The Sales Leadership Blog

Improving Sales Performance Management

Here's a great post on sales performance management. Matt from Zallas Technologies writes:

"By nature sales organizations are revenue and numbers focused. Whether or not these organizations achieve their numbers depends, in large part, on how well they manage and leverage their human capital – their sales people.

Performance management, when designed and executed effectively in sales organizations, boosts sales productivity and helps retain sales talent. Below are seven best practices for implementing performance management in sales organizations. How does your organization stack up?"

He then goes on to share Seven Tips for Effective Sales Performance Management.

International Sales Leadership Association Launch

A new resource is available for sales leaders: the International Sales Leadership Association or ISLA for short. The official launch event took place on Wednesday, September 20th in Vancouver, BC in Canada at the False Creek Yacht Club. The room was filled with Chief Sales Officers, Directors of Sales and Vice-Presidents of Sales interested in a new organization focused on the challenges and opportunities faced by sales leaders.

Speaking on leadership and inspiration, the event's speaker, Ryan Walter, captivated the audience with lessons he learned as a professional athlete and Stanley Cup winner. Now a successful author and speaker, Ryan shared insights into what he calls the "hungry spirit". Having presented to hundreds of companies and organization, his message was inspirational and thought provoking for the sales leaders present.

Founded by Ian Selbie, CEO of Conselleo, ISLA was launched to offer an environment for sales leaders free from promotion. Many sales associations are oriented toward sales professionals and not necessarily toward sales leaders responsible for an organization's entire sales force.

Additional chapters are launching soon in Seattle, WA and Sacramento, CA. As the Sacramento Chapter Director, sales leaders can contact Rick Cooper at RickCooper@Conselleo.com for more details. The association appeals to sales leaders who want a peer group to share challenges and advice. With only 8 meetings a year and a Chapter Director responsible for scheduling meetings and coordinating the speaker program, there is a minimal commitment to participate other than showing up and sharing advice at meetings. The last thing a sales leaders needs is another responsibility to handle. Members will rotate the role of hosting meetings in their boardroom.

Additional details are available at the association website: http://www.islaglobal.com

Leaders are Readers

Sales leaders stay on top of developments in the field by reading books, magazines and blogs. They attend conferences and events. They participate in roundtable groups that provide a forum for sharing ideas with other sales leaders. What are you doing to further your development as a sales leader?

Technorati Profile

The Role of Stories During a Sales Call

A sales call is a valuable opportunity to build rapport with a prospective client. This is especially true during face to face meetings. One of the best ways to make a point during a sales call is to tell a story. Facts can get boring after awhile. But a good story can motivate and inspire.

To be effective, a good story should be true and should illustrate a point. Your sales reps should practice stories, particularly where they were not specifically involved. Stories should not sound scripted and should have a certain amount of drama. Be specific and allow the listener to invest themselves into the characters. Then, they will better appreciate the outcome of the story.

This is a great exercise for your sales managers to utilize during their sales team meetings. Team up in groups of two to share stories. Sales reps should critique each other and the best stories should be shared with the group. Sales reps should be prepared to answer questions about the story or provide a reference if asked.

In his blog, Understanding your Sales Force, Dave Kurlan writes:

"When you get your salespeople using stories effectively, they'll get more prospects to understand your value proposition."

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a good story is priceless.

Photo Credit: Microsoft Office Online Clip Art

Coaching your Sales Organization on Company Life Cycles

What characteristics do you look for in identifying prospects? An often overlooked factor is the company life cycle. Companies fit into one of four categories based on their longevity, market share and competition.

Lori Richardson describes four modes: Change, Growth, Happy and Proud and finally Stagnant. She recommends focusing on companies in Change mode. She writes, "these are companies that need to enhance, alter, or improve in some way due to their circumstances."

Coach your sales organization on understanding the company life cycle and considering using it as one of your qualifying questions.

Sales Forecasting Assumptions

When it comes to sales forecasting, you need to combine some hard science with a little magic to produce a set of numbers you can live by. Ed Sim, posting on BeyondVC, offers a few simple assumptions on what he likes to see drive the sales forecast:

1. Number of sales people
2. Quota per sales person (usually overassign 10-15%)
3. Average Selling Price (ASP)-in today's market, you may see a small pilot deal followed 3 months later with a much larger sale (model this appropriately). If you take 2/3, you get an approximate # of deals you expect each sales person to close annually
4. Sales cycle-how long does it take to close a deal
5. Time for a sales person to be productive (usually around 4-6 months depending on maturity of product and market)
6. Lead generation-how many new leads per month and what % becomes qualified leads

What assumptions do you use in creating your sales forecast? Are you consistent from year to year, or does your approach vary? How accurate is your sales pipeline? Sales leaders hit their numbers. They are ambitious, but conservative. They follow a consistent sales methodology. Do you?

Launching the Sales Leadership Blog

If you're looking for strategies and advice on how to increase your sales revenues, you've come to the right place. Each week, The Sales Leadership Blog will bring you tips, hints and strategies for revving up your revenues. We'll share links to valuable resources that will help solve sales situations. You'll learn how to create strategic value, sell to the C-Suite and build powerful reference accounts.

Are you a Chief Sales Officer (CSO), Director of Sales or Vice-President of Sales? You'll find information to help develop your Sales Leadership skills.

We'll focus primarily on B2B sales, but you'll find information that applies to B2C sales as well. Please bookmark The Sales Leadership Blog and visit often.

Rick Cooper
Partner, Conselleo