Carlsberg run a TV advertising campaign, based on always having more than 2 choices. The punch line, “there is always choice c”. Choice c, in this instance refers to some on the spot clever thinking - leaving the person in the ad with an out - from some kind of sticky situation.

When faced with the competitor question, a business or salesperson may believe they have 3 choices.

They can:

Join the Competition

Beat the Competition

Ignore the Competition

Why is it, that many continue to choose c?

Markets are smaller, competition is greater than ever, yet many companies and salespeople persist in choosing to operate “a head in the sand” approach - when dealing with competitors.

A Wake UP Call!!!. Competition is fierce and it’s not going to go away. There are only two real choices, because c is not a choice - It’s in-action and a non-decision.

Wait a minute, I hear you say “what about cutting prices”. Surely; this is an effective way to deal with competitors.

“NO, NO, NO, it’s not”. It’s taking choice C again. Here’s why, cutting prices may have a short-term impact. It will initially win you business. However, sooner rather than later, the competition will work out how to effectively deal with your price-cutting - or they will match it.

So around and around you will go, until you are right back where you started, only this time - you have created a whole new set of problems for yourself.

So here are the 2 real choices.

a. Join the competition through forming strategic alliances and partnerships.

or

b. Beat the competition through competitive positioning, developing a strategy for dealing with the competition question and using competitive selling skills effectively when selling.

When dealing with the competition.  Remember, there is only a and b…………there is no choice c.

In the News

Check out these four posts:

Dave Stein asks “How Do You Fix Sales Ineffectiveness?”in a brilliant post that’s generated lots and lots of debate. Dave says “There is a proven path.  The answers are there for everyone to see.   There are companies you can read about and observe that have achieved sales excellence. So, recession aside, why is sales as a profession and function, losing ground?”

Dave Brock investigates  and attempts to provide answers in his three posts ” Sales Force Ineffectiveness, Conjecture on the Future of the Profession Parts One Two & Three“

Over at TSE

On Tuesday, we will witness the launch of the new Top Sales Expert’s site - probably the most significant sales related site on the internet. To coincide with the re-launch, a new Executive Board has been formed to oversee the team, and a “working commitee” will also be appointed in the coming weeks.

Here is the new board.

Top row, left to right: Paul McCord, Jill Konrath, Jonathan Farrington, Colleen Francis, Keith Rosen and Joanne Black.

Bottom row: Wendy Weiss, Dr. Greg Stebbins, Nancy D. Solomon, Kevin Eikenberry, Linda Richardson and Kendra Lee.

Over at SLI (Sales Leadership Ireland)

Now 145 members and counting, To join click here.

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Btb Guest Author

Christian Maurer

Yes, but not in the form we know and practice selling today. This is one of my takeaways from the round table discussion between Nigel Edelshain, Jonathan Farrington, Jill Konrath, Linda Richardson and Dave Stein over at the Top Sales Experts. Especially “order takers” and ‘glib talkers” will have a bleak future according to Jonathan Farrington. Intelligent strategic orchestrators and business advisors looking to develop long term allies however will have a bright future according to him. Jill Konrath seconded that she hopes that sales is really changing that much.

So we should expect a lot of organizational transformation within sales forces. However, and this is my second take away, the salespeople are not the primary target for this transformation. The sales profession -if we want to use this term despite the fact that from a scientific standpoint ’sales’ is not yet a profession- faces not only a leadership crisis but a disaster as Dave Stein put it.

The transformation has to start at the very top with company leaders. They should get rid of the myths that super salespersons make good sales managers and that the necessary competences come with the title. Sales Management is an occupation in itself requiring different specific skills than those of a sales superstar.

Relying just on tribal wisdom, where newly appointed sales managers draw on what they have observed their own managers doing, will not bring the desired result as it is very likely that these managers were not properly prepared for the job either. In addition their understanding of selling and of their job role might be outdated and not fit in today’s unforgiving economic context.

In my own opinion there will be no room left for purely action and result oriented managers trying to manage outcomes. It makes little difference if they rely on data from their own home grown spreadsheets or on sophisticated analytical CRM tools in their attempt to manage these outcomes. Outcomes are lagging indicators even if they come in the disguised form of forecasts. Management actions based on these metrics will always be too little too late. The future belongs to sales managers being able to interpret leading indicators helping them to derive coaching needs of their sales people.

The panelist were all in agreement that being able to coach people is a very essential skill for successful sales managers going forward.. There is however a huge skill gap with current sales managers. Linda Richardson’s re-edited book on this subject will help fill this gap. As a questions from a listener indicated, a significant number of sales managers has though not only a skill gap but an outright attitude problem towards coaching. Let’s hope for them that they can be convinced by appropriate business cases to avoid being phased out.

The dilemma for preparing sales managers for their job is though deeper. While a lot has been written with the salesperson in mind, there is a lack of a body of knowledge from which sale managers can be taught how to do their job. This is the reason why already three years ago, I started my blog with the sales executives and managers in mind.

Christian Maurer, The Sales Executive Resource, is an independent sales effectiveness consultant, trainer and coach. He has a proven track record of helping to increase the productivity of large, global B2B sales organizations. For the last ten years Christian has consulted and coached hundreds of sales executives and managers on how to plan and execute their sales strategies by focusing on process management rather than trying to manage results. Visit Christian ’s website: http://ultimatesalesexecresource

In the news

Dave Stein asks “How Do You Fix Sales Ineffectiveness?” This is a BIG BIG question and has already resulting in much debate. As Dave points out “There is a proven path.  The answers are there for everyone to see.  There are companies you can read about and observe that have achieved sales excellence. So, recession aside, why is sales as a profession and function, losing ground?” - I strongly suggest you check it out.

Clayton Shold is in conversation with fellow Top Sales Expert, Jonathan London over at Salesopedia, about the “Upside To Recession Selling”

Top 10 Sales Articles has just announced the “Top Sales Article Of The Month” for April. This a truly great sales resource with articles on every conceivable sales topic.

Over at TSE

The new Top Sales Experts (Public Group) over at LinkedIn is developing into a very lively community, with lots of really interesting discussions - to join us, simply click below.

The TSE roundtables kick off at 6pm GMT today, with our very first roundtable event “The Future of Professional Selling”

So what are the TSE Roundtables? Well every month, a new TSE roundtable will address the issues being faced by sales professionals everywhere. As we face up to the severest economic downturn ever, we plan to run one Roundtable every month. (Your colleagues may join us for a cost of $99.50 per roundtable, yet as a member, you will receive that 25% discount on every single session. Click here to become a member of TSE.

This is 90 minutes of live discussion, live debate and live Q&A with some of the foremost authorities on sales excellence in the world. It’s an opportunity to listen, learn and partake in an on-line interactive sales event and to have your critical questions about selling and sales leadership answered.

Simply put, each roundtable is an event not to be missed.

Btb Guest Author

Jonathan Farrington

Sales success to-day demands a radical shift from the ‘peddler’ mentality of merely demonstrating products and expanding on their features. It requires treating the customer as a participant. More often than not, a ‘flashy’ sales presentation alone alienates rather than persuades.

The best salespeople regard the sales call as a two-way conversation - not a one sided pitch. They have developed active listening skills Average salespeople score fairly well in their ability to provide customers with facts and figures, but top performers dramatically outscore the rest when it comes to gathering information. In addition, how a salesperson collects information still distinguishes exceptional achievers from the rest of the pack. I.e. top performers ask better questions and as a result gain much better information.

Essentially, they aim to engage customers in the buying process with questions that require thoughtful answers, that stimulate curiosity and that reveal the customers underlying needs.

Businesses need to re-define selling and what constitutes basic selling skills:
In to-day’s world of selling, there is less and less room for apprenticeship. Selling has become an exclusive club of highly skilled professionals where product knowledge and time management skills, for instance, are the cost of membership not leadership.

Ongoing research demonstrates that to-day’s ‘average’ salesperson is just as effective as the high performer in explaining features and benefits effectively, relating a service or product to customer needs and closing a sale. But, above this Level 1 plateau of competence, the exceptional salesperson is busy defining the “basic skills of tomorrow”.

Building an up-to-date foundation in sales competence does mean sacrificing some old notions of what it takes to succeed in a competitive marketplace. For example, a salesperson can no longer just “win by knowing”. Every company needs to test their assumptions about what skills really contribute to sales success. Too often operating on old sales theories means training and rewarding people to do the wrong things.

When the buyer and seller act as partners, they are building a bridge to profitability:
Successful selling is definitely not about the “hit and run” sale. Sales achievers regard their relationships with key customers as a partnership and cultivate it as such. When customers face tough business challenges and complex technological choice, they rely on sales people who can assist them in making the right decisions.

The primary objective of a sales partnership has to be, to create and sustain a mutually productive relationship, which serves the needs of both parties, now and in the future. The key word here is symbiotic. Partnership does not mean eliminating the tension between buyer and seller; it means that top-performing salespeople know how to strike a balance between achieving immediate results and developing the relationship fully.

In Summary: Why Do We Need A Fresh Approach To Selling?

Many organisations have developed without objective analysis of their purpose and structure. The buying power in many industries is no longer evenly distributed - in a large number of markets a few big firms control the majority of purchases.

The development of new marketing techniques has meant that some tasks traditionally performed by the sales team can be more effectively handled by other methods. The prime objective of all sales staff is to gain business. From an organisational point of view, however, how they all achieve their goals must be defined in order to identify what kind and the quality of skills that are required.

Jonathan Farrington is a globally recognized business coach, mentor, author, and consultant, who has guided hundreds of companies and tens of thousands of individuals around the world towards optimum performance levels.  He has authored in excess of three hundred skills development programmes, designed a range of unique and innovative process tools and has been published extensively on a wide range of business topics including organizational and sales team development, leadership and the customer imperative.  Jonathan’s first book, “Tougher At The Top” will be published early in 2009.  Visit his website @ www.jonathanfarrington.com

Jonathan will be one of the speakers at TSE Roundtable kickoff event : The Future of Professional Selling

Over at Sales Leadership Ireland

• We are already well on our way to 100 members.
• We are in the process of polling and discussing with the members what their needs are.
• We will be shortly be announcing some exciting initiatives.

Polls include:

How do your sales for Q1 compare with 08 ?

Where in your sales funnel are you encountering the most difficulty?

How would you describe your Networking Activities?

What would you like Sales Leadership Ireland to help you with?

Anyone with an interest in business development and growing sales in Ireland is invited to join.

Well, I think sales people don’t have a bad reputation. They are simply no more RELEVANT. Why? Read “death of a sales man”. No no no - I mean read it NOW - read it again - NOW. It will tell you WHY. If you don’t believe me - you don’t believe me like the main character in the plot didn’t listen to the youngsters who took over. Dave (Stein), you want to give them a “entirely different orientation” - wooo how cool is that. Terry, are you still hanging on to the old “solution selling stuff” from 30 years ago? Next comment may be about the “reference selling” method, or all the other good old ways of selling. Anybody up for the “killer instinct” Rarrrrrrr. How about the good schools from Miller Heiman…

Come on people what are you dreaming about at night? You are over fertilized and squeezed out people that try harder and harder to meet the commission, the forecast to walk through your “funnel” that is more like a “tunnel” with no light at the end. You get asked to work harder - you pull in more cold calls, you “align” you call centers… How about finding yet another more fine tuned sales methodology based on Yogi what’s his name. Don’t you realize that YOUR way of selling is DEAD

This is a comment by Axel Schultze from Dave Brock’s post “Why do Sales People have such a Bad Reputation?” on  The Customer Collective. This new type of pitch from a new type of salesperson refers to the role of social media tools in the B2B selling environment. Axel followed this up with his own post on this topic Death of a Salesman - Version 2009.

So REALLY, how effective are these new technologies in producing additional sales? and are they now, as has been claimed in some quarters already replacing established sales methodology and processes?

Well according to a new study by ES Research Group, Inc. (ESR), one of the leading research and advisory firms on sales effectiveness, social media tools such as Jigsaw, LinkedIn,Twitter, Plaxo, Facebook, Hoovers and OneSource may be useful for other purposes, but most of them aren’t helping sales teams close many B2B deals today. The survey was developed in cooperation with The TAS Group.

Based on a survey of nearly 400 sales professionals in the U.S., the report found that only LinkedIn (86%) and Hoovers/OneSource combined (61%) were used by more than half of respondents in their selling efforts. Facebook (50%), Plaxo (48%), Twitter (31%), and Jigsaw (26%) trailed in use.

Note: Hoovers and OneSource are separate companies but were combined for survey purposes because of their similar services.

Of respondents actually using the tools for sales, Hoovers and OneSource were the only tools helping more than half (54%) of them win B2B sales sometimes or often. LinkedIn was next at 42% and Jigsaw followed at 35%. Worst were Facebook (15%), Plaxo (13%) and Twitter (13%).

“The results demonstrate that with all the hype and buzz, most social network tools aren’t helping sales teams sell more yet,” Said Dave Stein, CEO and founder, ES Research Group. “For example, Twitter has not come into its own as a salesperson’s tool. It is presently a marketing tool that can potentially benefit the sales organization by contributing to the generation and nurturing of new sales leads. For now, the use of sales methodologies integrated with CRM systems and other sales enablement tools are proving far more successful in driving sales.”

Other key findings include the following:

• LinkedIn is clearly the favorite among B2B salespeople surveyed.
• The established for-pay information services (Hoover’s and OneSource) came in second.
• Free/low-cost information sharing services such as Jigsaw will rise in popularity over time.
• Twitter is an anomaly. It will have a high degree of uptake, but in a very narrow market. Marketing will find the tool much more valuable than sales for the foreseeable future. Presently it is not a valuable mainstream medium for B2B salespeople.
• For the time being, Facebook is best reserved for the personal and family sides of one’s life.

The ESR survey of sales representatives in a broad set of industries examined the prospecting process, the selling process, and the storage and retrieval of customer and prospect information.

No one doubts, the evolving role that social media technologies will play in the B2B selling environment, however the evidence clearly demonstrates that their present significance is no where near what some would have us believe. This is a topic of conversation that we will no doubt re-visit as the months and years go by. For now though, I applaud Dave and the ES research group for seeking out the facts of the matter, and for giving me the reassurance to continue to deliver the best advice for my customers and their sales people.

Buy the 10-page ESR/Insight™ Brief , The New Social Media: Do They Enable B2B Selling?

Over at Top Sales Experts,

Our Timetable for April includes:

First up in April is the inaugral TSE Roundtable- “The Future Of Professional Selling” featuring five of the world’s leading sales experts: Jill Konrath, Linda Richardson, Dave Stein, Nigel Edelshain, and Jonathan Farrington.

This an event you really should not miss out on - simply click on the banner below for full details and to book your place.

On April 16th, we launch the TSE Webinar Series, and I know that you are going to be very impressed with the line-up of almost FIFTY top sales gurus, who will be delivering top class presentations - simply click on the banner below to see the full schedule.

On April 21st, we launch “Sales Hardtalk” a daily dose of hard hitting advice, commentary and sales tips - easily downloadable and in bite size chunks, not to be missed.

Finally, at the end of April, the Top Sales Experts team will be launching their latest Ebook, packed with contributions from all of us - more details soon.

As a member of the Top Sales Experts team, it gives me great pleasure to introduce to the Irish Business Community.

TSE Roundtables

The TSE Roundtable Program will deliver the best sales practices of some of the most successful and globally recognized sales gurus in the world.

Each roundtable is just $99.50 for non-members. Members attend for $74.50. You can join here

Kick Off Event: The Future of Professional Selling Tuesday April 14th 2009 1.00 PM EASTERN (6pm GMT) THE Most Significant Interactive Online Sales Event Of The Year Join the debate, as five of the world’s leading sales gurus, discuss what professional selling will involve in five, ten, and even twenty year’s time Does professional selling as we know it have a future? What impact will Sales 2.0 have on the way we sell? How will organisations train and develop their sales teams? Today, what is the relative value derived from sales training courses versus coaching? Will “one-size fits all” classroom training, be consigned to the annals of history? Which industries are more likely to witness the death of selling as we know it today? What can front-line salespeople do to protect themselves from possible extinction? After this current financial meltdown, will lost jobs be re-created? Will the rapid growth of online sales training and coaching continue? Ongoing research shows that sales performance has been declining year after year. Why is that? Quite simply, will selling ever be the same again? Join us now ……..  hurry, places are limited!
Speaker		Jonathan Farrington Chairman of The Sales Corporation and CEO of Top Sales Associates based in London and Paris. He is also the author of the upcoming “So You Really Want To Be A Top 5% Player In The Game Of Sales?”
Speaker		Jill Konrath A leading-edge sales strategist … author of the instant sales classic, Selling to Big Companies … an in-demand sales speaker who provides a much needed wake-up call to sales organizations.
Speaker		Linda Richardson Linda is the Founder and Chairman of Richardson, a global sales training business. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence for 2006. Linda’s “Perfect Selling” was this year’s Sales Book Awards “Best Sales Book Of The Year”.
Speaker		Dave Stein Dave Stein is the founder and CEO of ES Research, an organization that provides on-line, membership-based analyses of, and recommendations about, the sales training and sales performance and consulting marketplace and the companies that serve it.
Chairman		Nigel Edelshain Nigel is CEO of Sales 2.0 Companies use Sales 2.0’s telesales and consulting services to take their sales to the next level, typically boosting results 3 - 10 times.
Host		Paul Simon Paul is communications director for Top Sales Experts. Through TSE, and as contributing sales editor for AllBusiness and content manager for CanDoGo, he works closely with sales experts throughout the United States and in other countries.