All posts by Peter Holland

hello

4 Keys to Maximising Sales

1. Right People – Foundational to creating high performance is getting the right team in place. No other activity can substitute for the work done at this initial stage. Creating a professional sales recruitment process will save you hours and hundreds of thousands in revenue. Focus on discovering the qualities that have made sales people successful in your company or industry. Set about creating a list of the top ones you will look for and identify during the whole interview process. Apart from relevant experience, consider the individual’s character. Will they fit into this team and add value? For more specific suggestions and insights on creating this process why not read the special report, Recruiting an All-Star Sales Team.
https://www.linearstructure.com/insights/special-reports/recruiting-an-all-star-sales-team/

2. Right Management Oversight – Once you decide to hire your new sales person what’s next? How can you ensure they become a champion for the business? How can your on-boarding process save you thousands in recruitment and training costs? What would a 10% reduction in staff attrition contribute to the bottom line?

Much has to do with how you use the first 90 days together. Many companies present the new sales person with their company manual ,mobile and laptop. Followed by some basic product and brand training. They are then dispatched into the field only to be reunited again with their manager at the next sales meeting. This formative and highly valuable first three-month period is a topic that receives little attention. But the impact on staff retention and the bottom line is significant and wide spread. Read the article How crucial are the first 90 days to your success for some useful insights.
https://www.linearstructure.com/how-crucial-are-the-first-90-days-to-your-success/

In addition to creating confident new staff who are comfortable and competent. An on-going structured sales management process is required to manage a high-performance sales team. If you’d like to understand more about how these processes can help you gain visibility and control. The video – The 5 Pillars of Sales Management clearly explains the value of these processes. https://www.linearstructure.com/insights/videos/

Ultimately by using a collaborative approach with your team they will grow in proficiency and allow you to maximise their potential.

3. Right Metrics – Selecting the right metrics may at first glance seem a rudimentary affair. However, research has shown there is in fact a great variety when it comes to what the top companies choose to measure and monitor. This is surprising when you consider these companies have decades of sales experience and invest literally millions into their CRM systems. Would you expect to find a clearly defined short list of key sales metrics for the rest of us to implement religiously? Well probably…but that’s simply not the case.

So, it’s not uncommon to find companies measuring all kinds of facts and figures simply because they can. In addition, old historic reports will be added to newer ones as new managers join the business. Soon this reporting can morph into a plethora of data that threatens to drown any sales manager.

I recently worked with a Managing Director who had an assortment of 25 different multi-colored graphs to demonstrate sales performance! We must stop this insanity and get the data to work for us and not against us.

One way to do this is to cull back. Ask yourself this question.

Why am I measuring this?

The only reason to measure something is because it’s linked to the key activities you need to take to achieve your goal. Or to check the results you’re getting to ensure you are on the right path and enable you to make any needed mid-course correction.

4. Right Rewards – Setting up the correct commission structure is vital to drive the desired behavior from the sales team.

Often companies treat their commission structure as a separate entity to their sales strategy. Oblivious it seems of the strong link between what people do and what they get rewarded for.

I’ve worked with firms that paid commission even if the sales people didn’t hit target! I’ve seen companies put a cap on earnings where the salespeople were incentivised to literally sit back and relax once they had achieved target three months before the year end! Then there was the company that surrounded the achievement of commission with caveats linked to the company achieving their overall net margin. What do you think this plan did to the sales team’s motivation? But most frequently I see companies that are paying their commission based on general or arbitrary KPI’s. They’re not harnessing the power and energy of their sales teams by directing their behavior and efforts in the most effective way.

So why not actively encourage the specific behaviors you want to see. Create the reward system that focuses the sales team’s time and effort in line with the company’s sales strategy.

Fine tuning these 4 areas takes time, effort and diligence but the payoff in consistent and exponential sales growth is well worth the effort.

hello

Are Assumptions your Assassin’s?

How many of us have at one time made an assumption about a person, company or situation that proved completely incorrect?

All of us if we are perfectly honest have fallen into this trap at one time or another but…why? Well, do we make assumptions about people we meet in a nano-second? Yes, absolutely we can’t help it even if it’s on a sub-conscience level.

However when it comes to understanding a client’s needs and concerns, communication can be tricky and complex especially when you think you have it all clear and sorted.

Some old clichés come back to haunt us when we realise later we didn’t get the right end of the stick! –  “Assuming makes an ass of you and me”, and “the devil is in the details” come to mind.

One vital aspect I often see missing in communication with clients and colleagues is the habit of confirming back what ‘You Think’ you have just heard them say to ensure you have it right.

Particularly during a meeting when a client mentions an issue they are facing is it essential for us to investigate thoroughly. We need to drill down and find the real reason or cause for the problem and get all the background details to fully understand their situation.

However, the problem is we often fail to confirm back with a question to make sure we have it right…we assume we have got it!

Why is it important to ask these confirming questions? Well there are two main reasons:

  1. You are ensuring that you have clearly understood the issue and background details, plus if you have misunderstood or the client has overlooked any important points it gives both of you an opportunity to correct it.
  1. Secondly, and maybe even more significant is the level of trust that is built between you and your client during this process. When they see you have a) taken the time to fully understand their personal situation and b) have correctly summarised the key issues effectively.

So often we are focused on demonstrating our capability that as soon as we hear our prospective client mention an issue they are facing we dive in with solutions, references and examples before we have fully investigated and confirmed back to ensure we are on the same page.

My challenge for you this week is to improve this one aspect of your communication. Focus on ‘Staying in the moment’, by that I mean really focus on what your client is saying. Rather than thinking ahead as they’re speaking about what you want to say next.

Ultimately, their last comments will give you the next step to move the conversation forward successfully and keep you right on point!

hello

Does Your 2017 Sales Strategy Include These 5 Winning Elements?

This time of year business leaders are heads down in planning and strategy for 2017.

As you review results this year and look for growth in 2017, you know you can’t leave this planning to chance. Your competitors will be doing the same and no doubt looking to take your market share!

Many people are doing this planning but missing some vital elements for success.

Here are 5 keys areas to create a powerful business plan.

  1. No customer involvement. – The critical person in the success of your plan is your customer. Have you discussed with them where you are adding value? How can you best support their growth next year? What existing or new service do they really need?
  1. It’s not a live working document. – Most business plans even the good ones are not referred to or adjusted frequently enough. Often only being revisited annually or bi-annually with little impact on the day to day priorities.
  1. No sales objectives. – The business plan only outlines the business results desired, it does not link them to specific sales objectives that show ‘ how ‘ these results will be achieved.
  1. No sales activities – the business plan does not include the specific sales activities that link directly to the achievement of the chosen sales objectives.
  1. No sales metrics – the business plan’s only metrics focus on business results, sales, revenue, turnover or margin. There are no metrics designed to measure the key sales activities to ensure accountability and control over the planned strategy.

Including these 5 elements will creates a winning business plan one that is :

  • Focused on adding real value to the customer.
  • Engages the sales team with a clear action plan.
  • Gives management visibility and control over how the results are being achieved month by month.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on any aspect of planning for 2017 peter.holland@linearstructure.com

hello

Do you have the Attributes of a Great Sales Leader?

In addition to all the strategy and tactics of sales management, there’s another aspect to your success which is much more foundational and related to your own personal development.
It’s your ability to communicate and positively influence lead your team.

What’s really interesting is your success in this area is based almost entirely on just two key factors:

Your Character

The personal qualities you need to develop to lead with authenticity…and

Your Skills

The current and relevant skills required to perform at the top of your game.

You really need this holistic approach to provide you with both the personal and professional development required for long term sustainable success.

It’s probably true that everyone would like to be a better leader and be able to positively influence others. I’m going to use the words leadership and influence synonymously here because when you really get down to its core, leadership is really the ability to communicate and influence people so that they listen and are moved to act, to change their thoughts or behaviour.

So if this is not happening then really you are not influencing them or leading them.

Now you might not necessarily think of yourself as a leader, often people are promoted to positions of responsibility based on their previous personal success rather than their ability to lead others. A situation that is all too frequent in sales where top performers are seen as the next potential top managers. Unfortunately, the two roles are very different and require completely different skill sets!

The reality is though, that in every area of life we are called to lead. Whether that is in business, sales, as a parent, a school football coach or as a company MD. We are all leading and influencing others. So it makes sense to invest time in understanding how you can become outstanding in this area.

The world is crying out for men and women who can get things done, at every company there is a constant need for true leaders. But what allows these individuals to have so much impact?

Here is a small exercise which I’d like to invite you to do:

List below two or three people you consider to be great leaders?
They can be from history or alive today.
……………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………….

Next, list what you think are the five characteristics of great leaders?
………………………………..    ………………………………
………………………….     …………………………
…………………………      …………………………
…………………………      …………………………
…………………………      …………………………

Now as you look back at your list ask yourself on each one.

Is this a character trait?  Or is it a skill?

Does it have to do with who they are as a person?   Or is it a skill they do.

I’ve done this exercise many times with groups and individuals over the years and the result rarely changes. Nearly 100% of the time it’s the character traits people choose rather than skills when they are describing great leaders.

That’s because there is a core principle at play here;

People decide, either consciously or subconsciously, whether they will allow you to influence them based on two fundamental factors: Your Character and Your Skills.

So who you are as a person, plus how they perceive your skill level –what you do and how well you do it.

Based on these 2 factors they decide almost exclusively whether to follow you or not.

Can I ask you when was the last time your company sent you on a 4hr character training program?

Never right? We tend to focus on developing skills and we need to, it is an important factor. However when it comes to leading others, firstly people are deciding. Are we a good person?

Did you notice that they allow you to lead or influence them? This ability to lead is a gift that they give you. It’s their personal choice and they can take it away too at any time.

So based on these principles the only way to enhance your depth of influence is to improve your character and the skills you demonstrate day to day.

Now you might not think of yourself as a leader and you may not be a good one or at least not yet at your full potential. But with this understanding you can now look to purposely develop the traits and skills of a great leader!

Here are just three top Character Traits and Skills of Successful Influencers:

There are many fine personality traits that universally we value in others but especially in our leaders.
For this month’s newsletter I’ve just picked three that have a positive influence on others. Developing yourself in these areas will enable you to become a better leader, influence more people, and make more sales – all from the right foundation.

You can own each of these, they are under your control which is an important distinction to make because there are some things you can’t own or directly influence. Success comes when we learn how to own what is ours, do the best we can with it, and leave the rest alone.

Sincerity

This quality is foundational to the ability to lead people. In essence it is the genuineness of your motives, actions and behaviour. It involves living your life in a way that is whole and undivided. The minute people see you are divided or have two codes of conduct either in your personal or professional life you break their trust and belief in you.

Being governed by your values and principles regardless of what may seem to be expedient or convenient to do in circumstances of the moment.

Commitment.

Anyone that you seek to lead is bound to ask one question.
How committed is the person asking me to be committed?  You can’t expect this from others if it’s not clearly evident in you.

Is your commitment demonstrated in your life….Your Performance?

Let me ask you when was the last time you met an athlete or a top business person that wasn’t fully committed to it? It just doesn’t happen does it?

Does your performance reflect this commitment to achieving your results?

Your life’s ambitions and victories, looking longer term do you demonstrate a commitment to achieving your goals.

Your commitment affects your quality of life.

When was the last time you found somebody who was totally uncommitted with a very high quality of life?
Someone who doesn’t want to grow, improve or get a better job. But who says their life is just perfect?

So are you committed to continually learning, growing and improving the quality of your life?

“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavour.” Vince Lombardi.

Attitude.

How do others perceive your attitude? Is it positive or negative?

Would your team describe you as an optimistic person?
The root of the word optimistic is the word Opt or to Choose.
You choose your Attitude.
Who wants to follow a pessimist?
Optimists lead people because people want to get better.

So you get to choose how you will see things. This is done in a very specific way. Firstly, you need to understand the relationship between your thoughts, feelings, actions and results.

You must be very aware of the thoughts you allow into your mind and control any negativity, these thoughts are powerful things and they control your emotions and feelings. These emotions will drive your beliefs, behaviour and actions, which ultimately will create your results. It takes real self-control to take control of your mind and it’s dominate thoughts but this is the only way to maintain a positive attitude that is not affected by day to day circumstances.

“There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. That little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.” W. Clement Stone.

So rather than just read and move on, my challenge to you today is to choose one quality to focus on developing this week, be specific and start developing this quality and begin to see your ability to lead rise accordingly.

All the best!

Peter

hello

Are you investing in your sales manager?

At this time of year you’re probably setting out your sales strategy for 2017.

The usual suspects are there in the budget, including some sales training for the team. Often this will be passed on to HR for them to organise a generic sales training workshop which ticks the box. I know I sat through enough of them!

But wait…Is this really the best way to approach your sales team’s development?

I’d like to ask you a personal question. What investment have you planned for your sales management?

Often it’s not even on the agenda. It’s a shocking fact that most sales managers are around 40 years old before they have any formal development in sales management.

Most times these individuals have been promoted to management due to their top sales performance. They arrive in the challenging role of a sales leader without sufficient support and development which is a real mistake.

I recently worked with a sales manager who had this exact experience. She was highly regarded as a manager and of great value to the company but sales management was an area that had been overlooked by the leadership team.

The irony of her situation was that, like many top people, up to that point in her career she had not received any professional development. When you consider it’s ultimately the sales manager who sets the pace for the team. He or she is the one who could multiply their experience and effectiveness throughout the entire team with significantly impact on increasing sales revenue.

So if you’re a CEO or M.D currently reviewing your growth strategy what provision have you made to ensure your sales leaders can maximise their impact on the sales team and consistently deliver results to your bottom line in 2017?

As an insight into how this can be achieved effectively here’s a link to a brief video

https://www.linearstructure.com/insights/videos/

Is Sales Really a Professional Management Discipline?

hello

Are You Maximising Your Internal Sales Team’s Potential?

Today customers are finding you before you find them. The increased importance of inbound sales marketing methods is clear to see.

However, who is the first person to respond to an inbound sales inquiry?

Often it’s the internal sales support team or customer service departments that handle these calls and emails. They have a unique opportunity to capture the interest from a prospective customer and move the relationship on to the next stage.

The question is have you made it a priority to train and develop these individuals so they are confident, comfortable and capable of fulfilling this critical task of lead generation?

Too often in my experience the development of the internal sales teams is haphazard or inconsistent which represents a missed opportunity for three key reasons.

  1. They represent the face of the organisation to the customer.
  2. They provide a rich source of potential people who could move to external sales.
  3. They can win or lose you a significant amount of business.

One example highlighted this to me recently whilst working with a client, they had an internal sales team that was measured by now many calls they dealt with each day. Can you imagine what impact this type of metric would have on the team?

Their goal was to get the customer’s question answered fast and get them off the line!

By developing their abilities to ask great questions and encouraging them to show personal interest in the needs and concerns of their callers a dramatic difference was achieved in business results.

The one small change that made the difference was to change the old call metric for a metric that added value to the business.

We asked the team to focus on how many new sales opportunities they could uncover from their sales inquiries. This change led to a significant up lift in qualified sales leads for the external sales people. We tracked these sales leads and the external team had accountability to report back on which ones had converted to orders. This allowed us to remunerate the internal team for their success and create sustained motivation and results.

So I’d like to share this insight with you and challenge you to review what you are doing to maximise the vital resource you have right within your internal sales team.

hello

Are you staying relevant in your customer’s eyes?

We are living through a period of rapid change in the sales environment. Many senior sales professionals are discovering their old sales approaches are no longer delivering results.Causing many highly experienced individuals to see their valuable careers running off the rails.
Change and adaptation to today’s sales world is vital.

Discovering the specific attributes your customers truly value is key to your sales success.

If you’ve been involved in the sales industry for any length of time chances are you will have been exposed to several different and at times complex sales methodologies.
Starting way back in the 1960’s Xerox developed their “Needs Satisfaction” approach improving selling significantly, which also influenced Neil Rackham’s popular (Spin Selling). In the meantime, Bob Miller & Steve Heiman were focusing on logic and analysis to develop a “win-win” sales approach that is alive and well at the Miller-Heiman Corporation.

For decades sales people had been trained to focus on demonstrating features and benefits – “educating their prospective customers”. This developed into a consultative type solution sale, where sales people approached customers from a different perspective. They were taught to focus on finding their customer’s ‘pains’ and then tailoring their product or service to meet these needs and present this as the solution.

Moving forward, in 2002 Mike Schultz and John Doerr’s founded RAIN Group with a research based approach to selling based on in-depth customer feedback.

The next big disruption in sales methodology came in 2011 with the publication of The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson who proposed that “solution selling” was dead and disrupting the customers buying process, uncovering un-recognised needs and then fulfilling them would lead to sales success.

The debate between these different methodologies continues to rage on. Whilst acknowledging that previous methods still have some valuable aspects, they are now no longer fully aligned with many of your customers buying processes.

Unfortunately, many very successful sales people have seen their careers in decline over the last few years as they have not been able or willing to adapt to this new sales reality.

The reality is Customers are in control not sales people.

Today’s customers have access to 90% of the information they need to make a purchasing decision. They come to the table armed to the teeth with analysis, peer reviews, competitor pricing models and all the social proof they need.
In many cases they no longer want or need a sales person wasting time educating them on their products, services or the marketplace. They are already on it.

Similarly, customers are more advanced and adept at identifying their issues or challenges and often start the buying/sales process with a good idea of how to resolve them.

Hence many of these older consultative solution led sales approaches feel out of sync with a customer that is already quite far along in the buying process before they ever need to engage with you.

Often there is not a ‘pain’ at all. They are not broken and don’t need fixing! They are already very successful and their focus is on growth and achieving their future key objectives.

With all these changes in buying behavior we might ask…

How can I stay relevant and valuable today in a customer’s eyes?

Firstly, sales people need to acknowledge this change in the starting point.

Customers who previously were happy to engage in an in depth conversation over their issues and then have you work up a solution are now expecting you to

a) rapidly digest their situation and
b) quickly demonstrate you clearly understand their needs.

But this doesn’t mean you’ll win the sale this is now just the entry price to get you on the starting line!

Secondly, sales people need to understand that customers are looking for different attributes from salespeople today than they were five years ago.

A very interesting survey conducted by the US based Rain Group identified some fundamental differences between high achieving sales people and those coming in second place.

Let’s look at what the customers valued most:

  1. Educated me with new ideas or perspectives.
  2. Collaborated with me.
  3. Persuaded me we would achieve new ideas or results.
  4. Listened to me.
  5. Understood my needs.
  6. Helped me avoid potential pitfalls.
  7. Crafted a compelling solution.
  8. Depicted purchasing process accurately.
  9. Connected with me personally.
  10. Overall value to the company is superior to other options.

It’s interesting to note that of these top ten attributes only the last one involves the organisation all the others focus on the individual.

Which underlines the critical role the sales person plays and how vital their performance is on who will win the sale.

So where are we heading next in the world of sales?

This month I really want to encourage you as a sales leader or sales professional to stop and take stock of where you are in your sales management and sales approaches with clients.  It’s a great time for adaptation to the new sales environment. New technology is making highly mobile and fast CRM adoption a must. Together with new inbound marketing techniques it’s an exciting time for development of your sales approach. The need for individuals and companies to embrace these changes is paramount as you want not just to survive but to Thrive in the new sales reality.

Here’s a link to some assessment tools to help you to bench mark where you currently and discover where the opportunities for development might exist.www.linearstructure.com/assessments