Micro Entry: Are good sales people born or made?

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Sales is two parts art and one part science.

The subtlety of the art is in the ability to cognitively understand and appreciate human behavior and sociology, and to be able to guide the moving parts to your benefit and theirs. This doesn’t mean that you have to be a "type A" (god I hate that term). It simply means you have to be comfortable enough in your own skin and intelligent enough to know how much you really matter. To position yourself appropriately.

The science is the process. Bad business cycle science can limit the best and good business cycle science can hide the worst. Even the best process cant supplant the human element but it can at least provide an adequate guide rail to give the motivated amongst us a chance to achieve the goals of the organizations we serve.

Even the most gifted relationship builders cannot overcome a lack of discipline though. Eventually comes down to having a "mothers sauce". There has to be a methodology that tells you when you are full of it.

Sales people need this, and if we don’t have it, we will glide on our gift. That is until the ugly truths start to show itself. This happens usually when personnel changes in key accounts.

The best of us understand that Sales is a discipline like any other. There are some rules, though none are seeming hard or fast rules, and there are guiding principles and indicators that must be adhered to.

to answer the question. It is talent plus good methodology that equals a good sales person. It is the talented sales person that disciplines themselves and buys into the processes.

You Inc.

This entry has nothing to do with sales and everything to do with sales at the same time. It has to do mainly with leadership, but as one very wise and successful leader has taught me, "every good leader is a good sales person". This entry is about "You" the reader of this entry. Whether you run a business, or are employed by a company and sit in a cubical, you are still a business, and the name of that business is (your name) Incorporated.

A lot of people in corporate business seem unable to grasp the concept that no matter what they do for their company that they're essentially a sole vendor to that company and therefore selling a service to them. That service is their profession. You're a business and it's your job to run your role in a manner as such and to prove the value of your business to the company that's buying your service. An employment agreement is no more than a services contract. You are "You Inc." and you have a business to run. The problems I experience in talking to professionals about this is that most of them perceive the value proposition of their business incorrectly and have no consistent leadership in place.

Which brings us full circle back to leadership. Yes, leadership, the most overwritten about subject in business and life. There seems to be an overabundance of formulas and steps and instruction books on how to be a good one. The truth in my opinion is that a lot of consultants are getting rich from helping unnatural leaders feel comfortable leading something that they shouldn't be leading.

Leadership essentially isn't your fault. Some leaders end up there by accident, relationship, and others by reward for performance. These paths to leadership at times and by fate pick someone fit to actually lead, but many times they don't. True leaders, have a natural sense of self that guides them in their decision making. This sixth sense is the talent quotient of leadership but it's just one piece of the pie, and there's more to it than natural talent. I believe that upbringing, environment, influences, professional experience, education, desire, resilience, emotional makeup, and last but most importantly, common sense all play a role. The best decisions made by leaders are the ones that are clear, decisive and have an unmistakable direction while maintaining brilliant simplicity in their solution to a problem or opportunity.

I believe that we all have at least some of the basic elements of leadership in us to some degree that can be nurtured to perform as a guiding principle up to our natural ceiling. That ceiling is higher for some and lower for others. The limits of our makeup will limit the effectiveness of the kinds of things that we can lead, and the reach of how complicated and meaningful those things that we can lead are. The only things that fully maximize your leadership quotient is common sense. The quotient won't change much but you will operate it at it's fullest of potential if you adhere to these few common sense rules that I've learned that will help you lead "You Incorporated" more effectively.

Note: These aren't magic steps to becoming a good leader as much as they are a loose rough sketch of tips.

1. Make decisions
Even if you're the lowest of low persons on the totem pole in the mail room you still have decisions that are yours and solely yours. If you're decisive with a solid rationale that you're willing to defend then people will begin to perceive you as a person that can make decisions, a (gasp) decision maker. This perception doesn't start when you're given the power to make bigger decisions with more responsibility, they start when you tell the mail room manager that you're switching staple suppliers and the unemotional reason as to why you're doing it.

2. Place a (correct) value on your attention and time
If you're too accessible you're not a commodity, and you're not valuable. Limit your accessibility to matters that are urgent to the mission of the organization and your role at that very moment. Pay good and detailed attention to those matters at the expense of a  timely response to the peripheral and supportive tasks and messages. Soon enough you will only be bothered by people with things that are important to the success of what you are doing. Your time will be seen as valuable and hence your insight on matters valuable.


3. Deliver insight not just production
Anyone can be a worker bee. Anyone can deliver work, answer phones, and deliver spreadsheet reports and data. Data entry and administration is the world of the worker bee, the tactical tool, not the strategic instrument. Become perceived as a strategic instrument and shake the clothing of a tactical tool. Look at what your client (your employer) is trying to achieve and provide intelligent work to them that helps them achieve it. In other words, if you're a janitor, don't just mop the floor at 5  PM, watch the lighting system and make sure to tell operations that the lighting system is turning off some of the floors too late costing the company XXX dollars". If you're a an IT infrastructure admin, don't just tell your manager about availability of your networks, tell him that you read up on events that lead to a power surge in that part of the country where availability is lost daily at that time, and how avoidable the loss is if other factors are managed or mitigated by providing backup power to those machines.


4. Speak clearly
The economy of words is perhaps one of the most undervalued economies in the world. Learn to say less, use less words and to say more with what isn't said. Your goal is to communicate the same prose, emotion and description with as few words as possible. You will find out that your word choice will become decidedly more colorful and interesting and that people want to talk to you more. When they do, listen.

5. Listen more
No more needs to be said on this one.

6. Stop apologizing
Apologies signify weakness. Instead of apologizing offer an immediate solution that will act as a counter balance to rectify the error. Admit your error, yes, but do not apologize. Accountability and submissiveness are two distant cousins that should not be confused with one another in the work place. Admitting that you made the error is considered strong and a great sign of leadership, saying sorry or I apologize for the error, or some variation of conveys emotion and is as such considered submissive, weak, and insecure. Do not communicate with the affected parties  in order to take accountability unless you have devised your solution before you speak to them and can also end the conversation with your solution if possible. Own your error and commit to it's solution, but do not come with hat in hand.

7. Stop thanking so much
There are times and places to thank, but if you are always thanking those around you you begin to look like a beggar that feels fortunate just to be there. Your time and talent is of import to your colleagues, clients, and superiors or they wouldn't have you around. Allow them to keep that perception of you by voicing mutual benefit as much as possible. Turn "Thank you for spending an hour with me" into "I believe that hour was a great and valuable use of our time". It makes all the difference in the world. When it's suitable to thank due to someone making a concession of some sort or enduring some sort of discomfort to honor your requests then that's when you should thank them. A strange thing will happen, your appreciation will be seen as sincere and it will be.


8. Pick your ideas wisely
Most innovators won't admit this but a lot of them steal others ideas. What makes them successful is that innovation isn't magic, it's a fancy word for problem solving. Innovators take interesting ideas and give them that last component that takes them from being interesting  into being substantive and usable ideas. Part of leadership is innovation. If you're going to solve a problem by using an idea from someone else as a launching pad, then pick wisely. Learn which ideas of others are worth looking at and improving. Here's a hint, there are very few of them. Learn when to take credit for improving an idea to create a solution and when to step away from an idea that shows signs of weakness.If you decide to walk away give credit to it's interesting quality's only and then walk fast.


Best of luck with "You Inc." this year.


Naithan Jones



all contents of this blog are the copyrighted property of Naithan Jones

How to create a pipeline methodology that produces wins

A good sales person or manager inspects themselves critically at every turn in order to find out "what could I have done differently that would have changed this outcome for the better?". In the spirit of that self inspection and the few times spent in bars after a decision that didn't go my way I present this post. This is the formalized conclusion and response of one of those self inspection conversations. You know the ones where you're with your colleagues after a bad day, Scotch in one hand and an unsigned contract in the other. This process repeats until you get tired of the same result and decide to create a strategy. Well this is high level sketch of the strategy I came up with some years ago, and I must say my fortunes since those days have changed dramatically. This is a methodology built to help sales professionals understand their sales pipeline and to guide appropriate action.



Who  is are the decision maker?

No one really wins because of price. OK I take that back, no one really wins because of value, or vision match to the objective. OK let me restate this again, it's all of the above plus some. It's consensus. It's not the "silver bullet" that most sales people think wins deals. Sales processes don't have a silver bullet even though managers tell you to look for one. The decision maker is rarely one person, it's at least two, and some of the time three people. Yes I agree one person will ultimately sign your contract but not without the buy off of others they trust as they evaluate. Who ARE the decision maker? Stop trying to be the (cheapest/most technically sound/ easiest to use) because someone you trust in the sales process has told you that's their goal. The truth is it's a little of this this and little of that. If you don't have two or three people or at least a strong case as to why there is only one person  that you've pleased enough, then you're likely to risk the sales process.

Your goal is not to be the cheapest vendor, but inexpensive enough. Enough so that person in the room that manages budgets and projects is willing to work with the other person in the room trying to deliver some sort of technical result. Enough so that this person also feels your product/service is technical enough or delivers the desired result. This is an overgeneralized example. So who  is  are the decision maker then? Well, do the leg work and find out by building a process.


Philosophy:
The philosophy is called "3D". These principles drive system ensuring that it works

Duality - ensuring that you are using triangulation (to find out who is buying) and benchmarks (to give color as to why they are buying) in order to find the decision makers behind the decision maker.

Documentation - ensuring you have a documentation tool to code the maturity of the sales opportunity cycle and capture content to justify that coding.

Discipline - submitting to some form of accountability mechanism (person or report) and SLA (service level) in order to  ensure appropriate action within appropriate time to ensure that steps are not missed or acted on too late.

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The System
This system was devised to either avert a lost sale by being able to see missing pieces of the picture before they harm the sales cycle or to provide intelligence on non sales related issues that have caused a lost sales cycle.

*Triangulate (CRM requirement) Open Cycle (OC)
the decision making process to ensure that you have found the top three values and value holders in order to talk to the decision maker community. I use a formula that says OG*P + U + I / IG =DM


Organizational Goal times Power plus User plus Influencer divided by Individual Goals = Decision Maker.


Create fields that force you to answer all of these questions



Mid Cycle (MC)
Propose and pose (Sales professional requirement)

Individually summarize and confirm the desires of the triangle group verbally and give them a loose verbal proposal based on initial stated needs. Record this in your CRM or spreadsheet or where ever you're documenting this and then go to work. Ask the tough questions as you put together your final proposal.


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*Mature (CRM requirement) Benchmarks 1-6

In order to rank how mature the sales cycle is you take the intelligence and knowledge about recent wins and losses and boil them down to the key questions. Wins = why and  why you. Losses = the most key tough questions you asked yourself after these losses that you should ask yourself during a sales process. Write every single thing you know down and find the common themes for all of them and then find five to ten questions that are essential and make these your benchmarks. Put them in your CRM and then based on how much of the picture (or how many of the questions you have answered) rank the cycle higher and the probability of closing it stronger for each piece of the information you have. (for forecasting reasons)


Example:
(Created fields) 
BM1 = Alignment (three fields) (Asked and answered: anxiety question / vision match / differentiators)
BM2 = Competitive intelligence information (strength and weaknesses)  important to this sales cycle in particular, and as asked from the prospect and known about generally.

BM3 = Buying process (understanding of the client purchasing process from beginning to end, the "the who's and hows")

BM4 = Action item client / date (action item agreed upon at the conclusion of last meeting and date to be delivered)
BM5 = Action item sales / date (action item agreed upon at the conclusion of last meeting and date to be delivered)
BM6  = Plan (Three fields)  (presentation meeting date with triangle group, mutually agreed upon delivery date of contract, client stated goal for acquisition or start date)


Benchmark ranking metrics:
     
% Probability of closing sale
% Amount of total estimated sale in funnel


              1 completed = 15%
              2 completed = 25% 
              3 completed = 50%
              4 completed = 75%
              5 completed =  85%
              6 completed = 100% of total estimated sale is committed

 Formula:  AP - C x BP + CP = WS


Aligned Prospect minus Competitor times Buying Process plus Closing Plan = Won Sale


Assumption: Most good sales people do not use a methodology and are still able land one in four potentials forecasted, which accounts for 25% of the total value of their pipeline. This system is designed to accurately forecast the total maturity of individual sales cycles and the predictable sum value of your total pipeline simultaneously. To provide a micro and a macro picture of your pipeline and a good individual understanding of the pieces and parts inside the technical sales process.


(Example: I have a potential in my funnel that only has three benchmarks completed. The deal is estimated at 100K. There is a 50/50 chance that the deal will fall through, and only 50K is also forecastable)


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Closed Cycle (CC)
Propose and close (Sales professional requirement)

(8Check boxes)
boxes next to each date field in BM^checked as completed.

(Two final boxes for CW/Closed Won or CL/closed lost)


This is obviously a starting point for a methodology and not a fully fleshed out system, but if you take the principles and apply them to your culture and CRM then I'm confident there will be marginal improvements to your sales closing ratio and relationship development.


Naithan Jones



all contents of this blog are the copyrighted property of Naithan Jones


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What can Chef Ramsey's kitchen teach us about business and sales?

    I'm originally from the U.K. and my brother has been a chef for the past twenty five years. When we get together to spend time and watch television,and inevitably the channel either ends up on a European motor sports broadcast or a repeat of a previously aired "Kitchen Nightmares" reality program. This show, for those not familiar with it, follows a world renowned chef named Gordon Ramsey around as he surprises failing restaurants and their owners by showing up on their door to consult them on what's wrong with their business. Inevitably there's a battle of wills between Gordon and owner due to some sort of misguided and stubborn commitment to the owners original, and failing, vision for how to sell food. After finally succumbing and listening to Gordon, and after some bumps in the road they always turn it round by the end of the hour. Gordon is not pleasant. He's brash, vulgar, loud, to the point, and most importantly, he's always, and I mean always right.

   After watching an episode this past evening the topic of conversation switched to business and sales, and how everything that Chef Ramsey does to quickly turn a failing kitchen around is fairly analogous to any failing sales process or under performing business. I wrote this entry to list the recurring themes that stand out as sound best practices for sales and business from Chef Ramsey.

For sake of analogy, lets view the greeters and menu as the marketing materials (or PDF slicks, websites, etc.), the kitchen is the back office, the food is products (if you sell those) and the service are services (if you sell those).


KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid
One of the first issues Chef Ramsey seems to find consistently is a bad menu, and usually bad is quantified as a menu that's too large. Whether the food is good or bad, the customer has no idea what you do well. This puts the kitchen in a position where it cannot run efficiently due the scope of ingredients and diversity of orders, and there is waste as a result due to overstock of wide variants of ingredients needed to support the menu. Customers suffer long waits, the Kitchen gets backed up and confused, and the food is delivered poorly. Chef Ramsey invariably throws out the hodge podge menu and starts again with a paired down menu. He identifies where the restaurant is geographically and targets it's core buyer demographic. He builds a new small and targeted menu that's easy to market, easy for the service to remember and thus sell, simple for the kitchen deliver, and in the end all of this ends up for a product that will be sold much more, and will bring the customer back. He gives the place a (GASP) identity.

What is you vision?
You better know the answer, because your prospect will eventually ask. Understanding your client's mission and how your vision supplements that is the key to understanding how "KISS" applies.  Vision > Features + Substance > Style = Identity. One of the biggest reasons for sales funnel degradation is that our buyers really don't see us as clearly as we think they do, and that's because we've committed to selling features instead of selling vision and subsequently forfeiting a chance to build an identity with our client. This mistake leads to vendor white noise and eventually a choice made by price only and not necessarily by overall fit. Good news if you're the cheapest, but you won't always be, and eventually your client will figure out you don't have a vision and go elsewhere. As an overall business or as an individual sales person we should pick four or five things that target a theme and that you can do well and that you can master selling. In our world as sales people this means find the industry vertical where your product has the biggest sweet spot, identify the role in that vertical that typically spends on your offering and then find out what they bought, why they bought in the past and why they would buy it again, and guess what? There is your menu. It should be no more than four or five things. Get the orders that sell and that the kitchen is good at making quickly out of the kitchen fast. Really simple isn't it, stupid?

I personally believe these two things that Chef Ramsey emphasizes are directly analogous to most businesses and sales processes.

The art of prospecting IT managers and executives via email

The art of prospecting IT managers and executives via email

I recently had some sales executives ask me about my high success rate for gaining time on calendars that are usually too busy to accept meetings with sales people and vendors in general. I took a moment and documented my strategy. Live conversation is the most preferable means of prospecting anyone, but when live conversation isn't available the only other option is email and not voicemail in my opinion. Here is high level breakdown of my success with this approach.

What is the culture of a high performance sales organization?

Why do some sales organizations continually achieve high levels of performance output despite change in their line of business, or in their organization? A lot of it is culture in my opinion.

There are several cultural factors that contribute to successful sales teams.

12 philosophies for each month the year (Quick Entry)