Jonathan Farrington’s Blog

To most Sales Directors, the attainment of a permanent increase in sales revenues must seem like the search for eternal youth; unending and, ultimately, unavailing.

Our commercial functions, particularly the sales team, represent our forward line, if they are not scoring regularly we cannot possibly achieve our overall commercial objectives – i.e. nothing happens until somebody sells something and all of that investment in costly accounting software, new office equipment, expensive I.T systems etc. will count for nothing.

Sir John Harvey-Jones  in his best selling book, “All Together Now” said “Most companies fail not in their attempts to be innovative or creative. In this country most of them fail because they undervalue the importance of professional selling”

Unfortunately, the task of selling never becomes any easier and as competition continues to intensify, sales people will face issues that can be extremely difficult to deal with i.e. decreased product uniqueness, increased competition within ‘safe’ markets, longer sales cycles and shorter product life spans. Every organisation that intends to survive in the re-engineered environment which will arrive post-recession, must respond to those realities.

Millions of pounds are spent every year investigating and pursuing ways to grow sales; this is not surprising, after all, sales are the lifeblood of any organisation. Yet only a small percentage of companies have been able to grow their sales steadily, not just in good times, but in recession years too, and in the face of ferocious competition.

A careful study of the vast majority of companies that have been less successful than these few “superstars” shows that they fall prey to a number of common mistakes. By contrast, the few have consistently grown their sales and succeeded because they discovered that there is no one single initiative that guarantees success – in fact there are FIVE.

This week, starting tomorrow, I will be discussing these five key challenges and offering advice on how to meet them.

Today’s News: Congratulations to Steven Rosen whose excellent article “5 Ways To Gauge Your Sales Manager’s Coaching” was voted “Top Sales Article” for August over at Top 10 Sales Articles

He now goes forward to the “Top Sales Article Of The Year” final – winner will be announced on New Years Eve – and joins a very distinguished collection of sales experts, who have alraedy made it through, including: Keith Rosen, Waldo Waldman, Patricia Fripp, Nancy Bleeke, Dave Kurlan, Kendra Lee and Drew Stevens. So just four more place up for grabs.

People will freely give referrals when they have benefited from your product/service and have an established relationship with you.

This rarely occurs during the initial meeting because whilst they may like you, they haven’t yet validated what you can do for them. That’s why asking for referrals should be when the relationship you have established is strong enough relationship to ensure their trust and belief in you.

Assessing the strength of your existing customer relationships can be very subjective unless there is a meaningful set of relationship criteria in place. 

Although these will vary from organisation to organisation, they may include factors like:
- Communication frequency with key influencers
- Satisfaction with product/service
- Speed of response to queries/problems
- Length of relationship

The customers with the highest scores (based on the relationship criteria) are those that should be approached for referrals.

What is the best way of generating referrals?

1. Prepare a description in the form of a criteria list that specifies the type of person or organisation that you are looking to approach. This should be based on the profile of your “Ideal Customer.”

2. Evaluate all your customers using relationship criteria, and identify a list of those with the highest scores. For every customer your aim is to generate a minimum of five referrals. Therefore, if you have twenty five customers on your list your target number of referrals will be one hundred and twenty five.

3. Contact each customer on your list and take the pressure of them by explaining that you don’t want to sell to them, you would like their help.

For example: “Do you know anyone who is (specify your criteria) that would be interested in learning about how our products/services can benefit them?” Preface your question with a softener such as: “I wonder if you can help me” or “I would really appreciate some advice.”
4. When customers give you referrals, ask their permission to use their name when making contact. Alternatively, where your relationship is ‘rock solid’ ask customers to make the initial introduction by letter or email. Often customers will give a glowing testimonial and create a relevant context when introducing people.

5. Thank customers for referrals and keep them appraised of your progress.

This creates a positive association towards the giving of more referrals in the future.

Today’s News: Millions of pounds are spent every year investigating and pursuing ways to grow sales, this is not surprising, after all, sales are the lifeblood of any organisation. Yet, only a small percentage of companies have been able to grow their sales steadily, not just in good times, but in recession years too and in the face of ferocious competition. A careful study of the vast majority of companies that have been less successful than these few “superstars” shows that they fall prey to a number of common mistakes. By contrast, the few have consistently grown their sales and succeeded because they discovered that there is no one single initiative that guarantees success – in fact there are FIVE.

This week, starting tomorrow, I will be discussing these five key challenges and offering advice on how to meet them.

It is with sadness that I announce the passing of one of the most significant and relevant leadership blogs – this message received yesterday:

GOODBYE

After long deliberation, I have decided to close down Slow Leadership and retire from blogging. I think I have written almost all I want to write and the extensive demands of a regular publishing schedule no longer work for me. I am also more and more conscious that I retired from active business nearly four years ago and am becoming increasingly out of touch with how things are today.

My last word is this: the very best leadership, I am convinced, is engaging in as few “managerial” activities as possible. By this I mean creating plans and budgets, setting strategies, setting up mergers and acquisitions, discussing policies, holding meetings, marketing, branding, analyzing data and the like. Nearly all such actions get in the way of real business and lie at the heart of most problems that leaders face. If you must do something, encourage and train your staff, talk with customers, monitor quality and spend as much time as you can with “non-managerial” actions like inventing new products and services and improving old ones.

Management has become a self-replicating and self-justifying process we would be better off without. People do managerial things, not because they are useful or even necessary, but because that is what they think managers are expected to do. When corporations cut payrolls to save money, they start at the bottom. That’s wrong. Begin at the top, where there are now large numbers of expensive people doing nothing useful or important to the real business, just managerial “stuff” that no one would notice missing if it went away.

Business schools need a belief in the vital importance of management to justify their own existence, so it’s no wonder they teach nothing else — although even their own data shows nearly all “managerial” activities like mergers, marketing initiatives and fancy financial engineering destroy value on a massive scale. Management today is more of a religion, based on unquestioning belief in semi-sacred texts and dead prophets, than a useful and practical way of spending time.

I think the Tao Te Ching had it right: “Doing nothing, everything gets done.” My ideal for each of you, as a manager and a leader, is that you never waste your time and talent again on any conventional “management” tasks.

Thanks to everyone for your support and interest over the past five years. I wish you all the best for the future.

Carmine Coyote.

P.S. I will leave the existing site in place until the end of the year, then take it down. If there’s anything you want to read again, now is the time! http://www.slowleadership.org/blog/

JF: Farewell Carmine, thank you for your insights, we will miss you.

To become excellent at listening there are three main techniques:

1. Build high levels of rapport and trust your instincts

When two people have established high levels of rapport they unconsciously pick-up on the feelings of each other. The quickest way to build a deep connection with the other person is to match their breathing. At this point the sales person may get an instinct about something the customer ‘feels’, which is important feedback that is driven from their unconscious mind.

Trusting these instincts can sometimes prove to be a challenge for people who work in a corporate, logical environment, yet the ability to ‘listen’ and act upon these instincts can make the difference between a good listener and a great listener.

If for example, you have created rapport and start to feel nervous, then chances are so is your customer. Imagine the impact of asking, “I’m getting a sense that you’re feeling nervous about this, what specific concerns do you have?” will have on your customer.

2. Demonstrate that you are paying attention

This really encourages the customer to continue talking and helps put them at ease because they can see that you’re interested in what they are saying.

Using noncommittal words with a positive voice tone that neither agree or disagree with what is being said, will ensure that the customer remains motivated to want to continue talking.

For example, “I see”/ “Uh-huh”/ “That’s interesting” are great ways to achieve this. Nodding your head and taking written notes are also effective when demonstrating your interest.

3. Clarifying your understanding

Adopting a consultative approach means that it’s vital to fully appreciate your prospect’s requirements. Even if you think that your prospect has made them very clear, it’s good practice to summarise your understanding of them.

For example: “So what you’re saying is (requirement).” “You obviously value (requirement) as being very important to you.”

These summaries will strengthen your relationship and demonstrate a genuine desire to really understand what they want.

Rephrase their main points at regular intervals and ‘play them back’ to them. This helps them see if they have said exactly what they wanted to say and to make sure you understand. Put their feelings into words. This will help them evaluate and perhaps modify their statement…and it gives further evidence of your understanding.

Today’s News: Following on from yesterday’s Salesopedia interview, I wanted to highlight this comment received from Steve Bistritz

“I have just co-authored a book called Selling to the C-Suite that will be published by McGraw Hill and available on September 11, 2009. The book can be pre-ordered from any of the on-line book stores now.

In it, we reveal the secrets of selling to the C-suite from the executive’s perspective. The book is based on research we conducted with CXO-level executives around the world where we asked them about their relatonships with professional salespeople. Some of what they said might surprise you!

For example, executives do not shy away from presentations from professional salespeople as long as salespeople listen before proposing a solution. Executives want to hear solutions to their problems – but only when offered from a perspective of knowledge about their industry, as well as their company.

In the book we also discuss the importance of determining the relevant executive for each sales opportunity. This is probably the most important concept revealed in the book – and it is also the core concept of my workshop on selling to executives.

For more information about the book, go to the Home Page on http://www.sellxl.com“

That’s it for this week – as ever, have a great w/e – JF

Timing is everything when it comes to closing and there are a number of indicators that signpost when a close should be attempted.

Only close if the customer is ready!

That’s why an ability to read their buying signals correctly helps to determine this. With the trial closing technique, this becomes even easier.

The best part of closing, besides winning the business, is that each time you close you get the chance to broaden and deepen the relationship and move it towards a partnership.

Here is a simple process to follow that will make closing a natural next step:

1. Ask pre-closing questions regarding time-frames, decision-making process, payment procedures, and ongoing servicing requirements.

2. Use trial closing throughout the sales cycle and during each call.

3. Ensure that each customer call has ended with an actionable next step that moves discussions forward.

4. Before asking for the business, investigate whether the customer has any remaining questions or concerns.

5. Ask for the business in a confident way, maintain eye contact, and then remain silent. (Silence is a very powerful influencer because most people aren’t totally comfortable with long pauses and instinctively feel a need to fill them)

Examples of good closing questions:

 “Well, (name) when would you like to do this?”
 “When shall we begin?”
 “Are you ready to go ahead?”
 “Which option do you want?”

When closing, think success!

Visualise the customer saying “yes” and looking extremely satisfied. Visualisation will build your confidence because your unconscious mind feels like it’s already happened.

If a customer rejects your close, make a second effort after you have found out why the customer is saying no. Address their reasons, check they are satisfied with what you have said, and as appropriate, close again. 

Regardless of the outcome always leave the door open and end the call with an agreed next step.

Today’s News: Over at Salesopedia, that man with a newly acquired “goatee” beard, Clayton Shold, is in conversation with Adrian Davis, and for any of you looking for tips to break into the C-Suite, this is a “must listen to” – that’s the Boardroom for us Europeans!

Selling to the C-Suite -Adrian Davis 

“Adrian Davis shares his thoughts on the difference between selling to front line managers and selling to those in the c-suites.  He explains what the CEO is looking for, who they are interested in meeting with and why. Adrian shares tips on how to get the appointment, what to say and what traps to avoid. As a bonus, Adrian provides a questioning methodology specifically designed for first meetings with c-level executives” Listen in HERE

The trend during the last few years has been toward technology-based Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRMs).

Research conducted by the Garner Group (see diagram below) has shown that the benefits a company can realize from any such innovation are dramatically higher when four vital components are in place together:

* Technology (CRMs for example), 
* A clearly defined sales process, 
* Training and Personnel Development
* Performance-related compensation.

Often companies will invest thousands of pounds in CRM technology, sales training and performance-related compensation packages for their salespeople, yet forget about defining the sales process. As a consequence the investment made in other areas cannot be maximized unless there is a process in place to underpin these three factors. 

 An Organisational Culture That Supports a Consultative Sales Process

It is now a widely accepted fact that you can’t divorce the competence and performance of the salesforce from the competence and performance of the organization as a whole.

In a customer-focused organization, everyone is part of the sales process. Which is why, an organization’s culture should breed collaboration and sharing of knowledge so that every department works openly and efficiently together to support the overall sales process.

Building a Solid Sales Foundation

When a consultative sales process has been defined, sold to the sales force and supported by other departments within an organization, the stage is set for transformational performance improvements. Just like you need to put in a solid foundation when building a house, the sales process is the foundation for future sales success, but do remember -

“A sales process requires constant monitoring to ensure it is being properly implemented”

Today’s News:

If you are in sales management, you will want to know that fellow Top Sales Expert, Ken Thoreson of  The Acumen Management Group, has just produced a superb new white paper:

How to Manage Sales for Predictable Revenue -
40 Critical Sales Management Activities that Drive Results  - here’s an extract:

“If you’re a sales manager responsible for building predictable revenue for your company, you need resources to get meet this complex challenge. You may not be aware of all the actions required for building a high-performance sales organization. And in an increasingly competitive sales environment, you can’t afford to maintain mediocre sales performance for another minute.

In order to hold salespeople accountable, executives need to understand the essential activities sales managers must focus on in order to be a catalyst for change, continuous improvement and creating a sales culture that drives results.”

This white paper is an essential tool for understanding the duties performed by an effective sales manager.

You can download it HERE

You may remember that last week I suggested that in essence there are two combat strategies regarding objections.

The first is pre-empting them – in other words, by anticipating and responding to the objection before the prospect has even had a chance to voice it.

The second is by dealing with the objection as it arises. If you are prepared to incorporate both strategies then you’ll encounter fewer objections and be more resourceful when they do arise.

I also promised last week that I would share the seven suggested steps, if you are going to use the second strategy…so here they are:
Step 1 – Remain silent    
Gives you time to think and sometimes the customer may even answer their own objection for you. Thinking is a good thing where you are adding a little pause into the proceedings, because you are demonstrating that you are taking their objection seriously.

If you jump in too early you may cause a further objection. When you interrupt them, it feels as if you are objecting to their objection. If you refuse to listen you are creating a strong possibility that you will lose rapport. Use active listening methods, nodding and physically showing interest.

Remember, they are trying to tell you something that will help you sell to them, and they will be giving you more information about how to frame and re-position your selling proposition.

Step 2 – Gather information
As appropriate, ask some questions to fully understand the objection, for example, “Tell me more about…” or “What do you mean?” This shows you are interested in them, and it also gives you more information about their objection.

If you ask a question that begins with “Why?” they will reinforce all the reasons for their objection, making it harder for you to respond to. Therefore, use open questions of any type, except those that start with this.

As you question them, watch carefully for body language that gives you non-verbal feedback about what they are really thinking and feeling. Keep your questions light and relevant, if you respond in a commanding, forthright manner, they’ll feel insignificant and closed to voicing any further objections.

Step 3 – Check your understanding  
This lets the customer know that you understand their objection and are taking it seriously, for example, “So what you’re saying is…” This also helps to maintain good levels of rapport and conveys that you are seeking to properly understand their situation. This step is important because communication can get distorted and you’ll want to answer their objection rather than install a new one!

Step 4 – Trial close   
This takes ‘checking your understanding’ to the next level because it flushes out any hidden objections, or the real objection behind what may have been a smokescreen. For example, “If I could satisfy you on this point will you order/buy today?” Your sensory acuity at this point should be focused on looking at their non-verbal response. If they say “yes” and their non-verbal communication conveys “no”, you should acknowledge what you’ve noticed. For example, “You don’t look sure, what else is there that we need to cover?”

Step 5 – Handle objection  
Provides the customer with another perspective that could eliminate or neutralise their objection. The best way to become excellent at this is to pre-prepare ideal responses to commonly encountered objections. An important proviso to this suggestion is that it’s critical not to distort what the customer is telling you so that their objection fits into one of your pre-prepared responses as a foundation.

Another great way to improve your competence in this specific area is by reviewing any objections after each meeting to build an objections library. Some of your responses may be more successful than others, which is why it helps to log the responses that worked well. Good product and service knowledge is particularly useful with this step as well as having a good understanding of your competitor offers.

Step 6 – Check customer satisfaction  
You’ll notice that ‘checking’ is an ongoing theme during a consultative sales process. Used at this point, checking the prospect’s satisfaction both verbally and by assessing their non-verbal behaviour provides you with their feedback that you’ve been successful in handling the objection. For example, “Have I handled this to your satisfaction?” or “Does this make more sense now?”

If their response is a “No” then you’ll want to be flexible in your next response because if what you’ve attempted hasn’t worked, you’ll want to keep changing your response until you find a way that DOES satisfy their objection. With this particular step, your flexibility is a vital part of the process.

Step 7 – Ask for order/continue discussions 
This step ensures you move discussions forward, for example, “Are you ready to go ahead now?” or “Shall I go ahead and prepare the paperwork?” If your prospect says “No” then you’ve either not handled their objection to their satisfaction or they have another objection.

It’s also a valid point to remember that resistance from a prospect is usually a sign of insufficient rapport. Therefore, check that you are matching or mirroring the prospect and go back to step 6. If they are satisfied with your handling of their objection, then ask “So, what’s preventing you from moving forward with this?”

Today’s News: The revelations of the “Fat City Cats” and their incredible gluttony is still very fresh in the mind, so it was a very pleasant surprise to read this post on TCC by John Ribbler about Haruka Nishimatsu…

“As I continue struggling to find United States CEOs who unselfishly lead their companies, the Ribby Award for August goes to the President and CEO of Japan Airlines (JAL), Haruka Nishimatsu, who earns less than his pilots, rides the bus to work, and eats in the company cafeteria.

Last year Mr. Nishimatsu cut his own salary to $90,000 when he was forced to make pay reductions across the board at the $20 billion airline, the world’s 10th largest. Although JAL and all airlines currently face extraordinary hardship, his common-man approach is not new. It has helped him motivate employees and keep morale high despite continuous route, cost and personnel reductions.

Nishimatsu recently told CBS News: “If management is distant, up in the clouds, people just wait for orders. I want my people to think for themselves.”

You can read the full post here

I enjoyed some protracted, but nevertheless enjoyable debate over the weekend regarding the value of ongoing skills development and the similiarities to sports coaching.

Afterwards, I researched some commentary that I produced a few years back, and I thought I would share it with you.

Research by the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) has shown that organizations that are able to offer their salespeople opportunities for ongoing development are ten times more likely to create more peak-performing salespeople than those that don’t.

Data collected by ASTD is the first published research to overcome the fundamental measurement problems that occur when correlating per-capita investment, an intangible asset and financial profit. The database contains standardized information on training expenditures for hundreds of publicly traded firms. Data has been collected on more than 2500 firms in 63 countries, of all sizes and industries. Training investment is measured in dollars per-capita.

Correlation Between Training Investment And Shareholder Returns

ASTD’s results show there is a significant correlation between pounds spent on training per-capita and total shareholder return one year later. Profitability does not show immediately because of a lag effect in the stock market, but it shows a year later because of the hidden nature of investments in staff. The following findings by ASTD compare the relationship between training investment and total stockholder return (TSR) in the subsequent year:

* Firms in the top quartile, with respect to training investments, have higher median TSRs in the subsequent year than firms in the other three training quartiles. Further, the third quartile is higher than the second, and the second is higher than the first (the quartile with the lowest training investment).

* Organizations in the top half for training expenditure in one year have a mean TSR in the following year of 36.9%, while organizations in the bottom half have a mean TSR of only 19.8%.

* Firms that spend more than average on training have TSRs that are 86% higher than firms that spend less than average and 45% higher than market average.

* The model estimates that each dollar invested in training leads to a $33.57 benefit to the firm. Bearing in mind the disparity between “direct cost” and the true cost of “learning”, the return may be more like $3.36 to $6.72 – still a very high return.

Therefore, Sales Directors need to allow sufficient time to enable their investment in training and development to “pay off”.

Introducing ongoing reinforcement programs will help accelerate the benefits gained from the training and development investment.

Today’s News: Over at Top 10 Sales Articles, Kendra Lee has a commanding lead as we enter the final week – have you voted yet?

What Top Producers Know about Prospecting that You Don’t
Tuesday August 25th 2009 1:00 PM EASTERN (6pm GMT)

A panel of experts from each of these backgrounds will discuss their prospecting tips. Will those on the panel agree? We guess not…. Join the call and add YOUR comments…

Meet the panel:

Colleen Francis is the president and founder of Engage Selling Solutions — a thriving sales–training organization that delivers tailor–made, winning solutions to sales and marketing professionals internationally.

Cheryl Clausen works with entrepreneurs, business owners and sales professionals who are ready to get highly qualified prospects contacting you giving you an unfair advantage you can’t get from sales training alone or from pre-packaged marketing materials. www.increasesalescoach.com

Nancy Bleeke is the CEO of Sales Pro Insider Inc. combining her sales, human resource and leadership experiences to help companies “build performance, profits and people.”

Tim Wackel is one of today’s most popular business speakers who has mastered the ability to make information entertaining, memorable and easy to understand. www.timwackel.com

Chairman

Jonathan Farrington is Chairman of  The Sales Corporation, CEO of Top Sales Associates, and Managing Partner of the JF Consultancy based in London and Paris.

Host

Paul Simon is Communications Director for Top Sales Experts and owner of SharperContent, an editing service that refines written messages within websites, newsletters, blogs and books. Through TSE, and as contributing sales editor for AllBusiness, he works closely with sales experts throughout the United States and in other countries.

Places are limited, so do register for FREE (Value $99.50) HERE

The JF Guest Author Spot

Nancy Nardin

There are 365 Days in the year. No surprise there.  But let’s think through how much of that time is really available to sell.  It breaks down like this:

Take away:

• 104 weekend days
• 15 Vacation and sick days
• 24 days for non-selling meetings (e.g. internal sales meetings & events), training and travel time
• 7 paid Holiday days

That leaves 215 days we can spend selling.  On average, we end up with only 18 days a month when we can do something to dig-up, advance, and close a sale.  But wait, often we must also use that time to follow-up on a delivery, straighten out an invoicing mistake, help our client resolve an issue or any one of a list of non-selling, but crucial tasks.

No wonder salespeople can come-off pushy – Snap/snap – Let’s go – Time’s a wastin’!

I think sellers are super-human beings.  We are expected to find prospects (or sift through a “lead” list) find a way to contact them, attempt to contact them and keep attempting until we do, but before all that, we had better know a little about them or their business so we can sound interested and credible.  We need to close on an appointment, and if we don’t we need to at least learn their interest, and when to call next and then we have to remember to call them and decide what to send them via e-mail to make sure they remember us, just the right amount of communication – not too little – not too much.  Once we have an appointment, we need to prepare the collateral to bring, find and print directions, make sure we have all the hardware we need and put together our objectives for the meeting.  We may need to prepare a presentation and it better not be too generic or the prospect will quickly lose interest – so remember that rest and relaxation you planned to get over the weekend?  Forget it!  You’ll be gathering information and analyzing it in order to not blow what could be your one chance with the prospect.

If I wrote up the entire list of what a seller has to do to accomplish their job – you’d agree with the whole “super-human” theory (if you didn’t already). 

Let’s add a few more to the list. You better also make sure you can quickly summarize the status and provide any bit of detail your boss wants because he or she will want to know the extent of your progress in a 15 minute snapshot.  Never mind the nuances and psychology of the sale other-wise known as the “art” of selling.  You better have the science down as well and that means pipeline numbers, close percentages and BANT status (budget, authority, need and timing).

Is there something we can do to make our jobs a little easier:  A little less stressful?  Yes!  Invest the time needed to find good selling tools and then buy them for yourself or for your team.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or Salesforce Automation (SFA) is a start but there is so much more.  We have to think in terms of what’s needed to reduce the time sinks.  How can we free up more time so we can either spend it with customers and prospects, or so we can spend it doing smarter, more productive tasks?

We need to invest in sales tools and a sales tool isn’t just a CRM or SFA program.  It’s also a Microsoft Outlook plug-in like Xobni or Gist that (almost) instantly finds that person we needed to respond back to, or the attachment they sent us.  It’s a subscription to Jigsaw, so that we can quickly purchase the contact details we need in order to avoid 15 minutes searching the web for the same information.

Have you ever needed to provide a customer reference?  How much time did you spend chasing down a reference you could use and then soliciting permission from them?  There are reference management tools like References_Online which automate the process in such a way to reduce the time sink dramatically (and while you’re at it, reduce reference fatigue amongst your good customers).
Not sure whether your prospect has actually read your email?  Would it be helpful to know if the presentation you sent along has actually been seen – and how many times? This type of knowledge tells us where to spend our time and when.  And there are tools designed to provide this knowledge.

There is a vast list of sales tools to make our jobs more productive and enjoyable.  Here are a few more examples.

1. Reduce your prospect research time with a tool that automatically monitors and aggregates data from traditional business sources such as Hoover’s and Thomson Reuters, and new social media and web sources such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and blogs.  This aggregated information gives you ready-made research and knowledge on your prospect.

2. Automatically Qualify and Route the best sales leads to your sales reps based on their web-visit and click-stream history.  Transform web analytics into a system that prioritizes and distributes leads in real-time.

3. The nightmarish task of creating fair and sound sales compensation plans turns into a dream with the right software.  Run scenarios to see how various plans play out financially.  What happens if you incent the reps and 75% are able to attain the goal?  How about 90%.

4. Quickly select and obtain the best, customized content for a particular sales situation.  Easily find information and knowledge you need for any sales situation.  Share and garner great advice and insight with the entire sales team. 

5. Create equitable sales territories even though they may be more complex.  Even a territory based on zip or area-codes can be complicated.  Not all are equal in opportunity.  Save the spreadsheets (and errors in formulas) for less critical tasks.

Where do you start? Take a look at where YOU are spending your time and then systematically look for tools to eliminate or reduce the time and hassles of that task.  Invest money in sales tools and get the most done in the 215 days. But don’t just get more done, get more of the things-that-matter done. The things that lead to a sale.

Nancy Nardin is the Founder and Editor of Smart Selling Tools: where sales professionals go to find and recommend sales tools.
To help sellers identify problem areas, Smart Selling Tools is compiling the world’s most comprehensive list of “things-we-do with our time”.  We call it the “215 list” 

Be part of the 215 movement and identify and eliminate time wasters. www.smartsellingtools.com/215movement