So You've Decided To Automate Your Sales Team, Now What?
So Youve Decided To Automate Your Sales Team, Now What
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You've got some talented sales people on board and you've given them the
tools and training that you thought they needed to be successful. Yet overall, you know they can do better. Isnt sales force automation a magic bullet?
Not hardly. We all know that there is no such thing as a magic bullet. Especially when it comes to sales and marketing! In fact, according to a
number of industry surveys, more than 65 percent of all sales force automation (SFA) projects are considered unsuccessful by the companies whove
implemented them, states David Tinjum, president and CEO of Business FX Corp., a leading national provider of sales and marketing solutions to Fortune 500 and other companies.
And yet, faced with the inevitable adoption of laptop and sales automation
technologies by individual sales professionals, most direct selling organizations are starting to make conscious decisions regarding Sales Force Automation (SFA). Do they adopt it? How far will they go with it? How much do they let SFA drive organizational and management structures?
"From our experience, there are four primary reasons for disappointing SFA
results," Tinjum explains. He cites:
the failure to identify and correct ineffective marketing and selling processes;
the failure to take advantage of the SFA technology's ability to increase sales rep selling time;
the failure to use the SFA software to improve the quantity, quality and timeliness of the feedback that each sales pro gets regarding how they are doing; and,
the failure to take a strategic approach to the SFA project.
Take A Reading Of Your Vital Signs - What kind of physician would prescribe treatment or medication before examining the patient and arriving at a diagnosis? According to Tinjum, benchmarking existing marketing and selling
processes will allow your organization to examine and critique its current
situation. By identifying your productivity obstacles and process efficiencies, you will be able to quantify what it is costing you, (in potential sales dollars), to do things the way you are doing them now.
How Much Are We Doing And How Well Are We Doing It?
A sales and marketing assessment should cover all aspects of your organizations marketing and selling processes and consist of both quantitative and qualitative analyses. In many cases an outside consultant is recommended because he/she will not have a vested interest in the results.
How Much?
The "how much" (quantitative) analysis should answer the following key questions:
What is the volume of monthly sales that your company may be missing out on as a result of processes that restrict the number of selling opportunities that your organization is competing for?
Given your available selling resources and the amount of time they spend selling,
a) How many selling opportunities can they effectively handle, and
b) Are you marketing to enough organizations to generate the leads necessary to keep them busy?
Given the quantity and pace with which sales leads flow through your sales pipeline, is your organization working on enough opportunities to meet or exceed its annual sales quota?
Is your sales pipeline filling up with old, inactive leads and if so, what is the potential lost sales from the inadequate handling of these leads?
How does your sales force spend its time and how does it compare to industry averages?
If your sales professionals arent spending enough time on selling activities, what specific non-selling tasks can be automated or reassigned to other resources in order to increase their selling time?
What is the optimum target level of selling activities that each of your
sales professionals should be striving for in order to meet their monthly quotas?
And last but certainly not least,
Currently, what is the daily sales production of your sales force and by how much could you reasonably expect it to increase by altering the way things are being done?
How Well?
The "how well" (qualitative) analysis should ask how effective your organization is with regard to the following nine marketing and selling process areas:
1) The quantity of new leads being generated. Are you getting enough leads. Is your attraction marketing campaigns actually attracting enough people?
2) The quality of the new leads being generated. This is a vital question. One that is rarely answered in organizations. Busy does not mean effective. Getting 1000 poor quality leads is a "bad" thing. It'll cost you and your organization a ton of money to service.
3) The reporting and distribution of your new leads. How are leads dealt with? Who gets them in and who gives them out? What reporting processes are in place? Are they effective? Are they being maximized?
4) The speed, accuracy and completeness of your lead qualification process. So many organizations today are just so happy to get a lead that little if anything is done to qualify those leads.
5) The handling of new sales opportunities. How successful are your people with those leads? Once a lead comes in, we all know that the speed of response is critical. How quickly are leads followed up on? And how effective is that follow-up?
6) The frequency and timing of your sales contacts. Are your people doing the most productive things at the most productive times? How success is the call backs and timing of the leads generated?
7) Making the right offers to the right people. You need to examine how much time is lost because salespeople are pitching the wrong proposal to the wrong person. Are your people presenting your offer to the right person?
8) Sales cycle management and reporting. What is the quality of your call management? Depending on the buying cycle, more or less attention will need to be placed in this area. Is the reporting process effective? Is it too cumbersome to the sales force? Does it facilitate sales or detract from it?
9) Customer support, and retention. Do you see clients re-ordering sufficiently? Are measures in place to support the clients needs?
In all, Tinjums organization has identified 73 specific potential process problems, within the above nine areas that can be evaluated. And Then? A report, possibly utilizing charts and graphs, will identify areas of particular strengths and weaknesses. It can also show where the sales team and its coaches agree on the issues they face, the importance of those issues, and the state of the sales and marketing process, and where they differ. This will provide you with the knowledge required to make intelligent decisions about which processes need to be redefined, which should addressed through automation and which can be improved through resource reallocation. Only then should you start the implementation planning process.
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So You've Decided To Automate Your Sales Team, Now What?
By: DS Curry