The stalled sale is one of the most frustrating experiences for a sales professional particularly when the sales person feels like the customer has a real need and their solution directly addresses the customer’s need. The problem is that many needs are not compelling and, as a result, the customer lacks urgency.

Watch video as David Jacoby, President of Sales Readiness Group, discusses how sales professionals can help drive customer urgency by identifying compelling needs.

One of the single biggest opportunities to improve sales results is to increase the ramp-up time of new sales reps. If you think about it, every new sales rep creates a new potential revenue stream and the faster you can get sales results flowing the better from a return on investment perspective.

Watch video as Norman Behar, CEO of Sales Readiness Group, discusses best practices to Accelerate Sales Ramp-Up Time

Better selling produces better performance.  It’s intuitive.  And sales training is a proven method for improving the selling skills of a sales team, particularly in a challenging economy.

But many sales organizations get low ROIs on their sales training initiatives.  Why is this?

Event-Based Training

The short answer is “event-based” training.  We have all gone through this type of training before: (1) fly the team in for a national sales meeting, (2) include 1-2 days of training, (3) overload the team with too much content, (4) throw in a “team building” dinner, and, finally (5) repeat next year.

Unfortunately, research has consistently demonstrated that this type event-based sales training is not effective since sales reps routinely forget most of what they learned within 30 days of the training.  That’s because improving sales skills is a process, not a one-time event.  Sales people need time to learn and apply new knowledge and skills, which then need to be reinforced and coached for sustainability.

Continuous Skills Development

Sales organizations should implement a sales training program designed to drive better sales performance through “Continuous Skills Development”, not quick fixes.

The Continuous Skills Development approach is based on the simple yet powerful insight that sales reps learn, apply and retain new sales skills
better when the training is “spaced out” into manageable chunks of content that are delivered over time—e.g., a series of 1-2 weekly training sessions.

This systematic approach to performance improvement also includes periodic post-training reinforcement, on-going skills coaching by the front-line sales managers, and assessment.

Cloud-Based Training: the Game Changer

Up until recently, this Continuous Skills Development approach has been the purview of organizations that could afford to send teams
of trainers from location to location on an ongoing basis.

A key game changer has been recent advances in cloud-based training technology.  New virtual instructor-led training (i.e., training is delivered online by live facilitators) platforms allow for the delivery of highly engaging sales training that rivals the effectiveness of in-person training but without the associated travel costs.  Virtual training also allows sales organizations to space out the sales training sessions and implement cost-effective post training reinforcement sessions to ensure that the training sticks.

At Sales Readiness Group, we now deliver a majority of our training virtually using our state-of-the-art Live Virtual Classroom training platform and innovative instructional design.  Our cloud-based sales training programs deliver sustainable results through Continuous Skills Development.

I recently participated in a Webinar that was hosted by Selling Power on the topic of sales management and sales coaching (“Accelerated Sales Success through Effective Coaching“).  The webinar featured Selling Power CEO Gerhard Gschwandtner and included a lively audience Q & A (see here and here for answers to selected questions that were asked during the webinar).

Sales coaching is receiving a tremendous amount of interest in today’s slow economy and it is easy to understand why.  Industry research shows that effective sales coaching can dramatically improve the performance of sales teams – in somecases driving up revenues by 20% or more. With such potential benefits it is no wonder that many sales organizations recommend that their front-line sales managers spend 25% – 45% of their time sales coaching.

The webinar audience included many sales leaders as wells as frontline sales managers.  As participants asked questions, two common sales coaching challenges emerged: sales managers feel that (i) they don’t have enough time to coach their teams and (ii) they don’t know how to coach.

Not Enough Time to Coach

Managing a sales team is probably the most challenging position in any company requiring a unique set of skills. Sales managers are responsible for a range of diverse tasks, including managing a sales pipeline, coaching their team, forecasting, hiring new sales representatives, strategic planning, and sales administration.  In many cases, sales managers are also asked to carry sales quotas or held responsible for a target list of accounts.

Additionally, sales managers face the challenge of managing sales representatives who are typically independent, strong willed and sometimes have little day-to-day contact with their managers. With all of these demands on their time, it is no wonder that sales managers can feel overwhelmed.  Many sales managers we speak with claim they are too busy “putting out fires” to coach their teams.  The problem these sales managers have is not lack of time but mindset: They view their primary role as being the chief problem solver of their team.  Every time a sales rep has a problem or needs help dealing with a prospect or customer, these sales managers roll-up their sleeves and jump in to help.

This “firefighter” approach in the long-term is counter-productive.  Instead of spending so much time putting out fires, sales manages should take a step back and spend more time coaching and developing their sales teams.  The benefits of this approach are two-fold. Sales reps with better skills will (i) sell more and (ii) solve more of their own problems.

The net effect of more sales coaching then is to free up the time of the sales manager.

Don’t Know How to Coach

Most frontline sales managers started their careers as successful sales representative who were then promoted into management.  Companies tend to assume that successful sales representatives will make successful sales managers. This is a flawed assumption. Think about professional sports where many great players ended up being mediocre coaches.  Likewise, great sales representatives often have a hard time making the transition to management.  The key challenge for sales managers is that coaching requires a different set of skills then selling.

The good news here is that sales coaching is a skill that can be learned, practiced and perfected.  However, it is the responsibility of the sales organization to make sales coaching a priority and then provide managers with the skills and tools they need to be successful.  For best results, sales organizations should view the skills development as one component of an overall coaching system that includes 1) creating a coaching culture, 2) implementing a coaching process, 3) developing the coaching skills of the managers, and 4) using metrics to measure success and hold sales managers accountable.

Bottom line, by learning sales coaching skills and spending more time coaching they’re reps, managers will develop more effective sales teams.

Every day we are inundated with blogs and articles describing how selling has changed. The primary driver of this change has been the internet and the rise of “connected buyers.” Today, buyers have access to vast amounts of information regarding your products and services, as well as your competitors. The obvious implication for sales professionals is that they can’t just rely on providing product information. Instead, they need to position themselves as trusted advisors who can add value throughout the sales process. In other words, selling skills have never been more important.

To test this theory, I have implemented a simple verbal quiz that I use in the course of my conversation with sales leaders to help identify what skills are most important for their sales teams, and their assessment of sales proficiency in these key areas. What I have consistently found is that most sales leaders identify the same primary skills as being important and that the percent of their sales reps that are proficient are glaringly low even when they have veteran teams.

Here are the unscientific results of asking numerous sales leaders about their teams selling skills:

These results provide a good starting point for sales leaders who want to improve how their team sells. All of these skill areas are trainable and can be reinforced on a daily basis by managers who are proficient in sales coaching (download complimentary white paper on Sales Coaching for Improved Performance). Unfortunately, it is often assumed that these skills are too basic. Nothing could be further from the truth. Selling skills is one of four key competency areas for a successful sales professional. Can you guess the other three?

Qualifying a prospect is a critical but challenging selling skill for salespeople.  Ask too fewquestions and you may end up setting an unqualified appointment which results in you wasting time.  Ask too many questions and the prospect feels that you are interrogating them, and this could result in no appointment.

The topic of qualifying prospects came up recently when my cousin was showing me his travel pictures from a family trip to Istanbul, Turkey.  On his trip, my cousin bought a small rug as a souvenir from one of the numerous rug merchants in Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar.  As he went from store to store looking for the perfect rug, he realized that as he entered different stores most salesmen started the sales dialogue with the same three questions.

As we discussed the Turkish rug sales process in more depth, it quickly became apparent that these rug merchants had perfected a highly efficient qualification process.  Let’s look at how a typical rug merchant in Istanbul qualifies a buyer:

Question #1:  Where are you from? 

This question is a great ice breaker and an easy way for the salesperson to build rapport: “Oh, you’re from America.  I have a brother who lives in Philadelphia!”   Also, the salesperson can gain valuable information about the sales potential of the opportunity based on the prospect’s country of origin.  For example, Americans tend to have larger homes than tourists from Hong Kong, and so the salesperson may alter his sales strategy accordingly.

Question #2:  What do you do there?

Here the rug salesperson is trying to approximate theprospect’s budget based on his/her estimated income.  Notice how this question naturally flows fromthe first question.  My cousin tested different responses to this question as he went from merchant to merchant, andgot different levels of service depending on his answer.  When he said he was an engineer (his real profession), he got high levels of service; but when he said that he was unemployed, he got much less attention from the salesperson.

Question #3:  How long are you staying in Turkey?

This seemingly innocent question provides the salesperson with crucial information regarding a prospect’s timing.  If you just arrived in Turkey and this is your first day looking for carpets, you are less likely to make a purchase decision—you are still in information gathering mode.  Conversely, if this is your last day of your vacation, you have likely visited other carpet stores and are more open to making a purchase decision.

While Turkish rug merchants occupy a unique niche in the sales world, there are still some key qualification techniques that are applicable for B-to-B sales, such as asking a limited number of high value questions, keeping the qualification process conversational, and alwaysfocusing on sizing up the sales opportunity quickly.

In an ideal world, sales reps would only focus their efforts on “sales ready” opportunities. While this makes intuitive sense, the problem is that it is based on the often false assumption that sales reps are so busy that they don’t have enough time to work on opportunities that are not as sales ready.

In thinking about my early experience in sales, I recall a key point from the CEO of the company I was working at about the economic concept of “opportunity cost.” The classic definition of opportunity cost is the cost of an alternative that must be foregone in order to pursue a certain action. So, in theory at least, as sales rep should not waste time with what appear to be sales leads that aren’t sales ready, since that time could be better spent on more qualified opportunities. The CEO’s point was basic but profound: most employees have some excess time on their hands, and, accordingly, the actual opportunity cost may in fact be zero.

While every sales rep dreams of opportunities with BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeframe), there simply are not enough BANT opportunities, especially in a tough economy, to keep most sales reps fully productive. It also discounts the importance of the sales rep working leads that aren’t quite ready to buy. Here reps need to spend more time acting as a consultative resource and helping companies better define their needs, building a business case that supports budget, and creating a sense of urgency based on a compelling ROI.

One of my favorite expressions is that “action, creates action” because it implies what I have found to be a very important sales truth. By engaging in more customer conversations even with leads that aren’t ready to buy, sales reps will identify new opportunities and not be as reliant on marketing leads with BANT. Sales reps should expand their customer base and develop deeper relationships with existing customers by engaging in conversations that allow them to identify new business opportunities.

Bottom line: There is a lot of opportunity out there. It just isn’t all BANT.

I was driving to work this morning and heard a pop hit from 1979 on my car radio, “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles. It quickly reminded me how video has had a transformational effect on sales.

In many ways, we should not be surprised by this transformation.  It was somewhat inevitable that as bandwidth increased streaming video would become a key component of every company’s sales and marketing strategy.  Today, company’s websites are designed to “pull in” potential customers through the allure of video.  Not only is video more inviting than static web pages, but it also conveys information far more rapidly than other mediums.  Perhaps the former CMO of Kodak, Jeff Hayzlett, summed it up best in a presentation that I attended a few years ago when he said “if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth ten thousand.”

Our propensity to watch video was instilled in us at a very young age (most of us spent way too much time watching TV). It should therefore come as no surprise that companies are now sharing their videos on leading social networks including YouTube and Facebook.  They are also embracing online meeting capabilities such as WebEx, Live Meeting, and Adobe Connect Pro to conduct online meetings that include the use of web cams and videos.

Sales organizations are now actively using videos to develop and cultivate relationships with clients. Video clips are included in e-mail campaigns, personalized e-mails, online presentations, demos, and post-sales support.  They are also used by sales organizations for training purposes, including sharing best practices among reps, providing information on new products and services, and to reinforce key selling skills. The use of video has also allowed for more personalized selling with web cams being actively used by inside sales reps who cannot meet with their prospects and customers in person.

I should also credit Selling Power’s publisher and founder, Gerhard Gschwandtner, for helping expose me to this mega trend at his Sales 2.0 Conferences and persuading me to join him for a few Selling Power video presentations last fall.

Recently I had the opportunity to present to the Seattle chapter of the American Association for Inside Sales Professionals.  What impressed me about this audience was its level of professionalism and sophistication.

This is consistent with a mega-trend that has been occurring in the sales profession: inside sales is becoming increasingly sophisticated and the preferred method of selling for many products and services that were traditionally sold by field based reps.  Inside sales teams are growing at 17% year over year which is pretty incredible considering our US economy is limping along at less than 3% annually.

The key driver of this shift to inside sales has been advances in technology.  Faster internet connections, easy-to-use virtual meeting platforms, sophisticated sales automation software as well as a host of other sales enablement technologies are all making inside sales teams more productive.  Moreover, customers are now becoming accustomed to making complex buying decisions over the phone without ever seeing the sales professional.

Historically, inside sales teams were deployed for limited sales functions such as lead qualification, appointment setting, account management, and transaction processing.  With today’s technologies, inside sales teams are now able to sell more complex products and services over the phone.  And given the expense associated with field reps, it is no wonder that inside sales teams have been growing.

While we see this shift continuing, long-term sales success will depend not on technology but on these teams developing the requisite selling skills needed to effectively sell these increasingly complex solutions.

Based on our work with clients, we believe the answer to this question is a resounding “yes” provided sales organizations invest in training programs that help these inside sales professionals develop consultative selling skills, and implement coaching programs that support their ongoing development.

Fundamentally, Inside Sales Professionals success in closing more complex sales will be based on the skills and knowledge that allow them to be viewed by clients as trusted advisors that can add value throughout the entire sales process.

I recently attended a lecture (not sales related) where the speaker discussed the importance of packaging and the impact it has on the recipient.  Specifically, he noted that the impact of a gift is significantly dependent on the how it is wrapped and presented.  The “packaging” directly influences the recipient’s mood and attitude about the person who gave them the gift and the actual gift.  Fortunately, I heard this lecture before Mother’s Day and was able to plan accordingly.

The key message for sales leaders is that we need to train our sales teams to better package solutions so that they are better received by prospective customers.  In an environment when it is increasingly difficult to get time with prospects, it is essential that they learn to make the most of every opportunity.  While there are numerous “packaging” opportunities throughout the sales process, we typically see the biggest gap in how sales reps plan for their initial sales calls.

Based on our experience, the average cost of securing an appointment with a prospective customer ranges from $500 to $2,500.  Given the potential value associated with these appointments, you would expect sales reps to allocate a fair amount of time researching the prospects business, learning what they can about their industry, gaining insight into the individual they will be speaking with, and preparing relevant questions to better understand the prospects priorities.

Unfortunately, this type of call planning occurs far less than it should.  Sales people often “wing it” and neglect the importance of demonstrating to the client that they are prepared for their meeting.  While they may have excellent products and services, they have missed a great opportunity to improve the receptivity of the buyer by properly “packaging” the initial meeting.

Call planning is a critical but often ignored step in the sales process sandwiched in between prospecting (securing the appointment) and identifying priorities (questioning skills). In depth call planning is essential to creating an open, receptive prospect who is willing to answer your questions and help you learn more about their business.

As a way to drive home the point with your sales team, I would suggest that you purchase a $10 Starbucks gift card for each rep and package half of them in plane white envelopes with a post it note that says “thank you”, and the other half in a decorative coffee cup with a personalized note affixed to the handle.  I think you and they will see a huge difference in how they react to their gifts.