I was driving up to Madison with my wife and daughter yesterday to have an Easter lunch on the campus of University of Wisconsin with our son who is finishing up his sophomore year. As we passed Janesville, we heard on the radio about the magnificent work of the
U.S. Navy and the Navy SEALs who rescued Captain Richard Phillips who was held hostage for five days by Somali pirates.
The rescue sounds like it was right out of a 24 episode with Jack Bauer taking down the rogue gunmen and rescuing the good guy against all possible odds. But as we know, this was not fiction but real life professionalism and heroism on the high seas of the Indian Ocean. As I heard the news I pumped my fist as a wave of happiness washed over me. Damn, I was proud of Captain Phillips, proud of our military and proud of these Navy SEALs.
As we drove home, my mind was co-mingling the story of the day that unfolded on the high seas and this post. What can we learn from the Navy SEALs, I thought. How do their actions relate to the ability of sales organizations that drive sales beyond what the market is prepared to give? As an American who does not own a gun, I know there is more to their success then the headline of three simultaneous headshots in rolling seas. Here are two of many:
Standards
The Navy SEALs have standards. They have lines below which they will not go. Slip below the line relative to being a man of character, maintaining mental and physical fitness, or technical skills and your days as a Navy SEAL come to a swift conclusion.
What are your standards? As a sales manager, sales executive, or sales professional what are your standards for performance, productivity, and results? What are your standards for customer focus, prospecting, customer retention, and even sales management coaching? I guarantee you; the Navy SEALs have standards and do not allow those who wear the Trident to slip below the minimum requirements.
Here are a few of my thoughts on the need for standards in business I shared as a professional keynote speaker to a group of sales professionals. To view the video click the picture below.
The top producing sales organizations I have worked with are committed to sales management coaching that insures standards are not only set but are maintained to drive superior performance, like we witnessed yesterday off the coast of Africa.
Training
Prospective SEALs go through what is considered by many military experts to be the toughest training in the world. The training our Navy SEALs receive is legendary. The 25-week curriculum is divided into three phases that test the sailors’ spirit and stamina. And for those that get through this initial indoctrination, the training does not end. In fact the training SEALs receive is continuous, cumulative, and customized to the mission. In part the Seal Creed reads, “My training is never complete.”
Did you hear what they did to get into position to rescue Captain Phillips? In the dark of night these professionals parachuted into the Indian Ocean with all their gear and their Combat Rubber Raiding Craft (CRRC) - a 15-foot, heavily reinforced, inflatable rubber boat. Just Amazing! I can also guarantee you that this is not the first time they jumped at night, with their gear into rough seas. You can bet they trained for hours and days for this particular mission, never knowing when or if it would come.
But how about your sales organization? What type of sales trainers have you brought in? Have they provided training that is continuous? Cumulative? Customized to the mission? Is the training these sales trainers provided considered tough by those who go through it? I work with sales organizations every day of my life and I can guarantee you that most who will read this post will have to answer that the training they get and have received is at best sporadic (I call it injection type training) and it certainly isn’t tough.
In fact most training that sales teams receive has very little expectations of the “trainees” and most often no planned follow-up. Seriously, look at the mindset and body language next time you conduct a training program for the sales team. Most are thinking, “I can’t wait till this is over so that I can go back to how I have always done things.” Want to frighten the hell out of yourself…go back to your sales team and ask them “What did you do different as a result of the last training we provided.” Most will tell you “nothing” or at best “not much.”
Do you think the Navy SEALs who rescued Captain Phillips used the training they received? I guarantee you they did. You know why… because their organization- the Navy SEALS are committed to their training and development. Training is not a “If I have time for it” or “If the budget allows for it” kind of thing. Training and continued preparedness is built into the SEALs DNA. How about your sales organization’s DNA?
Share Your Thoughts
What good things have you seen in training? What has not worked so well? Are you as proud of our SEALs as I am?
PS: Remind me sometime to tell you about the week in April 2008 that I was indoctrinated into the U.S. Military as part of the DoD’s Joint Civilian Orientation Conference.
Have you ever noticed that every sales person has the best service, the best product, and the best price? At least, that's what they claim to their customers and prospects. But until you can prove what you have, you are just like every other potential supplier throwing out platitudes and stereotypical sales banter.
Jeff Fisher, CEO of Florida Lift Systems, Inc. is right when he says, “A sales person without evidence is what gives sales a bad reputation.” Evidence is required to stand out and to support your propositions.
If we take Jeff’s clue, we can use this to our advantage because as I remind our clients of the lack of professional selling skills - how the use of visual aids and evidence is becoming a dying art in the profession of sales. It’s a shame because the Strategic Account Management Association tells us that when visual aids are used as professional selling skills to communicate evidence:
- Their audience is 43% more likely to be persuaded
- Their audience will pay 26% more attention
- The presenter covers the same material in 24 - 40% less time
- Learning improves 200%
- Retention improves 38%
An example of evidence usageOver the years we have had the opportunity to help several
Toyota Material Handling USA dealers take more from the market than the market is prepared to give through a combination of employee development strategies. We have learned that Toyota forklifts have a differentiating feature that addresses a key need – workplace safety. Toyota’s SAS – System of Active Stability™ electronically monitors and controls lift truck operations helping to reduce the risk of accidents. It’s really pretty cool technology.
So, if we were to assume that a prospect names safety as a top-buying criteria, which of the three options below would be most effective in selling the SAS safety feature of the Toyota trucks?
Option A - Verbal Presentation
A verbal presentation, where you describe the capabilities of the SAS system: you tell about technology that permits electronic monitoring and control of lift truck operations that reduces the risk of accidents. You also tell about the Active Control Real Stabilizer System, and the Active Mast Function Controller System.
Option B - Verbal Presentations With Pictures
You present the same information as above, pausing to show these graphics as you are describe the capabilities:
Option C - Show Video Of SAS in ActionYou discuss the capabilities of the SAS and then show this
video that captures the SAS in action.Clearly, the more effectively you communicate evidence to help tell your story (the use of pictures in option B and the video in option C) the more believable your story becomes.
Let’s stop giving sales a bad reputation and begin incorporating evidence into our sales presentations.
What do you think?Do you agree in the power of evidence?
Do you have an example of how evidence has helped you close more business?
Do you agree that the use of evidence is a dying art as a professional selling skill?
In our just published book
Driving Distributor Sales Beyond: Best Practices for Outselling Your Competitors; we illuminate a fundamental flaw in most sales organizations. Only 36% of
the hundreds of distributors we surveyed indicated that they have developed their sales systems equally as well or better than others throughout their enterprise. Too often, distributors rely on one-off sales training workshops, for example rather than taking the same discipline of systematizing processes they have incorporated throughout the other parts of the business.
Our finding and research sponsored by the
National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors -
Insititute for 
Distribution Excellence is in good company. Last year the
Wall Street Journal interviewed Ram Charan in an article titled -
Next in Line for Reinvention: The Art of Selling. In this discussion, Ram observed, “I began to see companies with good strategies, good technology, good costs asking, ‘Why are we not getting good results?’ I found many companies had focused on the back end of the business: Operations, accounting, finance, overhead. But the sales force had been neglected.”
When it comes to systems, I’ve seen distributors centralize their service centers to improve efficiencies and drive costs out of the operations. I’ve seen companies implement customer relationship management (CRM) software packages to manage business processes, lead management, and quoting. Distributors are constantly looking for efficiencies in the routing of their delivery vehicles. And warehouse management systems that include radio frequency identification (RFID), bar coding, and other technologies are implemented to efficiently monitor the flow of goods in and out of the warehouse.
But when it comes to applying processes and systems to the sales force, many distributors come up short.Let me prove it to you. In my
speaking engagements, I’ll often ask business leaders the question; “If you have a sales organization of 30 sales people, how many different selling systems do you think you have?” And you know the response I get. The answer is typically 30 or more. Management in most businesses has simply allowed their sales processes to evolve without much strategic thought. They have allowed their sales representatives to do what they think is right. They react to every whim of their suppliers.
Can you imagine your warehouse staff trying to manage the warehouse when each is using a different warehouse management system? Of course not!
But we allow that very inefficiency in our sales organization everyday.Top performing distributors however, take a holistic approach to driving sales. Take these three steps to begin to systematize your sales efforts:
- Establish a guiding idea - 100% of what is codified as part of your customized sales and sales management system must relate back to your guiding idea. For example: Our priority is to identify and then satisfy the customer’s needs profitably.
- Develop principles - Define sales and sales management principles that support your guiding idea. For example: The objective of the customer needs analysis is to identify the customer’s needs from the customers point.
- Define the processes required to implement the principles - Outline the steps your team must take and the tools they must use in order to “live” the principles. For example: The fours steps of the customer needs analysis are, the research, positioning statement, intentional questioning, and the physical survey.
Most sales organizations are fundamentally flawed. Our research shows however, that those distributors who drive sales beyond what the market is prepared to give them, do so by taking the same process and systems mentality to the sales organization as they have employed in other aspects of the business.
What do you think?- Why do you believe there is a reluctance to bring standardized systems and processes to the sales team?
- What have you and your organization done to bring a unified approach to the market?
Ugggh! Keep the newspapers (remember them?) away from
me. The news is not pleasant. Layoffs here, declining profits there, bailouts everywhere!
Just a bit ago I had a great conversation with a friend of mine James James (yes that is his real name) the VP of Sales for Yacht Chandlers relative to this state of economy and its impact on business, sales organizations, and individuals. James shared the insight that in this environment most people - it’s human nature to - act in a way that:
- Makes you look good
- Reduces risk, and
- Allows you to survive
I think James is right. Look at what sales people are doing in this environment. To look good, they might start using the sales force automation system that the company invested in (years ago). To reduce risk they might bring more competitive pricing to customers who have opened conversations with competitors. And to survive they are knocking on more doors hoping that some prospect is in crises mode to reduce costs that will allow for an opportunity to quote.
On a macro economic level the British economist John Maynard Keynes coined the term “liquidity trap” during the Depression in the 1930s. A liquidity trap is when the loss of confidence of businesses and consumers results in a desire to hold on to cash rather than spend or invest. A bank for example in tough times like we are experiencing now, will want to look good by taking massive write-downs. They will reduce risk by tightening credit. And will act to survive by conserving cash and cutting its dividend. Sound familiar?
My take on this environment is that now is the time to:
Be Good rather than look good
Now is the time to check your skills. I have suggested for years that good times camouflage poor performance. And factually many in sales and sales management are waking up in this new economic period realizing that they had not focused on developing their skills to succeed in not just the good times, but in tough times like these. You know what skills & behaviors have been lacking - have you been transaction oriented rather than consultative? Have you been administrating rather than coaching. Let’s focus on being good.
Manage risk rather than reduce risk
Now is not the time to cower, sit back and wait for the market to turn. Now more than ever strategy comes into play. In good times, the market was much more forgiving to t
hose who reacted to opportunities rather than strategically created opportunities. In our just published book Driving Distribution Sales Beyond: Best Practices For Outselling Your Competitors from the NAW Institute for Distribution Excellence, we explore how leading businesses develop the strategy and roadmap to achieve their vision. Manage risk today by setting specific goals, detailing plans to achieve them and mobilize resources to work the plan.
Thrive rather than survive
In every market there are individuals and businesses that perform below the market averages and those that perform above those averages. There are those that hang on and (try to) survive, and those who go beyond mediocrity to thrive. To thrive today we must have an expectation of success, which include the needed behaviors and a focus on superior execution.
One of the things that I am doing to be good, manage risks and thrive in this market is embracing the whole social networking movement. Another is that we continue to evaluate ourselves internally relative to our commitment of “more than satisfied customers.” Let me know if you want more information on either of these and I’ll be happy to post.
So what are you doing in these times to Be Good? To Manage Risk? And to Thrive? Share your insight so that we can learn from you.