Who do you plan for ?

Its been 2 days over an year since i have written last on my Blog. Before i move on to write I would like to thank my team (now my ex-team) and friends for pushing me to start writing again and so here i begin next stint to blogging with a commitment to write once every week.

After more than 8 years into sales and BD, I've moved out of sales. A lot of people keep asking me if i feel a difference, if I long for sales etc., my answer is Yes and No. 

Yes because i do miss out the daily action (and that month/Quarter sales closing frenzy).

No because selling is a part of everyday life ( does that sounds cliche ? yes it does but that's a fact). In my previous jobs i've been selling in 2 ways

a) To customers directly

b) To my internal Team members.

When it comes to selling customers there's a lot of planning that happens everywhere, however, I've hardly seen anybody planning their internal selling in the same manner. Vineet Singh (Business Head, www.99Acres.com and www.naukrigulf.com)being a strong exception to this, who i think has mastered this art and a lot that i've learned about managing big teams has come from his people management skills.

Around 2 years back Will Burns asked a question on linkedin about the team dynamics.

Question: What different skills are needed for managing small teams as opposed to large ones?

Are the skills different or are they fundamentally the same? Do you just need to demonstrate the same skills on a larger scale? And are the two skillsets suited to different types of managers?

In response to this i wore the following answer and Will was kind enought to mark it as Best Answer. 

The answer to this question lies in observing the relatioship dynamics amongst a small team and a bigger team. The biggest of the differences between a small and a big team are 

1) Smaller teams are closely monitored and therefore have stronger emotional bondage. In larger teams the team leader isn't that accessible (or doesn't have enough time for all team members) and therefore the emtional attachment is usually absent. 

2) Dependability on the resources is much higher and therefore they feel responsible and important in the organisation. Whereas in a larger team every member has a back-up and therefore one feels less important and detached from the organisation and team. 

Now, emotional attachment is a double-edged sword and in certain situation managers are in a better position to take decisions if they don't have such a pressure on them. On positive side, emotional attachment with the team helps you handle issues in a much smoother way. 

In my opinion, the skills needed while handling a smaller team are 

a) Maintaining appropriate distance from each member so that you are not too close to one of the team members. In small teams every team member understands his/her importance in the system and if you are emotionaly close to them they might try to take undue advantage of this by influencing your decisions. 

b) You have to ensure that your dependability on 1 member isn't too high to affect your business decisions. There is no back up available for key people in smaller teams and therefore too much of dependability on certain people puts pressure on you. 

On the other hand in case of handling a large team, things actually take a U-turn. 

a) You need to make sure that you develop an emotional bond with most of the team members (as they find themselves as a very small entity in the system) to make them feel important. 

b) Unlike small teams, here you need to increase dependence on certain bright people so that you develop a clear succession plan amongst the big team. You make everybody realise who's going to be whose boss in next 1-2 years, this helps you handle a big team with the help of some reliable people. Others can be handled because of emotional involvement. 

However, this is my practical approach to team handling which i've developed after 6 years of team management, handling teams ranging from 2 - 40 people, and for me it has always worked. I think people...before i think of bigger concepts like prioritisation, delegation, leadership etc. 

I hope my experience may be of some help to your guys !

Looking at it after 2 years the answer seems to be much more relevant to me now and dependable as well. What i mentioned in this answer is actually the planning for your sales team. In the managerial capacity, in sales, I've observed that most of the superstar sales performers who fail to deliver as a Sales manager are a victim of complete lack of understanding of how to plan sales internally. Some fail when their teams grow in size and (after they've understood the dynamics of managing a small team) all of a sudden everything looks unmanageable. For a lot of managers a team remains a team, they wouldn't classify it as a small, medium, large team and hence never have a different approach to the problems.

If you can manage your sales team well, the sales will be on track on its own. In fact, a well managed team can throw some (nice) surprises to you as a gesture.

Start Selling Internally ! 

Be Glorious !

When Exceptions Become THE RULE !

Ever noticed the following???

* When you had to rush to your office, and therefore, thinking that there will be a lot of traffic on the usual route, you took the alternative route. What did you find? Equally congested traffic on the alternate route as well, which, you perceived to be less traveled.

* Remember ! when you bought a dress/mobile/shoe etc. because it was very different than what people usually wear. What happened when you went to the next party? Not less than 5 people having the same mobile... People telling you "Did you buy this dress from XYZ store? I also bought 2 for my brothers."

All these are situations which, initially, make you believe that you are different than others and then give you a shock by telling that 'others are also as different, than everybody else, as you are'. These are illustrations of a simple rule "Viable Exceptions grow into Valuable Rules"

Now consider following example for illustrating the same

* A power steering or power window or defogger was an exception made by one of the other automobile maker and the sales guys used this exception well to sell the product. However, they lost the advantage in less than 6 months time since this exception became a rule. It became a rule because it was viable and useful for people.

* When the world was getting obsessed with bigger and better Villas, someone thought of saving the cost and building multiple houses on the same land to create smaller Apartments. The first apartments didn't find too many takers initially but later this 'viable' exception became the rule. And such a viable rule that many rich also started living in some luxury apartments.

All this makes a lot of sense to me as a sales person. It makes sense because every sale happens on exceptions. One sells a product because it creates a (friendly) exception by facilitating something that no other product does for the client.

A salesman sells you a watch because it has a status symbol (an exception), or it is technologically more advanced (an exception again) or simply because it fits into your budget (one of the most important exceptions as it is strongly linked with every purchase decision). So if your product is cheaper than that of competitors' then you are giving the exception of cost savings to your client (its an exception since no other competitor is able to extend that benefit to the buyer).

Similarly one loses sales orders because he/she is not able to handle some (hostile) exception (which goes against his/her product) tactfully. So if your product is the costliest then this exception goes against you, hence, you need to find another feature which acts as a exception for competitors and has a stronger influence than your exception (which is cost). In the watch salesman case, the status symbol could be a very strong exception if the buyer has paying capacity, otherwise a utility, durability or reference (from other buyers) driven exception would be a good idea. A more durable watch, over a period of time, proves to be cheaper (than a cheaper but less durable watch) if the value is calculated on the average age of the product. A lot of industrial equipments/machines are sold on this exception to overcome their cost disadvantage.

These exceptions could be as simple as saving money or as complex as automated air traffic control software. All that is required is how diligently you think about them and find out way to create a friendly exception and to overcome other hostile exceptions.

Therefore there is only 1 rule in sales that 'There are no rules in Sales. Only exceptions".

Buying is based on rules, selling is based on exceptions. The salesmen create rules (out of exceptions in their products) which guide the buying decision.

Exceptions affect the selling process in 2 ways
a) The sales person's insight into exceptions and how to best utilize them.
b) Understanding the Buyer's perspective of these exceptions.

In a lot of sales calls the salesmen use the exceptions without a thought, some ignore them completely.

I discussed this concept with a friend and i was told that its a little complicated, therefore, I'd like to explain it through many examples. Consider the following

I've been selling internet based solutions for a while now and therefore I've been, positively, opposing print as a better medium to reach target audience. And so do most of my team members. One executive, on a sales call, kept telling the advantages of internet over print media to a client who used print media extensively. After listening to his pitch patiently, the client asked the executive " Does your website go to the doorstep of jobseeker? The news paper does that for me." My friend was speechless over this exception of internet's weakness over the print. And since he never thought of this exception, he never prepared a pitch to overcome this exception.

For a long time we've been selling internet as a superior and cost effective medium to reach target audience in a focussed way. What about a client who just want to be visible to everybody and in a short time. Their challenge is to reach EVERYONE in shrotest possible TIME. Internet doesn't guarantee that an x% of people in a city will see the advertisements in 1/2 days time. This is where this exception of 'reaching to the doorstep' becomes the guiding rule for the advertiser to choose print as a preferred medium.

Now if the sales executive probes the client for his needs, with this exception in his mind, he can address the situation in a better manner, mould his pitch accordingly and suggest solutions which solve the advertiser's problem. In this situation, rather than comparing internet and print media, if the executive would have made a pitch around the mobility solutions available with the jobsite the client would have surely bought the solution. The mobililty solutions available with naukri.com allow the advertiser to send a, pre recorded, voice clip/SMS to thousands of jobseekers (who can be clustered according to various parameters, location also being one of them). This cuts down the cost by 50%, time by 99.9999% (the clip/SMS can be sent to all jobseekers in seconds), and the icing on the cake is that the response is measurable.

But if you try to sell internet in this situation then its against the Rule: the rule defined by the exception that "internet can't reach out to people; the audience has to connect to the internet and no one has a control over that". This is an example not being able to anticipate and thereby inability to tackle a hostile exception.

The key here is the 'Viability' of the friendly or hostile exception. A Non-viable friendly exception doesn't lead to any advantage. I was amused to see woolen knickers in a leading retail sportswear showroom. I couldn’t stop laughing. I would need woolens when I feel cold and if its cold why would I wear knickers ?

Similarly, take example of another exception. One of the service stations announced launch of a customer lounge (where customers can wait till their car is being serviced and can watch TV and have snacks) with a lot of fanfare. Within next 6 months, almost every car service station had opened up lounge for their customers. This exception was so easily reproducible that it resulted in no differentiation or advantage for the person who thought of it. As a matter of fact, someone smarter offered a car pick-and-drop facility to customers (instead of opening a lounge) which was a much stronger exception than the lounge idea (although reproducible with equal ease).

These are examples of non-viable exceptions, features that lead to no where; add no value to the buyer. Your product is different but it does no good to anybody.

There are several other situations where sales people build on non-viable exceptions (trying to build upon a rule over them) or use an exception to sell without a thought. I shall add more on how to create stronger friendly exceptions in next couple of days. Till then... Keep Watching this space!

How well did you Sell your Boss Today ?

HOW WELL DID YOU SELL YOUR BOSS TODAY ?

Sales in direct sales industry is of complex nature and requires a lot of strategizing to win the battle of wits with the client. As I interact with more and more direct sales professionals I observe a common trend – Most of the successful Sales Guys have good working relationships with their bosses.

This correlation could be because a performer is likely to have a better relationship with his/her boss; however, the other possibility is that somebody who enjoys a good enough rapport with his/her boss [that enables them to freely talk about their clients and strategize together] becomes a performer.

You need not have a great relationship with your boss, it doesn’t matter if you never went out on lunch or dinner with your boss but if you understand his/her working style then you can use your boss as an efficient tool for selling.

Selling your boss to a client is one of the most important parts of a sales pitch in joint meetings. In fact, all that one should be selling in a meeting is one's boss and leave the product selling to the boss.

In my every sales call with my bosses I always ensure that I find an opportunity to inform the client about how big a team/region my boss controls, how long he/she has been in the industry/company and which all big clients (relevant to the client) does he/she interacts with. All this information helps the client to understand the authority of my boss and act accordingly. More importantly, I end up selling my boss to a level where the client usually don’t start a discussion with the product but with a general discussion to gain something out of my boss’s experience.

Once an Insurance sales rep got an opportunity to meet President Kennedy to sell an insurance policy to him and he wanted it to be the best ever deal of his career so he requested his Director to accompany for this meeting. They just had 30 minutes… 30 minutes to introduce themselves, detail the insurance policy and convince the president. The rep initiated the meeting by introducing his Boss to the president. He went on and utilized 1o valuable minutes of the meeting to inform Mr. President about the recognition of his boss as an expert on, not only insurance matters, but also on the financial services industry in the country.

What all newspapers approach his boss for his articles on the government policies and their affect on the industry by large and how many times he has been there on the Television for panel discussions. Needless to say that President Kennedy was pleased to meet the Director. So the next 15 minutes they talked about economic affairs and how can Kennedy Govt. ensure higher growth in services. Towards the end of meeting the Director suggested President Kennedy to go for a certain policy, to which he happily agreed.

Moral of the story: Nobody sold the product here. The rep sold his boss. The boss sold his personality and knowledge and the President bought the Idea of listening to a learned man’s advice.

I always tell my team members to devote at least 2-3 minutes in the first meeting (of their boss) with the client to devote on creating a perfect launch pad for their bosses. Once a credibility is established by the team members, it is easier for one to pitch for bigger products, counter competition or negate the demand for excessive discounts from the clients.

There are a few things that, if told to clients, will help you increase the level of your boss vis-à-vis the client.

a) His/her industry experience and how he/she will be in a better position to suggest the most appropriate solution for the client organization.
b) His/her educational brackground, past organizations etc.
c) His/her authority to close a deal, offer discounts, build creative combinations etc.

However, one must be cautious while selling bosses. What is the Downside of selling your boss???

Be very careful while selling your boss to clients who only (and always) look for additional benefits /discounts. If you are selling your boss well to such clients, then you need to keep some scope for them in terms of values adds, discounts, etc. Exhausting all the possibilities before your boss meets the client may actually result in negative results and after increasing the expectations of your client, your bosses will not be able to offer them what they want to close the deal.

Avoid too much of praise as this might irritate the client. Your boss’s background/experience might not always be helpful in taking decisions for the client’s industry, therefore, don’t try to make a point just for the heck of it.

In the end, this is what I tell my team.

“I am your tool and how innovatively you use this tool will decide How good or how Bad you’ll find me…”
Cheers... Keep Selling! Keep selling your Boss !

Samples, Free Trials and Cookieman !

They are everywhere, literally. We are so used to them that we've become oblivious of their obvious presence around us. I am talking about Samples, Free Trials.

Recently, a young sales guy reminded me of the importance of these tools in the sales process. I went to a shopping mall with my wife, and even before we could enter any shop she spotted 'Cookieman' counter, right at the entrance of the mall. She looked at me, with her eyebrows arched "Don't think we are going to buy any of those butter cookies, I am just going to taste a few." I am not allowed to eat cholesterol rich food so I had to agree to her, but I decided to stay a little away from the shop to avoid that enticing smell of freshly baked cookies.

As she approached the counter, a young sales executive bowed her "what would you be looking maa’m? Let me help you with it," well, she was answerless but she managed "err... I am not sure, give me a moment". The young man bowed again and disappeared and then was back in a jiffy, he was holding a small plate, which had a single cookie on it, with both his hands but he stopped at a distance of 2 ft. from her "This is the very special coconut cookie which is prepared from fresh dough and coconut. The only thing which is more than an hour old in this cookie is the 20 yr old recipe," he said that in a single breath. His pleasant demeanor and the pride and care with which he was holding the cookie made me interested in observing this young professional. His smile was truthful and it seems he was enjoying treating his customer.

Then, with a lot of respect, he moved one step ahead and presented that cookie to my wife, "smell it before you eat it, the smell will last as long in your mind as would the taste in your mouth," he was quick to suggest. My wife was enjoying the royal treatment; she followed the instructions. It was funny to observe as this guy looked at her with his incessant smile as she savored the cookie. And then whoosh... he disappeared again.

Before she could finish the cookie, he was back with another one. "Try this one as well. This is our signature cookie, I am sure you are going to come back again to buy this one", he chuckled and surprised my wife with the new offering, but she didn't mind having another one. Meanwhile I got a phone call and my observation was hindered. By the time I finished my conversation, she was back; and what a surprise! She was carrying 2 boxes of cookies.

I was amused, “what happened?” She made a funny face and laughed, “This guy was so insisting that I couldn’t refuse.” I tried pulling her leg, “How can a young sales guy force such a seasoned sales pro into buying something she never intended to buy?” She smiled, “I don’t know… he never asked me to buy, he just kept on offering cookies with so much delight. And then he asked which ones to pack?”, she explained as she handed over the cookies to me, “he was enjoying his job so much and gave so much of respect to his products that I couldn’t refuse.”

I felt happy and sad. Happy - to see such young lads using samples so beautifully for making a sale. Sad – to observe how most of the sales guys have forgotten this art.

Indian Pharma Industry – Best example of Direct Sales; Worst for using Free Samples.

In my 2 years exposure to pharma industry, I’ve heard about many best practices and seen many of them actually being followed. However, some of the sales practices have been distorted beyond imagination and have lost their purpose; distributing free samples to doctors is one of them.

The concept of free samples in pharma industry came in the initial days of the industry when doctors were offered free samples for trying out the new products to their patients, record the improvements, side effects etc. and accordingly prescribe the medicine or give feedback to the company. However, with a passage of time the concept of samples have gone beyond the new products, sales guys have been asking for free samples of old products (even the best selling molecules also) and companies have been offering them because it definitely results in revenue increase.

However, this additional revenue [because of samples] comes through a different channel. These samples don’t go to all the doctors, they either go to doctors who are planning to organize a health camp, to oblige them and later on to request them for more prescriptions in lieu of this favour, or they are passed on to the dealers and never reach doctors.

The second channel [samples being given to dealers] is not only unethical but illegal also; these free samples [clearly marked as free samples and not for sale] are offered to dealers free of cost if they order a specific quantity of medicines [and thus generate a false temporary demand in the primary market]. The dealers in turn sell it to retail stores in interior markets for a price, who in turn charge money from gullible villagers for these free samples. This boost in sales is a false reflection of the potential of the product and the capabilities of the sales team.

What is astonishing if that from a medical rep to a national sales manager everybody is aware of this practice and nobody thinks even twice to exercise this option to meet their sales numbers.

Another set of medical representatives are those who don’t follow the above route but routinely pass on the free samples to their doctors on their every visit, so that they are able to ask for prescriptions rightfully. This practice had led doctors to believe that giving samples is a standard [read mindless] industry practice and we’ve simply helped them to forgot the real purpose. Doctors would use samples for their acquaintances, friends, relatives, or very poor patients etc. from whom they can’t/won’t charge any money for medicines. Over years, we’ve helped these Doctors lose respect for the samples and the valuable purpose behind them.


Online Industry: Free Trials – Fast loosing the purpose.

There are 3 reasons why I always compare pharma and online business [of jobsites]
a) I’ve worked in both the industries.
b) Both are one of the best examples of direct selling organizations.
c) Pharma is a mature market in India [and hence pharma selling practices are also in shape] where as online market is in infancy [with sales systems being defined, re-defined everyday]

When online products were introduced in Indian market, the easiest way to make an entry into a client was to offer them Free Trial of the products/services. If the client liked it, they’d buy; if they didn’t they’ll give feedback which was used to improve the products [quite similar to the underlying objective of offering free samples of medicine to doctors].

It used to work! And it worked very well for online businesses. And then came the real boom in online market and along came much more organized competition from abroad, PE investors [and all the pressures related to them for higher performance]. This resulted in high pressure on technology, operations and, of course, on sales systems. Sales guys, who at times get more innovative than the tech. and marketing teams, adapted themselves [and sales process] to handle this pressure, in the natural progression of mindless selling.

Clients were offered free trials as a value add with other products, so a wonderful sales pitch from a manager accompanying an executive would be “If you decide on product X right now at ABC price, I’ll be able to offer your 4 days of product Y along with it complimentary”, and he/she will come out of the meeting very proud, “See this works well with every client, now register the sale of product Y as a free trial for this client,” the manager tells the executive and seeds a malpractice into the mind of executive. If it worked, the executive is never going to forget it and probably this practice will trickle down into his/her team as this executive grows in the organization/industry.

We have much more mature sales people than the ‘Cookieman’ sales person and these are the mature sales people therefore they have started thinking that selling online products is much more complex than selling cookies. So they’ve gone innovative and devised ways to use their power to give trials as a tool to increase revenue. This [as explained in the pharma example] results in giving a false reflection of the true potential of product and/or capabilities of the sales team/system.

A more disturbing, and quite contrary, trend is those executives who don’t want to offer free trials to clients. They don’t want to offer a trial for 2 reasons [both equally worrisome] – first, it delays the sale; and second they don’t have confidence on their products. An offer to use a free trial comes as a last resort, when even after a no. of follow-ups the client isn’t ready to buy the product. Cut to the cookieman sales guy, I don't see the 'Cookieman' passion, pride, respect while offering the sample of one’s product in most of my team members.

Like the ‘Cookieman’ sales guy, a trial shall be offered to a client with a lot of ownership and pride, with a purpose of giving him an experience of the product/service and this should be done with a lot of pleasure. One must resist using trials/samples as alternative tools to increase revenues and avoid the thought that trials delay a sale. A wholehearted Trial/sample offering to the client in the very first meeting helps build up a long lasting relation and an obligation to purchase.

Ideally, the no. of trials being given in an industry should grow at a pace of not more than 5-7% year on year in any given industry [irrespective of the growth plans of the organizations]. With the industry maturing and the products being used by more and more clients, trials shall be replaced with client testimonials, which work better than trials. Such low growth in no. of trials also suggests sensible use of trials as a selling tool for acquiring new clients by generating a pleasing pre-sales experience.

The ownership of product(s) leads to a certain body language [of sales guys] which leaves a very lasting effect on the clients. I just hope that this write-up helps sensitize some of the sales people towards the larger purpose of offering free trials and help them use it with more discretion and pride.

Jobsites - The New Research Tool - II

It’s been quite sometime since I wrote my first blog on how Jobsites can become a potential research tool for various professionals including sales guys, HR managers, entrepreneurs etc.

At this point in time, however, I would only like to address how sales guys and entrepreneurs can use jobsites to research and improve on their revenue from certain clients/industries.

When I was a child my sister, while reading her science book, asked me a question “Tell me where would you find Potato seeds?” I replied with all my innocence “with the farmers.” My sister and my parents laughed at my answer. Today as I’ve gained more knowledge, I know that potato has no seeds in particular and pieces of potato are sown as potato seeds. However, in all these years the validity of my answer hasn’t changed. This incidence has been narrated to all my relatives, family friends and after a wholehearted laughter they all agreed to the simple logic behind my answer.

The point I want to highlight here is that the question asked was “where” and not “what”. When I think of making a sale I need a product/service to be sold and a customer to sell to. In this blog we would look in to ways to find an answer for ‘Where to sell?’ with the help of hidden information contained in Jobsites.

The rule is simple. Somebody who is hiring many, will also require many other services. An organization which is hiring resources in large no.s would also require infrastructural services, office furniture, hospitality services, transportation, work stations, computers/laptops, printers, vending machines and what not... You don't need to cold call clients to find out potential for your products. Just check if they are hiring!!!

Log on to a jobsite and look for jobs in your city. Every jobsite has a feature where you can see 'all the jobs from a company' on a single page.

If they are hiring sales people in good numbers then they would require raw material also in good quantities. They might be looking to give a boost to sales; maybe they'll consider some advertising/branding campaign as well - time for media/PR organizations to be on a alert; maybe they’d like somebody to generate sales leads for them.

If they are hiring production people in good numbers they might be looking forward to a capacity expansion/ putting up a new plant. One of my friends working in a petrochemical company in Punjab was able to find out that one of his client was setting up a new unit and therefore he struck a deal with them for their additional demand for diesel and lubricants, even before other competitors could get the news for expansion. How did he get the lead?

He was looking for a job for himself on a jobsite and he found that his client was looking for 2-3 senior production professionals. He researched and found a business opportunity.

But what if some organization is hiring HR professionals only? Well... it may indicate 2 things

a) That the organization’s present HR structure lacks a bandwidth
This makes a perfect opportunity for HR process outsourcing firms, recruitment consultancy firms etc. to pitch for their services

b) That the organization is planning a major expansion and they are putting in systems before they could launch full-scale.
Again a bright opportunity for the firms mentioned above and for everybody else who is interested in selling any product/services they might require to support this expansion.

In a nutshell, if there is something different, than the normal pattern of hiring, in the list of jobs that you see for a company then there has to be a good reason behind it. Research it... you'll be surprised by the results.

Apart from an Organization-wise view of the opportunities, you may do a market analysis and spot business/sales opportunities.

To explain this I would like to pick the example of the SAP professionals, discussed in my previous post on this topic, where the no. of jobs for SAP functional consultants have increased by 90% within 3 months. However, the no. of resumes added on the same jobsite has increased by less than 50%.

Now if I am a training organization, I have a clear indication to run specific courses for SAP and help the industry fill in this gap. If I am a headhunter at a recruitment firm I must start mapping all the organizations with SAP professionals and then start charging a premium from my clients for closing their positions in short time.

As a sales person working with a jobsite it is time for me to approach all my clients who have SAP based profiles and suggest them innovative solutions to overcome this demand-supply inequality. These are the situations which push most of the companies to think about branding themselves as preferred employers, when they are under tremendous pressure of attracting resources from a very limited talent pool.

In my opinion the ideal way to start a research on a jobsite is to verify the market/industry trends (from other sources) on a website by making necessary job searches and establishing that the trends are reflected/not reflected on the jobsites. If they are then a sales person should move to organizational level of searches where one finds out what kind of hiring a particular client organization is engaged in. An entrepreneur on the other hand should, after verifying the trends, should do more research on the jobs/hiring scenario in the allied industry/vertically integrated industry.

Hope this article is able to add another facet to the utility of website in your professional lives, apart from uploading your resume ;)

Cheers… Keep Selling !!!

-- DK