Effectiveness as a sales manager requires many skills, tendencies, and attributes. We partner with Objective Management Group (the #1 Sales Evaluation and Assessment Tool), and together, we have identified five must-have competencies for a sales manager:

1. Managing Performance
2. Coaching
3. Motivating
4. Recruiting and Upgrading
5. Coaching an Effective Stage-Based Sales Process

These five functions, plus some additional content related to systems, processes, and effective selling, make up our Sales Managed Environment (SME) program for managers.

A number of years ago, I went through ocular plaque radioactive surgery. It's a procedure where my eye surgeon knocked me out, manipulated the eyeball, and sewed a gold-plated disc to the back of the eye. The purpose was to kill the cells associated with a choroid melanoma. Post-surgery included placing an antibiotic cream under the lower eyelid, covering that with a patch, and then covering that with a lead eye cover. It also, in the state of Ohio, mandated that I stay in a room with a lead door for four days. After four days, they took me back to surgery, removed the disc, let me recover, and sent me home. That is when I really began to notice the importance of two lenses to view the world.

For a while, I could not see anything on my right unless I turned my head. I now have some peripheral vision to the right, but really just beyond my nose. The other night, Linda and I were walking the dog, and I turned my head to the right to talk to her—and she was gone. I had to do about a 270-degree turn to find her.

It became very apparent that, in order for me to function effectively, I have always counted on two lenses to see, work, and enjoy the world. Without both lenses, it forced me to work harder and not nearly as effectively as I did prior to surgery. So what does this have to do with sales management effectiveness?

Everything!

I've been teaching and coaching our SME™ program for 25 years, and the personal experience with my eye that I just described has made me view our approach in a different way. Each one of the components of SME™ is really a lens for a company sales leader to use to "see" how the sales group is performing. Kind of like my doctor used a blood test, a CT scan, and a biopsy to determine how well my body was functioning. One data point alone doesn't tell the story. Another negative analogy to use would be looking at the scoreboard at the end of the game to determine how well the game was played. The score is a lagging data point and only tells you who happened to win. It doesn't tell you why one team won and why the other lost. That is what sales leaders need to know to drive sales effectiveness with their teams.

Using all five lenses in your organization will tell you several things. In the words of marketing guru Seth Godin (you should watch the video), you will better understand:

1. Why they are racing to the top or the bottom
2. What they need to do differently to race to the top

For more information on these five lenses for sales managers, feel free to pull down our eBook, The Extraordinary Sales Manager. This new view just might give you what you need to see your team’s activities from a new perspective—and tools to execute the necessary changes to improve your team’s sales effectiveness.

Register now for our free webinar - one week from today! 

As defined by our sales evaluation partner, Objective Management Group, the Sales Process Competency measures an individual's ability to follow the proper sequence of stages and milestones of a structured sales process. So, while simply having a sales process is important, it must also follow a certain sequence to be effective. And of course, the role of the sales leader is to coach their people in this sales process, identifying choke points and offering effective strategies for skill improvement. Let’s dive deeper into this topic of what defines an effective sales process.

Follows Stages and Steps

The sales process followed includes appropriate and effective stages or steps.

Consistent and Effective Results

The sales process produces consistent and effective results.

Little Wasted Time

The sales process helps to minimize the time wasted with prospects that don’t or won’t buy.

CRM Supported

Today’s necessary strong CRM skills support adherence to a structured sales process. The sales process is integrated into the CRM and is a necessary tool for tracking and coaching the pipeline.

Strategic Use of Sales Scorecard

The sales process provides a scorecard that predicts the likelihood of winning business as part of qualifying prospects.

Here is an example of an effective stage-based sales process:

Top producers are not excellent due to luck. The chart below demonstrates the correlation of sales process to sales percentile. 87% of elite salespeople, the top 7%, follow a sales process, in contrast to 20% of weak salespeople.

Why Is a Sales Process So Important for the Coach?

The sales coach’s ability to demonstrate these steps will encourage their sales teams to execute their sales system. This mastery of the system is what then allows the coach to identify incorrect behavior when they observe their salespeople in a prospecting situation or role-playing session with peers. If the sales coach does not know, they cannot teach or coach an effective approach.

In order to get salespeople to know and own an effective selling system, the sales coach must also be able to teach the theory of the sales system, including the dynamics of the buying and selling process in today’s market and how to address each step of the sales system with specific industry nuances. They must be able to demonstrate and teach their people to not look, act, or sound like everyone else and how to differentiate themselves in their marketplace. Ultimately, the coach must teach the theory behind why asking for referrals, having a full pipeline, executing on a sales success formula, and participating in sales huddles all add to a salesperson’s potential success. Each of these is a critical component of following a stage-based sales process and achieving sales team excellence.

Don’t leave reaching your sales goal targets to luck!

1. Performance Management
2. Coaching for Success
3. Motivation That Works
4. Upgrading & Hiring Better Salespeople
5. Coaching an Effective Selling System 

1.) Performance Management –Performance management should not occupy a lot of time, but must be the base of everything else that a sales leader does and is the dashboard for creating a high-performance sales team. 

Performance management is a process of making sure that a sales leader: 

• Establishes consistent metrics to determine success
• Conducts 1-on-1 meetings where people self-determine what defines success and failure
• Utilizes a coaching process and methodology
• Gathers real-time information via Huddles
• Reviews, analyzes, and shares the findings of the data
• Identifies and coaches people early when they are not performing to the level they committed to

2.) Coaching for Success – Assuming an effective goal setting process and established Success Formulas for each salesperson, leaders should collect data and uncover opportunities for coaching via Huddles. Huddles include individuals reporting pre-determined critical data on a team meeting. They are an essential component for creating a high-performance sales team. Ideally, these huddles should include and lead to:

• Comparing actual performance against the agreed-to goals
• Identifying choke points in the sales process
• Determining if outcomes are a result of effort or execution
• Conducting 1-on-1 coaching sessions to help change behavior or improve skill

3.) Motivation that Works – Salespeople are motivated in various ways and it is every leader’s job to uncover if their people are intrinsically, extrinsically, or altruistically motivated. How can a leader possibly motivate someone if they don’t know what motivates them or how they are motivated to be successful? True motivators:

• Know what motivates people
• Have a strong self image
• Give recognition
• Do not accept mediocrity

4.) Upgrading & Hiring Better Salespeople – There is a big difference between talent that can succeed and talent that will succeed in selling. If a company is dependent on organic growth, then the organization needs to have data that will identify:

• If their current team has what it takes to reach current goals and grow to the next level
• If more horsepower is needed, then leaders must make sure that their new hires have the Will to Sell, Sales DNA, and appropriate Sales Competencies. Learn more with our free ebook about the 21 Core Sales Competencies - download here.

5.) Coaching an Effective Selling System – Having a staged-based selling system with milestones is one of the essential keys for creating a high-performance sales team. Too often, companies use a CRM system to gain a numeric value of the pipeline but have little other information that would provide insight into the quality of the pipeline, likelihood of closing, length of sales process, etc. Additionally, it is by analyzing this data that leaders will gain insight into the effectiveness of the individuals on their sales team.  

There is no easy route to these 5 keys to creating a high-performance sales team, but diving deeper into each component, implementing the necessary systems and processes, evaluating the data and performance activities, and regularly coaching the sales team are essential for team success.

Checklist for an Effective Sales Pitch:

• Your salespeople must be prepared. In addition to conducting industry and client research, they must prepare for the sales process. In other words, they must know what questions they are going to ask to move the sale forward, not just questions about the technical aspects of their prospect’s current position or status. Your salespeople have to anticipate the suspect's answers to those questions and be prepared with their follow-up dialog. Too many salespeople take this step for granted, thinking, "I've been in the business for __ years." They also need to be prepared for the prospect’s questions and how to respond to them. Finally, they have to be ready for curveballs and know how to handle them. Prospects always throw them, and when salespeople are unprepared, they will usually miss the opportunity to score. As a coach, this pre-call time is essential. You should have time on your calendar devoted to reviewing significant opportunity pre-call plans with all of your salespeople. Download our Pre-Call Strategy Checklist.

• Your salespeople must identify clearly what their preferred outcome is. In the book Getting to Yes, the authors explain how defining a preferred outcome helps guide salespeople through any meeting. In selling, and specifically for the initial call, most salespeople define the objective of the first call as "to get a second call." We challenge you, as a sales coach, to help your salespeople understand precisely who their target audience is and to work to disqualify prospects instead of trying to qualify them. If salespeople focus more on finding qualified opportunities, they will waste less time on prospects who are not going to buy from them. So, one aspect of an effective sales pitch is not pitching to unqualified prospects!

• Salespeople have to demonstrate their credibility and value, not by what they say, but by how they conduct themselves. They must be different, and they will do this by the questions they ask, by their focus on the prospect and what is important to them, and by their reluctance to get into a sales pitch too early. Salespeople should demonstrate their knowledge of the industry through stories, analogies, and metaphors, especially by relating how they have helped others in similar situations with effective solutions. They also showcase professionalism by asking penetrating questions and by how they don't look, act, or sound like every other salesperson that has met with this executive. As a sales coach using this checklist for effective sales pitches, how do your salespeople rank in demonstrating their value and credibility? Make sure you listen and help them develop in this area.

• Salespeople have to have the courage to ask the tough questions and have honest and sometimes difficult discussions. Your salespeople should prepare to have initial calls asking tough questions like:

  • "When you told your current provider that you were unhappy with the current situation and you were shopping to replace them, what did they say?"
  • "How will you make this decision?"
  • "When do I meet the decision-maker?"
  • "If you don't have a budget, then how will you pay for this?"
  • "If you are shopping for the lowest price, what happens if I show up and I'm not the lowest price?"
  • "When I show up to make my presentation, I need for you to be in a position to tell me ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ What objections do you have to that process?"

• Salespeople need to leave their need for approval at the door when they leave the house or office in the morning. A strong leader can help them rewrite their mindset about how people buy in your industry. We all have a desire to be liked, to gain approval, and to feel a sense of camaraderie with our prospects and clients, but it can get in the way—especially if that need for approval is so strong that a salesperson cannot ask tough questions about budget and the current provider. As a sales coach, it is your job to practice these tough conversations with your salespeople. When they come back from a sales pitch and say, “I think they really liked what we presented,” ask them what that means exactly. Did they get a defined next step? What did they say about the decision-making process, etc.? Salespeople who have effective sales pitches on a regular basis recognize but manage their own need for approval and do not allow it to get in the way.

• Salespeople must follow a defined sales process to have consistent sales meetings that turn into effective sales pitches and then into long-term relationships. An effective selling system will guide a salesperson to fully uncover:

  • Does the prospect have compelling reasons to take action quickly? How much is the problem costing them?
  • Will they invest the time, money, and resources to solve a problem they have or the problem they see coming? Will they invest that time, money, or those resources in a timely fashion, or are they in the information-gathering mode?
  • What is the decision-making process exactly?
  • Will they move on from their current provider? Tip: Ask them to verbalize what they would say to the incumbent.
  • Will they be prepared to tell the salesperson “Yes” or “No” when the solution is presented? This is an agreed-upon step to avoid the “think it over” response.

• Salespeople have to close. That does not always mean closing the sale, but it does mean closing this step and securing a clear next step. There is always a next step, even if your salespeople are in a "one-appointment close" business. When salespeople master this step, they will have fewer meetings, and their close ratio will improve. Here are three strong closing questions that we recommend you practice with your salespeople:

  • "Do you think I understand your problem/challenge?"
  • "Do you believe I can help you with your problem/challenge?"
  • "Do you want my help?"

Want your salespeople to have more success? Follow this checklist for effective sales pitches!

Once the process is completed, no one revisits the plan, and typically, there is a non-existent or poor plan of inspection to make sure the key elements of the plan are being executed (assuming there is a strategic plan to support the numbers). There is rarely a discussion about what happens if the plan isn't being executed or there is failure to hit certain benchmarks throughout the year that indicate success in hitting the goals. Also, the goals may be set, but they are negotiable, and usually, nothing happens when the producer is failing to do what needs to be done to hit the goal.

The worst part of most strategic sales planning efforts is that at the end of the year, if producers are between 85% to 100% of their agreed-to goals, they will probably avoid any corrective actions and keep their jobs. This renders the whole idea of establishing goals essentially useless. And the truth—most salespeople really are not motivated by the process... or the goals. Team goals are sometimes eventually met, but only because a few met or exceeded the goals (80/20 rule).

Some may consider this sort of a strategic sales planning rant, but it is really just the truths I have observed over the years. Now let me share with you what I know is the key to this.

Your organization is perfectly designed for the results you are getting today!

Truthfully, our goal here is to prompt you to begin thinking about the results you are getting from your current strategic sales planning process. If you take a look at individual as well as collective results, are you happy with the outcome? Is the outcome as good as it could be if everyone hit their goal? Is everyone hitting the goal? If so (now this may appear to be contradictory), then maybe their goals are too low. If too many people are not hitting their goals, then maybe there is something wrong with either the process or the people. Regardless of the cause—if your team is not a high-performing sales team that consistently outperforms the previous year, then something is wrong!

Here are 10 truths that will help you improve your individual and collective strategic sales planning results:

1. "Motivation is an inside-out job" (Mark Victor Hansen)
2. Your salespeople, unless they own shares, don't care about reaching goals that help drive shareholder value.
3. Your salespeople have individual dreams, aspirations, and financial requirements that they do care about and want to achieve.
4. If you have the right people, their own drive for success will always exceed any goal/quest you present to them.
5. People want to have extraordinary lives—but they need the chance to define what extraordinary is!
6. People have to know what it means to be successful, and they need to know, in advance, what it means to fail.
7. If you raise the bar, the right people will work to clear the bar.
8. If you give people minimum standards for performance, 80% of the time they will perform to the minimum standard rather than to the goal.
9. If you take the time to have personal goal discussions with your people, then take the time to:
   
   1. Have supporting activity discussions
   2. Schedule time to revisit the plans—regularly
   3. Find out to what level they will manage themselves
   4. Get permission to coach them the moment you see they are failing
   5. Set the bar for extraordinary and clearly discuss that anything short of the agreed-to objective is failing
   6. Discuss the disciplined approach you will take to help them succeed
10. Catch them early. At least 80% of your salespeople, maybe even all of them, at some time in the year, will begin to fail in executing the plan. Catch them early, address it, agree to a plan of action, and then take action.

It is early in the year, and now is the best time to make sure that your strategic sales planning is based on a strong foundation of truth. Let us know how we can help.