New Sales Simplified by Mike Weinberg, Book Summary and Review

This year, one of my goals is to learn and better understand the sales process. With that in mind, I’ve been reading diverse sales books. Today, the focus is on New Sales, Simplified by Mike Weinberg.

Introduction: New Sales Simplified by Mike Weinberg

New Sales. SimplifiedSalespeople fail when they cannot execute fundamentals. Getting new clients is simple yet not easy to do. The book is a field guide to help salespeople compete and win in a competitive market. New Sales, Simplified is a book about sales fundamentals.

The book is also about new business development. Many salespeople don't know how to prospect for new business. They don't know how to create opportunities by being proactive. And they certainly don't know how to get business in tough and challenging economic times.

The book is intended as a how-to guide for individual salespeople or sales leaders responsible for getting new business. New Sales, Simplified by Mike Weinberg presents the New Sales Driven Framework the author developed based on his decades of experience.

As you’ll see later in this summary, Mike Weinberg uses war imagery – which I did not like – in his Framework. Although the Framework is an excellent one, I found the war and battle words problematic.

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Summary of New Sales, Simplified by Mike Weinberg

New business success comes from a combination of perseverance, creativity and resilience while staying laser-focused on a well-chosen, finite list of prospects. Sales is a numbers game. People and companies have needs and you have a possible solution to those needs. There are prospective clients, you've never done business with, that have needs. Your job is to connect with these prospects to identify if your solution will meet their needs.

• Identify an industry.
• Gather sales data.
• Subscribe to sales publications.
• Attend major trade shows.
• Select 30 key prospects and go to work.

The above list highlights some ways you can identify potential prospects. The author believes that salespeople aren't equipped to do new business development. Most have worked during economic prosperity, so they’re unsure what to do in more challenging times to bring in new business.

16 Reasons Salespeople Fail at New Business Development

Based on Mike Weinberg’s experience, he has identified 16 reasons why salespeople fail at new business development.

1. You haven't had to do it, so you don't know how to do it. Have never been forced to find new business.
2. Waiting on the company to provide them with leads. Waiting is a critical element for new business failure. You have to be proactive.
3. “Prisoners of Hope.” Stopped working the sales process and stopped pursuing new opportunities.
4. Can't tell a story. Don't know how to grab people's attention. You bore the audience. Too self-focused and long-winded with a confusing message.
5. Have an awful target account selection process and lack focus. Wander aimlessly. Not locked on strategically selected focus lists of target customers or prospects.
6. “Late to the Party”. Not proactively working a finite list of target accounts and therefore late or last to an opportunity. When this happens, the prospect is already shopping and searching for a solution.
7. Negative attitude & pessimistic outlook. Sales winners take responsibility for results.
8. Guilty of fake or pitiful phone effort. True business developers know this is something that must be done. Some people simply pretend to make proactive telephone calls.
9. Not likable, don't adapt style or have lower EQ. People buy from people they like. What quirks and habits stand in the way of your success? How will you manage yourself and your emotions?

10. Can't conduct an effective sales call. In new business development, you need to secure meetings with potential customers. Sales calls are ineffective because the salesperson often forgets the purpose of the meeting, that he is there to find pain, potential problems he can solve, and opportunities he can capture. Don't know the difference between presenting and selling. He talks too much and doesn't ask enough questions.

11. Love to babysit existing accounts. Serving existing clients is important. However, if you want to have a sustainable business, you have to prospect for new clients.
12. Busy being good corporate citizens. Get out there and prospect for new business instead of spending so much time volunteering on committees. Being a good corporate citizen means you're well-liked, but it won't make you successful at getting new accounts.
13. Don't own their sales process. If you don't have a clear path to sales or can't articulate the sales process, you'll struggle to get new business. You'll end up defaulting to the buyer’s process.
14. Don't use and protect their calendar. Carve out time to proactively prospect.
15. Stopped learning and growing. If you're not growing, you're dying. Few salespeople view themselves as professionals. Even fewer invest in personal and professional development.
16. Not built for it. Some people are not built for new business development.

Framework for Developing New Business

The New Sales Driver Framework

1. Select targets.
2. Create and deploy weapons.
3. Plan and execute the attack.

Select Targets

1. Where is business going to come from?
2. Who should you be pursuing?

This is an opportunity to be strategic.

Things to Think About 

1. Who are your best customers?
2. What are their common characteristics?
3. What do their business look, smell and feel like?
4. Where are they located?
5. Size of markets.
6. Where can you find potential customers with similar profiles?

Target lists must be finite, focused, written, and workable.

Finite list: Work from a finite list when looking for new business. Zero in on a finite number of strategic targets. Work the list.

Focused list: Repeated calling on the same type of companies allows you to become an expert as you learn the language, nuances and business issues facing them routinely.

Written list: Write it down, make it happen.

Workable list: Create a list you can work effectively.

Segment Account 

1. Largest in terms of dollars spent.
2. Most growable. The best opportunity for incremental revenue.
3. Most at risk. High probability of losing business.
4. Others. Don't qualify for the above three categories.

Questions to Help Identify Strategic Targets When Creating a List

1. Who are our best customers (by industry, size, business model, location, etc.)?
2. Why did they initially become customers?
3. Why do they still buy from us?
4. Who do we compete against in the marketplace?
5. Why and when do they beat us? And why do prospects choose us over them?
6. Who used to be our customers (said differently, who used to buy from us)?
7. Why did we lose the business?
8. Who almost became a customer but didn’t (deals where we came close but lost)?
9.   Who has referred business to us in the past?
10.  Who should be referring business to us?

Resources for Identifying Targets 

• Local Business Journal.
• Hoover's
• LinkedIn
• Trade shows
• Industry associations

Target contacts higher in the customer organization. It’s not harder to get to people at higher levels in an organization than it is to get to those at lower levels. People are interested in achieving goals.

Create and Deploy Weapons 

Have the right sales tools to win at sales goals to acquire new business. Some tools include the following.

Sales story: This is foundational to everything you do in sales.

Networking: Building relationships is so important to success.

Social media: Provides an opportunity for you to research and connect with potential customers.

Emails: Primary way to reach prospects when making initial contact.

Proactive phone calls: Many fear making phone calls to prospects, preferring other ways to reach out.

Voice mail: This is the perfect way to  drop tidbits of the sales story.

Traditional printed marketing materials: Sell sheets, brochures, catalogs, and introductory letters to prospects sent via traditional mail. I cannot remember the last time anyone has asked for these things. They all want digital copies.

Digital marketing tools: Blogs, podcasts, online videos.

The sales story is the most important tool in your toolkit. You need a compelling, differentiating, client-focused story for new business development sales success. The story is not about you. Prospective customers are not interested in what you do. They're interested in what you can do for them. That must be evident in the story.

Lead with issues, pains, problems, opportunities and results that are important to the prospect.

3 Critical Building Blocks for a Compelling Story

Client issues addressed 

• Customer pains we remove.
• Client problems we solve. Opportunities we help customers to capture.
• Results we achieve for clients.

Offerings

• State what you do.
• The services, solutions or products for which you bill customers

Differentiators 

Explain why you’re better and different from other alternatives.

The building blocks are necessary to craft a succinct, compelling, client-focused sales story. And the sequence is very important.

Draft the Power Statement

Headline: One to two sentence introduction. Helps to provide context and allows your audience to place you in category to better digest your story.

Transitional Phrase: Set stage to grab attention. An example,

Senior marketing executives look to us or your company when they have X problem.

Client Issues/Pains Removed/Problems Solved/Results Achieved

Example of Power Statements

• Striving to achieve Result 1.

• Frustrated from dealing with Pain 2 and ready to take action.

• Under significant pressure to eliminate Problem 3.

• Committed to accomplishing Result 4.

• They’ve had it with Pain 5.

•  Facing threats (or regulatory pressure) from Issue 6.

• They are finally tired of living with Problem 7 and want help to tackle it.

Offerings: What you sell. Brief section of the power statement.

Differentiators: Strong list of reasons your company is the best choice to address a client's issue.

(Your Company Name) continues to grow (or dominate our space) because we are very different from what you will find in the marketplace . . .

One thing I appreciated with New Sales, Simplified is that Mike Weinberg provides lots of examples so you understand what he’s talking about in the book.  When it comes to sales, your mindset matters. Erase all the scripts that don't serve you well.

Come from the position of wanting to help the prospect. Pay attention to your tone and approach. Don't use the “sales voice”. Use a casual and comfortable tone. You have to sound like a great conversationalist. Use call outlines and scripted talking points.

Three Magic Words 

1. Visit: Ask the prospect to visit with you because appointments sound clinical.
2. Fit: Let's get together to see if we might be a fit.
3. Value: We’ll review your current situation and see if we can bring some value to what you're doing.

Executing the Sales Process: You are responsible for executing a solid sales process. If you use PowerPoint:

1. Slide 1: Title.
2. Slide 2. Suggested agenda.
3. Slide 3: Insert company name. Grab three to five relevant bullet points about the client issue from the Power Statement.
4. Slide 4: Understanding of your solution. List several items from your discovery work up to that point.

Plan and Execute 

Time blocking:

1. Schedule time to prospect.
2. Keep appointment with yourself
3. Remain on task during the time allotted. This can be a challenge for some people.

List of Stages in the Sales Process 

1. Prospect targeted.
2. Initial conversation.
3. Meaningful dialogue/first meeting.
4. Prospect’s need identified/fit established/mutual agreement to move forward.
5. Second meeting/key data received.
6. Presentation or proposal delivered.
7. Deal closed and won.

Three Characteristics of a Healthy Pipeline 

1. It’s full.
2. Shows movement.
3. It’s balanced.

Final Thoughts: New Sales, Simplified by Mike Weinberg

Everyone is in sales, since we continuously have to sell ourselves and ideas. Now having said that, since my profession is not that of a salesperson, I appreciated a lot of the information in New Sales, Simplified. And I learned a lot. Like many nonfiction books, this book could have been a lot shorter, written more tightly.

 New Sales. Simplified Sales Management. Simplified Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts Sell It Like Serhant, Way of the Wolf, The Wolf of Wall Street

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