May '19 Selling.2.YES

May 2019

How do those skills taste overseas? (B2B Selling on five continents.)

Greetings from - well, you know where I am. I’m finishing a project for a company who has sent me around the globe in the last couple years coaching and teaching their sellers and sales managers. The work sounds more glamorous than it is because there isn’t much time for tourism. No complaints here: the client is great, I love the work, and it’s highly fulfilling learning what B2B sellers look like in places far from the New York-San Francisco corridor.

This week I finish a four-week campaign that started in Tokyo and included Delhi, Singapore and ended in Sydney. Last year I toured many ports-of-call in Europe and also hit Beijing, Buenos Aires, Tel-Aviv, and Dubai. Last year’s tour targeted sales managers – the workshops averaged 50 per and I taught 11 sessions. This year the work focused on top-gun sellers and the numbers totaled about 500 “customers served” (happily I hope)! The reason for the detailed summary is only to show that the sample size, while limited to one company, is quite broad and sturdy enough to give me insights to “global B2B sales”. Here are a few of my insights...

Insight #1: Regional differences most definitely exist (and can match cultural stereotypes). Transacting business in Tokyo is very different from Buenos Aires and even more pronounced when compared with a place like Tel-Aviv. Unto itself this may not be ground-breaking news or transformational for you personally, but because business now is global, it is something that may effect your company as it looks for success in different markets.

How will you define and maintain a positive sales culture when your company spans so many geographies?
How will cultural differences effect your training efforts, especially pertaining to product knowledge versus sales skill development? (See insight #2.)

Everyone gets the notion that complex and tech-heavy offerings require sellers to be knowledge experts, BUT the harder job is getting sellers trained to use specific and sophisticated sales skills that can influence buyer decisions. My observations over the last couple years creates a clear picture of buyers who are content to retreat inside their insulated and protected world, with zero desire to help sellers do their job. Can’t blame ‘em.

How will your company train for that?

...I thought it revealing that some of my sales managers and sellers want more counsel on how to better understand customer boundaries."

Insight #2: Connecting on a human level with buyers is a universal challenge. It doesn’t matter where you live and sell, B2B sellers are vulnerable to the “curse of knowledge” that falsely creates the belief that success is defined by simply exchanging information with the buyer. (I learned this in years prior managing my own sales teams in faraway countries.) Buyers are happy to suck the info without engaging in a relationship. So that leaves us with high-paid sellers who serve as Account Executives. (“Account Executives” is a title that should be reserved for the person at your phone company who helps you resolve a billing problem.)

I thought it revealing within the last year that some of those I recently taught want more counsel on how to better understand customer boundaries. It is probably a derivative of their thinking that sales success means they need simply to “share their brains”. While I bristle at the term “soft skills” (doesn’t give enough credit to vitally important selling skills), I admit these B2B pros need help understanding how selling skills apply to their goal of developing business and relationships.

Sooooo…my travels have inspired me to develop a new workshop offered by Core 6 Management Advisors: “Empathy 101: Connecting with the Person Across from You Who Breathes the Same Air”. Of course, I reserve the right to change the title – and will – but you get the gist. This is not a regional issue as much as it’s a by-product of the world in which we live and sell. But, as a group of B2B sellers, if we don’t learn soon how to connect on a deeper emotional level with those we sell to, we will be replaced by AI. (It’s already happening.)

Insight #3: Sales managers need more skill development and training than sellers. I found the competency level of B2B sellers to be pretty good relative to their management counterparts. Notwithstanding comments made above in #2, command of core skills like probing, qualifying, differentiating, objection handling is at "good" levels (personally, "good" is not enough for me); sellers have a good baseline knowledge of such skills. Regarding the sales managers and their requisite skill set, three areas stand out:

Delegation: I continually observed managers struggle on the concept of assigning work and holding sellers accountable for time and behaviors;

Teaching: a big void here… I found managers don’t know how to teach the necessary sales skills to those on their team;
Leadership: I understand that big, process-heavy sales teams are built flat, but that doesn’t excuse management from obligations to provide strong leadership - including knowing how to inspire and motivate others.

Obviously, these three items are very large issues that strongly limit the potential success of B2B sales managers. (Fortunately, the company who sends me around the globe knows this and is working hard to address it.)

Insight #4: People are people and thank goodness for that. No matter where we lay or head or what kind of food we regularly eat, we all want the same things. Everywhere I’ve been the last few years I’ve been received with open arms and warmth: people want to learn and grow their skills and are appreciative for the attention and help. And of course, this is a big part of what drives me to help provide solutions for all of the above issues.

If any of you out there need me to travel to 13 global markets and train upwards of 1,000 of your sales managers and sellers, gimme a call…”been there/done that” and got a few t-shirts too!

Ciao for now!

Last week during a session last in Delhi.

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May 2019

How do those skills taste overseas? (B2B Selling on five continents.)

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