by Elizabeth Hines | Jan 31, 2013 | Blog
The role of strategic selling in an organization is one of the toughest and most difficult. It is also one of the most expensive line items in any company’s financials. In my role as a strategic advisor, I get to see a lot of sales teams and their go-to market skills. There are a lot of great strategic sales teams out there, but there’s an equal amount of selling teams that could use some advice.
Here are five ways to optimize your strategic sales teams and, in turn, increase their revenue producing effectiveness.
- Make no mistake, the strategies listed above are not easy to instill in a sales organization. By doing so, your true opportunities will increase, they will have greater value, and your chances of success will increase. No hard work goes unrewarded. Strategic selling is a process. Like any process, discipline and milestones mark the way. Only through uniform use, iteration, and formal improvement will your organization, the sales team, and the salesperson become more effective. I don’t care what the process looks like…yet. Get a process that everyone can track inside your organization and stick to it. No loose cannons or end around players….they devalue the process.
- Your strategic selling process must include the following characteristics:
- Assessing the selling opportunity
- Developing a competitive strategy
- Identifying the key decision makers and their motives/agendas
- An action plan
- Sales plan testing and improvement
- An organization implementation process (it takes a village to raise a child…it takes an aligned organization to sell your solution)
- Create a compelling event inside your target customer. If your sales process relies solely on responding to RFPs, you are not strategically selling….you are responding to opportunities that every qualified organization will see and compete for. The easiest sale is the one that your competitors never knew about in the first place. Creating a sense of urgency and need inside a customer is hard work and takes time, but that’s what makes it valuable to your client and your organization. Knowing your customers’ needs and how your solution fits makes you more valuable than a traditional “RFP responder”. Be there first, be relevant, and be action oriented and your customers will rely on your solutions more often.
- Time is money and both are scarce resources. Make the most of these precious resources and never fall in love with an opportunity unless it meets the following criteria. If it fits, engage fully and engage to win. No half efforts. Ask yourself these questions:
- Is there a true opportunity that has been clearly identified and agreed to within your customer’s organization? Said another way, is there a “compelling event” as mentioned above that everyone involved is aligned around?
- Can you compete to win? Does your solution or unique business differentiator align to produce customer benefit? Can it be aligned?
- Can you win? Are there any commercial obstacles that would stand in the way to your winning? These can be politically driven, relationship driven, or even solution driven.
- Is the opportunity worth winning? Does it have the desired ROI for the investment of selling resources? Does it contain enough profit to engage your organization? Is it too risky a fit (a force fit to your solution) or does the risk and reward balance? Can your customer pay for the service? Have they allocated funds?
- Stay away from “free trials” or “free pilot” engagements. In fact, run from them. If your customer is headed down that path, revisit number 4 above. It could be that they do not completely understand your solution and how it fits, or simply that they have no funds to undertake the engagement. In either case, time is money and it’s time to move on.
by Elizabeth Hines | Jan 25, 2013 | Blog
As we enter this New Year, we do so with the realization that we still suffer from the economic hang-over left from the 2008 downturn. Long gone are the days of abundant resources. Our current and future economic reality consists of scarce resources and a shrinking opportunity base. Even the best managers are having sleepless nights as they wrestle with how to grow their businesses in the face of such constraints. The good news is that these last five years has taught us to do more with less, stretch our thin resources, and continue to delight customers. So how is this getting done?
Economic uncertainty has challenged companies and management teams with expanding their business and reducing their spending, while still making meaningful progress now and into the future. Whether you are a small, mid-market, or Fortune 500 company, you will recognize the challenge of reconciling your management needs in the face of budget reductions. Doing things the same old way just “won’t do”. You need a way to quickly turbo charge your business without breaking the bank. The question remains – how? Leading companies have used a secret weapon against these challenges for years: interim management services strategy.
Interim Management Questions to Ask Yourself
- In your current or last budget cycle have you been asked to raise your profit targets with flat or reduced expenses?
- Do you have a customer or market segment that is a good fit for your company, but you don’t have the resources or time to explore, define and win that business?
- Do you need management expertise in a specific area, but don’t want to make a full time hire or can’t afford to make one?
- Do you have a window of opportunity to make a meaningful business move but can’t afford the ramp up time or learning curve to make the most of it?
If you answered yes to any of the above questions, an interim management services strategy is a weapon you should think about using too. Think of it as “management as a service”. A model designed to provide specific executive, management, sales or operational expertise when and where you need it, for exactly as long as you need it, at a fraction of the time and cost expense of hiring, assimilating and assigning a full-time professional.
Interim management services allow you to make meaningful progress in your strategic initiatives without incurring a large upfront investment in time, people, or budget. It allows you to easily navigate unique challenges, fill leadership voids during transitions, or obtain expertise on special projects and initiatives. It’s effective and efficient talent, when you need it, for how long your needs exist.
Add an interim management strategy to your strategic arsenal and watch your business grow….you’ll also sleep better at night knowing you are making the most out of this current economic environment.
by Elizabeth Hines | Jan 15, 2013 | Blog
If you are the CEO of your company, a business unit manager, or an executive tasked with developing your company’s strategic plan, it’s likely that you have learned that from time to time you need to rely on an expert to help tackle the business problems that can “make or break” your year or your career.
Savvy executives understand that not all business challenges can be resolved from inside your organization and are not afraid of the phrase “not invented here”. They rely on external experts or strategic advisors to know their internal business, know the external marketplace, and have the domain expertise to combine this knowledge into strategies that will work for today and the long term.
Why Use a Strategic Advisor?
- If you have ever thought about getting some help from the “outside” but weren’t sure of the value it would create for you and your organization, here are some benefits that should make your decision really easy. Strategic Advisors fill the “holes” in an organization that exist in a particular discipline, experience level, or accumulated knowledge base. As a result, they can speed decision making, time to market, or cost reductions with proven solutions and without the pain of trial and error.
- Strategic Advisors offer a viewpoint based on facts and real experiences; not on politics or prejudice. The advice they can offer is “agenda free”. Yes, the truth sometimes hurts, but savvy leaders know that the intellectual honesty that a strategic advisor brings drives innovation and growth.
- Strategic Advisors know when to stretch the targets. Whether cost reduction, sales growth or both. They have the experience to know when to step on the gas and when to apply the brakes…without driving you off the road. Their external expertise can put you and your team in a position to be successful for the short and long term.
- Strategic Advisors are always “up to speed”. They have a niche, know it well, and spend time and resources keeping abreast of the trends and the companies driving those trends. This “multiplier-effect” cannot be duplicated internally without a significant addition to headcount and expense.
- Strategic Advisors are extremely cost effective. They allow you to buy the highest level of experience, personal network and know-how, applied to your toughest challenges, for just the right amount of time.
Combining the best from inside your organization with the brightest from the outside is a winning formula. Smart business leaders solve this equation time and time again and reap the benefits listed above.
Interested in using a strategic advisor? For more information contact Fronetics here.
by Elizabeth Hines | Oct 17, 2012 | Blog
During the fall quarter, most companies start focusing on how they will close their year (in terms of revenue and gross profit) as well as beginning the process of updating their sales (revenue) targets for the following year. It’s also the time that management drops the “stretch-goals” bomb or what one mentor of mine used to like to call “BHAG” sales target (Big-Hairy-Audacious-Goal). Although I am in favor of pushing the limits of my team, these stretch-goal methodologies rarely work as designed and because they are structured as “win big or lose big”, in most cases have a real demotivating effect on your teams and organization. Focusing on these four areas will lead you to better results, more consistent targeting, and a team that is motivated for the long run.
- Once you have abandoned your stretch goal mentality, look at the current state of your business and define your desired sales/revenue outcome based on this knowledge. Yes, this is much harder than saying, “my boss says to grow by 30%”, but the deep understanding of you current state will lead your organization stop focusing on the numbers to achieve and start focusing on the process of achievement. This is the hardest and most detailed step.
- Once you have established the current state and desired outcome; break up these revenue/sales numbers and the process to get them into small chunks. By doing this, you establish a pattern of smaller wins / process goal attainment. In the end, you will have developed a culture of winning and/or adjustment instead of an “all or nothing” mentality.
- Now build in a system that rewards superior behavior and discourages falling short. I am not talking out of both sides of my mouth here and this is why. You will still have the over-achievers….they need to feel fairly treated for being better than average. You will have folks who fall short…they need redirection and course correction (maybe even managed out of the business). Remembering that since these are “small chunks” your team never gets too far behind before a correction can occur and your top performers are still treated as stars.
- Lastly, develop a culture of “adjustment”, both up and down. Most teams are used to a big target at the beginning of the year that never adjusts….you win or you lose….and so does your company. I think we all know the reality is that in the current economic environment, it’s not that simple. Having the ability to adjust as your “knowledge of the current state” becomes definite allows you to throttle up when you can and down when you have to.
One word of caution, if you try this approach you need to commit all the way. A half attempt at this would be disastrous. You need to commit to change in order to change your culture and to get the results that you want. One last thing, if you are like me, you are now saying to yourself, “that’s all well and good, but my external stakeholders (lenders, principles, shareholders, managers, etc.) aren’t sympathetic to this type of curved lined forecasting”. I get that too. The answer is simple. Once have your current state defined and your desired outcomes articulated, take a conservative approach to this forecast and decide whether it is good enough for your external stakeholders. If it is, you have your worst case scenario that should only be effected by upside surprises. If it’s not, no hoping or praying for you to achieve your stretch goals is going to make it any prettier in the long run. Make the strategic adjustments now and be better off at the end of the year.
by Elizabeth Hines | Sep 5, 2012 | Blog
The closing of the democratic and republican national conventions these last weeks mark the beginning of the final push of this presidential election season. More than likely, the primary election issues that will be on everyone’s mind are the economy, employment, the debt, and healthcare. These topics as well as other important issues will be heavily debated in the coming weeks. During these debates, the twenty-four hour news cycle will remind us of the red state vs. blue state position as well as the all-important “toss-up” states and their reaction to the candidates’ remarks on these important issues. Piggy-backing on this theme, I thought it would be interesting to compare the red, blue, and toss-up state positioning to the e-waste debate and current e-waste regulations. Although what we found is not earth-shattering or inconsistent to our intuition on how e-waste regulation aligns with the red/blue state mapping, it does represent a thematic approach to how these states think about and act on broader issues with similar themes.
Before we dive into the data, here are a couple of caveats. This information should not be taken to suggest any particular political statement or alignment. It should also not be thought of as a statistical prognostication of how any state will vote their electoral or “swing” their votes. What this information presents is a comparison of current e-waste regulations and policies, by state, compared to the blue, red, and toss-up state mapping as indicated by CNN (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2012/electoral-map.html). I would also like to give credit to my summer intern, Robert Leighton, who did all the heavy lifting on this in terms of research and data comparison.
Below you will find the blue, red, and toss up state alignment as indicated by CNN (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2012/electoral-map.html)
| 20 Red
15 Blue
15 (Toss-up) |
|
|
Now let’s look at the Red/Blue state configuration in terms of e-waste regulation.
Total number of States with e-waste laws and/or regulations: 28
Republican
- 6 out of 28 states with e-waste laws/regulations are Republican
- Chances of being a Republican state and having an e-waste law is 12% (Calculated through conditional probability)
Democratic
- 13 out of 28 states with e-waste laws/regulations are
- Chances of being a Democratic state and having an e-waste law is 28% (Calculated through conditional probability)
Total number of States with no current e-waste laws or regulations: 22
Republican
- 14 states in total
- Of the 14, only 1 has a bill currently being proposed (Nebraska)
- Of 20 Republican states, 70% have no e-waste laws or regulations
Democratic
- 1 state in total (Delaware)
- Less than 7% (6.67%) of 15 Democratic states have no e-waste laws or regulations
Summary
- Strong correlation between having an e-waste law and being a Democratic (blue) state
- 3 states with no current rule or regulation have e-waste bills currently being discussed
- 2 Toss-up States (Colorado and Ohio)
- 1 Republican State (Nebraska)
- Toss-up states split between having e-waste laws or not (8 out of 15 have at least one)
As you may have guessed, if you live in a so-called ‘Blue” state, you tend to favor protective regulation such as e-waste laws; if you live in a “Red” state, not so much. And if you live in a “toss-up” state, well… it’s a toss-up.
