The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Deepak Chopra was an interesting pick as Keynote speaker to open the Inbound 2018 conference. Deepak brings to mind meditation and alternative medicine more than cutting edge marketing techniques. But he had a few insights that we can apply to business within his message of consciousness and healing.

If you have hired a salesperson that is younger than 36 years old, you hired a millennial. And you may sometimes feel like many of the other sales managers I talk to every day…

• “They need lots of handholding.”
• “They lack the drive of the generations before them.”
• “They can be overly sensitive and more focused on making friends than making sales.”

As a Talent Analyst, I spend a lot of time identifying people’s innate sales talents and helping managers make smart selection decisions. Once each hire is made, I work with the sales manager to turn talent into ever-increasing performance by maximizing each seller’s strengths and working around their weaknesses.

So my attention is sharply focused on two things: Talent and Fit. 

Picture this. You are seven weeks into the quarter and pacing behind last year, and significantly behind your budget. Your manager and your manager’s manager are nosing around to find out what is going on and peppering you with questions about your plan to fix this. Your sales team is growing increasingly frustrated as orders get canceled and prospects fall through. This scenario is hypothetical, of course, but perhaps you have been there. So, how does a sales manager deal with this?

Proposals come in all shapes and sizes. Some are highly-technical and data-focused, while others are more detail-driven. Some are filled with fluff, while others are pretty worthless. The best proposals are a combination of data, solutions, and detail.

I was listening to a sports radio station in town last week, and it had breaking news that the Major League baseball team had just fired their manager.

It wasn't a big surprise. The team had underperformed for the last couple of years, but what was surprising was the reason the club gave to the media.

His style wasn't connecting to his players.

What? His style? They didn't mention his performance, his attitude, or even lack of confidence by management. Nope, it was that his "old school" style didn't connect with his young(er) players. He didn't know how to connect with his millennial or Gen Z players.

One of the radio hosts said that he was too much like John Wayne. He was tough, to-the-point, and not very touchy-feely. He wasn't very caring, emotional, or even friendly with his players. To him, it was all business. They weren't friends. He was their boss!

Media sellers today have more capabilities than ever to drive results for their clients. With all of the potential options, you would think that it has gotten easier to build a solution that will drive results, right? Nothing could be further from the truth! If anything, the sheer number of solutions has made it more challenging to determine when to use what when. And with all of those capabilities, their presentations have also become longer – many filled with a multitude of product one-sheets and then a laundry list of recommended products in the recommended solution.

That is a struggle that I hear from salespeople that I work with all over the country. It’s not just determining what should be in the solution, but how to present it in a truly integrated format where it is clear why all of the components are critical to a successful result.

Salespeople work hard to build an account list. Most clients on your list have been researched, painstakingly approached, and developed over time. Maybe a few just fell into your lap. But you value them all. Sure, some may be easier to work with than others, but you have no reason to change anything. Why would you?

Because the path that leads to a larger account list is not just more clients, but better clients.

I want to share some interesting lessons I heard at the recent INBOUND18 Conference. It was one of the last sessions on the last day. The one you debate about attending, because out the window the shuttle buses are already filling up with attendees leaving for the airport. I’m glad I stayed, and want to share some of what I heard in relation to building your account list.

Many years ago, I talked with the owner of a specialty grocery store in Columbus, Ohio called The Hills Market. During this conversation, I learned about the term “giving customers the finger.”

This unfortunate situation occurs when a customer asks for help locating a product and an employee points in the direction of the product and sends the customer on their way. From a customer service perspective, this is a no-no! The best way to help a customer is to listen to their request (problem) and take them to the product (solution). 

Many of us seek new things in our lives to stay engaged and motivated, but even the most adventurous among us value certain things that are consistent. There are obvious consistencies we depend upon like gravity, the sun coming up in the east and setting in the west, or a manager who is very consistent in setting expectations. You probably didn’t see that third example coming, did you? But it’s true.

If you believe that most people want to do the right thing for their employers, the only thing that could trip them up is not knowing what the right thing is. For that reason, the best managers are boringly consistent about setting expectations their people can internalize and follow.

This is the fourth and final post in a four-part series on how managers can set new hires up for success. You can click to view the previous posts on providing detailed feedback, building relationships that will lead to stronger sales performance and maximizing strengths and working around weaknesses. 

Ongoing coaching and strength development are key factors in retaining people long-term, yet statistics show employees often feel as though they don’t have a specific development plan. According to a Saba survey, 60% of leaders believe they provide employees with a clear career path, but only 36% of employees agree. The very best managers spend time coaching their people and have an individualized development plan for each person. 

Early in my sales career, I got a call from a veteran Account Executive across the hall. He worked for one of our other properties and saw that I was working with a prospect he was calling on. He wanted to set up a joint sales call. I was skeptical, since I'd recently met with that prospect, and the manager made it abundantly clear that he had already placed his budget for the year, and he was not open to new ideas.