Whether you are fan of the TV show or not you may be familiar with one of the basic plot lines on Star Trek. Imagine it, a lonely star ship travelling through the emptiness of space. As you watch, you are transported into the lives of the command centre of the ship where the solitary figure of the Captain sits contemplating – perhaps pensively with his hand stroking his chin – a screen of… well, space. Suddenly a light bulb flashes on a console and an unknown ensign will turn around and say something on the lines of “Captain, our long range sensors have picked up an unidentified vessel bearing bla bla bla bla…” etc. What does this mean? Is this vessel friendly? Do we need to alter our course? Shall we raise shields and arm photon torpedoes?*

You get the picture, but what does this have to do with sales qualification? Well, that depends on our definition of sales qualification and how it is used. If I had to write a definition – and thankfully I don’t have to – I would write something on this line. “Sales Qualification – the process of collecting and assimilating information about a particular sales situation so that decisions can be made on further action” – short and to the point. In such a scenario I would liken the act of qualification to the long range scanners upon the star ship – when a sales lead first becomes known to a sales person, that lead takes the place of the unidentified vessel – “Captain, our long range sensors have picked up a sales lead”. Instantly we spring into action, we need to qualify this further to ascertain whether we need to alter course and pursue it. Is it a positive or negative lead ie: is it a strong possibility that it will end in a sale or will it distract and sap our strength? (It is only in passing – because it has been concentrated on in more depth by my other SBU colleagues – that I mention there are some who will pursue absolutely anything that appears on their radar, the equivalent of changing course arming phasers and firing as soon as a lead appears as a blip on the sales sensor)

But is that the end of the story? Should we roll credits and sign up the stars for the next Star Trek convention happy in the knowledge that we have shot another stellar episode of a hit sci-fi series? Of course not. Because in the story, that vessel has its own captain (our customer) with its own agenda. It is following its own course and isn’t just going to stay where it was initially discovered. It may turn hostile at the last minute and spring a surprise attack or may change course and need to be chased. The ships sensors don’t suddenly stop when the initial discovery is made; it becomes ever more important in monitoring changes in behaviour and actions so that the situation is always up to date. This is true in sales situations as well, especially in B2B where sales cycles and processes can be very much longer, for example, recently I was made aware of a sale that was created from a sales lead that was generated years previously but for various reasons changes in circumstances made the reality of an opportunity that more likely now. Only in keeping that long range sensor working could we allow for this opportunity to be pursued when the right circumstances came about.

To an extent all sales people have this ability – to varied levels of success – to qualify changing situations in order to move sales cycles along (those that don’t won’t last long). We all have an ability to read situations and react to changes, but here is where the science of sci-fi really has the advantage. In our story, the star ship has a memory bank where it stores information. Supposing, in our encounter with our vessel, we discover that we are dealing with a known entity – perhaps an alien race. In such situations, the captain draws from all the ships memory banks in understanding how best to deal with an opposite number – this data is created from all past encounters. In B2B sales this is just as important, we need to draw upon all our past experience in understanding patterns in how our clients do business so that we can steer our businesses in the right direction. Our past actions can draw up a picture of things that we don’t at first take in or notice, so that after a while we can see patterns in behaviour, how a business transacts and other subtle signs that we can draw inference and aid our knowledge.

The human ability to learn and evolve is unparalleled; however it is limited by memory and subjectivity. Without the conviction in recording what we have learnt we cannot hope to learn all there is to be learnt. Qualification is a continuing mission to seek out new sales situations and to learn from them not just for yourself but for your entire organisation.

*By now you may realise that I have watched a few episodes…but I would like to clarify that I am not in any way a “Trekkie” and therefore should be in no way regarded as strange or geeky….at least not for that.

Popularity: 11% [?]

If you are looking for ‘easy’ sources of business then I suppose ‘referrals’ aren’t going to be your cup of tea….but then again, if you are looking for easy sources of business then you aren’t likely to find the answers here at all.

In one sense, getting referrals is the most valuable source of leads for your business as recommendations are pre-qualified leads with a head start on any rivals for your business. By their nature a referral may be an introduction of your services to someone to whom the search for solutions has not yet happened. In such cases the position of strength in being backed up by a powerful ally is added to in connecting with a prospect at the very beginning of the sales process where alternatives to your services haven’t been researched. A referral at such a stage in the sales process gives a wonderful opportunity to become an established and important mentor to the new prospect and also a favoured candidate to winning new business. The importance of developing relationships from early stages in the sales cycle can’t be over emphasised as it is with most relationships – the more time involved in dealing with a prospect the more value can be given into establishing the business ties between sales person and purchaser. Referral selling is a means in which a chain of meaningful relationships can be created because of the very nature of getting early introductions to new prospects before they have started to look for alternatives.

Now to the difficult part. Getting referrals isn’t easy and requires a constant dedication and a continual source of value to your current client base. Not every client you dedicate your efforts into helping is going to produce referrals and some may never do so.

Firstly, if we look at the process of generating a referral one must have a happy client to get the referral from, but that won’t in itself get a referral. Your happy client must be voluntarily willing to produce the recommendation and also to champion your cause in getting the new business – which bizarre as it seems isn’t always a natural inclination in some customers. If you ask for referrals, then your client may not know the right prospects for your business at the right time… and when they do know someone right for your business it might not occur to them to pass this detail on to you.

One way of getting a referral is to make the objective of getting recommendations a part of your clients work as well. If your client sees getting referrals as beneficial to their business then there is more likelihood of focusing their attention in a way beneficial to you. This is never more so where you are dealing with customers who have partnerships with other companies and individuals. Partnerships, organisations and networks of business alliances are mutually beneficial in referral selling because if you add value to one organisation then the value you add to the next impacts on the first. Therefore, it is within the interests of the first client to get you to add the same value to any of their business partners as it will have a direct benefit to themselves as well.

Popularity: 12% [?]

I have often wondered that for a species that is renowned for evolving and adapting technology over millenia to suit its own needs, why then is there so much resistance to change when it actually happens? In the early 19th century at the height of the industrial revolution there were some who saw the impact of technology in their lives with fear and hatred. One group, and here I have to harken back to my history lessons in school, was called the ‘Luddites’ whose speciality in the face of technological change was to smash the machines that were the cause of their ire.

In my dealings with developing sales technology in SPM and CRM systems I have come accross a few people who have expressed the same fear and resentment to technology in their business environment. This is not just an issue in this field either, the same kind of resistance to change can be seen from anything technological such as the internet, Twitter, Facebook, mobile phones etc. Time and again I here comments like ‘this will never last’ or ‘this doesn’t have the legs to stay the distance’ and ‘I really don’t get this, I don’t think it has any relevance to my business’.

Surely, the point about change is that nothing is going to be the same forever. If you are expecting something to stay the same for a length of time then the world will change around you. Computer technology is one of the fastest changing industries in the world and is growing and changing exponentially – which requires us to have the right attitude in using it. Therefore change and exploration are a key attitude to adopting and using technology in sales especially if it is something you want to continually use to keep up with your ability to do business. It really doesn’t matter whether in a year’s time Twitter is going to be around, or whether the CRM system you are using right now is going to be able to handle the demands of future growth – technology is changing too fast for that. The point is that you are there to use it and to explore and benefit from it and are willing to continuously challenge and find new ways that technology can help you connect with your customers.

As a sales system developer I consider myself one of the most lucky people to be in an industry where change happens at such a fast pace. The beautiful thing about it is that I don’t know what is going to happen next. Think back five or ten years and ask yourself if you predicted how sales technology would be used today? I can’t say for sure where we will be in the next five or ten years but I am eagerly waiting to see and I am keen to explore…

Popularity: 10% [?]

I will admit that ‘follow up’ isn’t one of my strong points. I have a natural tendency to dislike and shy away from doing something that I myself don’t like happening to me. I don’t like being followed… which is basically what follow up calls are all about. In the same way that as a kid I didn’t like my mother checking to see if I had brushed my teeth or put the lid back on the toothpaste or finished tidying my bedroom, I have never been fond of follow up calls which have no basis other than to check to see if I have done what I said I was going to do. Maybe it is because of this very real similarity to parental overseeing that I tend to get petulant in such situations.

I get that one needs to keep in contact with prospective customers to move the sales cycle along yet I find that there are plenty of methods of keeping in contact with someone other than bothering them with what is in effect a pressure call. You want information from me, you want to know whether I am interested or not, you wish to know if I am going to buy your product. What do I get from such a call? Nothing, and it doesn’t matter whether the last call that you made was the most brilliant and friendly conversation that I have had all week because when you call to get a blanket decision from me on your terms when you want – I feel backed into a corner and that is dangerous ground especially if you are following up a cold call.

I have often said (as have many others) that B2B is about relationships. I don’t care how long I have to be in contact with a person as long as that relationship offers mutual benefit. A person may be in contact with you for a very long time before they actually decide that they need your service or product but when they do they have a relationship that they can rely on. One doesn’t start a meaningful relationship by doing all the hard work of finding out a prospective clients problems and discussing ideas to then present an ultimatum for which the answers can only be ‘I am’ or ‘I am not’. Presented with that type of question I am tending to go with the ‘I am not’. End of relationship.

I find that unless I have something that I can offer to the prospective client then a follow up call is generally meaningless. When I do make a follow up call my intention isn’t to ‘get information’ but rather to further the long term goal of developing a relationship. If someone is interested in your product or wants to buy from you then they will let you know and that is a by-product of that relationship. Furthermore, if you develop that relationship then there is more likelihood that further sales will result in the future.

I tend to think that B2B is all about patience. Cultivating relationships requires an almost altruistic approach of giving to the customer in which pressure follow up calls don’t fit in. Too much of what we are seeing today is ‘of the moment’ and focused on the very near short term pipelines of a business… and it shows in methods employed by sales people. It’s a real shame. I am talking to some great people who I really enoy having conversations with but because of such pressurised ways of doing business I am unlikely to speak to them again. Why? Because they followed up and backed me into a corner.

Popularity: 12% [?]

The purpose of business is to find weakness, highlight strengths and improve. So why are we not fully helping those who want to achieve, do so?

If there is anything to be learnt from the ongoing fiasco of the banking industry it surely must be that with targets and pressure to achieve comes the temptation to mask information when it appears that those targets are not going to be met. The creativity that some can go to in order to appear in a better light is actually quite ingenious only mirrored by the lack of understanding or education in bank managers digesting the amount of data and the methods of information input employed by those in their ward.

In sales, the pipeline is the measure of performance and can be used to indicate the strength of individual and company forecasts for revenue, future growth, potential business, conversion rates, lead sourcing etc. As such the sales pipeline is one of the most important pieces of information that a sales manager, CEO, Financial Director or Marketing Director could want. Unfortunately, one of the most prolific reasons why sales pipelines are so ill used or inneffective is the accuracy of the information inputted into the pipeline.

If the sales pipeline is used as a measurement of performance then it is understandable that sales people will knowingly or unconsciously affect the pipeline to make their figures appear more favourable. That has to be one of the side effects to pressurisation of the workforce, especially if the targets that they are set are unrealistic or unachievable. In such a case, the sales person will be tempted to input leads into the pipeline that aren’t in fact leads, will forecast orders that will inevitably slip to the next quarter and over emphasise the probabilities of the opportunities of opportunities down the line. The sad fact is that if the individual sales pipelines are innaccurate this affects the entire company pipeline.

Now take into consideration the time that sales managers have to actually interrogate, search out and verify all the data, how much is taken to determine the accuracy of every individual forecast? What if, and I know this requires a fundemental change in attitude, but what if a company used the sales pipeline as a sales tool for improvement rather than measurement? Would the sales person be more or less afraid to input realistic data? Wouldn’t they want to improve their own performance and learn from their own real information? What if the pressure wasn’t there? What then?

Popularity: 11% [?]

I would first of all state that at school I was diabolically bad at science. I hated it with a passion but as the years have progressed have found every now and again grains of knowledge hidden away that proved that at somepoint I learned at least the rudimentary basics.

Secondly the word ‘burnout’ for me, being someone who rides a motorbike, has completely different connotations. When my back tyre needs changing, my brother-in-law has a little tradition to get a few seconds more ‘wear and tear’ by applying the front brakes and throttling the engine causing the back wheel to spin very fast while the bike stays in one place. This usually results in a huge plume of smoke and a nasty burn mark on the floor. What does this have to do with sales..or even science?

Well, on a wheel burnout there are two things that are appropriate to sales. The resistance of the frictional forces between the surface of the road and the tyre is quite high, the force the engine applies to the wheel overcomes this forcing the two surfaces to slide against each other. Energy from the two surfaces is transferred into heat and the two surfaces burn causing the smoke and the deterioration of the less strong surface, namely the tyre.

According to wikipedia ‘sales burnout’ can be described as “a psychological term for the experience of long-term exhaustion and diminished interest.” In the same way that the friction of two surfaces on the wheel causes heat, the processes of a sales person can also be a process of friction that wears the working parts of individuals both mentally and physically. However, the point surely is that both processes that cause ‘burnout’ are forces actively working against the natural flow of motion.

For a sales person who suffers sales burnout, they are doing something that is causing friction between themselves and their sales objectives. Though sales burnout is a psychological malady the source of friction can be both internal and external eg. a sales person may not like making cold calls but repeatedly does so to get sales leads. The process of doing something he doesn’t like results in loss of positivity and burnout. Another sales person may be proactively engaged in activities but constantly get negative results or negative feedback externally from customers. An over exposure to negative emotions from customers will inevitably lead to loss of confidence.

It is also important to acknowledge that burnout may not be a result of negative emotions at all but an over allocation of resources leading to exhaustion. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can be neither created or destroyed but can be transferred or change forms. As in the tyre burnout, the energy of the two surfaces is lost through heat. So too does the energy of the sales activity as time, mental agility, concentration transfers from the sales person into the project. No sales person has infinite resources and so the application of energy must be proportional to the sales objective otherwise you are expending energy needlessly for little return.

No one gets tired of succeeding and you will rarely see successful sales people suffering from sales burnout because they optimise their effort for the greatest gains and use their greatest strengths to achieve the results they need. Those who suffer from sales burnout must therefore look at the core reasoning why they are losing energy and enthusiasm. If a person doesn’t like cold calling then it must be explored how the problem can be improved by looking at warmer methods, other alternatives of lead generation etc. If a person is over exposed to negative feedback from customers then it must be explored why that is happening.

Too often negativity within sales is accepted as being part of the job and sales organisations and sales individuals need to get out of that mentality. Burnout is in essence an unnatural process where two forces are opposed to one another causing a reaction. Sales like normal motion is a natural process that can flow with very little friction at all.

PS. To all scientists who read this, I apologise for butchering Newtons laws of motion and oversimplifying the first law of thermodynamics.

Popularity: 13% [?]

An ever so slightly provocative title I know… but then if like me you are in the B2B arena then you might agree with it. The word ‘close’ is a negative word in whatever way you look at it. It belongs to a group of words that mean a causal finality that in the B2B world means an end of a process. Close is a destructive word. I close, I quit, I finish, I end, I stop, I bring to an end.

In B2B sales and also in some B2C environments the objective of the business is to obtain more than just a signed contract but a sustainable relationship that will provide over time a mutual benefit between client and vendor. The first sale can be considered the most important part of an initial step in defining a cycle of transactions therefore an initial ‘close’ of the first sale is far from being the last sales action but rather one of the first. Because of this and because B2B often binds companies together, commitment at the latter stage of the first sale isn’t necessarily the hardest part of the overall process. Time in developing excitement and need, mutual benefits and buy in from the necessary decision makers has usually been so well prepared that the natural conclusion of sending out a proposal, getting a signed contract and ‘closing’ the deal is more often than not a natural painless experience.

In B2C direct selling is sometimes very different. Limited time and opportunity means that some sales people have to try and persuade their prospects to buy. In this environment the word ‘close’ can also be negative. Too often I have seen in direct selling the attitude of the sales person change directly after closing a sale. Years ago I used to sell directly as a telesales operative who was incentivised to make more sales with generous commissions. I witnessed some truly amazing closing techniques from the top performing sales people some of which bordered on the immoral and at times aggressive. Pressure selling was all about doing all in your power to close the sale as quickly as possible. Sometimes those that were sold to were disappointed in what they were sold or angry because their expectations weren’t fulfilled or even recieved products completely different to what they thought they had bought. Why? Because the sales person’s responsibility ended when they closed the deal. Some even told me directly that they cared little for what happened after they put the phone down as long as they got their commission. Though this may be one of the negative stories that contributes to the overall demonisation of telesales in general it is unfortunate to say that this shedding of culpability isn’t isolated to telesales alone and have been witnessed in other direct sales channels as well. Those types of sales people close because they ARE quitters.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Us humans are social creatures that actively seek belonging to a group and identifying with common ideas. Scientists explain that this as a product of our evolution from tribalism where being a part of a tribal community and cooperation within the group meant a greater control over territory, resources and food.

I remember watching a programme a few years ago about the pyschology of violence and the research studies that showed some of the sociological reasoning behind why violence happens. One study conducted by Mark Levine experimented with the theory of bystander intervention based around the idea of group association. In the experiment a carefully selected group of people were selected who all supported one particular football team and were exposed to a staged incident where an actor passed by them and pretended to fall in pain with a broken ankle. In some of the incidents the actor would wear the football shirt of the team the participant supported and in others the actor would wear a rival football shirt or unrecognisable shirt. In cases where the actor wore the supported teams shirt almost 75% of the participants responded by helping the injured actor but only 35% helped the actor who wore the rival or unrecognised shirt.

What does this study have to do with running a company? Well, in larger companies where there are clear boundaries between departments this same psychological group mentality can be created within departments. The benefits to building powerful group dynamics within a company are that collective cooperation within the department can be heightened but as the pre-discussed research study shows by creating a group boundary the willingness to cooperate with those outside the department can be dangerously low.

How many times have you heard reasons for a deparments performance failure blamed on those outside the department. “We could not achieve our sales because marketing failed to provide the right leads”, “The marketing department provided the right amount of leads but sales failed to convert them”, “Operations failed to implement the solution because sales over sold our ability to perform the required actions” etc.

With such demarcations between responsibility and culpability such company dynamics can hamper the whole process of offering services to the customer because each department clearly segments their own responsibilty within the whole process and cares little for what happens outside their own remit. In such a case what results is a lack of communication between departments, poor relationships between company personnel and ultimately a disjointed and ineffective sales offering to the customer.

Understanding basic human behaviour is hugely important in keeping the overall company infrastructure working to its optimal limit. In getting departments to work effectively there should be a careful balance between department identity and identity within the company. Changing human psychological behaviour is beyond the capability of a business. Divisions of “us and them” are always going to happen, the question however is how you best nurture that within the company. If employees feel collectively with the entire company then this “us and them” behaviour can be used against the intended target of competition, your competitor. Achieving this can also create a harmonised atmosphere between departments within the company and a collective will to achieve sales.

The moral of the story: All departments should be working for the same goal, therefore they should care equally about the effectiveness of every department and how they relate to them. Understanding the psychological dynamics of human behaviour should be something understood so that cooperation and communication can be achieved. If competition between departments is employed as a performance incentive then it should be carefully managed so as not to foster clear boundaries between groups.

Popularity: 15% [?]

My background is in web design, so I have quite a lot of experience in talking to many businesses about their online marketing potential and their ability to sell their products and services online. It never fails to surprise me that there are still companies of varied sizes, that still don’t see the necessity in maintaining an effective web presence. Quite clearly the effort in creating and developing an interesting, informative and valuable web site/profile is low down on the list of priorities. Why? Because they don’t sell directly.

There are many companies both B2C and B2B that don’t have a direct revenue source directly from the internet, but does this mean that there should be any less investment in maintaining a web presence above and beyond the token brochure information that most companies have on their website? Why blog, or create compelling video content or develop high quality in-depth articles? There is no return on investment.

This is stilll a common argument that I hear today and here is my response. Your website IS selling online and in one of the most important areas of the sales process, because when a prospect views your website they are in a medium where access to information is all too easy… which means that your competition are easily accessible as well.

In a majority of cases, excluding low cost commodities, a prospective customer will visit the intended vendors website at some stage in the sales process. This may be at the discovery level (“I found you on Google”), or further on in the process (“Great call last week, just wanted to check up on something you said, I wonder if you have it on your website”). The reason for their visit may be to research your company background, or to reference information that they have obtained from you previously but one thing for certain is that they will visit you…. and then they find a stale unchanged site that has a few pages about their company background and their services. How dissappointing. But wait. A quick search and they find a plethora of articles and documents and videos on a competitors site and now they have an alternative company who appear to know what they are talking about.

The idea of appearing more attractive over that of your competition is not a new idea. The humble shop front has seen some of the most inspired designing to make shops more attractive and desirable and so the same principle applies to how businesses sell online. Your web presence may be a shop front but other than the aesthetic appeal (which is important) the currency of interest on the web is information. Information is how you capture and maintain interest and how you reinforce your message, the medium in which you convey this information appeals to the various methods that internet users can consume that information. That is why there are blogs, podcasts, videos, downloadable ebooks etc. Because different people consume information in different ways. The more you can take advantage of these different ways not only means more chance of users listening to your message but also reaffirms your committment to helping your customers. Unconcsiously, web users appreciate the lengths you go to help them find what they need.

The very idea that a business doesn’t sell online is based on the ignorance of how the internet works and how consumers now use the internet in much of their buying habits. Companies who don’t quickly realise this lesson will learn that they are losing potential business not because they don’t earn directly online but because they don’t sell online.

Popularity: 11% [?]

‘Negotiation’ is a funny word. Think about it. In most situations in life where the word ‘negotiation’ is used you may assume one of several things. Firstly, that two or more parties want to resolve an issue, and that secondly, coming together to discuss it will find a common ground in which to resolve that issue and in so doing satisfy all parties as much as possible. Generally, ‘negotiation’ is considered a benevolent and worthy tool in ones arsenal.

Unfortunately, in the real world, negotiation is one of the most adversarial battlegrounds of political, egotistical and personal manouvring in modern communication. Think of situations where you need negotiations in order to make a deal and you will be in one of the most stressful situations in the world. These may include ‘hostage negotiation’, divorce proceedings (In the UK, negotiation and counselling may be a legal requirement before final divorce proceedings are heard), divorce settlement etc.

In to this mix we have to add the humble business negotiation. So humble in fact that some companies don’t let their sales people take part in this part of the deal but have an entire department of lawyers who specialise in ‘negotiating’ business deals on their behalf – and you know things are serious if lawyers are involved. The problem is that negotiation in business doesn’t actually fit into the mentallity of the sales process because a sales person ideally is ‘all about the client’. Throughout the entire process, from lead to close, the sales person should be focusing on questions like “what do you want?”, “What is your problem and how can I fix it?”. Negotiation is actually the opposite, it is all about me, “What do I want?”, “How am I best protected in entering this business relationship?” and “How much can I afford to give away and what can I hope to get?”.

Yet, don’t sales people have to negotiate as well? Not everyone works in a company whose legal department handles all negotations. Yes, the majority of sales people have to negotiate in order to make deals and in this respect some are sorely lacking because they don’t have the ability to switch from sales person to negotiator.

A lot has been said about avoiding price before developing a value in your product and in today’s economic climate this is going to be harder to avoid but this very situation highlights the very real problem in sales – negotiating way too early. Sales people think they are doing their client a favour by discounting their products because they are in the mentallity of “how can I fix your problem” but price is in the realm of the negotiator and should be about “protecting your own interests ie: margin”.

Popularity: 11% [?]