Do you have the sales force your strategy needs in 2010?

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Do you have the sales force your strategy needs in 2010?

December 21, 2009 in Culture, Strategy

The other week I ran a webinar for SmartCompany.com.au on ‘How to clearly manage and measure your sales team’. During the webinar I was asked many questions, one of which came from a senior sales leader, “With some time to reflect over the Christmas break, what is the one thing I should focus on getting right for my business?”

Given that business as usual is not ‘usual’ anymore, I suggested the following:

1. Review your business and sales strategy

Do you have the right strategy in place?
What has changed over the last 12 months
How has your client mix changed? i.e. are your key accounts still key? What emerging markets have come into play that you need to be in?
Does your tactical marketing plan still support your sales and business strategy?

2. Do you have the right sales team structure in place?

Is your current sales team ‘fit’ enough to deliver your strategy?
If not, can you get them to the standard where they will be competitive?
If the answer is ‘No’, then what types of sales force do you need?
Do you need more reps in the field, more people on the phones, or do you need a different type of sales force?
In an ideal world what would your sales force look like? How would it function if it were to deliver effectively on your sales strategy?

By asking yourself these questions and reflecting on the current state of play in your market and business you can imagine what it could be like. The market and how you intend to apply your strategy will dictate the kind of sales force you need.

Do you have the sales force your strategy needs for 2010?

Not sure? Then I recommend you read these previous posts Success is a moving platform- How do I keep my sales team on it and Create your ideal sales force blueprint for more insight and guidance.

On a final note for the year end, I would like to thank the my team at Barrett and for the opportunity to write to an ever growing readership; I have been writing since February 2007 and the feedback I receive has been fantastic.

And don’t forget to complete the Barrett poll on The 12 Sales Trends of 2010. We want to know what you think will be the number one sales trend in 2010.

We will publish the results of the most important Sales Trends for 2010 in January. Make sure you are subscribed to our blog to receive in depth articles on The 12 Sales Trends of 2010, starting in January with the No. 1 trend as voted by you our readers.

On that note I wish everyone associated with Barrett, our team, our clients, our suppliers, our supporters and our families all the very best for 2010 and look forward to contributing more articles on the wonderful world of selling.

Remember, Everybody lives by selling something.

See you in 2010.

Cheers
Sue

Author: Sue Barrett is Founder & Managing Director of BARRETT

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What are the benefits of a CRM system in your business?

October 7, 2009 in CRM, Sales Planning, Sales Relationships, Strategy, Value Creation

First of all what does CRM stand for? CRM = Customer Relationship Management.

The concept of CRM has been around for a long time. The original form of CRM was a manual card system kept by a sales person that usually sat on the sales person’s desk or alongside them in the car. These client cards sets were very valuable to the sales person as this is where they kept important customer information such customer contact details, key contacts in the company, a running commentary on their activities, personal and product preferences, buying patterns, business connections and so forth. Each card was a dossier on each client. To successful, well managed sales people, their client cards were gold.

However, often times, this vital data resided with the sales person alone. The company, the sales person worked for, did not have ready access to this important information and when the sales person left the company more often than not so did the client information, client relationship and sales did as well.

The ‘softwarising’ of CRM for businesses is seen as a major breakthrough in being able to capture important client information and better manage client relationships. CRM promises faster customer service at lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, better customer retention and ultimately customer loyalty and more sales. However many companies still believe that CRM is simply software, or technology and the full benefits of CRM are not being fully realised by business. CRM is much more than just a data-mining tool.

CRM is not (just) technology.

CRM is a business strategy!

Your CRM has the potential to and should be your corporate memory. It can be the archeological record of your business. In fact, if introduced and applied correctly, one of the most significant benefits of having and using a CRM in your business is being able to fully realise and map the true value of your clients as company assets. Besides the obvious benefits to you and your business, if ever you chose to sell your business, having a CRM with all this valuable information tracked and mapped can be valued and sold for premium.

This trail of information becomes a real asset in itself. A potential buyer can see your business in real client terms and understand the value of the client relationships to the business. Therefore instead of the wisdom and knowledge going out the door with the previous owner it can be captured and retained with the new owners to be further cultivated and developed.

NB: Not all data is good data. You must make sure you have the right information in place. Too many CRM’s are filled with rubbish data and the wrong stuff making them a liability not an asset.

As a CEO, you can’t make the right decisions if you don’t have the right data/information foundations in place. If you are going to get the best benefits from a CRM strategy and CRM tools you need to know how to you are going to align your key business objectives between your clients, sales people, suppliers and the rest of your business so every piece of relevant information and action adds value to the client fulfillment process.

The interconnectedness of clients to your business can begin to be truly mapped and you will then see how everyone in your business can affect the retention and growth of your clients, not just your sales people.

According to Mark Parker, MD of www.SmartSelling.com and expert in CRM’s and Customer Systems:

“Sales reps often represent the “face” of your company. In order for them to do their part in driving outstanding sales results, they should be empowered to put their best foot forward when representing their company. To do this, a Sales Automation or CRM needs to be in tune with their needs. Putting their best foot forward is going to mean many things.“

Further to this I would like to add that a CRM should also be in tune with your customers needs helping them have the best experience they can have with you.

What does an effective CRM system look like?

An effective CRM system should be what your strategy needs and wants it to be. These days you can get access to open source CRM software where you can configure what you want in your CRM so you do not have to be tied to proprietary CRM’s that cannot be customised to your needs. Also CRM’s do not have to be prohibitively expensive either. Many people have put off getting CRM’s in the past due to their high cost and focus on big corporations. But now good CRM’s systems are available for SME’s and home based businesses at very cost effective rates. For instance we use SugarCRM at Barrett which is an open source system we can configure to suit our business needs.
This means you need to think carefully about what you want your CRM system to do and be and who you partner with to make it work for you.
A good place to start is to:

Know your business strategy and key outcomes you want to achieve and work backwards from there.
Know your customer, their needs, wants and motives and your path to market
Appreciate the length, width and depth of the relationships between the customer and your organisation
Understand how you properly manage of all interactions with your customer
Know what your sales and service people need to do make sales happen in your business.
Aim to build a business system that manages prospects, clients and projects.

Look at what data, behaviours, and outcomes you want to track:

Client data, sales person activity data, product sales data, effectiveness of marketing initiatives including your website, direct mail/email campaigns, etc.
What behaviours do you want to encourage and reinforce in your sales and service teams as well as your clients and prospects?
What do you want to measure by way of lead and lag sales indicators?
How do you want to communicate data internally and externally?

Important point: you do not want you CRM to turn your salespeople into glorified desk jockeys. We need to make sure any CRM is easy to use, doesn’t take necessary time away from vital interpersonal sales activities. If you think your CRM can replace your sales team you will fall short in your efforts. If your business needs to be in personal contact in some way with your clients you need your CRM to enhance these relationships not replace them.
Here are some ways a CRM system can serve you well:

Provide immediate insight into prospect and customer leads originating from any channel
Provide deep visibility into the sales pipeline and opportunity details which quickly produce accurate sales forecasts.
Allow for a consistent, informed, and personalised customer communication approach i.e. automated emails relevant to the specific customers
Give sales people and everyone in your business access to a consolidated view of the customer across your organisation – this will allow everyone in the organisation to know how they can help play their part in taking control of every opportunity and managing it to a successful conclusion
Encourage, enforce and track best-practice sales methodologies you want in your sales teams i.e. logging of Lead Indicator Activities such as: # of prospecting calls made, # of client meetings had; # of real deals in the pipeline, # of sales made: # of cross sales made, # of sales made with new clients, # of sales made with existing clients, # of follow customer service enquiries, # of service calls, etc.
Encourage, enforce and track best-practice service methodologies you want in your customer service and support teams i.e. logging of Lead and Lag Indicator Activities such as # of follow customer service calls made post sales, # of service calls made, # of customer service calls and complaints received, etc.
Monitor and map effectiveness of have automated sales and marketing activities that are specific to the customers and markets
Steamline and automate those customer activities that can go online i.e. confirmation emails, automatic emails sent out at periodic intervals for things like renewals for instance
Map work in progress with clients and staff allocated to client projects
Have the ability to integrate with your website and keep track of web activity
Support your entire frontline sales and sales lead management team with the right information they need to quickly and efficiently fulfill all of their daily requirements.
Deliver knowledge at the point of action
Keeps vital customer data in the business whether the sales person stays of leaves thus creating a valuable company asset.

Word of caution: Before you even think about integrating Twitter or Facebook into your data mix and CRM, which is a hot topic at the moment, make sure your current data is clean and relevant because if it is not then you will be piling more garbage on an already big garbage heap and there’s no value in that.

Remember CRM systems are tools that should support, enhance and grow the customer relationship by giving your sales team and others in your business access to vital information they can act upon with purpose and in the easiest manner possible.

A CRM should not be an imposition on anyone, a CRM should be a part of your vision to continually improving the relationships with your customer, your sales team and everyone in your business.

CRM is a strategy and way of life not a piece of technology.

Remember everyone lives by selling something.

Happy selling.

Sue Barrett is Managing Director of BARRETT Pty Ltd.

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The coming together of sales leaders in Australia

October 1, 2009 in Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Research, Strategy

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

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Are you creating competing motivations in your sales force?

July 10, 2009 in Ethics & Values, Sales Leadership, Strategy

How to incentivise and reward sales people has long been a contentious topic. Too many times I have seen businesses set up incentive programs that reward the wrong behaviours which can affect team morale, client relationships, sales, staff retention, and so on.

For instance, I recently met the managing director of a medium sized software business who asked me why would his sales people keep selling one version of their product when they had been instructed to also sell in a newer more comprehensive version of the product.

I asked him two questions:
1. “How do your sales people get incentivised for each product sale?”
2. “Do they earn most of their income from their commissions or from their base salary?”

It turned out that his sales people earned more commission by selling in the older version than the newer version of his product. And the sales people made the bulk of their income from their commissions rather than from their salaries.

There you have it. What makes perfect sense to the sales person – “If I make more money by selling in one type of product and the majority of my income comes from my commissions I would be stupid selling anything else.” does not always work for the organisation or the customer.

Lesson: If you want a different outcome (as did the aforementioned MD), you need to think about what behaviours you want to drive and reward in your people that don’t create competing motivations.

And here in lies the issue with certain aspects of the Financial Planning industry.

Much of what is being written about the Financial Planning industry in current and recent times is centering around the issue about competing motivations.

As I see it there are two different models in operation in the Financial Planning industry:

Fee for service model

Is where you engage an independent Financial adviser to guide you and instruct you in your financial planning and wealth management strategies. These people are in the business of selling their consulting services and their advice. They earn their income purely off their hourly consulting time. Service fees are applicable to the level of service provided. Their focus is on advising on the three keys are of wealth management: Creation, Consolidation and Distribution with no products commission attached to their advice.

Product sales model

Is where you buy a specific product or suite of products to incorporate into your financial planning and wealth management strategies. In this instance you know you are buying a product via a transactional product sale. You can do this at a bank branch for instance. Some people who run their own self-managed super funds work this way by purchasing only product. Others may use a broker who sells a range of these products and can provide easy access to the right product you need. Brokers usually make their money by getting a commission on the sale of these products. Some brokers also make trail commissions for the life time of the sale which is where you are seeing an increase in complaints. This model is basically the old Insurance Sales model.

There is nothing wrong with these models so long as they are open and transparent and do what they say they do.

Basically, people should know what they are getting i.e. independent advice for a specified fee or product for a specified fee/commission. For instance there are customers who do not want to ‘pay fee for service’ and prefer the commission model so these two models offer choice which is only fair in an open market.

However the problems arising for the Financial Planning industry is when people using the ‘product sales model’ try to pass it off as the ‘independent financial adviser’ model. All this does is create competing motivations like:

“Do I give my client what is best for them or best for me?”
“I need to sell more product to supplement my retirement pool not necessarily my clients.”

The issue as I see with this approach it is that we are more likely to get products that make the most money for the broker or planner not the best product or solution for us. We are at risk of becoming a vehicle for them to make as much money as possible at our expense as is evidenced by some of the more spectacular business failures in recent times.

Financial Planners who are really only selling product with a commission structure attached as their main source of income cannot truly act in an independent advisory or consulting role.

The competing motivation that can arise is that they can become more concerned with how they could get paid rather than how they can provide better advice for their clients.

This poses some important questions for the industry:

Why have these competing motivations been allowed to manifest?
In the industry trying to squeeze a product sales model into a consulting sales model?
What is the industry doing about creating a client centric model where it’s all about the client and the client’s outcome?
What relationships have been created with the product suppliers that may be leading to these competing motivations?

In my opinion the terms Financial Adviser or Financial Planner have been poorly defined and often misused by the industry potentially leading to misunderstandings, confusion, and in some cases distress and financial loss for some customers because they did not get what they paid for.

In my opinion, those who sell product should be called a Financial Product Specialist or Financial Products Broker.

And those who truly practice legitimate Fee for Service models can rightly call themselves a Financial Adviser or Financial Planner.

Clearly this issue will not go away until the industry finds the best way to legitimately define Financial Advising or Financial Planning and stop creating opportunities for competing motivations which only serve to devalue their industry and its potential for a truly professional model that works for all. More work to be done here .

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

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Create your ‘Ideal’ sales force blueprint

May 28, 2009 in Culture, Recruitment, Sales Leadership, Sales Planning, Strategy

Now is the time to rethink your sales strategy and your sales force. Design the sales force your business needs and get great results.

Tip: It’s all in the thinking and planning that happens before the execution.

To help you start your thinking and planning here are two case studies from our work files where the businesses got it right.

Story one: Transform your current sales team into a new sales team

“The Sales Culture transformation and competency project we worked on with you in 2008 has been such a great success for our team. The culture is now fantastic and the morale of the Sales Team is very good. We aimed for the culture we wanted and got it. People have settled into their roles and are working out fantastically. It was the planning and thinking behind it that made it work. The Competency work has, without a doubt, made a difference. The Sales Competencies are ‘Gold’. We refer to them all the time and the Sales People are using them as well to develop themselves and have clearer, more accountable, performance reviews. The competencies helped our team realise how responsible they need to be in their roles.”

This is what can happen when you design your sales force to deliver your strategy. This quote comes from a Sales Director of a business we have worked with for many years. They had the same sales force structure over the last 15 years and a very stable sales force to go with it. The team and structure had worked very well, however the market was changing and the business and its sales people needed to adapt and evolve to ensure they were current, fit and productive.

In 2008, this Sales Director realised she needed to develop a new strategy moving forward and with that needed a new sales culture and team to deliver it. But she didn’t want to get rid of the current sales team. They were good operators with great industry knowledge and experience. She knew it would be foolish to start from scratch with a new team and she didn’t want to create confusion or unnecessary unrest or anxiety in her existing team.

Her concerns rested around getting buy-in from the team regarding the new strategy and, in particular, their need to adjust their roles somewhat. Despite not wanting to lose people she was prepared to do so if necessary.

What did she do?

Developed her sales strategy and then presented her strategy to her sales team, inviting feedback and explaining ‘why’ they all needed to move in this direction using a well researched, evidenced based approach. The team knew what was happening in the market place so it came as no surprise to them that they needed to shift. That is fine intellectually, however we knew the challenge would be in actually getting them to shift in real terms.
To get the real shift happening she then engaged her team in the development of the new Sales Roles by engaging in a ‘job design’ process with us.
Out of the ‘job design’ process we developed the right Sales Behavioural Competencies (DNA) and ‘ideal’ role/person specification matched to sales strategy, product and customer base.
Sales Behavioural Competencies were then linked to the Sales Team performance management reviews and are now being used in coaching, recruitment and succession planning processes.
Sales Behavioural Competencies were mapped to measurable sales metrics
The Sales Behavioural Competencies now act as a pivotal reference point in all their work.

As mentioned, the Sales People are using Sales Behavioural Competencies to develop themselves, have clearer, more accountable, performance reviews and better role clarity which means they know how they need to perform to achieve their strategy goals.

Story two: Design the sales team you want from scratch – green fields

A Divisional Manager of a large Australian corporate came to us because they didn’t want to hire people from their industry as they didn’t think they were competitive in the current market. They wanted to refresh the gene pool and bring in fit sales people who were not tarnished by the industry mindset and its way of doing things. They knew that in this over commoditised marketplace their sales people were their competitive edge.

They were on the right track but didn’t know where and how to start. So here is what we did together to find elite sales performers:

Reviewed sales strategy, path to market, and products being sold
Developed the right Sales Behavioural Competencies (DNA) and ‘ideal’ role/person specification matched to sales strategy, product, and customer base
Built a structured sales recruitment process and kit
Targeted industries the new breed of sales people could come from and went to market to find them
Built and implemented the right sales induction training program matched to sales strategy, sales competencies, product, and customer base
Had new sales team present their ‘go-to-market’ action plan to senior management before they went to market
Implemented a sales management support system
Followed up with infield training and coaching
Mapped and measured sales metrics

The results were stunning from a sales initiative perspective.

The ‘new breed’ of elite sales performers achieved a sales closing ratio of 4:3 within 2 months against an industry average of 3:1 and sold the annual sales budget within 5 months.

Feedback from the sales people was that this was the best sales recruitment and sales induction process they had ever been through. In all their sales careers, and many came from big name companies, they have never been set up so well to succeed. They felt confident, proud, and capable to really deliver.

Feedback from the client: “We worked in partnership to develop an end-to-end model for a new innovative sales team. The approach was unique in that they worked with us across recruitment, training, needs analysis, pitch planning and the end delivery. They added huge value to any sales process.”

By designing your ‘ideal’ sales force blue print you can build and achieve the following in your business:

Change your culture by creating the sales culture you want
Design the ideal sales force you want
Recruit the sales force you want / your strategy needs
Refresh your thinking, ideas, actions and results
Develop career paths and succession planning
Clear performance expectations
Clearer, more accountable, performance reviews
Provide a framework for identifying what a high performing sales person looks for your business
Profiling of the core sales capabilities / competencies for sales managers/ sales people for use in recruitment, performance management, training, coaching and succession planning.
Provide a framework for assessing the calibre of candidates as defined by core competencies and values;

As you prepare for the next financial year and are developing your sales strategy take time to reflect on what your ‘ideal’ sales force blue print should be.

Do not underestimate the value of taking time to think and plan, ultimately it could make you a lot more money.

Sincerely, your advocate for selling the right way.

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