No question, 2009 was a tough year.  And for some of us 2010 isn’t much better.  In fact, I’m struck by the number of sales executives I’ve spoken to across the last 6 months who’ve told me that, actually, last year was the good year, and this year is the tough one. 

That said, irrespective of when the tough times hit your organization, we find the general reaction in Sales is the same.  In times when reps are struggling to sell, one thing we can all agree on is the need to double our efforts around driving sales process compliance.

The idea being, no matter how tough the economy, good selling is good selling.  So let’s make sure we’re following the motion of good selling, even if it doesn’t always lead to a deal.

One thing we know to be true based on our research at the Sales Executive Council is that customer buying behaviors are changing.  In some cases quite dramatically. 

Whether it’s evolving customer needs, increased demands for consensus across customer stakeholders, changes in decision making authority, heightened budget pressures, or re-designed buying processes, one thing members tell us again and again is, for many accounts, Sales has changed.  And as a result, deals are getting bogged down in all sorts of unexpected ways, unique from customer to customer, even from deal to deal.

But if that’s the case, we now live in a world where a standardized sales process will only get us so far.  Driving compliance around the behaviors known to lead to success only works, if we can predict in advance what actually leads to success.   Read More »

No matter who I talk to around the world, I hear the same thing:  2010 is about a return to growth.

For many of us, the dark days of 2009, frankly, were a world where flat was the new up, and survival was success.  Heading into the next 12-18 months, however, no one is likely to get a second round of forgiveness for turning in a flat performance. 

I often quote the head of sales at a global manufacturing company who simply told his sales force this year, “In 2010, it’s not OK, not to grow.” Period.

But for many sales organizations, that emphatic message isn’t backed by clear direction.  Sure, we want to grow, but how do we do it?  And what I’m finding is, this year, more than most, sales leaders are “placing the customer first.”

The term “customer centricity” is back this year in a dramatic fashion.  The idea being, if we want to grow in 2010, we’re going to have to ensure that everything we do delivers maximum customer value.

But what exactly does it mean?  What should we actually do?  And more importantly, how do we do it in a way that drives growth?

After all, there are several ways to be customer centric that are actually bad for business—discounts, terms, and conditions which undermine profitability in exchange for little long-term gain.

To answer those questions, we surveyed over 5,000 individuals across Council members’ customer organizations—c-suite executives, end users, procurement officers, key influences, you name it—and we found one conclusion in particular to be consistently true regarding what customers value most in a supplier.    Read More »

Members are always telling me about their struggles with sales tool adoption and I always tell them the same thing – first and foremost, when it comes to ensuring that your tools will be used, you have to build the right infrastructure for tool creation in the first place.

No matter what you’re building, who’s building it, or who’s sponsoring it, you’ve got to adhere to these seven steps if you want reps to consistently take advantage of your suite of tools:

1. Keep Your Eye on the Prize. Make absolute certain the tool is built back from actual outcomes your organization, and more specifically, your sales reps, are seeking to achieve.  More often than not, simply building a tool based on stated needs can lead you to a place where a tool fails to achieve its anticipated impact and falls far short of expected adoption.  

• Check out Toyota’s process for ensuring that tool-building efforts solve the correct problems.

2. Prioritize Tool Requests. Put in place some sort of principled prioritization mechanism that guides tool development.  Too often, we flood the tool marketplace with endless ROI calculators, collateral, etc. without making sure the most important tools land on reps’ desks first.  Without a prioritization strategy in place, it’s usually the squeakiest wheel or the most senior request that automatically gets to cut to the front of the line. 

• Review Schneider Electric’s tool prioritization scorecard as a solution to this challenge.

3. Run to Feedback. When designing a tool, make sure you collect very early input from field-based power users around which problems are worth solving with the tool in the first place. Read More »