In 2004 we introduced a sales performance support tool, The Sales Accelerator, to Sterling Commerce. The tool was in use for five years until it was replaced by a second generation tool "The Sales Center." I would like to use the next two entries to look back at the tool and challenges it faced over it's five year lifespan.
The Accelerator was created to help with information. In today's world information is the problem. Not a lack of information but rather the opposite, an abundance of information. The problem became finding the right information and delivering it to the user in a timely fashion in a manner they could easily access and process.
What is the right information for sales? I believe we understand the categories of information a salesperson uses. We can use these categories to organize the information. I believe there are 5 basic categories of information. 1 is Information about people/groups we interact with in the sales process. This section we called People. 2. Information about Process . What is the Sales Process? What do I need to do to sell? 3. The information about the Product salespeople need to know to sell it. 4. Information about the Tools you use to sell. Lastly number 5. information about the Industry in which you sell. The tool is organized into these five major areas. A tab for each from the main page that people should be able to find the information they are looking for in three mouse clicks. Nesting beyond this is confusing. Using these categories, 3 clicks is a realistic goal. In the sections below I will speak to the organization of information within each category. But first we should mention that there are those people who feel any organization is unnecessary because with a Google" like search you can find anything without any clicks. I believe the organization or structure of the information is important to understanding it and using it effectively. So the "Google" search will help find the information but the structure is still key. Lets look at the organization/ structure of each of the key areas.
People: During the course of a sales salespeople need to know information about the people who they interact with during the sale. This includes many groups (marketing , contracts, development, services , delivery etc.) When you clicked on people you see all the groups sales would interact with. Then by clicking on a group they would find the information they need. What do they do for sales? 2. When do they do it? 3. What do they need from sales to do it? The problem is many of these groups are responsible for maintaining the information about their group and what they do for sales. They tend to provide way more information then the three things sales need to know from them. That is why a sales advocate/ enablement/ operations etc. will review content to this area of the tool before it is posted.
Process: The process tab when clicked on shows a graphic of the sales process steps. When you click on the step, it reveals the tasks that make up that step. The third click reveals how to perform the task, step by step.
Product: When you click this tab you get a list of the product and solutions. When you select the product, for each product, you find information about the 7 w's of the product. We talked about this in detail in an earlier entry but to summarize about they are What is it I'm selling? , Who do I sell to?, Why do they want it?, What is the value? What does it cost? Who is the competition? and Where have we done this?
Tools: When you click on this tab you see a list of tools arranged by sales process step/stage. When you click on the tool. You will find a page that describes the tool, explains or links to training aids to use it and provides a link to the tool.
Industry: When you click on the Industry tab, you see a list of the industries we sell in. Clicking on the industry reveals the specific information for that industry. In the Accelerator we presented the information by industry challenge, who within the customer organization faces this challenge and how our product solution met this challenge. I have experience from another company where we presented the information in a unique fashion. We used an organization chart of a customer/prospect company within tr industry. and revealed the information when you clicked on targeted individuals within the company. This is also discussed in an earlier entry.
In the next entry we will discuss the lessons learned from The Sales Accelerator case study.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Industry Information Packaged for Salespeople
When I worked at NCR, I was working with the Computer Systems Group (CSG) which later was spun off and now is Teradata, named after it's core software product. Like many companies this group was making the transition from selling hardware to selling software and services. Key to this sale, also like many sales today, was to sell to the business user. Teradata was and still is great product. Key to it's sale was getting to the key executives within the key industries where it had been or could be effectively used (Transportation, Communications, Health care, Insurance, Utilities and Retail).
In the course of the sale, the salesperson could introduce the internal industry consultants, who were well known and respected in their industries and they could speak to the very specific industry challenges that Teradata solved. The problem was there were 5 or 6 industry consultants and over 200 salespeople. The consultants needed the salespeople to get to the right person in a company and qualify that there was an opportunity and THEN bring in the industry consultant. That was the learning challenge. In short, give the salesperson enough industry information to identify the opportunity. We did this in a very unique way. I spent time with each industry consultant and we created, for their industry, organization charts with key target individuals identified. So we developed hot linked organization charts for each industry. When you clicked on a target individual it would open up the business challenges faced by this individual. You could then drill into each challenge and a series of questions would appear that the salesperson could use to probe for pain and then opportunity. The result became what was known as the Industree tool (tree for the branching ability of the tool to go to different people within the organization and identify their challenges and then provide probing questions) and on-demand, on-line, web available resource.
From my perspective this tool was unique in that it took the industry information and put it in a sales friendly format. It was delivered to sales by an organization chart. The content was delivered in a people framework. Salespeople sell to people so this was a key connection. This was vastly different than the typical industry presentation of business challenges by industry, it ties the challenges to specific roles within a company and then delivers the role unique content
It is the sales trainers job to deliver the marketing material, industry (without changing them in message or content) and otherwise in a sales friendly format. This is not easy but essential to help the content stick.
This was a performance support tool example. In our next entry we will talk about a performance support approach for managing and delivering all sales information/content.
In the course of the sale, the salesperson could introduce the internal industry consultants, who were well known and respected in their industries and they could speak to the very specific industry challenges that Teradata solved. The problem was there were 5 or 6 industry consultants and over 200 salespeople. The consultants needed the salespeople to get to the right person in a company and qualify that there was an opportunity and THEN bring in the industry consultant. That was the learning challenge. In short, give the salesperson enough industry information to identify the opportunity. We did this in a very unique way. I spent time with each industry consultant and we created, for their industry, organization charts with key target individuals identified. So we developed hot linked organization charts for each industry. When you clicked on a target individual it would open up the business challenges faced by this individual. You could then drill into each challenge and a series of questions would appear that the salesperson could use to probe for pain and then opportunity. The result became what was known as the Industree tool (tree for the branching ability of the tool to go to different people within the organization and identify their challenges and then provide probing questions) and on-demand, on-line, web available resource.
From my perspective this tool was unique in that it took the industry information and put it in a sales friendly format. It was delivered to sales by an organization chart. The content was delivered in a people framework. Salespeople sell to people so this was a key connection. This was vastly different than the typical industry presentation of business challenges by industry, it ties the challenges to specific roles within a company and then delivers the role unique content
It is the sales trainers job to deliver the marketing material, industry (without changing them in message or content) and otherwise in a sales friendly format. This is not easy but essential to help the content stick.
This was a performance support tool example. In our next entry we will talk about a performance support approach for managing and delivering all sales information/content.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Product Information packaged the way salespeople use it: The 7 "W's"
What information do salespeople need regarding the product? Often times marketing tries to make this determination and they create the information from what they think the salesperson needs. Since marketing is going to create the material, at least initially, it is important it be assembled in salesperson's terms. This what I call the "7 W's": What is it that I'm selling? Who do I sell it to? Why do they want it? What is its value? What does it cost? Who is the competition? and Where have we done this? This simple formula can take mountains of information and reduce it to a usable sales friendly package.
What is it that I'm selling? At least initially, this is a simple description of the product and its capabilities/functionality. This generally does not include a lot about how it does what it does. This is the technical part of the conversation and is necessary in dealing with technical audiences. It is my experience, that when this is necessary, this conversation is best delivered by the sales engineer.
Why do they want it? This is the business challenge that the product/solution addresses. Most marketing materials contain this information but it needs to be modified for sales. It needs to be presented in terms of who specifically in the target company has this challenge and questions provided to help the salesperson probe this person to uncover if it in fact it is a challenge this person faced.
You can see that the next "W", who to sell to? is intertwined. If you look at salespeople, their job is to sell to people. So when training them you have to be certain that the materials are set up to identify these people and help the salespeople explore these peoples challenge.
The next "W", what is the value? also needs to be related to the individual target individual(s) with in the target company. What is the specific value?, not just financial to that person.
If you can determine the value for the targeted individual you can put this in perspective to the cost information of the product solution. So yes they need to know the cost but they need to have it justified by the value.
Salespeople need to know the competition and their position and pricing to anticipate objections and competitive tactics.
Where have we done this is very important information for the salesperson. Prospectives are many times more receptive to the opinions of their counterparts at companies in the same industry. So success stories and customer references become key components of the information required to successfully sell products.
To successfully train on a product/solution be sure you can repackage the materials to answer these 7 questions.
In the next entry I will give an actual example of how we took industry information and aligned it, packaged it and distributed in a way that matches how salespeople think and work.
What is it that I'm selling? At least initially, this is a simple description of the product and its capabilities/functionality. This generally does not include a lot about how it does what it does. This is the technical part of the conversation and is necessary in dealing with technical audiences. It is my experience, that when this is necessary, this conversation is best delivered by the sales engineer.
Why do they want it? This is the business challenge that the product/solution addresses. Most marketing materials contain this information but it needs to be modified for sales. It needs to be presented in terms of who specifically in the target company has this challenge and questions provided to help the salesperson probe this person to uncover if it in fact it is a challenge this person faced.
You can see that the next "W", who to sell to? is intertwined. If you look at salespeople, their job is to sell to people. So when training them you have to be certain that the materials are set up to identify these people and help the salespeople explore these peoples challenge.
The next "W", what is the value? also needs to be related to the individual target individual(s) with in the target company. What is the specific value?, not just financial to that person.
If you can determine the value for the targeted individual you can put this in perspective to the cost information of the product solution. So yes they need to know the cost but they need to have it justified by the value.
Salespeople need to know the competition and their position and pricing to anticipate objections and competitive tactics.
Where have we done this is very important information for the salesperson. Prospectives are many times more receptive to the opinions of their counterparts at companies in the same industry. So success stories and customer references become key components of the information required to successfully sell products.
To successfully train on a product/solution be sure you can repackage the materials to answer these 7 questions.
In the next entry I will give an actual example of how we took industry information and aligned it, packaged it and distributed in a way that matches how salespeople think and work.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
A Simple Metaphor
Making something that is technical, simple, is a challenge. I said in my previous entry, I would give an example. When I was hired at Sterling Commerce, my first assignment was to teach our managed file transfer solution to some sales new hires and managers. I was given a power point deck of 60 slides (including many technical ones) for a 1.5 hour presentation. I really struggled with this task. I was new, so I said to myself: " learn the material and use the deck provided." So I prepared for session with that as the game plan. Two days before the session I determined I could not deliver this as prepared. It was not me and as a trainer you must be yourself.
I thought about it and came up with the metaphor that file transfer was like playing catch, you know with a ball, like you did as a kid. The night before the class I went around the house gathering props. I borrowed a softball, basketball and baseball from my daughters and a huge Pilate's ball from my wife. I grabbed all the ping pong balls I could find, added a Frisbee and even added some toys from our dog to my collection. I then found a fishing net and a racquetball racket and a scoop like net used also to play a type of catch. I showed up at class the next day looking a lot like a person returning from a garage sale.
I told the class that I was going to do a demonstration of challenges of file transfer and I would need some help. So I got two volunteers up in front of the class and had them start tossing a soft rubber ball back and forth . And I said; "See isn't file transfer easy?" Then I asked; "Or is it?" as I turned one of the volunteers around, so he could no longer see the ball coming and it hit him softly in the back. So then I said it is easy if you know the file is coming. With some methods of file transfer you don't know a file is coming. That becomes challenge number one to know when a file transfer is coming.
I then had another volunteer come up and I gave him a bag of about 20 ping pong balls and asked him to toss them gently to the other volunteer. Obviously the person could not catch all of the ping pong ball thrown at once and some went on the floor. Managed file transfer challenge number 2 is many small files delivered at once.
I then asked another volunteer to roll the big Pilate's ball at the other volunteer. This was to illustrate the challenge of receiving a very large files (terabytes).
I then gave the one volunteer a baseball glove and started tossing the baseball and the softball but then added a basketball, and Frisbee and the glove was no longer adequate to catch all the different objects being thrown. This illustrated the challenge of receiving different, multiple file protocols.
Then while they were playing catch I asked another volunteer to take the fishing net and try to grab the ball in flight. This of course represented the challenge of hackers trying to intercept the file.
I then directed the volunteers to opposite ends of the room and asked them to toss the ball back and forth across the length of the room. I then turned the lights out in the middle of the toss and the ball fell to floor. This was to indicate the challenge of a loss of power in the middle of a file transfer.
After illustrating the challenges I then continued to illustrate in the demonstration how our products overcome these challenges.
I left the PowerPoint slides in their handouts as addendum's and in subsequent classes I eliminated them all together. PowerPoint has become a crutch for trainers and salespeople alike. Over the years I have seen the salespeople from this class and they have remarked how effective and memorable the file transfer session was. To simplify a technical topic there is nothing better than a good metaphor.
In our next entry I will talk about the challenge of taking product information and repackaging it a way salespeople can most effectively use it.
I thought about it and came up with the metaphor that file transfer was like playing catch, you know with a ball, like you did as a kid. The night before the class I went around the house gathering props. I borrowed a softball, basketball and baseball from my daughters and a huge Pilate's ball from my wife. I grabbed all the ping pong balls I could find, added a Frisbee and even added some toys from our dog to my collection. I then found a fishing net and a racquetball racket and a scoop like net used also to play a type of catch. I showed up at class the next day looking a lot like a person returning from a garage sale.
I told the class that I was going to do a demonstration of challenges of file transfer and I would need some help. So I got two volunteers up in front of the class and had them start tossing a soft rubber ball back and forth . And I said; "See isn't file transfer easy?" Then I asked; "Or is it?" as I turned one of the volunteers around, so he could no longer see the ball coming and it hit him softly in the back. So then I said it is easy if you know the file is coming. With some methods of file transfer you don't know a file is coming. That becomes challenge number one to know when a file transfer is coming.
I then had another volunteer come up and I gave him a bag of about 20 ping pong balls and asked him to toss them gently to the other volunteer. Obviously the person could not catch all of the ping pong ball thrown at once and some went on the floor. Managed file transfer challenge number 2 is many small files delivered at once.
I then asked another volunteer to roll the big Pilate's ball at the other volunteer. This was to illustrate the challenge of receiving a very large files (terabytes).
I then gave the one volunteer a baseball glove and started tossing the baseball and the softball but then added a basketball, and Frisbee and the glove was no longer adequate to catch all the different objects being thrown. This illustrated the challenge of receiving different, multiple file protocols.
Then while they were playing catch I asked another volunteer to take the fishing net and try to grab the ball in flight. This of course represented the challenge of hackers trying to intercept the file.
I then directed the volunteers to opposite ends of the room and asked them to toss the ball back and forth across the length of the room. I then turned the lights out in the middle of the toss and the ball fell to floor. This was to indicate the challenge of a loss of power in the middle of a file transfer.
After illustrating the challenges I then continued to illustrate in the demonstration how our products overcome these challenges.
I left the PowerPoint slides in their handouts as addendum's and in subsequent classes I eliminated them all together. PowerPoint has become a crutch for trainers and salespeople alike. Over the years I have seen the salespeople from this class and they have remarked how effective and memorable the file transfer session was. To simplify a technical topic there is nothing better than a good metaphor.
In our next entry I will talk about the challenge of taking product information and repackaging it a way salespeople can most effectively use it.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
"Simplify, Simplify, Simplify"
I have taught some very technical training but it is important to heed the advice of Thoreau and "Simplify, simplify simplify." Yes it is important that our salespeople be comfortable and competent with the technology but it is not something to hide behind. A good salesperson is able to speak to his or her audience at the appropriate levels and in a language that speaks to that audience.
Here is where a good trainer can really help a salesperson. The use of stories, analogies, metaphors and good examples can break down a technical presentation into an effective and memorable one. This is something effective trainers do all the time so if you can look at the technical products and explain them in simple terms you can help the salesperson accomplish one of his most difficult tasks.
Technology unfortunately often is used as a crutch to fall back on in a presentation. It becomes sort of a comfort zone for some salespeople. Simplifying the product will help them present effectively to other audiences such as business users and financial decision makers. I have a great example of this using a simple metaphor that I will share with you in the next entry.
Here is where a good trainer can really help a salesperson. The use of stories, analogies, metaphors and good examples can break down a technical presentation into an effective and memorable one. This is something effective trainers do all the time so if you can look at the technical products and explain them in simple terms you can help the salesperson accomplish one of his most difficult tasks.
Technology unfortunately often is used as a crutch to fall back on in a presentation. It becomes sort of a comfort zone for some salespeople. Simplifying the product will help them present effectively to other audiences such as business users and financial decision makers. I have a great example of this using a simple metaphor that I will share with you in the next entry.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Example Readiness to Execute: "Great Beginnings"
When I talked about the importance of a good closing to your session, I mentioned that this paved the way for the learner to go out and execute the learned behaviors, concepts and practices. The example I have chosen to share is one I used to close new hire training sessions. I call it "Great Beginnings."
After a multi-day session, with of lots of great information, where they have met many talented and key individuals within the company, you need to send the new salesperson off with the belief that they have joined a great company and will be a key part of great team and do great things in the future.
This the closing I give them. I start by giving them some well known quotes from literature and ask them to identify the author and the work. For example:
"It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.
"Happy families are all alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy it's own way." Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.
"Call me Ishmael." Herman Melville, Moby Dick.
"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary" Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven.
"Whose woods are these? I think I know. His house is in the village though." Robert Frost, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Eve.
Then after guessing them correctly I ask them: What do all these quotes have in common? Invariably one or two of them figure out that they are all opening lines.
I then say; yes but more than just opening lines, they are all "great beginnings". This week you had your "great beginning" with us. If you think about those quotes they were all great beginnings to even greater stories. Let us all hope that this week. like these quotes, was for you a great beginning to an even greater story with us! Welcome to you all and good luck!
In the next entry I will talk about a key element in producing effective sales training for a technical product.
After a multi-day session, with of lots of great information, where they have met many talented and key individuals within the company, you need to send the new salesperson off with the belief that they have joined a great company and will be a key part of great team and do great things in the future.
This the closing I give them. I start by giving them some well known quotes from literature and ask them to identify the author and the work. For example:
"It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.
"Happy families are all alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy it's own way." Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.
"Call me Ishmael." Herman Melville, Moby Dick.
"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary" Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven.
"Whose woods are these? I think I know. His house is in the village though." Robert Frost, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Eve.
Then after guessing them correctly I ask them: What do all these quotes have in common? Invariably one or two of them figure out that they are all opening lines.
I then say; yes but more than just opening lines, they are all "great beginnings". This week you had your "great beginning" with us. If you think about those quotes they were all great beginnings to even greater stories. Let us all hope that this week. like these quotes, was for you a great beginning to an even greater story with us! Welcome to you all and good luck!
In the next entry I will talk about a key element in producing effective sales training for a technical product.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Forgotten Factor #2: Readiness to Execute
As important as establishing readiness to learn is to a successful session, is closing the session with the learner now ready to execute or apply what you have learned. Too often, as trainers, when we get to the end of the session we are rushing and quite frankly we are glad to just get to the end. We really need to think about an effective closing that will prepare for the successful execution of the learned behaviors, concepts and practices. To me this closing is as important, if not more so, than your readiness to learn beginning.
Here you need to think of an effective closing that will inspire the attendees to go out and apply what they have learned. You also need to enable them with resources that will assist them as they try things on their own. A good idea is some sort of follow up. Maybe a follow up web meeting or a wiki or even a shared survey that will allow them to share they experiences they have in the real world.
It is best that you think of the closing of the class as the real beginning. The beginning of the learned behavior, concept and/or best practice applied in the real world. If you do this right your course will be measurable by performance behaviors rather than evaluation "smile sheets."
In my case, here is where I like to draw upon values such as tradition or use metaphors or analogies to prepare them to execute. In the next entry I will give a detailed example of a closing that I believe prepared the learners to go execute.
Here you need to think of an effective closing that will inspire the attendees to go out and apply what they have learned. You also need to enable them with resources that will assist them as they try things on their own. A good idea is some sort of follow up. Maybe a follow up web meeting or a wiki or even a shared survey that will allow them to share they experiences they have in the real world.
It is best that you think of the closing of the class as the real beginning. The beginning of the learned behavior, concept and/or best practice applied in the real world. If you do this right your course will be measurable by performance behaviors rather than evaluation "smile sheets."
In my case, here is where I like to draw upon values such as tradition or use metaphors or analogies to prepare them to execute. In the next entry I will give a detailed example of a closing that I believe prepared the learners to go execute.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Belief, Practice, Execution- The Keys to Success
I believe the keys success in sales are Belief, Practice and Execution. They are also keys to your success in your relationships, your faith and really any job you pursue. This lesson has changed my life. Let me share it with you now
Before I went into sales and eventually sales training, I was a high school teacher and head football coach. One thing you learn as a teacher and coach is that some of the most important lessons you learn will not be those you deliver but those you learn from your students. On a cool Saturday, October afternoon I learned the greatest lesson of my life. Not something I taught my team, but rather something they taught me: "Belief, Practice and Execution."
It was the third game of the year and we were playing the defending conference champions. Our team goal that year was to have a winning record and secondly win the conference championship (a feat not yet accomplished in the history of the school). The last season we finished an overall 4-5 and 4-2 in the league which put us in second place. So I believed these goals to be reasonable and attainable. Although it was early in the season, I believed, this game would go a long way, in determining who would be this years conference champion. We were the smallest public high school in the state and we had only 22 boys on the varsity. The team we were playing had over 60 boys.
At the end of the first half the score was 12-0 in favor of the other guys. In the second half we scored 2 touchdowns to tie the score. All we had to do is to make an extra point to win the game. In our 22 players we did not have one kicker, so we always went for the two point conversion. I had no timeouts left, there was less than one minute to play and back then there was no overtime. So if it was tied at the end of regulation it ended in a tie. So I sent the two point play in. It was an inside reverse. As the player was running in with the play I heard the opposing coach yelling to his team: " Watch the reverse, watch the reverse!" Our kids heard him as well. As I said, I had no time outs so I could not change the play. If I could have I probably would have. But I had no such option.
There are three key ingredients in success. They are belief practice and execution. This maxim holds true in football, your personal life with your relationships and particular faith as well as your job, and more to our point in sales. Let's stop our story here and review each of these key success factors.
Belief. You must have this key ingredient first. If you don't believe, it will never happen. I have never known a salesperson to be an effective seller without believing in his/her product. Customers can sense your belief and if they feel you do not believe in your product, there is no way they are going to buy it. In sales, as in football, belief does not happen over night. It comes with practice and the sense of you having "been there done that". It is a quiet confidence I can see in their eyes and feel in their presence. It is not the loud "rah, rah" of their cheering before the game or the noise of a great marketing campaign. It is the quiet confidence of someone that has been there and done it before. That constitutes the type of belief that the customer will buy.
How do you get that confidence, that belief? It is from the second key ingredient, practice. A lot of people may really believe in their product but without practice they will most likely not close the deal. Practice is anticipating all situations and being prepared for them. In sales it maybe handling a specific objection to the product. A great salesperson has anticipated this situation and is prepared for it by practicing. In football it is running the play 100's of times against all defensive fronts in all weather conditions. You have "been there and done that" before. You are ready!
With belief and practice you have only to add execution to your success formula. You believe in your product, you have practiced selling it in all situations and now all you have to do is execute.
Execution is the hardest step. It is taking your belief and practice and applying it in the real situation, the act of selling , the act of closing the deal,at just the right moment, in just the right way. When it happens it is like magic, it is a feeling of such exhilaration. It is probably one of the main reasons you are in sales. But it only happens with belief and practice, that you recognize what you need to do. You do it and you win.
So now back to my story. So when the kids heard the opposing coach screaming "watch the reverse, watch the reverse". They never looked back, never said: "They know the play!" They jogged to the line with that belief and quiet confidence that comes from practicing this play 100's of times. They ran the play and at the end of the play when the reverse back was about to get hit by an unblocked defender, he pitched the ball to quarterback who was trailing the play in pitch relationship and he jogged untouched into the end zone. We won that game and later went on to win the only league football championship in the history of the school. 22 young men who taught me that day about belief , practice and execution.
In our sales training we will learn all about the product. You will hear customer success stories that will help you solidify your belief. You will practice selling this product, understanding the competition and handling objections. After the training, it will be up to you to reinforce your belief, practice selling it, anticipating competitive positioning in your account and practice handling what you believe to be the objections your client/prospect may have and ultimately when the opportunity finally appears it will be your chance to execute. This is moment you have prepared for. Execute now and feel the magic reward of success. Belief , Practice and Execution.
Before I went into sales and eventually sales training, I was a high school teacher and head football coach. One thing you learn as a teacher and coach is that some of the most important lessons you learn will not be those you deliver but those you learn from your students. On a cool Saturday, October afternoon I learned the greatest lesson of my life. Not something I taught my team, but rather something they taught me: "Belief, Practice and Execution."
It was the third game of the year and we were playing the defending conference champions. Our team goal that year was to have a winning record and secondly win the conference championship (a feat not yet accomplished in the history of the school). The last season we finished an overall 4-5 and 4-2 in the league which put us in second place. So I believed these goals to be reasonable and attainable. Although it was early in the season, I believed, this game would go a long way, in determining who would be this years conference champion. We were the smallest public high school in the state and we had only 22 boys on the varsity. The team we were playing had over 60 boys.
At the end of the first half the score was 12-0 in favor of the other guys. In the second half we scored 2 touchdowns to tie the score. All we had to do is to make an extra point to win the game. In our 22 players we did not have one kicker, so we always went for the two point conversion. I had no timeouts left, there was less than one minute to play and back then there was no overtime. So if it was tied at the end of regulation it ended in a tie. So I sent the two point play in. It was an inside reverse. As the player was running in with the play I heard the opposing coach yelling to his team: " Watch the reverse, watch the reverse!" Our kids heard him as well. As I said, I had no time outs so I could not change the play. If I could have I probably would have. But I had no such option.
There are three key ingredients in success. They are belief practice and execution. This maxim holds true in football, your personal life with your relationships and particular faith as well as your job, and more to our point in sales. Let's stop our story here and review each of these key success factors.
Belief. You must have this key ingredient first. If you don't believe, it will never happen. I have never known a salesperson to be an effective seller without believing in his/her product. Customers can sense your belief and if they feel you do not believe in your product, there is no way they are going to buy it. In sales, as in football, belief does not happen over night. It comes with practice and the sense of you having "been there done that". It is a quiet confidence I can see in their eyes and feel in their presence. It is not the loud "rah, rah" of their cheering before the game or the noise of a great marketing campaign. It is the quiet confidence of someone that has been there and done it before. That constitutes the type of belief that the customer will buy.
How do you get that confidence, that belief? It is from the second key ingredient, practice. A lot of people may really believe in their product but without practice they will most likely not close the deal. Practice is anticipating all situations and being prepared for them. In sales it maybe handling a specific objection to the product. A great salesperson has anticipated this situation and is prepared for it by practicing. In football it is running the play 100's of times against all defensive fronts in all weather conditions. You have "been there and done that" before. You are ready!
With belief and practice you have only to add execution to your success formula. You believe in your product, you have practiced selling it in all situations and now all you have to do is execute.
Execution is the hardest step. It is taking your belief and practice and applying it in the real situation, the act of selling , the act of closing the deal,at just the right moment, in just the right way. When it happens it is like magic, it is a feeling of such exhilaration. It is probably one of the main reasons you are in sales. But it only happens with belief and practice, that you recognize what you need to do. You do it and you win.
So now back to my story. So when the kids heard the opposing coach screaming "watch the reverse, watch the reverse". They never looked back, never said: "They know the play!" They jogged to the line with that belief and quiet confidence that comes from practicing this play 100's of times. They ran the play and at the end of the play when the reverse back was about to get hit by an unblocked defender, he pitched the ball to quarterback who was trailing the play in pitch relationship and he jogged untouched into the end zone. We won that game and later went on to win the only league football championship in the history of the school. 22 young men who taught me that day about belief , practice and execution.
In our sales training we will learn all about the product. You will hear customer success stories that will help you solidify your belief. You will practice selling this product, understanding the competition and handling objections. After the training, it will be up to you to reinforce your belief, practice selling it, anticipating competitive positioning in your account and practice handling what you believe to be the objections your client/prospect may have and ultimately when the opportunity finally appears it will be your chance to execute. This is moment you have prepared for. Execute now and feel the magic reward of success. Belief , Practice and Execution.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Forgotten Factor #1: Readiness to Learn
In order for learning to stick you have to be "ready" to learn. Readiness to learn is what I call Forgotten Factor #1 in sales training. Here I mean more than just having the prerequisites and doing the required prep work. How do you get anyone ready to learn? It is the "hook," the information presented at the beginning of the learning session, that motivates the learner to continue with attention and enthusiasm. Salespeople are generally motivated by compensation/money. They approach most learning with the question: What is in this for me? Therefore, even before your objectives, you need to make it abundantly clear how the information you are presenting will help them be more effective at their job and eventually help them retire/exceed quota and make money.
Often times salespeople attend training because it is required or mandatory. That just gets their butts in the seat. It in no way ensures their readiness to learn. Getting them ready to learn is the trainers first mission. Since most trainers are not, to my knowledge individually wealthy, and cannot offer monetary rewards for participation, they must help the salespeople connect the dots to realize how this training with help them to be more productive and ultimately sell more.
Typically, I spend as much time on my hook as on my content preparation. If the learner is not motivated or ready to learn you are wasting your time presenting the content. There are many types of hooks: stories, props, quotes, analogies , metaphors etc. that can be used. The goal of each is to assure the learners readiness to receive, process and practice the content that is to follow. In the next entry I will share with you some of the specific hooks that I have used to achieve learner readiness.
Often times salespeople attend training because it is required or mandatory. That just gets their butts in the seat. It in no way ensures their readiness to learn. Getting them ready to learn is the trainers first mission. Since most trainers are not, to my knowledge individually wealthy, and cannot offer monetary rewards for participation, they must help the salespeople connect the dots to realize how this training with help them to be more productive and ultimately sell more.
Typically, I spend as much time on my hook as on my content preparation. If the learner is not motivated or ready to learn you are wasting your time presenting the content. There are many types of hooks: stories, props, quotes, analogies , metaphors etc. that can be used. The goal of each is to assure the learners readiness to receive, process and practice the content that is to follow. In the next entry I will share with you some of the specific hooks that I have used to achieve learner readiness.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Salespeople are different!
Every good training program begins with an understanding of it's target audience. Specific training requirements are best determined by a needs analysis but salespeople, in general share certain traits. Understanding these traits can help you develop the proper training framework. Let's look at some of the traits that most salespeople have in common and the effect that should have on the construction of a training framework.
Salespeople are "people" people, outgoing, "type A" personalities. They thrive on interaction. Many training programs today try do all the training via the computer. A complete sales training program should have heavy components of interaction. This does not mean that the training has to be in person or face to face situations. Nor does this mean that computer training is not interactive. It can be, but there still needs to be the face to face training. Face to face does not necessarily mean being in the same room at the same place The web or virtual classroom can provide the interaction very economically. Reducing travel costs and time. In short, the first principal of any sales training is that it must be interactive.
Like professional athletes, salespeople are highly competitive. Their results, like the athlete, show up on the scoreboard for everyone to see. In training salespeople, I like to think of the two "C's" compete and collaborate. They compete to win the business. This competition is with outside competitors. They also compete with their sales colleagues in contests for both compensation and recognition. So building in competition in the training is good and realistic for them.
The second "C" is collaboration. This is something they do with members of the internal selling team. In the world of today's "complex sale" it is a necessity that they can collaborate effectively. In fact it is often the salesperson who successfully orchestrates this collaboration for his team. Since the sale is collaborative the training should also, in parts, be collaborative. The competitive nature of salespeople sometimes makes true collaboration difficult
Salespeople need to be able to access information/learning on demand, when they need it. So salespeople also do not necessarily approach their learning sequentially. They process information how they use it. Salespeople need information when they need to know it. A kind of just in time learning is required, that lets them move to different stages of the process and product knowledge as they need it. When they need this information they should be able to access what they need, quickly, without spending a hour going through training for 5 minutes of information. I will explain this in detail in a later entry but let me give you an example. At any given time a salesperson will be working deals at various stages of the process. So they will have to be able move across the sales process working on one deal in the closing stage while at the same time managing a new opportunity. The learning/ information must be tailored and organized to support this job requirement. Likewise a sales person may be selling a product to one client that is an advanced option of a product. Here again they do not have the luxury of going through product training sequentially but rather must be able to go quickly to that option. They may also be working with a second client that requires them, on the same day, to retrieve information, quickly and to the point, about another product.
The information salespeople require needs to be organized to help them do their job. For example, when dealing with internal organization what they need to know is: What do you do for me in the act of selling? and what do I have to do to get you to do that for me when I need it? There is a tendency for internal organization's to provide the information they think the salesperson needs rather than the information they really need.
In regards to product their learning needs are also specific. They don't have to know everything about the product. They basically need to know what I call the 7 W's: What do I sell? Who do I sell it to? Why do they need it? What is it's value? What does it cost? Who is the competition? and where have we successfully sold and deployed it?
In my next entry I will explore what I consider to be one of the forgotten factors in sales training, "Readiness to Learn."
Salespeople are "people" people, outgoing, "type A" personalities. They thrive on interaction. Many training programs today try do all the training via the computer. A complete sales training program should have heavy components of interaction. This does not mean that the training has to be in person or face to face situations. Nor does this mean that computer training is not interactive. It can be, but there still needs to be the face to face training. Face to face does not necessarily mean being in the same room at the same place The web or virtual classroom can provide the interaction very economically. Reducing travel costs and time. In short, the first principal of any sales training is that it must be interactive.
Like professional athletes, salespeople are highly competitive. Their results, like the athlete, show up on the scoreboard for everyone to see. In training salespeople, I like to think of the two "C's" compete and collaborate. They compete to win the business. This competition is with outside competitors. They also compete with their sales colleagues in contests for both compensation and recognition. So building in competition in the training is good and realistic for them.
The second "C" is collaboration. This is something they do with members of the internal selling team. In the world of today's "complex sale" it is a necessity that they can collaborate effectively. In fact it is often the salesperson who successfully orchestrates this collaboration for his team. Since the sale is collaborative the training should also, in parts, be collaborative. The competitive nature of salespeople sometimes makes true collaboration difficult
Salespeople need to be able to access information/learning on demand, when they need it. So salespeople also do not necessarily approach their learning sequentially. They process information how they use it. Salespeople need information when they need to know it. A kind of just in time learning is required, that lets them move to different stages of the process and product knowledge as they need it. When they need this information they should be able to access what they need, quickly, without spending a hour going through training for 5 minutes of information. I will explain this in detail in a later entry but let me give you an example. At any given time a salesperson will be working deals at various stages of the process. So they will have to be able move across the sales process working on one deal in the closing stage while at the same time managing a new opportunity. The learning/ information must be tailored and organized to support this job requirement. Likewise a sales person may be selling a product to one client that is an advanced option of a product. Here again they do not have the luxury of going through product training sequentially but rather must be able to go quickly to that option. They may also be working with a second client that requires them, on the same day, to retrieve information, quickly and to the point, about another product.
The information salespeople require needs to be organized to help them do their job. For example, when dealing with internal organization what they need to know is: What do you do for me in the act of selling? and what do I have to do to get you to do that for me when I need it? There is a tendency for internal organization's to provide the information they think the salesperson needs rather than the information they really need.
In regards to product their learning needs are also specific. They don't have to know everything about the product. They basically need to know what I call the 7 W's: What do I sell? Who do I sell it to? Why do they need it? What is it's value? What does it cost? Who is the competition? and where have we successfully sold and deployed it?
In my next entry I will explore what I consider to be one of the forgotten factors in sales training, "Readiness to Learn."
Saturday, June 5, 2010
About This Blog
I have spent the last 12 years training sales forces in a couple of large technology companies, one in fact, NCR, is credited with inventing sales training. It was the opportunity to go there, where it all began that made me shift my career from corporate education to sales training. Prior to that I was social studies teacher, head football coach and high school administrator . Over that time I have developed some thoughts, principles and practices that, for me, have been successful. I want to use this format to organize and share these thoughts.
What follows, in the additional entries, are selected topics; First is "Salespeople are Different". This section speaks to the unique attributes and qualities that make up a salesperson and how these should influence how information is presented to this target audience.
What follows, in the additional entries, are selected topics; First is "Salespeople are Different". This section speaks to the unique attributes and qualities that make up a salesperson and how these should influence how information is presented to this target audience.
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