EPILOG
For a PDF version click HERE
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EPILOG
For a PDF version click HERE |
Epilog Jack Ressler was rather pleased with the outcome of the board meeting. It had lasted more than four hours during which his management team and the board of directors enthusiastically discussed the five deadly sins. Everyone was quick to conclude that, although Jack was the primary offender and had set strategic and tactical direction of the company, all of management had a role in reinforcing the decisions and behaviors that had ultimately led to the poor financial results. The management team was also the first to admit that they needed new and fresh ideas about how to find and nurture customers. This was especially true because none of them had foreseen the added complication of a deteriorating global economy. Everyone’s sense of urgency was high so the first thing that they agreed to do was to call in the management training company that the board had mentioned to Jack. Jack asked the board why this particular company was best suited for their needs. They gave him two reasons. First, there are very few sales training organizations that are headed by a former CEO. This one is. That gives him and his team a unique perspective when it comes to understanding the problem from the CEO viewpoint. The other reason is that their approach is customer centric. That is, it is behaviorally aligned with the way people buy and therefore is not manipulative. As one board members stated, “Its not cheesy”. Sara Lippmann, another one of the board members, said that their approach followed a structured management approach that not only helped with the interaction between buyers and sellers, it also help her company develop a way to fairly and effectively coach and mentor sales managers. She said that that is often a forgotten component of traditional sales training approaches. But before Jack could engage someone from the outside he wanted make absolutely certain that his VP Sales, Bill Smith was on board with the idea. So, on the Monday afternoon of the board meeting, Jack and Bill met. To Jack’s surprise, Bill was relieved to be discussing the topic of selling and sales management. For most of his career on the front lines of selling, Bill never really had the chance to stop and think about how to put a system of selling in place. He was always chasing the numbers – and chasing his people to chase the numbers. Bill had inherited half of the sales organization. The rest he had hired. Therefore, it was hard for Bill to admit that the sales people couldn’t sell. Yet, when Bill learned about the five deadly sins he realized that he had expected each of the sales people to perform better, even if the products and services they were selling were new to them. One of the key challenges that Bill had identified early at the company is that it took too long for the sales people to learn the company’s offerings and to become effective at presenting to customers. Bill also knew that he could not grow the sales organization or the business if he personally had to be involved in so many transactions, particularly at the end of the month and quarter. The current model just didn’t scale. To try to address that issue he started to groom some of the better sale people as candidates for sales management. When he heard about the fifth sin, promoting star athletes to head coach, the proverbial light bulb lit in his head. In this case it was a warning light! Jack and Bill discussed their observations and experiences with the business over the past year and compared them with the five deadly sins. In too many situations they had committed one or more of the sins. Other issues that arose included teaching the sales people to negotiate better and how to qualify and disqualify opportunities early. In one case the sales rep chased a large opportunity for eight months only to have the prospect do nothing. At one point during their meeting, Bill mentioned that he had taken dozens of sales training programs over his career. He had also attended numerous seminars and workshops on specific skill development and techniques. From those events and his experience Bill felt that he had all the skill needed to teach the sales organization how to sell. However, he simply didn’t have the time. Jack saw the look in Bill’s eyes and took the opportunity to make a point. He looked squarely at Bill and said, “Bill, I know you can teach selling, but I want you to manage sales, not teach selling. In order for that to happen we all have to know and use the same process. And, we need to make this change fast and with full force. We can’t wait months and just hope things turn around. We need a swat team to come in here and help us. Now.” Bill wholeheartedly agreed and was pleased that Jack was willing and committed to making the investment to see it happen. They agreed, and set up to meet with the CEO of the management company that Bill Green and the board recommended. The meeting took place two days later in Jack’s office. The CEO of the management company (hereafter referred to as ‘the consultant”) greeted them and then asked them to explain their situation. For the next hour, Jack and Bill shared their goals, the details of their current situation, and the reasons for the circumstances. During the meeting the consultant took copious notes, interrupting occasionally to ask follow up questions and question the details. Once they had reached a natural break in the conversation the consultant summarized the conversation so far. A number of corrections and clarifications were made during the summary. Concluding the conversation, the consultant said that he would takes his notes back to the office to put in writing the summary of their conversation and would provide it to Jack and Bill the next day. The consultant then asked to schedule a follow up call to review the letter for any additional changes or clarification. Jack scheduled the meeting for Friday morning at 9 am. Jack and Bill spent several more hours speaking with the consultant by phone developing the details of a sales process implementation plan. In addition to the primary goal of increasing revenue, they additionally agreed to a list of contributing goals:
To accomplish these goals, everyone in the company who has daily interaction with clients and prospects would be require to attend a 4 day “boot-camp” workshop. The workshop would be the watershed event at which the elements of the sales process would be presented. Furthermore, everyone would practice all the key steps that make up the complete process. These steps include, prospecting and business development, solutions development, negotiating access to decision makers, qualifying opportunities, managing the sales cycle process and finally, negotiating and closing. While both Jack and Bill had attended sales seminars in the past, the length of this program surprised them. The consultant pointed out several facts for them to consider. First, he made the analogy of learning to fly an airplane. “Jack” he said, In one day I can show some fundamentals of flight, give you some instruction on one or two aspects of take off and landing and perhaps we might have time for some navigation. That doesn’t make you competent. The difference between familiarity and competency is practice.” “But couldn’t we give everyone the text material and have them read ahead of time?” asked Bill. “We could”, replied the consultant, “But I would not go flying with any of them if that was the extent of their training! If you want a ‘sea change’ in the effectiveness of your selling organization, its going to take hard work. That’s not something that we can accomplish is a one day event. I understand from our previous conversations that you want your team capable of executing the tactics and strategies immediately, rather than just becoming enlightened.” “I understand”, replied Bill. “But in many of the training sessions that I have attended, our work began after the sessions. That’s when we had to go back to the office and convert all our specific company, product and service materials into the format of the course. We usually only got 20 percent of the information translated before bad habits started to creep back in and we got distracted. How do we prevent that from happening here?” This question led to the second point. “The best way to do that”, replied the consultant, “is to customized the training material to match all the messaging that you want your salespeople to use on the first day. This messaging is the core mechanism through which all your marketing materials – that is corporate positioning, product and service information is written and formatted so that the sales people are saying the right things at the right times to the right people. In other words, the most effective way to change the selling behavior and instill new processes is to teach those methods with the exact words and phrases you want sales people to use in front of prospects. This avoids the start up delay that you mentioned. It is also a good way to get the marketing department on the same page as sales. Is this something you want to accomplish? “Absolutely”, replied Jack. “Good. Then to begin the process I’d like to interview a selection of sales, support, service and marketing people to get their perspective on the market and your prospects and customers. This will accelerate the learning that I and my team will need to accomplish in order to convert your current messaging into the right format. By the way, our objective is to customize a core set of materials that can you use today. We will also show you how to create your own materials for the situations when you have new products and services you want to launch later.
During the following four weeks Jack and Bill could feel the momentum building as more of the sales, marketing and other departments of the company were exposed to the consulting team. The consultants were asking hard questions and challenging some of the assumptions that had been made about both the market and the way the company should position its offerings. Excitement started to build as everyone anticipated the workshops. When the first day of the workshop finally arrive, the entire management team, including CFO Sam Pelton was seated in the meeting room of the local hotel at 8am sharp. They had been told that there we fines for being late! For this first workshop Jack had selected 30 people which included all managers and a portion of the sales team. Jack also committed to attend the entire workshop. If they were going to set a new direction – he certainly had to be a part of it. That was the same point he made to his non-sales senior executives who were initially surprised at being asked to attend. Also seated at a table in the back of the room was a group of senior-looking executives. There were 10 of them, one for every three students. True to his word, the consultant (now the instructor) began what turned out to be a very intense experience. The first three days were broken into modules. First the instructor discussed the theory and practice of a particular step in the selling process. Then he demonstrated it by himself or with one of the coach he brought with him. Then, the attendees were instructed to break into teams of three and with workbooks in had we had to practice that step. What was new to most people is that they were practicing “selling” to one of the coaches, all of whom looked like CEO’s themselves. In fact, all of them were retired seniors executives, CEO’s CFO’s VP, Sales – all of whom admitted during their introduction that they had committed one or more of the five deadly sins. Practicing each skill with a “live” potential prospect gave the training significant realism. Aside from playing their role as a buyer, the coaches provided additional instruction and discussion of the finer points of the exercise. It became evident during the days of the workshop that their expertise and contribution to the workshop experience was invaluable. When the attendees thought that they had had enough for the day, the instructor announced a team competition and homework. Everyone was grouped into teams of six. Each team would be required to prepare a final presentation to be delivered on the morning of the fourth day. The presentation would be a case study built using the tools and techniques that were discussed during the day. Each evening the teams would add to their case study presentation with new material from that day’s workshop. The teams were organized so that there was a mixture of sales and non-sales people on each team. As soon as the instructor announce that their would be a cash prize for the winner – everyone dove into their project with an intense, but friendly, competitive spirit. By noon on the fourth day all the teams had made their final presentations and the judges (coaches) were tallying the final results. To bring the workshop to a conclusion, the instructor asked each attendee to comment on whether they had achieved their goal of addressing one of the selling difficulties the group had compiled on day one. They were also offered the opportunity to comment on their experience at the workshop. Many of the attendees commented on the intensity and the value of practice. Others pointed to specific selling problems that they now understood how to solve. Jack commented on how the discovery of the five deadly sins that he had committed tied so closely to all the day to day activities of the selling organization. Bill Smith, said simply, “Thanks for the help!” For actual attendee feedback click here
Afterword As the final story of the workshop I tell the class about an experience I had a few years ago regarding my flight training as an instrument-rated private pilot. As many people know pilots must attend a bi-annual flight review. That is, we must go back to an FAA certified flight instructor once every two year to attend both a day of ground school review of regulation and procedures and a day of flying tests for specific flight skills. The want to make sure we haven’t developed any bad habits or forgotten what we learned perviously. On one occasion the I chose to fly to Columbus, Ohio to attend such a flight review. It happened that at this location were many experts with thousand of hours in the same type of airplane as the one I flew. On the first day I entered a classroom not dissimilar to the one in the Acme story. As I placed my books and materials on the table I looked up to see an elderly man with silver hair slide into the table location next to me. Upon first glance at the man I thought I recognized the gentleman but could not immediately place his name. As the man turn to fully face me the man’s name tag came into view. It was the honorable senator from Ohio, and former Navy pilot and astronaut, John Glen. “How do you do?” He asked me. “Where are you from?” Jim Lewis and I am from New Jersey. I am very honored to meet you sir. I’ve followed your career my whole life. You have more flight expereince almost anyone. But, may I ask you, why are you here? “You are never too old to go back for more training” Note: at the time of this encounter John Glenn was 86 years old was flying a twin-engine Beechcraft Barron. Today, these words ring in my ears as I think about all the hard work the attendees of my workshop performed and the commitment they show to learning and practicing new skills. These days the economy is at all time lows so finding new customers is more difficult than ever. But potential customer companies still need to find new, more efficient and more cost effective ways to meet their own business challenges. If your company has those capabilties then, with the right customer centric approach, you can find and win busness. In the days, weeks and months following a typical workshop I receive constant emails and phone calls from attendees and executives who describe how they have been able to close more business, re-qualify situations that were stagnant and to find many new opportunities that they didn’t realize existed. Years later I still receive requests to run additional workshops for the same companies. It’s all about selling and making money. Theory is useful, but the workshops I teach are all about hard nosed, blocking-and-tackling selling process and tactics that work. I hope the fable was enlightening and that we get a chance to speak about how your company could use a shot of selling adrenaline to increase revenue. Sincerely, Jim
Jim Lewis
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