Carl J. Cox  8:59

Oh, man, you’re talking my language. Okay, so let’s let’s talk about the data side, right? What are some typical things in the data side that you see missing as a roadblock to success in a sales strategy that you see?

Christine Miller  9:15

Mm hmm. Um, yeah, so there’s many there’s, there’s several steps in the sales process. So there’s pre call planning and research. There’s a lot of missing that if you’ve ever been on the end of a poor outreach, play an email or LinkedIn message, or even a cold phone call, you can tell who’s done their homework, who knows that they’re going to bring you a solution or there’s a potential, you know, way for you to work together. So planning before you reach out asking the right questions, and that’s called survey discovery. You know, there’s I think Discovery’s a hot name for it now. So digging deep because some people have those conversations, they never asked the right questions. actually going through and how to present is it a Me, me, me, me, me, you know, 30 minute or 40 page deck, and that’s really not a good presentation, how they handle those objections or roadblocks that pop up? Do they know how to close and I mentioned advancing the sale and this is where a lot of people get stuck is. Do they know the difference between advancing or continuation? I mean, they’re concrete steps that move a deal forward. That’s advancing. And there’s a continuation and those are like, call me in a week. Let me think about it. I’m send me some information, those real loose of me, you know, but people get excited sometimes. Oh, they they’re interested. It’s not. That’s Tory

Carl J. Cox  10:46

laughing because I have used that many times I, you know, on LinkedIn, I get, I don’t know how many calls and notes a day where everyone wants to meet with me tomorrow. Right? You know, and yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Of course, of course, my schedule is exactly open to me. Everything that you want to know what’s interesting is I really do truly want to meet as many people as I can. So So I mean, that sincerity, but there’s this audaciousness of somebody who’s calling in their style, like, Oh, don’t you want to know your schedule? But didn’t you pre plan for a sales call tomorrow? You know, it’s like, well, what are you selling? And why do I need it? And why listen at the time, right to go forward with doing it. And it’s amazing. I’m like, Well, I just want to get to know you. It’s like 13 plus 1000 connections on LinkedIn alone. I can’t meet everybody. Right? You know, it’s impossible. Unless I’m doing it every putting everybody in a stadium, right? And that’s not gonna happen. So it’s, it’s fascinating on this process, so, okay, we hit these different pieces, all the different stages. Yeah, right. Okay. Let’s talk about the one that that coffee’s for closers. Right. Okay, you know, over said way too many times. Way too many times. But But let’s talk about that from a data side a little bit. So we’re trying to measuring closing, right, the actual you’ve got a solid interested prospect. They actually liked the product, but there’s something hung up in something’s not closing. So what are the key let’s talk about the data set, what type of things you’re measuring from, from a data perspective that you go? Hmm, what, what are we seeing that’s consistently happening? that’s stopping the closing process for perhaps, you know, there’s some person on the sales side, and they’re, they’re unable to close it? How can you tell that’s happening?

Christine Miller  12:42

Well, if you do collect that data, you’ll see a lot of positive things. And that salespersons history, like they make a lot of appointments, they do a lot of discovery demos, and they create a lot of proposals, but then it dies on the vine, right. And so we know, there’s a percentage that will not move forward. But if you see everything going right, and this person is doing, you know, get hitting all those other numbers, and they are not closing comparatively to like other people on the team or in the industry, then there’s something with their closing process, or in the process, leading them up to closing. So maybe they’re not pre qualifying their customer enough mean. So the interesting thing about closing is that everyone thinks closing happens at the end, the closing is really starts at the very beginning of your process. And I use the analogy of, you know, asking someone to marry you, you don’t ask someone to marry you. Until you’ve gone through a whole process, you’ve gone on dates, you’ve you’re pretty serious. You know, there’s all of these things that happen so that when you say, will you marry me, you’re pretty sure they’re gonna say yes, right? You don’t do it expecting a no. And so with sales, though, right? How many times do we go in for the close? with our fingers crossed? We don’t really know. But we’re hoping and so you know, it is a process that starts at the beginning, pre qualifying the right customers and having the right conversations. And that’s why all these pieces come together. Because if I’m not able to make a connection between a problem that I’m solving, it becomes a want versus a need. So you’re saying here’s a customer, he’s like, into the product, everything seems to look good, and then it doesn’t close? Well, we demonstrated that this is really something important for that customer. Have we shown an ROI on their investment that makes it really difficult for them to say no, and it’ll track I mean, you’ll see if you study the data, you’ll see that the tracking and the trending that someone will take them till the very end and and then it won’t happen and it could be their closing technique, or it could be that they’re talking to the wrong people or they’re not doing it properly throughout the process. And That’s why it’s not happening.

Carl J. Cox  15:01

And so when you go into a situation like that, and let’s say you have the superstar and, and they’re doing all great from the front end metrics, and once again, the closing doesn’t appear Well, you end up diving in deep with them to figure out what’s failing in those different stages.

Christine Miller  15:21

Sure, yeah. I mean, there’s simple questions. You know, you can look at the proposal, right, you can ask, What problems are being solved? What was the reason it didn’t close? Right? Did they say at the end, that it was the money did suddenly another owner partner board of directors or something pop up that were involved in the decision making process that that salesperson didn’t know about? Because they didn’t ask the right questions earlier on, right? And then that other decision maker can actually not be on board? And so that makes the deal go south? Did we not demonstrate that really, we’re solving a problem that’s really going to make life much easier for them business better? Yeah. So it is asking a lot of questions and digging in. And usually it doesn’t take that much work to see where the breakdown is, it’s it’s usually pretty obvious.

Carl J. Cox  16:15

I think that’s probably encouraging, right? For for those who aren’t aware of right, you know, like think things are failing, but from your expertise, you can see where along the stages, it’s failing, and then you can dive into that and see the progress. So you mentioned something earlier about. And I love this, because I see this often, too, that sometimes the invisible or most important things are not being tracked in the CRM. So give give the audience one or two examples of something like that, where it is truly the most important thing, but it’s not being tracked. And it’s the true reason, it’s what I’d say is it’s a significant reason why outcomes aren’t positively taking place.

Christine Miller  16:58

Yeah. So there are five invisible roadblocks that I’ve identified that are thinker are critical. So one is vision, right? Where do you want to go? To his strategy, Carl? Right, because I need to know how I’m gonna get there.

Carl J. Cox  17:15

Absolutely.

Christine Miller  17:16

Right, then the third is process. Then the fourth is fear. Now, fear comes shows itself in a lot of different ways. So there’s, there’s not a week that goes by that someone isn’t telling me they’re scared of being salesy, right, there are people that are fear technology, there are people that fear change. So fear is the fourth one. And then the fifth one is personal accountability. Because as much as we think we’re amazing sales leaders, managers, business owners, you know, truly literally, at the end of the day, the results in the outcome rests on the shoulders of the person that is supposed to be performing the work. And so all of them play into, you know, not being as successful as you’d like to be. So if you don’t know where you want to go, if you don’t know how you’re going to get there, if you don’t have a process, if you have these fears that are holding you back, and then you’re not holding yourself accountable to do the work that needs to get done. It’s not going to happen, and it’s not going to happen to the level that that you want it or the organization wants it.

Carl J. Cox  18:18

Folks, this is why Chris and I just hit it off on day one, because if you’d be able to see my board, for those who are watching on YouTube, I’ve got seven stages of strategy. And you named five of the seven in a slightly different way. And and it’s you nailed it, though. I mean, it’s you got to know I love it, where you’re going, how you’re going to get there. Are you going to follow it? I have fear thing is one of the most not talked about areas. But so significant in our studies, only 20% of organizations actually start their strategic initiatives on time. Now, that doesn’t surprise me, but it’s sad. That’s Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it’s crazy. Right. And but I think it’s because they don’t do that upfront, and they’re afraid to change. You know, it’s, it’s, you’ve probably heard the story of Cortez, and he, you know, a long time ago, went to in South America, and he burned the ships. He burned the ships, you know, you’ve heard this phrase more than once in history. And the reason why is because you can’t go back right, you have to be willing to dive in, take a risk, and that’s on both sides, a salesperson has to be willing to, to ask, right or properly, you know, make sure there’s success and then the other side of the customer is taking a risk. I think that’s sometimes the most dangerous the customers are afraid of failing on that purchase. And And boy, if we don’t understand that properly, and help them overcome their fears, they’ll never move with you. You know, though they’ll never talk about it, they’ll go through and that’s a huge problem on a regular basis. So anyways, I love it. And I love that you have it there and obviously we’re going to be working together more because we’re doing the same thing but I will Once again, my focus is not on sales, it’s more in than the overall corporate strategy. But I love it how you have that. So let’s the personal accountability part. Okay, so this, I can’t tell you how many times it’s like, well, they’re just not getting it done. You know? Let’s say you have somebody who is performing really well, actually on three or four of those, but for whatever reason, there’s personal accountability issues that’s taking place could be a management can be, how do you coach your clients, when that’s going wrong? And how do you create something? So I, ideally, personal Academy always going to improve, so they’re going to have a more likelihood of success?

Christine Miller  20:43

Yeah, and we see it. So we think personal accountability, often with low performers, because that’s usually a part of it. But yeah, we can have high performers that lack in personal accountability as well. And in sales that can also be often be hidden by big numbers. So someone might have a couple of really large accounts that carries them, they do well and makes them hit their numbers. And that can be buried into team numbers as well. So that manager looks good. But does that mean they’re doing everything that they’re supposed to be doing? To continue to grow the business? No, it doesn’t. And often, there are things that they’re not doing. So yeah, how do we address that? So first, we have to identify it. And then we have to try to figure out why it’s not getting done. So going back to fear. So sometimes, people aren’t doing what they’re expected to be doing because they’re uncomfortable doing it. So let’s say that someone’s supposed to make, you know, 20 outbound calls a day, and this person is great in every other way. But they’re just not making those outbound calls. Why are they making those outbound calls? Well, I don’t want to seem salesy. I think it’s cheesy, I don’t have a good script. I don’t have a good lead list. Right? So the personal accountability can be tied to some of these other things. So that could be tied to a fear, or confidence or lack of training and support. That’s why it’s not getting done. And I love to ask, I’d love to ask that question. To leaders and business owners when they say, Well, you know, my team is supposed to be doing this, and they’re just not doing it. And I’m always say, then I ask them why? You know, and just be quiet. Why? Have you asked them? Why? Right,

Carl J. Cox  22:31

right, right. Yeah, yeah. Holy cow. Yeah. And I love that high performer being masked by a few big accounts. Right. And, and they’re, they’re mailing it in, you know, for 70% of the day, right? Because they can and because they look good already. And once again, give him credit for what they did, you know, to help get to it. But but so 100 farmer, right. Okay, so that concept, can you explain the audience what a hunter is versus a farmer? And how does that impact when we’re trying in different different parts in sales, you know, when they’re when they’re out outbound versus account management? And and Do you ever? And first of all, why explain that? And I’m kind of curious if you end up analyzing that a little bit more, because you sometimes realize you have the the, the right person, but they’re in the wrong spot.

Christine Miller  23:29

Yeah. Yeah. So a hunter, someone that goes out and you know, if you think about it, right kills. So a hunter in a sales format is they’re going out to get the business, they’re going out to kill business and bring you back home. And the farmers the nurturer. So the farmers, the one that once we have the business in house, they’re taking care of it, they’re growing it, you know, they’re, they’re taking that initial investment, they’re selling them other products, they’re upselling, they’re keeping them happy, they’re retaining them as customers. And there are, you know, some people are bred blessed with the ability to do both and do it well. And there are other people who really do Excel and love one side or the other. And they love going out and talking to new people. And they find it fun and challenging. And making all those calls or reaching out to people on LinkedIn, or whatever outreach form they have, and they go out and get the business. But they don’t want to just take care of them day to day and the farmers just love to grow and take care of the business and they sell but they sell in a different way. There’s already established base of business. And so they can figure out other ways to bring value to them and grow that and retain it. And sometimes people are in the wrong the wrong seat. Because they don’t know it. Maybe when they applied for the job or the manager didn’t really know it or see it or you know, when they were being recruited. They weren’t asked the right questions, or they didn’t look at the right data from a recruitment standpoint.

Carl J. Cox  25:00

Do you ever do assessments to figure that out to figure out hunter versus farmer?

Christine Miller  25:04

I don’t use assessments, like formal assessments. I know what you’re talking about. I’ve taken a lot of them. I do think there’s a lot of value in them. But I, you know, I can ask a lot of questions and get a sense of what people like to do and what they’re good at. It doesn’t take that much digging. Certainly, if you want more information, those assessments are wonderful for that.

Carl J. Cox  25:25

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, thanks. I was curious on that side behind it. So this has been awesome. So I’m going to ask the there’s obviously everyone wants higher sales, right? No matter where you’re at, whether you’re flat, to go or middle to grow more, or to really 10 exit, right and go crazy. But leading indicators, which is why what do you talked about the pre call asking the right questions? This may may be a little bit unfair. But I’m gonna ask you that question.

Christine Miller  25:58

Oh, Bring it on, Carl,

Carl J. Cox  26:00

what is the most important success metric for any organization, if they’re trying to increase sales that they have to be measuring regularly?

Christine Miller  26:13

new business, I’m calling my new business, Carl. And I’ll tell you what I say often, and everyone’s not set up the same. And often there’s like a goal, right? We keep talking about people making their goal, a goal. And so if you haven’t have a whale of an account, and you’re pretty good at managing that account, you’re gonna make that goal. Now, this really overall success. And again, it varies depending on the organization. And there could be like multiple people doing multiple roles. But there’s a lot to it. So there’s always turnover, there’s, there’s always customers leaving for one reason or another. So in order to stay flat, you have to get new business, that’s just to stay flat. So if you want to grow, you certainly need new business, but you also need other metrics. So my recommendation to those organizations that have one number, is to change their KPIs and break up that goal into different pieces, right. So we want to look at year over year sales, we want to look at upsell, we want to look at the new business. And then we’ll look at the total number, but we want to break it up. So we can really see what’s happening. Because if we have someone that continues to lose accounts, right, that’s why you’re over years important to then there’s something going on there, then there, they need help servicing that account of we have someone that is not bringing in new business, we’re gonna see that account list that book of business decline. And it might be fast, it might be slow, but we’re going to see that decline. And so that’s why I say new business, just because attrition happens, there’s no way around it. And more and more, I see this value put on new business. Now, that can’t be the only one, the only metric as well. All these other pieces are important because it’s silly to beat your head chasing down new business if you’re not getting the most value of an existing client already. So you have to be doing all these things. And you have to retain what you have. So your your year doesn’t go down. But new businesses came because there there is turnover and attrition. We need to keep that funnel full, we need to keep those numbers level not you know, obviously growing. So that’s my answer. I don’t know what you think about that?

Carl J. Cox  28:28

That’s a great answer. It’s a great, I think a great answer, I think you always have to be once again be on continuously creating new value in sales at the end of the day is about growth, you know, developing new relationships, you know, and and, and then of course, like you said beforehand, there’s many times we have a big account and where it could be a relatively large company, and we’re touching one small department, you know, one manager, right and 1000 person, company, and it’s like, well, you haven’t even really developed or put that product further into the organization, right, where it can add more value. And and so assuming it has an opportunity. So yeah, I think I think that’s an excellent, quote, answer. So, Chris, let’s now go to the personal side. Okay. So always love that you got a lot going on, you’ve got a family, you’ve got. You have even an author, your podcast, of course, you have to manage your clients and in all the different roles and areas that you’re doing. You do a ton of teaching. How do you keep this all together? You know, what are the things that you’re doing to help keep up your energy and to make sure you can personally successfully achieve the things you’re doing for your clients?

Christine Miller  29:47

Yeah. So I’m not one of those people that gets up at like four o’clock 430 in the morning. I’m always a little jealous and embarrassed. And then I meditate for an hour I don’t I wish I kind of wish I could do that. But I don’t only if I’m getting Got a plane am I up that early in the morning when it’s dark at, but I do, I do exercise every day, I work out for about, I don’t know, 35 to 45 minutes, and then often go for a walk later in the day or in the evening. And for me that is just helps me in so many levels with stress, with my ability to think you know, just feeling good about myself and energy. So that’s important to me. And a few years ago, I made a commitment to myself to not skip it, because it can be like the easy thing to push out of your day when you’re busy. So like, I don’t move, I don’t skip it anymore. Um, I drink about a half gallon of water a day. Bad. And I have like a jug that I keep on my desk, and I keep filling up my mug. So when you see me with my mug, that’s water that’s like coffee or anything else? Well, I’ll tell you, this is something that’s interesting that I read. A few years ago, I read this article about this woman that gave tours to people and they went with her and she would teach them to bathe in the forest. So it was kind of weird, I started reading it. And what you do is you take people out into the woods, and have them just be surrounded by the sounds of nature. So they would essentially take in everything around them in nature. So they listen to the birds, the crunch of the leaves, the smell, the pine, all that wonderful stuff. And scientifically, it just like bring stress level down. So last year as a joke, and I have teenagers, so if you’ve teenagers, you know how well this must have gone over. I’m getting my entire family to spend more time outdoors. And we do anyway, I live in a beautiful state. And we’re it’s easy to do that. But um, so I do that as much as I can now which is just a walk in the woods or take a walk in, you know, so I’m obviously not in front of my screen, and just disconnect for a little bit. And you know, it could be on the weekends. I’m not doing this in the middle of a workday. But, you know, that’s one of the things especially in this past year that has really helped me stay grounded and centered bathing in the forest.

Carl J. Cox  32:07

I was a little concerned for our audience and where this was gonna go but thank you for clarifying what that meant.

Christine Miller  32:16

No, everybody keeps their clothes on. You just absorb it

Carl J. Cox  32:19

and yeah, and then we show you cleaning your teenagers like this is gonna get very uncomfortable.

Christine Miller  32:24

It’s gonna get weird fast girls like i don’t know, i d I’m taking my taking my Thank you back.

Carl J. Cox  32:33

Oh, that’s good. Ah, thank you. I appreciate you sharing the good and I you know, cuz here you are in Vermont. I know it gets cold up there. And so you’re still finding a way to get out right? Or to get to a job or something like that when there’s two feet of snow outside.

Christine Miller  32:49

Yeah, long as it’s not bitter cold. The snows not bad. The bitter closes. Yeah, I won’t do that. But yeah, it’s beautiful. Yeah, beautiful.

Carl J. Cox  32:56

Yep. Okay, so I always like to ask our guests what what’s either a past book or current book, you’re reading that you just like, you need to tell our guests about that they need to read? Yeah.

Christine Miller  33:09

So there’s a bunch, right. And so I was like, ah, what’s a good book. But I’ll tell you, and it keeps them theme what we were talking about today’s The Go Giver. And it’s very popular book. It’s a small, short, easy read. I didn’t know about it till about a year and a half ago. And I’ve just obsessed with it. And I’ve read it through a couple times already. And it talks about the five laws of stratospheric success, but it’s told in a parallel story, like Who Moved My Cheese. And most people can read it really quickly. So I recommend reading that because all about value and serving and it’s something I talk about a lot in sales. And that’s how you are not salesy. When you become a subject matter expert, and you’re there to help your potential client or your client, you’re not selling you’re helping them and it’s bringing value and those deep personal relationships and caring about other people. And so The Go Giver represents all that. So that’s why I really love it.

Carl J. Cox  34:07

It is excellent. It is it’s funny, because it’s been around for a little while, but it is I same thing I think the last 18 months I just you know, went through it and loved it. And I the principles behind it. What’s gonna highly recommend is not in super quick read. I agree with you, Chris. Super quick read, but it’s it. It focus on what’s really, really important, you know, and what’s interesting is focus on the really, really important is what ends up bringing true success. And so kind of going into this there’s, hopefully the audience has been figured out here. Actually, I’ve never said this before, and I’ll go and share it. I remember going to a funeral. I’m very successful. VP, VP of sales. He unfortunately he died early, but he had melanoma cancer. His name Larry Stark and you His career trajectory was remarkable. Like it was, it was remarkable. And he had been in many different industries. And few different career types, but for the most part had been in sales good part of his career. But, Larry, when he passed, and there was all these people that filled the church to celebrate his life, not one person talked about his sales number, not one person talked about how he had tripled companies, not one person had talked about these measuring success, things from business, I would they talked about within the businesses, how they, he impacted their life. And that was the real thing. And so hopefully, once again, for those who are listening, there’s bigger things and The Go Giver is a great example of that is that there’s things that are bigger in life, and it doesn’t matter, you can get have all the money in the world, and you could still be unhappy. And so learning to find, right, the measure of success is so huge. And that’s why I hope, you know, people enjoy this podcast because it’s bigger than just hitting your numbers. And I’m a numbers guy. But you have to, you know, you but you have to do you have to do the right things to get towards that. So awesome. Great suggestion. I love it. Love that book. Hey, where’s the best place I can find you? Where are some great places, Chris said people can reach out and find more.

Christine Miller  36:28

So you can find me at my website, Millersalesconsulting.com. And I’m happy to have conversations with people to just to connect, see if it makes sense to work together those free consultations. So reach out to me, you can do that very easily. On my website, you can find me on LinkedIn. I also have a LinkedIn live show called Naked Sales, see my mug. So you can check out some of my shows there Carl actually be a guest. Soon enough, we’re going to continue talking about sales in a different manner. And YouTube, I’ve got a bunch of videos on YouTube too, that are Monday sales motivation, little sales tips that I do, you can find replays of my Naked Sales show there as well. So hopefully should be pretty easy for you to find me. And I would love to have conversations.

Carl J. Cox  37:14

Now you’ve talked about Naked Sales and being like in the woods. I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, I

Christine Miller  37:20

keep our clothes. That show too. We just stripped down the art of selling sell. You know, that’s all we do. Thank you. Thank you for clarifying that. Thanks for clarifying that. I think sales should be fun. I think work should be fun. I think life should be fun. So, you know, for someone I you know, if you’re really buttoned up and conservative, you might not want to hang out with me all that much. But you’d have fun if you did. And you’re from I’m originally from New Jersey. So I’ve lived here for a very long time. I’ve lived here since I graduated college. So yeah, you get the best of both.

Carl J. Cox  37:58

Absolutely. Absolutely. So this has been Christine Miller from Miller Sales Consulting. Chris, this has been a pleasure to having you on the show. Thank you so much for being on it. And to everybody else, we thank you to listening to the Measure Success Podcast wishing you the very wishing you the very best and measuring your success. Have a great day.

Outro  38:21

Thanks for listening to the Measure Success Podcast. We’ll see you again next time to learn from the best. Remember to subscribe now to get future episodes.