Best Practices in Sales: Get Everyone Selling

Best Practices In Sales: Get Everyone Selling

 

All too often I step into sales departments that feel “misunderstood” by the rest of the company. In a situation recently, there was an unusual amount of animosity towards the sales function in general.

 

• “They’re just sales people.”
• “I can do what they do, why don’t they pay me the commission.”
• “The product sells itself, what do we need sales people for?” This one is my personal favorite.      

 

The truth of the matter is, everyone is in sales whether they like it or not. And successful companies understand that they need every department within an organization working together “delighting” customers if they want to truly succeed. 

 

My challenge with this company, as well as with other clients, is that typically I am only working with the sales (and sometimes marketing) departments. And I have no authority to implement programs in finance, accounting, support, administration, engineering, etc. 

 

And yet I know that if I can get these other departments “selling” with us, then our sales will increase.

 

So with this particular client, here’s what I did. I told the sales team that every time they closed a deal, they needed to thank and recognize someone from another department for their role in making that particular sale happen. And we posted these on a huge, highly visible board in the center of the office. We didn’t tell anyone what we were doing. We just started doing it.

 

Within a matter of days, we noticed people from various departments stopping by the board to read who had influenced a particular sale. The company started talking about it. And silos started disappearing.

 

• Support asked for a meeting with the sales team to see how they could be more helpful.
• Finance asked if there were customer billing problems that hadn’t been resolved that might be affecting customer satisfaction.
• Marketing asked for input on what the most commonly asked questions were so that they could be answered on the website, freeing up valuable sales people’s time.
• Administration asked if we needed more space to post the growing number of sales that were being closed.

 

And most importantly, the number of sales increased by 30% within 60 days, and the average deal size doubled!

 

When the entire company is involved in selling. Everyone wins.

 

Successful sales strategy, best practices in sales, b2b sales strategy, business to business sales training, proven sales techniques, sales management tips.

 

When the entire company is involved in selling. Everyone wins.

Top Three Sales Best Practices - advice for someone new to sales

 

Top Three Sales Best Practices - advice for someone new to sales

I'm constantly advising my clients to distill their message - to use fewer words. And it's a challenge! And so I decided to drink my own Kool-Aid and come up with the top three sales best practices. To come up with these, I asked myself - if someone new to sales could only work on three things - what three things would have the most impact on his/her career?

So here are my top three sales best practice tips (I reserve the right to edit this list in future blog posts):

• #1: Choose an organization/product that you believe in

There's an old adage that a great sales person can sell snow to an Eskimo. That's not true! Great sales people could never sell snow to Eskimos - because Eskimos don't need snow! A great sales person sells with integrity. And if you believe in the product or service that you represent, it is much easier to sell with passion and commitment.

• #2: Be willing to walk away from a sale

My first sales job was working for Xerox Corporation. I had my first big sale on the line with Ford Aerospace. When I went to present my proposal to the decision maker, he shared with me a proposal from a competitor who could do everything that needed to be done, and at a significantly lower price. My solution could do most of what he wanted, at a higher price point, and with limited expansion capabilities. The decision maker and I had developed some rapport - and he asked me for my advice. Despite wanting this sale very badly, I told him that if I were in his shoes, I would buy the other solution. And he did. I went back to the office with my head down.

However, back at Ford Aerospace, word got around that I could be trusted, and so whenever there was a problem that my company "might" be able to solve, I was invited to bid - and many times, I did have the superior solution and won. Ford Aerospace became my largest account and a very big account for Xerox Corporation. I lost that sale, but won a customer.

• #3: Be your own manager

Someone once told me that sales is as close as you'll get to running your own business without actually running one. I agree. A salesperson is responsible for managing his own time and territory. Salespeople are not only measured, but paid depending on how well they are able to manage themselves. The best salespeople are those who know in 15 minute increments how they should spend their time. They are clear about doing those activities that drive sales, and eliminating those activities that don't. It requires clarity and discipline but enables them to avoid the roller coaster income that many salespeople complain about (which is unnecessary!). The best salespeople are great managers - of themselves.

Upon reflection - this is a good list! Follow these three and I'm convinced that the rest of things that are important will fall into place.

I'm working on a book of sales stories to illustrate best practices. I'd love to hear about the experiences that have helped to shape your success. Send me an email!

5 Mistakes to Avoid in a Sales Presentation

 

5 Mistakes to Avoid in Your Next Sales Meeting Presentation

 

by Lois Wong

When is your next presentation and how will you prepare for it? Millions of presentations are given daily and most of them are mind-numbing. Need help? "The 6 Secrets to Great Sales Presentations" hopefully provided you with some food for thought and a good starting place.

 

While hosting Congresswoman Anna Eshoo in an executive meeting at Xerox PARC 15 years ago, she gave me timeless advice. Relate your solution to something that is part of a person's every day life: their families, their kids, their wants and desires. How your solution will affect that part of their lives? She's right. Address the ‘killer application.' Don't forget that your prospective buyer is a person with personal wants, needs, desires and motivations. Forgetting that fact is sales presentation mistake #1.

 

What are 5 other mistakes to avoid when presenting?

 

1. Minimize Geek Speak, acronyms, and jargon

2. Steer clear of citing numerous boring statistics

3. Avoid "Ummms" and a monotone voice

4. Don't cross your arms when asked a difficult question

5. Answer deliberately negative questions offline

 

As an executive coach I've seen thousands of speaker mistakes over the past 20 years. At a popular MeetUp in Palo Alto, one of the entrepreneurs asked me, ‘How would I know if my presentation was effective?' There are 3 major telltale signs that your presentation was unimpressive, unintelligible, or easily forgettable. But that's for the next blog post.

Click here to receive a free copy of the white paper "Was My Presentation Effective or Forgettable."

Repeatable Sales Process

Repeatable Sales Process

 

Are the ups and downs of sales really unavoidable? Is the sales roller coaster a given?

As I work with sales teams across the country, it seems that the roller coaster effect is not only accepted, it is expected. This is a dangerous attitude for individuals, teams and the companies that we work for.

And I'm here to tell you that roller coasters are NOT a necessary function of sales. In order to create consistent results, you need a repeatable sales process. And the first step is identifying the metrics required for success, and then putting together the activities to support the metrics.

As an example, one of my clients sells cloud services, and each sales representative has a quota of (7) cloud deals per day. In order to make that number, we worked backwards to get at their metrics.

Customers generally sign up only after they've had a demo. But 90% of the people who see demos, end up buying the product.

Quota: 49 deals per week
Demos (90% close ratio): 55 demos per week

For every person that a sales representative talks to, 75% of them agree to a demo.

Demos: 55 per week
Conversations (75% close ratio): 74 conversations per week

A Sales Representative will get a live person on the phone about 20% of the time.

Conversations: 74 per week
Dials (20% close ratio): 370 per week

Now we have the beginning of a repeatable sales process based on metrics.

Quota	Week	Day
# of Cloud Deals	49	7
Activities	Week	Day
# of Outbound Calls (Dials)	370	74
# of Conversations	74	15
# of Demos	55	1

Once we have our baseline metrics identified, we can fine tune our sales skills to create efficiencies in the activities that we're identified as essential to success.