Page 76 - The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million - PDFDrive.com

long it has been since a salesperson directly engaged with the individual who
has been identified as responsible for signing key documents. If that person
turns out to be the CEO and we haven't yet spoken to her, we have an issue.
Role-playing around specific opportunities works well to overcome this skill
deficiency. I find that,on a case-by-case basis, the best salespeople appreciate
the difference between why the end user wants our product and why the
related decision maker wants our product. Best-in-class salespeople will alter
the way they communicate value to each party so that everyone's interests
feel addressed.

3. Digging below the surface pain: Perhaps the salesperson hasn't yet fully
appreciated the prospect's pain. When I inquire about an opportunity's pain
point and the salesperson says he needs more leads, we have an issue.
Everybody needs more leads. Use probing questions to get to the deeper,
underlying pain points. Why do they need more leads? How many leads do
they generate today? How many do they need? How did they come up with
that goal? Is this a “must-hit” goal or an “ideal world” goal?

“Peeling Back the Onion”

An important concept related to metrics-driven sales coaching is what I call
“peeling back the onion.” As we review each salesperson's high-level funnel
metrics and begin to identify the areas of concern for each salesperson, the first
question I ask myself is “How can we use deeper metrics to peel back the onion
and properly diagnose the skill deficiency?”

The numbers rarely lie.

Figure 7.3 illustrates an example of “peeling back the onion.” Remember the
salesperson represented by the upper left diagonal pattern who worked lots of
leads but struggled with conversion to the demo stage? Let's peel back the onion
on this leads-worked-to-demos-booked ratio. Let's break down the data a bit, and
look separately at the leads-worked-to-connects ratio and the connects-to-demos-
booked ratio. This deeper view will help us to properly diagnose her skill
deficiency. If the leads-worked-to-connects ratio is low, then she is struggling to
get people onto the phone. We need to dive into her prospecting frequency and
personalization. If the connects-to-demos-booked ratio is low, then she is
struggling to pique the prospect's interest on the connect calls. We need to listen
to those calls in order to further diagnose.