If you are like many CEOs, your company may be experiencing the perfect storm of increased competition and price pressure, combined with a limited supply of great sales talent and financial resources.   Many business owners are frustrated with the lack of new business generation and the fact that few, if any, of their people relish the role of hunting for it.   Some owners even feel they being are held hostage by mediocre performers who possess valuable information or customer relationships. 

The answer to this seemingly perplexing situation is YOU.  By virtue of a simple choice, you possess more power than you could possibly imagine to dramatically upgrade your Sales Team and to grow now.  Creating an Overachieving Sales Culture will not only fuel top line revenue growth, but can also improve your net profit.  If you decide to go for it, here are some simple steps that will be required:

1.     Face the Brutal Facts:  Please realize that the very people you would like to change have chosen to behave the way are currently behaving.  They act the way they act for only one reason–because they want to.  So despite your strongest desires, they probably will not choose to do what you would like them to do – Hunt and Close.   Most people, including salespeople, do not like change and will resist leaving their Comfort Zone.

2.     Needle in a Haystack:  Hunters & Closers represent a microscopic portion of the “salesperson population”.  In fact, only a very small percentage of people are really suitable for taking on any part of a sales or business development role.  

3.     Use Effective Tools and Processes:  You must be able to identify that small percentage of productive salespeople.  This takes discipline, but isn’t hard to do if you use the right types of assessment tools and processes.

4.     Raise Your Expectations, Change Your Focus, Trumpet Your Intentions:  This is no time to be wimpy or ambiguous.  You must loudly and clearly broadcast your unconditional commitment to create a new, effective Sales Culture.   For example, let’s say you want the regional managers at your professional services company to go out and find local business clients, your customer service group to become proactive by making outgoing calls, or your service providers to bring new clients into the firm.  In each of these cases, a common management mistake is to neglect the clear communication of expectations to those very people they would like to change.   Be Clear.

5.     Appoint a Competent Culture Transformation Director:  Again, this is going to take steady commitment on your part.  But it will pay off.  Appoint someone who understands what needs to be accomplished as well as how to accomplish it.   If your company is very small, you may need to wear the CTD hat yourself.

6.     Train and Coach:  Make sure that your team members are equipped with the training they’ll need to succeed in this strange new world of big selling and new business development.  The assessment tools can provide you with a development roadmap.

7.     Demonstrate a Path to Success:  Don’t throw them out to sink or swim.  Even with the most talented of salespeople, it is up to you to clearly define what it is they should do and how often they should do it.

8.     Swim in the same direction:  You must get complete buy-in from the people that will participate in your culture transformation.  They must be All-In.  Remember, your forecast and plan must be derived from your goals (not the other way around).

9.     Transparency–No Surprises:  Everyone must be clear as to how success will be measured, the rewards of success and the consequences of shortfalls.   No Gray Areas…

10.  Accountability:  You and the Culture Transformation Director must create an organizational mindset where everyone is open, honest, and personally accountable.  Any member of the team that doesn’t fit, doesn’t belong.  

This transformation doesn’t happen overnight, if you follow these steps, it will happen.  But again, it all starts with YOU.

 An uncertain economy is the absolute best time to upgrade your Sales Culture and create predictable, profitable growth.   With a simple choice and the right tools and processes, you’ll be well on your way to higher revenues, consistent performance, and a stronger company.

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2016.   All Rights Reserved. 

 Most people like to be liked, and many salespeople love to be liked.  The weakest salespeople need to be liked.

While the end result of being liked certainly provides an advantage over being disliked, a salesperson’s desire to feel good and their need for approval can have huge consequences in their overall effectiveness and ultimate success.

Let’s take John for example;

John works really hard to get people to like him. 

John is very nice to everyone.

He almost always agrees with people, especially with sales prospects.

If John disagrees or if he hears contradictions in a buyer’s conversation, he won’t say a word for fear someone might not like him.

If a prospect wants John to do just about anything, he’ll do it.  

If a buyer wants a proposal, he’ll send one right away.

If a buyer wants John to go back and redo the proposal, he’ll happily oblige.

If the buyer wants John to sharpen his pencil to offer a better deal, John will take care of it.

If the buyer wants John to put on his tap shoes and dance on the table, John will do so with a smile.

In his zeal to be liked, John will rarely ask questions, especially the “difficult” or challenging variety.  

John is an expert on small talk, but avoids big talk.

John will never push for a ‘yes” or “no”.  He will accept “maybes” all day long.

If a prospect decides to take a phone call during John’s visit, John will sit by smiling as the minutes tick away.

If a buyer wants to spend a few hours talking with John about something that has nothing to do with business, John will cheerfully invest (aka: waste) the time.  (Note:  This type of wheel-spinning behavior is most prevalent among the most unqualified buyers—the ones with the least decision-making power or influence.)

Since John always defers to the buyer’s schedule, he frequently loses track of time and is often late for his next appointment.   

John happily accepts stalls, put-offs, and misdirections.

John rarely qualifies a prospect.   He’ll invest time, energy and money with anyone who asks for it.

John is more than happy to give as many unqualified demos and presentations as are requested.

John will never push to understand true buying motives or the decision process.

If the prospect doesn’t graciously offer to tell him directly, John will never learn anything about budgets or how much the buyer is willing to invest.

John takes objections personally and emotionally.

John is highly vulnerable to win/lose arrangements.

John will sacrifice his commissions (and company margins) in order to maintain his likability.

John will provide free consulting as long as a buyer requests it.

John IS a really nice guy and most buyers actually do like him.  Unfortunately, they don’t respect him or his time.   Consequently, John squanders massive amounts of time, company resources, sales volume and profit.  I’m not suggesting here that a salesperson shouldn’t be likable.   Of course you want your salespeople to be liked.  However, it is much more important that they are trusted and respected.  When the desire or need to be liked transcends effective sales behavior, it could cost you very dearly.   So be on the lookout for John.  Eliminating a salesperson’s need for approval can have a tremendous effect on your bottom line.

Do you know any Johns?

Do you have any on your sales team?

Do you ever find yourself behaving like John?

If so, what do you intend to do about it?

I’d love to hear from you.

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2016.   All Rights Reserved.

The Five Dysfunctions of a (Sales) Team

One of the most popular business books of the last decade is The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, written by Patrick Lencioni.

As with any team, the objective is to be effective and produce results.   For a sales team, effectiveness means the ability to produce consistent, predictable, visible, profitable growth, quarter after quarter, year after year.  When mapped against this objective, most owners would agree that their team falls very short of the mark.  In other words, the vast majority of sales teams simply aren’t getting it done.

Throughout my career helping many hundreds of sales teams, it has become obvious that just about all of them possess the same five dysfunctions when I first encounter them.    I’ve listed these dysfunctions here, along with actions you can take today to begin to eliminate them.

1.   The wrong people:  Most salespeople go into Sales by default.  As a result, the profession of sales is rife with individuals who lack the skill, discipline, passion, training, or commitment to produce results.  Consequently, less than 50% of salespeople do not last a single year.  You’ll never win the race with the wrong horses, and most owners don’t even realize how bad their salespeople really are.   When it comes to recruiting great sales talent, the odds are stacked against you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t win and hire excellent performers.   You just need to know how to do it.   You can attract the talent you require (both in Sales and Sales Management) by employing an effective, behavioral, objective, Locate, Land & Launch™ process.   

2.   Sales management doesn’t manage:  Most small private companies don’t manage sales at all.   Many that think they do are totally ineffective. Managers end up spending most of their sales management time doing all sorts of low-value activities rather than actually managing the salespeople and the growth of the team.   More than three-quarters of an effective sales manager’s time should be dedicated to coaching, developing, motivating, recruiting, and holding salespeople accountable to promises.   Is this how your manager spends time today?

3.   There is no Sales Process:  If you’ve been in business a while, you probably have processes for most functional areas in your enterprise.  You likely have processes for payroll, operations, distribution, manufacturing, and more.   However, most companies do not have processes for the one area that should be the most functional—Sales.  In the absence of a sales process, your team resembles a bunch of athletes running around a field without a game plan.   Good luck winning that game.  If you don’t have a sales process in place, the good news for you is that your competitors probably don’t have one either.   If you implement an effective sales process, you will begin to beat them consistently.

4.    Lack of understanding:  While all owners would like to improve their inconsistent, ineffective sales effort, most simply don’t have a clue how to fix it.   They don’t understand how to build a successful sales organization, don’t know how to identify where problems lie, and don’t even know where to start.  They may have attended a few webinars or read some books containing tips and tricks, then tried a few things and didn’t see the needle move.   As a consequence, many believe their sales team isn’t great, but may be as good as it’s going to get.   So they’ve have thrown in the towel and decided to just tolerate the mediocrity.   I know nothing about flying airplanes, but if I needed to travel overseas, I would find someone who did.  Fixing a dysfunctional sales team is no different.  You’re team can be much better, so if you don’t know how to fix it, find someone who does. 

5.   Lack of Commitment:  Upgrading your sales organization is not magic.   It is not easy, but it is simple.  There are no quick fixes, but it is totally formulaic.   If your sales team isn’t getting it done, start by assessing each individual’s commitment to generating results.  The members of your sales team are behaving the way they are behaving because they are choosing to behave that way.   Your salespeople are choosing their behaviors.  So is your sales manager.   So are you.   Most people hate to leave their comfort zone, so if you want to change results, start by leaving your own comfort zone.  Commit to building a world-class sales effort, declare to everyone that you are doing it, evaluate your team, and make it happen. 

Whether you are a sales development expert, or know absolutely nothing about sales, you CAN dramatically improve the effectiveness of your sales effort.   You are currently investing your precious time, money and resources somewhere.   If you’re like most owners, some resource may currently be directed to low-value areas that do not affect the health of your company nearly as much as Sales.   By re-directing some of those resources toward upgrading the effectiveness of your sales team, you’ll find the rewards will be well worth the effort.

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2016.   All Rights Reserved.

Many love him, many hate him. But it is a fact that Donald Trump has energized a huge new legion of voters and has trounced 16 formidable competitors. As a result, he is now the presumptive winner to become the next Republican Presidential candidate. Every one of Trump’s competitors had more political experience, but he beat them all in a landslide.

His rapid demise was predicted by most politicos, “experts”, and observers. Facing overwhelming odds, Trump won big. Despite one’s personal opinion of the man, it’s difficult to argue that his success is anything short of a total phenomenon. What did he know that the others didn’t? What can we learn from Mr. Trump?  

Here are five things Trump understands that can help you generate more sales:

Emotion always “trumps” logic when it comes to making buying decisions: 

Sixteen candidates spent considerable time and effort defending their policies, offering what they believed to be logical arguments as to why they would “work best”. Trump instead connected with voters on an emotional level. While others invested their limited face-time and resources getting into the weeds, Trump focused upon voter pains—their angers, frustrations, concerns, fears, and anxieties.  

Different is GREAT: 

Buyers think most salespeople are boring. So are politicians. Whether a prospective “buyer” is hearing from a salesman or a politico, what they typically hear is blah, blah, blah. Research demonstrates that the vast majority of most salespeople’s words fall on totally deaf ears. The other candidates each had a difficult time standing out. No one could argue that Trump was totally different.

Most people don’t trust politicians (or salespeople): 

Trump used his understanding of this basic principle and worked hard to convince voters that he knew little about politics. He also worked hard to make them understand he was an outsider. You should, too.

Pattern interruptions get people’s attention, and keep them coming back for more:

If you wish to connect with people, you must first get them to listen. This is tougher today than ever. The majority of politicians (and salespeople) sound scripted.   Whether they are standing before a crowd or an individual, most of their lines (and questions) are essentially talking points. Trump has developed a reputation of rarely saying what is expected. Whether you are a Trump fan or not, most people are intrigued by what he might say next. So people listen.

Premature Satisfaction™ can knock you out of the race:

16 of the 17 candidates shared very detailed plans for how they would move America into the future.  Trump’s strategy of offering brief “what” bullets, but very little “how”, has resulted in records in garnering primary votes. The others invested their limited face-time and resources getting into the weeds. Similarly, most salespeople waste far too much time explaining and demonstration HOW their solution works, and they do so way too early in the sales process.

Once the other candidates unloaded all their barrels, they basically commoditized themselves, giving voters a perfectly good reason to tune out. Premature Satisfaction™ sinks salespeople every day.  Don’t fall victim to this debilitating condition.

Despite your opinion of his competency and character, most observers would agree that Trump is an excellent marketer who is skilled at personal branding.  However, it is also evident that he is a skilled salesperson with a great understanding of the psychology of buyers.

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2016.   All Rights Reserved.

The profession of Sales is loaded with mediocrity. More than half of all salespeople hired today will not survive a full year with their new company. More than half of those who do survive will fall short of their quota and forecasted sales in their second year. Less than 5% will generate consistent, predictable results.  As a result, business owners waste billions of dollars every year in recruiting, training, compensation, and opportunity costs.

While there are many attributes that comprise a successful salesperson, and while most of these can be uncovered BEFORE you waste your time and money hiring another dud by virtue of an effective screening process, there are some very basic attributes that any salesperson can employ immediately, but simply do not.  These attributes are so basic, in fact, that the skills to deploy them exist in any child.  Unfortunately, it seems that most sales “professionals” have forgotten the skills and traits they learned as youngsters, or they maybe they just choose not to use them when interacting with prospective buyers. Here are just a few of the effective traits of 2nd graders…: 

Kids don’t have answers. Ineffective salespeople prefer to act like they have all the answers.  Kids make you feel like the expert. “Expert” salespeople are a huge turnoff to buyers.   

Kids are sincerely interested. While snake-oil salespeople ask leading (salesy) questions and listen with filters.   

Kids are playful. While “professional” salespeople are scripted and stodgy. 

Kids are unpredictable. Most salespeople are simply boring, asking the same questions and adding no additional discovery or value.  Research shows that 86% of salespeople are perceived as undifferentiated.

Kids are infinitely curious. While mediocre salespeople make far too many assumptions. Assumptions = missed information = DANGER.

Kids will ask anything. Most salespeople stick to their list of Tie-down questions. These add zero value to the conversation.

Kids truly love to discover new things. Conversely, most salespeople choose to spend most of their time talking, presenting, proposing and demonstrating, instead of facilitating discovery and LEARNING.

Kids learn something new every day. Many salespeople are committed to “the way they’ve always done it”.

Kids are always testing their limits. Low-growth salespeople refuse to leave their Comfort Zone. 

 If you have any doubt that using child-like attributes would “work” with your “sophisticated buyers”, or if you’ve simply forgotten some of the most valuable lessons you learned when you were a kid, I’d challenge you to give them a try during your next sales interview.  If you would kindly share the result, I’ll make sure to publish it with the readers…   

 Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2016.   All Rights Reserved.