“Never make forecasts, especially about the future”
-Samuel Goldwyn

While the quote in the title is tongue-in-cheek, in Sales, forecasting is a fact of life.  And many members lament that the quality of their sales forecasting is lacking.  Information isn’t always entered by the sales force – and if it is, it might not be accurate – and even then our ability to analyze the information may not be up to par.

So to help us out, I went to the definitive source on financial tracking and analysis – the CFO suite.  I sat down with Myles Vander Weele, Executive Advisor with our Corporate Finance practice, to talk about sales forecasting from Finance’s perspective.

According to Myles, forecasting is a critical responsibility of Corporate Finance.  They work to figure out what the organization is capable of and then set targets to track actual performance against those expectations throughout the year.   “Since forecasts are assumptions,” says Myles, “Finance continuously checks to determine how the business is performing relative to those assumptions.”

And, getting sales forecasting as accurate as possible is critical to a well run business.  As Myles explains, “Sales forecasts help the company make better decisions on how to manage spending and what expectations they should be setting with investors.”

However, relatively speaking, forecasting Sales is difficult. Read More »

When it comes to talent management, it’s critical for organizations to bring the best talent into their sales forces.

We know from our research on high performing rep skills that companies’ best bet is to bring more Challenger Reps into the sales force – Challengers are four times more likely to be high-performers than Relationship Builders in complex selling environments.

But we’ve seen most sales organizations continue to use traditional relationship-based skills and competencies to screen and select new hires. After all, conventional wisdom tells us that the likable candidate who charms interviewers is bound to be a successful salesperson.

This hiring approach inevitably brings an unpleasant surprise, though. Why? Because if a rep relies on the same relationship-building behaviors they used to close a deal as they do to approach an interview, they’ll soon find that their long-term likelihood to succeed is bleak.

So how do companies actually find sales rep candidates with the Challenger skill set in the marketplace? Read More »

We hope you’ll read this and share this.

It’s a unique occasion when we get to step back from the day-to-day of supporting our members’ decisions and reflect on where we believe the world of sales is headed. In 2011, the SEC had thousands of interactions with sales executives around the globe, held dozens of conferences and intimate roundtable discussions with leading CSOs, and examined hundreds of thousands data points.

Given this, we’d like to share the fundamental shifts we expect to play out in increasingly significant ways in 2012.

Granted, it’s not a MECE list – there is overlap and implications shared throughout these trends, but we hope you’ll take a minute and reflect on how these trends are manifesting in your own organization, disagree if appropriate, and highlight trends you expect to see that we missed. It’s meant to be a reflective, but fun list. We look forward to your input! Read More »

I often hear from sales leaders that it is more important than ever to drive account planning across the sales force to help allocate scarce resources, identify the right opportunities, and build deeper customer relationships. But what does good account planning actually look like? It starts with choosing the right preposition.

Fundamentally, account planning is setting and executing your strategy for engaging the customer. Here at the Council, we believe a successful account plan should do three things:

1) Create long-term customer and firm value– Map selling strategies to customer needs and manage the complexity of solutions-selling

2) Streamline internal processes– Focus account teams on defined objectives and coordinate cross-silo communication

3) Create stakeholder accountability– Create accountability for achieving goals and set metrics to evaluate rep and internal stakeholder performance

Account planning is most effective when it simultaneously works to achieve the strategic objectives of both the supplier organization and its customers. We want to make sure that we’re embarking on a commercial journey that is right for our firm and for the customer

And the first step you need to take?… Read More »

(This is a guest post by Lara Ponomareff of the Customer Contact Council, our sister program for heads of Customer Service and Contact Centers.)

One of the main benefits of working at the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) – SEC’s parent company – is that I get to learn what is going on in other corporate functions and keep pace with changing priorities and new challenges.

Because, everything is inter-connected after all – right?

So, I read with great interest our latest Executive Guidance for 2012 on Assessing Global Readiness: Adapting the Corporate Core to New Markets.

We have increasingly heard about globalization’s impact on the sales and service organization– especially as customers become more global and companies extend their reach – whether it’s questions about how to serve local markets, work with third-party partners, or otherwise operate globally.

Selling to global customers and serving them in their local markets is on the rise – but it isn’t anything especially brand new to us in the sales and service organization.  We’ve seen our organization become more global as our customers become more global – requiring service and support in their local markets, not just in a few centralized locations.

But, what our colleagues around CEB found was that while most companies focus on market-level investments to grow globally – they do not also work to align corporate center functions (like Finance, HR, Research, Legal, and IT) with these global goals.  So, while sales organizations may be trying to sell and serve customers globally – we may feel like our internal processes are holding us up. Read More »

CRM – it’s a topic that’s guaranteed to derail any meeting with a 15-minute side-bar into why our reps don’t use it.  CRM is so frustrating because very few companies have been able to crack the code and really build a CRM system that is a core part of how they go to market.

There are many reasons why CRM fails…Incomplete data.  Duplicate data.  Inaccurate data.  Too many fields.  Too time consuming.  Not user-friendly.  Redundant.

These are all reasons why CRM is often viewed as a burden and why reps don’t use it.  Although each of those problems must be addressed, there’s a bigger problem that they often mask and it can be traced back to one simple question – why would a rep want to use the CRM?

From the rep perspective, how much better is using the CRM than their own way of selling that they’ve built over their career?  They view CRM as a necessary evil, whose mandatory fields are needed to get resources or help their manager send forecasts up the ivory tower.

Very rarely do reps use the CRM because they believe it actually helps them sell better. And therein lies the problem.

As you’re thinking about investments in CRM in 2012, look at every potential investment through that lens.  Here are some additional questions you may want to ask yourself: Read More »

There are 21 NFL Hall of Fame coaches, yes, just 21.  As we start the playoff run of this NFL season, we are reminded that winning championships not only takes great players on the field, but also great coaches and leaders.

The question often asked is – are great coaches made or born?  Well, according to Vince Lombardi, “Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.”

But, we still ask this same question in Sales – is a sales manager born a great coach or can a sales manager become a great coach?

The good news – our research at the Sales Executive Council shows we CAN make great coaches, which means there are more than just a few “Hall of Fame” sales coaches out there.

But now the question becomes, HOW do we foster successful coaching in our sales organizations?  What’s required to make “Hall of Fame” sales coaches?   Read More »

(This is a guest post by Bill Skaggs, Global Director of Sales Excellence at Solae, LLC. Bill has more than 30 years of experience in the sales excellence and enablement function.)

Our company, Solae, has embraced the SEC’s rep behavior profiles research since it was introduced several years ago and has actively begun developing the Challenger behaviors in our sales force.  Over a number of years, our Go-to-Market process and selling tools had been defined and refined to sell complex solutions to our targeted customer base.  The definition of “Challenger” reps and the data to support the actions of these high performing Account Managers appeared to be the missing piece to bring all our marketing strategy, account strategy, and tactics to the execution at the account.

In good style, we had our SEC Executive Advisor bring the concepts to our global management team.  There was great enthusiasm and excitement for training the global commercial teams on this research. We designed material and workshops to introduce and train the behaviors of high performers during the regional meeting that was kicking off a new fiscal year.

Reality hit when the behaviors were introduced in the regions though. Outside of North America, the Challenger behaviors ran into some roadblocks.   Read More »

There’s no disputing the importance of developing a key accounts program, but getting it right from the get go, and then maintaining it, is easier said than done. In a recent member poll, 41% of companies indicated they were in the process of restructuring their key account programs.

With that in mind, one of the key drivers of overall key account program performance is making sure the right customers are in the program in the first place.

But, all too often, companies weigh their programs down with customers who don’t quite warrant the time or resources given to a key account.

Why? The traditional mechanisms companies use to select accounts are often unreliable due to internal biases and external factors. Some pitfalls that cause them to focus on the wrong accounts are: Read More »

Most companies have a well-defined, 3–5 year succession plan for their CEOs. The same is true for other leadership positions, including those within the sales organization. After all, a strong leadership succession plan ensures a steady pipeline of experienced and capable talent as key roles become available.

But, what about sales talent at the front line? Should companies prepare reps for the first line sales manager role? The answer most sales organizations are beginning to realize is a firm YES..!!

First line manager backfills are still based on strong performance in the rep role, but the requisite skills are different from those required of managers. In addition, the first line manager profile itself is simultaneously changing with the product-to-solutions transition and shifting of customer purchase preferences. This “double jump” represents a vexing challenge for “once-high-performing-rep” managers.

It’s not surprising then that star reps don’t always make star managers. Below is an analysis from a Fortune 500 company that attempts to estimate the cost of a failed first line sales manager: Read More »