In our workshops, the first thing we do is add up the dollar volume of all the opportunities/accounts we’ll work in class. Then we discuss how we’re going to create better strategies and action items to make that either a bigger number or increase the probability of reaching that goal.
The transformation is startling. All of a sudden, it’s no longer a training class. It’s actually working on live deals — their competitors, their products, their issues, and their pipeline — and giving them something they can use at 8:30 tomorrow morning. When we focus on deals that are relevant to them, we have very few prisoners in class.
Tailored to Your Unique Sales Process
Before training begins, it is important to define your unique sales cycle and potential action items—built and designed by your people and owned by your managers. This not only makes the process of technology relevant, but it also gains the buy-in of front-line managers, who are the key to adoption.
The worst thing you can have is a sales manager, with arms folded, passing judgment on a new program while you’re training the troops. How can such a manager object to a process he or she designed?
Usually front-line sales managers, especially the intuitive ones who are not process-oriented, are hungry for a process to make their people more independent and to give them a coaching tool to keep deals in control. Tying the methodology and their sales process together by phase relates to what they do every day. Real deals mean that the results can be seen immediately. The question that must be answered by the reps is, “Was it worth my time?”
Keep the Tools Simple
The next step is to make any account management or opportunity management planning tool extremely concise. Processes that require salespeople to fill out a 12-page form are destined to fail.
If the integrity of the logical work flow of the tool is not preserved, or if there is excess redundancy, when the tool is integrated with your CRM, you can almost guarantee a failed CRM and a failed methodology.
In a pivotal meeting for us a few years ago, for which I will always be grateful, Phil Wilmington, then senior vice president of worldwide sales for PeopleSoft, said, “We need a one-page sales tool.”
I said, “Well, you have the author and owner here. Which of the six P’s would you take out?”
He looked at it and said, “None of them. I’ve got to have them all in order to win.”
“Well then, we don’t have a methodology issue. What we have is a management issue,” I said.
The challenge was discipline. But we did take the razor to our process and drove it down to one page of output and three simple input screens.
It has to be simple, but it also has to be effective. A blank piece of paper is simple, but it’s not powerful enough to help you lead a team. And a 12-page document certainly would be complete, but no salesperson is going to slow down enough to use it.
Successful, Credible Instructors — No “Facilitators” Allowed
The next step is to have credible instructors. People who stand up in front of experienced salespeople have to have walked in their shoes, or they will not earn the respect of those people. Lightweight “facilitators” without experience or worn-out salespeople whose experience is not current will not be credible.
In today’s marketplace, any instructor has to be involved in sales and have the executive presence to be able to customize the process to the client. Unbelievably, there are legions of sales trainers out there who have never carried a bag or covered a territory. There are ex-product reps out there trying to teach competitive hunting, and there are hunters trying to teach account management. There are ex-reps out there training who have never coached a deal.
Obstacles to Adoption
The character and discipline of an organization are defined by the excuses it allows. And people have no shortage of reasons why change is not needed or why they don’t have time for it.
Top 10 Most Common Adoption Subversion Excuses
1. We’ve had a new sales manager every two years — I can wait this one out.
2. I’m too busy to coach deals.
3. I’m ahead of quota. They won’t fire me.
4. I’m a veteran. That stuff is for rookies.
5. I handle the big account. They won’t fire me.
6. If I take time to do that and don’t make my numbers, they’ll fire me anyway.
7. Let’s see if my manager has the guts to insist on doing this.
8. I have too much administrative work and no time to coach.
9. Why do we need strategy sessions? We talk to the reps all the time.
10. We’ve tried this before. This too shall pass.
New Metrics — New Accountability
So what does the future hold? One of the best practices to making processes stick is creating new sales metrics — other than just revenue. Focusing on revenue only as a measurement is like driving in the rear-view mirror.
What is needed are metrics that measure accounts, deals, and salespeople along the way and spot out-of-control performance while there is still time to make changes. Metrics have not been an area of focus, outside of training departments, for the last few years. Salespeople respond well to being measured against goals. And metrics drive visibility and accountability, which ultimately drives discipline.
A great book for illustrating the potential effects of new metrics to achieve greater productivity is Moneyball, by Michael Lewis.
He writes about how Billy Beane and the Oakland A’s baseball organization brought new thinking into how to evaluate which factors predict success for a player. This enabled the team to get high performers for less money and build a perennial winning team without the superhigh payrolls that don’t always ensure success.
The “gut-feel” metaphors and stereotypes used by the major league scouts were replaced by new criteria. Beane and his Harvard economists had analyzed what really predicted success in baseball performance — walks taken, onbase percentage, and slugging percentage. They challenged established statistics such as errors — how can you have a statistic based on something you were supposed to do? They saw that the best way to avoid an “error” is to not try, or to be in the wrong place, or to have poor range.
The effect on the scouts and the rest of the league is a classic story of resistance to change management and the difficulties of challenging the intuitive, gut-feel, but untested factors that baseball scouts have used for years.
The power of new metrics changed baseball thinking and performance forever.
As we discussed in the section on technology, a critical best practice is to tie the methodology and customized best practice sales cycle back into the forecast.
New metrics are needed during the coaching phase. There are questions that coaches need to ask salespeople that will challenge assumptions, find blind spots, identify competitive counterstrategies, and drive toward a more successful sales plan.
We have recently implemented with some of our clients a coaching feedback system called Sales Prophet — an analysis of the analysis — that gives a manager’s confidence rating of the major questions in the sales plan as a result of the strategy session. The sales executive can then see how and why the forecast has been adjusted by front-line management. This results in fewer surprises and greater confidence in the forecast, as well as a greater win ratio.
As a result, there is also a watershed shift in accountability. Rather than seeing who has filled out forms, the question becomes which managers have strategized and coached their deals? And if not, why not?
Metrics drive visibility and accountability, which ultimately drive discipline.
Coaching and Forecast Follow-up Metrics
The Internet has created the possibility of getting greater feedback on the pipeline at a minimum of expense and time from the field reps.
While a good coaching session is the foundation of forecast accuracy, a manager needs to separate coaching and forecasting techniques. Coaching must be value-added. It needs to provide new ideas to help qualify, advance the strategy, gain access, challenge assumptions, or brainstorm new ideas. Coaching should expose blind spots for the rep’s benefit — not expose his or her shortcomings. These sessions could take an hour or some could take a day depending on the size, importance, and complexity of the deal.