Sales & Marketing Management - September/October 2008 - (Page 24)

special report Case study: Getting on the same page Crowe Chizek’s business units and geographies each had their own sales approach. Some had none at all. “There was no common methodology, no regimentation,” says Ann Lathrop, sales and marketing executive-in-charge at the Indianapolis-based accounting and consulting firm. “Much of it was home-grown and intuitive.” For Crowe Chizek to achieve their growth plans, they would have to pursue consulting and project work, which requires a different sales approach than their audit and tax practice. A team that included their CEO looked at existing processes. Then they evaluated the selling approaches of different vendors. FranklinCovey Sales Performance Group was selected, primarily because they were aligned with Crowe Chizek’s business philosophy and strategic goals. Since Crowe believes in a collaborative project management approach, SPG consultants worked closely with their internal team. Some employees’ jobs were changed to focus them on the implementation. Executives in charge of Crowe’s business units were involved, too. Collaboration and focus were designated the key success drivers. In addition to improvements in sales performance, Crowe was able to assign more value to their services, enhance their proposal process and implement a more formal revenue budgeting and sales forecasting process. Crowe and SPG collaborated in the creation of a structured methodology that supported Crowe’s entrepreneurial philosophy. All of Crowe’s business units now share common terminology. Each opportunity that passes through their pipeline uses a standard methodology. Most importantly, their sales goals have increased and are being achieved. have multiple product lines with different customer sets, this process should be repeated for each one. 2. Look at your current selling capabilities. Is your selling approach aligned with how your customers buy? Do you have tools in place to prove your unique value to the customer? What does it take to win against each of your major competitors? What are the best practices within each team? Include an objective assessment of your salespeople in this step, as well. 3. Benchmark current performance and determine your objectives going forward. Consider key metrics other than performance against quota—examples include your win rate against each competitor, average sales cycle duration, forecasting accuracy and average discount. 4. Develop a methodology from any relevant existing fragments, such as the qualification or lead generation processes discussed earlier. The objective is to construct a repeatable system that will propel you into the lead in 80% or more of your opportunities. Brad Weydert is president and co-founder of Denver-based Statera, a business and technology consultancy. Eighteen months ago, his team was using Salesforce.com’s CRM without an underlying sales methodology. Since Weydert’s small company competes with the big guys, he knew his team had to employ advanced selling strategies and tactics to win. Weydert also needed to be able to objectively assess all the opportunities in his pipeline so as to best allocate his resources. Statera’s solution was to implement The TAS Group’s sales methodology and Dealmaker sales effectiveness software application. Did it work? During The TAS Group training sessions, Statera reps worked on four live sales opportunities. They subsequently won all four. Statera quickly gained 100% compliance with the methodology and the software tool. 5. Characterize the high-level stages of your customer’s buying process, then map your mix of old 24 and new processes to each stage. The customer stages might be as generic as “initial contact/long list,” “short list,” etc. Determine the individual tasks to be performed during each customer stage and the criteria that, when satisfied, permit advancement to the next stage. “Determine from CFO that budget exists,” might be a task. Confirming that there is a budget is required before moving to the next stage. The more complex your customers’ buying process, the more tasks and criteria will be required. 6. Your new sales methodology and the component processes will require tools like phone scripts for qualifying sales leads. Sales managers and others who directly support the selling effort will need to learn and embrace the new methodology and terminology. 7. Train your salespeople on your new methodology, the individual processes and the tools that have been built to support their application. 8. Remember, you can’t manage what you can’t measure, and you can’t measure without formal processes. You must track a few key metrics and compare them to your original benchmark (see number three), as well as your stated objectives for this initiative. If you are off the mark, tweaking the faulty process or providing a quick online training session is often the answer. 9. A year after deployment, cycle back to the first step. Reassess customer buying methods and how your team is performing. Having been through this process, you’ll be able to retool and integrate the required changes into your overall sales methodology, leaving your competition in the dust. Sales may well be last in line, but you now have a solid roadmap at your disposal. The question is, what are you going to do with it? s&mm Dave Stein is CEO and founder of ES Research Group in West Tisbury, Mass., as well as S&MM’s “Smart Sales” columnist. He can be reached at dave.stein@ESResearch.com. SALES &MARKETING MANAGEMENT SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2008 www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com http://www.Salesforce.com http://www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Sales & Marketing Management - September/October 2008

Sales &�Marketing Management - September/October 2008 Contents Editor's Letter Brian Tracy University Smart Sales Sales Strategy Smart Marketing Marketing Strategy Smart Management Management Strategy The Low-Cost Sales Leader Why Sales Process Gets the Shaft Training Q&A Technology Making the Case for Travel (Part II) Travel/Meetings On the Road The Way I See It

Sales & Marketing Management - September/October 2008

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