Are You Building a High Performance Sales Environment?
It is the Sales Leader’s challenge to create the circumstances that stimulate improved sales performance and strategy execution from their sales force.
Of course having the right sales and customer service people is critical, but once “on the bus” how does a sales leader create a sales environment that improves the performance of the sales force? That is the sales leader’s challenge and, when it is not done, it will matter little if you have the right people or not. An ineffective sales leader can greatly hinder sales employee retention. Like a great coach improves the performance of an athlete, effective leadership can improve the performance of the sales force.
Research has indicated that 46% of organizations cite creating a high performance sales culture as one of their top 3 talent management priorities and yet 61% of executives do not feel that the talent and management training processes they have today are driving greater performance from the business.
So the question is not whether you should do it but rather HOW.
How do sales leaders drive improved execution and individual contribution? How can sales leaders consistently make the right move to stimulate performance improvement? How can sales leaders ensure that performance improvement scales throughout an entire sales organization? The answer is to create and maintain a High Performance Sales Environment.
People Change When Their Environment Changes
It has long being held that people will adapt to their environment. Physically, mentally, emotionally people will make subtle and sometimes significant shifts in their behavior based upon the environmental circumstances. Driven by this presupposition our research project has been investigating the specific environmental circumstances that stimulate improved performance in people.
Through a process of interviews and analysis, we have spent the last 16 years researching human high performance and the factors that shape a high performance environment. Research subjects include: Nelson Mandela, Carl Lewis, Sir Edmund Hilary, military generals, leaders of NASA, MIT, Harvard Business School, the Juilliard School of Music, and CEOs of leading corporations among a bank of over 7,500 research participants.
Every performance population has a primary comparison. Leaders need to ensure that this comparison drives performance.
The Key to Building a High Performance Sales Environment
The key to implementing high performance in a sales organization is:
- Clarity,
- Effectiveness
Not only does a sales environment need concepts defining direction, performance status, and motivation, those concepts must be clear and effective if a performance management outcome is desired. It is the Sales Leaders’ job to provide this clarity and ensure effective implementation throughout a sales organization.
Many sales environments have goals and objectives that are not stimulating performance. Equally many sales forces have consequence systems that don’t motivate the population to perform or appraisal systems that are viewed as a bureaucratic process not a tool for performance exposure. Each concept has a set of “effectiveness criteria” that need to be met in order to stimulate improved performance in a sales force. This issue, a lack of clarity and effectiveness in one, some, or all of the nine components of the High Performance Environmental Structure®, is the cause of many of the problems with driving improved execution and enhanced productivity in sales forces today. Sales Leaders believe they have provided goals and training measurement and rewards and have engaged employees, but they are merely ticking the boxes not making those concepts “clear and effective” in stimulating sales performance.
It's not just who you know, it's who your clients know. If you don't ask your clients to refer you, you miss your most critical business development activity.
If it sounds too good to be true, it's not.
Everyone Is a Part of Your Inside Sales Team
If you don't include your current clients in your referral-sales team, you leave money on the table—every single day. If you ask them, they will refer you. But, you must ask.
Get upfront and honest with yourself. Ask (and answer) the two most important inside sales prospecting questions:
- How many client relationships do I have?(Translation: How many people do I know in all of my current and former client organizations?)
- With how many of these clients do I have great relationships? (Criteria for "great": They return my calls.)
Savvy executive sales professionals have at least 100 client contacts. If just 20 percent offered you referrals, you'd have 20 amazing new contacts. Once you actively cultivate them, they become part of your "executive sales team." Can you see where this leads, and how much business you could generate?
Take a few minutes and imagine your new solution selling life when you talk to prospects who want to talk to you. When you receive a referral introduction, you:
- Are pre-sold (They know you and the results you deliver.)
- Have already earned trust (One of the hardest things for solution salespeople to gain.)
- Gain instant credibility (They know you're not just there to "sell" them something.)
- Shorten your sales process by at least 25 percent (You decrease your cost of sales.)
Convert that referred prospect to a new client more than 50 percent of the time (You decrease your strategic account planning time and increase your client-facing sales presentation time.)
It's Who You Know
Here's the hard fact: most clients think of us only when they need us. It's up to you to get them thinking about you between sales calls. Your clients may not automatically offer referrals: Regularly remind them that you exist, so when a consultative selling opportunity arises, you're the one who gets it.
The clients you serve well--the ones who know you, like you, and trust you--truly want you to achieve sales territory success. After all, they know your work and the business results they've achieved from your solutions. Referring you makes them look good to their customers and business partners.
Our clients will refer us--if only we ask. With a little "instruction" you can empower your clients (your Referral Source) to refer you. Teach them how to introduce you (How do you want "what you do" to be described?). Teach them about your Ideal Client, and provide them with the answers to these critical questions:
- What business issues do you solve?
- What is the function of your Ideal Client? (CEO, VP, IT, Marketing)
- In what industry or geography do you work?
- What size company is your sweet spot?
Referral selling sounds too good to be true. But it's all true. Referral selling works. You choose how to spend your time. Get back in touch with your clients, ask them for referrals, and ask how you can help them. Your new sales opportunities will amaze you!
It's time to ask.
Client
Ultimate Software provides web-based payroll and employee performance management systems to organizations of all sizes. An important component of the company was the virtual Professional Services Organization and teams charged with providing client solutions.
Business Need
To meet the demands of a shifting economy and increased competition, Ultimate Software recognized the need to move from a product-oriented company to that of a solutions provider. They needed to partner with their clients by understanding their business issues and linking Ultimate Software solutions to these needs—saving their clients time and money.
Goal
Ultimate Software’s goal was to be seen as a strategic partner providing business solutions versus a software company. Through targeted and relevant consultative selling, executive selling and solution selling training investments and on-going sales coaching sessions, they wanted to arm their Professional Services Organization with the skills and training resources necessary to become true business partners with their clients.
Solution
We worked with Ultimate Software to roll out an ongoing business sales training curriculum that would provide their consultants with needed skills to help them partner internally with team members and, most importantly, externally with clients. These skills, along with effective sales negotiation best practices, were essential due to the fact that the majority of their work was done virtually.
The Consultative Selling Approach workshop was presented to the entire Professional Services Organization. This workshop was followed by implementation of a reinforcement strategy and other proven sales training best practices that included the following:
- Use of our online tools and activities.
- Discussion of consulting selling and advising skills at regular team and management meetings.
- Incorporation of specific goals into each participant’s performance management objectives.
- Sales training measurement and tracking of specific business objectives.
Nine months after the initial rollout, Directors and Managers attended a one-day event on Conflict Strategies. At the workshop participants learned proven strategies for quickly and effectively recognizing, resolving, preventing conflict and ensuring corporate compliance with client needs.
Three months later we presented Leveraging the Consultative Selling Approach training to the entire Professional Services Organization. Participants deepened their ability to build effective business partnerships by assessing a more complex client relationship using our Partnering Factors.
Ultimate Software Directors led reinforcement sessions based on tools and techniques from Leveraging the Consultative Selling Approach during their regional meeting events and key strategic account planning and training efforts.
Five months later Directors and Managers attended our Consultative Selling Training, a client simulation workshop focused on influencing senior executives.
Nine months later Senior Managers attended a Train-the-Trainer session for the Consultative Approach in order to accelerate critical talent management initiatives such as training and coaching all remaining corporate employees and integrating the workshop into an Effective Interviewing Skills and New Hire Training.
ResultsFollowing this curriculum, Ultimate Software achieved the following results:
- Add-on work associated with revenue generating projects increased by over 20%. This verified that customers were seeing the value of Professional Services solutions, and that consultants were now able to identify value selling opportunities and secure additional business opportunities.
- As a result of better customer service skills, customer referrals increased significantly along with the number of customers willing to do press releases and give testimonials for Ultimate Software.
- Implement and Utilize Project Management Best Practices and Skills – Overall project utilization increased by over 36%.
- Individual performance – Each participant worked with their manager to set specific performance management goals and track results.
- Managers reported a significant increase in participant performance, a sharp improvement in their ability to work strategically with their clients and better manage critical sales territories.
