Many sales teams struggle with these habits. Research shows they all correlate with increased sales.
If you could improve the habits of your sales team, which would you choose? You could make a good argument for improving these three: preparing, probing, and documenting.
1. Prepare: 75% of B2B executive buyers say salespeople are not knowledgeable about their business... and do not understand the issues they face. Unsurprisingly, only one in four salespeople get agreement from these buyers to meet again. See Sales Call Preparation, p 2.
2. Probe: Over 3 decades of research makes it clear: Salespeople who ask questions about customers' problems sell more. See Neil Rackham's landmark book, SPIN Selling.
3. Document: Of 12 VOC-related skills, salespeople rate themselves the lowest on entering data into their CRM. Yet this habit strongly correlates with beating sales quotas. See VOC Skills that Drive B2B Sales (pp 11, 13). Also, strong data entry allows Market Scouting... AI-based data-mining of your CRM to detect weak market signals before competitors.
Let's see how Everyday VOC® training--which employs the SalesPrepTM system--can help you with all three habits.
How to improve PREPARATION
There's a reason many salespeople fail to properly prepare for their sales meetings: It's quite time-consuming. At one of our clients, salespeople would send a research request to their marketing department, who would then deliver a customer report... several days later.
But with AI, salespeople can now do this by themselves in less than 60 seconds. Your salespeople can download an extensive AI-based SalesPrep report containing 5 sections:
- Company news: You don’t want to be surprised by their new acquisition, divestiture, vice-president, or company announcement. And this background can give you great “icebreakers” to start your meeting: “Are you personally impacted by your company’s new acquisition?”
- Market trends: You’ll be able to engage your customer more deeply if you’re conversant in the trends their specific industry is facing: “I’ve been reading about this trend, and I wanted to get your opinion on it.”
- Common problems: You'll see the top 15-20 problems faced by this type of company, which helps in two ways: 1) If your customer brings up one of these problems, you’ll be prepared to discuss it, and 2) you can ask them if they are dealing with some of these issues.
- Process steps: You'll also see the steps your customer goes through when using your type of offering. This lets you explore those steps you might help them accomplish faster, better or cheaper.
- Company overview: You'll review a detailed description of this company... their size, leadership, products, competitors, and published strategy.
You can download a sample report for a closer look.
How to improve PROBING
This is the most potent sales habit to improve. When you ask the customer good questions about their problems, you increase your likelihood of making a sale for three reasons:
- Now you know which of your products to recommend.
- The customer just told you how to sell (which pain points to address).
- Customers love to work with people interested in them.
SalesPrep software and the Everyday VOC workshop teach our "What-Why-Clarify" probing... an advanced methodology based on training B2B firms in VOC methods for 20 years. This training includes:
- 10 E-learning modules (each 6-12 minutes)
- Downloadable resources, such as the Everyday VOC Guide.
- Unlimited practice sessions with an AI Guide called "Claire."
The last item--AI role-playing with Claire--is frankly quite amazing. You select any of your products and any application your customers use it for. Then you practice your What-Why-Clarify probing on an AI "customer" who gives very realistic answers to your probing questions.
"Claire" is the third party in this conversation: She gives you advice as you go (the intermediate level) or waits until the end to make suggestions (the expert level).
You really should try this! Just go to www.salesprep.com, and scroll down until you see Claire's picture. Then click this button and interview an AI customer on your product and application.
How to improve CRM DOCUMENTING
Can your sales team use the above, self-paced e-learning, resources, and "Claire" practice sessions to build amazing preparation and probing skills? Absolutely! But the real question is, WILL they? Our research has shown that salespeople's probing skills do NOT generally improve with 3 or more traditional sales training sessions. (See VOC Skills that Drive B2B Sales, p 10).
So why would we expect different results here? Sure, there will be a small percentage of self-motivated individuals who will do well. But how do we ensure the vast majority of your team makes significant behavior changes in their preparation, probing and CRM documenting?
This only happens with a concentrated, sustained effort that includes your leadership team. We recommend using the "carrot" before the "stick"... and begin by incentivizing learning, and then applying.
A typical program looks like this.
1. Everyday VOC workshop: During this 4-hour workshop (virtual or in-person), your salespeople get hands-on role-playing practice with colleagues and Claire... so they're comfortable with new skills. They also hear research correlating CRM documentation with exceeding sales quotas. At this time, your leadership announces follow-up web-conferences with some "friendly contests."
2. Monthly follow-up web-conferences: These can be as simple as one-hour web-conferences for all learners 1, 2, and 3 months after the workshop. Examples of content include:
- Prizes or drawings to recognize adopters with the most "Claire" sessions... SalesPrep report downloads... completed e-learning modules... recorded customer outcomes in CRM.
- Testimonies from early adopters on how "Claire" helped them build new skills... prepare for meetings... receive positive customer feedback... and sell more!
- The client sponsor is provided with a Client Dashboard for easy tracking of progress and recognizing early adopters.
3. Permanent changes: Some examples here include:
- Provide ongoing recognition to those applying preparation and probing... AND documenting their findings in CRM.
- Include SalesPrep certification (10 e-learning modules, 10 sessions with "Claire," and 10 SalesPrep report downloads) in performance plans.
- Modify sales compensation plans to include "learning" as well as "selling." One metric: The number and quality of customer outcomes documented in the CRM.
Each company has a different "starting point" and culture, so your AIM Institute advisor will work with you to develop the best post-workshop plan for your organization. (Contact AIM at www.talkwithAIM.com)
Keywords: sales habits, sales behavior, prepare, probe, document, CRM, CRM capture, encourage behavior change, require behavior change, learning new behaviors, applying new behaviors, sales incentives, sales compensation, recognition, prizes, testimonies