by Tom Fedro
Managing Mavericks is an art in itself that requires the manager to allow enough rope for the Maverick to operate while minimizing distractions, such as administrative tasks and speed bumps. At the same time, the manager must maintain enough discipline to allow effective and accurate forecasts of revenue and expense outlays, and to deal with profitability while not disrupting the rest of the sales team that may require more structure.
Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. – John D. Rockefeller
Mavericks are different people who can be found through networking, referrals, word of mouth and high-quality recruiters; very rarely through and ads or job boards. Of course, if you use solid recruiters, they can also be a tremendous resource for finding these people, but they will be costly — 18-25 percent of the first-year income as a fee is charged to find one of these highly sought-after salespeople. The small company is an ideal place for a Maverick to contribute his skills. Small companies looking to win significant business need to be bold, and take more risks while attracting this business — and that’s the specialty of the Maverick.
Ideally, a company driving million-dollar deals will need at least one Maverick on the team, but be careful. A group of Mavericks would become as unmanageable as a team of running backs! Just like any sports team, a mix of talent is ideal. I would suggest a sales team mix that includes a Maverick, a Challenger, as well as some hard workers and relationship builders to address the different levels of accounts. Established accounts need a salesperson who can regularly visit to cultivate new business and manage and grow (or farm) the account, which would not be the Maverick; a relationship builder or a hard worker might be a better fit.
The Maverick needs the challenge of the chase with a grand cash prize and glory on the back end of a closed deal. He’s always looking for the ‘whale’ to stretch his character and capabilities while maximizing his income. She’s not a suitable type to manage existing accounts.
Each type of salesperson can inspire other types. If the manager has done a solid job in selecting the team setting the goals, and placing the fence posts for closing deals, everybody’s working to the same agenda. When they get together, it should feel like iron sharpening iron as each type sharpens the others. A good mix of those types of personalities on your team is going to yield the most effective results to cover all sales scenarios.
If you’re a small company wanting to attract a Maverick, you’ll need something better than just cool technology; you’ll need to paint a vision of greatness they can achieve with your team. When you’re talking to them about your business, you’ve got to have some exciting things to discuss, so the technology piece is of course fundamental. It’s got to be cool and cutting-edge, and it’s got to resonate with them. Beyond that, once the Maverick sees a robust solution he believes he can sell, he’s going to want to know what’s in it for him from a compensation perspective.
Offer the Mavericks an environment that provides the freedom to close business as they see fit, all while earning enormous amounts of money for outstanding performance. Having a compensation plan that’s known in the sales community to be highly lucrative will make it clear to the Mavericks that they can earn a significantly above-average income on your team. Of course, if you already have a salesperson knocking it out of the park and making a lot of money, that’s helpful when looking to bring on another one!
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. – Frank Herbert
Recruiting Mavericks depends on your budget. The fastest way, if you don’t already have specific Mavericks in mind, is to hire a recruiter. You’ll lay out some cash — around $25,000 to $40,000 or more — to get one of these people, but with million-dollar deals, they can knock out their quota and will be well worth the spend. If you don’t have that kind of money, you can turn to your networks. Get in with the right groups in your area, such as the innovation labs, the incubators and the startup and technology communities.
Put the word out through all your channels that you’re looking for the top salespeople in the industry. Tell them you’re going to be paying half a million to a million dollars a year in commission, and you want to talk to the top players. That kind of talk can help bring Mavericks to the table. Then it’s a matter of making sure you get what you are paying for: you don’t want to waste six months thinking you’ve got a real Maverick when instead you have somebody who just wants to collect a base salary for six months until they find another job. That’s the art of the sale. You must be able to ascertain what you’re buying when you step up to one of these individuals.
High expectations are the key to everything.
– Sam Walton
Smaller companies who haven’t landed that big sale yet appeal to the Maverick, as that’s part of the hunt. Working for a small startup company is a risk a Maverick would understand and enjoy, provided the technology is going to work. They realize taking the risk is why they are paid so well. Once you start selling and having success, you can leverage that into bringing on more of these top-notch salespeople who can harness that initial success into significant revenue for the company.
→Managing the different sales types↓
Mavericks require a lot of space to win business, and it can be tricky to establish a clear structure with them. Be sure to provide the fence posts and the guidelines to work within as needed for the solution, such as pricing parameters, maintenance rules and custom engineering procedures. The Maverick can’t be giving the store away by selling at too low a price point or offering free services just to land a sale. The guidelines and rules that they agree to must be clear when you turn them loose in the marketplace.
You must trust that they’re going to stay within the agreed-upon guidelines, then you get out of the way and let them do their job. Allow them ultimate flexibility to make the deals happen, and permit them to work the way they want to work. They must have the freedom that they long for as generally the reasons they’ve gone into sales is to have the freedom to use their strengths, personality, curiosity and questioning techniques to command their own destiny. Set up the box for them to play in and then let them play the way they see fit.
The Maverick’s manager has to be supremely confident in their personality because big egos can become a disaster when working with Mavericks. It’s a fine line managers walk; they must be disciplined, but avoid a contest of wills. Don’t put yourself in a situation where you try to show the Maverick who’s boss. That’s a no-win situation.
Managing the other salesperson types is a little bit more hands-on. For example, with a relationship builder, you’ll see that she will spend a great deal of time ensuring that the customer’s happy. She could spend too much time looking to gain approval from the customer as opposed to pushing to the next sale within the account or moving on from that particular customer to a better opportunity for revenue growth. This is a constant issue with the relationship builder because he’s generally not as motivated by money. They are to a certain extent, or they wouldn’t be in sales, but they are not at the same level as a Maverick or a lone wolf. They require a more structured management style.
The Challenger requires more structure than the Maverick, but tends to be a stable sales personality, a great questioner and a great performer. If you have a Challenger and a Maverick together on your team, you’re very fortunate.
Lone wolves can bring in huge deals or crash and burn. You have to have some solid activity guidelines in place that show they’re making progress and not silent for a month while providing zero feedback on what’s happening in their account base. They have unique personalities by which they can bring in huge business, but they need to be handled with straightforward care. The manager is going to have to get down to brass tacks regularly wi
th the lone wolves to make sure that things are getting done and they’re not out looking for their next job.
Never confuse activity with accomplishment.
– John Wooden
Hard workers can be great, but they can also be distracted with busy work that isn’t driving revenue. Hard workers can spend an enormous amount of time making calls that aren’t picked up or working on proposals that are never going to be won because they were written for somebody else’s product. These type of people must be closely managed as they’re active, and it looks like they’re working hard, but it isn’t clear whether their efforts will result in revenue production.
The pay structure can differ among these salespeople.
Mavericks are regularly going to make half a million to a million-dollars in annual income. It has to be realistically attainable with a comp plan that you’ve developed for them. The cash has got to be there. If they’re successful in blowing out their quota, make sure they’re earning sufficient money to justify their time spent with your company. You should also consider some other bling, such as achiever trips to exotic locales, bonuses that are on top of their standard comp plan, tickets to sporting events or the leasing of an exotic car for a year — whatever, within reason, can drive the behavior you are looking for.
There are not separate comp plans for the other types of salespeople. Part of the deal is that a salesperson gets a comp plan based on her experience and her quota and her territory, but the manager must do an excellent job of making sure everybody has enough meat on the bone to make money. The incentive is that if you blow out quota, which may be a $1.5 million annual sales goal, for example, then the Maverick is looking to close $3 million or $4 million in software or technology to maximize income. Opportunities to blow out their quota by two, three or four times is what Mavericks are seeking. They want and look for something above and beyond what they’re going to find at other companies.
→The different roles of the salesperson↓
The role of the salesperson in exploring pain
Pain is the big P of our PAM triangle, and the first role of the salesperson is to identify, validate, confirm, and then reconfirm that pain. To understand your prospect’s pain and explore how your product or service helps alleviate it, ask the right questions around the REP (revenue - expenses = profit).
Salespeople should be following the 80/20 rule, listening 80 percent of the time. If you’re talking, you’re not selling. It’s your job to understand the prospect’s situation clearly, and that comes from asking the right questions and listening carefully to what is and isn’t being said. Only then can you determine whether or not this prospect has the necessary pain to meet your specific equation in pain, authority and money.
How is your revenue stream being negatively impacted? What’s costing you money?
What initiatives are currently in place to help increase your profit?
What are your biggest challenges in growing your business?
What’s keeping you or your boss up at night?
What are the key issues, industry trends and problems that you’re dealing with?
Where are you wasting your time?
Are there any processes or activities that need to be changed or improved right now?
Are there any specific issues senior management seems to bring up again and again each quarter and each year?
What are the Top 3 objectives for the company this year?
What are those objectives intended to achieve?
What’s standing in the way of manifesting those objectives?
Ask questions to develop your understanding of the pain problem. Draw out a description of the gap between where the prospect is now and where they want to be. Examine it together from every angle. You want to position yourself in a consultative role so that after you gather the information, you’ll be in a prime position to create a compelling proposal that will close the gap and move them to where they want to be. Of course, bridging the pain gap involves your product or service at a reasonable return on investment that makes sense to all involved in the decision.
With the right information provided by marketing and other company stakeholders, the salesperson can be an effective sniper, expertly picking the right target and hitting it at the right time to close a deal, provided the pain is identified. If the prospect doesn’t have the pain, respectfully move on after creating a primary relationship you can regenerate when the timing changes. Place them on a nurture track so that the marketing team can stay in touch through your email platform and other soft-touch marketing channels. Keep them informed about your product line and what you’re doing, and share any industry issues you discover that could impact them.
Asking quality questions demonstrates that you have done your homework and are ready to listen to the prospect. It’s critical that the prospect feels heard, and that their particular problem is the most crucial problem on the planet to you. Your job is to help them eliminate the pain of that problem. Bring to the table an understanding that you see their problem from many perspectives that the prospect doesn’t have access to. You already know many different clients are dealing with the very same problem your current prospect is wrestling with, so you can help them as a resource, and be an advocate to get them where they need to be, and that is being pain-free.
Lean in, speak out, have a voice in your organization, and never use the word ‘sorry’. – Trish Bertuzzi
I’m going to repeat myself (because it’s essential), but at the highest level, PAM and REP (revenue - expense = profit) will be the same in every single account. How you get there could vary, depending on the particulars of that account. Which vertical are they in? Are they in the healthcare space or the financial sector? Are they a government or educational account? Each of these markets is going to have different pressures, regulations and industry trends that affect them. As a salesperson, you must have intimate knowledge of this information to be seen as a credible resource.
Once you’ve identified that they’ve got a real pain, and they recognize that they must get it fixed, develop the questions to define the dimensions of that pain and the impact it has across their business both overall and within different departments. There is a whole series of questions you can use to illuminate those pieces of the puzzle.
How much does the pain cost every quarter?
Is it growing or is it shrinking?
What approaches, if any, have been used in the past?
What has and has not worked?
What other divisions are impacted by this particular pain?
Draw the picture and color it in so you have a clear image confirmed by the customer or prospect. Establish how much their pain has grown and what it costs them. Listen as they present a timeline in which they need to get it fixed. All this information is recorded as the client confirms it. Help them consider revenue minus expenses, and ask how much solving their pain is worth to them.
The role of the salesperson as a trusted advisor
In becoming a trusted and valuable resource, build rapport with the customer so that they see you as somebody they like who will be on their side if and when the ship’s ever going down. Your customer needs to know they have somebody on their team who understands their position and can help them get to where they need to be. That’s the objective of every salesperson in a significant million-dollar transaction. There is much at stake for all parties involved.
Make it your goal to be seen as a trusted advisor instead of a salesperson as soon as possible. Your first conversation should show the prospect that you are different from the rest. You’re not talking about product and features and benefits; you’re asking intelligent questions. You cut to the salient issues of that particular prospect’s life to help them clearly identify and then eliminate the pain they’re feeling.
You offer informed opinions and data points around your prospect’s daily activities, interests and industry. You synthesize competitive pressures they are feeling
with industry events and dynamics, delivering new insights that they haven’t encountered elsewhere. Becoming a trusted advisor can depend on the sales cycle and the decision timeline. The sooner, though, you can offer more value and industry expertise than the competition, the better. Get that label and set yourself apart from the rest of the people trying to win deals.
The crucial part is to reach the prospect and be yourself. Whether it’s online, in person or through your emails, the trusted advisor persona should ring through at all times. Here are some critical ideas and recommendations.
Understand what your prospect faces and what negatively impacts their performance.
Learn their industry inside and out so you know more than they do about the issues.
Know the government regulations and tax issues faced by your prospect.
Know the advantages you can provide with your solution.
Know your prospect’s competition and what they’re doing.
Provide information about the competition they don’t already know.
Always look for news on mergers and acquisitions, stock changes, and unusual profit or losses in their verticals.
Offer insights that demonstrate your understanding of their market space and pressures. That will set you apart!
Offering insights such as those listed above, without even talking about your particular product or service, sets a high bar for the competition, and it’s one they will rarely rise to. As a result, the prospect will view you in a different light. They’ll see you as more of a resource that they can trust, rather than avoiding you as they do those other sales reps spouting speeds, feeds and product performance metrics.
It helps if you’re an industry expert who can go toe to toe with people at the different levels within an account who are dealing with specific industry pressures. Every interaction you have with your prospect should be treated as an opportunity to add value by sharing new information or ideas that can help them meet their goals.