Did you plan your sales organization? Did you think about direct vs. indirect channels, and the type and use of technology? Did you create a compensation plan that rewarded the behaviors you want and the results you need? Or did it just evolve? You were doing all the sales and then you hired someone and before you knew it you had four salesman and a sales manager who was better at selling than he is at managing.
Sales organizations and their processes and methodologies often evolve ad hoc without adequate study or planning or goals. They form out of the current business necessities and go through occasional re-organizations that reflect the demands of the moment, individual personalities, the resources available, or simply the way it has always been done.
They are set up for what is or for what has been, not for what could be.
This may be due to a simplistic view of sales held by management, that it’s black magic practiced by wizards who are best left alone. Companies that will spend millions on product development won’t spend anything on developing an optimum sales organization or training or tools.
But sales people are your market face. They are your customer’s advocate within your organization. More than your product or your brand, your sales staff impacts your relationships with your customers – past, present, and future.
Products vs. Sales
Many companies, especially technology companies, feel that the product is everything. Build the world’s best (fill in the blank), send out some leaflets, and wait by the phone for the orders to roll in. Now that might work except for two problems. The first is the competition. Even if yours is truly the best, the guy with the second best is out banging on doors telling the customers that his is the best. And they often believe him.
Which segues nicely to the second problem. The market is not as expert as you. Or your competitor. If he is good, they will believe him, and all the impersonal test results, web sites, awards, or features in the world won’t help you. Someone with selling skills has to stand in front of the customer and give them the tools and information that they need to make an informed decision.
Sales trumps product every time.
The Company Personality
Companies have a personality. Usually it is the personality of the dominant figure. The smaller the company, the more that personality rules. If the dominant figure is an engineer, the company will be analytical and structured. If he or she is an accountant, the company will be process heavy. For the most part, successful, growing companies have a marketing or sales personality. This is clearly a simplification as capable and committed sales people and business success come in a variety of shapes and from a variety of disciplines, but marketing and sales are a dominant factor even if they are not the dominant factor.
This marketing and sales corporate personality reflects a customer orientation and places the needs of the customer first. Taken too far, this results in the “anything for a buck” company where it is sales’ role to discover the customer “purchase de jour” and spin the product to fit. In the balanced company, the customer is the focus, and your core competencies are the boundaries.
The Role of Technology
When people think technology and sales, they think laptop computers and handheld devices with contact lists and calendars. But technology applied to sales can and should be much more than lists of people and places and things and appointments.
To most people, sales is an art. But it is an art that is based on process and methodology, and as such, it can be modeled and analyzed and monitored and improved. Using technology, best practices can be codified and available to all, helping raise the overall level of performance. Behaviors can be taught and monitored and measured and rewarded. Information and responsibility can be shared and handed off seamlessly and consistently. Knowledge can be accumulated and available and used.
Choosing sales technology must be done in the context of all the other sales organization issues. In other words, fit the technology to your business, not the reverse.
The Role of Training
Sales training is an effective and valuable tool. It must be accompanied by current product training and by up-to-date market knowledge to be most effective.
The problem with sales training is that it is almost always tied to processes or gimmicks or tools that are taught and implemented and then forgotten. Little cards with personality types, or 10-step processes, or clever buzzwords might work for a while, but without reinforcement and results, use will diminish and eventually vanish.
Sales training is always built around processes and methodology. Pick the sales methodology and processes that fit your organization and train these. And then embed them into everything you do – reports, database fields and screens, calendars, communications – so that they are in front of the user every day, reinforcing the teaching.
I’ll have more to add in Part 2 – Did You Really Think This Through?
