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The Way I See It: Cutting Through the Clutter
July 14, 2008
Streamline your processes to send productivity soaring
By Don Hammalian
My experience working with a wide variety of companies has taught me never to be surprised at what you discover during an evaluation. Nonetheless, one statistic uncovered by our annual cross-industry productivity report continues to amaze me: Apparently, some salespeople spend as little as 11% of their time actually selling!
What's happening in too many cases is that sales management isn't clearly focused on getting its people in front of prospects and properly executing the fundamentals of selling. Why? Too often executives are saddled with administrative and other non-valued-added chores.
For example, companies often think that adding sales automation systems will boost sales 20% or more. The truth is, many sales organizations rely too heavily on such systems and, as a result, get bogged down. In addition, we find salespeople handling problems and issues that should be delegated to customer service or other support functions.
Sales success begins with ensuring that managers are working with the right processes, as well as managing the leading key performance indicators that will result in sales. This means establishing and defining clear expectations and standards for managing against targeted opportunities. Obviously, activity levels will vary by geography, but they need to be measured against norms to ensure that salespeople are spending optimal time in front of potential buyers.
So activity—the number of calls—is a critical measure. But equally important is the quality of that activity. I can't count the number of times sales managers have told me, "I don't care how many calls my salespeople make as long as they have one 'quality call' every day!" My reply: "Why only one? Why not three, four or five quality calls?"
Another major challenge is striking the appropriate balance between prospecting and selling more to existing accounts. This can only be accomplished by evaluating current activity levels by account, determining what levels of activity are needed to cover both the existing customers and high-potential prospects. Then you remove non-valued added activities and set goals based on new business and existing business targets.
It's not always productive to base targets solely on history, industry standards or because "management needs another 10%." We often find that creative thinking, thorough planning and pure motivation can enable an individual to surpass previous accomplishments.
Sales managers should manage proactively, using an information system that details the status of each opportunity in the pipeline. Additionally, they should be working with short-interval plans and results—daily and weekly, rather than monthly.
Managing proactively also means teaching, coaching and supporting. Sales managers need to be in the field with their teams, adding support and making sure they remain properly focused. Being in the field enables managers to observe whether their teams are executing properly and mastering the fundamentals of selling when they're in front of the customer. Specifically:
• Are they properly prepared for each sales call?
• Are they appropriately positioning and differentiating themselves through their value proposition?
• Are they listening actively and employing the right questioning techniques for engaging the customer, discovering and building needs and value?
• Are they developing and presenting solutions that add maximum value?
• Are they advancing the sale and gaining commitments at every stage of the sales cycle?
In any sales organization, maintaining a culture of positive attitudes and behavior is vital; it makes salespeople eager, confident and driven to win each time they're in front of the customer. Management's role is not only to support and challenge their teams to achieve their objectives, but also to motivate so that they strive to exceed their goals.
Don Hammalian is director of people solutions for Proudfoot Consulting. Recognized globally as an authority on sales performance improvement, he is the creator of the Best-Selling Professional Selling Skills Training Program.
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
This article is brought to you by Sales & Marketing Management, the leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field.
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