The next wave available to companies is an explosion of sales effectiveness and new efficiencies. Prepare for a 10-year run of sales team upgrades and resets.

This new era of sales enablement is already underway in many companies like Citrix, Fujitsu, Adobe, Boeing and VMware, to name a few, that are investing in re-optimized sales tools and practices for their modern updated sales teams.

There are 4 components* to a revamped sales enablement program:
1. Strategy (where to go)
2. Messaging (what to say)
3. Process (what to do)
4. Leadership (how to coach)

* DSG Consulting, an MXL Partners affiliate partner firm.

The redevelopment and integration of each of these component areas into carefully tailored sales 2.0 manual and automated playbooks is opening up an exciting new frontier in a land filled with opportunity. We’ll break down each component in this SalesNote.

Are you “revamping” enablement of your sales organization?

Reminds me of salespeople and sales teams as they wind down these last 2 months of the year. There are those that step up and those that check out; those that live up to the hype and those that disappoint; those that overcome adversity and those that crumble under pressure. We watch it every week on TV. And we watch it every year as it’s crunch-time season in the sales arena.

Tebows and turkeys abound.

Regardless of what you think of Tim Tebow’s NFL prospects as a productive quarterback, he’s a winner. What he did this past weekend in Oakland, CA is a great example of one stepping up, living up to the hype, and overcoming adversity. A VP of Sales would love to have a whole team full of Tim Tebows who can face knockdowns, disparagement, failure and come roaring back with tenacity, hustle, appropriated skill, mental and physical toughness, and a gracious winning attitude. Sorry if you’re a Florida, Tebow or Denver hater – gotta love a gutsy winner with heart.

In our business we can teach sales skills, process and prowess. We can’t teach heart. Heart can be developed over time but must come from within. You know when you see it. It’s a great thing to watch in any field of play.

Besides, after all the books and training over 15 years, try to find one VP of Sales or Account Executive who can tell you what the 9-Block Vision Processing Model is or even what exactly are “the 9 Boxes.” While brilliant in theory and profound for a past generation, the practical application is often lost in the reality of today’s dynamic sales arena. There’s also a new generation selling in a different era.

While my sales, management and consulting career grew up with Rackham and Bosworth over the past 30 years, today I’m seeing 4 challenges facing salespeople relative to selling methodologies:

1. Shorter Conversations - customer conversations are often brief and on the phone. Reps need to be agile and skilled in the managing of short selling conversations.
2. Blended Conversations – lead generation improvements require clear distinctions between call introduction, qualification and discovery. Reps need clarity of process and conversation flow.
3. Convoluted Questioning – sales call questioning process fundamentals have been lost, forgotten or confused. Reps need talk tracks grounded in simplified questioning fundamentals.
4. Mistargeted Discovery – discovery conversations are often given short-shrift, prolonging or derailing sale cycles. Reps need clear discovery plays or templates that are simple, planned, manageable and trackable.

Do you need a revamping of your “solution selling” methodology?

Over past years we’ve seen sales training change in the following ways:

• It’s not about packaged sales training programs.
• It’s all about custom-built and focused sales training.
• Experienced sales reps need and appreciate relevant training.
• Rookies need, want and seek practical and helpful training.
• Sales Managers want a return to strong sales fundamentals.
• Value Propositions are best as custom sales messaging built for specific target buyers.
• A well-defined, well-taught selling process drives best behaviors.
• Sales Management training is an effective and repeatable sales leadership/coaching system.

Do you have a clear and modern perspective on today’s approach to sales training?

Ideally, all customer-facing team members are selling and managing relationships. When existing accounts warrant full-time attention to customer service/support, implementation and care-giving, then Account Managers are needed to truly manage and service the account. They may have cross-selling and up-selling responsibilities as well.

But this does not necessarily mean they have account strategy responsibilities or even needed capabilities. Sales Account Executives need to quarterback the account. Without clearly defined roles and responsibilities havoc and missed opportunities may prevail.

Do you have clear delineation of roles and responsibilities between your Account Executives and Account Managers?

But which ones? Your stragglers, high-performers, or future high-performers? Logic says leave the high performers alone and coach the others. After all, the manager/coach is there to manage and help, right? Watch your logic.

CSO Insight’s 2011 Sales Performance Optimization – Sales Management Analysis rated managers’ ability to proactively identify which reps needed coaching or mentoring. The percentage of firms rating Needs Improvement was 37%, an all-time high, and the Meets Expectations group was at 44%, an all-time low. Firms rating Exceeds Expectations grew to almost 16%.

What does this mean? Means there’s lots of room for improvement. Yes, you’ve got to coach, but do it wisely. The best firms (effective sales management) coach to metric bars and performance analytics set by their top performers, then proactively identify (dashboard visibility) players that need help. The coaching is objective and helpful, not belittling or damaging. High-potential players develop; weaker ones become clearly identified for a new opportunity, elsewhere.

Interesting also that there is a correlation between rep turnover and effective coaching visibility. There was a 10% higher turnover rate for Needs Improvement vs. Exceeds Expectations firms.

Better coaching environment; lower turnover.

You’ve got enough At-Bats through previous quarters to make intelligent sales adjustments at this point. The new product is gaining or not gaining market acceptance; the sales message is or is not resonating; the territory re-alignment is working or not working; the new sale hires are starting to cut it or are struggling. Keep at it this month but with an observant eye toward the future.

Tough calls here require clear wisdom and discernment. The danger is to jump the gun and not see the slow ramp of a genius strategy or pull the trigger on a weak and sorry mistake. If you care, your reputation can be at stake in environments and cultures where knee-jerk reactions are frowned upon or lauded.
Great salespeople and effective sales leadership see the trends, sense the momentum or stall and see the big picture. They’re already tracking activity metrics and numbers and already have a hunch of what has to happen after this quarter ends to finish the game with a win.

Yes, plan your half-time talk and half-time adjustments. There’s not a lot of time between halves.

At MXL Partners, we’re big believers in a rolling 30-60-90 Forecasting methodology. Many companies acknowledge that they practice this, however we’ve recently seen yet another example this quarter of a sophisticated multi-billion organization with sketchy forecasting practices.

While all the information is in the CRM and reports are plentiful, there are still 3 issues:

1. Visual Clarity in Reporting – CRM reports are cluttered and inconsistent, allowing missed cues and trends buried in the data.

2. Consistent Updating and Accuracy of Information – without deliberate discipline and appropriate attention to detail at the rep and management level, this is a key reason for misleading forecasting.

3. Adherence to Sales Process – paying only lip service to stages, milestones and stepscauses more pain and delusion than it should.

When a rep creates and manages their own visibility reports of all Pipeline, Best Case and Commit Opportunities, updates this weekly with views over at least a rolling 90-day horizon, and then forces adjustments and actions to this Pipeline/Forecast view per a prescribed milestone process, then they will be prepared to report to management, and themselves, with truth and accuracy.

It’s actually simple and powerfully effective. The problem is not in the CRM but at rep and management level.

The problem catches up to you eventually. Wide variations of a team’s sales messaging (direct, phone or email) will leave openings for the competition to exploit if they’re better at this than your team.

There are 3 keys to effective sales messaging:

1. Audience Specific Targeting
2. Clarity of Market Trends, Audience Objectives and Challenges
3. Short and Long Sales Talk Tracks, Questions and Visuals

In the absence of effective control of these, any sales team will “roll their own” – that is, they will create their own versions of scripts and emails and anything that they believe they need to be successful. Sometimes what they create is worthwhile; many times it can be quite ugly. Multiply this across an aggressive and frustrated sales team and you have a recipe for confusion internally and in the marketplace.

The fix takes work and involves (re)alignment or sometime wholesale (re)creation. It’s critically important though to avoid an ad-hoc sales organization.

Do you have an ad-hoc messaging, ‘roll your own’ sales team?

Meet or Exceed Expectations- Effectively present Features and Benefits = 67%
- Differentiate from Competition = 69%
- Align Solutions with Customer Needs = 68%
- Generate Accurate Bid/Proposal = 85%

Needs Improvement- Understanding Customer Buy Process = 40%
- Effectively Cross-sell/Up-sell = 47%
- Sell Value/Avoid Discounting = 42%
- Forecasting Accurately = 54%

This data shows that salespeople, for the most part, know their products, but are lacking in areas not typically emphasized in training across sales teams.