There are a huge number of tools available to help sales professionals be more effective and efficient.  Properly used and implemented they can have a profound impact in improving sales performance.  At the same time, used improperly, the provide the potential of causing great problems or creating crap at the speed of light.  Every tool has the opportunity, properly used to have great impact or improperly used to have great negative impact.

Too often, however, it seems the implementation of the tool in itself, is the end rather than just a means.  People implement CRM thinking “because we have CRM, we have much greater insight into our customers, pipelines, opportunities, and so forth.”  Or implementing powerful research tools to provide great sales intelligence–without providing a foundation the sales people can intelligently use these tools.  Or providing great content and email marketing tools that are used to blindly inflict content on people who have no interest or desire to get that content.

 We too often forget about the fundamentals–the basic blocking and tackling, the foundations of sales effectiveness.  None of these tools replace the need for this, but the amplify the impact of the sales person using it.  A high performing sales person, executing a well defined sales process will get phenomenal benefit and create much more value using these tools.  They will be able to leverage their time and presence in ways they couldn’t without the tools.

We have to continue to focus on building a sound platform based on the fundamentals:  Do we have a well defined sales process aligned with the customer buying process?  Do we know how to develop and execute high impact sales strategies?  Do we have the knowledge and business acumen that enables sales professionals to connect with their customers discussing their issues, concerns or helping them discover new opportunities?  Do we understand what customers value, how we create, communicate, and deliver differentiated value?  Do we understand how to listen and really understand?  Do we have the ability to confront the customer–appropriately, to ask for money in exchange for value and to defend that value without resorting to discounting?  Do we understand how to manage our time, leveraging it for maximum impact?  Do we understand how to prospect and gain the attention and interest of people we may have never met?  Do we understand how to create, build and maintain relationships?  Do we understand how to trust and be trusted?  As managers, do we understand how to analyze performance, how to coach and develop people to achieve their full potential, how to measure performance and hold people accountable for that performance?

All of these are the foundations of high performance selling.  Implementing tools, whether they are CRM, sales intelligence, analytic, content management/delivery, presentation or other tools on this sound foundation can magnify the impact and effectiveness of the sales team.

Absent these foundations the tools can be harmful.  Not only do we waste time, resource,  money on tools that aren’t used, used well, or used properly.  But we run an even greater danger–used improperly they can have exactly the opposite affect.  They can alienate and create great distance with customers.  They can magnify poor strategies and stupid execution.  Recently, I encountered a sales person selling a marketing/lead development tool–his thoughtless use of the tool he was selling caused him to spam 1000′s of people.  My feedback to him was that his use of his tool made me certain that I would never use his tool and would actively recommend people avoid his company.  He didn’t seem to understand.  This week, I get prospecting calls from a person selling a tool that was to provide great insight into customers.  His first question was, “What does your company do?”  I get endless offers for content, newsletters for thing I never requested, things that I have no interest in. 

I talk to people who are considering the acquisition of very powerful tools.  I ask a few questions.  For example, powerful analytic tools–but are you asking the right questions?  The quality of the analytics is dependent on the quality of the question you are applying the analytics after–or the quality of the data being analyzed.  Bad questions, bad data give you terrible answers.  The greatest presentation, storytelling, whiteboarding tools are meaningless if your people do not understand the customer, what they value and how to create value.

I can’t imagine any high performing sales professional not leveraging these tools to their full potential!  They are very powerful.  But the tools are the means, not the end.  If you don’t have a strong foundation in place, they are worse than useless.  Before wasting time, resource, and money on these tools, make sure you are building on a strong foundation.

To be fair to my readers, this is a rant, if you aren’t prepared for my whining, you may want to forego this post.

It seems everything these days has to be a “collaboration.”  Rather selling our customers something, we look to collaborate or partner.  When we want something from someone else, it’s a collaboration.  In establishing a new relationship, we immediately want to collaborate.

I must field at least a dozen emails or phone calls, each week, with someone or some organization that wants to collaborate with my company.  When I respond to the call, I come to learn collaboration generally means:

• You are in a business that can really help me, it looks like your clients would be great for us, can you please give me leads and introductions to your clients.
• As you are out talking to people, would you please look for opportunities for us, and where appropriate give us an introduction.
• I have a great product I want that I think you will want to buy!

Not long ago, out of curiosity, I invested 30 minutes in a call with someone who saw great opportunity in a collaboration.  I looked at the website, I saw absolutely no connection between our organizations–what we did, what they did, our target markets–however, I decided to take the call.  (To be honest, I’d been mulling this post for some time, this call appeared to provide great fodder for the post).

Here’s some analysis of the call:

• The call lasted 28 minutes.
• During the call, I spoke a total of just less than 2 minutes.
• I was able to make 1 statement at the beginning of the call and able to ask 2 questions through the call, and make one observation 3/4 of the way through the call.
• During the remaining 26 minutes, the caller didn’t ask a single question.
• The caller spent time talking about what they did, wandered about key issues facing their prospects and why their services were important, and discussed what I could do to help his company (I guess this was the collaboration part).

At the end of the call, I politely thanked the person for the call, wished him luck and hung up.  You can guess what might happen in the “collaboration.”  Not only was this a terrible discussion for collaboration, it was one of the worst sales calls I have experienced.

I wish this call was the exception, unfortunately it isn’t.  Every collaboration email or phone call goes exactly like this.  (The calls don’t last longer than 90 seconds, I guess I had a bit of a sadistic motive in listening to this call for 30 minutes.)

Collaboration is something very different.  Collaboration involves deep alignment of goals, values, priorities and outcomes.  Successful collaboration requires Shared Vision, Shared Values, Shared Risks, Shared Resources, and Shared Rewards.  Each partner must be aligned across these dimensions for collaboration to  succeed.

Collaboration is tough.  Morten Hansen writes of internal collaborations, stating “bad collaboration is worse than no collaboration.”  He goes on to discuss the high failure rate of internal collaborations because the initiatives were not collaboration worthy.  In our research (and others) on external collaborations (partnering), we find 72% fail!

Collaboration can be very powerful, but it has to be right and purposeful to be successful.

If you want to collaborate (at least if you want to collaborate with my company):

• Make sure it is the BEST way for each of us to achieve our objectives.  Oh by the way, to make this assessment, it’s useful to know what my objectives are.  You have to ask me, you have to explore them with me, you have to develop a relationship with me.  Likewise, I have to do the same with you.
• Make sure we are aligned in our vision of what we are trying to achieve and our value system.  The former is obvious, the latter is critical because it reflects directly on the customer experience we want to create.  To do this, we have to invest time in each other, we have to develop a relationship, we have to understand each other’s vision, dreams, goals, and value systems.
• Be clear that we both have to invest and we both have to get a return.  Explore that explicitly; what are you going to invest, what do you expect me to invest–both in resources, people, funding, etc.  Make sure we are aligned in these investments.  Explore what each of us will get as a result of this collaboration.  Does the return meet my objectives?  Does it meet yours?  We don’t know unless we talk about it.
• Be clear about the risks, are they acceptable to each of us?  Do we understand them?  Do we have a process to manage them?
• Be clear about what might derail the relationship, talk about these explicitly, talk about the show stoppers, talk about how we will handle conflict, disagreement.
• Make sure we have a well defined process for managing the collaboration, keeping focused and on target.
• Make sure it’s important to each of us.  If it’s not important to me, I won’t invest in making it successful–not because I’m a bad guy, but because I focus on what’s important to me.  Likewise, I expect you to behave in a similar way.

If you want to sell me, then sell me.  Don’t mask your intentions in the collaboration cloak.  I know what your job is, I respect it, if it’s something that I think we may be interested in, something that creates value for me, then I welcome your efforts to sell me.  And, if you are successful, I may buy.  If you want to sell me, it’s always useful to know a little about me, what I want to do, what my problems are, so that you can position your solution in a context that means something to me.  You won’t sell me by not asking me a question.  You won’t sell me by not understanding what I do–or presuming you understand what we do without having asked.  You won’t sell me by pitching me.

I’m open to collaboration.  I’m open to being sold.  Make sure you know what you are trying to achieve if you want to engage me.  Be clear about this when you try to engage me.

Consider this—this approach not only works for me, it works for most other people and organizations, as well.  Try the same thing with them.  It might improve results.

Thanks for your patience with my rant.

Yesterday, I wrote about Value Creation.  One individual raised an interesting point in a discussion on LinkedIn.  He said his customers really value his approach in value creation.  They saw it as a differentiator and is was important in differentiating himself from others.  But he went on to say that he didn’t get the same positive response from new prospects.

This is a great issue, it’s one that impacts anyone who is “Challenging” their prospects.  I think the problem is that we have to “earn the right to Challenge or create Value.”

Challenging must have a foundation built on trust.  Absent that, it’s arrogance or insensitivity–even though you may be right.  Think about it, what’s new about approaching a prospect in a provocative way—ho hum, what’s new!  Everyday, customers and prospects are deluged with ever escalating volume (figuratively and literally) of “messages” or “pitches.”  They are bombarded with astounding offers and “miracle cures” from people they don’t know.

Think from the customer’s view, “Here’s this person I don’t know, someone who doesn’t know me.  They don’t know my business, they don’t know my priorities, they don’t understand what I am trying to achieve.  But they already have the answers?!?  They are already pushing me about how I need to change my business!”

Customers want to be heard.  They want to someone to listen to them, to understand.  Absent this Challenging is just another form of pitching–it becomes one size fits all, not an opportunity for the customer.  Too often, we see the “Challenger presentation,”  it’s the presentation marketing has carefully researched and constructed, the one that sales people have been trained in how to deliver, the one that’s provocative, interesting, but lacks any understanding of the customer.  It may be tuned to a “persona,” but customers are not personas, they’re people  (Don’t get me wrong, I believe in personas, but they are a starting point, not a destination.)

Customers want to understand your intent.  Barriers are high, rightfully so.  They’ve experienced too much from sales people just looking for an order.  They’ve seen too much “me thinking” from sales people.

Customers want to understand that you “know your stuff.”   More importantly, they want to know that you “know their stuff.”  They want to know that you really understand their business, that you really understand what they are trying to achieve and why.  They want to make sure that you are aligned with that, that you can bring ideas that will help them achieve their goals–or that you have a context in which to get them to think differently.

Customers want to know that you are trustworthy, we have to earn that trust.

Earning the customer’s trust doesn’t take a lot of time.  In fact, you start establishing trust through your very first interactions with the customer.  (Read my friend Charlie Green’s stuff–it’s fundamental to your success!)

Value Creation is critical!  Challenging our customers creates great breakthroughs!  However, before we challenge, before we create value, we have to first earn that right.

Have you earned the right?

Lori Richardson posed a very challenging question at Focus.com:  “What is your definition of a “sales influencer” in a B2B organization?”  I struggled with this for a while, all the natural answers came to me–it has to be the sales force, but we can’t forget marketing……

The more I thought of this, the more I became convinced that while that may be the current answer, it really shouldn’t be “the answer.”  The answer really needs to be everyone in the company.  Sales and marketing are really the last mile, or perhaps the most visible people within the organization, but we really need to create sales, or more importantly, customer focused cultures within our organizations.

We need to create cultures where everyone focuses on the customer and the customer experience.  We already know how sales and marketing are “sales” or “customer” influencers–sure we can always argue they need to get better, but I don’t think anyone would argue this.  But the issue is, they can’t be alone in the process!

The entire organization needs to be customer influencers, everyone has a role.  Product management, engineering, and development have to develop compelling products and services that captivate customers and help them more effectively build their businesses.  Manufacturing and operations need to build high quality products or deliver high quality services, shipping/delivering them on time.  Finance needs to create accurate invoices, they need to handle collection and billing issues in ways that enhance the relationship and are responsive to the customer, not just administering the company policies.  Likewise, legal needs to be perceived as adding value, not the business prevention department. 

No part of the organization is sheltered from influencing sales or the customer experience.  The customer experience starts with the first phone call, email or customer query.  It continues through the entire relationship–not just their buying experience.  Customer focused organizations know that everyone influences the customer experience and sales.  They make sure everyone understands their role, their cultures are rich in stories about customers and customer experience.  The voice of the customer is critical to every decision–in fact, every day in every facility the conversation is about the customer—and lots of those conversations are with customers who are visiting.  It seems these organizations revel in having customers visit, not just the briefing centers, but visiting and working with everyone in the organization.

Too often, too many organizations say the sales influencers must be sales, marketing, and perhaps customer service.  They wash their hands of the responsibility for the customer, thinking “That’s not my job.”

There’s another aspect to this issue, it’s the attitudes our organizations have about the customer.  Each of us has seen organizations with attitudes, “things would be great if those damn customers weren’t bothering us all the time.”  We hear conversations in which internal conversations talk about how unreasonable, how stupid, or what pain customers are.  We see people so pressured for performance and their specific goals that they forget their role in creating, growing and serving customers. 

These attitudes shape the way everyone works, the way they respond.  They can’t be “contained” within the organization, but are manifested in every interchange with people outside the organization–in the way they treat suppliers, in casual conversations with others in the industry, in overheard conversations in restaurants, on planes.  Disgruntled employees write letters to the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, or just complain to their friends and neighbors.  Gradually a perception and reputation is built.  Each of us can probably name a number of companies that we perceive to be customer unfriendly, even if we have never interacted with them, but only know them by reputation.

Sales, marketing, and customer service are just the point of the spear.  But they can’t stand alone, our organizations cannot exist without customers.

The question really isn’t “Who are the ‘sales influencers,’” but rather, “How do we make everyone in the organization a ‘sales influencer.’”

Recently, I’ve been reviewing a lot of closing presentations.  It’s been for a variety of companies, in different industries, giant and small, around the world. They are all resoundingly the same—and deficient.  They’re also a reflection of our sales strategies, so they are, to a degree a reflection of how we have positioned ourselves with the customer.

Here are some things I’ve observed:

They’re all about us: 

First, there are always 3-4 “corporate glamor” pages.  These are the pages that brag about our companies.  They’re filled with how big we are, how many employees.  There is always at least one page filled with corporate logos–people who are our customers (As a side note–look at the competition’s glamor pages and they list the same customers–so what’s going on?).  They talk about our market leadership and the awards we’ve gotten.

Frankly, these are meaningless to the customer.  We wouldn’t be doing a final presentation if the customer didn’t think we were a credible supplier.  Customers don’t have the time and resources to evaluate any solution where they have any question about the organization’s capabilities to support them.  All those corporate logos don’t mean much to the customer.  IBM’s, Bank of America, GM’s, AT&T’s problems and goals are different than the customer’s.

They’re all about our products:

The presentations go into ad nauseum detail about our products.  It seems we can’t leave a single feature or function out.  We have to talk about everything the product does–even though it may not be relevant to what the customer is trying to achieve.  It’s as if we want the customer to do a feature-function count, selecting the supplier with the longest list.

They’re all about us:

From a pure format point of view, we slap our company name and logo on every single page of the presentation.  Every once in a while, we might also talk about a customer.  In one presentation I reviewed, the customer’s name was mentioned 3 times in the overall presentation–on the cover page, on the final page, and buried in another page.  These presentations focus on what our solution does, and why it’s wonderful, but not about the customer.

Imagine a closing presentation that is only about the customer.  Imagine talking about what the customer wants to achieve, the things that stand in the way of their ability to achieve their goals, how they can eliminate those barriers, and what will happen when they achieve the goals.  Imagine removing any fear they might have about their ability to accomplish the task, perhaps by showing a well constructed project plan, identifying the risks, critical success factors, schedules, and so forth.  Imagine describing to the customer, what you will do to accelerate the process, to help manage and remove the risk, and to help them achieve their goals.

Imagine doing this without any corporate glamor charts–they’ve already invited you to the party.  Imagine doing this without even talking about the product/service–after all, it’s just a vehicle by which the customer achieves their goals.

Imagine transforming the presentation about what we can do to a discussion of how we will accomplish this together.  Imagine changing it from a presentation, to a collaborative discussion about the customer’s future.

Imagine doing this not only in the final presentation, but engaging the customer in this manner through their entire buying process.

Which do you think has more impact?  Which do you think will engage the customer more effectively?  Which do you think will help you win?

Differentiation is critical to sales.  It sets us apart, enabling our customers to distinguish between alternatives.   In the absence of differentiation, it becomes difficult to win—often the differentiator is the price.

Differentiation is increasingly difficult.  Products increasingly look the same.  Any alternative the customer is considering will probably do the job.  There may be small differences in features, functions, capabilities–but these are wiped out with the next new release of a product from our competition.

Company reputation—it’s size, strength, position in the market, and other things may be differentiators.  But in today’s world of buying, it may not be.  When customers develop a short list of alternatives to consider, largely any alternative will satisfy them–so company reputation has probably been neutralized by this point.

Don’t get me wrong, all the things we have thought of as differentiators in the past are important–strong, compelling products, quality, great company reputation, strong awareness and visibility.  These are the things critical to get into consideration and to earn the right to be shortlisted.

But if those are table stakes, where do we differentiate ourselves?  How do we avoid falling back on pricing as a differentiator?

What we do is the ultimate differentiation!

Let me repeat with emphasis, What We Do is the ultimate differentiation!  It’s not what we say or what we claim–it’s what we do.

What we do is critical to differentiation and winning.  How we engage the customer, how we work with the customer–whether challenging, facilitating their decision making processes, or proving ourselves trustworthy; it’s what we do that sets us apart.

What we do delivers on what we say or claim.

What we do is the active demonstration of what we stand for.

What we do is the manifestation of our customer experience.

What we do puts substance behind all our marketing, all our positioning, all our claims and promises.

What we do creates our reputation–personally and as organization.

What we do has nothing to do with a sales or marketing program.  It is not a strategic initiative.  It’s composed of the little things.  Showing up to a meeting on time–prepared.  Being genuinely interested in customers and what they are trying to achieve, demonstrating that through thoughtful, perhaps provocative conversations.  It’s delivering on our commitments–both before the sale and after the sale.

We are constantly being evaluated and judged–by our customers, our peers, our managers, our community.  In a world where differentiation is critical, where setting ourselves apart–distinguishing ourselves, our performance, out solutions, our companies–what we do is our differentiation.

What we do differentiates us, both positively and negatively.  If what we do doesn’t align with what we’ve said; if what we do is to fail to meet our commitments; if what we do doesn’t match with the expectation we have created; then we will lose.

What are you doing?  Is it helping you or hurting you?

I was reviewing a sales situation with a client earlier today.  The sales person had done a fantastic job in managing the sales process.  He had dealt with all the stakeholders, the competitors had presented their case, the advantages for my customer were compelling.  Everyone was recommending my client’s solution.  Everything was in the hands of the decision-maker—and it’s been that way for a month.

The decision-maker just isn’t making a decision.  We’ve looked at all the issues–the business case is very strong–so good that every week the decision is deferred, the customer continues to lose a lot of money—so there is a clear financial/business incentive to make a decision.  All the implementation risks, all the gotcha’s have been addressed–both by my client and by the competition.

My client has checked with the decision-maker’s management—the ball—the decision is clearly with the decision-maker.  Yet a decision isn’t being made.  The sales person has asked, “Is there anything else you need to understand, are there any issues we need to address.”  Usually the response is about detailed questions about the capability–more “how will this work,” or validating what has already been communicated, but none of it having to do with making a selection.  All the change and change management issues/fears have been addressed–there is nothing more.

This case is actually not very unusual.  Some people have great difficulty making a decision.  They may be very analytic or risk averse–always looking for more data on which to make a decision, and never comfortable that they have enough.  They are looking to eliminate all uncertainty and risk, making the perfect decision.  There is never enough data to present—they are always worried they have missed something—there is always just one more thing–they don’t know what it is, but they fear they have missed something.

Some people have difficulty making decisions because they may make someone unhappy.  In building consensus with their buying team compromises have been made.  Some people may not be as “happy” as others.  Some decision-makers are uncomfortable about this.  They may even be uncomfortable making a selection of vendors–having to tell someone “no.”

We’ve reached a point–all the selling is over–there is nothing more to do, there is no more information, no adjustments of the offer or pricing, nothing more we–or the competition to say.  Sometimes it gets to the customer just has to decide–but they can’t.

This is one of the most difficult situations for sales people to deal with.  We keep looking for more–because the customer seems to be looking for more, when in reality there is nothing more that can be provided.  Too often, when we face this situation–we keep looking for more, we keep trying to persuade, we keep trying to offer more proofs. This just feeds their insecurity and doesn’t move them to making a decision.

Ideally, in the selling process, a compelling event or deadline by which a decision must be made forces the decision.  This is the best case–it’s why as sales people, very early in the process we need to help the customer establish an immovable deadline.

However, as clever as we may be, it’s just not possible to do that.  People can continue living in great “pain,” foregoing opportunities to improve or save–simply because they are afraid to decide.

At this point, it’s probably best to have a heart to heart with the decision-maker–not about the superiority of our solution, the value they will get–they already know that.  The discussion has to be about the decision itself.  Sometimes it’s a matter of acknowledging their fear and uncertainty.  We may need to reassure them in some way.  Sometimes, it’s helping them understand where they are in the process–getting them to see they are at the end–there is nothing more that can be said or done, there are no unresolved issues, that the only thing left to be done is making a decision.

At some point, all the selling is over, and you just have to tell the customer, “You have to decide, there is nothing more that we can do.”

My post yesterday, The Secret To Sales Success, stirred up a twitter discussion about whether there is a Selling Process or if everything is about the Buying Process.  Since I have a hard time saying my name in 140 characters, I thought I’d move the discussion to the blog, and hope the folks tweeting could follow the discussion here with comments.

Let me step back a little.  Years ago, we sales professionals had the arrogance to focus only on the Sales Process.  Everything was about the steps and activities we went through to move the customer through our pipelines and get them to order.  Sure, the process involved lots of activities with the customer, demonstrating our value, answering their questions, producing solutions to their problems, but is was largely driven by a self centeredness about ourselves and what we had to do.

In the past 5-7 years, our customers have given the sales profession a giant wake up call.  They said, “Guess what, we don’t care about your stinkin’ sales process, all we care about is our buying process!  You better get on board!”  We started recognizing that customers had a whole set of activities and issues they were going through to make buying decisions. 

We also recognized that too often, our selling activities were not in alignment with the customer buying activities.  We discovered the more out of alignment we were the less effective we were as sales people.  Take for example an extreme case (which still happens too often), where the customer is still determining their needs and priorities, and the sales person keeps asking for the order.  That sales person needs to be thrown out.  So effective sales people start aligning their selling activities and processes with the customer buying activities and processes.

More recently, astute sellers have discovered that many customers don’t know how to buy.  Unless they are procurement professionals, most B2B “buyers” have very little experience in buying–that’s not their job, they run a function or an operation or do something that doesn’t involve buying every day.  Think, for example, how many times in her career is a CFO going to purchase a new financial reporting system?  Probably a handful of times.  Or an EVP of Sale buying a new CRM system, again probably a handful of times.

So astute sellers realize they can bring the customer a lot of value by helping them buy–or facilitating their buying process.

So the sales profession has made great strides in recognizing  that it’s not just the Sales Process.  We’ve recognized there is a customer Buying Process and we need to be both aligned and deeply engaged in that process if we are to be effective.

But is everything about the customer Buying Process and has that displaced the need for a Sales/Selling Process?  I still think they are separate things.  While aligned and overlapping significantly, there are differences.  For example, in good sales processes, there are things that may be totally disconnected with the customer buying process.  For example, an assessment of “Is this good business for us–does it fit, do we want to chase it?”  Customers may want us engaged in their buying activity, but it might not be good for us.  This is an independent activity or assessment that needs to be part of any selling process.  There are also activities that we undertake in the selling process to align and engage our own resources to effectively engage the customer that are not part of the customer buying process.

More importantly, the sales process should be based on our best practices of engaging customers in their buying processes.  We want to be as effective and efficient as possible, our customers want us to be as effective and efficient as possible.  So our selling process has to be based on our best practices and experiences in engaging customers as they buy.  And our best practices in doing this will be different than our competitors!  (And that difference also creates great value and choice for our customers as they buy).

We cannot own the customer’s buying process–it is theirs!  It is based on the things they need to do to organize themselve to buy, to make a buying decision, and to manage all the things they need to get done within their organization to make a decision and implement it.  Great sales people will do everything they can to help and support the customer with those activities.  They will do everything they can to influence the customer to buy their solution while facilitating the customer buying process.  But in the end, it is the customer’s buying process and their responsibility.

We have our Sales Process.  They customer has their Buying Process.  Both must co-exist, they must overlap, they must be executed synchronously (and the sales person has the responsibility to manage that).  As sales people we must facilitate the customer in their buying.  But they are different.  We need our Sales Process (sure we can wordsmith it and label it a customer buying process–but it really is our selling process.).  Our customers need their Buying Process.  We must work collaboratively to accomplish our shared goal–which is solving the customer’s problem.

The rise of “Big Data,” rich analytics and other capabilities enables sales and marketing professionals to engage the customer in very different ways.  They also provide tools to provide more data driven insight in our deals and proposals to customers.  Having  business justified solutions is important to creating value to customers.

But I worry the pendulum is swinging too far to the analytics and data side.  Sales is not “just about the facts.”  Our customers have fears, uncertainties, concerns.  Our customers are people and history tells us too many decisions are made for emotional reasons, later supported by the data.

As sales professionals, we both fail to serve our customers and we lose opportunity by not addressing the “total decision making process.”  We have to address both the data and facts, we have to address the emotions and fears.

Too often, sales people fail to do this.  Part of it is we’re trained not to look at the emotional side.  All our work on value propositions, all the current literature, even what our customers tell us steer us to presenting facts, data, and analysis.  We’re uncomfortable about talking, questioning, and probing the emotional and personal side of what the customer is concerned about.

I think there’s another element to this.  The really great sales people I meet really care–it comes through loud and clear in every communication with the customer.  Success to them is not just another order.  It’s not just helping the customer achieve their numbers.  Great sales people care for their customers–as enterprises, but more importantly as people.  They want to see their customers succeed.  They are driven by genuine interest in their customers.

Customers “get it,” and respond.  Customers aren’t looking for just a transaction–even if it is just a transaction.

Sales is about people doing business with people.  We can’t lose sight of this.

I’ve been reading a lot of different stuff about coaching recently.  It’s good to see the different points of view, I learn something from each of them.  But in the end, sometimes I wonder if we are taking something that is already very tough and making it more complicated than it need be.

I read endless debates about who we should spend our time with, A’s, B’s, or C’s.  Everyone has a different view.  Some people even try to measure the optimal time spent coaching each person each week—it’s 15.23675899 minutes per person per week–OK I made that up, but you can find similar statistics in various posts.

There are lots of discussions about coaching approaches–directive, non-directive, and so forth.  Actually, I think these are very important discussions because they focus on maximizing the impact of each coaching discussion.  But some of them take the approach too far and are too formulaic, “use these words, with this emphasis, at this moment…”

In the end I’m more confused than I started (and I’m actually a pretty good coach).

I guess I subscribe to the KISS approach–Keep It Simple Stupid.  I like it because I can really relate with the Stupid part.

Here are some principles that have worked on me and for me.  Some will be helpful to you–by all means adapt them (send me royalty checks), for those that aren’t don’t worry about them.

1. The manager’s job is to get thing done through their people.  The only way we achieve our goals is through our people.  Our job then becomes maximizing the performance of our people.  Virtually everything else that manager’s do is supportive of this primary function.
2. If our job is to maximize the performance of our people, then coaching is the highest impact activity that we can engage in.  Sure there are things that help–training, systems, tools.  But coaching is where we as managers maximize our impact.
3. Everybody needs coaching–EVERYBODY, even you.  Make sure your manager is coaching you.  Coach the people who report to you, make sure everyone is coached.
4. Now for the first contradictory guideline.  This is in direct violation to 3.  Don’t waste your time on people who aren’t willing to be coached.  In fact, go one step further, get rid of them.  People who are willing to be coached aren’t willing to grow and improve.  Even if they are top performers today, tomorrow they’ll be dinosaurs.
5. Now we’ve reduced this to a simpler problem and we can re-invoke item 3, everyone needs to be coached.
6. Go where the problems are!  We tell our sales people to go where the money is, so likewise, if we want to maximize performance, go where the problems are.  This means we probably have greater impact by working with our C’s and B’s.  (But remember rule 3–and I’ll come back to A’s).
7. Spend whatever time it takes and is appropriate for the situation.  Sometimes great coaching is one or two questions/observations expressed in a casual hallway conversation.  There is no quota for coaching, 15.23675899 minutes per person per week is not the answer or the goal.  Having an impact on performance is the goal.  Do you coach A’s for 12.5267 minutes, B’s for 15.23675899 minutes and C’s for 4.237 minutes?  No, spend the time you have to–after all it’s the best way to use your time.
8. Every conversation and discussion is a coaching opportunity.  After a meeting, you have coaching opportunities, in a pipeline review, in a territory review, windshield time, in the hallway or drinking a cup of coffee (substitute the beverage of your choice).  We don’t schedule coaching sessions or meetings, we look for every conversation and interaction as an opportunity to coach.
9. Timeliness is key.  Coach when you see something happen if you want to have an impact.  Recalling that sales call 30 days ago where someone could have done something differently is a waste of everyone’s time.
10. In looking at 8 and 9, everyone needs coaching, everyone can sharpen their performance–so don’t forget your A’s.
11. Sometimes your best coaching for low performers is coaching them to move into a role where they can maximize their performance, where they can become A’s or B’s.  It may be a different sales role in the organization, it may be with another company.  C’s and low performers can’t be ignored.  You have to deal with them and you deal with them by coaching–improving their performance in their current jobs, or moving them into other roles–it’s part of what coaching is.
12. Here’s one for everyone, but it’s a way to really rocket A performers to even higher levels of contribution.  Remember you aren’t just maximizing current performance on the job, you are also maximizing the ability for them to achieve their full potential–maximizing their contribution over time to the company.  For example, you may be coaching some of your better performers to prepare them to step up to greater levels of responsibility–perhaps broader or different sales responsibilities, perhaps moving into management.  So we coach for both current performance and future performance.
13. When coaching, ask more questions than tell, listen more than you talk, probe and understand before leaping to conclusions, understand their point of view, be prepared to admit you are wrong.  Get them to think, get them to explore.
14. Here’s the second exception, sometimes the most appropriate coaching might be, “You really screwed that one up!”  In the right situation it is very powerful.  Sometimes telling is right–I’ll leave you to figure that out (or you can hire me to tell you).
15. Be human–no one is perfect, no one has all the answers. Sometimes shit happens.  Laugh!
16. Set an example, sometimes the best coaching is what they see you doing — and not doing.
17. Realize and revel in opportunities where your people may, in fact, be coaching you.  It’s subtle, it’s to be treasured.  It means they care.
18. The corollary to 17 is you have to care!  You have to care about your people as people, you have to care about their success.  If you don’t, you have no business being a manager, and you will never be successful as a coach.
19. Above all KISS.

 (If this isn’t enough for you, email me for our Coaching eBook., I’ll be glad to send it.  Just give me your full name and email address, send the request to me at dabrock@excellenc.com)