Sales Laundry

Posts Tagged ‘Learning through mistakes’

From my experience, most companies don’t know their sales department is dead until they begin to smell the corpse and see their sales numbers fall off a cliff into Lake Competitor.

 It has been my job from time to time over the years to identify sales issues, diagnose sales health and return these sales organizations to top form.  As a result, I have learned where to look for the signs of decay.  Here is a rough version of the roadmap I use to find the problems.

Sales Metrics

 How are the Sales Managers measuring their existing sales team’s performance?  More often than not, I find that the sales organization as a whole is only using one sales metric consistently, final sales numbers. 

You can’t steer a dog by its tail and if you try you will eventually end up stepping in it.  The same is true of the Sales department.

 The final sales numbers should not be a measurement tool because it is too late at that point to do anything about it.  Final sales numbers are only a gauge, measuring your sales success for one moment in time.  No different than a customer survey or comment card after a sale measures overall customer service on a single sales transaction.

 A good sign would be to see multiple sales metrics in place and seeing Sales Managers actually use them to manage their business.  (CRM packages setup and used properly are a great source of information assuming the stored information is current, complete and accurate.)

The Sales Managers

 If the metrics are out of whack or missing I look for the Sales Manager to understand how he is managing his team and how he reviews his sales pipeline.

 Typically I find that a struggling sales department has a Sales Manager that is spending too much time looking at the bottom of the sales funnel or has never been trained how to  measure his team’s performance.

The Forecast

 The next stop is the individual forecasts of the sales team, present and past if available.  I want to understand how leads are collected and the process determining how a lead is converted to an opportunity and how it moves its way through the system toward a close.  I want to know what specific information a sales representative used to rank every opportunity on his or her forecast.

Usually this will tell me there is no consistent process for converting leads in place and the present standard is a combination of guess work and wishful thinking.

 I also want to understand what they are selling and equally important, what they are not selling and why.  This helps me understand what other departments outside of sales I need to visit.

Sales Training Process

 A look at sales training is next on my list.  How are the sales representatives being trained?  What methodology are they using?  How do they get trained on new offerings?  How have they been trained to manage opportunities through the pipeline?

The Services, Support & Systems Engineers

 Next I want to meet with the services manager. I want to understand how he decides what he will train his staff on, how they maintain certifications, how skill sets are allotted to the various offerings the company sells, and if there is communication with Sales to keep them in lock step with what Sales is actually selling. 

The Marketing Department

 The marketing department, if there is one, is next.  I want to compare the message Sales is sending with the message Marketing is sending.  I also want to understand how they coordinate their efforts in the end goal of bringing in more business.

C-Level Executives

 I want to understand the overall company direction.  What are the company objectives?  What are the company commitments to vendors and distribution relationships?  What is the company sales message? Etc.

Summary

 Decay in a sales organization can come all the way from the top, manifested in bad policies or poor communication that puts various departments in isolated silos.  From my experience it is the well connected CEO, or oddly enough the lowly Sales Manager that is in the best place to diagnose these problems internally.

 In the early days I only looked at the Sales department but as I worked through the challenges I began to expand my scope because many of the problems manifesting themselves in Sales I found were created by seeming innocuous decisions made in other parts of the company.

 If your sales department is inconsistent, struggling or darn near dead, look at the quality and quantity of your leads, analyze your forecast, focus on managing the top of the sales funnel and take this list and use it to find the root cause of your problem, don’t get caught up treating symptoms.

 

When sales are difficult to come by, there is, I believe, a natural gut instinct to nudge a company toward broadening its services in hopes of reaching a wider swath of potential customers.  You typically have to look no further than the existing Sales Managers and Account Executives to find the source of this internal “Scope Creep.”

 While this idea may sound good bouncing around your head, in practical application this seemingly small leap in logic can very well destroy a company.

In electing to follow this strategy you are in essence trading some of your market depth for market breadth, and your competitors will love you for it. 

 Lose some focus on what you are best at and you run the risk of alienating some of your current customer base.  Experience any reduction in quality or service while your eye is off the ball and you just make it that much more difficult for a prospective customer to differentiate between you and a close competitor.

 Lacking depth and experience in you new expanded area of focus, you risk never establishing a customer base.

Lacking a specialization or something to hang your hat on, it is very easy for a company to succumb to “death by being average.”  Look no further than the recent death of Circuit City.

This is not to say a company cannot expand successfully.  They can and do every day with planning and new infrastructure to support the growth.

 In most instances, the better answer is to narrow your focus to what you are absolutely best at and where you hold the maximum competitive advantage.  Mine existing sales, established relationships and references to build sales leverage, making each new sale easier than the last.

 

If you are not known for something you will be known for nothing.

I got this email today from one of the LinkedIn groups I am associated with trying to sell me outsourced services for my business.  I opened it up, read the first three lines and deleted it.

 Then I decided to pull it back out and see if I could improve on the efforts of the original sales person and make a sales lesson out of it.  I am ignoring the spelling/gramatical mistakes as I am not an English teacher, I am a VP of Business Development.  The names have been changed to protect the sales or marketing knucklehead that wrote it. 

 

The Original – feel free to skip ahead as I could not get past the first 3 lines of this email on my first pass.

 HEADLINE: For Possible Business Collaboration / Oppurtunities

 Dear Mr.Val, 

I represent ABC Company, an offshore based services outsourcing Organization. We help our world-wide clients with our outsourced services such as;

Global HR Services – All Technologies, All Business Domains, All Business skills, At all levels of expertise & Knowledge.
- Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO),
- Worldwide Contractor staffing – Offshore/Remotely working resources/Onsite resources
- Online/Remote/Onsite Training & Development -Technology & non Technology training, e-learning courses development & Administration, Monitoring & Managing Training needs etc.
- Payroll Processing
- Employee records maintenance, & verifications
- Travel &, Accommodation
- HR policies & strategies
- Market /Competitor research
- Employees Compensation & Benefits
- Performance Appraisals processing, Administration & Management.

In addition, ABC Company helps worldwide organizations in the following areas;
1. Information Technology services (IT solutions development, customization, integration, Migration, upgrading, Implementation, Maintenance, Support etc. – All Technologies & Business Domains

2. Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO services – (a) Engineering – Mechanical, Civil, Architectural, structural b) Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO – all skills) c) Technical Writing & Communications d) Remote infrastructure Management (RIM – Monitoring & Managing any IT resources remotely, Technical Help desk, Systems & Database Administration, support, e) Animation, 2D, 3D modeling etc.)

3. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO – Document processing, Data entry, help desk, Data analytics, Data/market/IP research, Billing, verifications, Transcriptions etc, Outbound/Inbound Calling services etc – All Business domains and skills)

4. Bioinformatics (Contract/Collaborative Research & Development, Consulting, Life Sciences Software Applications & Tools, Data Mining/Data Analysis, Data & Applications Integration. Clinical Trial I/Medical informatics, LIMS, Internet/Intranet Applications, Multimedia & Virtual Reality Applications, Education & Training)

We have seen the following benefits accruing to our clients from our services;

1. We have a large team of highly qualified, experienced, talented, efficient, young and enthusiastic resources to support your organization in any of the areas shown above.
2. Our teams work as an extended team of onsite teams of our customers, thereby adding more strength and bandwidth and increase your teams’ skills and servicing capabilities.
3. Our resources can work on a 24x7x365 basis; our turn-around time for our service is very short. In most cases, the output will be in your inbox when you reach office the next day morning
4. We help our customers in cost savings of as much as 30-60% on case to case basis
5. We can provide our resources in good numbers at a short notice, and quickly ramp-up to meet your business needs.
6. Our clients save the hassles of constantly searching around for resources, every time, a task needs to be accomplished.
7. Our teams bring to the table, a very strong technical & English Communication (verbal & written) skills, highly professional & helping attitude, business ethics, services delivery expertise & commitment

I would be very glad to know, if ABC Company can be of any help and support to your organization or any of your client organizations, in any of the areas shown above please. I appreciate your time.

My Version

HEADLINE:  Are You Running Your Business or is Your Business Burying You?

 ABC Company helped me save my business!  ABC helped me identify why my operations costs were increasing even as our sales were slowing down.  ABC handles the backend of my operation so I can focus on bringing in new sales.

 Jay Richards, JR Enterprises (VIDEO CLIP:  Jay talks about ABC Company)

 Val,

Imagine I gave you a magic wand that let you eliminate every aspect of your business that you don’t enjoy, or that just seems to take your focus away from the things you feel you need to be doing.

 How much better would your business be if you enjoyed everything you did and had the time to focus on growing your business?

 What could you do if all of that extra weight was lifted off your shoulders?

 My name is Val King and I specialize in helping guys like you offload all the excessive weight that keeps your business from soaring.

 It is not magic, though, it’s our business. 

 Here are the Top 5 things our customers typically ask us to offload for them.

 Human Resources.

Payroll.

Insurance & Benefits Programs.

IT Services & Help Desk.

Billing & Collections.

Call me at 800-xxx-xxxx and let’s identify the Top 5 things weighing down your business.

If it makes sense, I will offload your Top 5 list for Free for a few weeks so you can experience our brand of magic and experience the impact you can have on your business once that excess weight is gone.

Val 

 ABC Company manages all of the time consuming aspects of my business that I hated.  Our business is growing again and I spend my days doing what I love.  Thanks ABC.

 Dave Johnson, Johnson Medical (VIDEO CLIP:  Dave talks about ABC Company)

LESSONS LEARNED

The original email reads like a laundry list, these guys are into everything from 3d animation to Life Sciences and Bioinformatics.  They list a lot of capabilities but this sales guy has no idea what my problems are, so he just lists everything they do in this email to make sure they cover every sales base possible.

LESSON:  Research your customer and avoid firing a shotgun email like this one.  Narrow your focus to what you are absolutely best at. 

The intent of this extensive list of services is to show me that they can help me in many different areas of my business with a huge stack of sales offerings and services.  However, I read this feeling that they could not possibly do all of this well.  I have no way of knowing which sales offering is their strongest, nor do I want to take the necessary time it would take to figure it out, so my instinct is to hit the delete key.

LESSON:  Avoid the temptation to send out a laundry list disguised as a marketing email.  It weakens your message and erodes some of your credibility.

The original email establishes no credibility for this company.  I have never heard of them and the only person telling me how great they are is the sales guy.

LESSON:  If the only person saying your company is good is the sales person then no one is saying anything good about your company as far as I am concerned as a customer.  Use legitimate references I can call or for a bigger bang for the buck, use video references I can watch.

There is no tie to what any of these services do for me, the guy that is supposed to pay for this fabulous service.  The sales professional should paint some sort of picture of how my life as the business owner or how my company might be better if I just offload this stuff to them.

LESSON:  It is your job as the salesperson or as the organization sending the email to explain to me how I will benefit from your product.  If you don’t make that connection, don’t expect me to respond.

There is too much text in this flippin’ email (and probably this post.)  The text is small, there are acronyms all over the place (RPO, KPO, LPO, RIM, and LIMS.)

LESSON:  Be as short and concise as possible as you are imposing on my time with your email and use language that is plain and free from industry jargon.

They use the work “all” eight times in the email.  Example:  ”Global HR – ALL Technologies, ALL Business Skills, at ALL levels of experience and knowledge”

LESSON:  Horsefeathers.  I don’t believe it.  I will delete it.  

There are 7 stated benefits for me the customer.  Some are ridiculous adjective fests…

Benefit 1:  Large team that is highly qualified, experienced, talented, effiecient, enthusiastic and as if that was not enough they are also described as being young.  I don’t know about you, but I feel better already. 

Some are not benefits to me at all; they are minimum standards like…

Benefit 7:  Our teams bring very strong technical and English communication skills.  

LESSON:  It is only a benefit if it benefits me.  Write your email as if you are standing in my shoes, not trying to talk me out of them.

This was the closing line.  “I would be very glad to know if ABC Company can be of any help and support to your organization…in any of the areas shown above…  I appreciate your time.”

When I read this closing line what I get out of this email and what the salesman wants me to get out of this email are clearly two different things.  I am sure the salesman would like me to look at the list like some sort of ala carte menu, make a few selections and get back to him so he can work up a quote.

What I read is that the salesman at ABC Company is too lazy to figure out what my business is or what I do all day.  He has effectively hit me with a list of SIC codes and a Scan-Tron asking me to color in the little circle next to my selection with a #2 pencil and get back to him.

LESSON:  Figure out what I need to buy before you try to sell me something.  It seems to work better that way.  If you are going to be lazy and not do the research then don’t send the email at all.

 

Got a suggestion of your own to improve on my improvement?  See another lesson here worth covering?  Add a comment.

“Cleaverly disguided” photo – courtesy of  http://rlv.zcache.com

“English photo” courtesy of - http://www.flickr.com/photos/40741986@N00/399082864

“2 shoes” photo – courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/conqenator/2952567054/ 

 

My 8 year old daughter has some basic responsibilities around the house.  One of which is to keep the bathroom she uses cleaned up  (i.e. cleaning up the toothpaste that gets loose from a wild night of bedtime brushing, rounding up rowdy bath toys, swapping clean towels for the dirty ones, etc.)

One day, with inspired motivation, my daughter decided it was time to give the bathroom a serious cleaning to the standard set by her mother and well beyond the mundane challenges of wrestling with escaped toothpaste.

Once she completed the task to her satisfaction she flew through the house, rattling the stairs on her descent like a herd of stampeding cattle on her way to tell us of her accomplishment.

She was grinning ear to ear, beaming with pride and self satisfaction as she talked about how she cleaned the bathroom the way Mommy did it, not just the kid way.

At my daughter’s announcement, my wife was off like a herd of equally shocked and stampeding cattle, make that graceful gazelles, to survey the damage in the upstairs bathroom.

I knew what was coming next.  Ten seconds later, with precision matched only by the Master Clock at the U.S. Naval Observatory, I heard it.

My daughters name was called with a stern tone and frequency formally set aside by the FCC for the exclusive use of angry mothers.  When I was a boy this broadcast typically originated from my front porch and could be heard for blocks in all directions.

I watched my daughters face, beaming with pride mere seconds ago, register a look of shock and horror, as if she had just watched me punt Fluffy the cat over the back fence. 

We resolved the issue and restored order, but suffice to say my daughter would have rather been airborne with Fluffy than make the death march to her mother upstairs.

Given some time to think and laugh about the situation I began to draw some parallels to managing sales professionals. 

We continually reinforce the idea that our daughter should stretch herself; try new things and new foods for that matter.  We tell her don’t be afraid to fail, that is how you learn. 

We tell our sales representatives the same thing and have for years, give or take the “try new foods” part.

My daughter took our direction.  My daughter felt she had mastered the basics and was ready to stretch.  She felt she could do more and had the desire to prove it even if it meant breaking a rule or two in the process.

Was she rewarded for her attempt to stretch herself and hit the higher standard?  No, just the opposite in fact, being blasted for the final result somewhere shortly after I heard my wife exclaim “You put bleach, where???”

In trying to do more she found herself in more trouble than she would have been in for doing nothing or just meeting the standard set before her that she found unacceptably low.

A great opportunity to reinforce her positive behaviors (even if the end result was wildly off target,) show some appreciation for the effort and initiative, and coach her on some specifics to help her improve next time were lost.

Instead, she could have walked away with an attitude of “My work is not appreciated.  I tried my best.  Fine, from now on I am just doing the basics, it is not worth it to do anything more.”

I am not suggesting that the final results are unimportant.  What I am stating is that the final result, while being very important, is not the only measurement that counts in developing a sales organization.

Handled correctly, these opportunities can truly help you develop the middle 60% of your sales team and help some middle performers move to top performer status. 

Handled poorly, the same sales professional that dared to stretch himself to achieve can become an uninspired team member doing the minimum, working themselves out of your organization, and increasing churn.

Look beyond the end result.  Reinforce the right behaviors even if they deliver the wrong result.

After being whacked upside the head by my daughters misguided initiative the lesson seems clear, minus the small stars floating in a circle above my head.

 As a manager you can make a huge impact in your sales organization by taking a step back, recognizing not just the end result, but the behaviors that led to that end result and carefully selecting the tools and response that will help you develop your sales organization without gutting personal initiative or weeding out their desire for growth.

Image courtesy of cutiepie-photography.com

 

My first official outside job as an account manager began with an immediate wake up call.  I was walked to my new cubicle and directed to have a seat. 

 “Here is your phone.”

 

My new boss looked at me, smiled, nodded his head and pointed to a standard beige 12 button hotel phone.

 “There are your leads.”

 

He said, pointing to a phone book.

 “Keep track of everything and write your proposals on that.  They should have it working later today.”

 He said, pointing to a PC on my desk.

 With that he was gone and my sales career as an account manager was launched.

 I had exactly no idea who I should call or for that matter what I should say if someone answered the phone, except that I was selling computer networking equipment and services.

 At that point I made the single smartest decision a young account manager can make. 

 I flipped the phone book open to a random page, found the first listing and started dialing.

 At that point, not realizing it, I made my first mistake as a young account manager as well.

 My random page selection had me cold calling bail bond companies to make my technology fortune.

 Several calls and an appointment or two later, I learned my first lesson, that bail bond companies were not part of our target market.

 The point is do not let the fear of failure or the fear of not having 100% of the details stop you from swinging for the fences.

 You ARE going to fail sometimes.  You ARE going to get asked a question you do not have an answer to.  If you are in this business any time at all, trust me on this, it is going to happen.

 Don’t fear failure, accept it.   Accept it not because I said it or because it is an old sales adage, accept it because it is as much a part of the business as the shoes on your feet.

 New guys call their mistakes failure and get all upset. 

 I call my mistakes experience.  I learn from them and leave the new guys asking “How did he know to do that?” the next time the scenario presents itself, as it almost always does, again. 

Every sales representative needs to have the ability to wade into an unknown situation with some confidence when all the facts and details are not available to take advantage of opportunities that develop out of no where.

 In short everyone in sales should have some skill at winging it.

 Let me clarify that by “winging it” I am not talking about creatively lying on the fly or just flat out making things up.  That would destroy your credibility and sooner or later, your career.

 I am, however, talking about two important factors that in my humble opinion give you the best opportunity to wing it when you have to.

 

1. Knowledge.  You can’t wing what you don’t know.  You need to develop a complete understanding of your products features, capabilities, AND be able to apply those to real life problems your prospects face.  I as a customer could care less that your product is 20% faster this year unless you can explain to me how my business is going to be appreciably better with your new whiz bang super speedy device.
2. The ability to Speak on Your Feet.  You have got to be comfortable being able to communicate with any one any where at any time.  If you are fearful, or caught up in the mechanics of how to speak, you will not have enough brain power left to figure out what to say.  If you acquire the ability to speak confidently then you will not have to focus on how to’s of speaking but instead focus on what you are going to say.

 

 Research I have read suggests that the fear of public speaking, or Glossophobia, is the number one global fear.

 Some try hypnosis, some try beta blockers though I have no idea why, some try self help books.  My recommendation would be to just practice speaking.  Join Toastmasters in your area or a community group that will force you to speak.

 While some of these methods may work very well, I have a hard time believing that you will get better at speaking without, you know, actually speaking!  Even if it is only to yourself in the mirror.

 But I digress.  The ability to recognize an opportunity for your product or offering and just wade in throwing caution to the wind and “wing-it” will serve you well in a sales career and from my experience, serve you well in almost every other aspect of your life when it is time to speak up.