Salespeople are finely-tuned into the economy since it can have a direct impact on their wallet.  The fact is many salespeople who falter during an economic downturn get let go.  That is a lot of pressure to handle even for strong salespeople.

ManageSmarter.com offers up this article - Chronicles of a Sales Leader: Tough Times Call for Solid Leadership - that provides guidance to sales managers in handling salespeople who are under pressure.  The author’s first point is perfectly stated (my bold):

1. Don’t abandon the client.
As pressure to hit your numbers increases, a tendency to push the sales cycle ahead of the client’s buying cycle is a frequent mishap. Salespeople in this situation begin to focus on close dates and fail to solve what the customer is trying to fix, accomplish or avoid. This leads to clients who don’t understand your value proposition because your team is not offering up a solution. Ultimately, those in this situation end up discounting to win or losing the sale.

In challenging times, it is even more important to make sure there is rigor and diligence to uncover the root of client issues, identify key buying influences and their wins, understand how the decisions will be made and how such activities will be funded. Now is the time to make sure your team is more diligent about understanding the buying process and less concerned with trying to slam dunk sales.

Exactly.  All sales managers need to be aware of this overshift because it can have a devastating effect on your revenue.  Salespeople tend to push harder, drive faster and prematurely close when their forecast is soft.  I was working with one salesperson who had a glowing forecast filled with deals, but he was become pushy in one account.  His drive to close it was so overextended that he appeared desperate.

He was.

His forecast was smoke and he knew it.  He used the inflated forecast to buy more time.  That may have seemed like a good idea to him, but he was flushed by his sales manager.

That was an extreme case, but the subtle version of this push is damaging too.  Salespeople push prospects to the point where they either disappear or angle for deep discounts.  As a sales manager, it is important to keep a pulse on your salespeople and place an emphasis on post-call debriefs.

Posted By Derrick Moe | Economy, Sales Management | | Comments(0)

Maybe that title isn’t the best turn of phrase.  One effect we see often is alleged hunters in sales positions loaded with daily rejection.  I’m not talking about the long-term, relationship-based sale that ends up with a soft no.  I’m talking along the lines of a cold call-driven, commoditized market.  These types of markets have been known to break good hunters.

The break occurs once the salesperson acquires a handful of decent accounts.  The salesperson begins to morph into a farmer with the approach of gaining more business from those few accounts.

My experience has been that these salespeople get worn down from the rejection of constantly churning through cold leads.  The problem is exasperated when their value proposition is fairly commoditized.  If this describes your current situation, I strongly encourage you to keep close watch on your hunters.

There are some steps you can take to insulate your team from squatting:

Compensation
One dollar of new business from a new customer should not be compensated at the same rate as one dollar of new business from an existing customer.  Salespeople will go to the quickest dollar in this instance and that likely isn’t from new customers.

Customer Support
Hunters are best used finding new customers.  If you bog them down with support activities, you will put them in a conflicted state.  They may leave, they may offer poor support or they may start squatting on these activities.  Whatever the outcome, it typically isn’t positive.  If they are properly compensated, these activities will make them irascible.

Resources
Here’s a dirty, little secret - many sales managers cannot do what hunters do.  That is fine since sales managers aren’t normally asked to cold call.  But they can provide some support to the hunter.  Updated productivity tools, new marketing campaigns, short-term monetary bonuses…these are all ways a manager can relieve some of the stress of new business development.

Listen
A majority of hunters are ego-driven so it is always a good approach to meet with them and ask for their opinion.  What are they seeing in the market?  What tools would help them close more deals?  Are there any internal procedures that could be improved?  Efficiency is a hallmark of strong hunters and they are sensitive to time-wasting activities.  Granted, some activities are needed in spite of the hunter’s complaints.  But have an open mind to other areas that could be streamlined.

One thing to be clear - farmers can make you a lot of money, nurture long-term customers and smooth out your revenue stream.  However, their skill set is more prevalent in the market so they are not valued as highly.  Sales managers need to keep hunters hunting.  Stay involved in their activities and ensure that they do not settle down into a handful of large accounts.

Posted By Derrick Moe | Sales Management | | Comments(0)

Sometimes the best advice is simply stated which is true of this Inc.com post titled The Fallacy of an Open-Door Policy.  This topic catches my attention in that some of the worst managers I worked for claimed profusely that they had an open-door policy.  They stated it, but we sales reps all knew it was a ruse.

I think the author strikes a perfect chord with this:

You need to create an environment where people can speak up in any venue. I’ve had some of my most important communications with employees driving in the car, standing in the lunchroom, or walking through the shop floor.

How true…and difficult to put in practice for some managers.

Posted By Derrick Moe | Communication, Sales Management, Team Management | | Comments(0)

Not my words, but rather a quote from this Selling Power article:

“If I had to use one word to describe Generation Y, it’s empowered,” says Ann Fishman, president of Generation Targeted Marketing Corporation, a specialized marketing firm providing insight into consumer preferences, trends, and buying habits affecting the six generations of Americans. “This is a generation who has a tremendous amount of self-confidence. They are civic minded, optimistic, and want to be involved in their futures. They are going to come on very strong.

And now for some tips:

Fishman notes a few things to keep in mind when going through the hiring process with this group. First, Generation Y is very interactive, says Fishman and suggests getting them involved in the interview process very early.

The other thing that is really important to this generation is bonding and branding, says Fishman. “This group bonds to companies very early – they start bonding at age 10 and they are almost fully bonded by the age of 15,” she explains and advises offering summer internships, sponsoring field trips, sport teams, or volunteer causes. “You have to support their volunteer causes. This group has been volunteering since pre-K. Establish name recognition with them early on.”

And then the tip that caught my attention (emphasis mine):

Along those same lines, you need to be careful once you hire Generation Y employees; make sure that they have a clear understanding of what’s to be kept confidential. This is a group that has no concept of privacy. Their lives are online with MySpace, Facebook – everything is exposed and open to the public.

That is an excellent point.  I suspect there has always been some intellectual bleed from companies in the past, but Gen Y could multiply it by an order of magnitude more.

Lastly, a tip for hiring:

Speed is very important to them. They’ll give you a quick turnaround, but they expect a quick turnaround. If they can’t text message, then they don’t understand why. Email is almost too slow for them. A sales career is a great match for them, because the sales industry is fast paced.

Since they are speed demons, they aren’t really good at handling long-term projects. Fishman suggests breaking up long projects into shorter segments. Along the same lines, if you decide you want Generation Y employees, you need to hire them right away. They won’t wait around for six-month background checks or interview processes that take weeks. They want a quick response.

We got a bloody nose on this topic when we lost a good, young candidate who wouldn’t wait for our plodding customer to work through their baby boomer hiring process.  The candidate took another job before our customer finally decided to move forward.

We learned a valuable lesson from that experience.

Posted By Derrick Moe | Generations, Hiring, Team Management | | Comments(3)

The title of a resume I found online:

Experience Hard Warker

Posted By Derrick Moe | Anecdotes, Resumes | | Comments(0)

CareerBuilder.com has put out another link-bait article titled Top Interview Questions.  I wonder if they send this version out to their employer customers and a modified version out to the jobseekers in a separate email?  Anyway, here is the list:

What circumstance brings you here today?

This is one of the best opening questions ever. This open ended question surprises many candidates. If they do not respond quickly, just sit quietly and wait for the response. Some candidates reveal problems with their current employer, potential insubordination, and both positive or negative character traits.

How would your best friend describe you?

What would you say are your 2 greatest weaknesses?

How do you alleviate stress?

What are your short and long term goals?

What type of work environment do you prefer?

When choosing potential employees, it is helpful to know what type of environment in which they prefer to work. If the company is very professional and usually quiet, someone who likes a loud, casual environment might not be the best fit. It is sometimes good to hire someone who does not fit the mold, but it is usually best to hire people who fit your work environment.

What is your typical way of dealing with conflict?

What tools or habits do you use to keep organized?

Instead of asking are you an organized person, this makes the interviewee prove and describe their organizational skills. Most hiring managers expect that their employees have some type of system to stay organized. Whether it is using a planner, or electronic calendar, these tools confirm that the potential employee is reliable and responsible.

Tell me about a time when you had to go above and beyond to get a job done.

What was a major obstacle you were able to overcome in the past year?

In what ways do you raise the bar for yourself and others around you?

This question gives the interviewer an idea of who is and is not an above average performer. It also demonstrates leadership potential and the willingness to be a team player.

Tell me about two memorable projects, one success and one failure. To what do you attribute the success and failure?

What unique experience or qualifications separate you from other candidates?

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Ok, I took the liberty of removing the explanation that accompanied most of these questions since I thought they were, well, common.  We use our assessments before the interview which provides a roadmap for questions.  The assessments are like an x-ray view of the salesperson’s ability which means we don’t have to do exploratory surgery in the initial interview.

Posted By Derrick Moe | Hiring, Interview | | Comments(0)

We’re in the middle of a couple negotiations between our customers and their top sales candidate selection.  The companies are smaller and these positions are fairly important within the department so they are not “slotted” pay ranges that are more common in larger companies.  Both negotiations have similar topics (salary and commission plans are always prevalent in sales negotiations) but different approaches by the candidates.

Call it serendipity, but I came across a timely SalesHQ article titled How To Structure A Negotiation.  The author, Jonathan Farrington, provides 3 important steps for any negotiation whether it be for a potential hire or a potential customer:

The recommended structure for negotiations is:

1. Establish the issues being negotiated

2. Gather information

3. Build a solution

Here are a couple of excellent points from the article (my editing):

Stage 1. Establish The Issues

Many negotiators make the mistake of negotiating too quickly whereas skilled negotiators spend 20% more of their time asking questions and looking for alternatives.

Seasoned negotiators will often bring up an issue at the end of the negotiation, when you are vulnerable and likely to agree to a one sided (Lose-Win) concession, in order to conclude the deal. You can legislate for this ploy by asking the other side for their . “shopping list” before beginning the negotiation and refuse to accept any last minute additions to the list.

Stage 2. Gather Information

You need to decide, before the negotiation, how much you are willing to share information and what your own information requirements are. This will set the climate for the negotiation and will determine the amount of trust that exists between both parties. Skilled negotiators are able to ask a range of open, closed and follow up questions and are able to listen effectively. They also wait until they have all their information requirements, before making concessions.

Stage 3. Build A Solution

Typically, there will then be a process of bargaining, concessions will be traded and movement take place, until, hopefully, agreement is reached. Concessions should not be given away for free and you should be wary about conceding on issues for which you are not prepared.

One of our sales candidates added a new issue after receiving the offer.  This is a good move on his part, but it comes with some risk.  The negotiation will proceed at a measured level while we will see how he responds to the counter.  I am not as measured in these instances - I prefer to call the bluff which has left me in a pickle more times than not.  That is why I find Mr. Farrington’s suggestions valuable.

Posted By Derrick Moe | Compensation, Sales Management, Sales Techniques | | Comments(0)

We here that phrase often - must have experience selling to the (insert executive/C level/CEO here).  But how many positions actually sell to this level?  What do CEO’s actually purchase for their company?

Financial planners sell to the C level.  High-end insurance salespeople sell to the C level.  However, most positions do not sell at that level.

One value for a salesperson is the ability to enter at that level and then be sent down to the correct mid-level manager with a referral from the C level contact.

Yet even that “kicked down” ability is overstated.  The real value is being able to discover the decision process within the company.  For many products and services, this process is not found in the corner office.  The flatter the organizational hierarchy, the more difficult it is to find the decision maker.  Odds are it is more than one person.

The salesperson who can approach a prospective company, find all of the decision makers and then sell each of them on his or her solution…well, that is truly a skilled salesperson for today’s corporate world.  This salesperson may not have experience selling to the executive level, but they have the ability to sell to the right level to close deals.

And you may miss out on them if you think your sale goes through one C-level person.

Posted By Derrick Moe | Sales Techniques | | Comments(0)

This video from Selling Power discusses a unique look at the traditional sales funnel.  The author in the video states that the sales funnel has to be thrown out and redesigned based on the prospect’s process.  The 4 minute video is an excellent discussion on this topic:

If you have trouble with the video, here is the link to watch it on the Selling Power website.

Posted By Derrick Moe | Sales Management, Sales Techniques | | Comments(0)