If you don’t understand your value… why would your customer?

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Some time back I answered a question posted on LinkedIn by Bob Apollo…

“How can small, fast-growing companies avoid hiring mistakes?”

Although it took Bob sometime to read his many replies he eventually got through them and nominated my answer as the best… thanks Bob!

I have copied my answer below as I believe that in today’s economic climate my answer is more poignant then ever…

In my experience the founders are the biggest part of the problem.

The founders can sell because they know exactly what they can do, they have a huge amount of passion for what they do, they are personally involved and they are agile to customer requests… they can change and adapt their offering on the fly… all this can make their proposition very compelling and it’s why they get their early sales. The customers are buying the founders as much as they are buying the products / services.

Now, bring in dedicated sales people and you have instantly lost a major part of your value proposition… they won’t have the same passion, they won’t have the in-depth knowledge of the founders, they won’t be able to adapt on the fly, they are going to have to work a lot harder to make those sales.

So, the first thing the founders need to do if they are going to bring in their first sales people is to make sure they are not part of the value proposition, to make sure their products / services are in a ‘productised’ state that can be sold by people other than a founder.

We now have the first part sorted and the founders are no longer a part of the value proposition… so let’s go hire some dedicated sales people.

Hiring sales people is an expensive business. It is also a very risky for small businesses because they can burn lots of cash for no return. Equally, if you don’t increase sales then the business does not develop –it’s a predicament. The solution is to reduce the risk as much as possible… and here is the next problem. Founders see risk as burning too much cash, so they often buy cheap… which is completely the wrong thing to do as the risk is… not making sales… and therefore to reduce risk they need to buy expensive.

There are a lot of people in sales – not surprisingly there are good ones, average ones and bad ones. I reckon the split is 20% good, 60% average and 20% bad. If this is their first foray into hiring dedicated sales people then they need to hire from the top of the pile. Obviously never hire a bad sales person. Average sales people are Ok if they have good sales management around them, but small businesses don’t and therefore they need to hire the best… these people manage themselves. Buying cheap ends up costing more because you end up doing exactly as you describe… “I’ve observed some companies go through a cycle of recruit > disappoint > fire and recruit again.”

The last thing to look at is what type of sales person is required. New companies need new customers and so account managers should be out. They need hungry door bashers who thrive on outselling the competition. If you are selling products then there are a number of people out there to choose from, however if you are selling services then good sales people are more difficult to find. Getting a product sales person selling services can be disastrous particularly without strong sales management support. For selling professional services you must take from the top of the pile and take people with industry expertise and people with industry credibility.

Lastly, they need to hire people with relevant contacts. This allows them to hit the ground running. People buy from people and there is nothing better than bringing someone onboard who have their own list of ‘suspects’ who know them and trust them… sales come much quicker this way. If you hire expensive, then they must have their own list of suitable contacts… and the best sales people will always have a list.

Therefore, in summary…

1. Make sure the founders are not part of the value proposition.

2. Make sure the offering is in a ‘productised’ state.

3. Hire from the top of the pile – the best and therefore the expensive.

4. Hire the right type – new business, not account management.

5. Hire appropriate expertise… product v services.

6. Hire the ones with their own list of relevant contacts.

That’s it… simple… I wish!

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After a couple of weeks break it’s time to start the writing again. Summer breaks are often associated with time on the beach… sun, surf and sand… and it’s the last of these associations that I thought I would make to get me back in to the swing of things… sand, or in this case sandbagging.

Generally I can’t condone it, but it happens and it will continually happen while the sun still rises in the morning and will only be eradicated when pigs learn to fly. In my experience, the predominate reason for sandbagging is due to poor sales management… not necessarily the sales manager of the sandbagger per se, but sales management culture in the organisation.

I would suggest that those with the wrong sales culture are those with the rising fixation with spreadsheets… it’s often more difficult to manage and motivate sales professionals than it is to manage numerous versions of the numbers. You can therefore plot the decline of good sales management skills to the rise of the use of Excel…. The more spreadsheets in existence the more sales management skills erode. It’s a dying skill and soon no one will be left to pass on the skills to the younger generation. A harsh assessment?… perhaps… but also probably not too far from the truth. It is therefore the dying art of sales management that is leading to the rising tide of sandbags.

However, before I divulge anything I should point out to the uninitiated that sandbagging relates to not putting sales opportunities into the corporate pipeline… like keeping some back for a rainy day… and having cleared that up, here’s my list of reasons why sales professionals sandbag.

1. There’s Only a Pipeline, no Funnel
CRM systems do not appear to be able to handle the concept of a funnel and pipeline. Proof, if any were needed, that Customer Relationship Management were not designed for sales management… however, I digress on to another hobby horse and I know what happened last time I jumped on my hobby horse… where was I?… pipelines.

The pipeline is for real opportunities that have been qualified; the customer will be buying from someone… hopefully you. The funnel is for the unqualified… the sales leads that need to be investigated and developed with the customer to get them to the point where the customer agrees that they need to do something… and at this point they go into the pipeline.

The funnel is an important part of sales management. It’s an important part of obtaining incredibly high forecast accuracy… and most sales organisations don’t have one… because their CRM system doesn’t have one. Now, sales management may recognise this and encourage their team to put early opportunities into the pipeline as 0% or 1%…

“…listen team, we need to see everything that you have, so even if it’s early in the process (sales lead) put it in the system at 1%”

So, the unsuspecting sales rep puts their juicy deal, that they are trying to develop, into the system… it’s not a real deal yet, but the customer is talking and it may develop into a real opportunity soon. However, once in the system the red mist descends on sales management and they see a real opportunity and want to know when it is going to close… sales rep protests that it’s not real and that they can’t yet predict when it will close… the response by management?… offer to discount and see you can close it this quarter… the red mist is very intoxicating.

The sales rep won’t make that mistake again… safer to sandbag.

2. Target Setting
Most sales people are on commission… nothing like stating the obvious… and most have their commission earnings are accelerated if they overachieve… and so as sales people like to earn as much money as they can… they strive toward overachieving. If they overachieve they are happy, and the company is happy because someone else has missed their target, but thanks to the overachievers the company has not missed theirs.

So, with target set the sales rep sets forth and goes out to hunt for business and bring back the kills to feed the corporate beast. There is often a lot of work involved in finding and stalking the prey and the rep wants to be rewarded after the kill… sales reps are not like lions… they don’t want to be the lioness of the pride, to be sent out to hunt and kill, only for the head male lion to take the kill away and gorge themselves at the expense of the female hunters.

Same for sales reps. Why should they do all the stalking and working the deal and getting it ready for the kill only for the organisation to see the kill and then take it into account in the reps target.

If the large deal can’t be closed before the new targets are set, then best to sandbag until targets are known… better safe then to be out of pocket.

3. Commission Caps
As mentioned, sales reps are in it for the accelerators. A deal in accelerators is worth more in commission. However, once a commission cap has been met, then the deal will not be worth anything in commission… the rep will lose money. Therefore, better to sandbag until next quarter than lose money.

4. Bad Quarter
Similar to reason 3. If it’s going to be a bad quarter and accelerators are out of the question, then it can often be more profitable to bring the deals in next quarter if there is a chance of moving into accelerators. So, instead of a bad quarter, have a terrible quarter by pushing the close date back until the next quarter. All good sales reps are allowed a terrible quarter now and again!

5. Protection
This is similar to reason 1. If you declare all your potential deals early and by early I mean they are in the funnel, rather than pipeline, then by definition the fall out will be greater than those deals that have passed qualification. If sales management do not understand the difference between a funnel and pipeline then you could gain the reputation of losing large deals… not a good reputation to have… and therefore safer to sandbag all these early deals until you are sure that they have a good chance of progressing and closing.

6. Unwanted Attention.
Big deals attract upper management like raw meat attract flies in the summer… they swarm all over it trying to feast in the glory of closing the large deal that will be the difference that make the difference. Sales reps will be asked questions by their manager and their manager’s manager and their manager’s manager’s manger and so on until the CEO is calling for his daily update. It’s not the attention that most sales reps crave and so sandbagging until it’s nearly a done deal saves weeks of unwanted attention.

7. Unnatural Acts
In their eagerness to close anything in the pipeline, no matter how far out, sales management will be encouraging, nay forcing, sales reps to offer discounts and other incentives for early closure. This is a bit like signing to buy a house before you have fully decided whether you want a house in the first place. If the rep is then forced to make the offer they know it will tarnish their hard fought credibility… so best not to tempt hard pressed managers… sandbag!

There we go a quick roundup of the 7 best reasons to sandbag and hopefully no one will recognise any of them.

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Legend has it… that it was Archimedes who reportedly shouted… Eureka!… such a simple word that boldly portrays so much incandescent behaviour.

I have been reliably informed, and my sources are impeccable, that the eureka moment came while Archimedes was bathing and he suddenly understood that the volume of an irregular object could be calculated by finding the volume of water displaced when the object was submerged in water. Hiero, that feisty tyrant of Syracuse, set Archimedes the problem of finding a solution to determining the purity of gold. He had some old golden crown that he needed to value. It turns out that if one divided the weight of an object by its volume you have a good idea of its density… which seems to have been a good enough indicator of the purity of gold.

So impressed was he, our Archimedes, with his discovery that he shouted out eureka with such emotion that he overdosed on adrenalin… and to get rid of it… he immediately jumped out of the tub and ran naked down the streets of Syracuse!… that was his eureka moment.

Many years later as I have been reliably informed, and my sources are impeccable, that Chris Whyatt also had a ‘eureka’ moment. Now, I’m not sure if he ran down the streets naked, he doesn’t say, but I do know that the… I have found (it)… moment had a profound impact on his understanding of how to put together the best proposal. He shares his insight with us in his latest post… My ‘eueka’ moment; what was yours?… and it is well worth understanding his eureka moment.

Seeing as he was good enough to share his, I thought I would share mine. My ‘eureka’ moment was understanding that binary forecasting delivered far better results than factored forecasting… the reason… it puts the responsibility squarely with the sales rep to close it… they have to close it because it’s forecast to close… unlike factoring where nothing is forecast apart from a percentage of a deal… and how many of you have won 30%, 60%, 90% of a deal… it’s 0% or 100%.

If you forecast it, then you better put a plan together on how you are going to win it… and as Churchill once said…”Those who plan do better than those who do not plan even though they rarely stick to their plan”.

Now, following on from the eureka moment where the intensity of positive emotion can overwhelm you and make you run down the street naked, there is the opposite end of the scale where intensity of negative emotion can often debilitate one so much they can’t do anything… a condition often related to failure. Dealing with failure is as joyful as taking a cold bath on a cold day… not pleasant… and if you do end up having a cold bath it’s your choice… you got in it. It’s the same rationale that Brad Trnavsky talks about in his latest post on… False Assumptions and lack of Ambition… how we make ourselves fail. He shares some great insight and although he does not mention it… his observation about coaching the sales team could be a ‘eureka’ moment!

There we go… two great golden nuggets from the world wide web, both well worth a read.

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What do I do with my time?… it’s a question I often ponder in the ever relentless search of getting more done with the time available… just 24hrs each day, that’s it!

In answer to my own question I deliver sales training and consultancy and if I’m not delivering, I’m not earning… although this model is beginning to change… more on this another day… I also develop the training notes and materials… they don’t stand still, they are continually being updated. I also develop methodology, which is included in the training materials and which again is continually being updated. I also write, update my blog and read other people’s blogs… the stuff lots of people do. However, there is one activity that I do that is vital… selling. No sales means no money… an equation, I’m sure, everyone understands.

So, as I mentioned, a part of my time each week is reading other people’s blogs and most interestingly the latest that I have read from Karl Goldfield and Craig Elias is all about helping find more business. Although each post is different, they fit nicely together like a hand in a glove… and I’ll leave you to work out who is the hand and the glove!

Karl, the Startup Sales Mentor, is answering a question from one his readers about metrics… number of calls to leads and how to improve the ratio. While Craig, the Trigger Event Selling evangelist is talking about how to close more sales by seeing things differently – the Window of Dissatisfaction… so reading Craig’s message will help achieve Karl’s message!

So, understanding how to increase sales is never a bad thing and when applied helps fill the coffer, which takes the pressure off, and allows more time to do other things.

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We are, it appears, experiencing the joys of an economic phenomenon known affectionately as a credit crunch. The banks who have made billions out of us over the last few years have lost a few dollars due to their over zealous greed for lending and making high returns on dubious loans – all very good while the sun shines, but not so good when it rains… and it’s raining at the moment… metaphorically speaking and of course physically.

Hay making - supplying natural resources
Scientists tell us the physical rain has been brought on by the massive carbon footprint that the developed nations seem to be delivering to whole world. Not to be outdone the developing nations also want to deliver their fair share to that carbon footprint and are consuming natural resources at an alarming rate. China’s appetite seems to be insatiable and consequently they are the new friends of many an African country who can help supply their thirst for resources… taking over where the Brits, French and Portuguese, et al finished many years ago. This consumption is also driving up the price of raw materials. There is a lot of hay making going on in China and Africa at the moment as well as other places where natural resources are in abundance.

Hay making – supplying fuel
For some reason OPEC wants to keep the price of oil high and therefore restrict production accordingly – perhaps they are worried that the Chinese will use too much… whatever their concerns, oil companies are making lots of hay at the moment and seem to be awash with cash… at the present prices of around $120 a barrel there’s a lot of hay making going on… however, it seems the demand for hay is increasing as some people, notably Goldman Sachs, are predicting that there may be a ‘super spike’ in the price of oil to at least $150 or maybe $200 a barrel within the next six to 24 months… talk about a long hot autumn!

Hay making – growing biofuel crops
It appears the autumn is just too long for some and therefore so as not to be so dependant on oil and to show their green credentials a number of the developed countries are looking for alternatives to carbon producing oil… and they found one… biofuel. Depressed farmers who have been brow beaten over the prices of their grain over the last few years see the biofuel craze as a way of making more hay. Field after field is being turned over to growing biofuel crops and farmers are getting good prices for their efforts. However, rain forests are also getting turned over to produce biofuel crops… the same rain forests that we need to absorb carbon monoxide and throw out oxygen in return… sort of good in reducing carbon footprints. You may have noticed a quadruple whammy with producing biofuel. First, there’s a debate about just how ‘green’ biofuel really is and that burning it has no discernable impact on reducing one’s carbon footprint. Secondly, carbon has to be burnt in the production of the fuel, so increasing carbon emission. Thirdly, as mentioned, rain forest is getting turned over and so increasing carbon footprint. And lastly, food production is giving way to fuel production and so increasing food shortages.

Hay making – cost of food
The problem with shortages, as OPEC knows only too well, is that it drives the price up. Shortages occur because demand outstrips supply. Supply of the basic foods is down because biofuels are taking over and crops are failing due to unfavourable weather brought about by too much carbon. Demand is increasing because the developing countries are developing so fast they are consuming huge volumes of resources, including food, and in return making a negative impact on the global carbon footprint… leading to more unfavourable weather and lower supply and therefore increased prices… and it seems it’s not only prices that have been on the increase… governments have been doing their own hay making by steadily increasing taxes.

Hay making - taxes
I’m not so clued up on other nations, but here in the UK us Brits are being taxed out of existence. The American’s have the stealth bomber and we have stealth taxes… both deadly and dangerous. Here in the UK, we are paying more in tax now than ever before. Sure, we have had higher personal tax rates, but the huge increase in indirect tax sucks more out of the economy than personal tax. For example, the amount of tax we pay on fuel is exorbitant. We have our government and OPEC taking more than their pound of flesh and it’s us the consumer that’ paying. Any goods or people that need moving will be paying more and therefore price of all goods go up… it’s a spiral effect.

Hay making – the banks
Talk about spirals… as mentioned above, the banks have had a poor harvest… they have lost billions in bad lending practices. They have swamped us with easy credit and now raise interest rates to make higher returns. They have cut back lending and because the inter-bank money rate is now higher than the base rate they are not cutting back the mortgage rates. The Bank of England has followed the American central bank and released funds to the banks to entice them to lend again. Our banks are keeping hold of the money to shore up their balance sheets… they like big balance sheets… why do they need to lend again; they have found an alternative way of making hay.

Hay making – what’s going to stop it
The man or women (the mention of women is a special reference for Jill Konrath) on the street is all important. The housing market is all important. Our economy has become reliant on a buoyant housing market. Less lending means less homes changing hands and therefore fewer taxes for the government which they need to make up elsewhere. Estate agents are closing. Removal firms are feeling the pinch. Equity release in homes has dried up. Taxes are high. Fuel costs are high. Food costs are high. There is less money going around. Consumer spending stops and everyone has hay fever and unable to harvest.

Hay making – your own harvest
Whatever happens to the economy, there will be hay makers out there. The depression in the 1920’s still had their own hay makers… luxury cars were still sold. Money will still be spent. You just need to make sure you know how to harvest. If what you are selling is considered a discretionary spend, then you need to be better at harvesting then all the others. They only way you are likely to get a customer to part with their money is to link what you are selling to improving their business. It has to be shown to be an integral part of their business survival. However, a strong need on its own is not enough as you also have to help make the business need an impetrative to be addressed now. You then have to show the value of doing business with you and your organisation. Finally, you are going to have to learn how to develop relationships across the customer’s organisation… you need these to develop the sales momentum for a ‘yes’ decision. The amount of hay you make will therefore depend on your ability to articulate the customer’s business imperative, your ability to show value and your ability to develop relationships. This is the formula for making hay while the sun shines on the economic credit crunch… and guess what?… it’s no different to what you should have been doing all along, it’s just this time there will be no easy harvest and if you don’t adopt now, then your harvest will fail.

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I’ve been travelling the length and breadth of the UK last week and not been able to put up any posts on my blog and so feeling a little more than a tad guilty I’ve been trying to put one together during my lunch break on one of the training workshops that I’ve been running… to help me I enlisted the help of some friends and so my thanks go to Tony, Richard, Elaine, Mike and Dave (aka Ishbell) who helped me develop this list.

Here are our 5 best reasons why you should not manage your pipeline:

You Might Make Some Money
It may well be a fallacy that sales people want to make money. Some people clearly don’t rate it as a priority and therefore failing to manage the pipeline is the clearest sign that money is not important… it’s as that great inventor, Thomas Edison, once said… “Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.”… so avoid good fortune because as we know money is the root of all evil and therefore best not to have too much of it.

It Limits Expectations
Let’s face it, managing your pipeline is only going to raise expectations. If you show that you are in control of your business you are setting the expectation that you are indeed in control… is this really the image you want to portray of yourself?

There’s No Fun Being Predictable
If we have some fun at work then the job becomes more enjoyable and it’s good to be able to enjoy your work. A couple of bluebirds in the pipeline has never done anyone any harm… you are way behind on your number, nothing in sight that is going to close… your boss is about to have a nervous breakdown due to pressure of not being anywhere near close to the number and you walk in with a fantastic deal, from nowhere, that saves the day. Just watch the relief on everyone’s face… is that not more enjoyable than being predictable?

Visibility Means Questions
The more there is to see, the more questions you will be asked. If there are big deals in the pipeline then more people will be asking the questions. While you take time to answer the questions you are not selling. Also, there may be some questions that you can’t answer and so you may lose some credibility, which you don’t want to happen and so by showing the deals you will really have to be in control and by demonstrating you are in control you will lose that aura of enigma that you have worked so hard to cultivate.

Makes you Replaceable
Let’s face it… show everything, keep contacts up to date, keep account plans up to date, keep pipelines up to date, produce full deal plans, etc, etc and you can be more easily replaced. Play everything close to your chest and management will find it more difficult to replace you… obviously you don’t want to be replaced, so is this not the best way to avoid it?

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I’ve just spent the week in front of the computer before an avalanche of customer engagements coming up and the brain is a little tired from all that thinking… not good… too much thinking. However, that’s not stopping me putting some thought into another sound bite before the weekend. This one reminds me of the time when I lived in South Africa…

Never knock the competition… just build on their strengths.

Gone are the days, well I hope they are gone… gone are the days when we have the keen sales professional knocking the competition; it’s no longer the done thing. Hopefully you may have stopped the knocking, but how many of you praise your competition? This is the bit that reminds me of my time in South Africa.

When I first went on safari in South Africa I was told that if I came across a lion then I had to make sure I showed no fear. Show fear and the lion would attack, but show no fear then the lion would think twice about attacking. Fortunately, I did not have to put this theory to the test, but I was also told the backup plan. If you have to run… it’s not as though you have to be able to out run the lion… you just have to be able to out run the person next to you… and as I’m several pounds the wrong side of the scales is this why everyone wanted to go on safari with me!

So, back to the sound bite… never knock the competition, just build on their strengths… First of all, if you do knock the competition then you are in fact telling your prospect they are an idiot. They choose to look at the competition and so by knocking the competition you may as well cut out the small talk and step right in and tell them what a bunch of idiots they are for making that choice… not good. Make them feel good about their decision and so tell them they have made a good choice to look at the competitor in question. Tell them the competitor will do a good job for them and on top of what they can do you can offer more… the ‘and’ word is important as it builds on any positive thoughts the prospect may have about the competitor and links them to you.

Praising the competition… insanity or brilliance? If you do it, then you show you have no fear of the competition and you make your prospect feel good about their choice, whereas knocking the competition is just the opposite…. it shows you are afraid and you make the prospect feel bad.

You could of course remain neutral and not say anything, but then who wants to go on safari with someone who is afraid of lions!

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It sounds rude, but an oxymoron as I’m sure you all know, is defined as a phrase in which two words of contradictory meaning are used together for special effect… well I reckon Pipeline Management at a corporate level is indeed an oxymoron. In fact, pipeline management at any level other than a personal level is an oxymoron.

There are two words to prove my point… ‘So What?’

Go and see the CEO or the VP of global sales and get them to explain what they do with their rolled up pipeline report… ask so what… so what decisions do they make on the back of that report… and I can tell you whatever decision they make it’s going to be wrong.

First of all, they have limited information. They think they are looking at the whole pipeline, but they are not. A lot of the early pipeline is not in the corporate system… it’s still with the sales professionals who don’t want to show everything too early.

Secondly, most corporate pipelines use factoring to come up with a forecast, which is about as useful as a chocolate teapot. Individuals will manipulate their percentages or deal values to make sure their individual forecast is not too low or too high and therefore make a mockery of the whole process.

Lastly, although they have limited and not entirely correct information they will still have a lot of it. If an individual has 20 deals, his manager will have at least 200 and his director over a thousand and the VP over 5,000 deals…. So where to add value?

The pipeline can’t be managed at this level, or any management level as there is on the one hand not enough information and on the other too much information and far too much of that is incorrect… hence the oxymoron. Therefore, it’s not pipeline management, but pipeline reporting. People are going to report what management want to see… keeps management off their backs!

The actual value to the corporation for the list of deals is for comfort. As long as management can see enough volume in the pipeline they are happy… it’s the corporate equivalent of comfort food…. and you know what comfort eating does for you… makes you bloated, fat and unhealthy!

So if you are a manager, director, VP or some other VITO… go and do some exercise on the bits that you can control… get each professional below you to show you how they are going to be making their number. You will only have two types of subordinate to deal with. Those that will be showing a miss and those that will be showing a hit. For those that show a miss get them to tell you what they are doing to bridge the gap. Find out which of their subordinates are forecasting a miss and how they are helping them bridge the gap. For those that forecast a hit… make sure they are right. You need to manage the gaps, not the pipeline.

Cascade down the management chain until you can go no further… and you should come across the sales professional… the people who keep everyone else in a job. These guys manage the pipeline… they have to manage their own pipeline to show how they are going to make their number. Again, sales management is simple… focus on the ones who are showing a miss… help them address the gap. Make sure the ones who are showing a hit are right to do so.

Managers manage the gaps, sales professionals manage the pipeline. It keeps everyone fit and healthy.

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I thought I might offer a few sound bites here and there. They are often easy to remember and some can be quite profound. So here goes… the first one…

If you find it compelling then it is likely that your customers will too.

I don’t know how profound you would rate the above, but suffice to say if you, as a sales professional, do not find your proposal, solution, product or whatever a compelling proposition for your customer then why should they? Why should they get excited if you are not excited? The customer has to feed off your enthusiasm… so get excited!

Or how about this one that follows a similar line…

If you want to influence, be prepared to be influenced.

If you are trying to get your point across to someone and you know you are right, but they have a different view and also feel they are right, then you are looking to exert your influence. However, if you come across as someone who is not prepared to budge on their own view, then why should they? If you are showing you are closed to being influenced, then why should they be open? Show you are open to be influenced and you will have a better chance of influencing the other person.

Short and sweet for a Friday post!

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