Help! My Sales Team Sucks!

As a Sales Manager, why does it seem that you’re always fighting. You’re fighting to keep customers happy. You’re fighting to get new customers. You’re fighting your competition. On top of all that, you and your team are often viewed by the rest of your company as expensive Prima Donna’s. Therefore, when you go looking for more budget with your hat in your hand, like Oliver Twist asking, “Please Sir may I have some more?”, you don’t want to be turned away empty handed. Do you?

I can’t tell you how to fight a lot of these battles, but I can tell you how to avoid a lot of the internal battles. Part of your job, and a very import part I might add, is the marketing of you and your sales team to the rest of the company. I know it’s a pain in the butt. I know that your numbers should speak for themselves, but unfortunately, that’s not the way the real world works.

So what’s a lowly Sales Manager to do? Take a pro-active approach. When something goes wrong, admit it publicly, fast, and have a plan. When something good happens, take the same approach; admit it publicly, fast, and have a plan. A plan? Yep! An internal marketing plan. I send “Good News” emails to my executive team on a regular basis, especially early in the morning or in the evening. I talk up my team and I NEVER air dirty laundry.

You can also cut costs wherever you can, especially the ones that are not that important to you. FOR EXAMPLE, use www.K7.net for a free fax line. It takes less than a minute to get your fee fax phone number. Now every fax sent to that phone number is redirected directly to your email inbox. Presto! There’s got to be a half dozen small expenses like this that you can get rid of. Do it.

I know you don’t think that you should have to market internally. Wrong! Tell you what. Don’t market the sales team internally, and I’ll be talking to someone else in your position next year! And you can’t market just once. It’s a continuous job. Just put it in your calender, every Friday 2:00, “Market My Awesome Sales Team!

Like it or not, you’re the Cheerleader! Go Cheer!

TAKE ACTION
• Go to www.K7.net a FREE fax account
• Comment on this blog post at www.HelpMySalesTeamSucks.com and tell us your thoughts, your issues, your challenges, and your questions.
• Watch this post’s video or listen to the mp3 or check us out on iTunes or YouTube.

 

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Have you ever wished that you could easily get a list of all prospects that fit into your specific market? Better yet, wouldn’t it be cool if you could get the direct phone number and email address of the exact person qualified to buy your product?

Ah, but such information doesn’t exist. And if it did, it’d be real expensive. Not so Sherlock! That’s exactly what Jigsaw has been providing for years. No way! Yes way!

I’ve been using Jigsaw for years. The database and company just plain ROCK! To begin with, all company information is free! And you can slice and dice the data 10 ways from Sunday. Secondly, if you add information into the database, like your contact information, or your CEO’s contact information, or your VP of the Keys contact information, then you just earned 5 points!

On the other hand, if you identify a specific position in a prospective company and want that person’s name and contact information, that’ll cost you 5 points. Now if you don’t want to take the time to add information into the database and thus earn points, then of course you can purchase points for about a buck per 5 points.

So how accurate is the database? My personal opinion is that the database is about 80% accurate, which is WAY better than any other database that I’ve ever used and way better than you’re likely to find anywhere else. No brag, just fact!

I’ve used Jigsaw to find leads. I’ve used Jigsaw to identify the exact person inside the company that’s qualified to say “Yes”. I’ve used Jigsaw to do research on a company’s public governmental records, statistics, articles, news, blogs, etc. When I make a sales call, thanks to Jigsaw, I’m armed to the teeth!

I know, this sounds like a commercial, but I really love this product. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told other sales managers about this product and they say, “Oh, I know all about Jigsaw and we’ve been using them for years!”

If I had this sales tool 15 years ago, I’d be a millionaire today! Give it a try.

TAKE ACTION
• Go to www.Jigsaw.com for a FREE account, use the promotion CODE “HELP!”.
• Comment on this blog post at www.HelpMySalesTeamSucks.com and tell us your thoughts, your issues, your challenges, and your questions.
• Watch this post’s video or listen to the mp3 or check us out on iTunes or YouTube.

 

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Just today, a middle aged woman in my office said, “I know it’s going to feel like tomorrow morning and I’ll wake up in the nursing home and ask ‘what happened to my life’”. A wise man once said to me, “Russell, sometimes you have to slow down to speed up.”

Many ambitious men and women crawl and scratch their way to the top and somewhere along the way they forget to live. This seems especially true of sales professionals and even more so for sales managers.

I can say with authority that with balance comes “more” productivity, not less. Oh, you’ll work less hours and get less done, but what you do get done will be far more productive. Let’s face it, if you had a limited time to get something done, you’re going to plan your work and work your plan. Right! Life’s no different.

The key to having a balanced life is constantly being reminded of your priorities. I have a mantra that I’ve memorized to remind me of who I am, what I believe, and what my priorities are. I say this mantra to myself at least once a day. You could do that, or you could have a sign on your bathroom mirror. Whatever works for you, but you MUST review it daily.

Like many of you, I’ve been blessed and cursed with waking up every morning having a burning desire in my gut to get something done. So that this burn doesn’t burn me out, I put limits on my life; 40 hours of work a week; read my Bible five minutes a day; 3 long walks a week; tennis once a week; one meal a day with my family; no more than 3 nights gone a month; attend church once a week; etc. Just like in business, what you don’t track you can’t manage. Write these limits down and track them weekly if not daily.

Lastly, have fun. After you work hard, you deserve to have some fun. But here’s the key, make it STRATEGIC FUN! On the FUN scale, don’t settle for a bunch of 1’s and 2’s. Go for a few 9’s and 10’s. For example; instead of eating a candy bar, eat a homemade chocolate cake; instead of watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island, join Netflix and plan to watch a “GREAT” inspiring movie; instead of watching TV, play some cards or board games with your family.

Having a balanced life ROCKS!

TAKE ACTION
• Comment on this blog post at www.HelpMySalesTeamSucks.com and tell us your thoughts, your issues, your challenges, and your questions.
• Watch this post’s video or listen to the mp3 or check us out on iTunes.
• You Tube: http://bit.ly/cAZFDH

 

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If relationship selling is back, as if it ever really left, then how can we use 21st century technology to build better, stronger, and faster relationships over a wider and yet more personal audience?

I encourage my sales team to use a variety of relationship building technologies, including; email, newsletters, Facebook, Twitter, SendOutCards, Podcasts, Webinars, and Blogs. But my all time favorite is video.

So why does video work so well? Video has a similar effect on people as public speaking. When you give a presentation to a room of people, it’s an opportunity for people to get to know and trust you. They say in, their hears, “I like this guy”; “I trust this guy”; “He knows what he’s talking about.”

Whether you speak live to an audience or use video, inevitably you’ll receive phone calls and emails, where people will treat you like their long lost cousin. As you already know, gaining the trust of your prospects is the hardest and most important phase of the sales cycle. Public speaking and video shorten the sales process dramatically. You just don’t get that kind of reaction with email, newsletters, or phone calls. It’s the next best thing to being there! In fact, my experience shows that video is often better than being there!

It’s become quite simple, fast, and fun to create and post video. It’s not practical to email your video file, hence the popularity of video hosting sites such as the ubiquitous YouTube. Something that many of you might not know is that you can post “personal” videos on the internet. That is, you can create and post a personal video for the viewing of just one person.

Let me give you a quick example. I often will contact a new prospect by phone. After the phone call, I’ll fire up my $60 webcam to create a quick video saying, “Hello Bob, I thought that you might want to see the face behind the voice. I look forward to meeting you on Tuesday.” I then post the video on a video hosting site and send the link via email to Bob. The whole thing took me 5 minutes! Most of the time, I receive an email or a call saying, “Wow! That’s so cool!”

Lastly, if you don’t have a Testimonial Video, you’re blowing it big time! I recently recorded 1-2 minutes from each of four customers, where they told the audience why we’re the best thing since sliced bread and bear in a can. I then edited the video down to 20-30 seconds each, thus the entire testimonial video was only two minutes long. With every quote, proposal, or email, I include a link to the hosted testimonial video.

For hosting your videos never, ever, use YouTube! You do not want to post your valuable business videos alongside some else’s sleazy video.

TAKE ACTION TIME
• For video hosting I prefer Screencast. The cost is minimal. Go to www.lifeboatdistribution.com
• Go to: www.HelpMySalesTeamSucks.com and comment on this post. Tell us your thoughts, your sales management issues, your challenges, and your questions.
• Watch this post’s video, listen to the mp3, or check us out on iTunes.

 

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As a sales manager, it probably won’t surprise you when I say that the average salesman is disorganized and confused. He doesn’t know who his customers are, where they come from, or why they buy. The mess on his desk is only surpassed by the clutter in his mind.

Does that sound familiar? 20 years ago, that described me to a tee. Eventually I implemented a very simple sales automation tool. The results were phenomenal. I soon became a top producer. My success was not because I was smarter than my co-workers, or because I worked more, nor did I have more talent. All I did was get organized.

The secret to this sales success formula is in its simplicity. Like nearly everything that I do, the key is KISS, “Keep It Simple Stupid” or my favorite, “Keep It to a Single Sheet”. Let’s face it, if it ain’t simple, you’re not likely going to do it and neither is your sales team.

Getting organized is little more than being able to quickly answer these questions.
1. What did I do today?
2. Who did I do it to?
3. What am I going to do next?
4. When am I going to do it?
5. What are my priorities?

Without out these answers, we’re lost. With these readily available answers, it’s the difference between poorly managing 10 accounts verses successfully managing100 accounts. You might want to note that’s a 10 fold increase and it’s certainly no mistake or exaggeration.

Keep in mind the entire purpose of a Sales Automation tool. It is to help your salesmen to sell more, in less time, and with less effort. It is NOT and I repeat, it is NOT a management tool. This tool has thee, and I repeat again, ONLY three major functions.
1. Every day is planned!
2. Every prospect has a scheduled activity with notes
3. Every activity is prioritized!

There are several requirements for picking out a good “useful” sales automation tool.
1. The tool must be easy to modify. That means that if you need a Techie to modify the tool, then it’s too complex.
2. The tool must also have the ability to have multiple views of the data. Not every salesman wants to look at the same data in the same way.
3. The database must be portable. Each salesman must have his own copy of the data that he can take into the field.
4. You want one master daddy database. So the salesmen will upload their baby databases to the master database each day. This master database is your tool. Yes, you the manager. This is the only part of the system that affects you. We’ll talk about this in another blog post.

Although using a system like this has been enormously helpful for me, not all salesmen, well let’s be honest, actually very few salesmen start out felling that this tool is useful to them. The trick is to get the salesmen to use the system long enough for them to see the results.

Here are some suggestions to get your team using this phenomenal productivity tool. You must:
1. Consistently sell the value of the system to your sales team.
2. Keep the system simple
3. Keep it fast
4. Get a scanner to help them enter data $100
5. Make its use mandatory to stay employed
6. Set up rewards for using the system

I’ve used perhaps a dozen different CRM and SA tools. Most of which suck! Because of its usability, my all time favorite is ACT by Sage. It is simple, fast, portable, flexible, and inexpensive.

TAKE ACTION TIME
• Go to: www.HelpMySalesTeamSucks.com, click on the Sales Automation Link , and use my promotion code.
• Go to: www.HelpMySalesTeamSucks.com and comment on this post. Tell us your thoughts, your issues, your challenges, and your questions.
• Be on the lookout for my next blog post “Who Needs A Marketing Manger When You Have YouTube”.
• Watch this post’s video, listen to the mp3, or check us out on iTunes.