Your Sales Management Guru

Learning from Losing

In most of our client consulting engagements we strongly recommend that “win/lost” reports are completed. This is a process of reviewing all sales that occur and those that don’t!  We suggest this action is performed in two steps.

The first step is between the sales manager and the salesperson, during this phase the sales leader simply probes as to what the salesperson believes are the reason the prospect purchased or did not purchase your solution. Questions are asked regarding levels of communication, perceived benefits, pricing and competitive situations. We normally recommend this conversation takes place during a sales meeting-it is NOT a grilling.  This is a group coaching and training experience, the review should be designed to help the salesperson and the members of your sales team to share experiences or ideas as to what worked or what did not work.

The second step is a conversation between the “X-prospect or new client” and either the sales manager, president or an independent source.  If the sales manager was active in the sales process with the salesperson, then the President/independent source should conduct the interview. Most people may not be as honest or straight forward with an individual that had been involved in the process.  During this conversation more detailed questions should be asked to uncover the reasons you won or you lost.   I like to find out:  When did the prospect really make up their mind? What was the perceived benefit of your firm? What did we do? Or what could we have done to win the opportunity? Who won the opportunity? What were the price points?

During this research we have uncovered areas for additional sales training, enhancing marketing messaging and more closely monitoring the sales actions and strategy during the sales opportunity. In most situations the salesperson did not establish trust & confidence early in the sales process, skipped a step in the sales process or they failed to prove your value proposition during the sales process.

If you would like a copy of a Win/Lost Report template, send me an email. Ken@Acumenmgmt.com

What have you learned by losing?

Tags: sales leadership, Sales Management Systems, sales organizations, Sales Training
Posted in Sales Leadership Training, Sales Management Consulting, Sales Management Training, Sales Training | 1 Comment »

Creativity…. It’s a Sales Thing!

 There is no question about it, top performers are more creative that your average salespeople. They seem to come up with unique ideas to prospect, find ways to enhance client relationships and they close more effectively. Sales leadership requires creativity as well, sales managers that are exceeding sales quotas, hiring and developing their teams and building a sales culture require huge levels of a creativity quotient.

The good news? You can enhance your creativity by “working on it”…In my Keynote, No Regret’s, the Do Over Factor, I share three tenets for personal and professional success, creativity is one of those three foundations.  I have listed nine actions you can work on to develop mind patterns that will enhance your creativity power.

• Track your ideas:  keep a notebook and write down all your ideas-about anything, it is amazing what happens when you build an active list.
• Inquiring minds want to know: be inquisitive, ask questions, increase your levels of interest
• Learn about different things: study a language, read a book, take a course, get active
• Avoid set patterns:  break your habits, floss your teeth differently, brush your teeth in different sequences, drive to work on a new route
• Be open: listen to others, try to accept new ideas
• Be patient in observations: take the time to watch a bird fly, look at the woods more closely,  look for new patterns, watch the river flow
• Engage in hobbies: your mind must dis-engage from normal business stress,
• Improve sense of humor: learn to laugh, even at yourself
• Be a risk taker: try something different, the adrenalin will cause a positive impact on your brain.

 I would like your comments and thoughts about how you enhance your creativity. What was the most creative sales tactic you have used? What were the results?

BTW: Thank you for reading our blog at:  www.YourSalesMangementGuru.com, it was recently ranked by two separate organizations as a Top 20 and Top 50 Sales Blogs. See our Press Release below:

Acumen Management Group President Cited by Two Leading Sales Industry’s Online Organizations for Social Media Savvy and Blog Excellence

InsideView’s IV50 and BuyerZone’s All About Leads 20 Top Blogs Laud Ken Thoreson’s Online Acuity

KNOXVILLE, Tenn., June XX, 2010—Ken Thoreson, Acumen Management Group president, has been cited by two of the sales industry’s leading online sales organizations for his social media savvy and blog excellence—InsideView’s IV50 list and BuyerZone’s All About Leads 20 Top Blogs. He joins InsideView’s select group of sales professionals who are playing a significant role in providing insight to their peers about the use of social media. In making the announcement on its blog, InsideView described Thoreson as “bringing a wealth of “old school” expertise to our list of savvy sales professionals, sharing his expertise on Twitter and in a variety of publications.” BuyerZone’s All About Leads blog covers online lead generation, nurturing, sales, and more. The article describes the blogs it recognizes as “informative, detailed, and engaging sales blogs written by professionals in the industry.”

Thoreson writes Your Sales Management Guru blog and contributes regularly on LinkedIn and other online publications. His collective social media involvement and leadership is helping usher in a new era of sales that meshes with the customer 2.0 experience. “Sales 2.0” entails leveraging the same social media used by customers—Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, blogs and others.

Thoreson said, “Social media acuity is quickly becoming a factor in sales success—for bolstering brand awareness and credibility in addition to intelligence about customers and prospects. I strongly urge clients to ensure that their sales organizations take advantage of this increasingly pervasive force, and our workshops help them do that.”

Tags: keynote speaking, Motivational, sales approach, sales leadership, Sales Management, Sales Training
Posted in Keynote Programs, sales leadership, Sales Leadership Training, Sales Management Training, Sales Training | 2 Comments »

Changes in Selling or Sales management?

 Living in the Southeast where football is a lifestyle, the radio sports talk shows and the newspapers sports pages are covered with discussions regarding the changing PAC 10, Big 12 and even Nebraska going to the Big 10 and the potential impact on the SEC. The changes that could occur impact TV, basketball and all non-revenue sports and as expected-there are opinions on all three sides of each issue.  Change is always good word when attempting to gain interest in any subject and last week I was reading a LinkedIn discussion group that was discussing how social media has changed selling and sales management.

As someone who usually has an opinion on most subjects, I jumped into the discussion. While  not being aggressive in my comments I simply pointed out that selling has an emotional , technical and strategic element and that many authors or sales trainers have put multiple spins on each of these aspects in an attempt to create unique messaging for their programs,  however I claimed the fundamentals are still the same.  There is no question social media has allowed salespeople greater insights into their prospects backgrounds and potential leveraged relationships, but the execution of that knowledge is still the important aspect of selling.

Needless to say several individuals began to “rave” about how new technology (2.0) has already changed the job of a salesperson and that I really didn’t understand the new world.   During the discussion it became obvious that people were getting confused between the changes in the job of selling vs the understanding what the job of selling is.

Selling has not changed, however the job of selling has only been enhanced. Salespeople today can find out more information prior to making a sales call; what information prospects are reading on the salesperson’s website, what emails are being opened, find out what are key topics within the their prospects industry and other points of information that were not necessarily available to previous generations of sales or sales management.  However the job of sales and sales management has not changed. Sales management must recognize this and ensure their sales process mapping and training includes content on 2.0 technologies, but they MUST not lose focus on what selling is!     Your opinions?

While I may sound old school,  last week the SalesManagementGuru was recognized as one of Top 50 Sales Social Media  experts:  Here’s the  quote:  . Ken Thoreson, Acumen Management Group president, has been named to the IV50’s select group of sales professionals who are playing a significant role in providing insight to their peers about the use of social media. In making the announcement on its blog, Inside View described Thoreson as “bringing a wealth of “old school” expertise to our list of savvy sales professionals, sharing his expertise on Twitter and in a variety of publications.” The list is called ‘IV50′ and has been posted on the InsideView blog at http://blog.insideview.com/2010/06/10/the-top-sales-industry-social-media-users-2/.

 Thoreson writes Your Sales Management Guru blog and contributes regularly on LinkedIn and other online publications. His collective social media involvement and leadership is helping usher in a new era of sales that meshes with the customer 2.0 experience. “Sales 2.0” entails leveraging the same social media used by customers—Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, blogs and others.

Thoreson said, “Social media acuity is quickly becoming a factor in sales success—for bolstering brand awareness and credibility in addition to intelligence about customers and prospects. I strongly urge clients to ensure that their sales organizations take advantage of this increasingly pervasive force, and our workshops help them do that.”

On our website home page you can find a whitepaper on the Job of Sales Management if you want more clarification. www.AcumenManagement.com

Email: Ken@AcumenMgmt.com

Blog: www.YourSalesManagementGuru.com

Tags: sales leadership, Sales Management, sales organizations, Sales Training
Posted in sales leadership, Sales Leadership Training, Sales Management, Sales Management Consulting, Sales Management Planning, Sales Management Training, Sales Training | Comments Off

When Plagiarism Is NOT Flattering

 The following blog is from a friend of my from TOP Sales Experts, a group of International consultants in Sales and Sales Management.  His subject matter is important to us all, I know, I have actually attended a conference and heard other speakers using my content and PPT slides that resemble mine.  The internet can be so easy to simply ”copy”  and use others expertise.   Ken Thoreson

Ken@AcumenMgmt.com

I would like to introduce you to Michael J. Roman – Michael who? Exactly. But after today, I suspect so many more people will be familiar with that name, as it flies around the “Blogosphere” and becomes the topic of much “Twittering”

Here is how Michael describes himself:

“Michael is a POLISHED BUSINESS EXECUTIVE with a proven history of success including nearly fifteen years of successful leadership experience.

Michael is highly skilled in effective, strategic management of sales, operations, administrative, and consulting professionals in addition to full operations and profit and loss (P&L) management…..” Etc. etc. You can read more here

You may also be impressed by Michael’s “core values” particularly this one:

“Integrity – The most important of all values. Michael’s belief is that integrity is not optional, nor is it situational.”

Michael posts to his site virtually every day, and the articles are of a very high quality -he goes to great lengths to protect “his” copyright:

“©Copyright 2010 Michael J. Roman. All rights reserved.
Except where specifically noted, no information within this blog may be copied, duplicated, stored in a retrieval system or reproduced in any form without the express written consent of Michael J. Roman. If you have any questions regarding this policy, please contact me at the following email address: michael@michaeljroman.com.”

Nothing unusual about that? Well, yes actually. Why does someone go to such lengths to spell out their copyright statement, when they have total disregard for everyone else’s?

You see, Michael doesn’t actually write his own material – he steals it from other people. He just goes and copies it from other people’s sites and claims it as his own.

On his first page alone, there are seven of my blog posts, and in total, I found twenty!

Sometimes he leaves the title and the text wholly intact, other times he changes it to suit himself, here is an example:

I posted “So, Just What Are The Essential Leadership Qualities?”

“I have been “leading” since I was eight years old – my first soccer captaincy – and I have been leading for most of my life.”

He posts “What Are Essential Leadership Qualities” and changes the text to:

“I have been “leading” since I was twelve years old – being the lead drummer for my grammar school jazz band – and I have been leading for most of my life.”

I am not the only “victim” – several of my colleagues and friends have also had their work pirated, and to say the least, they are not impressed.

On Thursday, I took the unusual step of adding an additional copyright notice to my post - I placed this at the foot -

“The moral right of the author, Jonathan Farrington, has been asserted. © Copyright 2010 All rights reserved.
This article or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system or otherwise, unless this notification of copyright is retained.”

But that did not deter him – he not only stole my post, he also stole my copyright notice and replaced my name with his!

If that were not enough, he has now re-published an article, which I first published on Ezine Articles on October 27th 2006 -
http://ezinearticles.com/?Understanding-The-Different-Influencing-Styles&id=340096

And claimed it as his own -
http://www.about-personal-growth.com/influencing.html

This week, I celebrated my 900th post on this blog. Each of those posts took time and effort to craft. Each of the 200 articles that I have written and published on various sites over the last four years has also required a huge investment of my time. Why have I bothered – after all, I know lots of people who write so much better than me?

You know the answer to that question.

So, what to do now? I am going to let nature take care of itself for a few days, and then I will be in contact with Michael. Or maybe he will do the decent thing and contact me first.

I would have willingly given him all of my work to re-publish, if he had asked – as long as he placed my bio underneath them, and not his own!

I will of course keep you fully updated as events unfold.

There is a chance that by the time you get to read this, he will have taken the site down, so you can download a PDF of the front page here.

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »

Three Key Social Media Tactics for Sales

This week I thought I would share with my readers a “guest blog” from Tom Pick on Sales and Social Media…I have known Tom for a few years and he is top SEO and Social Media consultant… read and enjoy….

Although marketing departments tend to be the heaviest users of social media for business, sales groups aren’t far behind. Social media may have even more value in sales than in marketing, as marketers still generally deal with prospects in groups, while sales professionals deal with them as individuals—which is where the social media rubber really hits the road.

There are myriad ways to incorporate social media into sales cycles, limited only by creativity. However, here are three basic tactics that should be part of every complex sales cycle.

1. Stay current on what your company is doing with social media. Considering how social media has changed the buying cycle, most prospects will do significant research about your company online—including your firm’s social media presence and what your customers are saying about you—long before engaging with you. It’s critical to work with your marketing group to understand the messages and activities that are part of your organization’s social media presence in order to avoid any unfortunate “gotchas” during the sales process.

2. Research your prospect’s company on social media. Just as knowing about your own company’s presence is vital, so checking out your prospect’s social media presence can be very helpful as well. Use tools like Social Mention, Twitter search and UberVU to discover what your prospect’s marketing group, and their customers, are saying about the firm online. You may gain valuable insights into their strategies and challenges. At the very least, you’ll be able to have a more informed and interesting conversation.

3. Use LinkedIn. Check out your primary contact. How long has he/she been with the company? How do they describe their role? Look to see who else from the company has a profile there, particularly if you know or can identify other members of the purchasing team. Which LinkedIn groups do these people belong to? What kinds of topics are being discussed in those groups? What clues can you gain as to your prospect’s likely concerns and key business challenges?

The point isn’t to be “nosy” or any such thing; after all, you’re only viewing publicly available information. The goal, rather, is to be as informed as possible about your prospect and his or her company before engaging in a conversation, so that you can make that initial conversation, and every subsequent one, as productive as possible for both sides.

And remember that sophisticated buyers are doing their homework about your company and its offerings online before raising their hand for more information. Doing the same makes you look smarter, uses both your time and your prospect’s time more efficiently, and just may help you close more business.

About the author: Tom Pick is an online marketing consultant in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He’s also the award-winning writer of the Webbiquity blog, which focuses on B2B lead generation and Web presence optimization — the fusion of SEO, search marketing, social media, content marketing and interactive PR. 

Tags: Sales Management Systems
Posted in Sales Management Systems, Sales Training | 2 Comments »