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Technology has enabled B-TO-B buyers to use e-commerce for buying and researching products and services online. Technology has also allowed B-TO-B buyers to use social media to connect with vendors and salespeople on their terms. B-TO-B companies and salespeople need new skills and training to meet the expectations of the next level buyers. Important Points Driving B-TO-B revenue growth requires well-defined and ongoing sales training programs. After working with more than 800 sales managers and salespeople, we found less than half possess the capabilities required to drive growth. Providing sales teams with next-level capabilities takes effort, but the ROI is significant. B-TO-Bs having the most success provide a more consultative and solution-oriented approach with their customers. This requires strong product knowledge and a well-thought-out value proposition for the customer. Our research in interviewing thousands of salespeople and managers has shown there are two common threads in successful salespeople: organization and relationship skills. Over the past 30 years, the executives at Sellside have seen buyers shift from relying exclusively on salespeople for product knowledge and purchases, to using multiple channels in their buying process. B-TO-B customers often research and use websites, social media, reviews, and videos in addition to meeting and speaking to a salesperson. To become world-class in today’s digital environment, B-TO-B sales organizations will need to make two significant shifts in the way they lead teams and approach clients; become proficient in multi-channel sales and communications and implement a solution-oriented recurring revenue mindset. They will also have to strengthen their core skills of relationship building and organization. As less than half of the sales teams have the tools and skills to achieve these changes, significant training and development for B-TO-B sales organizations will be required. At Sellside Group we have a simple formula, Success = Work Effort + Attitude + Skills. We believe the people on any team need to have a great work effort and attitude and then it is the managers and the company’s responsibility to make sure the people with great work efforts and attitudes have all the tools, skills and training they need to be successful. Here’s what you need to give those top performers the skills required to deliver outstanding performance in this next era of B-TO-B Sales. 1. Become Proficient in Multi Chanel Sales and Communications As B-TO-B buyers have become more comfortable and proficient buying online and using social media, they have more transparency, more choices, more ways to communicate and more ways to get information. Sales teams need to embrace these new technologies and in addition to being out in the field visiting customers, use email, texting, chatting and phone calls to communicate with buyers. Social media platforms like LinkedIn are great ways to research a buyer, contact a buyer, get referrals and build trust through a shared network. In our research, salespeople fear new e-commerce systems will replace them. However, that is not the case. There are many strategies that can be used to integrate the salesperson into the e-commerce experience to build trust with the buyer, the sales rep., and their company. 2. Implement a solution-selling & recurring revenue mindset With the rise of larger e-commerce players, Companies need to develop programs that add value for their customers and build recurring revenue streams. Salespeople need to add value to their customers through service, training and dependability. Sales teams need to be highly trained experts in their field to add a level of dependability and service their customers expect. Great sales teams will partner with their customers to design a customized value proposition and relentlessly work to show and document the value. An MRO company we worked with was selling its customers one off products by using a method called pitch, demo and close. The sales team ate what they killed every day, and the company was always trying to figure out what was going to be sold each day to support the business. We developed a contractual based model where the sales team would make a friend, find the issues, show the solutions and ROI, and develop a proposal which included service, storage hardware and the products on a monthly contract. This solution-selling, recurring revenue model gave the commission-based sales team a stable income and allowed the company to better plan its inventory and properly support customers. The program benefited the customer by saving them money in parts, labor and downtime costs. 3. Become proficient at Relationship Building Making a friend is the foundation of any great relationship. With all things being equal people want to do business with people that they like and trust. It is surprising how many salespeople go right into a presentation about themselves, their company and their products without investing the time to get to know their potential customer both personally and professionally. For sales teams to become a trusted advisor they first must earn the trust of their customer and that starts with a solid relationship. Once trust and a friendship are built it is much easier to open new accounts and then build on those accounts. Your newfound friend/customer will also be happy to supply you with the holy grail of leads, “REFERALS”. Companies need to make sure they have a proven sales process that combines the relationship building skills with the solution selling and closing skills into a great sales process that can be taught the same way over and over again to both new and experienced salespeople. To Maximize the results there needs to be a program of initial training and continuing education. Just like great sports teams need to practice the same is true with great sales teams. 4. Become highly organized In our research with thousands of salespeople over the years and studying what the top performers had in common, some had great personalities, some were highly motivated, some had amazing work efforts, some came from the industry, some were new to the industry. We found there was only one common thread among all of the high performing salespeople and that one thing was Organization. All the top performers where highly organized. They knew exactly where they were going each day. They kept excellent records on their customers and prospects and knew everything about them, from their personal lives to knowing what they needed to do their jobs better. They knew what happened in the previous call and what they needed to do in the next call. Having a great CRM system, teaching the sales team how to use it and having the managers follow up to ensure the salespeople are using it in the right way makes becoming organized much easier for your sales team. Building a new program and implementing change When we make changes, training and implementation of the desired new skills and programs always starts with the Sales Managers. If the Sales Managers are onboard, they will work hard to get the salespeople on board. Bring the Sales Managers into the program early and give them input into designing and developing the program. Once the program is developed, have the sales managers go out in the field and use it and get some success. Make iterations based on their feedback to fine tune the program and then train the managers how to teach the salespeople the program and the new skills they will need to be successful.

You have spent large sums of time, money, and resources developing your strategic plan. More than likely, you included a bright and shiny new mission statement, some sort of value promise, and an a la carte of however many other vogue frameworks available to business owners. Unfortunately, all the effort you just devoted to your new strategy will add little to no value if you neglect to monitor its execution. But how can you, the business owner, possibly expect to monitor the implementation of your new strategy while caught in the whirlwind of every day operations? Doing so is no easy task. There will most certainly be aches, pains, late nights, and early mornings (correlated to your current level of discipline, of course). But at the end of the day, you are a leader. When you decided to be one, you decided to serve those around you. You put yourself in a position others look to for guidance. If I just made you feel overwhelmed, I apologize, but I do have three actions you can take to help maintain focus on executing your strategy: Accountability, Example, and Consistency. Disclaimer: These actions are not something you do once. Rather, they must become a part of you if they are to provide any significant value. Moreover, this line of thinking presupposes you entered this article already understanding the absolute need to mentor those you lead and delegate workload to them. Watch for coming articles discussing mentorship and delegation, but I digress. Accountability You are the one who developed the strategy and, as a result, know it better than anyone else. Therefore, it is up to you to hold others accountable for how they manage their portion of the plan. However, let me be clear, accountability is not synonymous with punishment or micromanaging. Instead, accountability begins at the top, with you. It is your job to ensure you and your team maintain focus on the execution of your strategy in spite of the wave of incoming daily tasks. Example A dangerous potential side effect of maintaining accountability is an increase in workplace stress. The best way to remove feelings of ill will in those you serve, is to lead by example. Be the perfect representation of what you preach. Let your team see the strategy was not designed for making more money at their expense, but for making a better company. A company they are a part of. Leading by example is a sure way to inspire others to perform at their highest level. Consistency Lastly, we have the most important action. It is also the most difficult because it requires you to ignore how you feel, forget about your bad day, and bring the same level of performance day, after day, after day, and oh yeah, the next day too. Once you allow flexibility in your expectations, the more flexible they will become and the importance of the strategy will grow increasingly less clear. What you demand today is what you must demand tomorrow, and so on. There is much that goes into the development of your strategy, do not allow all those efforts to be for nothing. Your plan is sound and your team is strong, monitor execution and enjoy the change that is important to you.

As a leader, it is important to explicitly communicate what you expect from your team. One of the ways we do so effectively is by setting goals. Overly simplified, goals align mission, vision, resources, and personnel. When talking goals you will generally be taught good ones include an objective, a quantifying metric, and a timeframe. This framework allows management to organize and plan, while also providing explicit tasks to employees. But something is missing because this framework does not address the volatility of the world in which we operate. The forces that shaped the landscape you crafted your strategy in are likely to change. So how do your employees address change while also executing your strategy as intended? Simple, include a new element in your goal framework: Your intent. Traditional Goal Setting Let’s look at goal setting through the lens of something more relaxed in a home setting. You are having company over for dinner to celebrate a birthday. Between cleaning, work, and many other tasks that require your attention you are spread thin so you delegate the shopping to your son and daughter. Their goal: Purchase enough food to cook for a group of 10 by 3pm. This is a good goal. You gave them an objective (purchase food to cook), a quantifying metric (enough for a group of 10), and a timeframe to complete the goal (by 3pm). With this information, your children can go off to the store while you manage other areas of interest with the assumption that you will be able to begin cooking at 3pm. So you think. The world is a volatile place where change is the only constant and anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Well today is no different and a truck crashed into the only grocery store in town, closing it for the rest of the day. As one would expect, your son and daughter come back to you so you may solve the problem for them. Now some task must suffer while you determine how you will feed your guests. If only there was a way they could have solved this problem on their own. Goal Setting With Intent Let’s revisit that goal we made earlier and add our intent: Purchase enough food to cook for a group of 10 by 3pm. The intent is for our guests to be full no later than 7pm. Now, when your children arrive at the grocery store and see it will be closed for the day they are not hung up on finding food to cook. Instead, they make a detour to a local restaurant and place an order for catering to be delivered to the house at 6pm. Knowing the intent of their goal has equipped them with the information needed to take individual actions that solve the problem. All without ever having to bother you. Adding intent to a goal is not a new concept; the military uses it all the time. Yet I do not see it included in nearly enough business strategies. Employees who know what to do are great, but employees who know why they’re doing what they’re doing are infinitely more valuable. Next time you are assigning goals, include your intended end-state and watch the decision making capabilities of your team increase exponentially.

One of the best ways a leader can execute a strategy and supercharge a company’s growth is to lead by example. This simple strategy earns you the respect and trust of your team. When I joined NCH in 2009 as the CEO of Asia, I knew that I would be managing 450 sales people. I was transitioning from owning an advertising agency to running a specialty chemical company and I wanted to earn the trust of the team. I learned the sales process, went out in the field and opened up 100 new accounts in 30 days. This gave me tremendous credibility when working with the sales teams in Asia. Each manager that I hired regardless of their title, had to learn our process and go out in the field. As a management team we knew what the sales people went through every day and were able to develop a strategy for success that the team believed in because we were able to go out and do it. I have had the pleasure of working with some amazing teams in APAC and the US and they have 3 things in common. They all work really hard, have great attitudes and lead by example.

Typically, it is not better product knowledge or more training on their sales process. These are the basic tickets to entry. What separates the successful from the unsuccessful is courage and how they spend their time. As a sales person, how you spend your time and who you spend your time with is totally within your control. Do you want to spend it with a customer that only has the potential to buy a small amount from you or do you want to spend it with a customer that can buy a large amount from you? Many sales people are intimidated to meet with big customers. The reality is the buyer at a big customer is the same person at a small customer. That buyer likes to do the same things in their free time, they love to talk about their families, their favorite hobbies and teams, and they have the same issues and problems at work and home. The only difference is the quantity that they order. It is your choice who you spend your precious time with. Be courageous!

Water Treatment programs for HVAC Systems can have a major impact on how efficiently facilities use energy and water while reducing their impact on health and the environment. ENERGY AND WATER EFFICIENCY The return on investment for Environment Friendly building, (Green Building) is closely linked with increased energy and water efficiency. In a typical facility, the energy used to operate HVAC systems accounts for 60% of utility costs. Water can easily total 5% of utility costs. Although water treatment is a small fraction of utility costs, the results received from water treatment programs have far-reaching impact in terms of operating costs, resource conservation, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. MORE ENVIRONMENTALLY RESPONSIBLE CHEMICALS Certain chemicals and technologies are considered more environmentally responsible than others. For example, treatment chemicals that more readily degrade when discharged into the environment are less hazardous to manufacture or use, or have lower usage/ packaging requirements can be considered environmentally responsible. Solid water treatment systems in particular offer several green benefits over the liquids traditionally used. Solids contain less hazardous chemicals and require less packaging material. This reduces both landfill waste and shipping weight along with the energy usage and CO2 emissions associated with product delivery. Combined with ease of use, these factors can make solids an attractive alternative to liquid chemicals.While it is important to minimize chemical usage and use environmentally responsible chemicals, it is essential that Green water treatment programs provide similar or better results in terms of system protection and energy/water efficiency. Otherwise, the environmental benefits from reducing chemical usage will be offset by increased energy, water, and material usage. GREEN WATER TREATMENT The following are some benefits of an effective water treatment program supporting green building objectives: Maintain clean heat transfer surfaces. Consider pretreatment equipment, filtration, chemical cleaning, and treatment program upgrades to maintain and restore optimum heat transfer efficiency. Maintain the minimum blowdown rate consistent with good deposit control in boiler and cooling tower systems. Install equipment upgrades that allow reduced blowdown. Consider alternate makeup water sources like harvested rain water or air handler condensate. Install automatic feed and control systems that precisely apply treatment chemicals. Use web-enabled, data-logging controllers to monitor and log key treatment and system parameters. Use concentrates to minimize handling, packaging, and shipping requirements. Consider solid water treatment technologies The water treatment program for a building’s HVAC system is integral to the operation of energy, water, and resource efficient facilities. Obtaining optimum results from a water treatment program has huge economic payoffs and helps meet green building objectives.