Cube Management: Sales & Marketing Bytes

Advice for Sales Team Benchmarking and Forecasting

2007-02-08T16:57:00.000-08:00

If your company has an entrenched sales force with an average tenure of 3 to 5 years, now is a great time for you to perform an assessment of your team using new tools that are available online and which can be easily deployed to perform an objective evaluation of each of your sales team member’s individual selling skills as well as on overall team performance assessment. These tools are readily available and easy to access, even if you don't want to deploy a sales consultant to do the work.

One tool that we use, represent, and work with is the evaluation tool from Objective Management. The objective management sales team evaluation process is an easy one to perform and one that any sales manager can use to come up with actionable information that can be turned into making decisions on performance management, termination, and/or team upgrading. It's very easy to use these tools and it doesn't take a lot of time or effort.

The output of a team evaluation is an individual report that you can use with each of your sales team members so that you can have a clear discussion to figure out what they can do to improve their overall productivity and enhance their value to your company. If you are thinking about 2007 and how to get more revenue from your existing sales team, use this kind of tool to make such an assessment. They're easy to access, easy to set up, and easy to interpret.

The next step is establishing a sales forecasting process. If you're like most sales managers, one of your jobs is to regularly scrutinize the sales forecast and look into the pipeline to see what's dead and what's actually moving forward. The job of your sales people is to advance the sale as much as possible but also to be clear when an opportunity is dead in the water and not moving. Your job as a sales manager is to scrutinize those entries that look like they've been languishing for a long time in your forecast and get them to either move forward or to move them out of the forecast and kill those opportunities that are dead.

To often we find sales managers who are taking at face value what their sales people are saying about a given opportunity. Indeed, I have a situation right now where one of my sales people is actually continuously updating old pipeline entries which are really dead opportunities. She is in the process of wishing and hoping they'll turn into a sale, but the fact is that she is really in denial that they will not close. My job as a sale manager is to call those entries to her attention and make sure that she comes to clarity about the fact that those opportunities are no longer worth keeping in the sales pipeline.

If you have a modern CRM system, it's easy to manage the sales pipeline, scrutinize the activity, and talk through those issues with your sales people. If you are using salesforce.com you probably have a dashboard that allows you to quickly look at activity related to specific pipeline entries and to call your sales people's bluff when those sales entries are not advancing. The best way to get your sales people back on the track to prospecting, qualifying, and closing new business, is to make sure that their sales forecast isn't filled with opportunities that are in fact dead. The faster that you can get a sales person to clarity about what's not going to happen, then faster that you can get them working on new opportunities and creating new opportunities that will actually turn into sales.

A lot of sales people like to keep old pipeline entries active thinking that they'll eventually turn into sales when in fact they're not going to. So make sure that on a regular basis you are reviewing your old CRM entries and opportunities and killing the ones that are not going to happen. It'll save you a lot of time and energy talking through the same old deals over and over with your sales representatives so that you can get on to the subject of finding out what they're doing to create new ones. That's the role of the sales manager.

sales
marketing

Your Current Customers are Your Platform for Increased Sales

2007-01-22T14:52:00.000-08:00

We have a healthcare client whose sales strategy is to build business through its current customer base. Yet, that doesn't mean that all its doing is trying to get its current customers to buy more. This client has a huge network of clients across the country that in turn all have networks of colleagues, former coworkers and/or industry connections. The company's sales strategy is to proactively drive referrals from its existing client contacts to gain access to new ones and leverage its clients network for faster access to more prospects than it could gain on its own. It helps that this client has a very high customer satisfaction rating.

A referral and a warm lead from a trusted friend, coworker, or former colleague are five times more powerful than the best direct mail piece or the best cold call.

When a trusted friend or colleague recommends that you talk to a vendor, don't you typically pay attention to them. The fact is, everybody wants to do business with somebody who they know and trust, or even better, somebody they know and like. So referrals become a very powerful tool for growing your business.

If you company has a very strong reputation with its current clients, it becomes even easier because those people are not only willing to provide you with referrals and ideas or people to call on with friends and connections, they're actually glad to pick up the phone and make an introduction on your behalf. Why? Because they love your product and your service.

If your company doesn't have an active strategy to mine your current customer base, looking for referrals to new ones, you're probably missing a great opportunity to tap into the easiest revenue expansion channel that is available to most companies: referral sales from existing clients.
sales
marketing

Finding the Best Sales & Marketing Talent for Venture-Backed Firms

2006-12-14T11:05:00.000-08:00

If you are venture capitalists, you’re working actively and aggressively to gain high returns on your investment by putting your shareholder's cash into companies that have an outstanding opportunity for high growth and high returns. The stakes are high and in order to get to those results, you have to have an infallible team. In fact, venture capitalists that we work with consistently tell us that the most important aspect of their investment decision is the quality of the management.

We’ve all heard the adage, "You don't bet on the horse, you bet on the jockey." This is very true for most Venture Capitalist's and as a result of that, they look to mitigate their management risk by hiring the absolute best. A top sales leader can have a dramatic impact on a company’s ability to enter a new market and win against entrenched competition. For that, you need to have people who have a very unique profile of management, leadership, innovation, and above all, they must really be sales heroes.

Venture capitalists can't afford to risk their investments on B or C players when it comes to sales and marketing leadership. The best way to make sure that your getting to the A level talent you need is by retaining the services of a executive search or recruiting firm that specializes in the sales and marketing functions for high technology. As a Venture Capitalist looking to verify whether or not the person you have in place is going to hit their sales, bringing in an outside assessment firm or sales consulting company can also help you to mitigate risk.

By bringing in a company with experience hiring and assessing top sales and marketing leadership, you can determine whether or not the people that you have in the key positions in the company that you're investing in are going to be able to carry the water that you're looking for them to carry. Start-ups require a rare breed of talent when it comes to sales and marketing leadership. Typically, a sales or marketing leader in a start up has got to have an outstanding combination of individual contributor skills and the ability to get results through others by building and leading outstanding teams. Most top sales candidates for start-ups can't pass the muster because they're not capable of flexing from gaining the initial market traction and performing rain-making duties to landing those big initial accounts through to hiring, training, and developing a team of people who can replicate their own individual efforts.

As I recruit sales and marketing talent across the country for different venture backed clients that we work with, I realize that there are very few candidates that actually can do both of these things well consistently and therefore, who would qualify for start-up VP of sales or VP of marketing position. The same is true on the marketing side of the equation. A person who has been buried or even at the top of a large marketing organization or a mature company doesn't have the kind of critical thinking and fast moving skills that are required in order to lead a company through its initial go-to-market strategy and then iterate that and fine tune it over and over until it's working properly for a start-up company.

So, if you're a venture capitalist and thinking about whether or not you've got the right team members at the top of your portfolio companies, start first by getting an outside assessment as you go in through the do diligence process. Second of all, make sure that if you do need to make a adjustments, that you don't short change yourself.
sales
marketing
consulting
recruiting

Integrating Values Into Your Company's Sales Culture

2006-11-03T15:51:00.000-08:00

If you're like so many sales leaders or CEOs out there, you know how important values are to creating a company that people want to be a part of. In fact, today's best companies, the ones that win in their markets and dominate their segments, often times have a deep connection to inner values that radiate out through the company to their customers, and make people want to do business with them.

There are a lot of misconceptions about values as it relates to sales. The typical stereotypes of fast talkin', slick lookin', superficial sales people who are only interested in taking your money. All of those images are conjured up as we think about our own experiences in dealing with the worst of sales people in our own personal lives.

The fact is, a healthy sales culture is one that instills the core values and beliefs of the company. Values such as caring for customers, honesty and integrity, consistently exceeding expectations, providing long-term value, doing what's right for the customer even if it means recommending another vendor or passing up a sale.

The core values that you'd like to instill in our people throughout your company are certainly applicable to the sales department. They're also the values that you want to make sure that your sales managers are imparting to your team and reinforcing through what they do and what they say.

Showing people that you're committed to healthy, honest communication, to respectful corrective action discussions or even terminations, to solve a customer's problems, even when the customer is yelling and screaming at your people. Those are all things that a sales leader needs to be willing to do in order to show his/her people how important it is to uphold the company's values when it comes to sales.

Talking about values with your sales people is equally as important as leading by example. What do we want to be as a team? What do we want to stand for? How do we want to treat others? How do we want to be treated? What are our core beliefs? These are questions that are easily asked of a sales team.

If you go through this kind of an exercise at an off-site or an annual planning session you'll be surprised to see that most sales people, at least the best ones, are deeply committed to upholding the right values.

Integrating values into your sales culture is an important job and one that sales management must embrace in order to optimize the success of your company.

sales
marketing

Sales Performance Planning

2006-08-08T12:57:00.000-07:00

Does your company have a good sales performance planning process? Are your people on your sales team fully benchmarked against a measurable set of annual goals? Do they understand exactly what it is that they're tasked with over the next year, to drive revenue growth for your company?

We find that many companies under-perform in doing proper sales performance planning with their sales people. As a result, their sales representatives under-perform and so do their companies. If your company is moving towards its fiscal year end, now's the best time to engage in sales performance planning with your sales team; particularly if you're having a kick-off event to celebrate the end of your fiscal year and start a new one. It's a great time to make sure you've set proper objectives and talk with each team member about what their upcoming revenue, margin and activity goals will be for the upcoming year.

Many companies that do sales performance planning feel that it's absolutely a key part of their overall performance management system. Performance management is key to holding your people accountable and driving your sales team to achieve your company's revenue targets. If your company has not enacted a sales performance planning system yet, consider doing so immediately. If you need outside help, there are many sales consulting firms that can help you to put together a framework and system for effectively planning and measuring your sales teams overall effectiveness.

sales
marketing

Don't Blame The Economy For Poor Sales Performance

2006-08-09T10:27:00.000-07:00

If your company's not hitting its revenue targets and underselling its competition, it's really easy for senior managers and executives to blame the economy. The fact is though, that the economy is very robust right now, and despite high energy prices, it’s pretty clear that the economy is going to stay on a strong track. So unless your market is in a slump, the chances are that your company needs to take a hard look at sales from the perspective of its strategy, process, and people.

It's not easy to look inward, and we all have a tendency to blame external factors when it comes to underperformance in our sales teams, but the fact is that those of us who have been in the trenches leading and running sales teams for a long time, know that the buck stops with us.

While its hard to point fingers at ourselves, it's absolutely the mark of a top sales leader to do that and to do it quickly when the company is not hitting its sales goals. If you're a sales leader and your company's not achieving its targets, the first question you should ask yourself is, "am I satisfied with the efforts of my people?" If the answer to this is yes, move on to the next subject. "Are we focusing on the right customers with the right sales process?" If the answer is yes, then we need to dig in and take a look deeper to figure out exactly which of these areas is deficient.

I find that it's very useful to use a sales score carding processes with my team in order to achieve this result. We use this scorecard with our clients. If you go to the homepage of our website, you'll find a copy of our sales scorecard to download. My suggestion is this: take that scorecard and make copies for all of your team members. Then each of you individually complete the scorecard and rate yourself in the critical areas of strategy, process, and people. Then after each of you have done this exercise individually, come together as a team and walk through the scores that you’ve assigned to each of those areas, one by one. Circle the areas where you have the lowest scores, and talk about them as a team. Once you've gained agreement on the root cause of the problems, discuss potential performance improvement programs that you can implement as a team.

Why would you do this you ask? Well, some people would think its probably a downer to spend time talking about your weaknesses, but top sales teams are constantly evaluating their own performance and looking for ways to continuously improve their sales effectiveness. By doing this, there's a great opportunity for you to actually build consensus amongst your team about what the biggest challenges are that you face in your team, and what to do about them. By using the sales scorecard process, and building consensus about change, you'll get everyone on the same page and create a sense of ownership and responsibility for creating a new outcome. We've used this with the Western regional sales team for the largest insurance brokerage in the U.S., and is formed the basis for their performance improvement plan. This is a very healthy way to bring your team along and empower them to be part of the solution to whatever ills your sales.

So if the economy continues to stay strong, and your company is still underselling, ask yourself , "why is it?"

Is it the economy? Or is it us?

sales
marketing

Don't Wait Until It's Too Late To Work On Your Sales Turnaround

2006-08-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

I'm doing a sales turnaround assessment and planning project right now for a company that's lost a large percentage of it's sales in the last year. The CEO has come to us and asked us to help him devise a strategy to quickly get revenues back up to their previous levels. The company is losing money and while it has scaled back on it's employee headcount and other costs, it's still struggling to get close to breaking even. The company needs an immediate sales fix.

As most people know, there is no such thing as a quick fix when it comes to boosting revenues and accelerating sales. It takes time to design and execute a sales turnaround strategy. A lot of time the sales cycle itself can be the biggest impediment. Even when management knows what to do and how to do it, it still takes time to boost your top line revenues. Even worse, when management is either in denial about the sales problem or waiting, wishing and hoping for things to improve on their own, often times they will wait until the situation is unsolveable.

If your company is losing money and losing its sales momentum, don't wait until it is too late to bring in an outside resource to diagnose and fix the problem.

sales
marketing

You Don't Need To Be An Ecommerce Company To Generate Online Leads

2006-08-13T10:33:00.000-07:00

Many companies, particularly in the B2B space, who don't have an ecommerce site mistakenly believe that because they don't have an online transaction presence they shouldn't be focused on generating leads through the Internet. Why is this? Well they mistakenly equate online lead generation with online sales. They are two different things.

Many companies that sell through traditional sales channels are turning to online lead generation as a key component of their overall marketing strategy. Why? Because it works. Most companies that are doing internet marketing these days understand the benefits, but the vast majority of business to business companies still don't understand the power of using internet marketing to generate leads online that can be converted into sales. Internet marketing is quickly eclipsing traditional forms of advertising, trade shows, and other types of marketing communications when it comes to both efficiency and cost effectiveness. A company that's missing this opportunity today is not competitive in the marketplace anymore. The company that embraces internet marketing and learns how to effectively use it as a tool to generate leads for it's sales force, is one that's going to survive and prosper over the next several years.

Our own company is a good case in point. Because we have invested in SEO and have a conversion-efficient website, we receive a regular stream of online sales leads from prospects across the country. As a result, we are now doing sales and marketing recruiting and consulting for businesses across the US, from our base in Portland, OR.

This didn't happen on its own. It happened because we have harnessed the power of internet marketing to create an advantage for our company that is disproportionate to our size.

What are you doing in this regard?

sales
marketing

When Is It Right To Start An International Sales Program?

2006-08-14T10:35:00.000-07:00

Many companies would like to start selling overseas but their not sure when they're ready. One of the key components of being ready for that is preparing your organization for changes that are required in order to deal effectively and compete in the international marketplace. Many companies wait too long before they go international because they feel that they don't have the resources required. Other companies go too fast and don't recognize the costs involved. As a result their efforts can fail. So when is the right time? A lot depends upon the kind of company you have, the kind of market that you're in, the kind of products that you sell, the gross margins that you earn, and the resources that you have in order to invest in international sales and marketing.

An easy way for a company to start out in the international market is through third party distribution channels. Distributors, resellers, agents, OEMs, and the other forms of third party channels represent an excellent way for a company to start it's international sales and marketing efforts without expending too much fixed costs. Other companies decide that it makes sense for them to wait to go international until their capable of actually adding their own international sales force to sell directly. In some companies this makes perfect sense because selling directly is by far the most cost effective method to get their products to market.

Many companies pursue a hybrid solution where they develop their international sales channels through third parties to start, and then begin layering direct sales forces onto those channels in order to manage them effectively. As countries begin to generate enough revenue to justify it, they begin to add direct sales forces in country to augment their capabilities in key markets. This is what I did in both Europe and the Far East. I started through third party distribution channels and then added into major markets such as Germany, France, Italy, the UK and then the Far East into Japan, China, and South East Asia and ultimately into Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

Many American companies overlook the great opportunities that there are to boost their revenues and profits by building a global sales effort. In fact, American manufacturers are way behind other companies in terms of their dependence on exports and their realization of how exports can help them to grow their business. Why do I think this is? For one thing, America has it’s own vast internal market and as a result of that, many business owners can find plenty of opportunities to sell their products locally, regionally, or nationally and even the national program is quite difficult for many business owners to foresee as within their scope of capabilities. But for American companies with our innovative spirit and our technology prowess, we have great opportunities to compete overseas.

Developing an international mindset is a very important part of setting the foundation for going international with your company. If you've traveled overseas or had extensive experience in dealing with foreign languages and cultures, and you're interested in other parts of the world besides the US, this sets an excellent foundation for taking your own company international. In particular, if you're thinking about going international and you have these sorts of interests but you don’t have the time to personally develop this, it's quite possible to go find talent that is capable of focusing on this effort.

Starting an international sales and marketing effort begins with finding a talented, experienced, global sales professional who has the knowledge and understanding to set up and develop overseas distribution channels for your company. It's quite easy to recruit this kind of international sales and marketing talent if you know where to look. Finding professionals with regional interests and language skills of European, Latin American, or Asian focus is an important part of expanding your international sales. Companies that are serious about expanding their business internationally and selling in key markets throughout the globe typically regionalize their efforts and add sales and marketing professionals with the right ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds in order to match up with the markets they’re trying to attack.

The great news about recruiting these types of individuals is that many of them are readily available living here in the US. Why is that? Because we're a melting pot! We have immigrants from all over the world who come to this country to live, yet still posses the knowledge of language, cultural, and even travel experience back to their homelands. If you're thinking about taking your company international and you're thinking in particular about a certain market or set or markets, start thinking about recruiting the right sales talent to direct your efforts with the right experience and skills as I've mentioned above.

sales
marketing

Do You Need A Sales Consultant? (Part 1)

2006-08-17T10:38:00.000-07:00

I'd like to talk a little bit about when companies should consider bringing in an outside sales consultant in order to solve problems within their organization. Many companies reject the idea of bringing in outsiders and they have an adversity to employing consultants for any reason. I can understand this. We've all been burned by consultants who have "borrowed our watch in order to tell them what time it was."

Yet the fact is that many times bringing in a sales consultant is the most effective way to solve problems that your organization doesn't have the skills or experience to tackle on it's own. This is particularly true in sales. As a CEO, if you have a background in operations, engineering, finance or another non-sales or marketing disciplines, it can be particularly difficult for you to diagnose and treat sales and marketing issues on your own. You'd be a prime candidate for bringing in an experienced sales consultant who can help you to overcome the challenges that your organization is facing. Particularly if it's not selling enough.

Bringing in a sales consultant should be done as early as possible once you've identified the need for outside expertise. Why is this? Well, we run into lost of companies that wait far too long to bring us in when it comes to solving sales problems, and by the time that we're actually engaged to work with them, sometimes it's even too late. We see companies that have failed despite management's desire to achieve their turnaround in sales because they simply didn't recognize the depth of their problem early enough and take swift enough action in order to correct it.

If your company is facing a downturn in sales, particularly in this robust economy, you should consider immediately bringing in an outside sales consultant even if it's only to assess your current situation and give you a list of action plans and suggested improvements for your company. Other companies should consider a sales consultant if they're trying to go through a significant amount of change in the way they sell. This could be a result of taking your organization's revenues to the next level, or it could be related to shifting or changing the types of sales channels that your company is currently employing. For example, going from indirect to direct or vice versa. Bringing in outside expertise to help take your company through these types of changes makes perfect sense in most cases. Why? Because you can rent that expertise and make sure that you can benefit from that consultants experience without having to learn the hard way on your own.
sales
marketing

Using An International Sales Consultant

2006-08-16T10:37:00.000-07:00

If your company wants to start selling overseas but doesn't have the in house expertise or knowledge, you should consider hiring yourself an international sales consultant. How do you go about finding that person? Well, there are many companies that specialize in helping companies position, sell, and distribute their products internationally. You can easily find these companies using search engines or other specialized sales and marketing directories.

One of the things that you should think about as you look for an international sales and marketing consultant is how to align the knowledge and experience of this consultant with the area of the world that you're looking to sell into. The second consideration is making sure that they have an understanding of the types of markets that your company is involved in. In other words are the B2C markets, B2B markets, industrial, medical, pharmaceutical, etc. The more you can tailor the skills and experience of your international sales consultant to your own company's particular domain, the better chance you'll have of achieving success once you employ their services to help you set up your international sales program.

sales
marketing

Do You Need A Sales Consultant? (Part 2)

2006-08-18T10:39:00.000-07:00

It also makes perfect sense to bring in an outside sales consultant if you're trying to change the culture of your company in general. In fact many companies that bring in outside expertise in this area are trying to effect cultural change or somehow transform their organization.

A couple of common themes that we've seen when sales consultants are brought in relate to the following:

Sales consultants are great when you have a well-established sales force with a high level of seniority and many a sales people who've become complacent in their jobs. Bringing in a sales consultant to stir up the pot and shake the organization up a little bit to refresh it is a perfect way in order to breathe some fresh life into your sales force's efforts.

If your company is trying to overcome other cultural issues which are holding you back from having the kind of aggressive growth mindset that your team needs in order to take your organization forward, bringing in a sales consultant can make a lot of sense.

If you're considering outsourcing or bringing in interim-management to improve your sales process, breathe some life into a new sales strategy or work through issues related to your sales team and sales people, consider bringing in an outside consultant. They usually can bring a new set of fresh perspective and a depth of experience that can benefit your company directly.

sales
marketing

How To Effectively Manage Sales People Who Are In Remote Locations (Part 1)

2006-08-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

If your organization has field sales personnel spread across the country or across the globe, it's very important that you provide them with the time, attention, and management that is required in order to make them effective. We see lots of organizations that hire expensive field sales personnel only to leave them to their own devices and provide them with little supervision, guidance, mentoring, or coaching. This is a serious mistake.

Here are some suggested things that you can think about in order to effectively manage your remotely-based sales people.

First of all, plan to spend regular time in their territory visiting customers with them. If you are not the person to do this directly, make sure that you have a sales manager or other members of your management team who can do this. A good sales person, no matter how senior, should have someone from the head office or from management visiting customers at least once every quarter.

Second of all, schedule regular sales meetings in order to bring your field sales people together. I suggest at least once a quarter if not once a month. This will give you the opportunity to train them, stay in touch with them, work through problems or issues with them, and provide an active level of supervision and engagement to them that helps them to be more successful. We see many companies cutting their sales meeting budgets trying to improve their overall expenses in sales and marketing, but sometimes when it comes to cutting sales meetings this can really mean that they're being penny wise and pound foolish.

Third, make sure that you schedule regular conference calls and telephone calls with your sales people to get updates. I suggest as a sales manager that if you're not talking to your field sales people at least every few days if not every week, then you're really not doing your job. Sales people need to have active communication with their supervisors. Some companies leave these people to their own devices and it just doesn't make sense.

sales
marketing

How To Effectively Manage Sales People Who Are In Remote Locations (Part 2)

2006-08-20T10:42:00.000-07:00

Fourth, make sure you get yourself a good CRM system that gives you the opportunity to measure and monitor the activity and the performance of your sales people from remote locations. I suggest salesforce.com but there are lots of online web-based CRM tools today that can easily allow you to see what your sales people are doing and how they're spending their days in real time.

Fifth, make sure that you just take an active interest in building a relationship with each of your field sales personnel. If you're going to hire these expensive people you simply cannot afford to neglect them. Yet I see many companies who deploy sales personnel and simply leave them alone. This isn't a good idea.

So if you're thinking about how to improve your field sales performance, start with these ideas that I've given you. They make a lot of sense and experience has shown that they can greatly boost the productivity, motivation, and the sales results of your team.

sales
marketing

Terminate Sales & Marketing Employees with Dignity

2006-11-03T15:20:00.000-08:00

It’s never easy to have to terminate a relationship with an employee who's not producing or who is not a fit with your organization. Yet, I believe that how you terminate poor producers has a huge impact on your ability to recruit top talent as you move forward with your sales organization.

Why is this? Because the people who stick with your organization see how you treat people. In fact, how you treat people becomes the foundation for your reputation as an employer, as a manager, and as a leader. If you are in the process of considering letting go an employee, particularly one who's been there a long time or who has been respected, making that termination decision may very well be the right decision, but how you proceed to the actual point of termination will largely define how you are perceived by the employees who stay, as well as potential employees.

Before you ever terminate an employee, its very important that you implement a corrective action plan, that the plan has quantifiable goals and improvement objectives, and that it is discussed in detail and agreed to with the person that you are considering terminating. It's very important that you also outline the consequences of not achieving those goals for the individual, and that they are clearly understood. By doing this, at the time the person is finally terminated, there is no mistake or question about what your intent was in calling for them to change their performance or to increase their results. If you develop and execute a corrective action program, by the time the person is terminated, they won't be surprised and they won't have any complaints against you as an employer. You will have given them a fair chance to meet your company's expectations to achieve the required sales and marketing results and to turn around their job performance.

When you actually go through the termination process, it's very important that all emotions be kept aside. This includes avoiding judgments or accusatory remarks regarding the employee's particular lack of effort or poor behavior, but rather, really focusing on the lack of results as it relates to the reason for your termination decision. If you can keep a level of respect and decorum in the termination process, you will find that it will have a major impact on your ability to continue to motivate the team that stays with you, and build upon it by attracting top talent. People look for managers, leaders, and employers who are willing to take the high road when it comes to terminations. Your company's reputation as an employer is enhanced by terminating people with dignity.

sales
marketing

Sales Management: Lead by Example or Lose Your Best People!

2006-11-03T15:24:00.000-08:00

I talk to sales reps seeking new employment who come through our office and complain about really poor managers they've worked with in their previous job, and why they left as a result of that poor management culture. I'm astounded to hear of many top companies out there that have strong reputations, but their sales management definitely is deficient in its ability to lead and manage its teams.

One of the biggest concerns that I hear from people who speak of poor sales managers is their unwillingness to spend time with their people in the trenches, to really help them understand what's required to be successful in sales, and to coach and mentor them. This includes simple things like spending time on the road together, doing detailed opportunity reviews, performing account planning functions - the kinds of things that lead to deeper levels of connection and respect from your sales people.

The sales manager today is called upon to lead by example in his/her thoughts, behavior and actions. Sales managers who sit in their office all day or spend most of their time managing up as opposed to working with their people, are good examples of sales managers who can't cut it. Effective sales managers should spend 75% of their time focusing on working with their people. Of that 75%, 25% of their time should be spent in the field, 25% of their time in performance management and review discussions, and 25% of their time should be coaching their people to succeed. The other 25% of their time can be reserved for corporate duties, but a sales manager spending 75% of their time managing internally but not focusing on the sales team itself is a manager that nobody wants to follow.

sales
marketing

Stay Strategic With Your Marketing

2006-11-03T15:27:00.000-08:00

We have a client right now who we're working with to plan and execute a wide variety of marketing communication programs including redesigning their website, search engine optimization and building new sales collateral. This client has called upon us to help them execute a makeover in their marketing tactics and activities, but one thing that they seem to be missing is a more strategic view of how to spend their marketing dollars.

Lots of companies get so tactical with their marketing programs that they fail to see the big picture, like to how to maximize their effectiveness when it comes to reaching customers, generating demand, and driving sales leads in the door. The goal of any marketing manager is to live in the two worlds of both strategic and tactical, to balance those interests and make sure that they continue to stay aligned. It's very easy to get caught up in the day-to-day activities related to marketing program development, and forget what it is that you're trying to accomplish at a higher level.

This is where strategic marketing planning and marketing communications connect. A good marketing manager is always asking him/herself how their tactical marketing programs are aligned with their overall strategic marketing goals. In fact, a strong marketing communications plan typically lists all programs in a format where it is easy to see how those programs directly support the company's overall strategy.

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marketing

Don't Get Too Theoretical With Your Marketing

2006-11-03T15:30:00.000-08:00

Now that I've talked about how to connect the strategic with the tactical when it comes to marketing programs management, it's important to mention the need to remember marketing's charter within any successful company: drive demand and generate leads for the sales force. If you're spending too much time at the strategic level and not executing good marketing programs that generate a steady flow of leads for sales, you're wasting your time. "Keep your head in the sky, and your feet on the ground."

I see marketing managers that spend way too much of their time working on strategy and who are not able to execute the kinds of lead generation programs that feed the Sales team. This is where Marketing gets a bad rap: sales teams who are under-fed when it comes to leads feel like the marketing department is not pulling its weight.

If your company is thinking about how to improve the effectiveness of its marketing programs, make sure that you start evaluating your marketing effectiveness in terms of the quantity and quality of sales leads, and the return on investment that's coming from those activities.

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marketing

How Much Should You Be Spending on Marketing and Sales?

2006-11-03T15:32:00.000-08:00

This is a question that we often get from companies that are trying to figure out what percentage from their revenues they should be spending on generating demand and driving leads in the door through marketing activities, versus prospecting, qualifying, developing and closing deals with their sales department.

A lot of our customers work in businesses that are manufacturing-oriented where the gross margins are approximately 50%. A good rule of thumb for those kinds of business is that a company that is at 50% gross margins should be spending no more than 15% of it's revenues on sales and marketing. Typically, the breakdown between sales and marketing is 5% for marketing and 10% for sales. When I'm talking about 10% for sales, I'm talking about total sales costs, which includes base salaries, incentive compensation, benefits, as well as sales administration and sales operations.

If these numbers seem out of line to you because of the industry you're in, remember that these can vary tremendously. We work with software businesses where the gross margins are approaching 98%, and that are spending upwards of 25 to 30% of their revenues on marketing and sales activities.

Why is this, you ask? Well, usually it's because they can afford to. Companies that are in the software business are dealing with a lot higher gross margins and as a result, are capable of spending a greater percentage of their revenues to generate demand and drive business development, while at the same time ensuring a healthy bottom line.

If your company is trying to figure out what is an appropriate percentage of spending for it's marketing and sales activities, you might want to consider bringing in a sales and marketing consultant to help you work through this process.

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marketing

Does Your Company Really Just Need Sales Training?

2006-11-03T15:38:00.000-08:00

We get calls from companies across the country, asking us whether or not we can provide them with sales training. Upon further discussion and examination of the problems that they describe, we realize that in fact they don't need sales training at all! What they need is something completely different. I am amazed to see how often Sales Training is diagnosed as the root cause of underperformance.

As we question the CEO, we end up discovering a multitude of other issues: they need to revamp their go to market strategy, they need to reposition their company, they need to realign their sales team and channels with changing market realities, etc. There are a whole host of different reasons why a company needs to make changes in its sales department in order to improve its success. Often times, management calls us to say that they have a training issue, when it's not about training at all.

If your company needs to improve the prospecting, qualifying, developing and closing techniques of your sales representatives and if they need to be trained on how to do an improved job of probing and solution selling, sales training could very well be the right answer for your company. If your sales people aren't delivering enough prospects into the pipeline or closing a high enough percentage of deals, it may not be a training issue at all. It may very well be that you're trying to sell the wrong product into the wrong market or that you're positioned poorly against your competitors.

So don't jump to conclusions and just automatically pick up the phone and start looking for training when you're experiencing a shortfall in your sales numbers. Go deeper to diagnose the root cause of the reason why your team is not selling enough. Often times you'll find the problems are very different from the ones you initially thought.

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marketing

What Is Good Internet Marketing?

2006-11-03T15:45:00.000-08:00

If your company is considering investing in internet marketing activities, and on the verge of hiring somebody to take over this effort, here is a quick list of the types of responsibilities that you should be thinking of for their job description:

- Email Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization
- Pay Per Click Campaign Management (Google, MSN, Yahoo)
- Web analytics
- Blogging
- Link Building
- Text Optimization
- Syndication of Content (from your website onto other websites)
- Graphic Website Development
- Copywriting

These are all a part of the arsenal you should be thinking about building when you do Internet marketing. In addition to all of these activities, there is a healthy dose of campaign planning, budgeting, tracking, and management that goes along with effectively managing these activities. If you are thinking about hiring an internet marketing specialist, make sure that you get somebody who has a span of skill sets which include the following:

- HTML and Web Design
- Email Platform Experience
- Database Entry
- Quantitative Analysis
- Spreadsheet Skills
- CRM Abilities
- Analytical Skills
- Project Management Abilities
- Written Communication Abilities (including the ability to write marketing copy)

Those are the kinds of core skills you should be looking for in an Internet marketing specialist.

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marketing

Build A Healthy Sales Culture At Your Company

2006-11-03T15:48:00.000-08:00

Is your company struggling to hit its revenue growth targets? Is sales viewed as a necessary evil inside your business? How do people's attitudes reflect upon the sales department? What do they think of the individuals and the leadership in that part of your company? Do people generally distrust the sales and marketing people at your company? Are people hesitant to talk about sales and/or participate in the sales process or be associated with it? These are the symptoms that I find at companies that need to transform themselves and to develop a more healthy sales culture.

There are lots of companies that are striving for excellence in everything they do, yet they completely miss the mark in sales. Why is this? Well, often times companies which are headed by technologists, engineers, operations, or finance people lack a level of experience in sales that is commensurate with their other core strengths. Companies that excel however, are ones that embrace the importance of having a healthy, strong sales culture as part of their company values. They work to foster and develop a spirit of achievement, competitiveness, accountability, a drive to win and other significant values that embody a positive sales culture.

If your company is looking to create that sort of culture and is lacking it, start by looking within. Do a gap analysis. Figure out what it is that you're missing. Is it leadership? Often times this is the critical missing ingredient. Acquiring and integrating top-level sales leadership into your executive team is absolutely critical to a company that wants to develop a strong sales culture. Is it management's own attitudes about sales? Sometimes management just looks down on sales and as a result, even though the sales people are doing their jobs, they're not viewed as an important part of the company and its overall success.

If your company is suffering from a lack of high energy, commitment, and motivation from your sales team or if sales isn't celebrated inside your business, think again about how this reflects upon your overall competitiveness, your profitability, and your own ability to achieve your company's objectives. Companies with healthy sales cultures are the ones that win in today's day and age. Healthy sales cultures start with leadership that's committed to emphasizing the importance of sales and embracing it as core part of their values.

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marketing

Great Leaders Build Great Cultures

2006-11-03T15:49:00.000-08:00

The fact is, the single most important ingredient to building a great company culture is leadership. Good sales and marketing leadership can act as a powerful energizing force for your company. It can help you achieve the cultural shift that we've been talking about (in my previous blogs). If you're suspicious about these types of people, you may need to work on getting over that suspicion and embracing the fact that good sales and marketing leadership goes hand-in-hand with good company management.

If you don't know how to find or attract that kind of talent, it's easy to retain the services of an executive search firm which specializes in recruiting top sales and marketing executives. That kind of firm is worth it's weight in gold, in terms of helping you to acquire the person or people that you need in order to energize your company and take it to the top of it's market.

If your company is lacking the kind of sales and marketing leadership that is going to create a winning scenario for your company, think about going outside and finding the best that you can get and using a recruiting firm to help you in this process.

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marketing

Drive Your Sales Process But Don't Let It Drive You (Crazy That Is)

2006-11-03T15:42:00.000-08:00

In today's day and age, a company that doesn't have a well defined and repeatable sales process can't get ahead in the marketplace. Why? Modern sales forces, particularly in highly competitive markets, need to have well defined repeatable and scalable sales processes in order to effectively compete against national as well as global competition. The foundation for a good sales process has been covered in our other white papers, guides and blogs. That foundation includes a strong level of process definition, a strong level of automation using CRM and a strong level of accountability and discipline as instilled by management. Definition, automation and discipline are three characteristics of well-executed sales processes.

On the other end of the spectrum, we see companies that spend so much of their time measuring and tweaking their sales process that their sales people have very little time left to sell. Reporting, forecasting, metrics, selling upward in the organization to the boss, being accountable for miniscule, granular reporting and activity measurements --those can drive sales people crazy. Your best sales people are the ones who have a good combination of structure and freedom. Structure means process, but freedom means an ability to improvise and to use their own best practices to maximize their prospecting, qualifying, development and closing of new business for your company.

One thing you don't want to do is drive yourself or your sales people crazy by over defining or over measuring or over insisting upon rigorous sales process. A well-defined sales process should be smooth, easy flowing and well lubricated. What I mean by lubricated is that you have to have the systems in place, but you also have to have people excited about doing their job and not dreading following up on endless data entries, reports, and things like that.

If your company is suffering on either end of the spectrum, you should consider bringing in an outside sales consultant to help you go through an assessment and streamlining project. If you are over-engineered in your sales process, a consultant can help you to reduce or eliminate unnecessary steps and measurements that aren't critical to obtaining the results you're looking for. If you need to bring some order to chaos, as is more often the case, they can help you take the rudimentary steps in order to build a workflow that helps your sales force to improve its results, without over encumbering them.

Think about sales process. Make sure that you're driving it -- and what I mean by that is focusing on driving people to be accountable for following the process -- but that it’s not driving you or your team crazy.

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marketing

Autumn is a Great Time to Start Your 2007 Sales and Marketing Planning

2006-11-03T15:35:00.000-08:00

Yes, all of sudden we're in Fall. Now's a great time to begin the process of putting together your numbers for next year. Why should you start now? Well, because it takes several months to develop really solid a proforma P&L which has been vetted by all of your people.

If you go to work now, you should have plenty of time for working on these issues and settling them to a point where your whole team is on the same page about your performance plan for 2007.

Companies that don't go through this planning period with enough advanced notice end up being caught by the seat of their pants and struggling to have a well executable plan.

What are your plans for 2007? When are you going to start working on them?

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marketing