Psyched For Business Podcast Episode 2
Episode 2:
How to maximise your sales team's performance
In this podcast episode Richard Anderson is joined by Jim Bloomfield from Bloojam Consulting.
Jim is a sales leadership development and assessment expert, who specialises in helping companies identify, attract and retain sales professionals.
In this episode, we cover:
✅ Our own experiences of working in B2B sales roles.
✅ The key behaviours required to be successful in any sales role.
✅ How anybody, even those who have never worked in sales before, can apply these behaviours to be successful in sales and client-facing roles.
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Episode 02 - Transcript:
Voiceover (00:01):
Welcome to Psyched for Business, helping business leaders understand and apply cutting edge business psychology principles in the workplace.
Richard Anderson (00:11):
Hi, and welcome to the Psyched for Business podcast. Thank you very much for joining me. I'm your horse Richard Anderson. In this episode, I'm joined by Jim Bloomfield founder at Bloojam Consulting. Jim is a sales leadership development and assessment expert who specializes in helping companies identify, attract and develop sales professionals. In this episode, Jim and I talk about our own experiences in working in business to business sales. He talks through the key behaviors required to be successful in any sales role and also how anybody, even those who have never done sales before can apply these behaviors to be successful in sales, but also any client facing role. Thanks again for listening. So Jim Bloomfield, welcome to the show. How are you doing?
Jim Bloomfield (00:57):
Yeah, I'm good. Thank you, Richard. Thanks for having me.
Richard Anderson (00:59):
Thanks, Jim. Really excited to have you on Jim, loads and loads to talk about a subject I'm very, very interested in, so how you return and maximize your sales team's performance. But before we get into the detail of that, I'd be really interested to learn how you got into this whole world of sales consultancy.
Jim Bloomfield (01:19):
Yeah, well, it's, it's probably a game of two hards really. So first started off in sales. So graduated from university, had no idea what I wanted to do with a career. I was living with couple of guys who had been at university with one of whom was a year above me. So he was a, he was a year out in the workplace and he had a sales role and he came home every night in a nice, shiny LDA three and seemed to have lots of money to splash around. So I thought, okay, let's get, get myself a sales role. So that's how I started. And I joined psychometric test publisher on the sales side of their business as they were just sort of scaling up their sales team and professionalizing their Salesforce. And I spent four, five years with them to be honest, I wasn't very good at sales.
It wasn't the right time for me and I, wasn't confident in selling. And I think that's something that is, is really key to successful performers that I've come to realize. You know, now that I'm a bit more mature in my career. Yeah. so what, what ended up happening was I, I, I moved across into the consultancy delivery team, really enjoyed that, learned a lot, lot about psychometric testing and assessment and development. And that, I suppose what I've done really is to, to marry the two together in, in, in terms of the, the acuity tool that we've developed now.
Richard Anderson (02:46):
Fantastic. It's interesting that you, you touched on the confidence element that, that, that maybe took you away from sales in the first instance. I mean, I have to say, although I've remained in sales pretty much exclusively in my career, there's definitely been times and there's still are times where I have a lack of confidence if I'm, if I'm completely honest, I think that's probably quite a common thing. Do you find that a lot of people in sales suffer from, from that, that, that challenge of, of confidence?
Jim Bloomfield (03:13):
Yeah, I think, I think you can, and I think you're right, that that can happen at different times in your career and can be down to a huge range of different factors. You know, some of them may be work related. Some of them, some of them may not be. So you know, I, I guess there's no sort of one particular remedy for that. I think if I reflect back on my early career, my lack of confidence came from the fact that I was, you know, 20 years old going out and talking to huge businesses and very senior people in those businesses about psychometric testing, which actually I knew nothing about apart from having had some training from, from the business that I joined. So I didn't feel comfortable in the subject. I didn't really understand how psychometric tests sort of fitted into the wider HR and L and L and D agenda.
and so I wasn't really able to add any value to those conversations. I mean, fortunately I was working for the market leader, so I could pick up the phone and say, hi, I'm from X. And generally, you know, the client would take the call and generally they'd be quite happy to meet, meet me at least the first time anyway. <Laugh> yeah, yeah. And so, you know, there was a case, it was a case of, you know, I was, I, I did. Okay. But I, I think that was despite my capability rather than because of my capability at that time in my career.
Richard Anderson (04:35):
Okay. No, it's, it, it is really interesting. And, and when I cast my mind back to when I started my sales career in my early twenties or, or whatever it was, it was probably around that time where I thought, well, I could quite easily leave this. This is, this is too much. And I think that was that for, I mean, my personal experience, it was all about targets and, you know, needing hit targets and obviously an expectation of any sales person that they're gonna have a target in place, but it was that level of pressure. And I think for me, if I'm honest, it was probably due to a lack of experience and expectation or, or what, what was expected of me. And I have to be honest again, you know, I saw a lot of people who would come and go in sales roles. I, I managed to stick it out and as time went by, I became more confident and did better in the role, but I did see a lot of people come the profession and, and then leave. I mean, do you find any common themes with the, the reasons that people leave sales? Cause I mean the, the attrition in sales is still pretty high.
Jim Bloomfield (05:33):
Yeah. I, I think you know, my, my, my personal experiences, well actually, I'm gonna say something that, that, you know, feel free to challenge me on this, but I don't think that sales is actually that complicated when you break down the, the behaviors. Yeah, yeah. Of a good salesperson. I think that there's a, certainly in the UK, there's a, there's a sort of stigma associated with sales and people be, feel very uncomfortable being seen as a sales person. Yeah. and maybe, maybe because of that, there's a sort of, there's a lot of people have that have that discomfort and, and therefore shy away from, from perhaps some of the things that you need to do consistently well, to be effective as a salesperson. So, you know, again, thinking about my early sales career, I had targets, they were in terms of activity targets pretty easy to achieve, I think when I, when I joined my first organization, they were quite an immature sort of sales function.
and at the time they didn't, they were just building up a an office based sales force. So they didn't have, I don't think they had a field sales team at all. So I joined and, and essentially I was going through a database ringing clients. Yeah. And my target was to have 20 conversations a day. Okay. Which is not very many at all. No. But I failed to achieve that target probably more often than I managed to, because I would always find other things to do, like, you know, update the database or yeah, yeah. You know, do some research or, you know, X, Y, and Z. But actually I could E I could have easily done that. I could have easily had 20 conversations with clients, as I say, people were quite happy to talk to me if I got, you know, if I managed to get through, to, to the right person and, and, you know, being market leader that was relatively easy to do. Yes. I mean, if I think about my, my business now, you know, we're a small business. And if I pick up the phone to you know, a potential prospect and say, I'm from blue jam, they'll say, well, they won't take the call in the first place, but they won't know who I am when I, when I say who I'm calling from. Yeah. so it's quite different. And now I've forgotten any questions. So <laugh>, you might wanna answer it again.
Richard Anderson (07:54):
No, no, that, no, that, that, that was perfect. Jim, I think just again, just to, just to go back to another another example of mine, and you've just, you've just mentioned the fact that you were targeted against a certain amount of calls that you had to, to do every day or 20 conversations. I think you said that you had to have every day and, and you mentioned that, you know, you didn't get, you didn't get through them. And I've had very, very similar experiences in my career because I started out in, we used to call it telesales. I mean, it's, SDDR is the, is the, I mean, these things changed so often I can keep up with 'em to be honest, but SDR and the idea was that I would put on meetings for the field sales staff, but it was almost if I was, you know, if I was perceived to be a salesperson, I almost felt like I had to apologize for my own existence.
And it's that quantitation about being a salesperson. And then they started with all these fancy job titles. You're not sales you're business development, or your business consultant, or see yourself as a consultant or whatever that might be. And the, the reality was, for me, it was still very, very difficult to, to make those phone calls. And I used to hide quite a bit behind email prospecting just to, just to take a slightly different direction here. Do you, I mean, in terms of sales prospecting, how do you see, or what do you see as the best method to do that now? Or is there a mixture
Jim Bloomfield (09:13):
<Laugh> I'm not sure I'm the best person to, to ask to be honest. I mean, the way I, the way I view it is there are a number of behaviors, which from our own kind of re research, and the model that we use in, you know, are supportive of success in sales. Now, I, I think as a salesperson, you need to be authentic and do what feels comfortable. So if you are sending emails, when that isn't perhaps your natural communication method, or you are trying to make calls, when that isn't your natural communication method, it isn't, you know, that that will come across to a prospect. And I think that's the bigger issue is just finding out, finding out what is your, you know, kind of preferred style and you know, thinking about the behaviors that do determine success, what does that look like for you as an individual? Because the way that I exhibit those behaviors might look very different to the way that you exhibit those behaviors. So there's no point in me copying you.
Richard Anderson (10:09):
Yeah.
Jim Bloomfield (10:10):
I need to do it authentically
Richard Anderson (10:12):
And ultimately it's all about results, isn't it? It doesn't really matter how you get there as long as you do get there.
Jim Bloomfield (10:17):
Yeah. And it's been quite interesting over the course of the, the, the pandemic, seeing all this sort of research and best practice coming across in terms of, you know, how sales people should reach out to prospects and the different channels and communication methods they should use. And there's, you know, depending on which piece of research you pick up, there's different stats about what's most effective and how sales people should do things. But again, I, you know, personally, I think that should, you should just do that in a, in a way that that's, that's authentic really, and, and, and whatever you feel comfortable with.
Richard Anderson (10:58):
Yeah, no, absolutely. And, and just to go back to, cause you, you had a a webinar that I, that I watched with interest with a, a friend of mine, Stu Taylor from a Lego fairly recently, and you, you talked a length about coaching sales coaching. So again, I think what, maybe one of the reasons that people leave sales roles is, is maybe lack of coaching, even looking back at my career, I've, I've attended sales courses that might last a day or two, but, but I think it's, it's accepted that a lot of sales leaders don't coach there, not enough sales leaders coach there, the teams, what do you think the reasons are for that, Jim?
Jim Bloomfield (11:39):
Yeah. And I, and I think I quoted a start on that webinar, which I've now forgotten, but I think it was something like sales leaders spend less than 10% of their time coaching and mentoring their, their teams. Yeah. you know, know, yeah, absolutely. I mean, my, my background is, you know, having talked about the sales side on the consultancy side, I spent 15 years working in leadership development. And there's a huge amount of investment that organizations make in developing leaders and assessing their suitability to lead teams. And obviously with that comes a lot of often comes a lot of coaching and, and mentoring as well. So for me that, you know, the same thing should be, should be applied to a sales organization. You know, what's good for a leader in any other part of the business should just be a, a, should be as good for a sales leader. Yeah. they're no different really.
Richard Anderson (12:33):
Absolutely. And just because you are, you're an excellent individual contributor as a salesperson, as many people who get promoted into those rules are doesn't of necessity mean that you're gonna be a great leader, does it? And especially, you don't know what you don't know the money, if you've never managed people before it's gonna be difficult.
Jim Bloomfield (12:47):
Yeah. And, and it's the same for, again, it's, it's kind of the same for anyone in, in any part of the business, but, but other parts of the business tend not to promote you just because of your technical expertise. Yeah. They, they try to understand your people, management people, leadership style. Whereas in sales often that's very much secondary to, this is our top sales performer and therefore they should be the leader we need to, we need to sort of mirror that person and replicate that person. And this is where I come back to. Well, actually, just because that person's really great at selling in that way. Let, what you need to understand is what are the under underlying behaviors that are driving their success and how can other people think about the way in which they might demonstrate those behaviors in their own authentic way, as opposed to just copying that guy, because if it's not natural, it would, they won't sustain it.
Richard Anderson (13:39):
So obviously you've mentioned behaviors there, Jim, I know that you've done extensive work around this and it formulas your acuity model, but I I'd be interested to learn. And I know that the listeners will be interested to learn what it is that you've researched and what you've learned about sales people's behaviors, that and what behaviors they should be exhibiting to, to make them successful in the
Jim Bloomfield (13:58):
Role. Yeah. So if I, if I take a step back, the the reason for doing the, the, the research really was that we were getting asked to develop recruitment processes and, and assessments for people and given our, our background that I referenced earlier in, in leadership assessment and development, the focus there is very much on behaviors and the behaviors of a leader. So, you know, we, we try to apply the same approach to, to sales. And, and we, we did a, a, a literature review of, of studies from psychology and, and, and looking at sales studies as well, which amounted to, I think, around about 20,000 plus sales people in total, once we kind of brought together all of that analysis to, to try and understand, you know, what are the key behaviors that drive success in a, in a sort of complex B2B sales role.
So those sales that are high value you know, maybe technically complex involve selling to multiple stakeholders on the client side. And, and therefore I like it to be high value and take place over a long period of time. So there's an element of that kind of stakeholder management and trying to coalesce people around a solution for that type of, of sale. We've built this, this model called acuity, and we now have thanks to our work with you, Richard, that, that online psychometric assessment of those behaviors. Yeah. and that's something that we can use in, in both a, a recruitment and a development context to help people to, to develop their sales capabilities.
Richard Anderson (15:41):
Brilliant, Jim, and, and, and you've been kind enough to allow me to sit the the acuity tool and when I went through it and I was looking through the report and kind of dissecting my profile, if you like it, it did, it did really ring true. And I think, and Stu said the same to you when, when you had the conversation on the webinar. I learned things about myself that when I went through it, I thought, well, actually, hang on. That, that does resonate. That does make sense. But previously you do live in, in blissful ignorance. I mean, I have some idea of certain things that I do well but there are of of course, and, you know, I've seen that on the report. There are things that I don't do so well that I need to improve on. And I think what it said to me was that if I hadn't gone through this, would I have ever known it because now I, I, I run a business, I am a salesperson, but I'm not the best in the world. I haven't had a huge amount of coaching. And I think that's what, what, what the tool really did. So I did find it very interesting now, given that we are on an audio podcast here and, and we're not able to unfortunately share screens or, or show people, would you be able to, to talk through how the, how the model is comprised, Jim?
Jim Bloomfield (16:48):
Yeah. Well, I I'll, I'll keep it to, to a high level, but yeah. First of all, glad to hear that you found it, it useful, and that's exactly our intent is to help people to sort of better understand themselves and what they can do to, to develop their capabilities as a sales person, the acuity model effectively has three broad dimensions that are measured. And I'll just talk about the model that, that kind of dimension level for the purpose of the, the, the podcast. So the first one is around personal drive. So this is about the individual's underlying motivation to, to sell and to sell consistently it's about their goal focus. So do they understand what they're trying to achieve and do have they mapped out the steps in order to get there, to, to sort of maximize their chances of success? Yeah. and it's also about self-belief, which is about being positive and optimistic about what you can, can influence yeah.
In the sales process. It's also about being resilient when you're faced with setbacks as well. So coming back all the way to the start of the conversation, I would say, you know, my early self was very low on the personal drive factors that I've just outlined. Yeah. I, wasn't confident in myself, I wasn't confident in my ability to, you know, influence the sales cycle. And I was very much a reactive passenger within those conversations with clients. Yeah. The next dimension is, is sales focus. So we call this the, what piece it's about understanding the, the client and the market in which the client operates. So it's about gathering knowledge and being knowledgeable it's about then using that knowledge to educate the client and to provide insight. So you're starting to position yourself as a trusted advisor. Yeah. and then it's using that status as a trusted advisor then to influence and drive the sale forward.
So you're moving from reactive to proactive in that sales cycle. And then the third dimension is, is more about the, the sort of interpersonal engagement with stakeholders in, in the, in the sale. It's about perspective taking, so reading your audience, you know, bearing in mind if it's a complex. So you'll be having multiple meetings with multiple individuals that requires you to essentially read the room. Yeah. then to adapt your own style to, to, to get the most out of each, each of those interactions, you know, a conversation with someone in procurement versus someone you know, in marketing is likely to look quite different yes. And may require you to adapt your style. And then the other element within that is around being connected in the cl within the client organization. So knowing the influences and you know, the, the, the influences upon your stakeholders in the, in the client organization, but it's also about being connected within your own business so that you can bring the, the, the sort of whole service and, and firm capability to bear on that opportunity. So that would sort of encompass elements of, of cross selling and, and, and upselling and things like that.
Richard Anderson (19:55):
Yeah. It's, I mean, going, you know, you've, you've talked through it and, and, and having gone through it yourself, it's a really, really comprehensive model. And it, it does, it does really resonate. And I would imagine Jim, I know that we talked about salespeople working in a complex B2B environment. I would imagine that that would be used within any, any sales role in that environment. It would be useful for, for you. We talked about titles before, but SDRs BDMs, or as they're called now, is that, is that fair coming?
Jim Bloomfield (20:23):
Yeah, absolutely. So the, so the model is, is really about the behaviors required in that type of sale sales environment. So it can work across multiple sectors. It can also work across different job roles within the sales function within the selling organization as well. So the key thing there would be to dissect for an individual who's an SDR, as opposed to someone who's a, an account manager or relationship manager, you know, what, again, what do these behaviors look like for you? What should they look like in this role? Yeah. And, and what are you gonna do differently going forwards, having had this insight.
Richard Anderson (21:01):
Yeah. And, and, and typically when, when people will go through this assessment, this Sacome will, will the results be, is it the results mainly for their, their, their, their team leader, the sales leader? Is it for themselves? Or how, how does that work?
Jim Bloomfield (21:17):
Well, it's a bit of both really. So there's a personal report that, that you can give to the individual who completes the questionnaire and that will show them their own profile, highlight where they have strengths and, and perhaps development needs against the benchmark. So all of the results are, are benchmarked against people who have been through the, the questionnaire before. So we can start to show individuals and organizations how their sales capability matches to, to others who, who have done done the questionnaire. Yep. so the personal report will give individuals, then development tips and activities related to their own pro profile. There there's a manager report that, that managers and coaches can use to develop individuals bearing in mind that sales leaders tend not to spend much time doing that. This is a, this is a tool that when enable them to facilitate those conversations, perhaps a bit more easily, and then we can do group sort of cohort analysis as well. So we can start to say to a sales organization, this is how your sales organization, or perhaps break that down by, by region or job type within the sales organization. But we can do analysis on how they then benchmark as an organization compared to other organizations who've used acuity as well.
Richard Anderson (22:34):
I think that's really interesting as well, because presumably if you're looking at group strengths or group weaknesses or development areas, you can then put in interventions across, across the group itself or the department or the team or whatever that might be.
Jim Bloomfield (22:47):
Yeah. I mean, we originally developed the tool because we wanted to give people something that they could access and own themselves and, and start to make changes themselves without being reliant on their organizational, their manager, to provide training and support, but equally when you scale up and, and undertake the, the, the sort of organizational level analysis, then, then obviously the findings of where we're strong and where we may have development needs as a cohort, become very powerful in terms of helping organizations to determine what sort of support and development activities they can put in place going forward. So, yeah, it, it, it enables both sides really, I think, to, to to support sales development within an organization.
Richard Anderson (23:32):
Yeah. And, and, and for participant as well. It's, it's, it's just nice to have a report. It's nice to have information about yourself to learn more about yourself, obviously. Until I've, I, I, I did this job, if you like, and did, did evolve assess, I hadn't really sat that many psychometrics, but, but this particular psychometric, because it's about the career that I've always had. It's really interesting. It's nice for me to know. And it's because ultimately, now I know the areas in which I need to improve.
Jim Bloomfield (23:59):
Yeah. And we, you know, essentially we develop the tool because we couldn't see anything else out there in the market. Yeah. So, so for us, it's a, it is a sort of it's an opportunity to apply a level of, of sort of rigor and analysis that we're used to seeing in the leadership space that, that I don't think has existed previously in the sales space and it, and you know, I'm not sure why, because sales is such a key part of any organization.
Richard Anderson (24:25):
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. So, Jim, one of the areas that, you know, that I'm interested and passionate about is small business. Now I find through many people that I speak to who start their own businesses. They've never had any sales experience that they've been an expert in their area. They've now become a consultant. They've started off their own business as an example. And now they're faced with the daunting prospect of becoming a salesperson. Everybody has to sell, especially when they start a new business, regardless of, of what your history or your background has been. But what advice would you give to those people? Based on what we talked about through the behaviors, what advice would you give to those people who find the prospect of sales dawning?
Jim Bloomfield (25:05):
My first piece of advice would be to read a book by Daniel pink, which is called to sell is human. And he's a New York times journalist who's, who's become a, a published author and a bit of a guru in this space. And he, his, the book is all about the fact that if you are a, a working professional, then you are selling a lot of the time, whether it's selling to a client or you are working internally selling an idea to your boss. So his strap line is we're all in sales now. So to some degree or, or another, all of us will have had experience of selling. And even if we, if, even if we're not working, you know, we're selling ideas or trying to influence our friends, family, children, whatever. So we've all got a broad base of experience.
Now, I think for me coming back to that idea that that sales is a bit of a dirty word in certain environments. I think there's a bit a, a lot of people I might, I might just be transposing my own experience here, but there's a bit of a dis disconnect between what we see as selling as being something different and other, and scary and actually the behaviors that from our own research, we know drive good sales performance. Yeah. So those dimensions that I talked you through earlier, actually, they're just, they're just good client facing client management, ways of behaving. Yes. And actually, if you apply those behaviors, they will lead to good sales outcomes. You don't need to do anything different, but often it's just that mental shift that's required in order to kind of embrace those behaviors, see them as good things, see them as positive, and then think about how you can apply them more rather than sort of shy away from them in a sales context.
Richard Anderson (27:05):
Yeah. Love it. I'll have to read that book as well. I've I've made, I've made a note there. Brilliant. I, I should have read it clearly, but, but, but haven't yet. Okay. Well, Jim, I've, I've really enjoyed this discussion as I always do whenever we, whenever we chat. It's been nice to record it and put it up as a podcast. Hopefully people have found it interesting. I'm very keen for you to let the listeners know how they can get in touch with you if they're interested in exploring the acuity tool.
Jim Bloomfield (27:32):
Great. Thank you. Thanks, Richard. Yeah, so the easiest way is probably via LinkedIn. So if you look me up Jim Bloomfield at blue jam you'll find me on there. Our website is blue jam.co.uk. Or you can email me Jim dot Bloomfield blue jam.co UK.
Richard Anderson (27:51):
Brilliant. Thanks Jim. Enjoy the rest of the day.
Jim Bloomfield (27:54):
Thank you. Good to speak, Richard.
Voiceover (27:56):
Thanks for listening to psych for business, for show notes, resources, and more visit evolve, assess.com.
