We often see Sales & Marketing departments working from different planets. Over 90% of marketing support tools and training goes unused by sales people, who spend 40 to 60 hours a month of selling time (!) re-purposing customer communications. The one accuses the other for low lead conversion rates. Sales mostly blame Marketers to be out of touch with customers. In short, they don’t get along. Isn’t this remarkable?
For Senior Management, it is often difficult to quantify the impact of poor alignment on corporate performance. But let’s face the facts: what does a stop to the battle between Sales & Marketing have on offer?
- Sales cycles get shorter
- Market entry cost goes down
- Lower Cost of Sales
Apart from considerable cost decrease opportunities, working together as a team directly impacts revenue. Think of aligned brand and product messages enhancing the company’s reputation in the market. Or increased profits when Sales follow up Marketing campaigns more effectively.
Everybody will agree that Sales & Marketing are supposed to work towards a common goal: maximising the company’s potential. Now what to do to close the gap between the 2 departments? Here are a few tips to get started:
- Introducing a common language is an absolute must
A common language enables development of goals and messaging that will be shared over departments and which every individual agrees upon. Also, it will become much easier to introduce aligned quantification and qualification criteria, e.g. for leads and campaign goals/results. Sales & Marketing will be able to correct and enhance each other’s work, and work together to achieve shared business goals.
- Aligning Sales & Marketing with customers’ readiness to buy
Most often, Sales & Marketing are driven by internal processes rather than the customer’s buying cycle. They will be giving company and product presentations, demo’s, sending proposals, etc … too often without any result. Sales & Marketing should learn together to understand the mental phases your customers are going through to come to a buying decision. These common insights will support Marketing to deliver sales-ready materials and Sales to better perform in the field.
- Introducing an experience sharing platform
Sales will learn from each other and Marketing will get a better grasp of what is really going on in the field. The platform consists of a small set of sales-ready deliverables which are kept up to date per segment and key-contacts in the buying process. Regular sales meetings with best practice sharing and assisted by marketing are the starting point. Ask your sales to send a blackberry style email with the summary of meetings (especially on pains, challenges and capabilities) and make sure marketing has access to that information in order to keep the best practice up to date.
Curious to learn about your experience with Sales & Marketing battles!
How to questions from readers and customers prompted me to write an add-on to my previous post on funnel management.
The first thing that has to be said is that few companies have changed their sales approach in an appreciable way over the last few decades. Yet buyers are seeking to buy and not to be sold to for over a decade.
I still see sales trainings and managers telling their sales and to look at the sales cycle and behave in an way that is inward looking. Sales force automation (SFA) and customer relation management systems (CRM) haven’t really helped to convert the front-line in an outward looking mode and helping people to buy from them instead of being sold to.
I was pleasantly surprised to see one of the outcomes of the 2009 sales conference in Miami where the buying cycle emerged as the new standard for funnel management. I trust this to be a stimulus for all the Perpetos customers bringing this into practice since 2005. But their is still a long way to go. It is indeed the best way to get subjectivity out of your funnel, yet it demands a mind-shift of the whole sales organisation and another way for management to coach and interact with their sales team. They all must learn to ask way more questions and ‘really’ try to understand what the customer is saying.
The principle is simple: Ask the customer questions which allows you to know the readiness to buy of each individual in the decision making unit (DMU), align them all so that they move through the buying cycle in a synchronised way and adapt your actions to it.
A couple of tips to improve your funnel management:
- Stop tracking and discussing sales steps and process. Start using readiness to buy phases based on reactions and answers to questions from each individual involved in the buying process. Ideally start using the Buying Clock. Using the time on the clock is an easy way for implementing a, consistent used, common language.
- Are we asking for and tracking the next step or are we engaging the sales rep to first decide on the next objective to facilitate the buying process on a project level before deciding what the next step should be, when and with whom? Do we track this in our funnel?
- Track the pain level of the customer by also knowing the impact of the challenges on the customer. Is their a compelling reason or an urgent need?
- Has your sales rep access to the decision maker? Is he continuously involved in the process and kept up to date by the sales rep?
- Is the go-live date the most important date we discuss with the customer? Is it a fixed date and why or can it easily be postponed? Do we know and are we tracking the go-live date?
- Has the customer actually confirmed your solution fit and did we postpone drafting the proposal until that moment?
- Split the weight % in 2 distinct ones: project%=what is the probability of the customer actually buying and win% = the probability of you winning the deal.
- Are you tracking the most important mandatory buying criteria and what is the perceived scoring of the customer compared to the competition? Do you discuss ways to influence these buying criteria?
Finally:
- Convert your weighted funnel in a scenario based funnel on which you coach the sales rep.
- Engage in vivid 1:1 discusions with sales to set a continuous improvement process in motion.
Your benefit and result: An accurate forecast with a highly improved visibility.
The basis of a good quality funnel is one which is based on prospect readiness to buy!
The most often used funnels nowadays are still based on subjective input from sales. It’s amazing to see how many managers are using such a funnel to predict revenue and use it as the basis for budget exercises. This is the funnel that most people use yet it is a very outdated model. This type of funnel is an artificial invention taking the eye away from the prospect and puts the focus on sales actions.
The fact that doing something is putting the opportunity on a given point in the funnel is a totally wrong assumption. The thinking is flood. You can give company and product presentations, demo’s, send proposals even when asked, etc without achieving anything. The question is am I doing something which corresponds with the readiness to buy?
Here are the biggest funnel mistakes:
- input based on subjective sales rep input. The gut feeling of sales people in terms of funnel management are seldom correct because:
- they are to closely involved to have an overall view
- most sales are to much influenced by the opinion of their ’sponsor’ and/or last sales action
- they have too little visibility on what’s happening at decision level
- not enough, if at all, contact with the ‘real’ decision makers
- individual forecast building by using a percentage win-rate on each of the opportunities. Most funnels at sales rep level and even on corporate level have to little opportunities at the same stage with too much variation in size
- defined by selling activities: performing activities is not necessarily moving the opportunity closer to a decision
- lack of common definitions
- imposed as a reporting tool and not as a day to day self-coaching tool: The funnel will never be up to date or based on careful thinking if it is not in a format, and incorporated in the way of working, which influences the agenda and behavior of the sales rep
- tracking and reviews based on must win deals resulting in starved pipelines and pushing salespeople to do the right things at the wrong time.
Helping management and the VP sales to more accurately predict the revenue is to convert the funnel into a buying funnel which tracks the readiness to buy of the opportunity. This is even more true in more complex sales with quit an amount of people involved in the decision taking. Because each of the involved people have their own agenda and readiness to buy which must be synchronized in order to move the opportunity closer to a decision in the quickest way possible.
The mental stages a buyer is going through:
These phases are universal and cultural independent.
- execution of existing solution and not interested in any information or offering in that area
- executuion and interested: something triggered the person to want to know more about something
- Field of Tension: Starts with an admitted pain which evolves over time into an urgent need. This results in the decision to buy something
- Market Research: The prospect goes out to the market to search for potential solutions and vendors
- Hesitation: This phase starts when the prospect thinks to be convinced to buy what from whom. At his point the focus shifts from looking to the benefits and advantages of acquiring the solution to all what can go wrong after having bought.
- Implementation: This is the period during which the solution is being implemented.
- Execution: The solution is in full use until the cycle starts all over again.
Perpetos has converted these phases into a 24 hour buying clock™.
Some of the reported results you acquire by this system are:
- a true shift towards customer focused thinking and acting
- an objective pipeline with a much better accuracy
- improved internal communication based on the hours of the clock
- lower cost of sales (i.e. less multiple people meetings because sales and pre-sales exactly determine when their presence is needed)
- improved hit rate
- more balanced pipeline
Let my know your experiences!
The purpose of this blog is to explain all components of corporate DNA and position it in the overall picture of strategy and strategy execution.
Corporate DNA can be compared with human DNA in the sense that it’s unique and can’t be altered. Corporate DNA is the sum of all ‘unchangeable’ elements of a company which combined describe its identity and uniqueness at the same time. It is all what remains fixed while the business strategies and tactics endlessly adapt to an ever changing environment. The corporate DNA consists of 3 components:
- First of all the ‘real’ core values of the company
- Core values are the operating philosophies or principles that guide an organization’s internal conduct as well as its relationship with the external world. Real core values are the common denominator of the employee’s core values. Hence the importance of identifying them by studying and interviewing people in the organization in contradiction to most exercises whereas top management is defining their so called core values based on the strategy and whom they’re willing to be. An example (Nemetschek SCIA) of ‘real’ core vales is:
- The continuous pursuit for new ideas and innovation
- Commitment and our involvement for the well being of our company
- Loyal long-term relationship with all stakeholders
- Hardworking yet forward thinking people
- Our commitment to take full responsibility and living up to made commitments
- The core Purpose
- The core purpose is the organization’s fundamental reason for being. In other words a written statement that identifies why the organization will exist for the next 10 to 30 years. It makes abstraction of the product/service offering. Some examples are:
- Inspire people to move limits (Nemetschek SCIA)
- To solve unsolved problems innovatively (3M)
- To make people happy (Walt Disney)
- Your Value Discipline (Treacy and Wiersema):
- The value discipline are our behaviours and actions which ensure the delivery of our value proposition. Value proposition being the mix of products, services, price and payment terms we offer to customers. The value discipline is either Product Leadership, Operational Excellence or Customer Intimacy. One has to be the best at one of them whilst making sure to keep on delivering the ‘Olympic minimum’ on the 2 other disciplines. A good example in the automotive industry is to compare BMW to Toyota. Another good example is Colruyt (Belgian based retailer) for operational excellence. Trying to outperform the competition on more then 1 of the disciplines is unaffordable and always unsuccessful in the long run because it takes too long and costs too much money. Your value discipline is part of your DNA and should be in line with your core values.
It is of the utmost importance to know, track and communicate on your DNA. A diluted DNA is probably the number one reason for stalled growth and/or declining profits in a growth scenario. Their are plenty good reasons to make sure your DNA doesn’t get diluted:
- A lot easier to grow your business because of the ease to get people aligned;
- Sharp value perception leading to more successful lead generation;
- People are self-motivated;
- No need for a lot of written down policies such as travel rules, work schedules, meeting behavior, email policies,….. because people are behaving in a coherent way;
- Improved performance due to focus. i.e. people will not waste time and resources on improvements or idea’s to lower the cost of delivery if you’re in product leadership and your price/performance is at an acceptable level from the market’s point of view. These resources should be spend in becoming even stronger in product leadership;
- …
Typical symptoms of a diluted DNA are:
- Managers managing people instead of the business;
- an increasing level of rules and bureaucracy;
- A lot of emphasis on motivation and programs supporting it;
- HR policies which put job experience above DNA compliance in hiring and retention;
- Spontaneous idea’s and improvement propositions which are totally random;
- …
Better results and less people issues resulting in less stress as a manager will be your personal advantage if you avoid DNA dilution.
I’ve seen and heard it over and over again. It’s difficult to get access to real decision makers. It’s even more difficult to keep them in the loop.
Entering late in the buying cycle is probably the single most important reason. A project manager is taking the lead once an opportunity is in the closed minded phase (in some businesses when the RFQ/RFP has been send out). This means that all requirements have been gathered and translated into buying criteria. Therefore real decision makers and those faced with the business problem are no longer involved in the market research phase. They will of course come back into the loop at decision time but that’s way to late to build a meaningful relationship for this opportunity.
5 tips to help overcome the main obstacles:
- Research the power structure and contact the highest ranked person faced with the business problem:Marketing should influence all decision makers faced with business problems you can solve. See: how to influence key decision makers And the one with the biggest impact should be contacted by sales to make an appointment based on a value proposition adapted to the business problem you want to discuss. They will only accept an appointment if their ‘readiness to buy’ is far enough developed but not yet to the state that they’re already convinced to know the buying criteria the solution must meet.
- Speak their language: Sales people are often pushed down or don’t get access to them because they’re unable to have a value add business conversation. Decision makers are not interested in a product or technology pitch. Nor are they interested in knowing more about your company. Remember: Decision-makers believe they know the destination but they have a problem getting there.
- Understand the psychology: Your contact will probably have cold feet of introducing you higher up in the organisation. They’re not sales people and therefore be reluctant to sell the idea to their boss. Afraid of the impact in case of a wrong judgement or setting up an appointment with a sales rep that doesn’t speak the right language.
- Get agreement on value chain impact: Showing that the business pain has an important impact on other key people in the organisation will help you to get access even higher in the organisation. the reasons are:
- You helped your contact to build the needed story to sell the appointment
- You proofed that you understand and have experience dealing with the business problem
- You proofed that you speak the right language.
- Negotiate access: You have to negotiate access if all of above has been insufficient to get access. Remember to check the status of the opportunity in terms of readiness to buy. All of above will probably fail if you came in via the project manger or buyer because the opportunity is already too far down the buying cycle. So if you came in at the right time you will get access when agreeing on certain work or commitments from your side that are of value to your contact in exchange for that meeting.
Closing tip: Be careful with your forecast if you put in opportunities without having access to the real decision makers. These opportunities will drag on and on in your pipeline. Quit normal of course since you have very little insight and control over the ‘real decision’.
