It can feel pretty chilly after a big client loss, whether or not it’s winter!
During this past year, we have tried several different prospecting strategies to grow our business after a major client had to halt their sales training program. We are sharing with you the best three proven prospecting strategies that worked and the three prospecting strategies that are as chilly as the cold weather!
I don’t need to tell you how it feels to have your sales revenue significantly impacted.
In order to regain the lost revenue, we figured out three things that worked and three things that didn’t.
Three proven Prospecting Strategies:
1. Be proactive and block out time to prospect every week. I have blocked my calendar and been disciplined to make at least ten telephone calls and/or emails every Thursday morning from 7:30am– 8:55am.This is when most of our ideal clients, VP of Sales, are in their offices early or enroute to work, and before they get into their 9am meeting. This simple habit has increased our business consistently this year and for the past 15+ years. The best marketing is still consistent and habitual prospecting!
2. Ask for Referrals. I’ll admit I never liked to ask for referrals because I felt that I was asking for a favour. I realized I needed to change my own mindset and self-talk on referrals. Now, when I call a sales leader and reference a client’s name, they are much more willing to talk to us. We have secured five new clients this year, all resulting from client referrals.
3. Sales Leader Evolve Breakfast. We hosted sales leader events this year and our efforts resulted in new leads, new opportunities and new business. These events provided us with a reason to reach out to new prospects and warm up these calls.
1. Connecting to any and every sales leader prospect on LinkedIn is a bad idea. Even though we have increased our LinkedIn Connections by an additional 1000+ new connections, it didn’t generate any new leads or interest. We learned the importance of first nurturing these new connections.
2.Being active on all social media platforms doesn’t always work. In our efforts to increase our social media presence and connections, we realized that many of our ideal clients, who are sales leaders, are way too busy to be social on Facebook and Twitter. Choose the social medium that is active with your ideal target market and stick with it.
3. Not all paid advertising will get you results. When we realized that LinkedIn invites were working for the Sales Leaders Evolve Breakfast, we decided to bolster advertising with more paid ads on LinkedIn and Facebook. Even after spending over $1000, it really didn’t generate any additional leaders coming to our event. We learned again that nurturing connections matter in sales.
One of our client sales teams has already secured over 54 new client partners as part of their prospecting blitz. They have slam dunked their goal of 50 partners!
If you’re committed to warming up your prospecting efforts, check out our new Advanced Prospecting program for your team.
Teneo Challenge: As part of your prospecting strategy for the next year, take time to do a quick analysis. Figure out what’s working and what’s not working to maximize your prospecting efforts and time.
Give me a call at 519-863-3975 if you’re interested in hearing more about our Advanced Prospecting program.
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.
Like many leaders, I want to be a great leader and I always strive to be my best.
Yet, I wonder is my best good enough? What do others think about my leadership style?
During this past year, I chose to be brave and get feedback through the CheckPoint 360° Competency Feedback System™ – Management Report. I’ll admit, I was nervous to initiate this and when the report landed in my inbox, I was even more scared to open and review the report, especially because I expanded the feedback from direct reports, colleagues to several clients.
I closed my office door, turned off my emails and took a deep breath as I opened the report and quickly scanned this Executive Competency Overview 360° Wheel with the 8 Core Management Competencies of Adaptability, Development of Others, Relationships, Communication, Task Management, Production, Leadership and Personal Development.
It was well worth it, as I learned more about my strengths, a few blind spots and what I need to put into action to become a stronger leader.
It only takes 15 minutes for you and your direct reports, colleagues, boss and even your clients to complete a simple series of questions. It’s anonymous, so you don’t know how each person is rating you. Here’s what you’ll receive as part of the extensive and detailed 22-page report.
Executive Competency Overview
Executive Skill Set Summary
Here are five key reasons why I recommend the CheckPoint 360° Assessment:
1. Increases self-awareness
Self-awareness is especially important when it comes to leadership. Even though I knew I needed to do a betterjob of delegating responsibility, this report told me my team was telling me the same thing. I also thought I was working efficiently, yet others viewed my working harder as inefficient.
Leading people requires a careful balance of competing priorities and understanding how people see you.
2. Promotes dialogue with others
Dialogue is the first step in moving from measurement to improvement. This assessment of the 8-18-70 skill sets allows you to have better conversations and dialogues with your team. I openly shared my results with my team and clients and asked for feedback on what I could do to work more efficiently and delegate responsibility better.
3. Encourages personal development
This assessment helps develop professional and personal goals for the next year. By providing easy, digestible areas to examine, leaders will naturally grasp them in order to continue their improvement.
4. Increases accountability
The CheckPoint 360° Assessment clarifies behaviors and holds me more accountable with my team, peers and clients to improve and change behaviours.
5. Enhances performance
This assessment is one of the most powerful tools you can have. It will help you quickly improve your performance to become a better leader.
Honest and reliable feedback is necessary to test one’s own perceptions, recognize previously unseen strengths, and become aware of blind spots in one’s self-perceptions. I’m grateful to have completed this and challenge other leaders to do the same!
Teneo Challenge: Be Brave! As a leader, find out how you can grow your strengths and uncover any blind spots you might have to help you become a stronger leader in the next year.
If would like to discuss this further or put it into action, contact us to begin your CheckPoint 360° Assessment at lisa@teneoresults.com or click here for more information.
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.
We have three major changes at Teneo to better serve our customers and the sales community, and there is one thing that will always remain consistent at Teneo. Keep reading to find out what they are.
Teneo has an Accredited Partnership with CPSA
After more than 10 years of working with the Canadian Professional Sales Association (CPSA) as a Strategic Training Partner, we are thrilled to now be an Accredited Training Partnership with CPSA. Our accredited training programs prepare salespeople to meet the CPSA’s Professional Sales Designation pathway. This pathway is attracting more people, including college and university graduates, to the sales industry and will strengthen the sales community.
Our Rigorous Training Programs
As a result of the new standards and sales competencies set by CPSA, we have increased the rigorous nature of our training program, with Teneo’s style of interactive training and coaching, kicked up a notch to help sales teams raise their A game to meet today’s demanding buyers.
Our Purposeful Sales Strategies program that will prepare salespeople to successfully complete their Certified Sales Associate Professional Sales Designation (CSA). The feedback from our past participants has been phenomenal with a rating of 9.5 out of 10!
Our Purposeful Business Strategies Program prepares salespeople to successfully complete the Certified Sales Professional Designation (CSP), which is a gold standard program for achieving sales excellence in the industry today.
In addition, our advanced prospecting program Purposeful Prospecting helps sales professionals to identify ideal clients, and secure and close meetings with key decision makers with a 90-day prospecting blitz.
Each of our programs consist of Teneo’s integrated training and coaching model along with interactive microlearning videos and a practicum component, which differentiates our training from the rest.
We have gone through the intensive process of rebranding our company and website to match our company values and sales training structure.
We chose the ring icon. The inside ring symbolizes that we start with coaching sales leaders, as they are at the core of an organization and are pivotal to the success of sales teams. The second ring represents sales teams and how Teneo helps to transform them from good to great. The third ring represents Teneo working with customer service teams, as they are a valuable extension of the sales team. The final ring symbolizes the entire organization. Teneo works to align the sales culture across all departments to create an exceptional customer experience that delivers results.
Teneo Commitment Remains Consistent
The one thing that has not changed is our dedicated team and how we remain extremely committed to our clients.
Thank you to our many clients and suppliers who provided us with feedback, insights and support throughout these changes – we are very grateful.
Our Teneo team, consisting of Shannon, Angela, Jennifer, Jasmine and Chris, have all pitched in to ensure the changes within our business strengthen the client experience, our team and company culture.
If you need help with your sales goals, let’s talk. Email me at lisa@teneoresults.com
Teneo Challenge: What will you do to embrace change and be strategic, proactive and brave in the coming years?
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.
When we train with the Consultative Conversation eight-step framework, people often share how much they love it. Why? Because it provides them with a structure in asking their customers valuable questions, learn more about their customers’ businesses, and uncover additional sales opportunities.
Yet, no one can easily remember and recite all eight steps (except right after writing their CSP Designation!).
At Teneo, we did some creative brainstorming and came up with an acronym, PURPOSE, to easily remember the consultative framework when meeting with customers.
The PURPOSE acronym is easy to remember so you can focus on the customer conversation, not remembering the next step!
When you follow the PURPOSE formula, you’ll have a more productive and purposeful sales conversation each and every time.
Make fewer assumptions about your customers’ current state (U-Understand)
Build trusting relationships by communicating with individuals in their preferred manner (R-Rapport)
Identify the compelling reason you are meeting and state that reason at the start of the meeting (P-Purpose of the meeting)
Ask more questions, and better ones that get to the heart of the business reasons to buy (O-Open-ended Questions)
Summarize, prioritize and collaborate on possible solutions (S-Summarize & Solutions)
Ensure you have clear next steps with date and time (E-Execute)
PURPOSE Sales Conversation
The chart below outlines the simple “purpose” for each step in the consultative conversation.
The PURPOSE of each step
Questions to ask
P – Prepare For Your Meeting
Take 7-10 minutes to prep for your meeting by using the back-side of the PURPOSE template. It helps you be more strategic, proactive and brave!
What are my objectives for this meeting?
What do I hope to accomplish?
Is there any more information
that I need to be fully prepared?
U – Understanding Your Customer
Think like your customer – what’s most important to them in their role, personality style, generation, and decision-making process to make them and their business prosper.
What’s most important for them to accomplish in this meeting and their business?
R – Rapport With Personality Style
Identify their personality style and quickly adapt.
Begin to build trust and connect with them.
Personal or business question to establish a common bond.
Nice building, how long have you been here?
How’s business?
P – Purpose of Meeting
State the actual purpose of the meeting and agree on the agenda items.
Confirm the amount of time for the meeting, even if you scheduled a 30 minute meeting.
To make this meeting most effective, I would like to discuss…
Is there anything else you would like to get done to make this meeting worthwhile for you?
Do you still have 30 minutes?
O – Open EndedQuestions
Ask open, clarifying and expanding questions to find out their current situation, challenges, goals, and their decision-making process.
When you ask intelligent questions in a coach-like and consultative approach, your customer/prospect will realize it’s worth spending time with you.
I would like to begin with asking you a few questions about your business to better understand your situation.
What are your challenges with…?
What are your goals for the coming year? What would you like to accomplish?
What is your criteria for selecting …?
How would you measure success?
S – Summarize Their Needs, Goals and Collaborate on Solutions
Demonstrate you are listening to further develop trust.
Collaborate and co-create possible solutions based on their needs and business goals.
Typically, you may suggest a few solutions and schedule a second meeting to present your proposal with three options.
To recap, what I’m hearing you say is that…
Your priorities are…
I understand that you are ideally looking for…
To achieve your goals, have you considered…?
To give you the maximum ROI, could we…
What (time, productivity, increase in sales, output, save money) would this accomplish in your business?
E – Execute Next Steps
Set the next meeting or call with a specific date and time to present the proposal.
Shall we go ahead then?
Where do we go from here?
When will you be making a decision?
Let’s get together again on (day) and (time) to review the proposal and discuss next steps.
If you would like the PURPOSE template to help you prepare before, during and after your customer meeting, please email jasmine@teneoresults.com for your copy today.
Teneo Challenge: Request your own copy of the PURPOSE Conversation Framework template (email jasmine@teneoresults.com) and use it during your next customer meeting. Share your results by commenting on this blog, or by reaching out to us on LinkedIn @TeneoResults or @LisaLeitch.
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.
50% of today’s sales professionals are weak and only 6% are elite.
If that doesn’t scare you, these scary selling competencies will.
That’s right, we are going to delve into the underbelly of performance gaps in salespeople and look at the scary statistics that surround these competencies that can’t be covered up.
We have connected with our strategic partners at Objective Management Group(OMG) for these unnerving insights on the following five selling competencies and the frightening statistics and poor performance in each area.
Selling Competencies
% of Salespeople Who are Competent
Closure – A salesperson’s ability to get business closed on a timely basis.
1%
Consultative Seller – A salesperson’s ability to take a consultative approach to a sales opportunity and uncover the compelling reason to buy.
3%
Qualifier – A salesperson’s ability to properly qualify an opportunity.
7%
Mastery of Social Selling – A salesperson’s effective and consistent use of LinkedIn, Twitter and blogging.
10%
Selling Value – A salesperson’s ability to quantify the opportunity and focus on the value rather than sell on price.
OMG states “Selling Competencies play a huge part in the difficulties that salespeople have when attempting to sell value or use a consultative approach. This is the combination of strengths that support skills and when the strengths are actually weaknesses, salespeople are uncomfortable and unable to execute the process, strategies, tactics and achieve milestones.”
This assessment will give you insight into your team’s will to sell, how comfortable they are talking about money, and confirm if they are consultative in their approach with customers – plus more!
Teneo Challenge: Take the 21 Core Competency Sales Assessment with your current team members to understand their level of skills and strengths.
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.
What does it take to turn a discouraged sales force into an inspiring success story?
My career and my company have been built around empowering sales teams with the processes and tools to do exactly that. I can tell you the three critical areas in which there’s nearly always room for improvement:
Enhancing sales teams’ understanding and application of Professional Selling Concepts.
Losing the negativity and critical self-talk among team members.
Teaching smarter use of their CRMs to help them to serve customers more effectively.
That’s why it was so great to speak recently with Shannon Hall, VP of Sales for commercial cleaning products and equipment manufacturer Dustbane. Shannon was brought into the company just four years ago to bring process to their team, to amp up their drive and confidence, and to grow sales – and it’s worked. By year two, sales started to soar. By year three they’d experienced the highest percentage of growth the company had ever had.
The sales team she found when she came on board were all experienced, knowledgeable and great with customers, but what was missing was a solid understanding of the fundamentals of selling. Without that training and background, many of them were having a rough time adapting to the changing landscape of how sales are done today.
Shannon attributes her own success to continuing professional sales training over several years, and she wanted to be sure that her team got that same solid foundation.
She understood, too, that training alone wasn’t enough without continuing development – and that by creating a stronger sense of team cohesion, she could get everyone pulling in the same positive direction.
I was happy to come on board to help with some of that training. I started with pre-interviews with each of the team members to help me get an idea of each of their personality styles. That helped Shannon to tailor her own coaching, not just to the team but to the individuals. She does a lot of field time with team members, so she can see how well they’ve prepared. She also reviews the call with them afterwards, so that follow-up and looking for ways to improve is a continuing process that’s become second nature.
But it’s not all work.
Shannon also introduced karaoke and Nerf guns (to shoot down negativity) into the regular group meetings, to create a fun environment and bring everyone together. She told me, “Because of all the changes in the way sales were being done, I was hearing a lot of negativity around how people weren’t used to working in this way, or that our customers wouldn’t like it – and I really wanted to energize them, so they’d leave those meetings saying, ‘That was a great experience, and I can’t wait to go use what we talked about, or to share it with someone else.’”
Team building exercises and activities are a part of their routine now – and they serve as a way to introduce new selling concepts, whether that’s through role playing or doing a scavenger hunt together.
Shannon knew how important adopting a stronger CRM was, and wasn’t surprised when she encountered some resistance from the team. Was this just one way that Big Brother could look over their shoulder, or mine their contact information so their jobs could be outsourced? She did her best to reassure them, initially trying to incentivize them with compensation, but discovered that the secret sauce was actually changing team members’ territories. Now, they saw for themselves how critical it was that their peers had actually entered up-to-date information about customers because it was there for them when they needed it. It helped them see the value and provided a way to connect with customers to create lead generation.
But the best part?
Shannon told us, “We’ve become a team, versus individual contributors. People are focused on growth and on their metrics because they’re seeing that those metrics are actually driving their results. They’re hearing from not only their distribution partners but from the end user customers about how much more professional they are, from asking the right questions to being more intuitive about someone’s business. I think that’s changed everything in the way that we go to market and that experience across the board – and is really driving the results for the team.”
Teneo Challenge: Tell us how your sales team has worked to raise the bar of sales excellence for your customers. Post a comment below or tag us on LinkedIn @LisaLeitch, #SalesExcellence.
Let’s have a consultative conversation today about your sales challenges – I’m always happy to listen! T: 519-863-3975 or E: lisa@teneoresults.com
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.
