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The Key Tenets of the Power Continuum -- Items Within the Sales Pipeline Must Be Assigned a Percentage of Close Based on the Attainment of Mini-Steps and Not a "Gut Feel"

Thanks to the evolution of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) practices and related software, we've made great strides over the past twenty years in the ability to forecast sales results with greater accuracy.  We can look at where we feel clients are in the sales process and assign them a percentage of close (i.e. 25%, 50%, 75%) and then put that percentage in our CRM and run all sorts of reports.  

There is, however, still one glaring fly in the ointment -- salespeople and not clients are deciding what that percentage should be.

When the forecasting process is done by sellers it's a little like weather forecasting being done by someone planning a picnic.  I want it to be nice on Saturday, so I've decided the forecast will be sunny skies and only a 10% chance of rain!  Now a Meteorologist, after studying the conditions in the atomoshere, may have a different take -- sorry, all the current weather data, along with the history of weather patterns, is telling us the actual chance of rain is about 90%.

Sorry...there will be no picnic!

Same with sales.  If it's left for salespeople to guess as to where a particular sale may be, they have a tendency to be somewhat self-deceiving based on how badly they want or need to make a sale.

Here are some reasons salespeople tend to over-inflate opportunities:

• They start telling everyone about these opportunities early on, making them sound bigger than they are.  So, they have to keep the lie going by continuing to up the percentage of close...
• They tend to form blind crushes on these opportunities...when we get crushes, we become so enamored with the other person we can't see that she's changed her locks, and put out a restraining order on us...
• They suffer from massive call reluctance and can't stand the thought of finding new prospects to take this one's place, so they keep the allusion alive (we could call these the "Weekend at Bernie's" prospects)...
• They want to look good to the boss and to the rest of the sales team -- yep, no need to worry, I've got LOTS going on here...

The way to stop all this is to simply have clients do the forecasting, based on the attainment of mini-steps!  For example, if you have 10 steps, assign a "percentage of close" based on the attainment of those steps...if he does these 5 things, he's at 50%...if he does these 9 things, he's at 90%.

LET THE CLIENT SHOW US WHERE THEY ARE VS RELYING ON OUR "GUT FEEL"!

We've all probably experienced the heartache of watching a once "full" pipeline suddenly empty just as we're ready to go to the bank with the money.    Sort of like that picnic planner waking up that Saturday morning, ready to go out and have a great time, only to hear the sounds of a steady rain and see dark, gloomy skies overhead.

GB

Systematic Precision: A Lesson from Cirque du Soleil

Over the past few weeks, you’ve been reading about the power of the Power Continuum – about how creating systems around prospecting, closing, and development can create consistent, excellent results across your customer life cycle.

What is so great about systems?  For starters, systems:

• Take the guesswork out of the equation.
• Enable you to separate yourself from your business – and treat your business as a business
• Provide you a repeatable, scalable approach to the customer life cycle
• Give you the information you need to monitor performance and make decisions
• Increase transparency so you can proactively prevent bottlenecks and problems
• Enable you to take a 360-degree look at your customer life cycle, instead of always looking in the rear-view mirror
• Equip you to consistently excel with precision rather than flounder with inconsistency, achieving results that go beyond conventional boundaries

Using systems to go beyond conventional boundaries. It sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? But it’s true…systems can enable you to do just that. Take Cirque du Soleil as an example. Have you ever seen a performance of the troupe?  If not, you absolutely must go the next time they are in your city. As background, Cirque du Soleil was “born” in 1984 near Quebec, Canada. The idea was to create a theatrical show mixing circus art and street art, such as stilt walking, juggling, fire breathing, dancing, and music. Because Quebec had no conventional circus history, this new circus didn’t feel the need to be bound by conventional practices. So Cirque du Soleil went past traditional rules of the circus to defy the limits of reality and performance. You see this if you go.

The acrobatics, which comprise probably 90% of the show, are what amaze me. Performers do things that truly do defy reality…from balancing 20 feet atop a multitude of moving cylinders to unbelievable tightrope walking to flipping on a 4” flexible “beam” held on each end by other performers. The feats make your head spin. And yet, each is performed flawlessly. How can that be? It’s systematic precision. Performers are best in class before they are invited to perform with the troupe and, once they arrive, are immersed in training for a few weeks to a few months on a single show.

Cirque du Soleil has implemented systematic precision, but has also been smart to allow the systems to drive the technical aspects of the show, not the connection with their customer.  In fact, as a spectator, you are awed by the precision, but experience the bond between the performers and the audience. The systems enable the performers to deliver the tactics of their job with precision, freeing them to interact with you, their customer, creating an experience unlike any traditional circus experience you’ve ever had. Take a peek at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP6AJXprOXc.

Cirque du Soleil’s focus on systematic precision has delivered astounding results:

• In 1984, it employed 73 people; today more than 4,000 people are part of the troupe, including over 1,000 artists
• These people represent over 40 nationalities and speak 25 different languages
• Cirque has delivered shows in over 250 cities worldwide
• Over 100 million spectators have experienced the wonder of a Cirque show
• In 2010, over 20 different shows were featured around the world

Cirque du Soleil is a great example of how creating systematic precision in your business enables you to go beyond conventional boundaries, delivering a superior performance, a strong customer connection, and a stellar customer experience, all which drive business results that also exceed conventional boundaries.

Want to go beyond conventional boundaries? Create systematic precision.

jkl

The Key Tenets of the Power Continuum - Presentations and Proposals Should Include a Mixture of Pre-Written, Standard Elements with Unique, Custom Materials Developed by the Salesperson.

Are your sales materials all across the board? Do they tell many different stories? Do they look or sound like they came from different companies? Are the developed individually by your salespeople? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you are diluting your value story brand. And that gives you some great opportunities for improvement.

• Your value story should be defined and consistent at a baseline level, not determined by each and every salesperson.
• Your proposals and presentations should reflect excellence – and not everyone is a great writer, designer, or creator of content.
• Your salespeople shouldn’t be spending a ton of time recreating the wheel every time they create a presentation or proposal.

With today’s technology, there’s no reason your salespeople shouldn’t have access to a consistent set of sales materials that provide an excellent foundation they can customize to be relevant to their prospects’ needs. The following provide step-by-step instructions on how to do just that:

1. Determine your value story. What do you deliver to your clients? How do you solve their problems or help them achieve their objectives? Why should your prospects buy from you?
2. Find – or hire – a great copywriter or communications professional to turn your value story into words in proposals, presentations, leave-behind materials, and text chunks or elements. You want to ensure your materials are engaging, communicate your value story, and clearly define the bottom-line benefits your clients experience by using your service or product. Include sales in this effort. Have them provide input, review the copy, and give feedback to make the story stronger and more relevant – they are, after all, the ones on the street who interact with prospects. This will also increase the adoption factor of the sales team – if they’ve had stake in the game of creating the story and materials, they are more likely to own them.
3. Enable your salespeople to customize those materials – my recommendation is that about 20-25% of the content be customizable; if less, the materials may seem too static and “cookie cutter”; if more, you run the risk of diluting your value story and/or the excellence of the materials. 
4. Train your salespeople on the type and level of customization that brings the presentation or proposal to life for a prospect. What types of information will make the message more relevant? Probably things like the prospect’s objectives, their pains, their stats, perhaps even their jargon (e.g. do their call their sales people sales representatives, business development managers, or something else?). Identify those important aspects that need to be customized and train your people on how to do just that.
5. Ensure use of the new materials. Introduce the materials by not only showing and reviewing them but also defining the benefits of your sales team using them. Keep them in a central online repository where they can be easily downloaded by your sales team.
6. Once they are rolled out, check on their use. You can do this several ways: do “spot checks” of the sales materials; have salespeople share their customization with their team members; highlight best practices of using the standard materials with customization. Whatever method you choose, make it consistent so that the use of the materials are consistent. Don’t forget to ask for feedback on how the materials can be improved – and incorporate those suggestions that make your message stronger.

When you develop a set of excellent, engaging sales materials and house them in a central repository, then enable your sales team to customize them for specific prospects, you’ll quickly see the following:

• An increase in your ability to manage the level of excellence and consistency of your story and representation of your brand.
• A decrease in the amount of time sales spends creating sales materials. In one project we were able to decrease this time by 66-83%, depending upon salesperson. And that means more time spent with prospects and customers!
• An increase in your ability to quickly modify the content of your story (e.g. stats, studies, etc.) across all your sales materials.
• More relevant sales materials that speak directly to your customers’ needs.

 jkl

 

The Key Tenets of the Power Continuum - A Pre-Designed and Written Client Needs Analysis (CNA) Should Be Used With Every Client Engagement

We've talked about the importance of a Client Needs Analysis (CNA) and how it should be pre-designed, standardized, and printed.  Now here are some ideas on what you could put in your CNA and how it can be used to drive more consistent outcomes.

Keys to Creating an Effective Client Needs Analysis

• Should contain enough questions to guide the conversation, but not too many to make the document cumbersome to use in a normal conversation
• Should try to contain the number of questions to one page, maybe two
• Questions can start at the top level (30,000 level) then work their way down
• Questions should be written as open ended questions vs close ended questions
• Provide room to write answers
• Delicate questions are good to have in writing
• Add money and decision making process questions

Keys to Improving the use of a CNA

• Don’t forget to start your sales call by setting the agenda and mentioning the CNA
• Train your people on how you want them to use the CNA
• Sellers shouldn't stare at or read from the the CNA when in front of a client
• When taking notes on the CNA try writing longer than the client talks
• Stop on occasion and recap from what you wrote on the CNA

Using the CNA as a Management Tool

• Learn from how your people are filling out the form - Are there areas in a sales call they're missing; things they're overlooking, etc. 
• Study your sellers' diagnosis
• Study the recommendation they made after their diagnosis …for instance, was the dollar amount proposed the sellers recommendation or the clients?
• Completed CNA's are an effective tracking tool for accountability

 

The Power Continuum Key Tenets – Characteristics of a "Good Potential Client" Must be Pre-established; Communicated to Everyone on the Team; and Strictly Enforced by Management

One of the biggest (and most dangerous) wastes of time, talent, and energy within a sales organization is the pursuit of prospects that have no business being in the sales pipeline. This is the “spray and pray” method of sales. You talk to anyone who will listen to you..you spray your sales pitch all over the place and just pray that it will stick somewhere with someone. Yes, it’s a waste of time, talent, and energy; it’s also sloppy and unpredictable.

There are lots of reasons why a prospect shouldn’t be in your pipeline...maybe they’re not the right size (too big or too small), maybe they’re not the right fit for your company, maybe they have the wrong size budget, maybe it’s something else.

And there are as many reasons why a salesperson will chase the fringe prospects. Maybe they don’t want to say no, maybe they like the contact and want to help, maybe they’re just tired of prospecting. The thing is, if you’re chasing a fringe prospect, you’re still spraying and praying, and you’re wasting a lot of time you could be spending aiming for the right target.

So avoid the spraying and praying. Define the characteristics of a good potential client and communicate that to everyone on the team. Then hold people accountable for finding prospects that have those characteristics, otherwise known as good potential clients. Through research, conversation, and qualification, it should be decently easy to identify whether a prospect fits your definition of a good prospect. And if the one you’re talking to doesn’t fit that definition, move on. Don’t waste your time trying to make it work. It’s like trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole. And the time you spend trying to make that happen is time you could more wisely invest finding the right prospect.

This tenet reminds me of a story about my father-in-law. My in-laws were living in a retirement community. The community chorus, of which my mother-in-law was a member, was giving a concert one day. My father-in-law was in the audience prior to the concert when a woman came up and sat beside him. They started chatting and my father-in-law mentioned that his wife was in the chorus. The woman looked at him, sighed, “Ohhh,” and got up and moved. She was definitely not spraying and praying – she had defined her target prospect and it wasn’t a man whose wife was still around! She perhaps didn’t have a lot of time to find the right one, so she certainly wasn’t wasting time on the wrong one!

Similarly, that’s how it should work with sales. Once the right prospect is defined, you can be very focused and spend time aiming for the ones that fit that description. And when that happens, some other things happen: time is well spent, success is more predictable, and your pipeline is more productive. Ready to stop spraying and praying?

jkl

The Power Continuum Key Tenet – Loyalty is Not the Ultimate Goal; Advocacy Is

Loyalty has long been recognized as the ultimate goal of great customer experience and partnerships. But seeing loyalty as your mecca is shortsighted. What does loyalty get you?

• Repeat business – and that’s good
• Expanded business from your loyal customers – and that’s good
• But that's about it

Don't get me wrong. Loyalty definitely impacts your bottom line – and positively so. Deepening an existing relationship takes less time and money than going out and finding a new one. But your goal shouldn’t end at simply keeping loyal customers; rather, it should extend to developing customers who are advocates for your business to help you get more customers through warm leads. 

Your ultimate goal should be to create Raving Advocates. Raving Advocates are much like Rabid Fans. If you think of rabid fans, they are constantly touting “their” team. They take emotional ownership of that team. They wear the jerseys, they go to all the games, they actively defend the players, and they can’t stop proactively talking about their team to others.

We’ve all seen rabid fans. Now let’s apply that same concept to a business. Are you a Raving Advocate for any business you know? Here’s a business for which I’ve a Raving Advocate. Yuki Sushi Robata near Park Meadows in Lone Tree, CO.  Why are my husband and I Raving Advocates?  Let me tell you. This is "our" place for sushi!

• Charlie, the owner, is there all the time – he makes your sushi so you know its good.
• They have over 200 sushi rolls – yep, over 200! My husband and another couple we know make a monthly dinner date at Yuki Sushi Robata. We even have a spreadsheet to work our way through the 200 rolls – and no one laughs at us when we bring it in!
• Charlie also lets you create your own sushi rolls and if they catch on, they get put on the menu. So far, we’ve created three of them (if you go there, try the Firecracker…this was our first roll and it’s now on the menu!).
• Charlie and all the employees are happy to see you and greet you warmly when you come it.
• The price is great – sushi is $1.00 a piece and rolls range from about $7 – 12. Four of us can eat there for what we’d spend on two of us at other sushi restaurants.
• And we can spend the evening there without anyone ever hurrying us. It’s an evening event for us!

We not only go to Yuki Sushi Robata each month religiously (a sign of loyalty), we’ve also told many people about it, we’ve voted – and asked others to vote – for the restaurant on Denver’s Channel 7 A-List (they won this year), and we’ve invited others to join us for dinner there, creating a new pipeline of guests for Charlie and his restaurant (all signs of advocacy). 

We are truly Raving Advocates for this business. We're emotionally engaged! You can probably tell that by reading what I write – just think of what it sounds like to hear me rave about them in person!

So what does a Raving Advocate look like? Although they can come in different shapes and sizes, they have some traits in common:

• They are emotional about your business
• They buy from you again and again, without asking for discounts
• The willingly give you stellar testimonials
• They proactively refer you to others
• They bring you warm prospects

What does having a cadre of Raving Advocates mean to you?

• You spend less time re-upping customers
• You get ready prospects and buyers
• You have a more consistent pipeline
• You enjoy more sales and revenue!

How do you create Raving Advocates? By providing a stellar customer experience. By connecting with customers on both functional and emotional levels. By systematizing authentic WOW Moments^TM and equipping your team to deliver Small Significants^TM as well. It doesn’t take a lot of money, but it does take intentional focus and a true passion for customers.

Don’t settle for loyalty. Reach for advocacy!

jkl

 

The Power Continuum Key Tenets -- Accountability is Focused Primarily on Activity Not Outcomes

This tenet is so prevalent and deeply entrenched within our business culture that it takes a major upheaval at all levels to even start to address it -- and that's the idea of making people accountable primarily for activity not just outcomes.

Now before you go nuts...I said PRIMARILY for activity, not TOTALLY for activity.  We should continue holding people accountable for outcomes,  we're in sales for heaven's sake.   But we shouldn't make outcomes the only thing we focus on and hold people accountable for!

Why? 

Because if we focus all our energy on outcomes alone, it's often too late to do anything about it if our people start to struggle!    A sales problem in December probably started with an activity problem in August.

To illustrate the point there are so many analogies we can use:

• Like driving a car by looking only in the rear view mirror
• Like waiting unitil your kid brings home her report card to ask how her homework has been going
• Like showing up only on game day to coach your team

You get the point...and yet we are very attached to looking only at final outcomes. 

Why?

• Our bosses and their bosses only care about and ask about THE MONEY...as in "Show me the ..."
• We get paid based on outcomes
• Outcomes is all that matters at the end of the day

And all that is true!   It doesn't matter how good our activity is if we don't have solid outcomes, like hitting sales numbers, arriving at our destination, or winning games.

So what's the answer?   Balance.  Finding the right balance of monitoring and applying accountability to both activity AND outcomes.  Our feeling is just to shift more of that weight toward activity as it has the most direct impact on getting the right outcomes.

Make sense?

GB

 

The Key Tenets - Management Must Define Performance Standards

Do you realize how many salespeople have no idea what they're supposed to be doing each day?  They're just working hard and hoping for the best.

Yes, they know they're supposed to be prospecting; and going on meetings; and questioning and listening; and writing proposals; and trying to get people to sign, etc -- but that's just knowing about the types of things salespeople do, it doesn't explain how exactly they're supposed to put it all together to create the right outcomes.  It would be like me buying a farm and saying, "Well...I know I'm supposed to drive around in my tractor...and plant...water...fertilize... harvest...take stuff to the market....but what should I be doing today?"   Just knowing what farmers do isn't the same as knowing what farmers should be doing today.

It's all about what a person should be doing TODAY.  Most people don't know, or aren't sure. And the funny (and sad) thing is, they desperatly WANT TO KNOW and would be wide open to a plan.  It's just that there is no plan.

Unfortunately too many managers respond to this by saying, "That's why I only hire experienced people", or "Well, that's basic stuff...if our people can't figure that out they're not smart enough to be working here."    And that all sounds good (I guess), but these managers aren't seeing the bigger picture.  They aren't seeing that their sellers (aka farmers) are sincere in wanting to work hard; are committed to wanting to do the right things; are willing to own their own personal success or failure -- they just aren't certain about what they should be doing each day.

This is the job of the manager.  To define what we call Performance Standards (PS), and then to make them mandatory throughout the organization.   As to how many PS's you have, and how detailed you get with each one, that really depends on how complicated your sales process is.

Here are some basic guidelines for creating Performance Standards in your organization:

• Seems basic, but look to create performance standards that will lead to hitting your numbers (exceeding your numbers actually).
• Start annually and work your way down to weekly or even daily PS's. Just ask yourself -- "What should my people be doing or creating annually, monthly, weekly, and daily?"  
• Make sure your PS's are achievable.
• Make tracking PS performance easy and "fudge proof".   For instance, if all you track are "numbers of phone calls", it's too easy for salespeople to say "yeah I made 50 calls", and how would you know if that's real or not?  Look for things further down the pipeline, for instance, number of proposals, number of completed needs analysis, etc.
• Develop rewards and ramifications for compliance. Everyone should know the ramifications so when they happen no one should be surprised.
• Don't go too far too fast so you can keep it up beyond week one.  It's a bit like gorging over the holidays and making a resolution to get in shape after the first of the year.   So you make a crazy workout plan that you do the first week of the new year and you about kill yourself in the process.  Many people start making PS's with the best intentions in mind, but they go too far too quick -- putting in too many PS's that are too hard to do or too tough to track -- and end up quitting after a week or two.   Start slow and pace yourself...then add more as you're ready.  

 GB

The Power Continuum Key Tenets - Communication is Key to Every Aspect of Client Development

Communication is key to every aspect of client development.

Communication. It seems like such a simple concept yet can become ridiculously difficult in practice…or at least any of us can make difficult if you want to; so difficult, you give it up. All too often, in practice, clients fall into a big black hole once they sign the contract.

It’s easy to convince yourself that your clients don’t want to be bothered with communication from you…or that you don’t have enough time to communicate with them. Would it surprise you to know that lack of communication is the demise of many a client relationship? When a client doesn’t hear from you, they can begin to make assumptions. Assumptions like, “We really don’t matter,” or “They just want us for the money,” or “What the heck did we do?” And that’s the beginning of the end.

Establishing a regular communication process sets the stage for a transparent and productive relationship. But remember that communication isn’t a one-way highway. You can’t just send out communications via email, direct mail, facebook, twitter, or voicemail and consider it done. Just think of how frustrating it is to talk to someone who just spews information without taking a breath. Then, when they’re done talking, they’re done with the “communication.” Is that really communication? Give me a resounding “NO!”

Make the highway two-way and get to real communication. Asking for input and feedback at various stages during the relationship engages clients, provides you important insight, and deepens your partnership. There are many ways to do this; the important thing is to actually do it.

Then go one step further. Take the feedback seriously and act on it. You need not feel pressure to act on every little individual comment. That’s neither warranted nor feasible. But identifying the trends that bubble up and acting on them is smart business. Your customers are helping you by giving you honest feedback. Take the feedback and use it to your – and their – advantage. 

Don’t take the easy way out…take the smart way forward. Take the time to communicate in an intentional, two-way, and holistic manner. And you’ll be another tenet closer to getting into your Power Continuum zone.

jkl

 

The Power Continuum Key Tenets - Loading the Pipeline is Done Through a Defined Process, Not Random Activity

This key tenet is mainly a major mindset-shift because it deals with one of the most cherished beliefs and practices in the world of sales, the belief that salespeople should be free to fill the sales pipeline any way they want. 

Managers believe it.  Salespeople feel entitled to it.  And business suffers because of it.

Why is this allowed to continue?  Why do sales managers, almost universally, believe that it's okay to let their salespeople say whatever they want to say when prospecting; and target whomever they want to target as a new business prospect; and do as much activity as they feel like doing?

Then they sit back and watch (with fingers crossed ) hoping that what their sellers are doing is sufficient to crank out enough donuts at the end of the month.  It's C R A Z Y !!

It's basically saying, "I trust they're doing enough of the right things each day...we'll see"  Yeah...we'll see alright.  What we often see is wildly fluctuating outcomes and inadequately-filled sales pipelines. And by the time we find out it's happened...it's too late to fix it.    You can't do anything in late May if you discover you didn't plant enough corn in April.

The number one problem in sales has always been, and will probably always be a consistent lack of a new business effort!   Why is it number one?  Because it impacts the entire Power Continuum process -- if the machine has no gas going into it, it doesn't matter how smooth it purrs, how fast it goes, or where it happens to be driving.  No gas...no go. 

When are we as managers going to wake up and take ownership of what our people are doing each day???  Our day is only as good as Tom's day ...as Terry's day ...as Janet's day...as Frank's day.

And if the seller's scream "You're micro-managing me!"  You scream back, "Every top professional follows a micro-managed process!  Would it be okay if you followed the process and doubled your income?"  

Here are some steps we can take towards changing our mindset on process vs random activity:

• Ask yourself,"Why DO I allow people to do whatever they want when planting, knowing that I'm judged on the harvest?"
• Change your viewpoint on "micro-managing"...what do the best coaches in any sport do?  They micro-manage...BUT...not always the people, more likely it's the process, the system, the playbook, the practices.  The late, great John Wooden, considered by many to be the greatest coach of all time, believed you micro-manage the practice, and the game would take care of itself.
• Take ownership of what your people are doing each day...their day is your day.  Their schedule is your schedule...their pipeline is your pipeline. 

Build a great process for loading the pipeline and you won't have to live and die on the hopes and dreams of random activity.