#Hootsuite, check it out. http://hootsui

#Hootsuite, check it out. http://hootsuite.com

“You don’t get paid for close” in sales

A sales rep said on a forecast call that he was “close” to bringing a deal in.  The SVP said, “you don’t get paid for close in sales“.

How true this is.  If I had a dollar for every time someone told me “we’re close”!

Smart hiring for quota carrying Inside Sales Professionals

Are you a hiring manager for Inside Sales Professionals? What are the best practices that you use when hiring?

Help us “crowd source” this one to get at the root of what Inside Sales Managers should be looking for to hire A Players in Inside Sales! Once we get to 100+ responses, results will be published back to the community. Thanks for your two minute investment of time! Link to the survey: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22C9S43UHEL/

Good selling,
Chad

Hire smart!

In 2011, there are so many different “flavors” of ISRs in the marketplace, what steps can a manager take to make sure to hire the “right” candidates for the particular role you are hiring for?  The tips below will be applicable for quota carrying ISR roles, and likely most other type of ISR roles as well.

Kevin Gaither, Director of Inside Sales at Focus.com read about 8 books on this subject, and shared some of the takeaways at the recent American Association of Inside Sales Professionals Event in San Francisco.  And a few sales executive mentors have also shared advice over the years–below find some of the takeaways.

• Start the interview by making the candidate at ease–take off your coat, can I get you something to drink?  You want to make sure that they aren’t canned and you get a read of the “real person”.
• Ask the candidate the question, “tell me about a time you were competitive recently”.  See what you get in response.  You are looking for a true competitor and they can tell you many many times they were competitive.
• “Tell me a time you had to sacrifice for a role?”  This one shows you their motivation level.
• One thing you MUST find out, is the candidate intelligent, and do they have a great work ethic?  A good way to learn about their “smarts”… Ask the question, “when did you graduate from high school?”  Then look at college graduation date.  Is it 4 years, 4.5 years, 6-7 years?  Probably not a good sign of someone who is dedicated and smart if it took 8 years.  Or even worse, they list the college misrepresenting that they actually graduated.  Be careful. (note: this feedback came from an SVP I worked for, it’s not always accurate, but good information to understand the person you are considering hiring).
• “Stick-to-ativeness”.  One of the best leaders I’ve worked for, looks for stick-to-ativeness.  Do they commit to a company for 3 years, or do they jump every 6 months?  Sometimes there are good reasons, but 5 jobs in a row, < 1 year, really?
• Another good one: “what are you good at”?
• And “sell me this pen”?

There are a lot of techniques that you should use when interviewing candidates.  Consider that the cost of hiring a bad candidate is the time you invest in their on-boarding, recruiter fees if there is one, and opportunity cost of low revenues for the territory they are in.  It takes time to learn this skill.  Learn from your leaders who are good at it.  Make sure to compare notes after every interview with your leader.  At first, you and your executive leader may be far off – from definitely hire to open, but not sure.  Over time, as you take some short courses, read a book or two, you should get to be very close to the same answer every time.

The grading I learned from someone ex-Google HR:

+ (hire)

Open +

Open -

- (don’t hire)

If you can have people doing the interviews for you focus on specific areas/questions, and then rate the candidate in these areas with the scale above, it works very well.  It’s very obvious when 5 interviewers say +, +, + , Open +, +.  You should hire that person!  +, -, Open -, -, -, probably not a good hire.

Good luck out there!

American Association of Inside Sales Professionals quarterly meeting — lessons from the pros!

At the 4th quarter Silicon Valley Chapter Meeting of the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals, Skip Miller, Author and Sales Trainer, reminded a roomful of 50+ Inside Sales Leaders & Sales Professionals some basic truths about selling.

1) Most participants had a tendency to ask “what are you looking for in a solution” and those kinds of questions. Skip says, “what caused you to look into our solution?”. SIMPLE tweak, enormous implications. He also pointed out that in 2008, the difference between the #1 golfer in the world and #150 (< 2 strokes/game). The difference in pay: MILLIONS.

2) There are two buying cycles in a typical sale — the user buying process and economic buying process. Typically, a user buyer presentation follows the traditional format of “tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them”. The economic buyer wants to be validated! ASK THEM, TELL THEM, ASK THEM. Meaning–in a 30 minute call, ask questions for 15 minutes, when you’ve asked the right questions, TELL THEM, “yes, we can do that”, and then ask them how to move forward.

Koka Sexton, Social Marketing at Inside View also presented some game changing ideas about leveraging social media in sales campaigns. He challenged some of the traditional thinking that marketing should be using social media to sell and shared concepts/strategies that sales professionals are using on a daily basis. He went so far as to say that if you are not using these tactics, your competition is and likely you will be passed by. Think about the time when email first came out more than a decade ago–were you resistant to change? Think about the “LEAD SOURCE” in your CRM for deals you close. What % are Twitter, Linked In, Facebook, or other social networking sites? What percentage will it be 1 year from now, 2 years from now, or 5 years from now?

Fundamental sales methodologies haven’t changed dramatically in a hundred years. However, technology, access of information, and web 2.0 selling has changed the landscape. The trick for the top 10% of sales people is to keep up with the new technologies and leverage them better than the competition, and better than other sales professionals.

Are you currently a top 10%’er? What are you doing to insure that you are in the next few years to stay at the top! Check out www.aa-isp.org to learn more about the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals. National meeting to be held at San Francisco Hyatt in Burlingame February 10, 2011.

Three T’s–Train, Transfer, or Terminate

When you are thinking about enhancing a professional selling team, and professional development, there are really three choices: Train, transfer or terminate.

Train – Do you have realistic goals and measures? Did your team participate in the creation of them to make sure they are “SMART” goals? Once the goals are in place, have you invested resources and time to train on best practices?

Transfer – Does the particular employee do a good job, maybe not the right fit for the role they are in? Are there alternative roles they could do well in? Whether in your department or someone else’s? Consider a transfer. This can lead to a great fit for the employee and better morale for the rest of the team.

Terminate – This should be an absolute last resort. You or your predecessor hired this individual, they must have seen promise in their skills, motivations and capability. Does this employee know their goals? Are they clearly spelled out both in 1:1s and in writing? Have you shown them “how to” when it comes to areas of improvement? To be fair to your company, and to the employee, and to yourself, make sure there is an action plan for improvement and a path to success spelled out. 90 percent of the time, employees don’t know what they aren’t doing “right” and when it’s made clear more than half the time can usually turn it around.

Know your team and individual employees strengths and weaknesses and consider the three Ts!

Good selling

Managers, you better stay sharp!

How long have you been a sales manager?  1 years, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years?

Ponder this… Tiger Woods is arguably the best golfer of all time.  He took < 6 months away from the game, and this past weekend tied the worst score he’d ever posted as a professional golfer!  How long have you been “out of the game”? Are your skills sharp?  Can you still make a cold call?  Can you work a deal from start to finish?

Can you run a sales cycle from start to finish at your current company?  Can you prospect and gain interest in your products & services?  If the answer is no, read on…

A typical sales managers role is to hire, train, and retain sales professionals to meet and exceed quota.  It’s great to be able to know how to hire sales pros, how do you train and retain these talented individuals?  A few ideas:

1. Implement a Sales Certification program.  Build a checklist of things you look for during a sales cycle, and before the rep can “get into territory”, have them pass your sales certification.  This helps you as a manager stay sharp and understand a sales cycle, and helps your team learn from each other.
2. Join sales calls with your reps. Ask your team to invite you to the call.  Listen.  Bite your tongue when you want to jump into the sales call, and create a forum for providing feedback.  True Sales Professionals are always interested in feedback and if you have value you can add about the process, they want to hear about it!
3. Ask your team to record their WebEx meetings with prospects. A lot of reps would prefer running the call without micromanagement.  As a manager, you don’t try to micro-manage.  Try having your team record their call, and then listen to it in a conference room on speakers.  You can start/stop and provide coaching.
4. Teach the sale team how to fish! Run a 10 minute presentation using “worst practices” like show up and throw up, don’t listen, and offer a low price from the get go.  Then have another manager or sales professional present the “to be” and the gold standard for how to ask questions, set competitive landmines, and run a meeting.  Reps will “get it” when they can contrast what is good and what is not good.
5. Stack rank your pipeline and be involved in your top 10 deals! The 80/20 rules applies in sales management.  Focus on the top 20% of deals, and join the calls, and that will result in 80% of the business.

You made it to your position because you were presumably an excellent sales professional.  Keep up with your skills by focusing on keeping them current, and using some of the practices identified here.  Remember, all it takes is 6 months of inactivity, and your skills can go from “hero to zero”.  Sharpen your saw!