The more I see trainers include phrases like, “More than 35 years experience in sales, sales management…” in their LinkedIn profiles and in the “About Us” sections of their websites, the more conscious I’ve become of this issue.

Here’s an important point: Hiring a sales trainer, just because they are young, to train your B2B sales team is as much of a mistake as hiring someone with decades of experience—but little of it relevant to overcoming your specific selling challenges.

Does that suggest that you should hire someone in their late 30′s or 40′s just cover all bases?  Not if they aren’t qualified.

I’ve coached a bunch of trainers to remove references to their age, years of experience, or when they graduated from school. All that copy should be replaced with how they have contributed to their clients achieving their revenue and other performance targets. Mentioning the demographics of the groups they’ve trained, without being defensive, is something I’ve told them to consider as well.

I just read today that the average age of a Google employee is 26. Here’s a question: What’s the best age for a sales trainer that would be working with groups of 26-year-olds?

A sales training buyer client of ours rejected a sales trainer not because they were seen to be old, but because they were perceived as delivering the same content for the past twenty years. Now there is a challenge that can be relatively easily overcome.

Older sales trainers and consultants can offset a lot of the concern that prospective clients have about their age by:

1. Investing all the time and effort required to stay up on what works in B2B selling today: research, trends, customer buying patterns, technology, books and blogs written by thought leaders, etc. Thought-leadership can overcome some peoples’ biases against age.
2. Being active in social media, employing “the right” practices.
3. Eliminating dated references, anecdotes, and examples from their blogs, literature, and training content. Using phrases such as, “When I carried a bag in the ’80′s,” or, “Remember what Jackie Gleason used to say…” are really, really irrelevant and, I believe, damaging.
4. Replacing stilted, dated writing with what’s more widely accepted by all generations. (I read this article and it convinced me to reconsider my writing style a bit.)
5. Getting schooled on the differences among the different generations, how they work, think, learn, play, entertain themselves, sell, and buy.
6. Staying in shape physically. Eat right, exercise, get enough sleep. I highly recommend yoga. But that’s a post for another day.

 Photo source: The Dallas News

Near the end of 2011, I had the opportunity to spend an hour with Corey Sommers on the phone for the first time. At the time, he and his partner, David Jenkins, were the two principals at WhiteBoard Selling, a small, niche,  sales enablement provider. I say “were” because Whiteboard Selling was acquired by Corporate Visions last year. I called it a very smart move at the time and I still believe that to be true.

Back to the briefing. As an analyst firm, we send the following agenda to providers looking to brief us for the first time:

1. Target market/sweet spot;
2. Brief overview of approach/products/services – not a sales pitch;
3. Who do you compete against? Differentiators, unique capabilities;
4. Customer value proposition;
5. About your company. Years in business, size, growth, revenue model (percentage training, vs. consulting, vs product sales, etc.);
6. Growth plans, if any;
7. Marketing approach;
8. Deployment of technology-enabled learning and –selling;
9. Several brief examples where a client has quantified the results of what you provided;
10. Current opportunities and challenges.

Corey covered the entire briefing in one whiteboard slide via a web meeting. I found what Corey did to be profound.  During several hundred sales performance provider briefings to that point (and since) never once did anyone attempt to employ anything other than PowerPoint. And the whiteboard was so much more effective than Powerpoints. Corey grabbed my attention (and my imagination) and didn’t let go.

Since that initial briefing, ESR has had the opportunity to work with and speak to companies that have rolled out the Whiteboard Selling approach. They provided further validation that there is significant differentiation and value employing Whiteboard Selling.

So, with all that in mind, you can see why I couldn’t wait to get my hands on their brand new book.

Just to be clear: using a whiteboard in a selling situation isn’t new. This book takes the reader through an established, proven process and architecture for whiteboarding, and a provides a method for broad deployment across a sales organization. That is new.

As an example, according to Whiteboard Selling, there are six different types of whiteboards that can be used in different settings and at different stages of the selling cycle.  They are:

1. Qualification and discovery whiteboards
2. Why change whiteboards
3. Solution whiteboards
4. Competitive whiteboards
5. Business case whiteboards
6. Closing whiteboards.

This isn’t a book to skim through in order to pick up a few tips and tricks. Not at all. After making a very strong case for Why the whiteboard, and clear direction on How you use it, the authors push hard for adoption not so much by individual sales contributors, but through a formal initiative driven by marketing, sales enablement, or key executives. I like that a lot.

By the way, this is the kind of book that supports what you’ve learned reading The Johsua Principle, The Challenger Sale, Bottom-Line Selling, and many of the other books that have content relevant to today’s tough business environment.

Here is a link to the book on Amazon. I highly recommend it.

Original blog post begins:

It’s always an honor to be mentioned in a new book, or to be asked to provide an endorsement. In this case, the author asked me to write the forward.

Here is the forward to Tony Hughes’s The Joshua Principle (Revised Edition – 2013):

Six months or so ago, Tom Snyder [a colleague and sales performance improvement expert] and I were chatting on the phone. As we began to wrap up our discussion, he asked me if I had read the book Tony Hughes sent me. I drew a blank. Tony Hughes? I told Tom I didn’t remember receiving it, but he was sure Tony had sent me a copy. Tom asked if I would do him the favor of reading it, and discussing it with him afterwards. It sounded important to him, so—without really knowing what I was getting into—I agreed that I would.

Sure enough, I found The Joshua Principle within a substantial stack of still-unread books I receive in the mail regularly, and hadn’t gotten to yet. Opening it, I vaguely recalled glancing at the copyright page a few weeks earlier. I flipped a few pages further into the text and found this note on the title page: “Presented to Dave. Tom Snyder thought you will enjoy this book. I look forward to meeting you one day. It’s a compelling story.” I felt bad that I had set the book aside and missed the note when I first received it.

I stuffed the book into my computer bag, figuring I’d read it on the way home from Warsaw, where I was headed to deliver a keynote speech.

Settling into a seat in a nearly empty forward cabin for the nine-hour flight home from Poland, I finally opened the book and started reading… and didn’t put it down again until I finished hours later. To call it a “compelling story” is an understatement. Joshua encapsulates precisely what those of us on the consulting side of selling need to be able to share with our clients, expressed in a way no one I’ve ever met, or whose book I’ve read, has done before.

The Joshua Principle is a book about selling that reads like a coming-of-age story, delving into issues like competence and professionalism for the everyday, business-to-business salesperson. And, having framed it as such, I can tell you with confidence that Tony scores a perfect “10” in how the story plays out. He gets another 10 for describing how executives really buy, and 10 more for accuracy in portraying precisely how RSVPselling will win their business. And, he gets one final 10 for weaving it all into a warm and entertaining story that even includes an engaging mystery.

So, don’t make the same mistake I did by putting this book aside for later. Take a deep breath, put your feet up, turn the page, and get ready to lose yourself in the truly engaging story of a sales winner and how deals really get won.

You can order the book here.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with:

• Delores Freitag, AVP of talent development at LIMRA
• Joey Davenport, CLU, CLF, who is a Principal & Chief Development Officer for the Hoopis Performance Network in Chicago, IL.
• George Ludwig, a 30-year veteran consultant, speaker, and trainer, and author of PowerSelling.
• Harry Hoopis, CEO of the Hoopis Performance Network

Dave Stein: Why did LIMRA and the Hoopis Performance Network develop Trustworthy Selling?

Joey Davenport: Over the past decade, the insurance and financial services industry has been focused on integrating technology, compliance oversight and other areas of the business not related to sales training and development. There was a common theme recurring from field and home office leaders that we’ve lost the “art of selling” in the industry. Couple that with the fact there has been a major trust gap between consumers and financial professionals that developed as a result of the down market, bank bailouts and what people refer to as the “Bernie Madoff” factor. So HPN and LIMRA developed Trustworthy Selling to recapture the lost art of selling in the industry and bridge this trust gap.

Dave Stein:  What makes this program different from other sales training programs out there?

George Ludwig: There are several factors that make Trustworthy Selling different from other programs. First, this program is the only one that is built by the industry, for the industry. Most sales training programs being used in financial services is basically generic, one size fits all sales training with, at best, an insurance and financial services “wrapper” around it. Secondly, this is the first time in the industry’s history that a research based organization such as LIMRA has teamed up with a field-based organization such as the Hoopis Performance Network. This combination of both the art and science is very unique and brings the best of both worlds together into a single sales training program. Finally, Trustworthy Selling uniquely packages two industry-validated developmental assessments with the training which creates a very relevant learning experience for its participants

Dave Stein: How does the content/curriculum impact sales representatives with different levels of experience?

Harry Hoopis: Over 2000 financial representatives in more than a dozen companies have experienced Trustworthy Selling® since its launch 18 months ago and 93% report it’s a valuable use of their time. There’s something for everyone. With 50 distinct skills presented through the course, our 30 day behavior change survey points to differing subsets of skills in use on the job, by tenure. First year agents gravitate to the initial engagement skills, which makes complete sense while five-year agents are implementing techniques to manage self-limiting beliefs and grow their practice. These new behaviors are then translating 18% growth in monthly premium three months after the program. That’s good for our participants, good for our companies, and good for consumers. Consumers, who know they need our products but are intimidated by the process, are increasingly acting on their intention to buy, because they increasingly trust these skilled advisors.

Dave Stein: What are some of the productivity results and feedback you’ve received since releasing the program.

Delores Freitag: As an industry-based research organization, LIMRA is in a unique position to gather productivity data and calculate the ROI from training for our members. We have the industry data and it’s in our DNA to scientifically study selling. Now we’re in the enviable position of having built a world class sales training program and being able to measure its impact, one company at a time. LIMRAs Business Impact Results Tracking (BIRT) validation process is a complimentary service available with the installation of every Trustworthy Selling® program. So far every company that has engaged this process has experienced a positive ROI. While each company tracks different metrics a recent outcome of the BIRT process showed an 18% increase premium, 27% increase in policies sold, and 31% increase in new clients. According to the ROI Institute’s methodology that equates to a 165% ROI in training. We are pretty proud of that!

Dave Stein: For more on this topic check out the ROI Institute’s casebook published by the ASTD titled Measuring the Success of Sales Training, Chapter 9 Trustworthy Selling, as well as ESR’s evaluation of Trustworthy Selling.

Haven’t heard of NinetyFive 5? That’s not an accident. Stealth was a critical component of the growth plan designed by co-founders Randy Illig, Craig Christensen, and Mahan Khalsa. They shared with ESR just a year ago what they had accomplished up to that point. We were impressed. They are among the industry leaders in terms of content, learning technology, social media assets, tools, and measurement. Once their original product development plan had been completed, it was time for an acquisition by a larger company with proven distribution capabilities and a broader focus on business improvement for their clients.

Last Friday I spoke with Randy and Bob Whitman, CEO of Franklin Covey. They took me through the logic of the deal and the significant potential Franklin Covey now has in this market with 170 salespeople in the U.S. and delivery capabilities in 104 countries.

All-in-all this acquisition makes a lot of sense. We’ll be watching them closely.

But having worked with hundreds of Irish companies over the years and having been involved with selling programs such as SalesSTAR and the International Selling Programme I am only too familiar with some of the war stories that people tell about their experiences when hiring sales people aboard—and unfortunately some of the worst stories come from the U.S.

This is what I call Yankee Doodler Danger. Most of you will be familiar with what I mean—either you’ve heard the stories or had the experience first-hand.

Here is the scenario:

It’s an important new sales hire in the U.S.—the whole company is excited about it. It’s really going to help the business get a boost in growth. You’ve met the candidate; he or she comes highly recommended by someone on the board. They’ve got a great CV and have worked for some of the biggest companies in the U.S. They know the industry so they will able to open doors and use their network to get meetings from day one. All the reference checks went well—the compensation package is a bit high but the combination of your product, their experience, and their connections is bound to lead to deals—fast.

What’s not to be happy about? The die is cast and the deal is done!

Fast track 6 to 9 months. You’re tearing your hair out—there are no deals closed and a host of excuses as to why. The pipeline is looking seriously anemic; you’ve invested a fortune’s worth of time in on-boarding and support but are seeing no return. Worse still, the rest of the sales team have their hackles up and are not happy about carrying a highly paid under-performer on the team.

The fairy tale ending is that you fire the person you hired quickly and move on. The not so happily-ever-after ending is that you carry them for another 6-9 months, have your reputation damaged with a couple of key prospects and business partners and further disenfranchise the rest of the sales team. Plus … the board tells you, “We told you so!”

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Two out of three companies say they have blown it big time when it comes to getting key hires right. Hiring is an inexact activity. You win some and you lose some. But those who improve their odds tackled the challenge head on and didn’t leave it all up to guesswork and luck.

To find out more about what you can do to avoid the Yankee Doodle Danger join me in Dublin on the 17 -18th of April for a hands-on, realistic workshop about how to hire and keep smart, sharp sales talent. To find out what it’s all about click here.

Image source: © AOshlick – Fotolia.com

Although in numbers of industries, the direct/outside selling model is rapidly being transformed to inside and reseller approaches to market, in fact, there are plenty of big deals out there and the competition within them is ruthless. Pursuing these deals without a process is malpractice, in our view.

Of course critical and big as they apply to deals are relative. A large, critical make/break the quarter deal for a $5 million company may be (only) $300k. For a Fortune 50 it could be $100 million.  But however big your company is, you get to decide what’s a critical win and what isn’t.

Just to be clear, there are three processes in play here:

1. First is the sales process. (Pre-determined steps, actions, gates, activities, tactics, etc., to win a deal.)
2. Then there is an opportunity management process. (Determining the specific sales objective, strategies, tactics, qualification criteria, customer information, etc.)
3. Finally there is a deal review process. (Taking a salesperson through validating their plan and their approach.)

Depending on which sales training company you’re speaking with, those terms may be different.

Here are some of the critical components of a sales opportunity planning session:

• Assessing and priortizing information that has been gathered by the sales person.
• Determining what additional information is required, by when, and from whom in the customer’s company that information should come.
• Engaging in the discipline of planning through working the plan. In other words, the value isn’t in the physical manifestion of the sales plan. It’s in the effort, thought, and collaboration behind building that plan.
• Collaboration among sales rep, manager, other team members, and outside consultants, where appropriate. (In certain situations I used to work on contingency.)
• Formulation of objectives, strategies, and tactics based on information, analysis, and logic—not guesswork.
• Measuring the progress of the opportunity since the last session.
• Assess risks and rewards for continuing to pursue.

I had the opportunity to use a series of screenshots taken from The TAS Group’s Dealmaker sales process automation software (with permission, of course) to demonstrate best practices in qualification.

I provided a series of diagnostic questions that would likely compel the salesrep to need to get more information from the customer.

If you’d like to view the recording or download the slides visit SMMConnect’s site here.

Finally, join me on April 4, 2013, when I’ll be presenting “How to Interview Sales Candidates Without Getting Sold“.)

I had the opportunity to engage with David Stargel, President and COO of The Complex Sale, on this interview. For those of you who “knew them back when…” and haven’t kept up, this will be eye-opening for you.

Here is the interview:

Dave Stein: David,  it looks like you have had a lot going on the last couple of years at The Complex Sale.  Tell me a little about where you have been focusing?

David Stargel: Dave, we’ve focused a lot on expanding our offering in several areas that complement our existing solutions.  We’ve added skills programs around prospecting and selling more effectively to executives in today’s changed markets.  We’ve also built a complete Demand Creation methodology and a Strategic Presentations workshop.  And we’ve rolled out a completely new set of software tools for sales people and sales managers.

Stein: What drove these changes and new programs?

Stargel: Really it was fueled primarily by our clients along with our experience in the market.  Clients came to us in areas where they felt their teams were really struggling and basically saying, “If you have a program in this area, we would prefer to do it with TCS.”  We looked at those areas and at what we were seeing in the market and felt like these programs could have significant impact on our clients’ revenue streams.

Stein: What has been the reaction to the training from your customers?

Stargel: It has been tremendous.  When we first rolled out some of the skills programs, I wondered how some of the senior sales executives at our clients would react.  But they have been like sponges soaking it up.  That, to me,  confirms  that we attacked the right areas where even senior people were looking for help.  These programs have been so well accepted at companies like SAP and Comcast that they are quickly challenging our core programs in terms of total revenue production.

Stein: The new software tools sound very exciting.  How do you see clients leveraging these new tools based on today’s market?

Stargel:  In particular, I think sales managers will really leverage these new tools.  Today’s front line sales manager is probably the most overworked professional out there.  Their span of control is too big, they don’t have enough resources, they’ve got to find and hire talent and still provide a very accurate forecast.  We can provide these managers with great analytical tools that will help them look at their pipeline and also analyze what the sales person is doing in their opportunities and point them to the trouble spots. This helps them not only prioritize their coaching time, but also to know at quarter end and year end, which deals they need to focus on to ensure that accurate forecast.

For the salesperson, we continue to focus on making it easier to manage their deals and on not slowing them down. That means making the tools work the way they work and where they want to work.  So we focused on making the tools even more visual and easier to use, and added additional  capabilities like Social Media connection and mobility through iPad versions.

David Stargel is President and COO of The Complex Sale. He has extensive sales and sales management experience including over 30 years working with the high-tech and services industries.

Prior to TCS, David was a Vice President with SAP America with responsibility for more than $50 million in revenues and over 100 employees.  This responsibility included all sales, consulting, education, and customer service functions in a 10-state region.

David also served as District Sales Manager at SAP for a direct sales force responsible for Global Account Strategies for the largest global accounts in the southern United States.  During this period he was responsible for hiring, training, and leading the sales force in implementing methodologies and strategies for managing the complex sale.

The Complex Sale is a premiere sales training and methodology company that helps their clients win the deals they can’t afford to lose.

Founded in 1994 by Rick Page, author of sales bestseller Hope is Not a Strategy® – The 6 Keys to Winning the Complex Sale and Make Winning a Habit® – 20 Best Practices of the World’s Greatest Sales Forces, TCS has trained thousands of salespeople and managers and transformed sales organizations all over the world.

Links: The Complex Sale, The Complex Sale’s Solutions

I’ve written a lot about sales process automation tools like Dealmaker, White Springs, and Revegy, and the significant value they provide to the sales rep.

But there are other approaches companies are taking to get their sales reps to focus on CRM compliance as well as other important things like skills development. One of those approaches is gamification. (Here is a recent article about it by a Gartner Analyst.)

Enter Bob Marsh, CEO of LevelEleven. LevelEleven develops easy-to-use software tools that help sales and other managers keep their teams focused on the right things. Their flagship  product, Contest Builder, was an idea generated by the ePrize team who implemented salesforce.com within its own sales organization.

Bob is an expert in gamification. Here is an interview I did with him.

Dave Stein: Gamification is a trending topic right now and a bit of a buzzword in the industry. But what exactly is gamification and how does it apply to business and the enterprise?

Bob Marsh: The concept of gamification revolves around applying game-like activities and contests to a non-game setting; it is the blanket term for stimulating and rewarding participants in non-game contexts. In business and the enterprise, gamification is a new form of incentivizing employees in order to motivate behaviors and drive innovation.  Over the past year businesses have seen first hand the positive impact gamification can have.

But while gamification might seem simple and basic in theory, applying gamification to your business and designing a program tailored to fit your enterprise and it’s unique challenges takes time and careful thought.

DS: Getting more specific; how can the sales industry benefit from gamification?

BM: Salespeople are fundamentally competitive, so gamification plays right into their ambitious nature. Offering fun, simple contests aimed at engaging sales reps to do things like complete data entry fields or sell more of a new product ultimately enables them to feel successful in their daily job, and also provides reps with recognition. In sales, participation in motivational reward campaigns is not much of an issue. In fact, we’ve found that sales reps are almost more motivated by the contest itself and the acknowledgement, rather than the actual reward.

DS: How have you seen gamification impact this industry thus far?

BM: Gamification is making an impact across various industries from marketing to healthcare. But has been especially effective in enterprise sales, due to the competitive nature of sales reps that I mentioned.

In fact Carter Lusher, research fellow and chief analyst at Ovum, recently noted, “Using gamification tactics in enterprise sales environments has proven to be an effective tool for motivating teams to focus on the right goals.”

From within our own business, here at LevelEleven, we’ve seen quite positive success. Clients like Comcast, the Detroit Pistons, InsideView and others, have used our product Contest Builder, the #1 gamification app on the AppExchange, to increase data-entry, sales leads and overall ROI. One of our customers achieved 50% of their annual sales goal on a key product, within 6-weeks by applying gamification tactics. With enterprise gamification, businesses are seeing results that impact their bottom-line.

DS: Do you have best practices or advice for sales managers who are looking to apply gamification tactics amongst their sales teams?

BM: Definitely. Here are a few tips for sales managers to keep in mind when considering gamification:

• Entertain: it is really important to make the contest fun for employees and keep them entertained.
• Keep it simple: Only pick a few behaviors to motivate – focus on key areas and avoid making too many goals as it can become confusing.
• Real time results: make sure salespeople always know where they stand and share status updates regularly. Furthermore, encourage team members to share how they are doing – a little trash talking is okay!

I’ve seen first hand what a great tool gamification is to get sales teams motivated and the positive impact this can have on businesses.

Bob Marsh, CEO, LevelEleven
Bob has spent 18 years in sales and sales management. Bob joined ePrize in 2000, was a top sales producer, and played a key role in making ePrize the dominant player in the consumer promotion and loyalty category. Bob secured some of ePrize’s top clients including Delta Airlines, Ford, American Express, General Motors, Comcast, Target, and General Mills. In 2010, Bob led the implementation of Salesforce for the ePrize sales team, which is where the idea for LevelEleven began.

You can follow Bob on Twitter @bobmarsh5

During the past few weeks I’ve fielded queries from several clients regarding our view on salesreps working from home.

More salesreps are telecommuting now than even a few years ago.  But working from home isn’t for every salesrep or every company.  It could mean the difference between your home-office reps making their numbers or not.

Intent on  diagnosing a potential problem with one VP of sales, I asked, “Do you have evidence that he’s working 50 to 60 hours a week…  for you?“  The VP said he didn’t know whether the rep was working the hours, or full time for his company.  He should have known the answers to both parts of that question and the answers should have been two yeses.

When hiring, there is no question in my mind that you don’t want to be the one who gives a salesrep his or her first opportunity to work from a home office.  It’s way too risky.  I’ve seen dozens of failures due to this simple mistake.  You have to be certain that the rep has successfully sold from a home office environment in the past.  No matter how much it appeals to them, some people just can’t be productive in a home office environment.

Here are some recommendations:

• Don’t hire a rep for a home-0ffice situation who can’t prove they’ve been successful at it in the past.
• Some salesreps need the support and camaraderie associated with an office environment. Others aren’t capable of working from home due to lack of discipline or motivation.  Still others don’t have the knowledge, experience or skills to get the job done.  Make sure you know all the strengths and weaknesses of your own reps and anyone you are looking at hiring.
• Certain selling  jobs require a fair amount of time in the office.  If that’s the case, no one should be based at home. A day a week, fine, but no more than that.
• Don’t let a good rep strong-arm you into allowing them to transition to a home-based office unless you’re certain they’ll get the selling job done.
• Make sure you’ve got the right sales performance measurement system in place.  You need to be able to spot trends in individual performance before they impact your forecast. For that you’ll need to have the right leading indicators in place.
• If you’re going to have reps working from home, provide them with the equipment they need, including hardware, the appropriate sales enablement software, and a high-quality headset.

Finally, the risks associated with home-based sales reps are mitigated when you have a pragmatic sales methodology that’s in place and used across your entire sales team.  If you don’t have one, that’s what you need to do, starting today.

Photo credit: © Wollwerth Imagery – Fotolia.com