Andy Paul's Blog, page 11

730: What Are Your Sales Strengths? w/ Chris Spurvey

Chris Spurvey, Business Growth Facilitator and CEO at Chris Spurvey Sales Consulting Inc., joins me on this episode of #Accelerate!

KEY TAKEAWAYS



Chris shares his negative first exposure to sales. He doesn’t respect “pushy” salespeople. At university, Chris and partners started a business. When they sold it, he moved on to become a marketer, not a salesperson.After 10 years, he read a Robert Kiyosaki book and identified himself as an entrepreneur. That led him into sales. Chris’s first sales position was Manager of Business Development for an IT professional services company.Chris remembered the salesman that had sold his family a $3,000 vacuum cleaner; he thought that was how he was supposed to sell. He studied Zig Ziglar and Brian Tracy; internalizing their methods didn’t work for Chris.After months of miserable, determined, and unsuccessful efforts, Chris realized he needed a way of selling that was in line with his personality. The more he experimented, the more he found things that worked for him.Chris helps individuals who are not primarily salespeople build relationships and sell in a way that feels good to them, leveraging their strengths to become effective in getting results in sales.Chris’s clients take CliftonStrengths (StrengthsFinder) to learn their strengths. Chris shows people how they can leverage their strengths to sit confidently with a buyer and have a positive selling conversation.Andy quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson on life being an experiment; the more experimentation, the better. Chris quotes Price Pritchett on experimenting on one thing each day to test your limits. Experiments are deliberate.Take a weekly objective look at your accomplishments and decide what to change. John Maxwell advises you to focus on growth and you will meet your goals as you grow. Andy emphasizes reading every day.Companies need to help employees who desire to learn, grow, and flourish. A “sales kickoff” is not training or development. Bob Proctor said if you’re not growing, you’re dying. There’s no standing still.Andy advises salespeople to follow the sales process as far as it works for you and to ask your manager for leeway in doing things that work better for you, as long as you hit your numbers.Chris shares a conversation he had with Wes Schaeffer about “sales initiatives.” Andy calls them trust breakers. Buyers can see through your end-of-month motivation, and that’s not the transparency you want with buyers.Find a sales environment that supports your developing in sales, even if it requires investing your money into it. Be about growth, not goals. Chris shares an observation about self-motivation. You need a compelling vision.

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Your Giant Goes Wherever You Go

In his great essay, Self-Reliance , Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote “My giant goes with me wherever I go.”


 
We all have giants that tail behind us.


 
Emerson was referring to our giants as the embodiment of our self-doubts, insecurities, timidity and weaknesses. Our giants represent the sum of our vulnerabilities.


 
We feel the burden of these vulnerabilities. We think they limit our ability to connect and engage with the world around us. Including our buyers.


 
However, the opposite is true. After all, what do all humans have in common? A giant.


 
As sellers, you’re taught to hide your giant. To put on an act and suppress these feelings.


 
But, what if your giant represented the very things that enabled you to easily connect with another human being?


 
When you meet a new prospect, one of the first things you try to do is identify a shared interest as an initial connection point on which to build a relationship.


 
How do you do that? Think giant.


 
Your prospect may be excited about the changes entailed with making a purchase decision. But, the excitement is always accompanied by doubts and insecurity.


 
There are risks associated with the decision.’What happens to me if I make the wrong choice?’


 
There’s a fear of change and its impact. ‘How will the outcomes of this decision impact me and my job?’


 
If you were in the buyer’s shoes. you’d feel as vulnerable as s/he does.


 
That’s the bond you share. That’s where the connection begins.


 
Embrace your giant. Be vulnerable.


 
“Mr Prospect, I understand how scary change can be. At my company we went through a re-org last year. And I was a nervous wreck until it was done. Has that ever that happened to you?”


This is how connection and trust begin.
 
– Andy
 
P.S. Emerson penned the Concord Hymn in which he coined the unforgettable phrase “the shot heard round the world.” Click the link to read it.

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Do you have the courage to let your sellers sell?

Jesse Marsch is the first American to coach a soccer team in the UEFA Champions League, the premier club competition in the world.
 
He’s the head coach of Red Bull Salzburg, the top team in Austria. He’s a master motivator and incredibly thoughtful about how to develop the capabilities of his less experienced players.
 
I love the following quote of his:
 
“Game day is for the players — I actually think coaches get in the way. There are occasions when unexpected things happen in a match and a coach has to manage that situation effectively. But, I want my players to go out there and feel free. If they’re constantly feeling judged then it’s a block for them to make mistakes and learn from them.”
Let me translate that into sales-speak: 
“Selling is for the sellers – I actually think managers get in the way. There are occasions when unexpected things happen in a sales situation and a manager has to manage that situation effectively. But I want my sellers to go out there and feel free. If they’re constantly feeling judged then it’s a block for them to make mistakes and learn from them.”
 
If your sellers constantly feel that pressure of being judged or measured, then too few will experiment and risk making a mistake.
 
This is exactly what you don’t want to happen. Timid sellers produce average results.
 
Mistakes are an essential learning path for sellers. You have to feel confident enough in yourself as a manager to let those mistakes happen.
 
It’s possible to build a culture of accountability in sales without every seller feeling that there’s a sword hanging over their head.
 
The best way to do that is to get out of their way. Establish clear expectations for your sellers. And then give them the freedom, and the responsibility, to make mistakes and learn from them.

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#729 SEO, Lead Generation, and Sales Education, with Gaetano DiNardi

Gaetano DiNardi, Director of Demand Generation at Nextiva, joins me on this episode of #Accelerate!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Gaetano started as a musician but wanted a career that would challenge his brain. He started a music blog. Through blogging, he inadvertently taught himself SEO.
Gaetano learned that SEO helps you create content your customers and prospects want and will find. Gaetano was hired by Michael King, an SEO professional as his first break into SEO as a career. Gaetano is now with Nextiva.
Gaetano wants to continue producing music as a ‘studio rat’ behind the scenes and making great music with great artists. Gaetano is launching a startup, Musicians in Tech.
Gaetano shares ideas on the causes of the high rate of turnover in sales. It starts with unrealistic expectations of leadership and a lack of training for the sales team.
No one is really committed to training and educating their sellers, Andy observes. Gaetano says the only way to break through a barrier is by selling better. Gaetano notes where training is lacking by listening to sales calls.
Do you see sales as something you do to someone or something you do with someone? Is training something you do to your sales team or is it an investment you provide for them? Focus on learning, not training.
Andy does a sales kickoff presentation with a follow-up commitment of four webinars. Some companies will pay for the package but never do the webinars! Andy talks about helping promote longevity in sales jobs.
Gaetano suggests developing your personal brand to find your success and to differentiate yourself. Gaetano receives many sales pitches because he has ‘demand generation’ in his LinkedIn title. That’s his brand.
Use a real photo in your LinkedIn profile, not a glamor shot. Gaetano suggests having at least an ‘all-star’ level of completeness in your LinkedIn profile. Be authentic.
Most products don’t ‘fly off the shelves.’ You have to sell them; the customer is buying you. The key to success is being the best version of you. There are variables in sales. As you improve, you narrow the range of uncertainty.
Educate your sellers about what it takes to win a piece of business. Emphasize winning over following the process. Learn to sell ‘savagely well.’
Gaetano tells about ‘Last-minute Larry,’ a buzzer-beater who always makes quota on the last day of the month. Andy suggests asking what day he did his term papers in college. Procrastination is a problem that can be helped.

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728: Why Coaching is Critical, with Bill Eckstrom and Sarah Wirth

Bill Eckstrom, Founder and President of EcSell Institute and Sarah Wirth, VP of Client Services, who are the co-authors of The Coaching Effect: What Great Leaders Do to Increase Sales, Enhance Performance, and Sustain Growth, join me on this episode of #Accelerate!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Bill and Sarah share how they came to write this book, based on their work together at EcSell Institute. Bill quietly submitted a draft for a book to a publisher. It was accepted; then they had to get to work finishing it!
Texting is no substitute for a one-on-one or a ride-along. The rate of attrition in sales is increasing. Managers that were formerly sales reps need to learn how to coach.
Your team leaves because you don’t invest in them. One-on-one meetings work if you do them well. Develop your individuals. Sarah explains coaching for order, relationships, and complexity. Bill discusses data.
How strong are the relationships between the manager and the sales reps? Andy spells out his POPE time allocation method for managers. Process — 40%, Opportunity — 30%, People — 20%, Educating — 10%.
Coaching has the strongest correlation with growing sales. To grow sales, help your team to grow skills.
You only succeed when your people succeed. If you don’t have the time, tools, or training, do the best coaching you can until you have the time, tools, and training.
Do you have any idea how your behaviors and activities are impacting your team? What can you change for them to help them succeed? Fewer than 50% of reps attain quota. Are quotas obsolete? Andy discusses productivity.
Many sales managers wish they were sales reps. They don’t fit their role. Bill suggests putting those managers in the field and replacing the manager role with a sales help desk. Selling and leading are separate and different skills.
A promotion to Sales Manager is not about money or prestige but serving. Coaches, managers, and leaders need to help their teams know their strengths. Management is not the right role for everyone.
What was your motivation to become a manager? Was it for your growth or to help others? Were you just tired of selling? You won’t be a good sales manager if you don’t love both selling and coaching.
A team’s discretionary effort (or the willingness to work harder and do more) comes through the quality of coaching they receive. Sarah explains order, accountability, and complexity.
Relationship-building and the desire to help people in their goals are attributes that serve you both in sales and management. Ask the Navy SEALS about building trust!

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727: Have We Automated Sales Too Much? w/ Shawn Finder

Shawn Finder, CEO at Autoklose, joins me again on this episode of #Accelerate!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Shawn was on the show previously for his company ExchangeLeads, a data provider. About a year-and-a-half ago, Shawn leveraged the sales engagement and the data side into an all-in-one sales solution, Autoklose.
Shawn shares his definition of sales engagement.
Have we automated too much of the sales process? You need to build a relationship and rapport. LinkedIn is a good place for social connection. Don’t spam on LinkedIn!
Shawn gives advice on personalizing email messages. Don’t try to sell your company in a long message. Use email to offer value, connect, and ask for a meeting.
The top of the funnel is a marketing function. The middle of the funnel is for building trust and providing education. Shawn discusses handing prospects off to the AE.
Andy tells the story of a three-person sales team pitted against an SDR/AE team. The three-person team, selling in person, crushed the inside team.
Shawn says Autoklose nurtures prospects with engagement, content, and value, bringing in the AE to do demos. However, Autoklose plans to hire one SDR to see if it will help the selling process.
Andy recommends making small deals transactional and giving them to the SDRs. Shawn would like to see SDRs receive better training to start learning to close sales.
Why are we accepting a 20% win rate? Flooding the funnel with unqualified leads is a self-defeating behavior. We need to increase the win rate.
If you arbitrarily raise the quota by 10%, do your reps arbitrarily become 10% better at selling? What training are they receiving? Will the market support 10% growth?
Autoklose is focusing on SMB clients for growth and trying to consolidate parts of the selling process. Sales leaders want fewer tools in their tech stack.
When does a company need sales engagement? Shawn points out that instead of hiring an SDR at $60K, SMBs can get a sales engagement tool at 1/12th the price. Sales engagement platforms can do it all except for the demo.

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Can you become future-proof?

There’s a lot of talk these days about the future. After all, it’s election season and we have a lot of scary issues confronting us.

There’s also a lot of talk about the future of sales.

What does the future hold?

Three, five, 10 or 20 years from now, what sort of world will we live in?

No one knows.

Nils Bohr, the Danish Nobel Prize winning physicist, famously said “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.”

In fact, the only thing we can know for certain about the future is that any predictions we make about it now will almost certainly be wrong.

In the face of this uncertainty, I believe that it is more important than ever for sellers to proactively take steps to future proof your mindset, behaviors, habits and skills.

After all, the only thing you can control is yourself. And how you prepare yourself for an unknown future.

So, how can you future proof yourself?

To future proof does not mean to inoculate yourself against the future. There’s no vaccine for that!

No living being is immune to the future. It’s coming for you whether you like it or not.

Consider future-proofing as the opposite of child-proofing.

I remember how, as new parents, we installed child locks on kitchen and bathroom cabinets to keep curious minds from exploring their contents.

Future-proofing is doing the opposite.

It means to take the locks off your mind and indulge your child-like curiosity. It means to constantly learn new things to help you master the ever-changing environments in which you work and live.

Quite simply, to future proof means to learn.

You have to make it your mission to constantly seek out new knowledge to prepare yourself to seize the opportunities the future presents and take advantage of them.

In short, continuous active learning is the only way to prosper and be happy and healthy in the face of uncertainty.

I don’t mean “uncertainty” in a pessimistic manner. It’s just that the future is unknowable.

Personally, I find that to be a hugely exciting proposition.

What are you doing to prepare yourself for a business environment that can’t be predicted?

– Andy

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How sales should work with procurement

Hello from Las Vegas. Looking forward to a full day at the Gartner CSO & Sales Leader Conference.

A couple weeks ago I published episode #724 of Accelerate! with my guest, Jens Henschel.

It’s received a lot of attention. If you haven’t listened to it yet, today would be a good time.

Jens is a partner at Fivis.io. He’s a leading procurement expert. His London-based consulting firm works with major enterprises to help them transition their procurement organizations into a more strategic role within their companies.

Fivis has also been asked by clients to teach their sales organizations how to work more effectively with procurement in order to close more deals.

There are lots of different points of view about how sellers should work with procurement. Some advocate that sellers should avoid procurement at all costs. Others believe you should tell your buyer to go pound sand when they insist that you have to work with their procurement team. There are lots of different opinions about this. What you do is up to you.

All I can say is I’ve been in sales longer than 99.9% of you and I’ve never lost a deal due to interference from procurement. In fact, I’ve had procurement help me win deals by steering me to invisible stakeholders that were pulling strings from the sidelines.

Even so, we all have our procurement stories. Have there been some procurement-induced headaches along the way? Sure! Were some of those headaches self-inflicted? You bet.

However, as you’ll learn when you listen to my conversation with Jens, there is a serious movement afoot to transform procurement. And to align its incentives and KPIs to the strategic objectives of the company.

Check out the episode here. It may change how you view how to work with procurement.

Andy

 

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My customers taught me how to sell

I’m winging my way to Las Vegas today for the Gartner CSO & Sales Leader Conference. There’s always a lot of interesting research on sales presented at the conference. I’ll share the highlights of what I learn in an upcoming email.

If you’re going to be at the conference, let me know. I’d look forward to meeting you.

Most of what I know about sales I learned from my customers.

I endured four months of formal sales training in just the first few years of my career.

I couldn’t forget it fast enough. Which is what you should do too.

You see, once you start talking to prospects, the primary question they want you to answer is “Why you?”

Why should I buy from you (the person) not you (the company.)

Your answer directly speaks to your ability to connect, be authentic, be curious, create an initial rapport, build credibility and develop a trust-based relationship.

I didn’t learn those essential human sales skills from company-issued sales training. Nope, that was designed for the benefit of my employer; to teach me how to sell their products and services.

Instead, I learned by putting myself into as many sales situations as I could. And asking a ton of questions.

And, if I was having trouble with any aspect of my selling, whether it was connecting on a personal level or just running into roadblocks and getting nowhere with an account, then I’d ask the buyer what they thought I could have done differently to achieve a different outcome.

A lot of the time they wouldn’t answer. But, on those occasions I did get feedback, it was priceless.

It’s in those moments when you’ll really learn how to sell.

Andy

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Quick announcement…

Heads up: There are sales “experts” that will advise you to hold back on talking about price until you’ve created the context for your pricing discussion. That’s bad advice.

***

Quick email this morning to announce the release of the latest episode of Accelerate! The Sales Podcast of Record.

Today on Episode 726 my guest is Bill Wilson, CEO of SalesRight.

Our conversation is all about the importance of transparency in sales. In particular, transparency about your pricing.

I’m always amused by sellers that are afraid, or run away from, the pricing discussion with prospects. There are sales “experts” that will advise you to hold back on talking about price until you’ve created the context for your pricing discussion. That’s bad advice.

As Bill shares in our conversation, you’re much better off putting pricing on the table early.

I was mentored early in my career by a manager who believed just the opposite. He was, far and away, the best salesperson I’ve ever known. And his philosophy was to “quote early and often.” It’s an effective method to jump start the conversation with your buyer about outcomes and value.

Bill also shares some valuable strategies for how to use the pricing discussion as a tool to shift the conversation away from “discounts” to margin-protecting “trade-offs.”

All this and much more.

If you haven’t already subscribed to Accelerate! you can do that here.

5-Step Power Qualification

Qualification is an ongoing multi-step process that truly doesn’t end until your buyer signs the order.

In The Sales House, members have access to my course on the 5-step qualification process I’ve used throughout my career to close hundreds of millions of dollars in orders.

It’s called 5-Step Power Qualification. (Yes, I know, it’s a very catchy name…)

Do you know that you don’t have a qualified buyer if they haven’t completed their internal financial justification on the outcomes they hope to achieve with your product? How you get to that point is the key to this process.

Join us to learn how to inject higher quality buyers into your pipeline. This will enable you to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your selling.

You’ll eliminate the wasted time and high opportunity costs the come from selling to unqualified prospects.

And, you’ll amp up your close rate.

Get started today!

– Andy

 

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