Coaching for Qualifying

As a CRO, you have many responsibilities, but one not to overlook is a concerted effort to coach your team. CRO’s are force multipliers - your ability to impart wisdom to your team will make your team more successful. The best ROI for your coaching time with your salespeople is qualifying.

Qualifying is the backbone of all successful selling. There are 5 stages of our Critical Qualifying Questions (CQQ’s) that we espouse in our selling system. However, no matter what selling system you use, your team must be strong qualifiers to succeed. The responsibility for growing that qualifying ability falls on you.

Selling Power has a quick-read, archived article that describes some fundamental questions your team should be asking of any prospect. The author compares qualifying prospects to investigative journalism. From the article (emphasis mine):

In many respects, qualifying prospects is like investigative journalism. The reporter (or, in this case, the salesperson) has to find out the facts of the story, based on who, what, when, where, why, and how. That means coming up with answers to the following questions:

• Does the customer actually have a need for our products or services?

• Can the customer afford to buy what we’re selling?

• Is my primary contact the person who has the ability to make a buying decision, or is this person just gathering information? If not, who does have the authority to purchase?

All qualifying starts with a need so the author is on target. The CQQ’s from our Revenue as a System include Message, Motivation, Money, Methodology, and Market. When you are coaching your team, always keep the qualifying topic at the forefront.

6 Sales Predictions for 2019

Every January brings articles of predictions for the upcoming year. Here is a Sales and Marketing Management article that lays out 6 predictions for 2019.

Here is the cliffs notes version of the 6 from the article:

1. Data matters more than ever

Today, the comprehensiveness of customer data separates winners from losers. The front-runners focus on data hygiene and ensuring they have accurate and holistic customer information across sales, marketing and service departments.

2. Automated sales prospecting

Sales prospecting tools, such as Pipedrive, Vainu.io and Intelisale, enable businesses to use filters and predictive insights to choose prospects wisely and focus on those most likely to convert. In addition to finding the right people to contact at the right time, reps have up-to-date information at their fingertips on the latest news and other information about their prospects and their businesses.

3. Account-based selling becomes entrenched

This strategic sales approach enables companies to focus their resources on closing deals with accounts that will make a significant impact on their bottom lines rather than chasing down inbound leads that happen to come their way. As technology provides even better ways to target such accounts and personalize the sales and marketing approach, ABS is becoming increasingly influential.

4. Social selling

According to Forrester, “B2B companies that embrace social selling are 72% more likely to exceed quotas than their peers who don’t.” The catch is that it can be time-consuming. To cut down on the time it takes, many tools are emerging. You can use them to pull social media data into CRM systems, share the ideal content at the right moment with the right person, customize engagement with social drip campaigns and track all of your social activities.

5. Automated personal emails

While artificial intelligence (AI) will not replace a professional salesperson, it will enable them to be more efficient. For instance, AI now customizes emails to prospects and addresses their problems. It can also tailor email subject lines based on what will entice prospects to open them. If necessary, salespeople can edit the AI drafts. While the technology is in its early phase, it will inevitably become more sophisticated and effective.

6. The human touch remains critical

In a world of artificial intelligence (AI), automation and technological devices, the need for human connection does not go away. Perhaps it’s needed more than ever before.

So we cannot let machines do all the work. Salespeople should employ technology to increase their productivity and to personalize their outreach, then use the time that’s freed up for more human interaction. By making a human connection, they’ll separate themselves from the pack.

Hard to disagree with any of those predictions. I would add that the price point for AI packages will come down to a level that allows many mid-market companies to leverage that technology. Once that happens, selling will change in dramatic ways.

Leadership for Executives

Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán from Pexels

Leadership obviously has multiple components, but our years of RoundTable experience suggests there is one cornerstone component that stands alone.

Yes, toxic leader profiles and/or ridiculous business plans can neutralize any business opportunity, but the one missing component we observe with increasing frequency today is the lack of clear accountability. At CRO Executive RoundTable, we define a leader as someone people will follow.  When we meet with member company employees to apply this definition, two discussion topics typically evolve:  accountability and the 3 T’s profile.  These two are directly connected to overall success.

Accountability

Many executives have been trained, coached etc. to believe consensus is leadership.  The goal is to get ‘buy in’ by all participants but the real world outcome is better described as management by lack of ownership.   Margaret Thatcher said it best:

“Consensus: “The process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner: ‘I stand for consensus?”

Accountability does put focus and varying levels of stress into the organization but success is not achieved by complacency or consensus.   If complacency is in control, the culture will deny, deflect and/or destroy all efforts for change.  Everyone is operating in their comfort zone while the business is consuming resources just circling the wagons…which may end up being the precursor to circling the drain.

3 T’s Profile

The profile that makes Accountability a leadership skill are combinations of Trust, Transparency and Timeliness.  These are almost boundless research topics but the employee engagement discussions are less complicated.

Trust - is earned; employees want to know senior leadership is more than committed than they are to delivering the results.  Execs wanting to be “consensus scorekeepers” are often viewed as just being along for the ride and producing zero contribution.

Transparency – employees know some topics are not fully disclosable but they want to know – or be able to ask – about all other matters that impact growth and success.  Executives that face questions and issues head on are aligned with where employees want to be.

Timeliness – we live in a 24/7 world today.  Employees don’t want to learn more about their company from the web than from leadership.  Employees are the top-tier stakeholders in any business so putting other individuals or groups first is a breach with direct performance engagement consequences.

Conclusion These are not hard tasks to understand or deliver except when effective leadership is not the top priority.  That may appear to be an oxymoron but it is clear to employees.

Business Is Just a Hockey Game

Sales Perspective from the State of Hockey

Being headquartered in the State of Hockey (Thank You MN Wild) is either a plus or a minus depending on your interest in ice hockey.  Having invested decades of time watching youth association to professional level games, it is clear there are similarities that go beyond the scoring (above or below budget performance). 

Here are 3 items to consider getting ready for 2019:

1. Talent – Teams with more talent win more games.  The talent part is a team issue – a composite of skating, stick handling, shooting and goaltending skills determine the outcomes.  What critical skills are needed/missing on your team to outperform the market?

2. Speed vs. skill - Teams need both.  Speed players can move the puck fast but stick handlers can be just as productive.  Companies are always attracted to the big bio candidates but good stick handlers get things done too.  Stick handlers may have less speed but they have the peripheral vision (anticipate disruption) needed to keep moving forward.  Sometimes it is easier to find good stick handlers with strong team profiles.

3. Adversity - What happens if you fall behind?  Normally that means you were not prepared (skill or disruption issues) or you underestimated the competition…or both.  Not a lot of options once the game (year) starts.  Typically, your top scoring lines get more shifts.  Bottom line – you leverage your talent and work your way out of the hole.  And yes, some coaches (CRO’s) get fired if the recovery effort doesn’t deliver in time.

Best of (Revenue) Luck to all CRO’s in 2019…and keep your stick on the ice!

Retro Selling on the Horizon?

Could there be a retrograde coming to sales?

One of the topics we took up this year at the RoundTables was the role of the salesperson in the modern sales world. Social media, artificial intelligence, chat bots, etc., are all having an impact on the traditional sales process. Automation is changing the entire process by limiting (removing?) the salesperson from the prospecting activities. The change in the sales process appears to be moving the requirements for successful selling in the very near future.

Prospecting
No bigger change has occurred anywhere else in the selling process than prospecting. The RoundTable members are experiencing the migration of these activities from sales to marketing. The ability to track marketing initiatives, adjust DV messaging and do a first-pass qualify electronically has changed the process. The addition of bots to the marketing initiatives creates an interaction, albeit somewhat wooden, to mildly qualify the prospect.

However, the ability to prospect using traditional methods may come back into focus. The consensus was that salespeople with a strong network will become even more valuable to prospecting in the near future. As prospects become inundated with the new prospecting automation tools, salespeople with strong networks will be able to reach out on a personal level to cut through the noise. That ability may lead us back to in-person prospecting via meetings, lunch and learns, sporting events, etc.

Qualifying
There is no greater skill involved in sales success than qualifying. The strongest salespeople know when to ask, what to ask, how to ask the right questions to bring clarity to a potential deal. There are many artificial intelligence (AI) tools entering the marketplace with the goal of augmenting (or replacing?) salespeople. How smart can these tools become in regards to reading people? Will they be able to pick up nonverbal cues? Sarcasm? Stalls?

You see the issue here - sales is a people-oriented function. Humans communication is only 7% verbal, the other 93% is nonverbal including body language, tone, breathing, eye movement, pacing, etc. The rush towards AI qualifying seems inevitable, but a need for salespeople to talk to prospects will persist.

Closing
Qualified deals close themselves…an axiom we subscribe to in strong selling. However, it still requires a closing event to occur. The actual acceptance of the solution at the agreed upon investment. There is a subtlety to closing that seems difficult to imagine in a machine. The minor agreements, the positive signs, the professional approach to asking for the business, all seem deeply seated in the human approach.

Certainly AI will be able to take orders, but closing a deal will require a far more nuanced approach. The empathetic ability of an AI machine, if it possesses any, will be stretched at this phase of a selling process. This step still seems like a retro approach, if we can call it that, will work best. A meeting over a meal, a stall-clearing phone discussion, a face-to-face closing meeting all seem like a standard that will prevent this stage from ever moving away from a salesperson’s involvement.

Where does it end?
AI is surrounded by ambiguity at this point as it continues to develop to new levels. However, no matter how advanced AI becomes, the basis of selling will remain an interaction between two people making a financial decision. The feeling of our RoundTable groups was that the upcoming year will prove to be revealing of the future of AI in the sales world.

Hiring Horror Stories for Halloween

Everyone, and I mean everyone, has a hiring horror story.

TheLadders.com took the time to assemble 13 hiring horror stories on this All Hallow’s Eve. The article is most entertaining, especially since none of these events happened to you!

This particular story from the article is unreal:

10. Mid-interview I thought I had the perfect candidate for the position. As I was about to extend the job offer, he began to sweat profusely. I offered water, turned the air conditioner to a lower temperature as he began to mumble. I thought “Oh No, I’ve got a medical emergency on my hands.” He excused himself to go to the restroom but didn’t return after 15 minutes. I asked a male staff member to enter the men’s restroom to check on him. The door was somehow locked and barricaded. The applicant wouldn’t answer our calls to open the door but began rambling aloud. I called the fire department and after another 20 minutes the applicant emerged totally intoxicated (empty bottle in hand) and possibly under the influence of “something” else. The next day his wife called me requesting to know when his start date would be… no job offer was extended to this candidate!

Things could always be worse.

How will your sales team address VUCA?

One of our long standing CRO Executive RoundTable companies has developed a compelling video about the new world of sales addressing VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity).  OppSource is working with sales teams on a global basis to implement the next level of skills and tools needed to survive and grow.  How well will your sales team perform going up against this level of competition?

Avoiding The Self-Inflicted Failure Trap

After decades of working with highly successful companies, I have observed one failure trap that is still alive and well in today’s business climate.

It is avoidable but the more success a company achieves, the more likely it is to experience a “pivot” (great word for surviving a FUBAR catastrophe!) in order to continue. 

Companies typically become successful by doing something new that the market wants, accepts, and is willing to embrace.  Some examples could be electric cars, artificial intelligence for repetitive type functions, real time 24x7 communication etc.

Success ultimately stimulates internal growth and at some point, the organization has very precise roles with crafted job descriptions, KPI’s, compensation ranges etc.  The creativity that launched the company evolves into “structure” with clearly defined roles and expectations.  People are measured and rewarded by how well they execute their assigned micro tasks.

The result is creativity doesn’t flourish in structure.  Real creativity is unscheduled, amorphous, unpredictable and essential for addressing today’s business disruption.  Leadership teams own the disruption challenge - How much of your day is spent nurturing the creativity core needed in your business to succeed?

So What?

We often write about Differentiating Value (i.e. DV) as it is fundamental to any strong selling system. You will hear it called value proposition, unique selling proposition, differentiation, and son on. We have an entire process to help companies define and refine their DV which will affect the entire selling process.

But let’s talk about a quick, simple approach you can use on your own to start refining your DV. Take a look at your present DV and ask yourself, “So what?”

The approach sounds indignant, but it works. The goal is to refine, or distill, your DV down to its essence because that is the point where it has the most power.

Existing DV: “We provide excellent service to our customers.”

So what?

“Our customers know we will take care of them if they have a problem.”

So what?

“If our equipment breaks down in the middle of a production run, we will have techs on-site fast.”

So what?

“We provide the fasted response times in our industry which allows our customers to know they will hit their production goals.”

Once you distill the topic down to the point where asking “So what?” sounds flippant, you have reached the essence of that particular DV. Now, you might find that it is not a compelling DV which may lead you to constructing a new DV all together.

Try this exercise as you work on your next DV messaging. As frustrating as it may get, in the end you will have a tight, impactful message. If you need assistance, we can help.

Our New Sponsor-SkillFitness

We are excited to announce that SkillFitness has become a corporate sponsor for CRO Executive RoundTable.  SkillFitness is a mobile, video-based skills mastery platform that transforms how teams perform at a higher level to deliver business outcomes.  The SkillFitness app will also be the host platform for our new CRO Coach program.  All RoundTable members are automatically enrolled in CRO Coach which offers continuous access to all RoundTable revenue topics, tutorials, and videos.