Customer On The Edge

Do you remember being in the 7th grade, taking a math quiz, and being told by the teacher that you had to show your calculations, or other logic for deriving the answer, on the back of the quiz sheet in order to get full credit? What was up with that?

It wasn’t such a bad thing in the end. If you got the answer wrong, but your logic and calculations were sound, (perhaps a careless transposition error) you probably received most of the credit. On the other hand, if your logic was erroneous but you still got the answer right, you got little credit due to the fact that you did not really know what you were talking about. Ultimately it is not about the answer on the quiz, it is about the problem solving ability. If you didn’t understand how to solve the problem, uncovering this at the time of the quiz gave the teacher the opportunity to help set you straight before the final exam. Working the problem out on the back of the sheet was all for the purposes of coaching and guidance. It was truly in our best interest (even if we did not recognize it at the time).

Over the last few weeks I have been working with a couple of different clients on the standardization of the territory planning process. It has been interesting in that they are accepting this change to their sales force effectiveness methods very differently. One company really gets it and is embracing the need for a more disciplined approach to ensuring that every sales rep has a well thought out plan for making their number. The other company is resisting the idea and would rather skip the process and go straight into pushing the reps out onto the street to make their number.

In a meeting with the management team of the latter client, the whole thing about writing-down-the-problem-solving-on-the-back-of-the-quiz-sheet hit me. How do we know if the sales rep has a chance of getting the problem right on the final exam if we can’t tell if they really know how to solve it (by having visibility to the back of the quiz)?

In the former company of my example above, one district manager was so driven to improve territory planning that he believed it was a good idea to give full commission on achieving sales targets only if the sales rep can show in the plan how they will get there ahead of time. In other words, don’t rely on luck to make the quota, rely on the plan. I guess this is like playing billiards where you have to call the pocket in order to get credit for sinking the ball. Skill counts, luck does not. Perhaps this is acceptable when playing pool but maybe it is a bit extreme when compensating your sales team, but I really appreciate the sentiment greatly.

Let’s not rely on luck for achieving quota. Instead, how about if we show how we are going to work the math problem on the back of the quiz? A good territory plan examines each targeted account and carefully examines the potential revenue to be derived from that account to best project where revenue will be generated. The account projections are rolled up into a territory projection and the logic of solving the math problem is wondrously illustrated. Most important, if the logic does not add up – the fault of the problem solving is exposed. And, what is even more important than most important, this gives the sales manager and coach time to improve the situation before the final exam. We can examine the back of the quiz sheet to ensure that the problem solver is working with the right capabilities.

Why would you not want to have this seriously critical capability in place for your sales team? In my experience, opponents to a disciplined territory planning process are typically victims of their previous success. Companies that I support who have recently experienced escalating growth do not typically want to invest the time – the market vacuum they fill with their product does not need a plan. Rather, it needs a faster fulfillment process. But these conditions change as fast as the weather in New England. It may be that the discipline of territory planning is an unneeded drag on the progress of triple digit growth sales teams. However, as soon as your boon is over, you might want to consider the value of soundly illustrating where your success is based.

Yes, I think it is a good idea to show your calculation on the back of the quiz sheet. Is it because my mother was a math teacher? Maybe. But maybe it was also because sometimes I had a few flaws in my own logic and my instructors were enabled with the opportunity to coach me before it was too late. I believe firmly in the idea of sales manager as coach. If the problem solving is illustrated on the back of the quiz sheet (or perhaps in your CRM system) the coach will have a chance to guide before it is too late, that is, before the quarter closes.

For those of you with triple digit growth – you get a reprieve – don’t worry about territory planning. For the rest of us mere mortals, I recommend writing out the problem on the back of the sheet.

I hope you get an A+.