Sales Podcast – InsideSales

The Answer To Building Strong Relationships In Relationship Selling With Steve Steinmeyer

InsideSales Team — Thu, 19 Sep 2019 14:00:17 +0000

JLL Senior Managing Director Steve Steinmeyer talks about the power of relationship selling and how you can start building relationships that help you sell more. Keep reading to find out more.

In this article:

The Importance of Relationship Selling
How to Establish and Solidify Your Relationships
How to Develop Trust in Relationship Selling
How You Can Use Relationship Selling in Your Pitch Selling
How to Scale Relationship Selling Models
Key Takeaways

How to Implement Relationship Selling

Steve Steinmeyer is currently a Senior Managing Director at JLL where he oversees tenant representatives on a global landscape. He’s been with the company for nearly 24 years and part of his job as well is to represent office tenants.

He leads a team in Downtown Chicago and they also have plans that have portfolios of property around the country and around the world. Due to the nature of his job, Steinmeyer gets to meet all kinds of people.

This allows him to enjoy his entrepreneurial and dynamic daily environment.

The Importance of Relationship Selling

For most of his career, Steinmeyer has employed tactics of relationship selling. It’s become his way of selling, and he is comfortable with it, he said.

Relationship selling is a foundation point for any type of selling or even anything, for that matter. It has to be authentic for you, it has to work for you, and it has to feel and sound natural, not forced.

Steinmeyer shared that he approaches the relationship selling process as he would any other relationship. He observed that people buy from people they trust and like.

If you don’t have a relationship with someone, they’re not going to trust you. They’re not even going to know whether they like you or not unless you have a relationship with them.

Assuming that people generally like you, you still have to get to the point where you develop trust. Otherwise, you’re simply employing procurement exercises.

Steinmeyer shared that part of their job is procurement. They get art pieces from large corporations that are procurement-driven.

He said that the odds of winning something like that without a relationship isn’t very good. Chances are, at least one of the teams they’re competing with has an established relationship with the corporation.

Having a relationship trumps a lot of factors. That’s why from a success standpoint, Steinmeyer believes it’s important.

On the other hand, he also finds building relationships fun. For Steinmeyer, it’s more enjoyable to work with people he has a relationship with and he can speak frankly to.

How to Establish and Solidify Your Relationships

For some people, relationship-building comes naturally. Yet what about for others who don’t have an inherent knack for it?

We asked Steinmeyer which key principle he found to be effective in establishing relationships and taking them to the next level. According to him, it starts out with working hard.

When you’re assigned to accomplish a task, no matter what it is, deliver excellence. When you consistently deliver excellence and build a good track record, people begin to recognize and respect that.

For Steinmeyer, there’s no better starting point for a good relationship.

The number one principle is that you’re always on. Keep in mind that everything you do matters — there is no throwaway task.

This doesn’t mean you have to over-deliver all the time. You only need to do your job well.

If you’re not aiming for a good track record, you’ll have a hard time taking your relationships to the next level and solidifying them.

How to Develop Trust in Relationship Selling

Developing trust naturally for relationship selling

Trust is an important aspect of relationship selling. How do you then start to establish it?

As Steinmeyer said, you can’t force people to give you their trust. For people to trust you, there has to be some shared experience.

Your prospects and clients need to know how you operate and see the results from that so they can get a sense of who you are.

That also helps reputation-wise. Experience and association with an organization that has a good reputation can help you, and they give you a foundation to build on.

Even then, however, you still have to do something to earn people’s trust. The length of time it takes for you to gain this can take weeks, months, or even years.

You can develop trust quickly, but it won’t happen if you force it.

That is why Steinmeyer says that there isn’t “any magic to it” other than hard work. He advised to not take shortcuts on the process either.

Gaining trust is like building a house, he said. Trust is like the foundation of the house, and if you take a shortcut early on, you’ll regret it.

It’s going to have an impact on the whole relationship. Instead of solidifying trust, you’ll be working to re-establish it.

How You Can Use Relationship Selling in Your Pitch Selling

Pitch selling is still a must, Steinmeyer asserted. It’s part of the sales job and environment, and it’s how some things run.

Yet if there is some level of relationship built around pitch selling, you’re going to be more credible going in.

If the first part of your pitch is establishing your credibility, you’re already behind without a relationship. You can say that everyone is starting from the same place.

Most likely, this isn’t so. Among the group of people pitching, at least one of them has a relationship established with those hosting the pitch.

Without that relationship, you really will be a little behind your competitors.

There are times when you go into the pitch knowing it’s a long shot. Yet you still participate because it’s your first step to establish credibility and you’re doing it for the long run.

It may seem like a long sales cycle. Yet in sales, particularly if you’re commission-based, there are two things you need to do: farm and hunt.

It’s very easy to put off farming because it doesn’t yield right away. For the most part, this isn’t like farming annual crops — it’s more like a tree farm where what you’re planting takes years before it pays off.

If you farm early on in your career and you consistently do it, you’re building relationships for yourself. You might not know yet how they can benefit you, but they will someday.

How to Scale Relationship Selling Models

One of the criticisms thrown at relationship selling is that it’s hard to scale and it takes a long time to do so. Steinmeyer assured, however, that there are a lot of different ways to scale.

With Steinmeyer’s company JLL, they scale based on the size of the deal or the size of the portfolio. You can scale by being able to win larger assignments.

Some of that happens early on in your career. When you’re only starting out, the people whom you know and have the best relationships with are often not in decision-making roles.

Yet as you progress in your career, say in three to five years, some of them start to assume decision-making roles. They can be decision-makers for both small and large opportunities.

Having that relationship with them can bring you opportunities, both small and large.

In terms of scaling, Steinmeyer advised building a team. It’s better if your team members have similar ethos and approach as yours, but it’s also good to team up with those who complement you.

You can also build a team of specialists. This gives you a diversity of appeal and a diversity of understanding.

You’re not going to be everybody’s cup of tea. Yet having an array of experiences, perspectives, and personalities can also help enhance your team.

For Steinmeyer, building a well-constructed team is the best way to scale relationship selling.

Key Takeaways

Working hard for better sales

Steinmeyer left two key takeaways from our discussion. The first one is for young people and those who are just getting started in their sales career: focus on farming, not on hunting.

As Steinmeyer said, it’s very easy to focus on hunting, but farming is going to pay off.

For every month or year you don’t start farming, you only put yourself behind more. You need to start early and discipline yourself to become consistent with it.

Steinmeyer encourages to develop a certain amount of discipline. It doesn’t have to be rigid or military-type.

You only need the discipline to farm early in your career and be consistent in doing so.

The second is for those who are well into their sales career and trying to figure out how to scale relationship selling: build a good team.

Make sure they’re people you like and get along with, but aren’t your clones. You also need diversity and compatibility within your team, as these will serve you well.

If you want to get in touch with Steve Steinmeyer, you can visit his LinkedIn page and JLL’s website.

The importance of relationship selling lies in the fact that it’s a foundation point for any type of selling. It gives you an edge and enhances your sales skills.

As Steinmeyer put it, farming for beneficial relationships and building a well-constructed team will help you succeed in relationship selling.

How are you utilizing relationship selling in your business? Share your experiences with us in the comments section below.

Up Next:

Why Some Companies Win And Why Some Companies Lose

InsideSales Team — Thu, 12 Sep 2019 14:00:26 +0000

In this podcast, I talk about company success and some of my experiences consulting for different companies. Read on to find out more.

In this article:

Why Companies Fail
Keys to a Successful Business
1. They Focus on Revenue
2. They Go with What Works

Hindrances and Keys to Company Success

Why Companies Fail

Feeling down due to losses

It’s interesting to think about company success — why some companies win and why some lose. Sometimes the reason why people actually lose is not because of the reasons they believe were the cause.

Certainly, the competition gets heavy and market conditions go up and down. Yet so much of the company’s ability to win or lose depends on them and their ability to turn their business into a machine.

You’ve got to get out of your own way to become a successful business.

As I observed the companies I worked with, I found several reasons why companies lose. Below is a breakdown of the main reasons why company failures happen:

1. They Don’t Know Who Their Target Market Is

Companies lose because they don’t know who they’re selling to. I know it sounds basic, but it’s not as simple as you think.

When we enumerate our target market, we use broad terms like, “I sell to the CIO.” or “I sell to the Head of Sales.” Those are nice, but you need to be more specific, more niche.

This is especially important when you’re starting out with a new product or a new venture. You should really know who you’re selling to.

Go as specific as, “I sell to the Head of Demand Gen.” or “I sell to the PR Head.” You can’t just roll up to the highest level. It’s too vague, and it doesn’t help you.

I’ve seen that happen too many times and it’s messy. It certainly doesn’t contribute to company success.

2. There Are Inefficiencies in the Process

The second thing I believe hold back companies is process inefficiencies. Most people know what their sales process looks like because they can pop it in their CRM.

You can have different stages, but those processes are a joke. Some people even argue on the timeline of each stage.

Yet very rarely has a company taken the time to go through an exercise to understand their pipeline from beginning to end. You really need to know your process and understand your stage gates to achieve company success.

3. They Overshoot Their Bounds

Another thing I’ve seen companies do wrong is they overshoot their bounds. They say that the investor pitch deck shouldn’t be the same as the customer pitch deck.

Most likely, the investor pitch deck is the big-picture vision — like where the company intends to be in five years. Yet when it comes to customers, you can’t always sell vapor.

You’ve got to find a way to know where the puck is going. You’d want to be ahead of the game.

Yet a lot of companies debut in the market and instead of being fancy and trying to be cutting-edge, they just take a simple concept and win with it.

I think companies who really understand exactly what they’re selling and don’t try to be too far ahead are the ones that win.

One good example is video communications providers. They came into a very crowded market and offered slightly different business ideas.

They didn’t say they were something crazy-fancy — they only said they were a video provider for communications, yet the end result is they grew like crazy.

This is a great story of focus, simplicity, and understanding who you are and who you are not.

4. SaaS Companies Are Sales-Led

I need to be careful with this one, so I say it delicately. If you’re in SaaS, you can’t be a sales-led company.

You can’t have sales run the show and dictate everything. I’ve been a salesperson for years, so I say that gently.

Ultimately, sales is the last room to turn out the lights, and it keeps the company going. But in today’s modern SaaS environment, you need to be product and marketing-led.

Companies with well-built products succeed because users like their products. We’re not in an age anymore where you can sell top-down and shove products down to force users — that needs to change.

I’m a believer in the modern SaaS economy. Find a way to make sure your product and marketing teams aren’t absolutely squashed by your sales team.

That basically means that sales shouldn’t dictate everything. Sales should design the roadmap because they’re selling what they want to sell.

Salespeople are never let go. They’d stick around because they get to do what they want if the product is good.

Keys to a Successful Business

Finding success in business and sales

There are also good practices that companies apply, which help them achieve company success. Here are two good practices that I’ve observed in the companies I worked with:

1. They Focus on Revenue

Companies that win have a pig-headed discipline and a myopic focus on revenue. Your company’s focus should be on revenue.

You’ll know you’re in a bad place when you don’t hit your target and employee retention is down and below an acceptable threshold. When you skim over those and start focusing on what you see, like the brand, awareness, or business cards, you’re out of your game.

If you’re going to pound the table, pound the table on revenue.

2. They Go with What Works

This may sound more obvious, but you have to go with what works. We all want to become big companies and move upstream, there’s no doubt about that.

Yet the truth is, not everybody can. Not everyone can become an enterprise.

The key is to be who you are and not try to fight it. I’ve heard way too many leaders say things like, “I don’t want to do that because it’s not sexy.”

Really? That’s the reason why you’re not going to do something? You don’t want to associate yourself with a certain product for that kind of reason?

What if that product is winning? What if that’s the product that’s selling and dominating the market?

You have to double down on what’s winning. If you don’t want to do that, go somewhere else.

I think that’s so important. Our biases can sometimes limit our potential for company success.

For instance, you settle for only $10 million deals. You might also refuse to sell to a niche market or you’re unwilling to go out of your comfort zone into a new market.

I’m not saying you have to kill innovation or stop testing new ideas. All I’m saying is that you ultimately have to go with what works.

Whatever product or market is working for you, double down there. It sounds like an obvious thing to do, but some companies don’t get out of their own way.

Get out of your own way and focus on what works.

If you want to experience company success, follow these essential do’s and don’ts. Avoid the practices that won’t benefit you in the long run so you don’t have to suffer the consequences.

The key is to actively and consistently apply best practices so you can achieve long term success in business.

What are the best and worst business practices you’ve learned based on experience? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section below!

Up Next:

Three Steps To Successful Account-Based Marketing

InsideSales Team — Fri, 06 Sep 2019 14:00:44 +0000

Today, I’ll talk about account-based marketing and share three steps you should follow to succeed in it. Keep reading to find out more.

In this article:

Account-Based Marketing Best Practices
Account-Based Marketing Strategies

How to Implement Account-Based Marketing

What is Account-Based Marketing? This is a type of marketing that uses targeted campaigns personalized to win over specific accounts. Instead of running blanket campaigns over the market in general, ABM focuses on an individual account, which it considers as a single market.

Account-Based Marketing Best Practices

Everyone is talking about account-based marketing. Some refer to it as the company’s sales or revenue, but whichever term you use, ABM is still a buzzword.

Yet, not knowing what it really is makes it a bit hard to do, I think. This is why I want to hit on three key principles to master account-based marketing.

This topic can still go deeper — there are hundreds of things we can talk about. But, I’ll focus on three key principles that may not be the silver bullet you need, but are good steps to follow to master your account-based marketing.

**1. Know Who You’re Targeting**

I want to focus more on the strategic prospecting side. When I say “company’s marketing,” I’m talking about strategic prospecting, which is where you need to start.

You need to know who your target accounts and contacts are. If you don’t know what your ideal customer profile is, you probably shouldn’t be in business.

I say that jokingly, but being in that position is tough. It’s no joke to not know who you are targeting.

You need to know who you’re going after and who’s gonna buy from you, both on the accounts and contacts side.

This is the first step you should take when it comes to account-based marketing. It seems like an easy step, but I have personally seen people and organizations struggle with nailing this down.

2. Have a Digital Machine That Works

Once you know your “who,” the next big step is to have a working digital machine. Your digital machine should focus on your target accounts and contacts.

Ideally, your digital machine should produce messaging and offers that are enticing to your target market.

You need to put out quality and valuable content. Gear your digital activities, like webinars, eBooks, research studies, and display ads towards serving your target entities.

3. Implement Strategic Plays

Your digital activities are going to facilitate the next step in the process, which is implementing strategic plays. We break down these strategic plays as follows:

Strategic Play #1: Event Strategy

Using sales events for great account-based sales marketing

I really believe in a strategic prospecting initiative. You should have events.

Keep in mind, though, that people are already tired of industry events, especially in sales and marketing. This is because they’re all the same, and they’re often big events.

Sales leaders want something intimate now. They want to attend an event with their peers that’s not something they can get elsewhere.

Personally, I love inviting people to events that are hot on digital demand. That is one path they can take.

Strategic Play #2: Dream Account Strategy

Another path they could take is your dream account strategy, which is your one-on-one strategy. This can directly come after someone engages with your content or has some kind of digital interaction with you.

The dream account strategy can happen after an event, or it can be a stand-alone strategic play.

This is going to consist of the top 100 accounts that the organization is all rallying around. The dream account strategy is your “win at all costs” type of strategy.

Money shouldn’t be an issue here, and you should go ultra-personalized with any content you create.

Once you get a meeting from your dream account strategy, you should involve your executives. If you’re going to go on-site, make sure an executive is present.

In my opinion, that process should be ultimately overseen by an account-based marketer or a strategic/dream account marketer. Someone from the sales team can also oversee it.

Aside from those, business development should also support it. They should be integral to the process.

Strategic Play #3: Personalized Play Strategy

The next one is your personalized play strategy. This is the typical sales development-account executive type of play.

As suggested by the name, personalization is still important with this strategic play. Having core personas to refer to is a must.

You may now go down a drop here. Instead of your “A” or your dream 100, you’re now on your “B” or your next 100 or 200 accounts.

Here, you’ll pick personas, then develop plays. “Play” means thinking about a strategic prospecting initiative that utilizes personalization to build pipeline.

You’d want to be creative here. Bring all the channels into play — be it email, chat, video, voice mail, or phone.

Have a more standardized kind of sales development here.

Account-Based Marketing Strategies

There’s certainly more to learn when it comes to account-based marketing, but those are the three basic principles.

Again, number one is knowing who your target is, or who you’re going after.

Number two, push your marketing team to be strong on digital. You want to be out there.

You want your brand to target companies with the right message. Then prepare trails for people to go down when they respond.

You have the events trail, which can be very powerful. You’ve also got your one-to-one or dream account strategy. Then you’ve got the personalized play strategy.

Ultimately, your Marketing Team should oversee or quarterback these strategic plays. Bring in your Sales Team as well to oversee them, and have your Business Development Team support them.

That’s your recipe for success. The results may vary in each organization, but this general flow is powerful.

Remember these three steps and apply them to your organization so you can have a successful account-based marketing strategy. You can also use the strategic plays we talked about for your account-based marketing activities.

You may encounter challenges along the way, but when you implement this marketing style right, it will yield good results.

What account-based marketing practices have you found to be most effective, or even completely ineffective? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section below!

Up Next:

The Selling Formula w/Brian Robinson

InsideSales Team — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 14:00:46 +0000

Author and speaker Brian Robinson shares the selling formula that became the key principles to his sales success. Keep reading to find out more.

In this article:

What Is Sales Malpractice?
Why We Suffer from Sales Malpractice
The Selling Formula: How You Can Overcome Sales Malpractice
Example of Feature-Benefit Question Series
How You Can Effectively Connect with Prospects Through Your Questions
How to Have the Right Pre-Call Mindset
The Important Question You Should Not Forget to Ask
Key Takeaways on the Selling Formula

Selling Formula Approach: Best Practices for Sales Success

Brian Robinson is a sales and marketing expert, best-selling author, and coach. He wrote a book called The Selling Formula: 5 Steps for Instant Sales Improvement.

Robinson started out with Coca-Cola Corporate, where he worked in direct competition with Pepsi. After his stint there, he transferred to J&J.

There, he became part of four different divisions, three of which were startups in sales and marketing. Afterward, Robinson helped his friend start a company and began his own entrepreneurial journey.

What Is Sales Malpractice?

According to Robinson, the simple definition of “sales malpractice” is “showing up and throwing up” — an idea that came from his years working with Johnson & Johnson.

Salespeople typically like to rush to the presentation. When you combine that with the failure to ask appropriate questions, you ultimately perform sales malpractice.

You aren’t able to dig deeper and know your prospect better. Some salespeople only ask one or two questions, then suddenly launch into a discussion about “the answer.”

Salespeople like this leave their prospects thinking, but end without asking the prospect anything that relates to them.

Why We Suffer from Sales Malpractice

Why, then, do salespeople struggle with sales malpractice? Most of the time, they already know what to do when they get to the presentation — it’s familiar, so they’ve got it nailed down.

Yet what’s unfamiliar and uncharted is developing a relationship and holding a conversation with someone they probably haven’t talked to before. Not knowing how to respond to these can lead to sales malpractice.

Robinson said a salesperson can overcome this struggle by doing two things:

Plan the questions you’re going to ask.
Methodically ask the questions to your prospect.

According to him, you get astonishing results if you do proper planning.

Preparation takes away the fear and helps you be upfront with your prospect. As you have holistic questions to ask your prospect, you’ll also be able to take note of their answers to your questions.

The Selling Formula: How You Can Overcome Sales Malpractice

Overcoming sales malpractice to reach new heights

Robinson shared with us his two-part selling formula. The first part is the pre-call mindset.

The best way to have a positive pre-call mindset is to take some time to yourself before you meet your prospect. During that time, cultivate a caring attitude in your heart and mind for that person.

Visualize the positive outcome you’re going to have. When you meditate on these things, you project them on your prospect when you meet them personally or talk to them on the phone.

The second part is crafting questions. Robinson found that there is a three-part selling formula approach here that really works.

First, you take a piece of paper and draw three columns on it. You can also make a spreadsheet and create three columns.

Second, label each column. The first column is “Features,” where you list down the key features of what you’re selling.

In the second column, write down every benefit related to that specific feature. Often, there are multiple benefits associated with a feature.

In the third column, write questions related to that specific benefit.

Third, take an 80/20 approach. This means taking the top 20% of the benefits and the key questions associated with those, then putting them in order.

Start with the general questions first then move to the very specific ones that focus on those benefits.

Example of Feature-Benefit Question Series

In order to understand the proper way of crafting questions, Robinson shared with us an example of feature-benefit question series. This came from his Selling Formula book.

For instance, you’re selling pre-made home-cooked meals.

The feature is pre-made home-cooked meals for two to six people. This is what you put in the first column.

Then, in the second column, there are two benefits:

It saves up to 60 minutes per meal — including food purchase, food prep, and cooking time.
You only have to take it out of the freezer and put it in the oven.

There are then three questions related to those benefits:

On a weekly basis, how many dinners do you cook for your family?
How much time does it typically take you to make dinner for your family?
How would pre-made home-cooked meals affect the frequency of your family meals?

The third question targets the prospect’s emotions. These questions aim to discover if the benefits would be advantageous or helpful to the prospect.

How You Can Effectively Connect with Prospects Through Your Questions

Most people tend to stop at the first or second-level questions. Yet it takes more than those to get the most important information and create a deeper connection.

You must aim to know how your offer affects the personal lives of your prospects.

Robinson told us about one of his clients who creates video content for real estate agents. He used to follow the typical question approach, but then he switched to Robinson’s selling formula.

After doing so, the client called Robinson to share the outcome. He went two to three levels deeper with his questions.

The client admitted that this made him a little uncomfortable, as he wasn’t used to it. Then he started asking his prospect, “If you had leads coming in that you normally weren’t getting, what would this do for your quality of life? How would this affect your family life and work?”

As a result, even before their conversation was over, his prospect was already very keen to do business with him. This led him to the biggest sale of his life.

This is all because he was able to take his questions a step further.

We can simply ask questions. Yet when we take it one step deeper and get into the personal aspect, it solidifies the seller-prospect relationship.

How to Have the Right Pre-Call Mindset

Keeping a positive mindset for sales success

Robinson also expounded on the other part of his selling formula, the pre-call mindset. He recommended practical steps that lead to the right mindset before meeting or talking to a prospect.

First, take a few minutes to think about the prospect you’ll talk to. Think about the kind of day that person is having.

Focus on how much you appreciate the fact that your prospect is going to connect with you. Robinson said he also thanks the Lord for his prospects and says a short prayer over the conversation they will have.

When the time comes for you to talk, you’ll be in a mental state that’s ready to serve your prospect. Then you can figure out ways of how you can help, as opposed to being self-serving.

This kind of attitude diffuses awkwardness and stalls in relationships. It brings down so many barriers, and yet it’s still not the normal pre-call strategy for most salespeople.

Robinson also went on to share the most critical question he asks at a front-end of a conversation: “Have you had to put out any fires today?”

This question immediately puts the focus on the prospect. Once you get that out on the open and diffuse it, your prospect can begin focusing on what they’re going to talk about with you.

The Important Question You Should Not Forget to Ask

One of the most important questions you can ask a prospect is, “Is there anything about your current situation you feel frustrated about or wish you can change?”

Robinson said this is a huge question that salespeople often forget to ask.

This inquiry makes prospects take a moment to reflect and go through their current situation. When they acknowledge their frustrations by verbalizing them, it gives you an opportunity to ask probing questions.

Key Takeaways on the Selling Formula

Don’t rush to the presentation.
Prepare holistic questions. Create a list and ask your prospect for permission to ask questions. This puts you in a position of authority and prepares them to answer.
Take notes on your prospects’ answers. Doing that conveys they’re offering you something of value. In turn, you’ll deepen your connection with your prospect.

If you want to avail Brian Robinson’s free gift, you can visit his website and download the first three chapters of his audible book for free.

Having a customer-centered pre-call mindset and questions really prepares you to serve your prospects and clients. With the right preparation, you will be able to give them a better experience and service.

If you want to see a difference in your selling experience, follow Brian Robinson’s selling formula. His fresh ideas may just be the kind of revamp your best selling practices need.

Which selling practices do you think you can improve? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!

Up Next:

Should Only 14% Of LinkedIn Connection Requests Be Personalized?

InsideSales Team — Fri, 30 Aug 2019 14:00:28 +0000

Gabe Larsen dives into why you should take the time to personalize your LinkedIn connection request, and teaches you how to send a connection request on LinkedIn. Keep reading to find out more.

In this article:

The Right Approach to Social Selling: LinkedIn Connection Request
LinkedIn Connection Request Etiquette: How You Can Personalize Your Response

How to Customize a LinkedIn Connection Request

The Right Approach to Social Selling: LinkedIn Connection Request

Every day I spend 30 minutes on social selling. For this task, I mainly use LinkedIn.

I told myself before that each person who connects with me will get a personalized note or some sort of personalized interaction back. Frankly, I’m a little behind on this commitment.

I went through my 990 LinkedIn connection requests, which by the way, doesn’t mean I’m popular. It only means I’m behind in responding to these requests.

Yet, I noticed that most of these people haven’t taken the time to introduce themselves properly and tell me why they want to connect with me. To be honest, it’s such a small effort.

Of the 990, only 142 managed to include a personalized note with their connection request. That’s only 14% of all the connection requests I received.

How did we get to this practice of not making an effort to write a LinkedIn connection request message?

If you remember the movie Hitch, Will Smith’s character Hitch Hitchens approaches tabloid reporter Sara Melas (played by Eva Mendes). He personalized his approach, unlike the other guy before him.

That’s why when he left, she realized she wanted to interact with him more.

Social selling requires the same kind of approach. If you’re connecting with people on LinkedIn, you have to commit to it.

I know this is already overused, but it takes such little time.

If you connect, or if someone connects with you, take the time to personalize your response because I promise you, it’s worth it.

LinkedIn Connection Request Etiquette: How You Can Personalize Your Response

There are several ways how you can construct your LinkedIn connect script without sounding impersonal. Below are some tips you can use to help personalize your response on LinkedIn.

1. Make It About Them and Not About You

If you can find a topic to bring up, that makes all the difference. This could be something you have in common with the person, or something you think may interest them.

Once you find this, use it to personalize your LinkedIn connection request note.

2. Make Use of Referrals

Using referrals for better social selling

Referrals are always fantastic. You can have a mutual connection or somebody credible and valuable to the person refer you.

Use that in your intro, and it’s going to make all the difference.

3. Seek Adviser Help

This is a technique I use religiously. I use LinkedIn to source and schedule my podcast guests, so I regularly send messages to thought leaders and experts.

I normally start with, “I was able to check your LinkedIn profile, and I think you are someone my podcast listeners will learn a lot from. Any chance you’d be willing to guest on my podcast?”

I use that as an intro to have a conversation we can take into the sales cycle.

A lot of people ask why I host a podcast. The main reason why we have the Sales Secrets podcast is to build pipeline.

Using LinkedIn connection requests to ask people to help me out on my podcast makes a huge difference.

4. Congratulate People

This is always a good one. If someone changes their job or they’re hiring and you see a topic you can bring up in your note, use that for personalization.

5. Mention the Competitor

If you want to be a little vaguer, you can bring the competition in. Personally, I don’t mind reaching out to people and starting off with, “I was just talking to John Doe at Company XYZ…”

That’s always a great way to spark conversation.

There are lots of ways and opportunities for you to write LinkedIn connection request introductions that will lead to personalized conversations. When you connect with somebody, write a quick blurb introducing yourself and your purpose for connecting.

You should also make it a goal to spend time writing personalized messages back to people who connect with you. Those will go a long way.

You can also use technology to help you do this. We’ve actually got this awesome feature built right into our Playbooks product, which you can check out here.

Remember, LinkedIn can be powerful. Take a little bit of time writing a personalized LinkedIn connection request — it makes all the difference.

Don’t forget to apply the LinkedIn connection request etiquette you’ve learned, and you’ll be all set to make quality network connections.

What other best practices do you apply when it comes to social selling? We’d love to learn from you in the comments section below!

Up Next:

How Chatbots Are Changing The Way We Sell w/Billy Bateman @Chatfunnels

InsideSales Team — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 14:00:59 +0000

Learn how sales chatbots are changing the industry and learn the best practices in deploying chatbots for your business from Billy Bateman of Chatfunnels. Read on to find out more.

In this article:

The Chatbot Phenomenon
How to Deploy Chatbots in Sales
What to Avoid When Deploying Chatbots
Other Features of Chatbots
How to Deploy the Chat Program on Your Sales Team
How to Measure Success in Your Bot Strategy
The Challenges That Companies Face on Implementing Chatbots

How Chatbots Can Transform Your Business

What is a Chatbot? This is a type of artificial intelligence program that allows interactive conversations between the program and a human user. It uses text or auditory-based signals and pre-installed user phrases to communicate.

The chat program is becoming more mainstream every day, and there are already technologies that readily provide this service. Yet one of the problems that businesses encounter is deployment.

After buying a chat program, most people don’t know how to operate them or get the best out of the service they bought. To provide clarity on this dilemma, we brought on Billy Bateman, who is the Director of Operations at Chatfunnels.

Bateman and his team helped us optimize our own chatbots, and we’ve seen amazing results working with them.

Chatfunnels helps B2B companies with their chatbot strategy and deployment. They also provide regular reports and continuous optimization so their clients will know how they’re doing and what their next steps are.

The Chatbot Phenomenon

With a chat program in place, marketers can automate parts of the sales and marketing processes on their website.

Bateman reported that the chat industry is seeing great results as a whole. According to him, if you replace your website form with a chatbot, you’ll most likely see significant improvement.

He’s talking about an uplift of 150%, and even as high as 200%. This refers to the overall conversion of collecting the same information via chatbot versus the form.

Drift’s CEO shared a cool analogy about the chat program. Think of your website as your storefront.

Would you allow customers to come in and not attend to them immediately? Would you wait for them to ring the bell to get assistance?

As Drift’s CEO said, it’s absurd to think we can operate like that in the digital world.

How to Deploy Chatbots in Sales

Chatbots connecting with customers for improved sales

We also shared with Bateman one of the biggest challenges we had with this program — deployment. After setting it up, we realized the chat program didn’t run itself, and we still needed to do split-testing.

Other businesses have the same dilemma, so we took this opportunity to ask Bateman how to deploy a bot.

Anyone who buys a bot knows they can do so many things with it. Yet, where to start is really the problem that most businesses have.

Bateman let us in on a deployment practice they’ve found to be successful. He suggested starting by picking one offer you make on your website. That could be a demo, a “chat with us” feature, a pricing conversation, or a free trial.

Here are the initial steps he enumerated:

Start out with one offer.
Put it in a few strategic places within your website.
Figure out the best way to replace the form you use for this offer with a bot.

If you work with a chatbot deployment and optimization company like Chatfunnels, they can help you out with this process.

They’ll take note of the information you’re asking for in your form and have the bot ask those instead. They will also test the question order, how you’re asking the questions, and where you’re sending your leads to.

This is because one of the benefits of providers like Draft and Intercom is they can route your leads right to a sales agent. Even if the sales agent isn’t available to chat, the bot can still present a calendar so prospects and customers can book.

In a nutshell, the deployment process goes like this:

Start with one offer.
Test the offer and the process around it.
Once you nail it and you’re comfortable with it, start scaling it throughout the whole website.
Move on to the next offer.

Bateman strongly advises to do it one at a time. Work on one offer, nail it, and then move on.

What to Avoid When Deploying Chatbots

Bateman also shared with us another good practice, yet it may not be the best place to start. Some businesses want their bot to be everything to everyone.

For instance, they use a single bot for customer service, demo booking, and other activities. Bateman doesn’t recommend this, as you have to figure out each of these use cases on their own.

After you’ve done that, you can bring them all together to have an all-around bot.

If you want your bots to be successful, they need to be use-case driven. They need to focus on accomplishing only one task.

Bateman also warns that the elements involved in chatbot deployment and optimization are always changing.

When you think you’ve nailed something, you’ll realize that something changed within your organization or your customers. Then you need to rethink the bot and start testing all over again.

Other Features of Chatbots

Bateman also shared with us two other features that chatbot users will find helpful. First is the conversational landing page.

This means tying an ad or an offer to a page that is purely run by a bot — something a lot of companies do.

Let’s say you have an ad for a free whitepaper and you’re directing the people who want to avail them to a landing page. Here, they’ll fill out a form so they can get the whitepaper via email.

Yet while encoding their details, there’s a high chance for them to encounter distractions.

When you have a bot in your conversational landing page, it can get all the necessary information for you. The bot can even email the whitepaper to the person’s inbox.

There’s no chance for distraction because they’ll continuously chat with the bot. After this process is over, you can redirect the person back to your website or give them other information.

Bateman said they see really good conversion rates off of the conversational landing page. That is, when you find the right use cases for them.

The second is what we call the partials. If someone only partially fills out the form, there’s a 50-50 chance for you to access the information they gave you.

Yet if someone partially fills out a bot conversation and gives you their email address, you can do a lot with that. You can look them up and figure out who they are.

You can then follow up with them because there is obviously some interest from their end.

How to Deploy the Chat Program on Your Sales Team

Working with sales and marketing teams to deploy a chatbot

Changing your process isn’t always easy. Most of the time, it takes getting used to, and that’s how your sales team might feel with the chat program.

Along with properly using chatbots, you also need to make sure your sales team buys into the process and deploys it correctly.

To do that, Bateman advises companies to keep their communication lines open. As a consultant, he shared that one of the things they can do is to act as a liaison.

Often, it’s the marketing team who owns the website and activates the bot. Then, they try to send out information to the sales team.

As a liaison, Bateman enumerated some tasks they do to keep things running smoothly:

Lay out the right deployment instructions for the users.
Explain how the chat program works.
Explain which questions the bot is asking.
Get user feedback.
Recommend improvements for the company to get better results.

When the sales team sees the number of quality appointments they’re getting, they’ll also come around. Based on Bateman’s experience, the adjustment period often takes two to three months.

It all boils down to communication. You need to show your team they’ll get more quality appointments from bots because they capture more information.

How to Measure Success in Your Bot Strategy

Now the question is, how do you measure the success of your chat program?

Bateman shared that every customer has a different perspective on what success looks like in terms of numbers. Despite that, they use the same success metric for each customer.

First, they start with Google Analytics. They check the numbers on the following indicators:

Website traffic, particularly in the high-value pages
Customers who engage with the bot
Customers who converse with the bot by answering at least one question the bot asked
Conversations that lead to email captures, a marketing qualified lead, and a booked meeting

Then, they take it one step further by asking some evaluation questions:

How many meetings did you book?
How many of those meetings lead to a real opportunity?
What is the value behind those?
How many of these meetings really closed?

After that, they’ll measure your ROI for your entire bot strategy and see how much money it’s saving you. They’ll also assess how much extra money you’re making on sales opportunities by replacing forms or adding a bot to your website.

The Challenges That Companies Face on Implementing Chatbots

What are the factors that hinder companies from succeeding with their bot program?

Bateman shared the two main reasons why this happens.

Companies have trouble installing the bot on their website and making it work.
After they’ve picked the use case, they fail to revisit their chat program and measure their success.

Bateman shared that most of their customers fall into one of two categories:

They bought a chatbot software, but they don’t have it up on their website. Either they don’t know how to set it up, or they don’t have the capacity to do it themselves.
They deployed the bot and discovered how to make it work, but they weren’t able to optimize it.

Chatfunnels’ customers mostly belong to the second group. They help optimize their customers’ chat program by running tests, checking to see what works and what doesn’t, then sharing the findings.

Chatfunnels also recommends which strategies to take and opportunities for further deployment. They help their customers as well by letting them know how to get the most value out of their investment.

If you want to learn more about Billy Bateman, you can send him a message on LinkedIn. You can also visit the Chatfunnels website to book a meeting with them.

Acquiring chatbot software is one of the best ways to make your processes more efficient. The real challenge comes when it’s time to deploy them.

Apply the best practices we discussed so you can succeed in utilizing and optimizing chatbots for your business.

In what ways can chatbots help your business? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.

Up Next:

The Advantage Of Non-Commissioned Sales People w/Mitch Little @Microchip

InsideSales Team — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 14:00:16 +0000

Learn the significant competitive advantage of having non-commissioned salespeople from Mitch Little of Microchip Technology. Read on to find out more.

In this article:

The Shift from Having Commissioned to Non-Commissioned Sales People
How Salespeople Affected the Shift in the Commission Structure
Implementing the Non-Commissioned Sales Approach
Industries Where Removing Sales Commission Can Be Effective
The Sales People Myths We Believe
Why Sales Leaders Need to Let Go of Having a Commission-Based Sales Team
The Effects of Sales Without Commission on Your Business
Advice on How to Start Building Your Own Non-Commissioned Sales Team

Why You Should Have Non-Commissioned Sales People

Mitch Little is the Worldwide Vice President of Client Engagement at Microchip Technology. He graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering, but he’s worked as a Mechanical Engineer for more than 50 years.

Little has been an advocate of non-commissioned sales since the late ’90s. This came about after they implemented it on their own sales team at Microchip Technology.

The Shift from Having Commissioned to Non-Commissioned Sales People

How did Microchip Technology shift from commissioned to non-commissioned salespeople? Little provided us a background by explaining the situation they faced as a company.

Microchip Technology is a manufacturer of semiconductors, serving 140 countries and 75 sales offices. They have 125,000 clients around the world, $6 billion in revenue, and $18 billion of market cap.

They’ve been in the electronics industry for a long time. More than two decades ago, Microchip Technology saw a significant shift in the semiconductor electronic space.

To illustrate this industry shift, Little gave smartphone manufacturers as an example. With these companies, the manufacturing and design can start in the United States, but end up completed somewhere else.

For instance, the original design team from California works with other design teams from Beijing and Germany. Basically, they have teams from different countries.

Nothing was ever completed where it started. They found that because of this, people don’t want to work on projects or with companies who have this structure.

It’s because there’s a chance they weren’t going to get paid for their labor. All because the products weren’t shipped to where they were originally designed.

How Salespeople Affected the Shift in the Commission Structure

This became an issue that affected the industry’s way of getting designs, making payments, doing shipments, and basically completing the manufacturing process.

Little shared that the real issue was the choice that salespeople were making. Let’s say they had two clients.

Client A will produce the revenue off-shore, while Client B will produce revenue in the same location where the salesperson is. Even though Client A would bring in larger revenue, they’d choose Client B because of where they produce revenue.

That is a bad corporate decision. It drove Microchip Technology to think of a solution to change that practice.

That’s why they shifted completely away from the standard 60-40 split. They moved away from having traditional, commissioned salespeople to having completely non-commissioned ones.

Implementing the Non-Commissioned Sales Approach

Changing compensation to improve sales

Each of Microchip Technology’s sales teams has 10% of variable compensation. They based this on corporate goals, not individual accomplishments and team goals.

Little admitted they also had fears before changing their sales commission structure. They thought about what would happen when they tell everyone that the 60-40 split wasn’t going to become a 100% salary.

They also thought about what this change will mean for their people. Yet despite the fears they had, they believed that having non-commissioned salespeople would be for the best, so they implemented it.

Looking back, Little said the numbers will tell anyone the results were “staggeringly perfect.” Even the data agrees that this was the best decision for the company.

Little shared that one of their first concerns was that all the highly-paid salespeople won’t hang around. Yet they discovered that implementing this compensation structure won’t lead to companies paying more.

Rather, companies will end up averaging what their salespeople made over the last few years. They won’t increase their cost of sales at all, plus the people like it, so they stay.

Little revealed they didn’t lose anyone during that entire transition phase. He knows the value of keeping people in the sales industry, as the average turnover rate in a B2B sales environment is 35%.

Little also shared that Microchip Technology’s turnover rate around the world with 1,500 salespeople is 3%. They’re deviating from the norm, yet they’re keeping their people and seeing incredible results.

Industries Where Removing Sales Commission Can Be Effective

Microchip Technology experienced working with the two sides of commission, yet they only saw a real positive difference when they shifted to having non-commissioned salespeople.

You might be wondering, though, are there situations where commissioned sales would work better for a certain industry? Is having a non-commissioned sales team optimal for select companies only?

Little said that for the Fuller Bryce salesman, it would be best to have direct-commission salespersons. Yet beyond that, every sales company is “pretty much the same.”

Little also shared examples of other strong companies who adapted the non-commissioned sales practice, such as:

Boeing
Disney
Lexus
Ameritrade

They’ve been practicing the same sales representative commission structure for years now. Some of them have even said that the commission brings distrust between the seller and the buyer.

To eliminate that hindrance, they removed individually-based commissions from their structure.

Little made a bold statement by saying that “there is no real reason for having quotas.” Most companies have problems when it comes to meeting them.

He said that it’s because they’re measuring something that isn’t of value. Yet he acknowledges that the fear of shifting from that long-standing practice is huge, and it’s a tough move to make.

The Sales People Myths We Believe

What really makes commission systems not work? What are some of the things that turned out to be myths about salespeople?

Little said the fundamental issue is that most sales leadership teams today believe that salespeople are all coin-operated. The truth is, they are not.

Management teams believe that greed the only thing that motivates a salesperson — and that is not true.

Author Daniel H. Pink teaches us that what motivates a salesperson is the same as everyone else: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Little confirmed that he also found this to be true, even long before he read Pink’s books on sales. Most salespeople really like helping people. That’s their true motivation.

Our history in sales will say we’ve always paid commissions, but Little found that they’ve “always been wrong.” Yet most people won’t get over their fear of making a change.

One of their fears is to lose all of their salespeople. Though it’s unfounded, Little understands that fear.

Because how you do things also matter, aside from what you’re going to do.

Why Sales Leaders Need to Let Go of Having a Commission-Based Sales Team

Little said that the concept of commission actually ends up being a manipulation tool, and everyone knows it.

It manipulates salespeople to achieving the objective the management wants them to. They’re paid more for Product A than Product B in the hopes of them selling more of Product A.

Management teams are setting salespeople up for some game rather than leading and coaching them. It happens because it’s a lot more difficult to lead and coach than manipulate compensation.

It takes more commitment to lead, coach, and mentor rather than letting money twist people’s activities. Sadly, this is where most sales leaders won’t commit.

As Little said, committing to truly lead, coach, and participate with your team is a must for sales leaders. When you remove the monetary compensation, salespeople need something to work with.

They need active leadership. Yet, that is what most sales leaders are afraid of — actually working with their teams and leading them.

Little shared that when you shift away from having commissioned salespeople, you’re going to have 40% more time to be an active leader.

Each year, commission plans change in ways that are very individualistic and wrong. Why? It’s because companies are manipulating people using numbers rather than leading.

The Effects of Sales Without Commission on Your Business

After implementing the non-commissioned salespeople policy, Microchip Technology’s clients noticed a significant change. They enthused that they experienced a “different kind of conversation” with Microchip salespeople.

Now, the conversation revolves around the clients. The sales reps listen, and they’re willing to have an engagement about what the clients want.

When you can convey the value of having a non-commissioned sales team to your clients, you can bring in real value to them. You can tell them you’re there purely for the purpose of helping them achieve what they want.

It’s having the mindset of, “If you don’t buy anything from me, I’m alright with that. I would prefer another outcome, but I’m still okay with that.”

Your salespeople will show up with the purpose of helping clients solve their business issues. They can freely work even with off-shore clients because they’re not paid commission.

The clients also recognize that once you tell them the story. The engagement becomes all about the client and not about what the salesperson is selling.

It becomes about what the salesperson can do to help the client, and not about the things that they want the client to buy. They begin to have a radically different conversation.

Advice on How to Start Building Your Own Non-Commissioned Sales Team

If you want to start building your own non-commissioned sales team, Little advised reading Daniel H. Pink’s books. Specifically Drive, where Pink discussed autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

He also recommended To Sell Is Human, which talks about the true motivation of salespeople.

If you want to reach out to Mitch Little personally to talk about this topic, you can send him an email at mitch.little@microchip.com.

Choosing to have non-commissioned salespeople may be a tough choice to make, but it is possible. Mitch Little showed us that even if you move away from traditional sales compensation, you can still make it work.

What’s important is to carefully plan out your business decisions and to have foresight on how to deal with the changes.

What are your thoughts on having a commissioned versus non-commissioned sales team? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

UP NEXT:

Next Gen Sales Technology Powered By Collective Intelligence w/Dave Boyce @XANT

InsideSales Team — Mon, 29 Jul 2019 14:00:12 +0000

XANT Chief Strategy Officer Dave Boyce shares with us the benefits of collective intelligence and how it fuels the next generation sales platform. Read on to find out more.

In this article:

Redefining Enterprise Information Architecture
The Sales Technology of the Last Generation
Sales Reps Spend Time on Low-Quality Prospects
The Need for a Next Gen Sales Technology
Collective Intelligence Technologies
Benefits of Collective Intelligence
How Collective Intelligence Works
The Value of Collective Intelligence for Sales Teams

How Collective Intelligence Can Change the World of Inside Sales

Collective Intelligence Definition: This refers to the shared intelligence that comes from the collaboration of individuals. It can also consistently predict a group’s performance in the future.

Redefining Enterprise Information Architecture

Boyce started off the discussion with a little thought experiment.

If you had the opportunity to redefine enterprise information architecture, how would you do it?
If you can rebuild the way we manage our data in enterprises, how would you do it?

Boyce argued that we would rebuild it the way we built the Internet. This way, the more people that use it, the more valuable it becomes for each user.

This is the characteristic we see in sites like Netflix and Amazon. They match watching and purchasing patterns to make relevant recommendations to each user.

The more people that use Netflix and Amazon, the more useful they become to each user.

Enterprise architecture wasn’t built that way. It was actually lifted from client-server data structures.

It has clearly-defined firewalls and silos that keep the data within four walls, never to mingle.

The Sales Technology of the Last Generation

Since we have the next generation sales technology, what’s considered as the “last generation” sales technology?

Boyce made a bold statement on this: The last generation sales technology is CRM, and CRM is dead.

He clarified that this doesn’t mean CRM is going away. Rather, it’s considered “dead” because it no longer adds incremental value to sales teams.

It has already reached its peak in terms of adding value and has now relegated as a database and record system. There is no opportunity for it to stretch beyond where it is right now.

Now, let’s look at the era we’re currently living in. We’re in the most impressively-sustained period of economic growth in the United States and most of the world.

This should be great for our sales teams, right? Yet in reality, it hasn’t been that way.

We’re now down to 53% of sales reps achieving quota on average in the U.S. A lot of that is because 92% of companies are raising their targets every year for their sales teams.

These companies also add new members to their team, thinking that by adding new people, they’ll be able to hit their target. They also give their sales reps pieces of technology similar to CRM so they can do more.

Yet, they’re just not working. All these changes don’t help salespeople sell more.

Sales Reps Spend Time on Low-Quality Prospects

Spending time productively to hit the quota

One of the problems is how sales reps spend their time. Yes, they may be working, but they’re also spending time on the wrong things.

Boyce cited a conceptual graph that tracked the effort sales reps put in on different types of prospects. It shocked him to discover how evenly-distributed sales reps’ efforts are across all qualities of prospects.

Why would anyone spend time and effort on low-quality prospects, you ask? It’s because they’re the ones who return calls, schedule demos, attend meetings, and take slots on our calendars.

Those make sales reps feel good and busy, but they don’t necessarily mean closed deals.

If companies had the ability to determine which prospects and activities are high-quality, they would aim their time and effort toward those.

If companies give their sales teams tools that allow them to do more, they can also reach out to the low-quality prospects. Of course, this is after they exhaust all opportunities they have with high-quality prospects.

To achieve that, companies need information about the future. The problem is, this information isn’t present in CRM.

The Need for a Next Gen Sales Technology

CRM has information about history. What sales teams need is information about the future, and this is what sales reps crave for every day.

They spend 18% of their time in CRM to record details about deals they’ve already closed and activities they’ve already performed. All that effort so that sales managers can feel better about knowing what they are doing.

In contrast, they spend 65% of their time in tools where they’re looking forward to tomorrow’s deals. Those are tools like Inbox, LinkedIn, and sales productivity applications like XANT.

They want to know where buyers are and how they can find and engage them. This is the kind of job that you’ll entrust not to CRM, but to artificial intelligence.

AI runs on data, but not all data is equal. Sales reps want data about the buyers.

Remember that tomorrow’s buyers look different than yesterday’s. In fact, today’s B2B customers act like consumers.

All the data from the past you loaded into your CRM aren’t relevant if you’re trying to figure out present and future buying behavior.

Collective Intelligence Technologies

Where can companies get the information about the future that they need? Not out of CRM, but rather out of something we call “collective intelligence.”

An easy way to understand this is to compare it with Waze, the navigation app. Every single user of this app agrees to stream data off of their device while they’re using it.

Google then analyzes the data and uses it to help the rest of its users navigate in the most efficient way. In short, every Waze user contributes data for the benefit of the whole community.

There’s nothing artificial about this. It’s real intelligence from users who are accessing the app real-time.

That is collective intelligence — real-time feedback from the collective that helps other users.

Benefits of Collective Intelligence

Enhancing sales with collective intelligence technology

Instead of using CRM, imagine your sales reps are logging into a next-best prospect, next-best action-scripted interface. This system tells them the next best course of action for a prospect who’s enrolled in an IT executive play.

Not only is the system telling them what to do and who to call, but it also suggests a script for a prospect call. What are the other benefits you can get out of this next generation sales technology?

1. It Recommends a List of Prospects Based on Your Target Person

Imagine yourself in your sales reps’ shoes, using this next gen sales technology powered by collective intelligence.

Before you call your prospect, the system gives a list of recommended prospects whom other sales reps before you also reached out to. Other reps who got engagement from the prospect you’re reaching out to also got engagement from these recommended prospects.

That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re your buying committee, but it’s a good place to start.

If these are people worth considering, you can enroll them in their specific place. This will save you time doing LinkedIn research, title-matching, and trying to guess your prospect’s buying committee.

2. It Gives You Information on Prospects’ Phone Numbers

Let’s say you’re now going to call your prospect. You want to make sure you’ll be able to get in touch with them.

Right next to their phone number are three bars that give useful information. For example, someone within the collective called this particular 10-digit sequence six days ago and received an answer.

That means someone ahead of you, who is on the same path you want to be on, got engagement from this phone number. It’s a good number, so you can go ahead and place that call.

3. It Helps You Optimize the Emails You Send to Prospects

After you call your prospect, in this IT executive play, the system says email is next. What if you don’t like the one-bar signal the system projected for the email address you’ll contact?

One option is to run different permutations of the email address. Then, see if any of those have ever gotten an engagement within your network.

Let’s say you get a hit. You can now check the engagement rate with that email address.

If it’s better, you can send your email to that address instead.

Another advantage of collective intelligence systems is that you can ask your network when the best time to send an email to the prospect is. The collective can vote on it, and you can use that data for decision making.

How Collective Intelligence Works

Collective intelligence improving sales

Using collective intelligence requires a lot of data. It requires data about successes and failures.

To gain collective intelligence, you need to log all the relevant data that will be useful to users. This includes things like each call placed, each action taken on an email, and what the title of the target person and their geography are.

You log all this data, whether it lead to a sale or not. A hundred billion of those with associated outcomes — that’s critical mass.

In the last generation sales technology, we relied on sales reps to enter information about their activities. Yet a sales rep wouldn’t enter all the information about their activities, like an unanswered phone call.

When all those relevant data points come together, you’ll know what works and what doesn’t, then you can make recommendations.

That’s what we call collective intelligence.

When you have all this information, you have critical mass. Then your collective intelligence AI can start adding value the same way Waze does.

Collective intelligence requires critical mass. The more people use the system, the more value they can get out of it.

The Value of Collective Intelligence for Sales Teams

Sales companies spend billions of dollars to get access to collective intelligence data. They want to optimize their sales teams.

They’re equipping them to do more of the right things so they can hit their quotas.

These sales teams are also making money. They’ve figured out a way to leverage the power of the collective, and it makes them more powerful.

Collective intelligence is real intelligence. It comes from people who are ahead of you on the path, and they’re leading you on the way you want to go.

Now, inside sales provides a systematized collective intelligence which you can let your sales reps use. This will make them smarter and faster at what they do so they can hit their quota.

Don’t let CRM box you in — leverage the power of collective intelligence and the next generation sales technology. When you understand the benefits of collective intelligence, you can take advantage of it.

Providing the data that your sales reps need will help them become more efficient and productive. In turn, you’ll be able to achieve the end goal — hitting your sales quota.

What are the advantages and limitations of the sales technology you’re currently using? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section below.

Up Next:

Why You Should Be Using AI Right Now w/Babar Batla @SalesDirector.ai

InsideSales Team — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 15:36:34 +0000

Learn the pros of artificial intelligence and how you can use it for your business from SalesDirector.ai’s CEO Babar Batla. Read on to find out more.

In this article:

Misconceptions on Artificial Intelligence
Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Sales Today
The Pros of Artificial Intelligence
How AI Uses Data
Why Artificial Intelligence Is Seeing Slow Growth in the Market
Final Advice from Babar Batla

The Pros of Artificial Intelligence | AI Development

Babar Batla is the Co-Founder and CEO of SalesDirector.ai. Prior to taking on this role, Batla spent the last 16 years between Microsoft and Google leading B2B organizations.

Currently, he occupies himself with training their AI system to become the “greatest companion for sales leaders and sales managers.” SalesDirector.ai is a SaaS offering for B2B sales organizations.

What they essentially do is give leaders insight into their business so they can make decisions before it’s too late. They created an AI solution that produces better data, and in turn a better forecast.

Misconceptions on Artificial Intelligence

These days, artificial intelligence (AI) is a buzzword. Because of that, there are a lot of different perceptions on where we currently are in this technological development.

Batla said that he likes to look at AI as a “journey.” Those on the receiving side of AI have a different perception on where we are in this journey.

He has also had his fair share of misconceptions when talking to their customers and prospects. This led Batla to see that there’s confusion in the AI market.

He shared with us some of the questions he commonly receives. For instance, some Sales Managers ask him if the AI can tell them when the deal is going to close.

To that, he says, it’s not possible. This is because there are too many factors outside of the data itself and why deals happen or don’t.

Another question he receives is, can AI make changes to opportunities in CRM? Batla said that this is possible, but he asks the client if they are really ready for it.

Some are also afraid of AI replacing sales reps and managers.

We have all these perceptions and ideal scenarios when it comes to the pros of artificial intelligence and what it can do. Yet we also need to remember that we should balance them all out.

Batla said that it’s important to know if a certain AI task is feasible. It’s also good to ascertain your organization’s willingness to have an AI do things on your behalf.

The perceptions that Batla generally hears from people is within the spectrum of prescriptive AI. Later on, he will share with us what this is all about.

Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Sales Today

As Batla said, it’s good to have a background on what is really possible in the realm of AI today. It also helps to know where we’re headed.

The market is mature when it comes to commercial applications of AI. Batla shared with us the three types of artificial intelligence that we use in sales today:

Descriptive and Diagnostic AI — Here, AI looks at historical data and figures out what already happened and how these events correlate. One of its capabilities is being able to figure out the characteristics that make a good or bad lead.
Predictive AI — A lot of people are investing in this, as it allows a system to predict what’s going to happen in the future. For instance, it can predict the likelihood of a certain lead to result in something positive, like a demo or a closed deal.
Prescriptive AI — It allows the system to suggest the actions a human should take in order to get positive results. For instance, the system can tell you that it’s time to reach out to someone to improve the odds of winning the deal.

SalesDirector.ai focuses on leading the charge in prescriptive AI. It’s also good to note that at some point in the future, sales-related activities will eventually work with a data AI type of engine.

The Pros of Artificial Intelligence

Working with AI for better sales

After learning the misconceptions and applications of AI, we asked Batla about the pros of artificial intelligence.

Where does this technology work in sales and marketing? How are we using AI to improve customer experience and the lives of salespeople and marketers?

Batla enumerated some areas where we see the benefits of AI.

1. Acts as an Assistant for Humans

First, it acts as an assistant and a grunt worker for humans.

AI does all the work that humans either don’t have time for, don’t have the skillsets for, or perhaps the knowledge to do. This is the main value of AI for customers.

2. Helps with Lead Scoring

Lead scoring is also one area where we make good use of AI. Leveraging AI to look at patterns and figure out which lead is better than the other is a straightforward application of the system.

It can analyze data at scale. An average B2B company doesn’t deal only with hundreds of leads, but rather thousands.

Obviously, it’s very tough for humans to continuously do that. Hence the need for an AI system.

3. Capable of Human-Like Interactions

There are also AI tools that facilitate human-like behavior and interactions. It’s similar to the underneath technology used by Alexa and Siri that mimics a human.

At the end of the day, this advanced technology is only an AI interface using AI technologies.

Batla said that one of the misconceptions on AI is that it’s only capable of human-like interactions. While this is a well-known feature, it’s not the only one out there.

A lot of folks in the corporate world gravitate towards solutions that provide the human-like capabilities of AI. This led Batla’s team to believe that customers think this is the only kind of AI in the market.

4. Helps with Forecast Prediction

Forecast prediction is also one of the pros of artificial intelligence. At the end of the day, the funnel’s goal is to produce output, which is a forecast.

That’s why if you can predict the forecast and make wise decisions before it’s too late, then AI would’ve served its purpose well.

Based on experience and research, Batla’s team discovered that there are fundamental flaws in software companies’ approach towards forecast prediction.

Even with business intelligence (BI), the data principle is “garbage in, garbage out.” If a system is using historical data to predict the future and the data has no causality, it doesn’t provide any meaning.

If you input a bunch of random data into the machine, you will certainly get garbage out.

The most exciting part for Batla and his team is solving the problem on data by making it clean and correct. This way, their customers can input good data into the machine and produce much better insights.

How AI Uses Data

AI using data to produce results

You may be wondering, exactly how important is the role that data plays in artificial intelligence?

As Batla said, data is the “nutrition” you feed AI. Yet the problem now is that there isn’t much focus on getting good data available for the system itself.

Batla thinks that’s a big miss in the market today, but he believes that people who work in tech aren’t ignorant about it. What’s causing this problem is the excessive focus put on making meaning out of data.

Why Artificial Intelligence Is Seeing Slow Growth in the Market

Even with the many pros of artificial intelligence, it still hasn’t taken off the market as fast as you would expect it. Batla shared with us some of the reasons why.

First, it’s a “very complicated thing to solve.” Not because of the technology or the AI required, but rather because of the permutations of the business situations.

Each company has a different forecast approach, and that’s what makes it complicated.

Another curveball is that there is a significant number of sales leaders today who forecast based on holding somebody accountable. They’re not data-driven sales leaders, but rather they are the holding-the-managers-accountable type.

While this is a fine trait to have, it is not feasible for a company whose managers don’t stick around for more than two years. They could face situations wherein it’s too late to course-correct.

That’s the problem with holding people accountable and refusing to utilize machines for assistance.

This type of accountability works when you’ve got five to ten years of tenure for sales leaders. Yet as we see in companies today, this is no longer the case.

Final Advice from Babar Batla

As we wrapped up the conversation, Batla left us with good advice. That is to focus on the business problem at hand and look for a solution to solve it.

He went on to say that we shouldn’t get enamored by the marketing we see. Instead, we should pay attention to our business problem and be critical in finding the right technology that can solve it for us.

If you want to learn more about Babar Batla and SalesDirector.ai, visit his LinkedIn page and their company website. You can also check out their eBook, Demystifying the AI Blackbox, to learn more about artificial intelligence.

As you work towards improving your business and making it more efficient, it is good to know the pros of artificial intelligence. This way, when you’re presented with opportunities, you can opt for the best AI application that will suit your needs.

Who knows — you might find the solution to your business problem in the next AI software you try.

What more would you like to know about sales AI? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section below.

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Your Hiring Is Broken & How You Can Fix It

InsideSales Team — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 14:00:26 +0000

Find out how you can improve your practices when it comes to hiring sales representatives from PerceptionPredict® CEO Brett Morris. Read on to find out more.

In this article:

The Problem with Hiring Sales Representatives
How to Hire a Sales Team: Why You Need Data-Driven Hiring
How to Determine the Status of Your Sales Hiring
What a Scientific Model for Hiring Sales Representatives Looks Like
Why Organizations Don’t Apply Data-Driven Hiring
How You Can Implement Data-Driven Hiring
How PerceptionPredict® Is Different

Tips for Hiring Sales Representatives

Brett Morris is the CEO and Co-Founder of PerceptionPredict®, a company that provides solutions to help organizations accurately hire salespeople.

Morris majored in Geology in college. He joined a mining company for a bit, just long enough to convince him that it wasn’t the right career for him.

Afterward, he started a career in sales as a door-to-door seller. It was a means for him to travel and pay bills at the same time.

Then, he got into B2B selling. Morris also worked in promotional programs, selling and conducting selling training events.

Before starting PerceptionPredict®, he worked on what he called “technology-enabled selling.” This was during the early days when CRM and other systems were not yet fully implemented, and sales had very limited technology.

Morris worked to help salespeople understand buyer behavior and the purchasing process. This led him to venture capital, which eventually evolved to PerceptionPredict®.

The Problem with Hiring Sales Representatives

As a solutions company, there’s a big problem PerceptionPredict® continuously tries to solve — the massive economic inefficiency in sales talent evaluation.

They’ve shared the idea of using data in hiring, and it puzzled Morris why no one else is adapting this practice. Then, he understood why — it was because data-driven hiring is tough, and sales hiring in itself is tough.

One of the main reasons for this is every sales hire is a test of both novelty and complexity. The same goes for each sales interaction.

Organizations hire people to perform a role where there’s a combination of novelty and complexity in the person and in their interaction with a buyer.

It produces so many different variables, and that’s why it’s very hard to evaluate who’s going to perform well in a role.

The sales hiring profile we rely on today are resumés, experience, skills, and education. Yet, if you’re hiring an SDR who doesn’t meet all your indicators, how will you evaluate their performance?

How to Hire a Sales Team: Why You Need Data-Driven Hiring

Using data-driven hiring to find great sales reps

The question is, why should organizations consider transitioning to a hiring process that’s more scientific and data-driven?

Morris and his team believe that, in order to capture the economic inefficiencies in sales talent evaluation, we need to look at attributes first. People in charge of hiring sales representatives need to understand the individuals’ performance DNA.

This means being able to determine whether or not they’ve got what it takes to perform in a specific role in a specific context.

To do that, we need data-driven intelligence that rolls up into an adaptive learning system. The more data you feed it, the smarter it gets and the more predictive it becomes.

Essentially, that is what Morris and his team did with PerceptionPredict®. They built a global software platform, which is the most intelligent of its type.

As he said, there hasn’t been a truly intelligent system that’s managed to put hiring theory and knowledge into operation at scale.

How to Determine the Status of Your Sales Hiring

If you’re like me, you might be wondering how you can quantify and check the status of your own organization’s sales hiring. For this, Morris recommends looking at your most recent sales development report.

For instance, here at XANT, we have the annual State of Sales Development Report. In our 2018 report, we indicated that for the years 2017 and 2018, our turnover rate is steady at 28%.

Morris pointed out that our turnovers are costing us money, and the same goes for other organizations. Some companies may even have a higher turnover rate.

One of the indicators that will let you quantify the status of your sales hiring is your turnover and attrition.

Morris also mentioned one of the key points in our report he found interesting — the negative correlation between compensation and quota.

This stood out to him because of an observation he made. He said there’s a belief in sales that to get people to perform well, you need to pay them better.

Yet he believes that this may not be the case.

Instead, Morris advised building a sales machine on good, steady medium producers who turn up. By “turn up,” he doesn’t mean physically, but emotionally and mentally.

These producers turn up, do a great job, hit their numbers, and enjoy the process. Although he admits that this doesn’t mean that there isn’t a blind factor to it.

What a Scientific Model for Hiring Sales Representatives Looks Like

Another important thing to know is how the scientific model for choosing salespeople looks like.

Morris said that by comparison, the tools we currently use in hiring sales representatives are “essentially all cookie cutter.” This means they lack the capacity to distinguish the unique differences that enable individual people to perform in a specific role.

Morris and his team built a software system that combines advanced human and data science, which allows them to understand an individual’s performance DNA.

Take SDRs, for example. How will you understand the complex make-up of an individual that enables them to perform an SDR role even with no sales experience?

Morris then introduced us to the first approach called “attributes.” What they do is break down the performance DNA of an individual.

Then, they correlate that dynamically on a platform real-time, with actual performance data, pre- and post-hire.

They’re continuously calibrating the model with very rich performance data. They factor in things like the introductory meetings and qualified opportunities an individual can create.

They get this data and correlate them at scale with the individual’s performance DNA.

From there, their system produces job-role and buyer persona-specific algorithms that can run on an inbound job applicant stream.

Why Organizations Don’t Apply Data-Driven Hiring

Using data for the hiring process

I asked Morris why organizations find it difficult to adapt to data-driven hiring. He admitted that part of the answer lies in the fact that this practice is complicated.

He also recognized that buyer behavior plays a role in this. Buyers tend to absorb processes and systems that are simple, easy, and can quickly release reports.

They also prefer what they’re familiar with. If they’ve been applying a certain process or system for a while, it’ll be challenging to make them shift.

Morris also shared with us how PerceptionPredict® was able to help their clients. They gathered data on their clients’ SDR and Account Executive teams, and within 90 days, they produced a specific algorithm.

What the algorithm does is look for the performance fingerprint of the people who’ll succeed in their job role, selling their value proposition to buyers.

How You Can Implement Data-Driven Hiring

Aside from helping organizations in hiring sales reps, their platform also offers other helpful services. It can predict pre-hire how eligible for promotion to an AE position an SDR will be.

As Morris pointed out, we’re dealing with probability. Sales leaders who are really serious about hitting their numbers can benefit from this approach.

How PerceptionPredict® Is Different

You may be wondering how PerceptionPredict® is different from other tools in the market. Indeed, coming across a lot of different offers on how you can improve your hiring process can be overwhelming.

Morris asserted that what makes them different is that the tool they’re offering isn’t an intelligent system that gets smarter the more data you feed it. Rather, it’s built on human and data science in a unique way that rolls up.

As you continue to use it, you’re also building a system that becomes “aggressively smarter.” Eventually, it will be able to identify your good, steady medium producers and your liabilities.

Another reason why PerceptionPredict® is different is that it predicts actual performance pre-hire. Here is some useful data it provides that you can use in hiring sales representatives:

The number of actual meetings the person can book
The number of qualified opportunities they can create
What sort of contracts an Account Executive can write
The dollar value of the AE’s contracts
How well the contract will progress into the sales process
The individual’s attributes that come into play

If you want to hear more from Morris or learn more about his company, you can visit his LinkedIn page and their website.

If you’re expanding your team and hiring sales representatives, using a data-driven and predictive process is something worth considering. It’s an effective sales hiring strategy that will allow you to find better talent more efficiently.

Even if you’re still planning about scaling your sales team, it’s great to learn new ideas on how you can optimize your process of bringing in new and fresh talent.

In what ways do you need to improve your current hiring process? Let us know in the comments section below.

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