The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

A heartbreaking ending, but a beautiful journey. If you’re a Cleveland Browns fan, then you’re like me, still brokenhearted after watching them lose yet another winnable big game.

Over the years I’ve written a few posts about this hapless team, and I’ll give the team credit for improving during the past season.

One thing still alludes the Browns, and that is winning the winnable big game. In short, something always gets in the way and they walk away with a loss.

Is your sales team winning the winnable games in the face of COVID and all the other obstacles that are thrown in their way?

Review the list below of winnable games—the games within the game of improving revenue performance and exceeding goals—to see how you are doing. The list also includes ideas on how to move from the losing side.

"I see the value in spending time with my sellers in the field coaching them, but I just don't have the time."

We’ve heard this a lot from sales managers over the years, pre-COVID and during COVID. Finding time to watch sellers in the field is a challenge to time-starved managers. The average time to coach a seller on a typical 30-minute, face-to-face appointment is actually around two hours when you factor in things like travel time to and from an appointment.

One of the positive outcomes of COVID is the ability for managers to sit in on appointments with sellers when they conduct virtual meetings with customers. These virtual coaching opportunities—also known as Zoomalongs—provide an extremely efficient method of coaching at a fraction of the time of a face-to-face coaching call (30 to 45 minutes versus two hours).

Here are some thoughts and tips on how to get the best ROI on virtual coaching opportunities.

Working with sales leaders and managers through a crisis like the pandemic is full of twists and turns — and new discoveries!

Significant transformations such as downsizing and restructuring because of things like COVID can disrupt the flow of a sales team, however, done properly, they can improve sales performance. Many sales organizations are discovering that removing unproductive sellers (and not replacing them) creates a more productive team.

Since early this year, many changes have been implemented, but an emerging hot topic among sales leaders now is sales staff size. As a sales manager, is this something you have been thinking about?

Salespeople in different industries encounter different questions and objections, right? Wrong. Your products and services may affect the minor details of objections, but Google the phrase ‘most common sales objections’ and you’ll find most sellers face the same objections from their leads.

Whether it’s price objections, the prospect isn’t interested, or “now isn’t a good time,” sellers often encounter the same types of questions and objections during the sales process. Sales enablement resources help them anticipate and overcome these objections.

Creating talk tracks and related sales collateral material helps enable sellers to respond quickly — allowing them to move the sales process forward and close business sooner.

“CRMs are just another tracking tool.”

“I’ll spend more time trying to learn how to use it than actually using it.”

You’ve heard the complaints from your sales team about using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. And, chances are if you’ve considered implementing a sales enablement tool like a CRM into your strategic plan to drive revenue, you’ve read a lot of articles that discuss the various reasons why most sales CRM systems fail.

There’s even a strong possibility this is why you’re hesitant to commit purchasing a CRM. No one wants to invest in a tool that statistics show to fail (mostly) because a sales team is reluctant to use it. As a sales manager, what can you do to ensure your sales reps use a CRM to its full potential?

First, you must understand why they’re wary.

In the recent CSS Media Sales Report, we discovered:

• Sales managers are expecting sellers to set twice as many appointments this year
• The majority of salespeople say it is harder to get an initial appointment with a new business prospect than in years past

It appears these two concepts are on divergent paths, that’s probably why the issues related with setting appointments have existed for such a long time. Here are some tips to help solve this longstanding problem.

The realities of COVID-19, coupled with legacy sales issues, are making it more difficult for sellers to set appointments with new business prospects. Problems inhibiting a seller’s access to decision makers — like a lack of trust — have been compounded by the uncertainties of the current business climate. The bottom line, already a tough job, is now even more difficult.

Simply put, helping sellers develop expertise in the Identify and Connect steps of the sales process is needed and will provide a high ROI on training time. Specifically, improving skills related to finding prospects and setting appointments will increase the number of prospects in the sales funnel and lead to cash!

Sales structures look different for all organizations depending on the industry, size of the team, product, and the sales process. As your company and people evolve or as things change in your business sector, your sales structure should change as well in order to maintain a competitive advantage.

Companies that identify the need to change sales structure continue to grow, while those who ignore it find themselves struggling to meet sales goals and stay competitive. According to the recent Media Sales report, 60% of sales managers don’t feel they have the right number of salespeople on their team. This leads to a couple important questions:

• Is it the number of people on your team that needs adjustment?
• Or is it the sales structure and expectations aren’t in line with sellers’ true talents?

As a sales manager, do you feel like some of your veteran sellers struggle with new business development? It’s no secret that the recent downturn in revenue has shifted the focus to new business sales initiatives. Unfortunately, many sellers are struggling in this area of new business development. They are showing signs of call reluctance—the fear of taking a step in the sales process, fear of rejection, and fear of the unknown.

Call reluctance is very common; in fact, studies show 40% of salespeople will experience episodes of call reluctance, despite their years of experience or product knowledge. And while this anxiety feels unbeatable, you can help sellers overcome it by determining its root case and building a strategy.

A conversation about desired business results (needs, challenges, and opportunities) is an essential part of the sales process. When engaging new business prospects as well as current customers, it’s crucial to ask the right questions. Aside from the right questions, other tools can help a seller discover core needs quickly and succinctly.

Needs analysis is a central and critical part of making the sale. Sellers work hard setting appointments; the end result should never be a botched needs analysis. Here are eight tools—along with some thoughts about each—that sellers can use to make the most of a needs analysis meeting.