Selling Power Blog

3 Skills That Drive Successful Sales Management

Today's blog post is by Michelle Vazzana, Cofounder and Chief Strategy Officer at VantagePoint.

We often get asked an important question, “What are the most important skills I need to consider when training my sales managers?” which requires a thoughtful, evidence-based response. So, what does the evidence say about the most important sales management skills? Can we really distill it down to just three? Well, not really, but three is a great place to start.

Skill #1: Maniacal prioritization of effort

Before a sales manager can behave most effectively, they must first determine what actions to take and why. The best sales managers consider the most important effort required of their salespeople to prioritize their efforts

When it comes to maniacal prioritization, the first decision successful sales managers make is to determine the most high-impact things they want their salespeople to be doing, grounded in organizational goals and KPIs. The most successful sales managers create clarity of task for their sellers by identifying which activities are most critical for sellers to execute consistently well. In fact, this clarity of task is the most important contributor to seller motivation, ensuring that salespeople see the link between sales effort and desired outcomes. The most successful sales managers are agile, adjusting sales and manager activities to meet changing market and organizational realities.

The second decision the most successful sales managers make is how they can best support the desired sales execution. They orient their coaching to align directly with the planning and execution of the highest impact salesperson activities. In fact, our research shows that the most successful sales managers coach less frequently, for longer durations, and cover fewer topics during their one-on-one coaching sessions.

Skill #2: Orienting coaching effort toward deals versus forecasts

One of the most formal processes within sales organizations is the sales forecast. It happens at a consistent cadence and receives an inordinate amount of attention from senior sales leadership. The rhythm of sales forecasting, while necessary, has some unintended negative effects on sales coaching. Here’s why.

Forecasts involve scrubbing the pipeline, assessing deal health, and determining likelihood of close. This effort is useful and necessary to run the business. The problem occurs because the act of forecasting is oriented toward late-stage deals. The goal of the forecast is to determine how many deals will close and when. It does not necessarily improve deal win rates or improve pipeline health.

When bad or unwinnable deals enter the pipeline, they tend to languish, inflating the size of the pipeline and driving down win rates. Since forecasting isn’t going away any time soon, how can sales managers re-orient some portion of their effort to coach deals in ways that improve pipeline health and win rates? By getting involved early.

Skill #3: Get involved early

In our research of thousands of sales managers, published in our most recent book Crushing Quota, it is very clear that the most successful sales managers focus coaching efforts on the early stages of deals. Sales managers can have the biggest impact on deal trajectory when their coaching is oriented toward helping sellers qualify and shape deals from the start. Managers who wait until deals are shaped and the buyers are deciding between competing alternatives have less impact.

Early-stage deal coaching doesn’t happen by chance. It isn’t urgent. It often isn’t formally scheduled. Orienting coaching effort toward the early stages of deals doesn’t take more time or more effort. It just involves repurposing effort that managers are already expending. We worked with managers at GE to repurpose two hours per month of late-stage deal scrubbing toward early-stage deal qualification. At the 18-month point close rates had risen from 25% of forecasted deals to 54% of forecasted deals.

The case at GE was not an isolated finding. When we see managers formalize even small amounts of effort toward early-stage deal qualification, win rates improve, deals close faster, and less negotiation and haggling are necessary. Managers that coach in this way get 35% more of their sales teams to quota.

How to choose the best sales management training

How do these three critical sales management skills impact your choice of sales management training? Well, when it comes to training your sales managers, make sure you select training that goes deep on the few critical skills that matter most. Many sales management training programs are very broad, covering a wide variety of topics, but don’t explore any given topic adequately.

To learn more about sales management training that drives results, visit www.VantagePointPerformance.com and check out our flagship programs the Sales Management Code™ and the Pipeline Coaching Code™.  

The Key to Key Accounts

This post was contributed by Gartner for Sales Leaders

According to an August/September 2021 Gartner survey, 95% of chief sales officers (CSOs) expect a higher growth rate from their organization’s key accounts; however, 58% of B2B sales organizations report they miss achieving quota for key accounts. Of the 69 CSOs surveyed, 85% are prioritizing increased returns on key accounts in 2022. 

With this level of attention and investment, CSOs must first focus on defining (and setting strategy around) what key accounts mean to their organization. 

“Our research showed 46% of B2B sales organizations have rebuilt their key account programs twice or more in the past seven years due to underperformance,” said Brent Adamson, vice president in the Gartner Sales practice. “This is a trend we’ve seen for nearly 15 years now. This ‘rinse and repeat’ approach to rebuilding key account programs has yet to generate any kind of systemic, predictable improvement.”

“Instead of a sales-centric view, sales organizations need to start focusing on what key accounts mean to their broader organization, and determine what they are willing to invest – with time, resources, and finances – to maintain and grow those accounts,” said Robert Blaisdell, senior director analyst in the Gartner Sales practice. 

Gartner research reveals four key areas CSOs and their teams should focus on for key account program success:

1. Define what a “key account” means to your organization: CSOs and their teams should establish enterprise-driven key account criteria to identify customers with true growth potential. Focus on being able to articulate the organization’s vision for managing key accounts – the value these accounts bring to the organization and the value the organization brings to them – in a programmatic, enterprise-driven way. The largest accounts are not always the best candidates for key accounts. In fact, Gartner research shows that customers elevated to “key account” status specifically because of their large spend are 51% less likely to increase that spend over time. 
2. Secure organizational alignment on key account support: Sales leaders must pursue a formal, iterative approach with cross-silo stakeholders to deliver on “enterprise” key accounts. Leading sales organizations assemble early a cross-functional team to redefine key account criteria, identify the resources available, and make final selection of the key accounts. According to Gartner research, key account managers who report a high degree of cross-functional collaboration in their organization see, on average, three times higher levels of spend from their key customers.  
3. Formalize the boundaries of key account partnerships collaboratively with customers: Sales teams should focus on engaging in bilateral discussions with each key account customer to jointly calibrate partnership potential and organizational compatibility. One leading B2B sales organization did this by right-sizing their partnership investments based on proactive supplier-customer compatibility assessments. 
4. Avoid overinvesting in underperforming key accounts: Sales organizations must systematically monitor the health of key account relationships and proactively re-tier those accounts for mutual value. Implementing a performance-based key account re-tiering strategy helps the organization stay ahead of issues that erode key account profitability and growth potential.  

Gartner for Sales Leaders provides heads of sales and their teams with the insights, advice, and tools they need to address mission-critical priorities amid mounting pressures to drive growth through new and existing customers. To learn more, visit gartner.com.

The #1 Way to Find Top Producing Salespeople

Today’s post is by Andy Miller, CEO of Big Swift Kick, a sales consulting and performance firm that helps companies drive more deals. He is a Selling Power Top Consultant and Vistage top 50 speaker.

 

As you have probably noticed, the last 12 months have been a time of brutal competition for top sales talent. To win this competition, you must be strategic with your recruiting efforts. 

If you’re looking for the best candidates, don’t get lost in the usual listing services. There are – literally – hundreds of places where you can find the candidates you want.

We informally surveyed 200 sales managers and asked them where they found their best sales talent. Here is a rank order list of the best sources they reported:

• Referred to us (externally or internally) (47%)
• Worked for a competitor (14%)
• Responded to online ad (12%)
• Contacted directly by the sales candidate (9%)
• Came from internal promotion (4%)
• Worked for a supplier/service provider (3%)
• Recruited from a university (3%)
• Came from a customer (1%)

Notice the survey. The number one source of candidates is referrals at 47%. Analysis of 14 million job applicants by SilkRoad found similar results with 52% of hires coming from referrals and internal sources. 

Your sales team and other employees are a great resource for locating new sales talent. Create a robust sales-candidate referral program and offer incentives for referrals and for ultimate hires. Ask employees to talk about the opening on their social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) To supercharge your candidate referral pipeline, you can also: 

• Ask new employees for referrals during the onboarding process.
• Create a contest for employees to compete for the most referrals.
• Allow non-employees to refer candidates (clients, vendors, past employees, etc.).

Offer a finder’s fee but spread it out over time. For example: $50 for every applicant, $100 for every qualified short phone interview, $250 for each 1-hour video interview, $500 upon hiring, and $1000 after they pass the probation period or reach a specific objective.

You can also promote your job opening where your target applicants hang out online. Consider appropriate professional associations, meet-up groups, LinkedIn groups, Facebook communities, and other digital resources. We’re big fans of veteran resources—especially wounded warrior programs. 

In today’s market, “always be recruiting” to continuously attract top sales talent. Keep in mind:

• Sales jobs have some of the highest churn rates of any position. 
• With the “great resignation” happening in the United States and Europe, plan on creating a bench of potential hires.
• Keep any great potential hires in your orbit. Add them to your social networks. Invite them to events. Send out email announcements to your potential list when you have openings.
• Pay attention to your online reputation on sites like Glassdoor, because sales candidates will check you out before applying for a position. 

We had a client with two strong candidates both pull out late in the recruiting process because of some new complaints on Glassdoor. The client was going through some growing pains and didn’t keep an eye out for disgruntled employees. If they had, they could have preempted the negative postings or set proper expectations during the interview about the company’s growth and frustration. 

The bottom line is that finding top salespeople takes work. Be strategic in your efforts, always be recruiting, and leverage referrals as your best source! 

For more information on how to hire top performing salespeople click here to get your free Guide to Hiring Salespeople. If you want more secrets to hiring top performing salespeople that haven’t made it to the business world, order my book “The Science of Hiring Quota Busting Sales Teams”. It’s based upon 85 years of research by industrial psychologists and the data analytics of 2.1 million sales people.

The New Discovery

Today's blog post is by Skip Miller, President of M3 Learning.

 

 

With travel still in limbo, sales meetings still being done virtually, and demo-to-close ratios dropping to all-time lows, it’s not surprising that sales teams are finally looking at what happens in the discovery step of a sale. 

Some companies are changing their discovery process and getting some remarkable results. Here’s what they’re doing.

Start with bite-sized meetings 

The old way, you had to travel to the prospect in person, you had an hour, and you were under pressure to make the most of it. The goal of discovery used to be: 

• Why buy anything? 
• Why us? 
• Why now? 

It all centered on finding out if they had a need for your stuff, and if you had a solution to fit. 

That’s why when you were done, your goal was to understand what your solution was, how much it was going to cost, and when you were going to close.

It wasn’t close to perfect, but it’s what happened, since you didn’t really want to make another trip. 

With virtual meetings, the rules have changed. You have 30 minutes, max (Why do you think TED talks are 18 minutes?). You need to break up discovery into bite-sized chunks, and it’s usually now multiple meetings instead of one.  

Of course, since they are virtual, that’s not a problem, and if the customer agrees to these, you get a sense of how qualified they are too.

Not only does this take less overall time, but you have a fully engaged client, who feels heard, and you are working on potential options that could fit their budgets. 

Prepare with customer chair questions

Instead of presenting or giving a demo in the discovery meeting, you now need to think like the customer. What are they thinking about that you don’t know?

• What is causing them to make a change? Not what’s causing them to look at you.
• What is the size of the problem? 
• What are the outcomes they are looking for? 
• What happens if they don’t make a change? 
• When did they want to start the change that you can be a part of? 

Most of the first discovery step should be about them and what they are trying to do. At the end, they should feel heard, and you should feel good about setting up the next step. It’s not about you yet. You do not want to be a solution hunting for a problem. 

Understand dual value propositions 

There are always two value propositions. The executive one, which we call above the line (ATL), and the person/team that will be using what you are selling, which we call the below the line (BTL) buyer.  

That would be typically a mix of ATL and BTL buyers, and that’s a recipe for disaster. 

Next steps

With this new discovery process in mind, it allows your next steps (demo, trial, POC) to be validation, rather than education. The prospect can take ownership of the solutions being discussed, rather than just understand what you are saying, but have no clue what’s in it for them. 

This will shorten your sales process, ensure you have a qualified prospect, and get to a decision quicker.

Summary 

By staying with the old way of discovery and not adapting to virtual selling and buying, you will be trying to fit that square peg into that round hole. Adapt to what the buyer is doing, not your old successful habits, and you’ll see a remarkable uptick in your sales. 

“Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative.” – H. G. Wells 

Skip Miller is the author of seven sales and sales management books including Selling Above and Below the Line. You can reach him at [email protected], or go to his website at M3Learning.com. 

2022 Outlook: An Old School Selling Model Becomes Cutting Edge

Today's blog post is by Mark Boundy, CEO of Boundy Consulting. 

 

 

In 2022, some organizations will realize they’re automating the wrong thing: a sales model that isn’t how their customers would like to engage. 

Research (CSO Insights, 2018 and Sales Mastery, 2021) shows that while some customers are fine with an optimized sales process with dedicated cold-caller/appointment setters, demo specialists, and closers, they also found that some customers want much more. Some welcome expert “trusted advisor” sellers. 

The near-universal buying process has variations 

Let’s reacquaint ourselves with customer behavior. The customer journey is the same it’s always been, but has two main variations, one of which is being called “the new way customers buy”. To understand each option, take a moment to study the persistent buying process: 

When a customer knows all about what they’re buying 

When a customer is repeating a familiar purchase, the first step above seems like it’s shortened or even eliminated entirely. We’ve heard the research: Many buyers self-inform before engaging with vendor salespeople, who simply need to respond efficiently to an already-underway buying process.  

This isn’t actually an abandonment of the persistent process; the customer is simply repurposing some of last time’s decision, and to outsiders, it just looks like the truncated diagram above.    

Here’s the twist: When salespeople don’t add value, customers commonly self-inform elsewhere. When buyers perceive sufficient information availability (and scarcity of good sellers) they conduct the beginning of their process in stealth mode: it still happens, just without your salespeople allowed access. 

Many in the “sales industrial complex” tell us that this shortened buying decision model is the new normal. They sell us tools to automate “quickly getting in line with self-directed buyers to win our share of business”. We’ve all been pitched with a highly automated sales model for customers who are well informed and highly confident in their ability to make a decision.

The “divide and optimize” model divides selling into discrete steps, positions specialist jobs in each portion of the selling process, and optimizes automation and performance within each step. Here’s the thing: This “divide and optimize” model works great for well informed customers. That isn’t all customers, though, is it? What if it’s not yours? 

For many buyers, what’s old is new again

The CSO Insights and Sales Mastery research shows that many customers consult much earlier in the buying process if the decision is: 

• New to me or my company 
• Risky to me or my company 

Under these conditions, the customer slows down, and their process looks like the full-length persistent process—that is, fully front-weighted.  

They are willing to consult with anyone who rises to the level of trusted expert. They don’t care whether that’s your salespeople or someone else—they just want value added to their decision process. Whoever comes in and establishes their worth wins a “trusted expert” seat at the customer’s conference table. If they elevate your seller into that seat, the sales model will look much different than the divide and optimize model:  

Customers willing to engage a trusted advisor won’t settle for script-reading cold-callers. In fact, most outreach specialists generally provide ample proof that your company isn’t the one who deserves a trusted advisor seat at the table. Maybe a competitor has salespeople who pass the test. 

Choose wisely in 2022 

Before you go into 2022 with a poor-fitting sales model, figure out where your offer’s buying decision lies on a customer’s “willingness to engage” scale. If your customers need a “trusted advisor” selling model, you may need to invest in your people, not your tech stack.  

When you do, you’ll find that it improves your sales, your pricing integrity—and profits— informs better marketing, and sharpens your product strategy. I’m happy to help you figure out how to do it in your world, using your language. 

To your success!

Get access to a tool that will help you navigate the “willingness to engage” scale. It only takes a few minutes to complete. Email me for a copy. If you don’t want to reach out, you can get started by reading my book, Radical Value: How to Take Your Company to the Next Level Through Radical Customer Centricity.

How Top-Performing Sales Managers Drive Results

Today's post is by Michelle Vazzana, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, VantagePoint Performance.

 

All sales managers want to get it right.  Everyone wants a definitive solution. The bad news is it doesn’t exist. The good news is that top-performing sales managers aren’t magical. They are focused in ways their lower-performing peers are not. 

What do focus and simplicity have in common? The best sales managers know they can’t do everything. In fact, time can be a sales manager’s biggest enemy if not harnessed effectively. Research from the 2012 Thought Leadership on the Sales Profession Conference indicates that the average sales manager only spends about 32% of their time managing their team. How that 32% of time is used makes all the difference.

The three most important questions 

The research published in our books, Cracking the Sales Management Code and Crushing Quota, show that sales managers cannot manage outcomes, only the activities that lead to those outcomes. But which activities should they manage, and how is that different from measuring activities? How does this relate to coaching? Top-performing sales managers use a specific framework to focus their efforts. They answer three critical questions to isolate the highest impact efforts:

• What should my salespeople be doing?  
• What should I as their sales manager be doing to best enable and equip my salespeople to succeed? 
• How do I know if it is working?  

What should my salespeople be doing? 

This is the foundation for laser-focused sales management. Top-performing managers are diligent about tying the activities they expect their salespeople to execute to the sales objectives or KPIs that matter. Those sales KPIs are meaningfully connected to the business results the sellers are held accountable to achieve. 

Once these high-impact activities are identified, top-performing sales managers ensure that tasks are clear for their salespeople, implementing standards that remove ambiguity. The most typical standards involve quantitative expectations for activity execution. Make 10 sales calls per day. Deliver 20 proposals per quarter. This is the easiest part of activity management, but it is not the most important part. The critical standards high-performing managers provide are qualitative. They clarify what “good” looks like and over-communicate the vital elements of effective execution for the activities that matter most. 

This diligence enables sales managers to tackle the next question: How can I enable my sellers to succeed? What is my role? 

How can I enable my salespeople? 

Creating clarity of task for salespeople is critical, but only the first step. Top-performing sales managers apply the same laser focus to their own efforts, ensuring that the effort applied will lead to results. Of all the things a sales manager could coach, which ones should they coach? The high-impact activities. Managers can’t and shouldn’t attempt to coach every sales activity. 

Top-performing sales managers make time for what matters most and pay far less attention to everything else. In fact, our research indicates that many ingrained beliefs about effective sales coaching are just plain wrong.  

Top-performing sales managers don’t coach their salespeople more frequently or spend more time in the field. Once the highest impact activities are identified, top-performing sales managers determine how frequently each individual salesperson should be coached and the most effective content of those coaching conversations.  

So, if once per month is sufficient, they don’t coach an activity every two weeks. This goes against conventional thinking for over-achievers who want to set “stretch” goals. More is not always better, certainly as it pertains to effective and realistic sales coaching. Identifying the most important sales activities to coach and coaching them consistently ensures that effort is applied in the right amount and in the right way. The next thing top-performer sales managers do is determine which needles need to move and by how much to achieve the team’s goals. 

How do I know if it is working? 

This last critical question forms the final element of an effective sales management framework. It replicates how top-performing managers simplify their coaching tasks and get more of their salespeople to quota; 35% more as compared to their lower-performing peers, according to Crushing Quota. When they’ve done the heavy lifting of making direct connections between business results–sales objectives/KPIs–and high-impact activities, the path to progress becomes clear. These managers don’t wait until sellers are far behind quota to take action. They monitor the sales KPIs on a regular basis to ensure that progress is being made, and they take needed action when it isn’t. 

They look at things like win rates, time in each deal stage, and level of opportunity qualification. They look at the contents and progress of their seller’s pipelines, and coach accordingly. This is how top-performing sales managers use data. If the right activities are being executed in the right way, the right needles should be moving. If they’re not, adjustments are made. 

To learn more about coaching practices of high-performing managers, check out our most recent book Crushing Quota: Proven Sales Coaching Practices for Breakthrough Performance on Amazon. Download the first two chapters of Crushing Quota. 

Follow VantagePoint On LinkedIn 

Michelle Vazzana is the Chief Strategy Officer and Co-founder of VantagePoint Performance, the leading global sales effectiveness firm. She is the author of Crushing Quota: Proven Sales Coaching Tactics for Breakthrough Performance and co-author of Cracking the Sales Management Code: The Secrets to Measuring and Managing Sales Performance.

 

How (and Why) to Write a Meeting Summary

Today's blog post is by John E. Flannery, President of Flannery Sales Systems.

 

Ideally, when you’re involved in a sales call, you will get into conversations with buyers that offer opportunities to discuss many things, including their primary business objectives (PBOs), challenges they face, and the capabilities your organization offers to help them. However, in many circumstances, you won’t be able to cover all parts of the “discovery map” in one call, as time may have been limited, you were missing a key stakeholder, or you had to focus the agenda on one area for longer than anticipated. While running out of time in the first meeting might seem like a negative, it can actually create an opening for you to keep the sales process active and moving forward.

If after that initial call you think there’s an opportunity to re-engage the prospect at a future date—such as delivering a capabilities presentation or speaking to another key decision-maker—you’ll need to be able to clearly and concisely communicate what was discussed in the first meeting. This is where a meeting summary comes in. In this post, we’ll explore the key components of a meeting summary and how to leverage it as a tool in the sales process.

Setting the stage for the summary 

Before you end a face-to-face meeting or call with any of the sales leaders you are engaging with, let them know that you plan to send them a summary of your discussion. Ask for their feedback on the summary as well as a time to meet to discuss next steps. This not only lets them know to expect the summary, but it also engages them by asking for their input and paves the way for a follow-up meeting.  

How to write your meeting summary 

A typical outline for a meeting summary includes the following components although this should be determined primarily by how much information you learned during the first meeting. The summary should include only the parts covered in your initial meeting and leave the open items as next steps. 

• Salutation 
• Expression of gratitude for their time on the initial call
• Identification of primary business objectives 
• Challenges they are facing in reaching the objective and the impact of those challenges (financial and others) 
• Capabilities that would address the challenges (meaning your solutions or offerings) and the value that the capabilities would provide 
• The timeline for the implementation of a solution 
• Other key players who would need to be involved 
• The budget that has been established for the project 
• A clear request to schedule the next meeting  
• A request that the recipient respond in writing to the meeting summary 

Make it a habit to follow up after each important sales call or meeting with a meeting summary. It will let your prospects know that you clearly understand their needs—or clarify if you don’t—and it will keep the sales momentum going. If you’re concerned that writing these summaries after each meeting will be time-consuming, dedicate some time to creating several different templates (such as meeting type, client industry, etc.) with a standard format and content to repurpose for similar meeting summaries for other clients.   

Want to learn more about meeting summaries and how sales process and training can drive predictable revenue? Schedule a 15 -minute free conversation here. To learn more about Flannery Sales Systems, visit our website at drive-revenue.com.

Social Media Trends That Will Dominate 2022

Today's post is by Michele Iapicco, the CEO and market strategist for Simplified Media Agency, a social media marketing and public relations agency. 

 

Social media trends come and go like the wind. With changes to platforms, algorithms, and competition, being on top of what’s hot right now can make all the difference in the world. That’s why, if you want to stay relevant, it’s so important to stay informed about the latest social media trends.

We did the research so you don’t have to. Here are some of the most important social media trends that will dominate 2022.

1) TikTok Isn’t Just Dancing

TikTok will become the most important social network for marketing. It’s the first non-Facebook app to reach 3 billion global downloads, which is inevitably changing the face of social media. 

So why do we think TikTok will dominate over other social networks? According to a recent report by Pathmatics, people watch 1.2 billion videos per day on TikTok alone, and overall watch more than 3 billion videos daily across all platforms.

Focus on trending sounds, repurposing videos from other platforms such as Instagram Reels and Pinterest, and make sure to drive your audience to your other platforms or a landing page. Most importantly, remember that TikTok users value authenticity, valuable information, and a humanized brand.

2) Go Live!

Real-time engagement is everything in social media, which means going live will continue to be one of the biggest trends in 2022. Live video gives you an opportunity to interact with users – and show off your personality – in a way that simply isn’t possible otherwise. Facebook Live has become so popular it can actually drive greater engagement than a paid promotion on Facebook, according to Sprout Social.

Try going live on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok!

3) Collaborate with Content Creators

If you’re looking for someone who knows how to use social media for business better than anyone else, look to influencers or content creators.

They are successful at building engaged audiences and leveraging their account to collaborate with brands in mutually beneficial partnerships. Gain access to their audience to promote your brand. Just be aware there is typically a fee involved. 

A successful brand-building strategy has been leveraging popular accounts – and this strategy isn’t slowing down.

4) Humanize Your Brand

Social media has become an essential part of our lives, but with it has come a serious loss of humanity. While we’re all glued to our feeds and replying to DMs, we’ve lost some real-life human connection. 

One way brands can capitalize on social media without getting lost in social-media mode is by infusing their accounts with personality and fun! 

Start off 2022 by reconnecting with your audience and injecting some human flair into your campaigns. Focus on building relationships and deliver your brand’s messaging in a genuine way to stand out from your competitors.

5) Enter the Metaverse

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are two of 2021’s fastest-growing trends, and we predict they will completely change social media in the next few years.

Get ready for immersive storytelling and experiences. This isn’t new. Voice assistants like Alexa and Siri have already been changing how we access information. Games like Roblox and Fortnite each have their own metaverse where the game takes place. Get creative with your marketing and start developing ways to integrate innovative products and immersive experiences into your client journey and product offering. 

In terms of social media trends, we’re in for a wild ride. As we enter 2022, there are more and more ways to connect with your target audience online. Gone are the days when companies could be complacent about their presence on social media. Some experts have predicted that, for many businesses, social media will only continue to become more critical. But most importantly, social media should be a fun way to connect and show your brand’s personality!

Rethinking Sales When Buying Changes

Today's post is by Frank Cespedes, a Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Frank serves on Boards of companies, has published in numerous publications, and is the author of six books including Sales Management That Works: How to Sell in a World That Never Stops Changing (Harvard Business Review Press, 2021). 

 

The most important thing about selling is buying. Rather than moving sequentially through a funnel, customers are now online and offline multiple times in their buying journeys. But in doing research for a new book, I found that much current conventional wisdom about the impact on selling of ecommerce, online media, and big data is not supported by facts. It is not and unlikely to be a digital-eats-physical selling world. But buying changes do affect core business-development requirements. For example: 

Hiring

Average turnover in sales across industries is typically 20-30% annually, meaning that at many companies the equivalent of the entire sales force must be hired and onboarded every 3-5 years. Unlike most other business functions, moreover, there is no established degree or educational priors for sales positions, which vary greatly depending on the product or service sold.  

Sales hiring has always been difficult; it’s getting tougher as data-analytics reshape needed competencies; and common hiring practices make a tough job needlessly tougher. But you can improve hiring by augmenting interviews with new tools, deployment practices, and job trials.   

Training  

Companies spend 20% more per capita on sales training than in any other function, but the ROI is disappointing. There are systemic reasons why most sales training is ineffective, and practical steps to improve your team’s skills. Sales training should be a process, not an event, so avoid over-reliance on classroom training. Reps pay attention to and absorb information when they most need it: in preparing for or during sales calls, not at a seminar weeks before or after those calls. So use wisely new just-in-time learning tools.  

Research also shows that reps learn most from the best of their peers, picking up lessons about how to discuss the product’s relevant business outcomes, ask questions, and respond to price objections. Accelerate this learning with new technologies, and provide more impactful training in the flow of work. 

Pricing

In most companies, the sales force frames price and the value proposition with prospects. In linking price and value, recognize that digital technology and omnichannel buying are changing the relevant unit(s) of value and purchasing criteria in many categories. For example, when software firms move from selling up-front product price to subscription SaaS models, that often means moving from the customer’s capital budget to an expense item in quarterly operating budgets, with big differences in who buys, how, and the sales tasks. 

In an information-rich world, responses to price can change quickly and value-pricing approaches (versus standard cost-plus approaches) become more available. Hence, price testing should be an ongoing part of effective business development. But there is much inertia in this area, even as new tools allow for quick testing of behavioral reactions to different prices.    

Leadership

In the past 20 years, more C-suite executives than ever have made it there without prior prolonged customer-contact experience in their careers. This affects a core leadership task: developing and implementing a market-relevant strategy. Conversely, there is no such thing as effective selling if it’s not linked to your firm’s strategic objectives. This has implications for sales models and careers, and what sales managers can do to close the gap between strategy and sales in their firms. 

It’s not the responsibility of the market to adapt to your sales model. It’s your responsibility to adapt to the market, and the pandemic raises the stakes for getting these matters right by separating signal from noise.

Redefining B2B Selling in the Post-COVID World

Today's post is by Michelle Vazzana, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, VantagePoint Performance.

 

According to Accenture, the new world of B2B selling requires several imperatives to survive and thrive. The first of these imperatives is to “rediscover your customer.” In this blog, we’ll explore the prevailing theme that historical customer insights are irrelevant, and how to gain real insights into what your customers want now. 

Historical customer insights are irrelevant 

This idea of disregarding historical customer insights is a scary one. Sales and marketing leaders and salespeople have been doing this for their entire careers. Now we’re told “throw it out.” Well, you might ask, “What do we do in lieu of historical insights? How do we get our arms wrapped around the ‘now’?” 

As Accenture suggests, the leaders of tomorrow are modifying their organizations’ sales priorities and are using predictive analytics and AI engines to derive key customer insights. But how? Which AI engines and what data are being used? We all want insights and are becoming increasingly reliant on data, but are there rich sources of data that we’re missing? Are the best, most useful insights closer than we think? 

There is gold to be mined 

We offer a resounding “yes” to that question. Yes, there are rich sources of data that lead to incredibly precise insights: They are the very people that make up your sales force. Your salespeople. They are the ones interacting with your customers. They are the ones experiencing the changes that take place over time. There is gold to be mined in the heads of your salespeople; you just have to find a way to get at the information so that you can analyze it and use it to make better decisions. 

Situational awareness is the key 

Accenture suggests that we need to equip our sellers with situational awareness, enabling them to better respond to changing customer conditions. Organizations can only do this with a mechanism that extracts vital customer behavior details out of the minds of their sellers and uses that information to develop recent, relevant insights to changing customer behavior. 

The best, most accurate way to accomplish this is by examining deal-level data—real details related to real deals your sellers are pursuing. So, do we just extract the information from our CRM? Well, to say that CRM data has questionable hygiene is an understatement. This is a problem that organizations have been struggling with since the introduction of CRM. Sellers are notorious for putting the minimum amount of deal level information into their CRM when they log their opportunities. It may be getting better over time, but it is still falling far short of adequate. With highly questionable CRM hygiene, where do organizations go to mine the data? To their sellers. 

The best path to customer insights 

To uncover meaningful customer insights, you must develop a reliable way to gather very detailed deal-level customer information. You need a way to pull information out of your seller’s heads that favors fact over opinion, allowing you access to details that can be used to produce insights. This would give you a reliable way to determine the best sales approach to lead to a win in each buying situation. And it is quicker, easier, and less expensive than you think. 

Buying factors and buyer preferences 

Our research has revealed that there are over 25 buying factors that influence buyer behavior. That’s a lot to consider. What organizations need is a way to narrow the field and identify what matters most. That is where AI and machine learning come into play. By gathering seller-provided forensic information of won and lost deals, machine learning can be used to spot patterns in buying factors and how those factors influence unique buying situations. Sellers have very detailed information in their heads about deals they’ve pursued. Getting that information out of their heads and into a database is the first start. 

 

If you are interested in further reading about buying factors and buying situations, read our “How to Build an Agile Sales Force” white paper. Follow VantagePoint Performance on LinkedIn.