Third English edition, September 2015
Special edition for Mammoet 2014
Special edition for Eriks 2014
Second English edition, January 2014
First English edition, August 2012
ISBN 978 94 92190 15 4 (book)
ISBN 978 94 92190 16 1 (eBook)

The original Dutch edition of this book was published in 2010 by Business Contact publishers, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (ISBN 978 90 470 0423 3)

© Original edition 2010
Wessel Berkman & Bart de Groot / Business Contact, Amsterdam

© English edition 2012
Wessel Berkman & Bart de Groot & Dennis van Ravenswaaij
Cover design, typography, realization and ePub:
LINE UP boek en media bv, Groningen, the Netherlands

www.brownpapercompany.com

Many organizations are losing their right to exist

Future-proof organizations have a strong and distinctive commercial organizational DNA that is experienced and realized on an organization-wide scale.

It constitutes the soul, ensures the ultimate customer perception while creating the optimum added value for the customer, and enables the organization to operate as one team of directors, managers and staff.

The ensuing ultimate market service gives the organization its right to exist and is the reason why customers like to buy your products and services, and why talented staff are happy to work for you.

How much time have you got left?

Contents

Cover

Colophon

Organic growth ...

Introduction

Developments

Types of revenue

Learning organization

The entire customer chain: the ultimate customer journey

Numbers game and commercial cleverness

1 Who are the players in this game?

1.1 What do we know about the salesperson?

1.2 The customer introduces himself

1.3 The manager and the sales organization

1.4 A unique and common organizational DNA

2 Ingredients for good sales figures

2.1 A clear, intelligible and feasible track/strategy

2.2 A uniform structure

2.3 The sales attitude

2.4 The sales process

2.5 Preparing the customer contact

2.6 The ultimate sales pitch

2.7 Elements of a good sales language

2.8 Products and services versus 100 per cent of client pains!

3 SalesART: speaking the same language

3.1 What is SalesART? The seven phases of the meeting

3.2 Empathize with the customer

3.3 The seven phases of the meeting fully elaborated

3.4 The customer already has a quotation

3.5 The pain-reliving letter

3.6 Trusted advisor/strategic partner

3.7 Tenders

4 Commercial management information

4.1 Uniform terminology in commercial management information

4.2 Good commercial management information depends on good input

4.3 Establishing the commercial management information

4.4 What commercial information do you need?

5 Challenging management: what is it and what do you need?

5.1 Clarity about the goals and the consequences of underperformance

5.2 A good team meeting structure

5.3 Challenging individual interviews

5.4 Nomen Simulacrum

5.5 Other aspects of challenging management

5.6 Personal Effectiveness of Managers and the Organic Growth Monitor for commercial staff

6 The relationship with the other departments in the company

6.1 Sales, marketing and social media

6.2 Sales and product development

6.3 Sales and recruitment and selection

6.4 Sales and the implementation

7 Epilogue

7.1 Where do you begin if you want to generate sales fast?

7.2 Does an improvement process pay off?

7.3 Who can help you, as a manager?

7.4 Conclusion

Appendix

Checklist with awareness-raising questions

About the authors

About The Brown Paper Company

Glossary

Actively achieved sales

Benchmarking

Coffee drinker

Challenging management

Customer relationship management or CRM

Deal

Development monitor

Marketing sales

Order processor

Over-KPId

Pain (acute and future pain)

Pain-reliving letter

Pitbull with a heart

Prospect

Prospective customer

Rather clear than just polite

Reconfirmation question

Returning customer

Sales attitude

SalesART

Sales funnel

Sales pitch

Sunshine pump

Suspect

Verbal go!

Afterword

Also by Wessel Berkman

Organic growth ...

“Organic growth is an organization’s growth from the inside out”
It tells you whether the management challenges and provides adequate training for employees, utilizes resources to the full and aims for constant improvement.
It also indicates whether the management develops a common and unique organizational DNA, and consequently manages to exceed organizational objectives.

Wessel Berkman, 2013

This book is about organic growth in commercial organizations and about finding out to what extent you have improved over the last couple of months.

How large was the organic growth in your organization last month?

Introduction

Today’s markets are bigger and more transparent than before, which makes competition fiercer than ever. It is imperative in our rapidly changing world, where virtually every organization is subjected to great pressure, that one moves with the times. The big question is: move where? Generating turnover is a major and constant source of anxiety for many organizations, what with competitors popping up all over the place.

In many organizations, commerce is still conducted in a fairly traditional manner. It may well be one of the activities that has adhered to old principles longer than any other. But how long can this go on? The pressure is increasing and solution-alternatives are harder to find than ever. Technological developments are taking place very rapidly, as is digitalization. In the production and other departments, robotization is getting into its stride. Robotization and digitalization in commerce? In coming years significant steps forward can be taken when it comes to a more competitive approach in managing the commercial department. But will such an approach survive the next three years?

In many organizations, and over the last few years, much has been invested in training with regard to solution selling and consultative selling. In addition, challenger sales has been emergent the last twelve months. In actual fact, what this is about is thinking in customer-oriented solutions instead of pushing a product or service. Admittedly, this is a knotty problem. Many organizations are discussing ways to realize customer-oriented solutions, but for all that their ways of managing products and services are still very old-school. Here many managers are caught between pillar and post. A U-turn in policy is something rarely observed, even though many are perfectly aware that this is the way of the future. It is evident that it is hard to hold on to the old moneymakers while breaking new ground at the same time.

Challenger sales is a step further: it is presenting challenges of the future to the customer in the broadest sense. It is asking too much of many salesmen to keep their customers enthralled when it comes to many subjects at a time. Having the proper expertise and asking the right questions remains a challenge. A few tests to find out whether salesmen are at all able to ask challenging and probing open questions have only demonstrated that 84 per cent of the questions asked was of a yes/no nature. Clearly, even with the best will in the world this cannot be called challenging. Some salesmen have had as many as five years of solution selling training; however, what helps is not another year but the firm resolve to become a real challenger. So the solution is of a different nature. Another source of concern is to what extent salesmen have the proper networks at their disposal. Can they still get hold of the decision-making person? Nowadays, in many organizations decision-making has been moved up to a higher level while the salesman still acts on the same level. Likewise, speaking to top managers about business cases is tricky when you’re not a specialist.

For many organizations, having relevant connections at the right level with relevant responsibilities is the key challenge.

Developments

Any predictions with regard to commerce-related developments in the next three to five years are difficult, as the situation changes faster than in the last few years. Will commerce still mean doing one’s rounds or will things get done with FaceTime or on the phone? Or by digital means? And to what extent through real face-to-face social contacts? What is the future of networks?

A few developments are taking place already:

• | Aiming for global instead of regional commerce by telephone or digital means.
• | Corporate commercial venturing: different companies working together to offer a complete solution, instead of just their own products or services.
• | Networks of organizations that do not mutually compete but embark on a collective sales policy across these organizations.
• | Flexible commercial agents that establish links for organizations.
• | Judging on return/result in different forms.

At any rate, a good insight into what the customer wants now and on a permanent basis will help you develop ways to find the adequate approach, direct, by email or any other digital means. This goes just as much for commerce and marketing. For the next few years, however, you may still be able to make do with a commercial organization that keeps on its toes and has a very distinctive commercial DNA. That’s what this book is about.

At the same time, old-school marketing alone is no longer enough if you want to generate more sales: something in the sales and marketing departments has to change. The management believes that salespeople and account managers do not realize maximum leverage. They often think and communicate higher prospective numbers than can actually be backed by sales figures. “It was an excellent meeting”, they will say, but subsequently the lead does not turn out to become a deal. On the other hand, salesmen and the word sales alone have a poor reputation. Prospective customers are bound to think that something is about to be pushed down their throats. With this book we aim to change something about both aspects.

Types of revenue

Sales revenue can be subdivided into three categories: existing, unsolicited and actively realized. The first one is clear: these are your current customers, the ones you try to retain. They probably form the majority of your sales volume – but you have to do everything in your power to maintain that level.

The second category concerns the customers that know where to find you, through advertising, through the Internet, through portals (such as hotel bookings via booking sites that forward a reservation to a specific hotel) etc. You are reactively bringing this revenue in. It is nice to know that a much larger group of people is able to find you, through the Internet, mainly – but still, this group comes with a downside: you have no control over them. They simply come or they don’t, but when, and what they will ask of you, is something you won’t find out until they actually ask. In many companies, the unsolicited sales revenue factor constitutes about a fifth of the total volume. For the first and second categories, you don’t really need account managers – you need employees who take down orders.

In most companies, the third category is the smallest in total revenue percentage but the most important for this book: the actively realized sales revenue. It is here that the most is to be gained and you can offer maximum added value so that customers will decide to stay. These are the potential customers that your account managers should pursue actively, the leads that should result in deals – although it goes just as much for existing customers. They are the sales that you control, that provide the perfect connection between the products or services you provide and the ‘burden’ that you take away, the needs of the customer you fulfill.

In this book, mainly intended for managers, sales managers and salesmen, we describe how to increase the actively realized sales to an exceptional degree while retaining human empathy in a digital world. There is this development involving programmed empathy – you know: everyone gets the same message, where the customer no longer feels he is doing business with people. This includes digital tenders, in the broadest sense, where all inter-personal contact has been virtually erased, as well as sending scripted emails and texts or Whatsapp messages, which are frequently misunderstood and may inadvertently raise questions or cause irritation. Communication has been a vital part of commerce all along and will be even more so in the time to come: definitely a point of address within the context of digitalization. Salesmen: artists in commerce! What about the commercial skills of the salesmen, marketers and social-media staff in your organization?

To improve the level, you should strengthen your sales organization, both structurally and bottom-up, which requires the collaboration of all salespeople and customers, because only then will you achieve the necessary commitment (of course certain decisions will still have to be made at an executive level.) No mirages, no ‘sunshine pump stories’ and no more grandiloquent visions, but concise and action-oriented processes. Vital in this process is a manager who doesn’t beat around the bush and who doesn’t make concessions to the agreements made.

Learning organization

The aim is to build a learning organization that delivers what the customer truly needs and deserves, particularly the new customers but the existing accounts as well. This requires a foundation that is understood by everyone and that is simple to implement: a uniform sales platform with a clear language used by everyone (including new salespeople). We call this the commercial organizational DNA. The processes in this book have been successfully deployed with respect to many of our customers for over ten years.

Clearly, it all begins with the right products and services. Obvious though it is, we mention it explicitly: everything you deliver should be perfectly in line with, or applicable to, the needs of the customer, the burden you are about to take away. By listening carefully to what your customer truly needs (you’ll learn how to go about this later on), you can adjust your products or, if necessary, find other customers more likely to appreciate them. This is an ongoing process, since needs and desires are constantly changing. This means that you’ll also have to continuously ask your current customers whether your projects are still relieving them of a burden. We refer to this attitude as: having the best commercial DNA.

The entire customer chain: the ultimate customer journey

Commerce is not something just for salespeople. Of course, they are responsible for a large part of the turnover, but commerce is a matter for the entire company. In fact, everyone who works at an organization can see what the customer’s needs are. Commerce is not just about the first steps of turning a prospect into a customer, it is also about retaining the customer. Practically all departments that are in contact with customers, are a part of this. And what would it mean if the cleaner, accountant and supply clerk know what the organization does and which questions they can ask the customer to find out what his needs are? Passing this information on to the person responsible for offering a solution, that is what commerce is all about.

Sales is a term that many organizations struggle with. Sales has a poor reputation, often that of product pusher. But sales is really the best: listening to customers and asking questions to make their latent needs active and thus delivering the best solution. Whoever does it best, makes the most deals. In this book we use the word sales. If you can think of a better word, don’t hesitate to use it!

Numbers game and commercial cleverness

Many organizations focus on commerce as a numbers game. Their salesmen need to visit a minimum number of (prospective) customers every day. For many organizations, this number is low, which is a matter of great concern. In some cases, the average number of visits by a fulltime salesman is two or three a week. But you do need numbers to conduct commerce.

When playing the numbers game, you need to play it in a clever way: commercial cleverness. How does your organization distinguish itself when it comes to commerce? When the entire team conducts commerce in the most clever way, the conversion rate will be high. Can you articulate how clever, or how distinctive, your method of conducting commerce is? When asked this question, people often remain silent or can only come up with some buzzwords. This book is about the numbers game as a precondition, and especially about commercial cleverness and being demonstrably distinctive: the Golden Stars.

Regardless of the form of organization, so whether it is an organization consisting of autonomous teams or an old-school organization with multiple management layers, in our opinion, a distinctive commercial DNA is a precondition for success.

To illustrate and substantiate the work method in this book, we have asked managers and salesmen to report their experiences, so that you don’t just have to take our word that it works. The appendix includes descriptions of the people quoted and the companies they work for. The method and instruments we describe can be used by different sales organizations, both for business to business and business to consumer-markets. They probably apply to a lesser extent to retail products in a supermarket and more to somewhat more complex products. In the latter case this advice is not just helpful but necessary.

The processes and the methods in this book allow you to get started with your current organization today, realizing more sales tomorrow. We are convinced that, if you wish to be successful, distinctive and innovative, the best thing to do is to make sure that everything is running perfectly internally (in terms of Sales and Operations) and that you understand what it is that a customer really needs. He who creates the true commercial DNA in his organization and makes sure that the actively realized sales grow exponentially (and is able to maintain his existing sales level), has control over the sales process, distinguishes himself from his competitors, is on top of things when it comes to innovation and provides a sustainable future perspective for his customers, employees, shareholders and management.

Let’s head for sustainable improvement of sales!

1
Who are the players in this game?

1.1 What do we know about the salesperson?

In the United States, the best car salesman or the best insurance policy salesman becomes a famous American. He publishes books and is a popular guest in every TV show. As a VIP, he will make sure not to miss a single event. It is a situation that strikes many Europeans as rather odd. If, in Europe, a young man in his twenties with a university degree decides to become a salesman, his father will probably ask him, “Is that what you’ve spent all these years in school for?” We often associate the word salesman with someone who tries to push a product down our throats. The job of a salesman seems to be an inferior one and has a negative ring to it for some people. This is strange, since products and services are constantly being sold all around and everyone is a part of a selling process, both in the role of buyer and salesman. Without being aware of it, everyone is selling something. True sales means listening to the customer and providing the best solution to his problem or wish. Unfortunately, you will have to bear this description in mind when you use the word sales.

Salesmen who have been active within the sales profession for a couple of years, have usually attended various trainings. A study of 2009, conducted by the Group ESC Clermont Graduate School of Management and Krauthammer, an agency providing sales training, showed that just 27 per cent of the salespeople feel that they have fully mastered the basic skills associated with the work. 17 per cent award their own skills with a very low score. This is remarkable, considering how much is invested in training. And these are just the findings of the salesmen themselves. Other conclusions of the study were:

• | Despite the fact that performance reviews showed that 83 per cent of the salesmen had achieved their own goals, they often felt ignored or disregarded. The study was conducted in the fall of 2009, at which point 52 per cent of the salesmen hadn’t had a performance review in over six months.
• | Looking a year ahead, the salesmen have positive expectations regarding their ability to achieve future targets. This means that the profound pessimism is decreasing.
• | Salespeople respond almost exactly in the same way to their work load as people in other positions. 14 per cent of the respondents indicate that they are unable to handle pressure.
• | Almost 20 per cent of the salesmen do not or hardly feel part of their organization. 33 per cent feel fully committed to the organization.

A number of studies, in line with our own experience, show that salesmen often engage in the wrong activities during their working day. This consumes a great deal of valuable time. These ‘wrong activities’ include meetings that are not related to the sales process, cumbersome internal meeting structures or so-called rework. In organizations that have low overall performance, the sales process is often configured inefficiently. With the statements and conclusions above, the salesmen indicate that they feel that there is much untapped potential in them. The question is when and how to deal with this fact.

“I realized there was much room for improvement in our organization, which supplies products and services to other companies. Since we didn’t work in an unequivocal manner and didn’t speak the same language, our joint potential was insufficiently exploited.”

(Jeroen Müller)

It is good to be aware of the fact that everyone is a salesman, one way or the other. Everyone is selling an opinion. You recommend a movie you’ve seen or a computer you would like to have. You also sell yourself in relationships. Without being aware of it, you spend more time being a salesman than you think. However, some are better at it than others. The key difference with ‘the salesman’ is that he truly chooses to make it his profession.

Back to the basics of the organization: businesses only exist to sell a product or service, which is why they manufacture and supply it. In order to make the sales department of an organization as successful as possible, this book describes what an unequivocal sales platform could look like, including managing and challenging the salesmen and the account managers on a daily basis. This gives you a solid foundation to capitalize on this untapped potential.

Summary

Salesmen feel that they do a better job when they receive better guidance and support. Currently, they spend too much time doing other things than selling. There is room for improvement in various fields.

1.2 The customer introduces himself

The selling process involves a salesman and a buyer. Salesmen always think that they know their customers well, but it is wise to try and get the full perspective. This profile describes all possible aspects you may come across when dealing with a prospective customer¹. It concerns a consumer profile, but it is equally applicable when the prospective customer is a business. Try to put yourself in the position of a random customer organization and you will recognize the same characteristics.

“Hello, I am a prospective customer and I would like to buy something. I would like a solution for the problems I’m facing. I really don’t mind spending money on a good product or service, because I have a serious problem; so I want a salesman to be interested and to focus on my issues instead of only thinking about his product. I don’t want to feel cheated, plus, I would like to be leading the purchasing process.”

“How I buy something? That depends on the situation. When I need something simple, I will look for it. The internet, for instance, allows me to quickly assess alternatives and compare prices, often helping me find what I need. When I talk to an advisor or salesman because I need a somewhat more complex product, I make sure to obtain even more information. Here the internet is a key medium as well. I look for experiences and see whether information is available about the advisor and his company. In addition, I talk to friends and colleagues to see whether there is truth in all the promises. When I purchase a complex product, such as a disability insurance, I ask the advisor to send me a quotation, after which I independently weigh all the pros and cons. I prefer requesting quotations by mail, allowing me to properly compare prices and quality. Of course, I also ask friends, family and relationships about their experiences.”

“Of course there are products for which I make the decision on the spot, the impulse purchases. Sometimes I just really want to have something, and if possible, I want to have it immediately. I quickly buy it and often I regret that decision, because I can’t remember why I needed it in the first place. But that doesn’t always matter much. Nowadays I sell these things on eBay.”

“How would I rate my experience with salesmen? Not very good. I sometimes wonder if truly good salesmen even exist. Often I feel that a salesman is unreliable, someone who shamelessly wants to force his product on me. He isn’t the least bit interested in the problem I’m facing. His solution seems to be the only thing that counts. Once I have purchased the product, it turns out to be slightly different from what I expected. Take my mortgage broker for instance, he is completely focused on transactions. He has the duty to check every six months whether the product still suits me, but he didn’t contact me until six years after the purchase of my house. Apparently it took this long for me to be of interest to him again.”

“Ok, I have to admit that I have had some good experiences as well, but I have to dig deep to remember them. I know there are various types of salesmen to be distinguished, but the smooth and intrusive type dominates the image. I have plenty of examples of that.”

1.3 The manager and the sales organization

In production organizations and in logistic environments, the overall work process is usually clearly described, step by step. Everything is calculated and documented: the production volume, the time it takes and the desired quality. In sales and account management environments this is not necessarily always the case. In production and logistic environments the effects of non-standardization are instantly measurable, both in terms of money and in terms of possible accidents on the shop floor. It doesn’t work like that in a commercial environment. The effects can only be measured indirectly and if the commercial process isn’t running smoothly, this will not necessarily lead to instant disasters. An essential difference.

Salesmen often get away with sweet talk that isn’t based on facts. They drive fancy cars, have an iPhone and make more than the colleagues in the production departments. They are elusive, even to the managers who are not always well informed about their goings-on and activities. Since the sales process isn’t tangible, it isn’t predictable either.

Our experience with improving commercial processes tells us why that is. The main cause is the great diversity in salesmen. Salesmen who each have their own, different experiences from the past in terms of:

1. | the ultimate customer journey
2. | the commercial processes
3. | the sales language they speak
4. | the sales pitch, or the sales story
5. | the target values used in the meeting structures
6. | the management that is unable to challenge the salesmen and that is unable to make the salesmen rise above themselves

In summary: In many companies there is no common and unique commercial DNA.

The ultimate customer journey