Know-How Exchange : Research/Metrics

Guni,

Been there, done that! You face the problem because sales management - the guy who hires, fires, gives and doesn't give raises to sales people does not have a common objective with you - that being following up on these leads. Additionally, the sales guys' commissions don't depend on the follow-up and reporting.

Because the exec VP was livid with the performance of sales withinthe region I worked, he assigned the VP/GM the task of reporting to him opportunities and closure results. I devised an objective setting, review and compensation process that I ran on a fairly large Excel spreadsheet. THe gist of it was that MARKETING set the goals for the salesmen on which they were paid part of their commission. If they specifically came back with solid information as to why an opportunity didn't exist, we would change the goal accordingly...otherwise it was written in stone. Additionally, I chaired a weekly meeting to discuss the opportunities that were formally part of the sales objectives for status and obstacles for closure. The VP/GM of sales for the region attended - it was his meeting and he reviewed the troups. I was the score keeper. After three months or so, we began closing about $5 million per quarter for new opportunities. After a year of this, I moved into a strategic position and integrated product line strategies into sales segment strategies and indentified a stream of about $100 million in of the right opportunities (strategically important for the company) and integrated them into sales measurements. As a result we improved regional sales and margins greatly.

It is possible. You need to have sales management's backing, you set the goals and your word is law - sales lives with it unless they have good data (reviewed by you and the sales management) to prove you wrong.

I hope this helps.

Wayde

I can really help here.

I know of a system that does the following:

a) the leads go in
b) the leads are positioned
c) the sales people are given them automatically
d) the sales people are scored on their ability to shove the lead further down the pipeline
e) as they move the lead their likelyhood of closing goes up - so it's trackable if they don't touch the CRM
f) performance can be measured and it really stands out
g) the machine produces a report on open, closed, stalled etc.
h) the system is a 5 contact, 30 day cycle - so it's not a whole ton of labourous activities with no end in sight

My results are about 25% better using it.

It's called GoldMine and there's an explanation of sorts on my profile website, i think.

otherwise send me an email and i'll call you back with some more b.s.

I like the discussion so far... I have lived on the sales side and owned the marketing side...

Here is a point that very few sales people understand. How much each lead costs... We determined ours were costing about 65 dollars each. We promoted that to the sales people. We asked them to help us determine which ones were worth 65 dollars and which ones were not. On top of that we paid a small amount for the proper feedback. If memory serves we paid 5 dollars. Salespeople will do almost anything for money.... Including filling out forms.

Hi Guni,

hope you're having a great day! Great input Frank!

At least you're getting some interesting perspectives on how people perceive sales & sales management.


WITH A WHOLE BUNCH OF YEARS IN SALES and much success you might want to think about the following (below).

ADVICE FROM A SUCCESSFUL SALES REP...


SALES PERSPECTIVES VARY BUT GREAT SALES PEOPLE ARE CONSISTENT...BEWARE OF THE STEREOTYPE...
Having been a successful sales person I'm sure my perspective will be just a little different. I have seen quite a bit of slackers and those who fail to follow-up but I'm afraid all sales people don't fit this stereotype.

THE BEST SALES TEAMS FOLLOW THE RULES...
inspite of the problem you are running into the best sales teams follow the rules. It appears that the leaders of these sales teams are not revealing how important it is to be able to measure your success.

STUCK ON SELLING ONLY...THE ONE BEHAVIOR THAT KILLS GREAT SALES CAREERS.
The leaders and sales teams seem to be stuck on selling ONLY and not recognizing that great sales opportunities function in patterns. It's only a matter of time that bad sales behavior in whatever function will eventually prove why their teams can not operate at a much higher level of productivity.

GREAT SALES TEAMS ARE PRODUCTIVELY EFFICIENT...
yes that's right. Even though sales people overall get bad raps for many things those who are very, very successful are that way because they are proactively efficient. And this is an area that you can impact with the right solution.

GREAT SALES STRATEGIES WORK BECAUSE...YOU MAKE THEM WORK AS YOU WORK THEM...
It does appear though that you have a problem that may be solved with two distinctly separate approaches. The solutions that I am about to offer you have not only worked for me but they have also worked for plenty of companies I have shared this solution with. These are not made up solutions for your problem but they do work if you only work them. Here's the first one and please be sure to let me know what you think and how they work for you when you use them...

#1 SOLUTION...
When I was in sales all lead generation came through marketing and was passed on to a lead generation secretary who passed on the leads to the various sales people. Her responsibility was to keep a journal of all leads given out every month. She was then required to follow-up with all sales reps who did not make a report back to her within a few days. When she followed up with the sales rep she had to determine one of the following...

*Did they make the phone call to the prospective client?
*Did they make a visit to go see the client?
WHAT was the out come of the call or visit?
*Was the lead a live one? or...
*Was the lead dead? and why?

She would then make a report to marketing in order to help them maintain a track record for the quality of their lead generation opportunities.

NOTE: the only reason why this process worked for our company very successfully was because it was reinforced by the sales managers who managed the sales departments. They were required by the regional sales VP's to up hold to this strategy which was expected and inspected...

...SO REMEMBER: "IF IT'S NOT INSPECTED - IT'S NOT EXPECTED"


#2 SOLUTION...
SALES PEOPLE LIKE TO BE REWARDED so tie a reward back to the behavior. If you reward the sales people for reporting back to the secretary or admin or whatever reporting group you have them reporting back to they will pay attention. There are many ways of rewarding your troops in order to reinforce the sales behavior you expect of them. On the flip side you can also present a negative for those who fail to recognize the value of reporting this information at all...(you decide what the equally negative motivator might be). Thanks for an excellent question & Remember our only real problem in life is our failure to be "MORE Creative" than we’ve ever been. If you “Invent” your opportunity YOU WILL most definitely create your future. Just know that I'm here for you if you need my help. Is there anything else I can do for you?

Your Servant, Deremiah, *CPE (Customer Passion Evangelist)

Great input so far...wanted to add my two cents on three specific things:

1) I've found the biggest hurdle to be AGREEMENT BETWEEN SALES AND MARKETING on what is a truly qualified lead. If you aren't capturing real prospect characteristics during the marketing process like size of company, decision-making level of exec, presence of an approved budget etc etc, for which you can grade the lead (from 1 to 4 or warm to hot, etc), then you will forever be in "limbo land" because Sales will argue they can get better leads, if they even bother to look at them at all.

2) You mentioned that Sales sometimes gets its own leads. I would not worry about trying to track those. Marketing's job is to stuff the pipeline so Sales isn't out randomly looking for leads.

3) Your question about follow-up. Timing and disposition are critical. "Immediately" needs to be reasonable, but you should definitely get a system that puts a time stamp on each lead. If nothing is reported in 7 days, follow up. After three more days, give the lead to someone else.

Disposition means who gets the lead. If you have any flexibility in giving leads to specific Sales members, give the hot leads to the people who close AND report. That will be incentive to the other guys - if they want commissions, they need the good leads.

And you should also use Marketing to follow up whenever Sales declares a lead "dead." You need to do your own validation of this, otherwise a lot of marketing money will have been squandered.