The Executive Sales Coach: Keith Rosen’s Sales Blog and Business Blog On Selling, Leadership, Managing Your Team, Business and Life » All About Selling

Now, when sharing the notion of full accountability with my clients, I expect some pushback from managers and executives around taking on this position. I hear things like, “C’mon Keith, 100%. Don’t managers get a little bit of a break here? How can we be fully accountable when I’m already stretched thin and still expected to achieve higher sales goals with fewer resources. Doesn’t the salesperson have some role and responsibility in this? After all it’s their career and it’s what they were hired to do. I mean, what if…”

No, I didn’t cut this person off. I actually heard them through completely. That’s why we’re going to list all of the ‘what if’s’ (a.k.a excuses) that I’ve heard managers react with when I challenged them with adopting this principle. Here are all the reasons I’ve heard as to why managers feel they should not be fully responsible for their salespeople.

1. I just got promoted and inherited my sales team. I didn’t hire these people.


2. We don’t do background checks. Sometimes, you just don’t have all the information to make the best hiring decision.


3. Some of these veteran salespeople have been here forever. You can’t change them, they’re too set in their ways.


4. We don’t have time for a sales training and coaching program. We need people producing and out in the field.


5. It was HR’s fault. Our/my sales training is great.


6. That’s normal in my industry. Turnover is just something we just have to deal with. We just accept it as part of our hiring practices.


7. That responsibility was not part of my job description.


8. I don’t have the authority to make hiring and firing decisions.


9. We can’t offer competitive packages like other companies can. It’s straight commission. No salary or benefits. So, as you can imagine, we attract only a certain type of person and not always the high end salesperson. We do our best to play the hand we’re dealt.


10. We don’t have an evaluation process.


11. There’s just this one person who no matter how hard I try I just can’t get along with. They probably shouldn’t be here anyway. They just make my job tougher.


12. Actually, I agree with you, Keith. But here’s the thing. The problem is really this; it’s my boss. He’s the real bottleneck to making any positive changes.


13. The salespeople are really independent contractors. So if they need help, they should get help on their own. Besides, they should be able to manage themselves.


14. They fail, then they really weren’t cut out for this position.


15. We’ve given them training. Two weeks of training which covers all of our product line. Soft skill development? No.


16. Needed help? Then they should have come to us. We would have helped them. That’s their responsibility. How can I read their mind if they’re having a problem.


17. My sales team is awesome. It’s the other divisions we have to interact and work closely with that are bringing our numbers down.


18. I need quick studies. If they don’t pick it up fast, then chances are this position isn’t for them. I don’t have time to baby sit them. That’s our qualification process; the strong survive.


19. I worked with that guy for three weeks of solid, on the job training. And still nothing.


20. You can’t make any headway in this company. They’re opposed to doing that sort of thing.


21. The President and her board already feel that things are going well and this is not a priority. So why change? And if that’s how they feel, what can I do?


22. I told them to call the other salespeople for help.


23. It’s hard to find good sales talent out there now. Our market is super competitive and this is what I have to work with.

Interestingly, in each of these excuses, there is one common denominator that travels down the road called, YOU DRIVE! Here’s what I’ve responded with when hearing these or what the client had to come to terms doing.

“Ultimately, you have a choice, yes?”

What managers lack in accountability is made up for in their excuses or justifications for performance. The secret is, the real power comes in taking full ownership. The alternative is to play the helpless, powerless victim. And this role is filled coming from a place of weakness, devoid of power and from which no new possibilities can ever grow. For you’ve given up your greatest power; the power of choice.

These excuses are a declaration for these managers, as if they are etched in the stone writings of their predecessors that must never be challenged nor questioned. And each one of these justifications has the power of hands on experience and the evidence behind it to support its truth. But, still, where does that leave any of these managers? They’re still dealing with the same problem or stuck with a team of underperformers. At the end of the day, these managers have surrendered. They’ve given up. They’ve lost. The instant you begin to buy into a justification, you’ve started to surrender your personal power.

Then comes the next reaction I hear. “Okay, Keith, so now I’m a believer. Here’s another situation. Lets say we have constructed the most comprehensive recruiting and retention program you’ve ever seen. We have checklists, assessments and personality profiles. We’re doing background checks, speaking with prior employers and even their co-workers.

Once the preliminary work is done, we have each new candidate drive-along with one of our salespeople for one full day so they get to experience the job first hand and in the trenches. Each candidate is interviewed by a minimum of twelve people from their new colleagues to the senior leaders over the course of fifteen separate meetings.

Prior to the official hire, we have them spend three days working in the office, performing their job functions. Then, upon their official hire, we implement at your suggestion, a Thirty Day New Hire Orientation Program which details the daily regimented training and coaching they will be receiving, as well as the measurable results they would be responsible for at the end of the first thirty days on the job. Finally, we team them up with a sales coach to support them on a weekly basis. Now, even with an infallible system like this, in spite of everything, they don’t cut it. Are you telling me it’s still my fault?”

My response to this, “Has this happened yet to you?”

That’s about the time the conversation ends. Because any company that has these safeguards and measurables like these entrenched in their recruiting and retention process has reduced their risk of failure one hundred fold if not more, mathematically speaking. That is, the companies I’ve worked with who have implemented a program like the one I’ve described have seen their numbers shrink from a whopping 78% attrition rate of salespeople within the first year to less than 3%.

If you’re not making a choice to live responsibly, then you’re making a story.

Do you remember like it was yesterday where you could get away with connecting with your key accounts on a less frequent basis? Today, you must over-respond and over-communicate to the needs of your customers or risk losing them to your competition.

If you’re in the transactional selling business or are an order taker, then chances are, you don’t always have the strongest relationships with your customers. Therefore, more time must be spent fostering stronger relationships with key clients in order to insulate them for your competition. After all, tighter budgetary constraints = less spending = fewer and smaller selling opportunities = increased competition. Or does it have to be this way? What about this model.

Tighter budgetary constraints = less spending + making the needed adjustments in your selling strategy to account for this change = Capture greater market share.

This doesn’t mean calling on your key accounts just to “check in.” Just the other day, I received a voice mail from my credit card processing company. They were calling, and I quote, “Just to see how things are going.” Gee, this is certainly not the type of call that’s going to stimulate new sales or more sales.

Instead, have a better set of timely questions that will help you understand how the current economic crisis has affected the way they do business and make purchasing decisions.

Especially today, there are many salespeople who are hiding under their desk in fear not wanting to talk to their customers. This is a perfect opportunity for you to seize more market share.

The salesperson of tomorrow will continue to evolve into more than a salesperson, but a valuable resource and a trusted advisor throughout the entire selling process; and beyond.

This presents a huge opportunity to mine for additional upselling and cross selling opportunities.

Think about it for a moment. To develop the possibility for a sale, you have to uncover two critical things:

First, where the prospect or customer is now (Current State)—->
Second: Where They Want To Be (Desired State)

It’s your job to move them from their current state to their desired state through the use of better questions. If you want to know if your questions are being effective, just ask yourself this; are your questions giving you all of information you need to know about your prospect and their situation? The wrong questions will not only provide you with the wrong information but they will guide you right out of a sale and any selling opportunity that may have existed.

Below are the questions I mentioned I would blog about from the webinar series I delivered the other day for Hoover’s with Dr. Denis Waitley and Tom Hopkins.

Here are some relevant questions to explore with your current customers and prospects to uncover their priorities, how they are making purchasing decisions today and any upselling opportunities that may exist:

1. How has the current market/economy impacted your business?


2. What are you now doing differently as a result?


3. How have your priorities changed? What’s your single most important initiative?


4. How are decisions regarding (new purchases, existing purchases, working with current venders) made now? Has that changed?


5. How has this impacted the way you allocate your budget and your spending?


6. How is this all affecting you and your job?


7. How can I be a resource to you?

When prospecting, it’s going to be the following decision oriented questions that are going to move the sales process forward and motivate your prospect to want to buy from you. These types of discovery questions will enable you to develop a greater sense of urgency that will motivate them to make a buying decision.

1. Mr. Prospect If you could eliminate three of your biggest problems, headaches, or stresses as they relate to [STATE SERVICE/TASK] what would they be? (If there were three problems that you would want to see resolved with your current service provider what would they be?) (Ineffective solution, frustration, stress, etc.)


2. How does this (current problem, headache) affect you and your life? (Tie in the challenges they are experiencing to their position. What’s their personal cost as a result of these challenges?)


3. If you don’t make any changes, then what do you think it’s going to cost you over time? (What is it going to cost you by not changing? What additional opportunities do you think you’re letting pass by? How will this affect your bottom line?


4. Do you think there are opportunities you may miss out on by not changing? What cost do you incur by keeping things the way they are?)

Kudos to Lee Salz and Business Expert Webinars. He had the vision, executed the vision and achieved a measurable milestone over a short period of time, no less. Great example of putting the muscle of activity and momentum behind the vision. Attraction in action, baby!

Here’s the release:

Business Expert Webinars
Delivers its 100th Business eLearning Training Session!

October 28, 2008, Minneapolis, MN – Business Expert Webinars (BEW), the leading provider of business eLearning, achieved a major milestone today when they delivered their 100th for-fee webinar.

“I am proud of this significant BEW accomplishment. I’m not aware of any other program that has delivered 100 for-fee webinars in this short period of time. BEW has clearly demonstrated that people are willing to invest in business eLearning as a way to enhance the skill development of themselves and their employees. As the economy has tightened, companies and business professionals have been forced to find alternative strategies for skill development. BEW offers an affordable way to increase business aptitude on a limited budget,” said Lee B. Salz, President and CEO of Business Expert Webinars.

“The BEW platform is incredible,” says Jeb Blount, BEW speaker and CEO of SalesGravy.com. “It has provided professional business speakers with a venue to reach a global audience. Participants learn relevant information that they can immediately use in their business career.”

Business Expert Webinars began delivering for-fee webinars in May 2008 and has built a portfolio of over 150 business speakers, with a schedule of over 750 live business eLearning seminars on a wide array of subjects.

About Business Expert Webinars
Business Expert Webinars (BEW) is the leading provider of business eLearning. BEW has an international community of business speakers that comprises best-selling authors, award-winning speakers, and business gurus delivering training for business professionals. For more information, visit BusinessExpertWebinars.com.

Take the Coaching Assessment Here.

The rules of business have changed overnight and the areas most impacted – sales and leadership. How do you lead your team differently today compared to the way you did just six months ago? Have you benchmarked the skills needed to lead your team through tough economic times?

After all, I hear many managers tell me how they’re coaching their people, yet in the same breath, report how they’re still experiencing the same problems they’ve always had, and worse today. Then, how effective can your coaching actually be?

If you’re still experiencing the same problems you did before you started coaching your team, then it’s time to recognize the sign; something’s not right. Is it you, the person you’re coaching or your coaching approach?

So, if you think you’re coaching your people, take this Self Awareness Assessment to gauge your coaching acumen.

How effectively are you coaching your team? Just look at the results. Here’s your chance to get real about the areas you need to firm up and develop in order to get the results my clients experience – a 30% gain in sales. This assessment will help you benchmark the areas you need to develop as well as the strategies you need to implement in order to lead your team during good and bad times and most important, get them to thrive today.

Click on this link to go to the assessment where you will find a list of 27 coaching skills, competencies and strategies that the world’s most successful sales coaches, sales leaders and sales organizations have in common.

Take The Coaching Assessment to measure your true coaching acumen. Click here.

I hope by know, we’re all painfully aware of the costly lesson this economy has taught us. The skills, the thinking and the strategies that got us here today will not take us where we want to be tomorrow. And these uncertain times have highlighted more than ever, how we have collapsed American Entitlement with the American Dream.

The simple truth is, in order to earn more we need to learn more, especially as it relates to selling, retaining your current customers and leveraging new selling opportunities.

Here’s what I’ve observed over the last six months, how the current marketplace has impacted the way we sell and connect with our prospects and clients. Granted, some of these trends have been going on for a while now. However, these last six months have put more and more companies at this crossroad, face to face with this critical decision: adapt, innovate and change or suffer from corporate inefficiency, rigidity and declining profits. Upgrade your sales and leadership strategy to respond to these times. Here’s how.

1. Yesterday, it was more of a transactional sale. You show up and take an order or worse, you wing your presentation.

Today, you need to redefine your selling strategy and become a consultative sales champion in order to survive and thrive.

• If you’ve only gotten into sales over the last few years, you’ve never sold in tough times. More than ever salespeople need the training and coaching to stay on top.
• Benchmark best practices. What are the stages of the sale you need to move your prospect through?
• Leverage technology to manage your pipeline.
• Focus on key targeted accounts through better qualification and discovery process. (More and better questions.) Research each customer and know their business.
• Order takers don’t always have the strongest relationships. More time must be spent fostering stronger relationships with key clients. This doesn’t mean calling to ‘check in’ but have a better set of timely questions that will help you understand how the current economic times have affected the way they do business and make purchasing decisions.
• Become keenly aware of the lifetime value of every customer using better defined metrics.
• Doubling sales productivity isn’t always the answer. Consider by doing so, you’re also cutting the time you have to invest in your key accounts, in half.

2. Yesterday, you can sell features and benefits.

Today, you must reinvent your M.V. P. (Most Valuable Proposition) and develop core compelling reasons which will then move your product or service from a ‘nice to have’ to a ‘need to have.’

• Less discretionary spending and tighter budgets means less allocation of funds for anything other than what is necessary. “Nice to have’s” Are being cut out of budget. You must position your product as a need to have.
• Saying you’re the best isn’t good enough. You do so by being clear with your value proposition and a faster R.O.I.
• You must focus on the cost of not making changes/ the pain of no change/keeping things the same vs. selling the warm and fuzzy benefits.
• Fewer selling opportunities + increased competition = customers demanding more value for less money.

3. Yesterday, managers were able to tolerate more mediocrity amongst their team.

Today, leaders must transform into coaches and be more fully accountable for their team.

• Get Out Of The Fear Based, Survival Driven Mentality and develop a coaching culture.
• Develop a 30 Day Tactical Turnaround Strategy for Underperformers
• Do Not Be Seduced By the potential you see in others.
• Relinquish Your Role as The Chief Problem Solver
• Stop coaching the uncoachable
• Become less tolerant of mediocrity and underperformers
• More diligent hiring and recruiting practices as companies cannot afford the cost of a mis-hire, especially with time of the essence.

4. Yesterday, you could get away with connecting with your key accounts on a less frequent basis.

Today, you must over-respond and over-communicate to the needs of your customers or risk losing them to your competition.

• Many salespeople are hiding under their desk in fear. A perfect opportunity for you to seize more market share.
• Insulate your key accounts/current customers. Less spending = less sales volume = increased competition.
• Become more than a salesperson, become a valuable resource and a trusted advisor.
• This presents a huge opportunity to mine for additional upselling and cross selling opportunities.
• Help them reach their objectives, save money and increase revenue. Their top goals!
• Retention is the new growth strategy? Doubling sales activity? You need a fine balance between being a great hunter as well as a great farmer. More strategic selling.

5. Yesterday, you could be more lax with your daily activity and do enough just to get buy.

Today, you must refine your daily habits and become a master of your day.

• Many entrepreneurs are willing to do the things they want rather than the things they need to do to drive the growth of their business.
• What are the non-negotiable revenue generating activities they need to engage in every day?
• How are they being held accountable for doing so? That’s were a defined daily routine comes into play.

• Time is your most valuable non negotiable commodity. Invest it in the right activities done the right way.
• You can’t hide anymore.

6. Yesterday, companies had a larger budget to invest in marketing to drive more leads and prospects to the sales team.

Today, more and more companies are shifting to cold calling to generate new prospects and new leads. These were also many of the same companies who used to be resistant to this concept! This is another learned skill set and strategy that needs to be developed and embraced by your sales team.

7. Yesterday, salespeople had larger travel and expense accounts to meet with and romance their prospects and clients.

Today, more sales are happening virtually, online and over the phone. This requires learning and adapting to a new way of selling via new communication channels.

Listen to My Interview With Author Andrea Sittig-Rolf on Friday, October 17, 2008 at 1pm Pacific/4pm Eastern as we discuss:

You can click here to tune in on that day and time.

Find out more here.

There were two books I read very early on during my college years that had a huge impact on me and on my career path. One of them was written by Tom Hopkins.

Today, Tom is offering something so valuable that I needed to share it with you. He’s holding a special event next month on November 15 and again on November 20 in Southern California for:

Hopkins says, “We’ve listened to what our students are telling us. In the current marketplace, they can’t take a full day out of the field to attend seminars. So, we’ve condensed these programs to offer just the top strategies that are working now. And the Saturday program is aimed at people who are in sales part-time like many of our clients in the network marketing industry.”

While many programs of this caliber run anywhere from $300 to $1,000 per attendee, Tom Hopkins International is being sensitive to the pocketbooks of today’s Southern California sales forces. These two programs are being offered for only $99.00 per ticket. Both the offer and seating for these events are limited.

Get all the information you need here, as I’m sure this will sell out fast.

Here’s what you can expect to walk away with:

Get all the information you need or register here.

Power Referrals – The Ambassador Method Will Build Your Social Currency

In today’s market, exploiting every vehicle you can to drive more prospects and more sales to you is crucial. The innovative will reign supreme, while those scurrying to simply do more of what they did yesterday wonder why ‘more’ isn’t the answer. What daily activities yield your greatest ROI? How are you then refining and re-inventing those activities to over respond to the needs of your customers?

Winning today requires re-thinking every activity you engage in, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. Just yesterday, I’ve incorporated a whole new system that has now enabled me to more efficiently respond to every email that’s sent to me or to my company, with less human resources being exhausted. It’s a win-win for my customers and for my company and it didn’t cost me one penny. I simply refined a system we already had in place and made it even better. Keep in mind, the old system was working fine, but working fine is what got all of us in the mess we’re in today. The “Good Enough Mediocre Mentality.”

Stop and think about how you generate new business? What new initiatives or ways of prospecting have you incorporated over the last few months? How proactive are you about pursuing referral business and the many business opportunities that are out there waiting for you?

My friend and colleague, Andrea Sittig-Rolf has just released her latest book entitled, Power Referrals: The Ambassador Method for Empowering Others to Promote Your Business and Do the Selling for You (McGraw-Hill, 2008).

What does this mean to you? An opportunity to tap into a new way of doing business and attracting more customers. And it all revolves around your ability to leverage your Social Currency.

I’ve included an expert from Andrea’s book below, defining social currency and how you can start building your own.

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Social Currency is the value we bring to the social networks in which we are involved. Think of all of the networks you are involved in; social networks, professional networks, family networks. In every network, you bring value to others in that network based on the people you know and the relationships you have. Social currency is what you have to “spend” by way of introductions you make to help the people in your networks get what they want.

So how do you determine your social currency? Think of all of your spheres of influence: the people you know and the networks you’re involved in. Your spheres of influence can include colleagues, associates, referral partners, prospects, customers, friends, family, and Ambassadors. The Social Currency Assessment will help you map and understand your individual strengths and how they can benefit those in your spheres of influence, your potential Ambassadors, and your actual Ambassadors.

Everyone has skills, abilities and gifts, and this assessment will help to hone yours for a clear understanding of what strengths you have and what assets you bring to the table in your Ambassador relationships. For those skills and strengths you don’t feel you have, it’s best to simply manage your weaknesses, and to build on your strengths.

Your spheres of influence and your strengths are just part of your overall social currency…

For more information about social currency and the new book Power Referrals: The Ambassador Method for Empowering Others to Promote Your Business and Do the Selling for You, plus a free online toolkit, click here.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008, 6:00PM
LOCATION
The Penn Club
30 West 44th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues)
New York, NY 10036
Register here.

If there’s ever an event worth noting and more so worth attending, I’m going to let you know. And here’s one that you can’t afford to miss.

The need for companies to over-respond quickly and efficiently to current market conditions has never been more apparent. Organizations must adjust their sales and leadership model with minimal collateral damage while doing so.

As more and more companies are selling to fewer and fewer large, corporate accounts, sales teams at companies of all sizes struggle to consistently hit ever-increasing targets quarter-after-quarter. It’s the question that keeps every sales leader up at night: How can you accelerate your deal flow? How can you close more revenue, faster?

In today’s hyper-competitive, ‘always on but never available’ selling environment, sales reps and sales managers face equally hard challenges.

Sales reps have to deal with prospects who don’t answer phones, all calls are routed to voice mail and no one ever calls back. Even when sales reps do manage to get prospects engaged, the likelihood that the deal would close is anybody’s guess.

Yet, both sales executives and their managers’ careers depend on forecasting and delivering results accurately.

Spend an evening with leading experts on the critical strategies and proven tools your teams can use right away to:

These strategies may go against conventional wisdom, but that’s why they work.

Moderated by Nigel Edelshain, CEO Sales 2.0, the conversation participants include Jill Konrath, sales expert and renowned author of Selling to Big Companies, and Razi Imam, CEO of Landslide Technologies, an award-winning company recognized for offering an innovative sales management system that goes beyond just technology.

Together with Nigel, they will discuss the key elements of building effective sales teams – from the new selling skills to the new Sales 2.0 technologies that help salespeople win corporate accounts consistently.

Register now for this timely session – seats are limited.

AGENDA
6.00PM – 6:45PM Networking and Hors d’oeuvres
6:45PM – 7:45PM Presentation and Interactive Discussion
7:45PM – 8:00PM Wrap-up & Networking

Tuesday, October 14, 2008, 6:00PM
LOCATION
The Penn Club
30 West 44th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues)
New York, NY 10036

Register Today here.

First 20 registrants will also receive an autographed copy of Jill Konrath’s best-selling book, Selling to Big Companies.

Defusing Objections

Rather than react to an objection with a statement that creates an adversarial posture between you and the prospect (Example: defending your position, service, or product) respond to the objections you hear with a question using the three step I.G.O. Permission Based Selling Rather than react to an objection with a statement that creates an adversarial posture between you and the prospect (Example: defending your position, service, or product) respond to the objections you hear with a question using the three step I.G.O. Permission Based Selling™ process to defuse them. Here’s how.process to defuse them. Here’s how.

Tip From The Coach: Remember, after gathering the information during your discovery process, use this information to conclude your sales process and ask for their business. If done effectively, all you are really doing is reconfirming the information that they previously shared with you as to why they want to use you and your company – because you’ve satisfied all of their needs.

I. Isolate the objection
G. Gain permission to have a dialogue.
O. Offer solutions or new possibilities.

Step 1. Isolate the Objection:
Ensure that you are actually dealing with a valid objection rather than a smokescreen. You don’t want to overcome smokescreens because you can’t. That’s the inherent quality of a smokescreen; if you overcome one, the prospect will just create another one. Therefore, isolate the objection down to its core to see if the initial objection they shared with you is really the truth or if it’s something else. The “something else” could be that they don’t believe you, don’t trust you yet, don’t believe you or your product can help them, they may not be the decision maker, they have been burned before, they are simply having a bad day and you are their new target, and so on. Confirm whether the objection they shared is the core objection or if the real objection is actually something else. These questions will enable you to expose what their primary concern actually is.

Step 2. Get Permission: Get permission to discuss solutions and have a dialogue.

Now that you’ve smoked out the real objection, it’s time to offer a solution. However, the key for this conversation to work without you sounding like a high pressure or “cheesy” salesperson is to first get permission. You can create a new opening to overcome a prospect’s concern by asking for permission to do so.

1. “Mr. Prospect, if budget was no longer an issue for you, would you be open to exploring this in more detail?”




2. “Mrs. Prospect, if there was a way to make this slide comfortably into your budget, would you be open to discussing this in more detail?”

Use “If” Questions:
Reverse or take away the objection to determine if “not having a budget” or if “working with another vender” is the only thing that’s truly getting in the way. Now that I’ve hypothetically removed this objection, their response should be a “Yes,” which would then give me the permission to allow me to continue our conversation and focus on a solution; such as uncovering a measurable budget, a time they would have a budget, or the results they really want, rather than dwelling on the objection or the problem. Once again, keep in mind that if they respond with a “No,” then there’s still something else going on, you haven’t uncovered the core objection or another objection or roadblock that they haven’t shared with you yet.

Step 3. Offer a Solution:
If they say “Yes,” you now have a prospect who is interested in hearing more about the solutions you offer.

Tip From The Coach: Salespeople don’t overcome objections, prospects do. The only person who can truly overcome an objection is the prospect. Salespeople create the opportunity for this to occur through their effective use of questions. Selling is therefore the art of asking questions, listening openly and intentionally, and gaining information; not giving it.