Where do your best accounts come from?
It's important to think about this from time to time and I was thinking about it today.
Take the company's top 5 accounts and, of course, that brings up another question; based on what? Volume? Profit? Potential? Relationship? Leverage? Ease to Work With? Let's set it up this way:
| Criteria |
Weight |
| Volume |
1 |
| Profit |
3 |
| Potential |
2 |
| Relationship |
2 |
| Leverage |
2 |
| Ease |
1 |
You may not agree with the weighting and you can feel free to change it but we have to begin somewhere. Now, based on the score that you assign to your accounts, take your top 5 accounts.
For my sales development company the top five accounts would be:
Company 1 - Cold Call From a New Salesperson
Company 2 - Introduction from a VP at Company 1
Company 3 - Introduction
Company 4 - Introduction
Company 5 - Found us via the Baseline Selling Web Site
For my assessment company the top five end user accounts would be:
Company 1 - Introduction
Company 2 - Introduction
Company 3 - Introduction
Company 4 - Introduction
Company 5 - Introduction
...and the top five resellers would be:
Reseller 1 - Introduction
Reseller 2 - Relationship
Reseller 3 - Introduction
Reseller 4 - Introduction
Reseller 5 - Found our Web Site
As you can see, most of the best accounts come from introductions. What does that tell you? What were your results? What are the two lessons associated with cold calls?
(c) Copyright 2008 Dave Kurlan
Article has
2 comments.
Click To Read/Write Comments
Introducing my Rule of Conflicting Sales Realities: Weak sales organizations have little awareness of their ineffectiveness which instills a false sense of greatness. I believe that this is why generally ineffective sales forces remain that way.
Strong sales forces, that debrief their opportunities on a daily basis, are accutely aware of their challenges, obstacles and bottlenecks, causing them to feel less effective than they actually are.
My Law: E=AS (Effectivness=Awareness x Strength; not shorthand for He is an Ass!) where awareness is a value from -5 to 5 and strength is a value from -5 to 5.
So the group I was with yesterday, a very weak group, was a -5 on the strength scale and a -2 on the awareness scale, making them a -10 on effectiveness.
The group I was with last week, a fairly competent group, was a 3 on the strength scale and a 4 on the awareness scale, giving then a score of 12 on effectivness.
What is your sense of how effective your sales force is compared with sales forces from outside of your industry?
(c) Copyright 2008 Dave Kurlan
Article has
2 comments.
Click To Read/Write Comments
Selling to a major company, as in large, multi-site, Billion Dollar plus accounts, is very different from selling to a small or medium sized company. Among the many differences you will find, the biggest difference is the myth of calling at the top. Chances are pretty good that the CEO doesn't know enough about the problem you can solve and has little interest in rolling up his sleeves to work on it with you. Most salespeople try to call on the next highest ranking executive, not necessarily the best move.
Your company probably sells one of two things: If you sell something the customer already buys, will continue to buy or has decided to buy, the simple challenge is for them to choose you. You can take the easy way in, call on the buyer and compete on price, or you can do it the hard way and call on someone who cares enough to change vendors if there is a compelling reason to do so.
If you sell something that the customer never considered buying, the challenge is to create a need. If you call on the VP of something, in most cases, that person wants to protect her job, not stick her neck out and create waves; so what you'll hear is that everything is great. So rather than calling on a decision maker, you'll have to find the highest ranking executive who cares enough about the issue you can solve to 1) admit to it; and 2) drive the process to bring your solution in house.
So, in essence, it doesn't matter whether you find yourself selling something they decided to buy or something they haven't decided to buy. The common denominator is that in the major account, you must find someone to drive the process, someone who cares enough to to drive you there, a chauffeur of sorts.
You might know those people as champions but I think there is a huge difference between a champion and a chauffeur. Champions are your friends, supporters and internal talking and walking testimonials. However, they are often not strong enough to drive it up the decision-making chain, instead, only influencing matters with peers and subordinates. Chauffeurs on the other hand are not intimidated with titles, may be trying to make a name for themselves, and will drive uphill as easily as a champion drives downhill.
Find the right chauffeur and the VP of whatever may be compelled to act in a way that benefits you. As the leader of your sales organization, your job is to make sure your salespeople know how to identify this person, contact and connect with this person, and get the sales process moving by uncovering this person's compelling reasons to take action. Can they do that? Can you help them?
(c) Copyright 2008 Dave Kurlan
Article has
2 comments.
Click To Read/Write Comments
Last night, as I've done a couple of times before, I had the opportunity to speak to the sales class at Clark University. The class was significantly larger than the one from last semester so the professor, Ron Ranauro, CEO of Genome Quest, is clearly succeeding, creating a buzz about the program.
The kids asked some great questions but my favorite was this one: "In a single sentence, what's the best advice you can give us about succeeding in sales?"
Wow. This goes beyond process, technique, mindset and attitude. I gave the class my sentence last night and I'll share it with you in a future post after you share yours with my readers.
What's your single sentence?
(c) Copyright 2008 Dave Kurlan
Article has
63 comments.
Click To Read/Write Comments
The Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit is already the premier sales and marketing event in the US. The summit is hosted by Verne Harnish, author of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, and founder and CEO of Gazelles, Inc. As a speaker at last year's inaugural event, I witnessed first-hand what can happen when CEO's bring their teams and spend two days listening to the best in the industry share their thoughts, best practices, tips and experiences.
This year's lineup of speakers is even more impressive than last year's and I strongly recommend this event as the one event you must attend in 2008. Click here for more information and to register.
(c) Copyright 2008 Dave Kurlan
Article has
0 comments.
Click To Read/Write Comments
More than a year ago I posted this article about how United Airlines was selling their customers on not choosing their airline by the way they handled people. They weren't doing it on purpose, it was just poor training. Today, at the US Airways check-in line at Laguardia, the experience wasn't just poor training, it was downright shocking! Here's what happened.
Airlines usually have a supervisor standing near the people in line, asking where they're going and what kind of ticket they have. Today, the supervisor asked a lady why she was in line (it seemed his purpose was to get people out of the line and using Kiosks) and she said she wanted to get wait listed for an upgrade. He said, "that takes too long, they're way to busy, so call 1-800-xxx-9999". She didn't have a cell phone. He said, "not my problem". She remained in the line which had 4 people in it at that point. When the supervisor saw that she was still in the line he went to his agents and said, "when this lady gets to the counter I don't want you to wait on her. She wants to get wait listed, so I gave her the phone number and she's being a pain in the ass. Don't help her."
It's awfully hard to be a pain in the ass customer when you don't complain or demand anything. This lady wasn't guilty of anything and there wasn't much else for her to do. The supervisor wasn't the least bit nice, and he didn't think it was his job to find a way to help his customers. Actually, he thought it was his job to keep his agents from being busy. What a proponent of depersonalized service.
And that's what this post is all about. The more we depersonalize everything, the more we rely on kiosks, the more we use automated phones, and the more we get angry when people don't want to use our well thought-out costly processes, the more we succeed at selling our customers on not doing business with us anymore. And whether it's selling them to do business with us, selling them on continuing to do business with us or selling them on never doing business with us again, it's still selling.
Last night upon my arrival at Laguardia, my limo driver asked me to find him. Nice touch. Today my limo driver called to tell me he was at the front door of the hotel. When I told him I was at the banquet entrance he told me he would wait for me. I asked him if he would get me where I was waiting and he said he didn't know where it was. I suggested that if he drove the car around the building he might find it and he laughed at me. But I was probably being a pain in the ass.
(c) Copyright 2008 Dave Kurlan
Article has
3 comments.
Click To Read/Write Comments
This is a post on which you must comment after reading it - really.
As the daily stories of economic woes continue to be featured in the headlines, most companies have their own version of the current economy and its affect on them. From the perspective of the sales force, we help overhear your salespeople returning from calls with objections like:
- there's a spending freeze
- it's no longer a priority
- they're going out of business
- they're laying people off
- they're postponing the initiative
- they're only going to do half of what we spoke about
- they're too busy putting out fires
There are more but I don't need to list them here.
Chronic mediocrity, excuse making, under achievement, complacency and a selling skill set adequate only for better times are colliding head-on with a recession and possible depression. What could be worse? Lots could be worse. That's the reality but there are many things you can do about it.
- This is the best time to evaluate and identify the real issues
- This is the best time to train
- The strong sales force in a weak economy is the killer sales force in a strong economy
- This is the best time to coach
- This is the best time for incentive programs
- This is the best time for motivational programs
- This is the perfect time for new accountability initiatives
- This is the perfect time to install CRM
There are so many more things you can be doing. Here is the part where you get to comment. What are you doing in your company to motivate your salespeople and make them more effective when it's most important for them to be more effective? And if you're not doing anything special right now, why not?
(c) Copyright 2008 Dave Kurlan
Article has
1 comments.
Click To Read/Write Comments
My wife and I were fortunate enough to be in the opening night audience at the brand new Hanover Theater for the Performing Arts in Worcester Massachusetts. I saw my first movie in that old building around 45 years ago and later, as a teen, went there after they had turned it into a four screen theater.
The successful restoration project showcased a world-class theater that will attract the shows that were previously held only in Boston, an hour east. Why am I writing about this in my Blog? There's are three lessons here for the sales force.
1) One of the many important speakers who participated on opening night, Fred Eppinger, the dynamic CEO of The Hanover Insurance Group, shared several compelling reasons as to the significance of the theater and hopes of those behind it. He possesses the ability to connect with his audience and share the dream, the one that inspired the restoration and led to the reopening as well as the dream for the theater's future. His great speech got me thinking that most business leaders don't work hard enough to come across like that when addressing their salespeople (and other employees too). You must be able to lead by example and if your example fails to concisely demonstrate your passion for the cause, how can you expect your salespeople to fare any better? Lesson #1 - You must be able to consistently and effectively articulate the dream and motivate those who you expect to do the same.
2) Opening night featured Bernadette Peters, from Broadway, Movies and Television. She was so spectacular that my wife and I enjoyed her show despite recognizing only about five of her songs. She had an ongoing dialog with the audience and several times mentioned that she had a home for sale in Florida. In between songs, she mentioned 200 feet of frontage on the water. During another break she mentioned 5 bedrooms and on yet another break she told us how nice it was. At the end of her concert she sang a beautiful lullaby, Kramer's Song, she wrote and recorded as a companion CD to a new children's book she authored called Broadway Barks. She closed with, "So please go to Amazon.com, type in Bernadette Peters, and buy my book so I can be a best-selling author. 100% of the proceeds go to my charity for animals."
It was really pretty clever. She builds value by talking about her multi-million dollar home, gets us emotionally involved with the lullaby, and then simply asks us to buy her book, to benefit her charity and make her a best-selling author. Easy sale. Lesson #2 - Make sure your salespeople are selling value, getting their prospects emotionally involved and closing!
3) Both of these stories from the Hanover opening are examples of exceeding expectations. When a company, vendor, providor, salesperson, sales manager or business leader exceeds your expectations, you will tell somebody, try to get them excited and create buzz. Lesson #3 - Make sure your salespeople are exceeding their customers' expectations. That is the surest, fastest way to generate top quality referrals and introductions to new customers.
(c) Copyright 2008 Dave Kurlan
Article has
0 comments.
Click To Read/Write Comments
Every company has people whose sales competencies are not fully developed. Perhaps their salespeople don't find enough new opportunities. Maybe they don't ask for referrals often enough. It's possible that opportunities languish in the pipeline for too long. There are a number of reasons for results like these, from weaknesses that prevent your salespeople from performing as desired, to sales management's ineffective motivation, setting of expectations, coaching and accountability.
There are short periods of time when you can cause those underdeveloped competencies to temporarily appear developed. Al Williams, author of All You Can Do is All You Can Do, said, "You can do anything for 30 Days". For instance, if you are frustrated over the lack of new business, a focused new business effort can serve as a band-aid and cause a temporary change in behavior and results. Let's assume that you want to significantly increase the number of new opportunities in the pipeline. Schedule a one, two, three, or five-day blitz where the only activities that will take place are those that will generate new opportunities. Have all of your salespeople come in off the road and pretend they are on vacation but instead of hitting the beaches on some warm, sunny island, put them on the phones. Have them call prospects they failed to sell, prospects with whom they failed to get appointments, prospects they never called on before, and customers/clients who can refer them to new prospects, etc.
Micro manage this blitz, give out awards if you see fit, and make sure the entire company is focused on the goal. Make sure that all of your employees support the focused sales effort by not distracting the salespeople from what they need to do over this short period of time.
Remember, this strategy is only a band-aid, it doesn't solve the underlying problems and, like any rubber band, will return to it's original state as soon as the pressure is released.
My company, Objective Management Group, is running such a blitz this week as our coaches focus their efforts on identifying potential, quality resellers for our assessments. If you know a sales expert, trainer, guru or author; or someone whose expertise is in HR, assessments or management consulting, and you think we should talk to them, drop me an email with their contact information or have them fill out this form.
(c) 2008 Dave Kurlan
Article has
1 comments.
Click To Read/Write Comments
The local Methodist Church has one of those message signs out front so they can promote the minister's next sermon. Driving by yesterday, I noticed this message:
Sign is Broken.
Message Inside.
That's how I feel sometimes. So many companies need help but the CEO's, President's or Sales VP's ego prevents him/her from admitting that there's a problem. They'll read a book or attempt to pick an expert's brain, but admitting that THEY haven't been able to get year to year revenue growth to where they want it to be? Fugetabout it.
This same group of executives have the exact same frustration with their salespeople who have similarly strong egos and are equally reluctant to admit to any flaws.
Book is Broken. Email is Broken. Phone is Broken. Blog is Broken. I am Broken. Message Only Available After Confession.
(c) 2008 Dave Kurlan
Article has
1 comments.
Click To Read/Write Comments
Yesterday's post generated a number of emails - mostly good. But one particular question that was raised deserves a post of its own. The reader asked, "why are your assessments so black and white?" and "why isn't more attention paid to the strengths and skills?" and "why can't they be like other assessments which take more of a neutral position?"
All great questions and I'll answer them one at a time.
Why are Your Assessments so Black and White? We start with an inventory of strengths that either support selling or sabotage selling. We also have an inventory of skills that people either have developed or not yet developed. So when an individual has a strength or a skill, we let them know. When they lack an important strength (a weakness) or skill (a likely problem) we let them know. There really isn't such a thing as, "they sometimes seek approval and they sometimes don't seek approval" because that would mean that they do in fact have Need for Approval. Most of these strengths and skills fall into the either you have them or you don't category.
Why don't the assessments pay more attention to the strengths and skills? Funny thing is, they do. Of course, one must have the strengths to read an assessment where most of the content addresses the strengths. We have now assessed more than 340,000 salespeople. One of the disappointing statistics we have shows that only 26% of those people are strong salespeople, so, in 3 out of 4 assessments, weaknesses and likely problems get more attention than strengths and skills.
Why aren't your assessments more like other assessments which take more of a neutral position? The other assessments that people are familiar with are typically personality tests or behavioral styles tests. There aren't strong styles and weak styles; just different styles. There aren't strong personalities and weak personalities; just different personalities. So when those assessments explain your make-up, the statements are very neutral. Most behavioral styles assessments explain the various ways one's behavior is affected by internal and external events, such as, when that happens you'll probably react this way. Most personality tests explain the various ways you'll interact with others. Again, there is no right or wrong, just your way compared with other ways.
When it comes to understanding OMG's Assessment relative to you or someone who reports to, we start with an ideal and compare everyone to that ideal. In other words, an exceptional salesperson has these sales core competencies which are all specific to sales success. Which do you currently have and which are currently showing up as weaknesses and getting in the way? The purpose is to provide a road map and show that if these 6 weaknesses are overcome and these 8 skills are developed, then you'll be an exceptional salesperson too. The problem begins when salespeople and their managers are too close to the situation and aren't able to clearly and objectively recognize the weaknesses and limitations. Instead of simply embracing the findings they agree with, and working on those, they become defensive and focus all of their attention on the finding or two they don't agree with. That is when you'll see attempts to discredit the assessment and the rest of the findings.
This is where the push back originates and if not quickly and effectively addressed by management, it sets the stage for undermining the entire evaluation process. Your people won't change as you had hoped, won't step up, won't be able to execute the company's new strategies, won't be able to overcome the resistance from the worsening economy, and just won't be able to do what's required any more effectively than they can today.
Here's the good news. This negativity comes from only about 30% of a sales force but it's sometimes the most influential 30%. If you let them evangelize their negativity it will spread to the remaining 70% who were just fine with their assessment results. An interesting aside, most of the people who react this way will probably have either "Excuse Making", "Becomes Emotionally Involved", "Has Difficulty Recovering From Rejection" or "Lacks Commitment" among their many weaknesses.
Be the leader you need to be, take charge, stop the push back and lead the change.
(c) 2008 Dave Kurlan
Article has
1 comments.
Click To Read/Write Comments
Companies hire sales managers all the time and while some of those decisions are good ones, a lot more of them are ill advised. Today I'll share the biggest mistakes that companies make when hiring sales managers.
- They promote their best salesperson - I won't get into whether the salesperson that manages the most revenue is really the best salesperson but this move is always bad. First, they lose their best salesperson. Then, they expect this new manager to transfer his/her skills to the rest of the sales force but that rarely happens. The new manager knows how to sell, but not how to manage salespeople and to make matters worse, he is too friendly with those who now report to him, making it difficult to hold his salespeople accountable.
- They move another manager into the position - In this scenario, rather than promoting a salesperson, they take a marketing manager, HR manager, operations manager, even a technical manager, and put him in charge of sales. Other managers have never had to deal with the external influences and internal demons that prevent salespeople from reaching their goals. In most other departments, managers simply set expectations and their people do the work. In the sales department, even salespeople with good intentions run into rejection, competition, and resistance, and that's only after they conquer their fears and discomforts. In addition, experienced salespeople will find that their new sales manager, who hasn't sold before, lacks credibility.
- They hire someone from the industry - In most cases, those who have succeeded are looking to move up into a position of more responsibility while those who have struggled make the lateral move from one company to another. They often come with baggage and while they seem to fit, most of the time they don't provide the big change for the better that the company expected.
Ultimately, the sales manager must have prior success coaching, motivating and leading a sales force. They must be effective holding people accountable and know how to select salespeople who will succeed. This last skill is a challenge, even for experienced sales managers and those who lack experience will likely have all kinds of problems with hiring and turnover.
So, what if you hired one of these three sales managers prior to reading this great piece of advice? All is not lost. You may be able to develop managers one and three; and you can always return manager number two to his original role. You can have your sales force evaluated which includes a look at the impact that your sales manager is having (for better or for worse), identifies the issues that must be addressed, whether or not the sales manager can be developed, and what the development should consist of.
(c) 2008 Dave Kurlan
Article has
0 comments.
Click To Read/Write Comments
Your all day event cancels, leaving you with nothing scheduled today. You could:
- catch up on uncompleted projects
- update all of your spreadsheets
- catch up on your email and phone calls
- make some prospecting calls
- spend time watching your salespeople
- go in the field with a salesperson or two
- take a salesperson in the field with you
- stay home and nap
- work on strategy
- provide some additional coaching
- get some quiet time and see how many ideas you come up with
- schedule meetings with clients/customers
- update your CRM system and/or web site
- play 18 holes of golf
As the person in charge of your sales organization, suddenly facing a free day, which activity do you choose? Which activity should you choose? Is it the same activity?
Weigh in and leave your comments!
(c) 2008 Dave Kurlan
Article has
3 comments.
Click To Read/Write Comments
This post could also be titled, "When Marketing and Reality Collide" or, "Developing the Buy Back Representative".
The story begins with my Verizon Wireless USB720 Broadband device which stopped working, producing error 903. Verizon Wireless Technical Support spent an hour with me on the phone but couldn't get it working, so they assigned a trouble ticket. I never heard back from them and it still didn't work so I called a second time, a month later. As before, they didn't fix it and didn't get back to me.
Frustrated, I emailed them and provided the history and this time they said they would replace the unit. The new unit also produced error 903. I let them know via email and they said I should do an internet search for error 903 to see if I could find the problem. Are you kidding me?
I emailed again, this time asking to cancel the service. They said I had to call Customer Service so I did, made my request and was placed on hold. The entire time I was on hold I heard messages like, "Your problem is our problem" and "we will resolve all problems to your satisfaction" and " if you're not happy we will gladly refund your money". Guess what? They said they could only cancel the service if I paid an early termination penalty of $145. I called attention to their message on hold but the lady kept reciting the script; "I apologize for the inconvenience but I can't cancel the account unless you pay an early termination penalty". I protested, again pointing to their message and was told that I could avoid the penalty if I got Dell to create a trouble ticket. I mentioned that it sounded more like my problem is my problem and calling Dell's technical support meant another hour on hold, more attempts to troubleshoot what nobody could fix, and then back to Verizo