The Ultimate Checklist for Mission Critical Group Sales Presentations "Mission critical" is a term that you see in many different activities, up to and including military operations. When mission critical aspects do not go well, barring an extraordinary piece of luck, the mission fails. If your group sales presentation does not go well, barring an extraordinary piece of luck, your sales effort will fail and you will not get the contract. What follows is the structure of virtually all group sales presentations — the phase for which you have to prepare. Preparing for the presentation Arriving at the presentation The opening Going over the agenda with the audience Confirming client needs and interests Body of the presentation Summary of the presentation Questions and answers Closing the meeting Following up Preparing for the presentation — The first step in a presentation is preparing for the presentation. You carefully research the potential client. You use this information to prepare a written proposal and other documents for use during the meeting. You also plan your approach to the presentation, basically outlining what you are going to say and when you are going to make the various points. You should remember that any slides or projections are best done in outline form. This is not a teleprompter, so plan to add the details verbally. The members of the audience will know how to read, so don’t read to them. Bring a backup media system. Even if you have presented to this company before, their system may not be working. Arriving at the presentation — You do not "beam in" to the meeting, like the captain on Star Trek, and just begin talking. You are not announced to dramatically enter the room like the President of the United States addressing a joint session of Congress. No one would think to arrive just at the time scheduled for a meeting. If nothing else, this allows no time for unexpected transportation problems. But most people might think they just need time to use the restroom and go over their notes. Logical, but wrong. Arrive earlier. This allows time for more than the basic necessities. One highly advisable point is to check who is going to be attending. Find out if anything else has changed. Take the time to introduce yourself, one on one, to each attendee. Exchange business cards. One idea is to arrange the cards in a seating chart — yes, like our teachers used to do — to let you know who is sitting where. The clients won’t mind; it just shows you are trying to get to know them. A side benefit of starting your presentation before the meeting is that it can help to overcome jitters. The opening — In the first few minutes of the presentation, clients form a general impression of you. During that time, they may be so busy trying to "place" you that they may not listen to what you are saying. By understanding what the opening is really about, you can make yours more effective. The opening will probably not "make or break" the presentation, but it can set the tone. Think of it as scoring runs in the first inning of a baseball game. The game is by no means won, but being ahead is better than being behind. Use the few minutes of the introduction to: Establish rapport and begin to build credibility. Introduce yourself, your company, and your team members. Don’t assume everyone at the meeting already knows you Thank clients for the opportunity to be there. Present your objective — why you are there. Discuss your purpose — why they will find it useful to be there. Try to address talk to each person individually during the meeting, rotating among them. Try to learn their names before the meeting. Going over the agenda with the audience — This is what it sounds like. Go over each point you plan to discuss. Ask if this is what everyone expects. A printed agenda, based on the table of contents for the proposal, can be useful to distribute at this point. You can also distribute the proposal at this time, but a person’s natural tendency to look at printed material when they get it might be distracting. Confirming client needs and interests — Checking the agenda begins this process. The best way to do this is to ask the client representatives about the points you should stress, to be sure your presumably well prepared presentation is on point. Thank the client representatives, and be sure to mention there will be time set aside from questions at the end. Also, be sure to invite clients to ask questions during your presentation. Body of the presentation — This is where you make your case. Organize the key elements of your presentation, with an eye toward what the client wants to achieve. Use a logical but sales-oriented and client-oriented sequence — for example, features and benefits/value are discussed before price. Rehearse the presentation beforehand. If you will have colleagues with you, define their expected roles in the meeting. Use but do not read your proposal (except for figures and technical information). Bring enough handouts to give one to everyone attending, plus a few for safety if more people show up. Consider bringing separate copies of the executive summary to have something to leave each client representative if you need to revise the proposal. Use projected PowerPoint slides, but not as a teleprompter. Don’t read them. Create a dialogue with your audience. Make sure the amount of information fits into your allotted time. It is worth repeating — position/personalize the information to your client’s needs. Be sure to state benefits to the client. Summary of the presentation — This can be described as a verbal executive summary. Go over, very briefly, each point you have made. Be sure the summary mentions each benefit to the client of what you are offering, Questions and answers — Be sure to leave enough time for questions at the end of your presentation. Make it clear that you welcome questions at the end and during the presentation. Answer them concisely, and invite follow-up questions. Try to anticipate questions in your preparation because you might not have time to get back to the asker with an answer you do not have. Offer to be available for any questions the client may have later. Closing the meeting — This is the last memory clients will have of your presentation. Ask the client for what you want them to do. Ask for the business. Show that you really want their business and want to work with them. Following up — Get a personal thank-you note out that day or the next via e-mail to everyone who attended the meeting. Your contact can confirm everyone who attended and how to reach them. You will already be calling the contact to thank him or her for their assistance. Your contact can brief you on any changes since the meeting. You can use these notes to clear up any questions you have about your own presentation. Be sure you can be reached. If you don’t want to give out your cell number, let everyone who might answer your phone, even a "press 0 for an operator line," know to forward the message immediately. Be sure to brief your boss and your close subordinate, on how the meeting went in case they get questions. You may also find it valuable to write a memo to yourself, listing what seemed to go well and seemed to go not so well in the meeting. Group Sales presentations can seem like fearsome prospects. They can be complicated. However, with proper presentation, they can be done and done well. ———————————————————— Download our newest E-book,  A Financial Services Leader Guide for Sales Success.  The post The Ultimate Checklist for Mission Critical Group Sales Presentations appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

New Research from Aberdeen Highlights Best-in-Class Sales Training Reinforcement Most of us appreciate that ongoing professional development is essential to success in this rapidly changing and ultra-competitive market. Basic skills need to be reinforced, and new knowledge, skills, and experience must be acquired to stay at the top of your game. Training is important but must be reinforced and sustained to make a lasting impact. We’ve heard it all before, but we don’t always invest the necessary time and effort into sustainment to really make a difference. However, according to a recent report by Aberdeen Research, "It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint: Reinforcing Sales Training", organizations that take the right measures to sales training reinforce and sustain impact significantly outperform their peers. According to Aberdeen, "The ever-changing landscape of the business-to-business sales profession necessitates a fresh look at crucial training and development activities … More than ever, companies expecting scalable and repeatable sales success stories are embedding their educational efforts into long term, flexible, tech-say methodologies designed for multi-year results." The report offers some interesting observations and statistics. I’ve highlighted a few of these points below. The most effective B2B sales firms are 22% more likely (more than one in five) than all other sales firms to reinforce training at least once each quarter. Companies that carry out post-training reinforcement see 20% more salespeople achieve sales quotas. Aberdeen raised more interesting and significant points to consider and actions to take — "takeaways" — from their survey and analysis of the results. Effective firm provide at least some sales training to nonsales staff. When the two groups understand each other, both benefit — as does the company. The need to focus training on better sales conversations between sales representatives and their clients. Train your staff to understand the needs of clients and to directly address these needs. Learn from the experience of others. Go even further. Collect the experience of others. Establish a central database of best practices — what works and what does not work — and under what circumstances methods work. As I mentioned earlier, these are just scratching the surface, and I encourage you to download the full report Continuous professional development, throughout a working career, is the best way, probably the only way, to enable people to remain effective employees. A well-thought-out  sales training reinforcement plan drives effective employee development. The more effective companies know this and act on this knowledge. This Aberdeen Group report provides strong evidence to back up these conclusions. ———————————- Download our newest E-book,  A Financial Services Leader Guide for Sales Success.      The post New Research - Best-in-Class Sales Training Reinforcement appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Why Customized Sales Training for "Strategic Relevance" Drives the Best Results In order to achieve desired training outcomes, adults have to be willing to actively participate in the training and take advantage of those opportunities for learning. People have to decide to be open and receptive to learning, and to engage in the experience. One of the biggest determinants of active disengaged participants is the relevance of the training content. Sounds simple enough, but many sales managers and training leaders fail to connect those very basic dots. There are a few reasons that sales training opportunities fail to resonate and fall flat with your audience: Too broad - Off-the-shelf e-learning or videos offer generic training based on selling situations that don’t reflect your sales team’s experiences. Too restrictive - Many sales training companies are strictly wedded to their proprietary models and methodologies; they expect you to adapt your organization to their approach. Fits someone else’s agenda - The training has been re-purposed from another group, assuming that it will be "good enough", but in reality is not. Conversely, when training addresses a challenge a sale professional recently faced or a skill or behavior their manager wants them to develop, salespeople see the value. They will more actively engage with relevant content and have a better learning outcome as a result. "Deeply Customize" Sales Training for Maximum Impact We strongly believe that sales training must be deeply customized for maximum impact. Research conducted by Trainingindustry.com overwhelmingly supports our position. In their study, training ranked "effective": 72% of the time when deeply customized 21% for light customization 7% for no customization What does "deeply customized" mean? Customization can range from changing a logo on a workbook to embedding concepts, thinking, and nuances that align closely with strategic objectives. We refer to this as "strategically relevant" customization, which ensures that participants are learning, practicing, and developing skills in the context of the strategic situations they face. In-depth Interviews and Customizing Summary Our process involves interviewing senior executives, top performers, and subject matter experts. We summarize the findings from those interviews in a customizing summary and validate it with the buyer. The summary’s findings are often as expected ("What we heard in the interviews matches what you suspected"), but also shed light on deeper issues, false assumptions, or misalignments that need to be addressed ("You told us ABC, but what we heard was XYZ; you have a bigger/different issue going on that needs fixing"). This document incorporates the sales organization’s strategic objectives and key challenges and becomes a focal point for customizing the training. Skilled and Experienced Training Designers Why don’t all sales training companies do this? It’s not easy. We are able to customize training for strategic relevance because our training designers are passionate and experienced with a knack for quickly understanding a client’s business and diagnosing needs and underlying issues. They also understand the buying and selling dynamic, identify the challenging issues, and design training materials that address these needs. They’ve all worked across a range of client situations and can readily identify traps that salespeople and sales managers fall into. They also have mastery of our content and know what to select to best meet the client’s needs. Finally, they are extremely committed, and deliver for the client. Custom Practice Scenarios and Case Studies The depth and efficiency of our approach is unique in the industry and extremely valuable for our clients. In its simplest form, we make sure that we have all of the practice scenarios are tailored to the client’s business. We design role-play activities with the strategic lens of what’s most important to practice skills based on their key challenges. For example, the client might be want to grow their existing accounts by teaching cross-selling into new divisions or up-selling new solutions. We would focus an activity so that the context was strategically relevant to them as opposed to just any opportunity to apply the skill. It’s strategically relevant to both the sales reps and sales manager, which makes the sales training more impactful. Customizing case studies and exercises are very important, but we go a lot further. We seek to understand the DNA of the organization and get a strategic view of the business. We understand a client’s vision, business goals, strategic objectives, competitors, culture, differentiators, and challenges. Our process emphasizes capturing what we’ve learned about a client’s business in a way that can be baked into program materials. It also helps us transfer this institutional knowledge to our trainers, so they talk the client’s language, emphasize key themes, and bring the learning to life in the classroom. Strategic Change Through Relevant Training You cannot get tailored, specific-to-your-business attention and training from an out-of-the-box solution. To make a strategic impact, generic solutions should not be an option. To make the most of your training efforts, you must consider what you’re trying to achieve, the key challenges standing in the way of your objectives, the capability of your sales reps, and what’s most relevant for changing their behaviors and developing new skills. ———————————————————- Download our newest E-book,  A Financial Services Leader Guide for Sales Success.      The post Why Customized Sales Training for "Strategic Relevance" Drives the Best Results appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Six Emerging Competencies for Sales Success in the Age of the Empowered Buyer It’s been well-documented that buyer behavior is changing, with power shifting from sellers to buyers. The primary reason for this shift is availability of and access to information. The buyer is clearly in control and is dictating when, how, and what they want to buy. Even though sales roles are becoming more specialized, we believe the new balance of power requires three traits for all sales reps: Be Transparent. Set the proper expectations with your buyers and existing customers. You and your team must be above board and focused on delivering on your promises while resisting overreaching or overpromising to win a sale. Be Proactive. Proactively look for opportunities to create value. Don’t sit back and wait for the buyer to come to you, whether for a new account or existing account. If you wait, then you risk becoming a commodity that is constantly competing at dog-and-pony shows and struggling to differentiate yourself. Instead, get ahead of your peers and the commodity curve by being a first-mover. Be proactive, bring value, and help customers understand how they can create value. Be Fully Invested in Your Customers’ Success. This might sound obvious, but it’s not. It’s expected that sales reps will do what’s necessary to make the sale. The emphasis here is to demonstrate to your buyers that you have their best interests in mind beyond the sale. Let them know that you’re thinking about this as a long-term relationship and not a short-term sale. Whatever will make them happy will ensure their success and the likelihood that you’ll remain in good favor when the next sale opportunity or renewal comes. The Rise of New Competencies Common across Sales Roles In talking about this issue, my colleague Eileen Krantz has helped me to capture the impact of these changes and the consequences for sales teams and individual reps if they are to thrive as more changes inevitably occur. Our recent work with organizations with subscription-based business models and significant dependence on inbound marketing has shown the following set of six competencies to be predictive of success. Simply put, top performers in this new environment are better at these behaviors than lower performers. Developing Sales Leads. Demonstrates the initiative to uncover sales opportunities; actively attracts the interest of potential customers; networks to increase contacts; stays on top of market conditions to uncover new leads; consistently follows up with leads to assess their interest in the product/service offering. You can’t sit back — you must be proactive! Qualifying Prospects. Uses a formula or series of questions to determine the prospect’s fit with the product; expects to sell to the majority of prospects because they are known to need the seller’s products; reacts quickly and objectively to the answers to standard probes by disqualifying the prospect or proceeding through the selling process. Be transparent with yourself — "Is there a legitimate opportunity here, or am I just dreaming?" Making Persuasive Presentations. Excites the customer with an enthusiastic presentation style; demonstrates value and actively promotes products and services by making an emotional appeal; holds the customer’s attention and interest by keeping the presentation content relevant; varies style to build toward a buying decision. Be able to differentiate yourself, realizing that there’s a fine line between being persuasive and embellishing. Committing Time and Effort to Ensure Success. Thrives on working; tends to achieve higher results in direct proportion to the time committed to work; remains focused on the goal and is not easily discouraged or distracted; uses work as an opportunity for interaction and incorporates interpersonal contacts into task accomplishment; sees work as a major source of personal satisfaction. This starts with a proactive approach that continues beyond the sale. Partnering as a Customer Advocate. Understands the customer’s business, empathizes with their problems, and sets a plan to meet their needs; tirelessly focuses on building strong relationships with customers by acting on their behalf to work the seller’s internal systems to meet their requirements; sees partnering with customers as the most efficient method to reach personal sales career goals. This demands a proactive approach, as well as being fully committed to your customers’ success — by helping them stay ahead of their competition, you’ll do the same with yours. Adapting Approach to Different Buyer Motivations. Gathers essential information to determine the benefits customers need in order to be sold; is willing to adjust sales approach to fit different buyer motivations; influences or persuades others by determining how the other individual can benefit and then communicates those advantages. Being objective and transparent is essential. By comparison, the previous success models for hunters vs. farmers are shown below: A comparison of the former hunter and farmer models shows that hunters were generally more opportunistic and proactive and farmers were more service-oriented and responsive. But we’re now seeing competencies that are common to both hunters and farmers that are becoming more common across various sales roles despite the fact that those roles are different. In essence, they are more proactively customer-focused. While it is still necessary to pursue and win the business and then effectively service the account, it is not sufficient. Sales professionals in this marketplace of educated and proactive buyers must be advisors and advocates who can create and shape opportunities to add value to their customers’ businesses. They must then be able to leverage those successes and lessons learned to develop new business while maintaining and expanding business within their existing accounts. Do your sales reps possess the right competencies to be as effective as possible in bringing in new business and nurturing existing clients? Help them to adapt and identify which ones won’t make the transition. This gives your sales strategy a clear direction and provides guidance for your sales training efforts, as well as coaching and mentoring objectives for your managers. ————————— Download our newest E-book,  A Financial Services Leader Guide for Sales Success.      The post Six Emerging Competencies for Sales Success in the Age of the Empowered Buyer appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Cross-selling Effectively into the Crosswinds of Financial Services It is said that oak trees grow strong in contrary winds. In the crosswinds of deregulation and re-regulation, financial institutions have gotten bigger, more complex, and more attuned to risk. As they turn up the pressure to drive revenue, cross-selling effectively takes on new levels of urgency and complexity. So, how does a client-facing professional stay grounded in these crosswinds while still advocating for his or her clients? Let’s start with the issues.   As financial institutions continue to grow their fee-based businesses, they have pushed into an increasing number of product lines, and leaders are seeking cross-sell production across these product lines. This makes it more difficult for the client-facing financial professional to stay current on a wider scope of client needs, keep pace with a broader range of capabilities, and to build trust, skill, and alignment with a new and changing group of partners. What’s changed with clients and internal partners? Attractive clients are exercising their buying power and are increasing demand for customized services and pricing. At the same time, there is growing pressure to standardize as financial institutions seek to reduce risk and increase profit margins. Historically, client-facing professionals felt the advantage in these discussions, always able to invoke "the client" to push through an unusual structure or fee arrangement. However the balance of power has shifted, as influence has grown among risk, legal, compliance, and finance professionals. This has created unusually high tension with what used to be considered "support" groups, and makes it increasingly difficult to deliver on client demands. As a leader, have you noticed the rising intensity of these competing pressures as you get pulled into heated client and internal discussions? Five Best Practices for Cross-selling Effectiveness So with all these crosswinds swirling around you and your team, how can you, your team, and your business get stronger? Here are five best practices that we see among leaders of winning teams to hit cross-selling targets in the midst of all the competing pressures mentioned above: Team preparation: As your team increasingly works alongside partners from business units with whom they have little or no track record, this increases the importance of sharpening your team’s ability to lead or contribute to an effective pre-call meeting. This can include: Modeling, and reinforcing among your team, the importance of creating rapport with new partners; Checking in before significant client meetings or pitches to be sure that client knowledge is being effectively transferred among team members, that the team is setting clear and unified meeting objectives, and that roles and responsibilities for the meeting are being clearly carved out; and Requiring, and playing a role in, team practice sessions. Team execution: Conducting an effective one-on-one sales meeting is challenge enough; adding teammates, especially unfamiliar ones, makes it far tougher. Without effective team preparation, it is extremely tough for a selling or account team to convey or gain alignment during a meeting. Leaders at effective cross-selling organizations ensure their account or pitch teams have sorted and practiced the following: How the team’s leader will set the stage Sequencing and delivery of introductions Key questioning areas and who on the team will take the lead into each Flow of capabilities or solution discussion Who will close and what it sounds like Team follow-up: We find that crisp and thorough follow-up is more the exception than the rule. Team follow-through tends to be more disjointed among teams unfamiliar with one other. There can be such a wide range of perceptions and expectations — on both your team’s side of the table and the client’s. So, it is essential for teams to debrief as soon as possible after the client, prospect, or center of influence meeting to compare notes and agree on accountabilities. Leaders play a key role in insisting on and participating in formal post-mortems. Realign with internal partners: There has always been a healthy tension between revenue-producing and non-revenue groups. Today, many would use an adjective other than "healthy" to describe this tension. To facilitate more productive interactions with those whose charge it is to mitigate risk, consider asking your team to apply the same rigor to discussions with internal partners as they do with clients, employing best practices in engagement processes and skills. Helpful reminders include: Taking time to create and build authentic rapport with internal partners; Approaching significant discussions - such as those where an unusual structure, provision or a client requirement for non-standard reporting is being presented - by setting a clear objective and agenda; Practicing with others and testing, for feedback, key parts of the discussion; Doing less talking — and more questioning and listening — facilitates partnership, collaboration and agreement; Following through on agreements and next steps builds productive relationships among colleagues. Sharpen your value prop: Increasingly, there can be a gap between what the client is demanding and what your organization is willing or able to deliver. If this gap is large, well understood, and real, this opportunity may not be qualified. We find that there are many situations in which teams react to what gets voiced by the client as a demand, with less than a full understanding of the client’s interests. In these cases, there is a coaching opportunity for you and a chance for the team to do more discovery. This can result in a win when the team is able to persuasively link capabilities to the client’s needs in such a way that makes the solution feel custom-made for this client. Use your team meetings, one-on-ones, and down time between joint calls to leverage these five best practices. This will position you and your team to get stronger — like the oak tree in the face of contrary winds — and to boost cross-selling effectiveness with partners and clients. ——————————————— To learn more about Richardson specialized sales training for Financial Services companies, please click here. Download our newest E-book,  A Financial Services Leader Guide for Sales Success.        The post Cross-selling Effectively into the Crosswinds of Financial Services appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Building Healthy SaaS Revenue: 4 Keys for Landing New Logos  Cloud computing, and the evolution of software as a service (SaaS), has transformed the technology industry. According to IBM, 85% of all new software is now being built for the cloud, and by 2016, one quarter of all applications being used around the world will be available in the cloud. At the same time, SaaS solutions have transformed how businesses select, buy, and use software. At least half the time, if not more, SaaS vendors will sell directly to functional or business-unit stakeholders rather than just to IT people. The sales emphasis is now on a SaaS solution’s value to the business — not on the underlying technology. The nature of the sales dialogue between SaaS vendors and customers looks and sounds very different than it did in the days of on-premises applications. Traditionally, software licensing models were also based on one-time, upfront licensing fees, along with the inevitable (and expensive and painful) installation services and support packages. Such purchases committed organizations to their decisions, often for years at a time. It’s a very different world for SaaS vendors. Pay-as-you-go pricing and very low installation costs make it essential to deliver lasting value, keep customers engaged and satisfied, and generate stable long-term revenue streams. This transformation poses major challenges for many sales organizations. New buyers, changing business models, and shifting expectations require innovative new tactics to win deals, build strong relationships, and deliver the long-term value that SaaS customers demand. These tactics also provide a vital competitive advantage in a SaaS market where firms are under constant pressure to stay ahead of the competition. Phase One, in a manner of speaking, is landing the customer. We believe that two key activities and two key dialogues are essential for success. Key Activity 1: Understanding today’s SaaS buyers. According to a December 2013 study by Gartner Group, nearly half of all IT buying decisions are made or influenced by business-unit stakeholders. We believe an even higher percentage of these business users are involved in SaaS buying decisions given the ease with which these users can evaluate, select, and implement SaaS solutions. Most IT organizations still play at least an advisory role in SaaS buying decisions. Nevertheless, it’s important that your sales team develop the processes necessary to identify today’s SaaS buyers, to reach them with effective messaging, and to establish the value of your solution in terms that make sense to them. Key Activity 2: Establishing a repeatable sales process. Successful SaaS organizations are able to absorb and apply lessons learned from every customer contact function. Sales, marketing, customer service and support, and product development must treat organizational learning as a formal discipline. As customers use the product and achieve business value, the SaaS vendor uses these insights to improve its products and processes to add even more value. The SaaS sales team is a vital part of this organizational learning curve. The sales team must align with marketing and product design, understand how customers buy and use the product, document and validate its sales processes against that knowledge, and finally scale what it has learned for use by the whole company sales force. Organizations that establish a repeatable sales process are better prepared to position their SaaS offerings in the marketplace and to make the best use of sales resources. Key Dialogue 1: Learning to speak the buyer’s language. We already know that miscommunication between sales teams and buyers can be costly. According to Forrester Research, just 1 in 10 executives say they get value from meetings with salespeople. This problem is quite a handicap to overcome, especially in the SaaS market, where sales teams may be accustomed to speaking the language of IT buyers — not the business-unit buyers they increasingly encounter. Effective communication isn’t just a matter of speaking "business language" or avoiding technology jargon. The shift to SaaS and the cloud also requires the ability to address decentralized departmental buying centers. Salespeople have to frame the conversation in terms of operating budgets rather than CapEx. They have to focus on productivity, flexibility, usability, and other business-related impacts. Key Dialogue 2: Communicating value without overpromising. For better or for worse, over-promising on traditional on-premises applications was a low-risk proposition. Once a customer committed to a solution, they typically had little choice but to forge ahead. SaaS applications, by comparison, give customers the opportunity to continually hold vendors accountable for their product claims. If customers are disappointed, they’re less likely to renew their subscriptions. Successful SaaS sales teams know how to engage buyers in open, honest, and transparent conversations about a solution’s capabilities and benefits. A well-trained sales team will understand how to explain and demonstrate a solution’s business value without resorting to exaggeration or unsustainable claims. They also understand how to begin a dialogue with customers that is based on trust, honesty, and a shared vision of success. The key thing for SaaS salespeople to remember is once their sale is made, the selling process is not over. ——————————— COMPLIMENTARY BRIEF Click here to down load our new brief, Selling in the Cloud - 8 Keys to Successful "Land and Expand" Strategy for SaaS Solution Providers. The post Building Healthy SaaS Revenue: 4 Keys for Landing New Logos appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Decision-making Needs Room for Big Data and Emotions Few people need convincing that big data is not a phenomenon or fad. The ability to collect, track, measure, and analyze vast amounts of information to know more about your business, including sales, customer habits and trends, internal business processes, and supply chains, is too much to pass up. In fact, it’s often more than most businesses can handle. It’s not industry- or function-specific either — a quick scan of headlines across trade publications reveals that taking advantage of big data is on everyone’s mind. Recent research shows just how much importance business leaders place on leveraging big data. According to KPMG’s Global Consumer Executive Top of Mind Survey 2014, "consumer company executives were clearly affected by the transformative impact that data and data-related issues are having on their companies and the industry. Data analytics and digital strategy were rated as the two most important areas of strategic focus (rated as having ‘very’ or ‘critical’ importance) in the coming year … Further, 40 percent of executives said the importance of data overall was at a critical level." Fifty-six percent of respondents ranked data analytics as most critical to their strategy ahead of other areas, such as human resources, growth and international expansion, and consumer health and wellness. Sales leaders must then realize that their clients and prospects might also be using big data as an input for their selection and purchase decisions. How does that impact your sales reps’ efforts to connect with their buyers? It’s Not Just About the Data Before bowing blindly at the altar of big data, though, another study provides a compelling counterpoint. The new report entitled "Only Human: The Emotional Logic of Business Decisions" from Fortune Knowledge Group and gyro Research reveals the undervalued role of emotion in business decisions. Among the key findings about the role of emotions in decision-making: Human factors are the deciding factors: Nearly two-thirds (65%) of executives say subjective factors that can’t be quantified (including company culture and corporate values) increasingly make a difference when evaluating competing proposals. Only 16% disagree. Executives "trust their gut:" A majority (62%) of executives say it is often necessary to rely on gut feelings and soft factors. Strong reputations and cultures win: When choosing a company to do business with, 70% of respondents cite reputation as the most influential factor. Company culture was also a top driver according to 53% of executives surveyed. Analytical insight requires emotional insight: A majority (61%) of executives agree that when making decisions, human insights must precede hard analytics. Positive gains outweigh negative risks: Most executives (68%) say that the ambition, admiration, and potential rewards outweigh fear of failure and being blamed for making a bad call. Long-term partnerships are the goal: The long-term gains are worth the short-term financial risks according to 71% of respondents. The Best Choice Incorporates Both Data and Emotions into Decision-making Clearly, there are pros and cons for placing absolute faith in either approach. Here are just a few considerations for each: Decisions Based on Emotions Pro — Based on past experience and knowledge of the subject/issues at hand Pro — Benefits from intuition Pro — Can see the difference between common practice (as represented by big data) and unique circumstances for specific clients or buyers Con — Might fail to recognize important but not obvious trends borne out of big data analytics Con — Might make knee-jerk decisions without patience and supporting research Decisions Based on Big Data Pro/Con — Removes human emotions Pro — Can process vast amounts of information Pro — Once data are collected and analyzed, decisions can be made swiftly Con — If the data aren’t complete or unbiased, basis for decision could be misleading Con — Could include old data that is no longer relevant or which has changed Big data should be a component of decision-making but not the sole factor. The absence of human emotions and instinct in decision-making puts us that much closer to a Terminator-like experience where machines are choosing for us. Few decisions in life are ever purely black and white, and that requires the careful assessment of multiple inputs — including data, experience, and instinct — in order to make the best choices. Make informed decisions that include all relevant data analyses, but also weigh human emotion, experience, and instinct before making the final call. Don’t ignore the data, but don’t be a robot either. Implications for Sales Reps and Teams With this in mind, realize that your prospects are making decisions in this same manner whether consciously or not. Therefore, encourage your sales reps to learn to sell not just on data or emotion, but to incorporate both elements into their sales pitches. You need data to substantiate the problem, your solution and experience, and the benefits buyers can derive from choosing you. But, you also need to be able to describe what’s in it for them in a qualitative way, not just quantitatively. Perhaps the data reveal that a product or solution will be the most effective, but if people don’t like or feel good about the experience, then it will likely fail. ——————————— COMPLIMENTARY BRIEF Click here to down load our new brief, Selling in the Cloud - 8 Keys to Successful "Land and Expand" Strategy for SaaS Solution Providers. The post Decision-making Needs Room for Big Data and Emotions appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Selling SaaS: Essential Activities and Key Dialogues to Expand After You Land  Closing deals is important. However, closing alone is not sufficient for SaaS company success. Driving to profitable growth requires generating renewals, maintaining cash flow, and minimizing customer churn. This quest for lifetime customer value depends on two key activities and two key dialogues: Key Activity 1: Mastering the art and science of Customer Success Management. In the SaaS market, a "closed" deal never truly closes. Every conversation and point of contact contributes to a customer’s lifetime value from your system — to making what you sell a real solution. The sales, marketing, customer service, and product development teams must work together and demonstrate ongoing value to buyers — keeping buyers engaged, satisfied, and successful. This is the essence of Customer Success Management, and it’s a life-or-death issue for any SaaS provider. This ongoing quest for lifetime value begins with setting up the customer’s system, but it’s far more than simply an implementation issue. The solution provider must serve as a trusted advisor, anticipating buyers’ needs, helping them to see around corners, and enabling them to leverage the platform’s full capabilities. Key Activity 2: Measuring and reporting on customer business impacts. Success Management also involves knowing whether your customers are getting the value they expect from a SaaS platform. Clear and open communication is important here, but so is the ability to use a SaaS platform’s analytical capabilities — not just to do things, but to record results and enable the data to be analyzed. The use and engagement metrics your customers generate are very useful indicators — if you know how to identify the metrics that matter. Sales teams play a key role in this activity when they help buyers identify and articulate their goals and standards for success. These insights, in turn, support a SaaS vendor’s ability to measure the platform’s business impact and to report back on possible problems. Armed with this knowledge, the vendor can help customers proactively address issues and ensure that they are getting value from their investments. Key Dialogues (1): Resolving service issues promptly. Customer service in the SaaS world isn’t just about answering support calls. It’s about maintaining the right relationships with key customer stakeholders, engaging in conversations with these stakeholders, and uncovering potential service issues even before they become sources of customer concern. The sales team’s responsibility for maintaining and nurturing these relationships extends far beyond the sale. It is worth repeating that successful SaaS vendors know that there’s no such thing as a truly closed deal — only ongoing relationships. Key Dialogues (2): Uncovering and addressing the buyer’s evolving needs. There’s another important aspect to the customer conversation. Vendors must recognize that the capabilities that make a customer satisfied and successful today may not do so in the future. Instead, a SaaS provider’s sales team and other stakeholders must always think ahead on the buyer’s behalf — providing insights and positioning value-creating ideas that continue to generate business value. This is a challenging process. This may require an intimate understanding of the customer’s business environment, growth opportunities, organizational culture, and other factors. The payoff, however, is the ability to move the customer to higher-value SaaS products, to ensure that the customer realizes long-term value from these upgrades, and to continue to make a compelling case for keeping the customer engaged with your platform. The bottom line is that the sales and service process for the cloud is as least as customer-centric, if not more, as effective sales. A SaaS provider has to continue to prove relevance to customer needs. The good news is that the SaaS provider has continuing opportunities to prove that their product is relevant to what a customer needs. ——————————————————— COMPLIMENTARY RICHARDSON TECHNOLOGY BRIEF Click here to down load our new brief, Selling in the Cloud - 8 Keys to Successful "Land and Expand" Strategy for SaaS Solution Providers. The post Selling SaaS: Essential Activities and Key Dialogues to Expand After You Land appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Are Your Salespeople Poised to Sell to Today’s Buyers? Few people need convincing that considerable power and influence has shifted to customers and prospective buyers. Much of this has been driven by technology and access to information. The challenge isn’t necessarily to recognize this change in the buying and selling environment, but to know what to do about it. Sales organizations or individual reps mired in the old ways of selling are destined to fall short of their target and find themselves in trouble or replaced by those that "get it." Are your sales reps poised to sell to today’s buyers? Are they confident doing so, is it a stretch, or is it far beyond their comfort zone? A recent Bain Brief underscored what’s at stake: "As customers seize the balance of power and more aspects of the sales process migrate online, leading B2B sales organizations find they must radically restructure their approach." According to the article, those companies that succeed in making those radical changes "are realizing EBITDA growth of 20% to 25%" by following what they refer to as six imperatives, which are listed below. Six Imperatives for the New Reality of Sales 1) Stay on target. Develop a sales system that matches the right offer at the right time to the target segment and delights customers based on a deep understanding of their priorities. You must be keenly aware of your targets’ (both prospects and current customers) wants and desires as well as challenges and opportunities. This must be done in real time - not monthly or quarterly - to be of service before a competitor beats you to it. 2) Know customer value and values. Enable your front line to understand a customer’s value to the firm’s growth and profitability, as well as the customer’s decision dynamics. This is more than knowing an industry or individual, but rather each target’s specific corporate culture, operating environment, and preferences. Each selling opportunity must be treated as unique and specific, not generalized or based on assumptions. 3) Re-imagine the channel mix. Invest in low- and high-touch channels to match sales capacity with opportunity and customer preference, then double down on self-service digital channels to help customers help themselves, earning loyalty and a high ROI. Don’t put all of your marketing and sales eggs in one basket - either traditional channels or purely social media. Balance the old and new and (re)deploy your resources accordingly where they can be of best use and value to your buyers. 4) Align resources across marketing and sales. Seamlessly integrate marketing priorities with sales channel mix and capacity. Rethink where marketing ends and sales begins, as buying processes begin earlier than ever. Force your team to think from the outside-in to see what your buyers are exposed to from both push and pull perspectives. Does it jibe, or is it disjointed and confusing? Get your act together to tell a consistent story and present a cohesive story to your buyers. Also consider how much information you’re sharing with targets and at what stage of the sales process. You have to be willing to give buyers something to keep them interested. If it’s not enough, they’ll likely keep searching until they find what they’re looking for (from your competitors). 5) Raise the bar on talent. To build the next generation of sellers, elevate expectations and strengthen capabilities. Recruit people with relevant expertise, and train sellers to make the most of their time with customers. What competencies are required of your sales roles for success? How can you help them master those competencies and skills? Adjust your training programs accordingly and be prepared to make tough decisions about those who can’t make the transition to support your new approach to selling. 6) Get the wiring right to unlock sales capacity. To reinforce new behaviors and track effectiveness, invest in data and analytics, system linkages, compensation and tools. Once you’ve mastered the first five items, the last thing you want to do is torpedo your efforts by maintaining old habits, tools, or administrative tasks that are out of sync with your new approach. Take a step back to ensure that all touchpoints from marketing to IT, HR, and Accounting and beyond are supporting your new reality and not dragging your sales team back to the past. This research by Bain and the findings they put forth in their paper are enlightening. The world of buying and selling is moving into new territory, to which sales organizations need to adapt in order to remain relevant and competitive. Such strategic changes need to be implemented through your people, which is easier said than done. How will you move your organization from where you are to where you need to be? Few companies or leaders can get there on their own. Helping to set the right course to train your people and change their behaviors to align with your new selling strategy and priorities is our specialty. COMPLIMENTARY RICHARDSON TECHNOLOGY BRIEF Click here to down load our new brief, Selling in the Cloud - 8 Keys to Successful "Land and Expand" Strategy for SaaS Solution Providers. The post Are Your Salespeople Poised to Sell to Today’s Buyers? appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Why Successful Team Selling Is Like a Game of Jenga There are several reasons that can prompt you to sell in teams to land new business or retain existing accounts. How you assemble and manage those teams can have a tremendous impact on their success. It is important to recognize when individual sales reps may no longer have the necessary skills or expertise. Many industries have experienced growth, evolution, and specialization, which makes it more challenging for generalist sales reps to keep up and maintain their expertise. It is common for sales reps selling within an industry to have worked in that sector earlier in their career. But while the basics remain the same, the longer they’re on the outside looking in, they risk losing touch and expertise with the nuances that have emerged. Rather than putting these sales reps out to pasture, partner them with appropriate subject matter experts. But perhaps a more common theme is that sales situations have become more complex, which often requires more resources, perspective, and attention than one sales rep can reasonably provide. Selling to financial services and institutions is certainly one example in which changes to the business, as well as external regulatory demands, require more expertise than ever before. Depending on what’s being sold and to whom, you can find examples of similarly more complex sales in just about any other industry. One of the concerns we’ve observed from our clients is that teamwork is often misaligned. Perhaps you’re already selling in teams and have done so for some time. Well, what if the client’s business has changed? Or, the way they’re organized internally has shifted, yet you’ve failed to adapt to a model or team structure that matches. Clients and prospects are likely to feel more comfortable with a seller that understands them and their business. If your configuration (or lack of) is markedly different from how they are organized, they might be wary of your ability to "get" their challenges and concerns and to provide an effective solution that supports and aligns with their business and doesn’t require them to bend over backwards to make it work. The Solution: Developing Effective and Efficient Team Selling As my colleague Michael Dalis noted in a recent post, leaders of winning sales teams are changing how their sales reps prepare for, execute, and follow through on client or partner interactions to address these challenges. They are also careful to realign with internal partners and sharpen their value propositions to take full advantage of their team-based approach to selling. Building the right team is akin to a successful game of Jenga: You need a strong sales rep to lead the team and provide a good foundation. Add the right pieces to grow the sales team, but ensure balance along the way. If you add too many pieces, that top-heavy structure will give way and come crashing down. (Too many people is inefficient and a distraction.) Likewise, a structure with holes or gaps will also topple. The successful end result appears to the beholder (the buyer) to be a complete structure with a stable foundation with no gaps or excess. You want to avoid your buyer thinking that your sales team is: Too big — Why is that guy here? He has contributed nothing to this process from what I can see. If this is how they operate, I don’t want to pay for bloated sales or service teams. Too small — That’s it?! Where’s the rest of the team? My business and needs are too complex for this paltry group. I expected their team to include more specialists who understand the nuances of my business. They obviously haven’t taken me or my business very seriously. When building teams that match your buyers’ needs and expectations, be sure to adhere to some basic tenets, such as identifying a team leader, selecting complementary and not combative personalities, and ensuring that team members have met and hopefully worked out a rapport with each other in advance of meeting the clients. Have you ever watched one of those ensemble cast TV shows in which the team of detectives, lawyers, doctors, etc., are so close that they finish each other’s sentences and naturally pick up where the other left off without missing a beat? That’s what you want for your sales teams, not ones who have obviously never worked together or who have vastly differing opinions, styles, and goals. Ask yourself whether it is more important for your buyers to adapt to how you are organized and sell or for your sales teams to adapt to your buyers. The answer should be a no brainer. Regardless of the team’s composition and size, it should be aligned to the needs of the selling situation and the buyer. ———————————————- To learn more about Richardson specialized sales training for Financial Services companies, please click here. Download our newest E-book, A Financial Services Leader Guide for Sales Success.   The post Why Successful Team Selling Is Like a Game of Jenga appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.