Hospitality Sales & Management International


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Sales Management Training: Differentiating Your Business During This Recession

It’s amazing to me that most sales people, mangers and corporate officers believe they know what their prospects and clients are thinking and wanting.  On the surface and/or in general terms they may be correct sometimes.  However, it’s not the vague generalities that win sales.  Besides, when in a selling situation you don’t know if you are working with the rule or the exception.

As I’m mingling at a networking meeting an elderly gentleman stops me and offers a hello.  He asks me who I’m with, so I say, “I help people develop business.  So what are your major issues as it relates to business development during this economic down time?” And he says, “Getting more business.”

Then I ask him, “Do your current clients have business that you’re not getting?”  At first he says yes, but then quickly moves to tell me how he’s getting all the business from one of them.  So I say, “What about getting more from the others?”

Well, somehow he dodges this question and tells me what his company has that others don’t.  “We can react within a day,” he says.  “Our competitors need 1-2 weeks.” 

So I tried to say, “What if your other customers are not in a hurry, then what?”  But he didn’t answer this.  He just kept bragging about what he felt made his company special. 

So here are two points to learn from this story.

You may feel you have a differentiator – fast in his case, but be careful.  Not everybody wants what you think they should want?  In his case fast is a macro differentiator.  This can be used in marketing campaigns to attract leads that want work to begin with a few days.  However, once someone shows interest, you’ve got to move to the micro differentiators.  These are the issues and concerns that the individual wants solved and/or the desires s/he wants you to deliver.  Fast maybe one of them, but there may be others.  So just in case another competitor can do it fast also (because they have extra capacity during the slowdown), you’d better have some other deliverable that the person wants that you do well.

Not everybody wants you’re macro differentiator even though you think they should.  So when you’re going after a project and you want premium pricing, you have to find those that have to have you’re macro differentiator.  Actually this will be one of the criteria of you Ideal Customer Profile.  You want customers that need your services delivered right away. 

For those that don’t, you’re going to need other differentiators or else you’ll have to be the low bidder.  So, are there other things you do well?  Of course there are.  Start documenting how well you do them and what experience you have doing them.  Then when someone says they want services like you have, but not for a few weeks, and they want it done accurately with quick follow-up if needed, you can tell them how accurate you are and what your follow-up program is, as you back it up with numbers of jobs, testimonials and other proof.

The moral of this story is that in a recessionary period seek customers that fall in your sweet spot, but also open your thinking to other things you do well.  Document those other things and market those strengths also.  You don’t have to be the best or the only, just good.  And, the best place to start is within your existing client base.  You want 100% of the business from 100% of your clients.

And now I invite you to learn more.

Bonus tip:  FREE SALES TEAM ASSESSMENT TOOL.  Would you like to see something tangible that gauges the skills and behaviors of your sales people?  Just click this http://www.sammanfer.com/cleveltest.htm  C-Level Relationship Selling Link.   Sam Manfer makes it easy for any sales manager to be effective coaching his or her sales people to feel comfortable connecting with and relationship selling C-Level leaders. 

Hospitality Sales & Management International


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Sales Management Training: Protect Your Company From (sales) Identity Theft in 3 Simple Steps?

Business Development Officer? Business Procurement Specialist? Did you know these types of titles for salespeople can ultimately rob your organization?

As a Sales Management Training Consultant, I often notice business cards from salespeople with titles that require some effort to decipher. As I inquire further about their role, eventually it pops out – “I’m in sales”. It makes me wonder, when did “Sales” become a five letter word that can no longer show up on one’s business card? It gets deeper…

Building high performance sales organizations is my specialty. Much of my success is a result of a startling discovery made years ago – there is no proven correlation between Personality and Sales Productivity. This discovery enabled me to lead a team that transformed a B business unit into a B business unit in 18 months for a Fortune Global 500 company. How? We recognized anyone can succeed in sales despite personality. Sales is simple if you learn how to master sales behavior intelligence and develop your salespeople accordingly. Sales is about behavior and our proven sales system is built on the 25 behaviors that is proven to impact sales productivity – Sales Identity is one of the behaviors we measure.

What is Sales Identity?

Sales Identity measures a salesperson’s pride of the sales profession. If a person views selling as noble, they are considered to have a strong Sales Identity. The opposite is true for those who view a sales position as something to be ashamed of, they are considered to have a weak Sales Identity.

Selling is noble, we all sell everyday whether we realize it or not. However, selling is often perceived negatively because of bad experiences. To some degree, society tends to cast a negative light on people in the sales profession. Due to the strength of society’s misguided views, some sales professionals feel shame and are compelled to hide their sales position and adopt deflected titles such as, “Business Development Officers” or “Procurement Specialists”. Such behavior is proven to be costly, read on…

Some people refuse to accept the notion of selling altogether, even though they are in fact trying to close a deal. A classic example…

Recently I was on a flight to a sales conference in Atlanta and I struck up a conversation with the gentleman next to me. Our idle chit chat led into a careers conversation. He shared with me how he worked for a major home improvement company in charge of the distribution centers in 4 states in the South and Southwest. After explaining my role as a Sales Management Training Consultant and how I help sales teams and salespeople. He immediately responded with “I could never be a salesperson!” We continued our conversation and he explained to me that he was preparing for a major presentation with the Executive Team of the company because he felt he needed an additional Million allocated to his budget for the following year. He went on to demonstrate to me how the organization “would ultimately benefit from the additional spend with a better Return on Investment (ROI)…”

As he was explaining this to me, I began to smile and chuckle. Initially, he probably thought I was being rude. Then I asked him “So, you are trying to convince the Executive Team to give you an additional million for your budget, correct?” “Yes.” He replied. I then added “And you can support the benefits of doing so, correct?” “Yes” he replied again. “Are you sure you’re not a salesperson?” He sat back in his chair and smiled, I could see the light bulb turn on. My point dawned on him. I eventually gave him some coaching on how to think more like a salesperson and improve his sales presentation.

Why Measure Sales Identity?

Measuring Sales Identity can ultimately save your organization a substantial amount of money long term. How?

Organizations all over the globe are challenged to hire high performance salespeople, not doing so can be costly in terms of sales results, hiring and training costs. Recent studies show, the average cost of hiring a poor performing salesperson has swelled to over 0,000/year. Think about it, how much are hiring mistakes costing you?

Research shows – salespeople with weak Sales Identity will under perform within 6 months of joining an organization and ultimately “self select” out of the sales profession within 18 – 24 months. In fact, we found people with weak Sales Identity prefer to apply for “sales” positions with deflected titles because they insinuate less sales accountability.

Unless detected, salespeople with weak Sales Identity will struggle and steal valuable resources from your organization via increased turnover, higher training costs and poor sales results. Here are 3 simple steps to protect your organization going forward:

Step 1: Remove the Identity Crisis

A surefire way to jeopardize long term sales productivity is to have your organization struggle through a sales identity crisis. If the role is a sales role – title it as such. Top performing salespeople absolutely love sales and prefer to be called – Sales Representatives. Having deflected titles attracts weaker performers who will struggle to get out of the ranks of mediocrity long term.

Step 2: Monitor Your “Motivational” Costs with Sales Reps

If you find your sales organization spending more time on motivating sales reps within the 6 – 24 month window of being hired, you may have a Sales Identity issue. Depending upon the severity, there may be hope.

Step 3: Know What You’re Hiring, Prior to Making the Offer

Hiring mistakes pertaining to sales positions can be costly! Use an assessment tool that measures the Sales Identity of your candidates prior to hire.

Personal Accountability in Sales Management Training

For over 200 years the US Constitution has served as the system of fundamental laws and principles of our society. This amazing document has served as the cornerstone of our democracy. A reflection of our Founding Fathers’ core values, the Constitution has kept our society on track since 1787, and has certainly contributed significantly to the growth and success of the United States.

What is the Constitution of your sales team?

Have you, as yet, identified and communicated your cornerstone? If I was to ask five of your salespeople to describe to me what is expected of them in areas other than sales results would I receive five different answers?

The Production Equation: B+A=R.

Behavior plus activities equals sales results. Or, another way of saying this is that every successful sale is the outcome of a series of behaviors (how something is done) as well as activities (how many times a behavior is performed).

Unfortunately, many of us sales managers try to manage results. We wait until a rep has a bad month before we decide to get involved in “coaching” them. So then, when a rep produces a bad month, we rush over and smother them in coaching trying and get their production back up quickly. Sales managers who try to manage results are like a driver of an automobile who only looks in the rear view mirror… chances are they will be surprised when they collide with something that is unexpected. Looking only in the rear view mirror is not an effective way to drive a car, but it happens to be the way that many sales managers drive their sales teams.

Sales results can’t be managed, but behaviors and activities can.

To be the best sales manager you must get in front of the result, get the best sales management training possible, and put in writing your expectations of the behaviors and activities that contribute to sales results. 

Think of this issue – a team without well-communicated performance standards – from your salesperson’s perspective. As a salesperson, you have a clear understanding of the sales quota results expected of you, but you’re unsure exactly how to produce those results. So you do what you think you should. You “make it up on the fly.” Then, because nobody tells you you’re doing it wrong you assume it is acceptable behavior. So you keep doing it, and form bad habits. It’s an unproductive cycle.

How to Draft your Sales Team’s Constitution

Think of your top salesperson… what specific behaviors does he/she do that contributes to sales success? For example, “makes at least five new business prospecting calls every day.” Then, what attitudinal qualities does he/she have which contributes to success? For example, “attempts to solve problems before seeking help.”

Make a list of behaviors and activities that describe your top salesperson, and then share this list with everyone on your sales team. Have each of your salespeople assess themselves on a quarterly basis against these behaviors and activities: Meets, Exceeds, Needs Improvement. Then, sit down one-on-one with each salesperson, discuss his/her self assessment, and put a plan in place to improve those.

Four Components of a Sales Constitution are as follows: Written Well communicated Understood by everybody Equally applied

Sales Management Training; is it Really Necessary?

Sales Management training is not as common as it used to be, as more and more organizations think the sales management should already know it all. However, lack of training is the root to most companies’ bottomline problems.

Sales management training is just as important, if not more than, salespeople training.

Top executive management are the leaders of the sales force and need to be constantly demonstrating the appropriate behaviours for their salespeople to follow. It is really a monkey see, monkey do situation.

Are your sales leaders demonstrating appropriate behaviours?

Do they have goals and a plan of action to accomplish those goals? Are they disciplined, motivated, energetic and enthusiastic. Are they the type of mentor that you would like to have? Are they going on prospecting calls with their sales executives, or even handling accounts on their own?

Are they debriefing after a prospecting visit and providing feedback / coaching? Are they investing in their team or are they investing their time in moving upwards in the organization?

Without proper training, sales management is not half as effective as they can be. However, like most training, for the training to be effective it also needs to be customized to organizational objectives, it needs and should be conducted on an ongoing basis with one on one coaching.

Sales Management training should include following a sales results system, and demonstrating that system with their salespeople on an ongoing basis. For example, if sales executive management is always telling their salespeople what to do, who owns the idea and who is committed to making it happen? Also, what are the salesperson going to do with the customer – tell them as well?

What if sales management training provided a system whereby sales reps would be engaged, come up with ideas, take ownership and make it happen. Then who is committed? Is that not the way you would want your salespeople to be with your prospects and customers – engaging and buying from you versus telling and selling where there is no ongoing relationship.

Most organizations provide sales training, which is great, particularly if it is ongoing, but they forget salespeople management in the process. It will help management to hire top producers, and then allow them to motivate, mentor, coach, delegate, obtain ownership and commitment, build high performing teams, run effective meetings and provide for ongoing training, creating more winners.

Sales management training is the foundation to ongoing sales results from selection, to coaching, training, rewarding and promoting. It is absolutely necessary!

Take Your Sales Team from Good to Great with Sales Management Training

I recently reread Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t and found that many of his ideas can help you improve performance of your sales team.

Collins’ book answers the question: How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? Using tough standards, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of “comparison” companies that failed to make the leap from good to great.

Over five years and 15,000 hours of research, Collins and his team deduced the key determinants of greatness – why some companies make the leap and others don’t. Here are a few of their findings and what, I think, Collins’ findings mean to you and the development of your team.

Good is the enemy of great

Some sales teams will never be great because their sales managers settle for being good. It’s easier than being great. We have also found that a lot of sales manager do not send their salespeople to any sales seminars.

First Who… then What

Collins expected to find that Good to Great leaders would begin by setting a new vision and strategy. What their research discovered, however, was that the best leaders first got the right people on the team, de-hired the wrong people, and got everyone in their optimal position… and then decided what the vision and strategy was. The saying, “People are your most important asset” is incorrect. It should be changed to, “The right people are your most important asset.” Then, put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems.

Application questions: Is there anybody on your team who shouldn’t be? Do you have any team members in a less-than-optimal position, a person whose skills are not being fully utilized? What, and when will you rectify these situations?

Confront the brutal facts, but never lose faith

One of the most important findings from Collins’ research is that breakthrough results come about by a series of good decisions, diligently executed and accumulated one on top of the other. You don’t need to be perfect, but to be great you do need to make many more good decisions than bad ones. And good decision-making requires accurate information, which can be difficult to obtain. Collins writes:

Indeed, for those of you with a strong, charismatic personality, it is worthwhile to consider the idea that charisma can be as much a liability as an asset. Your strength of personality can sow the seeds of problems, when people filter the brutal facts from you.

Winston Churchill understood the liabilities of his strong personality. He was concerned that he wouldn’t get accurate information from his subordinates, so, during the darkest days of World War II, he founded the “Statistical Office”, a separate department outside the command structure that fed him the most accurate, indeed brutal, facts of the war. Churchill also possessed the second requirement of greatness — an unwavering faith that Britain would survive and thrive, even when things looked so bleak.

Application questions: What’s one great dream you would dare to dream (for your team) if you knew you could not fail?

Your “Stop doing” list is more important than your “To do” list.

Many sales managers lead busy lives, accomplishing task after task after task. Interestingly, the leaders studied in “Good to Great” companies made as much use of “stop doing” lists as “to do” lists. They continually asked themselves:

What can we do better than anyone else? What type of opportunities are we passionate about? And, what segment of customers allows us to make the most profit?

Good to Great leaders instilled the culture of discipline – by teaching their team where to focus, and what to ignore.

Application questions: What opportunities, or customer segments, can your team make a compelling case of being the best choice? Which of these opportunities are most profitable, and why? Finally, what can you become passionate about?

Is your team brilliant on the basics? If not, you may be losing sales you should be winning. At TopLine Leadership, we help salespeople re-focus on the fundamentals of effective salesmanship, and sales managers to master the basics of management / leadership. We can help you and your sales team with these concepts with our sales management training seminars and coaching.