Chronicles of a Sales Leader by Miller Heiman

Chronicles of a Sales Leader A Collection of Features Written for Sales & Marketing Management

By Bill Golder

Copyright ÂŠ 2009 by Miller Heiman, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without written permission from the publisher. Publisher Miller Heiman, Inc. 10509 Professional Cr., Suite 100 Reno, NV 89521 1-877-678-0506 www.millerheiman.com

Chronicles of a Sales Leader A Collection of Features Written for Sales & Marketing Management by Bill Golder CONTENTS 3 Tough Times Call for Solid Leadership 6 Can Sales Managers Really Coach? 9 Learn from Losing 12 Decisions Move Up the Ladder as Forecasts Move Down 15 Dare to Differentiate 18 Leadership Imperative 21 Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Your Greatest Asset? 24 Plan to Win in the New Year 26 Filling the Funnel 29 The Lack of Sales and Marketing Alignment in Organizations Today 34 Where Are All the Salespeople? 37 Sales Effectiveness and the Tech Myth 40 The Rise of Procurement 44 Moving Cheese the Right Way

Foreword In economies good and bad, Bill Golder’s columns for Sales & Marketing Management resonate with organizations large and small and with sales professionals veteran and new. Strong leadership should be at the heart of every organization. Sales professionals, beyond working for their respective organizations, should be working for and with their customers, counseling on opportunities that will enhance a client’s business. These are common-sense statements, but unfortunately, they are not always applied in every organization. And that’s often one of the main reasons so many organizations have stumbled. As leaders, we must recognize that our teams (sales, marketing, and otherwise) are extensions of our brands. Our positions as leaders involve much more than reviewing spreadsheets, meeting budgetary constraints, and aiming for top- and bottom-line revenue growth: To achieve all of this, leaders must assume a position of coach and mentor. And, leaders always must remember that our people are, well, people. Like you as a leader, your teams have personal and financial obligations outside of the workplace. As a manager, I live by the following standard: If you are loyal to your team, they will be loyal to you. That simplicity has led to long-standing relationships with team members, including Lorri Freifeld, editor-inchief of Sales & Marketing Management (we’ve worked together at various organizations for more than eight years). Of course, if that simple philosophy is not working, it’s time to make a change. I encourage all of us to read (or reread) Bill Golder’s e-book, a collection of features written for Sales & Marketing Management, as a refresher course. He keeps it simple and sensible. We should continue to assess our own leadership development, assess our business strategies, and assess our team members’ respective strengths and weaknesses. We should always remember that organizations and people are like trees; how we nurture will allow our trees to continuously grow strong, vibrant, and add color. Many thanks to Bill for his editorial contributions to Sales & Marketing Management over the years…and many thanks for asking us to write this foreword. To all, happy reading and refreshing. Your takeaways will aid your companies and team members today, tomorrow, and in the future. All the best, Joyceann Cooney-Garippa Group Publisher & Show Director Sales & Marketing Management Training magazine & Training magazine Events Nielsen Intellectual Property Intelligence Nielsen Business Media, a Nielsen Company

Tough Times Call for Solid Leadership

Downward revenue and earnings reports dominate business headlines. The “R” word echoes on the tongues of our nation’s most trusted financial experts. It seems impossible to avoid a conversation about the economy with friends and coworkers. Yet despite the uncertain economy, sales leaders are likely to see no adjustment in their quota. Throughout the years, I’ve felt the effects of challenging external circumstances more times than I can count. However, I have never received a voicemail or e-mail to inform me that my number would be softened to accommodate difficult times. Instead, these situations prompted more frequent forecast calls and increased pressure to drive to the number. Whether uncertain times are specific to the region you lead, your company, your industry or a broader scenario like today, all sales leaders will need to lead their team through a difficult and challenging economic environment at some point in their careers. And when it’s here, you can count on increased pressure to produce top line results. So, regardless of how things are looking for you today, here are some common pitfalls and insights that identify how to address or avoid them when facing tough economic times.

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Chronicles of a Sales Leader

1. Don’t abandon the client. As pressure to hit your numbers increases, a tendency to push the sales cycle ahead of the client’s buying cycle is a frequent mishap. Salespeople in this situation begin to focus on close dates and fail to solve what the customer is trying to fix, accomplish or avoid. This leads to clients who don’t understand your value proposition because your team is not offering up a solution. Ultimately, those in this situation end up discounting to win or losing the sale. In challenging times, it is even more important to make sure there is rigor and diligence to uncover the root of client issues, identify key buying influences and their wins, understand how the decisions will be made and how such activities will be funded. Now is the time to make sure your team is more diligent about understanding the buying process and less concerned with trying to slam dunk sales.

2. Steer clear of report mania. During uncertain times, many sales leaders go into panic mode and become micromanagers. They tell their team they need to see more calls and more appointments, and they require reps to send in a weekly report that shows they made a million calls that week. If you are doing this to your team, stop the madness. It won’t work. More is not better here. In fact, during uncertain times you should hone in on best-fit prospects and clients and come prepared with sound strategies and valid business reasons to approach key buying influences. Good sales leaders drive activity through one key report—their sales funnel. Evaluate your funnel to ensure your team is spending time on the right prospects and clients. If you find that you have too many deals sitting in the middle of the funnel, or that the companies in your funnel do not match your value proposition, use this information to coach and set priorities for your team.

3. Avoid the superhero syndrome. You were likely a top salesperson in a prior life and that achievement may have landed you in the position you hold today. However, your job is no longer a salesperson. Your job is to help salespeople through effective coaching and guidance on deals. You cannot close every deal for your team and if you did you will have bigger problems once you emerge from whatever battle you are trying to win. Spend time making sure your team has solid plans to pursue key opportunities and the resources they need to win. Get involved in deals where you can add value. Don’t swoop in to take over like a superhero.

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Chronicles of a Sales Leader

4. Don’t fight the wrong battles. There’s nothing like a little pressure inside the walls of a company to bring out the blame game. Don’t become a finger pointer. In fact, curl that index finger and bring key support functions like marketing, customer service and your peers even closer. Invite them in to the battle you are waging with your competitors instead of waging a battle with them. The best sales leaders recognize that reinforcements in a tough battle are much better than creating new battle lines.

5. Practice teambuilding, rather than killing candor. Lastly, this is one of the hardest areas to address. As the pressure builds, it is natural to repel bad news. Creating more tension than necessary with your team and your peers has a disastrous side effect: happy talk. In good times and bad, you need candor to help make decisions on strategies and tactics. If you make it difficult for your team to share bad news with you, you will be faced with more surprises like slipped close dates on big deals, unexpected lost deals and ultimately missed forecasts. Don’t kill the candor.

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Can Sales Managers Really Coach?

There’s a lot of talk lately about coaching, and I’m not referring to the debate on your favorite sports blog regarding all-time great coaches in sports. While it’s not a new topic in the world of leadership and management, it seems to be on the minds of many sales executives looking to improve productivity. In the past, improving the way front-line sales managers coach was often an initiative pushed by human resources. Today, the most senior sales leader is looking to crack the code on how to get more coaching and leadership out of their managers. Universally, most executives agree that this is one of the toughest initiatives to implement and to gain traction. Why is this so hard? Many of us might wonder if it’s even possible to happen in any meaningful way. I’ve heard all the reasons: increasing spans of control in headcount and geographic coverage, increasing responsibilities with fewer resources, multiple corporate initiatives (such as managing a new comp plan roll-out or implementing a new CRM system), new directions coming from the top, etc. It gets overwhelming to put our arms around something as soft and hard to measure as coaching with all of the challenges that can get in the way. Let’s take a step back and look at some of the issues that every organization should consider when looking to improve effective coaching.

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Chronicles of a Sales Leader

Coaching Defined First, let’s all agree that the term “coaching” carries a multitude of meanings. Think about the proliferation of consultants who make a good living off of a variety of coaching angles. Career coaches, life coaches, executive management coaches … the list goes on. It’s important that every sales leader defines what good coaching should look like in their organization and make it as tangible as possible. For example, when a sales manager is considered a good coach, what does he do that can be replicated? Answering that question will help establish a definition that everyone can identify with and measure down the road. Another common issue is that many organizations tackle coaching before basic process issues are addressed. The playbook has to be defined in terms of common language and process. It must clearly establish how the organization will create opportunities, pursue opportunities and manage relationships. Without those key processes, it’s difficult to define a tangible coaching discipline inside the organization that can be replicated. Get the playbook in place to outline your expectations on how you want managers to coach.

Invest in Your Managers The 2008 Miller Heiman Sales Best Practices Study (for more on this study, read “Are You the Reason Profits Are Down”) revealed that the most successful sales organizations invest in tools to assist their managers in interviewing, selection, delivering effective performance appraisals, and sharing best practices. You can’t expect your managers to coach and develop their team if you don’t invest in the right support for them. It starts at the top. As a rookie sales manager, my sales vice president ingrained the importance of frequent one-on-one time. It wasn’t spent telling me about the latest corporate initiative, but rather my agenda to raise the opportunities and issues in which I needed coaching and help. He coached so I followed suit with my team. If you’re the most senior sales leader, coaching won’t improve unless you are going first and leading the way.

A Learned Skill Like selling, coaching is a blend of art and science. Also like selling, too much is left to chance, with very little science and rigor. What’s true about sales, a craft that relies on strong effective interactions, is also true in coaching. We often forget some of the skills that make us successful with clients when working with our people—preparing

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Chronicles of a Sales Leader

good questions to better understand their win, figuring out what they’re trying to fix, accomplish or avoid, providing value by raising questions that allow them to think a bit differently, and listening so you can best understand where you can leverage your experiences to help them achieve desired results. Coaching is often thought of as a touchy feely skill. The best coaches clearly lay out expectations, provide specific feedback in a timely manner, apply consistency and rigor to the sales process, and always focus on how their coaching will contribute to the individual, team and organizational results. By the way, in case you are interested in my vote for the best sports coach of all time? It’s Vince Lombardi. He was no softie.

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Learn From Losing

Everyone who has ever been in sales can remember the feeling of winning their biggest deal. In business, there aren’t many things like winning a big deal that can create that kind of excitement and triumph to an organization. But when it comes to the deals that got away, most individuals—and organizations—seem to have amnesia. In fact, it’s amazing how quickly we all move on without another word on lost deals, as if they never existed. The irony is that these deals typically took longer and used more resources than the ones we won. I’m in a fortunate position to be able to see how some very good organizations capture and learn from both won and lost deals. It’s safe to say that far fewer have put a real discipline to understanding the latter. Those that do tend to be higher performing organizations and are learning things that are helping them sustain performance. These organizations aren’t just talking about lost deals—they are incorporating a loss review process into how they execute. The outcomes are helping sales and marketing take away key nuggets that shape overall client acquisition and relationship management strategies. So what does a loss review process look like and what are companies learning from it?

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Chronicles of a Sales Leader

Let’s start with the meaning of a lost deal. We all tend to think about losing a deal in a very linear way—the deal moves all the way through the funnel and the customer makes a decision. In fact, most lost deals don’t work out that way at all. It’s surprising the number of deals that fall out of the funnel long before they reach the proposal stage and how often they are “lost” to other factors—such as competing priorities or internal resources vs. a true competitor. Companies who get this want to learn just as much about those that fell out of the funnel early as those that follow the stereotypical stages. It’s important to get everyone on the same page as to what lost means. It may also help to create other definitions, such as “no interest” or “on hold” to begin understanding and categorizing what happens when you don’t win. Once everyone is on the same page with defined funnel stages and the definition of a lost deal, you can put the process into motion. The best examples of clients we see executing a loss review process typically incorporate the following elements: • Criteria for deal sizes that will be incorporated into the process. • A standard format for capturing the attributes for each deal, and some sort of scoring system to evaluate the strength of each attribute in comparison to scenarios when you win. • Involvement of both sales and marketing in the process: there are key findings that can impact how you attract new opportunities as much as how you manage them. • An environment of discovery vs. blame: candor will be critical in having meaningful findings that help to improve overall conversion and effectiveness. • A mechanism to cascade key findings that can benefit both sales and marketing. Important adjustments in both marketing and sales strategy are being made by those organizations deploying a loss review process with the above elements. My observation has been that organizations with this in place seem to be much more effective in the following areas: • A well understood value proposition that better aligns sales and marketing. They are learning through a deal review process what resonates—and when it resonates—with potential clients in regards to their solutions. Sales feels better

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Chronicles of a Sales Leader

supported by marketing when this is dialed in and marketing can see their lead creation efforts making an impact—a rarity in most organizations. • A more strategic prospecting plan that focuses the organization around ideal or best fit profiles of potential clients. This is especially impactful when evaluating potential investments of time and money for the pursuit of new business. • Results. A clear impact can be made on both conversion percentage and velocity through a diligent deal review process. • Operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. It’s amazing what happens when you engage with better fit prospects. The organization leverages strengths more frequently and avoids attempts to make round pegs fit into square holes. Loss reviews help you understand whether or not you are chasing bad business and potentially draining resources needlessly. • Organizational alignment. It becomes much easier to make decisions on segmentation strategies when you know your ideal customer and prospect. Loss reviews become a critical component of understanding the types of resources and talent that is needed to win business that is a good fit, and how to avoid investment on resources on business that is not Certainly, loss reviews alone aren’t the answer, but these reviews are an important part of a much larger approach and strategy that is centered around understanding the customer. However, it is an often forgotten, or even avoided component that I’ve seen deliver terrific value when incorporated into the rigor of your sales and marketing organization.

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Decisions Move Up the Ladder as Forecasts Move Down

About 90 minutes north of where we live, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a resort community on Lake Michigan where we like to spend our weekends. Beside the plentiful waters of the large lake, numerous inland lakes and rivers come together to create one of the best playgrounds for those who spend their free time with rod and reel. While there is often debate amongst any community of anglers about the best lures and fishing holes, there seems to be agreement these days in this community that the fish are not biting nearly as much as they have in past summers. The chief culprit is a once-in-a-century rain storm that brought nearly 15 inches of rain in June, all of which came within a two-day period. During a visit there recently, one of the locals explained to me the various effects of what a rain like that does to the complex ecosystem below the surface of the many waters. In short, it drastically changes the habits and behaviors of anything that calls the lakes and rivers home. More specifically, they are now feeding in different ways, in different places and at different times. This is where the ecology lesson ends (especially since I am the last person who should be sharing knowledge in this area), and the business lesson picks up. That visit made me think about how sales and marketing leaders are struggling right now with the same challengeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a difficult economic environment that has changed the behaviors and strategies of their customers and prospects. Like fish who are

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Chronicles of a Sales Leader

adjusting to changes to their environment, our customers are changing their buying behaviors and protocols in ways that can either mean risk or opportunity. While I can’t provide much guidance on how to improve your daily catch, I do have some thoughts on how to keep up with the buying process of your customers:

1. Prepare for decisions to move upward as the economic outlook goes down. It’s always important to understand the executive level buying influences within your customer and prospect environments. In an uncertain economy, a higher premium will be placed on your team to interact effectively at that level. As a sales or marketing leader, you’re advised to get your teams ahead of this curve if you haven’t done so already. Uncover buying influences at executive levels, especially those without an appreciation for the value you provide.

2. What worked before, may not work now and probably won’t. This may apply even more so to marketing. When times are good, the formula for producing leads to the sales team seems tried and true and everyone knows how hard it is to figure that out to begin with. As the economic outlook gets darker, value propositions and those driving new initiatives change. These changes may mean that your message and approach may miss the mark (this applies to sales and marketing). In addition, sales organizations that rely on more art than science will find themselves in trouble as they find former top performers struggling to do well with the same approaches that worked in the past.

3. Change may equal opportunity. It’s not all grim when the economy takes a downturn. Organizations who try to adapt to a changing environment may see new opportunities to gain appointments with historically evasive buying influences. Dust off the prospect files—it may be a good time to go into business development mode. Also, even executive level contacts within existing accounts that haven’t been interested in the past may find a renewed interest in getting closer to your company’s solutions.

4. Stay ahead by staying close. If you haven’t instituted opportunity and key client reviews, now is the time. It is this process that will provide the insights to adjust strategy if needed. There’s no better way to make decisions on how you market and sell to your clients than by talking to real customers. Sounds simple, but it’s amazing how often that doesn’t happen.

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Chronicles of a Sales Leader

5. A sales and marketing disconnect can be costly. Lastly, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no secret that most organizations struggle with the void between sales and marketing. In good times, that void feels less important. As the client environment changes and new approaches in both messaging and approach need to be discussed, it becomes far more critical that sales and marketing is aligned in how to make that shift. If you have ownership of these two functions, now is a good time to be less tolerant of the silos. Whether itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a down economy or a major trend driving change, these are just a few thoughts on how to stay connected with your clients and ahead of your competition.

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Dare to Differentiate

Let’s face it. Despite what your marketing brochures say, there’s very little difference between your products and services and those of your competitors. I applaud you if you’ve convinced your organization otherwise, but you should ask your customers and prospects to quickly rattle off the qualities that make you stand out from the others in your arena. You might be surprised by the uncomfortable silence that follows that question. I realize this is a harsh generalization, and that there are those that are doing a fine job differentiating themselves. However, the point that differentiation is harder to come by these days cannot be argued. First let’s explore why we’re in this pickle, and then I’ll give you my two cents on what best-in-class companies are doing about it.

Hey, Who Stole My Elevator Pitch? The rapid pace of globalization, sprinkled with a pinch of regulation and an extra punch of the Internet have come together to create the ultimate recipe for a level playing field across many industries and time zones. This has resulted in easier replication of product/ service advantages while providing the buyer with greater access to information (without having to talk to anyone in your organization) than ever. The days of buyer beware are over. The sales process has experienced a hostile takeover by the buying process.

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Chronicles of a Sales Leader

What The Best Are Doing… When you remove the product and service advantages, the only element left is how your people interact with customers before, during and after a sale. In fact, we conducted a survey of about 100 CEOs in 2006 and asked them the primary reasons they selected suppliers. The number one answer, by a long shot, was the competence demonstrated by the sales or account executive. I get a bird’s eye view of what some of the most successful companies in the world are doing to differentiate themselves with client interaction, and here are the three things I find to be most compelling: 1. Investing in building business acumen, not features and benefits. Our annual research study, the largest in the world of sales effectiveness, found that high-performing organizations are spending more on sales-related training vs. product training. If you go one layer deeper into that story, organizations are getting a terrific impact by investing in processes that provide a repeatable framework for understanding the buying process. The most effective organizations are not just teaching their people how to manage an effective sales process, but also putting rigor to understanding the details behind client decision making. They are throwing the elevator pitches away for client-specific value propositions. 2. Involving clients in strategic activity. Another clear factor that separates what we call “winning sales organizations” from all others is their discipline around inviting clients to the table when setting product and service strategies. It’s one thing to have a business review and get feedback on how you can service your clients better, but that’s not different. To dare to be different is to get your best clients behind the scenes and have them help shape your product development and overall product/service enhancement. This brings the organization closer to the customer and transforms your role from supplier to partner. It also helps your customer articulate the ways you are different from the others. 3. Getting executive involvement. One thing I always see that says an organization is serious about staying ahead on the differentiation curve is evidence that the most senior executives are engaged with customers. I’m not talking about reacting to client satisfaction issues or sitting in on a couple of business reviews a year. Top-performing organizations have formal executive sponsorship programs in place. C-Suite execs in these organizations are involved in internal opportunity and account reviews. They can speak the language that their sales managers speak. They view accounts as strategic assets. Client centricity is in the culture because it is a strategic priority at the top, and it is seen by strategies focused on understanding customers.

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Chronicles of a Sales Leader

Whether you’ve read this and think my advice is basic and your company is already there or I’ve caused you to think about this topic, I want to leave you with one challenge; a dare, if you will. On your next business reviews with your biggest clients, take a moment to ask them why they do business with you. I guarantee you will learn something that will take you one step closer to understanding how to differentiate yourself.

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Leadership Imperative

Recent economic events have driven many executive teams into conference rooms to assemble action plans and strategies to respond to the current economic crises. While these strategies are being discussed, the battles for market share wage on. But for sales executives, this is the time to make sure your front-line managers step up and provide leadership in the face of uncertainty, anxiety and potential distraction for your salespeople. Ask any military expert about the importance of front-line leadership and they will likely tell you it is the most differentiating factor for any battleâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;especially the tough ones. From the beaches of Normandy in 1944 to battles in the streets of Baghdad, most objectives are met due to how effectively the officers on the ground execute and lead their teams to accomplishing their mission. In historyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s greatest battles, it is often the brilliant strategy and the high-ranking leaders who are analyzed, interviewed and presented in various forms. However, it is the amazing stories of how front-line leaders carried out their objectives that really tell the tale of how battles were won or lost. The stakes are much higher on a military battlefield than any of us can comprehend, but the differentiating factor in business is exactly the same. In fact, not much should change in terms of how the front lines execute right now in your office.

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Chronicles of a Sales Leader

The reality, however, is that the incoming barrage of dismal news, rumors and anecdotal stories create a slow down effect to your sales force if not managed with effective leadership. We’ve all seen how the sales organization, instead of stepping up it’s rigor and activity, hunkers down with the rest of the company. It doesn’t happen by design, but as a result of poor leadership.

Leadership Boot Camp Recognizing that leadership vs. management is not an easy attribute to attain, let’s explore five best practices to develop leaders amongst your front-line sales management team: 1. Know your leadership profile. If you look at the Marine Corps Book of Strategy, it has a couple of pages on the meaning of leadership. It’s a list of attributes and expectations written very specifically for what is required of leaders that fit the culture of their organization. Not a job description. A job description is what managers do. And not a resume either. That’s just the experience required to get in the job. We spend an awful lot of time thinking about job descriptions and not enough time thinking about what leadership attributes we need from those who manage people. My guess is that there were some important people who decided exactly what leadership should look like in the Marine Corps. The best organizations have a tangible understanding for what their leadership profile is. They are also using sophisticated assessment tools to develop profiles from their very best leaders and see how others match up. 2. Leaders are experts in their craft. Selling is a craft that is centered on understanding your customers first, then deploying a common/replicable process to create and manage opportunities and manage key customer relationships. Whatever that sales system looks like inside your company, your sales managers have to walk the walk and demonstrate expertise. Confidence and improved decision making in the field happens when your leaders are experts. 3. Culture of execution and action. There’s a tempo to execution that’s typically tied to how organizations do the basics—such as forecasting, deal reviews, account reviews, performance reviews, etc. Keep it simple, but ensure there’s precision and clear expectations to how things will consistently get done. Great leaders also have a bias toward action and reward those who keep moving forward with a low tolerance for hunkering down. General George S. Patton is famous for his belief

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Chronicles of a Sales Leader

that to win you must keep moving. He said, “You keep moving and the enemy can’t hit you. When you dig a foxhole, you dig your grave.” Make sure account, opportunity and prospecting plans have smart actions, but ensure those actions are being taken and that they are tied to moving closer to gaining commitments from customers. Specific plans with verified action will win the day in a tough environment. 4. Coaching drives candor. Many organizations are investing in improving the way their sales managers coach. There are many benefits to this focus, but one solid outcome is creating a more candid environment. Why is this important? Think about how important forecasting is right now and the amount of pressure that comes down to achieve the targets that have been assigned. Without a coaching-oriented leadership team, you will see overcommitted forecasts, opportunity pursuit plans with missing risks and a burned out sales manager coming up short trying to save the day on every deal. Top organizations are focusing their coaching efforts around accounts and opportunities to keep it centered on results. 5. Monitor and measure. Lastly, it isn’t enough to look at lagging indicator metrics, such as achievement to plan or productivity per salesperson. Sales organizations that are winning are putting emphasis on looking at leading indicators by using the funnel to track metrics like the number of new opportunities identified or the funnel stages of important deals. Also, while strong organizations are staying away from activity measurement, they are looking at the quality of the activities by making sure there are increased interactions that are helping to move specific sales opportunities forward. Lastly, the use of assessment tools to get feedback on both salespeople and the sales manager’s effectiveness are being used more and more as a way to benchmark progress beyond revenues. This is a time when many organizations will cut back, hunker down and forget about developing people, especially their management. Now is when you need to think about developing your managers into leaders

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What’s Your Greatest Asset?

I’ve spent most of my career inside of larger companies. It’s amazing how much is acquired or leased to support infrastructure. It is so significant that many companies invest even more to make sure none of it walks out the door. Loss prevention specialists armed with sophisticated asset management systems work hard to keep the company’s costs at a minimum. No more office supply closets where workers just grab what they need. You need a ream of paper? I’ll need your employee identification and department cost center number. Every asset accounted for. Find an instance of a missing asset and you will find loss prevention specialists huddled together like detectives from an episode of Law and Order. While none of this “stuff” ever increases in value or delivers sustainable returns to the top or bottom line, we certainly put a lot of energy in making sure it never gets lost. First of all, if you are in loss prevention (which is highly unlikely if you are reading this), please don’t take offense. In fact, I might suggest a lot can be learned from the rigor placed on tracking and managing basic assets. The sad reality is that most companies are placing more investment in keeping track of basic assets than arguably the most important assets of all—customers. The other unpleasant truth is that most companies don’t begin thinking about taking better inventory of their customer base until some dramatic event like either the loss of a major client or a significant downturn in the economy. Blind sided is the word we hear

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Chronicles of a Sales Leader

often when C-level executives share stories about the major client that walked away or surprised them with a dramatic decrease in volume. The good news is that it is times like the one we are in when companies choose to invest wisely and establish greater process and rigor around managing key relationships. Here are what I consider to be core components of a solid asset management program for your key customers:

1. Define the assets. Not all of your customers need or should be put into a rigorous asset management process. Take the time to choose those that are most strategic to supporting the health of your business. Best practice organizations are looking beyond just revenue contribution and including things like future growth potential, impact on operations, margin contribution, partnership orientation and contribution to strategic initiatives like new product development. No matter how you get there, just make sure you set a criteria for segmenting your most important accounts and a way to continually evaluate who comes in and who goes out.

2. Establish a protocol for tracking, managing and maintaining the assets. Strategic or key accounts always involve multiple internal resources to support. It is critical that a standard process and common language is implemented to get everyone on the same page and understanding both the short and long term objectives for supporting the account.

3. Capture the data. This isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just about whether or not to have a sales force automation solution. While it is understood that adoption rates on SFA is alarmingly low, that shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be the case related to your most important accounts. Have a solid data capture compliance plan for this segment that is unwavering.

4. Align the right people to manage and grow the assets. Our annual research study reveals the best practices of top sales organizations and one key attribute is how they are utilizing assessment tools to better align talents to specific roles in the sales organization. No matter how you get there, know that strategic account management requires a unique set of skills that combine selling, business acumen, the ability to collaborate with key resources and C-level interaction skills.

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Chronicles of a Sales Leader

5. Joint plan with your assets. Traditional account management and planning has been one-sided. Most account plans are all about the selling actions regardless of what is happening on the buy side. Best practice selling organizations are conducting periodic joint reviews that involve the client side of the equation in strategic discussions that go beyond just satisfaction with service levels. We are seeing top organizations involve their strategic accounts in discussions related to new product initiatives and overall strategic planning. This forges relationships that go beyond vendor status. Certainly tougher times call for a strong strategy to get closer to your top customers. However, a strong asset management plan for your most strategic clients is a sustainable best practice that you can leverage in good times and bad.

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Plan to Win in the New Year

Somewhere between that classic business book collection and the last quarterly report on your bookshelf is last year’s strategic plan. You know the one. It’s nicely organized. It might even have an attractive cover page with an inspirational graphic and catch phrase. Knock the dust off, peel it open and reflect on how you did. Whether you’re wrapping up a record year or trying to pick up the pieces, it’s time to reflect on what went well, what didn’t and what’s going to be different about your plan for the new year. First, most of us will be putting our plans within the context of a much tougher economic climate. Many of today’s sales leaders have not experienced executing plans in the environment we are currently in, so it’s important to recognize that many of you will be navigating uncharted territory. That said, here are a few key elements to help you assess and put together a plan to not just survive, but come out ahead in 2009:

1. Start with the Customer The best sales leaders start with thinking about what they’ve learned from their customers of the past year. What’s the nature of those clients who you contracted/transacted with?

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Any particular trends related to industries or the reasons they are buying from you now vs. a year ago? How has their buying process changed? What is their view of the current relationship; are you a partner or a vendor? Is there more or less price pressure? Why? Changes to product/service mix? This is just a sampling, but best practice leaders are beginning their assessments and business planning around a healthy understanding for what is happening with customers.

2. Assess the Health of Your Sales System We’ve seen that top sales executives organize their strategies around some fundamental “system” components that drive priorities. They start with the understanding of the customer first, then assess whether or not the core operating fundamentals are in line. A sales system that is firing on all cylinders typically has proficiency in the following areas: creating new sales opportunities for a healthy funnel; managing and pursuing sales opportunities to closure; managing key customer relationships; the right organizational design with the right talent necessary to win; the right tools and resources to enable success; and finally the key levers to drive management execution.

3. Blocking and tackling: Working the plan The best plan is one in which you can execute. Take a look at how this year played out in terms of execution quality. The best sales leaders have simple plans that are executed flawlessly. It’s easy to lose sight of the basics when preparing for bigger challenges ahead. Many sales leaders get caught up in analysis and strategy while losing sight of day-to-day execution. Our CEO often cites an important principle—”once we agree, we execute.” It’s a principle that can often get lost once a plan is put on the bookshelf. Ensure you have the right communication, reporting and tempo to drive action and accountability with your teams.

4. Contingencies: The Best Laid Plans This year will especially be one in which you will place some bets that won’t work. That’s ok, just be prepared to know your alternative actions if they don’t. Think through the potential risk factors on specific strategies and ensure there’s a plan B that can quickly get you back on track if they don’t work. General George S. Patton said it best, “One does not plan and then try to make circumstances fit those plans. One tries to make plans fit the circumstances. I think the difference between success and failure in high command depends on the ability, or lack of it, to do just that.”

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FILLING THE FUNNEL

It’s a new year and there are some common themes that are resonating in the strategic plans for those charting a course to succeed, or at least survive, in what is going to be a challenging selling climate. In particular, there’s a drive toward more immediate results, and more attention is being paid to funnel health than ever before (while this is good, it’s an excellent lesson that this focus is a best practice in good and bad times). There seems to be much more focus on activity to fill the top of the funnel. This is always an important component for any selling organization, but few do this well. In the best of times, the top of the funnel seems to manifest all by itself and in the worst of times the drive to replenish it turns into unfocused activity with disappointing returns. Our annual research study of best practice selling organizations consistently highlights effective prospecting plans as a key attribute for their success, so here are a few things to think about as you fill the funnel:

1. Start with a profile, not an activity plan. As much as we all know that traditional cold calling is a thing of the past and proven to not have ROI, organizations are still falling into the trap of setting activity quotas to drive urgency. While it’s important to have some standards around activity expectations, it’s

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more important that the activity is not allocated into the wrong places. Before you set activity quotas, make sure you’ve built a strong profile on the most likely suspects. This is best arrived by knowing as much as you can about why your current customers see you as different from the competition, which brings me to my next point…

2. Know why your customers buy from you. I know I’ve hit this before in more than one previous column, but it’s worthy to repeat how astonishing it is how many sales leaders cannot put a succinct answer to why their customers are buying from them. This is fundamental and critical to developing a successful sales system, but even more critical related to deciding what new clients to pursue. I’ve been in the midst of helping many companies solve major sales and operations breakdowns due to a campaign that attracted poor fit clients. A tough economy will often entice salespeople and the entire organization to see any business as good business. The likely result is pursuing opportunities that will never come to closure. The best result is a successful short term campaign that sets the stage for failure down the road as unsatisfied clients and distracted salespeople produce devastating implications. Narrow down your suspects in ways that best align with the attributes of your best clients. Top sales organizations are nailing this down with process and consistency vs. letting this happen by accident.

3. Sales and marketing collaboration. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this one, as this will be an entire column next month. However, suffice it to say that the top of the funnel absolutely is the critical overlap between sales and marketing. If your sales and marketing strategies are not aligned related to new client acquisition, then you are missing an enormous opportunity. I’ll provide more on this topic next month.

4. Timing is everything. As part of understanding the attributes of why your customers buy from you, take a look at when they made the decision to buy initially. What was driving the decision? What was happening inside their organization or within their respective industry? What was happening with the specific buying influences that made the decision? It’s important to know the key “triggers” that might exist and these can often be found in the research phase. CEOs are much more specific these days in their strategic initiatives often outlined

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in quarterly updates and earnings announcements. Take a close look at these details and you may find some nice comparisons to some of the deals you won in the past.

5. Lose faster. More is definitely not always better when it comes to what is in the funnel. A concentrated campaign to pursue new clients will produce a lot more potential time wasters. If you have a current opportunity review process in place, reflect on any deals that have been sitting in your funnel far too long. My guess is that you will find some common attributes to those that we never win but take up our time. Make sure your organization has a system for quickly assessing new opportunities before they zap too many resources. The best selling organizations have a scorecard that allows them to spot the red flags early and move on to greener pastures. When you lose, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s far better to do it fast and quickly move on to those you have a real shot to win.

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The Lack of Sales and Marketing Alignment in Organizations Today Featuring Brian Carroll, author of “Lead Generation for the Complex Sale”

“If only there were more leads for the sales team.” “If only the sales team would actually do something with the leads they are given.” If you have been in sales or marketing for any length of time, you’ve heard that conversation more than once in your career. Despite all of the added technologies and sophistication over the years to better understand customers, the argument is still out there in cubicles and board rooms. Research on this topic, including work done by Miller Heiman, validates the void between sales and marketing continues to be an issue in most organizations. We also know that those organizations that are outperforming their peers have done a much better job at aligning these two critical functions. Truth be told, having spent most of my career leading sales organizations, I am not a marketing guy. Knowing that this is an important topic to many of you, I thought it best that I invite a true expert on sales and marketing alignment to this month’s column. Brian Carroll, author of “Lead Generation for the Complex Sale,” a title that is quickly becoming a resource for many organizations attempting to get their sales and marketing teams to join forces in driving top-line sales more effectively. These were his insights:

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Bill Golder: In the 2008 Miller Heiman Sales Best Practices Study, only 37 percent of respondents agreed that their sales and marketing organizations are aligned in what their customers want and need. Why is sales and marketing alignment difficult for most organizations? Brian Carroll: I think it’s because organizations aren’t taking a holistic approach that considers all of the marketing and selling components on a total, complete and ongoing basis. The lack of synergy between sales and marketing regarding lead generation is so common as to risk cliché. Marketing feels that sales doesn’t follow-up on marketinggenerated leads. Sales counters that the leads aren’t any good, and the information they provide isn’t helpful. My experience confirms that this communication breakdown affects nine out of ten companies. BG: What are you seeing as the most common pitfalls in attempts to get this right? BC: Companies sensing the need for cooperation and teamwork sometimes believe they can perform miracles by reorganizing the sales and marketing departments. But, really what matters most is having everyone on the same page, integrated and viewing each other as pro forma customers. Ask most executives what salespeople need to help them sell and they will say, “More leads.” I’d say your salespeople don’t want more leads. They want more effective selling time. In my experience, the average sales force spends around 20 percent of their time actually doing productive selling (up to 40 percent if you’re great). Don’t get me wrong, lead generation is still extremely important to salespeople. But we need to realize that the extreme time pressure salespeople face—especially those with a complex sale—requires them to ignore “early,” “is not immediately relevant,” and “highly likely” to produce revenue. Before you invest any more money in lead generation, ask this question: How can we give our salespeople more selling time? Write down your thoughts and then ask your sales team, “How can we help YOU get more selling time?” Then, shut up and really listen. BG: Salespeople, at a very basic level, want two things from marketing: quality leads and effective collateral support for their client interactions. This seems simple, but most

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salespeople would say these two things fall short of their expectations. Why is this so hard to do right? BC: Sales leads often land on the scrap heap because marketers throw leads over the wall, and then expect salespeople to catch them. What sales really needs are more sales-ready leads. Qualify those leads, then create ongoing, meaningful dialogue with the prospect. Lead nurturing is all about identifying and capturing longer-term opportunities. Also, I’d say most companies don’t do a good job of managing the leads they already have. A study by the Aberdeen Group concluded 40 to 60 hours of the salesperson’s month is spent re-creating sales-ready, customer-relevant collateral material, which he or she believed, sometimes with good reason, marketing should have generated better in the first place.

Aligning for Better Leads BG: Clearly, there’s research that points to sales and marketing alignment being a critical success factor in driving top-performing organizations. What are they doing differently that’s making this work? BC: Organizations that perform match readiness of the buyer with expectations of their sales team. Successful programs examine each lead and ask if they are sales-ready, meaning that they are ready to speak to a salesperson. Successful organizations understand that prospects can spend months researching solutions to their needs and usually aren’t ready to speak with a sales representative right away. Marketers who hold back and nurture early stage leads (with a human touch) on behalf of their sales team drive results. Lead nurturing maintains a relevant and consistent dialog with viable leads, regardless of their timing to purchase, until they are sales-ready. The idea is that through the process of offering valuable education and information to prospects up front, you become more than an expert. You become a trusted advisor. Without lead nurturing program in place, I’ve found that early stage leads receive just one, or maybe two, touches before they are handed off to salespeople. And that’s not enough,

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especially if you have a complex sale. At InTouch, we’ve found early stage leads may require 8 to 12 (or more) meaningful nurturing touches before they are truly sales ready. BG: If you were approached by a sales or marketing executive struggling with alignment, what would be your advice? BC: The unrealized potential can be likened to the batteries in a flashlight. If the batteries aren’t inserted in the right direction, or are otherwise out of proper contact, their power is unusable. The harmonious interaction of sales and marketing is crucial. 1. Sales and Marketing must collaborate on definingleads and marketing objectives. You can make a huge impact by focusing first, on creating an Ideal Customer Profile (company-wide, for each product, service or solution). Then, create the Universal Lead Definition of a “sales-ready lead.” Finally, connect the marketing/sales process to customer’s buying process. By developing an Ideal Customer Profile, I saw one client’s average sale of $60,000, increase by more than 30 percent to $80,000, while overall revenue increased by 20 percent. By utilizing a Universal Lead Definition, one company achieved a 120 percent gain in ROI, using the same tactics and budget as the previous year. Once you’ve developed a collaborative culture by focusing on those three things, you can then commit to closing-the-loop on each marketing investment. 2. What gets measured gets done. Connect sales and marketing metrics together. 3. Create content that’s relevant for each stage of the buying cycle. 4. Focus on the data points you REALLY need to measure in your CRM. 5. Ask: Is your value proposition clear? Does your sales team have sales-ready messaging? In developing a lead generation program, it is incumbent on marketers to view the sales team as the customer. It’s no different than directing a consulting firm project where the client is involved in each stage of the project. The sales team should become so integrated that it has program ownership just like everyone else.

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BG: Our research has also shown that the C-Suite often perceives alignment to be much better than how it is perceived in the field. How do you suggest alignment should be measured and monitored in way that makes it clear how an organization is doing in this area? BC: To create an open dialogue to obtain sales lead feedback you continuously have to ask: • Was this helpful? Why? Why not? • What else should we be doing? • What should we have asked to make the lead even better? • What are we doing that we should stop? To break the cycle, we must close the loop with sales and start measuring opportunities with real-world metrics: • Number of inquiries • Number of leads (qualified as “sales-ready”) • Number of opportunities (leads in moved into sales pipeline) • Number of closed deals from marketing leads If you know those metrics you can start to track the following key performance indicators such as: • Inquiry to lead ratio • Lead to opportunity • Lead to proposal ratio • Lead to sale (win) ratio Leaders and marketers with a value-driven mindset will plan and budget for the long term and take a holistic view that goes beyond cost-per-lead budgets. Cost-per-lead budgets are irrelevant unless you can first measure cost-per-opportunity or cost-perlead-pursued. Lead quality is a key driver in insuring that those leads are pursued.

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Where Are All the Salespeople?

I’m a little disappointed in many of the conversations I’m having with salespeople lately. I’ve been hearing things like: “My phone isn’t ringing.” “I’m having a tough time even getting clients to call me back.” “No one is spending right now.” “I have to cut my prices to just stay in the game.” The last time I checked, a salesperson is in the business of selling. Were times just so good before that we didn’t have to actually sell? I am certainly not suggesting that these days are not unusually hard—perhaps the hardest we’ve seen in a lifetime. However, these are the days that give those who are truly salespeople the opportunity to differentiate themselves from the pack. It’s time to be a salesperson. If you are truly a salesperson, you’re seeing opportunity in these trying times. This is the time that separates real salespeople from the pretenders. Real salespeople are recognizing that their clients and prospects are open to change now more than ever, and they are thinking through how they will leverage their products and services to help

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those companies with immediate priorities. Real salespeople are thinking through how to have strategic conversations with executive level buying influences because the current economy has C-level decision makers involved in the buying process like never before. Real salespeople are crafting proactive business development strategies and not waiting for the phone to ring.

Solve and Sell I spoke to a sales VP recently from a company that is facing no fewer challenges than anyone else. He commented that one of his competitors is “rethinking” its strategic accounts program in the face of the current economic conditions. His response? “Let them think while we act and go after those accounts,” he told me. He is a salesperson who sees opportunity amidst chaos. Real salespeople are standing up to the challenge and not allowing the business wire to serve as their guide. Anecdotes are killers to productivity and good salespeople know the opportunities are in the details of every client and every deal. There are companies spending money. The budgets are tighter and the dollars are being spent in wiser ways, but there are salespeople who are winning. They are winning by being better than their competitors. They are focused on solving strategic issues for their clients. That means they are having more meaningful dialogue with clients about problems they are trying to solve. It means they are coming to the table with ideas on how they are solving similar problems with similar organizations. It means they aren’t selling products, but instead tethering their solutions to strategic priorities. They are problem solvers. They are salespeople. When you solve problems, you get out of the price discounting business. At worst, you can come from a position of getting something in return for your discount. You can have a true negotiation because C-Level decision makers are interested in partners who can help them fix, accomplish or avoid something key to their strategic priorities. Salespeople that solve problems are relevant and get their calls returned. Are you relevant? Instead of spending your time piling up the general business news reports, spend it on understanding the news inside your customers and prospects. Very few companies are status quo today, so there’s real opportunity in the strategy adjustments being made in every organization. Those that spend their time making it their job to know what’s happening inside the specific accounts, prospects and their industries will have a greater chance to be relevant.

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If you’re an effective sales leader, you have already communicated the reality of this tough environment but you’ve also rallied the troops to stay focused on securing time with key buying influencers inside of important accounts and prospects. You’re encouraging them to get better at understanding the buying process deal by deal in the funnel and not operate on anecdotal information. You’re pushing the team to proactively create opportunities and not wait for the phone to ring. Real sales leaders are recognizing the movement of buying decisions to more senior levels and thinking through how to arm their teams with resources to navigate that shift. I believe this is an exciting time for the sales profession. We have an opportunity to validate the craft and demonstrate why the sales force should be a significant strategic lever in these challenging times. Many of you will look back on this time period as the one in which your career was made because you provided value at a time when the company most needed it. Stand up, get out there and be a real salesperson.

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Sales Effectiveness and the Tech Myth

Let me start by saying I’m no “techno weenie.” In fact, I spent most of my days on the front lines before much of what exists today was ever available related to sales force automation tools. I was unfortunate enough to have experienced the bleeding edge of SFA as a fairly unseasoned sales leader during the dot-com craze. That’s when technology solutions were sold as the answer to sales effectiveness issues and promised to get us closer to our customers. Many of us who participated in that folly learned what we should have already known to be true: Someone actually has to interact with a customer effectively in order for positive results to occur. Unfortunately, this has left a really bad taste in the mouths of both front-line salespeople and executives over the years. It’s also led to the creation of a new myth: The adoption of sales force automation is impossible, and consequently, the expected ROI is a pipe dream. One of the things I appreciate about where I work is the privilege to see firsthand what is and isn’t working in some of the biggest sales forces in the world. I get this vantage point partially due to frequent interactions, but also due to the research study we conduct every year. The latter is extensive, and it’s always interesting to see what separates those organizations that are world class versus those who aren’t.

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There are tons of interesting data points, but one in particular stands out related to technology: A staggering 82 percent of sales forces we classified as world class see their CRM system as helping them to be more effective.

What’s with the Huge Gap? In order to be considered world class in our study, there had to be high agreement amongst the participants that there were formalized processes in place in how the company operated as a selling organization. In other words, there was a common approach with defined practices for how the organization created opportunities, managed opportunities, and managed relationships. We then validated these practices actually helped their organizations out-perform their peers by comparing key metrics and overall revenue growth. There’s a bit more to it than that, but fundamentally it centered on that distinction. As an example, a question within managing opportunities asked whether or not there was a process continually utilized to review all large deals. The world class response rate was 87 percent affirmative versus 40 percent for everyone else. We asked 51 questions in all, and everything pointed back to process, rigor, and common language as the differentiator. These companies then could leverage technology to support that framework and provide tools that enable the process to live and breathe in the organization. I was recently on a client visit, and the sales vice president there is responsible for multiple selling organizations. He had one organization that had great process and rigor in place and they were seeing solid data coming in and out of their CRM application— thus, it was a valuable tool for everyone. Then he explained how his CRM application was nearly useless for the other group he managed. They had yet to implement common process for how that group would consistently engage with customers, so there was much more inconsistency around approach. In his defense, the organization without the rigor was a much more transactional sales force with less complexity related to the buying process. But it was a good case study of how technology without some level of process to drive consistency can create adoption challenges.

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It’s also important the sales process itself is one in which the front lines feel it actually helps them succeed. A repeatable process with tools to help a salesperson sell more stuff usually helps on the adoption front (hopefully, you can hear the sarcasm in that statement). Only when you can embed those tools into your CRM or SFA system do you have something salespeople see value in and have a desire to connect to. I am seeing tremendous best practices in which companies are linking not only sales process tools, but also lead generation capabilities, best practice libraries, case study podcasts, and so forth. If you’ve almost given up on the investment you’ve made or if you’re trying to figure out the right time to make that technology investment, take a look at how well you are executing on sales process first. Regardless of the size or complexity of your organization, adoption of whatever technology application you invest in will grow increasingly tougher—that is, if there isn’t an operating model in place for how your sales organization will engage with customers and prospects.

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The Rise of Procurement

Guess who’s been invited to the C-Suite? From cubicles and offices salespeople have been taught to avoid at all costs, the procurement and sourcing professionals have surfaced…and they’ve become the savior for many CFOs and CEOs looking to reduce costs in this challenging economic storm. They talk in a language that leaves most of us running for cover—consolidation, spend control, normalize costs, vendor elimination, cost categorization, commoditization, RFP, and the most feared of all terms: online reverse auction. I got a chill just writing it. This is their time. They are in executive committee meetings. With impressive charts and graphs they are telling the story of how better times allowed departmental execs to get sloppy on supplier negotiations. Tighter process is needed—a tighter procurement process. More charts and graphs. Impressive margin impact on full display. Long lists of suppliers are presented. It’s time to let those who know how to buy get this situation under control. Ok, that’s a bit dramatic (although not too far from reality), but the involvement by procurement on sourcing decisions is definitely on the rise. More and more of our clients and prospects report having to navigate buying processes

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managed by sourcing and procurement (S&P) professionals. For those who sell within the world of tangible products or more commodity-oriented offerings, working with procurement is not new. For those in the non-tangible or services space, many are being introduced to the world of procurement for the first time in their careers. Either way, strategic procurement initiatives are in full steam like no other time. And we’re not talking about the purchasing guy you remember sitting in the windowless office next to the facilities manager, who you avoided at all costs. It’s a new day. According to “Fred,” an S&P executive in the professional services industry, “There’s a window of opportunity right now [for procurement professionals] to impress the CPO (Chief Procurement Officer) and expand their landscape.” Fred asked to be anonymous for this column out of fear his S&P peers may forever label him a traitor. I can vouch for his expertise in this area, as he works within one of our client organizations and now spends his time helping his organization better understand how to navigate the increasing involvement of procurement within their client environments. Recognizing procurement is a key buying influence in more and more buying processes, I interviewed Fred to get a firsthand perspective. As Fred points out, “expanding their landscape” means it’s no longer about the typical nuts-and-bolts commodity sourcing, but is expanding into non-tangible goods. This is putting many sales professionals into scenarios they’ve not experienced before. Here are the top three takeaways from our conversation: Know the process. Ask early and often about the exact steps of the buying process and know at what point potential negotiating will take place. Fred notes many sales professionals assume they’ve finalized pricing and payment terms, only to find out there’s an additional step with no room for further negotiating. It’s also important to understand the nature of the relationship between S&P and the business owner. Fred suggests there are typically four types: • Collaborative • Sourcing leads/business follows • Business leads/sourcing follows • Adversarial

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“You have to work both sides of the street effectively,” says Fred. In order to do so, he advises, you must understand how the two will work together during the buying process. This also helps you better understand how well their buying process aligns with some of your better-fit customers. Knowing this early could potentially help you identify which opportunities are better fits to your ideal customer profile. Get a sense for the “maturity” of the procurement organization. More mature organizations will have well developed processes, are well partnered with the users/business owners for the goods or services, display a strategic vision, communicate clearly, and are transparent about the process. More mature organizations will even factor a value to “in place” suppliers by looking at the potential costs or risks associated to transitioning to new suppliers. This is important to know if you are a current or incumbent supplier. Less mature traits are those that provide roadblocks to the users, have a confusing or poorly executed process, appear much more tactical in their approach and seem to be disconnected from the business owners. Fred suggests organizations might want to rethink applying sales resources against opportunities where there is strong control by procurement with less mature traits. This would also be the one scenario in which going around procurement, especially when your contact is unreasonable, may be the only way in which to gain a win for both sides. Be prepared and well organized. Know your value proposition and how you differentiate. “If you’re one of 20 options that look the same, it’s going to be brutal,” says Fred. Standing out requires making sure you have a solid understanding of what your product or service is helping to fix, accomplish, or avoid for the business owner that is unique. And no, your calendars and logo-emblazoned coffee mugs don’t count as differentiators. Fred recommends every organization have a strategic pricing plan and to know the walk-away point. “Any good procurement professional will want something of value from you to claim as a win,” says Fred, although he points out it isn’t always price. It’s important to have a well thought out hierarchy for what you’re willing to trade that’s of value. Fred says you need to ask yourself, “What are you willing to give to get what you want?” Elements like longer payment terms, discounts in exchange for longer contract terms, or payments up front are all examples of approaches that should be explored. This

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requires sales professionals that can collaborate with internal resources, like their CFO or finance executive to come up with creative deal structuring. “The best know how to improvise, adapt, and overcome,” says Fred. Lastly, demonstrating professionalism with well-organized verbal and written communication can be both a differentiator…and keep you out of trouble, as savvy procurement executives keep detailed records on what you’ve presented. Be accurate and consistent when it comes to conveying pricing and terms. Any deviations or discrepancies will come back to bite you. While this column is focused on how best to understand the procurement buying influence as it’s a rising influencer for many deal pursuits today, it’s important to have a similar understanding of all of the buying influences involved in an opportunity or the renewal of an existing contract. Know the process and what roles will have even the smallest amount of influence. Consider procurement as one of potentially multiple buying influences playing a role in the selection or renewal process. Thanks to our new ally, Fred, you should be a little better prepared.

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Moving Cheese the Right Way

Certain things in life just seem to go hand in hand: thunder and lightning, salt and pepper, pigs and mud. Similarly, tough economic times often go hand in hand with organizational change. The most obvious and often necessary move is to cut jobs when the top line drops, but it is also a time when companies often look to make changes to the structure of their organization. This is certainly not new to the nature of downturns, and it absolutely can be a good time to make changes—when it feels like less risk. I’ve lived through these organizational change initiatives from about every angle. To prove it I have my very own copy of “Who Moved My Cheese,” by Dr. Spencer Johnson. I now have a job that gives me a bird’s eye view of how many companies execute their change initiatives; accordingly, here are some observations the might help if you happen to be in the role of leading changes and moving cheese around. Start with what’s going on in your customer environment. Whenever anyone contemplates change to their organization, I always want to start with the customer. Of course, you say, that’s an obvious statement. And yet, it’s striking how many organizations devote serious resources to a change initiative and completely forget whether or not it helps them get better aligned with what’s

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happening in their customer environment. It can get incredibly myopic really fast as the internal operations and organizational culture begins to creep into the design. This is especially seen with regard to compensation, but that’s a column for another day. The key question to start with, before any reorganizational planning is done, is to ask what has or will change with regard to how your customers buy from you. If nothing is changing about what you are selling, then what is happening with how the customer is buying? If you are embarking on an initiative to add new products or services, how will that impact how the customer will buy from you? If you are frustrated with how certain products or business lines fail to penetrate key segments, then assess what that means in terms of how customers will buy. Will any of the changes you are contemplating help your customers fix, accomplish or avoid key business issues more effectively than you can today? Starting with these kinds of questions will lead to more questions, but keep the initiative focused on actually driving results. If you start with the customer and can figure out how to better align with how they buy, then you might actually sell more of what you have to offer. Crazy concept, I know. The next area I see as a pitfall is to not spend enough time analyzing execution within the organization as it is currently designed. When this happens, organizational change becomes simply a cosmetic fix versus something that will truly produce legitimate results. Lipstick on a pig. Spend some time analyzing performance inside of the current structure. Who are your top performers? Why are they succeeding, and what makes them different than the rest of the pack? Can any of their attributes be replicated either through training or recognized in the hiring process? Our annual research study showed sales organizations that are outperforming others put some real energy into identifying and cascading best practices. How about your field sales management? How are they doing in terms of driving execution and accountability? Even if you’ve done your homework and determine there is a need for organizational change, a key success factor will be the capabilities of your frontline management to lead people. I’ve seen many well-planned change initiatives die quickly due to poor leadership in the field. I’ve also seen great success with less-than-stellar

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Chronicles of a Sales Leader

strategies because the field leadership knew how to execute. Either way, it’s important to assess the level of execution and where the failure points are. Determine what is the result of organizational design flaws or just plain lack of execution. This leads to another important point: Can your talent make the shift into whatever roles and responsibilities come with the new organization? I see this most commonly play out when top producers in general selling roles get placed into strategic or key account management positions, or when great individual contributors get promoted into management roles. It’s so important to understand what will be required in terms of attributes and skills in the future organization and really assess what it will take from a talent perspective to make the shift. Too many sales leaders set lofty expectations on how quickly organizational change will make a positive impact. This is largely due to underestimating the ramp-up period as the organization makes the shift. The end result leads to a cycle of short-lived organizational changes that play out like a bad rerun for everyone. Consider the ramp-up implications and create enough time to deal with those factors. Then there’s the little thing we all still stumble at called communication. I am amazed to see how little is put into the communication plan as sales leaders go down the path of changing their organization. Despite countless books, articles, and white papers on the importance of communication during change, it still doesn’t happen as well as it should. My theory? Leaders get so wrapped up in spreadsheets and org charts, they forget the human factor. The names on the org chart, assuming they all work full-time, spend most of their waking hours doing their job. Their livelihood and how they support their families are dependent on their success in that job. It’s easy to lose sight of that when you’ve spent weeks, if not months, thinking and planning for the change. The sales leader has had time to contemplate, digest, and get excited for the change. So when the time comes, too much of the communication is on the what versus the why. It’s so important to take everyone through the same journey you’ve been on that resulted in the decision to change. Tell the story of what’s changing with your customers, and therefore your business, and what the future looks like. If the change is significant, invest the time and money to communicate live instead of by e-mail. Be more accessible than ever for people to hear your passion for why the change is important.

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Chronicles of a Sales Leader

Lastly, organizational change should not be treated as a one-time event to be thrown like a big party. Assemble a long-term plan featuring milestones, key metrics, and contingencies when things donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t go as planned (which is the only thing that can be guaranteed). Continue to merchandise and communicate the best practices along the way. This will ultimately better prepare you and your team for change in the future, as well. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s it for now. All this talk of cheese has made me hungry.

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Chronicles of a Sales Leader

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