This is the time of year where many organizations are finalizing changes to their 2012 compensation plan for the sales force.  While it can be a tricky time (as we must always be careful to avoid misunderstandings from the sales rep community around the new plans) – it really doesn’t have to be…

When it comes to structuring an effective compensation plan, the first thing to know is that communication can be even more important than the design of the plan itself.

The compensation plan will not be effective if reps do not believe that it is fair, and communication matters nearly twice as much as plan design in driving perceptions of fairness.  In fact, in our research we found that Sales employees who believe pay processes are fair exhibit 60% more effort than those who do not.

(SEC Members, read more about the two key components of comp plan fairness, which your communications efforts should strive to emphasize.)

It’s also worthwhile to keep in mind that communications from the frontline sales manager community are two times as likely to positively impact sales employees’ belief in the fairness of pay processes than communication from the compensation function.

That said, from time to time, we still need to drive communications from the organization around compensations plans.  So, here are five rules we see the best companies follow when looking to maximize sales force buy-in to the comp plan: Read More »

My colleague Taylor recently wrote a post about one company’s journey to take their sales process to the next level.  The company was Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP), and they intentionally blurred the lines of distinction between buying and selling when constructing the latest iteration of their sales process.

ADP mapped out their customers’ buying process, and then created a tool that synched reps’ selling activities to the stages of that purchase process.

Why did ADP do this? Because they found that this led to easy, efficient purchase experiences for their customers, more efficient sales cycles for their salespeople, and more productive coaching sessions for their sales managers.

(SEC Members, if you haven’t had a chance to familiarize yourself with this best practice, now is a great time to review the case study or listen to our recent webinar during which the architects of this process from ADP discussed their journey in great detail.)

Since profiling this case example, Council members have been quick to construct a version of this tool to call their own.  We’ve learned a great deal as we’ve helped members throughout the construction phase, so here’s a few “Do’s” and “Don’ts” for folks out there planning to take a crack at building a tool like this for their organization: Read More »

If there’s one thing we can all likely agree on, it’s that at some point in the sale, you’ve got to find and get in front of the senior decision maker at the customer’s organization to get a deal done.  At a lot of member companies we work with, this very commonly takes the form of a “target the customer’s executive-suite” strategy.

In other words, let’s track down the customer contact that will own the decision, or at the bare minimum, figure out the people within the customer organization who can get us access to that person.

We’ve done some recent work at the Council that sheds interesting light on the effectiveness of this strategy.  In a survey of senior decision makers across several hundred of our members’ customer companies, it turns out, the thing senior contacts at customer organizations care about in any large deal is NOT a potential supplier’s solution.

Instead, the number one thing that these senior contacts care about is, in fact, their own company’s buy-in around that solution.   Read More »

Recently, there was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal that discussed how the big pharmaceutical players are leveraging digital tools to engage doctors and other prescribers.

In the article, the author discusses how these companies have enabled doctors’ use of these digital tools (e.g., tablet technology such as the iPad) to ask questions about drugs, order free samples, find out which insurers cover certain treatments, etc., and they sometimes even engage doctors in live video chat or phone them back if they have more questions.

In fact, the article asserts that many doctors are becoming wary of the traditional office visit from a rep.  And while most companies say they’re using digital tools only to supplement personal sales calls, layoffs in the sector suggest that the technology is potentially replacing, not just supplementing, human reps.

Based on conversations I’ve had with some members in the Pharma industry recently, I have some additional thoughts about what may be contributing to the trend of sales job shedding. Read More »

Throughout the year the Council’s research team talks to hundreds of senior sales executives to discuss key challenges they’re facing.  In recent months, there has been a marked increase in conversations that revolve around the complexity of working with third-party purchasing consultants hired by customers.

For some industries this isn’t a new trend at all.  In fact, in certain manufacturing environments, working with purchasing consultants has been a part of doing business for decades.

However, for other industries, this trend is a more recent phenomenon, and the use of purchasing consultants has been steadily increasing in the past year.  An example would be the pharmaceutical and health care industry, where department chairs at larger hospital and health care systems (that have little business background) employ purchasing consultants to help them make large, complex purchases from an array of potential suppliers.

Regardless of how recent or old this trend may be in your industry, the key question that organizations struggle with here is…how do we engage these folks? Do we forge strong relationships with these consultants and look to partner with them?  Or should we view them as the enemy and do our best to work around them and engage as many key customer contacts as possible without their knowledge? Read More »

The fast lane to having unengaged, dissatisfied sales reps is through a sales manager community that focuses solely on outcomes.

As a rep, there’s nothing worse than dreading your one-on-ones with your manager, as you’re likely to only hear, “Your conversion rate is way down.  What’s the problem?  Aren’t you following the process?”

That’s what we refer to as ‘spreadsheet coaching’, and it’s focused only on business results, not behaviors.

As I prepare for the Council’s upcoming teleconference on coaching in today’s buying environment (SEC Members, register for the webinar here), I’m reminded of a best practice we profiled that describes how a company managed to work around this challenge by developing a clever coaching roadmap. Read More »

(This post is the third and final piece in our three-part series about creating compelling sales messages.)

In my last post, we continued on our journey to craft a sales message that can move customer conversations beyond price and position the buying decision in favor of our solution as a supplier.

To recap, the Council suggests using a 3-step process to create this kind of sales message: Challenge Assumptions, Brainstorm Organizational Competencies, and Identify Your Differentiators.

We’ve already tackled steps 1 and 2 in previous posts – In this post, let’s talk about the third and final step: identifying your differentiators.  Here, the purpose is to prioritize those competencies underappreciated by customers where you outperform the competition.  The desired outcome is to uncover differentiators that are pressing enough to alter customer behavior.

Follow the identification process and activities presented below to vet your list of competencies (a list uncovered by completing the activities in Step 2) for true differentiators.

It’s worth repeating once again that our suggestion is to get key senior sales executives, a few high performing front line managers and sales reps, marketing folks, finance folks (anyone that would and should have a say in this matter) together in a room, and work to conclusion on the following activities:   Read More »

(This post is the second in a three-part series about creating compelling sales messages.)

In my post last week, we began a journey to craft a sales message that can move customer conversations beyond price and position the buying decision in favor of your solution as a supplier.

To recap, the Council suggests using a 3-step process to create this kind of sales message: 1) Challenge Assumptions, 2) Brainstorm Organizational Competencies, and 3) Identify Your Differentiators.

While last week’s post focused on Step 1 of the process, in this post, let’s talk about the second step – brainstorming organizational competencies.  Here, the purpose is to gather relevant competencies (or core company strengths) that are validated by business data and personal experience. The desired outcome is a comprehensive understanding of your organization’s competencies and supporting facts.

What you want to do is build consensus around your internal competencies before considering customer needs or the competition. This sequencing helps you find the value in what you do best and take vague value statements and mold them into a refined list of true company competencies.   Read More »

(This post is the first in a three-part series about creating compelling sales messages.)

“I’ve tried everything with customers, I talked about their needs, I tried using smart questions, I pitched features & benefits of our offering, I even led with our company’s values…and no matter what, the conversation keeps coming back to price…”

This is an all too familiar challenge voiced by sales reps across company and industry.  There’s no debate that the world of business-to-business sales has changed dramatically in recent years.  Companies are looking to sell bigger, more complex (and therefore more expensive) solutions…while customers are looking to squeeze every penny possible out of their suppliers.

The key question at play here: does a sales message exist for our company that can move customer conversations beyond price and position the buying decision in favor of our solution?

At the SEC we believe so, but you have to work to find it…

To build a compelling sales message, you need to understand what truly differentiates you as a supplier—those core competencies that the competition cannot easily imitate and which provide unrecognized value to your customers (at the Council, we refer to this as Commercial Teaching).  Armed with your differentiators, you’ll be able to leverage these in the sales interaction to positively change customer perceptions about the value of your solutions.

The Council suggests using a 3-step process to create this kind of sales message:   Read More »

87% of training is forgotten within one month.  That’s because most reps attend training and then go right back to what they were doing before.

For reps to truly improve skills, they certainly have to apply new skills over time…but they also need to take the time to reflect and deconstruct whether their attempt at applying that skill was successful or not.

Last month, Peter Long, Sales Training Consultant with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) joined us for a teleconference  where he discussed the importance of ensuring reps have the opportunity to analyze how well they’re applying any new skills taught in training.  In fact, BCBSM built a “12-Week Implementation Program” that alternates live-fire skill application with group debriefings of what went right and wrong.

For BCBSM, their initial debriefing sessions gathered the newest reps with the least tenure and were facilitated by the sales management team. (SEC Members, check out the full case study to learn the nuts and bolts of BCBSM’s approach).

They found that one of the keys to unlocking value from a program like this, is to make sure reps are coming prepared to the group debriefings with the right battle stories.  Read More »