How to cancel confusion
Fred Copestake
Sales Trainer | Author | Coach | Working with engineering and manufacturing teams | Selling has changed – have you?
Selling can be so confusing... but why do we make it harder for ourselves?
Next installment of 'Spotlight' series focusing on modern sales challenges
Welcome to the?January Edition?of Sales?Today?newsletter for B2B sales professionals, the tenth edition... especially the 2276 subscribers
It's monthly so I want to give you plenty to consider
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
How to cancel confusion
My job is to help flag up some of these things that you might catch yourself doing. It can be a little bit uncomfortable, but when you know, you can do something about it.
I categorise the challenges modern salespeople have into three broad categories:
- Busy, Busy, Busy
- Olde Worlde
- Muddled Mindset
I want to talk about Muddled Mindset.
So I give, I give little labels to these three main challenges that I see.?The last element of, the last
This is all about being misaligned and where I tend to see this is at more of an organisational level.?
The way it can pan out is that the organization says “We're consultative. We're customer focused. We provide solutions. We work with our customers. We focus on their best interests”
And they are like that for most of the time.
Until they get to the end of the month, end of the quarter, end of the year, and suddenly it's “Oh, get out there and sell stuff”.
They go from being consultative to being transactional. From focusing on customers to suddenly starting to giving discounts.
It’s weird for the salesperson who's not really sure how it is they're supposed to operate. It becomes quite confusing. They are not sure supposed to be problem solving, or just trying to push stuff.
It's not a great position for anyone to be in. For managers, it makes it hard. Do they coach? Do they look at spreadsheets? An odd position to be in.
However it is something we can deal with
We start to think with clarity, use coaching, and then be confident in the best way to work.
So the organization has got to set out this is how we do stuff and stick to it. Give clarity.
Then the managers can help people get better at what it is they're doing. Give coachng.
Then when the salesperson knows that that's how they should be operating, they can be way more confident, and they can go ahead and act in the right way. Give confirmation.
Successful companies will be all over this and they'll have a framework.
I have developed a framework that takes partnering skills on one hand plus the sales best practice from what's gone before on the other hand and knitting them together so that we have something that salespeople can use to structure the way they work.
It works in different sorts of sales. I worked with a series of different clients and can see that this stuff works for them. This was why I wrote the book Selling Through Partnering Skills
It is based around the VALUE Framework.
Each of these areas you can build best practice around.
V for Validate. This is all about thinking about is this the right kind of business for me to be going after. ‘Qualification’ in old terms.
So the thing to do here is to ask yourself - am I working with the right people? Am I going off the right sort of business here? Is this where I should be putting my time and effort? My focus?
The dream state we want to be in is imaging if every day you are getting up to work with people that you knew you could create real impact with and who wanted to work with you to do it
A is for Align. This is homework, this is prep. This is thinking about - what am I going in with? How can I understand them well enough to be able to do things that's going to make a difference for them? Am I going to arrive with insights, perspectives? Things that they're gonna find interesting because it's going to help them to think.
The imaginary state, the place we want to be is that people are reaching out to you because they know when they talk to you, it helps them make sense of things.
L is for Leverage. We leverage our knowledge, we leverage our information, we leverage our skills ?to have better grown up conversations. People value interactions with us.
Imagine people are saying to you “Thank you. That was an excellent meeting” They, they want you back because the things that you are doing. They are thinking that this is somebody I want work with.
U is for Underpin. This is setting up your offer. It's about resonate, substantiate, and differentiate.
Resonate - we've got to get on their wavelength. It makes sense to them. The stuff that we're offering, it works for them.
Substantiate - we can back it up, we can prove it, we can give them stories, we can give them ROI. We can give them stuff that shows that we can do what we say.
Differentiate - is that it's stuff that makes us different AND what they think is important. Just being different on its own isn't a differentiator. It has to be relevant to them. So again, you know the, the, the best place to be.
Just think about - are my proposals, my presentations solid? Are they customer focused?
Again, imagine being so confident that the people in how and what you communicate with people, you don't care what your competitors are doing. It doesn’t matter because I know what we are doing and how we are presenting this to our customers, it's bang on like they're going to love it.
E for Evolve. So taking the business to the next level. It's delivering on the promises, it's delivering on the outcomes, the stuff that we said that we can do for them, we make sure we do it.
We have to ask ourselves - do we leave customers to fend for themselves? Or are weve invested in their results? Are we going to make sure they get what we've promised?
Imagine that we're going to put review meetings in place with customers and we know it's just taken for written that we're doing what we said we would, so those conversations naturally go into the next projects. That's really where we want be.?
So we need to move salespeople from that busy, horrible, wasteful, tiring, unfocused approach. Using old-fashioned techniques and doing the things which push customers away from them, and we need to give them the ability to stop being so confused about what they're trying to do as they sell.
We can do this. We can move them to where they're helping people because they're preparing, they're planning, they're using good processes. They're being more effective. They can flip the script because what they're doing is they're thinking about the customer and they're doing stuff based on genuine customer centricity.
And when we can give them that clarity in the way that they work. Managers can coach them and the salesperson is dead sure about how it is they need to work.
This for me is all about having good people doing good things in a good way.
Projects are like buses... you wait for them then three come along together
Collaborative Selling Academy is live
Suitable for individuals and teams the materials have been developed to drive learning and activity that wins business IN REAL TIME
Membership?gives access to:
See more HERE
Selling at C-Level is (secretly) live
The collaboration with ?? Steve Hall is now ready to accept 'early adopters' on special
We are only telling our friends at the moment so for more information on becoming one of the 'First 100' look HERE
Student Sales Academy is livening up
Sales skills = Life skills
Driven by a frustration that students are not prepared with some of the skills that they need to work effectively we have decided to do something about it
Once again we are joined by interns from 英国诺丁汉特伦特大学 as the project enters the phase where we can promote the offering and make available to a wider audience
Got 'Enterprise' or 'Employability' contacts at a university?
Please help us spread the word!
(Contact us to learn more about the learning 'developed by students for students' we can offer)
Louis Sandford - Sales prospecting: Stand out and be different
Louis Sandford is pretty straight up with his dislike for boring marketing.
Getting new customers is probably THE most important thing for any business.
But it's not always easy and can be incredibly frustrating.
Every business has wasted time, effort, and money on marketing strategies that get no results.
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But some businesses, are doing things differently.
They are getting response rates as high as 50-60% with their dream clients calling them up, day in, day out and asking THEM for a meeting.
We talk about some of the creative outreach he has been involved with from coconuts to fake arm and horse’s head.
He explains how and why these approaches work and why it is surprising that more organisations don’t consider the true value of customers and ditch the dull sequences in favour of more successful methods.
But does he overstep the mark?
Link to Louis's LinkedIn
Listen to the episode?HERE
Richard Harris - Earn the Right
Richard Harris? wears many hats which is indicative that he cares deeply about sales and that it is done well.
In this episode we look at the elements of PQ - partnering intelligence - and discuss how it can be used to guide a modern sales approach.
He brings his unique spin to this and shares a number of powerful maxims and NEAT structure.
We talk about language patterns and the mindset of being uncomfortable.
What are you doing to help your customers 'fall in trust' with you?
Listen to the episode?HERE
David Allison - The Death of Demographics
David Allison ????? ?? 's favourite title is actually 'Values Activist' and when you hear him talk this makes sense.
He focuses on values because we are all values-driven.
It's what makes us human.
Understanding human values will absolutely change the way we look at ourselves, the people around us, and those we hope to engage with our work.
We are all driven by what we value.
Think of your values as the GPS system that determines everything you do.
In this episode he talks about his new book and how it helps figure out the people you want to understand, engage, and motivate.
He shares three genius questions that can be used to unlock an individuals core values.
Is it time salespeople stopped talking about ‘need’ and ‘pain’ and even value from a perspective of ROI and focussed on what people really care about?
Link to David's book
Listen to the episode?HERE
Sales Success Part 3 - Cancel confusion
‘Muddled Mindset’.
This is being misaligned. It can happen at organisation, management and individual level and means that the confusion leads to frustration and wasted effort.
We can counter this by creating better alignment through ensuring clarity within the organisation which allows management to provide better coaching.
This in turn confirms for individuals that their approach is consistent with top performance.
Core to this is having a solid framework.
The VALUE Framework encourages sales team to consider each part of their selling.
Validate - How to check fit for doing business.
Align - How we can prepare to work together.
Leverage - How to use insights to have intelligent discussions.
Underpin - How to present, prove and agree.
Evolve - How to develop the business.
Ad hoc random selling activity is not an option for those seeking sales success in an increasingly confusing world.
Are you clear on how you will operate to be relevant for all parties?
Take the scorecard:?https://collaborativeselling.scoreapp.com/
Listen to the episode?HERE
Go Solo: A modern Approach To Winning Business
Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in business development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with?Fred Copestake, Founder of?Brindis.
Read the full article Here
How to modernise your sales approach without losing the human touch
?In this new LIVE and completely FREE to attend event I will share practical insights into an approach for B2B salespeople to ensure they stay relevant and valuable.
This workshop is brand new and addresses the top three challenges that many salespeople have based on what I have identified from working with clients all over the world.
Many salespeople struggle to adapt their approach to one that is effective today. As a result, they are running a risk of becoming irrelevant to their customers.
I will answer the questions:
- Why are so many salespeople tired and stressed?
- Why are so many sales backwards and boring for customers?
- Why do organisations confuse salespeople badly?
You should attend if:
- You are involved in B2B sales and find your approach isn’t working as well as used to
- You feel like you are wasting opportunities that should be won
- You use a highly technical approach to selling that doesn’t always wow customers
- You are frustrated that you can’t keep customers engaged through the process
- You are fed up with always having to discount to win business
- You want peace of mind that your sales plan will work
- You are frightened that the pace of change in the world of sales is too fast
- You are concerned your competitors are doing something different but don't know what
Every participant will be given access to a tool that provides a report on the state of your sales compared to an effective modern approach?
Places are limited by the platform we use so please make sure you're quick to secure your spot.
Thursday 23rd February 2023 (1.00pm GMT)
Register?HERE
Collaborative Selling Scorecard
Are you ready to increase your sales?