Reflections on a Week of Small Improvements in B2B Sales Productivity – by John Cousineau

It’s been a good week. Time to reflect on some of the things we’ve seen and learned:

* New sales hires are a joy to work with. They’re curious. They’re motivated. They’re not easily discouraged by poor, early results. More proof that curiosity matters.

* It takes effort to achieve a result. Yet when results are poor, sellers can get discouraged. They’re tempted to walk away from work they see as having little reward. Whispers of “trying hard” are a first clue that it’s time to try new approaches.

* Focus matters. Sellers are at their best when focused on having value-creating conversations with buyers. Anything that turns their attention to other things lowers their odds of success. Put another way, busy is easy; productive takes focus.

* Sellers want to know their efforts will pay off. Metrics help. Learning is personalized with fast proof of whether or not sales efforts are triggering buyers to engage in conversation.

* When sellers can see their mistakes fast, they worry less about making mistakes. They spend less time developing bad habits.

* When it’s possible to do “small lot testing” on sales tactics, no one has to be the bearer of all wisdom on the “right” thing to try. The effort to “get things right” starts to involve more “we” and less “me” in the discussion.

* Before testing new approaches with prospects, it helps to “test” with peers thru role playing. Put yourself in the role of a buyer. Ask yourself: would this approach cause me to lean into a conversation, or walk away from it?

* Overall, it’s been a week that’s confirmed learning matters, and learning fast matters most.

One example of the above: a client’s new hire on Wednesday began calling titles he hadn’t recently called using tactics that had worked well in the past. By that afternoon, he could see that his messages were getting him in the door, but his conversations were not advancing buyers to next steps. He had the data to prove it. He asked for help. By the end of the day, with a quick role play, and a bit of related coaching, he booked appointments with key players from another target account.

He got a little bit better really quickly. He knew it.

Bring on Monday.

About John Cousineau:

As President + Founder of innovativeinfo.com, John’s leading efforts to improve B2B sales productivity via new analytics on sales performance. Amacus is his firm’s award-winning selling solution. Imagine what you’d like to know, if you could, about sales performance. That’s what Amacus is working on.

John’s spent over 35 years innovating with information in ways that accelerate business performance. John’s niche is designing uses of technology and information that get people faster to the value creating parts of their daily routines.

InsideView has rated John as one of the top sales industry social media users and one of the top 25 influential leaders in sales.

John’s blog on Informed Innovations in B2B Sales Productivity offers a running commentary on things he’s learning from the sales practices of his clients, sales insights of his firm’s partners, and sales analytics of Amacus.