‘Getting back to basics’ is our 2010 Sales Trend #3 as voted by you, our readers.  Despite the positive start to 2010 in Australia, especially compared to other post GST economies, we cannot forget the fundamentals when it comes to creating a healthy, viable sales team, culture and business.

One of the real challenges of 2010 will be keeping sales momentum while understanding how changes in customers, competitors, markets, innovations, media, technology and all manner of things will impact on our businesses and our people. Getting our heads around all this to find the right ingredients for our plans and strategies will be demanding.  We need to recognise the new ‘things’, in themselves, will not make things better, it is how they are integrated and applied in ours and our customers current situation and circumstances.

Often with new technologies, new trends, new ideas, and new innovations people become distracted thinking that these new things will promise to make life better, easier, faster, or more effective or efficient, all the while missing 2 key points:

1. In taking on the ‘new’ how does this support our real intentions and purpose as a business and leader?
2. How will these new innovations make our business and, more importantly, our customers lives better in action and deed?

Throwing away the ‘tried and true’ and rushing headlong into the ‘new and shiny’ without considered thought can pose great risks.   If we look at this from the customer’s perspective we will see their wary cynicism of the new and shiny, and recognise their desire for transparency, continuity and familiarity as well as their need to be up with the latest.   Many have long memories and know from lessons learned often the new and flashy is quickly dated.

Equally being closed off to the ‘new’ is just as bad because we could miss vital signals that may lead us to better places.  Either way throwing out the basics or being closed off to the ‘new’ will leave us worse off.

In 2010, wise business/sales leaders and people will embrace the ‘new’ but not forget the basics.

The Back to Basics Checklist includes having:

1. A vision with clear intention, purpose, values and actions – what do we stand for and how do we act?

2.    Clear sales strategy and tactical plan articulated at a business, state/regional, and sales person level. This would include:

• Sales goals
• Clear market message
• Client segmentation including account management, new business development and service support
• Competitor analysis – direct and emerging
• Go-to-market sales tactics including how we make contact with prospects and customers
• Clear Input and Output Measurements (role clarity, clear performance expectations, team unity, etc.)

3.    Sound Sales Processes and Frameworks including:

• Sales management knowledge, skills, and mindset (coaching, performance management, strategy, recruitment, leadership, etc.)
• Sales Planning knowledge, skills, and mindset
• Prospecting knowledge, skills, and mindset (Sourcing Leads, networking – new social media opportunities; Proactive prospecting activities like making telephone calls to new prospects, existing or lapsed clients; doing and monitoring your activities on a daily basis)
• Selling knowledge, skills, and mindset (client meetings, pitching, presentations, negotiation, account management, customer service, conflict resolution, territory management, proposal development, etc.)
• Self Management knowledge, skills, and mindset (monitoring self talk, analysing a situation accurately, taking care of personal health and well being, working with a sense of purpose and clarity)

Keeping our sales basics in tune will help us while we integrate and experiment with the ‘new’ such as  social media and other new advances coming into our markets.   It’s about finding out what is effective and then weaving in the ‘new’ and trialing it to see how it enhances or detracts from our sales efforts.  Investing large amounts of money and effort into one sales approach leaves us vulnerable.  It’s about having a blended sales approach and fine tuning it to meet our customers and our needs for being in business.

By knowing who and how to target customers and being well skilled in sales planning, prospecting, and client communication we will keep sales happening. By sticking to the basics and integrating the ‘new’ bit by bit  we will work out how Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Sales 2.0, Social media and all the other innovations will work best for us and how we need to keep on selling.  With change comes opportunity and challenges.

I suggest we repeat the mantra ‘hasten slowly’ and keep doing the basics while considering, trialing, evaluating, and integrating the new.  In 2010 the focus will be on selective incorporation, based on customers, community, company, and self, while still remembering the basics that got us where we are today.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

In December 2009 we published The 12 Sales Trends of 2010 and invited readers to vote on what they thought are the most important trends in sales.  Thank you to everyone who shared their views and voted.  Each month we will explore one of the trends in more detail, starting with the trend voted as most important, Lead the Way. As voted by you, here are the sales trends for 2010 in order of importance:

1.    Lead the Way
2.    Everybody lives by selling something
3.    Back to Basics
4.    Social Sales
5.    Noise Reduction
6.    Culture Fit
7.    The New Competition
8.    Through the Looking Glass
9.    Weathering the Storm
10.    Sustainable Selling
11.    A Sales Community
12.    Hot Bath Turns Cold

Lead the Way was the trend voted as most important by you, our readers.  As we discussed in The 12 Sales Trends of 2010 sales needs to be led from the top. In 2010, sales will be on the agenda of the ‘C’ suite and this will mean from the CEO down, including the CFO, COO, and CIO. Even if the ‘C’ suite never has contact with an external customer (which I strongly advise against) they need to know how to lead, sell in, and support the sales effort.

Why?

Despite millions, if not billions, of dollars being invested in sales training, CRM systems and the like, many leaders are realising that their frontend processes, backend systems, culture (including those staff who have not traditionally seen themselves involved in sales), and sales methodologies are not aligned with their customers.  In many cases theses processes and systems are also not connected internally causing, amongst other things,  duplication of effort, mixed messages, confusion, and lost sales opportunities.

Sadly, too many businesses still consider customers the sole responsibility of sales and marketing.  This is just asking for trouble.  For too long there has been a disconnect, if not a gulf, between those in ‘sales’ and those not in ‘sales’, often with the latter looking down their collective noses with disdain at anyone in a sales role.  This has got to change, if nothing else, for purely commercial reasons.  This is an issue for leaders.

Enlightened leaders will no longer tolerate or condone the domain of selling being isolated to the sales and marketing teams.  A truly customer centric, value added, highly profitable, integrated business can only flourish under clear and decisive leadership that puts forward a compelling business case for change, everyone in the business understands and can put into real and accountable action.

Those leaders who make it clear to their business that, without everyone performing their roles in a spirit of collaboration and cooperation with the customer at the heart, there will be no business. This is sure to get their peoples’ attention.   Those leaders will also place their key clients on their assets register, to ensure a conscious and actual value is accounted for by all.

Moving down the corporate ladder, businesses will make the most significant difference to sales through enlisting the support of all of their managers.  By educating them in the values and thinking frameworks, skills, structures, and processes needed to run a sales centric business.  In particular, by focusing their efforts on their Sales Managers they will also see better returns.  As a profession, Sales Managers receive the least formal training, often leaving people to work it out by themselves, even though formally trained Sales Managers show the highest positive correlation between training and results.  Time and time again, sales teams achieved higher performance and results when their Sales Managers were frequently and effectively trained and coached.  Word of caution: training and coaching without proper, integrated support structures in place won’t be nearly as effective.

In addition, we propose that Sales Managers should be the ambassadors for sales culture transformation.  Besides the obvious connection between leading and managing a sales team (which many Sales Managers would benefit from more training in), Sales Managers have a crucial leadership role to play within any business.  By acting as a critical link between all departments and customers via their sales teams, Sales Managers can communicate key information and initiatives to the market, as well as reporting back key findings to the leadership teams. This role ensures any adjustments, actions, or communication can be made in a timely manner.  Effective Sales Managers don’t get stuck behind a desk, they are out in-the-field reporting on marketing efforts and their effect, and they hear the real voices of customers firsthand and see the impact, good and bad, of initiatives.  They are a real connection between the business and customers.    They can, and should, be given a company-wide voice.  Enlightened leaders will make sure their Sales Managers are not relegated to being glorified administrators endlessly reporting and attending meetings and free them up to do what they do best, be the conduit between customers, sales people, and the business.

Sales Managers are a key communication life line.  How well does your business and leaders communicate with their teams and markets?  What messages are you sending? How are they being received?  Who is listening anyway?  Who is taking action?  How are you communicating? What are you hearing?

Communication is the key here.  As Charlie Magee, author of the Imagination age states:

“Evolution equals survival of the fittest communicators. (One might protest and say that economics is more basic than communication because one must survive in order to communicate, i.e. an ancient hunter of 40,000 years ago, alone in the grasslands, had to eat before he could communicate. Consider this, however: to this hunter, the wind, by carrying smells, communicates the direction of prey. The sun, by its position in the sky, communicates which animals are at the water hole. The hunter’s stomach, by growling, communicates a sense of urgency. Communication happens first. Then the hunter can eat.)

It took the universe 10 billion years to create a species that could speak. It took that species 3 million years to create a communication tool called writing. Then just 12,000 years to create the printing press.
500 years to create the computer. Put these figures on a chart: billions, millions, thousands, hundreds, then … decades? We’re looking at exponential change.  There are clues in the pattern of communication evolution.

The most successful groups throughout human history have had one thing in common: when compared to their competition they had the best system of communication. The fittest communicators-whether tribe, citystate, kingdom, corporation, nation-had (1) a larger percentage of people with (2) access to (3) higher quality information, (4) a greater ability to transform that information into knowledge and action, (5) and more freedom to communicate that new knowledge to the other members of their group.”

Those leaders and businesses who can integrate their frontend processes, backend systems, culture, people, sales methodologies, and communication strategies (including social media et al), underpinned with clear vision and values, and communicate their intentions clearly will lead the sales revolution.

Investing in properly training, educating, and supporting leaders and managers, especially Sales Managers, to be those crucial communication links will see significant lifts for businesses in 2010 and beyond. Many of these areas cannot be taken lightly; they take considered thinking, reflection, time, and courage to enact.  If you cannot do a company-wide makeover in 2010 then at least invest in your Sales Managers so they can help you Lead the Way.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

Following on from last week’s article about managing and measuring the right things in sales, I thought it would be worth looking at some of the key principles for effective sales performance management systems.

The first place to start is to align your sales performance management system and subsequent key measures to your organisation’s strategy and goals.  It’s then the job of the CEO and the Sales Leader to ensure the organisation (that means everyone else who supports the sales effort)  is aligned to the sales performance management system.   When this dimension is in place the organisation is best placed to sustain high sales performance.

Issues arise when the non sales teams impose their ‘numbers’ or ‘tasks’ on sales teams which are unrelated to the effective sales performance.   i.e.

• The CFO being critical of missed forecasts and not looking into or understanding the underlying reasons why
• The Executive team demanding more activity (i.e. make more sales calls) and not understanding the potential negative impact on effectiveness
• Marketing engaging in lead generation activities that either generate the wrong leads or leads that require out of scope qualification meaning they’re in the forecast prematurely.

This leads to competing motivation, confusion and reduced sales performance across the board.

Another key area worth noting is the importance of addressing and working with values and explicit behaviours.  This is now much higher on the agenda of many businesses now, not just the outputs of performance as we discussed last week.

While the focus of this article is directed towards sales, this principles presented here can be applied to any role in your organisation. As you read through the items below, bear in mind that this is not prescriptive in nature and you should use only what works for you.

Principles of an Effective Performance Management System:

• Reflect an organisation’s values and strategy.
• Commitment to the system should be obtained from top management and communicated to all employees. Ideally input should be sought from all levels to gain their engagement.
• Business objectives need to be linked to team and individual accountabilities.
• Performance measures are developed for each function and individual to ensure that their performance is aligned with the needs of the organisation.
• Feedback is provided on an ongoing basis, not just during the annual performance review. For instance, this would include coaching conversations.
• Expectations and communication should be transparent and consistent at all times.
• Employee development and future behaviour are the focus of attention, not just past performance.
• A partnership between the employee and manager is developed based upon open dialogue, two-way feedback, and shared responsibility.
• Employees are encouraged to take accountability for their own performance and success.

Benefits of an Effective Performance Management System:

• Encourages open, constructive communication between managers and employees.
• Provides feedback on how people are doing on the job.
• Allows for mutual understanding (between manager and employee) of each employee’s job responsibilities and performance expectations.
• Facilitates identification of individual capabilities, strengths and areas for development.
• Identifies factors negatively affecting employee performance (e.g. work environment, job design, organisational policies and practices, personal issues, external factors, etc) so that action can be taken to alleviate them.
• A structured and documented process encourages objective evaluation and fair treatment.
• Assists in the achievement of strategic goals.
• A consistent way of setting goals, monitoring performance and formally reviewing performance.
• Self-managing for proactive individuals.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Sue Barrett is Managing Director of BARRETT

You may recall that I recently wrote about an international study which reported that if Sales Managers were more frequently and better trained and coached, their sales teams achieved higher performance and results.  In no other type of sales training was a more positive correlation found between frequency of training and sales performance. This article is dedicated to the importance of sales coaching and what you need to do to be an effective sales coach.

Despite popular opinion, the sales profession is very skillful with many technical and interpersonal skills that need to be continuously honed and developed.   Despite this, most sales people are given no formal training or coaching rather they are often left to work out for themselves how to be effective at sales.

Even if they are able to attend sales training, most sales people do not realise their full potential because nothing was done post the training session to get people adapting their behaviours, skills and performance to the new standards.

Why sales coaching matters

• Without systematic, on-the-job coaching post a sales training program 87% of skills that were covered in the sales training program are lost within 30 days
• With systematic, on-the-job coaching post a sales training program the return on the sales training program is four fold.

Lesson: Sales training without coaching is a cost liability rather than an investment.

Is sales coaching just linked to sales training?

In a word, no.  Whether or not coaching follows a formal training program, it is recommended that at least 40-60% of a sales manager’s job should be dedicated to coaching their sales people.

Yet, sales coaching still remains an area that is poorly executed and often ignored.

What is coaching?

Coaching is a process which allows for an individual to strive for excellence in any endeavour through personal insight and purposeful action. At a broad level, the process involves three key elements:

• Feedback: without feedback a person is unaware of the opportunity for ‘change’
• Reflection: relates to what a person thinks about the feedback received; as well as the range of actions they can undertake as a result of receiving the feedback
• Purposeful action: those activities the person may undertake and either adopt the provided feedback or alternatively explain why they will not address the feedback provided

Coaching usually focuses on two key areas of development to achieve excellence: skills and performance.  Excellence in performance is knowing the right processes to apply in the right situation, coupled with the personal insight to know how to apply them wisely.

So, how do we get the best out of our sales coaches in order to be our best?

1. Train your sales managers to be effective sales coaches
2. Supply them with proven tools and frameworks to coach successfully
3. Provide ongoing coaching to your sales managers to be better sales coaches (usually external coaching support works well here as it provides an agenda free focus on coaching only)
4. Make sales coaching a necessary part of the sales manager’s job performance criteria
5. Encourage a coaching culture in your business across all levels

What do you need in your sales coaching tool box?

• A coaching framework that guides you through the various coaching steps – this ensures that people are aware coaching is taking place
• The ability to analyse or assess the development needs of an individual or team
• Coaching communication tools and approaches that help you understand, communicate, and connect with the person you are coaching
• Knowledge about the different types of coaching approaches you can use with people i.e. skills, performance, remedial, strategic, or transformational coaching

• Ideally a sales competency based model and sales process framework that reflects the sales skills, behaviours, and attitudes you need to coach your sales people to.
• Skillful and active communication skills
• A positive, trust based, environment
• Clear purpose and intent about what you are trying to achieve
• Consistency

Coaching can happen in many ways

Here are some examples:

• Joint sales visits: attending a client sales meeting with a salesperson – Set up the pre, during and post stages of your coaching session.  Decide on what role you will take as a coach: observer, joint call participation, or role model.  You need to decide on which role you will play before you enter the meeting so as not to confuse the salesperson or the client/prospect

• One-on-one skills review and action plan: Ideally you would use a competency based model and framework to coach
• Role playing sales activities such as prospecting, client calls, pitch presentations and so on
• Team coaching sessions

4 important points to remember:

1. There are a variety of coaching tools out there, however avoid the one-size-fits-all approach i.e. trying to stretch one tool to fit all situations.  You need a blend of tools in your coaching tool box to be able to adapt to a variety of situations such as personal styles, needs etc.
2. You are not a ‘life coach’ or counsellor either.  This is a very dubious and potentially dangerous area to get into and should be left to qualified, skilled professionals who work specifically in this space.
3. Make sure you make time to coach and let the person you are coaching know that it is a coaching session and nothing else
4. Many of the case studies at the recent OSF2009 conference indicated that a blend of competent internal sales coaching by sales managers supported by external experts in sales coaching was very advantageous to their sales teams’ performance and productivity.

While many sales managers do not have the framework or tools in place to coach with purpose, skillful coaching can be incredibly rewarding and provide huge benefits for the individuals, team and organisation.  It not only makes your sales people perform better, you can also become a better manager as a result.

Feedback from sales managers we have worked with who have learned and applied skillful coaching has been very positive.

“It’s really been the template I’ve structured my sales agenda around with my people. It’s provided a practical approach that’s behavioural based and through the follow up sessions really help embed sustained change and clear direction as to how we achieve goals through prospecting existing or new to business opportunities.”

“How have I changed? – an interesting question. I think I’ve become a better coach, and I enjoy it much more – seeing sales people get great responses from clients when they use your principles is a big buzz for all of us.  I’m a better coach because I’m more focused on what I’m looking for, and concentrate on sales people’s strengths as the basis to start (in the past I was too critical and less supportive).  I believe more now that I can help sales people change (and I have also), and it’s helped me to more clearly identify which areas sales people need help with. I can also better express my own successes as a sales person in my past, as a reference and example of the practices sales people should use – it’s easier to talk specific examples and situations and then relate them to your principles.”

Remember, a culture of coaching is really a continuous improvement strategy.

And everybody lives by selling something.

Sue Barrett is Managing Director of BARRETT.

I recently had the opportunity to attend the inaugural Optimising the Sales Force Conference (http://www.osf2009.com.au), along with over 120 high level sales leaders across Australia.  I was privileged to be part of the panel of international and local experts presenting on sales effectiveness where we explored the latest research on sales strategy, leadership, learning and development, sales management, sales people, and current market trends.

This was the first time in Australia we have had the opportunity to come together as a profession and share ideas and discuss important matters moving forward. There have, of course, been industry specific forums held for the profession of selling but not one that brought industries of all kinds together to discuss sales specifically. It’s hard to believe but this was the first time this has occurred in Australia and about time to! It was really about driving a better profession.  Many people are unaware of just how skillful you need to be to run a sales team or lead a successful sales career.

The conference was full of important information and we also had the privilege of hearing from the elder statesmen of strategic selling 78 year old Bob Miller of Miller Heiman fame, who pulled no punches and reminded us of the foundations of our success. We also heard from Tom Snyder who is world renowned for his expertise in creating high performing sales teams.

Over the next few weeks I thought I would share with you some of the insights and findings from the conference in more depth but here is a summary of the topics we discussed and where our attention was focused.  This might give you some insight into where the world of selling is heading.

• Everybody is in sales: there was overwhelming agreement that everyone in business is in sales – You are either selling or supporting someone to sell.  If your people are disassociating themselves with sales then you need to let them know in no uncertain terms we all live by selling something and they had better get with the program or get out.
• New customer behaviours: the economic downturn has changed how customers conduct business and interact with suppliers, while this comes as no surprise there are now new customer behaviours we need to contend with.  In particular, the increase in risk aversion was cited as being one of the most contentious issues.  This risk adverse approach is leading to indecision by clients meaning that rather than losing to a competitor, nothing happens.    So it is critical that sales people are able to work more strategically with clients and challenge them to help them make good decisions moving forward.  This requires a more assertive, confident style of sales person.
• The Challenger Sales Person: research by The Corporate Executive Board Company reported that we need to find and cultivate the ‘Challenger Sales Person’ who is best suited for these markets moving forward.  Some of the key characteristics of these people are that they always have a different view of the world, understand the customer’s business, love to debate, and challenge the customer’s ideas and perspective; in short they are at their best as commercial educators and bringers of new ideas and innovations to help businesses function better.
• Coaching, coaching, and more coaching: At least 40-60% of a sales manager’s job should be dedicated to coaching their sales people.  Yet it still remains an area that is poorly executed.  We were shown excellent case studies which demonstrated the financial return of sales coaching.  Many of the case studies indicated that a blend of competent internal sales coaching by sales managers supported by external experts in sales coaching was very advantageous to their sales teams’ performance and productivity.
• Role clarity and clear expectations: make sure salespeople and sales managers understand their roles and what is expected of them.  Make it explicit and ensure people are adequately skilled to carry out their responsibilities.
• Clear the dead wood quickly: sales managers spend too much time with people who produce too few results.  Focus your attentions on those people who are already showing they want to do well and are actually doing their job.  You have more hope in getting to your better performers to be much better producers than wasting your time on people who will never perform.  As Tom Snyder said “Sales managers are guilty of thinking they can ‘save’ these people from themselves” – his advice is “get rid of them now!”
• Insight and awareness: despite all the skills, tools, and processes around salespeople and sales managers need to be able to develop their own internal guidance and support systems.  The ability to reflect on our own performance, be resilient, show empathy, and work ethically was high on the agenda. Personal insight and making a personal commitment to the corporate objectives is also important for ongoing success.
• Connect strategy to activity: your strategy should translate into practical actions people can apply and see results from.
• Marketing and sales unite: marketing needs to support sales and sales must support marketing.  There is no in between.  Hugh McFarlane from MathMarketing stressed the importance of making sure that all touch points and messages are in alignment.
• Really connect with your key clients: Bob Miller pressed home the importance of being truly connected to your best clients, however he said you cannot have a strategic relationship that is only one way.  Your clients must want it as much as you do and there is mutual agreement on the conditions of the relationship. He stated that most companies are very poor at managing this aspect of their business and it leaves them vulnerable to losing major accounts.
• Corporate assets: today’s reality is that in addition to people, property, plant equipment, and IP some of the biggest and most often overlooked assets are companies strategic accounts.  They need to be on the agenda of the ‘C’ suite i.e. the CEO, CFO, COO, etc.

I hope that this provides you with some valuable information and insights into what is happening in sales today and into the future. I will go into more depth in the ensuing weeks about these and other topics we covered.

Happy selling.

Sue Barrett is Managing Director of BARRETT