Is a sales process the same as a sales methodology?

Susan Niemchak, Director of the Sales Training Community at TrainingIndustry.com asked me a question that seemed innocuous at first:

Is a “process” the same as a “methodology?”

“Loosely speaking, ‘process’ and ‘methodology’ are synonymous,” I answered. “Unfortunately, ‘loose lips sink ships,’ and may cause an occasional bar fight as well. Not to Read more

Pre-Sales Engineers … Overhead or Revenue Driver? (Members Only)

Phil Janus Presents Empowering the Pre-Sales Engineer

Many companies today are struggling because salespeople are over burdened and stressed. Meanwhile pre-sales engineers stand by quietly, untrained and untapped, because their sales VPs do not understand their real potential. In this webinar, Phil Janus, founder of Sales Engineering.com explains a means of leveraging Read more

Oh, Now I Get It!

Ahhh! Vacations are great. I had only half of one in the last two weeks and now that I’m back things still seem brighter and happier than before. The highlight was spending time with my wife and kids. (My daughter is in high school, Read more

5 Whys Applied to Why Companies Don’t Get Results from Sales Training

Last week, on the customer collective website, Dave Brock and Christian Maurer drilled into an interesting issue: Why don’t companies get the results they expect from sales training? (Sales Managers, Use it or Lose It, by Dave Brock)

The 5 Whys Applied to Sales Training

Dave pointed out that when sales managers didn’t coach salespeople in the use of the tools and templates that came with the training, there was no way the training could have an effect. Christian Maurer picked up the trail Read more

Why People are NOT Your Most Important Asset

B2B Sales executives often believe that hiring the right people and training them well is the most important success factor in their business.

Unfortunately, believing this is a serious mistake.

Want proof? Consider:

You would probably agree there are a LOT of great people in companies like GM, Ford, and Chrysler.

Yet, Toyota, Honda, and Mazda have been kicking their asses in the market for decades.

Would you say these landed Japanese automotive companies are winning because they’ve hired the right salespeople, or because they’ve trained them better? Is it because they use Sales 2.0?

Of course not. The greatest salespeople and the best sales training in the world will not save the American car companies.

The caliber and training of a company’s people are no match for the larger forces in play here. Yet, these same forces are pressuring every businesses all the time, especially in today’s market.

So, why are the landed Japanese companies winning?

They are winning because they create more value. The proof is in the market’s reaction: they sell more.

Clearly, the sales process is only one component of their success.

Unfortunately, many, many talented sales leaders are trapped in corporations that view the world in ways similar to American automotive companies.

It is high time for B2B sales executives to stop being so myopic about their trade.

I’m not saying people and training aren’t important, they are important. But they are not the most important thing.

The most important things are as follows:

1. Find a starving market (i.e., what customers want)
2. Develop a system that finds, wins, and keeps customers (i.e. a sales process)
3. Develop and continuously improve the organization to execute that process (i.e., the people, training, machines, materials, systems, etc.)

Businesses need to grow out of the false assumption that the sales process is “what salespeople do.”

This error causes B2B organizations get their sales process completely wrong. It is the reason salespeople only give lip service to the sales process. Salespeople know better, though they are usually unable to articulate why.

The fact is, processes that work create real value. Not only that, people follow them. In sales and marketing, the sales process is what causes customers to:

• become aware of their problems,
• interested in your solution,
• convinced of your value relative to your competitors, and
• committed to your products and services

Companies must recognize it takes more than just salespeople to do all those things, especially in today’s market.

It is irrelevant whether the customer’s actions are caused (or enabled) by copy-written ads, social networking, web pages, or the words of talented, trusted salespeople.

If something your company did got the customer to take one of those steps, it created value.

If your competitor did a better job of it, they deserve the customer instead.

If your prospects are now looking for information they need on their favorite search engine, and you insist on hiring and training more salespeople to make cold calls, that is your problem, not theirs!

Further, consider all the things your company does that cause no customer actions, such as generating tons of brochures no one reads, spending millions on branding exercises customers care less about, consuming thousands of hours on proposals that are never purchased, or asking salespeople to pull out picks and shovels to turn over more rocks in their territories looking for leads by hand.

All these are mostly waste.

It is high time that B2B sales executives stop being so myopic about their trade.

They need to learn to think of their business as a system for creating value. Value is created when customers take the steps listed above: it is called the “customer’s journey.” Every one of those steps is measurable with hard data. That data is the only proof you will be able to deliver revenue to your company in the future.

If is to work properly, your company’s system for getting customers to act needs to be designed. It requires the best selling savvy you can muster. It must be as automated as possible. Your salespeople need be able to implement the portions of the process that cannot be automated.

Executives who cling to old-fashioned notions about selling (hire the best people! make more sales calls! twist more arms! work harder!) are riding the Titanic to the bottom and will be looking for bail outs, just as the American automotive companies are doing today.

The quality of your people is important, but it is not the most important thing.

The most important thing is the quality of your business process.

Michael Webb
http://www.salesperformance.com

Why People Are NOT Your Most Important Asset

B2B Sales executives often believe that hiring the right people and training them well is the most important success factor in their business. Unfortunately, believing this is a serious mistake. Want proof? Consider: You would probably agree there are a LOT Read more

How to Permanently Increase Salespeople’s Ability to Gain Access to Big New Accounts

By Jill Konrath and Michael Webb (pdf version) In January, Jill Konrath and I conducted a webinar around a crucial topic for business to business sales organizations: How to prospect well Read more

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