23
Oct 2020
0
3 Behaviours & 9 Tips to Increase Team Efficiency

3 Behaviours & 9 Tips to Increase (Commercial) Team Efficiency

To stimulate improved sales performance, it’s important to understand and practice digital behaviors that promote a sense of

3 Behaviours & 9 Tips to Increase (Commercial) Team Efficiency

Eliseo Manfron Eliseo Manfron  |    Competence Development, Sales Performance

To stimulate improved sales performance, it’s important to understand and practice digital behaviors that promote a sense of psychological safety. You can encourage this psychological safety in your commercial team by: 

  • Framing the work as a learning process,  
  • Acknowledging your own fallibility; 
  • Modeling curiosity and asking lots of questions. 

Remote working and digital communications 

Psychological safety and trust in leadership are more important than ever before as sales forces are increasingly working remotely and communicating digitally.  

Leverage psychological safety 

Amy Edmondson, Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, defined the notion of psychological safety as a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking and being vulnerable in front of each other. In other words: team members feel accepted and respected in psychologically safe teams. 

This means that members of effective teams feel comfortable asking questions or bringing up new ideas – without worrying about being judged – and are confident they won’t be embarrassed or punished for making mistakes.  

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts 

In line with this phrase first coined by the philosopher Aristotle, we also believe that members of efficient sales teams can achieve more by working together than working alone. An efficient commercial team is therefore more than the sum of its individuals – so even though getting these individuals to all work together can be tough, it’s critical for team effectiveness. They need to plan, solve problems, make decisions, and review progress. And they need each other – and efficient leadership – to get this work done successfully. 

3 behaviors that increase team efficiency 

A Google study reported in The New York Times Magazine highlighted several factors that boost team efficiency, and psychological safety came top in the order of importance. The most effective leaders are therefore those that create a safe and open ‘digital dialogue’ with their team members.  

There are three specific behaviors that strongly correlate with high-performing managers: 

  1. Expressing doubts: Do you feel safe saying ‘I don’t know’, or are you worried about seeming ignorant or incompetent? Managers who admit not knowing the answer to a question – and who create the same sense of security in their direct contacts  – are more effective than those who do not.
  2. Requesting feedback: Asking for and providing feedback increases effectiveness and engagement. Digital interactions through video conferences, chats, or email are good opportunities for providing constructive feedback – and constructive feedforward.
  3. Sharing opinions: It’s important for team members to feel confident that nobody else in the team will embarrass or punish them for offering ideas or questioning the status quo.

Our 9 tips for building psychological safety 

  1. Create a forum to discuss issues and concerns
  2. Establish a common language
  3. Ask for input and opinions, stimulate feedback, and provide feedforward 
  4. Share your communications and personal preferences, and encourage others to do the same
  5. Clarify team member roles and responsibilities
  6. Communicate team objectives and determine how each member can contribute to the team and broader company objectives
  7. Explain what work you are doing and the impact it will have on customers and the company
  8. Adopt a customer-centric evaluation method
  9. Seek continuous improvement  
  efficiencypsychological safetyteam effectivenessvirtual teams
23
Jun 2020
0

Create value in times of uncertainty

During periods characterised by insecurity the general attitude towards salespeople changes. In addition, customers' focus shifts to short-term

Create value in times of uncertainty

Pascal Persyn Pascal Persyn  |    Customer Journey, Remote Selling, Sales Performance

During periods characterised by insecurity the general attitude towards salespeople changes. In addition, customers’ focus shifts to short-term solutions and the reduction of risk. Both constitute an opportunity for enterprises and salespeople who manage to adapt to this situation quickly. Adding value while responding to this situation and at the same time focussing on enhancing customer confidence.  

Watch Webinar – How to acquire new customers today

There are four elements that play a role in creating value for the customer:  

  • How can we improve our insight into the customer’s situation?  
  • What are the techniques we can use?  
  • How can we keep all conversations relevant?  
  • How can we ensure that customers are prepared to pay for it?  

In this respect it’s important to have a good insight into the customers’ “Buyer Journey”.  

Waarde creëren in tijden van grote onzekerheid

A few important things to take into account:  

  • A late entry in the buying cycle does not provide much room for value creation, as the customer already knows what he wants and has a preferred supplier with whom he compares other suppliers 
  • If you enter the cycle before the trigger moment, your chances of success are much better.  Nevertheless, your focus should be on messages that increase the willingness to change, i.e. messages that break through the status quo and the “loyalty loop”.  
  • As a salesperson, you must be able to guide the customer through his buying cycle by aligning the activities and messages to what is important to him.  

When you have contact with a customer, you can find out where he is in the buying cycle by asking a few questions. It’s not possible to reverse the cycle. If the customer is already at the end of the cycle, you need very strong conversation techniques to create an opening. Unfortunately, the consequence is that the price is a very important factor, unless you are lucky enough that others before you have made a significant mistake.  

The value wedge combined with the phase in the buying cycle indicate how the added value can be created.  

value wedge

First let’s discuss the typical pitfalls and mistakes that are made on the basis of the value wedge.  The salesperson:  

  1. doesn’t distinguish himself from the competition, just tells the same story 
  1. tries to convince the customer with strong points of the competition that are not at all strong points of his own offer, as it is clear how important they are to the customer.  
  1. is too focused on outdoing the competition by focusing on strong points they both have but that are not relevant for the customer 
  1. fails completely by presenting entirely irrelevant advantages and messages on the basis of his own convictions or non-identical situations, causing irreparable damage to customer confidence.  

If the right conversations take place in line with the specific phase in the buying cycle, the essential confidence will be built quickly, and the critical insights will be acquired that enable the salesperson to focus on the messages that are important to the customer and that the competition overlooked.  

A few “must-do’s” during conversations:  

  • Tell a clear story about similar situations and thus quickly build confidence for the next steps.  
  • Use the right interview and conversation techniques to not only have full knowledge of the situation but also to quantify. This will have a major impact on the price the customer is willing to pay.  
  • Once preparations are complete, your first contact in the active sales cycle is preferably the person who is exposed to the most disadvantages and at the same time has the highest decision-making power. This way you structurally increase your chances of quickly breaking through the status quo.  
  • Ask closed questions to validate your assumptions and monitor your rapport with the person concerned.  
  • Provide a solid underpinning for a possible change, so as to make it easier to minimise discounts and therefore to sell at a higher price than the competition. 

Do you want to know more about these essential elements?  

Perpetos Webinar How to acquire new customers today

[ON-DEMAND WEBINAR]
How to acquire new customers today

  What are customers open to? How to find out and create sufficient trust to discuss?
  Which mix of digital, virtual and physical conversations work best?

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16
Jun 2020
0

Commercial leadership in the aftermath of Covid-19

Pascal Persyn Pascal Persyn  |    Remote Selling, Sales Performance

Customers are currently concerned with the uncertain situation and short-term results. In order to be able to act as leaders in current times, we will discuss a few questions in detail:  

  • What do we know today, and which changes will be permanent? 
  • What are the 5 new skills that every salesperson needs?  
  • What are the 4 main pitfalls?  
Watch Webinar – How to Move Stalled Sales Opportunities?

In our very first webinar at the start of the lockdown, we discussed the procedure for remote sales, as well as the way salespeople can support their customers while being productive themselves:  

  • Contact as many people as possible 
  • Assess the customers who are active and are even ready to make investments 
  • Subdivide your customers in groups based on similar needs and set priorities 
  • Set up small-scale campaigns in line with this temporary subdivision 
  • Be prepared and be sure to practise, as the contents of the conversations is totally different than usual and physical conversations are not possible 

A brief survey in this webinar indicated that enterprises mainly struggle with (in descending order of importance):   

  • Filling the pipeline to limit the impact to a minimum 
  • Acquiring several contacts with the same company in order to acquire a clearer insight 
  • Mixed feelings about the continued remote sales 
  • Focus on short term rather than on long term 

According to an investigation by McKinsney, 96% of enterprises have adjusted their “go-to-market” model to the current situation. 80% even state that the new approach will be applicable at least 1 year. Within the context of this new approach, it’s a challenge for salespeople to remain relevant and create value immediately.  

3 important components of leadership are:  

  • Way of selling: it’s essential to have several contacts in a company, but that’s only possible via a hybrid interaction model. This means less face-to-face contacts, less travelling but more digital contacts.  
  • Timing & opportunities: proper time management has more than ever become crucial for setting the right priorities.  
  • Value creation: In these uncertain times there are 6 factors customers are extra sensitive for. Responding to one or several of those factors with value-driven messages is an important way to have more impact.

These 6 factors are the following:  

  • Social responsibility 
  • Reducing anxiety 
  • Availability 
  • Stability 
  • Risk reduction 
  • Flexibility 

This new approach also means that salespeople need a number of new skills:  

  • Building bridges for customers: By combining the insights of the different contacts within the company and linking them to the additional value your company offers 
  • Talking to customers with a beginner’s mindset and avoiding the pitfall of pre-covid assumptions 
  • Combining proactive interactions with replies to the rather reactive questions.  
  • Being able to provide structure and react to unfiltered customer information, so that the colleagues think along and work on the basis of the new insights 
  • Making use of the video meeting experience acquired in order to introduce a hybrid interaction model with more virtual contacts alternating with physical meetings 
  • Closing the gap between knowledge and competencies 

The most important pitfalls in the current situation are:  

  • Changing too slow due to a delay in translating the impact into a new approach 
  • Getting stuck in replying to short-term reactive questions 
  • Underestimating the required new knowledge & competencies 
  • Not letting go of the experience and insights acquired before covid-19 and thus missing or misjudging new opportunities 

Do you want to know more about how you can face the current challenge? 

Perpetos WebinarHow to Move Stalled Sales Opportunities?

[ON-DEMAND WEBINAR]
How to Move Stalled Sales Opportunities?

  Procrastination comes in different guises. 3 steps to avoid procrastination
  Dealing with Late Cycle Concerns

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14
Apr 2020
0
Sales productivity

10 productivity tips for sales during containment

Optimise your sales productivity and improve your commercial fitness with one short action per day.

10 productivity tips for sales during containment

Eliseo Manfron Eliseo Manfron  |    Remote Selling, Sales Performance

Optimise your sales productivity and improve your commercial fitness with one short action per day.

1. Pimp your LinkedIn profile

Update your photo, summary, value proposition, skills set… and ask your best-known linked contacts for feedback

eBook 7 Criteria for a Sales Process your Sales Team will actually use

2. Clean up your mailbox and get rid of useless newsletters 

Sort out emails, unsubscribe to what is no longer relevant to you and delete ads. Respond to emails you forgot about, even if you received them a long time ago.

3. Set up your videoconferencing place 

Set up a quiet and comfortable space to work with colleagues remotely and sell from a distance in times of social distancing. Test you video and audio material for an optimal customer experience.  

4. Prepare ready-to-use answers to five key objections  

List the most frequent objections that you receive and address the top ones. Write down the best responses to these objections and practice with colleagues in the most natural way possible.

5. Create your cocktail party pitch

The more you talk, the more your speaking fee drops. Prepare your to-the-point personal experience pitch. Try it out so that you appear and sound authentic.

6. Work out your top 5 discovery questions

Think about powerful questions to improve the outcome of conversations. Memorise them for future customer interactions.

7. Find out what your best customers have in common

Create a customer profile for customers you like to do business with. Look for prospects that meet the same criteria and start interacting with them. Keep in mind the tips for selling in times of social distancing.

8. Identify who inspires your most important accounts

Group customers by activity sector and identify their key influencers. Get connected with them, read their most relevant posts and leave comments.

9. Engage in web and social media competitive intelligence

Analyse how your key competitors are navigating this period of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). Find out how they communicate, what is new and how customers react to their initiatives. Identify their strengths and weaknesses and share with colleagues.

10. Build customer success stories

Choose a couple of different industry verticals and build your “happy ending” customer stories. Start with the positive outcome, the original situation and the negative business impact it was generating. End with how they are using your products or services today and take next steps with that customer when relevant.

26
Mar 2020
0
Selling in times of social distancing

Selling in times of social distancing

In-person meetings are important, and this is what sales like, what gives energy. But now, none of it

Selling in times of social distancing

Eliseo Manfron Eliseo Manfron  |    Competence Development, Remote Selling, Sales Performance

In-person meetings are important, and this is what sales like, what gives energy. But now, none of it is possible. We may need to resist the temptation to binge watch Netflix. But what for? How can we be productive in these times? How can we optimize our time and continue selling during social distancing? 

So, the question is “How to sell in a time of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt?” 

Correct? Then, take a few minutes and read on. Watch the recording of our webinar “Selling from home”

Grow relationships by putting the customer first 

Genuinely caring about your customers is more important than ever. We therefore not only need to maintain contact but also build deeper relationships. As we probably have concerns, our customers do as well. About the general situation, but also about how to maintain their business afloat. If our products and solutions can support their business, they will certainly be open to hear how we plan to continue deliver what is valuable to them. However, this will not work by talking about our business and products like ‘talking brochures’. More on this in our blog: ‘Are your sales people like talking brochures?’

They will be curious to hear how (fast) we adapt to the new situation and how we can help them adapt faster as well. So, reach out and have authentic remote conversations geared towards getting past the current challenges. 

Become an expert in video conversations 

You want to focus on the quality of the conversation, not the channel. If you are not used to video conversations through Zoom, Webex, Teams, FaceTime or other platforms, practice with family, colleagues or friends. Make sure to properly install and test your audio and video. You don’t want the line to drop, or have trouble hearing what customers say. Ask feedback on your tone of voice and body language. Test how close or far from the camera you need to be in order to respect the personal distance, exactly like in face-to-face situations. Don’t forget that 97% of our communication is non-verbal. 

If you’re familiar with video, whatever the amount you dedicated up to now with customers, double or even triple it. Your customer doesn’t just need your product or service. Your customers need to know that you’re available and that you care! 

Don’t prepare but be prepared 

Prepare video calls even better than you do for live meetings. Content-wise and appearance-wise. Review your notes from your previous touchpoints and prepare conversation scenario’s. You also have to prepare physically and mentally. Some even dress up as they would on a visit in order to feel in ‘working mode’. All fired up. Everybody is working from home today, so there is no dress code as long as you are in ‘visit’ mindset.  

You want to know more on how to be effective in selling from home? 

[FREE WEBINAR]
Selling in times of social distancing

  How to optimize your core selling time and be productive
  What sales can do to be better prepared for the aftermath
  Take the opportunity to grow relationships and expand account coverage

Watch webinar
  grow relationshipssocial distancingvideo conversations
25
Mar 2020
0
Are your salespeople like talking brochures?

Are your salespeople like talking brochures?

Customers’ buying behaviour has changed considerably in the past few years. How can companies respond to this

Are your salespeople like talking brochures?

Pascal Persyn Pascal Persyn  |    Competence Development, Sales Performance

Customers’ buying behaviour has changed considerably in the past few years. How can companies respond to this challenge? How do you organise sales in a digital world? Are you still sending your salespeople out like talking brochures, or will you take action? And how? A diagnosis.  

Time for a sales reboot 

Since 2012, the results of a multitude of studies about the changing buying behaviour of customers have been published. However, many companies only take action when the impact really becomes painful. And it’s often too late by then. It is therefore advisable to take action proactively. But can you motivate people and organise your sales in such a manner that the transition can take place in a timely and painless manner?  

Watch Webinar – Targets that Motivate Sales

Avoid a reaction that is either too soft or too hard 

There are two ways to react to the reality of changing buying behaviour.  

  •  (Too) many companies continue to assure their clients that with some adjustments, the existing commercial solutions are immune to the changes. Unfortunately, the sales pipeline is like the arteries in our body. If we do not adopt a healthy lifestyle, they slowly get clogged up. The consequences in the long term are disastrous. Holding on to old habits is not the solution.  
  • Others call for a revolution. The world is no longer the same, which is why a drastic transformation of sales is required. We have to start over! That means completely redesigning the processes and systems and preparing for the future! That may be so, but… intrusive action often triggers a shock effect, which in turn has serious consequences.  

Opt for the human approach!  

How can you react to the constantly changing world? Doing nothing is not an option. Starting all over again is not the right solution, either. Actually, the answer is simple: we have to evolve together with our customers. Selling is and will always be a people business, even online. The impact we are noticing with our customers and prospects shows that the changes are real. It is therefore necessary to develop a change process as soon as possible. This way, the changes can be implemented gradually and on a human scale. Without disruptions or all too radical actions.  

Toward a new role for salespeople  

All change processes are based on insights. Customers are still overwhelmed by salespeople who are sent out by their employers like some sort of talking brochures, although they don’t care about salespeople bombarding them with arguments and the benefits of the products they try to sell. Some consultants take advantage of this fact by stating that salespeople will disappear altogether. Nothing could be further from the truth, but it is true that the role of salespeople is changing drastically.  

60% of the sales opportunities come to nothing because the customer does not buy or does not change suppliers.  

The sales cycles have become 22% longer since 2012 and your biggest competitor is no longer your direct competitor, but customers who do “nothing”.  Recent research has shown that up to 60% of the opportunities are simply closed in CRM because the customer doesn’t buy anything or is not willing to change suppliers. You can imagine the impact on the sales cost.  

Sales are needed as long as you:  

  • … incorporate the right mix of digital and human touchpoints in the entire buying cycle of the customer. This depends on the complexity of the product or service you offer, but mainly on the impact on the customer.  
  • … use an interpersonal approach focused on supporting customers and creating added value. This requires the salespeople to have contact with an increasing number of different persons with the customer and at other moments during the buying cycle.  
  • … adjust the sales pitches to every moment during the buying cycle and to the profile of the persons with whom the salespeople are to engage in dialogue.  

Do you want to find out how you can prepare your commercial staff for the future without having to take all too radical actions? Contact us or read more in our eBook:

7 Criteria your sales process has to meet

Are you looking for a new Sales process to find a (new) way to reduce your cost of sales, stop margin erosion or better align your approach with the customer’s buying cycle? Learn how to make sure that the selected process is right for your business.

Download eBook
21
Nov 2019
0

Agile learning and coaching for sales: how do you do it?

A study from CSO Insights shows that sales coaching empowers reps to improve selling skills and close more

Agile learning and coaching for sales: how do you do it?

Eliseo Manfron Eliseo Manfron  |    Sales Content, Sales Performance

Why sales coaching?

Research by CSO Insights has shown that sales coaching enables sellers to substantially improve their sales skills and so win more deals. The second benefit is that it allows sales managers to shift their focus from simply helping people to do their work to actually developing their skills. Which is surely an advantage, isn’t it?

Get Checklist – what do customers expect from your sales people

But how?

Sales managers need to use coaching techniques, tips and tools. Even though some may have a talent for coaching, many don’t know how best to go about it. Sales management coaching programs help them gain the skills and self-confidence they need to integrate coaching as part of their daily routine. Fortunately, there’s technology available to help them. Sales coaching software doesn’t just make it possible to personalise the coaching, but also to measure it by looking at the sellers’ individual actions, monitoring their progress and providing a visual representation to make things clearer, rather than simply using their own perception, gut instinct and experience.

Sales coaching tools

Coaching isn’t the same thing as providing solutions or giving everyone the same advice. A good sales coaching tool can chart progress and zoom in on the lowest level of knowledge, and combine this with the extent to which this knowledge is actually applied.

Sales coaching tools

It differs from eLearning or other content offered by Learning Management Systems (LMS) in this sense, because a sales coaching tool combines software for teaching sellers and ensuring they retain this information, stimulating behavioural change, making everything measurable, and providing suggestions for the management to reach the right conclusions and implement the right actions. Altogether, it forms an integrated solution that provides content exactly when it’s needed.

Enabling just-in-time coaching

This flexible (agile) method for developing sellers’ skills is called ‘Coaching Enablement’. It allows you to organise, manage and individualise coaching while ensuring sellers retain the information they’re given. It also provides dashboards for sales managers, higher management and HR. This means HR can now measure, support and adapt each employee’s development and the impact they have. Peer-to-peer learning is also provided.

A good example of this is ‘video pitching’, where the seller records an answer to a client situation using their smartphone, which can then be used as coaching input for the sales manager, and good examples can be shared with other team members. This enhances the performance of the whole team, contributes to continuous development and improves team spirit.

Enabling just-in-time coaching

The main advantages of just-in-time coaching are:

  1. Identifying possibilities for personal development
  2. Building self-confidence
  3. Strengthening desired behaviour, knowledge and skills
  4. Installing a culture that stimulates continuous improvement for each individual and the team
  5. Measuring the impact on sales results

Read more about agile learning, knowledge retention and just-in-time coaching

Qstream app

Perpetos Improves Customer Sales Proficiency from 53% to 80%

Qstream’s mobile microlearning application was selected by Perpetos as a continuous sales training reinforcement solution for their sales performance programs which help their customers improve conversion rates and lower the cost of sales.

Want to see a demo ? Contact us at inquiry@perpetos.com

Read more
  sales training
19
Mar 2016
0
Commercial excellence

How about Commercial Excellence

Promoting your company and listening/asking questions no longer suffices to achieve commercial success.

How about Commercial Excellence

Pascal Persyn Pascal Persyn  |    Sales Performance

Commercial excellence means you know your customers so well, that you fully understand them as well as their context. This allows your company to anticipate their needs and expectations. And via sales and marketing to communicate the right thing at the right time, and to show the impact and value of what you have to offer.

Infographic – All you need to know about Sales training

To achieve commercial success, it no longer suffices to promote your company. Nor to merely listen and ask questions. Buyers increasingly expect the right information at the right time. And a number of elements are important in this regard.

Commercial Excellence: really know your customer

We need to align activities to the customer’s expectations. Any contact with your company, personal or online, needs to contain the right message aligned to the customer’s readiness to buy. You can accelerate the sales process considerably by meeting their expectations with every contact.

In terms of results

It’s not about what your service or product can do, but about its value to the customer. How does it impact their organisation? What specific results can they expect?

Highest market price

A customer-oriented organisation strives for the highest market price for its products and services. But at the lowest cost from the customer’s perspective. Commercial excellence has a positive impact on your cost of sales and enables you to get results twice as fast.

How can you achieve this? You may ask yourself the following questions:

  • Do your product developers and officers understand the importance of your products and services to the customer?
  • Do they know how the customer will work differently? And what improvements he will accomplish?
  • Are all persons involved aware of how your strengths will contribute to a better result?
  • Can you say whether your products or services will give a better result than those of your competitors?
  • Do your customers recognise the link between your strengths and their accomplishments?

Becoming a customer-oriented organisation

Not every industry has noticed crucial changes in customer behaviour yet. Determine to what extent your customer target groups are already part of the experience economy. To what extent do they use the Internet and social media to inform themselves? If this is the case, follow these four steps to achieve a more customer-oriented approach:

  • Ensure that your market is segmented on the basis of equal needs and reasons to buy. So that your sales messages can be used on a wider scale and are at the same time aligned in detail to each segment’s unique character
  • Map the obstacles preventing your employees from embracing new ways of working. Also map possible motivating factors to change work patterns
  • What current processes and KPIs obstruct a more customer-oriented approach?
  • Develop and implement a change project taking into account all of the above. Take special care to implement the required changes on a human scale. And clearly communicate the benefits for each person involved so as to stimulate willingness to change.

Reach your full potential and create commercial excellence: benchmark your company against ‘Best in Class’ with our Sales Performance Benchmark

  buyer alignedcustomer expectationscustomer orientedknow your customersales performance
19
Mar 2016
0
Sales performance

Areas where Salespeople struggle the most

Many companies could dramatically decrease their Cost of Sales avoiding these 3 common Sales mistakes.

Areas where Salespeople struggle the most

Pascal Persyn Pascal Persyn  |    Sales Performance

You can achieve a higher conversion rate and an increased deal margin by avoiding the following 3 mistakes:

1. Incomplete needs analysis

Unfortunately, this is a classic mistake: questions are limited to strict requirements in order to draw up an offer. This results in conversations that do not offer any added value for the customer. The customer gets an offer based on a rather superficial diagnosis, which will look identical as the one from your competitor.  

Get Checklist – what do customers expect from your sales people

In order to differentiate, we also need to interactively discuss the context with the customer. A few additional questions might help to better map the context: 

  • Who else is involved? 
  • By when should you be able to use the solution? (this is a customer-oriented version of the question “when will you decide?”) 
  • What do you wish to achieve? 
  • What is the ideal solution for you? 
  • To what extent do your colleagues share this view? 
  • How will you know that the best solution for you will be chosen?

2. Making too many price offers too soon

The Sales rep continues to push the customer. While first he had not made sufficient inquiries into the context and then explained what the ideal solution would be from his/her own perspective, now the time has come to try and prove these claims through an offer. Whether or not the customer has already made up his/her mind does not seem to matter. 

The fact that a customer requests an offer, does not automatically mean that the customer is ready to buy. Throughout the history of interactions, customers learned that if they require more information, they just need to request an offer in order to get all the information they need.  

However, a request for an offer is no indication of the buying readiness of the customer or whether he/she is only interested in your product. You can easily identify these deals by the following 2 situations: 

  1. The customer delays the decision date once or several times 
  2. The sales rep makes several offers for the same opportunity

It is quite easy to measure both and these two symptoms can help you determine whether offers where made too soon. 

3. Not providing the customer with what he/she really needs

Imagine yourself going to the doctor, who immediately gives you a Imagine yourself going to the doctor, who immediately gives you a prescription because you are the tenth patient that day who has come to see him with a runny nose. This makes a diagnosis superfluous, or does it? You would not accept this from a doctor, but many salespeople still behave like all-knowing oracles. They concentrate on what they want to sell to the customer, and only hear what they want to hear. 

This creates an area of tension between the salesperson and the This creates an area of tension between the salesperson and the customer, who sees the salesperson as a talking brochure trying to convince the customer and discussing technical details. But does the customer feel understood? Does the customer know more now than what he could find on the internet himself? In this context, it is crucial to imagine yourself in the customer’s situation. Empathy demands you to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and thus take off your own. In other words, are you prepared to put yourself in the customer’s place? If not, your sales costs are at risk again. 

The Goal: Lower Cost of Sales, Higher Conversion Rates and an Increased Deal Margin 

It’s all about interacting with the client, understanding his/her context, defining the best solution together, and facilitating the customer’s buying process. Salespeople who are capable of doing that can shorten the sales process and, through increased trust, reach the intended results: lower cost of sales, higher conversion rates and increased deal margins. 

  need analysisprice offerSales costsales mistakesales underperformingunderstand the customer
19
Mar 2016
0
Buyer journey enablement

Why BANT no longer works for today’s better informed customers

BANT does not work when dealing with Buyer 2.0. Is there an alternative that works in today’s environment?

Why BANT no longer works for today’s better informed customers

Pascal Persyn Pascal Persyn  |    Sales Performance

BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Time) has been used by salespeople to qualify opportunities for several decades. I still come across it to this day, even as part of the lead management process between sales and marketing. But the tool is no longer as relevant as it once was, especially for complex buying processes. Now, why is that? And is there an alternative that works today?

Budget

We know that buyers use the internet to find information. This means they only tend to involve salespeople later in the process. By that time, they’ll have already formed a clear opinion, and are just seeking confirmation before actually making a buying decision. But there’s a lot of information available, and much of it can be conflicting. The role of the salesperson has therefore shifted to influencing the customer in a way that validates their information.

This requires commercial insights into the customer situation. Business acumen will help the salesperson find solutions for possibly latent requirements, for which the budget (Bant) mostly isn’t known or allocated yet. In short: taking budget allocation into account means your salespeople are joining the buying process too late. And that results in a lower hit rate and tighter margins.

Authority

Validation based on the authority (bAnt) to make a decision was intended to ‘not waste any time’. It would help sales to not sell to people who couldn’t make a purchase. Unfortunately, most B2B decisions aren’t taken by one person these days. Buying decisions have evolved into being a consensus which also takes users’ opinions into account. I can give examples of customer situations where there are more than ten people in a meeting. Each one can veto a decision, but also not be prepared to advocate a supplier until a consensus is reached.

Need

Focusing on people who already have a problem (the need in baNt) sounds logical. Like a great way to increase a salesperson’s productivity. But the reality is quite different. Research shows that up to 60% of opportunities ultimately disappear without the customer buying anything or changing supplier. We see this on a daily basis with our customers. And it was also the outcome of a survey we took together with Vlerick Business School.

Salespeople need to increase the customer’s willingness to change more now than ever. They need to convince the buyer to change, rather than convincing them to choose us. Because a customer isn’t open to hearing this message if they’re not planning to change. This is why traditional prospection methods are becoming less effective. The message and how it’s conveyed no longer correspond with the customer’s expectation.

Time

In light of the above, qualification based on when the decision is made (the time in banT) has become irrelevant. These days it comes down to marketing and sales doing the right thing at the right time with the right message, to facilitate the customer’s buying process. So the question’s no longer about when the customer’s going to make a decision, but about how willing they are to change. Sales needs to combine the answer to this question with the potential, to decide when to engage with what message. It’s also their task to keep marketing informed. Because marketing can help influence the customer with digital interactions, increasing the probability of a sale for the lowest possible cost.

Conclusion: from BANT to JIT

BANT doesn’t work anymore.
The concept of just-in-time has been around for quite a while in logistics and now we also need to have just-in-time commercial approach. By qualifying the potential and the role of people involved, sales can make sure that all commercial efforts, including marketing, are resulting in doing the right thing at the right time with the right message.

Thanks to the digital revolution, marketing also has a major role to play. Depending on the size, complexity and importance of our products and services in the perception of the customer, we need to find the right balance between digital touchpoints and human interactions.

Download our eBook to find out what process your salespeople need to follow to keep improving results.

  buyer alignmentbuyer journeybuying cyclebuying processdemand generationreadiness to buy
18
Mar 2016
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3 answers that every Sales rep needs to know

3 answers that every Sales rep needs to know

Avoid increasing sales costs and margins under pressure

3 answers that every Sales rep needs to know

Pascal Persyn Pascal Persyn  |    Customer Journey, Sales Performance

Every day we’re being confronted with increasing sales costs and margins under greater and greater pressure. In this blog, we explain why this is happening and look at the solution in detail.

Increasing sales costs and greater pressure on margins are usually the result of inadequate or non-existent internal sales training and supervision. There are also a few die-hard habits that many companies and sales reps cling on to which can cause even bigger problems for sales performance.

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Directors will already be familiar with the changed buying behaviour and understand the impact it has on their sales and marketing organisation. The fact that up to 75% of decision-making criteria are influenced online means it’s important for us to allow sales to start a dialogue with customers at different times and with different messages.

If sales is forced to wait until customers are ‘ready-to-buy’ or in the quotation stage before they spring into action, it’s impossible to sell customer value, so:

  • Margins continue to fall
  • Products and services are experienced as commodities

This habit comes from:

  • Managers being mainly interested in the time frame that deals are agreed in
  • Sales who think it’s a waste of time to enter into a buying process early, and prefer to wait for ready-to-buy leads from marketing
  • Sales who are willing to start the buying process early and influence the customer, but don’t have the necessary skills and messages to appeal to customers in this early stage

The solution: do the right thing at the right time with the right person

Management behaviour and how to direct sales teams is crucial here, although that’s a separate topic just in itself. But how can we arm sales to face these new challenges?

The buying process in figure 1 shows the complete customer journey. Whether it’s for existing or new customers determines how sales deals with it.

For existing customers, sales mainly need to convey ‘why customers need to stay’

Combined with behaviour that we label as ‘account development’ rather than ‘account management’. With existing relationships, detailed knowledge of the customer and their environment provides a great opportunity for increasing the value perception, and so embedding the relationship more deeply.

For non-customers, the first question is: ‘Has the customer already decided to change?’

Has the customer not decided to change yet? Then it’s best to base your messages and interactions on breaking the status quo, and so increasing the willingness to change. Customers aren’t usually aware of what improvements are possible. Or the customer thinks the risks that come with the change look too big. Or they’re not familiar enough with exactly what’s required.

These ‘why change’ messages assume the customer’s point of view and are the best way of developing prospects. And this is where the biggest challenge is identified in terms of sales performance. Various studies and analyses of our customers show that up to 60% of opportunities simply disappear from the forecast without any decision being made by the customer. The biggest competitor isn’t another supplier, but the customers themselves simply not deciding to buy anything. So messages about how good your company and its solutions are, or the extra benefits that you can offer, won’t help stimulate the buying process.

Has the customer already decided to buy?

Then the next question is of course: who should I buy what from, and how much for? Sales responds to this with messages that underline why the customer should choose them. These ‘why us’ messages are most effective at this point in time. Most companies and a large proportion of sales reps score quite to very highly in this area.

Video shows when these three types of messages are most effective from a sales perspective

In summary, we therefore need to enable sales to convey three different types of messages convincingly according to the situation and depending on the product-market combination:

  • Why change
  • Why choose us
  • Why stay with us
Sales Performance Benchmark

Sales Performance Benchmark

How much do your sales convey these three sets of messages?
And to what extent can they discuss them with the customer at the right time?
Compare your sales performance and customer orientation with best in class companies.

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  buyer alignmentbuyer journeybuying cyclebuying processcustomer expectationscustomer experiencedemand generationproductivityquotareadiness to buysales enablementsales processsell valueWhy changeWhy us
18
Mar 2016
0
Measuring and maximising the impact of sales training

Measuring and maximising the impact of sales training

The evaluation of training should only take place weeks later if you want to measure lasting impact.

Measuring and maximising the impact of sales training

Pascal Persyn Pascal Persyn  |    Competence Development, Sales Performance

When it comes to training, businesses generally prefer to leave it to HR. And the same goes for training evaluation. So there’s a good opportunity for HR to increase their impact on business operations. This typically takes place in the form of evaluations, when determining training requirements.  And the other way around: evaluating if trainings are achieving their goals with employees performing better.

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Pitfalls of conventional evaluation after training

Unfortunately, this latter form of evaluation is all too rare. Many HR professionals are happy to evaluate the training itself, usually by measuring participant satisfaction. Now the trainer and the content do – of course – still need to be evaluated by participants. But this isn’t the most important thing.

Real evaluation can only take place weeks and sometimes even months later. Have the salespeople permanently changed the way they work? Can they put newly-acquired competencies into practice? Are they actually performing better?

Get more from your training budget: measuring ROI

Not measuring the impact of training on the business puts training budgets under pressure. Businesses rightly need to question the usefulness of training. Especially when salespeople are taken out of the field and so have less time to actually make deals. But the benefit of training is sometimes limited to briefly boosting employee motivation, which then ebbs away again just as quickly. The impact of training isn’t just the responsibility of HR and the training course itself, however.

Turning training into a continuous learning process – integrated in the work environment – enables your people to learn skills and behaviour that they benefit from permanently. A number of techniques include:

  • The 70-20-10 rule, where only 10% of time invested is for training, with 20% specifically linked to coaching that accompanies the training, and 70% for support in the workplace
  • Allow direct managers to follow the training too. So they’re also familiar with all the content and can provide better coaching. Depending on the training content and corporate culture, they can either join the employee session or organise a separate one
  • Snackable learning – not to be confused with e-learning. This involves short, interactive sessions (nuggets) that are made available to salespeople via their smartphone or tablet. They can help reinforce and embed the training content. And they always remain available as a refresher when specific situations arise. Think of it as an interactive ‘How do I …?’ YouTube clip
  • Convert customer expectations and business objectives into specific behaviour and competencies that can form the basis personal development plans

A culture of continuous improvement

The above enables you to get a culture of continuous improvement on track, together with the business. Actively supporting direct managers in the 90% non-training time, means HR can help influence the impact. You can then implement any necessary changes depending on the progress made and any obstacles encountered. Research by CSO Insights shows that continuous learning can increase sales performance by 50%.

Customer expectations are changing fast as a result of digitisation. Customers today are better informed than ever before. So they don’t need salespeople to come and inform them about their company or products.

Download your checklist:
Top 10 essential attitudes and skills that today’s better-informed customer expects from sales

  behaviordevelopmentlearningparticipant satisfactionperformancetraining impacttraining roi
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