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+44 (0) 1789 339 995
…where we catch up with passionate practitioners in sales management.
This edition, we catch up with Suzy Hunt, a qualified coach and DISC practitioner, who also had a stellar career in FMCG sales management at brand giant Lucozade.
Suzy is also one of our wonderful associates, and has been heavily involved with both sales improvement projects, (think helping clients design their own sales processes) and the coaching side, (think helping individuals flourish in their roles).
Suzy recently delivered DISC workshops for Volvo Truck, and we invited her to talk about why personality profiling can specifically help sales teams.
She says: “It is clear that ultimately, working with profiles like DISC improves commercial success and conversion rates”. When we ask her why, she goes on to explain, “by understanding the communication preferences of others their decision making strategies, preferred environments, motivations and fears, we gain a richer insight into people. This enables us to tailor our approach more intelligently and therefore build a better working relationship.”
Wait a minute! We can better understand things like decision making strategies? Because different personalities have different ways of processing information and reaching conclusions, and an understanding of this can really help salespeople influence customers more effectively. For example, some customers really appreciate detail and specifics to make a decision, other cannot tolerate it!
Suzy goes on to say “DISC is helpful, because people buy people, and it helps us to read, recognise and respond to people and situations better. In the end, it helps us flex our style to be more effective.”
To get the best results from DISC training, she advises sales teams to:
To find out more about how DISC (and other personality profiles) can help your team, contact info@sellinginteractions.com
At Selling Interactions, we are putting a lot of work this year into researching the use of technology in sales. Depending on who you listen to, there are around 8000 companies providing a vast array of technologies for sales organisations, which is why we have set up a “Sales Tech Agora” group (more of that later).
If you are involved in the selection and implementation of technologies, there are two research sources that are well worth a read.
“Mastering the Digital transformation of sales” (Habel & Guenzi – California Management Review 2020) is a great start if you are trying to figure out what to digitise and why. Sales organisations have many processes that can be automated, augmented or improved with technology, and this article will help you figure out where best to focus.
Also invaluable is “Consumer acceptance and use of information technology: Extending the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology” (Venkatesh, Thong & Xu – Management Information systems Quarterly 2012). This research is seen as a kind of gold standard for how to best implement technology (and why it is not implemented well) by paying attention to:
We are at a stage of development in sales organisations, where the best managers routinely continuously consider how technology can help their sales teams, and are also skilled in implementing it, to reap the promised rewards.
These two key research papers are a great place to start.
In recent years, the acronym MEDDIC is becoming more popular for those organisations selling technology solutions (e.g. SaaS firms). What is MEDDIC? Well, it’s a very precise methodology for qualifying high-value sales opportunities, with the promise of better forecasting and sales process management.
“The qualified sales leader” by John McMahon is the go-to book to lift up the bonnet on this approach to selling. It is one of the best books out there bar none to really focus on qualification. McMahon has earned the stripes to talk about this topic, having led several very successful sales organisations.
If you are having issues with forecasting, deals dropping out unexpectedly, and last-minute scrambles to reach target at quarter or year end, this book is well worth a read.
As mentioned earlier, a big focus for us this year is researching sales technology. To do this, we have set up a networking group called “Sales Tech Agora” (Agora was the meeting place in ancient Greek society). The group brings together business schools and universities to understand practical challenges and evidence based research to solve problems.
The group was founded by Johannes Habel and Anderson Hirst in 2022, and has on-line workshops once per quarter, to share challenges, and find researchers to investigate them.
It has turned into a great networking group, and is open to more members. It will appeal to people who are:
If you would like to find out more, please contact anderson.hirst@sellinginteractions.com
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