Posted by Tom Rothrock on Thu, Mar 11, 2010 @ 01:56 PM
Given the current reality of an "employer's market" you thought it was going to be easy to hire a new sales rep.
You and your recruiting team spent hours scanning resumes. For a few days, you were getting around 100 a day in response to your online posting.
Undaunted, you plowed through them to select ones for initial phone and later face-to-face interviews.
The interview process was lengthy and time consuming and your hire decision was challenging. You had to choose between several strong candidates who had winning track records in sales as well as glowing references. You wanted to hire them all.
Finally, you chose one who you believed had the smarts, energy, skills and drive to be your next "A Player." In the following weeks, your new rep was put through the paces learning the 4 "P's" - process, product, procedures and practices - in your new hire training program. After that, your new rep will be equipped and ready to hit the ground running and start bringing in the sales.
This period, the timeframe following when a new sales rep has completed their training and starts calling on accounts, is generally referred to as the "ramp-up time," where they're still finding their way around. It is a crucial transition period when your new rep is absorbing and mastering your sales practices, environment and culture, all of which will impact the rep's future success or failure.
It's also a timeframe requiring as much of your time, if not more, than the recruiting effort did. You will need to be observing and coaching your new rep as closely and frequently as possible.
Where do you get the time to do that? You can't be on every call but want to be sure your new rep maintains the momentum toward attaining their sales goals.
You may be thinking about using one of your top "A Players" to mentor your new hire, but that unfortunately takes them away from their primary objective of making sales.
A very strong and time-effective solution is to instill pre-call planning throughout your sales organization. Your pre-call planning effort should incorporate the "best practices" of your sales process and identify all of the steps and activities that will furnish your new rep with a road map to success.
Your first step in accomplishing that is to download our free Guide to Pre-Call Planning which will introduce the benefits of pre-call planning across your sales organization.
Photo Credit: Jack Rothrock
Posted by Victor Watts on Tue, Sep 29, 2009 @ 04:14 PM
Okay, the headline metaphor may be a bit of a Olympic-sized literary stretch...but you have to admit, the visual of a coach watching her gymnasts compete is not too dissimilar to a manager trying to coach a diverse sales team.
Let's face it, your team is made up of individuals:
- With different talents, strengths and weaknesses;
- That have divergent support needs;
- That are often in remote locations.
If that's not challenging enough for a coach, it gets considerably more difficult when the commission checks may not be quite as big as they once were. But one thing is for certain, how you manage, lead and enable your sales force today will determine what kind of issues you will be faced with tomorrow. 
Sales Is Not Always A Team Sport - But The Team Still Needs To Win!
On one level, it seems like a contradiction in terms, doesn't it? But a good coach knows that a team is made up of unique individuals. So then, why do we so often see corporate incentive and retention programs rolled out with a one-size-fits-all structure and mentality? Based on what I've seen in corporate America, it's because that's the easy way out.
What's the old management saying?
"I love a hungry sales person with two mortgages, three cars and an expensive boat and a base salary woefully inadequate to meet the need."
As a consequence of that mentality, the typical corporate retention and incentive strategy is something along the lines of establishing a performance-based bonus program. Sell more - make more. Simple. Everyone's happy - right?
Wrong. (And I won't even get into the issue of how those goals are typically set.)
While I won't disagree that I look for money motivated sales folks, have you ever seen one single survey of sales people that indicates that money is their number one concern?
Didn't think so.
Don't get me wrong, money is a key issue...it's just not the only or necessarily the top one. Let's assume that you've already got a reasonably good comp plan in place. Let's also assume that you're not currently having to... what's the corporate euphemism?...oh yeah, "right-size" the sales organization. If that premise is correct, then I'm going to suggest that it's an important time to find ways to recognize and support your key individuals. The goal is not only keeping your high performers, but also keeping them at high-performing levels!
We've Been Here Before...And If You Haven't, Pay Close Attention
So maybe you're saying,
"I don't have to worry about things like retention or recognition programs right now. These guys should feel lucky they even have jobs. And besides, there's no money for things like incentive programs or new sales enablement initiatives right now."
I hope that's not the case. It may very well be a pervasive corporate culture at the moment, but I would argue that's exactly the wrong way to look at things.
Believe it or not, we are beginning to emerge from the economic downturn. Yes, this one has been a doozy, and employment will be the lagging indicator, but economic cycles - to coin a phrase - are still cyclical. And your most valuable assets still get on the elevator every day.
When things do turn around - and they will - some of your best assets may not let the door hit them in the rear on their rush to get to their next job. It's time to pay attention. Remember, the best time to retain your best players are before you need to.
Parallel Bar Management Skills
We often talk in this blog about the emerging "sales enablement" tools and how they can help your team produce more and do so more efficiently. Not a bad thing to consider from a retention perspective either. High perfoming reps in particular will appreciate it and use them! Heck, some of the Sales 2.0 tools can even help you coach (not just manage!) your players. I applaud those companies with enough vision to recognize the significant ROI of making that kind of move now. But that's just part of the managerial picture.
As a sales executive, you are operating in critical times. A time where your best management skills need to be working in parallel with the longer-range plans and goals. Maintaining and building the morale of their sales team takes a lot of effort. And this is not news, but individuals like to be treated...well, individually.
As We Focus On The Pitch, It's Easy To Lose Focus On The Pitcher
Alright, I know. I'm mixing metaphors here. (At least it's still a sports metaphor!)
Have you found yourself so focused on the need to close the deal and hit your numbers that you've neglected what you know about Sales Management 101? If so, remind yourself of a few of the basics and pull a few of these moves out of the tried-and-true toolkit. Yes, it takes more time and energy to manage this way but, trust me, in the long run you'll be glad you did.
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Catch people doing something right! Do you remember the first time your boss pulled you aside and said "good job!" Remember when he mentioned your name at a sales meeting for something you did well or for the good idea you had? Doesn't have to be a big deal. But catching people doing something right is still one of the most powerful management tools in your management toolkit. Reach for that one as often as you can!
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Discuss career pathing. Maybe the current economic times make the idea of talking about a positive career path with your subordinate seem like a silly waste of time. Heck, you might even be worried about your own career path! Well now's the best time to talk up a positive future. Just like Vince Lombardi said, "Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence." (Oops, another sport just entered the blog building.)
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Review reporting demands. You might feel powerless in this area because of management expectations, but I encourage you to give it a go. Your sales people will certainly appreciate it. Take a look at the reporting and administrative requirements placed on the sales team. See anything that can be minimized or eliminated? Still having a weekly sales call to regurgitate what should be in the CRM? Worse yet, are your people shackled by a CRM that has been so over-engineered that you're having reps spend hours each day just trying to keep up with data input demand?
It's about productivity - not re-productivity. Find the extraneous and the duplicitous and eliminate it! To quote Yoda: "Necessary are the battle reports you need, but get the soldiers you must beyond the weeds."
Good luck...and heads up coach, there's a game on!
Photo credits:
azzurri_nr1 http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajacied/2772283192/
Krachel http://www.flickr.com/photos/krachel/2609725004/
Posted by Tom Rothrock on Tue, Sep 08, 2009 @ 10:27 AM
Do They Measure Up?
In two of our earlier blogs we spoke about
identifying and
interviewing top performers for your sales team. We now want to expand that discussion toward how you can use assessments to strengthen your sales hiring process.
So, let's roll up our sleeves and get to work!
Your next move is to acquire the tools to enable you to do that. What you need is a tool that will measure the behavioral characteristics of your sales rep candidates and your existing top performers.
"Wait a minute," you say. "I understand the candidates, but why do I have to measure the characteristics of my top performers, too?"
Good question! That's how you establish the foundation for building your team of top performers. Once you've identified your top performers, your goal is to find more just like them. You want to duplicate your successes and avoid repeating costly hiring mistakes. By developing your "top performer benchmark" you'll be doing just that to measure future candidates.
That's where we'll return to the tool that measures behavioral characteristics mentioned above. Since the late 1980's, there's been a boom in the availability and the accuracy of behavioral assessments. That growth was enabled by the widespread use of the personal computer and Internet access, all of which have greatly reduced the time to complete, evaluate and generate assessment reports.
Today, there are hundreds of companies who can provide assessment services for you - a simple Google search using "assessments" will yield you a number of possibilities.
But that's where the hard work comes in. While there are a lot of firms who can provide assessments on your candidates, you must insist on the following from any firm you're considering:
Once you've located a reliable source for your assessment needs, you'll have the process in place for building your top performing team! If you have a HR department or specialist on staff, that’s a good place to start.
If I can aid you in your effort to incorporate assessments for your sales team hiring process, please do contact me at
precallpro.com.
Photo Credit: Pink Sherbet
Posted by Tom Rothrock on Wed, Aug 12, 2009 @ 06:06 PM
How Do You Know Who's Really Behind The Mask?
In our earlier discussion, we pointed out the predominant characteristics of top performing salespeople. Of course we know there are others which positively contribute to a rep's performance not mentioned here. For now, we're focusing on 3 key characteristics which appear below with a brief description:
Enterprising: Independently competitive, takes on initiative and risk, has personal ownership or "stake" in outcomes. Tends to "ask for forgiveness instead of approval."
Sociable: Conversant and comfortable across a broad array of business and social settings; easily builds rapport and readily interacts with all types of people.
Assertive: Leads more than follows; is confident, comfortable and competant in directing people as well as the course of events. In the sales environment it's mandatory in any sales professional's ability to advance their sales cycle.Now equipped with these characteristics, you're certainly wondering...
"How do I know the candidates I'm talking to have them...or don't?"
That's the easy part - just like good sales professionals, we ask! Listed below are some interview questions to help you do that:
Enterprising:
- While on a sales call with a prospect, you encounter an issue that's outside of your authority but must be addressed to close the sale. Do you: a) execute to advance the sale or b), wait for approval from higher authority?
- When in competition, what lengths do you go to to win?
- When sales goals are not achieved, who's responsible?
Sociable:
- Describe the relationship building skills you have used to successfully achieve your sales goals.
- How would you build rapport with a remote, indifferent prospect on a initial call?
- What types of things have you done in the past to retain and expand business from existing accounts?
Assertive:
- Describe an example when you closed a particularly difficult sale by using your persuasion skills.
- Using examples from your experience, explain how a salesperson’s tenacity impacts the outcome of the sales process.
- When in the sales environment and while engaging a prospective customer, tell me how you a sense of urgency.
- Demonstrate for me how you'd handle a indecisive prospect who is stalling your sales cycle. Specifically, I’m interested in the approaches and the words you’d use to move them forward.
By carefully gauging your candidates' responses to these questions, you'll be better prepared to tell if they're the "real thing" or merely saying "what they think you want to hear."
Armed with the answers to your questions and then comparing them to the experience and accomplishments cited on their resumes, you'll be well on your way to hiring your next "top performer - not just another "great pretender!"
We'll be talking about other tools available to you in order to accomplish this - and more - in a future blog. Stay tuned!
Photo Credit: esper.art.br
http://www.flickr.com/photos/xper/3350897632/
Posted by Jim Kasper on Wed, Jul 29, 2009 @ 11:31 AM
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A Few Questions You Must Ask Yourself When Onboarding New Sales Reps:
- How much more confidence would a new sales rep exhibit if he/she were able to leverage and implement the best practices of your top reps immediately on their very first call?
- What would it mean to a new sales rep's production, if they could become totally prepared for sales call success on each call with only a couple of minutes of preparation?
- How valuable would it be to your field sales managers, if they could quickly preview a "remotely located" new sales rep's sales call plan and make adjustments prior to the call?
- What would all of this mean to your sales organization in achieving your sales goals?
You spend thousands of dollars recruiting and hiring each new "A" player sales representative.
You spend thousands more onboarding and training the new rep on product, procedures, policies, and sales process. Besides that, you pile on more money for your field sales managers to travel with, observe, and coach your new rep. The salaries and lost sales associated with hiring and training a new sales person are basically "sunk" costs and are unrecoverable.
These "sunk" costs also include the time and money it takes for a new sales representative to move from the conclusion of the onboarding process to the point of full sales productivity. This specific time period is commonly referred to as sales representative "ramp-up" time.
The constant objective you strive to achieve with new sales reps is reducing ramp-up time to full productivity, thereby limiting the "sunk" costs.
Until recently, the only opportunity for ramp-up time compression occurred during the recruiting process. Many companies try to hire successful industry experienced reps to cut ramp-up time. Most of the time it is costly and industry experienced reps are set in their ways.
In a recent survey of global sales executives, representing companies ranging from $100 million to $3 billion (USD), almost 6 out of 10 said one of the major benefits of pre-call planning was reduced ramp-up time.
When combined with sound product/service training, pre-call planning can reduce new hire sales rep onboarding time to full productivity by between 30% - 50%. To most businesses, this means:
1. A higher probability of achieving forecast
2. Lowering cost of sales
3. Reducing turnover in customer base when a sales representative leaves
4. Eliminating tens of thousands of dollars in lost opportunity costs
How much more revenue would the practice of pre-call planning for new sales reps bring to your organization?
Photo credit: Steepways
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