The Ultimate Sales Executive Resource

Relationship Selling is Dead, Live Relationship Management

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:07:00 +0000

Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson in their book “Challenger Sale” make a convincing case that Relationship Builders are not top performers particular in complex sales, my primary focus of interest? Yet it is my firm belief, that challengers must be good relationship managers if they want to be successful.

How challengers Use Relationship Management

There are numerous hints throughout the text that Challengers need to build and maintain relationships to be the top performers. They actually need a better understanding how networks operate than Relationship Builders. Challengers are not satisfied with having relationships. They use the knowledge about their contacts to hold the right conversations, eventually, to get purchasing decisions from their customers.

The Challengers’ consider the knowledge about their contacts as working capital. They know that they continuously need to invest time and efforts to expand the knowledge about existing contacts and be curious to get to know the right things about new contacts to keep this relationship capital productive.

Mastering Relationship Management is what keeps this capital productive. This is such an important aspect of complex sales, that I gladly accepted Cate Farrall’s invitation to become a co-author of her new blog. You can follow this link to see what kind of discussions we intend to have there

What is the Sales Effectiveness of Your Organization and Yourself?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 11:26:00 +0000

Why should you care?

Businesses are under constant pressure for productivity improvements. Sales organizations are not excluded from this demand. Yet for most salespeople and sales organizations, working harder than they already are is probably no longer an option to increase productivity. The way out of this dilemma is thus to try to work smarter. Working smarter means doing the right things, and that's the meaning of effectiveness.

How can you measure sales effectiveness?

A commonly used metric for sales effectiveness is the individual quota attainment. All available research on this metric indicates that there is much room for improvement as less than 60% of sales people achieve their quota.

Even as a rough indicator quota attainment has though problematic. It starts already with the definition. Just recently I learned from a large client of mine that the quota is a stretch target. So no one would expect a 100% attainment rate of a stretch goal. In a Hard Talk Interview with Johnathan Farrington over at Top Sales World, I voiced my opinion that it is also not a good metric because managers do not care enough about it. A manager is held accountable that his/her organization delivers the budgeted number. Now the same research that indicates the low individual quota attainment rate also indicates that the budget attainment rate of sales organizations is around 20 percentage points higher. From this, we must conclude that managers can make their budgets even if a some of their people do not make quota. Why is this? Well ask yourself whom sales managers ask to help them cover a shortfall. They go to their overachievers and ask them for a little more. Usually there is not enough time for coaching those below quota to help to cover for the shortfall.

Is there a better alternative?

Donal Daily over at Dealmaker 365 came to a similar conclusion, that “quota achievement... does not cut it as a yardstick”. I also concur with him, that there are little benchmark data available that provides actionable insight to improve individual and organizational sales effectiveness.

Donal has given himself the mission to change this. The TAS Group, who's CEO he is, has, therefore, launched the Dealmaker Index. This is what the Dealmaker Index does according to the companies press release: “Based on an analysis of 92 sales performance factors, mapped against proven successful approaches, the Dealmaker Index measures the effectiveness of sales organizations and sales individuals across areas such as deal close rates, sales cycle management, value creation and sales opportunity development. It analyzes their activities, behaviors and attitudes and their strategic alignment with their companies and the resulting velocity they can achieve.”

Recommendation

It took me about 15 minutes to answer the questionnaire which is the base to determine the Dealmaker Index of the organization and the individual. As a result, I did not get just a number, but very actionable output in the form of an Executive Summary, a Company Detailed Analysis and Recommendations and a Personal Dealmaker Index Report.

From reading the executive summary, I found that the model used to calculate the index is the same one that I use myself for about the last 10 years to measure impacts of sales effectiveness initiatives. To me, the index is therefore very credible..

Unlike with other similar assessments, you do not just get a teaser report, and the full thing then is payable. You get the full output as described above for free.

Unless “hope” is your only strategy to achieve sales success, I see no reason for you to hesitate to follow this link http://www.dealmakerindex.com/Hermes/ and take the assessment for your organization and yourself. The 15 to 20 minutes it takes is well invested time.

2011 Top Sales & Marketing Awards – It’s Time to Nominate!

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 18:33:00 +0000

This year’s online Top Sales & Marketing Awards ceremony takes place on December 15th, and this year there are three medals up for grabs in fourteen categories.

In addition, they will be inducting a further six “sales legends” into the “Hall of Fame” during the ceremony. So do please go across and nominate your favorites. I hope you will find a category where you can nominate me

How Will the Final Nominees Be Chosen?

With the exception of Top Sales & Marketing Article, the judges will select between six and twelve finalists (depending on the category) from all of the nominations made.

How Will Voting Take Place?

The public voting polls will be open at www.topsalesawards.com from 12:00 mid-day on November 18th until 12:00 mid-day on December 9th: Anyone is eligible to vote as many times as they like, and in as many categories as they wish, but there is a restriction of one vote per IP address per 24 hours.

Voters will be asked to register, but will only need to do this once.

How Will the Winners Be Chosen & Announced?

Public voting will only account for 50% of the total marks, and the other 50% will be down to the judging panel in each category. Each panel will consist of three industry experts.

Once each judging panel has made their decision, their marks will be passed to an independent adjudicator who will then verify the overall results in each category.

The names of the judging panel and the adjudicator will be announced before November 10th

The winners of the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals in each category will be announced during the live online ceremony on Tuesday December 13th, which begins at 12:00 mid-day Eastern (5:00pm GMT)

Places for the ceremony are free, and registration is open from November 10th on the home page at www.topsalesawards.com

They will also post the results on site from December 16th.

So, your first task is to pop over and nominate all of your favorites ……..

What is your return on the use of a common language?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 16:22:00 +0000

Sales training companies are telling us that one major soft benefit from their training is the use of a common language by the sales team. How can we express a hard return from a soft benefit? We have to find measurable outcomes caused by the use of a common language.

A common language helps saving management time

The use of a common language first helps to save time for sales managers. As a manager, have you ever considered how much time you waste due to the fact that you have to listen to, or to read reports of your subordinates structured in their style instead of how you would like to have things presented?

In the case you haven't, here is a list of some time wasters:

The subordinates use jargon you are not familiar with and you will have to ask extra questions.
The report does not include what you are looking for and again you will have to make further inquiries to obtain the pertinent information
Each subordinate uses his/her own logic to structure and present information. In oral reports you might have to wait long until you hear what is of interest to you or written reports are difficult to skim.
Sales people want to impress managers with what they know, presenting though often irrelevant information and thus wasting the manager's time

Good managers are aware of these time wasters and therefore impose that their subordinates use specific templates for example to report on the status of an opportunity an the plan how to advance it. However in the context of a sales training initiative, the imposed use of existing templates might lead to disastrous results.

Do managers use the common language installed through sales training?

My observations is that this is rather the exception than the norm. Too many sales executives and managers look at sales training as something for their people and ignore that they might have to adjust their management .practice for the training to have a sustainable effect.

Good sales training companies offer though specific modules for managers teaching them how they can reinforce what was taught to their people .and having a positive return from the use of a common language. However when training budgets are tight, the management components of the initiative are the first to be skipped. The possibility for a positive return is thus foregone right at the start. Not having been trained in the newly installed language, manager's will simply keep their old routines.

Another evidence I frequently observe is that especially top executives tend to request briefings in a specific format if they are asked to help with a customer visit in the field. These executives are often not even aware that a sales methodology with specific templates is installed. Those installed templates are usually absolutely suitable to convey contents the executives are looking for, just the structure might differ.

The question then is if executive power or economics win. Admittedly due to the higher compensation, the working hour of an executive is much more expensive than the hour of an individual contributor. But the tipping point, where the extra cost induced by the time individual contributors use reformatting their contents is higher than the cost savings resulting form time gains for the executive, is often reached faster than one wants to believe

Yet one does not have to be so sophisticated in the analysis. Imposing another template than the one installed through sales training, makes the investment made into the training obsolete. Individual contributors will have little incentive to adhere to something that is visibly not supported and used by top level executives.

Any of the above symptoms of management behavior considerably diminishes the return from the use of a common language. But it can get even worse.

Wasting money trying to introduce an new common language

Alumni are the sales training companies' best friends; especially when they are on management or executive level. They provide them with revenue potential in at least two ways:

They can make training in a specific methodology mandatory for all new hires
If they change employers, there is a high likelihood that they will have their new teams trained in what they know from the previous assignment even though they might later not reinforce what their people were taught

There is a high probability that both theses initiatives will have a negative return. In both cases a high percentage of people will go through off the shelf training that is designed and taught for people being exposed for the first time to let's say a complex B2B sales type of methodology training. In reality, today most B2B sales people have been trained in at least one of the more popular methodologies. These people do not need to be taught the fundamentals again. All they need to know is how it is done with the new employer or how the new boss wants to have it done.

Money is therefore wasted because such trainings are not only much longer than they need to be. They might even not have the desired effect at all of establishing a common language. In the past, I was asked to train sales forces in a methodology as if it was the first time ever they were exposed to this type of training. It usually did not take long before people started to make comments such as “I had a similar training with my former employer where what you call 'Y' was called 'X'”. What jargon do you think such people are going continue to use? Probably the one they learned first.

How can managers improve the return from the use of a common language?

Being honest with themselves, when wondering if they might show some of the dysfunctional behaviors mentioned above, is a precondition to improve the return from the use of a common language. If they have the necessary self awareness, the following list of recommendations will bring the desired improvement:

Listen how your people speak and observe how they communicate to you in writing. Chances are you might find signs of the existence of a common vocabulary and standard templates.
If you find frequent use of a common vocabulary and templates, adapt yourself to it and reinforce usage.
If the vocabulary and/or templates are widely known but are not sufficiently used, lead by example using them and offer specific refresher training if needed.
If you find different vocabularies and templates, decide on the one you like best and install it by focusing on “how are things done here” and not by a standard off the shelf training offered by the company that owns your preferred jargon and templates.
Adapt training for new hires depending on how much exposure they had to the fundamentals you want them to adhere to before joining your company.

What Rainmakers Do

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 04:40:00 +0000

In their new book «Rainmaking Conversations», Mike Schultz and John E. Doerr explain that rainmakers – sales superstars raking in considerably more sales than the average salesperson – follow 10 core principles. Taking these principles to heart is a prerequisite to the successful application of the Rainmaking Conversation Roadmap.

RAIN is the acronym to describe this roadmap. R (Rapport) is the starting point of the Rainmaking Conversation Roadmap.

This leads to the next discussion regarding the ‘A’ which stands for Aspiration and Affliction. Many selling concepts focus only on problems (afflictions) that create an initial value gap, indicating that the prospect is not achieving the success that could be possible. But according to the authors, buyers operate with two mindsets: “problem solving” and “future seeking”. Sellers focusing on problems alone will thus miss all opportunities related to the “future seeking” buying mode.

Average sellers would likely be happy to close the value gap considering both buying modes. Rainmakers however, then look for ‘I’ (Impact). Uncovering the rational and emotional impact of success and failure leads then to the true value gap.

Now the prospect is ready for the ‘N’ (New Reality) for which the rainmaker then crafts a solution to close the gap and gain the customer’s commitment.

‘A ‘and ‘I’, in the RAIN acronym, serve a double duty. They also stand for Advocacy and Inquiry. Sellers have been taught to talk less, to ask the right questions and to listen well (Inquiry). However, as a result of this, some sellers today ask too many questions. Rainmakers find a balance between Inquiry and Advocacy (giving advice) in their conversations to add more value for their prospects.

Finally ‘IN’ stands for the all important influence rainmakers can develop.

Before the authors explain those key rain selling concepts in detail, they outline a conversation that aspiring rainmakers should know well to clarify attitudes and motivation. As attitude and motivation trump skill with regularity, this is an important discussion. Somewhat related to this conversation is the discussion about four types of conversation killers towards the end of the book.

Another prerequisite for being able to hold successful rainmaking conversations is to understand value propositions, which are more than just polished value proposition statements. The proposed structure of the value proposition is determined by three principal reasons that drive why people buy. Prospects have to want or need what the seller is offering. A strong value proposition must resonate. Potential buyers then need to see how a particular offering stands out from possible alternatives. Value propositions therefore need to differentiate. Potential buyers also have to believe that the seller can deliver on the promise. Value propositions must therefore have a substantiating component.

After having established this base, the second part of the book contains detailed descriptions of the aforementioned rain selling key concepts.

The third part of the book describes how to maximize one’s rain selling success.

This part begins with chapters about prospecting by phone: creating rainmaking conversations, handling objections and closing opportunities, and opening relationships. There are important nuances added to these common terms making them very applicable for today’s sales world. Old school sellers should thus not conclude from these chapter titles, that their old and tried concepts hold still true.

I also found two gems in this part. ‘FAINT’ a new concept to qualify opportunities which is much better suited for cases where latent needs are discovered. Such opportunities can be easily killed when qualified with the old and still often used ‘BANT’ concept. The first letter of the acronym stands for ‘budget’ which can hardly be expected to be in place for latent needs. ‘In ‘FAINT’ the first letter replaces the budget aspect with financial capacity. This seems to me an important aspect for lead scoring concepts, a hot topic in Marketing Automation.

The short chapter on knowledge proficiency is very enlightening in the context of the discussion on Sales Enablement.

Overall, I find «Rainmaking Conversations» an excellent book on sales skills. However it must be read very carefully. As an example: in one instance, I had to read the footnote to avoid a gross misunderstanding what was meant by an example given in the beginning of the book.

As you would expect for a skills-oriented book, there are many conversation examples which, as the authors warn, should not be used verbatim.

Simply reading the book will not make you a Rainmaker, though applying the ideas presented will increase your chances for success. To help to put these concepts in practice, links to online tools are made available in a large appendix on resources.

What Sellers can learn from Skiers

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 12:00:00 +0000

The announcement of a new book claiming to give you the wisdom “how to sell anything” and the opening of the Alpine ski world championships inspired me to this post. Here is why.

Ski athletes adhere all to the International Ski Federation (FIS). This makes some sense. To exercise this sport, one needs snow and some form of long small planks to glide on the snow. But this is where the commonality ends. Specialized world championships. are held for Alpine disciplines and Nordic disciplines in different geographical locations

In Alpine disciplines, gold can be won in races lasting at maximum a few minutes. In Nordic disciplines, the time span to win gold is much wider, it can go from a few minutes to closer to an hour or longer.

The terrain needed for those two disciplines is different. As the name says, for Alpine skiing long and steep mountain slopes are needed. Nordic skiing can be done on a flat terrain.

The material and skills needed to win a Nordic ski race and an Alpine ski race are thus very different.

Sports metaphors applied to sales have their limits and are often blatantly wrong. I have written about this before . As an example, of a major difference, there are no silver and bronze medals to be won in sales . Either you win and get gold or you are out. Yet there are some useful analogies between skiing an selling.

The snow needed for skiing is equivalent to the customers needed for selling. Basic people skills could be taken as the equivalent of the small long planks needed for skiing. Yet I doubt, that these two things are sufficient to be a successful seller in today's world. Specialization is needed as in skiing.

I associate Alpine skiing with B2C selling. Deals are more of a transactional nature, not taking terribly long. The slope and gravity needed for skiers is provided by marketing for sellers.

Nordic skiing looks to me more like B2B selling. Here you can have transactional type deals closing fast. This is like the Nordic ski jumping. This sport requires a specific infrastructure, the ski jump platform. This to me is equivalent to B2B Marketing that catapults the seller into the deal. Success then depends on the ability of the seller to fly and to land properly.

The Nordic discipline of cross country skiing, looks to me more like selling with long sales cycles. Infrastructure requirements are minimal for cross country skiing. The same is true for selling solutions requiring long sales cycles, sellers often cannot depend on marketing and have to find their own leads and then follow a deal through with tenacity.

In Nordic skiing there are races to be won alone or others only as a team (relay races). The same is true in B2B selling where in complex cases, team selling is needed to be successful.

Would you not think that being successful in those different types of sales situations requires specifically adapted tools, skills and methods? Yet we continue to see books like the one I mentioned above trying to convince us that in sales there is a silver bullet of one size that fits all.

For the craft of selling to progress, I think we finally must forget the myth of one size fits all and be very specific by describing the context for which we give advice or believe why a given initiative can be successful.

It is counterintuitive but it works

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 13:52:00 +0000

As a person who believed that the velocity with which a lead converts to a deal is not considered enough, I was skeptical whether the book Slow Down, Sell Faster! by Kevin Davis would work for me. This skepticism did not last long. Once I understood that the title of the book recommends that the rhythm of selling should fit to how customers want to buy, I felt comfortable. I am of the belief that sales velocity should be measured by how fast milestones in the buyer’s journey are reached, not how fast sales activities are carried out. My comfort with the contents of the book continued to increase the further I read it.

In the first part of the book, Davis suggest an eight step circular buying process model providing guidance for sellers, what to do and whom to access within the customer organization to help the customer navigate through his/her journey of buying. I appreciate that he does not promote this model as a one-size-fits-all approach to success. To the contrary, he makes it perfectly clear that his model is focused on “buy-learning” where potential customers do not yet have all the necessary information to make a buying decision, compared to “buy-knowing” where buyers can make a decision quickly because they already know as much as they need to make a decision.

To make the model actionable for sellers, Davis assigns a metaphor of real professionals to each of the eight phases. These metaphors describe the ideal behavior of a sales person to help the buyer move through the respective phase. Here is an illustration of the concept: The first phase in the buying process is labeled “Change.” The sales role best suited to facilitate the buying process at this stage is “Student,” someone who is learning about changes affecting a potential customer. In the following “Discontent” phase, the appropriate sales role is that of a “Doctor,” a person who diagnoses the cause of the discontent, and so on.

-Davis’s model includes two phases after the customer’s buying decision, reflecting his belief that the purpose of selling is not closing a deal but opening a relationship

These sales roles metaphors illustrate well what a successful seller needs to do in the different phases of the buying process. However there is a danger of confusion if your company’s job description uses some of these same labels in different ways.

The remaining chapters of the first part of the book deal with the major aspect that make a deal complex: the fact that there are several people involved in the buying decision, each having different roles. As Davis’s book is based on seminars he teaches, it is understandable that specific jargon is used to describe the various roles in the buying team. I particularly liked the concept of the power broker. I am less sure about the role of the ROI authority, the person who can make funds available and is the ultimate decider. I am sure the role exists and is crucial, I am just not so sure about the label.

The buying team roles are then mapped to where and how they are most likely involved in the eight step buying process model, thus giving the sales person guidance when best to speak to whom. Combining the roles of the buying team and the buying process makes it very clear why “calling high” is not as sure a recipe for success as many sales experts want to make us believe.

The second part of the book then describes the sales roles of “Student,” “Doctor,” etc., in detail. With real-life examples the model is brought to life. In those examples, there are some details where old salesmanship shines through. But this does not in any way diminish the value of the concepts which are leading edge thinking of how to approach selling in the 21^st century.

With the third part of the book, Davis demonstrates his expertise on how a sales team can be introduced to the new thinking he is suggesting. Sales managers play a crucial role in such initiatives. The book also covers the aspect how managers can use the eight sales roles as a very effective basis for coaching their people and thus make sure that the concepts are applied to greater sales success.

Davis is obviously someone who carried a bag in the field. However, unlike many others, he is able to conceptualize his experiences to make them comprehensible to others. The book is definitely not of the category “this is what I did and I see no reason why you should not be successful doing the same.” Instead it provides a very good framework for sales organizations wanting to remain successful in this new era, where customers have much more power than salespeople have been used to.

Are you suffering from “Top of Funnel Myopia”?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 13:50:00 +0000

Bob Apollo recently launched a poll on LinkedIn asking: “Which one of the following initiatives has the greatest potential to boost your organisation's sales performance in 2011?”

a) Finding more qualified opportunities

b) Shortening our average sales cycle

c) Increasing average sales win rates

d) Qualifying bad deals out earlier

e) Improving sales & marketing co-operation

Finding more qualified opportunities as well as improving sales & marketing co-operation are “top of funnel” initiatives. Three quarters of the respondents to Bob's poll consider that this is the way to go to boost sales performance for 2011. For those, Bob has since written a post giving ideas how to shape such initiatives.

A different look at the results

Shortening the average sales cycle, increasing average sales win rates and qualifying bad deals out earlier are sales effectiveness initiatives. I believe the quarter of the respondents who gave priority to these sales effectiveness initiatives to boost sales performance have an important message to tell.

When parsing the responses according to job titles, 'owners' as well as 'C-level &VP' focused exclusively on “top of funnel” initiatives. While 'owners' gave about the same weight to finding more qualified opportunities and improving sales & marketing co-operation., 'C-Level & VP' want to focus solely on finding more qualified opportunities.

Respondents carrying a 'management' title were split about into equal parts focusing on the ”top of funnel” initiatives and sales effectiveness initiatives. They only mentioned finding more qualified opportunities as “top of funnel” initiative. Among the sales effectiveness initiatives, they mentioned increasing average sales win rates twice as often than shortening the average sales cycle.

In the 'other' category “top of the funnel” activities were equally split between finding more qualified opportunities and improving sales & marketing co-operation. A quarter of the respondents falling into the 'other' category see qualifying bad deals out earlier as top priority to boost sales performance.

The differentiation of the results by job function is also very interesting. Half of those being either in a sales or marketing role want to boost performance by finding more qualified opportunities. The remaining half in marketing sees shortening the average sales cycle as the top priority. The remaining half in sales wants to put the priority on increasing average sales win rates.

Although the poll sample is very small, I think this look at the results by job title and job function is revealing.

What are these results telling us?

The results seem to suggest that the executive level does not believe in effectiveness initiatives such as shortening the average sales cycle , increasing average sales win rates to boost sales, while mangers are well aware, that these measures can also boost sales performance.

Possible explanations for this are: The distance to the front line where sales really happens and the different time horizons.

Management knows very well, that sales effectiveness initiatives improve results faster than “top of funnel” activities., especially with long sales cycles. Management also seems to be aware that blending sales effectiveness initiatives with “top of funnel” initiatives is the way towards sustainable, superior performance.

“Top of funnel” initiatives fit though better with the long term view of executives.

This sole focus on “top of funnel” initiatives can though be dangerous when executives start to intervene because they see an urgent need for improved sales performance. If they then insist on giving priority to finding more qualified opportunities as the measure to improve performance, they might actually cause a momentary drop in sales performance. On longer term, performance might return to what it was before the dip.

Following the order of executives, managers and salespeople will spend more effort on “top of funnel” activities. This will go to the detriment of sales effectiveness initiatives.

It would though be wrong to associate only a short term effect to sales effectiveness initiatives. A more effective sales force also needs fewer new qualified opportunities for sustained superior performance. Too much focus on “top of funnel” initiatives though leads to a vicious circle, inhibiting sustainable sales performance improvement.

Conclusions

Executives having doubts about these mechanics should look at how top sales people work. Top sales people usually pursue fewer opportunities than average performers. The sales effectiveness initiatives mentioned in the poll can thus be considered best practices to increase sales performance

Executives wanting to boost sales performance should thus make an effort to better understand “funnel mechanics” and abandon “top of funnel myopia” which furthermore could be taken as still believing that sales is just a numbers game.

Acknowledgments

Thank you Bob for having launched the poll and sorry for the different twist I added to the interpretation of the results.

The poll can be found here (you might need to log into LinkedIn) and this is the link to Bob's article triggered by the results of the poll.

It is difficult to escape from a slump by pulling yourself up by your own hair

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 13:57:00 +0000

Unless you are called Baron Münchhausen who supposedly told a story how he was escaping from a swamp by pulling himself up by his own hair.

For all others experiencing a slump in their sales, Paul McCord provides help through his book “Bust Your Slump, A Dozen Slump Busting Strategies To Fill Your Pipeline In 30 Days”.

It is not another book about the newest fads in selling. Instead, it contains proven pragmatic approaches to get your sales back on track fast. The author warns against trying to implement all twelve strategies. Instead he recommends reading through the book quickly, and then selecting the one or two strategies that seem to fit your situation and personality best. This fit is important. Doubting whether a strategy will work for you is the first step to failure. For the next thirty days you will need all your energy executing the one or two strategies you chose.

The strategies are laid out in a very prescriptive manner so you can roll up your sleeves and start executing right away.

You should not be concerned about the sustainability of the effort over an extended period. Some of these strategies will not work on the long run. For each of the strategies Paul provides a success story about how one of his clients used the strategy to demonstrate the short term results that can be obtained.

Some approaches have the potential to remain useful beyond the short term horizon. I must admit that those were my favorites when reading the book. Maybe it is the strategist in me that guided my selection. But I think this is the whole point of the book that you choose what you feel comfortable with and then get busy executing.

If you have chosen approaches with lower long term potential, nothing is lost.

Your sales being on track again, you will have time to think about other approaches that will provide sustainable revenue streams over the long run.

Even if your sales cycles are longer than 30 days, these approaches are suitable. You will though need more perseverance and patience to see the fruits of your efforts.

“Bust Your Slump, A Dozen Slump Busting Strategies To Fill Your Pipeline In 30 Days” is all about action, so start now by ordering the book here

Do You Need a Sales-Consultant, -Coach or -Trainer ?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 11:51:00 +0000

Is this differentiation necessary when you are looking for help with your initiative to increase sales productivity?

The fact that all three terms are listed on many LinkedIn profiles (mine included) can mean two things. Either, it suggests that the terms are taken as interchangeable and listing them all gives a higher chance to be found depending of the preferred term used by those seeking help. Or, these are three different roles.

I believe these are different roles needed for different phases in your initiative. I have listed them on my profile to indicate that I can assume all three roles.

Consultants

have a deep knowledge of their field. They have tools to diagnose the root causes of sales productivity problems. Based on the diagnosis, they can then design a therapy plan how to eliminate the detected inhibitors for higher sales productivity. They have a methodology how to do this. The therapy plans are based on modules that can be mixed and matched, extended or contracted depending on the diagnosis. Only few sales consultants stop their service offering at this level. Most of them will then also help with the execution of the therapy plan. They will then take on the roles of trainers and coaches.

Consultants are best engaged early in the initiative or when derailed initiatives need to be brought back on course.

Consultants can even help you deciding whether an initiative is needed or not. In this case, both parties must understand that the diagnosis is a free standing separately billable item and that the engagement might end after the diagnosis phase.

It might also be advisable to consider the development of the therapy plan as a separately payable free standing engagement. The customer then has a higher guarantee that the consultant is not just trying to peddle his/her teaching and coaching services and will recommend third parties if this improves the execution of the plan.

The term consultant is also used for people giving you advise how to implement a prepackaged, methodology , process or piece of software to improve sales productivity. Their diagnostics are geared to confirm the fit between their solution and a problem. Getting help from this type of consultants in early phases of an initiative bears the risk, that they might see every problem as a “nail”, because the only tool they have is a “hammer” (their particular offering).

Trainers

have internalized a body of knowledge (best practices) how to improve sales efficiency and/or effectiveness. They transfer their knowledge to their trainees through lecturing, case studies, tests and practical exercises. They do this in classrooms, interactive web based sessions or a blended combination which might also include self paced learning modules. They have their own intellectual property (body of knowledge) or are certified to use the material proprietary to a third party.

Organizations not wanting to use consultants to carry out a diagnosis to help shape their initiative and engaging trainers only and maybe consultants advising on the use of a particular solution, rely on a self diagnosis of the problems. They must accept that the cause for potential failure of the initiative is not always the training. It is as likely that the failure is caused by a superfluously carried out diagnosis or by jumping prematurely to conclusions.

Coaches

have an intimate knowledge what best practice behavior, leading to higher efficiency and/or effectiveness looks like. They observe those to be coached in real life situations or role plays or they review outputs (e.g. plans) and identify gaps between what they observe and best practice. They then advise the person to be coached what behavior changes are needed to get closer to best practice. Coaching is usually an iterative process. The coach will observe how well the advise is internalized and has improved behavior and will recommend further changes if gaps are still significant. This loop will be repeated until gaps have disappeared or have at least reached a tolerable level.

For a coach to be effective, there must be an agreement between the customer and the coach, what best practices had previously been taught and need reinforcement.

Using trainers who taught best practices as coaches,assures knowledge about the best practices to be reinforced. Knowing how to train best practices does though not mean automatically also knowing how to coach best practices. There is a difference in approach. Trainers used as coaches might also earlier come to the conclusion that gaps are so huge that refresher training or re-training is needed before coaching can be effective.

Conclusion

Distinguishing the three roles and understanding which role is needed when in a sales productivity improvement initiative and what the prerequisites are, gives a higher certainty for a successful outcome.

Within each role, there are though also variants to be considered. Ignoring these variants, might also cause the initiative not delivering the expected results

When you seek help to improve sales productivity, do you make the distinction of roles?

How would you describe these roles?

Do you have experience on this topic you would like to share?

Are you spending your coaching time wisely?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 10:21:00 +0000

Managers' reasoning for not coaching their people as much as they should or want to, is the lack of time. They might therefore welcome tools, like the one, I believe I was alerted to through a LinkedIn Group, promising efficiency gains in coaching field sales people.

Setting the scene

The product is a sort of voice recorder than can replay specific recorded advise on sales behavior to reinforce sales training. Permission of the prospect granted, it can also be used to record face to face sales conversations. This is actually a clever idea. Conversations of telesales people with their prospects are recorded frequently for quality assurance purposes. Applying a similar procedure for face to face conversations would considerably reduce the time managers need for coaching their people in the field. They could save the travel time needed for observing the conversation directly on the prospect' s premises and coach their people on the basis of these recordings. There is another interesting positive side effect for managers who find it hard to stay in their observer role while being on a sales call with one of their people. Not being present in the call simply eliminates this challenge.

The use case

On the website promoting the tool, a set of short video clips is made available to illustrate the use of the tool.

In a first clip, a sales manager passes by the cubicle of one of his salespeople. He asks this person whether she has already prepared for an important sales call she is going to have the next day. The answer is not yet, but it is on her to-do list for later today.

The next clip is showing how the person is preparing for the call with the help of this new nifty tool.

More interesting, for the point I want to make, is the next clip. The manager passes by the cubicle again with obviously the same question, whether preparation has been done. This time, the salesperson is affirmative. The manager reminds the salesperson not to forget to use the new tool to record the conversation. He also asks that a copy of the recording of the conversation be sent to him for review purposes.

Obviously there followed a clip how the tool is used during the conversation.

More relevant again is the next clip. The manager is calling the salesperson, asking if she had a moment for a short debriefing. He had listened to the recording and would like to give some feedback how she could further improve her conversations in further calls.

Observations

The initial impression is that the manager described above does do coaching. Yet, I am not so sure I would agree.

The presumed coaching happens in the debriefing after the call. This is certainly well meant but not necessarily effective. Against what criteria is the sales manager going to evaluate the recorded conversation? There is no explicit common understanding between him and the salesperson on the objective of the call. At best the manager could test how well the salesperson applied what she had been taught in previous trainings and comment on these observations. Any further comments would be highly subjective as there is no commonly agreed purpose and expected outcome for the call.

From the way the manager acted during the preparation phase of the call, we can infer that he follows a command and control management style. Given this style, it is reasonable to assume that the salesperson will not speak up if she would disagree with the manager's potentially subjective conclusions which result from the lack of a common understanding of the purpose and the objectives of the call. The manager therefore would never get any feedback of the effectiveness of his coaching. He might though wonder about the limited effect his coaching has on his people.

An alternative proactive coaching scenario

Instead of just checking whether the salesperson can confirm that she has prepared for the call , the manager should get involved in the preparation. Discussing the call plan the salesperson has prepared and maybe even role play critical parts of the anticipated conversation would first, assure that there is an alignment about the purpose and the objective of the call. Secondly, possible misconceptions by the salesperson could be detected and corrected prior to the call and thus increase the likelihood for a successful outcome of the conversation with the prospect.

Yet for managers adhering to the command and control style, such discussions with their salespeople are not easy. They will tend to tell the salesperson exactly what to do for the case at hand. Intuitively they might even sense the danger that by doing so, they can now be held accountable for the outcome of the call. Therefore they prefer to stay in safe territory with the behavior illustrated in the video clip. As is well known, there are however coaching techniques which can be applied to avoid this risk. In addition, such techniques reinforce learning better than straight 'how to do' instructions.

By having been involved in the preparation, the manger then also has the criteria fore a more objective debriefing. Here again though, the emphasis should not be on telling what ought have been done and what to do the next time in a similar situation. The more effective way is guiding the salesperson to discover for herself what could be improved.

Conclusions

Admittedly this alternative approach takes some more time, especially in the preparation phase. Yet there is a higher likelihood for a positive impact for the concrete call at hand; an opportunity completely missed in the scenario shown in the clips. There is also a higher probability that there is a learning effect in this alternative scenario. As mentioned earlier, with the approach illustrated in the clips, there is a fair chance that the whole time invested in coaching might actually be wasted.

There is another interesting lesson that can be learned form this discussion. There is a tool presented in these clips that has a some potential for efficiency and effectiveness gains for managers and salespeople. However those gains cannot be had if the tool is applied in the context of bad processes. Tools can reinforce good processes, but they never can compensate for flawed processes.

What comes to your mind after having read this post?

How CSOs can merit a seat at the strategy table.

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:07:00 +0000

Whether a CSO has a seat at the strategy table of the company can easiest be detected in his/her possibility to influence the company's revenue growth target. A CSO to whom the target is handed down by the CEO or CFO with comments such “just make this number and I don't really care how you do it” certainly does not have a seat at the strategy table.

This absence from the strategy table, in my view, is though the first root cause for the deterioration of sales effectiveness. Especially over the last two years, we have seen how this kind of revenue target setting, solely focused on shareholder value maximization, leads to unrealistic quotas. In consequence, fewer sales people will reach their quota (a major sales effectiveness indicator). The effect is exacerbated by the fact that sales people, seeing not the faintest chance to attain those unrealistic targets become demotivated and do stop trying to reach quota which leads to further deterioration of performance.

Yet a seat at the strategy table needs to be merited; especially when any recommendation by a CSO for a more moderate revenue growth target is interpreted by the superiors as an attempt to make it easier for him/her and the troops to reach full quota and therefore to earn the full variable part of their compensation.

As I am convinced sales performance can only be sustainably improved by inducing new thinking right at the top of a company, I am constantly looking for ideas how CSOs can gain a seat at the strategy table. Such an idea is presented in a paper I submitted to the fourth annual conference of the Global Sales Science Institute (GSSI). In this paper, I demonstrate how Sales can make available a piece of strategic information which is key to help their company to determine how to arrive at sustainable revenue growth.

For an innovative company it is clear that sustainable revenue growth requires the chaining of product life cycle curves, which take the shape of S curves. To determine the point in time, (the curve's tipping point) when a next S curve has to be chained to the the currently exploited one, is though less trivial. In my paper, I show that it is not Product Marketing - whom you would expect being in charge of the product life cycle -but Sales who is best positioned to detect accurately the tipping point of the currently exploited S curve.

However, this can not be done by tracking and forecasting revenue over time, which is what the S curve does. One has to look at the innovation adoption curve. There is a mathematical relation between the two curves and it becomes pretty obvious that the tipping point is reached where the people belonging to the early majority of customers give room to those belonging to the late majority (see graph above). Sales could be the first to notice this. People belonging to the late majority in the innovation adoption curve have a different buying motivation than those in the early majority. However to detect this crucial strategic information, sales leaders cannot just chase revenue and beat on the forecast. They have to ask an additional simple question to their team: “Did you detect any recent change in the buying motivation of your customers/prospects”.

This question does not only help detect this strategic indicator of the tipping point, but it also helps ensure, that sales people use a value proposition adapted to the late majority and thus immediately increase sales success.

Although it is a rather theoretical paper, it has very practical implications helping CSOs to demonstrate at least one crucial strategic aspect of their role. I cannot imagine any CEO or CFO not being interested in sustainable revenue growth and in guidance when actions should be taken to pursue this goal. (Hint: It is much earlier than they probably would expect). CSOs being able to provide such crucial information might thus have it a little easier to be invited to the strategy table.

If you are interested in the paper you can ask for a copy via this link. As a bonus, you will receive also a copy of the poster by which the concept was presented at the conference.

Do we need yet another sales book?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Mon, 31 May 2010 10:00:00 +0000

I have never made it a secret that I think there are too many books on selling which are of little help to sellers. Those written form the point of view: “This is what made me successful and I see no reason, why this should not work for you too” I find the least useful.

SNAP Selling by Jill Konrath, is definitely not of this category. It is a book on sales that is urgently needed. It provides sellers with a set of strategies and tactics enabling them to speed up sales and win more business based on a solid framework. Contrary to many other sales books I have read, SNAP Selling spells out clearly for what type of prospects/customers these strategies and rules should be applied.

In the words of the author, today's customers are frazzled. Time is their most precious commodity. They consider buying as a disruptive act eating into their most precious resource. Even if the status quo is far from optimal; they prefer to stay with it as long as they ever can. They dread the effort and time in it will take to align their organization in agreeing to do something different. They are also fearful about making risky decision that could negatively impact their career.

We should not be mistaken in the hope that these characteristics of customers are of a temporary nature caused by the crisis for which we see signs, that the worst might now be over. The current status is the new normal and the pressure to do more with less will continue.

From the above definition of the customer, we can conclude that the book is about how to sell solutions and services considered a major purchase by the customer in the B2B context. As many sellers still have to learn to see selling from the customer' s point of view it would have been helpful if this had been spelled out clearly somewhere in the text.

Konrath predicts that sellers continuing using their dear and tried techniques such as closing and objection handling will be relegated to the D-Zone. The D-zone is where sellers are dismissed or deleted, their sales are deferred permanently or at least delayed and where prospects disappear. Sellers getting relegated to the D-Zone have two choices, they either blame the stupid customer for their problems and thus endangering their career, or they change their approach to fit better with the needs of frazzled customers.

For those sellers wanting to change their approach to avoid the D-Zone, the four SNAP rules are proposed:

Making the decision process Simple for the customer
Become iNvaluable through value brought to the customer relationship
Be Aligned with the customer's needs at all time
Assure that the purchase of the solutions/services remains a Priority in the customer's mind

To apply the SNAP rules, sellers must understand what is going on in the customers head. First, one must understand who in the customer organization will make the decision. Then the context in which the decision has to be made must be understood. To capture this knowledge the author proposes a Buyer's matrix. This matrix then is the basis to draw up customer personas which then allow mastering what is called in the book the mind meld. Mind meld can be practically applied by checking of the relevance of a message a seller wants to convey for example in a phone call or a presentation from the customer's point of view.

Sales excellence does not come from knowing why what has to be done how, all presented in the book. Sales excellence comes from doing. To help readers getting to action, there is a companion website where templates for the tools such as the buyer's matrix can be downloaded.

The major part of the book is devoted to help the reader to understand the decision process customers go through to make major purchases. Customers:

Allow access (starting with no interest connecting, to end up agreeing to a conversation)
Initiate change (after having listen to ideas, they decide that the status quo is unacceptable)
Select resources (they start considering their options and end up selecting the best decision)

For each of these phases concrete guidelines are given on what needs to be done and how to adhere to the SNAP rules to help the customer to come to a decision.

To help the customer with decision 1 for example, recommendations are made how to capitalize on trigger events or how to align with the customer through winning value propositions. On the companion website, the reader can find a synopsis for a Value Proposition Generator. Some subject matter experts might wonder about the format suggested for the Value Proposition. It is though totally adequate for the context of phase 1. The possible wondering arises from the fact that people usually use more complex value proposition schemes which would though be more appropriate for phase 3. Avoiding the over used and often misunderstood term might thus have helped to prevent potential debate and confusion.

Decision 2 is often not addressed at all by sellers. Emphasizing the need to demonstrate specific business value for a buyer to decide to leave status quo is to me the most important part of this book. If this concept where widely understood, we would not find studies like those from CSO Insights indication a high percentage of forecast opportunities ending up with what the sellers call a 'no decision', because the customer, despite initial interest, was finally not buying from anybody. Another symptom for ignoring this phase is the asking of premature qualification questions such as “do you have budget”; a sure way to be relegated to the D-zone, due to lack of alignment.

For phase 3, there are strategies such as how to be aligned with the customer by balancing the Value-Risk Equation and how to become iNvaluable, by collaborating with hot prospects as if they where already a customer.

Evidently phase 3 is the phase of presentations and proposals. As there is a lot of literature already available on these subjects, the author just highlights how the SNAP rules apply to these items.

I think it is important that we are reminded that these 3 phases should not be mistaken for a linear process. Sellers cannot always assume to be able to capture the prospect's attention at a yet untroubled stage.( phase 1) Sellers having done a good job in particular in phase 2 might also find that the prospect has become sufficiently comfortable with the relation to forgo phase 3. It is therefore more crucial to exactly understand in what phase the customer is and to use the strategies appropriate for the respective phase. Failing to do so is another sure way to get relegated to the D-Zone.

Jill Konrath also gives the reader practical advice on how to implement the strategies. To do so, she not only gives examples from her own experience but also through selected quotes from practitioners and consultants. I particularly like the fact, that not all these examples are success stories. She does not shy away from also talking about failures and what lessons can be learned from them. This makes the book all that more credible to me.

For me it is now easy to answer the often recurring question about what sales book I would recommend, if I only could choose one for somebody new to sales or somebody wanting to assure to stay relevant in sales: SNAP Selling by Jill Konrath.

What possessed sales leaders to raise quota...

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 10:18:00 +0000

especially in a down economy? Is a question that has been frequently discussed since CSO Insights released their 2010 Sales Performance Optimization (SPO) Survey and Analysis report. Despite the steepest decrease in quota attainment observed since CSO Insights started their survey, 85% of the respondents to the 2010 Survey ( data collected late in 2009) said they intended to raise quota for 2010. Already in the 2009 SPO report (data collected in late 2008) a similar amount of respondents planned to raise quota. At that time it was though already evident that the economy had started its nose dive. The decrease it sales performance, measured in quota attainment, in the 2010 report was therefore almost a self fulfilling prophecy.

They had no choice

Is not a cheap excuse at least from sales leaders working for public companies. In many cases it is unfortunately the brutal reality. Sales leaders are prisoners of the mechanics imposed by SARBOX, rules intended to protect share holders' interests. One of the rules therein stipulates that the revenue target has to be allocated in its entirety to the sales people, becoming their quota.

So if sales leaders are handed down a revenue target from the company leadership, together with the order of a headcount freeze, quotas increase automatically. The same is true even if company leadership factors in the current state of the economy and is setting the target to maintain last year's level of revenue. Yet in that same year, a reduction in field forces was ordered to protect the bottom line. Then quotas cannot but go up again.

Sales performance measured as quota attainment therefore mechanically gets into a downward spiral. This trend is further exacerbated by the fact that quotas, appearing more and more unattainable, negatively impact the morale of the sales people. As there is also little to nothing done to help salespeople to improve their performance hoping for a recovery of the economy remains the only way out of this asphyxiating spiral. However hope was never a good strategy.

What sales leaders can do to stop the spiral?

First they have to have the courage to ask for a seat at the strategy table where revenue targets are set. To make their voice heard there, they need to be able to speak the strategy lingo They should, second,not be shy to ask for help to learn this lingo. They will then be able to demonstrate to their colleagues the legitimacy of the request for being included in the corporate strategy formulation process. The timing for such a request is also right. The era of shareholder value focus, which mainly determined the current participants in corporate strategy discussions is coming to an end. However, third, they have to act now. Given the often lengthy and laborious budgeting processes, revenue targets for 2011 will be set soon.

How the C-Level Makes or Breaks Sales Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:49:00 +0000

Sales performance is at its lowest in years. When thinking about remedies, the first thought usually goes towards initiatives, mostly in the form of training, focused on sales people helping them to increase their performance in this 'new normal' that seems to emerge.

The 'new normal'

Undoubtedly, sales people need to adapt their skills to this 'new normal'. One of the key characteristics of this new era is that people are much more concerned about spending their money wisely. With respect to traditional sales performance improvement initiatives, this poses though a major problem. Many of those initiatives, often in the form of outsourced training, have not delivered the desired results in the past. How can we increase the likelihood that new urgently needed sales performance initiatives, have a more sustainable effect; even though budgets are tighter than ever. My proposal is to first look at how the C-level ( e.g. Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operations Officer, Chief Sales Officer) impacts sales effectiveness.

The C-level's impact

Many executives on the C-level are not consciously aware of how they impact sales performance. Others have a misconception about the role they play in the sales process. Studies show that, for example, a high percentage of C-level executives consider themselves knowledgeable about the customers of their company. The percentage of field sales people, confirming this perception, is though very much lower. The same pattern emerges when looking at the question how the C-level is involved in the sales process. Again executives rate their involvement much higher than it is perceived by the field.

As a matter of fact, it is probably more likely that fundamentally, C-level executives have a hands off attitude towards sales. Many are guided by the principle “I just care about the revenue, it is sales's job to figure out how to make it”. Yet in contrast to this general attitude, the same executives start to show behavior of micro management when it comes to large deals. This is why they think they are involved in the sales process. Their understandable concern whether the deal can be booked still in a given quarter is perceived by the field that only the numbers count. This behavior goes to the detriment of the sustainability of sales effectiveness initiatives. It is the expression that an outcome based sales force control system is prevailing. Sales effectiveness is however improved by changing behavior. To track and reinforce the behavior change, a behavior based sales force control system is needed. As the companies quarterly figures might though depend on this large deal to close, executives towards the end of the quarter, tend to see the situation as a crises and revert to a command and control management approach. Behavior based sales force control systems though are based on a coaching approach. Fear about not making the number lets executives ignore evidence that others, using behavioral based sales force control systems, are experiencing better and more sustainable outcomes.

What does it have to do with sales performance?

Not only does this focus on large deals shed some doubt on a company's ability to produce sustainable revenue streams if every quarter, their results depend on these big deals. This management approach certainly goes to the detriment of the sustainability of any sales effectiveness initiative. Paradoxically, when you talk to executives, they are often telling you that they are convinced about the need and the usefulness of sales people being coached by their managers. They sometimes even show disappointment about the little coaching managers provide to their sale people.

Managers often are not doing enough coaching because they have never been trained in coaching. Providing training on coaching for sales managers can though just increase the misalignment. There is therefore a high likelihood that the training will not show any sustainable effects.

Where to start a sales performance improvement initiative?

Managers are faced with a constant struggle to balance the people focus (coaching, sustainability) with the business focus (urgency, short term). How can one expect a 'coaching initiative' to fall on fertile ground if the executive level continues to inspect just revenue. For such an initiative having a sustainable effect, a mind shift at the executive level is needed . Executives should recognize their duty to consciously supporting the managers in finding that balance between people orientation and business orientation. This should not be too hard in principal. Successful executives have learned to think in 'and' concept, rather than in 'either or'. How will such a mind shift become evident? When they start inspecting people related parameters besides revenue. It could well be that executives might need help achieving this mind shift and learning what to inspect. Money spent on this help has certainly the highest leverage effect compared to just pouring money into the next sales effectiveness initiative on the individual contributors level.

Should you be interested in knowing more about the impact of the C-level on sales performance and what to do about it, you can follow this link,

'Sales Process' Is In The Air

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:54:00 +0000

There is a lot written about the sales process these days:

Dave Brock has written several pieces on the sales process recently. He now has launched an initiative to get some new thinking on the subject by asking “What's the Future of Buying”.
I have seen several contributions by Sharon Drew Morgen, besides her new book 'Dirty little Secrets...', reminding us that we should stop talking about selling and trying to understand to the extent possible how people and organizations buy.
Ardath Albee in her book “eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sales” proposes a marketing flavored look on the buyer's journey. A particularity of her model is that it does not imply a linear process as most others do.
Axel Schultze wrote in a recent blog post that our sales processes are old and suck.
There is a Discussion going on on LinkedIn for several weeks now about what the right steps of a sales process are.
Sales 2.0 Network now offers Dealmaker Genius helping to design your sales process in 15 minutes for free.
Landslide has a similar offering for building a sales process. So these people believe that this task can even be automatized.
Then there are those who still believe selling is an art and therefore cannot be captured in a process.

This list is certainly only capturing the proverbial tip of the iceberg of what can be found in recently published books, on social networks, on blogs etc..

Why now?

I think we are seeing signs of a perfect storm forcing us to rethink professional selling:

Despite massive investments for many years in CRM systems, in the design and implementation of sales processes, in training initiative on sales methodologies and selling skills for , sales performance is probably at its lowest since CSO Insights started tracking it some 15 years ago?
Current economic conditions do no longer allow us to continue with such investments even though they seem to be needed more than ever.
Web 2.0 has shifted the negotiation power clearly in favor of the buyer.
Marketing makes claims to be more involved in the revenue gen process wanting to manage and qualified leads when they are 'ready to buy'.
There is an ever growing number of tools under the Sales 2.0 acronym suggesting they can improve sales performance.

Some new thinking to weather the storm

The customer's buying journey has to be taken as a given. With the model of looking at the complex buying journey as a change management process I have helped my customers to get a lot of clarity. The focus is thereby not so much on the activities the buyer undertakes, but the intermediate decisions taken to finally arrive at the buying decision. The journey though does not end there. We should not ignore that the buyer then will also decide whether the value promised with the purchase was also delivered. As was pointed out in a recent article in the McKinsey Quarterly, this notion will be essential how the buyer's journey will look the next time it is started by a trigger.

It is probably also save to assume that increasing sales performance will need tighter collaboration between sales and marketing. Talking about a sales process alone will therefore be of little help. As we see the term Chief Revenue Officer emerge for the person who oversees this collaborative working of sales and marketing to generate revenue streams, the term Revenue Generation Process might help us to define what we will need instead.

What do we want the Revenue Generation Process to do?

There will be a lot of debate on the purpose as there is with the sales process.

Attempts to make it a recipe book, prescribing the activities sales and marketing have to undertake for generating revenue, will fail. For me the Revenue Generation Process should do the following:

Get the sales and marketing organization to have have a common understanding where a buyer is in its journey based on observable reactions from the buyer.
Define accountability for sales and marketing along the customers journey.
Stimulate forward looking discussions on how best to pursue a lead/opportunity (i.e. next best actions to help the buyer to make the next decision, recycle a stalled or lost opportunity, abandon a lead/opportunity or a buyer)

As a byproduct, such a Revenue Generating Process, will also provide better forecasting and indications where sales and marketing people will need coaching to improve performance.

The role of the sales person in the Revenue Generation Process?

For salespeople to be successful and provide value within this framework, they need to be very versatile. The buyer's need for help will determine when they will be involved in the process. This might be as early as helping the buyer to identify pain, or starting at helping to formulate a vision how to get remedies for the pain (solution). In other cases, there first buyer contact will be helping validate a solution the buyer has already envisaged on its own or even later helping to hedge cost and risk to find the best vendor. We will also have to accept, that there will be a growing number of situations, where salespeople cannot add value to the buyer and should therefore not be involved at all.

For the involvement of a salesperson to be effective, marketing, already involved in the revenue generating process must though make sure that full access to the information how the buyer has arrived at this point of first contact. Even if marketing is qualifying leads based on observable buyer's actions (click through, surf path on web site, social media interactions, webinar attendance, white paper requests etc.) this information must be available to the salespeople so they can provide maximum value at their point of contact with the buyer.

Salespeople, in return, must provide a protocol of all their interactions they have undertaken, in case a lead/opportunity is returned to marketing for recycling or nurturing. Then marketing can decide on the most effective campaigns to help the buyer to come to a point where contact with the salesperson is needed again to continue the buyer's journey.

Implementing a Revenue Generation Process.

For a successful implementation of such a process including the support by adequate systems, a fundamental mind shift will be needed from all involved. Transparency and accountability must be the norm for such a Revenue Generation Process to produce results. To get to the needed transparency, trust between those involved is required. This is a particular challenge for the leadership up and including the C-Suite. In many cases, this will mean first abandoning old management practices which currently cause reluctance with salespeople in many organizations to share information in the detail needed for a successful implementation of a Revenue Generation Process.

What are your thoughts on this? What have I forgotten? Where am I wrong? Which view do you share?

References:

How Do You Know Your Sales Effectiveness Initiative Is Successful?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:37:00 +0000

To determine the success of a sales effectiveness initiative, you need to define measurable objectives and a baseline where you currently stand relative to these objectives. The most common objective use to measure success is a revenue objective. It can easily be measured. So can the base line easily be established. Yet judging the success of the initiative by the attainment of the revenue objective, can lead to much debate. According to “The Complete Guide to Accelerating Sales Force Performance” by Andris A. Zoltners et al. the degree to which a sales force can influence revenue varies widely. This source also warns about using only one indicator (e.g. revenue per sales person) to measure performance.

Donal Daily in a recent post on the Sales 2.0 Network blog, has suggested to also include 'non revenue objectives' when judging the success of sales effectiveness initiatives. Examples given for such objectives were among others : Better qualification or common sales language across the organization.. The reasons given for this suggestions are very plausible. Revenue is a lagging indicator. Especially when your revenue creation requires long sales cycles, it is too late for corrective actions with short term effect when you notice a deviation from the revenue objective. Tracking the behavior of the sales people through 'non-revenue' objectives along the sales cycle has a bigger chance for corrective actions impacting the outcome on short term..

Yet, I doubt that result oriented sales leaders would buy into this concept. They believe in outcome based sales force control systems. You recognize this type of leader by their actions They try to push sales people to higher performance by aggressive quota setting, lucrative incentives and tough and frequent forecast reviews.

Even with sales leaders seeing the value of the alternative use of behavioral based sales force control systems, I would not recommend the objectives as stated. As the objectives are not measurable, the success of an initiative is solely determined how these leaders judge 'better qualification' and 'common language'. of the cited 'non-revenue' objectives.

What is needed is the transformation of these qualitative objectives into measurable leading indicators that sales leaders can accept as being unambiguous with respect to their impact on productivity. Presenting a logic how these productivity indicators can lead to higher revenue, might further help with their acceptance. To stay with the example of 'a common language'; establishing a common language shortens the time sales managers need for example for deal reviews. Reports adhering to a standard template can be interpreted faster than reports structured as every salespersons feels best. Salespeople also profit from this gain in time. They spend less time in review meetings explaining their deals they are working on to sales management.

How this time (productivity) gain influences revenue is though up to managers and sales people. If managers use the freed up time for coaching and salespeople use the extra time for meaningful interactions with clients, it is plausible that at term this will lead to higher revenue. There are also many studies demonstrating the higher impact on performance of behavioral based sales force control systems compared to outcome based systems. Sales leader adhering to this type of systems should now be able to accept this additional objectives.

For people primarily adhering to outcome based sales force control systems, an extra effort is needed. They will first have to accept results of such studies and include at least some behavioral elements into their control systems before they will be able to better track the success of their sales effectiveness initiatives.

I am curious what practitioners have to say on this topic.

Please help to contribute to the body of knowledge on professional selling?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:43:00 +0000

I remain convinced that for the sales to become a recognized profession, we need a wider scientific body of knowledge. Therefore, I try to help people who want to contribute to this body of knowledge. I was recently approached by a doctoral student from the Marshall Goldsmith School of Management at Alliant International University and asked for some help for completing the dissertation.
This student has 20 years of experience in sales and has been trained in methods like SPIN Selling, Solution Selling and Strategic Selling just to name a few. The doctoral candidate invested now 4 years on research finding sales behaviors that bring long term success to both the selling companies and the individual salespeople.
The research so far has resulted in several hypotheses that predict most successful sales behaviors.
These hypotheses need now be validated through a field survey. And here is how you can help. If you are salesperson or a sales manager carrying an individual quota, please follow the link below to answer the specifically developed questionnaire.

http://alliant.qualtrics.com/SE?SID=SV_ekUmJtlTvIzgVlW&SVID=Prod

If you are not falling into the above categories, but want to help, please forward the link to all people in your network who do qualify. A minimum of 250 respondents are needed for the results of the survey to be significant.

So please help that 4 years of hard work bear fruit and the student can complete the dissertation to receive the Doctorate degree. Ironically the degree will be a Doctorate in Marketing. This just shows how far we have to go yet to get sales to be a recognized profession. I think we have to already be grateful that the dissertation topic was even accepted for a Doctorate in Marketing

Expect the results of the survey to have major impacts on sales people as these results will be published You can make your voice heard by participating in the survey via this link.

http://alliant.qualtrics.com/SE?SID=SV_ekUmJtlTvIzgVlW&SVID=Prod

If you want others to give a chance to voice their opinion too, then please forward this link. But please specify the qualification requirements for the respondents as mentioned above

Thank you.

How 2500 Sales Leaders Intend to Improve Sales Performance of Their Troops

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:32:00 +0000

CSO Insights just published their The Sales Performance Optimization 2010 Survey Results and Analysis Report which this year captures and consolidates the opinion of more that 2500 respondents to the survey.
As a customer focused sales effectiveness consultant, I always look first at the section of the report providing the list of initiatives CSOs plan to undertake to improve the performance of their troops. I find this a valuable orientation to check whether the offerings of my practice are in line with market trends. Although, I very much appreciate the insight comments provided in the report together with the data, I like to form also my own opinion by just looking on the data itself.
Looking at the list of initiatives ranked in importance in the 2010 report and comparing it to the same list in the 2009 report, there are three trends catching my particular attention.

Increased Process Orientation

What struck me first were the changes in ranking of initiatives in the upper middle of the table. The initiative «Analyze customer buy process» has moved up in rank and is now considered more important than «Revise Sales Process» I consider this a very positive trend which fits well with what I have believed for years. Improving performance requires an understanding of the processes leading to the results with which performance is measured. Furthermore, I am a long term advocate that sales processes must be aligned with how customers want to buy. So ranking the initiative of understanding these buy processes higher in importance than revising one’s sales process makes all the sense for me. Maybe it is also an indication, that the sales leader community finally acknowledges the fact, that Web 2.0 has a far reaching impact on how customers buy.

Access to knowledge repositioned

The second remarkable trend to me is the ‘relegation’ in importance of the initiative «Improve Reps access to information» to just below «Revising Sales process». Although I have invested quite some time and effort to expand the capabilities of my practice in the Sales Enablement domain a solution which can answer such initiatives, I am not unhappy about this trend. I take it that sales leaders have become more realistic and do no longer take Sales Enablement as the next silver bullet. I do not believe that this new ranking can be interpreted that the considerable drain on sales peoples’ time to search and adapt information to suit a particular sales situation has diminished. Thus the negative impact on performance is still the same. I take this new ranking rather as an expression, that for Sales Enablement to serve its purpose: Increasing the ‘situational fluency’ of sales people, it must be put in the context of the buying process and the corresponding sales process.

More focus on Sales & Marketing Collaboration

The third observation is about the increase of importance of the initiative «More closely align Sales & Marketing» which now ranks second directly behind what remains to be considered the most important initiative «Revise lead generation».
This must be good news to Chief Marketing Officers who are increasingly held accountable for business results. They should now find a more open ear with their CSO counterparts. This also confirms my believe, that CSOs seeking top performance can no longer ignore marketing. My continued investment in improving my capabilities is thus timely to support CSOs wanting to implement such initiatives.
Lead generation remaining the top initative is of some concern to me. The fact that this initative has the highest priority for the fifth consecutive year now, indicates first, that the ranking has probably little to do with the current economic situation. To me it is more an indication, that CSOs and CMOs for that matter, are handed down a target revenue number from the CEO, COO, CFO level mainly taking into account share holder value aspects. CSOs seem to continue to believe that for meeting those targets, most attention should be given on filling the funnel on the top. It is my hope that the increased focus on process aspects will lead sales leaders to the conclusion that there might be other means to increase revenue by getting more out of what you have (i.e. increase velocity and conversion rate of opportunities).
Another way to do more with the same could be by ’lead recycling’. This is probably the most promising area where CSOs and CMOs can start collaborating and learn how they can leverage each others capabilities in a very pragmatic low risk manner.
The Sales Performance Optimization 2010 Survey Results and Analysis Report by CSO Insights is thus as thought provoking as ever and is a must read for anybody concerned with sales performance.
To me personally, the report provided assurance, that my practice is well prepared to help Sales Leaders implementing the initiatives they consider most important for improving sales performance.
You can get the report on CSO Insights’ website at http://www.csoinsights.com/Publications/Shop/Sales-Performance-Optimization

Account Management is Loyalty Management

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:49:00 +0000

Have you ever asked yourself why your organization has account managers? I hope it is not just to avoid the term sales representative, because customers have low esteem of people with" sales" in their job title. Account managers are there to help accounts (clients) to buy more from your brand.

What is the behavior of a client called who buys repeatedly from a brand? According to 12MANAGE Thex Excutive Fast Track, this is called loyalty. So my hypothesis is: Successful account managers are good at managing loyalty and thus getting existing clients to buy more from their brand. Successful account managers are thus able to get more from what they have.

This is one way of adopting to the new normal where budgets are tight and resources are scarce. The first step to this goal is though that you do not loose anything from what you have. What is the strategic asset not to loose for account managers, and the whole company for that matter? Clients, which to me, is the term for loyal customers.

On January 26, 2010 I gave a Masterclass over at Top Sales Experts entitled “How Account Managers Can Grow and Keep Their Strategic Assets: Loyal Customers”.

In this Masterclass, I discussed how the above definition, together with the Net Promoter Score Model by Fred Reicheld and the Model presented by McKinsey on the Consumer Decision Journey can be combined into one actionable model to understand how to become a better account manager by focusing on customer loyalty.

I helped participants to understand:

Why account managers should put less focus on the sales cycle and concentrate on what happens with the customer before and after a purchase is made.
Why this new focus pays off
Why there is an “early mover advantage” in proactive account management
What you do on a strategic level when you concentrate on what happens with the customer before and after a purchase is made
Why it pays off to be honest with the promises you make to customers

The concept presented is based on many years of experience in coaching strategic account management teams, allowing participants to understand their potential cost of pain with their current account management approach and how to get remedies for this pain.

Should you be interested in this Masterclass there is a replay available over at Top Sales Experts .

What is Wrong with the Win-Win Negotiation Concept?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:29:00 +0000

On several groups on LinkedIn, a discussion was started with the hypothesis that win-win does not work in sales negotiations. One contribution to the discussion caught my particular attention. Someone answered by quoting Einstein who taught physicists that the result of observations depends on the position of the observer. I think this is the perfect short answer. Here is the long answer why I believe so.

Let me introduce the concept of the Negotiation Matrix. There are two parties (A and B). They both come to the negotiation table having defined their Walk Away Point (WAP); meaning if they were forced to make concession beyond this point, they would walk away from the negotiation table. Just as an aside the win-win concept might already let us forget this walk away option.

In the Negotiation Matrix, we represent the negotiation options of A on the horizontal axis. All negotiation results to right of the WAP, A considers as a win . Outcomes on the left of the WAP are perceived as a loss by A. The negotiation options of B are represented on the vertical axis. B considers a negotiation outcome as a win if it is above the WAP. Results below the WAP are perceived as a loss by B. The two axis cross at the respective WAP.

This can also be considered the optimal negotiation outcome. At this point, both parties have obtained a maximum of concessions from each other without any party feeling as loser yet. However the win-win concept will accept any negotiation result in quadrant I as a desired outcome ( win-win) of a negotiation. But this is an altruistic concept from the point of view of A and B.

Neurological research carried out with fERM have shown that the human brain has a specific Altruistic area but also a specific Lust area. For judging the suitability of the win-win concept for commercial negotiations, two findings are of crucial importance. First, the Lust center can be triggered by presenting the potential of winning monetary awards. Second, when both the Altruistic center and the Lust center are triggered, the Lust center is stronger and will force the decision in its favor.

This triggering of both centers is exactly what happens in a commercial negotiation. The Altruistic center of both the seller and buyer is triggered because we have been taught to strive for a win-win result in order to maintain an established relationship. For the seller, the Lust center is triggered because of the commission check that can be expected by winning the deal or at least by the desire to get as much cash as possible from the sale. The buyer might have personal monetary incentives in form of a bonus or is at least motivated to outlay as little cash as possible for the purchase. The Lust center being stronger, quadrant I is hardly the desired outcome for neither A nor B. Only for an observer C not involved in the negotiation, this is the optimal quadrant. There is no stimulus to the Lust center.

The seller (lets assume he is A) and the buyer (let say she is B) from their point of view, due to the force of the Lust center might though rather end up in a win-lose (quadrant IV) or a lose-win (quadrant II) situation. What probably both try to avoid is ending up in a lose-lose situation (quadrant III).

Negotiation results ending in quadrant IV or quadrant II are though, contrary to what the win-win concept would stipulate, not necessarily harmful to a relation. It is acceptable that A sees himself in quadrant I and positions B in quadrant IV if simultaneously B sees herself in quadrant I and projects A in quadrant II. For the external observer this still is a win-win situation, because both A and B will manifest a probably even stronger feeling to walk away as winners as they think they have defeated their opponent.

As a seller or buyer, you must thus take care that your vis-à-vis does not perceive him/herself as a loser. From your own perspective you are not obliged to see your vis-à- vis as a winner and thus a win-win outcome for the negotiation. I believe knowing this will make you more at ease in negotiations and is probably more in line with how human brains work.

A Strategic Guide Through the Perfect Storm for Sales Management

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:58:00 +0000

Changed customer behavior and increased negotiation power of the customer induced by technology together with the tough economic conditions create the conditions for a perfect storm that hardly can be weathered by sales management with tried and trusted old tactics.

The book “Rethinking Sales Management” by Beth Rogers is,as the subtitle suggests, “a practical guide for practitioners” how to become more strategic to cope with the challenges of these new normal times.

Beth Rogers has extensive practical experience in marketing and sales roles which she has complemented by in-depth consultancy, research and teaching. Her book therefore stands out from most sales and sales management books. Her advise is not of the type “here is how I was successful and I do not see why this should not work for you”. Instead, she provides the readers with strategic models and facts helping them to understand the 'Why' of a situation and then deduct the best course of action suited to context they are in.

In the era of customer orientation, Rogers argues, CSOs should have a seat at the strategy table of their enterprises. The first part of the book is an introduction into strategy; enabling CSOs to get familiar with the language talked there . The first chapter introduces well known strategic concepts like the business portfolio matrix (BCG matrix) used to categorize strategies from a enterprise point of view. (inside -out)

In the second chapter, the focus is on the purchaser's perspective of strategy (outside- in). Rogers suggest the purchaser's portfolio matrix as the vehicle to analyze this point of view. This concept is probably less known among C-level executives. Understanding it gives the CSO the opportunity to bring added value to the strategy discussion.

The purchaser's portfolio matrix first presented by Peter Kraljic in an article of the August-September 1983 issue of the Harvard Business review and then reintroduced by Rackham and DeVincentis in their book “Rethinking the Sales Force” recommends that purchasers should adapt their strategy depending on the complexity of the supply market and the financial impact of the purchase on the enterprise.

In the third chapter, the B2B Relationship Development Box is discussed in depth. This box, also a 2 by 2 matrix, combines the enterprise (internal) view with the purchaser's (external) view. This model suggests that the nature of customer relationships depends on the value the customers bring to the enterprise and the value the enterprise provides to customers (in their view).

The Relationship Development Box is the essential tool for CSO's to understand how to organize their resources to execute on their strategies. The second part of the book therefore shows how this tool is used. Each quadrant of the relationship matrix is explained in a separate chapter As not all relationships are worth to be maintained, this part also contains a chapter about exit strategies.

The four relationships discussed are:

Strategic (value of the customer to enterprise is high and value of the enterprise to the customer is high). This is the quadrant where Key Account Management is the best fit.
Prospective (value of the customer to the enterprise is high and value of the enterprise to the customer is low). This relationship is of transitory nature. Business development is the strategy that can elevate this relationship to a strategic one. But one cannot exclude that the value of the enterprise to the customer cannot be increased. In this case, the enterprise should move the relationship to the tactical quadrant in order to avoid continuous over investment in the relationship.
Tactical (value of the customer to the enterprise is low and value of the enterprise to the customer is low). This quadrant is often considered as not very attractive. Considering the use of other channels than a direct field sales force (e.g. Telesales or Channel Partners) is though more viable than considering this relationship as transitory and trying to elevate it to a strategic one.
Cooperative (value of the customer to the enterprise is low, value of the enterprise to the customer is high). This is probably the most delicate quadrant to handle. The balance must be found between avoiding over investing in the account and risking competitive vulnerability. The cooperative relationship might therefore also be of transitory nature.

The third part of the book entitled Strategic Focus for 21-st Century Sales Management

addresses four weaknesses observed in the management of the sales function.

Reputation Management can be seen as a part of corporate reputation management brought to the fore by new regulations like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Rogers though also cites results from own studies where “breach of trust” was quoted as the single most likely cause of the disintegration of a customer relationship. Maintaining integrity of the sales people as a form of reputation management has though also a direct impact on sales performance. Undue internal pressure and variable pay schemes can negatively influence this performance.
Working with Marketing can be a source of so far untapped profitability. Kotler, Rackham and Krishnaswamy in their article in the Harvard Business Review of July/August 2006 believe that there can easily be a gap of 20% in profits between organizations where marketing and sales are aligned compared to companies where sales and marketing work independently in separate silos or even worse fight each other. Also this chapter has a link to the Relationship Box. Rogers suggest that Marketing should have the lead for tactical relationships, whereas Sales should be leading for strategic relationships.
Leadership: Five tools are discussed: Awareness (incorporating self awareness and awareness of others), Framework (strategy and values), Extensive Communications, Coaching and Development and finally Trumpeting. The last point is probably not readily understood. It means telling and rewarding people for things they have done right. Although financial rewards are the culture of sales, those rewards do not necessarily have to be only in monetary form.
Process Management as a necessary prerequisite for continuous improvement is discussed in this chapter.

This book is a great eye opener to sales people contemplating to become sales managers. After having read it, they will understand the kind of strategic thinking needed to succeed in this role. For sales managers and executives, coming to the realization that their current approach will not bring the expected results in the future, it is an excellent source for understanding how they can evolve their role and being more successful with a strategic approach.

How Specific do Value Propositions Need to be?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:43:00 +0000

It depends on who is delivering it when in the customer buying cycle.

Early in the buying cycle, marketing and sales can use generic statements. Later in the buying cycle, salespeople must be able to articulate very specific statements, tailored to the individual customer, demonstrating specific value to the customer as well as superiority and differentiation against the competition.

This is how I would summarize the message of my Masterclass “The Dynamic Value Proposition” I gave over at the Top Sales Experts last month. It was also the consensus from a discussion I triggered with the blog post “Can Value Propositions be Generic”.

My friend Dave Brock was the most vocal supporter of the idea by publishing an own blog post. He has actually written a second post since; further elaborating on the dynamic character of a value proposition.

Although having a dynamic value proposition following the customer's buying cycle and the evolution of ones competitive position is necessary, it is not sufficient if salespeople want to follow the recommendation of an IDC Customer Experience Panel in January 2009. They identified that “Putting aside the generic pitch” as the #1 item to be improved by sales people to bring more value to the relationship with the customer.

Even an objectively and technically well crafted message, delivered by the salesperson, has a high chance not to pass with the individual at the customer's organization as we all interpret messages in our own context.

In my next Masterclass “The Adaptive Value Proposition” on November 10, 2009 I will suggest to pay attention to three aspects of the receiver's context (customer persona) to facilitate reception of the value proposition:

Functional Position
Attitude to Change
Sensory Predicates

I discussed why they can be inhibitors for your message to pass and give you suggestions how to overcome them.

If you scroll down on this page, you will find the slide deck used for this presentation.

If you want to know more about what Dave Brock had to say on the value propositions you can follow these links: Post 1, Post 2.

This link will lead you to my post “Can Value Propositions be Generic”where I discuss the dynamic aspect in the context of the customer's buying cycle.

Managing Sales for Construction Projects

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:27:00 +0000

Over at construction management degrees Elizabeth Johnson has published a list of the Top 100 Blogs to Boost your Sales Skills . As this blog is included in this list (No. 60), I have invited her to write a guest article to give us some insights on what it takes to be successful as a Sales Managers for construction projects.

A sales manager has various responsibilities, not the least of which involves being responsible for managing an entire team of sales representatives and others. You have the usual job of making sure that the people working under you meet their targets and that they are doing their jobs to the best of their abilities. But when you’re responsible for managing sales in a construction project, you need to know more than just how to sell or how to motivate to sell.

Sales managers for construction projects are generally entrusted with dealing with customers who wish to customize their living or working space. This means they need to know a lot about the construction process and the industry as well, because they will be talking to and dealing with clients before the home or office is built. They have to coordinate various factors, starting with the design and including cost as well.

When you have to talk to clients about the way their home has to be designed, you need to know more than just the basics about architecture and interior design. You need to be able to tell customers if certain design ideas are feasible or not, which is why you need to know architecture even though you are basically a sales manager. And besides the possession of knowledge and experience in these subjects, you must be thoroughly dedicated and motivated.

Your main aim should be to provide the customer with a unique experience that is tailored to suit their needs. And in order to do this, you need to know how to work with a team of industry professionals so that your company is a success. Collaboration is a very important part of any business deal, and only when you can work in tandem with your colleagues can you impart to the customer a truly enriching and rewarding experience.

Your communication skills should be excellent – as someone connected to sales, you must have the gift of the gab and know how to read each customer individually and tailor your words and actions according to their temperament and needs. And even though you are a manager, you must spend enough time in the field, being actively involved in promoting your projects, dealing with clients, taking care of any problems that may arise, and knowing all that is going on in your department.

Even though the construction industry is presently just recovering from the crash of the recession, qualified and skilled construction sales managers are in still in demand.

Elizabeth Johnson writes regularly on the topic of construction management degrees . She welcomes your comments and questions at her email address: elizabeth.johnson1@rediffmail.com

The Right Book at the Right Time

noreply@blogger.com (Christian A. Maurer) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:21:00 +0000

So many people start a business, buy a franchise or an existing business with no previous sales experience. Add to that the fact that they don’t realize they’ll have to sell and you have a situation where they struggle to succeed.

Lemonade Stand Simple, Accelerate Your Business Growth by business development coach Diane Helbig is a straightforward, common sense guide through the sales process. Diane’s goal was to write a book that provided the reader with actionable information about sales.

We live in a time when more and more people are starting businesses. In order to be successful they must be able to sell their product or service. “People pour their heart, soul and life savings into their business. Then they struggle, or fail, because they simply do not understand the sales process. They don’t sell effectively, and therefore don’t succeed. It’s really hard to watch and completely unnecessary,” says Helbig.

“The message in the book is that simple,” Helbig explains. Lemonade Stand Simple provides the clarity that business owners need to be more successful without trying so hard. It breaks down common scenarios, step by step, into techniques just about anyone can employ.

Think back to your own lemonade stand days and the simple pleasure of selling refreshing drinks to family, friends and neighbors. You were certain of your product and you knew your client base, Helbig reminds us. You didn’t get bogged down in the process, and you weren’t afraid to be yourself. You knew what you were selling and who you wanted to do business with.

Lemonade Stand Simple resonates with business and sales professionals as well, who praise Helbig for her straightforward, back-to-basics method to selling.

“Diane provides the reader with a no nonsense approach to the sales process that is based in common sense. This book is essential for every small business owner who has to sell and provides a workable sales plan that gets results simply by reading these pages,” said nationally-read author Hal Becker, one of the top sales speakers and consultants in the country.

The book works because Helbig understands those salespeople and small business owners who think they need to fit their sales strategy into a methodology that is not authentic. She’s here to remind us that we’ve all known how to sell since we were about five years old. It’s simple—lemonade stand simple.

Diane is a business and leadership development coach, speaker and author who provides a matter of fact, basic understanding of the sales process to her clients and workshop attendees.

Lemonade Stand Simple, Accelerate Your Business Growth is available on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com Order yours today!

About Diane

Diane is an internationally recognized business and leadership development coach, speaker, and author. As a certified, professional coach and president of Seize This Day Coaching, Diane works with people starting their own business, salespeople who need and want to improve their skills, and business owners who want to master challenges and realize greater success. She is also co-founder of Seize True Success, a coaching practice dedicated to helping franchisees grow and prosper.

Diane helps businesses and organizations operate more constructively and profitably. She evaluates, encourages, and guides her clients. Working with as few as one person to as many as 100+, Diane creates an environment that is cooperative and interactive Diane is a COSE Mindspring editor and a member of the Top Sales Experts panel at www.topsalesexperts.com. She offers workshops, speeches and seminars on the subjects of sales, business development, and leadership. Diane is the author of Lemonade Stand Simple, a sales book for small business owners and is also a contributing author to Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms. To learn more about her coaching practices please visit www.seizethisdaycoaching.com or www.seizetruesuccess.com