Selling is a science; you can’t just design and implement a new corporate strategy and cross your fingers that it will translate into actions. The “art” of selling or strength of existing customer relationships won’t guide an organization to know what to do differently to execute that new strategy.
I attended a Commercial Excellence Virtual Conference recently where the opening salvos to “look for ways to move beyond your core business and find new areas of growth” and “expand your commercial capacity to reach more customers” set the stage beautifully for the discussions. I listened with the lens of how sales enablement can facilitate that translation of strategy to execution. When the Alexander Group laid out framework that describes the evolution of selling roles to support this shift in strategy and concluded that, indeed, “Selling is a science,” I couldn’t agree more. You can’t just design and implement a new corporate strategy and cross your fingers that it will translate into actions. The “art” of selling or strength of existing customer relationships won’t guide an organization to know what to do differently to execute that new strategy.
Consider the reality of current metrics for revenue attainment and key leading indicator metrics. According to CSO Insights’ 2019 World Class Sales Practices Study, three leading indicator metrics are worrisome:
- Win rates of forecasted deals are still less than 50%
- Customer retention is down 3%; deep relationships down 4%
- Seller attrition increased to 18% – 5% decline in last 2 years
These three metrics tell me that what was working in the past to capture and keep customers may not be working anymore. And sellers are feeling the pinch; the game has changed yet no one has helped them understand the new rules of engagement.
It will be important to identify the new behaviors to win business in this changing landscape. As you look to align your training strategy to your shifting commercial strategy, consider these ways to rethink how you view training in your organization:
Define and communicate your sales process and methodology. A clear sales process ensures customers have consistently positive interactions in every channel they use to engage with you. Companies with a dynamic sales methodology in place have a 37.1%better quota achievement rate than those with an informal approach. Sales methodologies create a framework of terminology which enables the company to effectively communicate value messages relevant to buyer’s needs and makes it easier to assess the status of deals. There is a clearer understanding of selling hurdles and closing issues all the way up the chain of command. This improves forecast accuracy.
Embed the science and honor the art of selling. Every customer facing role will face a different subset of stakeholders in the buying journey. They all want to know they’re engaging with “one company” so your sales methodology should be customer focused, consistent, yet flex to the needs of each customer. This is where the art comes in; allow for that empathy and personal touch. However, embed the science by effectively using account and call planning tools to prepare for customer interactions and visit reports to track key customer insights, advances in the sales process, and evidence of milestone achievement that demonstrates you’re matching your customer’s buying journey.
Training is not professional development. Every leader’s role is to ensure strategy execution and enable growth. Your strategy is executed when specific tasks or activities are done as expected; these behaviors are your keys to unlock success and growth. The first question to ask is: Do your activities (behaviors) reflect your strategy? Do you have a way to track and monitor these activities (behaviors) against your strategy? What is your plan to drive the execution of these activities (behaviors)? Upskilling your team is about using your training resources to teach the new behaviors and knowledge needed to redirect effort towards the new strategy.
Training is not an “event.” Building new skills, knowledge, and behaviors takes time. No one learns to play golf after one round; don’t expect your people to be expert at new customer facing interactions the first time either. As your organization adapts to new customer preferences and understands the buyer’s journey, your sales, service, and marketing approaches will continue to evolve as well. Your culture must support continuous development of all customer-facing professionals.
Training is not just for the sales reps. First line sales manager development is critical to ensure they have the skills to monitor, coach, and reward these new customer focused behaviors. Sales management, operations and enablement need to be effectively aligned to drive results. Start by defining and communicating clear expectations. When there is a consistent understanding of how sellers are supposed to navigate each step in the sales process, when sellers struggle, managers have a framework to determine whether the challenge is a skills-based issue or whether a sales cycle requires a course correction. This improves coaching and seller effectiveness.
The customer needs to be trained too. Part of the reason your salespeople have gotten into a rut in selling or have relied on long standing relationships with customers is that we trained the customer to behave like this over time. When they see us coming, they’ve already formed an opinion of why we’re there and what to expect. As you start to understand your customer’s buying journey and bring real insights into their decision-making process, you’ll earn the right to join them earlier in the buying cycle. Arriving here is a different conversation; not, “what have you got to show me today?” but instead, having a conversation that appeals directly to the problems and pain points they’re facing today.