244 Selling days left in 2024

Savvy sales leaders understand the rhythm of selling in a calendar year...in the first quarter (after territories and quotas are communicated to the field), sales people should be researching and prioritizing their accounts and planning their engagements.

In the second quarter opportunities should be developed, discovery conducted and value established. For larger accounts, account planning should be planned and held (with the customer's active participation. Your customers do attend your account planning sessions, right?)

In the third opportunities should be de-risked and customer commitments nailed down. Account planning should be continued. Executive briefings should be planned and hosted.

And...in the fourth quarter, deals should be closed.

There's only three challenges with this approach.

First, that's a lot of "shoulds."

With a formal structure in place, at the field level, and effective process facilitation, these important activities will happen, with effectiveness and impact.

Second, customers don't subscribe to the sales calendar...they have their own rhythm of business, whether their fiscal year ends in June, they have a fourth quarter freeze, or they simply have needs that aren't calendar bound.

Third, sales teams have a constant inflow and outflow of talent that requires retraining, new enablement and learning facilitation.

How much of this are you leaving to chance? Are you counting on a manager named Should to ensure the success of your team through the course of the year?

How did that work out for you last year?

What are you doing to ensure that these actions actually happen, with expediency and effectiveness?

If you'd like help ensuring success this year please reach out for an initial conversation.

Thanks!

Lee

106 Selling Days Left in 2023

 

A CEO recently asked me to list the most important characteristics of a successful sales person. First, I referred him to Dave Kurlan at Objective Management Group, which pioneered the Sales Assessment Industry many years ago.

Then based on my experience in selling, coaching sales teams, leading a sales organization and implementing sales effectiveness and enablement practices, I came up with the following short list:

• strong work ethic
• excellent organizational skills
• high EQ
• strategic perspective
• curiosity

Of the five, I believe only the last can be developed. The others are either innate or they're absent.

Why is curiosity so important? Because curiosity drives success in value selling. If a sales person is curious, they will continue to gather information and develop hypotheses so that they can be more effective in engaging with customers on their terms.

They will not just scan the corporate website and maybe a LinkedIn profile or two. They won't just listen to the latest earnings call.

They will find the key stakeholder's personal blog and read it thoroughly. They will go back many quarters to see how the earnings calls change topics and tone over time, what issues the analysts continue to focus on, what initiatives are evergreen (but never actually get addressed.)

They will develop powerful hypotheses and share them from a place of curiosity and openness.

Many years ago, we landed a significant consulting contract at IDC because my curious coworker identified a personal interest of a key stakeholder at a large tech company, "bumped" into him at the punchbowl at a charitable fundraiser and exchanged business cards. That "chance" exchange helped launch our Sales Productivity consulting practice.

While facilitating an account planning session at Oracle, one of my more curious reps pointed out that we were missing a key stakeholder on the influence map. She had researched similar deals at the account and understood the internal process. She indicated that there was probably a "Jane Doe" in the loop, and if we failed to identify and include her in the process, we had little chance of closing the deal.

The task of identifying that "Jane Doe" was added to the action plan. Months later the team celebrated a substantial win.

So...how is sales rep curiosity developed? I do it through a facilitated process focusing on the behaviors that both support and drive curiosity. That repetitive behavior changes attitude, builds and reinforces curiosity.

Success breeds success...and finding interesting and useful details drives the rep to continue to dig. Then I solidify the learning with my favorite line by Michael Douglas in The Kominsky Method: "How did that feel?"

By the way, if your opportunity development and account planning processes aren't filling your pipeline and you would like assistance in implementing/facilitating/improving them, let me know!

Thanks!

 

 

Lee

107 Selling Days Left in 2023

 

If your team is focused on greenfield, you are running out of time to move new accounts through the selling (and buying!) process.

It's also unfair to ask hunters to continue to work on accounts unlikely to close until next year, when comp and territories will be different.

Shift the team's energies from early stage opportunity pursuit to those already in discovery. You can circle back to those early stage accounts later in the year as the the volume of prospects declines, or get back to them early next year. If they had a pressing need, they'd already be in discovery!

Focus on identifying and engaging with the economic buyer, mapping the decision criteria and process, and developing a mutual action plan to accomplish all the tasks necessary to get to close/won.

Conduct opportunity reviews to de-risk deals. You'll identify what actions need to be taken on each deal, and you'll figure out which deals are solid and which reps are blowing smoke. Your forecast calls will be less painful and more fruitful.

With this focus on developing and closing in Q3 and Q4, versus hunting and finding, you are much more likely to meet/exceed quota expectations for FY23.

You can thank me later. :)

By the way, if you don't currently conduct opportunity reviews, and would like assistance in implementing/facilitating them, let me know!

 

Lee