Selling Power Magazine Article

Today's selling environment is radically different from the environment of just a few years ago. New technologies, severe economic challenges, and buyers who are under unprecedented time and cost pressures mean that what worked for sellers in the past won't lead to success today. In fact, sales teams that have not radically transformed the way they do business may well be finding their customer base eroding, their margins shrinking, and their cost and length of sale growing.
 

Simply plugging in a little sales training, adjusting the compensation plan, or installing a new CRM system is not enough to get things turned around when the buying and selling environment has changed dramatically. Instead, companies need a wholesale transformation to thrive in the new environment. Unfortunately, many CSOs balk at the time and cost required to invest in a transformation, which, when done right, can take two to three years. But the result is a more effective and motivated sales organization that generates greater revenue at lower cost.
 

How do you know if a total transformation, rather than such smaller-scale solutions as sales training, is what your organization needs? Ask yourself, has there been significant internal or external change that impacts what and how you sell or what and how customers buy? If the answer is yes, it may be time to invest in a full-scale overhaul.
 

Paul Vinogradov, vice president at Alexander Group, a management consultancy that focuses exclusively on sales strategy and execution, says there are several changes that can trigger a transformation project. Some of those include a company's evolution from product selling to solution selling, from selling a single product to multiple products, or from selling to a single customer group to multiple customer segments. Externally, a sales transformation may be needed when a core product reaches saturation, when it becomes technically obsolete, or when there are major economic changes. "In the last two to three years, we've had nearly unprecedented economic change," says Vinogradov. "As a result, companies have had to do some major retooling."

Start with Customers


If you are, in fact, facing a major retooling, your first step should be a deeper understanding of your customers. In a "Thoughts on Selling" blog post in February 2011, sales transformation and enablement expert Lee Levitt wrote that a transformation initiative should begin by evaluating the needs of your best customers. "If you undertake a sales transformation with the goal of improving relationships with your customers and actually make the changes necessary to ensure this transformation," he wrote, "you will be rewarded with higher share of wallet; longer, more profitable relationships with your customers; higher revenues and profits; and increased employee satisfaction."
 

It's common sense. Changing the way you sell without first gaining a comprehensive understanding of those to whom you are selling is like starting a road trip without knowing where you are going. After much time and expense, you could find yourself in the middle of nowhere.
 

Martyn Lewis, CEO of sales performance consultancy Market-Partners, says there are eight components to any transformation initiative (see "Eight Steps to Transformation Success"), and step 1 demands that companies understand the buying process, including what triggers it, who is involved, how it moves forward, what customers look for, and how they make their decisions. "An optimal selling approach simply cannot be designed in today's world without a deep understanding of these specifics," says Lewis. "All too often, I work with clients who say such things as, ‘The salespeople need to call high.' But that depends on how the customer is buying."
 

Beyond understanding how customers buy, Levitt says there are other questions to consider in your customer evaluation: What value do we provide these customers? What other organizations have similar needs? How should our engagement process change to enable more value creation and transfer? What else must change within our organization to ensure consistency?
 

Once you have completed a thorough customer study, including segmentation and targeting analysis, take a hard look at the skill sets needed to sell effectively to those customers. Early in any transformation project, an organization "needs to have a really good understanding of the skill sets required to change direction," says Leisa Mohler-Erickson, a partner in Advantage Performance Group's sales-transformation practice, which works with sales organizations to create sustainable execution of their defined go-to-market strategy.
 

"Do you have the right people in the right roles? Do they have the DNA makeup for their roles and functions? Does the sales manager have the right skills, or is he or she a salesperson sitting in the manager's role? If you don't pull the right levers, you won't get the results you need."
 

Mohler-Erickson says any transformation will reveal salespeople who aren't a good fit for their role. Sometimes people can make the leap to fit that new role; sometimes they will choose to leave because they don't like the changes. Other times, however, it's up to leaders to move people out when there is a disconnect between skill sets and role requirements.
 

In the 2010 white paper "A-Game Selling - In a Forever Changed Market," Mohler-Er
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ickson notes that when she asks executives whether their sales team has changed in the past three years, the answer more often than not is no. "Resoundingly, we hear that the skill sets of most sales teams remain relatively unchanged compared to the metamorphosis of the market and customers," she says.
 

That's a recipe for disaster. "What's required from sellers today is very different from what was required even three to four years ago," she says. "Advice such as ‘Ask good questions' isn't relevant any more. Customers are demanding extreme focus on what they do and why they do it, and you have to get very specific on what seller skill sets look like to meet those demands."

Courageous Leadership Required


In an organization seeking to transform performance, typically one-third of an existing team will have no trouble executing on the new processes, one-third will be trainable, and one-third won't have the right skill sets to succeed and will need to be transitioned into another role, says Alexander Group's Vinogradov. "That's just a brutally painful process for a good leader who has developed relationships with people on his or her team," he says.
 

Making these kinds of tough decisions requires courage, vision, and great leadership - critical components of any turnaround effort. In fact, a big reason why transformation efforts stall - or never get started in the first place - is that the chief sales officer or marketing executive VP is simply not the right leader. Often, these executives have presided over phase-one or phase-two growth, but they aren't phase-three leaders who can take an organization through the type of change that needs to be made today, says Vinogradov.
 

"Many of the things they did before, while exactly what was needed to help their company grow at the time, would bring the company down today," he warns. "The question every sales leader needs to ask him- or herself is, do I know what stage of growth my company is in, and am I executing the best practices for that stage?"
 

John R. Treace, president of sales and marketing consultancy J.R. Treace & Associates in Jacksonville, FL, agrees that strong leadership is essential to a turnaround, particularly in the area of morale. Change is difficult and can bring a lot of uncertainty. As new ways of doing things replace the old, familiar processes, and salespeople without the right skill sets are moved into new roles or moved out of the company, it's easy for morale to diminish if not managed properly. And that's a major barrier to moving forward.
 

"The lack of morale can ruin a sales organization," warns Treace in his book, Nuts & Bolts of Sales Management: How to Build a High-Velocity Sales Organization (Emerald Book Company, 2011). "When times get tough, and sooner or later they do with any company, your team's morale will either pull you up or pull you down."
 
In other words, don't get so caught up in the mechanics of a transformation that you neglect the emotional side of it. Some managers may not be comfortable addressing morale because it isn't easily measured, but there are some clear indicators to look for. "A high-morale sales team will passionately buy in to the company's direction, programs, and policies," says Treace. "Team members will have quick response times, enthusiasm for the team's mission, and urgency in acquiring knowledge," all essential contributors to a successful turnaround. Other indicators of high morale include reps who arrive early, pay attention in meetings, work hard, and work late.
 

Keeping morale high starts with trust. Salespeople need to know they can trust their employer. They also need to know management cares about them, be vested partners in the transformation process, and receive regular communication about the changes taking place and how those changes will affect them. When these trust factors are part of their firm's culture, reps feel like they are part of a team moving toward success - and that's a big morale booster.
 

Admittedly, sustaining morale and moving through all the steps necessary for a complete turnaround can seem daunting. "An organization may shy away from such an undertaking and simply look to solve one aspect of apparent opportunity," concludes Market-Partners' Lewis. The results of such a short-term approach are usually disappointing at best and waste resources, degrade morale, and lead to churn in the sales force at worst. A sales transformation that is tackled as a comprehensive change initiative led by a strong, forward-thinking leader, however, will ultimately lead to long-term growth and success. •

Eight Steps to Transformation Success

According to Market-Partners CEO Martyn Lewis, any project aiming to change the way a company sells must be viewed as a change-management initiative. He shares eight steps toward sustainable transformation, gleaned over the course of two decades of helping companies of all sizes turn their sales operations around.

 

1. Understand current reality. You can't embark on a journey if you don't know where you're starting. "Dig very deep to understand the current situation," says Lewis, particularly as it relates to customers' buying processes. Only then can you discover the true opportunities for a successful transformation.
 

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ss="font_weight_bold">2. Take a holistic view. Market-Partners has isolated 637 factors that impact how a salesperson sells. Less than 25 percent of those factors fall within the domain of the sales organization, but all must be considered to gain a full understanding of the sales landscape.
 

3. Include the team. People respond much better to initiatives in which they have an active role. For a transformation to succeed, your sales team must participate in the design and implementation of the changes.
 

4. Define the end state. If you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there. Create a credible and straightforward definition of the end state, along with a compelling reason for making the journey to get buy-in throughout your organization.
 

5. Identify the change initiatives. Once you know where you're starting and where you're headed, it will be possible to identify what must be changed. This is no small task. "Each and every component that will require a level of change or impact upon change needs to be identified," says Lewis. "Each of these initiatives needs to be managed as a separate change-management project. Each should have a clear owner, deliverable, and resource plan."
 
6. Implement supporting tools and infrastructure. Lewis says he has yet to see a transformation project that doesn't require a change in this area - and in most cases the change is substantial. The key is to get at the root cause of the problem and choose technology that makes the sales process more effective, not more of a burden.
 

7. Establish metrics. Know your key metrics and performance measurements today and where they need to go. Establish benchmarks and measure progress on a regular basis. Focus on the quality, not the quantity, of the metrics.
 

8. Communicate and celebrate success. Frequent and ongoing communication is the foundation of any successful change effort. Communication should be "open, meaningful and bidirectional," says Lewis. Start by communicating the need for change, then transition to progress updates and celebrating successes.