Collaborative Selling - 35 ideas in 17 minutes
Fred Copestake
Sales Trainer | Author | Coach | Working with engineering and manufacturing teams | Selling has changed – have you?
Welcome to the?June Edition?of Sales?Today?newsletter for B2B sales professionals, the third edition
Again thank-you if you were one of the early subscribers and also if you are just about to hit that button... and can I ask a little favour. If you like what you see could you share with a colleague (or two). I really want to share the message that selling is changing and that a collaborative approach is what is required for success today
Once again I'm 'going large', but it is monthly publication and I want to make sure you've got plenty of food for thought
So what to expect
The focus is all about enabling more good (sales)people doing good things in a good way.
Thanks for taking a look
FRED
35 ideas in 17 minutes
I was recently asked to speak to a group about the future of sales and what is needed for success now and in the future. Here is a summary of what I shared:
My name is Fred Copestake. I am founder of Brindis a sales training consultancy. Over the past 22 years. I've travelled around the world 14 times, visited 36 countries and worked with over 10,000 salespeople. More recently though, I've written the book Selling Through Partnering Skills, which captures all of the latest thinking that will allow a salesperson to have a more modern, collaborative approach. And that's what I use now in the sales training that I deliver, mainly for B2B sales in a more complex selling environment.
Quite often, I'll ask on a webinar would you invite your customers to sales training?’ And if I'm working virtually, which as you can imagine, we're doing now, I'll give them a poll. The options are yes, no, maybe and what the hell are you talking about? It's really interesting to see what they come back with but, whatever the answer I'm going down the same route, which is to say, if you're answering, no, why is that?
The reason someone would say no is maybe because they don't have any training but it could also be that they're saying no it's because they think that sales training is going to be manipulative or it's old fashioned or it's something that just isn't customer centric.
It’s my job to change it that and to change it quickly. And one of the ways that I will tend to do that is to get people to think about how sales has evolved. Maybe they're stuck thinking about things which are old fashioned and don't necessarily work as well as they can now.
What I'll do is just go through quick history of sales, the evolution of sales if you like, and pull out some of the elements that we can take from that because they are going to be useful as we move towards a more modern approach.
(1) Let's go back to the Fifties and think about what was happening then. Thinking about the Fifties as an era, it was all about process. Standardising production was quite a big issue. And that was the sort of thing that was reflected in the way that people were selling. It was all very much about process. It was using tried and tested methods. It was using systems that we could make sure we're doing the correct thing time and time again. And that's not a bad thing. That's not a bad thing at all.
It’s one of the tips or the ideas that I would share, which is that we want to make sure we have systems in place. We want to make sure we have a sales process. Now I will talk a bit later about the sales process and buying process and how they have to very carefully aligned, but certainly an idea that I'd give to people is having a structure to a conversation that you're going to have.
As a salesperson whether you're in a B2B world, or working in B2C, having a way that you can open up the conversation by grabbing attention, then asking questions, which will show interest in the customer and starting to explore what pain points and what needs they might have is important. We the need to think about how we can take our solution to be able to create desire and to think how we finish off any conversation by having some kind of action, some kind of advancement, something that moves forward. So for me, that's when the idea is we can take from the Fifties and make sure that we're using that in the modern environment.
(2) Let's move on to the Sixties and have a think about that era. For me, the Sixties was all about the brain and how it works. It was about deep thinking, psychedelia and flower power and all that kind of stuff. And what we see is that this was reflected in sales training. A lot of the stuff was around personality selling and the psychology of sales.
It was understanding how would your customer think so you knew how to adapt your approach to do something that's right for them. And so absolutely for me, that would make sense in the current selling environment. Can we adapt and flex? Are we doing what is comfortable for them? Can we think about what's going to be important to them and can we make sure that our solution aligns to it? So yes, that's one of the ideas that we can take and we can use today to be relevant.
(3) So what else have we got? Let's think about the Seventies. The Seventies was all about benefits. Or more accurately features, advantages, benefits. All products and services have features, which in turn will deliver some kind of advantage and ultimately a benefit.
What is the feature there for? What is the customer taking away from that? That's what we should concentrate on. Any kind of selling message, any kind of marketing message, anything that we're saying to customers, potential clients, why should they care? And then one of the tests for this is to just ask yourself, ‘So what?’What are they going to care about? Is there some kind of value for them? Is there some kind of benefit in there?
(4) That's what we can take that away from the Seventies as we move into the Eighties, which for me, was a funny time for professional selling. I think of these of Gordon Gekko and the greed is good type of mindset. It's was the close, close, close, objection handling type era. We can certainly think about objection handling today, though I would say that there is a different psychology in how we think about it and even how we label it. I believe its better to focus on treating concerns with concern use language structures in a more elegant way than to simply try to get to close as soon as possible and batter away any hurdles.
(5) I'm not so comfortable with that as an approach. Particularly when you look at what happened in the Nineties when Consultative Selling was ‘invented’. If we look at what happened, that that was when Neil Rackham and his team sat in on lots and lots of sales meetings and saw the very best salespeople were probably not really doing what they were trained to.
They were asking questions. They weren't diving into the close but they were concentrating on need. They were thinking about where's the customer now and where do they want to be. Something they could really help the customer understand by asking questions.
That's what a good consultant does. They help people understand. The more, someone's going to want to need to do something about. When we're in sales mode, we can ask questions in a way which helps people think. And that's when we start to add value.
It's not manipulative. It's not something that we shouldn't do. It's something we very much should do because it's going to help people to address their issues. That's really where we're starting to go with modern selling. It's helping people to think and bring value that way. When we look at the Noughties, it's an extension of that.
(6) If the Nineties was needs focused, the Noughties were about value focus. It begins with the consultative approach, but it also looks as at wider impacts, things for the broader business. It’s an opportunity to really do our homework properly and by sitting with them and helping them to understand what's going to deliver a lot of value to them. This may be solving issues, treating pain. But it can also be by identifying where there is other potential for gain.
(7) So Noughties and Nineties selling is a very solid foundation for the stuff we need to do today, but it’s still 20 years old. So what other things have happened? When we look at the Tens, what I was saying to salespeople is that this is the decade where you really had to concentrate on your ‘sales stature’. Or personal brand. That would be what we would call it today.
It was about making sure that customers understood that you were the go-to person, your company, and your offer might be right for them, but why should they want to talk to you? I would encourage anyone in sales to make sure that their profile and positioning and how customers and potential customers view the is right.
(8) This takes us to Twenties then. So, where are we now? If we talked about consultative selling in Nineties and we talked about being focused on adding value in the Noughties, and then thinking about our own stature in the Tens, the Twenties is about becoming more collaborative. This is working more closely with customers, working together with them to really co-create value by doing things together. Two plus two equalling five by using different thinking, using different processes and applying different ways of working to help that.
I can’t really talk more about the twenties without kind of talking about the elephant in the room, which is, COVID and the rise of virtual selling.
Now one of them is going to happen anyway, then that was the virtual selling. What's happened is that COVID has sped this up. In the Twenties, salespeople need to be very comfortable in working lots of different kinds of media. That is working virtually whether that is working on a screen, whether it's using emails, whether it's using texts, WhatsApp, whatever way they can get the message across. And ultimately face to face meetings where they come back.
(9) What we'll see in the Twenties is a kind of hybrid salesperson. There will be a number of tools and techniques which people will have to understand to be able to really deliver well.
(10) So at this stage in training, I like to get people to reflect on how they sell
- are you more of a benefit sales person
- are working from that people buy from people type approach
- are using a close, close, close type mindset.
- are you positioning more as a trusted advisor
- are you trying to recognize and communicate value
- are you really into this more modern way of working where it's all about stop, listen, collaborate.
Apologies to Vanilla Ice, I've got that the wrong way around, but for me it is stopping, slowing down and thinking it's being able to work together to collaborate more. That's what I want to explore a little bit. Before that though I’ll just tell a little story about how sales was my very first job.
So my first job was in sales, I was aged eight years old. It was in the family business, a builder's merchant which also sold kitchens bathrooms. On Boxing day, that was when we had the Annual sale. When I was eight, I was allowed to go along to help. They kitted me out in this big orange polo shirt and this massive brown warehouse coat thing.
They took me along and put me in the tile store. I was goong help sell tiles. Now, the premises was this big old Victorian watermill made of stone. And so in December it was stone cold, literally. There I was in my big baggy clothes. And it was freezing… but I was having such a laugh. It was brilliant.
It was talking to people. I was sorting out what they needed. I was helping them. I was finding stuff. I was putting stuff in boxes. I wrote down on a little chit what the were buying to make sure I got my commission. I just had a really good laugh and I guess that's where the sales bug took over. Since then my background has always been commercial. I went to university to study Commerce and Spanish, worked in both sales and marketing for a large industrial company, and I moved into full-time training 22 some years ago. For a time I ranthe training academy for Corona Extra, the Mexican beer, the good Corona, if you like. That was six years of really good fun travelling around a lot.
Travelling is something I've always done and as I mentioned, I’ve worked in 36 countries with all sorts of high profile clients breweries, truck manufacturers, banks, IT resellers. I just absolutely love that variety. I like helping people and I like helping people stand out and be different. I practice what I preach I like to ‘keep the saw sharp’
(11) I started really thinking about where are we going with sales? What's what can we do to make salespeople excellent? And this is where I came across the concept of Partnering Skills, PQ. It’s a bit like the lesser known cousin of IQ and EQ. I looked at this stuff, which had been researched back in the late Eighties, early Nineties by a guy called Steve Dent. He was working with organizations that were partnering at a high level.
(12) One of the things he said is that ‘organizations don't partner, people do’, and there are certain skills which are involved in that. Moreover people can learn these and develop them to get better at partnering. At the time I was doing quite a lot of work in channel anyway with channel managers and partner managers so I thought I would look at these.
(13) As I looked and understood it became clear to me that these would work for any salesperson. Whether you're in channel, whether you're at the top of an organization, whether you're involved in smaller, less sophisticated sales, these elements of PQ, if you weave them into what you do will make you better at selling.
Let's have a look at these elements and think what can we do to bring them into our way of selling. PQ it's made up of six elements.
(14) The first element is trust. It's a foundation for relationships. It's a really important part of what we do. And so what I encourage salespeople to do is think about how can you build trust with people?
What are the things that you can deliberately do to try to build that? Because we can do some things deliberately, and this is when I came across the trust equation.
(15) David Meister, a professor at Harvard talks about this equation where there's elements of:
- Credibility, knowing your stuff. ?
- Reliability, doing what you say you do
- Intimacy. where people feel close to you because you will be sensitive to information they share that they'll feel safe in working with you
But all of these elements are in the equation that divided by Self-orientation which indicates that we can do all of these things, which are absolutely encouraged, but if you're only doing them for your own benefit, well, that pulls the effect of the other element of trust-building down.
As a salesperson Ican be deliberate, with the elements of credibility, reliability, and intimacy. But am I doing it with the other party's best interest at heart as well? And for me, it ties neatly into the second element of PQ, which is having a win-win orientation.
(16) It’s not uncommon for people to talk about win-win or mutual benefit. Though it that can be interpreted in many different ways. So first it's actually working out what does the other party, well, what is that? What's their value. What is going to be good for them? But funnily enough, with salespeople, another idea, another thing that I've included with this is that be, be aware of your own commerciality.
(17) Don't just give stuff away because otherwise the balance gets lopsided. Think about what both parties are taking from the deal or relationship.
(18) It makes a lot of sense for me to use this to think about how we discuss things to resolve problems, to resolve conflicts, to negotiate. Keep thinking how do both parties come out of this.
(19) Another idea that I wanted to put into the mix is the third element of PQ. This is about interdependence. It’s about having your success to some degree depending on somebody. It is about being able to give up control and letting other people get involved in what you're doing.
(20) So that's not just the customer. It's also talking about when you've got a team involved. When we have a bigger, more sophisticated sales lots of folk get involved. We've got to make sure that we are comfortable with and can deal with it.
Before we can move on to number four I will point out that I'm just talking these sequentially, but for me, they all knit together or are much part and parcel of each other.
(21) Next we have self-disclosure and feedback. This is being clear and having a constant exchange of information. It's giving customers information about yourself, is telling them about you, let them know what your expectations are.
(22) It is also feeding back to them when they're not helping you to help them. Too often, salespeople with a strong relationship focus, get worried about what they say that to the customer might upset them. It’s not a good thing to avoid that discussion, it’s actually it's a better thing to do. It's a stronger thing to do and ultimately people would respect that. The ability to be able to say to a customer, ‘Hey, look, you're not helping me here’, ‘That's not the right thing for you to do’, or even ‘I think you might make a mistake with that, it isn't the best way to go’. Is something that will help us in a more modern, collaborative style of selling.
(23) Getting feedback about ourselves is of course also key to continually developing and improving
(24) The fifth element of PQ is comfort with change. Salespeople are change agents. We are selling change. Aren't we all about challenging the status quo for people? Pretty much. So, it's about doing different things, doing them differently. If we're going to be wanting to get people to do that, we've got to be comfortable with ourselves.
(25) Understanding the change curve is useful for doing that.
(26) The last element is future orientation. This is about looking forward. It's about knowing what our common goals working with a customer are It is about thinking how can we make sure that we're deciding on things based about where we're going not necessarily on where we have been. We know that decisions can often be made looking backwards and we can get those ‘I didn't work before’, or ‘Oh yeah we tried that’. But with so much change, with so much happening now, being able to look forward and think about things in the future tense makes a lot of sense
For the next ideas I’m going to briefly introduce the VALUE framework. This is in my book and give a way of applying the PQ and using modern selling best practice.
(27) The V stands for Validate. The maxim of this is it takes two to tango. We've got to make sure that we are working with the right customer. This is all about qualification. It's using templates and thinking about the various criteria that would need to be ticked and, and making sure that that opportunities makes sense.
A big thing salespeople often don’t do well is qualifying out. That is understanding that an potential opportunity isn’t really a good one. We might say, look, it's not even worth it. That is a skill in itself
(28) We don't have to get straight into the sales conversation to work out whether we've got a potential, but we can move on to the, A of VALUE for Align. Alignment is about doing your homework. It's about understanding the customer and understanding what's important to them thinking about where we can potentially add value with what we can do. Also how are they going to make that decision? And how can we work with them for help that? What we're seeing in modern selling is that recognising people's buying process is really, really important.
(29) Sales is not something we do to somebody we've got to fit in in the way in which they operate. We might be able to take more of a control of this, so that we can guide them through it. We can help by leading them, which again is very much a modern sales approach
(30) A salesperson can be far more effective if they know how customers make a decisions and who's involved. Gartner statistics are saying that every year, the number of people involved in decision-making is increasing. Four years ago, they were talking about 5.6 people. It went up to eight and the numbers last year were indicating 11 people involved.
(31) Today, with the current climate whether those people who've got something to say about our sales are going to go up or down is really interesting. I think in some cases there might be more people involved as we get more legal or financial wanting to understand what is happening. I've also read about people being given more ?decision making responsibility and spend. It’s like organisations are saying ‘We need to do something. We need to do things fast. Get on with it’. Whichever way it is, we need to do our homework
(32) Let's move on to the L of ?Leverage. This is about going and having those good conversations. Earlier I outlined AIDA structure (attention interest, desire, action) we could use to understand and to help customers understand how we can work together.
(33) When there is potential to add value, that here's good benefit for them, then move into the U for Underpin element. Underpinning is about supporting. This involves a number of skills and preparing salespeople to write proposals and deliver those in presentations.
(34) Nowadays this includes as with other parts of the framework working well virtually
(35) E is for Evolve, which is how we can grow the relationship. How we can keep things moving forward. We want to deliver an excellent customer experience which is why customer success management for me is also a very interesting developing area where we can also extract learning and best practice from
In summary to be successful in selling today we can take good solid sales best practice that already exist. We can take the elements of PQ, Partnering Skills. And we can bringing them together. That is what the VALUE framework works really well to do.
If you want to discuss further how you can equip yourself or you team with a modern approach to selling, please get in touch.
Part 3 - Opportunity Knocks
May 2020
We join Harry and Larry in May 2020.
Harry was pleased that Larry set up a video call, but a was a bit shocked to see his friend looking tired and stressed.
Harry – Larry, how are you doing? How you are getting on?
Larry – Struggling.
Harry – For real? Why, what’s up?
Larry – Well, I’m still not seeing customers. It’s still hard. I still can’t go and visit them. I still can’t work my magic. You know how I like to work with them.
Harry – I do. But the kind of the stuff we talked about last time, haven’t you done any of that?
Larry – Uh, yeah, I tried a couple of video calls, but they were not so good. I did a little bit on LinkedIn, too.
Harry – Remember, I never said it was easy. When you said you did a little bit on LinkedIn, what do you do?
Larry – I changed my profile and… and that’s it.
Harry – Did you do any posts, did you put anything up on there?
Larry – Like what?
Harry – Well, like interesting information for customers about things that you are doing. Stuff that they might find helpful in the current climate, about yourself, anything that people can look at and learn a little bit more about you from.
Larry – I’ve not done anything like that.
Harry – Well how are you expecting it to work? It is about putting things out there that people will find interesting. People will be able to look at what you are up to and recognise they need to do something similar. I am using it quite a lot now and I’m getting some decent reactions and having conversations as a result. And, to be honest, it has opened up a couple of opportunities.
Larry – How?
Harry – I would say it is early days, but at least we are starting some discussions. I am concentrating on trying to put something valuable out at least once a day, so I look like someone people want to talk to.
Larry – Hmm. OK. But how do you know what to say?
Harry – Just look around, look around at what’s going on. You can find so much that could be valuable. Think of when you have had a conversation with a customer. What was it that they were asking you? How did you answer them? Look at what other people are posting. Don’t copy them, but you can certainly think, well, if that’s what people are posting, that seems to be what people are interested in.
Larry – I’m a bit worried about doing that… worried about, well, putting myself out there.
Harry – But that’s our job. We are salespeople. That’s what we do. We need to be connecting and talking to people. This is another way in which we can connect, and we need to be connecting and talking and influencing as many people as possible.
Larry – Well, I suppose I can’t really argue that.
Harry – No, you can’t, because it’s true. I’ve also been doing a little bit more work around learning things that can help me to sell better.
Larry – You don’t stop trying to learn stuff, do you?
Harry – [Laughs] But why should I, when it’s our job to keep developing? It’s our job to keep getting better, to keep pushing forward.
Larry – So what have you learned now?
Harry – Well, my latest thing is opportunity management.
Larry – Go on.
Harry – So opportunity management is fundamentally about understanding how people make decisions and what’s important to them.
Larry – Hasn’t it always been that?
Harry – Yes it has. But what I’m finding is, I don’t think we’ve been going deep enough.
Larry – Well, we’ve been doing this gig ten years. It’s always been good enough before.
Harry – Remember: stuff is changing and changing at pace. So, we really need to be thinking about how we can start to understand people involved in the buying decision and answering certain questions. Things like: how do they make those decisions? What are they thinking? What’s important to them? What challenges do they have? What issues? What concerns? What goals have they got, or aspirations do they have?
Larry – That’s a lot of stuff to think about.
Harry – It is a lot of stuff, but that’s how we need to be selling. We need to get as deep as possible with them… provide relevant information that’s going to help them with all those things. And we’ve got to do it for a lot of people.
Larry – Yeah. I usually try to speak to a couple of people from each company.
Harry – I reckon you’re probably not speaking to enough.
Larry – How can you say that?
Harry – Quite easily, really. I base it on research. One of the things that we’ve seen from some research coming out recently is that, whereas a couple of years ago we probably needed to speak to five or six people, that went up last year to about eight. Now it is seeming that on average we should be speaking to around twelve people. And I know, with our kind of sale, that’s about right.
Larry – That many?
Harry – Just think about it. All those people who are now wanting to get involved in having a say in what we do.
Larry – I guess you’re right; I am not speaking to that many.
Harry – This has really opened my eyes. And so, I have started to take a far more structured approach in how I work on each opportunity, and how I manage it. I’ve started to really understand the discipline of opportunity management.
Larry – Go on.
Harry – Well, opportunity management is different from activity management, which you would know about, as that is putting stuff in your sales pipeline.
Larry – Yep.
Harry – Not all the stuff that goes in the top comes out at the bottom. So, we need to find a good level of activity to keep on top of things and give ourselves the best chance of winning the opportunities we are presented with. Think of it a bit like account management but slightly different.
Larry – How?
Harry – Account management is the overall account plan. It’s what we’re doing in the grand scheme of things. And that needs certain skills. But opportunity management is specifically about looking at a certain project or certain opportunities. It’s taking a chance we’ve got to sell and managing that through a certain thinking process to be able to get to the point that we can close, negotiate and win the deal.
Larry – So selling then?
Harry – Absolutely it’s selling, but as selling is becoming more complex, we need to think about what we can do to understand all those different dynamics and keep track of what’s going on.
Larry – So how would you do that, then?
Harry – Well, I’ve found something which is pretty cool, and simplified the whole thing for me. There are nine boxes of information that we need to understand.
Larry – Go on then, talk me through these nine boxes. What do I need to know?
Harry – Let’s start off at a high level. There are three key things we need to understand. It’s all about information. So, we have got to get some data. We talked about the number of people involved, so now we’ve got to understand the DMU, the decision-making unit. And then we’ve got to think about what decisions we are going to make. What actions do we have to put in place?
Larry – Well, that’s selling.
Harry – Again, you’re right. We’re not doing anything different here, but what this does, it really makes us think about things in a certain way. So, when we look at the basic data, what we’re doing is, we’re thinking about who’s the account and what’s the opportunity? Does the opportunity make sense for us? We’ve got to qualify it.
Larry – Qualify out!
Harry – Yeah, qualify out. If it doesn’t make a lot of sense for us to work on a project we need to stop. It’s not something that we are necessarily very good at. So you’re right, qualify out.
Larry – I do find that pretty hard.
Harry – We all find it hard. It kind of goes against the grain as a salesperson. But if we can be quite objective about it, if we know the criteria that we need to look at, we can make that decision far easier for ourselves. We can base it on the things that we know make a difference with the kind of opportunity that we are looking for.
Larry – OK. So, we pick the right opportunity. What do we do next?
Harry – I then like to think about the competition. We can think about who we’re selling against, including the ‘do nothing’ option. We might well have competitors that are also going to try with that business, so we need to think about: what’s our position?
Larry – What do you mean by ‘position’?
Harry – How likely are we to win this business? From hot to cold. I like the concept of a thermometer and doing a temperature check as an indicator of how well I’m doing.
Larry – OK. And what do you base that on?
Harry – Well, I’ll partly base that on the people involved. I’ll base that on the decision-making unit. You know about that, we’ve done this before, haven’t we? You know how we’ve mapped out all the people who have a say on the deal?
Larry – Oh yeah. I remember this stuff. I still do it. Who are they? What’s their name? What’s the job? And what role do they play in making the decision?
Harry – Yeah. Go on, Larry.
Larry – The role was about whether they were users or whether they were basing a decision on criteria.
Harry – Yep. That’s right. Technical criteria or commercial criteria.
Larry – Yeah, there was it. The big decision maker. What did we call that?
Harry – We call that the economic buyer as we did not want to call it decision maker because then it takes away from the focus on the whole decision-making unit.
Larry – Yeah. Got it.
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Harry – And the coach. Remember, the person who’s going to help us.
Larry – Yeah. That’s right. What else did we talk about? Let me think. Ah yes, we talked about understanding what their needs were? What is it they’re trying to achieve? What wants did they have? What would be a win for them? What are we trying to satisfy and how would we exceed expectations?
Harry – Yep, absolutely. That’s what we’re looking at. And then remember we were looking at the kind of the influence that they had on the decision. Whether they were with us or against us, and how strong their influence was, you know, whether people really listened to them or not.
Larry – So, what’s new then?
Harry – Well, I’m getting far more disciplined at doing all that. I take the information and I process it far better. I will start to look at the actions I’ve got to take as a result of what I know. For instance, I know if I’m missing information, then I need to find that out.
Larry – Hmmm, interesting.
Harry – So we summarise that into the boxes. I then look and go, right, what would be possible actions? What could I do because of this? And from the possible actions, I look at it from a reality perspective and decide what are the best actions that are going to give me a good bang for my buck. Have most impact. I ask myself how can I make it work? And that gives me a clear plan of what I’m doing with every opportunity. How I need to move it forward and how I can work better, because I’m clearer in my thinking.
Larry – But that’s why I kind of do anyway.
Harry – Listen to what you just said.
Larry – What did I just say?
Harry – You said ‘kind of do anyway’.
Larry – Yeah, I do kind of do it.
Harry – Well, the point is to be less kind of and far more deliberate in the stuff that we’re doing, because then we know that’s going to really make a difference.
Larry – Well, I can see that. I guess it just sounds like a lot of work.
Harry – It is a lot of work, but it’s our job and we get out what we put in. You know, if I put in the work, if I understand this stuff, if I can spot areas in which I can help someone, if I can work with somebody, do something I’ve not done, or find out about something that somebody else is doing better and I need to work against, I can be far more effective in my sales job. This is what modern selling is really coming down to. We need to be structured and thoughtful in how we’re going to influence all the people that are involved in these decisions.
Larry – Well, that’s difficult for me to argue against, but I think it’s what I just do naturally.
Harry – That’s what I felt. And of course, we have been successful. But when you start to map it, you see the things that you’re not doing. Also, remember, a lot of the things that people were looking for have changed now. And if we’re not careful and approaching things with our old perspectives rather than what is it they need, what is it they want, their key issues and priorities here and now in this current climate, how can we add value? I’ll be very deliberate in keeping track of that and making sure that I’m doing the best job possible for my customers.
Larry – Hmm, makes sense. Every time I see you, I feel as if I’m leaving with homework.
Harry – Well, I’m not a teacher, and you aren’t a schoolboy. You’re a professional salesperson. Structure is there to help you do that.
Larry – I understand. It just feels terribly overwhelming. This is a lot of stuff to do here. It’s hard, you know, it’s hard.
Harry – I didn’t say it was easy, but I’m here to help, Larry, and I’m happy to share. I want you to succeed. I want you to move forward and yeah, when we next chat, I want to see that smile back on your face.
Larry – Well, I don’t feel like smiling so much.
Harry – Just try to control the controllable. Do the stuff so that you can have a better understanding of things and you will feel in a far better place. Trust me, this is what I’m doing. That’s how I’m staying so upbeat. It’s really helping.
Larry – I’m pleased for you. Bit envious, really.
Harry – You might be. But you can do this too. It works. I promise you.
That is how Harry and Larry’s discussion went. It seems that, as we moved into the middle of the year, Harry was doing far better than Larry. He was adopting new thinking. He was open to new ways of working. He was keeping a positive mindset. He was pushing himself out of his comfort zone. Larry, not so much. You can hear his struggles. He is finding it quite tough.
See what happens in Part 4 the next newsletter…
Chancellors Dinner
I was honoured to be invited the Chancellors Dinner at Nottingham Trent University as way of recognising my contribution to the Student Sales Academy and work supporting the UpScaler initiative
It was a pleasure to hear about the work the University is undertaking to equip students for a successful future. Collaboration with local business is a key part of this and I am proud to be a part it
(Plus I got to dust off the dinner suit)
Selling in the Gulf
As part of the project to grow into the Gulf region with a base in Dubai continues to develop we have started to share a series of podcasts that focus on what makes selling in this region unique and how to make the necessary adaptations
(NOTE: Soon we will be offering exclusive spaces on a?Collaborative Selling Accelerator?run just for businesses in the region.?If you are based in a GCC and would like to be considered for an invitation please get in touch)
AtPace Academy
Our partnership with AtPace Academy a fully virtual digital academy headquartered in Singapore continues to grow as we make the Student Sales Academy material available in the APAC region and support this with fortnightly live sessions
This is all about promoting to young people that Sales Skills = Life Skills
Selling in the Gulf: Personal Connection
Daoud Abu Qasheh??
This is a special series tailored for people working and selling in the region to discuss some of the unique challenges it presents.
We talk about what is unique about selling in the area and what the best companies and salespeople do to adapt.
Daoud shares his thoughts and clear passion for sales based on a successful career built on an approach that localises best practices and ensures a strong relationship.?
Learn more at https://linktr.ee/fredcopestake
Get Zapped with Intentionality
Larry Long Jr?
Larry is a bundle of energy and positivity intent on a mission to help people get unstuck and not only discover inner greatness but also embrace and live it wholeheartedly.
He shares how his Midweek Motivation Minutes have morphed into seven pillars to develop as a person and sales professional.
These include storytelling, learning from strikeouts and you are what you eat.
We talk about his definition of sales and how to commission breath can be avoided by ceasing to be a 'me-monster' and becoming a 'go-giver'.
He outlines his?#3MinuteChallenge.
Will you take him up on it??
Learn more at https://linktr.ee/fredcopestake
Selling in the Gulf: Don't Hurry
Zaid Darwazeh??
This is a special series tailored for people working and selling in the region to discuss some of the unique challenges it presents.
We talk about what is different about selling in the area and what the best companies and salespeople do to adapt.
Zaid talks about the adaptations needed around language, culture and trust.
He explains how pressure will have negative consequences but patience is rewarded.
Learn more at https://linktr.ee/fredcopestake
Creating Effective Sales Videos
Chris Bogue?
Chris has a background that lends itself to effective video making and now occupies a unique place on the sales and content marketing spectrum.
He wants to get to the bottom of what works and defines that as professional, not the stuffy corporate efforts that get little or a negative response.
Being funny and understanding improv makes a difference, as does being natural and showing a human side.
We consider both outbound and inbound activity and the right material for each.
But what about selling and Tik Tok? Does it make sense?
Learn more at https://linktr.ee/fredcopestake
Selling in the Gulf: Mother Knows Best
Levent Yildizgoren
This is a special series tailored for people working and selling in the region to discuss some of the unique challenges it presents.
We talk about what is different about selling in the area and what the best companies and salespeople do to adapt. Levent talks about localisation and the importance language plays.
He explains why even a little acknowledgement of the customer's language immediately starts talking to their heart.?
Learn more at https://linktr.ee/fredcopestake
Sales is More Challenging Than Ever
Fred Copestake
What a time to be in sales! It was already challenging enough and then a new set of challenges develop that sales professionals have to address to stay effective.?This podcast explores those challenges and suggests ways salespeople can adapt to stay relevant.
Take the?Collaborative Selling Scorecard
Take the?Hybrid Selling Scorecard
Learn more at https://linktr.ee/fredcopestake
Selling in the Gulf: Awareness and Adaptivity
Zach Selch
This is a special series tailored for people working and selling in the region to discuss some of the unique challenges it presents.
We talk about what is different about selling in the area and what the best companies and salespeople do to adapt.
Zach has worked in 135 countries and shares his experience of selling in the region.
He talks about the 'mechanics of sales' and cultural differences that can be faced.
His advice is to be constantly aware and able to make the right choices in actions that will build relationships.
Learn more at https://linktr.ee/fredcopestake
Don't Just Be Yourself
Ben Elijah
"Be yourself" is not always good advice, especially when selling to people unlike you.
Ben shares a mental algorithm anyone can use to improve their communication, messaging and storytelling.
By blending thinking about trust/patience/stakes/hierarchy it is easier to define what to say and how to say it. It is a way to become the person you need to be in that moment.
We talk about how this lends itself to better storytelling and why this is an increasingly hot topic.
Ben also provides a simple yet incredibly powerful structure to construct a story to help customers understand the better way. What is your story?
Learn more at https://linktr.ee/fredcopestake
Less collaborations this month...
... as I collaborated with Mrs C on a holiday to the south of Spain
Well deserved time off for us both (and an opportunity to brush up on my Spanish which is getting a little rusty)
Now re-energised we are ready to continue focusing on the growth of Brindis
There are more collaborations in the pipeline so watch this space
In-house webinars
I have delivered some 'private' webinars for sales teams this month. Based on 'Collaborative Selling - The What, Why and Wow' this is a great way to stimulate discussion around how to get the organisation's sales approach up to date
Whats the deal? Buy books for the team and I 'zoom in'... free of charge!
Get in touch if this is something you would like to do
Interview on Bulletproof Selling
Hope isn't a strategy on the battlefield or in the boardroom, yet so many salespeople hope they'll make the next sale.
In Bulletproof Selling, we're bringing the best minds and selling systems together each week so you can create more impact and more income in your sales!
For more free sales systems, make sure you visit www.bulletproof-selling.com or follow us at https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/shawnrhodes/
Watch the episode:?
Collaborative Selling - The what, why and wow
Free?live?session to introduce what really works?today
Thursday 7th July - 08:00am (GMT)
Hybrid Selling - the next evolution of sales
Free?live?session to introduce what really works?today
Thursday 21st July - 08:00am (GMT)
Collaborative Selling Scorecard
Are you ready to increase your sales?
Take the?Scorecard
Hybrid Selling Scorecard
Are you ready to future proof your sales?
Take the?Scorecard
Former Chemist that Trains Manufacturing Sales Teams to Hit Sales Targets Monthly Using an Actionable Sales Process | Keynote Speaker
2 年Thanks for this great resource, Fred. Keep them coming!
Deal Shaper, Sales Leader, Entrepreneur, Consultant in high impact sales performance. Global Supply Chain Experience
2 年Wow Fred some really awesome content in here- I’ve heard seen a lot before from you but great to have it all in one place! Keep it coming ??