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!

How quickly can you determine why a salesperson is failing? 

Dinger loves to play catch with his ball.  He has seven of them but loves his white ball the most.  When we're out playing catch and I point to a ball and say, "there it is" or "right there" or "get it" he just can't seem to find it!  Dinger has good listening skills but his ability to see the obvious isn't very good.

Such was the case earlier this week when a surprised client wanted an explanation for why one of their salespeople, who does not perform very well, scored well on his evaluation.  "How can someone who is not my top performer score better than someone who is my top performer?"

That sounded like a challenge so I said, "Let's go!"

Objective Management Group's (OMG's) evaluations are very accurate so I always assume the evaluation is correct and simply ask questions to determine whether something needs explaining, or they might not be looking at the best data to determine whether a salesperson is truly a top producer or an under performer.  The most common pushback occurs when someone they have inappropriately labeled as a top performer does not evaluate very well.  In almost every case, it's because the salesperson manages more revenue than anyone else, but isn't the one who sold those accounts.  A good account manager, but not a producer. 

In the case of this evaluation, the salesperson was simply not performing as well as his peers so I assumed there was a good explanation.

I'll share what I found.

First I looked at his 5 Will to Sell competencies which include Desire, Commitment, Outlook, Motivation and Responsibility - all specific to sales - and while I expected to find an issue with commitment, I did not find the issue there. 

Next I looked at the 6 Sales DNA competencies, expecting to find an explanation there and while his Sales DNA is only fair at best, at 67 it was certainly not the primary source of the problem.

Next I looked at the 10 Tactical Selling Competencies and found what I was looking for.

He scored an 8 on Relationship Building!  If you look at these 10 scores in the proper sequence, he's a hunter who can reach decision makers and when he schedules a call or face to face meeting, and they talk with him, he isn't able to connect with with his prospects. 

He scored 84 in the Hunting competency but that's deceiving!  What prevented him from scoring 100? If you look at the attributes in the Hunting competency below, there are two important attributes he's missing. The first is Likable!  If a salesperson isn't likable it's very difficult to get beyond that!! They simply won't perform!  The second is Maintains Full Pipeline. Clearly, he struggles to convert the scheduled calls and meetings into opportunities.

The answer is always in the OMG evaluation but you need to look at more than a single score!  At a bare minimum, read the dashboard where these scores come from.  You don't have to read 30 pages but at least read the first 2 pages!

Going back to my opening paragraph, "Right there!"  "There it is!"

Clients use OMG's Sales Team evaluations as a development tool to uncover sales skill gaps, opportunity for growth, and most importantly for answers to age-old questions like, why aren't we selling more?  Why is our win-rate so low?  Why aren't we generating more new business?  Why do so many opportunities come down to price?  Are our salespeople in the best roles for them?  How much more business could we be generating if we coached and trained on these gaps?  Are we hiring the right salespeople?  Are our sales managers coaching effectively? 
Samples
Free Sales Team comparison (limited reporting)
Learn more

Clients use OMG's Sales Candidate Assessments to hire the ideal salespeople for the selling roles they wish to fill.  
Free trial.
Sign up.

Sales consulting and training firms choose OMG for their clients because it is sales specific, and is more comprehensive, more accurate and more predictive than any other assessment you can find.  Sales consultants and trainers can learn more here.

Image Copyright 123RF

From time to time I record impromptu unscripted rants as well as some that are more well thought-out videos.  From among the collection presented below, most are rants so the rants are much more popular.  The most-watched (I have added to the list so there are more than 10 now!) videos are shown below in order of popularity and while I like all of them, I indicated my personal favorites with an asterisk.  All but three of the videos are three-minutes or less, one is six-minutes, one is ten-minutes and one is eight-minutes.  Topics include:

1. Revenue Sensitivity - a rant on the lack of correlation between top salespeople and revenue

2. On Sales Process and Methodology - the difference between popular sales processes and methodologies

3. Why Your Prospects Won't Talk with You and What to Do About it - a rant

4. On Attracting Salespeople When Recruiting - a rant on the Two Keys to Attracting More of the Right Sales Candidates

5. Transactional versus Consultative Selling - a rant

6. Why Forecasts are Always So Inaccurate - a rant on why it's not the forecast!

7. Dinger's Listening Skills - how my Dog's Listening Skills are better than those of most salespeople

8. Protect Your References - a rant on why you shouldn't give out references unless it's the perfect time

9. Why People Should Consider a Career in Sales

10. On Cold Calls - a Rant

11. Nothing has Changed in 35 Years - a Rant

12. On Not Getting Distracted

13. How to Shorten and Speed Up the Sales Process

14. Why Sales Training Doesn't Work

15. The Importance of Momentum in Sales

16. Momentum Part 2 - The Importance of Discipline and Consistency and Why You Need Both

17. Don't Make This Critical Mistake as We Move Forward into the Recession

18. Sales and the Importance of Having a Quality Conversation

19. Why Do Salespeople Chase So Many Unsellable Opportunities?

20. The Importance of Getting Your Messaging Right

21. Stop Discounting!

22. Don't Leave Your Job!

1.  On Revenue Sensitivity *

2. On Sales Processes and Methodologies

3. Why Your Prospects Won't Talk with You and What to Do About it

4.  On Attracting Salespeople When Recruiting

5. Transactional Versus Consultative Sales

6. Why Forecasts are Always So Inaccurate

7. Dinger's Listening Skills *

8. Protect Your References

9. Why People Should Consider a Career in Sales *

10. On Cold Calls

11. On How Nothing Has Changed in 35 Years.

12. On Not Getting Distracted

13. On How to Shorten and Speed Up the Sales Process

14. On Why Sales Training Doesn't Work

15. On The Importance of Momentum in Sales

16. Momentum Part 2: The Difference Between Discipline and Consistency - You'll Need Both!

17. Don't Make This Mistake as We Move Forward Into the Recession

18. Sales and the Importance of Having a Quality Conversation

19. Why Do Salespeople Chase So Many Unsellable Opportunities?

20. The Importance of Getting Your Messaging Right

21. Stop Discounting

22. Don't Leave Your Job!

Image copyright 123RF

My wife and I entered the small jewelry shop and were greeted - not with a warm welcome - but with a matter of fact "my name is...and I'm the owner...and I created everything in the store" which was followed by fifteen minutes of non-stop presentation of everything she created.  

You've been in a store like this and you know exactly how you have reacted to that.  It includes thinking all of the following:

• Stop!
• Shut Up!
• I don't care!
• Go away!
• Oh wait, I can go away!
• Please stop so I can leave!
• Your stuff is not even that good!
• Has anyone ever listened to this?
• You've got to be kidding me!
• There's more?
• OMG make it stop!!!

When it was over my wife said "thank you" and we walked across the street to a gallery where we were quickly greeted - no greeted is totally the wrong word - instructed to "put on a mask!"  The mask thing again.  About ten minutes later he caught us staring at one particular painting for several minutes and asked, "Are you familiar with her work?"  We said, "No" and he took the opposite approach of the Queen of all Jewelry and walked away!

So in one store we weren't the least bit interested, she didn't notice, didn't care and kept on keepin' on.  In the other store we would have bought that painting and he abandoned us.

I don't usually write about retail selling and today's article is not about retail selling except to make a couple of important points.

If we all know how boring, irrelevant and agonizing it is to be presented to when we aren't interested, then why do salespeople, who have surely been on the receiving end of the scenario described above, insist on presenting before they have a qualified, interested prospect?  It's stupid, irresponsible, and a huge waste of time.  But they persist.

Salespeople aren't great at taking a consultative approach.  According to the data from Objective Management Group's (OMG) evaluations and assessments on more than two million salespeople around the globe, only 14% have the Consultative Seller competency as a strength.  Only 42% of the top 10% have it as a strength and as you might guess, 0% of the bottom 10% have it as a strength.  You wouldn't think that anything could be worse than that, right?  But if you look at the bottom 50% - the bottom million salespeople, only 1% have the Consultative Seller competency as a strength. The top 10% are 4200% better at taking a consultative approach than the bottom 50%!

The Consultative Seller is one of twenty-one Sales Core Competencies measured by OMG and each competency has between six and twelve attributes or an average of around nine.  In addition, there are 10 additional competencies with attributes combining for around 450 data points per salesperson and approximately 945 million data points in total.  You can see some of the data here and compare industries too.

Back to the story.

When salespeople have been trained to listen and ask questions first some still choose to tell their prospects everything they know up front.  Why?

I can think of ten potential reasons and none of them are very good:

1. They lack experience and all they know is what they learned in orientation training
2. They need to be liked and fear that if they ask questions their prospects will become angry
3. They don't agree with the consultative approach
4. Their sales manager is not holding them accountable for taking the consultative approach
5. Their sales manager is not reinforcing the consultative approach through coaching
6. They don't listen very well and as a result, don't know which question to ask
7. They don't know what "good" sounds like and can't replicate it
8. They haven't practiced and lack confidence
9. They think that listening and asking questions delays getting to the demo
10. They are doing fine doing it the way they are doing it

Everything on my list is symptomatic of numbers four and five. With reinforcement coaching and accountability, every other reason goes away.  That brings us to the next point/question.  Why aren't sales managers doing numbers four and five?

I can think of ten more potential reasons and none of them are any good either:

1. They are spending too much of their time on personal sales
2. They need to be liked and fear that holding their salespeople accountable will make them angry
3. They don't agree with the consultative approach
4. Their boss is not holding them accountable for implementing the consultative approach
5. Their boss is not reinforcing the consultative approach through coaching
6. They don't listen very well and as a result, don't know which question to ask their salespeople
7. They don't know what "good" sounds like either and can't replicate it
8. They haven't practiced role-playing and lack confidence
9. They agree that listening and asking questions delays getting to the demo
10. They are doing fine doing it the way they are doing it

Most of these reasons are essentially the same.

It's a top down problem and the folks at the top just hope the folks at the bottom take care of business and don't really care how. And therein lies the problem.  Ambivalence from the C-Suite basically suggests that they just don't care.

What can we do about that?  Rocky LaGrone had a great answer to that question!

Rocky said:

"You could take a stick and beat the C-suite over the head repeatedly until they cry Uncle and then start to listen.

Image copyright 123RF

Short article today.  Prospects don't pay a lot of attention so the less you say the better.  It helps them listen and comprehend more of what you share with them when you use fewer words.  But prospects aren't the only ones who don't listen.  Salespeople don't listen very well either.  As a matter of fact, my dog has better listening skills than most salespeople because my dog knows what to listen for. Don't believe me?  I'll prove it in the video below.

For an overwhelming majority of salespeople, I can't even use "listening" and "salespeople" in the same sentence. That's because they either:

• don't listen because they are so busy talking
• hear but aren't really listening
• listen but aren't listening for the right things
• listen for the right things but don't ask the appropriate follow up questions to leverage what was said

According to Objective Management Group's (OMG) data on the evaluation and assessment of 2,040,738 salespeople, only 27% of all salespeople listen effectively.  Looking at the top 5% of all salespeople, only 57% of that elite group listens effectively. Only 10% of the bottom half and 0% of the bottom 10% listen effectively.

Listening is the one selling skill that salespeople find most difficult to understand and improve.  If you can't actively listen, then how can you ask the appropriate follow up question?  If you can't ask follow up questions because you don't know which question to ask next, then you'll find yourself explaining, educating, presenting, and wasting time because most prospects simply aren't interested in having salespeople regurgitate what they can find online in a couple of clicks.  And if that's what salespeople end up doing on sales calls, it becomes a transactional, price-driven conversation instead of a value-based, consultative conversation.

Watch how well my dog listens in this enjoyable one-minute video.

In the spring of 2017, we brought Dinger home as a puppy and I wrote this article explaining why he is so much easier to train than most salespeople. 

I don't understand why companies and their salespeople still claim to have competitive pricing.  It's a race to the bottom because no matter what you tell me, in your industry, vertical, territory, area of expertise, and product category, there can be only a single company that will have the lowest price and it's not going to be you!  How do I know?  If you had the lowest price you wouldn't be reading articles on how to become more effective.  Instead, you would be quite content taking orders from the buyers who only buy from the company with the lowest price

Image Copyright 123RF

Consider how frustrating it is to approach a traffic circle, or as we call them in Massachusetts, a rotary, during rush hour.  You very slowly make your way towards the circle in a long line of traffic, attempt to merge into a congested circle, travel around to the other side of the circle, and finally exit the other end.  Being a bit impatient, I'm usually screaming to myself, "Come on - don't stop! - let's get moving - let's go!"

Hold that thought.

I believe that role-playing is the single most important thing I can do with salespeople to help them to become great.  There are three kinds of role-plays:

1. I play the salesperson's part and the salesperson plays the prospect. This is my preferred method as it demonstrates exactly what the conversation should sound like.
2. I play the prospect and the salesperson plays the salesperson.  This approach works best when conducting pre-call strategy and usually serves to show me how ill-equipped the salesperson is to have the desired conversation.
3. The salesperson plays the salesperson and another salesperson plays the prospect.  This type of role-play occurs later in training when the salesperson has the foundational skills to execute the sales process correctly and to play the sales part with some confidence.

When I finally reach scenario 3 with salespeople playing their own part, it seems a lot like approaching the traffic circle. Let me explain.

When there is a question they need to ask or they need to summarize what they heard, the traffic circle scenario comes to life.  They slowly approach the circle, and when they finally reach the circle, travel around it a couple of times before exiting and finishing their comments.  In other words, they talk in circles, confusing, distracting and boring their prospect.  Take a step toward greatness: Be direct and concise because less is more memorable and powerful while being less confusing and boring.

Consider how a professional baseball or golf coach may break down swing.  Take a practice swing or two, get in your stance, use the proper grip, bend at the knees, open some at the waste and shoulders, eye on the ball, smooth, extend, hold your follow through, etc.  If you want to hit the ball solidly you must do those things in that order, but you can't be saying those things to yourself as you get ready to swing or bad things will surely happen.

Hold that thought.

You may have several talking points.  You may have rehearsed or even memorized those points; what you want to say about them and the order in which you want to say them.  But if you use your talking points and sequence, your prospect will be totally bored by the logic and mind-numbing time it takes for you to go through them.  A step toward greatness: Abandon the formality and sequence and simply have a conversation.  If there is a question or comment that makes it appropriate to introduce one of those talking points, then fine, but keep it conversational and do not become presentational.

Don't you hate it when a good prospect derails your momentum by asking for references?  This is truly a combustion point in selling.  (There is a great Disney book on combustion points called Be our Guest) You don't know if the prospects really want to talk with people or are using the reference requests to get rid of you.  You don't know whether to provide references, which ones to provide, whether they'll follow up with a call, or what your customers will say to them.

Hold that thought.

Today, it's helpful to have video on your smart phone, of several happy customers that can speak to any concerns your prospects might have.  No delays.  No wondering.  On demand references and testimonials.  Take a step toward greatness:  Everyone on the sales team must record a couple of great 1-minute videos from their best and happiest customers. The videos can be shared across the sales team so that everyone has a robust library of customers who can do the selling for you.  Third-party testimonials are much more powerful than the promises of a salesperson any day of the week. 

Speaking of testimonials, many of you have read my best-selling book, Baseline Selling.  Since writing that book, I have written, shared (complimentary) and given you the opportunity to read more than 1,700 articles on sales and sales leadership right here on my Blog.  I would be most grateful if you would return the favor by writing a review of my book at Amazon.com.  

Image Copyright iStock Photos

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?

Image Copyright iStock Photos