Sales substitution lessons from my Dad

Some of you may recognise that my surname is Maltese. My father grew up in Malta during the second world war. It was only after his passing in 2001 that I learned how he and his younger brother would leave air raid shelters to bring more food and water to his family. They weren't even teenagers. At the end of the war, my father was apprenticed to an uncle as a carpenter and it was with this skill and background that he emigrated to Australia as a nineteen year old.

Of key importance here was that my father learned to be inventive and could build anything from wood. He eventually became a troubleshooter for the state roads department in fixing bridges.

Before he retired he bought and renovated a beach house so he could indulge in his passion for fishing. Fishing seems to be a birthright for anyone with a Maltese heritage. Dad was never one to spend money on material items if he could build it himself, unless there was sufficient gap in the functionality that he desired but could not achieve.

Two examples come to mind:
1. He was happy to spend money on a fiberglass fishing boat and fit it out with an endless array of paraphernalia  because he could not easily replicate the strength, lightness and maneuverability that he needed to get through the rip into the open sea. Spending this money helped him achieve his goals.

2. Dad loved to sit back after dinner and watch some television. Because it was a beach house he did not spend where it wasn't warranted. His problem was that the old push button television did not have remote control. Rather than spend hundreds, or thousands, of dollars on a new TV which would have given him more functionality including a remote control, Dad took a long piece of timber dowel (otherwise known as a stick) and shaped the end of the stick to fit the buttons on the TV. So he substituted a completely different product that fully complied with his required functionality at a fraction of the cost. Fights over the remote control took on a completely different aspect.

Often there is a danger when we sell specific products and services that we become focused on the benefits and features of "our" products. We do this in order to line up against a competing product and overcome objections by differentiating our product from a competitor's product. When we do this we forget to focus on the customer's goals.

Sales Poetry - Poetry as an analogy for Sales

I originally wrote this as the basis for a speech and found it again when I was recently trawling through my documents folder. I hope you enjoy it.

Passion

Poetry needs passion, so does sales.

You can write a limerick and get a laugh, you can run through a process and get a sale. But if you want to leave them wanting more, you need to approach Sales with passion. After all, it is sales that gives your company its life blood, revenue. You may as well get passionate about it. 

Consistent format 

Poetry has consistent formats eg: Haiku, Rhyme, Quatrain, Iambic pentameter and limerick. Similarly, Sales generally follow a process.eg: Prospect, Qualify, Position, Align, Proof of concept, determine scope of work, Quote, Negotiate, Close. 

Explores Facts and Emotions 

Poetry explores and questions facts, assumptions and emotions:

Eg: There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around

That the colt from old Regret had got away,

And had joined the wild bush horses — he was worth a thousand pound

(with apologies to AB "Banjo" Paterson)

A sales person might question the truth of this and seek to understand if the owner was happy with a replacement. If not, what would the owner do in the mean time to satisfy the need for a colt. Possibly strike an agreement to outsource a colt of similar stature at 100 pounds per month for the next 6 months and if the colt from old Regret could not be found, the owner could purchase the replacement. 

Sometimes unexpected ending 

Poetry can lead you down the garden path, certain that a pot of gold awaits at the end. Then, just as you feel it in your grasp, it is snatched away. Sales are the same, but if you write the script, you can be more certain of the end. 

Sometimes inspired

Famous American poet Ruth Stone described how a poem would fly to her when she was harvesting in the fields. See http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html I had my own experience when I was able to out manoeuvre IBM. This is also a story about flexibility in smaller companies. 

Sometimes just hard work and persistence

Sometimes a poem just flows; sometimes it’s just hard work. When it is hard work you can still get there but you need to follow a process and make sure that the deal is still worth the work. 

·         2% of sales are made on the 1st contact

·         3% of sales are made on the 2nd contact

·         5% of sales are made on the 3rd contact

·         10% of sales are made on the 4th contact

·         80% of sales are made on or after the 5th contact <<== WOW

There are highs and lows 

Just as poetry can take you on an emotional rollercoaster, so can sales.

Month on month you can be elated at the end of the month then realise then you need to do it all over again.

The best way to avoid this is to have visibility of a pipeline.... 

Not everyone is a poet 

Just as everyone is not a poet, not everyone can sell.

The features and the benefits from which you can tell

That you understand all the tricks and avenues

It might be obvious to all, that you are clever with words

Adds up to nought when you are dealing with revenues

Networking or Putting yourself in the way of your targets

I was recently asked by a trainer, who had just decided to start his own company, how I use networking to find business. In answer, I told him that it was about putting yourself in the way of your targets. He got it immediately.

Just in case it is not, I’ll try to make it more obvious with some examples. There are many occasions when you could be invited to an event or gathering that might turn up some good prospects. I recall one instance when I was looking to be employed by a company but wanted to impress upon the CEO that I would be able to take a different angle to most others. I started subscribing to an email specific to his industry. Very soon, I noticed a conference that was being run by a government body responsible for that industry and that he was listed as a speaker. As it was a government conference, anyone with an interest could register to attend. By the first break we had “run into each other” and he was offering me the role. He had not expected me to be there and the fact that I was showing interest beyond others proved to him that I was the right selection.

This is an especially good way to learn about an industry that you may be targeting and can give you great exposure to who is the decision maker.

Most of your sales team suck at their job.

If your sales team runs true to form, about 20-30% of them produce about 70-80% of the revenue.

It’s one of the things that we tend to take for granted. We know that if they don’t perform in a given timeframe, we can present them with the hard evidence and march in the next contender.

I sometimes smile when other professions talk about negotiating their KPI’s. It doesn’t get much cleaner than the sales KPI.

Some companies have a standard practice of “releasing” the lowest 10% of performers knowing that, over time, they will end up with the best “over” performers. Why over performers? Eventually all of them will be exceeding target which means that even though you have let go 10% of your sales team who over achieved, the remaining 90% are performing so well that you hardly feel it. And the practice acts as a prod to the rest of the team.

There is another way of getting 90% of your team over achieving their targets.

You need to train them and coach them to perform at their full potential. Sounds simple, but the problem is that all of us have different skills and aptitudes. Good HR departments started using psychometric testing decades ago. However, it is hard to apply these to a sales profile.

Over recent years a number of sales ability specific tests have been developed that assess a sales person specifically for the job, or role you wanted them to do.

One of the tests is called Fit-4 from www.salesassessment.com

Are you the Rainmaker in your small or medium business?

A "Rainmaker" is someone who brings in the big deals.

This is really addressed at the owners of small or medium businesses who have worked hard to build their company but just can't seem to grow beyond a particular limit. I've noticed it more over the last few years.

Often, the person who started the company best understands the product and where it fits in the market.

Usually they, the company, has matured enough to put together a business plan for growth and have often designed their systems to scale to handle the increased volumes. It just that for some reason, no one seems to be able to sell their product or service quite as well as the owner.

Standing on the outside, it became obvious to me that there are three main reasons that this occurs:

1. The sales person does not have the authority to make the call. This allows the owner to always be the rainmaker.
2. The owner hired someone who understand the technology or complexity but does not how to sell. This person is often best at after sales support. This allows the owner to step back in and be the rainmaker.
3. The owner hired sales people who cannot sell, or has them in a structure that cannot scale, which often amounts to the same thing. So, in an attempt to grow, the owner steps back into the rainmaker role.

I'd love to hear of similar observations.