Success is not the same for everyone, how do you define it?

I overheard this between a sales manager and one of our coaches.

"My team aren't motivated to put in the effort to achieve their goals"

"What do you mean by their goals"

"You know, their targets"

"What makes you think these are their goals"

The manager had fallen into the trap of assuming things about his team (don't assume as it will make an ass of u and me). The incorrect assumption is that sales people are driven and know what they want. Whilst this is true of the best sales people, the majority just come into work to do as they are told.

Visualise the rewards of success
Anyone, in any area of life, who is successful, can clearly articulate what they are driving towards. They know what success looks like and how to get there. Key to their success is they have a plan - a personal business plan - and they use this to drive the actions and activities. They are therefore not only able to visualise what success looks like but they can explain how they are going to get there.

How can you use a Personal Business Plan
If you were investing in something with a view to generating a return, you would expect to see a business plan which defines what success looks like (targets), how this will be achieved (activities) and what support they require (investment). You use this plan to decide if you can justify the investment, and if you do not believe in the plan you make suggestions as to what could be done to improve the likelihood of success.

As both individuals and managers we should be able to do the same.

• As an individual - I should be able to build my own plan for the coming year covering:
• What I want to achieve - Earning, promotion, etc.
• What I need to do to achieve it 
• A sales plan for the next 12 months - aligned to my revenue targets. This should include my own personal KPIs that I can use to track success
• An achievements plan - what must I do to achieve my promotion/skills targets
• What investment do I need
• What support do I need from my manager/organisation
• As a manager - I should review the individual plans and align them against my plan. I can then make the decision "is the plan worth investing in?"
• Are the target achievements in line with my organisation targets
• Do I believe the plans.
• Can I provide the investment

So where should we start
As part of the planning process for next year we should ask everyone in our teams to build their own personal business plans (even if we have not finalised the sales targets). This way we will hear from everyone what their aspirations are and how they intend to achieve them.

If you want to see an example personal business plan please contact me (mark.savinson@sales-accredit.com)

Next week we will look at how we review the personal business plan.

To find out more about how Accredit can help you and your sales teams contact me (mark.savinson@sales-accredit.com) or visit our website (www.sales-accredit.com)

Is your qualification ruthlessness enough to close-out the qtr

This has been a busy week, especially as it is the last month of the quarter for many of our clients. I have therefore decided not to discuss personal business plans, as originally planned.  but instead to highlight a situation we are seeing amongst many of our clients - chasing badly qualified opportunities and trying to close them by giving away margin.

Let me explain, too many businesses appear have forgotten that it is not the sales person who closes the deal, it is the customer who decides they are ready to close. The sales person can only position the customer for a close, address all issues that may block the close and then ask the customer if they are ready to close. When the customer is ready to close they will close, it could happen quickly, or it could take time. The main influence a sales person has on driving to a speedy close is addressing the issues that the client must overcome to allow them to close.

So why is this of interest as we come to the end of the quarter? The issue we are seeing is that because the opportunities are poorly qualified sales people are treating all opportunities equally. They are investing the same amount of time in opportunities that cannot close this month as they are in those that could close this month. They are offering discounts where it is not necessary, either by entering price negotiation with someone who was already happy to buy, or by setting expectations of a price discount for those who will buy next quarter.

So what are we recommending:

1. Qualifying all opportunities into, "will buy this month" or "will buy later".
2. Understanding what issues need to be overcome to get the "buy this month" to be able to buy this month:
• Provide attractive offers that the sales rep can use to trade as part of the final negotiation. These are not discounts but value add offers
• Ensure that operational issues are addressed in time so that we can take the order and book the revenue. If it takes 10 days to complete the process of setting up a new account, doing the credit check, signing Terms and Conditions and shipping, then any deals after 20th December will not happen this year! - Qualify them as a "will buy later"
• Get operations on-side, how can you speed up the time from receipt of order to booking the revenue.
3. Anyone who is "will buy later", manage your time so that you do not limit your ability to focus "on will buy now". Do not ignore them but manage them
4. Sales management should agree the negotiation limits and stick to them. Remember that before you negotiate you should have sold the value. If all you do is reduce the price you have not sold the value.

This all common sense, but in the rush to hit the quarter we often rush around rather than thinking.

Finally, please avoid the trap of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Sometime it is better to miss this quarter to build next quarter and maintain margin. If you are giving margin away now it is usually impossible to claw it back later, so do so with your eyes open.

Good luck if you are closing out the quarter.

You will never achieve your numbers if your people are not motivated

Here is the first in a series of items on how we drive towards closing the quarter. Rather than going straight into closing techniques, we thought it would be useful to start with the essential precondition - the motivation of your people.


Recently, when assessing a sales team, I was asked by their sales manager, "How can I get my people more motivated? As you have seen, they have the talent but do not seem to be out with customers prospecting, qualifying and closing as much as they ought."

Sell them the reason to be motivated - find the trigger
Motivation is emotionally based, linked to an attitude of mind that drives a desire to do or achieve something. Importantly, it is personal to the individual. You can't "make someone more motivated". What you can do however as a Sales Manager, is to create an atmosphere and culture which lends itself to your team having a desire to achieve. It is more of a 'pull' than a 'push'

Motivation is different for all of us; true motivation comes from within – it can’t be imposed. To sustain motivation, you can help team members tap into their own motivational triggers, encourage them to talk frequently about previous times in their career/life when they were highly motivated. Do they have a specific personal target; an exotic holiday, a new car, move house. Get them to visualise what they need to do to achieve that target, now link that to what you need them to do. "One of our colleagues wanted a flat abroad, he broke down what he would need in terms of additional monthly earning and kept a "holiday flat fund" which was always on his desk. Each month we discussed with him the state of the fund and he told us what he needed to sell to achieve his goal"

Help, through coaching, your team members to believe that they can be successful. Limiting beliefs can hold back even the most confident people from achieving success. Limiting beliefs are like having weeds growing in your garden; if you do not pull them out, they will take over your garden.

Provide effective and evidence based feedback on a regular basis to increase an individual’s self-confidence and motivation to taking the next steps to achieving success.

At 1:1 meetings and developmental coaching sessions get your team to set themselves goals (do not impose goals upon them). Get them to come up with their own ways of improving.

A good tip is to ask your team member, "on a scale of 1 to 10 how do you feel about your performance?" Assuming they score it at less than 10 then ask them what they would do to make it a 10.

Motivation comes from within but as Sales Managers we can help our team members to find it within themselves



Closing the quarter exercise

1. Get every member of your team to identify a personal goal, it must be tangible and progress towards success must be measurable.
   
   
2. Each team member should publicise what they are trying to achieve and at each sales meeting get them to tell everyone how they are doing against that target.
   
   
3. By sharing targets you get peer pressure, not around who is selling the most, but on who is achieving their personal targets - that will motivate people. They picked the target themselves and they cannot say it was imposed.

Try it and tell us how it works

Want to know more? Visit our website www.sales-accredit.com or contact me directly fred.nelson@sales-accredit.com

Next week we will look at how you can get your team to create personal business plans to achieve the quarter.

I can beat any price by 10% - That should guarantee the sale

How often have you heard this conversation between sales and marketing "we are not price competitive that's why sales are down"- " but we offer so many more features than our competition, we add greater value, that's why we are slightly more expensive".

There is a constant battle between sales and marketing over price and the desire to sell value. So let's make one thing clear, it is marketing's role (product marketing in particular) to define the "go-to market price", it is the role of sales to sell the value and negotiate where required.

Marketing and Pricing

Pricing is clearly driven by market conditions, it's a reflection of the perceived value of your offering. Marketing must constantly review this and test the competitiveness of the offer. Depending on the market you operate in reviews should be monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly.

Price and value are linked in the mind of the customer. Buy cheap, buy twice is an oft heard saying but cheap may be just right in certain circumstances. That said, if your products are not the cheapest then you have to show how they add value. If you want sales to position the value of the offering then there has to be some real value in your customer's view (not just features) that justifies the price differentiation. It is usually marketing's role to identify these sometimes hidden values generically, but the job of sales to clearly articulate their value to the individual customer. Areas to focus on include:

• Service levels
• Ease of support / use
• Brand "Emotional value"
• Eco friendly
• Quality (build, design, reliability)
• Cost reduction for your customer by adopting your solutions
• Increased productivity by using your solutions

Sales and Negotiation
So how do we go about ensuring we sell at the right price once we have demonstrated value and we have an interested customer who wants to negotiate? Well, the first thing to say is that selling is selling and negotiating is negotiating. What I mean is that price negotiation is something to do at the end of the sales process, to win the business after we have demonstrated value, gained real interest from the customer and believe that a final piece of strong negotiation, leading to a win/win, will seal the deal.

If you make price concessions early in the sales process you may end up having to negotiate a lower price later. Use your selling skills first to sell the value then negotiate as late as you can. Remember that your customer is likely to buy if your price (i.e. the cost to them) is lower than the cost of not solving their problem.

Finally some tips on price and Terms and Conditions negotiation:-

1. Knowledge is power - know your customer, do your research, ask questions, listen and understand the problem they want to solve.
2. Decide on a "walk away price" and "walk away terms and conditions" such as service guarantees
3. Plan your negotiation stance and evaluate your position and your customer's.
4. Understand each others bargaining areas - If you both understand each other's win/win position then you can negotiate
5. Set expectations and never agree to first offers (unless they achieve a win/win for both parties)
6. Never give concessions away - trade them. You will always have "tradables" that you can offer in exchange for price discount or additional after sales service. This win/win element is key as it demonstrates that both parties gain from the deal.

Finally, throughout the negotiation stage ensure that you always communicate clearly, avoiding ambiguity and enabling you and your customer to always understand what is and what is not on offer.

Commission plan drives negotiation focus
It is worth remembering that a key contributor to what a sales person is prepared to "give away" is their commission plan. Whilst recently assessing a sales team, we found a pattern in the areas they would aggressively discount, and those that they held their ground over. Upon further research we discovered that they were not paid on the area they heavily discounted, so they had know emotional interest in maintaining margin here. This resulted in a behaviour that instead of driving value, they were prepared to reduce price.

Want to know more? Visit our website www.sales-accredit.com or contact me directly mark.savinson@sales-accredit.com

Next week we will start to look at how we drive sales in the last month of the quarter.

Don't be shy, unlock the sale by finding the emotion

Would selling be easier if buying decisions were based on pure logic? All you would have to do is to quantifiably prove that your product/solution functionally delivers the required features to achieve the desired business outcome. All sales would be done via a RFP and you would only need to discuss functionality and price.

Sadly, as the key component in the decision making process is a human being, subject to emotional responses, this will never happen. Let me give you some examples:

• Dell are promoting their notebooks in a variety of colours. Why? - I met someone last week who wanted to buy his daughter a new notebook, he could buy a variety of models via his company, but his daughter did not like them she wanted pink
• A salesman said with incredulity to me, the key reason the MD wanted to change the phone system was that he didn't like the phone on his desk, it was "old fashioned".
• In the Sunday Times this week Jeremy Clarkson pointed out that if we were logical we would all by VW Golfs, why should we have small convertibles that mess up your hair, or 4x4's that get attacked by environmentalists, etc. - I am sure you get the picture.

All these are examples of how the emotional aspect of buying is frequently an important element in the decision making process; in the business environment as much as the consumer. The buyer is an individual after all. Just think about those throwaway comments you hear such as, "that's OK for consumers, but it's really design over function, our product is much more robust and is designed for a businessman". Apple already understand their customers are individuals who make buying decisions on grounds that are not always purely logical.

How should we use emotion in selling?

Emotions affect the decision making process in either a positive or negative manner, there is no middle ground.

• Red emotional triggers - These are the negative emotions which will act as a barrier to the sale. These are often associated with
• A fear that the decision will have a negative impact on the decision maker, "If I get this wrong I could lose my job..."
• Having a previously bad experience, "why should I trust you to sort out out my business communications when you can't get my home phone working"
• Have a personal preference for a different approach, "My way of doing this is best...."
• Green emotional triggers - These are the positive emotions that will support your sales, they are often associated with positive outcomes
• Personal reward - "by getting this right I can get the promotion I want"
• Translate a red emotion into a green - "I know that this way is different to your approach but it will allow you to achieve more..."

A great way to identify the emotional status of the decision making is to listen for the words that identify the emotional status; these include:

• Need, want, must have, achieve, now...
• Concerned, worried, pressure,  time pressure...
• Phrases that start with "I" 

Having heard these phrases, then standard selling kick in, ask questions to identify the real trigger behind the emotion, ask "why do you need it....", "why are you concerned....". Then you can address the issue and move forward (which could include qualifying yourself out).

How does marketing help?
Green emotions are all about the outcomes, so marketing should help sales articulate the outcome of their solutions (just the way consumer marketing tells you how you will look good, feel better, etc.), as opposed to the features of the product.

As an example, a supplier of office phone systems is no longer talking about how many extensions it supports and whether it has music on hold, instead they are focussing on improving efficiency of people, enhancing customer service, allowing flexible working.

People really do buy emotionally
That people buy from people is an over-used phrase, often by sales people who are trying to justify their existence. The reality is that it is the emotional aspect that drives the sale, and it is only during the sales conversation that the emotional triggers are identified. That is not to say that we cannot drive the emotions, you only have to look at someone like Apple to see how emotions can be used to drive a sale, just try and tell them that a standard notebook based on Microsoft Windows is a better technical solution!

Want to know more? Visit our website www.sales-accredit.com or contact me directly mark.savinson@sales-accredit.com

Next week we will look at pricing and negotiation.

Sales get the positive decision - what's that got to do with marketing

I am sure you have come across this mindset before - "marketing finds the prospects, all sales has to do is to get them to buy from us." At the basic level this is the true essence of sales - "the ability to take someone who has expressed an interest in solving a problem, to agree to solve that problem using your product/solution".

There are a limited number of sales people who are naturally able to persuade the customer to make a positive decision, but for the rest of us we need to think about how we address the three key components of the decision making process.

• Cost
• Risk
• Reward

Decision-making is a combination of a rational and emotional responses. If we understand the triggers to these responses we can position ourselves an our sales messages so that it's easier to make a decision in our favour. Another way of looking at this is that we have to overcome the customer's objections to buying from us. (So we are really talking about objection handling)

If you accept that a customer buys to solve a problem (real or emotional), the triggers to make a positive decision in your favour are focussed around:

Cost

This is not price, but the overall cost associated with using your product/solution. In some quarters this is known as Total Cost of Ownership. In an ideal world we would have a calculation that describes the overall cost of our offering and compares it to that of our competition. However, as many of us live in a commoditised world, at face value there may not be much of a difference between our offerings and those of the competition.

However, if sales are to mitigate the perceived issues of cost in the decision making process they must know:

1. What are the implied costs with using our solution, e.g. Buying SKY HD will involve owning an HD television, Buying a Blue-ray disc requires a Blue-ray player, etc.
2. What are the associated costs with using your solution, e.g. Support costs associated with moving to Windows 7.0, training costs, hardware upgrades, etc.
3. Actual cost of using your solution. This is not just the purchase price but also the cost of implementation.
4. Cost of not doing anything. Whilst many customers might prefer not to change at all, they might not understand the impact and costs associated with remaining with the status quo, e.g. you will not be able to see the latest movies as they will only be released in HD, or Microsoft will drop support for Windows XP, etc.

Risk

If cost is a financial driver that can be measured, then risk is more of an emotional driver, "why should I risk my career on your solution when I could stick with the existing solution/supplier?"

To be able to deal with the emotional issue of risk you have had to identify these potential risks through effective questioning, which is of course the essence of objection handling - you need to understand the objection before you can overcome it.

The likely risk issues you are going to come across are

1. Financial risk - This is an extension of the cost discussion but focuses on the opportunity cost, "could I spend the money on something else....". This is a factual risk, i.e. if you know what else the money could be spent on you could address this.
2. Supplier risk - Are you a safe pair of hands - "why should I change from my existing supplier...." This is a factual risk; it is an extension of competitive positioning.
3. Personal risk - "As the decision maker how is this decision going to impact my reputation....". This is an emotional risk; you have to understand the decision makers's emotional triggers.

Reward

As a salesperson your aim is to accentuate the positive, i.e. show the decision maker the return they will achieve as a result of making the decision in your favour. "By using our product you will not only reduce your costs, but offer a higher customer service level which will result in more sales..."

If you do not align your proposed reward against the decision makers desired reward, you could instead be introducing risk, e.g. only offer to help them reduce head count if that is what they want to achieve, or you could make them think their job is at risk.

The likely reward types you will come across are:

1. Financial reward - It must be quantifiable, e.g. show the ROI.
2. Organisational reward - The solution will deliver competitive advantage, again needs to be quantifiable.
3. Personal reward - This is the emotional aspect of the sale, what will the individual gain as a result of the decision, kudos, reputation, keep their job, etc.

So it's simple. Sales align their offer against the Cost Risk Reward issues of the decision maker - Marketing can just sit back and watch

NO. As ever marketing have to provide the ammunition. The average sales person will need help in knowing what are the triggers to look for and the core of the response. This is where marketing MUST help.

• All aspects of the costs associated with the offering are known
• Potential risks and answers to these must be provided
• Financial models must be provided to justify the financial rewards.

It's just objection handling. Sales identify the target and marketing provides the ammunition

There is no silver bullet to getting a positive decision. Sales have to position the decision maker so that they have answered all the objections that could impact a positive outcome. If the customer wants to solve the problem they will. The solution they choose is the one that best meets their issues. (Cost Risk Reward)

This is not complex. It is just the practice of selling and objection handling. Successful sales teams are those that realise that they have to have answers to these issues. Why not find out if your team can do this, accompany them on a call or review their proposals and ask yourself the question, is there a compelling reason why I would buy? If not then now is the time to coach your people.

Want to know more? Visit our website www.sales-accredit.com or contact me directly mark.savinson@sales-accredit.com

Next week we will look in more detail how sales has to be aware of the emotional components of decision making.

Believe me - we are much better than anyone else

The unfortunate thing about selling is that in most instances there are other people who offer similar solutions to the ones we are offering. Therefore, just knowing the customer's issues will not guarantee a sale, we have to convince the buyer that our solution meets their needs better than similar solutions available in the competitive market.

How do we know we are different?

Differentiation takes many forms and marketing ought to be able to provide the following:

1. Unique Product Features - Product marketing ought to be able to generate a list of unique or differentiated features versus competitors and what issues they address.
2. Unique "Delivery" or "Service" Options - Beyond the product features marketing ought also to be able to identify the difference between your delivery options and your ongoing service or after sales options and those of your competitors. These differences can also be linked to the value a customer will derive from the options available from you.
3. Competitive positioning - Marketing should provide, by key competitor, an analysis of competitive offerings highlighting where you have strengths and weaknesses, and where there are therefore opportunities and threats.

So all sales has to do is to present a list of the differences!

It is marketing's role to ensure that sales understand the differentiators, but sales also have to know how and when to use this information, and this is where the problem often lies.

"our laptop is 6 ounces lighter and 1/2 inch thinner than the model you are looking at" is only a differentiator if the customer is concerned about lightweight and size!

Key to good competitive positioning is once again effective questioning, by fully understanding what is important to the customer, and of course what is not, an effective salesperson will identify which differentiator to use.

"you mentioned that your company had a strategic objective of being carbon neutral; were you aware that we are the only manufacturer to have achieved Carbon Trust's 5 star award for energy saving on all our devices...."

Do we need to know who we are up against?
Effective differentiation relies on relevance to our customer. There is no point telling a potential purchaser of a Mini, how much more fuel efficient it is versus a Hummer if the key competitor is a Fiat 500. So again key to effective differentiation is questioning "so who or what else are you considering.....?"


So it's simple - Marketing identify our strengths and sales works out when to tell the customer

YES! Effective competitive positioning is simple

• Marketing has to
• invest time and effort in identifying why customers might want our product (the issues customers want to address)
• map these issues to the competitive offerings to identify our strengths and weaknesses and understand opportunities and threats
• Clearly articulate our strengths and how they better address the issues than our competitors
• Clearly identify our weaknesses and when we should qualify ourselves out or focus on a feature or advantage that we are better at.
• Sales has to:
• Understand what the customer really wants to achieve
• Identify how to win against the competitors
• Use the information provided by marketing to effectively position the offering
• Qualify out where appropriate

This is not theory, more marketing departments are realising that they need to link their competitive information against customer issues and not only features. The clever organisations are "testing" their sales teams abilities to use this information effectively and win more business.

Want to know more? Visit our website www.sales-accredit.com or contact me directly mark.savinson@sales-accredit.com

Next week we will examine the issues around decision making and reducing the risks for the customer.

Go on Marketing - help us identify customer problems we can sell against

Last week, courtesy of my discussion with Neil Rackham, I described the issues Sales & Marketing can create for themselves as a result of the assumptions over roles throughout the sales cycle.

The first area to address is what Neil Rackham described as "problem analysis tools". Selling, as we all know, starts with identifying a problem we can address with our "products/solutions". So who is responsible for identifying the "problem"? It's clearly both Sales and Marketing.

Marketing can be generic
Marketing clearly cannot know the specifics of an individual's (or their company's) needs, but they can identify the types of issues sales should be looking for that play to the strengths of their product. Here are some examples that help illustrate what I mean

• Technical problems - Every product has been designed to do a job or address a specific problem (the issues the product features have been designed to address). Instead of listing the technical feature (what it is), marketing ought to provide sales with the "problem" the feature was designed to address. An example of this is:
• Instead of describing the security features of a notebook - identify why security is required and the potential impact of having a notebook lost/stolen. It's the "so what?" rather than just the "what?" and is often the first stage of qualification.

• Business problems - All businesses have to address issues around costs, sales, legislation, etc. These are ultimately the things that drive the final decision ( remember that the best technical solution will always struggle against an average solution that better addresses the business issues). Marketing can help the market and their salespeople to understand what business issues their product is best designed to address. Here is another example.
• Find a business that has a high profile "environmental policy" then identify the green credentials of your product and how it helps your customer towards achieving carbon neutrality

• Don't forget emotion -All consumer retailing is based on emotional selling - making you look/feel better, pricking your conscience to give to charity, etc. Marketing could be helping sales identify the emotional phrases that they can focus on.
• These emotions can be identified via "objection handling" - listing the emotional words that are positive and negative. For example, Marketing can say in their collateral that "many of our customers find that the environmentally features of our products help to reduce the consumption of electricity". In this case reducing the use of carbon based fuels is an emotional as well as problem solving feature.

Sales must be specific

Sales have a simple role here "ask questions, listen to the answers and use this intelligence to identify the opportunity".

At the risk of upsetting some of our readers, too many sales people go into "pitch mode" using the generic slideware of Marketing. The role of Salespeople in problem identification is to uncover the unique problems of the prospect, Marketing can only give you the hints as to what you might hear.

So what does good look like?

Accredit has been working with a number of IT organistions to put into practice what we have been preaching here, and it works as follows:

• Marketing builds a "customer viewpoint" for the sales team. This explains the issues customers could be facing and how this links to the features of the product/solution (moving from Feature to Advantage)
• Marketing produces a "call/meeting guide" which lays out how best to have the initial engagement with the prospect (what questions to ask, what to listen out for and link to the offering. (click here to see an example)
• Sales practices the call/meeting before doing it "live"

This is not just a theory - we know it works - If you want to know more why not register on our website as we are regularly adding new examples of call/meeting guides.

Next week we will look at how we build differentiation against our competitors.

Sales just speak to the client, it's Marketing who decides what they say

I recently had a meeting with Neil Rackham (creator of SPIN Selling) and during our conversation we got onto the subject of why for all the focus on "solution selling, too many sales people focussed on features and did a pitch. We both agree that one of the major reasons for this was the internal failures between sales and marketing.

Neil then proceeded to give me one of the best descriptions of the challenge sales and marketing face. It was not a new approach, but the clarity which he gave the issues was impressive.

The key issue is one of expectations. The client clearly knows the steps they need to go through to make a decision, and the sales/marketing organisation knows what they need to supply to support the client make a decision. So where does it all go wrong?

The failure stems from a lack of clarity as to who owns delivery of the components. The most common outcome is that sales and marketing revert to type and we end up with:

• Marketing producing literature that is inward focussed ("here are our features") and then tells the customer what the benefits are.
• Sales scrambles around trying to work out why anyone would buy their solution and resorts to "pitching".

Next week we will look at some of the steps we can take to address this issue.

If you have any examples of the imbalance between sales and marketing (from either a sales, marketing or customer perspective) please share them by placing a comment.

"Look they are Listening!" - Update on Active Speaking

Short entry this week (I am supposed to be on holiday, but my wife has gone shopping!)

So I am into my first week of "active speaking" and I wanted to give yo a quick update.

1. Active speaking in a meeting - I had a very important sales call for a client (my role was to ensure that the meeting achieved its objective, without taking it over!) The impact of active speaking, in my humble opinion was quite dramatic.
• We learnt far more than we expected
• The customer committed to a strategy that could open up 15% of their client base to our offer!
• They confirmed their agreement that our sales strategy was correct.
• They agreed to a half-day meeting in three weeks!
2. Active speaking with colleagues - I have started speaking quieter, but as most of my conversations this week have been over the phone, they keep saying speak up!
3. Active speaking with my family - Major success here, my 17 year old agreed to something! (more work, get some work experience, tidy his room). I only hope this continues.

So how have you been getting on? Please drop me a line mark.savinson@sales-accredit.com or comment on the blog.

Can we have your feedback - Please let us know what you think of this blog, is it useful, what would you like more of? All comments will be gratefully accepted (either add a comment or send me an e-mail  mark.savinson@sales-accredit.com )

Next week we will start to look at the challenge of getting sales to support the needs of the marketing strategy, and vice versa.

Don't speak so loud if you want others to listen

I was very fortunate to meet one of the most impressive characters I have ever met, Neil Rackham. Neil, as you may know, was the creator of SPIN selling and is recognised as one of the leading thinkers in what makes a sales person effective.

Rather than go in to detail of our discussion, I'll save this up for another time, I want to highlight one of Neil's most impressive traits, the volume of his voice. Neil is a very softly spoken individual and he forces you to listen to him, rather than hear him! I am sure that this is deliberate, as I found myself concentrating on what he was saying as opposed to thinking ahead and missing key parts of the conversation. Neil is implementing what I would call "active speaking".

Everyone talks about active listening as a key aspect of a successful sales call, but how many of us combine active listening with broadcast speaking (i.e. we go into pitching speak) where we talk at the client. I know that I am often accused of "telling people" or "using the force of my personality to get a point over". My meeting with Neil revealed an alternative approach - speak quietly and bring the listener gently into the discussion.

The active speaking behaviour is:

• Speak at the volume you would normally use to calm somebody down.
• You will find that you naturally slow down the speed of speaking (providing you with thinking time, and making it easy to listen to).
• Encourage the listener to join you in the conversation.
• If you want to draw something don't use a flip chart, use a piece of paper and get the person to join in. 

The 21 day active speaking challenge
I have been set a challenge by my colleagues, and we are setting the same challenge to all the sales people we coach, the challenge is as follows:

For the next 21 days I should use active speaking in every meaningful conversation I have. This will cover 1-2-1's with colleagues, sales calls and coaching sessions.

Why 21 days? - This is the time it takes to turn a new behaviour into a habit. Research shows that if you repeat the behaviour throughout the 21 days (with the intention of accepting the behaviour), at the end of the period you will do it without thinking.

So I am setting the same challenge for you (and your teams). Introduce active speaking in your 1-2-1 sessions and customer discussions and post comments here to tell us how it is going.

There are no Advanced Selling Skills only the right behaviours

One of the things I often get asked by sales leaders is

“How can I improve the selling skills of my people?”

To paraphrase the reply to “How do I get to the Albert Hall?” the answer is

“You have to practice”

Sales Directors talk about needing to have a sales team with Advanced Selling Skills what I would say is “no, you need sales people who regularly, every day, every sales call, practice ADVANCED SELLING BEHAVIOUR”

I recently attended an “Advanced Selling Skills” workshop. The content was good and so were the two guys delivering it. So what is wrong with that I hear you ask. Well nothing other than the skills trained in were not “advanced”; they were good, standard skills around asking good Questions to understand what is going on, Listening intently to evaluate, diagnose, comprehend etc, handling Objections and Negotiating.

All good stuff but......

I have a issue with this and it is nothing to do with the content or trainers - both were good. The problem is more for the Sales Director of the client buying the training. That problem is that none of this content is new, it is what his people should already be doing. The challenge is “what will change as a result of your people attending the training workshop”?

Their problem is the challenge of achieving target in a difficult market (but it exists in a buoyant market too) will only go away if as salespeople they not only understand “Advanced Selling Skills” but practice them every time they speak to a customer.

The other issue I have is with many people’s ATTITUDE. Fortunately for me mine is positive. Fool that I am, I really believe that working hard, developing new skills and applying them everyday in my work will move me forward psychologically and move my business forward fiscally.

What I witnessed in this training workshop was a poor attitude of everything being negative - “why do we need more training, our prices are not competitive, even if I could sell in these difficult times we can’t deliver” etc etc etc. Boring, boring, boring.

How about this as another way of looking at the world - “My sales director cares. He cares about his job, his company and his sales teams. He cares enough to spend money on my education even in these difficult times when it is really, really hard for my company to justify spending their money on my education. So I am going to take this opportunity by the scruff of the neck. I am going to go away from this workshop and practice these skills over and over until I get really good at selling such that my clients benefit from the great solutions my company offers, my company earns much needed revenue and I earn a great big, fat bonus”.

Attitudinally that sounds and feels a lot better

I feel better too having written this blog today. So everyone’s a winner

PS I just read the Rambler’s Association blog - it went on and on and on and on........

Why are so any managers busy doing nothing?

Have you noticed how so many managers (and not just sales managers) seem to be incredibly busy, but actually achieving very little? If I were unkind I would say that there seems to be an outbreak of headless chickens in senior positions. So what is going on and what can we do about it?

Clearly the current economic climate has a part to play in this outbreak of headless chickens. There are a lot of people worried about their jobs and when this happens we all focus on trying to look indispensable. Look around you. How many of your colleagues are 100% focused on managing upwards? If your manager is deciding who stays and who goes it seems sensible to focus on them!

So why is this an issue?

From a sales effectiveness perspective we are unfortunately seeing the following symptoms:

• Measuring the wrong things - Sales teams seem to be focussing ever more on activity - number of customer visits, number of calls, number of quotes sent out, size of pipeline, without having an equal focus on quality of activity. If you are seeing this in your organisation you need re-dress the balance.
• Visiting customers who are not going to buy may achieve customer-facing time but will it bring success?
• Ringing lots of people without an effective message or objective will only increase your phone bills.
• Having a large pipeline, which is not properly qualified, only makes you feel better in the short term
• Lack of focus - As a simple sales person I like to be told what I am selling and to whom, and then be left alone for a period of time to get on with it. However, currently organisations are constantly “re-focussing” whether it is to drive margins, clear stock, help a specific product line etc. There are clearly good reasons for this, but it does drive specific behaviours:
• Clients will constantly be looking for the last minute offer, hence driving down your prices.
• Sales move away from a “solution-led sale” (solving clients problems) towards a “product push sale”. This may actually result in less sales and confused customers.
• Even less Sales Management - We constantly comment that Sales Managers need to focus more on coaching and managing the focus of their teams and not trying to be “super sales people”. But with human nature being what it is, as the numbers look less and less achievable, more and more sales managers think the answer is to get back out and sell themselves.

Beyond this, sales managers are under even more pressure from their managers, constantly being asked to update reports, join conference calls, review their people. Leaving very little time, even if they had the desire, to do coaching.

However all is not lost. If you look towards Stephen Covey and his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Habit 3: Put First Things First. The most important lesson is balancing those “Urgent” (reactive) activities with the “Important” (Strategic) activities. By focussing on the Important activities you will discover that the number of Urgent activities reduce as you are in control of your strategy. If you want to know more look at http://www.sales-accredit.com/docs/urgent-vs-important.pdf which is Accredit’s take on this

So why is this an opportunity
As many of the commentators are constantly pointing out, even in a recession some companies flourish. This is because they take advantage of the chaos to stand out from the crowd. This is where the opportunity lies.

Out sell your competitors
If your competitors internal sales engine is not functioning properly, then think what impact it has on prospects who want to solve a problem. The prospects do not care about sales peoples internal issues, they will buy from whoever addresses their need and makes it easy to buy. This could be you!

To take advantage of this opportunity you must ensure you are not making the same mistakes as your competitors:

• Sort out your measurements - measure the right things and be accurate with your measurements
• Have a clear focus - know your message, practice the delivery of the message, monitor the effective delivery of the message. Most important of all “Listen to your customers
• Get your sales managers to manage. You know that 80% of your sales comes from 20% of your people. Make those 20% even better and drag the next 20% into that group, imagine what that will do to your sales.

Use your client internal management challenges as a trigger for a sale
The headless chicken syndrome is not just apparent in sales; it is prevalent across a wide variety of organisations. This is an opportunity as associated with the chaos will be frustrations, and these frustrations are the emotional triggers that lead to need, which lead to sales.


From a selling perspective we should understand our clients and prospects internal pressures and identify what are “Red” emotional hot buttons which will stop decisions and “Green” emotional hot buttons which will enable decision making. If you want to know more about this you can see/hear a 25 minute presentation at http://www.esquaredm.com/newcontentdemo.asp

Everything is fine, I am happy with what we do now, we do not need your help!

Have you noticed how satisfied with their existing supplier/solution all your prospects have suddenly become?

"We are very happy with the system we currently use, there is no reason to look at an alternative"

"Yes we already do that ourselves, we do not need any outside help"

You have to ask yourself the questions, "Is everyone happy, or is this the first objection I have to overcome?".

Experience tells me that in most cases it is the latter, as a colleague said to me "when the house is burning down around you, you are going to focus on your survival and not how you could improve the kitchen". This, I suspect, is the root cause of the sudden outbreak of satisfaction - heads down, don't rock the boat, no-one is going to fail because they stick with the status quo, etc.

So how can we overcome these.

1. Don't take the objection personally - clearly no-one can provide the service/product/solution as well as you.
2. Use this objection as an opportunity to find out why they are happy, how does their current solution deliver such an outstanding return. Be interested, "I would really like to understand what it is about your supplier you like so much, we are not perfect and it will help me understand how we could improve...."
3. Remember, people like to talk about themselves and I guarantee that in telling you what they like they will also tell you what they dislike.
4. Be bold, if you suspect that they are using the "we are happy" as a means of putting you off - ask them how they have measured the "happiness", is it a financial measure, a service level measure, a subjective measurement. Again this give you the opportunity to be benchmarked against that measure.
5. Be humble, "If you feel you are as effective as you can be then I congratulate you, there is clearly nothing I can do to help.......but if you think there is still room for improvement...."
6. Don't be put off - as Thomas Edison put it "genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". You should not give up at the first hurdle.

If you believe that every objection provides an opportunity to further the conversation, then any statement from the prospect that they are happy is purely an invitation to find out why. Don't miss out on this, ask them the question and let them talk. The worse that will happen is that the prospect will qualify themselves out, which is of course good as it will free up valuable sales time you might otherwise have wasted chasing an opportunity you could not win.

Let's move away from "Fast Show" selling

I am sure you remember the Fast Show sketch when the character (Jesse) came out from his shed and said "This week I'ave been mostly wearing Dolce & Gabbana". It is strange to think that he has been the inspiration for many "sales campaigns" that I have come across of late. "This month I am mostly selling......"

Why do we think that customers will positively react to a sales approach that says, whatever your problem is the answer will always be X! Imagine how you would feel if you went into a shoe shop wanting a pair of walking boots to climb Kilimanjaro and the sales assistant patiently listened to your requirements and came back with a pair of football boots because they were having a promotion on football boots, how would you react. Badly I assume. So why do we ask our sales people to "pitch" solutions regardless of the customer need.

I fully appreciate that there are challenges about having excess stock of specific products and that we all need to focus our sales people on selling higher margin offerings, but when did we become so inwardly focussed as opposed to customer focussed.

Success for sales only comes by linking identified customer need to our offerings. Without this linkage there is no benefit to the customer in buying from us. The shoe shop maybe offering the best football boots in the world, at the cheapest possible price, but unless I play football (and want to replace my boots) I will not buy!

Now I am sure some of you are thinking "but this does not happen in professional business to business sales". But I am afraid you are wrong, let me give you two examples.

1. An account director from a global ICT solutions provider has been asked to arrange a workshop with their client to fully understand the strategic and operational business issues facing that client so they could jointly build a roadmap to addressing those needs. The account director sells the concept to the client, and is mildly surprised at how happy the client is to have the opportunity to discuss his business challenges, as opposed to discussing technology. Now hear comes the surprise - The account director rings me up (I am facilitating the workshop) and says "I am concerned that I will not be able to present our Unified Communications solutions at this meeting, I do not want to come away without a clear opportunity to sell UC as this is my quarter's focus".
Now here is a clear case of Fast Show mentality - whatever the customer says I want the answer to be UC.
2. A second example is of a manufacturer telling its sales team that the aim for the month was to have a focussed call out promoting a specific model, at a slightly reduced rate and that they were expected to offer this model to everyone as the first offer. Now this confused the sales team who immediately went into "pitch" mode, classic Fast Show selling resulting in telling not listening in there interaction with prospects, and they wondered why they were making no progress!

So what is the answer?

Let's put the customer back at the centre of our approach:

• By asking good questions at the facilitated workshop we will be able to identify the clients key challenges and if UC is relevant we will be able to introduce it. If it is not relevant we will be able to identify other opportunities, and the client will see we are listening to them, focussing on their priorities, and identifying how we can help them
• For the Manufacturer - Use of "broad" Reason to Call programmes which are based on the issues customers are trying to address and once a conversation has started, where appropriate, they can mention the offer, but only where appropriate.

You would think that this is all obvious, and I have never said that I do anything difficult, but go back and look at what many of your sales and marketing people are doing, and I guarantee you will find similar examples within your own company.

So if you want to do Fast Show selling make it "today I will be mostly discussing the customer's issues and identify how I can help"

Don't let "displacement activities" divert you from the right behaviours

In these challenging times we are all faced with having to do things that fall outside of our comfort zone, and as managers we not only have to worry about ourselves but also our teams.

Over recent months we have seen a worrying behavioural change in the increased prevalence of "displacement activities" - activities we undertake as a replacement to doing what we ought to be doing. This is significant as it highlights the failure to embed the desired behaviours & habits, and an acceptance that being busy is often an excuse for not doing.

Let me give you some examples of what we are seeing:

An organisation that is trying to focus its outbound calling activities around Reasons to Call:-

• The sales managers are saying that they are being asked to promote specific offers (due to excess stock) and that this is stopping their people having needs led conversations to identify broader opportunities.
• The displacement activity make calls to everyone about a price led offer
• The outcome is that the sales people are fixated on price and failing to identify the business needs behind the purchase decision. This is resulting in a low conversion rate (we are still too expensive) and poor selling of value add services
• The required action - Sales Managers have to be driven to use the Reason to Call approach (formal KPIs) and explain how this can be used to sell excess stock as well as everything else

An organisation that needs to drive sales managers to coach to overcome weaknesses in basic sales activities within the teams

• Sales Managers have successfully moved the goal post from a sales managers programme to identify talent and improving their performance.
• The displacement activity, build a talent programme
• The outcome - The basic issues will sales management will remain, but a few people will feel better as they are now in the talent pool.
• The required action - Have a sales managers programme that improves sales management & coaching behaviours, by all means include the talent pool in this to build sales managers of tomorrow

An organisation who is growing rapidly which is putting pressure on its existing processes

• The operations team and sales team have started a debate about "pre-sales" and who owns it
• The displacement activity - ongoing debate as opposed to someone owning it and driving to a solution
• The outcome - nothing will change until a client problem forces the issue
• The required action - Set a deadline when the new processes must be in place, allocate an owner who has both power and responsibility.

As a sales person I regularly see displacement activities being used in my clients as a means of ignoring the issue, in fact one client admitted that with so much change going on they were busy keeping busy (I need to look indispensable). Clearly it is my job as a sales person to overcome this.

Step 1 in overcoming this is to get people to recognise it is taking place and the impact it will have!

Step 2 is to get into the habit of doing the important things rather then the urgent, displacement things.

Step 3 is getting your team to do the same

Want to know more on Urgent versus Important, register for a free trial on our E2M website (www.esquaredm.com) go to the Coaching & Resources section and look at "Success is planned it does not just happen"

Sales Managers - JDI is not good enough

I have been speaking to a lot of Sales Directors and Sales People who are at either end of the frustration spectrum:

• Sales Director - "the activity is just not there, we are not seeing the results, pipeline is poor and forecasts are not accurate"
• Sales Rep - "I don't have time to do my job, I keep being asked to update reports, do account plans, focus on this product and then that product. They have cut head count and handed the work over to me, there is just not enough time in the day"

Clearly the person who is supposed to bridge the gap is the sales manager but I keep hearing the same message "it's tough out there for everyone, they just need to get on with it, I used to and I got the results....."

I am sure many of you are thinking, what's wrong with that, "I was brought up on the JDI school of management and it didn't do me any harm". But think back, how many people fell by the wayside as you progressed through sales, and how much of your experience was based around a sellers market.

So here I go back on my favourite theme coaching - the JDI approach to sales management relies on people knowing what they are supposed to be doing and a philosophy that activity equals success. However we all know now that it's not just about activity, but it is about focus and quality leading to effective activity.

Before you say JDI, find out what they are currently doing. Remember Einstein defined madness as "doing the same thing in the same way and expecting a different result". If sales management follow a pure JDI approach to life they are re-enforcing the madness and we are just creating a lunatic asylum.

So let's move away from JDI and introduce a new mantra for sales management Observe. Listen, Analyse, Coach.

Once sales managers, or your best performing sales people (the ones that just get it and do it well), have done this then by all means they can tell their people to JDI, but at least they know what they should be doing.

Email - Friend or Foe

How often do sales people hide behind e-mail, thinking that an e-mail is an equivalent of a conversation.

When asking for an update on an account how often do you hear "I dropped them a note and I am waiting for a reply......" Let's be clear e-mail is not a replacement for a conversation, it is solely an electronic, one-way communication. If you want an electronic equivalent to a conversation then by all means use IM, Skype Chat, etc. These all have the characteristics of a conversation, you know if the client has "heard" as they have to give an immediate response, no response tells you that they have not received the message.

Why do I think this is important well I was recently speaking to a senior manager of a professional services company, a supplier had just cancelled a meeting and he was fuming. I asked him why and he said "they didn't have the grace to call me, they just sent an e-mail" as far as he was concerned it completely undermined the relationship that the sales rep had been trying to build up. "I didn't mind the meeting being cancelled, but it would have been as quick to call me as it was to send the e-mail"

I have a simple mantra that helps me ensure I communicate with my clients in an appropriate manner "do to them as I would like them to do to me." If your relationship is purely e-mail based then e-mail is the perfect media. If you have moved on to a more "personal" relationship then your communication should be more personal (phone, text, IM, etc.)

I am not anti e-mail, but it is not a "real-time" communication tool and if you need to get a quick answer or to apologise for re-arranging a meeting, please use a more conversational based tool.

"SHEEP DIP" TRAINING IS A WASTE OF MONEY

Don't get me wrong, I think all training is useful as it engages us in new knowledge or reinforces learning. But why do some organisations insist on spending huge amounts of money on giving the same training course to everyone irrespective of the needs of the team and the individuals within the team. How about targeting development coaching to individuals and building personal development plans based on the needs of each team member?

Of course new products being introduced, new financing deals and the like require the Salesforce to be trained but training everyone repeatedly on basic sales skills year after year is an excuse. It is like the Sales Management team is passing the buck.

How about this as a model? Observe your Sales people regularly in live sales calls. Objectively assess their performance (using an assessment model such as http://www.esquaredm.com/) and then build individual training and coaching plans based on their sales performance.

Makes sense doesn't it? Training and developing your people based on their individual needs and focused on improving performance in the job they are paid to do.

To make this happen you have to have committed sales managers who are prepared to regularly assess their team's performance with real clients. That is what they should do isn't it? Anything else is a bit like a sport's coach picking the team and then not turning up to watch them perform on a Saturday afternoon.

So please don't just sheep dip your sales team (unless they all have ticks that need to be removed). Instead, regularly observe them doing their job, assess their performance and provide coaching and training that is based on their individual development needs.

So when did you last watch your sales people in action?

On a recent programme, at least 15% of the sales community we assessed did not behave like sales people, instead they saw themselves as "relationship managers" (business speak for order talkers). Of the remaining team members we assessed, 20% just got it and the remaining 65% needed help from their managers to keep them focussed and showing the right habits.

This did not surprise us, but of greater concern it did surprise their Sales Managers. So we did some additional digging around and kept hearing the same thing:

• “this is the first time anyone has looked at how I sell and given me coaching”
• “the only time my manager joins me at a meeting is to either be there when we sign the deal or to sort out a problem”
• “I really want help but my manager is not interested in helping me”.

So what are the Sales Managers doing? In truth they are either acting as "the super salesman" who rescues the deal, or they are too busy manipulating the pipeline and forecast to keep their managers off their backs. They have forgotten that a key part of their role is to manage their sales people and more important act as a coach.

So our challenge to all our customers is set your managers the objective of observing a minimum of one call per sales person per month, and coach their people based on the behaviours observed in the call

It's not difficult and the best sales teams are doing this now!

Selling is about positive and negative emotions

How many times have you been sold to and been impressed with the product but not with the way the sales person "engaged" with you? Quite often in my experience

At Accredit we assess sales people from large and small businesses. They are always eager to sell their solution and believe that if they understand our needs or business problems then they can match their proposition to those needs and therefore make the sale. True, up to a point

How about the emotional side of selling though? What if the sales person does not pick up on your body language if you are not sure, what if they do not listen when you say "I can see what you mean but it's not for us". What if they really understood that buying is about emotions - the emotions of wanting to do something because it brings you some personal benefit (such as helping you to achieve your personal objective of reducing your budget spend on a service by x% or helping you to look good with your boss because it solves a long running problem your company has had)

Next time you sell listen out for the emotional signs, look for the body language and verbal signals. If your customer likes what you have to offer find out what is particularly driving that emotion. Equally if they do not like your offer, ensure you get underneath why by asking some simple, open questions and really understand what is driving their dislike or fear.

Selling should not be complex. It should be a process of finding out what somebody wants, matching your product or service with that want and showing some value in return. We are human beings, we are driven constantly by our emotions. Tap into those emotions and you will be more successful in driving more sales

Lies, damn lies and statistics

As an avid follower on LinkedIn I was following (and participating) on a discussion concerning what percentage of target should we expect sales people to achieve. One of the contributors, from a well known sales methodology and training company, excitingly told us that "in our annual sales performance study we have consistently found that 78% - 80% of your revenue comes from 20%- 22% of sales reps"!

Now it doesn't take a genius to recognise that Pareto's law (80:20) drives our lives and that there must be better things to do than spend money on a survey that states the obvious. Perhaps we should conduct a survey of surveys to find out that 80% of surveys tell us what we already knew and 20% are just made up stats.

Isn't it about time consultants stopped trying to be clever and instead tried to help their clients help themselves!

By the way can anyone tell me the time as I have a client who needs to know the time........

If you don't ask you will not hear

I recently facilitated a workshop between an account team and their client, the silence from the account team was deafening! They seemed in awe of the CIO, who was remarkably open about his issues, but not one question came from the account team. In fact the only contribution from the team was to try and invite the CIO to an open day and even though he politely declined they had 2 more attempts.

So why is this? I can only assume that the account team are so used to customers buying technology that they could not deal with "business issues" that the CIO wanted to talk about.

Does this sound familiar. So what can we do about it.

1. Let's ensure that we coach our people in asking questions beyond the technology
2. Give them a structure to follow, it does not have to be complicated but they should find out about: Current projects; financial challenges; strategic imperatives; risks that may concern them; buying process, etc.
3. Attend meetings and watch them do it
4. Ensure that they not only ask the questions, but also listen to the answers

By the way, I am sure you want to know what happened with the meeting, well we uncovered 2 major opportunities that are driven by the need to create a more flexible business model, move from a fixed cost to a variable cost model, provide high service levels, and a desire to move to utility pricing. Now it is over to the account team

Sales Coaching - easily said but often poorly executed

Someone once asked me if I had a mentor to which I replied, "yes hundreds". What I meant was I try to learn something from everyone I meet. In effect I use others great tools, techniques and ways of learning for my own personal growth.

I guess it is a kind of self coaching - learning from others by listening, observing and trying something new.

I coach many people and one of the things I am often told is, "I don't have a coach or a mentor and that is why I am not improving. My boss just doesn't have the time to coach me".

How about using all of your business and personal encounters as opportunities to be coached?

Now I am not advocating that you do not need a coach to help you improve - maybe that is your boss, perhaps it is a mentor outside of your immediate job - but you can use your everyday encounters as coaching sessions. Listen to how some people introduce themselves, observe how some carry themselves, look out for tips on how to act in certain situations when you are with your clients.

Treat everyone you meet as somebody you can learn from and be "coached" by. The difference between being managed and being coached is that managing is about data, projects, doing stuff. Coaching is about improving by communicating, adapting and trying out different methods and ways of doing stuff.

In these challenging times change is inevitable and indeed healthy. Those who thrive will be the ones who are constantly learning, constantly coaching themselves and constantly improving.

Welcome

We are constantly confronted with sales organisations who suffer from madness, as defined by Einstein "doing the same thing in the same way expecting a different result". Whether it is how they engage with their customers, what they say to them, or even how they train their teams, they are constantly surprised that they are not seeing any change.

In the current economic climate selling, as opposed to order taking, will help separate those who thrive from those whose sole aim is to survive. We are working with many sales teams selling to all sizes of business, and we will share our observations, experience and when the opportunity arises provide guidance on how you can drive effectiveness in your sales organisation.

We will not position ourselves as "experts" (defined as "ex" as in has-been and "spurt" water under high pressure, therefore a has-been under pressure) instead we pride ourselves on looking for simple solutions to problems that anyone can use.

We want feedback from all our readers as we know that we do not have all the answers and that the only way to improve is by constantly challenging your views and learning from others. Fortunately experience has shown we are usually right!

I hope you find our thoughts useful

Mark