We live in an age where we are overwhelmed with information. However, changing buyer behavior requires sellers to bring tailored insight to the table to build awareness and credibility and begin to shape the buyer’s concept of what they need and why they need it sooner rather than later. However, too often, we see a seller’s attempt at bringing insight to buyers fall flat. Insight is only insight if your buyer believes it is insightful. The internet is chock full of research studies, data, and white papers, but buyers won’t make the effort to hunt for the nuggets or make the connection between their challenges and your capabilities. To make an impact, the seller really needs to view the world from the buyer’s perspective and bring insight that is relevant, credible, digestible, and actionable. The insight you bring must be tailored to your buyer to resonate with them as individuals. This means more than creating a custom field in your sales automation system to hit your client or prospect list with an e-mail blast. You need to get smart on their business fast because buyers want to work with partners who understand their business. The more you demonstrate that you understand their business and the challenges and opportunities they face, the more successful you will be in triggering an "aha moment" with them that gets them thinking differently about you and their needs. Start with Google and LinkedIn Google and LinkedIn should be your first stop. Type your target’s <Firstname Lastname, job title, company name> into Google. This will give you the opportunity to find them and try to discover what makes them tick. Their LinkedIn profile will likely be one of the first links on the search engine results page. Go to their LinkedIn page to see if and how you’re connected to him or her. Maybe you’re closer than you thought! The sooner you can link to your buyers or prospect on LinkedIn, the better. Also, see if they are active on Twitter. If so, follow them and the target company’s corporate account. Once you’ve Googled the individual, Google their company name to learn about issues in their company. Next, find out what challenges your prospects are facing in their specific role by Googling the phrase "top issues facing <industry> <job title>". This research helps you identify the pain or opportunities facing your buyers. This then enables you to make an educated hypothesis of what you can provide and which of your capabilities and insight will be most relevant. Listen and watch for trigger events Once you’ve identified a prospect or a buyer you want to pursue, you should set up a Google Alert to track changes in their business and identify trigger events. Trigger events give you insight into major developments in a buyer’s organization, which gives you the opportunity to link your capabilities to these developments and priorities. This makes you relevant to what they face now and enables you to position your message more precisely. Pay attention to your ecosystem Your ecosystem consists of the other solution providers that work with your clients or customers in the areas related to what you do. For example, we network within the sales and marketing ecosystem. When we get wind that a company is launching a new product because they are working with one of the marketing firms we follow, that signals to us a need to ramp up and focus our prospecting efforts in that organization with a message targeting their new product launch. We know they have a budget, a need or opportunity, and a time frame. Once we find and engage the person within their organization who has authority, we’ll have our BANT sales criteria covered. (Remember, BANT stands for budget, authority, need, and time frame.) Possessing that information significantly increases our odds of success and shortens the sales cycle. Provide a compelling "call to action" You’ve researched the company, their issues, and situation; the target prospect or buyer; the challenges facing their role; matched their problems to your products and solutions; and gathered relevant content to support your claims. Your next challenge is to craft a call to action — something of value that you will offer in exchange for the time that your prospect will hopefully give you. This might simply be an offer to have a conversation to share best practices, trends, or the results of a benchmarking study. But in other cases, it might be something more substantial. Regardless of what you offer, it needs to be perceived by your prospect as high value and low effort, with no strings attached. Bring it all together with a concise value statement Tailoring insights culminates with the formulation of your value statement. You need to package a hypothesis that addresses their needs and situation, asserts your credibility, provokes them with substantiating content, and delivers a convincing call to action in a concise statement that will resonate with them. This message should be adapted and delivered across multiple channels. ************************************************************* Click the following  learn more about Richardson’s Selling with Insights(TM)  Sales Training Solution.   The post How to Tailor Insight to Resonate with Your Prospects and Drive Action appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

How to Update Sales Talent Profiles without Tanking Your Business Tinkering with your profile of a successful sales rep is risky business, but what can you do when you know the talent that got you where you are today won’t get you where you need to go in the future? For example, maybe you need to transition from a product to a solution-led sale, manage accounts more strategically, or take a more assertive insight-led sales approach. Your business is constantly changing, and you probably have good reason to redefine the attributes of your future top performer. How can you make this transition to minimize risk and disruption? The Assessment-based Approach One way to implement new sales talent profiles is to conduct an assessment-based talent audit. This involves developing competency models for your different sales roles, assessing your people (hopefully with a valid, compliant assessment instrument), and comparing how well they compare to the model of a top performer. Sounds simple, right? Well, there are inherent risks in this approach. Psychographic assessments can help you understand the optimal sales behaviors, but they don’t tell you what top performers actually do and what they do differently from their lower-performing peers. The assessment only tells part of the story. Additionally, the results are based on probabilities and need to be carefully validated over time to determine if the profile is truly predictive. What happens when the assessment tells you that half of your top performers don’t fit the profile? Will you believe it? Will your sales managers buy into it? Are you prepared to bet on the new profile and manage steady performers out of the business? That type of upheaval would limit your ability to meet current goals and objectives and destabilize your business by lowering the morale of your remaining workforce. For this reason, talent audits alone may not be sufficient. The Process-based Approach Another approach is process-based. In this situation, you would define your optimal sales process, identify key performance indicators and verifiable outcomes, and force change by altering your sales management processes. This allows you to apply pressure where it is likely to produce change that aligns with your new vision. If you do this, you will also need to develop a proactive recruiting pipeline because not all people can adapt to the new processes and will leave. With the talent-based or process-based approach, you are likely to experience high rates of attrition, and the primary by-product of attrition is disruption. Along with the loss of existing staff, you may lower morale, decreasing motivation and productivity. They key is managing the implementation of new profiles to maximize opportunities for positive change and limit disruptions. We Recommend a Hybrid Approach A hybrid approach combines aspects of talent audit and process development. The hybrid approach delivers the change you desire but in a more measured and gradual manner that is more likely to get buy-in from your existing team, ease the transition, and decrease disruption. Study behavioral differences and similarities Create two study groups: sales reps who are top performers today and those who you believe have the traits to be successful in the future. Go through the assessment process to determine if people within each group share any common traits and if there are noticeable differences between the study groups and the top and average performers. This will help you decide if there are significant behaviors that differentiate successful sales reps today from what you believe will be needed tomorrow. It’s also important to understand the differences, if any, between the two study groups to understand what you might be giving up in return for what you want to gain. For example, if you want to transition to sales reps who are proactive and assertive, you might be giving up traits that build trust and relationships in return. This might be good or bad for your business, but if you need to make tradeoffs, it is better to make these decisions with your eyes wide open. Build on what works Start by observing top performers to better understand what they actually do day-to-day in their jobs. Chances are they’ve figured some things out that enable them to be more successful that you can replicate through process enhancement or training. This will also help you understand what your stars will need to do differently in the future to stay at the top of their game. Capitalizing on existing successful practices also makes your new profiles feel homegrown, diluting the instinct to resist change. Your study should extend beyond those who have a history of success. For example, it could include recent hires from companies that have sales practices you want to emulate. Create a foundation for sales managers to reinforce desired behaviors Understanding what currently works helps you define a best-in-class customer engagement process. Once you have a process that you know works today, you can make gradual adjustments over time to the process that you believe will be necessary for the future. This gradual approach enables you to test and validate that your process is actually working. Having a process enables you to identify verifiable outcomes to determine if the process is being executed and metrics to measure the effectiveness of execution. These give your sales managers more substance to manage to and reinforce the behaviors you are trying to change. If your managers have even basic metrics and adequate skills and know the right questions to ask, they can coach sales reps more effectively. Predictive metrics also give sales reps a sense of control over their changing environment because they know what is expected and how they will be measured. Greater understanding leads to greater comfort and less disruption. ************************************** Click the following to  learn more about Richardson’s award winning sales training solutions. The post How to Update Sales Talent Profiles without Tanking Your Business appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Top 10 Disruptive Sales Technologies Cloud computing has given us "software as a service," disrupting the previous business model of selling suites of software to be installed on individual computers or network servers. The cloud has disrupted the market for storage. And if you even remember the once-ubiquitous floppy, is it the 3.5-inch, the older 5.25-inch, or the original 8-inch disk that once littered your desk? Recently, I got to thinking about the top disruptive technologies in sales and marketing. Some are product specific, while others are more general technologies. Some fall into the "Doh! No kidding, Jim," category, and others, I hope, are of the "Hmmm, interesting thought," variety. One caveat: You will not see e-mail on this list. While it certainly is among the top disruptive technologies in communication — replacing phone tag and faxes — I wanted to dig a little deeper. Here goes: Google: Search engines have completely disrupted the way buyers and sellers think and do business. But Google does so much more than just search. Think about all the Google tools that can help sales and marketing: Google Alerts, Google Trends, Google Analytics, Pay-per-Click Ads, Google+, YouTube, Google Docs, and on and on. Salesforce.com: More than just CRM, Salesforce.com has disrupted contact management, rolodexes, planning tools, document management, management, lead tracking, forecasting tools, collaboration tools, and so forth. Oh yeah, it’s also in the cloud. LinkedIn: For B2B salespeople, this is the most disruptive social network. It offers live networking, account data and information tools, communications tools, competitor analysis, recruiting and talent acquisition opportunities, newspapers, magazines, and market research. LinkedIn really is one of those cars that can drive, fly, and go underwater. I live in LinkedIn, and if you’re a sales or marketing professional, you should too. Marketing automation: Tools like Genius, Marketo, HubSpot, and Constant Contact could be considered disruptive or just innovative, additive tools. They allow us to become more efficient and knowledgeable. Is that disruptive or just something good made better? I’m not sure, but I included the category rather than quibble. PowerPoint: This is one of those "no kidding" ones. I had to add it after finding a tray of 35mm slides in my closet. Remember slides? How about overhead projectors with clear acetate sheets? I, for one, am glad to be done with those cumbersome technologies. PowerPoint rules for presentations. Online contracting Software: I love DocuSign and EchoSign. How much easier is closing out the sales cycle now? Anyone using an online contracting system to close out a quarter knows exactly what I mean. And it links directly to Salesforce.com, where you can save the actual contract. PDF files: When is the last time your company printed a large run of brochures? How much have you saved in mailing costs by attaching a PDF to an e-mail? How much easier is it to review documents created across platforms, without worrying whether your PC will open a Mac file? And with PDFs, you don’t have the paper-copies-and-delivery-package dance to meet deadlines. Sales enablement tools: Savo and other tools provide an integrated structured that links directly to a company’s sales process, allowing easy access to all of the support materials a sales professional needs. No more e-mails from the sales team asking, "Has anyone ever worked with XYZ?" or, "Does anyone have information on the financial services industry?" Blogs: The ability to post short articles online in real time has made experts, gurus, authors, and publishers out of many of us. Blogs have replaced company newsletters and created a major disruption for traditional print media. I follow ten-plus blogs every day; I never read that much in an industry magazine. Online meetings: Virtual meeting technology has significantly improved over the years, reducing costs and travel time associated with in-person meetings. Today, online meetings can be facilitated and run in a similar fashion as live ones, allowing the easy dissemination of content, the ability to network, and interactions with groups large and small. These are my top ten disruptive sales technologies. Let me know if you have a different list. ————————————————————————————— Click the following to  learn more about Richardson’s award winning sales training solutions.         The post Top 10 Disruptive Sales Technologies appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Why Cross-selling Fails: The Ultimate List Companies want their reps to cross-sell more to their existing customer base.  For many sales reps, the thought of selling that one little extra or next big thing is very enticing.  Your quota went up 10% this year, great!  Just cross-sell a little bit more and you’ll be fine, right?  If it were only that easy! We started building out our list of why reps struggle to cross-sell. Please let us know if you have any to add.  Once we have a comprehensive list, we’ll give our thoughts in another blog post on how to overcome these challenges. Too much planning and too little execution.  You confuse cross-selling with strategic account management and spend too much time building an elaborate plan that you can’t execute. Account managers are too risk averse. They don’t want to disrupt a sound relationship by introducing concepts, solutions, or people that they don’t fully trust. Misaligned compensation and incentives. The reward for cross-selling and doing the right thing for the customer does not outweigh the risk of maintaining the status quo. Too many products, too little product knowledge. Your reps have access to dozens (or more) products, too many to possibly learn, and fall back into selling what they know. Reps have the will, but not the skill. Despite their desire to cross-sell, the rep doesn’t know how to position the new product and loses credibility with the customer. Too little intelligence to select the right product. The rep doesn’t have enough information to make an informed choice to select a product that makes sense for the customer. The sale feels forced. Poor understanding of how products fit into an integrated solution. Building on the previous point, reps may know something about a product, but they are unsure how different products fit together into a solution. Additionally, they have no idea how to design, implement, or support the solution. Lack of a "win-win" mindset.  The rep is so determined to cross-sell that next product that they lose sight of why the customer will benefit and why they will buy from the rep. Value proposition is unclear or not compelling. The rep cannot create a strong enough business case for the customer to move forward, or the proposal is not aligned with the customer’s goals. Difficulty working with product and subject matter experts.  Subject matter experts are often wired a bit differently than sales reps and, in the absence of a personal or working relationship, may be difficult for your reps to trust. Insufficient political juice to marshal necessary resources. The rep wants to do all the right things and bring together all of the right people, but just can’t rally the support needed for his/her effort. Lack of common language or process. The rep manages to rally all of the right subject matter experts but the process feels disjointed and everyone ends up fighting for shelf space. The rep is a bad fit for the customer. The rep may have too little experience or the wrong experience, and can’t build enough credibility with the customer to sell more. Heavily entrenched competition. Your rep has the perfect solution for the customer but expanding the solution creates a potential conflict with another provider. "Do Nothing" is still your biggest competitor. Sad but true. Your rep doesn’t make a strong enough case for change or create a sense of urgency to reprioritize your solution. Remember, cross-selling is about working together with the customer to develop the best solution to solve a problem or unlock an opportunity.   A bad sales experience can make you feel used or abused, but a good sale can feel like you’ve been done a great service.   In fact, when you get great service and feel like you got exactly the right solution—you normally come back for more because it was a great experience. What other cross-selling challenges would you add to our list? ***************************************************************** Want to learn more about Richardson’s award winning cross-selling sales training solutions? Please email us by Clicking Here! The post Why Cross-selling Fails: The Ultimate List appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Sales Reps and Managers tell us what they Really Think of Your Content Marketing Strategy!   In the era of online research and lead generation, content creation and optimization now play a crucial role for B2B marketers to drive traffic and leads and elevate the perception of a brand as a thought leader. In this age of the empowered buyer, there is no question about the importance of being found when the buyer searches, and being perceived as a leader with whom they want to work. As content marketing becomes more main stream, the big question now is how to optimize efforts and investments to actually drive revenue. We have many clients who struggle with how to bridge the gap between the provocative content and thought leadership marketing creates and their sales team’s ability to use that content to find new customers, win opportunities, and grow strategic accounts. To learn more, we (along with our partner, SellingPower™ Magazine) conducted a survey to better understand what is working and what is not. You can download a PDF of the full study by clicking here. Key Survey Highlights - Brace Yourself! Sales reps do not understand your company’s content marketing strategy. Sales reps and managers are reading and reviewing your content, but are struggling to find value that is easily transferrable to your customers. Your content’s purpose is not meeting the objectives and initiatives of your sales team. Although thought provoking, your content is not helping sales reps and managers throughout the selling process. Sales reps and managers are looking for content that is relevant and applicable to the solutions your company sells. They are not asking for more, they are simply asking for better. The following is a list of statements and questions within the survey along with a summary of the data points: 1. I understand my company’s content marketing strategy.   More than half (54%) of sales reps and only 65% of managers agreed with this statement. This is surprisingly low and reveals that sales reps and managers are not employing an "Always Be Sharing" strategy. When reps and managers don’t understand your content strategy, they miss out on opportunities to: Continuous learn about relevant issues and development in your business Build their credibility with clients and prospects as a trusted resource Create new opportunities to grow their pipeline through the insight they could bring   2.      I read the content my company publishes or sponsors.  Nearly a quarter (23%) of sales reps disagreed with this statement suggesting that they do not read your content at all. This dilemma can create a lack of integration and communication between your sales and marketing teams. Sales reps may be less informed and this may lead to missed opportunities. According to Genius.com, 66% of buyers indicate that "consistent and relevant communication provided by both sales and marketing organizations" is a key influence in choosing a solution provider. One thing is for sure, if your sales team isn’t reading your content they are not digesting, tailoring, and sharing your content which is a huge lost opportunity for your organization. 3.      The content my company publishes is valuable to our customers.   Less than two-thirds (65%) of sales reps believe your content is valuable and relevant to your customers, while more than a quarter (26%) of managers believe your content is off the mark. If they don’t find value and relevance in the content you are producing, they simply won’t use it. It could signal the need for marketing to step down from the ivory tower and talk to some customers. 4.      The content my company publishes helps to: "Differentiate our brand" and "create market awareness" were most frequently cited among sales reps and managers. Surprisingly, "lead generation" happens to be at the bottom of the barrel.  Less than 40% of sales reps and managers believe the content your company publishes assists with generating qualified sales leads. You must ask yourself where and how your content marketing strategy fits into the sales process. This may, in fact, be directly related to the survey statement above regarding value and relevance. Sales reps and managers must draw the line of relevance from your company’s content to your customer or prospect’s situation. 5.      I am confident in using thought provoking content to:   Of the six choices, the top two answers for both sales reps and managers related to prospecting. Specifically, sales reps and managers are confident in using your content to support their existing prospecting efforts and to create new opportunities. They are least confident in using it to upsell existing customers, to motivate customers to buy, and to disrupt a customer’s mindset. Sellers must be willing and able to create a competitive advantage by disrupting the buyer’s mindset and they need help using your content to do so. Your content must assist your sales reps and managers throughout all stages of the selling cycle. 6.      How can your company better help you use thought provoking content to support your selling efforts?   Sales reps are claiming "I do not need more, I need better." Only 36% of sales reps said they want your company to self-publish content more frequently while 59% requested your company improve its content relevance to fit your customers. Managers, on the other hand, are requesting that your company create a stronger link between the content and the solutions you sell. Linking content to selling solutions and to customer relevancy, is just as important as linking your sales reps and managers to your content.  Again, not more, just better. Create the Connection Sales reps and managers may be reading your company’s content, but they are not utilizing your content to its full advantage. Create the connection between sales and marketing to reach the end goal of enablement, assistance, and collaboration. Show your people the value and worth of the content you are producing; eliminate the gap, and draw a line of relevance. COMPLIMENTARY RESEARCH REPORT Download a copy of our full report by clicking here The post Sales Reps and Managers Tell us What they Really Think of Your Content Marketing Strategy! appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

The Impact and Importance of Brand Adoption by Sales Reps and Managers You may recall the research I presented a few weeks ago from the market research firm BuyerSphere that states the top two sources of information for executive level buyers are the web and word of mouth. This suggests that executive level buyers are turning toward brand influenced engines for the information they desire. Brand Matters in B2B We have conducted a survey and it has been found that B2B buyers frequently search by brand name. This influences the ability of your brand to be found and influences your ability to differentiate, showing the impact and importance of brand adoption by sales reps and managers. Take a look at the following trends we have identified: Buyers will visit your company website In addition to the 55.8% of respondents who directly visit company websites, 87% search on general search engines and 68% search on targeted industrial sites (e.g. ThomasNet.com). Of note, company websites were ranked #1 or #2 by 61.3% of respondents as having the most relevant search results when searching for industrial products or services. Buyers use 3 keywords on average when searching When searching for industrial products, 58.8% of respondents use 3 or more keywords. Similarly, when searching for industrial services, over half (52.7%) of respondents use 3 or more keywords. Buyers include product specifications in keyword searches Nearly half (44.2%) of respondents said that they always or frequently include detailed product specifications (e.g. "1/2 in. x 2 in. galvanized carriage bolt") or detailed capabilities specifications (e.g. tolerances or machinery) when searching for what they need. An additional 47.3% said that they sometimes included detailed specifications. Buyers frequently search by brand name 53.6% of respondents state that they always (4.3%) or frequently (49.3%) include brand names (e.g. "3M" or "Baldor") as part of their search keywords. An additional 43.2% said that they sometimes included brand names. Buyers include geographic locations in search keywords A little more than one-third (37.7%) of respondents state that they include a geographic location (e.g. specific state) when searching for industrial products or services. An additional 52.9% say that they sometimes include a geographic location. Recognizing the Need to Improve Brand Adoption Brand equity continues to be very important for businesses. What drives B2B brand equity? Sales rep behavior had the highest impact on B2B brand equity, closely followed by sales rep personality. The sales force impact on business-to-business brand equity is paramount. B2B sales reps play a major role in shaping brand perception. Their behavior is among the strongest influences with customers. Two factors driving sales force brand adoption are high expected customer demand and high sales manager brand adoption. B2B sales reps have a greater chance of adopting a new brand if they believe the new positioning will drive higher customer demand or if their sales managers demonstrate a high-level of brand adoption. Ways to Improve Brand Adoption Develop distinct internal and external launch strategies. Create separate launch strategies targeting your clients and prospects (external) and your managers and reps (internal). Influence positive attitudes toward new brands among sales managers. Take extra measures to get them bought in. Additionally, provide training and support resources to help them model behavior. Create expectations that new brands will drive high customer demand. Increase demand generation activities in early stages of launch to reinforce the perception that the brand is driving higher demand. Explicitly show how brand attributes will translate into more sales. Provide training to help sales reps "deliver" the brand with customers. Take the time to ensure your sales reps know what to say to differentiate your message and what to do to differentiate your expected behavior. COMPLIMENTARY RESEARCH REPORT Download a copy of our full report, Content Marketing and Sales Effectiveness by clicking here The post The Impact and Importance of Brand Adoption by Sales Reps and Managers appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

The High Cost of Poor Sales Training Partner Selection and Management Practices A company’s vendor selection and management decisions can have a broader impact throughout the organization than most people realize. You can pay too much or waste precious dollars on ineffective products or services, but one problem I have witnessed too often is companies buying services that are redundant and in some cases in conflict with each other. In our world, an all too common example of this is hiring many different sales training companies to design training programs, prepare materials, and facilitate programs. Two vendors could both be great at what they do but different in how they prepare and deliver their services which poses challenges and limits efficiencies for clients. How does this happen? What are the consequences? What can you do you prevent it? I’ll explore those questions here. 1.      A "Best-of-Breed" mentality Some companies set out to hire what they consider "best-of-breed" providers. These providers are either the best known or most reputable providers in their space, which is great. Each one comes with a price tag and, more importantly, each has their own model and way of doing things. This might sound like a reasonable price to pay for getting the best, but it prevents buyers from leveraging and fully utilizing their existing relationships. Companies with this mentality don’t consider that these best-of-breed providers could be in conflict with each other (some are likely competitors) and will force someone on their staff to streamline and smooth out the wrinkles across providers or even worse, ignore the differences and cause grief and confusion for their employees and reps on the receiving end. When someone in a leadership or managerial role tries to take inventory and aggregate the various pieces purchased from different providers, they might realize that what they end up with is far from a best-of-breed solution because the pieces don’t connect. Instead, you are faced with: Multiple models, lack of consistency, and multiple solutions Frustrated learners because the burden falls on them to process the differences A lack of leveragability across programs and providers 2.      Too many buyers making uncoordinated purchasing decisions This is a no-brainer. When multiple people in your organization buy services on their own it increases the possibility of heading down the wrong path. Perhaps a particular office or business unit needs a unique training program then it would make sense to hire locally, But before you do that, check with your existing providers to ensure that this specific training isn’t available and it makes sense to go outside on this occasion. The more freedom you give your people, the less control you will have and greater the risk of causing problems. This gets right to the argument of whether you allow a federation of fiefdoms or take central control. Further compounding this dilemma is just how accessible employees with buying power are today as a result of online profiles and directories. Almost everyone is a target and must know how to respond to solicitations. 3.      Lack of a centralized training and development mission In the absence of a specific training and development strategy and direction, people will find a way to do their own thing. Do you have a global, regional, national, or local training and development mission? Can one provider satisfy your needs at all levels? You need leaders who will hold people accountable. This means  people do the things they should and do not do things that will harm, disrupt, or deviate from the norm. 4.      Miscommunication, missing true goals and objectives Playing whisper down the lane can be funny, but not when your company dollars are at stake. When you have multiple internal buyers purchasing services from multiple vendors, each one is likely giving a different message with different priorities, contexts, goals, objectives, and scopes. Those messages are then  embedded into the programs and training which the reps learn and pass on to prospects and customers, thus confusing those important audiences. 5.      Confuses sales reps and staff being trained When sales reps come out of the field to be trained, you want to maximize their time as you impart new skills and knowledge, help them retain what you’ve taught them, and encourage them to use it on the job. The more consistent the training they receive - even in terms of the program, design, format, materials, tools, coaching and reinforcement - the more they will be able to focus on the content and not worry about getting comfortable with the content and up to speed with each new training provider they encounter. 6.      Wastes time and resources How many people do you want interviewing, selecting, reviewing contracts, hiring, onboarding, and working with vendors that provide similar or overlapping services? If that’s what they have been hired to do, then fine. But if it’s not their primary role, then they’re being distracted from their job and potentially contributing to this larger problem of ineffective vendor selection and management. 7.      Prevents leveraging costs and efficiencies of "bundling" services Buying more than one  service from a vendor usually gets you some form of discount as a reward, which you won’t get if you insist on buying one-off projects and programs. Another benefit of working with an existing provider is that they already "know you" and can likely get up to speed quicker leveraging what they’re already doing for you without reinventing the wheel. How should organizations think about their learning strategy and their learning partner strategy? Ultimately business leaders, heads of training and development, and heads of sales need to decide what they value. The goal should be to hire partners that can satisfy needs in an integrated fashion from soup to nuts. That should mean consolidating program providers, connecting the parts, aligning them to the sales process, and communicating that to those who need to know in order to gain and maintain control of the situation. Establish and communicate a strategy. Leaders have to take into account how their current programs and providers connect to one another. As you look for a sales training provider, for example, look at the full sales process and consider whether you want to introduce a new model for every phase of the sales process (which then introduces a new methodology or a new approach) or if one vendor can work with you across the spectrum of need. There are benefits to having a level of consistency in the design phase and also in the delivery phase, including context, history, approach, preferences, rapport, shortened lead time/reduced learning curve, comfort, and familiarity. Diversify very carefully. Putting all of your eggs into a one provider basket can be dangerous. Similarly, working exclusively with only one provider for too long shields you from other good ideas and methods that are out there. Consider giving a small project to a new vendor as a test, but do so deliberately knowing how it fits with what you’re already doing. Be prepared to act (i.e., change vendors) once you have the results. Proven capabilities. Be sure that the vendor has a proven track record for the services you need. Maybe you’re already working with a vendor that tries to convince you they can help you with related or other projects. Don’t be desperate or foolish and brush off your due diligence. Can they really do the work? If not, stand firm and hire another, or structure a deal with your current provider on a trial basis to see if they can do the work before making a longer-term commitment. Complimentary Webinar  Making Learning Stick: How Building a Continuous Learning Environment Can Improve Learner Retention http://bit.ly/16DQV62 The post Pennywise and Pound Foolish: The High Cost of Poor Sales Training Partner Selection and Management Practices appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Richardson is  excited to offer you the opportunity to participate in two upcoming complementary sales improvement webinars. Making Learning Stick: How Building a Continuous Learning Environment Can Improve Learner Retention In this webinar, David Mallon of Bersin by Deloitte, Deloitte Consulting LLP and Perry Cole of CooperVision will discuss how a learning organization can build a continuous learning environment that blends formal and informal learning approaches that are deliberately staged for individualized learning needs. The Webinar is scheduled for 12:00 pm EST on June 12, 2013. To Register, please click here. Selling in Financial Services: The Difference Between Leading and Surviving Tuesday June 25th - 1:00-2:00PM CDT Join Dario Priolo, Chief Strategy Officer at Richardson and Matt Guido, Vice President of Strategic Alliances & Business Development at SAVO to learn how driving alignment to a new, formalized sales process can improve sales execution and win rates in an increasingly dynamic and competitive market. Register to ensure your company is positioned to capitalize on new and existing market opportunities     The post Complementary Sales Improvement Webinars appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Selling with Insights™: What We Have Learned, and What Is Necessary for Successful Execution We have seen an interesting trend emerging among our clients and prospects. Many acknowledge that buying behavior has changed, that buyers have more information and do a tremendous amount of due diligence on sellers, and that sellers need to use insight to shape and disrupt buyer mindset. Sales leaders want their sellers to be more assertive and more proactive, but most have failed miserably in making this transition. Now, sales leaders are coming to us to help them design a solution that will work for their organization.  Organizations that we are working with us on Selling with Insights™ often have several challenges to overcome. First, they have challenges harvesting insight from across their organization and packaging that insight in a format that can be used by their sellers. Our Insight Framework™ gives them a model to become  self-sufficient, and provides step-by- step guidance to their sellers to personalize insight that resonates with their buyers. Second, our clients come to realize that the presentation of insight is only a small part of the overall customer dialogue. Some sellers have been led to believe that a 15-minute insight monologue will lead to a sale. If it were only that easy! What they learn is that you can pitch an insight, but you still need to:  identify buying influences, ask questions, listen, answer questions, resolve objections, collaborate on solutions, close, negotiate, and deliver. The insight is the spark that begins to get the buyer to think differently. Introducing the insight doesn’t guarantee you a sole-sourced contract. It is just the start of a process, and the buying process may turn out to take a long time with many twists and turns. Last, but not least, sellers may have all the best of intentions to present insight, but the minute they get a little bit of resistance they shut down. Sellers go down a line of questioning with a buyer, and once the buyer isn’t expressing interest, pushes back, or creates some discomfort, the seller moves in another direction. Rather than pressing forward with a concept that is in the client’s best interest, the rep takes the easy way out. One of the challenges for the salesperson is to not give up too easily, especially when they have a strong hunch that what they are proposing is the right thing to do. Requirements for Selling with Insight™ 1. The Right Mindset Sellers need to have the right mindset about doing the right thing for a client. According to research by IT services, Christine Crandell’s (F100 study) on how the Fortune 100 buyers have the following expectations: Have a long-term partner orientation Act like a trusted business advisor Always have a sense of urgency and care Be relevant and credible Set realistic expectations Be transparent and forthright Honor your word Be fair and flexible Maintain a positive & broad reputation Be consistent and predictable Focus on overall success vs. a transaction Products perform "as advertised" The minute buyers get the sense that sellers aren’t working in their best interest, they will become defensive and dismissive. Sellers must recognize the areas in which they have expertise that the buyer doesn’t readily have and then bring this expertise to the table to help themselves. 2. Knowing How Far and How Hard to Push Sellers have to accept that they can’t just roll over when they encounter resistance from a buyer. This is difficult because sellers must strike the right balance between being persistent and not creating an awful experience for the buyer. Sellers need to recognize when the buyer is unaware of an issue or opportunity or misinformed. When this is the case, the seller has a duty to inform the buyer or help the buyer realize that their thinking about an issue may not be correct. This takes some finesse because nobody like to be told they are wrong, especially a senior-level executive. Sellers must also get a feel for how far and hard to push their buyers. This requires a feel for reading customers and knowing when they have been pushed far enough. From our experience, if you have a good relationship with a buyer, he or she will tell you when they’re at their limit. It is important to let the buyer know that you are pushing them because you have concerns that they haven’t really grasped the issue. The rep should be thinking, "I am not going to give up. I am not going to accept your no because it is not good for you. You do not understand enough yet for us to take this off the table." Prefacing also helps, such as "Okay, I can see why you might think about it that way. Let me share what we are seeing and what we’re learning working with other organizations. Please hear me out. Then, I would like to get your feedback on these things." 3. Preparation to Anticipate Objections Selling with Insight™ requires more than just getting uncomfortable and going further. It is not just the skill of doing that, it is thinking in advance of what those questions are going to be so that when you do go there you are comfortable with it. Most reps do not prepare that horizon of questions that is going to help them when they are in that moment. Organizations need to take measures to help their reps by anticipating the objections a buyer will raise to a given insight. During the insight creation process, we encourage teams responsible for the insight to identify as many of these objections as possible and to work with sales management on reasonable responses to these objections. As sellers prepare to share insight with buyers, they can select the objections they expect to hear from a particular buyer in advance, and then take extra measures to prepare for these objections. This advanced-level of preparation gives the seller more confidence to stay the course and follow through. Selling with Insight™ requires a high-level of skill, preparation and confidence to execute. Having the right mindset, knowing how hard and how far to push, and being prepared for objections are table stakes for successful execution. ———————————- To Learn more about Richardson’s Selling with Insight™ sales training solution, please click here or on the graphic below.   The post Selling with Insights™: What We Have Learned, and What Is Necessary for Successful Execution appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Don’t Be a Jerk - Coaching and Mentoring Sales Reps Leads to More Effective Knowledge Transfer We see it so often that it’s almost cliché. There is the bad guy ("the jerk") who demands results by endlessly belittling, berating, and badgering his people. We instantly recognize this negative behavior and more readily gravitate toward the good guy - the nurturing coach and mentor who takes a genuine interest in teaching and supporting his people. Cliché or not, managers that wear the white hat of coach and mentor are more likely to get their people to perform better over time. A recent study conducted by Training Industry Quarterly found that learning leaders from effective organizations reported using coaching and mentor networks almost twice as often as ineffective organizations in facilitating knowledge transfer among their employees. This seems to indicate that good ol’ fashioned dialogue can mean the difference between meeting or falling short of your objectives. That’s not to say that the other methods of knowledge transfer are useless. Other tools and practices measured in the study included work shadowing, paired work, short-form content (e.g., quick reference guides), knowledge libraries, and e-learning modules. Used in concert, these each have a place in the development of sales reps, especially as references following some form of training. Training is about teaching new knowledge and skills and changing existing behaviors to fulfill an objective. The training program itself is certainly important, but what you do beyond the training event can have a tremendous impact toward achieving the desired objectives sooner and sustain them longer over time. Beware of Negative Competition Sales has a reputation for being a fast-paced, high-pressure, and results-oriented environment. And that’s not without reason. Many sales reps are well-compensated with generous incentives to perform. Those who don’t hit their numbers are dragging the team down and risk being cast aside for the next crop of sales trainees. Another common element among sales forces is competition. Healthy competition can be good and, let’s face it, most sales reps are competitive by nature. However, negative competition usually fits well with the bad behavior cited at the start of this post. Watch for it and stifle it before it gets out of control. Yes, cracking the whip is sometimes necessary and might help some reps to achieve short-term results, but that’s not a long-term strategy for success. Repeatedly hounding and badgering certain reps will eventually take its toll. If a rep consistently misses his numbers, then maybe he is just not cut out for sales and should move on. Perhaps something else is going on that’s distracting the rep or preventing him from reaching his goals. This is where a healthy dialogue comes into play and enables sales managers to identify problems and come up with solutions to help get their reps over the hump. If you only "drop in" when numbers are down, then you’re not getting to know your reps, including their nuances, strengths, and weaknesses (which will help direct your training efforts). (Of course, don’t be a pushover either and allow reps to take advantage of your goodwill and nurturing tactics. If there’s cause for concern, then take the necessary steps to ensure that the underperforming reps get back on track and document your actions along the way in case more drastic decisions are required down the road.) Foster a Coaching Culture Coaching reps with a focus on and intent to not only help them hit their numbers, but also to grow and develop their selling skills has many benefits. In these cases, managers send a clear signal that "I want you on my team, and I want to see you do well." Other research shows that employees leave bad bosses, not their company. If a sales manager can build trust with his reps, that should in turn increase employee satisfaction and thus engagement and performance. Heads of sales trying to encourage a culture of coaching among their sales managers may find it difficult to achieve if it runs counter to the culture of the broader organization. When senior leaders believe in the power and effectiveness of coaching and mentoring, their actions and words will trickle down throughout the organization to drive that behavior. Mentor networks not only help to maintain a coaching culture, but also provide stellar reps with the opportunity to share their knowledge and expertise with those who need it. It empowers the mentors, gives them a taste of what it would be like to become a sales manager, and establishes a mechanism for unlocking their wisdom and imparting it throughout the organization. Just be careful to rein in rogue reps’ philosophies and ideas before unleashing them on innocent learners - be sure you can trust the mentors to teach and reinforce the right behaviors. Do your managers know how and when to coach? Do you encourage sales managers to coach their reps? Do you assume that they coach reps? Or do you just worry about other things as long as everyone makes their numbers? The post Don’t Be a Jerk - Coaching and Mentoring Sales Reps Leads to More Effective Knowledge Transfer appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.