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Discipline, Opportunity Management & Value Propositions

Discipline, Opportunity Management & Value Propositions

Three critical To-Dos:

1) Dramatically increase accountability and discipline in your sales force.

Measure each of your sales reps in terms of how well and how often he or she executes each of your most critical sales activities.  (Start with at least 5 metrics and add more over time.)  Use these numbers to identify which sales activities truly are critical to producing sales and margin by mathematically correlating each activity to the results produced.  (See "=correl" in your Excel Help.)

Publicly post the performance numbers for each sales activity in terms of top third, middle third and bottom third.  (You don't necessarily need to include individual names; just post the numbers.  The reps will know where they fall on the bell curve and will respond accordingly!)

Most importantly, identify the best performing rep for each critical sales activity each month.  Have one of those top reps present and lead a 30-minute discussion of "how to" execute a critical activity at each monthly sales meeting.

2) Thoroughly and conscientiously implement and use a robust CRM system 

Until the "Opportunity Management" functions of your CRM system are regularly used by the entire sales team, the measurement and analysis described above is impossible.  If you haven't already, bite the bullet and spend the money!  (Go cheap on the software and/or implementation services and you'll regret it.)

3) Become a "Value Proposition Maniac"

Insist that a compelling value proposition is included in any proposal:

  • To a customer among the top 25% of any sales rep's territory

  • To a customer that is strategically important

  • For a strategically important product or service

Price, availability, product features, service and reputation do not qualify as components of a compelling value proposition.  (They only qualify as components of a lazy value proposition that is essentially identical to that of every competitor out there.)  At a minimum, a compelling value proposition includes:

  • A statement of how one or more customer business processes are improved

  • Quantification (hopefully in $$$ terms) of the value of that business process improvement

Three tall orders.  Easy to say, hard to do. 





Discipline Opportunity Management Value Propositions - To learn more about this author, visit Todd Youngblood's Website.

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David Acheson
David Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns.  David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website

Dave Kurlan
Dave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website

Linda Richardson
Linda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website

Stephanie Robey
Stephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals.

She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com   Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences.  Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University.

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Todd Youngblood
(Visit Todd's Website) Todd Youngblood is passionate about sales productivity. His 30+ year career in Executive Management, Sales, Marketing and Consulting has focused on selling more, better, cheaper and faster. He began his career in 1976 as a Marketing Representative with the IBM Corporation and for fifteen years progressed through a wide variety of field and staff assignments. He then founded and operated an Information Technology Outsourcing firm providing Software Development and Maintenance Services. In 1994, he joined an electronic commerce firm serving the insurance and healthcare industries, as Vice President of Sales & Marketing. He established The YPS Group, Inc. in 1999 based on his years of experience in Sales Process Engineering � that is, combining creativity and discipline in the design, implementation and use of work processes for highly effective sales teams. Todd has worked extensively with firms in the Distribution, Manufacturing, Insurance, Services, and Telecommunications industries. He is the author of two sales management books, The Dolphin And The Cow and Think About It� He is married, has two daughters, enjoys cycling, is a second degree black belt in Choi Kwang Do and serves on the board of the Cobb Symphony Orchestra.

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