Jonathan Farrington

CEO, Editor, Author, Keynote Speaker, Customer Experience Evangelist, Sales Futurist

Sandler Research Center

So, What Makes a Successful Sales Team?

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An organization’s vision is a guiding image of success formed in terms of a huge goal. It is a description in words that conjures up a picture of the organization’s destination. A compelling vision will stretch expectations, aspirations, and performance. Without that powerful, attractive, valuable vision, why bother?

A mission statement communicates the essence of an organisation to its stakeholders and customers, and failure to clearly state and communicate an organisation’s mission can have harmful consequences around its purpose.

As Lewis Caroll, through the words of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland says, “If you don’t know where you’re going, it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

Guiding principles are the consequence of a mission statement that are intended to inform or shape all subsequent decision-making, which also provides normative criteria allowing policy-makers to accept, reject or modify policy interventions and activities. They are a guiding set of ideas that are articulated, understood and supported by the organisation’s workforce.

Values are beliefs which the organization’s workforce hold in common and endeavor to put into practice. The values guide their performance and the decisions that are taken. Ideally, an individual’s personal values will align with the spoken and unspoken values of the organization. By developing a written statement of the values of the organization, individuals have a chance to contribute to the articulation of these values, as well as to evaluate how well their personal values and motivation match those of the organization.

The “Human Capital Development Model,” created by Krauthammer International, is a logical process that can take top management concepts, and translate them into a context that has real meaning for staff at all levels.

The key to bringing this model to life is to answer the following questions:

o Do my team understand the organization’s vision and how their role moves the organization closer to achieving it?

o How can my sales team translate the organization’s mission into one that is relevant to them?

o How does the organization’s guiding principles impact on the day-to-day responsibilities of sales people?

o Which of the organization’s values does my sales team relate to?

o How can we interpret these values so they become compelling for each sales person?

An effective sales team understands the big picture and the context of their team’s work to the greatest degree possible. That includes understanding the relevance of their job and how it impacts the effectiveness of others and the overall team effort.

Too often, sales people are asked to work on an activity without being told how their role contributes to organization’s vision, much less how their efforts are impacting the ability of others to do their work. Understanding the organization’s vision promotes collaboration, increases commitment and improves quality.

An effective team works collaboratively and with a keen awareness of interdependency.

Collaboration and a solid sense of interdependency in a team will defuse blaming behavior and stimulate opportunities for learning and improvement.

Without this sense of interdependency in responsibility and reward, blaming behaviors can occur which will quickly erode team effectiveness and morale.

If You Don’t Understand It How Can You Manage It?

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Even companies that enjoy the luxury of clearly superior products, realise that those products will not sell themselves. As a minimum, companies need a sales force comprised of skilled professionals who understand the application of the product range, have an in-depth knowledge of their customer base, market sector and of course the competition. But even all these elements together are not sufficient to ensure optimum performance levels and profitable sales.

So What Exactly Is a Sales Process?
Put quite simply, it is a set of procedures, which determine how a company wishes its sales team to operate – “The way we do things around here”

The most successful organisations have implemented a process and an all-encompassing framework for defining performance standards. This involves assessing, appraising, developing, reviewing, providing continual feedback on performance, as well as implementing efficient and relevant process tools

Lack of Direction
Far too frequently, competent salespeople are expected to channel their own activities into the areas that will produce the quickest wins. Unfortunately, left to their own devices, they don’t develop and pursue a formal strategy for moving a sale tangibly forward during each prospect interaction; neither do they have a clearly defined set of goals against which to measure the progress they are making.

Typically, their judgment is based on gut reaction and is purely subjective i.e., “Oh yes, I’ll get that order, he likes me”, because salespeople have to be optimistic by nature. They end up “dancing around” with prospects, in the hope that eventually they will get to their chosen point on the dance-floor i.e. -the sale. In this scenario, the customer has complete control.

Developing a Consultative (Collaborative) Sales Process
From the Sales Managers perspective, developing a consultative sales process means developing a comprehensive, formal, realistic and step-by-step outline of what salespeople are expected to do. This is just as appropriate for internal and totally reactive sales teams as it is for external pro-active ones. This outline includes the activity and calls they must make, the relationships they should establish with prospects, the documentation they should use in sales calls, the issues they must discuss and resolve with prospects and the tangible goals they must achieve in sequence along the path to each sale, in order to achieve maximum effectiveness.

It’s only when such an outline is in place that sales management can be in a position to:

  • Monitor the sales force’s activity, progress and results,
  • Assess issues as they arise and take appropriate action,
  • Redirect individual sales representatives’ efforts efficiently.

Although many organizations appreciate the importance of being customer-focused and talk in vague terms about their “consultative sales process”, surprisingly few sales leaders invest the time and energy required to develop a formal sales process – a process that is at once detailed and resilient enough to guide their salespeople and permit effective management of their efforts.

Finally, I would say this: You cannot possibly hope to manage external events if you do not have control internally!

Do We Really Need Sales Managers?

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Short answer? Of course, and here is why ….

In my view, the role of a sales manager is to translate the organization’s vision, mission and values into a meaningful context that sales teams can relate to and feel excited by. If this is achieved then the manager will have created a sales team with a shared mental model. This transforms an ordinary sales team into a high performing one.

For clarity, here is a brief description of the following terms:

An organization’s vision is a guiding image of success formed in terms of a huge goal. It is a description in words that conjures up a picture of the organization’s destination. A compelling vision will stretch expectations, aspirations, and performance. Without that powerful, attractive, valuable vision, why bother?

A mission statement communicates the essence of an organization to its stakeholders and customers, and failure to clearly state and communicate an organization’s mission can have harmful consequences around its purpose.

As Lewis Carroll, through the words of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland says, “If you don’t know where you’re going, it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

Guiding principles are the consequence of a mission statement that are intended to inform or shape all subsequent decision-making, which also provides normative criteria allowing policy-makers to accept, reject or modify policy interventions and activities. They are a guiding set of ideas that are articulated, understood and supported by the organization’s workforce.

Values are beliefs, which the organization’s workforce hold in common and endeavour to put into practice. The values guide their performance and the decisions that are taken. Ideally, an individual’s personal values will align with the spoken and unspoken values of the organization.

By developing a written statement of the values of the organization, individuals have a chance to contribute to the articulation of these values, as well as to evaluate how well their personal values and motivation match those of the organization.

An effective sales team understands the big picture and the context of their team’s work to the greatest degree possible. That includes understanding the relevance of their job and how it impacts the effectiveness of others and the overall team effort. Understanding the organization’s vision promotes collaboration, increases commitment and improves quality.

What we really need are sales leaders, but right now we have far too many sales managers.

What Makes a Great Sales Coach?

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For managers, developing others’ abilities is critical indeed, it’s the emotional competence most frequently found among those at the top of the field. This is a person-to-person art, and the effectiveness of counselling hinges on empathy and the ability to focus on our own feelings and share them.

Research suggests the best ‘coaches’ show a genuine personal interest in those they guide, and have empathy for and an understanding of their employees. Trust is crucial – when there is little trust in the coach, advice goes unheeded. This also happens when the coach is impersonal and cold, or the relationship seems too one-sided or self-serving. Coaches who show respect, trustworthiness, and empathy are the best.

One way to encourage people to perform better is to let others take the lead in setting their own goals rather than dictating the terms and manner of their development. This communicates the belief that employees have the capacity to be the pilot of their own destiny.

Another technique is to point to the problems without offering a solution: this implies the employees can find the solution themselves. And people hunger for feedback, yet too many managers, supervisors and executives are inept at giving it or are simply disinclined to provide any. Virtually everyone who has a superior is part of at least one vertical ‘couple’ in the workplace; every boss forms such a bond with each subordinate. Such vertical couples are a basic unit of organisational life.

Therein lays the blessing or the curse: This interdependence ties a subordinate and superior together in a way that can become highly charged. If both do well emotionally – if they form a relationship of trust and rapport, understanding and inspired effort – their performance will shine. But if things go emotionally awry, the relationship can become a nightmare and their performance a series of minor and major disasters. While vertical couples have the entire emotional overlay that power and compliance bring to a relationship, peer couples – our relationships with co-workers – have a parallel emotional component, something akin to the pleasures, jealousies and rivalries of siblings.

If there is anywhere emotional intelligence needs to enter an organization, it is at this most basic level. Building collaborative and fruitful relationships begins with the couples we are a part of at work.

Bringing emotional intelligence to a working relationship can pitch it towards the evolving, creative, mutually engaging end of the continuum; failing to do so heightens the risk of a downward drift towards rigidity, stalemate, and failure.

Truly Successful People Continually Challenge Paradigms

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One of the key tasks of a sales manager is to continually seek ways to improve the manner in which their team operates – constantly challenging paradigms and questioning “the way we do things around here”, will ensure the team remains at optimum performance levels.

However, it is also important to stay within an overall long term strategy and not effect change for change’s sake. Here are some thoughts on moving forward in a structured manner.

First, keep the key management functions in mind

  • Define objectives (your own and others)
  • Plan (and time) action
  • Communicate (throughout the process)
  • Support others’ action
  • Evaluate performance (and link to the future)
  • Then relate this to the task, the team and the individual people

Keeping the Overall Management Process in Mind

Define Objectives:

  • Task – Identify task and constraints
  • Team – Set targets and Involve team
  • Individual needs – Agree targets and responsibilities

Plan:

  • Task – Establish priorities
  • Team – Structure and delegate
  • Individual needs – Assess skills, train and delegate

Communicate:

  • Task – Brief and check understanding
  • Team – Consult, obtain feedback
  • Individual needs – Listen, advise and enthuse

Support/Control:

  • Task – Monitor progress, check standards
  • Team – Co-ordinate, reconcile conflict
  • Individual needs – Recognize, encourage and counsel

Evaluate:

  • Task – Review, re-plan and summaries
  • Team – Reward success; learn from failure (and success)
  • Individual Needs – Appraise, guide and train for the future

This view encapsulates and simplifies, the whole process.

With this picture in mind, certain key issues are worth a mention:

Link to the Future

Ongoing success, as a manager, is influenced by:

  • The attitude you take to the transition
  • What you do before you move into a new appointment
  • The early focus you bring to bear on key issues
  • The relationship you thus cultivate with staff
  • The working habits you create for yourself (and others) in process

Together, all the above influence early success in the job – and how you take things forward into the future.

Key Issues

From the beginning, always operate on the basis that managing people:

  • Takes time – you cannot get so bound up in your own workload that you skimp on time you should spend with others
  • Takes effort – it is a challenge, there are no magic formulae or quick fixes that will do the job for you
  • Needs thought – the obvious or immediate answer may not be best, things may well need research, analysis and thinking through
  • Is not a solo effort – seek and take advice from where you can, including your own staff
  • Will not always go right – as Oscar Wilde said, “Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes.” Admit your mistakes (publicity if necessary) and learn from your experience

Remember too that managing people:

  • Is a process of helping others to be self-sufficient – this implies trust and that management works best when you take a positive view of what people can do (and do not see your role as a sort of corporate security guard)
  • Is based on good, regular and open communication – something that pervades many issues commented on in these pages
  • Needs to be acceptable to people before it can be effective – hence the crucial role of motivation as part of the management task
  • Become self-sustaining when it works – i.e. if people find your management helpful (to the job, the organization and to them) then they will support it and support you

Overall, management is not what you do to people, but the process of how you work with people to help prompt their performance. Work with people from day one, and go on doing it throughout your management career.

At the end of the day, success comes down to a considered approach. Charge in, desperate to make an impression, go at everything at once in order to make an impression, and disaster may closely follow. ‘Twas ever thus:

“First organize the near at hand, then organize the far removed

First organize the inner, then organize the outer

First organize the basic, then organize the derivative

First organize the strong, then organize the weak

First organize the great, then organize the small

First organize yourself, then organize others.”

General Zhuge Liang

Perhaps we should highlight the last sentence: “First organize yourself, then organize others.”

Last Word

Being a manager is a challenge, but it is also almost infinitely rewarding to create and maintain a team of people who deliver excellent performance and produce whatever results are targeted. It is a task that takes time, requires effort and needs a considered approach.

All sorts of things can help, but only one person can guarantee that you become a good manager – and that’s you!

Managing Is All About Motivating

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It is a fact that we as managers should accept – our people perform better when they feel positive about their job.

In my view, we absolutely must:

  • Recognize that active motivation is necessary
  • Resolve to spend regular time on it
  • Not chase after magic formulae that will make it easy (there are none)
  • Give attention to the detail
  • Remember that we succeed by creating an impact that is cumulative in effect and tailored to our people

Our intention should be to make people feel individually, and as a group, that they are special. Doing so is the first step to making sure that what they do is special.

Understanding Motivation

Every manager needs to know something of how motivation works. The key is to influence the motivational climates by taking action to:

Reduce negative influences. Potentially, the good feelings people have about their jobs can be diluted by negative views on matters such as: company policy and administrative processes, supervision (that’s us, unless we are careful!) working conditions, salary, relationships with peers (and others), impact on personal life, status and security.

Action is necessary in all these areas to counteract any negative elements.

Increase positive influences. Potentially feelings can be strengthened by specific inputs in the areas of: achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement and growth.

Many factors contribute to the motivational climate – from ensuring that a system is as sensible and convenient to people as possible (reducing negative policy/working conditions), to just saying ‘well done!’ sufficiently often (recognizing achievement).

The state of motivation of a group or individual can be likened to a balance. There are pluses on one side and minuses on the other. All vary in size. The net effect of all the influences at a particular time, decides the state of the balance and whether – overall – things are seen as positive, or not.

Changing the balance is thus a matter of detail with, for example, several small positive factors being able to outweigh what is seen as a major dis-satisfier.

A Little Thought Goes A Long Way

We need to make it clear from the outset that we are concerned that people get job satisfaction. Major schemes can wait. Early on:

  • Take the motivational temperature – investigate how people feel now (this is what we have to work on).
  • Consider the motivational implications of everything we do – when implementing a new system, making a change, setting up a new regular meeting or whatever, consider what people will think about it? Will they see it as positive?
  • Use the small things – regularly – for example, if asked if we have said ‘well done!’ often enough lately, we must always be able to answer yes – honestly.
  • Never be censorious – we must not judge other people’s motivation by our own feelings. Maybe they worry about things that strike us as silly or unnecessary. So be it. The job is to deal with it, not to rule it out as insignificant.

Creating the habit of making motivation a key part of our management style will undoubtedly stand us in good stead.

Finally, my last piece of advice: Resolve now – right now – that you will give motivation priority. Don’t be mistaken, motivation makes a difference – a big difference.

If you care about your people (really care) it will always show.

Managers and Teams – United We Stand, Divided We Fail?

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I am consistently on record as saying that standards of professional selling have never been so bad: This is borne out by the startling statistic that around 50% of frontline salespeople, globally, are expected to be behind quota at the end of Q2.

I have also been quoted as saying “Show me an underperforming sales team and I‘ll show you an unqualified and ill-equipped sales manager”

If you are a manager, here are some words of advice you may want to digest as a matter of urgency –after all, the average tenure for someone in your position is now just 18 months!

The principle of working together with your team should underpin how you operate. Managing people doesn’t just mean acting as overseer, to see that they get their work done satisfactorily. It means involving people throughout the team in a creative role, to ensure that together you are all able to succeed: You need them as much as they need you, because whether you like it or not, your success depends entirely on their success.

Involving people on broad issues is motivational. Never underestimate people. Their views can enhance everything: methods, standards, processes and overall effectiveness.

Remember, managers are not paid to have all the ideas that are necessary to keep their section working well in a changing world, but they are paid to make sure that there are enough ideas to make things work and go on working.

Use your people and make it clear to them that you want and value their contributions.

Underpinning Success:

Some matters are of particular importance to the way a manager and staff work together. This is not the place to review the whole management process, but the following four areas are critical and must be addressed correctly early on if results are to follow.

They are:

  • Setting goals
  • Project management
  • Ongoing development
  • Job performance appraisal

A quick look at each of these in turn…

Setting Goals:

“If you don’t know where you are going any road will do”

For all its familiarity and common sense this maxim is worth reiterating. No one and no organization works well without clear objectives. The responsibility for setting many of them may well be yours.

The objectives you set must condition and direct what your people do. Make sure everyone has clear goals and they are committed to achieving them.

Project Management:

Many of the tasks to be done involve the complex process of people working together in a co-ordinate way over time. When this is headed up by you or involves you, make sure that the project is:

  • Carefully and systematically planned and organized.
  • Effectively executed.
  • Precisely monitored.
  • Fine-tuned so that contingencies and changes are accommodated.
  • Brought in on time, on spec and if appropriate, on budget

Your management of others will be jeopardized if the way you organize the work of the section in any way falters.

Ongoing Development:

Nothing is more important to people than their success. Time and again you hear people say something like “Above all, I want to work with a manager from whom I can learn“. The development of your people is not something to ignore or leave to training departments. The responsibility is yours. Make sure people have the right knowledge, skills and attitudes to do the jobs you want and to do them well. Development is not only about correcting weaknesses, it is about upgrading and taking people forward, not least to keep up with change.

Tell your people that you:

  • Recognize that their development is important
  • Will help them gain experience and extend skills And…
  • Create a visible system so to do

As the old saying goes you can either “have five years’ experience or one year’s experience multiplied by five”. People want the former. Show them you are the means to achieve it.

Use the development cycle:

  • Analyze the job (what is needed to do it)
  • Analyze the person (their competencies)
  • Look ahead, anticipate what new skills, etc. the job might necessitate in the future
  • Define the gap – what must be done to create a good fit between the person and the job
  • Specify development activity, methods, budget and priorities
  • Implement action and monitor results

This is a rolling cycle. Keep clear records, make sure everyone is reviewed in this way and create a culture in which people value development and what it brings. Part of your job is helping people to learn.

The culture of an organization in terms of its attitude to training and development is important to people. Their view of it is, in part, dependent on you. Send the right signals.

Performance Appraisals:

In many organisations appraisals are poorly conducted and rated unhelpful by those who are appraised

Appraisals should:

  • Be constructive, helpful and motivational
  • Focus on the future
  • Be a genuine opportunity for both parties to ensure that the period ahead (year, quarter, etc.) goes well, perhaps better than the last
  • Link to action plans for the future

Study your organization’s appraisal system and learn how to conduct an effective appraisal meeting. This is good use of management time. Apart from helping you achieve results in a practical sense; it will also position you as a competent manager and differentiate you from others.

Management Processes:

Whatever processes you set up, will be seen as a sign of your style. If they meet with approval, trust is built. If not, they distance you from your staff.

You must ensure system and processes are:

  • Fair
  • Understandable
  • Effective
  • Relevant
  • Time (& cost) effective

And are not:

  • Bureaucratic
  • Out of touch with realities
  • Over complex
  • Restrictive/contradictory
  • Incompatible with other systems/common sense

Everything you set up (or maintain if someone else instigated it) must aid the effectiveness and efficiency of the section. Those who do the work will quickly see inappropriate systems as you making their jobs more difficult; not a way you want to be seen.

As the advertising slogan of the Abbey National banks in the UK said, “Life’s complicated enough”

The Role of Communication In Management

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In my mailbox this week was a message from a young guy in Australia who has just taken his first step up into management. His question was quite simply  “What is the most important management trait I should consider developing first?”

Very interesting question because there are several essential traits that need to be developed as early as possible, but choosing just one – the most important – was a “no-brainer” for me, and this is an extract of my response to him.

Nothing puts you in the “bad manager” category more swiftly than poor communications skills.

Staff view an inadequate communicator as someone who is unclear, ambiguous, says too little, speaks up too late, or not at all (keeps secrets unnecessarily) and most importantly, someone who doesn’t relate to their viewpoint.

Managers should resolve to communicate:

  • Using appropriate methods (memo or meeting, e-mail or notice-board)
  • From the right perspective (talk about we, not I, and put things personally – “You will find” rather than “This is the case”)
  • Using good communication principles (keep it simple, make it clear, and be precise and succinct)
  • Explaining both the what and the why of things

Communication is one of the most important aspects of a manager’s role and if you feel you need to bone up on it, do so. Ignoring failings or uncertainties risks disaster.

Your early communications will be looked at or listened to carefully. Lines will be read between and inferences about you and the way you do things will be drawn – for good or ill. Take care!

While thinking about communication, make one firm rule for yourself:

Always be courteous to your staff

The old adage that politeness costs nothing is true. Any temptation that staff may provide to descend into insults, or even to be offhand, may cause problems and will certainly not engender respect. This applies, whatever the provocation – and, believe me, sooner or later, if you manage people, there will be some!

So, keep cool, count to ten if necessary and moderate your language and your manner.

A final point about communication is that you need to be constantly well informed about what is going on – in your department, around the organisation and in any other area that is important to you.

Never forget that informal communications are as important here as formal ones.

You need to develop a good network of contacts and here I must flag the importance of the grapevine – this exists in every organization:

  • Discover how it works and who is key to its operation
  • Get yourself “plugged in”
  • Remember that communication is two-way (you must contribute to receive)

Use it constructively – ignore and do not start rumors, use it for firm information, early warning and dissemination and keep your eyes and ears open.

Keep In Touch

Take away communication from an organisation and not much is left. Yet, the subject is often neglected. It is the foundation of a good relationship between manager and staff and thus the basis for success.

Make sure you take action to create good – two-way – communication by, for example:

  • Practicing MBWA: that is Management By Walking About – Talk to people informally, ask, listen, take note and ensure feedback.
  • Regularly informing people of your thinking – by memo, e-mail, at meetings, etc. Tell them what your vision is, what you plan, hope and intend, what’s happening – and how it will affect them.
  • Systematize the processes involved – make aspects of what you do formal and regular (e.g. regular departmental meetings and updates on operational issues).

Fundamental to good management is being seen as open and honest, concerned that people should know what is going on and concerned also to encourage and receive their inputs.

How To Develop A First Class Sales Team

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Pick up a typical report and what words do you find? Verbs like analyze, forecast, plan, assess and schedule, are used in pursuit of organisations that are efficient, productive and predictable. What set of people are required? Obviously, people who are efficient, effective, proficient, competent, productive and co-operative. But I believe we need to go beyond – we need to be inspired, motivated, creators, who are enthusiastic and able to consistently deliver against our key objectives. We should be developing individuals who are not afraid to challenge paradigms, who are prepared to go that extra yard in search of excellence and who understand that success is 80% attitude and only 20% aptitude.

For a group of people to remain consciously competent at optimum performance levels, they require frequent injections of stimulation, motivational guidance, coaching, prompting and directing, otherwise they can easily lapse into becoming unconsciously competent or worse, unconsciously incompetent.

In 2015, around 50% of frontline sales professionals failed to achieve quota – did they fail? No, their manager failed. All roads lead back to the leader – he/she has total responsibility for the success of the team, and that responsibility cannot be abdicated. After all …

The primary objective of a professional Sales Manager has to be:

“To achieve consistently superior results through the performance of every key individual.”

The Acid Test: When thinking about your own sales force ….

  • Do you understand their motivators – what is driving them?
  • Do you have visibility of their numbers – year to date, forecast vs. required performance?
  • Activity levels – are they working hard and smart enough?
  • Engagement – are they talking to the right level in their prospects/accounts?
  • Messaging – are they capable of delivering an appropriate message at the right level?
  • Qualification – are they only spending time on deals where they can compete and ultimately that they can win?
  • Closing – are they constructing successful campaigns and closing business?

How did you do?

In Search of the “Sales Holy Grail”

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Frequently, there are two main pitfalls that even experienced salespeople can fall into in terms of activities. First, they simply aren’t doing enough. What’s enough? Enough telephone calls to make appointments, enough face-to-face calls, enough calls that involve or influence decision-makers. In general, the more focused sales activity salespeople generate, the greater the number of sales opportunities they can create.

Poor Quality Activity
Second, but equally important, salespeople often aren’t clear about how to identify the prospects most likely to have a genuine need for their product or service. Without an objective way to priorities which prospects to contact first and/or an efficient strategy for contacting them, salespeople are doomed to waste a large percentage of their time.

Another huge dilemma for many salespeople is how to divide their time between servicing existing clients and generating new business from new prospects. Existing clients frequently make requests for service that could be dealt with by support staff. But salespeople, who lack a disciplined, future-orientated plan for generating new contacts and sales, often find themselves spending more time attending to urgent tasks for existing accounts instead.

A common approach among salespeople can be summarized in the saying “If you throw enough mud against the wall, some of it is bound to stick.”  This approach is exhausting, demoralizing, extremely unproductive, and very expensive in the long term.

Speed of Relaying Customer Information
Marketing now provides another interesting dimension to activity management. Apart from product or service knowledge, salespeople require knowledge about prospects, clients, and market trends. Therefore, if the information those salespeople require isn’t relayed in an efficient manner, their face-to-face selling activities are dramatically reduced.

Harder Rather Than Smarter
In the book Emerson’s Essays, there is a section on “Law of Compensation” which can be summarized simply as “give more, get more.”  This is what most salespeople try to do, so they end up working harder when they could be working smarter. This begs the question, are your sales activities deciding your strategy or is your strategy deciding your sales activities?

Developing a Consultative Sales Process
From the Sales Director’s perspective, developing a consultative sales process means developing a comprehensive, formal, realistic and step-by-step outline of what salespeople are expected to do. This is just as appropriate for internal and totally reactive sales teams, as it is for external pro-active ones.

This outline includes the activity and calls they must make, the relationships they should establish with prospects, the documentation they should use in sales calls, the issues they must discuss and resolve with prospects and the tangible goals they must achieve in sequence along the path to each sale, in order to achieve maximum effectiveness.

It’s only when such an outline is in place that sales management can be in a position to:

  • Monitor the sales force’s activity, progress and results
  • Assess issues as they arise and take appropriate action
  • Redirect individual sales representative’s efforts efficiently

Although many organizations appreciate the importance of being customer-focused and talk in vague terms about their “consultative sales process” surprisingly few sales leaders invest the time and energy required to develop a formal sales process – a process that is at once detailed and resilient enough to guide their salespeople and permit effective management of their efforts.

Overcoming Implementation Inertia
Even when a consultative sales process has been developed, understood by sales managers, written down and circulated, it’s often not enough. No matter how brilliant, a sales process will only be effective to the extent it is followed and used by frontline sales staff. And this is where most organizations fall down: overcoming inertia among managers and salespeople alike and implementing the process.

The hurdles that must be cleared, in order to get people throughout the organization to actually implement it, are enough to cause Sales Directors to tear their hair out!

But a select few, of the very best, have found some innovative strategies that have enabled them to achieve the Holy Grail: Sustained sales growth achieved efficiently, reliably and by design.