Business Bedrock

One step back and two steps forward

What happened in sales in 2014 and how to move on in 2015

This year we’ve seen a lot of the “same old, same old” practices that many sales resources continue to do wrong.

How many of these sound familiar?

• Waiting for the prospect to call them
• Beginning presentations talking about their own company (a topic of no interest at all to prospects)
• Talking about products, services, features etc. rather than the vision or the outcomes that they can create for the customer
• Blaming marketing for poor leads
• Spending too much time doing anything but selling (e.g. attending meetings, writing tender responses, checking orders in the system)
• Relying on building relationships with prospects – when the prospects just don’t have time, and aren’t interested
• Not realising that how they sell is at least as important as what they sell
• Not liaising with the decision maker and all of the buying influences.

Some key B2B sales facts

In this vein, we were interested to see the following statistics reported out of the Corporate Executive Board’s recent sales & marketing conference (with thanks to Tom Pisello for rounding these up):

1. 94% of prospects discontinue contact with a vendor because they received irrelevant promotions and messages (Blue Research)
2. 71% of business executives get “turned off” a company when content is more like a sales pitch than valuable information – yet 93% of marketers continue to tie their content directly to products and services (The Economist)
3. The average B2B deal now has 5.4 decision makers (CEB)
4. 53% of buyers indicate customer experience in the sales process is more important than brand, product, service and price - “Today brand, product, service and price are table stakes.” (CEB)
5. 58% of buyers disengage because sales reps are not able to help them solve business challenges or articulate the value of proposed solutions (Qvidian)
6. In 2 years time 90% of B2B companies expect to compete almost entirely on the basis of the buying experience, up from 36% 2 years ago (Gartner)

Looking forward to 2015

Despite this grim news, we’ve seen the emergence of some key trends this year and some successful practices including:

• Realising we don’t sell how buyers buy leading us to align our sales and marketing efforts with the new buyers’ journey
• Disruptive insight selling – teaching customers better ways of running their business and shattering their status quo to start them on new buying journeys
• Realising we shouldn’t differentiate “social selling” from “normal selling”, that in fact it’s all selling, albeit in a social world
• Good progress in aligning sales and marketing along the new buyer’s journey
• Increasing realisation of the importance of coaching as the #1 sales management skill. 

Join us over the coming weeks as we discuss the trends we’ve seen, talk about implementation best practices and predict what the “Salesperson of 2015” will look like.

Should salespeople create or pursue opportunities?

How salespeople should spend their time is a fascinating subject!

An interesting place to start is to agree on What is selling? – and indeed how much of their time should be spent selling.

A salesperson is one of the most expensive marketing investments a B2B company can make. (Yes, certainly Marketing is usually a different department to Sales, but personal selling is just one way of promoting a product, hence is a subset of marketing.)

As such, we need to maximise salespeople’s time spent on genuine sales activities.

So what is a genuine sales activity?

Activities often done by salespeople – that aren’t selling

Perhaps we should start by listing what isn’t selling:

• Cold calling
• Booking meetings with prospects
• Building relationships with prospects (if there is no point to it)
• Sending information to prospects
• Writing quotes, proposals and tenders
• Following up customer meetings
• Entering orders into a system
• Checking backorder reports
• Chasing outstanding orders
• Writing content
• Providing forecasts (although it’s a necessary evil – as long as something happens based on the forecast)
• Helping the project manager run the project
• Assisting or dealing with account/project problems

etc etc – you get the picture – but what is left?

So what should salespeople do?

In our world, the key skills of the sales person are to build trust, display empathy, teach, disrupt, influence and persuade with the goal of moving buyers to the next stage of their buyer’s journey, in favour of both the buyer and the sales organisation:

 

Anything that could be done by a lower cost resource (e.g. following up that white paper download) should be done by a lower cost resource.

The studies we have read indicate that best practice for a sales resource is to spend around 80% of their time selling. However, our research with clients generally reveals that sales folk spend less than 40% of their time actually undertaking sales activities!

Why are we getting high cost resources to do what lower cost resources can do?

So when salespeople do sell, what should they focus on?

Ambulance chasing is a popular sport for the majority of salespeople.

Sales people who focus on "building the relationship" service the customer well, get on with all the key influencers - but effectively wait for the customer to figure out what they want to buy, then rely on their relationship to ensure the customer will buy what they want to buy from them.

This works well until another salesperson comes along and points out to the customers that they’re buying the wrong stuff!

Other salespeople only engage when the prospect knows what they want, and in terms of our earlier buyer journey diagram, START ENGAGING PROVIDER.

Research from the folk that wrote The New Solution Selling book insists that only 5-10% of all opportunities involve the customer actually looking. The other 90-95% of opportunities are latent, the prospect doesn’t realise they have a problem they need to act on.

Now, great debate and PR wars between the Solution Selling and Challenger Selling camps about which methodology is dead!

 

 

But at the end of the day, the ability to create rather than pursue opportunities surely has to triumph.

When we pursue opportunities, we’re faced with:

• Multiple competitors
• Lower margins
• Lower win rates.

When we create opportunities where previously they didn’t exist, we have the opportunity to walk with the buyer along their buying journey and shape their thinking.

How we sell is now more important than what we sell.

Sure, the sales cycle will be longer, but the certainty will be much higher.

Corporate Executive Board research reveals that the biggest driver of customer loyalty is the sales experience. If we can solve problems for customers, if we can disrupt their thinking and show them new/better ways of running their business, this has to be how salespeople should spend their time.

Focused sales training can have a big impact on your sales performance. Is solution-based sales right for your organisation or will disruptive customer insight training hit the mark? Complete this Sales Training Effectiveness Assessment and learn more about the effectiveness of your current programs and they can be improved…Find out how or Contact us

 

 

 

Sales tip - how best to follow up when someone downloads your content

It was recently my pleasure to interview via webinar Craig Elias, author of SHiFT!, and renowned guru on all things sales, but in particular the theory of "trigger events".  Trigger events start buyers on new buyer journeys - if we can recognise or even better CAUSE trigger events then we give birth to new sales opportunities, WELL in advance of our competitors knowing about them!

Over the coming weeks, we'll be writing up various components of the interview - expanding on Craig's comments - and giving you links to the various literature he mentions.

To start things off - Craig made some very interesting comments on how best to follow up when a prospect downloads a piece of content - perhaps from your website, or maybe via the landing page associated with your recent email blast.

Via the link at the end of this article you can hear Craig for yourself - but by way of summary he made the following excellent points:

1. When building a form/landing page - the critical questions you need to ask are:
• Name
• Phone
• Email
• How did you hear about this resource
2. Once someone fills in a form and downloads your content, you MUST call them within 5 minutes(!)
• Craig referenced The Lead Response Management Study - carried out by Kellogg/MIT - that informs that the chances of contacting and hence qualifying a lead in 5 minutes is 21 TIMES GREATER than doing it in 30 minutes
3. Craig also referred to Aaron Ross's work around Predictable Revenue
4. So - once someone has downloaded your content - your have 5 minutes to call them.  What do you say?  Craig's advice is:

• State that you're following up on them filling in the form - and you have 3 quick questions, so can you take 2 minutes of their time(?)
• Question 1 - "Did you get the email that has the link to the resource you were looking for?"
• Question 2 - "How did you hear about this resource?" OR "What about this resource caught your attention?"
• Question 3 - "I am curious - what happened recently that made this resource more important/relevant to you?"

What you're listening for as you ask these questions is to determine where on the buyer journey the prospect is ie are they:

• Calm
• Their status quo is shattered ie they're in the "window of dissatisfaction"
• They're searching for solutions/alternatives

 

So - having determined where they are on their journey - what's the CTA (Call To Action)?

Based on information gathered - you may offer to send them a new resource to advance them on their buyer journey - or ultimately you may offer them some sort of "scoping study", wherein you can fully analyse their situation, and make specific recommendations.

So - are you responding to content downloads within 5 minutes?  And are you then asking the 3 key follow up questions?  Click on the link below to hear the relevant part of the interview with Craig.

Craig Elias - Following Up a Form Download

 

Morbid 2014 B2B sales predictions

No doubt this is the time of year where we are inundated with predictions for what will happen in the coming 12 months

Depressingly, it's not difficult to predict what WON'T change when it comes to B2B sales practices.

A morbid post - although if we can all agree on what's wrong, at least that gives us an agenda of what to fix up!

Here's my list - let me know yours and then we're going to write all the contributed predictions up into a whitepaper for next week's newsletter (with full credits of course):

1. Late engagement - most B2B salespeople will wait until the customer knows what they want to buy before they engage - or even worse until the customer contacts them.  This increases competition, lowers margins, and reduces win rates.  Engage with the customer early - before they know what they want - in fact give them an insight that actually STARTS them on their buying journey (and then walk with them on their journey).  Review our notes on "sales triggers" to understand what starts buyers on new buying journeys.
2. Selling products, not outcomes - noone needs a sales person who is just a "talking brochure".  Real value for customers from sales people comes from their ability to "build the bridge" between the products they sell, and the business value these products/services can create for each individual customer.
3. Show up and throw up - research indicates that, on average, on early stage sales calls a sales person talks around 80% of the time.  This is inversely proportion to what should be happening.  Active listening, questioning - these are the critical early stage stage skills.  2 ears, 1 mouth - let's use them in that order.  Customers are impressed by your knowledge of THEM - not of your company and/or your products.
4. Sales and Marketing silos - IDC research indicates that B2B sales teams reject up to 90% of what Marketing comes up with.  Sales and Marketing need to walk arm in arm with the buyer along their buyer's journey.  Focus on the buyer and what they need at each stage of their journey - much will be solved.
5. Asking customers what keeps them up at night - this solution selling approach has been terrific, but now every sales person is asking the same question.  Modern buyers believe (rightly or wrongly) that they can figure out the solutions to their problems themselves.  What they want is to be educated - the modern sales organisation needs to come up with unique insights to challenge customers' thinking.
6. Relying on relationships - per the last point - customers want to be educated, and they don't need a relationship built to have this happen.  Research indicates that the "relationship builder" is the POOREST performing sales profile - if buyers want a relationship they should buy a dog.
7. Believing customers - the nicer the customer, the higher the likelihood they will "fib" rather than give you the bad news that they don't want to deal with you.  Selling time is precious - the need to qualify is critical - life is too short.

That's my list - and it's just a start.  Do add your thoughts as a comment - or drop me a line, and I'll be happy to add in your thoughts into our next whitepaper.

Also, if you would like to discuss your sales planning for 2014 and think I can offer some insights, don't hestiate to contact me to book in a complimentary 1 hour consultation. 

 

Social selling - the jury is in!

Just as occurred some years ago with global warming, there are people both scared and dismissive of B2B social selling.

The reasons why executives are scared of social selling are well documented. That being said, there are some hugely successful global business leaders using social selling tactics incredibly well, some of which even admit they could not operate without it!

Increasingly though, there is a mounting case of statistical evidence to point to the success that social media can provide if successfully mixed into the sales process. We thought we'd share some of the most compelling statistics with you.

Consider the following:

• Some 72.6% of sales people using social media outperformed their sales peers, and exceeded quota 23% more often
• Social selling increases total team attainment of sales quota, improves customer retention rate, increases sales forecast accuracy and increases the percentage of sales reps making target
• Some 3 in 4 IT purchasing committees are ready to have a conversation with a new vendor on social media
• Some 68% of IT buyers are open to connecdting with vendors via social media and 76% are ready to have a conversation via social media

We could list countless more statistics - but the case is inarguable.

So - why aren't more sales teams getting on board?

In our view, the problem lies in the training strategy. The emphasis is usually placed on training sales teams on individual platforms ("Come on everyone - let's attend this course on how to use Facebook to sell") rather than on selling techniques that happen to include (relevant) social platforms. 

We need to constantly remind ourselves that we need to learn about selling - not about social media!

At Carpe Diem we've had great success training sales teams on sales workflows that include social media, even though these workflows might span a number of social media platforms. We concentrate on teaching about how to sell more effectively and only focus on platforms relevant to the business we're training. 

What are these workflows?

• Finding new opportunities
• Finding new prospects
• Being introduced to new prospects
• Tracking competitor activity
• Maintaining thought leadership and "top of mind" with customers
• And so on.

See how your organisation's social media adoption is faring against others in it's space by participating in our annual "social media trends in B2B organisations" survey.

If you want your sales teams to start winning more deals, we're holding a bootcamp "Leveraging social media for sales success" on October 24 in Sydney (also 21 November in Brisbane) in response to the hundreds of people who come though our doors armed with the stats that prove social selling is having traction. 

The bootcamp will introduce and build on the key new concepts and skills required to create and implement a successful social media strategy for B2B sales. You will walk away with an action plan that will be followed up by the instructor after the session to ensure you are implementing what you have learnt.

How to get on your buyer's shortlist - 5 key insights

By Melanie McKinney, Marketing Consultant at Carpe Diem Consulting. 

Last Wednesday (29/05/13) was the first instalment of our ‘How to get on your buyer’s shortlist’ roadshow which is taking place in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane over the next two months. 

The roundtable took place over lunch for just 15 handpicked people from the B2B ITC sector and was led by Bruce Rasmussen, Founder and Managing Director of Carpe Diem Consulting. 

If you would like to attend the next roundtable, please register here. You can also download our relevant whitepaper ‘“5 tell tale signs your sales team don’t know how buyers buy” or talk directly to one of our expert consultants about our sales training courses.

1. We don’t sell how buyers buy.

The most effective way of showing how out of sync the sales process is with the buyer’s journey is this useful visual diagram we put together in 2011 which has only got more relevant as time has gone by. 

 

 

 

How to tell if you / your company is not selling how buyer’s buy:

1. Lower margins and win rates based on late engagement

2. Not enough “fresh” opportunities

3. You provide solutions to problems that may be misdiagnosed

4. You rely on building relationships to win deals 

5. Marketing generates leads – and throws them over the fence to sales

2. Identifying sales triggers

“Sales triggers” are the events that happen to buyers that move them from “calm” to “loss of status quo”.  This generally signals the start of a new buying journey.

Top 3 triggers:

1. Bad experience with current supplier

2. Awareness of need to change – to avoid a problem

3. Change of company or job role 

Download some free chapters from the book that defined “sales triggers” here.

3. Listen for sales triggers

If we can “listen” to hear when a buyer has experienced a sales trigger, then we can reach out to help them – well before our competitors. 

There are an array of tools and methods to listen to for sales triggers: 

1. Bad experiences 

• If people are unhappy with their current supplier – they talk – people love to complain when things aren’t going well!

• You can watch your prospects / clients on Twitter e.g. search for complaints such as “mobile phone network rubbish!” or “printing company sucks” etc.

2. Awareness of need to change / problem

• When buyers first recognise they have a problem, they will generally type their problem into Google – to see who else has that problem, to find out how to fix it etc.

• We want our websites packaged with the keywords used when customers type their problems into Google – we want them to land on our page (SEO).

• Customers will also often share their problems with their peers in online groups and forums – we need to be there listening and ready to help. 

3. Change of company or job role

• Interestingly buyers often buy something when they have a new company and/or job role

• Keep an eye on your prospects and clients so you never lose track of where they are

• IKO-System accesses your LinkedIn profile and sends you an alert every time someone on your “watch list” moves company or job.  

4. Sales profile types who can create sales triggers

Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson from the Corporate Executive Board report in their book that there are 5 main types of sales people. Which one can you identify with? 

The hard worker

• Always willing to go the extra mile

• Doesn’t give up easily

• Self-motivated

• Interested in feedback and development 

The challenger

• Always has a different view of the world

• Understands the customer’s business

• Loves to debate

• Pushes the customer

The relationship builder 

• Builds strong advocates in customer organisation

• Generous in giving time to help others

• Gets along with everyone 

The lone wolf

• Follows own instincts

• Self-Assured

• Difficult to control 

The problem solver

• Reliably responds to internal and external stakeholders

• Ensures that all problems are solved

• Detail-oriented

Only one of the above can truly create sales triggers – the Challenger. These sales people focus on pushing customers' thinking, introducing new solutions to their problems and illuminating problems customers overlook.  Instead of listening for sales triggers – Challengers create them. 

5. Shattering the status quo

Be different - TEACH

• Offer insight that no others can
• Communicate – and foster communication

Be knowledgeable - TAILOR

• Know what the customer values
• Know what drives the customer’s success

Be assertive - CONTROL

• Discuss the money
• Keep the customer moving

Next steps

If you want to know more about the buyers journey and other topics raised in this blog, register now for our ‘How to get on your buyer’s shortlist’ taking place in CBD Sydney July 30. We are bringing the roadshow to Brisbane and Melbourne in July too, so if you’re interested in attending or co-hosting, please email me.

Carpe Diem Consulting has a range of training and consultancy packages based on all of the topics raised in this blog. Our model has been tried and tested hundreds of times with some of Australia’s leading ITC companies such as Microsoft, Optus and CA Technologies. Some of our most popular courses in 2013 include:

• Social media for sales training

• Content marketing training

• Sales process development training 

• Challenger sales training 

Contact me for more information on any of these training courses. 

Social selling global insights - part 2

By Melanie McKinney, Marketing Consultant at Carpe Diem Consulting.

My previous post gave an introduction to the scary stats which show a general lack of understanding of social selling among sales people and some insights from the Huthwaite Future Forum. For this post I wanted to share the most useful top tips for social selling from the event. Read part 1 here.

5 top tips for implementing social selling:

1. Once you’ve come to the party, you’ve got to stay – and track everything! (Christ Collacott).
2. Celebrate the small wins and make sure it spreads across the organisation. (Marie Sornin).
3. Go and talk to your customers and ask them how they use social media, where do they get their information from, how can you engage differently with them, should marketing be providing information in a more contextual fashion? (John Golden).
4. Trust is key to getting that meeting / putting forward a proposal and catalysing that into a sale. To get trust, share content that you know your audience needs. Remember people only care about what makes them better and stronger in their jobs, if we cater to this then they will reciprocate with trust – not in 2 days, but in time. If the content is consistent around what they need, they will trust you. Always put your own insight into the content. It may take a year to get that meeting, trust needs to be built up slowly and over time, but it does pay off. (Tom Skotidas).
5. Give stuff for free – don’t force people to give you their details every time they download a piece of content. If we hold back and don’t give them things, they will either find it somewhere else or they will just get irritated. Don’t "give to get" and try to let go of control. (John Golden).

 

5 expert insights for the future:

• Google+. Facebook now has to make money so is going backwards. Also Pinterest is one to watch (but only if your customers are on there). Remember it’s not always good to be an early adopter – listen and learn. (Danielle Di-Masi).
• We will see a resurgence in blogging – positioning people as thought leaders and experts. (Chris Collacott).
• Social and search (searchial) – predictive solutions. Digital and mobile platforms will be able to provide you with content before you have searched for it. Make sure we create our digital footprint now e.g. mobile, location based – then in the future we will have good foundations. (Marie Sornin).
• Emergence of personal brand. Providing your customers with insights and relevant information which blur the line between marketing and sales. (Tom Skotidas).
• The line between sales and marketing will be so blurred a new role will be created, maybe with a new name. Sales people have to know what’s going on in the industry and they have to know the businesses of their buyers. They don’t usually understand anything other than the selling process but they will need business acumen plus skills in research, patience, discipline, micro-marketing, AND the selling part. The successful sales person is going to be different from the one today and will require a lot of training and investment to ensure they have all of these different components. (John Golden).

 

Social selling global insights - part 1

By Melanie McKinney, Marketing Consultant at Carpe Diem Consulting. 

Last Wednesday (8/5/13) I was fortunate to be able to attend the Huthwaite Future Forum which was about the all-important topic of social selling. We were joined by our fantastic panellists: 

• John Golden, CEO & President, Huthwaite
• Matt Loop, Head of Sales Solutions, LinkedIn
• Marie Sornin, Social Media Director, Fairfax Media
• Tom Skotidas, Director, Skotidas
• Chris Collacott, Senior Digital Marketing Manager, Deloitte
• Danielle Di-Masi, Business Etiquette & Digital Relationship Expert

What follows is a selection of learnings, quotes and insights from the forum, created especially for our readers of the Carpe Diem Consulting blog. I’ve split this into 2 parts, with part 2 to follow.

Many of the themes brought up during the discussion were about taking back control of the buyer’s journey and interacting with your buyers in an insightful way at the right time. This is the theme of the series of lunchtime roundtable events we’re running at Carpe Diem Consulting: How to get on your buyer’s shortlist. For more details and to enquire about attending, please email me.

Scary “Setting the scene” statistics:

The results of the 2012 Sales Management Association survey of sales managers and sales leaders found:

• 96% use LinkedIn at least once a week
• 80% believe work would be more productive if social media was used properly
• 11% had formalised customer facing social media efforts for sales, compared to 82% for marketing  
• Majority thought customers were more astute with using social media than they were
• Few have had social media training  
• 67% disagree or strongly disagree that they have had sufficient training
• Social selling remains an ambition - not reality - at most B2B organisations today. (Adam Thorpe).

5 best summaries of social selling:

1. It’s still selling - you still need to find the right people to engage with, listen, then contribute something of value. If you’re not a skilled sales person offline, you wont suddenly be amazing in social selling! (John Golden).
2. It’s about building a brand, growing demand, and generating leads – all in a trackable way. (Toby Skotidas). 
3. Social media has changed selling into a cycle, not a funnel. (Marie Sornin).
4. It’s about being in a much better position to contact people in the right way, at the right time, so we can contact people in a consultancy way, not in a salesy way. (Matt Loop). 
5. Think about it this way - if you wouldn’t go up to someone at an event and just start suddenly listing out your products and prices, then why would we act like that online? (Danielle Di-Masi). 

5 biggest challenges to overcome:

1. Management: In B2B, social selling is a surgeon approach – providing stuff to people that is useful means we need reflection, and being being able to write in this way takes time. The time required to do social selling is at odds with your job spec – which is usually to sell stuff fast. Your manager needs to allow you to develop those skills and reflect. There needs to be an allowance for sales people to develop those skills and training must take place. (Tom Skotidas).
2. Mind set: There needs to be an evolution of thinking. Bosses allow people to go to networking events, but if they catch them in a LinkedIn group they are usually in trouble for not being “out there” selling. (John Golden).
3. Training: There needs to be a process in place which is on-going consulting or training, so that the learnings actually gets implemented. It’s a habit that needs to be built into the muscle structure of your company. Most companies don’t focus on long term – senior management need to change their thinking. (Tom Skotidas).
4. Blurring of Sales and Marketing lines: Marketing needs to go further into the sales process than ever before. And Marketing needs to learn some of the skills previously associated with selling. Marketing and sales have to be comfortable with the blurring of the lines. (John Golden).
5. Inauthenticity: If you think of something cool and immediately post it, it is spontaneous but not necessarily authentic. Identify content which is useful to a specific audience - Marketing can help Sales to distribute the content in the right way. It’s still spontaneous, but it’s also authentic and authenticity is more important than spontaneity. (Tom Skotidas).

 

10 point checklist - improving B2B sales performance via role plays

50% of a sales training session is forgotten within a month – and 95% is forgotten within a year.

Given this – what can be done to ensure new sales behaviours are both learned AND RETAINED?

“Living it” is by far superior to “hearing it” – and hence “role plays” are a key tool in the professional sales educator’s armoury.

But we’ve all been on dull role playing sessions – where we all divided into pairs, taking it in turns to play the part of the customer, and then the sales person, in some vaguely defined scenarios offering dubious value.

How can we deploy a role playing format that will lead to DEMONSTRABLE LONG TERM BEHAVIOUR CHANGE?  What is BEST PRACTICE in building and delivering role play exercises?

Our experience in building and facilitating B2B sales role play sessions indicates the following proven 10 point checklist will help:

1 - Use experts

Role play sessions can be quite intimidating, so always best to use a sales consultant with skills and experience around both sales training and also facilitation.  Their early involvement should include providing advice on the format for the session, what the objectives are, how each role play should be constructed and how the feedback should be provided.  A good sales consultant will also be able to offer advice as to the best follow up activities for after the session.

2 - Draw scenarios from the current sales funnel

The role play scenarios should be built as closely as possible to current opportunities within the sales funnel.  This makes the learning more concrete for participants – but could also lead to the opportunity’s sales owner receiving some insight that they could put into practice in front of the “real” customer.

3 - Expert or “real” customer to play the part of the customer

Whilst it is valuable for members of the sales team to play various customer roles during the role play sessions, there is value in “mixing this up”, perhaps by using the expert facilitator – or perhaps as a surprise involving a real life customer!  The opportunity to involve a real customer in a role play session – and to follow this with a properly facilitated Q&A session on “what it’s like to be sold to” - can be most revealing.  After all – when we’re “actually selling” to a customer it’s unlikely we’ll get the feedback that we need on our sales techniques!

4 - First train everyone

Role plays need to be constructed to test out each participant’s skills in pre-defined areas.  To this end an initial “refresher session” is useful to get the upcoming participants to focus on what is required – but equally important it allows observers to understand specifically the areas within which they need to review and provide feedback.

5 - Build scenarios along the buyer’s journey

Our thoughts on the need to follow the buyer’s journey are previously documented.

       
In a session where the opportunity exists to have a number of role plays, it is recommended that the role plays be constructed to align with buyers that are at different parts of their buyer’s journey.

For example – some buyers are “calm” when they shouldn’t be:  a good salesperson who has done the appropriate research needs to be skilled at pointing out to some prospects that things in their business aren’t as good as they need to be.  This role play can revolve around “shattering the status quo” of a “calm” prospect that has a business issue that they’re either not aware of, or ignoring.

Further down the buyer’s journey, a role play could be held at the stage where a buyer reaches out to engage with a number of service providers – how can we best differentiate our organisation based on an understanding of the buyer’s needs?

Even further down the buyers journey – perhaps a role play in a situation where a customer has promised us that they will move forward with us – but now things seem to have “gone cold”.

These are all real life scenarios where our sales people need to be practiced and polished

6 - Observers have to work just as hard

Role play observers need to work at least as hard as the role play participants themselves.  Instruction needs to be given as to the key criteria by which the role play will be assessed, and feedback provided.  Whilst certainly the expert facilitator can provide the feedback – if the role play genre is going to find a home within the sales organisation on a permanent basis then the team needs to become self sufficient.  Providing a “feedback framework” gives observers a useful structure within which to observe and then report back their observations.

7 - Fully brief customer role players – “don’t be obnoxious”

Members of the team playing the role of the customer need to be fully briefed in advance of the session.  They need to understand what the customer situation is (even if this is not fully revealed to the sales person), what the various customer personality types are, what information is NOT to be revealed etc.

A key success factor – though – is “not to be obnoxious”.  Including “roadblocks” outside of the written brief can make things unnecessarily difficult for the person playing the role of the sales person. 

8 - Record problem areas for future work

There are 2 opportunities to create any necessary behaviour changes in the sales team:  immediately after the role play finishes, but also via practice and reinforcement into the future.  It’s critical that the role play session is seen as the START of a process – not an END in itself.  The observations from the role plays should identify a number of areas for future work – this future work will NOT happen by itself.

9 - Embed into the fabric of the sales organisation

Whether it be strategising a major opportunity, critically undertaking the bid/no bid process, or developing winning account plans – the “peer review” process is a key pillar of modern B2B selling.  Superior ongoing advantage will accrue to any sales team that commits to assisting all its members to publicly practise – and hence improve - their professional skills on an ongoing basis.

10 - Make it fun

Whilst the outcomes are serious – the role playing process can be fun!  Embrace it and enjoy it.  Give awards – and celebrate failure(!) – as “safe failure” is what role plays are all about.

 

How does the above list work for you?  Any comments or additions?

____________________

 Special acknowledgement to Steve Terry, State Manager|Queensland, TechnologyOne for inspiration.  TechnologyOne is a leading enterprise software solutions provider.