Having a sales monologue instead of sales dialogue with your customers?

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Having a sales monologue instead of sales dialogue with your customers?

February 10, 2011 in Communication, Prospecting, Sales Relationships, Social Media, Social Sales

Have you ever noticed your customers getting that glazed look when you tell them how fabulous you and your company are?
Have you ever had your customers seem very agreeable in your sales meeting but never seem to follow through with an order?
Have you ever found yourself doing all of the talking whether in a client meeting or over the phone?

If so, chances are you are having a sales monologue and not a sales dialogue with your customers – you are nothing more than a ‘talking’ brochure and are wasting yours and your client’s time.

We all know what it is like to be in the presence of someone who only talks about themselves with no interest in anyone else. They do not enquire about others’ wellbeing or interests; they seem totally concerned about their own needs and ambitions.

Imagine being one of your clients sitting there unable to express your concerns or be able to discuss ways to solve your challenges or achieve your goals, or get a word in edge ways. Frustrating isn’t it?

Sales monologues were standard fair at the height of the ‘product selling’ days of the 1970’s and 80’s. ‘Show up and throw up information’ was how many sales people sold back then, and some still do it today. You would think we would have shifted our focus to a more enlightened sales approach by now, yet sales monologues still happen more than you think. Where we are seeing it most often is in online community groups.

Take LinkedIn Discussion Groups as an example: watch and listen to the discussions on these forums and see what happens to anyone who tries to promote their business or tout for business in this space – they are set upon by the Group Community and read the riot act because they are not engaging in a discussion. Engaging in sales monologues is causing people to be shunned by their online communities.

The new world of social media and sales is about sharing, educating, giving of yourself and working to enhance the communities you find yourself in. Blatantly advertising yourself is frowned upon because it’s just the same as being a talking brochure and people don’t want that, and quite frankly, never have.

The key to conducting a successful sales dialogue is to start listening and tune into what people are saying. You can get insights galore about peoples’ opinions, preferences and ideas at online communities like LinkedIn and Facebook. This, in turn, will give you more ideas about what you need to do to engage in meaningful dialogue with others and develop the opportunities to produce something far more fruitful. Let your customers or contacts do the talking, ask them questions, find out what they are after and then work with them to give them what they want and/or need.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

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Transitioning from the old sales paradigm to the new world of social sales

February 2, 2011 in Communication, Sales Relationships, Sales Skills, Sales Talent, Self Development, Social Media, Social Sales, Strategy

When I began my career as a professional sales person in the early 1980’s we were trained in product and client communication skills focusing on handling objections. We were given business cards, product brochures, a geographic territory of clients to manage and grow, and a car to get around in. We did not have mobile phones, let alone smart phones / tablets, laptops, or CRM’s. There was very little coaching and we were expected to make sales and make it work.

For a while there, let’s say 20+ years, it seemed like business as usual as many companies still clung to the Product Paradigm of Selling – ‘show up and throw up information’, however there were fundamental shifts of seismic proportions happening around us even back in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The transition from product to solution selling was one significant shift, however, this was just a pit stop on the way to the far more complex selling world we find ourselves in today.

28 years on the sales terrain is a very different proposition – the new world of social media, social selling, the importance of collaboration and the centrality of the customer – we are truly entering a customer focused world.

Product and Solutions (the aggregation of products) no longer offers the competitive edge in the sales process, the shift in value, beyond product and product solutions, lies in ideas, creativity, collaboration, interconnectedness and innovation and means that the types of conversations we have with customers, suppliers, referral partners and the like is at the centre of effective selling and business relationships.
And buyers are way ahead of most sales people. The conversations they are having about their suppliers, research they do before they buy, the journeys they take to purchase without any sales person’s involvement are important to watch and pay attention to. And that’s not all – we need to pay attention to what they do and say after the sale, how they talk about us, their points of view, the influence they have over others ideas and opinions and the circle just keeps getting wider. But are sales people and businesses keeping up.

According to Brian Fetherstonhaugh, Chairman and CEO of OgilvyOne Worldwide, Social media is having an enormous impact on buyer behaviour. OgilvyOne’s survey of a 1,000 sales professionals in US, UK, Brazil and China reported that 49% of sellers see social media as important to their success and amongst the most successful sales people, over two thirds believe social media is integral to their success. However most companies are not adapting fast enough. They are not providing training in how to effectively use social media to sell and nearly half the sales professionals surveyed believe their companies are afraid of letting employees use social media.

Only 9% of US sales people say their companies train or educate them in social media while in contrast 25% of sales people surveyed in Brazil said they received training and education in social media.
This rapid change is unprecedented. With the rapid rise of social media, the focus on innovation, value beyond product and the increasingly complexity of business networks and communities, I have found myself looking back and looking forward working out what I need to leave behind and what I need to take with me into the future.

For those sales professionals who started their careers in the last 5-10 years this article may not mean much to you, however for those of us who have longer careers in selling we are faced with significant change.

What have found to remain true and I can carry forward from my early days in selling are the following:

Keep Prospecting – it is vital to make contact and keep in contact with customers, prospects, influencers, suppliers, partners, etc.
Review and Strategic Action– always review where your market, customers and competitors are and check for signs of change so you can adapt and take strategic action. Most people would call this planning but with change happening so rapidly it’s more like review and strategic action is a constant daily occurrence
Prioritisation – even more so now than ever before is the important skill of prioritisation. There is so much information: emails, special interest groups, new innovations and the like to keep on top it can be overwhelming without some form of prioritisation skills
Questioning and listening – always a main stay in any person’s, especially a sales person’s tool box. The listening acuity we now need means we need to pay more attention to the details of our clients’ conversations, needs and priorities while keeping a keen ear and eye on the broader landscape. Asking the right questions is critical.
Problem Solving and Prevention, Creativity and Innovation – again the idea that product was king is now dead; one of the key skills is to prevent and where necessary solve problem for people, but that is only part of the game now – we now need to generate ideas and create opportunities, imagination and innovation now stand tall.
Adapting to different Communication styles – with global reach comes the need to interact with a wide variety for people and adapt to difference, not difficulty
Manners and courtesy – despite what people may say about the current state of the world, manners and courtesy are the glue that hold our relationships together. No matter what we call it, courtesy and manners are NOT trivial. Here is how Edmund Burke (1729-1797) described it: “Manners are of more importance than laws. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in.”

So what do I have had to integrate from the new, so far:

Digital communication, destinations and New Listening Skills. The need to look out for the digital footprints of buyers as they trawl the digital world. Mapping buyers journeys before they talk to sales people and setting up the right forums, websites, blogs, connections, opinions, etc. for them to connect to before we even speak as human beings is critical.
Interacting with special interest groups on the internet – looking to exchange ideas rather selling or blatant self promotion.
Selling is a Team Sport – marketing, sales, and customers are all in it together
Prospecting online – the shift from lists, Yellow Pages, etc to avenues such as Linkedin where a rich vein of data, contacts, prospects are available to be researched and connected to.

Much has change in the world of selling and more changes are afoot. I’m holding on as best I can, trying to get my balance as I transition from the old paradigm of selling to the new world of social sales. So watch this space.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

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Noise Reduction part 1

May 5, 2010 in Communication, Sales Research, Social Media, Social Sales

Noise Reduction was voted by you as the number 5 Sales Trend for 2010. About 20 years ago I was told that information was doubling every 5 years; 5 years ago it was every 18 months; 1 year ago it was every 9 minutes, so who knows how fast information is doubling now?

Many business leaders, sales people and many more are reporting information overload. Selecting what to take on board and what to leave behind will be critical for sales and business success in 2010 and beyond. It will also be critical for our own wellbeing.

There is so much to read and process, and so little time to do it well. Many people report feeling that their brains are ‘bursting’ as a result of so much information and wonder how they can process, log, link and manage the information they are exposed to and then use it wisely and purposefully. According to Alvaro Fernandez from SharpBrains over 1,000,000 new books are published every year and more than 100,000,000 scientific papers are released, this coupled with the billions of websites at our googletips.

With all this good information on tap, I am increasingly finding myself feeling incredibly frustrated with the amount of rubbish information I have to wade through every day as well. There seems to be so much ‘noise’ out there competing with the good data.

Not only do businesses have to keep on top of what is the latest market trend, product, or competitor strategy, we are also dealing with the merging of personal information with business information. It appears email remains a major source of information overload, as people struggle to keep up with the rate of incoming messages especially, the filtering out of unsolicited messages such as spam, and ever growing tsunami of personal information keeping us distracted and often disturbed. There is even a syndrome to describe people who give out too much information about themselves. It’s called TMI syndrome (too much information) and it’s coming at us with unprecedented speed via Facebook, Twitter, and especially email.

With this increase in noise we need to assess our Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). SNR is a measure used in science and engineering to quantify how much a signal has been corrupted by noise. In less technical terms, signal-to-noise ratio compares the level of a desired signal (such as music) to the level of background noise. The higher the ratio, the less obtrusive the background noise is. “Signal-to-noise ratio” is sometimes used informally to refer to the ratio of useful information to false or irrelevant data in a conversation or exchange. For example, in online discussion forums and other online communities, off-topic and spam are regarded as “noise” that interferes with the “signal” of appropriate discussion. For instance, a recent Microsoft security report has said that 97% of all email sent over the Internet is spam and MessageLabs said 81% of all emails sent are unwanted, either way that’s a lot of noise.

The general causes of information overload include:

A rapidly increasing rate of new information being produced
The ease of duplication and transmission of data across the Internet
An increase in the available channels of incoming information (e.g. telephone, email, instant messaging, RSS, etc.)
Large amounts of historical information to dig through
Contradictions and inaccuracies in available information
A low signal-to-noise ratio
Lack of a method for comparing and processing different kinds of information
The pieces of information are unrelated or do not have any overall structure to reveal their relationships

At no other time in history have we had access to so much information however, it poses some interesting questions:

How do we verify what is fact and what is not?
What should we be paying attention to?
What is useful to us, our customers, our businesses and our communities?
How should we process, log, link and manage information to make it work for us?

To cope with this increase in noise some are trying to shut it out while many others are distracted by simply trying to keep on top of it, which is keeping them from doing other important activities. Either way, many are reporting feelings of anxiety at being overwhelmed by and unable to process so much information.

In Noise Reduction part 2, I will explore some strategies we can adopt to help us reduce the ‘noise’. The key will be finding reputable online sites, blogs, references and publications that provide access to information that is backed by evidence and research and is free from sensationalism. 2010 will be about filtering information through your core vision, intention and strategy.

So be prepared to question assumptions. This will help you to make decisions about what to take on board and what to leave behind. Remember, too much information and indecision will paralyse.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

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Are you ready for the phenomenon of Social Sales?

April 15, 2010 in Communication, CRM, Social Media, Social Sales, Strategy

Social Sales was voted by you as the number 4 Sales Trend for 2010. Arguably, social media is contributing to the democratisation of information and, armed with this information, customers will demand different things from sales people and companies. Customers are tuning into online communities, blogs, forums, and social networks to gather information and make buying decisions.

For instance, the retail car market is undergoing significant changes with customers firmly in the driver’s seat. With the emergence of the information age consumers have far more knowledge about what to buy and where to buy it. On the whole, customers are doing their research, checking with their networks and peers groups, reading or viewing the latest comments online, and have potentially even made a buying decision before they step into a store. This is fast becoming the norm in car sales. No longer is the sales consultant one of the first to engage with the prospective buyer, today they may be near last when the customer walks through the door. Smart businesses will realise that engaging with the customer has changed and to speak with and meet viable prospective buyers they need to migrate to a new level.

In the B2B (business to business) space buyer behaviours are changing too. The buyer is either a purchasing agent or decision maker and they are armed with far better information well before they interact with a sales person. This will demand a different relationship.

If sales people see their role as only being ‘educational’ they will be unable to match the requirements and expectations of customers. People are getting tired of the old sales model of ‘shut up and listen’, especially if the information they are getting is patronising, know-it-all, we’re the best, readily available on the web and in some cases incorrect or outdated.

It is important that sales people recognise that customers are likely to be as informed about the product as they are (or at least believe they are). Customers are influenced beyond the boundaries of traditional businesses and long held relationships. We, the sales person, are unlikely to be the first person the customer will go to, even with established relationships. The long held tradition of key account management where every person of influence in a customer account is mapped on a ‘blue sheet’ and armies of account teams are marched to surround the customer are numbered. In many cases, they are now surrounded by social media.

Customers are using social media to build up independent knowledge, and compare and contrast information and opinions. This knowledge gives the customer power, and that power fundamentally changes the dynamics of the sales relationship. The web has also opened up communication channels which has changed the landscape forever. The old model is magnified; where in the past consumers used to tell 5 others if they were happy with an experience and 11 or more if they were unhappy, they can now communicate, positive or negative, in real-time with other consumers on a massive scale.

B2B customers are demanding a different relationship. They want to interact with a sales person that legitimately questions, challenges ideas and innovations, and can clearly articulate how they will work to bring value beyond the product.

Rather than go and talk to buyers alone, sales people and businesses need to go to the social networks to listen to, observe and interact with customers to help find a footing and take note of the consumer voice.
Social Sales will also demand that the sales team work in collaboration with the marketing group to help seed the right information about their offerings into their markets and networks where their customers look to for information and to exchange ideas. Customers want to see your work in action and get feedback from the sources they trust.

Entering into the Social Sales world also requires sales people to put aside their reluctance and adopt new technology. Social Sales is the dawn of the new salesperson that doesn’t shy away from using information and systems to their advantage. The Social Salesperson will make the most of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems interlinking CRM functionality to connect with social media, marketing, campaigns, networks, etc. to track the threads of customer conversations, opinions and ideas. CRM can no longer be ignored or treated as a telephone directory by sales people and businesses.

The responsibility for Social Sales doesn’t just reside with the sales team either, it needs to go all the way along the whole sales chain and beyond. At a recent leader’s conference, a speaker asked the 500 heads of business in the room whether they use social media including twitter, facebook and the like. Somewhat alarmingly, only 5 raised their hands. We need to use CRM and social media tools to make strategic calls – the CEO, CFO, COO, and CIO will be asking ‘Tell me what you see behind the numbers’. This request is referring to the patterns of information, customer comments, buying decisions, influences, customer experiences, emotions, and feedback that will influence what we make, how we interact with our markets and much more.

In 2010 and beyond, leaders, sales teams, and businesses will need to invest time, resources, and money to learn how to interact in these emerging social spaces. Why? Because the traditional channels to the customer such as email marketing, trade shows, and face-to-face meetings will be less effective. In some cases you may not even be interacting with the customer directly but with their ‘recommendation network’. The real challenge for sales will be to identify and engage with these new networks. Social Sales involves different skills, leadership, and a culture values a collaborative model of free knowledge exchange.

Social Sales is likely to change selling fundamentally – so are you and your business ready?

Thanks to Mark Parker and Charni Cargill for their collaboration on this piece.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

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Getting back to sales basics

October 21, 2009 in CRM, Sales Planning, Sales Relationships, Sales Results, Social Media, Social Sales

It’s time to get back to basics.

I don’t know about you but recently I have found myself getting more and more distracted by the latest trend and fads, especially the social media phenomena. My reason for this is that I have been trying to get my head around social media and specifically, the impact on the sales profession.

As you may have gathered, I like to keep on top of what is current, what is emerging, and what is still an idea. This is why I make time each week to do research as it helps me navigate my way around the present and into the future. However, I am finding there is so much to read, so much to get my head around, and so much to integrate into my business that it can take up a lot of time… and it only seems to be increasing.

I read recently that 20 years ago information was doubling every 5 years, 10 years ago it was doubling every 18 months and today it is doubling every 9 minutes. There is a plethora of information – the trick, however, is knowing the right information to access.

For example, getting your head around the social media space and how Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and other online groups impact on the sales profession is a big job. This is why I think it is timely to stop and review the information I have gathered so far, make sense of it (where possible), and determine whether it can be of value to me and my business moving forward.

This is why I want to get back to basics.

As I wade through all of the information on social media, I predominantly want to get answers to a few simple questions:

How can it help make us more and better quality sales?
How can it help forge better relationships with our clients?
How can it help us be more effective and competitive in the market place?
How can it help our competitive advantage?
How can it support our business strategy and make our lives easier (work smarter not harder)?
How can it support our brand and increase visibility?

From my observation, there seems to be a great deal more written about social media and the Business to Consumer (B2C) space (simpler, transactional sales) than has been covered in the Business to Business (B2B) space (more complex sales interactions). As is my nature, I am usually the first to want to incorporate new things into my business and learn how it can add value, however once all the hype and excitement boils down it is important that we weigh up energy expended and value added.

From our discussions with other businesses, I am finding that I am not alone in my enthusiasm for social media or alone in my reflection of the time spent. Now, I am not proclaiming that we should go back to the Dark Ages pre the internet and shut out social media rather that we take a moment and consider how we can integrate the regular sales activities such as prospecting, face-to-face meetings, building real long term relationships and social media

While there are fantastic benefits to social media, many of our B2B clients are reporting that their sales teams are getting distracted and ignoring the tried and true tasks required to grow sales.

Getting back to basics in the B2B sales space means:

Defining what type of clients you want for your business
Knowing: WHO you need to be in front of? HOW you need to make contact with them for? HOW OFTEN you need to do it?
Use your networks (where appropriate) to research and target specific referral sources, prospects and industry contracts
Prospect, prospect, prospect for new business opportunities– for most people that means picking up the phone and calling both new-to-business and existing clients directly to make an appointment and secure a meeting
Meet the client or prospect– find out what they really need and how they want to work with you
Deliver on what you say you will
Follow up with a blend of purposeful phone calls, face-to-face meetings, emails and other valued add support that they can benefit from
Don’t make assumptions– speak to people directly and regularly communicate in person
Use resources such as Linkedin, social media and a CRM with purpose to help you forge meaningful connections and networks

Getting back to basics does not mean throwing the baby out with the bath water, it just means that while we integrate new methods into sales, we need to make sure we are still doing the necessary ‘basics’ to keep the sales momentum going. At this point, some of the main things we see social media adding great value in are building networks, getting a message out, getting access to information and opinions, getting your brand out there, and stimulus response activities.

But as yet (and quite possibly never), do I see social media as a replacement to purposeful prospecting, purposeful client meetings, and purposeful business relationships.

The key word here is purposeful. Social media is most effective in sales when it is applied with purpose and in context of a bigger picture and plan. So as we go back to basics, I think we need to question ourselves as to the purpose of our actions. For instance, with more people accessing Facebook and Linkedin are we building business networks that will lead to better business opportunities via qualified contacts or are we just building networks for the sake of showing off a large number of contacts i.e. I have the most number of ‘friends’ syndrome.

So, I ask you these questions:

How purposeful are your social media activities to your business?

How can we make social media work for us in business rather than becoming a slave to it?

How can social media enhance or hinder the sales efforts of business, especially B2B?

The social media phenomenon reminds me somewhat of the early days of the dot.com boom and how businesses were jumping in and riding the wave only to come crashing down, some learning a great deal, others worse for the experience.

I am not suggesting this will happen with social media but perhaps we should hasten slowly and make sure we do not throw out good, sound business practices for the sake of the new. I urge sales people to continue with the fundamental, basics that still give a real return and begin to integrate, where appropriate, these new tactics into sales push and pull strategies.

Does this mean ignore social media? No, not at all but it does mean that we need to put it into perspective. So, let’s get back to the basics that make us real sales, real money and real relationships with the clients we want to work with.

And remember, everybody lives by selling something.

Sue Barrett is Managing Director of BARRETT.

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