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What is Your Company’s Sales Approach?

Written by: Dave Stein

Article Overview: From ESR’s research, it is very clear that companies sell more effectively if their sales approach is based on a well-founded, institutionalized methodology. Where Do You Stand?

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What is Your Company’s Sales Approach?

From ESR’s research, it is very clear that companies sell more effectively if their sales approach is based on a well-founded, institutionalized methodology. This is true of companies that have one salesperson or companies with ten thousand whether they sell staffing or technology, industrial equipment or professional services.

How Many Methodologies Do You Really Have?

When we recently interviewed the manager of learning and development of a Fortune 500 technology company, they reported that over the past three years, 4,000 of their sales and channel organization had been trained in one methodology by one of the companies we evaluated in our July ESR/InDepth Report. Management was very supportive, took the training ahead of the rest of the company, and the entire organization is using the methodology and speaking the same “language”. Since that training they have seen their sales cycle shorten, their hit rate heighten, and their order size grow.

However, when we ask most sales leaders, general managers and CEOs whether they have a sales methodology and if sales people are compliant in its use, the answer is often disappointing. Many respond saying they have no methodology; but that’s really not the case. Their situation is, in fact, far worse. What they have is possibly the same number of methodologies in place as the number of sales people. Each sales person is pursuing business their own way, with no common approach—selling by the seat of their pants. The symptoms are classic: deal slippage, reactive discounting, hockey-stick forecasts, and a small percentage of the team carrying the ball for everyone else. Today’s business world has no time or patience for seat of the pants selling.

Where Do You Stand?

By now you already know where you stand. If your company has been strategic in its approach to sales development and sales performance, you probably already have a methodology in place, have likely trained your team on its use and measure performance improvement on an ongoing basis. Most members of your team are probably performing at or above quota.

If that isn’t the case, you might start with a bit of a self-assessment. Here are a few questions to get you thinking in the right direction:

1. Can you explain in precise terms how your customers typically buy?
2. How many steps are their in your standard sales process?
3. What are the five most important qualification criteria that must be met for your sales people to be entitled to receive support from other people in pursuit of an opportunity?
4. Has every sales person been coached and certified on delivering your key messages to different constituencies within your customers’ organizations?
5. Are your sales people equipped with a list of standard objections that they are likely to face and have they been trained and coached on how to manage them?
6. Are you able to consistently find and hire sales people who deliver at or above quota?
7. Is every member of your team educated on the trends, issues, enablers and obstacles for their customers’ success in those markets into which they sell?
8. Do you have a documented set of processes and tools that encourage your sales people to effectively plan their sales campaigns, including every meeting, presentation and event?
9. Can your account executives effectively build and manage mutually beneficial long-term relationships with your key accounts without constant threat of competitive displacement?
10. Do you have a mechanism that provides each sales person with up-to-date, objective information about their competitors’ companies, products and services, and sales strategies and tactics, with clear and precise recommendations on how to use that information for competitive advantage?
How did you do? Do you feel confident that you objectively answered each question with a resounding “yes!” and can anticipate what my next ten questions might be? If not…

What Should You Do First?

First, understand why not. The results of a 2005 ESR survey show that these are some of the most common reasons sales leaders have not taken a formal, methodical approach to selling:

 Those leaders are not process-oriented and therefore believe that processes inherently inhibit productivity, rather than enhance it.

 They cannot get budget allocated for sales consulting or training because they are unable to present a credible business case including a target ROI.

 They will not invest in sales development and process because they are compensated on operating income and training is seen as a large expense, potentially impacting their bonus.

 They believe they hire top sales people who do not need a methodology or training. Anyone who does not make quota is replaced by another top performer, so, sales management concludes, there is no need to make the investment.

 They have no idea how to properly select or engage with a sales consultancy and, out of fear of (another) failure, they do nothing.

 They have invested in a CRM system and feel that that is all the process that their salespeople need.

So what is the real reason your company does not have a strategic, holistic approach to selling?

Methodology Comes First

We have seen many companies go from a state of disorder and failure within their sales function to one of consistent and predictable performance. One critical factor in making that transition is understanding that a methodology is absolutely required and that building or adopting one comes before training your team.

Now is the time to take a comprehensive, objective assessment of your current situation and capabilities. The need for objectivity makes this very difficult to accomplish using internal resources. Generally, ESR does not recommend that the providers of sales training perform this assessment due to potential conflicts of interest. With those caveats in mind, this needs to get done before anything else.

Based upon that assessment, determine your requirements. Do you need to replace members of your team based upon a new understanding of the qualifications required to be successful? Do you need processes to help your team qualify, manage an opportunity or generate leads? Is your marketing organization providing the required support? You get the idea. If you are going to engage with a sales performance company to help you build that methodology, the requirements document becomes the basis for an RFP (request for proposal). If you don’t have the time or resources to do it properly, engage a professional to assist you.

Then build or adopt a sales methodology based upon your specific and unique requirements. One size does not fit all. Once that methodology is in place, with all the relevant processes, methods, tools, you’ve built the foundation upon which metrics and training can be added.

There is never a better time than now to begin taking an approach—the right approach—for achieving sales effectiveness within your organization.

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About the Author: Dave Stein
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Dave Stein is CEO of ES Research Group (www.ESResearch.com) which he founded in early 2005. ESR is the first company to independently advise organizations on how to assess and most effectively implement the right sales training program for their individual needs, whether hiring an outside provider or delivering internal training. ESR delivers reports to its members ranging from weekly sales training research briefs to In Depth comparisons of the leading sales training and consulting providers. Beginning in 1993, after a career in sales and sales mgmt, Dave focused his unique skills in competitive sales strategies on sales training and executive coaching in companies of all sizes leading them to close large deals against insurmountable odds. Dave is the author of the business best seller HOW WINNERS SELL(now used by many universities), a regular contributor to leading journals, and the featured monthly columnist for Sales & Marketing Mgmt, Magazine. Dave’s affiliations include: Exec. Adv. Board of the Fisher Inst. for Prof. Selling; prof. member - National Speakers Assoc; Society of Sales & Mktg Training, American Society for Training and Dev.; and Sales & Marketing Execs Int’l.

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