Six Sigma Blogs

Unraveling DNA for successful hiring Smart business, at its core, is all about Return On Investment. A sales team that gets results is the most important asset for any company. Since nothing happens without a sale, recruitment and hiring a high-performance sales team should be at the top of a business leader’s priority list. Filling a sales position is frustrating and mistakes are costly: Business owners throw away thousands of dollars in recruiting and training under-performing salespeople, not to mention lost sales and customer defections. (Some estimates place the cost of a bad hire at $100,000 to $250,000.) While there are many different steps one should follow when hiring new sales people, I believe that the most important step is identifying a candidate with the correct DNA.

According to a University of Michigan study, interviews lead to almost 90% of hiring decisions but are only 14% accurate in predicting success. Why? Using resumes and interviews to hire is a little like buying a suit off the rack - it will never fit just right. That’s why it is so important to learn exactly what you need and then buy a suit - a salesperson - with a custom fit. It is a surprising fact that too many business owners hire salespeople without taking the time to analyze what the DNA of a great salesperson would look like in their industry and culture. When hiring criteria is framed in general terms, as it is when relying on resumes and interviews alone, the odds of a good hire drop significantly. So, defining the specific sales DNA for your sales organization is a critical first step.

Defining the requirements of your ideal salesperson: The task of sequencing your ideal salesperson’s DNA breaks down into four components. Here are some examples of areas where you need clarity prior to beginning the search: Profile of your market and industry.

Profile of your market and industry. * How sophisticated are your Ideal Target Clients? * What level in an organization do they need to sell? * What are the technical requirements of the products and services you sell? How large is a typical order?

Requirements of the position. * How much prospecting do you expect from your salesperson? * Will they work on the phone, and do they present to groups? * Is customer service a priority? * How defined is your sales process?

* How do I know if the CRM program I chose is working for my business? A good CRM application will have the ability to compile reports on customer relations, satisfaction, and interaction with your sales staff. Analytics are a crucial part of sales and marketing; this information gives you a comprehensive overview of how your system is performing and whether or not it’s working for you.

* Do I need to get an IT department for my CRM? It depends on whether you choose an on-site CRM or an on-demand (cloud) CRM. Choosing an on-premise option for your CRM solutions means that you will probably need an IT department to do your service and maintenance. This can be a budgetary burden because of the need for extra staff in addition to the cost of the program itself and any appropriate updates and equipment.

By contrast, a cloud CRM application is handled remotely by a host company. The monthly fee therefore includes maintenance, updates, and servicing, which can make a cloud CRM the more economical of the two options.

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In my last post, I talked about the importance for managers manage performance in their organizations, not ignoring performance issues. In this post, I want to go into establishing the performance improvement plan and putting someone on a “measured mile.”

With another global multinational, I saw an enormous flow chart and decision tree. First, it took a whole wall in their offices, so it was a convenient tool for sales people. Second, it tried to anticipate every single outcome from each activity, then mapping the next actions based on each outcome. You know what happened with this process. Finally, and this is what I see most often, the organization has adopted the “out of the box” process from it’s CRM vendor or it’s sales training vendor. Can you imagine this-the same process is used for a major multinational bank, a semiconductor start-up, a retail store, a marketing research firm… Something seems wrong here.

More often, managers just tend to push offending performers to the side. Not really addressing the issues, perhaps isolating them, but leaving them on board-serving as a distraction to everyone on the team. Often, these poor performers may not really know they are poor performers or may never know how to improve performance. When the opportunity comes to do a lay off (or the opportunity is created to lay off people), these non performers are quickly given an exit package. They go off, find another job, probably perform marginally, and the cycle repeats itself.

Developing the process is easy and fast, here’s how to do it: - Every top sales professional has a process they use, it may not be conscious. To develop the sales process, the quickest, most effective starting point is to lock a few of your top sales people in a room-people who are in the front lines, calling on customers every day. I also like to add the “laziest sales people, who consistently make their numbers.” They have reduced selling to the essence. These are the people that know how to sell and produce results. They have the knowledge of what works-in developing the sales process, leverage their knowledge, experience, expertise and pragmatism to develop your first draft of the sales process. Let them develop the first draft-give them no more than a day!

- Next, engage your customers. Talk to them about how they buy, ask them how they want to be sold to-believe it or not, customer want to be sold to, they just don’t want their time wasted. They want sales people to help solve their problems in a meaningful, effective manner. It’s in the customer’s best interests that you have a sales process that’s aligned with how they want to buy-that even helps facilitate the way they buy! Make sure your draft sales process is aligned with your customers’ buying processes.

Putting someone on a “measured mile” is difficult. It’s an emotionally charged time, both for the sales person and the manager. It requires time and focus. Ideally, the coaching managers do pre-empt the need to do this, but there are times when a performance improvement plan is necessary.

In my next post, I’ll talk more about the “measured mile.” When the manager and sales person enter into this process, both must be committed to a successful outcome-otherwise both are wasting time.

If you want an effective sales process-it can’t be developed in a dark room, it has to be developed by and in front of sales people and customers. It’s actually much easier, much faster, and produces profound results. If you want more help in developing your sales process, get our Free Sales Process eBook. It also includes a Self Assessment - look at your current process to see how good it is.

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When I work with clients to structure incentive-based compensation for their sales and non-sales teams, I see many issues. Where many get trapped is that they start in the middle. What I mean is they focus on the compensation itself instead of their business goals. The right incentives reward professionals for contributing to achieving strategic goals. Don’t blame your reps, blame the plan. Remember that not all business is “good business.” If you want to expand into new markets, grow existing accounts, or capture specific clients, be sure to reward the behavior that is important to your strategic growth. Here are four areas that can help improve your compensation plan.

Build Accountability Tie incentives to individual, group, and company performance. At least 1/2 of the incentives should be tied to individual performance. However, we want to encourage team play. The only way to max-out is if your group meets its goals, the company meets its goals, and you meet your personal goals. This creates good peer pressure for an under-performing team member. It also encourages top performers to help less experienced team members. Having a bonus pool to reward across teams can instill a sense of “what’s good for the company is good for me.” - something that has been lost in many companies.

Credibility comes from respect: the prospect respects your approach, your company, your appearance, and/or your mannerisms. Credibility comes from trust: the prospect trusts what you have to say; trusts your company; trusts you. Credibility comes from delivering wanted results: the prospect believes you can deliver what s/he wants; the prospect sees from your presentation s/he will get desired results; or your past performances suggest you’ll deliver wanted results again. Failure in any one of respect, trust and/or results and you’ll have little to no credibility.

There are degrees of credibility in business. They range from no credibility, to (1) getting a meeting with someone, to (2) getting someone to answer your questions, to (3) getting someone to listen to you, to (4) getting someone to believe you, to (5) getting someone to buy from you, to (6) getting someone to use you as a resource/trusted advisor.

Sell at full price, get 100% recognition. As they introduce discounts, the revenue recognition falls. So, at a 20% discount, they may only get credit for 70% of the revenue. The goal is to ensure that reps battle to preserve margin. Of course, there is no substitute for good negotiating and selling skills. Being the low bidder is not selling.

Credibility does not happen automatically. Most people don’t consciously calculate how to build the respect, the trust and the results necessary to develop credibility up front. They just do their thing. If the prospect/customer doesn’t pick-up on your thing s/he will be skeptical, possibly polite, and blows you off, or never calls back, or do nothing to help move you forward in the sale or with him/her. So let’s take note of what you’ve done, and not done, in life.

You could produce better and more leads. It can evaluate probable leads according to your business merchandise and your customer information and pre-qualify the leads which are more possibly be lucrative. Getting all of your divisions connected to the same system could indicate a better cooperation not just on one particular division but to any other as well. Since everyone has the right to use the data and the information, it could be easily distributed all throughout.

Sales force automation systems are of great advantage to any business who understands what they really wanted to acquire and want to have a great success as well. Such business who takes this into consideration will more probably over benefit from their decisions therefore helping them achieve their aims and objectives.

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Generally, people rarely even notice that an economic recession is happening because the administration is usually swift to act on it, and because of its power they are able to stabilize the nation’s economy before much damage is done. All the same, recently, the efforts of the administration and their plans were not sufficient to stop this downward spiral of the economic system.

Because of rising prices in gas hitting on the costs of essential items we use every day, people are scrimping on their purchases and this has impacted companies, making more job losses and money strains. The real estate industry has also crashed leaving numerous foreclosed properties because people just can’t pay the monthly premium anymore.

The aforementioned goes with the bank and insurance spheres who are also experiencing the heat of the economic downturn. Present are some of the matters that you should know about how a recession involves your everyday life and the things that it can do to you if you don’t watch out. It can force unemployment upon you - economic slowdown is a period recognized for job losses when the call for for merchandise lessens and businesses lose their money - the only way they can endure is to cut labor. They can rationalize this as there will also be reduction in production, so if you are one of the unfortunate few who are employed by a firm experiencing such losses, you could lose your job.

In order to gear up for this eventuality, try to research into the financial strength of your employer and listen to the office gossip regarding prospective redundancy. Ordinarily, you will know if a company is losing money so if you feel that your company is losing money, make a support plan just in case you become jobless. This is especially true if you are working in the assembly line. It can make life worse - prices will from time to time be high throughout an economic slowdown as a reduced supply of wares will cause a rise in the costs. Although the government will try to help out by introducing tax cuts, this may not be of any use particularly if there have been numerous people made redundant.

Normally families often attempt to stint on their day to day expenses, no longer going for their regular entertainment - although, it has been seen that picture show ticket sales go up during a period of economic recession. This is perhaps because individuals want to blank out their issues for a spell and just delight in the world of fantasy. It is not going to be forever - one bright thing that individuals can look ahead to is the fact that economic slowdown is not go to last forever. As mentioned before, recession is part of a cycle and when you are down, the only way you can go is up, that is why, for the meantime the goal during these challenging times is to ride the waves and live.