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NEW 'SymVolli - Features, Advantages & Benefits' brochure - Sales Performance Management (more than just CRM) - now available

administrator — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:19:02 GMT

As promised, last week, in preparation for the launch of SymVolli 8.0 we are and will be releasing new datasheets, brochures and documentation, the second of which is now available. Click here to download 'SymVolli - Features, Advantages & Benefits'.

The brochure 'SymVolli - Features, Advantages & Benefits' looks at SymVolli and highlights some of the key features within the system and how they can be of benefit to you.

Click here to download 'SymVolli - Features, Advantages & Benefits'.

NEXT WEEK: 'SymVolli - The Experience Of Others' - what other people have experienced and said of the use of SymVolli.

'Shoot The Salesman' - Sales Comic - No.4

administrator — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:22:25 GMT

Oh how true, "Is CRM out-dated"?

administrator — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:23:02 GMT

I can recommend a very good read, which pulls no punches and describes what we have been doing for thirty years and expecting a different result - "Is CRM out-dated?" from the Smart Selling Tools website.

I was there when we first started and that was when we called it contact management. We needed a way to manage all contact with our customers, prospects, suppliers, etc. We then went one stage further and started adding opportunity management, marketing, and customer service functionality so that we could manage everything we did with the outside world and also increase visibility throughout the organisation as to customer activities. We then decided to call it CRM.

This has been a great innovation, but we now seem to be stuck on technological advancements, such as supplying CRM as a Software as a Service (SaaS).

With our clients we have found that more than ever they are looking at ways of applying their processes within systems that are flexible to meet their requirements and offer benefits to the user. A sales person wants minimal interaction with the system and maximum interaction with the client. He or she wants a tool that helps him or her manage the sales process, qualifying prospects, measure progress towards getting the order, and at the same time allowing management to use the same information to produce their reports.

The next wave of development in the sale arena are systems that can cater for any sales process, giving management the ability to monitor results produced by using the process so that it can be refined if necessary. It could be that by using a process, it is shown that sales person needs coaching or that the marketing message/plan needs reviewing.

CRM systems are activity based, but where is the process. The ability to review the sales situation from an elevated position can be achieved using systems that can cater properly for processes, I mean processes not procedures. Procedures/activities are a means of getting from one step, within a process, to the next. You could say that CRM is a subset of the next generation of systems.

We are dealing with sales performance management systems that go further than managing targets and incentives. As the article says CRM systems are essentially still an interface to a database. Sales Performance Management systems use the CRM functionality but take it to the next level, to have a direct influence in winning sales.

NEW 'SymVolli - The Product' brochure - Sales Performance Management (more than just CRM) - now available

administrator — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:22:52 GMT

In preparation for the launch of SymVolli 8.0 we are and will be releasing new datasheets, brochures and documentation, the first of which is now available. Click here to download 'SymVolli - The Product'.

The brochure 'SymVolli - The Product' looks at SymVolli and highlights some of the key features within the system. It is an overview document aimed at given a concise portrayal of SymVolli. In the coming weeks leading up to the launch further datasheets, brochures etc will be made available:

NEXT WEEK 'SymVolli - Features & Benefits'

Click here to download 'SymVolli - The Product'.

Garbage In, Garbage Out: The question is how do you keep the garbage out?

administrator — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:23:00 GMT

I came across an article on the Sales Benchmark Index website entitled ‘Sales Performance Management: Getting A Fighting Chance'. It was an very interesting read and furthermore I completely agree with the key finding that viewing your data in different ways is not the most important thing and that attaining and maintaining accurate data is the basis of any decision making process.

There is the traditional method of ‘carrot and stick’, the carrot being remuneration dependant on the level of accuracy of the information that is entered into a system whether it be contact details or sales forecasts, or the stick being the regular review where the cross-examination establishes whether the information is credible.

The sales performance management system needs to be able to store snapshots of what is happening thereby building up a trend analysis database. By using the historic data it is possible to quickly establish whether the sales opportunity is being handled correctly or the sales person is not entering the data correctly.

In the example below the system is tracking the information with regard to the key criteria so that progress can be measured. The opportunity is stagnating why? Looking at the criterion ‘Factors governing the decision’, the status went from ‘established and agreed in our favour’ to ‘established but not agreed’.

Source: SymVolli - Order Slippage Report

The sales person could have left the status as ‘established and agreed in our favour’, but the opportunity is stagnating and that is showing up in the slippage report shown below.

Source: SymVolli - Order Slippage Report

The reports are not only seen by management but also by the sale person, so the next time he or she enters data without substance they will think twice as they know that it will be easily identified.

Setting up the system up correctly with proven processes will go a long way, but the system needs to have the ability to highlight exceptions thereby helping maintain to integrity of the data.

You are asking for trouble if you are adding garbage knowing that it will eventually be trapped.

'Shoot The Salesman' - Sales Comic - No.3

administrator — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:01:18 GMT

'Shoot The Salesman' - Sales Comic - No.2

administrator — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 09:41:35 GMT

'Shoot The Salesman' - Sales Comic - No.1

administrator — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:14:04 GMT

'Shoot The Salesman' - Sales Comic - Back By Popular Demand... With More To Follow

administrator — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:13:41 GMT

It is back! We have been asked over and over again what happened to our sales comic and as a result of the 'pressure' we have received to reinstate it, it is back. We will be serialise all the previous comic strips and once we run out them, we will be printing a whole load of new ones.

So stay tuned, enjoy, and from now on refer to Tuesday as 'Shoot The Salesman - Sales Comic Tuesday'.

When Is ‘Interesting’ The Worst Word You Can Hear?

administrator — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:28:00 GMT

When is ‘interesting’ the worst word you can hear? When you have finished a meeting with a potential client and the only thing they have to say about what you discussed or presented was ‘interesting’.

I was reviewing a sales visit that a sales person had undertaken and naturally I asked how the meeting was closed. The sales person was very enthusiastic because the client had told him that he found the meeting very interesting and that he should call back towards the end of the following week. My immediate reaction was that the meeting would not lead to anything and there was a strong chance that the call to be made the following week would not be accepted. I asked the sales person to use the word interesting and tell me what he felt. The response was that it was a polite way of saying I am not sure what you can do for me because you have not hit any points that grab my attention.

Never finish a meeting with the word ‘interesting’. Find out what is the key issue that is to be addressed and the perceived benefits that would be gained by using your products or services, or whether no issues were addressed. You might get a second chance to go round again and try and address the clients key issues, but ‘interesting’ is not one of his or her issues. Even if you come to the conclusion you cannot help in a particular sales situation, at least you would have qualified out this lead and you can now move on to another potential opportunity.

Further To "The Real Problem with Sales Training"

administrator — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:02:41 GMT

I read a very interesting guest post by Jonathan Farrington about sales training, on the Renbor Sales Solutions Inc. website, http://www.sellbetter.ca/blog/?p=5241, which highlighted the key issues why sales training is not as successful as it should be. The main thrust was that the training was of a general nature and that did not take into account the sales environment the sales person was operating in or the sales person in particular.

I found that reading Jonathan’s paper, which you can download from the url given above, gave a greater insight as to what is required to make sales training worthwhile.

Jonathan writes, ‘Training must be based on what the salespeople need and should be tailored to address diagnosed performance gaps’. The word that stuck in my mind was ‘diagnosed’. A physician dealing with a patient who has a chesty cough would find out if he had any other illness, such as Diabetes before he wrote out a prescription for the medicine required, in this case sugar free linctus, so why the generalisation in diagnosis for training? After all, are we not dealing with individuals?

Further on in the article Jonathan mentions the fact that many sales training companies have unique methodologies with a specialised approach. It got me thinking about all the courses that I attended. In most cases I was trying to fit my sales situations to the methodology. Could this be the reason why there was a drop-off in maintaining certain practices?

Towards the end of the article there are two clear statements that are crucial to the development of a sales person, the understanding that training is carried out on a regular and continual basis, and in the words of Jonathan, ‘Perhaps even more important these days, is the fact that markets, competition, technologies, and customer preferences are all in a constant and accelerating state of change.’

In my experience it is about behaviour of the sales person, market, competition, economy, etc. Our challenge is to be able to monitor, manage, and refine our behaviour to all these influences. The question is do we have a coordinated approach of people, processes, and technology that will allow us to identify strengths and weaknesses in all the variables that impact the development of a sales person?

An excellent article that I recommend to anyone that is interested in making sales training a strong weapon in the caring and nurturing of their most valuable sales resource, the sales person.

One man’s problem is another man’s normality

administrator — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 10:18:56 GMT

I promise that I haven’t been at the Christmas spirit, yet. It’s something that was said at our weekly management meeting: most of the people that we come into contact with do not realise that they are living with a problem.

It is no different than what I used to regard as normal in that over the last twenty years I had been standing at 80 degrees to the vertical due to back and hip problems. It only became apparent after my hip operation that I was not standing correctly, that I had been compensating for my back problems and to me this had become normality. Trying to rectify the situation felt abnormal and required dedication and discipline to achieve my objective of pain relief.

Now imagine the sales situation. Erratic sales forecasting, conversion rates, and performance are seen in many organisations as normal properties of the sales environment. Many people that I come into contact with say that this is part and parcel of their sales process and that it is something they have to live with.

All it takes is an out-of-body experience. No, I still haven’t touched the Christmas bottle. Try and stand back and look at your sales situation. If you were an investor, would you invest, if not why not? Try and identify what the problems could be apart from the obvious: that the team is not performing. What process could you put in place to try and bring the sales team back on track or in my case stand as near vertical as possible.

Now for the hardest part: is there the discipline and dedication to change the situation? If not, live with the problem as if it was normal. The choice is yours!

The Sales Manager's 12 Working Days Till Christmas Carol

administrator — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:00:00 GMT

In response to 'The Sales Person's 12 Working Days Till Christmas Carol', a further bit of fun and light relief, the sales manager's perspective of things. Greetings to all and a Prosperous New Year.

On the first working day till Christmas

My sales man gave to me:

A sales hard luck story

On the second working day till Christmas

My sales man gave to me:

Two bluebirds and

A sales hard luck story

On the third working day till Christmas

My sales man gave to me:

Three delayed orders

Two bluebirds and

A sales hard luck story

On the fourth working day till Christmas

My sales man gave to me:

Four lost opportunities

Three delayed orders

Two bluebirds and

A sales hard luck story

On the fifth working day till Christmas

My sales man gave to me:

Five sales prospects

Four lost opportunities

Three delayed orders

Two bluebirds and

A sales hard luck story

On the sixth working day till Christmas

My sales man gave to me:

Six sales suspects

Five sales prospects

Four lost opportunities

Three delayed orders

Two bluebirds and

A sales hard luck story

On the seventh working day till Christmas

My sales man gave to me:

Seven customer issues

Six sales suspects

Five sales prospects

Four lost opportunities

Three delayed orders

Two bluebirds and

A sales hard luck story

On the eighth working day till Christmas

My sales man gave to me:

Eight day sick leave certificate

Seven customer issues

Six sales suspects

Five sales prospects

Four lost opportunities

Three delayed orders

Two bluebirds and

A sales hard luck story

On the ninth working day till Christmas

My sales man gave to me:

Nine weeks of expense claims

Eight day sick leave certificate

Seven customer issues

Six sales suspects

Five sales prospects

Four lost opportunities

Three delayed orders

Two bluebirds and

A sales hard luck story

On the tenth working day till Christmas

My sales man gave to me:

Ten proposals to approve

Nine weeks of expense claims

Eight day sick leave certificate

Seven customer issues

Six sales suspects

Five sales prospects

Four lost opportunities

Three delayed orders

Two bluebirds and

A sales hard luck story

On the eleventh working day till Christmas

My sales man gave to me:

Eleven visit reports to read

Ten proposals to approve

Nine weeks of expense claims

Eight day sick leave certificate

Seven customer issues

Six sales suspects

Five sales prospects

Four lost opportunities

Three delayed orders

Two bluebirds and

A sales hard luck story

On the twelfth working day till Christmas

My sales man gave to me:

Twelve week notice to quit

Eleven visit reports to read

Ten proposals to approve

Nine weeks of expense claims

Eight day sick leave certificate

Seven customer issues

Six sales suspects

Five sales prospects

Four lost opportunities

Three delayed orders

Two bluebirds and

A sales hard luck story

Read 'The Sales Person's 12 Working Days Till Christmas Carol' response.

The Sales Person's 12 Working Days Till Christmas Carol

administrator — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:00:00 GMT

A bit fun and light relief leading up to the festive season. Greetings to all those in sales and to a Prosperous New Year.

On the first working day till Christmas

My sales manager gave to me:

A sales territory

On the second working day till Christmas

My sales manager gave to me:

Two market sectors and

A sales territory

On the third working day till Christmas

My sales manager gave to me:

Three business partners to manage

Two market sectors and

A sales territory

On the fourth working day till Christmas

My sales manager gave to me:

Four price lists

Three business partners to manage

Two market sectors and

A sales territory

On the fifth working day till Christmas

My sales manager gave to me:

Five sales presentations

Four price lists

Three business partners to manage

Two market sectors and

A sales territory

On the sixth working day till Christmas

My sales manager gave to me:

Six named accounts

Five sales presentations

Four price lists

Three business partners to manage

Two market sectors and

A sales territory

On the seventh working day till Christmas

My sales manager gave to me:

Seven on-going sales opportunities

Six named accounts

Five sales presentations

Four price lists

Three business partners to manage

Two market sectors and

A sales territory

On the eighth working day till Christmas

My sales manager gave to me:

Eight marketing leads

Seven on-going sales opportunities

Six named accounts

Five sales presentations

Four price lists

Three business partners to manage

Two market sectors and

A sales territory

On the ninth working day till Christmas

My sales manager gave to me:

Nine proposal requests

Eight marketing leads

Seven on-going sales opportunities

Six named accounts

Five sales presentations

Four price lists

Three business partners to manage

Two market sectors and

A sales territory

On the tenth working day till Christmas

My sales manager gave to me:

Ten visit reports to complete

Nine proposal requests

Eight marketing leads

Seven on-going sales opportunities

Six named accounts

Five sales presentations

Four price lists

Three business partners to manage

Two market sectors and

A sales territory

On the eleventh working day till Christmas

My sales manager gave to me:

Eleven minutes to prepare for a meeting

Ten visit reports to complete

Nine proposal requests

Eight marketing leads

Seven on-going sales opportunities

Six named accounts

Five sales presentations

Four price lists

Three business partners to manage

Two market sectors and

A sales territory

On the twelfth working day till Christmas

My sales manager gave to me:

Twelve months to meet my New Year targets

Eleven minutes to prepare for a meeting

Ten visit reports to complete

Nine proposal requests

Eight marketing leads

Seven on-going sales opportunities

Six named accounts

Five sales presentations

Four price lists

Three business partners to manage

Two market sectors and

A sales territory

Read 'The Sales Manager's 12 Working Days Till Christmas Carol' response.

I Don’t Know Why, It’s a Gut Feel!

administrator — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:58:34 GMT

You would not believe how many times I have had this response when talking to a sales manager as to how he judges whether a sale is going to happen or not.

I have just finished a meeting with a sales director who as far as he is concerned his gut feel is hardly ever wrong. It just is! He agreed that it has been built up over the years through his experience in sales, but don’t ask him to analyse it. I asked him whether he had any sales training or was coached when he started out. He was a natural, born to be a sales person. He felt that some of the sales managers he served under held him back but he did admit that there were one or two that he learnt from. Finally he admitted that all the experience, good and bad, made him the success he is today.

‘If I could bottle my gut feel and sell it, I could make millions’, he said.

I asked him if he thought consciously as to what he had to do whilst driving. ‘No’, he replied. I asked him if he could document the process he went through in learning to drive, e.g. gear stick in neutral, check handbrake, check mirrors, etc. with the objective of becoming a driving instructor for a day. He tried to recount the process but he found it hard. Lastly, I asked him to write out the process by which sales progress is determined identifying the key criteria that he uses and the milestones that have to be achieved within each of the criteria. He broke into a cold sweat. To put him at ease I asked him to think about one opportunity that was not going so well and why he thought that it would not happen. He identified that the sales person was working with the IT manager and had no contact with the rest of the management team, there was very little understanding as to what were the factors governing the decision, and that they were arriving late in bidding for the work. I pointed out that in that description he had identified three criteria and had defined milestones by which he judged progress was not being made. We then did the same analysis on another successful opportunity and further criteria were identified and the success milestones defined, e.g. buy-in by all people involved, Issues identified and confirmed by the prospect. Once started I could not stop him wanting to document his sales process so that he could pass it on to others to identify strengths and weaknesses in sales opportunities.

All that happened was that he managed to bring to the conscious mind the process that he is using in his subconscious. So the next time you hear that it is gut feel ask whether it is the mind working at the speed of light based on experience gained over time and in different circumstances. It doesn’t sound as good as saying its gut feel, but you now know that sales success is based on processes built up over time that becomes second nature.

Predictability, Productivity & Profitability and SymVolli Version 8.0

administrator — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 09:17:45 GMT

With the launch of SymVolli Version 8.0 getting nearer, I thought I should follow up on a previous blog, The 3Ps to Optimising Sales Performance, and how Predictability, Productivity, and Profitability in relation to the sales environment are being addressed in the new version.

More to come in future weeks on the Marketing and Customer Services environments. For now let’s concentrate on sales.

When we mention Predictability in relation to sales the immediate topic of conversation is sales forecasting and the lack of predictability. The key to establishing predictability within the sales forecast is to have a defined process so that deviations and exceptions - are highlighted as soon as they occur.

SymVolli 8.0 has a very powerful process builder that is user friendly allowing you to build a process not only to continually collect information about an opportunity, but also continually qualify it. Coupled with SymVolli’s ability to store snapshots of the process through time, it is easy to identify the exceptions that are occurring, e.g. order slippage or stagnation, low level of qualification for an order that is imminent, etc.

It also helps the sales person to achieve consistent healthy sales conversion rates as he is always aware as to what has been done, where an opportunity is at, and what needs to be done to move through the sales process:

Learn from the past, improve the present and realise the future

SymVolli 8.0 allows for multiple processes to be active at any one time and also the ability to seamlessly switch from one process to another, e.g. if an account is being managed directly and then is handed over to the channel.

Moving on to Productivity, I seem to come across the same issue time and time again and that is the generation of documents to be sent to clients and suppliers. SymVolli 8.0 allows you to associate the products and services to each other so that when a product is used as part of a proposal, it will also bring in all its associated products, e.g. SymVolli Software and with it installation as the associated service. Each product within SymVolli allows for descriptions that can be edited and formatted to suit the style of your proposals and key proposal paragraphs can also be selected from a list to be included. You now have all the information you wish to include in a proposal that will be automatically generated from SymVolli.

Lastly, Profitability. The development of associated products has ensured that the chances of omitting a product from a proposal are minimised. This helps maintain the potential profitability of an order. We have had clients who have admitted to forgetting to include an item that was 1% of a high value sale and rather than go through the whole decision making process all over again they were prepared to absorb the cost. The problem was that it kept occurring and therefore mounted up against the bottom line figure.

The biggest change in SymVolli 8.0 is the Time Sheet functionality. The items in any proposal can be scheduled in a time sheet for resource management purposes and also the actual time taken for each of the items can be noted so that the actual profitability of a project can be calculated and compared to the potential profitability. The beauty with SymVolli is that it is all done from the items in the proposal being viewed in different screens. There is no need to duplicate data by going to another system.

SymVolli 8.0 is about being driven by the process and having the ability to learn from the process and refine it if necessary.

Watch out for the next instalment in a couple of weeks on the impact of SymVolli 8.0 in the marketing environment.

Sales Predictability Is Boring!

administrator — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 08:37:51 GMT

What if you could predict your sales growth within +/-10% so that you could run your business efficiently, effectively, and profitably? Boring?

Think of the possibility of:

Actually being able to plan the use of your resources and to identify when more might be required.
Of being able to rely on the sales forecast so that an accurate revenue and cash flow forecast could be produced with the minimum of intervention from senior management.
Identifying any future shortfall in the pipeline so that marketing campaigns can be carried out to produce leads so that the sales targets can be met.

Most sales directors I talk to tell me that one of the biggest problems they have is the erratic nature of their sales forecasts. It makes planning so difficult. Yet they believe that the inconsistency in sales forecasting is part of the sales environment and that it can only be controlled via the regular sales meetings that take place on a ‘one-to-one’ basis or as a team. This is not true! There is a sales process, based on the questions used by the sales director, which establishes the credibility of any sales forecast. Imagine a system that would emulate that sales process for you. In effect each sales person using the system would have their personal sales process manager/advisor. Management can look at the trends and refine the sales process to achieve even better results. The regular sales meetings would continue but be more productive.

Not so boring after all knowing when, where, how and why! More time to do everything else!!!

The Sales Process - One picture says a thousand words

administrator — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 09:00:01 GMT

I could write pages and pages about the sales process, but I won’t!

The crib sheet that you can download is a pictorial representation and a generalisation of the sales process for B2B sales. In one picture I try to capture the essence of the process, two cycles; the supplier’s sales cycle and the client’s buying cycle. The cycles are made up of the steps that the sales person and the prospect go through in passing from one step to another and these can vary in time by sales person, sales opportunity, sales sector, etc. The conclusion of each of the steps is seen as a milestone that can be defined by the percentage probability towards getting the sale. Lastly, the sales methodology is the approach that is used by each sales person to help the client get from one step to another, keeping the sales and buying cycles in alignment.

Use the crib sheet to define your sales process, and if you need any help please contact me on +44 (0)1276 683449 or us fill out the 'Contact Us' form and I will get back to you asap.

George Petri

Sales coaching the continuous sales training process

administrator — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:43:04 GMT

But who is going to do it and how?

Last week I met a client and the discussion centered on how much training is given to the sales force, especially with training budgets being curbed, if not frozen. This main concern was that the sales manager was already stretched in trying to achieve the targets set without having to burden him with sales training as well. I sat back and thought, ‘as if he has not got enough to do, we are now asking the sales manager to train his sales team as well as everything else.

Without labouring the point, I asked what the credentials in hiring a sales manager were. It all centered around track record, making his numbers, what companies he had worked for, and the length of service with each of his previous companies.

I asked if they had ever considered questions regarding the sales force that he was managing, such as:
* How many were high, average, and below average performers? I know what you are thinking and it is necessary to define the three levels before you can categorise the sales force.
* Who made the biggest advances, why, and over what period?
* Who made the least advances and why?
* Did they have any process on how to move below average to average, and average to high performers?

I was told that these were “spot on” questions, but it would take an analyst to keep track of such figures and if it was the sales manager, it would mean that he would be spending valuable time carrying out the analysis rather than running the sales force.

My argument is that in many instances we seem to manage the numbers and not the people. The analogy is that we can see how fast or slow a car is going but we don’t necessarily understand what is happening under the bonnet to cause this.

Managers should be managing the situation that each member of his sales force is facing and helping, whoops, sorry I mean coaching them to achieve their numbers. After all when each of the sales force makes his or her numbers, so does the sales manager.

So an inherent part of the sales manager’s job is the continuous process of sales coaching to improve the sales person’s current sales capabilities and help them achieve their goals, which in turn will help the sales manager achieve his or her goals.

The sale manager needs the sales intelligence on each of his team and that has to be based on data from current sales opportunities and trends from past performance. The data has to be assessed against ‘best practice’ and as a starting point this should be the sales process as the sales managers defines it. The purpose of the analysis is to establish strengths and weaknesses of the capabilities of the salesperson and to put actions in place to play to those strengths and try to eliminate the weaknesses whilst in sales situation. This is just one part of personal development so should not be judged as the only activity that is required. There is no substitute for a sales manager attending a sales call with a sales person, as long as he does not take over the meeting.

We have been developing SymVolli, our sales performance management system to track the trends of how the sales person progresses through the sales process on each of his or her opportunities thereby building a trend analysis database that can be used to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of sales people without much effort. In fact, by SymVolli being process based, it has led to sales management unconsciously becoming sales coaches.

Who said there was no time for continuous sales training!

Process, Procedure – It’s all the same isn’t it?

administrator — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:30:26 GMT

In recent discussions with clients and prospects there have been times when we both thought that we were talking about the same thing. It seems we weren’t.

Recently, I was on a prospect’s site and I was asked what was so different about SymVolli, our sales performance management system. I responded that the process builder within SymVolli was the basic building block and everything stemmed from that. You could develop marketing processes, sales processes; customer service processes, etc. to suit your company’s business environment. The response came back that other products could do that as well. I delved deeper trying to establish how, and the response was that the other systems helped to maintain margin levels, ensured that quotations or enquiries were being followed up etc. or else management was informed. I then asked the question, ‘whilst you are doing all of this, what is your client or prospect doing?’ Back came a muffled response which contained wonderful qualifiers such as ‘I think’, ‘they could be’, ‘I assume’. I agree it’s difficult to know exactly what the client or prospect is doing, but surely it’s possible to test to find out what could be going on. The reason for asking the question was to establish how much of the client’s buying cycle was understood. We all know what we have to do in our sales cycle, but we have to marry it up to the client’s buying cycle. Only then do you have the sales process!

Maybe it would be helpful if we defined process and procedure. You might agree or disagree with the definitions I have given below, but we need a datum to carry on this discussion.

Sales process: A series of customer-focussed steps that enables sales professionals to substantively increase win rates, build customer retention, and increase revenue production. Each step consists of several key activities and has a predictable, measurable outcome.

An everyday example of process could be that I need to get from Paddington Station to London Heathrow. I can catch the Heathrow Express train, but if that is not working I can go by bus or by taxi. The main thing is that I get to London Heathrow in time for my flight. The different modes of transport to achieve the end goal are not dissimilar to how different sales people will get from one step to another in the sales process. It’ down to personal experience and style.

Procedure: A fixed, step-by-step sequence of activities or course of action (with definite start and end points) that must be followed in the same order to correctly perform a task.

An example is minimum margin levels for quotes and proposals. In many large organisations there is a strict procedure for minimum margin sign off. This could require multi-levels of management to be involved. Each level of management, starting from the lowest level, has a minimum margin threshold that increases as you move up the management hierarchy. It is strict and cannot be deviated from, only at the highest level is there the possibility that discretion can be used. Another procedure that is strictly adhered to by all levels of management is credit checking.

Therefore, we can conclude that the sales process is a series of steps made up of the sales cycle and buying cycle and can contain a number of procedures in any of its steps.

Enough of the theory, what I am trying to say is decide where flexibility is required and where rigidity is needed to achieve your goals, and then decide which systems can deal with procedures as well as with the different processes.

In the final analysis, sales process is about you understanding your customer and mapping his or her behaviour.

Are things that different in sales now than they were thirty years ago?

administrator — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:53:02 GMT

This might not interest you, but give me a minute to explain where I am coming from.

We are told that there are new techniques and new angles to explore all in the name of getting business. Let’s take one example cold calling. Hundreds of hours are spent on seminars, forums, and discussions on the issue of cold calling. If I did not know any better I would start believing that cold calling was accepted when I started in sales some thirty years ago. Not true, if I stick to what I know best, B2B selling, the PA was as good then in protecting the CEO as he or she is today. So, no change there then.

We are told that since the Internet the buyer is in control and not the supplier. My experience from yester year in the CAD (Computer Aided Design) industry, when we sold to large multinationals, was that they were as rigorous in their purchases then as they are today. They wanted a proof of concept, they wanted references, and in some cases they wanted customer site visits. The difference today is that, with the digital age, a lot of this can be achieved over the Internet.

As far as I can ascertain, the decision making process is still in the hands of people and therefore no matter what computing power and processes are used it still comes down to people.

So what has changed? The number of messages we are all receiving from numerous channels: internet, emails, e-shots, adverts, seminars, webinars, articles, etc. on a continuous basis. So much is being thrown at us that in trying to protect ourselves and give us some time to think and to deal with what we are tasked to do, we have become unresponsive to unsolicited communication sent or presented. We delete on receipt or we do not respond to voicemail messages. Have we reached the stage where we are using our ingenuity as a defence mechanism?

I occasionally, not often enough, stand back and try to reflect on what I am doing. I look at the processes I use and identify where the sticking points are, or the complicated and arduous tasks that need to be completed. I then marry this up with my experience and use the tools at my disposal, which includes paper and pen, to achieve my goals.

Going back to the CAD days, we had a competitor that boasted that using their system could produce a drawing in 2 hours whereas manually it would take 8 hours. Our response to that was that instead of having one drawing that was inaccurate in a day you now had 4 inaccurate drawings. More done, but was it worth it?

At the end of the day, the quality of what is achieved should come from the individual since he or she knows what they want to achieve. Tools will help, but it’s the person using the tools that determines how good the outcome is.

The world is always changing. Embrace change and use it as your ally to keep you on your toes. Don’t be afraid of the noise and don’t let it intimidate you to the point that you stop listening or stop making decisions.

In the final analysis nothing has really changed except the speed of change, which makes people hesitate just in case there is something better round the corner. People that succeed might take time in coming to a conclusion as to what should be done, but do not hesitate.

The 3Ps to Optimising Sales Performance

administrator — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:44:18 GMT

Experience with our clients in developing, implementing and supporting SymVolli, our sales performance management system, has shown that the issues faced fall into three main categories.

Predictability
The problem manifests itself mainly in forecasting, whether it is for revenue, resources, etc. management wants to have some degree of faith in what is being reported so that they can manage the present and plan for the future.

Productivity
Time, a valuable commodity, needs to be spent wisely and effectively. One needs to ascertain that the opportunities being pursued have a high degree of probability in becoming sales. There is also a need to automate administrative tasks wherever possible, such as the generation of quotations, proposals, sales reports, etc. whilst maintaining accuracy and quality in the output that is generated.

Profitability
What is proposed and what actually happens needs to be compared so that a good understanding is achieved as to the profitability of any project. This understanding will act as datum by which future projects can be costed with some degree of certainty to achieve a desired margin.

All three areas have one thing in common. A model needs to be established to measure the performance being achieved. SymVolli automatically produces a sales model that is used to measure the current performance and predict future performance, at a company, team, individual, product, client, market level.

They say we learn by experience. SymVolli stores your experience for you to learn from it.

Learn from the Past, Improve the Present, Realise the Future

Companies supply systems/services, the customer buys solutions.

administrator — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:51:04 GMT

How many times have you heard or seen that companies provide solutions?

They are only solutions because the client has recognised that the systems and services that are on offer and the way they are to be utilised will provide a solution to a problem.

It goes back to the age old argument of if you do not have a good understanding of the customer’s problems how can you put forward a remedy. Sales people are similar to physicians. Imagine that you walked into your doctor’s surgery and as you went to sit down the doctor opened up his medicine cupboard and brought out 10 different types of drugs, he then opened up his sterilizing unit and brought out a scalpel, and various other strange looking pieces of surgical equipment, and all this as he was talking to you telling you how he cured one patient with one type of illness and another with another type of illness, etc. How comfortable would you feel if you only went in for a vaccine jab because you were going on holiday? I know I would not be impressed, if not worried as to the competence of the doctor.

So why do we do it in sales? Remembering that we are trying to enrich another person’s wellbeing whether it is in his or her private or business life, should we not find out what is ailing them? There is the converse where it could be that something is exciting them and they want to fulfill that need, e.g. prestige and want to buy a Ferrari. At the end of the day, it is about satisfying a need.

We must listen more and ask questions to bring out what is ailing the client and then we can put forward systems and services that could be a solution to their problem. We can then move onto the next step of showing the client how the systems and services would solve the problem. The client will buy once he or she is convinced that this is the solution to the problem.

Engage with your client at an emotional level to start with to get him or her to talk about their problems and then move on to an intellectual discussion about systems and services.

Remember you are the physician who is going to make their life better.

The Buy Cycle Nightmare

administrator — Wed, 18 May 2011 12:01:45 GMT

It is obvious that the prospects have taken control of the sales process. CSO insights was busy writing in the Harvard Business Review about the phenomenon in 2006 but the question is, have we learnt the lesson?

The prime factor in handing the power to the buyer is due to the internet the buyer has as much if not more knowledge than the sales person. One can assume that some if not a lot of research has been done prior to speaking to a supplier when a prospect has a perceived need, or will be done if a sales person engages with prospect.

Sales performance is based on three key factors, people, processes, and technology. The business that invests in getting the three to work as one to satisfy the buy cycle will win. The business that operates technology to control the sales cycle will have implemented an administrative tool. The business that is not monitoring, managing, and refining its sales process is operating on a ‘hit and miss’ basis and not knowing what, where, how, and why they are successful. The business that is not investing in its people is not getting the most out of them.

These are challenging times and headcount, training, and technology budgets are being frozen if not cut. The exercise is based on expense being cut, what happens if the same amount of money was to be viewed as an investment? Maybe, ‘Who dares wins’?

"Understanding What Your Sales Manager is Up Against" from the Harvard Business Review.

The Sales Intelligence Challenge - Work Harder Not Smarter – Is that right?

administrator — Tue, 10 May 2011 17:22:12 GMT

The CSO report, ‘The Sales Intelligence Challenge’, highlighted that there was a dramatic increase in revenue attainment from 77.9% in 2009 to 85.9% in 2010. CSO found that the main factor driving higher sales performance appeared to be reps working harder. They put in more selling time and they found more deals, but it was, as CSO put it, ‘a matter of perspiration rather than inspiration’. This was backed up by the win rates of forecast deals remaining near their all-time survey low of 46.4%.

Another startling fact is that 92.1% of companies interviewed had increased their 2011 quotas. The question is, whether working harder is going to be enough to achieve quota or is a bit of smart working needed?

The customer buying cycle is clearly forcing changes to the sales cycle with one of the key factors that the customer is now able to do his or her own research into their problem and the various solutions that they might adopt. The sales person carrying out a similar research on the web would be swamped with data that he then has to apply some structure to so that it makes sense to be able to decide as to how to proceed. A lot of time is taken up in such an exercise. As sales people we have all been collecting sales data, such as company and contact details, but the firms that are seeing the best results have now moved into sales intelligence. They are finding out about prospects and the companies they work for. The figures show that there were a greater number of companies with a >50% conversion rate from lead to first discussion when they undertook sales intelligence, 45.7%, to when they were sales data users, 35.4%. In the final analysis, forecast to win ratio improved from 45.9% for sales data users to 50.8% for sales intelligence users.

CSO highlighted that the components to be considered for a sales intelligence tool are:
• Rich and Accurate Contact Management
• Access to relevant news
• Trigger and Event Management
• Social Intelligence Support
• Full CRM integration

Sales people can be taught what to do, but they also need the knowledge to effectively identify and engage with prospects using their new skills. We will still have to work hard but we can also be smart to achieve more.

SymVolli's New Features

administrator — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 11:12:17 GMT

The SymVolli functionality has been extended to cover more of the customer facing processes whilst still maintaining its revolutionary approach in managing and monitoring them, to deliver a pipeline that has credibility and leads to accurate and consistent sales forecasts.

The new features include:

Seamless integration with dotMailer, one of the leading e-marketing campaign management systems, so that lists do not need to be exported for campaigns and results do not need to be imported back.
Integration with Microsoft Outlook so that all email activity can be carried out from within SymVolli.
'Click to Dial' so that any number can automatically be called from SymVolli.
A process builder incorporating the ability to set up criteria to monitor and measure the progress through the process and the definition and management of the information that needs to be collected.
A formula attribute that can be used in developing and managing personal sales plans and sales commission plans.
Generation of a Knowledgebase without having to maintain a separate database.

This is another step in the development of SymVolli to extend its functionality not only in sales performance management, but also in customer relationship management and sales force automation.

Sales Forecasting Accuracy: The Commission Scheme Could Help

administrator — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 09:33:39 GMT

What is the biggest stimulus to a sales person apart from winning an order? The answer is the financial reward in winning the order, the commission.

Many commission schemes are designed around order intake, revenue recognition, and margin. These are further extended to cover market sectors, customers, products, and new to existing customers ratio, to name but a few.

Yet one of the biggest problems many companies face is that of order slippage, when an order is forecasted for a certain time but does not happen. One mechanism could be the commission scheme. It can be used to drive the sales person to forecast the order date more accurately based on facts gained from the client. Part of the commission scheme could be to reward the sales person on maintaining a certain level of order forecast date accuracy. This could be subdivided into levels of performance, say 80% accuracy and then at 90% accuracy. It could be one component that makes up the commission for winning an order.

The order forecast date is driven by the client’s internal factors and therefore the sales person might not be party to all the information. The purpose of setting up a commission scheme that takes into account order forecast date is to focus the mind of the sales person to find out what is the compelling event that drives the order forecast date.

Incentivise the sales person by treating this as an add-on to the main part of the commission and it should assist in getting greater sales forecasting accuracy.

Benchmarking the Sales Process, Part 3

administrator — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 14:33:38 GMT

In the first two parts I outlined how to establish your sales process and use it internally and externally to improve your sales performance. The challenge though is how to deal with the amount of data that is being collected whilst using the sales process. In today’s fast moving business environment we have to be quick and sharp.

So far we have only taken into consideration people and process. To complete the picture we need to include technology. Technology is a vital part in helping us manage and improve the sales process so that we can achieve our sales objectives.

CRM systems are being used in the area of sales process, but since many are contact centric it means that the sales process might get distorted so that it fits within the system. There is a new application sector called ‘Sales Performance Management’ SPM, which is based around the sales process. The system should be adaptable to suit any company’s sales process, but more important it should allow you to implement the sales process as you see it.

You should be able to implement within the system all the steps of the sales process. At each step you should be able to declare whether a document, note, or specific piece of information is required. You should also be to place qualification criteria with the appropriate scoring against any step. Also rules could be established that need to be adhered to at different steps. The beauty of this approach is that it gets away from the traditional approach of implementing systems using the ‘feature silo’ approach, e.g. set up the user defined fields to be used, set up the qualification process to be used, set up the rules to be used, but more than this, access them separately to enter or review any information.

The approach we have taken with SymVolli is to implement the sales process as one entity whether notes, documents, specific fields, scoring, rules are required at each or some of the steps. That is how the user sees it in his or her normal working environment. It frees the sales person to think about the sale, rather than thinking about which section to go to enter the information, e.g. the documents section to link a document or going to the notes section to enter a note.

Add to the mix a strong business intelligence tool and you now have a very powerful intelligence system that can be used in managing performance, monitoring exceptions, establishing trends, so that the sales process can be refined improve performance.

No one said it was easy, but why make it hard!

Benchmarking the Sales Process. Part 2

administrator — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 11:49:02 GMT

So you think you are doing well and the majority of the sales team is performing, but how is the business doing compared to other businesses in the same industry?

You could approach one of the many consultancies that offer ‘Best in Class’ intelligence for various industries, the market sectors they serve, and the performance of the sales teams.

Another way is to gather your own intelligence. It is not as hard as you think. It needs discipline and management, but can be done. Think of the types of questions that you might ask the consultancy that you would approach for and then start gathering the information yourself from each of your sales team about each of the opportunities that they are dealing with.

Who are the main competitors?
What has the client indicated during the sale are our strengths and weaknesses compared to other organisations?
Why did we win or lose an opportunity, e.g. price, product fit, market presence, company profile, etc.?
Who won the opportunity and why?

What we are looking for is to establish if there are any trends so keep the questions simple and distinct. Now you have established trends that have occurred in managing, winning, or losing an opportunity, you can relate the information back to your sales process and establish what needs to be refined.

Easier said than done you might say especially if the effort in collating the information detracts from the sales effort. In part 3, I will discuss how it is possible to make the intelligence collection and interpretation an integral part of the sales process.

Benchmarking the Sales Process. Part 1

administrator — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 10:15:31 GMT

The question I am continually faced with when working with sales teams is how is it possible to benchmark the sales process and not increase the burden of administrative tasks on to an already heavy workload of the sales person. My advice is to look at three key points.

The first point is if using the sales process is seen as an administrative burden, then it is not adding any value to the work being carried out by the sales person. The first benchmark test is to see how many sales people are using it as a road map to decide on their activities to get from one point to another in the sales process.

The second point is if nothing is being learnt by using the sales process, then it is not adding value to the work being carried out by the sales person. The second benchmark test is to establish what the sales process looks like for won, lost, and abandoned opportunities. Since the sales process is being used to monitor sales progress for each opportunity, look for patterns emerging for the different outcomes. Take into account segmentation by market, product, channel, territory, etc. This will establish what the won, lost, and abandoned opportunity sales process templates look like so that they can be used to overlay the situation in a current opportunity to identify at any time what could be the possible outcome then decide on activities to be carried out.

The third point is if the sales process is not being continually reviewed, then it is not adding any value to the work being carried out by the sales person. The third benchmark test is to check the results from the second benchmark test against the sales management’s expectations of what the sales process of a won, lost, abandoned opportunity would look like. Make the adjustments and monitor. The more the sales process can be refined the better will be the results, e.g. shorter sales cycle, focusing on high probability opportunities and abandoning low probability opportunities early on in the sales process, anticipating possible issues, producing accurate and credible sales forecasts that can be trusted by senior management.

The biggest issue I come across when working with companies is that there is an expectation that the sales process will be accurate from the start. Remember, it is a process. It is trying to set at a course through an environment that is continually changing; therefore it has an element of inaccuracy. The trick is to minimize that inaccuracy. Learn from the past, to improve the present and realise the future.

I have focused on benchmarking the sales process from an internal point of view. In part 2 I will focus on how we can take it to the next level, comparing the sales process externally.