1. Crucial Elements & Sales DNA
Factors that Impact
Your Success
in Sales

2. Objectives and Expected Outcomes
The desired outcomes as a result of this session are to:
Understand how underlying factors affect your prospecting and selling activities
Increase your closed business by minimizing the impact of unsupportive factors such as need for approval and buy cycle
These printed materials were developed exclusively for the use of ACTG and shall remain the sole and exclusive proprietary materials of ACTG. Permission to use, redistribute or otherwise publish these materials must be attained in writing from ACTG.
MPF Crucial Elements ©ACTGLLC

3. Crucial Elements Support Effective Selling
Desire
Commitment
Outlook
Responsibility (excuse making)
Important to note the positioning of the crucial elements relative to what we are trying to accomplish – effective selling. They support one’s will vs can. MPF impact can and will.
Should take 1 minute – this is a review of the words
Most (but not all) of the participants completed the assessment in late 2007 so will remember what their own CE’s are. RMs did not ever take the assessment so they have to be able to understand these and identify them by their behaviors as they coach.
Desire is the passion for success in selling
Commitment is the willingness to do whatever it takes (within legal, moral and ethical boundaries)
Outlook is how they feel about themselves, the industry, the economy and the company
Responsibility involves excuse making, blaming the company, the economy or the competition
MPF Crucial Elements ©ACTGLLC

4. Place Yourself… Desire Commitment Outlook Excuse Making
Always sets the bar high for themselves
Usually complacent and not engaged on goals
Always resists tough goals and challenges
Commitment
Always does everything possible to succeed. (WIT)
Will only take on a challenge if it is not too uncomfortable
(WITALAIITU)
Consistently does not embrace new challenges
(Coast to coast)
Outlook
Always believes they can find a solution
Sometimes allows external factors to get in the way
Has a poor image about themselves, the economy and / or the company they represent
Excuse Making
(Responsibility)
No excuses, any reason for failure or lack of execution, starts with ‘I’
Sometimes blames others for success or failure
Always blames the market, company or others for failures
They should take a few minutes and evaluate themselves. Not easy to do but critical that they understand this. SDE must challenge those that they know haven’t executed on some of the items of SME. Failure to execute on SME items are either based here or in record collections.
MPF Crucial Elements ©ACTGLLC

5. Factors that Compromise Strengths
Sales DNA
Need for Approval Would rather be liked than get the business
Buy Cycle Influenced by personal buying habits
Record Collections Beliefs that inhibit effective selling
Money Issues Talking about, asking about, getting high dollar sales
Controls Emotions Post calls are full of shoulda and coulda
1 to 2 minutes maximum
As a group, the areas of biggest problems found by the assessments were:
Buy cycle
Record collection
Need for approval
SO WE WILL FOCUS ON THOSE TODAY
MPF Crucial Elements ©ACTGLLC

6. Buy Cycle The way you buy affects the way you sell
$_____ is a lot of money.
Before I make a purchase, I learn about the product by…
I shop ___ places before I decide to buy.
When it comes to price, I must…
It normally takes me _____ (amount of time) before I decide to buy.
Facilitate this exercise to make the point on the next page. Everyone has a buy cycle. It can either help or hurt selling. Tied closely to record collection
MPF Crucial Elements ©ACTGLLC

7. Buy Cycle Impact
Impact: This person will be vulnerable to prospects who buy the same way as he/she does. If the prospect wants to ‘think it over’ and that’s what the salesperson usually does, no technique will be effective because the salesperson understands the stall. The same goes for price shoppers, comparison shoppers and researchers.
Educator
Pricer
Thinker
Shopper
Competitor
I want to cover what is impacted by a limiting or unsupportive buy cycle. When this is part of a sales person ‘sales DNA” here are the symptoms:
Ask the participants to listen closely to the descriptions shared and to think about (and even write in the boxes) the names of the individuals on their teams that have these buy cycle issues.
Educator-Instead of asking questions to qualify they will have a tendency to talk or as David Sandler used to say: Spill their candy. Or what we say is show up and throw up.
Pricer-Instead of discussing an opportunity to develop a mutually beneficial financial relationship – exchange of services for a fee a sales person will get stuck talking about how much money they can save a prospect. Pricer-Instead of focusing on the cost – financial, emotional, personal or in business, of not changing they will focus on price
Thinker-Instead of challenging why a prospect says think it over once the presentation has been made the sales person will allow themselves to be put off
Shopper-Instead of eliminating the competition they allow an uneven playing field especially when it comes to dealing with the incumbent, often wont even ask about the current relationship
Competitor – someone who is able to overcome their own buy cycle wants to eliminate competition and win, controls outcomes
In the end a sales person with a non-supportive buy cycle gene in their dna will not be able to control the sales cycle (by that way this can also be a non-supportive record collection.)
Coaching to fix problem – next time you go to a restaurant be the last to look at the menu and you have 15 seconds to decide.
MPF Crucial Elements ©ACTGLLC

8. Beliefs that Sales People Have
Impact: This person will predestine failure more often than success because of the self-limiting beliefs in his/her collection.
Must answer
Always right
Must present
It’s ok to…
People must like me
Coaching, take them through the pain funnel, drilling down, how much is it costing to not fix it, do you want to fix it, are you sure
MPF Crucial Elements ©ACTGLLC

9. Addressing Self-Limiting Beliefs
Current Belief
Potential Negative Outcomes
New Belief
Potential Positive Outcome
I must answer questions when asked
May give them information not needed, detrimental
Seek to understand what the question really is
Will uncover the right question & answer appropriately
I have to educate the buyer before they will buy
I must present in order for someone to commit
It’s okay to shop around
People buy from people they like
Group exercise: This is the exercise you must take them through and the exercise they will take their teams through
MPF Crucial Elements ©ACTGLLC

10. Need for Approval Talk too much
Difficulty recovering from rejection so ask wimpy questions
Conflict or rejection avoidance
Too trusting of prospects – get lots of think it overs
These three have a direct impact on effective closing. Instead of making the decision making process stick as it was outlined by a prospect someone with need for approval will accept putoffs, think it overs and delays. A person with need for approval does not want to risk the ‘relationship’ for getting the business. They feel that given time the prospect will eventually buy from them so why close now. To compound the problem many people with need for approval also suffer from conflict avoidance or rejection avoidance. Meaning that they will avoid a conflict at all cost. And last but not least a person with need for approval will almost certainly be too trusting of prospects. In other words they believe EVERYTHING the prospect tells them.
Who is like this on your team? What have you done to coach them out of it
Let me coach you! Get over it!
MPF Crucial Elements ©ACTGLLC

11. Impact of Need for Approval
Impact: This person will avoid saying or doing things which, in their mind, would change how the prospect feels about them. This includes, but is not limited to, tough questions, legitimate confrontation and the potential inability to handle rejection or a ‘no’. The result is that this sales person will develop pipeline bloat - prospects remain in the pipeline and very few of them are closed or eliminated.
Does this impact me and my performance?
MPF Crucial Elements ©ACTGLLC

12. Addressing: Need for Approval
Do you have an appetite for change?
Do you have an appetite for continued failure?
Do you want to fix it?
How will you fix it?
2 minute slide
Who is like this, why are they like this, do they get results?
You may not like them but that is your need for approval or record collection
Tough as elephant hide but that doesn’t mean – NOT nurturing. No need for approval doesn’t mean that you blow people up. What it does mean in selling is
You make contact with a prospect on the phone and this leads to an initial meeting
During the initial meeting you are strong enough to ask tough and direct questions: like
Tell me about your Appetite to change from a mediocre program to one that is consistent with your business objectives
What is your Appetite for continued failure on the part of your current provider
What is your Appetite for continued losses of revenue due to mis management of your program
Urgency questions
Do you want to fix
But not today
Make sale
DRILL FOR SKILL OPPORTUNITY. PICK SOMEONE IN THE ROOM AND DEMONSTRATE A SALES CONVERSATION WHERE YOU OVERCOME ANY NEED FOR APPROVAL AND THEN HAVE ANOTHER IN THE ROOM REPLICATE
MPF Crucial Elements ©ACTGLLC

13. Introducing bank partners
Impact of Sales DNA on…
RM’s long buy cycle might affect their ‘hearing’ buying signals
Closing
Asking for referrals
Introducing bank partners
Asking questions
Facilitator – give participants a few minutes to complete this section. Ask them to identify the symptom with one of the MPFs.
This will be one of the exercises they will do in the coach’s forum. But select a person or two and demonstrate. Ask them to share what they have written. Then ask what they have done about it. Expect wrong answers like: Coaching to close the deal or coaching to get the appointment instead of dealing with the MPF responsible for the problem. Help them drill down to the MPF causing the symptom and coach to the real issue.
MPF Crucial Elements ©ACTGLLC

14. MAP: My Action Plans Action Items Next Step By When? 1. 2. 3.
MPF Crucial Elements ©ACTGLLC