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Basic Alignment Drives Sales Results

Written by: Jay Crookston

Article Overview: As important as product, technology, market message, and strategy all are, there is nothing more essential to the overall organization’s sales success than the internal alignment between the sales leadership team and the corporate strategy. The point transcends Sales and applies to every function within the firm, but SalesFulcrum's founder discusses it specifically to Sales.

Basic Alignment Drives Sales Results

As the Head of Sales, a key imperative is to align your sales leadership or management team with the Corporate strategy and vision so that the sales organization can start delivering sustainable, predictable results.

Keeping in mind the practical reality that the race against the quota clock is unforgiving and relentless, you must balance the long term strategy by simultaneously delivering bona fide short term results. Like it or not, it’s still perform or perish.

Some measurable facts that indicate your Sales organization is out of alignment:

- Lack of results while your competitors are thriving
- Sales forecasts are unreliable and consistently missed
- Less than 50% of the sales reps consistently achieve their quota
- Annualized salesforce turnover is greater than 20%
- Sales expenses increase while rep productivity decreases
- Your firm is losing market share to competitors

As the founder of SalesFulcrum LLC, we have developed a straight-forward model that helps to diagnose where and why a firm’s field sales management is out of alignment with the firm’s overall strategy. This model starts with a defined Corporate or Sales strategy that is predicated upon a set of 3-4 clear business priorities.

Here’s a quick test to see if your sales management team understands your strategy: Ask each one of your direct reports to define it! You might be frightened by their response.

Our model shows that long term sales success dictates a focus on both people and process, with particular emphasis on improving sales management effectiveness. Identifying the right sales management personnel, implementing the proper sales management processes, and driving ownership and accountability for results at the sales manager level has profound impact.

Once the right sales managers are in place, culture and values, (the norms, the common language and environment) and process (roles, outputs, salesforce automation, methodology) are determined and reinforced by this fully aligned sales management team. If the front line leadership team embraces these as their own, they can then recruit salespeople that have the requisite skills, relevant experiences, and proven track records that are compatible with this culture and process. In other words, reps that possess both “fit and fitness” for the job at hand.

Programs (incentives, compensation, recognition, promotions, etc) must also align with the larger corporate objectives and overall strategy. Importantly, sales management needs to participate directly in the development of these programs so that they again have a sense of ownership and to insure that the programs are grounded in field-based reality. Ever see a sales contest pay out ridiculous sums for outcomes that are essentially the same as the reps just doing their basic job, or worse yet, not even in the interest of the firm?

Finally, sales management is a business function that lends itself to quantifiable objectives and metrics and, per the old adage, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Yet, focus on determining the right metrics is also a key part of the puzzle. Consistent stack ranking, evaluation and posting the results of all sales personnel (especially the sales management’s results!) is an important mechanism to drive consistent and sustainable sales excellence.

In summary, business excellence and success is typically defined by the delivery of consistent and profitable revenue growth over an extended period of time. A high quality and aligned sales management team is a key success factor for such results. It is the responsibility of the senior sales executive to align, build, mentor and lead this sales management team so that the salesforce (as much as product, technology, market message, and strategy) becomes a sustainable, competitive advantage for the firm.

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Article Tags: business priorities, corporate strategy, culture and values, field sales management, forward model, improving sales, management effectiveness, management personnel, management processes, overall strategy, practical reality, predictable results, profound impact, quick test, sales managers, sales organization, sales reps, sales strategy, sales success, salesforce automation



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