Best-in-class Sales Companies have Sales Plans
Many people think that Mark Zuckerberg was in the right place at the right time. The founder of Facebook has ridden the social media wave to 500 million users. If you look at how today’s new web companies operate they are definitely doing things differently. One common management theme is that they set goals—widely shared, “aspirational” and “big bodacious goals.” Then, critical to goal achievement is the plan.
In fact, that’s the findings in a recent EcSELL Sales Management Study. Here are some of the results:
- Best-in-class sales organization are slightly more likely (9.5%) to have a formalized sales plan in place.
- 80% of the best-in-class require that their sales managers create a sales plan for their respective region, 29% more than those not achieving sales targets.
- 83.6 % of best-in-class sales companies are planning to increase the sales productivity of their existing reps, while 42.2% are planning on increasing the number of reps.
The study makes this conclusion: ‘Our research indicates that overall, those “on pace” to achieve goal are more stringent, disciplined planners.’
Lesson: Best-in-class sales companies have a disciplined sales planning process.
Questions: What steps do you need to take to upgrade your sales planning process?
I’m facilitating a workshop to EcSELL Institutes Fall Sales Management Summit on October 13th. Can you join us?
Sales Planning Mindset
I’m planning for a workshop on Sales Planning in October with EcSELL Institute’s Sales Management Summit, Sales Leadership and Coaching Strategies. For this workshop, Sales Planning is defined as follows:
Sales Planning
- Establishment of fair & understandable structured territory plans,
- Systematic methodology for interacting with prospects & clients that leads to increased sales, and
- Effective meeting agendas and formats.
In preparing for this session, I ask myself, “What’s the purpose of a Sales Plan?”
The answer? To chart the path to achieve sales management’s top objectives, which are as follows:
- Grow new revenues,
- Increase margins, and
- Exceed monthly/quarterly/annual growth objectives.
As I reflect on the purpose, I realize the importance of our mindset when planning. We aren’t deciding whether or not we’re going to achieve the objectives. No, that decision’s been made. Instead, we’re charting the pathway to achieve the objective. There’s an incredible mindset difference.
I’m reminded of one of the poem’s my manager gave me the first year in sales with Xerox Corporation, You Can.
You Can
“If you think you are beaten, you are,
If you think you dare not, you don’t.
If you like to win, but think you can’t,
It’s almost a cinch you won’t.
If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost;
For out in the world we find,
Success begins with a person’s will.
It’s all in the state of mind.
If you think you are outclassed, you are;
You’ve got to think high to rise.
You’ve got to be sure of yourself,
Before you can win that prize.
For many a race is lost
Ere even a step is run,
And many a coward fails
Ere even before the work is begun.
Think big and your deeds will grow.
Think small and you’ll fall behind.
Think that you can and you will –
It’s all in the state of mind.
Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man;
But sooner or later the one who wins
Is the man who thinks he can!”
Anonymous
Question: As you start your sales planning for this next year, do you have a can-do mindset?
Lesson: The clearer you are in envisioning your objective, the more clarity you’ll have in creating your sales plan.
One critical piece of info needed to create your Sales Plan, is to understand your Target Market and Target Client. For insights into this topic, get our eBook, Targeted Sales Focus.
In addition, you’ll find helpful ideas in a new book to which I’ve contributed: Business Expert Guide to Small Business Success.
Sales Hiring Intelligence
Over the past 12 months, I’ve been involved in capturing some of sales management and leadership insights I’ve gleaned over the years of being involved in sales, sales management and sales leadership. As my husband, Gordon, often says, “Danita, you’re like an unindexed encyclopedia! You can walk into any sales situation and figure out how to take it to the next level of performance.”
However, in order to help more clients get better traction with their sales teams, we need to start indexing the encyclopedia! Therefore, I’ve written a number of articles on the challenges of hiring high performance sales people.
And, I’ve assembled all of our sales hiring intelligence in one place. Take the time to walk through and draw on our expertise.
Then join my Business Expert Webinar , Sales Hiring Strategies that Return High Sales ROI, and bring all your experience and questions with you. Together, we will keep growing our network of sales hiring expertise!
Books:
- Measuring Sales DNA
- Business Expert Guide to Small Business Success, A Grounded Approach to Hiring Salespeople
Blog Postings:
Articles:
- Hiring Successful Salepeople by the Number
- Why Sales Talent Recruiting Must Be Done Right the First Time
- Five Steps to Hiring Salespeople Better Than Your Top Performer
- Identifying Selling Skills and Hiring a Good Salesperson
- Rules for Successful Sales Recruiting
Sales Hiring Strategies That Return High Sales ROI
Join my Business Expert Webinar and Learn why the rockstar sales person was a dud on your sales force..and how you can make certain you don’t hire duds again!
If you are like most sales managers, the sales hiring goal posts have moved and you are rethinking your sales assessment strategies. The skills
you sought yesterday are not the same core competencies you need to sell your products to your customers today. You only have one choice: adapt. My next Business Expert Webinar Learn Why the Rockstar Sales Person Was a Dud on Your Sales Force will show you how.
How much does a wrong sales hiring decision cost? It can range from $100,000 to $250,000! Failing to align your sales skills requirements with the unique aspects of your market, sales strategies, pricing position and sales process will result in lost revenue, longer sales cycles and, ultimately, a loss of market share. Even worse, one day you could find your sales pipeline barren and sales leads dried up. Before that happens, join in on my Webinar and discover how to:
• Identify the unique marketplaces, selling environments and special qualities that your salesperson needs to succeed
• Assess whether the sales person is coachable, trainable and has a growth mindset
Are Poor Sales Hiring Fits Lowering Sales Performance?
In sales recruiting, we often ask, “If the sales job could talk, what would it say?”
In a sense, we personify the job and then interview it, asking it the kinds of questions we might ask of a sales hiring prospect. What should Johnny’s job description look like? Finding the right Sales DNA for your market, sales management processes and sales strategy starts with a lot of questions. For example, what types of sales motivation approaches are the most conducive to your success? Where do you see yourself in five years?
My experience is that many hiring managers fail by compromising on required sales skills. Each sales recruiting process should involve a list of five to ten sales skills, and they’re non-negotiable. Sales recruits will often tell you what you want to hear so be sure to test for validity. Another common mistake is failure to define measurable responsibilities: Sell $50K per month in services and products; Maintain a lead conversion rate higher than 50 percent.
The Sales Lesson: To narrow the chance of a Sales DNA mismatch and the resulting poor sales performance, identify five to ten must-have skills in your sales recruiting profile and make them non-negotiable sales hiring terms.
The Sales Question: Do your sales recruiting candidates possess all of your required sales staffing skills? Have you assigned quantifiable measurements to sales staffing responsibilities?
For more info, get my new eBook, Measuring Sales DNA, or read “Hiring Sales People, A Grounded Approach to Hiring Sales Stars,” in the recently published Business Expert Guide to Small Business Success.
Plus, join me at the upcoming BEW Webinar entitled: Sales Hiring Strategies that Return High Sales ROI
Sales Assessments should Measure Sales Attitude and Emotional IQ
As your hiring sales process gets wheedled down to five or ten candidates, a laser focus should be placed on organizational fit, cultural alignment, selling skills and attitude, or Emotional Intelligence.
Sales Attitude & Sales Emotional Intelligence
Emotional IQ, in particular, may not be getting the attention it deserves given its crucial role in today’s selling environment.
Review your sales management hiring processes and determine whether the attitudes, or Emotional IQ, of your sales force fit their roles.
A new study from the Center for Strategic Marketing and Sales at the Cranfield School of Management has revealed a misalignment in many sales forces. As B2B key account management evolves into sophisticated relationship management for both defensive and offensive purposes, it is more important to place more weight on sales attitude and sales emotional intelligence in your sales assessment process, concluded the study.
Sales attitude or Emotional Intelligence tells us a lot about how one processes information and behaves in the sales process. Take, for example, an unsubstantiated judgment on a delay in a sales close. The enthusiastic client is on vacation. The negative sales person, who misreads the situation, assumes the client is waffling. To save the sale, he sends some reinforcing literature, which instead raises doubts about product quality due to the over persistence.
The candidate you want is the one that has a strong Emotional Quotient and can clearly and accurately perceive and communicate with your most valuable prospects and clients, consistently delivering the sales performance you want.
I introduce a number of tools that can be used to assess the attitude or Emotional IQ of your sales hire in my new eBook, Measuring Sales DNA. Or, you can read “Hiring Sales People, A Grounded Approach to Hiring Sales People,” in the recently published Business Expert Guide to Small Business Success.
The Sales Lesson: The Emotional Intelligence of your sales hire has a critical impact on your sales team, selling process and sales performance.
The Sales Question: How do you measure Emotional IQ in your hiring sales process?
Plus, join me at the upcoming BEW Webinar entitled: Sales Hiring Strategies that Return High Sales ROI
Sales Recruiting and Organizational Fit
You are down to the last three candidates, so what’s the clincher?
Organizational fit.
Sales Hiring & Organizational Fit
The first interview builds on the insight you gain from employee screening allowing you to dig deep into their selling mindset. In addition, it gives you an opportunity to observe composure, style, maturity, and resilience while in an uncomfortable situation.
It is not, however, a popularity contest, and you’re not looking for the nicest one of the bunch. In fact, I have lots of stories about hiring based on “nice”….but, they couldn’t close any business! I learned through the school of hard knocks that I need salespeople who are strong at qualifying and closing!
Once you’re through the first set of interviews and are convinced that this person CAN and WILL sell for your company, you’ll shift your focus to verifying whether or not there’s a good fit with your sales organization and sales goals. The candidate who is the best fit for your organizational culture will deliver the highest sales performance. For most, however, organizational fit is hard to define.
Let’s start with corporate culture. McKinsey famously described it as “how we do things around here.” Corporate culture encompasses a broad set of influences. Here are some examples:
- Leadership style: Will the candidate take instruction well from your dictatorial but high flying sales manager?
- Organizational structure: Does the sales candidate have experience working in a self-directed, flat organizational structure?
- Routines: Is the sales candidates flexible enough to cheerily accommodate your 15 minute daily status meeting?
- Discipline: Does the candidate have the discipline to track both activities and results?
The Sales Lesson: The right organizational fit provides the enabling environment for sales motivation and high sales performance.
The Sales Question: In your sales recruiting process, how many dimensions of organizational fit do you measure?
I introduce a number of tools that can be used to assess the organizational of your sales hire in my new eBook, Measuring Sales DNA. Or, you can read “Hiring Sales People, A Grounded Approach to Hiring Sales People,” in the recently published Business Expert Guide to Small Business Success.
Plus, join me at the upcoming BEW Webinar entitled: Sales Hiring Strategies that Return High Sales ROI
Smart Sales Recruiters Model the Sale
Sales recruiters can learn a lot from comedians.
I’m a Stevie Ray fan. In fact, I’m planning on taking an Improv Class from him this fall. From seeing Stevie in action, I know that a good comedian knows how to sell an audience. They understand human behavior. At comedy nights, they have to hit the right funny bone in order to keep the sales happening.
Similarly, in an ideal sales world, every prospect is delighted to hear from you, hands over their checkbook and credit cards, and instructs you to take as much as is needed to solve their problems — plus a little extra for your trouble. Truth is, each sale introduces a unique set of factors that must be identified and fed into your sales strategy…and your sales hiring process.
Before you can write the sales staffing descriptions, you have to know what it is you are looking for. Start by modeling your ideal sale. What sales strategies will help you develop the ideal selling process? Are you a gazelle up against alligators? Do you have brand recognition and market share? What sales motivation techniques sell the higher value in your unique product and service features.
The sales person who can respond to these unique selling demands will get the gig — that is, make the sale. Profiling the skill sets required is step one — getting on the stage. What sales strategies reach your audience? Is it through a consultative sales process? Or do you need an ambassador to introduce a new product? Or both? It’s all
in the delivery. Before you can write the sales staffing description, you need to model the ideal sale.
The Sales Lesson: Successful sales recruiting is finding the right Sales DNA for your ideal client and best-case sale. When the right sales staffing match is made your sales strategy works and profit is maximized.
The Sales Question: What sales recruiting strategies will lead to sales hiring that targets the Sales Gene for your markets and prospects?
For more info, get my new eBook, Measuring Sales DNA, or read “Hiring Sales People, A Grounded Approach to Hiring Sales People,” in the recently published Business Expert Guide to Small Business Success.
Plus, join me at the upcoming BEW Webinar entitled: Sales Hiring Strategies that Return High Sales ROI
Sales Recruiting and Brain Science
It is being touted as the “most important project in human history.” By 2030, scientists expect to have succeeded in reverse engineering the human brain. This announcement has raised a debate among
Sales Assessment
scientists over whether the brain is coded in the genome.
I will enter the scientific fray by affirming that, based on experience over thousands of hires, Sales DNA can be identified. And, the best science today for identifying it is a tailored sales recruiting process that includes customized sales assessments based on strong research data.
In the future, we may be able to run a battery of brain tests to identify the ideal sales candidates for our sales cultures. During the interim, the closest tool that we have is the Express Screen for determining Sales Compatibility, Sales Motivation, Sales Skillsets, Sales Strengths and Weaknesses.
In my new eBook, Measuring Sales DNA, I suggest you address each of the elements discovered in the sales assessment and use it to generate a customized 30-60-90 day fast-tracking plan and a personal development plan. This plan is designed to address any identified weaknesses and capitalize on strengths. This will ensure that your onboarding process supplies your new sales recruit with the tools and support he/she needs to achieve high sales performance.
Excuse the pun, but it is not brain science. The right sales job match requires rigorous sales evaluation processes to identify the right mix of sales traits for your sales culture.
The Sales Lesson: Sales Aptitude Tests evaluating candidates on Sales Compatibility, Sales Motivation, Sales Skill sets, Sales Strengths and Weaknesses will help to ensure successful sales recruiting.
The Sales Question: How many dimensions do your sales assessment measure to determine the sales hire – and sales culture fit?
For more info, get my new eBook, Measuring Sales DNA, or read “Hiring Sales People, A Grounded Approach to Hiring Sales People,” in the recently published Business Expert Guide to Small Business Success.
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