There has been extensive work over the past ten years by a number of business research organizations into the nature of effective ‘business to business’ buyer/seller relationships.
One such organisation, HR Chally, concludes that in the B-2-B business environment the survival of many businesses will be determined by the quality of their sales operations. The primary role of the sales person has evolved from day-to-day transaction management and specialised technical support to Customer Business Consultant.
As a Customer Business Consultant sales people must:
- Understand their customer’s business
- Elevate their points of contact beyond the customer’s purchasing, technical or administrative personal to the executive level
- Add measurable value to the customer’s business results.
So how do we achieve this? Here are the 10 ‘how to’ steps to Create the High Performance Sales Environment®, for sales, sales management, channel management, and executives.
Sales
1. Base your sales approach on an understanding of how buyers buy. There is a logical flow to the thinking process buyers typically follow. Successful sales people understand this buying process and align their efforts to helping buyers make intelligent purchasing decisions.
2. Generate a repeatable sales process across the organisation. Developing a sales process built on an understanding of how buyers buy gives focus to the efforts of the sales team and their managers. Control over the sales process leads to improved sales effectiveness, higher revenue streams and forecasting accuracy.
3. Sell solutions not products. Effective sales teams differentiate themselves by how they sell as much as what they sell. Buyers are looking for sales people they can trust, who work to understand them and their business issues before prescribing their products as ‘solutions’. Effective sales people gain early access to the real business drivers behind the buying activity.
4. Gain access to high-level business decision-makers. Business decision-makers often delegate the research and initial selection of potential vendors to their purchasing, technical or administrative departments. Working at these delegated lower levels can leave the inexperienced sales person exposed to buying criteria they have no understanding of, or influence over. The ‘technical recommendation’ is no guarantee of success.
5. Influence the buyer’s decision-making criteria. By gaining early access to decision makers the sales person can, acting as a ‘Business Consultant’, help buyers diagnose their needs and influence the buying criteria to their own advantage. Even within a formal competitive tender environment early access to decision makers can shape the ITT/RFP in the seller’s favour.
6. Understand and control the buyer’s buying process. Just as projects without a plan never finish, buying processes with no control can run from one monthly forecast to the next. Successful sales professionals gain access to power decision-makers, understand their buying processes and direct the buyer’s steps towards a good and speedy buying decision.
Sales Management
7. Sales Managers. Sales Management is key. Sales professionals do not do what you tell them ... they do what their managers supervise them to do. Good sales managers:
- Support their sales people in key opportunities thereby driving the sales process to meet sales targets.
- Manage the sales process and pipeline to produce reliable and accurate forecasts.
- Develop the skills of their sales people to continually improve their ability to sell successfully.
- Continually work to improve the overall efficiency of the sales process.
- Monitor and manage sales results through a dedicated and focused dashboard of key sales metrics.
8. Proactive Channel Management. Not all channels to market are through a direct sales force. Successful organisations proactively manage the diverse channels to market by optimising the organisation’s portfolio of partners, engaging new partners as necessary, managing and tracking partner performance as well as supporting their efforts to win new business.
Executives
9. Manage the entire organisation to provide support to the sales effort To maximise the effectiveness of the organisation’s sales efforts, every part of the organisation needs to align its efforts and processes. How can sales people effectively sell if one hand is spent fighting colleagues internally?
10. Executive Direction and Control. Senior Executive level Sales Management needs to drive the sales organisation top down through reliable metrics and proactive executive reviews. Sales Managers must do the same through focussed metrics and the same proactive management reviews. A top down synergy focuses the entire organisation and sales effort to Create the High Performance Sales Environment™.
