Build Customers, Not Sales

Welcome to my LinkedIn newsletter where I share tips and ideas to help strengthen distributed teams and grow global sales.

For those of you who do not know me, I build sales pipelines and develop leadership training programs that help companies increase business across regions and prepare next-gen leaders for tomorrow's global threats and opportunities.

I wrote a book about the good, bad and ugly experiences that happen when expanding into foreign markets called The Accidental Business Nomad: A Survival Guide for Working Across a Shrinking Planet.  

Be sure to also check out the book's bonus material that includes distributed team building templates and communication tools. 

Are we building our customers or our sales numbers?

One of the first sales training courses I ever attended was filled with plumbers. I thought I was in the wrong room until the owner of the plumbing company told me, that anyone working on his customers' pipes needed consultative sales skills. He wanted them always thinking how they could better help clients and find new opportunities.

When it comes to customers, we are all plumbers. Is everyone in your organization focused on finding and solving clients' problems? A Gartner study found that buyers feel that only 25% of their providers help them maximize their value.

Markets are changing. Problems are changing. Leaky pipes are everywhere. Are your people asking the right questions and thinking about solving problems? Do they have a growth mindset? Or are you reading this now and thinking, "this isn't relevant to me because I'm not in sales"? Here are some ideas:

Does your team know the right questions they should be asking clients?

Here are a few critical questions and statements EVERY client-facing team member should be asking:

• What has changed since we last spoke?
• Give me an example of what's working / what's not working
• Where do you need to get to by the end of this year?
• How has Covid had an impact on (your business / industry / you personally)?
• How much is this problem costing your company?

Use Active Listening and Ultimate Active Listening to dig deeper into the business problems. 

Note that none of this has to do with talking about your product or service ... you know, sounding like a salesperson.

Most Common Mistakes Customer-Facing Teams Make in 2021

Here's a quick test. Is your team guilty of any of the following? Identify the gaps and then develop a targeted training plan.

Does your team:

1. Give too much Free Consulting?
2. Complain that they can't build relationships remotely?
3. Feel they do not have equal relationships and mutual respect with their clients?
4. Fail to update messaging based on changing market conditions? (Really look into this one. You may be shocked at what you find)
5. Embrace a culture of preparing before meetings?
6. Encourage front-line managers to be supervisors rather than coaches?
7. Know the best concessions to offer when needed and how to get more of what they want in return?
8. Accept wildly inaccurate pipeline reporting?

Reach out if you want the full team assessment tool or ideas how to solve for these gaps.

Book Recommendation (I have yet to read but it looks great)

Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life (And how anyone can harness it. Even you.)

I am curious to see their take on humor across cultures.

Find out your humor style with this quick test

Not everyone is funny in the same way. This quick test (from the book) looks at individual differences in both what people tend to joke about, and how people most naturally deliver their humor: content and delivery. These studies have yielded four primary humor styles: the Stand-up, the Sweetheart, the Magnet, and the Sniper.

Thanks for reading and check out my book here for entertaining stories and lessons about growing globally in uncertain times!