Why Did You Lose The Last Sale...Really?

It's time once again for your weekly or monthly sales meeting. You go around the room reviewing activity- chastising some, praising others. Now that that's out of the way, time for the meat and potatoes. You lean back in your chair, put your hands behind your head and with your best steely eyed stare ask the question.

"What have you sold"

One by one the epic tales begin to flow. A mixture of drama, misdirection, comedy, intrigue, victory and tragedy! You sigh... its a typical week of wins, losses, delays and non-sales issues. You look at your watch for a moment pondering the fact that this went faster than planned. Pickings are thin in this turbulent economy.

You close your eyes trying to decide whether to send them out into the field or come up with some brilliant insight to fill the time and actually increase sales. You think to yourself...man, I'm dying here. Dying? Then it hits you... postmortem!

You sit up straight abruptly, grab your pad and flip to a blank page. With pen in hand you ask the question.

"Why did you lose the last sale?"

The room is uncomfortably quite for what seems like an eternity, until a timid voice of a new sales rep is cut off by a booming voice.

"Price... our prices are just too high"
"No one is spending money in this economy"
"Yeah" a couple of voices chime in
"We were late to the table"
"The competitor knew the CEO"
"Someone in another department killed the deal"
"Someone in another department forced the prospect to go with the competitor"
"Our product wasn't a good match"
"The prospect lied to me"
"I didn't exactly lose the deal it just got postponed"

The conversation decays to everyone talking over each other

You write feverishly until the conversation dies down. Dropping your pen you stare at the pattern emerging from the scribbles on your pad. After quickly dismissing everyone you head to your office and pull up each opportunity and study the specifics and the recorded activities.

Your analysis reveals not one but two giant pink elephants in the room.

Your team chases deals that are not winnable and you're being out sold by your competitors!

Stay tuned...

Sales Productivity and Hiring the Inexperienced

In my last post, Sales Productivity And The Tower of Babel, I discussed Sales Managers that believe they should only hire candidates with experience because it relieves them of the need to train. In this post I'd like to visit the Sales Managers at the other end of the spectrum that are so frustrated with training seasoned professionals that they will only hire inexperienced sales candidates.

They tell me, "I never hire someone with experience, because they have too many bad habits to unlearn. It's easer to train someone from scratch."

Is that true? Is it really easer to train someone with no experience than someone with experience?

Lets think about this.

The new hire with no sales experience has to develop the following knowledge and/or skills in order to become productive and effective:

• the industry
• the products
• competitors and their products
• value proposition(s)
• sales terminology
  
• sales process
• buying process
  
• sales methodology
  
• prospecting/marketing
• setting appointments
• opening the initial meeting with prospect
  
• evaluating the prospects situation
• asking high impact business questions
• the decision-making process
• who has power and influence
• what's the sense of urgency
• prioritizing the objectives
• putting together the solution
• constructing the presentation
• presentation and demonstration skills
• handling objections
• negotiating
• preparing the proposal
• preparing the contract
• following up to build satisfaction
• obtaining referrals
• managing the pipeline
• managing their opportunities
  
• managing the territory
• managing existing accounts
• organizing their day
• sales metrics and what they mean
  
• using sales tools
• navigating your companies internal departments and systems
• completing administrative requirements

Depending on your industry and how complex the solutions you're selling are, it may take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years to become a high-performance sales professional. Is this easier than training and developing a seasoned sales professional? More importantly, is this even a question we should be focused on?

Lets extend this logic into the future a bit further. So now its 2-5 years down the road. You have this crack hand picked sales team trained and developed by you. They're consistent quota busters and every year the company reserves a seat for you and most of your team at President's Club.

This year the national sales team is assembled in Orlando, Florida for the annual national sales meeting. The President/CEO walks on stage and thanks everyone for a good year in tough times. Then she drops the bomb, the company is shifting its focus to position itself for future growth:

• the target market is changing
• one of the main solutions has reached the end of the product life cycle and is being phased out
• new solutions are being introduced - with a new value proposition
  
• several divisions are merging, others are being eliminated
• implementing an enterprise CRM
• success metrics and compensation are being realigned with the new strategy

Of course this announcement is followed by presentations by the CFO and the VP's of Marketing and Product Development with all the graphs and charts to support the decision to change course. The break out session with the National VP of Sales delivers the bottom line... the sales team needs to be trained on the new products, sales process, CRM, methodologies, organizational structure, territories and success metrics. Of course you feel they expect all this to happen is some brutally unrealistic short time frame!

In short, the selling world that you and your team know so well just evaporated in a blink of an eye.

Now what?

Lets stop and think about the original premise that experienced sales professionals have too many bad habits (which were the good habits just a few short months ago) and its easer to train new inexperienced candidates. The solution to achieving the previous level of sales productivity and effectiveness in the face of this massive disruptive change, is to fire the sales team and start over.

The chances of senior management buying that strategy is slim to none. In fact, if you presented that idea the only one getting fired would be you.

If neither of the two hiring extremes (only hire experienced sales professionals so you don't have to train or only hire inexperienced sales professionals because they don't have bad habits and are easer to train) is not the answer to building a high-performance sales team, then what is?

Think long and hard about your answer, because the next person you hire is the future of your company and your career.

Sales Productivity And The Tower of Babel

Do you know what I find baffling?

The number of Sales Managers that believe the short cut to improved sales productivity and effectiveness is to only hire candidates with a lot of industry experience and a great track record.

I know your staring at your computer screen with that RCA dog look thinking. Ok, Martice finally snapped, he's lost it.

Stay with me and hear me out.

Why on earth would I question a practice that is obviously true. After all, isn't that what we're suppose to do?

Yes and No!

Of course, we should develop our selection criterion to identify candidates that have the most industry experience and track record. That's not my issue. What I find bewildering are the Managers that believe that this is the secret, magic bullet that relieves them of their responsibility to train and coach new hires.

These Managers tell me (with great pride I might add), "We don't need to train beyond covering the obvious differences in the product or service we sell". They bring these hot shots in, give them a little product training, tell them they're at the forefront of building a great company, so go forth and prosper.

Then six to eight months later they wonder why a good portion of them die on the vine and the ones that make it don't produce a super abundance of fruit (pressed down, shaken together and running over).

How about you?

1. Have you ever hired a person that had all the "right stuff" and they failed miserably?
2. Does each member of your sales team (and I use that term loosely) apply different sales processes, strategies, methodologies and techniques they learned somewhere else? A mixture of:

• Huthwaite's SPIN Selling,
  
• TAS Group's Target Account Selling,
  
• The Complex Sale's R.A.D.A.R Winning Opportunities
  
• Miller Heiman Sales System (Blue Sheets)
  
• Sandler Sales
• Richardson's Consultative Selling
• And to further exasperate the situation were you trained in a totally different system?
  

I can only imagine what account and opportunity reviews sound like in one-on-ones and team sales meetings. Everyone using different terminology, everyone describing where they are in the sales process using different definitions of the sales stages. And they're all speaking the different languages of the selling systems they came from.

How can this lack of standardization have a positive impact on sales productivity and effectiveness?

I remember a passage from the book of Genesis (11:6) about the Tower of Babel. The Lord said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have done all this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them."

Now I'm not trying to get all religious on you, and your objectives are probably not as ambitious as the Babylonians. I'm making the point that if working as one and speaking the same language got God's attention back in the day. Then working together more effectively by standardizing the sales process, methodologies and having a common language will get your clients and prospects attention today.

But Martice, "We can't standardize the process. You know how difficult it is to get experienced sales people to change their habits".

I know, I know, I've heard it all before and there's only one response to that. To hell with what the salesperson wants. This is about what your clients and prospects want.

They want the selling process to match their buying process. Which means they're receiving what they value at each stage. The buying process creates a solid business case for change and keeps the deal moving forward at its optimum pace.

A well designed sales process that delivers value at each stage will move prospects through the pipeline quicker and once that starts happening your salespeople will whole heartedly embrace it. That requires agreement on what the process is, how each stage is defined, and a common terminology to describe it.

As a Sales Manager you should have an initial training program that defines your company's sales process, strategy, methodology, and terminology to optimize your team's sales productivity and effectiveness.

What Are The Top Traits or Skills Sales Managers Must Have to Succeed?

Let me preface the conversation by saying the job of a Sales Manager is very complex and difficult and there's no sign of relief due to:

1. increased global competitive pressures
2. increased competitive pressures due to conflicts with channel partners and distributors
   
3. perceived and actual commoditization of products and service due to more choice and less differentiation
   
4. constant innovation - the next "new big idea" to sell -
   
5. smarter prospects and customers - instant access to all kinds of internet information on products, services and suppliers
6. more demanding customers and prospects - shifting view of what is valuable to them at every stage of the sales process
   
7. hyper - Attention Deficit Disorder due to the tsunami of information and disruptions everyone is bombarded with on a daily basis
8. pressure from executives to consistently increase revenue, margins, market share and shareholder value quarter over quarter, year after year
   
9. managing the vastly differing values and attitudes of the gen X, Y and baby boomers
10. tightening talent pool - shortage of high caliber candidates
11. predatory recruiting practices by your competitors targeted at your best people
    
12. change - relentless march of initiatives to improve strategies, processes, procedures, and information systems
13. lack of or poorly defined job descriptions that specifically outline roles and responsibilities
14. poor alignment of strategies, goals and objectives, compensation, rewards and recognition programs supported by poorly designed and/or outdated information management systems
    
15. inadequate initial and ongoing sales management training and development
    

I sincerely hope no one is dealing with the oppressive cumulative weight of all these things at the same time. If you are, then please keep away from sharp objects. You have a tough row to hoe and I feel your pain!

Month after month Sales Managers come to the Sales Management Leadership Program and express their frustration over struggling with a subset of obstacles, issues and challenges listed above (if I missed any please add to the list by leaving a comment). Some have the exact same frustrations, some don't, however almost all come with high hopes of finding answers to relieve the pressure. The point is achieving the status of an elite high performance Sales Manager is tough.

On the brighter side, I also meet Sales Managers who have it figured out. Year after year they consistently out perform their peers. I''ll bet you know Sales Managers like that too, don't you?

So back to my question.

What Are The Top Traits or Skills Sales Managers Must Have to Succeed?

Since I'm interested in your perspective I won't present my Sales Management Manifesto on this topic. Instead I'll start us off with 3 top level Meta-skills and traits and see what additional ones you value.

1.0 Elite Sales Managers have the ability to focus on the critical few, make strategic choices, and plan and execute. High performance managers invest time in working on their business as well as in their business. They know what to focus on to get the biggest impact on achieving long and short term objectives and they don't get distracted for very long.

2.0 Effective Sales Managers have a congruent management system, management and sales strategy and communication style that instills, cultivates and reinforces an expectation of high achievement.

3.0 High performance Sales Managers have the ability to recognize when situations require different management/leadership styles. This skill fosters an environment that attracts, develops and retains individuals that can become elite high performers that consistently deliver high impact business results.

Tell me about your experience and what you think are the top skills and traits a Sales Manager must have to succeed by leaving us a comment, a thought or insight to chew on.