Capstone Sales Development Blog

    posted by Jim Lee at 1:37 p.m. on February 16, 2010

Gary’s frustration had been building for some time. He had a list of things to do a mile long, and every one of them was high priority. Well, at least it seemed that way. That’s certainly what he was told by those who assigned him those tasks.

I bet you can predict what happened next. Everything got done, but after a week of very little sleep and no opportunities to “turn it off,” Gary was frazzled and the quality of work was unsatisfactory. He had had enough and didn’t know how to fix it.

So who’s to blame? Do we simply blame the current economic zeitgeist, one that demands everybody do more with less? After all, in a time of high unemployment, sluggish overall growth, and poor prospects for anyone looking for a better employment opportunity, people like Gary don’t appear to have much leverage or many options.

Or, do we blame his managers for creating unreasonable expectations? Effective managers get paid to, among other things, gauge when those they manage have reached their work capacity. Perhaps Gary’s manager is guilty of not being able, or willing, to recognize that piling more work on Gary’s shoulders would be counterproductive.

I submit that Gary shares at least part of the blame. Companies have been eliminating people without eliminating work for 20 years – and not only at Gary’s level. Managers have also seen their “spans of control” expanded, which means managers are now managing more people in larger geographies and more departments than ever.

Gary needs to be more proactive in helping his manager manage him. He should insist that his manager spend time with him at least once a week so the two of them can review his tasks. Both he and his manager should feel ownership is determining how Gary’s work is prioritized. This way the next time something unexpected rears its ugly head, and it’s virtually assured that it will, Gary can point to the commitments both of them have agreed to and ask his manager to help him reprioritize his work.

Further, Gary should insist that his manager agree to an annual, formalized performance review with (minimally) quarterly progress checks. This will help ensure that Gary’s work and priorities are aligned with his boss’s and his company’s. It will also help Gary ensure that his work and priorities propel him to his stated career goals. For more on setting objectives and priorities, see my post from 7/6/09 entitled “Setting Objectives.”

We all expect our managers to look out for our best interests. However, these days we are more responsible than ever for managing our time and priorities and doing what’s necessary to keep our managers honest. Don’t just sit back and take it or assume it will get better. Take ownership!

Posted by Jim Lee at 2:44 p.m. January 12, 2010

Anybody who has coached or played youth sports knows the importance of learning the fundamentals first. A successful coach always drills on the fundamental building blocks (e.g. blocking and tackling) before he even attempts teaching the playbook. This is because he knows his team will not be able to successfully execute even the most basic plays without first mastering the essentials. He also knows that even the most gifted athlete will always utilize the fundamentals regardless how far he advances in his sport.

This is why I the first thing I teach my sales reps is the five-step persuasive selling format. I know that if they become proficient at this they will be able to be effective sales people on the quickest possible timing, quickly adapt their presentations during the call, and use this skill at all levels of sales and sales management.

Step one is to summarize the situation. It is important to immediately show the buyer you have accurately assessed the business need and to ensure you’re both on the same page by getting him to start nodding yes. This can be as simple as “In today’s data-driven business environment, you can’t afford to make a mistake with your choice on telecommunications. Are you interested in lowering the cost of voice and data while increasing reliability?”

Step two is to state your idea. Explain succinctly and clearly what your solution is. For example, “Our Enterprise Voice and Data plan is ideal for your business need.” Keep this step simple. Don’t complicate things by reintroducing anything from the previous step. Instead, transition immediately to the rest of the presentation.

Step three is to explain how it works and detail the benefits of your idea. This is where you provide details on how it meets an unmet need better than the existing choice or the competition. It’s also where you discuss your and your company’s role in making the sale happen as well as what your customer’s role. Don’t forget to emphasize the benefits!

Step four is the close. As you know, most sales people have to be taught to come right out and ask for the sale. I have learned the best way is to simply and directly ask, “Will you replace your existing service with the Enterprise Voice and Data plan?” It’s important to frame it as a yes-or-no question rather than asking what the buyer thinks.

Also, while the close is listed as step four, sales people should be prepared to close any time the buyer appears to be ready. Just because you spent a considerable amount of time preparing for the call doesn’t mean the buyer has to listen to all of it if you convince him early.

Step five is to agree on next steps and reinforce key benefits as necessary. It is very important for everybody to know exactly what needs to be done. And while I’ve suggested reinforcing key benefits, be careful not to continue selling after you’ve made the sale. Nothing is worse than a sales person who won’t take “yes” for an answer!

Mastering this process will keep the presentation on track, ensure all the important elements are discussed, and help close the sale. Nobody will outgrow this fundamental selling tool, not even the most senior sales executives.

David walked out of what appeared to be a successful sales call. After all, didn’t his buyer agree to all of what David asked him to do? Yes, but as his manager, I also saw some elements of David’s presentation and selling techniques that need to be addressed. Otherwise he will struggle during subsequent calls.

So how do I as David’s manager both congratulate and critique him without damaging his morale? I use a four-step process that never fails to allow David to enjoy his recent success while helping him develop into an even more effective sales person.

Step one is to ask David how he thought the call went. Ask him to review the objectives for the call and assess whether those objectives were met. Were they, in hindsight, the proper objectives? Did the buyer agree to his suggestions? Is everybody clear on the next steps?

Step two is to ask David what he thought he did well during the call. This gives him the opportunity to tell me all the things he did right. It gives me the opportunity to stress the positive things he should apply to his subsequent calls.

Step three is to ask David what he would do differently if given the chance. I’ve learned it’s important to give David the first shot at identifying areas of improvement. It’s not that it allows him to save face so much as it allows him to learn how to critically assess his performance when I’m not around.

It isn’t until step four that I add my thoughts. Ideally most of what I have to say will repeat or emphasize what David has already mentioned. My experience is that sales people generally know what they did well and what they wish they could have done differently before I add my two cents’ worth.

I discovered that if I consistently practice this technique, sales reps begin to see their performance through a manager’s eyes, even when I’m not with them. Sales reps who can improve their performance without my supervision add significantly to my capacity as a manager. And once this process became second nature to David, he no longer dreaded the post-call discussion with me. In fact, he would eagerly lead the discussion.

Posted by Charles Ingram 4:30 p.m. Friday, November 6, 2009

Spending most of my time for the last 12 years in South Florida, I have had the unusual experience of seeing the world of baseball from a great “behind the Wizard’s curtain” angle. Our family is 10 minutes from two different spring training facilities and within two hours drive of four others. Then there are the Florida State League minors toiling the summers away.

I’ve had the opportunity to talk with club personnel about the art and science of selecting “A” players for the “big show.” Watching games it is often difficult for the layman to distinguish a very good technical player from the rare rough gem who is destined for greatness. So I made the mistake of assuming that the talent scouts make many of “my gut tells me” decisions. When the question came up at a community forum in which a representative of the Minnesota Twins organization was speaking, he said as diplomatically as he could,

“Don’t be an idiot. Certainly it’s difficult to know for sure who will be great, but who wouldn’t weather considerable difficulty not to be the person in his organization to make a Million Dollar mistake?”

Are you facing the difficulty in your sales organization of not knowing for sure who will be “great?”

I talk with CEOs and Presidents of all varieties of sales organizations who make sales hiring decisions based solely on “gut” feelings. Each is putting his company’s revenue future on the line based upon a “feeling” rather than using any quantitative data. Some admit they knowingly hire three sales people for every one they hope to be a “keeper.”

Considering the cost of your time and resources in the hiring process, training and ramp-up, the opportunity cost of real prospects not identified and closeable sales lost to ineptitude, how many of these bad hires would it take until you have made the Million Dollar mistake?

So, how do you avoid making bad sales hires?

1. Have a system. A properly built system lets you test and measure results. Tracking the results of changes you make within the hiring process allows you to hone the outcome for each step. Ultimately that gives you more flexibility, not less.
   
2. Frontload the system with unemotional measures. The Twins representative said they know the data for more than 15 statistical categories before any player “gets a look.” At Capstone, our clients rely heavily on a pre-hire screening tool licensed by Objective Management Group called Express Screens. We build the system around this tool to ensure the best chance of identifying who can and will be successful selling in his organization. Our clients have objective and quantifiable data to use in the sales hiring process.
   
3. Put your gut where it belongs. Instead of using your gut to decide who to let into the sales hiring funnel, use it as the last filter for what comes out the bottom.
   
4. Trust the system. Now that you have an objective system for identifying, qualifying, interviewing, and hiring “A” players – trust it! Don’t do an end-run around it at every opportunity. Follow the system, track the results and prove its effectiveness.
   

When hiring sales people, expect more – and believe that you can get it. Don’t let fear keep you from making a change to your current sales hiring practices and from finding those “A” players for your company.

Do you have ideas on how to hire the right people?  Let us know

Posted by Jim Lee (10/6/09 at 2:15 p.m.)

I know it’s a cliche, but it’s true; people judge you by the way you speak. In addition to being the conversational equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard, those who are grammatically tone deaf handicap themselves when speaking with potential clients. You go to considerable effort and expense to project professionalism in all you do, so why would you allow annoying speech patterns, grammatical errors, and trendy corporate phrases make the wrong impression?

For example, it is maddening to listen to people talk in questions? I don’t know why people do this? All I know is it drives people crazy?

Speaking of talking in questions, do I think a conversation that consists of me interviewing myself is annoying? Yes. Do I wish it would stop? Of course. Could there possibly be anything worse? I’m not, like, sure, but I’m willing to, like, go out on a limb, and, like, suggest there is at least one thing. Like, stop it!

If you think you can stand it, let’s move on to grammatical errors. Probably the most prevalent error these days is the curious inability of people to properly use “me,” “myself,” and “I.” It’s incorrect to say, “Join Charlie and I” or “Join Charlie and myself.” You hereby have my permission to use the word “me.” I know you can do it. Repeat after me, “Join Charlie and me.” There now, that wasn’t so bad. But please be careful with your new-found affection for the word “me.” How many times have you heard, “Me and him are going to the ball game tonight”? Me and him? Yikes!

Another interesting grammatical error is the habit of using a singular verb when a plural verb is required. For example, none of us were taught to say, “Timely hitting and a strong pitching staff is why the Phillies won the 2008 World Series.” However, that’s just the kind of thing I read and hear everywhere.

You should also avoid trendy corporate-speak. If I hear “going forward” one more time I might lose my composure. Or, please don’t ask “one quick question.” There’s no such thing, and you have no intention of asking one. You want the person answering your question to take as much time as is required to provide an adequate answer, and you don’t care how long it takes.

Finally, cursing is never acceptable. There is always a more appropriate way to emphasize whatever point it is you’re trying to make.

How you speak is often the first impression you make with potential customers, so it’s important to not sound like a teen ager or an MTV VJ. Speak like a grown-up. Use adult diction and adult words instead of trendy words or trendy voice inflections. Always use proper grammar – go to the trouble to learn it and practice it. You can do this without sounding uppity or like an elitist, simply use proper grammar, diction, and words.

This is not an exhaustive list of verbal offenses, nor is it meant to be. Instead, it’s meant to point out the importance of using proper language skills. You should be conscience of the fact that what you say, and how you say it, will always be important as you strive for success.

Posted by Jim Lee September 1, 2009 @ 3:35 p.m.

Have you ever been short-circuited by a buyer with a very narrow business perspective or who’s driven more by emotion than data? If so, you know the importance of gaining access to decision makers beyond the person you deal with on a regular basis. One of the most challenging aspects of truly penetrating any potential or actual customer is developing selling relationships with senior-level managers, including C-level executives. However, these can be the most productive relationships any sales person will foster.

So how does a sales person establish and then build that relationship without burning bridges or bruising egos? One way is to network throughout the organization. You are probably already working with other functions (e.g. accounting, marketing, legal, logistics, receiving/shipping, advertising) within a business. Leverage these relationships to gain access to more senior-level executives. And if you’re not already working with those representing other aspects of the business, use this as a reason to start. Is there a billing issue? Don’t simply handle it over the phone, schedule time with the key person in accounting. Is there a problem in the warehouse? Don’t just talk to the shipping or receiving clerk, schedule time with a supervisor in the warehouse.

Another option is to seek non-competitor sales reps, especially those with more years of experience with the customer. They can often share tips that would otherwise take years to learn first-hand, including who are the most important decision makers.

Yet another approach is for you to get senior level executives from your company involved. Even the most unreasonable buyer would have difficulty denying his CIO time with his vendor’s CIO. If you can’t get your CIO to town, get your boss’s boss’s boss in town and tell your buyer he wants to take his CIO out to lunch. Or schedule a business review that includes those other functions (marketing, logistics, advertising) and add the person you need to see in the invitation. Another tactic I’ve employed more than once is to schedule something offsite, be it a restaurant, hotel meeting room, or possibly a manufacturing facility. I’ve even asked my senior manager to call my buyer’s senior management directly to schedule something.

Once contact has been established, how does a sales person ensure the very important executive views it as time well spent? I’ll discuss this in more detail in my next blog entry, but the top line is for any sales person to establish himself as a dispassionate consultant, somebody who’s just as concerned with his customer’s business as his own. He should develop a thorough understanding of big-picture industry trends. If he’s able to provide information or perspective that can be consistently found from only one source, the senior-level executive will always view time with him as time well spent. The most valuable commodity for all top officers is their time, so being viewed as the go-to consultant ought to be the goal.

The importance of building solid business relationships with C-level executives cannot be overstated. These relationships take time to develop, but they are worth the investment.

Posted by Charles Ingram Tuesday, August 18, 2009 @3:35 p.m.

Effective Meetings—In Brief  


Many managers have complained to me that they go into meetings with the best intentions to make them concise and “impactful.” Somewhere, however, the control of the meeting is wrested from them, and it is only in the autopsy that they can identify what happened.  

If this has happened to you, know that it is all in the ground rules. One of the things which every sales organization should have up on the wall or over the doorway (or wherever) there memorizers are put:  

“You can’t get mad at someone for doing something you didn’t say they couldn’t do.”  

In a nutshell, there were no established, agreed upon rules to the meeting you were holding. Here are some ground rules someone shared with me that I like for any internal meeting (these are the ones that tend to get away from you easiest) at your organization.  

1.  New information only.   Many times we want to put our two cents in to restate something that someone else has said because we think we can put it more clearly. The net effect tends to be circuitous conversations in which someone else feels compelled to restate the objection for the same cause  –  clarity.

2.  No personal attacks.  Meetings are never the right place to settle scores or even to “zing” someone who has opened himself to direct criticism. There is no faster way to undo organizational trust than to have old mistakes replayed to paint someone’s new idea as unworthy because of “the source.”

3.  Silence is consent.  It may seem like this one would extend your meetings interminably because participants would think this is the one and only opportunity to have input. However, what it does in practice is “close the compartments” (picture the doors between compartments of a submarine) on each meeting that you hold and keep one meeting from bleeding itinerary points into the next.  

These rules have the added benefit of being content neutral, i.e. it doesn’t matter what type of meeting you are having. Just make sure that the rules are clearly communicated and understood in advance by everyone involved and bought into by the highest level of your organization represented in any meeting. 

Posted by Jim Lee Tuesday, August 4, 2009 @ 9:40 a.m.

Once you’ve agreed upon a Goldilocks objective with your boss (not too aggressive for your tastes, not too lame for your boss’ tastes – it’s just right), how do you go about making that objective come to life? Hopefully you followed the advice of a previous post on this blog (see Setting Objectives, dated 7/6/09), and now you’re ready to put in place what’s needed to ensure success.

Allow me to use a sports analogy here. Even someone with only a cursory knowledge of baseball knows that the objective of the New York Yankees is to be not only the premier franchise in major league baseball, but the premier franchise in all of professional sports. In order to achieve that objective, they set a goal. The only goal that would lead to such a lofty objective is to win world championships. Regardless of how many expensive superstars they sign, how expensive their new ballpark is, or how many headlines their owner generates, if they don’t first win championships, they will never attain their objective. So every February when they report for spring training, they have one goal – to win the World Series.

Once they have their goal in place, they must then develop a strategy to achieve that goal. Their strategy is to sign and/or develop the best players available and surround them with the best coaching and facilities. They must then develop measures which tell them whether they’re successfully implementing their strategy. Their measures include pitching, offensive, and defensive statistics and ultimately wins and losses.

In order to turn your sales objective into reality, you should develop your own OGSM, or
Objective, Goal, Strategy, Measure. Let’s say you sell something truly glamorous for a living, Pampers Disposable Diapers. An objective for your business might be to attain share leadership with your biggest retailer. Once your boss and your customer agree, you now need to determine how to achieve this.

Start with setting goals that lead to accomplishing the objective. You might start by determining a share of the market that would be necessary to overtake the current leading brand. After you confirm that this share is achievable, decide the strategy you intend to employ to hit this share. For example, will you achieve this goal by selling new distribution, more ads, better pricing, or better shelf space? Or, will you pursue all these options? Whose involvement do you need with your customer? What kind of marketing, consumer research, logistical, or other help do you need from within your own company?

Finally, how will you measure your progress? What levels of distribution, advertising, pricing, and shelf space are needed? On what timing do you want accomplish each of these elements? You would also probably measure your success against your share objectives (e.g. get from a 25 to a 27 share within 3 months, from a 27 to a 28 share within six months, from a 28 to a 30 share within nine months, and from a 30 to a 31 share within 12 months).

My experience is that this OGSM process is thorough enough to allow you to critically think through all the steps necessary to accomplish your objectives while being flexible enough to apply to any business opportunity. If it can work for the Yankees, it can work for you as well.

Posted by Charles Ingram @ 11:30 a.m. 7/21/09

There are times when you just shouldn’t start a sales training program. Sounds rather counter-productive for me to say that, doesn’t it?  

In talking to prospective clients, I’m always struck by the things that scare them and the things that don’t. Many of those who’ve called us have done so because someone they know has said, “Capstone did this great training program for our sales team, and now our team is pursuing new business more purposefully, methodically, and with an increased energy…”   So the discussion starts with some variant of “I want what they got.”  

Then follows my explanation that the reason sales training worked so well is that it was the “outgrowth” of a thorough process in which we first evaluated the people, systems, and strategies of that other company. I tell the prospect that we’d be happy to begin that process with him as well. If in that process we find that a training program for his front-line sales people would be beneficial, we’ll get it started right away.  

In far too many instances, you’d have thought we killed his dog. The CEO then counters with variations of:   “Can’t you just take my word that we need training? I already know we have great people; they just need some new tricks they can use in the field.” Or, “I’m sure it’s not a management problem. The manager we have now was the best salesperson this company ever had.”  

This type of resistance makes me wonder:  Why would a company trust us to use a scalpel on the sales team but not a stethoscope?  

Even in exploratory surgery, there is some plan being followed. Hours of research and diagnostic time are spent. The surgeon doesn’t just start cutting and hope he finds what’s ailing you.  

In the case of an underperforming sales organization, a good training program can be an important step on the road to improvement, but think of the issues it can’t address:   
     ·Poor communication of the overall vision 
     ·Misalignment of the executive and management strategies 
     ·Misunderstood company priorities 
     ·Ineffective sales management 
     ·Sales people who are not trainable    

Sales training without an understanding of what ails your organization will at best be inefficient and at worst ineffective. You work too hard for your capital to have those as the only options.  

If your surgeon says to you “I don’t know what’s wrong with you; let me try some surgery and we’ll see how you feel afterwards,” — don’t let him get near you with a scalpel!  

So, what do you think? Do you agree that using a stethoscope to diagnose your sales organization is the right first step to improving your sales team? Or would you go for the scalpel first and hope the training works?  

Posted by Jim Lee on Monday, July 6, 2009 @ 9:45 a.m.

You would think that setting sales objectives for the year would be simple. After all, how much sales experience or expertise does it take to know what has to be done the next 12 months, especially since our objectives and sales quotas are frequently assigned to us by our managers?

However, my experience is that the opposite is true. Maybe it’s a fear of raising the bar too high. Maybe we’re afraid if our managers knew just how low we want the bar set it would cost us credibility. Or maybe we’ve never realized just how useful the exercise can be to managing our business.

The primary purpose of setting sales objectives is to provide a performance yardstick and roadmap. Properly set objectives allow us to continuously gauge whether we’re on the right track and targeting all our efforts in the right direction. They should help us prioritize our time and energy each and every day.

The trick, of course, is to ensure we’re measuring the right aspects of our business. We must ensure that we’re being held responsible (or at least accountable) for only those activities that lead to the accomplishment of our goals. Here is an easy acronym to remember to keep your goal-setting on track. Objectives should be:

Specific. An objective that is vague (e.g. I want to develop a better working relationship with the buyer at my biggest account) might appear to be easier to achieve, but it is also almost impossible to quantify. How will you measure it? How will you be able to say with any certainty that it’s been accomplished? Instead, a more specific objective might be, “I want to be the vendor chosen to lead the category business review.”

Measureable. An important element of specificity is measurability. It not only allows you to determine whether you were successful at the end of the year, but just as importantly allows you to track results during the course of the year. If you’ve just closed the books on the first quarter, you need to be able to tell whether you’re at least close to 25% of the way to success. For example, an objective that only says you want to grow the business at your biggest customer is difficult to measure. To decide to grow the business by 10% vs. the previous year at your biggest customer allows you to know exactly where you stand at any time.

Achievable. Setting an audacious goal might be laudable, but it might also set you up to fail. You’re probably not going to double your business with your biggest customer in tough economic times. On the other hand, a 5% increase might be just enough to keep you properly challenged.

Consistent. You wouldn’t want to set an objective to grow your widget business if the rest of your company is focused on gadgets. Or, if the strength of your multi-faceted business is clothing, that’s where you want to focus the majority of your time and effort. All your objectives should align with your ultimate goals and strengths.

Objectives should be SMAC – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Consistent. This will improve the odds of your and your organization’s success.