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Are You An Enabling Manager? – Sales eXchange 1900

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

Probably the most important role in a sales organizations ability to ensure successful and consistent execution of their sales process is the front line sales manager. They are the ones that distill the central message down to the local team. They are the ones who ensure that the discipline and the measures that are required to succeed are implemented, adhered to and improved, both in day to day interactions with their team members, and in their design and delivery of the individual sales reps’ annual coaching plan. They are the ones who hold the individuals on their teams accountable for their activities, SOP’s, and the delivery of revenues/clients. No one in the organization is in a greater position to enable their team members to succeed.

The question then becomes, what are they enabling. As with parenting, enabling involves more than just providing, you need to be actively involved, you need to be actively setting the example. By this I don’t mean showing your people how to sell, but setting the example by adhering to the process yourself. How do we expect sales people to do all the things they need to do to succeed, including the mundane and trivial activities, if we don’t do ours as managers, if the manager can take shortcuts or deviate from the process, well why not the rep.

Many parents enable their kids by looking the other way when they find them doing things that could be negative or harmful, as o many sales managers. Some rationalize things by pointing to the fact that the rep is good, delivers the numbers, they don’t want to interfere. Unless you feel that your company’s processes are bogus, you could be missing a great opportunity for that same rep to improve, deliver more, or deliver their current success with less effort or time. By looking the other way you are letting the rep down and your team.

If you have reps who are not always delivering, the 80%-90% of goal reps, and they see that you are letting some people pick and choose, you are asking for more issues. One is that you don’t really care what they do or how they do, basically they are on their own till the end of month/quarter tally. In this vacuum of leadership and lack of support, two things happen; first, absent the manager’s involvement, they look around to see who is succeeding, and do what those successful sellers do; and as discussed above, they are not following the proven process, so they conclude that they don’t need to either, but since they lack the god given skill, they are doomed to stay where they are or even regress after a time. Second, these 80%-90% players looking to improve become great recruiting targets, often for no other reason than the opportunity to be coached, supported and enabled to be 100%+ players, something you can enable them to do here and now, just by getting active and involved.

Enabling takes planning, action, work, and accountability. Like many parents you can say that you enable your kids by letting them make their own choices, and deal with the outcome. Or you can actively engage, set parameters, expectations and an example, and in the process enable them to succeed, rather than enabling them to no succeed; both are enabled.

What’s in Your Pipeline
Tibor Shanto

A reminder that there is a class this afternoon, 4:00 pm Eastern

GAP Selling – Leveraging Process and Execution

GAP Selling – Looks at how to deliver value to buyers across the entire sales cycle.
Almost every sales conversation starts or ends with the concept of value; at the same time there are as many different understandings and definitions of value as there are sellers and buyers.

This course delivers clear and actionable definition of value. Starting with that definition of value, participants will learn the five step platform to leveraging that value right through the sale, from the initial engagement to winning the client. The overarching goal of the platform is to focus on the buyer’s objectives, and delivering specific means of helping them achieve those objectives.

These include:

Identifying and validating buyer’s objectives
Understanding why buyers really buy
Why Buyers buy and don’t buy from you and your company
Converting the above to impact questions and quality conversation
A structured follow-through approach to maximize impact and progress Participants will learn how to use the above to create alignment with the buyer, their objectives and buying process

Join us at 4:00 pm Eastern today

Prerequisite – An open mind to learning and selling better

Test – Your weekly Pipeline Review

Metrics are key to sales success, we all heard and know that if it is not measured it does not count, and that if it is not measured or doesn’t seem to count, it is hard to change, usually for the better. Some have difficulty knowing where to start, but as you can see from the video below, and this complementary article, it is best to start at the end and work back.

Take a look at the segment below, and see where you fit, or where you need to start.

Next Step

Workout key conversion points that can be measured
Decide which of the above make best sense for you
Work your metrics

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Earlier this week, I posted on two related or intersecting topics sales leaders need to manage and improve. First, their view of, and approach to sales training; second the alignment of their sales assets with clearly identifiable market segments.

Based on some feedback, I want to expand on some key points and make sure that the wrong message is not being taken away.

With respect to KPI’s and training, I was not saying that KPI’s do not belong as part of training initiative. In fact there needs to be metrics, measures and other indicators to ensure that the training is effective, implemented and is delivering the desired behavioural change. Those same indicators should then be utilized to refine training strategy and implementation. What I was saying, and don’t apologize for, is that sales leaders need stop making decisions on training in order to meet one of their KPI’s. Not only does this not result in training that moves the dial forward, but more importantly communicates a clear message to their sales teams. The message is that it is OK to just go through the motion to meet the basic requirement without regard for the end result. After all, if the VP can get by with training that does not change sales behaviour, than why can a rep take a similar view, “you wanted five face to face visits, you got five”; KPI met, sale or not.

The question of alignment extends in to training as well. Just as you don’t want to misalign the resources based on the type of buyer involved, you also don’t want to assume that all your sales people will benefit from the same type of training. I have written in the past that there needs to be no democracy in sales training. Indeed, when it comes to sales training, one size does not fit all. Many have taken a forward step of separating new recruit training and some form of “advanced” training; others created online programs better matching requirements and content. When actively managed this moves things in the right direction, when not, which is often the case, this type of training just invites the KPI mentality highlighted above. This happens eve when there is testing built into modules.

In the end, as with anything strategic and core to business success, it is about having a long term view and the backbone to execute, especially when long term results and success will materialize after the next fiscal quarter or year end. Let’s start by removing the KPI for cosmetic band aide initiatives.

Next Step

Develop or ensure your sales process aligns with and reflects your market’s buying process
Make sure you have the right people on the bus
Use the two above to determine he right training to create success behaviour

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

They say you can’t shrink your way to success, but perhaps there are situations in sales where you can. By shrinking your territories, strategically where it make sense. A common concern I hear from sales leaders across all verticals is that they don’t feel that reps are fully covering their territories. This concern applies to coverage for existing accounts, or harvesting the new business opportunities. Without going too deep this happens because they create territories based on zip codes or borders of provinces or states, rather than the makeup of the territory, the realities of what can be properly covered by any given rep. It is true that the economy has had a real impact on leaders ability to properly respond, but there is still room for data driven creative approaches.

But instead many, not all, do different things, shifting lower revenue accounts to an inside team, which works until the inside team has too much volume and all one has done is shift the glut from one team to the other, without an improvement in coverage or revenue.

One approach that intrepid leaders can look to is too shrink the size of territories, based on a number of factors driven by deal size, length of cycle, nature of the offering (new or mature), is the focus margin or market share, is there opportunity for organic growth, or strictly competitive account growth, and others.

By systematically reducing the size of the territory, along with adjustments based on the elements above, you can actually create focus and coverage, and as a result greater revenues, by continuing to
logically shrink territories. If you focus is new accounts, the shrinking territory will create a focus on accounts that would be over looked in the perceived plenty in larger territories, take away the clutter and the opportunities become more clear. If you are about covering and growing existing accounts, then again, concentrated territories make for concentrated effort, and better results.

Two caveats, an obvious one is that at one point you will have to add headcount to service new territories. This however is easier to do when you have data to support both the reshaping of territories and the opportunities created. This will not always be easy, and will require some concessions, but over the long run, better than inefficient territories, over looked opportunities, and the stress of losing business.

The other is to ensure you have the right people in the right territories. Not all sales people have the same skills. Some hunt better, while others are much better at fostering relationships and growing existing accounts. As you shrink territories you need to move your assets around. But if you do it right, and in concert with the sales teams, you’ll find that the assets want to move to territories that play to their strength. This produces another up side, the reps tend to do better in their element, which just accelerates the results.

So go ahead shrink it.

Next Step

Analyse and segment targets, then overlay them on a map to see where the opportunities are, not state lines
Decide what kind of assets make sense for the territories based on you analysis above
Share your plan with the reps, sales people are hoarders by nature, they will fear the shrink, but will welcome the upside if you present it.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Feb 3rd, 2012 Attitude, Business Acumen, EDGE Sales Process, execution, Metrics, Productivity, Sales Success, Territory Alignment

Coaching, EDGE Sales Process, execution, how to sell better, Leadership, Renbor Sales Solutions Inc., Sales Success, Territory Alignment

The REAL Problem with Sales Training18

The Pipeline Guest Post – Jonathan Farrington

It seems that every week we are being told that sales training is not working in a very high percentage of cases – 85-90% was one statistic I read just yesterday

And actually I agree. In my opinion, hundreds of millions of dollars world-wide are wasted every year on irrelevant, unnecessary or inappropriate sales skills development. There are four obvious reasons ….

To begin with, the one off program may supply a short term motivational buzz and provide the delegate with a number of thought provoking ideas. However, in reality, once they are back at the “front-line”, the day to day pressures of hitting quota, etc. take over again and the reactive mindset returns.

Secondly, most – not all – but a very high percentage of courses on offer today deliver what I term “generalized” skills development.

For example, a person operating within the aerospace sector, negotiating multi-million pound contracts can find himself sitting next to a young saleswoman who markets insurance policies and is based in a call center. On her right is another person who is developing a successful career in manufacturing, selling hydraulic components and next to him…..I think
you will appreciate my point.

To achieve sustained success in all of these disparate industries requires specific skills sets and the “generalized” workshops simply cannot deliver them.

Thirdly, most – and again I would estimate it is at least 80% of – training organizations today make the assumption that all delegates are at the same level in terms of experience, expertise and have the same “commercial bandwidth”. This is of course, totally unrealistic.

Whilst it is not possible to equate age and experience with success, the reality is that, although some professional salespeople do have ten years’ experience, most have one year’s experience ten times! The very best salespeople – the ones that consistently exceed expectation, have usually received ongoing skills development from the “emerging” stage all the way through “advanced”, right up to “consultative” level if appropriate, but the keyword is “ongoing”

Finally – and this is the most significant and blatant error of judgment most Sales Directors make – every member of the team receives the same training, i.e.they are all dispatched off to the same course, regardless of whether or not they already have those skills or if indeed they need to have them in their current role.

The point here is that there is far too little planning, assessing and objective setting – it is much easier to abdicate responsibility to the training company… The downside to this approach is, of course, so much money is wasted!

So what is the answer? I don’t have all the answers, does anybody? But I have some of them, and I invite you to download the FREE white paper – registration is not required.

About Jonathan Farrington

Jonathan Farrington is a globally recognized business coach, mentor, author, consultant, and sales strategist, who has guided hundreds of companies and thousands of individuals around the world towards optimum performance levels. He is the CEO of Top Sales Associates, Chairman of The jf Corporation and the creator of topsalesworld.com, topsalesmanagement.com and the annual Top Sales & Marketing Awards. Jonathan is based in London and Paris.

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Dec 16th, 2011 e-book, execution, Guest Post, Productivity, Sales Leadership, Sales Success, Sales Training

Attitude, Coaching, execution, Guest Post, Leadership, Sales Success, Sales Training

Vendors, Sellers & Resellers30

Earlier this year i had the opportunity to be the MC a number of events aimed at helping vendors and resellers better leverage the opportunities available to both through a consistent execution of their mutual strategy. The interview below looks at the resources available to both vendors and resellers to help them sell better, take advantage of the opportunities presented by the cloud and managed services. But as with any resource, you need to utilize it to benefit from it, your clients are turning to these new resources, the question is are they also turning to you?

Watch, enjoy, comment, put thing to use and profit, and if you like what you hear, give me a call and let’s discover how we can make it work for you, your team or company.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Nov 30th, 2011 execution, Interactive Selling, Productivity, Sales Tip, Selling to Executives, Strategic, Tactical, Value, Video

Attitude, Coaching, execution, how to sell better, Leadership, Proactive, Proactivity, Renbor Sales Solutions Inc., Tibor Shanto, Video

Execution Based Coaching64

This article has been selected for DeFinis Communications’ “Sales Coaching: Top Tips for Increased Productivity” Blog Carnival. You can enjoy even more posts from other exceptional bloggers at their website.

An effective sales coaching process needs to be based on two pillars of sales success and continuous improvement process: activity and process. By focusing on executing an organization’s standardized sales process, Managers are able to deliver objective coaching, taking subjectivity and personalities out of the mix. This in turn drives mutual accountability and focus on high value activities and results. By driving specific sales process related activities, coaches are able to tailor and evolve plans for each individual member of their team based on their specific skills, abilities and current results.

Sales Managers must understand and embrace the difference between Managing and Coaching, applying both as needed to develop their teams. Manager are expected to set role expectations, clearly defining specific objectives, including financial goals, client acquisition, renewal and penetration targets, specific time allocation and activity levels for key success activities. Without understanding and acceptance of these fundamentals, it is difficult for sales teams and individuals to succeed, nor for managers to successfully lead their teams and individuals to consistent success.

Once the sales rep understands and accepts the role definition and related metrics, the Manager needs to inventory the reps’ skills, attributes and ability to deliver agreed on expectations and objectives. This allows the Manager to develop near term and long term coaching and development plans for each rep based on their abilities.

Once the expectations have been accepted by the rep, the Manager needs to transition from Manager to Coach, helping the individual rep to consistently execute the process with continuous improvement in results measured against plan.

A fully effective Execution Based Coaching model is implemented on two parallel tracks, a week to week reinforcement of the sales process, including related activities and metrics; and a longer term development plan based on the individuals’ ability to deliver against plan and over all development goals.

Week to Week Application

Based on pre-agreed on levels of activity, opportunities at various stages of the funnel based on the individual’s conversion rates. Because the review is driven by metrics and a standardized process, they require little time, and can be conducted as a team to encourage knowledge and market information sharing. Executed properly (according to the Renbor way), these are short crisp meetings with each member of the team taking no more than five minutes. Because reviews are weekly, and focus on real opportunities, real being specifically defined based on pipeline criteria, not the interpretation of each member of the team; this is one of the key things established in the expectation phase above.

Longer Term Development Plan

In order to deliver long term development, Managers also need to develop and implement a long-term and ongoing formal Coaching Plan for each rep. This part of the model is rooted in the teams’ success plan, and is tailored to meet the needs of the individual. It involves a three step process.

First, Coaches set high level goals for the team based on skills and attributes, developed based on role expectation and skills gap identified; ongoing development and evolvement of individual sales rep through mentoring and individual motivation.

Second, as important as a long-term development plan is, the reality is that a year is a long period with many changes throughout the year. To facilitate this, Managers need to break down the over all plan to a series of short 6 to 8 week action plans, bite size versus big and daunting, relevant now versus distant change. This makes for greater acceptance by reps, drives adoption and implementation of specific steps. It also allows reps to celebrate success along the way, and encourages them to want coaching, driving mutual accountability, making coaching a positive regular practice rather than event based.

Third, this allows the Manager to update and revise plans based on daily realities in the field, and impact the sales reps’ activities and actions based on how well they are executing and responding to market conditions, and the output from the weekly reviews, linking the near-term and long-term tracks.

While to some this may seem like an involved process, the greatest value a sales coach can bring to an organization is the development of their reps.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

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With all the advances in science, medicine, science 2.0, medicine 2.0, there is still a condition that plagues sales, causing grief and lost revenues to companies across the planet. The illness is “Senior Personitis”.

Depending on your organization, this could inflict you staff as early as a year into the job, or it could take five years or more, but for most sales organization, it is just a question of time before members of your team come down with this sick, and your revenue show the symptoms.

We see it every day, reps who feel they have “earned the right” not to do certain must do things in sales. Most common of these is prospecting, but there are other things including keeping the information in their CRM up-to-date.

You have to give them credit, they don’t bother getting creative in making excuses, they just flat out tell you that they have “arrived” at the point in their career where they don’t have to do that. What’s even more amusing for me, tragic for their employer, is that most of the time these reps are chronic under performers. Not deadly, but usually between 70% – 80% of goal, yet refuse to take logical steps to up their game or their out put. Nothing a little process, discipline, coaching won’t fix.

Which brings us to their enabled and accomplice, their Manager. Recently I was speaking with a sales manager recently, when I floored by what he said about one of his under performing reps; when we got around to his prospecting (more accurately the lack of it), he said “he’s earned the right not to prospect”. Please!

What, he has earned the right not to contribute to the success of the company, he has earned the right to be paid for work he is not doing, he has earned the right occupy space that could be occupied by someone productive? I don’t see it.

Many mangers are in fear of offending someone that is doing little more than playing concierge to their accounts. Fearing that if they “lost” the rep they would somehow be behind, the vacant territory syndrome. Ask me, they would be better off with a vacant territory than having these under performers who are likely not aware of opportunities in their existing accounts, and have declared their right not to bring on new prospects.

There is a remedy, the logical one is fire them, but I know that’s not fashionable these days. If you don’t have it in you to do the right thing, you can re-establish expectations around the activity in question, develop a mutually agreed on plan, including targets, timelines, metrics and review process. This needs to yield results in a predictable time or you run the risk of communicating the wrong message to the rest of your team, which is “with seniority comes the freedom not to deliver”. Not one of the points on the “Mission Statement” poster in the lobby, is it?

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

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Sales is a game of words and meanings; the words we use, how we communicate them, their interpretations by the receiver, directly impact the meaning others take away from our message. It all count in sales, and therefore has to be actively managed and results dealt with. This is why language is an important aspect of sales; further, a key attribute of a solid sales culture is a “common language.” The key in sales is that the communications have to align with actions.

It is no surprise that people often hide behind words, or get very different results than they set out to achieve, based on what and how they communicate, then act. Case in point is how some in sales the words: Implementation and Execution.

Read On…

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

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Mar 16th, 2011 Attitude, Coaching, Communication, EDGE Sales Process, execution, Sales Leadership

Accountability, Attitude, Coaching, Commitment, execution, how to sell better, Proactivity, Prospecting, Renbor Sales Solutions Inc., Tibor Shanto

1 2 Next »

What's In Your Pipeline?

Are You An Enabling Manager? – Sales eXchange 1900

School Is In53

Metrics – Shmetrics!57

It’s Not Always Easy18

Shrink Your Way To Success19

The REAL Problem with Sales Training18

Vendors, Sellers & Resellers30

Execution Based Coaching64

Senior Personitis – Sales eXchange – 9016

Implementation vs. Execution19