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Selling in a Slow Economy - TV Interview with Jeremy Miller

Entrepreneurs know a recession is coming long before the pundits start talking about it. They feel it in their wallets. They see it in the sales funnels. They see it in their customers' behavior.

A recession does not have to be crippling. It is a time of innovation and growth. While your competitors are struggling use this as an opportunity to make real inroads with your customers. By improving your sales, marketing and customer experiences you can emerge from this recession as the market leader.

Jeremy Miller of LEAPJob speaks on TV about how companies can stand out in a slowing economy. View the TV interview:

Jeremy Miller is a Partner with LEAPJob, a sales recruiting firm in Toronto, Canada. LEAPJob recruits sales professionals and sales leaders for many of Canada's most recognized companies. You can reach Jeremy at www.LEAPJob.com

Googlizing Sales: The Web is changing the way we sell

Google has changed sales. Why? Access to information. Think about it. When did you get highspeed internet in your home? 2001? 2002? Prior to highspeed the internet was a powerful tool, but it wasn't fully embraced at all levels of our society. A site like YouTube could not have existed pre-highspeed. Could you imagine downloading a YouTube video clip on dial-up? With this new found speed, consumers and businesses have flocked to the Web as their primary source of information – regardless of the topic.

Access to information has had a profound impact on selling. The most obvious change has been on prospecting. Sure you can still cold call, but guess what your customers are doing? Their Googling to find products and services they want to buy. Mr. Customer is not waiting by his phone hoping you will call. He is on Google looking for an answer to his challenge. He will peck away at sites until one catches his eye. And if all the stars align he will call that company and request more information. If you had made a cold call at the exact same time he was searching for an answer you would probably get the lead, but chances are you didn't. Wouldn't it be much nicer to have the corporate website he found, and decided to call?

Having a website is only a minimum requirement. What is more important is being in the path of your customer's searches. The car companies are very astute in this arena. Not only do they have incredible websites for consumers to evaluate their cars, they also have a whole industry talking about them. You can read car reviews on Edmunds, watch videos on YouTube, read road tests on Car & Driver and read thousands of owner comments in the blogosphere. If you Google “BMW 5” you will find a plethora of information on the BMW 5-series in seconds. Most people buying cars today know exactly what they want and where they will buy it long before they ever speak to a sales person.

When a customer does find your website and is motivated to call, they are already extremely well educated. This means the window of opportunity to influence the buying decision is very short. You have to be on your A game when you're dealing with an internet lead. Why? Quite often the customer knows as much or more about the product as you do. When the customer does make the call they have an agenda. They have specific questions. They are looking for a buying experience that matches their online experience. Anything less and they will find another solution online – it's just that easy for them.

The internet is changing sales at an alarming pace. Google has been in use since 2000. Facebook was launched in 2004, and YouTube launched in mid-2005. Look how quickly these sites have permeated our internet usage and become tools in our day-to-day shopping habits. As sales people we need to adapt quickly to how the Web is influencing our customers' buying decisions.

Does your company have an internet strategy for attracting, engaging and converting searchers into leads? If not, get working on it. This should be a top priority in every company. The companies with the best web experience and the most internet chatter will fair best. In my organization, LEAPJob, we attract two new customers per week simply from our website. We haven't cold called for new business since 2005. This is money at your doorstep. Embrace it.

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Succession in Family Business: TV Interview with Jeremy Miller

Over 75% of family business leaders will retire in the next 15 years. Succession is critical for the growth and development of family business. Jeremy Miller, a Partner with LEAPJob, discusses his experiences in his family business and how to prepare for succession. View the TV interview:

Gas Prices Spike | Sales People Take Action

Gas prices are soaring! They have gone up 20% since January 2008 and 30% since June 2007. The rapid rise at the pumps is directly impacting sales people and their wallets.

In June 2008, LEAPJob polled 700 sales people on the impact of rising fuel prices. The results have been striking. Companies' car expense plans are out of date, and sales people are responding. We have seen a grassroots change as sales people have reduced their driving habits to deal with rising fuel prices. And based on the respondents' feedback, companies aren't even aware of it.

Companies have failed to keep up with the times. Over 65% of respondents said their companies have not updated their driving expense plans since 2006. This is amazing. The average price of gas in Toronto in June 2006 was 94 cents, and in just two years it has spiked to 131 cents per liter. A sales person driving 500 kilometers per week is now paying an additional $185 per week or $9,620 per year. A car allowance of $500 to $600 per month is light. It doesn't even cover the cost of gas!

Sales people have responded. Over half of the respondents have reduced the number of trips they are taking. This is a remarkable thing for a sales person to do, because it is their job to visit customers. If they are making fewer trips then they are seeing fewer customers. This will directly impact how they sell. By reducing their activity levels, sales people will have to be far more strategic in their selling activities if they want to achieve their quota.

What blew me away in this survey is companies still say, "It's business as usual." 70% of companies have not adjusted their expectations for how much sales people drive. Are they aware that half their sales reps are reducing their driving habits? Are they aware how their outdated expense plans are impacting their sales people? Companies really need to step up, and respond to the spiking fuel prices.

Gas prices are top of mind for sales people, and employers will see this when they try to recruit new sales talent. 78% of respondents said the driving expense plan is an important part of their total compensation. Sales professionals are negotiating better expense plans when they accept a job. They want to make sure the plan is fair, and they won't be paying out of pocket for an outdated plan.

I can only hope that gas prices stabilize, but the signs suggest they will continue to rise. If we continue on this trend traditional sales models are going to change. At some point it is going to be too costly to maintain an outside sales force. In 2 years we have seen a 30% spike in driving costs. If it doubles again, do you think sales people will still be on the road?

Highlights from the LEAPJob Gas Survey:

53.5% of respondents are reducing the number of trips or sales calls they will make, while another 20% are waiting to see if their employer will improve the expense plan to account for higher fuel prices.
61% of respondents said the price of fuel will have a direct impact on their next vehicle purchase.
Companies' expense plans are out of date. 65% of companies have not adjusted their driving expense plans in the past two years. 23.5% of companies have adjusted their per kilometer allowance, 4.6% of companies have adjusted their monthly car allowances, and 6.8% of companies have adjusted both.
Most sales people are waiting for their employers to respond to rising fuel costs. Only 28% of respondents are negotiating higher expense plans with their employers. 47.9% said they are not looking for a new job even though their expense plans were obsolete. That being said, nearly 25% said they will look for a new job over this issue, and 27.5% are on the fence.
78% of respondents said the driving expense plan is an important part of their total compensation. Expect new recruits to be negotiating higher expense plans.

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Gas Prices Hurt Sales People: TV Interview with Jeremy Miller

Since January 2008 gas prices have increased 20%. LEAPJob polled sales people to find out how rising fuel prices are impacting their careers.

Some interesting findings included:

65% of companies have not increased their driving expense plans since 2006
Over 50% of sales people are reducing the amount of trips they are taking
78% of sales people consider the driving expense plan an important part of their total compensation

View Jeremy's latest TV interview to hear the results.

Nobody Buys a Leader; They Buy Servants

Does your marketing literature proclaim that your company is a market leader? Does it say something like, "we are the leading producer of …" or something similar? If so, you're not alone. Proclaiming your market position seems to be the first lesson of marketing 101. Guess what? No one cares. Customers care if your solutions will solve their problem. If it can't, then all of these self-serving proclamations are not worth the paper they are printed on.

It's easy to proclaim that you are a market leader. Why? It feels good. It is reassuring and reaffirming to describe yourself as the best. If you believe you're the best, then theoretically other people should too. But take a moment and think about the last major purchase you made for your company or for yourself. Was the product's market position the first thing you considered in your buying criteria? Probably not.

We don't buy leaders. We buy servants. The accounting firm auditing your books is not a leader. They are servants. The CRM software you use to track your activities is not a leader. It's a servant. The car you drive on sales calls is not a leader. It's a servant. I can keep going, but I am sure you get my point. We buy when we have a need. The happier we are with our purchases is a reflection of how well the product served us and how enjoyable the buying experience was.

It's important to change the focus on selling to serving. Sales is inherently a form of leadership. You are selling a customer on what to do. You are persuading, demonstrating and motivating a buying decision in your favor. You are trying to lead your customers to you. It's time to stop navel gazing. These are me-centric notions. When you are selling it's all about you. Shouldn't it be all about your customers?

Try this on for size. Call yourself a servant. Your job is to serve your customers. Your job is to help them solve problems. When you reframe your position to a Servant Sales Person a whole world of opportunities opens up. It becomes easier to qualify your prospects, and weight which ones you can help most effectively first. It is easier to allocate your limited time and resources to the areas you can have the most impact. Becoming a servant makes you a better sales person.

We have all experienced great Servant Sales People. Think of those times that you have really enjoyed the purchasing experience. Common descriptors of these events are: the sales person found just what I was looking for; he understood me; it was fun. The sales person and the buyer were in sync. The sales person anticipated his customer's needs, and was able to proactively come up with solutions. Anyone who has bought suits, whether male or female, knows how beneficial a great sales person can be. They tell you when the clothes look terrible on you, and they find you ones that make you look great. This attitude and attention to your customer's needs can be brought to almost every product or service you sell.

Being a Servant Sales Person is not a menial task. The term servant is misleading, because it creates connotations of domination and obedience. This is definitely not the case in sales. If you want to hit quota you have to be proactive. You have to anticipate your customer's needs early, and be prepared to come up with resolutions quickly. To serve in sales is to anticipate, act and make your customer's buying experience enjoyable and painless.

It's easy to get caught up in a leadership mindset. It's where your ego wants you to be. I know my ego screams when I tell it I am a servant. It wants to win. It wants me to lead. But my customers want me to serve them. Being a servant is a very powerful position. The most influential person in the kingdom is the King's head servant. Why? Because the King relies on him. The head servant isn't persuading the King; he is helping him. If the King goes off in the wrong direction the servant will tell him. He may say, “You can cut off my head, but I think you are making a mistake.” This commitment to the King's success is where the servant's authority and trust comes from. This is the role you want with your customers too.

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Job Seekers Have Choice: TV Interview with Jeremy Miller

Even though North America has been slipping into recession, job seekers have choice. The unemployment rate is at a 33 year low. There are more jobs than people to go around.

Jeremy Miller speaks on TV about how the job market is changing. How it will be easier for job seekers to find great career opportunities. And how it will be harder and harder for employers to attract top talent.

A's Hire A's, B's Hire C's: Not everyone is cut out to hire a Star

Donald Rumsfeld nailed it when he said, "A's hire A's, B's hire C's." Hiring the best people is not a new idea. It is actually quite common. Especially since people like Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, proclaimed that good to great companies got the right people on the bus before they became great. The problem is not everyone deserves to hire A's. Hiring A's is a privilege. It comes with having a great brand, great products and great culture. This is the environment that attracts star sales people, because they can apply their skills to a company that will reward them accordingly.

That being said, if a company's brand sucks, products suck or culture sucks, why would a star sales person ever work there? Life's too short! These weak companies may be able to get the reps in the door, but good luck holding onto them. This job market is just way too hot and getting hotter still.

Twenty years ago companies with less than ideal selling conditions could still get good quality sales people. Why? Sales people needed jobs just like everyone else. Today is a different story. The unemployment rate is at a 33 year low, and continues to decline. This hot job market is giving job seekers choice.

Today, at LEAPJob, we don't see sales people that are chronically unemployed. Sure there may be a layoff every now and then, but any extra sales people that hit the job market are gobbled right back up in short order. The typical job seekers that we are working with are receiving multiple job offers. Companies want them, and they are willing to pay for their talents.

What is remarkable is the media tells us North America is in a recession. Jim Flaherty, the Federal Finance Minister, claimed that Ontario is becoming a "have-not province." If that's the case, the job numbers are showing a clear separation from previous recessions. In 1989 and 2001, companies shed their workforces in droves. The unemployment rates skyrocketed, and many sales people had to compromise their career choices in order to stay employed. Today sales people are gainfully employed even though the economy is stagnating. A slowdown in the economy is not providing more supply in the job market.

'B companies' are having a much harder time attracting A sales people. Let's not even consider the C and D companies. They don't stand a chance! This job market in a recession is difficult for employers, but let's consider how hard it will be once we move into a growth economy. If you don't have a compelling reason for sales people to join your company now – good luck.

To hire an A, you have to behave like an A. That means becoming your customers' first choice when they need a product or service you provide. This is by no means easy. Creating a first call advantage requires clear focus and commitment from all levels of the organization. The products must fit clear market needs. The brand must be engaging and fit the expectations of your customers. The sales people must promote all these values, and let customers know you have the best choice. And while you are doing this, you have to outperform the competition who is trying to knock you off your throne.

You may not get it right on day one, but that is ok. It is the commitment to get it right that counts. That commitment combined with passion and focus is what great sales people need to be successful. It is a lot of fun, and very rewarding to sell for an organization that puts these elements together. Why? Because the customers take notice, and the sales cycle moves smoothly. Sales people don't have to fight an uphill battle trying to convince people to buy a product that sucks for a company that sucks. They get to sell a product and a company they believe in. Even if the product has its faults, the commitment of the organization to get it right makes everything else ok.

Moving aggressively to have a winning product and brand is a minimum requirement for the new economy. Consider the demographics for a moment. By 2011 the first of the Baby Boomers will turn 65. By 2031 the bulk of the Boomers will have left the market, and there is no way to replace their contribution to the workforce. No matter what way you look at it, staffing is a major challenge for the next two decades. Only the best of the best are going to be able to attract and hire top sales people.

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Next Generation Leaders: A TV Interview with Jeremy Miller

In 2012 the first of the Baby Boomers begin to retire. By 2030 we could lose a third of the North American workforce. The way we hire, organize and attract talent are all about to change.

Jeremy Miller speaks on TV about how employers must begin working today to prepare their next generation leaders.

Everyone Makes President's Club: The motto of a great Sales Manager

Great sales managers take it personally. "Nobody is left behind. Everybody makes President's Club." This is their motto. Sure these phrases can be bantered around in meetings and interviews, but truly great managers live it, breathe it and believe in it. Their core values drive them to make each and every one of their reps successful, and to have their team stand out in the organization. Their values push them to be successful managers.

President's Club is the sales force's celebration of their achievements. These are the reps and managers with outstanding performances, and who exceeded their yearly targets. The rewards are often lavish. Many Club destinations include Hawaii, Cancun or even Beijing. The trips are filled with incredible activities, networking with other sales performers, and special training from inspirational speakers. These trips are memorable. It is a real accomplishment for a sales rep to achieve President's Club.

Reaching President's Club is daunting, as it should be. Typically sales reps have to achieve 125% of their annual quota to qualify, and in most organizations a well-tuned compensation system will only send 20% of the sales force to Club. "All my reps go to Club" is a stretch goal to say the least. A great manager may only send 40% of their team, which is one hell of an accomplishment. The important part here is the manager's commitment, passion and expertise to constantly inspire their team to shoot for the goal.

Where does this commitment come from? It's deeply ingrained in people, and resides in special sales people and managers. Many consultants and HR professionals claim that top sales people don't make great managers. I absolutely disagree. This view is too simplistic and flies in the face of decades of sales culture and history. The trick is finding those few people with the core values that believe, "Every member of my team will reach Club."

It is more than just one core value that makes a great sales manager. If that were the case it would be very easy to spot them early on in their career. Rather it is a combination of values coupled with refined skills that make up a great manager.

#1, They get the right people on the bus

Jim Collins wrote in his seminal book Good To Great, good-to-great leaders "first got the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats." The same is true for top sales managers. They know that not everyone has what it takes to achieve Club – so they get the people who will. Recruiting is a key skill for managers who focus on sending all their reps to Club. They invest the time to constantly upgrade the talent pool on their team. Obviously, the poor performers are managed off of the team. But the more challenging task is replacing the stars. As their top reps are promoted on to bigger and better things, the manager seizes the opportunity to find another diamond in the rough: a person with the potential to exceed quota.

Recruiting on its own is not the core value. The truly great managers have an ability to attract people "better than themselves." It takes a person very secure in himself to hire A's. The natural tendency for most people is to hire in their own image. This is not a sure-fire way to build a team with the talent to reach President's Club. Rather great managers hire for the needs of the team, the customer and the territory. They hire A's, and then work year-over-year to raise the bar to improve the definition of an A.

#2, They get in the muck

Great sales managers don't coach from the sidelines. They are in it with their reps. They are helping their reps identify the ripe prospects. They are making joint sales calls. They are all over their reps.

Selling requires interaction and participation with your customers. If the manager simply focuses on the metrics and the theory, the customer is lost in the analysis. By getting into the field with their reps, great managers are able to lead by example, transfer their expertise and coach to the situation. It is a very powerful learning environment.

To get into the muck day-after-day requires boundless energy. Again, this is a mark of a great manager. Not only do they do their own job, but they participate and support each member of their team. It is amazing to watch a top manager in action, because he looks like the Energizer Bunny. He just keeps going, and going, and going!

#3, They groom for futures

Holding onto an employee for life is unrealistic. Highly talented sales people are constantly pushing themselves to bigger and better things. Trying to hold onto a sales person in order to achieve the team's goals is a travesty. Great sales managers capitalize on the time they have with their reps, and let them go when the time is right.

You will hear the pride from a great sales manager when they claim two more of their reps were promoted. This is a great accomplishment for the manager. They helped their reps hit Club, they helped them grow personally and professionally, and now it is time for them to graduate. The manager did their job.

Great managers are educators, mentors and motivators. It takes time, talent, skills and commitment for a sales person to exceed their quota. It is a long road, even when you break it out over twelve months. The manager uses this time to focus the reps on their goals, works with them individually to build skills and provides them a carrot – or a stick – to stay on track. It takes an ever-present manager to see the needs of her reps, and to give them the support they need to be successful. It also takes a secure manager to let top reps move on, even if it hurts the short-term team goals.

Putting it all together

Each trait on its own is not enough to achieve greatness. It is a combination of personal values, talents and skills that make up a great manager. But when they all come together it is a joy to see. You see it not only in the team's loyalty and commitment to their manager, but in their performance. Year-after-year the manager's team outperforms.

The most important job in any sales force is the frontline sales managers. These are the people hiring the reps, developing their skills and grooming the talent for the future. If each of your managers lives by the motto, "All of my reps go to Club," you will have one hell of a sales organization.

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Competing for Talent: A TV interview with Jeremy Miller

It's a hot job market out there. people have choice. Lots of it.

Jeremy Miller of LEAPJob, a Toronto-based sales recruiting firm, discusses how employers must compete in this hot job market. It's no longer about putting butts in seats. Employers have to step up and deliver purpose and excitement to jobs.

Givers Gain: Creating conversations to engage your prospects

3% of your market is buying right now. These are companies issuing RFPs, bringing you in for demos and requesting quotes. If you aren't talking to these companies, you can guarantee they are talking with your competition. They have a need, and they will buy to satisfy it. You can spend all day looking for these companies in a buying state, which is the typical sales process, or you can catch their attention sooner. By changing the way you engage your prospects, you can be the "first call" when your prospects begin to shop.

Sales people spend their days searching for companies that are buying right now. These are the prospects with the highest potential of closing quickly, but they are also the most competitive opportunities. Considering how small your market of active buyers might be, prospecting for companies in this 3% state can be daunting. If you are targeting a list of 1,000 companies that fit an ideal prospect profile, then only 30 are buying at any given time. If you aren't in the right place at the right time you won't get the sale. No wonder cold calling is such a demoralizing process. It's all about getting lucky, but there is a better way.

97% of your market is not buying today. They may have made a purchase recently, their attention could be elsewhere or they are happy with the status quo. It is also possible that they will never be interested in your services. A third of your market will probably never work with you based on price, fit, service offering or some other reason. So that leaves 67% of your market that aren't buying today, but eventually they will be. Here lies the real gold.

Traditional sales and marketing tactics are not effective to engage a non-buying audience. The audience isn't buying, and they aren't listening either. People are bombarded with marketing messages daily, and to deal with this information overload they tune out anything that isn't relevant right now. So the real question is how does your company engage a non-engaged audience?

Givers gain. When you are engaging the top of your funnel a different kind of conversation is required. It's not about marketing – it's about giving value to your market when they aren't in need of your services. There are lots of ways you can engage your market in a non-selling fashion. Look to the big topics in the media such as the environment, childhood obesity and our aging population to get ideas. These are topics that companies can have a significant voice in.

Food for Tots (FFT), a contract catering service based in Toronto, created a conversation based on their core strengths. They provide healthy and delicious meals for childcare centers, nursery schools and preschool programs. They recognized they had much more to offer their market than just catering services. They are experts in feeding children, and have a wealth of knowledge they can share with their customers, prospects and parents. To share their expertise they created Healthylicious, a movement to provide children healthy and delicious meals.

Brian Crew, General Manager of FFT, likens the program to the Intel Inside campaign, "Healthylicious allows us to talk directly to parents. These are our customers' customers. Parents are looking for ways to feed their kids healthy and delicious foods, and we can share ideas they can bring into their homes. At the same time, they get to know the company who is behind feeding their children during the day."

Heathylicious is more than a marketing program. It is a tool for sales people. Crew explains, "The sales reps like it, because it gives them something to talk about other than catering services. It is a fun and catchy idea, and people can really get involved in the conversation." The Healthylicious conversations sales people are having with prospects and parents are not about selling features and benefits. They are about the children and their needs. It's non-threatening, and more importantly it is engaging.

Food for Tots recognized they needed more than typical sales and marketing programs to engage their market. They drilled down to their core values, and the words "healthy" and "delicious" came up time-and-time again. By focusing on elements that they are passionate about, they were able to bring that passion out in new ways to their market. The end result is they are providing content and education for free. The benefit for FFT is name recognition and a desire for parents to put their kids into childcare centers that have Healthylicious meals.

Creating conversations at the top of the funnel, like Healthylicious, is a fairly major undertaking. It draws on the creativity and efforts of people across the organization, but the sales force is instrumental in its success. As sales people we know what customers are talking about, and we can spearhead ideas to engage them. The program is sold internally by getting the whole organization involved to live the brand, but the hard ROI is in the leads. When your market is fully engaged in a conversation you achieve a lofty position: the "first call" when your prospects are ready to buy.

The first call is the best place to be in a buying process. You don't have to convince your prospects why they should consider buying your service. You get to help them frame the problem, and why your solution is the answer. If you play your cards right, you can even block the major competitive forces. Why? Because the customer has been paying attention to your organization and what it has to offer for far longer than the sales cycle. You don't have to educate them on the business or why it is a great organization. That's already done. Now you can focus on helping the customer solve a problem.

In our Googlized world, the competitive forces for our products and services are astronomical. Customers can decide whom they buy from and when. If they don't like a vendor, they can look online for alternatives. In order to compete companies have to engage their market long before their customers are ready to buy. When you give value to your market you will move beyond the 3% of companies shopping right now to the 67% of companies that will be soon.

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Googlizing Sales: A TV interview with Jeremy Miller

Sales as we know it has changed. Why? Google. Customers have access to more information then ever before. They are able to identify their needs, options and vendors without ever talking with a sales person.

Jeremy Miller, a Partner with LEAPJob, discusses how the Internet is changing the game of sales:

Personal Branding Sells: Leverage yourself for more income and more sales

It is far easier to sell a branded product. When you are the underdog, you have to compete that much harder to win against a strong brand. The typical sales tactics are to discount and to pile on value-add services. Either way, the cost of the sale is higher for an unbranded product. The same is true for people. Sales people that are well known in their industry with a strong reputation and referral network are a force to be reckoned with. Why? They have a brand.

Personal branding is a must for any professional sales person. Without one, you severely reduce the long-term value of your career. It won't matter if you have been in sales for two, ten or thirty years. Without a brand, the value you bring to business is largely based on how hard you work and what you produced in the last sixty days.

Sales people have a real competitive advantage in personal branding. One, we are trained how to position and package our solutions to best fit the needs of a market. Two, we are experts in presenting the core values of our products and services to get people excited about them. And three, we are promoters. We build awareness for our products and services, and help our clients choose our solutions. Essentially, we sell.

Use your sales toolkit to build your brand. The first step is to package yourself. Try your brand on for size. Say to yourself, "I am not just a sales person for a company. I am [insert statement here]." Did you pause to define yourself? Does your definition excite you? Do you stand out? If you are not happy with your answers then it is time to go to the drawing board. Michael Goldhaber wrote in Wired Magazine, "If there is nothing very special about your work, no matter how hard you apply yourself, you won't get noticed and that increasingly means you won't get paid as much, either."

Packaging yourself is the most difficult part of personal branding. Why? Because you have to say, "No." You can’t be all things to all people, which means you are going to have to make choices and some of them will be hard. Go back to the core questions. What do you want to be known for? What is unique about you? What value do you bring to your customers? Use these questions to stimulate ideas and come up with a brand statement that describes who you are and how you will contribute value in business. When you can define your value proposition you can also define how you will get paid.

Once you know how you create value, you can move onto the fun stuff: promotion. Getting known is the reason to brand yourself. Wouldn't you love your prospects to call you, because they heard you were great? That sure beats cold calling. Since personal branding plays on your strengths, use your natural talents to promote yourself. If you are a great networker – network. If you are a great writer – write. If you are a great presenter – get speaking gigs.

Marketers like Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki have propelled their brands to great heights through their blogs. They have combined their writing skills with the ease of publishing a blog to build huge audiences. Beyond blogs, the web is full of great promotion tools. You can take your networking skills to LinkedIn or Facebook. You could even take your presentation skills and create a podcast or series of YouTube clips. If you aren't into the internet, get belly-to-belly with your audience. Attend networking events and other social events to let people know you are out there. It is really exciting to think of all of the options you have to promote your brand.

It doesn’t matter which promotion tool you use, as long as it is consistent. The value of promotion is through repeat exposures. When your prospects see your name over-and-over again you begin to gain top of mind awareness. That means when they are ready to shop for a product or service that you represent, you will be their first call. A sales rep with first call advantage is very powerful.

Personal branding is not a one shot deal. You will continue to refine and evolve your brand over time. Yet if you take the time to build your brand conscientiously it will be a powerful asset in your career. It will draw customers to you, making prospecting easier. It will draw employers to you, making job searches easier. It will draw internal advocates to you, helping you get the big promotions. The ultimate benefit of personal branding is income. When your career begins to move more freely you will have that many more opportunities to earn a substantial income.

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Relationship Selling is Overrated

Relationships are overrated. Yep, I am drawing a line in the sand, and challenging the hardened belief that a sales person's most valuable asset is his Rolodex. It's not.

Every year I get a birthday card from my accountant. Sure it's a nice touch, but it doesn't make me a more loyal customer. Golf games, lunches, jovial conversations are all great tools to make friends. It is fun to get to know someone. It is nice to get beyond the suit and tie, and find out what makes a person tick. But it doesn't speed up the sales process.

In our Sales 2.0 world, customers have choice. They are able to buy products and services that fit their needs. The power of the personal relationship can be overshadowed by the power of Google. If there is any doubt in a service provider, they can be replaced quickly. The relationship may delay the inevitable, but unless you have the best answer for your customers they will move on.

What can a sales person do to fight these competitive forces? Leverage their brand. Brand is a powerful concept, but is often a misunderstood term. It is not a logo or a name; it is how your market defines you. It is how your prospects and customers describe you. As sales people we are brand ambassadors. We help advocate and educate customers on how our products and services solve problems. If you can't clearly articulate the value of your service, that's a problem.

Too often sales people are caught selling on price and other superficial benefits, because they don't understand why their customers are buying. Asking and understanding why your customers buy is critical. When you understand how and why your customers derive value from your services, then you can further refine and tailor your selling activities to build on their needs.

Let me give you an example. In the past year, LEAPJob changed CRM software providers. We transitioned from a comprehensive tool that was used in multiple industries to one specific to ours. It was a painful switch. Not only did we have to deal with the high costs of implementation, data conversion and countless planning meetings, but we were leaving a vendor that we had developed personal ties to. We really liked them. That said – we needed a tool with very specific functionality that they could not deliver. We chose a new vendor that specialized in our industry, understood our business and provided us products and services that fit us.

The sales people from our new vendor were very focused. They asked us specific questions of how we ran our business, the types of customers we had, how we wanted to use the tools and what was compelling us to change vendors. The time they spent up front understanding us provided them the insight to present a focused solution that we were excited to buy. It allowed them to develop a compelling answer that allowed us to move away from a vendor that we had a relationship with, to one that solved our business challenges.

Sales people should always be studying their customers. Try a little exercise. Make a list of your top 15 customers and ask:

1. How did they find me?
2. Why did they choose our solution?
3. What problems or events motivated them to shop for a new vendor?
4. Why do they stay our customers?

Try to identify trends, and see if you can use this information to improve your selling activities. You can then take the list a step further. Rank your customers based on commissions – who have you made the most money from? Then rank these customers based on relationships – who do you enjoy working with the most? Often you find there is no correlation between relationships and profitability. This allows you to re-ask the above questions, and make sure you are being pragmatic about your answers.

You can build new and lasting customer relationships based on how they gain value from you. I am a firm believer that the more you know about your customers, the more effective a sales person you will be. By gaining the insight of why a customer is buying your products, you can tailor your selling efforts to fit their expectations. It's your ace in the hole. The customer will choose a vendor that fits their expectations, and they will be extremely loyal to the service providers that deliver on it consistently.

*****

Sales 2.0: Are you ready for the revolution?

Stand aside Solution Selling – Sales 2.0 is revolutionizing sales! Since the mid-80's solution selling has been the mantra to redefine business-to-business sales. It was a seismic shift from objection handling and always-be-closing tactics to a process of developing meaningful, win-win customer relationships. Solution selling offered a methodology for sales people to move beyond pushy tactics to consultative strategies.

That being said, solution selling is showing its age. The web has changed the game. We have access to more information than ever before, and we take it for granted. It's amazing how quickly we have adopted the power of the internet. Look back to pre-2000 – highspeed internet was virtually unheard of. A site like YouTube could not exist without broadband. With this power comes high expectations. Users are intolerant of poorly designed web sites, and have high standards for how they want to interact with a company online.

The sales and marketing tactics of the 80's and 90's are quickly becoming irrelevant. Why? Access to information allows customers to make well-educated buying decisions. Quite often the buyer is better informed than the sales person. With the power of Google, they can get as many proof statements as they require. This is not an article about why you should have a web site. Rather it is a bigger question of what everyone else is saying about your industry, your company and your services. This chatter is a road map for customers to find and evaluate your business. By using tools designed for Web 2.0 you can develop a customer experience that builds rapport, and allows them to engage your sales person when the time is right.

As customers have more control over the buying process their expectations of how they want to work with a vendor is elevated too. This is the crux of a Sales 2.0 approach. Solution selling is a methodology to help a sales person understand their customers and present their product or service in a consultative manner. Sales 2.0 goes a step further. It is an organizational methodology that tailors sales and marketing to fit the customers buying behaviours. Rather than putting the sales person as the center point of a sales process, it suggests that the sales person is an integral part of a larger customer buying process.

If Sales 2.0 is about connecting and engaging to the customers buying behaviours, then we must take a macro view of the sales process. To be successful you have to be very clear about your target market and brand position:

1. Who are your customers, and why do they buy from you?
2. How do your customers go to market and shop for solutions?
3. What triggers them to shop?
4. What are their options?

Obviously these questions cannot be answered by the front-line sales people. It is a broader organizational question that must be tackled at each and every customer touch point.

Just as companies are using web-tools to make more informed purchasing decisions, Sales 2.0 companies are using these same tools to engage their market. At every touch point web-tools can be used to increase your reach, stickiness, efficiency and customer experience. When put together they make sales people far more efficient and effective: they can sell more stuff. A buyer that has found your organization on Google is often a far better prospect than a company you just cold called. When someone engages you from your web site they have already initiated a relationship with your firm, formed an opinion and are receptive to entering into a sales dialogue. You face none of the buyer resistance that comes with cold calling.

Web-tools are easiest to connect to awareness campaigns, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. By understanding your customers' buying behaviours you can gain a great deal of efficiencies throughout your sales process. For example, companies are employing tools like WebEx, and other online conferencing tools, to enable the sales force to conduct product demonstrations virtually. This benefits both the sales person and the customer. The customer gains immediate gratification by seeing how this product works and allows them to get educated on its benefits quickly. From a sales perspective it is huge too. The sales process is dramatically reduced, because you don't have the delays and costs incurred by travel to book a face-to-face meeting.

There truly is no obstacle for a company to improve their sales process. From awareness campaigns to customer service – everything can be made more efficient and effective with modern web-tools. But, and this is a big BUT, you have to have a clear sales process that serves the customer buying experience. You cannot automate a system that does not exist, and you don't want to create a system unless you know it works. So getting into Sales 2.0 is not for the faint of heart. It takes a real commitment to understanding your customers, and to developing sales processes and tools that meet the needs of your customers' buying habits.

Sales 2.0 is not just another buzzword. You are going to hear a lot more about it. Every company is going to face the changing needs of their market. The early adopters of Sales 2.0 will be handsomely rewarded. If you are able to embrace your customers and develop an organization tuned to their needs, you can build a powerful sales engine that outstrips the solution selling approach. Sales 2.0 is the new mantra for business-to-business selling.

*****

When to Quit: Knowing the signs it's time to quit

Sales people change jobs. It's a given. We can look back nostalgically at our parents and grandparents, and think of a simpler time – a time when people worked for the same company for life. That world is gone. Today sales people change jobs every three to four years, and more often than not they are changing companies with each new job.

This is an interesting dynamic for sales people, and presents a real challenge for career management. When employees had the opportunity to work at a company for life, there was a well-defined career path. Now sales people have to plan and think through how each job will impact their career. We live in a world of choice, and this is wonderful freedom for people with a plan. For everyone else moving from one job to the next, each job can be a gamble. Will you move forward? Will you stay in the same place? Where will you be in five years? Either you can direct your career, or you will be at the mercy of employers and the job market.

Understanding the drivers that motivate change is critical. It helps you to understand how to manage each job and connect them together into a career. Since we are talking about sales careers, let's relate our jobs to a sales concept: 'the itch cycle'. One of my earliest lessons as a sales person was to identify the buying itch cycles my customers went through. This is the timeframe a customer goes through in between each purchase of your product or service. For example companies tend to replace their CRM software systems every three to four years, and they replace their ERP systems every five to seven years. Most sales people are trained to look for these itch cycles, but it's also interesting to note that sales people have internal itch cycles too.

Sales people tend to change jobs every three to four years. This is not a rule. Some people stay in a role for many, many years. For example in the insurance industry the longer a person builds their account base, the more money they will make. In this situation, the book of business is too valuable to give up to change careers. Yet in software, professional services or other transactional sales jobs, people are more apt to change. This change is important, because it forces the sales person to learn more and move to a higher income.

Let's look at this four year career itch cycle in more detail. As a sales person enters a new job, he knows the first year is a 'build' year. It's a time of immense learning and development. You have to learn the product, the industry, the value proposition and the stories that move a customer to action. Not only do you have to learn, but you have to build a funnel. That takes time too. Typically it takes nine months to build a full sales funnel. This make the first year costly. Depending on the value of an average sale and the length of sales cycle, the first year may only deliver 50% to 75% of the total potential income and revenues. There is a lot of inertia and complex tasks to overcome.

The second year is when a sales job is really fun. Your hard efforts pay off, and you get paid. In year two you fully understand how to sell your product, you have a full funnel and you can see the results of your efforts. The harder you work, the more money you make. This is a great year for a sales person. It feels good to pitch your product, and know that the customer is really buying into what you are selling them. That being said, year two is the climax of the job.

Years three and four are the dénouement – the story is coming to an end. Exceeding quota is a given. Not only do your efforts deliver sales, but you also benefit from the inertia generated in years one and two. Now customers are referring great prospects, your funnel is chocked full and you can pick and choose the accounts that will deliver you a quota busting year. So why are you starting to feel bored? Shouldn't these years be the most fun?

Success breeds complacency. When a top performer reaches his goals, he starts to look for the next challenge. For many people, their first inclination is to shake themselves out, put their priorities back in order and work a little harder. That may work for a little while, but the feeling that there is a better job out there eventually creeps back in. Everyone reacts to this boredom a little differently. Some people clash with management, others look for new distractions and some people find excitement outside of work. Whatever your derailer, be sure to know the signs and symptoms that signal it's time for change.

When people approach me in their job search I ask, "What is motivating this change?" The goal of this question is to understand what will be a positive step forward, and to help the sales person select the right job. What intrigues me though, is the similarity of people's responses. I hear motivators like money, no where else to go in the company, the industry is consolidating or there is a conflict with the boss. If you look at these reasons more closely, you can see the boredom and complacency trap is rearing its head. The sales person knows the job is coming to an end, and uses these drivers as ways to articulate why it is time to change.

There is nothing wrong with these motivators. They are all very valid. The key though is to look beyond the here and now, and consider four years out. You know that you are going to be looking for a new job in the next four years, so the questions to ask yourself when looking at the next job are, "Where will this job put me in four years? And what skills, competencies and experiences will it give me for the next job?"

You can no longer expect to work for the same company for life. Not even IBM or GE can make that promise to its employees. Career management must be owned by the individual. What do you want to be when you grow up? Ok, maybe you are grown up, so what do you want to have achieved ten years out? If you can define what your life is like in ten years and what you will accomplish, then you can look at how the next two to three jobs will get you there. It is a matter of connecting the dots, and continually using jobs to deliver experiences, expertise and income to satisfy your long term career ambitions. Don't just change jobs for change sake. Take the time to plan how each of your jobs fit into your larger career. This is the best route for you to achieve your long term goals.

*****

3 Times Quota: Choosing your prospects for quota-busting sales

Jim and Nicole each earned over $300,000 last year – more than three times the next highest paid sales person in their company. On a team of twelve reps, Jim and Nicole are stars. They have landed the most prestigious accounts, and gained access to prospects that no one else could reach. You can imagine that there is more than a little jealousy towards their success.

The rumors of their success run rampant: they have the best territories, they get the best leads, they were given the key accounts, they are the President's favorites. As much as the rumors occur, they are all false. On paper Jim and Nicole are the same as everyone else. They received the same training. They have similar industry backgrounds and sales expertise with the team. They had to find all of their own customers. They receive the same leads. They do not get special treatment. Jim and Nicole stand out, because they are great prospectors.

Lead generation is a constant discussion in any sales organization. Let's face it; even movies are made on the subject. Who hasn't seen the classic Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross scene when Alec Baldwin ripped into the sales team stating, "These are the new leads. These are the Glenn Gary leads. And to you they're gold – and you don't get them! Why? Because to give them to you is just throwing them away. They're for closers."

Jim and Nicole's organization is not Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, they actually provide the sales team leads – lot's of them. The firm buys cleansed lists every year, and the accounts are equally distributed among the team. In addition the firm has a targeted awareness program that generates regular call-in traffic. In every region, the sales people are presented with warm leads to chase and close. The sales people spend 60% of their time prospecting these leads with a goal to close one account per month.

Jim and Nicole are the exception. They do not accept leads generated by the company. They find them distracting. The two reps have taken a much longer view of their territories, and have narrowed down their prospects to 300 or so companies they would love to work with. These are the prospects they have been contacting consistently over the past five years. Jim and Nicole discovered early on that they could chase every lead in their funnel and still never earn $100,000. They were spending an inordinate amount of time closing small deals. By changing their prospecting focus, they chose to only hunt the big deals. Three large deals a year would allow them to exceed their quotas.

Prospecting is a real grind when you are just looking for someone who is ready to buy right now. In this situation, it is simply a matter of luck to be at the right place at the right time. Yet if you knew that by calling on a key account for two years would deliver 50% of your quota next year, wouldn't you invest the time and effort to land that account? Of course you would! Now, if you figured out all of the companies that could deliver such big numbers and only called on them, what would happen to your sales performance? Probably the same thing as Jim and Nicole: three times the earnings of everyone else.

Chasing the big game requires a strategy, a well cultivated database and consistency. Before making your first call, take a step back and look at your territory. You can't simply pick up the phone book, or open up your CRM, and start calling every company on your prospecting list. You need to understand what makes an ideal prospect.

Don't stop there. Continue by clearly articulating how your product or service delivers value; why one of your big prospects would buy your company's services; what events or situations would motivate them to shop for a solution; and how they shop and evaluate for similar solutions. You would hope your sales manager or the company would do this for you, but quite often they too don't know. Take the step and be proactive. Don't wait for sales management to catch up with you.

Once you have the criteria for where you can land the big deals, a list of ideal prospects, and why you have the right solution – it is now time to prospect. In this modern sales world, no sales person should attempt such a targeted prospecting effort without the support of a CRM database. Whether you are using Salesforce.com, ACT! or some other equivalent product, it is a "must have" sales tool. A CRM database will allow you to profile each of your prospects, and then track and direct your activities as you build a relationship. You will track each conversation, profile every contact in the organization, identify circles of influence and map out an account management strategy. By leveraging the power of your CRM database you can record and intelligently attack each of your customers until they are ready to buy.

Chasing the big game is not for everyone. It requires consistency and fortitude. Large purchases do not just happen because you called once. It requires a long term sales effort that proactively builds relationships throughout the account, and develops rapport to the point you will be the first call when the prospect is ready to buy. If you are calling on the same company repeatedly over two, three or even four years you have to make every interaction count. Every time you engage the prospect, focus on building credibility and delivering value. Manipulative sales tactics never work.

What Jim and Nicole do is not rocket science. They carefully select their accounts, attack them intelligently and work consistently to bring them onboard. Too often sales people and their managers get focused on the here and now, and the end result is a never ending complaint of "where are the leads?" Unfortunately the desire for an immediate sale causes many sales people to work tactically rather than strategically. By taking a step back to choose your big game, you can focus all of your efforts on acquiring quota-busting customers.

*****

Sales Force Retention is a Myth

Sales People Don't Cold Call

Hiring With A Map: Using Assessments Properly

Hiring Outside of Your Industry

Compelled to Buy: Selling to Compelling Events

Cheesy Prospecting Lines: Manipulation is not a cold calling strategy

Have you ever seen a guy trying to get a date with a cheesy pickup line? You watch the whole scene unfold. He walks up to the girl with nervous confidence, and taps her on the shoulder. She turns with both interest and curiosity. Then the words come out of his mouth, "There's something wrong with my cell phone ... It doesn't have your number in it." And that brief moment of curiosity changes to disinterest and a cold shoulder.

Cheesy pickup tactics don't work in the dating world, and they don't work in sales either. So why do recognized sales trainers like Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible, teach sales people lame cold calling techniques? Gitomer claims you will get 100% of your calls returned if, "You call them up on the phone. Leave half a message, pretend like you have been cut off and hang up." He goes on to give the call script, "Hello this is Jeffrey. 704-333-eleven-twelve. I was speaking with a couple of your biggest competitors yesterday. They were talking about you, and they said ... and you hang up." Supposedly the prospect will be so curious to hear the rest of your message that he will call back.

Gitomer even recognizes that his approach is not professional and claims exuberantly "But it's fun!" It may be fun, but do you really want to deal with the prospect who calls back? As soon as they figure out you've tricked them, they are never going to do business with you. The relationship is dead before it even gets off the ground. This has got to be one of the worst cold calling techniques I have ever heard. You might as well call up the prospect with a corny pickup line – it will have the same result.

For short term gain, you may be tempted to use one of these cheesy prospecting strategies to gain access to a buyer. You can manipulate your way past the gate keepers, and even get yourself in front of the decision maker. But now what? If you are selling anything that requires more than one call, you have just started off the relationship on the wrong foot. Now you have to spend every subsequent call trying to rebuild trust with a defensive buyer.

I don't expect to make a sale on the first call. I have two goals in a prospecting call. The first is to let the prospect know I am out there and the services we provide. The second is to set an expectation of what it is like to work with our firm. It takes time to initiate the relationship, develop rapport and build a value proposition.

Sales is a demonstration. The prospective buyer notices every behavior and interaction, and uses it as a litmus test for your company's culture, values, quality of service and competitive advantage. When a sales person uses a manipulative cold calling technique the prospect feels, "If this is how they train the sales people, imagine how bad their service is! I have to get away from this person."

I use a straight up prospecting approach. When I make a call, I tell the prospect right away why I am calling. For example, "Hi, my name is Jeremy Miller and I am calling from LEAPJob. I am calling today to introduce our services, do you have a moment?" It is direct and allows me to manage the customer relationship properly.

If I get voice mail, I leave a message with the same starting point and send a follow up email that mentions the voice message. The prospect knows exactly why I am calling, and the email helps provide a second point of access. People are more likely to respond with a short email than pick up the phone for a five-minute conversation. This approach is also successful, because I respect the people I am calling. Nine times out of ten, the prospect is friendly and tells me where they stand. They will request more information, direct me to someone else, ask me to follow up in three months or say they are not interested. If I get no response, I simply make a "To Do" to call again.

Prospecting does not need to be scientific. It should be simple, direct and honest. If you truly care about helping your clients, then each call you make has a purpose. It isn't simply about asking them to put their money in your pocket. You are demonstrating how you can help your clients and what it is like to work with your firm. When you prospect well, you get rewarded with faster sales cycles, smoother negotiations and plenty of referrals. Starting the sale off right makes all the difference in the world.

End Note: It may seem odd that I have directed so much attention on Jeffrey Gitomer. Much of his sales techniques and strategies are sound. Gitomer's cold calling techniques caught my attention, because he has a short clip on YouTube that is receiving a lot of attention.

*****

Sales Force Retention is a Myth: Turnover is a sign of a deeper problem

Employee retention is a top-of-mind management topic today. As it should be! With the boomers leaving the market and an already overheated job market, companies need to hold onto their top performers. A fully trained, engaged and productive sales person is a huge asset, and is potentially crippling to lose. But the real question is not, "How do we retain our top performers?" Rather sales managers need to look deeper to identify, "Why do I have a retention problem?"

A revolving door of sales talent is a symptom of a much deeper problem. Sales people don't leave jobs when their products are in demand, leads are plentiful and sales performance exceeds quota. They leave when the wheels are falling off the bus. When management starts talking about "improving retention," take a deep look at the sales environment.

1. What is happening to your market?

Coal miners used to take canaries into the mines to detect harmful gases. It was pretty grim. If the canary died, the miners knew they were in danger and to take action. When sales people start leaving, they can be your canaries – an early warning system of problems happening in your market.

When a market begins to consolidate or a product becomes dated, the sales cycle becomes even more difficult. It is harder to find leads. Customers stop investing the time they used to with the sales people and closing ratios decline. A shifting customer base can be a very demoralizing sales environment. Sales management tries to stay on top of the sales people to achieve their numbers, but the customers just aren't buying. It is a lose-lose situation for the sales people.

All is not lost. If management recognizes the changes in their market soon enough, they can adjust. At this stage it is key to recognize the problem is not the sales reps; rather it is a corporate, product development or marketing problem. Sales is being directly impacted today, but with the right product and marketing mix the sales team can return to a fun and rewarding environment.

2. What is their manager doing?

"People don't leave companies, they leave managers." This is a hackneyed phrase, but it speaks the truth. The front line sales managers are the most important people in a sales organization. They are responsible for acquiring, coaching, motivating and retaining the sales reps. When you have a bad sales manager, the damage can be deep and pervasive.

It does not matter how good the product is, how fast the company is growing or how much money the sales people are making. If the manager is making the reps' lives hell, they will leave. No money is worth the hassle.

Identifying bad managers is easier said then done. Often you don't find out until it is too late, but you can implement early warning systems. Tracking and analyzing sales metrics are a good starting point. Metrics provide the data to identify trends and problems. Is the manager achieving her sales targets? What is the employee turnover in the group? How does the team relate to the other territories? Sales departments are very accustomed to being managed to the numbers. By including retention and employee performance metrics, the executive team can manage beyond hard revenue goals.

Tom Peter's coined the term, "Management by Wandering Around" in his book In Search of Excellence. The philosophy is very applicable in a sales department. Executives and Sales VPs should make time to constantly meet with the sales people one-on-one. If the reps are facing a management problem, they will tell the senior management. It may not be overt, but if you are paying attention you will see the signs in a one-on-one session. They will articulate issues such as morale, micro-management, politics and other non-sales related problems. Do not overlook these comments; it may come to haunt you later.

3. Would you sell for your company?

Too often sales is boiled down to a numbers game. Management will say, "For every 'no' you hear, you are that much closer to hearing 'yes.'" Bull! Cold calling is the most inefficient lead development tool out there. Sales people can make calls until they are blue in the face, and still not have a qualified prospect. A "learn to love no" sales culture is no joy to work in. It is filled with rejection.

When an organization does not value sales people, the compensation plan shows it. The sales people are often paid 100% commission or an extremely low base salary. Management wants the sales people to be hungry. As the saying goes, "If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys." It is very hard to attract and keep highly talented sales people when the company has no skin in the game. The compensation plan must be tuned to the market value of the sales people, and adequately compensate the reps for the value they bring to the business.

People may take a low paying sales job to start their career or when they are desperate. Yet when they find their feet, you can bet they are going to look for something better: a product that is easier to sell, better pay or a more professional work environment. In this labor market there are plenty of choices available to all levels of sales people.

Can turnover be eliminated?

Sales people go through a natural cycle in any job. The first year is typically a build year. This is an exciting time for a new sales rep as he learns the product, the market and how to sell it. In the second year the sales person finds his legs. He is achieving quota and reaping some of the rewards from the hard work he has done to date. The third year is a quota buster. At this point the sales person has mastered the product, the market and can easily exceed quota. It is a great time, but is also a turning point.

By the time sales people reach their fourth and fifth year in a role they begin to plateau. In this phase, they have mastered the job and complacency can kick in. The money might be great, but they could be bored and looking for the next challenge. At this point the organization should be looking to promote sales people, adjust their position or give opportunities for growth. Otherwise the sales people could leave. This might not be bad turnover and can be accounted for in the workforce plan.

On the other hand, if sales people are leaving in the first 24 months, this is a sign of a retention problem. Now it is time to look at your customers, look at your managers and look at your sales organization to determine if you have a much larger problem. Sales people don't leave great jobs; they leave crumbling ones.

*****

Sales People Don't Cold Call

Cold calling is described in heroic terms: beating a path to the prized customer; crossing the many obstacles and walls of protection to find the elusive buyer; wrangling and competing against the many other sales people pursing the same prize. After breathless battle and hard work the sales person wins his customer. His cold calling has paid off. He is a hero.

Too bad it doesn't work that way. Cold calling is an act of frivolity. In today's market, cold calling is the most ineffective lead generation tool out there. Just look at the numbers and it quickly becomes obvious that cold calling is a "get lucky" strategy. It takes 8.4 dials to reach a person, and 2% of all calls results in a meeting. If 30% of these first meetings convert into opportunities and a sales person closes 25% of these opportunities, he will have to make 1,000 calls to get 1 sale. If he is pounding the phones making 50 cold calls per day, he can get 1 winnable sale every 20 days. At this rate he can acquire 12.5 new customers per year. I am sure you can adjust these numbers to fit your business, but no matter which way you slice it the return on effort is terrible!

An average business-to-business sales professional earns $60,000 per year and up. Why would you pay someone that much money to cold call? It makes far more sense to provide the sales reps with "sales ready" leads. By feeding the sales reps you maximize their time, and focus their efforts to where they truly deliver value in selling: building the business case, helping customers evaluate the options, establishing rapport, negotiating terms and closing the deal.

You can look at the numbers and agree that cold calling does not warrant the time and effort it receives, but what else can you do? Cold calling is so ingrained in sales culture, that sales forces come back to it time and time again if marketing does not deliver the leads. Do not fear – there is a better way.

At any given time, only 3% of your market is ready to buy your services, but at this point your prospects are likely already engaged with you or one of your competitors. If a sales person is engaging an opportunity at this late stage the odds are stacked against her. The RFP has been distributed to several competitors, relationships are well entrenched and decisions are being made. Typically the only option to win the deal at this point is price.

The odds of winning a sale increase dramatically if you are able to engage a prospect much sooner in the sales cycle. By positioning the service well before a company is shopping, you gain a deep competitive advantage. Information on the company, the environment and its business challenges can be acquired. Relationships with key decision makers can be solidified. The service offering and value proposition can be established. By getting in early, you will be the first call when the customer is ready to buy.

Demand creation is a distinct function in the sales force. It sits in between marketing and sales. The demand creation team's goal is to introduce, engage and nurture the prospects until they are ready to evaluate a solution with a sales person. Demand creation is a process oriented function, and requires a great deal of phone work to be constantly engaging companies in your target market. The calls are not designed to sell, but rather to position your services for when the company is ready to buy them.

Sales forces are implementing demand creation functions for several reasons. The first is sales people do not have time to give both the prospecting and selling the time they each deserve. By separating the functions, the dedicated demand creation resources will increase the quantity and quality of activity happening at the top of the sales funnel. The added supply of leads allows sales people to be more effective, and work on solid opportunities with a high probability of closing. Demand creation is a distinct skill, just as selling is. By assigning the right people to each role, the company can improve sales performance, reduce costs and reduce employee turnover. The other primary reason is employee costs.

A key argument against demand creation is lead squandering. Since the sales reps are not generating their own leads, then they will not value the effort, money and time that went into getting them. This is a valid argument, but one that can be effectively managed with training and metrics. The demand creation team and sales reps must work in tandem, and constantly be tracking their activities and successes. By managing the conversion ratios to move a prospect through the sales funnel, management will have the data and intelligence on what is happening with the leads. Metrics are essential to an effective demand creation strategy.

Lead squandering is also unlikely when sales people are able to work on qualified, "sales ready" leads. A sales ready lead is a prospective customer that is fully engaged and ready to enter the sales process. These are the opportunities great sales people love. If that is all they had to work on every day, their job would be amazing. They could establish rapport, demonstrate options, block competitive threats and acquire the customers. They become far more effective sales people.

Companies who combine lead generation and selling to the sales people are doing themselves a disservice. When sales people are required to cold call to achieve quota, the company faces two distinct issues: a higher cost of sale and higher turnover of sales people. Yet when a company takes a keen interest in feeding its sales people, the opposite happens: increased revenues, improved sales force productivity, and an improved working environment. When sales people are enabled to sell more, it is a great environment to work in – everyone wins.

*****

Promote Your Best: Great Sales People Can Be Great Sales Managers

Michael Jordan is widely considered one of the greatest basketball players of our time. From his initial career in college basketball to leading the Chicago Bulls to 6 championships, he emerged as one of the stars of the league with prolific scoring, slam dunks and his entertaining leaping abilities. Throughout his career, his super star profile has attracted other stars to him such as Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and Horace Grant. Together their combined talents have delivered award-winning results.

Where would the NBA be if it had not promoted its stars? Not all top performing athletes make great leaders or coaches, and even some fail, but overall the team managers and top coaches are former top performers. In sales it's no different! Top performing sales people are your best source for great sales managers.

You don't have to look far to find articles, blogs or opinions that claim great salespeople do not make great sales managers. Does this viewpoint come from people who have never achieved quota busting performances year-over-year? Have they never taken the next career step to leading their peers as the sales manager? I believe common sense speaks louder than all these critics.

What are the advantages of promoting a top sales person to the role of sales manager?

People need room to grow their careers. For sales people, consistent performance in achieving quota, handling difficult sales challenges and conducting the sales process in a professional manner are important thresholds. Through time sales people acquire the stories and anecdotes of your company that facilitate the delivery of the key selling points of your products and services. Once a role or task is mastered, it's human nature to look for new challenges to build on their expertise and depth of experience. If a company decides not to promote from within then they may become the farm team for another organization that is willing to take the risk of hiring and promoting the best.

Corporate culture is embodied in new employees in their initialization period. It takes time to acquire, and even more time to arrive at the point where sales people can evangelize the corporate messages to customers. The role of a sales manager is to instill the brand messages and corporate culture into new sales reps, and to quality control the messages delivered by incumbent sales people to their customers. Sales managers that have been hired from within are much more effective in this area.

Top producing sales people build a reputation and profile for success. This creates an audience of followers from their peer group and the opportunity to lead by example. People gravitate to winners, just as Michael Jordan drew winners to his team. Everyone wants a piece of the success to rub off on them, or to inspire them to greater heights. Just imagine the morale of your sales team if you promoted the lowest quota achiever.

So which top performing sales people make great sales managers?

As a former VP of sales in a professional services company, the challenge I faced was to identify top performing sales people that could be groomed and developed for the next step in their career. The identification of the new branch sales manager was not based exclusively on their individual sales achievements.

Traits that make a person stand out for promotion include a clear adoption of the company's values and brand messages, the self-directed stamina to move forward to the next sales opportunity and their overall sales track record.

It is important that the top producer embraces the company culture and values and is able to espouse it to anyone they encounter. I also look for motivation from within; someone who is self directed and has the backbone to pick themselves up when they encounter a difficult sales transaction and can move on without being bogged down by the setback. Sales track record through good times and tough times is a key indicator for future success. However, you may find you have to compromise a little when you are launching a new business unit through a rocky start up period.

But there's still more that I look for with top performers. It is important that the candidate has the intellect to take on a new role. If the need to move their career forward is driven by external forces and not coming from within, then the promotion could be flawed. Without the complete buy in and the intellectual capacity to transition to a new role, the new sales manager may always be questioning and regretful of their decision.

Sales people love to sell. This is a process of listening to the buyer, discovering their specific needs, persuading them to your point of view and motivating the client to buy. Likewise sales managers should mirror this profile. I look for candidates that are open to sharing their expertise in an altruistic manner with their team: someone who is prepared to step into a coaching and mentoring role, someone who is willing to train rookies and mentor the pros, and someone who can take on a strategic role in closing business and achieving the collective goals of the sales team.

Identifying and promoting a top sales producer is best done from your own ranks. Take the time to groom people for a longer journey with your organization and reap the long-term benefits. Once you have identified your next great manager, then it's time to build a comprehensive mentoring and transition program to ensure success in their new role.

*****

Marcus Miller is the President of LEAPJob, a sales recruiting firm in Toronto, Canada. LEAPJob recruits sales professionals and sales leaders for many of Canada's most recognized companies. You can reach Marcus at www.LEAPJob.com

Hiring With A Map: Using assessment tools to hire great sales people

Behavioral assessment tools are common in today's hiring practices. Hiring managers lean on them hoping to discover a silver bullet – a tool that will tell them exactly who to hire and why. The problem is most companies do not use behavioral assessment tools accurately or effectively to make the right hiring decisions.

Consider a GPS unit for a moment. I get a kick out of watching my GPS plot my location as I drive down the highway. Seeing where I am on a map is interesting, but it does not offer me any real intelligence – it's just an arrow on a map. However the GPS quickly converts from a toy into a powerful guide the moment I program in a destination. When it knows where I am going, it starts barking orders on where to turn, which exit to take, how far I am from my destination and how long it will take me to reach it.

Just like the GPS, a behavioral assessment is a very interesting tool. It is always enlightening to see a person's natural traits, communication style, leadership style and personal drivers. Yet how does this information benefit the hiring process? It doesn't. An individual's profile on its own does not provide an indication if a candidate will be successful in the role. It does not demonstrate how the candidate compares with your top performers and where they differ. Using an assessment without a benchmark is the same as using a GPS without a destination.

To fully leverage the power of assessment tools, managers must measure candidate's results against a profile of an ideal applicant. The criteria for success already exists within your top performing salespeople. What traits do your most successful sellers have in common? What separates them from the B and C players? How do they use their natural strengths to achieve their successes?

David Lorenz, CEO of a mid-size software firm, struggled to define the makings for success within his sales team. "I hired top quality salespeople, but I witnessed over and over again an inability in most of my reps to get client commitment, regardless of their product knowledge," he explains. David invested heavily in training and coaching to equip each of his reps with the knowledge and skills to sell million dollar solutions. Yet only three of his 10 reps were able to consistently achieve quota and maintain average sales cycles of less than six months.

In order to develop a baseline and identify the gaps between his A players and the rest of his team, David had each of his salespeople complete a PDP Survey – a behavioral assessment tool. He was shocked by the results. "I had only a 12 per cent match between my top three sales reps and the rest of the team," he says. "No wonder these reps were struggling." By combining the assessments of each of his top performers he was able to determine the unique traits that made these reps so successful. Based on their behavioral attributes he created a benchmark of the ideal behavioral profile.

By defining the gap within his team, David was armed with the information he could act on: who to keep, who might be repositioned and who to let go. It also gave him a baseline to compare any future candidates to hire against. "I now use PDP to find people that will excel in our business," he explains. "If a candidate has less than a 70 percent match to our ideal profile I know that they will face an uphill battle." Yet a profile match is not enough for David. "We might find a person with a 90 per cent behavioral match, but if they lack the basic industry experience and sales skills they will still fail." He uses the tools to get beyond the resume and see if the sales person will succeed in his company.

Building a top performing sales team always comes back to the old accountant's adage, "If you don't measure it you can't manage it." Behavioral assessments on their own only provide basic information on people – you need an anchor to measure them against. The traits for success exist inside your organization. It is not about adopting someone else's generic profile as an ideal fit; it's about identifying and quantifying what sets your top people apart. Just as a GPS can become your co-pilot leading you to your destination, an assessment tool will steer you to the salespeople that will achieve your sales goals.

*****

Hiring Outside Your Industry: Using customer buying patterns to hire top sales talent

Sourcing sales talent from the competition is a tried and true recruiting strategy. The primary advantage of recruiting sales people from your industry is it expands your company's sales funnel by capturing new hires' Rolodex of customers and prospects. The next advantage is sales people from your industry already know how to sell to your customers. Finally, industry recruiting can dramatically reduce the cost and time of onboarding. Yet what do you do when the pool of candidates from your industry is sub-par at best? This is a challenge frequently faced by sales managers. The strategy to recruit from the competition does not improve the odds of hiring a star – rather it propagates mediocrity through inbreeding.

If you are facing a shortage of top sales talent to recruit from your industry, what do you do? For most positions hiring outside of the industry is not a major headache. Accountants, software developers and engineers are technical experts – people with clearly defined job skills that work within standard operating procedures regardless of the industry. Sure technical experts may need to have experience in the finance sector or the manufacturing sector, but these are huge industry categories that do not limit hiring managers. With a well defined job description and a little creativity HR can source talented techs. Sales on the other hand has a hidden variable: the customer.

In every industry customers follow predictable purchasing patterns. The predictability of customers' behaviors drives our ability to develop sales processes and sales training programs. It also provides the key insights to develop cross-industry recruiting strategies. Sales people are tuned to respond to their customers. By mapping the purchasing behaviors of your customer base you can identify similar industries where sales people are trained, experienced and focused on selling to a similar set of customer needs and behaviors.

How do your customers select your products and services? Is it a simple transaction based on price, or a process of needs assessment and hedging options? Software sales people thrive in the complex sale. Their solutions are intangible, impact multiple business units and are large capital expenses. They have a knack for uncovering the key challenges faced by their prospects and building a compelling business case to invest in their solution. On the other side, sales people in highly commoditized industries such as waste management, industrial products or office supplies are tuned towards canvassing for business. For them, sales is more of a numbers game to identify companies that are in a shopping mode. Their weapons of choice to influence the sale are price and convenience.

In every industry customers go through four primary buying stages, we call these Selling Dimensions:

The Awareness phase is the universe of companies that can be targeted. It is the process of how your customers become aware of your company, products and services. How do your sales people gain access to their customers? Typical awareness activities include generating leads, responding to inbound requests for information, cold calling, advertising campaigns and providing introductory information on your products. Traditionally much of the awareness phase is conducted by marketing, but it is critical to identify the point of handoff from marketing to sales and the activities the sales people undertake to fill their sales funnels.
The Pre-purchase phase is the traditional view of driving an opportunity through the sales funnel. What steps do your sales reps take to move a prospect to a customer? Are they working with existing customers trying to up-sell services? Do they take prospects through extensive discovery and value creation phases to build the business case to purchase? Selling activities in the Pre-purchase phase include explaining features and benefits, identifying customer needs, product presentations and comparing solutions with competitive offerings.
The Purchase phase is the steps a customer takes to make their final decision: choose the solution, negotiate and complete the appropriate buying commitments. In a tendering process the sales people may not have any influence on the purchasing phase, while in a more competitive environment the sales person might be negotiating heavily over price and deliverables. Many of the critical incidents for the position will be defined by how your customers make their final decision. Complex solutions and large ticket items may require detailed responses to requests for proposals (RFPs). The ability of the sales person to assess the customer's needs and clearly articulate the solution may be the defining factor in the customer's buying decision. In competitive environments sales people with high persuasive drive and a persistent approach may do a better job of managing the sale and blocking competitive threats.
The Implementation phase is the delivery and implementation of the solution. This is the stage that is most critical for the customer, because they bought your service not a contract. In defining the requirements for the position, what responsibilities do the sales people have with the customer once the contract is signed? In many organizations there is a defined hand-off from sales to operations, but in industries such as consumer packaged goods the sales people are constantly involved with the customer: monitoring inventory, developing joint marketing programs and performing market analysis.

The Selling Dimensions provide the foundational information to develop sourcing and selection strategies for sales talent outside of your industry. When you match the duties of a sales manager from one industry to the next they largely say the same thing: achieve objectives through others; recruit and retain top performing sales people; coach and develop reps to achieve their goals. You could also add in key elements of your sales environment such as the average size deal, length of sales cycle, method of developing leads and the size of the sales team. Again this is useful information, but the critical incidents that shape the sourcing and selection strategies exist in the Selling Dimensions.

Let's look at an example. The waste management industry is a well-established, commodity service. The industry grooms talent from within, starting with truck drivers and moving them progressively towards the top. The movement of people from one competitor to the next is one that facilitates comfort and security for all involved, and it breeds complacency. Sales managers bring along their baggage, pardon the pun, and innovative selling techniques never get implemented because they challenge the status quo.

To expand the pool of sales management talent in the waste management industry a primary critical incident emerges from the Selling Dimensions: density selling. Density selling, also known as route selling, is the process of maximizing customers on a specific truck route. A company can increase profitability by increasing the number of pick-ups for each of its routes. It requires sales managers that are strategic in their distribution of sales resources by developing blitzes, pricing strategies and competitive offerings to saturate a route. The challenge is identifying management talent with the strategic focus to operate in density selling, which could come from industries such as food vending services, cafeteria services or uniform rental services.

Sales managers are constantly trying to expand their pools of available talent. It makes a lot of sense to source from the competition, but if that is the only strategy it can be very limiting. You will be able to dramatically expand your pool of sales talent as well as sharply focus your sourcing efforts by matching sales skills to your customers' buying habits. Selling Dimensions provide a powerful roadmap to identify sales skills attuned to the purchasing patterns of your customers. They provide that critical layer of knowledge to develop behavioral questions, industry sourcing strategies and selection criteria.

*****

Compelled to Buy: Selling to Compelling Events

In January 2007 Blue Mountain Resorts laid off 1,300 workers. For the first time in the resort's history it did not have enough snow to keep open one ski run. Reporting on Blue Mountain's woes, the Globe and Mail stated, "temperatures are expected to be warmer than normal across the country all the way to March." This is a compelling event that has taken Ontario skiers by surprise.

Up until now the environment has been a tough sell. Why? There hasn't been enough tangible impact on the public to motivate change. Everyone knows the dangers of acid rain, global warming, depleting fresh water supplies and the like – environmentalists have been hammering on these issues for years. The public's interest in the environment is changing, because they are being directly impacted: no skiing in Ontario, crippling snow storms in the Northwest coast, Hurricane Katrina and massive sections of the arctic ice shelf breaking free. These events are motivating action. The environment is now the number one political topic on Canadian's minds surpassing even healthcare.

Today the environment is easy to sell – the public is being compelled to focus on it. Compelling events are the beacons or situations that drive people to act. Now the environment sells because the threat is finally real and tangible. Compelling events are very powerful marketing tools. They provide insight for product development, marketing, sales and customer support. By focusing on what drives their market, companies can target real business issues and provide service offers that solve these problems.

Selling business software solutions requires some of the most advanced sales techniques. The products are intangible, require extensive professional services and are expensive. A buyer should be facing significant compelling events to invest hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in these solutions. When the software supplier overlooks the compelling events driving its market, it creates an exceedingly difficult sales strategy. The product presentations seem too technical, discounts are too high and sales performance is spotty.

Sales people can't force someone to buy. A highly discounted solution might shorten the sales cycle, but it delegates all responsibility for the purchaser to solve his own problem. In this situation the sales person is simply a liaison that offers little to no value to the buying process. If the objective is to deliver value and solve real business challenges, price is not the motivator. Yet many companies are forced into discounting, because they do not understand the compelling events that motivate change. This results in bland products that look like everyone else, or worse, products that are developed with very limited market potential.

Let's look at a corporate example. rL Solutions is a rapidly growing company that develops software applications for hospitals. Their applications improve hospital efficiency, improve nurses' jobs, improve patient care and even save lives. The software has an impressive feature set, but that is not what is compelling hospitals to invest in their solutions. The compelling events driving hospitals can be very broad. They range from investing in a brand position to responding to competitive threats.

The Mayo Clinic invests in products that fulfill its brand promise. It is one of the most prestigious and recognized hospitals in the world with a reputation for quality of care. The Mayo Clinic's web site proudly proclaims, "You will see as many doctors, specialists and other health care professionals as needed to provide comprehensive diagnosis, understandable answers and effective treatment." They hold a very specific brand position as a premium service provider with the best specialists, tools and operations available. They invest in themselves to treat the most complex of illnesses.

Many hospitals invest in software based on reactionary compelling events. The American healthcare sector is very competitive. Excessive insurance premiums and patient attrition can cripple a hospital. A major lawsuit that reaches the media or the visibility of poor quality of care are compelling events that motivate the hospital to act. By investing in a new system, the hospital administration is attempting to mitigate the risks or perceived risks they face today.

A clear understanding of what motivates and drives the buyer to act is a competitive advantage for market development. Its impact is felt across the organization. Product development is charged with a set of challenges it needs to solve. Marketing must address situations its ideal customers are facing, and how they go to market to solve these problems. Customer service must transform itself to solve the problem impacting its customers, and to keep their customers operational. The sales force is provided a roadmap for the unique situations their products solve, where the customers exist in their territory and the strategy to help buyers select their solution.

"Solution" is a dramatically over used word. Sales people use it to describe anything they sell. Typically it represents the mix of product and value-add services. In reality a solution should be an answer to the compelling events a buyer faces. Compelling events are powerful marketing tools, because they force sales methods to shift. Sales reps at rL Solutions don't "close," they solve tangible issues of risk management and customer service faced by hospitals. Their sales reps are very proud of the solutions they bring hospitals and the knowledge that their products actually save lives.

Compelling events provide direction and energy for companies to sell tangible solutions. Michael Porter, author of Competitive Advantage, demonstrated in his theories of strategy that focus is a clear source of competitive advantage. But focus for the sake of focus does not benefit anyone. The compelling events that motivate buyers to action are the drivers. Ask any environmentalist what it has been like persuading the public to curb its wasteful ways over the past twenty years – an uphill battle. The environmental changes and extreme weather are compelling events that have opened up plenty of opportunities for companies to deliver products and services to make the world a better place.

*****

Success Breeds Complacency

Kyle Williams, a highly talented sales person, experienced the performance killing results of complacency. Kyle was a top performing sales person with a global services provider. In the first five months of his year he had achieved his annual sales quota. He was so far ahead of his peers that the next best rep was only 10% above his year to date quota. The compensation plan was ideally suited for Kyle at this point. His commission rate quadrupled to 16% of revenue, and he had the potential to earn a huge annual income. Did Kyle maintain focus and keep pushing at the same pace? Absolutely not. By hitting his targets and losing the competitive momentum to be "number one," he went into cruise-control for the rest of the year. In the end he came in second place, and lost the reward trip to the hard working rep that had been chasing him in second place the whole year.

Complacency is a business challenge that almost every sales force faces. It really bothers me when sales people rest on their laurels. They seem to think their past success will guarantee future performance, but that is never the case. Complacency is an intrinsic flaw that prevents people and organizations from pushing beyond the status quo to achieve exceptional successes.

The highs and lows of the annual sales funnel demonstrate the impact of complacency on a sales organization. Ironically a person's worst month or quarter often follows their best. Why? A person who has dramatically surpassed his perception of top level performance will take their foot off the gas to enjoy the ride. It is a natural human response to ease up when things are going great, and push that much harder when things begin to slip. We have a basic plane of comfort that we fall into, and complacency is the break that brings us back to center.

How could Kyle, a person with such obvious talent, get so complacent? His employer provided a well equipped sales organization: compensation accelerators, a prize for being the best sales person, rewards for surpassing quota by 25%, on-going recognition, product training, sales skills training, lead development and CRM tools. The problem for Kyle, and many people like him, was the package of motivators and sales support was still incomplete.

Many organizations fail to recognize that managing for results delivers the status quo. Sales managers can avoid complacency on their sales team by managing their sales people to behaviors and rewarding for results. Selling is activity driven marketing. Once Kyle reached his quota he had achieved his goal. His manager could not request more of him, because he had achieved what everyone else was still struggling for. Yet if Kyle was managed to activity levels, his manager could have helped Kyle maintain his pace and avoid the trap of complacency.

Managing for behaviors is easier said than done. It requires an organization to have absolute clarity in their sales process, with the measurements of the key activities that drive the organization's sales funnel. For example, a call-center tracks the number of calls a rep makes per hour and the amount of time the prospect is on the phone as direct measurements for the sales funnel. On the other hand, a software firm may track the number of product presentations to executive buyers per month as a clear indicator of the health of their sales funnel.

A customer's buying patterns provide the key indicators to measure sales activities. Purchasing patterns should be divided into four primary phases: interest creation, pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase. The interest creation phase is the top of the sales funnel; this is the universe of companies that can be targeted. Quite often interest creation is separated as a marketing function to develop corporate awareness and leads for the sales force. The pre-purchase phase is the traditional view of driving an opportunity through the sales funnel, and it is where the lion's share of management and sales activity is focused. The purchase phase is the step a customer takes to make their final decision: choose the solution, negotiate and complete the appropriate buying commitment. The post-purchase phase is the delivery and implementation of the solution. By defining the key activities that drive a customer through each phase, an organization can define the behaviors that are most relevant to managing sales performance.

For an activity management system to be truly effective, the funnel should be reviewed weekly with each sales person. This is a time consuming task for a busy sales manager, but it is critical to connect purpose and accountability to the sales reps' activities. When Kyle reached his annual quota he made the unconscious decision that he no longer needed to do the hard work of selling: cold calling, up-selling maintenance accounts and day-to-day grunt work. If his manager had worked with him every week on his funnel, and more importantly held him accountable to the lack of movement at the top of his funnel, Kyle could have avoided the complacency trap.

Activity management gets a bad wrap from both sales people and sales managers, because it gets abused. Rather than using it as a tool for motivation and performance, it is used as a tool of fear and micro-management. When tracking activities works against the sales people it will actually cause complacency. Sales people will fight the system when it is used as a way to whip them into shape. Rather it must be used, positioned and understood as a tool that is designed for the benefits of the sales people and that will deliver them results they can feel in their wallets.

Kyle learned a hard lesson by losing the top sales person of the year award, which was a first class trip to Hawaii. He failed himself and saw first hand how complacency devastated his sales performance. The key lesson Kyle took away, and has used as a motivator every year since, has been to focus on selling behaviors. Today Kyle keeps complacency at bay with each of his reps by focusing their attention on the activities that drive the funnel. Every week he works with each of his reps to focus them on their opportunities and teach them how the funnel is a motivator and a tool for driving performance.

*****

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