In sales, social skills are vital. The behaviors and habits that enable reps to engage prospects are frequently the difference between hitting and missing quota. It’s been estimated that a bad meeting with a prospect can lock the rep and her company out of the account for upwards of 18 months.
Although it may seem counter-intuitive, role-playing for sales reps can cause a stress-filled moment of panic. Sellers spend the bulk of each day performing – social situations where improvisational skills may be the difference between missing a quota or triggering a commission accelerator.
Storytelling is a vital element in building a business and a lasting brand.
The driving-force behind your B2B sales funnel is the new, savvy and hyper-informed buyer. Yep. They come to the table already loaded with questions and demands that challenge even the most skilled sales reps. According to Forrester Research, buyers are estimated to go through 70 to 90 percent of the buyer journey before engaging a sales rep, placing an enormous hurdle for reps to overcome and catch up – or to reset.
Sales reps know that nothing engages a buyer quite like a good story. The “Storytelling Enterprise” has been grabbing attention as a fresh approach to harness a company’s hard-won insights in the form of stories delivered directly to the sales team. It is a powerful way to scale what sales reps have always known – great stories move prospects to action.
One of our customers recently told me that SharperAx makes it very easy for his sales team to learn. He said “it’s all about active learning – check out the Learning Pyramid to see what I mean.”
Hey, let’s get the sales team all on the same page!
B2B companies always ask themselves – “can marketing help us win more business?”
Our belief is that the biggest miss in sales leadership today is failing to invest resources in the single biggest needle-mover of sales success – the sales conversation.
Every Chief Sales Officer must seize growth opportunities. Yet these days, they face an uphill battle. Now more than ever, prospects view salesmen
and saleswomen as time-sucking annoyances. In fact, they say 90% of sales calls are a “waste of time*.
Ever since I broke into sales, I’ve heard leadership talking about ‘cloning the best reps’. The best reps seem to deliver year after year, even as the company grows and the product mix changes.
To bring in new accounts at scale, conventional wisdom is to first invest in a CRM and sales process, then invest in lead generation and efficiency tools and then – maybe – invest in making the sales interactions valuable for the prospect.
No way, Jose!
One assumption we hear when we talk to companies about story programs and role-play automation is that only the new reps and junior reps need to role play.
This is the first of two posts centered on how Geoff Colvin’s book “Humans are Underrated” is a great blueprint for the future of the sales profession.
Key Skill Sets for the Future Are Not What You Think
This is the second of two posts centered on how Geoff Colvin’s book “Humans are Underrated” is a great blueprint for the future of the sales profession.