Adam Boyd Previews Sales Leadership Summit
Adam Boyd provides a preview of the International Factoring Association’s upcoming Sales Leadership Summit and shares his perspective on deal origination strategies, sales management, and the benefits of “coopetition.”
For sales managers and their teams, it is easy to fall into an echo chamber when it comes to evolving or adapting strategies. The International Factoring Association is providing an opportunity for sales leaders and managers to network with one another and discuss best practices together. The Sales Leadership Summit will take place in Las Vegas from Oct. 19-20. The two-day event will provide solutions to build and maintain a sustainable and successful sales practice and strategy with guest speaker Adam Boyd, Principal at Northwood Group, and moderators Vince Mancuso, Managing Director of Strategy at Garrington Group of Companies, and Jason Lippman, Founder & CEO of nFusion Capital.
What is the greatest benefit from a summit like this for those with sales management responsibilities?
Adam Boyd: I find most people in this space – regardless of role or function – spend a lot of time working on trying to originate deals, which is important. But the problem then becomes that there’s not a lot of time that they can take to slow down and think about how they’re doing that. That’s how events like these offer several benefits. Attendees network and learn, but being in a place where you're forced to turn off your notifications and messages and really consider how you're going to market your message, what you're delivering, how you're managing and hiring people – that's really the biggest benefit.
There will be good content to absorb. I'm probably biased in saying that, but this is a great place to learn and really think about your business and be inspired by your peers with new ideas. I compare it to a sports off-season. You play your sport, then you have a season for the body to rest and for coaches to think about the next season. For sales managers, this is a 48-hour off-season to think about how we want to adjust going forward.
How can attendees use this level of networking to their advantage?
Boyd: This is a small industry. Attendees will want to get together to build relationships with people not to just send each other deals, but to find out what others are seeing in the market. They have an opportunity to ask questions like: “What are you hearing from potential clients?” or “Talk to me about how your team is handling pricing.”
I remember talking to another factor several years ago, and we were talking to the same customer. We were discussing pricing even though we were competing for a deal, but it was helpful to have a relationship where we were able to ask, "Hey, were you really that much lower on price? Because that's what the prospect was saying." There was “coopetition” – cooperating with the people you compete with. You get to build those relationships where you can compare notes on talent.
It’s helpful to share what you are starting to see in the market. The market’s been recovering since COVID. A lot of people are seeing a lot of improvement after the Paycheck Protection Program loans, and they're going to want to compare that. They're going to want to be talking about how various industries have been impacted.
Can you share some high level thoughts on today’s most successful sales strategies?
Boyd: Like it’s said in Ecclesiastes, there’s nothing new under the sun. And the more we go into it, the more I realize there aren’t really any new principles. There might be a new way to talk about old principles or a new approach to a principle. For example: leveraging technology. One thing that I feel is really beneficial is looking outside of your industry for ideas. Other industries may track and measure differently. How they generate opportunities can inspire you. How can you bring in some best practices from somewhere else to bolster your efforts or gain an advantage?
People need to be tracking activity and analyzing if what they are doing is actually working. How do they know? Are you tracking where leads and deals are coming from? Are you measuring activity to determine what may or may not be a good use of time? You don't want to waste time on the wrong things. We can look at other industries to say, “How are they doing it?”
From your perspective, what are the best ways to motivate both business and team development?
Boyd: It’s important to ask, “What are people trying to do in their life?” If you work for me, I'd want to know what your goals are. And not just your goals working for me, but your goals in life. Because if I can find any connection between what we do together in our business and your goals – around professional development, growth, income – and how that affects you, we can start to tie together how the business gets what it needs and you get what you need.
A lot of people do want to learn. The question is how do they want to learn? What does it look like? And why does it matter to them? You need to figure out what your team actually cares about. What interests them? And that's one of the things business leaders and managers should be thinking about. When you're trying to develop both your business and your team, your priority should be developing your team first and then that will organically influence your business development as well. What's more, you'll find non-financial ways to keep people engaged. Yes, people will leave for more money, but if you give them more reasons to stay – such as their growth and learning – many of the right people will.
How have hot topics like rising interest rates, supply chain disruption, inflation and more impacted sales strategies and customer perspective?
Boyd: The bigger question is not how has it impacted the industry, but how are we responding to it? These disruptions are pushing people to find more opportunities and be better when they have one. We have to be more proactive in selling. For example, in housing 16 months ago, demand was ridiculously high. In today's market, you have to be good and you have to be sharp. You have to nail your messaging. You've got to ask the right questions. You've got to build a relationship and you've got to do it quickly. And you've got to have more opportunities because more of them may fall apart.
How would you encourage attendees to assess their origination and sales strategies at a summit like this?
Boyd: They should go in with one to three questions that they want to get answered by as many people as possible. People go to these networking events without goals. If I'm going to a networking event, I want to go with a specific goal. Identify what you want answered before you go. Is it finding new ways to source deals? Ways to qualify more quickly? Is it making one-on-ones more effective? Or maybe leveraging automation?
I also think it would be really good for them to compare not just results, but the process of the results with other peers that they talk to. What are your inputs? Emails? Calls? Conversations? Simply leads generated? People rarely get granular enough in the early steps of the process, and so they only look at results. I want to figure out how to build the machine so that it produces consistently. It would be good for us to sit down and compare notes and say, “Hey, what's working for you? How are you doing it? How are you engineering outbounds?”
You want really valuable networking. There is so much business out there for people. They don't need to be worried about keeping some secret because there aren't secrets. It only matters if you execute on it. And the sad thing is that a lot of people will hear great things and they won't go execute on it. There's no shortage of good ideas. There's a shortage of execution.