Working Smarter : Sales

How Org Charts Will Help All Departments in Your Business

Rich — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:22:00 GMT

In most organizations, org charts are used for a single purpose – to give new employees a visual representation of the company’s hierarchy. Beyond that, most companies don’t utilize the power of org charts for much else.

Most companies view org charts for simply that purpose and that purpose only. But did you know that you can use org charts to improve virtually every area of your organization? Using org charts can lead to sales proposals closing more quickly, marketing initiatives producing augmented results, and the enhancement of the overall business intelligence and management of the company.

Here are three org chart tactics that will help you improve your organization’s productivity.

Using Org Charts in the Sales Department

Sales people are in a constant state of flux. Data turns to leads, leads to opportunities, opportunities to deals. Along the way sales teams and agents are collecting additional data to help close the sale. Although every prospect has different needs that the sales agent must attend to, the sales agent’s most important piece of information is to know who the decision makers are within the organization. An org chart is a simple way of tracking that information for better, smarter results.

During the sales qualification process any sales person involved should create and update an org chart for a visual representation of the customer’s organization in order to better understand who needs to be persuaded in order for the sale to actually go through. By building an org chart with this information on it the agent now becomes better equipped to find and contact the appropriate person for decision making and future return sales opportunities.

Org charts also have the added benefit of being able to help sales people rapidly communicate all of the information they’ve gathered during the communication process to each other should multiple sales people need to be involved. An org chart should be part of every client file you open.

For example, say you are a sales agent for a company that sells web analytics tools to track web traffic on websites. Your primary client relationships that you forge within various organizations would be the Marketing Director. But if the Marketing Director, Bill Jones, of one of your biggest clients named ABC Company leaves, will your relationship with the company remain intact? You may find that transitioning the client relationship to the next Marketing Director might be far less turbulent if you have an org chart of the entire marketing department and have developed relationships with some people on the team. In fact, one of those people may be the eventual person who assumes the role now left vacant (see below).

Using Org Charts in the Marketing Department

The marketing department of your organization should employ a similar tactic as the sales department using org charts to track the hierarchy and organizational structure of clients. Marketing departments are constantly challenged with communicating the benefits of the company’s products and services in order to create a pipeline of leads and opportunities for the sales department.

One of the ways to achieve this is to look for additional opportunities among your existing pool of clients. So, why not create a clear picture of your clients’ organizational structure by creating org charts to identify other cross-selling and undeveloped relationship opportunities?

Again, these client org charts provide terrific business intelligence to understanding your clients more thoroughly, how each one functions, what roles the individuals play, and, what opportunities have yet to be realized.

For example, say you are an intellectual property attorney at a large full service law firm and one of your clients is a new video game maker. Currently, as the attorney for the company you are the only one that serves their legal needs, but your firm marketing director creates an org chart (below) and together you realize that the company has grown in size in a short period of time and may have some employment and labor law needs like employee handbooks and policies that your firm could handle on their behalf. Because of the org chart, you now have a possible cross-selling opportunity to pitch and potentially have a larger scale client than previously though.

Click to see a larger version of this image.

Using Org Charts in Executive Management

As previously mentioned, org charts provide a unique source of business intelligence which is the crux of the decision making process for members of the executive management team in a company. While the sales and marketing teams are tracking prospects and clients with org charts, the executive management team can plan organizational change of the business with org charts.

This is expanded in greater detail in two previous Working Smarter articles entitled “Playing ‘What If?’ with Your Organization” and “What Do You Do When There Are Not Enough People to Get the Work Done”. The executive management team of a company benefits from knowing the hierarchical structure of the business and the functional relationship with each member. Org charts allow them to look into how lean the organization is or not, and how to plan for growth. Bloated departments may be trimmed, and other departments that may be under realized can be bulked up for the betterment of the organization.

In summary, if you begin using org charts for more than the hierarchy of your own company, your business will augment the overall intelligence regarding prospects, clients, competitors and strategic partners.

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In Bad Times, We Need to Get Back to Basics

Rich — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 04:46:00 GMT

Managers these days have to reevaluate everything – processes, projects, team organization among many others. What was working for your team two years ago, one year ago and even only a couple of months ago is not necessarily working now. The volatility of the market has drastically changed the way business is conducted for many organizations, so what has your team done to adapt?

As a manager, part of your responsibility is to recognize when it is necessary to modify your team’s behavior and to determine how to best modify it. Otherwise, the results for your organization could be disastrous. Costs will be too high, goals won’t be achieved, and spirits will be low.

For example, let’s say you are a manager of a sales team, and you are provided a report (like the one below) from the accounting department which indicates that sales are flattening and expenses are gradually rising. Instinctively you know that some of this is due to the economic downturn, but you also recognize that there is a direct impact from the behaviors of your team too.

You have five sales people on the team, including yourself. Although sales for every team member across the board is down, you discover that the slump is hitting three team members harder than yourself and one other. The other productive person on year team consistently leads the team in sales volume and also follows the formula and protocol designed and proven to keep sales performance high.

The other three people had performed fairly well in terms of volume and sales revenue until recent months. Why is that? As the manager, you believe that it’s the fact that these other three people have not been following the standard, proven sales processes. When sales were up it wasn’t an issue, but now that sales are falling you want everyone to return to basics and become more efficient.

After looking into it you verify that your conclusion is correct: your lower performing sales team members haven’t stuck to the standard process and that has negatively impacted their performance. You decide that it’s time to get those sales team members to adapt and change their behavior by conforming to the standard, more productive sales process.

So you create a visual like the one below which depicts your organization’s sales funnel.

In a meeting with your team you discuss the report given to you by accounting and the sales funnel. Although the sales funnel is a simple rendering of the typical approach in moving prospects through the sales cycle, the point is to have the team remaining focused by exhibiting and illustrating the behaviors and functions of what has proven to be a successful formula for the organization.

It is important that the team understand that the way they conducted themselves previously is no longer working, so they need to return to the basics of sales and sales process – the “blocking and tackling.” You as the manager cannot change what is happening around you in the marketplace, but you can alter the behaviors of you and your team to adapt to those changes which will have an impact on the processes and projects they are responsible to carry out. Have you and your team adapted?

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Winners Over-Deliver – Are you a Winner?

Rich — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:00:00 GMT

There are some statements that are used to death, that when I hear them I simply roll my eyes (or gag). Statements like:

“Our company exceeds client expectations.”

“We offer value-added services.”

Or my personal favorite:

“We go the extra mile for our customers.”

Even the worst companies on Earth make these statements and plaster it all over their marketing materials and website, and pepper them throughout their conversations and presentations with prospects and clients. The irony? How can you possibly exceed client expectations, by promising you will?

The only way for anyone in your organization to be perceived as a “winner” or champion in the eyes of your clients is to over-deliver. And that starts with under-promising.

First, I want to make a clear distinction. I am not advocating that you promise a “lesser quality of service” to your clients. I am merely suggesting not promising the world on a silver platter. And after the service has been performed then communicate back to your client how you specifically went well beyond what standard service providers would have not normally done for them. How will your client feel about the job performed then? Elated!

Here’s an example:

Let’s say I am a contractor hired for a job of constructing a new addition to a house for a new client. In the hiring process, I learn what really is important to the client is having the job completed by a specific date, June 1^st, because the client plans on hosting a high school graduation party for their son. The completion date is extremely important and is communicated as such throughout the initial hiring conversation.

So rather than promising the client that “the job will be completed 3-4 weeks in advance, and will exceed your expectations,” but simply “we will provide a quality job completion on-time by your desired deadline of June 1st.”

However, the goal for your team is to have the job completed before then, and when you meet with the client for the final approval targeted on May 25^th, which is 7 days ahead of schedule, the client will be thrilled. The final step is to communicate specifically how you and your team made this job completion ahead of schedule for them, and how seriously the team valued this importance. Here’s an example:

“Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I am certainly glad to hear you say how much you both like the new addition. We ran into a few instances that made it seem as if your original target date would be difficult to meet. For example, the carpet you selected was difficult to order and had a long delay for arrival, so I personally called the manufacturer to express how important it was that we receive the carpet from them more quickly than the intended delivery date. They were able to expedite the order and I asked my team to work quickly upon its arrival so that we remain on schedule for you because I know how important is to you to be able to host the planned graduation party for your son. And low and behold we were able to complete the job to your satisfaction a week ahead of schedule for you.

Also, I wasn’t sure how experienced you were on planning events, so I took the opportunity to create a basic floor plan of the new space so that you can maximize it to your preference. I hope this helps you in planning your event.”

Talk about hitting a homerun! The client is satisfied that the job has been completed, is ecstatic how the team performed to make it all happen ahead of schedule, feels that their needs were heard and valued by everyone involved, and received an additional token of value with the event floor plan template. By delivering more than promised, the overall experience is championed and leads to the likelihood of recommending your services over others.

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New Additions to the Working Smarter Network

Aaron Stannard — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:30:00 GMT

We have some new additions to the Working Smater Network this week - last week we introduced a number of new sales blogs but this week is more of a mix of things.

The Mind Mapping Software Blog By Chuck Frey	The Mind Mapping Software Blog provides practical tips and perspectives on a relatively new class of productivity software that can help you to manage projects more efficiently, make better decisions, be more creative and help you to tackle information overload. You'll learn how to find the right tools that meet your needs, and how to get the most out of them. You'll also learn about the latest news and trends in this fast-moving area of technology. Author of this blog, Chuck Frey, has also written numerous articles and reviews about mind mapping software and is widely regarded as one of the leading “gurus” of this technology. Chuck is also the author of Power Tips & Strategies for Mind Mapping Software and The Mind Mapping Manifesto.

Business Minder By Aaron Lee	The Entrepreneur Journey of a Business Minder is a blog-driven website that focuses on building business mindset through entrepreneurial insights. Our vision is to help business owners to build up their business and success mindsets. We believe that business owners will succeed in their business journeys if they have proper business and success mindsets. And we are here for your success. We are doing our part to help businesses to succeed to improve the global economy. – Aaron Lee, owner of Businessminder.net, an Internet entrepreneur and a professional blogger.

The Productive Entrepreneur By Joy Duling	Best known for her "make-it-happen" attitude and her ability to connect big picture strategy with real world action, Joy Duling helps time-pressed professionals discover systems and tools to achieve their business goals. She launched “A 25 Hour Day" and created the Productive Entrepreneur Program after spending more than a decade planning and managing key projects for government and nonprofit organizations. Joy presents resources and opportunities aimed at helping entrepreneurs and small businesses increase their personal and professional productivity so that they can accomplish amazing goals.

Young Entrepreneur By Adam Toren	Adam Toren, Co-Founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com, specializes in improving the profitability of under-performing businesses with a unique and 'bottom line' program. Adam, along with his brother, have started, bought and sold several companies over the past years. They currently own and operate a successful publishing company and several online companies. YoungEntrepreneur is dedicated to providing information and advice to entrepreneurs around the world.

Cindy King's Cross-Cultural Communication Blog By Cindy King	Cindy King is a Cross-Cultural Marketer & International Sales Specialist who brings over 25 years in international marketing, business development and sales experience to her Cross-Cultural communication blog. Cindy also operates Get International Clients, a proprietary system and an invaluable recourse in helping businesses generate more international sales.

Rockland Web Design Marketing Newsletter By Thomas Ossa	Thomas Ossa, Web Strategist: I have approximately 10 years of experience building and marketing attractive, resourceful web systems, as well as educating clients on how to properly use technology. From simple Windows programs to advanced programming…from the classroom to the boardroom…from start to finish, I make it a point to ensure our clients are equipped, educated and satisfied. Our company, Rockland Web Design, specializes in: Creating attractive, automated and well marketed and optimized websites. Our philosophy is simple: "We bring the world to your business".

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New eCourse: How to Manage a Sales Process

Aaron Stannard — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:10:00 GMT

How to Manage a Sales Process is the third “recession-proofing” eCourse that we made available to the public beginning last week.

This eCourse is based on a post that I wrote a while back called “Can You Increase Sales in the Face of Recession?” The premise here is that new sales leads are going to be more difficult to come by during economically lean times like these; thus, it’s essential that you improve your close rate and do more business with the leads that you have.

So how can you improve your close rate? Well, among other things, a good way to start is to have your sales team adopt a more efficient sales process. “But how do I determine what the most efficient sales process is?” you ask?

This eCourse is the answer to that question. If you sign up for How to Manage a Sales Process, you will learn how to analyze your existing sales processes and locate areas for improvement. Click here to sign up.

About Working Smarter’s eCourses

All of our eCourses are free and delivered via email. You will receive the first lesson immediately upon sign-up and you should receive the others via email every two to three days, until you have read all of the lessons. If you would like to skip ahead to read other lessons immediately, you can do so.

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New Sales Blogs on the Working Smarter Network!

Aaron Stannard — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:23:00 GMT

Well, it’s that time again – time to announce some new additions to our ever-growing content network aptly called the “Working Smarter Network.” All of the blogs that we’re going to be mentioning today are sales-oriented, so if you’re looking to close some more leads in this down-market I’d recommend giving these sites a read!

Engineers Can Sell

By Eric Bono

Engineers Can Sell offers practical sales and marketing tips and techniques that can be applied today. “At the heart of my essence, I’m a salesman - even if my resume doesn’t have that word on it anywhere. My professional passion lies in leveraging retail consumer techniques to the hi-tech market space. And by hi-tech I mean any engineered solution selling - not just the IT world.

Professionally, I’m an engineer, sales manager, consultant, trainer, entrepreneur, inventor, and devoted dreamer. I love working with small and start-up companies to help craft sales plans and general business strategies. I’ve started and sold companies and understand the economic situations that start-ups share.” - Eric Bono

Sales & Sales Management Blog

By Paul McCord

Paul McCord, author of Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals and SuperStar Selling: 12 Keys to Becoming a Sales SuperStar, is a frequent contributor to several national business and industry publications.

Using his background of 28+ years of selling, building and managing top sales teams, and training and coaching sales professionals and managers, Paul creates a great source for information on prospecting, referral selling, and personal marketing in his Sales & Sales Management Blog.

Sales Roundup Podcast

By Mike and Joe

The The SalesRoundup Podcast is a podcast designed to deliver useful information to complex sales professionals and their management teams in a fast, simple and easy to use format. Hosted by Mike and Joe, the SalesRoundup podcast is a free weekly sales talk show featuring relevant sales topics and interviews with sales thought leaders committed to helping you increase your sales.

Listen to some of their recent shows: A changing of the guard - Taking Over Someone Else’s Territory, Turning Around an Underperforming Sales Territory, A Survivors Guide to a Sales Reorganization, Sales Plan Review Strategy.

Commentary on Sales Leadership

By Dave Stein

Dave Stein is a highly-acclaimed thought-leader in the area of sales effectiveness and sales performance improvement. He closed his very successful sales consulting and training business in 2005 to form ES Research Group, a research and advisory firm that serves as a watchdog over the sales training industry. Dave writes a widely read blog covering diverse issues relative to sales effectiveness: Commentary on Sales Leadership

Engage Selling Solutions

By Colleen Francis

Colleen Francis, President and Founder of Engage Selling, is an experienced sales professional who helps clients make an immediate and lasting increase in their sales. Colleen leverages 15 years of experience selling in today’s market and is recognized as one of the top five sales trainers in the business today by Sales and Marketing magazine. Colleen Francis energetically provides proven, practical sales techniques that deliver results for her clients in any economy.

Drew Stevens Sales Consulting

By Drew Stevens

Drew Stevens Sales Consulting offers free information to improve sales and customer service skills. Drew Stevens PhD assists individuals to dramatically accelerate business growth. Drew has helped over 60,000 people sell over a billion dollars worth of products and sales.

A keynote speaker, author, and workshop facilitator, Drew conducts over 50 presentations per year. He is the author of six books including Split Second Selling and Pump Up Your Productivity.

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Three New eCourses to Help You Recession-Proof Your Business Now

Aaron Stannard — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:59:00 GMT

Economic times are tough, and will be for a while. Now is the time to cut fat without cutting muscle. But how do you actually do it?

Well, fortunately we have three new eCourses which will help provide you with some basic ideas on how you can:

Cut operating costs without cutting output;
Prevent projects from running over-budget;
And maintain or even increase sales despite the recession.

As regular Working Smarter readers are aware, we launched what we promised would be “the first of many” eCourses in December 2008. Today we’re announcing three more additional eCourses that are available to the public, for free. Here they are:

How to Manage a Project

A lesson that we have often repeated on Working Smarter time and time again is that most projects run late because they are not managed sufficiently. We’ve compiled all of our advice regarding project management into a single eCourse which will help provide you with a clear idea on how to:

Properly decompose tasks;
Schedule tasks using a Gantt Chart;
Assign the right people to the right tasks;
And measure progress using milestones.

If this is something you might be interested in, click here to sign up for How to Manage a Project.

How to Optimize a Business Process

One of the best things you can do to help soften the recession’s blow to your company is to streamline your operations using standard business processes. Streamlined operations help your company cut costs without adversely affecting output by:

Ensuring that all team members are using the most efficient method possible to do their work;
Making the output of all work more consistent, also enabling you to quantifiably measure the quality of your output;
Making it easier for you train new employees or cross-train old ones;
And making it easier for you to identify production bottlenecks.

Like project management, this is a subject that we’ve blogged about frequently on Working Smarter. We’ve gotten a lot of customer feedback on the subject and much of it has been incorporated into this eCourse. So if you’re interested, click here to sign up for How to Optimize a Business Process.

How to Manage a Sales Process

The most visible effect of the recession is the slide in consumer confidence, which ultimately reduces sales. This last “recession-proofing” eCourse that we’ve developed is an adaptation of our How to Optimize a Business Process eCourse, which goes through a sales process in detail and demonstrates how you can optimize it to close more sales despite a decreased number of leads.

Click here to sign up for How to Manage a Sales Process.

About Working Smarter’s eCourses

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Founding Members of the Working Smarter Network - Sales

Aaron Stannard — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Today I’d like to introduce all of the salespeople who are founding members of the Working Smarter Network:

Selling Magic Sales Journal
By Steve Martinez

The goal of Selling Magic is to help business leaders increase sales. We believe the best way to accomplish this is by following the updated, best practices of the selling process. When you do this, you have a greater chance of success. Selling is a process and when you follow one, you sell more. We teach you how to leverage technology to increase your sales activities which leads to more sales. “It’s the Selling Process...Not the Salespeople that Makes the Difference!”

The JF Selling Resources Blog
By Jonathan Farrington

Jonathan Farrington is a globally recognized business coach, mentor, author and consultant. He is the CEO of Top Sales Associates and Chairman of The Sales Corporation, based in London and Paris. Join thousands of daily visitors at the JF Consultancy Blog to read about a wide range of business topics including organizational and sales team development, leadership and a range of unique and innovative process tools.

Performance Based Results – Sales Training & Leadership
By Paul Cherry

Performance Based Results (PBR) Sales & Leadership Blog presents “Top Sales Techniques”, featuring leading resources, articles and editorials on sales skills and leadership techniques. Visitors are welcome to post comments and share your insights.

The Sales Hunter
By Mark Hunter

Mark Hunter, "The Sales Hunter," helps individuals and companies identify better prospects, close more sales, profitably build more long-term customer relationships, and dramatically improve their bottom line by growing their top line through increased sales. Mark has spent more than 18 years working in the Sales and Marketing divisions of three Fortune 100 companies and has held sales management roles in teams ranging in size from 20 to 900 members. People from around the world benefit from the wisdom, motivation, and inspiration of "The Sales Hunter" every week.

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How Not to Make a Marketing Presentation

Aaron Stannard — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:23:00 GMT

Recently, one of my coworkers slid a handout from a marketing presentation he had attended across my desk and asked me what I thought of the material. This company was trying to sell us something that would increase our revenue, cut our costs, etc… the typical promises in every business-to-business pitch. This company was trying to sell us on some new advertising opportunities, specifically, and we receive at least a dozen proposals of this sort per week.

The marketing materials were very polished and it was clear that the salespeople from this company had done their homework on the nature of our business—well, most of their homework anyway. The pitch was very detailed; it told us exactly what we were paying for and outlined how we would potentially benefit from this company’s services. It was, in my book, one of the best-presented pitches I’ve ever seen. But it contained a handful of fatal errors that forced me and others to say “no thanks.”

Error #1: Make Your Customers Feel like Soviet Space Dogs

The first mistake this company made was not including any testimonials from other customers who tried this service and had a good experience. The proposal in this instance was extraordinarily expensive, and the company didn’t do much to assuage our concerns over the price tag by way of sharing the hopefully positive experiences of other customers.

No customer wants to feel like a guinea pig or a Soviet space dog. They want to know that other customers who’ve tried your product or service have achieved positive results and satisfaction. If you fail to provide that kind of reassurance over the course of your presentation, it leaves each potential customer feeling exposed. No amount of good presentation skills or masterfully-designed PowerPoint® slides will be able to overcome the lack of assurance left by not including any meaningful, specific testimonial information.

Error #2: Don’t Stand By Your Product

If a customer asks you “so, if we agree to spend all of this money on your product, what will you do if it doesn’t deliver everything that you’ve promised?” during the course of a marketing or sales presentation, you should probably avoid all of the following responses:

“We can’t guarantee that it will work, but we’re pretty sure that it will work!”
“Well, it may not work out the first time; you might actually have to use the service a couple of times before you get the results that you’re looking for. But we’re sure that we can deliver them eventually.”
“Well we won’t be able to refund your money, but we will be able to help you figure out how to use the service better down the road!”

The little handout I read made it clear that we had to pay for the service upfront and all of the risk was on us. When faced with a risky or expensive proposal, customers want to know that there’s a degree of shared risk between both the vendor and the buyer; it helps ease whatever concerns customers may have about purchasing your product, knowing they won’t absorb the full damage if the product or service doesn't pan out.

There are a number of ways to let customers get a taste of whether or not your product will work for them, and it’s an easier sell when you can offer them a guarantee or a trial of some kind. Telling your prospects to essentially roll the dice on you, however, is the last thing you should do—unless you’re presenting to tourists in Las Vegas.

Customers want to feel safe and confident when they commit to a purchase—especially large ones. And this company, despite their professional-looking slide deck and knowledge of how our company works, actually made us feel more uncomfortable about committing to a large advertising purchase. This is because they did nothing to mitigate our concerns about the risks. This presentation didn’t fail because of bad design aesthetics or because it looked unprofessional; the presentation failed because it lacked the critical substance of testimonials and risk-sharing opportunities. Presentation can’t mend the gaps created by lack of substance.

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