Want Better Sales Numbers? Take This Quiz!

This is an abbreviated version of the basic State of the Sales Team Evaluation that I go through with each new Sales Training client, well before any contracted curriculum is developed or taught. Have your Sales Managers (or Sales Pros) take this quiz anonymously, and you'll quickly identify some hidden weaknesses in your sales team. It's much easier to develop an effective solution when you're attacking the real problem!

1.       How many team members are at or above quota? How many on your team total?

2.       What are your team’s strengths? Prospecting, cold calling, follow up, presentation, closing, account management, referral generation?

3.       What is your team’s weakest skill? Prospecting, cold calling, follow up, presentation, closing, account management, referral generation?

4.       How have you addressed this/these weakness(es)?

5.       What are the most frequent objections your team hears? Are they written down for the team?

6.       Have you helped your team develop effective responses to these objections? Are they written down for the team?

7.       What are the weaknesses of your product line?

8.       Do you train your team on how to answer (not deflect) questions about the weaknesses?

9.       Do you study competition offerings?

10.   When is the last time you trained your team on the offerings of the competition?

11.   What do you do regularly to keep your team inspired and motivated? Does it seem to work?

12.   How often do you have team meetings? Never   Daily   Weekly   Monthly    As Needed

13.   How often do you praise team members? Never   Daily or more   Weekly  Monthly   Can't Remember

14.   How often do you correct, scold, or discipline individual team members? Daily or more    Weekly    Monthly  

15.   How often do your team members praise each other?  Daily or more Weekly Monthly  Less than monthly

16.   Do you believe your team members have enough sales materials? If no, what do they need?

17.   Do you believe your department has adequate support in your organization? If no, why not? What do you need?

18.   Once a sale has been made, are there any consistent problems with fulfillment? If yes, what are the problems? What have you done to resolve this?

19.   Does your team use a CRM? Is it within a week of up to date?

 

20.   What is your management style?

21.   Have you sought other employment within the last year? If yes, why?

22.   If no CRM, how do you keep track of and manage your pipeline?

23.   How current are your client and prospect files?  Up to date   Within a week Within a month   More than 30 days out of date

24.   How many hours per week do you work? 35-45  45-55   55-65   65+

25.   Do you have any selling responsibilities? What percentage of your time is spent selling?

26.   How many hours per week do you spend on paperwork? 5-8 9-12  3-16  17-20  20+

Look at all the answers in context of which teams are the most successful, and which are the least. What answers surprised you? Now you have somewhere to start from...  

Visit us at www.marinoconsultants.com

Why Your Sales Training Didn't Work (and how to fix it)

The good news is, it's not your fault. Mostly. You brought in a well-reviewed, high-priced training company, and they delivered a beautiful, motivating seminar to the entire sales team. Everyone loved it. And nothing changed. Sound familiar?

Think of sales training as a chain. How useful is a chain with a single link? Not very. But that wonderful seminar is just that - a single link in a chain. You need all the links for that chain to be useful. If you had all the links, things would likely have worked out better. So what are the links you need?

Pre-training: Understand that there needs to be a change to the status quo. Doing things the same way will not yield new results. Prepare upper management that they may need to let go of some processes, traditions, and ideas to make the team more effective. Change is never easy to accept, and commitment from upper management is key to success.

Survey your sales team. What are the most difficult objections they face? What internal, company-based obstacles do they believe they face? What skills do they want to learn? What support do they want from management? (This assessment will only be effective if it's anonymous, and there is NO fear of retaliation.) Take all of this information and use it to do an honest assessment of what the team is working with, and against.

Survey your sales managers. What do they see as the most entrenched bad habits? What have they done to improve the situation? Do they work from a positive coaching mentality? Or a negative scolding mentality? Do they want training? What skills would they the team to learn? How do they plan to support implementation of those skills? Add this information to the assessment above, and you'll have a pretty clear picture of what Sales thinks their problems are. Does this coincide with the results you want from training?

Gap analysis: What result are you looking for? How far from that goal are you currently? What skills need to be developed to achieve those results? Does your team want those skills? What support materials will they need to reinforce those skills? What will it take to get the sales team to want to change? How will they know when they have the skills to make the change?

Curriculum plan: Before the training is delivered, get a detailed curriculum plan, and make sure it covers all of the points you're looking to improve. Discuss the curriculum plan with managers and the trainer to make sure management will support the training. Develop a plan that reinforces training in daily work going forward.

After training: Enforce new policies and skills gently but firmly. Supply your team with resources (worksheets, gamification, webinars) to reinforce their new skills. Have each team member send their manager an email daily discussing what new skills were used, and what the outcome was. Have the managers compile this information, and coach the team for better outcomes.

Check the numbers: Which manager's team is having the most success? The most trouble? Which sales pros are the most compliant with the changes? The least? Are the most successful teams and pros the ones who are using the new skills? Reinforcement of the new skills and policies should increase over a span of several months, not decrease. You'll never know if the training worked if the skills aren't implemented.

You can implement the "after training" links in the chain now, and it will help your team build new skills. That is, if they remember the training. If they don't, request supporting materials from your trainer, and build your after training plan on those handouts and materials. The refresher may be all they need to get on track.

If the training is too far gone, accept it. It might be too late to make that last training effective, but now you're ready to make the next one fantastic.

Visit us at www.marinoconsultants.com

Why Closing Is Different In 2015

In 2005, everyone had computer access and a cell phone.  None of us had streaming TV, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Facebook, or Skype.  Faxing was still big. Important information still regularly came in your physical mailbox. 2015 is a year where the 2005 plan just won't cut it.

The biggest difference in the sales world is that prospect and buyers expect to be part of the sales process. Interactive sales are the norm. Clients will want custom products, and they will tell you how they are willing to let you sell it.  Anyone can open their phone and Google your "facts," and comparison shopping is almost instantly available to every customer.  What's a sales pro to do?

Interacting with your client doesn't just mean showing up for a meeting anymore. Now we text, tweet, video chat, email, and LinkedIn message our customers and our prospects.  Following a prospect on social media keeps us in the loop as their attitudes and goals change and evolve. And they follow us, and our competition, too. The sheer volume of available information has made consumers a much more educated group.

How does this affect closing? Focus on helping your prospect meet their goals and relieve their pain points. Listen as much as possible to how your solution will be implemented and how it will benefit the customer's plans. People commit to relationships they believe are honest and beneficial, so it's important that your client doesn't feel sandbagged in the closing process. (After the commitment has been made is not the time to throw in, "Oh, by the way, I need you to sign this.")

Written agreements give you the authorization to handle sensitive information, and give the customer a record of the commitments you and your company have made. Emphasize that your agreement protects your client's privacy; it limits who has access to their information, and for what purpose. When a prospect asks you for a commitment, that's a great time to agree, hold up your agreement and say, "and we put it in writing." 

Don't be surprised if your client pulls out an agreement of their own for you to sign on behalf of your company.  More and more purchasing departments in companies small and large have "contractor agreements," which usually supersede any other oral or written agreements.  They often include non-disclosure clauses, and penalties to the vendor if the solution is late, ineffective, or improperly maintained. Make sure you have permission to sign before you go ahead and do it.  If you're not sure, bring it back to the office with you and hand it off to your boss.  

Your competition isn't local anymore.  Your competition is anything a customer can find on the internet.  If someone else out there offers a nuance or policy that your customers like or want, they will pressure you to offer it, too.  Welcome to the interactive sale.

The Resolution To Keep This Year

Teach your sales staff (and your customer service staff) to sell. There is no degree, license, or certificate program out there to verify that your sales force knows what they're doing, and can consistently deliver customers. Yet, the existence your company depends on it.

Onboarding an employee is expensive. It costs tens of thousands of dollars per employee. New sales pros are hired, trained on the product and the computer system, and then sent into the field for months of trial and error. On average it takes a sales pro 6 months before they are consistently profitable. That's 6 months IF THEY WORK OUT! If they don't, the company starts the process all over again.

Why don't most companies train their sales people to sell? Sales training is an "additional" expense because it adds to the initial cost of onboarding, and because of that companies shy away from the perceived cost. However,over a dozen recent studies show that the opposite is true. It actually makes you money.

Companies who specifically train new and existing sales pros in sales techniques lose fewer than half as many sales people, because their sales staffs perform significantly better. (I guarantee my clients a 10% or greater improvement in closings within the first month. Think of that adding up over a year!) New hires who fail the training are let go, and quickly replaced with someone more likely to close business, saving months they would have spent failing in the field.

Sales managers are also usually untrained. For a team to work effectively together, it helps to have common goals and related sales tools. A team trained together speaks a common language. It allows teams to fill each other's deficits, and reinforce each other's strengths.

What does it cost to train a person to sell? It depends on the trainer. Companies who choose to train their sales staff often hire a consultant, at a cost of $2000 to $8000 per week, once or twice a year. The number of employees trained by one consultant in a week can vary by the size of the available teaching space and training style, so those $2000 dollars can train 2 employees, or 200. A week or two is usually enough. One or two day seminars are great refreshers once or twice a year. A very expensive option, sending staff off site to seminars for days or weekends, is popular, usually at a cost of $500 to $1500 per employee, plus travel, hotel and meals. These tend to be name-brand seminars from book authors and TV personalities. Some companies employ a sales trainer, and keep them on staff at all times. In 2014, the average sales trainer who was a corporate employee was paid $65,000 plus benefits. All of these options are cheaper than hiring and replacing just one failed sales pro.

Sales training works. It's cheaper than an under-performing employee, or worse, a failing sales department. If your employer doesn't train in how to sell, ask the best sales pros you know for ideas. Read whatever they recommend, and do your best to learn a new skill each week.

Vending, Clerks, and Sales

When my daughter was 4, she came down with a nasty case of strep throat.  Everything she swallowed hurt her, including fluids.  It was a hot day, and she was feverish, and wouldn't even drink because it hurt.  I worried about her getting dehydrated.  As I was offering her different things for dinner, she turned down one after another. 

"Let's have ice cream for dinner tonight, Honey." I offered.  It wouldn't hurt her throat, and it would help keep her fluid intake up.

She tilted her head so her curls fell away from her face.  "Okay."  Then she sat up very straight, pushed back her hair, and said, "Wait.  We can do that?"  She had never even imagined the option!


There are three primary ways in which things are sold:

Vending - when things are displayed, and all or most of the transaction takes place without interacting with a person.  This is true of vending machines, most online sales, and grocery stores to name a few.  People are versed in the product and in their particular needs, and can/will make purchases without additional information about features and benefits.

Clerks - when a shopping experience takes place with a human assistant to the sale.  Clerks will direct you within a store to help you find the product you are seeking, and make suggestions regarding fit or ancillary products that work well together. 

Sales - the shopper is guided through the entire process because the features and benefits must be explained and understood on an individual basis.  Buying a car, or consulting a stock broker or insurance agent are excellent examples of sales.

Most of us in the sales world think of ourselves as professionals, but find ourselves behaving like clerks more often that we'd like.  We have a customer who wants to take control of a sale, or who is only motivated to shop, and not buy, and we find ourselves directing them to investigate on their own ("the sale rack is in the back, Sir.") We choose not to sell to them, but instead to deflect them because they're difficult.

How do we motivate ourselves to be a salesperson all the time?  We must decide to never give up control.  It may be taken from us from time to time, but we should never give it away.  Salespeople are hired when they are necessary for the product to meet its full market potential.  Some features and benefits are not obvious, so we need to show the  customer how the product improves their unique situation.  Take the situation above: the child didn't even know ice cream for dinner was an option.  We never know which information the client doesn't have - and we know better than to make assumptions - so we need to cover it all.

When we surrender control of a sale, we end up relying on the customer to ask the right questions to get the answers they need to sell themselves.  They won't do it.  They can't do it.  They don't know the features and benefits of the product the way you do.  You need to lead them through the process to ensure they cover all the information that will help them.  You also need to keep them motivated and excited, because without that, the sale will never close.  People love to acquire, but they hate parting with their money. 

Stick with your sales flow, and commit to answering questions in your own timetable. "I'd like to get to that in a minute."  Take notes while the customer is speaking, so they can tell that you are interested in their specific needs.  Frequently refer to their comments and situation that you took the notes about so they feel involved.  Ask primarily "yes" questions.  ("Wouldn't you love never having to clean the oven again?")  Yes questions rarely lead to the customer objecting, so you can build goodwill, and the customer will feel understood.  Control is the difference between a sale and a callback.  Make sales!

Next time, we'll review Sales Flow.