, you can also assume they’re eager to find a job.
Another strategy Peuster uses is to recruit from similar industries that are not necessarily an obvious fit.
“We don’t just look at people who have experience in door-to-door; we look at those with similar experiences, like those working in high-end retail,” Peuster said. “These are people who have that special gift of selling, they like to talk, and they don’t have issues with rejection.”
While it may seem obvious to target those with experience in the same kind of role, it can be more fruitful in the long-term to find the right candidate and train them on the specifics of the job. Peuster also advises his clients to not always go for the obvious candidates.
“One of the best salespeople I’ve seen in the industry is introverted and shy,” he said. “So instead of trying to force him into a box, we trained him to do an introvert-type of sale.
“If you find someone who has the willingness to do the job, you can teach them how to sell in her or his own way. That way they have a sales strategy that works for them and they are connecting with customers versus selling.”
If a new employee fails, Peuster says that it’s rarely the fault of the employee. “I blame the situation or the onboarding,” he said.
According to Peuster, keeping good people is easy if you’re willing to invest properly in their onboarding and development.
“A lot of times people – when they hire staff – they look at it as a cost (labor cost) instead of as an investment,” Peuster said. “I encourage my clients to look instead at the ROI of great talent.
“Are they making you money, saving you money, or costing you money?” Peuster asked rhetorically.
According to Peuster, if they’re making you money or saving you money, they are worth investing in as their growth will only improve their results for your sales organization
“Very rarely do I hear people say, ‘How much can I grow my company with a great salesperson?’” Peuster said. “But this is the way you have to look at it.
“Often times people let good salespeople go because they think they are expensive and that they’re costing them money – then they see their sales drop and wonder why.”
Peuster encourages his clients to measure and track performance in a way that helps in understanding the value a salesperson is providing the company.
Peuster offers one more recruiting tip: Get an outside perspective.
According to Peuster, too often when people are trying to recruit, they have a picture-perfect description in their head of the person they think they need. Because of this, they miss great candidates, or worst, they favor candidates with good energy but obvious gaps.
“They think they know what they’re looking for which causes them to overlook less obvious candidates with true potential,” Peuster said. “If you bring in an outside perspective from someone who is not emotionally invested in the process, you’re more likely to get an objective point of view.”
Peuster mentions that this is a great way to see less obvious traits like a willingness to learn and improve, the desire to move up in the company, or simply the willingness to do the job well. He also focuses on positive interview questions that allow the candidates to demonstrate their potential and avoids questions that are intended to uncover negative traits in the candidate.
“I focus less on trying to source the perfect candidate and more on how to develop people into what you need them to be,” Peuster said. “Sometimes when you invest correctly in someone who seems like an average candidate, you end up with amazing talent.”
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Reducing the length of your sales cycle is vital in order to positively impact your ROI. The faster you get deals through the pipeline, the more opportunities your reps can work on… increasing the number of possible closes. Below are some tips and techniques on how to shorten your sales cycle and get to more commissions, faster.
Go to each meeting with a game plan in place. This comes from asking the right questions and understanding the true needs of the prospect.
42% of sales reps feel they don’t have enough information before making a call.
1. Not understanding the needs of your prospect can sabotage the entire deal. Not all prospects are capable of making a quick decision, so if you rush the prospect into a decision, you may close the deal only to have them gain buyer’s remorse and cancel the sale, which can cause the dreaded word: refund.
2. There’s no one way to reduce the sales cycle. It differs just as your prospects differ in how they process information to make decisions. The only way to shave off some time in the sales cycle is to ask the right questions on the onset to set up the process and get the answers you need to direct the sales to a close. Tailoring your approach with every prospect, you’ll save time and close more deals.
A lot of downtime between meeting with a client and closing the deal is usually not needed to make a decision. Most of it is dead time when both sides are just waiting to schedule the next call or in-person appointment. Your best option is to schedule the next call or in-person appointment before you leave the one you’re on.
It’s best to commit to a timeline as early as possible. This will also help reduce the time of the sales cycle. Don’t force the prospect into any agreement, but do ask the right questions to gauge when you think the prospect will make a decision – assuming they get all of their questions answered.
Most sales reps tend to ignore anything that looks like an obstacle instead of addressing it up front. You need to ask the prospect qualifying questions up front to screen them on whether or not they have the buying power, what’s their budget, and/or if there’s any doubt that your solution will work for them.
Even though you may have been selling the exact same product or service, the prospect you’re in front of has never seen it. Don’t assume how a prospect would like to proceed, give them suggestions on how they might proceed. Take advantage of this by suggesting a roadmap for the process while offering your guidance at every turn. This is known as the Buyer’s Journey.
More than 50% of prospects want to see how your product works on the first call.
It’s important to be a great tour guide and plan on how the process will unfold and anticipate any obstacles. Mapping out the ‘entire’ buying process is important to avoid any obstacles and keep the sales cycle to a minimum. Make sure to ‘connect’ with and meet all of the decision makers, if possible, agreeing to any legal terms and making any amendments to revisions and conditions. By being a great ‘tour guide’, as mentioned above, you can move the sales cycle along.
Awareness Stage. The buyer identifies they have a challenge or problem that they want a solution to. They also determine how big of a priority a solution is. In order to understand where your buyer is, you can ask yourself the following questions:
How do buyers describe their goals or challenges?
What are the consequences of inaction by the buyer?
Are there common misconceptions buyers have about addressing the goal or challenge?
How do buyers decide whether the goal or challenge should be prioritized?
Consideration Stage. The buyer has clearly defined the goal or challenge and has committed to addressing it. They determine how they want to approach the goal or challenge and the methods available to resolving that goal or challenge. Here are some questions you can ask yourself:
What categories of solutions do buyers investigate?
How do buyers educate themselves on the various categories?
How do buyers perceive the pros and cons of each category?
How do buyers decide which category is right for them?
Decision Stage. The buyer has decided on a solution to the goal or challenge by going over pros and cons on what they want to pursue. Questions you can ask yourself in this stage are:
What criteria do buyers use to evaluate the available offerings?
When buyers investigate your company’s offering, what do they like about it compared to alternatives? What concerns do they have with your offering?
Who needs to be involved in the decision? For each person involved, how does their perspective on the decision differ?
Do buyers have expectations around trying the offering before they purchase it?
Outside of purchasing, do buyers need to make additional preparations, such as implementation plans or training strategies?
Answering these questions will provide a solid foundation of the buyer’s journey and help you reduce your sales cycle.
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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com.
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The SPOTIO team recently had the opportunity to sit down with “The Brand Ambassador Guy,” Michael Rosenberg, and learn from his successful 35-year career leading companies driven by door-to-door sales. Rosenberg started his door-to-door sales career at age 12 when building his paper route. After years of tremendous growth across 22 states and building to millions in revenue, he sold his company in 2008.
Today, Rosenberg acts as an executive coach and consultant, helping companies around the globe optimize their door-to-door sales operations with a tremendous focus on talent strategy, recruitment and retaining talent. In this article, we’ll share what we learned from Rosenberg, including his go-to strategies for recruiting and retaining rock-star talent.
“I can teach pretty much anything, but there are two things I simply can’t teach – I have to hire for them,” Rosenberg said. “I can’t teach people to be likable, and I can’t teach people to be persistent.”
According to Rosenberg, the first quality he looks for in a job candidate is a relatable and likeable personality.
“Whether I’m using a video conference or meeting someone for lunch, I look first for nice,” Rosenberg said. “I’m looking to see if the person looks me in the eye, says please and thank you, and comes across as a genuine nice person.”
If Rosenberg doesn’t get the warm and fuzzies, he doesn’t move forward. But according to Rosenberg, likeability is the easier of the two unteachable qualities.
According to Rosenberg, traditional interview questions fail to truly test for persistence. That’s why Rosenberg consistently leverages a strategy he learned from The Ultimate Sales Machine author, Chet Holmes.
The strategy is based on the theory that most customers are going to say “no,” or “come back later.” When you ask traditional interview questions about how candidates handle rejection, they’ll likely provide a scripted example. There’s no way to know if that story represents their consistent and repeatable behavior.
“I need a sales rep that’s not going to back down,” Rosenberg said. “When they hear no, I need to know they’ll keep going. And I need a way to simulate that in the interview.”
To do this, Rosenberg takes an unconventional approach. He rejects them in the interview and observes their reaction.
“Eight out of ten candidates are going to accept the rejection,” Rosenberg said. “These are not the right candidates for me.”
According to Rosenberg, about one out of ten will get angry and defensive. He usually hires these candidates for their grit, but these are not the candidates who show the most promise.
“The best candidates will say something like, ‘Thank you for the feedback, but what is your definition of a rock star sales rep?’ with ease and grace.”
Rosenberg is looking for candidates who are not going to take no for an answer, but they’re going to be polite about it. They may switch gears by telling you a story.
“They’ll tell you about the time they didn’t make the basketball team but kept showing up for practice, or a time that they pushed really hard to earn something,” Rosenberg said. “And they’re going to keep telling stories with ease and grace – those people have superstar potential.”
According to Rosenberg, building out a quality sales force is only half the battle. If you want to grow a company exponentially you must focus on attracting and developing leaders – people who can run businesses.
Rosenberg cites The E-Myth by Michael Garber as the book that changed his mindset about building his business.
“If you want to be wildly successful, you have to work on your business, not in your business,” Rosenberg said, citing the popular book.
Rosenberg acknowledges that while door-to-door sales is a tough game, great door knockers are not always great business leaders. To reach exponential growth, you have to find people who can run companies.
“I’ve become successful by finding people ten times more capable than myself,” Rosenberg said. “I find people with the potential to run companies, and I fast track them.”
Rosenberg believes that company leaders should have first-hand experience in their business, so he starts them at the bottom even if they have great leadership experience.
“I make a commitment from the beginning,” Rosenberg said. “If leadership recruits hit their numbers in four to six weeks, I tell them they will be offered the chance to manage one of my offices.
“And at six months, as long as they are honest, hard-working, and people respect them, I’m going to make them my partner.”
According to Rosenberg, the key was to get out of the day-to-day business and shifting his focus on finding top talent who would run their companies as their own.
“Sometimes this means I took profits of my company and put them in business,” Rosenberg said. Sometimes it was through franchise, partnership, or a company store, depending on the situation.”
According to Rosenberg, retaining talent has never been an issue for him in his experience and this method to success is very simple.
“Retaining talent comes down to creating a great company culture, creating good air, and focusing on things people care about like recognition, incentives, good comp plans, and benefits,” Rosenberg said. “Also, retention often comes from the spouse and family.
“I do my best to make sure the family is happy and proud of the company their family represents.”
According to Rosenberg, 99 percent of companies are shaped like an upright pyramid. Everyone’s job is to make the owner on the top money. Rosenberg believes this is philosophically backwards and instead encourages the organizations he consults to operate as an upside-down pyramid that puts the boss at the bottom and the customer on top.
“As a leader, your job is to serve the team, so that they in turn are motivated to serve the customer” Rosenberg said. “When the boss serves the team, creates great mentorship and advancement opportunities, and treats the team like family, the team is committed to doing what’s right for the customer.”
If you treat your employees well, they treat your customers well – Everything comes full circle, he said.
After a wildly successful career in door-to-door sales, Rosenberg now helps others reach their full potential. To learn more or to contact Rosenberg directly for a free coaching session, reach out to him on LinkedIn.
Maximizing corporate revenues often boils down to one key (and invaluable) internal component: sales. An effective sales team does more than build robust client pipelines; proficient account executives are your company’s frontline, continuously sourcing new opportunities to edge out the competition, steal market share, and broaden your brand’s reach within your targeted demographic.
Previous generations of business owners relied on traditional (read: W2) hiring methods to staff their sales positions. However, today’s entrepreneurs recognize that bringing on full-time employees isn’t the only way to develop their sales team. Instead, companies across every industry are opting to work with independent (read: 1099) account reps to optimize selling results and success.
Would hiring independent contractors work for your business? Understanding some of the many benefits offered with this hiring model can help you determine if it’s the right choice for your organization. Staffing your team with 1099 account executives can:
> Lower overall financial responsibility and risk compared to full-time internal sellers
> Deliver faster connection to your designated marketplace, particularly when hiring 1099 reps with extensive industry experience and an established client network
> Provide access to a virtually unlimited talent pool
Best of all, 1099 sales reps often work strictly on a commission basis. You’ll only have to pay out based on closed deals, which can instantly increase cash flow and bottom line profits.
Of course, every staffing approach brings with it a potential opportunity cost to consider before making the hire. Sure, you may own the business or “manage” the rep; however, you ultimately have no real authority over a 1099 account executive. While you’re not paying for underperformance if they don’t make a sale, you may still experience loss of growth, potential revenue, and market share if your reps fail to produce the results needed to propel your brand forward.
If you do decide to move forward with 1099 sales reps, it’s essential to address several considerations for hiring success. When onboarding your independent contractors, always:
Independent contractors often enjoy more job flexibility than their full-time employee counterparts. They make their own hours and come in and out of the office on an as-needed basis, which is great, right?
Yes and no.
While you’ll want to encourage your independent reps to be out in the field as often as possible, you’ll also want to develop a specific outline of deliverables. Manage expectations right at the start of the engagement to help your hires understand their roles, responsibilities, and timeframe for results.
In most cases, your independent contractors will work solely on commission, which is often higher than what your standard employees earn. Be clear and specific about the commission structure, so your hire knows exactly what will be paid with each closed deal. You will also want to discuss how you’ll be invoiced to establish a well-defined billing/payment process before the first sale.
The best way to set your independent contractor up for success is to help assimilate your sales rep with the rest of your internal team. Develop an onboarding and training strategy that not only helps them understand exactly how to promote your products and services but also identifies key support personnel that can manage administrative responsibilities. Integrating your 1099 rep with the rest of your staff can help minimize ramp-up time, streamline the transition phase, and equip your independent contractors to stay focused on their two primary selling objectives: closing deals and boosting revenues.
Have you outsourced your sales positions to independent contractors? Was it a success story or a cautionary tale? Tell us all about it in the comment below!
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Questions or comments? Contact Spotio at info@spotio.com or comment below.
Spotio is the #1 field sales enablement platform designed specifically for outside sales managers and reps to squeeze every drop out of their field sales efforts.
Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.