Entertaining Movies and Television

Movies are usually based on books and recently, TV series that offered by the streaming services are based on books too. Some of my favorite whodunit authors have had their books transformed into series, including Lee Child’s “Reacher,” James Patterson’s “Alex Cross,” a slew of Harlan Coben titles (like Safe, and The Stranger) and Michael Connelly’s the “Lincoln Lawyer.” Speaking of Michael Connelly, “Bosch” is on Amazon Prime. Not the eye drops, the books! Between Bosch and Bosch Legacy, there are seven seasons and until now, I wasn’t aware. I must have been living in a cave!

Speaking of being unaware and living in a cave, a similar thing happened to me in December. We were sending clients our Kurlan & Associates Year in Review and 30% of the emails bounced because the user was not found. To be fair, those emails went to current and legacy clients and most of bounces were legacy clients. When we sent those emails last year they went through so the majority of the bounces were CEOs, CROs, and Senior Sales Leaders that either voluntary or involuntarily separated from their companies over the past 12 months.

Why the fuss?

Hunting and Prospecting

As you can tell from the topics I write about, hunting and prospecting for new business come up quite frequently. It doesn’t matter who is tasked with doing it, the topic of the day, being unaware like me, is applicable.

When it comes to scheduling new meetings, salespeople cite many reasons for underperforming and among them are, “they weren’t interested” or “they were all set” or “they were happy with who they are using.”

Based on what I learned in the Kurlan email fiasco, there’s a 30% chance that if the salesperson calls that prospect again, one or more of the following seven scenarios could be true:

1. The prospect is no longer there – the salesperson gets a do over
2. Conditions have changed – their needs have changed
3. They are no longer happy – vendor screwed up
4. They are no longer all set – vendor couldn’t fulfill as promised
5. Their needs have changed – new expectations
6. The salesperson improved – that is the rule, not the exception
7. The prospect doesn’t remember the prior call – that is also the rule, not the exception

This article is really about #1 – when the prospect is no longer there – and that could happen 30% of the time! No longer being there doesn’t automatically translate to a sale, order or new account, but it does change the situation on the ground. The person who said “No” is no longer there to repeat their “No”, and while the replacement could also say, “No,” the replacement could also say, “Yes.”

Today’s article isn’t about sales strategy, sales tactics, sales process, or sales methodology. It’s about math. Yes, math! Based on our outreach to senior leaders, there is a 30% chance that a call-back to someone who said “No” results in having a different person to speak with, and there is also a chance that some or all of the other items on my list above have come true.

The same theory holds true for former customers and clients. The same 30% chance exists for the person who made the decision to move their business away from your company has left. So it’s about math, not technique.

Hunting is not for everyone, and it’s unfair to assume that everyone who is expected to hunt can and will hunt. Being effective at hunting is a whole different issue from whether a salesperson will perform the activity.

In my recent Harry Potter article, I wrote that 63% of salespeople are strong in the Hunting Competency but it doesn’t come close to telling the whole story.

The actual capabilities vary – a lot! That data is for all salespeople, regardless of role. If we focus on salespeople in hunting roles, including inside sales and BDRs, we are talking about a cohort of salespeople who are generally weak and in the bottom 50% of all salespeople. Sadly, from that group, only 53% have hunting as a strength.

Digging deeper, if we look at the attributes that make up the Hunting Competency, the scores are skewed higher because most of this subgroup are strong at “Will Prospect” and “Prospects Consistently” because that is their entire job description. They score very low in the attributes that make up effectiveness, including “Schedules Meetings” and “Maintains a Full Pipeline.”

The competency, attributes and data mentioned above come from Objective Management Group (OMG) and their assessments of more than 2.5 million salespeople. They measure 21 Sales Core Competencies and there is a free website that displays the data for all 21 competencies. You can see how your industry compares, how your company compares, and how the best and worst salespeople score.

Back to movies and TV Shows, I featured relevant scenes/clips from around 75 movies and TV series in my online, self-directed course, Movie Night for Salespeople. This course is the fun way to improve in sales as it has no lectures, no bullet points, no slides, nothing boring, and nothing tedious. Instead, there is at least one clip for every stage and milestone in the sales process, as well as for each of the 21 Sales Core Competencies. Each clip brings a milestone or competency to life and I provide a very short introduction to each clip followed by a very short review of the lessons that each clip provides. Sound like fun? See more at Movie Night for Salespeople.

As always, if you or your salespeople need help filling the pipeline with quality opportunities, we are here to help. Use this link to reach out.