THE SALES FORCE PLAYBOOK

DOUBLE DOWN

While there is no question we are in a challenging economy, now is the perfect time to "double down" on your sales efforts.  You might not be able to control your prospects spending money right now, but you can control the activity and effort of your sales force.

Check out Dave Kurlan's blog.  His 10 Steps are spot on.

CRITERIA

Your salesperson has been working with a prospect.  Things are going well and the decision has been made to make a presentation so you can acquire the business.  Does the salesperson know the criteria upon which the decision is going to be made?

Most salespeople "think" they know, but most are just guessing.  Coach your salespeople to quit guessing and actually find out what the criteria are. During the sales process, your salesperson needs to ask some form of this question.  "John, what criteria are you and Mary going to use to make this decision?"

Knowing the criteria allows the salesperson to prepare the proper presentation for the proper people.  Not knowing means they are guessing as to what the presentation should look like.

If your salespeople haven't asked this question before, role play with them.  Make sure they are comfortable with the question.  Then have them ask the question of a prospect.  Soon it will become a habit.

ARE YOU COMFORTABLE?

I absolutely love Seth Godin's latest post.

As you take a look at your Sales Force, are you sticking to the tactics, products, people and channels that you are comfortable with, instead of rethinking what the market demands?

You should not make changes for the sake of making changes, but you do need to continually look at yourself to see if the market is demanding that you change.  In today's challenging economic environment, chances are that you need to make some changes.

We are almost half-way through 2009.  Now is a good time to sit down with your leadership team to see what changes you need to make to your tactics, products, people and channels.

PRE-CALL PLANNING

I published this post on Pre-Call Planning in June of 2008.  When I first wrote it, I was thinking of pre-call planning the first appointment with a prospect.  My thoughts were that if you can have a kick-butt first appointment, it lays the groundwork for a successful sales process.

In talking to sales people and sales leaders recently, it seems as though they are doing a good job of pre-call planning, but only on "presentation" meetings.  You know, the meetings where you take in your proposal and/or PowerPoint and try to convince the prospect to choose you?

What they are not doing a good job of is pre-call planning on all the calls that lead to the presentation meeting.  As you can imagine, this is leading to a lot of presentations to prospects who do not "deserve" presentations.  They are spending a lot of time, effort and money with little to show for it.  Worse yet, it is taking time away from servicing current clients and prospecting for new clients who "qualify" for a presentation.

Make sure your team is doing a great job of pre-call planning on all sales calls leading up to the presentation.  Pay special attention to that initial call, where so much of the potential relationship is established.

30 DAY SPRINT

Summer is not "officially" here, but the nice weather sure has many salespeople thinking that it is already summer.  Unfortunately, summer is when far too many salespeople take a break from prospecting.

It seems that things really slow down between the holidays of Fourth of July and Labor Day.  If your team has experienced this in the past, it probably will this year too.  In a perfect world, prospecting would not slow down in the summer, but it seems to happen.

In anticipation of the "slow period," encourage your salespeople to have a "30 Day Prospecting Sprint" during the month of June.  See 50% or 100% more prospects than normal for this 30 Day period.  This will accomplish two things.  (1) It will compensate for the inevitable decrease in prospecting in July and August and (2) you will have a lot of follow up appointments in September.  

Now is the time to work harder than your competition.

T-BALL vs. MAJOR LEAGUES

Dave Kurlan wrote a great book titled Baseline Selling.  In the book, Dave uses baseball to describe successful selling.  Specifically, he uses the different bases as steps in moving a lead to a suspect, to a prospect, to a qualified opportunity and finally to a closed deal.

In reading the book and hearing Dave talk, it has always reminded of my days coaching T-Ball.  Those glory days of when our children are trying to figure out the game of baseball.  I remember being the 3rd Base coach.  With a runner on first, the batter hits the ball and I yell, "run."  

Unfortunately, not all kids have a thorough understanding of the game and will run from 1st Base, across the infield, to 3rd Base (while completely ignoring 2nd Base).  Equally amusing is when you yell "run" to the kid who has just the ball off the tee and he/she runs directly to you at 3rd Base.

Far too many salespeople treat the selling process as T-Ball.  They want to rush the process and not touch all the bases in the proper sequence.  When they do this, rarely do they get the sale.

The very best salespeople play at the Major League level.  They run the bases in the proper sequence at the proper speed.  This allows them to continually score (get the sale).

Pick up Dave's book so your team continually plays in the Major Leagues.

SLIGHT EDGE

My daughter had the opportunity to play in a soccer tournament over Memorial Day weekend with her "club" team.  The tournament featured 20 teams of the best teams from all over the country.

Her team played 6 games (against 6 different teams) and did not lose a single game.  Problem was that they also did not win a single game.  They had 6 consecutive draws!  One of the draws was against the team that eventually won the tournament.

What does this have to do with selling?  Most of you work in a marketplace that is extremely competitive. There probably isn't a huge difference between your "team" and the competing "teams."  So what is the slight edge that your team has that will result in you winning the game?

Your prospects do not want to hear the same thing from you that they have heard from your competitors. They want to know what makes you uniquely qualified to help them.  They want to hear about your slight edge (this assumes that your slight edge is a appropriate solution).

Brainstorm with your team about your slight edge.  Once you have nailed this, go find prospects that are looking for what makes you unique.  Focus your time on these prospects and don't waste huge amounts of time on the others.  It will make you a winner.

THE "NO SELLING" SALE

Like most people, I hate the process of buying a car.  Too often I have experienced the high-pressure, "what will it take to get you into a car today" games that dealers play.

Today I bought a car and the broker did not do any selling.  Instead, he let me buy.  Here are the 4 keys that led to this person making a sale:

1.  He was referred to me.   A good friend of mine referred me to this broker.  He had immediate credibility and did not have to prove to me why I should consider buying from him.  Within the first 3 minutes of talking to him, I knew he was the guy.

2.  He let me talk.  Instead of droning on about how good he is and what great deals he had, he just let me talk about my needs.  After all, this transaction was all about me, not him.

3.  He asked great questions.  He asked some good questions and then he hit me with an extraordinary question.  "Chris, can I share with you the questions you didn't ask, but should have?" Brilliant!!

4.  He didn't need the business.  He told me he would like my business, but wanted to make sure it was a good deal for me.  It seemed the more he kept me at arms length, the more I was determined to buy.  My guess he has a great pipeline of prospects and customers.

This person got the sale by not selling.  How does this compare to what your sales force is doing?

TIME MANAGEMENT

We often get requests to conduct a session on "Time Management."  I always ask two questions.

1. With all the courses/trainers available, why us?
2. Haven't your people already been through time management courses?

What I find out is that the real problem is not "time" management, but rather "self" management.  After all, we cannot manage time, but we can manage ourselves.

If we do a better job of "self" management, then in all likelihood we will be much more efficient and effective with the time allotted to us (which by the way is exactly the same for everybody walking this earth).  Here are key steps to managing ourselves better:

Have clearly defined goals:   By establishing goals, you should be telling yourself what is important.  Having a "destination" now allows you to map out how to get there.  

Establish your annual priorities:   What are the goals, tasks, projects that are critical to accomplish in the calendar/fiscal year?  Which of these are "must do" versus "want to do?"  Once you determine which ones are mission critical, make a commitment to yourself that they are non-negotiable.

Establish quarterly rocks:   What are the 3-5 things that you must get done this quarter?  These are the items you must accomplish or make progress on in order to meet your annual priorities.  You must be laser-beamed focused on these items.  During your day/week, make sure you work on these before you get distracted by other issues/tasks. 

Take control of your calendar:   As Stephen Covey says, "you must put the big rocks in first."  As you put together your weekly calendar, make sure you schedule time to deal with your big rocks.  The problem many people run into is that they do not schedule for an activity and so the activity too often gets pushed back or ignored.

Stop doing selected tasks:   Marcus Buckingham's research has indicated that the typical American worker spends up to 75% of his/her time working on tasks that they don't like and/or at which they are not proficient.  This results in frustration and leads people to seek help with "time management."  Make a list of those things that you hate doing and are not good at.  Which ones can you hand off to someone who loves doing them?  Which ones can you just stop doing?

Imagine how much better you will be at "time management" when you have goals, know your annual priorities, are incredibly focused every quarter, are a slave to your calendar and spend 80+ percent of your time working on tasks that excite you and which you enjoy doing.

PROFILING YOUR PROSPECT

I was working with a group of Sales Managers yesterday and the #1 issue they had with their salespeople was the horrible job being done in "profiling" prospects.  The salespeople were not asking questions to truly understand the prospect's situation.

Since the salespeople did not have a good understanding of their prospects, all they could do was "show up and throw up."  They were making product presentations even if the product was not what the prospects wanted and/or needed.

Now, doing a great job of fact-finding, discovery and profiling may seem to be Sales 101 to most, too often salespeople forget to do the basics.  In this economy, many salespeople are desperate for sales and are cutting corners.  As John Wooden once said, "be quick, don't hurry."

I like when companies have a formal "fact-finder" or formal "profile form."  I like it because it can give us great information to:

• Ask more/better questions
• Qualify the prospect
• Determine next steps

I am not an advocate of using the profile form as an interrogation of the prospect.  Rather, through great conversation and dialogue you are able to get most (if not all) of the information you are looking for.  You have to work with your salespeople on this step.  If they become masterful in the discovery/profile step they will become better qualifiers, better closers and a better resource for prospects they are talking to.

How well are your people doing?