Category: Competencies

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Is your sales team ready for the future?

Fit for Purpose

It is important that companies respond well to changes in the market. Precisely by moving along with new developments as a company, you make the difference compared to your competitors.

The current situation demands that you as a company can quickly respond to major changes. Preparing your sales team for these changes is therefore more on-topic than ever.

The Covid19 crisis makes sure that this all is more important. The past few months have been the period to make your sales team focus even better on the developments and changes in your customers' markets.
One of the concepts that came up in recent months is 'Fit for Purpose'. By this we mean whether and how you as a team are able to deal with these changes with your customers.

How do you know if your team is Fit for Purpose and what do you have to do to get it fit?

Not only during Covid19, also for the longer term, it is increasingly important that your sales team can deal more effectively with setbacks and opportunities. We call this mental resilience.
Your customers have ever higher demands, that's why your team needs to be flexible and more agile. So that the team can anticipate changes at your customers even faster and more adequately.

A crucial role has been set for Sales Management. Sales Leadership is more than ever essential to make your sales teams more future-proof. In times of crisis, real leaders stand up and the right leadership is essential to develop and optimize the different qualities and pitfalls of employees.

Instant insight into the qualities and priorities of your sales team

SalesStep is the best, most useful and validated Online Sales Assessment that provides instant insight into the sales qualities and development priorities of your sales people. By answering a questionnaire of 120 questions, a score is calculated based on 23 different and relevant sales competencies. By these competencies we mean important qualities such as sales drive, your passion, your motivation,
relationship management and acquisition and closing skills. All relevant skills that support your results and the progress of your career in sales. SalesStep presents with its dashboard all 23 competences in a clear overview.

In addition to this, you will receive a report with detailed information and explanation on the different components. The results of a SalesStep Assessment are ideal for interviews with applicants. Not only will you take the candidate in question seriously, you will also get a clear picture of the applicant immediately. This way you know if the candidate is suitable for the vacancy: Fit for purpose!

In addition, Teamviewer from SalesStep offers a comprehensive and data driven overview of your entire sales team. We also call this the T-0 analysis and this makes it very clear if the right people are in the right role, and which people have the potential to further develop and how to coach and train them.

Test the adaptability of your clients

If you, as a coach or trainer, help a sales team improve their sales skills or if you manage a sales division, then the online assessment of SalesStep is ideal. Use the assessment during a coaching process and use the accompanying report to see how you can see the qualities and start the development process!

Are you interested? Would you like to use SalesStep to get a better answer on how to can offer online coaching to your customers?

Become a partner of SalesStep now and use the assessment to
more result-oriented coaching of your customers to get more out of your Sales. We have extensive knowledge of sales and assessments and a network of partners to get even more from your coaching!

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The 3 distinguishing mindset attributes for salespeople in times of crisis

Sales team

Every salesperson will recognize when their manager starts to put pressure when they are not reaching their sales targets. In the SalesStep Article: Classical Sales Manager’s paradox we have researched this behaviour. Moreover, given the current crisis, more pressure is put on salespeople to secure business and to close opportunities left in the sales funnel.

In September 2019 SalesStep conducted a research study on the different motivational drives of 474 salespeople. With this study, we found an interesting paradox of Sales Managers behaviours, especially under stress. Yet, only half a year later, this has become a reality in the Corona crisis.

Finding 1: Sales Managers have a natural response to put more pressure (Red = Power) on their salespeople when they are not reaching their sales targets (Orange = Results). This happens when their primary motivational drive for results is not addressed.

Finding 2: Salespeople’s biggest allergy is “Power” more specifically Power and Decisiveness enforced upon them most of the time by their manager. More commonly observed as a pushy micro-manager that wants to gain control and restore results.

We easily recognize this classical paradox and many of us have experience with a pushy manager in times of crisis. This leads us to the key question of today: ”What should we do knowing that enforcing more Power is working counterproductive?”

The answer to this question is twofold:

  1. What are the most distinguishing sales competencies to understand ‘Corona-proven’?
  2. What does good look like from a Sales (Leadership) perspective?

To start with answering these questions we put a stress test to and actualized the findings of our earlier data set from September 2019. And here is what we found: Sales leadership in times of crisis is not related to whether you are a manager or a salesperson. But crisis Leadership is related to 3 distinguishing Mindset attributes:

2020 06 10 - SalesStep Dashboard

  1. Your Mental Fitness: The ability of salespeople to overcome rejection, disappointment and the way to deal with change.
  2. Your attitude to Challenge & Persevere: The attitude ‘Not-to-Take-No-For-An-Answer’ and not to accept the Status Quo but to always ‘Raise the bar’.
  3. Your motivational drive Decisiveness  (Power-Red): In times of trouble we need leaders that can act decisive and dare to make decisions.

Conclusions:

We understand that putting more pressure especially during times of crises is working counterproductive. Moreover, you don’t need to be an accredited psychologist to understand that Power, Perseverance and your Mental Fitness are vital mindset attributes. However, did you know that less than 4% of all researched salespeople have sufficient scores on all three?

My advice: There are two key questions you need to ask yourself:

  1. Have I fallen in the pitfall to increase the pressure on my sales team recently?
  2. Who in my team has the right competencies to lead my team out of this crisis?

Care to get an answer to that question?
Contact Marque Draijer to get your own assessment!

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Buying process has changed and drives a different approach to lead generation

SalesStep measures and analyzes 23 different sales competencies that can be subdivided into Sales Drives, Sales Attitudes and Sales Skills. During this research, we examined the results of the talent of participants for the following specific sales skills:

  1. Acquisition skills
  2. Social selling and networking skills
  3. Qualification skills
  4. Added value & solution selling skills
  5. Consultative selling skills
  6. Sales Process & CRM
  7. Negotiation and closing skills
  8. Service & account management skills

The participants' talent for each of these skills is plotted on a scale of 0-100%. Whereby 0% means a lack of talent and 100% great talent for further development on this skill. (please note that the % present populations and therefor 50% is in the middle of the score of a population of that competence).

Results of this study

The participants have on overall some work to do. In other words: the majority had enough potential to grow on certain skills.

On the positive side, skills such as CRM & sales process and negotiating and deal closing have been developed above average for this group. What is striking, however, is that the competency Social Selling & Networking is the least developed.

Social Selling & Networking is a crucial acquisition competence for sales. "The definition of Social Selling is to cultivate contact with the use of networks, insights, and conversations to create long-term relationships." (Source)

Social Selling is cultivating contact with the use of networks, insights and conversations to create long-term relationships

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The objective of Social Selling is to generate leads and not to sell via social media or online platforms. Social selling is the chance to be present online, to make sure your contacts know who you are and what you can deliver, so they can contact you when they need your expertise. Old-fashioned cold calling and walk-ins are no longer effective (or have never been effective) and are rarely appreciated.

As we learned from the data in this study, the competence of Social Selling is the least developed. That's why, in my opinion, sales should prioritise to develop their social and networking skills. Research has shown that buying skills have changed. Of salespeople who have invested in the use of social and online media, 73% of salespeople use technology to close more deals and 89% of sales professionals say networking platforms are very important to their daily operations.

The problem with Social Selling is not about how to use technology or be active on social networking platforms. It is what you contribute to your network and how you deal with these insights.

Buying process has changed and drives a different approach to lead generation

Without trust, no deal will close. Around 51% of decision-makers rank ‘trust’ as the top attribute which they desire in a salesperson. With 90% of B2B decision-makers search on Google for new services and products, and 75% using LinkedIn to find trusted partners, it is crucial for sales organisations to invest in Social Selling.

Buyers and decision-makers appreciate the brand's products and services more when sales professionals invest in human contacts and sincere attention. This is where the use of technology and 'cultivating contacts and using social networks' comes into the picture.

Most likely you share interesting company information on your social media, such as a brochure or white paper. However it is more important to invest time in discovering what kind of information your network is looking for. What is it they are searching for? What kind of information are they looking for? What can you do to help? In addition to sharing relevant information, you can become more valuable for your contacts by connecting people in your network with others who are looking for each other and may need each other. You unlock the power of your social network by introducing people and connecting your network. With every connection you show that you care about your network and that you act on a personal level. You're becoming more valuable to your relationships.

By sharing the right content and networking, you can become the industry expert in your field or region. As a result, potential partners and customers will find you sooner, without cold acquisition. It will take some time to develop such a personal approach. Therefore, invest time to be more relevant and authentic on a personal level. This way you get more attention for the right focus in sales.

Conclusion: With these findings of SalesStep's research, it is good to conclude that competency development of Social Selling & Networking should have the highest priority for commercial management and sales managers.

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Why is Professional Hygiene important in Sales?

Elements of professional hygiene

... and how much Sales Savviness can you manage in your team?

In this article we scrutinize a rather unusual competency in Sales called Professional Hygiene. This competency entails your capability to display Professionalism and compliance alongside standard working procedures. People who express a high level of Professional Hygiene often appreciate thorough preparations, are people who think before they act and try to avoid making mistakes.

Professional Hygiene may not be the most obvious competency when we consider effective development of salespeople. Moreover, Professional Hygiene is often considered as a hidden competency and therefore regularly forgotten or ignored. The reason for this is there appears no direct correlation between Professional Hygiene and Sales performance, however there is adversely: A lack of Professional Hygiene will certainly lead to a lower sales performance. This is why we consider Professional Hygiene to be a pretty important competency for Salespeople.

When you have a high score on Professional Hygiene and for example you appear always on time, you are perceived by your customers as capable of managing their issues adequately and therefore you more likely to be are considered to be trustworthy and honest. This attitude is therefore also closely linked to successfully managing customers’ expectations. However: Salespeople that display too much preparation and present a CRM system that is always up to date, often don’t seem to reach their targets though. This is why we believe that sometimes your salespeople need to have a bit of:

“Better to ask for forgiveness than approval”

This attitude we call Sales Savviness, and this appears to be in contrast with a high score on Professional Hygiene. So why is Sales Savviness important?

Because we know from experience that sales Savvy salespeople always surf on the edges of what is tolerable and possible. This encourages innovation and competition within sales teams and these people are (when carefully managed and coached) essential for your innovation and winning spirit in your team and thus vital for your entire organizational innovation and sales performance.

So now we understand why Sales Savviness is important, how much Professional Hygiene is good?

Professional Hygiene dashboard

In trying to answer this question, the research database of SalesStep provides us with relevant data. Based upon the results of the assessments of 455 Salespeople our recommendation for an ideal score on Professional Hygiene between 50-70% (on a scale of 0-100%). The average score for the 455 respondents is however only 48% so there is some room for improvement on the development of this competency.

To measure this for your team, we recommend to your use SalesStep’s Teamviewer application that provides this overview for you on an individual as well on a team level.

Do we offer sales training on Professional Hygiene? Certainly not! This is a clear managerial responsibility and when you would like to develop your professional hygiene, we always recommend starting with displaying discipline during your regular sales meetings. Being on-time, well prepared, writing clear meeting minutes, meeting every week on the same day etc.

You will be amazed to see what will happen over time when you provide more discipline to your own meetings and the impact this has on to the preparation for customer meetings.

But again, be careful not to overdo this!

Any questions or remarks: info@salesstep.com

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