A Sales Guy Consulting Blog

My buddy Ken Granader and Author of How to Build Winning Sales Teams tackles one of the least leveraged levers in getting more out of your sales team . . . rewards and recognition. 

I love the creativity he brings to this. It's great sales advice.  

---------------

Many salespeople will tell you that the only recognition that they want is more commissions.  Truth be told, they care more about recognition than just a commission check.  Successful salespeople like to be commended for large orders, competitive knockouts and love to be stack ranked against their peers.  Great salespeople are true competitors and love to win and to be recognized for it.

 The great thing about recognizing salespeople is that informal recognition can be just as powerful as formal recognition.  Mentioning a big win in a team email or a team conference call goes a long way towards motivating the typical salesperson.

 I always like to use simple and fun ways to reward accomplishments.  Depending upon your team, rewards will vary.  When I was a new manager managing a team of young twenty-somethings, I implemented a putt-for-dough program.  Every time a salesperson got a signed order, they got to “putt for dough.”  In our sales office, we put the ball catcher right at the door of the District Manager’s office.  When you got an order, you putted into the ball catcher from about 20 feet away.  If you made the putt, you got $5 cash.  If you brought in multiple orders or orders for our most expensive or strategic products, you got “bonus putts.”  This little game also brought in soft recognition from the District Manager who would often come out to see who brought in orders and congratulate them.  You would have been amazed at how much that team loved putt-for-dough.  It was a huge motivator and provided great reward and recognition at a minimal cost.

 I have also made a habit of providing sales team rewards.  Many times I will set a quarterly or annual goal for the team (over and above the quota) and if the team wins, everybody wins.  I have taken my teams white water rafting, on hot air balloon rides, golfing, water skiing, go-carting and bowling.  Obviously, the greater the challenge, the greater the reward.  Team rewards are great for getting everyone to come together for the greater good.  They build camaraderie and get everyone in the boat rowing together, so to speak.  Even in companies that I’ve worked where President’s Club trips were part of recognition, I still had team challenges.  Team challenges raise the bar to a higher level and reinforce the idea that just making quota isn’t really good enough—we need to do better than that.

 Other great, inexpensive ways to provide recognition are to have a salesperson who just closed a large deal present the win at a QBR.  They get to talk about how they “Made it Happen.”  They are on center stage and under the spotlight and the less experienced salespeople get to learn from these “win sharings.”  They think to themselves that they want to get a big win like that so that they can share it with the team—it’s another one of those silent motivators. At my current company, if we receive an order of $100K or more, we ring the “large order” gong over our PA system.  That becomes a company-wide motivator and then people go to order administration to find out who closed the order and then congratulate the appropriate salesperson.

Salespeople are best motivated by “carrots.”  If you want them to do more, give them more carrots.  It doesn’t have to be compensation though—commissions are already there for doing their every day jobs.  The carrots I’m talking about relate to getting a fast start on a new product launch, knocking out competitors or generating x number of proposals.  You can focus on the goesintas or the goesoutas.  If orders are flowing, stretch them for more orders.  If orders are lagging, offer incentives for focusing on delivering more goesintas.  The idea is to make it fun and meaningful. 

Salespeople just love to win…the more chances that you give them to win something, the better your overall performance will be.

The guys over at Sales Loft have come up with a creative matrix outlining the future of sales and marketing.  

I like where they are going with this. 

Reach is becoming increasingly critical in sales. Reach has always been important in selling, however we've typically called it our "network" or "rolodex."  Reach isn't something new, it has always been part of selling success. Now that social and the Internet are on the scene how reach is created and leveraged for selling is changing rapidly and becoming increasingly important. 

Sincerity, like reach is not new to sales. Also, like reach, social media and social tools on the Internet are dramiticaly changing how sincerity is leveraged in selling process.

As the friction to reach is diminished, the ability to engage sincerley is improved. Building a selling approach designed to capitalize on reach and sincerity is where the win is!

Way to go Kyle, great visiual.  

A client sent us this email yesterday. I love getting emails like this. As a sales consulting company it's our job to make impact and influence our clients persepctives.  

"Keenan, thank you again for your time earlier today. It was a great coaching session. You opened my eyes to how my sales techniques that served me so well in the past need to evolve for selling FlixMaster. 

I'll be honest, I was going into the session today wondering, "what the hell am I going to get out of this?" And came out of it thinking, "WOW! That completely blew my mind."

 You've now got me laser-focused on selling the solution, not the product. And while I may have paid that distinction lip-service throughout my sales career, today truly changed my perspective as I could see the difference in what I had been doing versus what needs to be done."

To me the best part of this email is this quote: 

"I'll be honest, I was going into the session today wondering, "what the hell am I going to get out of this?" And came out of it thinking, "WOW! That completely blew my mind."

I experience this type of attitude often. Sales people, for some reason, have tendency to think they know it all. In particular, seasoned sales people who have been successful for years tend to be resistent to new things.  In a space where learning and growth can be the difference between quota attainment and failure, this type of attidue can kill you. 

How open is your sales team to assess their own capabilities. How well do they assess themselves? Are they accurate? 

How open are you? Do you believe you have a handle on it all? As the head of sales how often do you say; "What the hell am I going to get of this?"  

If you're like many sales leaders, unfortunately -- A LOT! 

If you're open to it, you could have your mind blown. 

Seth Godin wrote this piece last month and I thought it was killer: 

"When making a b2b sale, the instinct is always to get into the CEO's office. If you can just get her to hear your pitch, to understand the value, to see why she should buy from or lease from or partner with or even buy you... that's the holy grail.

What do you think happens after that mythical meeting?

She asks her team.

And when the team is in the dark, you've not only blown your best shot, but you never get another chance at it.

The alternative is to start in the middle. It takes longer, it comes with less high-stakes tension and doesn't promise instant relief. But it is better than any alternative.

Starting in the middle doesn't mean you're rushing around trying to close any sale with any bureaucrat stupid enough to take a meeting with you (or that you're stupid enough to go to, thinking that a sale is going to happen.)

No, starting in the middle is more marketing than sales. It's about storytelling and connection and substance. It's about imagery and totems and credentials and the ability to understand and then solve the real problems your prospects and customers have every day. It's this soft tissue that explains why big companies have so many more enterprise sales than you do.

You don't get this reputation as an incidental byproduct of showing up. It is created with intention and it's earned."

 We've all received sales advice that says start at the top. I think that's bad advice.

Early in my career I fell victim to the "starting at the top" advice. I was selling to a billion dollar telecommunications company who had a change in leadership. The new President and COO was a friend of mine. When he was announced, I just about jumped out of my shoes. I instantly started counting the money. The money, I hadn't made yet. 

Bill, the new President and COO was a fairly close friend. He had actually tried hiring me a few years previous, so I had unfettered access to him. After he started, we had a number of meetings and he told me he wanted my company to do a number of things for him. He laid out what he was looking for and then told us to work with his CIO.  

Needless to say the CIO had not been in the loop and did nothing but passively resist every move until everyone finally gave up. 

I was never able to grow the account through my relationship at the top. 

Seth's post and my experience suggest the old addage about getting to the top is a must and the only way to go is a flawed approach. 

But, hey Seth and I are just two people. What do you think? Is starting at the top, the best way to go? Do you start at the top? 

We just finished producing our video for our very popular ebook, How to Hire "A" Players.  

It'll make you think about leaving an apple on your desk. :) Enjoy!

Rejection is part of sales. It's unavoidable. Not everyone is going to buy what you are selling, therefore you will be rejected.  

In spite of this fact, many sales people struggle with rejection, hampering their ability to get deals closed and move with confidence. 

When we are afraid of failure we move tentatively, we are unsure and it shows in how we operate. 

Failure of rejection isn't just a "sales person" problem. Everyone lives with some level of fear or rejection. 

This guy Jia Jiag was rejected by a major VC for investment in his company. He was so dejected he didn't know how to deal with it. After doing the research and learning about how rejection works, he decided to get better at handling rejection. 

For the next 100 days, Jia is creating crazy, unrealistic request designed to have him be rejected. In this one, Jia asks to be a live Abercrombie model. 

Jia's video's are hilarious, entertaining and creative. He's asked to cut the Best Buy line on Thursday night of Black Friday. He's asked a car sales person to teach him to sell and he's asked an employee at Krispy Kreme to make a donut Olympic rings. 

Check out Jia's videos. They just might make it easier for you to accept rejection and that would make you a better sales person. 

Sales has changed. That's all there is to it.  This is a good video put out by Huthwaite, the company that brought you Spin Selling.  

Ignore the dry and almost deathly boring presence of the narrator, Huthwaite's President and CEO John Golden. It's painful, but if you can get past it, there are some good nuggets in it. 

My favorite part come at 3:56 to 4:44 when TAS CEO Donal Daly talks about the death of the relationship sales person. 

Another one of my favorite parts is when Dave Stein of ES Research talks about value propostions. 

Take the time to check out this video, it's worth it. It does a good job of explaining what has changed while you've been busy selling. 

A client and I were talking about 2013 the other day. He told me he his growth strategy for 2013 was going to be through improved sales productivity. His thought process made sense, considering this year we spent a lot of time growing headcount. He is headed into the last part of a wildly successful year of 165% bookings growth.

Looking into 2013 my client sees tremendous opportunity to grow through productivity. In other words, he thinks he can get his existing team selling more.  Considering how new the majority of the team is, I think he’s right. There is a lot of room to grow. But, how much room?

We started talking about how much he could grow and his maximum productivity. I asked what he felt maximum productivity was and how much growth could that could provide.

To get to the answer, we did the following.

We identified the key sales metrics he felt represented sales productivity.  In his case, it was average deal size, number of deals sold in a year and number of sales reps. We then took those metrics and made some assumptions on what we believed were realistic expectations.  We then did the math.  We subtracted this “optimized” number from the 2012 numbers and found the growth rate for 2013.

I know that was tough to follow, so I’ll try to make it easier.

(X=average deal size) x (Y=average number of deals a rep can close in a year) x (the total number of reps) = MP Maximum Productivity

(MP=Maximum productivity) – (CP=current productivity) = P=Productivity growth potential

Once we have this number, the question then becomes, is it enough growth? If yes, proceed. If no expect to hire more people at sometime, or evaluate the underlying average deal size assumptions, number of deal assumptions etc.

This is a simple model. It can certainly be come more complicated. However, I try to keep things as simple as possible.

This model will tell you a few things:

1. What your maximum growth ceiling is. In other words, how much growth/revenue can you get out of your existing team
2. When you need to hire more sales people
3. If your optimizing your sales resources
4. The strength of sales leadership
5. How much money you “may” be leaving on the table

To download a simple sales team productivity calculator click here; Sales Team Productivity Calculator

————–

Footnote: I’ve intentionally kept it simple for this blog post. There are some additional complexities to be aware of. For example, new sales people must be factored in.  New sales people will not be as productive therefore that must be accounted of in the model. Underlying assumptions must be data driven. If not, it can have an adverse effect on the outcome.

I see this far too often.  Sales managers and sales leaders reactively manage their people. They reactively manage because they to manage to results.  Results are a trailing indicator in sales. If you manage to results your too late.

It’s a common approach in sales.  The sales rep misses quota. The manager says that’s not good, don’t miss quota again.  The rep misses quota again, the manager puts him on a PIP (performance improvement plan), which in essence lays out goals the rep must meet in the next 30 to 60 days or be fired.  In the less agressive scenerios like this, the manager works with the rep to figure out what is wrong but even then it’s still being reactive.

I have always felt this is a bad way to manage and lead sales teams, yet it has staying power and seems to be the course of action for most organziations.

Being reactive does little for anyone.  The key is to be proactive.  Like most things in life getting ahead of the problems or preventing them entirely is far better than trying to fix them. The key is find the leading indicators of failure.

To find the leading indicators I break down sales management into 4 integrated categories; planning, execution, results and talent.

Failure and poor performance can and will be seen early in any and all of these categories. They are a barometer for failure or success.

If a poor plan is put in place, failure is imminent even if it’s executed well by a talented sales person. – Manage the plan.

If a great plan is in place but is executed poorly by a talented person, failure is just around the corner. – Manage execution.

If the sales person lacks the skill or talent a good plan won’t make a difference. – Manage talent

If it’s a poor plan, executed poorly by someone with out the talent you’re screwed. – Manage all three.

If it’s a great plan, executed brilliantly, by a talented sales rep and the results aren’t there, you’ve messed up somewhere. – See 1, 2, or 3.  The problem is there.

Proactive management requires a process that embraces and monitors all the critical elements to sales delivery.

My management process to increase sales and get ahead of the problem works like this;

1) Everyone on my team builds a yearly plan.  They share it with the entire team, peers and all.  We cut it up, attack it, challenge it, and rework it until its a solid plan.  Plans go through a rigorous evaluation process to ensure they’re sound.

2) I focus on execution.  Plans are reviewed every quarter asking the following questions: what did you say you would do, what did you do, what did you learn, what are you going to do next quarter.  The process ensures proper execution by evaluating WHAT a rep is doing and HOW they are executing to the plan.  This allows problems to be identified early and changes made on the front end.

3) I hire for talent, and coach.  The most important aspect of proactive management is talent.  I hire for talent and I coach them.  I have standing one on one meetings every 6 weeks with all of my direct reports.  During these sessions we talk about what they do well, what they need to improve on and what they need to stop doing.  These are not performance reviews.  They are coaching sessions, designed to help them grow as a sales person and as a leader.

A process that embraces all of these elements is proactive.  Problems are seen early and symptoms are separated from root cause.

Getting poor results with proactive management is almost impossible.  You see it coming long before the boat sinks.  It gives you time to course correct, limit the damage or turn things around.

If your results aren’t there, if the numbers are off, if quota is in jeopardy it’s one of 3 things; a bad plan, poor execution or lack of talent or selling skills.  

Quick can you tell me which it is?

How do you know?

We don’t control very much in the world of sales. We like to think we do. We build neat little sales processes. We have weekly, monthly and quarterly business reviews. We make commitments to the sales managers, to the executives and to the shareholders about how much we are going to sell and by when. We build fancy reports to show we have things under control. But we don’t We like to think sales can be controlled. It can’t.

We can’t control when our customers will buy. We can’t control how much they’ll buy. We can’t control who they’ll buy from. We can’t control what they’ll buy and why they’ll buy it. There is not much we can control in sales.

What we can do is influence. We can deliver “best in class” customer service to influnce them. We can create innovative, easy to use, products that deliver exceptional value. We can be easy to do business with. We can give away our products to our best customers. We can be responsive. We can listen. We can make our customers our number one priority.

We can’t control very much in the world of sales but we CAN influence a whole lot of things.

To increase sales focus on what you can influence, not what you can’t control.