The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

A year ago, I wrote about my youngest daughter's first day at school. I felt her teacher did a remarkable thing by offering the class an opportunity to complete a series of questions allowing her to discover how her students would best learn. The teacher was able to identify potential strengths as well as potential weaknesses within each student, much like what a manager might do to discover sales talent using a sales talent screener.

The teacher did this using animal analogies and my daughter discovered she was an otter... a relentless, hard worker determined to complete tasks and projects but who may sometimes speak out of turn or be perceived as bossy by others.

This year, the same daughter is attending her first year of middle school. She came home again with a questionnaire! This time the questionnaire had three specific questions asking about what ways my daughter likes to learn, what she expects out of her class, and what she expects of her teacher.

This past summer, my family was taking a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Asheville, NC ,and we came upon a restroom near an area called Graveyard Fields. Perfect. A few of us needed to use the restroom. From the outside the facility looked quite impressive (considering we were out in the middle of nowhere). My wife went first. When she came out, she warned me that what was waiting inside didn’t quite match the attractive outside appearance.

I took my turn and returned to the car. When my wife asked my opinion of what I found on the inside, here’s how I responded:

“Well, that was either one of the worst public restrooms I have ever been in or one of the most attractive looking outhouses I have had the pleasure to use.”

Do you have salespeople on your team who are too hard working? Sounds like a great problem to have, doesn’t it? I’m sure you know someone who has boundless energy. They never slow down, they’re constantly on the go, and even though you consider yourself energetic, it’s tough to keep up with them.

Does it feel productive or does it sometimes just feel hectic?

I have a friend like that and even though she is a lot of fun, sometimes she moves too quickly for people and lets things slip through the cracks. She has a natural tendency to take on too much. Busy feels really good, but sometimes her life is more hectic than productive.

It’s great when you have energy and the ability to work at a fast pace, but it is not good if you are running full steam ahead without a plan.

So is it possible to have too much of a good thing?

What a great week for reading! From dealing with the lone wolf salesperson to landing bigger deals, we have some great reads for you this week.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• Monday, Dana Bojcic taught us how to work with the opposite of the warm and fuzzy salesperson.

• Tuesday, John Henley gave us the key to selling bigger deals.

I wonder if the following scenario sounds familiar:

You call on several hot prospects and leave voice mail after voice mail, and yet... nobody returns your call. Was it a wrong number? Is everyone really that busy that nobody can find time to call you back?

But you know the answer. They're probably not that busy (not any more than everyone is always busy all the time), they just don't want their time wasted, and something you said on your voice mail indicated that talking to you might just be a waste of their time. Don't worry -- we can help you fix that.

Here at The Center for Sales Strategy, we are always looking for smart ways to drive and improve sales performance. As you know, we are a Platinum Partner of HubSpot, the all-in-one marketing software that allows you to do everything from website creation and blogging to emailing newsletters and scheduling social media posts, has taken things a step further with the launch of their CRM!

There is a pattern I have seen repeated over the nearly 20 years I have been involved in trying to help sales organizations improve their performance. A new product or service is launched, lots of product training is created to support the launch, and sales people are given incentives to sell the new offering. In most cases, sales start to happen, but after several months, overall sales are not reaching the lofty goals that have been set. This is often where I get involved and what I typically see is that a lot of sales have been made (often as many as the organization had projected), but the average sale is much smaller than they had hoped.

At this point, I look at the proposals behind the sales that were made. In nearly 100% of these proposals, the seller has done a good job of pitching the new product or service (good enough that they made the sale). But rarely is the proposal tailored to a need. Even great needs-based sellers tend to forget about this proven approach when they’re asked to sell the hot, shiny, new product.

Visualize the person on your sales team with the most relationship talent. Can you picture her? Your social butterfly? She cares deeply about other people. She knows all her clients like personal friends and can easily recite the names of their kids. She brings clients their favorite coffee “just because” and gets the order right every time. She genuinely wants to know these things and prides herself on it. She is good at building instant connections with prospects as well as creating long term meaningful relationships with clients. She spends time at the water cooler and knows her teammates. Everyone loves her.

Now, take a moment and picture the opposite. Visualize the sort of lone ranger salesperson. Do you see him? He is on a bit more of a solo mission. He does not “sense” how others are feeling and even if he thought he did he might be wrong. This seller does not run on emotions,. He runs on data, facts, and numbers. Ask him the names of his clients’ kids or how the client likes their coffee and you may be met with a blank stare. He doesn’t know and probably doesn’t really care! I don’t mean that he is a bad person or hates people—he just doesn’t feel the need to know the names of all their kids or whether they take cream and sugar in their java. He doesn’t care what you watched on TV last night, so it would never occur to him to ask. Does he work hard for his clients? Absolutely! Do they always feel like he cares about them and understands them as people, not merely as clients? Maybe not.

Happy September! We're fully embracing back-to-school season by brushing up on our sales skills! If you missed any of our great sales strategy posts this week, this wrap-up is for you.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• Monday, John Henley told us not to obsess about the decision maker in sales, and what to focus on instead.

• Tuesday, Kurt Sima told sales managers to ask themselves five tough questions when one of their salespeople is underperforming.

I just read this headline in a book I am reading:

"Obsess about the Decision Making Process, not the Decision Maker."

It stopped me in my tracks. 

The book is called Predictable Revenue, by Aaron Ross and Marylou Tyler. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and would recommend it to managers. The book highlights the sales process that Salesforce.com uses.

In the book, the authors suggest you lead with questions like: 

• How have you evaluated similar products or services?
• How will the decision be made?
• Who is involved in the decision-making process?

The basic point the authors make is that when you are first approaching a prospect it’s more important to understand the decision-making process than it is to get an audience with the actual decision-maker. Part of the reason this is true is that there are often many people who can influence the decision—people the decision-maker invites into the process. You want to find out who these people are and what role they play. Often you will be more effective with the decision-maker if you have first invested time with the various decision-influencers.

We have been teaching for years about the role and importance of decision-influencers (in a piece called The Decision Maker and Decision Influencers), but this book brought the concept to life in new ways for me. The point that connects to what we have taught for years is the idea that there are many decision-influencers.  While these influencers may not be able to give the big Yes the salesperson is seeking, they can and do vote No—and the decision-maker in the corner office rarely overrules them.