Former Fortune 500 Executive to Lead The Brooks Group

The Brooks Group's President & CEO, Marty Scirratt

Every now and then we like to share a bit of news about our company here on Sales Evolution. This is one of those times: We are pleased to announce our new President & CEO, Marty Scirratt

My brother (and co-owner of The Brooks Group), Will Brooks, said, "Our whole team couldn't be more excited. Marty's track record of success in business spans more than 30 years, and we feel truly fortunate that when we approached him about assuming the top spot in our organization that he accepted our offer."

He and I will continue in executive leadership positions within the company.

Marty is thrilled with the opportunity to join The Brooks Group team and says one of his first activities will be to meet with and thank many of the company's valued clients for the privilege of being of service to their organization.

In my spare time, I enjoy hopping on my mountain bike and hitting the trails around my hometown of Greensboro, NC, USA. The other day, I noticed some problems with my bike so I took it in for a tune-up. When I went back to pick it up, I noticed “The 5 Steps of Selling” glued to a clipboard by the cash register. I though you might be intrigued with a bike shop’s approach to customized sales training.

The 5 Steps of Selling

1. Approach: Recognize and greet the customer sincerely and immediately. Smile!! Start a conversation. Show interest in the customer.

2. Qualify: Ask questions to determine the customer's needs and/or wants.

3. Match: Suggest the product whose features and benefits best match the customer's needs. Give the customer a choice.

4. Answer Questions: Competence with product knowledge provides confidence in dealing with customer questions and objections.

5. Close / Add-ons: Support the customer's decision. Ask for the sale. Make the Customer feel confident about the purchase and suggest additional items relating to the sale.

"SELL THE SPORT"

Don't Forget "CUSTOMER CARE ROUTINES"

HAVE FUN!

I regret to share with you that, despite the simple process outlined above, the "bike consultant" failed to follow the 5 Steps of Selling. Why? Well, probably because the sales training message isn't reinforced beyond an old, torn piece of paper glued to a clipboard.

What do you think?

- @JebBrooks

We've always believed that "Buying is an emotional event."

Science, it turns out, backs up that statement. In his book, "You Are Not So Smart," blogger David McRaney shares a couple of anecdotes that are useful to salespeople...

"Elliot" was a successful man by most measures. He was an excellent student who met with a great deal of success in his career as an accountant. Then he developed a brain tumor. Even though it was removed, the procedure left his Orbitofrontal Cortex (OFC) damaged.

After the surgery, "Elliot" spiraled out of control. He divorced his wife, quit his job, and had trouble holding a new one. He succumbed to a scam artist who took most of his money, he drifted away from his friends and family, and remarried a prostitute. All of this happened because he would become completely debilitated when making even the simplest decisions like what to eat or wear. He suffered from extreme "paralysis of analysis."

The Orbitofrontal Cortex

The reason? The OFC is critical to decision-making. When it becomes damaged, you might swear excessively, compulsively gamble, abuse drugs, or become unable to empathize.

In Elliot's case, he froze-up. His emotions (the OFC) couldn't communicate with the more logical parts of his brain.

"Elliot's" experience is evidence of just how critical emotions are to making decisions.

An experiment in 1990 made it even more clear.

Professor Tim Wilson (of the University of Virginia) presented two groups of students with a free gift. Students in group 1 were allowed to select a poster from among several and keep it. Members of group 2 were also given the opportunity to select a poster, but they had to justify their choice by writing about why they liked it. Most of the members of Group 1 selected an attractive poster. Group 2, on the other hand, tended to choose a poster with meaning (like one of those with an inspirational quote overlaying a picture of an eagle). So, that's kind of interesting. If buyers are forced to justify a selection, they'll make choices that seem more socially acceptable.

But, it became much more interesting (at least to those of us in sales) about six months later when the students were asked how they felt about their choices. Group 1 overwhelmingly loved their choice. Group 2 overwhelmingly hated it.

The sales lesson? When your prospects and customers are asked to think about a decision (like when procurement gets involved or they have to present a case to management), you pay less attention to emotions and more attention to logic. And when people are denied access to the emotional part of decision-making, they not only freeze up, but they might also suffer from buyer's remorse. This is so fundamental that it's hard-wired into our brains.

But, buying - choosing - is an emotional action. When organizations attempt to place boundaries on the emotions (Formal RFPs, Procurement Departments, etc.), the emotion is drained. Your job is to find the emotion and sell to it.

When has emotion in a sales interaction impacted you?

- @JebBrooks

As you can imagine, we often integrate our customized sales training processes into CRM tools (Customer Relationship Managers).

We often hear a familiar question:

• "How can I get my team to use the CRM?"

As one VP of Sales said to me, "I know it will be successful when my team uses CRM as consistently as they use their paper calendars."

Getting your salespeople to use CRM in their day-to-day routine requires them to make it a habit. Here are a few best-practices we've seen smart companies use to get a kick-start:

1. Executive-level support. Unless your C-Suite (and/or your VP of Sales) supports the effort, it's probably not going very far. This is because CRM is expensive and needs constant attention. It's not a once-and-done decision.
2. IT serves sales. IT is a critical component of the development and implementation of CRM, but the IT team must recognize that this is a sales-driven initiative.
3. Sales operations plays a key role. Sales operations can become the reality check for IT and the Executive Team. Sales ops is often in a unique place where they're able to see the world from the corporate and sales view. They should play a lead role in the development and rollout.
4. Simple is better. Less is more in a lot of things...most especially CRM. Asking salespeople to do too much inside a CRM is the kiss of death.
5. It won't be perfect from the outset. This means the rollout is gradual and everyone is willing to admit mistakes. It also means you test the tool as completely as possible. If it blows up once, your sales team might be okay with it. If it blows up twice...well...now you have a problem.
6. Marketing and Sales agree on when a lead is...a lead. The two departments should get together early (and often) to be sure they're both on the same page relative to this point. Each definition should be the same (or, at least, complimentary).
7. Accountability. There must be accountability for adoption. What gets measured gets done. Holding your team accountable for adoption is a critical -- and obvious -- component of adoption.

What other "best practices" exist for CRM Adoption?

- @JebBrooks

A couple of weeks ago, I was reminded of an article I wrote nearly five years ago that was based off the book The Five Languages of Apology by Gary Chapman.  At the time, I had trouble finding a copy of it, but I came across it this morning.  Chapman’s book focused on personal (particularly marital) relationships and the importance of making the “right” level of apology to a spouse/significant other.  (Being a husband, I am used to apologizing all the time.) I used his ideas (and credited him) by turning them into ways that apologies could be given in a business relationship.

In the book, the authors make the case that, when a mistake is made the victim of the wrongdoing (the person who feels wronged) wants to hear an apology in their “language.”

Any writing in bold print is the exact language used by the authors.

They cite five levels for an apology in personal and business relationships. I’ve taken the basics of their ideas and created my own business examples.

1. Expressing regret: “I am sorry.” In virtually all cases, the authors said people who were wronged wanted the person making the apology to sound sincere. The person committing the error should also express some understanding or empathy of how their mistake, oversight, error, or comments hurt someone, be it intentionally or unintentionally. For example: I recognize that you were counting on receiving that shipment from us yesterday so you could meet the deadlines of your customers by the end of the week. By us being late, you lost credibility with your customers, and that’s our fault.”

2. Accepting responsibility: “I was wrong/Our company was wrong.” Here, the authors make the case that victims don’t want to hear it was someone else’s fault. The victim is talking with you, and to them, you are the company. Don’t pass the buck.

3. Making restitution: “What can I do to make it right?” A goodwill gesture such as a discount, free replacement, or bonus product/service can go a long way to demonstrate your sincerity and remove some of the hurt and anger associated with the wrongdoing on the part of you or your organization.

4. Genuinely repenting: “I’ll try not to do that again.” Customers don’t want errors to be repeated. In fact, they want to know you’ve taken steps to prevent the error from occurring again. Explaining to them how you’ve changed your delivery process to avoid future late deliveries sends the message that you take your mistakes seriously and are working hard to prevent them from happening again. In many cases, the customer will accept an error one time; however, repeated errors followed by only an “I am sorry” response grow old very quickly.

5. Requesting forgiveness: “Will you please forgive me?” By asking for forgiveness, you are truly proving your sincerity when you admitted you were wrong. It further indicates the importance you place on the business relationship – in other words, you want to restore the relationship back to where it was before the wrongdoing. Also, asking for forgiveness and receiving a positive response from the victim goes a long way at removing grudges the victim might otherwise hold against you. In short, by asking for forgiveness (and hopefully getting it), you close the loop on the problem. However, it’s important to note that forgiveness is one thing, forgetting is another.

- Kevin Reinert

If you're a regular visitor to the blog, you probably know that this is our 35th year in business. Part of our celebration is sharing the latest sales-related discoveries with you. I'd like to share a bit of information about an upcoming program you might be interested in:

It's the first in a series of one-day open-enrollment workshops.

We're known for our two-day IMPACT Selling® and Sales Management Symposium Seminars, but we decided to create something new in order to drill deeper into concepts within the selling process where people tend to have the greatest difficulty. The workshops are designed for both Sales Professionals and Sales Managers, with an emphasis on “next-day” application for each group.

The first workshop will kick off in Atlanta, Georgia on May 9, 2012 and will cover “Modern-Day Prospecting.” The program will provide Sales Professionals with best-in-class techniques for effective prospecting and will present Sales Managers with strategies to enable their sales teams to be more effective at lead generation.

For more information on The Brooks Group’s upcoming event in Atlanta, Georgia on May 9, 2012 please visit this site.

If you have questions about the program, let me know. Hope you can make it!

- @JebBrooks

Another successful Sales 2.0 conference down.

I’m returning from an enlightening day in Philadelphia where I attended the Sales Management 2.0 conference sponsored by, among others, Selling Power magazine.

[Editorial Admission, The Brooks Group is an advertiser with Selling Power and has, in the past, been a sponsor of some of these events]. It’s always great to see old friends and meet new ones, of course. But the speakers were particularly enlightening this go-around.

It's ALL About The Customers

Sometimes, when you tack “2.0” on the end of something, it comes at the expense of customer relationships. I’ve written before (and once before that, too) about the technophiles who prefer technology to human interactions. Thankfully, they weren't at this conference. Instead, the discussion was all about customers.

Many speakers, including Kirk Mosher, VP of CRM at Oracle, talked about the growing importance of the customer experience. As an aside, Mosher's ideas reminded me of one of my favorite authors and speakers, Scott McKain.

In any event, on this point, I was surprise by one statistic shared by opening keynoter, Gerhard Gschwandtner. He told the audience of about 200 that, “Only 13% of customers believe a typical salesperson can demonstrate an understanding of their business issues and solve them.”

I’m confident that participants of our customized sales training programs would shock the other 87% because they know how to do that!

It's Different Now

The theme that “Times: They are a’changin’” is like a broken record at these conferences. But I'm glad it swung in favor of themes we've been talking about for 35 years. Things like: Customer Focus, Pre-Call Planning, Qualifying Leads . . .

You can’t ignore the changes, though. It's too short-sighted. Too dangerous. As Gschwandtner put it, “Sometimes you have to take the bull by the tail and face the situation!”

And rightly so. After all, customers know far more than they did in the past when they approach salespeople. According to one study, about 57% of the buying process is completed by the time a salesperson comes into the picture.

Founder & President of ISM, Barton Goldberg, talked about the three phases of competitive advantage. He described the predominance of Manufacturing Prowess when the company with the best manufacturing systems won. It lasted, he said, until the 60s. Then, he said the tide turned in favor of the companies with superior Distribution Power until the 90s. Then the winners were the companies with Information Mastery. Today, though, it’s all about delivering a powerful customer experience.

A customer's experience begins (or ends) on a positive note with their sales interactions. The more time, energy, and effort that salespeople spend pre-call planning, the better the customer's experience. However, according to Michael Gerard, the VP of IDC’s Sales Advisory Practice, reps spend between 15 and 25% of their time doing pre-call planning work. Trouble with that is that their only scoring a 4.6 out of 10 in terms of effectiveness!

How can reps deliver their component of a positive customer experience if they don’t know the people they’re talking to?

And, when they are having face-to-face conversations with salespeople, it's expensive. According to Todd McCormick, VP of SMB Sales for PGI (iMeet.com), the average cost of an outside B2B Sales Call is $215-$400 per call. An inside call, on the other hand, averages $25-$75.

In short, as I've said before and will say again: Technology should enable customer interactions, not distract from them.

I was pleased with my investment of a day at the conference and very much encourage you to consider attending another one in the future!

- @JebBrooks

This post is a little out of the ordinary for the Sales Evolution Blog, but I'd like to share a bit of exciting news with you:

This year -- our 35th in business -- we're honored to have been included on Training Industry, Inc.'s list of the Top 20 Sales Training Companies in the World.

If you follow this blog, you probably know that The Brooks Group offers Business-to-Business sales skills training to teams in a wide variety of segments including, among many others, medical devices, healthcare, high-tech manufacturing, life sciences, aviation, logistics, and professional services.

And we're awfully proud of this designation. We're grateful to all of our clients who make our work so rewarding. Ask anyone here, and they'll agree that watching the skill sets of our clients' sales teams improve is what keeps us going! This recognition is really about them.

Ken Taylor, Chief Operating Officer of Training Industry, Inc. said, “The 2012 Top Sales Training Companies list features leading companies who have been consistent innovators in improving  the impact of sales organizations around the world. Companies selected all featured strong methodology, and the approaches that will handle a broad set of learning types.”

Will Brooks (our President & CEO - and my brother) said it best, “We are honored and humbled by this designation. The factors Training Industry, Inc. used to make their selections speak to the efforts of our team and the direction in which we’re moving.”

We are very fortunate to have seen double-digit growth in 2010 and 2011. And, it looks like 2012 is on track to do the same. And we're changing in other ways, too -- we've grown our fulltime staff by about 20% in the last six months! There are lots of new faces here at The Brooks Group.

By the way, in honor of our 35th year, check out our ongoing 35 minute webinar series!

-@JebBrooks

Trust is key to all relationships, whether personal or professional. Getting someone to trust you is essential before asking for a sale and, to a greater degree, marriage.

Earning a prospect's trust is a critical first step in the sales interaction. The more trust, the more commitment you can obtain. Earning it requires a cocktail of openness, consistency, and credibility.

• Openness: If you're guarded, you appear to be hiding something. People aren't willing to trust someone who's hiding something.
• Consistency: By providing consistent follow-through on your commitments, you prove to others that your word is strong.
• Credibility: There are two kinds of credibility. First is "extrinsic credibility." It comes from things like the degrees, memberships, or designations, you've earned. The second is "intrinsic credibility." It's really related to other people's willingness to take a risk by trusting you.

After reading many books about trust and asking even more people for their insights, I've come to realize one thing:

Trust is one of the most complicated aspects of human relationships.

In order to learn more about this important topic, I would like to enlist your help. I think "intrinsic credibility" is what's most interesting. So, in order to understand why someone will take a risk on someone else, even a stranger, I'm turning to you.

Please let me know your thoughts on trust in the "comments" section below. Anything you contribute will be very much appreciated. I'm interested in learning about what you think about trust. Pick a question-or-two and give me your ideas...

• Why do you trust one person more than another?
• How does someone earn your trust?
• What do you do to earn someone else's trust?
• What causes you to lose trust?
• Above all, what do you think trust is?

-@JebBrooks

In their standout book, Willpower, authors Roy Baumeister and John Tierney, describe the science of self-control in order to help readers understand how to better regulate themselves.

One section - albeit brief - caught my attention. The authors offer a short description of the history of military planning.

Napoleon’s advantage, according to the authors, was his ability to attack and improvise. As he put it, “You engage, and then you wait and see.” Responding to this, the Prussians gained an upper hand by becoming master planners. It worked wonders.

Along came two World Wars when planning was validated.

Fast Forward once again to the Vietnam War where Robert McNamara (who earned his military stripes in the Air Force Office of Statistical Control) was Secretary of Defense. He was a planner-extraordinaire. In that rapidly changing, guerrilla environment, planning wasn’t as effective as it was on the battlefields of the past. Soldiers on the ground needed to be a great deal more adaptable than their plans allowed.

The lesson? Flexibility is key.

How does this apply to your business?

• As a sales manager, you must be certain your team is well-equipped for every possibility. You should ensure they have the tools they need and aren't unnecessarily surprised. But, it also means you have to trust them to get things right when you're not with them during thier face-to-face or phone-to-phone interactions with their prospects. Everything can't be planned or scripted. Allow them to use their brains.
• As a seller, you must prepare and be willing to meet your prospect where they are. Don't go into a sales interaction without a pre-call plan. Don't be unnecessarily surprised. Develop plans that allow you to be flexible, but not flappable. You're not paid to read a script, you're paid to translate your offering into meaningful value to each qualified prospect you encounter.

Our sales seminars cover the delicate balance that must exist. But, you don’t need a class to learn that you have to prepare for every possibility and understand that there’s a surprise on the other side of every desk.