The compounding effect of daily sales activities

Many of the startup founders I have coached have made strong verbal commitments to increase their outbound sales activities, but too few have followed through. 

I know sales is hard! It requires both an intellectual and emotional focus to drives the activities which produces results.  

I believe that most early stage startups will have the best chances of success if they commit to a minimum of one hour per day of outbound sales:

• research prospects via LinkedIn and Google
• outbound emails, calls and messaged
• early meetings
• follow up calls
• draft quick proposals  

Your activities need to be balanced, focused and measurable. Don’t spend all your time researching and drafting proposals... get out there and sell!

If you persist and get the right support/mentoring you should give your startup its best chance of success 😀.

Getting alignment with your sales staff

As a startup founder you should ensure your sales staff are aligned to the success of the business - not just revenue goals. 

Revenue maximising can sometimes conflict with profit maximising.   

Its okay to emphasise revenue in the early days. But sooner or later your business needs to be profitable! 

Revenue focus can cause the following challenges with sales staff:  

• Sales staff are inclined to oversimplify deals in order to keep the wheels turning, ignoring risk factors that will “bite the company in the bum” down the track. 
• It is easier to leave money on the table to achieve revenue growth. This is because getting fairer deals require more effort to negotiate and ads risk to closing the deal!

So be aware of these issues. Changing from revenue to profitability focus is a good challenge to have as your business expands!

Symphonic Harmony

Not long ago I was involved in a group presentation to a potential customer.

It is an inspiration to be part of a team of individuals with different skills and roles giving a harmonious presentation!

Everyone does their part to contribute a consistent message.  

Here are some suggestions to help your group presentations work really well: 

• Write the proposal in collaboration with your customer. They will help you to nail the right message.  
• Make sure that the engineering and business divisions of your startup sign off on your proposal.  
• Conduct a practice run prior to the presentation.
• Map out who your audience is and anticipate possible questions and objections. 
• Immediately after the presentation conduct an internal debrief. Confirm all assignments and next steps. 
• Make sure that you send the necessary information and follow up email within 24 hours at the latest! 

If you work in harmony with group presentations your chances of successful sales will increase.  

When you do have success, make sure that everyone involved is recognised for their contribution!  

Not cracking under pressure

No matter how good you are at selling, at some stage you are going to come under massive pressure to increase revenues. 

The problem with stress is that it’s difficult to  hide from the people we sell to. And who wants to buy from a stressed individual?

We all like to buy from someone that is relaxed and in tune with our needs  

So the challenge is being able to manage that pressure to increase your selling intensity, while minimising the symptoms of stress.  

Stress can cause problems in the following ways: 

1. When under stress, the intellectual side of your brain can shut down, causing you to rely more on your reptile or “croc” brain. This part of our brain is good at keeping us alive when we are in physical danger, but performs poorly in the work environment! A symptom of this is not being able to remember details or poor analysis skills. 
2. When under stress you naturally focus more on your targets and less on the people around you (customers and co-workers). This makes you less empathetic, which can reduce your selling ability.  

Ways is to better manage your stress:

1. Most stress comes from short term worries, so write down your plan for getting out of your sales hole. It will help you and your backers (investors or bosses) to see what you are doing and offer feedback. 
2. When your own fears and worries do manifest themselves, ask yourself what you are doing to manage that. Then run through your plan in your head all the things you are doing and what your future plan is. Daniel Pink (author) has taught this approach is proven to help build genuine confidence- not the fake kind when we try to psyche ourselves up... 
3. Time-box your work and personal life. Make sure your job is getting everything it needs done. However at the same time make sure you allow time for your family and personal relationships. Allow yourself to forget about your work worries for at least one day over the weekend. The break will make you better at you job! 
4. Don’t cut back on exercise. In fact when there is increased stress you should increase it. Your mind and body will thank you for it! 

There is no silver bullet to stop the impact of stress on your effectiveness. But you can better manage it, and lessen its impact so that you can be as effective as possible. 

Success with large key account customers

With larger key accounts you should aim to become their trusted advisor.

How do you do that?

Time.

Nothing will help you be more successful than spending time with them and provide meaningful value.

For example: 

• Look for ways to be of help. Sometimes this might be non-monetary value such as a workshop or briefing. 
• Learn and adapt to the organisation’s culture and terminology. They will be much more comfortable around you when they know you ‘get’ them!

As you do this you will gradually become the default choice among your competitors.  

Over time you become their trusted advisor. 

Keeping your mind Fresh

Selling is an emotionally draining activity.

Working continuously without a proper break will limit your sales success. 

There is nothing worse than working in a mental haze!  

The opposite is also true. There is nothing so effective as selling when your mind is sharp and rested! 

One of the habits of Stephen R. Covey’s seminal book, Seven Habits of Highly is to Sharpen the Saw  illustrates this point well.   

Take time out. Especially when you are under pressure you need to find ways to  rest, recharge and relearn .

• Rest: Get plenty of sleep. Make sure you unplug during the weekend. Turn off mobile devices one hour before bed. Trust me you will be far more effective when your mind has been given a rest!
•  Recharge : Get the optimum level of exercise for your age and health. Increase your exercise when you are under stress. Eat healthy. I personally like to cycle, run or study Krav Maga. 
• Relearn: Keep your mind fresh by learning new things. Develop a passion to study a subject (outside of your current role) that you find interesting. I have found listening to historical podcasts and audio books to be fascinating! They give me a break from the repetitiveness that occurs in sales.

Trust me on this one! Your brain will love you for it! 

Make it easy for your prospects to say "No"

I have actively been working in B2B sales since 1998.

In all that time, the most frustrating memory was following up on those few prospects for a LONG TIME. I was living the hope that one day they would say "Yes". 

But my hope was not based in reality.

Maybe they were just stringing me along?

It was more likely I did not give them an easy opening to say "No". 

Nowdays when I feel things are slipping, I try the following approaches and watch their reaction: 

1. Withdraw the offer (bold but risky)
2. Your proposal will expire within a short time period
3. Tell the customer that you or your product may not be right for them. Wait for them to interrupt to say you are wrong. If they don't interrupt then you are right!

When you keep it real, you will be free to sell more successfully. I would rather have 5 real opportunities than over 100 maybes!

Understanding our binary mindset of Rejection and Acceptance

Many startup founders struggle with sales because of rejection. 

This manifests in frustrations in not getting meetings, or ultimately rejection of proposals.  

Most of us seem to have the following binary views: 

Acceptance = They like me

Rejection = They dislike me

Lets try to put this into context because as humans we rarely act in a binary manner.  

I was surprised to recently find one former customer not respond to my requests to meet. This was despite the fact we had a very good working relationship in the past and I knew from other sources that she saw me in a positive light.  

I can’t help feeling down when I am not successful in progressing opportunities. But perhaps we can try to see acceptance and rejection differently.

Rejection could also mean:

• they are too busy
• they feel they would be wasting our time
• they can’t meet because of a third party restriction 

If we see rejection from a less binary perspective it will help us to keep persisting, cover a wider audience and ultimately make more sales! 

What have you sold today?

Early in my career I had a colleague who was the sales manager of a sister company where I worked. Although he was never my manager, Geoff loved to ask me, “what have you sold today?”

This always got under my skin becasue my sales cycles took between 1-6 months to close.

Although the question was made in jest, he made made a great point. 

It forced me to analyse whether my selling was focussed enough to get the results.

What have you sold today does not care about the success you did yesterday or the deal you hope to close next week. It asks you to be completely honest about what you can sell right now! 

Thanks Geoff!  

Startup founders must spend 1 hour/day on sales if they are serious

I get it that sales is hard. I have been doing sales full time for the past 18 years and there are still days that I don’t enjoy it. 

As a startup founder you need to accept the success of your current and future ventures is largely based on your willingness to get out and have a go at selling your product that you have built. 

You will probably make lots of mistakes but this is far more preferable than sitting in your cave pondering on how to develop the perfect pitch and finding someone else to do it. 

If you cannot commit to sales until your startup is at least $1M in revenue then you should get a job at Google or join a consulting company.  

Selling is non-negotiable when it comes to startup founders.