Your Sales Management Guru

Sales Management and the Impact of Social Media

Ken Thoreson

While in the process of writing a future magazine column on the future of sales and social media I interviewed three people and posed several questions in order to get their view points.  I thought for this week’s blog I would also introduce you to my current thinking and I would really enjoy hearing your thoughts on the direction of sales and the use of social media.

In the traditional sense of a new product introduction, social media is moving through various stages. It is my opinion  we have obviously crossed the chasm from Stage 1 into full blown Stage 2 product acceptance and in most cases salespeople and sales leadership have accepted and become comfortable in using forms of social media for their personal lives as well as in a limited business environments.  It is also my belief that if you aren’t actively using a variety of social media applications in your sales process/organization it is critical you begin to learn to use them and become comfortable with the current social media tools.   Lauren Carlson describes the top 5 uses of Social Media in sales very clearly in her recent blog:   http://tinyurl.com/8648dah

The acceptance of social media communication by all individuals for their personal use; Twitter, Facebook, YouTube,  texting, etc,  and corporations using it in marketing and even building their internal social networks, that current clients and prospects will begin to accept social media more easily in their sales relationships.

The question becomes, where do we go from here now that  social media as we know today has been generally accepted by individuals and corporations, what happens as we move into the Stage 3.

 Jay McBain, from Channel Eyes, a social media/network company focused on the IT Channel,  commented that in his research on the topic;  “social would overtake websites as the #1 source of information and online engagement in 2012”.  Jay believes there will be a split, a movement to enhance personal social media and the trend to create a “business social media” set of software solutions.

This is exactly what I believe is the direction we will move. As CRM applications improve and as more cloud based applications are developed there will be a greater integration and utilization of business social media. Salespeople will uncover more prospects, prospects will accept this kind of communication and both parties will interact comfortably.  As Peter Watts from Solutionize, a software business collaboration services company, predicts that “Sales Collaboration Networks” (SCN) will be deployed.  These will be highly integrated applications that will easily allow the salesperson to offer the right solutions with an interactive approach, generating huge value to the buyer, rather than simply data sheets or a nice web site.”  

The sales focus and sales leadership must focus on this changing sales process and this is the process change that SCN can facilitate.   The business outcome must be beneficial to the buyer, seller, vendor, and it is my belief that this more highly communicative process will make decision making easier and faster by removing any heavy lifting. SCN will allow salespeople to reach more prospects, work at a pace commensurate with today’s current demands and profit measures.

What changes do you believe will occur with more “business social media” solutions?   The world continues to change, are you?  Is your sales process? Let know your thoughts?

Acumen Management Group Ltd. “operationalizes” sales management systems and processes that pull revenue out of the doldrums into the fresh zone. During the past 12 years, our consulting, advisory, and platform services have illuminated, motivated, and rejuvenated the sales efforts for partners throughout North America. Ken’s latest book: Leading High Performance Sales Teams is available at his website.

Ken provides Keynotes, consulting services and products designed to improve business performance.           Ken@AcumenMgmt.com   www.AcumenManagement.com  www.YourSalesManagementGuru.com

Posted in Leadership Management, sales leadership, Sales Management Systems | 3 Comments »

You Don’t Just Hire a Sales Team–You Build It

Developing a great sales organization involves more than just bringing the right people on board. It requires providing the right opportunities and creating the right culture.

 By Ken Thoreson

(This is an excerpt from my latest book: Your Sales Management Guru’s Guide to:  “Leading High Performance Sales Teams”)  

 Recently, in speaking to two prospective clients, I heard the same complaint that I hear over and over from sales executives: “My turnover rate is huge.”

They’re not alone in their concerns. Consider these facts:

• In one Manpower Inc. survey of nearly 33,000 employers worldwide, U.S. and Canadian respondents both ranked “sales representative” as the job they were having most trouble filling.

• Nearly 25 percent of the nearly 2,200 sales executives surveyed in another major study reported that turnover had increased during the previous year.

Hiring the right talent is critical in building successful sales teams. Studies show that, if you bring in the wrong salesperson, you lose up to four times the cost of that person’s annual salary and benefits in missed opportunities, management time, fee’s and other factors. (If you’re experiencing turnover, you may find Acumen’s book Hiring a High-Performance Sales Team a valuable resource.)

 Building Your Team: Beyond Hiring

However, hiring is just one part of the equation. It’s also important to develop and retain your salespeople. Here are a few suggestions for achieving those goals:

• Buff up the “B” team. Obviously, you have a limited number of “A-level” salespeople. So it makes sense to invest some effort in grooming the B-level team members who seem most likely to be able to move up to the top tier.

If you’re recruiting regularly, you’ll have a constant pipeline of top talent available to keep enhancing the quality of your team. Conducting interviews regularly will improve your ability to identify both the winners and the runners-up—that is, the B-team players with strong potential.

Don’t waste time on salespeople who are C-level or below. Many sales managers spend too much valuable time attempting to save poor performers or trying to make their money back on their hiring mistakes. Instead, focus on providing B-level players with the management, coaching and training they need to advance.

 Emphasize education. Design a comprehensive orientation and training program to ensure that new hires hit the ground running–and that they keep moving forward.

We typically advise our clients to establish a three-week on-boarding plan for new hires. That effort typically includes having new employees do everything from reading past proposals to learning to use the customer relationship management (CRM) system and other technologies to making presentations to multiple people, including the president. Managers or assisting salespeople should sign off on each item on each employee’s new hire plan.

The plan should also include a 90-day list of planned objectives. While those objectives will be unique for each organization, they might include pipeline values, revenue goals, sales calls goals and proposals delivered. Having predefined objectives allows all involved to know whether each new hire is on track or requires some additional education.  

• Create a sales-oriented culture. From conducting numerous exit interviews, we’ve found that many top salespeople leave their jobs not because they’re dissatisfied with compensation, but because they’re frustrated by sales management. Typically, that frustration stems from a culture that blocks sales success via lack of support, poorly designed sales processes and inefficient internal policies that make it difficult to add new clients, generate proposals, process orders or even calculate commissions. Some organizations call this as “sales prevention.”

Recognizing success goes a long way in building a strong sales culture. Offering contests, awards and yearly incentive trips–and maintaining a fun environment—are all important ways to provide that acknowledge.

Sales leaders serious about improving performance should work hard to implement all three suggestions, helping B-level players move up while developing training programs and a culture that encourages and reward success.

 Building Your Team: Working with Company Leadership

Another critical step in building that culture is making sure that your company’s leadership views sales development as a top priority.

That’s not necessarily a given. Many companies’ management teams view their sales divisions as cost centers. In reality, those divisions are profit centers. For that reason, executives should be doing everything possible to help their salespeople execute brilliantly. Again, companies serious about gaining competitive advantage should emphasize developing, mentoring and coaching their sales teams in the same way that they focus on building certification levels for their delivery teams.

Executives from smaller companies often tell us that, unlike their counterparts at larger enterprises, they don’t have the resources to undertake professional-level development projects. (My typical response is: “That’s why you’re still a small company.”) In reality, though, effective sales, training and retention efforts are especially critical for small businesses. Cash flow and decreased sales can have a much bigger impact on monthly profitability for small businesses than for large companies, which can usually better weather a few bumps.

The takeaway: Building a strong sales organization requires developing programs dedicated to each salesperson’s short-term success and long-term growth—and it requires doing so in a positive culture that rewards achievement. Such efforts will help all team members reach their potential and go a long way toward keeping them on board.

 BONUS: a free web cast on “Hiring a High Performance Sales Team   https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/347130472

 Acumen Management Group Ltd. “operationalizes” sales management systems and processes that pull revenue out of the doldrums into the fresh zone. During the past 12 years, our consulting, advisory, and platform services have illuminated, motivated, and rejuvenated the sales efforts for partners throughout North America.

 Ken provides Keynotes, consulting services and products designed to improve business performance.           Ken@AcumenMgmt.com   www.AcumenManagement.com    www.YourSalesManagementGuru.com

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Posted in Books, Recruiting, sales leadership, Sales Leadership Training, Sales Management Systems, Sales Management Training | 1 Comment »

Executive Toughness

 This week’s blog is a book review:  Executive Toughness: The Mental Training Program to Increase your Leadership Performance by Dr. Jason Selk published by McGraw Hill.  Why am I adding this to my blog site?  My objective in addressing sales leadership issues is to provide you ideas, tools and concepts to increase your professionalism. I like to read a business book focused on some aspect of my profession, then I will switch to another form of book for personal fun. I believe your sales teams and you should have a personal development plan.  You need to add this book to your library! 

 After writing four books myself, I found “Executive Toughness” a terrific read that a new manager or any experienced business leader can find something new or an aspect of their life to improve upon. 

As I was reading this book I realized my next blog would contain a brief review and it should be a must read. As each page flew by, I found myself underlining sentences, circling ideas and folding over pages as concepts and tools were introduced.  Dr. Selk opens each new idea with a story of a person that defines his message, I liked the way he personalized the concepts that the reader could relate to. His conversations and stories with the famed Coach John Madden were terrific.  Before I cover the topics, the one aspect of the book I really thought was a great concept was at the conclusion of each section where Dr. Self was making a point, he included tools where the reader could begin to build their own personal “training” program.  This allowed the reader not only to read and understand the topic, but to put the information into their Personalized Action Plan! 

The topics of the book that I really enjoyed were: 

• Accountability: The Process of Achievement (readers of this blog know my feelings on “accountability, discipline and control”.
• Self-Evaluation: Look into the mirror everyday
• Improving Execution and Consistency: in our sales leadership workshops I discuss that execution is the key element that in high performance sales organizations…
• The Mental Work: “100 seconds a day keeps failure away.”  This section pays for the book!
• Optimism: Overcoming All Obstacles:   Becoming relentless and unremitting action.

 And to make the book even better, the last 12 pages gives you the Handbook to move forward with your personalize program.  As in my keynote program: Gourmet Living: a recipe for personal and professional success, Dr. Selk hits the point, you must be personally in balance and know what you want and you must take action to achieve high performance.

 Buy it, read it and take action, you will be a better person because of it. 

Ken Thoreson, President of Acumen Management, “operationalizes” sales management systems and processes that pull revenue out of the doldrums into the fresh zone. During the past 14 years, our consulting, advisory, and platform services have illuminated, motivated, and rejuvenated the sales efforts for partners throughout North America. His latest book: “Leading High Performance Sales Teams” provides 40 chapters for sales leaders.

  Ken provides Keynotes, consulting services and products designed to improve business performance.  Ken@AcumenMgmt.com   www.AcumenManagement.com

 Blog:  www.YourSalesManagementGuru.com

Posted in Books, Leadership Management, sales leadership, Sales Leadership Training, Sales Management Training | 1 Comment »

How to Take Emotion Out of the Sales Hiring Process and Hire the Best Salespeople

It’s the number one job of sales management and it is the most difficult, if you hire effectively the job of sales management becomes sooooo much easier.  If you are serious about building a high performance sales team I have something special for you;  I will train you on the aspects of building a recruiting process that will improve your odds of only hiring the best salespeople-not the best available.  What could be the results of attending this web cast?

• Increases in service, quality and customer satisfaction of over 50%
• Growth rates 60% to 300% greater than their competition
• Return on sales of 200%-300% greater than their competitors
• Return on assets of 150%-300% greater than their competitors

             Leonard Schlesinger  Harvard University

REGISTER Today:    https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/347130472

It’s a fact that when you miss hire a salesperson it may cost you FOUR times what you ended up paying that person while they were on your team.

In this webinar, author and sales management expert, Ken Thoreson will teach you how to remove emotion from the hiring process and improve your odds for hiring salespeople who will produce. You will learn:
• 5 techniques to increase interviewing effectiveness
• How to evaluate the traits of high performers
• How to create a sales recruiting scorecard that “takes the emotion” out of hiring decisions
• How to use and create a sales case study specifically designed for your business
• How to building an interviewing process to hire the best, not just the best available
• How to separate the average from top performers

This webinar is perfect for sales managers, executives, business owners, HR Professionals and anyone who is involved in the sales hiring process.

REGISTER Today:   https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/347130472

Acumen Management Group Ltd. “operationalizes” sales management systems and processes that pull revenue out of the doldrums into the fresh zone. During the past 14 years, our consulting, advisory, and platform services have illuminated, motivated, and rejuvenated the sales efforts for partners throughout North America. Move up and move ahead!

Ken provides Keynotes, consulting services and products designed to improve business performance.           Ken@AcumenMgmt.com   www.AcumenManagement.com

Blog:  www.YourSalesManagementGuru.com

Posted in Leadership Management, Recruiting, Sales Management Systems, Sales Management Training | Comments Off