The first rule in running your own business is that your time is valuable. Learning to delegate, and learning to outsource tasks is important. The second major bump on the head for most business owners is realizing that other people’s time is valuable too. One of the critical places to demonstrate this is in hiring and recruiting the best sales staff for your firm.

You need to be able to get top talent for sales, and while sales skills can be learned, matching sales skills to work flow and company objectives takes time – and it takes time that you don’t have as you run your company. However, it also takes money. It’s not the money that you pay your sales reps that makes the difference. Getting the right sales person means you need to be a sales person yourself – and you need a good recruiter.

Your recruiter gets his fee as a percentage of what you’re paying the candidates you hire – so the recruiter has a double incentive to feed the best talent to the people who not only pay him the most, but to the people who pay the talent the most.

So the first piece of advice is to not be cheap.

The second piece of advice is “focus on selling”. You need to sell your company to the sales talent. Understand what motivates sales talent – they want to believe in their product, they want to have fun making the sales, making the deals and sealing the contracts. A good sales rep understands that he is providing solutions to problems.

Your job is to sell the environment of your firm. Explain how your firm benefits the sales talent for joining up. Explain how your company works, what your company is looking for, the products you sell, and make the sales talent understand the kinds of problems they’ll be helping customers with.

Making sure the candidate is the right fit – flip the tables on them.

All sales people see themselves as facilitators and problem solvers. Let them do some of the work on an interview – let them interview you when you’ve asked them your questions. This makes it easier to determine of there’s a mismatch between them and you before the hiring process starts – and it gets them enthused about working for you.

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I have read a plethora of articles and commentary recently about Sales 2.0 and there is an air of inevitability that at some point in the not too distant future, many of the tasks now routinely handled by “salespeople” will become automated – in fact it is already happening.

But, and this is a really big but, in my view, there will always be a place for the professional business consultant – the “Top 5% Player” – these people never sell anything, but they do assist their clients in making sound buying decisions.

However, this is a wake-up call for the “order takers and marketers” because gone are the days in which a salesperson could simply walk into an office, establish a good rapport with the client, show he/she had thorough knowledge of their products and services and clinch the sale.

Nowadays, the emphasis is on establishing long-term, mutually beneficial relationships and in order to achieve this, the salesperson needs to earn the right to continue discussions with his/her client. Before they can proceed to sell their products or services, the salesperson needs to reassure the client of their integrity, reliability, and ability to understand and recommend the appropriate solution.

They can do this by demonstrating:
• Up-to-date knowledge of business news and current affairs.

Best practices include - reading newspapers, magazines, journals, trade publications and other sources of business information; maintaining membership of appropriate professional organisations; acknowledging gaps in knowledge and taking steps to fill them; locating or developing databases with information on customers, their industries and their own customers.

• An in-depth understanding of the customer’s industry, company and strategies as well as an appreciation of “the big picture.”

Best practices include - gaining an understanding of the issues at all levels of the customer’s organisation including strategic, departmental, and individual needs; seeking to understand the customer’s perceptions of market trends, company direction, plus potential product and service needs.

• A readiness to exchange information and ideas between the supplier and client organisation.

Best practices include - familiarising the customer with your own industry and companies; sharing useful business information even if it does not directly impact on the sales effort; demonstrating the cost-cutting or revenue producing benefits of your products and services.

• The ability to listen and absorb information.

Best practices include - refining the way you identify customer’s needs by asking the right questions and listening actively to customer comments; speaking at the listener’s level of knowledge; using stories and analogies effectively; asking for feedback on the clarity of your message. By demonstrating comprehensive knowledge, outstanding communication skills, and the proper attitude, the salesperson earns the right to move beyond the role of supplier to that of a valued business consultant

These are just a few pointers to those wanting to stay in the game – the clock is ticking and as the man said, the one constant that we can absolutely rely on in life is change.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 06:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

More than any other corporate discipline, salespeople second guess their current role constantly. I’m not talking about whether or not they want to quit their current position (that’s everybody). I mean they question if they want to get out of the whole sales racket altogether. Even seemingly seasoned (the George Hamilton look-alikes with the Rolex) will admit that they would love to go back to school and become a teacher, open a restaurant, crew a crabbing boat, whatever. For those people who are still young enough to do something about it, the ones that have their fantasies of joining the circus get in the way of closing deals, allow me to focus you with a few quick pros and cons of being in sales.  Who knows--I might help cull a few of you jugglers out of the woods quicker or rein a natural hunter back in.

Cons of being a salesperson

The number: It won’t go away, not even when you sleep or drink yourself into vaudeville. It gets harder all the time. You don’t get a pass for being old. Or new. It might as well be your prison number that you answer to at company meetings because your relationship to quota is WHO YOU ARE. You are the only person who has to care about everyone else’s job, because they all get paid whether the deal goes through or not.

Your boss: For some reason it is a rule that your manager, your VP, your CEO, your company owner or someone above you in the corporate monkey tree will be diametrically opposed to you in outlook, work ethic, technical ability, looks, etc. For me there was always some process whip-dick who wanted to see the easygoing jokester fail.

The customer: The inescapable reality in sales is that you are totally subservient to the people that will eventually mumble their consent to your proposal. No matter what kind of Far Side cartoon character you are dealing with it is your job to smile your way into their head and get the deal. They set the rules and your only reward for one failed (or Pyrrhic victory) relationship is another one on the spreadsheet. I still have a fantasy of jumping up in the middle of a call, letting everything I really think come spilling out and singing that “Anything you can do I can do better” song in full punk rocker roar.

Pros of being a salesperson

The number: Hitting that number frees you from all the chains of corporate life. Executive management LOVES you. HR shreds your file. PTO days don’t apply to you- and you work your own hours. It is the way that salespeople become the best paid people in the organization. Nobody can look elsewhere for who is number one because it is right there in black and white- I’m the best, so suck it. It is the closest you can get to being a celebrity or athlete.

Your boss: When you crush your numbers, you don’t have a boss.Your manager needs to just stay out of your way.There is no comparison in any other department. The top sales guy trumps the VP. He gets to slap the CEO’s bald head and call him “Woody” to his face. True story--I once laid down on the stage and fell asleep while a new president was grilling the rest of the company. I was closing deals--so he wasn’t talking to me.

The customer: I’m all about new people. Go ahead, jump in the cliché Conga line and say I’m a people person. Success in sales is directly attributable to how many people you can meet and move toward your goal. You are not allowed to sit at your desk and only deal with the same set of tired people (all former and present co-workers of mine obviously not included). The salesperson is constantly learning -and being entertained- and can make his own schedule. Customers are the path to freedom.

That’s right, the pros are the cons. Decide which they are for you and get out now or get back to work.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As the main contact point for Jigsaw’s Community of salespeople, I am bombarded by recruiters, sales managers and company founders seeking account executives. While some of these searches are grounded in reality, the vast majority of these people have a better chance of finding the Easter Bunny and convincing him to work for their company than actually landing the applicant they seek.

Take the example of a startup technology company that I spoke with recently. They had secured their second round of funding and were interested in expanding their sales team of three. The VP used all the common words: “hunter, rainmaker, experienced enterprise sales, self starter, technical expertise, outstanding communication skills…”i.e. a salesperson. But it was the last line of the job req. that caught my eye- “Must have a strong industry rolodex with solid relationships with CxOs from Fortune 500.”

In that statement he betrayed an ignorance of the sales process that is plaguing not only start-ups, but larger companies alike.

Allow me to key on three word groupings used in that sentence that says it all:

Fortune 500: Whatever template that company founders use to get their initial round of funding (we couldn’t seem to find it in 2003 so we had to wing it) seems to come hard coded with Fortune 500 companies as the target, no matter what you are selling. The smallest Fortune 500 company has over $1B in sales and 1000 employees. You might as well try to stand out in the local American Idol audition. I’m sure Simon wants to hear how blahbablabable your whatsit is.

CxOs: C-Level. Those magical leaders of every company with nothing better to do than field calls from salespeople and shower small companies with Revenue. Whatever your product does, everyone wants to “sell high.” The company above sells a highly technical $10,000 software program and they stated that their customer target is the CFO. The CFO of a 10 person company would defer a technical decision like internet security to his IT ops person. The CFO of a Fortune 500 company should be able to have you arrested if you happen to catch him and want to talk about internet security software.

Strong Industry Rolodex: This is my favorite. I have an image of Jack Lemon coming in out of the rain with the Glengarry leads in a worn briefcase. Top executives change companies at an average rate of every 18 months. Even if you know one of these people well enough to call them and they actually have a need for your product, the days of C-Level managers making huge buying decisions by themselves over golf are over. Budget outlays are scrutinized by committees and require input from every department affected. Salespeople need to know everyone that is involved in the decision.

Anyone that has a strong network of Fortune 500 C-Level folks is one of two things:

1- a current C-level Fortune 500 exec himself
2- the future president of your company

He’s not carrying a bag for Acme software in the square states.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 04:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Right, well now you're reading this, this is actually about the role of women in the sales profession.

This post is inspired by a conversation I had with Jill Konrath last week. Jill is not only one of the very top sales experts out there, she is also the organizer of the new Sales Shebang conference and community for smart, savvy women in B2B sales.

Jill's passion for the Sales Shebang was born because she recognized how much saleswomen needed strong female role models, as well as an opportunity to connect with like-minded women.

In the emerging "Sales 2.0 community" we've been focusing a great deal recently on tools and process for sales -- how Web 2.0 technology is changing sales. But businesses are made up of people not just tools and processes. If companies don't get the people element right, and don't motivate those people well, tools and processes won't do them much good at all.

If you look back as little as 20 years, you will see women have made a huge difference to the global economy already. But these changes are not over. Take a look at the way Google has designed its culture and benefits to attract the absolute best-and brightest employees.

Firms that want the best sales people better realize that they need the best women sales people too. Sales 2.0 firms need to design their work environments and cultures to cater to women's needs. They better think about issues like flexible work times, arrangements for child care and ample maternity leave. And they better not set a culture that feels like an "old boys' club" where women are not equal partners and don't get equal respect.

I have seen several examples of firms that have plenty of women sales people but they have not instilled a culture that meets women's needs. Examples where male bosses see the time off a woman takes to have a child as lost revenue and are basically annoyed by the perceived threat to their career goals. Where companies have a strict 9-5 code and parents cannot have the flexibility to pick their kids up from school. Well guess what? The most talented women sales people will always be in demand. So if you're company acts like this the best sales talent will one day get up and leave.

If you ignore women as the power that they are in sales, and will be even more so, expect to be trampled by your competition. Women are a big part of the Sales 2.0 future. Don't get stuck in the Sales 1.0 world (invented circa 1880.)

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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)

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)

Negative views of the sales profession cause damage to companies, economies and individuals.

“So, what do you do?”

“I’m in sales,” you reply.

“Ohh…” they say, looking slightly uncomfortable. “What is it you really want to do?”

We’ve all heard this before, or something very close to it. I wrote an article for the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management’s print magazine Winning Edge about this very subject. Here’s a cut down web version:

A Major Role

Sales has an image problem. James Hammersley, the CEO of sales consultancy Win recently told me that, when visiting his old university to give a speech on selling, he asked the audience to describe the defining traits of a salesperson. The responses included ‘sleazy’, ‘untrustworthy’, and even ‘alcoholic’!

Walter Friedman’s excellent history of selling, "Birth of a Salesman reveals a survey of mothers in the US put sales as the least desirable ‘white collar’ job for their sons and daughters. Another American study discussed in the book explains that only politicians are considered less trustworthy than salespeople.

So what?

Well, let’s face it, status and recognition are important to today’s professionals. Without them job dissatisfaction kicks in, leading to low morale, lower performance levels and higher staff turnover. Furthermore, as individuals opt for “cooler” careers the pool of new sales people is reduced and recruitment becomes even more difficult. Perhaps the most damaging outcomes of the low esteem in which sales is held occur when such attitudes pervade an organization and its management. Anyone who has ever witnessed an organization with such a mind set will know that this self fulfilling prophecy results in a demotivated sales force, high staff turnover and, ultimately, lower sales.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 06:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It looks like CMO's still have plenty of way to go in tying their activities to results in their company. It's pretty clear that CMO's who can distill their results down to clear returns that the CEO and board can quickly see will be the ones sticking around for a couple of years.

The Define & Align the CMO report is avaliable to today after 2 years in the making. The report actually turned out to be more interesting than we orignal thought based on our working hypothesis.

The year-long research by the CMO Council and MarketBridge encompassed qualitative and quantitative interviews with CMOs, CEOs, board members, senior marketers and executive recruiters throughout North America. The 80-page report, priced at $295, along with a complimentary executive abstract, is available for download at http://www.cmocouncil.org/.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I hear this quite often when companies are hiring sales people.  What does it really mean?  The description the companies give usually goes like this:

• Must have made, or exceeded quota, for the last five years
• Must have a great Rolodex of contacts in [our niche]
• Must be high-energy
• Must be a team player
• Must be comfortable with large amounts of cold calling
...plus several other characteristics...

It seems like the company is hoping that this sales "rock star" (a.k.a. "sales god") will walk through the door and solve all their problems in one single "bolt of lightening".  To me, this seems like an abdication of responsibility. 

Why should a company need a "rock star" when they understand how sales works in their business?  If they understand their sales process, could they not just hire an "ordinary sales person" (or even "an ordinary person") and train them to do the job really well?

Shouldn't a company take the responsibility to nurture relationships into leads in their own market niche?  Why should the sales person have to bring a "golden Rolodex"?  Shouldn't the company be building that over its years of existence?

If this sales person is so successful over so many years, is the company so great at what it does that this “rock star” is going to want to join?  Does the company really dominate its market or have the next iPod as a product?

Is your company really in the position to pay "mega bucks" to Bruce Springsteen or Bono (and would Bruce or Bono even want to come to work for you at any price) or do you need to hire some "ordinary people" and turn them into great sales people?

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Add to this the fact that many firms are unhappy with the sales people they already have (one of my consulting partners states that from his research as many as 50% of the people working in sales should not be and another 25% should be selling a different product!)

So my advice for owners and senior managers:  if you have good sales people, treat them really really well.  Don't skimp on the support you give them and realize that paying them a little more is likely to be a lot cheaper than going out to the marketplace.  Do not fall into the trap of thinking of sales people as "second class citizens".

There is a talent war going on for sales people. Mind the (talent) gap!

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 01:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

My clients are seeing a lot of "re-treads"...

Once again I am hiring sales people for my clients and there seems to be a huge shortage of real talent.  All we seem to see are lots of sales people who have a great deal of experience on their resume but very little "gas in the tank" when we interview them.  In all good conscience I have been unable to see any of these people having the enthusiasm to consistently prospect and generate a pipeline of business.  They seem like worn out tires that will be a real risk to your business if you rely solely on them.

I am not exactly sure why there are so many people like this on the market. Perhaps it was the "dot com bubble" that made selling too easy and many people just became order takers and lost the ability to prospect or build a pipeline of business. Or perhaps it was the downsizing of so many large corporations where sales people were used to having all their leads generated for them by the marketing department or their "greater selling team".

So what's the solution?  I would suggest building (or outsourcing) a strong inside sales team and marketing department to generate leads for these sales people and then utilizing their progressing and closing skills (which are often quite good) to follow up on leads provided to them.  But definitely not to rely on them to generate enough leads on their own to meet quota...

...But I would love to know what others think...

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 01:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

By Jim Berkowitz, CRM Mastery

In How to Identify Great Salespeople it's noted that:

There are three kinds of salespeople. There are those who sell, and those who really try to sell, but never quite make the grade. The third kind? Well, we hope we never accidentally hire one of these, and the list of things that sent them packing is far too long to talk about here. We are going to concentrate on the first two, with the aim of helping you help your company rise to the top.

What's the difference between the first two kinds? What does Sally Success know or do that Joe NotSoSuccessful doesn't know or do? Is it how to talk to a prospect?

Is it charisma? Education? Is there such a person as a "born salesperson"?

It is suggested that you start your search for a winner by having in-depth discussions with your top salespeople. Your goal is to obtain specific answers to six specific questions (see the article for the detail).

Then you ask the identical questions of your other salespeople in the same order (as you asked your stars). You've got to write down what they say in both cases so that you can compare their answers.

If you follow the guidelines in the article then it is sugessted that you just might learn that there are two main differences between the successful and the not-so-successful:

1. The successful salesperson knows just about everything there is to know about your industry, your position in that industry, your product/service line and how it stacks up against the competition (in detail).

2. The successful salesperson can identify his/her top 12 customers, including what they are going to buy and when, and why.Your successful salesperson can talk in-depth with target customers, selling them the exact product they need when they need it, and selling your other products or services when things are slow. He/she will be able to differentiate between your product and your competitor's product, knowing that this year it may only be a small item, but next year will be the "big one."

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The cover story from June's issue of Sales and Marketing Management magazine is making me feel uneasy (a paid subscription is needed to access this article). It's not so much the explicit subject of the article - which is about hiring - but the implicit idea that companies should only be looking for sales stars - the article is entitled "Star Search".

I believe there is a “sales star myth” in existence…It seems to be a common perception in the technology industry that sales managers and CEO's should only be trying to find "sales stars" or "top guns" to work in their sales force.

Companies are spending months on the hiring process and then frequently experiencing huge disappointment with their eventual hire(s).  Frequently turning around and firing these same people within a year.

I am not that surprised.  Having met hundreds of sales people in the technology industry, I can honestly count on one hand the people who have struck me as "stars".

So what’s the solution?

I suggest VP's and CEO's start thinking more realistically about sales people.  Sales is a job just like any other (I like to say just like accounting!)  Selling is a process. 

In his classic book the "E-Myth" Michael Gerber shows entrepreneurs that they need to break their businesses down into documented business processes so that they can be run by people other than the entrepreneurs themselves. 

Sales managers and CEO's need to start thinking this way. The upshot of Michael Gerber's system is that you can staff your business with “ordinary people” who run the great system you developed.  The same is true in sales.

So think about developing sales processes for your firm...You won't have to spend all your time searching for mythical “sales stars"; you will greatly reduce staff turnover; and you may dramatically grow revenue as well!

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 02:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

One of the most pressing issues today is hiring enough sales people to execute your business development plans. I have seen several clients sift through hundreds of resumes and conduct dozens of interviews with largely disappointing results. There seems to be a big gap between sales job descriptions and the candidates available.

Perhaps we are asking too much of the sales people we hire. Nearly every senior sales job description is looking for a multi-talented individual who can not only close deals but is a "red-blooded" prospector and has a "golden Rolodex" of contacts in our target industry.  These individuals just do not seem to exist, especially in the numbers required to fill the number of sales openings available.

One specific thought on solving this problem is place most of the responsibility for lead generation with the marketing department and not ask sales people to hit such aggressive prospecting goals.  The prospecting function then largely becomes a "tele marketing" function which puts it more correctly in its place in the lead generation process. 

If you remove the heavy emphasis on prospecting from sales executive job descriptions then the pool of suitable candidates increases dramatically.  Of course, this puts added emphasis on having a quality marketing manager and being able to find or outsource competent telemarketers.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 05:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)