Follow-Up for a New Manager with an Inexperienced Team

April 30th, the end of another month! Let's do a little follow up on the last post.

Some of the other action items for a new manager with an inexperienced team are these.

Make sure your sales people are getting to the decision maker! Want to make yourself crazy? Work with a salesperson who has a primary contact and who has worked for months to develop a super strong relationship with someone who has can't buy what you're selling! The contact loves his/her account representative, but can't say the words, "I'm convinced, here is the contract." All the time, effort and resources have been expended for NOTHING!
This is a point that needs to be drummed and stressed to anyone new to sales, if their contact can't buy, be polite and courteous to them, but have them introduce you to the person who will do the purchasing. If they are well respected and have the DM's ear, make sure you stay in contact with them since they are probably an influencer. But you need to meet and speak to the decision maker at some point in the sale. They might delegate and have their trusted staff do the preliminary evaluations, but they will decide who is awarded the business, with input from their staff.

Know the Purpose of your Call or Meeting - Is the purpose of the call to prospect and introduce your service to a business that doesn't know your firm? Is the purpose of the phone call to make sure your proposal has been read and determine next steps? Is the purpose to arrange a face to face meeting? Is it to find out who the decision maker is? Is it to close the sale? Is it to invite the decision maker to play golf? They need to say different things and need to reach different people depending on what they want to accomplish.

Generate some buzz - I would want to try to have a contest of some kind to stimulate activity and interest. It might be a team contest or I might try to get my team to pull together and challenge another manager's team to some kind of contest. It might be closing sales, making cold calls, making appointments, but I would want to get them jazzed up.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy the nice NY Weather they're predicting for this weekend.

Business Plan for a New Manager with an Inexperienced Team Selling B2B

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Business Plan for a New Manager with an Inexperienced Team Selling B2B

As the folks who have found this blog through my LinkedIn Profile know, I started this blog to keep my skills sharp during my job search. I interviewed last week with a telecom company for a Sales Manager position in their Manhattan office, managing a team of 8 to 10 Sales Representatives without a lot of sales experience or industry tenure. I need to convince the Sales Director (the Hiring Manager) that I am the best candidate for the slot on his team. I thought putting together a Business Plan of what I plan to do during my first sixty days might help convince him I am the right person for the job. I also thought it might make interesting reading for the next posting on this blog. So here goes my best effort to make this post interesting to you, the readers and persuasive to the Hiring Manager!

Assess the team QUICKLY - Get as much information as I can on each member of the team. Learn who’s making quota, who’s self sufficient, who has potential to be successful but is struggling and the hard one, decide who on the team isn’t suited to this position and needs to look at other career options. I would make sure their activity level was sufficient for them to be successful as well as make sure they were using their time as productively as possible.

Learn the company’s Sweet Spot in the Market - Determine what type of business has the need for this niche telecom service. It’s a niche, but in this case, it’s a big niche. The reason for this is if I can determine a strong vertical market where the company has had some success, I can have my team contact their competitors. They can say that the service is being used in their industry and mention the business’ name. They can talk about the way it’s being deployed and how it can save the prospect money, make them more efficient because they can connect offices in a way that was too expensive with traditional carriers, or keep their costs the same, but give them more (value) for the same amount of money.

Determine New Vertical Markets - If one of the uses is video conferencing as an example, determine what businesses currently use or could benefit from high bandwidth video connections that provide high quality video. How ‘bout?
Law Firms? Sure! One way they can use of video is they can hold and record depositions via video instead of traveling in some of their cases. Since these are billable hours at $500+ per hour, this is a sure moneymaker for them.
Ad Agencies? You bet! Them too! Use video conferencing as a collaboration tool for practicing and perfecting pitches and new ad campaigns before they make the final presentation to their customer. This is especially important if there are multiple offices collaborating on the project, as is common with larger Ad Agencies.
How about Hospitality and Hotels? Why not suggest to them that they outfit one or a few of their meeting rooms with video conferencing. How about this as an example? The Business Managers at the hotel can suggest to their customers that they rent a room in a Manhattan Hotel and a Room in the Los Angeles Hotel, and connect them via video. The benefit to the business is increased productivity! The people don’t lose two days traveling (not to mention the travel expense). The end client might be a company with a large sales force. The videoconference meeting might not replace their national sales meeting entirely, (but it might if the budgets are too stretched), however, it can be a supplement for quarterly updates, new product releases, etc. The hotel gets to rent two, three, or four meeting rooms, plus food and beverages to make the Hotel Catering Manager happy and will probably still rent some hotel rooms too.

Assess Competitive Strengths – Where does this company have an advantage over the other players? Is it a technology advantage? This is an area where a company like Apple would capitalize on by charging a premium price because they have a product that is superior to the other products available in the marketplace. Is it a size and reach advantage? Does the company have a greater footprint than the others businesses? Are you able to sell, service, install and maintain your product in areas where the other businesses either just can’t do business or have to engage a third party? If so, I would have the Sales Reps introduce FUD, (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) to the users. Make sure they know there is a loss of control and often, but not always, quality, when a third party is engaged. Is the business’ competitive advantage a cost advantage? If you are the Wal-Mart of your industry, you will be able to increase market share because you can sell at a lower price that your competitors and still make money. With this company I am speaking with, their advantage is clearly a cost advantage, so I would instruct and work with every rep on my team to make sure they could clearly convey the story of lower cost and how their customer benefits.

For the Hiring Manager, I hope I was able to convey in this blog posting that I am the right person for the Sales Manager position. In any case, I enjoyed speaking with you and thank you for your consideration.

Everyone else; thanks for reading. Please send me any comments, suggestions and questions.

Coaching, Mentoring, Encouraging & Managing a Sales Team - Part 1

I realize many of you already know some of the stuff I'm writing about today, but even though you know it, sometimes a reminder will jog your memory and make you think and re-focus on it.

The purpose of camps and training for pro athletes is to get them ready for the season. They get ready for the season by conditioning themselves running as well as practicing things they have done since they were children. Can you imagine a baseball team having spring training without any batting practice? Nope, me either. How many times has a pro ball player tried to hit a pitch before he steps into spring training? Tens of thousands of times is my guess. But they aren't there to learn hitting as a new skill, they are there to hone a skill they already have.

But little league is different. As a little league coach, the focus is teaching new skills and practicing the fundamentals until they're done well and come second nature to the player. A Sales Manager with an inexperienced team needs to help them develop into top professional sales people. Green {meaning inexperienced in this context. I feel the need to clarify since today is Earth Day ;-)} sales people need a Sales Manager's help to learn, among other things, the fundamentals of business and the fundamentals of sales. They might need to learn how to dress and speak to convey a professional image. The Sales Manager needs to teach them about the product and the benefits of the product to the user. They need to be coached on handling legitimate objections. They need to learn how to call and introduce themselves to prospects, to get the prospect's attention and interest and also learn the purpose of the call, SEAL THE DEAL. Sealing the deal can mean different things.

If your business has no relationship with the prospect it can mean closing the sale for an inside sales person selling a low cost commodity or making an appointment to meet face to face for big ticket items. It can also mean finding out the person you contacted is not the right person to speak with for your product, and getting the contact info for the right person. If you've developed a relationship with the person you're speaking with, they might add them to the call and provide an introduction for you. This is very desirable because a warm call meaning the ice has been broken and they are speaking to you on the recommendation of someone they already know. This removes some of the natural hesitation / defenses people have when a person they don't know calls them to try to engage in a business transaction.

And make no mistake, sales people, GOOD sales people are skilled, they're not just order takers. They add value to your company in numerous ways. I'll write about the value a good sales person adds to your business in my next post.

Thanks for reading. Please, any comments or questions are appreciated.

To Be Successful, You Must Know Your Audience

As I alluded to in my previous posts about fishing, you need to know who your audience is to reach them effectively. To return to the fishing analogy, you won't catch ANY fish if you use Godiva chocolate as bait. In addition, you'll spend a boatload of money on bait, and have nothing to show for it!

You also need to be in the right place as well as use the right bait. You can have the best bait, but you won't catch any tuna if the boat you're fishing from is bobbing in Lake Michigan. To paraphrase Willie Sutton, he robbed banks because "that's where the money is". So you want to your message message has to be the right message AND it has to be visible to your customers; in order for them to see it.

So, you need to make sure you reach the people most likely to purchase your product or service with the right message (bait) and the right place (someplace that will reach your desired audience).

If you're selling 316L Stainless Steel, you would target people making steel products that need to be corrosion resistant. If you decide to target water bottle manufacturers for the sake of discussion, what's the most efficient way to reach them? Probably not radio or television. Print ads in a local newspaper? Maybe. Manufacturing Trade Shows? Better, but how many trade shows are there? Two or three or four a year? Not too many chances to send out your message to your audience. A Trade Magazine? Probably a good choice, because you can advertise in each issue. If it's published monthly, you have at least 12 attempts to get your potential customer to see your ad.

As a twist, why not put a space ad in the Trade Magazine? In the ad say, "see us at Booth 212 at The Stainless Steel Water Bottle Show in Cleveland, TN (or Cleveland, Tx or Cleveland, Ohio). Mention this ad and get a free Stainless Steel ID Bracelet or get a free iTunes download on us."

This has several benefits. You will reach more people because your ad will be seen more frequently than a booth at a Trade Show. Because it will be in the magazine for a number of consecutive issues, casual readers who don't read each issue can be exposed to your product. You will also reach some people that don't read the magazine, but do attend the show (and vice versa). But the really good thing about an ad with a freebie like the bracelet or iTunes download, is you can capture the people that come to claim the premium AND you will see how many people see and remember your Trade Magazine ad!


Thanks for reading.

A Quick Post on Telecom Terms

I plan to talk a little about Telecom in the near future. I think it will be helpful to those whose background is not in Telecom to have a little Cheat Sheet. I will add another or probably more, but I want to give you some of the common terms, since this is such an acronym heavy industry.

POTS Line - Plain Old Telephone Service, this is a plain old phone line into your house or business. This is traditional phone service, not voice over IP, like the service provided by a cable provider.

T1.5 - A "T One" is a high speed line 1.5 megabit per second line used for a variety of telecom services. It can be channelized into 24 channels for voice use. The channels can all inbound (incoming 800; Toll-Free numbers) Outbound for making outgoing calls or dynamically allocated so the number of channels for Toll-Free & Outbound will vary according to the calling pattern at any given time. It can be a 1.5 megabit per second Internet connection. The reason businesses will use this instead of a cable modem or DSL line is that with a T1.5, they have Service Level Agreements (SLA's) that guarantee availability of that bandwidth for something like 99.99X%, so it is essentially always available for their usage.

More to follow!

A Key to Marketing Success - Persistence!

Anyone who watches Mixed Martial Arts or boxing knows there are very few, if any, one punch fights. The fights are almost always decided on points or well into the match by a knock out punch or strike. The winner is successful because he has trained better than his opponent. He has better technique and has worked many, many days to get into better shape by doing an incredible number of hours of cardiovascular training. He has run miles, he has lifted lots of weights, he has spent lots of hours sparring, because sometimes the key to winning is sometimes to be the last one standing. You need to outlast your opponent.

It's the same way with marketing. You won't be successful unless you get the message out for a period a time in a campaign. Even if your product is a household name, your money is much better spent on a mixed media campaign over a 6 week or longer period rather than taking $7 Million; $9 Million, (whatever the number was) and spending your entire budget on one 30 second Super Bowl commercial.

Why? I was hoping you'd ask! For a bunch of reasons! For one thing, a portion, large or small, of your target market doesn't or couldn't see the game (discounting DVR's for this discussion). So no matter how good the commercial is, if they don't see it, you didn't connect with them. Second, circumstances change. If you're selling pizza, some portion of your audience won't be hungry when the commercial runs. As a result, they MIGHT, but it's more likely they won't remember your product when they have the munchies a couple hours later. If you have a marketing campaign, they might not be hungry the first time they hear your advertisement, and might not be hungry the second and maybe even the third. But if you get the word out over an extended period of time you increase your chances of success.

You want to play the odds and if you don't get them the first time, catch them the second or fifth or twenty fifth time. If you're like me, you stand a better chance of winning by putting a couple of bucks on a few different number on the Roulette Wheel instead of betting the ranch on Black 7 to win! So the point I want to make is that your money is better spent getting the word out a bunch of times through different outlets in a less expensive method, instead of blowing the budget on a one shot star studded extravaganza.

Thanks for reading. Any questions, comments feedback of any time is appreciated.

Part 1 - Marketing is like fishing...

Hi All,

Marketing in many ways is like fishing. You use the bait most likely to attract the kind of fish you want to catch. You use flies, worms, corn, dough, killies, crabs or minnows depending on whether you want to hook stripers, flounder, carp etc. In the same manner you select billboards, newspaper ads, radio or television commercials to attract your buyers.

If you're selling coffee & donuts and have a drive through, you'll probably have the most success reaching your customers in their cars. How would you reach them? A billboard near your shop is one way or if you have a big enough budget, radio, since many people listen to the radio when they're driving would give you greater reach, since they can be anywhere in the listening area, not just in sight of the billboard. And you can also run the commercials during morning drive time so people driving to work can stop for a blast of your Joe on their way to work.

If you're selling basketball sneakers, you're probably trying to reach a demographic in the 10 to 30 age range and might be targeting males, females or both depending on what your line offers. Your marketing would be targeting a different consumer. You would focus on the basketball players who'd want to wear your sneakers to run faster, be more comfortable to wear or emulate a favorite sports figure. You're customer goes to sporting events either to play or watch and probably watches basketball on television. Starting out on a low budget, you might put an ad in a high school newspaper or yearbook. You could sponsor a team in a local town league. As you got established you could one day be buying sixty second spots on ESPN or during the NBA Championships!

So go big or go home! Good luck and dream big. Thanks for reading. Questions, comments are appreciated.

Thoughts & Tips for Today - Voice Mail

The start of Q2 2010! I've been making a lot of calls and sending out a lot of resumes. The calls are starting to come in for interviews! Some are solid and some are long shots, but people want to talk and meet. That's good!

Marketing Idea and thought for today: Sometimes something a little offbeat gets people's attention.

I was trying to get a client to call me a couple of years ago and left 8 or 10 messages over a two week period. Nothing but deafening silence! I reflected on it over a 3 day weekend (Memorial Day weekend I think) and left a Voice Mail from him on Tues AM that said "Hey Joe, I haven't spoken to you in a while. I wanted to make sure you had my new phone number (212) Blah, Blah Blah.

Sure enough, Joe called me early that afternoon and said, "I got your voice mail and I'm confused. The number you left was the same as the phone number I had for you. What's going on?" What was going on was I got him curious enough to call me! I had called a couple of people I hadn't spoken with in about 6 months to make sure they had my NYC number. But I knew he had it because I had left it almost a dozen times in the last few weeks on his Voice Mail!

Another tip: When you leave a voice mail, say your phone number at both the beginning and the end of the message. Sometimes, especially if your a fast talking New Yorker like I am and the recipient isn't from NY or English isn't their first language, they needs two bites ate the apple to get the whole number. If you leave it at the beginning and end, they have two chances to write the number down and if they need to hear it again because of street or subway noise, the can rewind it and hear it again without going through your whole message.

Please leave a comment or question. Thanks!

Introducing the Simple Marketing & Telecom Blog

The Beginning -
Background and an Introduction to the Simple Marketing & Telecom Blog

Hi All,

This is a new experience for me. I have never blogged before! This blog has a dual purpose at this time. I hope to share some of my sales and marketing experience with all of you and keep my writing skills sharp during my job search.

I spent a total of 15 years in B2B Sales with two of the major US telecommunications companies. Nine of those years I managed multinational accounts based in Europe.

In the spring of 2008, I left to take the opportunity to be part of a software developer. The software focused on messaging. It seemed like a great move at the time. It is a small company of about 100 people at the time (now about 60). It has a great product and real entrepreneurial spirit. What I didn't account for was the long sale cycle (usually 2 years or longer for large systems) and the fact that although it is a great product, it isn't a complete solution. Because it had a flexible platform and performed well, I think it would have been a success if the economy hadn't dropped like a rock in Q4 of 2008. The company wasn't making money and I was a victim of the end of year effort to reduce costs in 2009.

It was a positive experience and I wish all of the people I worked with well, but I am now in the process of a career search in the New York City and Long Island area. If you have questions about B2B sales or marketing, I'll be happy to assist. If you have ideas and need a sanity check, I'll be glad to be a sounding board to let you know what I think of your plans. Comments, questions & suggested topics for future posts are appreciated.

Best,

Telecom JIm