Closing percentage can mean a lot of different things, including how much time you might waste from the point at which an opportunity becomes closable until it is actually closed. Let's say you close 30% of your proposals to new and existing customers. When you consider the 70% that you did not close, approximately how much time do you think you wasted? Is it 20%, 30% or higher? We know it's  not zero.

One primary driver of this is our ability to achieve great clarity with our questions. In today's video I discuss the analogy of using bright lines and fine lines. This two-minute clip will help you improve your questioning process.

 

 

Since September, I have conducted eight multi-day sales intensives for about three hundred salespeople. The vast majority of attendees had 5-25 years of tenure. When shown the graphic below virtually all agree they regularly skip steps between first and second base and run to third.

There are two reasons why this happens:

The first reason is that in the internet age, prospects believe they are experts after a few searches. So they push salespeople to present their company's services without having much of a conversation. They want to engage at third base.

The second reason is the capabilities of the sales force. The table below shows the average competency scores for all salespeople excluding elite and strong or the top 20%. These scores represent the remaining eighty percent of salespeople. We see strengths in account management, presentation approach and relationship building but weakness in reaching decision makers, consultative selling and qualifying.

The average score for the top three competencies is 56% while the average score for the bottom three competencies is 44%, a 22% variance.

When asked why they begin their sales process at third base, most answered in one of three ways:

1. They thought they would lose the deal if they pushed back on the prospect
2. They felt personally compelled to talk about products or services
3. They didn’t know there was another way. 

So much for the notion that salespeople don’t show up and throw up!

You might assume that after salespeople become aware of this, they can change. Unfortunately, this is not true. The reason why occurs in sales DNA. Most in the group above have Need for Approval, Become Emotional, have difficulty talking about money, and possess Non-Supportive Beliefs. It takes time to overcome these weaknesses and very proactive sales coaching. Sales manager should spend 50% of their time on coaching. Most of this should be scheduled, not on demand.

This is where a staged, milestone-centric sales process is so critical. Managers must coach to the sales process showing salespeople when and where they skip steps, why this happens and how to get prospects to slow down and move back to first base so they can have stage appropriate conversation(s). Consultative selling occurs between first and second base, not between second and third base. If you have not identified the business need, quantified its impact, identified the compelling reason to act and created a high value relationship (SOB) you set yourself up as another commodity seller who generates too many proposals and spends lots of time chasing prospects.

Would you like to become a better coach? Attend our March Sales Leadership Intensive and learn how to accelerate the develop of your salespeople and have greater impact on your sales force.

Learn more at http://www.kurlanassociates.com/sales-leadership-event/# and receive a $100 discount when you register here. 

If you see yourself as a transactional seller don’t waste your time reading this article.

Einstein said insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. In this case insanity means using price to close end of month or quarter business. Why is this insane you may ask? Because you already know what going to happen. You will very likely be chasing your prospects as the deadline passes. What’s worse, some prospects want “the deal” you offered at the end of the month, only later, when they're ready.

Let me be more specific about the downside.

• You wasted your time getting special pricing approved.
• You taught your prospect that you will cave on price.
• You stopped selling consultatively and became transactional
• You convinced yourself that the prospect was ready to buy.
• You set yourself up for disappointment.

Prospects don’t buy when you want them to for a few simple reasons. You did not uncover compelling reasons to buy or create urgency, your contact was not the decision maker, you were being played, you rushed the process, or something changed on their end without you knowing.

Prospects act when the pressure or perceived risk of inaction is unacceptable. This connects directly to fear of failure, exposure, job security or advancement or other personal reasons. We don’t buy things because we want them; we buy when we convince ourselves we need them now, even when we don’t. 

The question is not what do you need to buy, but why do you need to buy it. Price concessions assume the prospect is actually ready to buy and needs to act now.

Creating urgency requires you to take a methodical, milestone-based approach. You can’t properly learn what makes it compelling to fix a problem(s) until after you have a clear understanding of what the problem is and the current or future impact.

Here is a sequence of questions you can ask which will expose or create urgency or show you that there isn’t any or not enough. When you don’t find any or enough urgency I suggest you focus on other opportunities. Insanity is just around the corner. 

• What’s not working or needs to work better?
• Why is it not working?
• What is the impact of this?
• How long has this being going on?
• What have they done to address it?
• What happened as a result?
• Who else cares about this and why?
• How does it affect them?
• What is the cost (money, time, emotion, opportunity, etc.) ?
• How does this impact your contact(s)
• Are they committed to do something about it?
• When does it have to be fixed?
• What makes it compelling to act now?

Some of you are telling yourselves that you already know all of this.

The second instance of insanity occurs when we convince ourselves that what we think we heard is always what the prospect said. In truth, it’s not. In virtually every role-play or post-call debriefing I do, I hear words and phrases that expose the assumptions salespeople make. We are sure we heard them say something when, in actuality, we inferred what they said. This is because we are listening to two voices, ours and theirs. We hear our own voice first and loudest.

If you choose to use price as an incentive that’s your choice, but as a professional salesperson, you are likely selling yourself short. Patterns and habits are hard to break, the first step is being fully transparent with yourself.

If you want more transparency click on the image below and grade your  sales process.

 

Do you sell consultatively? Salespeople and sales leaders frequently think that they are, when in reality, they are either selling transactionally or applying solution selling. Does that statement bother you? Does it raise any questions? According to Objective Management Group and its data from evaluating and assessing close to a million salespeople, salespeople possess an average of only 48% of the attributes of a consultative seller. 

My video post today discusses this in some detail. Watch it and then go ask your saleseople to define consultative selling. You likely be frustrated by the answers.  

If you need to hire salespeople who have great consultative selling ability, read our whitepaper on sales selection.

Have you ever gone to buy something, asked a salesperson for help, and left completely confused?   

Why is it that we (salespeople) make simple things so complicated?

I believe that in a desire to sound intellegent, cover all the bases, and educate our prospects, we often confuse, put-off, and alienate the very people we are trying to help.

In my post today, I discuss this problem, and offer some simple solutions: