If you are going to be successful in this new era of enterprise sales, you are going to have to challenge traditional thinking. Old school thinking just doesn’t cut it in IT. Specifically, you are going to have to think in a new way about the employee-employer relationship. Traditional HR departments aren’t going to like this. Don’t worry about them – they won’t get it.

Sadly most HR departments in technology still haven’t earned their place at the table and should stick to filling out benefit forms and writing job descriptions. The mechanics of the relationship between employer and employee will still exist – don’t get me wrong. However, YOU are going to have to think about the way you operate from a different perspective if you are truly going to be successful over the long term. In this industry, you really don’t work for anyone but yourself.

The basic idea that a product or service needs a skilled sales force to sell it, is still the same. Nothing has changed there. Unless you’re an independent contractor, you will still technically be an ‘employee’ of a company. However, the shift in thinking that I am suggesting you adopt comes from the perspective that you must treat your territory and accounts as is they are truly your own – like you had to pay for them when you began with the company you sell for. You have to believe that you literally own them as if you have a right to sell them.

What I mean here is that we need to start thinking about territories or account lists almost like a franchise before we can make one phone call or send even one letter to them. To ensure that you take this perspective seriously, I would like to suggest the following exercise for you. At the beginning of each quarter, figure out what you want to earn. Calculate your commissions as exactly as possible. Then, write yourself a check for that amount and put it in your wallet, day timer or tack it up somewhere that you’ll see it everyday.

Think of this as having to make payroll every month for your own ‘personal selling services corporation’. I promise you will take your daily activities much more seriously. Knowing that you have an outstanding check out there (even if it is only to yourself) will help ensure increased focus and reinforce that you work for yourself. I do this at the beginning of each quarter and find it a terrific exercise for affirming my commitment to this profession as that of a ‘business owner’.

Now I realize that you might be uncomfortable thinking like this. Maybe this ‘business ownership’ model is too extreme for you. I understand that. Don’t worry; at first I felt that way too, until I realized that I needed a better way to increase the intensity of my efforts.

What I am trying to promote here is a kind of ownership and commitment to your sales territory as if it was a business that could one day sell – just like a real business with its own payroll! I want you to imagine that 2 -3 years from now you have squeezed every bit of new revenue from all the accounts in your territory and now the referrals and upgrade business is starting to happen consistently. This would be the result of your professional sales and account management activities.

Don’t you think somebody would want a well-developed territory (read: ‘business’) like that? God forbid you should one day leave the company you work for. Surely, other sales people in your company would be fighting for your territory (which has happened many times in my career). If your region really was an independent business, it would be worth significantly more than when you started working it. Now, every year those happy customers upgrade their installations to your company’s current offerings, add a few more users and purchase more services and add-on products from you and the company you sell for. Talk about a great investment! This is how some of the best sales managers I work with manage their teams.

In fact, I recommend that sales managers stop reporting revenue production as a comparison to other reps in the region or company. Instead, I strongly suggest that managers track specific metrics for reps as period over period performance. This is so much more motivating for sales people and more meaningful in managing performance metrics. Comparing a reps performance to the overall team average offers little in the way of value for performance management. There is too much discrepancy from rep to rep and from territory to territory. An this way (rep to rep comparisons) is more work (and one of the reasons I say managers should not have more than eight direct reports), but it is worth the effort.

By the way, add-on products and services are one of the greatest things about being in the software business. I don’t know of any other industry where it is easier to capture incremental revenue from existing customers. This is because if your company is listening to customer needs (and not developing stuff that only the developers think is cool), you have the almost perfect business model. Sadly, most companies don’t do this and is a key contributor to their ongoing pathetic sales performance. They instead allow developers to built the stuff the developers think is cool and then wonder the market doesn’t buy it. Guess who gets the blame? Yep – the sales force.

Essentially, you’d be enjoying the unique position that established individuals in enterprise software sales do every day. Your business would be on autopilot. Don’t laugh, because this is possible. I have seen it many times and it is where you want to be. If you don’t believe me, ask any of the big wheels at Microsoft, Oracle, i2 Technologies or Accenture. They will tell you that this is the kind of scenario you want to develop for yourself. Why? Because it is far easier and less expensive to develop ongoing revenue from an existing customer base, than it is to sell into a cold one. To put it very clearly, cold calling is dead.

However, you will only get to this level of achievement if you think of your territory as a corporation of which you are the president and CEO. That’s right, you must think about this career now from the top down from now on. To take this analogy further, you are actually going have employees of this ‘corporation’.

Make no mistake, there are going to be people working for you and they will be held to a higher standard of performance. Accountability is a good thing. Who are these people you ask? They are your systems engineers, field representatives, inside sales people, partner managers, regional office administrators, and senior managers, pre-sales people – everybody who works with you to meet your quota.

Now this is going to be a mental challenge for some people to accept. But remember what we discussed earlier, if you’re going to succeed you are going to have to challenge fundamental thinking. For example the manager or VP of sales that you report to currently is now an employee of your ‘corporation’. Yes, in this new way of operating they are going to theoretically work for you. Why? Well, first of all don’t forget the first chapter!

Companies in the coming years are going to have to support sales more than any other business unit of their organizations if they want to last.

Companies that don’t listen to, answer to and live for their sales organizations are never going to rise above mediocrity. In fact they will probably vanish.

~ Brooks

Sales rarely happen without many things taking place on both the buyer’s and seller’s side.

Most of the research in the domain of sales indicates that there is usually a series of repeatable behaviours that occur each time a sale is won (or lost). This suggests that if one could become more aware of those steps, then it would be easier to sell.

I am suggesting here that if you are selling any kind of IT solution without some kind of process or awareness into how your buyers are buying for you, then you’re not truly a sales professional. Instead, you are merely an order taker. There’s a big difference between those two kinds of salespeople.

The point of having a sales process is so that organizations can mitigate revenue risks and have a more systematic approach to revenue creation. The effect is a better understanding of when and why sales could close. This is often referred to a ‘revenue reliability’.

Simply put, a sales process is a series of repeatable steps and behaviours that marketing and sales people do to move a sales opportunity forward or disqualify it completely.

Typically those steps would include, but not be limited to something like the following:

Lead -> Prospect -> Opportunity -> Evaluating -> Negotiation -> Win or Loss

Some of the better known software as a service offerings include A key element of a sales process in my opinion is the focussed use of a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool. There are MANY reasons why organizations should use a CRM tool like Salesforce.com and Entellium, not the least of which is to track and manage a sales process..

Having sold, implemented or participated in designing sales processes for Salesforce.com and others, I can say without hesitation that the benefits were nearly immediate.

If your organization doesn’t have a sales process or you are considering joining one that doesn’t, I can almost guarantee a frustrating relationship between you and management. Even a simple sales process with key criteria for each step is better than nothing.

There are many good off-the shelf sales processes in the marketplace.

There’s an adage which states, “If you don’t know how you got where you’re at, you’re still lost.”

The same is true about being in this fantastic profession of sales without a sales process. So the next time someone asks you about your sales process, make sure you have an answer.

~ Brooks.

If you have been in involved in any facet of technology the last 30 years – you will know there’s always someone in the mix who’ll buy anything new. But those people only account for about 20% of the total buying marketplace.

They are the early adopters and they should not be the focus of your entire sales efforts. The ones to really focus on are the late adopters – the people who will consider buying something once it’s been around a while. These are key points in learning how to sell software.

However, there is an even more important component to late adopters and that is HOW they buy. Even though you may be selling a “new” technology, late adopter buyers out there don’t buy the same way early adopters do. This is where most sales managers fail to help their teams properly segment selling behavior.

All of this thinking comes from one of my favorite books, Crossing the Chasm, by Geoffrey Moore. It is one of the recommended 10 resources you’ll learn about in Software Sales Skills. You must read this book.

Anyway, my point is this – if you can’t learn how to sell to late market buyers, you will meet with limited success. Here’s a basic premise in Moore’s book, which is even more true today with the Web 2.0 movement than when Moore wrote the book: Late market buyers need help seeing how they will use your products and services. Early market buyers have already figured it out. Early market buyers are not as loyal and don’t often make the best customers to build a business around.

Selling to them is more like order taking…like a transaction. Late market buyers…late adopters are loyal and less likely to switch vendors. If you can learn how to sell to them, you will be more successful and so will your company.

Why? Because they make up 80% of the buying market place. Now, what if you had 9 other critical resources like this to help you improve your sales?

You can – I’ve got them listed in Software Sales Skills.

~ Brooks

Why selling software is the best business education going.

Selling software at the enterprise level has to be one of the best business educations anybody could ever ask for. This is part of the reason that I wrote Software Sales Skills.

I really want to share this message with people. I really want people to know that if they learn how to sell software, they will get this secondary, but very valuable benefit.

In fact, I would bet the knowledge you will gain of business management, fiscal responsibility and corporate policy would be equivalent to those with MBA’s from the best Ivy League schools. The best part is that you’ll learn in with REAL customers in REAL WORLD situations…not in some case study. (Even though many of them are based upon real world examples).

Perhaps that is why so many of today’s Fortune 500 executives came from the ranks of major sales. This is education that will offer your tremendous experience and confidence that simply can’t be learned in a classroom at University.

When I think of the things I’ve learned from competitive selling situations, in conversations with senior executives at very large companies, I feel lucky to have gained the business knowledge that I have. You can too. This is even truer today.

Should you choose to move out of a direct sales role one day, you will have gleaned a powerful base of business expertise that is second to none. The best part is that you will be able to converse with most people who do have a business degree.

In today’s marketplace, that kind of real world know-how is in high demand and pays very well. Those “C” (CEO, CFO, Etc.) level people running today’s leading organizations are known as bright leaders and powerful deal makers who know how to negotiate and get things done. That’s why they have the roles they do. This is a reputation and skill set I believe very strongly one can develop in the software sales game. The future is going to bring more consolidation, mergers and challenge to the general business environment.

What you learn in a software sales career will arm you with the tools to handle those situations with speed, confidence and the knowledge necessary to ensure success.

~ Brooks

Cold calling is so dead.

There is no faster way for you to burn your company’s brand, waste precious time and mistake activity for accomplishment, than to spend time cold calling.

Nothing says to a decision maker that you:
1. Have no higher value activity to do
2. That you are desperate,
than to pick up the phone and randomly call someone you’ve never met before.

I can’t understand why this one prospecting method won’t die. It’s just so counterproductive. There’s so many other ways to build a solid sales pipeline. Such as:

Selling more services and products to existing customers (any good I.T. company “should” have a sales force that sells 30% of its revenue from the existing customer base).

Asking happy, existing customers for referrals or introductions to others who might benefit from your offerings (properly implemented, this only method could keep you very productive and effective at new business development. This should represent at least 20% of your sales pipeline)
Following up on inbound leads (if you are considering working for or work at an organization that isn’t capable of generating a steady stream of inbound leads, this is a red flag. In a well run organization, this should account for at least 25% of your pipeline).

More proven ideas can be found in Software Sales Skills.

On these last points – I must share the following: Marketing departments in this industry have had it way too easy for way too long. They must be held accountable to sales production. I KNOW from experience that the right marketing program, properly integrated with “mind of the prospect” messaging, can drive tremendous interest.

If sales is not seeing a steady trickle of interested parties ringing your company’s doorbell, this is a major red flag. Please note – I did NOT say “qualified” parties, that’s your job; to qualify or dis-qualify.

Anyway, if you’ve been presented with the modern day equivalent of ‘pounding the pavement’ or ‘ working the phone book’ as the main business development activity for your company, you are on the wrong team. You are merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic of your soon to be burned-out and then sunk sales career.

Please stop cold calling. It’s bad for your company’s brand. It’s bad for your self esteem. It’s bad for the public image of sales people. It’s bad for productivity. It’s a bad addiction that must be stopped. It’s just plain bad and it hasn’t worked for over a decade.

~Brooks

The reality of this skill, is that it has more to do with the other person, that it does with you. I think that’s the essence of selling: aligning with the other person. And it starts with you. In other words, the whole point of interpersonal sales situations is to have an impact on the other person. One of the most important ways to do this is by learning to listen well. This is a key philosophy of Software Sales Skills.

This is one that you’ve no doubt heard many times over. However, it is a sad truth that of all the disciplines taught in schools today, none include as part of a regular program, skills on how to listen. Taking the time to develop this skill will improve every area of your life. I know. Before I knew how to listen well, I didn’t realise how poor the quality of my relationships and communications really were. In my opinion and experience, the five best rules to effective listening are:

1. Look at the other person. Don’t look over their shoulder. Don’t look at your watch. Don’t look away unless it is a part of the conversation. But don’t stare at them either! They’ll think you’re weird. Move your gaze from their mouth to their eyes. And look back and forth between their eyes. This isn’t easy because paying attention to anything, especially people (who generally talk way too much) is HARD WORK. But the rewards are well worth it. The point here is to focus on the person with whom you’re talking and that involves rule number two.

2. Focus your body directly at or generally towards the other person. Use your judgment here. If you’re having coffee with a friend, a body posture that you’d use in a job interview is sure to look odd. Just make sure that when you’re listening to someone, you LOOK like you’re paying attention. Pretend that someone is scoring your listening body posture from across the room. Sit in a way that shows you’re interested, even if you’re not! This is a very strong compliment to other speaker because it shows that you care enough to orient your body in such a way to maximize your relations with them.

3. Listen for emotions and ideas not words or poor speaking ability. It’s the message you’re listening for, not whether this person speaks like prince charming. You want to know what makes the other person feels good and bad. People are motivated only by fear of loss and desire for gain. If you listen for the things the other person wants and doesn’t want you’ll be on your way to making a friend for life. Then, if you can catch the reasons, or ideas behind why that is the case for the speaker, you will understand their point of view. This is a critical milestone in developing trust and confidence. All good negotiators and salespeople understand this. Everyone can benefit from this one!

4. Pause once the other person has finished speaking. Wait a few seconds. Let their words sink into your brain and use the second or two of silence to make sure they’ve said everything they can for the moment. I can’t tell you how many times I used this technique only to have the person say “AND…” Then share some critical piece of information with me. Next, in your own words, paraphrase what you’ve heard. If you’re unclear on some of the points, ask for clarification. Say, “I understood the part about how you got to the store, but I didn’t get it when you said…” You get the picture. These actions are the highest compliments that you can pay your speaker because it shows two things.

A. You were actually listening and heard what mattered to that person. (Emotions and ideas)
B. You cared enough to see things from their point of view and put it in your words. (Paraphrased their words)

5. Don’t finish other people’s sentences or give the word that they are looking for unless they ask for. It takes the ’sense’ of power and the spotlight away from the other person. Not a good thing to do when you want them to feel important. This is so hard to do because we are always thinking of what we’d say next or trying to figure out what the speaker is going to say next. The reason for this is simple. Studies show that people speak at an average of 200-300 words per minute. But since we think in terms of pictures, the verbal equivalent is that we think at a rate of 600-3000 words per minute. Now it’s easy to see why it’s so hard to focus on the other person and not our own thoughts and desires.

These are five rules that I rarely break in social and sales situations. I hope you find them as useful as I do.

~Brooks.

The right company to join is always a conundrum when it comes to choosing the next step in your sales career. When it comes to selling I.T., there’s no question that RIGHT NOW is the best time to be a skilled sales professional. Stop thinking about it. Just do it. If you are thinking about it, get in the game. You can do it. I did!

Where I live in British Columbia, Canada…there have been articles recently in many local publications that there’s something like a 9,000 Information Technology worker shortage.

Having said that, if you are a sales addict, as I’m I, you’d be crazy to sign up for anything less than a leveraged compensation plan.

What I mean by this is as follows: Let’s say that the company you join gives you a two million dollar quota (not uncommon in many tier one and tier two vendors). The sad thing about this kind of comp. plan is that you get the usual (and bloody boring) 1% on the first $500k and 2% the next $500k, etc., ad nauseam).

These compensation plans are for the “typical” organizations with established brand recognition where the sales force is predominantly taking orders. That is NOT SELLING!!!!!!!

Simply put, a leveraged compensation plan will provide you with a MUCH HIGHER COMMISSION RATE on anything that you sell…to the point where every deal you sell is WELL WORTH THE effort. I’m talking about 10% or better on deals. That’s where you want to be when you’re really good at selling software.

True selling…true prospecting is causing people who are NOT thinking about changing to begin thinking about changing…with your company’s solution(s).

Anyway, back to my original point. If you KNOW HOW TO SELL, you are in the very rare position of being able to command a compensation package that is highly leveraged.

In other words, it is a compensation package that exceeds the usual comp. details that I have laid out above and instead provides for much juicier pay rates/ commission rates on your new sales.

If you learn even some of the stuff that I talk about in Software Sales Skills, and learn how to sell software you should be able to command a significantly more leveraged (IE higher commissions) on the sales that you eventually DO make.

The reason for this is simple. In this new world of Web 2.0, it is no longer about the technology, because competitors are springing up all over the place, but rather, how well you are able to bring a prospective customer to vision with YOUR S O L U T I O N ! ! ! !

This is the key to deciding which company to join. If they don’t have a highly leveraged compensation plan, consider this a red flag and move on. Most of the big companies in Canada and the United States are still stuck in this archaic mind set.

I really believe when it comes to I.T. companies that “small is the new big”.

If you have more questions, please don’t hesitate to email me. I have worked with over 200 I.T. companies globally and been employed with many I.T. organizations in that last decade in sales, sales management, sales training, sales management coaching, executive direction, marketing and compensation plan development.

~ Brooks.

I’ve had a lot of feedback and questions on the previous post of handling objections – so I’ve decided to clarify this subject further with the following content:

Question: What exactly is objection handling?

Answer: Objection handling is a process for answering your prospects’ questions (and remember, they are ALL questions) in a way that helps them better understand how your solution supports their business requirements and to clarify the difference between what the prospect thinks is true and what is actually true.

Question: Are there specific types of objections that I should be on the lookout for?

Answer: Yes…I think there are three types and they are self explanatory in description. First, there are general misunderstandings (the most common and usually related to the buyer’s ego defending itself). Second, there is the competitive trap where buyer has a pre-defined, competitive solution in mind and they want to see how you stack up when some pressure is applied. Last, there are what is known as the “showstoppers”…where the buyer puts a requirement on the table with the caveat that if you can’t do “x or y”, then you are no longer a consideration.

Question: Why should I even worry about handling objections if the model you suggested gets rid of 90% of objections anyway?

Answer: Actually, I have three points to share on this question. First, good objection handling helps you keep the conversation focused on how your solution delivers on the prospect’s goals or business requirements. Second, good objection handling gives you a way to avoid “show stopping” issues. Last, these questions are an opportunity to set the record straight and build competitive advantage.

~ Brooks

If there’s one thing in this business (or just about any business for that matter) it is the concept that if price is your only competitive advantage…you’re dead before you begin.

When selling technology, you HAVE TO manage the only four resources available, to your advantage.

1. Information

This is anything to do with your product or service. Information can be shared verbally or in a written format such as email, word documents, white papers, etc.

2. Resources

This is one usually falls under the category of people. They could be people who are referenceable customers for you. They could be pre-sales engineers or implementation consultants or subject matter experts.

3. Price

This one should be self explanatory. However, I believe that price should be introduced at a very specific point in the sales cycle. Usually sales people make the mistake of sharing pricing information too soon. Unless you are selling a simple subscription based service that doesn’t change or require any add-ons to complete then price should not be shared immediately. Another time when price should not be shared is if you are a service provider or consulting organization where you need time to properly build a scope of work. In short, you should never share price until it is clear to you that the prospect understands the…

4. Value of your offering

In the absence of value, you don’t have anywhere to go and the prospect will assess your offering on the lowest common denominator: price. Learn how to help buyers understand your value and you will win more sales. More importantly, you will disqualify time wasting prospects sooner. This is because research shows time and again that if you go the distance in a sales cycle with a buyer who doesn’t understand and believe in your value, they usually don’t buy. Then you have wasted valuable time and effort. So you might as well use value as the litmus test as to whether or not you’ll proceed with the client.

Too much of this type of ‘price-based’ selling is deadly. It is deadly because soon you will be commoditized in the marketplace and competitors who know how to sell software (or any technology for that matter) on value will land your customers…and that’s why I say ‘don’t rely on price – it’ll kill you.’

~Brooks

At present, we are finding ourselves in a world where we’ve got less time to do what’s important. If anything, you and I are bound to our cell phones, pagers, emails, voice-mails, faxes, printers and monitors to name a few.

That’s why learning how to be effective is so valuable in today’s world. Software Sales Skills is about exactly that…about learning how to sell software effectively. Now, more than ever we need to master the skill of sales effectiveness before we drown in a sea of mundane details.

I talk to people every week who are starting to realize that they just can’t keep up anymore. The supermom’s of the 90’s are burnt out from working and child rearing. The employee of yesterday is doing the work of 3 today. You know it’s true. Take a look around you. Mergers, acquisitions, downsizing, industry restructuring and doing more with less people is the basic tenet of the business world.

And the gap widens every year between those who have less and those who have more. The difference is no longer in working harder. I’ve learned from talking to people all over that a person can work hard all their lives and wind up at age 65 broke and confused. I’ve also learned that people are retiring today earlier than ever with substantial amounts of money – and many of them were sales people… I.T. Sales People!

The difference lies in personal effectiveness.

Working smarter not, harder is what today’s game plan is all about. That’s what this book is all about. You need this information today more than ever if you’re going to thrive, not just survive in today’s new world.

The good news is you’re a few clicks away from the foundation for moving towards ’smarter, not harder’. This book will provide you with simple, effective ideas on how to create the results you desire by going to work on five key areas:

1. Your sales mind
2. Your sales body
3. Your sales time
4. Your sales relationships
5. Your sales future

We’re hearing a lot today about ‘good time management’. We’re hearing that the way to the top is to have a smokin’ ‘to-do’ list. Well, that’s partially true, but it’s not all that’s you’re being told it to be. There is a distinct difference between efficient and effective. Let’s consider the use of a day planner for example. You know the kind…where you write down all of your ‘to-do’s’ and commitments for the day. Let’s say that you’ve got thirty things to do today.

You get them all done. Not a minute wasted. Wow! You think. If only I could get that much done everyday! However, you know that there’s no way you could do that every day.

Upon reflecting on this most busy day, you realize that you’re so tired. You can barely wait to hit the pillow at night. However, you’ve completed every item on your list and didn’t waste much time doing it. That’s efficiency.

The other way to look at a day full of errands and business like this is to say, well, I know how much effort this is going to take. Do I really want to spend the entire day running around on all this stuff? Isn’t there some way that I can avoid having to be present for all of these details?

The answer is yes!

You can! But it is going to take some advance planning and some thinking about how to do it. Let’s say that one of the items in your list is to get the grocery shopping done. I know from selling reporting software that most people buy the same things at the supermarket 90% of the time.

The supermarket in my neighborhood will deliver for free if the order is over $25 dollars. What’s better is that you can now purchase the odd items you don’t buy 90% of the time by looking at their inventory online and making use of your internet connection. You can even send an order in for the purchase which is guaranteed to be delivered within 24 hours.

There, you just saved about an hour. What did that cost?

Well, first you had to know what you buy most of the time you go to the supermarket. Next, you had to spend a few minutes checking out the other items you will need. And finally you simply needed to place the order and wait for it to arrive. Easy. The best part is that you’ve invested 10 minutes to earn 50 minutes.

See if you can do this for all of the other items on your list. I have found with some creativity and usually less than $10, I can get most of the non-face time errands done without having to do them myself and free up considerable time in the process for more important activities. Now THAT’S being effective!

The differences here are slight. But the end result is tremendous and it gives two material benefits in your sales career:

1. You don’t have to burn mental energy thinking about the administrivia of your life.
2. You have the choice to invest that time in either most sales activity, or other areas of your life which will improve your selling ability.

This stuff takes some thinking ahead. If you don’t already have a list of what you usually buy, sit down and write it out. Most of my clients never stopped to figure this one out. Yet, it’s such a productive little exercise.

If you can’t remember what you usually buy, then next time you hit the ailes, bring your journal or PDA along with you and make a note of all the items you purchase, or study your grocery receipts for the month. Look for recurring items. This one idea has the power to give you four hours per month. Find ways to apply this to all of your other non-critical activities.

The purpose of these ideas is to place you in the top 20% of people in terms of effectiveness. Then, once you get there, you’ll have the base, the foundation to go as far as you want with it. In my mind, I want to be in the top 20% of the top 20%, which is the top 4%.

Then, you really are living an effective life.

And it doesn’t matter what area of your life you’re going to work on. If you’re in sales, the results of these ideas are easier to measure. That is the whole purpose of Software Sales Skills. By the way, once you get into the top 20% of this industry, you’ll never have to worry about money again.

Gotta love that!

~ Brooks.