How you build a Process Driven Sales Effort
How you build a Process Driven Sales Effort
Many organizations that are poised for the next tier of revenue and profitability growth need some changes to their Sales Systems to maximize their efforts. As organizations mature, the "we've always done it that way" method is not as effective as it once was. Competition, commoditization of offerings and other factors impact the bottom line.
Below are a few areas to examine in your company to help your sales effort.
How cohesive is the Sales and Marketing plan? How often do you review your strategy? Many businesses create silos around Sales and Marketing. How many times have you seen negative attitudes develop between these two critical teams? Marketing cannot be successful without sales input and effective communication is critical to ensuring sales can execute on mutually developed strategies.
What sales methodology do you use to ensure repeatable behaviors and common language with the sales organization? Is your sales training consistent with the sales process methodology? Do your sales activities map to your clients buying behavior?
Have you optimized the structure to ensure the appropriate support for your team? Do you have the right sales associates servicing the right clients? Do you have the correct mix of managers to reps? Are your territories over-serviced or under-serviced?
A strong Sales culture is a determination of sales performance and culture is a result of good management. Look to your sales culture for clues into the functional areas that are actionable.
What key activities are you measuring to determine if things are on track? What gets measured gets done. Inspect what you expect, or you will not get the results your company demands. Do you have a Performance management process?
Sales behavior is determined by compensation direction. Are you getting the behaviors you expect? Are you paying too much relative to revenue or gross margin metrics? Are you underpaying relative to industry best practices? Is your bonus structure providing the right incentives?
Is training part of the culture or an afterthought? Do you have an effective new hire sales training program? Many companies pay lip service to their new hires. They have a stringent hiring process, get the new employee excited about joining the company and then on day one treat the new employee as a distraction.
Determine what internal resources you can use for training and find out if you need to outsource some of the training functions.
Do you have a Sales Automation system? Does it drive you or is it an effective tool used to improve communication, assist with the sales process and enhance customer service? Are your Sales Representatives using the tool? Is it part of their job description, has it been mandated by management?
The #1 reason sales teams succeed or fail is Sales Management. How much effort are you spending in this area? Coaching, training and mentoring this position is critical for long term success. Many Sales Managers are hired because they were the best Sales Representative. Many companies have experienced this critical error and lived through the poor results.
Obviously, this is just a snapshot of the items to look to see what is applicable for your business. No matter what size of business you have, these elements are important to integrate to ensure your sales process is tight. A tight sales process is critical to understanding what works and does not work. Otherwise, it is a hit and miss prospect. Selling is a tough nut at the best of times – having a consistent sales process makes it a little easier to define areas of opportunity so you can repair them when things are not working well.
Happy Selling…
Alan McLaren
Infinity Communications Inc
alan@2infinity.ca
How you build a Process Driven Sales Effort - To learn more about this author, visit Alan McLaren's Website.
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At the core of every successful organization is an intense focus on the customer. The challenge is to service the customer while providing the profitable revenue that all stakeholders demand. Often there is misalignment between the core mission of the organization and the “feet on the street”. Successful organizations close that gap.
Many organizations that are poised for the next tier of revenue and profitability growth need some changes to their Sales Systems to maximize their efforts. As organizations mature, the "we've always done it that way" method is not as effective as it once was. Competition, commoditization of offerings and other factors impact the bottom line.
Below are a few areas to examine in your company to help your sales effort.
How cohesive is the Sales and Marketing plan? How often do you review your strategy? Many businesses create silos around Sales and Marketing. How many times have you seen negative attitudes develop between these two critical teams? Marketing cannot be successful without sales input and effective communication is critical to ensuring sales can execute on mutually developed strategies.
What sales methodology do you use to ensure repeatable behaviors and common language with the sales organization? Is your sales training consistent with the sales process methodology? Do your sales activities map to your clients buying behavior?
Have you optimized the structure to ensure the appropriate support for your team? Do you have the right sales associates servicing the right clients? Do you have the correct mix of managers to reps? Are your territories over-serviced or under-serviced?
A strong Sales culture is a determination of sales performance and culture is a result of good management. Look to your sales culture for clues into the functional areas that are actionable.
What key activities are you measuring to determine if things are on track? What gets measured gets done. Inspect what you expect, or you will not get the results your company demands. Do you have a Performance management process?
Sales behavior is determined by compensation direction. Are you getting the behaviors you expect? Are you paying too much relative to revenue or gross margin metrics? Are you underpaying relative to industry best practices? Is your bonus structure providing the right incentives?
Is training part of the culture or an afterthought? Do you have an effective new hire sales training program? Many companies pay lip service to their new hires. They have a stringent hiring process, get the new employee excited about joining the company and then on day one treat the new employee as a distraction.
Determine what internal resources you can use for training and find out if you need to outsource some of the training functions.
Do you have a Sales Automation system? Does it drive you or is it an effective tool used to improve communication, assist with the sales process and enhance customer service? Are your Sales Representatives using the tool? Is it part of their job description, has it been mandated by management?
The #1 reason sales teams succeed or fail is Sales Management. How much effort are you spending in this area? Coaching, training and mentoring this position is critical for long term success. Many Sales Managers are hired because they were the best Sales Representative. Many companies have experienced this critical error and lived through the poor results.
Obviously, this is just a snapshot of the items to look to see what is applicable for your business. No matter what size of business you have, these elements are important to integrate to ensure your sales process is tight. A tight sales process is critical to understanding what works and does not work. Otherwise, it is a hit and miss prospect. Selling is a tough nut at the best of times – having a consistent sales process makes it a little easier to define areas of opportunity so you can repair them when things are not working well.
Happy Selling…
Alan McLaren
Infinity Communications Inc
alan@2infinity.ca
How you build a Process Driven Sales Effort - To learn more about this author, visit Alan McLaren's Website.
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave 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 |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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David AchesonDavid 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 |
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I've created this section on my site to share some of the incredible tools that I've used to build my business. I hope you too can benefit from them and look forward to hearing your feedback on the reviews! - Visit Evan Carmichael's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda 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 |
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John BrennanJohn Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses. - Visit John Brennan's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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