Execution in Selling

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>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: Hi my name is Gerhard Gschwandtner with Selling Power TV. Today we talk about execution in sales and we have a terrific leader Brett Wallace is the director of New Business for Forrester Research. Welcome.

>> Brett Wallace: Thank you Gerhard it's a pleasure to be with you today.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: How many sales people do you have?

>> Brett Wallace: Well we have about 17 right now and one of our major cohorts selling new business to IT professionals at Forrester.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: So what time do you start your day?

>> Brett Wallace: Well I'm up pretty early. I'm actually up at about 5:30. I get into the office at about 6:30.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: And when do you start the planning?

>> Brett Wallace: I actually start the planning the night before. I try to plan about 5 to 6pm make sure everything's really set up for the day. I also try to only do email at night after dinner. I try to really stay off email unless it's critically urgent.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: So what was in the list last night? What were the 3 top items?

>> Brett Wallace: Top 3 items. 1: I've been trying to hire a leader so I've been really looking at screening resumes and really trying to find out and leveraging information on Linked In to try to find that right next person. 2: Looking at deal movement with the deals we have. We are sitting here on Thursday the 30th, the end of the month is tomorrow so we're looking at how much progress can we have on legal agreements and executing these signed documents, helping my team think through advice. 3: Thinking longer term. We are at a crux of 2009 planning. What are the things we need to be thinking of now to come out of this slower period that we're seeing out in the economy on top?

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: So I hear 3 things. 2 of them are focused on the future and 1 at the immediate moment.

>> Brett Wallace: At the immediate moment.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: So you're saying a good leader really has 2 qualities: Keeps his nose to the grind stone and his eyes on the future.

>> Brett Wallace: That's absolutely correct. I think a leader needs to think short term on how are we going to hit the numbers today and really beat the plan and also think long term on how are we going to leap frog that plan tomorrow.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: Now how did you do so far in terms of the execution the first part of the day?

>> Brett Wallace: I did ok. We've had obviously a number of calls going on to try to expedite agreements so we've had to think creatively about how are we going to get deals through legal? How are we negotiating contracts and how are we keeping our guys on track who actually had some bad news. So try to keep folks in line to building pipeline throughout the day and making sure that they're maximizing their time.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: So as a sales leader what is your mind set when you deal with sales people who get very nervous by the end of the month?

>> Brett Wallace: We really want to have them focus on what they can control in the moment. Stay focused on the day to day. Stay focused on the basics, something that I like to call B to B. Let's go back to the basics on what are the core sales strategies we can focus on to be successful in our roles. Those are things such as we've been talking about: Planning the day the night before. It's things along the lines of keeping activity high and also very smart so we know how to reach decision makers early, at lunch and later in the day and also with very smart intelligent messages by using our Sales 2.0 technologies. Focusing on the basics is critical and not being overwhelmed with bad news, pessimistic news, getting caught with admins, letting your day become unstructured with other priorities.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: What are some of the things you see that where people fall short of executing on time on message?

>> Brett Wallace: I find that when people become too reactive to the information out in the world we have a lot of emails coming in on a daily basis where every 1 of our sales reps I would imagine they get approximately 50 to 75 a day, they can be very distracting, there's you know commodore going on in the office. You have people talking to you. There's consistent information flow coming that can knock you off your game and in addition it's a tough world out there.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: So how do you deal with it do you go through your cubicles and hear people talk about the world series?

>> Brett Wallace: Well I think you have to lead by example and when you feel the team is not executing up to par you need to take charge and there's been times when absolutely we've had to hit pause, look at ourselves, perhaps look at how are we spending our time. Maybe the next day we institute a blitz where we can make up for that lost activity and really get the team back on track to executing on their goals. Or we can start looking at sending out some short quick wins on things we should be doing.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: You said something interesting as the leader you need to set the pace. So you come in early. Do you stay late?

>> Brett Wallace: I also stay fairly late. I try to leave the office by 6 pm sometimes that goes on later. I try to keep it a working lunch. We're really here to perform you know that can be a grueling schedule for some folks so I think it's really key you have to stay balanced. You have to pace yourself. You have to find time to do the things that keep you going. For me that's running. I have to find time to break apart from the day. You also have to say thanks to your spouse, your wife, your children because it's a grueling schedule here in sales and you need that support from both your peers and your family and your leadership.

>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: If you don't have that balance you drop the efficiency.

>> Brett Wallace: That's absolutely correct. So you might have it short term but we're in sales long term. Gerhard Gschwandtner: And especially in the tough times we need to focus on back to basics. We're going to continue our conversation with Brett Wallace tomorrow.

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>> Gerhard Gschwandtner: We're gonna talk about back to basics in selling which is very important in tough times. Thank you.

>> Brett Wallace: Thanks Gerhard.

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