 One of the most old-school (and, frankly, outdated) approaches to sales is creating and imposing a strict protocol and process for every sale. These narrow approaches are outdated for a reason - they simply don’t work.
The reason for this should be obvious: not every person is the same. When you create a sales process and expect it to be followed to the tee, you often find that what seems like it should work on paper isn’t aligned with the needs of your sales team or your customers. These rigid sales systems leave no room for diverse and creative thinking. They don’t allow the unique talents and strengths of the sales team to surface. Perhaps most importantly, they don’t allow us to meet customers where they are, instead of where we think they should be. Not All Customers Are the Same Picture two different car dealerships. Each brings in a sales consultant to help their teams learn to sell more effectively. At the first dealership, the consultant teaches a protocol for selling to several distinct customer personas. “Each customer will fall into one of them,” the consultant explains confidently, “and when you figure out which persona they are, this is the script you need to use.” At the second dealership, the consultant goes over customer personas, but emphasizes that most people won’t fit exactly into one box and that they may be in different places in their car buying journey. “Ask questions that help you understand their needs,” the consultant explains, “but don’t forget to listen to what they want.” Back at the first dealership, a woman enters saying she wants to buy an SUV. Fresh off his training a young salesman sizes her up. She’s mid-forties. Based on the personas, this was a mom looking for a car that will take her kids to school and various sports practices. She will be concerned about storage space and gas mileage. The salesman asks how many kids she has and the woman is immediately put off. “I don’t have any kids,” she says, before repeating “I’d like to buy an SUV.” The salesman is thrown. He’s not entirely sure what to do next, but he does have a script to follow. He starts asking her about an average day, what gas mileage she’d like, how many people regularly ride with her… Eventually, she cuts off the questions. “Look,” she says, clearly irritated. “I saw a four-door Jeep Wrangler online and I’d like to test drive it.” The woman knows what she wants. She’s clearly done her research. She doesn’t need to be convinced. But the endless barrage of questions that don’t acknowledge what she’s saying makes it seem like the salesman doesn’t care what she wants or thinks he knows better. When the same woman visits the second dealership, she tells a salesperson that she saw a Jeep Wrangler online and wants to test drive it. The salesperson immediately pulls out their tablet and shows her a few they have. “Did you have a specific one in mind?” Within ten minutes, they’re in the car. As they drive, the salesperson tells the woman that she has great taste in cars. Then they ask what kind of bells and whistles she likes. She names a few, and the salesperson mentions a few extras that the more expensive model has. In the first scenario, the salesman failed to recognize, and his training failed to explain, that not every lead will begin at the top of the funnel and not every customer will fit a set persona. Rather than making a surefire sale, he alienated a customer by placing her into a box she didn’t belong in. Meanwhile, at the second dealership, the salesperson met the woman where she was. They acted as a guide. Most importantly, they listened. When sales leaders create overly strict protocols and scripts, they strip their salespeople of the ability to develop and use their intuitive selling abilities. When leaders trust their teams to observe and analyze a situation and focus on building relationships with customers, they find that their team is more effective at winning business. Not All Salespeople Are the Same Just as not all customers have the same desires, not every salesperson has the same traits or strengths. We all have preconceived notions about what characteristics make somebody good at sales, and many of them are grounded in truth. However, that doesn’t mean there is only one way to be a good salesperson or that different personalities don’t have their place on a sales team. Recognizing the Strengths of Your Sales Team You want to help your salespeople grow and thrive, but forcing them to sell in a way that emphasizes their weaknesses isn’t the way to do it. Instead, discover what strengths each team member has and encourage them to further develop those skills. Start by observing each member of your team. Are they assertive and confident? Or are they warm and inviting? Are they great at steering a conversation? Or are they excellent listeners who make customers feel heard? Do they like working with a team or by themselves? Do they appreciate feedback on their performance, or would they prefer to only be notified if there is a problem? All of this will help you understand how they’ll most effectively sell - and how you can most effectively manage them. Learn More A healthy relationship between sales and marketing is vital to an organization’s success. Dive deep into this effective strategy in our book Sales & Marketing Alignment. If you'd like more insights on how you can improve your sales leadership, contact us.  "How do you use photos as part of your marketing and sales process?"
It’s a common question I ask AV leaders when we’re talking about growing their business. And while each team has a different system for storing, organizing, and finding images, the answer is almost always the same: We use them for everything. When they say everything, they mean everything. Photos are on every page of the website, from the homepage to industry specific pages to ones that highlight different types of events. Pictures of past events are utilized heavily on proposals, or may even be what gets the AV or production team an RFP in the first place. Images are shared at networking events, during site visits, and during casual meetings. The AV industry is one that relies on pictures to sell work more than almost any other. Why? Because live events are inherently visual, and while you can explain how a certain piece of technology works or the effect a creative idea will have, you can’t illustrate the concept nearly as effectively as an image can. In the events industry, images are a currency. “What do you do to organize your images?” It’s my go-to follow up question, and, believe it or not, the answer is often the same here, too. Silence. When a current process works “well enough”, many busy leaders don’t prioritize making it work better - but here’s a good reason to. Imagine you’re at a networking event speaking with a meeting planner you’ve never met before. They ask if you have pictures of any galas you’ve worked on. You open your event photo album and scroll through it to find a few images from a gala that took place a month ago. “That’s great,” they ask. “Can I see more?” “Of course,” you tell them. And then you start scrolling. And scrolling. And scrolling. You find more images of galas, but between each set up, you have to scroll through 50 more pictures to find another one that is relevant. It’s not the end of the world - but it is a bit awkward and you worry you seem disorganized. Now picture yourself pulling out your phone, and instead of opening a single event photo album, you open a gala specific gallery. You hand your phone over to the meeting planner and allow them to look freely through the images. After a few moments, the meeting planner finds one from over a year ago. “I love this multi-screen set up with a walkway,” the planner says. “I’d love to learn more about how that worked.” Having a digital photo book with a variety of galleries that show off specific events or session types, technology, and activations make it easier to share targeted information, which allows you to market and sell with specificity. You can even make albums with images that can be displayed and shared publicly, like on your website or in an email footer, as well as galleries that can only be shared privately, like in a proposal or directly with a prospective meeting planner or client. Organizing photos by their privacy levels removes guesswork and keeps your team from accidentally posting a photo that you don’t have permission to share. This is incredibly important as many clients may prefer that event photos aren’t posted to your website or social media platforms, but don’t mind them being shared directly with other organizations. Others may want identifying logos or information removed. Meanwhile, some clients may give you permission to use any photo as you see fit. If you’re not sure which category an event falls into, the best thing to do is ask your clients so that you don’t miss an opportunity to post a great photo to your website or burn any bridges by assuming you can share something a client would prefer you didn’t. If you're not sure what to say, we've created an email template below that you can copy and paste: SUBJECT LINE: Quick Request About Event Photos Hi [NAME], Our team loved working with you on [NAME OF EVENT] recently. We captured some great images that showcase what an incredible experience the event was and I was hoping to get your permission to use some of these pictures on our website and social platforms. Here's a link to the images we're hoping to use: [INSERT LINK] If you'd prefer to only approve specific images, would like logos or identifying information removed, or are only comfortable with certain use cases, please let me know! — [NAME] Creating a digital photobook is quick and easy - and there is most likely a tool to create them in a suite you already pay for! Do you want more helpful AV industry tips? Join our Live Event Peer Group and subscribe to our newsletter to up-level your team and increase sales performance. The key to removing the “Yuck” factor that so often comes along with selling can be summed up in three steps:
1. Figure out who your perfect customer is. Picture this: you’re sitting on an airplane when somebody sits down next to you. Not just somebody – your perfect customer on paper. Picture that perfect customer. What is their world like? What do they need help with? If you were a fly on the wall while they vented to their best friend about their challenges, what would they be? Now’s the next step: how are you uniquely able to solve those challenges? Getting specific about who you want to work with, why you want to work with them, and what you bring to their table doesn’t just help you target the right customers - it helps you show up more intentionally to build long-term relationships. 2. Figure out what your strengths are - and how you can play to them. Some people are, by nature, incredibly social creatures. They make friends everywhere they go. At the gym, in the Starbucks line, in the DMV… Other people are good listeners. They listen to understand, not to respond. They find that people open up to them easily. They always seem to ask the right questions. Selling starts to feel less icky (for you and the people you’re selling to) when it’s grounded in authenticity. If you’re a social butterfly, that means playing into your strengths to draw people to you. If you’re somebody who listens first and speaks later, your power comes from your ability to make potential customers feel heard. Both are effective. Both are important. Which one you are doesn’t matter – it’s selling in a way that plays to your natural strengths that does. 3. Unpack your mental baggage Wolf of Wall Street is a great movie, but Jordan Belfort paints salespeople as greedy and money hungry at best and, well, a terrible people at worst. In fact, most movies about sales feed into this same perception that salespeople are highly competitive and desperate to win at any cost. Maybe that’s why so many entrepreneurs and salespeople find themselves turned off by the entire idea of selling. Of course, selling is an absolute necessity for companies to grow and thrive, and while the Blakes of Glengarry Glen Ross do exist, they’re the exception – not the norm. Most entrepreneurs and salespeople believe in the solutions they offer to solve challenges - so reframing how you think about the entire selling process will allow you to push past the “yuck” factor, dive deeper than what’s on the surface, and learn what your potential customers are really looking for. To get more insights on Selling Without the Yuck Factor and learn more about finding new leads, discovering your sales strengths, and more effectively approaching sales, check out Karl’s appearance on Doug Thorpe’s Leadership Powered by Common Sense podcast.  What if there was another 10–20 percent worth of sales lingering somewhere inside your integrated sales and marketing funnel? Chances are, there is. The good news is that you can find that hidden revenue if you look in the right place. By addressing spots where opportunities get stalled out—usually the tricky middle section where leads move from marketing to sales—sales and marketing teams can take action to get leads moving down the funnel again.
Leads often get stuck in the middle sales funnel as they continue to receive marketing content but don’t take that crucial step forward to interact with sales. You can often recognize sticking points by looking for where leads are ballooning (you can visualize it as that cartoon of the boa constrictor with the suspicious lump in its midsection). If you see a place in the middle of your funnel where a disproportionate number of leads are gathering, that is a major indicator of where you are missing out on a sizable chunk of revenue. It is easy for your progress to become buried mid funnel, and if you aren’t paying attention, you might not even know gold is there. If you don’t have your processes in place and mapped to the sales funnel, it can be frustrating to try to figure out which leads are ready to progress to the buying stage and which are still in need of nurturing. If everyone knows their role and you have complete data, you are much more likely to hit the mother lode. Finding and Fixing Funnel Clogs The sales funnel has stages, touch points for digital marketing and steps for salespeople to follow as they nurture leads. When the activities and tracking metrics within these stages are set up correctly, you will be able to see where leads are getting stuck or having low conversion rates. You can also see where conversions are high and where you should be concentrating your efforts to replicate them. Look for Larger and Growing Populations in Your Funnel Identifying where populations are starting to balloon within your funnel is the first step to finding and clearing the clog. Usually, these leads are stuck somewhere in the middle stage, where they have for one reason or another not taken that next action to move them forward on their buyer’s journey. Use Quantitative and Qualitative Data for Insights If you are scoring your leads and tracking them, you are more likely to be able to tell where their interest dries up. There should be an observable difference in the numbers between one action and the next. The numbers aren’t going to tell you why people may be getting stuck or how you can fix it. Providing that qualitative data is where your integrated team comes in. If you can point out what activity is damming up the lead stream, they may be able to use their knowledge of the customers and the questions they ask and what they respond to and propose solutions. Revisit the Steps You Take to Move Leads Down and Through Your Funnel When you have the data attached to every activity in the funnel, you can see what next actions are not being taken, and you can investigate what might be keeping someone from taking it. If they sign up for your email list and then never open a single thing that comes into the inbox, you may need to review whether the content you are sending is valuable. If they are scheduling a meeting with a salesperson and then not showing up, it might be time to review the way you schedule meetings or send reminders. Discovering a solution to get leads flowing again might take some trial and error, but you will have the data to prove you are focusing on the correct problem rather than flailing around making uninformed guesses. The Rewards of Targeting Your Choke Points When you’ve tracked and quantified your problem areas, you will also get the satisfaction of seeing the numbers rise once one of your strategies begins to work. In one instance, a marketing department organized twice-monthly webinars that generated about three hundred to five hundred sign-ups. However, only about 25 percent of people who signed up were attending. Marketing was doing their job by generating sign-ups, but they weren’t sure how to change their technique to get people to actually attend the webinar. This is where the magic of sales and marketing integration comes in. To fix this problem, the business got the sales team involved and had them start calling people who signed up to remind them to attend. It worked. Implementing that new strategy also gave the organization a point to work from when they observed another chokepoint: people who attended the webinar but didn’t book an appointment afterward. To address this, the business's sales development representative contacted individuals who didn’t book, and the business was able to generate a 10–20 percent increase in appointments after each webinar. This went on to result in a 10–20 percent revenue boost as well. If the sales organization hadn’t had the CRM set up to track data for all our activities in the funnel, they would have been able to quantify only the very top and the very bottom. If marketing brought in a thousand leads and sales was only closing twenty of them, without data, the only suggestions would be for marketing to bring in two thousand leads or for the sales team to just try harder (whatever that means). Make the Most of Your Sales Funnels Every business leader wants to “do more of what’s working and less of what’s not.” There are too many sales and marketing departments who don’t know how to begin following that direction. Without clarity, you have no idea whether the actions you take to repair your revenue problems make any difference, positive or negative. If you have one sales funnel set up for your company, you can have multiple. If you are tracking KPIs for the number of leads you bring in and the number of sales you close, you can also have them for every discrete activity in each of your funnels. Drilling down to those tiny details can help you diagnose problems and eventually multiply revenue. Learn More A healthy relationship between sales and marketing is vital to an organization’s success. Dive deep into this effective strategy in our book Sales & Marketing Alignment. If you'd like more insights on how you can improve your sales leadership, contact us. |
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