My nephew Mike has “IT”. Even at the age of 3 you can already tell. Mike is a little rough around the edges and he’s a small, scrappy guy for his age. That being said, he will work hard for something he wants and nothing short of an act of God will stop him until he gets it. Last week, my sister had made brownies for everyone to have for desert. Mike had a couple and like any 3 year old he went back for seconds and thirds only to be told “no” by my sister as he had already had several. After some mild complaining he gave up, or so we thought. My sister woke up at about 3am to some rustling downstairs. She walked down quietly to see what it was. She flipped the light on in the kitchen to see that Mike had dragged a dining room chair in the kitchen and stacked about 10 books on top of it so that he could climb the books and reach the brownies which were in a pantry about 6 feet up. The brownie supply had been decimated by a 27 lbs ball of determination. The chair was heavy and the books were huge, it must have taken him a while. He looked at my sister and said, “Mom, I love brownies, but I love you more.” Mike didn’t get in trouble. He has “IT”.
I’ve been reading a lot of discussions on LinkedIn about what makes a great sales person. I see most of the same words time and time again to describe good sales executives, “Hard working, money motivated, honest, direct, and personable”, to name a few. While all of these are undeniable characteristics of a good sales person, I feel that the biggest factor is often left out, the “IT” factor. “IT” is what the best sales reps have in them and “IT” is hard to find. “IT” is the difference between a rep that makes quota and a rep that crushes the number quarter after quarter.
In my opinion, “IT” is the unique blend of talent and determination that drives the most successful sales executives. People that have the “IT” factor don’t want to be in the top tier of sales executives. They have to be number one. People that have “IT” don’t settle when they reach the top spot. They recreate expectations by beating their own numbers time and time again. People with “IT” do not stop until they have done everything they can do to be as good as they could possibly be. They use 100% of the tools and talents they have and when they run out of every option, they think of one more and try that. There is no half effort from a sales executive with “IT”. There are two modes, off and 100% full steam ahead.
I think everyone should look for the “IT” factor in their sales reps. They’re the ones with all the brownies.
Hiring a new sales rep can be an interesting exercise for us. Our services are not the easiest to sell. We offer a solution that most companies think they can do on their own and for less than they will spend on our services. To compound this issue, a lot of these companies have used other services to solve their problem and have been "burned" by companies that offer pieces of what we do. Picture your shoes being untied as you go for a walk, but you can't bend over to tie them because you have your hands full with groceries. (Yes I know you could put the groceries down, but roll with me here). Anyways, a person comes along and offers to tie your shoes for you for five dollars. Seems to be a waste, but you need the shoes tied so you give the person 5 bucks. He ties your shoes and then as soon as you start walking you fall on your face dropping your groceries all over the street. You look at your feet only to discover the guy has tied your shoe laces together. You tie your shoes the correct way, start walking and they become untied again. Here I come along and say "hey I can tie your shoes for you so that they stay tied, but it will cost 10 bucks". That's a tough sell.
As we think about who to bring onto the team we will look at what always appears to be a million resumes. Each one has the true sales spin on it, using terms such as rainmaker, self starter and my favorite, elephant hunter. Many of them look great and I would be happy to hire several of them, though the "elephant hunter" seemed to be logical choice to me. I mean hell, if a guy can bring down an elephant, he can surely sell our solution. My CEO will look at all the resumes, listen to my recommendations and then proceeded to ignore all of them. He often prefers to hire the guy with a total of 0 days experience selling solutions like ours. He explains, "He has all the tools to do this job and no one knows it yet." I would be skeptical to say the least, but fast forward 6 months, and the guy is a rainmaker. How does this happen? Not that I get upset about it, but I thought for sure that we needed to invest significantly in someone with plenty of experience to get the job done.
As it turns out the inexperienced candidates greatest weakness was can be his greatest strength. They are a blank slate. As the person responsible for training I did not yet understand this. I would have to show him who to call, when to call, what to say, what steps to follow, how to prepare a proposal, how to negotiate, hell even how to dress for different meetings. I quickly realized how much easier it was to train someone who just listened and learned, and did not have any preconceived notions or bad habits to undo. Absorbing every piece of information I could throw at them, following our processes to a T. A lot of experienced reps would have used their knowledge from past sales experience to guide them in their sales process. This could be great. Then again, this could be awful. Our sales process is a bit unique and more than a couple of reps have come to us thinking they were going to crush their number only to leave with their tail tucked between their legs. As these inexperienced new hires grow into their roles, I am always pleasantly surprised with how fast they pick things up.
When I relay my surprise with how well they are doing to my CEO, he explains: "What I look for in a sales rep is work ethic, intelligence, personality and the willingness to learn. The sales process can be taught. The personality traits cannot. I trained you and you were a lot further behind than him. Now you are training him. The goal is to have all of us sell the same way, to have the same message and the same great results. It takes a bit more work, but the end result makes it worth it." He has created a process to develop a sales team that emulates the behavior and has the passion of the first person to successfully sell our solution, himself. There is no replacing a great experienced sales rep. They bring industry knowledge, they are usually up and running quickly, they have contacts and they don't need to be closely watched over. That being said, you may want to look into bringing on some unproven sales executives into the mix at some point. They are a clean slate ready to learn and execute the sales process in the way that you would like. If you have the time, they could be well worth the investment.
My friend Tom runs an inside team for a software company in Boston. He gave me a call the other day asking for my opinion on his compensation package for his inside sales reps. We both compensate our inside sales reps based on performance, but Tom sees performance very differently than I do. Tom pays his reps by the number of opportunities they pass on a monthly basis. The more appointments you set for the outside team, the more money you get. Every time a sales rep has a conversation with someone you passed, the little cash register noise goes off in your head. I hear this from a lot of people that run inside sales teams.
The main issue that I have with the compensation model is that it incents the wrong kind of behavior. Finding someone that will listen to a sales rep for 15 minutes is relatively easy. I know personally that I have been called enough times by certain inside teams that I will take an appointment with a sales rep just to keep the inside rep from calling me back, even though I have no intention of buying or even keeping the appointment.
So how do you keep your inside sales reps from setting your sales team up with fruitless appointments? The answer is simple: stop paying them to do so! I’ll admit if I were in their place I would do the same exact thing. They are being motivated to find meetings when they should be motivated to find actionable sales opportunities. In lieu of paying your inside sales rep for every appointment they set, try paying them based on the number of successful appointments that take place. You can judge this by using feedback surveys. The feedback survey is a great way to compensate your inside rep as well as keep track on the effectiveness of your outside team.
After a sales rep has a discovery call or introductory meeting that was set up by your inside sales team, send them a quick email. The email is going to gauge the quality of the opportunity sent. I list 3 questions that the sales rep has to reply to:
- Did the meeting happen?
- Was all the information given to you from the inside sales rep accurate and up the specifications agreed on?
- Is this call moving into a next step?
If the answers to the first 2 questions are “Yes”, the inside rep should get credit for passing a good opportunity. If your sales team is working well they should be able to convert 80% of those into a next step. If you find that you are getting answered “No” to a particular question consistently on the feedback surveys, then you have something to work on. Here is how I interpret the unfortunate “No” based responses.
1 – Did the meeting happen? If the calls aren’t happening, you have to look at how interested the prospects really were. No shows happen when inside reps don’t fully qualify and don’t pique the interest of the prospect. I find this happens more with inside sales reps that are compensated based on the number of leads they pass. As I said, If you tell a rep that every time they pass an opportunity, they will get (x) dollars, they will pass anyone that hits the bare minimum requirements in order to score the lead and get paid. It’s very pavlovian in nature: book a time, get some money, book a time, get some money, hit the red button, get a banana, little bell rings, time to eat…. Of course there is always going to be a drop off and some people won’t show for a meeting. If you have more than a 20% no show rate, you will want to look into the pitch and how it is being delivered to ensure the prospects are being qualified properly
2 – Was all the information given to you from the inside rep accurate and up the specifications agreed on? There should be questions that both the inside and outside sales reps agree need to be answered before they move to a sales call. I wouldn’t suggest getting too in depth with these. Contain them to questions such as, “Does the prospect have a problem we can solve, is there an active initiative for the prospect to solve this problem, does the prospect have the right characteristics to purchase from us? (number of users, revenue, locations, etc…)” IF the inside sales team is gathering this information on all opportunities, you should expect at least 70% of the opportunities to move forward into the next step of your sales process.
3 – Is this call moving into a next step? I talked about this in my last point, but if the first 2 questions are answered in the affirmative, the last one comes down to the sales team’s performance. If the prospects are showing up for meetings and they have all of the qualification they agreed they needed, then they are responsible for moving the opportunities to a next step. We currently have an average of 80% of our “leads” moving into a next step. That is across multiple product lines and industries. I would say anything under 70% should be alarming.
This is how I use feedback surveys to motivate my inside sales team to pass quality opportunities to sales and to ensure those quality opportunities are being followed up with a strong sales effort. It would be interesting to hear of any other tools that people are using to do the same.
Steve is an inside sales rep here at AG Salesworks. More importantly, Steve is my inside sales rep at AG Salesworks. He's a good inside rep too. Together we make a pretty good 1-2 punch. We're kind of like Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Murtough (Danny Glover) from Lethal Weapon.
Chris: No way Steve, we can't qualify that prospect...it's too dangerous
Steve: Don't think that way Chris. I'm going to do something crazy and unpredictable, just follow my lead.
Chris: That will never work....he's going to say he's not interested
Steve: Not today Chris....lets go! (Steve dials phone)
Chris: I'm getting too old for this! (audience laughs and wonders how they will ever pull this one off)
Much like Riggs and Murtough, Steve and I didn't always work well together. It's not that he was ever a bad rep or I was a bad sales executive. We just weren't on the same page. Over the past couple of years we have worked on and refined our process to the point where Steve knows exactly what I am looking for in a lead and I know what he needs to find great opportunities. There a lot of different things that we do to keep in sync with each other. Listed below are the first steps that we took to make sure that we are getting things done as well as team:
Review Interested Accounts: We take about 20 minutes each week to review our "Interested Accounts". These are prospects that like our solution, but may not be in a position to purchase for a number of reasons. Reviewing the conversations Steve has with interested accounts lets me know what I have coming to me in future months. It also allows me to prospect into some accounts before Steve would normally pass them to me. For example, Steve had a conversation with the decision maker at a multibillion dollar company the other day. That DM wasn't in the position to buy for about 12 months. Knowing that this was a huge account I was trying to lock down for quite some time, Steve brought it to my attention. Together we formulated a pass off plan and I am now having regular conversations with the right person. They may not be active buyers right now, but when they are, my company will be discussed.
Review the Not Interested Accounts: The not interested accounts show why people do not want to speak with us. I think these are the best notes to look at when it comes to continuous improvement. Reviewing these accounts makes us able to identify the fears and reservations of our prospect base and address them in future calls. It helps Steve as he is able to proactively deliver a pitch that alleviates the doubts of the prospect before they even voice them. If you know that your prospects are terrified of using a solution because they have been "burned in the past", you can formulate your pitch to show why you are different right from the start giving you a higher likely hood of being able to keep someone on the phone.
Top 5 Accounts: Every week I give Steve 5 accounts that I would like to get into. I do some research into each of the companies ahead of time to make sure that they are a fit for our services. These accounts are like the girls that wouldn't talk to me in high school. I was never good at the initial introduction. I never knew where to start and would mess it up. EG: "Hi I'm Chris....you have big nostrils.....not that that's a bad thing....you can probably run for distance, with the increased air flow and all....I'm sorry I'll leave now." Steve and I review the top 5 accounts and set forth a strategy as to how he is going to get me a date with them. We look at their upcoming events, major news stories at the company, acquisitions, new funding and we formulate a pitch and plan specific to what they are dealing with at the time. More often then not, I end up meeting with those companies within a month.
Steve asks questions about my sales calls: We go through all the leads that Steve passed to me and talk about the ones that worked and the ones that didn't work. The purpose of this is obvious, but very powerful: identify the prospects and pitches that worked and repeat them. Similarly, identify the things that aren't working, and stop doing them. If we notice that we get killed every time we get a lead with a certain title, we make changes to the pitch that will make it more alluring to that titles specific needs.
All of these steps have a great yet unintentional result. The discussions we have make Steve and I feel like a team. There are so many companies out there that separate the inside and outside reps often times leaving the inside reps hearing about their performance from a marketing or sales operations person. Including them in conversations about the sales process gives them insight directly from the reps they support and also makes them feel like they are part of the sales team, rather than a faceless cold caller. You do better work when you feel like you are part of something and other people are relying on you. As a result the quality of leads goes up, the sales person closes more deals and both parties get paid more!
Those are a few of the methods that Steve and I use to stay on top of our pipeline and continuously get better at our respective roles in the sales process. I would love to hear feedback on how you have increased the effectiveness of your inside/outside sales process.
Today's Sales Prospecting Perspectives post is from Chris Lang, AG's Sales Director.
Have you ever seen some of the formulas used to determine the level of quality on a marketing qualified lead (MQL)? Some are amazingly complex. Other than the numbers that were crunched to create the Large Hadron Collider (particle accelerator used to smash sub atomic particles together and find different particles we never knew about as well as the true meaning of the song "Bird is the Word"), there is nothing more complicated than MQL scoring. It has something to do with the number of times someone hits the website, crossed with the day of the week, add 5 if they opted in for the white paper and then give them a certain number of points depending on the flavor of popsicle they like. Marketing tracks behavioral patterns, opt ins, web hits, shoe size, everything! They are kind of like the CIA when you think about it.
Inside Rep: Hi is this John Doe?
John Doe: Yes this is. What is the purpose of your call?
Inside Rep: This is Chris Lang from AG Salesworks, we do (insert elevator pitch). I see that you have opened my white paper 8 times, you are a VP marketing, you have clicked through 32 pages on our site, there is a new position open for qualification reps, you like rainy days and according to the bumper sticker on your car you would "rather be fishing". I thought it might be a good time to call you.
John Doe: wow you certainly did you homework, I guess I can give you a couple minutes, how did you find out all of this?
Inside Rep: I'm in marketing sir; I know things about a lot of people. By the way, stop using so much garlic in your pesto sauce. It's giving your wife an upset stomach.
Marketing goes all out to track their campaigns and prove effectiveness. Some sales teams however....not so much. Sure we track what we close, because those are the only numbers that we find important. But, we should be able to track and put a value on all sales leads from the initial discussion all the way to close. It is the best way to find out where things are dropping off in your funnel, where you have the most wins, how you fare in competitive situations and how effective marketing is in delivering quality leads.
Sales executives aren't always the best at putting a probability to close on their leads. Often times when a sales rep is asked to report on the quality of lead he/she will use a simple "Stunk" or "Pretty Good" as a response. Sometimes this is to protect themselves and pad their numbers and other times the sales person simply doesn't know how good the lead is yet. No one wants to say they got a lot of great leads, but didn't close much business, so they wait to forecast them until they absolutely know what is going to happen. This leads to a large gap of unpredictable sales pipeline as leads essentially go stealth for months until they suddenly pop up on forecast in "Proposal Stage". This is counter to what my sales and marketing VP's want to know as they look for the closing probability of every opportunity that comes in our door.
My marketing VP doesn't like it when he asks for my report on lead effectiveness and I hand him a napkin with "A couple stunk, most were pretty good, a few are nurture accounts and one was a real jerk". He found it tough to quantify this in his marketing ROI spreadsheets. Similarly, my sales VP used to get a bit testy when I told him that we could close anywhere from 1 million in net new business to about 300 billion by quarter end. Tough for operations to predict the future work loads with a forecast like that.
With these issues in mind, we came up with a system here to value sales leads after the initial call. It's not nearly as complex as the MQL system because NASA hasn't returned my calls for help, but it allows me to see the likelihood of a deal closing after one call and gives the marketing team a great view of what campaigns are going to yield the most revenue. It runs off of a 100 point scale with a certain number of points given to an opportunity based on factors such as: pains and needs, prospect's ability to make a decision and sign the check, whether it is an active initiative or not, what factors could blow the deal up, what the timeframe for purchase is and what other options the prospect could use rather than us. After each call, as rep has to re-grade the prospect based on any new information they find out. If all of a sudden they find out the prospect is not the decision maker, the lead score drops. If they hear that the timeline to purchase has moved up, the lead score would increase.
In the end, I can tell what the probability is on a deal closing from start to finish. When you combine this with the efforts of marketing to track leads in the initial stages, we are able to look at each lead, find out where it came from, how long it was in marketing, why and when sales actively pursued it, what the chances of it closing are and if it doesn't close why. We are also able to accurately predict our new revenue from quarter to quarter, see where deals drop off of forecast and we know what behaviors lead to wins on the sales side.
There is always going to be an unpredictable side to sales as long as we sell to people. Prospects change their minds for so many reasons we can't keep track of them. That being said, there is also a very predictable side to sales that says prospects following certain patterns have a higher likelihood of closing. Sales should take a page from some of the better marketing teams out there, learn how to track these behaviors and link them to close rates. It is much more effective than using napkins.
Today's Sales Prospecting Perspectives post is from Chris Lang, AG's Sales Director.
Remember the show "Kids say the Darndest Things"? Man I loved that show. I wasn't around during the Art Linkletter years to see the original version, but I used to watch the re-runs on Nick at Night with my parents and then the Bill Cosby version in the late 90's. The kids would say a couple of off colored, hilarious statements and often times by the end of the segment the adults would be thinking, "Wow we could really learn a lot from that child." The kids, without knowing any better, would teach us all a lesson with simple observations about life. For example an 8 year old named Manuel said you should do this for the person you are in love with, "Yell out that you love them at the top of your lungs...and don't worry if their parents are right there." Manuel is a genius! Here people are reading advice columns, watching awful romantic comedies (usually with Hugh Grant in them) and doing everything else under the sun to be a better spouse and Manuel broke it down to one statement: Love the person no matter what and don't be afraid to show them that.
I'm used to calling into my network and being set up with very warm leads from my inside team. I sometimes forget the nuances of how to get past gate keepers and deal with administrative assistants. I asked one of my fellow sales reps for some help on my emails a while ago. I hadn't been getting a good return rate, which used to be a strong point for me, and I was completely baffled. I tried every approach I knew, straightforward, information seeking, just trying to help, your boss told me to write you, I have your dog in my trunk, etc... Nothing was getting through. My co-worker Ed, O'Neil (there Ed I said your name in the blog, please stop asking me) gave me a great format which I tried over the course of the next week. The basic principle was to keep it simple, deliver the information needed and tell them what you want to do. The way he worded it made the prospect really want to get back to him. The return rate on my emails doubled in one week.
I asked Ed if he had anything else for me. It turns out Ed got that advice from someone else. Surely Ed had a friend that has written books on "email effectiveness", a colleague that ran a sales consultancy or at least that crazy cousin that was super smart until he got "caught up in the 70's". Turns out Ed was talking to one of our junior inside reps at AG that had only been here for about 6 months and this was the rep's first job right out of college. I started sharing information with all of our inside reps for tips on how to write emails, what scripting should be used on certain titles and what to say to the nasty admin that always answers the phone. (Call the executive at 8am, the admins don't get in the office until 8:30 - 9am so the contact will answer) Turns out the reps here are all geniuses! There was a huge amount of knowledge floating around the building and I wasn't tapping into it because I limited myself to asking superiors for advice. The inside reps have information sharing sessions every week to make each other better. This wasn't management mandated, they just knew that the better they did the more money they would make and if they shared a secret or two someone may share a few with them and both people would win. Everyone has their strong points and often times your strong point could be an area of weakness for someone else so why wouldn't we critique and give feedback on everyone's styles?
We meet on a weekly basis to go over what is working, share ideas and how to continually improve. Everyone goes to these meetings from the president of the company to the new person that started a week ago. Every person is encouraged to speak and bring a couple of good ideas to the table. Titles are left at the door and anyone can help someone else. A lot of times, as people get promoted into management they don't ask non-management for opinions and advice. Conversely, someone in an entry level role probably won't stroll up to senior management and tell them they have an idea that could help. It's silly really. If there is a more effective way to get something done you should want to know about it. Provide your team with a forum to openly share ideas with each other. You could even do it through an anonymous chat board if think it will encourage more discussion.
So don't limit yourself, everyone in your company has great ideas, leverage everyone's knowledge. It is the role of great leaders to find and use those ideas to help everyone in the company.
Today's Sales Prospecting Perspectives post is from Chris Lang, AG's Sales Director.
Your inside sales reps have a tough job. I liken it to asking women if they will tell you how much they weigh. 98% of them will tell you no (some more colorfully than others), 1% will give you a vague range and then 1% will actually tell you. Sometimes management makes it even tougher for the reps to do their jobs by setting up road blocks along the way. Take the same analogy I was using above only ask the question while wearing a t-shirt that says "Skinny Police" on it and see what happens. What I am trying to say, in my own weird way is, don't make your inside reps wear the "Skinny Police" shirt. The job of management is to make the inside reps as successful as they could possibly be. There are a couple of things you can do (or avoid doing) to help your team out.
Calls Come First
The inside sales team should focus on outbound dials. Don't fill their schedules with non-calling related activities. Sure, we all have meetings and there will be some occasions when your reps may have to do something other than make dials, but keep this to a minimum. Inside reps should be able to log 100 activities per day (mix of calls/emails). If they are constantly running reports, making their own lists and sitting in on countless sales and marketing meetings; they won't have time to do the most important task of the day, make calls. Cold calling is the number one priority, everything else can wait.
Hire a Second Inside Sales Rep
This pertains to a lot of the smaller companies out there with a couple of outside reps and one inside rep supporting them. If you have the ability to, you should bring on a 2nd rep. The inside sales job is a very lonely one to do all on your own. Inside reps can become discouraged during down months. Having that 2nd rep gives both of them someone to share ideas with, and more importantly someone to compete with. You can expect your production from your inside team to more than double when you bring on a second rep as they bounce ideas of off each other and compete for your love!
Compensate the right Behavior
A lot of companies compensate based on the number of "leads" passed on a monthly and quarterly basis. While this can and should be a factor, it should not be the largest portion of an inside reps bonus package. When you incent based on the number of leads you are asking the reps to pass a bulk of leads that hit the bare minimum qualification needed to get paid. Rather than compensate based on the number of leads, compensate based on successful leads. I suggest having two main categories in your compensation package: number of leads that go to move into a "next step" after the initial meeting with your sales team and % of leads that are deemed "successful" by the sales team. Compensating based on the number of leads that move into a second step will ensure there is a good flow of opportunities and factoring the % in will make sure the leads are of the highest quality.
"But Chris, how about paying them based on closed business?" Great question imaginary reader. Giving a kicker for closed business is something I do myself, but I wouldn't make this a huge part of the compensation package. That is putting a lot of their pay in the hands of other people. Your reps could pass great leads and not get paid because a sales rep botched a call, proposed the wrong solution, didn't put forth the right amount of effort, etc... It can create a contentious relationship between the inside and outside reps.
Show Them Some Love
Try to make your rep's day a little fun. As I said before, this is a tough job. Prospects make it a point to avoid inside reps and when a rep does have a conversation the prospect's tone is often filled with skepticism and roadblocks. It is our job as managers to foster an upbeat and positive attitude in their workplace. Run some fun contests. Recognize the rep when they are putting forth a big effort even if the returns haven't developed yet and make a sales executive tell the rep when they have delivered an outstanding opportunity to the sales team. It is unreal how much production will increase when people feel appreciated or when you offer a $20 Dunkin Donuts card for "Most conversations in a day". Conversely, it is very predictable that production will drop if you crush your inside reps and only focus on the negatives when they are having a down month. I'm not saying that you should sugar coat poor performance, but focus on what they do well and how they can get better rather than why they stink that month.
Today is Monday. It is the toughest day of the week. Your reps are tired, possibly a bit hung-over (stupid late night Red Sox game) and they could probably use some positive motivation to get the week kicked off right. Have you put them in the best possible position to find out how much someone weighs?
Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you yet another encore guest post from Chris Lang, AG's Sales Director. Chris lives and breathes sales and sales prospecting, and we are very happy to have the opportunity to share this entry from him with our readers. Thanks again Chris!
I talk to a lot of people that manage their own inside qualification teams. They shoot me down on occasion. "I have a great team here and don't need help", "you couldn't possibly know enough about our solution to help", "I'm way too stubborn to listen to you and only took the call because my boss made me". The last one I may have taken a little creative liberty on to make me feel better when they shoot me down. Keeping those rejections in mind, I got to wondering if they had a valid point as to whether or not my team could build forecast for their solution. It raised two major questions. First, How much does an inside rep need to know to pass a qualified lead and second, is it possible that their inside reps know too much?
When I was an inside rep I had an unbelievable thirst to know the solution back to front, up to down, inside and out. I was always afraid of sounding stupid on the phone. I wanted to have an answer for any possible question that may come up. If I got a question I couldn't answer (or BS my way around) I would immediately go to my product specialists and sales team and fire questions at them. I may not know an answer once, but I would never allow myself to get stumped on the same question twice.
It was a tough sell if you didn't know your stuff. The solution was geared towards the North American auto makers and after market parts manufacturers to make them run "lean". The value in using it was that it would allow these manufacturers a way to create their products faster, using less money and with a much higher quality. (How are those books looking now NA auto market? I told you to listen to me.....I'm not bitter at all) I knew nothing about cars, less about how they are made and even less about how they could be manufactured in a "lean" environment. I was a kid from Boston with a wicked bad accent trying to talk shop with plant managers in Alabama and VP's in Detroit. I thought I was going to fail miserably, but in my first months on the job I found myself averaging 12 opportunities per month leading to a little under a million dollars a month in forecast. (Own horn = tooted) I thought I was doing pretty well and my superiors were pleased.
Then a funny thing happened. As time went on my lead numbers began to drop. I had more people saying "no" to me which lead me to study more about the solution to handle the objections and hopefully pass more leads. By the next quarter I knew everything there was to know about lean manufacturing, the comparison to TPS (Toyota Production Systems), supply replenishment, change over time, integration with major ERP systems, etc... but my lead number dropped again and this time drastically. I had a manager sit in on calls with me. I had a number of great conversations and I handled the objections well, but couldn't find any leads. I thought for sure my manager would tell me that it wasn't my fault, I was awesome, handsome, and that there is obviously something wrong with the marketplace. What she said next surprised me. "Dumb it down Lang, keep it simple and stop trying to sell the product. We pay sales executives a lot of money to close business. I want prospects to say ‘no' to them, not you".
I was a little (ok very) angry with that manager, but I thought about what she had said and looked at my script from month one. That first script was simple. It was right to the point and easy to deliver:
- This is what we do
- Here is how it can help you save money, make money, mitigate risk
- Do you want to hear more about it
- Can you answer a few questions
- I'll have my sales rep call you Tuesday at 4pm
I had to handle some of the initial objections, but other than that I passed the lead as soon as it hit my qualification requirements. I had become so concerned with being knowledgeable, that I was getting myself into rat holes that I couldn't get back out of. I dumbed the script down a bit and voila, the leads began flowing again.
A lot of companies train their reps for months on product. They teach the rep about this bell and this whistle and "oh look it lights up when you push that button!" The rep, if he or she has any ambition, will gladly soak it all up and try to use it to pass more leads. The problem is that they end up loaded with all of this information about product, but they forget how to get past the nasty administrative assistant that screens the VP's calls. They try to sell the admin on the solution based on features and functions and get killed. Try to talk to an admin about the benefits of using lean principles to shorten change over and eliminate down time, just keep a glass of whiskey close by, you may need it.
Train your reps on how to qualify, not sell. An inside rep should have the information needed to deliver a value forward pitch, handle top objections, pass the lead if it is qualified and know when it is time to transition an opportunity. Let the sales executives and product specialists handle the rest. Your inside rep will be happy with their output and the sales person, who is trained to turn a "no" into a "yes" will land more deals.
Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you an encore guest post from Chris Lang, AG's Sales Director. Chris lives and breathes sales and sales prospecting, and we are very happy to have the opportunity to share this entry from him with our readers. Thanks again Chris!
In 2008 my ISR's delivered great leads. When an opportunity came to me it had information about all the pains and needs, what the prospect currently used, if they had budget, what the buying cycle was, who else they were looking at etc.... My leads had all of the qualification information needed to help me hit my sales number.
I'm a little quirky with my sales process. There are things I do before/during/after every meeting. If I am running a conference call I make a 400oz coffee right before the call. When on a conference call I always swing an old 5 iron while I talk. After the call I sprint to the men's room (400oz coffee).
As I dialed into my conference line and waited for my prospect I would run a quick systems check to make sure I was fully prepared.
"Relevant questions that play off of their answers to the inside rep......CHECK"
"Pre-answered questions to any weird objection or question they may have....CHECK"
"Conversation flow chart as to how and where I want things to go.....CHECK"
"Examples of work we've done in their target market.....CHECK"
The beep indicator would sound, signaling my prospect had arrived on the phone. The prospect would introduce themselves and I would immediately throw away the game plan I had just worked on. As a sales person I try to read people. My prospect introduced herself and I knew the call was going to be a lot different then what I had planned for. My entire line of questions and answers had been built around a certain type of person and I got a different kind. My straight ahead, timeline format wouldn't work with a prospect that asked questions about my family, my golf game and why I like strawberry jelly better than grape. (Strawberry is much better, grape jelly is for children)
I found myself doing this quite a bit. Prep for a call, build a list of questions, build a list of topics and then scrap the original game plan once the call started. This lead me to ask the inside sales team to qualify our prospects on a whole different level, personal. We now look for personality, behavioral and lifestyle traits within our prospect base and I build my sales structure around my prospects personality. I use the same questions and talking points, but when and how I use them differs depending on who I am speaking with.
Is the person conversational or cut and dry? Does the contact seem honest and caring or are they playing angles to work a deal? Are they local? Will they get local Boston references? Kids? Married? Divorced? Sports fans? What college? What hobbies? What tendencies? What should I know about this person before I engage with them? Of course I don't ask my reps to find all of this information as it would take way too much effort and the state of Massachusetts would probably issue restraining orders against the inside team, but I do ask them to give me an idea of what the person is like and to identify a couple of traits that I should be aware of.
I prepare differently now. Whereas before I prepared for a call based on the numbers, I now prepare for a personality and how I should interact with that personality. All the information I use stays the same, but how I present it can vary greatly. If you give a type A personality a type B sales call, you run the risk of not connecting on a personal level with your prospect. Prospects today are very well informed. They do their homework. They research competitive solutions. They talk to their networks and they have extensive discovery meetings with you to see if your solution will help them. No matter how well versed the prospect is, in the end a prospect is not going to go with the person they didn't connect with, didn't trust or didn't like even if the solution is good. Since having my inside reps qualify on personality I have found that not only has the close rate gone up, but the sales cycle is shorter.
Try adding a personality factor to your lead generation efforts. Budget, pains, decision makers, buying cycle, etc...are all essential to know. Our inside reps delivered that in 2008 and as a result we hit our sales number. Talkative, aggressive, caring, confrontational are important to know as well. The inside reps added this information as well in 2009 and we killed our number.
Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Chris Lang, AG's Sales Director. Chris lives and breathes sales and sales prospecting, and we are very happy to have the opportunity to share this entry from him with our readers. Thanks Chris!
01/07/09 - "My sales rep's are going to do all of their own calling. We gave them each a list of a couple hundred accounts and they will need to prospect, navigate and develop their own forecast. We think that is the best way to build the relationship and sell to our prospect base." -VP Business Development, XYZ Corp.
03/25/09 - "Things are going great! We have a lot of deals in the hopper and should see some closed business pretty soon. I think we will stick with this at least through the end of the year. Ping me towards the end of Q4." -VP Business Development, XYZ Corp.
04/21/09 - "We have been closing some great deals, but I'm worried about my forecast for the 2nd half of the year. Can we talk at some point mid next week?"
-Panicked VP Business Development, XYZ Corp.
Those are a couple of excerpts of an ongoing email conversation I had with a VP Business Development in 2009.
It is a fairly common one actually.
The powers that be think the sales team should be able to cold call, establish their own relationships, nurture their accounts and then close business. The company will save money on not having to use an inside team, marketing will feed the sales teams leads, commissions will only have to be paid to the sales reps....everyone wins! While this method does work in some cases such as very small target universes, some government and aerospace solutions, etc., the effectiveness of this approach for the majority of technology companies is very much in question.
Let's say you have a sales team that is 100% on board with cold calling and they love it. They wake up everyday and tell themselves, "Its time for the gold calls!" If one were to go to this odd and upside down world, you would eventually see a major issue with having your sales team make all of their own dials. Having your outside team do inside work creates major ebbs and flows in your forecast. The Sales Executive starts with little to no forecast. They don't have a lot of deals to work on so they fill their time with cold calls (as they should in this scenario).
After a couple of months the reps should have built up an adequate amount of opportunities to keep them busy working on and closing deals. As soon as they have active deals to work on they focus as much as possible on closing, because that is what you compensate them for. I don't know any VP of Sales that compensates based on conversations, number of dials, number of leads, etc. While they are working on all of these deals they aren't cold calling to the level you need to provide consistent levels of forecast . The result is a lack of back fill to promote closed business in future quarters. The deals they are working will eventually come to disposition one way or the other. When the dust settles, the Sales Executive will have to start all over building forecast again. During those forecast building months you will have minimal amounts of business closing as the reps feverishly try to replenish their own forecast. The resulting ebbs and flows in forecast result in sales executives that aren't making enough money, a VP Sales with a lot of gray hair and a very unhappy CEO.
Your outside sales executives are trained to close deals. They identify pain, propose solutions, move a prospect along the sales process and bring a client to a yes or no answer. The sales executive role is a full time position. The teleprospecting role is a full time position. The effectiveness of both is in major jeopardy if you try to pay one person to do both.