Cut to the chase

Sell fast

is something that is forced upon sales pros to learn along the way and emphasized for survival. It isn't uncommon for those uncomfortable with sales to do.  A rookie mistake. You pounce with the close before checking to see if you've gotten your audience interest. Sometimes you have their interest and invest a lot of time, only to find out far along in the process that they have to check with someone else, can't authorize payment, can't sign any contract, basically can't agree to anything. You may be trying to force them to the finish line before you've done your job. It isn't likely your fault because this is the style you've been told to adopt. 

Numbers game

When numbers are all you hear about from your manager, leadership, sales boards it isn't a surprise that many sales professionals go for the numbers. You've probably even been coached to make more calls. That the more people you call on or try to sell to, the more sales you will hit.

The numbers game really only works when you have already accumulated prospects en masse or you rely on advertising or marketing to attract and gather a number of people or organizations that you have qualified can buy. 

Getting from A to Z

quickly is where it's at right? Certainly, if you have already taken the time to research and understand those prospects:

• Who are in the market to buy your service or product.
• Have been qualified as a reasonable prospect: 
• They have the money to purchase,
• They have the authority, 
• They understand what they're buying
• They are in the process of deciding who is going to help them buy
• They have an idea of what it will cost
• They have a budget in mind 

Need for speed

It's okay, if you are in the numbers game if you have a special deal or offering that has a genuine call to action which is typically aligned with time and deadlines. You may not be in the best environment to succeed if you are not guided on the above bullets.

Suspects

are typically just names of people or companies that you've identified by only that. You have a pile of business cards and entries into your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system with only a name, possibly title, and how to get ahold of them: address, email address, telephone number.

War story

I worked in sales, briefly, for an organization who had a manager I reported to that was really only interested in the numbers: how many places I called on, where I called on (geographically speaking) and how accurately I compiled the information into a daily report, and whether I shuffled the list off to this manager by a specific deadline each and every day.

Justifying sales

The numbers driven organization is less likely a sales culture. They seem rather disjointed. They've know they need more revenue driven from sales to increase their budget and justify the need to have a sales force. They are less likely sophisticated enough to ask what the prospect was interested in, that you were talking to someone who could authorize payment.

Story tellers

The reason the person is likely in the sales management position is more often because they have great stories to tell, convincingly. They can produce spreadsheets that populate into graphs that look impressive and decidedly authentic.

Desperate measures

If your sales culture sounds more like the aforementioned, it is more likely that you have accumulated a lot of numbers, minus results. Your sales pros are likely scrambling over each other to the race to show activity.

Activity

metrics can disguise the truth. It doesn't always show that the sales team are running like chickens with their heads cut off, from the crack of dawn, to dusk. All the names, titles, addresses, telephone numbers are filled in meticulously and on time.

Data miner

is all that is. A company would find it cheaper to go out and buy a list from those who sell lists. There are plenty of those out there that will sell you "qualified" lists of prospects. I've worked for a company who did this and what you end up doing is being a data miner not a sales professional. You end up finding out that the name you've been given had retired five years ago and the prospect's company has divided and conquered their buying process into complicated definitions, categories or dollar amount. 

Vendor management

are systems in place for organizations who do a lot of buying from pencils to complex services.  It can be a straightforward or complicated matrix. The formula used to decide who ends up on the list is as diverse as there are the number of organizations willing to fill a slot. 

Back at the office

The sales rep and manager can be gungho, thinking they have a live one simply because they have the business card of a person. That person is just a name amassed on to the list of lists to satisfy the numbers game. They may be a name on a vendors' list, and feel like they're halfway to winning.

Foresight or hindsight

can be a challenge. If you ever watch HGtv (Home and Gardens TV) shows where a home buyer has a verbal list of what they want: the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, etc. that are scalable. The easy part. But when it comes to having "a modern kitchen" definition it becomes more subjective and harder to pinpoint. Selling can really be like that 

The really good sales reps are the ones who can decipher what is not being said, officially. They can ask a bunch of questions to lead to the beacon of understanding that increases their likelihood of winning. 

New revenue

doesn't seem to be anywhere near forecasted. It shouldn't be surprising because all you are doing is collecting names and business cards. That data is extrapolated into pretty powerpoints that include the graphs and spreadsheets. 

Surprise surprise

when a rep who may not necessarily winning at the race of accumulating names, may actually be bringing in revenue. That it doesn't meet the metrics minimums usually has the individual in trouble with the boss. They may not be leading the race. They may appear slower than all the rest. They are likely in trouble. 

Revenue spiral

upwards or downwards is deemed only possible when you have the right amount of names. There are few questions asked on what the prospect may buy, what they already buy, who they buy from, whether they can actually do the buying. 

Setbacks

are left off the table. It is only a name after all. They may have purchased by the time the name comes up again in any kind of follow up conversations. Then it is not deleted. It stays there, muddled in a huge number of names and telephone numbers.

Marketing

jumps in and grabs those name and that data. They want to take it and send out a mailer or start an email campaign. 

Wheels churn

The wheels of productivity churn with the fancy marketing piece, that most likely has all the call to actions required. Unfortunately, they can fall on deaf ears because the recipient is hardly likely the right audience which has been supplied by the sales CRM.

ROI (Rate of Investment)

start to take a nosedive. Marketing panics to justify the budget assigned, approvals gained, and moneys spent. They have to show that the effort was worth the investment. Then an argument unfolds.

Lousy leads

is what the sales say. It isn't even a real person, the seller isn't on an approved vendor list, which is really complicated. They just have a name really.

Luck happens

Sometimes those campaigns filter to someone responsible for buying such a product or service. But that is only if the recipient is paying attention, bothers to read anything, and is in a hurry to keep their desk tidy and clear (a deemed sign of someone organized and productive. 

A live one

Someone wants to buy! Yureka! Then what's with all the annoying questions, spreadsheet pricing that needs to be filled in, questions specific to the purchase to be answered: resources like people to do the job, equipment or technology to meet the minimum requirements.

Spreadsheet estimates

I worked for an organization once and when I found an opportunity for a complete rebranding of all their identity material: letterhead, business cards, envelopes ~ the really boring stuff to any sales professional in a printing company. 

Authority defined

I meticulously filled in all the estimate request forms, attaching the spreadsheet for pricing that had to be filled in if we were going to be considered as the awarded supplier. I was in trouble, if you can believe that. The estimator complained to the Sales Director that the spreadsheet was going to take hours, if not days to complete. The Sales Director pulled me aside into his office, asked me to close the door. He wanted to know the likelihood of success if he did insist that the estimator push on and authorize the over time to get it done so as to not aversely affect the other estimates that were time stamped after your's, causing a trickle down delay for everyone else which, yes you guessed it, would cause mutiny by all the other sales reps who were waiting for their estimates. Time delays. Extra hassle. A lot of work.

In or out

I wasn't sophisticated in political maneuvering. The Sales Director ran the dilemma passed the President. The President slid in from the closed door to have a listen to what I had to say. The President had better things to do than referee between sales and the estimator but because the Sales Director brought him into the fold, he felt his presence was necessary. 

Hot seat

So there I sat. Two very intimidating men in polished suits asking me what the likelihood there would be in winning the project if they were to approve over time or just authority over the estimator to get er done. All I could tell them was that the only guarantee I had was if we didn't submit, we wouldn't have a chance of winning anything. That was honest.

It wasn't long after that that the Sales Director was pressuring me. Looking for the transactional sales that all his other reps were posting and I had none. Then again, I was averse to amassing just names. I worked to find need. 

Need versus want

A tried and tested sales pro has to justify and balance need over want all the time. There is a distinction between the must haves and the nice to haves. A really good one can dissect the list of impossibilities into a narrow avenue of probabilities. They can identify whether by instinct or from questioning what was the deal breakers.

Deal breaker

As I sat there on the hot seat for doing my job: bringing in a live opportunity that is going to be awarded, from the person with the authority to decide who was going to be able to do it, with a budget (open ended because they didn't know really how much it was going to cost because there was so much), using a bid process to decide who was going to get the job!

Defensive tackle

I sat. Perplexed. Somewhat. Didn't I do what was required? Wasn't I required to identify opportunity, authority, budget under the umbrella of a potential sale? Here I was in trouble for making extra work without any guarantees. I was feeling guilty. Anxious because my sales had been dismal, if not, nonexistent to that point.

Submit or quit

I am a fighter for my clients and for sales. Sometimes, I will push water uphill to get the answer and commitment that I know will seal the deal. In this instance, it was quite simple and clear, which became my answer to the leadership: "the only thing I can say without reasonable doubt, is that if we do not submit, or supply the information being requested, I could guarantee that we would not get any of the work.

Moral of the story

It became obvious that this organization and the type of sales pro that I was, were disjointed. The numbers they expected and the numbers I was producing were thousands of dollars apart. I was sitting on donuts and they were sitting on a sales rep who had not produced any revenue. We had a mutual parting of ways.

Happy ending

A few months later, The President and I went for dinner at his invitation. He said that he felt responsible for letting me leave and was having a hard time justifying the process or how it happened. He just told me flat out that he thought it was wrong. He wasn't sure how he could have changed the way it happened because the culture had been the same, successfully, for many years. 

Deal maker

They were awarded the project after I was long gone. That was what it was worth. The sale given to a rep that had a small amount of wins, which was more than me, and that was why I was gone. She had more small wins, no donuts on any board, like me. The irony being that that singular sale would have placed me over the top for an entire year.

Decisions and choices

You see, most organizations run their sales similar to the two stores I've shared. They've decided that it is their formula for success and it has worked for many years, it isn't disruptive to anyone, everyone is happy, except their bosses who want to see a bigger jump in sales. They got it. How they got it may be considered short sighted, in my opinion. I am probably more convinced of that because in the end, they did win the sale in the second situation. They may not have had the right evaluation process to decide what was the right opportunity, relying on transactional registration than profitable ones.

Produce or perish

is the mentality of many organizations that host a sales department. How they define who is producing and who is perishable can be distinct. It isn't their fault because that is the way it has always been done and they've survived for many decades. If not, a hundred years. 

Final destination

It isn't always the road traveled that can show who is going to make it in sales. The ultimate decider is how much dollars there are sitting beside zeros.

Hunter or Farmer

is one of my posts from optioneerJM with the largest most popular readership. It isn't a mystery to me why that is because most organizations that put up a banner for a sales department lack the understanding on defining what kind of sales rep they want. I understand that most companies bring in sales or marketing to do a job, and that is to drive revenue. How their reps arrive at the final destination or generate revenue can differ. 

Transaction or relationship

could be a way of defining the type of sales pros an organization needs. Do you need numbers on the board to demonstrate a forward momentum? Or do you evaluate the revenue you get from one customer. That is your first clue.

Assessment

A sophisticated assessment or examination would be what were trained as the easiest way to explain how I won the $380,000 sale was based on the spreadsheet on pricing.  People are making money writing books, blogs and public speaking in droves from exalting their secret special answer. However, in this case, The President seemed to finally really get it. He didn't sit back and pat the Sales Director on the back for winning the sale because he knew the trouble I went through to get it in the door and push the water uphill to go against how business is usually done over opportunity. It was the consummation of a lot of moving parts, shifting deadlines, uncertainties.  Driven by the convictions I had by the opportunity, that enabled me to develop a hard shell in the face of opposition and adversity.

Worth

Proving one's value or worth is exhausting no less. It is important for a sales professional to have a strong sense of self-worth but sometimes you are setup to fail. The culture or traditional means are a comfort zone for many.  Yet if you are the one who tries to push a customer or your organization out of its comfort zone, disaster lurks or triumph resounds.

They didn't ask me back after the fact. Months later, after we kept a mentor relationship going, The President confessed to having a hard time wrapping his head around the whole matter. Here he had a rep that didn't fall into a defined category or do things that were less disruptive to the rest of the team. There was never any impolite requests or demands, the proper forms were filled out in the proper manner, submitted with a timestamp to decry fairness. But what could be unfair is that I was gone and the company was left agonizing over how they could find more opportunities like that one that pushes outside the normal limits with the rewards far greater. Easy to manage, less estimating required, a long term arrangement, established expectation on recurring revenue streams. It took brutal honesty for this executive to admit, which he dared not go against his support of the leadership he had in place, To comprehend that in the long run, that sale did prove to be a lot more profitable and continued long after I had left.

Trust and support

to a sales professional should be paramount.  If you can't trust your team manager or company culture, how can you be sure that you can produce anything other than donuts.  You can sometimes have all the support you think you need, and trust, when the person extolling it doesn't have any authority or empowerment. I know, an uphill battle.

However, for argument's sake and as an example in this case, if the sales manager trusted me or was willing to go against the inner structure, personalities and complaints and give support to the person who brought it in the door, who knows what other miraculous opportunities could have unfolded.

Laziness

is how I would define it. I was willing to scope out a great opportunity that was not an automatic win for any of the choices. It was not simply a dollar figure slotted into a spreadsheet. Because anything of great value has a lot of moving parts to be considered.

Champion

Having an internal champion is key. I was only able to really skyrocket in sales when I had a champion in the organization. It was The President of the organization, similar in both circumstances. The real difference was the trust placed in me. That I wasn't going to waste people's time, make demands that were really only communications on what I interpreted to real needs while competitors lazily and assumed that the wants were unnecessary. I was always trying to make the needs and wants parallel with better definitions. 

Solution

I liked to come up with solutions to problems. I tried to understand the ramifications between problems (needs) and weak perceptions of how to solve it (wants). If you can somehow match up the two and mirror it with a solution, then the actual dollar amount becomes just that, an amount. So that you aren't selfishly demanding more than the value you bring. It's great when you can provide the solution and are given a price that is aligned in such a way that it is justifiable. 

Consultative or solutions

sales are tossed around and shuffled about, not unlike being stuck on a train or bus during the rush hour to get home. All the people on the bus just want to get home. They may even push and toss aside manners to get to the ultimate destination. Similarly, organizations just want the ultimate end to be in sight: increased revenue, save costs, improve profitability, satisfied shareholders and Board of Directors.  Ultimately, revenue that is profitable, easily accommodated, and doesn't ruffle any feathers. 

Solve problems

Solving problems at a fair price and recognized value is the secret. Yet so many organizations throw their sales reps out on the street, equipped with understand-ing the goals of the organization, its history, its culture, its process.

Innovation

Many companies say that they recognized innovation and want their people to think outside the box. When it is actually put to practice, they cannot see the bonus before all the hassle. They ask for innovation but have so many speed bumps and walls put up, with managers who are basically lazy and want to follow the status quo who won't support anyone that suggests anything other than the way they've always done business or falls within their process.

Process

The processes that companies become so handcuffed to and immobilized by are a detriment to ingenuity.  You would identify this when you are placed in an environment that is so rigid and with restrictive rules that are deemed in place because all the problems that could result in by stepping outside have been anticipated in advance and then defined as process. It imposes fear, threatens job security, is disruptive. Rarely is it progress. Definitely more peaceful.

Choked

So a person is either placed in a strangle hold, maybe even defined as a troublemaker because they go beyond what is firmly placed in front of them. Any innovation or problem solving techniques are choked out of them. They leave or let go.

Define

How you are going to decide someone does a good job. Toss away preconceived notions, don't rely solely on metrics. If you do, you may find yourself plugging along, even successfully, but never reach beyond the endless possibilities that some talented individuals are able to do. 

Roadblocks

Support them, back them up, monitor them if you will, hold them accountable if you must. If you don't, they will likely run out of steam, be exhausted from looking for new, great ways to do things that become more profitable, easier than before. Just don't say that you are a company who recognizes innovation when what you really have are a lot of roadblocks.

Rethink

Reconsider and re-evaluate whether your organization is poised for growth. Are you putting managers in place who don't fall on lazy metrics and are reasonably equipped to handle someone who does things a little differently. They may make things a little more challenging, but can they convince you that they have addressed more questions than you or the client can think up and have asked enough questions to figure out a way that it can be solved. 

Time

Time cannot always be on the side of a sales pro who wants to solve a problem, address a need. If you want transactional sales, then the organization has the responsibility to have everything cookie cutter in place. Unfortunately, cookie cutters are transactional sales, narrower margins, and you need a lot more of them to survive. 

Transactional

business tends to mean rigid pricing, no scale on volume, no adaptation to special requirements or the willingness to create new ways to help people spend money with you.

Residual, incremental

sales is the way to go. When it takes 85% more effort to find one customer, who equates to 15% of the business while consumes 85% of the effort, why wouldn't you seriously think about it. Some have. They devise a system that has hunters who go out and finds the new customers and then is required to hand it over to someone else who isn't as invested in the solution to a problem, they aren't even concerned with the total revenue amount as much as fulfilling the commitment they made to solve the problem. It takes a lot of effort, brain power, empowerment, dedication to solve these more profitable sales. Unfortunately, companies don't have the patience or time on this type of sales. Chicken and egg syndrome I'd hazard to call it.

Buy in

Is a strange and challenging thing to decipher. Most organizations struggle with ownership of customers. Some even go really far to ensure that the company owns the customer and not their sales rep. What they fail to acknowledge and refuse to understand is that it is that individual person who the client has bought, their word, the trust they have in them.

Catch and release

Often customers think that a company that they have just given their business to doesn't care enough about them or only as a number. How do they come up with that assessment? Well, it is because they want to be able to work with that person who made all the promises, their team. They don't want to agree to have 10 times more people putting up road blocks or delaying things because an i was not dotted or a t cross. 

Bait and Switch

These customers may even think that they were switched after being baited to buy in to the idea of change. Then reality becomes more of a nightmare than they felt they were promised. There are more rules that seem to come out of nowhere and processes that must be followed to get anything done. The disappointment and dissatisfaction is alarming.

Rigidness

The people who are at the switch off point are talented, without question. But they are also rigid. If they were more accommodating and adaptable, open to new ideas on how to do things, there is a stronger likelihood of success. But that's where the frontline, those who are actively working alongside the customer, are more like ants on an anthill. They are workers, they fit round pegs into round holes.

Square pegs and round holes

are a completely disruptive situation to have. There is pushback, tempers, longer hours, more problems to solve. Why? Because the people who support the customer in a hand off are unable and unequipped to put square pegs into round holes because they don't know, by instinct, by process, by deduction any other way. Does your organization take the new customer so seriously when you insist on a handoff approach that you hire people who are able to smoothly transition a square peg to be round? Not typically. They want only square pegs into square holes and round pegs to go into round holes.

Endless possibilities

When I started to write my blog 6+ years ago, I started out mostly by professing the easiest way to generate sales. Now, I recognize that the path is a lot more narrow to create endless possibilities with sales. The reality all these years later is that there are endless amounts of expertise out there from people who communicate the greatest way to solve sales mysteries, the way to get from Point A to Point Z. If in doubt,  check out the sales section virtually or physically on books at your disposal. 

Secrets retold and repeated

are snapped up in the hundreds of dollars by those desperate to find the Holy Grail. That being the quickest and easiest and sure-fire means to sell fast and well.

Holy Grail

The Holy Grail is really an organization who knows fluidly how to sell their product, how to select who sells it and has thought of or encountered a lot of roadblocks along the way. From those experiences, the organization figures out a way to operate in a way that allows everyone to do a key job that ultimate defines success: a sale or continued sales.

Effort

A tremendous effort is required by organizations to consider a lot of factors before they just decide to have sales reps hunting down new customers. Better still, to determine how they can keep those customers for a long time, evolving together, strengthening the relationship into a win win.  It is a puzzle worth solving.

Examination

Many entrepreneurs and companies are really caught up in the product or service they sell, some with a little better forethought to understand their value proposition, what problem it will solve and what is a fair asking price. Most spend more time on that than defining their sales force or their sales process. Little to none can account for the tools they have in place to help their sales reps be successful outside of the obvious, telephone, computer, metrics, company training more on culture than sales skills, then boot them out the door.

Reality

Expectations clouded and not examined with reality. To survive, the Company may need this many of this to sell that many of that by this very short time. However, ensuring they have reasonable tools, expectations and resources to help the sales reps are not considered their problem. They are disguise or considered excuses when they are not actualized or happen very often or consistently.

Results

Most companies, leaders, managers have definitive metrics that define results. Sometimes it is mere dollar figure, others more sophisticated on profitability. They can scientifically attribute how many calls to how many people will allow a chimpanzee to get to the finish line. 

Innovation

Very few allocate innovation among the troops. They believe that that is what they have managers or leadership for. They're the ones that figure out the processes that choke progress in some ways, but keep costs in check with others.

Greatness

is often determined by innovation in the world we live in today. The speed in which you can ask for something and a blank filled in is the ultimate race to the finish line. Getting revenue in the quickest means possible.

Speed

is the word of our days. The speed in which we accumulate customers, how our message is dispersed timely, where we look for information to solve our problems is at our fingertips. So why would I recognize this as a problem?

Value

is very misunderstood. The race to the finish line doesn't always allocate time for bringing value. You have your marketing machine extolling the virtues of your value, you have a few examples to showcase you have any.

Numbers

is a way to disintegrate your value. Metrics don't allow for any thought or innovation. Or, forcing people to think of ways to fix a problem by time or process. Many simply file people or services into categories to fit into a nice number that everyone can agree on.

Apprehension

to let trust lead the way. That your hiring practices, human resources, reputation and statistics is what is valued above all. 

Shareholder

importance outweigh people value. People become disposable. A cost on a spreadsheet, by ascending or descending value. Metrics devised to justify why one stays and another is let go.  What about offshored as a cost saving measure? That's a topic I've been struggling over how to write or address.

Crowded

There is no room for doubt, innovation and it leads to dysfunction because employees are clamboring for security, longevity, company loyalty with them.

Loyalty

is something that only the oldest of companies know about. When the companies think that loyalty by customers and employees are taken for granted are the ones who start to sputter and fail. They lose the importance of people to their survival. They devise new ways to bring more people in at a cheaper rate than a few less who can innovate and bring value. 

Innovation and time

it comes from trial and error, failure and success. Innovation stems from being able to solve problems or predict problems, solving them, before anyone is aware there is any. The disturbing thing is that companies don't want innovation unless you are assigned at the top of the food chain to come up with ideas to monitor, measure and strangle the employees to justify their existence. Quick to flash judgement, fire or let others go.

A Conclusion

is subjective with conclusiveness based on perception. What I see as more difficult to communicate is how do you get sales to be more successful sellers. When it relies on organizations to be better supporters of innovation and thinking outside the box. Holding companies more accountable to sales reps' success. They hold the key and wear the boots even when they reference boots on the ground. Sadly, they boot the wrong ones out a lot of the time and don't polish or examine their own key.

Organization

The quality of sales and results is not because of metrics, processes or company. It comes down to who the organization is and what they do to help their people be successful. It is not solely on the shoulders of sales or marketing. It adjusts itself along the way, examines whether it has roadblocks. That is a big challenge to swallow. Very few will take the time to consider the challenges they put in front of their people. Do they support them? Or only support them when they file within the parameters they set out? Is the power safely placed on the managers because they are equipped with the metrics?

Bright lights

There are certainly a lot more questions than burning light bulbs of answers or mysteries unraveled. That is, in my opinion, the best way to flash onto the beacon of success. 

Final Questions

Are you doing everything in your power to help your people be successful or are you creative in metrics that signal who to perish? Do your metrics accommodate the sneaky, shrewd political animals and leave out the honest, hard working person?

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Jeannette writes on her blog optioneerJM about business, sales and leadership, evolving into strengthening online brand through social media networking and digital marketing. Her best read blog has been "Hunter or Farmer: what kind of sales rep do you want?" and with permission used as an excerpt in a publication on how to hire salespeople.