The Three Things You Can Do RIGHT NOW to Increase Sales in 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at 8:00AM Here at SPI, we receive many questions about how to improve sales performance from clients, prospects and interested businesspeople - but the one question we hear most often lately is: “What can I do RIGHT NOW to improve sales?”
This anxiety about producing immediate results is no doubt a product of the current unpredictable economic environment. Selling is generally tougher these days, and people in the sales profession are feeling the pinch - in a very personal way. Having run sales organizations at companies such as IBM and GE Capital, I understand all too well the current dilemma of sales executives – ‘Do we make some changes now to improve our sales position or do we just try to work harder and smarter?’
McKinsey published a white paper last month titled Cutting Sales Costs, Not Revenues. The article began as follows:
“There’s a reason companies fear experimenting with the sales force: It is the engine that drives revenue. No matter how patched up or spluttering that engine may be, the thought of overhauling it fills senior executives with dread. To keep sales flowing, companies will make piecemeal ongoing repairs as long as they can.”
Very few companies can afford to initiate a sales transformation initiative mid-year. However, after reviewing the findings of the latest research on sales productivity, and after interviewing many of our own clients, we have found that there are three things that almost any sales executive can do to generate significant and quick improvements in their team’s results. These three things are:
- Target and prioritize sales efforts on accounts with the highest potential
- Create new latent sales opportunities
- Differentiate the value of your offerings, not just the price
What’s most interesting about these recommendations is that a surprising number of companies are not doing these things today. Instead, they are simply “paddling upstream faster” by making more calls or increasing the amount of sales activities, which simply generates a larger number of poor quality opportunities, most of which never close.
For many sales executives, it seems converse to logic to think that when times get tough, the best thing to do is to focus your energies on only those places where you can make the biggest and most immediate difference - the specific accounts where you can deliver real value and thus, create new, highly qualified sales opportunities.
We’ve created a landing page with a little more detail about these three recommendations for impacting sales in 2009. If you’d like to know more, click here: http://www.spisales.com/SellLess2009.aspx
Good selling.
Selling Into a Headwind – It’s the Process, Stupid!
The instinctive response in this scenario can be, like a panicked army, the tendency to attack anything that moves. Sometimes this activity-intensive behavior is defended under the guise of being “entrepreneurial”, but the ensuing chaos rarely produces consistent execution (or results).
Like other forms of crisis, the most difficult times are precisely when clear thinking and discipline are most critical. Taking a rational, well-defined approach to targeting prospects, account planning, and sales execution are more important than ever for sales organizations. In other words, truly understanding and implementing a sales process (and “how to” methodologies) is potentially the best economic insurance policy your company can invest in.
The Cold Hard Facts About Process
But how can you make this case with confidence? In short, the cold facts at two distinct levels support the compelling economics of successful process adoption. What does research tell us about this topic? First, let’s consider the findings at an aggregate level. For the past 13 years, CSO Insights has conducted an annual sales performance study of more than a thousand global companies. For the relatively small number of companies who have attained world-class levels of sales process adherence (by CSO Insight’s criteria), the outcomes are nothing short of compelling. These companies on average realize the following advantages over their peers:
But what about results at the individual company level? Many case studies that are presented at this level are often anecdotal, or fail to demonstrate a “cause and effect” relationship that is valid. That is, they fail to tie specific changes in seller behavior to a defined set of sales outcomes. Several studies have been independently performed by SPI clients to determine how the application of specific methods in the Solution Selling process correlates to key sales metrics. These analyses considered key elements of sellers executing the process, including the degree to which:
As one might expect, there was a consistent pattern of positive and statistically valid correlations to key sales metrics, including:
In other words, just as consistent diet and exercise almost guarantee improved health, the salespeople who most consistently adhered to the Solution Selling process improved sales outcomes in almost all areas.
The Process Challenge
If the rewards are so compelling, why don’t more companies invest in the development and adherence to a sales process? According to research by CSO Insights, only 14% of the companies in their annual study have evolved to a world class (Level 4 in their model) of sales process maturity. There are a number of potential reasons:
The Good News
In spite of these challenges, process-based selling is quite feasible for most sales organizations if they make a modest investment to understand their current state, and take a stepwise approach to steady performance improvement (just like diet and exercise). What is missing in the “noise of battle” for most organizationsis a practical model (blueprint) for understanding where you are today, and a logical implementation plan (roadmap) to make incremental improvements that are sustainable.