Well, here we are beginning a new year as we do every year. Individuals make all these resolutions (mine always include stopping smoking and losing weight-maybe one year it will happen!), and organizations tend to do the same with an onset of annual planning meetings, new budgets, new hopes and new sales forecasts. Having managed these processes for many years it was always a bit humorous how many of my sales team always projected banner years, only to find that many of the opportunities were not fully vetted nor at the prescribed stages identified! How do owners, senior executives, et al manage through this morass of over bloated expectations and projections? Many have adopted the rule of 50% (whatever is forecatsed, knock it down by 50% and maybe they will be in the ballpark). Others make a firm resolution that this year they will put in place one of the fancy and elaborate sales training methodologies (good news for all those trainers, especially the ones requiring a Phd to thoroughly understand and even try to deploy). Whatever happened to the simple method of developing a true opportunity and just going from step to step in a dilligent and cogent manner to realize the sale!
The organizations that appear to do very well with their sales forecasting and their success have a tightly defined set of steps and requirements for moving from one to another. With the onset of salesforce.com (who wouldn't want to use that tool), these steps are very tailorable to individual organizations and supply chains resulting in reasonable forecasts and understanding of next steps. Having worked with some of these types of organizations, the big issue appears to be defining where to start and how to define each of the steps and their respective markers to move to the next step. This doesn't just happen and requires a level of dilligence typically by someone outside the organization so as to avoid the unnecessary baggage and biases inherent in their current thinking. This is where I'd spend my time and money as opposed to those fancy, elongated and intricate sales methodologies. Why? Because a truly good sales executive knows that a sales process is merely moving from one meeting to another getting the "right" questions and issues answered/addressed; while dealing with the right decision makers and influencers, and not the pretenders; and tailoring the number of those interactions to the least common denomnator resulting in the close!
So, what is your process? What constitutes moving from one phase to another? How confident in the sale have you become when you reach each step? That's where I'd spend my money for some help! Next up: What stage of growth is your organization and what is your plan to accomodate it?
No comments:
Post a Comment