I have never been happy with the word, and subsequent use of the “proposal” in sales. It just seemed to me as being too dry to represent anything but the price.

Now we are in a new economy that requires salespeople to think before they act. They need to ask better questions and come up with a deeper response to the prospect. In fact, they need to make a full “recommendation” not merely propose a product purchase.

Let us look at the sale for a moment and understand that for the most part, the average salesperson is always up against the status quo. Meaning that the potential buyer is already using some form of product or service that fits their needs, or they have it “covered.” The introduction of a substitute item or even something brand new causes the seller to be an agent of change. After all, that is what we want; the change to what we have to sell.

By submitting a proposal, we have given in to the lowest relationship possible. When the bulk of the language is about the proposal, the prospect has reduced the value s/he puts on the salesperson.

Think of it this way. We are first seen as a “seller”, then maybe a “supplier”, then a “vendor” and maybe an “advisor.” The relationship takes those steps. When was the last time an advisor was afraid to suggest something new with conviction? When was the last time your doctor was afraid to recommend a course of action? Did s/he “send you a proposal” and let you decide?

If the seller truly believes that their product or service or approach is best in this situation – based on the salesperson’s diagnostic – why not say so clearly? “I’ll bring back a proposal” does not do it for me!

My suggestion is that salespeople develop firm recommendations that are filled with reasons why the buyer should change from the other person or product or process to us or from doing something internally to using us.. The information gathered by the seller would allow them to conclude that the recommendation will help the buyer do what they do better, and therefore is a safe bet.

Go back to that last sentence for a moment, and think through what I wrote.

The product/service has to be better and serve the client better than what they have now or there will not be a sale.

Too often sellers are afraid of attacking the status quo and even defend the buyer’s wrongful decision. A change in the word from proposal to recommendation, and the subsequent conversation about how that conclusion was reached, will dismiss that argument. Next time you are selling, go in with a “recommendation” not merely a proposal. Take your time to explain how you reached the conclusion outlined, and see if it doesn’t bring you more sales.

Based on an article by Stephan Schiffman, the original founder of the DEI Management Group (NY), now DEI International Sales System Ltd.

DEI Sales System, 6-9 Trinity Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. Tel: +353-1-6177890

www.dei-sales.ie  sales@dei-sales.ie

Are you picturing that salesperson? Good. Now answer this question. On his or her most recent full day working for you, did that salesperson have a good day?

Do you know for sure? Do you have any consistent, objective standard for answering that question? Does your salesperson know exactly what constitutes a good day at your company?

Notice that I asked about whether the day was a good day — not whether the day was busy. Your entire sales team might be busy, but all that “busy-ness” wouldn’t necessarily translate into a single piece of BUSINESS for your enterprise.

Here’s one viable working definition of a “good day.”

I, your salesperson, have officially had a good day if I’ve EITHER set a scheduled first appointment with someone who is willing to discuss buying my stuff … OR moved a current prospect forward in some measurable way, and simultaneously set a date and time to meet or talk with the decision maker about the status of that deal.

Here’s another definition to consider that’s a little more specific:

A good day is when I, your salesperson, make, for example, at least fifteen dials AND have voice-to-voice conversations with say, six or seven relevant – or sometimes all new – people AND schedule at least one new face to face appointment. Or, if I work in Inside sales, I will still measure my dials and contacts and scheduled next steps on the telephone. Notice that we are not just measuring ONE number. That’s a fatal mistake to make. Always track two RELATED numbers. It’s called a ratio.

Of course, these aren’t the only possible definitions of a “good day.” They do, however, have the advantage of being easy to understand … and to reinforce with the team.

Few managers, in my opinion, set clear expectations about what does, and doesn’t, constitute a “good day.” They accept what I call the Salesperson’s Fallacy: “If I look busy, I am having a good day.” Challenge that fallacy. Create a clear and measurable expectation about what constitutes a good day, and don’t be afraid to create a frank conversation, and even a little tension, when it doesn’t happen.

DEI Sales System, 6-9 Trinity Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. Tel: +353-1-6177890

www.dei-sales.ie sales@dei-sales.ie

At DEI, we believe that you have 200 working hours – five weeks – in which to make a good, evidence-based decision about whether to hold on to the salesperson you have just hired.

You are not testing “closing skills” or “sales ability” during this period. Accordingly, the question of whether or not a salesperson closes a deal during the first 200 hours is, in most cases involving business-to-business field representatives, irrelevant. During this period, you are testing two things and two things only:

• The salesperson’s ability to spot and capitalize on opportunities, and
• The salesperson’s ability to move those opportunities forward.

Presumably you hired the person because you believed he or she had these two abilities. Once the salesperson begins to work for you and the probationary period begins, your job is to find out whether you were right or wrong. You should make that determination in an environment where both you and the salesperson know that a 200-hour “countdown clock” has been set in motion, and is now ticking. At the end of that 200-hour period, you will make a decision about whether or not the relationship is working. If it is not, you will let the salesperson go.

When I am coaching brand new sales hires for my own organization, I make certain that we both understand the following points on the very first day:

• The 200-hour clock is now ticking.
• That’s five 40-hour weeks, starting today.
• I will decide whether to move this hiring decision from “provisional” to “permanent” at the end of those 200 hours.
• Since our sales cycle is typically eight weeks, I will NOT be judging you by whether or not you close a deal during those 200 hours.
• Of greater concern to me is whether you can ….
  • TARGET ONE: Each and every week, for the next five weeks, you should set five brand-new face-to-face appointments with prospects you have neither met nor worked with before.
  • TARGET TWO: Over the course of your 200-hour evaluation period, 90% of those scheduled face-to-face meetings with new prospects should actually take place. If you set the right number of appointments, but half of them cancel or don’t show up, you’re not hitting the target.
  • TARGET THREE: Each and every week, you should turn two or three of those scheduled first meetings into scheduled second meetings that actually take place.

Targets One, Two, and Three, above are much more important to me than a single closed deal when it comes to evaluating whether I should hold on to, or let go of, a new salesperson. In fact, a new deal that comes in during the first 200 hours may be a net negative for the new salesperson I’ve just hired. Why? Suppose the decision maker behind that first deal is an existing contact from the salesperson’s last job. By closing that deal within the first week, the salesperson may be reinforcing a habit of relying on old relationships, rather than developing new ones!

The new salesperson’s first 200 hours on the job is a critical period. Use it to determine whether this person really can get new relationships on the calendar and move those relationships forward through your organization’s sales process. If the salesperson can do that, you can congratulate yourself on a sound hiring decision. If the salesperson cannot do that, let him or her go and find someone else to fill the spot.

DEI Sales System, 6-9 Trinity Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. Tel: +353-1-6177890

www.dei-sales.ie sales@dei-sales.ie

Some salespeople have trained themselves to be receptive to the idea of selling under a process-driven, target-driven, metrics-driven selling system. They will be curious about how to put such a system to work in their ongoing, lifelong mission to improve their personal bottom line. They will happily share with a sales manager, or anyone else, the number of total dials they made during a given day, or the number of new appointments they set.

Other salespeople, however, have trained themselves to be inherently distrustful of any attempt from the sales manager to pry confidential information from them about what they actually do all day long. Not only do they consider such data private; they believe that even recording it in the first place would threaten their personal style and their ability to achieve.

Which group is “right” is not our concern here. Our goal is to find someone whose activity you can actually manage on a daily basis. What I want to suggest in terms of interview strategy, is that you use the initial discussion with prospective salespeople to determine which selling culture the person ALREADY belongs to: the process-driven, metrics-driven culture, or the get-out-of-my-face-and-let-me-work-my-special-magic culture. You can establish this with startling ease, simply by asking the applicant, for instance, how many face-to-face appointments it typically takes him or her to generate a sale and how they came up with that number.

You’re not necessarily looking for an instant, hard-and-fast numerical answer to that kind of question (although it’s a wonderful sign if you get one), but you definitely are looking for willingness to participate in the discussion with you. Will the applicant interact constructively with you to identify, collaboratively. a realistic appointments-to-sale ratio – a ratio that could be tested against activity in the real world?

Or … will the applicant stare at you as though you’d begun speaking a foreign language?

Any evidence of a willingness to engage with you in a real-world discussion about how one measurable activity under the salesperson’s control connects to an equally measurable outcome is a sign that you’re talking to someone who has already self-trained to operate within a metrics-driven, process-driven sales culture. This is someone to whom you want to keep speaking. Any brisk dismissal of your question (such as, “As many as it takes”), followed by an attempt to change the subject, should be cause for concern. This person doesn’t “get it,” and will see all attempts to coach his or her daily activity – which is, after all what makes deals possible – as unacceptable meddling and “micromanaging.” No matter how charismatic the applicant is, if you want to run a process-driven shop as a sales manager (and I’m hoping you do), you are probably well advised to take a pass on this person. It will be a long and painful uphill climb trying to get this person to accept, and work under, your process.

Just as concerning, perhaps, is the situation where the candidate “lies” in response to your question. I don’t mean dark, malicious lies; I mean the “white lies” that happen when people play games with you, hoping to give you an answer that fits, but that has nothing, really, to do with their actual experience. These answers are slightly less obvious attempts to change the subject – but only slightly less. “I’d say it takes me 6.2 appointments to deliver one sale. Next question, please.” The person is maintaining an “I have all the answers” demeanor, but the information is really not that credible. It’s unlikely that the person is a good match for your team.

No matter what you ask in an interview, or how well you filter or select the salesperson ahead of time, no-one actually knows how they’ll react until they are in the job. Taking on a sales position is, in this sense, a little like opting to major in Greek at college: Neither you nor the professor knows how you’ll react until you’re actually studying it. Your job as the interviewing manager is to make it absolutely clear to the people who DO seem to match up with your numbers-based, process-based approach, that there are terms on which you will part company. Make it clear to them not only “what makes you successful around here,” but also “what gets you fired around here.”

Sales is, at the end of the day, a performance-based role. Salaries have to be paid. The numbers have to add up. The forecasts have to be accurate. So let candidates who “make the cut” know what your reasonable, numbers-based expectations are in two key areas:

1. The daily numbers that matter (dials, appointments, active prospects, etc.).
2. The timeframe that will apply for hitting specific income targets

Let your new salespeople know that their initial goal should not be to exceed your expectations in these areas, but simply to meet them. That will be sufficient for a good start at your company. Send the clear message to your new hires that reasonable people strive for reasonable things, and unreasonable people don’t.

Hire slow. Fire fast.

DEI Sales System, 6-9 Trinity Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. Tel: +353-1-6177890

www.dei-sales.ie sales@dei-sales.ie

Myth #1: The longer you hold onto a prospect the “warmer” it gets. The opposite is in fact true –that is, once the normal sales cycle is passed. Everybody could buy. But only a small percentage actually do buy now. Most salespeople spend too much time dealing with dead prospects. We hold onto prospects until we hear “no” but we never actually hear no! Prospects have a habit of not letting you know that they are “dead.” So, you have to have a rule for it. It’s called your sales cycle. It’s the date you start to worry that this sale is not going to happen. Drop the dead prospects. (By the way, this myth usually takes the form of “every prospect is different; it depends!”).

Myth #2: I don’t need to prospect – anymore. Why? Because I have “built up” so many prospects already. Well, the reality is most of your prospects are long dead. You just failed to spot it. You should have replaced them. You should have replaced them four weeks ago, eight weeks ago. Now it’s too late. You need to prospect all the time. All you need to know is the number of times to prospect. And there’s a right and wrong number.

Myth #3: Salespeople need to be optimistic: And isn’t it interesting that most sales forecasts are equally optimistic! The sales graveyard is littered with the hopes of optimistic salespeople. We depend on sales to happen based on the slimmest of evidence. “We’re certainly very interested. This looks like something we could use” ends up as a forecasted sale. Then we find that we’re 30% off forecast – every month. Work only with prospects who are working with you. Stop working with people who say the right things, but are not doing the right things to move forward. Be realistic rather than optimistic. You’ll have fewer prospects but (far) more sales.

The sales graveyard is littered with the hopes of optimistic salespeople.

Myth #4: I only deal with “qualified” prospects. Qualification! One of the great myths of selling. Follow this myth and you end up asking people to confirm in advance that they will buy by asking “qualifying” questions and then believing what you hear. You then attach the highest percentage possible to the forecast. The sale doesn’t happen. You’re shocked. “He sounded qualified to me!”

The ensuing discussion takes up three-quarters of the sales meeting. Qualifying is short-cut selling. It’s for amateurs who want only the easy sales. What most people call qualification should really be called list-building. Stop confusing list-building with qualification. Qualification is selling. Stop trying to find people who “promise” to buy before you start to sell.

Myth #5: You can only sell to people who “need” you. Amateurs sell only to people who need them – the easiest people to sell to. Professionals sell on a different level. They look for what people are doing and then help them to do it better. They get the extra sales from the people to whom it made sense to use your service – now – based on helping them do something better. There are a lot more people out there doing things that they could do better – using you – than there are people who know they need what you sell. Needs-based selling will get you some sales; it never gets you enough.

Myth #6: Selling is a numbers game. Does anyone know what this actually means? Which number are we talking about? Selling is not a numbers game. It is in fact, a ratios game, based on the right numbers rather than a lot of numbers. Professional salespeople know the difference intimately because they know their ratios.

Selling is not a numbers game. It is in fact, a ratios game.

Lesson #1: Most salespeople are very able, well-meaning people who end up operating to a set of myths and tricks of the trade rather than a logical proven process. And, because most sales “professionals” have never been educated in selling – never mind trained – they end up with too many tricks and too little trade.

Lesson #2: Be careful what sales training you use and re-evaluate your own internal training or even the training that you give yourself. Training can often reinforce bad habits, except it usually takes the passive form of “it was good to hear the basics again.” It’s often these mythical – and unchallenged – “basics” that are causing your sales team to be unproductive.

…because most sales “professionals” have never been educated in selling – never mind trained – they end up with too many tricks and too little trade.

Lesson #3: Before you try to train or re-train anyone, think first about education and re-education! Salespeople who operate to the myths outlined above, have had a poor sales education rather than poor training and need to educate themselves in a proven, transparent selling process.

DEI Sales System, 6-9 Trinity Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. Tel: +353-1-6177890

www.dei-sales.ie sales@dei-sales.ie

Unless you’re resting in some unusually cosy comfort zone, you probably need to get sales moving. And the chances are, you’re about to make these classic mistakes: do more “marketing”; send out “an email”; do some training; make more calls. They won’t work, or at least not on their own. If it were that simple, the email it took four people and two weeks to organise and that produced at best, two complaints, would have done it for you at this stage. No. Getting sales moving requires a plan that’s a bit more ambitious and process-driven.

Start with the truth

Most sales operations – and managers – are looking at the wrong “sales” data. They are looking at the end result instead of the numbers – and ratios – that get you there. The first thing you need to do is to change the way people report their progress. Get them to show – very clearly – what they have going on at these critical stages ON THE WAY to making the sales.

All over the world, we find that effective salespeople – who can guarantee target – have an “inventory” of between 15 and 20 active prospects in stages 1 to 3. There are numbers! If your salespeople can start using this view of what they have going on, they will start to self-check and self-manage.

Apply this one, tough, unforgiving rule

The above process will not work unless you apply this rule: you can include only those prospects that have given you a date and time to meet (or talk) again. No date. No prospect. And no amount of explanation, bluffing, rambling or pronouncing will make up for not having a prospect who has agreed a date with you. Ask your salespeople this: “In how many diaries does your name appear this morning? If it’s not between 15 and 20, the chances are the targets will not be met and those “forecasts” will remain just guesses, with odds of about one in a million!

By the way, step 1 won’t work, if you don’t – rigourously – apply step 2. You may well have a pipeline system that is not unlike the above, but it’s more than likely full of date-less – and therefore useless and dead – prospects.

Get “Monday Morning” right

“Monday Morning” sales meetings are usually torture – and pointless. They run on vague conversation, vague answers and avoidance behaviour. “It was an OK week”. “You can feel the recession biting. Things are tight”. All English for “don’t expect much from me. See how tough it is. You have to draw a line here. Start asking hard questions. Start looking for date – driven prospects. Ask about numbers. Ask about timelines. Ask these questions:

How many appointments did you set last week? Why that number? Will it be enough?

• When are you going back to see that prospect? Is the time and date set?
• Leaving aside the fact they’re “interested”, who’s likely to say “no” to this deal?
• When you call that prospect right after this meeting, what will be your opening sentence?
• If that deal doesn’t come in, what have you to replace it?
• How much of your diary is already booked up for the next 2 weeks?

The Monday Morning meeting should last all of 30-40 minutes. Look at the pipelines. Ask the questions. Get immediate action. Incite your salespeople a little. Push their “hot” prospects back to “zero”. Watch for the reactions. When they (re)act positively, it’s called “selling”.

Get People to Plan their Sales Meetings (just before they meet the prospect)

A lot of salespeople wing their sales meetings. They jump out of the car, head straight into a meeting, ask a few questions, suggest a “solution” and wait for “yes”. Unless you have proof they planned the meeting – in writing – they probably haven’t. So, get them a planning booklet and get them to write down 4-6 opening questions for each and every meeting. It will transform their own performance with the result that prospects will start to open up and trust them. This is so simple to do, it should be done tomorrow.

Ask your salespeople this: In how many diaries does your name appear this morning? If it’s not between 15 and 20, the chances are that the target will not be met and those “forecasts” are just guesses, with odds of about one in a million!

Is this all a bit “big brother”?

It’s called a sales process. Process and selling have never made good bedfellows, because it’s not in our emotional interest to be too visible or even truthful. But, as the manager or owner, your job is to manage sales performance and that requires rules, numbers and processes. It’s your duty to protect income and therefore you must be able to see how people are planning to hit their target. Don’t apologise for your own job description, which is what happens to a lot of talented and over-worked sales managers. If some people on your team prefer their personal “style” over visibility, you’ll have to call it.

What about personality, style, trust, talent, experience?

That’s what most sales operations run on now. That way the manager is kept in the dark and so are the salespeople. Get a process in place. Teach people to work from the end figure back. Get them to see what they need to do to hit a target, not who they need to be. They are who they are. You can’t change them. But, you can get them to spend their time better and improve their approach. You’ll end up with a far more engaged team, where there is company-wide respect for sales and selling and where the best salespeople make a point of upholding the standards of reporting, planning and activity.

DEI Sales System, 6-9 Trinity Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. Tel: +353-1-6177890

www.dei-sales.ie sales@dei-sales.ie

I’d be surprised if the topic of sales and selling hasn’t been in your conversation of late. Many owners and managers have begun preaching the “sales message” to their salespeople. But, in most cases, it will never go beyond the preaching. Why? Because, unless you have a sales system and a sales process, you’ll end up making a few fast and furious moves that will fade away like New Year resolutions.

What is a Sales System?

Well, it’s not “CRM” or some fancy, complicated and bloated software. There are at least 120 pieces of sales software on the market and very few companies have anything to show for that investment. In fact, most sales operations really don’t use the stuff once it’s installed. Salespeople will only use software if they are certain it will further cloud the manager’s view of what they are doing. Software can be very good at that!

A real sales system gives you 4 things:

1. It gives you a common language that sets the rules and standards that salespeople need to operate to. These are not vague, “it depends on the person” rules. These are agreed between the manager and the salespeople – but set by the manager. In particular, the common language defines what is a prospect and therefore, leads to very accurate forecasting.

2. A real sales system gives you simple and powerful reporting that tells the salesperson and the manager how close they are to hitting the target based on NUMBERS and DATES and not based on opinion, hope or conversation.

3. A real sales system gives you the practical tools for planning and executing sales. Tools that MUST be used in order to consistently deliver the results. Selling is a practical art; the salesperson needs to use certain tools to do it. (Conventional wisdom has it that the “right salesperson” will do it anyway. Interestingly, the “right” salespeople instinctively use these tools).

4. And finally, a real system gets the salespeople to “self check”. It provides a framework for the salesperson to benchmark their performance against key outcomes and leads to small, but significant, daily, weekly and monthly adjustments in activity and skills that leads to stronger pipelines and more consistent results. In a real sales system, the salesperson actually develops into a much stronger performer, with credibility and standing in their marketplace.

Here’s a thought for you:

Most sales operations focus mainly on “how to sell”. Most sales training focuses on “how to sell”. This is the wrong issue. The greatest “skill” a salesperson can possess is knowing how to hit a target – on time. Most salespeople lack this skill, because they never learnt it and mainly because –up to now – they didn’t need to learn it. A sales system ensures your sales operation can hit the targets that have been set. Otherwise, it’s a question of luck and luck is not enough these days!

DEI Sales System, 6-9 Trinity Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. Tel: +353-1-6177890

www.dei-sales.ie sales@dei-sales.ie