A few weeks ago, I jumped into the compensation discussion with a post about commissions.  My opinion is that heavily and solely incentivizing a sales professional for their selling results might not be the most effective compensation model.  There are aspects of the sales process that involve the expertise, support, and follow-through of others in bringing new business and retaining existing business.  Providing a large portion of the rewards to the sales professional for these results diminishes the significant and valued contributions of others in supporting these outcomes.

The purpose of this post is to offer a follow-up to the commission conversation.  And, provide a little more perspective into what is rapidly becoming the organizational and process trend for most businesses.

While there are still businesses where the sales person is solely responsible for finding, identifying, qualifying, positioning, closing and supporting a client, that model is likely the exception, not the rule.  In today’s business environment marketing, telemarketing, inside sales, account management, professional resources, etc. are all actively involved in the process of attracting, closing, retaining, and expanding client relationships.  Today’s sales professionals cannot and do not engage in the sales process alone.  They are completely dependent upon the support and expertise of others.  The compensation model and the organizational model is outdated, to the point of broken, if the sales person is viewed as solely or primarily responsible for growing or increasing revenues.

Clearly the sales process is touched and supported by many aspects of an organization.  Understanding the sales process, leveraging the necessary expertise at the ideal time in the process, and creating, implementing a strategy that positions the value of the team –knowledge, experience, commitment — in relationship to the client is where business opportunities turn into revenue.

Sales is not the simple, single act of one person simply selling, it is a comprehensive, organizational commitment to:

1. Relationship building: Connecting into existing at future client organizations at multiple, valued levels throughout the organization.

2. Leveraged expertise: Introducing subject matter experts to the clients, as needed, to fulfill needs, meet expectations, and solve problems.

3. Delivering solutions: Providing answers and solutions to the challenges presented and being proactively engaged in adding value and expertise to the relationship in an ongoing fashion.

4. Great customer experience: From the beginning of the sales process through to the maintenance of an ongoing relationship delivering a consistently positive and unified commitment to delighting and engaging the customer.

It is the effective management of both behavioral and strategic components that drives growth.   These components cannot and do not simply exist completely in the functional arena of the sales department.  These outcomes are dependent upon the coordinated cross-functional expertise and support of the entire organization.  The process of executing a selling strategy involves and requires the engagement of more than a sales team or an individual sales professional.

When defining the process and structure for your sales activities, one can look at the sales professional as the quarterback responsible for coordinating and directing a comprehensive, strategic team effort.  However, the sales person is not the only person involved in the process, the primary resource for success, or the person who deserves the most accolades for success in the growth process.

Sales is a team sport and the organizations that builds strong, collaborative, strategically organized teams committed to the growth initiative will win more often than those who work in their functional, old school silos.

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“Put yourself in a position to give your clients opportunities to say ‘yes’ rather than reasons to say ‘no.”  – Chris Still

How many times have you been in that sales call where the sales professional started talking about all the wonderful aspects of the product they wanted to talk with you about?  And, in the course of this conversation, they are sharing all the really cool features and benefits of which — they are hoping — you will find one feature that is of interest to you.

Effective sales behaviors and great selling outcomes are not dependent upon your ability to sell, position, or extol the wonderful products you are offering.  In reality, your ability to make your product compelling is the effectiveness with which you concisely focus a particular benefit of the product on a very specific customer driven problem and solution.

Effective product positioning is a process of knowledge, learning, discovery, and application.  Unfortunately, too many selling professionals are overly enthusiastic about their product knowledge (as if that is the most important component of the sales process–it is not). As a result, they find themselves sharing information that is of little interest or value to anyone but you and leads your prospect to say “no” more than “yes” in the sales discourse.

When it comes to presenting product and creating a “yes” environment the following process results in a more productive outcome:

1. Knowledge: Product knowledge can be a good thing.  It is a necessary tool.  However, product knowledge is less dependent upon “what it is” and “what it does” than on what type of problems the product provides solutions to.
2. Learning: From the knowledge perspective, your product knowledge skills are dependent upon how well you know how to listen for and learn to solve problems with your product.  When you understand what problems your product solves and know how to listen for customer cues regarding specific problems or issues, you are on your way to creating a “yes” environment.
3. Discovery: This is the most important piece.  You have nothing to solve for unless you discover an opportunity, issue, or challenge.  Discovery requires your ears are open, that you ask great leading questions, and your customer is talking about their interests, habits, behaviors, and challenges.  Simply hearing for an opportunity to offer a solution is not enough, you must also understand the challenge in the priority of context – importance, motivation, concern.  Your product knowledge skill is demonstrated by your ability to effectively facilitate discovery through this open-ended dialogue.
4. Application: The final step in the process is applying a feature of your product as a very viable option.  The challenge is to avoid advocating your product as a solution; but, presenting it as an option and how it can potentially resolve or address the problem.

Products are what our client ultimately receives.  Products are what we provide them when they purchase from us. However, the key to an efficient sales outcome is not found in all the wonderful aspects of your products; but, it is completely dependent upon how effectively you create an environment that connects a customer defined need to a product driven solution.  Avoid creating an environment of disinterest by reciting all the wonderful features of your product and concentrate on facilitating a receptive, interested one through your ability to go engage in a discovery process that enables you to focus your conversation on what the client wants, not all you know about the product.

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“I cannot figure out why they wouldn’t go with our program, when I know it will help them.”

What is obvious to you is not obvious to your client.  You cannot solve a problem for your clients until your client has discovered they have a problem or a need, first.

This is the failing of far too many sales professionals—pitching, presenting, or offering a program that their prospective clients do not believe or understand they need.  There have been a great deal of training programs that embrace the process of creating a need, even where there isn’t one – I am proudly not one of them.  I do not believe in creating a need, simply because I believe should be one.

I am a bigger proponent of first understanding why the client doesn’t see the need, then proceeding with a course of conversation that works towards offering the client an opportunity to discover a need.  Once I have gone through this process, if there is no agreement that there is a problem to solve or a need to fulfill, there is no opportunity to solve.

Here is how I approach this process:

1. Understand what I don’t know:  There is likely a reason the prospective client doesn’t see the problem or believe there is a need.  It is not my job to tell him all the reasons why he should be interested—it is my job to understand why he isn’t interested.  I need to know and understand his world, his experiences, and his drivers from his perspective – not mine.  When I understand what drives, inspires, and blocks him, only then do I have the knowledge of his perspective.  Remember, I am there to help him, not me.  I cannot help him. If I don’t understand.
2. Explore the situation with the client:  There are many great benefits in our products and services that would solve or avoid a problem.  Whether we can help our client manage their business better, be in better regulatory compliance, etc. doesn’t matter.  We can pound on the table and share all the ways we can help; but, until your client wants it, he won’t buy it – and you need not try to make him.  Go through the process of developing a series of great, exploratory questions that engage your client in a conversation around the issues that the features and benefits of your product help with.  Learn to ask open ended questions about the solutions you might provide and get your clients perspectives on the importance, value, interest, and opportunity in those offerings.  It is a much better approach than advocating why they need to be interested in them.  The more creative, probing, and intelligent the questions, the more likely your prospective client will realize they don’t know as much about this subject as they would like.  And, they may discover an interest in learning more; or, uncover an issue they didn’t realize they were inadvertently ignoring.
3. Offer to help: Once your client expresses interest in learning more, you are now in a position to share, enlighten and help.  Instead of pitching or advocating, you are educating, advising, and solving. Having gone through this discovery and learning process with your ears and your mind open, you are now communicating from a common ground of knowledge and understanding.  This is where powerful and productive deals are made.

Next time you find yourself saying, “I just don’t understand why he isn’t interested” you are probably right – you don’t.

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As we all know, successful sales is a numbers game.  However, there is a significant difference between “smart metrics” and “busywork numbers.”   While there are many sales professionals who would aspire to defend the successes associated with “busywork numbers” the harsh reality is there is a difference between being hard work productive and intelligently successful.  Over the course of my career I have discovered that “busywork” calculations are driven by a series of laws of averages; and, relative to the law of averages, persistence will eventually deliver the result you desire.  Quite frankly, I have no time or energy for “eventually“.

My ability to be successful is dependent upon a process that works now.  And, the best way for me to be productive is to have great conversations that drive me to meet with more people and have more valuable conversations.  My prospecting time is precious.  I do not have the desire or the time to constantly hammer people to meet with me when I can spend my prospecting time in front of those same people through great conversations, and getting warm, personal introductions to more people just like them.  In my world, I don’waste my time prospecting — I invest my time talking, meeting, learning, and growing.  And, I measure this activity by two very simple and concise metrics — New Relationships and Impactful Conversations.

These two metrics are the only yardstick by which I need to measure the productivity of my business and relationship development activities.  And, I measure these metrics through “The Three’s“.  Here is an explanation of my metric and how “The Three’s” apply:

New Relationships: A new relationship is someone that I have had an extended conversation with and have exchanged business cards with.  In the course of conversation, I discover that this is someone who I believe will be instrumental in assisting me with my growth objectives and they are — a strategic partner, a connector, or a potential client.  I have made a commitment to myself that I am going to actively develop a co-operative relationship with this person and have either scheduled a follow-up meeting or attempted to.  If a person does not meet all these criteria, they are not a new relationship.  I am committed to discovering and developing THREE (3) new relationships per week.

Impactful Conversations: An impactful conversation is a phone call or meeting that I have had that helped push the relationship or the sales process with a contact, client or prospect forward.  In order for the conversation to meet the standard of “impactful”, the outcome of that meeting requires me to take a subsequent and measureable action, i.e., mail info, schedule a planning meeting, make another call, send out a follow-up e-mail.  If there is no measureable follow-up activity required, it was just a conversation — not an impactful one.  I am committed to conducting THREE (3) impactful conversations every day.

Imagine the simplicity of measuring your activities relating to meeting with people, having powerful learning conversations, and engaging in a productive sales and relationship development process.  It can be done through these fundamental metrics: New Relationships and Impactful Conversations to the Power of Three.  I track all my metrics on a simple one page spreadsheet which, at the end of the week, clearly illustrates my results relating to my commitments.

Next time, instead of interrupting people with cold calls, meetings to pitch your products, and sales reports filled with busy numbers — spend a month working “The Three’s” and tell me which is more productive.

Dave Cooke recently shared a report entitled “Don’t Waste Your Time Prospecting” which focuses on the strategy, process, and behaviors necessary for effective prospecting in this current economic environment.  To obtain your copy of this report, simply email Dave Cooke to request your complimentary copy.  

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Many sales professionals seem to spend a lot of time prepping for their cold calls activities under the guise of  “research.”  In reality, it feels like a stalling tactic.  After all, if you are going to interrupt a busy person with a cold call, what makes you think they actually give a crap about what you think you know — you are still an annoying distraction from what they were doing.  

I recognize the theory that says “if I am going to create interest, I need to know how to find something they are interested in.”  To me, the more time spent researching, prepping, dialing, and interrupting, the less time you actually spend in productive meetings talking and learning.  I would rather be in front of people who want to meet with me than bugging people who don’t.

I have to be honest, I am not, have not, and likely will not be a fan of cold calling.  My thought is that if I have to make a bucket load of phone calls just to entice someone to meet with me, I am not very good at building and leveraging my relationships to grow my business.  If you don’t have enough friends, then I guess you have to work harder at finding some.  

There is no magic in this research stuff either.  You can learn all you want about anybody. The Internet is full of all kinds of information about most anyone.  However, until you sit down and get to truly know them, all that you learn is presumptive knowledge.  What is really important is what you know.  Known information is based on what is shared directly to you by the person you are meeting with.

When it comes to cold calling and preparatory research — prospecting activities that may be helpful in growing your business — you don’t need to do as much prep work on your future prospects as you need to be doing research on your success model.  Until you know what your customers value about you and how you have been effective at becoming a trusted, professional resource, all the cold calls and research in the world is not going to help you develop, expand, and leverage your current, best relationships.

Before embarking on another cold calling and on-line research campaign, do some productive research.  Take the time to learn directly from your existing clients and your best business relationships the value you bring to the market.  To accomplish this, have a real live conversation with your best relationships and ask them three simple questions:

1. What was it that I did, say, of offer that made you decide to do business with me?
2. Now that we have been working together for a while, what keeps you coming back?
3. What is the unexpected benefit or “wow” that you have realized in this relationship?

These questions provide you with direct insight and understanding into your personal, professional value in this business relationship.  Knowing exactly how you help others obtain exactly what they want and need is how you learn to engage others in a conversation about your professional skills, abilities, and commitment.  It from this knowledge that you can begin to build more real, tangible, and productive relationships.  And, when you understand how to leverage these relationships through your value, you will be able to spend more time meeting with people and less time researching how to interrupt them.

Dave Cooke has written an e-book “Don’t Waste Your Time Prospecting” which focuses on the strategy, process, and behaviors necessary for effective prospecting in this current economic environment.  This post is an excerpt from that book.  To obtain your copy of this e-book, simply email Dave Cooke to request your complimentary copy.  

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Despite what you believe or think about your future clients, “anybody who…” is not the best place to begin to define your future clients or your ideal prospect.  For “anybody who…” becomes a generic description that few people, including you, really understand.  Worse yet, this is usually so broad and generalist a description that almost anybody, hence nobody, is ever identified as a great prospect.  You cannot fish in the ocean without knowing exactly what you want to catch.

The first component of an effective prospecting process is clearly defining exactly who you want to connect to – who are you looking for? 

The answer to this question exists within your existing business relationships and is found in your current selling successes.  It is from your existing client relationships and your most recent successes that you are able to identify and articulate who you want to do business with.  Choose your future client relationships like you choose your friends – find, connect, and convert the people most likely to share the same values, interests, goals, and professionalism you do.  Those are the organizations and people that will mostly likely embrace your value, respect and appreciate the relationship, realize the benefits of your offering, and offer a lasting, loyal and beneficial professional experience.

When choosing your friends, you do not simply spend quality time with “anybody who likes me.”  No, you spend time with people that you enjoy hanging out with, who share common interests and values with you, who appreciate your friendship, and who provides some mutually beneficial connection in the process.  You choose your friends this way because it is the most productive, lasting, and enjoyable experience for the two of you.  Besides, as friends, you simply get along.

If you choose your friends this way, why wouldn’t you choose your future clients this way?  Everyone has great clients in their business portfolios.  Everyone has great sales successes that we desire to celebrate more of.  It is from these successful experiences and business relationships that we define our target market.  Like our friends, every one of our best customers or customer experiences offer very common, similar, and quantifiable aspects to them.  When you start to list those traits and characteristics, you will discover the commonalities to all of your best relationships.

It is these traits and characteristics that will help you define your target customer.  Instead of saying “anybody who…” you will be able to identify the qualities, traits, features of the clients that you best enjoy and celebrate a great relationship with.  Your target prospects now become the businesses and individuals that best reflect these traits and characteristics are your target prospect.  Once you have developed your target list you are now able to focus your prospecting efforts on those organizations that reflect your best existing relationships and you will become very efficient at finding more of them.

One word of caution as you define and develop these descriptive characteristics – focus on traits and characteristics that go beyond merely size, market, revenues, industry, etc.  Again, you do not define the people you are friends with by how much money they make, how many children they have, etc.  You define them by the values, the interests, their connection to you, and the experiences associated with the friendship.  Work those same descriptors into the definition of your ideal client, as well.

In summary, here is the process for defining your ideal target market:

1. List: Make a list of your best client relationships and most recent successful and celebrated selling outcomes.
2. Qualities: Alongside each of these clients, identify the characteristics of this relationship or success that you value, appreciate, enjoy or the aspects of this relationship that makes it a good one.
3. Trends:  Consolidate the qualities identified and look for consistencies and repeats.  There is always a thread of commonality to all our valued relationships – identify the threads here.
4. Describe: From the list, the business trends, and your experience create a definition of your ideal customer.  This definition now becomes the way you articulate, define, and look for your future prospects.  Remember, your ideal customer is also your ideal prospect.

Once you have discovered how to define and describe your future clients, the next step in the process is to begin to think through their issues, needs, and challenges so you can being to develop your strategy for connecting with and conversing with them.  (Next week’s blog.)

Dave Cooke has written an e-book “Don’t Waste Your Time Prospecting” which focuses on the strategy, process, and behaviors necessary for effective prospecting in this current economic environment.  This post is an excerpt from that book.  To obtain your copy of this e-book, simply email Dave Cooke to request your complimentary copy.  

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