SalesVPI

What Really Creates Sales Excellence?

Dave Kurlan's blog raises this question in response to webinar invitations from Avitage and other companies. He makes good points, although I think it's hyperbole to suggest that these invitations "promise the solution to all of our sales problems".

His point is, "the only way to make them (sales people) better is through evaluation, training and development."

And I certainly agree that, "these (vendor) applications are far more effective when you've already worked with a sales force development expert, developed a sales process and developed your sales people."

But it also reminds me of the adage, "when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."

We use Dave's assessments, believe completely in sales process and have documented our selling process since 1998. Sales development should be seen as a continuous process, not a periodic event as some organizations do.

But is that all there is to creating sales excellence, to improving sales effectiveness?

"Competent" means "the state of being adequately or well qualified." It is a function of skill, knowledge and ability. "Effective" means "producing or capable of producing a desired effect." We focus on supporting sales performance with information, knowledge, content, tools and assistance that indeed make sales people more effective.

Our customers who are involved with a complex sale tell us that to help their sales people shift from product providers to consultative sellers requires support to help them take their skills and awareness and actually execute to produce the desired sales results.

After they've hired the right horses, worked on development and implemented a sales process, their sales people need help conducting better conversations. This goes beyond ability and skill issues.

Often this requires a "four legged sales call" where SEs (pre-sales engineers), product managers or sales managers are brought in for conversation support.

For over 12 years, customers have asked us to help them with remediation (coaching), call preparation and physical delivery of key messages to customers. They tell us sellers need:

• Selling messaging and diagnostic questions, especially given expanding sales bags and a more competitive environment;
• Compelling and relevant content to deliver messages that support the customer's buying process;
• Knowledge aids that help sales people prepare for sales conversations quicker and easier;
• Selling tools and aids that help them engage customers more effectively, especially over the telephone, and communicate proof points relevant to the value they can provide a prospect;
• Convenient, opportunity specific coaching to assist with strategy and provide actionable next steps.

Avitage provides a process to build sales communications that are aligned to, and in support of, conversations that occur at each stage of the sales process, relevant to different stakeholder types, business needs, value points, competitive context and industry factors, among others.

This process supports an organization's training, marketing, coaching and sales communication needs with coordinated messages, shared content, and cost effective deployment.

The long-standing rap on sales training is that it's deployed as a periodic event and the benefits atrophy as early as 90 days out. But skills training without supporting selling information means sales people (each) have to figure it out for themselves, resulting in wasted time, opportunities and inconsistent selling.

To become a "trusted advisor" means sales professional have to have knowledge, and access to information, that makes them an advisor in the eyes of the customer.

Selling is fundamentally about communication. Communication is about delivery. Delivery today occurs in far more ways than face-to-face conversations. More selling over the phone, especially in the early stages of the process, require new engagement methods. Selling is more collaborative and it is necessary to bring experts to the customer in timely and cost effective ways. Web meetings and multimedia vignettes help here.

Sales people need to develop and cultivate leads. Multimedia vignettes help capture customer attention, and capitalize on that attention with compelling delivery of messages. Lead nurturing involves customer education. Customer portals with relevant (multimedia) content help here.

After the challenges of getting prospects to engage, the next biggest challenges involve accelerating the buying cycle, creating and demonstrating value, closing business -- not losing to "no decision". While skills are essential to this process, they are not sufficient. Knowledge, content and new delivery methods are also essential.

Coaching vs. Training

This year we helped our colleague Rob Scanlon launch a truly unique sales coaching and benchmarking company and product called PrivateSalesCoach (www.privatesalescoach.com).

This has been a fascinating experience on several levels which I will share across a number of blogs:

• A product that assists sales people in convenient and non-invasive ways to improve their odds in specific opportunities
• Executed through a simple, web diagnostic, that in less than 10 minutes answering questions provides instant advice for account strategies and next steps
• Benchmarks sales efforts against a best practice standard
• Provides qualitative assessments for how opportunities are being worked
• Can be applied in both direct and channel selling
• Low cost, hosted and easily implemented

A product that initially provokes skepticism and incredulity -- indeed I almost missed the opportunity to assist with this project due to my own initial negative assessment.

Dave Stein had a similar reaction when I first described this product.

Through this work I've gained a heightened appreciation for:

• The challenge of launching something new into the cacophony of today's market
• The difference between coaching and training -- as well as distinctions about coaching
• The importance of coaching on sales performance
• The value of sales benchmarks for sales performance and coaching
• The value of multimedia vignettes for leveraged selling and support of customer advocates conducting internal enrollment conversations.

It will be interesting to see how open people are to evaluate an innovative way to gain an early advantage with something others don't yet have.

Sales coaching and benchmarking appears to be of high interest for sales managers today. There is just not enough time or bandwidth for managers to touch every opportunity. How does a manager quickly assess which opportunities in the large portfolio of deals really needs his attention? How much time does it take to diagnose each opportunity with each rep to get the information needed to help? How much of this assessment is based upon a documented standard vs. intuitive gut feel?

Pilots use a "flight check" to make sure they don't miss any important steps, despite years of flying. Doctors send us for x-rays and lab work before meeting patients. That way they receive technical confirmation of a diagnosis and can spend more of their valuable time prescribing remedies and treatment. Many doctors today use online diagnostic tools to research or confirm a diagnosis despite years of education far beyond that of the typical sales rep.

CRM systems give us quantitative insight to sales opportunities, but do little to reflect a qualitative assessment of how opportunities are actually being worked, or what could be done to improve selling of each opportunity.

As we continue to support this effort I'll report on these questions and other lessons.

Accessing Intelligence on Customers and Prospects

Jim Dickie's article in CustomerThink makes a strong case that good sources of content exist to help sales people better understand customers, especially the challenges they are facing.

His annual survey reveals 49.5% of participating firms surveyed reported that they needed improvement at thoroughly researching customers and prospects. His article suggests sources for assistance.

Over the past 18 months we've made significant progress in this area. Here are some of the tools our sales people use:

Landslide -- this is our basic selling environment which provides the essential contact information but more importantly, great tools to manage our selling process, activity notes, private individual portals, and great reporting and dashboards.

Inside View -- is integrated right into Landslide, so when working on an account or opportunity we see, with one click, summary company information, key people, key news, even job openings.

Stratascope -- for in-depth company research and simple, visual reporting on key business issues and financial realities along with competitive comparisons.

ZoomInfo -- for looking up contacts at target companies. We also use Jigsaw.

Linked-in -- getting better and better not just as a network and referral tool (VERY important), but for searching contacts at specific companies, and joining affinity groups to make referrals and company research even easier and faster.

Sales Genius -- for allowing sales to generate email campaigns quickly and easily to groups as well as individuals, and to track viewing of emails and links to programs and our websites. This helps us know who is really interested, and who (for whatever reason), never even viewed our communication.

Leadlander -- notifies sales reps when customers and prospects visit our website, and which pages they viewed. This helps us better understand areas of interest, but especially timing.

iCentera -- to manage all our documents in one central repository, and create customer and campaign portals to deploy relevant content to prospects and customers. Makes it easier than embedding content into emails, and convenient for customers to view content when they are interested. Tracks individual viewing and provides marketing aggregate data on how our content is used. Supports our "drip marketing" campaigns, and quick emails (with links to content) to individuals and groups.

These are the tools used by our selling organization and doesn't include the marketing tools.

Is Your B2B Marketing Helping or Undermining your Sales Organization?

B2B marketing organizations may be unintentionally undermining the credibility and effectiveness of their expensive and important direct sales professionals.

I'm talking about the "ICBM approach" of launching content over the heads of the sales organization directly to customers and prospects with whom sales people are actively engaged.

If a company has a direct sales force, and marketing is allowed to operate this way, it is unproductive and dangerous.

What message does this send?

1) We (marketing) are not aligned with sales
2) We don't really care what sales are up to
3) We know what the customer wants better than the sales person does
4) We don't trust sales to deliver our messages

I don't care for military analogies but this seems relevant: in previous wars, bombing campaigns were conducted primarily by dropping large numbers of dumb bombs from aircraft. This method accomplished some objectives, but was not precise and produced a lot of collateral damage. Modern warfare has used laser-guided missiles to more surgically attack precise targets with minimal collateral damage. The missiles are often guided by a soldier on the ground with a laser pointed at the target.

When marketing organizations prepare content so it can be easily selected and even tailored for individual customers, and delivered using the customer's preferred method by the sales professional, everyone wins.

Marketing controls the message, brand, and content while optimizing the impact on customers. Sales professionals use the content to create value for the customer. This improves the sales person's brand and image as a valuable resource for the customer and sets the groundwork for becoming a real (trusted) advisor. The customer experiences relevant content, delivered conveniently and at the right time, and an appreciation of the service provided by the sales professional.

This isn't hard to do. But it does require a different mindset and operating process on the part of marketing. Given the direct investment companies make in the their sales organization, and the amount of business they expect those resources to produce, at lot is at stake.

If marketing can accomplish the business revenue objectives going directly to the customer, they should, and the direct selling organization should be disbanded. But if a direct selling organization is required, marketing should help maximize the effectiveness of this expensive resource, and consider how any direct campaign will affect this objective.

Mindset for an Anemic Business Climate

In working with sales teams over the last few weeks -- our own, customers and prospects -- it's clear everyone is trying to assess the implications of the recent precipitous economic decline. Then, we'll determine how to respond (and this has me thinking of "re-sponse-able").

This is especially true for sales professionals who have to sell (sail) into these headwinds. For sales people, this starts with having the right mindset. We are committed to producing the number regardless of the general economic circumstances. The question is how.

Dealing with a severe business downturn seems similar to the stages of dealing with death. Most people have moved from denial and anger over the past couple of weeks into depression today.

I've applied this framework to develop the following which seems to be helpful both for our selling mindset and to use as questions with customers.

I'm using this to determine a prospect's mindset and likeliness to take action. But I'm also using it to prompt people to think beyond the current paralyzing state, or to refer me to people who are.

I see four stages we all could go through:

1. Deer in the Headlights -- most people are in this stage now, given we are only four weeks into the economic chaos. It is difficult to engage people at this stage, and we hear language like, "I can't even think about talking with you, we're locking everything down until we decide our strategy."

2. Fight or Flight -- people will have to decide whether to fight to find ways to win business and protect customers, or whether to retrench, hunker down and just weather the storm. Avoid the latter.

3. Take Ground -- some will determine now is the time to innovate their selling process, attack new market segments, or capture customers from marginal competitors who have hunkered down.

4. Prepare for the Rebound -- others will use the next couple of quarters to fix what is broken, implement better processes, work with target prospects so they are ready to capture business when the economic rebound hits. Those best prepared at that point will win more business sooner than competitors who have hunkered down.

Which of these strategies works for your organization? Use these as questions with your prospects to find the contacts who think the way that best aligns with your solutions.

This framework helps our selling mindset, prompts customers to think differently, and aligns us with those individuals who are willing to take action.

Are you ready for the coming multimedia tsunami?

Our communication culture has shifted -- communicators and audiences alike are now demanding dynamic rather than static methods of information delivery.

This is illustrated in a recent Wall Street Journal article of March 4, 2008: The New Workplace Rules: No Video Watching. (link requires subscription)

"In December, Internet users watched more than 10 billion videos on-line, according to comScore Inc. -- one of the single heaviest months for on-line-video consumption since comScore began tracking it in 2006." 10 billion videos viewed on-line in a single month!

Shifts in culture provide opportunities or organizations to think differently and take action to create competitive advantage. This shift is no different.

Today, how does your organization use multimedia in its daily sales operation to communicate with customers?

How would you feel if you learned tomorrow that your key competitor had their sales people using multimedia on a regular basis to:

• Create executive summary multimedia proposals
• Address and respond to customer questions and objections
• Deliver customer stories in the customer voice
• Regularly communicate in personalized, tailored ways with each stakeholder in a Target Account selling model
• Get new customers engaged in conversations sooner
• Receive "voice in the helmet" sales coaching in the minutes prior to sales calls?

Consider, you use multimedia for training/e-learning and marketing (webinars/Flash). What if you had a process that made this a practical tool for sales?

And it will require a different process than that used for training and marketing. The sales use model is different. Content is different. Sales people will need support unlike that required by trainers and marketing people.

But the trend is clear. High demand for video consumption today is a pre-cursor for high demand for production tomorrow. The multimedia tsunami is coming to a computer near you. Are you ready?

Web Assisted Selling -- An idea who's time has come?

United Flight 173 from Boston to San Francisco

I am a flying advertisement for Sony Vaio notebooks as I'm stuffed into seat 21F. Any larger notebook and I couldn't open and work in the cramped corners with the seat in front of me reclined in my lap.

I'm heading to the Sales 2.0 conference and customer meetings. This is the first conference that begins to address the ideas and vision that have driven my professional life, in over 12 years with my current business, and 20 years working with multimedia in business communications.

I call my longstanding vision "Web Assisted Selling".

Web Assisted Selling is a strategy to use web delivery methods and multimedia communications to transform the way we engage customers and deliver our ideas and value messages. It is a critical capability in my quest to create value for customers through the sales conversations we conduct.

I believe Web Assisted Selling can provide a significant competitive advantage. But, like many new technologies, we need a new paradigm to apply it correctly in order to realize its full potential.

Four Components to the Strategy

Simply stated, there are four key components to a Web Assisted Selling strategy:

1. A central library of pre-produced multimedia modules and related elements (audio, documents, coaching notes, URL links), with an online assembly capability;
2. On demand delivery, and support for all vehicles such as PowerPoint, streaming audio-graphic programs, audio podcasts, and portals;
3. Live delivery support for web meetings;
4. Programmatic support that executes this vision as a well defined program, managed for continuous improvement of content, training, user support, and the overall process.

Disclaimer: I consider this to be an important generic idea. But it is the vision that drives my company. We have produced a 3 minute multimedia vignette that introduces this idea, and a 12 minute program that explains our approach in greater detail (there is registration required for the latter program).

Applications for Web Assisted Selling

There are many applications enabled by this strategy, they fall into three primary categories:

Prepare:

A central messaging and multimedia library that leverages PowerPoint, audio, Flash animation and video with links to associated documents, traing content and sales tools extends the typical training activities into "just-in-time coaching".

This helps sales people remediate learning lessons for complex and important ideas that need to be heard (role of audio) many times before they are internalized. It embeds sales coaching right into the sales workflow. In this, the appropriate materials show up when people need them. Short "overnight expert" audio graphic programs help sales people prepare for the "advisor" role of "trusted advisor".

Engage:

Web Assisted Selling improves the quality of visual support, which in turn improves sales conversations.

Mutlimedia programs become sales tools as "buddy-in-a-box" programs that help sales deliver complex or important messages. These programs help deliver messages in the proper "voice" -- the voice of the expert. Sometimes this is a technical voice, or that of an analyst, customer, or company executive.

Deliver:

Most sales conversations do not take place in real time, in person. Most are conducted over the telephone, or through self-viewing vechicles such as email, web sites, or documents. An important "vehicle" in the complex sale is third party individuals who deliver messages when sale professionals are not even present.

Web Assisted Selling improves the quality of these conversations by leveraging media to deliver with great impact, motivation, accuracy and (hopefully) convenience.

Sales professionals need to align the delivery method to the preference of the customer. Today, there are many more methods available than just a few years ago.

Given the way I sell and work with customers, I don't fly nearly as much as I used to. And, if you've driven in Boston lately, you know that's not an efficient use of time either. Nothing can replace the value of in person meetings. But the cost of these meetings -- direct and opportunity -- is so high. Every flying experience re-motivates me to take our proficiency with these ideas to a higher level.

Sales organizations that master this strategy will have a competitive advantage in the way they engage and communicate with customers. They will also lower selling costs. 

Real Time vs. On Demand Communications

Despite my high interest in the Red Sox, I've watched only a few of the playoff and World Series games in real time. House guests and the need to get up early have forced me to record the games and view them at another time.

Almost all of the TV viewing in our family these days is time shifted.

This got me thinking about sales communications. We tend to rely heavily on real time communication methods: meetings, phone conversations, even email is quasi real time. I find if people don't view my email the day I sent it, the chances are pretty good it's going to get lost in the email backlog.

For all of us, real time is precious. Sales professionals need to master on demand communication methods to reach customers when real time conversations are not possible.

Two methods we are working with and developing proficiencies around are:

• Customer portals
• Multimedia vignettes (streaming audio graphic programs)

Rather than stuffing documents into emails which are sent throughout a 3 to 6 month sales cycle (longer if we start before customers are ready to consider a solution), we're creating portals for each customer.

Portals allow us to manage our collateral and messages in more convenient ways for customers. If they don't view one piece of collateral when we first invite them, they can still find and see it at a time that is more convenient for them. It makes our content easier for them to find and to share with colleagues. It allows us to know when (how often) a customer views content. Finally, in the aggregate, we're beginning to get some interesting data on collateral usage.

Multimedia vignettes are narrated PowerPoint shows. We tailor them to each customer and situation. We attach relevant collateral to shows, a concept we refer to as "merchandising our messages". By this we mean we use the narrated shows to explain key messages and introduce supporting collateral.

Links to shows are easy for customers to recieve, view and share. Multimedia truly brings messages to life and allows us to control the quality and consistency of message delivery, especially when they are passed around the organization.

We may not always be able to meet in real time with key customer contacts, but on demand programs are the next best thing. For customers who are not ready for a direct conversation, they are the best way to reach them.

Re-consider PowerPoint -- It's not just a presentation tool

I love this idea, that it's not "just PowerPoint" anymore. I think PowerPoint offers organizations untapped potential for improved sales messaging, knowledge sharing, and customer communications.

A better PowerPoint strategy can drive significant content production efficiencies, rapid development and turnaround times, easy content tailoring, the ability to scale content requirements, and dramatically lower production costs compared to documents.

PowerPoint is where the corporate communication process starts. When we stop thinking of it as a presentation tool, and think of it as a business graphic development tool to create visual support for conversations, a new world of possibilities opens.

How Important is PowerPoint to Your Sales Organization?

Several years ago we conducted a survey of 10 technology companies asking them what percent of the hits to their marketing and sales intranet were for the data type PowerPoint. For each company, the answer was between 55% and 62%.

In each company, PowerPoint represented less than 10% of the total content they managed (typically less than 6%). This provides a glimpse of the potential. 6% of content (volume) is responsible for 60% of usage.

I'd really like to know what these numbers are at your company. Please comment to this entry, or email me if you want to keep it private.

• Percent of hits for PowerPoint
• PowerPoint as a percent of totoal documents being managed

Critical Roles for PowerPoint

1. PowerPoint can provide visual support for sales conversations in the complex sale.

Sales communication is all about how we deliver our messages to customers. Meetings are more effective and efficient when important and complex ideas are supported by visuals.

This not only helps the person delivering the messages, it makes it easier for customers to understand key ideas. It shortens time spent on each topic. If your sales conversations are conducted over the telephone, visual support is even more important.

Most sales organizations haven't begun to tap the potential of web meetings using web conferencing technology. Over 8 years of working in this area, I am convinced part of the problem is companies haven't developed the visual assets that are needed to support this type of sales conversation. So web meetings are used in limited ways during a presentation or (software) demonstration stage of the sales process.

2. Compared with document creation, PowerPoint is a low cost, rapid development tool.

3. A key to effective messaging is being clear and succinct. Most PowerPoint shows need improvement in this area. But I think it's easier to improve PowerPoint shows than documents in this regard.

4. Just as PowePoint provides visual support for live conversations, it can be the visual base for recorded audio narration. Narrated PowerPoint creates an experience similar to traditional video, but at a fraction of the time and cost required to produce video.

Companies and individuals should stop railing against PowerPoint and learn how to capitalize on its full potential.

Sales Conversations -- Set Up the Listening

I spent the day yesterday with my executive coaches from GAP International. This group works with executives and their organizations to create "breakthrough organizations". A breakthrough is an extraordinary and important outcome for which the way of achieving it is not known. It is not predictable from a projection of the current state of the business.

The GAP concept is, extraordinary results are produced by extraordinary actions. Extraordinary actions are produced by extraordinary thinking. Most people, most of the time, take ordinary and predictable actions based upon "business-as-usual" thinking.

Therefore, to create breakthrough outcomes, and especially to create an organization that consistently produces extraordinary outcomes, requires a transformation in people's thinking. The "access" to this thinking is people's language.

By listening carefully to the conversations people conduct, and specifically the language they use in conversations, we can identify people's thinking. This will indicate the kinds of actions they will take, and can even become a predictor of the results people will create. We can change individual and organizational behavior by changing people's thinking in very specific ways.

Our specific conversation yesterday related directly to my work with selling, and one of the principles we work on regularly: sales conversations can create value for customers and become a key differentiator and competitive advantage that will result in higher win rates and margins (less discounting).

The GAP consultants defined conversation as both speaking and listening. I get the speaking part, and that I am responsible for what I say and how I say it. What is a new idea for me is that I am also responsible for how I am heard! Let me say that again, I am responsible for the listening of my audience.

This means I must "set up the listening", "shape the way people listen", and "attend to how people hear what I say". This is a critical concept for sales professionals, as well as marketing, executives and any business communicators.

We always speak "into an environment". Environment is "the sum of all the conversations people are having." These conversations produce a background of ideas, biases, priorities, areas of focus, etc. that people bring to any conversation. We're always listening "from something". We are pre-disposed to hear certain things or certain ways.

Before we begin speaking into an environment, it helps to know what is shaping people's thinking.

This week my colleague and I had a conversation with a prospective customer that illustrates this directly. It was the third conversation with the customer, and we were about to start the discovery stage of our process. My colleague offered a classic checkpoint question toward the beginning of the conversation that initially seemed very appropriate: "Nancy, how did you feel about what we discussed in our previous conversation?"

Nancy's response was, in effect: "Well the ideas were very interesting, but of course I haven't had time to check out your competition and I have a lot more work to do before I can make any commitments ..."

What happened here? My colleague was simply looking for what might have resonated with her, to confirm we were discussing relevant issues, or if she had any questions. What was shaping her listening? "I'm talking with a couple of sales guys, sales guys are primarily interested in completing the sale (little to do with helping me with my business problems), and I've heard this kind of sales checkpoint, or trial close, question before".

How might we have "set up her listening"?

How about: "Nancy, as we discussed in our last meeting, we're committed to helping customers address their primary business and sales communications needs and opportunities. Before we ask you some questions to delve deeper into this, I want to make sure we're on the right track and focusing on the primary issues you want to address."

"We discussed "issue 1" and "issue 2" as two of your most important concerns (or opportunities). Could you share how you felt about our previous conversation on these issues, and are we focused on the right ones?"

This approach would have:

• Re-stated our commitment to her as our primary intent (continuing to build trust, separating us from typical "sales guys", and shaping her listening)
• Focused her onto the primary issues we uncovered, which she might not even have remembered from the previous conversation,
• Kept her from becoming defensive and going off on the tangent that mis-directed our conversation and required us to spend valuable time re-directing (as well as prevent the re-inforcement of her negative stereotype)

When we set up people's listening we impact accuracy and speed. The conversation is more accurate, focused and on topic. It is efficient, so we move quickly through the topics we want to cover, and avoid tangents and distractions that have to be repaired.

So, how do we set up the listening. First, start with your own listening. Tune in to your environment and the listening you are bringing to the conversation. Check in on your pre-dispositions. Clear your thinking to get aligned with your intent for the person and the call.

Next, get people "present". Make sure they are really with you and not still thinking about what immediately preceded, or another significant person distraction. Get their full and complete attention and don't begin until you have it. This seems especially important with conversations over the telephone.

Then, create context. Tell people what to listen for, and what not to listen for. I find a clear statement of my intent to be a good starting point. It builds empathy and opens up people's listening.

Sales conversations are the key to selling success in the complex, consultative, or solution oriented sale. Effective converstaions are the result of the sales professional taking responsibility for both their speaking and their audience's listening.