leverage your sales team’s frustrations to release ...€¦ · classic sales management mistake...

10/24/2016

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Leverage Your Sales Team’s Frustrations to Release Powerful Improvement

November 2016

Michael J Webb

Your Business is an Engine of Wealth

Voice of the Customer

Voice of Employees

Voice of Owners

Its Time to Break Through the Barriers!

10/24/2016 2016 © Copyright Sales Performance Consultants, Inc. 2

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Deming’s Cycle Applied to the Whole Company


Design

Product and

Production

Processes

Produce

Product

Learn

From Field

Experience

Distribute/Sell

Product

Inspect/

Package

Product

Plan

Do

Act

Study

His Method Included the Sales Process


Design

Product and

Production

Processes

Produce

Product

Learn

From Field

Experience

Distribute/Sell

Product

Inspect/

Package

Product

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Yet, There is a Disconnect in Many Companies


Design

Product and

Production

Processes

Produce

Product

Learn

From Field

Experience

Distribute/Sell

Product

Inspect/

Package

Product

Many Sales Organizations are Struggling


Longer selling cycles

Unpredictable returns

Unreliable forecast

VOC that is not used

Declining productivity

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Companies Who Study Sales Agree

42% of sales reps missed quota in 2013

40% average turnover in sales teams

62% of CSOs expected trouble making target

revenues in 2014


The State of Sales and Marketing Today

6/25/2016 Copyright © 2016 SPC, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 8

Odds of making sales forecast: 45.9%

Odds of pass bet at craps: 49.3%

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The Balance of Power Has Shifted

6/25/2016 Copyright © 2016 SPC, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 9

1955 2016

• Availability

• Quality

• Information

• Sophistication

• Competition

Product

Time

Sup

ply

Shortage of Product

Shortage of Customers

Assumption: That’s Just the Way It Is


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What Causes These Poor Results? 10/24/2016 2016 © Copyright Sales Performance Consultants, Inc. 11

Mark Twain

“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”


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Classic Sales Management Mistake #1 Situation:

Poor sales results caused company to seek a new VP of Sales. The new VP discovers salespeople are making less than two sales calls per day.

Belief:

More call activity = more sales Action:

VP instituted call activity monitoring and insisted on higher call volume.

Result:

Sales activity did, in fact, increase, to almost 4 sales calls per day.

Sales results did not increase at all. Page 25


Classic Sales Management Mistake #2 Situation:

Company had purchased a sales process from a major sales training company. The sequence and questions were configured in their CRM. They knew there was a huge market.

Belief:

More leads = more sales Action:

President of the company doubled down on Internet Pay-Per-Click Ads.

Result:

Lead volume increased 223%

Sales results did not increase at all.


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The Fixes Fail in the Usual Ways

Training Behavior returns to

status quo

CRM Most reps fail to use;

Channel refuses to use

Territory

Realignment

Productivity does not

improve

Sales Contest/

Promotion

Robs business from

the future

Lead Gen

Campaign

Sales do not increase,

may decrease

Temporary

gains not

sustained!

6/25/2016 Copyright © 2016 SPC, Inc All Rights Reserved. 15

Process Practitioners Make Similar Mistakes

5S

Lean

SIPOC

Value Stream Map

Defect Reduction

DMAIC

Poka Yoke

Single Piece Flow

6 Sigma

Control Charts

Big “Y” and Little “xs”

Standard Work

Black Belts

A3

Baldridge Award

PDCA / PDSA

“We have met the enemy, and he is us” 10/24/2016 2016 © Copyright Sales Performance Consultants, Inc. 16

10/24/2016

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These Frustrations Are Normal in Sales:

No Data Locating Causes of Problems 10/24/2016 2016 © Copyright Sales Performance Consultants, Inc. 17

Your Sales Environment is Perfectly Designed

To Produce the Kind of Salespeople You Have 10/24/2016 2016 © Copyright Sales Performance Consultants, Inc. 18

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What Happens if Nothing Changes?


Applying Lean Upstream – in Sales

• Not all companies can be low cost producer

• How can we become the high-value producer?


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Lean Applies the Scientific Method

Louis Pasteur

Father of Microbiology 10/24/2016 2016 © Copyright Sales Performance Consultants, Inc. 121

The Scientific Method

Observation

Hypothesis

Prediction

Experimentation


• Pasteurization

• Vaccinations

• Fermentation

Produced

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Applying the Scientific Method to Business

Systems Thinking

Method for Learning

Understand Variation

Respect for People

Deming’s Theory of Profound

Knowledge



Getting in Contact with

Reality

Systems Thinking

Method for Learning


Respect for People


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Lack of Understanding Variation


Operational Definition

•An exact description of what words refer to in reality;

• The procedure used to derive a measurement.


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Categories of Deal Quality

Traditional Qualification Criteria

B Budget

A Authority

N Need

T Timeframe


Sales Qualification Criteria

Profile: Are they a fit

for us?

Knowledge: Are we a fit for them?

Relationship: Is our history

good?

Is there an opportunity?

Can we win?

Account Characteristics Deal Characteristics

Traditional Qualification

B Budget

A Authority

N Need

T Timeframe

Observable Quality Characteristics


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Example OpDef of Qualification Criteria

What are the drivers of the project? 1. Don't know 2. Bottom-up initiative – source of pain is

low level in the organization 3. Driven by external requirements (e.g.

regulatory or customers) without obvious senior management support

4. Top-down initiative: senior manager is pushing for a solution

5. In addition to one of the above, they’ve been considering it for a while, and momentum is finally building.



Variation must be understood

conceptually before it can be

understood statistically.

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Frustration: Accurate Forecasts Are Impossible

Possible Qualification Scores

140 130 120 110 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30

10

20

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60

70

80

90

100 %

Pro

ba

bil

ity o

f W

inn

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Reality: 90%+ Forecast Accuracy

Possible Qualification Scores

140 130 120 110 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

% P

rob

ab

ilit

y o

f W

inn

ing

Tipping point

This data reveals powerful signals

• Some criteria have more affect

• Alignment of account strategies

• When to prioritize vs walk away

• ROI on “soft” improvements (training, coaching, lead quality, etc.)

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Systems Thinking

Identifying Cause and

Effect

Systems Thinking

Method for Learning


Respect for People


What Value Does Sales and Marketing Create?

VP of Finance of Fortune 500 Corporation: “I expect all our Sales VPs to start providing SOME kind of measurement of their activities and processes. It is the only way to start getting sales costs under control. I would suggest you start with the cost of producing proposals.”

Savvy VP of Sales: “Is the cost of sales proposals REALLY what you want to optimize?


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The Ultimate Goal of a Business

VALUE to Customers

VALUE to Employees

VALUE to Owners

Its Time to Break Through the Barriers!


An Improved Definition of Value

“Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep.”

Ayn Rand, Novelist and Philosopher


10/24/2016

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Align Your Business to Your Customer’s

Optimize Production

Secure Machine

Decide to Buy

Assess Feasibility

Discover Internal

Possibilities & Capabilities

Detect Market Needs and Changes

Customer’s Journey


Systems Thinking Aligns Work Productively

Optimize Production

Secure Machine

Decide to Buy

Assess Feasibility

Discover Internal




Warranty, Service,

& Support

Machine Installation and Training

Post Sale Follow Up

Prepare & Conduct

Buy Off

Receive & Process Order

Finalize & Provide

Documents

Negotiate Final

Terms

Provide Supporting

Data

Assess and Revise Quote

Determine Specific

Requirements

Develop Formal Quote

Discover Wants

Determine Feasibility

for Company

Research Business Needs

Support Their Needs

Provide Budgetary

Alternatives

Share Company Capabilities

Gain Company Commitment To the Deal

Ship & Invoice

Follow Up

Seller’s Daily Work


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Systems Thinking Helps Locate Problems

Optimize Production

Secure Machine

Decide to Buy

Assess Feasibility

Discover Internal




Warranty, Service,

& Support

Machine Installation and Training

Post Sale Follow Up

Prepare & Conduct

Buy Off

Receive & Process Order

Finalize & Provide

Documents

Negotiate Final

Terms

Provide Supporting

Data

Assess and Revise Quote

Determine Specific

Requirements

Discover Wants

Determine Feasibility

for Company

Research Business Needs

Support Their Needs

Provide Budgetary

Alternatives

Share Company Capabilities

Gain Company Commitment To the Deal

Ship & Invoice

Follow Up

Seller’s Daily Work

Develop Formal Quote


Method for Learning

Explicitly Think and

Behave Like Scientists

Systems Thinking

Method for Learning


Respect for People


10/24/2016

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What it is Like to Work in Most Companies

Managing a company by means of the monthly report is like trying to drive a car by watching the yellow line in the rear view mirror.

Myron Tribus, former director of the Center for

Advanced Engineering Study at MIT, and also former Senior V.P. Of Research &

Engineering for Xerox Corp.

Adapted from “Understanding Variation” by Don Wheeler, SPC Press, Inc.


People Can Work Incredibly Hard

Plan Agree on the process

Act Adapt based

on the learning

Do

Learn from the execution/context

Study

Implement with excellence

And Yet, Nothing Improves

“Your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you're getting.”

W. Edwards Deming


10/24/2016

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Assumptions About Organizational Performance

•Performance is the sum of the parts

• Improvement means getting people to work harder, or smarter

• Improvement can happen without an explicit method for doing so


Systems Are More Than the Sum of the Parts

“Ninety-five per cent of changes made by management today make no improvement.”

W. Edwards Deming, “The New Economics”

[In organizations] “…most troubles and most possibilities for improvement add up to proportions something like this:

• “94% belong to the system (the responsibility of management)

• “6% are attributable to special causes”


10/24/2016

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The Missing Link: The Scientific Method

Observation

Hypothesis

Prediction

Experimentation


Act Adapt based

on the learning

Do


Study



Mindfulness: Manage How We Think

Observation

Hypothesis

Prediction

Experimentation


Act Adapt based

on the learning

Do


Study



10/24/2016

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Learning and Improvement is Iterative


Adapted from “The Improvement Guide – A Practical Approach to Enhancing Organizational Performance” Second Edition (Jossey Bass, 2009) pg 82

Real world: Observations, carry out a test, look for anomalies

Prediction (an hypothesis, conjecture, model, or theory)

Plan

Do Check

Act/Adjust

Do

Act/Adjust

Check

Plan

Leadership Issues: • Common, systemic • High-Impact, • Actionable

P A

D S

P A

D S

P A

D S

P A

D S

Line Manager: • Local Issues

Marketer Seller Servicer

Individuals • Skills, knowledge

Method for Learning is Scalable


10/24/2016

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Respect for People

Enable People To

Achieve What They Want

Systems Thinking

Method for Learning


Respect for People


Dr. Shigeo Shingo

“We have to grasp not only the know-how but also 'Know Why', if we want to master the Toyota Production System.”


10/24/2016

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What Are Your Sales Department’s Concerns?

• Why do we have to change?

• Why should we do this all alone?

• Why should we do this in addition to other work?

• What if sales problems are not caused by us?

• Why is this important to the organization?

• What are objective measures of performance?

• What could the future be like with this approach?

Do Your Salespeople Know the Possibilities? 10/24/2016 2016 © Copyright Sales Performance Consultants, Inc. 52

Business: The Massive Engine of Wealth

Voice of the Customer

Voice of Employees

Voice of Owners


10/24/2016

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Wealth is Accumulated Value

Relationships

Accomplishment

Self-Esteem

Education

Recognition

Health

Security

People

Ideas

Purpose

Legacy

Knowledge

Respect

Experience

And yes of course, Money

Adapted from a presentation by Kim Sawyer, www.thewealthsource.com


What is the Source of Wealth?

Your ability to create wealth doesn’t come from the outside.

It comes from how you are built on the inside.

Adapted from a presentation by Kim Sawyer, www.thewealthsource.com


10/24/2016

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Changed Assumptions Enable Changed Thinking

Your role:

• Are you a boss? Or are you a coach?

Your attitude:

• Along for the ride? Or are you an investor?

Approach to problems:

• Avoid them, hide? Or treasure them, learn?

Relationship to authority:

• Unquestioning Or honesty, catchball?


Tap Into Natural Instincts

Most want things to be better, simpler, easier, faster. They want to remove barriers and frustrations.

To tap into that,

• Always be interested in what they think

• Always ask them why

• Challenge them to define their terms more clearly

• Encourage them to find a way to do better

• Make sure they show you what they learn


10/24/2016

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A World of Success Awaits

www.salesprocessexcellence.com

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Good through Nov 30, 2016


Other Resources

www.salesperformance.com Free Introductory Videos • The Definitive B2B Guide to Predictable, Profitable,

Sustainable Revenue Growth Articles • How to Avoid the Four Most Common Mistakes of Sales

Process Mapping • How Do You Map a Sales Process? • Diagnose what is going right and wrong with your sales

organization Start a more productive dialog in your business: • World Class Sales Process Self-Assessment


http://www.salesperformance.com/



http://salesperformance.com/how-to-avoid-the-four-most-common-mistakes-of-sales-process-mapping/

http://salesperformance.com/how-to-avoid-the-four-most-common-mistakes-of-sales-process-mapping/

http://salesperformance.com/how-do-you-map-a-sales-process/

http://salesperformance.com/how-to-diagnose-what-is-going-right-and-wrong-in-your-sales-production-system/

http://salesperformance.com/how-to-diagnose-what-is-going-right-and-wrong-in-your-sales-production-system/

http://op.salesperformance.com/world-class-sales-process-self-assessment/

