Winning Edge: September 2017 - Tools for Today by Institute of Sales Management (ISM)

INSTITUTE OF SALES MANAGEMENT

WINNINGEDGE RAISING THE VALUE OF SALES

Number 3 2017 | ismprofessional.com | £4.95

BESMA ONS BECK VEMBER 9 NO IS THE BIG NIGHT

TOOLS FOR TODAY

TRAIN TO GAIN

HOW TO GET SALES COURSES TO STICK

MEET THE PRESIDENT

Our round-up of the latest sales enablement software

WINNING FORMULA

Plugging accountbased marketing Cover V3.indd 2

INTRODUCING THE ISM’S NEW LEADER

FRESH VISION

We must reinvent competencies

TALKING THE TALK

Collaboration will spur sales change 25/10/2017 17:43

Corpdata magazine adv2.pdf

07/05/2015

13:09

CMY

cover pages nov.indd 1

25/10/2017 18:05

CONTENTS

WINNINGEDGE 28

NUMBER 3 – 2017 ismprofessional.com

COVER STORY

16 3 ISM Editorial

24 Account-based marketing

Could ABM be the answer to marketing, sales and service integration, asks Beth Rogers

Introducing the ISM’s new President, Frank Rowe

4 Sales Talk

Institute of Sales Management 19 Eastbourne Terrace London W2 6LG Telephone: +44 (0)20 3870 4949 Email: enquiries@ismprofessional.com Website: ismprofessional.com President: Frank Rowe Chief Operating Officer: Roger Bradburn Head of Partnerships: Thomas Moverley Membership services: Susan Challenger Editorial: Marc Beishon, Tom Nash Design: Del Gentleman Advertising: Bej Shah Telephone: +44 (0)20 3870 4949 Email: enquiries@ismprofessional.com

Printed by: Ridgeway Press © ISM 2017. Opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by the ISM. The publishers endeavour to check all facts and figures prior to publication, but are not responsible for errors in material supplied to them for publication. Any article published will automatically be deemed to carry the sole copyright and be the property of the ISM. International Standard Serial No. UK ISSN 1746-6849

The latest sales news and research

28 Tooled up to sell

6 Smarter Selling

Marc Beishon provides our annual round-up of sales enablement and other sales software tools

Practical advice, from data protection to sales presenting

11 Tools for the job Innovative tech kit for sales pros

12 Behind the numbers

36 Finding the right words

A look at the latest global sales performance research

14 Points of view

40 Breaking the mould

Rob Spence on building bridges, and Tim Slapak on the difference between coaching and mentoring

Mark Erskine offers a new set of salesperson competencies

16 Professional development

Chris Whyatt’s recipe for successful sales change

Darren Spence suggests 10 reasons why sales training can fail

20 Negotiating Simon Buzza’s series continues with more deal-making rules

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

1 Contents V3.indd 3

34 Configure, price, quote Stephen Hardy champions one solution to complex B2B sales

Empathy can improve proposals. Sarah Hinchliffe explains how

44 Change management

46 Profile of a winner Tom Nash talks to Gary Pickering of SSE, who won Sales Director of the Year at BESMA 2016 WINNING EDGE 1

25/10/2017 17:17

ISM MEMBER BENEFITS

Start saving with the ISM! ISM members can enjoy valuable new benefits

I SMyBenefits will offer wide range of discounts, specifically chosen to support you both personally and professionally. As an ISM member you’ll automatically be eligible to access these benefits at www.ismm.co.uk by virtue of your membership.

Family Savings

he benefits offered will provide significant T cost savings on products and services you normally purchase, potentially saving you much more than the cost of your ISM membership subscription. There’s even a nifty savings calculator on our member benefits page, where you can find out just how much you will be able to save.

l Great

rom cinema tickets, meals out and F domestic appliances, to grocery shopping, home insurance and professional training, ISMyBenefits has it covered. esigned to make ISM membership D even more rewarding, ISMyBenefits provides a wide range of offers across the following categories:

l Discounted

cinema tickets out more often, and pay less l Earn cashback at over 50 major retailers lR educed entry on top UK attractions from Merlin Entertainment

l Dine

Lifestyle savings on Apple products discounts at over 2,900 gyms l Discounts on domestic appliances l Access to NUS Extra student discount card lC orporate

Travel lD iscounts

on top package holidays savings on over 80,000 hotels in the UK, Europe and worldwide lD iscounts on airport parking, airport hotels and airport lounges lG reat

Insurance l Great

value life insurance on car and home insurance l Discounted travel insurance l Discounted roadside assistance lS avings

Professional Development lD iscounts

on hundreds of business and sales books lA ccess to IT and Professional Development Training

Advice lC omplimentary,

no obligation financial advice consultation with a professional adviser* l Independent mortgage advice at preferential rates* *Financial advice and independent mortgage advice is provided by Lighthouse Financial Advice Limited, an appointed representative of Lighthouse Advisory Services Limited. Contact details can be found on the benefit pages at www.ismprofessional.com. Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up payments on your mortgage.

THERE IS NO SIGN-UP PROCESS AND NO EXTRA CHARGE, SO LOG IN AT ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM TO START SAVING! 2 ISM AD V4 copy.indd 2

06/04/2017 12:48

INSTITUTE OF SALES MANAGEMENT | EDITORIAL

INTRODUCING YOUR PRESIDENT The ISM has appointed FRANK ROWE as its President for the coming year. Winning Edge meets him

rank Rowe is probably best known to ISM members as head judge for the British Excellence in Sales Management Awards (BESMA), a role he has fulfilled since 2013. He has more than 35 years’ experience in sales, marketing and training, working in the UK and overseas for major blue chip companies in the construction industry. Along the way he has been a sales director, a VP of marketing, and a training director. He is nothing if not well-travelled, having worked in Europe, the US, South America, South Africa, the Middle East and the Far East – and he now spends summers at his vineyard in Hungary. Now 59, for the past three years Frank has been managing director of L&D Consulting, developing training solutions for new and emerging markets and existing businesses globally. Before this, he was UK group training manager for construction materials company SIG. But his start was a sticky one. He left school at 16 “to put money on the table” and gained no significant academic qualifications until completing an HND in business studies at evening school. “I decided to start L&D in 2014 to concentrate on training and development of sales talent in the UK, Europe and Middle East. This business has been very rewarding, as my ambition throughout my career has always been to develop new and existing talent in the sales industry.” Since the 1980s he has been a member of the ISM (or ISMM as it then was) when he was working for another construction supplier, Hilti UK. “I saw a certificate on my sales director’s wall and asked how he had achieved Fellow of the ISMM. He told me how he had gained this professional recognition, and

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

3 ISM President V2.indd 3

“Training should be built into the development plans of all salespeople” I was sold. There was no widespread recognition of salespeople in those days, and I vowed very early on that this was what I wanted to focus on. Training and development of my salespeople has always been a priority throughout my career and I have been lucky to manage many successful teams and individuals. Some are now in very senior positions or own their own businesses, but the great thing is we keep in touch – and the ISM has been a catalyst for that.” He continues: “Today, sales is fast becoming recognised as a genuine profession, which has led to degree-level courses to develop real talent in the industry. The problem is that many able teenagers and non-graduates do not have access to the right kind of sales education at an early age. This will continue to be a major challenge in the coming years.” Frank says his toughest challenge is salespeople who will not readily admit they need to be trained. “They come on courses because they are sent,” he observes. “Training should be built into the development plans of all salespeople, but in hard times most companies cut training programmes because they do not see the benefits in the short term. They need to look at long-term results.”

He continues: “No company I’ve worked for has actively charted the results of training and how individuals have responded to it. In sales, it is sales managers who hold the key to this, through regular meetings with salespeople to monitor their skill levels and help them continuously develop.” In terms of sales training tools and techniques, he is not wedded to a rigid formula. “One size does not fit all. Meet the sales team, talk to the sales manager, talk to the sales director and, in short, get them to decide what the programme should look like. Training programmes shouldn’t be picked from a shelf, but designed for the case in hand. Of course, skills learning packages exist already and have not changed that much over the years – it’s all about how the trainer tailors a programme to meet the team’s objectives.” He says having a mix of verbal and visual tools is important, but follow-up training in the field has always been crucial. “And unless you have complete buy-in from all parties the training will not succeed. Show the training to the management team, insist that they follow up, let the trainees know how this will happen, then implement.” As for his goals as ISM President: “I would like to reinforce the stability and integrity of the ISM,” he says. “We have been through a tough period of transition over the last 18 months and I want to help embed the important changes that have taken place.” He adds, “We have some great young talent too, and I would like to be there for them as a mentor and coach, if needed. On the customer facing side, I will be ever present at events such as the Sales Summit and BESMA, and would like to help out at regional meetings too.” Above all, Frank brings an ultrapositive attitude to his new role. As he concludes – and his black belt in karate attests – “Winning is everything; second is last, in my opinion.”

WINNING EDGE 3

25/10/2017 17:19

SALES TALK INDUSTRY NEWS SALES RESEARCH

TRUST TURNS UP TRUMPS Major study says salespeople must become more like consultants

STATISTICS

DID YOU KNOW…

89% CITE MCDONALD’S AS THE BRAND THEY MOST ASSOCIATE WITH LITTER

76%

OF CONSUMERS LOOK NEGATIVELY ON A BRAND WHEN SEEING LITTER WITH THIS BRAND ON IT

56%

FEEL THAT ITEMS SOLD AT A SHOP WITH LITTER OUTSIDE WOULD BE “OF POORER QUALITY”

Source: Survey by Vapour.com, a specialist in e-cigarettes and vaping devices

34%

WOULD BE LESS LIKELY TO BUY FROM A BRAND THEY SEE AS LITTER ON THE STREET

BUZZWORDS CONFIGURE, PRICE, QUOTE Configure, price, quote (CPQ) is software that helps companies accurately define the price of goods across a huge and constantly changing spectrum of variables. CPQ software aggregates these variables, which in turn allows companies to configure products or services in the most optimal way (ie. bundling, upselling etc.) price them according to costs, competition and local economic factors, and quote a customer the best price possible, in light all of these factors. (For more on CPQ, see pages 31 and 34.) Source: www.financialforce.com

4 WINNING EDGE

4-5 News V2.indd 2

A new study turns perceived wisdom on its head – by suggesting that today’s sales professionals are well trusted after all. According to the survey of 1,000 UK sales professionals and over 1,000 UK business decision-makers – carried out annually by online professional network LinkedIn – top performing salespeople need to behave more like informed business consultants – using technology to gain valuable insights on prospects and their challenges – to win in a competitive environment. Top salespeople are already taking the time to understand a client’s business before making a pitch and winning over decision-makers. They are also favouring new technologies – from collaboration and CRM tools to sales intelligence and networking platforms – over the cold call. For their part, decision-makers say that knowledge and insight of their business is the top reason they would engage with a salesperson, ahead of the product or service they are offering. And with the majority of business decision-makers saying they are open to trying new brands, products or services at work, opportunities are clearly there for the taking. The research highlights three key trends: l Trust is number one For 43% of decision-makers, trust is the most important factor when closing a deal. In comparison, 23% cite “return on investment” and only 18% say “price”. And despite three-quarters believing that sales professionals have an unfair image problem, 81% say they consider salespeople to be “trusted advisers to their business”. In fact, they are most likely to describe sales professionals as “trustworthy” and “fair” – a far cry from how the media has historically depicted salespeople. l Doing your homework sells Buyers are resolute in what they want, preferring salespeople who understand their needs and provide tailored and timely offerings. A more informed approach is key for sales teams to seize those opportunities, with the research showing

that decision-makers are more likely to consider a brand if the salesperson has a clear understanding of their role in the decision-making process, targets appropriate people for discussion, and shares applicable content. In fact, 79% of buyers say that they would not engage with a salesperson if they did not do the necessary homework beforehand. And 62% would not engage if the approach were not personalised. l Evolution of sales technology Sales success is increasingly dependent on technology, with 94% of top sales professionals using tech to get deals over the line. The research finds that the use of social media is particularly popular with salespeople, with 86% saying that it has helped them close a deal, and 74% saying they expect to spend more time using social media in future. Half of those surveyed this year expect their company to increase sales technology investments – compared with just 35% last year.

SALES SYSTEMS

NOT SO TECH SAVVY Small firms are missing out on sales software solutions A recent survey finds that 73% of SMEs are not using any form of workflow management software. As a result, they are “constantly” or “frequently” facing errors in manual processes that adversely affect customers, profits and reputation. The survey, by Applied Business, a provider of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, finds that: l 67% of businesses do not use a customer relationship management (CRM) system l 50% never carry out daily backups of IT systems l 26% never upgrade their ERP, CRM or project management software.

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

25/10/2017 17:23

SALES TALK | INDUSTRY NEWS

Talking Point

SHORT SELLING N EW S RO UND- UP

S OLD ON THE BOSS

DATA DEADLINE

“The UK’s best bosses are to be found in financial services, with 62% of workers in this sector describing their boss as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’. Management in the professional services industries, such as law and accountancy, were a close second polling 61%. Nationally, 56% of the UK workforce were positive about their bosses – with just 13% describing them as ‘poor’.” Source: Survey by One4all Rewards, a specialist in business incentives.

EVENTS

SPEAKING UP FOR SALES DEVELOPMENT ISM backs the 2017 Sales Learning and Development Conference The Institute of Sales Management and Winning Edge are delighted to be supporting the 2017 Sales Learning and Development Conference, to be held on 30 November at Coventry’s Ricoh Arena. Sir Clive Woodward, who coached the England rugby union team to victory in the 2003 Rugby World Cup, will open the conference, which runs alongside the National Sales Conference and Expo, events that are also endorsed by the ISM. Sir Clive will share the secrets of his success in creating high-performing teams. He will deliver insight into the importance of a winning mentality and how marginal gains can have a huge impact on a team. Now in its fourth year, the Sales Learning and Development Conference aims to help L&D and HR leaders transform sales effectiveness. This year’s event will focus on three key themes: building a learning culture for sales teams, engaging managers in training and coaching, and transforming the sales operation. Speakers will include Edward Fotheringham, head of sales at Whitbread, and Tiffany Poppleman, responsible for sales effectiveness at LinkedIn. The concurrent Coventry conferences and expo offer great opportunities to meet ISM staff, hear about the ISM’s exciting plans, and network with fellow members and other leaders in the sales profession. For more information and to book places for yourself and your team,visit www.sldconference.co.uk

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

4-5 News V2.indd 3

The GDPR will come into force in May 2018, but 15% of businesses still do not have a plan in place, with a further 17% falling behind with their current plans, according to the latest research from the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). For more on the GDPR, see page 6.

FRUITY OFFERS

NATTERBOX AND ISM JOIN FORCES Cloud telephony leader committed to professionalism

Natterbox, a leading provider of global voice cloud services, has joined forces with the ISM in order to accelerate its commitment to industry leading customer service, professionalism and ethics. Ian Moyse, director of sales for Natterbox (pictured above), says, “We strive to be professional in all aspects of engagement with both prospective and existing clients, and this starts with the people. By working with the ISM, we are demonstrating commitment to ethics, fairness and honesty.” He adds, “We plan to use ISM training, events and professional membership across our team to enhance their already professional approach to levels not delivered by our competitors.” Tom Moverley, corporate account director for the ISM, comments, “We are pleased to be attracting quality firms such as Natterbox, which recognise the need to adhere to professional standards and understand that selling is a skilled profession worthy of training and investment.”

Data from customer engagement specialist Optimove shows that customers whose first purchase is discounted by over 30% are less likely to buy from that brand again. A discount above 30% attracts “cherry-pickers” – but smaller discounts do increase the likelihood of first-time buyers making further purchases.

DISTRESSING CALLS

Telemarketing research by Ofcom shows that 41% of consumers had received unsolicited sales or marketing calls on their landline or mobile phone in the past four weeks. Most find the calls “annoying”, but 8% describe them as “distressing”.

SALES TRAINING UP

A study by Technavio forecasts that the global product-based sales training market will grow at a CAGR of close to 13% up to 2017. Its report is titled “Global product-based sales training market 20172021” and divides the market into blended, online and instructor-led training.

SHORT SHRIFT

Many sellers believe in making email subject lines short, but analysis of more than 30,000 subject lines carried out by emotional marketing platform, Persado, shows little correlation between response rates and subject line length.

REPS REWARD

A study by Contactlab, a provider of marketing software for luxury brands, reveals that 69% of customers believe the quality of their relationship with sales reps plays a key role in their choice of product.

POLITENESS PAYS

Polite language that appeals to authority and cultural norms can boost product sales, academics at Stanford have found. Looking at a Japanese ecommerce platform, they say that the greater the number of words that demonstrate respect for the customer or suggest authority, the greater the volume of product sales. See bit.ly/2xWSKyB

WINNING EDGE 5

25/10/2017 17:23

SMARTER SELLING

REGULATION

NEW AGE OF CONSENT Andy and David Smith offer practical advice on compliance with the new data protection regime As a result, you need to understand the impact of GDPR on how you source your customer and your prospect data, how you process it, and how you store it and pass it to third parties. While GDPR will have organisation-wide impact, the challenge it poses to direct sales and marketing is particularly significant. If a business fails to prepare for it, the repercussions will be felt beyond the use of personal data within sales activity. The firm will be hit by eye-watering penalties – do you really want to write a cheque for 4% of turnover? And it may become so averse to the risk of direct sales and marketing that it stops conducting any. If your company stopped selling, how would you pay your bills? If everyone moved budgets to “search” and social media, only the cash-rich companies could afford that game. WHAT IS PERSONAL DATA?

GDPR only applies to personal data. This can be a name, email, phone number, address, but also social media labels, photographs, IP addresses and, for instance, information gathered using cookies and tracking codes. The test is quite simple: if data identifies an individual then it is personal data.

ou have probably heard of GDPR. If you haven’t, it’s the General Data Protection Regulation, and it’s coming to you soon. You currently hold lists of customers, lists of prospects – in fact, all sorts of lists that identify all sorts of individuals. GDPR impacts on direct sales and marketing because of the reliance on the use of names, job responsibilities and contact details. And this will now apply as much to the B2B world as B2C – in future there will be no distinction. GDPR replaces the UK Data Protection Act (DPA) on 25 May 2018. From that date it demands that you protect any data you hold on people (data subjects), and ensure it has been legally obtained. It also places a duty on someone in your organisation to take some serious steps if something goes wrong and a data breach occurs. Your organisation will rely, to a greater or lesser degree, on data that is deemed to be personal information. GDPR demands that personal data you hold on staff, suppliers and customers is: l Secure l Fairly sourced l Accurate l Kept for no longer than is necessary l Not transferred abroad (with some exceptions) l Processed lawfully.

6 WINNING EDGE

6-9 Smarter Selling V3.indd 14

HANDLE DATA PROPERLY

ANDY SMITH (right) is managing director, and DAVID SMITH is technical director, of Corpdata, supplying legally compliant business lists and offering advice on GDPR. Visit www.corpdata.co.uk or call 01626 777400.

GDPR affects how your sales and marketing function handles personal data, and how it collects it. GDPR brings with it greater emphasis on the prevention of data breaches, so you will actively need to protect the data you hold, and be able to prove that you are doing so. Should a breach occur, you must identify it and handle it appropriately. Given our definition of personal data, how much do you hold? Where is it held? Who has access to it? If you send it out from your organisation, how? Is it adequately protected? If you can’t answer these questions, you need to audit the personal data you hold, and define sensible measures to ensure it is securely stored. You need a clear policy that informs and leads your organisation. COLLECT DATA CAREFULLY

To comply with the new law, you must demonstrate some legal basis for holding an individual’s personal information. You must explain to the individual why you are collecting data and how you are going to use it. GDPR means that their consent for you to use their data can no longer be assumed. The requirements for consent to be lawful are more rigid and specific. You will no longer be able ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

26/10/2017 08:43

SMARTER SELLING

to imply consent from the acceptance of cookies or from being given contact details in the course of a sales enquiry. Consent must be freely given and you must make it clear that they can withdraw it at a later date. Have individual preferences for receiving marketing information been ascertained? Have they stated that they are happy to receive marketing information via email, mail or phone? You will be taking a significant risk if you source your sales and marketing target lists from any supplier who has failed to make clear their legal basis for holding data, or has failed to explain what will happen to the information once collated. Will you still be able to use direct sales and marketing post-GDPR? Yes, as long as you and your list supplier can demonstrate how data collection complies with the new law.

“If you lay good foundations, you will still be able to execute well-targeted direct selling and marketing campaigns” WHAT ABOUT LEGACY DATA?

You must be extremely careful about the provenance of the contacts you use. You must avoid using names and contact details you happen to have, or harvesting details you come across. Unless you have spoken to the contacts you hold, and made clear the legal basis for continuing to hold their information and your intended use, and you have retained proof of doing so, you may find yourself facing massive financial penalties. TREAD CAREFULLY ON CONSENT

You also need to be very careful about emailing people for their validation or gaining permissions. The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) gives individuals specific privacy rights in relation to electronic communications. Be warned: you don’t have permission to email to gain consent for further contact if they have stated in the past that they don’t want to hear from you. You could end up with both a fine and reputational damage – without even trying to sell anyone anything... AND FINALLY…

Just in case you think Brexit will let us all off the hook, forget it – GDPR will remain enacted within British law. We urge you to get GDPR-ready. Learn what you need to do to comply. After all, your business will need new customers. If you lay good foundations, you will still be able to execute well-targeted direct selling and marketing campaigns, and if you prepare when others don’t, you could derive significant competitive advantage. ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

6-9 Smarter Selling V3.indd 15

Ask Anne

TIME IS OF T HE E SSE NCE sending emails. This is often where time can be unnecessarily wasted, so it is prudent to ensure your systems are versatile enough to allow agents to wrap up calls in an It is normal to set expectations with efficient manner, so they can move your telesales team about activity on to the next call. levels. You need to give a clear Break time directive of what you expect them Employees will need breaks. It’s to achieve in a given time. Without important to monitor and control it, you could be losing much of when these respite periods are your precious calling time. taken, so that you understand what downtime was work-related and How many calls should I expect what wasn’t. The easiest way to do one of my sales agents to make? this is through a logging in and It all depends on the type of logging out mechanism in calling you are doing and your calling system. how quick the calls “The only should be. If the What can I do if way you can really someone is slower calling is simple lead understand the true activity levels of a than I expect? generation or member of your cleansing, then you The best thing telesales team is to should be looking at to do first is to sit with them” over 150 calls per day. understand if this If the calls are more is a skill issue in using involved and the talk time is the system, or an long, then you would expect unwillingness to work to the them to make fewer calls. required standard. Many people can be slow on keyboards and How do I set the right expectation? extra training may help to resolve The best way of setting the right this situation. expectation is to spend some time Ultimately, however, the only way you can really understand the with your agents. Sit side-by-side true activity levels of a member of and deduce exactly how long the calls should take. From this you can your telesales team is to sit with them and deduce what activity calculate how many calls can be level is right for the particular made in an hour. campaign they are working on. Gap time One of the most important measurements of activity levels is ANNE BAGNALL is managing director of the amount of time between calls Phonetic, a telemarketing – gap time – when the agent isn’t company, and also of Pure on the telephone. It is useful to Sales Training, where she measure this time and set an advises clients on their acceptable limit on the time that internal sales departments. She is happy should be taken between calls. to answer readers’ questions. You can Wrap time call her on 07876 231868, email Wrap time is the time it takes anne@puresalestraining.com or visit to wrap up the call – filling in www.puresalestraining.com information, making notes, and You must manage the time of your telesales agents, or you will waste effort, opportunities and money. Anne Bagnall explains how

WINNING EDGE 7

26/10/2017 08:43

SMARTER SELLING

PRESENTING

TARGET PRACTICE Simon Raybould says only machine gunners spray and pray. Sales presenters must take careful aim THREE TYPES OF AUDIENCE

nowing exactly what outcome you want from your presentation is critical to your chances of actually achieving it. All too many sales presenters seem to forget their sales training and simply try to present about something – rather than to achieve something. Resist this urge and, instead, concentrate on a specific known and measurable outcome and focus on achieving that. HOW TO TARGET YOUR OUTCOME

What behaviour do you want your audience to exhibit at the end? A standing ovation is nice for the ego, but it’s more useful if you get a sale. Or maybe the aim isn’t to sell, but to get in front of the next round of potential buyers, or the next level of decision-makers – or whatever you really want. A powerful exercise at this point is to ask yourself if your sales presentation will pass the “Twitter test” – could you define exactly what you want to get out of the presentation in 140 characters? If not, you’re probably not focused enough. Once you’ve got your Twitter target, copy successful Olympic rower Ben Hunt-Davis and ask yourself your equivalent of, “Will it make the boat go faster?” Hunt-Davis’s rowing team simply asked themselves this question, over and over, about every tiny thing they did and – as a result – brought home gold medals. Ask yourself your version of this question for every single sentence, word, slide, picture and bullet point in your presentation. (Hint: the answer for bullet points is almost always “no”.) 8 WINNING EDGE

6-9 Smarter Selling V3.indd 17

SIMON RAYBOULD is a presentation trainer and a professional speaker. Visit PresentationGenius.Info

Targeting your outcomes is great, and will help you build winning presentations at the design stage, but what about at the delivery stage? Here you need a different type of targeting because you are now targeting people in your audience. Not everyone in front of you is equally important in a sales presentation, and it’s in your best interest to figure out who’s who quickly, so you can target them in terms of style and content. It’s an oversimplification, but it helps to split your audience up into three types of people: Decision-makers – are your prime targets. Hit them like snipers and change your delivery style to match what these people seem to respond to. Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s always the smartly-dressed boss at the end of the table with the fancy title. I’m not talking about the people who might literally say “yes” or “no” here – I’m talking about those who actually decide which it is to be. Influencers – are the people who don’t actually have the final say but who have a significant input into the decision. Often, they’ll be technical, there to give an expert view on their specific area of expertise. My experience is that these people aren’t where you should concentrate your presentation, but you should expect questions from them. In other words, they can’t usually say “yes” but if you fumble a deal-breaker question at a technical level, they can move the answer towards “no”. A tool to consider for them is to keep your presentation quite strategic, but pass the detailed specifications to them: they’ll promptly stop listening to your presentation and bury their heads in this paperwork. And if you’ve done your homework, you’ll have a good idea of what questions they’ll come up with. Have your answers ready – perhaps as extra slides at the end of your usual slide deck. Lurkers – are people who are in the room because they want to be seen to be there, or because they feel they should be – or just because they’re not urgently needed somewhere else. So long as you don’t raise an eyebrow with the first two groups, you can worry less about these people. You can’t quite forget about them though – presentations are part of a process and you should certainly nurture these people over the longer term. Targeting your outcome may mean you focus your presentation on just a few people in the room. It will feel harsh, and the presentation may not feel like a success. But be brave here – because praise and bouquets aren’t your target, are they? ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

26/10/2017 08:43

SMARTER SELLING

Coat Hanger T H E LI GH T ER S IDE O F S A LES AWARDS

SOMETHING TO SHOUT ABOUT With BESMA season upon us, Shweta Jhajharia suggests five ways to maximise the benefit of an award

n award serves as independent verification of your quality, which your customers are more likely to trust than your own marketing material. Five steps will allow every sales leader to leverage an award to its full potential: 1) WRITE A PRESS RELEASE

A press release can be one of the most effective ways to publicise an award. It also gives you some base content, which you can adapt into a slew of additional sales and marketing material. 2) ADD IT TO YOUR WEBSITE

Potential clients often visit your website to look for proof of the quality of what you do. Convert your press release into a blog. News of the win will boost your status to the unconverted, and reinforce the trust of those who already believe in you. 3) ADD IT TO SOCIAL MEDIA

Share a link on your social media channels to where the release has been published or to your blog post. Sharing to your social media is essential as many people look to social channels to find out more about you and gauge your quality. Share a snippet from your press release – something short, sweet and natural sounding, which is in line with the tone of your business. Include a picture of the award or the awards night. Social shares with photos tend to capture attention. 4) SEND AN EMAIL TO YOUR CONTACTS

Using your press release as a starting point, write a short announcement to those who have opted in to receive your emails. Upload any relevant photos to your Facebook or other social media platforms, and place a link to the album within your email. This encourages readers to share via their own channels. Gaining social shares contributes not only to your authority but also to your “social signals”, which is great for search engine optimisation. 5) CELEBRATE WITH YOUR TEAM

This is an opportunity to foster a sense of achievement among your team. It is their win as well and they need to see that you understand their contribution to the business. SHWETA JHAJHARIA is principal coach and founder of The London Coaching Group. Visit www.londoncoachinggroup.com

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

6-9 Smarter Selling V3.indd 18

SMELLING SELLING?

Research suggests that personal hygiene could be lacking

natural expectation is for both client-facing and office-based salespeople to take pride in their personal hygiene and appearance. But recent research suggests that high standards in these areas do not always prevail. A study by Showerstoyou.co.uk finds that 70% of office workers, including salespeople, say bad body odour among colleagues is the biggest personal appearance and hygiene issue they face in the workplace. It is closely followed by bad breath and then dirty or stained work clothes. Over half of respondents believe poor standards of personal hygiene and appearance in the workplace adversely affect their concentration levels, performance and job satisfaction. As one executive comments: “I work in a very fastpaced environment, where the projects and tasks can be very intensive. With multiple clients and deadlines to juggle, a lot of my colleagues like to work long hours, sometimes even through the night. Unfortunately, it does result in some of them wearing the same dirty clothes over several days and the occurrence of bad body odour. While their dedication is admirable, their

Best one-liners

To motivate their teams, great sales managers often “talk the talk’” So here are 10 of the best sales one-liners: l Just tell them the time – they don’t care how you built the watch l There’s no need to engineer the Starship Enterprise when all they need is budgetary pricing l If you can’t thoroughly demo your product, you’ll die on the vine l The client has a finely-tuned BS meter

lack of hygiene and attention to their appearance can make it very difficult and distracting to work”. It is known that the longer an employee has been working in a role, the more likely they are to become complacent about their appearance. This usually correlates to feeling less inclined to make a good impression after a period of time. Martin Smith, managing director of Showerstoyou.co.uk, comments, “In a professional working environment, personal hygiene and appearance cannot be ignored. Employees do notice the poor personal hygiene/ appearance of their colleagues and it can affect their own performance.” He adds, “Employers should actively work with employees to maintain hygiene and appearance standards in the workplace. In doing so, they will facilitate a more pleasant working environment for everyone”. l In sales you’re a fisherman, but the fish won’t just jump into the boat l You won’t get by on just personality and good intentions l It’s better to lose in the 1st round than in the 15th l If you’re going to lose, make sure you don’t lose alone l If all you’ve got is a hammer, then everything will look like a nail l From a strategic perspective, this deal is carved in butter. Source: blog.insideview.com

WINNING EDGE 9

26/10/2017 08:43

Would you like your next event to be the best ever? Ellis Salsby Ltd will help you organise a Really Successful Event, saving you time and money.

¸ ¸ ¸ ¸ ¸

Free Venue Sourcing Full / Partial Event Management Corporate Hotel Bookings Delegate Registration / Logistics Theming, Entertainment, Staging & AV

Experienced. Expert. Enthusiastic. Call and speak with one of our team

01562 829939

clientservices@ellis-salsby.co.uk ellis-salsby.co.uk @ellissalsbyltd

Really Successful Events

The mobile sales management software that allows you to measure, analyse and improve your sales team’s performance.

Visit our website and ask for a demo at

WWW.FORCEMANAGER.NET

text pages nov.indd 2

25/10/2017 18:52

ON THE MOVE

G A D G E T S F O R D I S C E R N I N G P RO F E S S I O N A L S

WHAT’S MORE

TOOLS FOR THE JOB | GADGETS

NOTEBOOK

YOGA POSITION

If you’re in the market for a premium notebook and you don’t want Apple or Microsoft, this latest Yoga convertible model from Lenovo gets rave reviews. It’s the Yoga 920, which has a watchband-type hinge that bends into tablet, tent and stand modes, and it’s a light, powerful machine (it runs the latest Intel processors) and has a 13.9 inch touchscreen and comes with a stylus. Battery life is excellent, and you also get far-field mics so you can talk to it across a room. The bronze model is desirable. SCANNER

PAPER CHASE MOTORING

TORQUE OF THE TOWN

APP

Vauxhall is often way down most people’s shopping lists but is very much a company car staple. This Insignia Country Tourer may turn a few heads, as a good-looking rival to the Volkswagen Passat Alltrack and the Audi Allroad. It’s the top end of a revamped Insignia range and it’s got a new chassis design to support the 4-wheel drive only and eight-speed automatic transmission set-up. Vauxhall has implemented “torque vectoring”, but to meet its exacting standards has installed a rear-drive module that employs a twin clutch system without differential. Initial engine choices are 170 and 210 PS turbo diesel units. There’s a shed load of other technology, including a head-up display, adaptive cruise control, rear cross-traffic alert, and up to 7 devices can be connected to the car’s Wi-Fi hotspot. An optional sound system is from Bose, which would be our choice.

This iPhone/iPad and Mac sales presentation app is well-supported and takes advantage of new features in Apple’s systems. You can drag and drop pictures, PDFs, text and other content into a presentation, including images from the web, with attribution automatically added. There’s a joystick feature that allows precision placement. There are free and paid versions. See flowvella.com

FLOWVELLA

DOCKING STATION

GETTING A CHARGE ON This is the Evolus 3 Qi from a firm called Enblue Technology – it’s a multidocking station with wireless charging for the new iPhone 8 and iPhone X, and which will dock older iPhones too. It will charge iPads and Apple watches as well, and we must say looks like the ideal companion for Apple fans. You can even detach the watch charger and take it on a trip. The firm does an Android/iPhone charger too. It ships in the EU – see eu.enbluetec.com for details.

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

11 Gadgets V1.indd 3

Road warriors often can’t be totally paperless yet, and it’s been a while since we’ve featured a portable scanner. Epson recently released two, said to be fastest on the market, the WorkForce DS-310 and DS-360W – the latter has a battery and Wi-Fi. They can handle 52-230 gsm paper/card.

SMARTPHONE

PIXEL POINTS

Showing that world domination in search isn’t enough, Google goes on building great hardware, and the latest Pixel 2 and 2 XL smartphones are out, with the larger 6 inch screen XL being the pick with a design that’s rather different from the pack. There is a superb camera on both models. Google owns the Android and Chrome operating systems of course and the latter runs a new Pixelbook notebook, a 2 in 1 hinged model that starts shipping in November.

WINNING EDGE 11

26/10/2017 10:38

SURVEYS

GLOBAL HEROES Who is still benchmarking the world’s sales organisations, asks MARC BEISHON

or more than 20 years, CSO Insights, a specialist sales research firm based in the US, has conducted the biggest global survey of the metrics of sales organisations. Each year it has added new metrics, creating a year by year trend comparison of everything from sales quotas met, to forecasts successfully predicted, to CRM systems implemented. The results combine to show what the best performing companies do well. Not to be outdone, sales training and methodology company, Miller Heiman, started its own world class sales practices report, which while based on fewer metrics, also identified clear and often large differences between what the best performers do and those that often come second (and which demonstrated all too obviously the 80:20 rule of the Pareto Principle). Now, CSO Insights has become the research arm of Miller Heiman, and the group is probably the only one carrying out this type of global benchmarking and best practice exercise, at least on this scale, and regularly Another firm that is competing is McKinsey, in analysing similar best practices, although it is not carrying out an annual survey; Mercuri has also carried out global surveys. More on McKinsey and Mercuri later in this

WOR LD C LASS PR ACT ICES n Our salespeople consistently and effectively articulate a solution that is aligned to the customer’s needs. R n We deliver a consistent customer experience that lives up to and aligns with our brand promise. R n We continually assess why our top performers are successful. P n When we lose a salesperson (voluntarily/involuntarily), we consistently determine the reasons why. P n We effectively collect and share best practices across our sales and service organisations. P n Our sales managers are held accountable for the effective use of sales tools and resources by the salesforce. P n Our salespeople consistently and effectively communicate appropriate value messages that are aligned to our customers’/prospects’ needs. R

12 WINNING EDGE

12-13 review.indd 2

n Our culture supports continuous development of salespeople and sales leaders. P n As part of our performance review process, our organisation consistently develops and ensures implementation of personalised performance improvement plans. P n Customers have consistently positive interactions with us regardless of which channel(s) they use to work with us. R n Our sales teams are effective at “surfacing” the specific reasons why certain customers stop doing business with us. R n Our salespeople are effective at selling value to avoid discounting or gaining comparative value in return for price concessions. R Listed in order of significance R=relationship practice P=process practice

article. But first how is the combined CSO Insights/Miller Heiman set-up taking this work forward? The numbers are impressive – apart from the track record, CSO says it has about 40,000 sales and service leaders participating from around the world in collecting more than 350 metrics. By comparing organisational practices against the metrics you can set a priority list of actions, it says. Now, the title of the latest 2017 World-Class Sales Practices report is rather alarming: “Running up the down escalator”. The implication is that selling is currently in a “two steps forward, one backwards” situation, but it’s actually worse than that – it’s hard enough to just stay still, let alone get to the top. The reason is a topline finding, namely on salespeople making quota, which shows a decline from 2011, when 63% made quota, to just 53% today, which is a huge drop in 6 years. So currently, only just over half of reps are making their plans. Given that things improved for a while after the Great Recession that started in 2008, you might not expect this. CSO says this isn’t for want of trying, as many sales organisations they know are engaged in transformation programmes, with training and sales tools, and change initiatives. But we seem to be in a new period of uncertainty in global economies, and the spectre of new, disruptive technologies is upon us, such as with artificial intelligence and connected cars. Not least: “Buyers are getting better at buying faster than sellers are getting better at selling.” But some companies are doing well, and not just the tech giants, Google, Facebook and Amazon. ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

26/10/2017 10:49

SURVEYS

CSO’s report aims to tease out what makes the difference, and builds on previous work it carried out in constructing a framework for sales effectiveness. Part of this is a matrix – essentially a key account model where on one axis, “relationship”, you are at least an approved vendor, up to the ultimate, a trusted partner; and this is mapped against how well the process of relationships is managed – from random to dynamic. Only a quarter of firms in CSO’s 2017 survey attain the highest performance level (level 3) in terms of having strategic or trusted partner status and a dynamic process. Does this translate into better quota, revenue and other metrics? For the first time CSO has combined these results with Miller Heiman’s “world class” organisational practices (there are more than 60 of these) to see what is driving a small number of key metrics that most companies can measure – quota and revenue attainment; win, loss and no decision rates; and involuntary and voluntary staff turnover. They have managed to refine this list of practices to just 12, half driving relationships, and half processes. These are listed in the box on page 12, in order of impact. We have to say that some seem blindingly obvious, such as articulating solutions that align to customer’s needs, but the point is that doing this becomes harder as the selling environment becomes more complicated. And while the practices include some of the “usual sales methodology suspects”, there is now more focus on customer experience before and after a sales cycle, and on salespeople as communicators. So, companies that agreed or strongly agreed that they did 10 of the 12 practices made CSO’s “world class” category – and their quota attainment is 70%, revenue attainment 96.5% of plan, and the win rate of forecast deals is 57%, which is 10% better than the average of all respondents. Loss rate is 23% (31% average), although no decisions in both groups is about the same, 20%–21%. Voluntary staff turnover in the best is about 4% (9% all), and involuntary 2.5% (6%). And how many companies are world class, by these measures? Just 7% this year, which though is pretty much expected. When CSO then checked back to see how they also scored in the relationship/process matrix, most were large firms with complex B2B selling. But two other types of firm also do well – large commodity companies that nevertheless have a tight focus on customer processes, and small professional services firms that have excellent relationships. There are other firms tracking and benchmarking sales organisations, but CSO/Miller Heiman looks to be the main leader in this field. There’s a YouTube presentation on the report at bit.ly/2ifhv2g and see csoinsights.com ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

12-13 review.indd 3

MERCURI’S PRESCRIPTION Sales performance consultancy, Mercuri International, conducted a global sales excellence survey recently. Top practices (in order) are: n Systematic account management planning for each customer; a documented sales strategy; defined training and tools for each sales step n Corporate strategy defines explicit

“We seem to be in a new period of uncertainty in global economies, and the spectre of new, disruptive technologies is upon us”

sales topics; documented sales processes; cross-functional approaches driven by sales n CRM tool that is integral to the company; image of sales within the firm is excellent; blended learning for developing sales competencies; clearly defined sales strategy. See bit.ly/2yvYRtq

MCKINSEY’S RESEARCH Of all the large management consultancies, McKinsey is probably the one paying most attention to sales. For some time it has been analysing what makes the difference in the sales cycle, and has homed in on the experience that customers have with salespeople, which reflects the emphasis on experience and communications that CSO is also making. McKinsey has developed what it calls a sales DNA tool, which has been applied to about 15,000 reps in a range of industries. It reports that “organisations with the fastest growth know who their top performers are – surprisingly, many businesses don’t – and know the personality traits and skills that correspond with success. They’re also far more likely to customise outreach, tools and techniques to the needs of different teams... it became clear that top-performing organisations treat their salespeople like customers.” The best companies excel in three ways: l They are systematic in focusing on the intrinsics that really matter – such as hiring the right salespeople and examining the customer base to identify the traits and behaviours of their most profitable customer segments. l They identify the skills that matter and tailor their training accordingly – they are twice as likely as laggards to tailor training by sales role, and nearly half say they spend significant time and money on training, compared with just over one-quarter of underperformers. They are also more likely to invest in technology and processes. l They make it easy for their people – the strongest sales leaders try to make things as easy as possible for their reps so they can sell more. They focus on cutting down on paperwork, automating routine operations, and delegating administrative tasks. They also centralise common activities such as bid and pricing support and staff roles. Top performers do well in pipeline management and product knowledge, and reps get as much as 75% of their time for customer-facing activities. To do better, it’s suggested you communicate well with the salesforce, invest in coaching and also in sales enablement apps – see our listings on page 28. McKinsey’s articles are at bit.ly/2gKr4Cv WINNING EDGE 13

26/10/2017 10:50

“A poor salesperson will close the sale – and the relationship with it. A ‘thank you’ can go a very long way” Your prospect does not want to waste time talking about business information you could have so easily researched before your meeting. The modern world allows us to share our most recent activities and achievements on the internet. All you have to do is to search social media posts to discover bits of information that your prospect may not have told you upfront. Take the time to read any article you can find, and when you next get the chance, mention what BUILD BRIDGES you’ve found in conversation with your H O W TO D E VE L O P prospect. Perhaps they have recently taken part in some charity work – if so, go ahead S TR O NG BU S IN E S S and congratulate them. Don’t be shy. I R E L ATIO N S H IP S guarantee they will love sharing their latest By Robert Spence news and achievements with you, and this will rapidly break down boundaries.

ADVICE

ou have all developed great relationships in your personal lives, and these skills can be transferred over to your business connections too, so what I talk about here should just be revision. But we all need reminding of good practice now and again.

ALWAYS FOLLOW UP There is no point in listening to your customer if you are not going to take on board what they are saying to you and caring about their needs. To care for a customer means more than just saying thank you and a handshake during the closing moments of the sale. It means ensuring the whole sales process goes smoothly from start to finish. Your customer will want to buy from you to solve a problem of some sort, and it is your job to assist them through the sales process to ensure that problem is solved. That sales cycle can be a long challenge involving various departments, budgets, proposals and the like. Those who truly care for their customer throughout the full transaction will be truly appreciated, and perhaps win referrals. Never shy away from checking in with your customer weeks after the sale has been completed to ensure that your customer is still happy with the goods or services you provided.

REMEMBER TO LISTEN First, make yourself approachable and allow the prospect to warm to you. The people who develop the best business relationships are those who listen more than they speak. A sales pitch should be 80% listening, and 20% consulting. The more you talk to your prospect about your product, your services, and even your personal life, the more likely you are to push your prospect away. We can all name someone we know whom we loathe spending time with simply because they do not stop talking about themselves, so do not be that person. Pay attention to your prospect and remember the details they are telling you. So many clues can be given in these early stages about what they are looking to buy and could buy in the future. Your prospect will love the chance to talk about their life, their plans and their careers if you just sit back and allow them to. USE TIME WISELY Time is one of the most valuable commodities this world has to offer. That is why spending time on someone can truly mean a lot if you use the time wisely. Way before you have even met your prospect, take some time to research them personally, research their company and start to build a mental image about what makes them tick. 14 WINNING EDGE

14 Comment Spence V2.indd 2

ROBERT SPENCE is a sales manager, coach, mentor and author. His recently published first book, Relationship Selling, is available on Amazon. Visit relationshipselling.co.uk

SAY “THANK YOU” A poor salesperson will close the sale – and the relationship along with it. A “thank you” can go a very long way and can be remembered for a long time. Anyone buying from you has been offered a choice: to buy from you, from your competitor, or not at all. The fact that they have given you their time and their business should be rewarded. A business relationship can be tough to set up, but by utilising the above skills and truly caring for your customer I have no doubt that, sooner rather than later, you will become known as an expert in your field, and the person to turn to. ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

25/10/2017 17:30

OPINION

ersonal development is not just about knowledge and PRO FES S IO NAL skills – it can also bring DEVELO PMENT about changes in attitude and behaviour, and that C OAC HING OR requires a more specialised M ENTORING? approach and more effort. Mentoring and coaching are two of the most effective By Tim Slapak methods for achieving this. But in sales development, ambiguities often surface about what is coaching and what is mentoring. When negotiating development contracts, customers and suppliers often disagree on whether mentoring or coaching should be carried out, what to expect from either of them, what a mentor will do, what a coach will do, and what the differences between them actually are. Even practising coaches and mentors sometimes argue about these issues. It isn’t simple to distinguish the differences between them, because they overlap considerably. And in textbooks we sometimes come across very similar definitions of the two activities. In fact, while they are related, they are not identical. It’s important to distinguish clearly between mentoring and coaching, and choosing the right mentor/coach, and the right direction for a personal development project is also crucial. WHAT IS COACHING? Coaching offers a process of continuous support, helping those who are being coached to determine and achieve their own professional and personal goals. The coach’s professionalism lies in dealing with clients effectively, improving their levels of competence, encouraging them to take responsibility for achieving their goals, while at the same time helping them choose the most effective ways of getting there. It is a relationship based around mutual collaboration, and a good coach will be one who is keen on self-improvement, willing to refine their approach as necessary. It’s easy enough to achieve certification – attend a coaching course, obtain a certificate and declare yourself a coach – but to be a good one you need to engage in a process of continual learning and development. There is a difference between certification and accreditation in the coaching sector. Accreditation is a process culminating in an award, usually by a professional body, and requires CPD criteria to be fulfilled, adherence to a code of ethics, detailed references from clients, and a commitment to continuous improvement. WHAT IS MENTORING? The word “mentor” can be traced back to Homer’s Odyssey. Before setting off to fight in the Trojan War, Odysseus, King of Ithaca, entrusted his close friend and adviser, Mentor, to take care of ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

15 Comment Slapak V2.indd 9

TIM SLAPAK is a member of the ISM and founder of MASS Training & Media, an educational and consulting company operating in the UK, Czech Republic and Slovakia. visit www.mass.cz

his son Telemachus, to be his teacher, guide and protector. The word means pretty much the same thing today, with the mentor providing the voice of wisdom, guiding the less experienced party towards their goals through a mixture of teaching, dialogue and challenges. Mentoring is defined in textbooks as a professional relationship in which the experienced person (mentor) helps the other person (mentee) to develop specific skills and knowledge for professional and personal growth. TO MENTOR OR TO COACH? In the negotiation of development contracts, the decision of whether to go for mentoring or coaching can be a tricky one for customers and suppliers. David Megginson and David Clutterbuck in their book Techniques for Coaching and Mentoring explain how we should distinguish between specific methods for developing people. For example, the aim of improving performance skills requires a different type of development from improving attitudes or behaviours. The mentoring process is suitable for developing specific skills and knowledge leading to professional and personal growth in a less experienced person. The mentor’s role here is that of adviser, assessing how they start the process, providing them with constructive criticism, and imparting specific expertise. The coaching process on the other hand aims to develop the competence of the salesperson, give them responsibility for setting their own goals, and finding ways to achieve them. The coach does not advise, criticise or rate the person being coached. The coach does not have to be an expert in the profession of the person they are coaching. The two disciplines may not be identical but they have overlapping traits, and one single goal – to have a positive impact on their clients. WINNING EDGE 15

25/10/2017 17:31

FEATURE | PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

MAKING SALES TRAINING STICK DARREN SPENCE suggests the top 10 causes of failed sales training – and how to prevent them

ust as top athletes “train insane” to stay ahead of the competition and win, the same is true for top sales teams. Effective people development is an essential prerequisite to successful business development. Unfortunately, while any investment in people development should be applauded, most of it will prove to be a waste of money and regretted, simply because it doesn’t deliver the lasting behavioural change needed. So what are the main reasons why sales training fails? Here are my top 10, along with some practical measures to overcome them. The top 10 reasons are broken up into three important categories: training content, sales management, and marketing teams.

CONTENT-RELATED REASONS 1. Too much emphasis on SKILLS training and not enough on BEHAVIOURS The problem with relying solely on programmes that are skills orientated is that having the right sales skills is only part of what is needed for salespeople to be successful. Just as a topperforming athlete will find ways of optimising their diet, mental attitude and training regime, salespeople require the same kind of multi-faceted approach. In addition to tuning their sales skills, salespeople also need to develop the right 16 WINNING EDGE

16-19 Spence V2.indd 2

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

26/10/2017 10:51

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT | FEATURE

behaviours and mental strength to succeed in every aspect of their role. To ensure any investment in sales training is worthwhile, it is important to check whether the shortlisted programmes are purely skills-based or go further to address wider, equally important aspects of professional development. 2. Training delivery style is not conducive to how adults learn While fun at the time, relying solely on largely theoretical, multi-day, back-to-back training courses will not deliver lasting behaviour change. Hermann Ebbinghaus first discovered this in 1885, and his research led to what are now commonly referred to as “the forgetting curve” and “the learning curve”. A better approach is to rely less on classroom training and, instead, have a blend of learning interventions and resources. Some learning interventions can, of course, still be covered in a classroom, but they need to be short (no more than

“Relying solely on largely theoretical, multi-day, back-to-back training courses will not deliver lasting behaviour change” a day long), focused and relevant – not too theoretical. Better still, ensure the overall interventions and resources are delivered in a variety of different formats, such as one-hour remote WebEx sessions, half-day simulations, one-to-one mentoring, and app-based content. Mobile learning can either be structured via e-learning sessions or micro-learning; or unstructured via live feeds from relevant sources and/or access to relevant whitepapers, utilities (such as a gross margin calculator), or other refresher-orientated learning materials. When choosing an appropriate training partner, therefore, it is important to check not just what is covered, but how it is covered and, more crucially, how the learnings are embedded so they have the best chance of delivering real behaviour change and improved business results. 3. Tools are impractical In order to embed the learnings from a sales training course it is necessary to introduce tools, ie. assets and resources that can be used to help encourage new ways of working. The most common of these is the account plan. Account plans come in all shapes and sizes, but most, unfortunately, are completely impractical to use. They are too big and too admin heavy and, as such, are used reluctantly, if at all. As a result, ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

16-19 Spence V2.indd 3

WINNING EDGE 17

26/10/2017 10:51

FEATURE | PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

not only does the tool itself often end up content methods taught are properly aligned with as “shelfware”, but the time and money spent on the current or planned operating model. the training course teaching it is invariably wasted. A better approach is to ensure that, while SALES MANAGEMENT-RELATED the training course does indeed include an REASONS account plan, and perhaps other tools, these are 5. Sales management teams are unaware reviewed by the sales management team prior to of what is being taught the course, and tweaked as necessary, so they fit More often than not, and for understandable within the organisation’s current or planned reasons, sales managers do not attend the same operating model. sales training courses as their team members. As well as the account plan, the key skillsThey shouldn’t need to, as the role of a sales orientated tools that should be pre-approved, as manager is different in many ways from the role they vary from one organisation to another (and of a salesperson. from training company to training company) are But this can cause a disconnect between what the qualification model, the presentation and the salespeople have been taught and what the communication framework, and the sales managers know. The path of least resistance forecasting model. is often for the team to ignore In addition to these skillsmuch of what they have just “Training will be fruitless orientated tools, management been taught and instead go if the commission plan tools should also be reviewed, in along with the ideas and ideals contradicts it” particular the sales management of their sales manager. To avoid this unnecessary coaching framework. “GROW” (see 7 below) is the most common, but there are conflict, it is important that the sales management others, so if an alternative coaching model is team is given a thorough overview of the content currently in place, it’s essential the appointed of the training course(s) and taught how to embed it. In practical terms, the overview might consist of training company understands it and incorporates it thoroughly into the programme. a 30-minute walk through to explain all the pertinent content, in addition to sales managers 4. Too much emphasis on traditional being given a range of resources and guidance sales methods and not enough notes that are designed to help them embed focus on social selling the content – see point 6. Many well-known sales training courses are based on 6. Sales management teams are not programmes taught to embed the learnings that were developed As detailed in point 2 above, successful learning several years ago – programmes need a blend of learning before social selling was interventions and resources. The sales widely accepted as management function, therefore, is absolutely key an important aspect of to the embedding process. modern-day sales life. Many In practice, this is done through coaching of their principles are still guides and templated simulations. The coaching sound, such as the guides need to contain all the pertinent importance of being information the sales team has been taught, with a relevant, challenging and series of guidance notes that explain the role of the manager in the embedding process. insightful, but they don’t The templated simulations are designed to make include sufficient practical it easy for the manager to run ad-hoc 15-minute examples or material that training sessions on key models, themes and ideas aligns their founding taught in the programme. Such templated principles with how people sell (and buy) today. simulations need to be engaging and use language Sales management that is consistent with that used during the teams need to validate structured learning interventions. how old the content The impact of the coaching guide and of the training templated simulations will be more courses is, and ask lasting behaviour change among salespeople. This to see practical solid foundation can then be built on with other examples. It is complementary activities, such as formal important to performance reviews, account reviews, and ensure that the the development of a competency framework. 18 WINNING EDGE

16-19 Spence V2.indd 4

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

26/10/2017 10:51

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT | FEATURE

7. Sales management teams are not trained to manage Understanding how to embed the learnings from the training course(s), as outlined in 6 above, is an essential element of long-term sales success. But learning how to use a coaching guide and run templated simulations are not sufficient on their own to develop a high-performing sales management function. Sales managers also need to understand how to manage their teams better. There are several effective coaching and goal-setting frameworks, such as: GROW – establish the Goal, examine the Reality, explore the Options, and create the Will SMART – where goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound 70:20:10 – by Charles Jennings, where 70% of learning is achieved through experience, 20% through others, and 10% through formal courses and programmes. When each framework is properly explained and taught to managers, they will be better able to play an effective supporting role, and thereby generate improved results from their team. It makes little sense to invest in sales training for frontline salespeople without giving the sales management team adequate training too. Without the latter, the impact of the former will soon be diminished. 8. Commission plans are out of kilter with the needs of the business However good a sales training course is, the training will be fruitless if the commission plan contradicts it. Organisations need to give greater thought to their commission plans to ensure they are compatible with the needs of the business and don’t undermine or contradict any of the training content or simulations. In practical terms, this could mean designing a commission plan with two or three components. For instance, 50% of the total sum available for commission could be related to the financial performance of the individual, 40% could be on the individual’s adherence to the organisation’s behaviours, and 10% could be on the team’s performance. This type of balanced plan will not only help to drive a strong individual and team performance, but will also encourage all team members to conduct themselves in a manner consistent with the values of the organisation. 9. There is no clearly defined or repeatable sales process Investing in sales training is all about ensuring sales teams have a consistent approach to selling and serving their customers. The challenge, however, is that few sales teams have a consistent sales process to underpin the training, resulting in salespeople operating in different ways. For example, some ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

16-19 Spence V2.indd 5

T RA IN TO GA IN Before investing in sales training, leadership teams should ask: l Does the sales training provider have a programme that develops the skills, behaviours and attitude of the salespeople? l Does the delivery and structure of the programme adhere to current learning and development best practices? l Does the training programme include all the necessary (and practical) tools and resources needed to help the salespeople operate differently? l Has the content in the training programme been refreshed recently to take account of modern buying and selling practices, such as the effective use of social media?

l Is the training provider prepared to invest sufficient time in explaining the programme to the sales management function? l Does the training programme include sufficient and effective resources and elements that will enable sales managers to take on the role of lead coach, so they have the will and capability to help embed the learning? l Is the sales commission plan fully in harmony with, and complementary to, the programme? l Is there an adequate sales process in place to enhance the learnings? l Is the organisation’s value proposition helping or hindering the sales performance?

may involve colleagues in the sales process and some may not. Some may forecast at a particular stage, others may not. Some may write their proposals in one way, and some in another. To help counter this, sales managers need to understand more about the content of the training courses, then work to embed key elements into their sales process, particularly those that are operationally focused. When a clear sales process has been defined it will make hiring and onboarding new salespeople much easier. In particular, it will reduce the “time-to-value” period – which will not only benefit the hiring manager and the organisation, but will also motivate the new salesperson, as they will reach a high level of performance faster, and will be less likely to lose momentum and leave. A MARKETING-RELATED REASON 10. The value proposition isn’t very good Even if sales training is of a high standard and the learnings from it are embedded, this alone cannot maximise the revenue of the company. This requires a lot more work, particularly on the customer value proposition. A compelling value proposition can materially improve the length of the sales cycle, win ratios and gross margins. The opposite, of course, is also true. A poor or average value proposition can make it very hard for even the best salespeople to perform to their potential, so any organisation looking to invest in a sales training programme should first review its value proposition.

DARREN SPENCE is founder of Sales Gym 360 and author of the SalesGym360 App on iOS and Android. Contact him at darren.spence@salesgym360.com, @4eyedSalesGuy, on 07771 598578, or visit www.salesgym360.com

WINNING EDGE 19

26/10/2017 10:51

FEATURE | NEGOTIATING

WHEN FREE CAN BE COSTLY

SIMON BUZZA provides the next two rules in his series of 12 key rules of negotiating RULE NUMBER 9 GIVE AWAY NOTHING FOR FREE

When negotiating, a good mindset to adopt is the one that says everything has a value and that nothing should be given away for free. And yet, far too often, well-intentioned or naïve negotiators give away items to the other party when they need not. The irony is that by giving something away too easily, its value to the recipient becomes much diminished. Let me share two related but different perspectives on this. First, giving something away is not negotiating. It is conceding or avoiding the negotiation. This is akin to buying items from a shop, where few would bargain with the shopkeeper for a better price. It is simply giving or taking an order for goods or services, but not negotiating. However, some people do negotiate in shops, and with stellar results. Second, many negotiators are prone to certain behaviours and styles that render them vulnerable to exploitation when striking a deal.

Why do negotiators give away value?

There are four major factors that govern the tendency to give away value: 1. Habitual “expensive” persuasion styles As the persuasion tools model (shown opposite), based on work by Kenneth Berrien, illustrates: l Bargaining and compromise are expensive persuasion methods because we have to give away or trade some items of value l Emotion and logic cost nothing and can be very powerful persuaders l Our database suggests that about 90% of people naturally overuse bargaining and compromise l More than 65% are comfortable with logic If we split the emotion box into two elements: l Positive emotion (warm supportive words) – few people are comfortable with this style, even though 20 WINNING EDGE

20-23 Buzza V2.indd 2

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

25/10/2017 17:33

NEGOTIATING | FEATURE

it is relationship enhancing and can be a very persuasive approach l Negative emotion (cold threatening words) – 75% of respondents overuse threat because it is easy, even though it damages relationships. So what? The vast majority of negotiators leave lots of value on the negotiation table. With training and coaching, their styles can change substantially to deliver much improved value consistently. 2. Relationship outcomes are more important than commercial outcomes In many commercial negotiations, the balance of power is tilted firmly in favour of the buyer, due to a psychological phenomenon related to the balance between the importance of the relationship versus the importance of the commercial outcome. This is highlighted by the strategic relationship matrix illustrated below. l Many sellers are too often accommodating, enthusiastic, “lose to win” deliverers who are soft on people and the problem and hence prefer to avoid confrontation. They often seek agreement in a friendly way, to protect the relationship at all costs. We like them and they want to be liked. They are in the top left “accommodating negotiations” box. l Contrast them with the traditional or tactical buyers – people who are confrontational and demand concessions as a condition of the relationship, who are hard on the people and the problem, whose goal is victory in a “win/lose” contest, and who will fight opportunistically for the commercial outcome with little or no regard for the impact on the relationship. They are in the bottom right “opportunistic negotiations” box. PERSUASION TOOLS MODEL Influencing High intuition

Low influencing

High influencing

Bargaining

Emotion

Compromise

Logic

Intuition Low intuition

STRATEGIC RELATIONSHIP MODEL High

Importance of the relationship

Low

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

20-23 Buzza V2.indd 3

Accommodating negotiations

Collaborative negotiations

Contractual negotiations

Persuasive negotiations

Avoiding negotiations

Opportunistic negotiations

Importance of the outcome

High

WINNING EDGE 21

25/10/2017 17:33

FEATURE | NEGOTIATING

HIGH EI/EQ Warm l

Conceding

Persistent

Avoiding

Committed

Unassertive

Empathic

Weak

Assertive

QUITTING Weak

PERSISTENT

Ineffectual

Uncaring

Pathetic

Hard

Beaten

Aggressive

Morose

Angry

Strong

Cold

LOW EI/EQ BALANCING VALUE AND PRICE

USP PRICE

VALUE

4. Lack of understanding of their value The fourth factor comes down to commercial naivety. The negotiator simply fails to grasp the value to the other party of the item they are bargaining over, as illustrated in the see-saw diagram shown on the left. In every negotiation, each party has things that they’re looking for. Similarly, in almost every negotiation, people have things that are of little or no cost to them, but which are highly desirable to the other party When we’re negotiating with somebody, we may have something that we don’t really need or has little value to us – perhaps because we have it in great abundance – that the other party would value and would be of benefit to them. You need to grasp this fundamental point when you are negotiating. You need to understand the other party, what you have available, and how it could benefit them. Is there something that you have that they would like, or they value highly, that would be of benefit for them? Similarly, what can you offer that no one else can? If you understand these issues and perspectives, you can negotiate without giving away value for free.

Stop and think

In this scenario, ask yourself who will make the commercial concessions first, and keep making them to protect the relationship? The ideal negotiator is driven by the importance of the relationship, but also by the importance of the outcome, and is prepared to be highly assertive when sticking to their goals. 3. Preponderance of unassertive behaviour Behaviour can be measured by plotting emotional intelligence against persistence (shown in the top diagram above): l Many negotiators show a lack of self-confidence and belief, and unassertive behaviour, leading to overly quick concessions l There may even be a tendency to avoid confrontational or difficult negotiations altogether l Another facet of this behaviour is a propensity to be overly subservient to the customer (“the customer is always right”) with a corresponding unwillingness to say “no”. These are major factors in not only soft negotiating styles, but also the preponderance of scope creep in service businesses. While some of these traits can be addressed through training and coaching, there are also some people who are simply not cut out to be effective negotiators because they will always concede too easily. Best to keep these individuals away from the negotiating table... 22 WINNING EDGE

20-23 Buzza V2.indd 4

Interestingly, these four factors are all about mindset, or attitude, before and during the negotiation. Negotiators who are lacking in confidence, and are unassertive or naive tend to give away value. If you are happy with leaving some money on the negotiating table, that is fine – you could carry on as you are. However, my advice is to make sure that the other party appreciates the true value of what you are giving to them for free. Look them in the eye and make it clear that this is a deliberately generous gesture and not an unplanned offer by the negotiator. However, if your margins are being squeezed and the other party is taking advantage of your goodwill or naivety, you may need to change your mindset. It sounds easy, but it is not. First of all, get over yourself and start thinking commercially about this issue. Just how much is this factor worth to the other party and how much is it costing you? Such a thorough and honest analysis can be shockingly revealing. Second, in almost every negotiation, there is an element of confrontation between the two positions – get used to it. It is not personal. Those who are well prepared and rehearsed, warmly assertive (without being aggressive) and who have done their homework beforehand, will be comfortable with the confrontation, manage it well, and understand how to use their value. They will be rewarded. So, the message is simple: the next time you feel like you may make a concession and give away something for free, stop and think again, carefully. ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

25/10/2017 17:33

NEGOTIATING | FEATURE

RULE NUMBER 10 BE PREPARED TO WALK AWAY

THE BUYER’S POSITION

Walk away or highly Wow! Ideal There is nothing quite so empowering to a unsatisfactory negotiator as knowing that they can walk away from a deal if necessary. This enables them to be assertive on their goals, confident that if an acceptable deal is The buyer’s strategy not reached, they have an alternative option. The other party will sense this and be wary of pushing too hard. Unfortunately, the opposite is true too. Walk away or highly The seller’s strategy unsatisfactory Having no alternative, such as when facing a Wow! Ideal monopoly, can leave you vulnerable. However, walking away from a tense negotiation THE SELLER’S POSITION is never easy, particularly after you have invested time and effort in it, and emotionally you want the deal. It is even worse when you feel that the deal is there for the taking but it then slips through your The zone of potential agreement fingers – that feels like a loss. In the diagram above, the zone of potential There are a number of steps that will help you agreement exists between the dotted lines – before avoid getting in so deep that to walk away would be reaching each party’s walk-away position. If there is too painful. Defining the no overlap between the potential deal-breaking walk-away positions, “The next time you feel you may factors early can save there is no zone of give away something for free, stop everyone time and effort, potential agreement. and think again, carefully” Most importantly, if you not to mention the stress don’t know your worst of a deal breaking down. case or walk-away, you risk giving up too much. Key tradeables You should walk away because you aren’t prepared. There are normally only a few key tradeables that When you’re prepared to walk away, you will can genuinely cause the breakdown. These might have an established Best Alternative to a Negotiated include the price, the time schedule, and the Agreement (or BATNA). This is essentially your chemistry between the two parties. These are issues fall-back position if your final offer fails in any of of high importance, which, if not resolved or the key tradeables and you fail to reach agreement. negotiated effectively, should cause a walk-away. Successful negotiators always know their BATNA For example, if the price is not right, you will feel before entering a negotiation. exploited. So, you need a “below this, I walk” Curiously, “no” can be very powerful word – and number firmly in mind. However, be sure to do it doesn’t necessarily mean the negotiation is over. your preparation thoroughly so that when you do By walking away from a potential deal, you’ll learn fall below this number, you do actually walk away. how much the other party wants to work with you. I have seen numerous cases where the negotiators If the client is seriously interested in working with have hit the walk-away number but kept on going, you, pulling out will force them to try and get you so it was not the real walk-away number at all. back. If not, at least you’ll get resolution. Of course, not everyone has the luxury of Preparation walk-away to the same degree, and you may be Knowledge is power, and the more power you’re pressured to take on a bad deal because you have no armed with, the better you’ll fare in the negotiation. alternative (or BATNA). This is bad news, but you Before entering the negotiation, do your preparation need to get the best terms you possibly can and then to understand your position and options as well as work furiously to make sure that you are never the other party’s. boxed into this situation again. Finally, remember But how do you know when it’s time to walk that sometimes, “No deal is better than a bad deal.” away? This requires you to understand your “zone Whenever you walk away from an opportunity, of agreement”. you might initially regret that you couldn’t make the Each party in a negotiation has a desired outcome deal work. Eventually, though, you realise you’ve and a worst-case scenario. In a sales negotiation, the done the right thing: you’ve retained your selfSIMON BUZZA is a member of seller’s asking price is their desired outcome, but respect – and probably gained the other party’s the ISM and founding partner of they should also know the lowest price they’ll accept respect, too. Don’t burn bridges. You don’t want to the NewDawn Partnership, an to still do the deal in the worst case. The buyer sever all ties with the other party. Be courteous, as advisory service that focuses on delivering operational should also enter the negotiations with a desired low there may be another chance to work together in improvements to the buyer and price point while understanding the highest price future. In fact, walking away may convince them seller interfaces of a business. Visit: they’re willing to pay in the worst case. that they should call you back with a better deal. www.newdawnpartners.com

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

20-23 Buzza V2.indd 5

WINNING EDGE 23

25/10/2017 17:33

FEATURE | ACCOUNT-BASED MARKETING

FINALLY, A WINNING FORMULA? Account-based marketing has been much heralded, but does it really help the integration of marketing, sales and service, asks BETH ROGERS

ailed as a new wave of professionals have been waiting a long time for technology-enhanced, digital technology that really enables all customers customer-focused processes that to feel that they have received a tailored would revolutionise business-toproposition, but the technology alone cannot do it. business marketing, accountStrategy and systems have to work together with based marketing (ABM) has its timely interventions from marketing and sales in enthusiasts and its sceptics. It has the potential to order to build effective ABM programmes. integrate marketing, sales and service to ensure better return on investment for suppliers and UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES better satisfaction for customers, but the gap ITSMA advises that there are four underlying between potential and fulfilment requires a lot of principles for successful ABM: strategic thinking and excellent execution. ABM cannot be ignored. According to research Customer-focus and insight from the Information Technology Services Understand the customer in enough depth to be Marketing Association (ITSMA), 78% of B2B able to create propositions that help them to marketers say that ABM is important to their achieve their objectives with their customers and strategy, and demand is led stakeholders. This mantra has internally by sales teams who been repeated so often over the “Demand for ABM is led want technology to generate decades. Peter Drucker said in by sales teams who want better quality leads and help the 1950s that the only purpose technology to generate prepare them for interactions of a company is to create and better quality leads and with customers and prospects. keep customers. Sadly, Furthermore, 57% report however, buying decisionhelp prepare them” moderate improvements in makers are still aware of return on investment versus suppliers who send out other types of marketing initiatives; 27% report salespeople without much understanding of their results that were significantly higher. What makes needs, and who are driven by an unrealistic sales the difference between being in the 16% not plan and incentives that distort their judgment. reaping rewards, and the 27% doing extremely An ABM programme will not help if the only well out of ABM? Like any new programme, it objective for installing it is to push sales. Improving must be evaluated and implemented thoroughly. customer understanding comes before the compelling results that pioneers of ABM have SO WHAT IS ABM? reported. Research and analytics are fundamental A definition of ABM is provided by ITSMA: prerequisites and co-requisites of ABM. The “Treating individual accounts as markets in their Internet of Things means that data can be own right.” Many business development gathered from machines in use, or locations via

24 WINNING EDGE

24-26 Rogers V2.indd 2

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

25/10/2017 17:34

video, as well as cookies and direct email and telecommunications. But before things get that complicated, information from ERP/CRM systems, company reports and LinkedIn could go a long way to populating ABM systems with relevant data to analyse. Focus on reputation and relationships Not surprisingly, this is a complementary principle. ABM objectives are usually focused on customer lifetime value and increased mindshare. Partnership between sales and marketing Both sales and marketing share responsibility for improving customer understanding with a view to making more successful propositions that generate profitable revenue. In the past, some in sales might have said that marketing was there to make brochures and websites visually appealing – we have all heard the derogatory references to “the colouring-in department”. Or, marketing was berated for running campaigns that generated inappropriate leads, thus wasting sales time. Of course, before firms had access to masses of easily accessible information about customers, “spray and pray” marketing was bound to be the default. Technology has empowered all involved in business generation to do their homework. Sales and marketing need to work together as equal partners in ABM. They both have expertise to offer in prioritising the right accounts and designing integrated campaigns. Tailored campaigns If customers are to be “markets” in their own right, a range of information sources must be integrated: l The needs, opportunities and threats in the markets in which they operate l The strengths and challenges of the organisation l The behaviours and preferences of individual buying decision-makers. ABM systems should enable the analysis of these factors to facilitate the design of effective sales and marketing activity that will engage the customer. CATEGORIES OF ABM To understand ABM, it is worth breaking it down into categories: Strategic ABM “Strategic ABM” is often used interchangeably with key account management by some commentators, but it actually plays a supporting role in strategic account teams. It is predominantly focused on existing customers. The ABM professional is likely to be supporting no more than four account teams. Marketing activity is ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

24-26 Rogers V2.indd 3

WINNING EDGE 25

25/10/2017 17:34

FEATURE | ACCOUNT-BASED MARKETING

sales model need to be managed by an ABM professional who can identify trends such as repeat purchases and know when to pick up the phone to a customer to ascertain whether the relationship needs to be nurtured more closely.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This article is based on chapter 6 of Malcolm McDonald on Key Account Management by Malcolm McDonald and Beth Rogers, which was contributed by Bev Burgess, senior vice president of the Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA). ISM members can receive a 20% discount on this book when purchased from Kogan Page using the discount code BMKKAM20. Visit www.koganpage.com FURTHER READING www.itsma.com/account-basedmarketing-hot-topic

BETH ROGERS is a visiting fellow at the School of Business and Law at the University of Portsmouth, an ISM Corporate Member. She can be contacted at beth.rogers@port.ac.uk

26 WINNING EDGE

24-26 Rogers V2.indd 4

MAKING ABM WORK Like any other type of organisational change, an ABM programme, or combination of programmes, requires company-wide understanding and support. Champions of ABM must enthuse senior managers with a vision for success, alongside a realistic assessment of the work involved and the impact on colleagues and customers. Attempts to apply technology at the customer interface do not have a very promising designed to improve brand perceptions, build history of success. Some analysis must be carried relationships and identify opportunities by out of the usefulness of any system and how it is generating account-specific thought leadership for going to help everyone whose work will be affected meetings with the customer. Effectively, it provides by it. All the information and insight that should and executes a marketing plan per strategic be accessible should be identified early on. customer, which feeds into the account plan. It Bringing in internal sales and digital marketing helps the customer to perceive that this supplier experts and the IT supplier’s technical designers to understands their business needs in depth, and can define a system is critical, but involving customers provide tailored value propositions. The success of who are willing to take part is highly desirable. strategic ABM is judged by customer lifetime value The best ABM systems empower customers as well and customer advocacy, and revenue generation. as encouraging learning, increasing salespeople’s understanding of customers’ needs and enabling ABM lite the introduction of new products and services. “ABM lite” serves customers and prospects that are The other key factor to explore is usability. Many sometimes categorised as “mid-tier”. The ABM users of CRM systems still complain that they are professional will look after about 25 firms with “clunky”, difficult and counter-intuitive. There is similar business characteristics no good reason why bad and needs. For example, they systems should be propped up “Sales directors should might be medium-sized by new systems trying to paper take an open-minded manufacturing companies over the cracks. IT suppliers’ look at ABM” trying to diversify their product technical teams need to check range. Much communication that interoperability between will be through digital marketing, email, social systems is as smooth as possible. Slick and flexible media and phone. Returns may be modest per sales processes are needed to make the lives of account, but have a positive cumulative value in salespeople and customers easy. Attention should ensuring the sustainability of the sales pipeline. be paid to how insight is generated from data, the quality of messaging and communications support, Programmatic ABM and the process for identifying sales opportunities Driven by the company’s sales coverage model, and accelerating the sales process. Technology “programmatic ABM” is technology-based should enhance this. Of course, every system needs communication with the marginal customers in the a lot of hard work in the implementation phase. portfolio and many potential new customers. At Pilots should precede rollout, and rollout should be first glance, it looks like the broadcast marketing of cautious and thorough. old, but online. However, just as Amazon can The good news is that ABM programmes have occasionally send us recommendations that do delivered considerable success for pioneers. Up to meet our needs, software can learn about customer 20% increases in sales, customer satisfaction, and prospect buying and browsing behaviour and account share, customer retention and deal size provide prompts that result in sales. The analytical have been reported. Some analysts argue that engine has to be good or customers will just be ABM has been over-hyped, but various cases of annoyed by irrelevant offers. What can be exceptional success cannot be ignored. Sales automated must be designed to deliver directors interested in making sure that their convenience for both supplier and customer. business development model is best-in-class should Of course, the customer segments covered by this take an open-minded look at what ABM could do. ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

25/10/2017 17:34

Powerful. Affordable. Intuitive.

CRM & Marketing Automation The Dynamic Duo Align your Sales and Marketing teams through one intuitive application Avoid separate databases and achieve smooth lead handovers Talk to the experts at Gold-Vision: Authors of the customer-endorsed CRM, Email Marketing and Marketing Automation platform Visit our website for a free trial: www.Gold-Vision.com or Call us: 01788 511 110

• • • • •

CRM Marketing Automation Lead Management Email Marketing Outlook & Gmail Integration

• • • • •

Mobile & Tablet Hosted or On-Site Events Management Social Listening & Sharing Mapping Services

Unify your communications with Gold-Vision, a fully featured CRM solution comprising of Sales, Marketing, Projects and Events. Gold-Vision stands out from the crowd with integrated Lead Management and Marketing Automation modules. Contact us today to implement with UK based software authors and experts.

www.gold-vision.com text pages nov.indd 3

@goldvisioncrm

Call us today on 01788 511 110

25/10/2017 18:38

SALES TOOLBOX Our latest round-up of sales enablement and performance tools By MARC BEISHON

28 WINNING EDGE

28-33 Tools V1.indd 2

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

25/10/2017 17:35

SOFTWARE | FEATURE

n the next few pages you’ll find our latest listings of software applications designed to help in the B2B selling process or in organising the salesforce. We’ve picked out these tools as separate categories to mainstream customer relation management (CRM) suites such as Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics, although of course these do also carry out some functionality of the specialist selling apps – but obviously not as well or at all, as many of these apps are designed to work with the big CRM systems to plug gaps or to enhance their functionality. What we can say for sure is that the sales app sector – apart from CRM – shows no sign of slowing down, although there are inevitably more signs of consolidation, which always happens in a software sector that is moving to a more mature phase. A good example is an investment company called Vista Equity Partners, which has gobbled up four sales and marketing players recently – Marketo (which is a big fish), Lithium and Xactly (the sales compensation provider); and also the rather oddly named ToutApp, a sales communications and campaign system that was acquired by Marketo. To play in the enterprise market alongside Salesforce it’s probably vital to have a “one stop shop” but, generally, companies that buy up lots of others don’t tend to fare well in integrating them and also lose many staff who made the firms successful in the first place. An exception is CallidusCloud, which looks to now have apps in almost every sales tool category and which has maintained its independence. To get hopefully unbiased views of products there are several sites that have managed to put apps into various categories and invite users to add ratings and reviews – G2 Crowd, Capterra and the Salesforce AppExchange are still the main ones although they major on US software and omit a lot of UK/European apps. Also, quite a few products on the AppExchange have not been updated for some time and have few or no ratings – there does not appear to be much quality control. There are currently more than 1,200 apps in the sales category on the AppExchange. A good marker of developers on the ball is those marked “Lightning ready”, Lightning being Salesforce’s “agile” platform. Software companies come and go and it’s easy to just leave behind a website where you can still sign up to an app, but is it being supported? We are suspicious of websites that do not have named people as contacts and at least an updated blog that says what they doing. Have we missed a key app? Let us know.

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

28-33 Tools V1.indd 3

PRO PO S A LS, PO RTA LS, PR ES EN TAT I O NS, S ALES ENA BLEM ENT IS ANYTHING YET threatening to overturn PowerPoint as king of general presentation tools? It will surely happen but there’s nothing anywhere near, but not for want of trying. Prezi looks to be doing well with a business edition of its tool and cites research that “zoomable user interfaces” such as Prezi’s are better than “slideware”. Apple’s Keynote is still being updated; British firm Sparkol (which sells Videoscribe) reckons there has been “a small but noticeable shift away from PowerPoint”, and Google of course has Slides, which is free. We’ve picked up a number of other general-market presentation tools that look to be worth checking out: CustomShow, Haiku Deck, SlideDog (a playlist app), Visme (which majors on infographics), Wink and Emaze. See also the free Libre Office and its Impress presentation module, and various apps that cater for sharing slides and presentations among groups, and of course apps that enhance PowerPoint itself. What follows are apps and companies that major in the content side of the sales enablement sector, which seems to be the most common use of the sales enablement term, although it is used in opportunity management as well. Also, we’re mainly talking about B2B selling here – web-based content personalisation for consumer retail selling is a very different area. QVIDIAN – looks to be maintaining its leadership in the proposal and RFP area, and has recently improved the workflow functions of the main product. It also has playbook, presentation and due diligence offerings, and has signed a UK partner, Hobbs Repro, a reprographics firm that specialises in proposal management. CLEARSLIDE – a firm we said is one to watch and it’s not disappointed with its sales platform that allows you to integrate content with communications you like to use, including Slack, a teamworking tool claimed to be “the fastest growing business application in history”. SEISMIC – a top-rated content platform (see box p30). SAVO GROUP – praised for having one of the most complete sales enablement offerings. It says its platform “prescribes the right sales content, coaching and process” for its enterprise customers. CALLIDUSCLOUD – the all-round provider has a sales content enablement offering that gives you a “single source of truth”, as the company puts it. QURIOUS – gives reps “realtime answers” to questions. PROPOSAL SOFTWARE – a longstanding proposal and RFP player with its PMAPS system, against which other firms like to compare and better with their own offerings. It has a UK office. BRAINSHARK – another strong sales enablement platform with integration into most main CRM systems. Its site has good thought leadership material. BIGTINCAN – the amusing company name is behind a an enterprise-level sales, marketing and learning content platform. It targets roles such as field service.

WINNING EDGE 29

25/10/2017 17:35

FEATURE | SOFTWARE

PRO P O SAL S, P RE SE N TATI O N S, PO RTALS (CONTINUED) KAON – an interesting provider of a 3D content modelling and interactive storytelling system. BUYERDECK – this looks like a solid sales content platform. The firm has UK and US contacts. XAIT – has a collaborative document platform called XaitPorter that is suitable for working up sales proposals. PRESENTIA – a presentation system that’s much better than PowerPoint for sales, reckons its British developer. IPSCONNECT – dovetails PowerPoint slides with PDFs, videos and other media to deliver sales presentations. It’s from a UK outfit called Interactive Presentation Solutions. RO INNOVATION – has content and sales enablement offerings. Based in Denver. MARCOMCENTRAL – a Ricoh company, it has a marketing content distribution platform. FISION – a strong looking sales-marketing content firm. MAINSTAY – a US firm with a sales enablement platform and a value calculator. See mainstaycompany.com POINTDRIVE – this is a sales content engagement firm that has been acquired by LinkedIn. SALESFRAME – a Finnish firm with a sales enablement system for all company sizes. It includes a storyboard feature and has a good, clear website. QORUS – offers sales enablement and proposal/bid management modules. There’s a London office. SHOWPAD – a sales enablement platform that’s expanded to the UK and the US from its Belgium base. LEVERAGEPOINT – a value content system. VABLET – a sales content system from a US firm. There’s a version that integrates with Salesforce. WHUT – a sales content management system built for manufacturing sales professionals. UNIFY– UK content system. See librisunify.com COMPANYAPP – has products including Presenter, a sales presentation app. It’s a UK firm based in London. IPRESENT – a sales enablement system that runs in the cloud. The firm has UK and US offices. PITCHER – modestly described as “the ultimate sales enablement tool”. This Swiss firm targets various verticals. CONGA COMPOSER – we continue to note that this document system is one of the top-rated Salesforce apps. SHARK FINESSE – helps you create ROI business cases. From a British firm based in Basingstoke. SALESELEMENT – a web-based proposal offering from a US firm. The main product is called seProposals. MEDIAFLY – a US firm that offers SalesKit, a content app, and has trademarked the term Evolved Selling. ROI SELLING – has a range of RoI and value tools. ALINEAN – a long-standing RoI and value proposition firm, with a range of tools. OCTIV – a rebrand from Tinderbox, this document firm has a sales proposal and presentation offering. PAPERLESS PROPOSAL – offers a cloud-based proposals system that pulls together latest assets. RFP365 – an RFP collaboration platform. INSIDESALES – a major player in several categories, including playbooks CONTIQ – “creates winning sales pitches in minutes”. ENHATCH – centralises content on a visual platform.

30 WINNING EDGE

28-33 Tools V1.indd 4

SLIDESHARE – don’t overlook the massive presentation sharing site owned by LinkedIn. PERFECT PITCH 24 – a sales presentation tool for the iPad and other systems. See perfectpitch24.com POSTWIRE – a cloud-based system for creating private places for prospects and clients to “feel special by sharing information and exchanging insights for achieving their goals”. It integrates with Salesforce. GLANCE – provides visual engagement tools such as co-browsing and screen sharing. ACCENT – provides a family of sales enablement products with crossover into opportunity management. REDOCK – this was a firm called Koneka and has rebranded to market its RFP system, which has an artificial intelligence element. It’s a Canadian firm. PLAYBOOX – this US company has a sales playbook system, as its name suggests. MINDTICKLE – has a mobile content system that can also be used for coaching/onboading, and has partnered with Playboox in a bid for an “end to end” solution. SALESHOOD – a content and coaching platform. PRIVIA – a US developer of proposal management software for companies of all sizes. It has recently added a graphical whiteboard review feature. WITTYPAROTT – a content delivery system for rapid response to prospects with personalised content. It can also help with onboarding reps. ALLEGO – a sales learning and content platform. VEELO – this is a sales enablement specialist that rebranded from MobilePaks. HIGHSPOT – another powerful-looking sales enablement content system. PREZENTOR – a tool for building value-based sales presentations from a Danish firm. FLOWVELLA – an iOS presentation app. See also p11.

SALES SHAKE UP We’ve picked out Seismic for special mention in the sales enablement category partly because of its leadership in promoting the benefits of delivering the right content to sales reps at the right time and the right place. If any vendor’s website is going to turn you on to this, Seismic’s will. An award handed out to the firm notes that: “For content administration and management, Seismic has all of the bells and whistles: decomposition of PowerPoints and PDFs into individual pages; in-depth workflows for reviews and approvals; and rapid assembly of customised content, which gets automatic updates as it changes.” Seismic also recognises it can’t pretend to cover all angles, and we see it has partnerships with several other high profile sales and marketing tool companies, including Brainshark, MindTickle and Marketo.

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

25/10/2017 17:35

SOFTWARE | FEATURE

CU STOM ER A DVO C AC Y RE FE RE NC ES A N D RE FE RRA LS NO COMPANY CAN get by without decent customer references, and in the B2B world they are especially critical in the sales cycle. This is more than a niche area in the overall content/sales enablement mix as it can be a struggle to capture content from customers, so a few tools continue to thrive in organising this content, especially in the enterprise market. A challenge is that customer content is often fragmented around a company. RO INNOVATION – we noted before that RO Innovation had acquired Boulder Logic, a pioneer in this field. Its Reference Enablement product is the core customer reference/advocacy offering. POINT OF REFERENCE – its ReferenceEdge system runs natively on Salesforce, and as the firm says, “customer content is only powerful if it can be found”. AMPLIFINITY – specialises in customer and partner referrals, which can be powerful if done right. VOCALREFERENCES – interesting firm that helps to capture video and text customer testimonials. INFLUITIVE – an active provider of an advocate marketing platform. AMBASSADOR – modestly claims to be the “world’s number one all-in-one referral software”. CUSTOMERADVOCACY – an advocate marketing platform that runs with Salesforce. TECHVALIDATE – says its software “creates persuasive content from your satisfied customers”. WIWITNESS – for collecting social media testimonials.

G A MI FI C AT I O N A N D L E AR N I N G

ON DISPLAY Plecto is a Danish firm we’ve encountered a few times at trade shows and has one of the best we’ve seen of a new generation of dashboards to display sales performance. You can tailor the dashboards with various widgets, recognise top performers on leaderboards, broadcast success with customisable “win” notifications, and organise contests and rewards. If visual presentation is a factor in driving behaviour change, this offering has a good pitch. Plecto says it has redesigned the system this year, and it can also integrate with a range of platforms such as Salesforce and Pipedrive.

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

28-33 Tools V1.indd 5

THIS SECTOR HAS developed more rapidly than anything we’ve seen. While many vendors say they have gamification, we’ll restrict our list to major sales players. GROWTH ENGINEERING – UK firm that majors on learning and has a game-based tool called Genie. BUNCHBALL – one of the pioneers. QSTREAM – probably the world leader in developing interactions between salespeople and prospects. HOOPLA – has a performance data platform. CALLIDUSCLOUD – has the Badgeville service. MICROSOFT – fantasy sports in Dynamics CRM. INSIDESALES – acquired the PowerStandings system. LEVELELEVEN – initially just gamification, now a wider sales motivation platform that works in Salesforce. GAMEFFECTIVE – a new one on our sales radar. PLAYDAY – gamification from an Indian company. PLECTO – see box. THE SALES ACTIVATOR – a UK player that has developed The Selling Game. CLOUDAPPS – has the SuMo sales motivation and leaderboard products. Based in Winnersh. AMBITION – creates dashboards for all employees. ONEUP – UK dashboard and game player.

CONFIGURE, PRICE, QUOTE AND CONTRACTS         CPQ – CONFIGURE, PRICE and quote – are applications that help salespeople to quote complex and configurable products, and also guide customers on ecommerce. Note that Salesforce has its own CPQ offer having bought SteelBrick in 2015. This is a hot software category that fits between CRM and ERP. Forrester puts Oracle, Apttus and CallidusCloud as leaders. ORACLE – the software giant acquired BigMachines and now badges it under the Oracle CPQ Cloud name. IBM – offers its Sterling CPQ suite. CALLIDUSCLOUD – CPQ is yet another in its set. FPX – a pioneering CPQ player, acquired by equity firm HGGC. There’s a UK office. See also the article on p34. BLUEPRINTCPQ – the trading name of UK firm Blue Zebra Associates and a cloud CPQ player. INFOR – big player with dozens of products including CPQ and CRM. VENDAVO – a CPQ supplier based in Denver. SOFON – a Dutch firm with quote and contract offers and also a sales management module. Has a UK office. CINCOM – a long-standing business software player with a CPQ module. APPAROUND – combines customer facing content and real time quoting. Based in Pisa, Italy. DETERMINE – includes contract, CPQ and RoI tools among its offerings. It acquired Selectica. CONGA – pops up again in contract management. CIS – a US CPQ vendor. See cisconfigurator.com VERENIA – this US firm claims to have the world’s most used CPQ platform. CAMOS – a German CPQ specialist. TACTON – a major CPQ and guided selling provider based in Sweden. Targets the manufacturing sector. ENDEAVORCPQ – quote-to-order and proposal generation software from a US player. PROS – an international player with CPQ, sales analytics, price and revenue management. QUOTEWERKS – sales quotes and proposal system. APTTUS – a big player in the quote to cash market, with CPQ, contract and revenue modules. SPRINGCM – contract and document management. MODEL N – its Revenue Cloud automates pricing, quoting, deal management, contracting and more. NSALES – a Danish firm offering a mobile sales ordering tool, nVision Mobile. It’s for the retail sector. EXPERLOGIX – US firm that offers CPQ that works in Dynamics and NetSuite. IQUOTEXPRESS – a US quote and proposal system. DOCUSIGN – the firm that’s led the market for automating sales contracts and agreements. PANDADOC – a CPQ, proposal and contract management firm that recently won more funding. KBMAX – a 3D CPQ system. CONFIGURE ONE – solid CPQ company targeting the manufacturing sector. It has a UK office in Harlow. BLACKCURVE – UK provider of price management software for manufacturing, distribution and retail. AXONOM – sells the Powertrak visual CPQ system.

WINNING EDGE 31

25/10/2017 17:35

FEATURE | SOFTWARE

BUSIN E SS INT ELL I G E N CE THIS CATEGORY IS about business information for fuelling sales research, and is particularly important to implement as we are constantly being told to engage with prospects in the early stages of the decision cycle. We’ve excluded standard business list companies in favour of companies with apps. LinkedIn is of course in this category too. We have included a few social media and “influencer” offerings. DOW JONES – has a range of information products including Factiva, the news database, and Dow Jones Direct, which sets up curated content. D&B HOOVERS – always a big name in business information, Dun & Bradstreet acquired Avention this year and combined it with Hoovers to create D&B Hoovers and has more than 120 million records. LEXISNEXIS – a major player that includes news and company research in its portfolio. MOODY’S – has recently acquired Bureau van Dijk, which expands its business information side. LATTICE – a strong player in lead scoring and predictive analytics. See lattice-engines.com CONVERSICA – aims to pre-qualify leads with AI. CALIBERMIND – unites data silos for sales intelligence for a “single view of the customer journey”. SILOBREAKER – a UK firm that allows you to monitor news, blogs, feeds, forums and social media sources. NODE – uses AI to generate ideal customer profiles. INFER – it matches your CRM records against its dataset “to identify thousands of signals including social presence, website technology, and more”. See infer.com KRED – for building a trusted influencer network. SOCIALMENTION – a social media search engine. INTROHIVE – adds “relationship intelligence” into CRM. ZANRAN – a source for data and statistics. BYPATH – an intelligence app from Kompass. MINTIGO – a predictive marketing platform that the company says will be the “ultimate GPS for marketers”. It’s about harnessing “big data” to gain customer insight. ONALYTICA – focuses on getting your content in front of influencers. RELATIONSHIP SCIENCE – allows you to map your relationships with other entities. The firm is promoting the idea of “relationship capital”. See relsci.com. ARTESIAN – a strong UK provider of customer insight for B2B selling, with an artificial intelligence approach. INSIDEVIEW – see panel on page 33. SIDETRADE – gets views of customer relationships – payment terms, changes in behaviour, delays, long-term forecasts and so on. It’s a UK firm. DISCOVERORG – a Canadian sales intelligence company. It has bought a firm called RainKing with its database of 1 million decision makers. KNOW YOUR ENEMY – a free Salesforce app for keeping an eye on the competition. DATAFOX – a recent US startup that promises to deliver better company intelligence and key events on prospects. It’s using artificial intelligence of course. CLEARBIT – pushes real-time data into Salesforce. EVERYONESOCIAL – a social selling and employee advocacy platform.

32 WINNING EDGE

28-33 Tools V1.indd 6

O PPO RT U N I T Y A N D AC C O U N T M ANAGEM EN T THIS CATEGORY IS about adding frontline salesforce automation back into CRM. It’s about smarter selling, not sales intelligence or content management, although lines between the categories are not as clear cut as they were before the advent of “sales enablement”. We’re not including mainstream CRM systems and call centre apps. CALLIDUSCLOUD – among its products here are Datahug, for pipeline and forecasting; and territory and quota management automation. ORACLE – the software giant has a set of sales automation tools in its Sales Cloud suite. SALES-I – a UK developed system that alerts you to slipping accounts, automates sales reports and spots opportunities. It’s aimed at sectors such as distribution. VECTA – UK sales automation software aimed at manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers. FORCEMANAGER – a mobile salesforce system that tracks activity and analyses sales behaviour. SALESMAP – a Scottish web-based opportunity and pipeline management system. AGENT3 – majors on account-based selling. ZILLIANT – Its IQ range includes Sales IQ, which “provides actionable intelligence about the best cross-sell, up-sell, and retention opportunities within existing customers”. We’re talking artificial intelligence again, from one of the stronger players. SALES OPTIMIZER – well-rated on Appexchange for its process, opportunity and account management tools. ALTIFY – this used to be the TAS Group, which had the famous Target Account Selling (TAS). Now it’s a software firm with account/opportunity management, coaching, relationship mapping, and sales process tools. ADVENTACE – sales methodology on Salesforce. PIPELINER – bills itself as a CRM player but firmly focused on managing the sales process. TOTANGO – see panel, p33. PERENSO – an Australian firm with a field sales automation system. PROSELL – provides a sales onboarding app. MARSELI – forecasting analytics in Salesforce. FRONT ROW SOLUTIONS – has a reporting system for field sales calls. MEMBRAIN – a Swedish firm with a platform for complex B2B selling. Includes opportunity/pipeline management, coaching, content and more.

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

25/10/2017 17:35

SOFTWARE | FEATURE

OPPO RT U N IT Y & AC C O UN T M A NAG EMEN T ( C ON T I N U E D ) OUTREACH – drives meetings and rep workflow. CACI – UK firm with field sales optimisation software. Not related to a US company of the same name. CLARI – a forecast and deal management offering. XENTOR – a UK sales performance management firm. XVOYANT – sales coaching system. DEALSHEET – an opportunity manager from UK firm Outside In Sales & Marketing. ONTARGET SYSTEMS – a UK opportunity/pipeline risk and rep performance offering. PLAN2WIN – a US developer, it has territory, account and pre-call planning products for Salesforce. PIPELINE MANAGER – looks like it does what the name says and is a highly rated app. REVEGY – a US provider of opportunity, account, territory and channel management software. GEOPOINTE – a geo-mapping system for Salesforce. DEALGPS – a deal support tool from a Dutch firm called Ardens Soft. INSIGHTSQUARED – says its Tiles and Slate products provide everything you need to understand, forecast, and optimise your sales in one place. ANAPLAN – aligns sales objectives, plans quotas, designs territories and carries out forecasting. KAPTA – key account management (see panel). DEMANDFARM – key account management. PEGA SALES AUTOMATION – from major vendor Pegasystems, this competes head on with Salesforce. SALESSEEK – a sales activity and deal manager from a London-based firm. GRYPHON NETWORKS – offers sales performance and intelligence systems, among others. SALESMETHODS – a UK firm with a range of sales tools, including methodology offerings and the selling tools OrgChartPlus, ValuMaker and BlueSpace. SALES INTERACTION – UK firm that has a field call activity and coaching system called Advance. PIPEDRIVE – described as a simple sales management tool to organise sales information, activities and deals. VERSATILECAPITALIST – has several Salesforce apps such as for managing multiple account contacts. BADGER MAPS – sales route planning software. Works internationally. SALES NAVIGATOR – another route planner. PORTATOUR – another route planner. TRIP BUILDER – a UK travel time app. DEAL CATALYST – a pipeline system from a firm called Occurro Software. TERRALIGN – has sales territory software. DISTRIBUTION ENGINE – a well-rated lead-routing app for Salesforce from British firm, NC Squared. SAVO GROUP – this major vendor also has opportunity management and team selling apps. TRACTION – a big Salesforce app provider – e.g. Hierarchies, which displays things like account overlaps.

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

28-33 Tools V1.indd 7

DREAM TEAM A company that claims to “put sales and marketing on the same page to create a revenue dream team” is certainly one to note. InsideView is a US firm that has a methodology to gather and validate data and market signals in real-time, “to produce the industry’s most reliable, actionable B2B data and intelligence”. Visit insideview. com and see if you agree with the company’s claims.

CUSTOMER SUCCESS We’ve noticed that some companies have started to use the term “customer success” for their customer-facing teams, and one software provider, Totango, has adopted the phrase for its products. The idea is to “onboard” customers and then optimise each stage of their journey, with Totango saying it can help build early warning systems for when customers need attention; build automated account management activities; and forecast churn, renewal and upsell revenue by portfolio or customer segment. As such its platform is primarily aimed at customer retention, which is often neglected in favour of new business, and could give account managers an easier way to work. Another firm is Kapta, which is squarely aimed at key accounts, but the firm also uses the term customer success to describe its wares. Its software carries out account health scoring and captures data on client expectations and initiatives, so generating strategic account plans. General CRM packages also run accounts of course – but not as well, we feel.

I N C EN T I V ES / PER F O R M A NCE THIS CATEGORY HAS developed into much more than compensation systems and into salesforce performance based on incentives. XACTLY – appears still to be the sector leader and has been acquired by Vista Equity Partners. Apart from its main compensation lines it has recently bought AlignStar, a territory management player. CALLIDUSCLOUD – the multi-product vendor has the Commissions incentives and compensation system. ICONIXX – an enterprise sales performance system, with compensation and quota management. ORACLE – has incentive and talent management functions that run on its Sales Cloud. IBM – covers incentives, quota and territory management, analytics and talent management, through various acquisitions. INCENTIVES SOLUTIONS – a big sales performance provider, with a UK office. OPTYMYZE – this US firm has compensation, territory and quota products. NETSUITE – one of the big all-round software players. It has a commission plans module. GLOCENT – a sizeable compensation player with an office in Germany. BEQOM – a cloud sales and HR compensation player with a UK office in London. SURFWRITER – has products for sales compensation (CloudComp) and a rep revenue splitting app (RevenueCloud) that run on Salesforce. CORE COMMISSIONS – specialises in “affordable” sales commission and incentive pay solutions. FOCALREVIEW – compensation management software from a US firm, SpiraLinks. NICE SYSTEMS – has an incentive compensation management product. ZS ASSOCIATES – offers its Javelin sales compensation and territory tools. QCOMMISSION – sales commission software from a firm called CellarStone.

WINNING EDGE 33

25/10/2017 17:35

FEATURE | SOFTWARE

HOW TO UNCROSS YOUR WIRES STEPHEN HARDY champions ‘configure price quote’ – an approach to managing complex B2B sales

here has been plenty of talk in recent years about how the vast majority of B2B buyers start their purchase journey online, about how much more dependent on content they are, and about how many have already made a purchase decision before a salesperson even makes contact. What we don’t hear so much about is the difficulty for B2B companies of managing the complex processes that have always characterised their sales. How can they reach those buyers in their decision-making process and maximise online opportunities? Anyone selling B2B solutions or products is likely to be involved frequently in assembling quotes and proposals, getting approval from a manager for a discount, or working with the product or solution manufacturer to develop a bespoke configuration for a customer. This can be challenging and is riddled with multifaceted processes, including ever expanding catalogues of products and services, large partner and vendor networks, fluctuating prices and currencies and, increasingly, customers who are looking to replicate their digital B2C experiences in their professional working lives. There’s no doubt that B2B sellers face many obstacles. While key trends such as managing the millennial workforce, getting to grips with social selling and sales intelligence, a renewed interest in the customer experience, and using machine learning to deliver a predictive sales strategy, all combine to provide digital opportunities, they also present more complexity in the already intricate B2B buying and selling ecosystem. ECOMMERCE IS THE FUTURE But among all of these trends, online selling is perhaps the most prevalent, and is increasingly where the future lies, so organisations are under pressure to emulate the success of B2C ecommerce. Recent research by Forrester in the US, UK, the Netherlands and Germany, found that ecommerce currently accounts for 35% of sales. But where an ecommerce solution is in place, companies said that they were looking to achieve 50% of sales from ecommerce and the 34 WINNING EDGE

34-35 Hardy V2.indd 2

other 50% from traditional direct, indirect or a combination of direct/indirect channels. It’s easy to see why – ecommerce can be a very effective method for streamlining sales processes while providing customers with a convenient and familiar digital buying experience. In another report published earlier this year, Forrester identified some of the major benefits to B2B sales organisations: l Maintenance costs are reduced as customers self-serve and can take advantage of automatic renewals and order processes, allowing sales

“B2B sellers face many obstacles. While digital trends provide opportunities, they also present more complexity”

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

25/10/2017 17:36

SOFTWARE | FEATURE

executives additional time to focus on more lucrative accounts l Companies can more easily retain low-volume customers, supported through online customer service portals and guided buying features, as well as intelligent FAQs l Customers often spend more as they interact with sellers through ecommerce as well as traditional sales channels. We know there are challenges involved in migrating product and service catalogues online, not to mention adapting custom pricing, and with personalisation and custom configuration, selling B2B products across multiple channels is only set to become more complex. But, the returns can have a significant impact and allow businesses to steal a march on the competition. In fact, businesses that opt for an omnichannel strategy can make inroads into new buyers, while delivering more cost-effective and resourceefficient methods of selling products online or via partner channels and direct sales.

STEPHEN HARDY is UK managing director of Dallas-based FPX, which specialises in enterprise Configure Price Quote (CPQ) for B2B buyers and sellers. Visit www.fpx.com

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

34-35 Hardy V2.indd 3

FACING THE CHALLENGES So, the issue is not whether organisations should be facing up to these complexities, it is how they face up to them. Many that have already started the process and are now building their online operations have turned to powerful ecommerce tools to help them source, manage and distribute information on product details, pricing, customer data and business logistics. Some have invested in CRM and ERP, which are designed to help manage complex processes ranging from sales to manufacturing and configuration. These are reaping rewards, but they can also present some difficulties because applications of this kind often work in isolation and gaps appear between front and back office operations. As a result, users from the sales, marketing, pricing, manufacturing and development departments, and elsewhere across the enterprise, not to mention any partners, must manage data and processes independently, often with timeconsuming and costly outcomes due to confused quoting, pricing, configurations and delivery. Alternatively, there are platform-agnostic solutions that have been built specifically to work with, and bridge the gaps between, these disparate technologies. Configure, price quote (CPQ) applications are designed to deliver information accurately across the enterprise and ensure that each user as well as each customer – regardless of the channel they work in – has a consistent experience when researching, pricing, configuring, and ultimately buying and receiving a product or service. When it comes to finding the right solution to help alleviate sales complexity, companies could

start by considering the unique challenges they face and their overall objectives. They then need to evaluate a variety of technology solutions and vendors that help extend the capabilities of their existing resources while adding much-needed features and functionality to their sales and delivery processes. CPQ FOR ONLINE MIGRATION A comprehensive ecommerce solution backed by a best-in-class CPQ application can help enterprises in all sectors take their businesses online. But it is also important to ensure that while they are improving the delivery of their digital buying experience for customers, they are also providing a solution that is suitable for direct sales and channel partners. The aim might be to achieve 50% of sales through ecommerce, but the reality is that the vast majority of sales are through more traditional direct and indirect channels and these must be considered as a key part of any technology deployment. B2B direct sales are not going anywhere and have a huge role to play in the growth of enterprises today. Going back to Forrester’s research, two-thirds of survey respondents said that delivering a consistent, high-quality sales experience in direct channels is at least somewhat difficult, which underlines how crucial it is to get the balance right. B2B firms have traditionally placed a high priority on improving direct sales, but have done so through a technology “Band-Aid” approach, adding solutions piecemeal to solve challenges as they arise. The result is that sales reps already selling inherently complex products and services must navigate and leverage a disjointed set of sales solutions to get information and complete the sale. This creates a difficult experience for both sales reps and customers alike. The most obvious solution is to take an omnichannel approach, and ensure that across all of their channels, their teams have the tools to configure, price, quote and ultimately sell products accurately and efficiently. Training new sales executives, offering key features like guided selling, upselling and cross-selling, as well as ensuring product and pricing data are updated and consistent, all involve varying degrees of complexity that require agile and powerful solutions to resolve. By mapping out the complexity challenges, companies will be better able to identify technology solutions and strategies, and take meaningful steps towards becoming more efficient and experience-driven. We are at the beginning of momentous change in B2B buying and selling, but the tools are there to provide support if companies are prepared to look, assess and invest in them. WINNING EDGE 35

25/10/2017 17:36

FEATURE | SALES EMPATHY

FINDING THE RIGHT WORDS In the third and final part of her series, SARAH HINCHLIFFE explores how empathy can help us to write better proposals

his series is based on the “six habits of highly empathic people”, as identified by Roman Krznaric in his book Empathy. In Part 1, we got acquainted with the concept of empathy – tuning in sensitively to our audience’s feelings and perspectives, and adapting our behaviour accordingly. In Part 2, we looked at empathy in selling – how it can help build relationships, differentiate, and create shared values. Now, let’s explore how we carry our good work into our proposals.

SARAH HINCHLIFFE is a director of i4 Sales Performance,* a business focusing on helping small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) achieve sales and bid excellence. i4 is a Shipley Business Partner. See www. i4salesperformance.co.uk or email sarah@i4salesperformance.co.uk *i4 Sales Performance is the brand name of the services supplied by i4 Consultancy and Design

36 WINNING EDGE

36-38 Hinchliffe V2.indd 2

THE ROLE OF A PROPOSAL Last time, we established that aligning your sales activities to the steps in your prospect’s buying process shows empathy, which helps build trust – crucial for a successful sale in the 21st century. Modern selling is a far cry from sales methods such as the infamous ABC (Always Be Closing), which are oldfashioned and downright un-empathic. In the six-step approach in the diagram below, the proposal is the fourth stage, when the prospect requests a formal offer from interested sellers. By this time, if you followed the recommendations in Part 2, you should be in pole position to win. You will have brought insight to your prospect’s BUYING AND SELLING STAGES business, positioned your Your proposal formalises your offer with a compelling story company as an important player and shaped your prospect’s needs. If you did a stellar job, your prospect may Need Status Define Access Address Make a quo emerges need options worries choice have decided not to bother with a proposal at all. But let’s assume your prospect needs a BUYER proposal for legal or professional procurement reasons. Think of the proposal as a continuation of your Provide insight & Create Negotiate Become Shape Build work to date – as the thought compelling confidence important needs and close leadership offer opportunity to pull everything together in one compelling SELLER document confirming why you are the best choice. With that in mind, we can turn back to our six empathic habits. ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

26/10/2017 08:46

REMEMBER YOUR PROSPECT Too many proposals forget about the prospect – putting pen to paper seems to cause amnesia. We end up with a document all about “us”: how fantastic we are, how marvellous our products are, what super features our Habit products have. One: Switch on your So, remember a key part of Habit empathic One: “Shifting our mental frameworks to brain recognise that empathy is at the core of human nature.” In a proposal, build empathy by shifting the focus from you to your prospect. Plan and craft your writing so they come first. For example, begin sections, paragraphs and sentences with the prospect’s name. I often see entire pages where the first word of every paragraph is “SUPPLIER” – not exactly empathic. Once we’ve got our prospect back in sight, bring what’s important to them onto the page – their visions, goals and objectives, the problems they are aiming to solve, and the benefits they are planning to achieve. Write about your offer in the context of how it will help the prospect. Instead of: “SUPPLIER’s Wondrous™ widget was the first of its kind and is exceptionally small.” Consider: “PROSPECT can use the ‘Wondrous’ widget, measuring only 1 x 1, to help solve the engineering challenge to reduce the overall size of the Billy boiler.” STEP INTO YOUR PROSPECT’S SHOES Hopefully, during the early stages of the sale, you nurtured and built trust with each person involved in the buying decision. In the vein of Habit Two, you made “a conscious effort to step into other people’s shoes…and to acknowledge their humanity, individuality and perspectives”. Habit Build this knowledge into the Two: proposal. Write for each person, Make the imaginative using key messages that will resonate leap with them. Position these messages in the sections they are most likely to read. Show them you understand and care by using language that makes connections Instead of: “SUPPLIER will provide 24 x 7 maintenance from our Miniminster depot.” Consider: “PROSPECT’S operations staff need to be confident of a 99.9% uptime. This peace of mind will come with SUPPLIER’s local 24 x 7 service centre where we have a 100% one-hour fix rate success.” Combine facts and figures with feelings to satisfy your prospect’s emotional needs as well as their logical needs. Buying is as much about the heart as the head, even in business. ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

36-38 Hinchliffe V2.indd 3

WINNING EDGE 37

26/10/2017 08:46

FEATURE | SALES EMPATHY

CREATE SHARED EXPERIENCE If you spent time exploring your prospect’s business in the selling stages through the “direct immersion, empathic journeying and social cooperation” of Habit Three, you will have developed a deep understanding. Did you try a job swap or a mystery shop? Or did you work together with the prospect to Habit co-create brilliant visions and Three: Seek solutions? If so, make a list and move experiential on to Habit Four. adventures If it was difficult to get close to your prospect, did you identify parallels between their aspirations and those of your established customers? Did you publish thoughtleading white papers or blogs? You are looking for material that goes deeper than simply trotting out the same old patter about you and your products; something that brings insight and makes you stand out from the crowd. HIT REPLAY In Habit Four, Krznaric schools us in the art of “radical listening”. In your proposal, remember all the conversations, shared experiences and value that you have brought to the process so far. Show your prospect you listened by including reminders of the interaction. Just because Habit you have moved into writing mode doesn’t Four: prevent you having a “conversation”. Practice For example: the art of “In dialogue with PROSPECT at the conversation Wondrous™ widget demonstration in July 2017, we agreed it would fit the Billy boiler re-design perfectly.” Krznaric also explains “taking off our emotional masks”, meaning we should admit vulnerability where appropriate. In a proposal, this equates to dealing head-on with weaknesses in your offer rather than sweeping them under the proverbial carpet. For example, if your prospect has expressed a concern that affects your probability of winning, you should replay it and explain any mitigating action. Let’s say your prospect is based in Manchester and your main competitor is close by, while you are in London. Your mitigation plan is to open an office in Manchester if you win the contract. In your proposal, you would explain: “To allay PROSPECT’s concern that SUPPLIER is remote, we will open a local office to support this contract.” To make this promise credible, include potential office buildings and explain a local employment strategy. PROVE IT Habit Five encourages us to get to know the world through theatre, films, photos, books and songs. When selling, you can enhance your 38 WINNING EDGE

36-38 Hinchliffe V2.indd 4

knowledge by continually researching via the rich source of traditional and online media. For your proposals, spend time at your desk or with your colleagues building strong proof to support sales messages. An immutable law of proposal writing is always to make the Habit connection between features, customer Five: requirements and a demonstrable Travel in your outcome. Make the link: requirement– armchair feature–benefit–evidence. By default, anything unconnected is superfluous. Develop case studies that include testimonials, making sure they are linked to quantified business benefits. For example, cite that you saved your customer costs or increased their revenue in a specified time. Add third party reports and internal research and statistics to your evidence bank. Remember to always note the source and the date – prospects may want to dig deeper, so don’t be caught out with an unsubstantiated claim. Consider ways to present evidence in graphical format or any appropriate media. Photos, charts, graphs, drawings and process flowcharts all help to add authenticity and reinforce your story. BE VISIONARY While Habit Six takes us into the realms of the impossible when writing a proposal, challenge yourself to be different. A dash of creativity can spice up the dullest of proposals. It helps if you think of your proposal as a story: where are you now (“once upon Habit a time”), what’s the vision of the future Six: (“happily ever after”) and the journey Inspire a to make that vision a reality with you. revolution Chuck out unimaginative, clichéd language and think up vibrant new ways of describing yourself and your products. Think how you can package and present your proposal so it’s a winner from the first impression. I remember a restoration company competing to refurbish a famous World War II building – it presented its proposal in a genuine postbag from the period, found on eBay. JOURNEY’S END We’ve come to the end of two journeys. We’ve travelled through Roman Krznaric’s six habits, seeking to discover how to transform our proposals from dull narratives to captivating tales that focus on the prospect and persuade them why our offer is better than and different from that of our competitors. We’ve also come to the end of the various routes we’ve taken to explore the subject of empathy, as defined by Krznaric. With thanks to him for inspiring this series – I very much hope it has inspired you. ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

26/10/2017 08:46

success is:

achieving your goal, together.

Over 2 million sales professionals have been enabled by OS Solutions to accelarate sales performance and increase predictable results.

thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the advantage.

picture that.

opensymmetry.com text pages nov.indd 4

25/10/2017 18:38

FEATURE | SALES COMPETENCIES

40 WINNING EDGE

40-43 Erskine REVISE.indd 2

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

01/11/2017 11:40

SALES COMPETENCIES | FEATURE

BREAKING THE MOULD MARK ERSKINE considers a new set of salesperson competencies for today’s changing sales landscape

here have been many changes to different results”, but it’s certainly aligned with the sales landscape over the past Henry Ford’s famous observation,“If you always do few years and it is easy to get left what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what behind in the race for success. you’ve always got.” Differentiation can seem elusive Let’s start with the most commonly held belief and innovation hard to find, and in recruiting for sales. There has always been a the competition moves fast and inexorably to widespread assumption that extroverts are the most replicate new products and services in a heartbeat. productive and successful salespeople. Yet in 2013 As highlighted in my last article “Who holds the Adam Grant, an American author and a professor cards?”, published in the last edition of Winning Edge at the Wharton School of the University of (2017, No 2) the rise of professional procurement Pennsylvania, studied salespeople and found that has created a new buying process, meaning new success belonged to “ambiverts” – people in the salesperson skills and middle of the continuum competencies are needed to from quite introvert to “The rise of professional come out on top. Purely clearly extrovert. He found procurement has created a new identifying customer needs that this group naturally buying process, meaning new and matching your product engages in a flexible salesperson skills are needed” or service to meet that need pattern of talking and in the form of “solution listening. selling” is no longer enough. Salespeople relying on When recruiting, the industry body for human personality, drive and influencing won’t succeed, as resources professionals, the CIPD, recommends in the buyer now holds the cards. its best practice guide that, alongside competencyAll these changes have crept up on the sales based interviews and assessment centres, community, yet many sales organisations have organisations should use a form of psychometric or seemingly chosen to ignore them and still behavioural profile. If we take the life orientations sell in the same way, despite dwindling circumplex diagram (see page 42) as an example, success. Furthermore, these same old you will find that traditional sales leaders have habits become epidemic across the recruited for sales hunters by choosing a business – recruiting for the same combination of “controlling” and “adapting specifications, job descriptions, behaviour – with one eye on driving to get competencies and behaviours. results and closing deals with high Maybe it’s not quite insanity, persuasive skills, and the other eye on defined by Einstein as “doing building strong relationships (the the same thing over and right hand side of the over again and expecting diagram).

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

40-43 Erskine REVISE.indd 3

WINNING EDGE 41

01/11/2017 11:41

FEATURE | SALES COMPETENCIES

PEOPLE

Qua

nne

sia st ic

enc llig

En th u

inte

ial

Inspiring

Confiden

See

CON

ick

d Structure

cal

nge

Ana

cha

BIG PICTURE

Focus

Introvert

e Pow

Fa c

EXPANSIVE

ion

IN G

lyti

Pla

cef our

Res

ilit

xib

Fle

AD AP

IN G

Safety

ING RT

Extrovert

NG TI

DETAILED

Principle

CON

RESTRICTIVE

SUP PO

lity

Soc

ork

s es

ness Responsive

mw Tea

irn Fa

Tr u

Agreeab le

Flexible

Focused TASK

Adam Grant’s research puts a real question mark over this tenet and finds there has been growing resistance to stereotypical salespeople characterised by the “adapting” orientation, who often lack the detailed subject matter expertise and gravitas. Procurement professionals, on the other hand, are primarily from the “conserving” orientation and naturally run a structured, logical and reason-driven process, where emotion and subjectivity are, as far as possible, eliminated. So, if we took our rising procurement professional, who looks for far more regulation and compliance “What we do still find is that it during the buying process, comes down to trust between would they be so easily the buyer and seller – trust, manipulated by our pure pure and simple” adapting seller? What we do still find is that it comes down to trust between the buyer and seller – trust, pure and simple. The financial services industry has been blighted by trust issues with its public for a number of years, principally because of widespread mis-selling, and it has resulted in clients becoming highly risk averse. That old maxim that “people buy from people they like” is still true – every buying decision is made up of a combination of reason, logic and emotion, with emotion dominant. As Matthew Lieberman of the Social Cognitive Laboratory in Los Angeles puts it, “We are hard wired to be social – our brains are wired to connect.”

So, rather than the people orientation of “adapting” they are more aligned with that of the “supporting” orientation, where relationships are key, but so is fairness, trust and reliability. A piece of research undertaken with 500 global buyers in 2016 on selling featured words such as “shifty”, “dishonest”, “pushy”, “annoying”, “untrustworthy”, and “self-interested” as the primary terms in a word cloud. This stereotype needs to be eliminated in all forms of selling. But let’s get more granular by looking at some detailed competency requirements that can help us adapt to this new sales landscape. A NEW SET OF SALES COMPETENCIES Identifying needs

Challenging and problem solving

Traditional solution selling, by identifying needs through effective questioning and listening skills, is no longer enough. Buyers are now looking for problem solvers where, as the “challenger” sales methodology model proposes, salespeople educate their clients with insights about their business and challenge the status quo. This approach needs investigative and evaluative skills with a deeper thinking style than ever before. Matching solutions

Developing and tailoring solutions

In days gone by, the salesperson identified the need and simply matched their product service or solution to that need. Anyone who messed with the standard offer would be quickly reprimanded. Now buyers no longer want “out of the box” solutions, but expect their service providers to tailor the solution to their business. Flexible and resourceful skills are now vital. Relationship building

Adaptive selling

Now for those of you who have read my previous article called “Challenging challenger” (Winning Edge, September/October 2015) will know, I am not by any stretch a fan of the challenger ethos, which says, “If you are like most business leaders, you’d say sales success is fundamentally about relationships – and you’d be wrong.” Relationship building is a non-negotiable competency, but given the advances made in the study of neuroscience, salespeople need to learn adaptive selling skills, matching and mirroring and becoming the archetypal sales chameleon. Learning the science of relationship building is key, as they now need to relate to multi-functional, complex buying relationships. Understanding what clients of differing profiles want to know, how they want to be seen, what makes them comfortable and uncomfortable, and how to identify their profile in the first place, is now a learnable process. ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

40-43 Erskine REVISE.indd 4

01/11/2017 11:41

SALES COMPETENCIES | FEATURE

Being positive

Motivating and inspiring

THE CHANGING SHAPE OF SALES FUNNELS

It has always been important to be self-motivated as a salesperson. Most of the time sellers were out there on their own driving to close deals, relying on their own skill set. Now, prospects expect to see a team approach, where subject matter experts and specialists form a central part of the selling process. The salesperson has become the conductor or facilitator of the sale, and now it is important to be able to inspire and motivate other team members. Being disciplined

Project management

Let’s face it, salespeople were never renowned for being the most structured and organised workers, often ignoring the admin tasks, preferring to be out there “doing the do”. But with the rise of the collaborative team sales approach, and the management information needs of businesses with CRM systems and forecasting models, they need to multi-task and project-manage the sale, getting the right resources in the right place at the right time. Closing the deal

Consulting collaboratively

Back in the day, strong presentation skills and assertive, often manipulative, closing skills were essential ingredients. Now “selling with” rather than “selling to” is the order of the day – with trust, honesty and collaboration all critical. Closing has become a natural outcome, rather than a technique. Subject matter expertise

Business acumen

Knowing your product was always a sales maxim. Now buyers hold all the cards, knowing more about your product and service offer than ever before, as they undertake thorough and expert research and preparation. Not even subject-matter expertise is enough; now genuine business acumen is required – being able to show a return on investment model and forecast business results that impact the balance sheet as well as the profit and loss line. Results driven

Sustaining growth

Everyone wants salespeople to be focused on results, but given the rising cost of winning a piece of business, the salesperson must look for sustained growth from an account by selling win-win solutions that create a platform for ongoing development and growth – demonstrating real return on investment. SELECTING SALESPEOPLE So where do we find salespeople with this complex range of competencies and skills? There is no doubt they will be harder to find, so it is first vital to run a proper and effective recruitment and selection ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

40-43 Erskine REVISE.indd 5

process that tests applicants against a rigorous competency assessment, combined with psychometric or behavioural profiling. In addition, organisations need to look hard at their selling model. The cost of large sales opportunities in areas such as consulting, capital goods, construction and technology regularly cost £250,000 or more whether they win or lose. The big consulting firms can easily spend £1m-plus to win a corporate audit. Sales cycles are more complex, involving increased numbers of buying influences, more and more hurdles to jump, multiple buying stages (RFIs, RFPs and the like) and customised solutions. The most successful complex B2B sales organisations are changing the shape of their sales funnel (from blue to green, above). They are using sophisticated scoring techniques to choose which prospective clients to pursue and then overresourcing those fewer opportunities to improve their conversion ratios. A narrower sales funnel means you can employ fewer, better remunerated salespeople with improved competency sets. So how do we begin to break the mould as an industry and adapt to today’s changing buying and selling environment? Like a game of chess, we need to think constantly of new and innovative ways to outwit our opponent and achieve checkmate. Using the same old game plan just won’t cut it. If you have a team full of trustworthy, reliable salespeople, how adaptable are they if the buyer suddenly changes direction? Are you confident that you could re-train them with a new range of sales competencies? Or are you daring enough to invest in a new slimmed down team, but with more potent characteristics. These are all questions sales leaders need to ask themselves if they are to meet next year’s challenging quotas. Whatever step you do decide to take next, standing still just isn’t an option. As an industry, if we in sales want to start winning back control, we need to start embracing, among other things, the power of neuroscience, in order to build better relationships and a set of sales competencies fit for today’s changing world. Now is the time to break the mould and seize back the initiative from the buyer.

MARK ERSKINE is a member of the ISM with over 35 years’ experience in the sales industry. He is owner and director of Seller Performance, which, through its Capitalise programme, helps organisations harness the power of neuroscience in selling. Its preferred behavioural profiling tool is Life Orientations, used by over 21,000 organisations around the world. Email mark@ sellerperformance.co.uk or visit www.sellerperformance.co.uk

WINNING EDGE 43

01/11/2017 11:41

FEATURE | MANAGING CHANGE

KNOCKING HEADS TOGETHER CHRIS WHYATT considers how to achieve successful sales change

hange is an ever-present business theme, especially around sales. But, if you Google “what percentage of change initiatives fail?”, the answer is 70%. Many newly-appointed sales directors feel compelled to change strategy, and to do it quickly, but with a reported average time-in-role of 18 months, many are failing. Over many years, I’ve learned that successful change is only achieved when the people it affects buy in to the programme and the outcomes. Sales is full of people with diverse opinions and strong wills, so buy-in is vital. Sales leaders sometimes believe that buy-in is achieved by imposing the programme and outcomes they created in splendid isolation, without consultation with those affected. This can cause people to resist or disengage, driven by their lack of belief in the programme, or in the underlying reasons for the change. HOW TO ACHIEVE BUY-IN For the past 20 years, every successful change initiative I’ve driven started by harnessing the collective wisdom of those likely to be affected by it. The act of asking for, acknowledging, and acting upon, their contribution clearly sent out the message, “We value your opinion and we value you,” creating that all-important buy-in, and delivering a surge in discretionary effort. I first used this approach 20 years ago, when I inherited an “at risk” account and a team of more than 50 people. I immediately realised that we were not in good shape, and that urgent changes were needed, but was unsure where to start. I got all 50 people together for the evening (with free beer and food) and harnessed their collective wisdom, which added up to some 200 person-years on the account, to identify the issues and ways to turn the account around. This exercise highlighted that the customer didn’t recognise the value we were delivering, and that we had stopped listening to them. We had also become too subservient to them, afraid to push back on “opportunities” that represented bad business for us. We worked with the customer to agree better ways to communicate, pushed back on a few things, and undertook a marketing

44 WINNING EDGE

44-45 Whyatt V2.indd 2

campaign that emphasised the positives in our relationship. Eighteen months later we won sole supplier status. None of this could have been achieved without the invaluable input and complete buy-in from the account team. WHAT THIS APPROACH HIGHLIGHTS AND DELIVERS In the 17 years that I’ve delivered consultancy using this approach, a few themes have emerged – and remember, these themes are driven by the people involved, not my opinions. As you would expect, continual opportunity qualification is frequently in the top three “need to do better” list, as is a win strategy for must-win deals. The number one shortcoming is unsurprisingly “review, learn and adapt from success and failure”, which rarely scores better that 35%, accompanied by comments along the lines of “we lost on price, let’s move on” and “who cares why we won, let’s move on”. So many important lessons are lost forever. If just one significant win and loss were to be analysed annually, and the lessons applied, the savings made by losing quicker, and the revenue “Successful change gained by just one more win, would is only achieved make a big difference. when the people it A prime example of this was a mobile services provider, whose affects buy in to the sales team collectively identified programme and the that deals won or lost were outcomes” categorised as just that, and never discussed again. I worked with the team to define the information needed to provide usable data, and its CRM system was changed with immediate effect. The new information was mandated for the previous six months of pipeline, and the weekly pipeline review started by spending the first 30 minutes considering all deals won and lost in the previous week. Within weeks, things that had previously been blockers were overcome (hindsight is 20/20 vision), and the ability to either qualify out or develop an informed win strategy was greatly improved. Revenue increased and cost of sale was reduced. This approach also works in the indirect channel sales arena. A few years ago, we worked with McAfee to identify improvements that drove ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

25/10/2017 17:40

MANAGING CHANGE | FEATURE

86% growth in a single global reseller. This was achieved by asking the reseller (over 200 people globally) what it felt McAfee could do better across 20 aspects of partner engagement. The overall response was very positive, highlighting just three things per region (five globally) that needed addressing, mainly around joint value propositions and face time with local McAfee expertise. The investment needed to address these was easier to justify, as the need was proven, rather than by guesswork. HARNESSING COLLECTIVE WISDOM These days, I can harness collective wisdom in just two weeks using an online “business 360” approach (like a personal 360, but about business). In most cases, it’s one I’ve previously developed, but sometimes I use a bespoke one for a specific situation. All 360s follow the 5-level capability maturity model (CMM) (see these links for background: bit.ly/2h0gp6Y, bit.ly/1Zsvqg2). The pre-developed/off-the-shelf 360s are primarily focused on sales effectiveness, business growth, major accounts (supplier and customer perspective), alliances or partner engagement (both parties), and bidding. When a bespoke 360 is required, I work with the client to define and agree the scope and desired outcomes, then create a model that is fit for purpose, drawing on my library of existing questions and experience. The client sends the 360 to everyone in their business, stressing the importance of their individual (anonymous) contribution. To enable meaningful interpretation of the data when producing the outputs, the 360 captures the contributor’s job role, tenure, location (if relevant), and other agreed variables. Primarily, the results of the 360 enable the identification of the elements that must be prioritised in the change initiative, and the reasons why, using both quantitative data (the levels of maturity measured as 0% to 100%) and the qualitative data (the contributor’s comments accompanying their scoring). The next action is critical – communicating the findings, conclusions and next steps to the contributors, demonstrating that, “We’ve heard what you said and this is our response.” The level of buy-in and discretionary effort this delivers is immeasurable. By repeating the process every six months, everyone remains engaged in measuring progress, and is reminded that, “We value your opinion; we value you.” CHRIS WHYATT is founder of Get to Great, a consultancy specialising in helping technology enterprises meet sales targets consistently by embedding business agility and continuous improvement. Email chris@gettogreat.co.uk or visit www.gettogreat.com

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

44-45 Whyatt V2.indd 3

WINNING EDGE 45

25/10/2017 17:41

POWER, PERFORMANCE AND ETHICS In 2016, GARY PICKERING won the UK’s leading individual sales award. TOM NASH finds out why

n the evening of 9 March, 2016, at a glittering ceremony at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel, Gary Pickering won the biggest accolade of his career – and the most prestigious award in UK sales. The 44 year-old sales director for energy company SSE (pictured above with his award) was named Sales Director of the Year at the British Excellence in Sales Management Awards (BESMA). In the words of the judges, Pickering’s success that night was for “his exceptional results in

46 WINNING EDGE

46-48 Pickering V3.indd 2

turning a disintegrated sales organisation around, delivering a beyond-expectation sales growth in shifting markets, and creating a meritorious and ethical sales culture”. SSE is the UK’s second-largest energy supplier and a member of the FTSE 100. As well as providing power to millions of customers, the company also has a foothold in boiler installation and maintenance, and in broadband, both growing businesses with sales teams led by Pickering. As he explains, “Over the last three years we have looked to diversify, while also maintaining our core energy base. By exploiting SSE’s award-winning customer service, developing compelling propositions, winning partnership distribution contracts, and crossselling to existing customers, we have grown sales by more than 100% and increased our market share of broadband substantially.” As a major supplier, SSE’s businesses are highly regulated by Ofgem, Ofcom, and the FCA. “This environment is supported by a sales ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

25/10/2017 17:41

GARY PICKERING | PROFILE

through service culture focused on delivering positive outcomes for customers,” says Pickering. “As well as winning many customer service awards over the years, our ethical sales strategies were a key factor in our BESMA award.” In recent years, SSE has been challenged by competition from many small new entrants to the gas and electricity market. “I welcome the competition as it encourages us to be more innovative, more efficient and provide even better service to our customers,” he says. “In contrast, we are a ‘challenger brand’ in the retail broadband market.” Back in February 2014, Pickering had been recruited by SSE (previously Scottish and Southern Energy) to tackle the company’s deteriorating domestic energy sales, which had halved during the previous financial year. His decision to enter an industry with discredited sales strategies, during a period of intense change, was a bold one. “It’s easy to build on strong foundations, but when many sales channels underperform, things are more problematic,” he observes. “In the energy industry, where historically salespeople let themselves down, sales has had a bad name, arguably rightly so.” His task was to create a sales strategy and team to deliver profitable, sustainable growth in a sales environment under significant public, political and regulatory scrutiny. Initially, he had virtually no operational sales management team and minimal supporting infrastructure. DEVELOPING A SALES STRATEGY Pickering continues, “As a sales director it is important that I can assess the competitive environment, identify value pools in existing and new markets and develop strategies to exploit these growth opportunities.” Grasping the significant challenges facing him, he proposed far-reaching, radical changes. He developed a three-year sales plan based on year-on-year incremental growth. To maximise profits and strengthen customer loyalty, he sought to venture beyond the core energy proposition, introducing cross-selling of supplementary services that customers wanted and needed. And, to deliver the plan, he proposed to invest in – and demonstrate a return from – his salespeople. The main steps he took to regenerate sales and overcome poor public perceptions were to: l Highlight key markets (besides the domestic consumer, he identified partners through which energy for domestic properties could be sold) l Develop and re-integrate sales channels (the historic main sales channel of door-to-door selling had been discontinued) ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

46-48 Pickering V3.indd 3

l Design a sales organisation to deliver sales growth, while also focusing on regulatory compliance and customers’ needs and wants. A critical aspect of the sales strategy was to prioritise emerging channels, such as Internet comparison sites and collective switching, to tap into increasingly digital customer interactions and deliver an improved customer journey. By appointing and fully supporting experts in this area, Pickering “His decision to enter an enabled them to deliver rapid industry with discredited results. Between April and June 2015, cross-functional teams sales strategies, during a successfully delivered a pilot period of intense change, market-leading tariff to strict was a bold one” assurance, regulatory, and fairness criteria. Sales targets were achieved 12 days into a three-week sales window, during which time the digital channel gained over 32,000 accounts, achieving over 40% of its annual target. To deliver what he felt customers required, he promoted portfolio diversification. Managing energy and non-energy sales across the UK, he achieved huge growth in SSE’s new phone

GET T ING S TART ED IN SA L E S Gary Pickering was just 18 years old, a student with plans to be a lawyer, when he and his girlfriend ran away to get married. This year, the couple celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary, along with their 18-year-old son and 12-yearold daughter. “As a married man with new responsibilities, I felt I needed to be earning money, so I went for a job at TSB Bank,” he says. “I started as a cashier in the Hounslow branch in West London. I wasn’t very good at it and made frequent errors, but fortunately Hounslow was the bank’s regional office, and the regional sales manager felt that I would have more success in sales.” His first sales job was as a branch adviser, selling mortgages, savings accounts and insurance. He has been in sales and business development ever since. “TSB’s customer-centric sales through service training was excellent and I proved to be a much more successful branch

adviser than I was a cashier,” he continues. “A branch manager of mine went to work for Chelsea Building Society and offered me a job there developing intermediary mortgage business. Over the following 12 years, I worked hard, learnt from my many mistakes, and was promoted several times, until I was made sales director in 2008 – just as the financial crash was hitting...” In February 2014, he joined SSE as sales director and in 2016 he was promoted to director of sales and retention at the energy giant. In the wake of his BESMA win, Pickering reflects, “I’ve been fortunate to work with many brilliant people in my career. What I’ve learnt from them is that there is no recipe for success, no silver bullet.” His concluding advice is: “Love what you do, or change it; remember that, whatever industry you’re in, you’re in the people business; and constantly ask yourself how you can improve.”

WINNING EDGE 47

25/10/2017 17:41

PROFILE | GARY PICKERING

and broadband offering, as well as delivering 17% growth in home services such as boiler installation and maintenance. At the same time, his focus on traditional channels remained strong with marketing budgets and training programmes designed to improve outputs. For example, he introduced a fully compliant method of outbound telephone sales calls, recognised by Which? as best practice, to reach more customers with compelling propositions.

coaching culture. This means that most conversations are in a coaching style, led by our salespeople, empowering them to make choices about what they’ll do to continually improve their performance.” He adds, “When it comes to specific customercentric signature practices, I expect all of my sales managers to be able to demonstrate what good looks like by showing their salespeople in live customer-facing situations – we don’t expect our salespeople to do anything we can’t or don’t do ourselves.”

PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST Beyond his strengths in strategy, Pickering regards himself as “first REAPING REWARDS “It is vital that I constantly and foremost a people person”. In 20 months, Pickering delivered the kind of focus on people, by which I He continues, “It is vital that I results that the BESMA judges could not ignore: mean both our customers constantly focus on people, by l Strong sales growth, exceeding targets and our colleagues” which I mean both our customers l An industry-low number of customer and our colleagues. I love complaints delivering for our business l Management team expansion from one to partners and our customers. And as a qualified eight reports and around 700 sales colleagues business coach and mentor I love developing our l An increase in the Great Place to Work score sales managers and salespeople so they can from 65% to 84% achieve their business and personal goals.” l Absenteeism reduced from an average of 12 When recruiting, he prioritised people with days per employee to 1.19 the right customer-centric attitudes and powerful l Extremely low staff attrition. leadership skills. When embedding his teams, he As BESMA’s judges observed, he “not only promoted team building through learning succeeded in re-opening sales channels on the programmes. For example, each manager was strong foundations of integrity and compliance, encouraged and financially supported to but he used his personal authenticity to engender complete Tom Rath’s Strengths Finder 2.0 the culture where ‘doing the right thing’ is the questionnaire to identify their strengths. The only option”. results were shared in order to help teams Pickering describes last year’s BESMA win as integrate more efficiently, increase self-awareness “both a surprise and career highlight”. He adds, and work better together. “It was recognition for the high performing team His next step was building resilience and I’d assembled, and not just the results they’d maintaining “sales happiness”. He wanted his achieved, but the ethical and professional way teams to know what they needed to achieve, and they had achieved them.” how. His decisions and initiatives included: He concludes, “You don’t get to become sales l Adopting a visible leadership style, helping to director without the fundamental ability to fix niggles fast through an approachable attitude deliver results. Throughout my career, I’ve been l Continually honing leadership management fortunate enough to build and develop sales skills and, through mentoring, improving the teams that have achieved or exceeded their standard of each customer interaction targets most of the time. It’s all about the l Promoting rapport through semi-formal team strength of the team – and that’s why my team meetings to share successes, create positive has been shortlisted as a finalist for the Sales shared memories, and build a sense of belonging Team of the Year award at BESMA 2017.” l Empowering teams to collaborate through a well-defined multi-way communication schedule BES MA – RECO GNIS ING EXCELL E N C E l Driving meaningful objectives and personal development plans aligned to the sales strategy. BESMA honours the UK’s finest sales professionals. It represents the Pickering continues to use regular team country’s “Oscars” for sales leaders, salespeople and sales teams, meetings as a platform to deliver ongoing culminating in a glittering awards ceremony attended by hundreds of training. Periodically, he also conducts a team finalists, sponsors, guests, and the media. “BESMAs” are awarded by the 360o feedback exercise for each of his senior sales ISM after a rigorous judging process by experienced sales experts, leaders. “All of our sales managers are ensuring that they reward the efforts of sales professionals in driving accomplished coaches,” he says. “While we do company performance and creating a thriving UK economy. have pre-arranged coaching sessions with our For more information on BESMA 2017, visit www.besma2017.co.uk salespeople, we focus more on an ‘always on’ 48 WINNING EDGE

46-48 Pickering V3.indd 4

ISMPROFESSIONAL.COM

25/10/2017 17:41

cover pages nov.indd 2

25/10/2017 18:05

NATIONAL SALES CONFERENCE 2017

Book n ow for jus £276+ t vat*

Thursday 30th November, Ricoh Arena

E D U C AT E • M O T I VAT E • I N N O VAT E Guest Speaker:

Sir Clive Woodward Culture - Strategy - Change As a coach and leader Sir Clive Woodward is synonymous with two of the nation’s most historic sporting achievements: England’s 2003 Rugby World Cup winning victory and Team GB’s London 2012 Olympic Games.

Keynote Speakers:

*20% ISM Discount Use promo code ”ISMSAVER” by 29th September

SAVE £119

Only redeemable at: www.sales-expo.co.uk/saving

Host: Julie Holmes

Dr. Graeme Codrington

Whole Company Selling Leader

Expert on the Future World of Work

Send Your Sales Team Buy 5 & receive the 6th ticket free

Book Today:

www.sales-expo.co.uk/saving 01732 525 950

Winning Edge: September 2017 - Tools for Today

Articles inside

How to win a BESMA Award

How to Achieve Change in Sales Environment

Breaking the Mould

Finding the right words

How to uncross your wires

Sales Toolbox - Latest Software Listings

Tools for Today

Give away nothing for free

Making Sales Training Tick

Benchmarking the world's sales organisations

Practical Advice on Data Compliance