Perfect Pre-Calls

Remember that class you were required to take in college? For me the most vivid was Business Ethics. Nobody, professor included, seemed to want to be there. The only signs of life happened after the words, “That’s all for today.” (But, hey, it was the 80’s and who really needed to learn about ethics, right?)

If you’re a B2B salesperson today, you probably co-sell with partners – i.e., subject matter experts, external distributors, etc. Transforming a group into a team in a short timeframe, and beating out equally qualified competitors, is no simple feat. So, you probably try to have pre-calls, or prep meetings, to get everyone in sync in advance of customer or prospect meetings. 

Why do pre-calls seem to trigger the same level of enthusiasm as my ethics class did? If your pre-calls track with the norm I hear about, they may look something like this: if you have one at all, colleagues show up late or suddenly can’t make it. And the focus is on discussing customer information or pitchbook pages that could have easily been done in a shared document via email. Sound familiar?

If you make your number consistently, you know that successful sales meetings start with effective pre-calls. So, what does a solid prep meeting look like for high performers? Here are 5 CLUES:

1.      CONVENE: ask early, require everyone attend, ensure a time cushion for pre-meeting adjustments;

2.      LEAD: prepare and execute your agenda, communicate the mission, clarify roles, demonstrate confidence;

3.      UPDATE: share new developments, review meeting logistics, monitor progress on meeting materials;

4.      EXERCISE: practice key parts of the meeting – intros, recommendations, closing, responding to questions and objections;

5.      SHARE: facilitate feedback and plan adjustments.

Where are the gaps in your pre-calls? 

Conducting an effective prep meeting can be painless, worth your time and, done well, can be the key to winning. It’s tempting to skip it or phone it in, and save a little time in your day. If your goal is to win, however, it’s important to realize that your competitors face the same temptation. The payoff for investing the time – where the competition doesn’t -- may be the edge you need to retain or expand a client relationship or win a new logo. 

Learn more about how to win at high-stakes sales meetings in my new book, Sell Like a Team (McGraw-Hill, 2017).

QUALIFYING: Where is your organization’s strike zone?

If you or your children play softball or baseball, you’re familiar with the strike zone.  The dimensions of this imaginary zone extend, horizontally, the width of home plate, and, vertically, from the batter’s mid-torso to her knees.  Because not everyone’s torso and knees are in exactly the same place, strike zones vary by hitter.  Umpires use this zone to call strikes and balls.  Hitters use this area to select which pitches to swing at.  Good hitters know even more specifically the best spots for them within the strike zone given their unique body mechanics.

In sales, I use the strike zone concept to help sales organizations and their people better qualify opportunities.  Qualifying is about deal selection, or the ability to determine which opportunities to pursue based on how attractive they are to the business and how likely they are to close.  Effective salespeople are master qualifiers; their attention is drawn like a magnet to attractive and closeable deals.  Much like sluggers, they know their strike zone, when to swing, and when to wait for another pitch.

ANY ROAD’LL TAKE YOU THERE

Unfortunately, only 30% of salespeople are rated “strong” in the Qualifying competency, according to Objective Management Group.  What about the other 70%?  Imagine a batter flailing away at every pitch that’s thrown.  In sales, weak qualifiers tend to waste a lot of time chasing business nobody else much wants or deals they can’t close.  It shows in their sales performance.  And it’s frustrating because many times their lack of results is not due to lack of effort.  It brings to mind Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, who was famously paraphrased as telling Alice: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road’ll take you there.”

Where do the 70% of weak qualifiers go wrong?  Sales involves a lot of rejection.  So, any wins – even small and unattractive ones – can feel good.  They can also feel like they demonstrate to managers that they can put wins on the board.  At the time of this writing, we’re in the throes of a pandemic, which has reshaped a lot of pipelines.  And, when someone’s in a dry spell, closing anything feels better than closing nothing.

Poor qualifying skills in a sales organization can be extremely costly to the business.  Consider how much is paid: in base salaries to the 70% (weak qualifiers) who do a lot of swinging and missing; in commissions paid for unattractive business; to other resources brought into deals that don’t close; and for lead generation to compensate for their inability to convert opportunities to wins.

INCREASING YOUR TEAM’S BATTING PERCENTAGE

On the baseball or softball diamond, choosing the right pitch allows a hitter to maximize her chances for connecting, getting on base, and potentially scoring a run.  In sales, similarly, choosing the right deals to pursue reduces wasted time and distractions, and allows people to focus fully on winning their best opportunities.

How do you get more people choosing the right pitches to swing at?  Here are several best practices to get you thinking:

1. Leadership’s role: the future of your business is too important to leave to the deal choices of salespeople. Define and communicate to the sales organization the kinds of business you’re seeking. Help them see where the organization is most successful winning profitable business, including the types of organizations, people, and work. What do deals outside your strike zone – too big, too small, too weird to be worth it -- look like?

2. Numbers matter: measure, compensate, and hold people accountable for pursuing and winning the kind of business you’re seeking. Last year, what percentage of deals that your sales team proposed on did they actually close? What percentage of closed business fit your criteria for the kinds of deals that should be celebrated?

3. Expect imperfection: your sales managers should be prepared to coach salespeople on their decision-making related to deal selection – intervening and challenging or supporting where appropriate -- their choices. Likewise, as a senior leader, you should ready yourself to challenge your first-line managers about the deals their people are pursuing. These points of tension are healthy controls.

4. Define your sales process: ensure that your road map for pursuing new business is current and that it includes a discrete gate through which only qualified opportunities pass. Ensure that a small committee, or at least someone other than a lone salesperson, makes the call to pursue or pass on a deal

5. Revisit your selection criteria: it’s worth looking at your organization’s success rate in choosing sales talent who are also strong qualifiers.

SWINGING TO WIN

Consistent batters in softball or baseball are a rare breed and don’t win on their athletic talent alone.  In your sales organization, are you recruiting people who know their strike zone, so they can connect and win?  Do you have an accurate read on what percentage of your salespeople (or sales candidates) are strong at the qualifying competency?  Would knowing that help you grow your business?  My system can help you measure that sales competency, as well as 20 others.  Start by taking this free trial.

Different Players, Different Game

Has this ever happened to you?  You think you’re all set for a sales meeting when you learn that the people you were planning to meet with have shuffled the deck and “others” will be joining the meeting.

How does that make you react?  Your brain may tell you to dismiss this as unimportant or irrelevant, that it doesn’t matter, that this change will not affect the meeting and the outcome you are hoping for. But, what if it will?  Will you be able to pivot?

ENTER THE ALIENS

In biology, introducing a foreign species into an ecosystem upsets the balance in, and can destroy, its environment, economy or health.  In your prospect’s buying ecosystem, alien species are additional buyer stakeholders who join your prospect’s decision-making process.  How will this affect your main contact’s role in that process?  Her perceptions?  The ultimate outcome?

Solving for every unknown is impossible, but you can count on one thing: unexpected things will happen.  Changes to which stakeholders are involved in a meeting or in the client’s buying process changes the sale.  Will you be able to make that pivot, and adapt, or will you stay locked onto your prior course?

PIVOTING

You may remember Lance Armstrong, the once famous and now disgraced professional cyclist.  In 2003’s Tour de France – the super bowl of championship cycling – he executed a creative, impressive and famous pivot.  Since most pro cycling teams have elite-level fitness and equipment, the major risk is an accident.  When someone goes down in front of you, it tests your agility in a high stakes moment.  Midway through this race and a 185km stage, Armstrong approached a pile-up that had claimed one of his chief rivals.  What does he do?  Instead of plowing into and joining the carnage, wrecking his body and his bike, he steers his bike away from the pile-up.  In fact, he veers off the road completely, into and across a field.  In the process, he eliminated a key competitor, avoided injury and gained time on his rivals.

How do you execute a great pivot in your selling, so that you can adapt when conditions change?  Here are five best practices:

1. Breathe. In addition to sending oxygen to your brain so that you can think clearly, it will help you remain calm and focused.

2. Think. Who are the new players? What is their role? Why are they joining the meeting?

3. Adjust. The sales process doesn’t always move forward. Be willing to take steps back to do more discovery to understand the interests of these new stakeholders and bring them on board.

4. Focus. Arrive dialed in, ready to ride across the field to win if needed.

EXECUTE

In your pursuit of a sale, the players will change at different points.  If your aim is to win, not just to show up, the best practices above will enable you to stay agile, and ready to adapt to changes so that you can eliminate a competitor and get closer to the prize.

How agile are you in your selling?

You Say Tomato, I Say Sales

It’s funny.  In many professions, the words “sales” and “selling” are taboo.

If you’re in tech or professional services, you may call it business development, or biz dev if you’re a righteous dude or dudette. In banking, you may call it BD or even marketing.  You may also “monetize” or “commercialize.”

And the people who do it?  Well, of course they’re account execs, consultants, advisors, business development officers, client evangelists and client engagement specialists.

Anything, please, just don’t use the dreaded s-word.

THE CONTORTIONIST

In the most recent Cirque du Soleil show, my wife and I marveled at Aleksei Goloborodko, a 25 year-old Russian and the circus troupe’s contortionist.  How this young man bends, twists and folds his body seems impossible.

Back to selling, why all the contortions around using the s-word and why does it matter?  It’s true that every culture, industry and company is different in sometimes very significant ways.  However, are the activities that your people pursue to grow your business so different that they warrant a unique naming convention?  Do your clients not know that your biz dev people are, well, developing new business? Aren’t your clients and prospects doing the same thing with their business?

THE REAL QUESTION

To grow your business, how many of the following activities must you or your people do effectively?

• Find new clients

• Expand existing relationships

• Develop trust quickly

• Ask great questions

• Listen for understanding, meaning and feeling

• Convey value compellingly

• Focus on the most attractive and likeliest opportunities

• Gain commitment to move forward

Using cryptic names can risk miscommunicating your intent internally.  And isn’t there enough of that already?

When some people hear that what they do is something different from “selling,” it gives them license to not do the activities above -- effectively or consistently.  Is that a pattern you see?  How does this affect your bottom line and what can you do about it?

OWN IT

What if you just owned it?  In addition to delivering great solutions, why not be clear that to grow your business:

1. Your firm has salespeople. To find and close new opportunities with clients and prospects, you need salespeople.

2. Your salespeople sell.

3. Selling isn’t dirty. Given how tough it is to do well, selling is worthy of respect.

4. Selling skills must be developed. To win against able competitors, your people will need to keep getting better to accomplish your aspirations.

You say tomato.  I call it selling.  Whatever you call it, if you want to drive growth, there is no need for contortions.  Be clear and consistent in your messaging, build a team with the right stuff, and support them to do their important work.  If you’re not sure how to get started, I can help you get there.

Sales Hiring Mistakes: The 2 Hidden Costs of Choosing the Wrong Candidate

What’s your firm’s success rate in choosing business development talent who’ll ramp quickly and hit goal?

It’s a question that many companies aren’t clear about.  At their best, most sales managers select sales candidates that fail as often as they succeed.  So, it understandably becomes the norm: nobody’s perfect, your underperformers may finally break through, and making mistakes is a cost of doing business.

Does that work for you?

Hiring the right talent is key. In the movie business, the choice of leading actor can play a significant role in box office success or failure.  Production companies hire professional casting directors, may run auditions with hundreds of candidates, and do screen tests with co-stars to get this decision right.

Bringing in a big name with lots of movie credits, and paying up, surely guarantees success, right?  Bruce Willis helped the “Die Hard” movie franchise become one of the most successful in history, grossing $1.4 billion.

Get this decision wrong and you’ve got “Hart’s War.”  Doesn’t ring a bell?  Losing $100 million, this movie also starred Bruce Willis and became one of the biggest box office flops in history.  Same actor, wrong role.

To generate sales, you hire, pay, manage and train talent to hopefully generate blockbuster revenue.  But, sometimes, despite a strong resume, past success and sparkling personality, they’re just not right for the role.  Here’s one more (real) example: as part of a lift-out of a business unit within the same industry, two salespeople were brought over from the old company.  Successful in the past, both were fired within their first 12 months at the new company -- for lack of sales results.  How did this happen?  Despite their talent, the conditions into which they were being hired (no internal leads) were different from those at the previous company (many internally-sourced referrals).  Good people, wrong role.

What’s the “cost” of hiring the wrong candidate?  What’s the benefit to getting the right sales talent into the right role?

While you probably know much about the answers to these important questions, here are two ugly truths that my clients have come to discover and that you might want to consider:

1. Opportunity cost: Hiring an underperformer, of course, may involve fees for headhunters and job boards; and salary (or draw), commissions, benefits, training and travel expenses. But there’s a bigger question: what’s the spread between an average performer (who meets their sales quota) and an average non-performer (who doesn’t). For one of my clients, this spread is $250K/year. Multiply the spread by the number of years that a company retains an underperformer, and you may be at $500K or more. What would the opportunity cost be in your business?

2. Collateral effect: Effective salespeople like winning, and this requires an A-list supporting cast, from analysts to sales engineers to managers. Salespeople with weak production and weak skills, and who are allowed to carry on without changing, have a corrosive impact on the sales organization. They consume time and resources, and send the message that sales success doesn’t matter. While compassionate in one sense, what if that created a level of resentment that caused one or more of your high performers to finally take that offer from your competitor that’s been chasing them? In your firm, what would their lost production be worth -- $500K? $1 million? More?

Because of these two ugly truths, measuring and improving your firm’s success rate in selecting biz dev talent should take on greater importance.  One way you can accomplish that is by using a data-driven approach to assessing sales talent, early in the recruiting process to ensure your team only interviews candidates who will succeed in the role you’re filling.

Want to take a free road test of the sales candidate assessment tool I use to predict success for my clients? Click here.  We can customize the assessment for your company so you can find the right talent you need to accelerate your revenue growth.

PIVOTING YOUR SALES ORGANIZATION: MAKE SHIFTS THAT STICK

Are you making changes to your sales organization with new leadership, a new CRM, going after a new channel or larger clients, or trying to sell solutions that cross multiple lines of business?You probably won’t be surprised to learn that roughly 70% of efforts by organizations to change direction are unsuccessful.  So, what are some ways to bend the curve on your firm’s outcomes?

WHY CHANGE EFFORTS FAIL

When making changes, it’s important to consider that one major reason that change efforts often fail is that the organization is not aligned around the change.  Not surprisingly, people are generally resistant to change. Employees often prefer their current behaviors to new ones and will look for reasons not to change; and managers or peers who are not supportive, or even indifferent, about the change might be just the ticket they’re looking for to stay on their current path.Gaining alignment to change current practices is different from a leader gaining consent to or compliance with their idea.  It involves effective teamwork to, first, make the right decisions about the change and, then, gain alignment around the change decided upon.

THE ESSENTIALS

How do you do this?  Research from Richard Hackman, whose work on high performing teams lasted beyond his years, and Ruth Wageman (both Harvard PhD’s and organizational behaviorists),  proved that 80% of a team’s performance could be traced to three essential questions:

1. Are they a real team?

2. Do they have a compelling purpose?

3. Do they have the right people?

Allow me to add some color to each, using an example that you’re assembling a task force to choose or change your organization’s CRM system.

REAL TEAM

A team that’s “real” is bounded, interdependent and stable.  Will the membership be defined?  To choose the right CRM for your firm, will the members need to draw from each other’s experience and insights? Can you count on the members to stay involved from start to finish, and will their managers support this?

COMPELLING PURPOSE

A purpose that is “compelling” is clear, challenging and consequential.  Are members clear on the scope of the task?  Does their work end with a systems recommendation, or do they continue on through negotiation, or possibly implementation?  Will participating on this task force engage and stretch people in a way that feels good?  And do they see this system change as something that will help their colleagues, the business and give them pride?

THE RIGHT PEOPLE

The “right” people are those who can best contribute to the team’s mission.  For a CRM selection, does each member bring a perspective that will lead to the right outcomes?  Do they have teamwork skills that will enable them to operate effectively with others in contributing to the task force’s work?  Will they bring a diversity of thought to ensure there is some healthy tension in how decisions are made?

MAKE IT HAPPEN

Ensuring your firm makes the right decisions, and is aligned around them, takes patience.  It’s way quicker to announce a decision and tell people to get on it.  That’s exactly what lands most initiatives in the 70% of fails.  If the change is worth doing, it’s worth doing right.  Getting into the 30% success club starts with a real team, a compelling purpose and the right people.If you’re frustrated by a team that is charged with important work connected to your growth aspirations, but which is not aligned and incapable of producing optimal decisions, I can help.  By running a quick diagnostic – based on Hackman’s and Wageman’s work – we can gain clarity on both their challenges as a unit, and how to support them effectively, so that your efforts succeed.

Consultative Selling with a Wooden Racquet

Does your sales organization gain enough client information to win consistently?

Are you old enough to remember Bjorn Borg, the Swedish tennis phenom?  You know, long blond hair, headband, scruffy face.  His fitness and innovative topspin forehand helped him win 11 Grand Slam titles in the 1970’s.  Less memorable was his comeback in the 1990’s.  Borg quickly learned that a wooden racquet and topspin were no longer game-changers.

Likewise, the phrase “consultative selling” may bring back memories.  It should, it’s been around for over 40 years.  It’s tempting to dismiss the approach as old-school.  Like Borg’s wooden racquet, surely this tool won’t win deals today.  Right?

Wrong.  For two reasons.  First, there is a misunderstanding of what it is.  And, second, there is an incorrect assumption that everyone does it.

There’s a commonly held belief among salespeople (and their managers) that consultative selling is about identifying and addressing a customer’s needs.  While these things are important, they don’t go far enough.  For a long time now, the internet has empowered clients to source and research their own list of vendors.

In a sales meeting today, asking a few questions and describing your capabilities isn’t enough to win, when other vendors can do the same thing and your client knows it.  Today, selling consultatively means asking deep enough questions, and listening acutely, to uncover an accurate and complete picture of a client’s urgent and compelling needs.  Do your salespeople do this? Do your sales managers know how to do this?

The second incorrect assumption is that, because consultative selling has been around a while, everyone must do it.  Have you ever heard the expression, “common knowledge isn’t common practice?”  It applies. Based on a survey of over 1.9 million salespeople from 200 industries and 130 countries, how many are strong at the consultative selling competency?  Get ready for it: 12%!

This means that, when 10 salespeople compete for a deal, only 1 of them will ask the kind of questions that enables her to position value in a way that a client will find compelling enough to agree to a change.  What about the other 9?  They walk away with participation trophies or, in this case, believing that they would have won if they had a lower price.

Does your sales organization sell consultatively, or just talk about it?  For leaders who are driven to accelerate growth, I offer these five proof points to test whether your people are in the 12% or 88% of consultative sellers:

1. Client knowledge: When you ask your people about a new business opportunity, are their answers limited to either their perspective (on size, timing or competitive advantages) or that of one decision maker (“he loves us”)? Or are they able to articulate the client’s urgent need, voiced by multiple people in the decision chain, that the status quo must change, and change now? This requires less talking, more high-mileage questions and more listening; how comfortable with silence is your sales team in client meetings? Do they wait for the client to fully unpack their concerns and challenges, or do they rush in to “solve” what they think is their problem?

2. DQ’s: What percentage of pipeline opportunities get disqualified (“DQ”), rather than pursued, by your team? This takes client knowledge (see #1 above) and a disciplined process that is supported by your managers.

3. Win conversion: What’s the ratio between proposals and wins? How often do deals die at the proposal stage? If your people are gaining strong client knowledge (#1), and they (and their managers) use rigorous qualifying criteria and process (#2), they should be winning 50-80% of deals they decide to propose or pitch.

4. Win quality: What percentage of new wins meet your criteria for a solid deal? How often does your sales team (including managers) say they lose on price? What percentage of them require discounting, or an exception to minimums, or require non-standard workarounds? Who benefits from this new win?

5. Trending: Are you seeing upward movement in the organization’s ability in the above areas?

Gaining objective, accurate and predictive data on your sales team’s consultative selling skill -- as well as the 20 other competencies required to sell effectively today -- will tell you how to properly shape and support the sales effort to bend the revenue curve.

If you track the data above in your CRM, and feel confident about its accuracy, these proof points should be easy for you to measure.  If you don’t have access to that data, and are relying on your sales managers, how do you feel about their knowledge and objectivity to give you a true read on your sales organization’s selling skills?

If you would like a clear picture on the strength of your sales organization’s selling abilities and potential, I can help you with that.  In the meantime, here is a link to a free whitepaper on what the data say about “The Science of Sales Effectiveness.”

Bjorn Borg might never have won another tournament with his wooden racquet.  If your sales team is going to market with stale consultative selling skills, do yourself a favor: buy them a new racquet and arm them with the skills they need to come home with more than a participation prize. 

Will Your Dogs Hunt? (What the data says about sales ”hunters“)

How’s your new business development going during this crazy “new normal?” Are your people getting out there and hunting for new opportunities so your business can continue to thrive?

However you feel about using the phrase “hunter” in sales (wouldn’t that make clients a target to be tracked, followed and killed?), it’s generally used to describe a salesperson’s skill level in finding new clients or new logos.

According to research data from my colleagues at Objective Management Group, who maintain a database of over 1.9 million sales professionals, in 200 industries and 130 countries, only 41% of salespeople are strong in the hunting competency.  So if you’re feeling as though your salespeople are waiting for some incredibly rare planetary realignment to make an unsolicited prospect call, the data backs up your feelings.

What’s holding back your salespeople? The research looks at the following contributing factors in determining whether a salesperson will hunt: perfectionism, rejection fatigue, excuse-making, need for approval, volume of company-generated leads and referrals.

What role do your managers play in finding and developing hunters?  What are the consequences in your firm for a salesperson not hitting their metric of new clients, not maintaining a strong pipeline of opportunities, not sourcing their own referrals or leads, and not being able to convert a network of contacts into new opportunities?

If your business needs more new clients to reach your goals, you might consider pursuing these six best practices to gain better outcomes:

1. Get good data: Your biz dev people have value, after all your firm decided to hire and keep them all these years. What’s less clear is their ability to hunt for new business. Gaining objective, accurate and predictive data on their hunting skills will make it clear which dogs will hunt and how to support this part of their work.

2. Skill them up: It may be years, if ever, since your salespeople were trained in how to prospect. Today, digital tools have changed the landscape – both for prospects and for your sales team. Where needed, get them re-grounded and current in the principles of effective prospecting.

3. Challenge them: There’s a reason mamma birds push their babies out of the nest! Hunting for new business is always going to be tougher than servicing current clients and fielding internal leads and referrals. Pushing them out of the nest involves aligned and consistent messaging across your leadership team, so they understand there’s no place to hide from this important sales responsibility.

4. Track them: If you don’t already, use your CRM as the source for tracking new business metrics, such as the number of pure prospect calls, the number of new opportunities created, and their efficiency ratio in converting calls into opportunities. If you are tracking these stats already, volumes and trends should be consistently discussed in meetings between leaders and managers, and between managers and salespeople.

5. Support them: Be empathetic that changing behaviors and doing things that feel uncomfortable is tough and takes time. That means managers committing time to observe prospecting calls, and to coach development of prospecting skills. Equally important, this also means that leaders should coach managers on their coaching effectiveness.

6. Compensate them: One skill shared by all salespeople is how to max their payout. Be sure that your comp plan is not only competitive with peer organizations; it should offer salespeople and their managers greater incentives for tougher work like winning new revenue from new clients.

Hunters play an invaluable role in growing your business.  Using the six best practices above will ensure that your sales organization is driving new business development; and allowing its salespeople to engage their inner hunters.  And will tell you which of your dogs will hunt.

Score a free road-test of the sales talent assessment I use to assess a salesperson’s hunting competency (in addition to 20 others), by clicking here.  Let me know what you think!  

Goldilocks and the Three Empathies (a COVID-19 tale)

Tired of being confined to her cottage during the COVID-19 crisis, Goldilocks decided to take a walk through the Enchanted Forest and gather ingredients for dinner.  She came upon a market, considered by the king to be an essential service, where local farmers were still permitted to sell their produce.

She approached the first vendor at a socially-safe distance.  When asked how her day was going, she said how frustrated she was with this lockdown.  Vendor #1 then commented: “You shouldn’t feel that way, Goldilocks.  This will all be fine and over before you know it.  And, by the way, I’m running a special on strawberries today.”

Goldilocks walked away thinking to herself, “That empathy was too cold.  I “shouldn’t feel” the way I feel?  And how does he know that it will all be fine and over soon?  That felt icky, just like his strawberries probably were. And I’m allergic to strawberries anyway.”

As she visited vendor #2, who greeted her and asked about her day, Goldilocks again expressed her cottage-quarantine frustration.  In response, vendor #2 remarked: “Oh me too.  I’m so frustrated.  My business is down.  I don’t know how I’m going to pay my rent.  I haven’t been sleeping well because I’m so stressed out!  I can’t take this much longer..."

The vendor continued talking as Goldilocks wandered away.  This time, she thought: “That empathy was too hot.   He was not listening and did not care about me. He totally hijacked my story and talked about himself the whole time I was there.  I feel even more stressed out than I did before. Yuck.  What was he selling again?”

Getting even more frustrated and still with an empty basket, she moved on to vendor #3 who, again, said hello and inquired about her day.  This time, when Goldilocks shared her frustrations the vendor said, “Oh Goldilocks, I’m so sorry that you’re feeling frustrated.  Sounds like you’re having a difficult time.  How are you managing through it?”  As Goldilocks talked, the vendor listened with compassion and curiosity.  Then he helped her choose fruits and vegetables for her evening’s feast.  She gladly paid for them, filled her basket and skipped happily home.

On her way, Goldilocks thought to herself: “That empathy was just right.  It felt good to be heard and supported.  Vendor #3 was really nice and helpful.  I will definitely go back to him.  In fact, I will give him a killer Yelp review, and Face-time Cinderella and Rumpelstiltskin right now to refer them to that nice man, with his beautiful produce and helpful advice!"

The moral of the story: especially during this unusual time, remember to stay close to and connect with your clients, prospects and centers of influence; and, when you do, ask high-mileage questions, and listen with sincere interest and compassion.  They will appreciate you for it.

Do your salespeople most resemble Vendor 1, 2 or 3 in managing through this difficult time? I care and I’m here to support you. 

Low Tide at Revenue Beach

One of the most interesting things about going to the beach is the change in scenery at high and low tide.  High tide is about abundance.  Low tide, on the other hand, reveals all sorts of unusual things: shells, starfish, sea glass, tires, shovels and rocks.

For growing your business, the last ten years have been high tide.  There was so much growth and opportunity, were there points that you were unable to find enough sales talent to keep up with it?

The COVID-19 health crisis has been a difficult period for people on so many levels.  It’s also created a low tide in the financial markets and in many industries.  And as revenue and pipeline opportunities flowed out over the last several weeks, what’s been revealed on your beach?  The common theme in the conversations I’ve had during this period with CEO’s, Managing Partners and PE investors is that there is a now-visible gap between what they need, and what they’ve got, in their sales organization.  These gaps might include some or all of the following:

• Hunters

• Legitimate pipeline opportunities

• True account managers, to both retain and expand relationships

• Managers who drive accountability

• Ownership

• Agility

Whether your current focus is on getting through the current crisis or preparing for what follows, two things -- dispassionate data and objective insights -- will give you the confidence to make the right calls during this difficult period.  When the time is right, I can help you with cutting-edge tools that will change the way you move forward.

The #1 Action Your Salespeople Should be Taking Today (and why 95% of them will probably not do it)

As a business leader, are these extraordinary times re-stacking your daily priorities and decisions?  Does your sales organization feel paralyzed -- with activity and results way off, and a pipeline that seems to have vanished?

No doubt, this is a difficult time to be selling.  The pandemic impacts people, companies, industries, markets and the economy.  And with social distancing, the meeting calendar might have been wiped out.

So, what’s the #1 action your sales team should be taking right now, today?  The answer, while perhaps uncomfortable, is not as tough as it may seem: gaining virtual appointments and conducting what I call “re-discovery” calls with pipeline prospects.  This goes beyond simply checking in.  A re-discovery call takes intention and preparation, and includes the following:

-Leveraging the access your people have earned,

-Conducting fresh discovery with customers on how recent events are impacting their goals, challenges, priorities and decision making,

-Finding (new and maybe different) ways to help.

Why are 95% of your people unlikely to do this?  The data on salespeople suggests that all but 5% of them lack the mindset and skill. Surprising?  Here is a link to a recent post on the importance of value selling by Dave Kurlan from Objective Management Group that highlights some illuminating data from their bank of over 1.9 million sales professionals, across 130 countries and 200 industries.

How much stronger are the top 5% of salespeople compared to the bottom 50% in several critical areas right now?

-Sales DNA: 10,000%

-Consultative selling: 2,000%

-Selling value:  900%

What does this huge gap mean? The data suggests that, even in normal times, poor mindset and ineffective selling skills prevent most biz dev people from having critical and timely conversations.

How do your salespeople’s mindset and skills compare to the averages above? What should you do as a leader to address this – to navigate the current storm and properly position for the rebound?  Let’s talk. 

Hidden Gems: Finding Your Future Rainmakers

If you’re a leader in a professional services firm, you’ve probably noticed that most of your new business comes from a small handful of your Partner-level colleagues.  If one or more of these Partners left, who would replace them to be your next generation of rainmakers, or biz dev superstars?

Understandably, professional services firms – consulting, accounting, law, etc. -- tend to assign biz dev responsibilities to Partners and Directors who are a) extroverted, and b) strong networkers.  It’s true that selling new work can be challenging for someone who doesn’t enjoy being around other people.  However, it is also true that plenty of well-networked extroverts fail to bring in the work.  How come?

I set out to find how rainmakers -- which I define here as the top 10% within professional services firms in winning new revenue from new clients -- compare to:

1. Top salespeople in industries outside of professional services,

2. Non-rainmakers (the bottom 90%) in professional services.

To do this, I engaged my friends at Objective Management Group, which maintains the largest and most seasoned database on the planet for sales and business development talent.  They did a highly targeted study of roughly 500 professionals with business development responsibilities in professional services firms.  The conclusions might surprise you.

Belief #1: Top rainmakers are different from top full-time salespeople.

Whatever term your firm uses to refer to new business from new clients, the rainmakers (top 10%) in professional services firms share the competencies of the top 10% of full-time salespeople in any industry.

In the illustration above, you can see how closely aligned rainmakers (blue) are with top salespeople in any industry (orange) in two key areas: grit (the five factors to the left) and how they’re naturally wired for sales (Sales DNA, on the right).  In fact, there was a 96.7% correlation across the 29 factors OMG looked at.

>>Conclusion: Top rainmakers and top salespeople share the same competencies to win work.

Belief #2: Rainmakers (top 10%) are more personable and better networked than non-rainmakers (bottom 90%) in professional services firms.

Across the 29 factors, there were significant differences between the top, average and bottom performers in our professional services study.

For the same six key factors selected in the prior graph, you can see some wide gaps between top and bottom performers in the areas of grit (left-most five) and how they’re wired for sales (right-most).

The biggest gaps, however, were in several biz dev competencies, or skills:

The five most significant differences had little to do with being extroverted or having a big network.  They were:

1. Closing: The ability to overcome resistance to close new business. Here, the top 10% were 123% stronger than the average, and 600% stronger than the bottom 10%.

2. Reaching Decision Makers: Accessing a broader set of contacts in the sales process, given larger and more complex decision-making processes in client companies today. For this competency, top performers were 92% stronger than the average, and 582% versus the bottom 10%.

3. Social Selling: The ability to not to just have a lot of contacts, but to convert them into opportunities. Here, the top 10% were 71% stronger than average and 336% stronger than the bottom 10%.

4. Consultative Selling: Through effective questioning and listening skills, rainmakers identify a prospect’s compelling reason to buy or move. Here, they are 68% stronger than average and 283% stronger than the bottom 10%.

5. CRM Savvy: Rainmakers realize that their CRM saves them prep time and allows them to stay organized and on track to win more work. In this regard, they are 85% above average and 200% higher than the bottom 10%.

>>Conclusion: There is no evidence to support the concept that extroversion and networking ability produce rainmakers.

While these qualities are helpful for business development, it’s important to look deeper to find your next generation of rainmakers.  If you’re not happy with your firm’s pace of growth, using data to identify business development competencies in your next generation is a more objective and accurate way to promote and recruit those future rainmakers that will, er, make it rain.

Death By 1000 Facts

You know the look.  I’m the client.  You’re seated across the table from me.  In response to my question or request, you’ve begun laying out the details behind a brilliant idea that you are convinced will help my organization.  The problem is, the deeper you go into your solution the more and more disengaged I become.  At first, there’s some eye contact, polite nodding and the occasional grunt of acknowledgement.  Then, I begin looking at my watch and, longingly, at the door as I plan my escape.  What you hear as appreciation and  agreement to your proposed  next step, is in fact an end to our discussion so I can get back to my real work; and sincere doubt whether I will subject myself again to this “death by 1000 facts.”

So, what happened here?  On the positive side, I believed enough in you and your organization to ask for your point-of-view, your recommendation or maybe even a formal proposal.  On the negative side, your ideas — while technically brilliant — failed to resonate with me.

Why did your brilliant idea fall flat?  In order to answer this important question, we need to recognize that there are three basic elements to communicating a standout idea that commands the client’s attention:

1) Articulating the client’s challenging issue(s),

2) Outlining the elements of your solution, and

3) Connecting the dots between your solution and how it benefits the client.

Most professionals recognize these three basic elements, but what is missing is an understanding of which elements are most important to the client.  Of the three elements, professionals are magnetically attached, and can speak chapter and verse, to #2.  And, this is natural, it’s their comfort zone.  What most fail to realize is that, of the three elements mentioned above, the client is far more interested in #1 and #3.  Skimming over or ignoring these conveys to your client two things about you – you don’t understand or care about either the issues they face, and/or how your solution benefits them.  The client’s disengagement was a symptom that your message was generic; it failed to align to the client’s challenging issues and/or or to connect the dots between your solution and benefits to the client’s business.

o, as you prepare for your next important meeting or call with a key existing or prospective client, let’s review what you need to know about the three elements; so that when you put your ideas on the table, they are clearly relevant, and compel your client to act – whether that means committing business to you or just agreeing to take an incremental action step to advance the sale.

Challenging Issues 

What is driving your client’s interest in taking time away from other work to talk with you?  While there are many client contacts who will always accept an invitation to lunch or a round of golf, decision makers and influencers are busy.  The more significant the size and scope of their responsibilities, the busier they are.  Key contacts are focused on solving challenging issues that are preventing their organization from achieving its short-term objectives and long-term business goals.  And they are short on time.

In order to be able to articulate the client’s challenging issues, you need to know (not think you know, not assume you know) what they are.  Uncover this key information by asking questions to understand the organization’s objectives and initiatives, who is driving them, and why?  How has the client prioritized certain strategic initiatives versus others, and why?  You should also discover what stake your contact has in the success or failure of specific initiatives.

Once you understand your client’s challenging issues, you can articulate and validate your understanding in a number of ways.  For example, “Here are the things we heard you rank as your top three priorities…  How well have we captured this?”  By checking for feedback with an open-ended question, you gain an opportunity to course-correct prior to laying out your solution.

Relevant Solution 

Leaving it to the client to connect their issues with your solution is a strategy with a low probability of success.  You work in a technical business; your organization’s products and services are complex.  As a seasoned professional, you have thousands of facts you could call upon in describing your solution.  Out of all these facts, which will be relevant to your client?  For example, if your work is systems consulting, and you learned that data security is your contact’s challenging issue because of a breach last month, you might conclude that the relevant facts to this client was how your approach, software, risk controls, and services would have responded to that same breach.  In addition, you could describe a similar client situation, and the actions you took to address their priority issues.

In the meeting, this would sound like, “Here are the three key parts of the solution we would recommend in order to address your challenge around preventing a data breach: …   ”

The key is to select only those facts and features of your products and services, and/or those success stories, that are relevant to the client’s challenging issues, nothing more and nothing less.

Value to the Client

Many professionals leave it to the client to define the value of a solution.  In so doing, you leave it to chance that the client will see the full impact of your proposal. You should use specific data (% growth, $ savings, % profit margins, etc.) to support your claims.  Another way to position benefits is through success stories, using specific names where appropriate and, where not, describing the company or industry or using aggregate experience.

Here is an example of how you could connect the dots between your solution and its benefits to the client: “We have worked with six organizations this year that have faced a similar issue.  The solution we proposed produced an average of $650,000/year in measurable savings, to each organization.”

Increase Client Engagement

What if you are unclear on any of the three elements – issues, solution or value?  This happens.  If you don’t know key information about these three elements, you’re not ready to meet with your client.  If this is business you want, it would serve you to invest in deeper discovery or research before discussing a solution.  The most common mistake professionals make is moving to positioning a solution too soon.  This typically results in a loss in credibility and/or a negative outcome when they try to close. 

Another way the professional can increase engagement is by checking in with the client.  One of the most common mistakes that professionals make is to assume that a silent response to a solution or idea is a sign of client agreement.  Silence is not golden.   At best, it signals that the client is thinking about what you have positioned to resolve their issue.  At worst, he or she has disengaged.  Only by checking in (with an open-ended question) with the client to gain their feedback can you be sure that your ideas hit their mark.   Asking for feedback with a checking question – such as, “How well do you feel this solution would address your challenges with data security?”  -- engages the client.  Their response will guide you where to go next.  If your client responds positively, you can begin to discuss actions, responsibility and timeframes to advance the idea.  If the client responds negatively or neutrally, this is your opportunity to first explore where your solution missed its mark; and then to refine your ideas to satisfy the client’s objectives.

Let’s put an end to disengaged clients.  As you prepare for a meeting, if you find yourself and members of your team saying, “I know…” and “They (client contacts) told us…” you are on track to present a standout idea that is relevant, compelling and persuasive.  Deeper questioning, focused listening, and a consistent process are the basis of positioning standout ideas that resonate.  The value to you as an expert is higher client engagement and a stronger ability to move opportunities forward.  So, before your next important meeting, show some compassion for your prospective client – instead of unleashing a fury of facts, treat them to great open-ended questions; attentive listening; and, when you feel you are fully ready, well-organized and relevant ideas, using the process above.  Your client will appreciate it!

Slow More, Close More

You’re on the road.  Your phone is dead and car navigation is out of range.  Because you’re running late, you miss an important turn.  The clock is ticking as you drive miles past your destination.  Eventually you pull over, realize your mistake, backtrack and finally arrive (even later) at your destination.

Have you been there?

As a sales professional, you may be feeling “late” relative to any number of things.  These could include: your sales quota, your peers, your competitors, an opportunity or client.  During a sales meeting, those feelings can cause you to rush and overshoot important pivot points, like on a road trip. Those details and cues, and the adjustments you make in response, can be the difference between winning and losing the business.

So, how do you slow down when your gut is telling you to move faster, catch up?  Try these five adjustments to pump the brakes for a more effective sales meeting:

LESS

• Cramming in filler appointments

• Time spent on rapport

• Talking/tutoring

• About you

• Assumptions

MORE

• Preparing better for meetings that matter

• Time on agenda development

• Listening/learning

• About them

• Checking for alignment

It’s counterintuitive to feather the brakes when your instincts are telling you to lean on the accelerator.  Yet isn’t that exactly the adjustment you make when you are at your best, most dialed-in, selling self?

What are the ways you find your patience in effective sales meetings, enabling you to advance and close more business?

Executing the Two-Minute Selling Drill

During the 2017 Super Bowl, you may have been rooting for the New England Patriots, the Atlanta Falcons...or for more chicken wings and a speedy end to the game.  

Championship football demonstrates performance under high-stakes conditions.  As a sales manager or salesperson your team's performance during sales meetings is neither played in front of 70,000 paying ticket holders nor broadcast live around the world to 111 million viewers.  Yet driving success at high-stakes sales meetings is the proof statement in your work.  So what lessons can you pull from the recent football championship?

In (American) football, the "two-minute drill" involves one team running several plays during the final two minutes of a half or game to add points to its score.  How well the team executes these plays often determines whether they leave with a win or a loss.  During the recent Super Bowl, the Patriots with roughly 3 minutes remaining in the game and trailing the Falcons by 8 points, executed 8 plays to score both a touchdown and a 2-point conversion to tie the game at 28-28 and force overtime play (during which the Patriots scored again to win the game and championship).

In B2B selling like in football, most of your "plays" happen before the two-minute warning.  You meet a referral source for lunch, you grab coffee to catch up with a client contact, you host a lunch-and-learn in a prospect's conference room, you meet with different stakeholders to explore interests and test ideas, you respond to a Request for Proposal.  All can be worthwhile, productive and advance a relationship or opportunity.

Your efforts lead you to the two-minute warning: a high-stakes meeting where you have a limited time to make your pitch and, based on your performance, results in a win or a loss of the business.  You may recognize these moments as "orals" if you're a consultant, the "bake-off" for an investment banker, or a "finals pitch" if you're a money manager.  Compared to other customer contact, there tends to be more formality, more stakeholders, more scrutiny, more questions, more time constraints.  And less margin for error.

So how do you execute the two-minute drill to win the business?  Here are 6 tips to get you started:

1. Arrive alive. Selling during the two-minute drill requires a different level of focus and intensity than your other sales meetings.

2. Choose your team carefully. Deciding both how many and whom can determine your success or failure.

3. Commit to practice. Scripting every word or winging it are equally ineffective. Consider how much and what kind of practice will allow you and your team to execute the two-minute drill the way the Patriots did in the Super Bowl's closing minutes.

4. Plan your success. Rushing to a high-stakes sales meeting with people traveling in from different locations is certain to increase everyone's heart rate, and decrease your team's ability to walk in as a cohesive unit. Visualize and plan what your team needs to do before that meeting to be successful.

5. Execute. Winning teams are visually connected during high-stakes sales meetings. What should your seating arrangement and interactions look like throughout the pitch for you to win?

6. Seek feedback. Selling teams that seek and integrate feedback -- from a coach that is objective, available and skilled -- are able to demonstrate agility and course-correct in a high-stakes meeting.

Leverage the six tips above to execute the two-minute drill like a champion.  Your success in driving wins at high-stakes meetings depends on it.

Dealstorming

In today’s B2B world, client organizations face complex challenges for which they seek help.  When they reach out to selling organizations, what they invariably get back are products and services divided into little pieces that line up with their own organizational silos.  Not helpful to clients and not effective in closing bigger deals.

In a previous post on becoming a Canyon Crosser, I talked about how to bridge your company’s canyons between business lines to find, develop and close cross-organizational deals.  One of these ways is to find and engage co-selling partners in designing deals.

Enter Dealstorming by bestselling author Tim Sanders. What Tim Sanders has created in Dealstorming is a new way for sales leaders and salespeople to solve broad, complex customer issues by leveraging your entire firm and looking past the limits of organizational business lines.  Sanders breaks his Dealstorming process into pieces that will allow you to accomplish four main things:

1. Focus on your gaps, the parts of the process that would allow you to produce greater impact,

2. Create the kind of collaboration that feels good, like you’re part of something bigger than yourself and your division,

3. Empower you to deliver to clients the sort of value you knew you were capable of when you joined your company

4. Enable you and your colleagues to close bigger deals with less competition.

Tim makes the journey fun, with his conversational writing style and use of real stories from his substantial selling and Dealstorming experience.  Great read, and an invaluable and timely tool.  I highly recommend Dealstorming in your quest to become a Canyon Crosser this year.

Smart Collaboration

As your B2B organization builds out its capabilities organically or through acquisition, you are excited to gain deeper account penetration and go after bigger sales.  You and your colleagues envision the enterprise sale, the complex sale, the cross-discipline or cross-divisional sale, the cross-sell -- deals that include multiple capabilities and produce significant revenue for your company.  Not only would this enable you to make big leaps to hitting your number and making Chairman’s Club this year, but would position you well with senior leadership, who have seeking examples that their expansion strategy is working.

But what if your customers’ problems were so complex that they didn’t fit into the tidy siloes your company has built to organize its business and capabilities?  And what if the divisions between those siloes were like canyons that were rarely, if ever, crossed?  That would make the enterprise sale an elusive mirage.  (See my post on becoming a Canyon Crosser.)

So how do you bridge those canyons and align with complex customer issues?  One way is by forging the kind of teamwork addressed by Heidi Gardner in her new book, Smart Collaboration.  Gardner is ex-McKinsey, teaches at Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School, and focuses her research on professional services firms. Like any B2B organization, knowledge-based firms tend to organize their businesses in silos. And these silos can be limiting for clients and the experts who serve them. The principles she discusses in Smart Collaboration go beyond those you might know from her Harvard Business Review articles.  This book is applicable to anyone involved in significant B2B transactions where the buyer(s) is facing an important and complex decision, where the product/service can be shaped to that decision, and where the construction, description and delivery of that product/service requires collaboration across organizational siloes.

This book enables groups of professionals to work together more effectively, not as an end goal, but to produce better client outcomes and better business results for your own organization. In real life, if your organization is being considered for the important role of helping a client navigate complex problems this assumes you have the smarts and the qualifications.  Winning requires more.  How well do you understand the issues my organization is wrestling with?  How well are you able to cross your company’s canyons, engaging the right colleagues and partners, to help devise a solution that addresses my complete issue set?  When you meet with us, how effectively do you and your partners demonstrate the sort of teamwork that crosses canyons and will be essential in implementing this solution successfully?

I highly recommend Smart Collaboration for leaders and client-facing professionals in large-scale B2B interactions.  This book is well organized, very readable and practical. Dr. Gardner does a great job incorporating the voice of the client, and bringing in real examples from her research about what experts believe, do and think. She also includes several chapters that appeal to different audiences within the professional services firm. So regardless of your level, there are valuable comments in here for you. Gardner has a talent for making heavy content approachable for any reader. And the tips she offers are grounded in research and can be immediately put to work.  You'll enjoy reading it and, if you're ready, begin gaining an ROI from applying the principles -- more enriching relationships with clients, colleagues and co-selling partners; and work that is more valuable to clients, and more rewarding to your organization and to you professionally.

Become a Biz Dev Canyon Crosser

Crossing canyons is no cake walk.  Take it from the late Even Knievel, famous motorcycle stuntman.

In 1974, Knievel attempted an outrageous jump over the Snake River in Idaho.  The distance between the launch and landing ramps at the north and south rims of the canyon was roughly one mile.  To pull this off, he built a special motorcycle-rocket ship powered by a steam-engine.  Sadly, his attempt ended moments after it started as the parachute deployed early and Knievel landed at the bottom of the canyon narrowly avoiding death.

Roughly a mile away from all the drama stood the Perrine Memorial Bridge.  Since 1927, the bridge had crossed that same canyon and had safely carried cars from one side to the other.

Your company most likely has created divisions to organize its business, and adds new ones to house new capabilities or acquisitions.  Senior management encourages you to do more cross-selling.  Ideally you want to pursue the enterprise sale, the complex sale, the cross-discipline or cross-divisional sale -- deals that include multiple capabilities and produce significant revenue.  This would surely catapult you to Chairman’s Club.

But what if your customers’ problems were so complex that they didn’t fit into the tidy siloes your company has built to organize its business and capabilities?  (Smart Collaboration by Heidi Gardner is an excellent book to understand these dynamics.)   And what if the divisions between those siloes were like canyons that were rarely, if ever, crossed?  That would make the enterprise sale an unlikely jump.

So how do you bridge your company’s canyons and address your customers’ full issues without risking life and limb?  Here are five tips on how to become a canyon crosser this year:

1. Gain support. Building bridges to other business lines takes time away from other selling activities. Gaining your senior leader’s support for this investment is critical, especially if these activities clash with how your performance is measured and compensated.

2. Become a client explorer. Be willing to allow your questions to go beyond the boundaries of your primary product or service, to understand the client’s issues more completely.

3. Find fellow canyon crossers. Seek those, even from outside your current network, who are willing to invest their time and skill to find and develop cross-organization solutions.

4. Engage them early. Dealstorming by Tim Sanders is a great resource for how to leverage co-selling partners in deal design.

5. Invest in your relationships. Exchange feedback about what you each need to accomplish your client-specific as well as your broader sales goals.

Leveraging these five best practices will help you strengthen your ability to cross your company’s canyons to devise and close solutions that solve your client’s broad, complex issues.  And for you to win more and win big this year.  

Cerberus and the Multi-Headed Buyer

In ancient Greek mythology, Heracles was given the impossible task of capturing Cerberus, a multi-headed hound that guarded the gates to the underworld.  Hades, the underworld’s CEO, told Heracles that he would only allow him to take Cerberus if he could (do the impossible and) tame him.  Heracles put the beast in a choke hold until it submitted.

As a B2B seller, you may often feel like Heracles sent on an impossible mission to close a massive new account.  It quickly becomes clear that the buyer is not one person at all, but a few people, and that there are still more involved in the final decision.

To be your most effective in pursuing large B2B sales opportunities, you might want to think twice about the body armor and sword, and instead keep the following 5 tips in mind:

1. Buyers are not multi-headed hounds from hell. Sure, they can be tough but the gates they control have nothing to do with the underworld.

2. Be prepared for multiple decision makers. With attention to risk way up, and pressure to drive costs way down, more people get a say and there’s a lot on the line – for their organization and for them personally.

3. Don’t assume they’re aligned. With multiple buyers from the same organization, it’s easy to feel intimidated and assume that their interests are identical. That is rarely the case. Discover what drives them individually and as a group.

4. Bring others. As confident as you are, the odds of you being able to address all interests from all stakeholders are slim. Choose your bench carefully, and invest the time to get them prepared and aligned with you.

5. Leave the sword at home. For a competitive sales meeting, your body produces adrenaline for what feels like a survival moment. Take a breath before you enter that conference room and realize you are not facing life or death, just a group of people who are trying, like you, to accomplish something for their company.

So, to you as a competitive salesperson B2B buyers can sometimes seem like the mythical Cerberus guarding what should rightfully be yours.  Use the 5 tips above to remember that closing the sale may take a little longer and a few more people than you’d like, but it’s still yours if you sell effectively on your own and with others.

Winning Teams Need a Rallying Cry

Last summer, it was easy to get drawn into the incredible drama of the 2016 Olympics in Rio.  And with all this winning and losing, it was impossible for me as a sales coach to resist the chance to draw parallels to effective selling. My focus here is on the importance of a shared mission among winning teams.

The attached article from the New York Times, published August 14, 2016, recounts the story of the USA women's eight-person rowing team, which was struggling in their final race with a medal on the line.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/sports/olympics/rowing-united-states-womens-eight.html?_r=0

"This is the U.S. Women's Eight" cried the coxswain halfway through the grueling race.  Those words triggered the athletes' strong sense of the history and purpose of USA women's rowing.  They recovered in the second half of the race and won the gold medal.

The late Dr. J. Richard Hackman, who had been a leading researcher on high performing teams and professor of social and organizational psychology at Harvard University, would probably have said that the coxswain's cry formed a "compelling direction" for the USA team.  When a leader's direction is clear and engaging, and offers an invitation, it energizes and unifies a team behind a shared purpose.  In the case of the 2016 USA Women's eight boat, the compelling direction was to focus on their contributions to a winning legacy rather their burning lungs and muscles.

What's the parallel to selling?

In high-stakes B2B sales meetings, salespeople often have to band together with others -- senior managers, subject matter experts, technology specialists, external partners -- to win the sale.  For the salesperson, meeting sales goals and earning financial incentives are "clear" and "engaging."  But can the same be said for his or her co-selling partners?  Without a compelling direction, the selling posse can look like one eager player surrounded by several indifferent ones.  And in a competitive pursuit, that could be enough to lose the deal.

So what would Dr. Hackman's "compelling direction" look like in a sales meeting?  Think about a larger purpose that would serve as a rallying cry to your colleagues.  Consider the following three questions:

1. What would winning this business mean to your organization?

2. What would winning mean for your organization's efforts to build a brand in a new geographical market, vertical or discipline?

3. What would losing mean to your organization's efforts?

A high-stakes meeting should feel like the stakes are, well, high.  And not just to you, but to everyone on your team, and to the client.  Setting and repeating a compelling direction can be the basis for turning your group into a team, and may just be the rallying cry your team needs to elevate and win.