What, Like It’s Hard?
WMMM #078 - This week I share an anecdote about a common myth.
Jeff Keplar Newsletter September 21, 2024 5 min read
"Can you create a script that we can use for email responses to these new leads?"
The source of this request is a problem-solver at heart.
Frustrated with the current sales performance, they want to change things up.
Using a script from an experienced sales professional, they believe they can do better.
Missing consecutive quarterly sales objectives will do that to a person.
Meanwhile, a project is underway to evaluate the benefits of investing in marketing.
Throwing money at marketing is expected to produce those leads.
To this point, they've used the "Friends and Family" approach to customer acquisition.
It's called that because you use friends and family as your source for sales leads.
Even though this approach does not scale, it's popular for early customer acquisition.
This profile fits hundreds of early-stage tech startups in the B2B space.
After establishing product-market fit, it's time to move beyond "Friends and Family" to a professional go-to-market strategy.
And yet, many establish a fit but do not make the attendant investment into their sales department.
Why?
"Can you use your Rolodex to walk us into some of these large telcos and banks?"
The source of this request is also a problem-solver.
Frustrated with the results from a recent investment in marketing, they want "better leads" than what they're getting.
Their goal is to land a "lighthouse" account that propels the company into the Fortune 500.
Using outside parties - salespeople with other firms, former sales executives now advisors, friends, and family - they believe a warm introduction will land a big fish.
Low conversion rates will do that to a person.
Meanwhile, a project is underway to establish a "Finder's Fee" system to reward those who provide warm introductions.
Throwing money at referrals is expected to deliver better leads.
Even though this approach is not repeatable, it is also popular.
And yet, most fail to achieve the desired results with either.
Glengarry Glen Ross
In the 1992 film, considered one of the better stories about selling and salespeople, the sales manager famously holds back the "good leads," the "new leads," also known as the Glengarry leads, from the sales team, only handing them out (2 per day) to those who close deals.
Although left to the audience to debate, most sales professionals who have watched the movie believe there was no difference between the Glengarry leads and the regular leads being doled out.
They know that leads don't determine a salesperson's success or failure.
Sales skills do.
Yet we aren't looking into the skills of the salespeople.
Deals are getting pushed, we're suffering repeated no-decisions, and we're missing quarterly forecasts.
Why not?
How likely is it that we do not understand sales?
Very likely.
And who can blame us?
Selling is often misunderstood.
By the way, who is "us?"
It could be anyone who isn't a sales professional.
In our examples, this might be company leadership, board members, or investors.
Misconceptions
One must be extroverted to be in sales.
Telling the Prospect how your product can help them is how sales are made.
Product training = sales training.
Salespeople are born that way - you can't learn how to sell.
Sales is an art, not a science.
Sales-led growth is blazer-clad sales reps taking Prospects out to fancy steak dinners in hopes of winning the RFP.
It's impolite to ask questions - it's none of your business.
Selling is easy work.
Is Sales a Profession?
Colleges and universities do not offer degrees in sales.
They offer undergraduate and graduate engineering, business administration, and finance degrees.
Even though most tech sales professionals have a college degree, this may contribute to how other professionals view sales.
But sales is a profession.
It requires specialized knowledge, a specific set of skills, and training.
For example, let's use prospecting, a well-known area of the sales profession.
If you are in sales, chances are you began your career learning to get appointments.
Entry-level salespeople typically are given the task of cold-calling to book appointments.
The appointment is used as the first step in developing an opportunity.
When the opportunity is qualified, it becomes a sales lead.
Prospecting requires the entry-level sales rep to call up a complete stranger, get them to answer the phone, have a conversation, and book a meeting with them.
This takes skills.
Communication skills and behavioral science are part of the training.
It takes practice.
It requires perseverance.
It's hard.
Don't believe me?
Try it for a week.
Yet, the people we put in jobs to do this are often the least equipped to do so.
To be successful, training is required.
After the training, we must have coaching for reinforcement.
Otherwise, we'll lack retention, and the training will be less effective.
On average, it requires nearly three years to master prospecting.
What, Like It's Hard?
We've just scratched the surface.
Once we get the appointment, then what?
We have to have a process.
It's not one size fits all.
Style accounts for differences in the approach.
A sales process is a baseline.
It allows us to measure.
Against other sales cycles.
Where we are in our sales cycle.
Are we on track?
Do we make course corrections?
How do we improve?
We will likely follow the Prospect's process if we don't have a process.
A decision to buy (from anyone) is less likely using theirs rather than with ours.
Building rapport and establishing our right to ask questions is next.
Getting agreement in advance of each step for what takes place next is part of that first appointment.
Then comes discovery and quantifying the consequences of the Prospect doing nothing.
Qualification, decision process, timing, funding, and fit are all part of the process.
Negotiation takes place once we have the intent to move forward.
Each of these requires as much and arguably more specialized knowledge, skills, and training than prospecting.
Each requires a conversation with the Prospect.
This cannot be handled with email, texts, or bots.
Depending on the quality of the reinforcement and number of repetitions, mastering these components will take at least another ten years.
(Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 repetitions is as good a barometer as any.)
Can we create a script for email responses to the new leads?
No, we can't.
It would be throwing away the money we spend on creating the script.
It would be wasting the money we spent on the marketing that generated the leads.
If we get a lead, the next step has to be a conversation.
Until we connect with someone voice to voice, we are in the marketing world, not selling.
Marketing research shows that it now requires over nine "touches" to get a prospect to take action.
"Touches" are emails, impressions on a LinkedIn post, and visits to your website, for example.
Taking action is subscribing to a newsletter or clicking "Contact Us" on your website.
Clicking on "Contact Us" and providing their contact information is a lead.
It can take months of marketing activity to produce a lead.
Why would we send them an email when we could have a conversation?
We wouldn't if we knew.
Remembering Glengarry Glen Ross, whether through a marketing investment or a finder's fee to a consultant, the lead is worth very little if we don't understand what to do next.
Do experienced sales reps still cold call?
Some of the very best do.
They like the rapport they can build by taking a Prospect from stem to stern.
When we are getting sales leads from customer referrals, prospecting, and marketing, and we have trained sales reps using a proven process to convert them, then we have a flywheel - a scalable, repeatable model.
What, Like It's Hard?
Lessons Learned
1) Prospecting requires specific knowledge, special skills, and training.
2) If we don't have a sales process, get one.
3) Selling requires a conversation.
4) Some of the best sales reps still cold call.
Thank you for reading.
Jeff
When you think “sales leader,” I hope you think of me.
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