Mastering the Complex Sale_11

CreatingaDiagnosticBusinessDevelopmentCapabilityinSales 207 up access to people and information within customer organizations, and they bring those stories back to the sales organization at large. These stories serve as the basis for extending the platform to the entire sales organization—the third phase of the implementation process. During stage 3, the Diagnostic Business Development platform is tailored as necessary for different solution sets and the different customer segments. This is usually ac-complished very quickly once the initial platform is estab-lished and tested. Next, the rest of the sales organization needs the same development effort that the pilot teams re-ceived. Finally, employees in functions that are directly in-volved in the sales cycle should also learn the systems, skills, and disciplines. Typically this includes selected members of the marketing staff who are involved in creat-ing sales collateral and generating leads, as well as support and service staff members who are involved in delivering and measuring customer value. We should also pay particularly close attention to the critical role of line sales management while the capability is being established. First-line sales managers must model the new sales capability and hold salespeople accountable for adopting it, if it is to be successfully developed. Otherwise, most salespeople will dismiss the change, consider it the ‘‘flavor of the month,’’ and assume that ‘‘this too shall pass,’’ if they keep their collective heads down. To gain the support of line sales managers for the new capability, they must: Learn it: Line sales managers should be involved in the tailoring of the new capability and take personal ownership as early as possible in the planning stages. They should attend a sales development workshop be-fore the capability is rolled out to the sales organization at large. They should also act as table coaches at the workshops that their sales teams attend. 208 BUILDING A VALUE-DRIVEN SALES ORGANIZATION Teach it: The most effective way to engage line sales managers with the new capability is to ask them to conduct reinforcement training sessions for members of their sales teams. To provide a structure for this as-pect of the implementation, we typically develop a se-ries of 90-minute, manager-led sessions focused on one or two key aspects of the capability. These ses-sions are usually held once a month. Coach it: Coaching is a standard responsibility of sales managers, but most have never been taught how to coach effectively and have never been provided with a coaching process. To overcome these barriers, sales managers should attend workshops in which they learn the coaching skills specific to implementing a Diag-nostic Business Development capability. HiringandDevelopingaWorld-Class SalesOrganization A capability is an odd duck in that it is embedded in an or-ganization, but its success is largely dependent on people— that is, the group of people who exercise it. Individuals within the group will always utilize a capability with vary-ing degrees of success, but ultimately, the more people who master and effectively use the capability, the more effective its results. For this reason, there is a large talent component to a Diagnostic Business Development capability, and the hiring, development, and retention of sales professionals are all critical issues in its success. HiringDiagnosticSalesProfessionals Perhaps more than any other business profession, success in sales is thought to be personality driven. Many people HiringandDevelopingaWorld-ClassSalesOrganization 209 speak of the ‘‘born salesperson’’ as if the ability to sell is a genetic inheritance. Sales organizations implicitly sub-scribe to this view when they attempt to identify and hire people who exhibit the personality traits of the stereotypi-cal salesperson. Many of them add industry experience to the job description and believe that is all that is needed to hire a winner. Often, they get a real winner . . . in a more sarcastic sense of the word. Why do sales managers keep hiring salespeople based on stereotypical personality traits and industry experience? Because they don’t have a systematic method of determin-ing the true ingredients of Era 3 sales success, and thus have little choice but to fall back on what they’ve been con-ditioned to believe are the qualifications for exceptional performance. Sales managers in a Diagnostic Business Development environment, on the other hand, can hire based on the sales platform they are using and the capabil-ity that they are attempting to develop and support. What kind of candidates should they be looking for? Individuals who can fulfill the role of a diagnostic sales pro-fessional—that is, people who can execute the system, learn and use the skills, and live the discipline. Assessment instruments remain the best way to quickly and accurately obtain insight into the strengths and weak-nesses of sales candidates. With that said, we need to be sure to carefully explore what the assessments we use actually measure. The vast majority of assessment instruments are one-dimensional, and they are aimed at identifying a con-ventional sales personality, which will point you toward the wrong candidates. In fact, if you run most top performers through a standard sales profiling tool, they will likely be re-jected: they aren’t aggressive enough, will take ‘‘no’’ for an answer, and won’t push hard enough for the close. To identify Prime sales candidates, we recommend combining three different kinds of assessments to create a 210 BUILDING A VALUE-DRIVEN SALES ORGANIZATION holistic profile of the candidate and offer a high probability of predicting Diagnostic Business Development success: 1. A behavioral assessment that offers insight into a can-didate’s behavior style. This reflects ‘‘how’’ a candi-date will sell. We are looking for candidates who portray the preferred behavior style that is a blend of the doctor, the best friend, and the detective. 2. An assessment that identifies the candidate’s personal interests and values, which tells us ‘‘why’’ a candidate will sell. We are trying to understand the candidate’s attitudes and motivations, and we are looking for the proverbial self-starter with a history of setting and achieving goals. 3. An assessment that provides insights into ‘‘what’’ the candidate can and will do relating to executing the Diagnostic Business Development process. This in-strument provides an insight into the candidate’s mental and emotional stamina. Does the candidate have the fortitude and strength needed to actually exe-cute the system? We also gain insights into the profes-sional growth potential of candidates and the type of development that may be most helpful to maximize their potential. A12-StageQuick-StartPlan Once we hire a candidate to work in a Diagnostic Business Development environment, we must teach the system, pro-vide the skills, and coach the discipline that person needs to adopt and utilize the capability. Depending on the com-plexity of the sale, the solutions that our clients undertake, and the ability of the salesperson, the time requirements for A12-StageQuick-StartPlan 211 training can vary widely, but they should follow a 12-stage sequence that we can define in terms of the questions each is designed to answer in the new hire’s mind. 1. What Is My Company All About? Sales professionals need to know their company’s history, the key people and positions, its market position, its value proposition, as well as the details of employment, such as the com-pensation plan, expense policies, and so forth. 2. Who Are the Customers I Serve? In this stage, new hires meet customers via the telephone and face-to-face appointments in the field. They learn the cast of char-acters, who buys from your company and, more impor-tantly, why they buy, how they perceive your company, and how satisfied they have been with the value created by your company. 3. How Do I Develop New Business? After salespeople learn to prepare customer profiles, they need to under-stand how to prepare an opportunity management sys-tem that enables them to coordinate their activities and set priorities. 4. What Is the Engagement Protocol? In this stage, salespeople learn the basics of building an initial engagement strategy and a relevant value hypothesis from a prospect’s profile. 5. What Is My Personal Business Plan? Individuals de-velop an initial version of an individualized business plan that includes their financial goals and specifies the quality and quantity of activities required to achieve those goals and the internal/external resources needed to help support those goals. 6. What Are the Solutions I Sell? During this stage, individuals learn much more than the technical features and benefits of your offerings. They learn how to ... - tailieumienphi.vn