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WHAT’S WRONG WITH SALES ORGANISATIONS IN THE 21ST CENTURY? “THE BIG SALES COACH MAKING A BIG DIFFERENCE “ DO YOU HAVE CONCERNS WITH THE VOLUME OF SALES YOU ARE PRODUCING, OR ARE NOT PRODUCING? ARE YOUR SALES TEAM FINDING IT INCREASINGLY DIFFICULT TO CLOSE DEALS ? IS THE ‘CREDIT CRUNCH’ THREATING THE VERY EXISTENCE OF YOUR BUSINESS ? ARE YOUR SALES TEAM FEELING DE-MOTIVATED? DO YOU NEED MORE APPOINTMENTS? DO YOU NEED TO IMPROVE YOUR SALES CONVERSION RATIOS? ARE YOUR PRESENTATION SKILLS LACKING? ARE YOU HAVING TO REDUCE YOUR ORDER VALUES, AND YOUR PROFIT MARGINS JUST TO KEEP YOUR BUSINESS TICKING OVER? DO YOU REALISE THAT YOUR SALES SKILLS ARE PROBABLY DATED AND NOT RELEVANT TO TODAYS MARKET PLACE?
HERE’S WHAT’S WRONG WITH SALES ORGANISATIONS IN THE 21ST CENTURY It never fails to surprise me when I visit businesses, from SME’s to large corporations, that I find that most organisations are so focused on ensuring that they are equipped with all the latest IT equipment, manufacturing machinery, accounting and cost centre process and data processing systems and yet they leave the SELLING process purely to chance. I am greeted with looks of amazement when I tell them all of this is secondary. They can have the very best of everything but it all means nothing until someone makes a sale! This is the only activity of the company that brings in revenue. Now during the boom times of the last 15-20 years it didn’t seem important to have a proper sales process as long as orders were coming in, which they did. All you had to ensure was that you could fulfil these orders and everything would be fine. Any new salesmen to an organisation was give a couple of days in the office to get to know who was who, a day on product training ( you know the script, features & benefits) and then off they are sent out into the big wide world and expected to ‘bring in the orders and take home the bacon’ Well. It’s time for these organisations to wake up, because if they don’t they will not be around for much longer in to-days financial climate. The future wellbeing and growth of any company will depend upon its sales and marketing, more so than any other activity! The biggest problem with sales training in the 21st century throughout the world is the fact that most companies are still product-centred and not people-oriented. And the second reason is that companies confuse product and technical training as sales training. The 21st Century Sales Challenge The role of the salesman has changed from providing information about their company’s products and services, which is now freely available via the internet, and yet we are still using the same outdated sales model defined by Dale Carnegie in the 1930’s. His sales model was appropriate for that time when product information was generally unavailable or at best, limited, and therefore the role of the salesperson was to provide that information and then demonstrate the benefits to be had by purchasing your product. This presentation was normally ‘face-to-face’ and the advantage was always with the seller. That situation has now clearly changed and, with the advent of the Internet, buyers can often have more information and know as much about competition, pricing and services as the sellers. Most people think that selling is an art. I believe that the art lies in doing the science. For example, we know that when a salesperson talks with a prospect, that prospect has a hidden agenda. And this hidden agenda amounts to their buying decisions and they’re going to always make those decisions in a very precise psychological order. Now we call it hidden because most prospects themselves, don’t know that they’re going through this process. I mean, how many times have you had someone say to you, “It sounded good but I just didn’t feel right about it”? What that means is that one of those decisions has not been made in a very positive manner. And therefore what that does is place management in the unfortunate position of trying to manage various styles and personalities of their sales prospects and that’s almost an impossible task. I believe one of the biggest challenges facing us is, how can I best differentiate my company and products from my competitors, at a time when trying to do so has become increasingly more difficult, at the point of sale?What can we do to avoid decreasing margins where many decisions are based on price and price alone? Some people believe that the job of the seller is to communicate and offer value, or to differentiate their offering so buyers know how to choose one product over another. I've also heard it said that the products themselves create value. But in this world of global information flow, it's almost impossible to differentiate yourself by your product alone, no matter how good it is: we all realize that giving clients product information, or asking the questions that have them reveal current problems or preferences, does not get the product sold - or you'd be closing a lot more sales.
HOW DO YOU CREATE VALUE IN A DEPRESSED MARKETPLACE?
No matter what sales approach you're currently using -
and numbers indicate that most sales people don't follow any one selling model and use a 'hybrid' mix of their own design - you've got the same dilemma: how do you create value in a depressed market in which products, vendors, questions, presentations, and sellers, all seem similar. Several years ago Nightingale Conant conducted a piece of research designed to identify the barriers that prevent organizations from achieving continual sales growth. This paper outlines the five most common issues that Sales Directors need to avoid and reveals the secrets that have helped their top performing colleagues unleash the maximum talent of their sales teams. § 2,663 sales organizations from the USA and Europe took part in this survey and some of the findings are published here to help Sales Directors understand the issues that prevent optimum sales performance and results. § 82.29% say they don’t have a consultative sales process or are not following the one they have § 8.13% at most are consistent peak performers § 41.48% say that their salespeople are performing below expectations § 50.40% apart from excellent performers, the majority have scope for improvement § 90.55% say their salespeople struggle to keep a proper balance between prospecting, presenting, negotiation, closing and managing an account. § 67.21% are not doing, or sporadically do sales coaching development. § 52.34% of sales managers say they don’t have the time or are too busy to develop and coach their sales teams. In another Harris poll conducted on 23.000 workers employed full-time in ‘Key Industries and Key Functional Areas ‘Only 37% said they had a clear understanding of what their organisation is trying to achieve and why. Only 1 in 5 was enthusiastic about their teams and organisations goals Only 1in 5 workers said they had a clear line of site between their tasks and their teams and organisations goals. Only 50% said they were satisfied with the work they had achieved by the end of the week Only 15% felt that their organisation fully enables them to execute key goals Only 15% felt they worked in a high trust environment Only 17% felt their organisation fosters open communication that is respectful of differing opinions and that results in new and better ideas. Only 10% felt that their organisation held people accountable for the results Only 20% fully trusted the organisation that they worked for Only 13% have high trust, highly co-operative relationships with other groups or departments IF A FOOTBALL TEAM HAD THE SAME SCORES Only 4 of the 11 would know which goal was theirs. Only 2 of the 11 would care! Only 2 of the 11 would know what position they play in and know exactly what they are supposed to do. All but 2 players would, in some way, be competing against their own team members rather than the opponents HOW SUCCESSFUL WOULD THAT TEAM BE? The 5 most pressing issues facing sales organisations to-day are: 1. A Poorly Defined Sales Process, which Dilutes Sales Revenues 2. Lack of Essential Skills, which Leads to Below Average Performance and Consequently Below Average Sales Results 3. Failing to Focus Salespeople’s Activity, which Reduces Efficiency and Consequently Reduces Results 4. Allowing Self-Limiting Beliefs to Constrain Salespeople’s Performance, which Limits Sales Results 5. Failing to Choose and Develop a Sales Leadership Team that Nurtures and Develops their Salespeople’s Potential, which Decreases Sales Results
Not only are sellers having confusion as to why they are not closing more or quicker these days, but buyers are completely overwhelmed:
How to choose the most appropriate vendor when they all sound/appear professional and their offerings are so similar; or how to choose the optimal solution when there are so many possible choices; It's frustrating for all when buyers choose the familiar brand just because it's the safest choice when it might not provide cutting edge thinking, or the most appropriate solution.
So sales are taking maybe 30% longer to close - even with the ability of sellers to position their product and brand effectively.
But what, actually, is a seller's value proposition? Is it your brand? Your product? Your relationship? And, how do you differentiate yourself given the same product line - like many technical products, or financing vehicles? In frustration, do you end up making it a price competition, and lower your price (We know that doesn't work. Buyers buy on price only when all else looks equal)? Give away a service for free just to lure the customer in?
The bigger question to consider is: how do you become the value proposition?
SALES AS THE VALUE PROPOSITION
Of course you care about your customers and have strategically positioned your customer service to exhibit a seamless customer experience, and created a trustworthy, reliable, knowledgeable, and supporting presence.
But everyone is doing that!! There Is An Alternative, But You Must Be Prepared To Challenge Your Sales Philosophy
Imagine changing the game. Indeed, imagine being the value proposition that differentiates you from your competitors.
It's possible to create a new value proposition: make yourself the facilitator that brings the buyer side of the sales equation into focus. Have the facilitation skills to offer prospects access into the internal systems decisions they would need to make that are not product related (hint: if all necessary decisions are product-related and the buyer has already managed all people, political, historic, relational, and strategic issues that hold the identified problem in place, your normal sales skills are sufficient).
Your new value proposition is to close the gap between the selling and the buying. Although you've understood that sales is comprised of two equal components - the buy side and the sell side - the sell side has not afforded you the skills to be able to manage the critical systems elements within the buying environment or craft the purchase in the time frame, pricing structure, or package you'd prefer (giving you extended sales cycles, problems knowing what's really going on, and difficulty in assessing the way decisions are being made). Those have been hidden from you, and possibly even hidden from the buyer initially. But they were hidden only because the job of the seller hasn't included the ability to help manage the buyer's internal systems issues. So when the industry trained salesman is going through his sales cycle of Company; product; needs & desires, establish budget; price; close; consolidate. referrals etc and there is nothing to choose between them all, the decision is very often based on which salesman the customers liked / trusted the most. If the business you get is then based on which salesman the customers liked best, what do you really know about the business you didn’t get? Do you know at which stage during the sales presentation the sale was lost? You will only know what the salesman tells you, and even if you telephone to make a ‘customer service follow up call’, you rarely get the real reason why the customers did not place an order with your company. HELPING MANAGE THE BUY SIDE FIRST
The components within the buy-side that must be managed - all of the moving
parts necessary for the buyer to perform optimally through the change that a new solution would affect - are often unknown up front. And the time it takes buyers to not only recognize the elements, but to manage them effectively, is the length of the sales cycle. They won't purchase a solution that offends their status quo.
Let's change the nature of the sales job to include helping buyers recognize the
elements within the buy side that they need to manage, separate from their apparent needs, or how our solution fits.
The new value proposition for a sales job is to help the buyer manage the full range of their hidden moving parts, automatically giving you a competitive edge. It will no longer be just about your product or your brand, your relationship or your personality. It will be about your skill at facilitating the buyer's decision making. TIME TO CHANGE THE JOB
It is time to rethink the job of the salesperson, to enable them to approach prospects as a trained facilitator. You've invested in your sales team in becoming professional sellers – their sales pitch, communication, information gathering, relationship building skills may all be finely honed. Make their first job be helping them figure out all the aspects of their customer’s unique buying system that they need to address before they will know how to incorporate your offering into their solution design. NOW IS THE TIME FOR GREATNESS! NOW IS THE TIME FOR REAL LEADERSHIP! NOW IS THE TIME TO BE THE BEST! NOW IS THE TIME TO MAKE A POSITIVE MOVE. ENTER YOUR DETAILS IN THE BOXES PROVIDED TO OBTAIN YOUR FREE CONSULTATION AND YOU WILL BE CONTACTED SOON. To your continued success. James McKim “The BIG Sales Coach making a BIG Difference” |
