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Apr 19 2013
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Sales Is a Function of Marketing Pure and Simple

Over the years one of the great breakdowns in many of the small businesses that I’ve worked with lies in area of sales.

Now it might be tempting to conclude that what I referring to is a lack of sales, but what I’m really getting at is a misunderstanding there’s actually a distinction between sales and marketing.

Some of this might simply be semantics because the terms are widely fumbled around in various places, but here’s what I find to be true.

Business owners either fail to address the functions as separate or choose to view selling as marketing. Either way, they end up limiting the effectiveness of both.

The trouble with this mindset is that social media and inbound marketing has actually made the distinction even harder to appreciate. There was a time when marketing created brochures and sales people delivered them. Now prospects can create their own brochure of sorts using reviews, search engines and social connections and they certainly don’t need a salesperson for an information dump.

sales

In the most traditional view marketing is charged with lead generation, lead conversion and customer experience. Lead conversion, or what one might think of simply as sales, is a central and separate function that must be wholly integrated into the entire marketing framework.

The tricky part is holding the view of separate and integrated simultaneously.

So often lead generation dominates the marketing mindset and sales is either not addressed in any systematic manner or simply left to “the sales guys” to do what they do. (And let’s not even bring up how little thought is given to the customer experience part of marketing.)

Ever wonder why the greatest challenge most organizations face is getting sales and marketing on the same page?

Here’s my recipe for treating sales as function of marketing while giving it the appropriate separation.

Bring sales into the marketing planning phase

Field sales people often understand the needs, wants, stories and personas of your best customers better than anyone else in the organization and yet they are rarely included in ideal client and value proposition discussions. Everyone involved in the marketing function, yes this includes sales and customer service people, should play a role in digging up research, crafting the message, outlining objectives and determining how the marketing game is played from quarter to quarter.

Create an integrated sales process

If you follow step one then it makes logical sense that the entire marketing department play a role in crafting an integrated sales process and not just the sales manager. Everyone involved in the selling function should have a clear process for discovery, presentation, nurturing and converting. The process must be fully understood and supported by marketing and everyone must be taught how to conduct the process. Here’s a tip, look to the most successful salespeople in the organization and odds are they have your process ready to be mimicked.

Hire more educators and engineers

The common belief is that good sales people are good relationship builders. While relationship building is crucial, it’s often viewed in the light of outward social skills. In sales today relationships are often judged not on the merits of likability, but on the merits of value. What prospects need from a sales person is someone who can get them to think differently about a problem or teach them how to do something they don’t yet understand. Your tech people might actually be the best people for this type of selling.

View sales as an extension of lead generation

Today’s sales people need to write and speak as well as network and follow-up. Smart salespeople understand that they are also in the brand building, reputation monitoring, community managing business and marketing departments and sales managers need to enable sales people to produce content, participate in social networks, contribute expert articles and get to podiums as often as possible.

Blur the lines between lead conversion and customer experience

I’ve always contended that a sale isn’t a sale until the customer receives the result they are expecting. This mindset suggests that the sales staff should be intimately involved is measuring results, introducing new ways to use old products, solving problems and digging up referrals at significant moments of truth.

Largely what I’m suggesting is that you make sales a separate function by creating a separate process but you integrate it by overlapping the function into lead generation and customer experience.

Filed Under: Duct Tape Marketing, Duct Tape Selling Tagged With:
Apr 15 2013
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How to Dissect a Prospect in 6 Revealing Steps

I believe the highest objective of a successful organization is the building of a vital community.

Profitable companies everywhere have come to understand the power of community, even reaching far beyond the purchase of goods and services.

A vibrant community today plays a role product development, problem solving, culture, branding and even finance.

photo credit: [mequetrefe]

photo credit: [mequetrefe]

I’ve written in the past about how I believe this kind of multifunctional community forms around an organization and its purpose, but I think this idea also has profound implications for anyone that wants to join or sell to another organization.

I believe that you can understand more than most about a company by studying how its community is formed or not formed. I further believe that any consultant or sales person that attempts to work with an organization, regardless of size, can greatly increase the value they bring to an engagement by helping a customer or prospect deconstruct their own community.

Let me first briefly give you my thoughts on how community is formed.

Vibrant community comes about through the convergence of several essential channels.

  • Clarity – This is an organization’s “one true thing” – the why they do what they do and single greatest reason people are attracted to the brand. Usually their customers know what this is, even if they don’t yet.
  • Method – This is an organization’s “point of view” or unique way of doing things. Most often it possesses branded names and processes and enables a common language to form in the community.
  • Culture – I often refer to culture as clarity amplified. This is the one true thing formed as a set of core beliefs and actions that are in alignment with why an organization does what it does. This isn’t always articulated, but it’s there. In organizations with a healthy culture this comes off as shared purpose.
  • Content – Content isn’t just a channel for words and pictures. In this context it’s the voice of clarity. Clarity brings focus to all things and with clarity comes stories that illustrate what the brand stands for. With stories community members have something to build a long-term narrative around.
  • Presence – This may be the closest thing to what most think of as a channel, because at some point we do have to put the stories in places where potential community members can consume them, share them and build on them.
  • Touchpoints – The final channel adds intentionality to the community building effort and shepherds potential community members down a logical path that leads to deeper and deeper participation.

Using the framework of channel confluence outlined above I would like to suggest that you now turn it upside down in an effort to better understand or dissect any organization you would like to engage or sell.

Follow this 6 step path to creating more value through healthy deconstruction

  1. Start by researching every touchpoint an organization uses to interact with and move its prospects and customers. (I recommend my Marketing Hourglass model as a way to audit and organize the nature of touchpoints.) – What do they do to create awareness, build trust, convert, serve and follow-up?
  2. Move on to audit the elements of their online and offline presence. Include things like advertising, events, social networks, public relations, sales and sales promotion, email marketing, and SEO.
  3. Put together a grid of content types – awareness, nurturing, education and conversion. Do they blog, create eBooks, newsletters or webinars? Do they have gaps and inconsistencies?
  4. What can you learn about their culture? Do they publicly display their beliefs, can you interview an employee or two, can you research and monitor what’s being said about them online?
  5. Do they have a set methodology for conducting business, working with clients, creating value? Have they named it, are there terms, phrases and processes that dictate a shared language internally and externally?
  6. What do that stand for? What’s their one true thing – even if they don’t know what it is. What does the market really value about them, say about them? Why are employees drawn to work there?

The steps above represent a form of community anthropology and a process that will lead you to truly understanding the inner mechanics of a prospective client. You can make this research as simple or complex as the situation dictates but having this framework to apply will make your research more valuable and consistent.

But, it’s what you do with this information that makes the magic happens.

You’ll possess two things having done this process. 1) The keys to engaging a prospect in ways that your competitors will not even consider and 2) a road map for how to educate your customer or prospect on their own reality.

So, let me ask you this – how many other salespeople are approaching companies with this level of insight?

Filed Under: Duct Tape Selling Tagged With:
Mar 11 2013
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Why Good Questions Always Trump Even Your Best Answers

In almost every marketing and sales situation you often need to pose question after question to get at what the problem might actually be. Or often, a good line of hard questions can help eliminate a problem a client thinks they are trying to solve and get them to see the right direction to move.

better questions

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The right questions get you and the client to the right place together. There’s nothing less fruitful than spending thirty minutes answering the wrong question.

Questions create clarity and get your prospects to open up in ways that reveal how you can add value.

Great consultants ask great questions instead of trying to provide great answers. It’s actually a valuable service in and of itself and demonstrates that you there to guide your client towards their objectives rather than close a sale.

Peter Drucker, perhaps the most well-known and read consultants of all time, would refer to himself not as a Consultant, but as an Insultant, he so valued asking tough questions.

Sometimes asking tough questions can take some nerve, but if you’re in front of the right kind of prospect, they will respect you for caring enough and you’ll get to where you are going faster – even if that’s on down the road.

As you get better at using questions you’ll actually become a better listener and you’ll help your clients articulate their needs in ways that your competitors are not.

You need to have some form of the follow question starters at the ready in every situation. Feel free to paste this list somewhere you can return to as you prepare your next sales call.

Your question workbench

Can we get specific? – One of the most important things you can do in the realm of questions is to figure out what a client really wants to know when they ask you a question. Many times they don’t know how to be specific so they might say, “Tell me about your products” when they really want to know if you test your products against a specific defect that they discovered in their current supplier’s product.

You must be ready in any broad line of questioning to redirect to something like, “Is there something specific you would like to know about our products.” You can always move off of this stance, but more times than not they will answer in a way that helps you understand what’s going on in their worldview.

Is that a question? – Have you ever had a prospect ramble on about what’s going wrong with everything in their company and perhaps the world as a whole only to stop and ask you to solve it? The problem with trying to sell into this situation is that it’s a lot like trying to wade through a pond without any idea how deep the water is. You must be prepared to ask them to actually pose a question.

Why is that a problem? Again, many times people will tell you all about what they perceive as problems without shedding any light on what it’s costing them or why they want to solve it. You’ve got to drag that out and see if they can articulate that for you. If they aren’t motivated by this question, they won’t be motivated enough to solve it either.

How do you measure success? – So often a salesperson is out there selling a product or solution, knowing that it’s good for the prospect, without know how the prospect is measuring what’s good for them. When you understand what a buyer’s objectives are and how they are measured you can frame your value in those terms. Many times a buyer is mostly concerned with the things that show up on their annual review and you’ll benefit from understanding that.

What would you do if this were solved? – Problems and challenges take people away from the things they are much more excited about. Figuring out what a potential buyer would rather do gives you some insight into what’s important to them.

What do you enjoy most about your business? – I find that many business owners and even corporate managers started out doing what they love and oftentimes lose sight of it allow the way. Helping them remember and perhaps set a course back to it can be a great service and it’s also a great way to make a connection. No one is asking them this anymore.

How would you spend your time if . . .? This is the kind of question that would come later in a selling or service situation, but I think it can be a great thing to find out and engage in what someone would do if they were not doing what they are doing now. Again, sometimes people just really appreciate someone genuinely inquiring about the things they’ve even stopped asking themselves. At the very least it will make you a much more interesting person to have around.

What would 10 times look like? Many times our customers don’t think as big as they should about something. Get good at helping them look at problems in much different ways by suggesting they think bigger about them.

What does that mean? – The moment your prospect starts throwing around clichés and industry jargon call them out. I don’t mean in a bad way, but asking, “what would synergy look like in this case” is a really great way to connect. Plus, if you truly don’t understand something a prospect is explaining ask them to go deeper, most people actually love to explain what they do to others.

Why is now the right time? – There are many great reasons to figure out why someone is inquiring about what you have to offer right now. You may uncover some hidden pain or simply unmask their real cycle.

And don’t be afraid to borrow a page from Peter Drucker who would ask variations of the same five questions repeatedly of clients new and old.

  1. What is your mission?
  2. Who is your customer?
  3. What does the customer value?
  4. What are your results?
  5. What is your plan?

Start with one or two questions that help you get started in almost every situation. Play with them, get comfortable with them and then add some more.

I think it warrants repeating – good questions always trump good answers.

Filed Under: Duct Tape Selling Tagged With: ,
Mar 6 2013
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7 Obligations of the New Sales Manager

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Marketing podcast with Matthew Dixon

Sales Coach

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I’ve been spending some time writing about how the job of sales has changed dramatically over the last few years. In recent posts I outlined what I called the Disciplines of the New Sales Professional and followed that up with the Practices of the New Sales Professional.

Well, guess who else has to adapt to the new world order. That’s right, the job of an effective Sales Manager has changed radically as well.

If we are to liken the job of the new Sales Professional to something more like a Sales Guide, as I have, then too the Sales Manager must take on the expression of something much more like a Sales Coach.

If an organization is to have any chance of bringing sales and marketing onto the page where collaboration and engagement impacts the buying process a sales coach mentality must be in place.

It doesn’t matter if you’re the owner or the VP of Sales, if you want to get the most from the model of a sales guide, you’re obligated to build a culture that makes it safe and productive for every member of your sales team to practice marketing to meet sales objectives.

Like any good coach, you need a game plan and it must address your current culture and help steer your business away from traditional sales strategies and tactics. The following seven elements must be considered standard operating practices for the new sales coach.

1) Change the channel

Make an assessment of your current sales channel. How was your sales process, assuming there is one, built? How much input did your sales team have in building the process, determining how compensation is measured, crafting what an ideal lead looks like? If you are going to lead your current sales team into a world of inbound marketing you’ve got tear some things down, build some things up and make sure everyone realizes they are going to experience new freedom, new expectations, new accountability, new responsibility and a totally new way of viewing the function of sales. There’s a very interesting organizational development theory called Appreciative Inquiry (AI) that would make for an appealing approach here.

2) Bridge the gap

As stated at the outset of this post the Sales Coach is the bridge builder charged with closing the gap between the marketing and sales functions. One of the best ways to do this is to get them to understand and talk to each other. Now I know that sounds rather simplistic, but it’s how you do this that will make a difference. Instead of holding quarterly meetings where each side says what they are doing to support the other, break your marketing, sales, support and service teams into small units and compel them to go to work on segments or accounts as self managed teams. Assign team leaders and rotate each member through the role of leader every 60 or 90 days and watch how autonomy creates teamwork. You may, in your role of coach, need to guide them in productive ways, but this is how you create communication and innovation and you just might find that this changes your entire business model.

The Challenger SaleIn this week’s episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast I visit with Matthew Dixon, executive director with CEB’s sales and marketing practice co author of The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation. Dixon’s work is a great addition to the conversation about the changing role of the sales professional and the sales manager.

3) Find your method

As the coach you need your team to buy into your system. In order to do this you’ve got to create a sales process or methodology that allows them succeed while differentiating their efforts from the rest of the market. Think of this group as a community. As I’ve said many times, people don’t join directives or training, they join methods, unique points of view and processes surrounded with branding. Create a common language your team can share with each other and customers. Quite often your success model exists in the self-created process of one or two of your best sales people, go find it.

4) Swallow the whistle

The Sales Coach has to teach the system, but they also have to adapt the system to the special needs of each team member. You must create the eight week training program that teaches each sales guide how to listen online, identify ideal prospects, create warm leads, find problems, build a content platform, get to a podium and increase influence and authority in the market, but you’ll also need to build a routine that helps them get better results. A good coach cements the mindset of the organization, protects the culture and teaches critical thinking skills. To do this you must create a systematic way to assess progress based on their unique abilities and provide coaching based on improving their strengths instead of meeting cold call quotas.

5) Hire freaks

If we are to accept that the role of the sales person and the various implications of strategic thinking, problem finding and content creation that goes with it have changed, it can’t be much of a stretch to suggest the make up of the prototypical star sales person has changed as well. Dexterity, empathy, pattern recognition and a whole host of technology wrangling should have organizations opening up what a Sales Guide looks like. In Re-imagine! Tom Peters famously suggested that companies should “hire freaks” and “fire all male salespeople” as a way of highlighting just how stuck in ruts most companies are.

“Freaks keep us from falling into ruts. (If we listen to them.) (We seldom listen to them.) (Which is why most of us—and our organizations—are in ruts. Make that chasms.)” – Tom Peters, Re-Imagine!

So, what does your rut look like when it comes to hiring salespeople?

6) Manage automation

Marketing automation can be downright abusive these days. Companies use it to theoretically get more sales, with less effort, faster. The fact is, most actually use it to close off any chance that a salesperson might do better if left to develop leads that fit a not so presorted and scored purchase path. By the time a lead has made it through most people’s automation funnel they are simply shopping for the best price. Automation must be employed to let a sales person be more productive now that you should be asking them to do more teaching, listening, speaking and writing.

7) Measure strength

The best coaches know how to measure success based on the individual team member. Going fully with the sports metaphor, one player may need to work on offense while another must develop defensive skills. As a coach you can’t measure all on the same path, but you must be a nut about measuring everything. The one only way to develop honest measurement, the kind you can base compensation on, is to instill a culture of transparency. Everyone in the organization must know the critical indicators and what they mean. Every sales person, or self-managed team described above, should know what their contribution costs and returns. The entire team must come to think and act like owners, with full knowledge of profit and loss, in order to build an environment where everyone knows how to win.

Lots of work here to be sure and perhaps maybe a strong evaluation of the skill set required as an owner and certainly as a VP of Sales.

Filed Under: Duct Tape Selling, Podcast Tagged With: , , ,
Feb 11 2013
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The 6 Disciplines of the New Sales Professional

The art of selling has evolved tremendously over the last few years. This is in large part because markets have immediate and deep access to the kind of information once delivered as a primary function of the selling process.

sales disciplines

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Selling has always required dexterity, and successful sales professionals have always practiced this, but today’s sales environment demands that a sales professional also develop and practice disciplines more closely aligned with traditional marketing and customer service practices in addition to becoming an educator in the sales process.

Today’s sales superstars attract, teach, convert, serve and measure while developing an individual brand that stands for trust and expertise.

The following six disciplines make up the necessary traits of the new sales professional.

1) Community building

In the past all the focus was given to the prospect, the one most likely to buy today. Today’s sales professional understands that the larger community dictates ultimate success. By focusing a great deal of attention on “educating” decision makers at every level, building strategic networks and referral partners, and connecting people in ways that lead to no direct benefit, value is created. Delivering value to a growing community is your number one job.

2) Lead defining

Instead of sitting back and waiting for company defined leads to “request more information,” today’s sales professional understands how to define and attract ideal leads often challenging the assumed notions sent up by the marketing department. By narrowly defining what makes an ideal lead, a sales professional can create processes for both finding and standing out with this narrow group. Lead defining can be done across demographics, but it is done most profitably when you can define a behavior that is unique. For example, skeptics often make great leads when understood. What uncommon notion can you challenge when it comes to defining your ideal prospect?

3) Difference making

Markets are often very attracted to companies that stand for something greater than a group of products. Sales professionals can benefit by connecting with their own passion and purpose and using that as part of their story. Getting crystal clear on your own value proposition as well as that of your organization is how you create leverage in a highly competitive sales environment. What difference can you actually make in the lives of your clients?

4) Channel guiding

The concept of the sales funnel is so limiting in today’s sales environment that we need to replace if with something far more representative of the entire picture. Think of moving prospects through a logical set of 7 channels – know, like, trust, try, buy, repeat and refer – the sales and marketing hourglass. When you create sales and marketing processes designed to guide prospects logically down this path, future lead generation becomes the natural outcome of a happy customer.

5) Reputation building

Let’s face it, all things being even we prefer to do business with people we know, like and trust. In today’s online world trust building means something entirely different than it once did – or at the very least it means something much more expansive. Today’s sales professional must build an online and offline reputation in much the same way as one thinks about building a brand. When a prospect is considering a purchase the reputation of a sales representative for delivering value and the social proof that lends to this reputation is increasingly crucial.

6) Inbound attracting

Teaching sells today. Today’s sales professional attracts leads, community and opportunities by publishing educational content. While some marketing departments and sales managers might object to the very idea of this, sales professionals often have far greater insight into the actual world and challenges of the clients they serve and can raise their level of perceived value and expertise by addressing the questions, problems and challenges through blogging, curating and speaking. What sales professional would you choose when you did a search? One with a nice LinkedIn profile or the one that shows up in a search with Google Authorship authority for the very challenge you hope to address?

These disciplines can be taught, but the traits needed to multitask in this manner are not the same ones associated with the typical outgoing salesperson. The ability to relate to a client is essential, but the ability to write, analyze, network, share, speak and measure may be found in a different make up altogether.

Filed Under: Duct Tape Selling Tagged With: