September 4, 2009 by dave.

If you’re trying to challenge your company to achieve greater business results, then you need all the help you can get.  For example, you may be trying to open a new market, introduce a new technology, turn around a struggling team, or successfully merge two organizations.  For these, you need all the help you can get.  And the help you will need is not just technical help, or financial help or legal help.  You’ll need help with relationships and systems as well.  You will need help establishing trust, building a positive culture, managing disagreements, and negotiating win-win solutions to problems, just to name a few.  And perhaps most importantly, you’ll need help setting up systems and processes that reinforce the culture you are trying to create.

If you’ve never had a good human resources manager to help you build your sales & marketing team, you have missed something special.  It is surprisingly easy to let emotions cloud your objectivity and inhibit your ability to see what is obvious to a third party.  The value of having a coach who is a little removed from the day-to-day frustrations, and yet is expert in understanding human relationships in the workplace just can’t be overstated.  Yet many executives struggle on alone.

I had such excellent HR help in my first sales management position that I took it for granted that everyone had these kinds of resources.  I was working for a large pharmaceutical firm then, but I found later that most companies can’t afford strong HR or training departments.  Even in large companies, Sales and HR management can drift apart.  And I learned that many CEOs have never seen HR working well; so they don’t understand the value and wait until serious problems evolve before bringing in help.

My HR colleagues tell me that they see salespeople and sales managers get in trouble in a couple of predictable ways:

• Salespeople tend to get in trouble for discipline reasons: not enough calls, lack of reporting, and yes, not enough sales.
• And sales managers get in trouble when too many of their people lose the edge, or don’t have it to begin with, either because management skills are weak or because hiring and training skills need help.

These observations suggest that every company needs something more than a set of evaluation forms and a set of unwritten rules about how managers can get results.  We can see that the work of HR managers and the work of sales managers need to come together into one focused program.  What my company and your company needs is a carefully constructed performance management process.

It all starts with the work: asking ourselves what results we want and what tasks are required in our specific situation to get those results in a predictable way.  We ask what steps a prospective customer will go through as they decide to purchase a product.  The answers define the sales process.  And we identify the points where a salesperson must be engaged in that process, and what skills are required at those points.  You might say that we develop a sales strategy.

Once we are clear about the sales tasks, we can identify the skills, knowledge and abilities needed and begin to develop a job description, hiring profile and interview guides.  We want to hire not just experienced sales people, but people who have been successful using the kinds of tactics that are required in our specific situation.  Some companies need sales people who are good at cold-calling, others need people who are diligent with lead follow up, and others need those who can hunt down  the one big deal that makes the year.  Understanding these sales tasks can also be used to develop performance evaluation documents that really help managers and employees communicate about the work in progress and the skill areas where coaching is needed.

One of the most powerful tools in the management kit is the bonus plan.  And yet this tool often gets so little attention that it becomes more a source of irritation than motivation.  It can be tricky to figure out how to structure a compensation plan so that it reinforces your objectives, doesn’t break the bank and still is reasonably fair, so this is an area where professional help and deep experience is extremely valuable.

We think the interaction between sales managers and human resource managers is so important that we’ve created a new training program called “Sales + HR Management Accelerate Results” (click for more info) to help executives who are trying to improve the effectiveness of their teams.  We urge you to take a critical look at your HR systems and your sales process, especially if you have had only a little support in this area.  And if you find you need help to make improvements, we’d love to help.

expectantly,
Dave

Technical Sales Consultants, LLC
www.techsalesconsultants.com

Posted in performance, HR, human resources, sales incentives, advice, management, process, sales process, sales | Print | 1 Comment »

September 5, 2008 by dave.

A great question to ask a sales managers is “What do you ask your people to report to you?”   The answer reveals a great deal about what is important in that organization and how it is being communicated from top to bottom … and from the bottom up. 

But sometimes when I ask, I hear a troubling answer.  It usually starts with the words, “Well, we used to …” followed by some rationale for why the reporting process is no longer needed.  It may be that the information is available in a new CRM system, or that someone else runs reports for everyone … or that management just lost interest.  Somehow the focus and the accountability are lost.  The motivational power of a team bringing results to the table and saying “here’s what I’ve accomplished” is no longer available.

And sometimes I hear the philosophy of “I don’t need reports; all I need are the results.”  There are situations where that approach works well, but they are few.   For the more complex technology sale, the sales cycle is long enough that we need some early indicator of how things are going, so that we can adjust our tactics before it is too late.

We ask for reports not only for the information but also for the focus they provide.  If you want better focus and a clearer connection of effort to results, then try this:

• Choose one important activity and ask your team to report on this for the coming three months.  Choose carefully, because you are making this one thing a top priority for your team.  Perhaps it will be proposals written, demonstrations conducted or new product seminars presented.  Whatever it is,
• Ask for the report weekly in an informal, convenient way. 
• Respond to each person when they report their results. 
• Send out a ranked list of the top producers each week, leaving the bottom performers off.   
• For those who are having trouble, find out why and offer to provide help. 
• Ask those who excel to share their approaches with everyone else, rewarding them with recognition. 
• If you are a manager of managers, then ask each of your reports to summarize the information coming from their team. 
• And if you are fortunate enough to have a working CRM system, you can do all this more easily “in the system”.

You’ll learn a lot with this simple exercise.  You’ll see how most people respond to clear direction … and also how some people resist any sort of change.  You may start to discover which of your people have been getting good results through effective action … and which ones are just lucky. 
After 3 to 6 months, you’ll be convinced of the value of the simple report, but you’ll probably want to change the focus for a while.  That’s okay … some organizations declare a new focus each quarter.  You’ll learn new lessons each time, and take progressive steps to toward making yours a team of top performers.  I’ve seen it work many times and it can work for you, too.
If you could use some help in setting this up then, just give us a call.

Good Selling,
Dave

Technical Sales Consultants, LLC
www.techsalesconsultants.com

Posted in advice, sales process, CRM, management, sales | Print | 1 Comment »

February 4, 2008 by dave.

What does selling pencils have to do with selling technology? Quite a lot, if you’d like to double or triple the effectiveness of your sales force!

Recently I was leading a sales training session for a life science company and used the time-worn example of selling pencils to explain the advantages of asking questions and focusing on benefits rather than features. You know the drill: having an eraser is a feature; being able to revise on-the-fly saves me time and paper. And if flexibility is a feature, then a benefit is being able to sketch in a diagram or illustration as I write, “unleashing my natural creativity”. We have to ask questions and listen to the answers to know which of these things are important to specific person.

As I made these points, I noticed that the people in the group began to grin and nudge each other, snaking sidelong glances toward one particular person in the room. “Alright,” I said, giving up on holding their attention, “let me in on the joke.” The woman who was the center of attention spoke up and admitted sheepishly, “It’s just that I’m a little obsessive about using a particular pencil and everyone kids me about it. I like the ones that have a natural finish because they don’t slip through my fingers when my hands get sweaty.”She made my point for me that day! Who would have guessed that particular reason for preferring a particular writing tool? The only way to uncover that kind of “customer need” would be to ask some good customer-focused questions and listen carefully to the answers. If you were interviewing each of your current sales people for a new position, and asked them to sell you a pencil, how many would ask questions to uncover your needs and then present on the benefits relevant to your needs?Salespeople with technical products often have difficulty with this. We don’t want to seem naïve, so we don’t want to ask questions that might be too simple. And our customers also don’t want to admit it when they don’t know much about a particular topic. So while we talk technical terms with great assurance, assuming they know everything we do, they smile and nod and begin to think about something else. There is so much to know about these products and so much to know about how people use them that it is hard to resist the urge to unload a lot of that hard-earned knowledge on our audiences. But we’ll never really know what drives buying decisions until we learn to ask … and to listen carefully to the answers. The Greek philosopher Epictetus said, “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak,” [iThinkexist.com] and it still is true.

Here’s an exercise for your next sales conference call:

• Make a list of several top customers and some that have recently started buying from you.

• In advance, ask the salesperson responsible for each one to find answers to these questions:

• Why do they use the product? How exactly do they use it? Where does it fit in their process? What do they like most about it? What do they like least? How does it compare to competitors or alternatives?

• Make a list of the answers share it with the group.

• Don’t accept top-of-the-head answers (like “they use ours because they get good service from me” or “we have the best price”); press for the more detailed reasons.

• Finally, assign the group to work up a list of good questions that will help to bring out this kind of information from the customers you haven’t yet landed. Heiman and Sanchez’ Consultative Selling has a great section on “Learning to Listen” with guides for developing questions.

From this exercise, you can train your sales people to present benefits to doing business with your company that really matter to the people you are pursuing. And the sales results will improve.

A professional never stops practicing the basics. If you’d like some help making this a productive and fun exercise at your next sales meeting, please contact us.

Good Selling,

Dave

www.techsalesconsultants.com

Posted in sales training, sales process, life science, technical sales, management, listening, benefits, sales | Print | No Comments »

June 21, 2007 by dave.

In April, I had a chance to preview a recent study conducted by BioInformatics, LLC, a market research firm in Arlington, Virginia. The study was called, “Improving Sales Rep Performance … Life Scientists’ Perspectives”. I was intrigued with the findings as they relate to sales force effectiveness in the life science industry and you may be as well. The analysts gathered data from researchers in the life sciences about their perceptions of effective sales people and what they wanted from them. These researchers gave very clear responses about what they want from sales people, which we can use in hiring, training and marketing program design.

What Customers Want

1. demonstrations
2. training
3. troubleshooting
4. advice
5. individual pricing

What these customers want is pretty straightforward: they want demonstrations, training, troubleshooting, advice, and individualized pricing. So what’s a sales person to do about this when he or she needs to grow existing business, launch new products and fight off the competition?

Finding Mutual Benefit

Often a good solution is to look for mutual benefit … providing what customers want will give sales people access and enable them to do the other work to help increase sales of the full portfolio. Below are some specific suggestions:

• give a demonstration or seminar showcasing a new technique, and along with it showcase established products. Use “giveaway reminders” for older products that are difficult to include in technical conversations.
• troubleshoot customers’ problems; bring in an expert by phone or in person if needed. While you are engaged, asked questions about the direction of their research, other products they are using, problems they have encountered.
• connect with your technical service department to find out what your customers are calling about and the advice that is being given. Help to spread the word among your contacts.
• give excellent advice: understand the work your customers are doing and the problems they have; understand all the available products and services and be able to fit the best solution to each person’s specific need.
• use pricing discussions to find out how much customers buy in various categories and why they have chosen a particular approach. Find out what competitors are established in the lab. Ask for information and uncover opportunity during the process.
• assign someone other than a sales person to do the quotation paperwork, and have the sales person focus on handling the customer interface. Don’t send customers to a website or a customer service agent for pricing; keep the salesperson in the chain of communication.

The Role of Managers

How can managers help sales people stay on the path of meeting these customer needs? First, we need to make sure we hire the kind of people who can be trained to give demonstrations, troubleshoot problems, and give valuable advice on product selection. Next, we can use our creativity to find ways to develop demonstrations and training seminars for products. Putting together a kit with all the needed materials goes a long way toward helping people implement. Next, we need to train people to understand both the technical background and the communication skills needed to deliver the information. Train them also on the connections between new and existing products; show them how it all fits together.

And as you send them out to implement, don’t forget to ask everyone to report regularly on their success. If each sales person reports to their manager, and then each manager summarizes and reports in turn to their director at the end of every week, it becomes very clear to everyone what the organization wants to see. Out of this process will come the success stories that provide fine-tuning to the strategy and encouragement to those who are struggling.

Zig Ziglar is famous for saying that the more you give people what they really want, the more they will give you what you really want. In order to give customers what they really want, we need to develop a plan, train the people and then implement the plan!

If we can help with you with this in your organization, just let us know.

good selling,
Dave

Technical Sales Consultants LLC
www.techsalesconsultants.com

© 2007 Technical Sales Consultants, LLC

Posted in sales training, sales process, technical sales, research, sales, lifescience | Print | No Comments »