Tag Archives: How to increase sales

Sales Coaching

How to Improve Sales: Top Sales Strategy Tips From a Business to Business Sales Coach

If you sell value-add or business critical solutions or services B2B, these top sales strategy tips could be the catalyst to help improve sales performance. Find out how a coach that constructively challenges your strategy and approach could be a key factor for success.

Sales Coach Tip #1

Eliminate Comfort Zone Selling to Improve Sales Performance

Many salespeople and often the companies they work for are slaves of comfort zone selling. They go through the same old “hit and hope” sales routine, hoping for the best but winning too little profitable business. This is the best place to start looking when considering ways to improve sales performance.

A prospective customer requests a presentation, proposal, demonstration or trial and most salespeople are keen to oblige. That’s a lot of commitment from a supplier. Effective salespeople qualify well and work to ensure they gain enough commitment in return, before they agree to dedicate time and effort.

Few companies stop to calculate the cost of each failed sales attempt, whether a formal tender or a less formal proposal. Consider the total hours lost in meetings and response preparation for a bid that fails. A skilled sales coach will ensure valuable time is spent wisely and only on winnable opportunities.

Sales Coach Tip #2

Profit is Sanity So Keep the Focus on a Margin Rich Sales Strategy

Now think how many of the bids you win are “margin compromised” as opposed to margin rich? Being the price leader in an attempt to improve sales performance may work for the budget shop, but it’s a very poor sales strategy if you sell value-add or critical solutions or services business to business.

Business critical purchases tend to be far less price sensitive than prospective customers would ever like to admit. The risk of a poor buying decision is too high for false economies. Yet supplier nerves often trigger unnecessary discount just to get the deal done and thus the margin is often compromised.

Before you weigh up the merits of using an external coach, think just how much you might be losing by pandering to false price pressures. A good sales coach is a catalyst for the behaviour changes needed to improve margin rich sales performance and any investment here should produce healthy returns.

Sales Coach Tip #3

Why Let Purchasing Departments Determine Your Sales Strategy?

The market too often expects suppliers to jump at any opportunity to bid. Many suppliers conform without really considering how well positioned they are to win or the business viability if they did. Suppliers that professionally hold their ground can gain significant credibility with prospective customers.

Too many salespeople just look for a solution match. Ticking the boxes against a specification, RFP or ITT is only one aspect to consider. Any good sales coach will ensure that the primary focus is on access to the key influencers and decision makers – the people who can make things happen.

Assuming the project is real and they will actually spend money with someone soon, there is always a danger you may only be making up the numbers. A smarter B2B sales strategy helps you weed out the false opportunities from the real ones to avoid situations where the odds are stacked against you.

Left to their own devices, most salespeople can become habitual and even if they work hard, they may not work smart. A skilled external sales coach will help them identify and avoid the false opportunities they might otherwise chase, whilst honing their ability to qualify, develop and win the true ones.

Sales Coach Tip #4

Serious Buying Decisions Demand Deep Consideration

Imagine your career relied on selecting the right supplier of a business critical service. How much would you be influenced by a likable salesperson and how much by their ability to correctly set and meet your expectations? Suppliers failing to grasp this will find it hard to improve sales performance.

We often hear that “people buy from people they like.” This is just too simplistic when it comes to value-add or business critical solutions or services. In such situations people will buy from people they hold credible to deliver to expectations. Anything else would put their careers seriously at risk.

And if people make serious buying decisions based on how confident they feel in a company’s ability to meet expectations, then why do so many suppliers waste time pitching their solutions instead of asking constructive questions and listening well in order to build strong relationships with the key players?

If you lack confidence it’s often tempting to slip into pitching mode rather than really engage your prospective customer. You may feel on safe ground talking about the features and benefits of a solution you know like the back of your hand. Your prospective customer may well be more bored than engaged.

If you can convince a genuine prospect they are in safe hands with your company, that you clearly understand their requirements and will deliver to the expectations that you set, then why would they not select you? Ironically, many salespeople only scrape the surface of sales opportunities and thus fail.

Sales Coach Tip #5

Specialist Niche Player Supplier or Large Generalist Supplier?

Small companies often have an inferiority complex, however with the right B2B sales strategy, a specialist niche player can often beat larger well known bidders. The key is to determine early on whether a prospect is prepared to break from the herd to go with a lesser known company with a better offering.

Prospective customers may operate within their own comfort zones and some will turn away from the better solution in order to ensure the safety of their own derriere. A good sales coach will help you separate prospects that will only ever play safe from those that are prepared to back the best solution.

And Finally, Back to Sales Coach Tip #1

When you think about it, comfort zone selling is in many ways at the root of all of the above issues. It is habitual, even self-satisfying in the short-term to be working so hard on so many opportunities. However it is far less rewarding in the medium to long-term when too little of any real value comes to fruit.

To eradicate comfort zone selling means raising the bar across the board. A business to business sales strategy evolution is more viable than a potentially disruptive revolution. It can be a mistake to try to change too much too soon. An experienced sales coach can help you move towards your goal step by step.

More sales and business articles by Harry Hayden [http://www.performbusinesscoaching.com/resource/]

About the Author

Harry Hayden is an experienced sales coach [http://www.performbusinesscoaching.com/sales-coaching/] based in the UK. In his previous career he led multinational sales groups across Europe for several large and medium sized corporates. He now helps SME business leaders and salespeople with the development and execution of their sales strategy.

Harry is MD of Perform Business Coaching and can be reached directly at harry@pbc-hh.com or through the website above.

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Sales Coaching

Infield Sales Coaching – The Way of the Future for Sales Managers

Infield sales coaching is the term used to describe when a sales manager coaches a sales person in their sales territory. This can be a geographical or market segmented sales territory. Sales coaching is an ongoing process and not a single event. The process is designed to achieve a purpose and that is to assist every salesperson in the salesforce to reach their full potential. By providing challenges, encouragement and guiding them in continued professional growth, sales performance can be improved in a sustainable manner.

Attributes of great sales coaches

Sales coaches work with their salespeople in the area of strategy, targets, expected outcomes and potential sales call obstacles. Often the missing link is how these are to be achieved. Sales coaches also ask for feedback to ensure their salespeople understand. If the salesperson does not understand it’s up to the sales coach to show them.

Great sales coaches use the following tools:

  • Standardised formal sales process to create common understanding
  • Active listening and questioning skills so they can replicate a sales situation
  • The ability to shut up and let the salesperson lead the sales call even if they are failing
  • The ability to role-play the salesperson’s part of the sales call
  • The ability to uncover and question everything they hear
  • The ability to remain in the moment and not become emotionally involved
  • They don’t need to seek approval so they say, ask or do whatever is necessary to get the salesperson to the next competency level
  • Patience so they can take small steps to clarify a situation
  • Their hands on experience
  • Their wisdom based on years of experience
  • Their sense of humour by keeping it light
  • The respect of their salespeople
  • The trust of their salespeople
  • The relationship they have with their salespeople.

Adapted from Dave Kurlan ‘s Understanding the Salesforce:

What do you need to focus on when coaching your salespeople?

Focus on three areas:

  • Sales strategy

This relates to the customer and potential customers, selecting the right products or services and pricing

 

  • Facts

These include ratios and percentages such as the sales call to order ratio and sales margins. When this information is linked to the sales process facts can provide an indicator of future activity and sales results

 

  • Sales behaviour

Notice what your salesperson does before, during and after the sales call. Do they understand what they are doing, have they followed the sales process, have they applied skills correctly and can they self correct? If not, what competency gaps are there? What do you need to show and demonstrate?

  • Sales coaching styles

Every sales manager has a sales coaching style. Do you know what yours is? Do you know why you are a compatible sales coach with some of your salespeople and find it difficult with others?

Your salespeople want to know how you can help them become successful.

By developing your coaching style and competence as a sales coach your salespeople will want to learn and work with you. Your job will also become more enjoyable. You will find they will want to follow your example and grow professionally.

How to allocate your time to maximise results

Within a salesforce there are 3 categories of salespeople that determine where you should spend most of your time in order to maximise sales performance:

1. The concern category

These are the consistently low sales performers. Unfortunately most sales managers spend a great deal of their time working with these salespeople in an attempt to improve sales. These salespeople tend to rely heavily on the support of their sales manager so time is consumed with additional coaching sessions and often providing answers to problems.

Action –If you have this category of salesperson then you will need to cut back on the amount of time you give them. Start by asking them what they think the answer is to a problem rather than you providing it. Reduce your infield sales coaching time and replace it with a phone call. Set a realistic sales target and time frame. If the sales target is not achieved you will need to take action. The salesperson may be better suited to a different role in the company?

2. The top performer category

It is not uncommon for these salespeople to feel neglected because they receive minor or no sales coaching from their sales managers. This can affect their attitude and result in their being difficult to manage. They usually outsell the combined efforts of the average players in their salesforce so sales managers think they don’t need further development. Some sales managers who are not very competent in selling avoid their top performers for fear of being shown up

Action –Seek the top performers’ input as to the number of sessions and the objectives. They usually only need minor skills refinement which then further enhances their sales performance and motivation. If they have qualified for Level 6 – The Professional status they will more than likely want to develop sales coaching skills and pass on their expertise to other salespeople.

Introduce them to sales coaching over a period of time by allowing them to take on the additional responsibility as well as continue to manage their sales territory. This will give you the time to evaluate their performance as well as the performance of the salespeople they coach. The top performer will also have the opportunity to see if sales coaching is a career they would like to pursue full-time.

3. The average category

The majority of salespeople are in the average to above average range in terms of their sales competence and sales results. This category is ideal for the top performer to begin developing their infield sales coaching skills. There is usually at least one salesperson in this category who has the potential to become a top performer.

Action –Schedule regular sales coaching sessions for this large category and identify the salespeople who have achieved Level 4 or 5 Sales Competency. Assess their talents and strengths and outline a fast track sales development plan because they will provide you with the greatest single increase in sales. It will also motivate the more junior salespeople to work harder and achieve a higher level of sales competence.

To consistently improve sales performance is no easy task. By coaching and leading by example in their world is your greatest opportunity to really get to know them. This in turn will help you to increase your salespeople’s sales competence, motivation and sales results.

If you want more information about this subject or have any sales performance issue you would like to discuss please contact Kurt Newman direct on 0412 252 236. Alternatively email sales@salesconsultants.com.au

Kurt Newman is the co-founder of Sales Consultants Pty Ltd a firm that works with companies to increase sales and reduce the cost of selling. http://www.salesconsultants.com.au

Kurt’s expertise is in sales strategy, sales management development; group structured sales training and infield sales coaching. As a sales person he has successfully sold products and services in 4 major market/product segments: new product sales, consultative sales, relationship sales and retail. During his selling career he created sales records for three companies in two industries and won many other sales awards for outstanding performance.

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Sales Coaching

Sales Coaching – An Executive’s Guide

When Am I Coaching?

Corporate climate surveys and interviews repeatedly indicate that employees feel they are not coached enough, that they are not clear enough about expectations, that they get too little feedback. Consultants, academics, human resources professionals, some senior managers, and almost all corporate training departments press continually for managers to dedicate more time to coaching. Yet neither managers nor their direct reports can reliably tell you when “coaching” is taking place and whether anyone has been coached.

Why? There is no shared definition. Sales managers, sales people, and trainers describe coaching based on what they’ve experienced, in terms of activities, among them:

 

  • Expectation setting
  • Coaching disciplines
  • Feedback about results
  • Pushing for skills to improve
  • Lots of short interval feedback and management

 

The resulting gumbo mixes old athletic coach models with new-age mumbo jumbo, academic research, and training program models to produce frustration and confusion. Since business leaders and sales managers have precious little time for any task, we need definitions of “what’s a sales coach” and “what’s sales coaching” that experienced managers can use.

Define the Coaching Context

To begin, coaching is a process, not a thing, not an event, not a single type of discussion. The coaching process serves a purpose; you coach to reach an objective. The coaches we’ve met begin thinking about coaching by answering three questions:

 

  • Why am I coaching? What’s the objective?
  • What are the circumstances? How much damage is done if we don’t achieve the goal?
  • Who am I coaching? What do they need from me in order to fulfill the purpose?

 

Their answers to these three questions help them set priorities in terms of their commitment of time to coaching, the frequency and extent of coaching conversations, and their coaching focus.

Specify Your System

Successful sales coaches have developed “systems” that work and that they can teach so that other people can successfully reach meaningful goals. The primary responsibility of executive-level sales managers is to define (or have others define) the “success path” or “system” which will enable their reps to be successful.

Watch any successful team manager, from sales to symphonies to soccer fields, and you’ll see a system. Dig into any successful franchise operation; you’ll find a system that enables ordinary people to produce extraordinary results repeatedly. The system defines performance in detail:

 

  • The correct activities,
  • Done at the correct time,
  • At the correct frequency,
  • In the correct manner.

 

People who are serious about reaching a particular objective flock to good coaches because they know the coaches have systems to get the job done and that, if they use the coaches’ systems, they’ll be successful.

In sales, this means having a “pilot’s manual” that describes how your company and your team, and everybody on it, does business. The manual documents your business development and sales management process in detail – the correct activities, the correct timing, the proper frequency, and specific methods.

For example: When do you meet with your sales reps for coaching? What topics do you cover? What does an acceptable proposal look like, how many of them should someone submit in a year to be successful?

If you can’t define the optimal performance system for your sales team, you’re not well positioned to coach.

Work the System on Three Levels

When developing and implementing their systems, coaches work on three levels:

Strategic – the game plan. In sales, this includes establishing a mission for the team, profiling target customers, choosing products or services to emphasize, and deploying sales resources to customers.

Statistical – the relationships between activities and results. This means connecting data about sales process (i.e. steps activities) to sales results so you can prioritize activities and predict results.

Behavioral – what people do and how. This includes sales call behaviors, internal and external communications, and personal management.

The more senior the sales executives, the more attention they should pay to the “strategic” and “statistical” aspects of the system and implementation of sales team strategies.

When executive sales managers meet with their direct reports (regional, district, or sales team sales managers), they should coach at all three levels:

 

  • Observe performance at all three levels (strategic, statistical, behavioral).
  • Note gaps between what you see and what your system says you should see.
  • Communicate observations to sales managers.
  • Where necessary, instruct sales managers as to what to do, when to do, or how to do strategy implementation, activity management, or specific sales behaviors.

 

Executive sales managers’ expectations, coupled with feedback and consequences, change sales management behaviors. The changed sales management behaviors drive sales activities and sales results. Sales managers who are directly coaching individual sales people should work through the same three levels of coaching with their sales reps.

Do You Get Style Points

Style is important. As a coach, you have to connect with your team members to communicate. You have to enroll them in your vision of what is possible for the team and why it’s worth getting up in the morning.

At the same time, remember what they want from you. They want to know you can help them be successful. If you can demonstrate that your system works, you’ll tend to attract people who want to work for you… and the people who work for you already will be more willing to adapt their styles to yours because they know, in the end, they’ll reach their goals if they follow your coaching.

Nicholas T. Miller, president of Clarity Advantage, helps banks generate more profitable relationships faster with small and medium-sized companies, their owners, and employees. Clarity consulting, communications, sales tools and training help banks recruit and deploy sales team members, choose their best business and consumer prospects and clients, then approach, engage, sell, expand, and retain relationships. Clarity also assists banks with consumer sales and cash management sales. Clarity clients have posted increases in household penetration, cross-sells, deposit volume, and loan volume. Visit Clarity’s website at http://www.clarityadvantage.com where you can subscribe to “The Weekly Sales Thought,” a free eNewsletter and podcast focused on business-to-business selling and sales management.

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5 Questions, Business Development, People, Start-ups, Training

How To Build Sales Team Competence?

When a business finds the right sales staff, it will see how sales can help it expand to a new level.
“It’s integral if you want to grow your business to a more substantial agency that you understand how to successfully ramp up a salesperson,” — Jenny Dibble, owner of SearchMarketMe.

Sales Coaching

Sales Managers – The 6 Steps to Become a Great Sales Coach

Although a salesperson’s professional development is limited when it centres only on classroom learning many organisations still persist with it. At the risk of upsetting those in the learning and development field it has to be said that classroom learning has minimal impact in the medium to long term and by every measure the return on investment for the company is poor. At best the retention for the salesperson is 30% if active learning such as role play is part of the skills development and considerably lower at 5% if it is passive when the facilitator talks most of the time. When infield sales coaching becomes integral to the sales person’s development this figure can escalate to a staggering 90%. With up to 70% of top sales performers leaving because of dissatisfaction with their manager relationship sales coaching provides an opportunity to forge close working ties.

So why doesn’t every sales manager incorporate sales coaching for their salespeople?

Based on our research the reasons are:

1) They don’t know how
Many of you reading this may relate to this category. You were a very successful salesperson and so promoted to sales management with inadequate or no training for the role. You were not aware of infield sales coaching because it wasn’t part of the company’s culture

2) They don’t have a sales background
The sales manager came from another department within the company such as administration or operations. This is seen as a good career move and endorsed by senior management and is for a limited time of 2-3 years before the person moves onto another role. Because such an individual lacks sales experience they feel uncomfortable and incompetent in front of clients and prospects so avoid being in that position. A credibility issue with their sales team also becomes a problem

3) They don’t have the time
The sales manager becomes tied up with administration and other internal matters. They try to manage their sales team from their desk. To illustrate how serious a problem this is: one large national company with a network of business throughout Australia had each business unit manager also in a sales management role. Not 1 hour was invested in the field with one sales person over the previous12 month period.

Sales coaching needs to become part of a company’s sales culture just like coaching in sport is a part of the sporting culture. In fact to be effective sales managers need to spend at least 25% of their time with their salespeople in the field coaching.

Sales coaching is the key to achieving lasting sales improvement and is suitable for new people to sales through to sales veterans to reinforce knowledge and skills already known but not used effectively.

Sales coaching consist of 3 components:

1. Knowledge and skills
A common sales criticism of classroom learning is that it’s theoretical and won’t work in the ‘real world.’ However, when sales coaching becomes part of their development program the classroom theory is converted into practical know how. In fact when a specific skill is applied by the sales manager and then later duplicated by the salesperson, behaviour change and motivation are immediate

2. Objective sales competency levels.
When salespeople are measured against the 6 competency levels their true competency level can be identified. For the sales person to progress to a higher level the sales manager needs to use every teaching method available from seeing, hearing and demonstration to clarifying what to do and why.

3. An evaluation methodology to measure the outcomes.
A competency based training and development format is one of the best ways to measure skills performance.

The Curb Side Conference
This is the term used to describe how the previous sales call is reviewed for the purpose of developing or refining the sales person’s selling skills. The 6 step sales coaching process is used to achieve this outcome:

1) Briefly recap the sales objectives.
The objective/s for the sales call should have been set before the call. Recapping at the beginning of the curb side conference helps the salesperson to focus on the discussion at hand.

2) Provide a critique of the selling skills that were competently applied.
Use your sales process as the guiding template and leave out those selling skills that were incompetently or not applied. This is because you want to acknowledge and compliment the skills that demonstrated sales competence. For example “Mary let’s go over the last sales call and if it’s okay with you I’d like to give you feedback on the skills you applied competently.” The salesperson may want to interrupt and highlight the skills they didn’t apply or applied inadequately. When this happens you need to stop them and let them know they will have their turn soon. For example “I appreciate your concerns and we will deal with them shortly.” Emotionally you need to come from a place of caring and support which will then be reflected in your vocal tone. Sounding judgmental or frustrated could destroy your relationship with your salesperson.

3) Ask the salesperson to self critique their sales call.
Suggest to your salesperson to also use the sales process which will assist them to critique their own sales performance in a logical manner and then it’s your role to actively listen. They may focus too much on what they didn’t do or did incompetently so watch for this tendency. You may need to ask them to give you a balanced view. Actively listen for any skills they omitted or believe they applied well when in reality they didn’t do so. On conclusion of their self critique compliment them and move to the next step. For example “Mary you obviously have a great understanding of the sales process and I agree with your self assessment. Let me ask you, if you had the opportunity to…”

4) Ask the salesperson if they had the opportunity to do the sales call again what they would do differently?
This gives the salesperson the opportunity to uncover anything additional they may have previously missed and drawing on what they had learnt in step 2 will reaffirm those competencies.

5) Use the sales process and provide a summary critique of the salesperson’s selling skills.

When you go through the summary ensure it is weighted 3:1 in favour of the positive behaviours and skills that were competently applied. This will also build their sense of self worth as well as the learning experience.

6) Finish on a positive note and set the next sales call objective.
This has to be done from the heart and for example could be expressing how impressed you were with how the salesperson qualified the prospect. When planning the next sales call objectives one needs to be a skill development objective from step 3 or 4. Caution: whilst there may be many skills needing attention focus on one which you consider to be the most important. Overloading the salesperson with too much is counterproductive and isn’t the way we learn.

A last word or two…

• Curb side conference those sales calls where the learning will be the greatest
• Schedule regular monthly sales coaching even if it is as little as half a day and avoid cancelling. It will pay dividends. Staying in the office doesn’t create revenue but developing a salesperson’s selling ability does
• Ask your salespeople for feedback on your coaching. What could you do better?
• Sales coaching provides you with the opportunity to show sales leadership

If sales coaching is new to you or you are dissatisfied with current sales coaching practices contact Sales Consultants.

Kurt Newman is the co-founder of Sales Consultants Pty Ltd a firm that works with companies to increase sales and reduce the cost of selling. http://www.salesconsultants.com.au

Kurt’s expertise is in sales strategy, sales management development; group structured sales training and infield sales coaching. As a sales person he has successfully sold products and services in 4 major market/product segments: new product sales, consultative sales, relationship sales and retail. During his selling career he created sales records for three companies in two industries and won many other sales awards for outstanding performance.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Kurt_Newman/417035