Investing to Increase Sales Wins!

What if you could arm your sales executives with the right resources for each challenge posed by a customer/prospect or competitor?  What impact do you think having such a powerful “magic wand” would make on you or your team’s ability to win deals.  Conversely, how many deals do you think you might be able to rescue from the dreaded no decision?  One element of the formula is bringing the most relevant and impactful expertise, resources and materials to bear just as they are needed.  “Surviving in a Buyer’s World” outlines a great solution combining a knowledge management portal with effective sales coaching and leadership to produce a true weapon for your sales team.  The impact on sales productivity is potentially significant.  We all have seen the e-mails going around asking for a proposal, or competitive pricing information, or a slide.  What if it could be accessible in a moments notice at the client site?  What if there was a video of the VP of Product Mgmt. giving the pitch? Or a customer giving testimony to a successful deployment?  These types of nuggets can be the difference between winning and losing.  Why not have your best and brightest available anytime and anywhere?   As pointed out in the article, the key to success in such an initiative is to drive organizational commitment to developing and maintaining the arsenal and embedding it’s use in your sales process.

I believe in today’s environment, companies need to extend the tools and resources available to their sales teams further.  The negative external pressures on sales productivity may have never been greater and manifests itself in extended cycles and increased no decisions.  Tools that assist your sales team to increase there effectiveness and overall productivity should be actively considered as part of the success formula.   One such tool is a trigger event service.  At it simplest form, it could be setting up google alerts for news or events that signal a sales opportunity at a customer/prospect.  There are a number of services (g2, InsideView) that provide a more automated approach and include social networking capabilities to maximize a sales executive’s ability to be in the right place at the right time with a solution.

In conclusion, this is a time for investing in sales rep productivity to stem the tide of a challenging sales environment.  These investments will improve sales morale and demonstrate a commitment to their success.  Your organization will become much more market and customer focused as other organizations beyond sales take advantage of the intelligence created and deployed.

Holiday Season Focus, Discipline, and Leadership

This time of year is challenging for sales teams with a December fiscal year-end.  It’s no wonder leading software companies like MSFT and Salesforce.com end their fiscal year’s on different schedules!  That said, there are two dynamics that must be planned for.  

The first is closing crucial year-end deals.  If you haven’t already asked the question (“Is there any reason why we can’t conclude this transaction before Dec 23rd?) there is no time like the present.  In a perfect world, that question would have been answered already in the qualifying discussion related to your prospect’s purchasing process ( who? how? when?).  The answer to that question will have a direct impact on your forecast for December and Q4.  It is good practice to jointly build in a detailed timeline with your prospect to address the steps that need to be completed.  These include proposal modification, draft agreement submission, and availability of key resources including legal.  Well planned and executed sales processes will deliver your agreements on the 23rd. 

The second dynamic is your or your team’s January/Q1 pipeline.  It ’s easy for sales teams to spend an inordinate amount of time staring at the phone and fax machine “wishing” it to come to life with good news from your prospects.  It’s easy to get away from the on-going requirement and imperative of filling and managing the pipeline.  It is crucial for teams to maintain continued momentum and activity for January/Q1 deals.  This requires discipline, focus and leadership during a time that features a high degree of distraction and competing priorities.  Don’t fall or let your team fall into the trap of losing sight of next month and quarter.  There’s nothing better than having a good January pipeline enhanced by a few deals that didn’t make Q4.  The result is a solid January and a foundation for Q1 success.

Good luck!