Most companies have now accepted the fact  that sales is a process and that you can -and you should- measure its effectiveness. A recent study from CSO insights still shows however that less than half of companies are actually following  their sales process consistently.

I fully agree

Most companies still do not have a real onboarding process in place and believe that sales people will ramp up by themselves. Most companies do measure some kind of data but  it rarely is the right data because data becomes obsolete very fast.  Unless you measure today some new metrics that you were not  measuring last year, there is a good chance that your reporting system is counter productive and is  enforcing the wrong behaviors.

When you build your SPM you need to make it dynamic and personal.

Dynamic because as sales people embrace the right changes and the right new selling behaviors, you need to start measuring new data that will stretch them to their next level, consistently, year after year. If you agree that every year the goal should increase for your sales people, then you need to optimize their sales process every year too and find new steps and new metrics that you can incorporate into it to help your sales people “optimize their activities” consistently and this never ends. It’s like technology, your machines produce better because you keep improving  them. Improving your sales people starts by showing them what they produce new and better every year, the more granular and innovative you can show it to them every new year, the better.

Personal, because the sales process is something that is NOT independent of the sales person driving it…There may be averages or benchmarks in your business/industry that you want to compare everybody to, but each person will drive their sales process differently and should therefore be goaled and measured slightly differently too. There is a common framework of maybe 80% of “long term data” (where you can build historical trends) and  20% of very important personalized data -

Remember that a good SPMS shows metrics back to each sales people in a way that they can achieve them most of the time. If your SPMS is 80% of the time a “failure mirror”, it will achieve the opposite of what it wa build to do in the first place.

Next : Make 2012 your best year ever, again. Part 3 : the Lion Tamer

Successfully managing a B2B sales force is not an easy challenge to tackle, and there is not much support available out there. I have gathered various comments from different discussions I started, or participated in, on my favorite topic (helping sales managers do the right thing, so their reps do the thing right).

I hope you find them as useful as I did. Enjoy

On the unique challenges of managing a sales team…

Clive from the United Kingdom : “There is no ‘I’ in team and there is no ‘T’ in sales. Most sales teams do not operate as a team. They are more like a collection of independent frontiersmen who happen to sleep in the same den”.

Craig from Australia : “These questions suggest a series of steps to me. Step 1 Get the right people in your sales management team. In my observation some managers have a coaching attitude; they want their people to grow and enjoy the resultant rewards for both. Others have a manipulation attitude and are merely button-pushers. A third group enjoy the trappings that come from being the ‘boss’ but don’t want to do the real work. Find a way to remove the manipulators and bosses; replace them with coaches. Step 2 Spend your money helping the Coach-Managers develop their coaching skills. Do it right and your investment will come back many times over. Step 3 Find a way to remove any salespeople who won’t accept coaching from their Coach-Manager. They will only get in the way of your business’s growth. Step 4 Remember the 20/60/20 rule and have your Coach/Managers respect it. Coaching a Top 20% salesperson is about stroking and listening. Coaching a Middle 60% salesperson is about helping them get in to the Top 20% (if that’s where they want to be). Coaching a Bottom 20% salespeson is about getting them up or getting them out.”

On Forecasting

Juan Miguel from Madrid Spain “Forecasting accuracy is one of the key attributes of a good Sales Manager. I know that it is not a well accepted KPI for some of them (particularly at the beginning) but is key to have weekly forecasting in place, to measure accuracy and to be part of the evaluation/remuneration scheme. Two reasons: 1)Accurate forecasting is a sign of control of the business sales (there is no much value on a sales manager that just collect the forecast from his team and put the numbers in a excell sheet to report up). 2)Accurate forecasting is also a” commitment” of the sales manager , and his team, to take any action to hit achieve the sales targets.”

Mike from Chicago, Ohio : “Dear Philippe, This is the age old question and a dilemma many Organizations are faced with. I’ve yet to find a “silver bullet”, but have implemented a few key strategies that have helped. 1. Tie compensation (bonus) to absolute forecast accuracy. Missing a forecast high or low has the same negative impact on the company. 2. Allow for adjustments to be made throughout the month. Yes, a target is a target and no one likes adjustments to be made (especially down), but having a timely update will allow for quick compensating measures to be taken if needed. 3. Track forecast accuracy in terms of dollars and percentages. Set absolute deviate targets by month and report on actual vs. targeted performance. The Sales Manager should do the same with his team. Create a competition to see who can deliver the most accurate forecast. 4. Lastly, explain and show (with real life examples) the impact that a bad forecast has on the organization. I’ve found it helpful if the Sales Manager understands how his/her accuracy impacts the business / bottom line. In my opinion, my Sales Manager owns the forecast. While I can (and do) challenge his numbers quite frequently, in the end it is his forecast and I do not want to influence him to make a change he does not agree with. I want to be able to maintain his line of accountability. Hope this helps. Good luck! – Mike

On Coaching

Laurie from Minneapolis, Minnesota“What I find fascinating about this discussion is the assumption of what is meant by “coaching”. Of course, it is important to provide development and encouragement at all levels. But the way it is done and whether it works or not is the key. How often do we find that our “coaching” efforts have little impact on the results; that it seems to either fall on deaf ears or create defensiveness? Unfortunately, “coaching” is most often simply providing “feedback”; pointing out one’s deficiencies and expecting the behavior to change. When we don’t see the results, we figure that the recipient of the “coaching” is the problem. As leaders, I believe that we must teach our teams to continually self-assess their strengths and the opportunities for improvement. We can then “lead” them to see what the behavior should look like and to fully understand the benefit of making the change. Finally, only when we hold them accountable for the change can we expect the desired results. I believe that is truly teaching them to “fish”.

Cillian from Ireland : “Bob, From my experience “lack of time” is the number one excuse given by Sales managers not to coach, however when you dig down into it as I have done very often, usually the issue is lack of skill or confidence or belief. It is very easy for a manager to keep themselves busy with activities that can act as a legitimate blocker to coaching time and indeed there are tasks that managers have, that genuinely keep them busy but I see a marked reluctance in managers to even plan for coaching time. The question is, are they busy doing the right things?. I agree fully with you that support must come from the top down. The “coaching office” concept you mention is very interesting. I have effectively implemented this by having a team of professional coaches employed. The challenge I see is, despite the fantastic job the Sales coaches do, is that they have become alomst like the doctor’s “prescription pad” for Managers. When a manager has a problem with a Sales rep, they engage the Sales skills coach as the medicine to fix it and consistently abdicate their own responsibilities from a coaching perspective. The “coaching office” has become the solution rather than being a supplementary service”

On Sales management training versus sales training :

Brian from New York City : First, I would totally invest the $ in the Sales Managers. Most often, Sales managers are graded on their Team’s performance. However, there is so much more that goes into it. How many of us have had Sales Managers that had no people skills, limited Sales skills, and zero strategic thinking skills? This drags the whole team down, and who does the big boss look at; the under performing Sales folks. The Manager stays, and whole process repeats again.

This leads to your second question. The big boss needs to establish a critreia for all the Sales Managers on how he wants the teams’ coached. Than the Sales Manager adds his own style to the mix, and standards are set for the Sales Managers to be graded on. Some of these criteria can be commentary by members of the team, How the Manager works with other members of the Management Team, and Customer commentary.

I use different coaching techniques for my top and bottom Reps.

The top performers are coached with strategic thinking: intel about the competition, Suggestions on presentations. I coach the low performers another way. More often than not, they have a lack of confidence so I concentrate on building their strong points to regain their confidence, get some successes, build that momentum, and than work on their weak points when they are feeling better about themselves.

I hope this helps.

On Sales Management Processes

Martin from the United Kingdom “Sales management in my experience is part process, part science, part art. The art part is hard to outsource. It involves instinct about sales, people, deals and forecasts. Accurate forecasting is a key business metric and should be core to the business (B2B) it can not be outsourced in my opinion. As someone once said you don’t have a business until you sell something, you can’t outsource that responsibility.”

John from Charlotte, North Carolina :”Interesting proposition. I think it’s possible to have some impact in this area for sure. I think you could help sales managers a ton by providing processes. This would definately provide needed guidance in “what” they should be doing. There would still be a significant gap in the “how”. In other words, a sales manager could understand the steps in the process extremely well but not be able to perform at a high level at his/her “role” in that process. I’m confident that sales management could be broken down into several processes that could be documented. However, I’ve had the unfortunate experience of being in a few firms that tried to leverage “process” to “automate” sales and sales management to a point where I believe the vision was to have such robust and DETAILED processes in place that anyone could sell and manage sales. Fortunately, sales is a discipline like engineering or accounting that requires a significant level of skills and abilities. In summary, yes, providing process to sales managers would be a big help to those who had the right skills and abilities and had coaching and training regarding “how” to complete the steps in the process. Seems I rambled a bit. Hope this makes a little sense.”

On Managing your Sales Managers

Philippe from France “The best metrics I have seen both to assess and to influence the performance of sales managers are the sales management productivity metrics. They are to sales managers, what sales process metrics are to sales reps (number of calls, number of proposals, hit/win ratio, etc…). For sales managers these become : Number of joined sales calls (see Andrea’s comments…), Team forecast predictability, number of star reps, % of reps @goal, rep productivity ramp up, etc… Too often we measure sales managers with the same ratios we measure sales reps. There is another way more relevant to the uniqueness of their job.”

On Compensation Plans

Brian from Montreal, Canada : “My advice to is remember the story of NY taxi drivers. Their effort was independent of results. I fully agree that the commission structure can alter behavior. But caution, a poor structure will make your ‘life even more difficult’

On Joined sales calls

Andrea from San Francisco, California …Good ideas, thanks. I would add (as a Sales Manager) that I am more effective with my team (of 8), my management peers, and my General Manager when I fulfill my own metric of being out in the field with my team, each one of them, regularly. Currently, I require Sales Manager Ride-Alongs minimum of 2x/mo. each person. This is about the right amount of time for me to assess the skills, experience, and resources needed of each staff and to understand the customer market, while still keeping my own schedule during the month. Has been really valuable for me (and them).

On Sales Management outsourcing

Andy from Grand Rapids, Michigan “Philippe: I am currently acting as an outsourced, product-specific sales manager for a 20 person systems integrator. Echoing previous points made, the role works in the coaching, sales process management and “sales mechanics” ( (call or write, call Tuesday or Wednesday, call above contact or not, call with technology partner rep or not) level and seems cost effective for the management of the small integrator. What I cannot do is teach “farmer sales reps” to be “hunters” or to correct unproductive behavior (lack of follow up, not meeting deadlines, etc) so the outsourced role seems to have its limits.”

Yves from Luxembourg: “Dear all, At my own opinon, the answer will be in relation with the size of your customer’s company. The sales management outsourcing can be a valuable answer to the crisis for SMB companies. They would like increase some competencies, but they have not the revenue to hire a sales manager well experimented. This interim management can be a valuable offering. Especially if you have a sexy split between your fix and variable cost. Last but not least, You will be also there to provide some change recommendations to the sales org. It will be more than Sales Mgt, It will become sales consulting.”

On building self sustainable change for a sales organization

Randy from Toronto, Canada : “The chicken or the egg.” With limited resources these days, sale teams are consistently challenged to do more with less. Many have chimed in that you invest in the sales managers first then with your top performers. I fully agree! HOWEVER…. there always is a but or however isn’t there! haha

The However is this… how are you holding the coaches (sales managers/leaders) feet to the fire?? You can throw all the training cash in the world at a training problem… nothing will stick (or VERY little) unless you have a sustainability plan to support the training investment (training ROI). AND, you drop in leadership KPI’s, and not just a 5% weighting but something significant that will get the attention of the sales coach and KEEP their attention and focus. Then you have a successful investment and will see return as long as you have the ‘right’ sales coaches on the bus.

Others have said it… now is the time to send the message to your sales teams AND sales leadership/coaches that the old days are long gone and so will they if they don’t step up and bring their “A” game. Hard ass I know, but reality of the current climate it is. We can still treat people with dignity, respect and kindness, so long as they are willing to extend the same. Disney has a great saying ” if this is not where people are meant to be, then it is our duty to help them find their happiness elsewhere” (paraphrased but I think you get the point).

Philippe from somewhere above the Atlantic…

Man ! this discussion is going to make it to the Guinness book…but it is a great one – Thank you Randy for your last “touch”. I cannot agree with you more :

I believe that the best way people become “accountable” in the long term, is when we help them “see the light”, and therefore we help them change their habits for the better, so that these habits become eventually self sustainable. What is tricky is the actual transition period, and the other thing that is tricky is that we need to address the WHY (as opposed to the HOW) to help these people change permanently, and everyone of us has a different why…

Now there is hope, because the main reason star sales people are stars in their field is because they consistently are doing the right thing (and they are good at doing it right too!) and have become masters at managing their individual sales process. The reason they prospect consistently (or develop great customer stories, or have 10 face 2 face mtgs a week, etc..)is not because someone told them to, but because they understood at some point that these habits were critical to their sales cycle success (and Yes, maybe someone told them to during their “transition” period too…).

It is the same for sales managers, they need to adopt THE best practices for managing their sales force in their business. What is tricky for them is that the “sales management processes” are not as clear-cut yet as the sales processes are for sales people, and the other tricky part is that if sales people (like all people) resist change and do so probably more than “normal” people – sales managers are not any better : after all if they make their number leave them alone right ? – but what if they could improve their number by as much as 50% (and that is top AND bottom line…) , just by doing something a little different, more consistently, more focused and more “understandably”. Once they get it, they are as smart as salespeople, and will embrace that change forever too. I have seen it happen many times. But it does take quite some time because the 2 other obstacles which prevent sales managers to embrace the right habits -even once they understand them !- are : Number 1 his/her team, Number 2 his/her boss…That is why we also need to show sales management productivity metrics which can be visible throughout the whole sales organization during the transition period, until everyone owns and sees his/her light.

The good news is it is not that big of a change, but it does need to happen at all 3 levels – at the same time – and driven by the sales manager, to become really self sustainable for the whole sales organization.

As my mother used to say : “Change does not mean changing everything, it just means doing things differently…”

…

More to come as more discussions open/deepen etc…, your own feedback/inputs are also welcome an can be included in “Live From Planet Earth : It’s Sales Management Effectiveness Night !!!” Just let me know !

I just got back from another trip to EMEA where I helped 2 of my F500 clients embrace the 1+1+1=4!®  ”Lion taming techniques”.  I must say that I am getting more and more excited every time I do these trips because it not only helps me reconnect with my past (before I turned my life upside down to move to the land of opportunity…) and spend some precious time in Paris with my Dad and family but also because the learnings I get from delivering my coaching and training programs with new people and different cultures are always invaluable and feeds back immediately into my sales manager “R&D” and accelerates my “new products” development. This time, I spent a couple of days in Prague with one of my coaching clients and by working with him and his team during a full day, going very deep during back to back pipeline reviews, I realized that  they were making a simple mistake that has huge consequences on the performance of the team. The mistake of looking at the sales productivity reports together with the sales reps during the review (which completely kills accountability from the sales rep). I am pretty sure that plenty of sales managers who have tons of reports make that same mistake and I will now create a specific module to address that problem, its impact and how to  correct it.

Then after delivering 2 full days of sales management training in Brussels to a very diverse population of “rookie sales managers” from Turkey, Germany, Greece, France, Holland, Ireland and Italy, I developed new sales managers role plays that hit home every time and confirmed to me AGAIN that processes are the best way to overcome cultural differences : Processes are neutral, scientific and work whatever environment you are coming from. Not only that but the warmest feedbacks I received from this event came from 2 sales managers who did not even have sales reps !…One was from a channel manager dealing with resellers and one was from a Key account manager dealing with a global virtual team and who needed to lead sales reps in different countries to produce for the global account…Those sales reps were not reporting to him directly but he had to influence them still.

This made me realize AGAIN (this is not the first time it happens) that 1+1+1=4!® has other huge potential as  a Leadership program for Global account managers for instance and for Indirect sales forces as well: here’s a new positioning for me  to work on now for my new brand…

3 of my local  smaller business clients just ended their “best year ever” in 2011 and are now planning to beat it again in 2012. When asked to look in retrospect at what kind of changes  actually made such an impact that 2011 became their record year, the same answer came back from all of them : “We shifted our company culture towards more of a sales culture. You helped us get visibility on what REALLY mattered at the sales manager level, at the sales reps level and also at the business owner level”…

I call that kind of  sales culture a HIGH GROWTH sales culture. Most F500 companies host a culture based on goal achievement, on carefully prepared “drill downs”, on consistent business inspections  and last but not least on actual empowerment of each sales person based on the real belief that good sales people should make more money than their boss (that’s OK Really!)

Small businesses can rarely create that kind of culture by themselves and they struggle with the traditional hire/fire issues when it comes to sales people, or with the unwritten rule that sales people are overpaid and lazy, or with the never ending “quest” for the magical A top sales player who – when they finally find him one day -eventually leaves  because recognition  is hard to get when the culture that prevails around you is basically that “sales people are a necessary evil and -deep down- I still believe that they are also overpaid and lazy…”

The sales manager and/or the business owner are key to help adopt this new culture which is why I focus on them to “get it” first before we roll out the other key to success that they absolutely need  to build right  : The Mirror through which we will ask the reps to look into on a consistent basis  to measure their progress and take corrective action early if needed.

The right sales culture coming from the top with the right measurement system combined with the right skills to  influence the behaviors of your lions will do wonders for your sales growth.

Next : Part 2 : Build your sales productivity management system

THE 4 MISTAKES THAT CAN KILL YOUR LION TAMER HERE

The more I work with small business owners the more I am trying  to figure out the root cause that prevents their sales from consistently growing . Now that I have become a small business owner myself I understand better some of the unique challenges of this “job” and I am learning to adapt my sales management concepts to the sales culture of a small business- when they have one…

Actually, now that I think of it, the main problem I am faced with when I help the sales “organization” of a small business owner is that they actually do not have enough of a sales culture and that may be the root cause of many of their growth issues.

Having worked most of my life with Fortune 500 companies, I never had that kind of problem before and I never realized how important  it was for a sales team to perform  to  actually create a REAL sales culture of their own.

Now the 3 main reasons small businesses struggle to  build this sales culture are :

#1 the sales culture comes from the sales manager first (when you have one)

#2 if you are in a small business where there is no sales manager – the small business owner is the  ”jack of all trades” and her/his sales culture is more of a “lion” culture (entrepreneurship -can do attitude)  rather than an authentic sales management culture (can make others do attitude)

#3 if you are a small business owner who has grown her/his business enough to the point of hiring a sales manager, your original entrepreneurship  culture will most of the time conflict with a real sales management culture that your sales manager may try to build  for her/his own sake and success but which is doomed to fail unless you let go a little of your original culture…and help her/him create something new that does not have to be incompatible with your values by the way (even though those crazy salesmen really are a pain in the neck aren’t they?…)

To help you understand what I mean by a sales management culture let me share with you what a sales culture IS NOT :

- It is NOT to think that sales people are lazy and overpaid and do not deserve to make more money than you do

- It is NOT to define goals that are unachievable because that is the best way to stretch your sales people (and they are lazy and overpaid anyway…)

- It is NOT to drive sales meetings where you make everyone feel bad and responsible for the fact that we had a bad month last month…so everyone can leave the meeting feeling really demotivated and guilty.

- It is NOT to  constantly express your frustration because your sales people should be producing twice as much as they are doing right now (and underestimate the RESISTANCE to  CHANGE  especially from a sales person….)

- It is NOT to think that FEAR, HUMILIATION and GUILT  are the best way to lead sales people (unless you have THE WRONG SALES PEOPLE on board of course…which is what you end up having with a FEAR CULTURE instead of a sales culture…) – The RIGHT SALES PEOPLE are usually NOT AFRAID by anything and especially NOT AFRAID OF  YOU !…(because if they are really good, they are very much in demand and they will go wherever a GOOD LION TAMER can earn their respect and make then successful (which usually goes hand in hand…). You’d better get used to this idea or you will end up with PUSSY CATS who will never grow your business !!!  I am sorry if this hurts your ego a little but LEADING LEADERS means checking your ego at the door first. Else, you will remain one of  the main obstacles to the creation of a successful sales culture in your organization and as such,  to the growth of your business…

Now, I will share with you next time what a sales culture really is…as a start, here’s what it looks like: