I’ve been reading a number of different posts on the topic of “Who Should We Be Coaching?”  There seem to be a variety of views, most of which I struggle with.  Some say focus on the middle, suggesting the return on coaching time for both high performers and low performers is not high.  Some focus on the high performers and middle.  In general the low performers lose out.

I’m struggling with some of the ideas, these ideas, frankly, I think it’s the manager’s job to be coaching everyone.  This doesn’t mean each person requires the same amount of time in coaching.  Nor does it mean we have a cookie cutter approach to coaching everyone on the same thing.

Also, I think too many people tend to view things as relatively static.  If competitive sales practices stood still and we didn’t need to improve or innovate, then perhaps we could reduce our coaching for top performers.  But things are always changing, everyone needs coaching and development to continue to improve and innovate.  Without this, top performers soon become mediocre performers.  The bar on selling is continually being raised.  In fact a large part of our job as managers is raising that bar–continuing to innovate and improve, consequently, helping our people develop new capabilities, skills and coaching them in these improvement initiatives.

It seems to me, that coaching needs to focus on several areas for each person:

• Top performers:  No one is perfect, top performers, in fact, always look for the little edge or the little improvement.  Managers need to spend time helping these top performers discover these improvements.  The world of selling never stops–leveraging your top performers for constant improvement and innovation is an important aspect of coaching–managers should be leveraging top performers to help innovate and improve, taking what these top performers discover and leveraging this across the sales organization.  Finally, part of the manager’s job is to coach people not only in maximizing their performance today, but to maximize their potential contribution in the future.  Manager’s need to look at developing top performers to take greater responsibility–whether it is moving to a higher level as a sales person, moving into management, or moving into some other role.  Coaching is not just about today, but it is about preparing people for tomorrow.
• Mid-range performers:  There’s no argument here, we want to see continued improvement in the performance of our mid range performers.  Unlike our top performers, there is clearly a need to improve what they are doing today.  As managers, most of our time will be focused on performance in their current roles.  At the same time, we must also prepare them for the future–if the bar is being raised, we have to prepare these people to meet these new challenges.
• Low performers:  We can’t afford to ignore them, we can’t write them off.  As managers, we need to coach them—getting them to improve their performance, meeting our expectations.  Alternatively, we have to move them into a job where they can be a top performer (sometimes that’s moving them out of the company).  All of this is part of the manager’s role in coaching, doing nothing is not an option, that is if the manager is doing her job.

As managers, we are responsible for the performance of all our people.  We have to make sure each person is performing at the highest levels possible in their current roles, we have to prepare them to grow in their job and to grow in their ability to contribute to the company.  If we can’t get them to reach the levels of performance required, we have to move them into areas where they can perform.  All of this is part of what managers do in coaching.

I wish it were simpler, but they aren’t.  Managers have to coach everyone.  The time we invest has to be appropriate for what we are trying to achieve with each person.  We can’t “schedule 15 minutes of coaching” for each person–it doesn’t work that way.  What we coach each person on is different–we have to coach to maximum impact for each individual.

What do you think?  Am I missing something?

Related posts:

1. Sales Coaching, Dirty Secrets Or Misunderstanding What Coaching Is About?
2. Coaching And Being Coached
3. Do You Trust Yourself And Your People Enough To Let Go?

I’m shifting gears a little, today I’m focusing on a key sales management metric.  It’s important for sales people to understand this–it’s part of the way senior managers look at organizations and how they invest in the sales function, sales people should understand this.

The other shift, is this metric is more of a trailing measure, like sales and order performance.  In previous posts, I’ve spent more time looking at leading measures.

Cost Per Order Dollar (CPOD) is actually a number of measures, but they really look at the cost of selling.  Depending on your company, this may be based on orders–which is where the acronym comes from–or sales/revenue.  If there is a wide separation between orders and revenue, I track both, but find the order based measurement a little more meaningful from an operational point of view.

This measure is similar in concept to Cost Of Goods Sold (COGS), which is generally a representation of manufacturing expense as a percentage of sales (or orders).  CPOD is calculated by looking at Selling Expense/Total Orders(or Revenue).  Generally it’s expressed as a percent.  For example if the total cost of selling is $10M and the orders generated during that time were $100M, the CPOD would be 10%.

So now that you have the foundation for how this is measured, let’s dive into it a little more deeply.  I like to track Direct and Indirect CPOD.  Direct CPOD represents the cost of your sales people as a percent of the orders they generate.  This could be for your field sales force or your inside sales teams–if they deal directly with customers and generate orders.  The costs include all their salaries, commissions, benefits, travel, cars, computers, and related expenses.  It does not include the costs of the people and organizations that support the sales people–including their managers, sales operations teams, pre-sales support teams and other functions that may reside in the “sales organization” but are not directly involved in generating orders.  Indirect CPOD is the costs of all those functions divided by orders or revenue.

By tracking both, I understand the cost trend of the people directly accountable for orders and revenue, as well as the “overhead” costs.  Generally in looking at these measures, since they are trailing indicators, I track general trends–I want to make sure the sales function is affordable, plus it gives me a very rough indicator of productivity.

I tend to track the trailing quarter (what’s been the trend over the past 3 months) and the trailing 12 months.  I want to see it constant–or even better declining.  If I see Direct CPOD declining over time, it’s probably a good sign, it’s an indicator that sales productivity may be increasing. 

However, too often, we see it going the other direction–CPOD is increasing.  Now you’ll see why I track both Direct and Indirect.  If Indirect CPOD is increasing–it shows my overhead costs are rising–sometimes it justifiable–for example we may have invested in a major training program, which temporarily may increase Indirect CPOD.  But if it starts increasing on a consistent basis, I start to worry about why the overhead costs are increasing.  Generally, we want to run as lean as possible, so unexplained increases in Indirect CPOD may indicate some real problems.  If Direct CPOD is increasing, it means the productivity of the sales people is declining.  Expenses may not have increased–the line item on the budget may not have changed (or could have even decreased), but the amount of business being generated is declining.  This is really worrisome, it’s something we need to dive into and understand–we need to keep spending in sales at an affordable level.

Too often, managers just track the overall budget and spending.  They don’t separate the direct and indirect views to better isolate where the spending problem might be.  They don’t relate it to business volumes, so they may see expenses declining and think budget are OK–but orders may be declining at a faster rate.

These are trailing or historical figures.  If your pipelines are not looking good, you should expect Direct CPOD to be increasing–it should not be a surprise.  But a healthy pipeline may not mean your CPOD will be decreasing.

Sales managers always have to manage a budget are constantly looking at increases in sales productivity.  CPOD is probably one of the easiest measures for any manager to track.  It gives you a rough indicator on productivity trends and spending issues.

Related posts:

1. Performance Management Friday — Balanced Performance
2. Performance Management Friday — Getting Personal
3. Performance Management Friday — Average Transaction Value

“Rising Tides Float All Ships,”  a bit of an odd title, given the current economic uncertainty.  This term has been used to talk about the false sense of success many individual and  executives may have about their peersonal performance and that of their  organizations.

In great times, or robust growing markets, it’s hard to perform badly.   To some degree, regardless how sharp or well executed strategies are, how good your sales and marketing programs are, organizations may seem successful—even when they may not be performing as well as they could—or even when they are performing pretty poorly.

In bad markets, or poor economic times, what happens?  To some degree, the same thing happens.  We tend to compare our performance against others–our competitors and others.  We may cut back, reducing programs, spending, cutting back on people, matching our competition.  I read financial reports where executives speak of the belt tightening, but then go on to say, “Our entire industry is in a downturn.”  They may go on to make competitive comparisons, making sure to show that performance is comparable to the competition. 

In good times and bad, too often, we tend to hide behind comparisions with others.  In good times, with good results, we tend to think we are performing well if we match our competition.   In bad times, with declining results, we tend to think we are performing as well as could be expected, if we match our competition.

Industry data shows plummeting rates of sales people achieving quota. Earlier this year, CSO Insights reported roughly 52% of sales people were achieving quotas. I just saw an excerpt from an Aberdeen report, now suggesting only 38% of sales people are achieving quota, with only 26% in “laggard” companies.

Yet there seems to be no alarms–the tides are falling, all the ships are falling to lower levels, time to continue belt tightening and “toughing it out.”

But too often, we never look to see, “Are we performing at the very highest levels possible?”  In good times, too many tend to think the performance is a result of superb strategies and execution on the parts of sales and marketing.  We don’t assess performance to look at “should be be achieving more?”  We don’t confront the issue, “How can I make sure our organization is performing at it’s full potential?”

In bad times, we’re so busy surviing and making sure that we are no worse than competition, we don’t address the same issues, “should we be achieving more?”  “Is our organization performing at it’s full potential?”

It’s interesting, in both good and bad times, there are a small number of leading individuals and organizations–sales people and executives that think a little differently.  Executives who aren’t driven as much by competition, but who are driven by their own performance standards and expectations.  People who always are assessing themselves and their organizations, looking to improve, constantly redefining performance and success.

For those people and organizations, quota is less a goal, than something you pass on the way to attaining your goals.  The economy is not an excuse (good or bad), but something that has to be accounted for in developing and executing the best possible strategies.

These organizations defy the conventional wisdom of ‘Rising Tides Float All Ships.”   Somehow they don’t seem to be affected by the tides–or the impact of good/bad economies and markets is lessened for them.  They don’t let success blind them, they are constantly looking to improve performance.  They don’t let the economy be an excuse, but believe there are ways to outperform their own expectations.  They look outside for other views–independent assessments, other ideas.  They are disciplined in their analysis.  They experiment, try new things.  They are not afraid of failure, and learn from their failures.  They readily admit their own limitations, seeking to grow.  They don’t hide their mistakes, but learn from them and move forward.

Which category of sales person or sales leader do you fall into?  Are you rising and falling with the tide, or are you ignoring the tides and setting and achieving your own performance standards?

Related posts:

1. Are We UnderPerforming Our Potential?
2. Strategic Thinking, Getting The Big Picture
3. Sales Manager Or Individual Contributor?

The other day I received a call from a troubled CEO.  He ran a small company.  “My sales people aren’t producing results!  My sales manager is worthless!  Can you help me straighten this  out?”  After asking a few questions and probing a little further, I politely declined, I made some excuse and suggested he find someone else.

I didn’t take the project because as I spoke to him, I discovered the root problem was the CEO.  Yes, there was a problem with the people.  They didn’t have the skills, they didn’t have the attributes, there were a lot of problems.  Some appeared to be doing things that skirted some ethical and business practice issues.  Others were just plain lazy or sloppy.  Potentially 75% the sales team was wrong and should have been terminated.  The manager was all wrong as well.  He wasn’t doing what the owner expected, he wasn’t doing what he should have been doing.

There were a lot of problems with the sales organization.  It started with having the wrong people.  But I couldn’t help this CEO fix these problems.  He basically was the root problem–he had hired all the people, he had created the environment in which all these people operated.

The people we hire are a reflection of us and our companies.  They are a reflection of what we value, our culture, our operating style, what we think of our customers.  We tend to hire in our own image.  If we are hiring all the wrong people, what does that say about us and our company?  What does this say about what we think of our customers, or how we want them to be handled.

Too often, I see people complaining about their sales people, when the root problem is them.  It starts with bad hiring decisions, it continues with providing them poor leadership, not defining performance objectives, not managing performance, not taking action with problem performers.

When I see this problem, systematically, in an organization, while there may be problems with the sales people, the root problem is with management.

Are you hiring the people that will represent you and your company the way you want to be represented?

Are you setting the right performance expectations, providing the right tools, systems, processes, training?

Are you providing the leadership, coaching and developing people, making sure they are acting in a way that is consistent with your strategies, values, and culture?

Do you act on problem performers?

If you see lots of problems in your organization, the first place to look in fixing the problems is in the mirror.

Related posts:

1. A Frenzy Of Initiatives Is No Way To Improve Sales Performance!
2. What’s Your Approach To Managing Performance?
3. Why Do Sales Managers Exist?

Years ago, a manager used to tell us, “Your increases will become effective when you do.”  It was a funny way of reminding us our compensation was linked to our performance.  If we didn’t achieve our performance objectives, we couldn’t expect increases in our compensation.

We talk about accountability a lot, but we tend to gloss over the consequence sides of accountability.  Being accountable for our performance goals not only means we do everything possible to achieve them and that we have internalized and own them.  It also means we understand and accept the consequences of not achieving those goals.

Every week, I get emails and phone calls, usually from managers, about performance management.  “My sales people aren’t achieving their goals, what should I be doing?”  We go through the usual conversation, “What are the road blocks the are experiencing, what are you doing to remove those roadblocks, what are you doing to coach and develop their capabilities to perform?”

In a surprising number of cases, I find these aren’t the dominant issues.

They are simpler-yet more challenging.

• First, too many organizations don’t have well defined performance expectations.  Yes, they have a “quota,” but the quota tends to be more directional or aspirational, not something either the manager or the sales person really “own.”  There may be other performance management objectives, but again, there seems to be a softness around them.
• Second, people confuse effort and results.  Both managers and sales people talk about how busy people are, how they are trying hard.  Usually, these narratives include all sorts of excuses or rationalizations.  “The economy is bad, we got involved too late, our products aren’t a great fit, the competition was just buying the business.”  These are things that impact all of us–yet they don’t stand in the way of many.
• Third, the consequences part of accountability seems to be missing.  If someone continuously makes a great effort, but doesn’t achieve their performance objectives, then there have to be consequences to this, usually that’s termination.  But, too often, we see poor performers continue.  Too often, managers don’t step up to the accountability issues.

If managers don’t hold their people accountable, if there are no consequences to non-performance, then all the measures become meaningless.  People may try hard, they may put in the effort, but they don’t feel responsible for achieving the goals.

The consequences side about accountability is tough.  As managers we have to deal with difficult, possibly unpleasant issues.  Some managers are worried about their relationships with their people, some are uncomfortable with the confrontive nature of some of these discussions.

Some manager’s complain, “It’s too hard to fire someone in this company.”  Usually, that’s the sign of a bad manager.  The reason it’s hard to fire someone is the company has established a set of policies:  1.  Clear goals must be in place and the employee understands and owns them, 2.  People must be made aware of where they stand in their performance, 3.  Managers must coach and work with the people, doing everything they can to help them achieve their goals, 4. This must be done over a reasonable period of time, 5.  The person must clearly understand the consequences of not achieving their goals.  I hear too many managers complain about this difficult process.  I think to myself, “Isn’t this the manager’s job?”  I think, perhaps the performance problem is the manager, not the sales person.

These are the managers that implement a layoff–eliminating positions and people, not for performance reasons, but for whatever excuse they can come up with.  It’s cheating — the company, the laid off employee.  The laid off employee never really understands the performance issue, he or she goes off to find another job, without understanding the weakness or having the opportunity to improve it.  The company is saddled with a non performer, sometimes for months or years.  Months or years of not someone not contributing as expected.  Then the company is further saddled with the “package,” whatever is provided to people being laid off.

Firing someone should be tough.  We want to make sure we’ve done everything possible to correct the situation and to get people performing–but this is a manager’s job.  It’s not something that we do only when performance is off, it’s what we are responsible for doing everyday.  If a manager isn’t doing this, then he isn’t doing his job.

Sometimes, I see people and organizations who are not even at this point.  They don’t have performance measures in place.  Everyone want to do well, everyone want the company to grow, but there aren’t performance measures in place or they are directional and aspirational.

Performance management is critical.  We can’t manage performance without accountability.  Accountability means there are consequences and that everyone understands and owns these consequences.

Related posts:

1. Performance Management–Are You Looking The Other Way?
2. What’s Your Approach To Managing Performance?
3. Performance Management — The Measured Mile

As leaders and sales managers, a key aspect of our jobs is to manage performance.  I find lots of different approaches people use, but at the core the approaches tend to reflect two completely different views of performance.  (Stuart Cross has an interesting perspective, looking at 4 views–we’re actually not far apart, I’d encourage you to watch his short video on this.)

I find managers who are problem solving oriented and others who are developmental oriented.

The problem solving oriented manager is focused on today’s performance issues and addressing them.  They look for shortcomings in current performance—someone not making their number, a person not making the right number of calls, a person needing sales skills development, enabling them to close more business.  They focus on addressing today’s specific issues and crises.   Their goal is to find and eliminate today’s problems.

Some of these problem solving oriented managers are terrible in their approaches—they don’t coach, they tell.  They berate the individual, sometimes telling them to shape up or ship out.  Other problem solving oriented managers can be very good coaches.  They sit with their people, seek to understand the challenges people are having, and work to solve or eliminate problems.  They work with each person on their team, knocking off each problem as it comes up.

There’s another approach some managers take to performance management, it’s a developmental approach.  These managers take a slightly different perspective of performance management.  Their focuse is not just on today’s issues–though that provides a foundation, but rather on developing the person to achieve their full potential — both in their current role and in future roles.  They actively look to develop the capabilities of their people so they can step into bigger roles, take on more responsibility.  Managers focused on a developmental approach to performance management seek to avoid problems in the future.  They try to find ways of coaching the person, getting them to develop themselves, to stretch, to learn, to grow.

Developmental managers are not just concerned about their peoples’ performances today, they want to see them reach their full potential–contributing in greater ways to the organization and to their own attainment.  They have a proactive approach to performance management–not only focused on great performance today, but sustaining and improving that performance over time. 

What kind of manager are you?  How do you manage performance?  Do you focus on today’s problems and address only the performance issues of your people today?  Do you look at today, and tomorrow?  Do you help your people identify and avoid problems?  Are you focused on helping them achieve their full potential–both for themselves and for the organization?

Related posts:

1. Compensation Drives Sales Behavior? Is Compensation The Only Tool For Managing Sales Performance?
2. A Frenzy Of Initiatives Is No Way To Improve Sales Performance!
3. Performance Management–Are You Looking The Other Way?

I know, I know, this title will create a deluge of comments from sales people and others suggesting sales managers shouldn’t exist.  We’ll probably get variations of the 200 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean joke.   But I think many managers’ don’t really know what their job is–or may lose their way in the crush of every day crises.

Likewise, many sales people may not understand or leverage their managers appropriately

To my mind, the sole reason sales managers exist is to manage performance.  It’s to assure each person on their team is achieving the highest levels of performance and reaching their full potential.  It’s to assure their people can achieve their goals and objectives.   There is simply no other reason to have managers in place.

Often, though, it seems managers do very little of this.  Sometimes, they feel they need to be the “super sales person,” swooping in and closing deals.  Too many seem to get caught behind their desks, doing reports, spending endless hours managing the bureaucracy, or in internal meetings.  In fairness, they may be doing things they think are important, or things they think they need to do to survive, but lose sight of where they have their greatest impact.

The only way managers can get things done is through their people.  Managing performance, making sure their people are performing at the highest levels, removing obstacles to performance, providing tools to facilitate performance, correcting performance problems; represent the core responsibilities of managers.

The highest leverage use of management time is coaching their people.   Coaching isn’t a meeting we schedule once a week, month or quarter.  Coaching can’t be confused with the performance review.  Coaching is something we must do every day, with each person.  When we are going on a sales call, we use the opportunity before the call to coach and plan high impact calls.  We use the opportunity after the call to debrief and explore what went well, what could be improved.  When we are doing a pipeline review, we don’t only want to assure they have enough opportunities to make their number, but we want to coach–how can they improve win rates, how can they reduce cycle time, how can they increase transaction value, is there good balance–can it be improved, is there good flow, are things getting stuck.  Likewise with opportunities, how do we help them better understand and leverage the sales process, how do we help thm execute the process more sharply?

In addition to coaching, great managers do things to facilitate improve performance.  They make sure there is a strong sales process is in place, that their sales people understand how the sales process helps them improve their presonal performance, and they are executing the process as well as possible.  Managers also make sure their people have the skills, tools and resources to execute at the highest levels possible.

Managers remove the barriers to their sales people’s performance–some of those barriers are thing sales people inflict on themselves–coaching focuses on removing those barriers.  Some of the barriers are things the organization does–consciously or unconsciously.  Great managers fight for their people and remove those barriers–making it easier for their people to perform.

Making sure we have the right strategies in place, that our people understand and have internalized them is critical to performance.  Manager’s spend a lot of time developing these strategies, communicating, evangelizing, and coaching the people in the execution of these strategies.

Having the right people to achieve the goals, having people motivated to perform and grow is critical.  Managers must make sure they are hiring the right people, on-boarding them properly, enabling them to maximize their contributions is critical.

Performance management can’t be reduced to a formulaic approach.  Priorities are always shifting, where sales leaders invest their time must change, based on the need and the impact at the point in time.  If we start choosing to ignore part of the job, we’ll fail to maximize performance.  I think sometimes, inertia causes us to fall into bad habits, we focus on a couple of things, ignoring others.  It’s human nature, but it’s something we have to constantly guard against.  The balance is constantly shifting, we have to be alert to changes and focus where we can have the greatest impact.

The role of the sales manager is focused on performance management.  Everything else is a distraction.

Related posts:

1. High Performance Sales, 10 Things Sales Managers Must Worry About
2. Metrics–The Secret Weapon Of Sales Managers??
3. Should We Promote Our Best Sales People To Be Sales Managers?

Management is about making choices and setting priorities.  We have to choose to do somethings, choosing not to do others.  We have to set priorities and maintain focus.  Choosing everything, setting everything to a top priority, consciously or by default (otherwise known as piling on), is a sure path to failure.

Having said that, there are areas in confronting “either/or” choices where the only answer is, we have to do both.  There’s a great discussion on Focus that surfaces this issue.  It poses the question, “Should we focus on A players or strong lead management engines?”  I think the answer to that is you have to do both-one without the other is meaningless.

To often, I see people making inappropriate either/or decisions.  They invest in strong marketing programs, but don’t have the sales capacity to execute on the results produced by those programs. They invest in building a channel, but don’t provide channel management, channel marketing or other programs.   They invest in sales training, but fail to invest in the coaching, tools, processes, metrics to reinforce the training on an ongoing basis.  They develop and launch new products, but the sales people don’t know the target markets, don’t know how to find, qualify, and sell to those target customers.

In the end, inappropriate either/or decisions produce poor results—usually wasting money, resources, time, and opportunity.

In the Focus question, the best A players will under perform their potential if they don’t have enough quality leads.  Likewise, the strongest lead management engine is meaningless if the sales force is unskilled in following up those leads.  One without the other is waste.  Yet, everyday, we see managers making these decisions, isolating the issue from everything else, without understanding the interrelationships and critical success factors in achieving results.  In every decision or initiative, we need to step back, taking a holistic view of what we are trying to achieve, making sure all the elements are in place.

Managers need to have a holistic view of what they are trying to achieve.  They must balance every decision within what is affordable.  Often the tradeoff is not either or, but how much do we invest in each element to have a balanced approach?  Using the Focus question as an example, we might reduce some of the investment in developing a strong lead engine, using that funding to develop a smaller number of A players to exploit the leads that are developed.  Managers may have to choose doing nothing, if they can’t achieve balance between all the critical success factors.  For example, a manager might not choose to invest in a sales training program, if the managers are not prepared to coach and reinforce it, if the tools are not updated to reinforce the training.

Sometimes we free up resources by choosing to do less.  Rather than trying to execute too many initiatives at one time, under investing in the critical success factors for each; perhaps it is better to choose one initiative, making sure appropriate investments have been made in each element critical to the success of that initiative.

Effective leadership is about making tough choices.  It’s about understanding the interrelationships and critical success factors in each initiative—-balancing views of the whole with specific initiatives.  It’s simultaneously be viciously focused and balanced.

Look at the decisions you are about to make.  If you are viewing an initiative or investment in isolation, step back and make sure all the other elements critical to success are in place.  If you are making an either/or decision, inspect it to make sure you don’t need both.

Related posts:

1. We Have To Invest In Revenue Generation
2. Running Naked Through Your Funnel!

I’ve been reading a lot of articles, some from people who should know better, declaring the death of the funnel.  I have to admit, I get frustrated and tired with a lot of this talk.  But more importantly, I think it demonstrates a complete misunderstanding about what the funnel really is.

The funnel is simply a representation of a process.  People choose to label or represent the “funnel” in different ways.  I interchange the words pipeline and funnel, but mean the same thing.  Some times, I use the concepts of selling cycles or buying cycles.  Pictorially, it sometimes looks like a funnel with stages in the funnel (I guess that’s how you tell I’m a sales guy – because I draw those pictures).  Sometimes I represent it as a circular sequence of steps or stages.  Sometimes, it looks like a flow chart or a decision tree.

When I talk about the funnel, depending on the client or audience, it may have different steps/stages, and the labels of those stages may change.  For example with one customer I might call the proposal stage  “proposal,” (duhhh), with another I may call it “quote.”  Only because it helps convey the concept or the key objectives of that sub-process more effectively to that group of people.

Where I “start” my funnel  or “stop” it depends also on the audience and their perspective.  I prefer not to distinguish between a marketing funnel and a sales funnel.  It seems to me the processes must be integrated so, we should be talking about an integrated set of process flows.  But very often, I talk about a sales funnel, because the audience I am addressing are sales people and we are talking about the set of processes they focus on.  Equally often, I may talk about a buying funnel when I am focusing on understanding and aligning with a customer buying process.

But whatever words, whatever pictorial representation I choose.  The funnel is really a description of a process.  Everyone’s “funnel” will be different, because our processes for working with customers and their buying processes are different.

But all we are talking about is a way of expressing a set of processes.  It’s odd, when I read about the “funnel being dead.”  Often what the authors go on to explain is something that represents their version of a process with their usually trademarked label for the process.  Others just demonstrate their blissful ignorance, because they focus on the label, not understanding that it is a convenient way  for us to represent and talk about a set of processes.  These folks seem to understand neither the underlying process, it’s importance, or the principles driving those processes.

The processes of engaging communities, prospects and customers will be called various things.  The processes of communicating with them will be grouped in differing ways.  The processes of attracting new customers, retaining existing customers, helping them buy will have different labels.  As long as the we understand what those labels represent, they are convenient in facilitating the discussion. 

However, make no mistake, the most impactful discussions are about the process.  They are about how we tune and refine the processes to be as effective as possible.  They are about how we align those processes to have meaning, value and impact on our customer.  They are how we design our processes for inclusion.  They are about how we execute the processes with precision and how we measure our effectiveness in execution and the results we produce.

I have no interest in engaging in discussions about which label should dominate, I’ll choose whichever is expedient for the moment.  Labels are fundamentally unimportant.  The only meaningful conversations to me are about the processes underlying these labels.

Am I being too cranky?

Related posts:

1. Running Naked Through Your Funnel!
2. The Death Of Selling—Deja Vu All Over Again
3. How To Live A Life — Examples For Each Of Us

Fred Wilson’s Bored Of Directors post struck a chord with me.  It reminded me of the majority of management reviews I’ve seen.

I participate in 100′s of reviews every year—pipeline, deal, call, account, territory–all of them.  Somehow, they are all the same–someone’s standing up front, they have their PowerPoint’s–all in 10 point font, and they go through page after page of data, reporting on what has happened.  There are a couple of questions, a few sharp criticisms, then time has run out, the next victim is on deck.

These reviews to strike dread in each participant–sales people steeling themselves for management’s interrogation, hoping to finish it as soon as possible and get back to doing their jobs.  Management steeling themselves for the tedium.

All of them are the same.  Most are consumed with the sales person reporting.  For opportunities, it’s always, here’s what we’ve been doing, here’s who’s involved, this is the competition, this is our strategy, here’s the forecast, and we think this will close on this date—the manager asks a few obligatory questions, then they move to the next opportunity.  Same thing with pipeline reviews, what’s changed, are you going to make your forecast……

These meetings are such an enormous waste of time.  We can accomplish much more than simply reporting and reviewing what has happened.  The real value of the management review–for all participants is the discussion.  Focusing conversation less on what has happened, but drilling down and understanding why, figuring out what to do next, exploring options and alternatives, leveraging the time to coach and develop new skills.  The discussion is the real value of the management review, but we miss much of this opportunity because our time is consumed with reporting and talking about what has happened.

Part of the problem with this is we aren’t leveraging the tools that enable us to shift our focus from reporting to discussing.  A strong sales process is a cornerstone to structuring value based discussions.  Without a strong sales process that people are using–we have to spend a lot of time understanding what has happened–reporting.  Since there is no consistency, we don’t know what has happened.  With the process, we can quickly assess where we are, then focus on understanding what has really happened, exploring what we do about it.

Likewise, sales tools like CRM systems enable us to minimize reporting–if the system is used and kept updated, the fundamentals of the reporting we need are already done–we don’t have to spend the time regurgitating information that’s already in the system, instead focusing on the discussion of what it means and what actions need to be taken to achieve the goals we want.

Too often, the information is available, but we don’t use it.  The first time we look at the pipeline reports or the deal strategies until we are in the review meeting–so we waste our time and everyone else’s reviewing what we should have known at the start of the meeting.  Our lack of preparation means we waste a tremendous opportunity to focus on performance, winning, learning, and growth.  A client of mine changed this.  All materials were circulated before the meeting, participants were expected to have reviewed the materials before the meeting.  In the meeting, there was one chart–it was the discussion points for the meeting.  They shifted all the conversations from reporting to discussion.  People who were unprepared were invited to come back when they were prepared.  Productivity and results soared.  Meetings all of a sudden became valuable–and shorter.

Our time is too precious to waste on reporting.  Managers, sales people, team members get so much more value, we’re able to accomplish so much more in assuring we meet our goals.  We need to leverage our time in meetings for greater advantage.  Here some ideas for changing the reviews:

• Have a sales process in place, and make sure everyone is using it.
• Leverage the CRM and related tools that are in place, keep them updated, use the rich reporting capabilities each has.
• Review the reports and materials before the meeting, walk into the meeting prepared, make sure everyone in the meeting is prepared.  For those who aren’t invite them to return to the meeting when they are prepared.
• Monitor how you use the time in the meeting.  What percent of the time is spent in review, what percent is spent in discussion.  Some review is always necessary, it provides good context, but shoot for 25% review and 75% discussion.

Watch how results soar.  Watch how productivity increases.  Watch how the value of the review process skyrockets for everyone.

Related posts:

1. A Rant About Sales Reporting, Bureaucracy, and Paperwork!
2. Sales Management, It’s About Inspecting The Process, Not Transactions
3. Getting It Done Versus Doing It Right