Posts Tagged Sales Leadership
Three Mistakes B2B Sales Leaders Make That Hurt Performance
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on June 16, 2016
Much is written about how the role of the B2B marketers changed over the years due to the shift in the buying process. And while this is true, and has been mentioned more than several times on the ANNUITAS blog, I see very little being written or spoken about the role of B2B sales and how their roles have changed. Perhaps this is just me not being as deeply ingrained in the B2B sales world, but by and large, I have not seen much in the way of the changing role of sales in the B2B process. Furthermore, when I speak to prospects and engage with customers, I find that sales believes the changes are needed on the marketing side, but that there is little that they need to do to adapt. They could not be more wrong. As I continue to interact with many on the marketing side and am now also spending more time with those in sales leadership, 
I have seen some consistent themes that run across a good number (not all) of sales organizations. These mistakes must be corrected if B2B sales organizations are going to have any measure of success.
They Create Work To Keep Sales Teams Busy
I was on a call not too long ago with a client who said that they were going to start pulling industry lists from their house database and have their inside sales team begin a “call blitz”. Without getting into the specifics, I asked my client why they were taking this approach when the whole goal of us working together was to create a buyer-centric, perpetual demand generation program. The answer I received was “we need to keep them busy.” This is not the first time I have heard this plan for an inside sales team.
Simply creating work to keep a sales team busy is like running to the river to get water in a bucket rather than fixing the plumbing. It is a short-term fix that often supplies little in the way of results. The reality is that inside sales people who are very well paid should not be the “fix” for demand generation. They should be poised to either truly sell via the phone or to qualify leads that have indicated via their behavior (and corresponding demographic data) that they are at a point in their buying process that they want to have a discussion. Simply creating work to keep inside sales people busy is not only productivity problem, it is a sign that your demand generation engine is broken.
They Measure The Wrong Things
I spoke this morning with a colleague who is in a fairly new role in his company and was telling me that the one key metric that their inside sales team is measured on is “call volume.” In his new role, he is attempting to move past this way of thinking and stress that quality far surpasses quantity, but he is experiencing resistance.
To be frank, measuring the volume of calls is one of the worst metrics any sales team could measure. When a buyer is in their buying process and ready to take a call, they often have many, in-depth questions. Buyers want to understand how the company’s solutions or services will benefit them, and want be sure their specific needs and challenges will be met. Calls of this nature can take 20-30 minutes or even longer and when done as part of a strategic demand generation program, will lead to a higher closed-won conversion rate, leading to increases in revenue. This is really what demand generation is about, quality over quantity. Call volume doesn’t matter.
They Insist on Sticking to Their Sales Process
Not long ago I was meeting with a client and white boarding the buying journey. During this session the VP of Sales interrupted and stated, “I am not too concerned with the buying process. We have a sales process that will disrupt that and we will engage them when we need to.”
WHAT?!?
It was clear from his statement that he had no clue that the buyers do not care about an internal sales process. In fact, buyers determine when they are ready to engage with sales and buyers are no longer dependent on sales people to research and determine the right time for them to buy.
While there is a need to establish a lead management process and sales people should have a process they follow for the management of pipeline and revenue, too many sales leaders are in the dark about aligning their sales process to that of their buyers. As result, the unfortunate reality is that they are not converting potential buyers to customers at the rate they could be.
Demand Generation is not only a marketing activity. To be effective, both sales and marketing must be active participants in the process and this means changing the way many sales organizations and sales leaders approach their buyers.
This article was originally posted to the Annuitas Blog by Carlos Hidalgo on May 26, 2016.
Three Questions to Assess Sales Force Effectiveness
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP, Sales Process Evaluation on July 13, 2015
Every company wants a more effective sales force but few know where to start. Seeking quick results but unsure as to what is broken, sales leaders often launch a dozen or more initiatives simultaneously, hoping one of them is the real root of the problem.
Unfortunately, this approach often creates entirely new problems. Scarce resources are stretched thin. Sales teams, pulled in many directions at once, are unable to execute well. Results are typically poor when trying to focus on too many initiatives rather than three or four ideas that might really matter. As effectiveness slides, frustrated leaders must ask again, “What levers should I be pulling to boost performance?”
While the specific levers differ for every company, sales effectiveness issues can most often be traced to one or more of six very common culprits. Before launching any sales effectiveness initiatives, ask yourself the following three questions to maximize your chances of attaining good results.
- Is our field sales management effective in driving sales performance?
Companies aiming to improve sales effectiveness usually zero in on “fixing” the sales force but often the problems lie with the managers who lead them. We see it time and again: When a company with an average sales team hires a great manager, that manager elevates the performance of the entire team. The opposite is also true. When a team of superstar reps is led by a mediocre manager the performance slides and turnover increases.
Highly effective field sales management may be the single most important driver of overall sales force performance yet many companies don’t develop and tightly manage an effective sales management process. To begin, identify the skills and capabilities required for sales management success in your company, hire to those skills and then invest in proper development and training. Sales managers must be viewed, managed and measured with the same lens as salespeople: Are our sales managers helping their reps target and prioritize the right prospects? Are they coaching reps to help improve the win rate? Are they tracking metrics that measure the right behaviors and activities in the sales force and coaching to improve performance? Without excellent sales managers, even the best designed sales force effectiveness program will fail.
- Are our sales reps spending time on the activities and prospects most likely to generate incremental revenue?
Targeting and prioritization continues to be a top issue for sales forces. It comes down to this: Are your sales reps spending their time with the prospects that will generate the most incremental revenue and who are most likely to buy? It sounds basic, but we find most reps spend up to half their selling time pursing the wrong customers. These include prospects that are unlikely to buy, who have small incremental revenue potential, who are geographically convenient and who are “comfortable” because they are friendly. Growing incremental revenue requires spending more time selling to the highest priority targets.
A related problem is the limited time reps spend with customers. Time-use studies reveal many reps spend as little as 30%-50% of their time with direct customer/prospect selling activities, largely due to administrative burdens, corporate demands and lack of support. By freeing more of reps’ time to sell, then making targeting and prioritization activities a key part of coaching and metrics, sales reps can learn to re-direct their efforts and their expanded selling hours to prospects with the highest revenue/margin potential and the highest probability of buying. Sales managers often focus their coaching on point-of-sell messaging, but prioritizing who to pursue may be a more impactful lever.
- Do we fully leverage both hunting and farming activities to drive new revenue?
Any good revenue engine needs the right mix of revenue from winning new customers and from farming existing accounts. The right blend of hunting and farming activities will be different for every company and it is important to be intentional in creating it. Hunting involves knocking on new doors to drive new business; farming requires deepening relationships to further penetrate existing accounts. These are different activities that require different skill sets, different behaviors, different process and different metrics. Successful sales organizations leverage these differences to effectively target each prospect with reps whose skills match the opportunity.
Sales territories created by geography or industry without a real understanding of where revenue opportunities are and how they align with the assigned salesperson’s skill set usually produce lackluster revenue results. Hunting and farming skills are so dissimilar, they usually don’t reside in the same person. When organizations understand the hunting and farming requirements in their particular environment and differentiate those activities to match the skill sets of the sale team, revenues improve.
This article was originally posted to the Sales & Marketing Management Blog by Brad Wilsted and Ryan Tubman on April 27, 2015.
Seven Responsibilities Sales Managers Must Own
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on April 20, 2015
Shifts in the business-to-business buying process have transformed selling as we know it. In the past, salespeople had a fair amount of control. They were given a territory, a pricing structure, a margin target and a set of products and services they could offer, and then sent off into the wild blue yonder. They were responsible for managing their territory and producing results. Sales management provided oversight, facilitated requests back to corporate to ensure that orders were expedited and generally stayed out of the way, unless additional support was needed to help underperformers. That’s how things used to be. Now, the role of sellers – and therefore sales managers – is much different.
The “State of Sales Productivity 2015” study by Docurated found that only one-third of a sales reps’ day is actually spent selling, while 31 percent of their time is spent searching for or creating content, and 20 percent is spent on reporting, administrative and CRM-related tasks. Nowadays, 82 percent of sales reps feel challenged by the amount of data and the time it takes to research a prospect, according to a study by IKO System.
If you want to thrive in this new era of sales, it is now up to you as a sales manager to view territories, customers and products as if assessing a financial portfolio that you are responsible for investing. The people involved, the marketing dollars spent and the efforts expended are all for you to decide. It is your responsibility to make your investments wisely.
Since the time and attention of your salespeople are part of that investment, it is your responsibility to own their calendar, their workflow and where they spend their time. You may be of the old mindset that this is micromanagement, but in today’s marketplace, the investment belongs to the company, not the sales rep. This means your role as sales manager must adapt if you want to succeed in life after the death of selling as we know it. Your new responsibilities as a sales manager include the following:
Selecting targets – There’s an adage that salespeople talk to whoever will talk to them. In the new world of selling, your responsibility is to make certain that they are talking to the decision makers who can approve large opportunities that will come to fruition in the near future. Working with sales leadership, you must establish a filter that helps to define the most likely candidates for higher-opportunity sales efforts.
Defining priorities –Help your sales force prioritize what opportunities they pursue and how much time and effort they spend on each opportunity. Good sales managers keep key opportunities that are real and relevant to the current circumstances in the crosshairs of their salespeople.
Defining time guidelines – Set and enforce guidelines for how sellers spend their time. They no longer can just meander about a territory or go on a sweep of their current account base with the intention of “checking in and finding out what’s going on.” Rather, they must undertake a strategic and surgical approach to going after identified targets in a prescribed way.
Monitoring compliance – You are responsible for providing data that allows you and other leaders in the organization to monitor what is happening in the marketplace regarding customers, competitors and surrounding regulations and technology shifts. Consistency in the execution of a sales process gives data to the organization that clarifies what works and what does not. We’re not talking about activity management and monitoring for its own sake. Your focus should be working toward compliance in the sales process to protect the integrity of the data captured so everyone has relevant data for good decision making.
Navigating the terrain – Your sales process lays out a map for action, but a map is just a two-dimensional representation of a sequential process. Good sales management also addresses the third dimension – assessing the terrain of what is going on in the marketplace based on the data you’re getting (including variant data) from the sales process. There will be occasions when you will need to send out a scouting team of select salespeople to find out new information. Then it’s up to you to analyze what they bring back and use that information to better navigate the terrain.
Securing resources – There will be occasions when competing priorities of other departments impede progress on landing a big account. It’s your responsibility to make certain that significant sales opportunities are visible to leadership and to secure from less-than-enthusiastic parties inside your organization the resources needed for a successful sales process.
Knowing when (and when not) to expedite – It’s your job to expedite what needs to be expedited—and to know when not to. If you try to expedite every opportunity, soon no one will respond. Salespeople are often viewed as that proverbial “boy who cried wolf.” For the sake of the organization and for the sake of your reputation and that of your salespeople, you’ll need to be the gatekeeper on when an opportunity needs to be expedited, and when everyone should simply follow the normal sales process.
This article was originally posted to the Sales & Marketing Management Blog by Tom Searcy on March 16, 2015.
First Line Sales Managers – The Heart of B2B Sales Success
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on December 2, 2014
I know many CEO’s believe that hiring the best sales people is the recipe for sales success, and of course, they are partly right. But there is a critical missing piece to that puzzle – and it’s not just about giving your new hires the right sort of product training.
The critical success factor – and it ought to be blindingly obvious, if you think about it – turns out to be the effectiveness of your first-line sales managers. Yet that’s often the place where sales performance problems have their roots.
You’ve probably seen the situation play out dozens of times: a vacancy emerges in the sales management team, and a top performing sales person gets promoted to fill it. After all, they can lead by example – can’t they?
And that assumption, of course, is where it all breaks down. Because it turns out that being a top sales performer is a hopelessly invalid predictor of that individuals’ ability to successfully lead a team of sales people.
Avoiding the obvious mistakes
Sometime the reason is predictable, and the issue avoidable. You probably know who your “lone wolf” sales people are, and you’ve learned to live with their anti-social behaviors, because if they didn’t keep the orders coming in, there’s no way you would tolerate them.
It’s blindingly obvious that promoting them would be a bad idea all around, and if they had any sense, they would probably refuse the promotion even if you were foolish enough to offer it to them. So organizations typically manage to avoid that most obvious of mistakes.
No: the real problem lies with high-performing sales people who appear to be well-integrated with their colleagues, and who behave like good corporate citizens – it’s just that a critical part of the front-line B2B sales managers’ skill set is missing.
Coaching – the pivotal skill
The ability to coach – to help sales people learn how to succeed through their own efforts rather than have the manager take over when the going gets tough – turns out to be a pivotal front line management skill. Yet it is so rarely taught.
Some of your front-line managers might have more of an innate talent that others, but experience has convinced me that intelligent new front-line managers can develop strong skills in this area with the right guidance and training.
So here’s the problem: even organizations that invest regularly in sales training often fail to invest in their front-line sales managers. It’s not that they are not involved in the same training as their sales people are – it’s obvious that they need to be.
Preparing your front-line leaders
The issue is the lack of specialized training and mentoring in the key skills needed to be an effective sales manager. Coaching is a big part of this, but it’s not the only area where development would often be beneficial.
What about running effective forecasting and pipeline review meetings? What about conducting continuous performance assessments? And what about opportunity and team coaching, as well as 1:1 sales person coaching?
What about the skills and techniques necessary to support the implementation of the company’s defined sales process? What about the effective use of the organization’s CRM system? And what about the regular reinforcement required to make your company’s chosen sales training methodology stick?
A pivotal role
Your front line sales managers are pivotal in achieving all of this. But how much time and money are you allocating to their professional and personal development? My bet – in most cases – is that the answer is “not enough”.
And yet these are the very people you are relying on to make sure the numbers are made, to ensure that your expensive sales training investments deliver the desired results, and they are your critical change agents when driving new initiatives.
This article was originally posted to the Inflection Point Blog by Bob Apollo on November 18, 2014.
Six Keys to Startup And Small Business Sales Success
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on September 4, 2014
One of my favorite all-time sales executives always had a quote at the top of the enormous whiteboard in his office: “Start-ups don’t starve, they drown.”
That’s true across a variety of departments and disciplines, but perhaps nowhere more acutely than in sales. When you’re in start-up mode, you’re often trying to sell something to people who don’t know about it and don’t believe they need it. By definition, you’re creating a category and using a machete to cut through a virgin jungle.
Unfortunately, that’s often used as an excuse to “throw a lot of spaghetti against the wall” to see what sticks, and otherwise throw what should still be a disciplined sales strategy into chaos. Chaos leads to drowning, and drowning leads to death. Any start-up veteran knows that when sales dies, the company isn’t far behind. Here are six places most start-ups (particularly of the B2B variety) should focus to improve their precision, strategy and success.
Sell the hole, not the drill
Nobody cares about your product or service, unless it helps them do something or achieve something or mitigate something they care about. Few people go to the hardware store to buy a drill. What they really want are holes. It’s your job to figure out what that means for your customers. Then, everything in your sales process (and marketing) should align behind it.
Develop a deep(er) understanding of our target customer and their ecosystem
How much do you really know about your target customer? What they care about? What are their objectives and what are the primary obstacles keeping them from achieving them? Who are the key people inside (and outside) of their organization helping them achieve those results, and/or keeping them from getting there? The better you understand the underlying ecosystem and environment in which your customers exist, the better you can align your message and value proposition to things they already value and care about. This is especially important for start-ups selling in a category where the value proposition isn’t yet clear.
Teach everyone in your organization how to listen for buying signals
Buying signals aren’t often explicit. More often than now, a “buying signal” will actually be in the form of someone complaining about something, or otherwise exhibiting the signs and symptoms of a problem you can solve. Those are the buying signals your competitors either aren’t listening for or just plain ignore. Teach everyone in your organization, but especially those with customer-facing roles, to understand your deep customer profile/personas and know when they’re seeing those early-stage buying signals online and elsewhere.
Map your sales process to how your customers buy
Anything less than this will introduce unnecessary friction between seller and buyer. You aren’t going to change when the buyer is ready to buy. But you can help them understand and quantify their needs faster than they would have done so naturally. Just make sure the process you manage with your sales team aligns with that natural buyer process, and the result often will be increased velocity, loyalty and conversion from your pipeline.
Calculate the sales activity and pipeline required to hit your sales number
How many leads do you expect will become qualified opportunities? How many qualified opportunities do you expect will close? If you haven’t done the math, most likely your pipeline is still too small to reliably achieve your monthly or quarterly sales goals. Doing “the math” up front helps create more realistic expectations and also ensures that sales & marketing are aligned around exactly what kind of results at each stage of the process are required to consistently hit the number.
Clearly define success metrics and lead/opportunity stages
Does everyone on your team agree on the definition of a “qualified” lead? If I asked each member of your sales team what criteria are required for a qualified opportunity, would I hear the same answer? If you don’t have this level of consistency, it’s too easy to have sales pipelines that are unreliable, unrealistic and simply inaccurate. Common definitions ensure transparency and accuracy, and allow you to more tightly define specific next steps and focus areas for improving strength of pipeline at any given time.
This article originally posted to the Customer Think Blog by Matt Hienz on July 29, 2014.
Twelve Reasons You May Be In a Sales Slump
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on July 29, 2014
Sales numbers are down and you’re starting to sweat. As a sales manager, you must act quickly to turn things around when you first see the numbers dip. You need to diagnose the problems and make changes immediately so your team doesn’t fall short of the sales goal for the quarter or year.
To help you get to the root of the issues impacting your sales results, here’s a quick summary of twelve common problems which can lead to a sales slump. By pivoting quickly and making a few key changes to your team and its process, you may very likely see a boost to your sales.
1. Limited sales training – Sales reps can’t naturally catch onto your sales strategy and product strengths without the right preparation and tools. Extensive training on products, re-training on new products, sales skills classes, and more, are all necessary to adequately prepare your sales team.
2. Lack of Sales Coaching – Training should not be the end of the learning process for the sales team. Implementing consistent, one-on-one coaching with your people is vital to continued improvement of sales skills and increased performance.
3. Lack of a sales process – If your sales people aren’t aware of what sales techniques are working and which ones aren’t, it’s impossible for your team to improve. Create a detailed sales process to standardize successful selling methods across your team.
4. No visibility into the sales pipeline – If you’re not aware of every opportunity in your sales pipeline, you’ll lose control of your sales team. Use analytics to track key metrics like the behavior of closed/won deals, the length of your sales cycle, win rates, conversion rates by stage and the rate of growth for the overall pipeline.
5. Incorrect sales forecasting – If you’re not using historical data to extrapolate your sales quarter-to-quarter, you’re really just guessing and crossing your fingers. Use data analytics to improve the accuracy of your forecasts so you won’t miss your goals again.
6. Confusing quotas – Your sales reps should know exactly what goals they are required to meet each month, quarter, and year. If they’re not constantly aware of the goals, they may not work as hard. Try implementing a sales leaderboard to push your team to reach competitive goals incorporating gamification.
7. Confusing compensation – Similar to quotas, your sales people should know exactly how their compensation plan works. Your plan should be clear-cut and tied directly to sales results, motivating your team to sell hard.
8. Poor time management – Sales reps should be logging their activities daily in your CRM so you can monitor how many calls, meetings and demos they give per day. If you see one of your sales people falling behind in activity levels, you can offer sales coaching to help them to get back on track and improve their results.
9. Bad objection handling – If your sales people aren’t prepared to handle the standard sales objections that come up on a call, they will never succeed in closing a deal. You should have a playbook of common objections and train your team to expect people to resist the price, timing or another factor in the sale, and help them deal effectively with these objections to close.
10. Working unqualified opportunities – If there isn’t a sufficient process for qualifying leads, your sales team will struggle. Sales people will waste time chasing prospects that don’t have enough pain, have no purchasing power, or have a long timeline and no urgency. Make a plan to qualify leads extensively before they pick up the phone.
11. Misalignment with marketing – Aligning sales and marketing teams is always a challenge, but it is vital for sales success. If the handoff of leads between the two isn’t smooth, or the two groups have completely different goals, you’ll struggle to see sales results.
12. Product is devalued – The key to closing sales isn’t always offering a discount to the buyer. In fact, you may have accidentally devalued your own product by cutting your price too much. This can hurt margins and still not increase overall profits. Work with marketing to price your product, based on the perceived value of your product in the market.
Now that you understand some of the major pitfalls that can drag down your sales team, you can alter sales strategies, coaching, and communication to help your team succeed. By making some high-level changes, your sales team can turn things around and exceed their goals.
How to Hire More Top Performers
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on June 16, 2014
How much is your top salesperson worth? Everyone knows some people get better results than others. But the best aren’t just a little better than the rest — they’re typically a lot better. Bain & Company’s research suggests that top performers are roughly four times as productive as average performers. Sometimes the difference is far greater. For example, the best sales associate at Nordstrom sells at least eight times as much as the average sales associate at other department stores.
Given the sizable differences between the best and the rest, a company with a higher percentage of top performers will naturally tend to outdo its rivals. The reason is that it has higher human capital productivity (HCP), which we know correlates closely with financial results. Raw talent isn’t the only determinant of HCP, but if you don’t have the “A” performers you need, none of the other factors will make much difference. So improving your overall talent level is the first step toward higher HCP.
How can a company raise its skill level—and in particular, how can it increase its proportion of top talent? Bain & Company suggests three keys.
Assess your talent pool. You can’t know the magnitude of the task you’re facing until you know exactly where your human-capital strengths and weaknesses lie. AllianceBernstein (AB), an asset management company with $3 billion in revenues (and $454 billion in assets under management) based in Manhattan, rates each of its 3,700 employees every year on both performance and potential. The senior team at AB spends several days together each year cross-calibrating the two sets of ratings across the entire company, so it always knows where its top performers are. One caution: performance and potential both matter, but performance should count for a lot more. Performance is real; it can be measured objectively. Potential is always subjective, and may never be realized. So pay close attention to your high performers. If they’re a tiny fraction of your overall talent pool, you know you have a problem.
Control your pipeline. Whenever possible, avoid relying on executive search firms as the primary source of new talent. A company looking for more A players needs to know first-hand about the talent that is available, and it needs to do its own recruiting. One well-known Silicon Valley firm relied heavily on headhunters to find engineers for many years. The result? It got engineering candidates who couldn’t land jobs at Apple, Google, Facebook, and other A-list companies in the valley. Only the arrival of a new CEO led to a change in the policy — and an eventual uptick in the company’s talent base and performance.
Have only high-performers conduct the interviews. It’s a sad truth about human beings: B and C players can’t always identify top performers, and may feel threatened by them if they do. Average performers look for congeniality, the ability of an interviewee to fit in. They don’t always look for — and they may not favor — someone who seems likely to raise the bar or make them look bad. One other tip: involve as many line managers in the interviews you can. Many jobs these days are highly technical, from software development to running a copper mine. Interviewers from HR aren’t usually capable of judging someone’s technical skills.
A company, like a sports team or a symphony orchestra, has to do a lot of things right to reach the pinnacle of performance. But if it doesn’t have a healthy share of those exceptional individuals who do so much better than everybody else, then it’s out before the race even begins.
This article was originally posted to the Harvard Business Review Blog by Michael C. Mankins on May 8, 2014.
Does Your Sales Dashboard Have The Right Indicators? (reprise)
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES, SALES LEADERSHIP on September 9, 2013
I posted this article about a year ago and, after a recent discussion with a client, I thought it would be worthwhile to bring it back from the archives to help remind others.
The idea of a sales dashboard is appealing. What business manager wouldn’t like to run their company like a well-oiled machine, with the help of a few select indicators? But in practice, it is ironically the choice of these indicators which can stall the effectiveness of the sales dashboard…
Every company is certainly different, and it goes without saying an industrial equipment maker cannot manage its sales process (for example) like a travel agency, or a service provider. However, here’s some tips on zeroing in on the right indicator can be helpful in the majority of situations.
Choose indicators which are useful throughout the sales process – As the saying goes, you shouldn’t count your chickens until they hatch. Nevertheless, you want to manage your sales process continuously, not just once a quarter. It’s important to avoid indicators which only become meaningful at the end. For example, “Actual/Projected sales” is more useful when compared to its historical average at that stage of the quarter.
Be selective – you start with the laudable intention to stick to the essentials, but find yourself a few months later with a computer screen that looks more like a spacecraft cockpit than the clear-cut dashboard of your dreams. To be more selective, ask yourself this question before adding another indicator to your sales dashboard: is it directly related to what your company is trying to achieve (i.e. prospects progressing along your pipeline), or is it merely informative?
Choose actionable indicators – avoid indicators which look sexy but don’t bring anything tangible to the table. A traditional indicator that clearly points you in the right direction is better than a “sophisticated” one which needs to be explained to everyone and even leaves you scratching your head.
Favor dynamic indicators – one which measures a sales team’s progress. A static indicator only measures an activity. For example, “Number of leads qualified/Week” is a dynamic indicator, while on the same subject “Number of qualification calls/Week” is a static indicator. From this example we can infer that a dynamic indicator is naturally outward-looking (i.e. focused on prospect dynamics) while a static indicator is often inward-looking (i.e. concerned with your team’s processes).
Beware of environmental indicators – those which are focused on your company’s environment (e.g. “Number of RFPs in my sector”) are most certainly outward-looking. Yet, do they belong on your sales dashboard? Not especially. You’re interested in your company’s performance, which only indirectly depends on its environment. Environmental indicators are rarely actionable, unless you are matching them to a triggering threshold. For example, you could decide to re-contact your existing client base systematically when the number of RFPs in your sector falls below a threshold of ten per month.
Certainly there are others, more specific to your particular situation. The objective here is to give you a starting point. Get you thinking about what’s key to steer your sales process to success. As always I’m interested in what you think and what you’ve found to be effective in your sales dashboard. I invite your comments, ideas and suggestions.
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The Five Best Sales Management Tips
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on August 19, 2013
Sales managers must be coaches, strategists, and leaders for their sales teams. Becoming a great sales manager takes more than experience – it also requires continual learning through actively seeking out and following through on sales management tips from others who have been successful. Learn from the five following sales management tips to build your platform for success.
Build Effective Communication Skills to Interact with Others
Sales managers must be able to communicate effectively with sales people at different career stages, their management peers, executives, and prospects and customers at all levels. Each interaction requires tailored communication, which makes this one of the important sales management tips for sales managers to learn. Hone your communication skills through:
– Picking the best medium for messages, whether it be in person, over the phone, or through e-mail.
– Being as concise as possible to communicate your key points.
– Paying attention to body language and other cues to inform and adapt your communication style for maximum impact.
Create Best Practices for Your Sales Team
One common problem for sales managers is a sales team of individuals following different sales processes, which predictably leads to inconsistent sales results. You can make sure that all of your sales people are on the same page by creating a best practices playbook that provides your sales team with clear guidance on how and when sales processes should be completed.
– Develop processes for lead generation and follow up; hold sales people accountable for following guidelines.
– Provide coaching on proven methods of overcoming the objections common to your selling environment.
– Create outlines of your organization’s typical sales cycles that include steps that your sales people should be following with every sale.
Develop Talent From within the Sales Team
Few sales people are a “natural” fit for sales. Even top sales people who make selling look easy are constantly honing their skills and integrating new knowledge. The guidance that you provide to your sales team sets the tone for your sales team’s success, and by developing talent from within your sales team you can ensure that you have all of the components for a flourishing sales team in place. Create a development plan for your sales team that integrates sales management tips like prioritizing coaching time so that the sales people who need your help the most can benefit from your advice and guidance and coaching your sales people on motivation and drive to get your sales team to consistently meet new quotas.
Know Your Business Inside and Out
Make sure that you are ahead of the curve and regularly follow how trends within your industry and the science of selling are evolving. The knowledge that you accrue will allow you to construct a path that leads your sales team in the right direction. In addition, by being able to predict conditions for your marketplace you will be able to create better-informed sales strategies that require less adjustment. This will make your job and the jobs of the sales people reporting to you easier.
Know What’s Important to Your Sales Team
If you want your sales team to deliver, you must understand the needs, concerns, and drives of your sales people. If your sales people feel understood they will have trust in your leadership, be more open to discussing issues, and won’t hesitate to follow your direction. Form these all-important relationships with your sales people with these sales management tips:
– Adopt a policy of transparency to keep your sales people well-informed.
– Treat your sales people consistently and fairly in all interactions.
– Always give more of yourself than you ask of your sales people; they will notice and appreciate the effort you put into the team’s success.
Remember that as a sales manager, your accomplishments are measured by the results that your sales team is collectively able to deliver. Follow these sales management tips to help your sales team thrive.
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This article was originally posted on the SalesForce Search Blog by Doug O’Grady on 8 August 2013.
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A Better Way to Measure Your Sales Team
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on August 12, 2013
It’s time we start measuring sales people on more than just quota attainment. It’s time we start looking at the entire body of work.
Determining what to measure isn’t a daunting task. We don’t need a plethora of complex, confusing and superfluous stats. We just need a few that tell the bigger story;
- Average Deal Size: How good is the sales rep at up selling? How quickly do they discount deals? How strong of a negotiator are they? Average deal size provides insight into how well a sales rep can maintain the integrity of pricing and drive greater value into the sale.
- Winning Percentage: What percentage of opportunities does the sales rep close? How effective are they with the opportunities they get. A higher winning percentage suggests an impressive ability to qualify or add substantial value to the sale. High winning percentages means less leads and opportunities wasted.
- Average Days in Pipeline: Take all the opportunities in the pipeline and add up the number of days they have been in the pipeline, and then divide by the number of opportunities. How long do deals sit in the pipeline? How good is the sales rep at knowing when to stop working a deal and close it? Is their pipeline stuffed with “stuff” that just isn’t going to close? Is there a decent ratio between average days in pipeline and average time to close? There should be.
- Average Time to Close: How long does it take for a sales rep to close a deal from start to finish? Who on your team closes deals faster? Who takes longer? How do average time to close rates compare with quota attainment and overall revenue attainment. Are those with longer sales cycles selling more? Or are those with faster close rates selling more. Average time to close includes both wins AND losses. It’s designed to measure the amount of time it takes a sales rep to bring a buyer to the decision.
- New Opportunities per Month (NOP): Who is best at building their pipeline? Which reps are focused on new opportunities vs. closing existing opportunities? How many new opportunities are your sales people putting into the pipeline each month? NOP is a critical metric few pay attention to. Knowing who is bringing in the opportunities is critical.
- Average Monthly Pipeline Size: What does the pipeline look like from month to month? Who is good at being able to keep it consistent, vs. those who see big shifts as they close, then prospect, then close. Tracking AMPS will allow you to see who is capable of maintaining a strong pipeline while closing deals and driving revenue.
Measuring sales reps around these individual statistics requires nothing more than a commitment to track them, share them and rank the team against them. The information generated around these six stats will change the sales game. Good reps will be found even in bad years, bad reps will no longer be able to hide. One hit wonders will not be able to bask in the glory of a lucky kill. Management will have more information to work with; trends will be easier to spot and opportunities will present themselves.
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