Fear will kill a deal in two seconds.  Fear will drop the price of your product or solution 30% in the blink of an eye. It will add new features faster than you can say, “new feature.” Fear is the nemisis of good sales organizations.

When sales people sell afraid, they are out of control.

Sales people are afraid:

• They won’t make quota
• They won’t make enough money
• To lose the deal (to the competition, over price, because it won’t install fast enough)
• To lose their job
• They are behind their peers on the leader board
• They will miss their car payment/house payment/some payment
• They aren’t good enough
• The pipeline isn’t big enough
•  To fail

The reason fear enters a sales persons world are plenty.  They are unavoidable, but must be controlled.

Sales people, manage your fear.  Build on the confidence that says you are a damn good sales person. Know that if you do the work, if you have the knowledge, if you commit to your customer, you will have nothing to be afraid of. You’ll make your number. You’re pipeline will be big enough. You won’t lose to the competition. You won’t lose on price.  You’re gonna be just fine.

Management,

DON’T CREATE AN ENVIRONMENT OF FEAR!  It will bury you. It’s over when sales people are selling scared. There are enough reasons for sale people to be afraid, you don’t need to be another.

Fear is the death of a sales person.

Don’t sell scared!

The next week the head of sales went into the CEO’s office and told him he didn’t believe the partnership was going to work out and he felt they should look to different areas and consider a different go to market strategy. The CEO blasted his head of sales, suggesting he was coming up with excuses for NOT being able to sell the new product and the partner relationship was just fine.

The head of sales ended up leaving shortly there after.

Six months later, the start-up pivoted, shutting down the partnership and scuttling the product. It didn’t work.

Why didn’t the CEO listen to his head of sales?  Why did he not trust the opinions of the person he hired as his sales expert? Sometimes, hard truths are hard to hear.

Hard truths is information that is hard to hear. It’s the information that suggests the leaders is going in the wrong direction, that someone they trust is hurting them, that the product they want to work, is in trouble.  Hard truths are inconvenient. It’s the things we DON’T want to hear.

The best leaders, the best sales leaders are open to the hard truths. They recognize the value in having an organization where the hard truths can be safely shared. The embrace and encourage open and honest discord. Accepting hard truths can save an organization a lot of time and money.

Some leaders aren’t ready for hard truths. They are afraid of being found out. They believe it will undermine their power. They think it make them look weak. They attack those who share the hard-truths, as this CEO did. Some leaders don’t want to hear the truth.

Success is built on hard truths. Just because you don’t want to hear it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exists. Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Start celebrating those who tell you how it is, not what you want to hear.

Hard truths can be your best friends, if you let them?

Do you want to know what is the one thing you can do to blow out your number and crush the competition?  It is to turn your sales organization into a teaching organization.

Turning your sales organization from a selling organization to a teaching organization is a game changer. Customers today are looking for more than product information. They want more than pitches and price concessions. Today’s costumers want to learn something that will help their business grow. They want information they didn’t have. They want someone who can help them navigate their complex world. Today’s customers want to be taught.

Take a look at your website.  Can visitors learn anything from it? I don’t mean something about your products or services, but about the industry, regulation, trends, how to tackle a common industry challenge etc? Is your website set up to teach potential customers when they visit? It should be.

Does your sales playbook contain unique industry information your sales people can use to educate their prospects?  Does your sales playbook contain tools your sales people can point prospects to like video’s, eBooks, and white papers that would help prospects better understand HOW to tackle the challenges they are facing? Or, is your sales playbook all about your products and services. Does your sales playbook support your sales people in teaching their customers?

Do you train your sales people to teach? Do you provide sales training that teaches how to teach?

Do your sales pipeline reviews and opportunity review meetings evaluate new and timely educational topics that would resonate with prospects? Does your marketing organization regularly provide the sales team with new, updated, industry data and “how to” information they can use to educate prospects?

Is your sales team built to teach or to pitch?

If, in your mind, you’re saying; “pitch,” it’s time to consider a new approach.

Customer buying habits have changed. Social media; YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, Blogging, Linkedin have all provided customers and prospects with amazing amounts of information. They know who you are, what you sell, your competition, what people think of you, your customer service, your warranties, everything. In most cases they know all of this before they ever show up on your website or make a call. Customers and prospects no longer need us to talk about us. They don’t need our websites, our sales people or our fancy collateral to learn about us. They learn everything they need to without ever having to connect with us. Because of this, your customers and prospects are much further along in the buying process before they ever contact us and that, my friend, changes the game, BIG TIME!

Customers and prospect are making their early buying decisions based what you know, not on what you have in your product portfolio. It’s your expertise they want the most!

Become a teaching organization takes a commitment. It’s a cultural change. It doesn’t mean you no longer sell. Selling is what we do, that won’t change. It’s how we sell that changes. Turning your organization into a teaching organization means providing your sales people with new customer centric information. It means providing customers with information and data that can help them run their business. It’s not more product information or product slicks. It’s not information focused on you and what you sell but rather information on what they sell and what they need to be successful. It’s creating a teaching organization that has more information and knowledge than your customers and prospects. It’s an organization that knows how to use the information and knowledge to educate the customer or prospect in something they didn’t know and needed to know.

Sales organizations that become teaching organizations become game changers. Turn your sales organization into a  teaching organization. I think you will like the results.

How you structure your sales organization can be the difference between a successful strategy and a failed one.

A brilliant sales strategy won’t amount to a hill of beans if you don’t build the best underlying sales structure to support it. An old boss of mine used to say; “Structure follows strategy,” and he is right.

If you have 3 types of sales or products that target very different customers, how would you structure your organization to attack those markets?

What if each of those products had different buyers internally? Would that change things? If yes, how?

There is no right answer to these questions and the hundred others we can be faced with, the key however, is to make sure you are asking them.

All too often we focus on sales strategy, people and process. We spend time trying to identify the best go to market strategy we can. We coach and train our people. We create new processes. But it is rare we evaluate our structure. Structure can bring substantial return with very little investment. In many cases structure is simply taking what you have and using it in a different way.

Recently, one of my clients identified an opportunity where restructuring lowered the cost of sales, as they were able to reduce a management layer and increase sales as they segmented the team into two groups, each targeting a different layer of the market. No additional costs, no additional sales training and not additional sales tools.

When does it make sense to evaluate your sales structure?

1. When there are large gaps between performers and non-performers – when you have large gaps between performers and non-performers or large differences in average deal size it could be that the market is split. The performers are having success targeting the higher end of the market, while the non-performers or those with lower average deal size are targeting the lower end of the market. In this case split the market, develop two sales teams, one targeting the higher end of the market, the other the lower end. The key here is to adjust compensation to align with the sales cycles and products. Don’t pay high-end, sophisticated sales people to sell to the low end of the market. Conversely, don’t expect lower end, less sophistacated sales people to sell upstream.
2. When all products aren’t moving equally – when your sales team is successful with some products and not others, it may not be a product issue. It might not be a sales person issue either. It may be a sales cycle issue. When a product isn’t moving, while others are, evaluate the selling motion. Does the product that’s NOT moving require a different sales process? Do your customers buy it the SAME way they buy your other products? Are there different selling needs for the product that isn’t moving that need to be in place? If the answer is yes to any of these, considering restructuring along product lines. It may be the answer your looking for.
3. When you get top heavy – Why have so many Managers, Directors, V.P.’s, etc? Take a look at the organization and ask is it flat enough? Do I need this many layers? Do I need any layers at all. What am I getting from each layer. Multiple layers of management can suffocate a sales team. It can create bureaucracy.
4. When the market shifts: -Shifts in the market can mean tremendous opportunity or destruction. When markets shift, when competition increases, when threats arise, the best response could be restructuring to align with the changes. Knowing when the market is changing and ensuring your organization is properly aligned to meet the shits can be all that’s need to keep revenue up, costs aligned and morale high.

What did we talk about?

We asked them how things are going, what they are seeing in the market and what they are focusing on. We asked about their strategy to achieving quota. We asked HOW they came up with the strategy and how it’s working. We talked about the challenges they were seeing and how they were addressing them. We asked what they would do with the sales organization if they could change anything? We asked them a lot of questions about their day to day and how THEY go about their job.

The conversation was impromptu, light and engaging. We genuinely wanted to understand what the selling experience was like from their individual perspective. Like always, it was hugely valuable. We learned a lot.  So much as a matter of fact, we are considering a structure change to capitalize on a few identified opportunities.

No one knows more about your selling environment than the people in the field. The frontline sales people hear the objections first hand. They have built unique strategies for making their number and to overcome the selling challenges. They know what the customers are dealing with. They are familiar with your companies sales prevention department. Frontline sales people are in the middle of the action. No one has more data on what is going on than those in the field.

When was the last time you sat down and had an open conversation with some of your sales people? If you’re like most head of sales it’s been a long time.

We look at data from the CRM everyday; average time to close, pipeline, win loss, average deal size, and lead conversion rate. We look at quota attainment, customer buying habits, lead scoring and lead generation. But, the best data goes beyond the numbers. The best data rests not in your CRM but in your sales people and it can’t be put into a dashboard.

Sit down with the people who do the job everyday. They know a lot more than the CRM, I promise you.

Melissa is also extremely detailed oriented. She is excellent at getting things done. Nothing falls through the cracks. Melissa can follow process, manage competing demands and deliver with amazing precision. She’s a workhorse. Melissa is motivated by acceptance. She likes to know she is doing a good job and responds well to praise.  Melissa doesn’t respond well to being overly criticized.

Diego is a driver. He loves the chase. He too likes to be “liked.” Diego is very intelligent and knowledgeable. Diego is affable, fun, and engaging. He leverages his knowledge to position himself with customers and his fellow employees.  Diego isn’t detailed oriented, but will do whatever it takes to get the deal done. Diego is loyal and EXTEMELY coachable. He’s a sponge.  Responsive to feedback and criticism nothing upsets Diego.  He has extremely thick skin. He can take a licking and he keeps on ticking. Diego is known to stretch the truth and can be a kiss-ass, so it’s important to call him out sometimes and to dig deep when you’re looking to get answers.  Diego responds to being told he his doing well. He likes to know he is part of something bigger and is accepted. Being embraced and a part of something special motivate Diego.

Scott has a personality bigger than life. He has an aura that surrounds him. He is EXTREMELY intelligent and even more articulate. Scott absorbs information on the fly and can leverage that information immediately. Scott draws people to him, as he knows what to say to disarm them.  Scott can see the path to a sale 10-20 moves ahead of most people. Scott understands the emotional responses of his prospects and customers better than they do. Scott knows what people are thinking and feeling every second and leverages this sense to precisely engage with them, knowing exactly what responses required to move the sale.

Scott sucks at details. He is easily discouraged when things aren’t going well. Scott hates process. Scott can’t be relied on to deliver consistently. Scott is a roller coaster, with high, highs and low, lows. Scott is very self-centered. Scott brings tremendous energy to the team, but can also bring it down.

Scott is motivated by acknowledgment. He wants to be seen as the top dog. Admiration drives Scott. He is motivated by how others perceive him. Scott has low self-esteem in spite of his outward confidence. Scott is driven by money and status.

Melissa, Diego and Scott are real people that used to work for me. I knew them well. I knew what they were good at and what they weren’t. I knew what motivated them and what they responded to.  I knew what environments they would succeed in and which they wouldn’t.  I knew what NOT to say to Melissa and what NOT to expect from Diego. I knew where Scott would excel an were he wouldn’t.

Intimately knowing my people gave me an incredible advantage to making my number.

A long time ago, one of my bosses said to me: “Jim you’re easy to manage, all I have to say to you is; I don’t think you can do it, and then you go running off to get it done.” He was right. I respond very well to being challenged and told I can’t do something.

Needless to say, later in my career I had another boss who told my what to do. He rarely let me make my own decisions.  That didn’t work out too well. I don’t respond well to be told how to do my job. This boss had no clue on what motivated me.

What do you know about the INDIVIDUALS on your team? Do you know what makes them tick? Do you know what they are good at? Do you know what motivates them? Do you know what they like and don’t like? How intimately do you know your team?

Know the people on your team.  It’s not enough to have talented people if you can’t use them correctly. You end up wasting your time and their skills.

Do you have leadership intimacy?

When we we’re not making quota, when our numbers are down, when prospects don’t call us back, when the pipeline is getting thin, we believe the problem is the sales team? After all, it’s their job to sell.

But, are the sales people really the cause?

Could the cause be a new competitive threat? Could it be a leading indicator of a declining economy? Could it be the marketing approach is no longer effective? Could it be the product has become stale. Could it be pricing? Could it be new technology on the horizon? Could it be the customer problem you solve no longer exits or is rapidly disappearing? Could the cause be something else?

When we assume the cause of declining revenue is the sales team, we start to fix the sales team.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily fix the problem. When we fix the corollaries we aren’t fixing the problem. We only want to fix the sales team when we KNOW they are the cause.

Problem solving is being able to find the cause of a problem and fixing it. When revenue is down, the best sales managers find the cause and don’t focus on the correlation’s. When working with clients, the best sales people help customers get to the cause of their problem and keep them from fixing the corollaries.

The only way to fix a real problem is to know the difference between causality and correlation.  Do you know the difference?

It’s not uncommon for people to ask me what’s the best way to motivate sales people to sell more. My answer is almost always the same. If you are using money to incent sales people to sell MORE, you have a big problem.

I participated in this sales webinar yesterday; Best Practices in Modern Day Selling. You can listen to the session here.

One of the participants asked this question:

What incentives have you offered your sales teams to help motivate them to close more deals?

My answer was NONE!  If you are looking to incent your team to close more deals, you’re missing the real problem. Something else is going on in the organization and throwing money at it, isn’t going to help.

A solid, well crafted commission plan should be all the motivation the sales team needs to close deals. If the team isn’t closing enough deals, something else is wrong.

What?

It could be a lot of things. A few obvious things:

1. A shitty sales team
2. The wrong sales people in the wrong roles
3. A weak product
4. Poor sales leadership
5. Poor sales support
6. A bad commission plan
7. All of the above
8. None of the above, but a number of other things

If the team isn’t closing more deals or “enough” deals the problem can be found  in one or all of the following 4 areas; your strategy, your structure, your people or your processes.

I promise, if you’re not making your number, if you need more deals closed, it’s not because you need to incent more. (exception is a shitty commission or comp plan) It’s because you have problem somewhere else. Finding and solving the REAL problem is your challenge.

Incentives should be used only to augment your existing, productive well run sales organization. They can be used to move a specific product for a  short period of time. They can be used to create a quick spike or to create a “fun, competitive” environment for a month or a quarter.  They can be used to drive “new” behaviors like improving forecasting accuracy. However, incentives should not be used to motivate your team to close more deals.

A good sales team comes to the table motivated. Superstar sales teams are driven to succeed. They don’t need additional incentives, beyond their comp plan to close deals.

If your using incentives to close “MORE” deals, it’s just a band aid on a broken leg.  It’s not helping and your wasting band-aids.

Find the REAL problem then fix it.

Take Aways: 

Don’t use incentives to close more deals.

If enough deals aren’t be closed, determine where the REAL problem is.

The problem is going to be with your sales strategy, structure, people or processes.

Use incentives for a short period of time to push a new product, have fun, create a competitive environment or change a required behavior

1. How well a sales person can preserve pricing integrity. In other words, do they cave on pricing or do they have a backbone?
2. How well a sales person upsells or bundles additional products and services.
3. Which sales people are the most efficient with company time and resources.

Knowing your average deal size by rep let’s you see who your most efficient sales people are. Deals take a long time to close. Therefore you want to get the most out of every deal. The rep who closes 15 million in 15 deals is far more efficient than the person who closes 17 million in 25 deals.  The person selling 17 million is working a lot harder and using more company resources to get that 17 million.

Sales people are expensive. Getting the most out of them is critical.  When the average deal size goes up, your cost of sales goes down and that’s a good thing.

Do you measure the productivity of your reps? Do you know which of your reps gets the most out of every deal?  You should.

Average deal size, an ignored metric.

There are a lot of misconceptions about what an “A” player or superstar looks like and how to spot them in an interview. Following these myths can bury your team with under performers and bad hires.  When looking for “A” players DON’T get suckered by these traits;

1) Enthusiasm: Labrador Retriever puppies are unbelievably enthusiastic. They run around in a million directions ready to do what ever they can to make you happy. They don’t do much, very well, but they are full of enthusiasm and not much else.

Enthusiasm is a great trait combined with a what’s really important. It is by far a trait to define a superstar or “A” player. Not all “A” players are enthusiastic. Who wants a bunch of puppies running around the office?

2) Sense of Urgency: Just because someone has little patience and wants something right now, doesn’t signal they are an “A” player. A players can have sense of urgency, but sense of urgency doesn’t mean they are an “A” player. As a matter of fact, many see a sense of urgency as a liability. Recall the story of the young bull and the old bull sitting on top of the hill looking down on a field full of cows. The young bull says, “Hey, let’s run down their and git one of them cows.”  The old bull says, “Let’s walk down and git em all.”

Not all “A” players have a sense of urgency.

3) Money Hungry: Using a persons motivation for money to determine if they are an “A” player is suicide. The vast majority of sales people are money hungry. To suggest or believe that “A” players some how have a monopoly on the desire for money and therefore can be identified by that desire is stupid.

“A” players are no more or less money driven on average than “B” or “C” players.  I would contend, in many cases it’s the opposite. It is proven over and over the best of the best are almost NEVER motivated by money, but rather by being the best of the best, and number one in their field. They know that by being the best, the money will follow. Money isn’t the motivator, being great is!

Not all “A” players are motivated by money.

4) Experience: Probably the most mistakenly used data point for determining an “A” player.  I’ve heard a million times, “he worked at XYZ for 10 years and was their top rep, he’s awesome,” or “She has 15 years experience in the industry, and has been a top rep for all 15. She rocks!” And then watched them all fall flat on their face. Experience should be contextual data to validate or invalidate your assumptions. That’s it.  For every time I’ve seen the person with the pedigree fail, I’ve seen someone without the experience blow it up.

Not all “A” players have tremendous experience.

My problem with the traits above is they all correlate to “A” players, but they aren’t the cause. They aren’t the reason someone is an “A” player. Too often we rely on correlations, not causes. Doing so can create tremendous damage.

To know what signals to look for when interviewing “A” players, you have to know what causes “A” players to be successful.  Enthusiasm, motivated by money, sense of urgency and experience DON’T cause more product to be sold.

So what causes more product to be sold?

Business Accumen: Sales people with strong business acumen know how business works. They understand the inherent challenges with change management, finance, cash flow, accounting, product placement, H.R., product pricing, logistics, supply-chain, and more. “A” players know business. “A” players leverage that knowledge of business to help their clients improve their business.

Tip: Dig into your candidates understanding of general business terms. Ask him or her how they sold their product or service over the past few years. Don’t listen for sales terms and processes like overcoming objections, but rather business terms, like reducing margins, reduced life cycles, inventory velocity, etc.

“A” players talk in business terms, not sales terms. All “A” players have strong business acumen.

Creativity: Creativity is the most important trait to me when looking for “A” players. I’ve always scored creative candidates higher than those who weren’t.  The book Challenger Sale recently reported that the best sales managers are those that are most creative in helping their teams get deals unstuck or finding creative solutions to difficult problems.

“A” players are brilliant at finding solutions to problems others can’t find.  Creative people expand the range of possibilities in ways non-creative people can’t.  ”A” players are VERY creative in how they do their jobs.

Tip: Ask the candidate to describe the most creative solution he or she came up with to overcome a serious sales challenge.  Look for out of the box answers.

Leadership: In today’s selling world, “A” players HAVE to be leaders. The Rain Maker is dead. “A” players must be comfortable making their customers uncomfortable. They have to be able to engage every part of their organization. They must motivate and drive a strong pursuit team. An “A” player is not and”A” player with out being a leader.

Tip: Look for examples of starting something on their own, such as a non-profit, a company, neighborhood fund-raiser, etc. Ask the candidate to give examples of where they saw a need for change and took the lead to initiate the change with others. All “A” players are leaders.

Drive: This one might seem squishy to some of you. You’re thinking, just because someone has drive, doesn’t mean they are an “A” player. I disagree. When someone has drive, it means they don’t quit. The push and push until they make it. Drive means they fill their skills gaps because it means they’ll get better. It means they become more creative in order to solve more problems. It means they look to others for help, wisdom, experience, guidance and more to get them closer to their goals.

Drive is gasoline to “A” players. It makes them go. All “A” players have drive.

Tip: Ask the candidate to share a time when he wanted to quit something. Ask her what her greatest accomplishment is.  You’re looking for something that took a long-time and was fraught with failure and disappointment along the way. Those with drive will have a lot of good stories for you.

Finding “A” players in an interview means being focused on the causes of sales. Enthusiasm, sense of urgency, experience, and being money motivated are all nice to haves, but they don’t move the needle. “A” players possess skills that are at the root of moving product and selling. “A” players are creative, understand business, have drive and are leaders. You have all of those traits and you can’t fail. Not failing is what makes an “A” player.

Now go find your “A” players!