Customer On The Edge

Can we learn something from swallows? No, not those pointy winged birds that keep coming back to the mission at San Juan Capistrano – I am talking about the bug eaters at my house.

Just about the time that the sun sets this time of year you will find the skies above the little valley beside my house full of swallows. Reportedly these little birds fly around with their tiny beaks wide open in order to catch bugs. In my case we are talking about bad bugs – the ones with little syringes constantly on the lookout for warm blooded victims. They dart back and forth over my head, and while I cannot actually see their beaks gaping at a 90 degree angle scooping up those nasty mosquitoes, I willingly believe they are doing a good job.

Finding insects in the sky or on the ground around my place (and in my place) is not all that difficult for a bird to accomplish. However, there are times when the bugs are more plentiful and that would be at dusk. So, this is when the swallows come out, and they clean up. They get their dinner and they go home.

And what are we supposed to learn from this, especially on a site dedicated to all things customer related? As far as I am concerned, this is all about segmentation.

You see, the swallows don’t waste their time flapping their wings with their mouths agape at high noon when the mosquitoes are hiding from the sun. But, how many of your sales reps do the equivalent? How many times do they go visit friendly customers, those that are easy to get appointments with, rather than going where the bugs are more plentiful?

Segmentation is all about deciding which customers have the greatest amount of bugs to offer up and flying mainly there to catch them. It is a simple concept. The swallows get it – somehow they have figured out when the feeding is good. But they have done this without a whole bunch of customer analysis. It is a simple concept, but not necessarily easy to get right.

The trick is figuring out which prospects have the most opportunity and it can take some effort to get that analysis right. But the analytics portion of the equation is just one piece of the challenge. Even when sales folks know which prospects have the biggest set of bugs to catch on paper, they still have a tendency to hang out where things are most friendly.

Segmentation is one of the key factors that differentiates top sales functions from the rest of the pack. However, it takes more than just knowing where to fly, it also requires a discipline to assure that sales reps spend their time where the insects are most plentiful and not where it may be easier to fly.

Make sure your reps are going where the bugs are.

Posted by Matt Johnson at 08:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Do sales methodologies work? The answer probably depends on your definition of the term, “work”.

If you have a mature sales force who know their patches and know how to keep the deals flowing, introducing a sales methodology probably won’t work. Otherwise, maybe.

Just to make sure we are all thinking the same thing when we use the term sales methodology, we are referring to one of the many different frameworks for managing accounts and opportunities utilizing a structured set of stages and techniques for advancing accounts and closing deals in an effort to maximize revenue, margin, and satisfaction. These go by a lot of different names, but most are targeted toward helping a sales rep keep attention on the activities needed to advance deals and accounts to maximum benefit.

I ran across a sales study recently that provided some stats on the use of sales methodologies. One of the things that the study boasted was that 7 of 8 companies that utilized sales methodologies had better performance as a result. But, don’t get too excited by this claim. First, the study used self reporting surveys – we don’t know if in fact the use of the methodologies actually caused results to improve, but the survey respondents believed it to be true.

A second issue with the study results centers around the finding that only 1/3 of the respondents disclosed that they used a methodology. So, this means, doing the math correctly, that 2 of 3 were not using one to manage their sales processes. Problem is, we don’t know if those two had already tried using a system and it failed to produce results. Depending on how to best interpret the study findings, it may be that a majority of users do not find success. Perhaps a better methodology for managing research studies is the best conclusion from this one.

Let’s go back to the original question – do they work? My consultant instincts always require me to answer this kind of question with the best possible response, “it depends”.

It might be more useful to ask the question, under what circumstances would a sales methodology provide value, and potentially lead to better business performance? Recently one of my favorite clients told me that he thought his business needed to introduce Miller Heiman, a popular methodology in use by many companies. When I asked why, and who else in the company also believed it was needed, I did not get a substantial reply to the two part question.

So, this leads us to the first condition for success: there has to be an established need and a reasonable amount of consensus for something like this to work. Which leads naturally to the next question, what are the kinds of things going on that would resemble a need? Here are a few:
- the salesforce is junior and needs structure to keep focused on the right selling activity
- the deals are long and complex and require a mechanism for keeping track of progress
- the business does not forecast well and needs a tool for better identifying probabilities within the pipe
- your salesforce has gotten too bloated and you want to force some attrition

OK, I am only partially kidding on the last item. Introducing the kind of discipline that a sales methodology requires can be pretty irritating to vets who know or think they know how to manage their patch. So, you have to be in a situation where changing the rules is going to be OK, or the fallout is going to be OK.

Then there is that residual question from a statement above, who needs to be in consensus with the decision to introduce a sales methodology in order for it to work? That of course is a more complicated answer.

At a minimum, the top sales management team has to all be in agreement – the SVP of sales and her or his direct geography or business unit sales managers. Dissent won’t work at this level. More difficult is that regional manager level – the folks that actually manage the people who do the work. Do you need their consensus on this? Not even practical. Do you need their buy in? Absolutely, but it will take a lot of effort. If you go down this path, plan to do what it takes to get them on board.

So, sales methodologies can provide value to a sales force under the right conditions. Under the wrong conditions, such as needing a new topic for the annual sales meeting, it can be a huge money burning disaster. Choose wisely.

Posted by Matt Johnson at 03:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Should you treat your indirect channel as if they were your salesforce? Sounds like it should be pretty obvious, but is this a trick question?

Most of you out there have some form of indirect business model, partners or distributors who sell your products. On the other hand, some of you sell entirely through others who represent your products to your customers. They are your salesforce. But, should you treat them as if they were your own salesforce?

I think the answer is yes, and no.

If they were your own salesforce, would you help them sell as best as they can? From this perspective I believe the answer is yes. Help them sell just like you would your own people. First, incent them by paying for performance, but ask them to comply with the rules of engagement. This is a no-brainer. Second, provide them product knowledge and training. I would like to think this is a no-brainer, but I know of some companies who could do better with this for their resellers. Third, provide them leads so they know toward whom best to expend selling efforts. You would do this for your own sales reps.

You mean you don’t send leads to your distributors? They get leads from you but you don’t qualify them – but would you qualify leads for your own reps? These people are your salesforce, why not send them the best leads possible? Improved lead quality translates into improved sales – is that not your objective even though the sales reps work for somebody else?

Finally, would you provide your own sales reps with analysis on what is working and what is not working, who is buying what products and who is not, where potential exists and where it is already penetrated? Do you provide that to your resellers? If you did they would sell more. So, treat your indirect channel like you would your own people if you want them to sell more.

Yet, again, this question of how to treat your resellers is complicated. You might not want to treat them completely like your own. For example, do you treat your sales reps with equality? This one is a little thorny. We treat employees with equality by law and also in principle. We want to give them all the same chance to be successful and they are mostly subject to the same remuneration policy (by country at least). However, your resellers are not individuals – they are organizations, and they are very much not equal. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you need to treat them equally. Nice principle, bad outcome.

We give sales reps all the same product knowledge and training. You might choose to do this with your indirect channel, or you might not. It is possible that you might give your best training to your best partners, investing more in them than in others. Smaller, less capable partners may not pay back on the greater degree of investment.

Should you distribute leads in a fair and equitable manner? Absolutely not! Your highest producing resellers should get the best leads, as they have the best chance of converting them to sales. Do you give equal access to analytics to your different resellers? I wouldn’t. This should be distributed based on level of commitment – the highest get the most analysis.

What about compliance to the rules of engagement – should this be done with equality? The knee-jerk reaction is probably of course. Rather, I think this is an inverse relationship as compared to some of the other factors listed above. Rather than giving more compliance freedom to your best partners, make them play by more strict rules. For example, if they want to be in your top tier, receive the best margin and have the best access to leads and analysis, they also need to provide the best quality of information back: forecasting, lead quality feedback, pipeline information. The little guys may not be able to comply with this – especially if you are using CRM systems to capture the data. You do want your top producers, the 20% who make up the 80% of volume, to play by your rules. Why not? They are successful because of your products and your marketing and sales support efforts. They need to comply with the rules to subsidize that success.

Generally speaking, it is a good idea to segment your resellers based on capability and commitment. They may be able to work their way up the segmentation model, or they may be limited to a category that their abilities allow. Either way, these organizations are not equal and will work best for you if not treated with inappropriate equality. Companies that don’t have formal segmentation models tend to evolve informal systems that are less effective in their outcomes - best to acknowledge this and make the most of your segments.

May their salesforce be with you.

Posted by Matt Johnson at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As an observer at a recent sales training workshop I was horrified to witness an ugly sight, which then caused a flashback to a couple of decades in the past regarding an equally ugly experience. Way back then in a previous life at a previous company I was responsible for training North American sales professionals on selling consulting services. While participating in a global sales meeting, reviewing sales figures of consulting services, we uncovered that the East Asia sales team had 100% of their revenues coming from only a single service. This was unusual as most territories had sales distributed over a wide range of products.

So, I did a bit of investigating and discovered that this team had been trained in only one service – they were unable to sell anything else, although they had somehow managed to sell a reasonable number of engagements. Unfortunately very few of these engagements led to further sales or expansion of accounts. It turned out that it did not matter much what the customer needed at the time of the sale. They were determined to sell the service offering they had in their bag. When you are a hammer, everything looks pretty much like a nail.

Flash back to the present, a sales training workshop involving role plays with typical prospect encounters. Each of the scenarios is different and designed to get the workshop participants to match the appropriate service offering to the different situations. The problem is that more than three quarters of the trainees pushed the same service offering when they are all supposed to be unique to the role play case. Unfortunately, matching to the correct situation did not seem to be the priority. Apparently it was deju vu all over again – sell the offering you understand most .

I think there are two morals to the story. Obviously the first is to make sure your sales force is adequately trained on the different offerings in your portfolio. But there is another reason to be cautious here. When you are selecting a consulting firm to train your sales force be wary of the breadth of their offerings. I have found many sales effectiveness firms to be one trick ponies. The far majority of these firms have one approach and look for any company to sell it to. If you are looking for external help with your sales team, make sure the firm you pick has a range of capabilities, including diagnostic and assessment services. Otherwise you run the risk of getting pounded like a nail.

Posted by Matt Johnson at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Many times in the past on this site I have posted entries that have started out with words like, “I recently read an interesting article about…”, or something to that effect. But this is not one of those postings. In fact, it surprises me that I have not run into any written point of view on the topic of this posting.

And one other disclaimer – it is going to appear on the surface that this is all about the life sciences industry. But, if that is not where you reside, read on – this may still be relevant for you.

Salesforce automation has had some significant difficulty proving its value in the life sciences industry. I think the core of this issue lies in the disconnect between how these sales professionals sell and how SFA software is designed.

At the heart of SFA software is the pipeline, tracking opportunities as they transform one stage at a time from lead to close. The software, if it were to have a personality, really likes to behave this way – moving deals along a progression of activities until the ink is on the contract. Everything hinges on this, planning, forecasting, activity tracking, and coaching.

Unfortunately, this is not how most of the pros in the life sciences industry sell (as well as many other types of organizations that do not follow a deal progression model). If you sell acid blockers, stents, or dental amalgam, you don’t get a lead, work a deal, and close a sale. Rather, you educate, nurture, loan, demonstrate, coach, and reward a wide variety of healthcare professionals until a physician, dentist, clinic, or department becomes regular users or prescribers of your product. There is no deal; there is a relationship lifecycle. This is at the center of most of the business models within the life sciences industry, but it is not limited to that industry alone.

SFA is not built this way. It is built around deals. As a result the disconnect hampers the value of the software that can be derived by the field force. So, this begs the question, what can be done?

I think it is useful to start with sales operations. Recognize the disconnect and become very explicit about describing the progression of the relationship with the individual medical professional or the medical account (hospital, clinic, department). Build a relationship maturity model. I see typically four stages – trial, adoption, commitment, and advocacy. And, yes, these stages are product dependent. A physician can be at the commitment stage with one drug and at the trial stage for another.

Next, it is critical to configure your SFA tool to reflect these stages of the relationship and not the out of the box opportunity design. This works better for the sales folks conceptually, and allows them to utilize the software more practically – driving up adoption and value. One fly in the ointment is for those medical device companies that sell both ways. If you do have equipment in your product line, then you do have the enjoyment of selling more traditional deals. For these companies, your SFA has to satisfy both audiences.

It surprises me to what extent this disconnect between the way selling works and the way the software is designed prevails within the organizations with whom I meet. I think it is a relatively easy fix, but it needs to get some visibility. So, let’s start talking about it so we can do something about it.

Posted by Matt Johnson at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Did you ever notice that an awful lot of life sciences industry companies seem to have a sales force for each product or drug they offer? That has always seemed like an extravagance to me.

The way this works is that a company comes up with a new product and then sets up a division to manage it. Each division has an R&D group and product managers. They set up a team to market the product and then there is a natural extension to set up a salesforce to push it to the medical community.

The more mature organizations eventually create a shared set of central services such as Finance, IT and HR. This seems to be acceptable to each division to share IT support, but each division seems quite bent on having control over who is doing the selling.

Ultimately this seems to come down to measurement and remuneration. The perceived risk or lack of trust may revolve around the belief that another division’s sales force is going to be more motivated to sell their own product rather than another’s. This gets veiled with things like skill concerns – nobody could have enough knowledge of how their product or drug works – so they have to do it themselves. I am not sure I buy this. If your salesforce can learn it, why can’t another salesforce learn it?

There are times when it does make sense to specialize, especially when each sales team needs to call on a radically different call point such as cardio-vascular surgeons versus endodontists. Otherwise, I question whether it does not make sense to consolidate the bag.

Does your company carry the cost and burden of 4 or 5 different sales teams, each specializing on a single product or product suite? Can you justify it? Could some of them be consolidated? If you were to combine those teams you might achieve one of a couple of really great outcomes. Think about how great it would be to have greater reach with a bigger team for the same price you already pay. On the other hand, think about how great it would be to combine those sales calls and reduce your cost of sale. Either way, think about it!

Posted by Matt Johnson at 07:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In previous postings on this site I have suggested that there are three primary areas where the Sales Operations function can provide the most value. First and most common is the financial reporting and analysis role followed by the sales program and policy compliance role. Often, sadly, the third area, the sales effectiveness role, is too far back in priority and can’t be funded or the existing resources filling the other areas do not have the competency.

When this is the situation I have seen some interesting things happen as a result. Naturally, one option is to do nothing and just pay attention to the numbers and make sure that programs are being followed correctly. This is certainly not as entertaining as those sales functions that buy trendy tools for aiding performance. Many of these attempts of achieving sales effectiveness through tools remind me of the role Renee Russo played opposite Kevin Costner in the movie Tin Cup where she desperately attempted to use golf aids to improve her game. Most of the sales performance tools I have run across are similar in value - best not to get caught up with those ads in the back of the airline magazines.

Trying out new sales methodologies is also popular. These 5 or 7 step programs can be useful under some circumstances, but require much follow through and attention from non-existent resources. Passing out a sales methodology book at a sales meeting typically does not go too far.

There is another option. But when I suggest it you are going to laugh. The last time you heard the phrase, “Hi, I’m from HR and I am here to help” you ran the other way as fast as possible. You might want to reconsider, especially if you don’t have the fire power to work sales effectiveness initiatives out of your own Sales Ops group. You may have a hidden gem just down the hallway.

My experience is that there just may be some folks tucked away in HR that can be useful to you. I know what you are thinking - that this is madness – but there are folks with skills that can supplement what you wish you could offer to your folks in the field. From what I have seen achieved, there may be a number of possibilities for you.

First, most HR resources are schooled in performance management methods and techniques. If you need support focusing on sales rep performance, this could be a great fit. Similarly, HR folks can be exceptionally good at helping coach sales managers through difficult performance management situations. This is a great service for you to receive rather than attempting to provide all this coaching yourself.

Posted by Matt Johnson at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Can you make CRM work for a salesforce on a handheld if you were never able to get them to use CRM in the past? Is a PDA the one factor that will drive adoption when all else failed before? I think this is a pretty interesting question. A few years ago, I would have said that believing that this technological silver bullet will succeed was a mistake. Today I have several clients betting their CRM budget on this one tiny device, and I am going along with it. Am I crazy?

I think there are a couple of key reasons to believe this will work. Today, CRM platform vendors, and their partners have made it possible for functionality like SFA to actually function with your two thumbs doing the work. On top of that, the adoption of the PDA as primary communication device is gaining ground. I have clients who have ostensibly stopped traveling with laptops. If tools will work on a Blackberry that make it easier to capture and share customer information than the effort to type an e-mail, they will get used.

It is going to be an interesting experiment. I’ll keep you posted.

Posted by Matt Johnson at 01:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The other day I was having breakfast with my kids at a local diner where we were entertaining ourselves with all the photos scattered about the walls serving as a pictographic history lesson of that diner and especially that corner of our little neck of the woods. One picture that featured a phone booth located in the parking lot between the diner and the highway really struck me that morning. My two teenagers have never been in a phone booth or had the need to use one. They had a chance to see hordes during a trip to London where they still exist plentifully, but I think purely as ornaments for the tourists. My kids are so wired with their mobile phones and wi-fi that the concept of a phone booth is just on the edge of surreal. It is a great manifestation of the differences between our current millennium and the one just completed 7.5 short years ago.

I recently ran across another similar juxtaposition in the March issue of CRM magazine (yes, loyal reader it is the second time I have cited that specific issue of the trade rag recently). You will find there a few top ten lists which, when comparing the marketing and sales content, become fairly interesting. What I find particularly interesting is that the advice given in the marketing list is taken straight from advanced thinking of marketing experts right now. It is extremely current – social networking and the whole nine yards.

On the other hand, take a look at the top ten list for sales. If we were to get in the locker room at IBM when they were coaching sales people how to get more results during the great depression, we might have heard the same advice. This is vintage stuff. If it were scotch it would be really expensive.

So what is up with that whack? Are you telling me that there is no new advice for sales folks? I’m not buying it.

One thing for certain is different today. All the extremely sophisticated stuff that marketing is doing on the web is for sales benefit. Leads are coming faster and better as a result of the web 2.0 revolution. Lead fresh dates are much shorter as a result. A lead that may have been fresh for a month a few years ago is probably measured in hours now. If nothing else, sales folks need to have a mechanism to act fast. If they don’t the lead goes stale and they blame marketing for poor qualification. Everybody loses, except the competition.

Anything else new? You betcha. How about buyer intelligence? You don’t stand a chance today if you are not better prepared than your buyer. They know amazing stuff about you and your product when you do finally show up. They also just read a blog written by one of your unhappy customers. This is serious bananas. We can’t sell like we did in 1937. They might know more about your competitor than you do if you don’t prepare well.

We need a new top ten list for sales. Any takers?

Posted by Matt Johnson at 05:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How would you classify your Sales Operations group?
- Accountants
- Police
- Personal Trainers

I tend to see the sales ops group as a bellwether for how a prospective client wants to build their CRM or SFA program. Some prefer to use their investment to have better reporting on how the sales reps are doing against targets. Some others prefer to use their investment to monitor activity to ensure the right sales activities are taking place with accounts. And yet some others use their investment to find ways to improve sales rep performance. Is one better than another?

That is a loaded question.

It would be easy to propose that the personal trainer role is the better of the three, if for no other reason because it sounds more politically correct. But, I am not going to succumb to that trap. Sales performance is really important, but the other two have merit as well.

What I do think is the more critical consideration is whether you are limited to one of these roles in your sales ops group or whether it includes all three. I do strongly believe that all three are better than only one. Yes, but, what is the relationship between sales ops and SFA?

I recently heard Joe Galvin from SIRIUSDecisions use the term, “Salesforce Accounting”. In this case he was referring to the co-opting of the SFA system purely for the purpose of forecasting and measuring sales results. My experience is that when a sales ops group focuses on the accounting role, then SFA is designed as a tool to achieve their purpose. Taking this one step further, I think there are companies who also build “Salesforce Altercation” systems. This type of SFA serves as a tool to allow the sales ops group to play the police role to ensure that reps are conducting sales calls according to plan.

When the SFA or CRM system are designed for only these purposes, I believe it leads to “Salesforce Alienation”, causing the all too popular adoption problems that is far more common in the marketplace than we should tolerate. Then of course there are those companies who build “Salesforce Alignment” systems, which fit with the personal trainer role of sales ops groups.

So why don’t we all aspire to the salesforce alignment version of SFA? It sure appears by its name to be the right approach? It is a good approach. Helping drive sales rep performance is essential, but we also want to use SFA for purposes of financial management and to drive best practices. We should not be satisfied with only one. We should expect all three. We should expect all three from our SFA systems and our sales operations teams. We have room for accountants, police and personal trainers on the team, even if they all wrap up into that single person you have serving as your sales ops function.

Posted by Matt Johnson at 07:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over the last few weeks there has been an amazing amount of stuff written about a recently released study about sales teams making their numbers. According to the statistics a huge percentage of folks did not make it to the annual award meeting The fact that the majority of reps did not make their numbers is not what I find surprising. After all, we do set the targets as a stretch

What I do find more revealing is that there are some pretty significant differences in perception about what is working and what is not working in the field. For example, there was a pretty big disparity regarding the perception of the efficacy of sales processes between reps and managers.

So, the majority of our sales professionals do not achieve their sales targets and they feel that there are problems with the sales process. Meanwhile the majority of managers are unhappy with the achievement of sales targets, but they think that sales processes are fine. Which is the correlation that we should be attending to?

Generally speaking, I feel that many of my sales management clients are not aware of some of the sales process issues that get in the way of prductive selling. I'll often enquire about the existance of sales stages or a pipeline methodology and will often be told that a standard process exists and is embedded within the SFA tool. However, when I as this question out in the field I will be told that there are some partially defined steps that don't necessarily fit all groups and are not always followed and why am I asking?

My guess is more sales folks would make their numbers if more effort were placed on getting the sales processes addressed. This implies both the processes that are specific to the individual sales rep and those processes the integrate that rep to marketing, telesales, order management, and services.

When the pocesses are messy, it is harder to be successful.

Posted by Matt Johnson at 03:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Back in the good old days, I had the pleasure of starting off my career at IBM. They still made typewriters at that point. I had to walk 20 miles up hill both ways through raging blizzards to get to work, but that is another story. Back then the use of enterprise software applications was also first getting off the ground.

PROFS was the name of IBM’s version of Office. It had everything in 1981 that we expect today, but few people on the planet got to use it except for IBM employees. It was deployed across the company with great expectations of improving productivity and efficiency. Mail was sent between offices instantly. Calendars were shared electronically. It even included instant messaging across a network that would eventually become absorbed into the world wide web. (Al Gore was no where to be seen.)

There was only one problem. This software that was rolled out especially to help enable expensive managers to become more productive was only assisting their secretaries to become more productive. The managers would ask the secretaries to print out their e-mail and sort it for them. They would read it like their regular mail, waiting in a pile on their desk when they arrived in the morning. They would write notes on each page for the secretary to send a reply. This is not what the execs had in mind when they invested in the development and roll out of this leading edge killer app.

What happened next is something I talk about to this day, although it seems a bit surreal to me now. The company attempted to get rid of the role of secretary. Naturally the smarter mangers quickly learned from HR that there was a job title called Administrative Assistant. The migration of individuals between jobs was unprecedented and has never been repeated in such volumes since.

A quarter of a century later I ran into this again with a new client. This company had an interesting home grown contact management system, and another home grown system for order management, more or less. The deal makers in the field would visit a client then send everything back to their administrative assistant (where did that job title come from?) to enter into the different systems. It is kind of like CRM. It is kind of like automation. Let’s call it Admination.

These are good people. Don’t get me wrong. And they have hearts of gold and now plan to switch over to an honest CRM package. Recently we got into a conversation about who we might target as the super users. You will never guess who. 1981 flashed before my eyes.

Actually, this is not as extreme as I might be making it sound. I bet 90% of my clients have a significant percentage of the senior leadership who does not log into their CRM system. When they need a report it is produced by the sales ops specialist (some titles have changed). I’m not sure this is what was expected in the ROI studies prior to the software investment. At least they read their e-mail on their Blackberries today.

Posted by Matt Johnson at 03:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Which is the best beer from the following list?
• Corona
• Pilsner Urquell
• Sam Adams
• Guinness
• Molson Ice
• Duvel
The correct answer - any one of them. Or, rather, in consultant speak, “it depends”.

OK, what is going on here?

There are many CRM packages out there and they span quite a wide variety of abilities. Selecting the right package depends on the needs of the business and some packages will have a better fit with a business than others. On the other hand, it is also likely that more than one package will fit a business’ needs and it may be that it comes down to taste or preference in selecting from the short list. Yes, but beer?

Some packages are going to be a better fit, such as those individuals who are better suited to refreshing beers like Corona. Some fit better with toothier beers such as Sam Adams. However, if a strong beer is your best fit, is Duvel the only option? No, we might consider Ommegang or Optimator. Is one of those the best? Not really, but we might prefer one over the others. I certainly prefer having the opportunity to choose.

Now back to CRM packages. I think it is a fairly easy exercise to determine what class of package is required for a client. Get clear on the business direction, and dive in to the requirements needed to achieve that direction. Compare those requirements to software functionality and determining the short list is a piece of cake. But choosing between options on the short list is not such an easy selection. On the surface this sounds wrong because choosing among the finalists should be just as straight forward as checking off the criteria. Either the package has it or it does not.

Slow down, the problem is twofold. First, most software alternatives on the short list are going to be so closely matched that any will do just fine. The second and bigger problem comes in because of the emotional element of package selection. Business stakeholders want the package that they think is the best fit for them, and they don’t want just a rational selection process to determine it for them. It would be like having a computer select your beer for you – you want to taste them first.

What I have learned is that getting your business stakeholders to make the decision is the real key to success. Use their judgment after having the chance to look at and touch the software. My best illustration of this comes from working with scores of companies who want to throw out perfectly fine packages because they don’t believe that they work correctly. A significant portion of software that is abandoned is due to a belief that the package was forced upon them. When the business stakeholders don’t feel ownership, they will find fault more quickly.

The far majority of CRM implementations run into difficulty at some point – most commonly not due to a package that is a poor fit. When the business feels it did not want the software in the first place, it is more likely to give up on the package and choose to start again. Don’t fall into this trap. Let them own the decision from the start. It may take a little extra effort, but having the business choose their package is the best insurance for success.

I’ll have that Anchor Steam now.

Posted by Matt Johnson at 07:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My clients are good people. As a result, I think I have one of the better jobs on the planet. Even better than the Life Guard and Ski Instructor positions I served in during a previous career. But, recently I ran across a client that I must admit is also quite smart. Pretty much all of my clients use some form of salesforce automation software, and most of them have had their share of difficulty making it work for them. This really smart client of mine was no exception. But they persevered and got it to work the way they expected. And then they went one step further.

I suspect that most companies that utilize an SFA system try to track their deals using some form of pipeline method. If for no other reason this aids the business with producing a forecast. In my opinion there are two primary reasons for building a forecast. A big reason is that it enables you to tell your stakeholders how you are doing and what to expect at the end of the period. But, a second, and more important reason, is that it enables you to take action in the event that you determine your forecast is off from your expectations.

It is the action that matters. Many of the companies I have witnessed have a tendency to run around like a chicken with its head cut off when the forecast is below expectations. This is not necessarily the action I would encourage. Rather, this smart client of mine has built an early warning system, which enables them to take useful action when there is a gap. Pinpointing the action is the key – being concise like a rifle shot, not a big scattered shot gun blast that you hope just hits something, anything.

So, what this smart client of mine has done is to go a step beyond just getting good at predicting how sales are going to end up, but also correlating sales results to activities associated with the pipeline stages. What they have been capturing for a couple of years is information regarding what type of sales call activity is happening at each stage of the pipeline, and correlating that activity to the likelihood of deal advancement through the pipeline. For example, they can see if there are enough second time prospect visits to advance the deal to proposal, and they can see if there are enough proposals delivered to reach the number of closed deals required for quota.

And, most importantly, they can see this all unfolding long before the end of the quarter. It is truly an early warning system. If a territory is behind on the number of second calls, this is going to end up with a lower number of deals later in the pipe. To prevent that from happening, a push for more calls can be made – putting priority there over other meetings that won’t produce the required results. This is a rifle shot – it will lead to the needed results.

I hear a lot of reps complain that they have to capture sales activity. Worse is the laborious weekly activity report. This sacred report is more like an empty shot gun – it gathers a whole bunch of information that nobody has time to review anyway, and the data is not easy to analyze even if there were time. However, capturing activity in the SFA system and connecting that activity with sales results allows for system generated reports to serve as that rifle, fully loaded.

Let the technology work for you, but put the right information in. If you do, you will be able to see in advance when the numbers are not coming in correctly, and know exactly what action to take. No need to run for the shelter

Posted by Matt Johnson at 02:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the common questions I hear from my clients and prospective clients goes something like this, “what the heck do we have to do to get the dang salesforce to use that frigging expensive Salesforce Automation system we gave them?” Some of the words change a bit from that version, but the question is popular, and I seem to be hearing it a lot lately, so it is time to put something down in writing.

There are a lot of lists out there and they seem to be multiplying like rabbits on Viagra, but I feel compelled to create a list of factors that contribute to sales people becoming more likely to adopt the software they have been given to perform their jobs better. And, honestly, I did not set out to come up with seven items on the list, but it seems that these kinds of lists have 7 or 10 items, which probably is influenced by whether you watch Letterman or Leno.

But seriously folks, the content within the list below can make the difference between a CRM program that thrives or fails. One further observation about the items on the list is that they range from organizational, through individual, and onto highly technical factors, which is somewhat of an indication of the broad spectrum of effort required to get this stuff right.

So, here goes – The 7 Key SFA Adoption Factors:

1. Management Sponsorship – We start right off with a tough one. Many will argue with this, but a significant amount of research has demonstrated that the biggest influence over an employee’s attitude is his or her boss. If your direct supervisor does not care whether you use a system at work, and you don’t have a good reason to use it, you won’t. If you are a Regional Sales Manager and your SVP of sales does not push you to have your team utilize a system they complain about, you won’t push. That is how this works. Unless all of sales management is visibly supportive of the system, utilization will be in the toilet. Game over.

2. Business Requirement – Very much related to the item above is the need for business requirements to be met by the SFA system. Do you have to create a pipeline report every Friday afternoon so the sales function can submit a weekly forecast to finance in order to satisfy Wall Street requirements? That is a great example of how the use of an SFA system meets a business requirement and drives individuals to high adoption. When you have to use a piece of software in order to perform your job, you tend to use it more often than not. And if your boss checks to see if you have performed the task, such as consolidating weekly pipeline reports into a forecast, your compliance tends to be high. When there are no compelling business requirements, adoption is optional.

3. Individual Benefit – One of the top mistakes made by organizations when deploying SFA systems to their sales teams is to only satisfy business requirements with the software with no concern to the individual using the software. This issue is in somewhat of a conflict with the factor above. You can read about this issue in multiple entries on this site, but suffice it to state here that if the individual sales rep does not perceive a benefit from the SFA system, they will find ways to avoid using it. At a minimum they will find ways to put in the least amount of effort possible, thereby meeting the business requirements, but not gaining full advantage of the benefits of the software for themselves or the company.

4. User Maturity – This factor is a bit complicated because it involves both the individual and the work culture that influences his or her behavior. Maturity does not refer to whether the sales person still has acne or has moved into the white hair stage. Rather this factor involves the ability for the user to utilize technology either from the perspective of actual competence or attitude toward using technology to perform a work task. Some sales people have deep experience using computers and sales systems from previous jobs. Some sales people have been selling for 20 years and have never opened a laptop. The former are going to have a greater likelihood of adoption versus the later. Another way of thinking about this factor is “inclination toward technology”.

5. Data Reliability – One way to really kill an SFA program is to load the system full of bad data, or allow data entry practices that cause customer information to be incorrect, incomplete, redundant, or in general untrustworthy. If sales people don’t trust what is in the system, they won’t put much effort into either entering more information or using the information that is there. The interesting phenomenon with this topic is that the software meant to make collecting customer data better is the cause for the bad data proliferation – primarily because the software does not know the difference between good and bad. This is becoming so big of an issue that an entire industry is forming to resolve it.

6. Functional Usability – Back in the late 90’s when we were all talking about the Y2K bug one of the bigger problems with SFA was clunky software. User interfaces were not great, functionality was still limited, and navigation required a sextant and bright stars. Today the software is light years better, but this problem still persists. One thing that can go wrong is giving too much functionality or trying to satisfy too many stakeholders with one package. Complexity has become the issue rather than clunkiness. When sales people have to perform a task with a computer that takes longer than doing it manually, they will find ways to work around the system. They are devious, and they are creative, but they are not stupid – software that makes the job harder or take longer to perform will be avoided as much as possible.

7. System Performance – Thin pipes, clogged servers, inappropriate queries, poor data architecture – you name it, there are a fairly sizable number of reasons that drive system performance to be unacceptable. When people see hourglasses on their screens they quickly look for ways to do their job without the computer. If you want adoption to be high, you cannot allow for delays between clicks. This issue is especially critical for the sales team, either road warriors who suffer due to poor connections at hotels or for the telesales team who cannot tolerate delays with a prospect on the phone. These folks have to have top system performance or they will find a way to work around the system.

Posted by Matt Johnson at 02:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, let me state from the start that this is not going to have any reference to Coors Light, Super Bowl advertising, or the Swedish Bikini team. So, if you ended up here after conducting a search for those topics I am sorry to disappoint you.

Over the summer the Harvard Business Review published some research conducted by the Forum Corporation that I found pretty interesting. Both of these organizations are highly trustworthy, which makes the findings all that much more impactful. This is not always the case with research published by some companies that conveniently includes some angle that supports the marketing and sales of their products.

One of the studies polled business representatives on their opinions regarding the sales professionals from their vendors. The results are not all that flattering and include a list of the biggest complaints regarding these sales professionals. The top issues are listed below:
- 26% don’t follow my company’s buying process
- 18% don’t listen to my needs
- 17% Don’t follow up
- 12% Are pushy, aggressive, disrespectful

Well, these are not results to be proud of, and this is not to say that there are not really good sales folks out there. But, when we choose to ask, what the factors are that cause dissatisfaction or for deals to fail, we now have a better understanding of what goes wrong.

Combine this with the results of a second study published in the same issue that examines salesforce performance from the perspective of internal executives’ point of view, and things get more interesting. When senior executives were asked what factors out of a list of 16 were most influential in contributing to sales effectiveness, no factor or even category of factors were prominent. The conclusion from the study’s authors was simply that many things go into making a salesforce successful.

My conclusion is the following – there is no silver bullet, and it is definitely not technology. Many factors must be in place for a sales team to perform well. These include a wide variety of dimensions including sales management competence, adequate processes, sufficient remuneration, positive organizational climate, and the right sales tools (which includes salesforce automation software). While it can help with better follow up, no software is going to help a sales rep follow the customer’s buying process better (most likely it will do the opposite) and it certainly won’t make the sales rep less pushy or a better listener.

Posted by Matt Johnson at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I find the following fact really thought provoking – the chances of you dying from mad cow disease are staggeringly smaller than from dying of heart disease caused by ingesting the cholesterol lurking in the meat of healthy cows. But think about it, how many people worried about the recent mad cow outbreak versus how many worry about consuming the regular intake of burgers and ribs? As a culture we have a propensity to worry about the wrong things.

Check out the December 4 issue of Time Magazine, which offers a great exploration of this phenomenon of misguided concern that pushes us down the wrong avenues of worry. After that, consider all the wrong things you worry about at work. There are a few of other interesting observations in this issue of this news magazine that I think are very relevant to those who worry about sales.

For example, consider the following: the average person is over ten times more likely to die from falling out of bed than to die from a lightening strike. But what does the average person believe is more dangerous? We will take all kinds of precautions and experience all kinds of fears regarding lightening, but never give a thought to the vertical dangers between the bedspread and the floor tiles.

You might find that people who manage sales organizations fall into this worry trap, spending too much time focused on the lightening, but killed by that drop out of bed. Most of the time the lightening is something like sales tools or sales technology and that last slip off the covers onto the hard floor is something like ignoring the mundane changes required to improve sales process and policy. Technology gets all the attention while bad process quietly kills you.

Another observation from these authors at Time is the illusion of control, a similar dynamic as the wrong worry. The common example is the belief that driving an automobile is safer than flying in a commercial airplane because you are in control of the wheel rather than a pilot who may have been out to late at the hotel bar the night before. We all know the statistics do not support this misguided perception, but the illusion of control remains prevalent. Driving deaths escalated dramatically after 9/11 as plane seats went empty. This phenomenon is also something that manifests itself in the world of sales management.

Many of my clients measure sales resuults to know how they are doing against goals. Once a week everyone scrambles to provide figures on what has been booked in an effort to know if the monthly and quarterly targets will be achieved. But, I think that it is very much worth asking the question if this is one of those situations of illusion of control. Please don’t get me wrong on this. You have to do forecasting.

But, are we measuring the right things? It is useful to know if we are going to make our numbers, and necessary for public companies to disclose progress against forecast. However, it is more effective with regard to actual control if we measure what is being done to achieve the forecast. I am a proponent of measuring sales activity. Now, I know what you are thinking – you have tried this before and it was a miserable failure. It takes the right tools, processes, and incentives to do this well, but in the end it will help provide more honest to goodness control. More will be offered up in future entries on activity based sales management. For now, let’s end with a very old joke related to the topic of proper measurement – searching for the keys to success.

A bar patron is searching along the curb when a second bar patron comes outside and asks what the first is looking for. The slurred reply indicates that a set of car keys have been lost. Trying to be encouraging and helpful the second bar patron asks if the victim is certain that this is where the keys were lost. The reply goes something like this, “No, I am pretty sure I lost them on the other side of the street by my car, but the light is better over here.”

Posted by Matt Johnson at 04:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I recently learned that a close colleague of mine has a particular aversion to primates. This all came out during a business trip within a conversation that innocently referenced a consumer product including “monkey” in the brand name. Out of nowhere came a story about a childhood trauma that has left this individual squeamish just at the thought of a harmless chimp. This is something that is a bit hard for me to relate to, as I happen to very much like our simian ancestors and feel fairly akin to the bonobos, probably due to their unique social inclinations. But, I digress.

Well, I raise this story because I find a fascinating similarity to a dynamic that I see quite regularly with my clients when it comes to Sales Force Automation initiatives. This is not to imply that sales reps are afraid of orangutans, but many do suffer from a similar negative experience as my colleague’s childhood trauma. These earlier negative experiences have not occurred during childhood, but rather, from a previously botched FSA implementation. These bad experiences leave scar tissue that get in the way of ever objectively participating in FSA implementations productively again. Certain FSA software applications seem to be associated more than others with these scars, but I’m not naming names.

What typically happens is the Sales Function decides to implement a new system – SFA or CRM, and announces the impending changes to the sales force. Individual reps are provided training during roll-out but conduct passive mutinies during or after the training by simply failing to conform to the requirements. This can take the form of strong negativity toward the new package because they know it will fail due to previous experience, or it can take more extreme forms such as blatant disregard for key data entry such as sales activity or full contact information. Ultimately, this resistance, due to bad exposure in a previous life, is counterproductive for the sales rep. It causes a loss of productivity and possibly undesirable discipline from the company. And, it is all due to perception rather than reality.

It is a mistake to let this happen, but saying that is easier than preventing it. However, it is a safe bet that new system deployments will encounter a percentage of the sales force with this attitude and it has to be factored into the planning. Here are a few suggestions, but there are lots of things that can be done. Check out some other postings on this site for additional examples regarding change management and user adoption.

First, involvement is the place to start. Bad feelings toward software due to a previous experience are developed in exactly the same way as a phobia. The best way to overcome that is with immersion – let the sales folks into the process by getting their input; give them a chance to do lots of user testing, and by all means, act on their feedback; plus make sure they get very good and ample training.

Second, and I cannot emphasize this one enough, make sure that the average sales Joe and Jane get a benefit from using the software. If you design your SFA only for sales management you are doomed. Typically the best benefits that sales folks can experience are a combination of admin efficiency and preventing leads from falling through the cracks. When the system is perceived as requiring more effort than benefit (benefit back to the sales rep) then the monkey phobia will continue.

Finally, the best advice I can give is not to force it. The Cow Tipping story, which you can read in a previous entry, is what I am talking about. Do what it takes to get people on board, but don’t leave dead bodies in your wake. I cannot tell you how many clients have told me that I don’t need to worry about acceptance because the users won’t have a choice. Let me tell you right here and now, that is a naïve belief. No matter how much you make something mandatory, those creative sales folks will find ways of getting around it. And the better they sell, the more they will get away with monkey business.

Posted by Matt Johnson at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recently I met with a Sales Operations VP for one of my clients who was chartered with the task of purchasing a Sales Force Automation (SFA) solution for the sales organization in his company. As he described it to me, the problem was that the enterprise needed to improve the performance of their sales reps because of a “flattening of revenues”. The solution, in their mind, was a software system that would be good at effectively producing territory activity reports and weekly forecasts.

Now my guess is that there are two reactions to this initial description of the situation. The first reaction is most likely, “Hey, that sounds just like what I need for my sales function!” The second reaction, which is more closely linked to my initial reaction is, “Wow, that sounds more like a solution that is making it easy for sales management to produce reports, while putting the burden on the average sales rep.”

Now, I don’t want to offend anyone, but if you were leaning toward the first reaction, I think it would be helpful for you to read on a bit, because you may be about to fall into a trap. Putting in a software system to make reporting easy, under the guise of improving sales rep performance, is usually a recipe for disaster.

OK, so I admit that it is stupid, and cliché, and unoriginal, but the acronym WIFM is what comes to mind when I encounter these situations. You know what it means – what’s in it for me? If there were any laws governing the introduction of SFA software into an organization, the first law would be called WIFM. This is because it is nearly impossible to successfully implement an SFA solution into a sales organization without including a means by which the average sales rep gets a real, solid, honest-to-goodness benefit from using the system. End of story.

But I am going to explain anyway. I have referenced this before, but if you go look at the research by companies like Gartner, or any other analyst firm, you will find study after study that demonstrates that user adoption of SFA systems requires the buy-in of the user (sales person) and the buy-in is contingent upon the individual finding a benefit to the utilization of the software, for themselves – not for their boss or for the company. I have read study after study that lists this issue in the top 10 requirements for success, or the top 7 risk factors, or whatever. My experience with Sales Force Automation says it is The #1 variable to address if you want to be successful. If you want to implement SFA, make sure your sales people see a tangible benefit.

And, furthermore – I’m not done ranting yet – absolutely don’t spin this. Don’t give them a system that carefully satisfies management needs and then try to convince them, with hype and cajoling, that it is good for them too. These are smart people you have hired; please give them more credit than to believe you can put this over on them. They will figure it out and the result will be, according to the undeniable statistics, that they will completely underutilize the software, if use it at all. There goes the ROI out the window.

Posted by Matt Johnson at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It still does not cease to amaze me - again I just encountered yet another organization where the sales and marketing functions work together just like a family, a very, very dysfunctional family. You have all seen this. And, it should not be a big surprise since there are a number of organizational dynamics that tend to pop up from company to company, no matter what the industry - employees never seem to be satisfied with organizational communication, management never believes they have enough reports, service delivery people don’t like to get dirty with the process of selling, and marketing and sales professionals fight like adolescent siblings. I guess I need to accept this as a law of business.

Is this an, I’m-from-Venus-and-you’re-from-Mars-thing? Well, I have been known to make the proclamation that sales professionals come from a different gene pool than the rest of us mortals – but that is meant as a compliment. I don’t think this is an issue of different personality types not being simpatico. I think this is an issue of lead management.

When I have seen sales and marketing functions work together effectively (like grown up siblings that respect each other), there are a few factors in play that could serve as a recipe for others to follow. First, there are clear expectations between the two groups regarding what each will do. Most of the time the expectations go something like this: marketing is responsible for getting good leads to sales, and sales is responsible for using the leads to close deals - simple, but effective. A second factor at work is that the leads that marketing sends over to sales are expected to be good, qualified leads, and when a lead does not work out, sales is expected to provide feedback back to marketing as to why. One third factor that I think is also critical is that the right metrics are put in place to measure the lead management process. Measuring the wrong thing tends to cause the wrong behavior.

Marketing is getting better at generating leads. Automated campaign management tools make it much easier to push out offers and capture prospects. The revolution of web 2.0 is also making lead generation within broader audiences more cost effective by tracking web site activity as indication of prospective product and service interest. This is fantastic stuff, but it has a negative side – the proverbial second side of the sword where you cut yourself as you are swinging away at your opponent. This negative consequence is the generation of potentially too many leads. Marketing should not just generate leads, but rather, it should generate good leads. This pesky qualifier, good, is a big deal with regard to this poor relationship between these two functions. However, it is something that can be fixed.

The key to generating good leads is qualification. This topic deserves a lot more space than I am going to give it here, but you can check out this good CRM blog site where there is some healthy dialogue taking place to get more insight. My experience leads me to believe that qualification of initial leads is best done in the most cost effective means possible. This is often best accomplished through a telemarketing function that utilizes less expensive resources than the typical field sales force. However, more and more qualification is being accomplished through the web, utilizing content and messaging to direct prospects through self-selection prior to actual human contact. Check out Accelerating IT Sales for more on this topic.

Don’t think I am going to lay the whole rap at the feet of those hard working marketers. This is a two character drama, and those sales reps also play a role in the biz dev soap opera. The scene goes something like this: sales person receives lead from marketing, calls the contact who has no interest in the product, then throws out the lead, and exits stage left muttering how worthless marketing is, never to jump on a marketing-generated lead again. Have you seen this one? If lead management is going to work, bad leads need to be handled correctly. The most critical thing that can happen with a bad lead is for marketing to learn why, which requires feedback. The feedback will improve the targeting and increase the rate of good lead generation. But this does take cooperation with the field sales folks, plus a reasonable process for sending the lead back without too much effort.

Finally, one more element can play an important role in making this all work, which is the measurement of the lead management pipeline. Pipeline is an interesting metaphor, but there is also the concept of the funnel, and I think they can cause some confusion. Measurement is key, but the wrong metrics can cause the wrong behavior. Marketing should not be measured on lead volume (or least not on volume alone).

Yes, we need to get prospects into the marketing funnel, but they should not be designated as leads until they are qualified enough to get into the sales pipeline (hence the distinction between the two terms). Marketing should be measured on how well leads perform once they get into the pipeline with metrics such as lead conversion into proposals or lead conversion into closed deals. Yes, I know that marketing does not have control of the pipeline, but this is how you measure the effectiveness of a lead. If you want to put a measurement in place that marketing has more control over you can use a metric such as number of meetings scheduled (if telemarketing performs this task). By measuring the right metric you will increase the likelihood that what marketing does will serve the lead management process correctly, making them invaluable to their brothers and sisters in the sales organization.

The reverse is true as well - monitoring what sales reps do with leads is also critical. Using a CRM system or SFA tool for tracking leads in the pipeline is an easy way to measure sales rep activity and monitor how they are treating leads that don’t move through to close. Improving sales behavior in a way that sends better lead information back to marketing also causes marketers to better respect their sales siblings.

Ultimately, we are all from the same planet, not Uranus, and there is no reason for these two critical functions to get along so poorly. Focusing correctly on lead management is the means for better family relations.

Posted by Matt Johnson at 03:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)