As I reviewed my computer files and documents, I realised that I’ve been involved with or directly delivered work to over 100 businesses of various shapes and sizes, ranging from owner/managed businesses (that continue to be the main source of my work) to coaching a handful of multinational organisations.

So what has happened to these businesses?

Well the truthful answer is anything and everything, although I’m really pleased to say that the vast majority are significantly larger in terms of revenues than they were before – which if I’m being honest is exactly why they hired me. Some sadly, have slipped back into doing what they always did and are stuck on the hamster wheel of hiring and firing new recruits, some are really motoring forward and some have been sold for some pretty hefty pre Covid exit values.

What have I learned?

Working with many clients has allowed to me learn from their experiences, through them telling me what had and hadn’t worked before in the past. Personally, through writing more and documenting more with the clients I’ve worked with has been hugely beneficial – not just to me but to the many clients I’ve been able to share knowledge and skills with.  I also hadn’t realised quite how much the 20 years in business software sales would have prepared me for running a sales consultancy. You are exposed to so many sectors, routes to market, profit variables to name but a few – it really does give a unique perspective that I’m delighted to share.

What could I have done better?

As a person who had a well-structured grounding in sales through big company insurance, if I had continued these learnings in parallel to my day to day selling then I feel my consulting would have taken off even faster. The recent process of writing and releasing 2 of my own books on sales has also propelled me into being a bigger sponge of other sales material than I ever would have thought.

How has the delivery changed?

Delivery and approach have changed significantly, particularly through the pandemic. Whilst we were already well on the way to transitioning towards a remote or part remote service model, there is no doubt that things have moved faster than anyone was expecting. Gone are the full days spent onsite with clients as they struggle to get people together. These have been replaced by short, sharp bursts of energy of 60-90 minutes at a time, which fits much better into delivering an agile solution. The other emergence has been the deployment of more technology to reinforce the work. Using our SalesEnabla platform really has been a ground breaker in being able to create and deliver great consistency for clients and embed the learnings and knowledge quickly and effectively. None more so than the ability to digitally start onboarding new sales recruits online even before they’ve stepped foot into the office.

What would I change from then to now?

I was probably a little too reluctant to speak out to a client if I believed something needed changing in the early years. This is probably somewhat of a surprise to many of my friends as I’ve never been described as being ‘backwards in coming forwards’ These days, I consider myself a lot faster at being able to find the pulse of the business, which allows me to analyse people and performances and get traction quickly when things need to be done. One of my favourite client quotes that I’m most proud of is:

‘The speed in which you grasped the challenges were mighty impressive, but the speed in which you got us on track and started getting sh#t done was even more impressive !!’

After an unspectacular rugby career that ended aged 40, a friend of mine suggested we have a go at a triathlon. “Fantastic”, I said: I can’t swim, I’m a lumpy runner and haven’t ridden a bike since my paper round – hardly Ironman material (although I’m proud to say that I did subsequently finish an Ironman).

So back to swimming and sales – much the same way if you can’t swim you have to start somewhere, and the same can be said about sales. To do this you need to find a group that will make you feel welcome, have people around you that are prepared to help you, and have a coach that often ends up telling you nothing more than ‘you’re not as crap as you think you are’.

You go through a process of swallowing your pride, putting away the ego and coughing and spluttered up the slow ‘beginners’ lane with both hands on a float, then one hand on the flat and one trying to swim.

Eventually after 2 coached sessions a week and another practice session on your own you start to get better. One length turned to ten, ten to 50, and you eventually find a groove where you can swim for long periods of time.

When I first started selling it was commission-only selling life insurance – a tough gig by anyone’s terms but it taught me a huge amount. Yes, it was tough and yes there were many times I had to pick myself up after disappointments but I most certainly never felt like I was left to sink or swim.

I had a good induction, I had great training, I had a mentor who took me under their wing (someone I’m proud to stay I still stay in touch with), and I learned a lot about myself along the way.

Be under no illusion, sales is tough and don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. However, the archaic notion that salespeople are a disposable resource, placing all the emphasis on them being able to sink or swim to me is naïve beyond belief and something business needs to get a firm grip on.

With average tenures of sales resources falling, businesses have to make sure they provide great onboarding, solid training with clear development plans, all backed up with good coaching and mentoring.

Taking on sales resources is no different to any other human capital investment that you make, and just because it was ‘the way you did it in your day’ doesn’t mean it’s right for now. Adopting this approach is nothing but foolhardy and likely to cost you far more in the long term.

To do this, a robust strategy is required and onboarding the right resources at the right time is critical. For example, a big hitter with no leads is a heavy overhead, therefore it may be more appropriate to focus on lead generation activities first to get the motor running first.

The importance of Content

Irrespective of whether you use internal resources of external providers for your lead generation, you will need some form of marketing, tasked with creating collateral to help spark interest for your lead generation activities.

But it’s not enough to just make content. You have to make content that is directly applicable to the salespeople’s needs and find ways to easily get that content into their hands. If you are lacking the ammunition of brochures, case studies and ROI calculators perhaps it’s time you extend your efforts and create them.

This should take us back to the Value Proposition as a simple place to start is by getting back to basics. Whilst this sounds like a dull process of going back to the beginning, it is also a critical element of any new hire’s education and we should always be checking to make sure we’re still relevant.

To do this you have to think about your target Customers and your Product/Service mix. For the customer you should be creating content around Wants, Fears and Needs, and for Product/Service you need to cover off Features, Benefits and Experience.

Only by doing this will it allow you to create the right content for the right audiences.  Once armed with such material you are far better placed to stimulate and feed the Lead Generation function.

But who generates leads?

My personal preference is always to hire internally for Lead Generation and a great way I have found to keep this initial cohort of salespeople/SDR’s interested is to engage them in the strategy.  By showing them a clear development plan – you’d be amazed how motivating it can be as a junior hire to spend time with the Top Performers and Founder in the business as part of their evolution.

Taking on a more junior sales hire with mentoring, clear direction, and good quality marketing support also allows you to offer significant steps in their earning capability; although don’t rule out adding more experienced hires into the blend – provided they buy in to your longer-term strategies.

Hire based on sales talent

Hiring based on recognizing core sales talent is a stronger sales indication than purely looking at ‘years in industry’. But how do you identify sales talent?

Good salespeople must be effective communicators, socially strategic, technical, patient and have plenty of good old-fashioned grit. Primarily, you must evaluate if an individual has the ability to learn, develop and be coached.

You need salespeople who can recognize their own mistakes and areas to improve and figure out how to do better. We have found that salespeople who are naturally curious and humble are generally far more able to learn from others (management, coaches, peers) and from their own experience. This is something you need to look out for.

At the same time, you need to ask yourself is this person going to work hard enough to foster a culture of competitiveness on my team and drive revenue? You can evaluate this by asking about career goals (people who have high ambitions want to beat the competition to make it to the top).

Overcoming the hurdles and getting the blend right

A hurdle that often comes into play is getting the sales team to use the collateral on an ongoing basis. And one element that is often skipped is getting the marketing and sales team to continually work together on collateral ideas. This may seem obvious, but you would be surprised by how many teams skip this step – something a great sales playbook such as GrowthEnabla can support.

Whether it’s quarterly, monthly or weekly, schedule regular meetings with the sales team to touch base and get updates on what’s needed. From there, you can prioritize projects based on what’s requested and have a steady flow of collateral that will actually support with the sales process.

By building your sales function and ensuring to evaluate your strategy, sales talent, and collateral, will ground the sales team and provide a strong position for the team to overcome hurdles.

It will also set them up for success and start the process of shifting the sales responsibility and sales targets away from the Founders and allow them to address other aspects of the business growth.

The job can be tough and challenging, especially when they’re also the primary revenue driver in the business. The ideal solution is to have another leader who is responsible for the continued success of the revenue stream. Usually, this is a Sales.

So, what does a Sales Director look like and how is it possible to find the right person for a business? It’s a very common scenario for a business to struggle to find the ideal Sales Director, going through a lot of failed hires, which is very risky and also extremely costly.

In addition to the expense, when a Sales Director is found who seems like the right fit, the average longevity of a Sales Director is only 19 months and it’s estimated, that during the first nine months of their tenure, they are ineffective because they are building their credibility in the company.

These are pretty shocking statistics and even in the best-case scenario, the sales industry is not known as a stable environment. When a Founder/Director of a business experiences this first hand, they might decide to do away with the Sales Director position and take it on themselves.

This may seem like a risky step, but is it?

When the company’s revenue is at stake, it’s a smart move to cut back on stress and expenditure and build the sales team into a super productive unit. Does the MD, the FD or another role have time to be the Sales Director too?

Time is the traditional enemy of most leaders in a business. There’s too much that needs attention, too many problems that need fixing now and a sales team that needs leadership. It seems impossible, so back to the Sales Director, right?

Not necessarily. From experience this is where many Founder/Directors often make significantly costly errors by hiring the wrong person at the wrong time in the business evolution. I’ve lost count of the number of Founder/Directors I’ve met that, with the best intentions, have hired someone to lead and drive the revenue number. The downside is that if they’re not totally immersed in the journey and heartbeat of the business then making an external hire without the necessary structure in place is often about as successful as pinning the tail on the donkey.    

Indeed I recently met a Founder/Director who had spent upwards of £400k over a 3-year period through hiring supposedly high level people, often from big business backgrounds, without the necessary sales systems in place.

This is where a more robust strategy is required, one that considers a sales system and support technology. Thereafter onboarding the right resources at the right time is equally critical. For example a big hitter with no leads is a heavy overhead therefore it may be more appropriate to focus on taking on a more Junior sales hire with mentoring, clear direction and good quality marketing support.

This way the Director/Founder is still involved in the high-level discussions but not having to lead all aspects of the sale. In doing so they can focus on other elements of growing the business.

The right Sales Leader in the business at the right time often makes the difference between a business that flies and a business that stutters.

Wealth Warning – whilst letting go of sales to focus on other areas of the business feels like a key step forward for a Founder/Director, it needs to be a considered process with a well thought through sales strategy and evolution process. Making a success of a stepping away from Founder/Director led sales should be a planned ‘delegation’ and not a costly ‘abdication’ that takes the business backwards.

SalesEnabla are proud to be a Gold Sponsor of Ocean Dadventure who will be rowing across the Atlantic Ocean in the ‘World’s Toughest Row’ in 2022.

The Challenge 

In December 2022, 4 Dads will undertake a 3,000 mile row across the Atlantic Ocean from La Gomera to Antigua as part of the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. They will battle 40ft waves, sleep deprivation and push their bodies to their limit. One of these Dads is our CEO and Founder, Matt Garman – we couldn’t be more proud to support this epic task he’s undertaking!

The team will attempt to complete this journey in 40 days, on a brutal shift pattern: working in pairs, 2 hours on, 2 hours off, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Consuming up to 5,000 calories a day with a total of rowing 1,500,000 strokes upon completion.

The Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge creates an international platform for each team to raise funds for its charity of choice. So far the participants of the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge have collectively raised just over €11m for charities worldwide since 2013.

Ocean Dadventure are rowing in support of two incredible charities: Wolo Foundation in Sussex, England, that helps support families affected by cancer, and Prostate Cancer UK, raising awareness for a disease that affects so many men of our age.

The Team

The crew of four are seeking to inspire and show people that life begins at 40, or even 50! Between them, they’ve competed at CrossFit games, climbed mountains, finished Ironman events and competed at endurance swimming events.

All Dads enjoy fitness, have a common passion for adventure and taking on (which seem to be) impossible challenges.

Steve Wooley is a successful business owner, who runs a bespoke national commercial insurance brokerage based in the North West. An adventurer, mischief maker but most importantly, a team player. 

James Reid has been a Telecom’s engineer for 14 years and a little over two years ago moved to Westcon to be a presales Engineer. James helps to design solutions and educate customers on the products they offer. Alongside his work, he coaches two evenings a week at his gym, Titan Fitness.

Neil Furminger runs his own large company, NF Construction. They are a main contractor to East Sussex Highways and undertake work for Scottish Power and Energy Network Services and also carry out Cable laying and reinstatement for various energy other companies. As well as being the Director, Neil likes to work on the tools to ensure quality and customer satisfaction. 

Matt Garman is an entrepreneur who loves a challenge and seeks adventure and opportunity. When he can’t find a challenge, he creates one. Having built and exited two IT businesses, Matt is now the CEO and founder of SalesEnabla, an innovative online platform that has allowed him to turn his passion and experience towards helping businesses achieve their real potential. 

If you would like to donate to either of Ocean Dadventure’s chosen charities please visit the Ocean Dadventure JustGiving page.

With so much leading sales content originating in the US, I’ve been a regular consumer of such language for quite some time now. So much so that it is deeply embedded in the methodology of my consulting company, Sales Plus Profit and formulated the foundations of SalesEnabla.

That said we do have some way to go if we are to follow our American counterparts in making the terms standard sales dialogue. Indeed, of the sales sessions I delivered last year, only 14 of the 327 total delegates professed to having any form of Sales Playbook, a statistic that easily translates when you view the Google search variations between UK and USA on such language.

So, what is a Sales Playbook?

Put simply, a Sales Playbook is a cohesive way of documenting and describing all the critical information that a business needs to effectively sell its products and services. It is an invaluable tool aimed at systemising your sales wherever possible. This is not so that your salespeople are programmed to speak like a dalek, more that they have the right information, knowledge and tools at their disposal to always give them a competitive advantage.

What is in a Sales Playbook?

Some examples of useful information that often provide the basis of a sales Playbook include:

·      Value Propositions
·      Buyer Personas
·      The Sales Process
·      Qualification Methods
·      Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
·      Product/Service Offerings
·      Great Probing Questions
·      Objection Handling
·      Negotiation tactics

and much more …

What pains will it address

Implementing a Sales Playbook has many advantages and critically most of them can have a direct impact on your business’ sales and profit performance, these include although not exhaustive to:

Faster Sales Onboarding – I’ve lost count of the amount of businesses I’ve spoken to that acknowledge they should do a better job when it comes to getting new sales recruits up to speed. Having gone through the advertising, interviewing, and hiring process it’s logical that you do your absolute maximum to start getting a ROI on the time, effort and energy that you have already invested in the process? By providing your company knowledge and best-practices to new recruits ahead of their first day will give them a good start and avoid wasted time.

Consistency of Pitch – it’s a long time since 1996 and the first cloning of ‘Dolly’ the sheep, and without knowing too much about where the scientists have got to with humans, we still have a long way to go to break down the inconsistencies that exist within most sales teams. This is amplified further when we consider sales teams who operate remotely or through multiple locations. To reinforce pitch best-practice across the board, if each salesperson has access to your methods and execution, consistency is likely to automatically improve and elevate sales performance.

Safeguarding your sales IP – about 15 years ago I was the unfortunate witness to a business that lost 3 key personnel at the same time. Not only did these people start up in direct competition with their previous employer, but since 2 of these people were the highest performing salespeople, having unrestricted access to the entire customer base and sales knowledge proved fatal. It wasn’t long before the originating company suffered the ultimate trading blow and went out of business. A Playbook can help combat these situations. Ensuring best-practice and key learnings are retained within the company and not lost when members leave the team,

Should I bother?

There are many reasons why business don’t have a Sales Playbook, these can range from time restraints, lack of desire (let’s be honest it can be quite dull putting together) but often it’s because people don’t even realise that it’s what they need. What I have learned from experience is that having a Sales Playbook can payback big time when it comes to even just addressing the above pains let alone any others.

Finally if you’ve ever found yourself with the same ‘hire/fire’ sales challenges that you’ve had before you could do a lot worse than referring back to a certain Mr A. Einstein, widely credited for saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

Launching simultaneously in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the SalesEnabla Franchise welcomes all business professionals and motivated sales individuals who want to work closely with clients, conduct sales consultancy workshops to streamline the strategies needed to protect businesses from stalled growth and unmotivated sales staff. The SalesEnabla Franchise helps businesses grow their sales and profits with minimal risk, by giving them the opportunity to develop and enhance the sales function and safeguard sales experience in an easy, cost effective way.

Given the current economic climate, Matt Garman, Founder of SalesEnabla states: ‘We need to make sure people have the opportunity to get back to business as fast and as risk free as possible. To do this, I think we all need to get a better control of our work/life balance. I created the SalesEnabla Franchise to make this possible. Access our success and experience while demonstrating instant credibility to your clients by using our sales enablement platform.’

The SalesEnabla platform has grown to be a vital resource to many businesses outside of the Franchise model. Because it’s an online, dynamic system, it always reflects the current state of the client’s business, helping to deliver consistent, sustainable results every time. And thus, become embedded within sales training programmes delivered by large and small organisations who have become a step ahead in providing their employees with sales best practice throughout their career. It’s simple, it’s smart, it’s completely customisable, and as a Franchisee it’s yours, because your success is our success.

Unlike many sales consultancies, SalesEnabla allows our Franchisees to easily mirror their clients sales processes within a live digital environment for everyone to share and collaborate. The ability to work with clients, track their progress and sales team engagement by simply viewing their activity. This is one step in the development of building successful sales consistency.

For further information, download the Franchise Prospectus.

When your sales team isn’t performing at the level you want and your growth is failing to meet targets, intuition may say to look and hire an experienced ‘super sales person’ to lift your business out of the sales doom and gloom. However, recruitment is expensive and there are a few less fiscally risky things to check out first.

Identify that you do actually need a new sales person

Evaluating the effectiveness of your current sales team mix is a crucial first step. Using a skills audit grid to outline the roles, skills and experience you need, matched to your current staff, will soon reveal what skills you have in your team and pinpoint if you do have a skills gap.  If the team have the skills, it could mean a reshuffle, rather than a new hire.

Part of the skills audit is making sure the sales roles you currently have match your needs.  These will depend on the size of your company, your industry, your customers, their buying journey and your channels to market. It’s likely that external events and changes in your competitive market will influence the roles you need in your team. Your business may suit an overlap of traditional roles or something completely unique.

Be very clear what you’re hiring for and what you are paying for. Competency and personality profiling can help match candidates to the role.  They give an insight into the candidate’s behaviour and what they naturally gravitate towards.  There’s no point hiring a new sales person to work on new business, if their profile indicates it’s not their strength, e.g., when you want a person to win new business but they are more experienced in, and suited to, Account Management.

Because recruitment is a hit and miss venture, it can be tempting to load up junior and senior sales roles with additional responsibilities. It can be effective, but if you’re expecting your team to embrace accountability and responsibility, it’s vital to make sure you’re not pushing them beyond their ability to deliver.

Example

You decide to catapult an ambitious junior sales person into more senior sales role. Stretching the role is fiscally very appealing. Paying less, getting more. Unless you’re sure they’re ready, you’re gambling with real customers who have the potential for lifetime value. Senior sales roles are usually focused on the later stages of the buying journey and should be filled by people with more experience and wider sales skills. The stakes are higher and the responsibility is greater because significant time and money will have been invested in winning the business.

Is recruitment the only way to achieve what you want? 

Think about your strategic and long-term goals, over and above reaching your sales and growth targets and align them to your company mission and vision. If you make your objectives realistic, measurable and easy to communicate to your team, the actions you’ll need to achieve them will be clear.  Depending on what they are, it may not be a new sales person you need. A redesign of the sales team to suit current needs is a far better option and a better long-term strategy than regular recruitment.

Don’t rule out the idea of outsourcing elements of the sales process. It might not be your ideal long-term plan, but it can be a valuable interim solution to an immediate challenge.  I meet some great businesses who are able to provide well needed support to certain facets of the Sales and Marketing process.

What about internal promotion?

In addition to a sales skills audit, regular performance and development reviews, even informal ones, will help you assess your salespeople individually and as a team.  While training is focussed on learning specific product and selling skills, development should be a longer-term process with benefits for the individual, the team and your business. They are most effective when conducted one on one, with a documented record of the discussion, agreed by both attendees.  This is a valuable record of progress, attitude and skills, creating a full picture of each person’s development for the duration of their employment.

A development review can be used as a career guide, showing a sales person what they have to achieve to be considered ready for promotion. Used as a management tool, they are an accurate guide to where each team member is in their career cycle and their expectations. This will be a great advantage if you decide to juggle roles and responsibilities to meet your sales targets. You may find you can achieve what you want with your existing staff, because you’ll have a clear and current picture of your team. As an added bonus, development reviews illuminate any shortcomings or lack of progress and can trigger remedial training, or when to act, if a person is unsuited to their current role.

Development can include formal mentoring and coaching with more experienced colleagues to encourage upskilling and collaboration.  The importance of an ongoing plan for your people, shouldn’t be underestimated as a motivational tool. It demonstrates your investment in them and shows them how they can progress their career with your business. It’s an effective way to build and retain your top sales talent while nurturing the newer members of your sales team.

Still intend on recruiting?

If the answer is yes, this checklist is your safeguard that you’re making the best decision.  Don’t fall into the trap of adding an expensive hire to your sales mix, without resolving these common reasons why a sales team fails to perform as expected:

• Not having the right sales tools
• Ever changing commissions
• Lack of fairness – people treated differently for no apparent reason
• Lack of motivation because they don’t feel valued
• Lack of engagement with the wider business ‘just a sales person’
• Lack of development opportunity

And have you thought about these?

• Is there’s a current sales person with a great attitude who could step into the new role with more Sales Training?
• If you won’t promote them because you still need their role, is it more cost effective with less risk, to promote them and recruit to backfill their current one?
• Are your existing salespeople motivated?
• Have you made your expectations clear?
• Have you communicated the Sales and Marketing Plan effectively?
• Have you set individual and team goals properly aligned to your company vision?
• Do individual KPIs encourage the sales behaviour you want?

When you’ve ticked all these boxes by reviewing your sales structure and auditing the skill levels in your current team, you’ll be in a better position to decide whether or not you need to add a new team member.

And before you hit the button to recruit, be clear about what you expect from a new team member. Understanding and communicating what they need to bring to the team, will increase your ability to achieve the results you want and hire the talent you need.

Whatever your situation, a regular review of your sales team with a skills audit, is the healthy way to ensure your team is skilled, supported, functioning effectively and the right people are thriving in the right roles.

This is a snippet from my book ‘Why so Many Sales Hires Fail’

Available here 

Implementing a methodology that doesn’t align with your buyer personas, customer needs and business objectives may have a negative impact. I’ve lost count of the amount of business leaders that have suggested they have a ‘closing’ problem when in fact they have an issue with their qualification methods.

The methodology you choose will depend on your product (or service) along with it’s complexity and price point. Another consideration is your customers buying preference. But ultimately, it should provide both your sales resources and your prospects to achieve a mutually beneficial outcome. Look for methodologies that provide prospects with value. Education and providing information is one of the best ways to establish trust and improve performance – ‘don’t sell me tell me’.

Perhaps using a standardised qualifying template for your sales team to follow to achieve continuity in customer experience and irradicate unnecessary activity and wasted time is one component to apply.

However, an overarching factor, no matter what sales methodology you use, is consistency. Ensuring everyone in the sales team is speaking the same language, following the same steps to consistently closing deals and achieving sales success. Identify what you are trying to accomplish in the overall sales cycle and build your playbook around it. Frame conversations around buyer needs and sales opportunities to establish a proposed solution, always leveraging your most compelling sales material.

Consistent sales success depends on sizing up opportunities and focussing on the ones with the greatest potential. Once your methodology is in place, don’t get hoodwinked into letting your sales people tell you how busy they are and how many deals they’re following up – be rigorous and ask questions of them to ensure they are qualifying their opportunities. Asking the right questions may lead to them not being as busy as they think they are!

Personalisation.

I recently held a workshop and decided to put three props in the background of my zoom set-up: an A1 poster of a map, a fishing rod stood up in the corner and a 3D globe that sported on the table. Throughout the duration of the workshop, not one person commented on any of these items.

Although we miss the professional air of meetings being held in an office environment, we have the power to see into people’s homes and working environments. Someone’s kitchen, living room or perhaps a home office. Picking up on these cues and incorporating it into your conversations can create a strong connection, quickly. By finding common ground, you are creating an environment of safety and belongingness, which have significance when it comes to building rapport.

So, it’s important to keep up with the standard practice of science, ask questions, pick up on cues. These conversations did not exist in the world of 2019, but now we can maximise the value of objects and convert them into rapport building opportunities. Reengage with clients in a different manner during meetings and successfully build new and existing professional relationships.

By now, we all know that having call after call can get tiresome, but don’t use that as an excuse. Own your opening line and impress with your expertise, whilst incorporating the subtlety of being aware of the family dog picture that may be in their background. I challenge you to try it out for yourself and see the value it adds to your meeting.