2010 vs. 2009 ?

That’s going to depend a lot on what industry you’re in a what part of the world you’re in isn’t it?

For me personally and for SalesNexus Web Based CRM, my day job, 2009 was our best year ever.  2010 is already on track to be even better.  That’s not bragging, but more to illuminate the fact that we’re in a somewhat recession proof industry.  Many small businesses see hiring new sales people as the simplest path to growth in good times.  During tough times, the perspective changes to finding ways to get more with less.  Of course, a web based CRM can help a sales organization sell more without hiring new sales people.

But, if you sell Health Insurance in the U.S., 2010 is probably turning out to be a very bad year…

If you sell parts, materials or services to automotive manufacturers, 2009 probably was a very rough and 2010 is probably showing some improvement for you.

I think Leanne’s post made a great point.  It’s more important to look forward and ensure you have a solid plan based on the realities of your industry, economy, etc.

However, there’s no doubt that the turmoil in the global economy over the last two years has changed the landscape for sales people of all stripes, in all industries, for good.

Government bailouts, vast increases in regulations and uncertainty about future tax and regulatory regimes are making business planning more difficult.  This means purchases will be made more slowly and may be driven by regulatory directives or loopholes.  The fortunes of entire industries will swing back and forth based on political whim.

Example – imagine if you were the top producing sales rep for a company that provides safety training to offshore drillers in the Gulf of Mexico!  Things have got be very tough in that world, even for the top dogs.

Of course, there will be big winners in various niches too.  And that’s really my point… Going forward, Q2 and 3 of 2010 and beyond, sales people will need to be highly nimble and informed.

Gone are the days when you could understand your customers’ business model, your company’s value proposition, then prospect, qualify and close.  It’s just as important now to understand the recent or coming changes in tax law, regulations and investment trends that directly affect your customers.  These factors are likely to weigh just as heavily on their decisions as competitive pressures.

Understanding these trends can enable you to position your company and its products and services to help your customers avoid or minimize the impact of the changes or take advantages of opportunities created.  You may also be able to identify entirely new markets for your products and services created by government incentives, etc.

Throughout most of my sales career, I found it prudent to avoid talking about politics with customers.  Generally, you have a 50% chance of creating distance between you and your customers vs. trust.

Today’s sales person must learn to be conversant in the effects of politics – regulations, taxes, grants, etc. and there effects on customers without venturing opinions.  After all, regulations and taxes are facts of life.  Your customers are dealing with them more than ever.  Recognize it and empathize with them.  It’s likely that for a few years to come there will be much hand wringing and complaint about the changes underway.  You can be a beckon of opportunity and separate yourself from the competition by finding the opportunities for your customers.

Popularity: 1% [?]

The first six(6) months of 2010 are gone never to return. Maybe some of you right now are wiping your hand across your forward muttering some beneficial or not so beneficial words under your breath.  For some the results (achieving sales targets) have been better than 2009 and for others worse.  This ending begs the [...]

There are many characteristics to a successful sales
manager: integrity, product knowledge,
industry knowledge, people skills, strong communicator, closer, listens, smart,
and develops people.  As a
current VP of Sales, what I want to focus this post on is when to hug (support)
your sales executives and when to punch (challenge) them. As a sales manager, I understand that selling
is very hard, however, I also understand that negative thoughts become
self-fulfilling. I believe new managers
often make the mistake of hugging too much, which over the long run your team
will take advantage of you. Or punching
too much, where your team will resent you, not sustain productivity, and you
will have high turnover. I believe
successful managers find the appropriate balance. For your direct reports, I strongly recommend
getting to know your team. There will be
certain members that will need more hugs and others will need more punches. Your job is to understand and motivate them
so both you and them can succeed over the long haul. You need to find the right balance of
support, motivation, and challenges to develop them.

I am a big believer in the ‘Stockdale Paradox’ of
balance. To learn more, click the link
below to read the story from Jim Collins book, ‘Good to Great’, on Admiral Jim
Stockdale’s experience as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War: http://www.jimcollins.com/lib/goodToGreat/ch4_p83.html

As a sales manager, do a self evaluation to determine if you
are more of a hugger or puncher. Ask
your trusted advisers both internally and externally to get their feedback on
your management skills. Then push your
personal comfort zones. If you are in
your face person, work on your listening and compassion skills. If you are nice guy, work on making both you
and your sales executives feel uncomfortable when doing your next deal or
forecast review.

As sales managers, we are in the people business. At my company, we are a software company but
in reality we are a human resources company.
It takes people to sell, develop, install, and support the
software. Being a sales manager is very
rewarding, exciting, and challenging position.

About the Guest Blogger:

Shaun Priest is Vice President of Sales for an eHealth
Vendor.  Shaun has over 15 years of sales and sales management
experience.  His business blog, www.closerQ.com,
is where readers submit sales and business oriented questions.  If you
have a business question or feedback to an existing post, please email Shaun at
closerq@gmail.com.  Shaun recently
published, ‘Decisions‘, a novel about
a sales person with personal demons by Small Dogma Publisher.

Popularity: 12% [?]

The answer to this question may seem quite simple: Drive revenue! but the reality is we carry a heavy burden. We have to plan training, observe our teams in action, coach, mentor, attend meetings, run reports, do projections and forecasts, many of us even take on marketing and PR roles in smaller companies, and even with all of this most of us could add on 10 more things under “other duties as assigned” that have little to nothing to do with being a sales manager.

My opinion though if you want to be successful is you only have one real job, and that is to facilitate an environment that maximizes sales productivity. To do that you have to look at things a little differently. I view my primary role as making sure 14 families get fed. I worry very little about my own goals because I am aware that if 80% of my team can hit plan I will have grossly exceeded my own plan. With that in mind, my entire focus is on the team and making sure everyone on it is in the best possible position to be productive, and removing anything that hinders that.

It sounds simple, but you have to take this to extremes, what if the thing that is hindering 13 people from producing at peak performance is your current very needy, drama filled top producer? In my opinion, you eliminate them. Life as both a sales manager and a member of a team is a lot better when there are no primadonnas that feel they are above the rules and are making others lives miserable in the process. Most people have enough stress at work just performing their own sales duties and do not need the extra stress of another’s personal burdens as well. When I talk about the primadonnas, I am not referring to someone who is simply going through a rough patch, this I can help them work through. A primadonna refers to someone who is a constant problem and drain on my team. This is the type of person who comes in each day with a “woe is me” or “I am the center of the universe” attitude and feels that everyone else should share in their misery or bow down to them.

My goal as a sales manager is to eliminate drama, coach, mentor and lead… everything else I do is secondary to that. Every member of my team knows that they are the most important thing in my day and that I would rather be helping them than anything else I do. Because I take this approach towards them and will do anything for them, they will walk through fire for me. Developing this relationship is not easy, it takes time to build trust and send a clear message that this is not the flavor of the week, but the long term benefits are HUGE.

Finally, this does not mean you stop forecasting and doing the other things you do, it is about shifting priorities not responsibilities.

To implement: What is your relationship like with your current team? How do you spend your day? What can you eliminate from your sales environment or process that will improve productivity for everyone? What can you do now to make sure every member of your team understands they THEIR success is the most important thing to you? Do you have a regularly scheduled one on one coaching session with every team member every week? If not why? Reflect review and implement!

Popularity: 21% [?]

If a company uses a CRM system or Sales Performance Management system as part of their company methodology one of the issues that may face the sales department is how managers use the information in managing the performance of the individuals within the department. One of the benefits of such systems is that data can be collectively pooled and analysed without the need to directly interview the individuals – it’s the miracle of modern technology that someone can input a forecast into their computer and as a result the sales manager who may or may not be in the same location have access to that information and as such amalgamate that with the rest of the data to create an overall forecast – brilliant!

On the other hand, that data is being used to constantly monitor the sales force. That may be good for management but what does that offer to the sales individuals within the department? Are sales managers asking sales people to participate in being their own police force? Perhaps it’s our inherent resistance to ‘big brother’ that we don’t like the thought of our information, that we input for ourselves, being wrested from our grasp.

The debate, like many others, is neither black nor white and perhaps reflects not how a system is used but the attitude that sales managers have in using them. Yes, the obvious merit to using systems is in monitoring behaviour to see if those in the department are on course to meet targets, are making the most of their time and inputting the correct information on key accounts but in using the system to police staff sales managers potentially tread on the grey area of surveillance over management. The obvious danger in creating a surveillance culture in the work place is that sales people aren’t inclined to input data into those systems.

Data, whether it is written down on scrap of paper, collected in an excel spreadsheet or collated in a more efficient data management system is the life blood of the company. The flow of information throughout the organisation is what keeps the entire organic system of the company circulating. Any measure that blocks or stops that flow of information is detrimental to that. In this case it may be required for the sales manager to think very carefully the balance that is ideal to maintain between monitoring behaviour and encouraging input of data.

Many sales trainers advocate the importance of ‘coaching and mentoring’ as part of the training and improvement of sales individuals and I tend to think that this same approach needs be employed in helping sales managers use information that they have at their fingertips. Where I work, we specialise in creating sales performance systems which we combine equally with the coaching not only in using the system but in working with those who are using the system to create the right culture to get the best results. In my opinion, that help in creating the culture behind the system is in many ways more important than the system that is being used. What tends to be forgotten when viewing data on a screen or printed out on paper is that information is translated into activities, relationships and ultimately the very personalities of those that inputted them.

Popularity: 9% [?]

As Colin Wilson highlighted in his recent post on this site, the primary role of a sales manager is to ensure that his team “hits their number” – that they’re performing.

An effective sales manager will use many skills in order to achieve this objective – and will vary their use according to the needs of the salesperson being managed. An experienced and motivated salesperson may primarily need support and admin tasks taken off their hands. An old hand who has lost motivation may need re-energising. A new recruit may need initial training and coaching. Part of the skill of the sales manager is to understand what help each member of their team needs in order to achieve their goal. And sometimes it may be just to “hold their feet to the fire” then to get out of their way.

One area, however, that is almost always important is that of coaching.

It’s unheard of that a sales team is comprised entirely of superstars all operating at the peak of their capabilities. In almost all situations, most members of the sales team will have development needs: areas where they can improve their performance (sometimes significantly). Sometimes these needs can be met by training. But most often, the gaps are very specific – and frequently the salespeople are not aware of them themselves. It takes the skill of the sales manager to identify what the improvement need is, and how it can best be made – through awareness, training, experience, coaching, motivation, etc.

Just as in sports, a good coach can make the world of difference to the performance of a team. And good sales coaches share the same characteristics as good sports coaches:

They may not necessarily have performed at the very highest levels themselves – but they know exactly what excellent performance looks like. They are able to accurately assess where the team member stands against that benchmark; and they know what steps it will take to get them to deliver an excellent performance. They won’t overwhelm them by trying to change too much at once – but they will work on the fundamentals first, then on the next level, then on the next level – until performance reaches its highest possible level for that person.

In my time working in a variety of industries from pharmaceuticals to consumer goods to heavy industry I’ve seen both good coaching and bad. But in the area where I’ve spent the last few years – professional services – good sales coaching is almost unheard of.

In professional services, it is almost always the senior professionals who do the selling. Clients are buying an intangible product – and so they want to meet and discuss with the person who will actually be doing (or leading) the work as the primary part of the sales process. However, selling very rarely comes naturally to professionals (lawyers, accountants, consultants, achitects surveyors, etc.) and sales coaching is even more alien.

It takes all the courage a professional can muster to give feedback and coaching to another professional on the hard, technical aspects of their work – let alone the subjective area of interpersonal and selling skills .

Most senior professionals “fail” the basic tests of being a coach:

• They themselves are not experts at selling – they don’t know “what good looks like” enough to be able to pass on that vision to younger professionals.
• They lack the framework and understanding of different stages of skills in sales to be able to accurately assess the current capabilities and progress of their teams.
• They don’t have a strong repertoire of interventions they can use to improve the capabilities of their teams. Usually they have a “one size fits all” mentality – they improve skills by training, or on the job coaching, or mentoring, etc. If their preferred method doesn’t meet the needs of the “trainee” – the learning simply won’t occur.

In order to develop expert performance in a skill, you must perform it many, many times – and get feedback from existing experts to allow course corrections to be made and learnings to be derived. Unfortunately, many professional firms have an unwritten “sink or swim” policy. Those who display a natural aptitude for sales will be given opportunities to perform their skills in real world situations. Those who don’t, don’t get this opportunity. As a result, Most professionals end up being “filtered out” of a business development mindset and strategies.

But no one is in a better position to offer coaching to junior professionals than their seniors. No one else has been in similar situations they can share, no one else witnesses some of their key presentations & pitches to top clients.

Senior professionals need to take this coaching role seriously to maintain the competitiveness of their teams and companies. They must overcome their own discomfort over their lack of knowledge to build a clear picture of “what good looks like” in the practices they manage. They must overcome their dislike of potentially uncomfortable situations and deliver timely and appropriate feedback to the teams. And finally, they need to understand not only what’s needed for their team’s roles: but also what is needed to continuously improve their sales management capabilities.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Perhaps nothing is as confusing to me as the seller who blames his poor performance on his sales manager.  To me, it’s like a baseball player drawing a similar correlation to his batting average.

So, you don’t like your sales manager.  Big deal.  That’s not where your focus should be anyway.  A seller’s focus should be on their own performance.  Ultimately, if you’re not getting what you need from your sales manager then be your own sales manager.

To be your own sales manager you first need to understand what you expect from your manager.  Let’s break it down:

1) You want support.  That includes the necessary administrative tools that are necessary to your job.  Support means that your priorities and objectives are defended within the other departments of your company.  Support also looks like enthusiastic praise for a job well done.

2)  You want direction.  Managers are good for providing sellers with an understanding of the company’s goals and the behaviors expected of the sales force.

3)  You want training.  Most sellers want to get better and they rely on their sales managers for critical feedback and both general and industry-specific sales training.

Support

If you’re not getting the kind of support or enough support from your sales manager you’ll need to look elsewhere.  If you work in a company that has more than one sales team, there will be other sales managers.  Try to carve out a little time with one of those folks and see if she will adopt you.  Acknowledge that you’re not on her team but ask for some help and you’ll probably get it.  When you’re asked why your request isn’t being directed toward your actual sales manager, graciously explain that your sales manager’s time is being dominated by others and you are seeking to get what you need without being a demanding, whining prima donna.

Maybe you work at a company where there are no other sales managers.  You’ll have to be more creative.  Develop relationships with the department heads based on your desire to work smoothly with their people.  Be sincere.  Expect to have to broach the subject multiple times until they believe you.

Make a pact with another seller wherein that person praises you profusely for the good work you do.  In exchange, you do it for him.  Praise feels good coming from a co-worker!

Direction

Develop a strategic plan that describes the direction you are going.  List your professional goals and the achievement path for each.  Send a copy to your sales manager and her boss.  Ask if you are on the right track.  Don’t expect anyone to be proud of you.  Be proud of yourself and then work your plan.  Remember that person with whom you have a praising pact?  Give him a copy of the plan and have him ask you about your progress at least once a week.  Be accountable to the plan!

Training

Most people know when they are getting better or worse at something.  Assume that it must be one of the two and you’ll never have the luxury of telling yourself that you are holding steady.  Your performance is better or worse.  Decide that you are going to get better at least 7 out of the next 10 weeks.  Peruse the book store for the sales topics most pertinent to your job.  Read those books.  Listen to the corresponding tapes.  Put at least one new idea into practice every week.  Video tape yourself making presentations.  Audio tape your phone calls and then critique them.  Ask other sellers to listen and watch your tapes and give you feedback.  Ask them to video and audio tape their own performances and ask to see them to get improvement tips.

Ask the best seller in your company for the chance to shadow her for a half a day.  Ask if she’ll shadow you and provide some feedback.

Read and participate in sales blogs that seem to address topics relatable to your business.  Ask questions.  Be open minded about the answers.  Keep track of what is working and what is not.  Do more of what is and discard the rest.

Yeah, it would be great if your sales manager was responsive to your needs.  Don’t get too down on your manager, though.  After all, maybe her manager isn’t giving her the Support, Training and Direction that she needs to perform her job effectively.

Try to be more helpful and empathetic to your current sales manager.  Chances are that she wants to be everything you need but it’s just not happening right now.  Perhaps, you’ve been a part of that yourself?  I’m just asking.

Regardless, when the sale is on the line and it is just you standing in the batter’s box the only performance that matters is yours and the person most responsible for your results is now and always will be you.

Popularity: 10% [?]

The term sales management is very misleading, because the emphasis is really on the word “management” and not “sales”. Ultimately, this means the game changes dramatically for an individual who is making the jump from salesperson to sales manager.

While there are many responsibilities that come with being employed in sales management, perhaps none can turn around the sales equation quite as fast as effective recruiting. You can have the best sales strategy and plan around, but it means very little if you don’t have the quality personnel in place to carry out the plan of attack. At the same time, picking up a couple of top sales performers and putting them on your team can turn around those sales numbers pretty quickly.

Sales managers need to constantly be recruiting and meeting potential new hires, even when hiring for a sales position doesn’t appear to be on the horizon. People leave positions and companies for a variety of reasons, so you have to be fully prepared for when this happens. A bad new hire or a string of new hires that don’t work out can quickly turn your once great sales team into a dysfunctional sales force incapable of meeting your sales plan or quota.

The ways to meet qualified individuals to fill your sales team is only limited to your imagination. However, I’ve listed several ideas below to get you started:

1) Take a Salesperson Working for a Competitor to Lunch

-In this situation, you want to make sure not to talk about customers, prospects, or anything that can be construed as an unfair information grab. You can talk about the industry you share in general, but primarily focus on learning about the salesperson to see if he or she would be a good fit for your team. It is best to meet with a salesperson from a competitor when you are not looking to fill a sales position at the present moment. If you go about it in this way, you will already have a good idea about whether or not the individual is a good fit should a position come available.

2) Be on the Lookout for Good People Not Presently Working in Sales

-Don’t forget to give a “look” at people that are not presently working in a sales capacity. Retired & former teachers, recently discharged military veterans, and experienced restaurant servers are examples of people who could be great “finds” for your sales team. While these folks will require much more attention than a veteran salesperson, the upside is you will most likely have more employee loyalty and better long-term retention. In most cases where a salary is involved, these folks come a bit cheaper than experienced salespeople, too.

3) Don’t Rule Out Salespeople Who Work in Other Industries But Have a Very Similar Customer Base to Your Own

-You should never rule out salespeople who work in another industry but share a very similar customer base to your own. Again, it is best to have a lunch meeting with these folks long before a need arises so you can qualify them beforehand. The downside is that if you do hire out of this group you will have to train them on your industry. The upside is that they already know how to sell and might even be able to get you in some new doors where they already have an existing customer relationship.

Recruiting is “no doubt” a major key to being successful in sales management. In order to have ongoing successes in this area, this is a management responsibility you must take seriously and give constant attention to. If you do, your long-term and short-term recruiting goals will be successful endeavors.

Popularity: 11% [?]

When this topic popped up on the radar I was in the middle of free writing for the book. So I decided to share a bit of those efforts and give you a sneak peak into “The Sales Evangelist”. This excerpt relates to maintaining the ability to lead by setting the right example:

Commitment and integrity are your calling cards

The easiest way to lose your evangelists trust is to miss deadlines. The second fastest way is to not give them dates for things to get done. Make sure the entire operation including the marketing, the engineering, and the support teams know this. If you tell a Sales Evangelist you will have an answer on Monday, remember to talk to them on Monday. If support promises to reply to an email at week’s end, do not let the customer come calling the next week. And if something goes wrong and you cannot hold up to your commitments, tell them immediately. On top of everything, nothing distracts or disillusions a Sales Evangelist faster than learning that a deadline was not met from their prospect or customer.

One company I worked at long ago sold software as a service (SAAS) to very small businesses. My role was as Sales Director, but really my main focus was hiring and mentoring sales people to promote the products. They president of the company loved to share all of the new features that were coming for the software we offered and he shares with anyone and everyone that they were coming any day. He got people so excited initially that they started counting down to the promised date. Two problems always arose; the first was that the dates he proposed were never met, the second that he did not recall making the promises. The first time he did this with any of the real Sales Evangelists on my team he lost them forever. Nothing he said held credence with us from that point on.

We have already discussed how the burden of non selling activities increases our chances at failure. With less resources, fewer customers, no long lasting case studies, no peers, new ideas, the Sales Evangelist at times needs low level support. When trying to empower the Sales Evangelist, sometimes we need to examine the things that make sales and help them with those things that do not. Whether you are their manager or the CEO, pocket the ego and get your hands dirty. Yes, you can do some of their administrative tasks, yes you can help them with their pipeline, I mean you take out the garbage and clean up the kitchen….right? How much revenue does that bring in?

At my last company before becoming a consultant, one of our failings was not supporting our sales team enough. The person I took the sales team from, and then eventually and willingly gave it back to, had a superiority complex that inhibited him from really helping his team. He thought my willingness to do so was a weakness. I feel that it is strength to be willing to help your sales team succeed, no matter what it takes.

So, the next time your Sales Evangelist risks losing an hour doing some menial task that will not bear fruit, walk on over and get them back on the phone or out the door. Believe me, they will not only appreciate it in the moment, but when they get that extra sale, also on payday…and so will you.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Sales; the life blood of any and all organisations; and if the act of selling is not diligently pursued then the organisation will be in trouble. Therefore, most organisations will employ and pay a handsome price to those who can – sell. In sales lexicon we call these creatures, who accept the company’s shilling, Sales Executives; Salesmen; Saleswomen; Account Executives; Account Managers; Business Development Managers; Business Development Executives; etc. For those with egos, and there are many, the word ‘Senior’ will often precede the sales role title… as if the customer is going to be impressed that they are dealing with a ‘senior’ salesperson… for whose benefit is the word ‘senior’ added? Same goes for the VPs of this world.

The company’s salesfolk – the collective noun – are responsible for ensuring the company has the sales it needs to pay its way. All companies need a certain level of sales, often called a sales target, which will make them happy. If the salesfolk attain the target then the company does well. Sales Management will ‘divvy’ up the target and give each their own target; well, most do. Therefore each salesperson – the generic singular noun for all salesfolk – will have their individual sales target to attain. In most companies good things happen if over attainment is achieved – the commission payments accelerate; meaning the salesperson’s pay increases at a higher rate of accumulation after the target is attained. Therefore it is in their interest to overachieve their target.

So, there we have it; a common goal. The company wants sales to attain target and will pay even more money if they over attain. Each salesperson wants to attain target and most will want to over attain. Unfortunately there is often not enough focus on those wants. The ‘want’ is so basic – achieve target – it is frequently taken for granted that is what everyone is focused on. Sales management is in place to herd the salespeople to achieve the common goal – attain target.

I often wonder what it would be like if email was taken away from everyone, I wonder how productive people would become. They would have to find something else to do with their time. Equally, I believe spreadsheets should be taken away from sales management. This will give them the time to focus on the one fundamental thing they should do… get each and every member of their sales team to ‘show how they will be making their number.’ By showing; the salesperson has to name the deals that will close. None of this hiding behind pipeline factoring malarkey; but real forecasting: naming the deals that will close. The sales manager then tests the plan to make sure it is real and by so doing adds value. If there is a gap between forecast and target the sales manager discusses how the salesperson will be making the gap up.

Sales management is really that simple – make sure every member of the team can show how they are going to make their number – and everything else flows from there.

Popularity: 8% [?]