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our experience working with our clients’ senior management, sales
management and sales people, regardless of industry, we have found
sales organizations making the same classic mistakes on a repetitive
basis. The objective of this article is to provide you with an opportunity
to compare the behaviors of your sales force to the findings of our
experience.
How many of the seven deadly sins are your sales force committing?
What are the costs to your company as a result of these sins?
Sin #1: Calling at non-decision making levels
In the highly dynamic world of selling, there are two very desirable
words- "yes" and a quick “no". The slow “no"
robs sales people of their most precious asset, time. The quick
“no” allows sales people to move onto opportunities they
can win. The most significant contributor to the slow “no"
is calling at non-decision making levels. Spending time talking
to middle managers and influencers of prospective clients not only
creates a slow “no” proposition, it commits your level
of contact in the account. Once established at the influencer level
you are now at their mercy in terms of moving up to meet with the
executive level, where the real decisions are made. In fact to get
the meeting with the executive, you may need to climb over the influencer,
putting your relationship and chances for success at risk. Always
calling high first, can more than double your company's win percentage.
QUESTIONS: On new business opportunities, what would increasing
your win ratio by 100% do for your total revenues? How often do
your sales people meet with senior management within your customer’s
organization? Could your sales force be calling higher on a consistent
basis?
Sin #2: A belief that it's a "closing problem", when
it's always a "qualifying problem"
When we meet company presidents for the first time we often hear,
"our sales people struggle with closing; can you help us?"
After we have completed our assessment and facilitated our consultative
sales training program, it becomes clear that it is never a closing
problem, but always failure to diligently qualify opportunities
that causes the loss of the deal. There are eight key elements to
completely qualify a deal. One of the most overlooked elements is
failing to understand the prospective client's business pain. Not
just what they need, but why they need it- the cause not the effect.
Most sales people who are so focused on trying to "close the
deal”, the harder they push, the further away the deal gets.
Twenty percent of the sales people in the world are making eighty
percent of the commissions available. The other eighty percent of
the sales people are fighting over the crumbs. These top guns are
where they are, not because of closing skills, but because they
know how to qualify their opportunities and invest their time appropriately.
QUESTIONS: What percentage of new opportunities pursued last year
did your sales force lose? How many of these should have been abandoned
earlier in the process because they didn't qualify? How many would
you have won if your sales organization were diligently qualifying?
Sin #3: Failure by the sales force to follow a consistent sales
process
When conducting sales and marketing assessments for clients, we
find as many sales processes in companies as there are sales people.
The absence of a consistent approach creates three significant challenges
for sales organizations. The first challenge is a lack of consistency
with customers. Sales people use their own approach, which may even
differ from customer to customer. Secondly, a lack of a systemized
sales process creates a sales management nightmare. We define good
sales management as proactive coaching and mentorship of the sales
force. To be an effective coach, sales managers must be experts
in the process themselves. How can a sales manager be an expert
in ten processes, or more? The third, and perhaps more painful issue
that occurs from having an inconsistent sales process, is inaccurate
revenue forecasting. Lack of a consistent sales process is the root
of all evil in sales organizations today.
QUESTIONS: How many sales people do you have? How many sales processes
do they have? How accurate are your sales force's revenue forecasts?
What are the costs to your business due to inaccurate revenue forecasting?
Sin #4: The premature proposal trap
What is the fastest way to get rid of a sales person? Ask for a
proposal. The sales person usually hurries back to their office
to begin their proposal building process, and for some sales people
this is a major work of art. After countless hours, perhaps days
of work, the sales person calls the prospective client and says,
"when can I show you our proposal?" To which the unqualified
prospect replies, "oh, just fax it over, we're really busy
over here, but I'll read it this week!" A week passes and the
sales person follows up only to learn that the prospect has not
read it- but has told them to follow up in nine months. Sound familiar?
Add insult to injury with the fact that the sales person was probably
forecasting the deal. Never create a proposal for a prospective
client without a diligent client needs assessment and qualification
process. If the prospect is not willing to invest some time in having
you better understand their needs, then they're probably not really
interested. Equally important, yet so often overlooked, always present
your proposal in person to the entire team making the decision.
Some sales people trust their contact within the client's organization
to present their proposal for them. The problem with this is that
the contact is not qualified to represent your company's value-they
are not a sales person. They can't speak from experience about the
many satisfied reference customers who deal with your company. They
cannot thoroughly explain any details about your proposal that may
need discussion.
QUESTIONS: How many proposals does your company produce in a year?
How many of these proposals were created without first conducting
a thorough client needs assessment and qualifying the opportunity?
How many proposals did your sales force present in person last year?
Through proper qualification and presenting your proposals you can
increase your win percentage by at least 30% - what would this mean
to your company?
Sin #5: Not having a documented sales plan with measurable goals
and objectives
"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail" …is this
ever true in the world of sales. Beyond having an annual sales quota,
every sales person needs to have a plan to achieve, in fact over
achieve, his or her numbers. Sales people need to build an annual
strategy, broken down into monthly goals and objectives. Quarterly,
the sales person and sales manager should review these goals and
make any needed adjustments to ensure the completion of the plan.
This sin is as much an issue for sales people as it is for sales
management. There are two modes of selling. The first we refer to
as "hunting", or identifying, qualifying and winning new
accounts. The second we refer to as "farming", or account
management of existing clients, ensuring maximum repeat and referral
potential. In today's highly competitive business world, the luxury
of having a team of hunters and a team of farmers is all but gone.
Sales people must manage their existing customers while continually
prospecting for new business. Many sales people are resting on the
laurels of their previous big wins, giving their prospecting low
to no priority. Prospecting activity needs to be given priority
and requires a real discipline. Every sales person should not only
have a revenue quota, but also a quota for meeting with new prospective
clients monthly. Nobody can manage results, only the activity that
leads to results. And you can not manage, what you do not measure.
QUESTION: How confident are you in your existing documented sales
plan? How many new business meetings do your sales people hold consistently
on a monthly basis? Is this level of activity enough to meet your
company's growth projections?
Sin #6: Failure to utilize the most effective sales weapon you
have - your existing customers
Many sales organizations use notebook computers today. But after
the high tech honeymoon wears off, they come to the realization
that for the most part, sales people don't sell anything while in
front of a computer screen. Yes technology, if applied properly,
can be an effective sales tool. However the most powerful tool a
sales person has is the power of proof-"the reference customer".
We work with a wide range of companies and we usually discover that
they are not fully leveraging their existing customers to help them
succeed. In our two-day consultative sales training program, which
is followed up by our coaching program, we teach the seven "R's"
of consultative selling. Four of them are as follows: Relationship...
develop a trusted advisor relationship with your clients…address
their pain. Reference... as a part of your account management process,
ask for a written letter of reference. Repeat... by virtue of the
value your clients receive from you and the added advice you provide,
your clients will provide you with additional business. Referral...
a satisfied client, with whom you have developed a strong relationship,
is happy to provide you with referrals to new prospects. Put your
clients on your sales team.
QUESTIONS: How many letters of reference from existing customers
do you have on file? How many customers do you have? If the customer
does not want to give you a letter, you must ask why not? And you
must address the issue proactively. This is another positive aspect
of asking for the reference letter.
Sin #7: Thinking that “software” alone will correct
an inconsistent or ineffective sales process
Regardless of the business process- accounting, operations, software
development, even warehouse management- software has never corrected
or created an effective process. You must start with an effective
process first, and then apply the appropriate tools or software
to support the effective process. Let us use the game of golf to
provide you with an example to drive home the point. I have been
golfing for years but still have a slice which usually puts me in
the rough or even the trees for my next shot. I’m sure some
of you can relate. What would happen if I ran back to the pro shop
and purchased one of those Big Headed Drivers? Does the “tool”
fix the problem? Absolutely not, in fact I’ll go even deeper
into the trees. My problem is in my swing, or simply said, my process.
After correcting my swing, with lessons and practice then I’m
ready to add the Big Club to go further, but only once I’ve
addressed the process. The very same point can be stated about sales
software or CRMs (Customer Relationship Management Software). In
recent surveys, 70% of the Sales Automation initiatives failed to
meet the customer’s expectations, due primarily to two factors.
The first and most dramatic is that sales organizations, in trying
to implement the software, do not have a consistent sales process
that incorporates their best practices. The second failure factor
comes from the sales force not “buying in”. This is based
on the fact that the software takes far too long to input information
and provides limited, if any, payback in helping them win more business.
Sales people ask the question ...“does the software help me
win? Or is it just more admin.?” Process and methodology must
come first; then you’re ready to implement software to support
the sales force.
QUESTIONS: When asking your sales force, “does your sales
management software help you win”, what would their answers
be? Did you have a consistent and effective sales process that incorporated
your best sales practices prior to implementing your sales management
software or CRM solution? Can you quantify your return on investment
with your sales management software or CRM solution? If you had
to do it again, what would you do differently?
Summary
We hope this article has helped you to reflect on your sales organization
and consider where improvements can be made. True sales effectiveness
is not just a campaign or company "theme of the month".
It is an attitude and a commitment to continual listening, learning,
refinement and development. This commitment must start at the top,
with the senior management of the company. Only then can this journey
begin.
Bette Daoust (BetteD@BizMechanix.com)
is the founder of BizMechanix (www.BizMechanix.com)
which provides management consulting services to tune-up organizations,
recommend maintenance schedules, strategically plan for repairs
and provide emergency care. BizMechanix is located in Pleasanton
CA.
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