Think About It… the e-book version

For years, I’ve ranted at sales reps and managers about how utterly dumb it is to “submit a quote” to a customer.  A traditional quote does nothing more than list items for sale, prices, totals, discounts and net price.  It provides no differentiation whatever and reinforces the fact that you have nothing more to offer than a catalogue-full of commodities at really, really good (i.e., low) prices.

“Submit proposals!” was my sage advice.  “Make sure the opening sentence or three clearly states the value to the customer.  If you have any real sales talent, you’ll also put that value in terms of dollars and cents.  You’ll paint a ‘Before’ picture, a picture of the ‘Transition’ to your vision and an ‘After’ picture; all of which make the brilliance and value of your proposal intuitively obvious to the most casual observer.

If you and I have ever worked together directly, chances are you’ve heard me state the above with emphasis, enthusiasm and arms a-wavin’ in your face. 
I was wrong.

This past Friday, after an intense, long customer meeting, two colleagues and I decided we had earned a few beers.  In the course of conversation one of them mentioned that he’d like to make a video of me and the other debating the value of proposals.  That was the beginning of yet another epiphany.

I was asked to consider the definition of the word “propose” which means “to submit for consideration.”  Is that really what I want to do?  To passively, more or less hat in hand, pass along an entreaty hoping the all powerful decision influencers and makers will take a few minutes out their busy days to possibly, maybe take a look at my suggestions?  AGGGHHHHH!!!  That’s not at all what I want.

What I really want is “Recommendation Summary” (or “Statement Of Work”) that reflects the research, evaluation and creativity of a relevant, trusted group of customer personnel.  (NOTE:  I just happen to be a member of that group.)

Put yourself in the shoes of the final decision maker and consider how you’d perceive each of the three documents:

• Quote – How did this make it to desk?  I don’t get into this level of detail & don’t know or care what it means.
• Proposal – Wow!  These vendors sure dump a load of effort into these things.  And come to think of it, I really liked these guys.  This proposal might make sense, but I don’t have time to read all this right now.  I’ll put it in my active To-Do file and get around to it just as soon as I can.  But first I need to do this, and then that, and there goes that darned phone again…
• Recommendation Summary – Ah-ha!  My team finally got this finished.  Just in time for the board meeting.  Let me flip to the action plan at the end…  Yep, that’s exactly what I thought from the beginning.  We need to get going on this ASAP.

It’s clear by now that the distinction entails a whole lot more than semantics.  A quote can be submitted by a total stranger.  You can’t be part of a Recommendation Summary until you’ve earned the right to be considered an insider; until your opinion carries enough weight to be sought out and respected by the powers that be.

So focus on moving up the food chain!  If you’re submitting quotes, you’re either a rookie or not very good.  If you’re submitting proposals, you’re a journeyman.  If you’re contributing to (even better, leading) development of Recommendation Summaries, you’re finally doing your real job as a sales rep.

Thanks to Stone Payton and Todd Schnick for the insight.  Also see:

• Think and Act Like a Business Manager
• Cut Your Credibility (and Revenue) by 50% With One Word: Proposal

by Todd Youngblood

Regardless of what all the social media pundits say, not everyone needs or should even try to jump on the “thought leadership” bandwagon and use these new tools. It’s more important for sales professionals, managers and executives to ensure that the message:

• Highlights value customers can accrue
• Reflects what you can actually deliver
• Provides the “type of dog food the dogs already want to eat”

Using Everett Rogers’ 1962 Diffusion of Innovations model is an excellent way to help think through the message you want to deliver and the media you want to use to deliver it.

If your company’s products and services place it as an Innovator or Early Adopter type, you really do need to be blogging, tweeting, web 2.0-ing and social media-ing the daylights out of yourself. You need to be blasting out ALL of your well-thought-through concepts, along with your brainstorms and random seeds of thoughts at a high frequency and rate of speed. A major part of your company’s value is thought leadership, so you better be leading some thought yourself!

If your company’s products and services place it as an Early Majority type, you really do need to be blogging, tweeting, web 2.0-ing and social media-ing the daylights out of yourself. The difference though, is that you should be showcasing your aptitude at taking existing technologies, concepts and ideas and actually getting them implemented. You need to be demonstrating your expertise at harvesting real, tangible value from the new things. The Innovators are notorious for discovering awesome concepts, then almost immediately getting bored with them and moving on. Actually applying new technology and services is HUGELY important and HUGELY valuable. Showcase your prowess at generating large ROI quickly.

If your company’s products and services place it as a Late Majority type, you really do need to be blogging, tweeting, web 2.0-ing and social media-ing the daylights out of yourself. You’re the epitome of efficiency. You need to be touting your expertise at eliminating waste and wringing out every last bit of value from your existing and proven technologies. Especially right now! Given the state of the economy, with tight cash flows and limited capital investment, everybody is focused on increasing efficiency.

If your company’s products and services place it as a Laggard type, you really do need to be blogging, tweeting, web 2.0-ing and social media-ing the daylights out of yourself. You are the proverbial shoeless, shoemaker’s children. You need to be highlighting your expertise at delivering substantial value at a low price using only yesterday’s worn out tools.

Ok, so it’s clear by now that I think everybody needs an “E-Rep.” All of us need to be blogging, tweeting, web 2.0-ing and social media-ing the daylights out of ourselves. It’s not a question “if,” it’s a question of “what.”

Think About It…

by Todd Youngblood

As a sales rep, you know better than anybody what your customers and prospects need to know. You’ve done your research. You know their issues, challenges and objectives. You know the value they could accrue by using your stuff. They just won’t take the time to meet with you and listen! Well, maybe it’s you that needs to listen up. Are they telling you to send your E-Rep?

It’s harder and harder these days to get a face-to-face meeting with a decision maker. They’re all so darned busy, busy, busy. If they won’t take the time to learn, how can they possibly solve their problems and implement key initiatives?

Hold on a minute here. If someone earned the rank of decision-maker and has the wherewithal to keep that role, by definition, that person IS learning enough to solve problems and implement key initiatives. In other words, it’s you that has the learning problem, not the decision-maker. You haven’t learned that tactics for getting in the door have radically, dramatically and forever changed.

You need to establish your credibility before you ask for a meeting. You need to get the decision-maker to realize that he or she needs more perspective and context about some issue, has three or four questions to ask, and that you are uniquely qualified to provide the perspective, context and answers. And you need to do all that without ever having any direct contact. In fact, you really need to avoid asking for a meeting at all – to avoid pushing yourself into the decision process. You need to get the customer to pull you in.

Impossible? Only if you think cold calls, schmoozing the assistant and clever mailings are your core techniques. They may well still be necessary, but you need some additional weapons in your arsenal. You need to be where the decision makers are already hanging out. When they reach out for info, you need to already be there – directly in the path of that reach. You need to E-Yourself!

How tough is it to create and continually enhance an electronic extension of yourself? Actually, not much tougher than what you’re already doing. It’s just two extra steps:

• Build an “E-Rep Infrastructure”
• Embed everything relevant you know and learn in that E-Rep?

DO NOT succumb to techno-phobia!!! If the technology overwhelms you, either get over it or find a geek to help. Frankly, if you put your mind to it, you can learn all the tech you need over a single weekend. For your E-Rep? Infrastructure, get a blog, some simple audio recording/editing software for your PC and a video camera. (There are loads of choices out there. I use WordPress for my blog, NCH Software for audio/video editing, iTunes, a Flip Cam and YouTube.)

DO NOT succumb to I-don’t-know-what-to-write-or-talk-about syndrome. Are you kidding me? You make your living talking for crying out loud. Every time you learn something, write it down and/or record it. When you have a new flash of insight, write it down and/or record it. Think through all the potential problems, issues, concerns, projects, solutions, initiatives, etc. that your products and services can address, then write them down and/or record them. When you read something interesting, attach it to your E-Rep? self.

Neither of these two new tasks presents much of a challenge. Do them, along with whatever of the traditional techniques work for you. Can you really afford not to? Don’t you need an E-Rep? version of yourself to be available 24 X 7? What if it’s 2:00 AM on Saturday and the hottest prospect in the universe is looking for a sales rep that can help?

by Todd Youngblood

When your customers and prospects start their research in anticipation of buying something, they go right to Google, right? Do they find you? Unfortunately, probably not. They only find you or your company when they specifically include you in their search. Do you want to rely on them to do that? Are you crazy???!!!

I could suggest that since Google keeps hitting home runs, you ought to brush up on the newly announced Google Social Search. That wouldn’t be bad advice given that quite a few, pretty obscure early adopters of their past technologies have become famous and made a fortune. I won’t, though. I will, however, assert that social search, and therefore social media and web 2.0 just became absolutely essential for effective B2B sales. (Notice I said, “sales,” as opposed to, “marketing.”)

To begin to understand why, consider the diagram below which shows the all-so-familiar exercise of “googling.” Your customer searches for “X” trusting in Google to sort through the gazillion pages out on the internet to deliver the most relevant results. That’s what they do all the time. (That’s what you do all time! That’s what we all do all the time!)

What are the odds your stuff will be listed on the first page of the search results? Second page? An “early enough” page?

Now consider the next diagram, and the fact that any searcher will have more trust and confidence in information from a known source. The better I know the source, the more I trust the information.

In this case, the searcher decides to “toggle the social search switch.” Good ole’ Google then takes the first set of results and passes them through another filter. If the result did not come from a web page, blog post, tweet, or some other social media “share” thingy specifically connected by the searcher to one of his or her contacts, it doesn’t show up.

Did you get that last sentence? Did it sink in? If the searcher has not already voluntarily “connected” to you, your content does not show up.

OK, the negative spin there was to get your attention… The real question is how to harness this new set of tools to enhance your visibility, credibility and profitability. There are three key pieces to the puzzle. The first takes lots of real effort, sustained indefinitely. And it’s not traditional sales work. It is, however, what will become the guts of the selling process in our brave new world. The second takes a good bit of continuing work, but entails just a minor wrinkle on something most reps are already pretty good at doing. The third is quick and easy.

Puzzle Piece 1: Your Content

Everything you’d talk about to a customer needs to be embedded into internet-based media. Everything. (I told you it requires a lot of real effort!) It can (& should) be text and/or images and/or audio and/or video. It can (& must) be on a mix of your web site, blog, LinkedIn?, Twitter, etc., along with whatever other new technology becomes available.

Content creation is NOT something an individual rep or sales manager can afford to avoid or delegate. You can only depend on the marketing department and others on your sales team for some of it. They can handle the general, overview stuff; the overall value proposition. Only you can provide the nuances and unique intelligence required by your specific prospects and customers. (WARNING: “In-your-face” comment coming here… If you disagree with this paragraph, think again. I’ll blog more on this topic. I’m pretty certain you’ll agree eventually.)

One last note on content; and it’s really, really important… The content you develop must be of interest and value to the key decision makers in your territory. This is much easier said than done, and is the true test of your sales skills. What do you have to communicate that will resonate instantly with the customer?

Puzzle Piece 2: Your Connections

Think in terms of LinkedIn to get the basic concept. Establish LinkedIn? connections to all the decision-makers and key influencers in your territory. Do it! It’s not all that difficult. It’s where all those traditional selling skills come in. And remember, without the connection, they’ll never see your content! (Maybe connect up via Plaxo too.)

Puzzle Piece 3: Your Google Profile

Create one and keep it current. There’s a subtle message in the “Add custom links to my profile” section. It allows for multiple links to places you post. How many places on your list? Mine has 11.

Have a sneaking feeling Google just invented something that’s about to hurl you out of your comfort zone? If you don’t, you should.

by Todd Youngblood

When you blow all the smoke away, knowledge is the only thing any of us has to sell any more. That’s always been the case for a consulting-type business, but today, profitably selling even the most commoditized of commodities requires lots and lots of knowledge. It’s all about finding and/or purchasing and/or packaging and/or shipping and/or installing and/or applying and/or maintaining and/or disposing of and/or… It’s all about the intellectual content. It’s the knowledge, stupid!

Frankly, if I need to spend lot of time and effort to convince you that knowledge – genuine knowledge – is at the heart of sales success, regardless of the business you’re in, you shouldn’t bother reading what follows. On the other hand, if you’re trying desperately to figure out how on earth Web 2.0 and Social Media can be used to help sell your stuff, join the club!

Personally, with regard to things like blogs, podcasts, internet radio and YouTube?, I’ve said MANY times, “I just don’t see how it applies to B2B sales.” I’ve particularly struggled with finding value in LinkedIn?, no less the “kid stuff” like Facebook and Twitter. Wikis were the only thing that had any intuitive appeal, and that was mostly due to stunning success of Wikipedia. That said, I’ve established wikis for 9 different groups focused on collecting sales best practices. Everyone loves the idea, but getting anyone to actually contribute content is like pulling teeth. Lots of work, not so much reward.

So what changed my mind? Hey, I’m a capitalist. It was the money. A few people and organizations have already made a ton of money, and they’re making still more using the social networking tools. And as you may have guessed by now, they’re doing it by giving away their knowledge for free.

Go to TED and get blown away with the incredible – free – intellectual content. TED makes money by selling tickets to its conference. (Those associated with an industry conference, are you paying attention?) Up till 2005, they sold around 1,000 tickets for around $4,000 a pop. “Not bad,” you say? Well in 2006 they made it invitation-only and started posting ALL of the talks online for free. In 2009 they sold 1,500 tickets for $6,000 each. For the math challenged, that’s 50% more tickets at a 50% higher price. That’s 125% higher revenue in 3 years. (What bad economy???!!!)

And then there’s MIT’s Open Courseware site. You can pay north of $36,000 for one semester’s tuition. OR… you can get ALL of the course content online for NOTHING. Anybody out there think MIT is going under any time soon?

And then there’s Richard Muller. His claim to fame is a course about hard-core Physics. Yeah… quarks, general relativity, what the universe was like 8 nanoseconds after the big-bang… All that stuff you just can’t wait to learn about. (Talk about a tough sell!!!) Well the core lecture has been viewed on YouTube? by over 300,000 people. Oh, and the book, now four years old and in its fourth printing still shows up on the high end of Amazon’s top seller list. How much commission could you rake in if you were the Richard Muller of your industry?

OK, these examples are from industries different than yours, so this concept doesn’t apply to you, right? WRONG!!! It’s all about the knowledge and intellectual content associated with your products and services – remember? It’s a taste of that intellectual content that draws those customers in. It is now pretty much an incontrovertible fact that giving away some of your intellectual content – aggressively giving it away for free – is really, really good for business. And how hard is it to get started? Turns out, not very. We’ve had this monthly e-newsletter for going on 9 years and we’ll continue it, but now it’s also a podcast and a blog with an RSS feed. We’ve taken the first step to producing an internet radio show and for $180 and a 15 minute time investment, acquired the technology and know-how required to produce as many YouTube? videos as we want. Personally, I just got a twitter “handle” and a LinkedIn profile, but frankly haven’t figured out exactly how to exploit them for sales purposes …yet.

You can go ahead and ignore all this stuff, but me? I’m going to chase it down. This stuff is too powerful to ignore.

by Todd Youngblood

Technology has changed everything. It used to take multiple face-to-face sales calls to get a prospect up to speed on the potential value of our products and services. More importantly, those calls enabled us to acquire a broad, deep understanding of their issues, requirements and problems. Now, web 2.0 makes our info available 24/7. They don’t need us to learn about us. AND, they now refuse to take the time to educate us regarding what they need.

Notice I said, appear to be an order-taker. Yes, I do want my peers and competitors to think that I’m just lucky. And yes, I do in fact want a steady stream of phone calls from decision-makers I’ve yet to meet who are on the brink of placing an order with me. But no, sadly, I still can’t afford to sit back and expect that to happen without a whole lot effort on my part first. So here’s the situation:

• They think they already know everything they need to know about me, my company and my products and services
• They won’t (and in many cases simply don’t have the time to) explain to me what they need
• They need, want and are ready to make a decision right now!

Let’s start with the fact that they’re ready to make a decision right now. (Before they consulted you! Horrors!) They’re not dopes. They didn’t just wake up this morning with a deep understanding of their organization’s strategies, issues and problems. They’re smart. They’re experienced. They’re hard-working. They’ve been thinking about it for a long time. They’ve been doing research.

They probably started with a Google search that led to an article, and then another, and then a blog or two or three, and then a few podcasts, videos and webinars. That stuff they read, heard and viewed was produced by their colleagues and peers; by your competitors, college professors, consultants and all kinds of so-called “experts.” Each of those came complete with comments, comments on the comments and links to a whole series of other resources.

That’s exactly what you do when you want to buy something isn’t it?

So here are the critical questions:

• Are you the source of the information they’re getting electronically?
• Are you doing you own “starting with Google” research to know what’s on the mind of your customer decision-makers?
• Are you plugged into and constantly working THE most common buying process in use today? Are you?

The correct answer to that last question is something like:

• Well…
  • I author a blog that I update five or six times a week, and
  • I host or participate in six or so podcast episodes per year, and
  • I have a LinkedIn? account with a detailed personal profile, belong to a dozen or so groups and regularly post comments and conscientiously work to expand my number of quality connections, and
  • I e-publish at least four articles or white papers per year, and
  • I just started a YouTube? series about how my customers creatively use my products and services

• …but of course I know that’s not enough, what would you recommend I do next?
  • Create a YouTube? video of me delivering my fundamental value proposition? (…obviously I’ll do a slightly different one for each market segment I serve.)
  • Implement and moderate a wiki for use by the VPs of X in my territory so they can ask questions, share insights, help one another get smarter and convince each other just how valuable I really am to them?
  • Write an e-book that clearly demonstrates my superior expertise and knowledge to all buyers of my products and services?

If you’re thinking any of the following: not my responsibility, not my job, not my skill set, not what I want to do, not what I have the knowledge to do, not what I’m smart enough or intend to learn to do, not needed to compete in my industry or this article is such a load of hooey; I sure hope you’re my competitor.

All, or at least a significant portion of the above, is what it’s going to take to just be in the game. You’re not going to get a meeting at the C-level without a solid, credible online reputation. Somebody that has done a significant portion of the above – some “order-taker” – is going to take that order from you.

by Todd Youngblood

I don’t know enough. (Notice the first sentence is the same as last month???) The pace of change in the world of sales, sales management and consulting is such that my traditional process for learning simply can’t keep up. I know you’re in the same boat. Guess what? We can help each other.

Anyone who has been successful in the sales game is a good student. To solve our customers’ problems, we need to know – therefore we first need to learn – more than they do about not only the problems, but also the solutions. But my goodness… new ideas, technologies and applications are flooding into our world faster than ever. Something’s gotta’ give. We need to change the way we learn.

I hate to use the old three-legged stool analogy yet again, but if fits anywhere, if it fits with regard to constantly and rapidly increasing our personal knowledge and understanding. A little research reveals that virtually all of us use a two legged approach to learning. We first absorb information from web pages, books, blogs, podcasts, other people, etc., then roll that information around in our brains, combine it with what’s already there then move to the second leg, apply. Next we observe what happens, absorb yet more information from the results produced and continue on with the two-step learning process.

Not good enough!

One of Albert Einstein’s pithier comments was, “You don’t really understand something until you can explain it to your grandmother.” Think about that and recognize that you are not very good at teaching many of the things you are quite good at doing. Why is that?

Quite simply, it’s because you don’t really understand. Now – think about things that you can not only do well, but can also teach well. Again, understanding is the difference maker. So how can we deepen our understanding?

The answer is contribute. There is absolutely no better way to learn something than to be put in the position of needing to teach it to someone else. There is absolutely no better way to teach something than to first put it down in writing. If you don’t believe me, call grandma right now and teach her how to articulate the value proposition you used for your last really big sale.

After apologizing to grandma for confusing the daylights out of her, take the time to write down the customer’s “before” and “after” situations and why and by how much “after” is better. Write out that winning value proposition. Write-down specifically how it highlights the key improvements made to the customer situation. Keep it all to 150 or so words. Revise and rewrite it at least two or three times.

Assuming your grandma is still speaking to you, try teaching her again how to articulate your value proposition. Pretty amazing difference, huh?

Don’t have time to expend that much effort? Well, of course you don’t. Not for everything… But what about those dozen or so things that are fundamentally critical to your success? To state the obvious, you simply cannot afford to not deeply and thoroughly understand those things. For them, absorb/apply only doesn’t cut it. So do it! Contribute/Absorb/Apply!

Better yet, after you write it – publish it and invite others to comment on it. You can publish it easily at the unique website of the Sales Knowledge Xchange. (Think of it as the Wikipedia for sales and sales management.)

It’s a brave new world out there, folks. To continue our personal success, each of us needs to adopt this 21st-century model for learning.

by Todd Youngblood

I don’t know enough. Not enough about my customers & prospects, or their customers, prospects, suppliers, partners and competitors. I don’t know enough about the objectives, strategies, requirements, problems or people of any of those groups. I don’t even know enough about how my own products and services – either alone or combined with other products and services – can address the issues of my customers and prospects. Eeesssssshhhhh…

(Guess what? You’re in the same boat!)

Hey, I’m not trying to be a jerk here. All of us really do have huge and growing gaps in our knowledge base. And it’s not because we’re too lazy or not smart enough to keep up with the latest developments. The fact of the matter is, everything around us is moving, growing and changing at a relentlessly increasing rate.

One example of this phenomenon is the number of years it took for 25% of the US population to begin using a new technology.

46 years – Electricity
35 years – Telephone
31 years – Radio
26 years – Television
16 years – PC
13 years – Cell Phone
7 years – The Internet

Many other examples of increasingly rapid rates of change abound. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the 41 additional data sets listed here. The point is, if we are to continue to serve our customers effectively, we need to deliver and apply knowledge at a rate faster than they can accomplish on their own.

Successful sales professionals, managers and executives have always known that the standard training provided by their companies was not sufficient to achieve excellence. Back in the olden days (circa 1998) an extra investment of 4 or 5 hours a week reading business books, relevant publications, and newspapers, attending 5 to 10 days worth of seminars per year and talking shop with colleagues in other industries once or twice a week was enough to set yourself apart from the crowd.

Sorry, boys and girls, but that won’t cut it anymore. And let’s face it, what percent of our peer group was expending that much extra effort anyway? 5%? 10%? Hmmmmm… maybe the approach described above was obsolete and insufficient even in the 90s!

What’s needed is a different approach to the creation and dissemination of the knowledge required to sell more efficiently and effectively. Here’s an approach:

• Formally identify a Sales Knowledge Activist for every 10 or so people in your organization
• Implement, promote and celebrate a culture of Creative Abrasion

Notice I didn’t say “appoint” a Sales Knowledge Activist. Some individuals have a natural talent and thirst for acquiring new relevant knowledge. Maybe it’s a high-ranking executive or maybe it’s a rookie, or maybe it’s some middle of the pack journeyman performer. You will find it surprisingly easy to “identify” your activists though. Just make it known that you’re looking and they’ll volunteer. Then make it official. Announce it. Promote it. Let it be known that the activists are constantly on the prowl not only for new knowledge, but also for new ways to acquire and use it. Reward them appropriately when it becomes obvious they are valued.

The part sounded easy didn’t it? Look around for a few Sales Knowledge Activists, then sit back and watch the knowledge creation occur! Sorry, it ain’t that easy. That’s where the Creative Abrasion comes in. Everybody must participate. Set that expectation. Provide multiple mechanisms and tools; some that enable and some that force new ideas to scrape and grind against other new ideas as well as the status quo. All the scraping and grinding will kill the bad new ideas and polish up the good ones.

A Sales Excellence Council is an excellent (in my opinion, mandatory) Creative Abrasion vehicle. Naturally, I’d like for you to use YPS to facilitate your SEC, but feel free to give it a whirl on your own. Follow the link to learn more, then you make the call.

Web 2.0 tools also provide excellent (in my opinion, mandatory) Creative Abrasion functionality. If you do nothing else, implement an internal sales wiki. One of the editing guidelines for Wikipedia, the world’s largest wiki, illustrates extraordinarily well why I make this recommendation. “If you are not prepared to have your work thoroughly scrutinized, analyzed and criticized, or if your ego is easily damaged, then Wikipedia is probably not the place for you.” That sure sounds like a place where ideas and concepts can get honed and moved toward perfection.

Encourage folks to read and write blogs, produce and listen to podcasts and actively participate in business-oriented social networks like LinkedIn. These things ought to be called “Creative Abrasion Tools for the Sales Knowledge Activist” instead of Web 2.0! Each one makes you think, challenge, refine and develop your personal knowledge base.
Knowledge really is power. The more you have, the more you sell. How will you keep up?

by Todd Youngblood

When reviewing an opportunity, most sales manages will ask about the odds to close. When asked about odds to close, most sales reps have a ready answer. Most often, it’s wrong; based on some mystical gut feel, but it sure does makes everyone feel better – like authentic planning, prioritizing and time management actually occurred.

We don’t have enough time. There are always many more things on the To-Do? list than we have time to get them To-Done?. That’s why we as sales managers and professionals have gotten so very good at setting priorities. Or maybe not…

The obvious place for a sales team to start a priority setting exercise is with known opportunities. Which opportunities have the highest odds of yielding the greatest revenue soonest? The likely dollar value is typically fairly easy to estimate. Likely closing date is a little harder to nail down, but can usually be pegged within a two or three month window. Odds to close though; that’s a tough one. And unless one can get a good handle on that, any attempt at a valid, meaningful sorting of opportunities is reduced to guesswork.

Is there a way to assign odds to close that’s a bit more scientific than a rep’s gut feel? See what you think of the following approach.

Start by creating a spreadsheet that will assist in examining each opportunity systematically from three different perspectives including that of the prospect, my company and the market. With regard to the prospect, the first thing I’d like to know is how influential we are with the key decision-makers. If we have yet to establish a relationship with them, I’ll give this factor a score of 1. If they know and respect us as business people, I’ll give this factor a score of 5. There are other things I’d like to know: Has the prospect approved and funded a budget for this opportunity? Do we know the evaluation criteria? Do we thoroughly understand the business need or problem driving action? With a little effort, you can come up with a total of 10 or 12 key questions regarding the prospect. You can then assign a 1 to 5 score to each.

Next, come up with another 10 or so key questions from a “my company” perspective . Questions like: Is this opportunity in sync with our strategic direction? Do we have the resources and ability to deliver if we win? Can we realistically manage the risks if we win? Do we have sufficient competitive differentiation? Assign a score of 1 to 5 to each of these.

Finally, come up with a few more questions from a marketplace/competition perspective. Do we have any competition? If so who are they? Is a competitor favored by decision-makers and influencers? Does the solution involve new or unproven technologies? Will winning open up new market opportunities for us? Score each of these.

Set up your spreadsheet to add all the numbers and establish a total score for each opportunity.

It won’t take you very long, maybe a month or two, to refine and standardize your three sets of questions. With that, you’ll have a pretty darn rock-solid way to prioritize opportunities. It won’t be long after that, maybe another four to six months, that you’ll have enough data and an extremely simple process to calculate what will be a surprisingly accurate odds-to-close percentage.

Like the approach and wish you had an example? Download a Sample Opportunity Assessment Spreadsheet. And finally, as always…

by Todd Youngblood

There is always a danger in focusing on the tools used to get a job done. (We all know the cliché about the six-year old with a chain saw…) That said however, a robust CRM system just might be the most powerful tool a sales team can have.

A highly functional CRM system is not the only tool required by a modern sales team (or more precisely an effective, modern sales team), but it is certainly the most central. Without one, it’s not really possible to get the most out of the other core sales tools or the professionals using them. Thinking about your CRM as “The Weapon,” that is, the key supporting infrastructure for a sales team’s process, metrics, knowledge, skills and experience can have a dramatic impact on results produced – both short and long term.

Consider the accompanying diagram starting with reports “The Weapon” can produce using “Open Opportunity” data combined with year-to-date actual performance. (down & left in the diagram) With that information, a valid, supportable forecast can be developed. That forecast will tell me in a heartbeat if I do or do not have enough in my funnel to reach my targets.

If I don’t have enough to get there, the “A” items in my Prioritized Action Plan will be aimed at finding more opportunities. If I do have enough, those actions will be focused on advancing deals through the pipeline.

Concentrate on those 4 boxes at the top. (Do it!) Think through and follow your work flow. Seems like exactly what the mythically ideal sales rep/manager/executive should be doing every day doesn’t it? What the heck else could be more important? (…except, of course, actually executing the action plan!)

Well OK, that takes care of the tactical stuff, but what about the more strategic & long term issues? With other reports from “The Weapon,” a sales manager (or conscientious rep) can quickly and clearly identify skill deficiencies and use your Sales Knowledge Mine to help plug those gaps. (You do have a keyword-searchable Sales Knowledge Mine that stores all of the “tribal knowledge” accumulated by your sales pros over the years, right?)

Concentrate on those 3 boxes at the lower left. (Do it!) Seems like a no-nonsense, disciplined approach to self-improvement and sharing best practices, doesn’t it?

And of course your regularly conduct Opportunity, Territory, Win and Loss Reviews to beef up action plans and peg down what works and what doesn’t. Everything you learn from these reviews – the good, the bad and the ugly – gets translated into action and also stored in the Sales Knowledge Mine. The actions that “sound great, but don’t work” get avoided and the “counterintuitive gems” get implemented again and again. Concentrate on those 3 boxes around the lower right hand corner. (Do it!) Removes all the fluff from the concept of “coaching,” doesn’t it?

At the risk of going too “liberal artsy intellectual,” I’ll quote Oliver Wendell Holmes. “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” I think this flow chart qualifies as one that made it to “the other side of complexity.”