Three Reasons Sales May be Failing- And What To Do

Three Reasons Sales May be Failing- And What To Do

by | 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:

  1. Jen was promoted from her territory to the sales seat to replace the Visionary who was managing the sales team, and she proudly accepted.
  2. 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.
  3. 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?

Setting SMART Sales Rocks

Setting SMART Sales Rocks

by | 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!

What can a Fractional Revenue Leader Do?

What can a Fractional Revenue Leader Do?

by | 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.

Benefits To Focus On Cross-Selling To Your Clients

Benefits To Focus On Cross-Selling To Your Clients

by | Jun 5, 2023 | Sales

B2B services organizations typically have goals to grow their business.  The interesting thing is that they often miss the biggest opportunity to grow that is right under their nose. It is pretty hard to argue that it is a lot easier ot sell to current clients than to new ones. Most quoted statistics reference that it is 10x more expensive to sell to a new client than en existing one.

Five benefits to focusing on cross-selling to your clients.

  1. Increased revenue: Cross-selling allows B2B organizations to generate additional revenue streams by selling complementary or related services to existing customers. By offering a broader range of services, organizations can tap into new revenue opportunities without incurring significant customer acquisition costs.
  2. Deepening customer relationships: Cross-selling services is an effective strategy for strengthening relationships with existing customers. By expanding the range of services provided to a customer, B2B organizations deepen their engagement and become more embedded in the customer’s operations. This increases customer loyalty and reduces the likelihood of them seeking alternatives from competitors.
  3. Competitive advantage: Cross-selling can provide a competitive advantage by differentiating the B2B organization from its competitors. Offering a comprehensive suite of services that addresses a customer’s diverse needs can make the organization more appealing and valuable to customers. It positions the organization as a one-stop solution provider, giving them an edge over competitors who may offer a more limited range of services.
  4. Cost savings: Cross-selling to existing customers is generally more cost-effective than acquiring new customers. The B2B organization already has an established relationship with the customer, reducing the need for extensive marketing efforts and associated costs. Additionally, existing customers are more likely to be receptive to cross-selling efforts as they already trust the organization and value the existing services provided.
  5. Market expansion: Cross-selling services can open doors to new markets or customer segments. By identifying additional services that cater to different industries or sectors, B2B organizations can enter new markets with existing customers. This diversification reduces dependence on a single market segment and helps mitigate risks associated with market fluctuations.

Maximize Your Efforts

To maximize the effectiveness of cross-selling services, B2B organizations should focus on understanding their customer’s needs, developing a comprehensive service portfolio, training sales teams to identify cross-selling opportunities, and maintaining strong customer relationships through ongoing communication and support.

Download Your Cross-Selling Potential Questionnaire