4 KEY CHALLENGES OF B2B SALES LEADERS

Transcription

1 4 KEY CHALLENGES OF B2B SALES LEADERS

2 Over the years, we ve met many exceptional sales leaders from every corner of the world. We ve seen how they succeed in a competitive, ever-evolving business landscape. We ve also seen them struggle with certain aspects of their roles, even on their best days. Here are some of those most common challenges faced by many sales leaders. 1. PLAYING REFEREE WITH MARKETING TO BE MORE SUCCESSFUL, MARKETING AND SALES NEED TO ALIGN THEIR MESSAGES TO THE CUSTOMER. Many marketing and sales teams like siblings vying for their parents favor can find themselves at odds. But each department has unique goals. Marketing departments are rewarded by the number of responses they generate inbound calls, website visitors, and social media engagement. Many times the messages they use promote low prices for products and services. Herein lies the conflict of leads based on price versus sales based on margin. Because sales teams must retain specific margins, they must manage the dual responsibility of achieving quota and holding the line on price to preserve profit. On the sales side, margins on products and services are not always easy to calculate and might not be known until the end of a sale. It s important that the lines and conditions for discounting (if any) are clearly drawn. Salespeople also benefit when they sell the value of a product instead of its price. Unfortunately, many sales leaders feel pressure to sacrifice margins just to close a sale. This educates customers on how to negotiate away company profits. To be more successful, marketing and sales need to align their messages to the customer. Theologian, James Montgomery Boice says, What you win them with, is what you win them to. If your marketing department is using the lure of low price to win prospects, then that s what will be expected when sales reps come to call xpotentialselling.com

3 2. BEING A GOOD COACH Sales Managers generally acknowledge the value of coaching. Unfortunately, they often believe that they understand how to coach and are doing a good job of it when, in fact, they don t and they aren t. PATIENCE AND A FOCUS ON DEVELOPMENT ARE NEEDED FROM A SALES MANAGER, BECAUSE COACHING IS MORE THAN TELLING YOUR SALES REP WHAT TO DO. For those who have never gone through sales leadership training, the experience can be enlightening. As sales leaders work with us, we see the information clicking and hear statements like, I had no idea this was what I was supposed to be doing. No wonder I haven t been as successful as I wanted to be. Interestingly, sales coaching follows the same principles as professional selling: Ask questions Uncover value Get the other person to think or perceive an issue differently Understanding this makes you more adept at coaching, just as it makes you more adept at working with a sales prospect. It s about knowing where you want to take a conversation and the steps you need to take to get it there. It s a skill that develops into an art form with the right training, plenty of practice, feedback, and enough time. Patience and a focus on development are needed from a Sales Manager, because coaching is more than telling your sales rep what to do. It requires that you ask questions and create conditions that prompt the salesperson to think on their own. In some cases you have to tell a sales rep what to do, but only after they have been afforded the opportunity to work through an issue on their own. Often Sales Managers perceive their value as the ability to answer every question their sales team brings to them. It is important for a Sales Manager to be a good resource for their team, but if they are not equipping the team members to solve problems independently, the sales reps become dependent. A successful salesperson makes good decisions on a sales call without the aid of their manager. When one person holds all the answers, it robs the company and the team of elevating performance. A Sales Manager that fails to coach their reps, creates a one-person sales team with ten secretaries. Instead, a good Sales Manager stimulates their sales reps critical thinking skills. Ask them specific questions about each of their sales activities, allow them to fail on occasion and learn from that failure, and always reinforce best practices from the sales process. PG xpotentialselling.com

4 3. OFFLOADING CRM (CRINGEWORTHY-REPETITIVE-MUNDANE) Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can be burdensome and full of repetitive, detail-oriented tasks. The person who excels in this type of task cringe-worthy, repetitive, and mundane is not the same person who enjoys outside sales. WHEN YOU REMOVE THE ADMINISTRATIVE BURDEN OF CRM, SALES MANAGERS QUICKLY FIND THAT THEY ARE ABLE TO INCREASE TEAM SALES... Outside salespeople don t thrive on data entry. They are often extroverts who are results oriented and do not flourish when bogged down with time consuming tasks like order entry or data management. It s important to redirect data entry to sales support personnel. On an average sales team consisting of ten people, you will find that two sales reps are at or above quota, two sales reps are at the bottom, and the middle six are hovering somewhere between 50% and 80%. When you remove the administrative burden of CRM, Sales Managers quickly find that they are able to increase team sales, have more of their reps achieve quota and either work with fewer reps or expand their territory. In many cases, a refocused team of eight salespeople with one to two sales support personnel performing data management can achieve more than the average team of ten salespeople performing their own data management. This model is more cost effective for the company and yields a greater return on investment. 4. MAKING SALES MEETINGS MATTER Every sales leader should reflect on this question: If my sales meetings were not mandatory, would anyone show up? Many reps see sales meetings as a liability. The root cause of the issue is a lack of, or misguided purpose. Don t conduct sales meetings simply because you ve always had them or senior management is requiring one. The goal of any sales meeting should be to help sales reps make more money. A sales meeting should focus on sales reps not the company, not policy, not even the customer. Focus instead on how to help reps realize their financial goals by developing their professional selling skills. Sales meetings should become the heartbeat of the sales week. Solidify the purpose for your meetings and sales reps will respond positively to the value they receive xpotentialselling.com

5 Structure is important to a successful meeting. Start with an update on performance numbers. This should take an average of five minutes. Sales numbers can also be posted or sent prior to the meeting. The rest of the time should be spent in developing sales skills. IF MY SALES MEETINGS WERE NOT MANDATORY, WOULD ANYONE SHOW UP? Focus on topics like: Prospecting, lead generation and cold calling Developing questions Creating well crafted responses to common objections Qualifying Building trust on a first appointment Analyzing needs Building a financial case for your products and services Uncovering a prospect s perception of value Differentiation Closing sales Pre-call planning Understanding personality styles with different types of buyers Sales Managers need to be allowed to block other departments from infringing on their sales meetings. Let others set up separate times to discuss issues that may be important, but that are unrelated to sales. Keep the focus of the sales meeting on bonding your team and investing in sales skill development. Your team s performance will benefit as a result and reps will want to show up. SALES ASSESSMENTS SALES TRAINING SALES LEADERSHIP TRAINING SALES CONSULTING info@xpotentialselling.com xpotentialselling.com