JF Guest Author Spot

Paul McCord

My wife and I are In the middle of purchasing a new home.  Since we had to arrange for insurance coverage on the house, I thought this would be a good time to re-evaluate our auto policy. About three weeks ago I called four local agents, including our current agent, for quotes and completed an on-line questionnaire to see if quotes from agents who compete for business generated by an internet site would be more competitive.

I completed the on-line questionnaire on a Thursday and almost as soon as I submitted it I received calls from two agents—one local, the other out of Austin. I didn’t receive any other calls from the on-line form until Tuesday of the following week when I received one.  I was contacted by another insurance agent on Wednesday and then two more on Thursday—fully a week after submitting the questionnaire. 

They were way too late as I had decided by Tuesday to stay with my current insurance company.

But the calls from agents haven’t stopped.

I received calls from nine agents the following week and by seven more agents the third week.

To date, I’ve received calls from 22 agents–which should have given me every opportunity to acquire the best policy/rate combination possible. Except only two agents responded to my inquiry in a timely manner. Twenty agents or marketing departments had no sense of urgency in following up with my inquiry and consequently had no chance of acquiring my business.

Only two out of twenty-two agents had a strong enough desire to make a sale that they found a way to contact me quickly. That’s pathetic.

But that’s hardly the only case of lethargy I’ve encountered lately.

We’re getting the carpets cleaned in our current residence when we move.  As with insurance, I called multiple carpet cleaning companies to get quotes. I called six companies on a Tuesday and immediately spoke to one and had my voice mail returned the same day by another.  Another company called me Wednesday. I heard from the fourth on Friday and the fifth the following Tuesday. I have yet to hear from the sixth company. I had made my mind up by Wednesday afternoon on which company to hire. Fully 50% of the companies I called never had a chance to get the business because they did not respond quickly enough to be in the running.

Should I give a third or even fourth example? I experienced the same issues hiring a home inspector and trying to arrange for a paint contractor.  In both cases over 50% of the companies I contacted either have not responded or responded after I had hired one of their competitors.

In all four cases I believe I’ve acted as most consumers would—I made the inquiry and made my decision within two to five days. Those who reacted promptly competed for my business; those who either because of a lack of a sense of urgency or because their marketing department or sales manager didn’t get them the lead in a timely manner lost the opportunity to make a sale and squandered their marketing dollars.

A quality lead has a very short shelf-life—whether we’re talking about the retail situations above or a long sales cycle, sophisticated product or service.  Someone–you or your company–has paid good money to get the phone to ring, to get a lead card mailed back, or get a form filled out on the internet. Every minute you wait to contact a prospect is a minute you’re giving the competition to close the deal before you even get there.

If leads come to you directly, discipline yourself to respond to them immediately. If they come through your sales manager or marketing department and you know that they are slow to distribute them, light a fire under their butts. 

There is simply no excuse to lose sales because a lead wasn’t contacted in a timely manner; nevertheless, there are a large number of sellers and companies who have no sense of urgency, giving those who are quick to respond a significant—and likely decisive–advantage.

What about you? Where is your sense of urgency?

Paul McCord, a leading Business Development Strategist and president of McCord Training, works with companies and sales leaders to help them increase sales and profits by finding and connecting with high quality prospects in ways prospects respect and respond to.  An internationally recognized author, speaker, trainer and consultant, Paul’s clients range from giants such as Chase, New York Life, Siemens, and GE, to small and mid-size firms, as well as individual sales leaders.  He is the author of the popular Sales and Sales Management Blog (http://salesandmanagementblog.com). 

Copyright: 2010, Paul McCord

JF Guest Author Spot

Dave Brock

Geoffrey James wrote an interesting article at BNET, Sales Goals vs. Sales Process:  Which Is Most Important?  Frankly, the question confuses me, it assumes that sales goals and sales process are mutually exclusive.  Geoffrey seems conflicted, as well.  Later, using the example of an Olympic athlete, he states, “For the Olympic athlete, the process leads naturally and progressively towards the goal.”

The whole point of a sales process is that it is goal directed.  The best sales processes represent the organization’s best experience in winning business–achieving goals.  The only reason to have a sales process is because it provides us a road map to effectively and efficiently achieve our goals.

I think that’s what is missed by a lot of people in developing and implementing sales processes — and a reason why so many sales professionals resist “process.”  Too often, organizations develop a process, thinking the process is an end in itself, not a means of achieving goals.  Organizations sometimes get consumed in the “elegance of their process.”  Many years ago, one very large organization I worked with had done a huge amount of work in developing the sales process.  The end results was a nine page single spaced checklist, attempting to outline everything that might accur in a sale.  The process was comprehensive–but it was complicated, the design team had lost sight of the purpose of the process.  They were consumed in their task–designing the sales process, losing sight of the purpose:  Closing more business more quickly.  As you might guess, the sales process was never used by the sales people.  It was too complicated, too bureaucratic, and did not contribute to their ability to achieve their goals.

The whole point of a sales process is that it is goal directed.  I think James confuses things, focusing on the end — ”quota attainment, closing the deal.”  A great sales process has interim milestones–goals–go/no go decisions.  For example the goal of all the activities we undertake in the qualification step of the selling process is to determine if we have a qualified opportunity.  The goal of the activities in the discovery phase of the process is to understand what the customer is trying to achieve, alternatives they are considering, and how they will make the decision.  These interim goals keep us on the path to achieving the end goal.  Without these interim goals, we could be executing a lot of activities, but not know if we are achieving the right outcomes for each activity.  My good friend Anthony Iannarino, calls this “checking the box.”  We go through the motions of the activity, not paying attention to why we are doing the activity–consequently it becomes meaningless.

Here’s an example, it came up with a client last week.  They were reviewing their work on developing their sales process.  At one point in their process, they had identified an activity, “Meet with decision makers.”  I immediately went into role-play, shook each of their hands saying, “Hi, I’m Dave Brock.”  Having done that, I checked off the box on the piece of paper they had given me. When they recovered from this, we talked about it.  I told them I had successfully completed the activity, but it had contributed nothing to moving me forward in the sales process, improving my knowledge about the deal, or improving my ability to present a winning response to their needs.

Each activity has a purpose or outcome, we are not executing activities for activity sake.  I think this is one of the reasons that so many people resist sales process–it has been badly designed, focusing on activity for activity sake, rather than activity oriented toward specific outcomes or goals.  Using the previous example, the activity would have been far more impactful if it was changed from “Meet with decision-makers,” to “Meet with decision makers to understand who is involved in the decision, their roles, and the criteria they will consider in making their decision.”  An effective sales process has a goal or an outcome in each step of the process.

I think James’ article reflects the problems many sales executives and professionals have with sales processes.  We really don’t understand why we are doing the process. Consequently we design processes as and end, not a means to achieve our goals.  We think processes are a series of activities–they are, but the activities are outcome oriented and goal directed.  They provide us interim milestones and checkpoints on effectively and efficiently achieving our goal.

Which is most important, the sales process or sales goals is the wrong question.  How do we define a sales process that most effectively and efficiently helps us achieve our goals is the issue we must all be confronting!

Having trouble with translating your activities into meaningful steps to achieving your goals, call me, I’d be glad to share our experience in helping organizations do this!

Dave has spent his career developing high performance organizations. He worked in sales, marketing, and executive management capacities with IBM, Tektronix and Keithley Instruments. His consulting clients include companies in the semiconductor, aerospace, electronics, consumer products, computer, telecommunications, retailing, internet, software, professional and financial services industries. http://partnersinexcellenceblog.com/

As the launch date of  Top Sales World draws ever nearer, I thought it pertinent to share with you over the next couple of weeks, some of the twenty two sections which will be housed within this highly ambitious project, that will finally going to be delivered later this month.

Having worked with hundreds of organisations during my career, where I have helped, supported, and developed sales leaders, I am aware that many of those sales leaders were promoted into their role because they were top performing sales people. Yet, the role of sales person and sales leader has so many differences, which frequently result in the newly promoted sales leader feeling out of their depth and overwhelmed by their newly acquired responsibilities.

Recently, a significant piece of research was conducted involving 2663 organisations: The report highlighted the fact that a major barrier to sales success was a failure to select and develop a sales leadership team capable of nurturing and fully developing their sales people’s potential. 

The majority of sales leaders, new and experienced alike, say they do not have sufficient time or the resources to train and develop their sales teams. They are so focused on sales results, and so accustomed to achieving success through their personal pursuit of those results, that they overlook their greatest potential source of power – the power to achieve optimum performance levels from their teams. Every sales leader who places an increasing emphasis on performance management will create more productive sales teams.

I believe that the future trend for producing world-class standards in sales leadership will be achieved not by traditional classroom-based training alone. Until sales leaders are equipped with the resources, competence and motivation to want to accept the mantle of developing their own sales teams, any training is likely to be a tactical ‘one-off’ fix, born out of desperation to ‘hit that target’ rather than a sustainable planned approach that can be weaved seamlessly into the sales leader’s role.

Sustainable shifts in behaviour will only ever be realised when sales leaders have the skills and capabilities to provide coaching ‘in the moment’. The greatest value will be created by investing in building coaching capability and providing resources for support rather than endless programmes that rarely have impact longer than a three-month period.

As the whole sales profession continues to evolve, methods of the past become old-fashioned and redundant, overtaken by new exciting ways to boost sales in today’s global competitive marketplace. Yet, this in turn can be confusing and costly because how can a sales leader choose a method from the thousands of methods available with complete peace of mind?

Sales leaders are busy people with a huge variety of development requirements which means that the option to source development and knowledge based on what each individual wants, when they want it, can best be provided through a type of online sales library, where learning is categorised into key areas for speed of reference and provided in bite-sized chunks for easier implementation.

So, the first TSW section I can announce is the Sales Leadership Zone, a unique and dedicated resource for sales leaders that will contain hundreds of hours of tools, techniques, and support.

The Zone will be a place where sales leaders can ‘pick and mix’ what they want, according to their own requirements. From sales team development sessions and sales team health checks to online sales leader competency profiling and essential techniques for sales leaders, this section can be likened to a sales leadership encyclopaedia – it is an absolute “must have” for time-strapped sales leaders everywhere.

More soon …..

Since the key to differentiation is in forging closer links with clients, the role of “Long Term Ally” is a crucial one.

Once the salesperson has earned the right, it is important to develop and maintain the relationship.

As the term suggests, acting as a long term ally, involves maintaining contact with the client even when there is no immediate prospect for a sale. It also suggests that the salesperson needs to be committed to the long-term development of the relationship.

Our research shows that top salespeople demonstrate this commitment by continuously looking for ways to:

• Build interpersonal trust
• Create and maintain a positive image of the sales organisation
• Inspire respect for their company
• Show genuine concern for their customers’ short and long-term interests
• Identify ways to strengthen the quality of their business relationship
• Help the customer meet needs within his or her organisation
• Deal with issues openly and honestly
• Deliver on promises
 
It is also crucial for the salesperson to ensure that the relationship between the organisations is mutually beneficial. In other words, it is essential to build and honour the expectation that reaching agreements will mean good business for both parties.

At the end of the day, taking a long-term approach proves more profitable since the customer will recognise that the salesperson is taking a committed interest and in so doing is giving honest and open advice. This inevitably encourages the customer to trust the salesperson and to view him or her as a colleague rather than an opponent.

In Summary: Long Term Allies and Mutually Beneficial Agreements.

Supplier organisations must be willing to……

• Elicit feedback from customers regarding overall satisfaction with the products / services delivered. 
• Maintain regular contact with current and prospective customers
• Alert customers to new developments in own organisation
• Review the business relationship underlying each account on a regular basis

Buyer organisation must be willing to……

• Keep suppliers “in the loop” regarding the company’s strategic direction and needs
• Value the record of service provided by supplier organisations above lower cost competitors
• Grant access and information about their customers to the supplier organisations

 If all of this criteria can be met, we can finally wave goodbye to “Hit & Run” – or as a good chum calls them, “Conem & Scarper” – for good

You know, all meaningful actions are performed for some reason or purpose. This is commonly called “motivation.”

Success in selling requires understanding these basics of motivation:

• Your motivation both as a person and as a salesperson
• The other person’s motivation both as a person and as a buyer

The most important fact to remember in influencing the behaviour and decisions of others is that – people do things for their reasons, not ours.

Every successful sale, then, is made not so much because of the excellence of your product or of your sales pitch, but because, consciously or unconsciously, you have found the human reason why your prospect should buy. You have found the door to their motivation and have opened it.

The more you understand the function of human motivation, the more successfully you will sell.

In its simplest form, motivation emerges as a cycle. It starts with a want or need, expressed or hidden. Inherent in this is a problem, a problem that must be overcome in order to satisfy the want, which must be solved. Once solved, the want can be satisfied and the cycle is completed.

In terms of personal development there are several levels of needs. You will no doubt be familiar with Maslow’s pyramid of need:

These needs are basic to everyone you sell to, live with, or encounter.

At the bottom of the pyramid are the physiological needs. These include food, shelter, warmth, sex, and sleep. They are instinctive needs common to all living creatures. Until these needs are satisfied, the higher needs are purely academic.

Then comes safety which is almost as basic. Security is another word for this need; security in one’s job, in one’s place in society…safety from unknown dangers…freedom from pain.

Love is a more sophisticated but no less essential need. Every human being wants others to care about them, to receive affection. They want to have the approval of others…to be understood…accepted…respected…to belong. And equally important, they have a need to be involved…to care about and give affection to others. The two are inseparable.

Self-esteem is equally essential. Every human being needs to feel that they are important in some sphere of life…that their presence on earth has meaning and significance. The mature person knows that this begins with self-respect. This need provides a tremendous motivational force.

Self-actualization is the highest need: for personal growth and achievement, for self-fulfilment, the best use of one’s capabilities, the fullest possible realisation of potential, within an honest understanding both of the limitations and scope of that potential.

People of course, are different. Their needs will vary in degree, in shape, and in the nature of their answers. But they are common to all.

As you are alert to them, as you understand them, so will your success with others be measured.

How do people seek to satisfy their needs? Thorndike’s “Law of Effect” supplies the answer:

“People tend to behave in a way to gain rewards and avoid punishment”

These continue to be troubled times for workers – it seems that no one is guaranteed a job anywhere any more. The creeping sense that no one’s job is safe, even as the companies they work for are thriving, means the spread of fear, apprehension, and confusion.

An attitude of self-interest is, understandably, growing more common for employees confronting downsizing and other changes that make them feel their organization is no longer loyal to them. This sense of betrayal or distrust erodes allegiance and encourages cynicism. And once lost, trust – and the commitment that stems from it – is hard to rebuild. If employees are not treated fairly and respectfully, no organization will gain their emotional allegiance. Sensing others’ development needs and bolstering their abilities is emerging as second only to team leadership among superior managers.

For managers, developing others’ abilities is even more important – indeed, it’s the emotional competence most frequently found among those at the top of the field. This is a person-to-person art, and the effectiveness of counselling hinges on empathy and the ability to focus on our own feelings and share them.

Research suggests the best ‘coaches’ show a genuine personal interest in those they guide, and have empathy for and an understanding of their employees. Trust is crucial – when there is little trust in the coach, advice goes unheeded. This also happens when the coach is impersonal and cold, or the relationship seems too one-sided or self-serving. Coaches who show respect, trustworthiness, and empathy are the best.

One way to encourage people to perform better is to let others take the lead in setting their own goals rather than dictating the terms and manner of their development. This communicates the belief that employees have the capacity to be the pilot of their own destiny.

Another technique is to point to the problems without offering a solution: this implies the employees can find the solution themselves. And people hunger for feedback, yet too many managers, supervisors and executives are inept at giving it or are simply disinclined to provide any. Virtually everyone who has a superior is part of at least one vertical ‘couple’ in the workplace; every boss forms such a bond with each subordinate. Such vertical couples are a basic unit of organisational life.

Therein lays the blessing or the curse: This interdependence ties a subordinate and superior together in a way that can become highly charged. If both do well emotionally – if they form a relationship of trust and rapport, understanding and inspired effort – their performance will shine. But if things go emotionally awry, the relationship can become a nightmare and their performance a series of minor and major disasters. While vertical couples have the entire emotional overlay that power and compliance bring to a relationship, peer couples – our relationships with co-workers – have a parallel emotional component, something akin to the pleasures, jealousies and rivalries of siblings.

If there is anywhere emotional intelligence needs to enter an organization, it is at this most basic level. Building collaborative and fruitful relationships begins with the couples we are a part of at work. Bringing emotional intelligence to a working relationship can pitch it towards the evolving, creative, mutually engaging end of the continuum; failing to do so heightens the risk of a downward drift towards rigidity, stalemate, and failure.

Customer care is about addressing three sets of requirements:
 
• Customer
 
• Staff
 
• Organisation
 
These requirements are interrelated, i.e. it is more difficult to deliver consistently high standards in customer care if the needs of both the organisation and the staff are not taken into account

Customer Requirements
 
• Excellent personal service – feels valued, listened to, treated as an individual

• Products that meet expectations

• Encouragement to express views and give feedback

• Effective relationship with the organisation

• Problems and complaints are handled effectively

Staff Requirements
 
• Effective management style

• Suitable working environment – pay and conditions / tools for the job

• Relevant training to develop skills

• Career potential

• Clarity of role / job description

• Performance standards and appraisal systems

• Sense of involvement / value

• Open communication

• Teamwork

• Rewards / Recognition

Organisational Requirements
 
• Mission statement
 • Corporate structure
 • Feedback and communication systems
 • Profit
 • Human and technical resources
 • Demonstrated commitment

Who Are Your Customers? 
 
If you are not serving the customer, you should be serving someone who is. Harmonious relationships with customers and colleagues are essential to service success, because providing outstanding customer service is primarily a team effort. For excellent customer service to exist it has to be practised on an internal basis

 The What And The How
 
 The “What” is the material and the “How” is the personal element. To be outstanding, organisations must deliver excellence in both material and personal service. Customer service is no longer just a question of interpersonal skills

The difference between you and your competitors is achieved when expectations are exceeded. Doing the unexpected, going the extra mile, moves us from meeting expectations to exceeding expectations

 How To Delight Customers:
 
• Be enthusiastic, because enthusiasm is the driving force of quality service. Customers do not just want products they want products plus enthusiasm. We also know that enthusiasm is infectious, and if you don’t have it, they can’t catch it. They may also think that if you are not enthusiastic about your products, why should they be?
 
• Be professional; the word professional does not go with the job it goes with the person. Being professional is not one thing, it is three: It is how you look; what you say; what you do.
 
 Be The Best
 
• Someone, somewhere has to be the best at this job – why not you?

• Decide to be outstanding – truly outstanding, and consistently outstanding.
 
How To Be The Best
 
• Use positive self talk – e.g. tell yourself ‘Everyday in every way, I get better and better’

• Don’t be ordinary – ordinary is what other people are, and indeed, what most company’s are.

• Develop a ‘How can I do it better?’ mind set. Challenge paradigms. Identify the box, and then be brave enough to look outside it.

 Today Everyone Sells
 
 In a successful company the number of sales people equals the number of employees

• Everyone sells something  – either products, services or the image of the company
 
 And Finally: How To Help Yourself Sell
 
• Pay attention - give people the benefit of your attention. Become a people expert. Understand empathy – see your company through your customer’s eyes.

• Customers like to give their business to those who show they want it – continually earn the right to their business.

JF Uncut

Diane Helbig

You know that I am extremely rigorous in not abusing your patronage, and I work hard to ensure that all my posts are meaningful, succinct, and relevant.

However, just once in a while a friend and colleague needs our assistance, and this is one of those rare occasions that I am reaching out to you, in the hope that I can elicit your support – and I should add, that this is my idea, not theirs, in fact they don’t even know yet! (Smile)

There is one group of people that I genuinely admire – well in fact there are lots of groups I admire, but this one especially. The people in this group all have several things in common: They are hard-working; they have considerable patience; they appear to have boundless energy; they have a unique ability to wear several hats, all at the same time; they rarely complain … I could go on, but I think you get my drift.

So who are these amazing people? They are “working moms” and I know that many of you reading this, have been, or still are, a working mom.

Diane Helbig, is also a working mom, and she has entered a competition called “Moms in Business”

Right now, she is doing OK, but with our help she could do better.

This is Diane:

At Seize This Day Coaching I am changing the world one small business at a time. Working with as few as one person to as many as 100+, I create an environment that is cooperative and interactive.

I am an internationally recognized business and leadership development coach, author, speaker, and workshop facilitator. As a certified, professional coach and president of Seize This Day Coaching, I help businesses and organizations operate more constructively and profitably. I evaluate, encourage, and guide my clients.

I am also co-founder of Seize True Success, a coaching practice dedicated to helping franchisees grow and prosper.

I am a COSE Mindspring editor at www.cosemindspring.com and a member of the Top Sales Experts panel at www.topsalesexperts.com. I offer workshops, speeches and seminars on the subjects of sales, business development, and leadership.

I am the author of Lemonade Stand Selling, a sales book for small business owners and am also a contributing author to Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms. I have a radio show – Accelerate Your Business Growth – on BlogTalkRadio www.blogtalkradio.com/dhelbig every 2nd and 4th Monday at 1pm EST.

I am completely committed to helping small business owners succeed. I am a recipient of the COSE Ten Under 10 2009 Award, and the 2010 Lakewood Chamber of Commerce Most Outstanding New Member Award. I facilitate the COSE Arts Network Roundtables each month as a way to help artists learn the business side of things.

I serve as the President of the Cleveland Coach Federation and on the following boards:
Lakewood Chamber of Commerce
COSE Home Business Network
COSE Small Business Conference Task Team
WIN – Women in Networking

I do all of this while raising two children – a 13 year old boy and an 11 year old girl. I participate in local civic activites like the PTA, Lakewood Citizens Advisory Committee, and Block Watch.

Do you think we should put our considerable weight behind her campaign? I think we should.

You can vote for Diane here: http://bit.ly/aggJ3N

Oh, and gentlemen, you do not need to be a working mom to vote!

On behalf of Diane, thank you, I am very grateful!

Final Thought Of The Day:

To all my friends and colleagues in the good old US of A – have a great Independence Day! - You have done a much better job with the place than we would have done!

The JF Guest Author Post

Craig Klein

What does “sales process” really mean anyway? It seems like everywhere you look, sales trainers and gurus are talking about sales process. At the same time, small businesses are struggling to manage sales people and meet revenue targets and they’re not even sure why they need a “sales process”.

I think that the sales training and consulting business has a huge opportunity to help small businesses if they communicate what the benefits of their methodologies and expertise more clearly.

I also think small businesses have tremendous opportunities to increase their top and bottom lines if they begin to think about their approach to selling as a process.

We just all need to get on the same page. In working with small businesses to implement web based CRM software, what I see is that business owners and sales leaders hope the CRM solution provides them insight into the behavior of their sales team, the ability to collaborate as a team easily and some visibility of future sales.

Unfortunately, many sales leaders expect the CRM solution to establish the process for them. Equally unfortunate is the fact that many CRM vendors are happy to pretend that their CRM software can provide that process. It just doesn’t work. One size does not fit all. In fact, even two competitors in the same market will follow very different approaches to marketing and selling and those differences are often their competitive strengths.

So what is a “sales process” anyway?

Well, at the risk of offending some of my more brainiac friends in the sales training world, I think the answer is pretty simple.

A sales process is a series of steps designed to accomplish two things –
First, match the company’s interaction with the prospect or potential buyer to the typical process that buyer follows in investigating and selecting solutions. Example: If you’re selling something that people buy all the time, then they want to know how your product or service is different from what they normally buy. You contrast your product to the popular competitors in your niche and ask for the order. However, if you’re selling business solutions that are purchased once in a lifetime or once every few years, then your first challenge is more to help the prospect determine if they really need your solution. That becomes a much more drawn out and educational series of activities.

Second, the sales process should be measurable. It’s a series of objective steps taken by the buyer and by the sales team that tell you how close you are to an order. It’s not different that establishing a manufacturing process. If you build homes, you don’t send the painting crew to the site while you’re still pouring the slab, even if the customer tells you he wants to see how the kitchen colors are going to look in the morning light. These steps should be designed to be followed in a certain order. The steps in the process are sequenced so as to ensure that time consuming and costly sales activities are reserved for the most qualified and high value prospects and to provide prospects and potential buyers with information about your products and services and the problems they address in a way that opens their mind to a new way of doing things.

I find that most companies shopping for web based CRM software are focused on analyzing and measuring what’s happening in their sales efforts but, they’re not really sure what the process is. They see sales as a sort of art that they often don’t understand. Many times they’re hesitant to tell their sales people how to do their jobs. The business founder may not have any selling experience and therefore feels it best to leave the method to the sales people.

On the other hand, most sales trainers and marketers are focused on creating a specific way of introducing and selling products and services based on the unique characteristics of the niche you’re going after.

So, we have the vast majority of small businesses trying to measure sales where there is no process which limits the measurement to vague and generic things like number of calls made, number of meetings held, number of proposals created, etc. These are all great things to measure for many businesses but, can encourage the wrong behavior and be extremely harmful to sales. If you begin to track the number and dollar volume of proposals sent by each sales person and even reward the “leaders” in this area, what you’ll get is sales people spending way too much time with prospects that are not likely to buy just so they can send them a proposal. There has to be some data about the prospect that qualifies the proposal as being worthwhile and the customer as being a likely buyer.

At the same time, the business owner wants to see this type of information before they invest in relatively expensive sales training and consulting.

So you see the quandary of small business selling… Business owners trying to measure a process that doesn’t exist by making a small investment in CRM solutions before spending larger amounts on sales consulting to define a sales process!

We’ve just released a simple guide to identifying your own sales process so it can be managed in a web based CRM here.

As mentioned before, I think that web based CRM providers are feeding this quandary by trying to give small businesses what they want – a process. They say “Don’t have your own process, well take mine!” That’s not likely to work out well.

I suggest that a more successful approach would be for the business to determine what process is in place today. There is one, even if leadership doesn’t know it. Ask the top producing sales people. They’ve worked it out for themselves. Start measuring that process. That way your measurement of the process is not likely to encourage any behaviors that they aren’t already focused on. The data you gather will provide insight into where the greatest opportunities for improvement are.

Clearly, you’ll need to select a web based CRM solution that allows you to easily create and measure your own process. There are some out there.

We’ve released a very simple 10 step guide that allows non-sales guru business owners to determine what their sales process is and begin measuring it from the beginning. That way 2 or 3 months into implementing your web based CRM software, you’re not staring at useless reports of calls made knowing that many of the calls being counted weren’t even related to moving a sale forward. You’ll be looking at data that has meaning in your business.

The fringe benefit of this approach is to involve your sales team in the process from the outset. You’re starting with their process not yours. When you suggest areas of improvement, it will be based on hard data they entered into your web based CRM.

Craig Klein, a seasoned sales executive, founded SalesNexus in 2002 a hosted CRM service which is built on the premise that businesses win when their sales staffs implement best practices through efficient contact management.

In 1906, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto created a mathematical formula to describe the unequal distribution of wealth in his country, observing that twenty percent of the people owned eighty percent of the wealth. In the late 1940s, Dr. Joseph M. Juran inaccurately attributed the 80/20 Rule to Pareto, calling it Pareto’s Principle. While it may be misnamed, Pareto’s Principle or Pareto’s Law as it is sometimes called, can be a very effective tool to help us manage efficiently but it can also be applied to virtually every facet of our lives

A New Management Theory:

There is a management theory that proposes to interpret Pareto’s Principle in such a way as to produce what is called Top Gun Management. Those advocating this theory suggest that since 20 percent of salespeople produce 80 percent of a company’s results, sales managers should focus their limited time on managing only that 20 percent, the so-called “superstars”. In my opinion the theory is seriously flawed, because it overlooks the fact that 80 percent of our time should be spent doing what is really important and that includes developing all of our people. Helping the good to become better is much more important than helping the great become terrific.

When we work to develop our subordinates, we should be concentrating on converting what I term, the “reactive mindset” because we can certainly apply Pareto’s Principle to reactive versus pro-active. Or, to describe these two mindsets in a different way: The “running towards” mindset and the “running away” mindset. Let me provide you with an example:

The “Running Away” Personality:

The “running away” salesperson is awoken by his alarm clock and he immediately hits the “snooze” button. Ten minutes later, the buzzer goes off again. “Just ten more minutes” he says to himself, “I won’t go for a run today” and he again activates his friend, Mr Snooze. This happens three more times and each time he determines that he will skip a vital activity in order to enjoy a few more minutes slumber – he has already decided to skip breakfast and he will shave in the car on the way to the office. Finally, a full hour after his first alarm call, he leaps out of bed, the image of his boss standing outside his office door, purple with rage at his continual poor time keeping, is just too horrible to contemplate and it acts as his spur.

So what actually happened here? Well, if we apply Pareto’s Principle, we identify that approximately 80% of the world’s population fall into the “running away” category including professional salespeople. That is to say that they do things not because they planned to do them or that they want to do them but rather that they fear the consequences of not doing them. They drift through life, as I have said often enough before, like “rudderless boats” completely at the mercy of the currents. They never go beyond the first few stages of Maslow’s “Hierarchy Of Needs” and certainly “self-fulfilment” is completely out of reach for them because they either lack the courage, or the commitment required, or quite simply they lack the energy. After all, it is nice and cosy in the comfort zone isn’t it?

As someone famously once said: “Some people make things happen whilst others just stand and watch what happens” My take on that is: “A few people make things happen, others just watch what happens, but the vast majority wonder what the heck happened!” The “running away” mindset falls into the last category.

Let’s look at the other side of the coin, let’s see how a “running towards” personality handles their relationship with their alarm clock.

The “Running Towards” Personality:

To begin with, our “running towards” salesperson has invested some of their time the previous evening preparing for the next day: The suit has been pressed, shoes cleaned, notes prepared for those important meetings, in fact all of the next day’s objectives have been thoroughly rehearsed mentally and planned for.

When the alarm clock goes off, our “running towards” typically awakes refreshed and completes their final preparations for the day. They have plenty of time for exercising, for bathing, and to eat a proper breakfast with their family – they are in control. They arrive at the office before most of their colleagues,(80% of whom arrive at 8.55 am – just in time, because they fear the consequences of being late!) so that they can respond to e-mails and attend to essential administrative tasks which would otherwise take up valuable “business time”. Life for these people appears effortless, relatively stress free, because they have made it that way, they are busy working at self-fulfilment as they have no need to worry about shelter, security and the like.

These people are”Winners”

The “Winners In Life”

“Winners in life constantly think in terms of I can, I will and I am. Losers on the other hand concentrate their waking thoughts on what they should have done or what they don’t do“  – Dennis Waitley

Can we all become “Winners”? Yes, of course we can. We cannot have everything we want in life but we can have anything that we really want, because if we want it badly enough we will find the means to bring about its happening – this is called “fulfilled expectation”

Unfortunately, most people when asked don’t really know what they want from life. Some talk vaguely about success without being able to articulate precisely what success means for them. I have heard many interpretations of the word but the one I still like the best comes from Earl Nightingale: “Success is the achievement of a worthwhile goal or set of goals”

Therein lies the secret – in order to be successful, to become a “Winner in life” we must have goals.

This extract from “Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland” accurately illustrates my point.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cheshire Cat

“I don’t much care where” said Alice

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat

“- So long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation

“Oh, you’re sure to do that” said the Cat “If you only walk long enough.”

- Lewis Carroll

In Summary:

Each of us has the choice, we can choose to be successful – however we measure success – or we can choose not to be. But if we really do want a more fulfilling and satisfying life – more happiness, greater security, improved health, the means to help others, then we have to accept full responsibility for ensuring we have a rudder on our boat and work to the maxim: “If it’s to be, it’s up to me“