Sales Team Building Exercise

Rapport in sales is a critical ingredient in developing client loyalty and paving the way for future sales.  A sales team that has a strong degree of rapport with one another will function more effectively than a team with a set of individual performers.  Together Everyone Achieves More, right?

Want a quick and fun exercise to build rapport within your sales team by helping them realize each others innate talents?  Try this during one of your sales meetings.

Get everyone the book Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath.  Have everyone read section 1, 30 pages, and then take the online StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment.   Ask them to skim the rest of the book, which has details on the 34 most common strengths based on 40 years of research by Gallup.  In the back of the book there is a code that they enter on the StrengthsFinder website which provides them with a detailed custom report on their strengths.  Have them print their report and bring the results to the meeting.

Put a flip chart on the wall for each person in the room.  Ask the participants to keep their assessment results private until you complete the exercise.

The exercise is for each person to write what they believe are the top 2 strengths of their teammates on each person's flip chart.  Participants should use the book to review details of each strength to determine if it fits the their teammate. If you have 5 people participating, each flip chart should have 8 strengths written on it.  The exercise should take about 5 minutes per person - so for 5 people allot 25 minutes.

Once each person's flip chart has everyone's input, have each person stand next to their flip chart.  Have the team provide input on why they feel the assigned strengths fit the person.  Then have the person reveal their top 5 strengths and describe why they agree/disagree with their assessment.

Not everyone is going to agree with their strengths,  but through the team feedback, they just might get a better understanding of how they're perceived, and everyone will learn a few things about their teammates in a fun and impactful exercise.

Probe Flow

Asking open and closed probes will typically occur several times throughout a sales conversation. When and what probes you ask depends on what you are looking to achieve. There are no rules on when to ask particular probes however there is typically a flow that leads to a more successful call. At the start of a conversation you begin to “know” the customer by probing to explore their circumstances. From their circumstances, you may realize opportunities to investigate. Then you move onto understanding their needs and confirming needs. Along the way customers respond to your probes and that’s where you’ll react by probing for effect and drilling down to get further information. A customer’s expression of need (I’m looking for XYZ) and a customer’s expression of pain (I worry about ABC) represent opportunities for us as salespeople. It may require more probing to find out the need behind the need or the source of the pain before providing solutions.

Potential Probe Flow

Probe for circumstances - Who are you currently doing business with?

Probe for a need - What are you hoping to achieve?/What are your goals?

Probe for the effect (to create an awareness of a latent need) How do you feel about your current situation?

Probe to peel back the onion - Why is that?/Tell me more about that.

Probe in response to expressions of pain - When you say you don't want to worry, what do you mean?

Probe to confirm a need - Do you want to change that situation?/So what you're saying is....

Hey Sales Managers, Inspect What You Expect

My 13 year old son has a saying that has become famous in our household. It goes like this: "I got it". It's a saying that is proclaimed in response to inquiries about homework completion and test readiness. For a while it was music to my ears. "Alright, the kid is finally starting to take ownership for his responsibilities", I thought.

Then, the results started to appear (aka "grades"), and the result didn't always jive with the "I got it" saying. That's when I decided to get into the weeds a bit and confirm his process and interpretation of "getting it". What I found was that his study habits weren't appropriate for what he was trying to achieve, and he really didn't understand the concept of being comfortable with the material before sitting for a test. It was something that I had to coach him through because no one had ever done it before.

Now, when he says "I got it", I know what he means and what he has had to measure against to make such a statement. As well, he knows that he can't make the statement if he doesn't match up against what we discussed. We're still in the early innings, but I am betting the results will follow.

It dawned on me that sales managers need to go through the same exercise in order to help sales people achieve their desired sales results. One of the things I preach to sales people and sales managers alike is, "if the behaviors don't change, results will stay the same".  It is critical for a sales manager to consistently pop the hood and see what is making a sales person go. Every sales person needs a tune up now and then, so don't take for granted that just because someone has a certain level of experience in sales that you can let them go.  By not "inspecting what you expect" (and by that I mean looking at their process, their style, application of sales skills,etc), you are likely leaving some better sales results on the table.

Some may say that this equates to micro-management.  I've seen micro-management, and a micro manager is based on "how" a manager manages/coaches, not the actual act of managing.  Be open, be collaborative, be consistent, be authentic, be genuine  - and no one will accuse you of micro managing.

Asking, Listening and Telling

Asking, Listening and Telling are the 3 primary elements of any sales interaction. Can you guess which element is most widely used by most sales people?

Yes, sales people by nature like to talk, and research shows that telling is the predominant activity they like to engage in.

The 3 elements are loosely defined as follows:

Ask: When you probe for circumstances, needs, effects, and pain

Listen: Listen for needs, expressions of pain, possible opportunities so we can drill down and guide the conversation
Tell: Once you confirm a need you provide a solution

Great salespeople put energy into all three components and they do so while maintaining balance among all three. Too much of any one element can result in a very one-sided conversation.

Balance allows for a 2 way conversation that involves the customer. Too much asking and the customer may feel they are getting hammered with questions, too much listening when the discussion is not relevant means the customer is controlling the entire conversation, too much telling means the call is about your needs not your customer’s needs.

A fun and impactful sales experiment if you have access to recorded sales conversations is to listen to several calls. On a piece a paper create three columns labeled A, L, and T. Every time you hear a question by the sales person place a check in the A column, every 5 seconds or so of the customer explaining something uninterrupted gets a check for L, and every 5 seconds of the rep telling something gets a check for T.

If you're the salesperson, you have some objective data you can use to change some potentially unproductive habits. If you're a coach you have objective data that will help you determine if the sales person has a sales effectiveness issue.

Science or Art

What drives a greater degree of sales success? The science of sales where tracking activities versus results enables a salesperson to determine what activity levels are required to achieve their goals. Or the art of sales where a salesperson focuses on skills and competencies to effectively identify customer needs and provide value-added solutions. Of course both are important, but a salesperson can do themselves a favor if they focus on each in the most effective way. 

The science of sales is a concept that not enough sales people take seriously. It is an effective tool for understanding what activities are most important, how many activities need to be completed in order to move the sales process forward, and what size a salesperson's opportunity pipeline needs to be in order to reach their goals. The basis of the science of sales revolves around the pipeline and knowing how many opportunities you have and what stage of the sales process they're in. The science can go as deep as working to understand how many customer attempts and touches a salesperson needs to hit their sales goal in a given period. From that, a salesperson can build ratios that will drive their daily activities. For example, if I know that historically, I have 10 client meetings for every closed sale - and each of those meetings takes 5 telephone discussions and to reach someone it takes 10 phone attempts - it becomes clear exactly what needs to be done on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.  

The ratios will change, and can morph over time as the level of effectiveness, aka the art, improves. But the ratios will always tell a salesperson what they need to action in order to reach success.  

So the moral is, you need to focus on the art and the science, and if you don't have the science figured out you're likely having a difficult time determining what you need to do to succeed in sales. A salesperson without an understanding of the science of their sales process is like spending the day in Disney World without a map. You know what rides and exhibits you want to see but you'll waste a lot of time wandering around trying to figure out exactly where you need to go.

Relieving Pain, Satisfying Needs

Pain is not a customer need.  It may lead to a need or may indicate the existence of a need (one that the customer may not know they have), but it is typically the most obvious cue that you will hear from a customer. 

When customers are in pain, they are:

Confused – Worried – Unsure – Anxious – Angry

The pain will manifest itself in what they say and how they say it.  By picking up the pain cues and asking probes to clarify the WHAT and WHY of their pain, you will typically find a need just below the surface.  By addressing the pain (providing relief), finding the need and providing a solution you will be able to close more business and build loyalty amongst your customers.

Will alleviating customer pain always lead to more business for a sales person?  No, not necessarily, but if you avoid a customer’s pain altogether your opportunities for future business will be diminished.  So address and provide relief for their pain, find out what needs are below the surface and you’ll close business as a result of it, build deeper customer relationships, and get more future referrals.

Sales Effectiveness - It's How You Say It

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Is your TONE impacting your sales effectiveness?  Sales success, especially when selling over the phone depends on not only what you say, but how you say it.

Consider the word “what”.  “WHAT!!??”  and  “What?” have two entirely different connotations using the exact same word altered by my tone. When selling by phone, tone of voice is crucial. A study done at UCLA found that, when selling by phone, 84 percent of the message is conveyed by the "music" in the voice—your vocal quality: pitch, tone and inflection.  Tone is the most important for conveying emotion and creating feelings of good will with your customers and prospects.

When opening a sales call, you are setting the stage for the entire call. This is sometimes the first interaction that you have with a customer or prospect.  The disadvantage of selling by telephone is the absence of face to face contact, therefore the tone of your communication greatly contributes to a successful or unsuccessful interaction.   How you say it, can be just as important as what you say, so being cognizant that your tone can cause the customer to listen more attentively and lead to greater opportunities for sales success.

Preparing Your Sales Probe Strategy

Consider this situation.

You’re at the doctor. It’s a regular check-up, but you’ve been having some pain for a while in your stomach area, so you’re glad you’ve got this appointment. You don’t have any other issues that you know about, but you’re hoping the examination will be exhaustive enough to give you peace of mind.

The doctor comes in and says/asks/does the following:

“Hi, what did we discuss the last time you were here?” You tell him about your last visit where there were no issues.

“Before I begin my examination, let me ask you a few questions – first, when driving at night, can you see other cars clearly enough”. You respond, “not totally”.

The doctor then asks, “what’s your occupation”. “Uh, Sales Manager”, you respond. “Great occupation – If I wasn’t doing this I’d definitely be a Sales Manager – I love helping people make money” he responds. You’re not sure what that’s all about, but you think, hey, he’s a doctor, he knows what he’s talking about.

The interview proceeds in this all-over-the-map manner and the doctor finally tells you to drop’em and get ready for the exam (sorry for the graphic). He asks you if anything has changed since your last exam and you explain to him that your stomach has been causing you some issues – mainly pain but also you’ve had issues holding food down. The doctor utters “hmmmm” and begins to bang your knee with a rubber mallet. “You’re healthy as a horse”, proclaims the doctor and he continues into a 10 minute diatribe about the effect of fat and alcohol in your diet.

As the patient, how does your experience with the doctor make you feel?
What is your impression of the doctor?
Would you recommend the doctor to your friends?

This is an exaggerated example of why it’s important to adopt an effective probing strategy. A salesperson who probes poorly can leave the prospect or customer feeling much like you did in the example above, perplexed and frustrated. Probing properly gets you the information you need to help your customers understand and meet their needs. Probing badly can sabotage a relationship or a sale.

An effective probing strategy has several elements that you can use as a check list to ensure you’re prepared to probe (sales probes that is!)

• Are you aware of the ratio of Asking, Listening & Telling that you’ll employ in your sales interaction?
• Are your probes effective – do they peel back the onion in a way that is conversational and logical?
• Are you prepared to respond to the customer’s response to your probes?
• Do you know what expressions of need or pain you should be listening for? And are you prepared to respond to a customer’s identified pain/need with an appropriate solution statement?
• Are you clear on the objective of your upcoming call?

To Script or Not to Script

Think of a time when you were home – the phone rings, you say hello, there is a delay, then a voice comes on and says, “can I speak to….”

What are you thinking at that very moment? Why are you thinking that way?

Apprehension, annoyance, ready to play the game…

The rep turns on their happy voice to try and engage you and eventually asks “how are you today”….What goes through your mind at that moment? What’s your state of mind? “Let’s move this along”, “why do you care”, You’re likely feeling oppositional and beginning to conjure up strategies to end this call sooner than later

The rep proceeds to explain the reason for their call and asks some well-placed questions in order to get you responding in a particular way.
“Hi Jim, the reason for my call today is we’re calling all of our Rewards customers to let them know about a special offer extended only to members. Are you planning a vacation in the next year?”

A yes response initiates an immediate reaction, even before you can add “but”, about how great it is and the rep immediately dives in to explaining the offer to show you how your vacation needs can be satisfied through their offer – and it will save you money, and be at a location that aligns with where you intend to go anyway.

A no response prompts the rep to explain how they can get you on a vacation with little cost and effort.

By the way, this will have been the 10th time they’ve called your home in the past month because you hadn’t picked up the prior 9 times.

What do you think their success rate is? Likely very, very small. But for this kind of sale, it’s a numbers game, and sticking to the script ensures that the numbers are hit.

Sales scripts are widely available and easily developed. They are a means to ensure a newer salesperson develops a feel for a sales organization’s language, value proposition and process. In a direct sales (salesperson to end customer) environment, they are an effective means of getting the right words in a sales person’s mouth and helping them focus on the science of sales.

Scripts can be useful, but they also have a downside. Over reliance on scripts takes away from the art of sales – the part where sales people use the right behaviors to adapt to a clients needs and style. They limit the benefits that can be gleamed from having a conversation about the salesperson’s solution and the client’s needs. Sometimes, like in the example above scripts can have a dampening effect on the prospect’s demeanor. So if you plan to use a script, it is imperative that a few dress rehearsals are done to make the interaction as conversational as possible.

Certainly they have no place in a relationship based sale or a more strategic sale where there are multiple decision makers. These types of sales are “un-scriptable”. As well, face to face sales do not lend themselves well to scripting for obvious reasons.

Sales Call Openings - Tactics to Avoid

The skills that are applied in a typical sales call opening are usually something like: Present an agenda for the call, explain the value to the client, and check for acceptance. The question you need to ask yourself with any sales call opening is, "does this person have a compelling reason to listen to me"?

Hello Mr. Smith, this is Jon Doe from ABC Inc. Welcome to ABC Inc., I’m thrilled you chose us as the place for your services needs. I am your local relationship manager and will always be here to answer any questions you have on your account and to help you take full advantage of all of our products and services that come with your account. I’d be in a better position to help you hit the ground running here if I could get some additional information from you. Can I ask you a few questions?

That’s an opening, right? With a positioning statement. Everyone recognize that? Does the client have a compelling reason to listen? Perhaps. It depends on the situation, but if they're a new client and they are getting their first Welcome Call, they likely have a reason to engage. Clients will quickly disengage if they are hit with one of the openings to avoid.

The hotel call - "I’m just calling to check in and see how things are going.” It immediately puts the customer in the indifference mode and gives the customer an “out”.

The baseball call – “I’m calling to touch base and see if you’re happy with your account. How does that sound?” The account is “working out” fine. “Thanks for touching base”. There is no real value to “touching base” and certainly it alone does not offer a compelling reason to listen, unless you're bored and dying for someone to talk to. The client thinks, but may not say, “Why are you bothering me?” – even if they are cordial.

The fitness call - “I called to see how everything is working out for you?“. The probe doesn’t offer much value. The response will either be, "uhh, great", or, it will turn into a complaint session about everything that is going wrong for the client.

Mail survey - “I see you requested a new account application and I wanted to make sure you received it. Did you get it yet?" The client thinks “No, I did not get it, but the postal service thanks you for administering a survey on their services.” If the client says no, the conversation becomes about the mail rather than their needs. If the client says yes, then what? Nothing compelling there.

Effective Sales Conversations

Effective sales conversations occur when an interaction ultimately moves the sales process forward. How you get to that point revolves around the application of skills, behaviors, processes and avoiding typical sales pitfalls. All of these will be covered in this blog.

Effective sales conversation are client focused, meaning your angle isn’t to sell in order to make sales – we sell because we know we can meet a client’s need and make their lives easier and better. Focusing on the end, the sale, distracts a sales person from the activities that need to be carried out in order to make a sale. Without a client focus a sales person is doomed for failure. A sale can be made by not focusing on the client's needs, but repeat sales and client loyalty will generally be impacted.

Effective sales conversations align with the client. This means that the sales person can read the “buying tendencies” or behaviors of the client and adapt how they approach that client so their style synchs up with the clients. Not understanding a client’s style and adapting appropriately can lead to longer sales cycles, reduced trust and loyalty from the client, and of course, a lost sale.

Upcoming posts will include details on the above concepts and provide real tactical tips for sales people to immediately apply in their daily sales activities. The next two posts will deal with "sales call openings - tactics to avoid", and "to script or not to script".