Turning a team around requires evaluation, time and effort
Oliver Connolly
C Level Strategic
"If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we are not really living. Growth demands a temporary surrender of security."
– Gail Sheehy
Bob approached me after a presentation on sales force development, told me he liked what I had to say and asked me to come in and do some sales training with his salespeople. He hoped that I could teach them some better selling techniques and get them fired up so that their sales would improve. Great idea! Unfortunately, that type of approach rarely works, if ever. Salespeople learn some new techniques, add them to the ones they already have that aren’t working and nothing changes. Six months later, the training and motivation is just a distant memory, and all the CEO has to show for it is a handful of canceled checks.
Fortunately, Bob was open-minded enough to do an in-depth evaluation of his sales force. We looked at his sales systems and processes, we looked at his pipeline and we especially looked at all his salespeople and his sales manager. The results were eye opening. He quickly realized two things: one, there were some major problems within the sales organization, and two, by making some needed changes he could almost double his sales and profits.
It was also apparent that no amount of conventional sales training, no matter how good it might be, would have made any difference in how his sales organization performed. There were too many issues that needed to be resolved besides sales skills training. In fact, he had more issues to address than most companies I come across.
His sales manager lacked skills and training. Their selection and recruiting was ineffective. He had no hunters or closers in his sales team and the pipeline was weak. Many of his salespeople were account managers and were crippled by excuse making and lack of accountability. Most of them had belief systems that did not support the selling process and few were really committed to growing sales. "Head trash" and poor selling skills were getting in their way.
Once this company president got past his initial shock at the magnitude of the problem, he resolved to fix it. He had to make some painful changes and yield to "a temporary surrender of security." He agreed to work with me and follow the recommendations outlined in the management overview of the sales force evaluation. With a step-by-step plan, it became relatively easy to make some pretty dramatic changes.
Step one was to fix the sales management problems. The sales manager is Bob’s brother and he has very little sales management skills or training. He is ineffective at growing the sales organization, coaching or motivating salespeople. His recruiting of new salespeople is weak and he has no real process for holding them accountable.
He was promoted to sales management because he was family and because he was a pretty good salesperson. Fortunately, he is highly trainable and willing to do what it takes to become a more effective sales manager. Even so, we’re looking at almost 18 months of training and coaching to bring him up to speed.
Regarding the eleven salespeople, one is strong and needs more challenge, seven are weaker but have potential for growth and three are untrainable and need to be assigned roles outside of sales. We initiated a development program that would capitalize on their existing strengths and help them overcome their weaknesses. This involves training and coaching in areas of selling skills and eliminating "head trash." It will cover areas such as reprogramming their self-limiting beliefs, improving bravery and eliminating excuses.
We will work on creating a comprehensive goal-setting pro-gram, and mastery of a more powerful selling system to shorten their sales cycle. Coaching will help to overcome their need for approval, help them get stronger appointments, improve their listening skills, improve their questioning skills and much more. This will take from about 10 months of training and coaching for the strongest to almost 18 months for those with the most challenges. We also added a sales call reporting and tracking system using one of the contact management programs readily available.
Bottom line for Bob: By making some changes now, painful though they may be, he will more than double his sales and profits over the next two years. He will also have a sales force that consistently overachieves so that he can maintain the volume and profits that he needs. One of the hardest things most business owners face is how to effectively step back and take an objective look at their problem areas. But the rewards for doing it right have more impact than all those quick fix band-aids.
If your sales organization is not consistently overachieving you have a number of choices: You can sit back and wait for divine intervention. You can throw money at quick fix nonsolutions. Or you can begin by evaluating your entire sales organization, and then fix the problems once and for all. The choice is yours.
Oliver Connolly works with CEOs and owners of small to mid-sized companies who are not satisfied with their sales and profits. He can be reached at 360-835-7555 or oliver@clevelstrategic.com. His Web site is www.clevelstrategic.com.
