Tag: sales

Make Your Sales Kickoff Count this Year

It’s that time of the year again where everyone is starting to plan the new year’s sales kickoff(SKO). You’ve got new goals to make, product updates to launch, and new sales processes to explain. You might be asking, “What do my reps really want out of this year’s kickoff?” “Do we even need to have a SKO this year?” “How can we make it enjoyable and keep the team engaged while also being productive?”

If you make your SKO one big celebratory party, you are missing out on an opportunity to jump start new sales strategies and have a fresh perspective for the new year. If you keep it too serious and have meeting after meeting, your reps won’t be engaged and will most likely forget what they are learning. There is a healthy in-between where you can spend some days on training and others on celebrating the past year’s success.

Why It’s Important

When looking at the training days, there’s one area that needs serious attention. According to Forrester Research, while 88% of key decision makers feel that salespeople can speak knowledgeably about their own products and services, only 24% feel like they understand their business needs. Even worse, only 15% believe their meetings or calls with salespeople are valuable.

The consequence results in focusing too much on products and services and not enough on the business outcomes prospects and customers expect. With that as a backdrop, it’s important to equip everyone for the next year, with clear goals and a solid understanding of your business and how to have valuable sales conversations.

Hiring a Sales Trainer

One way to mix things up is to hire an outside sales trainer for a day-long workshop. Sometimes it can be hard to get through to your reps when teaching new concepts if you’ve been the one training and managing them all year. An outside perspective and authority can help them absorb concepts that they may not have been open to hearing previously.

What to Look For

When talking with other sales leaders about the goals of their sales training events or annual meetings, we hear that they want their reps to engage with the content and walk away equipped with skills to lift their sales performance.

However, sometimes outside resources are brought that have a “flavor of the month” approach that is viewed with skepticism and often unhelpful. The result is ultimately a waste of their team’s precious selling time and a missed opportunity to impact revenue.

You need a sales trainer that teaches relevant content that is tailored to your reps and company. Salespeople are always looking for fresh, relevant content and techniques. The content the sales trainer goes over needs to be interesting and backed up by current, up to date research.

If you want all of your reps to be engaged, the training also needs to be accommodating to diverse sales roles and experience levels. Refract explains that a sales kickoff workforce presents you with a mixed-ability challenge: “Fresh-hired rookies need firm direction and careful monitoring; struggling reps need careful evaluation to determine areas for development together with incremental targets; and your star performers need acknowledgment of their success, encouragement to contribute their insights and take on ‘buddy’ roles, and as much help as you can give to remove any barriers which inhibit further performance.”

You want to make sure that your reps, from the most inexperienced to the most tenured, not only connect with the content, but adopt the skills necessary to meet your future revenue goals. The key is to partner with a sales training firm that understands recent discoveries in behavioral psychology and leverages techniques proven to help prospects see maximum value.

We’ve also found that learning to do something is better than learning about something. According to Forrester, practicing a presentation, learning a whiteboard, or anything that involves doing something and receiving feedback about it will have a much longer-lasting effect than passively listening to a speaker.

After the Event

Imagine that you have had a great kickoff where your team has learned valuable sales techniques and are ready to put them to use in the next year. The unfortunate part about training is that it’s human nature to forget a portion of what you’ve learned. So how do you make sure it is reinforced and your team is able to continue to utilize the concepts they’ve learned?

CSO Insights suggests that sales training events need to be connected by a continuous stream of interventions that extend, expand and sustain learning. This can be accomplished by short bursts of learning aligned to assessed gaps.

Microlearning is a bite-size training technique that helps sales teams increase their expertise and sales performance. It helps with memory, is interesting and intriguing, and is structured and consistent. Any time you teach something new, microlearning is a great way to make sure the concept is being reinforced. We’ve enjoyed using a program called Qstream to quiz sales teams on the content that they learn during our workshops.

Your next sales kickoff is an opportunity to reunite your team and teach valuable techniques that will help you stand out in the marketplace. Investing in a SKO and hiring a sales trainer shows your reps that you’ve got their backs and want them to excel. What are your goals for this year’s kickoff?

**********

If you have a training date on your upcoming calendar, we would love the opportunity to be a part of the discussion on how we can partner together to help you and your team achieve your goals. The content of our training workshops is taught by a 35-year sales veteran who specializes in elevating value by understanding the science of decision-making. Every rep will walk away with mastery of a conversation framework scientifically proven to communicate high value in every conversation they have with prospects and customers.

Let’s talk.

Call: 678-561-6260, Email: dkurkjian@mastermessaging.com or instant message David Kurkjian on LinkedIn to start the conversation.

Why Your Reps Are Blowing THE Most Important Sales Conversation

The most important sales conversation that your reps are having with your prospects is the first one.

Think about it- if that conversation doesn’t quickly deliver tremendous value, there won’t be a follow-up meeting, a demo or a proposal.

Getting a prospect on the phone to have a conversation about your products and services is hard enough. We are currently in the noisiest selling environment in history. The American Marketing Association says that the average consumer is exposed to up to 10,000 brand messages a day. And it’s becoming more and more difficult to reach decision makers as gatekeepers and decision-makers receive hundreds of emails and dozens of calls each day.

Cutting through the clutter and getting the attention of your prospect requires serious effort, with the Online Marketing Institute saying that it takes an average of 7-13 touches to convert cold outreach to a prospect willing to get on the phone with you. Today you’ve got to research your target prospect, follow their activity on social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, personalize the communication and build a cadence that delivers.

IF you are successful and manage to get your target prospect on the phone, you have to grab your prospect’s attention in the first few minutes of the conversation and communicate enough value so they will agree to a more in-depth conversation. A conversation where you can demo your product or go to another level of detail on how your product or service can benefit their world.

So why do so many reps try and “wing it” in the first conversation or worse yet, take an inquisition-style “20 questions” approach that today’s executives don’t appreciate? And why are sales leaders not training their reps to execute a first conversation proven to predictably get prospects to agree to a more in-depth conversation?

The result of “winging it” and lack of formal training is a first call that doesn’t convert to an expanded conversation or demo. The sales professional blames marketing for poor quality leads, marketing blames the rep for lack of sales acumen and meanwhile, no one is making their monthly number.

We’ve seen seasoned sales teams with first call conversion rates in the single digits. They had a great product and the SDR team were providing plenty of first conversations, but the leads simply weren’t converting into sales.

The sales leader, their job in jeopardy, was stressed out and having to answer to the C-Suite for poor performance. Perhaps this is one reason why Gong.io reports that the average tenure of an SVP of Sales has precipitously dropped to just 19 months.

The prevailing idea that reps can wing their way to a more in-depth conversation without certifying against a proven framework is possibly why Clari reports that more than 50% of sales reps are NOT hitting quota. Prospects who need their products and solutions simply aren’t perceiving enough value in that first conversation to take the next step. No next step, no sale.

So what can you do today to stop the blame game in its tracks and significantly increase conversion rates in the early stages of your sales cycle?

CERTIFY YOUR REPS ON THE CONTENT OF A PROVEN FIRST CALL PLAYBOOK

Even (especially) seasoned reps need to stay on message in the first conversation. Worn frameworks like BANT are exhausting to the prospect who is getting the distinct notion they are being “qualified” for a sale and not listened to or understood. Have you ever put yourself in the shoes of your prospect? Think of having to sit through several different vendors back to back, answering the same 20 questions over and over again! Yikes.

New reps need a framework that is portable to their actual selling conversations. Something more robust than 60 slides of product and company knowledge from marketing. They also don’t need to monologue with their prospect, they need to have a conversation. They need a framework they can remember and can live in, one that gives the prospect ample opportunity to respond.

You certainly can’t rely on the relational magic of your resident sales unicorn if you want to scale your sales team. Many top-performing reps are doing what they do by intuition, not instruction and have little understanding of WHY it works. What that means is they are unable to transfer that knowledge to others. Some of your BEST reps could potentially be your WORST sales managers.

The truth is, whether you have a quick, transactional sale or a long, complex sale, the first conversation should be structured in a way that your prospect perceives tremendous value and predictably agrees to a follow-up appointment or demo (if they are a fit). It also needs to be simple enough that the most junior BDR can see results quickly. It needs to predictably convert, so senior sales rep on your team will adopt and execute. And, there’s no point in even attempting to saddle your unicorn… it can’t be done.

So how do you do that?

You provide a framework that follows these 5 steps and then train and certify your reps against it so that you KNOW they can and will execute it in every first call they have with prospects.

STATE THEIR GOALS

You should know what your prospect is trying to achieve. With one simple statement, your reps can communicate that they understand what your prospect’s goals are. You don’t want to appear to be completely clueless like the last vendor who came in and grilled them for an hour on what they do.

Hot Tip: Understanding your target prospect’s goals is fairly simple. If you want to understand what they were hired to do, simply do a Google search on a similar title in a similar industry. The nomenclature may change, but sales leaders and CRO’s are all hired to increase revenue.

ELABORATE ON THEIR CHALLENGES

Have your reps speak to known challenges in their prospect’s world. As experts in the space and with experience working with others in their position, they can do that with 90% accuracy. You should already know the typical challenges your prospects are facing and be able to speak to them in a way that connects.

Please, for the love of God, don’t let your reps ASK their prospect “what keeps you up at night?” No, they should walk in the door and TELL them what’s keeping others in their position up! If they have done their homework, their comments will hit the mark. More than that, your reps will instantly be perceived as an authority, as experts in the field instead of a clueless moron who is running them through a sterile checklist of financial qualification questions.

TELL THEM WHAT IT MEANS

Understand that scientists have now confirmed what many sales reps have known for a long time, which is this: People make decisions based on meaning & emotion and justify those decisions based on logic and reason. During the conversation, train your reps to find an emotional anchor point in the conversation. Emotion creates memory and without an emotional anchor, the chances of their presentation being remembered past day 1 are nill.

Also, because the most intense emotion we attempt to avoid is pain, your reps need to create a painful moment in the conversation and allow their prospect to live in that. This can be done by simply elaborating on known challenges and asking them, “what does that mean?”

Example: If a sales leader can’t hit their revenue goals quarter after quarter because they can’t move their prospects through the sales process, what does that mean? (It means they better dress up their resume!) OUCH.

PAINT A PICTURE OF A BETTER TOMORROW

Value is perceived in a contrasting worldview. It’s in the distance between what their world looks like today (WITHOUT your product/service) and what their world could look like tomorrow (WITH your product/service) that your prospect perceives value.

But that doesn’t mean your reps have 45 minutes for a feature dump. Don’t let your reps tell them about what your product or service DOES, but have them show them what THEY can do differently as a result of using your product or service. And have them do it succinctly, in a few short, “what if you could” or “imagine if you could” statements like this example:“What if you could arm your reps with a scientifically proven framework and messaging to communicate high value in the early stages of your sales process?”“What if they could predictably and consistently advance prospects to the next stage of your sales process?”“Finally, what if you could increase your peace of mind knowing your team has the right messaging and framework and are able to execute it?”You can with MasterMessaging.

PROVE YOU HAVE DONE IT BEFORE

Your reps can’t make claims you can’t back up with proof. That proof is simply a customer testimonial or story. Again, keep it brief, this is the first conversation and you have maybe 20-30 minutes. I call them one sentence testimonials and we coach our clients to use them all the time, like this one:

“Our clients have seen the conversion rate of their first conversations increase by up to 580% in one quarter by utilizing our messaging and corresponding training.“

See what I did there?

I leave you with this question:

HOW MANY LEADS ARE YOU WILLING TO BURN THROUGH WHILE YOUR REPS PLAY LOOSE WITH THE MESSAGING? 

**********

We understand that it can be difficult to follow a conversation flow like this from memory, that’s why we’ve created a Sales Conversation Roadmap “Cheat Sheet” that you can download here.

**********

Please leave your feedback in the comments section.

Why Your New Hires aren’t Succeeding

Across all firms, new hire salespeople make up 10% of the average headcount in a company. According to a salesperson on-boarding study by the Sales Management Association, only 55% of these salespeople are successful 24 months from hire. What’s going wrong?

Research shows that only slightly more than half of firms have a defined onboarding program for new hire salespeople, and only 6 in 10 salespeople are onboarded as part of a formal program. Just 38% of these firms consider their salesperson onboarding effective. It can be difficult as a sales leader to get new salespeople up to date on the industry knowledge and your unique sales messaging and strategies.

Not having a solid onboarding system in place takes a toll not only on the new hires, but the managers as well. It takes a new hire about 11 months to ramp up to full productivity, and in that time managers have a hard time seeing if this person is a right fit for the company and if they’ll be successful long-term. Companies have to pay 100% when they aren’t receiving full productivity and end up with longer employee churn cycles. It’s an expensive cycle that a solid onboarding process can fix.

Creating an On-boarding Process

The two most important components of an on-boarding process are structure and consistency. Programs with both attributes – structure and consistent application – correlate with on-boarding program effectiveness 40% greater than other firms’. According to the study, Firms whose on-boarding has neither characteristic are 38% less effective.

LMS

Online Learning Management Systems(LMS) can be used as an e-learning training experience for your new hires. LMS is helpful because you can store all of your training materials in one place, it reduces learning and development costs, and you can track progress and performance.

We used a LMS program called Kajabi to develop an online video course for our clients’ new hires and sales teams to teach them important sales techniques. The opportunities are endless for LMS, and it creates a consistent program that all of your sales team can go through at any time.

Sales Playbook

It’s important to provide consistent sales messaging to all of your sales team, whether they are old hires or new. A great way to do this is by creating a sales messaging playbook. This playbook would provide a series of conversations and supporting content, mapped to each stage of the buyer’s journey (sales process). If your company’s sales team consistently follows this messaging, they will be able to close deals quicker, increase your margins, and expand opportunities with existing clients.

One of the key areas that all new reps could greatly benefit from in your playbook should be an expansive and in depth buyer profile. All new reps should understand the world of their prospects as thoroughly as possible. They need to know what their prospects are trying to accomplish (goals), what is keeping them from realizing those goals (challenges) and finally, how the product or service they are selling uniquely helps their prospect overcome their challenge and achieve their goals.

It would also really benefit new hires to be able to have all of your sales messaging and content in one place when they’re just starting out. If they are challenged with a situation they aren’t prepared for, the playbook would be a great resource that they can reference.

Microlearning

Microlearning is a bite-size training technique that helps sales teams increase their expertise and sales performance. It helps with memory, is interesting and intriguing, and is structured and consistent. You can create a microlearning program that your sales team goes through and then enroll new hires as they come on to complete it as well. This ensures that everyone on your team is on the same page and has had the same level of training.

If you’ve created a sales messaging playbook, this is what you’d want to focus your microlearning program on. We love using a program called Qstream, which is a sales performance platform that quizzes your team on your sales training content. The great thing about a program like Qstream is that the team can answer questions and move at their own pace, and then the manager gets access to the results.

This is a great way to monitor how a new hire is performing and if they need some extra help understanding a concept. Imagine being able to pinpoint exactly where a new hire is struggling and quickly correcting and improving their performance. This can easily change the statistic of the 55% new hire success rate.

Structure and Consistency

Adding LMS, a Sales Playbook and a Microlearning program to your training process provides a structure that is consistent for everyone on your team. You can train new hires quickly and efficiently, all while tracking their progress to see if they are the right fit for your company. Firms with effective on-boarding have a new salesperson success rate of 65% after 24 months, compared with 49% for firms with ineffective on-boarding. How successful is your on-boarding process?

**********

We understand that it can be difficult to know where to start when developing content for your training process. That’s why we’ve created a Sales Conversation Roadmap “Cheat Sheet” that you can download here.

Please leave your feedback in the comments section.

**********

Most business owners have no extra time to devote to sales coaching. This is where MasterMessaging steps in and excels. We optimize your sales teams’ conversion rates, your lead volume, or both for less than the costs of a single administrative hire. The impact on your sales is significant and sustainable, continuing for years with no ongoing costs.

Our custom messaging solutions are strategically scripted, cadenced, and executed to increase conversion rates for maximum impact on your company’s revenue and profits. If needed we can also increase lead volume. Our system fits seamlessly with your existing sales process to ensure successful adoption & smooth rollout throughout your entire organization. Our solutions are high impact, low risk, minimally invasive, and integrate into your existing sales efforts.

Call: 678-561-6260, Email: dkurkjian@mastermessaging.com or instant message David Kurkjian on LinkedIn to start the conversation.