Some of my long-term problems had such simple solutions. If only I had thought of the obvious solutions first.  For example:

For decades, I could not drive for much longer than two to two and a half hours before my eyes would get so heavy that I risked falling asleep at the wheel.  Day or night, year after year, all of our trips were based on how far I might have to drive.  And then I discovered the solution.  Sunglasses.  Yup, with prescription sunglasses, my driving fatigue became a thing of the past and I can drive for hours and hours without getting sleepy.

For months, I had a bright red rash that would continue to reappear under my arms.  While a prescription ointment would help it disappear after about a week, it would continue to reappear.  And then I discovered the solution.  Anti-perspirant.  Yup, all I had to do was to switch from a deodorant to an anti-perspirant and voila, no more rash, ever.

For the last six months I had an acute eczema breakout in, on and behind my ears.  It was really bad, and included burning and itching and flaking.   I used 2 different prescriptions, Neosporin, Eczema creams, honey, balms, coconut oil and anything I could find.  Nothing worked.  Then I tried Aquaphor Advanced Healing Ointment and in three days it was cleared.

Are you getting the picture.  Nothing worked and then sunglasses, anti-perspirant and Aquaphor.  Simple, easy, fast, and powerful.

There are simple, easy, fast and powerful solutions for sales problems too.  See my examples below.

Not enough new meetings?  There four possible reasons and fairly obvious solutions:

1. Salespeople aren't prospecting as required because they have call reluctance.  Hire hunters.  Hoping for change isn't a viable strategy.
2. Salespeople aren't prospecting as required because sales managers are not holding them accountable.  Hold your Sales Managers accountable for holding their salespeople accountable to agreed upon KPIs.  Make it a condition of continued employment.
3. Salespeople are prospecting but their messaging is awful. Have an expert change or tweak the messaging for prospecting calls.
4. Salespeople are prospecting, have good call messaging, but they sound awful or are not being well received.  They won't improve unless you have them trained on cold-call delivery.

Opportunities getting stuck in the pipeline?  There are five possible reasons and some obvious solutions:

1. Salespeople are not reaching decision makers.  Opportunities are 341% more likely to get stuck if your salespeople aren't talking with decision makers.  Get them trained on how to reach decision makers.
2. Lack of urgency.  Salespeople are not uncovering compelling reasons to buy, preventing them from reaching decision makers, getting money approved, and moving the opportunity forward.  Get your salespeople trained on how to take a consultative approach and get your sales managers trained on how to coach up your salespeople.
3. Not being the value.  If prospects don't perceive they are receiving value from a salesperson, they have no reason to move forward with the salesperson.  This isn't talking about value, explaining the value proposition or adding value to your solutions, this is the salesperson being the value.  Get your salespeople trained on how to be the value.  
4. Salespeople are not following an optimized, staged, milestone-centric, customer-focused sales process.  Have this process created and get the sales team trained on how to execute it.
5. Not thoroughly qualifying their opportunities, causing inappropriate quotes, proposals and presentations.  Get your salespeople trained on how to thoroughly qualify and hold your sales managers accountable for holding salespeople accountable to justify every proposal or quote. 

Salespeople are under-performing and not hitting quota. There are an unlimited number of possible reasons, from poor selection, to ineffective or non-existent on boarding, to low Sales DNA, to skill gaps, to lack of motivation, lack of direction, lack of support, lack of training, lack of or ineffective coaching, and on and on and on.  Here are a couple of obvious solutions:

1. Have the sales team evaluated and get the data so that you know for sure if your under-performers can be trained and/or coached up or if what you see is what you will continue to get.  If they are part of your past but not part of your future, replace them today.  If they are part of your future, get them sales training.  You'll also need to learn whether their performance or lack thereof, is self-inflicted or enabled by ineffective sales management.  Learn more here.
2. Give them an ultimatum but consider the length of the sales cycle.  So many companies give salespeople 30 - 60 days to turn things around but if you have an 8 month sales cycle then you either need to give them 8-12 months, or tie the improvement to KPIs that are within reach of 30-60 days.
   
   

There isn't a single scenario going on with your sales team that we haven't seen, addressed, and solved in the past 37 years.  It doesn't matter how small or large your team is, what industry you are in, which markets you sell to, what your price points are, how long you've been in business, how well-known you are, or what your challenges are.  Some companies make the mistake of accepting and being resigned to these challenges, preventing them from getting solutions.  These are the steps you must take to solve your problems:

1. Acknowledge the problems 
2. Choose to take action
3. Get outside expertise
4. Pull the trigger

Image created by AI from 123RF

As a Nor'Easter barreled across Central Massachusetts today, a few interesting storm-related happenings were analogous to some sales-related occurrences. This article will explore two weather-related analogies:

1. It's in 3D - Dinger the Dog and his choice of Doors
2. The Magic of Weather Apps

I've written about Dinger, our six-year-old Golden Doodle, several times.  The most popular article was when I claimed and proved that Dinger's listening skills were better than those of salespeople. 

At the onset of the storm Dinger went out to do his business and got soaked.  When he's ready to come back into the house, he usually looks in the windows to see which room we are in, and whether that's in the front of the house or the back of the house he goes to a front or back door and knocks just like we do.  Knock-knock-knock. He knew he was soaked so he went to the side door, which opens into a room with a tile floor, where we dry him with a towel.  A new trick - he knew which door to use based on the weather!

Dinger is smarter than so many salespeople who regularly use the wrong doors.   Some salespeople use the back door which leads to the warehouse.  Others use the front door which leads directly to reception and procurement.  Some use the side door which brings them to business users and middle management.  But the best salespeople, the top 10%, use the private entrance which leads to the C Suite.  If you had to rank the doors in order of importance, regardless of what you are selling, it would be:

1. The Private Entrance - this is where decisions - about everything - are made.  Worst case, you get a top-down introduction to someone who deals with what you sell.  I remember the first time that happened to me around 40 years ago.  The CEO, who I didn't know, introduced me to the VP Sales, who I didn't know.  I wasn't very impressive and was really young but that Sales VP felt pressured to do business with me by what he perceived to be a strong relationship between me and the CEO.  Which is easier and more powerful - fighting your way up or getting introduced on your way down?
2. The Warehouse - There are only two reasons to enter the warehouse.  Either you are looking for door number 2 - the entrance to the Plant Manger's office, or you are talking with people working in the plant to identify issues that you can use in a meeting with the VP of Manufacturing or the VP of Engineering after the CEO introduces them to you.
3. The Side Door - I can't think of a good reason to enter through the side door because users and middle managers don't have the authority to say anything except, "looks good," "we'll let you know," and "No."
4. The Front Entrance - The only thing worse than the side door is the door that delivers you to the official gatekeepers of the kingdom and of course, procurement.  If you are selling the right way, you might end up in procurement to formalize terms, and get sign-off on a Purchase Order. You must never begin in Procurement unless you simply offer no value, have the lowest price, and are selling large quantities of a low priced product. When people write about the death of selling, that's really a phrase about where salespeople go to die.  Procurement.

47% of salespeople reach decision makers but 90% of the best salespeople reach decision makers while only 5% of the worst salespeople reach decision makers.  Do you think there is a correlation?  What about causation?  Damn straight.

The storm caused me to regularly check the weather apps.  Apps plural because for some reason, despite having access to the exact same data, they all predict something completely different.  My four apps of choice were:

1. Accuweather  predicted 12-18 inches of snow
2. Weather.com  predicted 4-8 inches of snow
3. Apple Weather (formerly Dark Sky) predicted an inch of mixed precipitation
4. Fox Weather predicted 2 inches of rain and sleet.

Post Storm Note: We received 3 inches of snow so Weather.com came the closest - this time.

Could four forecasts be more different and confusing?  Forecasting winter weather in New England is tricky and the difference between rain, snow, ice and mixed precipitation can sometimes come down to the center of the storm tracking a few more miles east or west of the original storm track.

Weather forecasts are the same as forecasting a sale. 

There is your personal sales forecast, which by nature will be overly optimistic as you'll have it closing sooner than it actually will, and for more money than you'll actually get.  But lost in your forecast are the forecasts from your three competitors.  They too will forecast a win and unlike the weather apps, which all have the potential to get the forecast correct, only one of your forecasts will be accurate.  Only one of four can win - a 25% chance of being right. 

And you're going to win this because why?  They like you better?  You have a strong relationship?  You have a better product?  You have a better price?  You have faster delivery?  You have a better reputation?  You have better references?  You've been around longer?  Your quality is better?

Who cares about that stuff other than you?  If those were truly the difference makers you would win every deal, every single time.  But you don't win every deal, do you? 

The question isn't "why not?"  The question is why are your forecasts wrong?

Most of the time, sales forecasts fail to take into consideration the following:

• If the salesperson entered through the correct door - are they talking with THE decision maker as opposed to A decision maker or influencer?
• Was there a compelling reason for the prospect to take action and is there a compelling reason to buy from you instead of the competition?
• Was the salesperson effective enough selling value so that the prospect will spend more to buy from you?
• Was the opportunity thoroughly qualified?

While 28% of salespeople are strong qualifiers, 77% of the best salespeople are strong qualifiers and 0% of the worst salespeople are strong qualifiers.  ZERO!  Do you think there is a correlation?  What about causation? 

Think like Dinger, use four weather apps, become a strong consultative seller and a strong qualifier, and your sales effectiveness will improve drastically!

What kind of car should you drive?

Answering that question with anything other than, "It depends," is irresponsible because there are so many variables.  Choosing a car depends on budget, family size, how much stuff you load into your car, the length of your drives, the logo/ego influence, fit and function, ergonomics, appearance, perceived value, reliability, cost to drive it (gas/electric/mileage), and so much more.   

If that makes senses, why do executives struggle when I am unable to instantly tell them what their win-rate or closing percentage should be?

There are many variables that can influence your sales win-rate and I am sharing my top ten keys to identifying appropriate ideal win rates:

1. Which stage of the pipeline is the win-rate calculated from?  Lead? Suspect? Prospect? Qualified, Closable?  It should be obvious that a higher win-rate correlates to measuring win-rates from the latest stage of the sales pipeline.
   
   
2. How much competition is there? A higher win-rate will correlate with fewer competitors.
   
   
3. How effectively do your salespeople handle the existence of competitors? Only 27% of all salespeople have Sales DNA that supports the mindset necessary for eliminating the competition.  This soars to 61% of the top salespeople and 1% of the least effective salespeople.  Higher win-rates correlate with the ability to eliminate the competition.
   
   
4. How does your pricing compare?  We can talk about selling value until the end of sales cycles, but if your salespeople haven't mastered selling value (consultative selling skills and a sales process that supports it are required), then the purchase will be based on price.  A higher-win rate will correlate with a competitive price in a transactional sale but in a value-based sale, higher win-rates will correlate with the amount of perceived value.  Only 31% of salespeople are value sellers.  This increases to 95% of top salespeople and NONE of the least effective salespeople!
   
   
5. What is the length of your sales cycle? The answer to the sales cycle question is less definitive.  On the one hand, long sales cycles are very much about the survival of the fittest and fewer competitors lead to a higher win-rate.  On the other hand, long sales cycles are fraught with risk because many of these complex projects become de-prioritized, abandoned, or indefinitely delayed.  Only 38% of all salespeople possess the capabilities to shorten long sales cycles, thereby gaining a competitive advantage.  73% of top salespeople have this ability but very few of the least effective salespeople.
   
   
6. Is there a sales scorecard?  A properly built scorecard awards points to conditions that are predictive of a win.  A higher win-rate correlates with higher scores.  Only 20% of all salespeople use a sales scorecard. 40% of top salespeople use a scorecard only 5% of the least effective salespeople use a scorecard. An 800% gap!
   
   
7. How disciplined is the sales team?  It requires discipline to follow the sales process, fully qualify opportunities, and not pursue opportunities that fail to meet the minimum required score.  Discipline is also required to refrain from quoting opportunities that cannot be won. A higher win-rate correlates to discipline.
   
   
8. When are proposals and quotes provided?  Ideally, you would only provide a proposal for an opportunity on which you have already received a verbal go-ahead for which your proposal is simply a formality.  It should go without saying that a higher-win rate correlates to proposals as a formality.  80% of all salespeople are compelled to quote and/or propose and this is a very difficult mindset to change.
   
   
9. What is the overall sales capability of your sales team?  We see team scores range from the 30's to the 60's.  It should go without saying that a higher win-rate correlates to a higher sales team capability score.
   
   
10. How strong are the relationships with your prospects and customers?  While this is difficult for anyone to know, it should still be obvious that high win-rates correlate with strong relationships. 47% of salespeople have strong relationships but that goes to 61% for the best salespeople and just 31% for the least effective salespeople.
    
    

These ten factors help to determine what your win-rate is TODAY. High quality and ongoing sales training, sales coaching and daily role-playing maximize your ability to IMPROVE the win rate going forward, especially when the focus is on an optimized, milestone-centric and customer focused sales process, a consultative approach that develops listening and questioning skills, and the many nuances of selling value.  A higher win-rate correlates with more training, coaching and role-playing.

The statistics and data shared in this article are from Objective Management Group's (OMG) evaluations and assessments on more than 2.3 million salespeople.  OMG measures all 21 Sales Core Competencies and an average of 10 attributes in each competency.  You can view all 21 sales competencies here, and see how the scores compare for salespeople by percentile, in various industries, and even at your company. It's free to look!

Image copyright 123RD  

I began debunking sales articles when the first ones predicting the death of selling appeared circa 2008.  Back then, new digital marketing companies were telling everyone that salespeople would be replaced by inbound marketing.  "Inbound is King," they said.

Later, articles predicting the end of selling became both more prolific and more specific including the certain death of:

1. Solution Selling
2. Cold Calling
3. Consultative Selling
4. Sales Process
5. SPIN Selling
6. and more.

If you looked closely and skeptically at who was writing the articles and who the writers worked for, you could recognize that the articles were simply a narrative to create a need for their brand new, and at the time, unproven products.  Fifteen years later, their products have a place at the very top of the sales funnel.  Ironically, instead of replacing salespeople they said would become obsolete, they created a need for a whole new breed of salespeople - BDRs - to follow up on all of the crappy leads generated by their inbound marketing platforms.  And the very same companies who were claiming that their SaaS marketing platforms would replace salespeople actually required salespeople - lots of them - to sell their applications.  Back when Hubspot was scaling its sales team, they used Objective Management Group's (OMG) sales candidate assessments to identify the right salespeople for their various selling roles.

There are two ironic byproducts of the inbound phenomenon:

1. Account executives who benefit from the appointment setting provided by BDRs not only don't prospect; they don't know how! 
2. Most BDRs are atrocious at making outbound calls, sending emails and LinkedIn reach outs, and following up on inbound leads. They average only 1.5 meetings booked per week!

Like Kale salad, Cauliflower pizza crusts, and charred broccolini, the Death of Selling is about to become an unwelcome (to me) menu item in the form of AI. 

We're seeing ChatGPT's ability to create human-like articles, essays, poems, notes and messages. 

I just asked ChatGPT to write a short poem on the death of selling.  Here's what it generated.

Selling, oh selling, how you've changed,
No longer can you be so deranged,
In the past, you used to deceive,
But now it's time for us to leave.

Customers now are more aware,
They're educated and they're prepared,
To be sold on anything they see,
No longer works in this industry.

The death of selling has now arrived,
And it's time for us to be revived,
We must shift our focus to serving,
Our customers' needs and preserving.

It's not about what we can sell,
But how we can help them excel,
Our job is now to listen and learn,
To provide insights that make them yearn.

For products and services that we provide,
Not because we pushed or we lied,
But because we helped them find,
Solutions that were one of a kind.

The death of selling is not the end,
But a new beginning we must contend,
To serve our customers with all our might,
And make our business soar to new heights.

Not bad.

Microsoft Bing has recently built AI into its search engine.  It is a work in progress with built-in bias, the sometimes horrible things it writes, and its propensity for error.  AI hasn't come close to living up to its potential in the sales world. Our proof is in the horrible daily bot-driven reach outs we get via email and LinkedIn messages.  Some of those are driven by AI.  Some are created with AI.  Some are claiming to use AI.  And look no further than the customer service chat boxes on virtually every website.  Who hasn't been frustrated having to deal with those?

But not to worry.

Just like the threats from 15 years ago, the soon-to-be written articles predicting the death of sales will have as much predictive accuracy as their predecessors.  But like vitamin D, you have built-in protection! There are many sales jobs that simply cannot be replaced.  If you work in a quota-carrying sales role for an underdog, you are always and forever safe.  

How do you know if you work for an underdog?

The characteristics of an underdog are:

• You don't have the lowest price. Only one company in each territory, vertical or space can claim that and since it probably isn't you, you'll have to sell value.  That is insurance against obsolescence.
• Your company isn't a household name. The brand names are your industry's equivalent of Apple, Dell, HP, Salesforce, Google, and Microsoft.  If that's not you, then you sell against one of them and that makes you an underdog.  More insurance.
• You work for a start up and/or are selling new technology. That means you have to do proof of concepts, taste tests, show your financial staying power, and point to things you do better than the well-known companies and technologies you compete against.  You know who you are and AI could never do what you do.
• You sell custom-engineered equipment or software.  Do you remember OJ Simpson's defense team's acquittal line about the glove?  "If it doesn't fit you must acquit."  Same with custom.  My quote for custom: "If it must be designed, you won't need to resign."

Don't worry about all of the coming-soon hype.  Instead, do the following:

• Get yourself evaluated by the #1 Sales assessment in the world so that you have an objective understanding of your current sales capabilities in all 21 Sales Core Competencies.  Your understanding should not be skewed based on your team, your company, your competition or your industry.  Click here and copy and paste I would like to have myself evaluated into the comment box.
• Based on your selling strengths, weaknesses and skills, ask the sales expert who reviews the evaluation with you to recommend the sales role for which you are most well suited.
• Get some sales training and coaching to fill the gaps in the sales competencies where you don't score as high.
• Get yourself a sales position with an underdog.  As long as you perform, you are safe from becoming obsolete!

Image copyright 123RF 

Four weeks ago, Marc Wayshak, Founder of Sales Insight Labs, an Allego company, emailed me a very insightful infographic. Returning from two weeks vacation, I was buried in work and filed the email until I had time to review it.  Today, a client was nice enough to postpone their training to next week and that provided me with two hours to dig into both the infographic and data from Objective Management Group (OMG) that might correlate to what he sent me.

You can view the infographic at its original size here.

Their statistics are from nearly 24,000 recorded sales conversations and focus on levels of engagement.  They found that top performers make 54% more switches - the back and forth in conversations - than everyone else and 78% more in their presentations.  The presentations made by top sales performers are not monologues!

OMG's statistics are derived from more than 2.3 million evaluations of salespeople.  OMG's doesn't measure switches - how could it - but it does measure whether salespeople emphasize listening over talking, the skill required for switches. The top 10% of salespeople are 200% stronger at emphasizing listening over talking.  But OMG's difference is 375% larger than Sales Insights Labs.  What could account for that difference?

The 200% represents the skill gap between top and bottom salespeople but skill alone does not translate into action.  Salespeople must also have strong Sales DNA. There are two Sales DNA competencies that are required here.  The sales competency that supports listening is "Stays in the Moment." Salespeople must be present - right here and right now - in order to effectively listen and determine what the next question should be.  The competency that supports asking questions is "Doesn't Need to be Liked." Salespeople who do need to be liked are afraid to ask questions, push back or challenge conventional thinking because they worry their prospects will become upset. When we integrate those two competencies into the mix - salespeople who have both the skill and strengths to support the skill, the modified finding is that top salespeople are 52% stronger, which is within 2 points of the finding from Sales Insights Lab.

Their second insight is that the discovery calls of top performers are 76% longer and sales presentations are 55% longer than everyone else. The Consultative Seller is an OMG sales core competency that measures capabilities in the Discovery Call.  Top Salespeople are 300% stronger at the Consultative Seller competency than bottom salespeople. There are two attributes in the competency which would suggest a better quality conversation that would last longer.  They are "asks enough questions" and "asks great questions".  Salespeople who ask enough questions and ask great questions are 54% more effective than salespeople who don't.  Sales Insights Lab measures the number of questions that are asked and not surprisingly, top performers ask and get asked 30%-43% more questions than everyone else.

The infographic also included an insight about words per minute.  Sales Insights Lab and OMG data agree that top salespeople speak more slowly than everyone else but there is a difference with regards to how much more slowly.  Sales Insights Lab found top salespeople speaking at a rate of around 170 words per minute - 10 words/minute slower than everyone else. OMG's data shows top salespeople speaking at closer to 120 words per minute - much slower than everyone else.  Sales Insights Lab also has data on Pace, where top salespeople get their prospects to speak more slowly than prospects for other salespeople.

So what does all of this powerful data mean?  

Salespeople who take a consultative approach, and take the time to ask lots of good, tough, timely questions, have the difficult conversation that others won't have, and uncover compelling reasons to buy from them, accomplish several things that other salespeople don't accomplish. They:

• More effectively differentiate themselves from other salespeople
• Create urgency - the key to shortening the sales cycle and getting prospects to take action
• Make it easier to fully qualify their prospects because prospects will self-qualify to move things along
• Get their prospects to respect their expertise
• Engage Decision Makers in the Conversation which differentiates and shortens the sales cycle
• Sell the value of them - they become the value.

Evaluate your sales team and then train and coach your salespeople to slow down, stop presenting and start selling like top performers. You will significantly increase revenue.

Image copyright 123 RF 

The lessons from my annual Nutcracker post have not changed at all in 12 years but my perspective changes. This year three new thoughts come to mind.

For example, each year the music in the Nutcracker suite becomes more and more familiar to me, but just think how familiar it is to the musicians in the orchestra who perform it day after day, and twice daily on weekends.  Like the dancers, they put us much effort, enthusiasm and emotion into the performance as they did the first time they performed.  Do salespeople have the same excitement about their products and services as they did their first year with their company or does it become mundane?

Mine is not the only family to make The Nutcracker or any other holiday event a tradition.  Year after year we return.  Are salespeople both familiar enough, special enough, and entertaining enough for their customers to renew each year?

They know that people like us return each year so to keep it interesting for us, they have updated the set a few times over the past 12 years, changed the dancers who play each character and embrace new, young dancers each year to play the parts of children.  Do companies keep their products, features and policies fresh enough with enough updates to their websites, user interfaces, and the way they do business to keep their customers interested?

And now, my famous Nutcracker article:

It's a family tradition that each December we attend the Boston Ballet's performance of the Nutcracker.  It's truly a magical show and even though the primary dancers change from year to year, the execution of the show's script and musical score is flawless.

Several years ago, during one of the performances, it dawned on me that the orchestra's role in the show correlated very nicely to an effective sales presentation.  There were 3 fantastic lessons that I presented then and as I have done each year since, will present again here.

If you attend a Nutcracker performance or simply listen to some of the orchestral suite during the holiday season, one of the selections you'll hear is the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy".  Perhaps you can't match the music to the title, but I'm sure if you listen to the first 30 seconds of this version, you'll recognize the melody regardless of your religion or ethnicity.

Even though you've surely heard it before, can you identify the four primary musical instruments at the beginning of the selection?

In this version, you're hearing the glass harmonica, while most orchestral versions and performances feature the celesta, oboe, bassoon and flutes.  Can you hear them?

Just as the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" sounds familiar to you, your salespeople find familiarity in the sounds, questions, comments and discussions on their sales calls.  As much as you may not be able to distinguish the specific instruments creating those sounds in "Dance...", your salespeople may not be able to differentiate the credible comments and questions from the noise on their sales calls.

During a first sales call, suppose your salespeople hear one prospect say, "This has been a very interesting and productive conversation and we might have some interest in this."  And imagine another prospect at the same meeting says, "We'll get back to you next month and let you know what kind of progress we've made."  And still a third might say, "In the meantime, please send us a proposal with references and timeline."

Lesson #1 (based on Objective Management Group's data) - Of every 100 salespeople:

• 70 rush back to the office to begin work on the proposal and tell their bosses that their large opportunity is very promising because all 3 prospects in the meeting were very interested;
• 19 leave the call and make 2 entries in their journals - "propose" and "follow-up" - and they'll do both eventually;
• 11 are still at the meeting, asking more questions.

Lesson #2:

• Prospects' voices are like musical instruments.  Each instrument in "Dance..." has a specific role in the performance.  If the wrong instrument or notes are played or they're played at the wrong time, the entire selection is ruined.  Prospects' comments in the scenario above have different meanings depending on their business titles and their roles in the buying process.
• If "please send us a proposal", "we're interested" or "very productive" are spoken from an Executive - the CEO, President or VP of something - it has a far different meaning than if the comment were to come from a buyer in Procurement.
• When any of those 3 comments are spoken by a user - an engineer for example - rather than a buyer or an Executive, the comments may be far more genuine, but carry much less authority.

Lesson #3:

• Sometimes it's more fun to listen to a song, symphony or simple melody and to figure out how and why the composer or arranger selected the particular instruments to play the particular parts of the selection.
• Your salespeople must apply that wonder and analysis to their sales calls.  The prospect may be the composer (started the initiative), arranger (selected the vendors to talk with), director (charged with the initiative and conducting the process) or musician (following directions of the conductor).  It's the salesperson's job to figure out who they're dealing with, what role they play, what influence they'll have and how to get the various players aligned on the compelling reasons to buy and your ideal solution.

Homework Assignment - Return to Lesson #1 and answer 2 questions:

1. Which of the 3 sales outcomes do your salespeople typically find themselves doing?
2. Which additional questions do those 11 salespeople stay to ask?

Each week we can read multiple lists of the top new movies and TV shows to stream at home.  Lists of the Top SUV's, Sedans, and Coupes are also prevalent right now.  And of course, as we move ever closer to the holidays, there are lists aplenty on the Top Gadgets, Luxury Items, Gifts for Her, Gifts for Him and Gifts for Kids to peruse.  But it's also the time of year when I publish my list of the Top 10 Sales and Sales Leadership Articles of the year.

Criteria: Popularity (views) is nice but quality of content is nicer.  Likes are cool but engagement is cooler. Entertainment value counts and my opinion matters because I'm judging the articles.  In the end, I'm applying popularity, quality of the content, likes, entertainment, comments, engagement and my opinion to create this list of the top 10 articles.

Enjoy!

10. The Bob Chronicles Part 7 - Salespeople Who Can't Close Closable Business 

9. Why You Can't Lose Customers or Salespeople Right Now

8. How to Use This Jeep Versus Infiniti Analogy to Hire the Right Salespeople

7. How You Can Double Your Revenue in a Recession (most comments)

6. Hiring Salespeople the Right Way Yields 62% Less Turnover and 80% Higher Quotas

5. The 10 Unwritten Rules of Prospects and Tips for How to Break Them

4. How to Identify the Real Reason When a Salesperson is Under Performing (best content)

3.  The Top 10% of All Salespeople are 4,000 Percent Better at This Than the Bottom 10%

2. How to prepare your sales team to thrive in a recession

1. The Irony of Free Passes for Under Performing Salespeople   (most engagement)

Top Article - Dave Kurlan's Top Videos and Rants (most views, comments and engagement)

Image Copyright 123RF

You're driving down the highway and you approach a road sign which says Chicago (South), Green Bay (North). Smart people know that taking the appropriate exit puts you on the road TO one of those cities and that you are NOT IN one of those cities.  Morons think they have arrived.

The sales version of that occurrence is the single most common challenge we observe when watching salespeople "sell." It doesn't matter whether it's a live phone call, virtual meeting, face-to-face meeting, or recorded sales call.  Salespeople who are learning to take a consultative approach to selling hear a stated issue - the consultative selling version of a road sign - but think they have arrived at their destination - the compelling reason to buy.

This is supported by the data.  Objective Management Group (OMG) has data on 2,280,260 salespeople that have been assessed from more than 30,000 companies.  The findings are horrific:

As you can see, even the top 5% don't excel at taking a consultative approach to selling with an average score of 66.  That's not bad, but these elite salespeople score at or near 100 on most of the other 21 Sales Core Competencies.  Only 13% percent of all salespeople are strong at taking a consultative approach while almost nobody in the bottom 50% is strong at this competency.  Signs, whether on the road or on a sales call, point to a path or direction. They do not announce your arrival.

Speaking of signs and data, I would like to share some sales candidate assessment data from six clients.  I'm sharing these because the data provides signs that point to certain paths or, in this case, reasons for the data.

The first column represents the number of candidates assessed in the past 12 months.  As you can see, the client who assessed 417 candidates was much more effective attracting candidates into the pool than the client who assessed 19 candidates.

The second column represents the percentage of candidates that met the specific criteria for success in their specific selling role(s), at their companies, selling to their audience, against their competition, and at their price points.  As you can see, the recommendation rate varied wildly because the criteria for a recommendation is dependent on the specific criteria for success in the role, as well as the difficulty of the role. Additionally, the quality of the candidates varies based on the appeal of the job posting and more specifically, total compensation.

The fourth column represents the percentage of candidates who were not recommended for each company. It's important to note that a candidate who is not recommended is not by default a bad salesperson.  Not recommended means that the salesperson didn't meet either OMG's criteria for the difficulty level and/or the client's criteria for success in the role.  It's possible that good salespeople may not be good fits and you shouldn't have to ask why.  How many salespeople have you hired, confident that they were good, only to see them fail?  Maybe they weren't good, or maybe they weren't good fits.  You could have known in advance had you used OMG.

The third column represents sales candidates that were worthy of consideration.  Worthies are on the cusp. They fall within a few percentage points of the cutoff separating those who were recommended from those who were not. The companies with 119 and 417 candidates with recommendation rates of 27% and 21%, didn't need to consider sales candidates who were worthy because they had plenty of recommended candidates to choose from.  However, the clients with 20, 19 and 74 candidates only had 11 recommended candidates between them so they needed to consider the additional 40 combined worthy sales candidates.

The client in the sixth row ran a job posting that attracted candidates, but not the right candidates. It wasn't tied closely enough to the criteria required for success in the role.  Compare that with the clients in the first and fifth rows who attracted only 39 candidates combined.  Their ads and/or their compensation likely sucked because most candidates were not moved to apply.

The data always takes the form of a road sign and tells you where to go to reach your intended destination.

Last week we watched Spirited, the new Apple TV Plus take on the old Charles Dickens novel, A Christmas Carol.  In this lighthearted film, Will Ferrell is the Ghost of Christmas Present and Ryan Reynolds is the 2022 version of Scrooge.  This Scrooge is a funny, selfish, materialistic, song and dance man, who is irredeemable. Can Will Farrell's character redeem Ryan Reynolds' character?

As usual, the movie got me thinking about salespeople and Understanding the Sales Force.

Ryan Reynold's character, Clint Briggs, is a fabulous showman, salesperson, and marketing consultant rolled into one.  The problem is that he never considers anyone or anything other than himself and his personal success..

There is a correlation between Clint Briggs and salespeople, many of whom are also irredeemable, but for different reasons. 

Most salespeople - 87% - still sell like it's 1975 and fall into one of three buckets:

1. They sell transactionally. In other words, they talk about their company, their products and services, themselves, their features and benefits, and try to leverage that for a sale.
2. They rely on demos to generate interest and then try to close.
3. They rely on having the lowest price and take orders.

Only 13% of all salespeople take a consultative approach to selling and almost none of them can be found in the bottom 50% - the group that fails to meet quota each year.  A coincidence? On the other end of the spectrum, the top 10% of all salespeople are 4300% more likely to have the Consultative Seller competency as a strength!

Are the 87% redeemable?  Can they make the transition from transactional sellers, demo-focused presenters, and price focused order takers to professional, consultative sellers?  Only an OMG (Objective Management Group) sales team evaluation (SEIA) can answer that question.  Download free samples of the sales team evaluation here.

Spirited does have three things in common with prior versions of A Christmas Story and those are the ghosts of Christmas' past, present and future.  That got me thinking about the articles I wrote in 2022, the articles you'll see in December, and what you can look forward to in 2023.

Our ghost of articles past reminds us that we began 2022 talking about whether buying has changed and if salespeople have adapted.  We followed that up with our 6th installment in the popular Bob Chronicles about salespeople who make things your problem.  Then came an article about the 10 Unwritten Rules of Prospects and how to break them.  

February began with an article on how hiring salespeople the right way yields 62% less turnover and 80% higher quotas.  We followed that up with the similarities between cyber thieves, hackers and most salespeople.  No kidding!  Then came this favorite, the 7th installment of the Bob Chronicles about salespeople who can't close closable business.  I love the Bob articles!  Then I provided 10 steps to crush your sales forecasts.  Finally, our last article in February was my review of a prospecting email with some elements that could actually work for salespeople.

March started with an article explaining how salespeople with a high tolerance for money are 4,000 percent better than those with a low tolerance for money.  That's a huge differentiator!  Next was the comparison between great baseball coaches and great sales coaches.  Then I began a new series of my most popular videos and rants.  It started with the top 10 but there are now nearly 2 dozen popular videos and rants to watch! 

April started with another baseball analogy - this one about how the philosophy of great pitching coaches can improve your sales team.  Then I explained how to identify the accurate reason for a salesperson who is not performing.  

May's first article had my 5 simple steps to grow sales by 33%.  Really!  May ended with an article about how to prepare your sales team to thrive in a recession.

In June, I explained how salespeople like to go fast but good salespeople actually go slow and followed that up with an article on the benefits of competency-based assessments.   

In July, I wrote about why you can't afford to lose customers or salespeople right now.  Then I wrote about big company strategies that small and medium businesses can emulate.  The last article of July explained the differences in requirements for success in different selling roles. 

August began with one of my trademark takedowns of a junk-science article with 20 attributes of successful salespeople. Not. That was followed with an article about how to stop account churn.  Then I explained how my car's qualifying ability is a great example of how salespeople should qualify. Then came the article that explained how salespeople would be impacted by the 15% minimum corporate tax and how difficult it would be for the IRS to hire 80,000 agents.  Sorry if reporting on an actual news story offended some of you.  The post that should have gotten people upset but didn't was when I compared the sorry and pathetic Boston Red Sox to most sales teams.  Not a single complaint about that one!  My final article in August was another baseball analogy where I compared closing a tough sale to hitting a home run.

In September I found and shared an article with a doctor's testimonial about the importance of his salespeople.  Awesome!  Then I wrote about 10 attributes that do not differentiate top from bottom salespeople.  Next up was my tortured message to the masses wondering why more companies don't use OMG.  Then came another takedown of a Harvard Business Review article that appeared online.  The last article in September talked about how you can double your revenue in a recession.  

October began with my personal life comparison of Jeeps and Infinities and how that analogy holds up when interpreting an OMG sales candidate assessment for hiring salespeople.  My 8th installment of the Bob Chronicles looked at the difference between selling skills and effectiveness.  Then I compared alleged criminals who are released under cashless bail to underperforming salespeople who are released back into the field.   My final October article explored the correlation between motivation and sales compensation.

In November I wondered if salespeople will sell more effectively when sales managers sell and coach and if new sales managers can be difference makers.  Then I wrote a take-down of a Wall Street Journal article about selling to millennials.  My most recent article compared my failing wiper blades to why executives fail to take action when they have underperforming sales teams.

Which of these articles will make the list of the top 10 articles of the year?  Stay tuned for the December reveal as well as my annual Nutcracker post.  In 2023 I'll be focusing even more on how you can use OMG's data to improve sales performance.

A few years had passed since the last time I wrecked an hbr.com (Harvard Business Review online) article about sales.  If you haven't been reading the Blog for the last sixteen years you may have missed my previous fourteen take downs.

Why Do You Think Harvard Business Review Does This When it Comes to Sales?
The Challenge of the Challenger Sales Model - The Facts
Harvard Business Review Blog Off Target on Sales Greatness
Harvard Business Review Blog Post Gets Salespeople Wrong
Harvard Business Review Hit and Then Missed the Mark on Sales
How Wrong is the Harvard Business Review Article on How to Hire Salespeople?
Revealing Study of Salespeople Makes News at HBR
Another HBR Article on Sales Leaves Me with Mixed Feelings
Top 10 Questions for Salespeople to Ask and Stay Away From
What Customers Expect From Your Salespeople and More
HBR or OMG - Whose Criteria Really Differentiate the Top and Bottom 10% of Salespeople?
More Junk Sales Science in HBR Blog
Now That You Have a Sales Process, Never Mind
Is SELLING an Afterthought in Today's Sales Model?  

Dan Caramanico alerted me to this dubious September 19, hbr.com article that explains their 5 Skills Every Salesperson Needs to Succeed.  It took three consultants to screw in the lightbulb that illuminates their five stupid-as-shit skills so let's take a look:

The five skills they claim everyone should have are not sales skills at all.  In their defense, their title doesn't state they are sales skills, but instead, skills that salespeople need to have.  As you read these, ask yourself, does EVERY salesperson need these skills, do certain salespeople need these skills, or do any salespeople need these skills?

1. Anticipating the Customer's Tomorrow
2. Collaborating Inside and Out
3. Leveraging Digital and Virtual Channels
4. Ability to Get Power from Data
5. Capacity to Adapt

The three authors looked at sales job postings on Indeed and extracted their five skills of choice by looking at some of the requirements listed by enterprise companies, like Apple, Grainger, Microsoft, Pfizer, Bank of America and 3M.

Enterprise companies are rarely representative of small, medium and mid-market companies.  If we study industries that are considered old-school, like industrial distribution or building materials, they wouldn't even consider skills like these being associated with sales.  They're just learning what CRM is!

Let's look more closely at #3, digital and virtual.  This requirement simply states that salespeople must be able to use the tools that all salespeople have learned to use, like Zoom, LinkedIn, MS Office, and CRM.  In this day and age, those requirements are no different than twenty years ago when it was a requirement for a salesperson to have typing skills!

If we look at the top five sales skills that every salesperson - EVERY SALESPERSON IN EVERY ROLE - needs to have in order to succeed, I would choose these (data courtesy of Objective Management Group (OMG):

1. Reaches Decision Makers - you can have all five of the skills listed in the hbr.com article but if a salesperson can't reach and meet with the decision maker, the skills listed above and below cannot be leveraged.  Salespeople who reach decision makers are 341% more likely to close the business.
2. Consultative Seller - Salespeople must uniquely differentiate themselves and provide the prospect with an ideal solution that is both cost and needs appropriate.  The best way to do that is with a consultative approach based on excellent listening and questioning skills, attributes of the Consultative Seller competency at which only 11% of all salespeople are strong
3. Value Selling - The ability to sell at a profitable margin is very important to most companies.  Selling Value is the skill that drives profit but it requires a set of beliefs, strategies and tactics to support the effort.  Simply spouting off a company's value proposition will not get the job done.  Only 31% of all salespeople have Selling Value as a strength.
4. Qualifying - The win rate is driven by a salesperson's ability to thoroughly qualify an opportunity and there is a direct correlation between unqualified and lost, and fully qualified and won.  Only 21% of all salespeople have the Qualifying Competency as a strength.
5. Sales Process - A custom staged, milestone-centric, customer-focused sales process will support and enhance a salesperson's ability to use a consultative approach, sell value and thoroughly qualify a decision maker's ability to buy.  Only 34% of all salespeople have Sales Process as a strength.

These five skills are Sales Core Competencies at which all salespeople must be good.  Compare these five competencies to the five skills in the hbr.com article and you will easily see that their five skills, without my five competencies, won't get a deal done.  On the flip side, I would argue that my five competencies, even without their five skills, will still get a deal done.

There are 21 Sales Core Competencies with an average of 8 attributes per competency.  OMG measures all 21 of them and there is an online tool where you can see the data behind all 21 Sales Core Competencies and break it down by industry and Sales Percentile.  OMG has assessed 2,253,218 salespeople.