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)

Related posts:

1. Who Should We Be Coaching?
2. Coaching And Being Coached
3. Initial Thoughts On Coaching Approaches

Sales management is one of the toughest jobs around—particularly that of the first line sales manager.  Fundamentally, our job is to maximize the performance of our sales teams–both tactically and strategically.  I read a post, How the VP of Sales can Inspire their Sales Team with 4 Simple Habits.  It got me reflecting on how managers maximize their impact, and where managers should spend their time, not just the Vice President of Sales, but all levels of sales management.

The post offers some interesting suggestions, frankly a number of them I disagree with very strongly.  Let’s start with the areas in which we are in real alignment.

The biggest impact a sales manager at any level can have is by being out with their people in front of customers.  Yet too often, exactly the opposite thing happens–managers spend too much of their time internally focused.  They are chained to their desks, conducting internal meetings, conducting internal reviews, spending time reporting on what’s going on.  Some of this is necessary-we need to communicate to the rest of the organization, we need to get resources and support for our people, we need to get help for our customers.  But too often, managers are consumed with this.  They stop visiting customers, they stop visiting their people.

Being chained to the desk, being focused on reporting, staying internally focused on internal politics do not produce revenue or improve the capabilities of sales people.

Without a doubt, the number 1 and the number 1 priorities of sales managers are Customers and Your People!  If the majority of your time isn’t spent in the field working with your people and visiting your customers, you are prioritizing things incorrectly.  Nothing trumps spending your time here–period.  A number of years ago, I was EVP of Sales for a large organization.   I was scheduled to do a presentation at our Board of Directors.  It was an “important” presentation.  As the day approached, a critical customer situation arose.  It was clear that my involvement was needed and, unfortunately, the only time available with the customer conflicted with my ability to present to the Board.  The decision was easy for me–I conveyed my apologies to my boss, the CEO, and to the Board Members, saying Customers and this situation were more important.  Fortunately, my boss and the board applauded that decision–and we did get the order.

So managers need to prioritize time with customers and with their people.  We need to unchain ourselves from our desks and spend the majority of our time in the field.  Take a moment right now and look at your calendar for the past 30 days.  If you haven’t spent a minimum of 50 percent of your time in the field with your people and with customers, you’re not maximizing your impact.

Now once we’ve committed to spend our time in the field, where do we have the most impact?  This is where I think the article is dead wrong.  It suggests that managers spend the bulk of their time with A players and calling on their customers.  I don’t want to ignore the A players, but this is not where the problems are, this is not where managers have the most impact—both in driving performance of sales people and in contributing to closing business.  By definition, the A players really don’t need your help, so it’s irresponsible to focus the bulk of our time with them, unless all you want is “feel good” meetings.

Where we as managers have the greatest impact and leverage is with our B and even C players.  Maximizing the performance of that huge middle range of our people—the B players has the highest return on a manager’s time.  Working with them, we have so much more impact, so much greater room for helping them improve.  Likewise, the impact we have working with them, on their deals, helping strengthen their competitive positioning and moving the deal through the customer’s buying cycle.  (For a different perspective the value of focusing on your B players, look at what the authors of Challenger Selling have to say.)

It may be more fun hanging out with A players and their customers, but that’s not our job as sales managers.  Our job is to maximize the performance of our organization.  We have to invest our time where it has greatest impact, and frankly where we’re needed.  By  definition, it won’t be with our top performers.

This doesn’t say we ignore our C players either.  Our job is to maximize performance, this includes dealing with performance problems.  Coaching our C players–either getting them to be B’s or A’s, moving them into roles where they can be B’s or A’s (and that may be out of the company) is our responsibility as managers.

Whatever level of manager you are, spend your time where you have the greatest impact–it’s always with customers and sales people.  Once you get out to the field, don’t hide out–head straight for the people and customers where you can bring the greatest value and impact, and where you are most needed.  Don’t ignore your A players or your great customers, but they don’t really need you as much.  It’s your B and C players that need you and your attention.  It’s the tough customers where you can help both your people and the customers the most.

Serve your people, serve your customers, the rest takes care of itself.

Related posts:

1. Sales Is Changing, Are You Maximizing Your Impact?
2. Performance Management And Accountability
3. Performance Management Friday — Sales/Management Alignment

One of the things I love the most about sales people is the eternal optimism.  It really takes a tremendously positive outlook to be a great sales person.  After all, we face rejection every day.  We face challenges and obstacles in every situation.  Some are challenges come from changing customer expectations. We always face market and competitive challenges.  Sometimes we face challenges from within our own companies.

It requires tremendous resilience and optimism to succeed in selling.

But sometimes that optimism hurts us.  Sometimes it prevents us from looking at reality, from seeing things the way they really are, not how we want them to be.  This is, perhaps, the most dangerous challenge sales people face.  It’s one of our own creation.  And it’s funny, it sneaks up on us–it never smacks us in the face, it kind of creeps in.  All of a sudden we find ourselves mired in a very difficult situation, struggling to understand and work our ways out.

It happens all sorts of ways.  Our pipelines aren’t as full as we want.  Our managers may be pressuring us to increase the numbers of deals in the pipeline.  We relax our qualification criteria to get more deals—but because they aren’t in our sweet spot, our ability to win is threatened.  All of a sudden our win rates go down.  This makes our pipelines look worse, we relax our qualification criteria further…. you know how this story ends.

Or it’s the deal we just can’t let go.  We’ve invested a lot of time and resource.  We believe if we just do a few more things, we can persevere.  We do those, it’s not sufficient, we do a few more…… it goes on forever.  The deal’s dead, but we can’t let it go.

Or we are busy, our days our filled with meeting after meeting, call after call.  But we aren’t making progress.  We confuse busyness with progress and accomplishment.

Facing reality is critical to our success.  If our pipelines aren’t full, we mask the real problem by filling them with junk.  If a deal just won’t move forward, continuing with wishful thinking doesn’t change things–it keeps us from really understanding what it takes to win–or even if it is winnable  And busyness masks everything.  We don’t have the time to reflect, to understand if we are making progress or just filling our time.

Facing reality is tough.  We may discover things we don’t want to confront.  We may not be as strong as we had hoped we were.  We may discover we need new skills to improve our ability to compete.  It may tell us we’re spending our time with the wrong customers–that we may have to find new customers.

Facing reality is important.  Good or bad, it provides the ability to understand the issues most impacting our performance.  It helps us identify and solve our problems.  It allows us to improve or fix things that keep us from achieving our goals.

It’s easy and tempting to fool ourselves, to the point of hiding our heads in the sand.  But that doesn’t fix the problem, it makes it worse.

If you aren’t achieving your goals, are you really looking at what’s happening.  Are you seeing things the way they are or the way you want them to be?  Facing reality is the only path to performance improvement.

Related posts:

1. What Are The Biggest Challenges Facing Sales VP’s In This Economy
2. No Grin-F#!?ing Allowed!
3. Are Your People Selling What They’re Supposed To Sell?

I’ve got a terrible confession to make.  I cheat.  I don’t want to play fair and square.  I don’t like to play on a level playing field.  I do everything I can to tilt deals to my favor.  I do everything I can to stack the deck.

I don’t think I’m alone in this. Our inclination as sales people is to do this.  We want our customers to prioritize the things that we do well and that our competitors do poorly.  Likewise, we want our customer to de-prioritize the things our competitors do well and we do poorly.  We do everything we can to shift the criteria and customer’s attitudes in our favor.

Unfortunately, in the new world of buying, it’s becoming more and more difficult to stack the deck.  Customers are determining their needs, requirements and priorities without us.  By the time they’ve developed a short list, their requirements are already locked in concrete.  The vendors on the shortlist—our competitors and us, are there because we all meet their minimum needs.  The customers have leveled the playing field for those they have invited to play.  Now we’re in an elimination match.

If we want to stack the deck, we have to change our approach.  We can’t wait for the customer to have a need, we have to be premptive.  We have to get in early–before the customer has a need, before they recognize they have a problem.  To stack the deck, we need to get them excited about a new opportunity for their company–a way to grow, a way to improve.  We want to create a sense of urgency around what that will do for them, and how we can help them do this.

If we want to stack the deck, we have to invest in them.  We have to earn the right to have them listen to our ideas about changing their business.  We have to have credibility and their trust. 

We have to create value–both in the ideas and interactions, and in the solutions we offer.  If we don’t we’re helping our competitors stack the deck for themselves.  We have to offer more than a product pitch, we have to do more than answer their questions, handle their objections and ask for the order.  Everyone else is doing that, we have to be different.

Some might say, “Dave that’s unrealistic, while we try to do that, the customer wants to create a level playing field.”  I’m not sure I agree.  I’m not sure that customers want to create a level playing field.  I think customers want to stack the decks in their favor—in favor of helping them achieve their goals, and produce results.  If we do our job right–we can align ourselves with the customer, stacking the deck to allow each of us achieve our objectives.

What are you doing to stack the deck?

Related posts:

1. Buying Has Nothing To Do With The Product We Sell!
2. Performance Management Friday — Win/Loss Analysis

Sales people are notoriously bad at writing things down and documenting things.  I talk to thousands a year.  When I start talking about documenting something–a deal plan, an account plan, territory, call plans, even a to-do list–all of a sudden you can see the resistance in their faces. 

They sit back, fold their arms.  Most say nothing, but a few courageous one’s will say, “Dave, you don’t get it.  I’m  too busy to do this.  I don’t have time to document these things–it’s too bureaucratic–I’ve got a plan, it’s in my head!”

I’m used to this.  I respond, “OK, I get it, let’s talk about your plan for this opportunity………”  It’s always the same, they start talking, they tell me about the deal, they tell me about what they’ve done.  I start asking questions, “Where are you in the sales process, how do you know you are aligned with the customer buying process, what are the risks to the customers in this project, what is your positioning vis a vis the competitors, ….. the list goes on.”  I get more data, but as we proceed, it gets sketchier and sketchier. 

We then talk about “What are the next things you need to do, who do you need to do it with, when are you going to do it?  What’s the positioning you need to win this deal?”   They respond, they outline action plans and strategies, I take notes, writing down the next steps.  Ususally they don’t.  They say, they’re under control, they can do the deal, they don’t need to document the plan.  I smile and thank them.

At the first milestone, I call or email, “How did it go?”  You know what happens–the majority of the time, the response comes back, “I forgot to do it, I’ll get right on it.”  The second milestone, “How did it go?”  You know…..

We sit down, I pull out my notes from the last meeting and ask “We developed these strategies to position ourselves to win.  We committed to these steps and actions to execute the strategies.  Where are we in executing the plan?”  The discussion usually involves a lot of hand waving, some apologies, a re-commitment to execute the strategy, then a quick escape.  This time they write a few things down, but too often, they’re forgotten.

Sales people are right, they are busy, they’ve got a lot of things to do, different deals, different accounts, different sales callse.  Changing customer requirements, shifts in our strategies.  It’s impossible to keep it in your head.  You lose most of it–you may remember one or two things, you may have jotted down a couple of reminders, but most of the time we’re busy with activities, responding customer requests, reacting to what may have happened in the last call.  We drift further and further away from our plans and strategies.  Sales cycles get lengthened, deals go away.

It is impossible to keep it all in our heads!  We need to document our plans, we need to use the plans to guide our actions, keeping us focused, on target, moving forward purposefully in the execution of our strategies.  We need to document our plans–they provide the basis for what we do every day.  They provide the foundation of taking our daily activities and transforming them into accomplishments.

Being too busy to  document your plans–whether it’s a deal plan, prospecting, call, territory, account or other plan–is just an excuse.  It’s an excuse for being less productive, it’s an excuse for winning less, it’s an excuse for not being accountable.

Writing it down, keeps us focused, having it documented, means we don’t have to remember and we never forget.  Many of us work with teams–a documented plan keeps the team focused, well coordinated and moving forward.

• Do you take the time to maximize your productivity, impact and effectiveness?
• Are you documenting and updating all your deal/opportunity plans?
• Are you documenting and updating your prospecting plans?
• Are you documenting and updating your account and territory plans?
• Are you prioritizing all of these in your day to day activities?

Related posts:

1. Not Worth The “Paper It’s Written” On
2. Reacting!
3. Performance Management Friday — Wallet Share

It’s difficult to imagine what we sell might be unimportant.  It’s important to us, it’s how we make our living.  It’s important to our company, it’s why the company exists, it’s why we design and build products and solutions 

Our solutions are important to our customers—at least some of them–perhaps a certain department, a functional area, certain teams within our customers.  It used to be, at least for larger companies, that if we could come up with a business case that was compelling enough, our customers could “find the money.”  They’d take the proposal–by that time, it was theirs–something they were wanted to do, up to management and argue for the money to buy.  Most of the time they’d get it, if it met the financial and business case hurdles, they’d get the funding.  In many cases, as we qualified customers, we either looked for budget already allocated or their willingness to get the money if the business case was sufficient.

But that’s no linger happening.  Regardless how strong the case, how convinced the customer might be, they aren’t getting the money.

We try to solve that problem by calling higher–going to the “C-Level,” engaging them, pleading our case, showing the business case, talking about the compelling results and value we produce.  The C-Level executives may nod their heads in agreement, say it’s impressive, thank us for our work and helping them address issues in their business, recognize the value we have created, smile, shake our hands, and do nothing.

See things have changed.  Regardless how compelling our value proposition, how great the business case, how much the functional or departmental executives may argue for our solution; executives aren’t finding the money.  More than ever before, executives are investing only in things that directly impact their strategic priorities — and it’s only their top strategic priorities.

All companies have long lists of things they’d like to do.  Great business cases for improvements, new processes, new approaches, areas to grow and expand, new products to develop.  But investments are only being made in the top 2-3 priorities.  If your project doesn’t fall into one of these priorities, you aren’t going to get the order.  You may have made the sale–the customer has chosen you as the solution they would like to implement, but you are not going to get the order unless you are in the top 2-3 priorities.

What do we do?

It’s a tough question–there are some sales strategies we might look at, there are some business strategies executives in your company might consider.

The biggest problem in confronting this issue is our individual and corporate egos.  It’s hard to imagine not being important because what we do is so important to us.  It clouds our vision and our ability to recognize and address the problem.  But however important we think we are to our customers, our opinions don’t count!  Being important to the customer is the only thing that counts.   So we have to get our egos out of the way to recognize and address the problem.

What next?

Well a good start–probably the only start is finding out what’s important to our customers.  It’s not understanding their problems, but it’s understanding their strategic priorities.  What are the top two or three things they are struggling with?  What are the top two or three initiatives their executive are concerned with?  Until we know those, we have no hope of being important to our customers.

Once we understand those strategic initiatives–focus on the top 2-3.  How do we position what we sell to fall under one of those strategic initiatives?  It doesn’t mean we have to solve the whole problem–we just have to be able to take a bite out of it.  We have to be able to demonstrate that what we do helps them address one or more of their top 2-3 strategic initiatives.

Recently, I spoke to a very clever sales person.  She recognized that her solutions weren’t really important to her customer–that is, they were very important in a part of the organization, but at an executive level, where the investment decisions were being made, her solutions weren’t on their radar screens.  However, she learned that customer satisfaction was a top priority.  The customer was being pummelled in the markets with customer satisfaction issues.  Their competition was attacking them, customers were fleeing.  Customer satisfaction was the most critical issue the top executives were dealing with.  She and the department head–the person who really wanted to buy her solution developed a new strategy. 

They looked at how the solution would impact customer satisfaction.  It wasn’t something they normally focused on–primarily their solutions focused on internal operational efficiency, but she knew that wouldn’t sell.  The question they confronted was “How do we link what we are doing in this department to improving customer satisfaction?”  They were able to develop a case where they could show the solution contributed to the focus on customer satisfaction.  It didn’t make a big dent in the customer satisfaction issues the executives were facing, but it took a bite out of that problem.  That’s all they needed to get approval to go forward.

Do you know what your customers’ strategic initiatives are?  Do you know how you help your customer with those initiatives?  Until you can answer this, you are wasting your time and your customers’ time.

This needs to be part of the qualification criteria–not just yours, but the buyers you work with at the customer.  What you sell is important to someone at the customer.  They want to talk to you, they want you to help them solve their problems, they want you to help them think about their parts of the business differently.  They are eager for you to create value.  But if what you and they are doing doesn’t fit within the strategic priorities of the enterprise, if you can’t find a way to show the solution addresses one of more of the top 2-3 priorities, you are setting yourself and your customers up for failure.

It’s important for you and the customer to qualify the importance of what you are doing.  It’s a tough, but critical discussion.  Customers may not want to have it–their egos are involved as well.  It’s hard for them to understand their function may not be at the top of the hit parade of their executives.  But if we don’t have those discussions and mutually develop a strategy go be a part of what’s important, we’re wasting time.

But what if, however clever you may be, you just can’t find a way to be important?  You still have to sell, what do you do?  I’ll address that in an upcoming post.

(By the way, if you are struggling with these issues, call us up.  We’ve been working with lot of organizations on strategies to overcome this.  We’d be glad to explore these with you.)

Related posts:

1. Buying Isn’t Important, It’s The Results Of Buying That Are Important!
2. How Important Are “Techniques” To Sales?
3. How Important Are Partnerships To Your Sales Strategies?

Last week, I talked about the importance of Win Loss Analysis.   No one questions doing win/loss analysis, in particular, we really worry about losses.  There is a hidden performance and resource drain that can have a dramatic impact on our success.  It’s the abandoned deal. 

Abandoned deals happen more frequently then we think–we usually don’t track them well.  But they’re the deals that we’ve qualified and pursue proactively.  We may abandon them for many reasons–we lose interest, our customers lose interest in us, we see that we can’t win, or any other reasons.  Increasingly, however, I’m seeing the most damaging type of abandoned deals, “No Decision Made.”  These are tragic–we invest in the entire sales cycles.  We spend our time, we invest resources from our company, we go right to the end and nothing happens.

We don’t win, we don’t get the order–but no one does, so no one loses.  The customer just doesn’t make a decision. 

There’s another way this happens.  We go through the sales cycle and the customer–the functional managers get excited.  They select us, then they go to executive management for funding–and the executives choose to invest in a completely unrelated project–something that has nothing to do with the functional group we have been working with.  It’s not a competitive loss–it’s just that our project is a lower priority than others they are considering.

I’m seeing an increasing numer of abandoned deals, typically, we don’t pay much attention to them.  We analyze our Wins and Losses, but abandoned deals fall off our radar screens.  But these deals can be very significant.  In the past month, I’ve been invovled analyzing several companies—some capital/equipment companies, a major systems integrator, a few software companies and a few services companies.  The lowest rate of abandoned deals was 22%.  Most were significantly higher.

Think of that, think of the impact of these levels of abandoned deals–a minimum of 22% of your pipeline has disappeared!  Think of the time you’ve invested, think of the emotional investment that you have in the deal.  Think if the resources you have invested and the expectations you have raised in your company.

But usually we don’t pay attention to this–we track wins and losses.  We just kind of forget about abandoned deals.

What do we do to reduce abandoned deals–I’ll spend more time on this issue in some future blog posts, however, by belief this is largely a qualification problem.  We push a customer to look at something, but it doesn’t have a high sense of urgency.  At the end of the cycle, they just shrug and decide to do nothing.  We avoid this by really looking at the urgency, the consequences of not solving the problem very early in the sales cycle.  We check to see if the project is high on the priorities of the executive teams–the people controlling the purse strings.

Don’t just look at wins and losses.  Remember abandoned deals are important to track.  Understanding those abandoned deals, avoiding them at qualification is important to producing results and managing your time.

Related posts:

1. Performance Management Friday — Funnel Churn
2. Performance Management Friday — % Of Opportunities Advanced
3. Performance Management Friday — Win/Loss Analysis

There has been an important revolution in marketing thinking over the past years.  The move from thinking about campaigns to rich content programs and nurturing is important.  It recognizes something important, that customers want to learn, they want to be educated.  These programs enable us to develop “relationships” with customers and nurture them up to the point of their deciding they need to take action and start a buying process.

In our nurturing programs, we design them to have the customer take different actions through the program that help us gauge their level of interest, their urgency, and their readiness to buy.

This is important and needs to be the cornerstone of our marketing programs.  But there is a problem with this–it requires a customer to have an interest–to want to learn–to want to consider a change, to be thinking about their needs.  Not necessarily to do something today, but to be thinking, “perhaps we need to change at some point in the future, I should start learning and looking around now.”  In essence, nurturing works best when the customer raises their hand.

But what happens when the customer should be raising their hand, but isn’t?  What about the case where the customer is so busy just surviving day to day?  What about the customer that isn’t looking to learn, that isn’t thinking about the future, who isn’t thinking about how they might improve their business?

They may never be a part of our nurturing programs because they don’t recognize the need to be nurtured.  They may be part of our programs, but they aren’t taking the actions they should be taking—but aren’t.

Pull is an important part of developing the customer need, knowledge and enabling us to enter a buying cycle when decide they need to buy.  But I think push is still critical.  But it’s push in a very different sense.  It’s helping the customer recognize that they need to change.  It’s helping them understand they are missing an opportunity.  It’s helping them understand that them see new ways of running their business or function.

Sales people must bring ideas to their cusotmers!  Sales people must provoke and challenge their customers.  Sales people must create the reasons for customers to raise their hands, to say–I need to do something now–entering into a buying process.  Alternatively, to say–that’s something I need to start looking into.  I might want to do something later.

I get concerned as I start to see the sales pendulum swinging to “pull” oriented sales strategies.  I think exclusively relying on pull–which I see many organizations seriously considering is irresponsible.  It’s not because we “aren’t” driving our sales growth as aggressively as possible–though that is irresponsible.  But it’s really irresponsible because we see that our customers are missing opportunities to grow and improve and we aren’t taking action to help them understand this.  It’s irresponsible because our customers often look to their sales people for ideas–to understand things that are happening in their markets, best practices for their functions, how to be more efficient.

We have to help our customers understand new opportunities–if we are truly customer focused, value based, trusted advisors, we need to get them to raise their hands.  Our nurturing programs may not do this.

Creating great value for the customer, developing meaningful relationships requires a careful balance of push and pull.  They can’t exist by themselves–we can’t have push only strategies, nor can we have pull only strategies.  We have to purposefully execute both.

Related posts:

1. The Importance Of Push And Pull In Sales
2. Who Owns The Customer?
3. Moving From Customer Acquisiton To Customer Engagement

Not long ago, my wife had to be away from home for a week. It happened to be a week that I wasn’t traveling so, I had to fend for myself on meals. The first day, I struggled with what to do. The easy answer was to go to a restaurant. But I spend too much time on the road in restaurants. I considered take out, but that seemed to be a variation on the same theme.

Then I discovered something amazing—and it was less than a half mile from our house. It was this thing called a grocery store. It was an amazing discovery (I’ve led a sheltered life). I walked in and found all my meal and eating problems had been solved!  I could get everything I wanted.  Imagine that, all the answers to my food and eating problems right there–less than a half mile from my home.

As I’m prone to do, I started thinking of the broader implications of my discovery.  Did others know about this?  Perhaps so many people are blind to the fact that grocery stores might be just around the corner.  Perhaps the solution to world hunger was at hand, I just had to make this visible to the world through my blogging, writing, and speaking!  It was so simple….

When I read many of the books, blogs (including my own), or listen to speakers on sales, marketing, leadership and business strategy, sometimes, I think we have just discovered the local grocery store.  We do some thoughtful research, but on a very narrow set of premises, discover some patterns, some things that work, then immediately declare, We Have The Answer To Your [fill in the blank] Problems.

It could be a prospecting approach, how we present our elevator pitch, developing our value proposition, winning deal strategies, how to coach, how to lead.  It could be about how we measure and compensate our people.   It could be new approaches to marketing, or any number of other things……

Sales 2.0 companies and many of the “solutions providers” do the same thing.  They have something that helps certain situations, certain parts of the process.  These solutions truly provide value but to a certain small set of problems and customers.  Too many, however, position themselves as the answer to a sales person’s success or a sales manager’s performance problems.

We all tend to position ourselves as having “the answer,” but after all we are selling something as well.

I was reminded of this the other day by a very thoughtful reader.  In my post, Order Taker or Solution Creator, a very bright commenter wrote, “but Dave, sometimes all a customer wants is to know features and functions and to place an order.  When they want that, I’ll be an order taker.  Sometimes they want to be challenged, when they want to be challenged,  I’ll challenge them.”

Sales, marketing, and business is complicated.  There are no simple answers or miracle cures.  There is no right or wrong way.  There are lots of bright people who have great ideas, tools, approaches.  Things worthy of reading, understanding, applying.  Some solutions and approaches help some of us — for example, I tend to write a lot about complex selling situations, so hopefully, my advice and experience is valuable to those involved in those situations.  But it’s probably not very useful to those who are involved in transactional sales situations.

What I learned from Natalie’s comment is that great performers are truly adaptable.  They learn lots of different approaches.  They  are skeptical, they know “one size does not fit all.”  They don’t blindly drink the latest batch of Kool Aid, regardless of how popular it may seem.  They know there are no miracle cures or get rich quick solutions.

Great performers are constantly reading, learning, evaluating, and adopting.  They take a great idea, combine it with other great ideas, and execute what’s appropriate for the situation they are involved in.  For another situation, they do something else, leveraging other ideas that are more appropriate.

There are lots of great books, bloggers, speakers.  There are great tools and great ideas.  The variety of ideas and approaches, in fact, inform us there is no single path or approach to success, but there are many different ways.  Great performers look at, study and understand all of these.  They continue to learn, they continue to to explore.  Most importantly, they adapt approaches that are appropriate for the situation.

Be skeptical.  Don’t look for silver bullets.  Don’t accept someone’s cure for every problem you have.  Collect lots of approaches, tweak them and own them for yourselves.  Think about each situation and use whatever is most appropriate for the situation.  Realize there is not just one path to a solution, but there are different paths–choose the one that works best for you.

Hold me, and people like me accountable.  When we start talking about the miracle cure, push back.  Make sure you understand the specific circumstances where it works.  Make sure you understand the limitations.  We’ll all grow, learn, and improve our effectiveness.

No related posts.

Over the past few months, I’ve been involved in a lot of discussions on sales compensation.  Last quarter, the conversations focused on commission and bonus plans people were looking to put in place for this year.  Last week and this week, I’m involved in a lot of discussions about people being disappointed in the bonuses they received or didn’t receive for last year, how to manage the issues and so forth.

We talk about pay for performance all the time.  Everyone likes pay for performance when there are great years.  When we’ve blown out the numbers or overachieved our goals, people are excited about pay for performance.  But when we have had a tough year.  When business is down or we haven’t met our goals—despite how hard we worked and how much we tried—we don’t like pay for performance.  I can’t count the discussions I’ve had about, “my people think they should be paid for their hard work and effort.”

I have to admit I’m a little hard nosed about this topic.  We can’t have it both ways, it’s just an insane argument.  When we perform well we should be compensated for it.  When we perform poorly, we should be compensated for that performance—not our effort.  If our performance has been down from the previous year, our compensation should be less than the previous year.  We’ve produced fewer results.

I suppose it’s human nature to focus on ourselves and our compensation.  It’s natural to always want to see progression and increases.  But failing to produce results impacts more than our compensation.  It ripples through the entire company, it impacts shareholder perception, suppliers and others. 

If the sales organization as a whole doesn’t produce results, people lose jobs.  Even though we have worked very hard, even though we have put in long hours, we haven’t produced the results.  We can’t pay the bills in the organization, we can fund new projects and programs through good intentions and hard work.

Accountability is tough.  There are upsides and downsides.  We can’t choose to be happy with the upside only and not have to bear the consequences of the downside.  Accountability is blind to that.

I’m tough on this.  People say, they should be better compensated.  My answer is very simple, you can be better compensated.  It is totally in your control.  Meet or overachieve your goals.  Your compensation will increase when that happens.

Perhaps my view was shaped many years ago when I was having a similar discussion about my compensation with my manager at the time.  I thought I deserved an increase because of my dedication and efforts.  His response was succinct and clear:  “Your increase will become effective when you become effective.”

Are you being effective?  Are you achieving your goals and producing results?  If you aren’t you have no basis for any discussion on your compensation.  Sales is a job in which we are compensated for our performance, so it’s our responsibility to perform.

Related posts:

1. Performance Management And Accountability
2. Compensation Drives Sales Behavior? Is Compensation The Only Tool For Managing Sales Performance?
3. Pay For Performance?