Where do you draw the line - when prospecting?

Let's face it not all the products we sell revolutionize the world. As a sales person you need to create some interest on a cold call to start the conversation with a prospect. So if the product does not do it you "jazz up" your script a bit to get some interest but how far do you go?

NOT "all the way" in my opinion. Not misleading voice mails that just say "George Smith calling. Please call me back" (see this post of mine for that wrong way) or saying "I'm not trying to sell you anything" when you are.

What do you think? The end justifies the means? Where do you draw the line?

See this great post from Kristin Zhivago of the Revenue Journal for a classic example of "crossing the line".

The phone rings. I answer it, the way I always answer it: "This is Kristin Zhivago. Can I help you?"

There is a bit of silence, then suddenly the line is alive with the sounds of a busy telemarketing boiler room. Many voices can be heard in the background, pleading, sympathizing, pushing, lying. I know exactly what is going to happen next. But, because I am a professional revenue coach, dedicated to improving how people sell their products and services, I stay on the line. The person on the other end has a very thick Indian accent. So we know who is calling and where they're calling from.

"Hello, I'd like to speak to...um...Mrs. Cheerago."

Sigh. "This is Kristin Zhivago," I say again. "What can I do for you?"

"Well, Mrs. Cheerago, this is John McDougal. I'm not calling to sell you anything."

Let's hit the pause button on this oh-so-typical and oh-so-insulting conversation to note a couple of things. More of this post

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Synchronize sales and buying cycles to keep buyers engaged.

First, sales people spoke of “the sales cycle” – the sequence of events that a sales person would attempt to force the prospect through in the hope that it would influence them to buy.

The pre-defined stages of a sales cycle might include:

• Initial phone conversation
• Invite prospect to factory for viewing
• Offer to create paid-for prototype
• Schedule follow up meeting
• Etc, etc

Seller : “It’s an impressive factory isn’t it? If you can supply me with the design brief I suggest we create paid-for prototype for you, using the equipment we have here.”

Buyer : “Hmm, let me get back to you about that” (thinks : “Not something we usually do, but nice idea. First get it past the board, get production to let go of the design brief, get purchasing off my back and convince finance to approve and extension to this year’s budget.”)

Seller : “If you are comfortable with everything you have seen here, you will at some stage want to see a prototype? Is there anything on your side that needs to happen to make that possible?”

Buyer : “I’d need to take it to the board as a first step, along with talking to some other colleagues.”

Seller : “Is there anything I can do to help you with that?”

Buyer : “Could you provide me with some of those samples you showed me? Would you be able to provide me with those figures you mentioned?”

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 05:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Waylon and Willie and the boys sang a poignant country ballad about wanting to get back to the basics of love—by going to Luckenbach Texas. Maybe it’s time those of us in sales and marketing got back to the basics of our business—by taking a close look at common but non-productive approaches to revenue creation.

Here are the top ten myths—or tall tales as our cowboy friends might say—of revenue creation, and what can be done to turn them around.

10. Adopt a shotgun approach and let ‘er rip
Myth: Broad targeting ensures maximum coverage. And it takes too much effort to test programs.
Reality: Your prospect universe is probably smaller than you think. Inside your prospect universe are segments that are substantially more responsive than others (some by as many as 9x). Segmentation and testing identify high value segments that allow you to increase ROI on marketing and sales investments

9. Concentrate on generating as many leads as you can
Myth: The more leads you generate, the more you’ll close.
Reality: This would be correct if all leads were high value, ready buyer sales opportunities. But programs typically deliver large quantities of raw, unfiltered and unqualified leads that clog pipelines. Sales actually needs fewer, more qualified opportunities—effectively managed to ensure a return and delivered at the right time. (See: http://www.pointclear.com/fewer-leads.pdf)

8. Use inside resources for qualifying and nurturing leads
Myth: Sales should be qualifying and following up on marketing’s leads.
Reality: Occupied with delivering as many leads as possible at the lowest possible cost per lead, marketing doesn’t have resources to filter, augment and nurture opportunities. Sales reps are paid to close short term opportunities and not pursue the flood of low value non-leads. The solution is a dedicated “lead farm” group charged with qualifying, nurturing and delivering ready buyer opportunities.

7. Don’t waste time on market intelligence
Myth: You can’t combine demand generation and market intelligence in the same program, and we know our market anyway.
Reality: Gathering, analyzing and reporting on marketing intelligence from a demand generation program is straightforward and helps pinpoint future offers, targeting and programs. This simple step can more than double your return on future marketing and sales investments. Market intelligence also positions your sales executives as knowledgeable and helps elevate them to a trusted advisor position.

6. Keep contacting the original target market
Myth: If they aren’t qualified now, keep marketing to them until they are.
Reality: Clearly there are always companies on the cusp of potential value. However, at least half of the investments in most marketing programs are wasted on ongoing contact of unqualified prospects. Efficient pre-qualification cuts suspects out that don’t meet minimum firmographic requirements or have recently acquired competing solutions.

5. Pick your best medium and stick with it
Myth: When results from one medium look good, throw more money and resources at it.
Reality: Success lies in a well planned and coordinated multi-media approach. C-level executives have never been busier or harder to reach, and the key is to engage them personally and directly using a combination of telephone calls, voice mail messages and emails.

4. Hit them one time and move on
Myth: If prospects are not involved in an active evaluation, they’re not worth pursuing.
Reality: Between 5 and 10% of the market has a need for your solution at any given point in time. Priorities can shift quickly, and implementing a multi-touch contact strategy is a critical element in uncovering pain and initiatives as prospects move into an evaluating mode.

3. Ignore mid-term and long-term opportunities
Myth: With the pressure to make numbers this quarter, the only focus should be on short-term opportunities.
Reality: Mid-term and long-term leads can be as valuable as near-term opportunities. A successful multi-touch, multi-media strategy features cost effective resources nurturing and educating prospects until they become ready buyers. Many so-called “long term” leads can actually be accelerated into short-term buying cycles if managed correctly from the start.

2. Don’t worry about the gap between marketing and sales
Myth: Marketing’s focus on high lead quantity and low lead cost is generating the opportunities sales needs.
Reality: The disconnect between marketing and sales results in high quantities of low value non-leads. Corrective action means affirming the missions of marketing to generate demand and sales to close and adding a dedicated lead farm group to qualify, nurture and deliver ready buyers.

1. When it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
Myth: We have been doing it this way for years.
Reality: Shotgun targeting, volume over quality, incorrect resources and the rest… they make for a marketing and sales merry-go-round—with all parties hesitant to change. The tendency is to be afraid of jeopardizing short-term sales by doing anything differently. But take a good hard look at all of your planned programs, and apply the realistic, high return approaches described above. (For a deeper dive on program, access our recent report titled Five Silver Bullets For Revenue Growth.)

We reckon Waylon and Willie and the boys were feeling no pain with their wine, women and song approach. Unfortunately, without a back-to-basics look at sales and marketing approaches, many of us with revenue responsibility could find ourselves in the opposite situation. Until and unless we dispel the tall tales that prevail in our profession, we’ll find ourselves a long way from Luckenbach—and farther than we need to be from our revenue generation goals.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 05:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Telephone lead generation guru and friend of mine Travis Eakes wrote a great piece on the importance of using neurolinguistics when leaving a voice mail. Here are his thoughts:

Leaving a voicemail is one of the most common tasks salespeople perform. However, very few leave an effective message that motivates the recipient to return their call. The biggest mistake is leaving a message based on “1-way communication,” which the customer perceives to be a canned sales pitch. The reason this happens is because most salespeople use the same cold call script over and over again. They view leaving voice-mail messages as playing a numbers game. Of course, the prospect realizes their doing this too.

We have found that using neurolinguistics, the study of how the mind receives and transmits linguistic information, is the single-most important factor in getting a prospect to respond. Let me explain this further, a generic pitch does not resonate with the prospect because it is patterned exactly like the 15 preceding voicemails they have just deleted. When you use neuorlinguistic operators (additional words that help your message to be received correctly), your credibility builds and you are differentiating what you are saying versus others.

For example, rather than saying, “We provide a solution that has helped companies like yours to save money”, we use specific operators to build meaning such as, “We have worked with companies such as X,Y, and Z to lower their operating costs by 15% while increasing their product availability by 25%.” Neurolinguistic operators attach reality to your claims.

To further reinforce our statements, we then offer additional proof such as, “I am sending over an e-mail with a case study we conducted with company X for your review.” Remember, the ultimate goal of leaving a voice mail message is to start the process of building customer rapport. If you are successful, you will have a solid foundation with the prospect over the long-term.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 06:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Time, is our most precious resource. How are we to make the most effective use of each twenty-four hour span? Most people give little thought to the actual value of their time, possibly not even during conventional working hours. Entrepreneurs know better. We cannot afford to haphazardly approach the workday. We must have a plan and execute it to the best of our ability, leveraging time to our greatest benefit.

Dave Navarro at Jonathan Phillips' Freelance Folder proposes a thought-provoking method of accurately valuing our time.

"Your time is worth exactly this much:

Cash Money / Hours Worked = Your Rockin’ $DPH (Dollars Per Hour)

Now, in the last 30 days, how much did you earn? Stop reading, and think about this seriously. Don’t read any further until you do. How much cash crossed your hands (or how many orders came in) in the last month? Stop and think about it.

Now that you have that number firmly in mind, it’s time to get brutally honest. How many hours did you spend in the last 30 days doing business tasks or business-ish tasks?

Translation:
Business tasks = stuff that actually drove your business forward
Business-ish tasks = pointless stuff you did when you were supposed to be doing stuff to drive your business forward.

That’s right … those business-ish activities robbed you of the revenue generating goodness that you know and love. But you still gotta include them in the equation. And they bring that $DPH down, down, down."

Most self-employed people are acutely aware that their time investment must produce immediate income. Most generate income in proportion to the amount of hours spent working each day. Many other entrepreneurs however, are in the position of remaining gainfully employed as they pursue their entrepreneurial dreams part-time. This strategy is often a wise one, born of necessity, in the absence of venture capitol investors. It provides that safety-net of income and benefits for our family while we tend to our dream.

If we calculate the incoming-producing value of our time at $120 per hour, we must also further understand that idle, non-productive time is then costing us $120 per hour. This is opportunity cost. While not immediately recognizable, this cost can cripple a fledgling business if not properly managed.

All activity, however relevant to the business, does not directly produce income, yet remains important to the overall business operation. Such activities are best completed during non-prime-time hours, where selling and revenue generation must remain the priority otherwise. Designing advertisements, marketing materials and selling strategies, bookkeeping and other administrative functions fall within this category of necessary activities. It may make sense to consider outsourcing many of these tasks to others who will charge far less than $120 per hour for their services, yet deliver a top-notch solution for your needs, thus freeing you to generate more revenue with your precious time.

There are many occasions where a personal phone call, sales call or a group sales presentation are necessary. For effective sales results under those circumstances, our conventional, personal efforts must focus on our best sales prospects during the most productive, prime part of the day. For most businesses, this the 8:00am until 6:00pm time slot. Our automated sales systems however, such as our web site, blog, advertising and various marketing channels are available 24/7/365 to a world-wide audience of prospective buyers. These systems often provide us many warm prospects for dealing with during prime time. Learn how to let your assets work for you.

Keeping tabs on your most productive selling hours, managing your time and other assets to your maximum advantage while minimizing idle, non-productive time is the formula for a successful business. Try watching less TV and invest that time in your business. Be certain to eat well, drink plenty of water, sleep well, scheduling both downtime and family time.

Become well-rounded in order to renew your energy each day; energy sufficient to fuel your income-producing hours. Your goal should be to have all of your assets consistently working at maximum levels for your benefit.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 04:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I often ask sales people to describe what they do in seven words or less. Many initially say they can't possibly communicate the complexity of what they do in seven words. But they can - and they do.

For example:

> We help you comfortably retire. (Fidelity)
> We protect companies, lives and reputations. (GE Insurance)
> We help companies do business online. (IBM)

When I did this exercise for a bunch of Wharton graduates recently, someone asked, "Why seven?"

Studies have shown that there's actually a natural rhythm and ring to the number seven. George Miller (a cognitive psychologist) in his 1956 paper, The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two, details why seven is pretty much the cut-off point when it comes to recalling things like lists or quotes.

One account executive pitched the services of his firm to me the other day - telling me how his company could conduct leadership coaching for the CEO - and offer management techniques for developing greater influence with boards of directors. The company also helps its clients develop recruiting strategies to attract top talent and develops programs for employee retention. They help companies create innovative techniques for improving HR performance - and "oh yes," he concluded - "we also do HR outsourcing and we have unique insight into change management and succession planning."

Without looking up, how many of these services can you recall?

If you're really good, you'll remember seven, but most people will recall three to five. To improve retention, Miller suggests we put things in categories, something the human brain responds to quite naturally. So the next time you articulate a barrel of benefits, take a step back, think of natural categories - and you'll make a more memorable impression.

The next time this eager account executive calls on someone, he's promised to focus on two things: Leadership and Talent. Now isn't that much easier on the memory?

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 05:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sales cycles are getting longer. There's no getting around it. Corporate buyers are involving more people in the decision - and it takes forever to get them all together. Urgent fires and pressing priorities pop up, further delaying or derailing your sales efforts. It can be so darn frustrating because you have no control over these situations.

That's why I tell sellers to leverage trigger events to drive short-term sales results.

What is a trigger event? It's an "occurrence" that creates an immediate need for your products or services. Internal trigger events include reorganizations, mergers, acquisitions or new product introductions. External triggering events could be new legislation, hurricanes or announcements of new technology.

Recently Josh Gordon of Smarter Media Sales posted an excellent article on how Google is leveraging the release of Sicko (Michael Moore's new movie) to drive sales with their health care advertisers.

It's very savvy what they're doing. What's important to note is that they created opportunities that didn't exist before - all because they figured out a connection between an "event" and their own offering. If you want to shorten your sales cycle, put on your thinking cap and figure out how you can use the news!

(For more info on trigger events, check out my article on Use the News: How to Create New Opportunities Fast.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 05:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The other day I was working out in the gym when a guy asked me to spot him on the bench press. For those of you not familiar with the term “spot,” it means to watch and assist the lifter if they need help. Of course, I agreed to do this. As is customary when spotting, I asked him how many reps (number of times lifting the weight) he planned to do. He looked at me very puzzled and said he didn’t know. Humorously, I followed that with asking if he expected to do it once or a hundred times. He laughed and said it would be more than one, but not sure how many he would do beyond that.

He began the lift and performed three reps. I asked him if he felt it was a good set. Was he happy with his performance? Did he achieve what he set out to do? He said, “Yeah, I guess so.” I went back to my workout wondering how he could determine if he had met his goal. If you don’t have a goal, how can you determine if you achieved it?

This experience reminded me of a time when I went to Chicago on a call with one of my sales reps. Prior to the meeting, the sales rep, his manager and I met at a coffee shop. Over coffee, I asked the sales rep to imagine that it was now an hour and a half later. The meeting was over and we were back sitting at the same coffee shop debriefing on the meeting. I asked what I thought was a fair question of the rep. I asked him, “This was a great meeting if what happened?” (By the way, this is one of my favorite questions to ask of sales reps.) I received a blank look and finally a request for help. Mind you, we were fifteen minutes away from being in front of a prospect and clearly there was no game plan.

We talked for a few minutes and developed our success metrics for this meeting. With those identified, we developed our game plan to achieve our success metrics. Many of you are thinking that a successful meeting is defined as being awarded the business. You would be right if it was that type of meeting. However, this was a second call in a business environment where the buying process is typically twelve to eighteen months. In this environment, other success metrics are needed for each step of the process.

Defining success metrics allows you to formulate a game plan for your meeting. If you know what you need to accomplish, the road map becomes very clear for what you need to achieve. If your success metric is defined as your having a comprehensive picture of their challenges with their current provider, you can prepare questions that will expose their challenges. If your success metric is to gather all of the data needed to put together a pricing proposal, the game plan is to ask all questions needed to craft a solution for this prospect.

Ask any successful person how they became successful. They will tell you that they had a vision and developed a game plan to achieve that vision. Sales is no different. Know your success metrics and develop your game plan to achieve them.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 05:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've written a couple of times on here about how the best source of finding sales talent is the talent you grow in-house, through a farm team system: http://salesmachine.blogspot.com/2006/09/where-do-i-hire-great-salespeople.html

So here's something you may or may not care about: I have zero interest or attention for tracking sports (even though I like to play them).

However, I'm highly interested in systems that lead to sustainable success (try saying that three times fast!). I loved Michael Lewis' Moneyball.

Anyone that's worked with myself or Erythean Martin (cofounder of the upcoming company "BlackBox Revenue") knows what sticklers we are on figuring out what actually makes a difference, rather than letting assumptions or myths guide us (like "dials per day matters in B2B sales"). Although of course, making wrong assumptions never happens in selling, as we know. Never.

So normally I'd ignore a newspaper article about baseball. Yawn. But last weekend, the Wall Street Journal published an article about how baseball teams who promote from within (versus those focused on writing huge checks for free agents), are winning in the post-season: "This year, the majority of the teams thriving in the postseason are doing it largely with the help of homegrown players."

"Executives say promoting your own players makes sense not only because they are familiar, but because everyone in the organization knows how they've been trained. Instructors in the Phillies' farm system, for instance, follow a manual that describes the "Phillies' way" of doing everything from warming up a pitcher's arm to defending a bunt. Promoting from within is "a safer way to go," says the team's assistant general manager Mike Arbuckle."

"When a homegrown player does well, there's another benefit -- everyone from the scout who discovered him in high school to the trainer who nursed him through a hamstring injury feels a sense of accomplishment. "This is an organizational achievement," says Mark Shapiro, executive vice president and general manager of the Cleveland Indians, who developed many of their top players internally."

Interesting.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 05:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week I sent out my Inside Sales 2.0 Trend Talk eblast to my very targeted list of prospects. It was mainly to promote the upcoming Webinar titled Sales 2.0 Report from the Front Lines. The fun started a few minutes after it was sent out because I got to track who was checking me out and where they were going on my site. I noticed a few names were rising to the top as they had the most unique clicks and views. (That’s marketing talk for a good prospect).

I drafted my follow-up email and wrote Thanks for paying attention as my subject line.  They responded and we scheduled a meeting the following week to discuss our offerings and their potential needs.

The scenario I’ve just explained describes what takes place when you are selling in a Sales 2.0 environment. I’ll break it down for you:

1. It all started by the target list of email contacts I created. Thanks to Spoke, I learned a few new email addresses and patterns to people in a large Fortune 100 company I was targeting.

2. I usually switch from Campaign Monitor to Genius in tracking their viewing habits. It helps me understand where they are going and what they are interested in.

3. Now, my follow-up efforts were prioritized based on contacting a captive audience who had reviewed my eblast.

4.  I drafted a short email follow-up thanking them for their interest and used an inviting subject line. I also requested a quick 6- minute phone meeting to demonstrate it wouldn’t be a waste of their time.

5. Once I confirmed the appointment, I went back to Spoke and built out the target company org chart, learned the chain of command and leverage more names so I don’t get stuck with the No-Po’s.

6. The day arrived for our phone appointment and it resulted in a RFP.

These days everyone is taking more responsibility for their marketing and sales efforts. They are not pointing a finger at someone else and waiting for it to happen. As a salesperson, what is your marketing contritution?

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Seller,

I only have a few minutes, but I understand you're interested in what you can do to capture my attention and entice me to want to set up a meeting with you.

Let me say this loud and clear right now - you have no idea what my day is like. You may think you do, but you're missing the boat. Until you understand this, my advice to you makes no sense.

I got into the office early this morning so I could have some uninterrupted time to work on a major project - something I can't seem to squeeze into the normal business day, which is filled with back-to-back meetings.

But, by 9 a.m. all my good intentions were dashed. My boss asked me to drop everything to get her some up-to-date information on a major reorganization initiative. Product development informed me that our new offering won't be available for the upcoming tradeshow. Sales is already in an uproar because they have customers waiting for it. Then HR tells me that one of my key employees has been accused of cyber-stalking.

Starting to get the picture? Welcome to my world of everyday chaos where, hard as I try to make progress, I keep slipping behind. Right now, I have at least 59 hours of work piled on my desk, needing my attention. I have no idea when I'll get it all done.

Did I mention my how many emails I get daily? Over 100. Everyone copies me in on everything. It drives me crazy. Then, add to that at least 30 phone calls - many from vendors who want to set up a meeting with me. And the pile of junk mail I get each day is ridiculous.

In short, I have way too much to do, ever-increasing expectations, impossible deadlines and constant interruptions from people wanting my time or attention.

Time is my most precious commodity and I protect it at all costs. I live with the status quo as long as I can - even if I'm not happy. Why? Because change creates more work and eats up my time.

Which gets us back to you. In your well-intentioned but misguided attempts turn me into a "prospect," you fail woefully to capture my attention. I'm going to be really blunt here: I could care less about your product, service, solution or your company.

I'm not one bit interested in your unique methodologies, extraordinary differentiators or one-stop shopping. Your self-serving pablum, while designed to lure me into your clutches, has the exact opposite impact.

It's trash talk! I quickly scan your emails or letters looking for those offensive words and phrases that glorify your offering or your firm.

The minute they jump out at me, you're gone. Zapped from my inbox or tossed into the trashcan. When you talk like that in your voicemails, I delete you immediately. Delete, delete, delete.

That's the most expeditious way to handle bothersome telemarketers. Use those same words on the phone with me and I'll quickly raise an objection you can't address.

I'm a master at sniffing out trash talk and deleting it. I have work to do and refuse to waste even one iota of my time on something that's irrelevant or self-promotional.

You need to know though that I'm not always like this. Occasionally a savvy marketer or seller captures my attention, gets me to raise my hand asking for more information and even entices me to request a meeting.

What are they doing? They're completely focused on my business and the impact they can have on it. That's what's relevant to me - not their offering.

I'm always interested in ways to shorten time to market, speed up our sales cycles and reduce our supply chain costs. Notice that this is business talk, not marketing speak!

When you get even more specific and tell me how much impact, now you're really talking my language. I guarantee that if you mention you've helped organizations similar to mine increase sales conversion rates by 39% in just 3 months, I'll be on the phone to you in no time flat.

Do you have any good information or fresh insights about the challenges my company is facing? How about how other companies are addressing these issues? If so, I'm interested in that too.

That's the good stuff. It stems from a focus on the difference you can make for my company, instead of how you're different from every one else. When you emphasize that, I'm interested.

But you can't rope me in with the good stuff, then slip back into that trash talk. If so, you're gonzo as fast as I can hit the delete button.

I pay attention in about 5 second increments, too. I don't have time for fluff. If it's relevant info, you've got me; start meandering and I hit delete.

Get the picture? I hope so, because I'm late for a meeting and while I've been writing this, the phone's been ringing off the hook.

Hope this helps!

Your Prospective Customer

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 05:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The falling-out between the Yankees and Joe Torre happens every day in business. Sales people can learn a lot from the experience.

This is the time of year when salespeople begin to reflect on their performance. Was it a good year? Was it a great year? Some will say they earned the dollars they desired, so it was a great year. Others will hang their hat on an account that they won and say it was a good year.

However, as Joe Torre, former manager of the New York Yankees recently learned, employers have a single data point for measuring success that dwarfs all other statistics. As the New York Yankees were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, the rumors began to swirl that their manager, Joe Torre, was not got going to be asked to return as manager in 2008.

As Joe Torre described, he arrived at the Yankees’ executive meeting in Tampa and saw a room full of successful business executives who were looking to continue that success. Joe is a former baseball player, broadcaster, and manager, but not typically referred to as a business professional. He was caught off guard by the business presence in the room. What took place next was even more interesting.

The team told him that they desired his return in 2008. However, they wanted to restructure his compensation plan. They offered him a salary that was significantly lower than what he had been paid in the past. The plan included incentives that, if achieved, made the contract worth more than the prior one.

Just like in baseball, sales is full of statistics, metrics, and measurements. On any given day, one can make a case for promoting or firing just about any member of the sales team. During review time, the business leaders go back to the specified objective. Did the team make mission? Sure, great things happen throughout the year, things for which to be proud. However, at the end of the day, there is one key for the sales professional. Was mission achieved?

Joe Torre is described as a great man, a classy individual. Sometimes these terms are used to describe members of a sales team. However, those characteristics don’t result in pay increases or promotions. Companies pay for performance. This is performance that ties back to the business objective.

It is not uncommon to find sales professionals who fail to meet the business objective, which is usually quota, citing various statistics and anecdotes to show that there is value in their performance. Yes, there is value, but something simple is missing; bottom line. The business objective was not met.

The bottom line for sales people is that they need to understand the business objective, identify what they need to achieve it, and deliver the expected results. At the end of the day, that is the only way sales people will be measured.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 06:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)