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Several years ago, Karl was asked to consult with a company he’d worked with before.
“Things have been going great,” a member of the leadership team told him. “But we’ve grown a lot over the past several years, we have new team members, and I think we could use a refresh.” Karl was excited to get started and meet the new team. One of the newest members was their director of marketing. Driven, smart, personable, Karl knew he had a lot of potential. In fact, the new director of marketing’s biggest challenge was his age and subsequent lack of experience. There was a lot he didn’t know, but he was aware of it and incredibly eager to learn. Karl immediately thought about a different client of his who had an upcoming marketing conference and workshop. He knew it was the kind of experience that would benefit the new director of marketing. “Hey,” he told the guy the next day. “One of my other clients is hosting this workshop. I think you’d really like it.” Karl watched as the director of marketing’s facial expression moved from excitement to disappointment before he even spoke. “That sounds awesome, and I appreciate you thinking of me. But I just don’t think we have room in the budget right now.” Karl couldn’t let it go, especially after seeing the young director’s reaction. So he called his client and asked for a favor. “This guy really wants to attend,” he told his friend. “But he doesn’t have any wiggle room. Could you let him come free of charge?” “No worries,” the client told Karl. “Just send me his info and I’ll register him.” It was a win for everybody. There was an extra attendee at the conference networking and building connections, the new director of marketing was able to attend workshops he was really excited about, and Karl was able to help his client. When it came down to it, this moment wasn’t about selling for Karl – it was about providing value that went beyond the services he was paid to provide. None of it would’ve been possible without Iceberg Selling. Karl had to get to know the director of marketing well enough to understand that this opportunity was one he’d be excited about. He had to have a strong enough relationship with his other clients to ask for a favor. And he had to not just be professionally invested, but personally invested enough to find extra opportunities to provide value. During his appearance on the Leaving Nothing to Chance podcast, Karl does a mock sales call with host John Solleder, shares how most salespeople have the potential to go from good to great with a few small shifts in their mindset, and discusses why knowing what’s going on in the worlds of your team members and customers makes you a more valuable and successful salesperson. Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts  When looking to increase your business and revenue, there are two important (and easy!) ways that sales organizations often overlook.
No, it’s not new networking events or cold calling strangers. In fact, neither strategy involves reaching out to anyone outside of your existing network at all. The first is within your client pool. Odds are, you know who your top five or ten customers are right now. I bet you can picture them. “Okay,” you may be thinking. “They’re already my customers, and that’s great. But what opportunity is there for growth with them?” It’s easy for us to assume that our biggest customers are already using every single service we offer that is relevant to their business, industry, and needs. It often isn’t the case. The fact of the matter is, customers we’ve worked with for a long time often only think of us as providing the exact services they’re used to receiving from our team. We get pigeon holed and thought of as the group that does “X”, when in fact, there is so much more that we offer. Over time, our organization and our capabilities grow. We add new tools to our belt, hire new talent, gain new skills, and expand into new markets. It’s easy to take for granted that our existing clients know about all the ways we’ve changed or leveled up over time. Just as often, we fall into the same trap with the ways we perceive our clients. We’re so sure we know about their needs, we forget that their organizations have changed too - and so have the solutions they need. Here’s what you can do to expand within your existing client pool:
Now that you know where these gaps are, it’s time to reach out. Schedule some time to meet with your contacts at each organization and have a conversation about all of your team’s capabilities and how their organization can benefit from them. You may just find that one of your biggest customers gets even bigger. The second place salespeople often forget to check isn’t necessarily in their current customer base - it’s within the pool of connections they already have but don’t talk to regularly. When one of these connections has a career change, whether it’s a promotion, a new job, or a totally new industry, it can often present you with the opportunity to connect with a new team or even organization. LinkedIn is a powerful tool in keeping up with these connections. Start by going to your profile and checking to see if anyone you’ve worked with, submitted a proposal to, or even networked with previously has had any career changes. If so, reach out! Congratulate them on their promotion, new job, or exciting new adventure and try to start a conversation. The best case scenario, it turns out they’re looking for somebody who provides the exact same services you do. The timing is perfect for both of your teams: you get a new opportunity and they’re able to solve a challenge or provide a solution to their team. Worst case scenario, it turns out their team or new organization already has somebody that provides your services. Of course, even in that event, your time was still well spent. You never know what could change in the future, what other connections they may have, or who else they’ll refer you to. When looking to grow our organizations and expand our business, the natural instinct is often to find new customers. And while new business is incredibly important to ongoing growth, expanding within your current customer base and capitalizing on the connections you’ve already built allows you to quickly find opportunities you didn’t know existed.  Building or restructuring often takes place during periods of growth. Your team may be experiencing growing pains, with more work than your current sales organization can keep up with. Or perhaps you’ve had a huge wave of revenue growth, and you realize the importance of capitalizing on it to grow even faster.
Maybe it’s the opposite: your team has had steady numbers, but wants to increase revenue potential, or has started to stall. These are times when organizations feel a lot of urgency to have their sales team start performing at a higher level, and they feel the answer to that is adding a sales superstar to their team. It’s an exciting prospect. It’s also a scary one. Building or expanding your sales team is a risk. There’s a high cost associated with adding to your team. From the financial cost - a salary, benefits, extra equipment - to the valuable time and energy it takes to hire, onboard, and offer continuous training support, expanding your team takes more work before it alleviates pressure on your team and costs you money before it increases your revenue. Doing it the right way takes time - but the cost of doing it wrong is high. Keep reading to learn the three most common challenges organizations face when building or expanding their sales teams and the steps you can take to overcome them. Hiring Your First Salesperson Many small businesses have their first initial leaps of growth (and continued business) simply from word of mouth. Their reputation is their biggest selling point and biggest selling tool. Through close customer relationships and consistently providing quality services or products, they get new customers from referrals alone. However, at some point, they’ll likely decide they want to grow faster or on a larger scale than their one-on-one connections will enable them to do. They need to get intentional about getting more business. The natural next step is to hire a salesperson or form a sales team. Of course, for businesses that have never approached selling strategically, it’s hard to know where to start. They wonder:
Sales have always happened organically instead of intentionally, so approaching the process with a different mindset is a big adjustment and a bit unsettling. Trying to Clone Yourself In many small businesses where selling is an intentional part of the outreach and growth process, it’s not uncommon for one person to hold all the keys to the castle. The owner or founder of the company is the sole person who is truly responsible for revenue growth, or given the opportunity to close new customers and expand existing relationships. It’s obvious why this becomes unsustainable as the business grows. The owner suddenly needs to be on every sales call. They need to have touch points with every customer. They’re involved in every aspect of the business, no matter how small, when they should be focused on the big picture. However, transitioning away from this model isn’t easy. When one person is responsible for managing and building all client relationships, they rarely have a set process. Instead, they work intuitively, drawing on their extensive knowledge of the industry, customers, and business. And while this may work really well for them, it gives new team members joining the sales force or existing team members transitioning into a selling role no roadmap to follow. The owner may think the answer is finding someone who is essentially their clone in order to circumvent this problem. “I don’t need to develop a process,” they think, “if I work with someone who just gets it the same way I do.” This is, almost all of the time, a big mistake. Even somebody with the same selling style as the owner will need onboarding and training, and in the absence of that, you end up in a frustrating situation for both parties. The salesperson will start to feel micromanaged, like they lack autonomy, and aren’t given the trust or ownership they need to actually do and succeed at their job. Meanwhile, the owner will continue to be so hands on, their workload likely won’t decrease much at all. Scaling Your Team by Adding More Team Members When your current team is overloaded by the demands of a growing company (in many ways, a good problem to have!) it may feel necessary to quickly expand the size of the team. However, bringing three extra people onto a two-person sales team overnight isn’t easy, might not be necessary, and should absolutely be done with caution. Sales teams that are small often lack solidified structure, processes, and routines. The success of the existing team is, in large part, due to the fact that they’ve established relationships with clients and industry partners, have extensive industry knowledge, and have found a personal system that works for them. In small, adaptive companies, this can work for a time - but it causes big difficulties when adding new people into the mix. There’s no roadmap or strategies for growth, aside from “sell more stuff.” There’s no process to onboard the new hires because there likely aren’t any processes to begin with. There may not even be a clearly defined person in charge. Without processes in place, it’s impossible for new hires to learn and adapt to the company quickly, to understand and communicate the nuances that set them apart from competitors, or to get up to speed so they can succeed at their jobs. Businesses may not even need as many new team members as they initially think - they just need to be intentional about who they hire and what exactly they’re providing to the team. How to Overcome These Challenges Put simply, the way to overcome these challenges is to create a selling process, determine how exactly your current team fits into that process, and understand where your gaps are. For small businesses looking to bring on a dedicated salesperson for the first time, consider how you picture bringing in leads, nurturing them, and closing deals. What part of that process, if any, would somebody on your existing team continue to do? What parts do you need assistance with? Now, when you start the hiring process, you’ll understand exactly what kind of salesperson (link Hunters and Farmers blog) will best fit your needs. For businesses looking to expand their sales team, it’s time to create a clearly defined selling process. Start by figuring out how your funnel currently functions. Where are the leads brought in from? What are the different touch points they experience? How do they move from “lead” to “customer”. If you don’t have a process here, now is a great time to make one. Next, identify where your current team is falling short. Is the team so busy that there isn’t enough time to dedicate to bringing in leads? Or maybe you have so many leads that consistent outreach has started falling through the cracks, making it harder to close customers. This will help you figure out how your funnel needs to be improved - and how a new hire would fit into your organizational structure. 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. Several years ago, there was a horrible wildfire in Colorado where Karl lives.
As you can imagine, it was incredibly stressful for the entire community. Karl’s family was lucky enough not to lose their home, but thousands of other people did. People in their community. Friends of their family. The families of the kids Karl’s boys rode on the school bus with. Overnight, thousands of people around them lost their houses, their businesses, and, most notably, their feelings of safety and security. In the midst of one of the most challenging events that took place in their community, Karl witnessed something amazing - the way his kids started showing up for their friends, their neighbors, and their classmates. They collected items, shared their belongings, and spent their time helping the people around them. The most shocking part for Karl was that it was done without any reminders or prompting from him. In fact, if anything, the kids were the ones leading the charge, inspiring Karl to get more involved with efforts, too. It made Karl reflect about what legacy really is - how you show up, every day, in your community, and the ways you impact the people around you. In sales, you’re an agent of change. We may often picture salespeople in the negative stereotypical way, but what they really aim to do is make an impact for the people they guide and serve. During Karl’s appearance on the Legacy Roadmap Show podcast, he shared how his son’s unintentionally exemplified the “ownership” mindset in Iceberg Selling and why serving people by doing the things you value and are good at is at the heart of selling. Listen to the full podcast.  Much like with sales, people often lump every member of the marketing team together. They assume the entire team is made up of creative thinkers, solely focused on coming up with big ideas. Alternatively, they may believe that the marketing team is full of strategists, only concerned with analyzing data and making adjustments that increase leads at the top of the funnel.
The truth is you need to have people with a variety of skills in order to inform, plan, and carry out the tasks that keep your funnel full and moving. This means strategists, creatives, data analysts, coordinators, videographers, and more. From large organizations with robust marketing teams with 100+ team members to smaller companies where everybody wears multiple hats, here are the 8 essential roles on any marketing team. The Leader The marketing leader is responsible for the overall execution of the entire marketing plan. Their job isn’t to get into the details on the day-to-day creation of each specific component of the marketing plan. Instead, they focus on the big picture, crafting the overall strategy, reviewing and giving final approval on key messaging, and working closely with the sales team to make sure the two groups are aligned. One of the most common mistakes we see in the structure of marketing teams is to spread the responsibilities of a marketing leader across several members of the team, or even the company. Why is this a problem? It creates two things: confusion and delays. Yes, collaboration is key to the success of the marketing (or any) team, but decision by committee can easily be its downfall. Approval processes become lengthy and even simple questions may turn into debates. Not to mention, without clear responsibilities, it’s difficult for anybody to feel empowered to take ownership and give final approval. The Project Manager Anybody who’s worked on a marketing campaign, or, more realistically, several simultaneous marketing campaigns, understands just how many moving pieces there are. It’s the project manager’s (often referred to as the coordinator) job to juggle them. These highly organized members of the team are in charge of deadlines, managing timelines, assessing action items and next steps, and troubleshooting when something inevitably falls behind schedule. They set the milestones, make sure every member of the team has what they need to keep moving forward, and are the reason initiatives are completed on time. They do this by organizing strategic marketing meetings, creating and closely managing action plans, and ensuring milestones are hit. They also aid in communication between various members of the team, update any online project management software, double check that things are done correctly, and more. When things go to plan and stay on schedule, it’s most likely because of the project manager. The Digital Marketing Strategist This tactical position is responsible for all of the outreach that brings people into the top of the integrated marketing funnel. This means driving traffic to the website, getting people to subscribe to email campaigns, increasing social media exposure, and raising awareness for the organization. They make sure the content used to drive growth in the top of the funnel is consistent with the efforts of the sales and marketing teams so that they aren’t just increasing the number of leads, but the right kind of leads. They consistently review and update the website, provide SEO content, manage and review Google Ads, and explore other online advertising programs. They also oversee and manage social media efforts, tracking which ones are performing and what doesn’t seem to be resonating with target customers. The digital marketing specialists work closely with content writers to make sure blogs, social media posts, and other online copy is optimized for SEO and driving lead growth. The Funnel Manager The funnel manager is in charge of making sure that the leads procured by the digital marketing specialist continue to move through the funnel until they make contact with a salesperson. Essentially, they’re responsible for integrating the sales and marketing teams. The funnel manager handles marketing automation with different applications and / or CRM tools and collects data about what the leads are responding, or not responding, to within the funnel. This includes reviewing web stats each week and comparing them against previous trends to understand what campaigns are drawing in leads, managing monthly newsletters and other marketing efforts to determine what content leads tend to click on or respond to, and developing user testing programs to get feedback. Most importantly, they analyze the data and present their findings to the marketing team, along with insights and recommendations for how specific campaigns can be adjusted to more effectively convert leads. The Writer A commonly contracted role, this member of the marketing team writes content for the website, email campaigns, blogs, social media posts, and more. Ideally, the writer will have access to both the sales and marketing teams to make sure that the content they write is accurate and aligns with both the marketing plans and the messaging customers seem to be responding to. It’s also beneficial for the writer to have access to the full marketing strategy and plans, as it will help them understand the goal for each piece they write. This will allow them to make recommendations and craft content in a way that is reflective of the big picture messaging, plans, and goals from various campaigns. They’ll be able to recommend what content should be used, how often content should appear on different channels, recommended length, and more. The Multimedia Provider Yes, we all are capable of taking pictures, videos, and recording audio from our phones – but let’s leave the professional work to the, well, professionals. As a specialist in the capture and creation of video, photographic, and audio content, this commonly contracted role works closely with the sales and marketing teams, oftentimes including the writer. For photographic work, they prepare for photoshoots, making sure they understand what needs to be captured, take photos, and provide final edited copies. For video shoots, they’ll often prepare storyboards and provide creative recommendations in addition to capturing and editing the footage. They may also record and edit audio recordings for podcasts, voiceovers, audio testimonials, and more. During the post-production phase, they may work with the graphic designer to produce any necessary graphics. This role is one that has continued to grow in scope and importance. Video content is a critical part of the sales funnel. Consumers are constantly using TikTok, YouTube, and other social media platforms, not just for entertainment, but when making decisions about what organizations to work with or what brands to buy from. It may be tempting to use stock photos and videos, but visuals that feature your team, clients, and stakeholders will always read as more authentic. The Graphic Designer Iconic brands can be recognized from a single image, logo, or ad. The person responsible for creating those visuals and making sure they represent the look and feel of the brand is the graphic designer. Your graphic designer is responsible for creating and designing all marketing collateral, including all website content, social media graphics, company logos, and more. They either develop or adhere to brand guidelines, including colors, fonts, design elements, logos, and more. Their goal is to make sure that anything your organization shares, from website home page banners to social media graphics, are a consistent part of the overall look and feel of the brand. The Tech Guy Technology is a critical part of sales and marketing, especially because the vast majority of marketing is done online. You need a website that loads quickly, is easy to navigate, and meets the needs of the user. You need to make sure all of your webpages operate seamlessly on both a computer and a smart phone. If it’s not, your funnel will be in trouble. Leads and customers simply won’t spend time on a website that is difficult to navigate, doesn’t load correctly, or they don’t feel is secure, which is why it’s essential that your website prioritizes the customer experience, first and foremost. A knowledgeable person in this role will help you select a website platform that meets the needs of your marketing team’s strategic plans, can be easily edited by internal team members, and creates a great user experience for your customers. They’ll also establish security functions and malware protections and oversee website integration with other applications, like your CRM tools, accounting, inventory, and more. 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.  There are two factors that we most regularly see standing in the way of communication moving forward - difficulty starting a conversation and the time it takes to move from scheduling purgatory to an actual meeting.
Each have an easy solution, and the tools you need to implement them most likely already exist in a suite you pay for or have a free version online. Keep reading to learn more about the two easy changes that will help you drive efficiency. Start the Conversation One of the main reasons companies don’t do as much outreach as they could (or should) comes down to not knowing what to say. It’s an understandable problem. Salespeople are great at connecting with customers over the phone, face-to-face, or as a part of ongoing communications. However, when it comes to spontaneous outreach, they’re slowed down when it’s time to put the proverbial pen to paper. In many ways, this makes sense. Maintaining relationships with existing customers or prospects already in the funnel takes top priority and more of the sales team’s attention. By the time they can shift their focus to email outreach, they’re thinking about a million other things, their brains are a little fried from working with customers all day, or their attention gets pulled to a more pressing task. An item on their to-do lists that should take ten minutes gets dragged out and simple outreach becomes a drain on productivity or gets pushed to the back burner. Here’s our easy fix: templated emails. When it comes time to send a form response, a proposal, a post-purchase or event follow up, reviews or referral requests, or other standard communications, templates help to activate your sales team so emails don’t stay stuck in the drafts folder. The best part is that they don’t have to feel impersonal if they’re used the right way. Think of email templates as directional content that provides basic structure while still giving your sales team room to add personal touches and customization. A good rule of thumb is to think of the emails as 80/20. The template provides 80% of the content and structure, while the sender can add the remaining 20% of the copy. Outreach becomes quick, easy, and much more regular. Create a Calendly Account We also know about the other conversation halter - the endless emails back and forth taking days or even weeks, to get a call on the calendar. We’ve all been there. Several emails fly back and forth sharing availability, often over the course of multiple days. By the time one person picks a slot, the first person no longer has it available, and the process starts over again. The actual conversation is delayed for completely avoidable reasons and the entire scheduling process is much more complicated and frustrating than it needs to be. Luckily, there are plenty of tools that help you get around this challenge. Sites like Calendly and suites like Microsoft and Google that you may already use and pay for, can be linked to your calendar. You can then create a shareable link, which others can use to see when you are available and book the time slot they want instantly. Instead of several emails flying back and forth to schedule a meeting, a single email saying to use the link below (or the link in your email signature) gets your meeting on the calendar. Utilizing tools like 80/20 email templates or Calendly doesn’t remove personalization from your customer experience - it simply streamlines the process to get you to your end goal faster. During his appearance on the Uncover Hidden Client Needs episode of The How to Sell More Podcast, Karl shared a recent experience that, surprisingly, had him reflecting on authentic selling: planning his dad’s surprise 80th birthday party.
When he first started planning the party, people came to him with ideas: “We could do dinner at this new restaurant in town,” somebody suggested, but Karl knew that his father, as well as a lot of his father’s friends, would be uncomfortable driving at night. “There’s this great spot in the city that –” Karl shook his head as soon as he heard the location. Nearby parking was limited at best, and a lot of the guests would have trouble walking a long distance. The more he thought about the needs of the people attending, not to mention the birthday boy himself, Karl realized the party his father would likely enjoy the most was a luncheon at a restaurant with no stairs, a lot of light, and a familiar menu. But it got Karl thinking. The people who gave Karl suggestions, as well intentioned as they may be, were thinking of what they would enjoy for their birthday party - not what was realistic or enjoyable for an 80-year-old. They weren’t thinking about the challenges a loud environment, a dimly lit room, or staircases would present. If they were salespeople, we’d say they forgot to consider the needs of their customer. If you’re a salesperson who is an expert in their field or with their customer, understanding the basics of what is going on in the industry is just as, if not more, important than knowing your product. And if you don’t, you need to take a pause and do your homework. It’s easy as a salesperson to think your job is the ABC’s (if you know, you know). But when your focus is on constantly selling your product, it’s easy to forget why somebody might need to buy it. It’s easy to forget that understanding what’s going on in the industry you’re selling to is just as, if not more, important than knowing your product. To learn more about why failing to guide your customers reinforces sales stereotypes, how Iceberg Selling helps you uncover hidden client needs, and how sales organizations can overcome the biggest challenges holding them back, check out Karl’s appearance on The How To Sell More Podcast. Carrot. Carrot. Carrot. Do carrots really drive sales performance?  Salespeople typically love what they do and feel driven to sell, but at the end of the day, it’s still their job, and a big part of getting people excited to perform at work is providing them with the right incentives. Or what we might call carrots! Commissions aside, a big part of getting your sales organization to achieve their highest potential is motivating them in the right way.
Naturally, that means carrots and maybe even really big, fat carrots. Historically, incentive structures were based on the outdated belief that all sales professionals fit the Wolf of Wall Street persona and emphasized internal competition above all else. Of course, we now know that this innate desire to “beat” colleagues isn’t a universal trait or truth among salespeople. When you add in the rise of collaboration, it becomes clear that incentives that primarily pit salespeople against each other are outdated and ineffective. The key? A blended approach that helps all types of sales personalities find motivation to perform. Understand What Motivates Your Sales Team From hunters and farmers to different personalities and approaches, most salespeople don’t fit into one stereotypical mold. So it only makes sense that they won’t necessarily be motivated by the same things. People have different goals. They strive for different achievements, are inspired by different things, are driven by different factors, and are looking to grow their careers in different ways. Even within the same team, salespeople have different work styles, ways of communicating, and preferences for how they operate as part of the team. This doesn’t mean that one way is inherently right or wrong. It just means that different people will find motivation through different types of incentives. A rigid system that works for one person (or what we think a salesperson should want) won’t effectively drive your entire team. Adopt a Blended Incentive Approach Luckily, an incentive system doesn’t need to prioritize one type of persona over another. Instead, focus on creating a system that matches several characteristics and desires so you can motivate more of your team. For your classic sales personas who love to compete with anyone and everyone, try implementing monthly incentives for:
For sales team members who prefer competing with themselves rather than their teammates, consider monthly rewards for:
Selling has largely turned into a team sport, both within the sales team and cross functionally with marketing. There can (and should) also be monthly incentives for team achievements, such as:
The metric being awarded can even change each month, adding an additional challenge for competitive team members. Incentivize Your Sales Team in the Way That Works for Them If you’re wondering if you should prioritize competitive incentives, individual incentives, or team incentives, we have the answer. All of them. Try picking one option in each category and giving small incentives on a regular basis. For example, in the upcoming month, tell the team that you’ll be rewarding the sales team member with the highest average sales price and the sales team member with the highest month-to-month sales growth, and if the entire sales team signs X new customers that month, there will be a team incentive that everyone receives. Having these different metrics on the table gives salespeople a variety of ways to be motivated. Celebrate the Wins In order for these goals to be worth working towards, they need to have meaningful incentives - but that doesn’t mean they need to be elaborate (it wouldn’t be realistic to give three large financial incentives each month!). These monthly incentives should instead be about appreciation and recognition. For the incentives that art achieved as a unified team make it something that has fun and impact - lunch each Friday for the month (even Door Dashing for remote workers), $50 Amazon gift cards, a ½ day of PTO. Just make it fun and something that would be special for the entire team and something they can all visualize. For individual incentives, small bonuses or gift cards as well as a personalized announcement will make the winners feel appreciated and give them a spiff that make their own performance even more fun and meaningful. For high-value revenue goals, such as ones that span an entire quarter or year, a revenue share associated with it (in addition to usual commission) can give an extra boost. 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.  Many of us fall into a very common email blast trap: thinking that everything sent to your contact list needs to be a well-formatted newsletter with extensive links, articles, and content to be worth sending.
This misconception leads to big missed opportunities. Why? Because each and every touchpoint with a client or lead gives you the chance to activate them. Our pro tip: take five minutes to create a list of relevant messages that would inspire, educate, and potentially activate those on your email list. As an example, if you were in the live events industry your topics might look like:
Why does this work? Two words: inspiration and value. When you provide your clients with content that is valuable and inspiring, oftentimes, they’ll take action. The return on your time can be pretty significant, too. Again, let’s imagine you run an audio visual production company. Your clients are meeting planners producing and organizing live events. How do you picture a typical workday for these planners? What do you think is important to them? What do you offer that could bring them value? When you make an effort to share ideas that inspire, you may just find that your messaging lands in front of a meeting planner at exactly the right time. As we play out this scenario, pretend it’s the end of a busy year and event season and your team drafts an email to all your contacts. Current customers, past customers, and even leads. The email asks clients if they have any last-minute events they need support on before the new year, citing holiday parties or galas for non-profit organizations. This achieves the timing goal of outreach - the right message at the right time. It’s a numbers game. In the events industry, the audio visual production of smaller events can easily range from $10k-$50k. So imagine you send out 500 emails and even one person responds with an event. That can be a nice ROI, not to mention hold the potential for even more future events. At the beginning of every year, make sure you send every client and lead an invitation to meet up to talk about your partnership. During this meeting with existing clients, you can talk about what went well on past events, share ideas for improvement, and brainstorm ideas for the upcoming year. In meetings with leads, you’ll learn more about the needs of the client, share your creative solutions for their events, and find ways to offer unexpected value and resources to their team. The year is full of opportunities to capture new business or expand the footprint of existing clients - and it all starts by opening a conversation. 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. What has the power to kill a sale faster than any other single factor?
A salesperson who doesn’t listen to their customer. When Karl and his family outgrew their house and started looking for a new one, he reached out to a realtor named Stephanie. Within weeks she found what, on paper, looked like the perfect house. It was the right size, their ideal layout, the style the family liked. It even backed up to a golf course - a dream for a family who loved to golf. There was one problem: it wasn’t in Boulder County, and Karl’s son desperately wanted to enroll at one of their high schools. Karl called the realtor. “Hey,” he said. “I think it’s worth seeing this house. It might even be our dream house. But I need you to do me a favor. At the showing, don’t tell my son that this house isn’t in Boulder County. He’ll immediately think he won’t be able to attend the high school he wants, and there’s no way he’ll look at it objectively. Instead, let’s just look at the house, see if it’s as good of a fit as we think it is, and figure the rest out down the line.” “I totally understand,” Stephanie said. And yet, when they arrived at the showing, before they even shook hands, she gave the family a smile. “Great news! I did some research and may have solved the high school problem. Even though the house isn’t in Boulder County, you might be able to open enroll and attend any of the schools!” She was beaming with delight, but a dark cloud had formed over the entire family’s heads. She thought that she had brought them a solution, but all Karl’s son heard was “high school problem.” And all Karl saw was a realtor who didn’t listen to his one request because she thought she knew better. Without realizing it, she poisoned the entire experience. This is why Iceberg Selling Matters. You need to understand the entire picture before you try to solve a problem, or you might end up causing one. Karl’s appearance on the Step Up Your Sales Performance with Iceberg Selling Episode of the Smart Agents podcast is packed with lessons and insights from both the perspective of the salesperson and the customer. You’ll learn:
Check out the episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to learn more about why listening to your customers and working to understand their needs is the key to building lasting relationships.  Most companies, and leaders for that matter, view teamwork as a passive, almost accidental achievement. Your sales and marketing employees either work well in their respective teams or they don’t.
Not only is this sentiment untrue, it takes the away responsibility of fostering teamwork and a collaborative atmosphere. After all, if your marketing team is good at bringing in leads and your sales team is good at closing business, the system is working. If everybody is doing just fine working parallel to one another, why do they need to work together? While it’s true that sales and marketing organizations can function without working together, either within their departments or across disciplines, most leaders don’t want to scrape by with “good enough”. They want their teams to thrive. The answer is teamwork. When teams come together, they’re able to create outputs that are far better than they could have in their silos. Good teamwork creates an end result that is bigger than the sum of everybody’s parts. How to build that teamwork is the question. A few team building activities and endless meetings with no real purpose isn’t going to turn a bunch of people who happen to work in the same place into a group that’s playing on the same team, aligned behind the same strategies, working towards the same goal. What's Getting in the Way of Teamwork It’s usually pretty easy to tell if your team is working well together. Or, more accurately, it’s usually easy to see if they aren’t. The team seeming uninterested or disengaged, having ongoing negative attitudes, being late for meetings, never going to each other for help or advice, and rarely talking to each other during the work day are all red flags. People existing in a state of frustration are rarely going to work well together, and people who are working well together likely won’t be getting as frustrated to begin with. While the root cause of these problems can vary by organization, role, and individual preferences, the root cause of frustration often comes down to feeling like they’re being blamed or held responsible for circumstances outside of their control. If you really want to enable your team to work well together, the first step is making sure that you’re not standing in the way of their success, unintentionally making it more difficult for them to do their jobs, or pinning their challenges on each other. Create Solutions - Not Blame When something goes wrong, a natural instinct is to look for someone to blame. This partially makes sense: knowing how a problem happened can help you prevent it from happening in the future. However, it doesn’t do anything to solve the problem that’s in front of you. When you shift your focus from laying blame to finding a path forward, these challenges become opportunities to create a solution that not only solves the problem, but puts your team in a better position in the long run. This process is called co-creation, and it’s powerful in the way that it allows everybody on the team to leverage their skills and creativity. Here’s what it looks like: Several years ago, a company that frequently hosted webinars as a selling tool had an issue that caused the webinar to crash twice, with all of the attendees being kicked off the platform both times. The sales and marketing teams were both frustrated, especially given how much work went into the meetings and how much revenue they usually generated. Immediately, emails were flying, instant messages blowing up, cell phones were buzzing. Everybody was frustrated. Everybody wanted someone to blame. Everybody wanted to make it clear that they weren’t responsible. The sales and marketing leaders recognized the start of a toxic cycle and decided to turn it into an opportunity. The two leaders told everybody on both teams to get off of their computers and join a meeting, but warned them that blame would be left at the door. This meeting was about solutions. One by one, the team members stood up and shared ways that they could recoup the losses of the failed webinar. By the end of the meeting, they pieced together a plan of action that combined several ideas:
This solution involved both the sales and marketing teams working together quickly. Having a meeting where the solution was co-created meant that no time was wasted communicating the plan or convincing anyone of its merits. The scope didn’t creep to an unmanageable level. Everybody was able to take proactive steps instead of stewing in frustration. Short-term, the webinar ended up creating roughly the same amount of short-term revenue as the ones that went off without a hitch. Long-term, however, the impact was much different. Several of the people who were called scheduled follow-ups. Many of the folks who received a book and joined the email list reached out to schedule meetings months after the fact. Some of them even passed the book onto a friend or colleague. Over time, the failed webinar actually generated more income than previous ones. When it was time to have another webinar, the team didn’t go back to their old way of doing things. Instead, they proactively sent out the email with the link to request the book, which was also sent as a follow-up after the meeting. If somebody expressed interest but ultimately didn’t register, they received a call from the sales team. Every single person who attended the webinar was contacted within a week of it. The solutions that were created to handle a problem actually identified a major opportunity to improve their processes. It's a Team Sport Just because sales and marketing have different roles and strengths doesn’t mean they can’t work together. In fact, teams rarely all play the same position on the field (and they likely wouldn’t win if they did). When sales and marketing teams work together, communicate well, and focus on their shared goals, they play with strategy. They play with intention. They capitalize on each other’s strengths and support each other’s weaknesses. They don’t just become a stronger team - they become stronger individual players. Bringing out the best in your teams will bring out the best in each person on them - and vice versa. 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.  The biggest hiring mistake every organization seems to make can be summed up as putting the right people in the wrong seats.
The very best hunter in the world won’t succeed if you’re primarily expecting them to expand existing accounts. The opposite is also true: a farmer that could really expand your footprint with loyal customers will be hindered by expectations of signing new customers each week. The answer is hiring the right people for the right roles. If you know you need a hunter, exclusively look to hire one. If your hunters are doing great, but you’re stalling with existing customers, make sure you target farmers in your hiring process. It sounds simple enough. So what’s the catch? Sales people are, by nature, good at selling themselves. When customers choose to work with a new company, they’re buying the relationship with the salesperson just as much as they’re buying the product or service. Being able to convince customers of their value is part of what makes them so good at their jobs. Of course, in a job interview, if you ask somebody if they’re a hunter or a farmer, this means you may not get a completely accurate answer - and you may not realize it. This happens for two reasons. First, the sales person themself doesn’t really know if they’re better at hunting or farming. Maybe they’ve been successful in the past without thinking too much about whether or not that success was coming from new contacts or existing contacts. And, of course, the second reason: they want to get this job. It’s only natural for people, in sales or other disciplines, to make themselves look like an attractive candidate during a job interview (who isn’t guilty of telling a hiring manager what they want to hear?) When asked if they’re a hunter or a farmer, or if they prefer starting new accounts or growing existing ones, is it really all that surprising that some folks will say they don’t have a preference? Or what they think you want to hear? Well, great. You’re probably thinking. Where does that leave me? Am I destined to only maybe hire the right person? Of course not. There are plenty of tools you can use to help you understand how prospective employees will best fit into your sales team. Namely, a sales assessment. There are a variety of sales assessment tools and tests that can help you cut through curated interview answers and understand how somebody will really fit into your team. At Improving Sales Performance, we use The Sales Achiever, as we believe the variety of personality dimensions and mental aptitudes is particularly effective. We’ve seen firsthand how sales assessments help leaders mitigate risks and get who they really need from the hiring process. Luckily, the hiring process isn’t the only way a sales assessment can boost the performance of your sales team. If your current team is full of sales professionals who just aren’t performing as well as you had hoped or think they are capable of, it’s not a bad idea to have your entire team take assessments as well. You may find that the problems you’re having might not be who is on your team, but with the roles some key players are in. The results may help you start to understand why your team is having challenges and start to fix them. Not to mention, when the time does come to hire new talent, it’ll be much easier to identify what gaps you need to fill. If you’re curious about how The Sales Achiever works and how you can apply it to your team, send us a note via our contact form and we’ll share some insights.  Let me share a scenario I’m sure you can relate to.
You’ve prepared for a meeting as thoroughly as possible. You prepared a detailed proposal, rehearsed what you’re going to say, and walked through the agenda. When you arrived, you told the customer exactly what they can expect from the meeting, and they were impressed with your preparation. Your conversation is going smoothly. You have an easy rapport. You hand over a carefully curated proposal. It’s full of sample products, images, renderings, and other information tailored to precisely what they need. They take the proposal and smile. And then… Silence. The customer starts flipping through the pages. After some of them, they make a small noise. You start studying their face closely, noticing when their eyebrows wrinkle, when they smile, and when they frown. You want to know what they’re thinking. You want to ask - or better yet, explain your ideas in more detail. Resist the urge to jump in. Silence during a business meeting, especially one with a new customer, can be uncomfortable. It’s hard to watch somebody pour over something you’ve worked tirelessly on, struggle to read their mind, and not jump in. It’s only natural to want to break a (for you, at least) uncomfortable silence, volunteer more information (even if it wasn’t asked for), and prod for questions before the client has even had a chance to digest the information. Patience is critical. Try to put yourself in your customer’s shoes. You’ve just been presented with a business solution. Maybe the salesperson talked you through the ideas as you flipped through the proposal. Maybe they didn’t. Either way, you’ve been handed a lot of information, and you need a few minutes to take it in. If somebody continually distracts you, the work stops having an opportunity to speak for itself. You say you don’t have any questions before you’ve processed the proposal long enough to determine if you have any. The client learns just as much from your behavior as they do from your proposal. A salesperson who waits patiently and silently, focused on their customer, but not demanding their attention sends a message. They’re sharing what it’s like to work with them: they’re calm under pressure, confident in their work, and don’t needlessly badger their clients. On the other hand, a salesperson who is jittery and eager to jump in sends the opposite message. Are they impatient? Nervous? Are they in a rush from scheduling meetings too close together? Do they lack confidence in their abilities? Or are they trying to get me out the door because something (or someone) else is a bigger priority? The right kind of preparation sets you up for success, but staying present and patient for your customer allows them to envision what it will really be like to work with you. So next time you’re sitting in a meeting trying to discern exactly what “hmm” and a small nod means, take a deep breath, smile, and wait. You’re taking your son to his first ever baseball game. On the way to the stadium, he looks at you and says, “Dad, we’re gonna catch a baseball.” Naturally, you respond, “yes we will, son!” This exact scenario happened to Karl - but it had the best ending possible. He happened to be sitting in prime seats to catch a stray ball. During the third inning, his son turned and asked, “When are we going to catch the ball?” “How about now?” Just then, a ball gets hit their way and Karl’s eyes don’t leave it for a second. He catches the ball, hands it to his son, and starts thinking, man, am I the father of the year, or what?  By the end of the game, he realized a problem. He had two sons. And now, only one of them had a baseball.
Over the next couple of weeks, he started thinking about how he could catch a baseball for his younger son, too. He realized he’d need to:
They may have seemed like minor steps, but these seemingly small actions increased his odds of success. After all, you can’t catch a ball if you’re sitting in the nosebleeds, and a baseball player would be much more likely to toss a ball his way if he looked like a fan - and if that ball was going to a kid. What exactly does this have to do with sales? As it turns out, more than you’d think. One of the things that sets a good salesperson apart from a great salesperson is that, before every meeting they have, a great salesperson thinks about ways to increase their odds of winning the customer’s business. Whether it be mapping out their route to arrive early, making sure their car is clean and looks professional, anticipating and removing any possible distractions within their control, and clearly communicating next steps, a great salesperson knows that chance favors the prepared. Of course, great preparation is not a guarantee that what you’re working towards will go your way (although, in Karl’s case, once again, it did). But it does give you the best shot of achieving your desired outcome. On Karl’s appearance on the Global Sales Leader podcast, he shares what mentality salespeople need to have to succeed, why a good leader helps their team define what they’re playing for, and the power of bringing sales and marketing teams together. Check out the full podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to learn more about mastering the art of sales!  Some people have a head for numbers and thrive with analytical thinking. Others are full of creativity, communication, and building relationships. Most fall somewhere in the middle, albeit closer to one end than the other.
Salespeople are no different. Just as each person has different strengths and interests, some sales professionals gravitate towards finding new business while others would rather work to expand the footprint of their existing customers. We call this “hunters and farmers.” The confident hunters are motivated by the thrill of finding and converting new business. Meanwhile, relationship-focused farmers are more concerned with expanding accounts that already exist. Each persona has distinct personality traits that allow them to grow your business - just in different ways. One of these isn’t better than the other. In fact, both are integral members of your sales team and the right combination of these personalities is what allows your business to grow most effectively. Hunters Think about the typical salesperson persona. Confident. Quick on their feet. Charming. Outgoing. Assertive. Comfortable building new connections. What you’re picturing is a textbook hunter. These salespeople enjoy walking into a room of strangers and walking away with a host of new friends. They love the challenge of turning strangers into customers. They thrive at new business development. Hunters are in their element, and most effective members of your team, when they’re able to focus on converting new business. Farmers The strengths of farmers lie in their ability to grow relationships. Unlike the assertive hunters who love the competitive aspects of selling, farmers are service oriented. They pride themselves on their ability to find new ways to add value for their customers. They’re experts at not only managing accounts to keep customers happy, but at expanding accounts, enabling the company to increase revenue without signing new customers. Why It Matters “I’m not sure what I’m going to do about my sales team. When I first hired Lisa, I was really excited about what she’d bring to the team, but she clearly hates going to networking events and dreads cold calling clients. She’d spend her whole day talking to existing clients if she could. I’m not sure it’s going to work out. Bob, on the other hand, seems sporadic in the fact that all he wants to do is go to networking events, meet new people, and leave the office to find new opportunities. If you were to ask Bob which of his current clients he thinks he could grow, he could probably tell you, but it’s not where he puts his focus. His focus is always outward. He’ll miss a meeting if it means landing the newest, shiniest client. How do I get Lisa to start being more proactive with new business? And how can I get Bob to work a regular 9-5 schedule?” This question may seem like an extreme example, but it’s exactly why hunters and farmers matter. In this example, Lisa, a clear farmer, loves working with existing clients, expanding their business, and protecting the base - and yet, her manager resents that she doesn’t want to hunt for fresh business. Meanwhile, Bob would love nothing more than to spend all his time on the go, signing new clients each day - but his reluctance to farm frustrates his manager as well. Lisa and Bob are both important members of the sales team fulfilling vital functions. The manager simply has them in the wrong roles. Instead of playing to their strengths, the sales team is forced to work in a way that they don’t like and won’t excel at. While it’s true that most members of your team won’t align 100% with one camp or the other, they will fall closer to one end of the continuum. A farmer may enjoy certain types of new business opportunities. A hunter may want to continue growing specific legacy or large accounts. The hunters and farmers framework isn’t to say that salespeople can only hunt or farm - but it’s a great tool for determining where most of their time and energy should be focused. This is where a sales assessment is incredibly useful in hiring the right kind of person for the right role. Tools like Sales Achiever can help you determine if the person you’re interviewing is a hunter or a farmer - so you can make sure you’re not hiring one when you’re really looking for the other. 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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We are headquartered in Colorado with domestic and international teammates and clients. Please use the contact form on this page to inquire about any of our books, podcasts appearances, speaking engagements and workshops, any of our offerings, or simply to connect.
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