Posts by John Doerr
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- The New Rules of Selling, Part 1: Play to Win-Win
Are you playing to win-win?Rule #1: Play to Win-Win. (This post is the first in a series of blog posts on the new rules of selling.)
Win-win is a common negotiating philosophy. The idea is to find solutions that satisfy the interests of both parties, and maximize value on both sides. Since repeat business and referrals are so important in complex sales, employing win-win as part of your selling technique and philosophy should be a foregone conclusion.
However, in the name of "win-win" many salespeople get so tied up in the name of “providing value” during the sales process that they:
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- Creating a Culture of Selling with Rainmakers: Part Two
Are your rainmakers armed to succeed?In our last post about building a rainmaking sales culture, we discussed the three areas of organizationally-controlled influences you need to address in order to create the best sales environment in which your sales team can thrive and succeed:
Organizational Influences:
1. Expectations and Feedback
2. Tools and Resources
3. Consequences and Incentives
In this post we will discuss how to make certain you have the best rainmakers and potential rainmakers working in that culture. We’ll look at the three factors that are a part of who is on your team, who can sell, and, just as importantly, who will sell. These 3 factors are...
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- Creating a Culture of Selling with Rainmakers
Are there holes in your organization's sales culture?There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza. A hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole.
- Harry BelafonteHere at RAIN Group, our advice to organizations looking to create a culture of sustained, serious selling: Make sure the bucket doesn't have any holes or it won't hold water.
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Time and again we see organizations doing a certain percent of what they need to do to help their teams achieve more sales success and increase sales performance (our favorite, “Can you come in and give a 90-minute speech that will charge up the team for the next 12 months?”), but rarely do they put forth 100% effort. If you're only doing 70% of what you need to do to increase sales performance, you don't get 70% results; you get much less. Like patching a leak in the bottom of a boat, if you don't patch it 100%, it still takes on water.
So if your charge is to create a team of rainmakers, those people responsible for selling who are bringing in three, five, or seven times more revenue than everyone else, make sure you...- 0 Comments Topics:
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- 7 Reasons Why Sales Training Fails
Is your sales training falling short?According to ES Research between 85% and 90% of sales training has no lasting impact after 120 days. At the same time, companies are spending billions of dollars on sales training each year. That’s billions of dollars being wasted on limited sales performance impact and only short-term boosts in sales at best.
Training can be a disappointment right away when it just doesn’t go well, or it can be a disappointment months later when results don’t materialize. Regardless, sales training strikes out a lot. When it does, it’s usually because of common and predictable reasons. But if you can avoid these mistakes, you can set yourself up for a successful training initiative that leads to increased sales performance and long-term revenue growth. Here are 7 reasons why your sales training might be failing...
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- Your 6-Step Guide to Setting and Achieving Sales Goals: You Can Get There From Here
Achieving your goals isn't a slam dunk. Can you do what it takes to meet them?I recently started going to a personal trainer. At the beginning of our very first session, she asked, “So, what are you trying to accomplish?”
“To get in better shape?”, I hesitantly answered.
“Well, without a clear goal, you will not be able to see your progress, you will lose momentum, and we won’t be able to see if the training is paying off.”
“In that case, to fit in my suits from last year and to grab rebounds in my basketball games without getting pushed around.”
“Now, we are talking.”
Over the years I’ve seen many salespeople (and sales managers and companies) get goal planning, action planning, and commitment right, and I’ve seen many fall short. Without a clear goal they don’t know where they’re headed, so any path will get them there.
In my experience, only two things set apart those who live by goals and those who don’t. Salespeople who live by goals:
- Know where they’re headed
- Commit to a goals routine
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- Who’s On First? Why Identifying Sales Roles is Essential Before Sales Training
Before you begin any sales training initiative, isn't it important you're training the right people for the right roles?I have been truly obsessed with baseball the last three weeks. My beloved Red Sox are folding faster than the deck chairs on the Titanic. I find myself cheering for the hated Yankees (so the Rays don’t edge out the Sox). And the talk shows are full of Danny from Quincy and Al from Everett suggesting ways to bolster the pitching by having relievers start games, starters come in to relieve, and closers (generally relegated to the ninth inning) pitch from the seventh on. What a way to end a (potentially) great season!
Moving pitchers around from role to role without acknowledging skills, commitment, and past experience is much like hiring and training salespeople as if they were completely interchangeable parts. I hear things like:
“Bill has been a great salesperson in his territory for eighteen years. He grows those accounts like no one ever has. Let’s move him to Santa Fe to open up our new office (middle reliever to starter).”
Will anyone be surprised when Bill comes home a defeated man? He has proven to be a great manager of his territory and his accounts, but he has not had to prospect in a new market for years. What a way to end a great sales career.
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- Complimentary Webinar: The 7 Principles of Successful Sales Training Programs
If you’ve downloaded our Why Sales Training Fails report within the last few weeks, you’ve been getting my tips on how to make your sales training initiatives better.This is a great start for you, but it is just a start.
My partner Mike Schultz and I have been getting so much great feedback on the report, and more questions than we can address by email and by phone.
So, we’ve gathered up a lot of the questions and put together a webinar all about how to run successful sales training initiatives that really lead to long-term results. And we’re offering this webinar free...
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- Think Quick! Why Sales Knowledge Fluency Can Take Your Sales Team to the Next Level
Is your sales team fluent in their knowledge of your products and services?This summer, I finally decided I was ready to go from the junior varsity batting cages (65 mph) to the high school varsity cages (80 mph). Boy was that a mistake. I did foul one off, but the experience was mostly entertainment for my sons and their college friends. Later that day, I checked to see just how fast my reaction time had to be to square up on an 80 mph pitch. My findings: less than ½ second. I had no chance. I can’t imagine facing Justin Verlander and his 100 mph pitches.
Fast forward (no pun intended) to yesterday. I was in Chicago speaking to a client about his sales team. In his view, they have the skills to sell, the desire to sell, and the motivation to sell. But something is missing. He knows they can be doing so much more. As we dug deeper, it became clear that they can’t catch up to the fastball.
First of all, the products and services they sell are complex and require a great deal of sales knowledge to understand. My client does provide extensive “product” training and when quizzed some of his salespeople will get most of it right…and most will get some of it right. Good, but not good enough. Buyers are picky, looking for guidance, and want to buy from experts. Knowing some of it only sometimes…strike one!
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- Sales Weaknesses that Are Holding Your Sales Team Back
What beneath-the-surface weaknesses could be holding your salespeople back?There are thousands of ways to kill a sale. Some are obvious like not showing up to a meeting prepared, not following up, not listening, not establishing trust, going to proposal too early, not speaking to decision makers… the list goes on. These are all pretty easy to see and with some work and practice can be overcome.
Then there are the killers that hide beneath the surface that many sellers and sales managers do not even know exist. They are the sales weaknesses that are a part of an individual salesperson’s makeup that act like weights pulling them down.
Sales researcher, Dave Kurlan, best-selling author and sales development expert, has conducted extensive research into what holds salespeople back and has classified these as the five major hidden weaknesses. These hidden weaknesses often get in the way of your salespeople, killing the sale without you or they even knowing what hit them.
The first step to overcome these sales weaknesses is to know what they are and then to determine who on your sales team has them so you can fix them.
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- Rome Wasn't Built in a Day - Neither are Sales Skills
Some executives think one quick training will produce big results. Imagine that.I love the movie Groundhog Day. If you haven’t seen it, please do. If you have, then you will remember that Bill Murray, the lead, masters the piano, develops incredible medical diagnostic skills, becomes fluent in French, and learns to change tires in minutes. All this while covering the breaking news of the emergence of Punxsutawney Phil (the groundhog signaling a longer winter – hence the movie title).
And Murray does all this in one day. I want to do that. The fact that he has to live the same day over and over and over again until he gets his life right is…well, just a minor detail.
Sometimes when I speak with CEOs and VPs of Sales, I think they must be living in Punxsutawney, PA with Bill Murray.
Sales are down, the sales team isn’t making quota, and management is not sure who is capable of improving. But they truly believe they can fix whatever ails and build their team’s sales skills with a two-day sales skill training session…or a one day refresher course…or even better, a one-hour rousing, inspirational speech (just after the golf and before the cocktails).
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- 7 Ways to Build Rapport in Sales and Connect with People
It's important to build rapport from the initial handshake. Take a look at these 7 tips for building genuine rapport with new prospects.Consider this: a CBS News / New York Times poll asked, “What percent of people in general are trustworthy?”
The answer: 30%. Pretty skeptical we all are, right?
Not necessarily. At the same time, the CBS News / New York Times poll asked a similar group the same question, but with a slight difference. “What percent of people that you know are trustworthy?”
The answer: 70%.
That’s a huge difference. Goes to show you: when people get to know you and people get to like you, people begin to trust you.
Of course, there’s a lot more to building trust than making a good initial connection with someone, but it’s sure a good start. And making a connection with someone makes them more comfortable sharing with you their aspirations and their afflictions, two things you need to know if you want to succeed in sales.
When you build rapport in sales, keep in mind you want to make a sincere connection. All too often chit-chat before a sales call seems contrived…because it is. Assuming you want to build solid and real relationships with people, consider the following...
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- 6 Building Blocks for Communicating Your Value Proposition
Even when people know their value, many find it difficult to describe it.Let’s say someone asks you the simple question, “What do you do?”
How do you answer? Of course, you need to get your value across, but as we note here, when communicating your value proposition, you don’t want to deliver the same canned speech for everyone.
What you need to do is first craft, then learn to deliver specific nuggets of information you can use to get your value across. Put all these nuggets together, and you have what we call a value proposition positioning statement.
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- Using the Power of Why in Needs Discovery
Why - a powerful word in uncovering need."It’s not that they can’t see the solution, it’s that they can’t see the problem.”
- G.K. Chesterton
One day the production line stopped suddenly, and the whole plant shut down.
It was horrible!
The company lost tens of thousands of dollars an hour by not turning out widgets as the staff stood idly by and waited.
The problem was in the ViperAssembly machine. No matter what they tried, they just couldn’t fix it for good. They replaced the McGurnkney nut and it worked for about a day. Then it stopped again. Then they tried realigning the Johnson rod, and that fix only lasted 3 hours.
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- 16 Principles of Influence in Sales
I really wanted a new basketball for my 6th birthday - so big sis went to the sidewalk to talk influence strategy...When I was 6 I wanted a basketball for my birthday. I didn’t ask my dad for it myself. I sent in the big gun: my sister Allyson.
I gave her the 411 on what I wanted and why, and we proceeded with a white board session where we mapped out all of the possible ways to get the decision makers to rule in our favor. (OK, as talented an 8 year old as Allyson was, maybe no white board. But we did talk about it, and she was a mean sidewalk chalk girl.)
Shortly thereafter, we green lighted operation Cedric Maxwell.
A few hours later, the qualified decision maker (a.k.a. Dad) came to see me. As he tells me the story, he asked me why I sent my sister in to lobby for me.
My answer, “She’s the better convincer.”
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- Not Hitting Your Sales Numbers? Do This One Thing Better
Are you giving yourself a chance of a bullseye?“Like a poor marksman you keep…missing…the target. Kaaahhhnnn!!!”
- Admiral James T. Kirk
There was this one sales person I know that worked very hard, but he always seemed to be middle of the pack when it came to results. He had good skills. He was a good guy. But the results just weren’t there.
One day I got a chance to watch him in action. Early in the day I asked him what his plan was for the day, and he said, “Sell, of course.” There wasn’t much rhyme or reason to it as he plowed forward.
At the end of the day, I asked him if he met his goals for the day, and if he felt like he was on the right track to hit his sales and personal income target.
He didn’t have much to say on either point...
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- Thank You for Helping Rainmaking Conversations Become an Amazon Bestseller
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Earlier this week we announced the launch of our new book, Rainmaking Conversations and we’ve been absolutely thrilled with the response so far. The book has reached the #1 bestseller spot on Amazon in a number of categories...- 0 Comments Topics:
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- 6 Questions to Prepare for the Biggest Sales Conversation of Your Life
Look in the mirror, and ask yourself these 6 questions.Imagine for a minute you’re a master carpenter. You’ve been building houses your whole life, trying your best to hone your craft and deliver the highest quality work every day that you possibly could.
Then one day, you’re presented with the opportunity to teach your craft – a craft you’ve been honing for 30 years – to someone else.
Let’s say for argument’s sake that this person has positively average talent! They have no better raw abilities than anyone else you might run into that barely knows the difference between a router and a miter saw.
But they’ve told themselves that they’re going to be the best carpenter that’s ever walked the face of the planet. They’re going to prove to themself, and in the process everybody else, that they will become a master craftsman, a craftsman with the skills that rival the best carpenters in the land.
Now imagine for a minute that they really mean it...
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- New Book: Rainmaking Conversations – Special Bonus Gifts When You Buy Today
Our new book is finally here: Rainmaking Conversations: Influence, Persuade, and Sell in Any Situation. After close to a decade of research, training tens of thousands of people, and a year in the writing process, we’re thrilled with how it came out.If you want a guide to leading masterful sales conversations this is it. We cover everything from generating initial discussions to uncovering needs to overcoming objections to winning the sale. We wanted to bring sales conversation to life, so each chapter is peppered liberally with examples, stories, and tips.
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- New Book First Look: Rainmaking Conversations – Free Chapter
- We haven’t said much about the launch of our new book on this blog, and it’s certainly not for a lack of excitement about it. In fact, we’ve been incredibly busy since the beginning of this year preparing for the launch of the book, which will be next Tuesday, April 19, and in the midst of all the activity, we haven’t even mentioned it yet here on the blog.
The book just hit bookstores! Thus you can buy a copy now. But if you wait until next week, you will have the opportunity to access a ton of special bonus gifts we’re putting together for you from ourselves along with authors and experts including Jill Konrath, Jeffrey Gitomer, Dave Kahle, Art Sobczak, Tim Wackel, and many, many more.
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- One Thing Top Sales People Get Right (and Why You Shouldn’t Talk with Your Mouth Full)
An empty plate may tell you more about a sales call than you think.Let’s face it. Salespeople talk too much.
And when sales people talk too much, they generate too few customers. So why do those of us trying to grow our pipelines constantly find ourselves in this position? Perhaps because, we do not understand why we talk too much. Let's start there.
Why Do You Talk Too Much?
- I need to pitch my product or service: Of course you do. How else will the prospect know if you and your products are any good? However, prospects at first want to know whether you are a good fit for working with them as much as evaluating your level of technical competence. Remember, “no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”
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- 6 Keys to Prospecting Success
Prospecting can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack...I recently conducted a webinar for a client on prospecting. Leading up to the webinar, I asked what questions the client had in regards to prospecting so I could tailor the content to their particular challenges. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when I only got one response. And that is not because they are masters of prospecting. Quite the contrary. It’s because they do so little of it and were unsure of what questions to ask. Like most sales people (50% according to Dave Kurlan’s extensive studies), they were doing little prospecting at all.1
While most sales people will tell you that creating conversations is important and must happen if you want to succeed in sales, the dynamics of how it works continues to baffle many. When sales people seek to understand it better they find conflicting advice. Different situations rightly call for different approaches, so some of the experts themselves are confused about what works and what doesn’t.
If conflicting advice and lack of understanding is holding you back from prospecting and becoming a great sales person, let me break it down for you to its most simple steps.
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- The #1 Conversation Killer (and How to Beat It)
Many sales people make the mistake of just plain talking too much.Willy: I don't know why - I can't stop myself - I talk too much. A man oughta come in with a few words. Charlie's a man of few words, and they respect him.
Linda: You don't talk too much, you're just lively.
Arthur Miller - Death of a Salesman
We all have sympathy for poor Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. He knew he talked too much, but he couldn't figure out why. And he couldn't stop talking too much even though he wanted to be like Charlie, a man of few words, who was respected by all.
When business developers talk too much, they generate too few clients.
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- 7 Steps to Turn Sales Calls into New Clients
Like King Midas, as I was told, everything he touched turned to gold.
- Joseph Simmons and Daryl McDaniels“If I could just get a meeting with my target prospects I am certain I could close five (or six or eight) out of every ten.”
How many of you think the same thing? You know that when you get in front of the prospect you can wow them. Every time a lead comes into the firm and you go on the sales meeting, it's a slam dunk. Made-in-the-shade. Can of corn. You know you'll get the gig.
Let's assume you set a meeting with someone you believe will be a good prospect. It's not from a referral – they neither know you nor have they heard of you beforehand. Thus there is no transferred trust as when you are referred in. It's also not from a client who's sought you out, thus there's no hot need. You targeted them, and you asked them for a meeting.
You secure the meeting and drive off to the prospect as confident as ever only to sit down across the table from a buyer with crossed arms asking, “Who are you again, and what are you trying to sell me?” You leave with a sinking feeling; you've wasted your time.
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Recent Blog Posts
- April 5, 2012
- The New Rules of Selling, Part 1: Play to Win-Win
- March 20, 2012
- Prospecting with Old “Friends”: Making Outdated Leads Work
- March 6, 2012
- Creating a Culture of Selling with Rainmakers: Part Two