We know that the state of sales has significantly changed over the past few weeks. Many of you are now working remotely, face-to-face meetings are no longer an option, and you likely have a close eye on the economy.

This environment makes it challenging for many reps to engage with customers and maintain productivity. Sales leaders are, in turn, making complex decisions to navigate this unprecedented time — to keep their workforces and communities safe, while also moving their businesses forward.

To discuss pathways forward for sales orgs in these uncertain times, LinkedIn will host a virtual live panel discussion on Friday, April 3 at noon PT/3pm ET. Panelists include:

• Aletha Noonan, VP-Central Region, CDW
• Shawn Lewis, SVP-Sales Operations & Effectiveness, Change Healthcare
• Dan Gottlieb, Analyst-Sales Practice, TOPO
• (Moderator) Alyssa Merwin, VP-North America, LinkedIn Sales Solutions

Join us on Friday as these panelists talk about how they’re leading their organizations during these challenging times. We’ll dig into how they’re engaging their teams, adjusting their strategies, forecasting and planning, and more.

There is no playbook for the current situation, so it is our hope to bring together the sales community to collectively learn from one another during this time. Register today.

 

As we’ve written here before, intent data is one of the most promising frontiers for B2B sales and marketing. Focused on identifying online behavior signals that are indicative of purchase motivations (even in the earliest stages), intent data holds the key to meeting buyers where they are and delivering truly relevant and welcomed outreach.

It’s fair to say many companies across the world are in a state of flux. For the past couple weeks, business leaders have sought to help their teams acclimate and adapt to a new reality. Now, as we settle into this altered norm, there’s a need to move forward, sometimes with adjusted strategies and reset business priorities.

From the outside, there’s no way of knowing for certain whether or how any given organization is pivoting to meet this challenge. But intent data, along with steadfast communication and genuine empathy, can help sales teams understand different unique situations and align their messages accordingly.

Staying in Tune with Customer Intent

Drawing from trending sales content around the web, here are some tips for proactively gaining a handle on the dynamic intentions and objectives of your customers and target accounts, so as to hit the right notes in your sales communications. 

Nail Down the Fundamentals of Intent 

At CMSWire, David Crane recently published a list of 17 Intent Data Terms Every B2B Sales or Marketing Leader Should Know. This is a good time for teams to brush up on the terminologies and nuances. Not only can intent data help you engage more effectively with current customers and prospects, but it can also aid lead generation efforts by uncovering new opportunities. It’s possible that the market circumstances are creating needs for your product or service in new segments or niches.

One way that aligning on intent can come into play right now: ask your marketing cohorts if they’re seeing a shift in the way people are interacting with your website or content. Then focus your efforts on topics or service areas that visitors are gravitating toward.

Empathy First

In his new writeup on Forbes discussing How B2B And B2C Businesses Can Boost Sales With Smart Intent Marketing, one key piece of advice from James Gilbert is to “put yourself in your customer’s shoes.” This is an evergreen recommendation, but especially important in the current climate. It is essential to put our humanity forward. 

“Instead of telling customers they should buy a product based on all the data you’ve collected from them … focus on using intent data to improve the customer experience, addressing pain points and offering incentives instead of instructions,” Gilbert writes.

Another pertinent tip, with regards to empathetic customer outreach at this time, comes from Sabrina Ferraioli’s article on 11 Creative Ways to Make Better B2B Sales Calls. Her leading guidance is to be positive and enthusiastic. While it is of course critical not to go over-the-top, or come off as tone-deaf (Farraioili’s second tip: avoid hyperbole and over-emphasis), salespeople can project a sense of calm, measured optimism in these uncertain times. Chances are, if you hit the right notes, it’ll be an appreciated respite from other stresses.

Look for Timely Account Insights

Many organizations have released public statements -- via social media, email, websites, etc. -- about the current situation, how they’re reacting to it, and the steps they’re taking to best serve their customers. Seek out these official communications to gain a view of how the company is moving forward and where their priorities might lie.

You can take this research to the individual level, as well. Check in on the LinkedIn feeds of your contacts. What are they talking about and sharing? Get an idea of where someone’s head and heart are, and meet them there. 

Get the Most Out of Each Interaction

Bob Apollo recently penned a contribution for Business 2 Community: When The Status Quo Isn’t The Status Quo Anymore. The entire piece is excellent and well worth a read, but his underlying point is that at a moment of such uncertainty, we’re all finding our way. Use this time to develop good long-term habits. One thing sales reps should aim to do is maximize the value of virtual meetings by gathering as much useful information as possible. 

“Now, more than ever, our salespeople need to do their research in advance, to understand what each participant wants to get out of the meeting, to agree on an agenda, to manage time effectively, to achieve a balance between asking questions and sharing insights, to come to clear conclusions and to agree on clear next steps,” he writes. 

It might be wise for sales managers to develop and distribute a list of specific questions or lines of inquiry, so reps have a blueprint of sorts to follow.

I’ll leave you with this excerpt from Apollo’s post, which summarizes many of the points above and drives home the prerogative to Always Be Helping:

“The most important thing salespeople can do is to help their customers make sense of what is going on around them and within their organizations. They need to demonstrate and communicate empathy and a genuine concern for the situation their customers find themselves in. They need to strike a balance between unrestricted pessimism and unjustified optimism. They need to genuinely want to help before they want to sell.”

Reactive business strategies may vary across different companies, verticals, and industries at this time, but a salesperson whose earnest intent is to help will forever be an asset. 

Each Monday on this blog, we run a “This Week’s Big Deal” column, which aggregates and analyzes the most prominent trending topics of the moment in sales.

Now, and for the foreseeable future, one topic overshadows all others: adapting and adjusting in the midst of a global pandemic response. It is the very definition of a big deal. The implications of this event are deep and wide-reaching, and we as a society are only beginning to wrap our brains around them. (LinkedIn has created a resource hub to help you navigate this crisis).  

Our goal on this blog is to help readers find comfort, context, and useful information during these uncertain times. So in the coming weeks, we’ll use the Big Deal space to share the latest advice, news, research, and insight pertaining to sales and how it’s affected by the realities we now face. 

There’s no playbook for this situation. But we’ll be here to help you draw one up as you go.

Steering the Sales Team in Uncharted Waters

Many individuals and businesses are still in a state of shellshock, which is entirely understandable. But soon enough, the corporate world will begin to regain a sense of normalcy -- albeit an altered normalcy. Today we’ll cover some actionable information being offered by experts and trusted sources on building a roadmap for what lies ahead.

Keep Calm and Look Ahead

Great leaders project a sense of calm in turbulent times. It’s natural for everyone to feel apprehensive -- about their work, their families, their friends, their futures -- but sales managers can take steps to mitigate the distraction by remaining steady and conveying a big-picture mentality. 

Belkins cofounder Michael Maximoff recently wrote a great post on how to manage B2B sales during the coronavirus outbreak. It includes several helpful, sensible tips for business leaders, such as:

• Prioritize your employees. Education, training, and creating a safe atmosphere are utmost imperatives at this point.
• Don’t abandon your customers. Make sure your clients don’t feel it’s “an every man for himself” situation. Stay close to your high value customers in disruptive times. 
• Assemble a response team. Identify champions in the organization who can rise to the challenge of advocating for employees, working on contingencies, monitoring the supply chain, and so forth.

Emphasize Digital Communication Channels

“Your customers need you as much as your employees,” writes Maximoff. “You have to make sure they know that you are there for them.”

Tight, responsive digital communication is more essential than ever at this moment. On our blog, we published a post last week detailing tips to remain connected when “in-person” is not an option. Within, you’ll find links to free LinkedIn Learning courses and resources for conducting virtual meetings.

This is also a good time to emphasize digital selling techniques. As one example, Angela White recently penned an article on increasing B2B sales with email marketing, and the guidance is useful for any sales pro interested in using email to build relationships.  

Tools like video conferencing and LinkedIn Live give us the ability to simulate face-to-face meetings or presentations safely from remote locations. 

Get Aligned Throughout the Organization

“Some companies are pursuing their coronavirus responses strictly within organizational silos,” according to McKinsey & Company’s analysis of the business implications of COVID-19. McKinsey recommends that different divisions of larger organizations should ensure they’re communicating with each other to avoid duplication of effort or completely divergent approaches. 

When there’s no playbook, and no coordination, it’s difficult to maintain consistency across an enterprise. Leaders across departments should take extra steps to follow a centralized approach and operational philosophy. Ensure that different folks aren’t working under different assumptions. There are subtle but significant internal communication gaps that can emerge in the absence of regular in-person sync-ups and even random chats in the break room.

Let Buyers Dictate the Pace

In many verticals, such as the travel sector, this may be a good time to step back and regroup on your prospecting strategy. You might consider focusing on internal initiatives you’ve been putting off, such as cleaning up your CRM data or putting reps through a new training program. 

But not every company will experience a softened pipeline. Randy Illig spoke with several executives about the situation and shared his learnings in an article for Forbes. While some respondents said they’re seeing a slowdown, that’s not universal. 

“As clients work from home, some are granting more access (virtually) to the sales force and even accelerating projects,” Illig relays from a source. “One leader said about a large client: ‘They have problems to solve that they can't solve with existing resources, so they’re moving on it.’ “ 

The key is to take cues and follow the lead of your buyers. Encourage reps to check in with their contacts out of genuine goodwill (“How are you all doing? Any way I can be helpful?”) and make assessments on how to proceed based on what they hear.

Illig’s ultimate challenge to sales leaders: “Turn this crisis into opportunity. Think about new ways to connect with your current clients to help them solve their problems. Do more listening than talking and get your people the help they need to do their jobs more efficiently.”

Editor's Note: In this period where many of us are sheltering in place, here's a vintage LinkedIn Sales Blog post recommending movies that can provide valuable insight into the sales profession.

The scent of popcorn wafts through the living room. Assorted candies and snacks are spread out across the coffee table. You’ve loaded the sofa up with blankets and pillows for maximum comfort.

Is there anything better than movie night?

I can think of one thing that upgrades the experience: When those movies you settle in to enjoy offer value beyond mere entertainment. I would guess I’m not alone in saying I’ve watched plenty of flicks that had a lasting impact on me.  

In particular, I like watching stories that help me grow professionally, by providing me with perspective, applicable lessons, or simply inspiration.

These 9 films, in my opinion, all have something to offer for today’s sales pros. They cover a vast assortment of genres and time periods and subject matter, but at the end of the day, these are all movies about sales, one way or another.

9 Movies About Sales You Should Watch

Death of a Salesman

Based on the classic play by Arthur Miller, this movie was made for the small screen (it premiered on CBS in August of 1985) but offered Hollywood-caliber drama and performances (from Dustin Hoffman and John Malkovich, among others.)

As its name suggests, Death of a Salesman is not the most uplifting of affairs — its protagonist is a failed traveling salesman whose life more or less falls apart — but ultimately there are good takeaways here about setting realistic goals, and accepting ourselves for who we really are.

Money Quote: “Walk in with a big laugh. Don't look worried. Start off with a couple of your good stories to lighten things up. It's not what you say, it's how you say it, because personality always wins the day.” — Willy Loman

Glengarry Glen Ross

The early scene in which Blake, an arrogant hotshot sent from downtown to motivate a lagging collection of real estate salesmen, arrives and verbally berates the embattled team is unforgettable. Alec Baldwin’s vitriolic, profanity-laced takedown is riveting, hilarious, and heartbreaking all the same time. “Put that coffee down! Coffee’s for closers!” he barks at Shelley Levene (Jack Lemmon) as he meekly tries to pour a mug.

Levene is one of the classic salesman archetypes in cinema, personifying the pressure and rejection that can be incumbent to the profession. (The character became something of a pop-culture stereotype in and of itself.) The movie is a fun throwback to a bygone era, with salesmen dialing up prospects from phone booths and desperately yearning for that coveted stack of Glengarry leads. (If only they had Sales Navigator to generate their own!)

Money Quote: “A-B-C. A: Always, B: Be, C: Closing. Always be closing.” — Blake

The Big Kahuna

Most B2B salespeople know about the thrill of chasing that huge, game-changing deal. The one that makes your month, or even your year. That’s the focus here, with the titular “Big Kahuna” being the CEO of a large company who is targeted by a trio of industrial lubricant sales/marketing reps at a trade show.

The interplay between these three characters, and the many reflective moments, make this comedy a worthwhile view even beyond the laughs.

Money Quote: “It doesn't matter whether you're selling Jesus or Buddha or civil rights or 'How to Make Money in Real Estate With No Money Down.' That doesn't make you a human being; it makes you a marketing rep. If you want to talk to somebody honestly, as a human being, ask him about his kids. Find out what his dreams are — just to find out, for no other reason. Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it's not a conversation anymore; it's a pitch. And you're not a human being; you're a marketing rep." — Phil Cooper

The Pursuit of Happyness

A career in sales can be a struggle, requiring us to look deep within ourselves. No film epitomizes this truth better than The Pursuit of Happyness, in which Will Smith plays a medical equipment salesman named Chris Gardner who finds himself homeless after a run of bad luck. He tries to dig his way out of destitution and provide a better life for his son.

Gardner’s sad plight turns into an uplifting resurgence as he employs a variety of savvy sales tactics during an unpaid internship at a brokerage firm, focusing on the highest-value prospects and relying on his strong interpersonal skills. Through impressive performance, he earns a paying job and eventually starts his own successful company. I dare you to watch this film and not feel utterly inspired.

Money Quote: “Walk that walk and go forward all the time. Don't just talk that talk, walk it and go forward. Also, the walk didn't have to be long strides; baby steps counted too. Go forward.” — Chris Gardner

The Wolf of Wall Street

Here we have the flip side of the coin. Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort rises from humble beginnings to Wall Street kingpin thanks to his ability to execute (and teach) the hard sell. Once he gets on the phone, his persuasive abilities are divine as he convincingly paints worthless stocks as can’t-miss opportunities.

Belfort quickly climbs the ladder as he builds his company Stratton Oakmont into a powerhouse, all while he spirals out of control amidst drugs and debauchery, and things eventually unravel in rather spectacular fashion.

Money Quote: “The only thing standing between you and your goal is the [BS] story you keep telling yourself as to why you can't achieve it.” — Jordan Belfort

Boiler Room

Like Wolf of Wall Street, Boiler Room depicts aggressive brokers peddling junk stocks with inflated promises in search of hefty commissions, albeit in a very different style. Compared to most other movies listed here, this one takes a somewhat more serious look at the impact and consequences of dishonest sales tactics.

Money Quote: “There is no such thing as a no-sale call. A sale is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client some stock or he sells you a reason he can’t. Either way a sale is made, the only question is who is gonna close? You or him?” — Jim Young

Jerry Maguire

After dramatically breaking off from his sports agency to go it alone, Maguire (played by Tom Cruise) has to sell himself to clients to remain viable. The decision that sent him down this path is one that resonates in today’s digital sales world: quality over quantity. He wanted to work with fewer clients in order to deliver better and more personal service.

Ultimately, Maguire is only able to convince one client to stay with him at his new solo venture, but the strong relationship he builds with Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.) eventually gets noticed by others, opening new opportunities and saving his career.

Money Quote: “The key to this business is personal relationships.” — Dicky Fox

Moneyball

Sticking in the sports realm, we come to the story of Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), who transformed the way baseball front offices operate with his innovative approach as Oakland A’s general manager back in the early 2000s. This film (based on a book of the same name) shows how Beane built a small-market contender by identifying and capitalizing on market inefficiencies. In this case, his data-driven approach points him toward on-base percentage as an undervalued asset.

You are (probably) not in the business of constructing an MLB roster, but the takeaway for sellers is this: What’s your market inefficiency? Where is the untapped opportunity in your space that competing salespeople are overlooking?

Beane’s attempts to sway traditional mindsets in the organization toward a new, unfamiliar way of thinking might help inspire any sales pro who faces a firmly established status quo.

Money Quote: “We are card counters at the blackjack table. And we're gonna turn the odds on the casino.” — Billy Beane

A Christmas Story

Okay, this one’s a little outside the box. You won’t find this cherished holiday staple on many “Best Sales Movie” lists, because it’s not about sales in any way. Or is it?

Throughout the entire movie, young Raphie is trying to sell his parents on the Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle that he so desires, playing up the benefits (a compass in the stock, and this thing that tells time) while downplaying the widespread objections (one is liable to shoot his eye out). Eventually his resolve wins out.

It’s an epic tale of tenacity and persistence.

Money Quote: “It was a classic, mother BB-gun block. ‘You'll shoot your eye out!’ That deadly phrase, honored many times by hundreds of mothers, was not surmountable by any means known to Kid-dom, but such was my mania, my desire for a Red Ryder carbine, that I immediately began to rebuild the dike.” — Ralphie Parker

Watch and Learn

Not all of these movies cast the sales profession in the best light. Few of them tie directly to the work we do today of engaging prospects and building relationships in the digital space. But as you watch these heralded classics, you’re bound to come away with some insight and food for thought.

At the very least, you’ll have a stomach full of popcorn and candy. Now there’s an easy sell.

Stay on top of the latest must-watch and must-read material in the world of B2B sales by subscribing to the LinkedIn Sales Blog.

This guest post was contributed by Julie Thomas, CEO of ValueSelling Associates.

A sales process doesn’t work unless you work it. Easier said than done, especially in these challenging times.

The amount of time that salespeople spend actually selling has been decreasing consistently since I started selling 25 years ago. Research validates this, showing that salespeople are not as productive as they could be. LinkedIn’s State of Sales report found that salespeople spend only 37.67% of their time selling. One of the primary drivers of this troubling statistic is the amount of non-selling, administrative tasks that must be done to update CRM systems, fill out expense reports, and sit in internal meetings.

A sales professional’s job is to close deals, to crush quota, and to sell. With only so many hours in the day, how can we maximize our time selling and be more productive?

It’s Time to Change Your Sales Model

To get started, we need to acknowledge that the sales model has changed and moved further into the digital arena. Even in complex B2B sales environments where a buyer is not going to point and click to place an order, buyers are conducting more of their purchase journey online by researching and shortlisting companies before engaging with a sales representative. Chief Sales Officers (CSOs) need to redesign their current sales structure to support clients’ new buying process. To sell the way buyers want to buy, it’s essential to make it easy for prospective clients to get information online and to connect to a salesperson when needed.

Discover the Crux of Buyers Issues

Even though buyers will search for solutions on their own, our research shows that 87% of buyers want to understand the relevance of your product/service. Help them do so by being exceptional in your discovery process. Engage in personal interaction (in person when possible, or virtual when that’s prohibitive) early in the process with plenty of tailored content. SiriusDecisions reports that it takes up to 17 pieces of content for a rep to woo a buyer. Our research also found that we need to engage buyers at the various points in their buying cycle. And by engage, I don’t mean pitch, I don’t mean dump data, I mean meet the buyer where they are by asking enticing, relevant questions.

My experience is that 75% of the time salespeople ask questions that just scratch the surface of the buyer’s issue and that are primarily based on situation and circumstance. Instead, sales professionals must go beyond generic questions and ask for detailed and specific information to create an opportunity and differentiate their offering in the prospect’s mind. The power of value-based selling is to go deep into the customer’s perspective to fully qualify the opportunity, and then create a need for your product or service.

Keep Selling Simple to Increase Sales Productivity

CSOs should focus on finding ways to reduce complexity to provide impatient buyers with a seamless and frictionless experience online and offline. Keep it simple by using a sales methodology that all customer-facing employees can easily understand and use consistently. Two key elements of that methodology include an effective prospecting cadence and avoiding unwinnable opportunities.

Employ a Sales Prospecting Cadence

Sales cadences are a strategy business development leaders can use to ensure their plan is implemented and executed smoothly. A sales cadence is a sequence of strategically choreographed sales activities that a rep follows to connect with prospects. It requires scheduling non-negotiable blocks of time for social media interactions, email exchanges, and phone calls. Sales cadences are a helpful part of the sales process as they give sales reps a systematic framework to follow. When you keep things simple your team is more likely to implement the plan and fill the revenue pipeline with qualified prospects.

With a sales cadence, our clients report their teams have secured more meetings in two one-hour call blocks than they have in the past two months! Sales managers can measure the right levers that lead to more productive reps. For more valuable prospecting habits, check out my LinkedIn Sales blog from last month titled, “Prime your Revenue Engine with a Prospecting Cadence.”

Avoid Unwinnable Opportunities

The single biggest productivity drain is spending time chasing unwinnable opportunities because they are unqualified. High-performing reps continuously qualify all their opportunities. They are rigorous and understand that qualification is a process and not an event.

Too many sales reps think of qualification as progression through their own sales process, checking off activities and milestones to advance a deal. Unfortunately, that is incomplete. To best qualify opportunities, the process has to reflect the buyer’s process.

Qualification is best when we understand and are completely knowledgeable on the five questions buyers ask when making a purchase:

1. Should I buy this?
2. Is it worth the investment?
3. Have I involved the right people to authorize the purchase?
4. What must happen for me to be convinced? and
5. When will I execute this purchase decision?

So, how can we maximize our time selling and be more productive?

Today’s buyers can get much further down the decision-making path before they ever need to speak with a sales rep. For sales to be successful in these relationships, we need to engage in personal interaction when the buyer is ready and continue that interaction throughout the purchase journey. Salespeople should show what they know, provide personalized content, and ask discovery questions to add value beyond the information provided on their company’s website and to differentiate themselves.

The reality is that many sales teams are required to use a process with too many steps that takes too much time. To ensure salespeople, and all customer-facing team members, follow a sales process, deliver a simple, practical sales process that can be easily followed.

Keep pace with the latest thinking in sales: Subscribe to the LinkedIn Sales Blog today.

Have you ever kept failing at something when it felt like you should be winning? It’s maddening. 

Golf comes to mind. Sometimes your whole swing feels perfect – the target is aligned, everything about the swing is smooth – yet the result is consistently awful. Then someone finally, thankfully, points out that your poor grip is what’s causing you to push every shot. 

While no one enjoys hearing about their bad habits, each revelation comes with inherent hope. In the case of our golf swing, a bad habit was identified so that a good habit – a new club-gripping routine – could theoretically lead to fewer duffed shots and better scores. 

If your sales team has been missing quota (or even if it hasn’t), you might be able to identify a few correctable culprits.

5 Habits That Cause Sales Team Performance to Suffer

Small changes can yield big results. Here are five tendencies to watch out for, along with a helpful redirection you might advise in each case. 

Chasing Numbers

Ironically, chasing quota too hard can contribute to missing it. Such is the case when a salesperson focuses too hard on pushing final-stage deals past the finish line. In doing so, they may be creating distance between themselves and the contacts who aren’t quite ready to close. Simultaneously, this same rep could be ignoring key relationships in the earlier stages of the pipeline, thus delaying or risking those deals as well. 

The point is, over relying on any single metric will lead you astray more often than not because that’s the behavior most salespeople will prioritize, even when they know it’s shortsighted.

Build This Habit Instead

Use a variety of sales pipeline metrics and KPIs to tell the story of each rep’s performance. Encourage each sales rep to do the same when evaluating their own performance. Look past quota attainment to determine whether or not each rep is focusing on the right people, accounts, and activities. In doing so, you’ll be able to better tell who’s getting lucky, who’s primed for a breakout, and what’s needed in terms of individual training. 

Going It Alone

Particularly in B2B selling, going it alone works against reps in multiple ways. First, when there is only one established relationship at an account, sellers are essentially asking their key contact to go it alone on the vendor’s behalf. This rarely-if-ever works in an age when many buying committees have double-digit members. 

With this many voices involved, it also becomes trickier for a solo salesperson to establish and build relationships with all relevant buying committee members. It’s possible, but it’s rare to find a sales pro who can easily connect with all types of buying roles and personalities, especially without the benefit of a warm introduction from their colleague or peer who may have an “in.” 

Build This Habit Instead

Make teamwork procedural by identifying experts your sales team can routinely lean on to align with, connect with, and build relationships with key contacts at the account. Similarly, provide the necessary education and incentives to your internal experts so they’re properly trained and motivated to step in whenever they’re needed. If your team uses Sales Navigator, train reps on taking advantage of TeamLink so they can identify opportunities for warm intros via mutual connections. 

Lastly, make sure each team member is trained to understand the importance of reaching the full buying committee, along with how to go about it. 

Spending Too Much or Too Little Time on Social Media

To be clear, spending too much time with social isn’t an actual problem when you regularly reap results from it. Yet in reality, it’s pretty easy for a sales rep to visit a social media site only to discover that an hour or so has passed and they haven’t accomplished anything close to their original objective. Repeat this exercise multiple times per week, across multiple reps, and you have a time suck of epic proportions. 

Build This Habit Instead

First, try to integrate the most sales-centric aspects of social media with your CRM, thereby eliminating the need to visit social sites to gather basic data. Second, encourage your team to build social media time into their calendars. For instance, a reps calendared “appointment” with social media in the morning might be allocated to prospecting, whereas a different “appointment” with social media might focus on finding insights among mid-stage prospects. Ideally, each appointment would include the exact steps for the rep to focus on, right within the calendar invite. 

Also, set up social media feeds so they’re ultra productive. Regularly follow and unfollow people and companies so that feeds are as relevant as can be, every time you visit. Reps can start customizing their feeds by following some of these sales experts. 

Discontinuing Education

Harkening back to our golf swing example, it’s quite normal for golfers to play horribly when they show up feeling like they’ve got the game figured out. Like with golf, no one completely figures out sales, or plays every meeting perfectly. But it is possible to get pretty darn good and reach an elite level.

Even at the pro stage, golfers employ swing coaches. Likewise, sales professionals should embrace education no matter how accomplished they are. It’s the only way to ensure your team is maintaining the most effective skill set while also making sure you’re not slipping into new bad habits. 

Build This Habit Instead

Just like you’d schedule time for social media, build educational time into each team member’s calendar. For best results, personalize the educational experience by allowing team members to choose which skill they’d like to build (with your help, of course), or which impactful sales book they’d like to read. Then, be sure to track performance as it relates to what they’re focusing on. 

For example, if you’re training a team member on how to reach more members of the buying committee, you might track something like “connections-per-account” a little more closely so the rep can see that their efforts are working, increasing motivation for future educational opportunities. 

Selling What Isn’t Wanted

Understandably, many salespeople get caught in the trap of feeling like they need to sell themselves and their product before a buyer will consider moving forward. While technically true in most cases, the actual order of how everything works tends to get flip-flopped.

Build This Habit Instead

What prospects actually buy into is a seller’s approach to solving their problems. Hence, it’s important for sales team members to hold off on selling themselves or the solutions until they’ve identified that there’s actually a problem, and it’s worth solving. Until this has happened, a sales rep can only sell the product or themselves because they lack context for how they can actually help. 

Monitor reps a little more closely during onboarding and during the early stages of key deals to make sure their focus remains where it belongs: entirely on the prospect. Once sales pros see firsthand that focusing wholly on the prospect and their problems is a more natural and preferred way to sell themselves and their product, they’ll start to auto-recognize when they’re focusing too much on themselves and not enough on the prospect. 

Harnessing Healthier Sales Habits

The nature of bad habits is that we sometimes mindlessly repeat them without much thought. This is one area where a sales manager’s input can be valuable and welcomed. Always make sure to approach these conversations with a gentle touch, and a clear recommendation.

When sales reps focus on the right objectives, work collaboratively, use social media purposefully, stay open to education, and put the buyer first, they’re likely to make winning a habit. 

To discover more good sales habits worth building, subscribe to the LinkedIn Sales Blog.

Without a conversation, there’s no conversion.

Salespeople have long set their sights on winning the deal. These days, we should really be focused on sparking the dialogue. In a highly competitive and buyer-controlled digital marketplace, reaching the point of engaging in a quality conversation is an accomplishment unto itself. Treating it as such can dramatically improve our ability to earn trust and build relationships.

Think about it: If a seller’s primary goal during outreach is merely to open up a back-and-forth discussion, rather than pitching or prying or prompting in efforts to generate sales momentum, how much does that alter their general approach? And how differently might it shape the perception of someone on the other end?

It’s been suggested that 2020 is the year we see a full shift toward conversational marketing — even if that conversation is rarely taking place face-to-face in this current environment — and the same might be true for selling. The appearance of “conversational commerce” on trends lists for this year reinforces the notion.

As salespeople, we need to talk to prospects and customers, instead of talking at them. Let’s cover some ways to make this crucial transition.

Generating Sales Conversations that Yield Conversions

“I think you really have to assess how you engage with prospects and buyers focusing on the conversation,” said Seismic founder and president Ed Calnan in an interview with Demand Gen Report. “It's more about their business than your technology. We really try to train our teams to think critically about the business objectives that they're going to go discuss with the buyer.”

All sellers likely recognize that listening is a vital skill. But gaining a deeper understanding of business objectives, and developing an empathetic point of view, requires more than listening. It requires understanding, internalizing, and exploring.

These techniques and strategic adjustments can help embed such a mindset on your team.

Harness Data and Come in with a Plan

We talked about the importance of preparation recently, in our discussion of enhancing sales meetings, and it’s relevant here, too. Digging into data and developing a clear understanding of the buyer’s context, background, and business circumstances will pave the way for a smooth conversation that doesn’t get bogged down at the outset.

Said Calnan in his interview: “For B2B sellers to do the right job in truly preparing for a meeting — really researching the business problem and other folks who have solved similar problems in the industry with the same buyer persona — I think it's on those progressive vendors to ensure they are harnessing all of this data to not only give salespeople 360-degree views of the customer, but also help them with next best action. I think that's the key for telling personalized stories.”

Every conversation has a flow. When the salesperson gets a detail wrong or has to ask about something they should already know, it disrupts that flow. Proper preparation helps prevent this.

Thought Leadership Content Can Spark Conversations

Is your sales content designed to sell, or is it designed to initiate thought-provoking conversations? 

It’s great if a piece of content you provide compels a prospect to discuss it with you; it’s even better if that content compels them to discuss it with their executives or peers on the buying committee. These are the seeds of influence.

Not long ago, Jon Reed had an excellent writeup at Diginomica on thought leadership content and its role in earning B2B buyer trust. He makes a number of salient points about the heightened importance of thought leadership with buyer journeys growing more complex and customer experience rising to the forefront.  

In short: customers want to find value in every interaction with your brand. Delivering impactful thought leadership content that is relevant to them provides value. And being able to take the next step, helping them unpack and connect this insight to their own situations, adds to that value. 

Collaborate with your partners in marketing to sharpen your focus on conversation-starting content that enables you to demonstrate your expertise. 

The Sales Manager’s Role in Coaching Conversations

Sales leaders can play an active role in developing a culture of conversation. Part of this initiative lies in goal-setting — viewing the conversation as an objective, rather than simply a stepping stone en route to a sale — and part of it lies in coaching.

There may be some disconnects on this front. For example, in her guest post here on strategies to achieve sales quota, ValueSelling Associates CEO Julie Thomas pointed out that 62% of salespeople who aren’t reaching quota say they aren’t taught how to communicate value, while 72% of sales leaders say they are teaching this skill. That’s a pretty essential element of a sales conversation. 

One practical solution that’s starting to take hold is a strategic shift from solution selling to insight selling. ZenDesk’s Stephanie Lee posits that this is an emerging priority for sales managers as reps work to cultivate a “trusted advisor” perception. She says innovative training can help move sellers in this direction.

“To offer specialized advice, sales reps must know customers inside and out,” Lee writes. “Hold workshops that teach reps how to ask their customers challenging questions and actively listen to their responses. Have your sales reps shadow customer service to get a better idea of customer problems. Also ensure that metrics are customer-focused in order to avoid reps unnecessarily pushing solutions onto customers.”

Another method to help reps become more conversation-minded is by advocating for the “tactile negotiation strategy” cited by Tyler Menke at SalesHacker in his list of research-backed B2B sales techniques. “Preconceptions often derail the negotiation,” Menke argues. “Get the other party talking. Have them divulge their specific needs, wants, and desires first. Listen, ask questions, listen, then act.” 

Embrace Conversational Selling

The basic premise behind “conversational selling” (and maybe just modern selling more broadly) is this: You want to develop a level of trust and rapport prior to engaging in nitty-gritty sales talk. This setup will give greater credibility and impact to everything you offer later. It also supports consistent relationship-building and network growth.

Data, content, and coaching can help get your team aligned on this directive. But step one is simply starting the conversation.

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We’re all trying to figure out how to maneuver through unprecedented change by understanding how to navigate work and the coronavirus. Although many of you might be spending less time (or no time) in an office and it might be harder (or not possible at all) to get face-time with customers, we know that business continues. 

Whether it’s coronavirus or uncertainty of the economic environment, right now it’s not easy and there are a lot of questions. In connecting with you  and other people in sales, we’ve heard some common questions centered on how to stay:

• Connected to both buyers and your sales organization
• Productive in a new work setup
• Informed about coronavirus (COVID-19)

We don’t have all the answers, but we are here to share resources and tips that can help.   

How to Stay Connected 

Whether it’s teammates, customers or prospective buyers, staying connected can feel challenging when you are limited to only picking up the phone or connecting through a screen. But, the good news is that it's easier than ever to build and maintain meaningful relationships at scale digitally. 

When it comes to staying connected with your buyers, it is more important than ever to not overlook the human element of the relationship. Just like you, the buyer might be trying to balance shifting priorities, juggle personal changes, and determine how to adapt to a world that looks much different than it did a month ago. Staying close to them via virtual meetings and phone calls, while also paying attention to the world around them — economic changes to their business, news announcements in their region, etc. — is essential. Sharing advice or lessons learned with one another is a great way to stay focused on solving current challenges, together.  

As you consider virtual meetings with your customers, check out this recent article from Harvard Business Review that offers some great insights on how to conduct an effective virtual meeting, including:

• Stick to a clear and simplified meeting structure
• Minimize presentation length
• Use video, but provide an audio dial-in option
• Test the technology you’re using ahead of time

In addition to staying connected with buyers, it’s important to stay connected to your own sales organization. In the spirit of sharing, we wanted pass along a few ways we are working to keep our team connected: 

• Scheduling regular manager and sales rep one-on-one check-ins
• Coordinating virtual team chats through Microsoft Teams (or a similar solution)
• Scheduling daily virtual standup meetings (sometimes multiple times per day) to align on goals and answer questions

When you are in a traditional office, you make time to grab lunch together, walk to get coffee, and cheer on your colleague when they close a deal. Don’t overlook the power and importance of still making time to be social and connected with your teammates, managers, and mentors. Find time for a quick message, video chat, or virtual celebration when a deal closes — it’s important to feel seen and heard, even if it’s virtually!

How to Stay Productive in Your New Setup

Working remotely can feel isolating, but it doesn’t need to. If you’re new to working from home, you can find some great tips here on how to “ace” the experience, including setting your schedule and working within those hours. And, we invite you to check out any one of our 16 free LinkedIn Learning courses where you can learn everything from how to master productivity while maintaining your work/life balance to managing remote team members.

How to Stay Informed

Staying informed is paramount, and it’s why LinkedIn is dedicated to ensuring we are a source of trusted news and updates. You can follow and share our Coronavirus: Official updates and sources feed, curated by a team of LinkedIn editors, to stay on top of the latest developments from organizations like the WHO and the CDC.

In the coming weeks we plan to share additional resources that address some of the additional questions you have shared, including how to work together with buyers to help them grow their business in times of uncertainty. 

Through it all, our team at LinkedIn is here to support you however we can.  

Most business trends are easy to see. In fact, they’re often impossible to miss, repeated ad nauseum by managers and executives obsessing over the next best practice.

Unfortunately, if a trend is obvious, it probably won’t provide a competitive advantage, and it might not even be all that meaningful. That’s why we’ve always appreciated the premise behind Rohit Bhargava’s long-running “Non-Obvious” series, which seeks to surface the most noteworthy undercurrents in the business world that are escaping the mainstream radar.

Now, he’s gathered all of his best learnings and insights into a grand finale, offering plenty of relevant material for forward-looking sales leaders. 

Sales Book Worth a Look: Non Obvious Megatrends: How to See What Others Miss and Predict the Future, by Rohit Bhargava

This is the 10th and final iteration of Bhargava’s annual staple. As the author explained on his blog: “In this new edition, we took an expansive look back at the past reports and combined this with all of the feedback, insights and discussions from more than a million smart readers who have bought, shared and debated this trend report over the years in order to arrive at ten big megatrend predictions.”

In its opening pages, Bhargava characterizes Non Obvious Megatrends as “a book about what it takes to see what no one else sees.” This description springboards off of one story – recounting the iconic “We’re No. 2. We Try Harder.” Avis advertising campaign from the 1960s – and is followed by many, many more. Stories are the fabric of this exploration of invisible driving forces in business. 

The book is divided into three parts:

• Part I: The Art of Non-Obvious Thinking. Here, Bhargava equips the reader with a curious and outside-the-box mentality, instilling five helpful mindsets and detailing his “Haystack Method” for curating trends and fashioning them into useful insights.
• Part II: The Non-Obvious Megatrends. These “predictions of 10 powerful megatrends that will shape the coming decade” form the meat of the book. Below I’ll touch on a few that are especially relevant to sellers.
• Part III: Previous Trend Reports. Looking back at 10 years worth of predictions, Bhargava candidly assesses the accuracy and longevity of each, providing helpful historical context while taking us for a stroll down memory lane. 

There’s plenty to dig through in the book’s 250 pages, which can be quickly consumed thanks to plentiful pictures, graphs, and lists. 

3 Non-Obvious Megatrends Sellers Should Know

Each of the 10 trends laid out by Bhargava bears some relevance to the sales profession, since they’re all closely tied to the business landscape, but these three in particular speak to some key elements of modern selling.

Instant Knowledge: “As we become accustomed to consuming bite-sized knowledge on demand, we benefit from learning everything more quickly but risk forgetting the value of mastery and wisdom.”

We all know that customers are more apt than ever to research purchases on their own, leveraging the abundance of online content to inform their decisions. As Bhargava points out, this is emblematic of a more pervasive trend, presenting both a challenge and an opportunity for sales pros.

It’s true that buyers are generally less reliant on sellers for info and direction. But legitimate expertise remains an indispensable asset. If anything, a more informed prospect will be better able to filter the salespeople who actually know what they’re talking about. 

As Bhargava asserts: “In a world where people know a little about a lot, those with decades of experience in a trade, craft, or skill will be more valued for their knowledge.”

Revivalism: “Overwhelmed by technology and a sense that life is now too complex and shallow, people seek out simpler experiences that offer a sense of nostalgia and remind them of a more trustworthy time.”

Even longtime sellers who have fully embraced the discipline’s evolution are bound to feel pangs of nostalgia for the good ol’ days, when business meetings happened face-to-face and deals were hammered out over a handshake. Many buyers miss it too, or parts of it at least. It’s much tougher to trust someone you’ve never met in person, especially when the relationship opens with a sales pitch.

Applying revivalism in the sales profession might mean injecting a few traditional techniques and traits into your sales approach. Take things back to “a more trustworthy time” by building relationships, chatting on the phone occasionally, and learning about the lives of the people with whom you do business. Online interactions are inherently impersonal, but there are certainly ways to humanize them. 

Attention Wealth: “In the information economy, our attention is our most valuable resource, leading us to be more skeptical of those who manipulate us to get it, and instead seek out and trust those who communicate in more authentic ways.”

When I reached this chapter, I immediately thought of all the spammy and irrelevant sales messages I’ve received in the past. I’ll come across an eye-catching subject in my email inbox, only to open it and find I’ve been gamed into reading some stranger’s crappy pitch for something I couldn't possibly need.

It’s frustrating, in large part because – as Bhargava writes – attention is our most valuable resource. I can’t get back the two minutes I spent reading a pointless email. Busy professionals don’t take kindly to interruptive and poorly vetted sales outreach, and if this megatrend holds true, that won’t be changing anytime soon.   

Salespeople are wise to be respectful of the limited resource that is attention. Be selective with outreach and engage people who are actually a fit for your solution. Provide value up-front as an exchange for their time. Be authentic and earn trust. 

Storytelling is one of Bhargavi’s top suggestions here, especially with a genuine personal touch infused. 

“To break through the noise, share your backstory, letting customers know how you do what you do,” he urges. “If you can share your story in an interesting way, showing your craft or trade with humility and vulnerability, you might be able to interest current customers or potentially new ones to spend more time (and money) with you.”

See What No One Else Sees

Every sales leader wants to be a step ahead, positioning their teams for success in an ever-changing environment. Glomming onto the latest superficial trend can be hazardous, but the predictions in Non Obvious Megatrends are well substantiated and – at least to me – intuitively valid.

“Too many trend predictions are based on laziness, wishful thinking or just plain obvious,” Bhargava writes in a Q&A on the Non Obvious Megatrends website. “This book was inspired by ten years of research and more than 100 past trend predictions.”

Because of this, it’s worthy of your (possibly scarce) time and attention. Grab a copy and uncover some non-obvious ways to improve your sales team’s results.

Stay plugged into the latest book recaps and recommendations for sales leaders by subscribing to the LinkedIn Sales Blog.

A force multiplier isn't just a fancy-sounding term salespeople use to describe their solutions. Defined as something that allows you to get more done with the same or less effort (like switching from a screwdriver to a power drill), force multipliers can be critical to business survival. 

Today, most companies have a dedicated sales ops team because, as SiriusDecisions notes, the sales ops team serves as a force multiplier for the sales team by acting as the critical link between the development of key sales strategies and their execution. 

When you consider that the number of companies with a dedicated sales enablement function grew threefold from 2013 to 2018, along with the myriad ways sales teams operate and need support, it’s no surprise that some companies are still finding their footing as it relates to hiring an impactful sales ops team. 

What Skills Should I Look for When Hiring My Sales Operations Team?

In defining what sales ops is, why it’s needed, and how it works, we also addressed the typical sales ops team structure. Though roles, titles, and reporting hierarchy may differ depending on where you work, most sales ops teams contain the following roles:

• A sales operations representative is typically an entry-level staffer who helps with generating reports, processing leads, or managing various aspects of the sales tech stack. 
• A sales operations analyst is generally more experienced, more data-driven, and is commonly tasked with modeling, analyzing, and making sales data more accessible to business leaders and cross-functional peers. 
• Because they’re responsible for the overall sales ops team, the sales operations manager needs a broad base of knowledge related to sales methodologies, behaviors, processes and analytics. 
• The VP or director of sales operations oversees the management of the sales ops team while also working with other senior leaders to ensure the team is strategically aligned across the organization. 

While your sales ops team will be set up to optimally serve your organization, in general, companies will want to make sure the following skills are all present and accounted for before officially introducing the sales ops team. 

Tech Savviness 

From top to bottom, the sales ops team is more technically adept than the sales team because it needs to be – sales ops is essentially the tech-savvy eyes, ears, and arms of the sellers themselves.

It’s common for sales ops team members to continually evaluate and customize the software the sales team uses while also automating various aspects of sales enablement. Companies need sales ops team members who can serve as liaisons between the sales team and the technology they use. Having this dynamic in place helps to ensure that any sales tech you’ve invested in is easy to use (so it gets used) and is properly fitted for performance (so it achieves ROI). 

Social Media Chops 

While social media savvy might be more important when hiring the actual sales team, it’s important to not overlook this skill when building your sales ops team. At a time when connections and relationships matter more than ever, sales ops candidates with an impressive LinkedIn profile and a high-value network come with an edge. This attribute not only signifies that the potential sales ops team member understands how selling works in the modern era, and might better be able to empathize with sales team members, but that they might also play a breakthrough role in landing actual deals.  

Organized and Detail-Oriented 

Theoretically, the more organized your sales ops team is, the fewer trivial details your sales team will need to deal with each day. Through careful analysis, the sales ops team can help you continually refine your team’s structure so that your company is positioned to sell now matter how much the sales landscape changes. 

The sales ops team should also be able to organize your sales data in such a way where sales team members don’t need to contemplate next steps nearly as often because the profitable action is either recommended or performed automatically. 

Analytical 

Today’s sales teams are bursting at the seams with data. Properly harnessed, this data can be used to create competitive advantages, as evidenced by the fact that high-performing companies are 1.6X more likely to leverage sales data than their low-performing competitors. 

By hiring sales ops team members with an intuitive ability to transform raw data into analytical insight, your company could go from “more data than we know what to do with” to “more opportunities than we can address within a single quarter.”

Collaborative Nature

While it’s always nice to have team members who work well with others, in some sales ops roles, collaborative skills are a must. For your sales ops team to truly become a force multiplier, you’ll need team members and leaders who can build bridges with other business units. This will become even more important as companies continue to break down the sales operations function into even more specialized teams, like revenue operations (RevOps). 

Have You Already Hired Some of Your Sales Ops Stars?

Do you have sales reps who struggle to consistently break quota but exhibit one or more of the above skills? Before putting them on a performance plan, consider whether a move to the sales operations team might empower them to flourish. In addition to finding the right person for your sales ops role, such a move could also offset some of the hiring and onboarding costs that come with building a sales ops team. 

For more advice on developing the ultimate sales squad this year and beyond, subscribe to LinkedIn Sales Blog.