by Kraig Kleeman
CEO, Blaire Group

At a recent family reunion, my teen-age niece subverted adult authority and hacked her way into my brother’s surround sound system. We oldsters were pleasantly surprised when her iPod hi-jacking produced Aerosmith’s high-voltage song Dude Looks Like a Lady on the household speaker system. It was an exceptional family moment to watch both teens and adults enjoying the same tuneage. Yeah-baby!

The song lyrics make it clear that lead singer Steven Tyler is lamenting about a time when he was, well… surprised! While out bar hopping with his buddies and cruising for a lady, he found himself “hitting” on a male with an effeminate appearance whom he mistook for a female. The song was originally slated to be named Cruisin’ for a Lady. But after his brush with the effeminate male, the song was reworked and renamed to Dude Looks Like a Lady.

My job is to carefully and cautiously comprehend what is really happening with sales teams, and benchmark their behavior against industry averages. Unlike Tyler, in my numerous examinations of sales teams’ techniques, I have never wrongly confused anyone’s gender. I’m glad about that! But most sales teams, candidly, need to deal with their own set of mixed-up confusions. With Aerosmith lyrics at my aid, below are a few areas of selling confusion that sales leaders would do well to consider remedying.

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#1 Talk This Way

There is a wrong obsession with number of dials. This fixation, sadly, is at the expense of quality talk-time. I often recommend that sales leaders reduce the daily goal for number of dials. After Must-React certification, sellers are no longer tossed to and fro when cold-calling. Must-React insists on a call structure that gives the seller mastery at the craft. The elapsed time associated with prospect conversations increases substantially. While I do advise that you diligently track number of dials, quality talk-time metrics are far more productive to track. They will give you a far clearer picture into your sellers’ productivity. If you have not identified quality talk-time competencies, we advise that you consider a Must-React engagement as soon as possible.

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#2 Sing for the Laughter? Or Sing for the Tear?

With clear references to sin, rapture, and mortality – Aerosmith’s hit song, Dream On climbed to #6 on the billboard charts in 1976. Old Testament characters Job and David made various references to heartfelt singing: songs of laughter and songs of tears and sorrow. I don’t want to sound like a hard guy here, but many sales managers are singing songs of sorrow because of poor production amongst their sales teams. They blame it on the economy. They blame it on a weak product. W R O N G! The sad reality is that that poor technique, wrong tracking metrics, weak systems for accountability, and an inability to monitor and enforce competence in cold-calling is the true enemy. Those who have been certified in Must-React know that tears can be converted to laughter quickly.

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#3 Take a Big Chance

No, not at the high school dance. Rather, at the initial sales call. Fasten your seat belt: We advise that you totally eliminate the notion of a “sales call” in the context of cold-calling. Why? The reality is that our culture does not respond favorably to “sales pitches” of any kind. Your targets will respond, however, to presentations that contain research that is relevant to their professional mandates. We help our clients build and present analyst-briefings. They are far more productive at gaining access to targets buyers. When built and presented properly, analyst-briefings are wildly effective for getting in and qualifying for a true sales opportunity.

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We had one client who was VP Sales for an enterprise-class software company take a very big chance! Under our leadership he reconstructed his entire prospecting model into The Must-React System. He eliminated some of his weaker field sales performers to justify the expense of working with us, and reconstructing his team. In a 12-month period his newly certified team delivered 1,680 analyst-briefings which yielded $30 million in pipeline. Now, fasten your seatbelt one last time: Those same analyst-briefings yielded $10 million of new license revenue. That particular sales manager collected a $100,000 bonus check that year, on top of his normal commission plan! He sends me a case of fine wine every Christmas.

As a footnote on Aerosmith, I was surprised when I completed some research on the band. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA.com) they are the best-selling American hard rock band of all time, having sold 150 million albums worldwide, including 66.5 million albums in the United States alone. They also hold the record for the most gold and platinum albums by an American group. Wow!

Who would have thought that Aerosmith had such accomplishments? Who would have thought that The Must-React System would become the most powerful and comprehensive prospecting and cold-calling methodology available in the marketplace?

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Steven Tyler
Lead Singer, Aerosmith