What can we learn from World Class Sales Organisations?

November 23rd, 2011

In business nothing happens until or unless a customer buys something. So in the most successful organisations everyone is focused on sales (or put another way, on satisfying the needs of the customer)

Each year Miller Heiman, a global sales effectiveness consultancy carry out a worldwide survey of what the most effective sales and commercial organisations do and how that differs from what “The Rest” do!  

Three of the areas they cover are:

• Customer knowledge
• Flexibility
• Discipline

Customer Knowledge and Understanding

Successful selling is critical because customers don’t buy products or services, they buy what the products and services can do for them. They buy solutions to their problems or answers to their needs.  You don’t own a hammer because it’s an aesthetically pleasing, rather that it will enable you to fix and build things. Deep customer understanding is essential because then you’ll know their needs and work out which of your products / services you can use to solve their problems. You don’t know how to sell to your customers until you fully understand them.

Deep understanding enables you to anticipate customer needs and potentially gain competitive advantage. Henry Ford once said “If I had asked people what they wanted they would have said faster horses”.  Fortunately for us and the automotive industry Ford thought a bit more broadly about how he could satisfy his customer’s need for speed!

What do world class sales organisations do? Miller Heiman looks at a number of metrics on business results to determine who are the best performing sales organizations, like client retention, volume and profitability, growth. They then compare the answers that people from those organizations give to everyone else in the survey. So 97% of world class organisations know definitively why their customers buy from them vs. only 65% of the rest and 90% of the top organisations say their sales people have a solid understanding of customer vs. 46% of the rest. 

Understanding customer needs and framing your “pitch” around it is critical to success.

Flexibility

It’s not always easy to meet or exceed customer needs – you have to be prepared to be flexible. Not just sales people; potentially your whole organisation.

Customer expectations have grown and one size no longer fits all. You used to go to a coffee shop and your choice was black or white. In Starbucks now you can get whatever you personally want.  If you buy a computer from Dell you get to specify the machine, the RAM, ROM, processor speed, type of motherboard etc. Increasingly customers require this degree of tailoring.

Organisations which succeed in creating cost effective, flexible solutions for their customers are the ones that ensure all functions have a great focus on the customer. To achieve that usually requires some kind of cross functional, virtual account teams or great alignment.

What about the world class sales organisations? 90% of them say that their organisation structure allows them to easily adapt to customers’ needs compared with only 34% of the others.

90% of the world class sales organisations say they are fully aligned with marketing and they are twice as likely to collaborate across departments as “the rest”

Discipline

Although it seems a contradiction in terms to talk about flexibility and discipline in the same breath, in successful sales organisations that’s not true.  Managing sales people can be like trying to herd cats, but often characteristics of good sales people are that they are independent, a bit feisty and entrepreneurial in their approach. Do you really want a sales person that would rather sit in the office than hit the road and go see a customer? 

But the environment in which most of us work and sell is increasingly a highly dynamic, sophisticated and complex environment and it is not effective to sell in those circumstances with “back of a fag packet” approach to planning.  You cannot co-ordinate effectively with cross functional colleagues if you don’t have a degree of structure in place.

So successful selling organisations need to have clearly defined processes and selling methodologies, that facilitate rigorous planning, co-ordination and disciplined execution of core business processes like new business development and account management.

This is not CRM. What sales organisations need is a clear definition of WHAT needs to be done. CRM represents the HOW. Many organisations seem to think that CRM software will improve their sales performance.

76% of World class sales organisations consistently use comprehensive prospecting plans compared to only 19% of the rest. 77% have a formal process for top (executive) selling compared to only 19% of the rest.

So are we taking a disciplined and rigorous approach to our core sales processes? And if not how can we achieve that?

If this best practice research is interesting to you, there’s a copy of the executive summary available to download on our website World Class Sales 2011

 

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The Seven Deadly Sins of Sales

August 4th, 2011

In the late sixth century, Pope Gregory described the seven deadly sins from the least serious to the most; they are pride, envy, anger, avarice, sadness, gluttony, and lust.

What do you think are the seven deadly sins of salespeople? Here’s my list, in order of least to most severe.

Ego centricity. Sales people are often too focused on themselves, their bonus, their company, and their products. True success in sales is actually about deep knowledge of the customer, their company, their products their issue sand opportunities. Customer centricity. When you really know that, then it’s about finding a good fit between what you have to offer and what the customer needs.

Chattering. Salespeople talk too much. They do this for a variety of reasons. Some are nervous chatterers who just can’t keep their mouths shut. Others think they know more than the customer so they lecture the customer to death. Many salespeople feel compelled to recite their canned pitch regardless of the customer’s actual interest. Successful selling is more about listening than talking.

Shortsightedness. Salespeople must be short-term thinkers and long-term planners. A short-sighted sales person neglects the future and does not spend time on activities that build his future pipeline. Short sightedness is not to be confused with laziness. Many hardworking salespeople are completely focused on the here and now. Unfortunately, they forget about next quarter and next year. Other salespeople never really think about what will happen if their big deal collapses. They have been lulled into a state of inactivity and could be jolted into reality at any moment.

Tunnel Vision. Many salespeople don’t take the time to understand how customers wider business and business structure. I am continually amazed at the narrow approach many salespeople have about understanding the organisational structure of the companies they call on. When they are asked what a person’s title is, they will answer, “manager,” or something equally nebulous, when they should answer, “manager of application security who reports to the director of application development, who, in turn, reports to the CIO.”

Shallowness. Salespeople who don’t know their product or their market well enough to build customer credibility cannot be expected to drive account strategy. How can you determine your next course of action if you don’t understand the customer’s needs and questions? Worse, in this situation you are completely at the mercy of someone else because another member of your company has to explain how your product works.

Presumptuousness. Assuming information you really don’t know is one of the worst sins for a salesperson. Salespeople who are not certain but make their best guess about who the ultimate and final decision maker is within an account are more than halfway to losing the deal. In the style of Donald Rumsfeld, known unknowns are a good thing! The best people always work on fact and where they don’t know they make hypothesis and verify them.

Ignorance. In sales, ignorance is not bliss. It is the deadliest sin. It’s challenging to be deeply knowledgeable if you’re on the outside looking in. To be truly expert you need a “coach” You need a contact within an account who is telling you what is happening in closed-door meetings, defending you when you are not around, and disseminating propaganda on your behalf. Without this you will most certainly lose.

Your success is your responsibility. The salesperson who avoids committing these seven deadly sins is well on his or her way to becoming a truly great salesperson.

Patricia Seabright consults and teaches on sales effectiveness for clients across the world. Her success is based on her successful 20 year track record in sales and selling.  She is a Miller Heiman consultant.

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