A Sales Guy Consulting Blog

There has always been a lot of discussion about which is the best approach to sales team development; activity based management or results based management. I’m a 100% in the results based management camp. I don’t believe there is only one way to get something done or to improve a sales persons selling skills. Activity based management narrows the approach, because the activities being managed come from the top and don't rely on selling skills. Activity based management relies on compliance. The approach is defined and then everyone has to follow it. It assumes there is only one way to get something done and that you’re doing it.

Activity based management is stifling. It removes creativity from the process. It removes ownership and employees end up feeling like cogs in a wheel and not true contributors.

Results based management however, gives people the ability to approach a problem the way they see fit. If going to networking events and social media is a better lead generator for you than cold calling, then network away. I’m not going to tell you how to get your results. Get the results however you need to. What I like about results based management is it embraces peoples unique perspective on solving the problem and getting the desired results. It gives them freedom. The military calls this commanders intent.

In my opinion, results based management is a far better approach than activity based management.  But, what happens when the results aren’t there? What happens when someone isn’t getting the results? That’s were the “freedom box” comes in.

I created the “freedom box” several years ago. It represents how much freedom I give someone when they are making their numbers or the results. If the results are there then the employee has all the freedom they want. They can do anything they feel is necessary to be successful. The only things outside the big box are unethical things or things that could bring down the team. Other than that, the box is pretty big with lots of options. They have lots of freedom.

However, if results start to suffer. If the numbers aren’t there, if the employee is having trouble getting the expected results, the box starts to shrink.

When the box shrinks, there is less freedom. More things are outside of the box. If it’s outside of the box, it’s not an option for them. I remove the freedom to do unproven or overly unique and creative things. They are now outside of the box. We move towards the basics. When the box shrinks, I spend more time challenging approaches. I ask more questions. I demand more metrics and status updates. The employee still has the freedom to determine their own path, just not as much. Despite the smaller box, activities are still not managed only monitored for results.

If overtime, results are still not achieved and progress isn’t made the box get’s even smaller.

When the box gets this small almost all freedom is gone. Almost everything is outside of the box. Focus is on fundamentals and proven methodologies. The employee has a limited time to turn things around. We develop a plan on how they are going to get the results. The plan is reviewed regularly and more approval is required. There is heavy engagement between the employee and management. Results have to be present quickly. Despite the lack of freedom, there is little activity management. There is some, but it is often in the form of collaboration.

If results are still not achieved, a good fit is lacking and we agree to part ways.  What I don’t start doing is manage their activity. Activity based management doesn’t work in sales. If you have to manage activity you have the wrong people. Good people know how to get the job done. They know what works for them and what it takes to get the results. If your employees have to rely on you, your direction and your approach to be successful you don’t have employees, you have drones and drones are only as good as the process they are programmed to execute. Too much changes too quickly to rely on drones.

Provide the direction, let folks now the expected results, then give them all the freedom and tools they need to get the job done. If the results don’t show up, shrink the box, but don’t tell them how to do it. Once you’re telling people how to do it, it’s  over, just get a new employee or do it yourself.

1. Do you have your version of the freedom box?
2. How much freedom do you give your team to get results?

This is part 8 of an 8 part series on Account Governance

Tools, the heart of any professionals craft. Sales tools are no different.

What I like about sales tools is they provide insight into sales people. With few exceptions, specific tools are not required or mandated. Different sales people, find and use the tools that best work for them. The one tool traditionally required by most organizations is CRM. I posted about my thoughts on this subject a while back. Because they are mandated I’m not going to spend much time on CRM other than to list a few.

I am currently evaluating CRM’s. A couple that I like and am looking at include:

• Landslide
• Sugar CRM
• Salesforce.com
• Nimble

When it comes to CRM, the single most important aspect is, it must be in the cloud. I see no value whatsoever in deploying a server based application.

Beyond CRM, there are a myriad of sales support tools available to sales people. Bill Rice of Better Closer had a great post up called Sales Stack, that talked about tools. I’m going to use his term Sales Stack. I think it’s a good one.

A “Sales Stack” is the integration of the sales tools sales people use to be more effective at selling. Want to determine how good a sales person is, ask about the selling tools they use. The best use them, the not so good don’t.

The most important aspect of selling is information, information about your clients, your accounts, the competition, the industry, your relationships, the market and more. To find this information, to manage it, to get a competitive edge, the best sales people build unique processes leveraging different tools.

Today we have Sales 2.0. Sales 2.0 provides a slew of new tools and ways for us to engage, communicate, and get information. Information is a commodity now. Our customers and accounts have easy access to as much as we do. We can’t assume we know more than our customers or competition. We can’t wait on information. We can’t expect to ask our customer to give it to us. The days of getting with a customer to get information are over. Customers don’t have the time or the patience to be our research tool.

Beyond getting information, today’s environment requires we engage and connect to do business. It’s not good enough to be static.

Today’s effective “Sales Stack” must provide robust information about your customers and clients in a timely manner. It must allow you to find new customers and contacts. It needs to get you access to the people that can drive your business. It must allow you to get better use out of the information. It needs to put you in the center of your industry. An effective sales stack will make the difference.

Here are some of the tools that are part of my Sales Stack.

• Nimble
• LinkedIn
• Focus
• Quora
• Twitter
• Google Reader
• NetNewsWire
• Google
• JigSaw
• SalesLoft

If you know of any you want to add to the list, do so in the comments. I don’t think there can be too many.

The key with sales tools, is they are enablers. The are additive to day to day selling and account management requirements. They are enhancements to the entire account governance model.

There are more tools available to sales people and account managers than anytime in the history of sales. This is just in time, because the need for good robust tools to augment selling and account management has never been greater.

Sales can happen without sales tools or a good sales stack. It’s just ugly.

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This was the final post in the 8 part Account Governance Series. I hope you found it valuable and beneficial. If you have suggestions for future topics or series let me know. I’m all over it.

If you missed any of the posts or just want to go back to review, here are the posts in order:

Account Governance — Part 1
Account Governance — Vision
Account Governance — Account Plans
Account Governance — Relationships
Account Governance — Cadence
Account Governance — Strategy
Account Governance — Reporting
Account Governance — Tools

This is part 7 of an 8 part series on Account Governance

A saying of a good friend of mine is “we’re at the blunt end of the stick” and when it comes to sales he’s right. Sales is on the tip of the spear when it comes to the company. They have the relationships with the customers. Sales has access to what is going on. Sales is responsible for making the revenue happen.

Knowing this, sales owes it to the organization and to themselves to communicate what is going on. To keep the company informed and abreast of what is happening sales needs to deliver robust, simple, reporting schemes to the organization.

When it comes to reporting, I don’t think there is one size fits all. However, there is certain information every company needs to track. The baseline sales data that needs to be collected, and believe it or not ISN’T in all companies, is funnel or pipeline data, closed business, and revenue.

Beyond the baseline data every sales person and company needs to have their own set of metrics and reporting.

To build a good reporting structure it’s important to know what you want to measure. Far too often sales organization measure the same things; revenue, profit or gross margin, and funnel. As I said earlier these are must haves. But, sales organizations need to go further. Good account governance adds it’s own set of KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) to the standard metrics.

Choosing what to measure will be specific to each account and each sales organization.

KPI’s I’ve found valuable in the past:

Wallet-Share
Forecast/Outlook
Key Programs
Competitive Wins
New Product Wins
Losses
Product % of revenue (what % of revenue comes from what products)
Key Deals
Dependencies (things the sales team depends on to make or close a deal that another functional group is responsible for)
Linearity (the consistency of sales, does sales come in evenly or in major swings?)
Forecast accuracy (does the team actually meet their stated forecast goals, what is the % of forecast accuracy?)
Net New Customers
Lost Customers
Upgrades
Customer Satisfaction
Demo’s

When it comes to reporting the thing to walk away with is; it’s extremely important to identify the critical components of your sales environment and business and report on them. Build a dashboard that allows a quick snapshot of where you are. This should be done at the management level as well as the account level. The most successful account managers I’ve seen create their own account dashboard and KPI’s. They act as a guide, a benchmark, allowing management and account managers to see where they are going and what needs to be addressed. It allows for proactive management.

In addition to a dashboard and KPI’s, there is an internal reporting cadence that is a must have. It’s the quarterly business review or account review. To me there is only one way to execute a QBR. Each member of the team has 3 hours each quarter to update the entire team on what they said they would do, what they did, what they didn’t do, what they learned and what they will do next quarter. This approach to quarterly business/account review drives tremendous accountability into the process. Traditionally, QBR’s waste everyones time while the presenters regurgitate the same old information of what they did, regardless of whether or not it’s what they said they were going to do, they avoid calling out failures, or missteps, they don’t address what they will do moving forward etc. Traditional QBR’s lack accountability. I make them as simple and straight forward as possible. We only address what it is we said we were going to do, what were our goals and objectives, did we make them or not. Why? Where does that leave us? Can we make up the losses? If so, how? What are we going to do different? How do we know that’s going to work? What are next quarters goals and objectives? etc. The QBR’s are solely focused around the goals, initiatives, and tactics committed to at the beginning of the quarter.

Reporting is two things, what is being reported, (the information) and how it’s being reported, (the cadence.) Successful sales teams and account teams pick the right things to measure and have an internal reporting cadence of accountability. It’s that simple.

Previous Posts in the series:

Part 1: Account Governance - [The Ultimate Sales Process]

Part 2: Account Governance - [Vision]   

Part 3: Account Governance - [Account Plans] 

Part 4: Account Governance - [Relationships]

Part 5: Account Governance: [Account Cadence]

Part 6: Account Governance: [Account Strategy, G.S.I.T.'s]

What I like most about strategy in account management is, it’s like a window into how the goals are going to be accomplished. Earlier I talked about the account plan. In the account plan there is a goal section. The goals are the things to be accomplish with in the account. The strategies are the approach to making those goals a reality.

One of the best selling skills a sales person can have is the ability to develop a sales strategy. The best strategies take into consideration the unique elements of the account. This is where the analysis phase of the account plan becomes so important. By focusing on exactly what is going on in the account, where the account is going, who the key influencers are, what the market is doing, what is happening with the competition, etc. the strategy will be successful.

I’ve found, based on the account assessment, there is almost always more than one strategy. Most good account governance plans have multiple strategies for each of their goals. Another way to look at it is if you have 4 goals, you would probably have at least 8 strategies, 2 for each goal. In some cases you may have 3 strategies for each goal. This is the template I’ve used with my teams, again feel free to use it. This would be one strategy for one goal. You would use an additional one for a different strategy for the same goal.

Strategies are absolutely critical to success. To create good ones, a strong, robust, thorough assessment has to have been done. Strategies rely solely on information. Strategies are only as good as the information that made them. A good account strategy needs a good account assessment.

Account assessment is the greatest weakness in sales. Sales people aren’t known for assessing environments up front. They are excellent at reacting. Unfortunately, reacting is what creates pricing wars, and RFP responses. Reacting does little to allow sales to “manage” an account. This being said, the assessment section of the account plan is absolutely critical to creating good account strategies.

To be successful, strategies need execution. To execute on a strategy the initiatives and tactics that will be deployed need to be called out. For instance, if a goal is to increase revenue by 10%, a strategy may be to sell a new product to the account. To sell that product a set of initiatives must be determined. An initiative could be to demonstrate value of XYZ product to accelerate the customers stated goal of increasing customer satisfaction. Notice this initiative gives life and purpose to the strategy of introducing a new product to increase revenue. Once all the initiatives have been identified, the details need to be ironed out. These details are the specific tactics required to ensure the initiatives happen. Using the example above, a tactic could be to work with product marketing to establish the specific impact XYZ product can have on the accounts customer satisfaction goals. It could be meet with account VP to determine how they measure customer satisfaction etc. The tactics are very specific steps that will be taken to drive the initiatives, that support the strategies, that get you to your goals.

Account strategies are more than a high-level approach that sits on a bookshelf somewhere. Good account strategies are born out of the account plan. They leverage the well researched account and organizational assessment. They have specific initiatives and tactics to ensure they are achieved.

Successful account governance wins or loses on the ability to execute against an account strategy. Keep them linked, be specific and attach them to the Approach section of the account plan and they will be achieved.

This is part 5 of an 8 part series on account governance

Cadence is a powerful tool for managing an account. Unfortunately, when I ask sales people about their cadence strategy or approach a get a lot of weird looks.

Cadence is how you drive an account. Cadence has the greatest impact in influencing the customer. It allows you to manage relationships, track progress, drive accountability, and engage all the stakeholders on a regular basis.

A good cadence consists of a few critical elements:

1) weekly progress meetings
2) quarterly business reviews
3) specific, regularly scheduled stakeholder meetings
4) clearly defined agendas and objectives
5) stakeholder commitment to participate

Cadence structure is not complex. I use this template your welcome to use it as well.

(I’ve filled in the table for info purposes only, you will need to determine the appropriate cadence structure for your accounts)

The complexity and value of cadence comes in the execution. To build a highly effective cadence think in terms of your account vision, your account plan and the account relationships. Notice in the one above, a regular cadence has been established between the customer CEO and the Company CEO, the IT department and the company CTO, both account teams, Marketing and more. The cadence is specifically designed to connect many different functional groups at multiple levels in an organization. Its purposely not intended to be horizontal. Its meant to be both horizontal AND vertical.

Ask, who should be regularly communicated with? Who influences the success or failure within the account? How can they influence the account plan and the ability to be successful? Once this is determined cadence brings it all together.

To make the cadence fly and get the most out of it, be proactive. Gain support from your relationships to engage on a regularly scheduled basis. Build weekly, monthly, quarterly and semi-annually events to monitor progress, set strategic direction, provide insight, address problems, deliver updates, identify challenges and reset direction. Set specific agendas and actionable objectives for all the meetings. The meetings need to have value. They need to be seen as worth the investment for both parties. If this part isn’t set up correctly, they entire process falls apart.

When a cadence is firing on all cylinders the account is being managed holistically. The right relationships are not only in place but engaged, from the executives on both sides, to the those accountable on a day to day basis, everyone is engaged. Issues are ferreted out early and addresses quickly. New products, services, and offers are introduced early and feedback can be provided by the customer strengthening the probability of adoption. Hiccups in the account business are identified earlier minimizing unforeseen drops in revenue or orders. This improves forecasting accuracy. Issues and challenges rarely blow-up as they are identified and addressed before they can get out of hand. And, one of my favorite benefits is the ability to ask for favors. If you’ve been in sales for awhile you understand the importance of being able to go to your customer and ask for help, to take a shipment early, to accelerate an order etc. When a strong cadence is in place, those important favors are much easier to ask for.

Cadence is about being proactive. It’s about managing an account from top to bottom on a regular basis. It’s about avoiding the reactionary approach most account manager find themselves in. Cadence gives the customer and you a platform to manage everything and anything associated with the account in a effective, proactive, way.

A good cadence brings to life the vision, the plan and the relationships.

Previous Posts in Series: 

Part 1: Account Governance - [The Ultimate Sales Process]

Part 2: Account Governance - [Vision]   

Part 3: Account Governance - [Account Plans] 

Part 4: Account Governance - [Relationships]

This is part 4 of an 8 part series on account governance

Relationships are the hardest element of account governance to write about. It’s hard because it’s difficult to measure. It’s not objective. There isn’t a paint by numbers process to create relationships, to know if you have the appropriate ones etc. Relationships are critical to good account governance, but it’s hard to put them in a box. Later in the series I will talk about account cadence. A good candence can help you manage the relationships, but it can’t build them.

This being said, understanding the critical nature of the relationship to an overall account governance is critical.

I remember early in my career a peer gave a presentation about two types of relationships. He talked about the person at your customer that would always answer your calls, who would accept your invitations to lunch and could always be counted on for a good game of golf. This relationship would always invite you into deals and could be counted on for support, BUT when it came to the really big deals or the core business affecting opportunities they would be conspicuously quiet.

This peer of mine then went on to talk about another type of relationship. He talked about the customer who called you and asked for advice. This relationship wasn’t always available for lunch or golf, but always invited you to the strategic business discussions. This relationship made few decisions without getting your insight. This relationship always made sure you were not only part of the big deals, but asked for your help in crafting the RFP and setting the strategic direction.

It was during this presentation, I first heard the term; Trusted Advisor.

There are clearly different relationships when it comes to managing accounts. It’s not good enough just to have a “relationship”. You have to have the right relationship, with the right people across many aspects of the organization.

The “relationship” I’m referencing in this pie chart is the second one. In an account management environment it is critical to develop a trusted advisor relationship or partnership where you’re seen as an information source, as an influencer.

Getting to this point requires a perspective AND an approach that is not product centric. I’ll say that again. It’s not product centric. If the conversations tend towards product you are not headed towards the influencer position.

To become an influencer requires a different perspective. It takes gambits, not transactions. It starts with your customers perspective and works out from there. It takes a tremendous amount of information about your account, the things your products and services enable and more. It’s more conversations than presentations. Most importantly, its having information your customer doesn’t have. It’s being smarter than your customer.

Being smarter than your customer is no small order. I rarely see people with this skill. Its magic when it happens.

The right relationships, with the right people, on the right level are a critical part of account governance. Build them on value. Build them on substance. Become an influencer. There will be plenty of time for golf, after they’ve called you to ask how to . . . ?

Tomorrow: Part 5
I’ll talk about cadence and how to manage the killer relationships you have.

Part 1: Account Governance - [The Ultimate Sales Process]

Part 2: Account Governance - [Vision]   

Part 3: Account Governance - [Account Plans]

This is part 3 of a 8 part series on account governance.

If the account vision is the compass of account management, then account plans are the ship. Account plans are where the execution happens. It’s the engine to successful account management.

I’ve talked about the importance of account plans before. The post is pretty complete, so I won’t go too far into how to build a good plan here. But, I do think they are critical to a good governance plan. 

Account plans must have a few things to be of value. They must have goals and objectives. It’s critical to know how you are going to measure success. They need to have a robust account assessment, including what is happening in the industry, the customers financial environment, the political landscape, the clients market positioning, major initiatives, the culture, their buying habits, the key players etc. A full fledge, relevant assessment is key. A good account plan should include an organizational assessment, outlining the team responsible for managing the account. It should include the resources, their ability to execute, the relationships, strengths, weaknesses etc. A good team assessment can determine how well the team is positioned to execute on the plan. The plan also needs to outline the key opportunities at the account. Where do you have the greatest opportunity for success? A good account plan also needs to include your approach. The approach is where the rubber hits the road. It outlines exactly what you’re going to do and why. In addition, an account plan needs to include the risks to meeting your goals, a contingency plan should something change and a resource section outlining what you need, that you currently dont have, to be successful.

Once all this has been written down into a cohesive, compelling plan for the year, do it again for the first quarter. It’s critical that your plan for the year be broken down into quarterly chunks.

I can’t emphasize enough the importance of a well crafted plan.

Finally, and in my opinion the most important component of the sales plan is plan accountability. At the end of each quarter, it is imperative to review the quarterly goals in these terms; what did you say you were going to do? Did you do it? What went wrong? What went right? What do you need to change? What are your quarterly goals for the next quarter. By managing to outcomes, you keep the plan relevant. The plans become working plans, not dusty books on a shelf. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of getting this part right. A good plan requires management. It’s not enough to just write them down.

Plans ensure execution. They outline the delivery mechanisms to strong account governance. Get a good plan in place. Make sure it aligns to your account vision and you are well on your way.

This is part 2 of an 8 part series on account governance.

At the center of account governance is the account vision. Unlike hunting and territory management, the success or failure of an account manager is dependent on their ability to grow their account. In some respects account management is similar to running a small business. Success expands well beyond the transactional nature of the sale. The account has to be developed, not just sold to. Selling to an established account without a sales strategy is short sighted. It results in loosely coupled opportunities, and a reactionary environment where a competitor can quickly take hold. Developing an account requires a deliberate and clinical approach that includes planning, measuring, cadence, strategy, vision and more.

At the heart of account governance and good account management is the vision for the account. The account vision acts as the compass for your entire strategy and plan. It’s what you are striving for. It is what you want to develop the account into.

To build a good account vision start by taking a good solid look at the account. Where are they today? Where do you and your company fit into their overall business strategy? What is the competition doing? How does your company compete currently? What is your current percentage of wallet share? How strategic is your product to their overall business? How many touch-points are there between the two companies? How easy is it to do business together? How often does the account call you for information? Are you seen as a partner or as a vendor? Ask as many questions as possible. Assess the account in terms of where you are today. After you’ve compiled all the information ask; where could the account go? What could you develop the account into; that would keep the competition out for years, that would increase sales, that would grow wallet share, that would make it easier to do business together, that would make this account a productive, reliable generator of revenue for your company? Picture it, it’s your vision.

The account vision is what you want to develop the account into.

The vision is less about today and more about tomorrow. It’s a desired end state.

A good vision is easy to explain. A good vision takes into consideration your customers needs as much as your companies. To do 100 million dollars a year out of XYZ account is not a vision. A vision to be XYZ’s first choice for all enterprise communication decisions and to be embedded into XYZ’s 5 year IT strategy, is a stronger vision.

If your sales role is to manage an account, build a vision. Paint a picture of where you want to take the account. Write it down. Take multiple shots at it. Get your customers feedback. If they don’t like it, you’ll never make it. Once you have it, put it in a prominent place. During every account review make sure it is repeated and clear to everyone. Everything you do from here should support getting you to your vision.

Want help?  Download the Account Vision Worksheet:

I’m going to do a series this week. It will be my first. I’m looking forward to it.

I’ve chosen to do it on account governance, the underlying process to account management. I haven’t blogged much on account management. It’s a prominent part of the selling world, that I think doesn’t get enough airtime. So this week this blog will be dedicated to account management.

Not everyone has a territory with 100′s of potential customers. Not everyone makes cold calls. Some sales people have only 1, 2, or just 3 accounts in which they have to make their living. These sales people, traditionally known as farmers make their living off of the same account year after year. They need to understand the politics. They need to understand the personalities, the buyers and the detractors. They need to work with their customer, with joint goals, commitments and efforts. They need a comprehensive process to make it happen. Managing a single account is very different than prospecting a territory, and hunting for new business.

In my opinion, the only way to effectively manage an account is through a robust governance plan.

Each day this week I will address a specific component of the governance plan. I will also share some of the documents, and processes I use in my client organizations to execute on our account governance.

In the simplest terms, account governance is the holistic approach to managing an account in order to maximize the relationship, revenue, and the customers business objectives.

Account governance consists of;

-The account vision, the long-term view outlying where you want to take the account and why
-The relationships and how you manage them
-The account plans, detailed steps and strategies outlining how you will execute on the account
-The cadence, the regularly structured meetings and events used to track efforts
-Account strategy, the angle and approach you are taking to drive success
-Reporting, creating the metrics necessary to track progress
-Selling tools, the underlying tools you use to more efficiently sell

The most critical component of account governance is the ability to integrate all of the components seamlessly.

Tomorrow, I will start with the Account Vision. Everything comes out of that. Like anything else. If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll never get there.

I hope you enjoy. If you have anything to add or have thoughts you’d like to share, jump in on the comments. My hope is this series sparks some good conversation and we all learn a little more about account management.

It should be fun.

Today's post is a killer break down on why you're not making your number and it's June. Matt Heinz is the president of Heinz Marketing. Matt is a marketing wiz and great writer. His blog is a daily must read. 

In this guest post, Matt eloquently serves up the 10 main reasons you aren't making your 2012 goals. He's nailed it with this post.  Enjoy

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You know what they say about the best-laid plans. Even if you had a great strategy, clear objectives and commonly-accepted sales goals on January 1, a thousand things can go wrong to push you off track.

Here are 10 specific reasons I find most often as culprits of sales goals that are behind schedule.

1. You didn’t have a plan to begin with
Setting a sales goal is not a plan. Telling your sales team and/or your leadership team (or board) what sales number you’re going to hit this year (and in each month/quarter) isn’t a plan either. Do you know how you’re going to get there? Have you quantified and planned the leading indicators to closed business? Does your sales management team, your front-line reps, your marketing team and other supporting groups know exactly what their role is to drive achievement of your number?

It’s never too late to create that plan, but without it you’re just a rudderless ship hoping to eventually find the horizon.

2. You didn’t commit the resources required to sell
Can your existing sales team hit the goals you’ve set out to achieve? Is the marketing team committed to deliver the leads, sales support tools and other prospect acceleration requirements you’ll need to increase interest and sales pipeline throughput?

Key to effective planning and execution is not only creating the plan, but ensuring the resources you need are in place and committed to execute moving forward. That goes for the size, quality and make-up of your sales team, the tools they use to manage their day and pipeline, budget for the right compensation and incentive plans, marketing and sales operations, and so forth.

3. You’re not doing the daily work to actively manage your pipeline
Talk to the best salespeople in the world and they’ll tell you the same thing. Achieving spectacular sales results means getting up early, putting your hard hat on, and doing the hard work all day, every single day. It means spending the majority of your day working with prospects – new prospects, nurtured prospects, qualified leads, channel partners, friends of prospects, whatever it takes.

I don’t believe that dials and talk time are adequate metrics to measure inside sales success, but make no mistake – inside sales reps will increase their chances of success and higher commissions by picking up the phone more often, taking far more at bats every day, and playing whatever numbers and conversion game exists in their business to their advantage.

This also includes incorporating CRM best practices so that you’re actively managing and tracking your entire pipeline, and spending as little time as possible every day doing it.

4. You’re letting under-performing reps drag you down
Start the year with a proactive sales rep management program in place. Know the early indicators of success or failure well before the month or quarter closes. How healthy is the sales rep’s pipeline? Are they doing the daily activities required to be successful? Do they have enough qualified opportunities, early in the month or quarter, to close a percentage of them and exceed their quota?

The easy answer here is to move out of the organization reps who don’t hit their number. But at the point they fail to meet quota, they’re already dragging you down. Identify problem areas early, coach your reps to be better, and be more proactive at correcting or eliminating that behavior early on.

5. You’re only focusing on today’s deals without managing and nurturing long-term opportunities
In most B2B sales environments, only 10-15 percent of inbound leads will be both qualified and ready to buy. Of the remaining leads, 60-65 percent will be qualified and not ready to buy. That’s business for a future month or quarter that most sales organizations either disqualify or ignore.

In terms of current month or quarter sales, that’s a good thing. But if you fail to triage and manage long-term opportunities, you’re not only decreasing your chances of ever doing business with that prospect. You’re already increasing the cost and difficulty of hitting your number in future sales periods.

Those not-ready-to-buy prospects will eventually transact. Have the strategy and systems in place to manage them without disrupting your sales team’s ability to focus on current-period pipelines.

6. Your conversion expectations are overly optimistic
The vast majority of your leads aren’t going to buy. Even the majority of qualified opportunities probably won’t close. If you expect this up front, and build those expectations into your sales model and plans, you’re more likely to have the resources and execution required to accept those conversion realities and still hit your number.

In many B2B selling environments, for example, if I don’t have access to historical pipeline conversion data, I’ll start with an assumption that 5 percent of leads will turn into a near-term qualified opportunity, and 25 percent of opportunities will close into a sale. That’s a 1.5 percent conversion rate from lead to close in a given month or quarter. Tiny, but reality. If you assume higher without historical back-up, you’re putting your results at risk by expecting too much of what you have.

7. Your leads suck (and you either don’t know it or aren’t doing anything about it)
Working with your marketing team, you should have a pre-existing definition for a good lead and qualified lead (they might be different). Based on that, you need to have an expectation for overall lead-to-opportunity conversion as well as more detailed conversion expectations by marketing channel. And as time goes on, you should be able to measure lead-to-close conversion to ensure that your marketing cost per sale is at or below expectations.

In too many organizations, the focus isn’t on lead quality but lead volume. Marketing dumps a ton of “leads” on the sales team, and either is satisfied with an up-and-to-the-right delivery number month after month, or fails to subsequently measure whether those leads are converting into closed business.

Start with a common definition of a good lead, between sales and marketing. Then track lead performance through the pipeline to ensure your overall modeling on lead-opportunity-close is correct, but also to adjust resources and lead channel investments based on where the best conversions and lowest marketing cost per sale exists.

8. You’re selling the same way to everybody
This is worse than assuming a health care company needs your product or service in the same way as an engineering company or government organization. Worse than assuming that the CTO prospect needs to hear the same message as the CFO. If you’re selling the same way to everybody, you’re also not listening and responding to unique customer needs and priorities.

What you deliver to new customers, the product or service itself, may be largely the same for everybody. But every prospect approaches their unique problem or opportunity differently. The way they use your product or service, and/or the benefits and outcomes they need from it, will differ as well. Take advantage of and embrace those differences in the way you sell. You’ll find far more prospects interested and engaged at the top of the sales process.

9. Google has nothing good to say about you
Your collateral isn’t that important anymore. Your case studies are great, but new prospects will assume they’re heavily biased. What prospects do trust up front, right or wrong, is Google. What does the rest of the Web say about you? What are other customers, press, analysts and industry influencers saying about you?

A top priority of marketing teams working with sales organizations should be proactively managing the Google experience for early prospects. This is much harder said than done, as most of what happens on that first page of Google when someone searches your name is beyond your direct control. It’s not a quick fix either. But it’s worth it not only to increase current lead conversion and interest, but to accelerate new inbound lead volume as well.

10. You’re losing deals to apathy (because you’ve failed to build enough value)
Most sales get lose not to a competitor, but to nothing. Most prospects simply fail to make a decision and drop the opportunity altogether. If they indeed had a problem to solve, this means you as the seller have failed to adequately qualify your ability to solve the problem.

Worse, it could be an indication that you’ve failed to help the prospect with the value translation of a problem they may or may not know they have, and differentiate between the negative future they’re headed towards and the positive future you can help enable for them. You will still lose deals to apathy (you can lead a prospect to water, but you can’t make them all drink), but losing deals because the prospect is confused or uneducated is completely fixable.

Would love to hear other symptoms of under-performing sales you’ve seen or are experiencing in organizations you work in or manage. What else is this list missing?