SALES ORGANISATION CHALLENGES

SALES PROCESS DESIGN

• The absence of a well-mapped sales process results in a lack of structure and no clear path of ‘best practice’ to guide the Sales Force in today’s challenging business context.
• Consequently, sales processes are not uniformly followed by all members of the team – placing a burden on Sales Managers who instead of proactively managing, measuring and coaching one process, now have to reactively manage multiple styles, systems and approaches of their various Sales Reps.
• The net outcome in the absence of a well-defined and consistently followed sales process is often inaccurate pipelines and forecasts and missed individual and team targets.

CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT METHODOLOGY CHALLENGES

• Customer Engagement Methodology: A key challenge facing companies today is the difficulty experienced by the sales force to transition from benefits, features and price discussions to highlighting the differentiation and value of their products and services.
• If left unchecked, the following issues can pose serious threats to revenue and competitive positioning:
  • A sales team that is unable to effectively communicate the value of your proposition to customers to justify your pricing and win new business
  • Erosion of profit margins due to frequent discounting to close deals
  • Many deals stalled, or lost to ‘no decision’.

MAKING WRONG HIRES

• The cost of a bad hire is staggering. We identified with one client that placement of a poor sales executive cost them over R1,5 million in hard costs and lost revenue.
• While standard personality assessments may be suitable to assess non-sales positions, they’re unable to clearly identify traits required in competitive sales roles, particularly when securing ‘new business’ is a key requirement for the role.

DEVELOPING SALES TALENT

• A Sales Manager’s ability to identify each team members’ particular development areas is a lengthy and time-consuming process, one that in reality often unfolds over months or even years.
• In the absence of ‘Development Priority Mapping’ (an assessment of the full sales team to gauge individual and collective strengths, and areas for development with pinpoint accuracy), coaching and training interventions tend to be a one-size-fits-all or a ‘hit and miss’ exercise.

SELLING SKILLS

• Sales Reps may have come to rely on outdated sales approaches developed in years gone by where relationship selling and farming-styled account management was king. Today’s Sales Professionals require a different set of skills – and tenacity – in developing new business, proving ROI and interfacing with stakeholders.
• The ability to master foundational selling skills and self-management skills is also critical for success in selling. However, most Sales Reps have never been formally trained in this important area, consequently their lack of self-discipline and poor time management skills inevitably results in loss of productivity, focus and ultimately revenue.

MISALIGNED HIRES & PROMOTIONS

• The cost of hiring any Sales Professional is high, but hiring Managers is especially costly as their success or failure impacts the delivery of their entire team.
• In many instances, Sales Reps are promoted to positions of management that they’re not fully equipped for. Psychometric Assessments, specifically aligned for Competitive Selling environments, not only play a vital role in hiring and development – but also in succession planning to ensure individuals who are promoted are primed for success in their new roles.

DEVELOPING SALES MANAGERS

• The level of effectiveness of a Sales Manager has a direct impact on the performance and outputs of their team.
• Assessing the traits of existing Sales Managers to accurately identify their strengths and pinpoint development areas is an important exercise that can yield immediate ROI, and yet many organisations fail to assess Managers and thereby miss the ‘multiplier effect’ benefits.

SALES MANAGEMENT SKILLS

• Sales management is no less important than other business disciplines in finance, operations or marketing and yet there is limited formalised tertiary education for sales or sales management. This results in uneven levels of skills and expertise acquired through ‘on-the-job’ learning or trial-and-error.
• Many Sales Managers benefit from developing the following areas:
  • Sales Management Skills:Improve accuracy of pipeline and forecasting and understand where to focus their time and effort for maximum return
  • Revenue Driver Metrics: Translate strategic and revenue directives from senior management into a structured activities plan that can be monitored, measured and coached
  • Coaching Skills: Improve performance reviews and one-on-one coaching with Sales Reps.

ONLINE LEAD GENERATION

• Buyers go online to source and research potential suppliers, yet many B2B websites have not kept pace with today’s best practice content and technology.
• Many B2B websites are ill-equipped to influence at a distance and convert anonymous browsers into warm leads with the necessary content and functionality.

SALES FORCE CONTENT ENABLEMENT

• It’s becoming harder to secure meetings with busy prospects. Consequently, Sales Reps have less time than ever to establish credibility. As buyers become price sensitive, communicating a powerful value proposition is more important than ever before.
• The individuals on a Sales Team each differ in levels of expertise, presentation skills and communication style, thus hindering value messaging quality and consistency.
• Without strong sales enablement content, such as videos and written ROI case studies that build credibility and ensure consistent value messaging, your team is at a disadvantage.