Why do you want to be a Sales Manager?

It happens on every sales team, in every industry.  We typically see the 80/20 rule, where the top sellers bring in the lion's share of the revenue (Pareto Principle).  These top 20% also get paid top commissions.  They receive the highest accolades, earn club trips, are thanked by the executives, and receive recruiter calls like flies around a rib roast.  Some are given luxury cars to drive and minions to do all of the dreaded administrative stuff they hate (e.g. opportunity management and forecasting).  Seems like a pretty good gig, right?

When a sales management role suddenly becomes available, many of these top performing salespeople show interest.  Granted, many do not (they see all of the challenges/issues they escalate to their sales manager and realize the truth that they will be taking these problems on - along with everyone else on the sales team).  After they come to grips with this concept, there are other downsides to being a sales manager.  For the sake of brevity, here's a list of some of the big ones:

• You inherit all of your team's problems and escalations (already discussed above).  This adds up fast.  On a typical sales team of six to ten salespeople, you'll have a mix of a couple of totally independent salespeople; however, when they have a problem - its enormous.  Other reps will have a steady flow of challenges week after week.  Then you have the salespeople that are either going to be leaving the business and those that are being ramped-up.  This set takes up a signifiant amount of bandwidth.  It's very difficult to manage tactics vs strategy and proactive vs reactive activities.
• You typically make less money.  Beware strangers bearing gifts here.  Yes, it is possible for sales managers to have a blow-out year, but it comes rarely and is usually unpredictable.  Savvy sales organizations know exactly how to set quotas based on multiple criteria.  Their objective is to set a target that you could achieve if most of your team is performing above target.  They want to set the bar higher than you'd expect, so you'll stretch to perform.  This usually means that in any good year, you'll over-achieve just a small amount (around 10-15%).  This usually amounts to total annual compensation that is still around 20% less than top performing salespeople.  Only when the quota is set a little lower than it should be, and everyone on your team blows-out their numbers, can sales managers really rake in commissions.  This rarely happens two years in a row, as your company will take note of the success and try not to let this happen again.  It's not that they don't want you to be successful, they just don't want to pay more than they need, to achieve success.  As sales leaders are promoted, the same principle applies.  Sales directors, area VP's, regional VP's, etc. all get incremental increases in base salary, but the target is more difficult to overachieve and the payouts are less (percentage-wise) the higher the role.  There reaches a point where executives are compensated more on the performance of the entire company rather than any particular team/group.
• Hitting your target is expected, but NOT the most important criteria of success.  I know many of you reading this think this one is a myth, but I've seen this one time and time again.  You'll have a good-to-great sales manager, who gets to 70-75% of target, and really knows what sales management is about (hiring right, on-boarding, coaching, performance management, political management, knows how to internally block and tackle, etc.).  These type of managers don't blow out the number, but they also usually don't create problems.  The opposite sales manager, who does 150-200% of target, doesn't really do anything to help his team, hire good people, create succession, nor create excellence.  These sales managers create "broken glass," are negatively perceived for bypassing process/protocol, rely upon star players, can't really develop talent and usually these managers cannot maintain this level of success. 
• Sales Managers have LESS customer contact and MORE administrative work.  Unfortunately, most sales managers get pulled into customer engagements when there is a problem, reactively.  Administrative work goes up dramatically as a sales manager, including forecasting expectations, strategic planning, demand generation events, and documenting performance and escalations.

With the challenges of being a sales manager so large and many, why would anyone purposefully want to leave their individual contributor status and move into sales leadership?  While some of you may need to ponder on this for some time, there's only one real answer - and it comes down to motivation.  For a certain type of individual, helping others to be successful is a key motivator (sometimes heavily weighted above making more money).  The idea of creating success in a team consisting of different personalities and styles is a challenging one.  Some people thrive on this challenge.  This is why finding great first-level sales managers (full time leaders managing salespeople with individual contributor status) is so difficult, and many agree that this role is one of the most challenging (and rewarding) of all sales leaders.

If you're thinking of making the leap to management, or if you're already a manager, it's likely you are this type of person.  You gain satisfaction out of creating excellence with a team and with other people.

Happy selling.

Faroe Islands slaughters 22 Pilot Whales

While I normally reserve this blog for sales related content, sometimes you have to use whatever means that is at your disposal to communicate cowardice and barbarity.  On June 30, 2015, whalers (if you can call the pitiful excuse of the butchers such a name), rounded up 22 Pilot Whales in a cove off of one of the Faroe Islands (between Norway and Iceland) and used hunting knives to stab and slice the throats of the beached animals.

The video is heart-wrenching, and the people are pathetic cowards.  Dressed in their industrialized winter clothing in modern housing by the bay, there is simply no excuse for this behavior.  These aren't natives struggling to survive.  This is about money and a lack of any respect for animal life.

What must we do as a society to protect the eco-system that keeps us alive?  Which species is ready to blink out due to our ignorance, arrogance, and chasing the dollar?  This example is just a snapshot in time (our time), of what we've become.  Let's evolve just a bit faster and recognize that everything is not ours for the taking.

I challenge you to forward this video to 10 people that you care about.  Let's get a message sent that we are outraged and will do something about this.

Want to do more?  Visit the Sea Sheppard website:  http://www.seashepherd.org/.  Find out more about conversation.  Communicate socially.

Salesperson or True Detective?

As the magic of television and film continues to dazzle us as consumers, one trend I've noticed is that things are becoming more and more realistic.  As an example, today's westerns no longer show John Wayne with a clean red scarf and immaculate cowboy gear.  Westerns today show the dirty, terrible, violent side of what living on the frontier might have been like.

I recently caught the bug of a new HBO series called "True Detective."  It's not for everyone and it's only in the second season, but my wife and I we utterly consumed by season one's gritty reality.  The show focuses on both the exciting and mundane world of law enforcement investigation.  Unlike a "Law and Order,"  in "True Detective," we're not spared the tedious and frustrating nature of tracking down a lead, checking old public records, or shifting-directions as one lead looks more promising than the other.  The series also shows the importance of visualizing an investigation by story-boarding things like connections between people, locations involved, statements made and more.

As I watched the drama unfold over season one, I starting thinking about the parallels of criminal investigations (that a police detective might do), and the "investigations" salespeople do every day.

• We "track down" leads.  Sometimes they're qualified, sometimes they're not.  Sometimes they push us in the wrong direction.
• We have to do the "tedious" things that nobody (including detectives) like to do.  We have to document what we do (or the criminal/sale gets away).  We have to connect information together.  We have to try things 100 different ways before it works.
• There are consequences.  Detectives know that if they don't catch the bad guy, something bad is likely to happen - again.  In sales, the consequence is losing a sale, or your sales reputation!
• Detectives have to interview "people of interest," to get them closer to the suspect.  Salespeople have to interview different decision-makers and influencers  to get them closer to the sale.
• It's the smallest thing that makes all the difference.  Detectives know that the smallest clue sometimes leads them right where they need to be.  Salespeople often look back and think, "If I would have just seen that one piece of information. . . "

In many respects, all salespeople are detectives.  We aim carefully, define prospects, investigate clues and set the right influence to capture the sale.  Visualize your sale...connect the dots.  No badge required.

Happy Selling!

SPIN Selling - Still Strong After 30 Years

SPIN Selling - Still Strong After 30 Years

SPIN Selling - Still Strong After 30 Years

SPIN selling methodology has been a 30-year old staple for the sales community.  Developed by Neil Rackham from a large observation study with Huthwaite (a study/development organization), I recently had the opportunity to attend a formal 3-day training course on the sales methodology.

I must admit, I was somewhat skeptical before the class.  I have not only been a "student of sales" for about 20 years, but I've also been a professional sales instructor.  I have attended half a dozen training workshops on sales methodology, but had never been introduced to SPIN until the class.  The class was led by a professional instructor from Huthwaite, so I knew I was going to get the information directly from the source of the methodology (Rackham sold the methodology to Huthwaite some time ago).

For those of you unacquainted with SPIN, the methodology is derived from a large focused study of sales/buyer interactions (Huthwaite continues to update/affirm the results even today).  The material has a scientific approach in that the ideas are presented simply and factually:  "We saw this behavior from salespeople, and here were the results."  In essence, the methodology revolves around a defined Buyer's Sales Cycle, which originates by understand the buyer's Explicit Needs.  Everything in the methodology surrounds these Explicit Needs by asking SPIN questions (Situation, Problem, Implication and Needs-Payoff).  A full sales methodology unfolds, including all of the components you might expect (meeting formats, questioning skills, buyer interactions, approaches, objections and moving the sale forward).

The workshop was extremely interactive with plenty of role-play, exercises and group discussions.  The program blends well with other consultative-selling programs (methods in which the selling methodology is focused around the customer).  There were several times where I had an "ah-ha" moment (which is the sign of a strong class).

Here's my overall feedback:
I think SPIN is a solid, effective and sound sales methodology that puts the customer's needs first.  It is especially effective for complicated/enterprise solution selling.  It's a bit surprising on how relative the methodology still is after such a long time, but it absolutely ranks up there with any competitive sales process.  There is a learning curve, and many acronyms/processes that will require reinforcement, but I think this is true of most good methodologies.

If there are sales professionals out there that haven't adopted a formal sales methodology (which you should  - just look at the science), I think SPIN is a good choice.

Happy Selling.

The Fight with the DirectTV Salesperson

I got into a fight the other day at my local Best Buy.  OK, it wasn't a fist fight.  It was more of a heated argument.  But there I was, in the middle of the Best Buy, at the brink of yelling at this salesperson.  What happened?  How could I have gotten myself into this position?  What was the cause of all of this distress?  Well, the reason I was arguing was because of sales methodology!

I was casing my neighborhood Best Buy, checking out new tech, looking for super deals, you know, the usual.  I was inside the store for no more than one or two minutes before I noticed somebody, out of the corner of my field of vision.  It was the DirectTV sales gal.  I knew this woman.  I had encountered her before.  I knew her MO.  I had to cut through the discount DVD aisle to avoid her. I swallowed hard and dodged past the memory cards.  Whew, that was a close one.  I thought I was saved.

I was having flash-backs of my other encounters with her.  It always started the same.  First it was, "Hi, how are you doing today?"  To which I had tried various responses with always the same outcome.  Her response was some pleasantry, followed by, "Are you a DirectTV subscriber?"  It didn't really matter whether I would answer truthfully (which would have been, "no,") or whether I lied and said, "yes, and I love DirectTV, thank you!" She would start the hard sell at that point, and regardless of my pleas to be removed from the situation (like "I'm really not interested, but thank you"), the deadly objection-handling phrase would always come:  "You're not interested in saving money?"  It makes my blood boil just writing the words.  I think of all of the people who signed up for DirectTV service because they simply couldn't get away from her.

My ending encounters with her were also always the same.  I felt bad, but simply had to walk away to be released from her grasp.  Today, however, I wasn't going to let her get away with these hard-handed sales techniques.  She had to hear the truth, no matter how badly it hurt.  Somebody had to be responsible to tell her that she couldn't treat people like this.  Today would be the day that I stood up to the DirectTV sales gal.

She caught me near the Dyson vacuum cleaners when I least expected it.  After the same old aggressive sales pitch, it was time for reality.  "Do you realize that this is the third or fourth time you've solicited me here in the store?" I asked her.  She was stunned, but way too salty to let that distract her.  I continued.  "Do you understand how body language works?  When I say 'no thank you,' and walk away from you, that is your clue to leave me alone?"  Her eyes opened wider, ready for battle.  She retorted, "I'm sorry you feel that way, I genuinely want to save you money."  I was in disbelief.

In the next few minutes, I came to understand that she was actually a sales manager, and she taught her salespeople this approach.  She didn't seem to care that she was bullying people by using sales tactics and pressure.  I begged her to reconsider what she was doing.  When the argument ceased, her last question to me was this, "What would like me to do?"  My reply was short, simple and honest.  I told her, "I want you to change."

Maybe, after I left, she went right back to pressuring my neighbors to buy her fares.  Maybe she just thought I was a jerk.  Maybe I was.  But maybe I planted a seed with her that people can't be treated as targets, pressured into commitments by complex sales tactics.  At one point, I asked her, "would you like to be treated like this?"  She said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Maybe I'll shop at Frys Electronics from now on.  Part of me is afraid the DirectTV lady will be there on her day off.

Happy Selling.

"It doesn't really matter what I sell" - oh really?

Throughout my career, I've interviewed hundreds of sales candidates.  My interviewing approach has changed dramatically over the years, and I now find myself spending more time talking to candidates about their motivations, why they do what they do.  While it is relatively easy to identify people who are passionate about selling, I find it fascinating that a small subset of people don't really care what it is that they are actually selling.

These folks fall into a "true believer" status.  They are convinced that they are so good at sales, they can sell anything they want (cars, toilet paper, software . . .  you name it).  While I get the concept that if you can build relationships, understand the goals/needs of your customer, and approach things with integrity - you will be successful - but, what about the passion?

I believe we are better at selling things we are passionate about (and not as good at selling things that don't interest us).  I often find myself in an interview with a sales candidate thinking, "This candidate has had five positions in 20 years all in a specific industry, selling the same thing, and now they want to sell something completely different.  Why is that?"  When I inquire, sometimes I get a surprising response:  "It doesn't really matter what I sell."  Hmm.  I think it does.  And if it does, as a sales manager, I only want to hire those candidates who can be passionate about what WE sell.  It should matter what you sell.  This falls under the concept of sales "belief."  You must believe in your product or service.  Not only do you have to believe in it, but the more passionate you really are, the more successful you are likely to be.

Think about this one when you face a potential career change.  What would I LOVE to sell.  What am I really passionate about.  Go sell that!

Happy selling.

Forecasting Sales - Science or Fiction?

In over 20 years of Sales Management, I am still puzzled by the inability for Salespeople or Sales Management to determine an effective method of Sales Forecasting.

Sure, the default methodology is using a combination of actual sales pipeline data (opportunities associated with confidence/probability) and something referred to as "run rate," (a psychic prediction of deals that are really not in the pipeline, but likely to appear before the end forecast period).  Don't you find it unusual that these methods still permeate the very core of sales forecasting?

Lately, I've seen an influx of sophisticated tools that are advertised to make the forecasting task easier by using macros, predictions and big data.  I've investigated these tools only to find that they are simply more sophisticated methods of the same process described above.  With the huge investments organizations are making in CRM software (i.e. Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle, etc.), one might question why sales forecasting is still a manual process for even the largest organizations.  While not "naming names," I know of a $6B organization that holds weekly forecast calls with their sales managers (who use manual spreadsheets and "psychic abilities" to predict sales), even though they have heavily invested in these massive CRM solutions.

The answer to the problem is relatively simple:  salespeople alone are the key to accurate forecasting.

While Sales Management can supersede the probability of a deal closing, all of us know an well known axiom of selling:  the actual salesperson has the best, first-hand knowledge of whether or not a deal is going to close in a particular period of time.  The missing ingredient is one that has perplexed Sales Managers for decades.  Here's the ULTIMATE PROBLEM:  "Do I ask my salespeople to give up valuable sales time by documenting accurate sales forecasting information in a CRM, or do I want them out in front of customers?"  The answer is always the same:  We want both!

Unfortunately, you can't have both.  Typically, the top 10% of salespeople are poor at administrative responsibilities.  These are the folks we need the information from the most.  It's a Catch-22, and it's plagued the industry from the dawn of time.

While there's no great solution for the problem, we'll continue on trying to use probability calculations, stages in the sales cycle, and other factors to predict the future.  Everyone understands the unspoken truth:  If your sales team has a great month, it's very unlikely that Sr. Management will deliver much grief on how well you forecasted.  Let's face it.  Sales teams and salespeople who kick ass and deliver results are rarely "called on the carpet" for their failure to predict upcoming sales.

Here's my solution:  We all do the best we can.  We try to update our forecasting tools with best-practices and hope for the best.  Run rates are a powerful tool, and unt
il every salesperson in the world invests heavily on updating the latest information everyday, we will all be subject to the roller-coaster world of sales forecasting!

No happy ending here.  Sorry.

Happy Selling!

Personalized Learning for K-12 in 2014

Students in Elementary, Middle and High Schools across the United States are back from their winter vacations.  While celebrating the holidays, enjoying lazy afternoons, frying their brains on first-person shooter video games, and sleeping until noon, it's back to the business of learning.  For most of these students, however, getting back into the daily routine of "one-way" learning at school will be more difficult than ever.  As each year passes, and schools throughout the nation fail to change how students are engaged and taught, we face a learning crisis that is more damaging than we dare to imagine.

• The #1 gift in the 2013 holiday season to children in the U.S. was a mobile device (Amazon.com).  Whether an iPad (still the top leader in tablets in 2013), a Kindle, a Chrome-book, or just a SmartPhone, kids spent their time off during winter break drenched in the electronic world of mobility.
• These same students went back to school without these devices only to sit in a classroom where learning occurs in a force-fed, one-way, traditional environment.  Students sit, teachers talk, test scores drop.  How many published, scientific studies on learning must be presented to our local school administrators before they get it?  
• In 2013, the situation was so bad, that many states and the federal government took action.  Obama introduced legislation on providing broadband internet to students.  State regulators got involved to demand learning reform.  Many school districts began a long (and expensive) journey to determine how best to meet the challenging demands of better student engagement and new ways of teaching/learning.
• In 2014, doing nothing will simply not be an option for K-12.  The evidence is in:  kids learn better in non-traditional environments.  These new learning methodologies go by many names:  Personalized Learning, 21st Century Classroom, Flipped-Classrooms, Blended Learning, and others.  Tools being utilized to enable these new learning methods have one thing in common:  mobility.  The objective is simple:  get rid of the traditional obstacles to learning by introducing new processes.
• Personalized Learning means changing how students learn at a fundamental level.  While many models are showing dramatic improvements in teaching, a few methods are floating to the top:
• 1:1 or Mobile Enablement.  Allowing students to interact electronically, wirelessly to a device (rather than a textbook or workbook), instantly changes everything.  Content can be modified on-the-fly, teachers can see (in real time) whether a student is absorbing the lesson, student engagement soars and the applications available to provide feedback to improve learning is growing.
• Flipped Classroom.  Let the kids learn lessons via multimedia sessions at home, and then help teach each other the next day.  Teachers facilitate learning.  Understanding is performed through collaboration - not lecturing.
• Blended Learning.  Turn the classroom into a "collaboration-room."  Let the students rotate in smaller groups, tackling learning together via curriculum built specifically for this purpose.

Once our schools realize they must change, the next steps are complex.  It's important to collaborate at a Superintendent /  Curriculum level with other schools.  Engage learning consultants.  Develop the technical infrastructure and a pervasive wireless environment - no matter what technology is chosen.

Let's make 2014 the last year of sending our children home with a five-pound textbook, a photocopied workbook from 1993, and expect them to memorize a list of facts without the assistance of multimedia.  What will that take?  Who will lead the vision?  What can you do to help?

The solution lies with all of us:  Educators, Administrators, Parents, Community-Members, and Personalized Learning organizations.

Mid-Year Planning - YES, It's time to do that!

Holly crap - it's the end of June 2013.  The year is half over.  It's almost unbelievable how fast the first half of any year goes, compared to the last six months (I wonder why that is).

Right about now, all salespeople on a calendar fiscal year are thinking one of three things:  
1)  "I am kicking ass and am either at or above my 6-month target/quota!"
2)  "I am in it deep.  If I don't get my crap together soon, there's no way in hell I'm going to hit my goal!"
3)  "What are you talking about?  What month is it?"

Actually, #1 or #2 are good things for you to be thinking.  The third one, however, is a real problem - and worst part about it, is that if you can't make a mental-shift to 1 or 2, you're in for a world of hurt.  Let's talk about five important things all salespeople should be doing at the half-way point in the year:

1. Did you plan your success (or failure) over the past 6 months?  Successful people (in any profession or with any goal), plan for their success.  They know what things needs to be done to achieve a specific result.  OK, I know I'm over-simplifying the complex reality of selling in the real world; however, I will argue with anyone, that if you evaluate your sales activity, pipeline, closing ratios and bookings, you should be able to modify your behavior and adjust accordingly.
2. Mid-Year is NOTHING!  Salespeople can push half a year's worth of work into 6-months.  Don't freak out.  Even if you've sold $0 so far this year, you can still kill it.  This is a mental game and you control your own destiny.  Today is the day for you to get more organized, become more efficient, be more productive, and change everything.
3. Every step in the right direction moves you closer to goal.  Do you have a $1M target?  Book that $5K deal and be loud and proud.  Sales is a funny little business.  When you book nothing, it gets you down.  When you book anything (even a small dollar amount), things look brighter and cheerier.  Get a deal, any deal and use that momentum to spiral you forward.
4. You need to work harder.  Sheer perspiration and perseverance goes a long way in sales.  If you haven't figured out the subtle nature of increased efficiency, tools and how to work smarter, it's time to simply ramp it up!  There's way more than eight hours in a day.  Get your ass up at 6AM, plan your day, and work until 10PM at night.  Do whatever you need to do.
5. It's not too late!  It's almost never too late (with some exceptions - if you've blown it for a year, it's unlikely your company will "restart" the engine with you).  If it's not too late for you - get it together.  Most companies will be patient as long as they see appointments, pipeline growth and (eventually) some bookings.  

Let's get busy.  It's only July.  Happy Selling.