Read an Excerpt
Sales Management Simplified
The Straight Truth About Getting Exceptional Results from your Sales Team
By Mike Weinberg AMACOM
Copyright © 2016 Mike Weinberg
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8144-3644-8
CHAPTER 1
As Goes the Leader, So Goes the Organization
I can point to the exact spot on the Highway 40 exit to Ballas Road where I finally gave in and called my dad. After an incredible ten-plus-year run as a top-producing salesperson for various companies and another successful, fun four years coaching salespeople and sales teams how to develop new business, I was struggling mightily in my first sales management role.
For the life of me, I couldn't figure it out. How could I be struggling so badly after so many years as both a top individual producer and a highly respected sales coach? So, what does a thirty-eight-year-old clueless executive do when he's out of ideas and tired of banging his head against the wall? Darn right. He picks up the phone to call his dad. Not just any dad, but the former big-time New York City sales executive dad who'd forgotten more about sales management than I ever hoped to know.
The Real Life of the Sales Leader
My dad answered the phone, and I exploded, cathartically blasting him with a litany of challenges weighing on me. If only I'd had the presence of mind to record that phone call, which went something like this:
"I've never worked longer or harder yet spent so little time on what moves the needle. I have zero control of my days. My weak salespeople are afraid of their own shadow and need constant babysitting; the strong ones are high-maintenance and nothing is ever good enough for them. The CEO thinks he's a sales expert, but continually deflates the sales team with his overbearing pontificating about various topics. The CFO sends me spreadsheets in a six-point font with embedded pivot tables to demonstrate how we're over-discounting. I don't even know what a pivot table is, let alone how to use one! The manufacturers we represent continually pester me looking to schedule time in the field with my people. I feel like a logistics manager, not a sales leader! The internal marketing people are ticked that we're behind placing a new line of displays. Our big competitor just stole our number one guy because our compensation plan is too flat. Other department heads keep inviting me to meetings that have nothing to do with generating revenue. And some idiot customer service rep is giving out my cell phone number to customers with technical questions that I can't answer. That's how I'm doing, Dad. Glad you asked?"
My dad waited about five seconds, which felt like an eternity, before responding, and then he said one word: "Congratulations."
I was none too pleased with his sarcasm. Huh? Come again, big fella? Then he continued:
"Congratulations, Michael. You now understand that the frontline sales management role is one of the absolute toughest jobs on the planet. Everyone wants a piece of you, just like you described. There's no way to win without a solid grounding in your absolute priorities and a laser focus on what's absolutely critical to drive the business. None of those people placing demands on you and putting work on your desk understands your job. And if you let them dictate how to spend your time, you'll not only be miserable like you are now, but you'll also fail."
Wiser words have never been spoken. And so began my next ten-year journey — a mission to master sales management and help others do the same.
You Don't Transform Organizations from the Bottom
Along with my painful yet formative first go-round as a sales executive there was another strong motivator pushing me to unlock the keys to successful sales leadership. During my initial stint in consulting and coaching, I learned the hard way that while I could improve the performance of individual producers by teaching and coaching my New Sales Driver framework (highlighted in my first book, New Sales. Simplified. [New York: AMACOM, 2013]), that was not enough to trans- form sales organizations. Organizations don't change from the bottom by improving the skills, techniques, and attitudes of their salespeople. To truly transform the results and health of an entire sales team, the leader and the culture must be transformed.
As you'll read in many of the true stories and anecdotes I share in Part One of this book, the sales problem in many businesses I consult with does not lie with the salespeople. The main challenge is typically how the sales team is being led, and more often than not, the underlying root cause issues are cultural, flowing down from leadership at the top of the company.
That same CEO I mentioned in my call to my dad, the one who liked to pontificate about sales, also happened to be a brilliant, well-read consultant who had worked with dozens and dozens of business owners, senior executives, and organizations. When it came to leadership and organizational behavior, he was a hugely valuable mentor to me and probably had the sharpest business mind I'd encountered. He taught me a ton about leadership dynamics and performance, and there were two powerful catchphrases of his that left an indelible impression on me, particularly as it relates to sales leadership.
The first phrase was: "As goes the leader, so goes the organization." Those are powerful and profound words. I feel no need to offer editorial comments. Read them again and picture any organization and its leader that come to mind. As goes the leader, so goes the organization. Pretty much says it all, doesn't it?
The other expression that stuck with me is even more applicable to sales management: "The level of the team rarely, if ever, exceeds the level of the leader." Let that sink in. Just think about the implications.
How many zillions of dollars are spent on sales training to improve the effectiveness of salespeople, but how little time and money are invested to shore up the leader of those sales teams? Why do some companies simply take it for granted that sales managers know how to lead? And how about smaller organizations, where the founder or president who's a techie, engineer, designer, or accountant by background leads the sales team even though he or she is admittedly ignorant about creating a healthy sales culture, selecting and managing sales talent, or helping to shape sales processes? And if leading the team is the single most important function of the person in charge of sales, why do many larger companies bury that person with so much non-sales leadership work? If we agree it is true that the level of the team will not likely exceed the level of the leader, doesn't it become obvious that to increase sales performance we must increase our sales leader's acumen?
And that is exactly why over the past few years I've intentionally shifted the focus of my consulting practice to offering blunt, practical sales management help to senior executives and sales leaders. Sure, I am still über passionate about new business development, and I am constantly asked to coach and speak on topics from New Sales. Simplified. But the cold hard truth is that unless we raise the game of those individuals leading sales organizations, whether as senior executives or frontline sales managers, we won't be making a sustainable impact on sales performance. That fact is what compelled me to write this book. So let's dive into some blunt truth from the front lines and look at many of the reasons sales team are not succeeding at the level they should be.
CHAPTER 2
A Sales Culture Without Goals Is a Sales Culture Without Results
I was kicking off a pretty significant engagement with a good size privately/family-held business in a neighboring state. You'll hear more about this company in subsequent chapters because this was an engagement that I'll never forget — the kind that offered so much fodder for this book that it prompted me to write down the stories as they were happening. They were just too good not to use. The company's vice president of sales was a bright, likable, engaging young man with lots of energy and a deep understanding of the highly technical business. It had been about a year since he was promoted from his regional territory manager sales position to head of sales. He and I actually had struck up a relationship online, mostly via Twitter, and ended up having lunch when he was passing through St. Louis on business.
The company's business was actually pretty darn healthy because it had done an excellent job growing the top line by cross-selling new products and penetrating deeper into existing customers. But its new business development effort was rather anemic. The sales reports they shared with me demonstrated that almost all growth was a result of expansion within current accounts. That spoke well of the company's ability to deliver value and manage relationships but not so well about its ability to open new accounts.
After a lengthy process that involved several long phone calls in which the high-ego, rather controlling founder/CEO did most of the talking (telling), and a full day in the boardroom with the executive committee followed by more phone conversations with the CFO, they agreed to hire me. For the record, that was about as much effort ever required on my part to win a new client. Little did I know that the fun was just getting started!
My assignment had two main objectives: First, to help inspire, focus, and equip the sales team to effectively hunt for net new business. And second, to serve as coach to the vice president of sales and help solidify his framework for leading the sales effort.
I flew in for my first day of consulting, and the very first meeting was with the young gun vice president of sales. He was well prepared and ready with all kinds of data and reports. He had even created an iPad app for his sales team that was very useful. I was truly looking forward to working with this guy because he was hungry, thoughtful, and confident — which is a pretty good trio of attributes. After visiting for a few minutes, I prefaced my first question with a statement sounding something like this: "So sales are decent, but we've really struggled to open new customers. Sounds like everyone believes there are a good number of potential major prospects out there that look a lot like some of our best customers, yes?" He concurred. So I said, "All right then, let's begin with this: What are each of your people's individual goals for acquiring new customers? And can you show me how you're measuring and reporting their progress against those goals?"
Silence. Crickets. Nada. After alternating between looking at me quietly and staring down at his notepad for a few seconds, he shook his head and then admitted that his team didn't have individual goals for new account acquisition, and there were no reports to share with me. So I smiled real big (like I'm doing now writing this) and said in a reassuring voice, "Very well. Now we know where to start!"
Goals and Results Go Hand in Glove
From my very first job out of college, it was always stressed that business was about hitting numbers and achieving goals. Period. No matter what the specific job, the yardstick by which you were judged was the actual results you achieved versus your goal. Not exactly a novel concept.
And this truth was driven home even more once I moved into sales. So much so, that one of my great sales managers regularly used this phrase: "In sales, results are everything, and they do not lie."
Since the beginning of time, healthy sales organizations have regularly published and distributed sales reports and rankings. Sales versus Last Year. Sales versus Quota for the Month. Sales versus Goal Year-to-Date. Stack Rank of Salespeople by Percentage Increase over Goal or over Last Year. Number of New Accounts Opened/Acquired Year-to-Date versus Goal. Percent of Annual Goal Achieved. And so on.
This practice was never considered abusive, never challenged as not being politically correct, never viewed as some archaic methodology. Publishing sales results was a way of life, a simple reflection of important realities: first, that sales is, in fact, all about results; and second, that by nature, salespeople are not only results-focused but also competitive. The very act of articulating goals, tracking results against those goals, and publishing the results along with a relative ranking of sales team members' performance was considered good sales management. How else would you know how the team and each member are performing? What better way to motivate the team, recognize top performers, and create pressure on those who aren't producing? And all of that could be accomplished without raising a voice, berating people in a high-pressure team meeting, flailing arms, using foul language, or threatening anybody. Plus, it worked!
Yet, over the past few years, I've observed more and more organizations getting away from publishing and widely distributing sales reports. What the heck happened to cause this?
Well, one thing that happened was 2009. The bursting of the real estate bubble that caused the financial markets meltdown of late 2008 pretty much derailed most of industrial American business in the following year. Oh yeah, and concurrently there was this little thing called the European Debt Crisis creating its own havoc for global businesses as well. Many manufacturers, heavy equipment producers, and industrial distributors were off 40 to 50 percent or more! And many marketing companies were completely wiped out as their clients cut as much spending as possible. About one-third of the advertising agencies that my employer at the time served folded their tents. The combination of the financial meltdown and the social media revolution sent cataclysmic waves crashing through the marketing world.
While I didn't recognize it at the time, over the past few years, as I've consulted a good number of both industrial and marketing-type companies that survived 2009 and lived to talk about it, an interesting sales management trend emerged. Many of these companies did an incredible job weathering the severe storm I just described. They cut everything they could to stay afloat. And in order to protect and keep their best talent during the downturn, most completely did away with any form of keeping their sales teams and salespeople accountable for results. The harsh reality was that their markets and customers were off significantly and there wasn't much that could be done about it. As a result, many companies adopted a paternalistic approach toward their best salespeople. They changed pay plans — moving away from pay-for-performance to a higher percentage of fixed compensation. And I've personally observed a whole bunch of businesses that simply stopped publishing depressing sales reports and holding salespeople accountable for hitting goals. With the market in what felt like free fall, how could you blame them? I certainly can't.
But there's one very big but to this whole scenario: 2009 was a long time ago! If you're reading or listening to this book right now, it's been at least six years. And in almost every one of these industries mentioned above, there has been an incredibly strong rebound in business. The major stock market indexes have more than doubled. The financial meltdown is getting smaller and smaller in our rearview mirrors. Yet, I continue to observe companies that have not returned to managing their sales organizations the way they used to prior to 2009! Honestly, too many executives and sales managers appear to have forgotten about the importance of goals and accountability for sales teams. Oh, they want the sales results and will complain about not getting them. But many remain slow to create a culture with greater visibility, widely distributed sales reports, and a relentless focus on goals.
Salespeople Are Not Paid by the Hour for Good Reason
Sales is a somewhat unusual job. Salespeople are not paid by the hour, or measured by the quantity of "work" they do. Quite simply, the job of sales is to produce results. And by results, I specifically mean to increase revenue, grow the top line, acquire new customers, and net new pieces of business.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Sales Management Simplified by Mike Weinberg. Copyright © 2016 Mike Weinberg. Excerpted by permission of AMACOM.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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