I am often asked by small- and medium-sized business owners and managers in larger companies what steps they can take to help their sales people perform more effectively. The answer rests with them. But when told what needs to be done, many fail to step up, primarily because it requires a greater effort than they are willing to make.
As with almost any other professional endeavour, a critical element of success is practice and coaching: Two things you don't see enough in sales, and which owners and managers could do a better job of initiating and enforcing.
Let's first look at coaching. Success in any organization comes down to leadership, and in sales especially, the front-line leadership, be that the business owner or front-line manager. Effective sales managers need to create and maintain a balance between two personas. The first is as the "manager," who sets the rules and expectations for the sales team. While this may seem obvious, I continuously run into scenarios where the expectations are not set or clear, allowing sales people to do it "their way," which no doubt explains why a North American survey found that less than 60 per cent of B2B reps made their quota in 2014.
With expectations set – be they around activity, meeting objectives, use of tools, what have you – the next persona that needs to be adopted is that of the "coach," helping the team and individual members deliver on those expectations. In professional sports this is often carried out by specialist individuals, such as the pitching coach or the batting coach in baseball, for example. Most sales teams, especially non-enterprise or small businesses cannot afford these to have people in these individual roles, and so it is down to the manager or owner.
This is the part that is usually lacking; it requires more effort than just setting goals and firing up the old rah-rah – it requires planning and consistent effort in application. It's not just a matter of designing the playbook, but creating the drills, and doing them over and over till the team and individuals get it right. In larger companies many of the managers I speak with have no annual coaching plan, and smaller companies don't see the need. "I hired professionals; they are beyond that," is what I often hear.
Getting it right requires practice by sales people, yet practising is not something many do, or concede they need to do. Again, just as they would expect from their favourite team, the hard work is between games, not just when they are on the pitch. It seems newsworthy when a player misses practice or a team is given a day off, but ask sales people if they practised or rehearsed for that sales call and see what you get for an answer.
Experts tell us that it takes an enormous amount of preparation and practice to deliver an effective presentation. Some say an hour for every 10 minutes; others say you should practice each presentation 15 times or more. And this is for a one-way presentation, not an interactive dialogue where the buyer will always throw unexpected questions at you. People who make it look easy, such as Steve Jobs and Charlie Parker, practised constantly to be as good as they were.
Many sellers and managers will tell you that they just don't have the time to invest in that much practice, despite study after study that show the impact of coaching in increasing revenues. The most effective sales companies provide 15 to 20 per cent more coaching, with the key being not how elaborate a coaching discipline is, but how consistent. Not only can coaching lead to better revenue attainment, but the time invested can be recouped in shorter sales cycles.
There is no denying that practice take time and effort, but there is also no denying that practice makes profits.
Tibor Shanto is a principal at Renbor Sales Solutions Inc. He can be reached at tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca. His column appears once a month on the Report on Small Business website.