Coming up to the New Year there are a couple of things you can count on as sales professionals, one of which is that you quota will rise.  That’s not bad, it is just a fact, so the question becomes what can you do, now, to ensure that you can deliver.  The question comes down to how you can become more effective in what you do in the process of becoming more productive. 

To help you and your team achieve this we have brought together three sales specialists to share specific things you can do going into 2010 to get and stay ahead of the curve.  Over the next three days we will present three posts focused on things that impact how you sell, and how sales managers can help their teams succeed.

In addition to my post, you will also have the opportunity to get input from:

1. Myself

2. Trish Bertuzzi – Founder, President and Lead Strategist, of The Bridge Group, Inc. – Inside Sales Consulting.

3. The article below is a guest post by Tibor Shanto, Founder & President of Renbor Sales Solutions Inc., and creator of Objective Based Selling. You can find Tibor on twitter at @renbor.

A few years back, in a piece in the Harvard Business Review, it was stated that an 8% improvement in the productivity of your existing sales team will result in the same sales growth as if you were to add 27% more reps.  I am sure the numbers may have changed  in the three years since it was published, the underlying reality has not.  In fact what has changed is the ability of organizations and managers to add headcount, in the post-Lehman Brothers-era, cost restraint is the overriding mantra.  So with the added stress and demands on the average sales rep and team, the question becomes how to achieve this productivity without distracting the team or breaking the camel’s back.

To me if you have to focus on only thing it would be time allocation to improve sales velocity.  If you can focus your resources on better opportunities, you will not only move them through the process quicker, but create a way to not deal with opportunities that either will never happen or whose time has yet to come.  If you can allocate your time to those activities that have the highest RPA Return Per Activity, while developing the discipline to only execute those activities that move a sale forward, than you will increase productivity and sales closed.

To achieve this you will need to understand two key things:

1. What activities you should allocate time for and in what proportion?
2. What does the right prospect look like?

While number one is the more important, you really can’t deal with it until you answer number two.  The good news is that it is not as hard as it may first sound; it is laborious and dry work at times, but once you have the basic template, it is easy to update and will pay ongoing dividends. Go back and look at all the deals you have won over the last 18 months, and see what are the most common attributes shared by these.  Don’t just do it on an account basis, that is what these companies have in common, but also on a deal basis.  How did the deal unfold, number of meetings, people involved, roadblocks, accelerators, language, bet right down to cellular level.  Why did they engage with you in the first place, did they engage right away, or did you have to nurture them for a while; if yes then how long, what did they respond to, what were they hoping to accomplish, why did they not engage right away.  As a rule, if you are not the number one sales person in your company, you want to spend time looking at the above factors for the best rep at your company, really park your ego and make some money.

Do the same for deals you lost or did not happen, look at the ones you lost early, half way through your predictable cycle (you’ll know what your cycle is from doing the above), at the end of the cycle.  Again, how did you engage, were they in your lead pipe (different than your prospect pipe which active opportunities) too long or not long enough? 

Once you have done this, you will have two profiles, ones that you want to pursue vigorously, and those you want to avoid like Tiger does the media.  In some ways the economic climate over the last 12 – 18 months provides a good time to do this exercise, as you can truly see who clearly fits in to each group.

Now you can focus on who and how to best engage with the type opportunities that will help you work with people who will act like your successful deals.  When you engage with these people they will move more predictably, not always faster.  Remember that velocity involves both speed and direction.  There is an optimal speed, and when you reach it, it is not a good use of resources to keep pushing.  Where you can add to velocity and results is by fine tuning your direction, and when involved with the “right” prospect, their direction, after all you have the advantage of knowing because you did your work and went after them for a reason.

While it may be obvious, it is worth pointing out that the biggest impediment to productivity is time and resources spent on prospects that will not close NOW, this is why we raised nurturing leads.  Some are not ready NOW, so let’s manage them, put them in the “leads funnel”, which should have rules and attribute like your sales funnel. 

Once you know who (specifically), and how, and how long, you can now allocate time to those activities that are necessary to consistently execute, and not allocate time to things that don’t lead to sales.

Eliminate waste; accentuate the right activities, easy 8% right there.

I am very excited that my article “5 Ways to Gauge Sales Management Coaching” (below) is one of the top 12 sales articles of 2009. Voting is now taking place for the Top Sales Article of the Year. Please help me by casting your vote. Click here to vote.

5 Ways to Gauge Sales Management Coaching

A highly successful vice president of sales recently shared his frustration with the members of his sales management team, who he felt were focused only on results. He worried that they were not spending any time developing their salespeople.
His longer-term view is based on the belief that developing people to the best of their potential improves performance and retention, and it also helps develop a pool of succession candidates.

Most sales leaders would agree that coaching is the most impactful activity a sales manager can do to drive sales team performance. Studies reinforce this by showing that above-average coaches deliver 20 percent more sales.
 

The challenge?
Sales management coaching is the weakest-performing activity among managers. How do you know if your managers are effective coaches? Here are five ways to find out.

1. Asking vs. Telling
If most of a manager’s interaction with his salespeople includes the words “do this” or “why are you not doing that?” your manager is in “tell mode” rather than “coach mode.” This is highly directive and subservient communication. It does little to motivate salespeople, makes them feel like robots, creates mediocre performers, and strains their relationships with their manager.
Coaching is about asking thoughtful questions. It is based on the belief that individuals have the answers to their own sales challenges. The manager’s role is to help individuals develop their ability to self-direct and solve their own problems. A coach would spend a majority of the time asking “how do you think you can best accomplish this goal?” or “how would you like to address this opportunity?”
Spend 15 minutes in one of your manager’s sales meetings and you can quickly determine which mode she or he operates in.

2. Time Spent in the Field
Managers tend to spend their time on the activities they are the best at and most enjoy. A manager who is fixated on administrative tasks such as submitting reports on time probably enjoys this activity and is less comfortable coaching. A strong manager recognizes the value of finding creative ways to get into the field and spend more time with his or her reps. Remember that administration doesn’t generate revenue or help develop your salespeople. Conversely, time spent in the field improves your salespeople’s ability to be the best they can be, and time in front of the customer is the best return on investment of the manager’s time.

3. Accountability
Coaching is about accelerating a sales rep’s growth and ability to achieve personal goals and reach full potential. Simply put, sales coaching is a four-step process:
1. It identifies opportunities for improvement.
2. It gains commitment.
3. It develops a plan.
4. It sets an accountability meeting to discuss progress.
Set aside one hour a month to review your managers’ field visit reports. You are looking for progress toward improving one or two areas of a rep’s development.

4. Sales Rep Engagement and Turnover
Many companies track two metrics. First, they perform an annual engagement survey in which the key is to drill down to the level of the sales manager. This provides insight into the differences between managers as well as the managers’ effectiveness in coaching their reps. Effective coaches will score much higher in sales rep engagement. Second, turnover is also a sign of reps’ relationships with their managers. In fact 70 percent of top performers who leave will do so based on their relationships with their managers.

5. Observation
Spend a couple of days in the field each month getting to know your managers. Ask them about their day’s work with your salespeople and find out about their development plans. Ask them about the level and quality of coaching they are getting. Consider sitting in with a sales manager and his rep for a day. You observe the coach at work and get a firsthand perspective on the coaching effectiveness.