Are You Ready to Lead Your Salespeople on a Lean Kaizen Journey?

The tough economy seems to be causing more companies to poke around their sales departments with 5S or other lean-style experiments. We’ve received more inquiries on the topic, and some threads have popped up in lean and process-oriented bulletin boards. Many of these inquiries come from in-house Read more

Four Steps to Improving B2B Sales Performance

If you are like me, you’ve been studying how to improve the performance of B2B sales organizations for a long time. Here is a treat for you: a new video describing a simple, step-by-step apprpoach that aligns everyone involved by making them an offer they can’t refuse. Read more

Which is More Important to Sales Productivity: Divison of Labor, or Quality?

I received the following interesting question from Becky Smith, Founder and CEO, www.triagetraining.com Hi Mr. Webb, I’m an avid reader of your missives – thank you.  I too follow Justin Rolf-Marsh at Ballistix.  As I read your article of how the sales process was Read more

How to Develop Qualification Criteria Guidebook Launch

Make Salespeople 25% More Productive in 90 Days or Less

Michael Webb and Bill Bentley explain their discoveries around sales qualification criteria. It turns out that the concept of sales qualification has a lot in common with the concept of quality – if you define your qualification criteria in terms of observable characteristics. This presentation outlines the foundation Read more

Sales Kaizen Guidebook Launch

Sales and Marketing Kaizen Webinar Series

Improve Your Sales Process in a Way Your Customer Will Love

The tactical and practical guide to improving your sales process. If you have only one chance to get it right, kaizen is the approach you need to use. The approach, and the guidebook, provide a means of identifying the real problems, engaging the team, and generating Read more

How to Generate and Sustain a 25% Increase in Sales Opportunities in 90 Days or Less

Atlanta, Ga. (Jan 30, 2009) — Sales and marketing managers are struggling to bring in more revenue without spending money. SPC, Inc., a company in Norcross, Ga, is releasing valuable information on how B2B companies can sell more while spending less using kaizen – a management method that generates continuous improvement. Michael Webb, founder of SPC and author of “Sales and Marketing the Six Sigma Way” (Kaplan Publishing, 2006), teams with Brian Carroll, CEO of InTouch and author of “Lead Generation for the Complex Sale” (McGraw Hill, 2006), to illustrate how to permanently increase your company’s ability to generate qualified sales opportunities for your B2B sales team in 90 days or less.

“How to Generate and Sustain a 25% Increase in Sales Opportunities in 90 Days or Less” Sales Kaizen Webinar with Brian Carroll Author of “Lead Generation for the Complex Sale”

The press release can be read here:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/01/prweb1939224.htm

Help for improving your sales process

Hello everyone,

The inauguration today makes this a great day to get work done!

We've been working night and day to get the new website prepared for your use:

• A new member's area – with both free and paid memberships
• New videos, articles, polls, and feedback systems for all levels of involvement

It is going to be the most in-depth high-impact resource available for getting serious education on how to help your organization improve its sales process.

Last month we released the "How to Conduct a Sales Kaizen Event" guidebook, and this month we're still planning to release another new guidebook – but we've been swamped by the details of putting this new site together.

As a result, the "How to Conduct a Sales Kaizen Event Guidebook" is still available – at the old price of $297!

That will go away as soon as we switch the new website on. List price for nonmembers will be $470. When will we flip the switch?

As fast as I possibly can!

These things are hard to predict, so you probably have a couple of days before we cut over. But after that, it's over.

Look for some announcements soon on the new website and on a new teleconference coming Thursday next week!

All the best,

Michael Webb
January 20, 2009

P.S.,
All products and services from Sales Performance Consultants are 100% satisfaction guaranteed, or your money back. So be frugal and visit the ordering page "How to Conduct a Sales Kaizen Event" now. You'll save about a hundred bucks and help accelerate your organization's sales effectiveness at the same time. Plus, you get your first month's membership in SPIF! for free!

Getting Traction in the Market – How to Use Kaizen to Make Sales Training Stick

In tough times like these, some executives drastically reduce their training budgets.

Yet when it comes to sales training, smart executives may pause to think about it: 

Isn't this a critical time for the sales force to be on its toes? Maybe doing some sales training makes sense?

Training the sales force is undeniably important. Yet, you could waste a lot of money if you don't know exactly

• what kind of training will help,
• how to deploy it and motivate the people correctly, and 
• how to measure its effects

Firms in the sales training industry aggressively try to position the value of their products and measure their results. Yet the typical approach to doing that (the traditional "levels of training effectiveness") is seriously flawed.

The fact is, most companies that purchase sales training don't have the ability to measure their sales processes precisely enough to determine much of anything. They are just so pre-occupied with GETTING results that measurement is not a real priority.

So, boatloads of money are spent again and again, training and retraining new hires, and others who need it, with only the vaguest linkage to a return. That's why executives feel they can cut the budget in the first place.

Is your sales training different?
Some companies have spent lots of time and money to analyze the kind of skills their customers and their sales processes require of salespeople. Having worked in and for many such companies, I can tell you that even in those companies, actually surviving (much less succeeding) as a salesperson usually has little to do with what you learn in those sales training classes. (I'm not talking about basic listening, presentation, and product knowledge skills; I'm taking about street-smart, door-opening, getting-to-the decision-maker-and-being-so-good-you-get-invited-back-kinds-of-skills.)

What actually goes on in the street rarely matches what corporate managers and executives think, especially in large companies.

That's an unpopular viewpoint, for sure. Yet it is unfortunately the case more often than not. It is one of the reasons sales training is so notorious for not "sticking."

What should you do?
So, if you have the responsibility for helping a sales team become more effective, what are you supposed to do?

You have two choices:

1. Keep doing things like they've always been done.
2. Try something different.

Tomorrow, Thursday, we will be presenting an unusual model for improving salespeople's results:

The thing you might be most interested in is not just the sales skills involved, but the "training model" built around kaizen.  We'll be dealing with questions such as

• How to know if getting access to accounts is the real problem
• Improving your salespeople's ability to access the right executives in big new accounts
• How to make this improved ability permanent

There will be some powerful lessons in here for leading and managing sales organizations. Our guest will be Jill Konrath, author of "Selling to Big Companies" (Kaplan, 2005), which made Fortune Magazine's top ten "must read" books of 2008.

Jill is a highly talented sales person and communicator, with an exceptional track record for getting prospects, customers, clients, and salespeople to listen to her.

The trick we'll be talking about is this: how do you take the "secret sauce" you get from someone like Jill, and get it instilled across your field sales force, so it becomes the norm?

Visit https://www.salesperformance.com/GainAccessKaizenJan08.aspx  to sign up for this event now.

You won't be disappointed.

Michael Webb
January 7, 2009

OK, Salespeople Can’t Find Enough Prospects. Now What?

The economic sea change we have all been going through makes companies pay attention to their sales process.

One company president I spoke with yesterday said his revenue shrank 25% in December (compared with the same month last year). Companies affected by the financial crisis (like housing, oil, or automotive) are trying to survive. They are worried whether their customers even have enough money to pay for things any longer.

Hopefully, your business can find enough customers to stay alive. Will your marketers find them? Can your salespeople find them? Will they be found fast enough?

If you are like most B2B organizations, your salespeople may have been struggling to find sales opportunities even before the financial crisis!

The danger of this is worse than you think, because there are hidden, double threats.

Good Prospects Aren't Flowing into the Funnel

For example, a marketer on our teleconference in December said their trade shows were no longer working to generate leads. "What do you define as a lead?" I asked.

"Someone who stops by our booth and demonstrates interest in our product," he answered.

"How is that working for you?"

"It is not working," he said. "They stop by the booth. Some even fill out a card. But they don't end up buying anything."

Salespeople are also having a tougher time getting into new accounts. Prospects won't call them back. They can't get appointments. And prospects aren't responding to traditional ads and promotions either.

Fixing the Process

The sea change we are struggling through has made things a lot different than they used to be. Salespeople alone can't bring in customers at a profit anymore. Their prospect's behaviors have changed so drastically in the last few years, it is disorienting.

Now, prospects are feeling, in effect, "Don't:

• Waste my time.
• Try to be my friend.
• Expect me to tell you about my business.
• Give me a product dump.
• Use any self-serving verbiage.
• Expect me to infer the value.
• Create extra work for me."

How can you get prospects to take your salespeople's calls in this environment? How can you get them to read your ad and respond?

There are ways of doing it. A few highly talented individuals have learned to do it.

One is Jill Konrath, author of "Selling to Big Companies" (Kaplan, 2005), which made Fortune Magazine's top ten "must read" books of 2008.

On Thursday afternoon this week, I'm teaming up with Jill to conduct a unique and timely webinar:

How to Permanently Improve Salespeople's Ability

to Access Big New Accounts in 90 Days or Less

With A Sales Kaizen Event

https://www.salesperformance.com/GainAccessKaizenJan08.aspx

We'll be discussing some crucial questions, like:

• How to know if getting access to accounts is the real problem
• Improving your salespeople's ability to access the right executives in big new accounts
• How to make this improved ability permanent

Visit https://www.salesperformance.com/GainAccessKaizenJan08.aspx to sign up for this event now.

Before it is too late.

Over the Edge

These are such scary times because companies can't spend money very long without getting a financial return. 

In fact, when things have changed as drastically as they have recently, how can a company know for sure if they are going to get a return on their sales and marketing dollar? Spending money without knowing the return is like walking around on the top of a building blind-folded. Sooner or later, one of your feet is likely to miss the edge. 

There is just about no way to measure returns in traditional views of sales and marketing.

You might think companies would have already done the research to know why customers buy. You might think they would have set up early warning detectors to give signals when prospect's responses change, and to tell them where the bottlenecks are.

How well has your company done that job?
Most companies exist because somebody along the way stumbled onto a market where money was already flowing. The people who work there now assume things have been figured out. 

Until, that is, things are like they are right now. Many people in many companies today never lived through bad times. When money stops flowing in sales and marketing, people get into big trouble fast. They don't know what to do when the pavement is flying up at them.

Sales and marketing people typically don't know how to use words like "problem" and "solution" precisely. They don't know how to distinguish data from opinions, or causes from effects. They don't know that they don't know. Heck, they don't even know what they DO know.

Voices get raised, politics get played, people run for cover. Some get the RIF.

Sellers and marketers need help. Not just figuring out how to fix the sales process, but also to IMPLEMENT the fixes so they will stick. If ever there was a time to help your sales and marketing team get oriented the right way, and make the improvement stick, the time is now. 

Fix the Sales Process the Right Way
By "the right way," I mean: 

     1. Gain profound knowledge of the customer's journey

What stages do your customers go through? Why? What help do they need along the way? How do you know this? (I mean "profound knowledge" in the sense Deming meant, by the way.)

     2. Make the sales process visible and measurable

How can you know that value is created for customers, and for your company (i.e., that we will get a return?) What proof, or evidence, do you have? How can you construct the sales process so the data is easily generated?

     3. Recognize the "system" of the finding, winning, keeping lifecycle

How can you understand the interdependencies of marketing, selling, and servicing? Which is the easiest way to reach your objectives: by taking better care of existing customers, or by finding new ones? How do you know?

     4. Eliminate waste whereever it occurs

What value is created by every dollar you spend? How do you know whether you need more brochures, or a better website? More demo equipment, or DVDs about the product? Where is the best place to spend (or save) your sales investment dollars? How do you know?

     5. Incorporate Plan-Do-Check-Act at all levels to close the "feedback loop"

Of course, I'm referring to the only evidence-based approach to designing – and implementing – a sales production process, what we are calling "sales kaizen."

+++++++++++++

On December 18 Robert Ferguson and I announced a new guidebook:

"How to Conduct a Sales Kaizen Event –
Improve Your Sales Process in a
Way Your Customer Will Love"

The book is now shipping and it turned out even better than we had hoped.

Due to some slight delays in getting it completed, we have extended the availability of charter pricing. After Saturday, January 10, the price will be increased to $470. Your satisfaction is guaranteed.

Visit https://www.salesperformance.com/SalesKaizenEvent.aspx to get your copy today.

+++++++++++++

Getting answers to your sales process questions 

If the steps of "sales kaizen" sound abstract to you, that's because they are.

The fixes to your sales and marketing challenges are concrete, specific, simple fixes, applied successively, while watching the needles of hard data metrics climb steadily in the needed direction.

Trouble is, it takes some analysis and thinking to identify which fixes are the right ones. Once you know what needs fixing you can recommend activities that are easier for people to go out and do and won't be a waste. 

Many of you know that we're launching a professional community devoted to sales process improvement this month, so we can focus on answering application questions like these. Everyone needs help thinking these things through.

For starters, this Thursday's teleconference will be our first webinar from SPIF! – the new Sales Performance Improvement Forum (our website will be undergoing some changes by the middle of January).

I look forward to chatting with you there!

Michael Webb
January 6, 2008

Sales Kaizen Permanently Improves Salespeople’s Access to Big New Accounts

Atlanta Ga. – After years of research and trials, a Georgia firm is releasing new techniques that help B2B companies generate higher revenue and reduce sales costs. At 3:00pm Eastern time on Thursday, January 8, 2009, Michael Webb, author of “Sales and Marketing the Six Sigma Way,” and Jill Konrath, Read more