Why would your channel sell your product if you cannot sell them the value?

A regular discussion we are a party to is "our channel partners are not selling as much as we had hoped, or they had committed to". This quickly turns into a conversation about how the channel partner's sales teams cannot sell the products/solutions provided, usually because "they cannot do solution selling!"

Now if you have followed our previous blogs, you will know what our reaction to this is likely to be - Before you blame the sales team (resources), have a look at the message and environment.

The best way of illustrating this is to provide you with two examples we have recently encountered.

We will not sell your offering it does not pass the "Ronseal Test"
We have been working with a client who has a new solution targeted at the SME marketplace and their largest channel partner has been failing to sell it. The initial reaction was that the sales team were just not up to it, but further discussion uncovered the real issue - Perception was the solution did not meet the customer need.


Sales people will not discuss a solution they have no confidence in, and this clearly manifests itself in a channel partner. The sales people have a range of offerings to sell, from a number of suppliers. Why should they take a chance on solution they have no confidence in? Human nature will always drive us to focus on the easiest things. The things we are comfortable with.

Further examination of the situation identified the real problem. The solution was targeted at a particular customer type and if the sales team properly qualified their targets they would have discovered that when positioned to the right customers the proposed solution not only addressed their issues but importantly delivered significant value when compared to the competition.

Interestingly, when we spoke with our client's sales team about the solution they had a similar perception about its relevance, and they too were reticent to introduce it to customers.

What exactly are you asking me to sell?
Here is a second example of an organisation with what they believe is a class leading product that none of their partners is selling in any quantity. In order to understand why, we facilitated a workshop which included product marketing, senior channel managers and technical specialists. The objective was to agree the key propositions that would encourage the partners to sell more of the product.

The workshop ultimately stalled on a key discussion, could anyone define what the product really was and what business issues it actually addressed. Consensus was the product could do anything you wanted it to, but this was of course not helpful to the channel partners. Beyond this, every channel was different in how they wanted to engage and what they were looking for from the product.

There was universal agreement that in the words of Einstein “If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough”. The key action from the workshop was to find a way of explaining what problems the product solves and how this would be of benefit to the partner. There was recognition that this would probably result in a number of messages reflecting the differences in the partners. Linked with this there was also recognition of the need to move away from thinking "sell to" or "sell through" and to start thinking "sell with".

So what is our message to you?
Your channel is just an extension of your sales team, with the same issues of Message, Environment, Resources.

• If your sales team cannot articulate the message, why should you expect your channel partners to do any better?
• If your channel partner's environment is not aligned to selling your product/solution, why would you expect the sales team to sell it?
• Are you making it easy for your partners to work with you? Remember they are not dedicated to just selling your products/solution, you are competing for mind-share constantly
• Think "sell with", be part of the solution to selling more.

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 you create and manage your solution assessments enabling you to ensure your sales organisation is maximising the opportunities your portfolio creates.

We’re all doomed - the environment is killing us

Relax, this is not another doom and gloom blog on global warming, but is of equal importance to all sales teams. Your managers, at all levels, might be facing environmental fatigue, they may have given up trying to make changes.

Environmental fatigue - Is it really that bad?
A manager when asked the question “why don’t you get your Sales Managers and General Managers in one room and get direct feedback from them?” replied, “If I do that as a Senior Manager I would have to make them a commitment that I would take their issues away and do something about them. I'm not able to make that sort of commitment....”

Another manager recently told us that they were under increasing pressure to run with sales cycles even though their bid analysis told them to "no bid" as they could not deliver the solution.

What is interesting about these examples is that the statements were made to our consultants when we were carrying out sales management assessments. In both cases the senior management of our clients’ asked us to assess managers as they felt there was a problem with the capabilities of sales management.

Remember the Emperor's new clothes?
The 2 examples given are classic cases of senior management creating an environment that is not supportive of sales managers, but then blaming poor performance on sales managers. As with the Emperor's new clothes they have not looked at themselves to see if they are part of the problem (and therefore the solution) and no-one feels empowered to tell them, in the words of the little boy “but he’s not wearing anything!”

Senior Management needs to look in the mirror and check that they are not part of the problem. However in order to do this they need to want to see the truth, unlike the Emperor who even when looking in the mirror saw what he wanted to see, a fine set of clothes.

It is only when senior management recognise the influence they have in acting as a barrier for the successful implementation of solutions they have signed off, that sales organisations will change their behaviours. Don’t just take our word for this, Channel Four has a successful programme that is built on exactly this premise - “Undercover Boss”.

A fish rots from the head
As this expression suggests, there is no point looking at the bottom of the chain of command and trying to change it if you have not made sure that the change is supportable from the top.

As we have said in the past, unless you create a supportive environment that will help drive your required behavioural change in sales management and selling styles, you are just throwing good money after bad.

All truly successful sales organisations have a sales culture and environment driven from the top.

So what should you look out for?
Here are 10 symptoms of an environment working against the sales organisation

1. When setting next year’s targets are the targets based on an economic analysis or just a desire/need for growth?
2. Do the targets align to the strategic requirements - i.e. can you hit target based on selling legacy product as opposed to the strategic focus?
3. If senior management meet clients, do they make promises and then fail to follow them through?
4. Are management closed to a business case of “give me more sales resource and I will exceed target”.
5. Are you regularly asked for updates to forecasts and reports beyond the pre-agreed frequency?
6. Are you scolded for forecasting below target - even if it is an accurate forecast?
7. Are you allowed to "no-bid" on opportunities with key accounts?
8. Is everyone looking to blame sales for a shortfall in revenue - including marketing, senior managers and anyone else with an opinion?
9. Does it always feel like no matter what you achieve it will never be enough?
10. Is short-termism the order of the day and all long term strategic planning goes out of the window?

If that is how it is in your sales organisation then don’t think you are alone. We witness this over and over. Rather than trying to understand what is really causing shortfalls in revenue targets it always becomes the fault of the sales force.

Our experience shows that the environment for the sales team is made up of myriad of elements that can be causing you to miss target.

Yes, sales capability and execution may be an issue. But issues such as the macro economy, the internal processes that either help or hinder effective selling, the strategic focus of the senior decision makers in the organisation and the current cultural “feel” of the organisation will all influence the performance of the sales team.

So what should you take away?
This is a cultural, managerial issue. If fairly senior people believe there is a problem but that they cannot influence or change anything then blaming the sales force is an easy option. A clear, long term, strategic focus with some structural stability and an open culture of clear and honest communication is, in our view, the only way to bring a semblance of belief into the sales force. This has to be aligned with an environment that enables the sales force to sell rather than it being an obstacle.

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 you create and manage your solution assessments enabling you to ensure your sales organisation is maximising the opportunities your portfolio creates.

Product quizzes - Do they help or hinder your sales team?

Many of our clients ask us to help them run sales team assessment programmes that include a quiz on the teams understanding of their offering. We are regularly asked how best to write the questions for these quizzes, so we thought we would share our thoughts with everyone.

This blog item is designed to provide ideas as to how to approach the creation of a product/solution/proposition quiz that not only tests sales people knowledge but also helps drive effective sales engagement.

What is the objective of the quiz?
As with all objectives think about what is the measurable outcome of doing the test, how will this ensure your sales team can effectively position your offer, qualify an opportunity and drive it towards a successful outcome?

Too often the sole objective of the quiz is to test that the sales person has read (and maybe understood) the sales collateral. This usually results in the questions being more focussed on the content of the collateral than the value of the content itself and how you use it to drive the sale.

We would recommend that the objective of the quiz is “to ensure that the sales person understands what customer problems the offer is designed to address, the key features of the offer, what the advantages of these features are and how they address the customer need, how to qualify the opportunity, the value your solution offers the customer and how you differentiate versus the competition”

Who is your target audience?
If you take our recommendation that the quiz needs to be linked to the sales process, then you have to consider “can I have one quiz for all?” There may be specific levels of detail that you would expect specific roles to have, if this is the case make the quiz role specific.

Try to avoid asking questions that add no value to the role, this will only devalue the quiz in the eyes of the participants.

How should you structure your questions?
If you have a specific sales approach (uncover need, position offer against need, qualify offer addresses need, validate customer sees value in addressing need with your offer, negotiate to a close) then use these steps as the structure of your quiz. This will then help your sales people see the value in the content you are providing and ensure they can use the content at the right time in the sales cycle.

Any structure you use should be relevant to your stated objective. If you need to do a more technical quiz your structure could be around, existing environment, specific technology needs, what the customer must have in place, how to check solution will work, etc.

The golden rules for questions
Remember you are asking a sales person to invest their time in answering a set of questions, something they probably have no desire to do, therefore the questions must be seen to be adding value:

• All questions should be relevant and add value to the sales process for the sales team
• Avoid pure pieces of information. i.e. 87.3% of people think.....
• Focus on the impact of the information contained in the collateral / training - “If the customer has the following need xxxx, which of the features address that need....”
• Avoid ambiguity in the questions - do not have any answers which are answered “all of the above”
• Group questions together around the key feature/advantage groupings that differentiate your people and your offer and link these to customer needs
• Do not ask purely factual questions based on content somewhere in the collateral - answers should not be a test on “have you read the collateral”
• Do not feel obliged to ask 20 questions just to have the target of 20 questions, if you can only find 18 relevant questions, only have 18!
• Sales people get bored easily, keep the structure of the question simple. Also ensure the quiz does not last more than 20 minutes
• You can base questions around a customer scenario, you could even add sound and animation to explain the situation.
• If you do any form of ranking questions make it an even number - on self assessment people are most likely to go for the middle answer, so do not give them a middle option

What happens at the end of the quiz?
Have you thought about the payback to the sales rep for investing their time?

If you are positioning the quiz as a test, you can have a pass/fail, but show them where they failed and what the impact of this will be to them - what they need to improve on to ensure they can sell successfully. As an alternative to a straight pass or fail you could have target scores for each section of the quiz and show the results against a target score. This could then be translated into a RAG result.

There should be some value to the sales rep when they see the results. Consider creating some words that explains why each section is important and how best to use the available content to help drive the sale

Point the user at content that could help them improve their knowledge

Have you thought about what happens if the sales rep falls below the required standard, do they re-sit the quiz, if so how quickly, is it the same set of questions, what happens if they fail again?

Success relies on effective communications
The quiz is likely to be part of an ongoing programme associated with the product/solution/proposition. Have you positioned its role?

Communication is key at the very least you need to:

• Explain the objective of the quiz and the benefit to the sales rep
• Position what you expect the sales rep to do
• When the quiz starts / ends
• How they should prepare
• What happens if they do not do the quiz in the required time frame
• Impact of pass/fail
• Communicate with sales managers their role in the process - they will make or break the quiz as they are the people who will ensure their people take it seriously
• Explain what happens after the quiz, what are you doing with the information, how will it affect the individual sales rep
• Do not rely solely on broadcast information, include some personal communications. If you have a strict timetable, personal phone calls to the sales reps (or managers) encouraging laggards to complete the quiz are invaluable.

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 you create and manage your solution assessments enabling you to ensure your sales organisation is maximising the opportunities your portfolio creates.

Are you hiding behind e-mail and missing the chance to communicate?

During the last week we have helped a client to solve a problem between them and one of their suppliers (not us!). The core of the problem being a lack of expectation management by the supplier and an assumption by the client that everyone would understand the nuances in their e-mails.

E-mail is a good tool for certain things but a poor “instant” communication tool
E-mail is great in certain circumstances, but e-mail is a poor tool for communicating when an issue needs discussion. The people who send the e-mail assume that the recipients actually read it, and beyond that understand what is trying to be communicated. The recipient skim reads it and takes it for what it is a quick way of sending a message, they take everything at face value, something which can lead to disaster.

Just discuss with your colleagues and friends how many issues have been caused by sending an e-mail that has not been thought through. Let's not forget the number of e-mails that have been replied all, forgetting that some of the information may not have been appropriate for all recipients to see.

E-mail is not a letter
If we all took the same time and effort to compose our e-mails as we do if we ever write a letter, then some, but not all of the problems would be reduced. At the very least there would be greater clarity in the message we are trying to deliver. People would spend more time composing their e-mails, clearly thinking about what they want to say and checking the e-mail before they send it. But then that wouldn't be e-mail and we wouldn't be able to use our Blackberries and iPhones.

So what is e-mail?
It is a quick means of sending an update, a request for information, a broadcast communications tool. It is not an effective one-to-one communications tool.

If you want an effective one-to-one communications tool, the killer app is talk to the person either face to face or on the phone or via an instant messaging application!

In fact if you are looking for a quick update mechanism you may find Instant Message or even Skype's messenger solution better than e-mail. At least you know if they are on-line, and can know if they received the message because you can ask for an immediate response.

So how can e-mail cause problems?
Let me take you back to the issue that I described at the start. The supplier had been carrying out a piece of work, fixed price to a deadline. As is always the case there had been scope creep and the supplier thought he was due additional money, so he sent an e-mail. The scope creep was also causing a delay to the project so the customer e-mailed a response to the suppliers e-mail not addressing the money issue, but focussing on the likely delay of the project. Anarchy ensued, the supplier thought the customer was trying to rip him off, "why won't he reply to my issue over money" and the customer was losing faith in the supplier, "this project is running late and I cannot accept any delay”. In both cases they were focussing on the personal issue and getting emotional over it.

The e-mails were part of the problem as both parties thought they had brought up a clear issue that needs to be addressed, and both parties had ignored the other’s issue.

So what fixed the problem?
A 30 minute meeting solved the problem, both parties met, articulated their issue, understood the others issue and came to an amicable agreement. They also recognised that this problem was in part caused by the use of e-mail as opposed to traditional voice communication, talking. 90% of the issues were due to poor communications between both parties and the associated lack of understanding.

It is a great example of Stephen R. Covey’s fifth habit of Highly Effective People - “Seek to understand first then to be understood”.

But what has this got to do with sales people?
How many sales people hide behind e-mail? When asked the question, "when did you last speak to the client?", the answer given is "I sent them an e-mail last week". When asked "what is the status of the opportunity?" how many people say "I am waiting for a response to my e-mail".

If we truly believe people buy from people, then why do so many sales people think that e-mail is a satisfactory means of communication. You need to speak to their customers.

What can be the impact of moving away from e-mail?
One of our major accounts is the EMEA division of a major PC hardware vendor, their people are spread all over Europe. There are lots of e-mails flying around, but if we need to sort anything out we have a very simple process.

• We are all on Skype so we can see who is on-line
• If we need to speak to the European Marketing Director we send a Skype message asking for a phone call, usually to agree the way forward
• If the discussion is going to be complicated we have a quick call and agree a face-to-face meeting.
• E-mail is used solely to validate the outcomes of calls/meetings, share updates with a wide audience and collaborate on key documents.

How can you use this message to improve your sales performance?
We have discussed how you plan you account activity in the past, and the topic of "customer facing time" has come up. We would suggest that you introduce the concept of "customer conversation time", allocate time in your day where you pick up the phone and speak to your accounts. You will be pleasantly surprised, not only will you reduce the likelihood of confusion, you will identify new opportunities just by speaking to people.

As an aim you should review whether it is appropriate to send an e-mail and whether you should use an alternative form of communication:

• Do you need an immediate response from your communications? - If so call or Instant Message them
• Do you need to validate that the recipient(s) have understood the key messages of your e-mail? If so call or arrange a conference call - you can ask them "have you understood this?"
• Does your e-mail contain bad news? - Call them and personally deliver the news, it will be easier to manage expectations.
• Do you want to get something off your chest? - write the e-mail and then delete it, you will feel better just by writing it down. If it is a serious issue speak to the person, don't hide behind the e-mail.

Do you want to know more?
Either read our Helping business drive sales document or contact either Mark Savinson orFred Nelsonand let Accredit help to enable your sales organisation to maximise the opportunities your portfolio creates.