Today

Selling B2B is a high pressure, difficult job. So is managing a sales team. And it’s getting harder every day.

It’s getting harder for prospects too. They’re overwhelmed by more emails, more LinkedIn messages, more cold calls, more ads, more white papers and events and case studies and marketing guff.

Salespeople are overwhelmed by micromanagement, metrics, tools and apps, collateral, pressure to create content, do videos, to use social media, be active.

The typical response is – do more

• Make more calls, send more emails, get more leads, connect with more people.
  
  
• Create more content – video, audio, articles, white papers, case studies, blog posts, LinkedIn comments.
  
  
• Use more tools – CRM, ChatGPT, autodiallers, Zoom Lavender Sales Navigator, Calendly, Quip, WhatsApp. Sales tech stacks are higher than the Leaning Tower of Pisa - and less stable.
  
  
• Just work longer, work harder, be more active, dig deeper, grit your teeth and get on with it.

Every B2B salesperson is being asked to outwork ever other B2B salesperson.

It’s a zero sum game. And it doesn't work

The result is 

- mistakes

- missed opportunities

- lost sales

- compromised personal life

- spoiled relationships

- exhaustion and depression

Salespeople can end up hating their jobs and dragging themselves to work every day.

Then finally they burn out and move on or they're sacked.

When a salesperson leaves they take with them a lot of knowledge, relationships, opportunities that aren’t passed on

And the cycle starts again, th death spiral continues. Sales go down, quotas are missed and people's lives are ruined.

There is a better way...

You can sell more by doing less and

- boost your sales and your career

- dramatically improve your personal life

- reduce stress

- enjoy your job

- help your customers and prospects

By focusing on what’s effective and eliminating the things that don’t work you can sell more by doing less.

Check out these resources:

Selling at C-Level will help you get more meetings with senior decision makers in your highest probability targets and get the most our of those meetings.

Selling with AI will automate those necessary tasks that eat away at your time (such as research).

Collaborative Selling Blueprint will help you drive the high probability opportunities and dramatically improve your win rates.

Targeting the wrong companies 

Every vendor should have an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) – which companies are most likely to want (and buy) what you sell. But even if you do have an ICP it’s probably been defined by marketing and applied to the world.

But you don’t sell to the world. You sell in your own territory. And the industries & companies in Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Birmingham, Munich & Sydney are likely to be very different.

The big question is, which companies in your territory are the best targets for you to focus on?

Because if you’re trying to sell to the wrong company you can waste an enormous amount of time, energy and money chasing deals that don’t exist, or that you have little chance of winning.

We cover this in “Selling at C-Level”

Targeting the wrong people in the right companies 

Even if you’re targeting a company that fits or is close to your Ideal Customer Profile you need to start by talking to the right people.

Who are those people? Ideally (depending on what you sell and to whom) the C-level – or the people as high as possible in the company who are affected by the problems you help with and who approve the deal.

It’s difficult to get a meeting with the right person in the right company (unless you know how) so it’s tempting to grab anyone who’s prepared to talk to you and hang on to them like a drowning man grabs on to a lifeguard. We’re often tempted to talk to anyone who will talk to us – then we get stuck with them.

But if you know how it’s much easier and more effective to start at the top and let gravity work for you. Rather than to start at the bottom and try to work your way up.

We cover this in “Selling at C-Level”

Lacking credibility with decision makers 

When you sell get in front of the executives and senior decision makers you have to be credible. You have to bring something of value to the table.

But surveys say 85% of senior executives believe sales meetings give them little or no value. If they don’t believe you’ve given them something of value you won’t get a second meeting. Or a sale.

So you need to be credible. From their perspective.

This DOES NOT mean knowing your product or service and its benefits. It means showing you already know the company (prospect), the problems they are likely to face, the consequences of inaction and their likely priorities.

You need to understand their business issues (that you can help with) from their perspective, No-one wants your product or service. They just want their problems fixed.

If you go into 'discovery' asking questions that show you haven’t done your research you’ll get short shrift. But if you can paint a picture that clicks with the prospect identifies you’ll show you know your stuff (or rather their stuff) and boost your credibility.

You’ll be on your way to becoming a partner and a trusted advisor rather than just another salesperson.

We’ll cover all these aspects in “Selling at C-Level”, as well as how to research quickly and effectively in “Selling with AI” and how to align with prospects in “Collaborative Selling Blueprint”

Too much influence by Marketing

Let's be fair – marketing is a tough gig too.

Marketing people work hard at a difficult job. They provide some great advice and assets.

But they’re measured by different criteria, have different targets and speak to a much wider audience than a specific salesperson with her or his own territory.

Much of the material they produce is great – but it often isn’t relevant to your prospects or territory. Especially if a centralized marketing department produces material for the world. For example:

• Case studies about manufacturers in New York are totally irrelevant to retailers in London or banks in Australia.
  
  
• White papers written for IT managers are irrelevant to CEOs and CFOs. While ones designed for CFOs aren’t of much interest to a CMO.
  
  
• eBooks and other materials written for a wide audience – people in many industries or many roles/positions – are by their nature too generalised and of little real interest to anyone.
  
  
• “Leads” who attend an on-line event, hit a lead score on a web site or fill out an online form to access gated content are often too low in the organisation to be useful or from a company that doesn’t fit your Ideal Customer Profile. Assuming you have one.
  
  
• Campaigns run by – or suggested by – marketing may not be relevant for your territory and your main targeted prospects.
  
  
• Your Ideal Customer Profile as defined by marketing may not apply to your territory. The world isn’t homogeneous. Businesses in San Francisco are different from those in Philadelphia and those in London or Sydney. A centralized marketing department doesn’t know which specific companies are your best targets – that’s up to you and your local team.
  
  

Marketing is an essential and valuable ally – but YOU need to adapt what they provide to your own unique territory and situation. You need to know what’s relevant to your highest probability targets. And you need to know which companies are those targets.

Following up leads that aren't worth the bother 

How often have you been given a 'lead' to follow up on, spent hours or days trying to contact them then when you finally get through you discover they’re a waste of time?

Imagine where a salesperson is asked to follow up a 'lead' who had attended a webinar run by marketing in the USA. The client is in Australia – the 'lead is a low level clerk in a company in India.

But as the salesperson is measured on speed of follow up, so they waste time trying to contact someone where blind Pew could see there was more chance of giant lizards singing backup in a Taylor Swift concert than making a sale.

If you want to sell more by doing less you need to know how to assess 'leads' and ignore the rubbish – before you try to contact them.

Hanging on to deals that will never close

It’s human nature to hang on to things. Salespeople are notoriously optimistic and believe “you have to be In it to win it”

That’s why most pipelines are full of garbage deals that will never close. But chasing them wastes valuable time that could be spent with much higher value leads.

Yes, you may have a pipeline with fewer opportunities in it. But you’ll win just as many and you’ll have space for better opportunities.

Trying to manage a pipeline clogged with crap

Same as above - Hanging on to deals that will never close

Get rid of the rubbish!

Selling at too low a level

If your first sales meeting with a prospect is with a senior executive (and you demonstrate your credibility and offer value) you’re more likely to identify genuine opportunities.

The higher you go the more likely you are to learning about a company’s priorities and why they are looking (or should be looking) for what you sell.

The higher you go, the broader view they have so the more opportunities can be uncovered.

When you do enter at that level you’re seen as someone who deals with executives. If you enter lower down you’re seen as operating at that level. You’re seen as just another salesperson rather than a potential partner.

This doesn’t mean you – or someone in your company – can’t talk at a lower level to research and gather information you can use when selling to the top. Just don’t start the sale there.

Being too self centred

Bad news.

No-one cares about you, your company, your products and services, your case studies, white papers and position in the Gartner Magic Quadrant.

Until you’ve demonstrated value by showing you understand your prospect, their industry, their situation, their customers, their issues – you’re just one of dozens, if not hundreds, of salespeople who want to waste their time.

There’s a simple reason why executives believe 85% of sales meetings are a total waste of time. Because the salespeople can’t resist talking about themselves, their company and their product.

We cover what you should talk about and how to do the necessary research as quickly and easily as possible in "Selling at C-Level" and "Selling with AI"

Not understanding why a prospect needs to change

No-one buys a B2B product or service for its own sake.

They want an outcome.

Yet so often we fail to ask the most basic questions:

• Why are you looking to buy something?
• What is your top priority in respect to this?
• What are the consequences of doing nothing? What caused you to look now? Why now, not last year or next year? What’s the urgency?

If you understand the underlying reasons and the results they want you can focus on this in your meetings, your presentations and your proposals and you’ll be seen as a partner rather than a salesperson.

Having insufficient time to research

With all the stuff salespeople have to do (see above) who has time for research?

Great question. But without doing different levels of research you’re – to use a technical term – stuffed.

You need to research:

• Which are the best companies to target in your territory
• Who are the right people to speak to in those companies
• What their priorities and issues are likely to be
• What message is likely to get you in front of them
• How to get it to them so they pay attention

Once you have a meeting, more in depth research so you’re fully prepared.

YOU don’t necessarily have to do it. But someone does. And it won’t be marketing because this is specific to companies in YOUR territory.

You may have researchers who can do this for you (with adequate skills and instruction). Or it may be a better use of some of your SDRs’ time.

Or as we cover in “Selling with AI” you can use ChatGPT and other AI tools to do your own research quickly and effectively.

Being seen as a salesperson not a trusted advisor

B2B salespeople are ten a penny.

Every senior decision maker you talk to – or want to talk to – has dozens or hundreds of salespeople who want to sell them stuff.

To them you’re just one of an enormous – and annoying - cloud. Like a gnat.

When you’re a trusted advisor you’re seen as someone on their side who can help them solve problems. That’s where you want to be.

But just saying "I’m a trusted advisor” doesn’t cut it. That’s what all the other gnats say too.

Trust needs to be earned. Credibility needs to be demonstrated.

Our courses – “Selling at C-level”, “Selling with AI”, and “Collaborative Selling Blueprint” will help you elevate yourself from being just another annoyance to being someone they trust.

And they’ll help you sell more by doing a lot less.