1. Invite your customers to learn alongside you. According to Inc.com, GE invited both its top customers in China and several local executives and managers to a seminar on leadership and innovation. As a result, GE was able to not only better understand those top customers and how they viewed topics that effect their buying habits, but they were also able to influence how their mindset on those topics.
2. Make sure you’re reading your customers correctly. According to the Bain and Co. and the Harvard Management Update, 80% of customers surveyed claimed their customer service was superior, but only 8% of their customers agreed. Make sure your sales reps are communicating properly and often with your customers to avoid a similar misstep. Are you communicating with your customers after each campaign to properly understand what they were happy with and what could be improved? If not, you should be. Furthermore, even if the campaign was hugely successful, you should be reviewing hard data with each client so you can improve even more on the next campaign.
3. Track customers’ orders through the entire cycle. The best way to discover breakdowns in your customer service or experience? Walk through the entire order cycle as if you’re a customer. Even though you likely can’t run through the entire process without your employees being cognizant of being tracked, you can still try role-playing exercises that simulate customer experiences so you can identify where things can be improved.
4. Offer innovation and be proactive. As a salesperson, you’re not just providing a service or product. You’re also providing expertise that your clients choose to get from you instead of from one of your competitors. Consequently, the onus is on you to suggest innovative ideas, whether it’s for new campaigns, product developments, mid-quarter assessments, etc. When the client needs to come to you for these things, it undermines the value you offer them.

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A recent Modern Survey study found that only 10 percent of employees in the United States are fully engaged at work. Yet, they or their teenage son or daughter can spend all evening and the early hours of the morning fully engaged in an online game. Teresa Amabile from Harvard in a study involving 12,000 daily diaries of knowledge workers found that the greatest contributor of engagement and motivation for knowledge workers was progress and the single greatest source of that progress was collaboration. Progress and collaboration are inherent in most game design and are vital in effective performance management.

Full post is HERE

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Better Sales Process = Better Sales Performance

A funny thing happens when we start talking to people about formalizing their sales processes. All of their energy and enthusiasm immediately disappears. It’s as if the term process possesses the curious ability to suck all of the joy out of a room full of otherwise happy salespeople. In fact, should you ever want to destroy the cheerful atmosphere at your annual holiday party, just stand in front of the room and list all of the new sales processes you’ll be implementing in the coming year. Joy vacuum, activated.

Fortunately, our friends at the sales performance bench-marking firm CSO Insights have some information that might help reinflate the room’s spirits. Their research reveals that those very processes could help you sell 23% more stuff next year. That’s right, sales process really is a good thing.

Each year CSO Insights surveys thousands of sales forces around the world and collects data on their sales force’s demographics, management practices, and sales reps’ performance. It then compiles that data to allow its customers to benchmark their own performance against peer organizations in areas such as quota attainment, compensation strategies, CRM usage, sales methodology, and a variety of other meaningful topics.

Among its areas of inquiry, CSO Insights asks its respondents to rate their company’s degree of sales process implementation among four levels of sophistication:

1. Ad hoc process: The company lacks a single standard process, and each rep sells as he thinks best.
2. Informal process: The company gives its salespeople a sales process and expects them to follow it, but usage is neither monitored nor measured.
3. Formal process: The company enforces the use of a defined sales process and periodically reviews the process to ensure its effectiveness.
4. Dynamic process: The company monitors and provides continuous feedback on sales reps’ usage of the process and proactively modifies the process when market conditions change.

As you might expect, a minority of companies have deployed rigorous sales processes, with almost 60% of the respondents claiming that their processes are either ad hoc or informal (see Figure 5.17). We believe these low levels of rigor are insufficient to exert substantial influence over sales performance, which means that 60% of these sales managers are missing fundamental management tools. Even more distressing, this number has decreased by only 2.5% over the past five years. The sales process revolution has apparently been accelerating at a pretty slow pace.

A more encouraging story was told when CSO Insights examined the payoff for the enlightened 40% that had implemented formal or dynamic sales processes. When these levels of sales process implementation were correlated with each company’s actual performance, CSO Insights discovered the following:
Companies with more developed sales processes enjoy greater sales performance.

In fact, sales forces in the 2011 study with “dynamic” processes won 53% of their forecasted deals compared to 43% in their peers with “ad hoc” processes (see Figure 5.18). All other things being equal, that means that rigorous sales process management yielded 23% more output from a sales force.5 Now that’s a reason to celebrate.

Similarly, 65% of sales reps in companies with more rigorous processes achieved their quota, compared to 56% in the more lackadaisical sales forces. And 88% of the dynamic-process companies reached their company’s overall sales goal, compared to 78% in the ad hoc group. Viewed from nearly every possible angle, CSO Insight’s research consistently confirms that better sales processes equal better sales performance.

So while a new sales process may not be at the top of every sales force’s wish list, there’s no disputing the fact that performance improves when the right sales processes are properly implemented. And improved sales performance probably is on those wish lists.

Jordan, Jason (2011-09-21). Cracking the Sales Management Code: The Secrets to Measuring and Managing Sales Performance (Kindle Locations 2552-2577). McGraw-Hill. Kindle Edition.

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A nice study that typifies the delusions so many of us work under was conducted by Development Dimensions International.  They were looking in particular at innovation, and in particular how innovative we believe our behaviours are.

They asked approximately 1,000 professionals about innovation in their workplace, and in particular their own experiences of the innovative cultures where they worked.  Half of those in the study were managers, whilst the other half were not.  Would the opinions of the managers match up with those of their team?

You won’t be surprised to learn that the answer is a firm no, but what may surprise you is just how far the disconnect was.  For instance, when asked whether their leader demonstrated unwavering openness and appreciation for unique ideas and opinions, just 43% of employees agreed.  A whopping 78% of managers thought they demonstrated these traits though.

The trend continues.

When asked whether employees are encouraged by their managers to expand their understanding of business trends and emerging issues, just 51% of employees agreed vs 77% of managers.

A similar lack of awareness was evident when looking at how mistakes are dealt with.  Just 47% of employees thought managers helped them learn from mistakes, vs 77% of managers.

Likewise, just 42% of employee thought their managers took the ideas they produced and championed them to senior management, which was a stark contrast to the 75% of managers who believed they did this very well.

The report went on to share what they believe the managers key role should be in the innovation process.  They break it down into four pieces.

1. They inspire curiosity
2. They challenge current perspectives
3. They create freedom
4. They drive discipline

Sadly, despite most managers believing they did all of those things, most of their team didn’t.  On the off chance that you’re one of those managers that has a slightly tighter grasp on reality and would like to improve your own performance when it comes to innovation, the report concludes with four steps you can take right away to get things moving.

1. Senior Management Sets the Pace
2. Choose the Right Leaders
3. Develop Innovation Leaders
4. Build a Business Process for Innovation.

Find the full report here, and an executive summary of it here.

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Praise is a powerful motivator for employees. When that praise is coupled with a prize, employees’ performance is driven even further. SHRM/Globoforce survey findings include:

• 83 percent say employees are further motivated by recognition that includes a reward than recognition with no associated reward (i.e. “free” recognition).
• 94 percent of respondents say positive feedback has a greater impact on performance (versus just six percent who say negative feedback is the better motivator)

Full post is HERE

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In this 60-minute high impact session, Keith shared his powerful insights and recommendations for how sales managers can dramatically improve the performance of their sales reps through effective coaching.

And as always, our viewers had some excellent questions to ask of Keith, not all of which we could get to. So, we’re pleased to answer a round of them here! Read on to get the answers to your top five questions about the coaching your salespeople to sales champions.

Can I coach my team without my manager’s support? In other words, can I be the only sales team on my boss’s team of sales units and be successful?

Undeniably, the answer is YES!!! Regardless of the country or the number of times I’ve delivered my management coach training, I know there are certain inevitable questions that managers will ask. The first question I always hear by the second day of this training is, “Keith, is my boss taking this course? They REALLY need to take this course!”

The second question I hear is, “Keith, I fully believe in coaching and will certainly commit to becoming a better coach. However, what about the overall result driven culture of this company and more specifically, what about my boss? He doesn’t do any coaching, so how can I then coach my people if all I hear from him are questions that he drills me with daily about my commitments, numbers, quota and goals?”

To your question, yes, you can be the only team creating the culture that you feel is most productive, healthy and enjoyable for everyone, even if it may currently conflict with elements of your existing culture. And I can assure you that it will be only a matter of time until people start paying attention because you’re doing better than the other teams. Of course, I’d suggest still speaking with your boss and coaching up, so they know your intentions are still aligned with corporate objectives.

That’s how you change a culture and leave a legacy you can be proud of. Always remember who has the power to create the culture on your team. You. And it’s also your responsibility to insulate your people from the pressure you’re feeling from the top. Otherwise, you’re just doing to your people what you hate done to you by your boss. Ultimately, the culture is you.

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