For many sales managers, the year end came to a sudden stop last Thursday as they closed the books on 2015. Yesterday, January 4^th, you were back at the office kicking off a new year of sales. Depending on the type of sales you and your team are in, January results are a result of what you did at the tail end of 2015. With that in mind, how is your March, April and May shaping up?

Was your Monday a “Black Monday”? The Monday following the final game in the NFL is known as Black Monday because many head coaches lose their job for failure to manage, coach, recruit the team to success. (8 coaches lost their job.)

If you don’t know - or you’re not sure - then you’re in trouble. In most B2B sales (Dismantling the B2B sales cycle HBR article), there is at least a 30-day sales cycle. If that is the case, then December determined your January and you may have closed out last year excited about your start to 2016. Did you enjoy the last week of the year knowing you were off to a great start… or were you were worried, mad or frustrated about where you might be headed?

If you are in B2B sales, then January 4^th was about making sure your Q1 was going to be on target and you were looking at leading indicators like sales activity, pipeline opportunities, sales in process and presentations scheduled for the next 30 days. If that is not what your Monday looked like, then there are a few things to consider:

If your sales cycle is 90+ days, then:

• By the end of October you knew how good January was going to be.
• The first week of January tells you how good April is going to be
• If you didn’t know how good January was going to be, then there is something missing in your sales managed environment.
• If, by the end of this week, you cannot tell your president, executive committee, CFO or board what the first quarter will produce or how April is setting up, then now is the time to put in place the right systems and processes.

Effective sales management is a combination of 5 crucial functions:

1. Recruiting
2. Performance Management
3. Coaching
4. Motivating
5. Upgrading

Each one of these functions has associated systems and processes that allow the effective sales manager to run the operation, manage the people and provide valuable business information to those who need it. Performance management is the function we are addressing today.

An effective performance management system allows you, the manager, to accurately predict the future sales health of the organization. Unlike a mutual fund that cannot promise future results by looking at past performance, you should be able to promise future results because your systems and processes provide you real time information about what you team is doing or failing to do. With the billions of dollars being spent on CRMs (BASE Sales CRM – Better ROI than SalesForce.com), you should, at the push of a button, get reports for leading indicators of sales:

• Current sales activity
• Current sales ratios
• Reliable pipeline sales projections
• Who is heading for failure
• Who is on target or ahead of goal

This is what you should be getting out of your CRM. You’re not? If not, then you are always managing from behind. You are always playing catch up. You are always at a loss as to what is really going on with your sales team and you are always a bit surprised, disappointed or frustrated when the sales report comes in at the end of the week, month or quarter.

This should not be happening!

Now what? Now is a good time to take stock of 2015. Take a half-day and analyze what happened or didn’t happen. Who succeeded and why? Who failed and why? When it comes to those that failed (anyone less than 95% of goal should be considered as “failed”), my question to you is this: “When did you know?” Building the right sales managed environment and then managing that environment are keys, not the only keys, but critical keys to your 2016 success.

As you do your analysis, you must ask yourself a couple of questions:

• What am I doing or not doing that contributes to these results?
• What must I start doing?
• What must I keep doing?
• What must I stop doing?

You're the head coach. The responsibility is yours. Take a look at what’s happening, make adjustments and tough decisions… and then implement the right systems and process that will drive your sales success in 2016.

Additional Resources:

Hirebettersalespeople.com

Sales Management Certification

On Demand Learning and Training for Sales

I stopped doing a formal list of New Year’s resolutions a long time ago. I don't remember when exactly… I just know that I did. Maybe I just got tired of the process of knowing that, in the end, some of the things I wrote down would get done and others were just wishful thinking.

As a sales manager or VP of Sales, I’m sure there is a long list of things you could come up with that, if committed to and executed, would lead you to great success in 2016. But what is really going to be different this year from last year? My guess is that some of the problems you need to go away in 2016 existed in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Why are they still on the list?

Here are my suggestions for resolutions in 2016 that, if and when executed, will solve most (if not all) of your sales problems.

1. Performance management - Simply inspect what you expect and what you expect will get done.
2. Eliminate excuses – Stop making them for your people and stop accepting them from your people.
3. Coach your people – Focus your attention on the training and coaching that improves skills and changes behaviors.
4. Apply the 80/20 rule to yourself – If there are 20 things you do week in and week out, there are probably only 4 to 6 that really matter. Those 4 to 6 activities generate 80% of your results. Spend 80% of your time doing those things.
5. ABR – Always Be R You have at least 20% of your team that is not performing and are not going to perform. Fire them. In order to do that, recruiting has to be on the list of 20% of the things you do that impact results. Spend at least 20% of your time finding the right talent to do the right job.

Additional Resources:

Hire Better Sales People – Link to a program to eliminate hiring mistakes

Sales Management Certification – Become a better sales manager

9 Keys to Successful Sales Management – A primer on sales management success

Text me for help – 513.226.3913 – Text “HELP” and provide your name.

I’m reading Fast Company magazine this morning and realize I don’t get out of it what I used to.  It’s probably a combination of how I’ve changed, how our company has changed and how the magazine has changed. This got me thinking about other articles I’ve read about how selling has changed and the “keys” to selling in today’s market.

I did a quick Google search for “keys to sales success” and here are some of the articles that Google found:

• Inc. – Four Keys to Sales Success
• Rainsalestraining.com  – Sales Prospecting:  6 Keys to Success
• Forbes – 3 Powerful Skills You Must Have to Succeed in Sales
• Sales Force Blog Post – 8 Sales Cloud Tips To Boost Your Productivity and Drive Revenue

But, this is what I think – the keys to successful selling really haven’t changed that much… if at all.

In 2005, I read Dave Kurlan’s book, Baseline Selling.  Dave took the fundamentals of effective selling and used the baseball diamond and baseball terminology to explain his sales process. If you think about baseball, or look at old baseball videos or pictures, you will find that the game today is essentially exactly the same game that was formalized in New York about 1840.

I am convinced that the “game” of selling is exactly the same game that Frank Bettger (Author of How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling) was playing in 1952.  I read his book over 15 years ago, but I didn’t know this fact about Frank until today – he played professional baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals. With that in mind, let’s stick with the baseball theme.

The Rules of the Game for Successful Selling

1. Take batting practice every day - Practice
2. Take what the pitcher gives you – Focus on what problem your prospect has to solve.  Leave your product briefcase and brochures in the car.
3. Swing at YOUR pitch – Just like a batter faces lots of pitches and only are a few are ones he can really connect with, you will face lots of prospects, but only work with those that you can really work with and help.
4. When the 1^st base coach is waving for you to keep going, go to second base. When you find out that your prospect has a “have-to-fix-problem”, that doesn’t mean you try and steal home.  Go to second and make sure they have the money to fix the problem. Go to 3^rd to make sure they are committed to investing the time, money or resources to fix the problem.  Before you head for home, make sure you can score when you get there – the prospect is committed to making a decision.
5. In the first inning, you might strike out, hit into a double play, walk to first, get hit by a pitch, get stranded on first, etc. You have to shake all of that off because you have 8 more innings to play. Anything can happen as long as you keep going and getting at bats.
   
   

Additional Resources:

Drafting better players – Hirebettersalespeople.com

Sales Management – 9 Keys to Coaching Sales Success

Free book for your salespeople – Why is Selling So Damn Hard?