September 3, 2009

Sales - Brand Your Warriors

Sales is a critical component of your overall business strategy and it needs to be branded to distinguish it in the competitive masses.

The branding process starts with clarifying the strategic context for Sales. Sales must ‘look up’ to your overall strategy and define its specific role from it. Sales should never be allowed to create its own destiny. In an earlier blog, I discussed the importance of establishing Sales as Relationship Builders NOT product floggers to create long term success rather than ‘one-sale wonders’. Your Sales brand, then, needs to be created in the image of relationship building.

As with your overall business strategy, develop the only Statement for Sales. ‘Our Sales team is the only one that ...’ is a claim that will set the foundation for their brand. Remember Roy’s Rule of Three - focus on the critical few relationship building attributes that are the most compelling to the customers your have chosen to SERVE and that address your sales competencies . Here are some possibilities: consultation expertise, trusted advice, problem solving skills and more (see Chapter Fifty - One of my book).

Once you have nailed down your only claim - ‘Our Sales team is the only one that will lose a sale to do what is right for the customer in the long term’ - you have your brand. And, you must break it down into specific behaviors salespeople need to exhibit on a daily basis. I call it the Sales Behavior Charter which is a list of the critical behaviors you want demonstrated by every salesperson everyday.

Behaviors are necessary in order to see if the only claim is being lived and gives a salesperson specific direction in terms of what they have to do. If this level of behavioral granularity is not defined every salesperson will interpret the only claim in their own way and will lead to inconsistent customer treatment and dysfunction in executing the overall strategy.

Who is the judge of whether or not the Sales Behavior Charter is being adhered to? THE CUSTOMER of course. Once you have defined the behaviors to support the only claim, ask the customer on a regular basis to rate each salesperson (simple 1 to 5 scale) how the extent to which they are consistently demonstrating each behavior. A ‘1’ suggests they aren’t doing anything; a ‘5’ says they are consistently doing it. Simple.

And, build the Customer Report Card into the Sales compensation plan to ensure it matters. If a salesperson has 50% of their bonus on the line for only claim behaviors they will pay attention!

Cheers, Roy Osing

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Related Blogs:
Relationship Builders
The only Statement
Only claim Queen’s

Posted 9.3.09 at 05:48 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 1, 2009

Flogging Bonuses

Interesting article recently indicated that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair was concerned that recruitment bonuses paid by brokerage houses might encourage the wrong behavior. The wrong behavior referenced is selling securities at all cost irrespective of whether or not they are appropriate for the customer.

Absolutely something to be concerned about! Imagine salespeople that would ‘make excessive trades to generate fees’ or would ‘recommend products that don’t suit their client’s objectives and generate fees with transactions that aren’t in their costumer’s interests.’

Well, that’s exactly what will happen. Remember the real estate meltdown in the US? In my book BE DiFFERENT or be dead I put forward the notion that the driver behind the toxic asset syndrome was a sales plan that motivated the flogging of mortgages at any cost without any responsible consideration of the buyer’s ability to repay the loan.

Instead of getting ‘good’ clients that could afford to own a home, the real estate companies created lending products that assumed real estate would continue to climb in value, and compensated their sales people to go flog them.

And, flog them they did. To the point of almost destroying the banking industry not just in the US but the world over.

So when the Chair of the Securities Commission worries out loud that big bonuses could motivate the salespeople (brokers in this case) to do something that is in their best interests and not their customers, listen up!

It will happen. Not because the brokers are dishonest but because they are hungry to earn their bonus. Sales will always do what the compensation plan wants them to do.

This is great news if the bonus plan is right; its a disaster if it is wrong and motivates the wrong behavior.

Cheers, Roy Osing

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Posted 9.1.09 at 06:33 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 27, 2009

Sales - Relationship Builders NOT Product Floggers

There are two options to consider when setting a sales philosophy for your organization. You can choose to generate revenue by selling stuff or you can choose to build intimate relationships with people and have them buy stuff.

Selling stuff equates to flogging products; the focus is on what is being produced rather than on the demand elements of the customer. Very few people like the flogging experience where a sales person tries to shove a product down your throat with little consideration for our needs and expectations. At the end of a flogging experience we generally feel used, abused and violated vowing to never return.

Building deep relationships and having people buy stuff is quite a different thing and is based on the axiom that ‘you need to make a friend before you can do business’. The sales dynamics focus on getting to know the prospect and their specific needs and expectations (in the marketing chapter of my book I delve into the notion of customer secrets and how this intimate level of customer knowledge can unlock raw marketing power that create BE DiFFERENT organizations). The Relationship Builder actually make you compelled to buy! The forces at play propel the prospective buyer along a course of action that requires a transaction; anything less conjures up the feeling of guilt given the time, effort and caring the Builder has invested in you.

Relationship building firms understand and trust that cash flow is the result of deep customer relationships; an annuity stream is established over a longer period of time with an impressive Net Present Value as compared to the short term financial benefits of the one sale wonder.

Start the move today to developing a relationship building sales team. And introduce this element in the sales compensation plan. If you are purely a flogging organization today, ad a percentage for the relationship element and begin the journey to BE DiFFERENT Sales. Begin with compensating your sales team 20% on relationship building and increase this amount over time.

How do you measure relationship building? Create a Customer Report Card with 6 key relationship building behaviors and ask the customer to rate the salesperson on each. Customer perception is reality and it will not be long before every salesperson is paying attention to what is required to be a Builder!

Here are some relationship building behaviors to consider: show honest concern for the customer, build a profile on them, be an active listener, problem solve, be the customer advocate in your organization, relentlessly follow up on customer issues and be available 24X7. Or better still do some customer research and build the Builder behavior profile for your customers specifically. Good luck!

Cheers,
Roy Osing

Remember to follow me on Twitter

Related Blogs
Discover Customer Secrets
Institutionalize Customer Learning

Posted 8.27.09 at 06:50 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (2)

August 20, 2009

Coors Ad Pulled for Wrong Reason

Over the last few days the radio talk shows in BC and Ontario were busy discussing the recent billboard ad by Coors that declared that Coors is ‘Colder than most people from Toronto’. The ad was displayed apparently on 30 billboards throughout the Vancouver area. Some Torontonians picked up on it and complained to Coors who took the ads down forthwith.

The issue in my view is NOT that the ad disturbed the sensitivities of some people from Toronto. It should not have been pulled for that reason.

It should have been pulled - in fact should never have been published - because it was off strategy!

This is a marketing issue not one of positioning folks from the west against people from hog town. The fact of the matter is that Coors has a national market so they need to deal with the traits of people throughout Canada. The choice to poke fun at one region of their overall market doesn’t make any sense at all.

In addition, the use of Toronto in the creative was to describe the ‘cold’ dimension of their product. The creative execution was wrong and I suspect the ad guys were trying to be cute. Why would you choose a geographic region of your market to prove the ‘cold’ image of your product when there was a chance of alienating some of your market? Not a good choice.

The marketing folks need to get control of the ad creative staff who in my experience love to come up with off-the-wall, edgy and controversial ads at times. I have no issue with this as long as strategy is served.

In this case strategy was NOT served! Minus one for the ad guys.

Cheers, Roy Osing

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Posted 8.20.09 at 07:18 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)