Sales Management

The challenges of sales management include:

• Develop & Execute the Revenue Plan
• Forecast Sales accurately
• Manage the Sales Force (but continue selling)
• Hire, Motivate & Fire
• Control Cost of Selling
• Design and improve the Sales Process
• Monitor Rep Behavior
• Design Sales Compensation Plans
• Coach Best Practices
• Work with other department heads
• Negotiate Contracts
• Visit Prospects & Customers
• Influence the rest of the organization
• Report results to the Executive Team & the Board
• Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

Chuck DeVita developed an Integrated Sales Management Process model more than 15 years ago. It integrates the key elements of Sales Compensation, Sales Behavior, Measuring Customer Commitment, Forecast Accuracy and Continuous Improvement in an easy to understand way. He has utilized this to improve performance in his roles as a company officer as well as in numerous consulting projects with clients.

The design of Sales Compensation Plans is an interesting challenge, especially for growing smaller and mid-sized companies. The most important element, that is sometimes ignored by inexperienced sales comp plan designers, is the alignment of the plan with Corporate Goals. While the members of the executive team are usually in synch on the goals, they often have important differences on the priorities for sales behavior. Or, the number of sales behavior goals grows to the point that they do not motivate sales reps at all. Sales is usually the most expensive department and variable sales compensation is often about 50% of that expense. When the Sales Compensation Plan is not aligned well with Corporate Goals, the results are high cost of selling, entering markets through Sales Accidents, high customer support costs and unhappy customers. It is odd then, that so many companies do a poor job in this area. In addition, the plan needs to be easily understandable by the sales reps and enable the company to attract high performers. A key attribute of successful Sales Compensation Plans is that a majority of the reps achieve or exceed quota. When the percentage of reps achieving quota falls below sixty percent, the result is high turnover. In Enterprise solution selling, the time to get a new rep up to speed is more than 6 to 9 months. When sales turnover is high, the cost of selling zooms through the roof. Yet, CFOs and CEOs regularly want to raise quotas to the point where turnover becomes an issue. Growth Process Group has extensive experience designing Sales Compensation Plans. Let us know if we can help you.

Forecasting is another difficult challenge. In the typical forecast approach, each level of sales management makes subjective judgments as to the relative optimism or pessimism of their team members’ forecast. Accordingly, they adjust each territory forecast up or down. This bubbles up to the world wide forecast. Unfortunately, the resultant forecast does not represent reality. If the company is public, the stock price likely will suffer. If is venture-backed and there are several missed forecasts, top management changes will result. At Growth Process Group, we have developed proven methods for accurate forecasting. We measure whether and when deals will close according to customer commitment. We employ customized rule sets that remove subjectivism and result in dramatically improved forecast accuracy. We have the experience to improve your forecast accuracy. Contact Chuck DeVita, if you would like to learn more.

Sales Process: You have likely seen or developed a static sales cycle model that lists the sales objective and perhaps assumptions on close probability. The problem with this is that it describes seller activity and does not measure where the deal is according to buyer commitment level. When you measure deal status according to Buyer Commitment, you get much clearer visibility into your pipeline and improved forecast accuracy. You need to incorporate early qualification for good fit to prospect requirements. It is important to acknowledge that not all sales processes are the same. There are dependencies, delays and loops. An approach for expressing these issues is the sales process flow chart. The acceptable alternate paths for proceeding to a close are described. The conditions for stopping the sales process are also defined. Learning when and how to stop unlikely sales cycles is a key to increasing sales productivity.

Selling Methodologies have to be implemented so that there is a common vernacular and understanding of the sales process by the various entities that engage with prospects. We are often asked: “What is the right methodology for our company?” Any methodology, when consistently applied, can yield significant sales productivity benefits. The challenge is the consistent application. VPs of Sales are often unable or unwilling to be passionate missionaries for a new approach. This is primarily due to the focus on short term bookings. When the top executives are not committed to the new approach, sales reps quickly sense that and do not pay attention to it. For a discussion on improving your Sales Process, contact Chuck DeVita.

Lead generation and qualification according to your Target Markets and your Ideal Customer Criteria is very important. Many organizations require their field reps to generate their prospects. This is both costly and demoralizing to sales reps. There are several new technology approaches for generating new opportunities. Refer to Anneke Seley’s book “Sales 2.0”, for insight on these. We find that companies often do not adequately understand the number of suspects required to meet the sales goals. This results in high selling costs. We have developed quantitative models to define customized Pipeline Requirements for each client. To learn more, contact Chuck DeVita.

Sales Enablement and CRM: While companies have typically implemented some kind of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution, there is a growing awareness that CRM provides information to management, but does little to help the sales person sell more. Sales Enablement is a new concept that is focused on improving the productivity of individual sales people. Several SaaS companies are working on approaches. These are mostly point product/service offerings (sometimes described as “Sales 2.0) at this time, without sufficient emphasis on sales process and workflow.

Many first time sales managers have difficulty in their initial assignment. They are moving from an experience in which the “art of selling” is stressed to a role in which analytical skills, coaching and process-orientation are key to success. Successful Sales Management requires analytic skills not found in the typical overachieving sales rep. It requires leadership capabilities that have to be developed. They also have to learn how to mentor and coach their team members. Growth Process Group can help you grow your Sales Management team through a structured Sales Management Coaching program that takes advantage of the latest technology.

Growth Process Group offers a Sales Assessment service to identify the areas for Sales Management improvement. This often results in projects where we coach members of your Sales Management. All major areas affecting sales are examined, including Sales Management process & capabilities, value propositions, sales process, target market focus, sales organization structure, positioning, sales resource quality, marketing program effectiveness, new product introduction process, sales rep characteristics, team chemistry, customer support, infrastructure, etc. Contact Chuck DeVita for information on the Sales Assessment.

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