You may recall that I recently wrote about an international study which reported that if Sales Managers were more frequently and better trained and coached, their sales teams achieved higher performance and results.  In no other type of sales training was a more positive correlation found between frequency of training and sales performance. This article is dedicated to the importance of sales coaching and what you need to do to be an effective sales coach.

Despite popular opinion, the sales profession is very skillful with many technical and interpersonal skills that need to be continuously honed and developed.   Despite this, most sales people are given no formal training or coaching rather they are often left to work out for themselves how to be effective at sales.

Even if they are able to attend sales training, most sales people do not realise their full potential because nothing was done post the training session to get people adapting their behaviours, skills and performance to the new standards.

Why sales coaching matters

• Without systematic, on-the-job coaching post a sales training program 87% of skills that were covered in the sales training program are lost within 30 days
• With systematic, on-the-job coaching post a sales training program the return on the sales training program is four fold.

Lesson: Sales training without coaching is a cost liability rather than an investment.

Is sales coaching just linked to sales training?

In a word, no.  Whether or not coaching follows a formal training program, it is recommended that at least 40-60% of a sales manager’s job should be dedicated to coaching their sales people.

Yet, sales coaching still remains an area that is poorly executed and often ignored.

What is coaching?

Coaching is a process which allows for an individual to strive for excellence in any endeavour through personal insight and purposeful action. At a broad level, the process involves three key elements:

• Feedback: without feedback a person is unaware of the opportunity for ‘change’
• Reflection: relates to what a person thinks about the feedback received; as well as the range of actions they can undertake as a result of receiving the feedback
• Purposeful action: those activities the person may undertake and either adopt the provided feedback or alternatively explain why they will not address the feedback provided

Coaching usually focuses on two key areas of development to achieve excellence: skills and performance.  Excellence in performance is knowing the right processes to apply in the right situation, coupled with the personal insight to know how to apply them wisely.

So, how do we get the best out of our sales coaches in order to be our best?

1. Train your sales managers to be effective sales coaches
2. Supply them with proven tools and frameworks to coach successfully
3. Provide ongoing coaching to your sales managers to be better sales coaches (usually external coaching support works well here as it provides an agenda free focus on coaching only)
4. Make sales coaching a necessary part of the sales manager’s job performance criteria
5. Encourage a coaching culture in your business across all levels

What do you need in your sales coaching tool box?

• A coaching framework that guides you through the various coaching steps – this ensures that people are aware coaching is taking place
• The ability to analyse or assess the development needs of an individual or team
• Coaching communication tools and approaches that help you understand, communicate, and connect with the person you are coaching
• Knowledge about the different types of coaching approaches you can use with people i.e. skills, performance, remedial, strategic, or transformational coaching

• Ideally a sales competency based model and sales process framework that reflects the sales skills, behaviours, and attitudes you need to coach your sales people to.
• Skillful and active communication skills
• A positive, trust based, environment
• Clear purpose and intent about what you are trying to achieve
• Consistency

Coaching can happen in many ways

Here are some examples:

• Joint sales visits: attending a client sales meeting with a salesperson – Set up the pre, during and post stages of your coaching session.  Decide on what role you will take as a coach: observer, joint call participation, or role model.  You need to decide on which role you will play before you enter the meeting so as not to confuse the salesperson or the client/prospect

• One-on-one skills review and action plan: Ideally you would use a competency based model and framework to coach
• Role playing sales activities such as prospecting, client calls, pitch presentations and so on
• Team coaching sessions

4 important points to remember:

1. There are a variety of coaching tools out there, however avoid the one-size-fits-all approach i.e. trying to stretch one tool to fit all situations.  You need a blend of tools in your coaching tool box to be able to adapt to a variety of situations such as personal styles, needs etc.
2. You are not a ‘life coach’ or counsellor either.  This is a very dubious and potentially dangerous area to get into and should be left to qualified, skilled professionals who work specifically in this space.
3. Make sure you make time to coach and let the person you are coaching know that it is a coaching session and nothing else
4. Many of the case studies at the recent OSF2009 conference indicated that a blend of competent internal sales coaching by sales managers supported by external experts in sales coaching was very advantageous to their sales teams’ performance and productivity.

While many sales managers do not have the framework or tools in place to coach with purpose, skillful coaching can be incredibly rewarding and provide huge benefits for the individuals, team and organisation.  It not only makes your sales people perform better, you can also become a better manager as a result.

Feedback from sales managers we have worked with who have learned and applied skillful coaching has been very positive.

“It’s really been the template I’ve structured my sales agenda around with my people. It’s provided a practical approach that’s behavioural based and through the follow up sessions really help embed sustained change and clear direction as to how we achieve goals through prospecting existing or new to business opportunities.”

“How have I changed? – an interesting question. I think I’ve become a better coach, and I enjoy it much more – seeing sales people get great responses from clients when they use your principles is a big buzz for all of us.  I’m a better coach because I’m more focused on what I’m looking for, and concentrate on sales people’s strengths as the basis to start (in the past I was too critical and less supportive).  I believe more now that I can help sales people change (and I have also), and it’s helped me to more clearly identify which areas sales people need help with. I can also better express my own successes as a sales person in my past, as a reference and example of the practices sales people should use – it’s easier to talk specific examples and situations and then relate them to your principles.”

Remember, a culture of coaching is really a continuous improvement strategy.

And everybody lives by selling something.

Sue Barrett is Managing Director of BARRETT.

First of all what does CRM stand for?  CRM = Customer Relationship Management.

The concept of CRM has been around for a long time. The original form of CRM was a manual card system kept by a sales person that usually sat on the sales person’s desk or alongside them in the car.  These client cards sets were very valuable to the sales person as this is where they kept important customer information such customer contact details, key contacts in the company, a running commentary on their activities, personal and product preferences, buying patterns, business connections and so forth.  Each card was a dossier on each client.  To successful, well managed sales people, their client cards were gold.

However, often times, this vital data resided with the sales person alone. The company, the sales person worked for, did not have ready access to this important information and when the sales person left the company more often than not so did the client information, client relationship and sales did as well.

The ‘softwarising’ of CRM for businesses is seen as a major breakthrough in being able to capture important client information and better manage client relationships.  CRM promises faster customer service at lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, better customer retention and ultimately customer loyalty and more sales.  However many companies still believe that CRM is simply software, or technology and the full benefits of CRM are not being fully realised by business.  CRM is much more than just a data-mining tool.

CRM is not (just) technology.

CRM is a business strategy!

Your CRM has the potential to and should be your corporate memory.  It can be the  archeological record of your business.  In fact, if introduced and applied correctly, one of the most significant benefits of having and using a CRM in your business is being able to fully realise and map the true value of your clients as company assets.  Besides the obvious benefits to you and your business, if ever you chose to sell your business, having a CRM with all this valuable information tracked and mapped can be valued and sold for premium.

This trail of information becomes a real asset in itself. A potential buyer can see your business in real client terms and understand the value of the client relationships to the business.  Therefore instead of the wisdom and knowledge going out the door with the previous owner it can be captured and retained with the new owners to be further cultivated and developed.

NB: Not  all data is good data. You must make sure you have the right information in place.  Too many CRM’s are filled with rubbish data and the wrong stuff making them a liability not an asset.

As a CEO, you can’t make the right decisions if you don’t have the right data/information foundations in place.  If you are going to get the best benefits from a CRM strategy and CRM tools you need to know how to you are going to align your key business objectives between your clients, sales people, suppliers and the rest of your business so every piece of relevant information and action adds value to the client fulfillment process.

The interconnectedness of clients to your business can begin to be truly mapped and you will then see how everyone in your business can affect the retention and growth of your clients, not just your sales people.

According to Mark Parker, MD of www.SmartSelling.com and expert in CRM’s and Customer Systems:

“Sales reps often represent the “face” of your company. In order for them to do their part in driving outstanding sales results, they should be empowered to put their best foot forward when representing their company. To do this, a Sales Automation or CRM needs to be in tune with their needs.  Putting their best foot forward is going to mean many things.“

Further to this I would like to add that a CRM should also be in tune with your customers needs helping them have the best experience they can have with you.

What does an effective CRM system look like?

An effective CRM system should be what your strategy needs and wants it to be.  These days you can get access to open source CRM software where you can configure what you want in your CRM so you do not have to be tied to proprietary CRM’s that cannot be customised to your needs.  Also CRM’s do not have to be prohibitively expensive either. Many people have put off getting CRM’s in the past due to their high cost and focus on big corporations.  But now good CRM’s systems are available for SME’s and home based businesses at very cost effective rates.  For instance we use SugarCRM at Barrett which is an open source system we can configure to suit our business needs.
This means you need to think carefully about what you want your CRM system to do and be and who you partner with to make it work for you.
A good place to start is to:

1. Know your business  strategy and key outcomes you want to achieve and work backwards from there.
2. Know your customer, their needs, wants and motives and your path to market
3. Appreciate the length, width and depth of the relationships between the customer and your organisation
4. Understand how you properly manage of all interactions with your customer
5. Know what your sales and service people need to do make sales happen in your business.
6. Aim to build a business system that manages prospects, clients and projects.

Look at what data, behaviours, and outcomes you want to track:

• Client data, sales person activity data, product sales data, effectiveness of marketing initiatives including your website, direct mail/email campaigns, etc.
• What behaviours do you want to encourage and reinforce in your sales and service teams as well as your clients and prospects?
• What do you want to measure by way of lead and lag sales indicators?
• How do you want to communicate data internally and externally?

Important point: you do not want you CRM to turn your salespeople into glorified desk jockeys.  We need to make sure any CRM is easy to use, doesn’t take necessary time away from vital interpersonal sales activities.  If you think your CRM can replace your sales team you will fall short in your efforts.  If your business needs to be in personal contact in some way with your clients you need your CRM to enhance these relationships not replace them.
Here are some ways a CRM system can serve you well:

• Provide immediate insight into prospect and customer leads originating from any channel
• Provide deep visibility into the sales pipeline and opportunity details which quickly produce accurate sales forecasts.
• Allow for a consistent, informed, and personalised customer communication approach i.e.  automated emails relevant to the specific customers
• Give sales people and everyone in your business access to a consolidated view of the customer across your organisation – this will allow everyone in the organisation to know how they can help play their part in taking control of every opportunity and managing it to a successful conclusion
• Encourage, enforce and track best-practice sales methodologies you want in your sales  teams i.e. logging of Lead Indicator Activities such as: # of prospecting calls made, # of client meetings had; # of real deals in the pipeline, # of sales made: # of cross sales made, # of sales made with new clients, # of sales made with existing clients, # of follow customer service enquiries, # of service calls, etc.
• Encourage, enforce and track best-practice service methodologies you want in your customer service and support teams i.e. logging of Lead and Lag Indicator Activities such as # of follow customer service calls made post sales, # of service calls made, # of customer service calls and complaints received, etc.
• Monitor and map effectiveness of have automated sales and marketing activities that are specific to the customers and markets
• Steamline and automate those customer activities that can go online i.e. confirmation emails, automatic emails sent out at periodic intervals for things like renewals for instance
• Map work in progress with clients and staff allocated to client projects
• Have the ability to integrate with your website and keep track of web activity
• Support your entire frontline sales and sales lead management team with the right information they need to quickly and efficiently fulfill all of their daily requirements.
• Deliver knowledge at the point of action
• Keeps vital customer data in the business whether the sales person stays of leaves thus creating a valuable company asset.

Word of caution: Before you even think about integrating Twitter or Facebook into your data mix and CRM, which is a hot topic at the moment, make sure your current data is clean and relevant because if it is not then you will be piling more garbage on an already big garbage heap and there’s no value in that.

Remember CRM systems are tools that should support, enhance and grow the customer relationship by giving your sales team and others in your business access to vital information they can act upon with purpose and in the easiest manner possible.

A CRM should not be an imposition on anyone, a CRM should be a part of your vision to continually improving the relationships with your customer, your sales team and everyone in your business.

CRM is a strategy and way of life not a piece of technology.

Remember everyone lives by selling something.

Happy selling.

Sue Barrett is Managing Director of BARRETT Pty Ltd.

I recently had the opportunity to attend the inaugural Optimising the Sales Force Conference (http://www.osf2009.com.au), along with over 120 high level sales leaders across Australia.  I was privileged to be part of the panel of international and local experts presenting on sales effectiveness where we explored the latest research on sales strategy, leadership, learning and development, sales management, sales people, and current market trends.

This was the first time in Australia we have had the opportunity to come together as a profession and share ideas and discuss important matters moving forward. There have, of course, been industry specific forums held for the profession of selling but not one that brought industries of all kinds together to discuss sales specifically. It’s hard to believe but this was the first time this has occurred in Australia and about time to! It was really about driving a better profession.  Many people are unaware of just how skillful you need to be to run a sales team or lead a successful sales career.

The conference was full of important information and we also had the privilege of hearing from the elder statesmen of strategic selling 78 year old Bob Miller of Miller Heiman fame, who pulled no punches and reminded us of the foundations of our success. We also heard from Tom Snyder who is world renowned for his expertise in creating high performing sales teams.

Over the next few weeks I thought I would share with you some of the insights and findings from the conference in more depth but here is a summary of the topics we discussed and where our attention was focused.  This might give you some insight into where the world of selling is heading.

• Everybody is in sales: there was overwhelming agreement that everyone in business is in sales – You are either selling or supporting someone to sell.  If your people are disassociating themselves with sales then you need to let them know in no uncertain terms we all live by selling something and they had better get with the program or get out.
• New customer behaviours: the economic downturn has changed how customers conduct business and interact with suppliers, while this comes as no surprise there are now new customer behaviours we need to contend with.  In particular, the increase in risk aversion was cited as being one of the most contentious issues.  This risk adverse approach is leading to indecision by clients meaning that rather than losing to a competitor, nothing happens.    So it is critical that sales people are able to work more strategically with clients and challenge them to help them make good decisions moving forward.  This requires a more assertive, confident style of sales person.
• The Challenger Sales Person: research by The Corporate Executive Board Company reported that we need to find and cultivate the ‘Challenger Sales Person’ who is best suited for these markets moving forward.  Some of the key characteristics of these people are that they always have a different view of the world, understand the customer’s business, love to debate, and challenge the customer’s ideas and perspective; in short they are at their best as commercial educators and bringers of new ideas and innovations to help businesses function better.
• Coaching, coaching, and more coaching: At least 40-60% of a sales manager’s job should be dedicated to coaching their sales people.  Yet it still remains an area that is poorly executed.  We were shown excellent case studies which demonstrated the financial return of sales coaching.  Many of the case studies indicated that a blend of competent internal sales coaching by sales managers supported by external experts in sales coaching was very advantageous to their sales teams’ performance and productivity.
• Role clarity and clear expectations: make sure salespeople and sales managers understand their roles and what is expected of them.  Make it explicit and ensure people are adequately skilled to carry out their responsibilities.
• Clear the dead wood quickly: sales managers spend too much time with people who produce too few results.  Focus your attentions on those people who are already showing they want to do well and are actually doing their job.  You have more hope in getting to your better performers to be much better producers than wasting your time on people who will never perform.  As Tom Snyder said “Sales managers are guilty of thinking they can ‘save’ these people from themselves” – his advice is “get rid of them now!”
• Insight and awareness: despite all the skills, tools, and processes around salespeople and sales managers need to be able to develop their own internal guidance and support systems.  The ability to reflect on our own performance, be resilient, show empathy, and work ethically was high on the agenda. Personal insight and making a personal commitment to the corporate objectives is also important for ongoing success.
• Connect strategy to activity: your strategy should translate into practical actions people can apply and see results from.
• Marketing and sales unite: marketing needs to support sales and sales must support marketing.  There is no in between.  Hugh McFarlane from MathMarketing stressed the importance of making sure that all touch points and messages are in alignment.
• Really connect with your key clients: Bob Miller pressed home the importance of being truly connected to your best clients, however he said you cannot have a strategic relationship that is only one way.  Your clients must want it as much as you do and there is mutual agreement on the conditions of the relationship. He stated that most companies are very poor at managing this aspect of their business and it leaves them vulnerable to losing major accounts.
• Corporate assets: today’s reality is that in addition to people, property, plant equipment, and IP some of the biggest and most often overlooked assets are companies strategic accounts.  They need to be on the agenda of the ‘C’ suite i.e. the CEO, CFO, COO, etc.

I hope that this provides you with some valuable information and insights into what is happening in sales today and into the future. I will go into more depth in the ensuing weeks about these and other topics we covered.

Happy selling.

Sue Barrett is Managing Director of BARRETT

Whada ya rates? ‘Cos I’m a wholesaler and I can do better rates than them.  I can look at your thingos and give you a better deal…”

This is an excerpt from a call I received from a telecommunications wholesaler the other day.  As you can see this is not someone asking about my business rates but what I am paying for a particular service.  I am the supposed client in this exchange.  To make matters worse, when the caller introduced himself he said his name was John – that’s it, no where he was calling from or why he was calling.  This information only came to light after I asked him ‘who’ and ‘why’.

Furthermore, what is with “your thingos”?  After he blurted this out he did try to correct himself by replacing “thingos” with “bills” but the damage was already done.

On the same day as John, there was also the young woman from a well known travel agency who rang to offer me their services for corporate travel.  While pleasant enough (if not a bit too familiar for my liking) she had trouble listening to what I had said.  I had to repeat myself on numerous occasions which I found rather annoying and a waste of time.  I was later informed that her poor listening was due to a recent case of pneumonia – which she went on about for a few minutes.  This listening issue further escalated when she called back to our office three times to check the details I had given her.  As my staff took these calls on my behalf, here are some of the things that caused us to think less of this company:  She didn’t know who she had spoken to when she called back (even though I gave her my name initially); she assumed she was speaking to me when she was speaking to another member of my team; she didn’t take down my email address correctly and had to call back to get the correct one; and so on.

I am sure you can see me throwing up my hands in despair.

I do, however, give them credit for making the calls as this is usually the first and hardest step for people. To then go and ruin it all by poor telephone skills such as poor manners, poor diction, poor listening skills, and no clear purpose that the client/ prospect can understand. What a waste.

You may wonder why I bother taking these calls.  Well, it is research. And you never know, I might just find something I want or need from them as well (this does actually happen).

While I get a few very good calls every now and then (and yes I do let them know that they did a good job), sadly the vast majority of calls we get are below average or substandard.

Businesses must understand that this substandard approach to prospecting and telephone sales is ruining their business – both in terms of lost sales opportunities in the short-term and tarnished reputations in the long-term.

The good news is there are no secrets to making effective prospecting calls.  There are well document processes and tips some of which I have written about before in

Getting prospects to call you

How not to make a prospecting call

Please train your people in how to make proper, well intentioned business/sales phone calls – it’s not difficult.   A half day session in the ‘how to’ will get you started, followed by some pithy little sessions with your team on a regular basis to share what’s working well, etc.  I know I sound like June Dally-Watkins (famous deportment teacher) but as the saying goes ‘You never get a second chance to make a good first impression’.  Good manners, grace, and courtesy go a long way.

Training your people does work.  For instance, a large sales transformation training project we worked on earlier this year has seen their people having great success with their prospecting and sales conversion rates despite tough markets.  One of the key factors is that their people have been well trained in how to make purposeful, client focused, prospecting calls, and how to have effective client meetings.  Their conversion rate from call to appointment is at an all time high. And their client meeting up-selling and cross-selling rates have improved markedly as well.

The feedback from management is that they have noticed that a number of people who were initially afraid to prospect via phone are now much more confident, having been given the right skills training.  Others who were doing it instinctively but with no conscious framework have lifted as well.  This has helped them transform into professional business people who can prospect and sell well with dignity and grace.

It makes good business sense to train your people in the right way to conduct telephone prospecting and sales calls.

As we have seen from previous articles there is a chorus of people who think no one is allowed to prospect to anyone via the phone, however as I have written before prospecting by phone is a legitimate and effective way of opening and forging good business relationships.

If and until, the web can do all our prospecting for us (which seems unlikely for the foreseeable future) telephone prospecting is here to stay.  So, please for your own, your people, and your prospective clients sake please train them in how to prospect in a professional and purposeful manner.  If done properly, it can be a great source of revenue and a quick and efficient way to unearth new opportunities.

Happy prospecting.

‘My sales people are not closing sales’ is the most common complaint we hear.

The biggest cause for people not being able to close sales it not the close itself.  It often starts at the beginning of the sales call.

Sales people need to be able to properly understand client’s needs and discuss possible solutions that meet those needs with the relevant products and services before any close can take place.  Once this has happened they can close the sale but not before. If a sales person cannot meet a client’s needs with their products and services then it is a ‘no sale’.

Some people also expect every sale to be closed in one meeting.

Closing a sale as a ‘done deal’ in one meeting can happen in a number of industries, particularly in simple sales, however with more complex sales it often takes more than one meeting to progress to a final close.

In some instances, however, even simpler sales are experiencing a lengthening to the sales cycle.  We are seeing a trend with clients not wanting to make hasty decisions and needing to take a more time to make informed decisions.  Does this mean if they do not say ‘yes’ in the first meeting you have lost a sale?  No, not necessarily.  If you need to go an extra stage or two, make sure you get an agreement on the action that moves the sale forward to the next logical stage.

Where sales people often fall down in the actual closing of a sale (that is assuming they have understood the client’s needs properly as stated above) is that they do not gain agreement from the client as to which solution is the best for them. They then fail to gain commitment from the client to move forward with the sale to a close.

In ‘pressure selling tactics’, sales people are conned into believing that if you don’t get the customer to sign there and then you won’t get them back or get the sale.  In most cases, this is simply not true.  Some people like to take their time to make a decision and forcing them to ‘sign’ will actually turn them away.  The desperation displayed by sales people in these situations can be very unappealing and can be a turn off to prospective clients.   At worst this behaviour  becomes bullying on the part of the sales person, often at the expense of less assertive, confident customers.

Another common misconception is that you need to ‘ask for the sale’. If you have done a good job asking questions to establish needs, properly matched your solution to these needs, and then asked questions to check that this is what the client wants then closing the sale is easy.  We should remember it’s the client who makes the buying decision and the sales person who facilitates the process.

Top performing sales people stop asking questions here and they start telling the client what they are going to do for them. They take charge and ownership of the process. They are confident but not arrogant. The client should, and usually does, feel supported and happy to proceed
If you are in more complex sales and have several steps in the sales process, you need to make sure that at each stage you to get a commitment to move to the next logical stage of the sales process. This is a close as well – a mini close that leads to the final close.

So, what’s stopping people from saying “Ok, this is what I will do for you. Let’s get started.”?

1. They are being told that they need to keep asking questions.
2. Many sales people do not know how to conduct an open transparent purposeful conversation. They do not take charge and they make too many assumptions leaving the client, and themselves in no man’s land.

If you are direct and upfront, and confirm what has been discussed and take charge of the situation, then real viable clients will move with you and get started. Those who are tyre kicking will show their true colours and bail out.

This assertive, positive approach makes no assumptions. Both parties are clear about what will happen.

Closing the sale should be the easiest part of the process if you do everything else right.

Happy Selling