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Authenticity: A Recipe for Success with Marietta Davis, IBM

My interview with Marietta focuses on authenticity – being who we really are in all walks of life.

For many women, including me, shedding the mask to be our authentic selves, especially in business, isn’t always easy. Women more than men are taught from an early age to “fit in”. Be nice, include everyone, don’t get too big for your britches.

For those of us who wanted corporate careers for ourselves, we were signaled subliminally or told directly, that to succeed in a man’s world we had to be like the men. That meant dressing like them too! As you’ll hear in Marietta’s interview, in her first stint at IBM early in her career, she wore ladies Brooks Brothers suits, white shirts and wing tips like the guys.

Authenticity is a word thrown around a lot but what does it really mean. There are varying definitions like something proven to be real or legitimate but I like this definition best.

Authenticity is about presence, living in the moment with conviction and confidence and staying true to yourself. An authentic person puts the people around them at ease, like a comforting, old friend who welcomes us in and makes us feel at home.

Being who we are and standing strong in our personal power is tough when faced with pressure to conform. Yet, living and leading authentically, as Marietta does, naturally draws people to you. Authenticity isn’t something you can fake, though many people do try. We can feel it when people are being true to themselves because they exude self-confidence, passion and trustworthiness. As a leader, bringing your whole self to work, inspires your team to follow your lead.

During the interview with Marietta we…

Talked about her passion for non-profits such as the Posse Foundation and why it is important to her to give back to her community.

Her career progression working in high impact roles in major technology companies and what her role at IBM entails.

What Marietta means by authenticity and why it is important, especially as an executive leading teams.

Talked about the “authentic Marietta”. We also talked about whether or not we can learn to “let go” and be our authentic selves if we choose too.

Finally, we wrapped up talking about when Marietta might have tried to lead as someone other than her “real self”, and what happened as a result. Her answer might surprise you!

As we celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s History month all throughout March, be inspired by women all throughout history who had the courage to live authentically and change our world for the better!

Listen and enjoy the interview!

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About Marietta

My guest today is Marietta Davis, VP North America Communications and CSI, IBM Global Markets. Marietta is a seasoned sales executive with an extensive career in the technology industry holding high impact positions at IBM, Lotus Development, Ameritech, and Tata Consulting. I first met Marietta in her role as Vice President of U.S. Dynamics at Microsoft Corporation. The highest ranking African American in North America, Canada and Latin America, Davis led an organization of more than 400 sales, marketing and technical experts serving Microsoft’s business customers with Dynamics ERP and CRM Solutions. While at Microsoft, Davis successfully managed and grew multiple businesses to $1B and triple digit growth milestones. Her diverse leadership portfolio extends to mentoring strong leaders into key roles and acting in an advisory capacity to incubation and small startups.

Marietta gives back in a number of ways and currently sits on the National Board of Youth Villages, a private nonprofit organization dedicated to helping emotionally and behaviorally troubled children and their families. Recently inducted into the Spelman College “Game Changer” Hall of Fame for her work in 2015, Marietta is also a sought after speaker on leadership topics and is a published author, writing for the Huffington Post and Thrive Global.

Feature header blog post photo by Chris Murray on Unsplash

Setting Intentions for 2020

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

I’m bucking the annual tradition of pitching predictions about what is or is not going to happen in sales, marketing and business in 2020 or the decade ahead.

It seems pointless.

Predictions aside, for the past decade buyers have clearly communicated their displeasure with traditional, outdated selling approaches; yet, old behaviors rage on.

It seems pointless to predict what could happen when what has happened isn’t even being addressed.

It’s a New Year and things are bound to be different, right?

I’d like to think so. Could 2020 be that year?

If you follow numerology at all, you know that 2020 represents a year of insight, perfect vision and accomplishment. It is the number for “work” and about getting things done. The right things.

I wonder what would happen if more companies challenged themselves to set the intention to THINK different, SELL different and BE different leveraging 20/20 vision and insight to make that happen.

Intentions versus goals. Is it one or the other or both?

Goals are meant to help us reach an objective within a finite period. Basically, it is about establishing clear tactics and setting deadlines to get what we want.

With intentions, we have a plan we intend to carry out, but those intentions may or may not be linked to a specific deadline. I view intentions as being a bigger vision of something we want but setting arbitrary deadlines may not make sense. At least not at first.

Setting goals sounds like the smarter way to go.

We’ve been trained to believe that the only way to reach our goals is to set deadlines. SMART goals. Specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and time stamped goals. Goal achievement experts proclaim that without setting actionable goals you don’t fulfill your true potential, which to me, is a lie we should not believe.

More will be revealed, and timing is everything.

The difficulty I’ve always had with traditional approaches to goal setting is that I don’t know what I don’t know.

In sales, goal setting is easier in the sense that you are assigned a quota for the month, quarter and year. That’s your goal. Following a consistent sales process backed up with the right activities, you can work backwards to lay out the steps needed to achieve your objective. You don’t have to guess at the right activities, there is enough research and proof to know what they are.

On the other hand, you may have a goal to become a sales manager. You could set your achievement deadline to be December 31, 2020. But I would argue that there are many factors that will impact your ability to achieve that goal or not. You could lay out all the steps, execute them well, and still not achieve the goal by the deadline you set.

That’s the big problem I have with traditional goal setting. It feels like a forced process, as if we can control circumstances often far beyond our control.

There is nothing wrong with thinking big, striving for the best version of ourselves or dreaming of big rewards to keep us motivated.

When I think about intentions and whether or not I should focus my energies on this or that, I have to know in my heart that it feels right, and I want it. I may have no idea how it will all come together but I have faith that more will be revealed. That the people and the resources I need to make my intentions come alive will show up at the right time.

A personal example to prove my point.

In 2009, I created a list of publications who I wanted to publish an article of mine. I had no idea if this intention would come to pass. At the time I was a less confident writer even after being signed to have my book published the following year!

Anyway, one of those publications was the Harvard Business Review. I could have taken my list and created “goals” to make my desire a reality. My book on Social Selling was published in 2010, so logically, that might have been the year to push to get at least one of those publications to publish me. But what if the timing was all wrong, or I didn’t have the skills required just yet? And, if I didn’t achieve my objective in the time frame I’d committed too, would that motivate me to adjust and carry on or simply cause me to give up? Hard to say.

What did happen is that in February 2012, one of the editors at the Harvard Business Review contacted me (email and Twitter!) to ask me to write an article about Social Selling for their July 2012 magazine. They had decided to devote an entire issue to the topic of sales evolution. As a result of them following me on social media and hearing me on webinars, they had decided to invite me to write for them. They felt I had a unique perspective to add to their magazine focus. No PR agent created that opportunity for me. Had I set the goal to make this happen in 2010, it probably wouldn’t have. It was clear that buyer behavior was changing and that social was impacting selling but it took another two years before these new ideas began gaining traction.

I set the intention. It had no deadline. I certainly took action to walk my talk and demonstrate how I used social in my own business and taught clients to do the same. The visibility I created for myself ultimately paid off but I didn’t try to force the achievement of a goal.

To some of you reading this post, you’ll be thinking – that’s airy fairy, new age nonsense. For me, it works. It feels more authentic, and I have accomplished quite a lot in my lifetime approaching things this way. I simply don’t try to force things into existence merely to prove I can set goals and achieve them.

I take a combination approach and set goals and intentions.

For example, my #1 intention is to change the prevailing sales mindset about a salesperson’s role in the buying process. We are (or should be) problem solvers and value creators. Not product pitching demo dollies.

To turn that intention into a goal, how would I measure the real impact of my work and message? It doesn’t make sense to me to say I will make this happen by July 2021. How would I know? What would be the measure I would use to judge my success? Is it the number of people I coach who shift their approach and book more meetings? Could be. But what about the people who may hear my rantings for another 2-years before they decide to change? Does that mean I failed if it happened after my self imposed deadline?

My second major intention is to impact and increase the percentage of women who assume sales management and leadership roles in their companies. How do I put a number to that? Is there really an end date I could use to say that I made it? Perhaps the goal is to choose 1-2 key projects that I feel might move the needle in terms of awareness and change. But what activity is the right activity? Is it the number of blog posts I write, number of times I’m interviewed about the topic, is it the number of people who listen to my Conversations with Women in Sales podcast, or the number of consulting gigs I’m hired to do that confirm I’ve successfully achieved my goal?

You get the point.

Here in the United States, we’ve been conditioned to believe that we cannot get anywhere in life unless we set goals, as if we could have insight into all the steps it will take to reach them or the obstacles that might derail us.

I’m not saying don’t plan for your success. What I am saying is consider how to identify an approach that works best for you to live your best, most fulfilling life year to year. The approach is not going to be the same for everyone. If you don’t have specific goals figured out yet, you aren’t doomed to fail. It means you are human.

If, like me, you find the traditional approach to goal setting a challenge, ease up on yourself and try setting 3-5 specific intentions instead. Then give yourself permission to let more be revealed about when/how you can make your intentions more concrete in the 30-days after you set them. I’ve found that the answers I need start to show up pretty quickly once I set my intentions and read them aloud every night before bed and each morning as I kick off my day.

We enter a New Year in less than 15 hours. In whatever way you decide to approach the New Year and the new decade, my intention for you is that you love and live your life to the fullest!

Cheers to the journey!

Step Away from the Keyboard

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas is a popular phrase adapted from Las Vegas’ tourism slogan meant to mean that no matter what you said or did in Las Vegas, your unbridled freedom of expression wouldn’t come back to haunt you.

Ah, if only that were true on the internet, in social networks, online communities and public forums. One would think examples of epic lapses in judgment made by individuals – think Roseanne Barr, or companies – SnapChat’s completely inappropriate “would you rather” ad about Rihanna – would serve as strong reminders that what you say online can burn your reputation so fast you might not know what hit you.

Sometimes it is better to back away from the keyboard.

I’ve seen nasty, snarky comments and arguments taking place on LinkedIn, which for the unenlightened is supposed to be a business network of professionals who are there for the purpose of doing business. I can’t figure out if the people who do this sort of thing are simply ignorant to the perception this creates about their character or if they’ve deluded themselves thinking that any publicity is good publicity.

Actions have consequences.

When we feel under attack or judged unfairly it can be easy to react without thinking through the consequences of what we are doing. That monkey mind reaction may intensify if someone has bashed you or your company online. The justification to defend becomes strong. This is exactly when you should take a breath and back away from the keyboard. A mindless response to justify your position or to prove you are right can easily backfire on a much larger scale when it is done online.

Reputation matters.

Before the rise of the internet, if you found out that misinformation about you or your company was making the rounds in business circles, you’d go to the source to work it out. Advice worth considering as your first option today.

If you choose to get in a pissing contest with someone online, you’d do well to consider the risks, especially if you are in a sales role.

If you think how you conduct yourself in online conversations won’t factor into a decision to buy your product or not, think again. What you share, say and do matters. Buyers do check us out.
Don’t assume that because an online community is small that your behavior won’t be noticed. People are watching.
Even if you are in the right, going overboard to prove your point makes you look like a jerk who can’t keep their ego in check.

I saw a public example of how these 3 points played out between two rival software companies earlier this year.

It started with a sales manager at one company sharing a meme they’d created to poke “fun” at their competitor. It did not go well for good reason. Reps following in the footsteps of their leader started sharing the offending post with their social connections and followers. As tends to happen in social networks, a smack down began with people showing up to chastise the company and the sales reps for what they were doing. The sales leader apologized.

That should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t.

It didn’t take long for the situation to escalate when an offended manager at the rival company decided to air his grievance about the competitor’s joke. Aside from the fact that the better decision was to say nothing at all, the sales reps who work for this same company were guilty of talking smack about the very competitor being complained about. People didn’t hesitate to call out their hypocrisy publicly.

Think first. Your brand will thank you!

Whether it is bashing a competitor or feeling justified in defending yourself when you feel wronged, everything you say and do remains attached to your digital footprint. Deleted tweets and social posts almost never disappear. You’d do well to remember that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, EXCEPT when it is on the internet.

Your Sales Kick-Off Meetings Are a Waste of Time!

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

As sales teams mount their final push to finish 2019 strong, someone in a sales enablement, marketing or sales support role is planning what has become status quo in sales. The annual sales kick off (SKO) meeting.

As the term implies, a sales kick-off meeting is meant to be a sales reset. An opportunity to review what worked and what didn’t in the prior year while also creating the positive momentum needed to achieve sales goals for the year ahead.

But let’s get real. Most SKO’s are a complete waste of time and money.

Throughout my sales career, I’ve attended plenty of these meetings and usually left them feeling ticked off that 3-5 days of my selling time was wasted, and I was away from my family to boot.

Though the “goal” is to set the stage for sales success, SKO agendas are dominated with things that do not help salespeople be better at the craft of selling. That includes new product announcements, product feature training, product demos, reviews of marketing materials, or execs who feel their title justifies air time with the sales force when it doesn’t.

Use your SKO time to train your sellers how to be better at selling; otherwise scrap the meeting.

SKO’s are expensive! Studies suggest that the average per head cost is between $1,500-$3,000. Conservatively, it can cost $75,000+ for a 50-person sales team to attend your SKO plus the cost of other people in your company who attend too. That doesn’t even account for event planning costs, or the lost opportunity cost due to non-selling time while salespeople attend the event.

Companies are literally burning cash on SKO activities that do not advance sales performance.

Given the expense of these meetings, it is a huge miss to waste time on anything that does not directly impact a salesperson’s ability to sell more effectively to today’s modern buyer. As Salesforce reported in the 3^rd annual State of Sales research, “winning deals still requires human to human interaction.”

And, it isn’t just any human interaction that will get the job done. It must be the right interaction that happens at the right time and in the right way.

Buyer expectations keep rising. How does your SKO prepare salespeople for this ongoing reality?

The surprising thing is that this is NOT a new revelation. What is surprising is how many companies remain mired in their own status quo, and as a result, they fail to adapt and act on what B2B buyers keep making clear. The salespeople they will give their time and attention to are the rare ones who demonstrate that they operate differently from other salespeople.

Nowhere on this list does it say that buyers want sellers coming at them with generic, product feature driven sales pitches. They certainly don’t care if you redesigned your marketing materials.

Buyers do say they have higher standards for salespeople, can take their business anywhere, expect vendors to personalize their approach, and that they will work with sellers who act as trusted advisors.

Use your SKO as an opportunity to train salespeople to be what buyers want them to be!

If buyers want to work with salespeople who are trusted advisors, what does that mean?

Trusted advisor defines the salesperson who has exceptional, targeted knowledge about specific business problems that decision makers in certain roles and industries face. These salespeople solve problems and put the needs of the buyer FIRST. Sales reps don’t become trusted advisors without help and that means training.

With that in mind, how is your SKO agenda training your salespeople to:

Engage rather than repel buyer interest with sales messaging and approach?
Conduct sales meetings using business acumen & insight vs. feature dumps & demos?
Manage multiple relationships with “buying teams”?
Compete with buyer status quo?
Reduce the sales cycle length and close deals more often?

A better playbook for designing that sales kick-off meeting.

Planning beyond the event. Your plan must include what happens prior to the SKO, during the event, and how the training you deliver will be adopted and acted upon after the event.
Clearly define the behavior you want to change. Be specific. After the SKO we want our sales reps to demonstrate competency in the 3 key traits of a trusted advisor. Then go deeper. What specifically does or will hinder our ability to evolve our salespeople into trusted advisors? Lack of training? The activity KPI’s we set today, which incent the wrong behavior? Are there internal systems, processes or even management biases getting in the way of the objective too?
Plan pre-work prior to your kick-off event. Brainshark’s research found that “more than six out of 10 organizations (62%) don’t deliver pre-work to sales representatives in advance of their SKO, and 84% don’t conduct training in advance – neglecting to provide a foundation on the skills and topics that will be covered.”
Create and block plenty of time for role plays at the event. Sports teams don’t show up on the field once a week expecting to win the game. They run plays and practice possible game day scenarios every day. Sales teams should operate the same way. Practice improves skills, turns them into ingrained habits and builds confidence.
Reinforce. Your SKO sales training establishes the foundation for better sales results, and behavior will not change after one training. For salespeople to embrace and act-on the new skills they’ve just learned, coaching and management reinforcement must happen consistently after the event concludes.

Conduct your SKO with the right “end in mind” or don’t bother to do it all.

A sales kick-off meeting has huge potential if done in the right way.

The end goal should be that salespeople leave the event having improved their selling skills. The skills that decision makers expect of them. The skills that position your sellers to achieve their quota and deal profitability objectives in year ahead.

Everything else is a waste of money and time that can be better spent elsewhere!

Dig That Well Before You’re Thirsty

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

By now, if you’ve read some of my work, listened to any of my interviews, you know that I believe that learners are earners. People often tell me that they have a desire to keep on top of their own learning but then complain that they just do not have the time.

We all have the same 24-hours in a day.

That is not meant to be flippant or sound like I lack empathy for others who may have more and different obligations than I do. I simply believe that when any of us choose to focus on what we believe to be important; we will make time for it.

Why make learning a priority?

As 21^st century humans, we live in a world moving at speeds faster than our predecessors could have imagined. The rapid pace of change is dizzying, and all signs indicate that won’t be stopping any time soon.

To remain relevant as people and business professionals, our learning mindset must always be on. Whether it is through reading (I’m a junkie), podcasts, webinars or watching video clips, or any combination that works for you, there are so many ways to learn on the fly that you have no excuse not to.

Even 10-minutes a day learning something new will translate into 3,650 minutes of learning or 60.83333 hours of new learning each year!

You seriously cannot invest 10-minutes a day?

Harvey McKay wrote a book called Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty and while many books written about networking have been published since Harvey’s, what I liked about Harvey’s book is that he says DON’T WAIT UNTIL YOU NEED YOUR NETWORK to build it. Many an employee surprised by the news that their job was eliminated have discovered the hard way how painful it is when they don’t have a network to fall back on.

Networking and learning the 21^st century way.

Online networking and relationship building using platforms like LinkedIn has never been easier. Yet, even today, I’m surprised at the number of people who barely keep their profile up to date, much less dig that well before they need it.

Aside from the networking and relationship building, LinkedIn has also become quite a learning resource. You can learn from others through their articles and posts or follow hashtags (#) that feature topics of interest most relevant to you.

The point is that you must keep up.

What you know today is important. What you know about what’s coming or could be coming is how you maintain relevance when others are left behind.

I’ll close this post with another book recommendation.

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein.

As David says, “Plenty of experts argue that anyone who wants to develop a skill, play an instrument, or lead their field should start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. If you dabble or delay, you’ll never catch up to the people who got a head start. But a closer look at research on the world’s top performers, from professional athletes to Nobel laureates, shows that early specialization is the exception, not the rule.”

He makes the strong case that range of knowledge and skill is of high value. Being educated in many different areas I have found to be of great importance as a sales professional. The more diverse our education and skills, the easier it is to connect with people on so many different and diverse levels.

I’ll continue to promote my belief that learners are earners. A few times each month, watch for posts that promote books, podcasts, articles or videos I recommend.

AND… please share YOUR favorites with me and my readers in the blog comments.

Constructing Sales Success – Tips for Women in Sales

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

The many sales challenges faced by men and women in sales roles are largely the same.

Difficulty getting through to buyers.
Not enough qualified leads in the pipeline.
Too much administrative work and not enough selling time.
Trying to keep competitors at bay.
Keeping sales skills sharp.
The rapid pace of change.
And more.

Selling in today’s 21st century environment is more challenging than ever. That means that our ability to transcend obstacles to success is as much about managing our beliefs, mindset and attitude, as it is about being highly skilled at the various aspects of the selling process.

I’ve written about the business case for women in sales many times.

Research supports that a strategic focus on diversity and inclusion positively impacts revenue, the customer experience and fosters cultures that are forward thinking and innovative.

Volumes have been written about bro cultures, women being held back, gaps in pay. All truths that have merit. There is no question that there is work to be done. Progress has been slow to fix many of the pervasive problems that persist.

At the same time, I want women in sales (or in any role), to remember that there are times when we may undermine our success without even realizing it through some of these common behaviors.

Being Seen Not Heard.

I’m not the only woman who has felt seen but not heard in meetings. Many women don’t realize that they are more likely than men to “wait” to be called on to speak.

Women also have a tendency to downplay their certainty about their ideas, business opinions, or even the products they sell. They hedge their assertions making them seem less confident than they are. If you want to be heard, rather than fume at being overlooked or feel your ideas were dismissed, make it your business to assert yourself by speaking up clearly, confidently and concisely.

If you are in a sales role, this behavior is especially problematic. There is a gap in gender diversity in departments other than sales in many companies, which means that the buyers we are approaching are mostly men. If you appear to lack confidence in what you sell, these male buyers won’t feel confident in buying from you.

Leveraging Relationships vs. Building Them

Often, we hear that women possess the innate strength of building relationships. While I believe that to be true, I’ve also noticed that many women shy away from leveraging the power of the relationships they’ve built.

I’m as guilty of this behavior as anyone. As much as I talk with guests on the Conversations with Women in Sales podcast about how important it is for women to stop sitting on the sidelines waiting for others to notice their good work, reward them, promote them or help them when they need a favor, I find myself doing the same thing without realizing it.

For many of us this is a bias hidden away in our DNA that cautions us against asking for specific help from the people in the networks we’ve established. Adding to our concern is the judgment many of us have felt by other women who signal to us that our ask is selfish or overly ambitious. For the record, women who judge other women, and it happens far more often than you might think, are often unaware that they do it.

I have to give a hat tip to men here. They don’t usually fall into this trap. If they need help, they don’t hesitate to ask for it.

The TMI (Too Much Information) Trap

This sabotaging behavior isn’t new news. How you use your words matter and never is that truer than in selling.

It is important to note that the urban myth that women speak 20,000 words in a day while men speak 7,000 was debunked in a 2007 study.

It isn’t the number of words men and women use in a day; they are basically the same number. The core difference is in how words are used. Women are often tuned out because they take too much time to get to the point. And, yes, I’ve been guilty of this behavior too. Women often preface their suggestions with a lot of backstory and unnecessary background. Side observations obscure the main point, while over explaining the rationale behind the point they want to make creates a perception that they lack confidence in their abilities.

Tip: Get to the point and let people ask for more details as they need it!

Minimizing

Stop downplaying your achievements!

There is that old joke about there not being an “I’ in team, which always made me laugh. Look closely at the word, and you’ll see the word “me”. Not we, me.

Our male counterparts use “I” more often when speaking. Women, on the other hand, use “we” more often. On the surface “we” sounds inclusive. When we believe that our accomplishments came together as a result of a team effort, we are reluctant to call specific attention to our part in the process.

Research confirms that using “we”, especially if you are responsible for leading a team, creates confusion about your role in a specific effort. The higher ups wonder… Did you lead it? Were you essential to the outcome? What exactly do you mean when you say “we”?

Women are discouraged from “self-promotion” beginning at an early age. Promoting our own efforts is equated to bragging. Bragging equals bad. How we present our accomplishments may be the difference, but marketing how we contributed to the success of the business or any team project is part of the job.

People Pleasing and the Perfection Trap

Many women, including me, suffer from the disease to please. Voltaire wrote that “Perfect is the enemy of good.” A manager I worked for gave me that feedback once, and at the time, it really annoyed me. When I thought about it later, I understood what Voltaire meant. He meant that perfection is an illusion. Not everyone will like us or agree with us but trying to navigate our careers through the lens of trying to be something we aren’t doesn’t make much sense. It certainly leads to more heartache than needed.

In closing

External factors that can block our path certainly exist. I began my sales career in the macho, male dominated world of tech, and enjoyed great success all through the years. And like so many women, I’ve dealt with my share of biases that presented obstacles I felt were unwarranted or unfair. At the same time, I recognize that there have been times when I let my own insecurities and behaviors work against me. I know I’m not alone.

I’ve always been inspired by Viktor Frankl and his story. In the most horrific of circumstances, he came to the realization that no matter what the circumstance, WE HAVE A CHOICE! If where you are today is not where you want to be, what choice will YOU make to turn things around?

NOTE: A similar but shorter version of this post was originally published as an article in the Top Sales World Magazine in June 2019 – Women in Sales Edition.

How Does Your Sales Experience Stack Up?

By Barbara Giamanco 2 Comments

Creating differentiated, personalized customer experiences is a top business initiative for most organizations. Executives know that when exceptional experiences are delivered, they distance themselves from their competitors. The reverse is also true. When things don’t go well, the negative brand impact on your company has greater potential for damage that goes far beyond losing a sale or a current customer.

Every interaction someone has with your company matters. That is especially true when it is your salespeople.

The term “customer experience” is misleading. The use of the word customer suggests that your experience strategy begins once someone becomes a paying customer. But that’s not the case at all. The experience begins with the very first interaction someone has with your company. It could be a marketing interaction, and more often, that first touch starts with someone on the front lines of your sales organization. That touch could be a phone call, email, an in-person meeting at a business event or a LinkedIn connection request.

When companies are designing their experience strategy, that strategy must include the salesforce.

To me, that seems an obvious suggestion; however, I don’t believe that organizations are doing enough analysis to understand how ALL buyer interactions with their salespeople – starting with the first ones – are either helping or hurting pipeline and revenue objectives.

Gartner has defined Customer Experience Management as “the practice of designing and reacting to customer interactions to meet or exceed customer expectations and, thus, increase customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy.”

I would revise Gartner’s definition slightly to say, “designing and reacting to prospect and customer interactions to meet or exceed their expectations and, thus, increase pipeline, revenue, satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy.”

So, let’s talk about “aligning to the buyers’ journey”.

The most common strategy to engage new prospects starts with content. A lot of it. The idea is to deliver the right articles, white papers, case studies, videos or webinars at the right time in the buyers’ decision-making process.

Conventional wisdom says provide educational content that informs during stages when buyers are looking for products to solve their problems. Or, use content to provide insights into problems buyers’ may not know they have yet but are bound too, and they are more likely to book a sales meeting. Unfortunately, that may no longer be the case.

Content overload is creating a backlash to the buying experience.

Analyst reports indicate that buyers are inundated with so much content that the information overload is leading to the exact opposite reaction companies want. Rather than creating an experience that inspires buyers to more quickly engage with sales, they are opting to do nothing!

In a recent report from Gartner about how sellers can help buyers “make sense” of the overwhelming availability of high quality content; albeit, often with conflicting points of view, authors Neha Ahuja and Benjamin Hooker confirm that “when customers encounter too much information — even trustworthy, evidence-based information — they may stop learning. In such a scenario, customers reach a point of information saturation after which they can’t process new information.”

This leads to a point of diminishing return in the perceived value that information has to purchasing decisions. Rather than decisions being based on “quality data”, decision making becomes reminiscent of the days before the internet with buyers’ making decisions based on best guesses and gut feelings as opposed to rational, fact-based choices.

Which brings me back to the sales force. The people paid to sell to your products.

Information overload is causing problems. But so are salespeople with their messaging and approach, whether meaning too or not. Your sales team members are typically the first human exposure that someone has with your company.

What do you know about the experience those interactions are creating?

Unless what you sell requires little more than an order taker to seal the deal, evaluating what’s happening throughout the selling cycle when those interpersonal – people to people – sales interactions are taking place is a must. Often your salespeople are losing out on sales opportunities with the message they convey in the first email they send or phone call they make.

Another day we can debate why sales organizations spend an inordinate amount of time and money constantly chasing new logos. The reality is that they do. Empty pipeline phobia puts more pressure on salespeople to surface new sales opportunities any way that they can often without enough training and coaching to help them succeed.

Leaders own the fault here. When the default command is to do “more activity” to try and meet objectives, quality is bound to suffer and it does.

Banish magical thinking.

As I often do, I recently wrote another LinkedIn article about the need for salespeople and sales leaders to banish magical thinking and stop looking for short-cuts to engaging buyers. Cheap tricks in the form of subject lines, break up emails and other such nonsense simply reinforces that buyers don’t need sellers to help them in their purchasing decisions at all. There is a reason why 90% of the time buyers simply hit delete to rid themselves of constant deluge of sales spam.

Put yourself in the buyers’ shoes. Do you know what it is like to try and buy from you?

Go through every step of the journey as a buyer would. Download white papers or attend a webinar, and then experience what it feels like to be hounded by a salesperson through email, phone calls or LinkedIn connection requests. Evaluate the messaging that salespeople are using to try to book sales meetings. Are the messages focused on the issues relevant to the buyer or simply another attempt to sell with your product pitch? Engage directly with a salesperson and experience what it feels like to have features, benefits and a product demo pushed on you. Record sales calls and listen carefully to how your salespeople are representing your offering.

It is easy to toss around phrases like “improve the customer experience” or map your processes to the “buyers’ journey”, but in truth, the effort to transform existing processes isn’t easy.

But that doesn’t mean the transformation effort shouldn’t be undertaken. In fact, I believe it must be a strategic imperative!

We are about to enter the 4th and final sales quarter for most companies, and I can guarantee that the “do more” mantra will reach a fevered pitch with the end result being largely the same. As it has been for the past decade, roughly half of all sales teams will still not meet quota goals. Same activity = same results. Denial doesn’t change reality!

Crush Quota With This Simple Funnel Formula

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Let’s talk about your plan to CRUSH QUOTA using a simple funnel formula to help you build pipeline and revenue. If you prefer to listen rather than read, listen to the audio clip below.

Why do you need a formula?

Reps are almost always too optimistic about the ratio of their activity to opportunities on their path to close.

Take matters into your own hands using this formula that I learned about from Chris Bennett.

The funnel formula has 4 variables:

1. The number of opportunities on the go.

2. The average $ value of each opportunity.

3. Historic closing rate / if you are not sure, use 25%.

4. Average sales cycle time. Example: The # of opportunities x average $ deal size x average closing rate% divided by average time to close.

Look at a formula for a sales pro with a goal of $99,999 in gross profit.

100 deals x $10,000 = $1,000,000 x 25% = $250,000 divided by a 3-month sales cycle. This results in…

= $83,333 per month in sales x 10% GP

= $8,333 per month x 12 months

= $99,999 per year in GP.

Using this easy to follow formula, the sales pro made their plan. The beauty of this formula is that it keeps you grounded in the reality of what your pipeline really looks like and it helps keep you focused on the activities that will lead to you achieving your sales results. Don’t forget that you will regularly update your numbers during the month to stay on track.

Now, what would happen if you increased the top 3 variables – the # of opportunities x average $ deal size x average closing rate% – by just 10% and reduced sales cycle time by 10%?

Here is what happens:

110 deals x $11,000 = $1,210,000 x 27.5% = $332,750 divided by 2.7 months. This results in…

= $123,240 per month in sales x 10% GP

= $12,324 x 12 months

= $147,888 which is a 47% increase vs. the first formula that produced $99,999.

Watch the on-demand presentation that Chris and I delivered last year. Topic: 5 Ways Salespeople Can Create Compelling Value, Book Meetings and Build Pipeline. VIEW HERE

Making It Rain in 2019

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Last week, I was making it rain opportunities through networking and education with over 1,000 sales professionals at SalesLoft’s Rainmaker 2019 conference. SalesLoft, a hometown tech success here in the ATL, launched Rainmaker in 2014. As I was putting this post together, I hopped into my time machine and zipped back to 2015 when I first attended Rainmaker and wrote about my experience that year.

What I realized in reading that 2015 blog post was that the more things change, the more they actually stay the same. Priorities important in 2015 are even more important today, in 2019. For example…

If you are in a sales role, you simply cannot wait around for others to give you everything you need to succeed. Don’t rely solely on your marketing team to understand the characteristics of your ideal buyer. You, the sales rep, need to own and understand the target buyer persona too. More importantly, you should be spending the bulk of your networking/prospecting/sales call time with ONLY those people! Success also relies on honing your skills, so that you can be the best at your craft of selling. That means you need to invest in your own learning and development every single day! Always keep in mind that learners are earners!

Message matters. If you want your outbound sales activity to convert to more sales conversations, YOU MUST PERSONALIZE your messages. Sales pitches fall on deaf ears. If you want a buyer to give you valuable time on their calendar, you better be focused on what they care about more than what you are trying to sell. That means doing your homework, and this is where tools like LinkedIn, the internet, company websites, Twitter, or InsideView can play a huge role in more effective sales messaging. Bottom line – if your message is all about YOU and what YOU SELL, you are doing it all wrong!

The best sellers DO NOT talk about products and services (see my point above). These sellers don’t ramble on about the features of the products and services they sell. They don’t put buyers to sleep during demos talking about how they do this and why they do that. Especially in the beginning of a new sales relationship, much of that stuff doesn’t matter. Top sellers focus on helping buyers solve business problems that they will pay money to solve. Top sellers know how to ask the RIGHT questions and how to shut up and LISTEN to the answers.

The best sellers understand human behavior. They leverage their ability to clarify and confirm what they know based on up front research before talking to prospects. Validate what you know but don’t “interrogate” buyers during sales calls. Trust me, interrogation is exactly what it feels like to buyers when you insist on walking them through your lengthy discovery process. Instead, respect their precious time by learning much of that information ahead of the meeting. Your sales call will yield much better results!

Top sellers follow a sales process but are smart enough to adapt their approach to fit how the buyer makes purchasing decisions. You might need to eject your assumptions about the buyer’s journey. Even in similar industries, every company has decision making criteria unique to them. If you simply try to force a buyer/buying team to fit your sales process instead to adapting to their purchasing process, you’ll lose more deals than you will win.

Stop listening to experts who are legends in their own minds. Not everything about selling is dead. Nor is there one right way to be successful in selling. I don’t like making ice cold sales calls to strangers not expecting my call. I prefer to use other means to engage buyers first because that is what works for me. But hey, if your cold call activity is converting to a high number of sales calls with qualified buyers, then by all means… DO IT. Every sellers world is going to be unique. You must test, adapt, and test again to determine and consistently utilize what’s right for you.

Relationships in selling STILL matter! This point dovetails the one above. Believe it or not, more than a few self-proclaimed “experts” promote the idea that relationships in selling is dead. During the session I moderated on Social Selling, I asked panelists Samantha McKenna, Kat Charlot and Morgan J. Ingram what they thought about relationships and selling. They all agreed, as did the audience, that developing trusted relationships with targeted buyers is more important than ever. Mock experts trying to get their 15 minutes of fame by trying to be edgy and controversial are not good for our sales profession. In B2B sales, people still buy from people. Regardless how sophisticated technology becomes, I don’t see that changing any time soon.

Building exceptional sales teams drives exceptional sales results. On the morning of Day 3, the panel discussed the elements of building exceptional teams. These panel leaders didn’t talk about squeezing one more millisecond of productivity out of people with another piece of technology. They talked about being human, embracing change and paying attention to the foundation of sales basics. All three leaders talked about being authentic, genuine, vulnerable human beings who hold themselves and others accountable. And during the conference they were not the only leaders to make clear that a people first focus is what drives success now and in the future.

I will close by giving high praise to the SalesLoft team for their focus on speaker diversity at Rainmaker! Other conference organizers… are you listening?

I am not the only woman in sales tired of virtual sales events, webinars and conferences that are dominated by white guys – of any age – on the speaking stage. Highly engaging, well qualified, diverse speakers are not difficult to find. Event organizers simply must make it a priority to better balance the scales.

There is a lot of chatter right now about “women in sales”… why we need to see more women on sales teams and in leadership roles and why diversity and inclusion initiatives are good for business. But talk is cheap! As my mom said often, “Action speaks louder than words!” I learned that SalesLoft set a goal of 51% speaker diversity for Rainmaker 2019. They achieved 54% with 46% of the conference speakers being women! And for the second year in a row, I moderated the panel discussion at the women’s breakfast that SalesLoft made a part of the conference last year. More on that experience in a separate post. A bias toward action is a core value at SalesLoft, and at Rainmaker 2019 they demonstrated that when it comes to excellence in selling, as well as diversity and inclusion, they walk their talk!

Opening Executive Level Doors with Caryn Kopp

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

In this episode, I talked with Caryn Kopp AKA The Chief Door Opener at Kopp Consulting, an Inc 5000 winner, recognized for the Door Opener® Service where they get their clients meetings with high level decision makers in almost every major company. If you want to know how to open doors at the executive level, this is the interview for you!

We covered these questions during my conversation with Caryn:

Getting in the door with executive level prospects is one of the most difficult part of the sales process, bar none. I asked Caryn how her team, known for getting executive level meetings for your clients, does it. She shared her success secrets for prior open those doors when other companies and salespeople struggle.

Caryn will tell you how to figure out what to say to pique the interest of busy, high-level prospects when they get so many calls and emails from competitors.

Personalization is a big buzz word now. Caryn shares her opinions on what works and doesn’t work when it comes to crafting messages that open doors to your targeted prospects.

You will learn about the two important elements that have to do with sales that most business leaders get wrong.

We also discussed tips on how to hire the right Door Openers for your company.

Finally, we talked about a question that comes up all the time…at what point do you just give up on a prospect? Listen to the interview to hear what Caryn has to say about that important question.

Listen and enjoy the interview!

Apple Podcasts – Please subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Write a review for the podcast if you like the interviews.

Spotify Stitcher Google Play Don’t use any of these platforms to listen? Listen to Episode 43 with Caryn above.

About Caryn:

Caryn Kopp is the Chief Door Opener^® at Kopp Consulting, an Inc 5000 winner, recognized for the Door Opener^® Service where they get their clients meetings with high level decision makers in almost every major company. A best-selling author, speaker and an expert in Business Development, Caryn can be seen in Inc., Forbes, Newsweek and is a faculty member of Verne Harnish’s Gazelles Growth Institute. Caryn is also the co-author of the best seller Biz Dev Done Right.

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