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Attention Sales Coaches: You need to shut up!

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Coaching, Sales Executives, Sales Managers, Sales Training, Salespeople, Training, Uncategorized 08 Dec 2022 0 comments Tags: growing selling skills, increased sales, priority management, sales leadership

If you’re a sales manager who prides yourself on playing the role of a “sales coach,” one of the most important skills is learning to keep quiet.

Do you get out in the field with your reps enough? Yes? Great. But what happens when do ride-alongs and do some sales calls together?

This is what typically happens:

Sales Manager: “OK Bob. What’s the objective of the next call?”

Bob: “I want to explain how our left-handed widget will help them cut their waste.”

Sales Manager: “Sounds good.”

Bob: “Hi Mr. Customer. Have you got a few minutes? Great. I wanted to tell you about our new product that I think you’re going to really like.”

Sales Manager: “Yes. We’ve spend a bundle on R & D to come up with it. It’s 43% better than the right-handed model. What are you the challenges you’ve been having with the right-handed one?”

BOOM. The Sales Manager is off to the races. He’s now deep in a conversation with the customer while Bob sits there and doesn’t dare interrupt. After the call is over, the Sales Manager asks, “How do you think that went?” to which Bob answers, “Pretty good.” The Sales Manager is thinking, “Darn good thing I was there!”

What kind of quality learning experience is that for the Bob? Hint: Not a very good one.

The first rule for sales coaches is to observe current behaviour. You need an accurate picture of what the rep is doing when you’re not there which you will not get if you take over the call. Far too often I see sales manager’s egos get in the way of good coaching. Sometimes it’s not ego as much as the sales manager’s eagerness to help the customer as much as possible that makes it impossible for them to keep quiet.

Frequently, sales managers tell me, “I can’t just sit there and be quiet. The customer’s expecting me to say something.” While I agree, you can still keep your conversation to a minimum. If a question is directed at you, simply defer it to the rep by saying something like, “Bob’s probably more up to speed on that than me actually.” And then let Bob take it.

I’ve been on calls where the rep has been messing up so badly that I’m practically ready to burst. It almost kills me to keep my mouth shut but I know that I have to. One way of looking at it is this – Bob’s probably messed up a couple dozen calls before this one. What’s one more? You need to have first hand evidence of what he’s doing. Otherwise, you will be coaching in a vacuum.

Instead of talking, a much better use of your time is to take a few notes of what Bob did well and what he can do better next time.

You’ll not only be able to coach more effectively, but Bob is going to look forward much more to your next coaching session!

Happiness Can Lead to More Sales

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Coaching, Sales Executives, Sales Managers, Sales Training, Salespeople, Uncategorized 01 Dec 2022 0 comments Tags: growing selling skills, happiness, increased sales, positive thinking, sales productivity, sales training

Research study shows clear link

Many of you reading this heading might think that it reads backwards. That is, it should state that “more sales will lead to greater happiness!” This notion is intuitive with almost all salespeople receiving a shot of endorphins (the happiness hormone) when they close a sale. A recent study concludes, however, that being happy leads to more sales – 37% more sales in fact according to the author of the Harvard Business Review article, Shawn Achor. A bestselling author of two books on the subject, Achor asserts that a decade of research has shown that a good healthy level of happiness helps people’s careers not only in sales but in productivity by 31%, accuracy on tasks by 19%, as well as myriad of health and quality of life improvements.

You might be asking, “Even if being happy can help sales, how can I just be more happy?” What a great question. Does Northbound have a workshop on happiness? Unfortunately, we don’t, but Achor shares the results of a happiness training program done with the KPMG that proves that a company can teach it’s people how to be happier on the job and off. He also gives tips on how to do it yourself. I’m a firm believer that happiness, like selling skills, can largely be taught. What happened at KPMG in this study supports this.

With just a three-hour introduction to positive psychology and training on how to apply the principles at work, all measured areas improved including life satisfaction, perceived stress, effectiveness at work and work optimism. Even months later, this very short session’s impact was still holding strong. A key component was doing daily exercises which, after 21 days, became a habit.

The exercises were simple:

Write down three new things you are grateful for every day;
Write for 2 minutes a day describing one positive experience you had over the past 24 hours;
Exercise for 10 mins a day
Meditate for 2 minutes, focusing on your breath going in and out
Write one, quick email first thing in the morning thanking or praising a member on your team

I’ve read a lot about cognitive psychology over the years – especially the groundbreaking work of Dr. Aaron Beck – and the themes are consistent with the KPMG study. Every feeling that you have is created by thoughts. Therefore, change your thoughts and you can change your feelings – including happiness.

The incredibly compelling part of focusing on gratitude, positive experiences and kindness is that once you train your brain to change the pattern of how it works, you get better results. When you get better results, you have even more great stuff to focus on which leads to more happiness. More happiness leads to greater results and the cycle continues.

Unfortunately for many of us in sales, it can become a downward spiral just as quickly. Focusing on the sale you missed, on the sales manager who is annoying you, or on the prospect who was rude can create, as Zig Ziglar calls it, “stinkin’ thinkin‘”. Happiness and attitude go south and so do your sales. They feed off each other and before you know it, you’re in a miserable slump. Don’t let this happen to you!

Print out the 5 daily actions and start today turning them into habits. A very small commitment of your time will pay tremendous dividends in both your happiness and your sales performance. It could very well end up being the greatest investment you ever made!

3 Sales Success Ingredients

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Coaching, Sales Executives, Sales Managers, Sales Training, Salespeople, Training, Uncategorized 22 Nov 2022 0 comments Tags: consultative selling, growing selling skills, increased sales, positive thinking, sales leadership, sales management, sales productivity, sales training, sell more in less time, selling skills

There are some common ingredients among top sellers.

Sugar and spice and everything nice is what the nursery rhyme says little girls are made of but what are the ingredients for sales success? There are three as well, but you can’t simply buy them at the grocery store like you can sugar and spice.

The three key components that you need to have in good measure are 1) Activities 2) Skills and 3) Attitude. Strikingly different from each other, they are rarely found together in the right proportion. Each one deserves some specifics.

Activities – Activities are like the sugar. The more you have, the sweeter the reward! A great salesperson needs to understand what the key activities are that lead to sales success and then do lots of them. Are you taking the proper actions that move buyers through the pipeline? For most salespeople in traditional sales, these would include things such as leads generated, referrals received, outbound touches such as calls & emails, meetings set and proposals delivered. For social selling, the activities could be posts, new connections made or conversations scheduled.

Skills – Skills are like adding spice to the selling process. Without it, your activities will be bland. (OK – I’m stretching a bit to make the metaphor work.) You need to possess the skills to make your prospecting activities effective and turn them into meetings. You need to know how to manage your time, set & manage goals, adjust your selling style to the customer, do a great discovery meeting, present solutions, handle objections, move the buyer towards commitment and so on.

Attitude – This is the equivalent of “everything nice” because recent research clearly shows that having a positive attitude brings, on average, 34% greater sales. See my recent post “Happiness Can Lead to More Sales” for more detail. Without a positive attitude, you will be stopped in your tracks when you hit the inevitable challenges that selling involves. A positive attitude ensures that the other two ingredients, activities and skills, are sustainable.

Do you really need to have all three of these to excel in sales? Yes and no. I’ve worked with many salespeople who make a decent living with 2 out of the 3. For instance, I remember one very personable individual who I’ll call Marty who was part of my first client’s sales team. Marty had a positive attitude. He always had a smile and a high level of confidence. He was also pretty skilled. Even before training, he could clearly make effective prospecting calls and did a decent job in meetings too. He made a good six figure income. So what’s the problem? Maybe nothing except that he could have done so much better if he had the third ingredient: activities. To be blunt, he was lazy. He would go for 2 hour lunches at least a few times a week. At 5 o’clock, you’d better not be standing near the door for fear of Marty running you over on his way out. I did an analysis of Marty’s funnel and conversion rates and found that for him to earn $15,000 more that year, which was his goal, he only had to spend 45 more minutes prospecting per week. You might ask, who wouldn’t put 9 more minutes in per day to make 15 grand more? Maybe you would but not Marty. It didn’t happen because Marty was in the “comfort zone” and refused to do any additional activities.

On the other hand, I’ve seen some who have have an incredible work ethic, doing massive amounts of activities with wonderfully positive attitudes but have only moderate skills. Fortunately, these people have the best chance of improving their income from a sales development program because skills are easier to change than the other two ingredients.

Each of these 3 ingredients can be developed to varying degrees. Your takeaway action is to set a goal for the next 12 months how you’re going to grow each of them. After that, make a list of things that you can do in the next 30 days to get you started. The last step is to schedule an action that you will take tomorrow.

By focussing on the fine balance of these key ingredients, you will experience everything nice that a great career in sales can bring!

Should You Leave a Voicemail When Prospecting?

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Coaching, Sales Executives, Sales Managers, Sales Training, Salespeople, Uncategorized 12 Oct 2022 0 comments Tags: cold calling, consultative selling, growing selling skills, increased sales, prospecting, sales productivity, sales training, selling skills, voicemail messages

Why you need to leave a voicemail every time.

I’m frequently asked this question and my typical response is, “Why wouldn’t you?” The answers I get back range from “They’ll never call me back so why bother” to “If I leave a message, they’ll know why I’m calling the next time and won’t pick up.” Both are bad answers. With the current work-from-home movement, it’s even more rare for someone to be at their office desk. And we all know that mobile phone numbers are often hard to come by. Here’s why some objections from salespeople to leaving voicemails don’t hold up.

“They’ll never call me back.” – WRONG!

This just isn’t true. Our own statistics plus statistics from our clients who we’ve trained to leave voicemails all point to the same thing. Some prospects will call you back. While many won’t, some will and some is much better than the “none” who will call you back when you don’t leave a voicemail.

Naturally, the more clear, concise and compelling your message is, the greater the chance of a callback. Our research has shown that callbacks can increase dramatically with the right technique and skill.

But there’s an equally powerful reason to leave a voicemail. Even in the cases where it doesn’t lead to a callback, you are able to get your message through to the buyer. You are able to convey the reasons why it makes sense for them to have conversation with you. When you are able to convincingly speak of how you’ve helped others solve problems that they might have, it can cause them to sit up and take notice. Just as in advertising, you’re making a “impression” on the buyer and for people to take action, they often need multiple impressions.

“If I leave a message, they’ll know why I’m calling the next time and won’t pick up.” – WRONG!

The notion that catching a prospect off guard will somehow help you engage with them seems very flawed to me. Question: Would you be more likely to have a conversation with someone if you a) knew what they were calling about and b) think that they might be able to help you resolve a challenge? Of course you would. And your prospects are no different.

When you catch someone completely off guard, their automatic internal knee-jerk response will likely be something like, “It’s a salesperson. I’ve got to get them off the phone.” They will be far less likely to think about what value you might bring to them. If, however, you’ve already touched them with your value proposition several times like you can with your voicemails, there will be a higher likelihood of agreeing to a brief conversation.

If you haven’t been leaving voicemails when prospecting, start today. As with all your selling skills, you’ll want to practice again, again and again until you sound smooth and natural. You will instantly see both the number of connections increase as well as the quality of your conversations.

Northbound’s “Connecting to the Big Cheese” workshop will teach you and your team how to be master this critical selling skill. For pricing or more info, contact Craig Brandys, Vice President of Sales at [email protected].

To Sell More, Ask Questions and Listen!

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Sales Coaching, Sales Training, Salespeople 12 Oct 2022 0 comments Tags: sales questions, sales results, sales training

No talking

A good fellow sales training friend of mine, Jack Daly, always says that the shortest course on selling is “Ask questions and listen.” Having trained thousands of salespeople, although most of us know intuitively that this simple strategy makes sense, it’s not done in the real world often enough. Like any habit, the pattern of “Let me tell ya. Let me tell ya” is tough to break.

I love feedback, good and bad, from participants of Northbound’s “Goal Aligned™ Selling” programs. I just received an email from a sales manager that was forwarded to him by one of his team. Knowing how much we can help salespeople build their careers and, in this case, help them personally, is what drives me more than anything at Northbound. Our sales training works!

“I have applied some of the strategies learned in class on recent site visits and have had a positive experiences. Asking proper and relevant questions, using Northbound’s 0-10 competitor’s rating system. Listening without interrupting, understanding customer’s needs and problems. Even when this customer rated our competitor 9 out of 10 I uncovered that the customer was interested in a direct one person contact, thus allowing me the opportunity to look after his jobs directly and having his staff calling me as the one person. In the last two weeks, we have 3 orders placed and prior to that have not done any business since 2019. We learned one of the key points in training was to probe and uncover problems, and leverage any competitor deficiencies.

All in all it’s a new way for me to look at and approach day to day interactions.”

To look into a complimentary live workshop for you or your sales team, reach me at 416.456.1440 or [email protected]. Check out northboundsales.com/training/

Objection Handling: 3 Steps to dealing with “I’m happy”

It’s one of the most common objections you’ll get … and one of the most difficult to deal with.

You’ve Heard It Before:

Objections come in different sizes and shapes which makes objection handling a difficult skill to master. You will get different objections when prospecting than you will when presenting solutions and you need to be able to handle the common ones in a smooth and skillful manner. A tough objection when attempting to set meetings is the dreaded, “We’re happy with our current vendor” which might also come in the form of “We’re good right now” or even “We don’t have any need.” In this article, I’m going to provide you a 3 step process for handling these.

Goal Aligned Selling

Let’s be clear. There may actually NOT be any need. They might actually have a solution in place that is superior to anything else out there. While these situations MAY exist, they are rare. The sad fact is that in many cases, your solution IS better but you never got the chance to find out for sure. Objection handling is often a case of additional communication of the facts.

It’s a problem that is often precipitated by poor sales techniques. Why does this happen? In a nutshell it’s caused by the prospect not believing they have any problems with their current solution vendor that warrants attention. Logically, if they knowingly had a problem with their current vendor, they’d probably be calling you instead of you calling them!

In a recent workshop, I asked this question: “Who believes that there are potential customers out there who have problems that you can solve but that the customer doesn’t even know they have?” As you might expect, every person in the room threw their hand up. They are 100% right.

Find Problems:

The overall strategy here is to find some problems. If there is no problem, there is no opportunity. Sometimes I get pushback from people on the use of the word “problem” noting that their product or service provides an “opportunity” for the customer to do better than they are right now rather than there being a “problem” necessarily. While I don’t disagree, we’re really just looking at the same coin from a different side.

Northbound’s sales development program is named “Goal Aligned Selling™” because our entire methodology revolves around helping the customer achieve their goals. When a customer perceives a gap between where they are and where they’d like to be, “tension for change” is created. Only when this tension for change exists, will the customer be motivated to explore a possible change to the status quo. The diagram above illustrates the concept.

Naturally, a very direct way of course is to just ask the buyer what problems they have. You could come right out and say something to the effect of this.

You: “So, what problems do you have with your existing vendor?”

It’s not likely, however, that the customer is going to a) know all the problems they have or b) serve them up to you on a silver platter. Instead you’ll hear something like this:

Customer: I really don’t have any. Thanks for your call.

A better way to approach this is to use this 3 step strategy:

1. Establish what the customer is trying to accomplish in the key result areas.

2. Probe for areas where there might not be 100% satisfaction.

3. Help them see that they might be able to do better in the key result areas than they are right now.

Executing this strategy can be quite challenging and requires more detail than I have for this post. I will follow this up shortly with some specific ways of implementing this strategy with your prospect.

Happy Selling

Michael

Partnership Opportunity

Posted by: Michael Caron In: Partership, Sales Executives, Sales Managers, Sales Training, Salespeople, Training 30 Apr 2018 0 comments Tags: business opportunity, growing selling skills, partnership, sales management, sales training, selling skills

Partnership Opportunity with Northbound Sales Training

Some of the benefits of this unique opportunity are:

Earn equity in a thriving business
No corporate BS
Earn a well above average income
Unlimited upside to growth potential
Close collaboration with the Founder
Your opinions will be listened to and integrated into potential solutions
Management opportunities in various roles as best suited to you as we grow

Northbound Sales has been providing cutting edge sales building programs to sales teams across North America for 10 years. Past and current clients include Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, Choice Hotels, Rogers Publishing and Aeroplan. Our typical clients are Vice-Presidents of Sales, Sales Directors and Sales Managers of mid-to-large sized companies with direct B2B sales forces.

Our training programs have been developed, refined and proven. We have metrics to prove it! Selling tools and techniques have been built and tested. Now I’m looking for a very special individual to become my partner and help dramatically scale the business to be a major player in the billion dollar North American B2B sales training market.

Some requirements you should have are:

Minimum 3 years in B2B sales management or 3 years in sales training
Interest in investing in a business for equity participation
Existing relationships with prospective sales organizations who could use our services
Experience selling to sales organizations with advanced sales techniques

If you like the idea of working in a fun, flexible, entrepreneurial environment – if you absolutely love sales & have no call reluctance – if you want to get in at the ground level of a growing business, then this role might be the right one for you.

If you know of someone who would be a great fit, pass along their name and if they end up as the partner we’re looking for, we will pass along a $500 referral fee to you.

If you’d like to explore this opportunity further, please contact Michael Caron at [email protected] or 416.456.1440.

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