How do we define Sales?

Daniel Pink’s Book,  To Sell is Human   explained that sales can be defined as ‘moving’ someone from one position to another in order to help them realise a benefit. 

With this definition, it’s not just 10% of the workforce that are in sales, but the remaining 90% are in sales and they don’t know it yet!

For a startup this definition can help you realise that success can be measured by more than just dollars coming into the business.

Although company revenue is the ultimate sign of business success, it often needs to be broken down into smaller wins. 

Booking a first meeting with a senior executive is an example of moving somebody or selling successfully. 

In large, strategic sales, you need to do a lot of ‘moving’ before the ink hits the paper.  

What is today’s definition of “Success”?

Selling can be a lonely job. On many occasions you are alone with your thoughts 🤔  

Large size deals do not drop every day. So how can you keep long term activities from dragging you down?

For me, writing a list of 4-6 important tasks in the morning helps me to be productive and feel successful. 

Naturally your tasks will be linked to your overall success as a startup founder.  

As you stay focussed on what you define as success today, it will help you feel both positive and productive!

Varying your speed and pace

I recently come out of an intense month where very focused company objectives needed to be achieved.

Reaching these objectives were priority one, two and three. 

Then the world changed. Objectives were achieved and I went back to my usual speed and approach to selling.  

Varying your work speed is similar to exercise. You cannot sprint 100% of the time. Your performance will drop and eventually you will burn out.  

I believe the trick is carefully planning the times when the intensive work is required, and working at an efficient and effective pace at times inbetween. 

By varying your speed your mind will be fresh and over time you will be more effective! 

Persuasive words can be your superpower

If you are a fan of the Lord of the Rings movies or book series, you will be familiar with scenes featuring the persuasive words of Saruman. The book understandably has the best depiction: “beware the voice of Saruman!”

Now I don’t possess the persuasive powers of a middle earth wizard, but through my life I have felt the persuasive power of those that know their wordcraft.

I have also used words that have helped me to increase my rate of sales success. 

Persuasive words to help you sell your startup’s services can be complicated affair.

Over the next few months I will be releasing short courses to help startup founders tap into this persuasive super power!

Stay tuned! 

Who is your Drill Sergeant?

Sales professionals have sales managers and business owners who put on the pressure when revenue is down.

Their pressure forces sales staff to keep selling harder or give up!

As a startup founder who is your drill sergeant? 

At the time it may not be enjoyable to have someone breathing down your neck, holding you accountable. But it does produce results!  

In recent times my “drill sergeant” forced me to increase my intensity with leads and opportunities. It did get measurable results! I would not want to live under that kind of pressure every day, but at the right time it’s spectacular!

So who is your drill sergeant? 

The compounding effect of daily sales activities

Many of the startup founders I have coached have made strong verbal commitments to increase their outbound sales activities, but too few have followed through. 

I know sales is hard! It requires both an intellectual and emotional focus to drives the activities which produces results.  

I believe that most early stage startups will have the best chances of success if they commit to a minimum of one hour per day of outbound sales:

• research prospects via LinkedIn and Google
• outbound emails, calls and messaged
• early meetings
• follow up calls
• draft quick proposals  

Your activities need to be balanced, focused and measurable. Don’t spend all your time researching and drafting proposals... get out there and sell!

If you persist and get the right support/mentoring you should give your startup its best chance of success 😀.

Getting alignment with your sales staff

As a startup founder you should ensure your sales staff are aligned to the success of the business - not just revenue goals. 

Revenue maximising can sometimes conflict with profit maximising.   

Its okay to emphasise revenue in the early days. But sooner or later your business needs to be profitable! 

Revenue focus can cause the following challenges with sales staff:  

• Sales staff are inclined to oversimplify deals in order to keep the wheels turning, ignoring risk factors that will “bite the company in the bum” down the track. 
• It is easier to leave money on the table to achieve revenue growth. This is because getting fairer deals require more effort to negotiate and ads risk to closing the deal!

So be aware of these issues. Changing from revenue to profitability focus is a good challenge to have as your business expands!

Symphonic Harmony

Not long ago I was involved in a group presentation to a potential customer.

It is an inspiration to be part of a team of individuals with different skills and roles giving a harmonious presentation!

Everyone does their part to contribute a consistent message.  

Here are some suggestions to help your group presentations work really well: 

• Write the proposal in collaboration with your customer. They will help you to nail the right message.  
• Make sure that the engineering and business divisions of your startup sign off on your proposal.  
• Conduct a practice run prior to the presentation.
• Map out who your audience is and anticipate possible questions and objections. 
• Immediately after the presentation conduct an internal debrief. Confirm all assignments and next steps. 
• Make sure that you send the necessary information and follow up email within 24 hours at the latest! 

If you work in harmony with group presentations your chances of successful sales will increase.  

When you do have success, make sure that everyone involved is recognised for their contribution!  

Not cracking under pressure

No matter how good you are at selling, at some stage you are going to come under massive pressure to increase revenues. 

The problem with stress is that it’s difficult to  hide from the people we sell to. And who wants to buy from a stressed individual?

We all like to buy from someone that is relaxed and in tune with our needs  

So the challenge is being able to manage that pressure to increase your selling intensity, while minimising the symptoms of stress.  

Stress can cause problems in the following ways: 

1. When under stress, the intellectual side of your brain can shut down, causing you to rely more on your reptile or “croc” brain. This part of our brain is good at keeping us alive when we are in physical danger, but performs poorly in the work environment! A symptom of this is not being able to remember details or poor analysis skills. 
2. When under stress you naturally focus more on your targets and less on the people around you (customers and co-workers). This makes you less empathetic, which can reduce your selling ability.  

Ways is to better manage your stress:

1. Most stress comes from short term worries, so write down your plan for getting out of your sales hole. It will help you and your backers (investors or bosses) to see what you are doing and offer feedback. 
2. When your own fears and worries do manifest themselves, ask yourself what you are doing to manage that. Then run through your plan in your head all the things you are doing and what your future plan is. Daniel Pink (author) has taught this approach is proven to help build genuine confidence- not the fake kind when we try to psyche ourselves up... 
3. Time-box your work and personal life. Make sure your job is getting everything it needs done. However at the same time make sure you allow time for your family and personal relationships. Allow yourself to forget about your work worries for at least one day over the weekend. The break will make you better at you job! 
4. Don’t cut back on exercise. In fact when there is increased stress you should increase it. Your mind and body will thank you for it! 

There is no silver bullet to stop the impact of stress on your effectiveness. But you can better manage it, and lessen its impact so that you can be as effective as possible. 

Success with large key account customers

With larger key accounts you should aim to become their trusted advisor.

How do you do that?

Time.

Nothing will help you be more successful than spending time with them and provide meaningful value.

For example: 

• Look for ways to be of help. Sometimes this might be non-monetary value such as a workshop or briefing. 
• Learn and adapt to the organisation’s culture and terminology. They will be much more comfortable around you when they know you ‘get’ them!

As you do this you will gradually become the default choice among your competitors.  

Over time you become their trusted advisor.