All posts by Peter Holland

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As a Sales Manager, what have you done to maximise your value to the team?

As a Sales Manager, what is your responsibility to add value to your team?

No doubt, sharing your experience, transferring your knowledge and developing the maximum potential of each individual are all key aspects that come to mind.

However, it’s a tough question to answer with the pace of today’s sales environment. All too often it’s easy to find yourself being sucked into devoting much time and energy to the exciting soon-to-close opportunities located at the bottom of your sales funnel. They are often where our focus is, as these potential orders are the ones we have forecast to come in this month and demand our attention. However, this is a pitfall to avoid if you want to add real long-term value.

That’s because although your Forecast meetings are great opportunities to talk with your salespeople about the deals they expect to close soon, they are not the best time to talk about the general pipeline health, which is determined by the quality and quantity of qualified opportunities in the pipeline as a whole.

It’s important that you make this distinction and separate your Forecast meetings from your Pipeline meetings.

In your Pipeline meetings, you need to ask your sales team about the new opportunities they have recently registered in your CRM. These early stage sales opportunities are the ones that will have a larger overall impact on the company’s condition. As a manager, this is where you need to focus your energy as these earlier stage opportunities need your guidance and this where you can add the most value in developing your team’s performance.

Normal Sales meetings are pretty boring as each person waits for their turn to explain the situation on their current opportunities. Let’s face it as a salesperson are you really that interested in what everyone else is doing?

So, why not change up the meeting format and use these pipeline opportunity meetings to educate the entire team. Any number of areas can be improved, from prospecting to improving sales opportunity qualification, or how to ensure all the influencers and decision makers involved have been considered and communicated with.

By using these Pipeline meetings to review and discuss your ‘Must Win’ opportunities as a team, everyone can gain from the experience and best practices of others. Often I find that someone on the team will have a relevant case study to share or knows of a useful contact that they can introduce to a colleague to help them on their sales opportunity.

Using the sales meetings in this way can have a significant impact on the performance and development of your team. By keeping your focus and energy on coaching opportunities earlier in the sales pipeline you get a high level of knowledge transfer and you reduce the amount of time spent firefighting to win deals in the later sales stages.

Finally, but just as valuable is the improved visibility and accuracy you will gain over your pipeline forecast.

I encourage you to try out this approach to adding value to your sales meetings and look forward to hearing the results!

Are You Capturing Valuable Customer Insights or Meaningless Data?

Most would agree that capturing important customer information is vital to growing and protecting their business. The harsh reality is that frequently little or sparse information of real value is captured in the CRM system.

One reason for this I believe is that most salespeople have never really been trained to understand and identify what is a valuable insight verses irrelevant details.

So, what are you doing as an organisation to improve the capture of vital customer information?

What are you doing to leverage it with impact?

Here are three areas worth investigating:

First, review the preparation for and the content of your customer meetings. Ensure that your questions focus on identifying your customers key business objectives. This is the basis for uncovering really meaningful insights. Use this information to set mutual goals, aligning your products or services to assist achieving them.
Train your salespeople to know exactly what is the valuable and insightful information you want entered into your CRM records. Develop their ability to identify potential business opportunities. E.g. Does the information from their meeting support what they knew previously about the customer? Or has it uncovered new directions they are taking for growth? The goal is to capture these insights that offer further opportunities to build the relationship and business together.
Do you have an effective reporting format? Often, salespeople fall into two camps, either they create a Customer Visit Report that is perfunctory, a couple of lines with no real detail. Or alternatively, they write paragraphs of text with tedious and irrelevant details from which it is hard to extract any meaningful business insight.

So, make it easier for your team create a simple effective format that gives everyone a systematic way to capture meeting information. This could have a few headings such as: Background / Meeting Content / Objectives / Next Steps.

This format will make reporting quicker to complete, easier for you to review effectively and coach the team on their next moves.

I’d like to encourage you to review your current knowledge capture and implement these ideas so you don’t miss the vital business insights required to dramatically move your business forward.

How do you get the best from everyone in your team?

As a manager, you want to get the best from everyone in your team. But they are all individuals with different personalities, so to achieve this requires insight and adaptability on your part to succeed.

Trying to communicate in just one style…your preferred style is not enough!

In the previous podcast and blog post we discussed four main communication styles and linked them to four animals for a bit of fun, but more importantly to help you to quickly identify people’s individual communication preferences.

In this article, I want to dig deeper into each of these communication styles and share how to adapt your way of communicating, so that it really resonates with each individual in the team.

The first one was the Monkey/Creative individual, this was the person who is energetic, full of life, has creative ideas and an outgoing personality.

What’s the best way to treat them?

Well, show your enthusiasm for the task or goal at hand. Sharing that emotion with them is very important.

Recognise too how they tend to value themselves. They access themselves by feedback, applause and recognition. This is very big in their world and it’s how they gauge whether they are doing well or not.

So, look for opportunities to offer genuine commendation and vocalise it.

Also, make it possible for them to get ahead quickly on new tasks and face new challenges. Don’t make things boring or staid for them, otherwise they could quickly lose that beautiful enthusiasm and creativity.

How can you help them to improve?

We mentioned giving them recognition, but they also need structure within which to reach the goal. So, map out some steps for them to work too so they can focus and not lose their concentration.

How to lead them?

When you think about leadership with these types of individuals, lead them in a way that inspires them to bigger and greater accomplishments. But you need to have short-term targets so they can hit these steps along the way.

Now let’s look at the LION/ Achiever character, this is the high-achieving individual focused on tasks and results.

What’s the best way to treat them?

The best way to treat them is to give them the opportunity to be in charge. Always recognise they value themselves on the results or goals they achieve. Make it possible for them to get into competitive situations because they like to win. So, you need to allow an opportunity for this, don’t try to hold them back or restrict them, they will just get frustrated.

How can you help them improve?

Give them a position where they have to cooperate with others, one area they need to develop is to be more considerate of other people’s feelings and also work within a team.

How to lead them?

The most effective form of leadership is to allow them some space to do things their own way, that’s where they feel most confident and comfortable.

Consider now the DOLPHIN / Agreeable character, this individual is very loyal and supportive and needs a different approach.

What’s the best way to treat them?

The best way to treat them is to be supportive and show you care about them. This is really important to them, knowing you have a personal interest in them and good relationship is critical to them performing at their best. You need to recognise that they tend to access themselves based on the quality of friends and relationships they have. If they feel that other people in the team around them like them, then they must be doing the right things. So, you need to make it possible for them to feel relaxed, knowing you are interested in them succeeding. Take the time to explain the background and reasons for the task then they will fully support and engage with you.

How you can help them improve?

One way is by providing a structure of goals and showing them the methods to achieve and reach those goals. This ties in very nicely with the most effective way to lead them.

How to lead them?

You need to outline specific plans and activities that need to be accomplished. Then they will feel confident and comfortable to push ahead to achieve those goals.

Finally, with the ELEPHANT/Analyst character,

What’s the best way to treat them?

Well we know they love the details, so be prepared to give them lots of data and information, that’s how they feel comfortable. Recognise that they access and value themselves with a slightly different paradigm. That activity and keeping busy with cause results to fall into place.

So, what’s the best way to work with them? One thing to remember is that they don’t like to be pressured or pushed to make decisions. So, you need to allow them the opportunity to be let off the hook sometimes rather than pressured or cornered into making decisions quickly.

How can you help them improve?

There are several areas but one of the most important is to help them develop their communication skills, so they can relate better to other people. Some of the important points we have considered here will play a significant part in helping them communicate better.

How to lead them?

In terms of leading them, the most effective way is to give them a structured framework so there are clear parameters that they understand and feel comfortable with. To gain their respect and engagement, formulate and prepare your ideas or tasks in full detail. Then allow them time to digest the data and information and expect lots of questions before getting their commitment to move forward.

Next Actions for you to implement.

So, this has given you four different characters and the best ways to communicate with them. I want to encourage you now to think about the individuals in your team and look at identifying their preferred way of communicating. How you can adapt your style of communication to bring out the very best in them and so doing achieve rapid progress in record time towards your goals!

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How Discovering Your Own Communication Style Can Dramatically Impact Your Sales Results

In this week’s podcast I’d like to share some insights to help you discover your personal communication style or preference and the huge impact this can have in getting commitment and engagement from your colleagues and buyers.

Understanding how you come across when you communicate to others is fundamental to any long-term success in your career. This applies both to your important relationships internally with colleagues and externally with your prospective buyers and existing clients. Learning how you can develop your communication skills and relate in a much more effective manner with all the different personalities is a highly valuable asset.

Then next week, don’t miss the second article and podcast in this series, as I will dive deeper into this subject and focus in detail on how you can use these insights, either as a sales leader to lead, develop and communicate effectively with everyone in your team, achieving results in record time. Or as a salesperson to significantly increase your engagement with clients and reap the subsequent business growth you desire.

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How to Differentiate Yourself & Create Value in a Digital World

One of the most important aspects of creating value for customers in the digital age is an understanding of the radical changes that have occurred in the way we buy.

We are now in a new sales landscape largely due to the availability of information on-line. You can take any industry, product or service and within a couple of hours of research know the key providers, do cost comparisons, read social proof and peer reviews all without ever needing to speak to a representative from the company.

Previously, much of this information could only be acquired via one on one meetings where the salesperson would ‘educate’ you on their product or service. Now the customer is much better informed and is engaging with the salesperson further along in the buying process. What is the impact of this change?

It’s becoming increasingly harder for companies to differentiate themselves and demonstrate their value.

Fundamentally, salespeople need to radically change their approach if they want to avoid appearing irrelevant and boring their prospective customers with information they already know!

Can you sense where customers are at, and are you on the same page?

They need you to rapidly digest their situation and demonstrate you understand their needs.

You also need to have a much greater understanding of their context, the industry they operate in and the key challenges currently being faced in their sector. Only then will you be in a position to advise and influence decision makers with your expertise.

The good news is that customers really do need and want to engage with professional salespeople but the qualities they are looking for have changed.

A recent Rain Group survey of senior level buyers revealed the top three qualities they valued most in salespeople.

Educated me with fresh ideas and new perspectives.
Collaborated with me.
Persuaded me we would achieve new ideas or results.

This clearly demonstrates that in order to differentiate yourself you need to change your mind-set. Remove old habits, that keep you in your comfort zone where you focus on telling people about your product or service, and all its features and benefits!

To capture the attention of today’s buyer you need an approach that stimulates interest, focuses on adding value and brings customers fresh ideas and solutions. Ones that support and enable them to achieve their key business objectives.

This value-driven sales approach involves you sharing your expertise and demonstrating your value.

Here are Four keys to doing this successfully.

Trust – Actively listen to what people are saying, rather than just hearing and thinking about what you will say next! In today’s smart phone obsessed world people everywhere are craving for personal interactions where they are truly listened to. This level of genuine personal interest should be a hallmark of your approach and one that clearly differentiates you. Be prepared with some great questions to open up a meaningful discussion around their business objectives that will enable you to share some valuable experiences you’ve gained in working with your best clients.
Reliability – Do you diligently do what you said you would? After your meeting do you follow up promptly with a ‘Commitment Email’ that simply outlines your understanding of the main points you covered and the actions points you both agreed too, plus an invitation to them to respond with any points you may have omitted. Customers highly value partners that are reliable and continue to communicate clearly throughout the buying process regarding delivery, payment and post implementation.
Consistency – Your customers are bombarded with an information overload. So, ensuring you stay top of mind is a key challenge. One way to address this is by ensuring that you continually add value on a regular basis. The creation of meaningful content enables you to deliver insights to customers year-round whether or not they are currently buying or using your service or product. So, why not create your own, Industry White papers, case-studies, visuals, user-tips and recent innovations to share either in person or on-line to deliver consistent value.
Expert Advice – Despite all the changes in the buying / sales process and the level of accessible information on-line, one fact remains. You should be an expert in your field. If you have done your homework and researched the industries of your customers you have a wealth of insights and experience to share. At best your customer will probably get involved infrequently with your product and service. Whilst you live and breath it on a daily basis. Some of greatest value you can deliver to customers is by helping them avoid potential challenges and expensive pitfalls.

Demonstrating your Value

One area that client’s frequently raise as a challenge is differentiating themselves from the herd and demonstrating their value in meetings.

I’ve studied this at length and what I discovered was that it is rare to find business people who have clear objectives and a structured way to direct their client meetings.

The below visual highlights the need for three critical elements to be in place for a successful meeting.

Simply, by outlining the purpose of the meeting and objectives of both sides at the outset, time can be correctly apportioned to cover each aspect.

By sharing a suggested content to be covered allows your client to know the direction for the meeting and to add any points they would like to include.

Finally, in your introduction agree that if you do find areas of interest you’ll be happy to do some additional research and arrange to see them again.

In this way, you alleviate confusion, wasted time, random tangents and you or your customer leaving not knowing what the potential next step should be!

In summary, our customers have evolved in the way they procure products and services and we must adapt our approach to one that is value driven to remain relevant.

We need to differentiate ourselves by educating customers not on – ‘features & benefits’, but with fresh ideas and perspectives, helping them avoid pitfalls and aligning mutual objectives to ensure they achieve their business results.

This value can only be delivered by a deeper understanding of their situation and improved levels of communication. It’s an exciting time to improve your sales approach. The need for companies and individuals to embrace these changes has never been greater. The opportunity in front of you is not just to survive but to really Thrive in this new sales reality.

If you’re not investing in your Sales Manager you’re missing a trick!

Investing only in frontline sales training won’t get you peak performance results. Today smart companies across the globe are waking up to an important fact.

They must invest and empower their sales managers to achieve maximum performance.

We must stop this erroneous notion that by promoting good sales people they will naturally become great managers. They won’t because ‘Sales Management’ is a completely different role.

So, here are 5 reasons why every company should be investing in training and developing their sales managers.

Set the pace. – They are the ones that set the pace and create the atmosphere for the whole team to achieve high performance.
Direct link between boardroom & field. – They are the ones who can effectively communicate the strategy and direction from the boardroom and translate that into meaningful sales activities to be implemented in the field.
Know their numbers. – They must understand their sales figures, and be able to read them like a book! Spotting pipeline pitfalls and forecast potential blockages with the ability to help their team overcome them.
Leverage their experience. – They need the tools and coaching skills for a strong Knowledge Transfer, developing everyone by multiplying their skills throughout the team.
Breed Loyalty – A good manager will be able to win the hearts and minds of their team. This is another valuable quality when you consider the high cost and impact of staff retention on your organisation. The person in the role of sales manager can dramatically affects the bottom line, but they need to know the qualities required to lead.

When you think about these 5 points is very evident that investing and empowering your sales manager is the key to superb results.

For additional insights checkout, the attached visual – -The Essence of Thriving Sales Organisation’ and listen to the podcast – ‘Empowering your sales manager to lead the team.’

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Is your ‘Bloated’ pipeline ruining your sales results?

This past week I’ve been catching up a client who has made dramatic improvements to their conversion rate.

Originally, when we first met they told me “We have loads of inquiries coming in and our sales people and running to keep up with the quotations, but we are still seeing a drop in our win rate!”

As we reflected on what had made the difference over the last few months, one key step stood out to them. Reducing their “Pipeline Bloat.”

Their salespeople were typically trying to manage a massive pipeline 5-6 times the sales target they were aiming to achieve. This resulted in a huge amount of time and energy being spent just to keep on top of all these sales opportunities.

We identified several root causes creating this problem and their impacts:

If you and your sales team do not have a clear focus on properly qualifying sales opportunities you can quickly find yourself on a Hamster Wheel churning out quotes for people while previously qualified opportunities in your pipeline get neglected. It is easy to see the time previously spent on closely tracking sales opportunities being lost.
Without proper follow-up and follow through the quality of information on these opportunities starts dropping significantly and more importantly so does your conversion rate.
Another issue to exacerbate the problem is that once you neglect your opportunity tracking and follow up work you allow your competitors to get in on your sales opportunities. Often causing you to play catch-up to get back in pole position and often forcing you to try and break the solution or product specification by offering lower pricing which badly impacts your profit margins!

So what can you do? Three things.

Find your ‘Tipping Point’ this where your peak performance lies, between the number of opportunities you can effectively manage in a pipeline and your ability to convert that business successfully at a very high level. So, remove that bloated pipeline by streamlining out any low potential opportunities.
Self-discipline. Everyone in the sales team needs to be crystal clear what type of projects are best for your company and product and how to qualify these opportunities early on.
Prioritise where you should spend your time and let your top 10 ‘must win’ sales opportunities be the focus of your efforts, these are the ones that really count and if you’ve done the hard work up front to create a great solution don’t lose focus on winning them. Chances are if you nail these ones you will exceed target with less work!

So, take action this week and cleanse that pipeline and find new vitality to focus and win the ones that matter!

Check out this short video that highlights the 5 top forecast killers and how to avoid them.

https://www.linearstructure.com/video/where-are-you-focusing-your-sales-management-efforts/

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Can you afford to lose £500k this year?

“Why don’t more of our new recruits become real top producers?”

“We always seem to be re-hiring for the same positions!”

Does this sound familiar?

Retaining current talent and attracting new talent has a massive impact on business success.

I’d like to make a case that for every time a sales person leaves it cost the company £500k. By the time you add up the lost business due to low performance or a territory left fallow, the recruiting and interviewing time and fees, training and induction resources and the inevitable ramp up time before the new person is fully performing. Plus, their individual sales target for the year which now will have to be filled by others to achieve the company target.

I’ve have seen it happen over and over where a business owner or manager will invest a lot of time in recruiting and selecting the right candidate, only to let things slip through a lack of preparation, guidance and in not establishing strong foundations with their new team member – from day one.

Therefore, if you want to make a great first day impression, make the effort to get things organised, prepared and looking as though you are ready for this person’s arrival.

From the recruitment process your new team member will have a general understanding of your business. But they are unaware of the inner workings of how you operate, the culture and how they are really expected to carry out their role on a day-today basis or where they fit into the organisation.

Coming into a new role, most people have their own way of doing things, whether they realise it or not, their habits are carried over from their previous organisation- both good and bad ones, this is typical no matter what the business.

Therefore it is critical that you map out the first 90 days with clear guidelines, goals and objectives and the support structure that will enable this person to become one of your champion players. By using this initial 12 weeks wisely you can form a firm foundation for a strong working relationship with them.

No matter how skilled and talented they are no new employee can come into your business and be fully productive and effective from day one. So this can be a nervous time both for them and you. During the first week or month a lot of evaluation is going on either consciously or unconsciously….I have I made the right decision?

If you map out the first 90 days, you are providing your new team member with their own personal roadmap. This helps the person feel confident and for people who want to achieve it’s a great start as they can create their own success benchmarks and monitor their own progress. By having this conversation you set clear expectations for your new team members, and it provides a platform from which to coach them and get the best performance from them. Remember too that coaching is not just about telling people where they can improve, it’s also about highlighting their strengths and showing you appreciate and value them.

Set up a daily review process during these first 12 weeks, just ten minutes at the beginning of each day to identify the priorities and manage expectations. This will enable the new team member to have the opportunity to identify what is working and what they are achieving, what challenges they have and what further training in certain areas may be needed. This process supports them and enables them to ask much better questions.

We find that something special occurs close to the end of the 90 days. All the parts of the puzzle start to fall into place and they see the whole picture.

It is only natural some of their previous job will come with them. Typically this shows up in phrases like “this is how I did it in my last job”. The old familiar habits are comfortable and depending on the personality type they could be quite forceful in pushing that their way is the right way or certainly better than the way you are currently doing it.

Change either for a business owner or new team member is not easy, even if they are excited about their new role. But ultimately, companies are looking for results. When you find people with the right attitude and enthusiasm then results will come. This induction process allows space for letting go of old habits and time to become confident in a new way of doing things.

It is also important to induct your new person into the ‘right’ type of culture. If you don’t have a 90 day induction for new team members and demonstrate what culture you would like them to follow, they can become ‘corrupted’ by segments of the existing culture. They may join enthusiastic and inspired by your business and their new role, and begin to suggest new ideas and ways of working. Only to be met with cynicism from some of your other employees – with responses such as “we already tried that”, or “that’s not the way we do things” – quickly the new person can become discouraged and disillusioned about the possibility of creating change and reaching bigger goals. So you need to spend time sharing your vision with your new people, ensure that the environment will be receptive, enabling your new member to flourish.

The vital ingredient in getting your new champion up and running is that you set them up for success from day one and work with them closely over the first 90 day period. Based on the success of the first 90 days, you will then be able to set the next 90 day challenges and continue the process for the life-time of their employment with you.

This process is very simple but also very powerful. Ask any structural engineer how important the foundation is they will tell you it is critical and where they would invest their time to ensure they get it absolutely right.

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Are You the Catalyst for Real Sales Growth?

Whether you are a sales manager or a salesperson what are you doing to drive sales results?

This week I’d like you to stop and think for a moment about the time, energy and effort you are putting forth to win your sales opportunities versus the time you invest in yourself.

If you are a sales manager you are no doubt extremely busy with forecasting, sales meetings, recruiting, interviewing, training, coaching and all the other tasks that need to be done.

But how much time are you investing in developing the sales people individually?

I’m seeing many managers so focused on fire fighting the soon to close opportunities, that they forget to coach their teams effectively. Especially, in the area of how to capture the key information required to win their ‘Must Win’ sales opportunities.

So, if you’re reviewing your pipeline this month and looking at those key sales opportunities, ask yourself, how close are we really to winning them? If you sit down with your team and drill down on the key winning elements don’t be too surprised if they don’t have enough information to make you feel secure about your forecast!

If they haven’t asked the right questions you only have yourself to blame. You have to consistently take the time to review early stage pipeline opportunities and coach your team on the key information required to win. Only by working collaboratively like this will they be able to raise their game and significantly boost results.

Here are my five winning elements, the ones I’d like my people to focus on for success.

Key Drivers – What’s the reason for the opportunity?
- Is there a compelling event to make it happen now?
Influencers – Are we aligned with everyone influencing the decision?
Solution – How much do we know about the exact requirements?
Value – Do we know the decision-making criteria of the key players?
- Does our solution provide real value to the client?
Decision – Do we know the critical decision dates & milestones for the project?
- How the decision will be made?

Clients who have invested in themselves and then consistently implemented their learning with their teams get dramatic results. They have become the catalyst for change not just for themselves but their entire team.

So, what’s the one area you could develop and coach your team on this week?

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As a Sales Manager…Who do I push, when and how? Without being a PITA!

I was recently asked the above question, and it’s a good one. As sales leaders, we all want to be in full control of our forecast, pipeline and close to our sales team.
However, as this question suggests there is a fine line between being really on it, and being a pain in the a**. No one loves being micro managed. So, how do you get the balance?

Working with successful clients over the years, I’ve found the best results have been achieved when everyone understands the difference between Forecast Meetings and Pipeline Meetings.

The Forecast meetings are for reviewing the soon to close opportunities that are due to close in the next 30 days.

The Pipeline Meetings are to review new opportunities entering the sales pipeline that need tracking and actions to move them forward to a closing position.

As a sales manager, your real value is in helping coach your team on these early stage opportunities.

Here’s a practical suggestion on when and how to do this.

Pipeline Session.

Twice a month do a 90min coaching session 1-2-1 with the individual sales people. Review together some of their ‘Must Win’ sales opportunities focusing on early stage pipeline not just forecast projects. Work collaboratively to identify the gaps in any deals and agree the next steps to move them forward to win the business. This is where you can have the most influence and impact on your team’s future results. It will also give you greater confidence later on as you come to forecast as you will have had good visibility of the opportunity from an early stage.

Forecast Session.

Prior to the start of a new month hold a forecast meeting to review all opportunities due to close in the next 30 days. Be sure that any of the opportunities forecast have travelled through the pipeline successfully and reached the appropriate final sales stage / probability before including them in your forecast. Don’t be fooled by ‘red herrings’ that suddenly appear in the pipeline at a late stage and can spoil your forecast. Many managers spend too much time focusing to these soon to close opportunities, when in reality there is little they can do to affect the outcome at such a late stage in the sales process.

Be Committed.

If you want commitment from your team make sure you get the dates for these review meetings and 1-2-1 sessions in the calendar well ahead of time and commit to them yourself and expect the same from your team. If you don’t commit to them your team will see them as of low priority and you will get messed around as everyone will start finding reasons to cancel on you. Trust me I’ve been there and felt the pain!

Ultimately, these meeting and 1-2-1 coaching sessions are where you can add the most value to your team. As they give you the opportunity to transfer knowledge and multiply your skills throughout the team, taking them to the next level in their sales careers.