Crafting
a sales strategy is a key to success – especially when selling into major
accounts. While front-line sales managers agree, we often hear comments like,
“I don’t have the time” and “My territory is spread out and I don’t see my
people face-to-face”.
Well,
it’s true that most sales managers don’t see their folks face-to-face very
often and time is an issue for every sales manager – but if sales managers take
a different approach to working with their sales teams on strategy, not only
will the time issue be wrestled to the ground, but sales managers can leverage
their time investment spent helping their sales teams craft sales strategies.
How?
Strategy
Review Sessions can be held one-on-one with a single sales rep or with an
entire sales team during a sales meeting held face-to-face, during a conference
call, or using teleconferencing. We usually think of conducting Strategy Review
Sessions one-on-one, but there’s merit in conducting a Strategy Review Session
with the entire sales team. Simply put –
the sales team will have suggestions for addressing the sales strategy being
discussed – and can then generalize the discussion to an opportunity they are
working on. And, importantly, the sales manager – who is always looking to add
more hours to the day – is able to leverage time by coaching the entire sales
team at the same time!
So,
here is a three-step process for conducting a Strategy Review Session with an
entire sales team.
- Select the Opportunity.
Select one member of
your sales team to outline a target opportunity along with his/her strategy for
moving forward.
- Solicit Suggestions. Then solicit suggestions from the rest of the
sales team for modifications for improving the strategy.
- Finalize a Path Forward. Finally,
tie together the comments from the sales team and add your own as a
recommendation to the sales person who owns the target opportunity.
How
do you actually conduct the session? Well, telling the sales team the strategy
isn’t as effective as helping them to learn how to formulate the strategy. Yes,
it’s the old yarn about giving someone a fish or teaching them to fish. This
approach means sales managers can’t just share brilliant ideas and then move on
to the next topic. Rather, as the sales manager you have a point of view about
direction – you know what the strategy might be, but you help the sales team
get there by the art of questioning, not simply providing the answer.
Here’s
a starter list of questions you might find helpful:
- What
is your most optimistic objective and what is your fall back position?
- How
would you describe your present position relative to achieving your objective?
- What
is going on at the account that is particularly important for you to take into
consideration in planning your path forward?
- Is
there anything you need to do “right now”?
- What
are the hot buttons of the two or three key players and what do you need to do
to position yourself?
- What
is our major competitive advantage and what should you do to leverage it
effectively?
- What
might our competitors likely do and what should you be doing proactively to
make their efforts less effective?
Now
that you’ve asked the first question, what’s the follow-up question? Well, of
course that is conversation-specific … but a few good “drill down” questions
are:
- What
went really well the last time you faced this situation? What might you do
differently?
- If
you don’t get what you wanted, what do you think would cause that?
- What
are the upsides? The downsides?
- What’s
another way to do it?
- That’s
one way to look at it, are there other options?
- Under
what conditions might you ______?
And
if all else fails, here are five all-purpose questions sales managers can use
when reviewing strategy and following a sales call:
- What
do you know?
- What
do you need to know?
- Who
has the information?
- How
did the last call go?
- [Following
a call] What do you now know that you
didn’t know before? What are the
implications? What should you do differently?
During
a Strategy Review Session, sales managers have the opportunity to help a sales
rep, or an entire sales team, gain insights as to the best strategy for moving
forward on an opportunity.
©2011
Sales Horizons™, LLC
___________________________________________
For more than 30 years Richard Ruff,
Ph.D. and Janet Spirer, Ph.D. – the co-founders of Sales Momentum and Sales
Horizons – have worked with the Fortune 1000 to design and develop sales
training programs that make a difference.
Richard
and Janet have authored numerous articles related to sales training and sales
effectiveness. Richard co-authored Managing Major Sales – a book about sales
management and Getting Partnering Right – a research based work on the best
practices for forming strategic selling alliances. Janet and Richard
co-authored Parlez-Vous Business to help sales people integrate the language of
business into the sales process.
Dr. Ruff received his Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology from the University of
Tennessee and a B.S. from Rennsselaer Polytechnic Institute. Dr. Spirer
received her B.A. from Brooklyn College, an MPA from The University of Texas at
Austin, and a Ph.D. in Business from The Ohio State University.
They can be contacted through info@saleshorizons.com. To learn more
about how we help companies achieve sales success, visit the Sales Horizons web site or the Sales Training Connection
blog.
Written for TrainingIndustry.com
