Quicksearch guest lectures at Upsales Growth Day
Upsales Growth Day was held January 29 at the Clarion Sign in Stockholm, in connection with the next generation of Upsales CRM and Marketing Automation system being launched.
The day was a success and offered interesting content on growth and sales and also digital trends. Participants gained new insights, tools, and inspiration to apply directly into their organization.
Quicksearch’s CEO, Göran Almén, was invited as one of the speakers on the event under the theme How to create a drive in a sales organization?
Göran Almén has 30 years of sales experience and has held various senior positions in the telecommunications industry, such as, Tele2, Telenor, Vodafone and TeliaSonera. Göran began by telling how his sales career started, how alone he felt, and the lack of feedback. Göran was terrified of is sales manager, who at that time was more of a judge you met once a month, and hoped that his career would be short-lived. Despite this start, he managed to turn it into something positive and became increasingly interested in sales.
Göran experienced with time that there were a lack of knowledge and insight about what can be achieved by measuring continuously and give feedback directly in the organization, which led to that he started working at Quicksearch whom are experts in this particular area.
The sales role has change a lot over the years, says Göran. Today customers and the own organization demand more from the salesperson. The customer has the power and the salesperson needs to bring new insights, knowledge and ideas that create value. Göran believe that the salespersons have the right to demand right back at the organization in the form of a modern sales support and a coaching sales manager. “80% of the company’s market and sales department feel that they deliver more value than the customer pays for, and more value than their competitors, while s little as 8% of the buyers believe that their suppliers deliver more value than they pay for”, tells Göran.
Sales managers need to adapt to the development and become better at creating a drive and motivation in the sales team. Many sales managers are still working after the 80s models and get triggered by reports of statistic and reports. “Building experience is not to repeat what they learned 20 years ago”, says Göran. In today’s business world, it is important that the sales manager is interested in the customers and involved with building the business together with the salesperson. As sales manager you need to support your salespersons through the whole process and help by, for example, use their own network. To be successful today the customer needs to be involved in the process and be given opportunity to influence. We must always have the customer in focus and control the business and organization to be able to meet the customer’s demands in the best way. We at Quicksearch see what huge impact on business it has to have the customer early and continuous in the entire dialogue.
Generally, the salesperson has developed from being a lone wolf to becoming a team player. Today it’s all about teamwork and transparency between different departments within the company. The entire organization should be able to contribute in the sales process whereas special interests cannot control the contribution.
Gorans example of how to facilitate business decisions and streamline the sales process is through minimizing the risk. The more complex and the more risk the buyer feels she is taking, the more difficult it is to finish.
Sales managers need to give the salesperson mandate and thus give him the opportunity to be a businessman/businesswoman. The point of having a physical salesperson is to give the customer ideas, thoughts, and wise advice and to be able to tailor smart decisions. A modern salesperson can negotiate and give of himself and therefore impossible to automate.
What is the most important in the monitoring of sales teams, according to Göran, is to actively working with what is in the pipeline and not to get stuck in the incoming reports. The key is to put focus on the sales board, on-going and future businesses and activities. If you do the right things and find the personal way to every individual, then the sales will come automatically.
Other tips from Göran are to work with current feedback from customers and salespersons, focus on creating business and to make it fun. Furthermore, live closely to the customer and always prioritize customer meetings. To continuously take feedback from all contacts from customer is the key in that effort.
Quicksearch helps to constantly ensure that you don’t focus too much on the goal but also see that the customer is in on it during the entire journey, from the first meeting to delivery, support, additional sales, and education. Watch the clip with Göran Almén here.