The leads are weak

Published: Wed, 12/21/22

December 21, 2022

TOGETHER WITH

Welcome back. A few hours from now, you’ll notice people logging out of Slack, setting their away messages, and not answering their phone (this last one is true for prospects year-round). The Holidays are here, and our gift to you is this newsletter, where we’ll look back on a sales study from the 60’s, share a Sales Fail about a look-alike, and give some advice to a rep who senses a conspiracy. Happy Holidays!

NUMBER OF THE WEEK

90% of emails that received replies were replied to within one day after they were opened.

Source: Yesware

SALES ROUNDUP

Here’s what’s happening in the sales world this week:

Remember Carvana, the company that promised to eliminate car sales reps in favor of online car shopping? Well, not only has their stock been completely obliterated over the last year, but customers are still having major issues with their purchases. Jalopnik recently covered the nightmare experiences of some buyers, including a customer who never received their title, then decided to return the car and get their old car back, only to find out that that car’s title had already been registered by somebody else. You can read the report here.
There’s a lot of belt-tightening going on, and it can be tempting (and perhaps necessary) to start discounting in order to close deals. SaaStr founder and serial entrepreneur Jason Lemkin, however, writes that discounting (and over-discounting) can oftentimes backfire, and that it shouldn’t happen in a vacuum. He uses real-world examples from his own business to make his case. You can read the full article here.

FEATURE

Stokkete/Shutterstock.com

What makes a good salesperson; a landmark study from the 1960’s still holds true today

“A very high proportion of those engaged in selling cannot sell….If American sales efficiency is to be maximized and the appalling waste of money and manpower which exists today is to be minimized, a constructive analysis must be made of what selling really is and how its effectiveness can be enhanced….We must look a good deal further—into the mysteries of personality and psychology—if we want real answers.” –Robert N. McMurry, “The Mystique of Super-Salesmanship,” Harvard Business Review March–April 1961

Nearly sixty years later, not much has changed. The sales profession, maybe because of its sheer scope, is filled with people who not only don’t take it seriously, but with many who don’t even bother to try.

So what does make a good salesperson, besides a smile and follow-through? Researchers David Mayer and Herbert M. Greenberg spent seven years trying to answer this question in the 1960s. They were amazed that the turnover rate among American insurance agents at the time was approximately 50% within the first year and 80% within the first three years – and had been for the previous 35 years.

So they set out to investigate “the mysteries of personality and psychology” that McMurry spoke of to see what innate qualities a salesperson possesses that makes them good at their job – and how to screen for those qualities in candidates even if the candidates themselves were trying to game the system.

Two Essential Qualities

Mayer and Greenberg discovered that a good salesperson must have at least two basic qualities: empathy and ego drive.

Empathy

Empathy is the ability to know what someone else is feeling because you have felt it before. Mayer and Greenberg compared an empathetic salesperson to the “new” heat seeking missiles on the market (they were new in 1960). A salesperson with little empathy is on a set path and doesn’t deviate from his course due to anything the target, or customer, does. Therefore, he is more likely to miss his target. An empathic salesperson, however, feels what the customer is feeling and adapts their course accordingly, the same way a heat-seeking missile launched slightly off-course will be drawn to the heat of the target’s engine, will course-correct, and hit its target every time.

Ego Drive

Those with ego drive see a successful sale as a personal achievement and an unsuccessful one as a personal failure. Does this sound like a recipe for disaster? It is, if the drive leans too far one way or the other. If an unsuccessful sale diminishes a person’s ego but pushes them to do better in the future, the ego drive is balanced. If an unsuccessful sale brings down a person so low that they are incapacitated for a time, the ego drive is too strong.

A balancing act.

A precise blend of these two qualities, each reinforcing the other, is what makes a salesperson successful. Salespeople with both empathy and ego drive have sufficient desire to make the sale and the tools to respond to their customer in a way that allows them to close the deal.

The Fallacy of Experience

Mayer and Greenberg also found that companies were placing far too much emphasis on a salesperson’s experience in the field rather than their innate ability to sell. Therefore, subpar salespeople were being hired and promoted for years in jobs they never should have held in the first place. Similarly, people in other types of roles at these companies were actually evaluated as being A-level salespeople, but because they had always been in accounting or HR, no one had ever given them the opportunity to try a role that was more suited to their abilities or interests.

Sixty years after Mayer and Greenberg’s study, it’s possible that things have changed. But if empathy and ego drive (we would probably call this motivation today) aren’t two of the critical components to sales success, then it’s hard to imagine what would be.

THE 10 GOLDEN RULES OF PRICING CONVERSATIONS

Gong analyzed over 519,000 recorded sales conversations and uncovered:

Phrases to avoid at all costs: Believe it or not, sales cycles lengthen by 19% when reps say any of these 3 phrases to a buyer at any point in a deal…
How to avoid giving discounts: These 2 words imply that someone else has the final say on pricing — and concessions are scrutinized…
When to bring up price: Successful reps only discuss price after establishing this key piece of information with the prospect…

Plus half a dozen other takeaways based on patterns Gong’s AI picked up.

Get all these data-backed sales insights in the Golden Rules of Pricing Conversations.

They’re especially useful in this stingy selling environment where buyers are conditioned to expect heavy discounts.

MEME OF THE WEEK

Source: Instagram -- Sales Humor

QUIZ

Which of the following items was NOT commonly sold by door-to-door salespeople in the 20th century?

A. Vacuum cleaners
B. Encyclopedia Britannica
C. Fuller brushes
D. Michelin tires

SALES FAILS

Each week, we bring you the most cringe-worthy sales moments from across the web. To submit your sales fail story for consideration, click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

Reading these reminds me of something that happened to me last year that I’m still kind of struggling to explain. I sell financial planning services and have built up a nice clientele over the last decade. I still live in the town I grew up in which definitely helps.

So a year ago I got a referral from one of my clients whose friends or neighbors (I don’t remember which it was) were looking to switch their financial planner. I was happy to take the introduction of course, and our intro call went well and I asked if they wanted to come into my office and discuss everything in person.

So they came in for a meeting and everything was going well. The guy was friendly and his wife was quiet but seemed very nice. But the whole time they were there, I kept looking at her trying to figure out why she looked so familiar.

About halfway through our meeting, I finally realized why. And without even thinking about it, I blurted out: “Has anyone ever told you that you look exactly like Laura Linney?” She is an actress who was on The Truman Show, Primal Fear and a few other things, and this woman looked just like her.

Well after I said that, everything changed. They got super weird and quiet for the rest of the meeting. One-word answers, and I kept catching them looking at each other. After we had gone over everything, they said thank you and walked out. I called and emailed them a dozen times, but I never heard from them again. I have absolutely no idea why me comparing her to Laura Linney offended them so much, but it definitely cost me a deal!

Anonymous Location withheld

GRAPH OF THE WEEK

Source: LinkedIn Poll -- December 2022

WORTH A PEEK

Email subject lines can be a struggle (trust us, we know!). So how do you get a prospect to open and respond without being manipulative, annoying, or deceptive? HubSpot has a great list of 70 subject lines that get opened, read, and responded to. Check them out for your EOY efforts here.

ASK THE QUOTA

Want to submit a question and be featured in our advice column? Click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

Dear Quota Team,

I work at an insurance tech company. Overall, it's a pretty good job, but there's one big problem I noticed almost right away. We outsource all our marketing to an agency that gives the sales team all our leads, and frankly, the leads suck. I've worked in this industry for 5+ years and at two other companies and have never had this problem before.

I've brought this up to my sales manager on a few different occasions. At first, I would mention it jokingly in passing. But I just had my year-end review with him and I told him straight up that the lead quality is a problem. He brushed it off and put the blame on me, saying I need to work harder and 'try to change my approach'.

I've since talked to some of my colleagues about it, and they agree the leads aren't the best quality, but most people are still hitting their quota and are afraid to speak up.

But here’s where it gets interesting: I recently found out that the CEO of the marketing agency that we use is really good friends with our sales manager. I have a feeling that he's oblivious, or even worse, ignoring the poor job the agency is doing because it's his friend's company. I suspect there might be some conflict of interest at play here.

Part of me wants to confront him directly about it, but I'm worried about getting on his bad side. The other part of me wants to go directly to our CEO and bring this up, since I feel like it's something he should know. What should I do?

Suspicious in New York

Dear Suspicious,

You’re probably not going to like this answer, but you should focus on what you can control, not on how your manager is choosing to run things.

Of course, it can be extremely frustrating to work for a company that is not only making obvious mistakes, but making them because of nepotism or some other personal relationship coming before the best interests of the company.

That being said, you’re not the manager, and by going over your boss’s head, you risk losing your job. Who knows, maybe the CEO is aware of the arrangement and is happy with it.

Still, you should focus on closing deals, since that’s really what you’re there to do. And if you don’t think you can succeed given the state of things, then it’s your right and responsibility to find a job that’s a better fit. The new year is right around the corner, so don’t hesitate to make changes that will improve your life. Good luck!

Quiz Answer: D – Michelin tires (you can read the source article here)

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How did you like today's story?

Today's email was written by Ken Kupchik, Erica Furgiuele, Steve Rado, and Emily Hill.

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