A New Look At That Old Sales Capability: Empathy

We’ve always listed empathy as a required trait for salespeople.  In a Sales 101 application, empathy is the salesperson’s ability to understand the customer’s situation from the customer’s perspective.  Nothing new here.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, in her wonderful book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, provides us with another, very powerful reason why empathy is critical for effective selling, but this time it’s not Sales 101 stuff.  This application of empathy applies to advanced selling, and I got the chills when I first read this description of how Lincoln applied his empathetic capabilities to competitive strategy:

Though Lincoln’s empathy was at the root of his melancholy, it would prove an enormous asset to his political career. “His crowning gift of political diagnosis,” suggested Nicolay, “was due to his sympathy…which gave him the power to forecast with uncanny accuracy what his opponents were likely to do.” She described how, after listening to his colleagues talk at a Whig Party caucus, Lincoln would cast off his shawl, rise from his chair, and say: “From your talk, I gather the Democrats will do so and so…I should do so and so to checkmate them.” He proceeded to outline all “the moves for days ahead; making them all so plain that his listeners wondered why they had not seen it that way themselves.” Such capacity to intuit the inward feelings and intentions of others would be manifest throughout his career.

The best salespeople use empathy in this way to win deals.  Do yours?  Why not?  What are you going to do about it?

© Norberto Lauria – Fotolia.com

New Year Resolutions For Sales Leaders

Pick one or more of the resolutions below.  Commit, execute, enjoy the results.

1. I’ll never hire another sales rep who can’t get the sales job done. First, completely understand the position and the skills and traits required to be successful.  Evaluating whether a candidate meets those requirements requires a series of two to three structured interviews.  There are no perfect candidates, but if you understand gaps between what capabilities the candidate possesses and what is required for the job, you can train, coach or support that new rep to success.
   

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2. I won’t spend another dime on technology for my sales team without knowing specifically how it will help my reps win business. In general, what companies receive in return for their investment in CRM technology is significantly short of expectations.  Before you make any investments in CRM, Sales 2.0 or other emerging technologies make sure the primary recipient of value is the salesperson. There has to be a direct, proven connection between the software application and the salesperson winning more business.
   

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3. I will teach and then continue to encourage my reps to look at selling strategically. Many salespeople don’t think past the next meeting or phone call.  You will be doing them (and yourself) a big favor if you can coach them into seeing the big picture—the next five steps in the sales cycle or what the customer’s situation might be in six months when they expect to make a buying decision.
   

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4. I will look at sales performance improvement strategically. You should know by now that tactical, event-based sales training doesn’t really provide any long-term value.  So why are you still wasting time and money on it?
   

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5. I will implement a formal coaching function to support my sales reps’ growth. Coaching is not a sales manager closing a deal for a rep or telling them what to do in a tough competitive situation.   Coaching is a mission-critical, formal, ongoing activity that is required for significant sales performance improvement.  If you don’t know where to start, send me an email.  I’ll point you in the right direction.
   

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6. I will run my sales organization like the business that it should be. In order to be successful, businesses require business plans, process, discipline, documented responsibilities and accountabilities, quality assurance and measurement of output.  I’m not suggesting bureaucracy here.  Just the appropriate measure of formality and seriousness.  If seat-of-the-pants ever worked in B2B selling in the past, it certainly doesn’t any longer.
   

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7. I will provide my sales team with the leadership they need and deserve. A few questions for you around one area of leadership:  Is marketing not getting the job done?  Does the CEO set unrealistic revenue targets?  Are customers angry due to product problems?  Do your products or services not meet the needs of your market?   These and other challenges can stop the best sales team in its tracks.  It’s your job to get issues like these addressed and resolved.  If you don’t have the required leadership skills, get them.
   

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8. I will advance my team considerably further than foundation Sales 101 skills so they can really be competitive. Winning these days requires more than just basic selling skills.  Make sure your sales process includes advanced components, such as political mapping, selling to senior executives, and competitive strategies and tactics.  Find the best approaches in those areas that fit your business requirements.  Train your people.  Sustain improvement with coaching and other post-training reinforcement.
   

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9. I will elevate the importance of my team’s knowledge about our customers’ businesses. Many customers of yours are buying only what will help them survive this economic crisis.  If your salespeople can’t position your products and services in terms of contributing to your customers’ success—from your customer’s perspective—they aren’t going to sell very much.
   

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10. I will commit to understanding my weaknesses and improving those capabilities as a sales leader. There is no shortage of intelligence, research, best-practices, coaches, consultants and just plain good advice.  Avail yourself of the best of them.

Photo credit: © Stefan Rajewski – Fotolia.com

Sales 101 Doesn’t Get The Job Done

Are your salespeople sitting around just waiting to be outsold?

Part of what ESR does is to identify, size, and prioritize the gaps that exist between our clients’ sales teams’ skill sets and what is required for them to win more business, sooner, and at higher contract values.

There are different ways to categorize those gaps.  For the purposes of this post, let’s look at basic versus advanced selling capabilities. 

Here is are just a few basic selling capabilities:

• Managing a territory
• Cold-calling
• Planning and executing an end-to-end sales campaign
• Uncovering and understanding the customer’s business challenges and opportunities
• Planning and executing a successful meeting with a prospect
• Ability to understand and state their company’s value proposition to customer executives
• Delivering a presentation about their company, their products and basic information about their customer’s business
• Ability to follow their company’s sales processes
• Having a basic understanding of their competition’s company and products
• Managing objections (should they arise)
• Negotiation
• Closing

And some selected advanced selling capabilities:

• Determining the competition’s selling strategies and devising effective counterstrategies
• Successfully employing competitive selling tactics, such as setting traps and immunizing the customer against a competitor’s negative selling
• Ability to link the strategic value of a product or service to the customer’s long-term business objectives
• Identifying, recruiting and leveraging politically powerful people to influence an evaluation team or decision-maker
• Employing personal capital to effect an introduction to the CEO of a targeted company
• Being seen as a trusted peer by customer executives
• Effectively managing the long-term relationship with a strategic account

Here’s the problem:  There isn’t enough sales skills training going on.¹  What is taking place is mostly Sales 101—basic selling skills.  Not enough attention is paid to the advanced selling capabilities I listed above, among others.  There are several vendors that meet or exceed their clients’ requirements and expectations with respect to advanced selling IP, processes, coursework, and coaching.²  But, many vendors don’t.  Even vendors with well-known brands.  The problem with that is they can only get you so far.  They can’t provide you with what you need to consistently and predictably outsell your competitors. 

The basics are critically important for sales effectiveness.  But they alone aren’t enough.

So, what happens when you have four companies with basically comparable offerings competing for the same business and none of the salespeople managing the deals have the advanced selling capabilities mentioned above?  Decisions made on price, features, a sexy demo or the most well-known brand. It’s a toss-up as to who is going to win.  But if one company’s sales team possesses advanced capabilities, how do you think they’re going to do?

Not every salesperson needs advanced selling skills.  But, if you’re in a complex selling environment and your salespeople don’t have all the skills required to win, you’re asking to be outsold.  

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¹ A 2007 DePaul University Study reported that only 43% of companies responding said they had a formal sales training program. Of those, only 50% provided sales skills training.
² Performance Methods, Inc. is one vendor that provides advanced selling solutions. Disclosure: Performance Methods subscribes to ESR’s research.

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