From Sales to Sales Manager – A new set of skills!

June 1, 2008 Leave a Comment

Nashville Business Journal – June 2008
by John Boyens

If you use a business model that requires using outside sales reps you must find sales managers who have the skill to source, hire, train, motivate and retain productive outside sales reps. This skill is critical to the success of the salespeople and success of the business. Over the years I have received feedback from presidents and CEOs who have told me that their sales managers:

  • Wait too long to hire salespeople.
  • Don’t know where to source good candidates.
  • Don’t know how to interview salespeople so they hire salespeople on “gut feel.”
  • Don’t know how to compensate, motivate and incentivize salespeople.

The results for the sales manager include missed sales targets, high turnover, and poor customer service. The result for the business includes missed revenue, disenchanted customers, profit and cash flow misses.

Most sales managers never expressed an interest in sales management or demonstrated the skill to be one. They happened to be a good salesperson.
The biggest challenge for the new sales manager is to learn skills to focus on the team’s success. That includes the ability to: manage your boss, peers, coworkers and  subordinates; quickly assess the talent of the team and make necessary changes; recruit, hire, motivate and retain a high-performing team; establish and inspect a consistent sales and sales management process; coach salespeople versus sell for their salespeople.

One of the hardest lessons to learn is not to sell for the salespeople but to teach them how to sell. The novice sales manager knows what he did to be successful but may have difficulty teaching others to do it. How does the sales manager get the skills to accomplish this transition?

Identify critical tasks for outside sales reps and assess their readiness to execute them. Critical tasks should include the ability to sell and deliver consistent results, prospect and network, follow up with prospects and clients, complete administrative tasks on time and accurately and managing time.

The sales manager should establish a success formula. The road map should include:

  • Establishing a monthly sales quota
  • Tracking average order size
  • Tracking close rate
  • Tracking sales cycle
  • Helping them understand how many qualified prospects reps need at all times

The bottom line to becoming a successful sales manager is to “inspect” what you “expect” and coach your salespeople to achieve their full potential.

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Managing the Outside Sales Rep

January 16, 2008 2 Comments

Franchising World Magazine - Jan. 2008
by John Boyens

Franchisors are looking for potential Franchisees that have certain personal and professional characteristics to determine whether the person they’re recruiting would be suitable to run a successful franchise.  According to articles by Jeff Elgin; CEO of FranChoice, Inc. and Andrew A. Caffey; a business law attorney and author of, “Franchises and Business Opportunities” the following four characteristics are key in selecting a successful Franchise Owner:

  1. Being a “people” person
  2. The “ability to be coached”
  3. General Business Skills
  4. Access to capital

Let’s take a look these four characteristics in more detail.

  • 90% of “people” problems are communication problems and the biggest stumbling block to good communication is poor listening
  • Most sales managers spend their time disciplining the low performer versus coaching the high performer
  • Poor hiring is the number one cause of unproductive/inconsistent performance and often leads to employee retention issues
  • Establishing clear expectations is a must for successful Franchisees
  • Franchise Owners need to “inspect” what they “expect” from their outside sales rep

Since no business can survive without making sales let me share with you the keys to hiring an outside sales rep.

The first step is for the Franchise Owner to identify the “mission critical” tasks or activities that their outside sales rep (OSR) must execute on a daily basis. I consider the following five tasks “mission critical” for any OSR regardless of what Franchise System they sell for:

  1. Sell/Deliver Consistent Results
  2. Canvas/Prospect/Network
  3. Follow-up with Prospects and Clients
  4. Complete Administrative Tasks on Time/Accurately
  5. Plan their day and Manage their Time Efficiently

Next the Franchise Owner needs to assess the readiness level of each of their potential outside sales reps to execute these tasks (as noted above).  Here are some guidelines.  I define readiness by two factors:  SKILL and WILL.  In other words does the OSR have the ability to do the job (SKILL) and the desire to do the job (WILL)?  Upon completion of the interview process with their potential candidate the Franchise Owner needs to answer the following skill and will questions about the potential candidate.

“Skill” Questions:

  • Have they had either formal or informal training?
  • Do they understand the task that is required?
  • Can they easily apply the task as needed?
  • Have they done this before? How often?

“Will” Questions:

  • Do they have the “get up and go” to do this task?
  • Do they have incentive to do what’s being asked of them?
  • Is there a safety net if they fail at first?
  • Do they trust in their abilities to do this task?

Naturally, you’d like to hire an OSR with a lot of high will tendencies because they really “want to!”  Conversely you want to avoid hiring an OSR with a lot of low will tendencies because they really don’t “want to!”  To further make my point…I call a person that has a lot of low will tendencies a “toad” T-O-A-D toad!  Worse yet, if you hire someone with low will tendencies and then invest the time, money and resources to train them all you’ll get is a “smart toad!”  And kissing them won’t turn them to a “prince” of an outside sales rep either!

The best way to hire the right outside sales rep the first time and every time is to use a technique called behavioral interviewing.  Behavioral interviewing is based on the fact that a candidate’s past and present behavior is the best predictor of how they will behave in the future. But behavioral traits don’t appear on a resume…they can only come from an interactive interview. Furthermore, interviewers need to obtain repeated examples of a specific behavior to ensure that the behavior they are observing is “real” and not just “turned on” for the interview itself.

By asking questions about past experiences an interviewer can better predict future behavior by:

  • Eliminating misunderstandings
  • Preventing the “halo effect” (e.g., they can do no wrong)
  • Reducing the candidate’s ability to mislead

Interviews not based on exploring competencies inevitably focus exclusively on education, experience, and knowledge…exactly what’s on the resume!  While these are clearly important, they only reveal what a candidate “says” that they did. Behavioral interviewing helps get at the “how” and “why” behind a candidate’s performance and what they are likely to do in the future with your company.

Let me give you five examples of behavioral and/or situational interview questions.  Ask the candidate to:

  • Tell you about the most difficult customer situation that they ever encountered and how they overcame it
  • Tell you about the best manager that they ever worked for and what made him/her so good
  • Describe what they would do to build their pipeline in the first 30 days on the job
  • Tell you about a time they had to complete a “rush” project with no resources and little direction
  • Tell you about a time in sales when others would have given up but they were able to see things through

I have one additional suggestion when interviewing a potential OSR.  Towards the end of the interview flip an inanimate object (i.e., magic marker, pen, etc.) to the candidate and ask them to sell it to you. You’ll know by how they approach you if their style will be a good” fit” for your company. This interviewing tactic has several advantages for the interviewer. You’ll get the candidate off of the scripted answers that they may have at the ready to impress you and at the same time you’ll get a snap shot of how they can handle an unexpected request from a client.  By establishing a behavioral interviewing process sales managers will be better able to assess potential candidates in terms of skills, attitude, aptitude and “fit.”

Lastly, once your hire your outside sales rep you need to establish clear expectations and then “inspect” what you “expect!”  Let me give you some guidelines:

  • At the beginning of each year, establish individual performance appraisal criteria for your outside sales rep
  • Use the “mission critical” tasks as your guide
  • Create smaller and achievable incremental goals that are measured on a monthly basis
  • For instance numbers of hours prospecting/canvassing, number of appointments/presentations, number of sales, monthly revenue goal, etc.
  • Create individual development plans to help your OSR reach their full potential.
  • Establish a contract with difficult outside sales reps to ensure success

It is crucial for the Franchisee to hire the right OSR, establish an “onboarding process” to ensure that they achieve the sales and revenue milestones laid out for them, set clear expectations (including activity levels) and then “inspect” what they “expect!”

By using behavioral interviewing techniques, Franchise Owners will have the ability to uncover the readiness of each potential salesperson and Franchisors will have the ability to uncover the readiness of each potential Franchisee and that’s a formula for success!

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Selling Over the Telephone

November 18, 2007 Leave a Comment

Nashville Business Journal – Nov. 2007
by John Boyens

Most people don’t like to sell over the telephone.  The number one reason…Rejection!  Our research shows that you have 15 to 18 seconds to get someone’s attention on a tele-prospecting call.  That doesn’t mean that you talk faster or louder!  Remember, buyers are thinking, “What’s in it for me?  Why should I care?”  Whatever you say needs to be quick, targeted and engaging!

Let me start off by highlighting three basic telephone skills that all successful salespeople have mastered.  They are:

  1. Rate of Speech…If you speak too rapidly, you will tend to lose the customer and you will lose the call objective. The converse is also true; if you speak too s-l-o-o-o-w-l-y you have a tendency to bore the person the other end (remember their time is valuable!) and will again jeopardize your call objective.  The ideal rate of speech is between 180 and 190 words per minute.  This rate will allow the prospect to understand what you are saying and maintain interest.  This is the same rate of speech taught to, and used by, most radio and television announcers.  If you practice speaking at the 180-word/minute rate you will significantly improve your communication…and, in selling, that translates into more sales and commission for you.
  2. Be conscious of your “volume” …Just as rate of speech is important when speaking to your customer on the phone, so too is your volume. While this may sound like a first grade instruction you would be surprised how often professional salespeople fail to adjust their volume during a telephone conversation. It is important to speak at a volume that will allow the other person to hear you with little or no difficulty.  This will normally be the same volume that you would use to speak to someone who is seated across a table from you.
  3. Voice Inflection…This is the art and skill of creating the perception of confidence, knowledge and experience through the use of voice inflection (up and down) tonal quality and emphasis on key words.  Often salespeople can be identified when calling a prospect because they don’t use proper voice inflection or worse yet, speak in a monotone!  Inflection and/or emphasis does work and can effect what the client hears. USE IT TO YOUR BENEFIT!

Top performing salespeople do their homework before they pick up the phone.  They start off by targeting their prospects.  They identify companies, industries or geographic areas that they would like to sell.  They also identify potential business problems that the prospect can relate to based upon the prospect’s job description, title and/or industry.

Research shows that most phone calls are made to people who can’t buy.  In other words they are end users or influencers but not decision makers. And yes, while they may be able to influence the decision maker but when push comes to shove they can’t make the decision to buy and rarely will push their boss for the decision you want.  They will usually be available to talk and talk with you but rarely does anything significant come out of these sessions other than consuming a lot of your time that could be better spent with another prospect.

What you need to know is that selling to decision makers is easier because they are burdened or challenged with solving “business problems” day in and day out.  Not only are they burdened and challenged they are looking for solutions to these problems.

It’s imperative that you plan each call on a worksheet prior to dialing the telephone. In other words, think ahead and plan what you want to discuss.  Some of the elements included on a worksheet are:

  • Two or three reasons for making the call
  • Two or three product topics that you’d like to discuss with the prospect
  • A “lead in” statement
  • A “generating interest” statement (Make sure that you highlight why it’s in the best interest for the prospect to listen to what it is you have to say
  • Identify the prospect’s anticipated need from your perspective
  • Identify the prospect’s motivation to buy
  • Identify any anticipated stalls

Once you’ve completed the call you’ll be able to use your pre-call worksheet to document the prospect’s “real” needs, the results of the call, the next steps and the time-lines for follow up.

Lastly, I’d like to highlight the five keys to good listening.  They are:

  1. Limit your own talking…You can’t talk and listen at the same time.
  2. Put yourself in the customers shoes…Your client’s problems and needs are important and  you’ll understand and retain them better if you listen to their point of view and from their perspective, not your own.
  3. Ask questions…If you don’t understand something or feel you may have missed the point their trying to make, clear it up now before it embarrasses you later!
  4. Don’t interrupt…A pause doesn’t always mean they are finished saying everything they wanted to say or explain. They may just be catching their breath!  Wait four seconds before speaking.
  5. Expect objections…You can learn a great deal about the prospect from the way they say things or the tone of their voice when responding.  Trust your instincts and don’t forget it’s natural to get objections or to hear doubts expressed or inferred.  The key to overcoming objections is to come across as a consultant versus a “pushy” salesperson.  The bottom line is to enable the buyer to buy!

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Stop Hiring Toads!

November 1, 2007 Leave a Comment

Franchiseek Magazine – November 2007
by John Boyens

Have you ever hired someone because they “blew your socks off” in the interview only to have them turn into a “toad” once they became an employee? Most managers have had that experience. So what happened and more importantly how can you avoid having it happen again?

What probably happened is during the interview process you subliminally switched from interviewing the person to trying to hire the person! Let me be more specific. Let’s say that you’ve had an “open” position for quite some time. Let’s say that you, or other employees, have to cover for that open position and it’s putting quite a bit of strain on the organization. Finally a candidate appears at your door that at least “looks the part.” He or she sits down for the interview and as they answer the first question you observe that they were quite articulate and that they answered the question they way you wanted them to answer the question. The second question you ask probably became easier than the first because you think that they may be the one! All of a sudden you move full speed ahead into the hiring mode. You tell them about the job. You sell them on the company. You sell them on the benefits and so forth. You did everything except interview them! One way to keep from falling into that trap is to use a process called behavioral interviewing.

Behavioral interviewing is a technique based on the fact that a candidate’s past and present behavior is the best predictor of how he or she will behave in the future. But behavioral traits don’t appear on a resume… they can only come from an interview. Furthermore, interviewers need to obtain repeated examples of a specific behavior to ensure that the behavior they are observing is “real” and not just “turned on” for the interview itself.

By asking questions about past experiences an interviewer can better predict future behavior by:

  • Eliminating misunderstandings
  • Preventing the “halo effect” (e.g., can do no wrong)
  • Reducing the candidate’s ability to mislead

Interviews not based on exploring competencies inevitably focus exclusively on education, experience, and knowledge… exactly what’s on the resume! While these are clearly important, they only reveal what a candidate “said” that they did. Behavioral interviewing helps get at the “how” and “why” behind a candidate’s performance and what he or she is likely to do in the future.

Let me give you some examples of behavioral or situational interview questions:

  • “Who is the best boss you’ve ever worked for and what made them so good?”
  • “Tell me about a difficult customer situation that you were able to satisfactorily resolve?”
  • “Describe your job hunting process and desired outcome?”
  • “Tell me about a time you had to complete a “rush” project with no resources and little direction?”

Before you interview the candidate it’s important to establish timelines and guidelines for the interview. Here are some tips for conducting a successful interview:

  1. Set the Tone…Establish rapport and help create a pleasant atmosphere. Following the greeting, some “small talk” is usually of value to relax the applicant and help establish open communication.
  2. Set the Agenda…Take control of the interview and explain what will occur during the 30-minute interview process. Let them know that you will be taking notes.
  3. Gather Information…Interviewing requires listening, probing, reflecting, summarizing, and evaluating skills. Ideally, the interviewer should talk only about 25% of the time and the candidate should talk the other 75%. Ask 5-8 behavioral or situational questions similar to the ones highlighted in this article. Avoid asking questions that require only a “yes” or “no” answer.
  4. Describe the Position…Provide a “realistic job preview.” It is critical for candidates to receive an honest overview of the job responsibilities, the work climate, your expectations, compensation, hours, overtime requirements, training, etc. This is one of the most critical and yet overlooked steps in the interview process. Unrealistic expectations by an interviewee or the interviewer are a sure-fire recipe for disaster!
  5. Answer Questions…The applicant’s objectives are to gather information about the position, as well as, sell him/herself. Provide the opportunity for applicants to accomplish these objectives towards the end of the 30-minute interview.
  6. Conclude…Ask the candidate what two things he/she wants to be sure you know about them. Thank the applicant for his/her time and explain what will happen next. (i.e., when the hiring decision will be made, how it will be communicated, etc.)

By establishing a behavioral interviewing process companies will be better able to assess potential candidates in terms of skills, attitude, aptitude and “fit.” Remember, leave the “toads” on their lily pads and hire people that will help your company grow and prosper!

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Focusing on Customer Retention

September 17, 2007 Leave a Comment

Nashville Business Journal – Sept. 2007
by John Boyens

Let’s start with a few universal truths about keeping customers:

  • It costs a lot less to keep an existing customer than to get a new customer.  Research shows that it costs nine times more to get a customer than it does to retain a customer
  • It can take 18 to 24 months before a customer becomes profitable.  Given marketing costs, sales costs, training costs and ramp up time most companies need 18 to 24 months of purchases or revenue to “break even.”
  • Retention is very different than Renewal.  One big mistake companies make is to track (and in most cases compensate) customer renewal rates versus customer retention rates.  Renewal focuses on dollars (or contract amount) while retention focuses on the number of customers.  If a company does a good job on retention it is easier to cross-sell and up-sell existing customers (versus selling new ones) which lowers your cost of sale and at the same time grows your revenue stream.

If you visit your favorite search engine on the web and type in the phrase “Customer Retention” you’ll find over forty-seven million possible links.  If you visit your favorite bookstore there are literally thousands of books on Customer Satisfaction, Customer Loyalty or Client Satisfaction.  Phrases such as client-centric or customer-focused have been added to our vocabulary.

Isn’t the goal of any business to create loyal customers who want to use their services, try new services and provide referrals? Retaining customers requires the customer to be satisfied with the service, the product and the experience. The purpose of this article is to share with you some “best practices” from other successful companies to help you improve your customer satisfaction which will lead to increased retention!

Small improvements in retention can produce sizable benefits, which is why effective salespeople always focus on retaining the customers they have. It’s been estimated the cost to land a new account is as much as six to nine times the cost to retain an existing one. Not only does retention reduce costs, it boosts your productivity by allowing you to spend more time servicing your customers to grow your revenue.

Let me highlight ten of the most common customer service mistakes:

  1. Having an untrained staff
  2. Trying to win the argument
  3. Not being accessible to your customer
  4. Defaulting to your “policy”
  5. Not living up to your promises
  6. Not remembering your customer’s name
  7. Giving customers the runaround
  8. Not listening to your customer
  9. Forgetting to say “please” and “thank you”
  10. Failure to manage expectations

How many of these customer service mistakes has your company and/or your salespeople made in the past three months? So what can be done about it?  Here is a list of seven secrets to keeping customers:

  1. Know your customer’s business: What makes them unique? What products/services do they sell?  What markets do the cover?  Who are their competitors?
  2. Deliver flawless results: To establish long-term customers’ relationships it is critical that you flawlessly deliver every benefit and value you promise. That is the key to a customers respect, trust and loyalty.
  3. Develop a proactive plan: Understanding your customers business and doing first-rate work are essential for creating a loyal clientele. But there’s more. You must also develop a proactive, customer-specific plan that articulates how you will retain and grow your customer base.  Without a plan, you’ll drift from project to project, relying mostly on luck.
  4. Uncover “needs:” To retain customers, you must focus on customer satisfaction. Rather than just making a sale and then moving on to the next customer, savvy sales people are turning themselves into “account managers” rather than just salespeople.
  5. Manage expectations: You need to manage expectations. This means from both a positive (proactive communication) and negative perspective.  Let me give you an example.  Customers with unrealistic expectations of what they want and/or what you can deliver will never be satisfied. They’ll just waste your time and then ultimately take their business elsewhere.
  6. Keep your name in front of your customer: Maintain communications. Reach out to the customer four times a year at a minimum. Call them, drop by, take them to lunch, etc.  Make sure you use technology (i.e., email, video email, etc.) to proactively manage your customer contact
  7. Assume nothing: No matter how good you are, never assume you’ve got a loyal client. Complacency is the enemy of loyalty. A client’s trust and loyalty can be swept away if a salesperson gets cocky or lets performance slip, even on just one interaction.

Remember, you don’t need to provide good customer service to all your customers…just the ones you want to keep!

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