Does everyone have an emotional link to doing a good job

This week we were due to focus on Resources, however during the last week we have recognised an environmental trait that appears to be having a major impact on some of the sales organisations we are working with. The core of this issue is "is it better to have people who expect to be financially rewarded for doing the job, or to have those who have an emotional driver that makes them want to do a good job?"


On the face of it this may appear to be a stupid question as western society has built its commercial success around a reward culture. In fact everyone agrees that a key factor in creating successful sales enablement is a commission plan that drives activities in the right places. So why are we concerning ourselves with this emotional link?

Do you have a contractor led environment?
As a result of the recession many companies have drastically reduced headcount, which has left gaps in their capabilities, which they fill with contractors - people on short-term day rate contracts. This in itself is not an issue but it is for some creating an environment where success is "doing the job I am paid for" as opposed to creating an environment built around success for the company and colleagues. Just imagine what an Apple Store would be like if it was full of contractors who did not have a passion for Apple, it would be just like many other stores - soulless.

So how does this impact the sales environment?
In some cases the contractor mentality is increasing the stove pipe approach to sales enablement. Lots of standalone initiatives, each of which are built on good intentions, but unfortunately are all pulling in slightly different directions. Too often the contractors are put in a position where they are told what they are expected to do (think micro-management) and it is made clear "this is what you are paid to deliver". As such the contractor adds no value, which is frustrating for some and acceptable for others.

The net result is that this stove-pipe initiative approach encourages the sales community to ignore all the initiatives - "if you duck under this initiative don't worry because there will be another one coming along shortly".

How can you ensure you create a positive environment?
Clearly we are not saying "don't use contractors", that would be naive. Instead we recommend that at a management level you have to work even harder to ensure that everything is connected. You have to articulate the end objective and be clear how all the workstreams combine to achieve that objective. If you can do this you increase your chances of success.

Secondly, we suggest you review how you work with your contractors. Have you asked them for a fixed price for the work, focussing them on what you want them to achieve as opposed to "how many days will I be paid for?" If they can achieve your objective quicker, even if the price is fixed, that is clearly a success.

Thirdly, you have to get the contractors to collaborate. If you do not, they will compete for budget and not provide you with a joined up end-to-end solution. Instead you could end up with "world class" initiatives that overlap and confuse the sales community and therefore not achieving the overall strategic objective.

Who controls the answer?
It is important to remember that the sales messages, environment, tools and target sales behaviours are all part of a sales enablement process. They are not separate initiatives but part of a whole solution. They will only be successful if your customer, i.e. the sales team, use them and sell more!

Senior management must own the objectives, not the contractors (even if you out-task), as they are the people who should have the emotional link to solving the problem. But remember, if you are looking for contractors who add value then you need to find those who have an emotional driver to improving selling, (be careful they can be evangelical in their passion and highly opinionated). If you focus them on the end-objective they will be driven to make a difference, this will be reflected in their desire to use project pricing as opposed to day-rate.

If you would rather have bodies who do as they are told, that is fine. Remember that you have to have clarity as to what you want them to do and be prepared for things to take longer than anticipated, you are paying them by the day after all!

Let's return to the environment
As we stated at the beginning, there are two types of contractors; those who are paid to do a job and those who emotionally want to do a good job. We would suggest that when it comes to finding leaders of behavioural change you should always look for the latter. Organisationally if you can create this emotional tie then you will be even more successful, but do not think this removes the need for rewarding success. I am sure Apple pay their employees even though they are so passionate.

Be prepared to ask for help

If you feel our views on contracting in to solve key strategic issues are of interest we would love to hear your views. We can give you quick feedback just by placing a comment on this blog, or we can work with you to ensure you are best placed to start to drive the activities that will help you be successful.

Do you want to know more?

Either read our "Helping business drive sales" document or contact either Mark Savinson or Fred Nelson and let Accredit help to enable your sales organisation to maximise the opportunities your portfolio creates.

How can we ensure our sales people are capable of delivering?

Firstly apologies for the delay in this blog, as we move into the holiday season we are having to update blogs via mobile broadband, in the quiet periods when our wives do not notice we are working. In fact part of this blog has been updated via an iPad.

We will keep the blogs short for the next 2 weeks, so please stay with us until normal service is resumed.

The trinity continued
The third element of our trinity of key components of sales success, after Messages and Environment (which we have covered over the past couple of weeks), is Resources.

By Resources we mean the sales people in our sales teams - whether they be inside sales reps on the desk or face to face account team members and specialist/technical sales people.

If we get the Messages "sales ready" and the internal Environment (processes and systems) right then neither is worth anything without a well trained, highly motivated, highly capable team of sales people. It goes without saying really doesn't it? That said we often see many examples where the sales people - the most important element of all - appear poorly trained, of low motivation and are rarely coached by their team leaders and sales managers.

Why is this? From what we have observed it is a combination of things which when mixed together do not necessarily support overall achievement of the corporate revenue and margin goals

We regularly see:-

1. Little or no relevant training on current and planned proposition portfolios
2. Too much focus on portfolio and not enough focus on customers.
3. Low levels of motivation
4. Little or no 1:1 coaching of individuals by their sales managers
5. Lack of clarity around what the focus of their activity should be.

The answer is not "send them on a training course"

Clearly a well trained sales force will be more effective than an untrained sales force. But our experience shows that just by training sales people in generic sales skills is no guarantee of success.

Training is very good at ensuring that sales people (and managers) have the requisite skills to be able to sell. It is important to remember that the training must focus on the appropriate skills for the market you are operating in. Over the last few years we have seen an obsession with the move towards solution or consultative selling, with an ever growing number of sales methodologies promising the golden bullet to selling. However, the focus on the methodology almost undermines the fundamental aspect of successful selling - addressing the needs of the customer! To-date we have never seen a tender document that includes the sales methodology that must be used, and I know of no customer who approaches a sales person and bases their decision to buy on whether they are using the latest "closing technique".

The most effective sales training is based on firstly identifying the most effective way of engaging with your clients. If you are in a transactional environment (where the customer comes with a defined requirement and is looking for someone to fulfil that requirement) then training must be focussed around customer service, speed of response and the ability to up-sell and cross-sell (do you want fries with that or would you like to go large). If on the other hand your clients are looking for you to solve a problem, then you need a consultative sales approach with a focus on uncovering need, addressing the need, proving the value of your proposed approach and negotiating to a close.

In both of the examples, the customer is at the centre of the sale. All selling is customer centric, and your training solution should be too. This is of course not a radical suggestion as, if you have read the previous blogs on the trinity of message, environment and resources, all of our comments can be summarised as "put the customer at the centre of all your thinking, they are the ones who buy!"

Moving from sales training to engagement enablement

We are not a lone voice here, we are currently working with a large mobile communications company and they have launched an up-skilling programme for their sales people. What is interesting is that the suppliers (they have gone for a consortium approach) they have selected are using a blended approach that uses e-learning to deliver the base level skills and then face-to-face sessions that are based on using the skills to engage with clients. For this approach they start with role play and then move onto to monitored live engagement.

What is different about this approach is that all the focus is on engaging with customers and selling something, and not the methodology itself. This enables the suppliers to directly link the programme to an ROI (business won), as opposed to relying on some form of "test" at the end to see what people have learnt.

This approach, in our opinion, is the ideal start point to training a sales team as it ticks the following boxes.

• Focus is on doing the job and not a methodology
• Everything is in the context of selling the portfolio
• It is customer centric as it focusses on engagement (doing) and not theory
• Results are measurable, it is tied to selling something
• It can be linked to a sustainable approach
• Sales managers can continue focussing on the doing

Suppliers alone cannot solve the problem

Training can only show people the most effective way of selling their portfolio. It is up to the organisation to ensure that best practice is used every day. This neatly takes us on to motivation and coaching which we will examine next week.

Be prepared to ask for help

If you feel our thoughts on any aspect of the "trinity" are of interest we would love to hear your views. We can give you quick feedback just by placing a comment on this blog, or we can work with you to ensure you are best placed to start to drive the activities that will help you be successful.

Do you want to know more?

Either read our "Helping business drive sales" document or contact either Mark Savinson or Fred Nelson and let Accredit help to enable your sales organisation to maximise the opportunities your portfolio creates.

How can we ensure our internal Environment enables our selling activities

Over the last couple of weeks we have posted on what we at Accredit Ltd call the three key internal components of sales success - Message, Environment and Resources.

This week we will focus on Environment.

In essence what we are talking about here are the internal environmental issues that lead to sales success - Process, Motivation and Support/Culture. Is it easy for our sales force to sell and our customers to buy our products and solutions? Are our sales people motivated to sell our portfolio and is the culture supportive of great selling habits?


Is it easy to sell what we sell?

This is a key question because it addresses the needs of the seller and the buyer. What we mean by this is that if our internal processes are aligned to ensuring that selling and buying are "easy" then we are likely to sell more and have more satisfied customers. For example if you sell a fairly complex or technical solution you probably need your salespeople to have access to very competent, expert project managers or technical specialists that can support the sales guys through the selling process. If you make it hard for sales to get access to the technical guys then it makes it harder for them to sell and harder for customers to get their technical concerns addressed. If the order handling process is complex or fragmented then the same applies - difficulty for sales and customers instead of ease and smooth professionalism.


Are our sales people motivated to sell our portfolio?
This is not just about payplan and bonus which is, of course, vital to get right when designing a sales remuneration package for a particular campaign, product portfolio or annual sales plan. What is just as important as money in our view are the "softer" motivational issues such as are related to the "ease" of selling we discussed above. If we make it too hard, sales people will be turned off. All of us in sales want it to be as easy as possible to sell; if it is not and we can find another way of earning our bonus then we will be drawn to what is easy.


What is our support culture?

Another 'soft" motivator that is absolutely vital and is something we have blogged about many times over the past year is sales management - how are we managed, led, coached. Is it mostly stick and little carrot? Do we feel happy in what we are doing? Do we feel valued? Are we regularly coached? Are we helped in finding solutions to problems when we are struggling to find answers and to do our best?

Having an internal environment where sales people feel valued is vital, where they can rely on processes and systems to help make the sales "easy". Easy does not mean easy in terms of being allowed to give away discounts; it is more about how the processes enable the order handling, contract signing, service handling etc. to run effectively for both the internal stakeholders and of course your customers.

We asked a sales support team recently what one word describes your organisational culture at present - their answer was damning. "Dictatorial"

This is a very successful major corporate sales team with a history of achievement. The last 2 years have been difficult (just like it has for many companies and sales teams). Culturally when the going gets tough this organisation has fallen into the trap of what we call "blamestorming" - in other words let's point the finger and demand change and improvement in the way a dictator would. The language is typical of organisations in panic mode - "The sales force need more training on products, they are not selling enough, it must be a lack of training". "These sales guys are rubbish" is the sort of thing we have heard over the past few weeks.

As the saying goes "when the going gets tough, the tough get going". In our view that does not mean shouting and pointing fingers. A culturally mature, level headed sales organisation has a leadership focus on understanding why things are not going so well, recognising the issues, thinking through some potential solutions and then executing and measuring the most appropriate solutions. Being "dictatorial" and demanding instant change, more training, more reporting etc. does not solve anything.

Reviewing sales activity and understanding what is going on before leaping into "solutions" is the mature, culturally grown up way of moving forward.

Three things to think about
So our recommendation is whether times are good or bad regularly look at how your selling environment is working.

1. Make it easy to sell. Align processes and systems to enabling selling so that all internal resources and your customers can easily understand what is happening, what is on offer, what will happen next and when service will be delivered.
2. Make sure your sales force is motivated. Motivation is about money for sure but it is also about support systems, enabling the whole selling process to work smoothly and having systems that work for the sales teams.
3. Make your culture one of support and growth. In good times selling seems easy. When times are tough that is when we find out if our support systems for our people and our culture is strong enough to get us through.

An effective message and a sales-oriented environment are just the bedrock

If we get the basics right we remove the excuses, next we will examine the pointy end of the sales organisation; your people.

Be prepared to ask for help

If you are not happy with your approach to your Environment feel free to contact Accredit. We can give you quick feedback just by placing a comment on this blog, or we can work with you to ensure you are best placed to start drive the activities that will help you be successful.

Do you want to know more?

Either read our "Helping business drive sales" document or contact either Mark Savinson or Fred Nelson and let Accredit help enable your sales organisation to maximise the opportunities your product set creates.

How can I sell something if I don't know why someone would buy it?

Last we we introduced the three internal issues we believe are the key to creating a successful sales team; Message, Environment and Resources. As promised we are going to look at each area in more detail and share some of our experiences of how these have been addressed by successful sales organisations.

The first area we are going to focus on is the Message, which we describe as "sales ready messages". These need to be explicit and to enable customers and sales people to understand them and act upon them. The message is in reality the "WIIFM" (What's in it for me) for all audiences.

We already have Messages, it's what marketing do
We need to be clear from the outset, the Messages we are talking about here are not the standard marketing collateral which are themselves very important. What we are talking about are the tactical and, most importantly practical, messages that sales people should be able to use to engage with a customer, identify if they have a need and quickly qualify whether they are likely to be a prospect. These messages are the sharp end of the sales engagement, a pre-requsite in any end-to-end sales enablement process.

This is not your typical "glossy" or brochure
The easiest way to understand the importance of the message is to give you an example.

A multi-national organisation has decided to run a focussed campaign on promoting their latest "state-of-the art" solution. They have an award winning website that contains a range of information on the product including in-depth technical briefings. The objective of the sales campaign is to get their largest channel partner to initially target their existing customer base to offer them a competitively priced upgrade, with a view to selling additional services and applications on the back of this.

On the face of it they have everything that the sales team need to be able to execute a successful campaign, literature, some slides on potential configurations, the standard corporate presentation, analyst white papers on the value of their solution. Who could ask for more?

Does this marketing literature enable sales people to engage?
When we received the literature we asked ourselves some fundamental questions, the ones that a sales person who needs help would ask.

• Can you describe the customer problem we are addressing?
• Why would a customer want to upgrade now?
• What must the customer have in place to take advantage of the upgrade?
• What is the best way of engaging with a customer?
• Who is the target audience?
• Do I need to meet or can we do it all over the phone?
• What sales support do I get ?
• How do I differentiate from other solutions?
• Is it easy for the customer to buy and for me to sell?

Now on the face of it a good salesman should be able to answer these questions from all of the available literature. But you have to remember the reality of a sales person:

• They are being asked to sell multiple products, why should they sell this one?
• They have targets to hit, they will always take the path of least resistance
• Not all sales people are prepared to invest time to translate the myriad of content into an effective message.
• Those who do create their own message may be "off message", but if it works for them why should they care?

When we finished our initial audit of the existing content we discovered some gaps in the content, specifically there was an assumption that a specific technology would be available, it was not, as such all the literature promoted features and advantages that could not be delivered yet.

Interestingly when we spoke to the channel sales team they knew all of this, it was just the product marketing team who were unaware of this. Perhaps they had become too product centric in all their thinking and not customer centric.

So what did we all agree to do?

1. Create a story that both the sales team and the customer would understand - because we needed to start selling now and could not wait for technology to be available, we built a story that allowed sales to:
1. Identify specific customer types and map these to specific solutions
2. Link the solutions to a story that tells the customer what they will achieve in the short-term, medium term and long-term
2. Devise an engagement process that used an initial call to arrange a meeting whose objective is to review the customer's current solution, identify what needs to be done to meet the current and future needs and then propose a solution
3. To provide the sales team with specific content for the calls, meeting agenda and structure for the face-to-face meeting, 5-6 slides which can be used in the meeting.
4. Provide a briefing to all sales people explaining what we are doing, why we are doing it, what's in it for them, how we are helping them.

The customer is very happy with this approach as it allows them to go to market now with a clear engagement strategy which they can measure against. The channel partner is happy as they have clarity as to what they need to ask their sales people to do, and they have all the engagement material.

What can you, the reader, learn from this?

We have learnt a number of lessons over the last five years of putting these types of messages together and here are the top 3

• You should not assume that your sales team will analyse the information marketing provide and turn it into "engagement ready" material. You may have a limited number of sales people who do this, but these are the self starters who are already over-achieving against target
• You should not assume that marketing will provide this type of material unless you ask for it. Marketing focusses on the two key areas of, Product focussed information and Top level strategic, brand enhancing messages. They assume that sales will connect these to engagement activities. Sales need to ask for help
• Think sales engagement when creating the message and keep it simple. Remember, as sales people we will always take the path of least resistance. If it is too complicated it will not be used.

The acid test is do you feel confident to engage with a prospect using the information provided, if not why do you think your sales people will? If you do feel confident then engage with a customer and test it.

Just because you have a good message does not mean sales will engage customers

As we said in last weeks post, having a good message alone will not guarantee success. Next week we will examine what we need to do to focus on getting the right "sales environment"

Be prepared to ask for help

If you are not happy with your approach to your Messages feel free to contact Accredit. We can give you quick feedback just by placing a comment on this blog, or we can work with you to ensure you are best placed to start drive the activities that will help you be successful.

Do you want to know more?

Either read our "Helping business drive sales" document or contact either Mark Savinson or Fred Nelson and let Accredit help enable your sales organisation to maximise the opportunities your product set creates.