Powerhouse Partnership

Sales people search far and wide for every possible advantage. They want to succeed. They desire to earn more money. Yet, there is a tool that many of them ignore completly.

They know this tool exists, but they avoid it. This tool could cause pain. It could cause angst. This tool challenges sales people in ways they never have been challenged before. It will take them to task!

This tool is called reflection. Reflection means taking a step back to go forward by challenging yourself with one question…

Will the sales approach that made me successful today, also make me successful tomorrow?

Sales people, who are honest with themselves, respond, “No!”

How could the same sales approach work for an eternity? Prospect needs, the competition, the products; they all change! Salespeople who do not adapt their selling style are left scratching their heads wondering … what changed?

“What made you UNIQUE yesterday, makes you a COMMODITY today, and EXTINCT tomorrow, unless you ADAPT to change”.

Ian Treadaway

Business executives often use the expressions “sales team” and “salesforce” synonymously. Top performing companies do not share that perspective. They see a distinct difference between the two. If you want to shift your sales team into salesforce? Here are four tips.

1. Do not search for great salespeople. Find the right ones with the potential to be great on your sales team. Selling successfully in your company takes more than just skills. It’s the overall match to role requirements. This starts by developing your ideal salesperson profile and contrasting prospective candidates against it.

2. Position salespeople for success. Do not assume that salespeople arrive in your company ready to sell. Create onboarding programs designed to quickly get them up to speed. The programs should connect their sales skills with proficiency in a specific sales role in your company. Onboarding should conclude with a written exam and a sales meeting giving the salesperson the opportunity to show their abilities.

3. Identify the metrics that are meaningful, measurable, goal-oriented and trainable. Top companies recognise that revenue is not a metric. It is a result of the right metrics being delivered-upon by salespeople at the desired frequency. You can not affect revenue, but you can drive the behaviors that lead to it. By the way, without a well-defined sales process, there are no meaningful metrics.

4. Compensate to motivate! Effective sales compensation plans align with corporate objectives. You may give your salespeople a job description, but nothing drives sales behavior more than how they get paid. Top companies recognise that sales compensation plans should drive salespeople to get the next sale, not just reward for yesterday’s news.

Put these 4 tips into practice and you are well on your way to building a world-class salesforce.

No one likes to talk about the one that got away…the large deal that was supposed to happen, but did not. It may have been a painful experience, but do not let your sales people just dust themselves off and move onto their next opportunity. There is much to be learned from a lost sale. And, it is not just sales people that learn from these experiences, but also sales leaders and senior executives take away pearls of wisdom from the exercise.

In the 1970’s, there was a television show called Quincy about a coroner who solved murders. Well, the deal is dead and, as the sales leader, it is your job to find out what happened. Your sales people will tell you, “The competitor was cheaper.” Or, “They had a better solution.” But, just like Quincy, you can not stop at the surface. Set out on an exercise to uncover the truth and dig into what really happened.

That being said, this is not a witch-hunt to find out who was at fault and beat them to a bloody pulp. If you take that approach, this exercise will fail, not to mention be resented by your sales people. Quincy used to conduct Coroner’s Inquests which were investigative processes with all involved parties to learn what caused the death. The Sales Inquest Process is exactly what sales leaders need to put into practice to understand what occurred when a sale is lost.

The first step is to interview the lead salesperson on the account to understand what was done, when, where and how. Then, talk with others within your organisation who were also involved with the deal to get their perspectives. After the interviews, call the decision-maker yourself, not to change their mind, but rather to thank them for considering your company and ask what your company could have done differently in the process. After gathering all of this information, conduct a debrief with your team and share your findings so that everyone learns as a result.

You will be amazed what comes out of this exercise. Some sales leaders have found that their sales people were not reaching the decision-makers. Others have learned that their solutions were missing some key functions that their prospective clients wanted. Still others have found that their pricing strategy was not competitive. And, as a result of these sessions, sales teams have become stronger as they have learned what works and does not.Loseing that big deal could be the best thing that happens this year.

If there is one expression that executives throw around without considering the true definition, it’s the word strategic.” More often than not, when a sales manager is described as “strategic,” it is because this person is adept at bringing in deals. While that is an important skill, the use of  “strategic” in this case is for a sales person not a sales manager.

For sales managers to be considered strategic in their roles, they need to look at more than just getting deals done. Are you truly a strategic sales manager?

Strategic sales managers analyse the recruitment process and search for ways to continually upgrade their talent pools. And, they are interviewing even when there are not gaps in the team.

When strategic sales managers recruit sales people, they use effective training programs to reduce the amount of time it takes to get up to speed while also ensuring that the newly-recruited sales people are positioned to succeed.

Strategic sales managers use best practices to create processes and provide their sales people with success models to follow as guides.

When strategic sales managers review reports, they do not just look at the revenue column … they focus on the metrics that lead to sales. They view the report, not as information, but as data to affect change in their sales teams.

When strategic sales managers design compensation plans, they do not just ask how much sales people should make. They focus on aligning the incentive plans with business objectives and to focus the activities of their sales people.

Strategic sales people generate sales. Strategic sales managers build the framework that leads to the development of consistent, high performance, profitable sales teams.