Unlock the full potential of your sales strategy as we illuminate the transformative power of practice in elevating sales performance. Our latest episode isn't just about hitting quotas; it's about shattering them through a masterful blend of skill, strategy, and customer-centric focus. Hear the tale of a recreational boating company's top seller whose approach was flipped on its head by his successor, leading to quadrupled sales thanks to a pivot towards cultivating relationships over relying on aggressive tactics. With a meticulous breakdown of sales achievements into three tiers, we provide you with invaluable insights into the 'why' behind each team member's performance, ensuring that you walk away with actionable knowledge to apply to your team.
As we dissect the role of practice in shaping sales excellence, we introduce innovative strategies for your team to refine their craft. Engage with the concept of mutual improvement through peer-to-peer feedback, overcoming the ego and fear of rejection that often hinder sales professionals. Drawing inspiration from the relentless practice regimens of sports legends, we make the case for why sales teams need to embrace a similar discipline to avoid costly mistakes and outshine the competition. By the end of this episode, sales leaders and coaches will be equipped to create a culture where practice is celebrated, guaranteeing that every customer interaction is a step towards unprecedented success. Join us for a conversation that promises to transform the way you view and implement sales training, leaving you with strategies as robust as they are rewarding.
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Speaker 1:
Attention sales leaders, don't let the results fool you. Now, when we're managing and coaching and developing sales teams, we're always held to a standard of did you hit your quota? There is so much more going on than what people really think. I want to give you a couple of thoughts. Let's divide sales achievement into three fundamental categories Hitting quota, near quota, far away from quota, low. So often when we have somebody hitting quota, they're hitting their numbers. What do we do? We tend to rest easy and say okay, bob and Julia are hitting their numbers, I'm not going to focus on them, I'm going to focus on Tom and Susie. They're really struggling. Don't assume that they're hitting their numbers because of just performance. Now, I'm not downplaying hitting your numbers, yet there are so many things that go into play. Number one.
Speaker 1:
Years ago I'll never forget this at a recreational boating company, at a sales training event that they wanted me to speak at, the number two guy out of I think it was 125 people number two person in the company could not role play, could not practice, and everybody was stunned because everyone had him on paper. Oh my gosh, this guy's a great sales person. So I dove in a little deeper and I started to ask him. I said well, you know, look, you know, this is kind of a weird environment. You know, what would you garner your success to? And I'll never forget it. He said I have the best product in the market. I thought, well, that's a red flag. And I said well, what happens when your competitors catch up to your products? He said what are you talking about? He got angry and what he was doing was invalidating himself. That wasn't my objective. And I said well, what happens if someone doesn't buy from you? He said I go right across the street to their competition and tell him I'm going to be right across the street. His salesmanship was threats. On paper, he was deemed a great salesperson. Now, the person who took over his territory now the gentleman left the company for whatever reason. Six months later. The person who took over his territory remember number two in the company out of a hundred, 125 people he quadrupled the territory and the volume of sales. Why he went in and focused on the customer. He didn't go in with threats.
Speaker 1:
And what was interesting is when you dissect your team, dissect your team into three categories hitting quota, near quota, far away from quota. Do you know why? For each person. So when you sit down with your top performers and take, look, you're hitting your numbers. This is awesome. Walk me through specifically what you do, from meeting the customer to engaging, to proposal, to closing, to follow up, what do you do? Find out their best practices? Here's why, when you ask those questions, natalie, do you learn, but you re-solidify what they need to keep doing. I'll save you the suspense.
Speaker 1:
You have top performing salespeople who don't even know why they're top performing salespeople. Now, when you go to the middle, go to the people near quota, you might say, look, what are you doing right now to get to this point? What has created your success up to this 90 percentile, or whatever the number is? What do you think the gap is? Now for those performing sales members, what you have to do them is a perspective, or give them a perspective and ask them questions and say, look, you're far away from quota. We both know that you're at 65 percent. Let's talk about the 80th percentile divided into quarters. Because, mentally, what happens to somebody when they're low in sales and they see that insurmountable number of 100 on a goal? You have to do it in bite sizes. You know why it's self-defeating. Now, one of the healthy things that you can ask is to say look, you're at 65 percent or whatever the number is. What do you attribute that to? And be a beat, be smiling and say let's dissect into this process together, let's dissect what's going on together, because you know what Low performing salespeople are typically one or two changes away from greatness.
Speaker 1:
Now remember even though that story is one story that gentleman who took over. He was a mechanic, he was a technician that worked in boat engines. I remember his boss saying to me well, we kind of took a flyer. I said he's going to be great. I've watched him practice. He's got something the other guy doesn't have. What's that? He knows how to ask questions and shut up. You salespeople know how he has got the fundamentals. Don't assume if you're doing sales training, don't assume people execute the fundamentals. Every salesperson knows what needs-based selling is. Every salesperson should know open-ended versus closed-ended questions. Then why do they struggle with it?
Speaker 1:
Here's the magic sauce Practice. Get your people practicing. Here are three strategies. Every month one to two times a month have a case study from one of your people. Have them turning case studies situations they're dealing with. Have everybody practice it. Dissect the conversation, don't dissect the people Do that one to two times a month. Then have rotating practice sessions where people pair up. Give them a different case study. Have a third person there who serves as the role of coach.
Speaker 1:
You practice in threes. You can do this in person. You can easily do this virtually. If you do it virtually, have them turn in the recordings. There are companies out there that will record that. You can use Zoom. There's great companies like Alleggo. The third one is literally self-coaching. Throw out a very specific not scenario, but maybe situation In the moment a competitor or a customer says I'm going to go with a competitor, they're 10% cheaper. If you are in that moment, what would you say? Practice it out loud and turn in your audio recordings. You know what's amazing.
Speaker 1:
Most salespeople will struggle with that. Here's why they haven't practiced it. This is not rocket science. It's the magic formula. Get people practicing. Stay away from constructive feedback for the first five to 10 sessions. Get practice to be a part of your sequence and we call them practice sequences.
Speaker 1:
When you're in the practice sessions as a coach, ask them Tom and Susie. You practice together, susie. What does Tom do really well, tom? What does Susie do really well? That's it. Look, they know where they're stumbling, make them feel good about getting better. It is so dumb, these suggestions, because they're so fundamental. Yet it's like running the same play over in sports. When people run the same play, well geez, why are they running the same play? Because they keep gaining yards. When you practice, you gain yardage. Your competitors are not practicing. Outpractice them. You know, the great Kobe Bryant used to always say I don't know if I was the most talented, but I will tell you I will be hard pressed to ever find someone who outworked me.
Speaker 1:
We have to face reality with sales teams, one of the things that we are cultivated to do because of the sheer nature of what we do as salespeople. We shoot from the hip, we think at our feet, we come up with stuff right in the spot. We are gifted at that. We are also filled with ego because there's a lot of rejection. You need ego. I'm not saying ego is bad. So when you have ego it gets in the way of the learning process because we become complacent. Very few salespeople say you know what, boss, I can't handle price objections. I need to practice and, by the way, my attitude is going to stink when I lose a deal. They don't say that. You know it's prevalent, and so what we have to do is get people practicing, getting them feeling good about getting better.
Speaker 1:
Most will not practice on their own. Think about Olympians. Olympians still have coaches. Michael Phelps is the most decorated swimmer, I think, now, next to Katie Ledecky. They talk about practice in their coaches. They don't have any access to the freestyle or the butterfly than their competition. They outwork in outpractice. Most salespeople will fall victim to. I'm so busy. I've got these proposals. I would love to do this. They're terrified. They will never tell you, but you have salespeople who are terrified to practice. So what they do is they practice on your clients, on your prospects. Get people practicing. The secret sauce is there. Just grab it. If you need help, let us know.