Successful Sales Culture Transformation (And Managing What Can’t Be Measured In The Process!)
Posted by Victor Watts on Fri, Aug 07, 2009 @ 10:13 AM
Managing What Can't Be Measured?
I know...I know...you can't manage what can't be measured. It simply flies in the face of the age-old axiom. But I'll bet that if you're in sales management, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
Change management is often as much art as science and is generally filled with a playground that is never lacking for diverse personalities... and this is particularly true if you're trying to effect a sales culture transformation!
As an example, let's use the almost universal bandwagon shift to a "consultative sales" or "solution selling" methodology. We've all successfully made that transformation. Right?
Okay, maybe not everybody has traversed the river yet with all boats ashore, but everyone is trying. In any case, you're tasked with making sure that your team is at least trying to row in the same general direction. Maybe you've even embraced "Telling Isn't Selling" as your new motto. So, now your sales reps are asking the client lots of questions and arriving at the perfect solution by virtue of their new consulting approach. Simple, isn't it?.
But how do you make sure it's really happening? You can't sit on every boat!
Regardless of the transformation initiative, what we hear and experience again and again is that uniformity and compliance remains a problem across the sales organization long after management embraces the need for change.
Yes, communication, training and continued education are still strategic cornerstones ensuring cultural change, but change management demands that a sales manager manage a host of variables and intangibles that often defy common metrics.
Accountability For Change Is Not Just For The Folks With Oars In Their Hands!
All too often, the metrics applied to this "sea change" remain grounded in standard CRM tools. Relationships, client data, records of calls, corresponding close ratios and revenue gain, etc. are all are good data points. They're also pretty good at helping you determine what happened after the fact.
- But how well do they measure real-time culture shift?
- And who is in charge of ensuring that it happens according to plan?
Two Keys to Success
The accountability for successful implementation of any sales culture change lies in the hands of the middle and first-line field sales management! Sales management must be held accountable for driving the transformation. No excuses. This is not a hands-off exercise.
Hold both your executive management and your field sales management accountable for sending consistent messages to the sales force. Even if you have to "manage up," nothing will sabotage a sales culture conversion quicker than incongruent messages!
So How Do You Do It?
Have you ever rolled out an initiative only to see it die on the vine? Remember the first time your company adopted a CRM application? Remember any issues with adoption? And yes, sometimes you have to be able to manage what can't be measured!
So what do you do? It all begins with a core message from executive management...then it's up to you - the sales manager. Consider leveraging some of the tools and activities you already have in place to help you:
Become a Virtual Coxswain!
Okay, the rowing analogy is probably all wet by now - sorry, couldn't resist - but the last point should be of particular interest to anyone embracing Sales 2.0. As a sales manager, you know that being with a sales rep in the field can be one of the most effective - and least efficient - ways of ensuring broad behavioral change.
Given the obvious limitations, it's time to consider how you can best leverage real-time "inter-activity" when it comes to coaching. Content management and online sales planning tools are just two of the applications out there that can help. "Sales enablement" solutions are in the emergent phase - do some checking and you'll discover that the old Web 2.0 is aggressively pushing the newer Sales 2.0.
Still not sure how to manage what can't be measured?
The next time one of your reps has a meeting with a key account and you can't attend - but you wish you could - try this:
Get the sales rep to send you a meeting plan well before the scheduled client interaction. Not just a presentation. Not just an agenda. Not just the client company information. But a well thought out pre-call plan. Make sure it includes:
- Meeting objective
- Questions to ask (remember it's "solution selling," right?)
- Anticipated questions and objections
- Planned responses or strategies to questions and objections
- Closing statement
- Fall-back plan if the client says "no!"
Do this and I'll bet you'll find some surprises. And maybe some coaching opportunities. At the very least, you get a good measure of how well the rep is negotiating your new sales culture initiative!
Giddyup!
Photo credit - Rower from Croatia
Credit and apologies go to Jim Kasper for my "leveraging" some of his insights and wisdom for this article. In his best-selling book, Creating the #1 Sales Force, Jim does a great job of detailing all the ins-and-outs of transforming sales cultures and creating dynamic sales teams. Jim is a frequent contributor to this blog and I look forward to him addressing this topic in much better fashion in the future.