Think About It… the e-book version

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.”

by Todd Youngblood

The cold, hard fact is that for most of us, this economy has jacked up the challenge of selling more faster BIG TIME. I’ll give 5 to 1 odds there are two things you wish you had already gotten done.

I know, I know, you were really, really busy last year. Big opportunities were everywhere and the competition was tougher than ever. There was flat-out no time to finally get organized and consistently using a first-rate sales process/time management system. Even though formally reviewing the value, quality and above-and-beyond service you and your team provided to those top customers has been a priority forever, you simply never got around to it. AGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

The time is now! Not that we wanted a break in the action, but the economy has just forced one down our throats. Use this business slowdown to solidify the future.

Clearly define and document your organization’s sales process, map it into a CRM system and consistently use it to manage your time and sales activities.

Not to sound harsh, but… if you’re one of those sales reps or managers who does not yet embrace the three core principles of sales process engineering, you might want to think about getting on the bus.

1. Continuous improvement of the sales process is fundamentally essential (…unless, of course, your customers will accept whatever you give them without question and your competitors are dedicated to mediocrity.)
2. Hard measurements – lots of them – are required to validate the amount and pace of your improvement. (Without hard numbers, you’re guessing about the quality of your performance and blowing smoke at yourself.)
3. A well-defined sales process is a prerequisite but for determining meaningful metrics (If you can’t describe what you’re measuring it’s by definition impossible to measure it!)

Implement a Sales Excellence Council using The YPS Group’s Methodical Sales Process as a starting point for defining your process. Map that process into a robust CRM system, train everybody on its use and then actually use it on a daily basis. (Just do it, for crying out loud!) Start measuring number of opportunities, dollar value of opportunities, percentage of opportunities that move to the next funnel stage and the cycle time for that movement. Generate reports to compare and contrast the performance of all reps on a monthly basis. Get started!

Prepare and deliver a high quality Key Account Performance Summary for every one of your key accounts.

Go back and look at the “Build Loyalty” section of the Methodical Sales Process. Repeat business from good customers is the key to long-term sales success. (Like you needed me to tell you that…) You went through a lot of trouble to deliver superior value to them over the past year, go through a little more to write it all down and review it. They won’t remember unless you remind them. They won’t appreciate your competitive differentiation unless you explain it to them – repeatedly.

Yes, this economic slowdown is painful, but it too shall pass. When things turn up, wouldn’t it be nice to have a world-class sales process management system in place and humming? Along with a pack of loyal customers who appreciate how you hung in there with them?

by Todd Youngblood

How much work do you expect your customers to do to for you? How much work do you need your customers to do for you? How much work are your customers doing for you?

Consider the three following propositions:

1) Customer personnel do not have the time and/or wherewithal to address all of their known, significant problems.

This is obviously true. I can’t ever remember a customer manager complaining about not having enough to do because there were too few problems to solve. In other words, if this prospect is at all qualified, there’s an opportunity to sell something. The rep job here is to explain how the solution can solve the problem.

2) Customers have problems they don’t even know about.

Also true. Harder to uncover, but odds of closing a deal are better because the rep is positioned to provide substantially more value. The rep job here starts earlier in the customer decision process. It consists of offloading the identification and definition of issues from the customer in addition to explaining the benefits of the solution.

3) Customer decision processes are not robust enough to deal with the complexity of their problems.

If a customer is oblivious to a problem, it is unlikely that same customer can analyze either the problem itself or alternative solutions to it. The sales rep job here extends out later in the customer decision process. It consists not only of identification and definition of issues and explaining the benefits of the solution, but also an analysis of multiple courses of corrective action. The rep would take those alternatives and add spreadsheets and graphs showing their respective cash flows, net present values and ROIs. In other words, the rep would provide a complete business case.

If the roles were reversed, which type of rep would you choose? Would you choose the one who can solve your problem? Or would you choose the one who can provide solutions to problems you didn’t even know you had? The answer is neither!

You’d choose the rep who walks in with a complete business case before you even ask for it. You’d choose the rep who thinks from your perspective. You’d choose the rep who continuously improves the quality of your decision process.

by Todd Youngblood

Another new year begins… Time again to take a look in the mirror and pick a few items to get really good at executing over the next twelve months. (Seems like maybe I’ve seen a few of these before!)

Three critical ToDos? for 2008:

1) Dramatically increase accountability and discipline in your sales force.

Measure each of your sales reps in terms of how well and how often he or she executes each of your most critical sales activities. Start with at least 5 metrics and add more over time.) Use these numbers to identify which sales activities truly are critical to producing sales and margin by mathematically correlating each activity to the results produced. (See “=correl” in your Excel Help.)

Publicly post the performance numbers for each sales activity in terms of top third, middle third and bottom third. (You don’t necessarily need to include individual names; just post the numbers. The reps will know where they fall on the bell curve!)

Most importantly, identify the best performing rep for each critical sales activity each month. Have one of those top reps present and lead a 30-minute discussion of “how to” execute a critical activity at each monthly sales meeting.

2) Thoroughly and conscientiously implement and use a robust CRM system

Until the “Opportunity Management” functions of your CRM system are regularly used by the entire sales team, the measurement and analysis described above is impossible. If you haven’t already, bite the bullet and spend the money! (Go cheap on the software and/or implementation services and you’ll regret it.)

3) Become a “Value Proposition Maniac”

Insist that a compelling value proposition is included in any proposal:

• To a customer among the top 25% of any sales rep’s territory
• To a customer that is strategically important
• For a strategically important product or service

Price, availability, product features, service and reputation do not qualify as components of a compelling value proposition. (They only qualify as components of a lazy value proposition that is essentially identical to that of every competitor out there.) At a minimum, a compelling value proposition includes:

• A statement of how one or more customer business processes are improved
• Quantification (hopefully in $$$ terms) of the value of that business process improvement

Three tall orders. Easy to say, hard to do.

by Todd Youngblood

Ever think about selling your sales process? And I don’t mean going into the sales training business by selling it to competitors or companies in similar industries. I mean did you ever think about selling your sales process to your customer?

You know you’re a sales rep. They know you’re a sales rep. You know you get paid on what you sell. They know you get paid on what you sell. So why not cut through all the smoke?

Let’s look at the facts. You know the characteristics of your ideal customer. You’ve got that all written down and formalized, right? You know exactly what the ideal customer’s decision process is (…or should be). You’ve got a flowchart and checklist to make sure nothing gets missed, right? You are the expert at determining just how much extra money your products and services will add to the customer’s P&L and Balance Sheet. You’ve got a series of spreadsheet models to help with that analysis, right?

Well then… Why not dispense with all the slick sales techniques and focus on your customer’s business? You recognize that every one of them (their SIC code notwithstanding) is in the money-making business. Why not use your product, service and application expertise to guide them through a process that ends with an increase in the net worth of their company? …or better cash flow? …or lower operating expense? …or higher revenue? …or…?

Your sales process should be – must be – designed to produce an increase in the value of the customer’s business. Don’t sell your product or service. Sell a process for increasing the $ value of the customer’s business.

Think about creating a diagram like the one above and using it on every sales call. As you’re making that initial executive level call, show the decision-maker the path to higher value. Here’s a possible script for the end of that call:

“We’ll invest in formalizing and quantifying the financial impact of your current situation. That process alone will have substantial value to those who participate in the interviews, plant tours, briefings, etc. Even if we decide to not proceed, you’ll still have all that added intelligence. The Business Case Review will lay out modifications to your business processes and their financial impact. At that point, you can make the call about proceeding with implementation. We’re quite serious about not wasting your time or that of your key personnel. That’s why we’ve designed, and why we stick to, this process that we know works. At any point in the process, when the time invested exceeds the value received, you – or we – can pull the plug.”

If the customer balks and wants a “quick-fix,” you’ll know it’s time to walk. You can point out that if solving the problem were that easy, the customer would have already solved it. Your value is in diagnosing and anticipating problems and opportunities. That’s what your sales process is designed to do.

Any dummy can learn product specs. Sell the value of your business process improvement acumen. (…and remember that they’re all in the money-making business.) Sell the value you deliver just by figuring out what they need. Sell your sales process.

by Todd Youngblood

There’s a new buzz-word making the rounds. Have you focused on the “trigger event” concept? Can you make it work for you?

The basic idea of a trigger event is pretty straightforward. It’s something that puts decision makers, decision influencers and end users in a “something’s going to change” mind set. It’s something that happens at some point prior to a decision being made to buy your (or a competitor’s) products and services. In fact, it’s a lot like the idea of “cause and effect” that we all learned about in elementary school science class.

There is always some event (or more often chain of events kicked off by some “trigger event”) that inevitably leads to a purchase decision. Here’s a three-step process for taking advantage of this phenomenon:

• Research – Go back through a bunch (at least 15) of your most recent wins. What happened inside the customer’s organization before you got involved? What happened to generate interest in and focus on your solution? What created urgency to move quickly? How was interest generated & who was it driven by? What external signals told you something had happened that would increase interest in your value proposition? Since it’s unlikely you’ll know the answer, you’ll need to make a few customer calls to find out. (As an aside, think about how much you can enhance your reputation by demonstrating such a high level of interest in how the customer does business!)

• Search – Now that you know what to look for, hunt around your prospects for similar, lurking trigger events. They’ll be there. Here’s a short laundry list of examples: merger, acquisition, new executive named, somebody promoted, new technology, new location, re-location, reorganization of any kind, downsizing, new strategic initiative, new product, unanticipated crisis, layoffs, new funding… Bottom line, search for anything that will cause “stuff to flow downhill.”

• Anticipate – I’ll always remember the first time I got the advice to “anticipate” my customers’ actions. I remember thinking, “great idea, but how do I actually do that?” The difference is research and search as described above. Those two items will arm you with a flurry of “What if…” and “How would you…” questions. What if demand for that new product really takes off? How would you be able to rapidly crank up your supply of raw materials? What if Bill ever got the production manager job? What would change around here if that happened? What if you just got started right now with making those modifications?

The whole idea behind these “anticipate” questions is to get the customer thinking; to get the customer to realize that you really are different; that you are out ahead of the pack, helping to prevent problems from happening in the first place.

Even if you can’t get out in front of every customer situation, you’ll be training your brain. You’ll be hugely alert to those critical trigger events. You’ll be positioning yourself as someone who can help customers avoid pain. You’ll be better equipped to handle whatever crazy situation presents itself.

by Todd Youngblood

As the old saw goes, people buy from people they like. Well… maybe some saws are sharper than others. Time pressure, commoditization and intensifying feature/support competition have all conspired to dramatically reduce the relative importance of traditional relationship-building in selling. What can we do to update our approach?

Right out of the chute, banish all the touchy-feely-fluffy stuff from your mind. Most of the few customers who have the inclination to maybe become your pal do not have the time. (More on this later…)

The basis for establishing and building your client relationships needs to be grounded in discipline. Step one is to grind through your entire contact data base and classify each individual according to their relative strategic value to you. I know “relative strategic value” might sound a bit cold-hearted, but you’re here to make money, right? No need for an elaborate ranking system, I use “A” for the most important, “B” for the kind-of or maybe important and “C” for everyone else.

Next, lay out a specific plan for interactions with your “A” contacts on three dimensions:

• Form: Formal, Face-To-Face Calls and/or Voice Mails and/or E-Mails and/or Snail Mails and/or Seminars and/or Meals, etc.

• Frequency: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Annually

• Content:
  • Business: Value-I-Delivered-To-You Summaries, Proposals, Case Studies, References, White Papers, Trade Magazine Articles, etc.
  • Personal: (see, I didn’t totally abandon “high touch”) Hobbies, Family, Community Service, Events, etc.

Next, lay out a specific plan for your “B” & “C” contacts. That is, one plan to cover both categories. Again, no need to get elaborate. This monthly newsletter for example, IS my “B/C” contact plan. There is no other communication unless some other event triggers it. My “A” contacts get it too, along with additional Form/Frequency/Content. Depending on your own situation, more or less might be appropriate. The key point is this: Decide! Don’t let your “B/C” relationship-building just happen as it happens. Also, decide ahead of time what would cause a “B” to become an “A” and therefore need more attention.

Finally, keep score. Did you meet your plan of a weekly face-to-face with “A” contact #1? Did you meet your plan of a monthly Value-I-Delivered-To-You Summary for “A” contact #2? Did every single one of your contacts hear something from you in some form this month?

The old “relationships” saw is indeed still true. Just recognize that the business world has changed, that the nature and significance of business relationships have changed and that you need to change as well. Relying on fluff and just doing-it-as-you-go is too dangerous. There’s always a smart, disciplined competitor out there working like crazy to take your commission check.

by Todd Youngblood

In early January, no customer’s brain is quite ready to dive back into the day-to-day business battle. They’re just not interested in hearing about the wonders of your products and services right out of the holiday chute. You need to have something to talk about that’s useful and relevant, but a little off the beaten path. Something that will set you apart from the “well here we go again with another new year” approach of your competitors.

All business people know that change is inevitable. All managers know that resistance to it is the single most formidable barrier to breakthrough performance. So how does a decision-making leader (with your able assistance of course) deal with it? John Kotter laid out an excellent strategy in his book “Leading Change,” and summarized it as follows:

• Establishing a sense of urgency
  • Examining the market and competitive realities
  • Identifying and discussing crises, potential crises or major opportunities

• Creating the guiding coalition
  • Putting together a group with enough power to lead the change
  • Getting the group to work together like a team

• Developing a vision and strategy
  • Creating a vision to help direct the change effort
  • Developing strategies for achieving that vision

• Communicating the change vision
  • Using every vehicle possible to constantly communicate the new vision and strategies
  • Having the guiding coalition role model the behavior expected of employees

• Empowering broad based action
  • Getting rid of obstacles
  • Changing systems or structure that undermine the change vision
  • Encouraging risk taking and nontraditional ideas, activities and actions

• Generating short term wins
  • Planning for visible improvements in performance or “wins”
  • Creating those wins
  • Visibly recognizing and rewarding people who make the wins possible

• Consolidating gains and producing more change
  • Using increased credibility to change all system, structure and policies that don’t fit together and don’t fit the transformation vision
  • Hiring, promoting and developing people who can implement the change vision
  • Reinvigorating the process with new projects, themes and change agents

• Anchoring new approaches in the culture
  • Creating better performance through customer- and productivity-oriented behavior, more and better leadership and more effective management
  • Articulating the connections between new behaviors and organizational success
  • Developing means to ensure leadership development and succession

Get your mind around this approach. Talk to your customers about how you can help them wrestle the resistance-to-change monster to the ground. How they can leverage your knowledge about this critical topic to enhance their own performance and effectiveness. It’ll be a way more stimulating kick-off-the-year conversation than reviewing yet another set of features and benefits. Go buy the book! Or at least read and re-read the above outline and then…

by Todd Youngblood

What are the three core responsibilities of a sales professional?

(NOTE: After publication, I found out that the REAL source of this idea came from The E Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber. I bought the book. It’s really, really good! Follow this link, and get a copy.)

One of my early-career mentors posed the above question to me every December. As I stumbled through my answer, he’d keep me focused by repeatedly asking me to identify the top three activities that must be consistently well executed to produce the required results. It took me a long time to realize that good old Bob was far less interested in my answer than he was in the thought process behind it. In any case, it’s December again, and here’s what I think…

Innovation – Everything I’ve ever learned about economics points to the fact that the innovative idea is the ultimate source of value and progress. And it’s not just the big ideas, like e=mc2, it’s also the little ideas that can accumulate, aggregate and advance an organization toward its goals. As a sales rep I must provide a steady stream of innovative ideas that might just maybe make my customer more efficient, effective and profitable.

Quantification - Ideas are a dime a dozen. The rep who provides nothing to customers beyond a stream of ideas is annoying. (Read that last sentence again!) As a sales rep I must logically, clearly and succinctly articulate not only how my idea can improve the customer’s operation, but also by how much. I need to quantify the financial impact of implementing and using my idea and demonstrate the compelling business case for acting on it.

Orchestration – Ya’ gotta’ make it happen. The rep who does nothing more than talk a good game is worse than annoying. As a sales rep I must get the decision-maker and all of the influencers singing from the same page. They must all vividly see how my idea helps each of them individually and their organization as a whole. That’s the first half of orchestration. Then I must coordinate the design, order processing, shipping, receiving, packing, un-packing, training, integrating, updating, modifying, repairing, improving, etc., etc., etc. If anything goes awry anywhere along the line, it’s my responsibility as the rep to make it right. I’m the conductor, and if the symphony sounds bad, it’s because I dropped the ball.

You might not agree with me about these three fundamental responsibilities. You might even put off by the fact that I believe your product or service does not belong on the list. You do, though, run the risk of becoming competitively obsolete unless you…

by Todd Youngblood

Sales is notorious for being the most expensive yet least accountable department in just about any organization. It’s quite interesting to watch what happens when a sales manager increases rep accountability with a monthly territory review process.

Monthly territory reviews, one rep at a time, have always been a key fixture in our Sales Process Engineering engagements. Almost every time, the reps begin to surreptitiously refer to them as the “monthly beatings” or by some similar term of endearment. The level of accountability brought to bear is something new, something different, something unpleasant.

Two phenomena begin to kick in, however; one based on logic, the other on ego. After a while, the perception begins to change. (Follow the chart above.) Most often things get started when the boss asks for a forecast for the upcoming year. The normal response includes a quite eloquent explanation of why forecasting is not possible for this territory, because… Boss then asks if rep will cause sales in the territory to grow or decline vs. last year. Rep: Of course I’ll make it grow. Boss: How much? 10%? 20%? Rep: Oh, I’d say at least 10%. Well, son of gun, it is possible to forecast out 12 months! That establishes the long term growth trend along with projected cash in-flow for the company and commission for the rep.

Now the next boss question… I just looked through the new “CRM” sales opportunity system and it doesn’t look like you have much going on. What are you working on to create that growth? Rep: Well, I haven’t exactly figured out where every dollar will come from. Boss: Oh. Then what’s the gap between what you have in your funnel and your forecast?

Rep: Let’s see… Based on the value of what’s there factored by odds to win and projected close date, I’m about $300K short. Boss: Does that mean since you typically close a third of what’s in your funnel you need to identify $900K worth of additional potential? Rep: Yep.

Boss: Hmmmm. Rep: Hey, no worries, I created this matrix in a spreadsheet. Each row has a customer and the columns show our major products and services. It’s easy to scan it to see what customers aren’t buying what from us …yet. It’s a great way to identify new opportunities. I also have a list – and it’s a really long list – of problems that we can solve with each product and service. I use it to put together my plan for topics to discuss with each customer. Not only that, since I know their businesses so well, I can make a pretty close estimate of how much money they’re throwing way by not using our stuff.

Boss: Gee, that sure sounds like a negative approach. I don’t think attacking a customer’s operation is too smart. Rep: The problem statement is only to quantify the amount of pain they have. I only talk about it long enough to make sure they know they’re hurting. As soon as that happens, I switch to value statement mode. With all the “pain” numbers already agreed to, the discussion instantly becomes focused on how much money we can save them.

Boss: I see. You know, if you use that quantified value statement as the opening line in your proposals, you’d get customers thinking about the business value we bring to the table. It would lead any follow-up conversations away from the product itself and reduce their tendency to go price shopping. Rep: What a great idea! (…like I didn’t think of that on my own…)

Boss: So how much new opportunity do you think you can identify before next month’s territory review? Rep: Well, if I had more tech support…

You can fill in the rest of the conversation yourself. Here are the key points:

• All reps hate the accountability of monthly reviews (…for a while)
• No rep (that you haven’t already fired) will agree that he or she just doesn’t have what it takes to grow a territory
• The logic of the “Monthly Beating” process is rock-solid

And one final note. Sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly, reps come to the realization that they really cannot do their sales job effectively without the discipline of a recurring opportunity ==> goal ==> forecast ==> $ gap ==> product/service gap ==> problem quantification ==> value quantification review.

Added accountability only fails to generate more revenue when a sales manager lacks the toughness to implement it.