Attaining more account / sales management maturity

Account Management Maturity Model

3 Ways to move up the Maturity Model

 

Design, Develop and Implement a Sales Process mapped to a Buying Process.
The foundation of any sales strategy is a well-defined sales process that is adopted in the field.  Sales Managers can then coach and develop to the process, improve productivity and begin to move up the model.

Implement a Sales Performance Management System : Baseline the Key Performance Metrics by identifying how to measure these metrics accurately. Use these baselines to gauge performance as you mature. Make sure you understand what the reasons for improvement are.

Stick to the Sales Management Fundamentals : Regular cadence around one on ones, sales meetings, field evaluations and coaching to situational development is key to increasing maturity on the model. Adhering to seeing customers, making sure sales reps spend the majority of their time selling and measuring leading indicators (funnel depth) vs. lagging indicators are essential to success.

Blue Printing a Sales Process

Why establish a sales process at all ?

What happens if there is no sales process

1. You need to rely on the heroic efforts of the few "natual" who hit the number
2. You will not have a good smell of which deals are real and which are wishful thinking
3. You will not see how the buyers are moving through the process
4. Your forecasts will be awry because the reps will go by instincts and history
5. The end of the month will always be a fire drill
6. Your reps will rely on you to sell complex deals (and not develop own capability)
7. New Reps will get inducted through trial by fire
8. This will increase attrition and also "time to get trained"

Companies with a formal sales process win 48% more business, have 37% shorter sales cycle and generate 2 times revenue per head. A major reason is the common language and common method they have to review their performance.

Benefits of Sales Process Blueprinting

A Sales Process produces  an improvement in forecasting accuracy, repeatability of successes and the sales managers being able to drive performance by acting as coaches. Otherwise sales managers become only administrators. Sales process means that you

• have an understanding of the customers' buying process 
• know status of each suspect, prospect, engagement, close, delivery, payment
• can describe your process (pre, during, after) in this language
• know the information, skills, tools, equipment, FAQs needed at each step
• know the script of performing each stage successfully.
• know workflow, go-no-go statements, responsibility, procedure and tools 
• have a checklist of what not to forget for each customer at each stage
• know how to measure /accelerate journey from one milestone to other
• know the pipeline needed to achieve a given sales target
• know how batons get passed between sales, marketing, call centers, service, office
• know not only sales processes but also back office processes
• know how to increase the time in front of the customer 
• Create a shorter sales cycle
• Enabling greater interaction with qualifying prospects
• know how to improve sales forecasting
• know how to avoid stagnant prospects

How to do Sales Process Blueprinting

At the very least, it must be based on collecting data and information to identify best practices  and then documenting and codifying these best practices so they can be repeated by all sales team members.The first step in creating a model sales process means looking no further than 20% of your top sales performers who get 80% of your revenue.  Isolate and document how they drive the revenue and then codify them  into "best practice" (not recommended model) for a trainable, scalable, monitorable, repeatable, and sustainable process.  There are 3 main categories :

1. Selling Operations : the starting point - the “gut” - around which everything revolves
2. Business from current customer base : Customer Satisfaction maintainance
3. Sales Support : how all departments play their roles to make it happen

Sales operations

• Identify opportunities
  To whom might I sell my products/services?
  How do I determine which are my best prospects?
• Gain access and attention How do I get the decision-maker's attention
  How do I get the decision maker to recognize I have useful products/services?
• Establish interest
  How do I engage the prospect in my products/services?
• Conduct discovery
  How do I find out what does the prospect want
  How do I customize my presentation to him
  How do I justify the use of my products/services and get his/her buy-in?
• Present/propose
   How do I package my complete value proposition for delivery to the prospect?
• CloseHow do I reach final commitment?

Customer satisfaction

• Deliver/implement
  How do I assure that my products/services are properly delivered
  How do I assure that my products/services are properly used by the customer ?
• Support customer operations
  How do I monitor and ensure continued customer satisfaction?
• Develop relationshipsHow do I establish and continuously enhance the trust and confidence ?

Sales support

• Account and territory management Things to do to assure that time and resources are productively used? 
• Field operations supportWhat must the sales support staff do to help the sales reps
  What tools do they need?
• Human resourcesHow do I recruit, hire, train, motivate and retain sales personnel?
• Quality assurance What are the standards for performance of each sales activity?
  How do I assure that these standards are met?
• Process management and metrics How do I ensure continuous improvement?
  How do I measure all the activities in the sales process so I know how well I’m doing?

Sample Sales Process

1. Marketing distributes qualified lead to sales person.
2. Gathering and notification of new leads. Sales team members are automatically sent e-mail notifications of new leads they are responsible for. A sales person can follow a link in the notification to the prospect file for easy review, at which point they can accept or decline the lead, or hand it off to another salesperson.
3. Sales initiates contact with lead.
4. Follow up with future actions and forecasts. Automated notifications improve your organization's lead cultivation efforts and provide managers with an overview of their sales force's efforts.
5. The sales cycle occurs.
6. Share info and ideas with other people. Sales force and managers can discuss goals and tactics, as well as address common issues and questions about sales efforts.
7. Create, track and assign tasks to sales support. Quickly create and assign tasks to their sales force in the management of leads. Sales personnel are automatically notified of new tasks via email, and created tasks include a "respond by" date, ensuring the timely ownership of staff to their assignments.
8. Sales plans and tracks activities related to prospect. Sales staff and managers can quickly track prospect activity and make strategic decisions in relationship development.
9. Sales creates and tracks correspondence and conversations. Allows sales people to quickly generate pre-configured emails, letters, faxes and more.
10. Management reports for activities and future projections and pending actions. Offers work pending reports that track the activities of the sales force.
11. Sales utilizes marketing materials to enhance the sales cycle. Provides a central location to store your organization's marketing materials, allowing your sales force to quickly access marketing documents to support their efforts. This centralized storage ensures your staff is using approved, up-to-date materials.
12. Proposal is written and submitted to prospect. Create and centrally store sales documents and templates, enabling your sales force to easily access the tools they need when they need them: proposals, correspondence, questionnaires, risk assessments and more.
13. Contact/Purchase order is generated.

Reduce Sales Force Attrition : Use "Reverse Gear"

Cost of Attrition

Even if we disregard one reality - that the days are truly over when an ample number of good prospective salesmen fell over themselves to fill your vacant sales positions - the second reality cannot be avoided : the real cost of attrition is much larger than what the accountants will tell you. When a salesperson leaves

• the territory sale suffers for months till a new person joins & learns ropes
• In the interim, competition gains. Some of these are permanent gains
• Customer Relationships - acquired by the person - also leave the company
• These relationships may be used by your competitor by hiring the person
• If the man had high potential, you lost a future "manager in pipeline"
• Your reputation suffers
• You incur costs of recruiting a new person and training   

New Reality 

Many of us who employ sales people still live in the past when we could afford to work under the assumption that (a) the prospective employees needed us more than we needed them (b) there is an abundant supply of suitable prospective employees out there which can be tapped at will by us. This is simply not true anymore.

Create an equal opportunity  

I recommend a "Reverse Gear" approach to you wherein you establish 2 processes 

1. that enable you to evaluate and choose the right candidate 
2. that enable the candidate to evaluate and choose you   

Surprised by the 2nd process? Don't ! Do not focus only on learning about the candidate so that you can make a solid decision. Focus also on creating an environment where the candidate has the same opportunity. This way both sides can make a solid decision and start a good relationship.

Reverse Gear Approach   

How to give the sales candidate an opportunity to make an informed decision ?

• FAMILIARIZATION WITH YOUR CULTURE : Many, these days, save money by conducting  interviews by phone and only bring the finalists to the Corporate. The company gathers key information, but the candidate does not get a chance to evaluate if they can apply their skills successfully in the company's world. One of the best ways to share the sales culture with candidates is through reverse interviewing wherein the candidate gets an opportunity to ask questions to a potential peer who is a seasoned company person who knows how your company really operates.
• FOR SENIOR POSITIONS INVOLVE FAMILY TOO : For senior positions involve the spouse too so s/he can ask questions and understand the plans of the company. If you do this well, you are creating an ally who lives in the prospective employees' home!
• YOUR PLANS : equally important is the direction of the company because people like to work in an environment that is forward looking and knows where it is going.  Many companies lose this opportunity to excite the candidates even before they join.
• CLEAR COMPENSATION PACKAGE EXPLANATION : very few companies walk their candidates through the compensation plan as a part of the screening process. Time taken in the beginning will save a lot of heartburn later on. The same thing goes for the benefits. Share the benefits program. In both cases, realize that the interviewees may be too polite to ask this during the interview. I suggest provide them with an HR contact with whom they can freely inquire about benefits and allowances without feeling embarrassed.

Which sales model is appropriate for you ?

Of course, it is important to learn which sales model is important to you. If you make nails for multiple uses and if your customers want to buy transactionally (see the transactional selling model elsewhere in this article); it will be wasteful for you to get into "Consultative" selling .

If you have millions of customers and if the order size of each customer is going to be small; you cannot adopt a direct selling and servicing mode. Hence this article is important for you to learn what selling process you should adopt.

But before you read, I want to caution you that the fundamentals do not change much with which model you are using because  what makes difference is the execution of the basics. 

In football, blocking and tackling are the "fundamentals" : similarly what are the fundamentals in selling? They are listening skills, a good work ethic, empathy, imagination, problem definition and problem-solving skills, and a secure ego. All those traits end up as prominent in all the sales models. I recently played golf with my brother in law. I used rented clubs. After miss-hitting a drive, I made a disparaging comment about the driver. He took the driver from me and nailed a shot well down the middle of the fairway. He didn't say a word. He didn't have to. It's not the club; it's the golfer. 

This piece appealed to me. It is adapted from Charles Green of Rain Today

Sales Models & Their Prescriptions

• Traditional Selling – Hard
• Traditional Selling - Professional
• Customer Focused Selling
• SPIN Selling
• Solution selling
• Consultative selling ( vis-à-vis transaction selling )
• Collaborative Selling
• Strategic Selling

One Liners

• Traditional selling – driven by the seller’s need to sell based on product features
• Traditional selling – the sellers tries to present in the light of customer needs
• Customer focused selling - first know the need and then suggest
• SPIN selling : ask questions before jumping to solutions
• Solution selling : Deliver improvement based on mutually agreed solution
• Consultative selling : clients buy solutions they have been a party to creating
• Collaborative selling : both act as each other's customers 
• Strategic selling : enterprise to enterprise selling

Traditional Selling - Hard  

is where the sales person is taught to take charge of the selling encounter and maintain control of the conversation from start to finish and persuade the buyer to buy even where the buyer is not in need.

Traditional Selling – Professional   

is where the sales person is taught to build rapport and get the customer into a mood to listen to the sales pitch – during which the salesperson presents his offer in the light of  the needs of the customer so that he is influenced to make a favorable buying decision.

Customer Focused Selling

In today’s crowded market place, marketing efforts have shifted from product marketing to customer-focused marketing model of 3 steps :

Step One--Customer Discovery :  The sales person’s first priority must be to discover the customer’s wants and expectations,  motivations, criteria, and readiness to buy.  Hence the sales presentations can start only when you discover customer needs. 

Step Two--Customer Acquisition : when an agreement has been reached, the acquisition phase of the selling process starts and includes verifying the order, keeping the customer informed,  managing pending orders, ensure smooth implementation, addressing any billing issues or concerns and may involve training, handholding, installation and follow-up.   Electronic industries have recognized that while they make a quality product such as a VCR, customers who are unable to install and use the features of the product complain about the product quality. These same businesses employ people to create user-friendly instructions.

Step Three--Customer After Sale Selling :  Unlike traditional selling models that stop with a customer closing, Customer Focused Selling has a third phase of After Sale Selling. The customer looks for maximum performance from the product.  Most sales people fear this phase of the selling so they skip it.  They are afraid the customer may be disappointed about the performance of the product or upset that promises were not fulfilled.  Rather than face an unhappy customer (there is no money in this), they start selling with new prospects. A selling model which does not include selling after the sale loses sight of the most valuable asset in a business -- the existing customer data base.  Look at these simple facts (a) More than 30% of customers will purchase again (b) Customers know and trust you (c) It’s 10 times cheaper to sell to existing customers than new prospects (d) Repeat buyers are less concerned about price than new prospects. Repeat business--sales after the sale--will only take place if you take care of your customer.  You become an advocate for their business and monitor the use of your products and services.  Customers will buy again and will refer their friends and relatives to the business if you have kept in contact and become a trusted advisor to them. 

SPIN Selling

In successful sales calls it's the buyer who does most of the talking, which means that the salespeople are asking questions. Asking questions means that the salesperson is building Rapport with the buyer, building rapport allows the buyer to feel more comfortable talking. SPIN selling is based on quote that “People do not buy from salespeople who understand their products but from those who seem to understand their problems”.

SPIN is an acronym for a “questioning sequence” and has 4 types of questions :

• Situation ( what is the context of the customer …)  
• Problem ( what are the pains in the current situation ….) It is better to uncover several problems before asking implication questions. It can be dangerous to focus on one problem as it invites the buyer to raise another area where you solution does not fare so well. (Don't put all your eggs in the one basket)
• Implication ( understand what the pain implies ..what effects ?)  are the most powerful sales questions and the skill in using them doesn't automatically improve with experience.
• Need-payoff ( ask about explicit needs …)

SPIN method says there are 4 stages to a sale :

1. Opening
2. Investigating
3. Demonstrating Capability
4. Obtaining Commitment
   
   

Solution Selling

What is a solution? "It is an answer to a problem". Solution selling is not only giving an answer to the customer’s problem. It is important that the problem needs to be acknowledged by both the buyer and the seller. So a “solution” is a mutually agreed-upon answer to a recognized problem. But then, the solution must also provide measurable improvement on “Before and  After” basis. So the “solution selling” may be defined as a mutually shared answer to a recognized problem that provides measurable improvement. "Solution-Selling" generally apply a consultative sales approach to all aspects of their sales process (during a sales cycle) including:

• Prospecting
• Diagnosing customer needs
• Crafting a potential solution
• Establishing value
• Bargaining for access to decision-makers
• Positioning proof, ROI and the total solution
• Negotiating a win-win solution
• Following up to ensure customer success

Consultative Selling (vs transactional selling)

It describes a selling technique in which the salesperson acts as an expert consultant for his prospect, asking questions to determine the prospect's needs and then using that information to select the best product or service for those needs... ideally, the salesperson's own.

Consultative selling frequently works hand-in-hand with value-added selling, in which a salesperson presents customer-specific benefits related to their product or service. The consultative approach, when properly executed, yields a quantity of information about the prospect's wants and needs – which makes it easy for the salesperson to take the next step and present the perfect benefits for those wants and needs.

Thoroughly qualifying prospects before setting up an appointment is critically important to a consultative approach. If you the salesperson don't know ahead of time that your product will be a good fit for the prospect, you'll end up wasting a long appointment drawing out the prospect only to discover at the end that you can't provide what they need.

A Transaction is a simple short-term sale. The customer already knows what he needs so he is not looking for any product knowledge. Buying criteria usually hinge on price or ease of acquisition and finding a “deal” or “bargain”. The Transactional Shoppers are

• focused only on today’s transaction – no  thought of future purchases
• Their fear is of paying more
• They exhibit comparative shopping behavior
• They do their own research so they won’t need the help of an expert
• Consumer Reports are published primarily for the transactional buyer
• They enjoy the process and hence don’t count the time spent
•  Anxious for “good deals” : they are excellent sources of word-of-mouth advertising.

 A Consultative sale is complex and is a long-term process involving collaboration of both buyer and seller, in which the latter must first develop an understanding of the customer’s business, industry, and needs, and then craft a solution to help the customer achieve their objectives. This is usually service or solution-based.  The Relational Shoppers exhibit different behavior

• they consider today’s transaction to be one in a long series of many future purchases.
• They are looking less for a product than the source from where to buy
• Their fear is of making a poor choice
• Their decision depends on your people, process and proof
• They don’t enjoy the process of shopping and negotiating
• They are  looking principally for an expert they can trust
• They consider their time to be part of the purchase price
• Confident of having found “the right place to buy”, they become repeat customers.

 In consultative selling, the initial focus is on first understanding the deeper needs and buying motives of the customer and then ensuring your product fits with these needs and motives. Given that customers value different things, this approach requires some product diversity but also presents greater upside on the sales front.  However, even consultative selling has a drawback : , when the entire focus is on meeting the needs of the customer, the needs of the supplying organization may suffer. This brings us to  Collaborative Selling.

Collaborative Selling

In a collaborative selling approach, there is a partnering mentality between customer and supplier as both realize that their longer term success is predicated on both of them staying in business - and this means that supplier needs matter too. There may be opportunities where the buyer can be flexible in order to help the seller survive. This could include some flexibility on payment terms, inventory levels, and other items that help the overall bottom line of the seller, without significantly impacting the business of the buyer. In effect, in collaborative selling, both buyer and seller become customers to each other. This approach has three primary goals for both organizations

• minimize short-term risk
• maximize long term gain
• create value by partnering with each other. Creating value is recognizing the natural synergies that already exist and jointly seeking new ways to be innovative and proactive in adding to each partner’s business success.

Not all customers, of course, want to be partners. In fact, for many customers, the current focus on consultative selling (with a focus solely on their needs) works just fine. For these customers, the sales person should continue to do what’s been working well to increase sales - no need to change a winning game!  There are in fact three ingredients that cause both buyer and seller to want to move from a consultative to a collaborative mode, including:

• The two organizations already have a successful and trusting business relationship.
• Each organization needs the other organization to succeed in order for it to succeed.
• There is some element of risk threatening the welfare of one organization that potentially could cause harm to both.

When these three conditions are present, it is in the best interests of both organizations to partner with each other. Given their already trusting relationship, it should be relatively easy for the sales person to articulate the needs for flexibility and joint problem solving on matters that were traditionally the sole concern of one organization, but not both. It is also worth pointing out that the "tables can turn", so partnering can have reciprocal benefits to both organizations. That is, whereas one organization may be struggling today; the other may be struggling tomorrow. Working in a collaborative way builds a spirit of reciprocity that can help both partners as business cycles ebb and flow.

Strategic Selling

Is about organizations selling large and complex offerings to other organizations where approval of multiple stakeholders is needed. This system is about identifying sales opportunities,  identifying all key players in the customer’s organization, understanding each player’s degree of influence and their reasons for buying, and uncovering essential information, to evaluate competitive positions, and address the business and personal motives of each decision maker in the client organization. It gives organizations a common process and language for pursuing sales opportunities and criteria for allocating resources to determine when to walk away from resource-intensive deals with a low probability of success. Participants will learn how to focus time and energy on those opportunities most likely to become profitable, long-term customers.

• Secure approval from multiple decision makers
• Navigate the internal bureaucracy of customers and prospects.
• Gain more visibility into the status of important sales opportunities
• Allocate resources appropriately for large sales
• Improve team collaboration to pursue strategic opportunities
• Forecast revenue with greater accuracy
• Increase close rates for opportunities with long sales cycles

8 Dos and Donts of selling "large projects"

Many of my readers from B2B business seemed to like the blog post I wrote a few days ago about how you should not fall into the trap of customers who really want some free consulting but dangle the bait of asking you to quote for their business.  So I am quickly following up with this post on the type of selling that is needed when you are selling projects. It is also called as professional selling, high value B2B selling, business development etc. 

Irrespective of the name, the fact is that this type of selling involves

• Complex, Customized, High-Value products (meaning services and solutions also). 
• Selling situations require extensive group-to-group interactions at all stages of buying, using, upgrading and migrating. 
• Customer behavior is characterized by the clients "coming to market" via ITP (Invitation to Pitch), or RFP (Request for Proposal) or EOI ( Expression of Interest). 

The dos and donts

1. Do not start with the traditional sales approach : talking about products, features, prices or terms because none of these will make sense to the customer who himself does not fully understand what is his need in the first place; leave alone knowing what is the product that will satisfy his need. 
2. Do not assume the client knows what product he needs even if he has an RFP (Request for Proposal) or EOI (Expression of Interest). The client may not admit it due to his vanity but the good point is that the clients are many times open to hearing what they themselves put into the RFP. However you may assume the client knows his “pain points”. 
3. Do realize that the customers will first accept you before he accepts what you recommend. In the first stage they are looking for signs of professionalism in your team : you need to sell yourself as being a trustworthy expert. You need to demonstrate this by showing willingness to work in a partnership mode to stimulate the customer’s thinking by asking the right questions and creating solutions that the customer himself does not have the time or expertise or inclination for. The selling model here is not the traditional selling model but the diagnostic selling model : DDDD : Discover, Diagnose, Design and Deliver. The people who succeed in project selling therefore are the ones who diagnose client needs by asking many questions, offering to investigate and survey to come to a conclusion, and then let the client realize his cost and pain without hurrying him and finally arrive at a solution.
4. The right sales process here is actually opposite to what is taught in conventional selling. In conventional selling a salesperson starts with a product which is already designed for a known target market and his task is to present the product in the light of the need of the customer  so that an order can be obtained. In short, the emphasis of the traditional selling is on salesmanship. On the other hand, a sale of the kind we are talking about is a combination of marketing and sales put together : it is first understanding the need of the customer, figure out what he wants, configure it for him and only then  begin selling it.
5. Do avoid premature presentations : why should you present a solution to customers’ problems before they themselves clearly understand what those problems are—and, more to the point, before a customer fully comprehends the problem and recognizes that you do too? While most salespeople devote the majority of their face-to-face time presenting and handling objections, the most successful salespeople spend the majority of their time collaborating with customers, diagnosing their situation, designing or creating a desired solution, and building their resolve to actively solve the problem.
6. Let customer take the ownership : Don’t lead him. The traditional sales or marketing representative draws conclusions for the customer—often prematurely—and presents them to the customer before the customer is prepared to hear them. It is important that the customer discover and take ownership of the problem before deciding to seek a solution. If the rep moves ahead of the customer, the customer is likely to interpret the rep’s actions as pushy or manipulative. This leads to a lack of trust and creates a confrontational rather than cooperative atmosphere.
7. Motivate the customer to change. No pain, no change, no sale. Dissatisfaction is the most basic human motivator for change. It is the natural defence mechanism that tells people that if they don’t change and deal with a problem, they will face consequences. Change itself is painful. As a result, change will not occur until an individual or company recognizes that it would be more painful not to change. This is why it’s critical that your reps conduct a thorough diagnosis that uncovers the pain of the current situation and the lack of the future outcome. As you know, nothing less will motivate the customer to change.
8. Quickly ascertain if the prospect has an immediate reason and resources to make a change. Only 20% - 30% prospects have both; for the rest  get ready to accept “No” and move on. The traditional mindset is that a good salesman does not take “no” for an answer and they think that “no” equates to personal failure. For the kind of sale we are talking about, coach your reps in asking “Is there someplace better I could be instead of a customer who neither has reason nor resources?” It is not bad to go for the “no.” One advantage of a thorough diagnosis is that it allows the salesperson to quickly identify the 20-30% of prospects who have the immediate reason and resources to make a change. A thorough diagnosis is the difference between an intellectual conversation about a desirable future and an objective observation and measurement of real indicators of an unacceptable present.