The Sales Insider » Essays

Sales and Marketing – “It’s Time to Ask Yourself What You Believe”

Steve Watts — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 18:05:29 +0000

It’s been nearly three months since the Sales Insider’s last blog post.

I’ve been heavily involved with the new InsideSales.com Certified Administrator project, and various Dreamforce 2011-related projects, so other than an occasional tweet, and interacting with clients, time for our online presence has been in short supply.

However, a few weeks ago in a company meeting, we watched this presentation on TED.com. And I was absolutely compelled to write a post on its contents.

It’s 18 minutes long. The ideas presented within it are simple and easy to comprehend.

And I cannot stop thinking about it.

(Having watched the presentation, as well as catching a recent replay of an action movie classic on AMC, the title of this post felt infinitely appropriate.)

People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

As Simon Sinek mentions, all of us are great at saying what we do.

“We provide consulting services to sales and marketing teams”; “We fabricate pin screws for construction and industrial design”; “We provide legal services to commercial real estate brokers.”

But:

Very, very few people or organizations know why they do what they do. And by “why” I don’t mean “to make a profit.” That’s a result. It’s always a result.

By “why” I mean: what’s your purpose? What’s your cause? What’s your belief? Why does your organization exist? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? And why should anyone care?

People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

The interior of our brains, the limbic region, is responsible for all of our feelings, like trust and loyalty. It’s also responsible for all human behavior, all decision-making, and it has no capacity for language.

When we communicate from the outside in, yes, people can understand vast amounts of complicated information like features and benefits and facts and figures. It just doesn’t drive behavior.

People don’t buy what you DO, they buy WHY YOU DO IT.

Not Getting Lost in Our Own Museums

Simon Sinek says we talk about the “What” because we don’t know, or don’t understand our “Why.” As salespeople, when we don’t know the “Why,” the natural result is to talk about what we do know—our product.

The result? Endless streams of seller-oriented drivel. Useless “Just Checking In” emails and voicemails that do nothing but annoy the prospect. Over-long presentations that don’t address buyer needs.

As Dan Waldschmidt said on his blog several months ago, “Start every conversation with the word ‘YOU’ and stop communicating unless you are delivering new value.”

Understanding “Why” is a massive step forward in working from a buyer-centric, rather than seller-centric mode, because it naturally imbues conversations with purpose. Delivering your “Why” lets prospects know up front, with zero ambiguity, if you’re the type of organization they’d like to work with. Once they recognize that, your job is to be respectful of their time, their buying process, and deliver value.

If you understand your purpose, your conversations will more naturally turn to providing solutions that fit your prospect’s vision, and not simply rehashing benefit statement lists.

The Coming of the InsideSales Revolution

Steve Watts — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 18:59:06 +0000

Real revolutions–the ones that definitively change the way we work and live–rarely start in executive board rooms. They almost never start from profit-analysis reports, pipeline review meetings, training agendas, or marketing demographic outlines.

A revolution isn’t about creating a “brand,” or “engagement,” or “measurable metrics” (though in many cases those come later).

It’s not about who has the best “spin,” the best PR, or the best prime-time network ad slot.

It’s about an idea.

An idea, and people that believe in them so strongly that the idea becomes reality.

Revolutions don’t happen by accident. They come because the time, the place, and the circumstance demand it, and the people in the center of it can’t bear the thought that things might remain the same.

So what does this have to do with business, or lead management, or lead generation, or better sales management practices?

Consider this:

According to a 2009 research study done by SKKU and infoUSA in 2009, the number of professional inside sales departments deployed across all industries in the U.S. and Canada was approximately 800,000.

However, that same research study predicted that by 2013, the number would grow to well to over 2 million, a nearly 300% increase in businesses engaging in professional inside sales operations and processes.

Bear in mind, that’s 2 million professional inside sales departments–not just a job count tally (the number of professional inside sales jobs can obviously be extrapolated to be much, much higher).

A 300% increase isn’t a “minor trend,” or a “significant shift.”

It’s a Revolution.

Look, let’s be frank–all of us here at InsideSales.com are part of a business. We exist as a company because we provide software and services to our clients to make a profit. If we want to continue making a profit, we have to provide those products and services better, faster, more reliably, and with more value than our competitors.

But one of the driving focuses, one of our clearest, most visible agendas for making our clients happy is focusing on the Inside Sales Revolution.

Inside sales is growing because it is IN FACT revolutionizing the way businesses operate. Technology gives inside sales teams and managers better visibility into what’s working. It’s more repeatable, scalable, and measurable than many outside sales practices. It puts more control of the process back in the hands of those who want it most: sales reps and managers. Technology merged with inside sales means there’s far more ability to track, analyze, report, and ultimately act on what’s working, and push aside the stuff that isn’t.

Inside sales is revolutionizing business because it is a fundamental reaction to the reality of the Customer 2.0. When the power is in the customer’s hands, the ability to see, find, shape, and react to their needs becomes the most important part of a sales rep’s job.

Technology, and the immediacy of connecting with a customer at the exact moment they need you, reach out to you, is the new reality of the 21st century.

We’re in business to make money. But we’re also in business because we have a vision for our clients that makes them better at what they do, because we’ve helped them envision how what they do impacts their own clients.

A Chance to Give Something Back – The CWCIC

Ken Krogue — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 17:29:29 +0000

A few months back, I mentioned that we had started on the process of doing a project for a local Utah non-profit, the Center for Women and Children in Crisis (see their Web site here).

And last week, we put the “rubber to the road” and actually did it.

We feel extremely blessed to have had the opportunity to participate in this project. InsideSales.com CEO Dave Elkington and I have made a specific commitment to finding opportunities like this, and giving back to the community, particularly to at-need and at-risk groups.

If any of you have knowledge of other opportunities like this one, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Call in to the company, and ask to talk to me directly about a charitable work opportunity.

Never Too Late to Go Viral

Ken Krogue — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 05:35:16 +0000

Blogging keeps you on your toes… always looking for a good story.

They have come to me in the form of ice castles, current events, or good restaurants. I just came from eating lunch at El Azteca Taco Shop in Provo, Utah that has been around since 1962. Many of us from InsideSales.com go there several times a month now. In fact, we like them so much, we had them cater our (after) Christmas party.

I remember getting a few tips that I needed to try this little taco shop just north of Provo High School. I had enough people mention it in the fall of 2010 I finally caved in.

Everything looked the same as other times I had gone, but Wow, the food had changed! I had been there several times over the years, but today things were VERY different. The food was decent before, but now it was out of this world.

Uniquely wonderful salsa

You know me, I had to find out why. There is always a story, so I asked.

Meet Carlos Rubio.

El Azteca Restaurant

He recently moved back from Los Angeles to manage the family El Azteca Taco Shop and to expand the catering business. He had spent over 10 years creating fabulous catering spreads in Hollywood with the likes of Wolf Gang Puck, The Patina group, and Off The Wall. He worked The Oscars, Grammy’s and many private events for the likes of Denzel Washington, Drew Barrymore, and Elizabeth Taylor. He created special menu items for Pedigree, Starz, Uncle Ben’s and Nissan.

His food is sooooo uniquely outstanding you can’t help but tell someone. Every dish is interesting, different, exciting. Everyone has tacos, burritos, rice and beans, but what about:

Tropical Fajita Platter
Acapulco Shrimp Enchilada
Chicken Mole Platter
Oaxaca Burrito
Tropical Cactus Salad
Jicama Slaw

Everything tastes great and each dish is unique.

That’s it! That is the primary ingredient of word-of-mouth.

Stand out. Be unique, wonderful, interesting, different, exciting.

And I’ll talk about you, and thousands of others will also. There is nothing better than word-of-mouth advertising and it’s never too late to go viral. (And this article isn’t just about tacos.)

“The Best Laid Plans” – An Apology for Screwing Up Yesterday

Ken Krogue — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 20:12:54 +0000

The power of automation, as most of us have discovered, is a two-edged sword. When set up properly, automation is leverage for the work you already do, multiplying results. When set up incorrectly, it multiplies your mistakes in the same way and occasionally causes you to “auger in.”

So in the interest of honesty, we screwed up pretty bad yesterday.

One of our good, solid marketing vendors sent out an email in the morning of January 6 according to plan . . . except it wasn’t the right content. In fact, it was inviting our friends to join us at Dreamforce ’10 on December 6th, a month after it happened. And though it would be easy to point fingers and blame the vendor, ultimately the fault is ours. It’s our job to make sure we have the right content in place, that it’s clearly marked, and that it’s in the right format—not our vendor’s.

But there are a couple of things our little faux pas reminded me of as well.

One, I can’t help seeing the irony of sending an out-of-date email for salesforce.com’s Dreamforce event that touts our PowerDialer app’s Top 10 position on the Salesforce AppExchange . . . nothing better than shouting, “Hey, look how awesome we are!” when you’re not wearing any pants or our zipper is undone.

But since Marty McFly’s not around to loan you his DeLorean to go back to December 2010, just take it from us that if you have any relation at all to the sales, marketing, or hosted software industries, you should check out Dreamforce next year. You won’t regret it.

The other thing this reminded me of, though, is the need and power of being genuine. One of the reasons, I think, that our little email foul-up got such an interesting response (and yes several associates in the industry let us know what happened) wasn’t just that the content was irrelevant, it was that it was clearly designed as a “marketing piece” (the egregiousness of the error was so bad that one of my good friends, Bill Otteman, Director of Sales Ops at Genius offered (again) to provide his services for future campaigns). Let’s talk Bill!

There’s still room for the occasional, “high concept” marketing email in today’s environment, but that space is getting awfully small. Research has proven time and again that a brief, genuine, “human” email gets a much higher response, and should be the primary focus for sales-targeted email. People want an email from a person, not a marketing department.

And it’s funny, we have touted our internal research that an email from a sales rep, that is written in plain text, quite often doubles the response-rate over a “marketing-ish” email. And a spelling error in the email even drives the response rates up further; because it comes from a “real” person who makes mistakes.

So when we make a mistake, it’s a good time to remember just how human we all are… all the time. And remind ourselves to cut someone else a little slack when it happens to them, even if it goes out to tens of thousands of people!

Sales 2.0 and a Dead Canadian

Steve Watts — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 22:32:19 +0000

“Our Age of Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today’s job with yesterday’s tools and yesterday’s concepts.” -Marshall McLuhan

New Year’s Eve, 2010, will mark the 30-year anniversary of the passing away of someone you’ve probably never heard of, a scholar by the name of Marshall McLuhan.

Many academics consider McLuhan, a Canadian who taught the majority of his life at the University of Toronto, to be one of the foremost pioneers in media and communications studies, and their effects on the social and cultural makeup of society.

The concept of “the global village”—an always-on, totally connected society, linked by electricity and wires to move information—was first posited by Marshall McLuhan in 1961, 30+ years before the public Internet and World Wide Web would make his vision a reality.

So why do you care who Marshall McLuhan is, you ask?

Because if there’s a better quote to represent our 21st century reality than the one that kicks off this post, I have yet to see it.

“Trying to do today’s job with yesterday’s tools and yesterday’s concepts” sums up the entire zeitgeist of the Sales 2.0 / Marketing 2.0 / Social Media / Whatever Else 2.0 movement.

It’s the reason why education in America is failing rapidly, why Apple and Google, and not Microsoft or Sony are the world’s technology leaders, why newspapers are dying, why Hollywood Video is dead (and Blockbuster is getting there fast) in the face of RedBox and NetFlix, why American automotive makers seemingly haven’t turned a profit since 1974, why the MPAA and RIAA would rather spend money on exorbitant legal fees than in promoting better entertainment content and distribution.

It’s also the reason why sales advice and sales training continue to be highly profitable businesses, why Social Media “gurus” are getting paid large consulting fees, why “naked” CRM systems are no longer enough without marketing automation, social connectivity, and lead response management.

The reason we’re willing to pay a lot of money for new methods, new technologies, new ways of thinking, is because they’re needed, and we’re seemingly willing to reach out to anyone who appears to have some answers.

Realistically, can everyone actually be an expert who claims to be?

Hardly, and it’s a cautionary tale to not get caught up in hype and snake oil.

But if we’re in such desperate straits to make sense of our emerging economic reality, it’s because we recognize that Marshall McLuhan was right.

Trying to do today’s jobs, meet today’s needs, connect with today’s customers, while using yesterday’s tools and concepts cannot be anything but a recipe for failure.

Dreamforce Day 1 – Who’s Going to be Real?

Ken Krogue — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:03:06 +0000

Sitting at our booth at Dreamforce, I’m always amazed at the energy these big conferences bring. It’s a testament to me of the power of human creativity, how we as people are at our best, our most noble, when we are in the act of creation—from steel and silicon to words and ideas.

We are a race of builders. We weren’t meant to sit around and wait for society to create itself. We make it ourselves, in our images.

I don’t know why I’m bringing this up at this very moment, sitting in this rock-hard plastic chair, the noise of a crowd echoing—but it’s the truth. Building something, sustaining something is the point of who and what we are.

I guess I bring this up because marketing, particularly direct marketing, too often settles for something less. We talk about tapping in to customer needs, organizing our efforts around creating real customer value, but end up simply selling the “thing,” not what makes the thing valuable.

Over the next four days, I’m interested to see who’s going to be giving out real, valuable information and insight, and who’s going to be giving out thinly-veiled promotional pitches.

Random Friday Thoughts

Steve Watts — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 20:05:13 +0000

I’ll be the first to admit that on a literal, unbiased, hard-statistical mathematical-formula basis, sales is a numbers game.

((X number of calls x Y contact rate = Z prospects) x (A closing rate) = B # of closes)) x C dollar value per close = D Total $Dollars.

Here’s the problem: the very sentiment of turning a process that involves people–with our flaws and foibles, our dreams and despairs, our challenges and opportunities, our cultures and world-views–into an algebraic equation reeks of the “old guard” sales mentality that so desperately needs to die.

Break down the phrase itself: you’re turning “people” into “numbers,” and treating one of Western society’s most sacred individual rights–the ability to pursue our own happiness and satisfaction in a career of our choosing–as a “game.”

Treating sales like a “game” is inherently self-oriented. It completely removes the other humans from the process.

There are obviously great sales people in every industry, but too often “Sales is a numbers game” is used as either a mental crutch to simply get through another batch of prospecting calls, or a self-delusion when pipeline is low. Hitting numbers without engaging in the real process of making a difference in prospects’ lives and business isn’t sales, it’s a pathology of manipulation.

Defining Success

Ken Krogue — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 17:56:45 +0000

If your definition of success is high levels of sales and revenue, then you are naturally bound—even held hostage occasionally–by your customers’ demands.

When success is defined largely by monetary gain, you don’t get to create your fans (read: customers), they create you, and the second you forget this fact, you’ve lost.

We hear of artists complaining that no one is buying their product, that the financial rewards of creating “art” aren’t enough, but the attitude of “I’m the artist, I produce what I want!” runs directly counter to the nature of business. If it’s not selling, it’s because people see zero value in what’s being sold. Produce something people want, and they’ll buy it.

If someone wants to be an “artist” and not “sell out to the masses,” whether they realized it or not, they already subconsciously decided that being critically acclaimed as a “visionary” was more important than sales.

And the principle for businesses is exactly the same.

Before any plan gets executed, before you open the doors for the very first time, before you ever “flip the switch” and send your business Web site live, the first thing you have to decide is this:

What is success?

The answer to that question will largely decide everything else you do.

If “success” means creating a world-wide brand, you’re going to have to work and act (and work some more) in certain ways to get there.

If critical acclaim is more important than bottom-line sales, your roadmap shifts.

What levels of revenue are going to be enough for you to be satisfied? $500,000 a year? $10 million? 50? 100? 500?

Here’s the other thing: once you’ve made your decision, either live with it or change it, but don’t gripe about the inevitable results of the choice.

Companies, actors, singers, sports teams go bankrupt (financially or artistically) not because they never make missteps (even Hall of Fame rock bands have an occasional mediocre album), but because they invariably try to change their definition of success and expect there to be no consequences.

Sales Motivation – The Metaphor of “Jerry Maguire”

Steve Watts — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 19:22:57 +0000

Every semester for two years while teaching college composition, I used an excerpt from the movie script for Jerry Maguire to emphasize the key point of writer ethos.

Classically defined, ethos is the persona, or appearance, of a writer or orator to their audience—the words they chose, the emotional voice and tone, the sense of authority the speaker projects.

Parts of the film haven’t aged well since the mid-’90s, but there’s an essential essence that still resonates, a part of the human experience that it manages to capture. The movie at its heart wasn’t a story about sports, or even love; it was a story about a human being coming to realize the power of humility, self-actualization, and integrity.

The metaphor for the entire film becomes Jerry’s journey to Kinkos at 3:00 AM to make a hundred copies of a mission statement he had just written because he knew, KNEW that it was that damn important, and that he’d never be able to look himself in the mirror again if he didn’t do something about it.

The story rings true because we recognize something about the character in ourselves; the person who sees that the real path to success lies in everything that they aren’t.

And for some reason, even in the midst of the Digital Age Sales 2.0 world, we still haven’t gotten the message.

If the metaphor for Jerry Maguire is a 3 AM trip to Kinkos to save our souls, then the metaphor for the public’s perception of the professional sales industry is a used car lot huckster.

Why do we struggle so badly at implementing the customer-centric changes we know are vital and necessary to getting the results we want?

The evidence is real and compelling that frankly, we’re still not “getting it.”

The Bridge Group states that barely 50 percent of professional sales reps are meeting their quotas, while quotas continue to go up.

Sales cycles are lengthening. Buyers take more time to decide.

The number of “touches” to reach and close a sale are up.

Propelling Brands says that less than 10 percent of companies have the right people and processes in place to make the changes Sales 2.0 requires.

We all know the drill: “Sales 2.0″ means that the power within the sales cycle has fundamentally shifted from the seller to the buyer.

Yet we’re lagging to implement the needed changes. Clearly, Houston, we have a problem, yet “we the collective sales industry” still have our thumbs up our . . . well, you get the picture.

I work for a company that makes sales software tools to improve rep performance. And having worked here as long as I have, I’ve seen first hand the impact they can have on company’s bottom line.

Yet more than anything this industry still needs a massive shot of its most essential ingredient:

Integrity.

It’s time to stop playing the game.

We can’t change every snake oil salesperson on the planet—but we can convince our own clients that we have their best interests at heart, and more importantly, we can believe it ourselves.

Our prospects are watching our every move. Our ethos. How we talk to them. Our attitudes toward them and our work.

How do they see us? How do we see ourselves? And how do they think we see ourselves?

Hero or villain? Confidant or rogue? Self-interested power broker or trusted advisor?

Trust-based selling is a two-way street. It means means the buyer trusts us to act in their interests, and the seller trusts that the buyer is going to respect the seller’s product and process.

As The Trusted Advisor’s Charles Green states, prospects don’t need us to help them make a “rational decision”—they need to feel comfortable with the rational decision they have to make. A buyer doesn’t want to “know everything” about our product or industry, they want to trust that we know enough to have their best interests at heart.

When our message and our ethos align, closes happen.

If we’re going to improve sales performance, create better management strategies and sales processes, it has to start with managers and reps recognizing that the goal is no longer to provide information (and subtle pressure to close). It’s to provide knowledge, insight, and understanding.

And until we get that and implement it, we might as well all be selling used cars.

Heaven knows General Motors has a lot of them to go around these days.