social selling

Your Networking Strategy Drive Sales Success with Ryann Dowdy, iFocus Marketing

In sales, networking never goes out of style. But are you getting the most from your efforts? In this interview I talk with Ryann Dowdy, Director of Sales at iFocus Marketing about the best approaches to achieving sales success through networking.

These are the topics that Ryann and I discussed.

Why networking is so important. In sales, and in career development.

The key to success in networking. Hint: it isn’t running around throwing out business cards!

Find out if networking with women is different than networking with men.

Tips for putting your own networking group together, if your community doesn’t have what you’re looking for.

Ways to utilize LinkedIn to build your network.

The best way to connect with someone you don’t know, but want to connect with?

Enjoy the interview!

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About Ryann

Ryann Dowdy is the Director of Sales at iFocus Marketing, a digital marketing agency in Overland Park, Kansas – part of the Kansas City metropolitan area. Ryann’s career has progressed from an individual contributor to sales trainer and coach, to sales leader. She’s passionate about developing sales talent and coaching her sales team by both in-field and in-office/class room coaching. Her experience as a sales rep turned leader helps her advocate for her team internally and position her reps to win! Ryann believes that building your own network is the key to sales success and long-term career development.

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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

The Rule of 24 with Bob Riefstahl and Dan Conway, 2Win! Global

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Inside Rule of 24, executives at 2Win! and authors Robert D. Riefstahl and Daniel J. Conway show you how to not only survive, but thrive and dominate selling software in the new digital landscape. In this interview, you’ll learn how the rules have changed —customers are more educated, resourceful and directive than at any other time in history. Future-proof yourself and your sales team, understand what’s coming next and how to deal with it.

As someone who is an avid believer in ABL – Always Be Learning – you are going to want to get your copy of Rule of 24.

The embedded interview is down below if you prefer to skip ahead rather than reading the post :).

What was the motivation for authoring the book? (help our customers meet the changing market demands)

In working with the best and brightest technology and software firms across the globe from the largest top 10 Enterprises to startups, we are seeing a massive shift. A sea change, if you will, on how organizations are needing to adapt to today’s B2B buyer expectations. Today’s buyer expects immediate access to information, like they do in a B2C interaction. For example, if someone is looking to make a software purchase, they are looking for access to videos that allow them to do their research up front. For the book, we conducted extensive research. For example, we asked buyers to respond to the following statement. “If I’m researching a product and informative demo videos are available, I find they help me gain an understanding of the product and its key features” 86% of respondents agreed! That’s the type of information buyers expect from organizations. Then when the first phone call is made, today’s buyer is looking to go further in the conversation than ever before. Instead of just having an entry level discussion and then setting up a follow up meeting or demonstration, days or weeks later, they are looking for it right now. How those demands are met is the core premise of Rule of 24.

The book is co-authored, how was that collaboration advantageous?

It’s interesting, 2Win! had been providing skills training since 2001 and about five years ago, Dan made the decision to lead 2Win! which, by the way was about the time this shift in the market was beginning. At that time Dan was Executive Vice President at a major software company. His organizational execution of our techniques directly contributed to their success. It is our synergetic perspectives, mine as the skills provider and Dan’s as someone who excels at organizational execution, that enabled us to successfully produce a book that we believe the readers will find engaging and actionable.

So let’s talk about that, how does a seller engage and execute more effectively?

Rule of 24 is defined as “The dramatic time compression driven by B2B stakeholders as they demand accelerated research, content, answers, and alignment to make a buying decision.” Let me illustrate, let’s say you are one of many stakeholders in the search and buying decision of a complex product such as a sales forecasting solution. You’ve already researched all the possible vendors that provide such a solution. You’ve looked at YouTube videos on each product. You’ve seen reviews. You’ve narrowed the list down to two possible solutions. You have a number of questions that your research couldn’t answer so, you reach out to the first vendor on their webpage. Your expectation is that a salesperson will immediately engage or, at a minimum, contact you within the hour. But, you wait, and wait and wait. By the next business day, you move on to vendor #2 and they respond instantly. One of their sales engagement team members initiates a web session that is informative and answers most of your questions. They are even capable of demonstrating parts of the solution in that session. As a stakeholder, you now promote this vendor to the rest of the selection team. Why? Simple. They delivered a better experience.

I am familiar with the Book Demonstrating to Win! that Bob, you authored, that book is extremely tactical with specific techniques, is Rule of 24 similar in that way or is it more conceptual?

2Win! has been, and always will be, about actionable strategies, techniques, and organizational execution. Therefore, this book is all about skills, technology and execution backed by extensive research. Execution that addresses the challenges faced by B2B sellers with modern buying behaviors. Rule of 24 provides the reader with specific techniques in business development, sales, sales engineering and client success that are essential for the future success of just about every B2B sales engagement team across a wide spectrum of industries.

For example, if you’re going to leverage video, you need the ability to make the video authentic, compelling and persuasive. In addition, when you’re engaging with clients you need to have the skills to be effective in presenting, demonstrating and executing in those interactions.

You talked about leveraging video and the necessary sales skills, what about execution?

We refer to that in the book in a Chapter called organizational execution. This starts with an assessment of how an organization today is engaging with their clients and prospects. A Rule of 24 readiness review, looking at all aspects of the sales engagement team and their ability to employ the skills necessary engage effectively with clients. Rule of 24 has impacts for your “client experience” across all functions of your sales engagement teams. For example, can your sales team and business development teams provide quick access to information and engage effectively in conversations and or presentations and demonstrations of your solutions to meet client expectations? Today’s companies are in a battle for creating the best experience a client can have and yet many organizations are not set up to meet clients where they are at, thus frustrating clients in the process. In the book we provide the recipe for companies to determine where improvements need to be made as well as some of the changes that they can implement to address Rule of 24. .

In much the same way that a Solutions Engineer can use the book Demonstrating to Win! to make the necessary changes to better execute in demos, the rest of the sales engagement team can use Rule of 24 to make the changes necessary to better address the demands of the modern buying process.

We are all excited about the book and look forward to reading it, what’s next for 2Win!

We will be providing thought leadership and services for clients interested in being Rule of 24 ready on a global basis. Our professional services teams in the US, Europe and Asia will perform Rule of 24 assessments, consulting, technology and skills training to help our clients meet buyers where they are at.

About the Authors:

Robert (Bob) Riefstahl is the founding Partner of 2Win! Global, international training, consulting and software company specializing in complex product demos, presentations and demo video automation. The first 20 years of his career took place in the technology industry where he succeeded in sales and executive positions. Since then, Bob has brought his demo expertise to over half of the top 400 technology companies in the world including firms like Microsoft, Google, IBM, Siemens, and Dassault (Dasoo). Bob is a keynote speaker, consultant, sales expert, author of the global best-selling book “Demonstrating to Win!”.

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Website

Daniel (Dan) Conway is CEO and Partner of 2Win! Global responsible for leading the company’s vision and strategy. Dan has spent over 20 years in the software and technology industry helping companies and agencies grow their business. Before joining 2Win! Dan held the position of Executive Vice President at Sungard, a leading international software enterprise. As a former 2Win! Client, Dan gained a direct appreciation for the value of the 2Win! Portfolio and how it helps companies engage with their clients across all mediums (video, web and in-person demos and presentations) employing 2Win! Techniques to improve company revenue and profit.

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Website

Creating Strong Customer Relationships with Melody Astley, FinListics Solutions

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

My guest in this Conversations with Women in Sales episode is Melody Astley, VP of Sales at FinListics Solutions where they help sales and marketing organizations master Insight-led Selling and build financial and business skills that last a career.

Our conversation focused on how to build strong and meaningful customer relationships. I felt this was a good topic because if all you’ve got as a salesperson is a check in now and again saying “we haven’t talked in a while, how’s it going, you could have a problem”.

We kick-off by talking about the new buying landscape and the challenges for sellers that Melody sees.

We then talked about some symptoms of the problem.

There’s a school of thought in the sales world that the people relationships don’t matter as much as they used to. I don’t happen to be in that camp, and I asked Melody for her thoughts about relationships in selling.

With sales leaders often putting such intense emphasis on chasing “new logo’s”, it is very common for sellers to close deals and then all but disappear from the customers view after the deal is done. I asked Melody to share her advice on what women in sales (or any seller) can do to be more relevant to their customers. Melody then shared examples of some success stories.

Finally, we closed by talking about what salespeople and sales organizations can do to better position themselves as relationship sellers who nurture customer relationships for life.

Enjoy the interview!

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About Melody:

Melody Astley, VP of Sales at FinListics Solutions where they help sales and marketing organizations master Insight-led Selling and build financial and business skills that last a career. Prior to FinListics, Melody spent 12 years at IBM in sales. She holds her BBA from Ohio University and her MBA from Emory Goizueta Business School. Melody lives in Atlanta with her wife, Kathy, and 3 dogs, and is a runner, reader, and avid traveler.

Connect with Melody – LinkedIn
Website

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Turning Relationships into Revenue with Christine Zmuda, Microsoft

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

In this episode, I talked with Christine Zmuda about Turning Relationships Into Revenue. Great topic and in fact, in my recent interview with Debbie Dunnam, we talked about how buyers – more than ever before – don’t want to be sold. They want to work with salespeople who they can trust and trust is developed when you make a point to focus on building relationships and doing for others first. Here I’ve summarized some of the nuggets of gold from the interview. Listen to it in full on iTunes or here on the blog.

Christine is a Sr. Sales Director in the Emerging Solutions Group at Microsoft. She got started in sales because she was looking for more options in her career. She started in marketing at Microsoft and eventually advanced into a sales role. The common thread for Christine was in taking on positions that were new businesses giving her the opportunity start something from scratch and build it from there.

In Christine’s current role in the emerging solutions group and their charter is to land new business acquisitions or launch first-party solutions from Microsoft. They test solutions to see what works, focus on how to scale and the team stays close to the customer experience.

Right now, Christine is almost exclusively focused on the Dynamics/LinkedIn partnership. In the first-year post-acquisition, performance is quite strong. Customer acquisition, renewal and customer experience has done well.

We talked about the importance of relationships in selling and Microsoft’s Relationship Sales solution that provides an integrated experience with LinkedIn, Office and CRM. The problems that LinkedIn and Microsoft wanted to solve for customers with this offering is to help sellers surface new connections, engage and nurture relationships with business insights and scale their sales outreach in a more personalized way. The other problem they wanted to help solve for sellers is to more easily broaden their reach inside an organization. The strategy of only calling “high” are less effective given the various stakeholders typically involved in buying decisions these days. One executive typically isn’t making the buying decision.

How do you know if you are hitting the mark on relationship sales? Listen to the interview to hear about some best practices that Christine shared.

And finally, we closed out the interview with Christine sharing her career advice for Women in Sales listeners.

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

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About Christine

Christine’s passion and professional satisfaction come from identifying market opportunities before they are mainstream. Her most rewarding roles and accomplishments have centered around developing sales and market strategy for emerging businesses and scaling new acquisitions. She is always open to learning more about technology and happy to share her own experiences of leading sales, marketing, and channel teams if it’s helpful.

On a personal note, she enjoys golf, tennis, spending time with my family and embracing new experiences. Her new found love is abstract painting, the bigger the canvas the better.

Connect with Christine on Twitter and LinkedIn

Thanks to our Sponsors

We’d like to thank our Elite Sponsor, Microsoft. In particular, we thank Gavriella Schuster, Corporate Vice President and Channel Chief at Microsoft, for her dedication to supporting women in technology, and making this podcast possible. 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. Visit the Microsoft Partner Network.

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

Tis the Season for Sales Kick-Offs

By Barbara Giamanco 1 Comment

This the time of year when many sales organizations hold their annual or bi-annual sales kick-off meetings. The idea is to bring all sales team members together using the kick-off as an opportunity to rally the troops in support of new sales goals, priorities and strategies, product launches and to deliver training of some sort.

I think kick-offs are a good idea if done the right way.

As the term implies, a sales kick-off (SKO) is – or should be – the springboard that sets the tone and foundation for sales priorities in the new fiscal mid-year or annual sales year. Unfortunately, most SKO’s totally miss the mark.

Here are a few ways, I believe, you can improve the success of your sales kick-off meeting.

Shift thinking to long-term versus just what will happen at the event. In the SKO’s I’ve participated in during my corporate days or the ones that I’ve spoken at since then, the plan is often focused on the SKO “event” and not what comes before and after the actual meeting takes place. The SKO is the launch point for achieving sales success all throughout the year. Your plan must include what happens prior to the SKO and how the learning will be carried forward and acted upon after the event. That plan should be clearly communicated to sales management because they will have roles to play in the before and after the kick-off activities. If they aren’t bought in and committed to making it happen, it won’t happen.

Be selective with the content you deliver. Many sales kick-offs tend to focus on delivering “product” information versus spending time on the development of the selling skills of their salespeople. This is a BIG missed opportunity. Product training can be done prior to the meeting using sales enablement tools or online sessions to get reps up to speed.

The importance of business acumen and strong consultative problem solving and selling skills has never been more important. That’s what buyers want. Yet, too much of the time, there isn’t enough investment made in training your salespeople to be the kind of seller that buyers want to help them. Buyers want sellers who help them solve business problems. Yes, I know, you have a great product. But products don’t sell themselves, as a rule. If you can’t sell to the problem, a sale is unlikely to materialize. Selling is a problem-solving business. It is less important what your salespeople sell and more important HOW they sell it.

You are trying to cram too much information into the agenda. SKO meetings are typically time compressed because it is expensive to bring the entire sales organization together in one place. As a result, meeting planners try to pack so much into the meeting time that people leave these events feeling as if they were forced to drink from a fire hose. You can bet that most of that information wasn’t absorbed and probably forgotten about within days. Even if you are conducting virtual sales kick-off meetings, which present other unique challenges, don’t overstuff the agenda.

As it relates back to my first point, plan for pre-work prior to your kick-off event. Brainshark’s recent 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.”

Retain and reinforce. Behavior rarely changes after one meeting. You can have the most motivational speaker of all time leading off or closing your event, and the euphoria of that rah rah session won’t last long, nor will it affect lasting behavior change. Change is a process. If you want people to embrace the new skills they’ve just learned, coaching, training and management reinforcement must happen consistently after the event concludes. If you don’t plan for the reinforcement work that must happen after the meeting, not much is going to change at all.

Bringing it home.

I believe in the power of the sales kick-off meeting when thought about from a longer term more strategic point of view. Your kick-off is the launch pad to greater success throughout the entire sales year but if your only focus is on what happens during that meeting, and not what also needs to happen before and after the event, your investment in time and money could probably be better spent elsewhere.

Ready or Not, Here They Come: What the Arrival of Gen Z Means for the Future of Business with Josh Miller

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

In this episode, I talk with Josh Miller, CEO of Deciding Edge and certainly the youngest CEO I have ever had the pleasure of interviewing. I have always been a believer that we should NOT box people in with our generational biases. I believe we can learn from anyone, anywhere and at any age.

During this segment, Josh and I discuss his Gen Z research in partnership with XYZ University. The study was conducted with over 1,000 Gen Z’ers, and the findings will likely surprise you, as they did me. And, like me, I think you will be inspired by Josh’s passion and enthusiasm for the work that he does.

While Millennials remain a focus given the fact that they will make up 50% of the workforce by 2020, Gen Z is coming right up behind them and it is NOT too early to get ready.

I started by asking Josh what inspired him to become an entrepreneur at 16 years old.

Josh nails down the definition of Generation Z.

We discussed the research and studies Josh has been doing on the topic.

Josh shared some of the biggest insights that came out of his recently published white-paper. I found some of the research very surprising!

We talked about effective sales strategies to use for Gen Z members of your team.

Finally, I closed by asking Josh about his goals for 2018.

Download your copy of the research report here.

About Josh:

Connect on LinkedIn

Josh Miller is a 16-year-old student, entrepreneur, and thought leader on Gen Z. He currently serves as the CEO of Deciding Edge and Director of Gen Z Studies at XYZ University. He has spoken in front of some of the powerful leaders in the business world, been mentored by top executives, and discussed marketing strategy with Fortune 500 companies.

His work has been featured in prominent national publications. Equipped with a passion around leadership, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy, Miller founded Deciding Edge with the mission of creating a platform for organizations to better understand how to recruit, retain, and sell to Generation Z. As a regular 16-year-old, he enjoys playing basketball, tennis, and spending time with friends and family. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

B2B Sales Success with Ken Lundin

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

In this episode, I talked with Ken Lundin. Ken is hosting the B2B Sales Summit, which we discussed in the interview. He was gracious enough to collect 28 of the top speakers to supercharge your sales activities by bringing you the whole experience free of charge. No pitches just pure content – it’s an irresistible opportunity. Remember, learners are earners so take advantage of this incredible chance to jumpstart your B2B Sales Success. REGISTER NOW.

Here is what you will learn about in my interview with Ken.

For most listeners, their sales year has just kicked off, and for those listeners who are half-way through their sales year, Ken’s nuggets of advice apply to you too.

Ken started off by sharing his actionable advice about the steps that salespeople both individual contributors and their managers do to set themselves up for success.

For anyone looking to fill their pipeline with more qualified sales opportunities, Ken shares his thoughts on the top priorities to focus on to get you there.

The sales cycle is often misunderstood, and Ken and I talked about the most misunderstood aspect of the selling process.

Learn what a salesperson or their sales manager do today to improve their sales in the coming year.

Hear from Ken about why he decided to create The B2B Sales Summit kicking off on February 6, 2018.

Ken told me what surprised him most when interviewing some of the top sales influencers around the world.

Enjoy the interview AND REGISTER NOW for the B2B Sales Summit for FREE!!

Event Dates: February 6, 2018, to February 14, 2018

There will be 3-4 interviews made available each day.
Daily sessions will be live for 24 hours and then the next set of videos will be released.

About Ken Lundin:

Ken made his sales bones by delivering $26,000,000 in contracts in under 9 months and being a part of a management team recognized as 1 of INC 500 Magazine’s fastest growing companies for 3 years in a row driving sales from under #2 million to $77 million in just 4 years. Today, he is a consultant for Span the Chasm, helping deliver sustainable sales growth for companies under $100 million in revenue and the Host of The B2B Sales Summit.

Trolls Not Welcome

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

When did it all become so personal? When did common courtesy fly right out the window?

A colleague of mine posted a LinkedIn video sharing his thoughts on why using LinkedIn to cold pitch was not an effective selling strategy. I happen to agree. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the same topic and the majority of the 65 LinkedIn commenters agreed with my belief that to invite someone to connect and then immediately pounce on them with a sales pitch once they accept is not welcome.

Yes, there were salespeople who didn’t agree with my point of view. That’s okay. To their way of thinking, that is exactly how you use the LinkedIn platform. There were similar comments on my friend’s post too. One gal commented that she is passionate about the products she sells and will pitch to anyone with a willing ear. But that’s exactly the point. When someone agrees to your connection request they are not indicating that they are interested in your pitch. In other words, connecting does not equal a willing ear.

I’ve written before that ultimately everyone needs to choose what works for them. If the cold pitch is working for you, fine. I don’t believe that it is working for you but I’m not going to argue about it. You will only dig your heels in deeper. But do be aware that in numerous research studies buyers say that they do not appreciate your self-serving sales pitch, regardless how “passionate” you are about your products. You are still making it about you. Choosing to ignore what buyers have said they don’t like about certain selling approaches comes with risk. If you refuse to adapt your selling style in the face of hard evidence that confirms you should, you just make your job harder.

Back to my original question.

I noticed that unlike the comments on my LinkedIn post, which were civil and professional even if the person disagreed with me, many comments on my colleague’s post, especially from one guy, were very personal attacks. Everything from criticizing how my friend dressed, the way in which he presented his message, that he goes by his last name only, and even criticizing the fact that he filmed his post from his mountain house. Seriously?

Disagreeing with someone’s point of view on an issue is one thing. Making it personal is another. The grand irony here is that the very people making their comments personal attacks versus adding value to the overall discussion have shown themselves to be about as unprofessional as you can get. I mean, you do realize that we see your name and picture attached to your comment, right? What if I was a potential customer for what you sell and I read your comments? Do you think I’d give you the time of day after seeing how you behave? Do you honestly think that any buyer would?

Trust me, my colleague is a big boy and handles himself just fine. Unlike the trolls, he responded to the critical comments with grace. He refuses to conform to what other people deem as professional. He has chosen his own path and by his own admission chooses to be himself even if others don’t agree. I have always admired that about him. I haven’t always been that gutsy. And for the record, he is darn successful, so there’s that!

Your brand is your bond. What you say and do online and offline frames a powerful message about who you are as a person and as a professional. Before you decide to troll someone in a public forum for all to see, you might do well to remember that being an A-hole is not a good look. It certainly won’t help win you any sales!

Without Context Data is Just Data

By Barbara Giamanco 1 Comment

Recently, I was talking with Carole Mahoney about the art and science of coaching. Carole, by the way, is one of the best sales coaches I know precisely because she uses solid research and data to inform her approach to coaching salespeople. Anyway, we were talking about coaching because I mentioned a recent post from Richard Smith on the topic. It seems that CEB presented research six years ago that said that while coaching is important for salespeople, according to Brent Adamson and Matthew Dixon in this 2011 HBR article they said that sales leaders should only bother investing their coaching time with the middle third – “The middle 60%’ (core performers), and is ultimately wasted on the top and bottom thirds.” Six years later, that research is still hotly debated. And, in my opinion, for good reason.

To prepare his post, Richard interviewed sales leaders, coaches, and consultants to get their point of view. I happened to be one of the folks that Richard reached out to. Regardless of CEB’s research, I told Richard I thought that to blatantly ignore two-thirds of your sales team when it came to coaching was not necessarily a good idea.

Why wouldn’t you coach high performers?

In my experience as a manager, your high fliers need and want to be challenged to get better at what they do. Through the right kind of coaching their performance could increase to higher levels. The CEB folks say the research doesn’t support that suggestion. I’ve read other research that has shown that coaching A-players does lead to revenue gains. CEB did acknowledge that coaching top performers would have retention benefits. I happen to agree. If you don’t pay attention to your top performers there is a high likelihood that they will either walk away or be poached away by your competitors.

Should you ignore the bottom third performers?

When it comes to the lower performing sales folks, to automatically assume that coaching won’t help them either seems unfair to me. There could be so many reasons why a person isn’t doing well in their current role. My feeling, again based on my own experience managing and coaching sales teams, is that each person needs to be assessed before determining if coaching makes sense. Some reps may not be faring well because you didn’t onboard them properly, they never got any real sales training before being thrown on the phones, they are confused about what you expect from them (aside from making quota), etc. Making assumptions without digging deeper to get the facts is dangerous. While I do believe there are going to people in that lower performing group who aren’t a fit for the role, I don’t think you can assume that a poor performer can’t improve if given the chance. If someone has the desire to be better and is coachable, they can improve.

Data is just data.

Data is getting thrown around a lot these days. Often without context, and that’s a problem because data is just data. Coaching is one of the most important aspects of a sales managers job these days, and while most managers agree that is true, they also admit that it tends to fall lower on the priority list. So, if research comes out from a group like CEB and shows up in an article in the Harvard Business Review, then it would be easy for managers to justify that they can save themselves some headaches by only focusing on a select few members of their team. That, to me, is not a good thing. When it comes to salespeople and performance, making blanket assumptions simply based on data is dangerous. Research is important, of course. I just worry that if sales leaders make important people decisions simply based on data without deeper context that leaves them vulnerable to problems. Sales is a people business, and when we are talking about people, there are other factors to consider like human behavior and psychology.

What do you think?

Only spend time coaching the middle third? Or, do you elevate all members of your team to determine who wants, needs and has the desire to be coached to higher levels of performance?

Inside Sales Challenges Come with Rapid Growth

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Author’s note: This article was originally published in Top Sales World’s September 2017 digital magazine.

Inside sales is a popular high-growth sales model used by companies in a variety of industries. The Harvard Business Revenue reported that 46% of high-growth tech companies are growing through inside sales versus 21% using outside sales teams. The reasons for rapid growth of SDR/BDR sales teams vary but one thing is clear, buyers are fine with alternatives to face-to-face meetings. From an efficiency point of view, buyers prefer phone calls, video or web conferencing meeting options to minimize waste on their already overscheduled calendars.

The evolution of technology has made the inclusion of inside sales teams a core component of organizational sales strategies, as companies look for ways to decrease costs and improve their own operational efficiencies. PointClear reported that an outside sales call costs $308 versus an inside sales call cost of $50 making it clear how much more cost effective it is for a company to leverage an inside sales team to its fullest.

With growth comes challenges.

Though there is rapid growth in inside sales, there are also challenges facing inside sales leaders in achieving their sales objectives. In 2016 research conducted by CSO Insights and ClearSlide, they noted that core challenges faced are reducing churn among the sales ranks, hiring the right talent to fill inside sales roles, speeding up the time it takes to ramp new hires skills, reducing deal forecast slippage, improving opportunity qualification and ensuring that salespeople are adept at having business conversations versus pitching product features.

Training and coaching remain areas of opportunity and competitive advantage.

Two factors dogging inside sales team today are:

High turnover – 20% annually per the ClearSlide and CSO Insights research.
Slow ramp time with 33% of companies surveyed indicating that it takes more than 9 months to ramp new hires, and less than 13% of organizations can get their reps up to speed in less than 4 months.

Today’s buyers expect to work with salespeople who understand their business, industry trends, and competitive challenges. They don’t expect to be the on-the-job training vehicle for your inside salespeople. If there isn’t a solid plan to get salespeople fully competent quickly, you are leaving them at the mercy of learning by trial and error on the buyer’s time dime. Few executives I’ve ever spoken to have the time or the patience to be educating your sellers in how to sell to them.

Given that SDR’s and BDR’s are often the first personal experience a buyer has with a company, without proper training, coaching and reinforcement of basic selling skills, these front-line sellers are impeding sales progress, or worse, doing damage to the company brand. And, if as has been reported by CSO Insights that sales leaders see lead volume and quality as more important than skills training and process, I think there is a disconnect. Could this be a factor in why only 46% (2016 Sales Comp Survey, Alexander Group) to 67% (the Bridge Group) of inside sales reps are achieving quota?

Lack of training and outdated sales approaches lead to a steady stream of no’s, and the frustration that breeds, along with the inability to achieve sales objectives has a domino effect. Higher turnover among the sales ranks. Some reps will choose to leave on their own. Others will be asked to move on, which hardly seems fair if they haven’t been given the training, coaching, and tools they need to succeed in their role.

The second-best thing to getting a yes, is getting to a fast no.

A top challenge I often hear when talking to sales leaders is that there need to be more leads and better-qualified sales opportunities reported in the pipeline. To which I come back to the importance of a solid training program that is more than a motivational speech at a sales kick-off meeting.

Poorly forecasted sales opportunities and deal slippage in the pipeline can be improved with proper training, coaching, and skills reinforcement. Salespeople are notorious for being overly optimistic about when deals will close. The CSO Insights and ClearSlide data showed that 70% of reps don’t validate prospect interest during the sales cycle. If salespeople are not effective at qualifying opportunities, and that includes qualifying no’s quickly, pipeline is muddled and conversion rates are diminished. As Jeff Schmidt, SVP of Global Sales and Services at ClearSlide said, “Qualifying out is a critical practice and will lead to better pipeline conversion and deal visibility.” Without the proper training to help reps understand what constitutes a qualified lead, a lot of “maybe’s” and “never will buy” end up in the CRM pipeline.

Stop pitching product features, solve the buyer’s problem.

Salesforce’s State of Sales report noted that 83% of buyers want to work with salespeople “focused on helping achieve their company’s needs, not just making a quick sale.” This is where inside sales teams can score huge competitive wins. Leaders must be willing to let their salespeople drop the script, ditch the pitch and back away from the reliance on demos to sell the product or service.

Inside sales teams can create amazing sales experiences from the very first interaction, and that can only happen if salespeople are taught how to demonstrate to buyer’s that unlike their competitor’s, their focus is on helping buyers achieve their goals first and foremost. In the end, the ability for inside sales teams to achieve their goals depends more on how they sell, not what they sell.

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