I was on a plane recently, sitting next to a guy who had been in sales as long as I have though he was happy to remain a field guy. Unfortunately, his company was “promoting” him to a manager. He was going reluctantly but was uncertain how best to be a manager. When he found out what I do he asked my advice. I had to think about that a bit, and then I remembered one of my 30 second intros. I told him to get a book on Dog Training and pretend it referred to his salespeople. He loved the notion, got the point and I am anxiously awaiting the results.
Have you ever taken a dog to obedience school? I'll let you in on a secret: Dog Obedience School isn't for the dog; it's for the owner. My work is pretty much the same thing, you can call me a sales obedience school.
It always gets a chuckle (albeit sometimes just a polite one). It always gets knowing nod because they understand that as salespeople, they will almost always do what they are asked on behalf of the company.
Unfortunately, often companies aren’t quite sure what to ask them to do. So salespeople by default go and do what they think they should do and then hope it both works and it doesn’t get their boss mad at them.
In well run companies a sales process exists that is well known by all, flexible, customized to both the industry and the company and has legitimate milestones along the way. On the other hand, some companies believe that because they have purchased Customer Relationship Management software (CRM) that they now have a process. High producing sales professionals will complain the process slows them down and most companies, who do go to implement a process, do so often only for the capacity to generate reasonably accurate forecasts.
Companies and sales managers miss the critical values a well structured and customized sales process can be and often really don’t want to go through, or more realistically afraid of, the complaining from the existing sales force that have brought in all the revenue for the company.
I am currently in the process of implementing a company wide sales process in multiple divisions and multiple CRM databases with around 40 sales people overall. The highest producers exceed a million dollars a year in production and have ignored the CRM for the most part. The mechanics of implementation include make the CRM products look alike, getting all the sales teams to use it as similarly as possible and most importantly, encourage the use of it throughout the entire company. This is not an overnight project…
To make it work, we have implemented customized training for a hundred percent of the sales assets, we have created a milestone based process and taught that to everyone and then customized the CRM to recognize the assets and the value. We have been careful enough to create a process that recognizes both individual styles and provides flexibility for the sales rep.
Then we made it fun. We have created a game that when used correctly, rewards the sales assets for not only using the process, but frankly doing their job.
So what is the result? In the first 30 days of the process, in one division where the game is going, the people playing the game have an activity rate five times greater than people not playing the game. In this company there is a 6 month selling activity season and then a three month “harvest” or “closing” season. A five times greater activity rate at this point will result in at least a three times uptick in revenue for this group even accounting for brand new reps working alongside seasoned veterans.
Why? Because every morning the sales reps know what they have to do to “win” this day. Most are field reps, and they now know what is expected of them and more importantly, what activities will bring them the greatest success. The process tells them what to work on and what to leave alone, it tells them when to drop a non-performing sales and where to work the hardest on ones that can close. That part of the process also supports forecasting for the company, sure, but for the rep it is critical information on where to spend their time AS EFFICIENTLY AS POSSIBLE for those that choose to. Guess what. All the reps choose to know how to be as productive as possible. Now they know how.
For the company, this process has created a common language for selling, a database where all customer centric activities can be found and tools to manage both remote and local sales people. It gives control of the sales effort back to the company and denies prima donnas’ from holding the company hostage by its sales effort. Embedding this process has trained the low and mid level performers on what and how to act and given high level performers the freedom to act on their own, in concert with the company.
I almost hate to say it though, the training was really never about the sales people, it was about helping the owners.