MANAGEMENTINSIGHTS - Powerful tools for T.V. advertising sales€¦ · In the sales management community, you may be already an expert at managing remote workers. Nonetheless, a July

MANAGEMENT

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(Media Group Online, Inc. is not affiliated with or endorses any of the resources, authors, speakers, companies or their content noted in this report and shares the materials for purely informational and educational purposes.)

© 2019. Media Group Online, Inc. All rights reserved.

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2019www.mediagrouponlineinc.com

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Establishing a Strong Client Bond Starts with Your Message, Part 2

How to Maximize Remote Workers’ Productivity

Wouldn’t You Rather Be a Leader Than a Boss?, Part 1

How to Add Personalized Content to Your Sales Toolbox, Part 1

How to Manage the Emotions the Sales Job Can Trigger, Part 2

2 MANAGEMENT INSIGHTS SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2019 www.mediagrouponlineinc.com

Establishing a Strong Client Bond Starts with Your Message, Part 2Part 1 of this article (July/August 2019 Sales Management Insights Report) focused on the importance of reviewing and renewing your messaging strategy for your sales team and all other departments and individuals who engage with your prospects and clients.

Natalie Nathanson, founder and president of Magnetude Consulting, wrote in her June 2019 Forbes article, More Than Just Words: Demystifying B2B Messaging, that the first step is to understand a variety of factors that will affect your final messaging strategy.

These include the market and competitive environment; feedback from prospects, clients, stakeholders and influencers; a “dissection” of your current and future products; and the current messages being communicated on your Website and via other customer-engagement channels.

Once you’ve performed this rigorous evaluation (a great topic for a series of sales meetings or special meetings), you’re then ready to massage, revitalize or radically change your messaging.

A general messaging strategy can include the following elements, but there may be some unique to your station and/or sales team as well as others this exercise may bring to mind.

• Company description – Consider a number of forms for this element. You might want to write a longer description (two or three paragraphs) describing your company per its current products/services, who it primarily serves and future goals. You could also craft an “elevator pitch” version, so your sales team members are always prepared with a brief, 10- to 15-second statement, especially for unexpected opportunities.

• Taglines – The primary purpose of a tagline is to express the value you provide to the local business and general community. Write them with as few words as possible to use in prospect/client communications, presentations and printed materials. An elevator pitch could also be used as a tagline.

• Value proposition(s) – Expand on the short, general value taglines with three or four longer sentences (or even two sentences per tagline) to explain what differentiates you from your competition.

• Prime audiences – Describe your target audiences, focusing as much (if not more) on their pain points as who and what they are. Include the solutions you can offer to alleviate those pain points.

• Research/Data support – Of course, you can craft a very meticulous and compelling messaging strategy, but it requires multiple sources of research and data to support your message and give it more heft.


How to Maximize Remote Workers’ ProductivityFrom today’s perspective, salespeople/account executives were the first “remote workers.” As a sales manager, you expect to see their faces at regular intervals for sales meetings, etc., but ultimately, they should be outside the office pursuing and giving presentations to prospects and clients.

Recent Gallup research revealed “43% of all U.S. employees work off-site at least part of the time.” Your AEs may not only be visiting prospects and clients, but also working on their laptops and/or smartphones in a coffee shop, in a park or at home.

In the sales management community, you may be already an expert at managing remote workers. Nonetheless, a July 2019 Gallup article shares a few insights about how to maximize your AEs’ productivity when they are working remotely.

• Treat each as an individual – Your sales team is a group of individuals, each with slightly different work habits. Clearly, their work day must parallel the business world’s work day, but undoubtedly, some of your team members may prefer to work the “second shift” when permitted because their productivity peak is during the latter part of the day. Providing them with such latitude may improve their results.

• Share the ground rules – Although your AEs don’t totally work remotely, they spend enough time outside

the office that a regular discussion about the remote working ground rules is important. The primary rule is your daily, weekly, monthly and annual expectations reflected in their sales-goals numbers and regular reports. Reviewing their timesheets and/or calendars can also clear the air of any confusion of what you expect from them.

• Communicate and network – As in all professional and personal relationships, regular, honest and open communications are essential. No doubt, you schedule your AEs’ time so you are able to meet and talk with them face-to-face throughout the day or week. You can also use various apps to speak with them live and engage with them via professional networking sites, such as LinkedIn, and even personally on social media within certain boundaries. The purpose of active, highly engaging communications with your AEs is to create a strong bond of trust.

• Skills evaluations, adjustments and development – Ultimately, it’s your AEs’ skills, regardless of where they are working, that are the foundation of their productivity and efficiency. You probably have a good-to-excellent understanding of each team member’s skills, but at regular intervals, you should evaluate and adjust them as needed and offer opportunities to develop their current skills and learn new ones.


Wouldn’t You Rather Be a Leader Than a Boss?, Part 1By definition, a sales manager is the boss. Acting as such should generally be limited to those moments when it is absolutely necessary to “lay down the law.” Otherwise, you and your sales team will find it much more pleasant, beneficial and just simply human to act like a leader as often as possible.

Being a leader instead of a boss (or more likely being both) is often not clearly defined, but this two-part article shares some insights that will help you walk the fine line between the two roles.

1. Open-mindedness – The stereotype of the boss for many workers is someone who has all the answers and closes his or her mind to any suggestions. Leaders (who may be an expert in their field/profession) don’t characterize themselves as a “know-it-all,” but understand the value of others’ experiences, skills and unique perspectives and gladly welcome their contributions.

2. Let everyone have his or her say – Almost every group has its introvert(s) or individuals who fear sharing their perspective, especially if they think it’s not what the “boss” wants to hear. Leaders are able to create an atmosphere where these people can freely state their ideas – and may actually learn something new from a typically unlikely source.

3. Blame is counterproductive – Yes, some AEs may not be performing according to their sales goals (there are always a few) and a boss is likely to react with the “blame game.” AEs who are struggling know it and are probably punishing themselves, so a confrontation is not what they need. A leader works with underperforming employees to determine the causes and to lend any support in terms of training, motivation and/or additional resources.

4. Be a member of the team – You may be in charge and responsible for the work of your AEs, but you must also engender some personal rapport, carefully keeping an appropriate arm’s length as you also try to learn more about each individual. Leaders have a “my-door-is-always-open” policy and make sure everyone knows he or she is willing to discuss almost anything.

5. Don’t pull the decision trigger too quickly – As a sales manager, your job is to make decisions regularly and many, if not most, affect your sales team. Many bosses, however, typically have quick trigger fingers, forgetting about the immediate or long-term consequences of their imprudent actions. Leaders find it valuable to allocate a bit more time to a decision – and avoid victims.

6. Embrace everyone – Well, maybe not literally, but similar to #2 above, bosses often create an “inner clique” of employees (AEs) on whom they rely solely for feedback. Leaders don’t fall into this trap; they try to elicit the participation of everyone and don’t create an environment where anyone thinks he or she is on the outside.

Look for part 2 in the November/December 2019 Sales Management Insights Report.


How to Add Personalized Content to Your Sales Toolbox, Part 1Until recently, salespeople could engage successfully with prospects and clients by sharing standard information, data and other content. Much like the B2C world, personalized content is now a requirement in a B2B selling process that now takes more time to close a prospect (four months on average) and involves more decision makers (almost seven).

Since local retailers and businesses are small companies, fewer individuals may be involved in decisions, but neither are they living in the Stone Age. Just like the largest companies, they expect every communication/engagement to address their specific pain points. A jeweler could care less about the challenges of the sporting goods store across the street (although there may be some common touchpoints).

The findings from a July 2019 study from Forrester, entitled The State of Enterprise Sales Enablement, 2019, reinforces recent information in Media Group Online’s Sales Management Insights reports. First among these is more business owners and anyone on their decision-making team take the initiative to research the products and services they seek before ever engaging with a seller – and mostly via digital channels.

Wherever in the purchase funnel those business owners and/or their buyers first engage with a seller (your AEs), they expect personalized information. According to the Forrester study, 85% of them said they are likely to have no further interaction with a seller if whatever content they provide during their initial meeting doesn’t address their unique pain points.

Because the buying decision-making process has evolved so quickly, many selling businesses are behind the curve. In fact, the Forrester study found only 20% of selling companies are able to personalize information and content for buyers.

A primary reason for not creating and delivering personalized content is because sellers spend too much of their time creating and/or revising existing content for buyer communications/presentations.

Although the exclusive information, data and content available to you as a Media Group Online member is a major solution to your content-personalization challenge, it is not the only source. Part 2 of this article will outline other solutions to move your company and sales team into the 20% of those who are able to provide each prospect with personalized information and generate even better sales results.


ACTIVITIES ON WHICH SELLERS SPEND WEEKLY TIME, JULY 2019

Activity Percent Time

Researching prospects and customers

8.8%3.5

hours

Customizing assets and presentations in advance of prospect meetings

9.4%3.8

hours

Prepping for meetings with prospects/customers (excluding content development

9.2%3.7

hours

Continuous training/learning about the company’s products and news releases

8.8%3.5

hours

Totals 36.2%14.5

hours

Forrester, July 2019


How to Manage the Emotions the Sales Job Can Trigger, Part 2The last Sales Management Insights Report (July/August 2019) presented the first three of 10 methodologies from the Insperity blog to help managers control emotional situations that occur among any group of people, and especially those working in high-pressure sales. Here are the next three.

4. Think and Act Positively

The emotional situation may initially be ugly or negative, but you want to change it to a positive environment quickly. The acronym T.H.I.N.K. is a great place to start, or True, Helpful, Inspiring, Necessary and Kind. If your language (and body language) follows those guidelines, then you are more likely to defuse the situation with little harm to or animosity among the participants. It’s also the best approach to work with the individual who responded emotionally to a bad day, a bad client conversation or a confrontation with a team member.

5. Address Employee Performance

As suggested in part 1 of this article, calming everyone and even separating individuals if necessary

should be the first step in these situations. Once you have the opportunity to talk with the individual who is the cause of the disruption (and in private), center the conversation on his or her performance and not the emotional outburst. As bad as the incident might be, the effect on the individual and your other team members’ performance and ability to concentrate on their work can be even worse, and linger.

6. Provide a Steam Release Valve

Much like a boiler, an emotional employee often needs a “release valve.” It’s your job to control that valve, however, giving him or her an opportunity to vent, within reason. Being in an emotional state can cause him or her to say or even act in an inappropriate manner so you must be adamant certain language and behaviors won’t be tolerated. Conversely, if his or her emotional state results in crying, then showing empathy is equally important.


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MANAGEMENTINSIGHTS - Powerful tools for T.V. advertising sales€¦ · In the sales management community, you may be already an expert at managing remote workers. Nonetheless, a July