Why Everybody Needs a Sales Coach

Everybody needs a sales coach, even the most experienced deal maker.  A second opinion about strategy and tactics always adds value, even if it’s just cause to check any assumptions.

But that’s not the point of this particular article.  The sales coach we’re talking about here is the internal coach – somebody on the inside who wants to buy and will help the sales person know what’s being said inside the prospective customer, and how to respond.

We explain this in some detail in the Principles of Professional Selling describing the three emotional phases the buyer goes through during the sales process.  At first the prospect is quite open, ready to talk about requirements, and selection process, and influences.  In the second phase the prospect becomes more guarded, offering less information about how colleagues are thinking.  Provided the progress of the buy/sell process builds confidence the buyer will move into the third phase – coaching the sale.

In the background the buyer has decided a particular vendor’s offer will meet the needs and persuaded others involved in the decision to agree.  Now her job is coaching the sales guy into shaping the deal to something acceptable to all of the interested parties.

The sales representative who understands how this happens has an advantage over the competition.  Recruiting the internal coach becomes a milestone in the sales plan.

This should be built in to every sales strategy.  Deals in which there is no internal coach rarely result in contracts.  Recruit a coach and the reverse is true.

The first question sales managers need to ask in the bid review is “who will be our coach?”.

New Sales Manager in the 1st Quarter

So you took the promotion to sales manager.  Congratulations.  Well done.  But a word of caution.  Life at work is going to be considerably more difficult from now on.  Luckily in the 1st quarter everybody will give you some time to get settled, I hope at least.  Now’s the time to set the agenda for the rest of your tenure.  Get the relationships and processes right now and you’ll always be in charge.  On the other hand using this  time to win friends (and influence people)  will put everybody else in the driving seat, with you carrying responsibility without any authority.

Our Succeeding in Sales Management tutorial will give you a head start on both the sales team and your management.

It explains the dynamics in this unusual situation – who will try to do what, and how you can respond.  It suggests positive attitudes and actions you can take, and ways you can explain to both sales team members and your management  how you’ll make a difference.

The sales manager’s challenges come from both sides of the coin.  Reps want a manager who will fix their perceived problems with product, and pricing, and marketing.  Management want a manager who’ll get the sales people doing what they’re told, by Marketing, by Customer Service, by Human Resources, and by Accounting.  The 1st quarter is their opportunity to influence the new sales manager and set the agenda in their interests.

What they actually want is leadership.  Somebody who can point the way to improved business results without the usual tensions between those who make the money and the others who spend it.

That’s what the new sales manager can, and needs to, do in the 1st quarter.

Best of Luck

Sales Strategy Role for Value Proposition

What role does value proposition play in a sales strategy? Or maybe what is a sales strategy, and what is a value proposition, and why should anybody care? The answer to those questions depends on how much you enjoy kissing frogs.

You’ll remember the Brothers Grimm fairy tale where the princess kissed the frog, and the frog turned into a handsome prince who married her. The happy couple lived together in marital bliss for the rest of their lives.

Unfortunately that silly story has influenced sales management philosophy ever since it was written. All any sales person has to do is call enough people, pitch the product as confidently as possible, and pray – this frog might be the prince. Pucker Up and ignore the smell. Still a frog never mind – and on to the next.

Sales people who like the taste of frogs need read no further. Off you go the nearest street corner.

Those who don’t enjoy the prospect of green lips will be pleased to know there is a better way. We’ll call it a value proposition with a sales strategy for selling and delivering it.

The value proposition needs to be a clear, credible and unique explanation of how the customer will benefit from whatever the vendor wishes to provide. Defining a value proposition can be a tougher job than you might think, because it must be about customers, it must be real, and it must be unique.

Now that’s tied down, the value proposition directs the development of the sales strategy.

The target customer is already defined, so any business which doesn’t fit the demographic isn’t going to be a prospect. There’s no point in calling or even pitching.

Since the target proposal is similarly defined, the other dimensions of the strategy need to be developed, tested and refined. These will all be about process – how people within the demographic will find out about, understand, and take advantage of the benefit promised.

Of course it takes a lot of work to figure all this out and doesn’t feel quite as active as cold calling every name on the list. It doesn’t quite sit with the folklore about hot shot superstar sales people. But it does work.

Using this approach sales leaders can make sure every frog they talk to is a prince.

Is Your Sales Strategy Easy to Buy

Every sales strategy needs to be easy to buy.  Sorry if that’s perverse, or trite, or over intellectual consulting speak.  It isn’t meant to be.  But let me explain.

Your sales strategy needs to be easy to buy by everybody in your business, and especially to your sales and customer service teams.  It needs  to be easy to buy, by your customers and prospects and it needs to present the value proposition in a package which is easy for those prospects to buy.

The sales strategy needs to present exactly who will benefit from the proposition, why and how those people will buy from you, and how you’ll deliver it to assure the customer maximum benefit at minimum risk.

Here’s the detail.

Your Teams

Everybody in the business needs to buy into the proposition, believing in the genuine value it will deliver.

There’s nothing more destructive to sales operations than a bunch of mavericks selling a different story, just because they don’t like it.  Every sale exists within a market, and people within that market talk to each other, one way or another.  If one sales person pitches cost, another pitches quality and yet another promotes convenience, everybody gets confused.  Confused prospects rarely make good business partners.

Except maybe the customer service team can be more destructive.  The service rep who tells complaining customers “I wish they’d stop telling customers that” undermines everything you’re working to achieve.

Your Customers

Explaining to customers the detail of your sales strategy may not sound a good idea.  Why go into that stuff when the prospect only cares about what’s in the proposal for her.

Customers like to feel comfortable when making that final vendor selection.  They have to find ways of justifying to themselves the decision they’re about to make.

When your entire business model is focused on delivering value to the customer’s specific demographic that comfort comes easily.  Explaining to customers how your thinking specifically targets them and their needs makes them feel part of a special group, and more confident in your ability to deliver.

Your Value Proposition

This is the dimension you’d expect.  Prospects rarely decide to buy when the contract, or delivery is complicated.  That complexity simply gives them more reason to delay the decision.  When the value proposition is clear, credible and attractive the only barrier can be the buying process.  Simplifying that process makes you an attractive partner, because you are easy to buy from.

Sales Strategy

There are many more dimensions to developing an effective sales strategy than the ideas presented in this article but making it easy for everybody to buy into is fundamental.  We’ll look at the other dimensions in future articles.

Worried you’ll get Alzheimer’s? Then follow these seven steps

 

Of the seven factors, low education and and lack of mental stimulation are considered the most significant

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor

Wednesday, 20 July 2011

REX FEATURES

Keeping your mind active could be one of the most effective ways of fending off dementia despite brain degeneratio

Playing chess in old age and going jogging or swimming could be the best preventative measures against the development of the degenerative Alzheimer’s disease that affects one in 14 people aged 65 or over.

Along with five other factors – controlling weight, blood pressure and diabetes, avoiding depression and quitting smoking – keeping mentally and physically fit could dramatically cut the incidence of dementia, which is becoming a major human and financial burden around the globe. Mental and physical exercise are most important because they influence the others, by keeping weight and blood pressure down, reducing the risk of diabetes and depression.

People who can do all this and avoid smoking substantially reduce their risk of developing Alzheimer’s. Worldwide, an estimated 33.9 million people have the condition and that number is expected to triple in the next 40 years.

In the UK, an estimated 500,000 people are affected, with one in six over-80s succumbing to the disease that strips sufferers of their dignity and personality.

A review of research presented at the International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease in Paris yesterday, and published in the medical journal The Lancet, concluded that up to half of all Alzheimer’s cases worldwide are potentially attributable to the seven preventable risk factors. Of these, low education and lack of mental stimulation in old age are considered to be the most significant.

Deborah Barnes and Kristine Yaffe, of the University of California at San Francisco, who wrote the review, say that education and mental stimulation throughout life are believed to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia “by helping to build a cognitive reserve that enables individuals to continue functioning at a normal level despite experiencing neurodegenerative changes”.

Post-mortem examinations have shown that people who were mentally active throughout their lives, with no sign of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, nevertheless had the same degeneration of the brain seen in those who suffered serious dementia while alive. The implication is that the despite this neuro-degeneration, mentally active people manage to stave off the symptoms of Alzheimer’s.

Overall, the researchers estimate that the seven factors potentially contribute to more than 17 million cases of Alzheimer’s worldwide, or 250,000 in Britain. A 25 per cent reduction in all seven risk factors could prevent as many as three million cases.

In a report on the study, Laura Fratiglioni, of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said none of the seven factors were proven to cause Alzheimer’s but that “accumulated evidence from epidemiological research strongly supports a role for lifestyle and cardiovascular risk factors.” Large-scale trials to change these risk factors in populations at high risk, as has been done for heart disease, should now be implemented, she added.

 

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Sales Guys

by stevensreeves

in SPPM

What’s the difference between good and bad sales people,and how can you assess them. Is it activity rates, close rates, total sales, or margin, or customer satisfaction? Maybe it’s just making target quarter after quarter.

The red meat issue, for those who don’t know about selling, is activity. It’s a simple measure, and easy to use when pushing the sales team to work harder. It makes sense doesn’t it – the more calls you make the more business you’ll take.

Does that mean the one making the most calls is the best of the bunch? Not in my book. There are far too many variables, and too often the bad sales rep will win business while the good professional doesn’t.

The best way to assess sales reps’ skills is how they use your sales process. That process is designed to bring in quality business, with good margins and an expectation the customer will be satisfied with what’s delivered; and it should do all that at a reasonable cost of sale.

Sales Probability Performance Management shows managers how well the reps use their sales process. We’ve built Fayol’s management principles into the workflow with milestones, and added colour coding to make the review element intuitive.

Here are examples of prospect lists from the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly sales people. The list is ordered by expected close date with next to close at the top. Probability is calculated based on the number of milestones completed. Deals under 50% probability are presented in red. Those between 50% and 70% are presented in amber while deals over 70% are presented in green.

We’ve kept the customers and values the same for each example to help illustrate the differences.

The Good

The good, or professional, sales rep’s prospect list shows how deals progress through the probability curve as the close date nears. Sales opportunities at the top of the list are shown in green whilst those further away need more work.

The Bad

The bad, or unprofessional, sales rep’s prospect list shows a different story. At the top of the list the deals are showing little or no probability whilst a couple in the middle are at 60%. This rep isn’t using the process to control the sale. Any success will be down to luck, not expertise and application.

The Ugly

The ugly is what you’ll find in most prospect lists – a mixed bag of deals at various levels of probability, with little correlation to close date. This rep uses the process at times but not always. The opportunities in red at the top just shouldn’t be there. S/he should have decided to give up on those and spend the sales time progressing the ones shown in amber. Instead s/he’s left them in the prospect list to pad out the total.

The Sales Manager

This methodology for forecasting sales helps managers identify reps who need support in the sale, or additional training, or a different job.

When the team’s aggregated prospect list looks like the Bad or the Ugly there are problems with the product and the sales strategy. Effective sales operations management will get the whole team’s list looking the Good. That’s how you’ll know the strategy, product, process are right for the business.

Successful Sales Management

Check out our Sales Management tutorials for more coaching in strategy, tactics, processes, systems and tools; all explained in short courses to help you improve the performance of your sales operations.

14 July 2011

GE Healthcare to Form Coalition Targeting Neurodegenerative Diseases

The MIND Coalition will bring together influential organizations and individuals to help fill the gaps in the understanding and management of Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

Chalfont St Giles, UK — July 14, 2011 — Today GE Healthcare announced a new initiative called MIND — Making an Impact on Neurodegenerative Diseases — which aims to assist physicians in improving the detection, diagnosis and management of conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease worldwide. To lead the initiative, GE Healthcare is forming the MIND Coalition, a multidisciplinary, multi-stakeholder body that will bring its influence to bear on this global epidemic.

The Coalition will help to identify gaps in current frameworks for detection, diagnosis and care of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, with particular emphasis on proposing and advocating for positive solutions: what can be improved for patients and caregivers, and how to reduce the cost of disease management in places heavily impacted by aging populations — starting with France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, the UK and the United States.

“GE Healthcare is in a unique position to help people and societies deal with the increasing incidence of neurodegenerative diseases around the world,” said Pascale Witz, President and CEO, Medical Diagnostics at GE Healthcare. “By establishing the MIND Coalition, we are committing to making a difference by advancing clinical knowledge, driving new medical innovations, and developing solutions for age-related neurodegenerative diseases.”

One of the first tasks of the Coalition will be to develop a report that describes the current state of neurodegenerative disease management, and a call to action for healthcare providers, regulators, governments and payors.

Neurodegenerative diseases are currently the sixth leading cause of death in high-income countries, with 35.6 million people suffering from dementia worldwide. By 2030 this will increase to 65.7 million and to 115.4 million by 2050. The rising incidence of such diseases not only affects the health and well-being of sufferers and their loved ones, but has a tremendous economic impact. For people with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias in the US, aggregate payments for healthcare, long-term care and hospice care are projected to rise from $183 billion in 2011 to $1.1 trillion in 2050.

About GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems.

Our “healthymagination” vision for the future invites the world to join us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on reducing costs, increasing access and improving quality around the world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employees are committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.

For our latest news, please visit http://newsroom.gehealthcare.com/http://newsroom.gehealthcare.com

5 Ways to Forecast Sales – Which One is Yours?

by stevensreeves

in Sales Forecasting

How many methods or techniques are there for sales forecasting? There are 5, in my experience, offering varying accuracy and utility. Here’s the background and a short explanation of each.

We all know forecasting sales is a tricky business. It always involves some element of hope, combines a little fear, and is based on some level of confidence. And it always goes wrong. Accurate forecast is an oxymoron – a combination of words contradicting each other.

Nevertheless forecasting sales, revenue, profit and cash flow is the most fundamental of business processes. Everybody has to do it, so all the other business decisions can get made.

Quite how it gets done varies, depending on who does it, and decisions to be made based on the results. For example, the under performing sales rep is hardly likely to forecast no sales and keep the job for long. Likely response to forecasts results can have as much influence on the numbers as can the facts.

Here are the 5 methods I’ve seen used.

1 – Hope

Of course trying to do anything requires a degree of optimism – some combination of aspiration and hope. If you’re selling stuff, or employing somebody else to do that for you, aspiring to reach a given level and hoping to achieve it is an admiral approach to setting targets. But its no way to set a forecast, on which you or anybody else will base decisions. Aspirations are targets not forecasts.

2 – Fear

Fear of the consequences of forecasting is a powerful incentive to self delusion. The under performing sales rep will keep her job for another quarter if the forecast promises to make up for past failings. The struggling business owner will get an extension to his credit line for another six months if the cash flow is positive in the future. Both will have to face reality one day, but at least not today. Forecasts based on fear only delay the inevitable by making matters worse.

3 – Guesswork

Accurate forecasting is impossible, so the only sensible approach is a simple guess. Will that customer buy? Will the competition do something silly with price? Will the CFO provide the budget. Most sales people don’t know the answers to these questions, so they guess – yes, no, or maybe.

4 – Confidence

Most professional sales operations use Confidence as the basis of sales forecasts. Recognising nobody gets every deal on the prospect list, sales managers will apply a factor to the estimated value of each sale to get to a weighted probability adjustment. For example Customer A has a proposal for $100k. The sales rep is 70% confident of winning so the estimated value is adjusted to $70k. The aggregate of weighted probability adjusted values is more likely to be accurate than the other three methods. But it’s still based on a guess. The adjusting Confidence factor is a guess, so the result must be equally a guess. It just sounds more scientific.

5 – Process

Our Process method adds real science to the preparation of sales forecasts. It can be standardised across all sales opportunities and improved through closed loop feedback. It’s more accurate than any other method, and actually adds value to sales operations, being tightly aligned with the sales strategy and process. It becomes a competitive advantage for teams adopting the concept.

Breaking the sales process down into milestones creates a logical progression from first call to contract. Assigning a percentage value to each milestone, and adjusting the forecast value by that percentage as the milestone is reached, increases the weighted value of the forecast. The only way the sales rep can get an higher forecast is by achieving the milestones, each of which make the successful sale more likely.

In this example the list is ordered by close date – next to close at the top – and colour coded for probability.  As deals move up the list they should progress from Red, through Amber to Green.  This colour coding draws attention to the at risk deals.  Any red at the top of the list tells you to get to work on the deal or get ready to lose it.

We’ve built on 30 years experience managing sales operations by adding management science to develop our sales forecasting methodology. Our Sales Probability Performance Management method can be adjusted to suit any business, and improved as managers learn from what it tells them about sales reps, prospects and processes.

Successful Sales Management

Check out our Sales Management tutorials for more coaching in strategy, tactics, processes, systems and tools; all explained in short courses to help you improve the performance of your sales operations.

Virtual reality-based exercises to aid Parkinson’s disease patients

From ANI

Washington, July 12: A new study has suggested that virtual reality (VR) and physical reality exercises can be used to provide effective stimuli to increase movement speeds in Parkinson’s Disease (PD) patients.Investigators from the Departments of Occupational Therapy, Neurology, and Mechanical Engineering, the Institute of Education, and Allied Health Sciences, the National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, studied a group of 13 women and 16 men with PD who were age-matched against 14 women and 11 men without PD. Each participant was asked to reach for and grasp a stationary ball as quickly as possible. Then, moving balls were rolled down a ramp and the participants were asked to catch them when they reached a particular point on the ramp. When trying to catch the moving balls, the targets were visible for periods from 1.1 to 0.5 seconds. These trials were done in both normal physical reality and in a virtual reality environment.“This study contributes to the field of rehabilitation by providing evidence about how to manipulate task and environmental constraints to improve movement in persons with PD,” said lead investigator Hui-Ing Ma. “Specifically, this study shows how to manipulate VR scenarios to improve movement speed in persons with PD, while at the same time depicting their movement characteristics in VR,” he said. “Our study extends the previous findings of the moving target effect in physical reality to VR. Our findings suggest that with an appropriate choice of cueing speed, VR is a promising tool for offering visual motion stimuli to increase movement speed in persons with PD,” he added.The study will be published in the August issue of the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
Copyright Asian News International/DailyIndia.com