Sales Process: Introducing a Sales Management Expert

Danita Bye

Starting off on the right foot for an Effective Sales Consulting Session

Sales Management Training; Sales Process Consulting

Consultants can provide on-demand expertise without overhead to smaller businesses and a strategy for managing growth and maintaining agility for larger companies. However, one of the most important requirements for a successful, productive engagement is the proper introduction of the consultant to the client’s organization and properly framing the engagement.

Left to the imagination of your crew, a variety of negative reactions could surface that undermine a consultant’s effectiveness. For instance, fearful employees may intentionally provide inaccurate information to the consultant, which drives poor outcomes. Fearing reprisal for past mistakes, they may try to mask issues.

Seven tips for properly introducing consultants to your organization, in order to allay fear, insecurity and skepticism.

1. Inform everyone in the organization about the engagement. Your candor about the engagement sets the tone. If you want employees to be open and honest, then set a good example. You can announce the engagement of a consultant at a meeting and field questions, or you may choose to make the announcement via memo. Include the nature or purpose of the engagement, but avoid discussing possible outcomes. After all, outcomes depend on the consultant’s findings/recommendations.

“I’m excited to announce that we’ve made a commitment to continue growing the company that will strengthen our position for all of us. We’re committed to providing each of you with the resources, support and tools necessary to achieve that goal, including training as well as effective management. Ms. Know-It-All is going to help us identify areas and sales processes that need our attention as well as how to best strengthen them.”

2. Make staff feel secure. Involving an outside consultant might fluster internal staff, making them feel that their job security is at stake. Nip that feeling in the bud by describing what will be happening and confirming that no one should feel threatened. Job security is so closely tied to economic security that it is a primary concern of the American work force.

3. Gain commitment. Rally your entire organization around this effort. Link their commitment to how the consultant will help the organization be successful in the future. In exchange for their commitment, inform staff about their role in the decision-making process.

4. Explain benchmarks and milestones. Since consulting contracts should contain expected benchmarks and milestones, you have the opportunity to share these with your staff on a regular basis. If they trust that you will keep them apprised, they are more likely to trust the consultant. Plus, they feel like they have a stake in the engagement. This also helps the consultant understand your expectations.

“Since we’ll be customizing future sales training based on the data we’ve collected, I expect everyone to be totally honest in their disclosures — otherwise the data won’t help us. While everyone would like the results to say we’re wonderful, it would be unrealistic and wouldn’t serve a practical purpose. So when the assessment is complete, expect the positive “strengths” to come back with some constructive feedback regarding our weaknesses, which we’ll address through additional training and support.”

5. Pave the way for the consultant to have access to staff. To enable the consultant to formulate good suggestions, there should be frequent communication and interchange of opinions between staff and the consultant. Make certain that everyone in the organization will provide what the consultant needs in order to gather information and make viable recommendations.

6. Organizational issues should be addressed first. These are the core issues that need to be addressed before moving on to other issues. The client should discuss with the consultant a list of all the organizational issues in order of magnitude, and gain concurrence.

7. Encourage staff to voice concerns. To optimize effectiveness, the consultant requires constant feedback. Scheduling regular progress reviews will help the consultant stay on the right track, clarify information and resolve temporary difficulties. Establish a process for staff to voice concerns to you and the consultant. And, if you are not happy with some of the consultant’s plans, be truthful and share your concerns.

Published in:

Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal

Bio: Danita Bye

Nationally recognized sales management and leadership expert Danita Bye built her reputation on building and inspiring process-oriented, no excuse, high-performance sales teams that deliver bottom line results. With her unique Fortune-100-turned-entrepreneur perspective, Danita helps CEOs and company presidents take their businesses to the next level. Her practical, no-nonsense approach to sales management, combined with her leadership acumen, enables sales leadership to increase sales, creating predictable revenue streams.

As a 10-year veteran of the Xerox Corporation, Danita consistently achieved award winning sales performance before leaving to become an equity partner and national sales manager for a Minneapolis-based medical device company. In this capacity, she increased annual revenues from $300,000 to a run rate of $20 million in just ten years.

Danita has authored numerous articles on sales management and leadership. In addition, she was a featured as a sales development expert on the TV show, “The Ruthless Entrepreneur,” which is currently airing on the Oxygen Network. Leadership Shift, Management Acceleration and a library of eBooks on critical sales management issues are available on the Sales Growth Specialists’ website.

Danita can be reached at Danita@SalesGrowthSpecialists.com, 612-267-3320 or 800-256-2799.

For more insights on Sales Strategy and Sales Process, visit www.SalesGrowthSpecialists.com.