10/31/2006
What is Your Company's Sales Approach?
Rethink your sales hiring process to improve performance
By Dave Stein, CEO & Founder, ES Research Group, Inc. Featured Monthly Columnist for Sales & Marketing Management magazine
From ESR's research, it is very clear that companies sell more effectively if their sales approach is based on a well-founded, institutionalized methodology. This is true of companies that have one salesperson or companies with ten thousand, whether they sell staffing or technology, industrial equipment or professional services.
"When we ask sales leaders, general managers and CEOs whether they have a sales methodology and if sales people are compliant in its use, the answer is often disappointing. Many respond saying they have no methodology; but that's really not the case. Their situation is, in fact, far worse"
Dave Stein, CEO & Founder, ES Research Group, Inc.
How Many Methodologies Do You Really Have?
When we ask sales leaders, general managers and CEOs whether they have a sales methodology and if sales people are compliant in its use, the answer is often disappointing. Many respond saying they have no methodology; but that's really not the case. Their situation is, in fact, far worse. What they have is possibly the same number of methodologies in place as the number of sales people. Each sales person is pursuing business their own way, with no common approach selling by the seat of their pants. The symptoms are classic: deal slippage, reactive discounting, hockey-stick forecasts, and a small percentage of the team carrying the ball for everyone else. Today's business world has no time or patience for seat of the pants selling.
Where Do You Stand?
If that isn't the case, you might start with a bit of a self-assessment. Here are a few questions to get you thinking in the right direction:
Where Do You Stand?
By now you already know where you stand. If your company has been strategic in its approach to sales development and sales performance, you probably already have a methodology in place, have likely trained your team on its use and measure performance improvement on an ongoing basis. Most members of your team are probably performing at or above quota.
If that isn't the case, you might start with a bit of a self-assessment. Here are a few questions to get you thinking in the right direction:
- Can you explain in precise terms how your customers typically buy?
- How many steps are there in your standard sales process?
- What are the five most important qualification criteria that must be met for your sales people to be entitled to corporate resources in pursuit of an opportunity?
- Has every sales person been coached and certified on delivering your key messages to different constituencies within your customers' organizations?
- Are your sales people equipped with a list of standard objections that they are likely to face and have they been trained and coached on how to manage them?
- Are you able to consistently find and hire sales people who deliver at or above quota?
- Is every member of your team educated on the trends, issues, enablers and obstacles for their customers' success in those markets into which they sell?
- Do you have a documented set of processes and tools that encourage your sales people to effectively plan their sales campaigns, including every meeting, presentation and event?
- Can your account executives effectively build and manage mutually beneficial long-term relationships with your key accounts without constant threat of competitive displacement?
- Do you have a mechanism that provides each sales person with up-to-date, objective information about their competitors' companies, products and services, and sales strategies and tactics, with clear and precise recommendations on how to use that information for competitive advantage?
How did you do?Do you feel confident that you objectively answered each question with a resounding "yes!" and can anticipate what my next ten questions might be? If not...
What Should You Do First?
First, understand why not. The results of a 2005 survey show that these are some of the most common reasons sales leaders have not taken a formal, methodical approach to selling:
- Those leaders are not process-oriented and therefore believe that processes inherently inhibit productivity, rather than enhance it.
- They cannot get budget allocated for sales consulting or training because they are unable to present a credible business case including a target ROI.
- They will not invest in sales development and process because they are compensated on operating income, and training is seen as a large expense, potentially impacting their bonus.
- They believe they hire top sales people who do not need a methodology or training. Anyone who does not make quota is replaced by another top performer, so, sales management concludes, there is no need to make the investment.
- They have no idea how to properly select or engage with a sales consultancy and, out of fear of (another) failure, they do nothing.
- They have invested in a system and feel that that is all the process that their salespeople need.
So what is the real reason your company does not have a strategic, holistic approach to selling?
Methodology Comes First
We have seen many companies go from a state of disorder and failure within their sales function to one of consistent and predictable performance. One critical factor in making that transition is understanding that a methodology is absolutely required and that building or adopting one comes before training your team.
Now is the time to take a comprehensive, objective assessment of your current situation and capabilities. The need for objectivity makes this very difficult to accomplish using internal resources. Generally, does not recommend that the providers of sales training perform this assessment due to potential conflicts of interest. With those caveats in mind, this needs to get done before anything else.
Based upon that assessment, determine your requirements. Do you need to replace members of your team based upon a new understanding of the qualifications required to be successful? Do you need processes to help your team qualify, manage an opportunity or generate leads? Is your marketing organization providing the required support? You get the idea. If you are going to engage with a sales performance company to help you build that methodology, the requirements document becomes the basis for an RFP (request for proposal). If you don't have the time or resources to do it properly, engage a firm to assist you.
Then build or adopt a sales methodology based upon your specific and unique requirements. One size does not fit all.Once that methodology is in place, with all the relevant processes, methods, tools, you've built the foundation upon which metrics and training can be added.
There has never a better time than now to begin taking an approach a strategic approach for achieving sales effectiveness within your organization.
About Dave Stein
Although Dave's first career was as a professional trumpet player, his university training provided him with the discipline and understanding of process to get into computer programming. After tiring of staring at a screen all day, Dave was recruited into sales and worked his way to VP of sales for several leading technology companies. Dave has traveled the globe training, speaking to and coaching experienced sales teams and their executives from companies in all industries. He is the author of the Amazon best-selling book on competitive selling, How Winners Sell. He also writes the featured monthly column for Sales & Marketing Management Magazine.
In early 2005, Dave founded ES Research Group, which independently advises business organizations on selecting and implementing the right sales effectiveness approaches. Very recently, ESR published the first report of its kind, The 2006 Sales Training Vendor Guide, which reviews, compares and contrasts the top sales training providers in many areas such as educational design, methodology, technology support, breadth and depth of programs, customer satisfaction and post-program performance measurement.
About VCG
VCG provides comprehensive staffing and recruiting solutions that power success. Since 1976, VCG has helped hundreds of companies and more than 14,000 professionals worldwide achieve operational excellence by streamlining their unique business processes and accelerating finding and placing the people most likely to thrive. VCG, C-PAS, StaffSuite, TempWare-V, WebPAS, StaffSuite WorldLink and WebPAS WorldLink are registered trademarks of VCG, Inc.