Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Jan 25, 2010 @ 10:01 AM
It's fairly common for superior sales performers to be rewarded by being transferred to an underperforming territory. Rarely is the sales rep happy about it, and it's probably happened to a large percentage of you reading this. If it hasn't happened to you yet, get ready, for it may. In my telesales training courses, I always tell people that our world is a lot about constant change, and how well we handle it. Today's post is about how a really great rep got a lemon and made lemonade out of it. I worked with Gordon at a software development tools company, and saw him take control of what had been a terrible territory, work it, and make it one if he best territories in the company within a very few months. Even though the product line we're talking about was technical, his story can apply to anyone selling anything in a territory that has traditionally been a poor earner. Here's what he did:
First of all, he wanted to know which companies weren't buying our tools, and why, so he made a list of the biggest companies in all of the states in his new territory. In his first week in the territory, he made a telephone call blitz, and found that there were two types of non-buying prospects: those in which upper management (e.g. VPs of Engineering) made the decisions against us, and those where upper management didn't care, but instead had empowered Project Managers and Developers to make their own decisions and select their own tools.
Not surprisingly, he found that many of his prospects had never been called, or hadn't been called in months. Gordon started making extensive charts of the types of software development projects that these companies were working on, and became an expert in project knowledge. Gordon was a great salesperson, but he was non-technical. All he wanted to know was what they were building, who would buy the finished product, and what types of tools the engineers used. So he ended up with two charts (today, you'd call them spreadsheets): "Nonbuyer Reasons and Personnel," and "Project Classifications." Then he really went to work.
He had inherited several decent customers, called high, and found that there were many projects starting at those companies for which development tools had not been selected. He leveraged his VP contact, and sold a lot of new product to those companies (within 6 months, he'd doubled the previous year's sales on current customers alone). He also uncovered many opportunities at companies that hadn't been called in awhile. They were now in his sales pipeline, after less than one month in the new territory.
But there were still some companies that wouldn't buy, because they didn't like our company. He was able to determine that the VP of Engineering at a huge prospect company had a sister, and she was married to the Director of Sales at one of our competitors. That company had standardized on our competition, and Gordon knew he'd never get a sale there as long as upper management stayed the same. At other companies, Gordon found that individual engineers and project managers had prejudices against our development tools (too bad, because our tools were superior), and would work to ensure our tools were never placed.
In his new territory, many development teams were in a state of flux. Some companies were downsizing their departments, and engineers were getting laid off, and having a challenging time finding work. By this time, he knew about different engineers levels of expertise, and he also knew how they felt about our products. So here's what he did: since he was calling all over the territory anyway, he started asking if they were hiring engineers. If they were, Gordon would check his list. If an engineer looking for work loved our products, Gordon found him or her work at companies were he wanted to get more business. He got advocates at new companies that way. And if engineers didn't like our products, he found them positions at that big company with the VP whose sister was married to his competition. Gordon figured if he had engineers in his territory that didn't like our solutions, it was best having them all work in one place, in a company that for political reasons would never buy our development tools anyway. In essence, Gordon played his territory like a chessboard, shifting the pieces from one square to another. He was able to do this because he probably called more people in the territory than anyone had before, asked great questions, took good notes, and plotted things on charts. He turned two of the states in this underperforming territory into two of the most profitable in our company in under a year.
So what can be learned from Gordon?
1) An underperforming territory can be an opportunity waiting to flourish.
2) Call high, and ask great questions to determine why people aren't buying.
3) Ensure that you're providing as many solutions as possible to companies that are already your customers.
4) Know your prospect's business, so you can figure out how your product can help your prospect to make money faster, or stop losing money.
5) Make enough calls that you can be considered a territory expert.
6) Develop your own analyses tools and charts to understand what's happening (or happened) over time, not just what happened today.
7) Think out of the box. In Gordon's case, he improved the lives of his advocates, and they remembered the favor he did for them.
As Gordon would tell you, you have to work hard, but you also have to work smart. Add Gordon's techniques to your Best Practices Playbook for selling successfully to an underperforming territory.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Mar 02, 2009 @ 01:01 AM
A question that commonly comes up in my telesales training courses is "How do I manage to listen to my prospects, take great notes, not miss anything, and say what I have to say?" And it comes up virtually every week in telephone conversations I have with telesales managers. I have a notetaking process that has proven successful, because it's simple, thorough, and anyone can do it easily. It allows you to do everything you need to accomplish in the call, not miss anything, be a great listener, and it's accomplished in these 7 simple steps:
1) Handwrite your notes. Unless you're order-taking, people don't like to hear you type. It tells them you're more focused on typing than listening to them.
2) Use an 81/2 x 11 piece of paper. I've seen telesales reps scribble on post-it notes, and they can't see a 5 minute conversation digested into one page, or read their tiny handwriting.
3) Keep the left-hand side of your paper for the prospect's conversation. Put a square around anything he or she says that you'll want to revisit before the conversation ends.
4) Keep the right-hand side of the paper for things you need to tell the prospect, but don't want to say right now because you're getting important information from the prospect, and don't want to interrupt.
5) Keep the middle of the page for "starred items". These are salient points made by the prospect that will be your follow-on priority items as the most important things that you'll put into your CRM database. Place a star in the middle of the page adjacent to an important point the prospect made (on the left) or you need to make later (on the right).
6) Keep your ears open for what I term "problem clues." When prospects use words like "frustrating", "annoying", or "unusable", to describe their current situation, you'll need to ask more about them now or later in the conversation. They lead to important business reasons why your solution may be perfect for them. You can't afford to wait and ask about them in your next call, because the prospect may not remember the context. Box and Star these (see points 3 and 5 above) so you don't miss anything.
7) Immediately after the conversation, transcribe the important elements of your notes into the CRM database. Don't do it after your next call, or after lunch. While transcribing your notes, you may realize your forgot to re-address a boxed or starred item with the prospect. Call right back (you know he or she is in the office, you just got done talking) and address the issue. The prospect will answer your questions and respect you as a rep, because he or she knew you were really listening. And you won't miss an important issue.
So now for your next call, go ahead and spacially divide your note paper into three columns, with the column in the middle of the page the narrowest. Use it in your next conversation, and I predict you'll love it. It's deceptively easy. Practice this today, and you'll be a note taking whiz by tomorrow. And add it to your Best Practices playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Nov 17, 2008 @ 03:12 AM
Taking great notes during an inside sales call is a necessity, but so basic that many reps I've coached during our telesales training classes have forgotten how to do it, as they've improved their other skills. And these are pretty good reps, too. But because they missed a clue and didn't write it down, the call wasn't as powerful as it could have been. So let's review how to take great notes, and check your own note taking to ensure you haven't "backslid." Here are some fundamental concepts:
1) Many conversations have a number of buying "clues" from the prospect, that you may not necessarily want to address at that point in the call, but will want to discuss before you end the conversation. For example, the prospect may be in a deep discussion about the problems he or she is having that your solution can solve, and make a parenthetical statement like "Dave mentioned needing this, too, and frankly our new product rollout will be held back unless we find a solution right now." Here, I'd want to find out immediately what the new product is, ask about projected revenue for that product, and really drill down on the rollout issue. But I don't want to forget about Dave, because I'll need to find out who Dave is before the call ends. On my notes, I'll write that statement, and draw a star in the middle of my notes page, with a connecting line to the statement. Before the end of the conversation, all I have to do is scan the right hand side of my notes page for the stars, and ask about each one of them.
2) Use a big enough piece of paper. I've seen reps use sticky notes for notepaper, their writing gets cramped, and they leave important information out for brevity. After the call, they can't remember everything they heard, and it's not on their notes, either.
3) Enter your notes into the CRM database immediately after the call. If not you might forget something important. It's quite common, when putting notes into the database, that you'll realize that you forgot to ask something vitally important to your sale. Because you're entering the notes immediately after the call, you can call right back instantaneously to get the information. And the prospect will be happy to take your second call, because he or she realizes that you were really listening, and that you are thorough.
4) Handwriting your notes is critically important: Unless you're in tech support or entering an order, people don't like to hear you typing on the phone. They intrinsically feel you're not listening, and will slow their conversations to match you, which interrupts their thought process. They'll be far more engaged conversationally if they don't hear you pecking away while they're talking.
These are four basic concepts regarding taking great notes, and why doing so will make you more successful. Add them to your Best Practices playbook. And be sure to post a blog note if you have a great note taking idea that's worked for you!