Sales Leadership, My Caveat – SHOUTS from the Trenches!
In case you haven’t been tuning in recently, the whole question of sales ineffectiveness was brilliantly raised by Dave Stein. It’s not just a great question for sales professionals; it’s frankly the ONLY question.
Dave rightly asks “The root causes of sales ineffectiveness are clear. There is plenty of sound advice about how to fix the problem. There is a proven path. The answers are there for everyone to see. There are companies you can read about and observe that have achieved sales excellence.
So, recession aside, why is sales as a profession and function, losing ground?”
In three follow up posts, Sales Force Ineffectiveness, Conjecture of the Future of the Profession, parts one, two and three; Dave Brock does an excellent job in teasing out the issues.
In Part One, he talks about why “for too long, we have treated sales as a “black art”, that now “Customers can be more informed and less knowledgeable” and how “Consultative selling is difficult—it is disciplined, process based, and requires commitment and follow through on a sustained basis”.
In two, he observes that this is not just a sales problem” “Some of it is “business culture”—in general, some of it is “regional culture”—that is North American, European, Asian, and so forth. Some of it is “industry culture.”
Finally in part three, He resolves that these same difficulties also provide for “people who are or who are committed to becoming the highest levels of performance” - “opportunity for real progress and growth for sales professionals”.
He asks “how can we improve” “what can we do”. Dave believes that “each of us can take ownership in driving change”
“Whether you are a leader or individual contributor, becoming disciplined and process focused, committing to follow through on these, exploiting the tools produce results. Leverage these processes and tools, not because your management tells you to, but because they help you become more effective”
Collectively, these four posts are a MUST read, if you don’t have the time, MAKE the time – the reasons WHY are in the TEXT.
Now it’s not often, I take anything remotely resembled an issue with what Dave Brock says.
“To be honest—at least from an organizational point of view, I am tempted to point the finger at management—not just sales management, but corporate management”
Perhaps, it’s inexperience, or my youthful exuberance, but I am inclined to not just point my finger at senior management, but my entire hand, in fact right down to the tips of my toes. My entire being points in that general vicinity. Here why:
For too long, salespeople have been getting in the neck from management.
Yes, we may have a bad reputation and yes some of it may be deserved, buy ultimately the system is set up so that we always end up taking the heat. If the results don’t happen, who invariably gets the blame?
For years and years, salespeople get cast aside, replaced and cast aside again by companies. Rarely if ever, is it asked did this person get the right training? Did this person get the right support? And why did we hire this person again? Oh and by the way “who hired this person?
Dave says “I don’t believe change only comes from the top. I believe change comes from committed, passionate people at all levels of the organization” If a collective ownership of the result existed within organisations, I think Dave would be very right.
If some of the people entrusted with the sales leadership function in many organisations didn’t do their best to dodge and pass the buck, I think he would be right.
If salespeople weren’t forced to knock out huge numbers of calls and put in vast amounts of meaningless activities by ill-advised and badly trained sales mangers, I think he would be right.
If the wider business community and business leaders respected sales and salespeople, I think he would be right.
The point is this; the problem is in the way that the system is set up particularly with regards to responsibility. It makes it extremely difficult for salespeople to change the “science of selling” from within.
In my opinion, the buck stops and it STOPS squarely at the feet of some of our so called sales leaders.
In case, you missed my point - take a little inspiration from this recent article about HP
Tags: Dave Brock, Dave Stein, HP, sales effectivness, sales ineffectiveness, sales leadership
May 15th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Well said
May 15th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Thank you Sue. I appreciate the feedback.
May 18th, 2009 at 8:46 am
Sales Leadership – SHOUTS from the Trenches!…
In case you haven’t been tuning in recently, the whole question of sales ineffectiveness was brilliantly raised by Dave Stein. It’s not just a great question for sales professionals; it’s frankly the ONLY question.
Dave rightly asks “The root …
May 18th, 2009 at 9:05 am
[...] This post was Twitted by SLIre - Real-url.org [...]
May 18th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Why ’sales’ losing ground as a profession and function. A response to David stein’s question
‘How do you fix sales ineffectiveness’
“The root causes of sales ineffectiveness are clear.” according to Dave Stein on his popular blog*. “There is plenty of sound advice about how to fix the problem. There are companies you can read about and observe, that have achieved sales excellence.”
Ok Dave, go on……
The 100 year old art of Sales Training is backed by an astonishing 30,000 books available on ‘How to Sell’ through amazon.com alone, though there’s only a third that number on ‘Sales Techniques’.
Old yet proven tools are rejected as ‘old school’ by many of these books, yet no definitive, industry standard exists as would in another profession, be it “Gray’s Anatomy” for doctors or “Salvato’s Environmental Engineering” for sanitation engineers.
Fair point Dave.
He cites the number of blogs, training companies, webinars, eBooks, articles and white papers available - many offering solid advice. He lists an eye-popping array of highly respected surveys and research, still with no leading light regarded as the benchmark. He puts it all in financial context by pointing out that US corporations spent about $6 billion on sales performance improvement in 2008 yet sales productivity, prior to the recession, was down.
Hey, that doesn’t look good!
But hang on a minute. How much of that literature, blogature, and coursework is about sales theory and how much is about the essential element common to all transactions - the human being?
If solving a problem were all about the literature, there would be no obese Americans. At 354,714, the amount of diet books available dwarves those on sales yet, according to the statistics, 65% of America’s adults are obese, 31% morbidly so. The advice is clear and available but the people are muddled or - because I can’t resist saying it - the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
Sales ineffectiveness has nothing to do with the sales industry or the literature. It’s all about the frailties of the human condition. Like other professions and industries, we tend to think of human beings as being like PCs. Leave them in a room with a trainer to download methodology or technique and all will be well. It wouldn’t work with athletes, painters or musicians, so why would it work with sales people? Before any technique, methodology or training can be effective, the individual has to understand what it is they are learning, what they addressing within themselves and how they have to adapt themselves to work with it.
There may be many reasons why most of the $6Bn spent on sales training is wasted but here are my top 7. These are the real issues you need to address if your sales improvement process is to succeed.
The $6Bn Reason #1. When confronted with a problem we distort reality.
When we hear the word ‘Discount’ we think dollars off. The fact is many of us knock a few points off our own self-worth before we even get near price. Discounts are internal mechanisms we use to minimize or maximize an aspect of reality, in ourselves or others - at the expense of our pitch.
There are four levels of discounting
Level 1: Existence
We discount the existence of a problem - “Hey, I’m having lots of meetings, I’ve never been busier.”
Level 2: Significance
We discount the significance of the problem - “That’s just how it is in the Sales game. You have to give prospects a lot of information to educate them.”
Level 3: Changeability
We discount the changeability of the problem - “That’s how we’ve always done it. That’s just how it works.”
Level 4: Personal ability
We discount our personal ability to carry out the change - “I’m comfortable doing it this way.”
To address any business challenge we have to cap those discounts by:
• Acknowledging the existence of the problem.
• Acknowledging that the problem is significant and worthy of our time.
• Believing that the problem can be fixed.
• Believing that we, ourselves, can actually change.
Just look at the financial markets. Were there signs of a problem 24 months ago? Absolutely. Were they ignored? Yes. Was the significance downplayed? Need I go on …
Most sales training is sold to Sales VP’s/Directors who can clearly see a sales productivity problem. They believe the situation can be changed but don’t know how, so engage sales training experts - logical enough. That trainer is faced with a group of people who - regardless of the training - continue to discount at one of the four stages:
they don’t believe that they need to change;
they don’t believe change is necessary;
they don’t believe change is possible;
or they don’t believe they have what it takes.
Why would those sales reps try to solve a problem they can’t see?
But how can they ignore the evidence? They’re struggling to make quota, they’re uncomfortable calling high, discussion money, asking for a decision, pressure, pressure pressure - and yet they don’t recognize that they have a problem?
This brings us to insight number 2.
The $6Bn Reason #2. The mind will deny that which it cannot accept.
Psychologists call it ‘Cognitive Dissonance’ - the uncomfortable tension which comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time. Dissonance is often strong when we believe something about ourselves and then do something that contradicts that belief. For example, if I believe that I am a great salesperson and now I’m struggling to make my numbers, the resulting discomfort I feel is cognitive dissonance.
In the context of this article, if I believe that I’m a great closer and then a sales trainer comes along and tells me that I should be acting differently, I am confronted with two conflicting thoughts;
Either: “I am not as good/effective as I think I am”
or: “The sales trainer doesn’t understand my world/culture/industry.”
The result is excuses, finger pointing and blaming everything but my own skillsets. The trouble is, people believe sales training is for under performers and our egos won’t let us see ourselves as under performers.
The $6Bn Reason #3. Confirmation Bias
Another truth from the psychologists is ‘Confirmation Bias’. This is where our attention is drawn only to evidence that supports our existing beliefs, as we ignore evidence to the contrary.
”Last year, I hit my target and made ‘Club’.” - evidence I will use.
”The large order that helped me reach my target came out of the blue.” - evidence I choose to ignore.
This occurs in all areas of life from the property speculator who sticks to the belief of a ‘market correction’ where a crash is inevitable, to the farmer who is convinced that a weather system is going to pass 200 miles south of his property, despite the forecast.
Confirmation bias is related to reason 4……
The $6Bn Reason #4. Self-Serving Bias
’Self-Serving Bias’ describes our tendency to take credit for success (self-enhancing bias) while denying responsibility for failure (self-protective bias). This protects our egos and helps us convince ourselves we are meeting our goals.
Just look at the average Sales Rep’s Resumé. You will see all the big deals they closed and the revenue they brought in. You will not see anything listed as: ‘Fell into my lap’, ‘Closed itself’ or ‘Couldn’t have done it without colleague/relative’s help’.
If you do get to ask about the deals they lost, here are the reasons - inevitably: ”Economy is down”
”Products are inferior”
”Marketing support is poor”
”Technical support dropped the ball”
Sound familiar?
Failure is the greatest enemy of the ego, which will go to extraordinary lengths to protect itself, thereby causing a major block to progress.
This sales person is now a ’self-handicapper’, they are standing in their own way. They have given themselves license to use a stock of excuses for failure, all of which point anywhere but to themselves. What better excuse than lack of training, inadequate training or a trainer who doesn’t understand their industry?
30,000 books but none of them really understand the printer cartridge market? I don’t think so! Could this be why there is no ‘Gray’s Anatomy’ for sales training?
The $6Bn Reason #5. You’re not willing to pay the price
We live in a world of instant gratification. Instant coffee, fast food, priority check-in. We are conditioned to expect results - NOW - whether it’s a bagel or a closed sale. Walter Michel’s now famous study at Stanford University showed that four year-old children who chose to wait, when given the choice of eating one marshmallow now or two marshmallows 20 minutes later, showed consistently and significantly better performances in SAT tests performed as 18 year olds (Shoda, Mischel, & Peake, 1990). It’s a fascinating demonstration of something our great grandparents could have told us - if something’s worth having, it’s worth working for and waiting for.
The implications for us as a species are rather frightening, so let’s just stick to sales. Like the hunter, the sales rep must plan, be stealthy, stick to a strategy and, above all, be patient.
In contrast, most of those 30,000 books, and the industry that surrounds them, promise quick fix answers, which leads us to reason #6……
The $6Bn Reason #6. “The idiot’s self-help guide to how-to books for dummies – made easy”
The quick fix simply does not work. It never has, it never will. In the early 1970s, the British Comedy troupe ‘Monty Python’ offered the following advice to you, if you wanted to be the person who would “Rid the world of all known diseases”:
“Go to college and study really hard to become a doctor. Once you’re a doctor, specialize in diseases and do really well at it. Then, once the medical profession begins to recognize you, just tell them what to do to sort it all out.”
It’s very silly but it encapsulates perfectly what I don’t like about the profusion of How to/Self help/Do-it-yourself sources of advice. I would be cautious about rubbishing all the blogs, books and articles. I participate actively in that market myself. However, there are common factors among a lot of them that are worth challenging. Have you ever noticed how so many of the people who make money out of the internet made it by writing books or creating websites telling you how to ‘make money out of the internet’?
Most relevant to what we’re talking about is the fact that so much of the advice in this area offers to ‘Make things easy’ or claim to be ‘The simple way’ to do something. Some of it is written by people who have never strayed beyond the borders of that land we call theory. Some are people who have one, linear solution to an issue which, if challenged by the vagaries of reality, would crumble. Others have experience in one particular facet of the issue. Others still are written by the ‘I’ve been there so I know’ brigade. But how many of them are written by people who consciously went out there to address the central issue themselves?
How many of them come out and say ‘Selling successfully is a hard slog, here’s an effective way to slog’. It’s not all the fault of the industry. It is, after all, responding to the demands of the market, which wants seminar format interventions, online training and other quick fixes - They want “the quick win” as it was once described to me.
The $6Bn Reason #7: Peer Pressure
Peers influence your life, even if you don’t realize it, just by spending time with you. You learn from them, and they learn from you. It’s only human nature to listen to and learn from other people in your social or professional group. Few people want to stand out and be different. So, if your peers don’t want to make the effort to change, then, like it or not, this will have a profound affect on you. Either the force to conform will win and maintain the status quo or you break free of the pack and risk the relationship you have with your colleagues. Either way there is an inevitable loss, a price to pay.
So, where does that leave us? Why is sales, as a profession and function, losing ground? Why is a century old training discipline, backed by well over 30,000 books, legions of training programs and scores of blogs, failing to inspire sales reps and grow sales?
The $6Bn waste. Explained at $100m a word
“We modify the truth about problems, situations, our abilities and our performance. We focus on what we believe at the expense of what we need to know. We seek information that supports that belief rather than challenging it. We believe in quick fixes over hard slog. We let our peers support our beliefs to give us the comfort of conformity.”
The truth of it is, that paragraph could be applied to a great many industries, professions and services from advertising to publishing, from manufacturing to transport. Rather worryingly, it also applies to politics, economics, science and medicine.
The real learners and leaders in any sector - sales or otherwise - are the people who are able to step outside those 60 words to: Face the truth about their work and themselves; Focus on what they need to know; Challenge all information; Identify which short cuts are real shortcuts; And have the confidence to stand apart from the accepted norm.
Answering the $6billion question
Abstract and behavioral learning don’t come naturally to many people. In our early development we close off as many inlets to our mind as we open, either through ineffective learning, negative experiences, absence of mentoring, self-defense and laziness.
Reopening those channels so that they can absorb some of those 30,000 books, takes a bit of work on the individual. We need an external, objective voice whose comment, criticism and guidance we respect, acknowledge and follow. That’s why I recommend quality coaching to my clients when their experiencing these blocks. I call it ‘Someone to help you see the territory, rather than the map’.
Coaching is nothing to do with sales specifically, it’s about making the most of ‘you’. So, while training gives you the ‘What’ and the ‘Why’, coaching gives you the ‘How’ and the ‘Why not?’
If you genuinely have a growth mindset, ready to expand your perspective and change course if necessary, then effective sales training will be effective for you. But I recommend you get a second opinion, before you dismiss a century’s worth of sales wisdom.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
[...] Today was the first long weekend of the summer here in Canada, Victoria Day, of for those of us who are not really Monarchists, the May 24 weekend! A chance to sit on the deck with a frosty and read a few blog posts between grabbing some sun and flipping some steaks. There were two that got me to thinking (ya ya, I know). One was a post on Jerry Kennedy’s Motivation 101 blog, a piece called When It Comes to Goals, Ask “Why?”, Not “How?”; the second was Niall Devitt’s Beyond The Boardroom, and post called Sales Leadership, My Caveat – SHOUTS from the Trenches! [...]
May 19th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Paul, what a response!!. I take every single one of your points, they are entirely well made and expressed superbly. I continue to contend that unless sales leaders create systematic change, we will not see an overall improvement - I believe very firmly that change needs to come from the top-down.