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The first long weekend of the holiday season is here. If you have plans to cover up on lost sleep, doze away! If you already have bags packed, read on for something quirky that can make your time off a tad easier. During a weekend getaway, you only use your phone to click pictures and upload on social media or connect with friends over a video call. Imagine lying on the beach chatting with your friend after four years when your client calls because he doesn’t know you are officially “inaccessible”. If he calls to confirm conversion, your holiday just got merrier! If not, well, this holiday couldn’t have come at a better time. Out Of Office responses have acted as the saviour since, probably, the beginning of time. I am sure a Salestor created it out on holiday, who was disturbed by repeated calls in the middle of an unwinding session on the beach, or an unfortunate moment when his mobile received a signal at a mountain peak. So check out some quirky Out Of Office replies that convey the right message in a hilariously holiday tone! :D OOO Thank you for your email. I and my phone will be out of order between DDMMYY and DDMMYY. We might resume work from DDMMYY, but don’t get your hopes up. A Loving Husband Thank you for your email. I am currently unable to respond to emails until DDMMYY. I am taking my wife out to her favourite holiday spot so that she gladly renews my life insurance on Karwa Chauth this weekend. Check in again on Monday, October 25th, to see if it worked. Halloween to Diwali Seasons’ greetings. Thank you for your email. You are receiving this auto-response because I am not in the office between DDMMYY and DDMMYY. If I were, you wouldn’t have received anything at all. My Day Out Thank you for writing in. I am unavailable at work today. Unfortunately, I will be back tomorrow. At the Peak Thanks for writing in. I am currently happily roaming in a mountainous region with no network. I will get back to you when I return from heaven on DDMMYY or back to my senses a week later. Happy New Hangover Here’s wishing you a Happy New Year! Thank you for your email. It has safely reached my inbox and generated this auto-response because I won’t be able to generate anything until after January 2nd. Hic! Anyone but me Hey, there! Your email has been duly received but will remain unseen until DDMMYY, or probably a week later. So try reaching my team at team@xyz.com for anything till DDMMYY, and if possible, even after my return. Santa Cannot Wait! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Thank you for your email. While you can wait for my response, Santa can’t! I am busy celebrating Christmas with my family until DDMMYY (Yes, we celebrate it for two weeks). If you have genuine reasons to interrupt a family holiday, try connecting with someone in my team at 97********. Picture Perfect! When we overuse emojis to display our emotions digitally, then why not in an Out Of Office response? Here’s an excellent but casual auto-response that’s got the emotions right. Troy McClure He’s the traditional guy who responds on behalf of the email recipient and continues the story from the last Out Of Office response setup. Here’s an example. If you seek more auto-responses, try creating one for yourself here. And share your unique Out of Office responses in the comments below. Wishing you a great festive season! Let the fun begin! Like the article? Hit ❤️

Have you ever had to drag a deal through to the negotiation stage only to see it crumble after you leave the organisation? Or have you been on the receiving end of a deal, served to you on a silver platter, but gone bust the moment you laid your hands on it? Corporate deals need as much nurturing as newborns. You may call it hot leads gone cold, but they become more than just a prospect when they reach the negotiation stage. They metamorph into hope for your incentive, another feather in your cap, or saving grace. If you have just been pulled up on the deal, taking over from the last Sales Manager, letting the deal go off-track can harm your image (and your appraisal!). The truth is, despite the blood and sweat of the Salestor, a deal can go sour. Why does it happen? There are a million reasons, but one particular reason that doesn't receive as much attention is the change of hands. Be it on your side or the client's, when the people involved move away, changes are bound to occur. But, as they say, too many cooks spoil the broth. A deal can go down when the person in charge is pulled away, and someone new joins either party. It does not mean that the new in-charge is unable to handle the transition. However, change of hands affects the future of the deal because of three significant factors. The Problem Just Re-do it: You get comfortable with the working style of someone, and when that person leaves, you have to readjust. New hands on the deck mean you have to re-do many things; learn the background of the deal, understand the people involved and rebuild the rapport. That takes time and effort and can get cumbersome. This could delay the sale or take it off the table. Handle with Care: People take time to adjust to change, whether it is the way and frequency of communication or just the number of goodies sent by the earlier salesperson to the client's office. That's why any modifications in the staff handling a deal need utmost care. New Pair of Eyes: New people bring in new perspectives, which could take the deal either way. It is critical for every Salestor that every deal sees closure and does not come to an abrupt halt in case of a change of hands. The Solution Here are some simple yet effective solutions to the problem. Whether you are a new entrant in the battle to the end or are about to leave the scene, one of these measures is bound to help you. Take Notes: Document every tiny detail, every meeting or dialogue held between the parties, the expectations and deliverables. Companies use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems like Salesforce, Freshworks or Zoho to record every conversation, a discussion held, and deal status. This makes the journey more transparent and all transitions smooth. Background Check: Learn as much as you can about the new and old people involved. LinkedIn usually emerges as the most powerful tool to know the professional background of a person. Understand all the people involved in the process and how they influence the decision-making process. It's a Date! If you have just joined as the new in-charge, or have a replacement on the client's side, ensure to meet the decision-maker in person or via an e-meet. The purpose is to get to know them and create an impression that doesn't jeopardise the deal's future. Good Communication Matters: Use frequent interaction to build rapport and keep the client aware of every step of the way. Use personal meetings, emails, phone calls, or texts to stay in touch if the client is comfortable. If more than one of your teams are involved, plan combined meetings regularly and take the lead. Keep a closer tab on what transpires backstage and how you can keep the reins in your hands. A deal is the Holy Grail for a Salestor; we live and strive to see them through. So embrace a deal through a transition to ensure changes don't affect them. When did you face a situation like this? Share your story in comments below. Like the article? Hit ❤️

They say Sales is all about pitching right. To do that, you need the right words. Imagine you are writing a follow-up email to a new client, “Dear Mr XYZ (Should I put a comma here?) It was a pleasure meeting you (Or is it meeting with you?) last week. Further to our last meeting (What’s a good alternative to the ‘last meeting?’), I was looking forward to hear (hearing?) back from you on our proposal. I am enclosing the commercials again for your (kind?) perusal. Looking forward (I look forward?) to your response.” How many times do you stop to think if the sentence you typed was okay? Hope your boss doesn’t point out any mistakes after you have hit send! Correct grammar is essential, but it can be tough to crack even for the highest qualified personnel. If you are writing an official piece of communication, you would want to avoid making mistakes for three major reasons: Company’s Image: We can deny it, but we cannot escape the fact that grammatical gaffes in official communication can fail to impress or even tarnish the company’s image. A silly mistake can take away the credibility of the document. For instance, “We understand that your happy with the product and will be open to renewing the contract. If yes, we can than assist you with the revised copy.” Effective Communication: Sales is all about successful interactions. If you are not speaking with the client in person or over the phone, you message or email him. Swapping their with there can cause unwarranted confusion. Some mistakes are very common and can easily skip our glance. Avoiding Expensive Mistakes: At times, grammatical errors can even cost your organisation heavily. Remember the case where one missing Oxford comma in the Maine State Law cost Oakhurst Dairy $5 million in overtime pay? In one extreme case, unclear punctuation cost Irish nationalist Sir Roger Casement his life in 1916! Fortunately, we salespeople don’t face such extreme situations, but the language we use in our official communication holds power to make or break the deal for us. We rely on digital assistants to show us the right way; Google Maps to avoid taking the wrong turn, a calculator to make basic maths easier, or an Outlook reminder for the 4 p.m. meeting. So why not a tool that enhances our language and empowers us to communicate better? While there are many tools available in the market, I recently opted for Grammarly. Then, last month, I tried their Premium Account. Here are five factors how it made a difference to my writing as a Salestor: Reminding you of mistakes that skip the eye: You tend to overlook certain things when you are engrossed in penning your ideas. Grammarly can help you notice the errors that are difficult to spot. Polishing the whole document: It scrutinises each word and gives an overall score on five factors - Correctness: Improves spelling, grammar and punctuation Clarity: Helps make your writing easier to understand Engagement: Helps make your writing more exciting and effective Delivery: Helps you make the right impression on your reader Style Guide: This is a great tool for business users. Organisations can set their writing style and ensure everyone sticks to it. It even detects the document’s tone, so you know if it sounds just the way you want. Word Suggestions: It works both as a spell-check and a thesaurus to ensure you never run out of the right words. Omnipresent: You can use Grammarly’s desktop tool to help you write not only in MS Word or Outlook but everywhere else too! Grammarly app for mobile enables you to write well on the go, so you don’t end up texting, “I didn’t knew it!” to your prospect. Plagiarism Check: It is an excellent aid for those concerned about being accused of copying without citing the source. You can correct the grammar and check for plagiarism from the Grammarly Assistant on the same page. So when your company asks you to write an article for their blog, or a whitepaper highlighting your product, Grammarly is a tool you cannot afford to miss. Anyone communicating in a corporate setup understands the significance of the right words. Salestors, more than other people, know the dire need. Our success rate depends a lot on how we interact, so let us not allow grammar to hinder. As Grammarly puts it, to err is human, to edit, divine. Like the article? Hit ❤️

Picture this. You find the right contact, get a meeting with the client, and prepare to make the first and final impression. What exactly does your preparation involve? Understanding the company’s business model? Check! Learning about the person you are about to meet? Check! Knowing more about their industry? Check! You finally enter the meeting, and the client starts discussing how their product helped ISRO with the latest launch. Rocket science indeed! How smoothly the deal cracks depends on some critical issues. As a Selector, we need to know more than just pitching right for three significant reasons: Striking the Perfect Conversation: A successful conversation with the new client can open many pathways to place our product in their system. We are expected to show that we have done our homework, know their business well, and our product is what they truly need. Besides, knowing their industry and competition well enough give us an edge in proving our mettle. The perfect conversation can revolve around the new law government has recently introduced, how a particular company went down the hill in the industry, or even a familiar friend who happens to switch industries every year. Whatever it may be, you need meat to talk about and show that you know your game. Creating a Strong Foothold: What comes next is the chase. You meet the client, make them believe they need your product/service and get them to say yes. But you don’t get to drive into the sunset yet. In B2B sales, unlike B2C, getting a client on board is not just about convincing your prospect. It is never a one-man show. Many other processes, checks-in-the-boxes and nods from other teams are needed for the decision-making process to complete. A salesperson, or a Selector, needs to know the thought-process of other teams like Purchase/Procurement, Ops, Finance or Legal to sail through their procedures. Going under-prepared to meet the other teams can cause unnecessary hurdles. Knowing the checklist of the team we are about to meet helps chart out the plan of action. Retaining the Client: Understanding the market dynamics and keeping ourselves updated is indispensable. When it is time to renew the engagement, a lot of factors come to play; what’s happening right now in the client’s industry, how the company has fared in the past few quarters, and their plans for the next year decide whether you get to retain the client or not. We don’t always prepare for every meeting as salespersons, especially if an old client renews quickly or seems to be low-hanging fruit. But keeping ahead of the game ensures we are not caught off guard by any sudden changes jeopardising the deal. Salestors are supposed to be know-it-all’s, and that’s what makes the job difficult. Like the article? Hit ❤️

Privacy Laws have been around for a long time, but they are a new entrant in the legal fraternity of many developing countries. Privacy Laws exist to safeguard the personal data of citizens of a country. This mainly includes their identification information like name, phone number, email ID, residential address; their financial records, their healthcare data or medical records and technological data like browsing history. As per United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), 66% of countries globally have legislation in place about privacy laws, 10% of countries have draft legislation waiting to be passed, while 19% of nations have no privacy laws in place. Did you know that India happens to be in the 66% set of nations that have privacy laws in place? As per a survey conducted by Demand Gen Report in the EU, only 43% B2B Sales Reps were aware of their Privacy Laws. I bet a lot of salespeople, or Salestors, in India, are still unaware of what these laws are and how do they impact selling. It is important to understand the Privacy Laws of a country especially if you are serving even one of its citizens, or are targeting that country for business. For instance, if your business is not based in the EU, but if you own any data that belongs to an EU citizen, you need to comply with their Privacy Laws. To do that, you need to know what Privacy Laws entail, both globally and in India. Read on. The Privacy Laws Briefly, privacy laws usually have these three basic traits: The right to dispense any kind of information, whether personal, financial, medical or technological, remains with the customer. Companies cannot first capture the data by default and then give an option to the customer to erase it. Anyone collecting customer data needs to apprise them of what it will be used for. There is no scope for ambiguity there. Anyone collecting customer data needs to give them the option to erase or withdraw it anytime. Some of the Privacy Laws that have drawn a lot of attention globally are the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and New York’s Stop Hacks and Improve Electronic Data Security (SHIELD) Act. All these laws came into effect in 2018. The US has a lot of laws on data protection and privacy. Besides, different states are in the process of introducing their privacy laws. For Europe, GDPR is the core of data privacy legislation. It is the EU’s mechanism to give more power to the citizens to protect their personal information and device data like IP address, mobile device IDs and encrypted data. It provides the consumers with the right to know when their data is hacked. It also requires the organisations to provide ‘the right to be forgotten’ to EU citizens allowing them to get their data deleted when they don’t want it processed further. In India, there are three Acts on Data Protection and Privacy; the Information Technology Act, 2000, its amendment introduced in 2008 and Article 21 of the Indian Constitution (Right to Protection of Life and Personal Liberty). In August 2017, Hon’ble Supreme Court had ruled that Privacy is a fundamental right under Article 21. The IT (Amendment) Act, 2008, has two key sections regarding Data Protection: Section 43A aims to protect sensitive personal data through security mechanisms and provides for the compensation of the person affected by wrongful loss or wrongful gain; Section 72A covers the punishment for the person who is held responsible for the wrongful loss or wrongful gain caused by leaking of sensitive personal data/information of the victim while serving him/her under the terms of a legal contract. The accused can face a fine of up to Rupees five lakhs or a prison term of up to three years. So can sales and privacy laws coexist? Let’s find out. Sales Amidst Privacy Laws Amongst the first steps in Sales is Lead Generation, which involves cold calling/emailing. This step requires accessing the consumer’s personal data especially the name, contact number and email address. Data Protection rules can create a lot of legal resistance in getting the contact information of prospects. Basically, Privacy Laws can be a Salestor’s nightmare. The launch of privacy laws should not be the end of the world for salespeople. The question is how can Salestors coexist with privacy laws and still engage in smooth outbound sales? Here are some suggestions. Social Selling Social media is a great tool for lead generation and connecting with prospects. People convey a lot of personal information on their social media profiles and are willing to connect for networking and business interaction. Networking Sessions Webinars or seminars, or networking events might just be the best tool to connect with the right people without worrying about breaching their privacy. References Getting contacts through references is one of the strongest methods of lead generation that isn’t against any privacy or data regulation. However, if the lead wants you to stop contacting them, you have no option but to oblige. Subscription Forms The best way to take permission from each client for accessing their personal data is through online forms (like this one here) and providing a link to your privacy statement. These are the forms that ask website visitors for their personal data like name, email ID, company name, et al. Once the website visitors fill-up the form, they receive an email confirming their data is being accessed, saved and will be used. It is important to include an ‘Unsubscribe’ option in every email sent to the visitors. You don’t want an irate subscriber marking you as spam! Cookies It is the most basic step to ask the visitors to your website for permission to store and use their personal data and browsing history. This is done by requesting them to accept cookies on the website. Notification Preferences Consider this scenario. You offer your website visitors a discount on products/services if they subscribe to your website. They accept the offer and provide you with their name, mobile number and email ID. Now, usually, Privacy Laws make it mandatory for you to give the visitors a choice of which all emails or notifications to receive. This can be done through a notification preferences form, like the one below. You can include details of all categories of promotions or services therein. Privacy Laws in India are not as stringent as in many developed countries right now. But the Indian government’s stand on Whatsapp’s Privacy Policy recently shows we are on our way. Moreover, Indians are doing business with global partners on a daily basis. Ultimately, the idea behind privacy laws is that businesses everywhere need to operate while respecting the confidentiality of their clientele. Show some support! Hit ❤️

You know that feeling when you wake up on a Friday morning and realise it is the last working day of the week? Imagine getting that feeling on a Thursday! Every week. The Indian government is in the process of launching guidelines as part of the Labour Code to provide an option of four or five-day workweeks to corporates. This flexibility in the rules will allow corporates to adopt 4-day workweeks without getting a prior government nod. The catch is that 48-hour weekly limit might remain intact, and hence might lead to longer workdays. Although, the repercussions of a 12-hour shift are under government lens. Further, employers cannot force the decision on employees. It has to be decided mutually. Another fact to be noted here is that, mostly, Indian employees are used to working more than 48 hours per week, which is above the International Labour Organisation’s standards. So to what extent this new format gets adopted is a mystery worth looking forward to. If companies do adopt the four-day workweek, wouldn’t it be a dream come true? Surprisingly, the answer is no. Especially in a country like India, where there are diminished work boundaries, it would hardly work. Although, the non-customer facing profiles might still benefit, sales people would not. How many times have you received a call from a client on a late Saturday afternoon, expecting for an immediate resolution? “What? You don’t work on Saturdays?! How lucky!” That’s a statement I have encountered on many occasions, in every industry I was a part of. The fact is we Indians do not respect boundaries. Period. In Sales, the main reason behind it is, if you don’t respond, someone else will. And that either means an annoyed client, or a lost one. Be it connecting with a client for getting a final yes or a no, getting the product dispatched on a holiday, getting the invoice prepared ‘right now!’ or simply getting the customer query resolved immediately, we can’t wait. To a great extent, the pandemic worsened the situation. It blurred the lines between availability and the absence of it. Now, the whole country is back in office to revive the economy. The concept of alternate working days is quite prevalent now. The Indian government is also acting proactively on the four-day workweek guidelines. This made me do some research on the what, why and the how of the shorter workweek concept. The What The idea of a four-day workweek entails working only between Mondays and Thursdays, with a three-day paid weekend starting form Friday. So where did it all begin? The first company in the world to adopt a five-day workweek was the New England Mill in 1908 in the US. This was done so that the Jewish workers and managers could observe the Saturday Sabbath. Later in 1926, Henry Ford had adopted the five-day workweek concept to increase the productivity of his employees. This opened up the way for the rest of the corporate America to employ the method. In 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes had predicted that the world will move to a 15-hour workweek by 2030. (Do you see it happening?) On December 1st, 1930, Kellogg’s had adopted the six-hour workday format. They gradually had to return to eight-hour workdays for a surprising reason. The same employees who voted for a six-hour workday format, became embarrassed of not having the same badge of honour as their counterparts in other companies, who worked for eight or more hours per day. The 4-Day Workweek concept is surprisingly, almost as old. The US Congress had almost passed a bill declaring a mandatory 30-hour week to curb unemployment triggered due to the Great Depression of 1930’s. The bill faced severe opposition and hence was scrapped. Many companies in the US, Australia, Europe and Japan have been working four-days a week since 2017. In the four-day workweek, some companies refrain from increasing the daily working hours, while the others don’t. The idea, usually, is to complete 32 or 40 hours in a week over a period of four days. The Why So why or why not to adopt the four-day workweek format? Below are the pros and cons of the concept, as witnessed by companies who employed it. The How There are two important How-questions: How to decide if and when to employ a 4-day workweek? It really depends on the industry, business model and requirements of the organisation. For instance, in aviation or air cargo industry, a 4-day workweek might not work as the staff needs to be there to handle the cargo and the passengers all the time. Ultimately, your objective for considering a shorter workweek needs to be clear. It cannot be only employee satisfaction and productivity. Not every company with a four-day workweek saw an increase in productivity. How to implement it? Here are some ideas: Involve the Employees: Don’t forget to involve your employees, especially the first and middle level managers, in this decision making. A lot of companies, like Perpetual Guardian, ran surveys to understand how to shorten their workweek without adversely affecting the productivity. You need to employ a bottom-up approach here. Run Trials: Most companies, that employ the format, run a trial for at least 8 weeks to test the applicability. Run Basic Research: Basic research goes a long way. Besides just Googling it, maybe you can try looking for Research papers and articles or even corresponding websites like https://4dayweek.com/ A Business Inside survey conducted showed that Indian employees feel the four-day workweek is at least five years away. Indian employees are used to working beyond 48 hours, more than five-days a week. But every major change begins with a single step. Let’s see who takes the first leap. Who knows, we might be moving closer to John Maynard Keynes prediction faster than we realise! Show some love! Hit ❤️

It’s been almost a month that Joe Biden was sworn in as President of the United States. It was a dream-like victory, unlike any the country has seen in a long time. It wasn’t just being the option other than Trump, or the presence of the first female Vice President candidate of the country by his side. It was mainly his decades' long journey in politics that went by and what he stands for. Joe Biden’s father was a salesman who sold cars. And people say the son has all the moves of a true Sales person. He is a Salestor at heart. Here are five things that we sales people, Salestors, can learn from Joe Biden. Be a People’s Person Mark Bowden mentions an incident in The Atlantic narrated by Cris Barrish, now a senior reporter for The News Journal of Wilmington, Delaware. This anecdote depicts Joe Biden’s people skills. He says “I remember being in a cheesesteak shop in Claymont, just outside Wilmington, just eating dinner by myself one night years ago, when Joe came in to order something, It was like royalty or Jesus Christ himself had walked in. He didn’t know a reporter was watching, so none of this was for my benefit, but he charmed everybody in that place for a full five minutes. He knew the names of all the women behind the counter. Everyone seemed to want a piece of him, to touch him. That was the first time I fully appreciated the appeal he enjoys in this state.” Be a Survivor Resilience pays. Joe Biden has survived a lot of storms in his personal and professional life alike. He became Delaware’s senate at 30, the sixth youngest ever. He lost the run for the Presidential campaign twice, but never gave up. Speak Right Joe overcame his childhood stuttering problem to become a great speaker. He is a deal maker, who believes in bonding with people using his experiences and delivering promises. His favourite tagline? "Here's the deal!" Know Your Competition His biggest USP and the focus of his campaign was that he is not Trump. But that wasn't all. He talked extensively about the things he will do on Day One to reverse the effects of bad decisions made by the outgoing President. His addresses rolled out his plans regarding especially the fight against Covid-19 and Immigration Bill, decisions which had created quite an uproar. Gain the Trust An excellent orator that he is, Biden has always used communication to build trust with the audience, using his own experiences to forge the bond. The same showed in his “Let's give each other a chance” victory speech as President-elect. Show your support! Hit ❤️

One of the oldest battles in the history of corporate world exists between Sales and Operations. While one is about selling a service, the other is about delivering it to the customer. Sales is an art, operations is the science. And hence the constant battle between the two. Sales vs Operations stand offs occur mainly due to lack of knowledge, communication or incentive. Lack of Knowledge The Problem Conflicts arise when we aren’t fully aware of what the other person does. It is not about who’s job is more difficult, it is about how can we serve the customer right. I have seen the two departments at logger heads in absence of proper SOPs for the Operations teams and/or proper training for Sales people (Salestors). Lack of set processes affects the productivity of the Operations guys besides wasting time and efforts. Similarly, when Sales people have little or no knowledge of Operations processes, the company risks jeopardising its relationship with the clientele, or even losing them. Salestors need to tell the client how the product/service will be delivered. That is a key topic during customer engagement. The Solutions SOPs and Training: Self-explanatory. Ideally, proper SOPs and training are key to ensuring smooth functioning between these two key players in customer management. Cross training: A lot of companies put both Salestors and Operations guys in each other’s shoes by cross training them. Salestors are trained in Operations processes before hitting the field and Operations staff are given a taste of Sales. It not only helps ease out the conflicts, but also upskills the staff. Lack of Communication The Problem A lot of times, we Sales people, or Salestors, need to exaggerate the terms of service, or features of the product in order to make it shine brighter than the competitors. Problem occurs when we fail to walk-the-talk because our Operations guys cannot deliver what we promised as it is outside the SOP. It not only hampers our fresh relationship with the client, but also tarnishes the image of the company. The Solutions Inter-departmental Meetings: The most effective solutions at times are the simplest ones. The traditional way to communicate, sitting across the table can prove worthy if navigated properly. Combined meetings with the customer: That is, when you want to be transparent about the service (an ideal scenario). Meeting the client together with Operations to discuss service delivery usually makes the closure easier and faster. It also gains brownie points with the customer for transparency, always. Consult the Operations before promising the moon to the customer: It saves time and efforts and prevents the dire circumstances when the customer realises you cannot deliver on your promises. Basically, it makes lives easier for everyone, the Sales person, the customer and the Operations team who will have to deliver. Lack of Incentive The Problem Sales people are eligible for incentives on getting clients on-board and hence the motivation to leave no stone unturned is very high. Source of motivation for the Operations can come from these activities. The Solutions Clear Goals or KPIs: Customer-centricity trickles down from the top management and can give the desired focus to the employees. Every cog in the wheel needs to move in the direction of good customer service. Rewards & Recognition: Recognising the efforts made, if not rewarding, amplifies the motivation. It needs to be done for the non-Sales guys who go out of the way to get things done keeping customer service in mind. Mutual Goals and Rewards: Creating KPIs and corresponding R&R that makes people work together smoothly can prove to be a boon. Show your support! Hit ❤️

PowerPoints are dead. Or are they? Name one thing you remember from the last PowerPoint presentation you sat through. (Hint: It could have been your own presentation.) Microsoft PowerPoints have become more of an assumed way of communicating to a corporate audience. I have seen presentations wherein the need to overdo the beautification existed primarily due to lack of favourable facts. Now that is a tricky situation and surely outside the purview of this article. Let’s get this straight. The primary motive of using a PowerPoint is to convey facts and ideas. Inclusion of swanky slides and too many images or animation takes the focus away from the presenter and the facts. Same goes for the Salesmen, Saleswomen, Salestors who present sitting in front of a client. Every client is more wary of the time being spent with a Salestor than how amazing the PowerPoint is. But I feel that the problem is not with PowerPoint, rather the way we use it. It has been and can continue to be a handsome communication tool to put together facts and ideas, sans the drivel. The Problems Consider these scenarios: We just have to read your Sales pitch from this PPT? I can do it myself The future of most new client meetings is decided in the first few minutes of the presentation. How many times have you thought of a long PPT in a Sales pitch as a waste of time? Your PPT has 78 slides! In most PowerPoint meetings, the first thing you unintentionally do is check the bottom corner for the number of slides. It’s human. PPT’s are made boring with an extra dose of what’s when the focus should be on the why’s and how’s. Nice image. Is it from Getty? Too many animations and eye-catching images is a total waste of time and effort. The swankier the slide, the lesser the attention on the presenter. Sorry, you were saying something? Simply put, we humans cannot read and listen simultaneously. So all those people who like to write everything on the slides and read from there, none of what you conveyed registered with the audience. The Solutions Focus on the Presenter: Personally, I feel the need to include add-on slides like the flow of presentation or index slide, images/animation to convey an emotion in your pitch, or a Thank You slide is a waste of effort. It adds only to the number of slides and no one remembers it. The focus needs to be on the presenter solely and hence he can take care of all this verbally. Keep it simple: Presentations (with or without PowerPoints) are meant to be crisp and straight to the point. While you have to weave a story, keep it mostly verbal and short so the audience listens to you, the presenter. Use slides for facts: It might make sense to display the figures or ideas you want to convey or discuss on the screen, but refrain from writing your speech on the slide and reading from it as it confuses the audience about what to focus on. PowerPoint Presentations are meant to be just a group of cues for the presenter, not the script. For every Salestor: For a fresh client, we Salestors can use PowerPoint to display the list of services/products, our widespread geographical presence, the logos of existing clientele, or any ideas that we need to convey to the client. Introduction to the company/product should be rolled out verbally. Since it forms the first part of our pitch, it creates the first impression too. The way we introduce our company to a new client, or our plans for an existing client, says a lot. The Narrative: Amazon and Google employed this technique instead of PowerPoints years ago. In the meetings at Amazon, the presenter is asked to circulate a Narrative document, instead of a PowerPoint, detailing the idea, facts and figures in at most 6 pages. The participants spend the first 15 minutes reading and analysing the content of the Narrative and then open up for Q&A. PowerPoints are nowhere close to being dead, provided they are used judiciously. Enjoyed reading the article, hit ❤️

When I started my career in sales, the expectations set by theory were different, to say the least, from what I encountered. Eventually I realised that I was not alone. The foundation of this article was set years ago and I thought of rolling it out since our expectations of almost everything went for a toss last year when the pandemic hit. Here are some Expectation vs Reality battles that we Salestors go through in our professional lives. I have been hired by a well-established MNC for a great product. I will be ahead of my targets! Getting hired by your dream company is like marrying for love. Everything is hunky-dory until you realise you have a mother-in-law to deal with too. Besides, if Sales was that easy, companies won’t need Salestors for the purpose. Targets are meant to be difficult to achieve. For if they weren’t, the manager will be at fault. I am an XYZ college pass out! I will close a deal in the blink of an eye! That was the thought process fresh out of college, but corporate life is a killer. In B2B sales, for instance, connecting with the right person and making him listen to you takes months if not weeks, let alone convincing him to buy from you. This product is so much better than my last company’s and easier to sell. Clients are going to love me! Fingers crossed for that! Every company has a mix of clients, people who like and dislike the product, or the post-sales service. The ratio might differ for every company. Be prepared in case your clients don’t happen to agree with you and take it with a pinch of salt. My boss knows how difficult the market scenario is right now for Sales A time like the pandemic can trigger this thought process, but it is never accepted as a reason for not getting close to targets. Market scenarios are never perfect, we Salestors are expected to find a solution around it to make a sale. No one cares about rules if I am achieving the targets Well, you are up for a surprise. Achieving targets is the primary job, but bending the rules to suit the client’s needs does not work all the time. Know some more expectations vs reality? Please share in comments below!

Finally, 2020 is in hindsight. Although it played out like a test match, it changed the world forever. Who would have thought of a world where everyone will get to work from home for months at a stretch and come to dislike it? There are a lot of things we can expect from a year that is not 2020 anymore. For the first article of the year, I intend to look at some activities/practices that will be the highlight of this successor of 2020. A Hybrid Working Model Work-from-office then work-from-home to working-from-home and office. This is the new reality. Although the world faces the challenge of COVID 2.0 (or COVID 2.1) with the new variants, there is no denying that it is Business As Usual everywhere. Companies are looking at a permanent mix of work-from-home and work-from-office. The likes of Google, Facebook and Tata Consultancy Services have announced major work-from-home regimes in the months ahead. Salestors are being given extended work-from-home since their profiles demand lesser presence at their own work place than their clients'. Similar is the case with lawyers, financers and some administrative profiles. While the world was wondering what the future held, some companies introduced and pioneered the concept of Hybrid workplace before mid-2020 hit. Kissflow, a digital workplace service provider, based out of Chennai, announced Remote+ hybrid workplace model for their workforce. As per the program, the management gave two options to their teams: a hybrid or an in-office working model. In the hybrid model, the employees were expected to report to work for one week every month. The company pays for the accommodation for outstation employees. Team building is taken care of through monthly and quarterly team building exercises. Sales Automation at the Helm of Affairs Surprisingly, a major chunk of companies in India relied on manual CRM tools like MS Excel for daily entries until the pandemic struck. Sales force in such companies ended up spending more time on data management and analysis than on customers. However, 2020 changed a lot of it and gave birth to a truly digital era, especially in a country like India that was years away from becoming a wholesome digital economy. Sales enablement took an altogether different meaning and paved way for complete sales automation. 2021 is going to strengthen this new scenario. While Salesforce retains its position as the global leader in CRM tools, a lot of alternatives have come up like Freshworks and Zoho that are gaining mileage rapidly. Social Selling It is a fairly old concept now, but a year like 2020 brought it to the fore front since humanity was under siege. Social selling uses social media to build relationships for selling. Focus is on people, their preferences, their needs and social media plays an important role here. Cold calling has been half-dead for quite some time now and gives no way to forge the relationship you want to with your client. 90% of top decision makers don’t respond to cold calls anymore, but utilise social media for professional networking all the time. Pitching on social media gives you a larger targeted audience with a higher probability of generating warm leads rather than cold ones. A quick view of benefits of Social Selling: Quicker contact search Higher number of warm leads Quality relationships with clients Shorter Sales Cycle Government Formalising WFH Indian government is on its way to recognising working from home as a formal organisational structure. This yet to be passed law is going to be a game changer for the way India recruits and handles its manpower. Clearly, this is bound to have long-standing effects on the salary structures, insurance policies, cyber security policies and administrative policies of organisations. 2021 is going to witness a lot of game changing scenarios. Many practices that we did not pay heed to earlier have become indispensable now. The world is thriving digitally and physical distances are a misnomer. No one can afford to be offline now. Liked the article? Hit ❤️

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year! And finally, 2020 is going to be in the hindsight in a few hours. Feels surreal, doesn’t it? In the third instalment of A Salestor’s Holiday List, I take up certain series one can watch. Shark Tank Available on Netflix. This show can work as a Bible for us Salestors. You just might find some of the best pitches in this masterpiece of a show. And what can we say about the addiction and adrenaline rush this one gives! Self Made Available on Netflix. The story of growth of Madam CJ Walker, from rags to riches. From the world telling her “I don’t think sales is for you.” to she realising that “Hair’s in my blood!” Self-Made is a limited series worth a watch. Mad Men Available on amazon prime. “Let’s just say tomorrow, tobacco weevil comes and eats away every last Old Gold, would you stop smoking then or would you go to my Lucky Strikes?” “No, I guess I will find the way. I love smoking!” “The issue isn’t why should people smoke. It is why should people smoke Lucky Strikes.” This opening pitch from the pilot episode paves way for many more such anecdotes in the life of an ad guy who is a Salestor at heart. Surely qualifies as a binge-watch for us Salestors! White Gold Available on Netflix. “He could sell ice to the eskimos” “Salesmen are like vampires, never invite one into your house. Once you do, we won’t leave your side until we taste blood.” And he sold the windows to the customer who had bought the same windows from him three weeks back (huh?!). Set in 1980’s, the show breathes, eats and sleeps sales. A fun watch for every Salestor! Scam 1992 Available on Sony Liv. If you don’t have the subscription, you will not regret buying one just to watch this true story. There are a zillion things a Salestor can gather from this Risk Se Isq series, but it qualifies as a must-watch just for the adrenaline rush and unadulterated entertainment for a Salestor! Ultimately, it is all about the profit! It’s been one unprecedentedly interesting year. Watch out for some interesting anecdotes coming up in 2021 on Salestors 2.1 Stay tuned!