Focus on the “Big Rocks”

The last week of the year can be pretty quiet.  This makes it a perfect time to review your growth target and your sales strategy to achieve it.

What do you need to do so that you’re ready to hit the ground running on January 1?  These best practices will help you focus on the “big rocks” that will create value for you and your most important customers.

• Get grounded. Who are your most important customers?  Where can you deliver the most differentiated value ahead of the defined proposal curve?  Where are you most profitable?  Take a couple of hours to analyze where you need to focus.  Use this first-round thinking as the foundation of joint company/customer/supplier planning sessions.  Are you on track?  What are their insights?  Do they agree with the value linkages?
• Enroll your team. Make sure everyone understands the customer’s big picture and your alignment.  Agree on your overarching value proposition, relationship strategy and customer relationship ownership and messaging.  By taking the time for team collaboration, you can create an actionable execution plan with identified ownership, deliverables, and accountability.  Some of our customers create large wall charts with this information and post them in common areas along with performance benchmarking information for task force or operations personnel.
• Plant the seeds by extending the relationship. Plan how best to extend the relationship between your company’s and your customer’s executives.  This can be as simple as setting up a single meeting or as elaborate as multi-track briefings along hierarchical lines within both organizations.  One of our clients, working in a very complex customer environment, has proven the value of briefing his counterparts so that they, in turn, can “brief up.”  By the time the respective executives meet, the value seeds have been planted and the meeting can focus on areas of possible strategy execution.

Great sales leaders focus on several key areas that will allow them to take advantage of opportunities afforded them during the coming year.  High-level strategy, actionable team enrollment, trusted value relationships–these are the best next actions that will help you make the most of 2010.

Collaborative Suppliers Get the Work

In CPS’ December First Thursday call, we examined the role of collaboration in customer/supplier relationships.  This reminded me to revisit an article that my colleague, Anna Marie Cwieka, recently sent me.

Titled “When Uncertainty Is Normal,” the article captured the responses from 470 senior-level executives around the world who were asked, “Which supplier is most likely to get work from you in tough times as compared to prosperous times?”  The top answer?  The supplier most proactive in helping out.

While they may not admit it, many executives are ill-equipped to navigate the business waters in which they are currently afloat.  Collaborating with a trusted supplier who is focused on solving customer problems and adding measurable value is a welcomed lifeline.

These are some ways that a trusted supplier may be able to help:

Help customers accept ambiguity. Share with your customer what you think their “unknowns” are and how to manage them.

Adhere to a nimble framework. Like in the nursery rhyme, “Jack be nimble, Jack be quick…,” being fleet-footed to help your customer meet market demands gives your customer–and you–a competitive advantage.

Restore internal relationships. As a trusted supplier, you have multiple relationships across your customer’s organization.  In the wake of a merger or layoffs, how can you help your customer rebuild meaningful relationships of his or her own?

Rebuild trust. With your in-depth understanding of your customer’s business, you can be instrumental in restoring trust with your customer’s external audiences.

Identify priorities and create a strategy to achieve them. Help your customer see the forest through the trees.

So toss that lifeline now.  Ask your customers, “What are the impacts of the new business norms on you and your customers, and how can we help?”

Collaboration: Where to Start?

In Critical Path Strategies’ December First Thursday conference call, managing partner Mike Morton pointed to the following common attributes among companies that collaborate successfully with their customers.

1. They think of themselves as collaborative problem solvers. They initiate collaboration.

2. Their communications to the market are filtered through a problem/solution prism. They are focused on the benefit to their customer’s customer.

3. They proactively promote joint collaboration and investment towards common goals. They focus on relationship and outcomes from the beginning.

4. They do not collaborate with everyone. They selectively invest in the highest-value opportunities for collaboration.

5. They engage their operations and other subject matter experts on customer-facing teams.

For sales executives convinced of the value of collaborating with their customers, but wondering where to start within their own selling organizations, Mike suggested the following actions:

• Explore new territory.  Use voice of the customer interviews to explore new areas or validate hypotheses.  Open regular, candid lines of communication between your company and your customer’s end user.  Solicit your customers’ unmet needs.  How can you expand the scope of your solutions to meet them?

• Develop an in-depth understanding of your customers’ business. Identify solutions for problems not yet causing pain.  Position your business-development and technical teams as best-practice experts within a specialty that serves your customer.  Understand and communicate how your company’s solution augments and complements your customers’ knowledge and capabilities.  Measure and communicate how your internal knowledge and technology enhances your  customer’s business.  How can you enhance the entire customer experience?

• Don’t dismiss unusual customer requests. These can often be indicators of new opportunities.  How can you leverage complementary or add-on products and services to capitalize on seemingly off-point requests?

• Engage your customer in your product/service design process. The creative give-and-take generates new ideas and validates existing plans.  Take actions to streamline and customize your solution to reduce the customer’s investment in supervision and management.  How can you satisfy a market segment and gain a competitive advantage?

By doing this, companies and their customers learn far more about each other–and themselves.  Information flows freely, companies have a clearer picture of what customers need, and resulting products are more successful in the marketplace.  The end result is increased client retention, improved customer satisfaction, and revenue opportunities that can benefit both the company and its customer.

Who Are Your Future Sales Executives?

I recently read an article in an SMU Cox Business School Leadership publication about a survey of 50+ line executives.  The HR executive had identified them as top talent managers. The survey asked these line executives how they identified and grew top talent for the leadership runway. Here is the list of the 5 most important criteria they surfaced:

1.       Strong track record of performance compared to their peers

2.       Strong interpersonal skills – how they work with people to generate results

3.       Strong communication skills – clear concise communications at all levels

4.       Demonstrated drive, initiative and ambition

5.       Creates and articulates vision and strategy

I like the list.

Room for Improvement

YIKES!  Interesting comments from the executive who heads the Sales Advisory Council and CMO Practice at research firm IDC.

In a recent survey, buyers were asked for their collective view of the salespeople who call on them:

• 16% were extremely prepared
• 27% were very prepared
• 31% were somewhat prepared
• 26% were ill prepared

The buyers recommended:

• 42% – Put away the generic pitch.  We already know most of that stuff or we don’t care.
• 15% – Make the conversation relevant to ME.
• 13% – Bring the right people to the table.
• 12%- You need to know YOUR stuff better.

He went on to say that salespeople are often disappointed with their marketing support and collateral.  In fact, the survey revealed that 40-50% of marketing assets are never used. Why not?

• 40% – I can’t find it.
• 17% – Poor taxonomy for my client base.
• 17% – I gave up and make my own marketing materials.
• 15% – The stuff lacks relevance for my clients.  It’s missing the “So What?”
• 17% – It lacks credibility, proof points, metrics.

There is plenty of wood to chop for sales and marketing executives.

Sales Enablement–What Is It?

I attended a conference in Chicago sponsored by the Savo Group for their customers, prospects and partners (Critical Path Strategies is a partner).  One hundred twenty-five sales and marketing executives and mid level managers attended a very good session on sales enablement.

First lightbulb:  This is a hot topic if 120+ folks  braved the expense police to attend in times like these. Next lightbulb: I met several people who had titles like VP of Sales Enablement! There is some meat here.

So why the buzz? Here are some notes I jotted down about how hard our selling jobs are:

• CRM has not fully delivered on its promise, at least to sales people. They do not like it. They say it takes time, cramps their style, and is, fundamentally, for someone else.
• Sales people demand flexibility.  They have a territory, a customer set, and a set of challenges that are unique. One size does not fit all.
• 2.0 stuff is cool.
• Selling dynamics have never been more difficult.
• CSO Insights study said that only 52% of sales reps will make their quota.
• The Internet has made buyers smarter than sellers.
• Customers report that 92% of sales calls stink.
• ROI and speed to ROI come up in the first meetings.
• Buyers are risk-adverse, and never more so than today. They believe that if they make a mistake, they will be fired.
• The decision makers and influencers matrix is more complex.
• Lots of folks can say “no;” few can say “yes.”
• The speed to commoditization has accelerated.

So I asked, “What is sales enablement about?”

• Creating face time for reps to have conversations with prospects
• Helping the reps have courage and confidence to do so
• Helping the reps have relevant conversations
• Getting them prepared to do so based on the best thinking of the firm, Tribal Knowledge
• Helping the reps have “fluent” conversations

Sales enablement is focused on sales people productivity. One of its principles:  The sales person is the last line of defense against commoditization.

The Savo Group may be a piece of the puzzle we all ought to explore. Check them out at www.savogroup.com