Sales Coach

Did you listen to last week’s episode? 

At the time of recording, it’s MHA 2021.

And that’s a really big deal. 

Last week, we talked about why sales under current working conditions is big source of stress to many people.

When your people overly-worry, they can become unproductive which means they can’t or don’t play a participative and productive part in your business and when that happens, your business plan goes out the window.

So what is your business plan? It’s the thing that everyone should be working from at all times.

Strangely, there is a pervasive view that the business plan is only for people who design and lead strategy.

But it’s not. The business plan is the blue-print for everyone in the sales org who executes the strategy, whether that’s Managers, BDR, XDR, SDR, AE, Inside Sales, Renewals, PreSales, Customer Success etc.

Furthermore, I like to think that when people are responsible for a slice of your business, that they should have a plan for that slice of your business however small.

It’s not having a business plan that counts.

It’s having a plan for your business that counts.

In this week’s episode:

How to create a simple business plan you can work from 

How to use it in conjunction with a Kanban board

Where using tools like Mural or Miro can help

Why getting your team to present a business plan makes sense

Listen now (Link in comments)

Sales is a tough business.

When you think of sales, you might think of ‘grit’, ‘resilience’, ‘crushing it’ and all that language.

We want people who ‘keep on keeping on’.

But we also need people who know when to:

Get off

Walk away 

Take a break

Take time out

Reach out

Ask for help

Sadly, many of us don’t. 

I lost a sales colleague to stress 14 years ago. 

Young guy. 28. Heart attack brought on by stress and no one saw it coming.

Quite a few people I have known have packed sales in and tried careers less demanding. You probably know people like this.

With the pandemic, people are working from home or working under difficult conditions, things are perhaps harder than ever.

It’s May, so it’s mental health awareness month.

It’s the perfect time to talk about the thing many of us would rather not talk about.

In this week’s episode:

• Costs of stress
• Causes of stress
• Signs of stress
• What to do about it

As a sales manager, you know what sales pipeline is but what about talent pipeline? Who are the people who are going to drive your sales pipeline? Where are they going to come from? How are you going to identify them, shortlist them, screen them, interview them, recruit them - listen to that list, all those pieces, those activities and that’s just for one hire?

It gets worse - what happens if you make a good hire but it takes months to achieve TTP - that is a big chunk out of your coverage? What if you make a bad hire - just to get someone in the door, it can take months to recognise you’ve made a bad call - you’ve got to manage that person out and start all over again - that’s if you’ve still got your job!

We never get the sales people we deserve. We get the sales people our talent pipeline (or the lack of a talent pipeline) produces.

It’s the same recipe for sales pipeline - what goes into the funnel is indicative of what comes out of the pipeline and that’s in direct proportion to the volume of what we are putting into that pipeline, the value of what’s in that pipeline, the velocity with which it moves through the pipeline

In this week’s episode:

What we mean by talent pipeline

How to build a talent pipeline

The cost of not having a talent pipeline

Most of your sales team learn that customers don’t buy when it suits the sales person.

Customer buy for their reasons, on their terms, in their timeframe. Right? 

So sales depends on a whole bunch of things outside your control, but following up is one things that’s definitely in your control.

You need your sales team to follow up not give up. Highly effective sales people know that ‘no’ does not mean ‘never’, it just means ‘not right now’.

I was reminded of that this last month when I was coaching an AE in Barcelona who was despondent that a highly-valued prospect had postponed an important decision. The AE was trying pressure tactics to reengage but it wasn’t working.

We had a chat and came up with 7 different things he could do to keep top of mind by following up persistently but professionally. One of his ideas yielded results and he got the meeting rebooked. That’s what I mean.

The ‘art of the follow up’ is the art of not giving up and that’s what today is all about

In this week’s episode:

What we mean by follow up

How to personalise your follow up

How automation can help with results

The importance of variety and giving

The essence of keeping on keeping on

How and why to keep adding value       

Check out the episode now!

Are you building a #remote sales team - digital sales / virtual sales / hybrid / full-stack? 

What kind of structure do you need?

What kind of org structures exist?

What is your strategy to start and build your inside sales functionality?

Today’s guest is Pradeepa kolli who is going to share her tips from starting and running Inside Sales teams at Polaris, Avnet, Infoblox, Xirrus and Nutanix.

Pradeepa is Head of Global SDR/Inside sales over at Workplace from Facebook with responsibility for building Enterprise Inside Sales team.

In this week’s episode:

How Pradeepa has built her teams up in different orgs

What she recommends when hiring new team members

How to develop them and challenge them

Which systems to put in place in each wave of growth

What kinds systems, meetings and structures in your first 6 months

What do you think when you hear the word ‘discount’?

Well that all depends on whether you are a buyer or a seller!

If you are running a sales team, the last thing you want to hear is your sales people discounting without getting something in return.

There are three reasons why sales people discount too quickly:

- It’s their default position - no creativity

- they don’t know any better - no training

- they’re allowed or encouraged to - no discipline

If you discount, you have given me a reason to discount what you say which means that I will never see value in the full price.

If you discount, you have trained me to ask for a discount every time which means that I learn to ask for a price below the full price.

You really don’t want that, do you?

When you get your sales team to come up with real points of value and to put some thought into their negotiating position before they negotiate - they will not have to resort to discounting.  

In today’s episode:

Why discounting is usually a bad idea

Why BATNA and ZOPA are important

How you should use a concession sheet

4 positions from which to trade value

Check out the episode now!

#Account Executive #AE #Salestraining #digital sales #inside sales #BDR #Salestips  

#salesmanager #saleleaders

Do people recommend you and your business?

Would you like people to recommend you?

How do you get them to recommend you in a way that yields results?

I give a good 20% commission on any sales training / coaching that that closes

It’s a fair chunk but it works and it has to be in both parties interests

2020 recommendations not referrals brought me in 26-28% of sales last year. 

2 people in particular recommended the right service to the right people in the right way

 A recommendation strategy really works if you make it work and put it to work

In today’s episode:

3 reasons to create a recommendation strategy

The difference between a reference, referral and recommendation

5 steps to leverage recommendations with your team 

Check out the episode now!

#Account Executive #AE #Salestraining #digital sales #inside sales #BDR #Salestips  

#salesmanager #saleleaders

When you hear the term sales competency framework, what comes to mind?

For most sales people, that sounds like a HR term. 

A good competency framework is going to help you to map out the ideal characteristics of the right salesperson.

It’s also going to help you to know when to promote that person and how to review that persons performance.

In today’s episode

The 4 measurements to use

15 characteristics to consider

Three scenarios in which to use the framework

Check out the episode now! (Link in comments)

#Account Executive #AE #Salestraining #digital sales #inside sales #BDR #Salestips  

#salesmanager #saleleaders

Last week, we focused on the kinds of questions you can ask in #Pipeline Reviews and #deal reviews.

We emphasised the fact that great sales coaches approach conversations from a position of ‘appreciative enquiry’.

We ask a coaching question because we are genuinely interested in the person and their response.

What you don’t want is your AE / BDR / SDR to feel that this is an interrogation.

You want your salesperson to be involved and that means being both physically and cognitively present.

Today:

10 great coaching questions to ask in a performance review and 10 more you can ask in a call-review.

The secret is to make these questions your own by practicing them until they sound natural so you want to ask them your way.

Check out the episode now! (Link in comments)

#Account Executive #AE #Salestraining #digital sales #inside sales #BDR #Salestips  

#salesmanager #saleleaders 

I watched a coaching conversation on Teams recently as part of a 9 week program I am running to train sales managers to coach their salespeople.

What was striking was the conversation balance between the manager coaching and the A/E being coached. 

Who do you think did most of the talking? It was the Manager when it should have been her A/E.

Maybe she was conscious of the sound of her voice 

(Perfectly natural)

Maybe she was conscious of people watching & listening 

(Perfectly normal)

Maybe she was struggling to come up with questions to ask 

(Perfectly understandable)

But the consequence was that the A/E being coached was almost uninvolved in the conversation.

We need to remind ourselves that the most important quality of great coaches is curiosity and that means asking insightful questions:

Today:

20 powerful questions to ask in pipeline reviews and deal reviews

Check out the episode now! (Link in comments)

#Account Executive #AE #Salestraining #digital sales #inside sales #BDR #Salestips  

#salesmanager #saleleaders