The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

1.  They don’t hear “yes” often enough.

2.  They don’t hear “no” often enough.

When you talk to salespeople all time as I do, it’s easy to see the biggest problem with many proposals is that they seem to fall into a black hole, an abyss, where salespeople don’t hear either "yes" or "no." That’s a problem.

It’s better to hear “no” than nothing. As a result, salespeople feed pending information to their managers each week, which includes proposals still hanging out there, and sales managers continue to miss their projections with faulty data. Experience shows that each week that goes by between presentation and getting an answer, the chance of closing a proposal goes down. In fact, the closing percentage on proposals over 30 days old is usually less than 10%, far less than what the salespeople are projecting. The reality is a no answer is usually a “no” answer.

So, how can salespeople avoid having their proposals drop off the face of the planet, never to be heard about again? Here are some steps that should be useful:

I surely hear a lot of talk these days about success in setting new-business appointments. Sales managers often say with a degree of pride, “Our team set 28 appointments last week.” Or, “We had a very good appointment-setting session and got 31 new appointments in only two hours.”

These numbers are impressive, and the logical sequence of events from there would be a steady increase in new business volume. But, too often, when those new business metrics come in, the cause and effect doesn’t exist. New business does not spike as one would expect after four straight weeks of appointment setting. 

So, what is wrong?

You gotta know that modern software and a bevy of specifically-trained digital layout specialists is lifting the tide for everyone when it comes to creating absolutely gorgeous proposals. Who knows what tomorrow’s technology will produce for us. Perhaps 3-D versions of a proposal delivered by hologram, featuring the best-looking and best-sounding salesperson technology can conjure up.  Intriguing to think of, isn’t it?

Despite the fact that very few proposals are unattractive these days, I hear from salespeople that it seems fewer of them actually get read—or if they are delivered in person, not enough of them are being sold. So what is going on? What the high-powered graphics packages don’t take into account is that a proposal must me more than a pretty face. CONTENT trumps appearance 9.9 times out of 10.  A plain-looking proposal with strong content is more likely to sell than a graphically appealing production with weak or generic content. 

Recently I had a conversation with a manager where she was expressing concern about the language she was seeing in their proposals. In reading them over, the words were crisp and highly descriptive. The problem was, the language and terms were those they use in their own internal discussions—their industry jargon. This is a problem. 

Sales Managers have a hard job. Above them, executives are very clear about what they expect them to achieve—usually expressed as a dollar goal for the department. But, the Sales Manager is the person who has to convert what the company expects into how to accomplish it. Not easy. If the company expects the Sales Manager to reach a million dollars in sales this month simply sending that message down the line to the sales team is of little or no value. We all know certain things roll downhill with little result. 

So what kind of feedback does the Sales Manager provide to translate the what (the monetary goal), to the how (the method by which we will accomplish the goal)? Here are some ideas:

Sales meetings are often seen as a necessary evil by both salespeople and sales managers—the salespeople often think they are a waste of time (and sometimes they are) and managers generally hate putting them together (and a are often not that good at it). So, here are five tips to help you produce a sales meeting people will want to be part of, with less work on your part to provide all the content:

Markets ebb and flow, and it seems a greater number of variables than ever before can impact one’s performance in a quarter or a year. Certainly there are things that happen beyond your control, so let’s look at what’s within your control—what you can do to ensure that you will deliver on your sales quota this year?

1. Get Closer To Your Key Accounts

Unless you are in a business where you sell something once and move on, the work you do on behalf of your Key Accounts has more impact than anything else you can do when it comes to delivering your quota. You’ve heard of the Pareto Principle, aka the 80/20 rule. It’s true. In most businesses, between 75% and 80% of the revenue comes from only 25% of the customers they do business with. And it’s very likely true for your own book of business. The last thing you want to do is lose a Key Account, and most of them have untapped potential for new business.

So for each of your Key customers you should set a goal to renew your needs analysis at least quarterly, perhaps more often. New needs require new solutions, so knowing those changing needs helps make sure you are part of each new solution. Work to increase the number of decision influencers with whom you have contact within the account. Not only does this help you keep your current business in place, but also new influencers often have new problems that need to be addressed. Can you help?

If you read any of the advertising trades these days you are seeing strong evidence that programmatic buying is making significant strides in the media sector. Programmatic buying allows advertisers to have direct access to the publisher’s (and now the broadcaster’s) inventory, and transactions are completed in nanoseconds with very little human interaction. In the online display advertising sector, programmatic is already accounting for nearly half of all transactions and predictions are being made that over 83% of display advertising will be bought and sold programmatically by the year 2017. Advertisers and publishers are building out trading desks to accommodate this huge flow of business.

So far, those selling traditional media have felt some degree of insulation from this wave, but that is changing as well. Last week Media Post ran an article about the rise of “programmatic TV” and this week Inside Radio featured an article on how Strata has put together a platform and an agreement that allows advertisers direct access to inventory on a number of media platforms including radio. The future is now, folks.

"It takes more than a good heart."

These were words spoken to me by the Senior Pastor at my church when he was convincing me to take a major role in the upcoming capital campaign. He was right. You know yourself in today’s competitive fundraising environment that it takes more than a staff with a love for your cause to secure a major gift from an individual or a corporation. It takes talent to be a successful development officer.

Talent is different than skills. Skills can be learned. Talent is innate. So if you are facing a big increase in your fundraising budget this year or next, the most important thing you can do is employ fundraising professionals with the innate behaviors that will allow them to ask for and receive major gifts from a wide variety of donors.

But what talents, what innate behaviors, should you look for? Based on research with thousands of professionals whose role is to seek commitment, we suggest strongly that you look for these eight key talents:

1. Intensity for the work effort.

Getting in front of key donors is hard work and uncovering their underlying needs and goals for giving requires effort as does fashioning a tailored solution. The best fundraising professionals love to work and go about their work in a very focused manner. They work hard, they work smart, and they work long.

2. Discipline.

The very best have standards for excellence and produce quality work. They can manage details easily and spin multiple plates, rarely dropping a single one.

3. Successful development officers are not afraid to ask.

They have a certain command about them that allows them to persuade and convince naturally. They are very comfortable with the notion that they must bring others around to their way of thinking.

4. The very best are great problem solvers.

They gather more information, they ask better questions, and they devise more creative solutions.

5. We see that top performers have a positive outlook.

For these people, the glass is always half full, they deal with change well, and they have a wide circle of people who like them.

6. The best are also blessed with a “sixth sense” that allows them to pick up on how someone is feeling at the moment.

This genius-level empathy allows them to know how and when to proceed. Donors feel a real sense of being cared about—because they are.

7. In order to ask for big donations, you have to feel as though you deserve a big donation.

Top people see themselves as significant, worthy of sitting with high-net-worth individuals and top corporate officers. They can make a “big ask” because it lines up with their self-image.

8. If you are going to meet a goal you have to think in terms of measurement and winning.

Top performers are constantly striving to best last year’s, last month’s, and even yesterday’s performance. They think in terms of winning, and when they are winning for your cause, everyone wins.