January 24, 2011

Back to School for Sales

Secrets to ReMARKABILITY and UnFORGETTABILITY 
Bonding is In; Flogging is Out 
Three Elements of BE DiFFERENT Marketing 

Long term success is based on intimate relationships you have with your customers. Its not about transactions based on pushing products and services. You have heard this rant from me before.

So, how does an organization move from a Flogger to one that believes in a healthy dose of humanity to take itself to the next level of performance? It’s all very well to SAY that sales should be focused on developing deep customer relationships; it’s another thing to put the tools in place to ensure that it happens.

Sales is driven by their Compensation Plan, so we need to re-vector the plan to measure Relationship-Building Behaviors.

What does the measurement tool look like? I have had amazing success introducing what I call The Customer Report Card (CRC) as the vehicle to determine the extent to which Sales exhibited the behavior necessary to bond the customer to the company.

The CRC consists of not more than six relationship-building behaviors that you consider critical. The rating scale for each behavior is ‘A’ - Excellent (exceeds expectations); ‘B’ - Good (meets expectations) and ‘D’ - Poor, Unacceptable (falls below expectations). You can also include a Comments Section to get added information from the customer to explain their rating.

The Customer does the rating of the salesperson every month. Active engagement of the customer quite often sends the sales individual into therapy when they are suddenly confronted with the truth about their ability to get intimate with their Fans.

To get you started, here are twelve potential Relationship-Building Behaviors to consider in developing your CRC:
- listens actively to what I say; asks questions to clarify her understanding of what I have said;
- is genuinely interested in my problems and issues I am dealing with;
- always returns my calls or e-mails promptly;
- takes the time to get to know me personally;
- never breaks a promise made to me;
- talks to me in common language rather than using internal jargon;
- actively participates in helping to solve the problems in my organization;
- pro-actively send me unsolicited information on solutions that I should consider to my problems;
- says “I’m sorry” when he screws up;
- acts like my partner in business;
- takes ownership of me inside her organization. There is no question that she is my Champion inside her company;
- is a Service Recovery Addict. When his organization has made a Service blunder with me, he takes total responsibility for the matter and will stop at nothing to get the matter resolved FAST and to my satisfaction.

One other benefit of the CRC: the act of having your customer engaged will bring them closer to you. They will love you for asking them to be involved and they will tell others how HUMANE you are.

Give it a shot. You have everything to gain.

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 1.24.11 at 05:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (4)

May 4, 2010

Relationship-Building Performance Plan for Sales

BE DiFFERENT Sales takes a right angled turn away from the traditional product flogging practice to building deep intimate relationships with customers with the belief that long terms benefits favor the latter philosophy.

The challenge becomes one of jarring sales loose from years of product love into a world where relationship rule.

Here’s some leadership hints to get you going:
- First, declare to the sales organization that you intend to move to a Relationship-Building (RB) Performance Management structure in 36 months. Discuss why the product-only method won’t work over the long terms and that sustainable competitive advantage requires the change.
- Set out Year 1 changes: immediately sales Performance Management and bonus compensation will be based 80% on product revenue; 20% on measured RB competency.
- Then advise them that Year 2 will look like: 50% product revenue; 50% RB competency.
- Then tell them that Year 3 will move to 30% product; 70% RB.
- Of course you can decide on the distribution that fits your own circumstances, but I suggest that the shift away from the product approach be bold. If not, your aspirations to change won’t be believable and sales will continue to exhibit past behaviors.

How will you measure RB competency for each salesperson? This is where the Customer Report Card comes in.

This is the step-by-step measurement process I successfully used:
1. Define 6 RB behaviors you expect each salesperson to demonstrate. Could be: listening, empathizing, follow up, consultation etc. The behaviors chosen must line up with the Strategic Game Plan and Values for your organization.
2. Weight each behavior as some may be more important than others.
3. Decide on a rating system for each behavior. I used ‘poor’, ‘fair’, ‘average’, ‘good, and ’ as the rating categories. It worked well.
4. Set year-end objectives for each RB behavior. A typical would get a target of 80% ‘good/excellent’ ratings.
5. Get the executive to sign off on the targets to ensure consistency with the Strategic Game Plan of the organization.
6. Engage customers to rate their sales person on each RB behavior. Do it monthly. Encourage written comments. The more customer commentary to explain the numerical ratings the more useful the overall process will be in terms of understanding the behavioral changes necessary.
7. Issue performance results monthly.
8. Require each salesperson to create an Action Plan to improve the RB behaviors below target. A meeting with their manager will present the opportunity for coaching.
9. Celebrate the “most improved” salesperson in relationship-building. Make it matter to everyone. Eventually have it dominate the Sales Recognition and Reward Program.

Cheers,
Roy

Remember to follow me on Twitter

Related Sales Articles
Sales as Secret Agents
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Sell Relationships NOT Products
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Posted 5.4.10 at 07:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 28, 2010

Product Floggers Inflict Pain on Customers

Sales Product Floggers torture customers in many ways:

- Little interest is shown in what is going on with the customer. They only care about driving the product down the customer’s throat.
- Way too much fast talk. It’s a monologue about the features and benefits not a conversation. If the sales person takes a breath it’s a miracle.
- No knowledge of the customer is evident. The product rules!
- Scarce listening. Lots of transmitting.
- Product monologue. No solutions dialogue.
- Product features prevail. Little VALUE communication.
- Lots of “techno-speak”. Sales person very impressed with their knowledge.
- No defenses evident for the customer. The Flogger is relentless.
- The short term focus overwhelms any long term flavor.
- Price benefits trumps any VALUE considerations (perhaps there are none?).
- Technology coolness. It’s about what the product does more than the VALUE it creates for the individual.
- Pressure to buy is immense. Customer wants to get it over with and escape the sales pain.
- Implied criticism on the customer if they don’t buy. “Don’t you realize the amazing deal you would get? (Are you dull?).

It’s not the sales person’s fault. This type of behavior happens because of leadership. Sales is compensated by how much product they sell. Relationships? It’s fuzzy stuff that really is tough to quantify in terms of benefits and therefore doesn’t matter.

Absolute rubbish! If you want to know how to make Sales relationship-building behaviors matter and build them into your leadership strategy just give me a call. It’s not rocket science. The real issue is do you have the intestinal fortitude to focus on customer relationships as key to growing revenue or do you intend to go forward actually believing that that slamming products at people will get you the gold medal?

Your call. I hope, your employees hope, your owners hope and your customers hope you make the right one.

Cheers,
Roy

Remember to follow me on Twitter

Related Blogs
Sell Relationships NOT Products
Lose a Sale But Save the Customer

Posted 4.28.10 at 08:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 1, 2010

BE DiFFERENT Report Card on Sales

Sales is a critical function to any organization in terms of creating competitive domination. This fact is often underestimated and ‘the sales guys’ are looked on as the used car custodians of the organization. They need more respect and they need to earn it.

We need to treat Sales DiFFERENT. Their STRATEGIC ROLE must be clearly defined. The CUSTOMER VALUE they are expected to deliver must be carefully crafted. The BEHAVIORS they are expected to exhibit day-in and day-out must be designed to deliver targeted results.

And, we need to hold Sales accountable to deliver. Strategic goals must be integrated into their Performance Plans and their compensation. If Sales don’t get paid to behave a certain way, they won’t do it.

This is my assessment of Sales performance as I engage with salespeople an a daily basis and witness their behavior.

BE DiFFERENT Sales shortfalls:
X Human indifference - love their product; not too fussy about humans;
X Too much flogging - paid to sell products and not build intimate customer relationships;
X Not enough problem solving - driven to sell stuff not actively engage in the customer experience;
X Resistance to follow-up - follow up time takes away from flogging which could impact their bonus;
X Little Customer Advocacy - product centric behavior impedes concern to fight for the customer’s rights inside the organization;
X Virtually no Secret gathering - paid to sell stuff not learn what the customer is all about;
X Insufficient commitment to Recovery - fixing mistakes is someone else’s job; pass it off to them.

There are few sales organizations that are DiFFERENT; an opportunity for those brave enough to break out of the traditional mold with a sense of urgency.

Try it. Your customers will thank you for it.

Cheers,
Roy Osing

Remember to follow me on Twitter

Related Blogs
Sales as Secret Agents
Discover Customer Secrets
Sell Relationships NOT Products
Brand your Sales Warriors
Lose a Sale But Save the Customer
Sales Listeners Wanted

Posted 4.1.10 at 08:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)