RAIN Group Sales Blog

Your source for sales advice, tips, research, and insights to unleash sales potential.

When Do Buyers Want to Hear from Sellers in the Buying Process?

buyers-hear-from-sellers

The Virtual Selling Skills You Need [Research + Tools]

Mike Schultz
March 31, 2021

Note: You can download this article as a PDF to save it for later!

Developing relationships, collaborating online, leading virtual sales conversations, gaining and keeping attention, leveraging technology, making the ROI case, delivering value—these are hard to do regardless of the sales and economic environment.

But, do these become more difficult when selling virtually versus face-to-face? Are some areas more difficult for sellers than others? What influences buyers’ purchase decisions when buying virtually?

What is Key Account Management? [+ Checklist]

Mike Schultz
March 24, 2021

Your team just won a new logo! Congratulations!

This one has buzz. It’s modest to start, but there’s potential to sell into multiple buying centers, across geographies, and the new product your company is launching will help the customer simplify their processes, increase efficiencies, and reduce strain on their supply chain.

But that’s all in the hands of the key account team now.

The good news is that new business from key accounts is 60% to 70% more likely to close compared to the 5% to 20% likelihood of closing a deal with a new client.

How to Influence People in Sales

Mike Schultz
March 17, 2021

Sales is about change. It’s about getting people to go from where they are—their current state—to a new and better place—their future state—or what we call the New Reality.

In our decades of work with clients globally and our proprietary research, we’ve identified 11 ways sellers can influence buyers throughout the sales process to guide them to their New Reality.

3 Ways to Enable Collaboration—Even in a Virtual Meeting

Mike Schultz
December 9, 2020

Stop. Collaborate. Listen.

Sellers of a certain age know that rapper Vanilla Ice was actually onto something when he uttered those words at the start of his song, "Ice Ice Baby." Years later, the concept of collaboration and a seller's ability to work with buyers, instead of speaking at or simply selling to them, to close a deal has become more important than ever.

The 5 Cases Salespeople Must Make to Drive Change and Win Sales

Mike Schultz
October 28, 2020

At their core, top-performing salespeople are change agents. They recommend, advise, and assist buyers (what is typically known as consultative selling), and they aren't afraid to push when it's in the best interest of their buyers. Indeed, top sellers are Insight Sellers.

These people make five cases to ensure the value proposition for each buyer is as strong as it can be. They inspire buyers with new ideas and perspectives, and influence how buyers tackle their priority initiatives. They question the status quo and don't let buyers accept it, thus redefining reality.

5 Sales Skills You Need to Master

Mike Schultz
September 16, 2020

To succeed in sales, you need to have the right skills. You have to be able to lead masterful sales conversations, manage opportunities, uncover needs, negotiate the best deals, fill the pipeline, develop relationships, and manage sellers. And today, you need to be successful in doing all of this with no face-to-face interaction.

That's a lot to have to master.

With the laundry list of sales skills needed, which are most important?

What the Best Sales Negotiators Do Differently

Mike Schultz
September 2, 2020

Sales negotiation is a critical part of the sales process. It moves the deal to a close, and it's where both parties come to agree on the terms of the initiative, including the price. However, many sellers and organizations struggle with negotiating successfully.

Seventy-seven percent of sellers report that negotiating with buyers virtually is challenging, and only 27% of buyers say that sellers are very effective at negotiating with them (from our Virtual Selling Skills & Challenges report). That means that less than one in three sellers does well in their virtual negotiations.

Sales Prospecting Offers: 6 Proven Approaches for Generating Meetings

Mike Schultz
July 22, 2020

Value is at the center of all sales activities, including prospecting.

Often, discussions with our clients about buyers value focus on the reasons that buyers ultimately buy from you, using the 4 Whys:

Why act?
Why now?
Why us?
Why trust?

Virtual Sales Skills & Challenges: 18 Need-to-Know Stats

Mike Schultz
July 15, 2020

Developing relationships, collaborating online, leading virtual sales conversations, gaining and keeping attention, leveraging technology, making the ROI case, delivering value—these are challenging regardless of the selling and economic environment.

But are they more difficult in a down economy while many sellers are transitioning to virtual sales? Are some sales skills more difficult to apply than others in a virtual environment? Where are sellers succeeding and failing according to buyers today?

10 Research-Backed Ways to Improve Sales Success

Mike Schultz
June 3, 2020

This article originally appeared in Entrepreneur and has been updated given the current sales environment.

The first half of 2020 proved to significantly alter the way every single industry operates. Businesses have been forced to become more nimble and sellers have had to learn to sell virtually and remain productive while working from home.

While this new environment has presented new challenges, many companies and individuals are adapting and succeeding even in tough times.

Projecting a Professional Image Online: Your Virtual Meeting Prep List

Mike Schultz
May 20, 2020

There’s a lot to think about when it comes to selling virtually. Projecting a professional image in your virtual meetings is an important (and often overlooked) factor to consider.

Here we provide guidelines and tips specifically focused on projecting a professional image in your virtual sales meetings grouped in the following five categories:

Video
Audio
Lighting
Background
You

With a little forethought and preparation, you can make a great first impression with your buyers.

9 Ways to Get More Done Working from Home

Mike Schultz
April 15, 2020

We're weeks into stay-at-home and shelter-in-place orders in an attempt to #flattenthecurve. This has caused millions of people to work from home—many for the first time—while also dealing with children being homeschooled, spouses and roommates working (or not!) in the same environment, pets, and all of the other distractions available at home. When working from home, it's imperative that you motivate yourself, focus, and learn to execute in the zone to be productive and get the most done.

Becoming more productive, maximizing motivation, and achieving results is about employing the right habits and routines. It's not something you do some of the time; it becomes part of the way you approach your work.

5 Key Takeaways from Our Top-Performing Sales Organization Research

Mike Schultz
April 8, 2020

It’s never been more important for your sales organization to be firing on all thrusters. As buyers are tightening their purse strings and uncertainty in both health and economic spheres are plaguing companies, you need an optimized sales organization.

In our Top-Performing Sales Organization research, we studied what the organizations with the highest win rates, revenue growth, and sales goal achievement do differently that allow them to achieve these results.

The #1 Tactic Buyers Use in Sales Negotiations

Mike Schultz
April 1, 2020

As the global economy teeters on the edge of uncertainty, companies are already canceling engagements, dropping vendors, and tightening their purse strings.

They’re looking for any way to make their dollar stretch, and there’s no better time to do that than in contract negotiations.

For industries still in buying mode, negotiations pose a unique opportunity to take advantage of desperate sellers struggling to meet their numbers.

The Massive Difference of Being a Top Performing Sales Negotiator

Mike Schultz
March 25, 2020

As businesses shut down and stock markets plummet during this global crisis, buyers are more money conscious than ever. In most industries, sales are stalling. Buyers are cutting spend and pushing vendors for deep discounts.

This is an unprecedented time.

It's essential that sellers are the best they can be, and that includes in sales negotiation. In fact, every dollar preserved in a negotiation goes straight to your bottom line. How much of a difference can it make?

Sales Training Reinforcement: How to Get it Right

Mike Schultz
March 11, 2020

Reinforcement has been a trend in the world of sales training for a while now. All the research data in sales training—and learning and development in general—supports the need for robust reinforcement.

But it’s still not happening often enough.

According to Aberdeen, fewer than half (44%) of companies formally follow-up initial sales training with reinforcement. At the same time, the companies that do reinforce training see 20% more sellers achieve sales quotas.

3-Step Framework for Leading Effective Sales Coaching Conversations

Mike Schultz
March 4, 2020

Many sales managers and coaches are never taught how to lead effective sales coaching conversations.

So they start with, “What’s up?”

Then they listen to sellers for an hour with a bit of back and forth about this opportunity or that one. They may talk about the need to fill the pipeline or come up with an idea to move one of the opportunities forward. And then the hour is up.

How Often Do Sellers Cave on Price?

Mike Schultz
February 19, 2020

Seller: “Based on your requirements X, Y, and Z, with setup and 90 days of consultation time, the price for the project will be $475,000.”

Buyer: “Is this the best you can do? It’s more than I was expecting. While I’d prefer to go with you, [competitor] said they can do it for less.”

Seller: “We are pretty confident in our pricing, but let me see what I can do and get back to you.”

This is oversimplified, but it’s an all too common scenario in B2B selling.

When you’re buying something big, you likely ask for discounts. If you do, it makes sense that others do, too. If you don’t ask for discounts, guess what? You’re in the minority.

5 Ways Buyers Ask For—and Get—Lower Prices

Mike Schultz
January 29, 2020

Win-win negotiation is the way to go…except in one situation: when the buyer has their hand in your pocket. Whether they're doing it intentionally or just out of habit, sometimes buyers try to push down seller prices just to see if they can.

When they do, you should counter with value, but you also have to signal as you respond, "That won't work. I know what I'm doing." (Without, by the way, saying it like that.) You need to respond in a way that gets this message across and gets the discussion back on track.

The Massive Returns of a Value-Based Sales Approach

Mike Schultz
January 22, 2020

Everyone says, "Sell value, drive value, make sure buyers both perceive and receive exceptional value from you, and your sales teams will be more successful."

Planning to Win: Your Sales Negotiation Checklist

Mike Schultz
November 27, 2019

Preparation is often the greatest determinant of negotiation success.

Across negotiation studies and surveys, sellers who get the best outcomes:

Know what they sell
Research buyer wants and needs through sources other than the buyer
Have a keen understanding of the buyer’s day-to-day life and concerns
Prepare for each negotiation with trades, counteroffers, and knowledge of their walk-away points

Who Should Make the First Offer in a Negotiation?

Mike Schultz
November 20, 2019

Who should go first in a negotiation when it comes to offering a price, solution, and agreement to key terms?

Do you ask for a budget and then craft what you do from there?

Or do you, once you know what the needs and major parameters might be, suggest a solution and a price before talking about budget?

It’s a common question, one that continues to baffle many sellers. They fear that if they go first, they will leave money on the table, or risk going too high and having the buyer say, “That’s nowhere near what we were thinking,” or anything in between.

4 Essential Elements of a Winning Prospecting Strategy

Mike Schultz
November 6, 2019

There are few areas of selling filled with more uncertainty, challenges, and conflicting advice than prospecting.

Success in sales prospecting requires breaking through the noise to capture buyers' attention and influence them to meet with you. Which begs a few questions:

What does capture buyers’ attention?
Do buyers want to hear from sellers, and if so, when?
How should sellers reach out and connect with buyers?

Sales Rep Onboarding: How Long Does It Really Take?

Mike Schultz
October 30, 2019

Finding and hiring new sales talent is a long and expensive process. Once the new rep is hired, it takes time to onboard them. Especially challenging during the ramp-up period is building their knowledge in:

Your customers' businesses—their markets, industries, customers, regulations, etc.
The needs you solve and how to identify those needs

The Sales Training and Enablement Revolution

Mike Schultz
September 25, 2019

The cliché of clichés to open an article like this is to say change is afoot. So I won't open with "change is afoot."

In the world of sales training and enablement, change is explosive.

There's a revolution going on in training and sales enablement that organizations can no longer ignore.

How Do You Build Rapport with Customers?

Mike Schultz
September 18, 2019

Everybody's brain has two different processing centers: emotional and rational. The emotional brain is old. It developed millions of years ago, first with raw instincts—like fight or flight—that all animals have, and then into more complex emotions for us humans like anger, aggression, desire, fear, hatred, passion, love, disgust, sympathy, and so on.

Then there's the rational side, which developed more like tens of thousands of years ago. This part of the brain is more deliberate, analyzing and studying, and thinking about the future consequences of various possible actions.

7 Questions to Uncover Impact and ROI

Mike Schultz
August 28, 2019

Show them the impact.

Make a strong ROI case.

Sell the value.

Sales pros tout the benefits of making a strong ROI (return on investment) case all the time. Yet we see sellers time and again who don't know how to calculate and communicate the impact of their solutions.

They focus on features in their conversations and highlight the benefits, but don't convey what it means for each individual buyer and the difference it can make for them—financially, personally, and emotionally.

3 Productivity Tips for Your Remote Salespeople

Mike Schultz
August 14, 2019

This RAIN Group article was first published on Selling Power.

Sales managers face a myriad of challenges managing remote sales teams.

When seller and manager are in different places, though, one challenge stands above all else: ensuring sales productivity.

Seventy-one percent of companies don't believe their sellers manage their time and days effectively. If you want your remote sales team to be productive, this has to change.

Here are three habits from our Extreme Productivity System (XPS) to help your remote sales team control its time, get in the zone to be highly productive, and achieve the best possible results.

6 Steps of a Successful Sales Process: Understanding the Buyer's and Seller's Perspective

Mike Schultz
August 7, 2019

How would you rate your organization's sales process?

Ad-hoc: No consistent process
Emerging: Some consistency and planning framework
Defined: Guides sellers to plan for—and win—opportunities
Managed (adoptive): Well-defined and easy to use, offering specific details and guidance for selling
World-Class (adaptive): All of the above—and then some!

World-class sales processes aren't built overnight. And they never remain stagnant.

They are measured and improved regularly, with best practices for strategies and tactics outlined clearly across all six phases of the sales cycle.

5 Essential Facts You Need to Know About Sales Prospecting

Mike Schultz
July 31, 2019

This RAIN Group article was first published on Selling Power.

When it comes to sales prospecting, sellers are frequently told the following:

"Cold calling doesn't work."
"It's impossible to get through to buyers cold."
"With all the information on the Internet, buyers do their own research and reach out later in the sales process."
"You shouldn't pitch your capabilities."

But rarely do sellers stop and think, "Is any of this true?"

According to 488 buyers (who get prospected to all the time) and 489 sellers who outbound prospect, these generally accepted-to-be-true statements are, in fact, false. They're sales prospecting myths that too many sellers follow, and it's hurting their results.

Here are the facts when it comes to sales prospecting:

Stop Procrastinating: 3 Ways to Get Started on Your Greatest Impact Activity

Mike Schultz
July 17, 2019

Everyone is a periodic procrastinator. Twenty percent of people are chronic procrastinators.¹

Why?

We all have something we want to do or know we need to do, but it seems difficult, so we avoid it.

Often, that seemingly difficult task is the same activity that would provide you the greatest feeling of accomplishment, productivity, and return on your efforts. It's your Greatest Impact Activity.

What Does It Mean to Be Extremely Productive?

Mike Schultz
July 10, 2019

Productivity is often misunderstood.

One person might think being productive is conquering their never-ending inbox by the end of the day, while another perceives it as working as many hours as possible.

Here's the thing: it's not about getting through your email, and it's not about being a workhorse and cranking out eight or more hours of work every day.

It's about working smarter. (Cliché, yes, but still true.)

How can you take your productivity to the max?

Meet Extreme Productivity.

Top Sales Challenges and Priorities for Sales Enablement and Leaders

Mike Schultz
June 26, 2019

What challenges do sales enablement and sales leaders encounter most often? Which ones are most difficult to tackle?

What are the top sales priorities for the next 12 months? How should they be addressed to ensure they're achieved?

To find out the answers to these questions, we surveyed 423 sales, enablement, and company leaders.

The results are fascinating. As sales researchers and analysts, it helps us to see not only what's changed, but also what's changing right now and where the industry is going.

3 Ways to Spark Motivation and Increase Your Drive

Mike Schultz
May 22, 2019

Fitness centers are packed in January—everyone's motivated to lose those holiday pounds. Then, a month later, the place clears out.

What happened? Where did everyone go?

I can tell you: their motivation crashed and burned. There one month, gone the next.

Is it gone forever? Thankfully, no.

What happens, though, is that most people wait for motivation. They don't do what they can do, at any time, to bring it forth.

They don't do what they can do to manufacture their own motivation.

The Definition of Motivation and What It Means For You

Mike Schultz
May 15, 2019

While there are many definitions of motivation, I like Business Dictionary's best:

mo·ti·va·tion
/,mōdә΄vāSH(ә)n/ • noun

Internal and external factors that stimulate desire and energy in people to be continually interested and committed to a job, role or subject, or to make an effort to attain a goal.

Let's break it down.

How to Be More Productive: 12 Key Drivers of Extreme Productivity

Mike Schultz
May 8, 2019

There's abundant advice on how to be more productive. Endless hacks, tips, motivational quotes, trainings, apps, and tools all promising to increase your productivity.

It's enough to make your head spin. It definitely made our heads spin over the years as we tried to help our clients increase execution and accountability after training programs. So, we asked the question, "What actually helps people be more productive?"

To find out what really makes a difference in productivity, we studied and analyzed the work habits of 2,377 business people, performing a statistical test called a key driver analysis.

A key driver analysis seeks to discover and demonstrate whether a factor (the key driver) causes a particular outcome. For this study, we analyzed work habits and behaviors to determine whether or not they impact the outcome of productivity (as well as performance, happiness, and job satisfaction).

When you run an analysis like this, sometimes you find something, sometimes not.

We certainly found something this time around. In fact, we found that 12 of the behaviors we studied were key drivers of Extreme Productivity.

16 Negotiation Tactics Buyers Use (and How to Respond)

Mike Schultz
April 10, 2019

Buyer and seller negotiations are a fun dance. While these negotiations are usually partner-focused (win-win), buyers often use standoffish tactics to gain an advantage in the negotiation at the seller's expense. Even if you—as the seller—have a win-win mindset and approach, you need to know how to maneuver the situation when buyers throw you curveballs. You need the right negotiation skills to bolster your success.

TIME Sprinting to Boost Sales Productivity and Achieve More

Mike Schultz
April 3, 2019

This RAIN Group article was originally published on the ATD Blog.

I always considered myself a productive person. I work quickly, type fast, and get a lot accomplished. Or so I thought.

One day, I came across a time-management book that talked about "time boxing." With time boxing, you assign a fixed amount of time to a specific activity. The idea is to work on the task and stop when you reach the time limit.

Since this strategy reduces distractions by forcing you to concentrate on one task—and one task only—for a set amount of time, I decided to give it a try.

4 Sales Compensation Challenges and Where to Focus for Real Sales Motivation

Mike Schultz
March 13, 2019

Sales compensation is typically the first topic discussed when looking for ways to boost sales motivation.

Want to increase motivation? Create a compensation plan focused on driving the actions that will create results.

The thought process goes like this: incentivize the right areas, see motivation increase, get the best results.

Sounds simple, right?

Not quite.

It's simple in concept, but exceptionally difficult to achieve.

How to Start Your Morning Right: 5 Steps to a More Productive Day

Mike Schultz
February 27, 2019

This RAIN Group article was originally published on the Heinz Marketing Blog.

Isn't it amazing how some days just start off better than others? You wake up feeling refreshed, the kids practically get themselves ready, and when you show up at work, you accomplish a lot within the first hour. It feels like everything is going your way.

Then there are days when it's a struggle to get out of bed and get to work. Even your computer fights you by turning on slowly or running virus scans. When the day starts, nothing goes your way. Then it gets worse.

Wouldn't it be nice to have more of the former and less of the latter? How much more productive would you be?

This can be your reality.

You can control how the day starts.

The Sales Motivation Myth You Need to Stop Believing

Mike Schultz
February 20, 2019

This RAIN Group article was originally published on the LinkedIn Sales Blog.

Some sales leaders believe that a quota and an attractive compensation plan are enough to ignite the hustle, passion, and intensity in a seller.

It makes sense they think this way given recent Harvard Business Review articles with titles like "Motivating Sales People: What Really Works" that focus 100% on compensation.

But there's much more to motivation than compensation. As Daniel Pink, author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, said in the Washington Post:

11 Ways You Can Influence Buyers to Connect With You

Mike Schultz
February 13, 2019

This article was originally published on the Sales Enablement Society.

Sellers often complain that it's impossible to get through to buyers. Gatekeepers are tough. Buyers are busy. Calls go to voicemail. Email goes to junk. The list goes on.

While getting through certainly isn't easy, sellers who work at it do get through. In fact, 82% of buyers say they accept meetings at least sometimes with sellers who reach out to them.

What Makes for Successful Sales Coaching

Mike Schultz
February 6, 2019

"Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach him to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime."

This is a popular axiom in the coaching world.

You'll find it everywhere. Here it is in a CBS News story:

"Myth 8: Professional coaches tell their clients what to do and give them advice.

Fact: Bad or inexperienced coaches tell their clients what to do and are constantly giving advice. Good coaches do not…Instead, coaches help their clients explore and come up with the best choices for them based on where they are and the client's vision for their future. Coaches are experts at the process of changing behavior, which is much more valuable than giving instructions."

3 Tips for a Successful Sales Negotiation Agenda

Mike Schultz
January 30, 2019

This article was originally published in the Inside Sales Blog.

One of the biggest mistakes sellers make in a sales negotiation is letting buyers take control of the negotiation, leaving you to play defense. If you want to come to a great agreement (and you do), you need to lead the process.

In our white paper, 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation, Rule #3 is: Lead the Negotiation. A key part in leading a sales negotiation is teeing up the meeting properly with an agreed to agenda ahead of time.

When you write the agenda, you can more effectively lead the conversation.

Nearly all meetings in any given negotiation are unique, so you'll need to plan for each one specifically. Start by creating an agenda to determine what information will and won't be discussed.

If you bypass this step, the meeting could start off on the wrong foot with the buyer making demands or pressuring you on price.

Core Competencies of Successful Sellers

Mike Schultz
January 24, 2019

There are common competencies every organization needs to build a truly successful sales organization.

At RAIN Group, we organize these competencies around the Sales Competency Wheel^SM.

3 Ways to Make Your Sales Training System More Effective

Mike Schultz
January 16, 2019

The most popular and effective diets and workout routines—ones that lead to the most dramatic changes—have specific guidelines and rules for how to follow the system.

No such system existed for sales—until now.

And, it works.

The New Revolution in Sales Coaching

Mike Schultz
January 3, 2019

Most leaders agree the opportunity to improve sales performance through coaching is tremendous, including:

Maximizing sales wins for their most important opportunities
Filling the pipeline with new, qualified opportunities
Maximizing sales to key accounts
Focusing sellers’ time on the most important activities
Developing skills, knowledge, and attributes to get to the next level of performance
Keeping sales activities and motivation at the highest sustainable level

These leaders are turning to coaching because coaching is an increasingly popular—and increasingly proven—method of improving performance.

7 Ways to Build Rapport in Sales and Connect with People

Mike Schultz
November 20, 2018

Consider this: a CBS News / New York Times poll asked, "What percent of people in general are trustworthy?" ¹

The answer: 30%. We're all pretty skeptical, 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%.

This goes to show: when people get to know and like you, people begin to trust you.

Of course, there's a lot more to building rapport and trust than making a positive initial connection with someone, but it sure is a good start. Having a strong connection with someone makes them more comfortable sharing their aspirations and their afflictions with you, two things you need to know about your buyer if you want to succeed in sales.

Goal Setting Worksheet: A Powerful Tool for Setting and Reaching Goals

Mike Schultz
November 14, 2018

Setting goals is relatively easy. You think about what you want to achieve in a certain period of time and set a specific and measurable metric around it. For example:

Meet sales quota of $450,000 this quarter
Lose 5 pounds in 4 weeks
Exercise 4 out of 7 days
Launch the new product by May 15
Grow a specific account by 3x this year

Reaching your goals, however, is a bit more complicated.

You need to create a goal and action plan to set expectations and to hold yourself accountable.

In our Goal Setting Worksheet, we outline a 5-step process that not only helps you set goals, but also gives you the best chance to reach them. Here we provide some goal setting examples, accompanied by visuals from the worksheet, to give you a sense of how to set goals and put actions in place to achieve them.

Click here to download our complimentary Goal Setting Worksheet.

3 Time Management Strategies to Get More Done with Less Effort

Mike Schultz
October 31, 2018

There are only 24 hours in each day. Some people are able to achieve incredible amounts in that time seemingly effortlessly. Others put in massive amounts of effort, but don't seem to get where they want to be.

What are those in the more productive group doing differently? How are they able to achieve so much more?

We have found those who achieve more and whose work seems to come effortlessly have mastered the 3 time management strategies below:

21 Powerful, Open-Ended Sales Questions

Mike Schultz
October 24, 2018

Broad, open-ended sales questions are great for helping you find out what's going on in your prospects' and clients' worlds. They are essential to sales success. In fact, "listened to me" and "understood my needs" are two of the top five factors most separating sales winners from second-place finishers.

Sales questions also help you connect with buyers personally, understand what's important to them, reshape their thinking, and create better futures for them. The importance of asking the right sales questions cannot be understated. (Hint: you need to ask more than "what keeps you up at night?")

Following are 21 open-ended sales questions you can use that will help you complete the picture of your clients' needs.

5 Ways to Grow Pipelines and Secure Meetings

Mike Schultz
October 17, 2018

This piece originally appeared in the August 2018 edition of Independent Agent magazine and is reprinted here with permission.

Word of mouth, repeat business and referrals used to be enough to maintain a thriving sales organization. But today, buyers have more options than ever before, they're more educated, and the phone doesn't ring like it used to.

That means sellers need to be proactive in growing their pipelines and securing meetings with buyers. Here are five ways to get started:

What is Sales Training?

Mike Schultz
October 12, 2018

Sales Training Defined: Sales training is the process of improving seller skills, knowledge, and attributes to drive seller behavioral change and maximize sales success. To be most effective, sales training should be viewed, designed, and executed as a change management initiative.

The global market for sales training is approximately $4.6 billion.

Yet most sales training fails to deliver lasting results.

This is because most companies do not define and approach sales training properly.

To deliver effective sales training, you need to redefine what sales training is. You need to focus on changing your sellers' behaviors to drive sales results and support this change as a change management initiative.

The Top Sales Skills of The Best Sellers

Mike Schultz
September 19, 2018

To find and win business consistently, your sellers need to have the right mix of sales skills across the sales process, from filling the front-end of the pipeline to growing accounts. Too many sales teams have significant skill deficits preventing them from turning their potential for sales growth into reality.

In The Top-Performing Sales Organization research initiative, we looked at the differences between Top Performers and The Rest across sales skills and knowledge needed to drive sales performance. The gaps in skills are eye-opening.

9 Tips for Success in Financial Services Sales

Mike Schultz
September 5, 2018

Written by: Mike Schultz and Gord Smith

When it comes to selling financial services, professionals are usually faced with three common challenges:

Creating new conversations with potential clients
Leading conversations and winning business against stiff competition
Maximizing business with current clients

The good news is that you can overcome these hurdles. There are specific things you can do in each of these areas to be more successful.

Cold Calling in Technology Sales: How Buyers Prefer to Be Contacted

Mike Schultz
August 29, 2018

Technology sellers lament how impossible it is to get their buyers on the phone more than any other industry.

Phone is one of the top ways sellers say they connect with buyers, yet sellers in the technology industry report extreme difficulty using it to reach their buyers.

In our study on Top Performance in Sales Prospecting, we studied 488 buyers responsible for $4.2 billion of purchases and the prospecting habits of 489 sellers. We looked at results across buyer and seller sets, top performers, and industry. As part of our research, we compared how buyers prefer to be contact by sellers across multiple industries.

XP3: The Path to Extreme Productivity

Mike Schultz
August 1, 2018

The most successful sellers are motivated, proactive, focused, and goal-oriented. Indeed, they get the most done and achieve the best results in less time.

So what makes these sellers significantly more productive? We all have the same number of hours in a day, yet some sellers achieve considerably more than others.

The answer: They're systematic. They attack each day with a similar mindset and process to drive their productivity.

After years of study, we've boiled down what these extremely productive sellers do to just 3 keys.

By applying these 3 keys, almost anyone can achieve great leaps and improvements in productivity.

The Extreme Productivity System: Keys, Habits, and Hacks

Mike Schultz
July 17, 2018

Becoming more productive can make a dramatic difference in your work, sales success, and overall happiness.

Think about it. How do you feel after a day where you've been exceptionally productive and pushed important projects forward?

You feel invigorated, motivated, engaged, and ready for the next challenge.

Compare that to an unproductive day where you couldn't focus or spent the entire day working on tasks for others. You feel drained, overwhelmed, frustrated, and irritable.

The good news is you can control how productive you are and in turn how you feel at the end of each day.

6 Ways to Boost Sales in Your Organization

Mike Schultz
June 6, 2018

There is no magic way to achieve sales success.

However, there is one significant concept that helps the companies and sellers who embrace it—those who make it part of the fabric of who they are and who their sales organization is—experience wildly successful sales results.

If you want to boost sales and join their ranks, you must become a Value-Driving Sales Organization.

Value-Driving Sales Organizations have significantly higher win rates and revenue growth, and lower undesired turnover. They not only win more at higher margins, but also retain top sales talent.

The Secret to Driving and Winning a Sales Opportunity

Mike Schultz
May 16, 2018

Too many sellers have the following problems:

Bloated pipelines filled with dead wood
Lack of clarity on what opportunities to focus on

In "How to Clear Your Pipeline of Dead Wood," we shared how to make your pipeline real and manageable. Here, you’ll find a framework that will allow you and your colleagues to define and focus on the best sales opportunities with clarity and confidence.

Sellers often treat their pipeline opportunities the same. They define need, qualify, propose, present, and wait for a win or loss. Maybe a few bubble up for more focus, but it's not always the right ones.

9 Keys to B2B Sales Success

Mike Schultz
May 2, 2018

There are a lot of opinions on what to do to drive sales success. I Googled the topic and found over 60 distinct pieces of advice for what to do and not to do, but most of the advice was, indeed, just opinions. Any references to research or proven success was tangential at best.

You deserve better!

Based on our work with B2B sales teams around the globe, as well as data from the RAIN Group Center for Sales Research, where we relentlessly study what the top sellers do and what buyers are looking for, we have gleaned 9 keys to achieving success in today's B2B sales environment.

Top Sales Prospecting Challenges

Mike Schultz
April 11, 2018

Challenges abound when it comes to sales prospecting. From targeting and using the right outreach methods to maintaining motivation and energy, there are plenty of ways to outbound prospect and fail.

Download: 5 Sales Prospecting Myths Debunked

For our Top Performance in Sales Prospecting research, we asked 489 sellers who outbound prospect about the biggest prospecting issues they face. The top 10 prospecting challenges can be grouped into 4 categories:

How to Fill Your Pipeline with Qualified Leads

Mike Schultz
April 4, 2018

Put me in front of 10 buyers and I'll close 7 of them. All I need is more meetings.

I hear this from sellers all the time. Get me more "at bats" and I'll get the hits.

To succeed in sales, you need a consistent stream of new leads to fill the front end of the pipeline.

You can't, however, just sit back and wait for the phone to ring or email to ding.

You need to be proactive in filling your own pipeline if you're going to succeed with prospecting.

How Many Touches Does It Take to Make a Sale?

Mike Schultz
March 28, 2018

How many touches does it take to make a sale?

The simple answer is: more than most people think!

According to our Top Performance in Sales Prospecting research, it takes an average of 8 touches to get an initial meeting (or other conversion) with a new prospect. But the initial meeting is just the beginning. It takes a lot more to make the sale.

When Do Buyers Want to Talk to Sellers? The Time Is Now

Mike Schultz
March 21, 2018

There are 2 stats that are cited in sales articles all the time:

57% of the purchase decision is made before a customer calls a supplier
67% of the buying journey is now done digitally

The question, however, is so what?

Sellers and sales leaders often interpret this to mean that buyers don't want to hear from sellers.

This is far from the truth.

Sales Negotiation Strategies for Dealing with Reverse Auctions

Mike Schultz
February 28, 2018

Reverse auctions (also called e-auctions) are a common negotiation technique used more and more frequently by large organizations. For the most part, sellers don't dislike reverse auctions—they loathe them.

The point of a reverse auction is to drive down supplier prices to their absolute lowest while driving expectations of suppliers to their highest. As the process (typically) removes human interaction from the equation, sellers often feel at a complete loss to do anything but participate in the auction or walk away.

There's a lot more to it. Below you'll find negotiation strategies you can use before and during the reverse auction process to get the best results for you and your buyer.

The Definition of Sales Management - What's Missing

Mike Schultz
February 14, 2018

The state of sales management in many companies is disturbing. Consider these stats from our Top-Performing Sales Organization study:

66% of companies do not believe their sales managers have the skills needed to manage and coach sellers.
Elite performers are 2.4x more likely to agree that sales managers and leaders are effective at maximizing selling energy.
71% of companies do not believe people in selling roles manage their time and day effectively.

Almost 7 out of every 10 sales managers do not have the skills they need to do their jobs effectively! Astounding. It's certainly understandable, though. Sales managers are directed, by the very definition of sales management, down the wrong path.

4 Skills Your Technical Sales Experts Need to Have

Mike Schultz
February 7, 2018

Solution engineers, technical consultants, solutions consultants—whatever you choose to call the technical expert on your sales team—they play a significant role in the sales and account-development process.

In our research, Top Performance in Strategic Account Management, we analyzed data from 397 executives, strategic account managers, and sales professionals to learn what sets the companies that are best at growing their strategic accounts—Top Performers—apart from The Rest.

Overall, we assessed 32 skills comprising six roles strategic account managers play: Results Driver, Project Manager, Technical Expert, Innovator, Collaborator, and Relationship Lead.

5 Steps of Rapid Preparation for Negotiation Success

Mike Schultz
December 13, 2017

"Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability...
We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation."

Thomas A. Edison

Preparation is often the greatest determinant of negotiation success. Across negotiation studies and surveys, we see sellers who get the best outcomes: know what they sell, research buyer wants and needs through sources other than the buyer, have a keen understanding of the buyer's day-to-day life and concerns, and prepare for each negotiation with trades, counteroffers, and knowledge of their walk-away points.

5 Key Influences on Sales Motivation

Mike Schultz
November 21, 2017

To optimize your sales force, you need to have a highly-motivated team bringing their "A game" day in and day out.

Often times, it's up to the sales managers to make sure their team maintains this positive and results-driven attitude on a daily basis. According to our Top-Performing Sales Organization research, 55% of Top Performers agree that managers are effective at creating and sustaining maximum selling energy, compared to only 32% of The Rest.

But management is not the only key influence on sales motivation.

4 Tips to Avoid Caving in Sales Negotiations

Mike Schultz
November 8, 2017

My grandfather Sidney was raised during the great depression. Often hungry growing up, he learned the value of a dollar the hard way. It stuck with him the rest of his life. When I was in college, he never let me call him because he would say it was long-distance.

I told him that the distance was long, but the call didn't cost anything. Still, he could barely stay on the phone for 5 minutes. I could visualize the nickels clinking in his mind, making him uncomfortable with the cost of the call.

Emotion is Not the Enemy: 7 Ways to Use Emotion to Your Advantage in Sales Negotiations

Mike Schultz
October 25, 2017

It's common advice to minimize emotions in a negotiation. For example, the reading line of the article "Emotion: The 'Enemy' of Negotiation" is "To succeed in negotiation, says one Wharton expert, one must take emotion out of the equation."

We disagree. Emotions are primary drivers of decision making in buying, and primary drivers in negotiation outcomes. Emotions shouldn't be minimized. Instead, they should be guided and managed for both buyer and seller so that the best outcome can be achieved by all.

How to Lead the 4 Stages of Sales Negotiation

Mike Schultz
October 11, 2017

"Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality."

Warren Bennis, Author, On Becoming a Leader

When it comes to sales negotiations, all too often sellers:

Don't plan for successful negotiated outcomes
Let the buyer define the negotiation process and venue
Allow the buyer to set the agenda for negotiation-focused meetings

How to Build Value in Sales Negotiations

Mike Schultz
September 27, 2017

In our research report, The Value Driving Difference, we studied almost 500 organizations' practices regarding how focused they are on driving value for buyers. Companies that rose to the top as Value-Driving Sales Organizations had higher sales win rates, were more likely to grow revenue, had lower undesired sales staff turnover, and much more highly motivated sellers. They were also two times more likely to agree that they capture maximum prices in line with their value.

There's no question: If you want to succeed in sales, you should focus on driving value.

Maximizing the Effectiveness of Your TIME - Keeping an Activity Log

Mike Schultz
August 23, 2017

If you want to maximize time, you must find more of it, and choose what you do with it carefully. We all have the same 168 hours a week to work with. Some people make the most of them, others don't.

The #1 Way to Decrease Anxiety and Gain Leverage in Sales Negotiations

Mike Schultz
August 9, 2017

Alison Brooks and Maurice Schweitzer, two researchers at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, conducted an experiment to induce varying levels of anxiety among negotiators.

One group was subjected to the not-so-melodious screeching strings from Psycho. The other group was treated to calming Water Music by Handel. After listening for a while, the groups were sent off to conduct simulated negotiations.

How to Clear Your Pipeline of Dead Wood

Mike Schultz
July 12, 2017

It's an all too familiar story. A seller's pipeline looks full! Bursting. Exciting. It stays like that for 2 months, 5 months, 10 months… more keeps going in. Nothing comes out.

It looked great, but it wasn't great. Not even good. Too many sellers have lots of opportunities in their pipelines that shouldn't be there. Neither managers nor sellers want mirage pipelines with visions of promised lands that simply aren't there.

4 Levels of TIME - How to Get More Done Every Day

Mike Schultz
June 28, 2017

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.
- Henry David Thoreau

Almost everyone at some point in their career will toy with adopting some kind of time-management system. Few stick with it. The challenge is that too many time-management systems focus too deeply on the activity level—what to do first, what to do next, what the priority order is—without paying enough attention to the bigger picture. Simply viewing the world through the lens of urgent vs. important is not enough.

5 Sales Strategies for When Buyers Go Cold

Mike Schultz
June 7, 2017

By: Mike Schultz and Jason Murray

After three months of talking and promises of moving forward, your fully qualified, enthusiastic champion is ready to pull the trigger. You send them a proposal and…silence.

It's frustrating when buyers go cold. Whether late in the process or after one good meeting, most sellers at least want to hear, "No," or, "Here's what happened," or, "I'm still interested, but something happened…"

Unfortunately, sellers often don't get the high sign from buyers, just the cold shoulder.

Before we cover tactics you can use to resurrect opportunities with buyers who go cold, it helps to understand why buyers go cold.

Making the Business Case for Sales Training: New Research on Supporting Top Performance

Mike Schultz
May 24, 2017

Executives are always on a mission to prove Kirkpatrick Level 4 measurement of training: Results. Specifically, they want to know to what degree targeted outcomes occur as a result of the training event and subsequent reinforcement.

There is relatively little data on how sales training correlates to business performance and results.

That is, until now.

5 Sales Training Ideas to Improve Results (and Sustain Them)

Mike Schultz
April 19, 2017

By now you know that teaching people how to sell and become Top Performers takes more than a one- or two-day event. It takes ongoing reinforcement.

Sales training is a change initiative. Going through a single class in two days does not change the way sellers sell. Change happens over time, once sellers get back to work and start implementing newly learned skills.

The Missing Link to Increasing Sales Motivation

Mike Schultz
March 1, 2017

There's no denying that having a highly motivated sales team ready to give their full energy and effort day in and day out has a huge impact on your organization's success.

When it comes to sales motivation, companies commonly focus on compensation, bonuses, and incentives to get top performance out of their sales team. While compensation is important, it certainly is not the only, or even the main factor that drives sales motivation.

What Makes for Successful Strategic Account Management?

Mike Schultz
February 8, 2017

Why are some companies able to consistently grow their strategic accounts and maximize value while others struggle? This is a question that confounds many a sales leader.

Some think it is largely related to the strength of product and service offerings. The companies that grow their accounts the most must have superior offerings that keep customers coming back for more, right?

6 Strategic Account Management Roles Every Company Needs to Know About

Mike Schultz
January 18, 2017

Ask leaders at companies how much more they believe they could be selling to their strategic accounts and you don't hear 5%, 10%, or 20%.

It's usually more like, "We should be selling 2 times…3 times…even more."

Ask what's in their way and you'll often get this answer, "Our strategic account managers just aren't doing what they need to do to penetrate the account, cross-sell, and keep the competition out so we can truly grow our accounts to their potential."

4 Steps to Overcoming Sales Objections

Mike Schultz
October 26, 2016

The word "no" can be a tough pill to swallow.

In selling, when you're trying to meet a quota, squeeze in an extra deal before the end of the quarter, or get your bonus, the word "no" is too often interpreted as a sign to run for the hills when, in fact, it should be the exact opposite.

A sales objection is an explicit expression by a buyer that a barrier exists between the current situation and what needs to be satisfied before buying from you. Beyond that, it's an indication that the buyer is engaged, which sure beats apathy.

However, you still have work to do.

When a buyer indicates that he is not ready to buy, don't get discouraged. Use the following 4 steps to overcome sales objections and move closer to the sale.

4 Key Components of Sales Enablement

Mike Schultz
October 19, 2016

Sales enablement is one of the eight categories of the Sales Performance Wheel^SM that we study when analyzing what drives sales performance. This category focuses on the different ways in which supporting sellers to be most effective allows them to reach their full potential, thus improving the organization's sales performance.

6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation

Mike Schultz
October 5, 2016

When watching sellers negotiate, perhaps the easiest things to see are the mistakes. Having now spent two decades studying sales negotiation, observing negotiations, and coaching and training sellers to improve their negotiation skills, we've distilled the common areas that the best sales negotiators consistently get right.

6 Ways Selling is Changing

Mike Schultz
August 24, 2016

Selling like it's 1987 (or even 2007) doesn't work like it used to. The way buyers and sellers interact—and will interact—is changing significantly.

6 Key Areas to Optimize Sales Operations

Mike Schultz
July 27, 2016

It may not be considered the most glamorous aspect of sales management, but as business and technology have evolved, it’s widely acknowledged that getting sales operations right is imperative for a smoothly run, effective sales organization. On his blog, Matt Heinz of Heinz Marketing even hails it as “THE most important and unsung hero for sales teams.”

4 Keys to Improving Sales Performance

Mike Schultz
July 13, 2016

While quite a bit of research has been published on what sellers need to do to achieve top sales performance, there’s relatively little on what separates top-performing sales organizations from the rest. To find out, the RAIN Group Center for Sales Research gathered data from 472 respondents representing companies with sales forces ranging in size from 10 sellers to 5,000 plus and published the results in the Top-Performing Sales Organization Benchmark Report.

Top 12 Differences Between the Best Sales Organizations and The Rest

Mike Schultz
June 29, 2016

In our Top-Performing Sales Organization research, our goal was to assess what the Top Performers do differently than The Rest to achieve the best results. Top Performers have higher win rates, meet their annual sales goals, are more likely to set challenging sales goals, and are more likely achieve maximum prices in line with the value they provide.

We analyzed data from 472 sellers and executives representing companies with sales forces between 10 and 5,000+ sellers. Top Performers represent the top 20% of our database. The Rest—the bottom 80%.

4 Key Components of Your Sales Organization's Structure

Mike Schultz
June 1, 2016

In sales forces of any size, changing the sales organization structure is an uphill battle. Structure relates to the organization of selling at the company, including sales compensation, territory design, account and lead assignments, and more.

What is Consultative Selling?

Mike Schultz
May 10, 2016

Since Mack Hanan coined the term in 1970, consultative selling has been the most widely accepted—and most pursued—sales approach. The approach is characterized as understanding buyer needs and positioning offerings as solutions to problems.

While this has been the go-to approach for many sellers, massive changes in buying technology and the vast amount of information on the internet is significantly changing how buyers buy at an unprecedented pace.

Analyzing Sales Performance: Components of Strategy

Mike Schultz
May 3, 2016

As they say, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. If you want to drive sales performance at a company, you can focus on all sorts of tactical areas—from people and training to enablement and operations—but none of these address the fundamental questions: Where are we going? What are we doing to achieve our goals? Who will lead us there?

Advanced Consultative Selling: Selling in the Blue Ocean

Mike Schultz
April 26, 2016

For the last 50 or so years, consultative selling has been the go-to approach for most sellers.

In traditional consultative selling, the buyer states a need and the seller positions their offerings as solutions to problems. This used to be enough to win the sale. But today’s buyers often perceive sellers and their capabilities to be somewhat interchangeable.¹ This leaves sellers stuck in a capabilities battle, fighting price pressure.

What Defines a Top-Performing Sales Organization?

Mike Schultz
April 14, 2016

Two sellers are talking at the end of the day. One turns to the other and asks, “How was your day?”

“I had a great day,” the second seller says. “I sent out two proposals this morning, had a great first meeting with a new potential buyer, and finally got a meeting with a decision maker I’ve been trying to reach for a year!” Feeling proud, he asks the first seller, “How was your day?”

He answers, “I didn’t sell anything either.”

This is one of the challenging-yet-great things about sales. It’s measurable. At some point, you have to bring in the wins or you fail. Which begs the question, “What brings in the wins?” A few years ago we studied this from the buyer perspective and published the results in our book Insight Selling.

The 8 Categories of the Sales Performance WheelSM

Mike Schultz
March 15, 2016

People often ask us, “What should we do to drive our sales success?”

It’s a complicated question. It’s not easy to decide what to tackle, when to tackle it, what results the organization should be targeting, where you can get the biggest bang for your buck, and what it really takes to get those results without further analysis.

9 Guidelines for Leading a Sales Performance Analysis

Mike Schultz
March 2, 2016

Sales performance analysis is typically quite involved and complex. It’s no easy task to figure out how to improve, change, or build a sales strategy. But for those sales leaders who are taking a longer-term view and looking into sales performance optimization, a performance analysis is a necessary precursor.

Average Sales Win Rates: How Do You Compare?

Mike Schultz
February 16, 2016

Most sellers and sales leaders are often asking themselves: "Is my win rate any good?"

Win rate is one of the most basic measures of your sales success, so it’s only natural to want to benchmark your performance against the average to see how you stack up.

The ABCs of Selling

Mike Schultz
February 16, 2016

At some point or another, you've probably heard of the ABCs of selling: Always Be Closing. The mantra was popularized by Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross (warning: strong language).

How to Develop and Maintain Strong Client Relationships

Mike Schultz
November 16, 2015

You know you need to differentiate yourself from your competition. And having a strong value proposition can help you do so. But sometimes buyers might consider your services to be the same as those from other providers. What do you do in that situation? It actually comes down to the relationship-whether the buyer likes you-says RAIN Group President Mike Schultz.

The Secret to Selling Professional Services

Mike Schultz
November 11, 2015

Selling.

What images come to mind when you see this word? Close your eyes and say the word out loud.

How does it make you feel?

Cold Calling Works: You Just Do It Wrong

Mike Schultz
November 11, 2015

Brrrr... I've just been cold calling and boy could I use some hot chicken soup!

Just those two words together—cold calling—puts many people far away from warm and happy. Given that it's so much fun for so many people, and that I have heard a number of times recently that the last nail has been banged into the cold calling coffin, why is cold calling still even on our radar screens?

Because it works.

12 Questions Sales Leaders Must Ask to Improve Sales Opportunity Management

Mike Schultz
November 3, 2015

If you've spent any time in complex sales, you know there's been a significant shift in how you win sales opportunities and grow accounts.

In our client work and studies through the RAIN Group Center for Sales Research, we've seen that:

5 Elements of a Sales Opportunity Plan

Mike Schultz
October 27, 2015

Sellers who win consistently plan to win from the start. They're methodical. They carefully match their sales process to the buyer's, set goals for every meeting, and do an exceptional job of communicating value.

Top sellers build strategies to drive sales opportunities, and use planners to help guide them through to the win.

Want to Win Your Next Big Sale? Win Lab It

Mike Schultz
September 22, 2015

When it comes to winning big sales opportunities, sales leaders often share 2 complaints:

Sellers aren't proactive. They fail to drive their most important sales opportunities forward with determination and rigor.
Even when sellers are proactive, they don't follow a consistent process to put themselves in the best position to win the sale.

4 Examples of Big Plays to Help You Win Major Sales and Grow Accounts

Mike Schultz
September 15, 2015

Big plays are major actions you can take to win your most important sales opportunities and grow your most important accounts.

How to Win Big Sales Opportunities with Big Plays

Mike Schultz
August 11, 2015

Sellers that win big sales go over-and-above to win them. When the impact for you is potentially huge, you want to do everything possible to get the win. Anything less and you essentially serve up the win to your competition.

When you need to win and win big, you need a Big Play.

6 Ways to Build Client Loyalty

Mike Schultz
July 28, 2015

We all know that client loyalty can make or break a company. We know that client loyalty is tied to satisfaction with what buyers buy from you, and to the buyers' experience buying from you.

In studying, researching, and practicing in the field of strategic account management, we've found 6 areas can almost universally be improved.

Want Loyal Clients? It Starts in the Buying Process

Mike Schultz
July 14, 2015

Client loyalty is tough to earn.

Fred Reichheld, author of The Loyalty Effect and creator of the Net Promoter System, found that most corporations lose 50% of their customers every 5 years, 50% of employees in 4 years, and 50% of investors in less than one year.

How to Measure Your Client Relationship Strength

Mike Schultz
June 24, 2015

Ask most people about the strength of their core client relationships and they'll say, "Great. Rock solid."

Yet these comments usually refer to how much rapport or trust sellers feel they have with the client. They don't answer the question through the lens of business value the client receives from them.

Bringing Insight to B2B Sales: Sell Like the Winners Do

Mike Schultz
May 26, 2015

We've written a lot about our What Sales Winners Do Differently research, in which we studied more than 700 B2B sales purchases by buyers representing $3.1 billion in annual purchasing power. We've shared with you how sales winners don't only sell differently, they sell radically differently from second-place finishers.

6 Strategies Buyers Use to Negotiate Price

Mike Schultz
May 5, 2015

Some buyers are conditioned to try certain tactics to lower your price. Maybe they've read about negotiation in books or were trained to use pressuring strategies.

5 Decision Roles in Every Sale

Mike Schultz
April 8, 2015

"It was like a phantom swooped in in the eleventh hour and killed the sale."

We've all been there...You had a series of great meetings. You built rapport and developed a strong, trusted relationship. You uncovered (and got agreement) on the buyer's needs—needs that they didn't even know they had. You spent days working with your delivery team to scope the project and write the proposal. You sent it off to your contact and called him at the time you had scheduled to review it:

Top 10 Strategic Account Management Challenges [Research]

Mike Schultz
March 18, 2015

When it comes to growing accounts, challenges abound. In our Benchmark Report on High Performance in Strategic Account Management, we asked:

Consider the challenges your company faces in strategic account management. For each factor indicate how challenging it is to your company's SAM efforts.

6 Tips to Sell More to Existing Accounts

Mike Schultz
February 3, 2015

One of the biggest untapped opportunities to increasing sales and profit is growing your existing accounts. Consider:

Retaining current customers is 6 to 7 times less costly than acquiring new ones (Source: Bain & Company)
Repeat customers, on average, spend 67% more (Source: Bain & Company)
60% of companies believe they should be generating 25% or more revenue from strategic accounts (Source: RAIN Group)

The Power of Trust in Sales

Mike Schultz
December 9, 2014

I received a call the other day from someone selling website tracking software. We already use a marketing automation tool like this. I mentioned it to the seller. He then went on a rant about how he visited our website, recognized the tool we use, and how we weren't doing it right.

19 Insight Selling Mistakes to Avoid

Mike Schultz
November 18, 2014

Like anything, insight selling comes with its own potential pitfalls. To help you avoid them, we have outlined the most common insight selling mistakes. Some points are tactical, and others strategic.

Download: Your Guide to Insight Selling Success.

7 Qualities of a Great Sales Negotiator

Mike Schultz
November 4, 2014

What makes a great negotiator?

Negotiation is a craft that can be learned by just about anyone, as I discussed in my recent podcast with RainToday.

When Win-Win Is Not the Best Sales Negotiation Approach

Mike Schultz
August 13, 2014

You've been working on a sale for 4 months and everything's going great. Your potential customer, the decision maker, is talking as if the deal is done. But before final sign off, you must meet with the CFO.

You get to the meeting.

Do You Have What It Takes to Become an Insight Seller?

Mike Schultz
July 16, 2014

There’s a revolution underway in sales. What used to work, even just a few years ago, is no longer enough to win major sales today.

As a result, a new breed of seller, who's beating out the competition and winning the sale, has emerged: the insight seller.

Insight sellers share new ideas and perspectives with their buyers, and they collaborate with buyers to develop the best solutions. They don’t just sell the value of their products and services, they become the value.

Is Relationship Building in Sales Dead?

Mike Schultz
June 24, 2014

There's been a lot of noise the last couple years declaring relationship selling dead. "The Internet has changed everything." "Personal connections don't matter anymore." "Selling is not about relationships." "Throw out everything you thought you knew about sales, Armageddon is coming!" Blah, blah, etc.

The Power of Storytelling in Sales

Mike Schultz
June 11, 2014

In the latter half of the 1700s, German astrologist and physician Franz Anton Mesmer treated his patients by looking deeply into their eyes and waving magnets in front of their faces. Mesmer believed barriers in our bodies disrupted the natural flow of the processes that gave us life and health. He further believed his penetrating eye gazing and object waving restored natural order inside his patients and relieved all sorts of maladies.

7 Ideas for Building Trust in Sales

Mike Schultz
June 4, 2014

Lots of things have changed in the world of sales, but some things have not. Building trust was important 50 years ago, and it's just as important today.

When buyers trust sellers, they depend on them, listen to them, give them access, and spend time with them.

How Consultative Sales Methods Need to Change

Mike Schultz
May 2, 2014

Call it what you like: solution sales, consultative sales, consultative selling—at the core of each of these concepts is diagnosing and connecting the "pain" of the buyer with the products, services, and overall capabilities of the seller as "solutions."

Pain + Diagnosis + Offerings as "Solution" = WIN!

What Is Insight-Based Selling?

Mike Schultz
May 2, 2014

Insight-Based Selling Defined: Insight selling is the process of creating and winning sales opportunities, and driving change, with ideas that matter. There are two applications of insight selling: interaction insight and opportunity insight.

Interaction insight: Providing value in the form of creating insights through buyer and seller conversation
Opportunity insight: Selling a particular idea or strategy a buyer should pursue but might not know about

Essentials of an Effective Account Planning Tool

Mike Schultz
March 28, 2014

In The Benchmark Report on High Performance in Strategic Account Management, we analyzed data from over 370 companies that engage in formal strategic account management. We asked about the top challenges that limit account growth and found the number one difference between high performers and the rest is: having an effective strategic account planning tool.

Only 19% of high performers reported having an effective account planning tool as challenging compared to 53% of everyone else (see graph below).

The challenge of having an effective tool does not, however, exist in a vacuum.

7 Steps to a Successful Sales Meeting When the Seller Drives the Demand

Mike Schultz
February 21, 2014

You finally got the meeting!

Now what?

While getting a buyer to say "yes" to an initial sales meeting is a battle in and of itself, much success is determined by what happens in that first meeting. There are many mistakes to avoid, especially when you’re the one setting the meeting, driving the demand for your offerings and when you're hosting virtual sales meetings.

5 Ways to Use Education and Insights to Generate Meetings

Mike Schultz
November 13, 2013

In our What Sales Winners Do Differently research, we found that the number one factor separating sales winners from second-place finishers is this: Sellers educated buyers with new ideas or perspectives.

In other words, the seller became known as a source of insight.

11 Questions for Insight Selling

Mike Schultz
October 23, 2013

Insight selling is an old concept that has recaptured the fancy of the sales world, and rightly so, because it’s about adding value. Specifically, it’s about the seller adding value over-and-above the product or service.

Too many folks, however, think insight selling is about educating buyers through presentations. They’re about half right, but without the other half, they’re missing out on the full impact of insight selling.

5 Keys to Successful Sales Coaching

Mike Schultz
October 1, 2013

More than ever, sales teams are struggling with unqualified leads, missed sales goals, and lost opportunities. Increasingly, company and sales leaders are turning to coaching as a solution.

And, why not? Executive and personal-effectiveness coaching have historically yielded great results. According to the International Coach Federation, the average company can expect a return of 7 times the initial investment in coaching.*

Shouldn’t the same be expected from sales coaching?

6 Ways to Communicate Impact in Sales

Mike Schultz
August 13, 2013

You’ve worked on building rapport with your prospect and you’ve uncovered their aspirations and afflictions. The question then becomes, "So what?"

If your afflictions don't get solved, so what? What won’t happen? Will they get worse? How will they affect the bottom line of your company, division, or department? How will they affect your life?

If your aspirations don't become reality, so what? Will your competition get ahead of you if you don't innovate? Will you lose market share if you aren't aggressive in your strategy? Will you never be able to grow your business to a point where you can sell it and reach your personal financial goals? Will the promotion you desire continue to elude you?

Your ability to quantify the impact and paint the "so what" picture is the foundation for how important it is for the decision maker to buy from you. If you don’t answer the "so what" question, the initiative will fall to the bottom of the priority list.

Bringing Insight Selling Alive—How to Tell a Convincing Story

Mike Schultz
July 26, 2013

CONVINCE

con•vince

Cause (someone) to believe firmly in the truth of something.
Persuade (someone) to take action.

Building confidence in the validity of an idea. Inspiring action.

The sellers who do these best sell the most.

Top 10 Factors Separating Sales Winners from the Rest

Mike Schultz
May 30, 2013

For our What Sales Winners Do Differently research, we studied over 700 major purchases from buyers who represented $3.1 billion dollars in annual purchasing power.

One question we wanted to answer was, “Is it the company and offerings that make the biggest difference in the buyer’s purchase decision, or is it the seller and how they sell?”

Guess what: it’s the seller and how they sell that most separates sales winners from the rest.

The following list reveals what buyers say are the top 10 areas where sellers who win outperform those who come in second place.

Thoughts on the Five Seller Profiles in The Challenger Sale

Mike Schultz
May 22, 2013

In this post we noted we often get questions about The Challenger Sale. Perhaps the most common question we get is, “What do you think of the five seller profiles?”

The five seller profiles, as defined by the authors of The Challenger Sale in “Selling Is Not About Relationships,” a Harvard Business Review blog post, are as follows. We list them in order by what they found in their study to be least to most likely to be a top performer in sales.

Generate More Leads with Existing Accounts Through Value and Collaboration

Mike Schultz
May 20, 2013

Most people think of prospecting as reaching out to people they don’t know, with an over-the-top approach, to interest them in buying something they’re not thinking about. This isn’t the only way to generate more leads.

Prospecting isn’t just a cold activity, and you don’t need a sledgehammer approach to make it work.

Sales Call Planning: What to Know Before Every Sales Call

Mike Schultz
April 29, 2013

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. - Benjamin Franklin

We acknowledge that sometimes you can't prepare for a sales call or—hallelujah—a prospect calls you out of the blue. It's reasonable to suggest that, on occasion, sales calls are appropriately deemed 'exploratory discussions'; the kind of discussion in which we just talk and 'see where it goes.'

Take this approach in most sales situations, however, and you'll lose more than your share of sales that you should have won. Interestingly, whether you have a two-thousand- or two-million-dollar price point, to increase your odds of winning new customers, you still need to do the same basic planning and know the same essential information before your sales calls.

Value Proposition Definition: 3 Rules for Building a Strong Value Proposition

Mike Schultz
April 26, 2013

Ask 100 sellers at 100 companies why their customers buy from them, and you're likely to hear 100 answers with the same underlying theme: the value we provide.

Sellers describe their value to us in a number of ways: we get results. Our relationships are very close. They get from us what they've always wanted (but never gotten) from other companies. We bring innovative solutions to the table. And so on.

Pretty obvious, right? To win sales you have to maximize value.

6 Tips for Differentiating in the Selling Process

Mike Schultz
April 12, 2013

See an article about differentiation and it’s likely to be about marketing. Differentiation often starts with marketing, but it’s in the selling process that it truly comes alive.

Here at RAIN Group, we recently analyzed just over 700 business-to-business sales made to buyers who represent $3.1 billion in annual purchases from industries with complex sales.

The purpose of the research was to find out what sales winners do differently in the selling process compared to the sellers that didn’t win, but who came in second place.

New Sales Research: What Sales Winners Do Differently

Mike Schultz
April 12, 2013

How selling is changing?

What do sellers need to do to maximize their success?

To find out, we studied more than 700 business-to-business purchases made across industries by buyers who represent a total of $3.1 billion in annual purchasing power, and posed the question:

“What are the winners of actual sales opportunities doing differently than the sellers who come in second place?”

After many months of significant effort, we revealed the data and insight from our research in our What Sales Winners Do Differently research report. This report reveals data and insight from our in-depth sales research on what sellers do to win sales opportunities.

The results are both surprising and fascinating.

Account Management and Selling Are Different in These 5 Ways

Mike Schultz
April 12, 2012

Ask the question, “What needs to happen at your company to maximize your success with your strategic accounts?” and you’re likely to get answers like this:

Account managers need to know about the value we can bring them besides what we’re doing for them right now.
We need to penetrate different divisions of the accounts.
Our relationships need to be deeper if we want to keep competitors out.
We need to work directly with decision makers at the enterprise level.

Nice list, but not unique to account management.

7 Reasons Why Sales Training Fails

Mike Schultz
February 21, 2012

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:

How to Build Fluent Product Knowledge and Improve Sales Success

Mike Schultz
November 29, 2011

Salespeople know what they sell, and they sell what they know. When it comes to salesperson knowledge, people know too little about their particular industry, their customers’ needs, and their company’s products and services to be able to sell the full suite of solutions. Without this knowledge they can’t:

Ask the right questions to uncover the complete set of customer needs
Match the right products and services to those needs
Position the value of their company as superior to other options available to the customer

Indeed, they can’t and don’t hold masterful sales conversations with customers.

The result: Lost sales and missed cross-selling opportunities.

6 Building Blocks for Communicating Your Value Proposition

Mike Schultz
June 6, 2011

The following is expanded content from our new book Rainmaking Conversations: Influence, Persuade, and Sell in Any Situation. In this piece, co-authors Mike Schultz and John Doerr discuss the concept of a value proposition, and how to communicate your value to someone you are meeting for the first time. Read more about the book here.

Not Hitting Your Sales Numbers? Do This One Thing Better

Mike Schultz
April 25, 2011

Are you giving yourself a chance of a bullseye?

“Like a poor marksman you keep…missing…the target. Kaaahhhnnn!!!”
- Admiral James T. Kirk

There's 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 and he was a good guy, but the results just weren’t there.

The 6 Buyer Personas (and How to Sell to Them)

Mike Schultz
January 20, 2011

A while ago at a conference I had dinner with two people. The first—we’ll call her Janine—I had known since we worked together six years earlier. The second person—Ed—Janine and I had just met.

Janine described a sales challenge she was facing. She’d been working with two prospects at two different organizations, one for over a year and one for almost two. The typical sales cycle is 6 to 9 months, and these were both well beyond. She felt she was nearing a sale with both, but for all she knew, “nearing” might mean a year or two to go.

Overcoming 3 Common Cold Calling Objections

Mike Schultz
December 14, 2010

Prospecting and setting appointments via cold call is not easy. But learn to overcome these objections, and you'll instantly find more success in it.

A recent business-to-business client of ours closed a mid-six figure deal that started with a cold call.

But it started out rocky. Indeed, about 20 seconds in to the cold call it almost fell apart.

10 Rainmaker Principles and Keys to Sales Motivation

Mike Schultz
November 29, 2010

Tony Robbins, please accept my apology.

Many years ago, when I was a budding manager in charge of my first strategic business unit, I dissed you pretty badly.

I'm sorry. I take it back.

5 Guidelines for Writing Winning Proposals

Mike Schultz
October 19, 2010

If you don't know your destination, any road will get you there. When prospects ask for a formal proposal, they are telling you their desired destination: a business relationship with you. And they're asking you to answer the question, “What road do we take to get there?”

Since it's your job to give directions, you want to tell them the straightest, shortest, and easiest route. After all, you don't want them to get lost along the way, or so tired on the path that they give up before they get to the end.

FAINT - The New Definition of a Qualified Prospect

Mike Schultz
October 19, 2010

It's 2001. You work for a new company in the search engine space. Let's call this company Shmoogle.

Shmoogle has this huge new idea—businesses are starting to grow based on getting found on the Internet. Why not have businesses pay per click to get found? Brilliant!

You're a sales person at Shmoogle, and you know pay per click will be huge. You start prospecting on the phone.

4 Things to Do When Clients Pressure You for Lower Fees

Mike Schultz
October 19, 2010

"Your fees are too high; can you do it for less?"

In the highly competitive marketplace we hear dreaded phrases like this all of the time. The easy thing to do is to offer a discount, but that cuts into your profit margins and sets a precedent for the future. You don’t want to become a victim of discounting gone wrong.

So what do you do when clients push back on your fees?

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