- December 6, 2024
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
We attended Boston Ballet’s Performance of The Nutcracker again this year.
We have been attending this performance as a family for nearly 23 years, a tradition my wife began that we treasure each holiday season!
I first wrote about The Nutcracker as an analogy to selling back in 2010 and have reposted it with my annual updates for the past thirteen years. Including the original, this is the fifteenth annual Nutcracker article and a reread is well worth it. I’ll begin with my annual update.
Annual Update
While little about the performance of The Nutcracker changes from year to year, selling has undergone many changes since 2010. I’ve written about most of the changes (inbound, technology, AI, LinkedIn, The Buyer Journey, web-based Transactional Sales, etc.) but it’s the things that have not changed that concern me the most as we approach the eve of 2025.
Despite all of my shouting from the rooftops with more than 2,000 articles and videos on the subjects, salespeople as a group STILL pathetic at:
- Taking a consultative approach – Most salespeople are naturally inclined to act transactionally which is fine if you’re selling iPhone cases. However, if you have something higher priced than your competition, a solution that is designed or engineered, a long sales cycle, a complex sale, is expensive, requires differentiation, a new company, technology, or approach, or a story to tell, a consultative approach is the only thing that will bring consistent results. Without a consultative approach, it is quite difficult to uncover compelling reasons to buy and urgency. Fewer salespeople – 42% – have the Consultative Seller competency as a strength than any other competency except the Closer competency (only 28%). Even worse, if we look at the bottom 50% of all salespeople, which is probably half of your sales team, it drops to only 31%.
- Reaching Decision Makers – It is very difficult to sell anything described above when salespeople aren’t talking directly with stakeholders/decision makers. Only 51% of salespeople have the Reaching Decision Makers competency as a strength, but if we look at only the bottom half of all salespeople, it drops to only 33%. When we combine the two in any combination, it gets worse. A consultative approach to the wrong person, or a transactional approach with a decision maker are no more than time-wasting exercises.
- Qualifying – Win rates at most companies are historically low and one of the reasons is a serious lack of qualifying. Only 52% of salespeople have the Qualifier competency as a strength, but if we look at the bottom half of all salespeople, it drops to only 37%. Combine the lack of qualifying with not using a consultative approach with a non-decision maker and you can surely recognize that most of these opportunities will fail to convert to wins.
There is much more and we can easily add Hunting, Relationship Building, and Value Selling to the list, but you get the point. While Kurlan & Associates significantly improve sales performance on our clients’ sales teams, the reality is that a relatively small percentage of the 4,000 or so US companies with B2B sales teams feel the need to change what they are doing.
With that said, enjoy the annual repost of my Nutcracker article which is as true today as it was in 2010. For the first time since the original 2010 article, I made some minor edits to allow you to read it more easily.
The Nutcracker Article
If you attend a performance of The Nutcracker or simply listen to some of the suite during the holiday season, one of the selections you’ll hear is “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.” Perhaps you can’t match the music to the title, but I’m sure if you listen to the first 30 seconds of this version, you’ll recognize the melody.
Even though you’ve surely heard it before, can you identify the four primary musical instruments at the beginning of the selection?
In this version, you’re hearing the Glass Armonica (invented by Benjamin Franklin!), while most orchestral versions and performances today feature the celesta, oboe, bassoon and flutes. Can you hear them?
Just as the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” sounds familiar to you, your salespeople find familiarity in the sounds, questions, comments and discussions on their sales calls. As much as you may not be able to distinguish the specific instruments creating those sounds in “Dance…”, your salespeople may not be able to distinguish the credible comments and questions from what we can safely call noise, empty promises, or fake news.
Near the end of a sales call, suppose your salespeople hear one prospect say, “This has been a very interesting and productive conversation and we might have some interest in this.” And imagine another prospect at the same meeting says, “We’ll get back to you next month and let you know what kind of progress we’ve made.” And still a third might say, “In the meantime, please send us a proposal with references and timeline.”
There are some great lessons from those three possibilities:
Lesson #1 (based on Objective Management Group’s data)
- 70% of salespeople begin working on the proposal and tell their bosses that their large opportunity is very promising because all 3 prospects in the meeting were very interested;
- 19% leave the call and make 2 entries in their CRM – “propose” and “follow-up” – and they’ll eventually do both;
- 11% continue meeting with their prospects, asking more questions and gaining clarification.
Lesson #2:
- Prospects’ voices are like musical instruments. Each instrument in “Dance…” has a specific role in the performance. If the wrong instrument or notes are played or they’re played at the wrong time, the entire selection is ruined. Prospects’ comments in the scenario above have different meanings depending on their business titles and roles in the buying process.
- If “please send us a proposal”, “we’re interested” or “very productive” are spoken from an Executive – the CEO, President or VP of something – it has a far different meaning than if the comment were to come from a buyer in Procurement.
- When any of those 3 comments are spoken by a user – an engineer for example – rather than a buyer or an Executive, the comments may be far more genuine, but carry little authority.
Lesson #3:
- Sometimes it’s more fun to listen to a song, symphony or simple melody to determine how and why the composer or arranger selected the particular instruments to play the particular parts of the selection.
- Your salespeople must apply that wonder and analysis to their sales calls. The prospect may be the composer (started the initiative), arranger (selected the vendors to talk with), director (charged with the initiative and conducting the process) or musician (users following directions of the conductor). It’s the salesperson’s job to figure out who they’re dealing with, what role they play, what influence they’ll have and how to get the various players aligned on the compelling reasons to buy and your ideal solution.
Which of the 3 sales outcomes from lesson #1 do you/your salespeople typically find themselves doing?
Which additional questions do those salespeople stay to ask?
I hope you enjoyed my annual Nutcracker article.
Sales lessons abound. I see them everywhere and all the time. I wish I could write about all of them but there simply isn’t time.
Whatever you celebrate, enjoy your holiday and have a Happy New Year!