by Bill Poole | Nov 21, 2024 | Sales, Strategy
Failing at sales can be highly frustrating for entrepreneurs. You have happy clients; you deliver products and services well, but sales come up short no matter what you try.
This blog provides a framework to help you understand why sales may not be meeting your expectations. Three reasons that sales may be failing are:
- The sales leader is not equipped to coach
- There aren’t any processes and tools to coach to
- You have uncoachable sales reps
The Sales Leader is Not Equipped to Coach
The Problem:
Being a great football player does not make you a great coach; being a great salesperson does not make you a good sales leader. Coaching requires a different skill set: inspiring, guiding, and developing individuals to perform at their best.
We recently worked with a business that elevated their highest performing sales rep (lets call her Jen) to the sales leadership seat. We see this a lot, so this is nothing new! Here is what happened:
- Jen was promoted from her territory to the sales seat to replace the Visionary who was managing the sales team, and she proudly accepted.
- Jen began participating in sales calls with her reps, many times taking the lead at the beginning of sales cycles. The sales team was impressed at how good Jen was in front of their prospects.
- After 6 months, the leadership team reflected on the scorecard, and despite the new sales leader being in place, sales numbers went down, and they wanted to know why!
Here is what they realized:
- Jen’s previous territory now has a new rep in it, so the territory that previously drove the most revenue was at the bottom of the stack list.
- While Jen was impressive on the initial call and helped some reps close some big deals, many of the other deals were stalling because Jen did not have the bandwidth to drive them to closure.
- While reps were initially impressed with Jen, their performance was not improving, so they grew frustrated.
- In addition, the cost of sales was higher because the sales leadership seat created a new overhead expense.
Sales reps elevated to leadership positions who are great “closers.” Many often focus on closing business at the expense of developing their reps to be better performers. There absolutely comes a time for a sales leader to focus on closing the “whales,” but, as a rule, elevating and developing the entire sales team is significantly more impactful to the business in the long term than having a sales leader focus on closing.
The Solution:
The best way to solve this may be to consider keeping the sales superstar in a sales seat where they can make more money and continue to drive revenue for the business. Look at hiring or someone better equipped to make the whole team better. That person might already be on your sales team. Hint: he/she might not be the top performer!
Regardless of who is in the sales leadership seat, it is highly recommended to invest in leadership development, with a focus on coaching. Books like Coaching for Performance by John Whitmore can provide a solid foundation, but practical, ongoing training is essential. The GROW Coaching model is detailed in that book.
Consider bringing in external coaching experts or enrolling your sales leaders in programs that teach and coach them how to listen, ask insightful questions, and provide constructive feedback.
Download the G.R.O.W. Coaching Guide
No Processes and Tools To Coach To
The Problem:
Revisiting the football analogy, coaching without processes and tools is like a football coach without a playbook and a practice schedule. Even the best football coach in the world could only coach effectively with a game plan and a framework to prepare for games.
Nutshell research shows that Organizations that adopt a structured sales process experience a 15% boost in sales performance compared to those lacking such a process. Some symptoms that you may be seeing in your business if you do not have processes in place are:
- Low close rates
- No metrics to support needed business decisions
- Poor pipeline visibility results in unpredictable sales team performance, making business planning difficult
- Challenges onboarding reps
- High sales turnover
- Very long time to performance for new reps
- Reliance on “whales.” These are the big deals that might sustain your business because you don’t have a steady stream of smaller, more reliable deals with less variance.
- Tenured reps not continuously getting better
- Dissatisfied clients, specifically in the onboarding phase
- Sales team wasting time
Smaller sales organizations can achieve success without process for a time, but these challenges are magnified with each sales hire and scaling is nearly impossible.
The Solution:
A structured, consistent sales process drives predictable sales performance, making business planning much easier. So, implement processes! If they exist, then use and evolve them! Two processes that are needed for effective coaching are:
- Sales Process – A consistent, repeatable sales process designed to guide your clients through their buying process. This process should be crafted to align with how your specific clients prefer to buy. The process should be optimized in a CRM and include tools like checklists to enable coaching and maximize closure rates.
- Sales Management Process – A consistent, structured approach to planning, executing, and optimizing the business’s sales efforts is also needed. Ideally, this process aligns with the company’s goals and EOS™ or any other business operating system that the company uses.
Uncoachable Sales Reps
The Problem:
Not every sales rep is open to coaching. For whatever reason, sales reps are typically less open to coaching than teammates in other parts of the business. Ego, complacency, or a lack of trust in leadership are possible root causes.
If you have any reps on your sales team who resist feedback, think they know everything, consistently demonstrate a negative attitude, or don’t improve, there is a good chance it might be time to cut bait.
The Solution:
In the end, an uncoachable rep is, well, uncoachable. So, save yourself some time and money and do what it takes to find that out. Assess your sales team and ensure they are coachable.
Better yet, take the next step with the assessment and ensure they have the aptitude for their sales role (SDR, BDR, Account Manager, etc). Many assessments can also help you develop a development plan to help the rep continue improving. Add this to your Sales Management Process!
Connect with us about Assessing Your Sales Team.
Conclusion
Now you have an actionable, DIY framework to determine why your sales might fall short. You can always go it alone, but when it comes to sales, might it be a better idea to accelerate sales growth by asking for help from the experts?
by Bill Poole | Sep 27, 2024 | Sales, Strategy
A lot has been written about making Rocks SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound), but I have yet to see it applied to the added context of the Sales Department. This blog was written to add this context in order to help sales departments set better rocks and sell more stuff!
Before we dive in, for the purposes of this blog, it helps to understand these different types of rocks by differentiating a couple of types of rocks that I see in sales:
- Building Rocks – Rocks that require the building of processes that likely result in new activity metrics
- Performing Rocks – Leveraging current processes to drive existing metrics
Building Rocks are about implementing new structures or processes, and performance Rocks are part of the normal “day job” of the sales or revenue team. I am not a huge fan of performance rocks, but there is a place for them. More on that later!
Also, some use the “R” as “Realistic,” but from my perspective, “Realistic” and “Achievable” are the same, so I go with “Relevant!”
Specific
The “S” component of SMART rocks is for “Specific,” which is pretty simple. A “Specific” Rock is crystal clear. In short: What needs to be accomplished? Who owns the Rock? When will it be complete?
When it comes to sales, one thing to consider is that the Rock may be cross-functional, so it is important that the right person owns the Rock. For example, most B2B businesses get leads through both sales and marketing. If implementing processes to get more leads is a Rock, the marketing person may not be the best person to own the Rock as the Revenue Leader may have a more comprehensive perspective. At a minimum, sales and marketing might be involved in building the Rock.
Examples of Specific Sales Rocks:
- Example 1- “Implement a process to reduce the average deal close time from 45 days to 35 days by the end of Q4, owned by the head of sales operations.”
- Example 2- “Generate 50 new Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) from the Northeast region by the end of Q4, owned by the CRO.”
Summary of Key Sales Considerations:
- Is it a cross-functional Rock that needs members of both sales and marketing?
- Are there key milestones to hit along the way?
Measurable
Rocks should always be measurable to ensure that the rock is focused on impact and that the success of the work done on the rock can be determined.
Sales is a very metric-heavy part of the business. While “measuring” Rocks in other departments might be binary (yes/no) from a completion perspective, try to avoid this when it comes to Sales Rocks so that there are measurable results from the Rock being complete.
Your Rock should target impacting the highest level (lagging or leading) metric on your scorecard to be impacted by the work on the Rock. Another way to think about this is to ensure that the metric the Rock targets is the lowest metric in the funnel that will be impacted. For context, here is an example of relatively standard metrics in the funnel for a generic sales process:
- # of MQL leads
- MQL>SQL conversion rates.
- SQL>Discover Conversion Rates
- Discover>Proposal Conversion rates
- Proposal win rates
These metrics are likely macro metrics to be tracked monthly or quarterly instead of activity metrics. Also, consider what outcome you are looking for. I have seen organizations have # of leads as a Rock when they really want more Sales-Qualified Leads (SQLs).
Here is a contrast of two different Rocks:
- Rock 1
- Owner: Marketing Leader
- Rock: Increase the # of leads
- Rock 2
- Owner: Revenue/Sales Leader
- Rock: Increase # of SQLs
These two Rocks would likely look different. Which one would work for you?
Summary of Key Sales Considerations:
- What is the highest-level leading/lagging metric (closest to the bottom of the funnel) you can use to measure the success of this Rock long-term by using trends in the monthly or quarterly scorecard?
- How can you ensure it’s more than a “yes/no” completion check?
Achievable
Your Rocks should stretch your team but remain realistic. Take stock of your resources and ask whether the goal is truly attainable.
For “Performance Rocks,” given the current processes in place now, consider if the Rock is realistic. For example, if your team is closing 50 deals per quarter, it’s unlikely they’ll jump to 100 overnight. An achievable Rock might be “Close 60 deals by the end of the quarter.”
Another consideration with that example is if you ask for better results than you usually expect from the team, what gives? Will it come at the expense of driving another metric? If so, that might be part of the plan for the Rock. If not, then why aren’t the better results expected each quarter?
For “Building Rocks,” does the Rock owner and their team have the capacity to build? Sales is different from other departments in the business because the sales team is directly connected to generating revenue. So, work on Sales Rocks should be reserved for roles in the sales organization that are non-quota bearing, as they take time away from sales reps revenue-generating activities.
Summary of Key Sales Considerations:
- Does this Rock elevate the expectations of your sales team? If so, why isn’t this always expected? What other metrics may be negatively impacted?
- Given sales quotas, is there bandwidth on the team to own and complete this Rock?
Relevant
Rocks need to be relevant to your company’s vision and longer-term goals. Each Rock should tie directly into a larger goal—ideally, one of the Measurables on the 3-Year Picture on your Vision/Traction Organizer (V/TO™). For example, if your company’s goal is to increase market share in a specific region, a sales Rock might focus on acquiring new customers in that region.
Depending on your business, another test of relevancy is to ensure that you keep in mind the perspective of your Target Market or Ideal Client. For example, if there is a desire for the sales team to generate leads, are all leads treated equally, or might it be a good idea to target the Rock around getting ideal client leads?
Examples of Relevant Sales Rocks:
- If your company’s lagging metric is revenue growth, a relevant Rock for a business that is shifting focus to healthcare might be “Generate $500K in new revenue from the healthcare sector by Q4.”
- If improving customer retention is a company-wide focus, a sales Rock might be “Increase customer renewal rates by 5% by the end of the quarter.”
Summary of Key Sales Considerations:
- Does this Rock support a Measurable on the 3-Year Picture on your Leadership V/TO™?
- Does it align with the overall business vision?
- Is your Ideal Client considered in the context of the Rock?
Time Bound
The Rock should have a clear deadline or timeframe. Per EOS™, this will typically be the end of the quarter when you get together to plan out your next quarter. Every Rock needs a deadline, but it’s also important to consider how long it will take to build and implement it.
Sales Rocks often require infrastructure or systems that take time to build and implement, while the results may come later. Keep this in mind when setting timelines and expectations by considering how long it will take to build and implement the Rock and how long it will take for results to be realized.
One approach to this is for the Rock to be built this quarter, which will have a goal to affect a metric in 3 or 6 months.
Examples of Time-Bound Sales Rocks:
- “Implement a process in Q2 that will result in $200,000 of additional recurring revenue by the end of Q4.”
- “Complete 100 sales calls by October 31st, with weekly targets to track progress.”
Summary of Key Sales Considerations:
- What is the deadline for completing this Rock?
- When should the goal for results realistically be set for?
- Have you accounted for the time it takes to build and implement the solution?
Conclusion
Setting the right sales Rocks can transform your business. By making them SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound – you ensure your team focuses on the right goals, tracking progress, and aligned with the company’s long-term vision. As you plan your next quarter, apply the concepts in this blog to set and crush your Rocks!
by Bill Poole | Sep 9, 2024 | Sales, Strategy
The Before Picture
Ashton Solutions provides IT strategies and solutions to small to medium-sized businesses across the Greater Cleveland region and the U.S.
Things were humming along at Ashton with a steady 12% growth rate, but that pace was starting to slow down. The company mainly worked with clients with between 10 and 100 employees, but no one could really agree on what an “Ideal Client” looked like. Without a clear picture, the sales team ended up chasing every lead that came their way, and everyone got a proposal, even if the prospects weren’t the best fit. Not surprisingly, only about 25% of those proposals turned into actual business.
This scattershot approach was wearing them out. Without a solid sales process or a clear path for clients to follow, the sales, marketing, and delivery teams were often out of sync. It was like everyone was playing a different tune, and it showed. The lack of consistent revenue processes made finding their rhythm and keeping the business growing tough.
The Plan
Ashton Services’ EOS Implementer, Kimberly Dyer, connected the Ashton leadership team with Convergo for help. The first step was to align everyone on the Ashton Ideal Client. Once that was clear, the next step was to refine their Proven Process for two reasons:
- To drive clarity in communications with prospects and clients about where they were and where they were on their path to value.
- Internally align so everyone understands their role in delivering an amazing experience for ideal clients.
The Ashton Way, their Proven Process, was the foundation for creating a simple, cross-functional Playbook that helped the team guide prospects and clients through a well-defined journey. Everyone was finally on the same page with consistent sales and marketing language, process rigor, and terminology across the Ashton Way.
This plan was not just about closing more deals; it was about making sure clients had a great experience from start to finish. The front end of the Proven Process is the sales process, so the next big step was to build a sales process with the new lens of an Ideal Client. One big change was that they started qualifying prospects against their Ideal Client Profile. So, instead of chasing every opportunity, they focused on the ones that were the best fit for the delivery team and the business itself. Now, when they send out proposals, they are going to prospects who would benefit from their services and not be a burden for their delivery team.
Convergo worked with Ashton on each stage of the Ashton Way, creating a cross-functional Playbook. The Playbook ensures the Ashton team knows exactly where the prospect/client is in their journey and their role in delivering a great experience. The Playbook is also used to enhance the onboarding and training of new team members.
The Results are In
The difference was huge. Since we started working together, Ashton Services has seen its annual revenue jump by 63%. They also started working with larger clients—businesses with 50 to 250 employees who had larger budgets and more complex needs.
But it wasn’t just about the money. The alignment enabled them to synch their messaging so that sales and marketing messages were consistent. The team was working together like a well-oiled machine. The person who used to spend all their time cranking out proposals suddenly had a lot more time on their hands, which they could now use for bigger-picture strategies.
Jim Abbot, the VP of Client Solutions at Ashton, said: “We get to ‘no’ faster, and we’re not chasing clients that are too small… We’re saving a lot of time by not actively chasing the wrong people.” With everyone following the same client journey, the whole company was moving in the same direction. They even reduced their sales team from three people to two, but thanks to their new focus on Ideal Clients, they were getting better results than ever. The sales process became consistent and easy to follow, and everyone started speaking the same language.
Ashton Services isn’t just growing again—they’re doing it in a way that feels right for them. And that’s something any small business owner can appreciate.
by Bill Poole | Oct 10, 2023 | Strategy
Small business owners are often faced with a decision dilemma of hiring the right leader for their leadership team. The two ends of the spectrum are:
- The leader that I know and want for my business is not affordable
- The leader that I can afford will be different from the leader I want.
There is no more need to struggle with this dilemma! The proliferation of fractional services now enables business owners to get the quality leader that they want at an investment level they can afford. Alignable’s August Small Business Labor Report found that 32% of SMB employers are focused on hiring contractors and part-timers.
While the leadership positions are part-time, there’s still much to do! So, setting up the fractional engagement for success is crucial to ensure all expectations are aligned. When you boil it down, there are three high-level categories to consider. Using the context of a Revenue leader:
- Leadership, Management, and Accountability (LMA): Developing and leading sales and marketing teams.
- Building: Implementing or optimizing the sales and marketing infrastructure for ongoing improvement
- Doing: Doing the work. Active participation in sales cycles
This differentiation can be helpful when scoping, setting expectations, and for ongoing communications. Let’s peel back each of them…
LMA
Developing and leading a team is typically the most impactful way a sales or revenue leader spends their time. Long-term sales success is contingent on the ongoing development of the sales reps. So, when the sales team is developed, the entire team’s performance grows exponentially.
This is a big problem in many small businesses when they elevate their best sales rep to be a manager, which can be a big mistake. Sales can be positively affected by this setup in the short term. Still, the long-term impact is that the sales team does not realize their potential from a development perspective.
From sales leadership to graphic design, there are countless functions within the revenue department. Outsourcing many of these functions may be a great play for small businesses, especially with the marketing disciplines. So, vendor management falls into the LMA category. This can take a huge load away from the Visionary/Founder.
Building
We view “building” as the process of building or optimizing infrastructure. If nothing exists, building involves developing processes and associated KPIs to get to the point of having a basis for ongoing improvement. For companies that run on EOS, ongoing improvement happens in annual and quarterly planning meetings to set “Rocks” (building priorities) that can then be tracked in weekly L10s,
“Building” then might mean building new processes or possibly optimizing existing ones to improve on existing metrics or input new ones.
Building can be a challenge for a Fractional Revenue Leader for a couple of reasons:
- Capabilities – A wide variety of disciplines are needed in the revenue space (sales process, content writing, graphic design, etc.). I have yet to find the unicorn that has all of these capabilities, so the Revenue leader needs to lean on other resources to help with building.
- Bandwidth – Fractional leaders typically have a consistent amount of time allocated for each of their clients. So, they do not have a surplus of extra time to be able to add or remove scope every quarter to support building.
Fractional firms like Convergo might have the back office bandwidth to support their clients from a building perspective while the Fractional Revenue Leader is fulfilling their normal scope of duties.
Doing
The need for “doing” the work in the revenue space might involve countless different functions:
- Sales: Strategic relationships, managing sales opportunities, outbound prospecting, sales engineering,
- Marketing: Content writing, graphic design, web design, web development, SEO, social media management…
Like building, the unicorn that can do all these things does not exist on this planet. That said, a Fractional Revenue leader can perform any of this work if they have the skills and the time.
One unique way that we help with “doing” at Convergo is that we can place a Fractional Sales Professional for the visionary that is ready to take off the sales hat or needs to complement a sales team to approach a new market.
Conclusion
In a perfect world, some would argue that a leader is supposed to spend all of their time enabling their team to perform and drive results by leveraging their LMA skills and abilities. The reality of small business is that leaders sometimes need to wear many hats, so more than LMA might be required.
In closing, it is essential to have complete clarity about what a fractional leader will be doing before they come on board. An experienced, fractional leader will have a process to ensure that this is understood and included in a tight statement of work before an engagement begins.
by Bill Poole | Sep 6, 2023 | EOS, Marketing, Strategy
The four elements of the Marketing Strategy component of the Vision/Traction Organizer™ of the Entrepreneurial Operating System® provide a fantastic framework for growing your business. If you don’t remember off the top of your head, the four elements are:
- Your target market/The list
- 3 Uniques™
- Your Proven Process
- Your Guarantee
The first step in leveraging this framework is to ensure that you do a thorough job of documenting each one of the four elements. But that’s still just the beginning! As is the case with most of the EOS® tools, the power is in how you leverage these on an ongoing basis. How do you go about doing that? For starters, everyone in your organization should be able to recite each of the four elements at any given moment.
Below are some ideas as to how you can put the different elements in to work for you and your B2B business. A brief introduction for each is included, but I’m not going to spend much time talking about the elements themselves (your EOS Implementer® can help with that!).
Target Market/The List
The Target Market refers to the clients that are ideal fits for your business. This includes basic information like what industry they are in, what geography they are in, and other descriptive characteristics. In the B2B space, this should also include who the key players are inside of those businesses. Here’s some ideas around taking the next step in providing value to your Target Market and growing your business:
- Your target market is identified and an ideal client profile is created that represents the businesses that are ideal fits for your products and services
- Everyone in your business can communicate the profile of your ideal client and the desired outcomes that your organization delivers to those clients
- Key functional contacts that work in businesses that fit your ideal client profile are identified and documented and the specific outcomes they desire are identified and documented
- 100% of the organizations that fit your ideal client profile are identified in your CRM
- 100% of key functional contacts within your ideal client organizations are identified in your CRM
- A sales and marketing strategy is designed and documented with the goal of engaging with 100% of the key functional contacts within organizations that fit your ideal client profile
- You are able to measure engagement levels with all of these functional contacts
3 Uniques™
Your 3 Uniques™ provide a high-level outline for what differentiates you from your competitors. While you may share a unique or two with other providers, your 3 Uniques™ should not be shared by any other business. Here are some thoughts around putting your 3 Uniques™ to work for you:
- Your entire organization can articulate your 3 Uniques™ and why they matter to your ideal client
- 3 Uniques™ are clearly represented in some way on your website
- 3 Uniques™ come to life in all sales and marketing collateral
- Your sales process is designed to leverage your 3 Uniques™
- You have shareable case studies that show how your 3 Uniques™ are directly benefiting a client’s organization
- Content that communicates the value of your 3 Uniques™ is regularly shared with your audience
- Proposals are structured to clearly communicate how the 3 Uniques™ will benefit your prospects
Guarantee
Simply stated, your guarantee should remove the most significant barriers for your target market to do business with you and it should support your value proposition. Here are some things that you can do to ensure your guarantee is properly communicated to your target market:
- Your guarantee clearly addresses and overcomes the most common challenge that prospects have in engaging with your business
- Your guarantee clearly articulates the consequences of your company not fulfilling on your end of the guarantee
- Your guarantee is communicated on the homepage of our website
- Your guarantee is communicated on all sales proposals
- You have referenceable examples where we a client leveraged your guarantee satisfactorily
- Your guarantee is in the footer of your emails
Proven Process
Your Proven Process should provide context and clarity as to how your ideal clients will navigate their experience with your business. At Convergo, We see the Proven Process as a subset of the Ideal Client Experience. We feel strongly that the Ideal Client Experience is the foundation for aligning to your entire business to maximize the value that you provide to your clients. Here are some thoughts around the Proven Process in motion:
- Your proven process has an internal brand and 100% of your team can recite your proven process and their role in the process
- There is a external version of your proven process that shows prospects how they will engage with your business if they were to become a client
- The sales and marketing arms of your organization are aligned around your proven process with the goal of creating an amazing client experience
We’d love to hear from all of you how you are bringing the marketing elements of your V/TO™ to life in your organization.
by Bill Poole | Mar 20, 2023 | Strategy
Developing the scorecard that works for your business is a journey. There are some common challenges that entrepreneurs face along the way. This blog is written to help you take action to improve your scorecard and shorten the journey.
We will look at three common challenges that entrepreneurs face with the scorecard by providing:
- The symptom
- The likely cause
- Suggested actions for improvement.
Symptom: Team members are not accountable to their numbers
| Likely Cause |
Suggest action |
| Setting the wrong tone for your scorecard. The purpose of the scorecard is not to punish but to enable your team to hit their numbers through skills development or process improvement. |
Implement a culture of coaching. If team members understand that leadership is there to coach and help them, they will feel more personally accountable. |
| The goals may be unrealistic. If you set your goals with the superstar in mind, you are setting up your team’s mid and lower performers for ongoing failure. |
Ensure the goals are realistic and all team members can hit their numbers. |
Symptom: We are hitting our activity numbers, not business goals.
| Likely Cause |
Suggest action |
| Activity and leading metrics are not aligned with the Business Plan / V/TO® |
Leverage your client journey as the path to connect activity metrics to your business goals and ensure you are gathering your client’s perspective along the way. |
| You may track the right metrics, but the goals are not high enough. |
If your activity metrics are aligned with your business goals, then keep the metrics, raise the goals, and give team members what they need to succeed. |
| Not enough time – if you have just recently input your metrics, they may not have had time to affect the high-level business goals. |
Make sure you have given your activity metrics enough time to affect your business goals, and keep an eye on how your activity metrics are connected to the leading metrics to meet your goals. |
Symptom: Long streaks of red or green on your scorecard or metrics that never prompt action.
| Likely Cause |
Suggest action |
| You are tracking things that can’t be controlled weekly. The big idea with using a scorecard in your leadership and departmental meetings is to track metrics that prompt action every week. For example, tracking lagging metrics for individuals is not a great idea. |
If you’re not taking action on those metrics, could you remove them from your scorecard and track the activity or leading metrics that will prompt action weekly. |
Remember that your scorecard is a journey. Ensure that you are getting to the root cause before you make changes to keep your scorecard moving in the right direction.
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