Before You Can "Fix" Your Sales, Master The Fundamentals

In the hierarchy of things that you can do to improve your salesperformance, there are both simple and complex solutions. Depending on yourcompany's particular situation, both the simple and the complex solution couldprovide value to your organization. They are not mutually exclusive. Thequestion is: what should you do first?

The difficulty with sales problems is that they can be hard todiagnose and solve. There are lots of interlocking pieces to the sales puzzle,and the temptation is to assume that hard problems require complex andexpensive solutions. Therefore, depending on your company’s size and resources,this could mean that your most pressing sales problem doesn’t get addressedbecause there is no budget or that a large investment is made to implement anew selling process and train your entire sales force how to sell to thatmodel.

My experience has shown that a company with ample resources willtypically default to the complex solution because CEOs and sales managers makethe often faulty assumption that the simple solutions are already in place. Acompany with more limited resources will also tend to overlook the simplesolutions to their sales problems because they have been conditioned to believethat the only answer to a hard problem costs money. If they search online theywill find a parade of reputable sales training and consulting firms promotingselling systems that promise to fix their sales problems. But those approachesoften require a substantial investment of money over a substantial period oftime.

However, irrespective of company size, if management were toinvestigate and do a little digging they will usually find that the fundamentaldisciplines every company needs to flawlessly execute their sales plan, andthat they believed were in place, have either faded due to managementinattention or never existed to begin with. They assumed that all sales leadswere promptly being followed up. They assumed that all salespeople were beingresponsive to their prospects and customers in zero-time with the informationand answers to the questions they need to move forward in the buying process.They assumed that customers were receiving the level of unconditional supportrequired to turn them into loyal repeat customers. They assumed that theirfrontline salespeople knew their products inside and out, or at least betterthan their customers did. Well, we all know what happens when you assume.

As with any investment, the dollars invested in new sellingsystems and sales training involve a certain element of risk. You can’tprecisely predict the outcome although the potential payoff of improved salesproductivity, over an extended period of time, can be large as well. So,imagine a company’s surprise when, after they have invested in an expensive newselling system. modified their sales model and re-trained their entire salesteam, they determine that they are experiencing the same sales problems asbefore.

The fault doesn’t lie with the new selling system. The problemis that the company is trying to build a new sales house on a shaky foundation.The biggest return on the dollars you invest in your sales team will come fromensuring that you are mastering the fundamental sales disciplines ( andincorporating those into your daily routines. Before you embark on an upgradeprogram do the simple things first. Then take the next step to renovate andupgrade your sales house.

Are you Walking the Dog or is the Dog Walking You?

There exists a touch of schizophrenia in some of the writing andblogging on sales, sales improvement and sales training today. On one hand,there is general agreement that the world has changed, that universally easyaccess to information has shifted the balance of power in any sales transactionfrom the seller to the customer, converting the old familiar sales cycle intothe buying cycle. Selling has become a "customer-oriented."

And yet, on the other hand, there still remains a major emphasisin selling today on the notion of controlling the sales process and controllingyour prospect and customers. (If you Google “controlling the sales process”you’ll get 31,400,000 results.) However, there is perhaps no bigger myth insales today than that of a salesperson controlling the sales process or theirprospects.

Many companies and salespeople still nominally employ thetraditional “control-oriented” sales model today. It is easy to understand whypeople gravitate towards this approach to selling. Being in “control” iscomforting. It is a hard habit for sales managers and salespeople to break.Even though it doesn't work.

I like to believe that I am in control when I’m taking my dogsfor a walk. Unless they decide that a compelling new smell emanating from thebushes demands to be investigated. Or some yappy purse dogs straining on theirleashes in the opposite direction on the other side of the street need to begreeted and sniffed from stem to stern. Like prospects, my dogs indulge my needto appear to be in control.

Paradoxically, the primary tactic a salesperson often employs ina vain effort to control the sales process centers on controlling and meteringthe flow of information to the prospect. Rather than helping the salespersonwith his or her control issues, the prospect experiences this absence ofinformation as poor responsiveness and poor sales service. Whatever advantagethe salesperson had hoped to gain by "controlling the prospect," heor she will have lost.

This approach is the exact opposite of how effective sellerstoday are using responsiveness, content and speed as competitive advantages tohelp the buyer make an informed purchased decision in the least time possible.Notice the emphasis on "helping the buyer." Selling must be a servicein support of the buyer. And service, by definition, is about giving, notholding back.

Rather than making life harder for salespeople, openlyrelinquishing any claim to controlling the sales process and the prospect freesa salesperson to develop more effective ways to create value for the customerand differentiate their product and company through how they sell.

Acknowledging that you are not in control of the prospect forcesyou to focus on your prospect's requirements, specifically in terms of theinformation they must have to make an informed purchase decision. And, how youcan meet their needs by using the resources that actually are under yourcontrol to sell with the maximum impact in the least time possible to win moreorders in less time.

I read a blog posting recently about what a salesperson could doto increase sales. The title was something catchy like "A Billion and One Tips to Increase Sales." It was hardto argue with the premise of the post. Everyone in sales can use good advice onincreasing sales. It's the reason I continue to read everything I can aboutsales. There is always something new to learn.

In this case, this author's useful quick tips were all aboutcreating more sales activity. He was asking the question 'What should you do ifyou have prospects but they aren't moving forward fast enough?' and providinganswers that were designed to create a flurry of sales activity aroundprospects to stimulate them to engage and move forward with the seller.

But is selling the same as sales activity? And, if a prospect isnot yet fully committed to the buying process, is random sales activity the wayto get them engaged?

Nothing is sometimes better than something

I had a salesperson, named Arte, working for me once who hadconfused activity with selling. He came into my office one day and told me thathe had invented his own method of selling that he called SWARM. The acronymstood for Surround With Activity to Regain Momentum. His thought was to envelophis prospects in a constant swarm of sales activities such as of phone calls,visits, emails, voice messages, invitations to webinars and seminars, productdemonstrations in the hope that eventually something would stick and theprospect would relent and engage.

How'd that work for Arte? Not so well. But he got high marks forcreativity.

Unfortunately, similar to Arte, many salespeople fall into thetrap of believing that doing something, anything, with a prospect is betterthan doing nothing. This happens all the time when the prospect has gone radiosilent. There are lots of reasons why this occurs and it is the job of thesalesperson to determine the answer and respond appropriately and with contentthat has value for the prospect. But rarely is the correct response to bombardthe prospect with trivial, time-wasting requests and interactions.

Keep in mind the customer's objective

In a sales situation, or buying situation, it is important tokeep in mind that the goal of the customer is to gather the information or datathey need to make an informed purchase decision with the least investment oftheir time possible. This is not to say that customers won’t spend theappropriate time to purchase a product or service. This just means that theywon’t spend a minute more than they have to.

Create and deliver value each time you talk to your prospects and customers

If you are selling you should only be taking actions with acustomer that have a defined purpose, deliver clear value and support thecustomer's goal. To that end, instead of unthinkingly reaching out to thecustomer and demanding some of his or her time with a trivial request, considerthe opposite approach: make sure that every interaction you have with aprospect or customer achieves Maximum Impact in the Least Time (MILT) possible.It requires planning and thought to make certain that each time you interactwith the prospect or customer you are providing information that will bringthem closer to their goal of making an informed decision. But the result isthat you will bring value to the customer through your selling. If you want acustomer to engage, create value for them by your actions. Wasting theirlimited time with "sales activities" does the opposite.

Selling has a purpose. It is not the goal of your prospects orcustomers to spend time with you. In fact, the opposite is true. They want toaccomplish their job, which is to buy a product or service, while spending aslittle time with the salesperson as possible. The winning salesperson willusually be the one who knows how to make that happen.

Which is more important in selling: Process or selling skills?

This is one of the classic debates about sales and selling. Itis very similar to the 'nature vs. nurture' debates that young adultswithout kids and too much time on their hands indulge in. (Anyone with kidsquickly learns the answer to this...) The answer is that both process and skill are required to succeed insales. However, process provides the platform for skills to flourish.

What Would Michael Do?

Take the case of an elite athlete like Michael Phelps, the worldchampion swimmer. Michael Phelps trains like a demon, spending hours face downin a pool every day, to showcase his skills on the world's biggest stage, theOlympics. He won an unprecedented 8 gold medals in swimming at the BeijingGames in 2008. There is no doubting his obvious skills. Having conquered theworld once, the question was would he return to the London games in 2012 andtry again?

In preparation for the Beijing Olympics, Michael followed thetraining regimen put together by his coach, Bob Bowman. It was a process thatfocused on the quality of the daily work Michael did in preparation forcompetition. Every workout he swam and the details of how he performed in thatworkout, every weightlifting session, every cross-training session weremeticulously recorded, tracked and analyzed. Bowman and Phelps knew that themost accurate predictor of how Michael would perform in the big competitionswas the data collected about his daily training process over the previousmonths and years.

The Day-to-Day Process

This is similar to selling. How you execute your sales processon a day-to-day basis will be the most accurate predictor of whether you willwin orders and meet your objectives. An effective and disciplined sales processcan do for you what it does for Michael Phelps. If you work hard, it will putyou in a position to compete for and win orders. It is how well you execute thebasic sales activities that comprise the steps of your process, and how often,that will ultimately lead to the order.

As he began his preparations for the London OlympicsPhelps strayed from the process that had led him to the podium eight times inBeijing. And, with all the skills in the world, his results in competitionsuffered. He was losing to swimmers that previously couldn't compare to him.What did he do? He redoubled his commitment to the process laid out by hiscoach. He might have rebelled against the process but he returned to it becausehe knew that if he invested his hard work into it results would follow.

Listen to Michael Phelps being interviewed after a competitiontoday and he defaults to talking about his process. The race result might nowhave been a first place finish but he will talk about how well his training isgoing instead. His focus is on how is he performing each day in each step ofhis training process. He knows that if he executes his process he'll puthimself in the position to achieve the results he expects.

In the same way sales process can provide a much clearersnapshot of potential sales than simply looking at your pipeline of prospects.Well-defined sales processes provide a method to continually assess and measurethe underlying sales activities that will lead to orders. Using metrics tocontinually measure and fine-tune sales processes, just as Bob Bowman did withPhelps' training regimen, leads to improved outcomes for salespeople of allskill levels.

Your Process Enhances Your Skills

I had a client where one of the more senior salespeople, agrizzled sales professional, Ollie, was determined to resist management'sefforts to implement some fundamental and essential sales processes to respondto a changing sales environment. Ollie had always managed his sales territoryhis own way and while he possessed great sales skills and experience he wasfloundering. He found himself at odds with evolving prospect and customerexpectations for salespeople in terms of responsiveness, follow-up, contentdelivery and service.

The processes that Ollie's management implemented saved hissales career by requiring Ollie to become more responsive, more proactive andtimely in follow-up, more knowledgeable of the products he sold, more consciousof eliminating time-wasting sales calls and making every customer interactionachieve the maximum impact in the least time possible in order to compressbuying cycles.

This does not mean that a salesperson should ignore the skillcomponents of selling. We should always be working to improve our sales skillsno matter how much experience we have. But sales skills need to be utilized insupport of defined sales process to create the most value for the customer. Andthe salesperson.

Why are your sales so slow? I'm not referring to your orderrate. I am talking about the activities and processes that have to be happeningin Zero-Time in order for you to achieve your sales goals. One thing leads toanother and if you are running in place in February, you'll be running to catchup by March and hopelessly behind by June.

Here we are, still near the beginning of a new year, when hopesfor the next twelve months should be running high. And your selling effortsfeel like they are stuck in the thick mud. Just like they were last year. Thisis not the way to kick off what should be your most successful sales year ever.

Everyone has a reason or an excuse for slow selling. Believe me,we have all been in a situation where you question your sales manager about whyit is taking so long to move a customer along in their buying cycle, and theydon't have an answer that makes sense. Or any answer at all.

I ask all my new clients to identify the reason, or reasons, whythey are not growing, why their sales efforts are stuck in neutral. Theresponses I receive are typically all of a piece. As CEOs they can identify thesymptoms but not the causes of the problem. But as CEOs and sales managers ofSMBs you can't be a doctor who can only diagnose the symptoms of the illnesswithout prescribing a cure.

I group the symptoms of sales lethargy into the S-L-O-W acronym.

S is for Status Quo.

Too many companies are just coasting along. The CEOs are notreally satisfied with their results but they are too worried about making anychanges that could rock the boat and potentially jeopardize the sales they domanage to capture. Maintaining the status quo is not a way to thrive.

"Status Quo is ancientGreek for 'slow death.'"

Folks, say hi to Milt again. (To learn more about Milt, checkout my book, Zero-Time Selling, or this previous blog post. )

"Hey."

Actually, Milt, Status Quo is not Greek. It is Latin for"the current state of affairs." But when an SMB's sales are stuck,maintaining the status quo is the same as slowly dying.

"As I said."

L is for Lack of Urgency.

In today's economy you can't expect the customer to operate onyour schedule. The timeframe for every sales action has to be immediate.Customers do a lot of online research on your product before they ever call youand when they do they are single-mindedly looking for answers to theirquestions. The first seller with the complete answers wins.

O is for Outdated sales practices.

Unfortunately many SMBs still operate their sales teams like itis 1912 not 2012. Their only concessions to the 21st century are a website andemail.

"What would you callmy pager?"

Google d-i-n-o-s-a-u-r.

Your customer and their buying behavior have been irrevocablyaltered by technology over the past 15-20 years. And if your sales practicesand sales methods haven't changed in concert with your customer then you can'texpect to effectively compete for their business against competitors who haveevolved.

"GoogleN-E-A-N-D-E-R-T-H-A-L?"

W is for Weak sales management.

I don't like to point fingers.

"But you will."

SLOW starts at the top.

Even a highly self-motivated sales person will find it hard tosucceed in company where the status quo rules, where everyone's motor revs at aslower idle and where the sales systems and processes were obsolete before theturn of the century. A successful sales culture begins and ends withmanagement. The CEO and sales management have to commit to change and urgency.

Make a change today to get your sales going!

Now, as you move further from the old sales year and deeper intothe new sales year, now is the time to evaluate what you can do to shake thingsup, to change the routines your sales team have followed year after year. Breaksome of your bad old habits and reach a level of sales success that you haven'tachieved before.

Here are THREE tips you can put to use today. These are notpermanent fixes. Or suggestions for how to comprehensively revamp your salesefforts. There are just small ideas you can put to use TODAY that can begin tomake a difference and break you out of the SLOW mold. It doesn't matter whichone you choose. Just choose one of the following steps and put it into play.

Make One Change Today.

Take a close look at your sales routines; your sales processes.Tell each of your salespeople to choose just one customer facing activity and changeit. Now. Don't just pay lip service to change. Do something about it. This isnot a change that requires a committee to plan and implement. I'm advocatingsomething much more simple than that. Just choose one aspect of your day-to-daysales activity and change it. Simple.

Create a Metric.

Every aspect of your sales process is measurable. Do you havemetrics for each step of your selling process? Are you measuring how long ittakes to respond to your sales leads? Or how long it takes you to write a quoteand deliver it to a prospect or customer? Choose a single aspect of one salesprocess and assign a metric to it. Then measure it today and again tomorrow.

Be Accountable.

Tell someone about the change you made or the metric you're tracking. Tell a colleague that you have undertaken to make a change in your sales routine. Tell your boss which part of your sales process you have begun to measure and what the goal is. When you tell someone else that you are making a change they will be interested to learn if it is helping you. As a result they will ask you how it is going. And you will need to have an answer for them. Being accountable for change is a big motivator.