Posted by Tom Rothrock on Tue, Nov 24, 2009 @ 03:53 PM
It seems that every day in the Sales 2.0 universe brings new applications directly intended for sales professionals. They promote sales efficiency and effectiveness by offering personal productivity improvements and expanded data retrieval capabilities.
In many respects, it is an embarrassment of riches - solutions with powerful features, speed and functionalities that promise a jolt to your sales rep's performance better than a can of Red Bull.
However appealing all of those applications are there is a danger lurking: will your reps use them to their intended level of effectiveness or will they be a distraction from their sales productivity?
Within sales organizations of all sizes, there are internal struggles going on between IT departments, sales management and senior management about which applications have priority and which do not.
Often, those discussions take place at the upper reaches of the organizational chart without the input of the sales team - in whose hands the success or failure of the application ultimately rests.
One sales organization's recent experience bears this out when senior management mandated the use of a very clunky in-house CRM. The software was dated, requiring reps to repeatedly enter duplicate data and was little more than a post-activity record keeping tool which served management's ends but was of little benefit to the sales team.
Unfortunately the mandate went over the protests of the sales manager, who had successfully engaged the reps in using a SaaS tool which improved call effectiveness and performance. The sales manager had argued for the replacement of the in-house CRM with a more up-to-date and user-friendly tool but was overruled.
The outcome was predictable: the reps spent more time on the CRM - because they "had" to - and less on the SaaS tool. As a result, they became documenters of after-the-fact "accident reports" instead taking the steps to lead their sales cycle. Morale and performance declined, eventually leading to the departure of the sales manager as well as the top performers of the sales team.
What can you do to prevent this from happening and avoid being a casualty in "The Battle of the Apps?"
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When in the field with your sales team, pay close attention to the applications they're using and the ones they're not. With that input, you'll know which are candidates for replacement or upgrade.
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Before proceeding with any new application, have your top performers' field test and evaluate it. Select those on your team who will give you an honest appraisal of the application's strengths and weaknesses. Later on, this will aid "buy-in" from your reps if you decide to implement the application.
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Early on, apprise your senior management of the direction you're going and keep them in the loop. It's important for them to understand what you're seeking to accomplish. Always express your outcomes in terms of expected R.O.I. benefits, increased sales or cost/time savings.
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When enterprise wide applications are being considered, be sure you're positioned to give a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" from the sales perspective. If you don't, your team could get stuck with a "clunker" that's suited for procurement and not sales.
You don't want to be stuck with a ‘clunker' application that doesn't meet your sales team's needs. Your careful attention to those needs will assure your reps end up winning the battle!
Photo Credit: Craig Hatfield
Posted by Jim Kasper on Tue, Sep 22, 2009 @ 03:46 PM
Avoid "flavor of the month" terminology
The lack of uniformity of sales practice and commonality of sales process vocabulary will pose a barrier to sales organization effectiveness. Sales executives, managers, and representatives all come from various sales methodology trainings. Hence, most internal sales organization are a hodge podge of sales expressions. We highly recommend that you adopt and embed a common terminology for your professional sales team that is universally and quickly adopted and not proprietary to a specific "flavor of the month" methodology that will change as people come and go.
Legal, medical, financial, and educational occupations are prime examples of highly effective use of common professional language. In each of the aforementioned vocations words have the same meaning. We cannot make that claim in our profession.
Sales Process Glossary
Let us present the first "primer glossary" of universal sales process terminology. You are welcome to adopt these in your sales organization.
Sales Methodology: a specific sales philosophy utilized by your sales team to close/capture a sale. Embedded in each methodology are sales skills specific to that methodology's successful implementation. Examples: transactional, consultative, customer centric, strategic account, solution based, short cycle selling
Sales Cycle: Synonymous with sales process. The step-by-step procedure that your sales team must undertake to successfully conclude a sale from start to close. It is the process in which you practice your sales methodology. The following figure illustrates a generic sales cycle/process. Your sales cycle closely follows the buying cycle of your customers. It is called a sales "cycle" because, if you notice, it ends with a referral which starts a new cycle in the prospect stage.
Sales Cycle Stages: Each step within your sales cycle is referred to as a stage because a stage is a "platform or level" from which you will perform certain activities and achieve the next stage or level. Prospect is the first "stage" in the above sales cycle. Interview is the second "stage" and so on.
Sales Cycle Predominant Activities: Within each stage of your sales cycle are specific activities you must accomplish; however, you are not rewarded for conducting those activities; you are rewarded for achieving the next stage, which is your only objective. Example: Predominant activities in the "interview stage" of the above generic sales cycle may include pre-call planning, meeting agenda, and account history review.
Sales Cycle Dwell Time: Look again at the generic sales cycle example. You will notice little clocks between the sales cycle stages. Those clocks represent the amount of time expended to complete the next stage. In essence, the clocks measure the time your sales professionals "dwell" between stages. Most sales cycles have "standard or expected" dwell times between stages.
Sales Cycle Velocity: The total time it takes to complete one complete sales cycle (all of the stages). For consultative, complex sales cycles, this is usually measured in days, weeks, or months. It is easily calculated by adding all of the "dwell" times.
To download a free sales process glossary of terms for your sales team, click here.
Photo credit: shawn_econo
Posted by Todd Kasper on Thu, Sep 17, 2009 @ 07:38 AM
"In essence, Sales 2.0 combines customer-focused processes with Web 2.0 productivity technologies to enhance the art and science of selling while creating customer value."
--Gerhard Gschwandtner
Last week, I had the pleasure of joining 245 global sales leaders in Chicago for the last Sales 2.0 Conference of 2009. According to Gerhard Gschwandtner, Publisher of Selling Power, "Sales 2.0 is the chicken soup for the recessionary economy."
What follows are the three key takeaways you should know if you did not attend:
#1: It's a conversation economy
As information becomes easier for customers to get, the sales function's role becomes less about providing information and more about having conversations with customers. We all know that customers are changing the way that they prefer to buy, but sales organizations have not been as quick to change the way that they sell.
Customers (especially for complex sales) want to co-create with the sales professional solutions that meet their needs. This means that sales professionals need to ask more open-ended questions, do a better job of listening, and get the absolute most possible return out of each client interaction.
This also means that sales professionals need to have better leads, qualify opportunities earlier, and do a better job preparing for the time they actually get to spend with a customer. (An IDC study discussed at the conference revealed only 1 out of 6 sales professionals were "extremely prepared" for an initial meeting with a customer, and 57% were either NOT or only somewhat prepared!)
#2: Lack of Sales and Marketing cooperation on demand generation is inexcusable
The days of Sales and Marketing pointing the lead quality finger at each other need to be over. Companies need to begin to realize the efficiencies that come from sales and marketing alignment (especially in today's economic environment). Actually disqualifying leads is as important (if not more important) than qualifying them, due to the vast amount of time and resources that can be saved at later (and more time-intensive) stages of the sales cycle.
Kevin Hooper, VP, Technology Solutions Group at Hewlitt-Packard, spoke about giving the Marketing folks in his group at HP a share of the sales quota. What ensued was an instant alignment of interests between Sales and Marketing. Isn't this how it should be? (For more on this, read Mike Damphousse's Smashmouth Marketing interview with Mr. Hooper on sales and marketing alignment.)
One emerging trend to look for is the increasing use of predictive analytics to optimize sales and marketing resource allocation. This technology allows the right lead to be placed in front of the right sales rep at the right time. IncentAlign is doing some very interesting work in this space, especially around lead scoring and optimized lead routing.
#3: Social media enables better conversations
The good news is that if we are evolving into a conversation economy, social media is a major engine that allows sellers to engage customers in conversations at a much earlier point in the sales cycle (or to conduct better due diligence at later stages!).
According to Kevin Popovic of Ideahaus, the beauty of social media is these conversations can now be started with the customer where he/she is right now, and on his/her terms.
Pull strategies are proving to be significantly more effective than push strategies, and for more, please see Kevin Popovic's Social Networking in a Sales 2.0 World presentation.
Social media isn't just for teenagers and college students - it is a power toolbox that allows sales organizations to have better interactions with customers throughout the sales cycle. For more on the conference's social media panel, read Gerhard Gschwandtner's The Sales 2.0 Movement Accelerated in Chicago - Part II.
Photo credit: Sales 2.0 Conference