Category Archives: Sales & Marketing

How Do You Hire Good Salespeople? Eight Points

Situation: A CEO struggles with finding competent sales people. Issues include both finding these people, evaluating their skills, and assuring that they fit with the culture of his company. What techniques do others employ to find good candidates? How do you hire good salespeople?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Hiring salespeople is one of the most important jobs a CEO has, yet is paid the least attention. In a small company the CEO is deeply involved in the process, while in larger companies the CEO’s role is assuring that those responsible for selection and hiring are bringing in quality individuals. In either case the important points for the CEO to oversee are as follows:
• Determine what you want the person to do. What skills do they need? How much can you pay? Is that competitive with the market?
• Advertise – use internet portals, print media and referrals. Beyond this, one of the most successful means of recruiting is to hire individuals who have proven their skills in other companies and who are known to and respected by your existing salespeople.
• Review resumes for basic qualifications and weed out all that do not meet those qualifications.
• Test potential hires. There are a number of good tests including: DISC, Meyers-Briggs and Identity Compass.
• Bring candidates in for interview. See how they react to pressure. Are they a good match for the company culture? What is their personality like? Are they comfortable with the company’s philosophy, size, reputation, products and services, and so on?
• Check references and contact their current customers to gather their impressions of the candidate’s capabilities.
• Remember that past performance does not guarantee future results – particularly if there is a significant change in what is being sold.

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How Do You Establish Sales Accountability? Three Approaches

Situation: Several CEOs have experienced difficulty establishing accountability within their sales teams. Sone sales reps consistently come up with excuses for not generating new accounts or meeting their sales objectives. The impact of lost sales had significant effects on revenue performance. How do you establish sales accountability?
Advice from the CEOs:
• It is vital to understand who are the best customers and most profitable products and services for those customers. Establish regular sales meetings to discuss customers, products and services, to identify promising sales opportunities and to coordinate sales efforts.
• Work with both sales management and individual team members to determine desired outcomes:
 Set sales targets – work with the team to establish firm expectations on reasonable and achievable sales targets. Agree on a tracking system to measure progress toward those targets. Encourage members of the team to work together to achieve the targets.
 Customer type – who are they, what are their priorities and expectations, and how can the company best address these.
 Product(s) – work with the team to determine which products best fit each customer type and develop creative ways to position those products to increase sales.
• Establish measurable behaviors which if done will result in success. For example:
 Calls per week and results of those calls.
 Relationships with key decision makers and development of additional relationships within existing and potential customers.
 Thorough qualification before quoting, presenting, demo, and so on. The who, what and why that connects with successful sales..

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How Do You Expand Your Market? Five Suggestions

Situation: A CEO’s company has historically been organized around a single company’s products and technologies, though their customer base uses multiple platforms. The company wants to expand from a single-technology emphasis to a broader technology base which will more accurately reflect its customer base. What can assist the company in building both its technology and customer base? How do you expand your market?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Conduct surveys among users and employees of the existing customer base. Use what is learned to design new approaches to expand both the company’s technology base and customer base.
• Expand into additional industries, products, and a more diverse company customer base.
• Determine to there is a genuine need for the company’s technology and services. If not, adjust both the technology and offering to better meet customer needs.
• Build a marketing campaign around differentiating factors that others do not provide. For example, in the cooperative banking industry market accounts that allow no-fee ATM access through other coop networks’ and banks’ ATM machines to expand customer convenience and appeal.
• Target niches. For example, small businesses or home businesses where the company’s lower fees make a difference and personal service is appreciated by the owner or someone who works closely with the owner.

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How Do You Sell in an Adverse Market? Three Points

Situation: A CEO is concerned that while interacting with trusted advisors and key contacts in the market the challenge is not the words, but in the environment of nervousness about the state of the economy. He feels a need to increase prospecting and to become more proactive – particularly with trusted advisors. What is the advice of the CEOs around the table for doing this? How do you sell in an adverse market?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Get the team to believe – adjust the message to the environment.
• Get together with the team and brainstorm how your company’s offering provides advantages in an uncertain market. Craft this into a message that everyone can use.
• To spark the discussion get a digital copy of the movie Glengarry Glen Ross and watch it together. This is a wonderful example of what NOT to do, but will engage the imaginations of the team. After watching the movie brainstorm what your more effective message will be.

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How Do You Make Sales “Farmers” More like “Hunters”? Three Approaches

Situation: A CEO finds that his sales team are relationship managers who are excellent at growing business in existing customers, but not as skilled at either developing new business opportunities with current customers or bringing in new customers. In sales parlance, they are more like “farmers” than “hunters”. To meet revenue goals, the company needs additional business. How do you make sales “farmers” more like “hunters”?
Advice from the CEOs:
• When working with the team be sure to considering what’s in it for them, not what’s in it for you. Communicate with and coach them so that they are inspired to try and adopt new behavior that will help them in their jobs.
• Create a low pressure script for your relationship managers. Build this around easy questions that they can ask both current and prospective clients:
 How are we doing?
 What are your most pressing needs?
 What more could we do for you?
 Can you see other ways that our services could benefit you?
 We have a new offering. May I tell you about it?
 Do you know other companies that can utilize our product or service?
• For training, pair the relationship managers in teams of their choosing. Have them rehearse and coach each other. As they learn or develop new techniques, have them coach the rest of the team.

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How Do You Focus Your Team? Six Points

Situation: Several CEOs asked how others have had success improving company performance and is interested in how they focused their teams. How do you focus your team?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Important tasks for any company are to validate the value proposition, technology, target customer, and the rate of market expansion, and minimize risk and liability. This should be a regular company exercise – not a one-time event.
  • Assuming that a company has goals and people who can align with and achieve them, a company needs a vision – the broader strategic picture of where they are going. Often some of the best ideas come from line staff who are enabled by their company’s culture.
  • It is critical that companies are able to quickly identify problems and have systems in place to drive problem resolution. The minigame technique is very useful in these cases.
  • Companies should have a plan for transitioning employees into new roles as the company grows. The key is clear identification of the individual’s role within the company, and how that role compliments achievement of company objectives.
  • If a company wants to grow sales from, say, $20 to $60 million, it will need a professional sales leader. In addition, growth may require a change in company culture from engineering and development centric to sales centric.
  • A significant challenge is determining how to define corporate success. Much depends upon the questions asked. The Great Game of Business by Jack Stack provides guidelines and tools for assessing options. Anyone starting or growing a business should look at this book.

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How Do You Improve a Company’s Profile and Diversify the Customer Base? Seven Points

Situation: The CEO of a high tech company wants to improve the profile of his company for prospective clients. He also wants to diversify the company’s customer base. How do you improve a company’s profile and diversify the customer base?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Develop a good description that easily expresses the company’s value proposition.
    • Test this with potential customers to assure that they easily grasp what the company has to offer – and are interested in paying for!
  • If the company is early-stage, focus on funding and proof of concept as early milestones.
    • If the company has a novel idea or capability, focus on proving the value of this capability to a buying customer base of sufficient value to interest investors.
  • Study and define customers’ needs before trying to communicate what the company can do for them.
    • Similarly, define the channels that will be most effective in reaching these customers.
  • To monetize the business focus on the seekers – those who need and will benefit from the product or services that is being offered.
    • If the company offers a free or low cost service, develop a premium offer for enhanced services.
  • To market a core set of skills to different customer markets, focus on a theme of reliability.
    • Flavor this theme differently through a branding exercise to address the needs and desires of specific customer segments.
    • It is both feasible and desirable to market the same set of skills differently to different customer markets.
  • Follow the money – it leads to the heart of customer purchase decisions.
  • Growth, momentum and the ability to change are essential parts of a successful business model.

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How Do You Improve Morale and Performance in a Professional Services Company? Four Observations

Situation: The CEO of a professional service company says that his employees have been through a lot of stress over the last few years. He wants to improve company morale to boost performance and is interested in how others have done this. How do you improve morale and performance in a professional services company?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Manage Morale and Employee Feedback – In times of economic change and adjustment, it is important to have a good handle on what employees are thinking about their jobs and the company as a whole. The use of anonymous surveys administered via computer or a neutral 3rd party generally yields more objective and honest feedback than 1-on-1s with the CEO. They offer employees an opportunity to anonymously share their concerns, and to offer constructive feedback on how to boost company performance.
  • NOW is the time to act – whether the economy is positioned for a rebound or another dip. Employees have dealt with a lot over the last few years and may be starting to look at opportunities outside the company. Therefore, it is important, right now, to put programs in place to:
    • Retain high performing employees, and
    • Communicate to employees what the company is doing to position itself for growth so that they see a bright future for both the company and themselves as employees within the company.
  • Professional services are people-to-people businesses. Focus on relationship building to increase market presence. Recognize and reward employees for their efforts to build new relationships with clients. Use these as examples to inspire other employees.
  • Many more women have entered and become an important component of the workforce. Conduct group meetings to compare the experiences of male and female sales people in relationship selling situations. These will differ between purchase decision makers in different markets and situations where one gender vs. the other predominates. Sharing experiences offers the potential to learn from and to support each other as well as to improve performance. Ask employees how these meetings should be conducted and whether they prefer same or mixed gender meetings.

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How Do You Boost the Performance of a Life Sciences Company? Six Suggestions

Situation: The CEO wants to improve the performance of her life sciences company. She has questions about the business plan and roles within the company. She is also looking for better ways to connect with current and potential customers. How do you boost the performance of a life sciences company?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Assess both your own role and the company to ensure that there is good alignment between the business plan and the roles within the company.
  • Be strategic after assessing the company’s needs and situation. Too often companies jump to tactical considerations because they are action oriented. To be effective, tactics must align with the broader company strategy.
  • Build a foundation based on value and compliment this with effective models to communicate and leverage this value base.
  • Think outside the box. Consider options to use or increase the effectiveness of social networking. This has growing dramatically in importance as a way to reach and communicate with key current and potential constituencies.
  • Perception is important. Be aware of what others think of the company and work creatively to present the company in a light that will support objectives.
  • The visual cortex represents 75% of sensory awareness. Leverage this on web sites and in marketing campaigns.

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How Do You Optimize Your Product Offering? Four Points of Focus

Situation: A CEO wants to take better advantage of his company’s product offering. There are many opportunities available, but the company needs more focus on optimizing these opportunities. How do you optimize your product offering?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Brand – Where has the company been? Where is it going? The world is constantly changing – what’s the company’s new brand? The brand identifies the company and both your customers’ and business partners’ identification of the company and its products and/or services. In a changing world with increased competition and “noise,” having a strong handle on the brand and brand message is critical to remaining at the top of customers’ and partners’ awareness.
  • Education/Customer Advocacy – An underutilized source of marketing strength includes both customer education and customer advocacy. Customer education allows the company to better position its product and/or service to the customer and helps the customer better meet unrecognized needs. Customer advocacy positions the company along with its customers in an area of mutual interest and strengthens both bonds and loyalty.
  • Diversification & Channels – In a changing and rapidly diversifying world, being open to new opportunities and channels through which to reach the company’s stakeholders is a source of sustainable advantage.
  • Partnerships to Take Advantage of Diversification & Channel Opportunities – Partnerships are an underutilized resource to creatively diversify and open new channels to stakeholders. They require less investment than doing everything on your own and can form the basis for key alliances and strengths going forward.

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