The First And Most Important Thing You Must Enable to Increase Productivity and Revenue

I see so much sales training advertised and hear so much talk about sales productivity here on Linked-in. Yet I see so little about how to enable any of it or make it automatic. I think what is worse are all the apple pie and mom comments about productivity and what works that have no real substance to them.

B2B salespeople are some fo the most intelligent, creative, hardworking, and motivated people in the world. They thirst to become better at their craft. Yet as an industry we throw technology. process and sales administration at them and expect them to figure out how to use it all to sell more. This is a huge dis-service and waster of talent!

Until you enable the most important part of their jobs everything else you so is a pretty much a waste of time that leads them in the wrong direction. The most important part of their job is understanding how to get mostly target accounts (maybe a few existing clients if they are lucky) to buy.

Most companies think that automating a sales process is the enablement that helps salespeople with the process of selling. This is not only false it is ridiculous! The reason this is so far off base is that your sales process does address how most prospects buy. Your process defines a set of activities that you want your salespeople to execute that you believe will lead their accounts to be developed into pipeline and eventually closed. Yet when you look at real cycles that actual do close you cannot find two accounts that executed the same set of activities to get from unknown to closed.

You need a sales framework within which a sales process gets created that is tailored for the buyers you are trying to sell. This process is built by your salespeople within the framework. The process is buyer centric. The framework is also buyer centric.

The difference between a. process and a framework is this. A framework is a set of stages that a buyer goes through in their journey toward purchase. The process is a specific set of steps and activities that bring the buyer through that process. Each stage of a framework has several activities that can be executed to move the account towards purchase. However, the mistake almost every b2b company makes is to define a specific set of activities as the framework. This results in a very low success rate because you must be lucky enough to have those steps be the actual steps the buyer takes in their process. The result has been a massive focus on activity in order to get the number of accounts that buy the way you sell to increase.

When you have a framework within which the salesperson chooses from a variety of activities that move the prospect towards purchase, the salesperson creates a sales process that matches the way the prospect buys far more often!

In order to understand the framework, you must understand the higher-level objectives of a sale to an account. You must first get their attention, the get them curious and interested, then motivated to solve the problem, convinced the solution will work, and finally get them to close. Those are the stages of the framework.

Within each stage there are multiple tools, resources, and activities to accomplish the objective of moving the account and prospects to the next stage in the framework. For example, to get their attention I have my website campaigns, targeted campaigns, email, Blogs, Linked-in reach outs and campaigns, webinars, partner introductions, cold calls, etc etc. Once I have them curious interested, I have deep dive discovery, demos, presentation, business cases, partners, and host of other things that can pique their interest and get them to want to solve the problem. These are examples of the activities, tools and resources for the first two stages. The same holds true for the rest of the stages of the framework. .

When salespeople understand the stages of the framework, they have a blueprint for what the prospect has to experience in order to buy. When they have alignment of the activities and resources available, they have a set of choices that they can tailor to what will work with that prospect. They also have a blueprint for what not to do! Why would I do a demo or sales presentation to a prospect off a cold call where curiosity and interest have not been built. the salesperson can see that is that tool is used once interest has been built, so that tool and activity is not used until that is done. Why would I do a POC or use my valuable references for an account that has not committed to spend money if they become convinced the solution will work. I would not but so many do! The POC is used to convince and that is done when the prospect has committed to spend if the solution works.

You should be able to see from these examples that grouping the tools resources and activities under the framework headings give your salespeople choices on what activity and resource to use in order to move that particular account. This allows the salesperson to chose the most effective activity and resources for that particular client.

The result of this approach has many benefits: The obvious one is that the salesperson can provide a better buying experience and a more impactful one more often. But it also teaches the salesperson which activities and resources to use when. this creates a far more efficient sales process and a much lower cost of sale. When the salesperson knows what activities and resources to use when they also learn as does their manager which skills they need to improve. Territory plans become far more effective because the salesperson can now group accounts into the stages of the framework and be able to understand which groups of activities they need to focus on the most and for which accounts. When you are a CRO and you see the spread of accounts in this light you know where you need to invest and where you might be over invested.

Should you be interested in this kind of approach please do not hesitate to reach out. I have the framework built. I can group your activities and resources within it. I will teach you salespeople and managers how to use it. I will show your sales ops teams how to automate it and operationalize it.I assure you that your revenues will increase significantly and your cost of sale will be reduced significantly.

?

?