EXPLORING LEADERSHIP’S THINKING AROUND …...“If the answers to address today’s business challenges reside in B2B Sales Transformation; then the search for those answers must

“If the answers to address today’s business challenges reside in B2B

Sales Transformation; then the search for those answers must

begin by exploring (and perhaps transforming) leadership’s thinking

around B2B Sales.”

EXPLORINGLEADERSHIP’STHINKINGAROUNDB2BSALES

Charles Krempa CEO & Founder of Marsh White, Inc.


www.marshwhiteinc.com I © 2011 Marsh White, Inc. I Page 1

SALES TRANSFORMATION … A LEADERSHIP CONUNDRUM

Sales Transformation has become the catch phrase for virtually every c-level executive searching for answers to the business challenges surrounding their corporations’ revenue & earnings growth, positioning, differentiation and even survival!

What are today’s business challenges? Look at the business environment!

… Characterized by continuous and rapid changes such as: instantaneous availability of information; accelerating technological innovation; a proliferation of products and services; rising global competition; deregulation; and informed buyers …

Today’s business environment has brought about the customer perception that “all products, services, and technology appear as commodities.” And as a result, this customer perception of “commoditization” has created inordinate problems for B2B sales professions manifesting in: difficulties with differentiation and positioning; diminished margins, and increased pressure to perform & produce revenue gains while maintaining/increasing margins.

As the CEO and Founder of Marsh White, Inc., I have spent the past three decades working with thousands of B2B sales professionals and sales leaders globally across a diverse cross-section of industries & cultures. And given that experience, I believe that if the answers to address the business challenges described above reside in B2B Sales Transformation; then the search for those answers must begin by exploring (and perhaps transforming) leadership’s thinking around B2B Sales?”

What Do Successful Transformations Share?

My position is supported by the results of McKinsey’s 2010 Global Survey. The survey’s focus, “What successful transformations share”. The McKinsey Survey observed that over years of research and client work, the predominant factor driving successful transformational change – “that is any large scale change, such as going from good to great performance, cutting costs, or turning around crisis” derives from “Exercising Strong Leadership!” Further McKinsey’s Survey suggests a tight correlation with successful transformations of both short-term performance and long-term corporate effectiveness, or organizational “health.”



McKinsey’s Global Survey characterizes “Exercising Strong Leadership” as:

Providing vision & direction; Setting & communicating clear aspirational expectations for performance; Creating clear structure & process; Paying attention to “people issues;” Building capabilities/development of both individual contributors & leaders; and Fostering and engaging collaboratively among leaders & individual contributors

throughout the organization & throughout the transformational journey.

Exploring the Strength & Alignment of B2B Sales Leadership

So let’s explore the “strength & alignment” of leadership’s thinking around B2B Sales to uncover the correlation with “Successful Transformations”. And as we explore leadership’s thinking in our search for answers driven by the seriousness/impact of today’s business challenges, I believe we must keep in mind this quote from David Rothkopf …

“Sometimes a Challenge Reaches a Point of Acuity Where there is just Two Choices Left: Bold Action or Permanent Crisis”

Perhaps the bold action needed is … leadership transforming how it thinks about its business, its customers and its sales organization as they face not only today’s but tomorrow’s business challenges. A Context to Help Facilitate the Exploration of Leadership’s Thinking

As we explore leadership’s thinking relative to sales and the challenging business environment we all face, I offer as a context to help facilitate that exploration journey, some guidance from a white paper entitled “What Gifted Strategic Thinkers Do” Researched and written by Peter Linkow, the white paper goes into extensive details about the profile of “gifted strategic thinkers”; however, for the purposes of setting a context for our exploration, I want to emphasize just two key themes.

Gifted Strategic Thinkers when faced with business challenges similar to those described have concluded that …

“The only sustainable competitive advantage is derived from our ability (and willingness) to continuously adapt to these changes; and

Strategic thinking is the process to help us continuously adapt.



Linkow describes “strategic thinking” fundamentally as …

“Understanding the future consequences of present realities.” In essence, seeing the future before it occurs (by scanning, abstracting and reframing present realities) to derive “superior insights” and then (by valuating and envisioning) use these superior insights to develop an approach to continuously adapt. Simply stated … “looking forward and reasoning back!”

That being said, let’s attempt to apply strategic thinking to facilitate our exploration. That is, let’s attempt to uncover superior insights derived by determining the future consequences of today’s B2B sales’ “present realities”. And then, let’s use those superior insights to guide us … “looking forward and reason back” … as we explore (and perhaps) transform leadership’s thinking around B2B sales. Armed with these superior insights, we increase the likelihood of crafting a B2B Sales Transformation approach that will provide sales and our entire organization with a sustainable competitive advantage enabling success by continuously adapting to future business challenges!

Beginning the Exploration Journey with a Fundamental Question Before deciding whether “sales transformation” is necessary, or whether leadership thinking around B2B sales needs to transform; leadership must answer a more fundamental question …

“Do you think the B2B Sales function is a necessary and essential function?” Assuming your answer is … “Yes!” And as most executives, you feel that … “There is no escaping the impact of the sales force on a company’s growth trajectory.” Then the companion question leadership must ask and answer is … Have we been “Exercising Strong Leadership” of B2B Sales (as defined in McKinsey’s Global Survey on Successful Transitions)? That is, have we been: providing vision & direction; setting & communicating clear aspirational expectations for “performance;” creating clear structure & process; paying attention to “people issues;” building capabilities/development of both individual contributors & leaders; and fostering and engaging collaboratively among leaders & individual contributors throughout the organization & throughout the transformational journey in alignment with the essential value, importance and strategic purpose we have placed on the B2B sales function?” Let’s take a look!



What Salespeople Really Need Leadership to Know about today’s Sales Environment … the “Present Realities of B2B Sales” Listen to the “voice of your salespeople.” They really need leadership to understand the “present realities” of B2B sales! Selling B2B is much more difficult than selling B2C! Why you ask? Many executives incorrectly believe that selling to businesses is the same as selling to consumers. As a result, they employ strategies that have worked in consumer-oriented businesses, like brand marketing, advertising, value pricing, and so forth. This concept turns up in numerous conversations about sales. I suspect that the belief that “selling is selling” comes from personal life exposure/experience to retail and/or consumer sales or perhaps MBA programs that love consumer marketing case studies. The truth is that B2B selling is not only different from B2C selling; it’s massively more difficult, for the following reasons:

The B2B buyer is vastly more sophisticated. For instance, because the Internet makes comparative information publicly available, it is not at all unusual for a buyer in a B2B transaction to know more about the product category and the competition than the sales professionals who are trying to sell that type of product.

The stakes are much higher. B2B buyers and decision-makers are being paid - often quite high salaries — to understand what they’re buying and how it will be used. They can lose career points and get fired if they make a wrong decision, something that never happens when a consumer purchases a consumer product.

B2B selling requires more knowledge. It’s not enough just to understand a product and be able to present it coherently. B2B selling generally involves drawing on the sales professional’s business acumen to diagnose a customer’s challenges and then to come up with a customized solution that may very well involve a long-term business partnership.

B2B selling demands better people skills. When consumers buy a product, typically there are only one or two decision-makers involved. Corporate buying decisions can involve dozens of decision-maker, influences, stakeholders, and “nay-sayers.”

B2B selling involves more patience. While even “big-ticket” consumer sales (like homes and cars) can be completed in a day or a week (at most), many B2B deals involve weeks and months of intermittent activity, meetings, phone calls, back-and-forth documents, along with all the politics and persuasion that characterizes large bureaucracies.



B2B selling is more sensitive to the economy. One of the first things that happen in an economic crisis is that firms lock down their purchasing, add more layers of decision-making, and demand concessions from their vendors even for deals that have already been signed. Such tactics devastate even the best designed sales campaign.

B2B selling involves very large sums of money. In consumer sales, million-dollar deals are unusual and limited primarily to the sale of luxury homes, private planes, and yachts. In B2B selling, by contrast, deals that involve millions of dollars are so commonplace as to be almost unremarkable. Even billion-dollar deals are struck from time to time.

Do you believe today’s leadership thinking has taken into account the future consequences of these B2B sales “present realities” or are we making it more difficult for sales professionals to get their job done? Selling B2B is vastly more sophisticated than anything that goes on in the world of B2C.

And as if those “present realities” are not enough, much is happening in the business community these days that’s having a huge impact on selling. A convergence of multiple factors has increased by orders of magnitude the degree of difficulty sellers experience in their attempts to cover and penetrate corporate accounts to win big deals!

Corporations are in a continual state of flux. Companies keep getting bigger and more global. Reorganizations, rightsizing and restructuring are everyday occurrences. Finding and keeping up-to-date on who’s in charge of what has become a nightmare.

Companies are running lean-and-mean. Everyone has way too much to do and way too little time to do it. Many decision-makers are overworked and stressed out. They spend an inordinate amount of time in meetings or putting out fires.

Decision-makers literally “haven’t got time for the pain.” Time is their most precious commodity; they protect it at all costs. Even if the status quo is less than desirable, they’ll stick with it as long as they can.

If they’re interested in changing, they prefer to do research online versus talking to what they perceive to be self-serving salespeople.

Sound familiar … it may … you most likely are some sales person’s prospect, target or client!

As we think about the future consequences of the B2B Sales environment “present realities” and guided by the essential role “exercising strong leadership” plays in any successful transformation; let’s examine some of the superior insights behind the drive for “sales transformation.”



First of All what is Sales Transformation?

The most commonly accepted definitions of sales transformation all speak to a shift in perception. That is in order to gain market share, and protect/grow existing customer relationships, sales organizations (salespeople) must affect a shift in perception among prospects and customers.

CSO Insights (csoinsights.com), a highly respected research firm that continually surveys thousands of Chief Sales Officers representing a broad spectrum of businesses states that … “sales organizations (and therefore salespeople) must evolve from being perceived as (CSO’s terms) an ‘Approved Vendor’ to being viewed as a ‘Trusted Advisor/Partner’”.

CSO Insights defines Approved Vendors as: “Companies seen by the majority of their customers as a legitimate provider of the products or services they offer, but Approved Vendors are not recognized for having any significant sustainable, competitive edge over alternative offerings.” CSO Insights defines a Trusted Partner as: “A company seen as a long-term partner whose contributions (products, insights, processes, resources, etc.), are viewed as key to their client’s long-term success.” And while CSO Insights has defined multiple levels of relationship in the progression from Approved Vendor to Trusted Advisor/Partner; Marsh White prefers to characterize the entire relationship spectrum as levels of “Perceived Relevance!”

The generally accepted definition of Relevance is…

… to have significant and demonstrated bearing or impact upon the matter at hand; … to have evidence to prove or disprove the matter; and … to have a practical and compelling application or solution. Moving from the generic definition of relevance, Marsh White prefers the following interpretation, building upon Michael Porter’s (Harvard Business School) description of “relevance” when introduced into the world of B2B sales: Relevance is perceived (by the customer) when the salesperson/sales organization can demonstrate a significant (credible, coherent, compelling) and measurable (commercial) connection between the salesperson’s solution and its impact on the customer’s business imperatives!



So whatever label or terminology, Sales Transformation is about elevating and sustaining the customer’s perception of the salesperson’s relevance in terms of being key to the customer’s long-term success.

That is, given today’s B2B sales present realities …

“The power of what you sell is measured by the impact on the customer’s business! Furthermore, the power of what you sell is measured by the impact on the customer’s business versus the status quo! And the status quo is the strongest competitor our salespeople face!”

Do the Numbers Support Elevating Perceived Relevance?

The initial reaction is obvious. It is far easier for any customer to change vendors (even if they are “legitimate”) than to replace a truly trusted partner or advisor. Most sales leaders would argue that customer retention has a significant impact on sales revenue. However, the research data suggests a much stronger link between sales transformation … elevating perceived relevance … and the sales numbers!

Data from CSO Insights’ latest (2010) Sales Performance Optimization Report (SPOR) released February 1, 2011, shows that while sales performance improved in many areas last year, less than one-third of the organizations surveyed had reached “Trusted Partner” status. That is less than one-third of the organizations surveyed were able to elevate their organizations level of “perceived relevance.”

“For those companies that achieved this elevated status: nearly 66% of their salespeople met or exceeded quota; 90% met company plan while experiencing the lowest sales-force turnover rate.”

Those organizations at the “Approved Vendor” end of the “relationship” spectrum supported the business case to transform sales. Approximately 50% of their salespeople: met or exceeded quota; only 82% met company plan while experiencing turnover rates that were almost 22% higher than their counterparts at the “Trusted Partner” end of the spectrum.

So while there is plenty of evidence proving sales transformation’s necessity; elevating the customer’s perception of a salesperson’s/sales organization’s relevance: from product provider with no recognized or sustainable competitive edge to a partner who is key to the client’s long-term success is an enormous transition! A veritable sea-change in the customers’ perception as well as a sea-change in the behavior of our salespeople! Where do you begin? What aspects of leadership’s thinking do we focus on? What’s most important?



A Superior Insight: … People or Process & Structure What should leadership’s thinking be focused on relative to the importance we place on the B2B sales function and given the present realities of the business/sales environment?

Let’s reflect on “Exercising Strong Leadership” (as defined in McKinsey’s Global Survey on Successful Transitions)! Leadership has a responsibility to: provide vision & direction; set & communicate clear aspirational expectations for performance; create clear structure & process; and paying attention to “people issues.”

Narrow that view of business leadership’s responsibility for a moment to managing just three things: people, process and structure. When leaders are asked which they believe is the highest leadership priority, the vast majority choose people. “Our people are our most important resource,” they say, and I understand their position and the McKinsey Survey concurs. No structure is relevant, no process necessary, without good people to implement. However, the truth is; it is this very opinion that lies at the root of a major challenge with Sales Transformation. As evidenced by the high sales-force turnover rate exposed in CSO Insights’ 2010 Survey data, many leaders come to the conclusion they have a sales “people” problem. They believe they hired the wrong people for the job: too many technologist, not enough “business” people; too many farmers, not enough hunters. So they churn the bottom quartile of their sales team (in many cases, significantly more) in an effort to find the right fit and mix, only to end up with the same disappointing sales performance they began with. The truth is; it’s not just a people problem.

So what then are the highest leadership priorities? If a company wants to elevate perceived relevance, then process and structure must come before people in terms of priority. Without clearly defined process and structure, we take good, capable, well-meaning people, leave them to figure things out on their own, and set them up to be victims of failure. Then we place the blame on them for the company’s miserable sales performance. And to add insult to this injury, we fire them. Quite frankly, if we hired the wrong people for the job, that too, is a process problem.

One of the primary obligations of any business is to develop the concise, clear processes and structure by which their people can perform and succeed. Then we can take ordinary people, place them in that structure, teach them the processes (the performance expectations … “tell them what’s expected!”) by which we know they can succeed, and manage them to extraordinary results.



If you examine any department of any business that produces consistent results over a period of months, years or even decades, it is typically because someone has identified the logical, repeatable process by which the department performs its function. It doesn’t matter what people in the department come and go. It doesn’t matter who is on vacation. The processes and structure implemented and managed (inspected & expected) by the business drive the performance. Accounting, inventory control, human resources, shipping/delivery, dispatch, research & development, and manufacturing are, in all SUCCESSFUL businesses, driven by clearly defined process and structure.

The Process & Structure Connection to Meeting or Beating the Sales Numbers When CSO Insights first published their sales effectiveness study in Harvard Business Review a few years ago, they focused on how a company’s level of sales process adoption could directly impact how they sell—positively or negatively. In the past three years, CSO Insights has expanded that analysis to not only consider how firms sell i.e. process, but also the level of relationship organizations are able to achieve with the majority of their customers. CSO did this by introducing the Sales Relationship-Process (SRP) Matrix.

Now my purpose here is not to explore CSO Insight’s SRP Matrix in-depth but rather to connect Process and Structure to the sales numbers. A brief overview of the SRP Matrix reveals two scales or axes. On the vertical axis we have Relationship: characterized as - what value your customer perceives you bring to their business … “Perceived Relevance.” On the horizontal axis we have Sales Process characterized as – degree of discipline when engaging and working with your clients … “Formality of Structure.”

The Relationship axis is that spectrum ranging from (CSO Insights’ terms) Approved Vendor to Trusted Partner. So the Relationship axis involves levels of perceived relevance ranging from commodity product provider with no recognizable competitive advantage to key contributor to your client’s long-term success.



The Sales Process axis is that spectrum ranging from (CSO Insights’ terms) Random through Formal to Dynamic Process. CSO Insights defines companies following:

A Random Process as: Companies that lack a single standard process. Essentially, sales reps do their own thing, their own way;

A Formal Process as: Companies that regularly enforces the use of a defined sales process, conduct periodic reviews of the process to see how effective it is and make changes based on that analysis; and finally

A Dynamic Process as: Companies that dynamically monitor and provide continuous feedback on sales reps’ use of their formal sales process, and proactively modify the process when key changes in market conditions are detected such as: new competitors emerging, changes in governmental regulations, shifts in the economy, etc.”

Within these two dimensions of selling - Relationship & Process … Perceived Relevance & Formality of Structure … CSO Insights segmented all of the study participants. CSO Insights then looked at sales performance focusing on the aggregated averages of four main sales metrics: percentage of sales reps making quota, percentage of overall revenue plan achieved, percentage of forecast deals resulting in wins/losses/no decisions, and annual salesforce turnover rate. Turnover rate includes voluntary turnover, where reps leave on their own accord, and involuntary turnover, where they are let go.

And while an in-depth review of CSO Insights’ “Sales Relationship-Process (SRP) Matrix™ & 2011 Sales Performance Optimization Survey Analysis” is not our purpose here, CSO’s analysis does surface distinct levels of sales results:

71% of companies not yet attaining “Trusted Partner” status with their customers in CSO’s 2010 survey used random or informal sales processes with their customers and produced sales results similar to the previous year; 29% (the majority of 29%) of the companies attaining “Trusted Partner” status exceeded the performance of the 71% group in all metrics: % sales reps making quota increased; % company plan attainment increased; % forecast – wins increased; % forecast losses decreased; and % sales force turnover decreased. Companies in the 29% group identified and utilized either a formal process or dynamically altered their formal process in response to changes in market conditions, competitive landscape and/or shifts in the economy to earn and maintain elevated levels of perceived relevance … “Trusted Partner” status.



So What? Sales organizations that have evolved their sales process from Random toward Formal and eventually to Dynamic see a noticeable improvement in the percentage of salespeople making quota which, in turn, contributes to increases in overall company revenue plan attainment. The contributing factor is that win rates increase as companies formalize their sales process. Therefore, commitment to a formal sales process (at a minimum) appears to be an obvious starting point for sales transformation. And, it is equally clear, based McKinsey’s Successful Transformation Survey, that leadership has the responsibility for setting the vision and direction for formalizing the sales process … obviously not in a vacuum. However, there are a number of additional “present realities” that challenge organizations as they attempt to formalize and successfully implement the sales process or sales engagement model through which all salespeople approach their customers. Let’s explore more superior insights derived from present realities that have influenced leadership’s sales transformation thinking in successful organizations and that the least successful organizations choose to ignore. As we do, ask yourselves, where does leadership’s thinking stand relative to each of these superior insights? And how might leadership transform its thinking?

Total Buy-in of the Sales Organization… an Ever-Present Reality A new and more formalized sales process may be necessary, but transformation of a sales organization only happens when leadership is able to change the behaviors of the salespeople in it. Ever tried to change the day-to-day behaviors of salespeople? If so, you probably know this is an enormous challenge. Companies have invested millions in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) & Sales Force Automation (SFA) systems, sales training initiatives and marketing materials only to get lower than expected return because none of these expenditures necessarily result in true behavioral change in their sales organization. No behavioral change, no improvement in sales results, no sales transformation. Systems and training don’t provide: vision, direction, process, structure or aspirational performance expectations! Sales vision, direction, process, structure and performance expectations come from “exercising strong leadership!” Systems and training only provide the support.



Here is the reality: in order for salespeople or managers to behave differently, they must first decide for themselves there is a gap between their current behavior/performance and their desired/expected behavior/performance. An organization deciding there is a need for transformation and asking their salespeople or managers to change, or trying to force them to change, is not enough.

What leverage does a manager have in that case? Management by compliance becomes the order of the day (we recognized the need to change; spent the money and bought the programs, so do it or you’re fired). In other cases, I have seen management set up programs that simply offer up new ideas for the salespeople and sales managers to “pick and choose” those things they think most valuable. Unfortunately, if participants don’t perceive they have a weakness in a particular area, the new ideas are ignored as irrelevant. The resulting perception is that “Sales Transformation” is a passing fad (flavor of the month) leaving people in the sales organization waiting for the next fad to come along. The organization ends up following: the same random or informal process they began with, the same behaviors/performance and therefore producing the same results.

The truth is that in order for adults to change, THEY must first be struck by the realization that “there is something to learn”. If this realization or awareness doesn’t occur, change won’t take place. Driving behavioral change requires exposing current behaviors/performance that is not yielding the desired results. Only when salespeople become aware of their current weaknesses and the resulting negative performance impact, are they open to new ideas that involve behavioral change. Exposing gaps in current behavior may get someone's attention, but real change won’t occur unless the salespeople are motivated to adopt a new behavior that clearly addresses the gap exposed in their current approach.

Salespeople will do what they believe is in their own best interest. Therefore, a salesperson’s belief in a new sales approach is essential. That is a salesperson must believe that - new or different (functions) performance expectations, systems and materials will yield higher sales numbers; more income (earnings) and greater job satisfaction (recognition). And that means leadership and management have a collaborative sale to make. Their sale is to have salespeople in the organization use the new or different process, structure, programs and tools for themselves, NOT because the company demands it. This sale and the motivation it elicits precipitate all meaningful behavior change. If salespeople don’t believe, no change occurs; nothing happens. If you don’t overcome this “buy-in” reality, transformation stops here.



Speaking of the Sales Organization’s “Buy-in” Present Realities … Is Your Company Really Customer Focused?

One obvious path toward achieving buy-in is for leadership to – “say what you mean and mean what you say!” You know – “walk the talk!” What am I referring to? Let’s take a look at a “very popular” superior insight known as “customer focus” and compare it to present realities! Companies “talk a lot” about being customer focused; but if all your sales management metrics, performance expectations, tools and systems are focused on the steps of selling rather than your customer’s steps of buying, your sales force will be too! So much for “buy-in” to a change in behavior/performance! In recent years, forward-thinking companies have put a lot of emphasis on being customer focused, keenly aware of the competitive advantage they can gain. Most of the sales executives and managers I meet truly care about their company’s customers, and make sure they talk about the importance of “understanding their customers, their customers’ business and their business needs.”

Yet despite the “talk,” there’s still a missing link between the perception of being customer focused and the reality. When I ask sales managers to show me their company’s CRM tool, they pull up a computer screen or point to a chart on a wall. And guess what? It’s all about tracking accounts based on what steps of the sales process are finished.

I also ask them to describe for me what they use for their performance reviews and how they coach their salespeople. And I hear the same thing I saw in the CRM system: a lot of talk about measuring salespeople on how quickly they complete all the steps of the selling process.

Notice any disconnect here? Talk about being customer focused all you want. But if all of your sales management metrics, performance expectations, tools and systems are built around steps of selling not the customer’s steps of buying, your sales force is going to be more focused on what they’re doing to sell than on what their customers need to do to buy.

Assuming you are serious about sales transformation … elevating perceived relevance and formalizing your sales process … then becoming more focused on your customers is not a bad place to focus some attention. However leadership must move beyond talking by incorporating a customer buying perspective into your sales process and the associated metrics and performance expectations.



Customer Focus versus Selling Focused Performance Expectations

And if “focusing on the customer” sounds as though it flies in the face of sound business fundamentals consider the following …

CEOs and sales leaders agree that the best strategy is the strategy that focuses on profitable growth, not growth at any cost. However, due to the rigorous cost cutting that has occurred over the past couple of years, the popular thinking today seems to be - increase sales revenue and increased profits will follow. But how much of this profitable growth is compromised by the costs that business leaders do not see because of our “selling focused performance expectations”?

What am I referring to? Let me briefly take you back to the B2B Sales Environment “Present Realities”:

Sales Costs are increasing! The cost of winning a new piece of business continues to escalate. The reasons for this are many, but they fall into three major categories: External Realities, Customer Behavior Realities, and Internal Realities. Where are the hidden sales costs that are silently eroding CEO and sales leaders’ profitable “bottom line”? Perhaps, if we expose them, we might be able to lessen their impact.

External Realities:

The economic downturn has changed how people buy. This is as true of corporations as it is of individuals. Budgetary restraints have placed a higher degree of oversight on decision-making. Purchasing authority that once resided with a front-line manager has now moved to more strategic levels of the organization. Customer concerns continue to grow with high levels of perceived risk and uncertainty. Add to that the explosive growth of competition in all industries, with many new offshore competitors willing to undercut incumbents on price in order to establish a foothold in the incumbent’s markets.

The rise of acquisitions and consolidations in most industries means that there are fewer customers to sell to. In some markets the potential customer base is shrinking by as much as 70%. The impact of this trend for salespeople is profound. The loss of one major opportunity can have a devastating effect on revenue targets. So the amount of investment that a selling organization must make to win business is escalating. However, so is the cost of losing a prospective piece of business!



Customer Behavior Realities:

There is an excellent Harvard Business Review article entitled “In a Downturn, Provoke Your Customers” that captures the realities of today’s Customer Behavior.

In response to the external realities, customer behaviors and expectations have changed, especially in what they demand from a selling organization. The status quo is the preferred customer posture and prime sales competitor. And if there is an imperative business need; then there is a corresponding increase in standardized, strategic purchasing and group decision-making. For a selling organization, the amount of time from first contact with a potential customer through to when you get paid continues to increase. Customers can treat sellers as commodities because they have many more options for any particular solution including doing nothing. Moreover, prospects have begun acting like clients long before they sign a contract. They want more meetings, demonstrations, proof of concepts, access to your experts, and so many other requests. If you don’t play by the rules, someone else will. This is one of the major reasons why the cost of pursuing opportunities has skyrocketed and continues to climb, and why you need to be so much more customer-focused in deciding which opportunities to pursue.

Internal Realities: And finally, one of the most significant internal realities both hiding and driving escalating sales costs is the misalignment between what organizations measure and what actually contributes to sales success. If you ask a sales leader how they measure success of a salesperson the ultimate answer is revenue … results … the numbers. That answer can be dressed up in any number of ways such as: quota achievement, stronger customer relationships, territory or account coverage, account penetration, and lead-to-conversion ratios. But make no mistake - all of these expressions are “code” for … the numbers!

Separating Results … the Sales Numbers from Performance

Revenue … results … the numbers … as a success factor is in reality a “lagging indicator” of performance. It is a backward-looking metric, because by the time you can measure it, it is too late to affect it! So organizations need to separate: results - “the numbers” … from performance - “how the results are brought about” … by establishing a series of forward-looking expectations, or “leading indicators,” that determine whether or not an individual or organization will achieve revenue targets in the future.

“Is a salesperson on track to make quota this year?” “Will the Central Region achieve its target number next quarter?” These are examples of questions about “the numbers” that leading indicators … performance expectations will answer.



Which lagging indicators … “numbers” … give sales managers today the confidence that individual contributors/their team/their company will reach their targets? In every company polled, the answers always fall into one or more of three categories:

1. The Dollar amount in the sales process/pipeline/funnel (e.g., “we need to have a total pipeline value of $4.3 million if we are going to hit our team target”)

2. The Number of opportunities in each stage of the sales pipeline (e.g., “the success profile in our company is eight opportunities in stage one, five in stage two, four in stage three …”)

3. The Sales activity (e.g., “our salespeople need to see five customers and have

six telephone sales calls per week”) These are quantitative measures … “numbers” … that sales leaders will say form the foundation for how they run their business. However, sales leaders who laud their pipeline or funnel management ability will also quietly mention that they are facing challenges such as:

Salespeople chasing business they have little chance of closing; Salespeople not redirecting their efforts to focus on better opportunities; Managers coaching salespeople on opportunities that never progress; Managers coaching salespeople that never seem to get better; Stalled pipeline or sales funnel opportunities; Deal slippage from month to month; or Inaccurate forecasting.

Quantitative measures … results … the numbers, while important to the selling organization, provide an incomplete and inaccurate view of the selling organization’s pipeline or funnel, and contribute to the sales costs your sales teams are unconsciously generating. These quantitative measures must be balanced with qualitative measures … performance expectations … if the challenges mentioned above are to be at least managed, minimized and perhaps even prevented. By applying qualitative measures… performance expectations … as your leading indicators you will realize that:

1. It is not the dollar amount in your pipeline that matters – What matters is: the dollars associated with opportunities linked to compelling client needs that are being worked on and are progressing.

2. It is not the number of opportunities in your pipeline that matters – What matters is: the number of opportunities that have a realistic likelihood of closing.

3. It is not how many sales calls your salespeople make that matters – What

matters is: how many sales calls that end with a customer involvement commitment that moves the opportunity forward.



Assuming you are serious about becoming more focused on your customers, leadership has to incorporate more qualitative leading indicators into the sales process in order to gauge performance. And in order to incorporate more qualitative leading indicators into your sales process, leadership has to incorporate a customer-focused buying perspective into their organization’s sales process.

Revenue … results - the numbers … are important; but performance - how those results/numbers are brought about … is the only thing salespeople and sales leaders can control (expect & inspect), influence, coach to, and make sound business decision upon. Incorporating a Customer-Focused Perspective into Your Sales Process Numerous and lengthy studies have been conducted by many prestigious organizations focusing on buyer behavior. The conclusions are quite consistent. Buyers in major sales (i.e., in the B2B environment) always move through a set of predictable phases when making or reaffirming a buying decision, The kinds of commitments that customers make, the functional areas (the “players”) represented, and the areas of focus that they adopt, change dramatically as the customer organization moves from phase to phase in their buying cycle.

Now most salespeople can describe how they sell. And while the answers vary from one salesperson to another, and from one company to another (depending upon where they fit in CSO Insights’ Sales Relationship/Process Matrix); the point is clear: most salespeople have some sort of sales process that they follow.

However, when salespeople are asked, “What are the steps of your customer’s buying process?” that question stumps many salespeople. Some have never thought about a purchase from the customer’s viewpoint. And even those who have at least considered the idea haven’t formalized their thinking to the point where they can outline the steps of buying. Yet all of the research claims our customers do have predictable buying phases!



Understanding buying is where selling should start. Marsh White’s description of the customer’s buying process is cyclical having four major phases and eight steps:

The Needs Recognition Phase … which includes Change (Over Time) & Discontent The Exploration Phase … which includes Research & Evaluation of Options The Acquisition Phase … which includes Resolution of Concerns & Commitment; and The Valuation Phase … which includes Implementation & Expectation Satisfaction And while these phases and steps are intended to be generic for the purpose of supporting our exploration, there are other descriptions available; or, you can create your own model. Let me fill in some details for the sake of clarity.

Buyers in the Needs Recognition Phase become aware of improvements, problems or imperfections and become discontent in their current situation. Successful salespeople help develop this awareness and nurture this discontent into strong needs that customers realize they must address.

Buyers in the Exploration Phase are focused on gathering insights, understanding options and forming decision criteria. Customers use their knowledge and decision criteria as a lens through which to examine the capabilities and offerings of each potential supplier as well as to differentiate among the various suppliers vying for their business.

In the Acquisition Phase, buyers are weighing the consequences of following through on a tentative decision and finally make the decision to buy.

After the buying decision is made, buyers in the Valuation Phase introduce, test and install the supplier’s solution and are looking to measure the actual success against the vision and expectations of success created earlier in the buying cycle.

And finally, customers re-cycle in the buying process toward the start of a new Needs Recognition Phase as they enter Changes (Over Time). As customers re-cycle, once again they may not yet recognize a need for change and are typically comfortable with the status quo, until internal or external forces elevate awareness or create discontent within the customer’s organization.



Ultimately as the salesperson builds their sales campaign to align with and impact on the customer’s buying process, the salesperson must keep in mind my earlier observation to guide their sales campaign as this is where perceived relevance is built!

“The power of what you sell is measured by the impact on the customer’s business versus the status quo! And the status quo is the strongest competitor our salespeople face!”

Aligning Sales Performance Expectations with the Customer’s Buying Process Continuing with our thinking about performance expectations, each individual customer, their functional responsibilities, their roles and their perception of “value” will vary depending on the phase of the Buying Process they are in at any given time. Therefore the selling skills and behaviors that deliver that value also need to vary depending on what phase of the Buying Process your customer is in. And so it follows logically that a sales leader’s leading indicators (performance expectations) should reflect consistently with the appropriate skills, competencies and sales behaviors.

Developing an effective sales campaign or sales strategy requires the ability to:

Recognize where the prospective customer is in their Buying Process at a particular time;

Execute the specific skills that create value for the customer at each phase; and Move a customer both forward and backward in their Buying Process.

Misalignment of the sales approach or sales campaign to what the customer values in each phase is a leading cause of deal stagnation – those opportunities that initially promised so much but seem to go nowhere, and eventually are removed from your pipeline or funnel after months of scrutiny. How well aligned is your sales process/strategies with your customer’s Buying Process?

Once you have become clear and specific about the steps customers take as they move through their Buying Process, replace your “sales process” labels with “customer actions” (or something similar). Having the customer take those actions then becomes the objective for the salesperson.



Here are some examples:

Early in the sales process using quantitative metrics; the salesperson would have a step that typically would be stated as something like, “Have an initial meeting with the prospect.”

However, what you should be tracking using qualitative expectations; isn’t whether the salesperson completes that first meeting, but whether the customer takes the desired action, such as: “the contact referred me to the second decision-maker” or “contact agreed to arrange meeting with their buying team.”

What should matter to you is not “where” your salesperson is in their sales process, but where the customer is in their buying process. If you want to be customer-focused, the key issue isn’t how quickly the salesperson goes from “qualify” to “close,” but how quickly and smoothly the customer goes from, say “research” to “commitment” in the buying process (or whatever labels you’ve identified for the customer buying steps).

Don’t ask a salesperson, “Where are you with the XYZ account?” Instead, ask, “What actions have been taken by the customer thus far?” And, “What action do you want them to take next, and by when?” The answer to these questions provides you with a better understanding of the true status of the sales opportunity.

Failure to align with the customer’s buying process produces many sales miscues Here are a few examples: Many salespeople fall into the trap of assuming that - just because a customer states a problem that the salesperson’s offering can solve; then it follows that this then constitutes a pipeline opportunity. The challenge with that perception is that people, and companies, live with problems every day. The key competency is to elicit a need that includes a compelling reason for action. That is a need associated with an imperative or specific desire to take action to solve a problem or exploit an opportunity. Research has revealed that salespeople who are able to uncover and align with compelling needs will almost double the likelihood of a successful sales campaign.



Knowing a compelling need usually offers insight into the impact our solution could have on the customer’s business. I’m sure you’re familiar with my mantra by now!

“The power of what you sell is measured by the impact on the customer’s business versus the status quo! And the status quo is the strongest competitor our salespeople face!” Surfacing Qualitative Leading Indicators of Sales Performance

If your salespeople are pursuing and forecasting opportunities based only on implied needs, then they are dangerously over-estimating the value of those opportunities. And once again, we surface another set of qualitative leading indicators of sales performance. That is if an opportunity is qualified, then the salesperson must be able to describe the compelling need relative to the customer’s business: the problem to be solved or the opportunity to be exploited and the impact on/value to the customer’s business as well as the time-frame for the action.

Another miscue arising from misalignment with the customer’s buying process is not recognizing the relevant executive associated with a compelling business need. Many salespeople claim that their strength as sellers lies in their ability to build good customer relationships. Because of this skill they are able to get appointments seemingly at will; their customers speak very highly of the positive relationship with them and, by default, your company. They even seem to find new opportunities on a regular basis. But too often a deeper dive into a relationship builder’s pipeline opportunities reveals a consistent theme – the relationships are being built with people who don’t have any significant political power, influence and/or spending authority.

Many sales leaders quietly lament …

“I want my reps to stop talking about our products only to people who care about our products, and start having business-based conversations with strategic-level buyers.” These sales leaders struggle because they can’t calculate the sales cost of their reps continuing to call on these people without a strategy to leverage these contacts to gain access to higher levels in the customer organization and outside of the functions that simply use our products. Reflecting on the Buying Process described earlier, it is clear that there are distinct buyer roles in every major sale, each with their own needs, and each requiring a different selling approach. What level buyer are your salespeople talking to? Perhaps we have discovered another qualitative, customer-focused, leading indicator of performance to include in our sales process.



Another miscue worth mentioning that results from misalignment with the customer’s buying process can be described as lacking customer engagement. In major sales, the majority of sales calls rarely conclude with an order. They usually have one of two outcomes – an advance in the sales (customer’s buying) process, where a customer agrees to take specific action that will move the sale in a positive direction, or no action, which on the surface may seem very positive … there is no rejection …but there is no customer commitment to action. The distinction between these two call outcomes is critical for the health of your pipeline. Opportunities built on sales calls that conclude with advances are deals that deserve time, attention and full resourcing. Those that are built on sales calls that conclude with more in-action than advances are a drain of your company’s resources.

The most successful sellers are able to consistently achieve advances. Salespeople pursuing opportunities and forecasting revenues based on nice-sounding conversation but no commitment to action is a leading contributor to missed forecasts and unnecessarily high sales costs. Are your salespeople achieving advances that move each opportunity forward? Or are their opportunities in their forecast based on in-actions? This qualitative, customer-focused leading indicator of performance seems obvious... it should be the quality of the prospect or customer’s commitment to engage and advance.

And finally, adding qualitative leading indicators of performance to your sales process helps to avoid the “last minute intervention by sales managers or executives.”

I mentioned in my opening remarks that I have worked with thousands of salespeople over the last 30 years and a common complaint I hear is about a senior manager “riding in at the eleventh-hour” to save the day and close a deal. The end result of this “eleventh-hour” ride is often three-fold: white knuckles for the salesperson, a bigger discount for the customer, and lower profit for the company! What kind of win is that?

There are other problems with such late-cycle interventions by managers:

Most importantly, your best chance at influencing the opportunity occurs early in the customer’s buying process, when they are defining their needs and shaping their vision of a solution.

It diminishes the salesperson’s credibility, and sets a precedent that the customer will always get a better deal (read: bigger discount) if they go over the salesperson’s head.



Interventions are often timed because management wants to close a sale by the end of a business quarter. But rarely is closing by the end of your quarter an objective of your customer’s buying cycle (unless they know that you’re willing to cave in on price at such times). Timing a close to coincide with your business cycle is another signal that you’re more focused on yourself than your customer. Have you ever tried to time the stock market?

Qualitative leading indicators of performance will help to avoid these problems by enabling sales leaders to monitor a sale throughout the buying cycle, and especially early on.

Eliminating the escalating sales cost associated with misalignment starts with answering two important questions:

Can Leadership incorporate performance expectations and metrics that measure the quality as well as the quantity of opportunities in your pipeline?

Do your salespeople and sales managers have the necessary skills to achieve these quality opportunity pipeline performance expectations?

Answering the first question …

Can Leadership incorporate performance expectations and metrics that measure the quality as well as the quantity of opportunities in your pipeline? Here are some superior insights to help fuel Leadership’s thinking

An Aberdeen Group report showed that enterprise sales organizations are under increasing pressure from both internal and external stakeholders to provide more accurate sales forecasts in order to better predict, and improve, the long-term health of their company. Only measuring quantity is no longer sufficient. Smart companies are incorporating quality measures into pipeline milestones. That is the completion of qualitative performance expectations is required before an opportunity can advance through the pipeline. For example, it is no longer enough for a salesperson to say that he or she has had three meetings with the customer, undergone needs-analysis, and presented a solution, and therefore a deal should be forecasted at stage three in the pipeline with an expected close date of March 4th. The salesperson should also be able to state:

1. the stage of the Buying Process the opportunity is in; 2. the customer roles that he or she has been meeting with; 3. the business need the customer has stated and its impact; and 4. the last advance or commitment to action the salesperson has received.



These qualitative performance expectations help determine where in the pipeline the opportunity should be, the true value of this deal, and when it is expected to close. If your current “sales force automation” (SFA) tool is only providing pipeline data based on quantitative measures combined with your salespeople’s opinions on deal progression and likelihood of closing, then the misalignments of lost sales are undermining your organization growth. And obviously that tool may need to be modified or replaced in order to incorporate and specifically address this issue so salespeople can continue to focus on revenue growth while fulfilling the corporate imperative of not just growth, but profitable growth.

Becoming Customer Focused

Creating a more customer-focused sales force is largely a matter of creating more customer-focused sales managers and sales performance management processes. It won’t happen unless you reshape how to train, coach, and evaluate your salespeople.

The change in perspective has two benefits: First, it gets your salespeople to focus on what they want the customer to do, not just the sales actions they want to take. Second, every time you can mark off a customer action as “completed,” you know that the customer has taken action that moves them further along in their buying process. And that will improve the accuracy of your sales forecasting!

Changing the Conversation Do your salespeople and sales managers have the necessary skills to achieve these quality opportunity pipeline performance expectations?

Answering this question requires a much broader discussion including not only skills but also knowledge … business acumen and behavior change. Most organizations spend countless man-hours and dollars making certain everyone on their sales team fully understands their company’s products and service offerings. “Product Specialists” with a significant depth of knowledge on certain technologies/feature-sets/functions have become the norm for many organizations trying to find ways to differentiate their approach and provide additional value to their prospects and customers. When queried, these masters can quote chapter and verse from volumes of product and service data. Unfortunately, we are molding these salespeople to be better technologist, not better business people. What superior insights can leadership derive from this “sales person as product specialist” present reality? And how will these superior insights affect leadership’s sales transformation thinking?



Remember, for an organization to elevate their perceived relevance status, they have to be seen (by the customer) as a long-term partner whose contributions are viewed as key to their client’s long-term success. For a salesperson’s or sales organization’s contributions to be viewed as key, the conversation with their customers has to shift from technology/features/functions, to the customer’s business. And the individuals selected in the customer’s organization to have these conversations must shift from the operations - “service/support functions” (individuals and groups that use/buy your products & services) including the purchasing function - to a much broader and/or diverse collection of individuals and functions throughout the customer’s organization that have responsibility for managing/running the customer’s “business.”

I have seen salespeople from countless organizations continually approach their customers with vast quantities of technological data trying to determine whether or not any of it is seen as beneficial by the customer. The sales campaign seems to be about: “I have a capability or perhaps a solution in search of a problem!” Sometimes they get lucky, most times not. Once again, these salespeople can be walking/talking product manuals, but if asked, most couldn’t tell you their customer’s business: vision, mission, goals, objectives, imperatives, plans, processes, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities or threats.

Here is the reality: In many, if not most situations, THE ONLY true differentiator of your products and services will be the amount of measurable impact they have on what your customers are trying to accomplish as a business. If our salespeople don’t know their customer’s: vision, goals, imperatives, etc., our salespeople end up being just another “Approved Vendor” peddling the same basic products and services as others in that category. As a result, customers can perceive there is little, if any, significant differences in our offering. In those cases, if the customer makes a decision to buy, price becomes the determining factor. Sales organizations having BUSINESS conversations and understanding how their customers measure success BEFORE talking products and services become the “Trusted Partner”. These salespeople are able to provide significant strategic value by demonstrating measurable impact on things like their customer’s productivity and efficiency, image, expenses, revenue, safety, security and stability.

Let’s explore leadership’s thinking in this area: Does your formal sales process provide a foundation for your salespeople to understand the customer’s business first?



Are your salespeople talking to a broad spectrum of individuals in your customer’s business outside of the “service/support” and/or purchasing functions? Can your salespeople tell you the vision, goals, plans, processes, strengths, weaknesses, etc. of their customers OUTSIDE the realm of your company’s products and services? Are you or your salespeople regularly invited to your customer’s business to discuss their driving business imperatives as a strategic partner BEFORE there is an obvious need for what you sell? If the answer to any or all of these questions is “no;” then you must change the sales conversation from technology-centric to business-focused. Simply stated the present reality we must change is: what your salespeople talk about and to whom they have these conversations. Boosting the Business Acumen of our Salespeople Given this reality, where must leadership focus their thinking? Well this may sound naive but if we ascribe to the concept of introducing qualitative, customer-focused performance expectations; then the next step we must take is to boost the business acumen of our salespeople by introducing our salespeople to a framework of how business works! Remember Marsh White’s interpretation of Michael Porter’s (Harvard Business School) view on “relevance” when introduced into the world of B2B sales: Relevance is perceived (by the customer) when the salesperson/sales organization can demonstrate a significant (credible, coherent, compelling) and measurable (commercial) connection between the salesperson’s solution and its impact on the customer’s business imperatives! No matter how diverse the industry and no matter the company’s size, everything a business does … imperatives such as: increasing revenue, decreasing costs, improving productivity or process, enhancing image, improving efficiency, increasing stability, security, safety, etc. … must have an impact on revenue and/or expenses. Customers spend little time focusing on suppliers. Therefore our salespeople must spend their time focusing where the customers spend their time. Knowing the vision, mission, financial drivers such as revenue and expense objectives; operational drivers as well as external drivers will enable our salespeople to begin to appreciate their potential business impact.



Introducing a Business Framework Introducing a business framework … “i.e. profiling how business works” …requires that our sales engagement models not only have qualitative leading indicators as performance expectations; but, that in the early stages of our sales engagement models we include qualitative leading indicators of performance that demand a real understanding of the customer’s business. Understanding the customer’s business at a minimum must include knowledge of the customer’s: vision, revenue & expense goals and objectives, business plan imperatives, business process, organizational structure, people demographics, etc. Further, this understanding might include possibly conducting a “SWOT” analysis as the insights derived from this analysis will add perspective and help to drive their sales campaign.

This business framework should enable the development of a sales campaign whose leading edge drives a series of business-centric conversations with business management leaders within the customer’s organization. And the customer insights gathered should speak to impacting a customer’s business through an understanding of: what the customer’s business is trying to do and why - the imperatives … where are the customer’s opportunities/challenges … how will those opportunities/challenges be pursued … and who owns those opportunities/challenges.

The conversation must explore the customer’s compelling reasons to act … what is the impact: revenue, expense, productivity, image, efficiency, stability, security, safety … and how the impact will actually be measured. This is the only means by which to quantify our solution!

Our salespeople need to explore the differences between where the customer is now and where the customer wants to be. That is identifying the gaps relative to where the customer is now in terms of revenue, expense, productivity, etc. and where the customer needs to be in terms of those same metrics.

Building on all of these insights, our salespeople can begin to analyze how and where they might maximize the customer’s strengths, eliminate or influence weaknesses, and minimize threats to optimize the customer’s opportunities/challenges.



Making the Business Need/Sales Solution Connection Armed with these customer business insights, our salespeople can now move forward in their sales process while progressing with the customer in their buying process to uncover connections and/or options. Daniel Pink in his book “A Whole New Mind” put forth the premise that to succeed in business today we need to have a combination of two behaviors: “high touch” and “high concept.”

“High touch” is about empathy and building the kind of relationship that fosters a willingness (in our customers) to share the business insights described above through credibility and customer focus. “High concept” is about (right brain thinking) making sense out of seemingly abstract ideas and insights … elevating perceived relevance – demonstrating value. Simply stated our salespeople, once armed with these business insights, need to find the intersection between the customer’s business issues and our portfolio of solutions including products, services, ideas, applications, resources, expertise, etc. Our salespeople must look for areas of direct impact on the customer’s business; impact on the customer’s gaps: increase revenue, decrease expenses, decrease time by improving productivity/efficiency, or increase likelihood of success by minimizing risk.

Through this process, our salespeople may discover that there are no obvious, direct connections. However, what about indirect connections, perhaps not observed by the customer or no direct connection in the customer’s mind. For example, introducing a solution to reduce expense or increase productivity in some unrecognized area so that the customer may now use the newly derived resources to satisfy a gap in an area where you have no impact.

Reflecting on today’s business environment, the previously referenced Harvard Business Review article entitled “In a Downturn, Provoke Your Customers” captures the true essence of the indirect approach. The article’s advice:

Identify a customer problem, trend, business issue and its consequences that resonates with the customer … to overcome the status quo mentality

Develop a provocative point-of-view … linked to your strengths/offerings Lodge your provocative point-of-view with the relevant executive

This is what “Trusted Advisors” do … this is how our salespeople can elevate the customer’s perception of their relevance.



Expanding Leadership’s Sales Transition Thinking to include B2B Marketing Now given the amount of time I have spent around salespeople and sales leaders, I know immediately what their reaction will be to the concept of “changing the conversation - from technical-centric to a business-focused.”

I can hear them loud and clear saying …

“It’s difficult enough just to get an appointment!” “So why would someone that doesn’t even buy my products and services want to talk to me let alone meet with me?” And then of course there is the ever popular … “I don’t have the time!” It’s funny how salespeople think. They believe that customers have the time (code for) are really interested in talking to salespeople about the salesperson’s products and services rather than talking about the customer’s business. But salespeople do have a point. And this is where we need to expand leadership’s thought exploration beyond the B2B sales function to include B2B marketing!

Let’s think about how leadership can help sellers change the conversation and get more and higher quality business prospects and existing customers into their pipelines.

Marketing is from Mars & Sales is from Venus … the Present Reality of B2B Sales & Marketing

The reality is that many marketing professionals can’t get their heads around the previously outlined challenges that make B2B sales so difficult and certainly more so then B2C selling.

The reason: Marketing is from Mars and Sales is from Venus. The organizations live in totally different worlds and have completely different perspectives on what's needed for success. In far too many companies, communications between the two groups is minimal and alignment is non-existent.

Let me fill in some background. “Back in the day” I worked for an applications service provider selling financial modeling solutions. I worked in a major sales office that was located close to corporate headquarters. Whenever a new product was introduced, marketing kicked off their road shows with us. Eager to show off their hot new stuff, they'd send an entire entourage to our facility. As salespeople, we were excited to learn about anything that could give us a competitive edge.



We'd spend hours listening to talking heads cover every excruciating detail of how the system worked, the multiple configurations available, its connectivity, how to demonstrate its capabilities and comparisons to the competition. Then the focus would switch to the marketing campaign that was being implemented. Finally they trotted out the sales collateral. There was always an impressive display of brochures, fact sheets, technical specs and more.

I always had a litany of questions on a wide range of topics. I was trying to put everything I'd learned into the context of what it would take to sell this new offering. Marketing had given me a huge data dump, but shared virtually nothing to help me speed up the sales velocity. They'd left all that up to me.

I'd been given all the details, but not one thing to help me drive sales. Virtually every question I asked Marketing was answered with, "That's your job to figure out. You're in sales." Or they'd say, "Just show the prospects. They'll understand its value." Those poor marketers had labored furiously to get the product out on time, so my demands for more information frustrated them to no end.

Ultimately I was able to put the puzzle pieces together, but it usually took a couple extra months. During my learning curve, I always lost a few good prospects – mostly to indecision, but sometimes to competition.

To make a long story short, the failure of Marketing to give Sales what they needed hurt the company big time as sales results failed to materialize in the projected timeframe! Each group pointed fingers at the other, claiming it was their fault. Sales screamed that the pricing was too high and the new offering was missing important capabilities. Marketing shouted back that the product was perfectly fine, but the sales force couldn't sell value.

Even when Marketing asked how they could help, the feedback from the sales organization was often next to worthless. Salespeople couldn't articulate what was missing because they'd never seen anything different. So they always reverted to what they knew and asked for better brochures (which only exacerbated the problem) or more advertising (this was money down the drain).

Today Marketing must bridge the gap between Sales and Marketing. Marketing must make sure the salespeople have what they needed to jumpstart the business conversation associated with new products/services in the marketplace. And as a result, shorten time to revenue, improve the product lifetime profitability of their offering, and keep major competitors out of key accounts.



So let me offer some food for thought in this area. The first two suggestions tie in with lead generation programs developed by Marketing. The remainder of the suggestions supports sellers in their own prospecting efforts — which should be targeted at specific corporations they'd like to land as customers.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I have spent time in marketing. That experience taught me many interesting lessons. But I'm not going to try to tell you how to run your lead generation program? No, because lots of people in marketing are a whole lot smarter than me in that arena. My expertise is with the sales organization. What I'm going to talk about is today's sales environment realities and what marketing can do to help salespeople change the conversation, penetrate corporate accounts and elevate perceived relevance.

High Quality Well nurtured leads:

More than ever before, salespeople want Marketing to focus on lead generation. But their definition of a quality lead is often very different from what they're typically handed by Marketing. From the seller's perspective, being handed a list of 217 people who expressed interest at a recent trade show is a nightmare in the making. On the other hand, Marketing is pleased as punch to have collected all those names. I know I was, when I was in marketing!

The sales organization really needs to be involved in defining what a high quality lead looks like. This definition may include demographic factors such as industry type, size of company and revenues. But it also needs to include much more. One of my clients is very specific about the best prospects for their service offering. They only work with firms that have 20,000 or more employees.

Plus they have the greatest success with "progressive firms" which they have profiled with the following characteristics:

They have a keen awareness of their market position. The majority of their growth has come through acquisition. Attracting and retaining top talent is a business imperative. Their business’ focus is on streamlining operations and consolidating functions. They use online services in every aspect of their business.

Clearly this puts an additional burden on Marketing, but Sales doesn't want to spend its time trying to connect with impossible-to-reach decision-makers only to find out that the company is too small, has been shrinking in recent years or is a slow adopter of new technology.



Sales needs Marketing to put together a long-term program that nurtures prospects at the very early stages of the sales cycle. They need marketers to identify potential decision-makers, to send out white papers, to invite people who've shown interest to a webinar. Then, they need to work with Marketing to define when the lead should officially be passed over to the sales organization for follow-up. So if you're getting complaints about your lead generation program, sit down with the sales force right now and reach agreement on these critical definitions.

Strong value propositions

The lack of powerful, compelling value propositions hurts more sales efforts than any other factor. It continually amazes me how few salespeople can clearly articulate the business results that customers get from the solutions produced by using their products or services.

A sales campaign like any other campaign is by definition - a series of operations designed to bring about a result … in this case a sale and a campaign requires a platform! Not unlike a political campaign (and while I hate to bring up politics) … candidates run on a platform … a value proposition … vote for me because …!

The responsibility for this failure lies in the hands of both Marketing and Sales. When new offerings are introduced, Marketing touts leading-edge capabilities, state-of-the-art technology or unique methodologies. Expensive collateral glorifies the multitude of new features. Detailed charts point out the differences between competitors. Salespeople, armed with all this wonderful knowledge, race out to their top prospects, eager to land a big deal.

Unfortunately, they usually fail. Most corporate decision-makers don't want to waste time meeting with salespeople just to learn about their products or services. Nor are they one bit interested in how great your offering is compared to the competition. Their only concern is how it impacts their business when compared to the status quo.

So what's the solution? Both Marketing and Sales need to realize that their offerings are simply tools to help customers achieve specific business objectives. No one wakes up one day and says, "I'd like to spend a ton of money on new software." Nor do they say, "Let's spend a ton of money on a management consulting firm." Instead, corporate decision-makers talk business, using terms like shortening time to market or reducing supply chain costs.



When salespeople start talking about their offering from this perspective, it captures the attention of prospective buyers. They're always interested in hearing about:

How to achieve quantifiable, measurable business outcomes. How they can reach their ever-increasing objectives. How other companies have achieved significant breakthroughs.

Here's an example of how one company changed how they talked about themselves:

Before: We offer a full-range of web-based marketing services.

After: We help online retailers increase their key operating metrics. One of our recent clients increased conversion rates by 27%, at the same time their average order size jumped 38.4%.

Sales needs Marketing to take the lead in this area

Make sure that your salespeople can clearly articulate the business value of your product or service. Then, make sure to integrate it into your collateral, website, presentation materials, prospecting tools and more. When Marketing changes how they talk about their offering, Sales follows suit.

More importantly, salespeople need to personalize their value propositions when interacting with their various business management constituencies in accounts. What interests CFOs is fundamentally different from what the VP of Sales is interested in. There is "no one size fits all" value proposition. When salespeople are armed with the right messaging, their ability to be successful increases significantly.

Understanding of the status quo:

In today's market, the status quo is a salesperson's most formidable competitor. As stated earlier, overwhelmed, stressed out decision-makers would much rather stay with their current products, systems or methodologies than switch. Decisions are painful. They're an additional workload requiring the involvement of numerous people who all have their own opinions of the best way to go. Implementation is a pain in the neck too; it seems like things always get worse before they get better.

Without a solid understanding of how companies operate today, prospective buyers can quickly dismiss a "pesky" salesperson. While Sales may not be asking Marketing for support in this area, they still need it in order to be successful. Specifically, they need:



Status quo scenarios:

If you sell products; scenarios might include business impact comparisons across: old competitive systems, earlier versions of your own company's products or even home-built solutions.

For a service; scenarios could cover the various service options available to your customers.

Issue analysis:

Issue analysis involves a description of the likely problems customers face with their status quo scenarios (remember the Provocative Selling article mentioned earlier). Plus issue analysis could contain a discussion of the business impact of continuing "as is" and the “pay-off” for making a change.

Decision-maker overview:

Salespeople need to know who's typically involved in making these decisions, what else these decision-makers are responsible for, and how they're evaluated. Any information that would be valuable in creating a personalized approach to these various decision-makers is also greatly appreciated.

Make sure your salespeople understand the likely situations and decision-makers they'll encounter

Marketing needs to ensure that salespeople have access to this invaluable information. Some companies make it available in online sales portals; others use workbooks. The format doesn't matter. Just make sure your salespeople understand the likely situations and decision-makers they'll encounter in their sales efforts.

Triggering Event Awareness:

Because salespeople have to develop their own prospects, Marketing also needs to make sure salespeople are aware of triggering events — those occurrences that create an immediate business need for your company's products or services. Typically these can be readily ascertained by reviewing the firm's existing customer base and asking, "What was it that precipitated this company's decision to make a change?"



What constitutes a triggering event? It could be something internal to the prospect’s or customer’s organization such as:

Changes in leadership New management directions Bad 3rd quarter earnings Mergers or acquisitions Major downsizings or reorganizations

Or it could be something external to the prospect’s or customer’s organization that affects its ability to be successful in the market such as:

New or pending legislation or regulation Competitive moves Customer trends Natural disasters

Usually a pattern emerges if certain triggering events seem to be behind a number of your company’s sales

Your sales force needs to know this information so they can be watching for it. Point them in the right direction. Show them how other sellers have capitalized on these triggering events to get their foot in the door of an account, talking to the right people at the right time.

I realize that I may have upset some people with the above suggestions. And as my intention is to focus on leadership’s thinking, I don’t want to get too tactical. “Exercising strong leadership” is about providing your people with vision and direction … collaboratively … and they in turn will surprise you with their creativity! With that said I have included some additional thoughts and recommendations on Marketing in Appendix 1 of this document.

But the thoughts and suggestions offered here and in the appendix are things that consistently fall through the cracks. Marketing thinks that the sales organization should handle them – which they ultimately do if nothing is given to them or if it’s obvious that Marketing doesn't have a clue what it's like in the field … “Marketing is from Mars and Sales is from Venus!”

And when you leave the sales organization to its own devices, everyone reinvents the wheel. What a colossal waste of time. And from my experience, the quality is all over the board. A few salespeople do a good job, but mostly there's widespread mediocrity. The message gets all mucked up, key points are totally missed, and value propositions lack impact.



As marketers, you don't want to leave this to chance. But you also don't want to create strategies and tools in a vacuum. Get your top salespeople involved immediately. Select those who are able to explain their thinking processes, not the unconscious competent. Have your seasoned professionals give you insights into what's working. Bounce your value propositions off them. Engage them in developing effective voicemail scripts, techniques for eliminating objections and more.

Join together with your sales force to make this happen. Not only will you get more and better prospects in the pipeline, but you'll also:

Reduce the cost of customer acquisition. Save salespeople's time and keep them out selling where they belong. Ensure consistency across the sales organization. Improve the performance of average salespeople with well-designed tools. Achieve the company’s sales growth goals.

I strongly encourage you to create a repeatable process that can consistently be leveraged to generate high quality prospects – whether from your own lead generation efforts or from the targeted prospecting efforts of your sales force. When you do, everyone wins!

The Sales Training and Tools Present Realities When you address sales training and tools as part of Sales Transformation, they become far more than the traditional transfer of skills and knowledge. But training DOES NOT set sales policy or marketing policy for that matter - leadership sets: policy, vision, direction, structure, process and performance expectations!

When we are taking on the task of changing selling behaviors, we’re talking about changing the DNA, the very culture of the sales organization, a MUCH bigger task and obstacle for transformation. Training is not the “launching pad” for the entire endeavor. “Exercising strong leadership” is the “launching pad!” Training provides the “foundational support systems.” Training and tools play a prominent role and must be designed to promote significantly greater understanding and recall in order to facilitate behavior change. Salespeople must be able to clearly see how new methodologies and processes apply to their day-to-day activities, and understand and accept the impact of doing so.

Once again as with marketing considerations, I have included some Sales Training & Tools considerations in Appendix 2 of this paper.



Sales Transformation is about Leadership

At this point, I hope you are beginning to realize that this transformation is much greater than sales. At a minimum it must include changes in Marketing. But look more closely! You … the Leadership must realize that Sales Transformation begins with you!!!

Remember the McKinsey’s Survey results … “Exercising Strong Leadership” is the common denominator to successful transformations!

Management and Accountability The real “pay-off” gained from the investment in a formal sales process, behavioral change and resulting Sales Transformation is only realized when salespeople and management become proficient with new skills or more proficient with existing skills. Companies often rely on classroom learning activities to drive proficiency when ample time just isn’t available.

(“We sent you to training, now where are the results?”). The truth is; behavioral change won’t happen from attending a few training sessions. Proficiency will come with different skills at different times for different individuals and only by “doing” on the job! On-going management and coaching must therefore facilitate an effective proficiency assessment and support continuous incremental improvement/development for each individual salesperson and sales manager.

Significant ROI will not be generated by a handful of people changing. It occurs when the majority, if not all, commits to, is held accountable for, and ultimately executes key selling behaviors more effectively. Each level of management has a responsibility, from field level to senior leadership. If true behavioral change is going to take place, everyone has to be held responsible and accountable for his or her role. Remember, Sales Transformation is about changing the very culture of the organization. The culture won’t change unless managers are deeply and inextricably involved. That being said, transformation isn’t for the weak of heart. It takes “exercising strong leadership.” That is leadership committed to change!

Accountability at all levels becomes a major focus for and influence upon transformation. Accountability is defined as “responsibility to someone for some performance activity”. Notice, the definition does not say “some result”, rather “some performance activity.” Results don’t happen unless the performance activities expected to produce them happen first.

Many sales organizations fail to “transform” because managers are unable or unwilling to drive the behaviors or day-to-day activities that will deliver the desired results.



Therefore, management must consistently engage in the following coaching behaviors at each level of the sales organization:

Set not only results metrics … the “numbers;” but, more importantly performance expectations rooted in qualitative, leading indicators aligned with the formal/dynamic sales process or customer focused sales engagement model so that every member of their team knows: what is expected (mutually agreed upon), knows how they’re doing (inspection) and are continually reviewed/updated and coached on performance to know how to get better (development).

Sales Management must regularly and consistently seek to uncover gaps in performance relative to those expectations. And then sales management must (in collaboration with individual salespeople) identify the root causes for poor performance: environmental or commitment (willingness), capacity, skills (ability) or knowledge (acumen). Next sales management must determine mutually through coaching corrective actions/activities aimed at the root causes for poor performance.

And finally, sales management must evaluate each individual contributor’s performance to make certain incremental improvement/development is taking place.

So what can management leverage to accomplish this? Let’s re-visit this notion of everyone “buying in”. As a reminder, that was the overarching leadership consideration for a successful sales transformation. If you haven’t already, now is the time to realize its significance. If, in fact, everyone in the organization agrees that there are gaps in sales and management behavior that must be addressed in order to become our customer’s “Trusted Partner”, and everyone agrees that the performance expectations, processes, structure, methodologies and tools provided will enable them to close those gaps, management is simply holding people accountable for what they already believe is in their own personal interest. Leaders have EARNED the right to manage by compliance. They are OBLIGATED to hold their people accountable.

As leaders exercising strong leadership you must answer candidly the tough questions:

Are all managers fully committed to your formal sales process?

Have you and your managers clearly defined performance and results expectations for every individual on your sales team?

Do your managers consistently review those expectations to uncover gaps in

performance?

Do your managers hold everyone on their team accountable for their commitment to your formal/dynamic sales process?



Senior Leadership Buy-in and Support A real commitment to Sales Transformation is evidenced not only by senior leadership acknowledging the requirement to change, but actually EXPERIENCING the change with the rest of the organization. This concept has kept many organizations from fully realizing transformation. True Sales Transformation doesn’t happen when an individual on a team assumes the role of a Trusted Partner. That likely has already happened multiple times between many of your salespeople and their customers. It happens when YOUR ENTIRE COMPANY assumes that role. A company cannot assume the role unless representatives’ at the most senior levels understand the formal sales process, set the example and hold everyone in the organization accountable for transformation.

As examples, leadership should be involved with and responsible for:

Senior managers attending training and understanding the key methodologies.

That is attending the training that defines the selling process/methodology and the required coaching behaviors. Senior managers should witness the buy-in and leverage that experience later when engaging with salespeople and sales managers.

Reviewing and (perhaps) revising compensation plans making certain these plans are in support of the desired behavioral changes.

Insuring your entire organization is in alignment with and supportive of your

formal sales process. Alignment of sales support organizations and marketing ensure transparent, credible, coherent, compelling and commercial programs to support the company’s quest to continually elevate perceived relevance to become and sustain “Trusted Partner” status.

Continually seeking, reporting and recognizing successes.

Promoting internal endeavors to find ways of better serving customers.

And finally, Leadership must manage their own direct reports as they would

expect field level managers to manage theirs (commitment and accountability)!



Conclusion and Summary Sales Transformation has become the catch phrase for virtually every c-level executive searching for answers to the business challenges surrounding revenue & earnings growth, positioning, differentiation and even survival!

The key to transforming your sales organization from Approved Vendor to Trusted Partner status lies in changing the behaviors, the DNA, the very culture of your entire organization. But the real transformation must begin with leadership’s thinking … that is “Exercising Strong Leadership!” And while this transformation is not easy, addressing the following will position your organization to continuously adapt to today’s and tomorrow’s challenging business environment and give you and your organization an excellent chance of winning!

Exercising Strong Leadership means:

Committing to a formal “customer-focused” sales process or sales engagement model (at a minimum) for your entire organization

Establishing a performance management process that includes: setting & communicating clear, aspirational performance expectations (separate from the “numbers”) and inspecting those performance expectations through coaching for development and appraisal to drive accountability for change.

Ensuring buy-in by everyone in the organization

Making certain you change the customer conversations (both who and what)

from technology/features/functions to what your customers are trying to accomplish as a business.

Preparing your managers as coaches. Their ability to reinforce the expectations

and methodologies that form your sales process is essential and critical.

Accepting that - Leadership provides the “launching pad”- the vision and direction collaboratively and training provides the “foundational support systems” for transformation. Make certain your programs and tools are designed for the ultimate goal: BEHAVIORAL CHANGE.

Making certain there is Senior Leadership buy-in and support. It can be the difference between success and failure.



APPENDIX 1

ADDITIONAL MARKETING RECOMMENDATIONS

Continuing the expansion of leadership’s thinking around sales transformation, here are some additional marketing program recommendations:

Enticing voicemails:

Most salespeople are really challenged by voicemail. They've resigned themselves to the fact that it's nearly impossible to talk to a human being. They're shocked if anyone calls them back. And some salespeople don't have a clue what they can do differently.

Here's how a typical voicemail message sounds today: (bad example)

"Hello Bob. This is Tom Jones calling. I'm the account executive with Global Systems. We specialize in working with companies in the area of marketing communications. We offer a wide range of services to handle all your advertising, direct mail and graphics needs.

I'd like to set up a time to find out how you're handling marketing communications in your company and show you some of the really neat things we're doing for some of our customers. I'd be glad to meet with you at your earliest convenience. It would only take about ½ hour. My number is 201-xxx-xxx. I look forward to talking with you soon. Have a great day!”

This message is so boring that it's deleted before the end of the first paragraph. Marketing needs to show Sales how to create customer-focused messages that get listened to by decision-makers. Show them how to integrate their value propositions into their voicemail. Show them how to leverage their ideas and insights to pique a decision-maker's curiosity.

To ensure effectiveness, Marketing needs to test the voicemail strategies before handing them off to the sales force.

For example, salespeople will be much more successful with a message like this:

"John, Tom Jones from Global Systems calling. In researching your company, I noticed that a key business initiative in the upcoming six months is to expand into the electronic devices market. I have some ideas about how you can leverage technology to penetrate that market segment much more quickly. One of our recent customers achieved their 6-month's projections in just 4 months and is well on their way to a banner year. Let's get together and talk. My number is 201-xxx-xxx. (repeat) I look forward to meeting with you!"



As a marketer, you're probably thinking, "That's not my job." (See we're back to where we started.) Well, it is if you want to help your salespeople get more prospects in the door. Salespeople are stymied. In fact, you probably have a whole crew of salespeople who are struggling in this area. Day-after-day they keep beating their heads against the wall, hoping against hope that they'll finally manage to talk to someone. That's a poor use of their time.

Since you're already running a lead generation program – and hopefully a successful one – you've been experimenting with different ways of catching the decision-maker's attention. Share what you've learned with the sales force. Cut their learning curve and raise the entire sales organization's proficiency level. Every time you introduce a new product, give the sales force the words they need to penetrate corporate accounts.

Addressing common obstacles:

Once again I'm going to tell you that you can really help the sales force by pre-thinking about the usual, run-of the-mill obstacles and objections they'll encounter in trying to set up meetings with corporate decision-makers. Salespeople need your insight on this. But they don't want the same tired responses that are no longer effective.

Instead Marketing needs to give them fresh new ways of dealing with comments such as:

We don't have any needs in this area. We're already working with the XYZ Company. If you're not on the approved vendor list, we can't talk. We're too busy right now. Your company is too … big, small, expensive, etc.

Marketing also needs to show Sales how to address the "Tell me more" statement without getting caught in a detailed company history or falling back into a product/service technology-centric dump. Now Marketing can let salespeople figure this out on their own, but I guarantee you that it will result in major delays as well as lost opportunities.

Marketing needs to experiment with ways to eliminate these obstacles and objections entirely. When they discover what works, they need to share it with the sales force.



Sales tools & a campaign plan:

Finally, Sales needs Marketing to realize that they have to put together a campaign to penetrate corporate accounts these days. It can easily take seven, ten or even a dozen contacts before a salesperson is able to connect with a corporate decision-maker. Although the phone is still the salesperson's primary prospecting vehicle, in today's business environment they need to incorporate many other "touches" into their campaign plan.

Marketing needs to create a multitude of items to put in the salesperson's account penetration campaign tool kit. Examples of effective tools could include:

Letter templates Email templates Web portals Case studies Special reports White papers Seminar invites Newsletters Relevant articles Top 10 questions Initial presentation template

Not only do salespeople want templates, but they also want to be able to quickly and easily customize them. When Marketing can create messages and sales materials that can be pulled together for specific buyers within specific industries, then they've really created a winner!

These sales enablement tools will prove to be incredibly valuable to busy salespeople. Certainly salespeople are capable of creating their own, but then you're taking the whole team out of the field again – not a good use of their time. Sales needs Marketing to take charge of this process to assure the quality as well as the consistency of the message.

Do It Together! Exercising strong “marketing” leadership suggests collaboration!



APPENDIX 2

SALES TRAINING & TOOLS CONSIDERATIONS

Expanding leadership’s thinking around sales transformation, here are some additional thoughts on sales training and tools: Trainer experience and credibility:

If a trainer/facilitator has no practical experience from which they draw and, as a result, can’t demonstrate new skills in a compelling and believable fashion, salespeople have tremendous difficulty seeing how these new skills apply to their “reality”. If the instructor has a successful sales background, they become far more believable. Through practical experience, they can effectively demonstrate how new knowledge and skills are applied.

The facilitation of incremental improvement over time:

Sales Transformation doesn’t mean everything changes at once. Changing everything NOW is not only improbable, but impossible. The process has to be broken down into bite-sized pieces, each foundational, each standing on its own logic and truth. Sales transformation happens by changing one behavior at a time over time. As a result, the program has to be designed and tools developed to support and facilitate mastery of each individual piece of the process.

Integrate the formal sales process with your systems & management programs:

Tools and programs like SFA, CRM, product training, management training, any and all programs delivered to the sales organization MUST be in support of the formal sales process. Performance expectations need to align with the methodology and measure, or at least facilitate, a discussion of behavioral change, not just results.

Alignment of sales and marketing:

To be effective and supportive, all lead generation programs, support materials, presentation templates, product releases, must be in concert and in alignment with the formal sales process.



Prepare your sales managers to coaches by requiring sales managers to attend both sales and coaching training:

I have witnessed the failure of many attempts to transform sales organizations because only the salespeople attended sales training. No one has as much exposure to salespeople as their managers. It is essential that field level managers attend exactly the same training as their direct reports. There is no possible way they could reinforce a formal sales process without possessing a deep understanding of what the process is. Sales managers also require additional training to make certain they possess the skills and tools to effectively coach everyone on their team on an on-going basis.

Tracking behavior/performance and correlating improved selling effectiveness to better business results:

From the very outset of the program, the desired impact on business results must be identified and the ideal performance expectations (behaviors) for salespeople and leaders must be defined. As training programs are implemented and tools and reinforcement are provided, the organization must measure changes in performance/behavior and their impact on business results. This helps validate the training and tools investment. But more importantly; this helps to identify the characteristics of: the training, the performance systems and the work environment that are impacting success by highlighting “what’s working” as well as “what’s not working” so that corrections can be made.

Documents

EXPLORING LEADERSHIP’S THINKING AROUND …...“If the answers to address today’s business challenges reside in B2B Sales Transformation; then the search for those answers must