Posts Tagged Sales Leadership
Three Keys for Building a Sales Pipeline
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on July 18, 2013
You know what a sales pipeline is and you know that you have one, but how do you build and manage that pipeline to take your sales to the next level? Building sales pipeline success depends on the sales pipeline’s effectiveness, strength, and results, the three keys to building sales pipeline value. Take the first step towards building sales pipeline success by focusing on and managing these three keys to the sales pipeline.
Building Sales Pipeline Effectiveness: Maximize Your CRM System
The customer relationship management system you are using is only as useful as the information you put in. In other words, if you are putting in outdated, incomplete, or otherwise unhelpful data, the CRM will not be able to help you succeed. Yet consistently and properly updated CRM systems are one of the keys to building sales pipeline effectiveness. Make sure that you are using CRM to maximize results by:
– Habitually and thoroughly updating the system with new leads, status on existing leads, and other information as it is acquired.
– Avoiding removal of leads unless those leads are out of business or have requested no further contact. Leads that are unqualified and may be qualified later, or have said no but may be more open in the future, should be flagged with the appropriate time horizon for follow up.
– Checking your CRM daily to guide your activities for prospecting, follow up, and scheduling, and updating your activities as you work.
Building Sales Pipeline Strength: Quality In, Quality Out
A large part of building sales pipeline strength – that is, ensuring that there are healthy numbers of leads, prospects, and closes in the pipeline at all times – rests on getting quality leads into your sales pipeline. Getting as many leads as possible may seem like the right idea, but you will probably find more success in maintaining and building sales pipeline strength if you focus on quality, rather than quantity, of leads. To do this, you can:
– Start qualifying leads before you even make first contact, so that the contact you make can build on information you already have rather than starting at the beginning when you reach a live prospect.
– Be realistic about prospects’ qualifications and readiness to buy. Over optimistic projections can harm your productivity and sales pipeline results.
– Create standard processes for how and when you qualify and prospect for a system that can deliver you reliable results, every time.
Building Sales Pipeline Results: Know What You Need to Do to Reach Your Targets
If you want to reach your sales targets for the month, the quarter, and the year, you need a roadmap to get there. It is not enough to rely on your ability to sell and a constant stream of incoming leads; you need to know how many of each type of lead, prospect, and customer you need to have in your pipeline to reach your sales goals. This is easy to accomplish if you have been tracking your sales and activities over past periods.
– Look at your quarterly performances and analyze how many leads you followed up on, how many of these were viable prospects, how many of these were presented, and how many of these closed.
– Calculate averages for how long converted leads took you to close from the day the lead was initially entered to the day the contract was signed, categorizing these in ranges according to the contribution each made to your targets.
– Use these numbers to determine how many new leads, calls, presentations, and closes you need to have in your pipeline every quarter to meet or beat your targets.
Building sales pipeline effectiveness, strength, and results depends on your ability and commitment to update and maintain your pipeline through various tracking activities. However, the time that you spend on these activities will pay you back with interest as your more targeted approach to selling using the sales pipeline yields results.
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This article was originally posted in the SalesForce Search Blog by Matt Cook on July 9, 2013.
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12 Elements of a Great Sales Playbook
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION, SALES LEADERSHIP on May 17, 2013
The implementation of a sales playbook can be one of the most impactful initiatives for any sales organization. There are two reasons for this tremendous ROI. First, by following some simple guidelines, it can be a remarkably easy initiative to implement, and second, research shows that this results in 33% additional revenue.
Here are twelve elements of a great sales playbook that you should use to guide your implementation.
1. Repeatable Winning Sales Processes
The key word here is ‘repeatable’. When everyone adopts the same sales process, there is a common language that is understood, not just by sales, but by the whole organization. Recent research shows that while only 60% of sales teams have a sales process that is well defined, and well executed – those who do are 33% more likely to be High Performers*.
2. Customized to the Buying Cycle
Customers buy in lots of different ways; some purchases are guided by a single decision maker, while in other cases there can be a large buying committee. Some issue RFPs (health-warning!), others invite recognized suppliers to discuss their issues, an increasing number learn in the Social Universe, and just a few remain with the incumbent supplier trading ‘the devil you know’ for potentially more advanced or competitive solutions. Unless you visualize the journey the customer wants to take, you won’t be with them when they reach their destination.
3. Sales Tools in Context at Each Stage
At each stage of the buying process, salespeople need to employ just the right tools – at the right time to advance the sale to the next stage in the process. A B2B sale is not a single event. In fact it is a collection of micro-sales events, each crafted to move closer to the eventual goal. Salespeople are busy and often don’t know which tool they need, where to find it or how to use it at the specific point in the micro-sale. Integrating sales tools into the playbook as part of the sales process is the solution.
4. Industry Sales Process Templates
It is widely accepted that tailoring your sales process to the specific needs of an industry will increase your chances for success. Third party industry sales templates are readily available from suppliers who have been tracking and analyzing millions of sales cycles. That is the catalyst you need to get started.
5. Many Simple and Complex Processes
One playbook or sales process does not fit all. Sometimes you are pursuing a brand new customer or a very large deal that demands a complex and sophisticated set of ‘plays’ to win the deal. In other cases, the transaction might be quick, one that suggests a different rhythm. Your sales playbook should have the requisite intelligence to support that automatically and serve up the right playbook at the right time.
6. Process, Benchmarks and Insight
Benchmarking delivers many advantages for companies looking to improve the performance of their sales organization. Your playbook must capture those benefits, learn from them, and uncover insights that help you to drive your sales velocity. When deploying a playbook, ensure that you have built in a capability that guides you to progress through these stages of evolution for your sales team.
7. Team Visibility for the Sales Manager
Being a front-line sales manager is one of the hardest jobs in sales. It is also the critical link in sales. Unless the sales manager has all the tools he or she needs to easily manage the business, the whole performance of the sales organization could suffer. You need to provide them with the ‘Easy Button’. Sales playbooks are often designed just with the sales person in mind. Remember that the sales manager is the critical link.
8. Integrates with CRM System
This one should be a ‘no-brainer’. The playbook must integrate tightly with the CRM system so when the sales person works with an opportunity, the playbook will always be present, just where it needs to be. That way the playbook (if it is smart enough) can react to the attributes of the opportunity, like the size of the deal, or the products included in the opportunity record to present the right playbook for that opportunity. Complete integration with your CRM delivers the optimum experience for the sales person, and provides sales managers with greater flexibility on how they view the data in the context of the rest of the business. It is important.
9. Informs Sales Forecast Visibility
Salespeople spend about 2.5 hours each week on sales forecasting, and for most companies, the accuracy of sales forecasts leave a lot to be desired. To maximize the impact of your sales playbook on the accuracy of your sales forecast, there are two things to consider. (1) Does the sales playbook incorporate intelligence that objectively monitors the close date of the sale? (2) Does the sales playbook provide the sales manager with insight into deal vulnerabilities and risks in the forecast?
10. Motivational and Visual
There are only two reasons why an individual does not complete a task. Either they do not have the competence, or they are not motivated enough to do it. Think about that – these are the only two reasons. Your sales playbook should improve competence and increase motivation. The competence piece is easily understood.
Motivation is a little more challenging. A study on What Motivates Sales People shows that, perhaps surprisingly for some, compensation is not the primary motivator. ‘Making Progress of Winning’ is ranked by sales people as the main reason they get up in the morning. To entice adoption of the sales playbook (rather than force compliance) your sales playbook needs to provide true value for the sales person – resolve that reward/effort equation, so that the salesperson gets more back from the playbook that they put into it.
11. Social and Collaborative
As B2B companies rely more heavily on social collaboration tools, some of the biggest gainers are going to be salespeople. Sales people who are the leaders in their organization are using social tools such as Chatter in Salesforce to improve collaboration in their own sales teams. Leading sales playbooks help by letting everyone ‘follow’ the plays, contributes to the conversation, and collaborate on the deal. The B2B world is constantly becoming more social and collaborative and you should ensure that your sales playbook accommodates this advancement.
12. Mobile and Cloud
Time is precious, and the sales person’s time is incredibly precious, both to them and to the sales organization looking to maximize the performance of their key quota-bearers. Since so much of a sales person’s time is spent moving between A and B and back again, they should be equipped with the mobility to connect to their sales playbook allowing them to be responsive, productive, collaborative and consistent at any time, wherever they are. In other applications, mobile and cloud capabilities are being leveraged to facilitate access anywhere, anytime. It must be the same with your sales playbook.
Unless mobile and cloud are core elements of your sales playbook plan, the initiative could face severe challenges in a very short term.
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This article was originally posted to the Dealmaker® 365 blog by Donal Daly on May 12, 2013
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Do You Have A 90 Day Sales Rep Success Plan?
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION, SALES LEADERSHIP on March 25, 2013
Fortune 500 companies have a structured “On Boarding Process” which every new sales person follows. The plan lays out detailed time lines and benchmarks, specific action items and goals. This formal process is great for both the company and the new representative because it leaves nothing to interpretation and establishes shared expectations. The initial training is structured and detailed; giving your new employee the knowledge and confidence that your organization has a plan and intends to succeed.
The problem arises within many of small to mid-sized businesses. In most cases, these are owner-operated companies where the on boarding process and training falls to the owner or manager of a small sales team. Although the intentions are always good, regularly you’ll hear from the new sales person there was no process in place and they spent too much valuable time trying to figure out what to do and how to do it. Secondly, the new rep is often not sure what is expected of them in terms of direction and performance. “Welcome to the company. Here’s your price book, now go out and sell,” is not a recipe for success or a viable On Boarding Process!
Not having a process in place from day one results in the sales person losing direction and becoming frustrated, and the business owner being disappointed and fearing they have made the wrong hiring decision. So how do you fix this problem? First, regardless of the size of your organization, you must develop a written plan of action that lays out specific actions, goals and timelines for the first 30, 60 & 90 days, with a continuing plan for the first year. This may sound like a daunting task but it is actually much easier than you would think.
If you are the business owner & COE (Chief of Everything), you should look for outside expertise to assist you with this process. This can be an inexpensive way to develop a quick start program allowing you to remain focused on revenue driving activities. After all, you most likely hire an accountant, web-designer, and IT firm so why would you attempt to self manage the one area of your organization which directly affects your bottom line? Each dollar in lost sales opportunity is revenue you will never recover.
The complete 90 day plan needs to include goals, activities, product training, competition, prospecting, order processing, customer service, market evaluations, performance metrics, as well as simple things like getting to know your company and its people. Once you have a sales process in place, your new sales rep will be highly motivated, more confident and able to perform better. A detailed template you can use to create your 90 day sales rep success plan is included in the book, “Action Plan For Sales Management Success”.
Consider this analogy; You may be a good driver but will you take the time to teach your son or daughter to drive or would you rather they go to an accredited driving school? Besides, if they learn from a driving school, the insurance companies will provide a discount. It’s a better ROI for you and less stress for your kids. The same theory applies to your On Boarding Process. What’s the fastest way to make a new sales person profitable?
Studies show companies with a defined sales process consistently outperform those with no process. After all, as Harvey Mackay once said, “Failures don’t plan to fail; they fail to plan”.
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This article was originally posted by Robert J. Weese on March 12, 2013 at the B2B Sales Connection Blog
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Coaching – A Critical Element of Sales Performance and Retention
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION, SALES LEADERSHIP on March 1, 2013
Most sales managers would agree that coaching their sales teams is key job function contributing to their success. However, when it comes to actually defining what the term “coaching” means, how best to do it, and what are its affects in the long term, each sales manager would probably have a different opinion.
What is coaching? Is training and coaching the same thing? How much time should a sales manager spend coaching? How much time do they actually spend? What type of sales rep benefits most from coaching? Do top performers need it? What are the best ways to coach? Does it affect sales staff turnover?
Leslye Schumacher of Talent Bits and Bytes recently addressed these issues in her blog post, “How Much Time Should Sales Managers Spend Coaching Their Salespeople?” You can read the entire article here. In my opinion, it’s a must read for anyone involved in managing sales people.
In this very well researched article, Schumacher quoted several studies that give much clearer answers to these important questions. Here are some of the highlights:
- To maximize sales results, the optimal amount of coaching is 5 hours per month per sales rep.
- Salespeople that are coached daily outperform other salespeople by 30%.
- What prevents sales managers from coaching is the time spent on administrative tasks, the time spent direct selling, and lack of training in proper management techniques.
- Only 7% of sales managers were found to be effective at coaching without training.
- Core salespeople receiving ineffective coaching averaged 83% of goal attainment. Their performance rose to 102% when they then received effective coaching.
- In regards to retention, top performers were 50% more likely to stay if they received good coaching
The conclusions are clear. These statistics prove what the top sales managers have been practicing for years; coaching works and you have to plan to make time to do it! Not just any coaching, mind you, it has to be effective. Take the time to learn how to “show how, not do for” properly, and you will be a better sales manager for it.
Remember as John Quincy Adams once said, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
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This article was originally posted on A Sales Compass on February 13, 2012 by Susan A. Enns
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Eight Reasons Great Leaders Let People Fail
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on January 28, 2013
Sales leaders, how comfortable are you letting failure happen? Are you OK letting your sales manager make a mistake? Are you OK letting the sales rep lose a deal? What do you do when you see a flaw in the strategy of your sales V.P.? Do you let them execute the plan?
What should you do when you see failure on the horizon? — Let it happen!
Letting failure happen is one of the most difficult challenges of sales leaders and other leaders alike. No one likes failure, especially when we see it coming. The best leaders know this however and let it happen anyway.
Why let failure happen?
Failure is the only way to learn:
Failure is the only way we learn. As leaders we need and want people to learn and grow. Failure is a part of the learning process. If people aren’t allowed to fail, they won’t learn and without learning, they won’t grow.
It creates ownership:
When we don’t let others fail, we strip them of ownership. When we don’t let people fail, we in essence make the decision for them. We don’t let them make the final call. When people don’t get to make the call, they don’t feel attached to the end result; good or bad. Ownership is important to creating accountability. We want our people to feel ownership for their decisions and the consequences; good or bad.
People need to make their own decisions:
At the end of the day, people have to make their own decisions. They have to be empowered to make the decisions they think will work best. Preventing people from failing takes away their ability to make decisions. We have to let people chose for themselves.
It creates accountability
When people make their own decisions, it creates accountability. We can’t hold people accountable for outcomes when they aren’t given the latitude to choose for themselves. When we don’t let people fail, it’s because we chose for them. We disagreed with an approach, we saw a flaw in the thinking, and we did the work for them. When we step into avoid failure we are taking over the decision making process. Taking over the decision means it’s no longer their decision and we can’t hold them accountable for the end results. People have to be allowed to make their own decision if we want them to experience the consequences — good or bad.
It’s empowering:
When we let people fail, we are empowering them. We are telling them, “We trust you.” People need to know they are trusted for their expertise. People need to feel valued for what they know and for what they do. When we don’t let failure happen, we strip people of a sense of competence. We send the message that says; I don’t trust your judgment and therefore I’m going to do this for you. Do this too many times and your will create stunted robots, as no one will make any decisions. They will just wait for you.
You could be wrong:
Has it ever entered your mind, you could be wrong? What happens if you are wrong? What if your idea wasn’t the right one and failure happens? What if they WERE right? Now what? Just because we think we know the answer, doesn’t mean we are right. We can be wrong too.
It creates diversity, creativity and innovation:
By letting people fail, we are giving permission for people to think for themselves. When an entire organization is allowed to think for themselves it creates a wide swath of ideas and approaches for creating opportunity and to solving problems. If there is one single greatest benefit to letting people fail, this is it. When we don’t let people fail, we stunt creativity. Idea’s are put through the leadership filter and stripped of creativity. When ideas or approaches have to be run by management rather than implemented they lose their ability to be proven out. Letting failure happens means, letting ideas go out without the constricting filter of you. Leadership can’t think of all the good ideas, nor can they determine what the good ideas are. Let people fail, you’ll learn more than by trying to keep them from failing.
It’s why you pay them:
At the end of the day we hire people to do their job. If you don’t trust them to make good decisions, don’t hire them. If you do trust them, then let them fail. They will only fail once. They will learn a lot. They’ll feel as if they have ownership and that they are empowered. The will grow and get better. Letting people fail is an investment.
Let people fail. You’ll have a much more creative environment and a lot more time on your hands to SUPPORT all this new found creativity — and that’s exactly what you should be doing.
Let failure happen. You’ll be happy you did.
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Eight Qualities Which Lift Sales Leaders Above Managers
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on January 19, 2013
What’s the difference between a sales manager and a sales leader? How can you become more effective on the job and dramatically increase your influence with your customers and your company?
Here’s the CODE leaders live by:
- Company orientation. They’re interested in the future of the company and are concerning about every department, not just Sales. They’re always ready to suggest ways to help work flow more smoothly, save time or cut costs. They embrace responsibility, recognizing that salespeople who try to put the blame on others don’t inspire others to follow them.
- Organization. They never approach the day in a state of panic and are in full control most of the time. They put the needs of others ahead of their own to achieve goals. They are goal-centered rather than ego-centered, when dealing with customers, their sales manager or other employees.
- Detail focused. They take the time to listen about customer concerns and question any areas of confusion. They listen carefully before setting goals and moving ahead. They get others to cooperate by selling their vision on what must be done and are able to get customers and other employees to accept their roles.
- Energy. They’re willing to work longer than required, getting a lot done in a day’s time and enjoying it.
Traits of a leader
Of all the characteristics of a sales leader, four are particularly important. Test yourself to see how you measure up.
Do you:
Relate to the larger picture? Sales leaders understand how their jobs go beyond selling. They act as a treasure-trove of information for their customers, keeping them abreast of competition and paying close attention to the markets in which they and their customers are competing. They’re seldom surprised when price cutters suddenly threaten their accounts.
Have a vision? Sales leaders have visions that are easily understood by customers and are attainable if everyone works together.
Prepare yourself to make fast changes? Good leaders are prepared to change direction whenever new information warrants making a shift.
Think long-term? A sales leader’s focus extends far into the future. How long? At least a decade, often longer. Whenever you evaluate your future, ask yourself, “What demands are likely to develop over the next two to 10 years? How can I help my customers and my company meet them?
Four critical steps
These steps will help you improve your sales leadership skills:
- Connect with people and stay connected. That means being open to ideas from customers, prospects and your own management. It takes more than simply listening and asking a few questions. It requires building a feel of trust and letting customers know what’s happening. Talking to them is important, but listening to them is critical.
- Expand your boundaries. Don’t restrict yourself to your job as a salesperson. Converting features into benefits and practicing value-added selling is only part of your job. Ask questions to help you investigate the possibilities for doing your job more effectively. The answers you get may help you become bolder in your pursuit of efficiency and productivity.
- Show respect for established practices. This is a good way to win respect from both your customers and your management. Respecting “the way things are done around here” may also help you suggest changes when they’re needed.
- Be willing to take risks. All of the techniques outlined above involve some element of risk. You’re going to be wrong sometimes. But you’ve got to do it. A willingness to take some risks separates the sales leaders from average salespeople.
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Ten Reasons Why Salespeople Fail
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on January 13, 2013
I have yet to meet a sales professional who doesn’t want to succeed, who doesn’t want to exceed quota and make more money. But the reality is salespeople still fail. Sometimes it’s a temporary slump, sometimes (unfortunately) it’s a career-long trend. In the work we’ve done with sales organizations, managers and individual reps, these are the 10 most common reasons why salespeople fail.
1. No experience
Honestly, this is a bit of a false crutch & excuse. If you have the right drive and make-up, you can succeed with zero previous sales experience. I’ve seen it happen countless times. Of course, a raw, inexperienced new sales professional can’t succeed without the proper support, training and management to help them accelerate through the learning curve.
2. No plan
If you come to work every morning waiting for the good leads, you’re going to fail. If you’re waiting for the phone to ring, reacting to what comes into your email inbox, that’s not exactly a recipe for success. And yet, many salespeople work without a plan – reactively and opportunistically going through the month or quarter without a strategy. Just because you have a plan, doesn’t mean you’ll always follow it. But if you don’t have a roadmap, how do you expect to get where you want to go?
3. No discipline
Sales can be incredibly difficult. Oftentimes, it’s not even fun. The daily grind, the never-ending activities required to get through the “no” answers and find the ready-to-buy prospects, that not only takes a ton of work but requires daily discipline to stay focused and actively on the path to success. Look at the most successful reps and you’ll find men and women who get up early, power through their calls, and do what it takes – every day – to make their number.
4. No training
This is more than just product training, which is critical. Every rep should know the details of their product or service, but that’s table stakes. They also need to understand the market into which they’re selling, as well as who their target prospect is – what they care about, what their problems are, and what they’re trying to achieve independent of your product or service. And this training needs to happen far more often than the annual sales kick-off meeting too. For world-class sales organizations, training and reinforcement is a regular, ongoing habit.
5. No support
To be successful, sales professionals need tools to help them work smarter. They need sales support and operations resources to provide the infrastructure, tools, processes and other execution best practices so they can spend more of their time in front of customers. And they need a proactively supportive management team, including managers who know that coaching requires more than just reinforcing process, but also proactively helping reps solve unique sales problems.
6. No leads
This is another place where many sales professionals find a perfect excuse for why they’re not hitting the number. In some sales organizations, reps are given leads for follow-up. Some leads are qualified, some are not. But even when reps aren’t handed leads, they’re responsible for finding their own. Yes, this can be a pain-staking, inefficient process. Yes, this can directly impact an individual reps ability to close more business. But you have two choices when face with no leads – get some yourself, or go somewhere else.
7. No motivation
Motivation can come in a variety of formats, of course. It can be material, such as a new boat or stereo system or exotic vacation. It can be fundamental, like putting your kids through school. But whatever it is, motivation to succeed drives performance and ensures consistent execution for reps who don’t let failure take hold.
8. No adaptability
The way you were taught to sell 20 years ago might not be as effective today. The tools you used, the approach that once worked, might fall flat today. If you aren’t able to adapt to the changing market, the changing customer – you’re likely to see declining results. Successful sales professionals constantly adapt their strategy and execution to what’s changing and working around them.
9. No customer insight
Gone are the days of one-sided selling (if they ever existed in the first place). Gone too are the days when the prospect allowed you to ask them questions to which they already knew the answer. Reps today fail in part because they don’t take the time to understand their customer before making an approach. This is far more than just having a solid introduction or insights to break the ice. This is about getting to the root needs your customers has, and differentiating yourself as someone who isn’t there just to sell, but to teach and enable the outcomes the prospect needs and/or has envisioned in the first place.
10. No focus
There are so many things that can distract you during the day. Things that feel important, maybe even feel urgent, but are neither. It’s incredibly difficult to stay focused on what’s important, what will truly push your results forward. But that’s why so many reps fail, and so few consistently hit their number.
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This article was originally posted to Heinz Marketing on January 8, 2013
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Having Problems With Your Sales Forecasting?
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on December 20, 2012
In virtually every conversation with a sales executive, at one point we get into a discussion about forecasting. Usually it starts with the executive mumbling something like, “Damn forecasts are worthless, I might was well flip a coin.” Being sensitive to these types of verbal cues, I usually reply something like, “Forecasting system not working for you?”
Then I just sit back and listen. Too often when organizations are finding they have issues with accurate forecasts, they put in strange processes to increase the accuracy of the forecast. I see strange sequences of forecasts, the “This may happen forecast,” moves to “I hope this will happen forecast,” to “I’m sure this will happen because you’re telling me it needs to happen forecast.”
There are lots of problems with forecasts. And truthfully, it’s always a challenge in developing a completely accurate forecast, but here are some thoughts which should help improve your accuracy.
What are we forecasting? A forecast isn’t “will we close this order some time?” A forecast is: “We expect to get and order for this amount by this date.” It has to have specificity in time and value. Forecasting accuracy should be measured based on ability to accurately predict time and value. In other words, if that $1M order comes in 180 days after it was originally forecast, there’s a business management and forecast integrity problem.
A forecast is about a deal, not a number. I talk to too many managers who are achieving forecasting to a number, “I have to forecast $10M this month!” They then look at their pipelines, saying, “I’ve got $20M of deals going into closing, surely I can make $1oM out of those.” The forecast is about a deal, “We believe we will close this deal for this amount by this date or time frame.” The forecast number becomes the aggregate of those deals closing in the timeframe. If you fall short of your target number, then you have to look, deal by deal, determining: “What can we do to close this deal by this date?” It requires a specific action plan and very close alignment with the customer’s buying process. You close the gap in a forecast by identifying specific deals and the actions needed to close those deals.
Bad forecast integrity indicates deeper problems with pipeline integrity and your selling process. The forecast is a natural outcome of the sales process. At some point in our selling process, we have confirmed where they are in their buying process, when they will make a decision, and their attitudes regarding our solution versus the alternatives. Based on where we and the customer are in the process, we can forecast it. We won’t hit it all the time, unexpected things may happen, but the process is pretty simple and can be very accurate.
So if we start missing forecasts consistently it creates deeper concerns. What’s the quality of our pipeline? Is it high quality, or do we have garbage that is misleading us? How well are we executing the sales process? A series of forecasted deals which repeatedly miss the mark shows a problem with the selling process. You either aren’t using it, it isn’t aligned with the customer buying process, or it’s a bad process.
Bad forecasts bring the quality of the entire pipeline, the sales process, and deal strategies into question. Everything is up for grabs, not just the forecast. There is doubt and no idea what the problem is, and no idea what to do to fix it. Is it a skills problem? Is it a competitiveness problem? Are you seeing shifts in the markets? It’s no longer is an issue about making the forecast, but an issue about your organization’s overall ability to consistently achieve goals. You end up not knowing what to attack to improve your business.
When you have consistently bad forecasts from an individual, it’s probably a skills problem. They probably don’t understand or aren’t using the sales process, they may be having problems with certain parts of the sales process, and they may be chasing the wrong deals. It’s actually pretty easy to start identifying this looking at their pipelines and deals.
When your organization has a consistently bad forecast, you have a systemic set of problems that you need to understand and fix. You don’t fix these problems by putting more rigor or steps into your forecasting process; “We start with promises, then move to blood commits, and then move into be-headings?” Putting these phases into your forecasting process is dealing with the symptoms, not the root problems. Focus on the quality of your pipeline, clean out the garbage. Focus on the sales process, is it right, is it aligned with customer buying processes, and most importantly are your people executing it with integrity?
Leverage the reports in your CRM system to better understand the quality of your forecasts and begin to isolate problems. You can easily look at slips/misses. The pipeline quality reports should be directly correlated to the quality of your forecasts. Stuck deals, average age in phase, total sales cycles, pipeline velocity, win rates, all are indicators and impact forecast quality. Opportunity reporting gives you great clues. Consistently changing “estimated close dates,” lack of progression, and others are directly tied to forecast quality.
There are other things you can leverage to improve the quality of your forecasting. In some cases, data analytics, tied to your deals can help improve the quality of forecasting. Assessing “odds to win” and “timing” using tools focused on the customer decision-making and buying cycle can improve the quality of the forecast.
Bad forecasts are a problem. Consistently bad forecasts indicate you have a deeper problem—and it’s not about forecasting!
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Characteristics of a Successful Sales Team
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on October 14, 2012
What does it take to develop a high performance sales team? This question has been asked by business leaders for as long as B2B sales transactions have been around. So what should you be looking for in your people and what separates a great sales team from an average one.
In this article I’m borrowing heavily from a piece originally written by Steve Eungblut the Managing Director of Sterling Chase. His group worked with hundreds of sales teams and conducted extensive research into what makes the real difference between an average sales team and a great sales team. They came up with the following characteristics:
1. Customer orientation: Since selling is all about aligning your solution with the customer’s needs and desires, a superior knowledge of the client’s world is crucial to the success of any sales team.
To gain superior customer knowledge and outsell the competition, team members should gather as much information about their customers as possible. They should be passionate in their pursuit of customer satisfaction and should immerse themselves in conversations around the customer’s external environment, internal ‘pain points’ and their (known and hidden) needs. Individual team members should also sell their customers’ needs to their own company and portray their customers as the most important that the company has.
2. Own company capability knowledge, relationships and innovation: To acquire a superior knowledge of their own company’s capabilities, each team member should be encouraged to familiarize themselves with the features, advantages and benefits (FABs) of all their products and services. Along with superior customer knowledge, a high degree of product knowledge will make it easier for sales people to align solutions with customer needs and desires. Individual team members should also map out innovative ways in which their company’s capabilities can be positioned and/or adapted to differentiate their proposition from that of the company’s competitors. This should also help team members to up-sell and cross-sell solutions across their portfolio.
3. A proactive drive & determination for results: The sales team should be highly self-motivated and proactively create and drive sales opportunities forward. This should enable individual team members to deliver benefits for their customers, as well as great results for their employers, the team and themselves.
4. Collaboration and a balance of personality types: To be a successful sales team, it is really important that individual members of the team work together rather than in competition with one another. By working collaboratively and being dependent on each other’s selling skills and knowledge, members of the sales team will be deterred from behaviors which can be destructive to the entire team. Collaboration will reduce the likelihood of a destructive blame culture developing in the sales team, for example, while it should foster a more positive and creative working environment – in turn, improving team performance and results.
The team also needs to be balanced with creators, shapers and completer-finishers. If you have a team that simply consists of fiery hunters and you ask them to work together, sparks will most likely fly and team members will clash. On the other hand, if all of your team members are farmers, it is most likely that your sales strategy will take too long to bear fruit.
5. A structured approach to planning and actions: The sales team must take planning really seriously and ensure that they develop and implement plans that have direct and tested links from the analysis stage right through to action and results. Many times a team will implement a sales strategy which fails to credibly link the past, the present, the near-term and the long-term. Successful sales teams make their plans and all associated activities SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound). They make their plans drive their activities and constantly revisit, review and test their plans.
6. Manager, leader, coach: Great teams need great leaders. Great leaders are inspirational in the way they are able to adapt to different situations and different challenges. Sometimes they need to tell and drive; sometimes they need to create a credible vision for others to aim for; sometimes they need to facilitate and coach; sometimes they simply need to let go. In fact, every day and every task requires a slant towards different requirements and the sales team’s leader has to let go of his or her own ego – they need to be agile when it comes to switching their leadership style.
Many say great leaders are born and great teams rarely come together by chance. But in reality, successful sales teams can be designed, built, developed and emulated in any situation. You need intelligent, willing and passionate sales people on board who are willing to work together for the customer, the team, the company and for their own ultimate gain.
In summary, great teams need to be put together carefully. They need to love their customers while leading the way for their own company. They need to plan and drive results. They need leaders who can adapt their style from being a sales manager to a sales leader to a sales coach when the time is right.
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Steve Eungblut’s original article can be found at the Sterling Chase Sales & Business Development Blog.
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6 Steps to Enable Your Sales Team to Sell with Insight
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on October 12, 2012
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, it should come as no surprise to you that buyer behavior has changed dramatically. I’ve come across a number of well-written research documents, such as Base One’s “2012 Buyersphere” report and Forbes Insight’s “The Rise of the Digital C-Suite” study, that highlight how this is playing out in the marketplace. Simply put, buyers are more educated, better prepared, and further along in their buying process when they engage sellers.
So, what does this all mean for a company, its sales force, and its ability to compete? Here are 6 steps to leverage “insight selling” to help your team engage buyers early in their process and shape a solution that gives you the best odds of winning:
1. Understand the forces driving your customers to change. Changing external forces such as new technology, competition, or regulatory requirements, as well as internal forces such as new leadership or strategic initiatives, drive organizations to change. Whether driven by external or internal factors, change creates opportunities for providers who can help companies navigate the change. To be successful, you and your sales team must stay on top of the latest trends so that you can guide your clients to capitalize on those that are worthwhile and steer them clear of pitfalls they should avoid.
2. Determine how your organization can uniquely enable these change imperatives. This requires you to reframe your value proposition to address the change your buyers face. You need to determine how you can help them navigate the change process, the benefits they will realize, and the investment (e.g., financial, emotional, or time) required on their part for success.
It’s not enough to be able to say, “We’ve been in this business for 50 years.” That can make you sound old and stale. What have you done lately? Can you demonstrate to prospects that you and your people are at the cutting edge? What makes you better than other companies offering the same service?
3. Proactively educate the buyer on the change imperative and solution options. Be a source of knowledge and insight to raise awareness of the issues driving change and potential solutions to navigate the change. This happens both at a macro level in marketing through research and thought leadership programs and at a micro level by helping your sales reps identify prospects in flux and engage in an insightful dialog around the issue and potential solutions.
Remember our premise above: buyers are more educated and better prepared than ever before. This gives you an opportunity in your marketing to provide research, thought leadership, and practical case studies addressing common issues so that as buyers are getting educated on the matter, insuring you’re already on their radar.
However, don’t assume that your customer is aware of the need or how to solve these challenges. External forces, such as regulatory change or technological innovations, may not be front-page news in the mainstream media. Your organization has to keep its finger on the pulse of the forces that create need for your solutions. You need to help your sales team connect the dots between the emerging challenge and your ability to help. Savvy buyers will be skeptical of following the latest trends, and rightly so. It’s up to you to help them realize what trends to pursue and which to avoid.
What’s the best way to do this? There’s a lot of debate around whether your sales reps should lead with questions or with insights. Much of this depends on your prospect and their level of familiarity with the issue. Sometimes, prospects won’t know what they don’t know, and other times, they will know more than you do. It’s important not to patronize your prospects or speak over their heads. As such, we believe that it is best to either phrase your insight as a question (“How have you prepared to deal with issue XYZ?”) or to state your insight and follow up immediately with a question (“Many organizations we work with have done ABC because of XY&Z; have you considered that concept?”).
4. Proactively educate the buyer on how your solution is typically bought and sold. You sell your solutions every day, but your buyers may only buy a solution to a problem once in a lifetime. You need to tell them how to buy and why that is beneficial to them. This will surface other players in the buying organization who influence the decision and who need to be on board with the solution.
There is some recent thinking on the usefulness of asking questions to better understand the buying process. We believe that not asking these questions is a lost opportunity. The mutual sharing of information around the buying and selling process with prospects that you’ve motivated to change will help you avoid missing key influencers in the sale and help you refine your value proposition to address their unique concerns.
Chances are that what you’re selling will have a greater impact in your clients’ organizations than your buyers’ immediate business unit. Explore with your buyers the “ripple effect” throughout their organization, and use that as an opportunity to engage influencers in those areas.
5. Ensure your sales reps have the knowledge and skills to educate clients, position your value proposition, and cover their bases on a complex sale. With so much information available on the internet, it is easy for you to assume that your sales reps are following developments in their field and can confidently engage in business discussions with buyers. While your sales reps may all be active consumers of industry news, this is seldom sufficient. The biggest risk is that they will misrepresent the issue or your company’s solution or exaggerate the benefits in their enthusiasm to win business.
You need to provide your sales reps with your company’s position on the issue, solution guidelines, and expected benefits. This should be a collaborative activity with your marketing and product teams. Insight selling works most efficiently when your marketing team works on the front end by doing the research on the issue, market, competition, and thought leadership – while your product team creates the roadmap and pricing policies.
Then, you need to arm your sales reps with this material. Teach them to communicate your value proposition to different buying influencers involved in the decision-making process, and the process to advance the sale to closure.
6. Reinforce and sustain “Insight Selling” as a key strategic initiative. Even after you’ve done your positioning and solution preparation and training, you need to continually reinforce the behavior change necessary among your sales reps to realize the full benefit of insight selling. Don’t think of this as a sales training or a marketing initiative – it is really a strategic initiative that requires alignment across your organization.
It requires awareness of the issues, value proposition, and solution from top to bottom. The business needs to make the investment in thought leadership, refining solutions, and marketing. In order for the behavior to stick, each level in the sales organization has a responsibility to “own” their part of the process:
- Sales leadership needs to make the investment in sales rep and management development and have the discipline to establish metrics and measure the progress and impact of the initiative.
- Sales managers need to invest in their own continuous learning about the issues, build their ability to coach sales reps in this new selling paradigm, and hold their sales reps accountable for the right activity and effectiveness.
- And of course, sales reps need to embrace a new way of thinking, continuously build their ability to share insights, and engaging customers in business conversations.
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This article was originally posted to The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™ by Dario Priolo on October 10, 2012
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