Your CRM : An Installation or An Implementation?

CRMImplementationPlanA well-worn topic came up in a conversation last week with a Vice President of Sales. Prior to his arrival at the company, the Sales VP from another division had selected a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to be rolled out to all team members in customer facing roles (CFR). This comes up often—technology is adopted to help streamline processes and improve opportunity development; however, more often than not, there is an installation of technology rather than an implementation and wide-scale product adoption, due mostly to the fact that the process was not well-defined prior to purchase.

The Installation

Many organizations select a CRM to help them get a handle on their opportunity development and overall sales pipeline. CRMs help companies aggregate customer and prospect information around accounts, opportunities and contacts. Most CRMs offer an “off the shelf” version of the steps of the sale, which includes step names and a randomly assigned probability of success at each step.

This automation may seem like a quantum leap for companies who were formerly using Excel spreadsheets to determine which opportunities would close and calculate the overall value of their pipelines.  But, the reality is that this tool, though it may be shiny and new, also has the propensity to leaves key gaps, including what information to enter, what must be completed during each step, and how it all rolls up into a reasonable, singular view of incoming revenue.

We have seen many situations where the CRM becomes nothing more than an expensive, automated contact database, with a lot of internally facing information about what “this salesperson is going to sell to that customer”. The biggest risk in this scenario is that there is limited understanding of what is important to customers, which business objective your product will help customers improve, how they will buy it, and what that means to other personnel within the sellers’ organization. This means that the tool becomes a VRM, or a Vendor Relationship Manager, and is simply not put to its best use.

The Implementation

We have worked with customer-facing and management teams at dozens of companies to effectively explain how to implement their CRMs and support wide-scale adoption of these systems.

What are the critical steps? First, the company’s leaders must adopt a policy that usage of the CRM is a mandatory condition of employment. There can be no gray area, as any allowance of “optional” usage will greatly impact your system’s capacity to deliver results. Once this mandatory usage is established, be sure to do the following:

  • Create names for each sales stage and establish a clear definition for what each step entails.
  • Include a description of what the customer AND the seller are doing during each stage. The sellers need to know what your prospect or customer is doing first, then what they will do to manage through that stage from the selling capacity.
  • Include selling skills that align with each stage. Salespeople are only as good as their weakest skills, and a shortfall in any skill creates dangerous gaps in revenue potential. This is where it is important to describe HOW to execute each skill, and where managers must coach to these skills to affect long-lasting improvements.
  • Build tools into each stage of the process to assist users. Marketing is key to ensure that product positioning and messaging are consistently represented. Information that CFRs need to effectively outsell the competition; like competitive analysis, industry insights, and ROI data; must be housed in the CRM or nearby with a simple click away.
  • Establish a verifiable outcome for each stage, a formal or informal written agreement by the customer/prospect that both seller and buyer are moving forward, especially when resources will be applied to advance to the next stage. This step creates leading indicators for success, confirmed by the customer/prospect, that both parties are committed.
  • Finally, the management team (sales, marketing, customer service, etc.) must commit to regular reviews of the information put in the CRM, ensuring that it accurately reflects the tactical execution of the company’s go-to-market strategy.

Implementing a CRM may take more time and thought on the front end, but it will ultimately provide much more reliable information to your organization and enable you to more effectively communicate with customers, manage your pipeline, and project future revenue.

 

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Ask A Sales Leader: Lisa Nash

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Lisa Nash has been a top performing salesperson in the Life Sciences industry for over 20 years, working successfully in a Major Accounts capacity with some of the largest pharma and biotech companies in the world. In the article she wrote for us below, Lisa describes her dedicated approach to the use of sales process, and how this helps her to meet her customer’s business objectives.  

The role of a sales professional is ever changing, especially as customers evolve in their procurement practices and organizations are fluid due to mergers and acquisitions.

It is important for sales professionals to also be fluid and able to adjust in order to keep up with these dynamic changes.  How can you stay focused and ensure success in an ever-changing environment?

By having a defined sales process.

Let’s consider a couple of scenarios.  As a sales professional, your territory changes or you take on a new role within the organization or with a new organization that offers an incredible opportunity, but you need to start over.  This requires you to assess the opportunities and establish relationships all over again.  How do you hit the ground running and be able to impact the bottom line and increase your sales?

By utilizing a sales process that you have learned, tweaked, implemented and tweaked again until it becomes yours.  No matter who the customer is, what their purchasing process is, or what their needs are you can be an immediate resource to them if you follow a process.

Our customers go through training, they belong to organizations, and they learn, tweak, implement and tweak again until they have their own buying process.  No matter the supplier, the products, or the technical requirements the professional buyer follows a process.

By using a defined sales process, we match up to the buyers’ process so that as a team we accomplish our mutual goals.

As a sales professional in a new account you must first identify who the key players are and determine their roles and goals.  Each person on the team plays an important role, so understanding the dynamics early on is very important.  They have different goals and measures of success, and you need to understand how to interact with them in a way that matters to them.

Second, the sales professional needs to determine what the key objectives are whether they are in reaction to a process breakdown that requires immediate action or if it is a long-term complex project.  By understanding what the customers “pain points” are and their desired outcome, you can formulate potential solutions keeping in mind who your key players are, the role they play, and what success means to them.

Notice, we still haven’t sold anything because we are in discovery.  We want to make sure we completely understand where our customers are coming from before we offer a quote for anything.

At this point, you introduce extended members of your team who can assist with establishing credibility for your organization and demonstrate how your team can help them.  Along with your extended team, you fine-tune the potential solutions and begin to develop a proposal that is aligned with your customers’ expectations.  Keep in mind, each member of the customer team has different needs.

Once you present the potential solutions, be sure to include a suggested timeline of follow up action items with items for both your team and the customer team.  Once you have completed this step, you move to the negotiation phase.  At this point, you clearly understand what the customer needs and your customer clearly understands the value your organization can offer as a trusted partner and advisor.

You keep working through this process until it is a win-win for both parties. And, if at any point, one of the key players goals have not been met, you continue to work through the process until they are happy with the outcome.

Sounds easy?  It could be and you can be successful.  The key is to plan, ask questions, understand your customer and follow a defined sales process.  Have your customer’s interest, as well as your organizations interest in mind before making any assumptions about the sales dollars at the end.

 

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On The Road Again: St. Louis, Missouri

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The Gateway Arch is the iconic symbol of western expansion of the 19th century in the United States, and where John visited last week while conducting kickoff meetings with a new customer based in Missouri. Click on the arrow above to hear more about our “Ask a Sales Leader” series featuring Bevin Mercer Carter, as well as how to establish Trust and Rapport early in new opportunity development. We are getting close to the middle of 2016 if you can believe it! Tighten up your Sales Pipelines now to close “16 strong.

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Building Trust and Rapport

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The above words stopped me in my tracks, literally, as I strolled through the streets of Bath, England in April. This poster was in the window of a bank, and made me think about the importance of first impressions in sales situations, and how to establish trust and rapport while meeting a prospect for the first time.

How would buyers behave in the initial meeting with a seller if they know that this phrase was going to be true? And in the absence of this sentiment, many buyers have their guard up when meeting a salesperson for the first time.  How can a seller convey that they will do what is in a prospect’s best interest, and turn them into a customer along the way ?  Or, professionally let them know that the product or service they represent is not a fit for their needs.

How Salespeople Destroy Trust

Salespeople often exacerbate the situation in many unintentional ways, including the presentation of a “solution” before doing a complete diagnosis. Also, some sellers will try to manipulate the prospect by asking leading questions or asking for the business too soon. Neither of these tactics work.

The Trust Quotient: How To Enhance It

The prospect evaluates you in three key areas: rapport, reputation, reliability.

Rapport.  This is the personal feeling or connection we have with someone; how much we like or dislike them as a person.  Factors that positively influence rapport are:

  • Your investigative skills; are you asking the right questions?
  • Focusing on the prospect, listening attentively

Reputation.  The external perception that you or your company has in the eyes of others is an important element in determining trust.   Reputation can come from:

  • Being referred by a satisfied client
  • Results that you have helped to generate as published in case studies or white papers

Reliability.  The ability to demonstrate to clients whether you are dependable and can be trusted to behave in a consistent manner is also important and can be demonstrated by:

  • Doing what you say you will do when you said you will do it
  • Providing insight into areas that are relevant to help growing their business

We ask the attendees in our Workshops “how long does it take for a buyer to determine if a salesperson is credible?”  The answers usually range from a few minutes to a dozen seconds.  Trust is the foundation of every enterprise sale, and the first minute or so is critical in building the solid foundation that you will do the right thing, or step away. Use the outline above to stay above the fray.

 

 

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Ask A Sales Leader: Bevin Carter

bevinIn this month’s “Ask A Sales Leader” we are pleased to hear from Bevin Carter. Bevin is the Founder and CEO of MC | Mercer Carter, a boutique consulting firm that focuses on accelerating the pace of scientific discovery. Bevin went through our program prior to starting her own consulting firm. Read below to learn more about how she continues to use her learnings from our program to obtain, retain, and secure repeatable business.

1. Describe how you use your sales process.

By using discovery meetings and solution development, I am able to blandish personal information out of prospects and can differentiate myself from the competition.

A rectangular piece of butcher-block paper is used in discussions with prospective clients to illustrate their goals. The visual places the clients in the center of these priorities.

Sketching out a “mind map” shows the prospect what’s important to them and what the solution looks like in their mind, I then use the final half hour to describe how MC | Mercer Carter’s services and expertise would help them reach their goals.

2. What is your approach to using your referral base to help you sell?

I religiously plan, whether that it is in my weekly calendar or in my CRM system (which is Streak- a Google extension… let’s face it, I am a start-up) to ask for referrals consistently. More than 80% of my current clients were won through a referral. Starting with my 12 highest potential relationships, the initial pool was made up of past clients, former colleagues, and personal or professional friends. I then took all those and second mapped out the peers that were within their organization, who are their firm’s best customers, who do they take advice from, who in the referral’s professional or personal community would reasonably have a need for my services and respond to a request to meet me. Betting on myself and selling my capabilities was done each step of the way.

3. How do you use the sales process with your network?

For me it has been all about gathering feedback, and mobilizing my network. I share my business ideas with anyone who will listen and take feedback seriously. Networks afford professionals the ability to develop credibility and legitimacy in relationships more quickly than they ever could on their own, and for entrepreneurs that street cred can often lead to revenue. Expanding beyond my peer groups into networks and industries are known areas where my services are needed.

4. What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs as it relates to honing sales skills?

The reality is that customers are more demanding and more aware of the competitive landscape than ever. Leading with the product is absolutely putting the wrong foot forward. Instead, it is my opinion that entrepreneurs should master the art of approaching every sales pitch with questions about the needs of the prospect and the industry. What every client is really looking for is help. If you can identify that need and meet it, then you’re a problem solver. If you happen to have a product, service, or capability that meets their need, the more the better. Building a relationship is every bit as important as the sale.

5. What other advice do you have when it comes to stepping out on your own and taking the sales skills you have learned to your next venture?

I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. In many ways, oblivion can be bliss- not knowing what’s around the corner prevents you from fearing it. Stepping out on my own albeit scary and exciting all in the same breath, knowing that the experiences and skills that I had learned over the last decade had me poised for a great future. As a young girl, my grandmother would quote Teddy Roosevelt, “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Always remembering that has been at the epicenter of how I sell my career.  Learning about other people and collecting a treasure trove of information to mine for pain points is enjoyable for me. Once those pain points are uncovered, a natural pivot is to a suggested solution and how my firm may solve their problem. 

6. What’s next after you get this firm off the ground?

That’s a good question. I am certainly on a journey to figure that out. I have learned so much about myself since starting MC | Mercer Carter. I can’t say I know what is next but if I could dream for a minute, I would get back into the laboratory supply and distribution business. It is a space that I know and love. I am passionate about helping enable science.

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Characteristics of New Hires for Sales

Over the years,  John has spoken to the San Diego State University College of Business Marketing students about how his customers use sales process to meet their commercial objectives, and about careers in the field of sales. From the discussion, he learned what the companies they are interviewing with look for in qualified candidates. So what do companies look for when they hire new talent for Sales positions?

Matthew Bohnhoff, one of the students that John met with, gave us an inside look on some of these characteristics. He was hired by Adobe to go through their 3 Year Sales Academy program.

Matthew said that Adobe looks for three top qualities that are consistent in the sales field when hiring for a sales position.

  1. Passion. They want candidates who have a passion for sales and helping people, thus ensuring the position was right for them. Having past experience in sales also helped.
  1. Coach-ability. This is a huge aspect that holds a lot of value. Managers are constantly available to help employees and they want to make sure people are willing to take advice and positive criticism to benefit themselves and the company.
  1. Goal oriented. They want competitive individuals who will push each other and want to continue to grow and close opportunities without being over the top.

Aligning yourself with the company’s core values by being genuine, exceptional, innovative and involved could only help you in your career both professionally and personally. These qualities are just a few of the many characteristics that companies, including Adobe, look for when hiring top talent for new Sales positions. So get out there and go for it. Good luck and good selling.

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On The Road Again: Bath and Stonehenge England

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In this month’s OTRA John visits Bath, England known for its natural hot springs and 18th-century Georgian architecture. The second stop is Stonehenge, the well known prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England that was added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites in 1986.Hear what John has to say about our upcoming newsletter which will include articles on The Characteristics of New Sales Hires and the importance of understanding the Decision Qualification Criteria that buyers use to select vendors.

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From the Sales Process Workshop in Dubai

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Posted on the RS Fitness Facebook Page, February 2016

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Precor Incorporated and Hilton Hotels join forces and host World Class Fitness Equipment Sales Training in Dubai.

American sales training experts – John Flannery and Susan Wilcox brought their “PBO” game to Dubai last week, when Precor hosted their dealers Middle Eastern Sales Conference at the newly opened Hilton Al Barsha.

PBO, primary business objective. If you are a salesman and you don’t understand your customers PBO then you are in the wrong job.

That was the message, loud and clear. “Understand your customers business, understand what makes him happy, understand what worries him and what keeps him awake at night”. Do this and demonstrate this to your customer, that you understand their business. Do this and suddenly you are no longer a salesman, you are a trusted business advisor. That’s a nice place to be…

RS Fitness represented by General Manager Andy Staines and his Sales Managers: Ayham Al Masri, Raido Raad and Abhi Murali attended the sales conference, learned from the Precor Team and passed the “PBO Test”. Not only did the RS Fitness team pass, they passed all the other sales teams from around the Middle East taking part in the conference.

Big shout out to the RS Fitness sales team…and a round of applause for John and Susan.

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How to Fill Your Sales Pipeline to Hit 2018 Revenue Targets (Part 2 of 2)

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Featured-The-Sales-Pipeline-Revealed

As a brief recap from the first part of this series, you have now 1) established qualified opportunity criteria, 2) begun coaching opportunities in early stages of development and 3) practiced skill conversations with members of your team. With that foundation in place, you’re ready to start analyzing individual and team pipelines.

Just as a doctor establishes a few baseline measurements before a more intense examination (e.g. height, weight, blood pressure and pulse), we will look at three “macro” components of a well-balanced, healthy pipeline.

  • Size of Opportunities: Is there a reasonable mix of small, medium and large opportunities in your pipeline? The most dangerous pipelines are the ones filled with unqualified opportunities. Almost as bad are pipelines with just a few large opportunities that create a “make or break” scenario. If you land the few “big ones”, you hit your plan. But, if you don’t and only get one out of the three, then the quarter or even the year is shot. We only recommend this “elephant hunting” style when you supplement your big ones with smaller, more easily attainable business in order to mitigate any risk.
  • Opportunity Velocity: How long does it take for a medium or large size opportunity to go from lead to close? It’s important for management to establish reasonable baselines for how long an opportunity should reside in each stage of the sales process and monitor this movement. Often opportunities will slow down or stop, and if they do, it’s a perfect time to implement the proactive coaching regiment we suggested in the first part of this series. Another way to keep things fresh is to age opportunities against a reasonable benchmark. This helps to remove stalled or dead business before it drags into Q4 with no chance of closing.
  • Volume: How many overall dollars (or euros, yuan, pounds, etc.) should be in your pipeline at any given time? The best way to solve this calculation is to gather historical data that tells management:
  1. Average sales cycle, or average time from lead to close. Let’s say this is 6 months.
  2. Weighted probability at each stage. At the halfway point, what we call the evaluation stage, we can assume there is a 50% probability to close.
  3. Any surplus or deficit in the salesperson’s performance to date. For this example, there is none.
  4. The sales rep’s annual or monthly revenue plan. We’ll use $2MM per year, or $165,000 per month.

Here is the calculation: Monthly Revenue Plan ($165,000) x Average Sales Cycle (6 months) = $ 990,000.00   At the Evaluation stage, only 50% of opportunities are likely to close, so reps need double that amount, or fill their pipelines with $1,980,000 of business, in order to ensure they will hit target. You can apply the same type of calculation to all stages in your pipeline to build a more accurate picture of revenue health.

We’ve run this calculation for many of our customers and would be more than happy to share examples with you. If you’re interested, just contact me at john@drive-revenue.com. Don’t wait to start examining your pipeline and looking for the three components we discussed – opportunity size, velocity and volume. Do it now while there’s still time to course correct (if needed) and have a successful, profitable 2016.

(Part 2 of 2)

 

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Fill Your Sales Pipeline to Hit 2018 Revenue Targets (Part 1 of 2)

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You just wrapped up Q1 of 2018. In the next week or so, you’ll have a full tally of how your sales teams did with top and bottom line results. For many, the New Year comes in fast and furious as you recover from the year-end push and assemble your teams to plan for the rest of the year.

So, exhale for a moment and breathe deeply; now is the time to take a good, hard look at your opportunity pipeline for the balance of 2018. Are there enough qualified opportunities in development to enable you to exceed your revenue plans? Ignore the old adage that you need to have “three times” the revenue in your pipeline to hit your annual plan – it’s not only a bad guess for how to hit your number, but it’s also a dangerous precedent for sellers who aren’t sure what a healthy pipeline actually looks like.

Here is what your sales leaders need to do NOW to make sure there is enough revenue working:

  • Establish Qualified Opportunity Criteria: this should have been done by January 1, but if you haven’t done it yet, it’s not too late. Make sure each member of your team knows the criteria required to categorize an opportunity as qualified. (We have done this with our customers, and can send anonymous examples to you by request to john@drive-revenue.com)
  • Coach Opportunity Development EARLY: don’t wait until the negotiation is coming to a head to parachute in and close the deal for the seller. Salespeople learn nothing from this, except perhaps how you close, which won’t help them when you aren’t there. Set a schedule with each of your reps to coach them on how to successfully navigate their open opportunities, and make sure a complete job is done in early stages.
  • Practice Skill Conversations: from prospecting to qualification and all the way through negotiation, make sure your team members are fluent in all aspects of the conversations they will have with customers and prospects. Not all sellers need every skill improved; a good benchmark is to pick one skill per rep per month and ensure that it is really mastered.

Once you have these basics in place, we can look at how to build the right opportunity mix for a healthy, balanced revenue pipeline (read Part 2 of 2 coming next week). But without doing the work to establish opportunity criteria, coaching opportunity development and practicing skill conversations, you’re sure to have some gaps in your pipeline that will make it very difficult to achieve your annual plan. If you do the heavy lifting now, you will avoid the year-end fire drills that many organizations go through to hit their numbers in Q4.

(Click here to read Part 2 of 2)

 

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