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Interviews & Conversations

Three things sales managers must do to ensure sustainable team success

by Paul Sparks on October 3, 2010

Sales Performance International (SPI) is a global leader in helping companies market and sell high-value solutions.

In his role as the director of business development at SPI, Tim Sullivan works with clients to find and capture the best practices of the world’s top performing sales professionals and teams.  He is a co-author of one of the best selling sales books of recent years – “The Solution Selling Fieldbook”.  Tim is based in the SPI offices in Charlotte, North Carolina.

I’ve had a number of conversations with Tim recently when we discussed things sales and selling. During one of these discussions I asked Tim to share his experience working with successful sales managers – and what are the key things managers can do to help their teams excel.

Tim, you regard sales managers – line managers – as critical in effective selling.  Why?

First of all, sales managers today are the lynch pin, the whole keystone if you will in this bridge of sales process and sales as an art form.  They’re the ones that can bring all of this together.  And in fact, when we implement solution selling and sales process for our customers, our first and primary focus is on the first line sales managers.  Because if they can’t take ownership of that process and support and sustain that with their direct sales people or working with customers, then it’s very, very difficult to get the kind of incremental improvement and return on a sustainable basis that we talked about today. 

I understand that you place a high importance on the value of process in the sales function.  Other than this, what factors do you see as being indicative of best practice in sales management?

I think there are three things that managers need to do today that are a little bit different than it was even a few years ago.  First and foremost, sales managers today need to take a hard look at the numbers. To a certain extent, they need to be very rigorous in their analysis of sales pipelines, what’s happening in opportunities and what the skill gaps are in their sales people.  This requires an analytical bent which some mangers are ill equipped for.  Especially if they were high performing sales people before they went into management.  Many of these high flying salespeople – who we refer to as “eagles” – often act intuitively when performing their sales role.  Whilst this approach may assist them in practicing the art of sales – it’s not what they need to be a good manager.

So what can we do about this?  How do you make it possible for an intuitive seller that we promote to manager to have that analytical capability?  Simply – you give them a standard to compare against.  Again, that’s the reason why sales process is so great for managers, because now they can look at those verifiable outcomes and opportunities.  They can look at how it rolls up the entire pipeline and then have some objective criteria for determining how they can analyse the appropriate gaps, either in overall performance or in individual opportunities or in individual sales person.

So first and foremost, provide managers with the tools, the processes and the standards to be able to do that kind of analysis objectively and be able to use that as a basis for improving their sales team. 

And – if I recall correctly – a second important item is coaching? Continue Reading…

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Lessons for selling in good – and bad – times

by Paul Sparks on August 25, 2010

Neil Rackham has built a strong international reputation in the global business community as a speaker, writer, and seminal thinker on sales force effectiveness.

Three of his books have appeared on the New York Times best-seller list, and his works are translated into over 50 languages.  Recently he has been named by the Speaker’s Bureau as one of 2009’s ‘9 Business Speakers you need to know’, and was included in The Speakers Group list of ‘8 High-impact Speakers’.He is Visiting Professor of Sales and Marketing at Portsmouth University and a Visiting Professor at Cranfield University.

I’ve had a number of conversations with Neil recently, and one of the topics which I know many have asked to hear about is “lessons from past recessions”.  In this discussion, Neil outlines 3 things that salespeople and sales managers should focus on – in good times as well as bad.

Neil, could you please give us some background about recessions of the past – and things we should focus on in more difficult times?

Let me start by just talking about the specifics of the selling in the economy we’re in, because that’s a good starting point.  It so happens if you look at people selling today, less than 20% of them had ever before sold in a real recession.  It’s a sign of how long that prosperous boom went on.

And now, we’ve got to the point where, frankly, people are making a lot of mistakes.  And I’ve gone into my research files.  In the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s even, I did a lot of foundation research into what makes people successful in selling.  As it turns out, a big piece of that was done in a fairly bad recession, particularly the recession of the 1980s.  And I’ve gone back into those research files and looked at the mistakes people made.  And I’m just going to raise those as an opener here.  Because I think exactly those same mistakes are being made by sales people, sales managers, and by sales forces all across the world today.  And I’d like to in particular raise three of them and talk about why they’re such problems and what to do about it.

So let me being with number one.  In hard times, sales people try harder.  Now, that doesn’t sound as though that’s a particular sin.  That sounds like it’s a sensible thing to do.  They try to be more active, to make more calls, to knock on a few more doors, to try to open up more opportunities, because that seems the best way of dealing with hard times.  We haven’t got enough business going in, so let’s go out and beat the streets for a bit more. 

Well, the issue is – what’s wrong with that?  Because you might think that’s actually the smartest strategy you could adopt.  In fact, in certain cases, it is.  We did studies in the recession of the ‘80s, where, for example, we had one company in New York that was selling office supplies. They had a new Vice President of Sales who said – I want you to make twice as many calls a day.  And in fact, sales went up by 40%.  So, in that case, the strategy of let’s go out and make more calls, let’s work that bit harder, turned out to be very, very successful.

But, now let’s look at some other cases.  What we found is that if you’re in a very large sale – the kind of sale which usually can’t be completed in one call, and in fact may make two, three, or five calls to complete – things are different.  When you make more calls, you actually reduce your sales.  We did studies of this in Motorola and found that happening there.  We looked at it in a dozen other companies.  The same thing happened.  Continue Reading…

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Finding hidden talent in your sales team

by Paul Sparks on November 19, 2009

Selling is a role that puts people on the line day after day.

Developing relationships is an important part of the role, and certainly sales come more easily when there is an existing relationship in place.  The challenge, though, is getting that relationship started and asking for the first appointment, and, eventually, the first order.

Personal rejection is part and parcel of the selling process, and, depending on how they view it, salespeople may feel uncertain and vulnerable when putting themselves in the path of rejection.  They may feel that they aren’t as in control as they look, or that they don’t know as much as others think.  They may feel like fakes and frauds, afraid that they will expose themselves as not good enough in some way.  These feelings can get in the way of confidently assessing customer needs, and matching them with the products and services the salesperson offers.

Suzanne-Mercier

I’ve been speaking with Suzanne Mercier from Imposterhood™ who is now out talking and writing about the “disease” that led her to sabotage her career and business development efforts over the past 30 years.  She wants others to understand and overcome these feelings of doubt they can get – so they don’t do the same.

Suzanne had a stellar career in fast moving consumer goods marketing, and in advertising.  In fact, she was the first woman on the Board of George Patterson Advertising.  She knows first-hand how we can look good while our feet are paddling furiously under the water.  I’ve asked her to share how the Imposter Syndrome – yes, there’s a name for it – can impact the performance of sales people and sales managers, and some of the things you can do to overcome this potential derailer.

Thanks Suzanne.

Suzanne, can you please give us some background on the Imposter Syndrome?

In 1978, two psychologists,  Drs. Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes, identified the Syndrome when high performing academic women studying for their PhD’s and Masters degrees were stressed and fearful about failing upcoming exams and theses.  These women felt like fakes and frauds.  They believed that others saw them as far more intelligent than they felt and put their prior successes down to good luck or some personal characteristic such as charm or attractiveness.  They focussed on their failures and weaknesses rather than their successes and strengths.  These women were successful – they just couldn’t, or wouldn’t acknowledge it.  And if they grudgingly admitted their success most were concerned about how they could maintain this success, and pull the rabbit out of a hat again.

This inability to accept and embrace our success as being the fruit of our efforts, talents and qualities, means that we can’t build on what we’ve achieved.  We constantly have to prove ourselves over and over again.

It affects men and women equally, and differently.  For men who generally have been raised to be the breadwinners and to keep the financial roof over the head of the family, success is expected.  Men are often taught to “fake it ‘til they make it”.  Their fear is of failure – of not living up to the expectations others and society has of them.

Women, on the other hand, are still the ones who have to have the children, generally raise them and juggle multiple roles now that they want it all.  They recognise that having it all comes with a price and that they may not have everything balanced and quite the way they want it if they are successful in their careers.  While they also fear failure, their greatest fear is that they will be successful and will have to pay a price beyond an acceptable level.

Broadly, the impact of the Imposter Syndrome on men is that they will put on a front, covering up their fear of failure.  Commonly, they won’t let anyone else know what’s going on inside.  They’ll go for it, produce the results and live with the stress of their “secret” – that they’re really not good enough.  Women are more likely to talk about it when they finally recognise what’s going on.  They are more likely to sabotage their efforts to avoid the success that may come with too high a price tag.

Now the shocking news. Continue Reading…

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The 5 essential steps to building a world class sales team

by Paul Sparks 13 November 2009

Julian Griffith is the Managing Director and founder of The Good Peanut.   A specialist in sales force development, his focus is on working with business leaders intent on building world class sales teams within their organisations – no matter the size of the company. Julian has held senior sales and management roles in the UK [...]

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How to recruit and train great telephone salespeople

by Paul Sparks 11 August 2009

One of the reactions by sales leaders to the changing business environment we’ve experienced over the last 12 months has been a “back to basics” move – especially in relation to a renewed focus on some of the fundamental skills of professional selling.  This is not surprising given that the buoyant times we experienced over [...]

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Networking skills all salespeople need

by Paul Sparks 6 August 2009

 Julia Palmer is joining me in August 2009 as one of 10 presenters at the upcoming Sales E-Conference – “selling from recession to recovery”. Julia is leading the face to face revolution.  As Managing Director of BConsulted, Australia’s leading business relationship consultancy, Julia and her team work with organisations of all sizes to help people [...]

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The seven key elements of a marketing plan for salespeople

by Paul Sparks 5 August 2009

Sharon Williams is one of Australia’s leading thinkers in the emerging field of integrated marketing and PR.  With her team at Taurus Marketing, not only does she work with some of our largest corporations – she also brings her knowledge and experience to the SME sector.  Sharon is also widely sought after as a speaker [...]

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