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

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!

Are Buyers Freezing You Out?

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

I read a LinkedIn post recently that focused on the many complaints about cold calling and sales spam being talked about online. What struck me most was the author’s complaint that people publicly post the “negative” examples of sales spam they receive. She only wants us to share “positive” sales messages that work. And, yes, I’m rolling my eyes as I type those words.

In my observation, I believe we have more than a few sellers in sales today whose skin is a tad too thin. They don’t want to hear criticism even if it would benefit them to listen and learn.

I would love to share more examples of positive sales messaging, but I cannot remember the last time I received one. I’ve asked my networks to share examples they’ve received. Crickets. And why don’t we see more positive examples of great sales messaging? They largely don’t exist!

Go ahead. Ask 10 decision makers yourself when they can remember the last time they received a sales message that made them say… sure, I’ll free up time on my calendar to talk to that person.

I AM one of those people who posts about sales spam and implores sellers and their managers to do better.

Listen, I don’t shame people but I feel absolutely justified in sharing examples of sales messages that, as a collective whole, make our profession look bad. They certainly don’t achieve positive sales results.

CSO Insights reported that of the two main challenges sales leaders confirm gives them heartburn, the most pressing is the lack of qualified leads in the pipeline. Properly qualifying leads is the subject for another day. The point of this post is to reinforce that you cannot expect to increase your percentage of leads if prospects won’t talk to you.

This is why sales message and approach is all the more critical!

You have no hope of engaging buyers in sales conversations if they simply ignore you. Sales spam is an epidemic and as much the responsibility of individual sales contributors, as it is sales managers.

First, sales managers are typically more focused on QUANTITY of activity than the QUALITY of the activity. You need both.

Second, reps are mostly focused on hitting the activity NUMBER assigned them. They sacrifice QUALITY too.

Here is a real-world example to illustrate why buyers are freezing you out.

Four different sales reps at two different companies contacted me via phone calls and email last week. I had 2 voicemails each from 2 reps at one company, plus their 2 emails each. The other company had 2 reps contact me and each of those reps sent 2 emails each.

Are you keeping up with the math here?

4 voicemails and 4 emails from Company A.
4 emails from Company B.

That’s 4 voicemails and 8 emails over a 3-day time period. From only two companies!

Twelve missed opportunities to demonstrate credibility and value to me – the prospect. Perhaps the worst part of this example is that these reps wasted their effort on someone who will never buy what they sell, which a few minutes of research would have told them.

Not a single one of those messages were compelling enough for me to care, although one email was bad enough that I sent feedback to the rep who was snarky in their reply that they were doing just fine with their approach. When their commission check bottoms out, and it will, maybe they will change their tune and listen.

With all this activity taking place, sales leaders seem confused as to why their sales reps aren’t getting anywhere. They don’t seem to understand that it is the sales message NOT the activity itself that is the problem.

Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes.

The math gets even worse when hundreds of other salespeople target the same prospects with similar sales spam about their products. And I’m only talking about the overload of initial sales outreach. Many sellers have a cadence of sales activity cued up with the same pointless messaging like – “did you get my last message?” – going out as many as 4, 5, 6, 7 times after the initial attempt at contacting someone. Is it any wonder that decision makers avoid salespeople until they absolutely cannot avoid it any longer?

And what is this business of having multiple reps from your company contact the same prospects with the same spam message within hours of each other? I simply do not understand the thinking behind this approach. Multiple salespeople hounding the same prospect more often will not win them over. Ever.

Isn’t it time for the insanity to stop?

Many of us DO provide examples of how to craft better sales messages. We are also the same people providing examples of how to improve other aspects of the overall selling process – in blog posts, on webinars, in interviews, in workshops, in books, on speaking stages, in consulting and training gigs.

Unfortunately, so much of the wisdom about how to improve sales results simply falls on deaf ears.

Either because it is easier to stay stuck in what’s not working than change OR

Reps feel they just have to do what their manager tells them to do even though they know better OR

Sales managers are unwilling to accept that times have changed and what used to work now doesn’t OR

People don’t want to do the work it will take to learn new habits that get better results, which gets back to point #1… it is easier to stay stuck and complain.

If you are in a sales role today, working to be the best version of yourself in that role requires constantly improving your skills and adapting to an ever changing business climate.

I started this post by talking about a salesperson, who isn’t the only one, that doesn’t feel negative criticism about people’s sales performance is fair. And, while I agree that how criticism is delivered makes a difference, I say that maybe it is time to toughen up, accept the reality that what you are doing isn’t working and let the tough love sink in.

To the individual sales contributors, I’m empathetic to the fact that there are things beyond your control when you work for someone else. I get that… and…

Ultimately, YOU are responsible for your sales success. If your activity isn’t generating enough sales meetings on your calendar, your message and approach is likely the culprit. Even if someone else is writing the message to send, but you know it isn’t working, it is up to you to be bold and change how you present yourself regardless how many prospecting touches you are expected to make.

If you do less calls but book more sales conversations with qualified buyers, you are in a good position to show your manager that quality plus quantity wins every time.

People are complaining about sales spam for a reason. It is a problem!

No salesperson is owed a pat on the back and a trophy just for showing up at work every day. Learn to accept the tough love and be open to learning from it. Your sales success depends on it!

Sales Hacks Are Not Working!!

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Sometimes I feel as if I’m living in an alternative universe where things seem so glaringly obvious to me but not to others.

I think about the sales and marketing professions a lot. Sales, in particular.

I listen, although that is sometimes hard to do when we have certain factions in the sales training and coaching world arguing with each other about WHO owns the better approach to selling these days. News flash… no one does. Still, the egos rage.

Here’s a tip from me to you…test and refine. Test different sales approaches related to prospecting, social engagement, meeting presentations, writing proposals and more. Figure out what works for you AND DO THAT! Don’t worry about this or that expert trying to convince you that their way is the only way. Just. Not. True.

I make it my business and have for 25+ years to always be learning and adapting. Learners are earners, and frankly, I don’t know of any other way to succeed in sales, business and in life than to keep growing and developing your skills.

As the world continues to change in fast moving ways, you’ve got to keep up and adapt to today’s world. Not the world that existed 5, 10 or more years ago. That world is gone! Some selling strategies never go out of style, of course. But not everything that worked 10 years ago works now.

I think back to when I started selling and how things have evolved since then.

The changes, the improvements, the technology, the opportunities are mind blowing. IF sellers and their leaders are willing to change their mindset.

The tendency is still to go for the hacks, a fancy term for short-cuts, promoted by companies with a clear agenda – sell their service. With all the advances in technology, training methodologies, sales enablement approaches, research about what buyers want from salespeople and more, roughly 50% of salespeople will not achieve quota, which has been true for the past 5 years, according to CSO Insights. Anyone but me think that’s a problem? Isn’t it time to shift your selling approach?

On marketing’s side, their world has shifted dramatically too. There used to be a clear path to leading an interested buyer down the sales/marketing funnel to closed business. Not anymore. Buyers can come into the funnel in multiple ways and from multiple channels. Yet, often, marketers struggle to adapt their marketing approaches to today’s modern buyer. Doing what they’ve always done (just like sales) is easier, though missing the mark on effectiveness. Not only do they need to adapt their marketing campaign approaches, they now must become technology and data experts at the same time. Tough gig!

So, what are sales and marketing teams to do to shift how they approach today’s modern buyer? First, they must work together. If they don’t have an aligned strategy, things do not improve. One group is no more important than the other. Working in silos, approaching buyers in different ways isn’t working. Buyers are looking for great experiences when interacting with sales, marketing or anyone in your company.

Recently, I was one of 9 speakers from The Sales Experts Channel to participate in a sales summit hosted by BrightTALK. My topic? Achieve Account-Based Selling Goals Solving the Alignment Dilemma. In the webinar, I discuss updated research on the challenges and opportunities that sales and marketing must be thinking about.

Listen/watch the on-demand recording HERE. You can also find the presentation deck here on SlideShare.

After checking out the session, I’d love to hear your thoughts? Learn something new? Already undertaking a sales/marketing alignment strategy that is working in your company? Let’s hear it!

BTW – check out one of the best books I’ve read on sales and marketing alignment – Aligned to Achieve

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Building and Thriving in a Career in Sales with Annie Matthews, TechTarget

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

In this episode, I talked with Annie Matthews, VP of Sales at TechTarget about how to build and thrive in a career in sales. I’ve always loved being in sales, and although it is a great profession, I notice that there are still a fair number of women who do not consider entering into sales as a career.

As an advocate for women in sales, you’ll enjoy hearing how Annie has built her own successful sales career and how she helps other women to do the same.

In my conversation with Annie, we talked about:

Why she felt that more women should consider sales as a career. And, of course, that led to talking about how Annie got started herself.

The traits and strengths that she feels women bring to the profession that enables them to be successful.

The pre-conceived notions that women often have about the sales profession.

What Annie believes we can do to encourage more women to consider a career in sales.

Enjoy the interview!!

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About Annie

Annie Matthews is VP of Sales for TechTarget, the global leader in purchase intent-driven marketing and sales services that deliver business impact for enterprise technology companies. Focused on the Business Applications, Application Architecture, Network and Security segments, Annie oversees a team of account managers responsible for the growth of new and existing client relationships. She loves nothing more than rolling up her sleeves with clients and her team to build revenue. Having grown her own career from entry-level to leadership, Annie is keenly attuned to empowering others to realize their own potential. Annie strives to be a cool mom in and out of the office, challenged mostly by her hip team.

Connect with Annie:

LinkedIn
Twitter

Thanks to our Sponsors!

This podcast is presented by our Elite Sponsor, Microsoft. Corporate Vice President and Channel Chief Gavriella Schuster, along with other female leaders in the company, are driving for change, trying to bring more women into the technology industry. Gavriella and Microsoft are committed to giving “young women better role models and a stronger voice to all women.” You can hear more from Gavriella and other Microsoft leaders, on the Microsoft Partner Network podcast. Or visit partner.microsoft.com.

Thanks to our Media Sponsor. Women Sales Pros has a vision for more women in B2B sales and sales leadership roles where there are currently male-majority sales teams. We help educate companies on how to do this, and we champion women on what a professional sales career can be. We also showcase the very top women sales experts who are speakers, authors, consultants, trainers, and coaches. People can sign up to get updates HERE and follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WomenSalesPros

Here’s a Question – Would YOU Buy from You?

By Barbara Giamanco 1 Comment

Note that this post was originally published on the Freshdesk blog.

Many of you who read and follow my posts know that I’m passionate about elevating the professionalism of sales. It’s a great profession to be in. I cannot think of anything more gratifying than being able to help customers solve business problems. Still, sales as an industry has an image problem, because hustlers exist. You know the type… all they care about is meeting quota so they can head to President’s Club. Well, guess what, those types will be gone by 2020, if not sooner. Customers have spoken; they demand more!

I believe that creating sales experiences that knock buyer’s socks off–at every touchpoint in the buying and customer lifecycle–is how you win!

In the sales context, let me clarify what I mean by “customer experience.” I mean the positive or negative reaction at every interaction in the process of connecting with a prospect, working with them throughout their decision making process, closing the business, and retaining them as a happy customer for life.

This isn’t, of course, a new concept.

The conversation about delivering great customer experience has been ongoing for years. It seems common knowledge that great customer experiences lead to increases in revenue. Salespeople who solve problems and make it easy for buyers to do business with them definitely exceed their quotas.

CEB reported that 94% of customers who have a low-effort customer service experience will buy from that same company again. And, these buyers are willing to pay more. According to a CEI Survey, 86% of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience. But only 1% of customers feel that vendors consistently meet their expectations.

It is clear that buyers who feel they had a great experience with a vendor will not only buy again, but are actually willing to pay more for the product or service.

Why then aren’t we seeing more evidence of focus, especially from the sales point of view, being paid to customer experience?

Perhaps this is part of the problem: Bain & Company reports that 80% of CEOs believe they deliver a superior customer experience, but only 8% of their customers agree.

A 72% difference in perspective. That’s a serious disconnect with reality, don’t you think? No doubt that disconnect translates right down to the sales organization, which most likely believes that their interactions with prospects and customers are stellar, too.

My belief is that companies – and the people who work in them – are so internally focused that they can’t see the forest for the trees.

If you are a sales leader, when is the last time you pretended to be a prospect and walked in their shoes?

Do you really know what it feels like to be bombarded with your sales messaging?

How about the sales meeting? Do you know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of the pitch your salespeople are giving?

The question you should always be asking yourself is – would you buy from you and your company? If you did, my bet is that you would have a better picture of what’s really going on.

Think differently.

Customer experience isn’t about how fast your service team responds when something goes wrong. The customer experience is something that is proactive and top of mind for everyone in the company. Salespeople can have the biggest impact – positive or negative – on whether or not a sales opportunity can develop and progress to close. But beware because these activities are causing problems:

Crappy emails
Cold calls with a pitch but no value for the buyer
Buyer time wasted in sales meetings, because the focus is on demo-ing your fancy software
Social channels used as a way to try to shortcut the selling process

The list, unfortunately, goes on.

Be ruthless in evaluating your processes from the customer’s point of view. Look hard at how your sellers are interacting with prospective customers. In today’s digitally connected world, people are growing impatient with outdated sales approaches. And, trust me when I say that buyers spread the word through their networks when they encounter salespeople who merely use social channels to broadcast more sales spam.

When it comes to your customers, how carefully are you evaluating existing relationships to ensure they continue to buy from you? Don’t wait for former customers to start spreading the word about your failings. By then, it’s too late.

Customer experience isn’t the next big thing in sales. It’s THE thing. Are you on board?

Here's a Question – Would YOU Buy from You?

By Barbara Giamanco 1 Comment

Note that this post was originally published on the Freshdesk blog.
Many of you who read and follow my posts know that I’m passionate about elevating the professionalism of sales. It’s a great profession to be in. I cannot think of anything more gratifying than being able to help customers solve business problems. Still, sales as an industry has an image problem, because hustlers exist. You know the type… all they care about is meeting quota so they can head to President’s Club. Well, guess what, those types will be gone by 2020, if not sooner. Customers have spoken; they demand more!
I believe that creating sales experiences that knock buyer’s socks off–at every touchpoint in the buying and customer lifecycle–is how you win!
In the sales context, let me clarify what I mean by “customer experience.” I mean the positive or negative reaction at every interaction in the process of connecting with a prospect, working with them throughout their decision making process, closing the business, and retaining them as a happy customer for life.
This isn’t, of course, a new concept.
The conversation about delivering great customer experience has been ongoing for years. It seems common knowledge that great customer experiences lead to increases in revenue. Salespeople who solve problems and make it easy for buyers to do business with them definitely exceed their quotas.
CEB reported that 94% of customers who have a low-effort customer service experience will buy from that same company again. And, these buyers are willing to pay more. According to a CEI Survey, 86% of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience. But only 1% of customers feel that vendors consistently meet their expectations.
It is clear that buyers who feel they had a great experience with a vendor will not only buy again, but are actually willing to pay more for the product or service.

Why then aren’t we seeing more evidence of focus, especially from the sales point of view, being paid to customer experience?

Perhaps this is part of the problem: Bain & Company reports that 80% of CEOs believe they deliver a superior customer experience, but only 8% of their customers agree.
A 72% difference in perspective. That’s a serious disconnect with reality, don’t you think? No doubt that disconnect translates right down to the sales organization, which most likely believes that their interactions with prospects and customers are stellar, too.
My belief is that companies – and the people who work in them – are so internally focused that they can’t see the forest for the trees.
If you are a sales leader, when is the last time you pretended to be a prospect and walked in their shoes?
Do you really know what it feels like to be bombarded with your sales messaging?
How about the sales meeting? Do you know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of the pitch your salespeople are giving?
The question you should always be asking yourself is – would you buy from you and your company? If you did, my bet is that you would have a better picture of what’s really going on.
Think differently.
Customer experience isn’t about how fast your service team responds when something goes wrong. The customer experience is something that is proactive and top of mind for everyone in the company. Salespeople can have the biggest impact – positive or negative – on whether or not a sales opportunity can develop and progress to close. But beware because these activities are causing problems:

Crappy emails
Cold calls with a pitch but no value for the buyer
Buyer time wasted in sales meetings, because the focus is on demo-ing your fancy software
Social channels used as a way to try to shortcut the selling process

The list, unfortunately, goes on.
Be ruthless in evaluating your processes from the customer’s point of view. Look hard at how your sellers are interacting with prospective customers. In today’s digitally connected world, people are growing impatient with outdated sales approaches. And, trust me when I say that buyers spread the word through their networks when they encounter salespeople who merely use social channels to broadcast more sales spam.
When it comes to your customers, how carefully are you evaluating existing relationships to ensure they continue to buy from you? Don’t wait for former customers to start spreading the word about your failings. By then, it’s too late.
Customer experience isn’t the next big thing in sales. It’s THE thing. Are you on board?

Sales Acceleration Is An Inside Job

By Barbara Giamanco 2 Comments

As a seller, are you responsive? Think carefully about this question.

Do you know exactly how long it takes you to respond to email and phone calls from prospective clients?

How quickly are you responding to leads that come from the marketing department? Do you respond at all?

How often do you have to say someone, “I’ll get back to you.”, because you did not know the answer to their question?

What about your proposal creation and delivery time? Do you respond within an hour or two, or is it more like days?

In today’s fast-paced, competitive business world, it is all about velocity.

It might come as a big surprise to many sellers to find out that they are slowing down the purchasing decision a buyer needs to make. I imagine right now some of you are saying, heck no, I don’t slow the process down, buyers move slowly. In truth, many salespeople are their own worst enemy.

If you sell, you have one job to do. Contrary to what you might think, it isn’t to sell something.

Selling is about helping customers solve their business problems and make buying decisions. I want you to think about delivering value in a different way. Think of adding value as providing information quickly, in order to move buyers one step closer to a purchasing decision. If a core issue has been identified within an organization that needs to be addressed, there is executive support for the initiative, budget has been allocated and an implementation timeline has been put in place, then buyers typically do want to move quickly. Make it easy for them to get what they need.

Sales acceleration is big business.

In 2013, companies spent $12.8 billion dollars on sales acceleration technology. By 2017, that number could be as much as $30 billion according to a research report by InsideSales.com. Huge investments are being made in technology, which conceivably should improve performance. The problem is that it isn’t working.

Technology might deliver a lead faster to a sales rep, but if they don’t respond quickly, what’s the point? Or, you can have web forms established to encourage people to sign up for demo’s of your product, but if you don’t contact someone immediately once they do, the buyer moves on. As an example, as part of the research I’m conducting for a client, I used the web to request a demo of their largest competitors platform. That was 10 days ago and not a peep from anyone. I specifically said, “I was representing a client who had an interest in purchasing a solution like what they offered.” Crickets.

In fairness to the salespeople at the company, there is no way to know what the internal process is for moving a web inquiry for a product demo over to the sales team for follow up. What I do know is that by the time they get around to contacting someone, if they ever do, the opportunity is missed.

At team and individual levels, sales response time needs to be evaluated carefully. Selling and knowledge skills need to be examined as well. Every time a salesperson talks to a prospect or a customer considering another purchase, they must be able to answer questions in the moment.

Work faster and smarter.

Sales acceleration is not only about moving more quickly, it is also means working smarter. That’s where mobile, the Internet and social networks come into play. You need to be able to access and gather real-time sales intelligence from LinkedIn, Twitter, the web, InsideView or Owler. When you are reaching out to prospects, you need to have something relevant to talk about beyond today’s weather. When I’m talking to a prospective client, I can answer their questions immediately, even if it means quickly going online to source what I need.

If you are a field salesperson, how often do you ask yourself if you really need to meet with everyone face-to-face? At least initially. How often do you use the phone or web conferencing to shorten the sales cycle? Buyers are busy. They will appreciate that you are saving them precious time. Integrating virtual strategies into your sales process also means that you can talk to more people each and every day.

Stop dragging out the sale.

I want to suggest to anyone reading this post that they challenge themselves to move faster and work smarter. Technology can only take sales acceleration so far. Sales remains a people business. Your ability to respond more quickly than your competitors, as well as being prepared to answer any and all questions that can move the buying decision forward… well, my friends, that’s how deals are won!

5.5 Reasons Sales Stall Out

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

With so much talk about becoming a social seller, adapting to the buyers journey, developing a personal brand to demonstrate credibility or the need to use inbound marketing strategies that bring buyers to you, you would think that sellers are crushing their quota goals. They aren’t.

Various experts insist that becoming proficient in the tenants of social selling is what will break the log jam of only 60% of salespeople achieving their revenue targets each year. Mike Drapeau at Sales Benchmark Index has boldly predicted that from this point on we will see a 15% increase in sales quota attainment each year. In other words, 75% of sellers will hit quota goals, and social selling is the reason why. Me, I’m not convinced.

You might be wondering why I’m a bit skeptical. After all, I was one of the earliest evangelists of using social media in conjunction with selling. I’m skeptical because of my years of experience selling and managing sales teams, and because the conversations related to social selling have largely been distilled down to simplistic sound bites that ignore the larger systemic issues that plague sales organizations.

Why is it that roughly 40% of salespeople won’t hit their sales targets? Two words come to mind: sales basics.

Here are 5.5 reasons why sellers keep hitting a wall:

1. Inability to secure a sales meeting with the true decision maker(s).

While you can use social selling tactics to identify decision makers, I’m often surprised that sellers still take the path of least resistance. They find anyone, at any level, who will talk to them. Just get your foot in the door is the mantra. The belief is that this approach will eventually help them land a meeting with the person who actually controls the budget. Not only is this a waste of time, you will find yourself pigeon holed at lower levels in the company where a deal will never materialize.

2. Prospects aren’t responding to email messages or phone calls.

The reason they are not responding is because you haven’t given them a reason to invest their time. You believe your sales pitch rocks the house, but guess what, the buyer doesn’t. Your message has to focus on what the buyer cares about, which means you’ll have to put in some time to figure that out. The payoff, however, is worth it. After all, isn’t your goal to get them to meet with you? Boilerplate sales messaging is not an effective strategy. It isn’t the quantity of emails you send or phone calls you make, it is the quality and relevance of your message that gets buyers to pay attention.

3. Lack of follow up and tracking to ensure that opportunities don’t stall out.

As a whole, salespeople give up pretty quickly. 94% of them have given up by the fourth call, and Herbert True, former Professor and Marketing Specialist at Notre Dame who studied and researched sales behavior also discovered that 60% of all sales are made after the fourth call. What is even more astounding to me is that 44% of sellers give up after making one measly call! Percentages are probably even worse for sellers who rely so heavily on email. In addition to being consistent in your follow up, you need a tracking – CRM – system. Small business owners, in particular, often tell me they don’t need one because…well, they are small. It doesn’t matter if you are a business of one, you need a way to schedule your follow up, track opportunities in the pipeline and evaluate what led to wins and/or losses. Investigate what Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM can do for you.

4. A demo dolly mindset.

This is an especially tough challenge for salespeople selling technology solutions. They confuse demoing a product with actually selling a solution. Of course, they are hardly to blame. That’s what they have been taught to do. The problem is that when you rely on the demo to sell for you, you are expecting the buyer to make the leap between what your product does and how it resolves the challenge they are faced with fixing. Features do not close deals.

5. Poor communication, listening and presentation skills.

This is the single biggest reason why I don’t believe the prediction that 75% all of salespeople will now achieve quota versus the 60% we’ve come to expect. Expanding your network, sharing content, creating lead lists or sending LinkedIn InMail does you no good if you cannot hold an articulate, consultative business conversation with a buyer when the time comes. If you don’t understand the buyer’s business, their pain points or all you do is pitch without listening, the social selling tactics that led to a meeting did no good at all. Even the basics of leaving coherent, relevant voice mail messages seems to be a lost art.

5.5 Contacts not relationships.

You have a lot of contacts, and contacts don’t exactly equate to relationships that open doors for you. A foremost authority on referral selling is Joanne Black, and you should read her book – No More Cold Calling or her latest – Pick Up the Damn Phone! Spend time cultivating relationships not collecting contacts. When you are referred into an account by someone the buyer knows and trusts, your ability to secure a meeting is roughly 50%. This also means that sales cycles shrink because an initial level of credibility has already been established for you. However, getting in the door is one thing. Earning the right to stay there is another.

Yes – sales basics matter in a big way!

There is no question that sellers need to incorporate social media into their sales mix. Are a few social selling tactics all it takes to successfully hit sales objectives? Absolutely not. If increasing the percentage of quota attainment among sales reps is the goal, it might be wise to invest in training and reinforcing the basics of good selling.

p.s. I really gave you six reasons but 5.5 is catchier -:)

Selling the Problem

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

I read an interesting New York Times article about sales challenges that Yesware was having throughout 2013. It seems that though the start-up had amassed some 100,000 free users, their newly hired, ten person sales team wasn’t successfully converting those users to paying customers. It is an intriguing story that I encourage you read. Also read what the CEO, Matthew Bellows did to solve the problem.

As I read the article, what got me thinking was – pardon the pun – a problem for most sellers today is that they’ve been trained to sell features, not sell the problem that their product or service solves. This is an issue for marketing teams also. Website copy is littered with features, benefits and buzz phrases. Rarely can you tell what problem is being solved.

I’m not suggesting that the inability to “sell the problem” was Yesware’s issue, because I don’t have that personal insight. It wouldn’t surprise me if this were part of the issue though. I see it as a common challenge among technology companies. They are so wrapped up in the lipstick and what’s under the hood, they cannot stop talking about what their product does. What they need to do is talk about the problem it solves!

In a recent blog post, I said that the number one sales blunder, I believe, is selling features not value. Value, from my perspective, is all about knowing two things about problems:

That your buyer has clearly defined the problem they want to solve.
That you can clearly connect the dots between the buyers’ problem and your offering.

So, first comes understanding what problem your product or service solves. Hint – it isn’t the features. Then the job is to clearly articulate your problem solving message in every communication. Given the common practice is to mass email people, the wise seller takes time to think about how the message is perceived by the person receiving it.

Try something new.

Stop right now.

Think of three problems your product or service solves.
Craft three email messages that speaks to each.
Create three target lists with the type of buyer that might have one of those three problems.
Send the right message to the right prospect.
Measure and track results.

What have you got to lose? More spam isn’t the answer. Better sales messages focused on problem solving is the better way to go.

To illustrate my point, here is a snippet of another sales pitch I received through LinkedIn InMail.

“I understand that most groups already have their PPC handled in-house or through another agency. One area we’ve found a lot of groups like yourself don’t have time to focus is testing new landing pages.”

On top of being poorly written and unclear about the problem this salesperson…

Uses buzz words. This assumes that your target buyer gets what you are talking about. I know what PPC means – pay per click – but don’t be quick to assume that will be the case for everyone.
Calls me a group. I’m a person. Do I need to say more?
OK, I don’t have time to focus on testing new landing pages. What problem do you solve for me beyond the obvious that you save me time?

The seller goes on to say…

“One of our core services is designing, building, and testing landing pages with dynamic features that for some clients has doubled their AdWords performance without spending a penny more.”

Now he gets closer to telling me what problem their service solves…my AdWords performance might – double. Let’s say for argument’s sake that they do double my AdWords performance, what problem is that solving for me? Will more eyeballs on my ads increase revenue? Frankly, I don’t care how many people see my ad, but if you tell me that your service helps convert views to paid customers, now I’m listening.

He doesn’t even know if I use AdWords, and if I don’t, maybe he should tell me what problem I’m creating for myself by not doing so.

Don’t make your job the buyer’s job.

My point is that – as the potential buyer – I’m left to figure it out. Do you really think prospects will take the time?

This is probably one of the biggest gripes I have about sales communication today. Broadcast emails that use a feature selling versus problem selling approach. Mass emails are easier to send. I get it. You might even have marginal success, but in general, this approach is such a waste of your precious selling time.

If you want different results, try something different. Then come back and tell me how you are doing!

What Dogs Teach Us About Leadership

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Employee turnover continues to be at an all-time high. Unfortunately, there is a loyalty problem on both sides of the table. But turnover is a huge problem for companies, as illustrated by a Hewlett-Packard study conducted a few years ago, which confirmed that the cost to recruit, hire, and train an employee was found to be 9 times greater than the cost of retaining a worker in the first place.

Building and retaining a high performing talent pool is crucial to business success. In sales, the stakes are even higher. If you do not have the right people with the right sales skills, or your A-players walk away because you don’t have your internal act together, your ability to keep pace with revenue goals becomes even harder.

Making the critical investment in hiring the right talent to fill those sales shoes is only the first step. Instead of viewing employee development as an expense to be cut from the budget when times are tight, you must view this as an investment that ensures your people’s sales skills remain top notch. When employees feel that their employer is investing in their success, they are less likely to defect to the competition.

Lily Giamanco

What’s this got to do with dogs?

Hanging out with my favorite gal pal, Lily is without question one of my favorite pastimes. I’ve always loved animals; dogs claim a special place in my heart. In good times and bad, our dogs stand by us. They don’t judge, always listen, give us space when we need it, they make plenty of time to play and take the lead when they need to. Corporations need a new brand of sales leader and here are just a few of the leadership lessons I’ve learned from all of my wise and furry friends.

Sometimes it’s better to listen with a concerned look on your face.

Faced with a challenging problem or frustrated after a tough day, I know I can count on Lily to hear me out. With soulful eyes and a sympathetic look on her face, Lily listens patiently to my tale of woe and her silent communication lets me know she’s there for me. She doesn’t need to solve my problems; she’s confident I can handle them myself. What Lily knows is that I need to be heard and sales leaders (actually, all leaders) can learn a lot from Lily’s wisdom.

Critically lacking in corporate America is the focus on the human connection. Employees are desperate to make their own unique contribution, so give them a chance. They want to be heard, they want to feel that their contributions are valued and they want to learn. Help your employees solve their own problems by adopting a coaching versus telling style.

When management wonders why productivity is down, morale is low, or employee turnover is high, they might due well to consider the obvious…that most well intentioned leaders never take the time to listen to what their employees have to say. Or, they are to busy telling people what to do versus giving them the guidance they need to figure it out on their own.

Dedicate yourself to listening when one of your employees brings an issue to your doorstep. Stop doing e-mail, shuffling through your papers and ignore the phones. When your employees are trying to talk to you, it’s rude to be doing something else. Learn how and when to ask powerful questions to encourage creating thinking and problem solving. Far too often management wants to fix things when all that’s truly needed is a willing ear.

There are times to lead and times to follow.

Recently, I was at a networking event and several of us were talking about successful teamwork and why we thought teams often failed miserably. It boils down to this notion of knowing when to lead and when to follow. Dogs are absolutely brilliant when it comes to this concept! They know that sometimes they have free rein to lead the way, but they also know when it is time to follow the pack leader. Lily knows exactly when she gets to lead or when it’s time to follow me. She does so faithfully recognizing that there is an ebb and flow to successful teamwork.

For all the money spent on team building seminars and activities, it’s ironic that teams continue to fail more than they succeed. We can talk about setting clear expectations or aligning compensation to the same performance metrics, but all that matters little when team members don’t respect the roles of others and generally spend more time competing with each other than working together.

And always remember to play in your own sandbox…

If I’ve been tasked with a particular role on a team, I don’t take kindly to other people butting in trying to do my job. It’s rude and disrespectful. Don’t you have your own job to do? If you are like me, you also don’t appreciate your manager “telling you what to do”. That’s the entire point of hiring the right talent. Train people well, set clear objectives, give your folks the tools they need, then get out of the way and let them do their job.

Occasionally you’ve got to make some noise to be taken seriously.

One of the things I’ve learned living with dogs is that they all communicate in different ways. Lily isn’t much of a barker, but she’s got the “I’m ready to chase those squirrels racing through the yard” signal that I easily recognize. She also works the heck out of her squeaky toys when she is ready to play. But there is this low growl that she uses to lets me know that danger may be imminent. Want to take a guess which communication I really pay attention to?

Frankly, I think people operate much the same way. We have different barks reserved for different situations. The trick is learning when to make noise and at a level appropriate for the situation. A former co-worker of mine used to make noise constantly. She saw it as survival tool, a way to prove her mettle in relation to our male counterparts. This incredibly talented, intelligent and articulate woman never understood that over time, using the same bark for every single situation worked against her. No one listened even when it may have been prudent to do so.

What’s the lesson? An occasional, well timed bark or growl will cause people to sit up and take notice. Reserve it for the big stuff, because once you’ve developed a reputation for making constant noise even a legitimate danger signal will be ignored.

What we need are leaders.

There is a true lack of leadership in most companies today. Sales, in particular, needs a management makeover. I see few sales leaders lead with vision and purpose. Telling your people to smile and dial and pitch, pitch, pitch isn’t leading your team forward, it is simply keeping them stuck in the past. Times have changed. Are you leading or just in the way?

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