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SALES PERFORMANCE

This supplement is an independent publication from Raconteur Media

March 24 2010

There is nothing like a good re-cession for focusing minds on the essential lifeblood of busi-ness: revenue and sales. With-

out any sales, no matter how efficiently the rest of the company is run, we might as well all pack up and go home.

It is little wonder, then, that the au-tomotive industry – a sector of manu-facturing particularly hard hit by a per-fect storm of high oil prices, the credit squeeze and fiscal measures designed to promote environmental responsibility – has, almost exclusively, been appoint-ing bosses who have come up through the sales and marketing side of business. Over the last 18 months, a steady stream of sales leaders have been taking over the top job at companies like BMW (Tim Abbott), Kia (Paul Philpott), Mitsubi-shi (Lance Bradley) and Mazda (Jeremy Thomson). At the European level, too, Brits with a track-record in vehicle sales are taking top posts. And the same is true for other sectors of the economy.

NUMEROUSPeople employed in sales or sales-relat-ed activity are by far the most numer-ous grouping in British business. The latest figures suggest that some 7 per cent of the UK population is employed in something to do with sales. But these figures include the likes of sales assist-ants in shops, direct sales agents such as “Avon ladies”, bank employees with a sales component to their pay packet and office-based sales support staff, as well as the traditional sales representa-tive driving around in a company car or the business development manager hammering the telephone.

“That’s over two million salespeo-ple,” says the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s Chris Moriarty, who has been working with the United King-dom Commission for Employment and Skills on a new strategy for sales qualifications.

And yet, despite its sheer size and vital importance to the British econ-omy, the world of sales and selling has consistently punched below its weight in terms of kudos and status in the workplace. Perhaps it is our Brit-ish reserve, our aversion to the pushy, “won’t-take-no-for-an-answer” stere-

otype, or a degree of neglect of the subject at business schools and other academic institutions.

Partly, it is confusion in the minds of the general public. Selling, like the pro-verbial football match, is a game of two halves: B2C (business- to-consumer) and B2B (business-to-business). People who do not operate in the commercial world tend only to see the B2C side of sales, experienced on the doorstep, via intrusive telephone calls during the evening or through poor service at electrical retailers; everybody has their favourite sales horror story. At the same time, the much more professional world of B2B sales tends to remain hidden.

Whatever the reason, we have never really taken the concept of selling to our hearts in the same way as the Americans. This is all the more sur-prising when we consider that success-ful business people acknowledge that making a big sale is one of the most euphoria–inducing “drugs” known to man. Former CBI boss and one-time government minister Lord Digby Jones famously described winning a big deal as “up there with sex and skiing”.

SINK OR SWIMIn an ideal world, salespeople would be recognised as key professionals, vital to the UK economy; sales should be a business career young people aspire to. Yet, we hear the same story time and again: salespeople almost invariably fall into their career by accident, few by choice. For many, their first – and only – taste of sales is in a low-quality, commission-only job where they are left to sink or swim by observing how their colleagues survive.

For a business community that dwarfs every other commercial grouping, sales-people are also relatively poorly served by professional bodies. There are currently only two organisations which focus on the sales profession: the Luton-based Institute of Sales & Marketing Manage-ment (ISMM) and the Chartered Insti-tute of Marketing, which began life in 1911 as the Sales Managers’ Association and then went through various name changes involving the words “sales” and

continued on page three

Time for sales tomove up a gear...OVERVIEW In an economic downturn, revenue is the number-one concern for any company, but sales can no longer be taken for granted. So sales teams and their leaders have never been more important or under such scrutiny, writes Nick de Cent

SALES PERFORMANCE 3

“marketing” before dropping the sales element altogether. It became the In-stitute of Marketing in 1968, at a time when marketing was on the crest of a wave as the trendy business discipline.

The upshot of all this has been that the percentage of high-quality sales-people in business is relatively low. Olly Watson, a regional managing director at recruitment giant Michael Page International, blames a dearth of excellent salespeople on their lack of qualifications, with the sales de-partment often having been the part of a company where people were shoved if they were not from a tech-nical or professional background. However, he is quick to stress that the situation is now improving.

COLLEGESSelling and sales management has also been virtually ignored by Brit-ain’s colleges, universities and busi-ness schools, though there are some pioneers like the University of Port-smouth and Cranfield leading the way. Sales training has been largely conducted in-house or by self-em-ployed consultants, with the blue-chip, US-owned technology com-panies such as IBM having the best reputation. Microsoft, for instance, is shortly to introduce new sales train-ing requirements for dealers and re-sellers as part of their accreditation in its new partner programme.

But everything may be about to change. Regulation is getting tougher – notably in the financial services sec-tor – and consumer protection legis-lation, driven by Europe, has been stepped up domestically, helping to curb the worst excesses. Government is also taking more of an interest in the positive aspects of selling and is looking to build skills for the future.

The economic cycle will almost certainly have a huge part to play as well. Downturns are notorious for upsetting the status quo; as weaker organisations go to the wall, it is only the stronger and more adapt-able companies which survive. Op-portunities are beginning to open up for new thinking and a more professional approach to sales.

At least two new sales associations are emerging to join the ISMM: one is the Association of Sales Professionals

(UK), while the Chartered Institute of Marketing is returning to its roots and backing the launch of a major new professional body next month.

Ren Kapur, a director at the Char-tered Institute of Marketing and a former executive at the ISMM, is be-

hind the new organisation, which will focus on learning and development, particularly mentoring, thought-leadership, networking and peer-to-peer learning. Potential members will be able to join based on their sales and business experience but will have

to sign up to a programme of contin-uing professional development.

The new body will aim to set sales standards on a global basis. Ms Ka-pur claims to have already received a good response from large corpo-rate businesses, academics and oth-er professionals. “The reaction has been really positive,” she says.

All the signs are that it is now the time for sales to grow up, for the profession to achieve a status com-mensurate with its primary role in driving business. New media are also helping to spread best practice and bring a new professionalism to the sales world. At the same time, the social media revolution and a whole new raft of software tools, which can be loosely defined as Sales 2.0, is sparking a complete rethink of the way salespeople engage with buyers, and so is helping to make the sales process more “scientific”. Sales is at last transforming from something of a dark art into a real profession.

Nick de Cent is editor of ModernSelling.com

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INSIDE

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Contributors: Peter Archer Nick de CentIan MartinRod NewingBeth RogersBrian TracyJessica Twentyman

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For more information about Raconteur Media publications in The Times and The Sunday Times, please contact Freddie OssbergT: 020 7033 2100 E: info@raconteurmedia.co.uk W: www.raconteurmedia.co.uk

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4 Hi-tech sales Social networking is opening doors for selling.

5 Boost for busted economy Sales education and training can drive UK recovery.

6 Bonuses How to get incentives right and save money.

8 Psychology of selling The key to success?

9 Train to Gain Government help to train your sales force.

12 Question time Answers and advice from sales gurus.

14 Taking the guesswork out of assessment Know your salespeople.

15 Sales leadership What – and who – makes a good sales director?

16 Technical buzzwords Customer relationship management.

18 Presenting the right way to sell How to stand out from the crowd.

Who makes the best salesperson… a man or a woman?

Identifying the attributes of a good salesper-son has become something of a holy grail in business, with much debate over whether sales-people are born or “made”. Good salespeople undoubtedly have some raw character traits, representing who the person “is”, on which es-sential skills can be built.

But these essential character-istics are not necessarily those which exist in the popular imagi-nation: the pushy salesman with the “gift of the gab” is not actu-ally the type of person best suit-ed to selling in our modern, com-plex business world. For a start, the best salespeople are more likely to be women than men, according to academic and sales management guru Professor Neil Rackham.

“Women quite clearly make bet-ter salespeople than men,” he says. “Culturally,

women use more of the behaviours that coinci-dentally also help you sell.”

Women tend to be better at listening than men and are also more skilled at developing rapport; primarily, the issue is one of trust. Equally, Profes-sor Rackham debunks the idea that salespeople need to be persuasive: a better character trait is to be curious and interested in finding out about the customer. Customers do not want to be per-suaded, but they do want to be understood.

Ex-IBM executive and sales management commentator Paul Sloane high-

lights two of the most critical qual-ities in a salesper-son as the ability

to ask questions and having the fa-

cility to listen.Think like the

customer. Empathy and understanding of the customer’s business objec-tives will be at the heart of fu-ture selling.

continued from page one

Digby Jones: loving sales Up there

with sex and skiing

How good – or bad – are your latest sales projections?

Anticipated sales performance from a survey of organisations for the current financial year

Source: The Chartered Institute of Marketing

20

15

10

5

0

below -10% -10% – -6% -5% – 0% 1% – 5% 6% – 10% 11% – 15% 16% – 20% more than 20% not applicable

14%

10%

16%17%

11%

6%

3%

8%

16%

4 SALES PERFORMANCE

Back in 1949, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Arthur Miller wrote Death of a Salesman. It

was the story of the downfall of Willy Loman, an ageing company representative beginning to lose his grip on reality. Loman was typical of his time: an average “rep” on the road, he worked long hours, carry-ing a bag, knocking on doors and pounding the streets, with only his native wit and charm to close a sale.

In many ways the modern sales landscape would be completely un-recognisable to Loman. Today, sales-people can draw on a vast battery of tools to help drive the selling proc-ess: technology has provided ad-vanced telecommunications (fixed-line and mobile), automatic dialling machines, computer databases, so-called CRM (customer relationship management systems), email and the web, to name but a few.

Internet technology has not only provided a low-cost channel to market, but also come to the aid of consumers and corporate buyers, empowering them by offering un-precedented access to instant infor-mation, opinions and views about products and services. It has had a dramatic effect on the way compa-nies structure their sales organisa-tions, as they replace expensive-to-run field salespeople (each with a company car, mobile phone, expense account, and probably a laptop) with more cost-effective alternatives.

The cost of customer interaction is a widely used measure in the business world: this metric varies dramatically – by an order of magnitude – depend-ing on the chosen approach. Sen-ior lecturer at Portsmouth Business School Beth Rogers, estimates that a face-to-face meeting with a customer may cost a company a couple of hun-

dred pounds, a telephone call from a desk-based account manager only £20, while interaction with a prospect via the internet can be measured in pence. The consequence is that less complex and expensive items – commodities – are sold directly via the web or through relatively low-cost call-centre activ-ity, often based offshore in countries where labour is cheaper than the UK.

REALITIESProfessor Neil Rackham, a psycholo-gist turned business consultant, who is also a visiting professor at both Portsmouth and Cranfield Universi-ties, highlights the problem. He says salespeople, 15 years ago, could make a good living by acting as a “talking brochure”, but customers simply do not want this anymore. He claims that up to 40 per cent of salespeople in the US were failing in their roles because they had not adapted to the new realities of the business world, and suggested figures in the UK were likely to be comparable or worse.

Rather than simply describing the products on offer, today’s suc-cessful salesperson needs to be a “value-creator”, according to Pro-fessor Rackham. “They used to be ‘value-communicators’,” he says.

But to communicate value, let alone create it, salespeople have to be able to hold a dialogue with the pros-pect or buyer. Despite all the available technology – or perhaps because of the knock-on effects of deploying technology – this is getting harder than ever for salespeople to do. Face-to-face meetings are like gold dust, while decision makers hide behind voicemail; secretaries, PAs and re-ceptionists will not put a salesperson through to a buyer unless they have an existing contact and they certainly will not tell a salesperson the name of the person they need to speak to.

Digital technology has largely replaced traditional direct market-ing as the communications medi-um of choice for companies. How-ever, an avalanche of emails means that, for many recipients, this me-dium has simply become the new junk mail: email open rates are de-clining and expensively produced newsletters are often consigned to the executive’s desktop recycle bin. Spam, while not the recourse of ethical salespeople, has further

muddied the water, so much so that almost every company email system is now jealously guarded by not-so-discriminating software capable of re-routing even legiti-mate promotional material to the corporate cyber dustbin.

In the consumer world, house-holders besieged by a blizzard of junk mail and an onslaught of calls – some from offshore automated dial-ling systems playing voice recordings – have, unsurprisingly, been signing up to the mailing and telephone preference services in their droves, eager to opt out of largely uninvited intrusions into their homes.

Technology, along with cost, fierce competition and improved market knowledge, has completely reshaped the sales landscape. There is now a very real sense that sales methodologies are broken. Fortu-nately, a new wave of technology is proving to be part of the solu-tion. As mud-at-the-wall, mass-marketing techniques continue to offer declining returns, the focus is moving to what has been dubbed

“Sales 2.0”. The breakthrough has been the phenomenal growth in popularity of social networking sites, and particularly those with a business orientation like LinkedIn.com. These are spaces on the web where people feel confident about conducting a conversation, while also sharing certain personal and contact information.

And out of this trust has gown a sense of collaboration, in which buyers and sellers – and those sim-ply seeking advice – and thus offer-ing a potential sales opportunity – are more in step with one another. Sales 2.0 has been summed up as increased communication and collaboration between sellers and buyers and within the selling team, together with a proactive and vis-ible integration of knowledge and measurement of the buying cycle into the sales cycle.

CONNECTIONSMicrosoft has recently released a beta version of a tool integrating its well-known email and contact management software Outlook with LinkedIn. Instantly, a user’s net-working connections appear in the Outlook database while there is also the opportunity to explore contact paths to more distantly connected prospects via intermediary connec-tions. If contact information from across a sales team and a company’s management is then shared, this multiplies the number of established contacts dramatically and makes the system even more effective.

Combine the social networking community with a more sophisticat-ed tool, like a CRM system – allowing executives to drive the sales process, for instance, by conducting their own micro-marketing campaigns – and salespeople have something which allows them to reconnect with pros-pects and buyers who had previously battened down the hatches.

In a way, this latest technology has turned the clock back on the sales process, signalling a new “back

to basics approach”, allowing sales-people to do what they are best at, according to Richard Nolan of the web-based CRM system virtual-CONTACT. To justify their exist-ence, salespeople eventually have to make direct contact with a buyer, either over the phone or face-to-face, and Sales 2.0 allows seller and buyer to arrive at this stage in their relationship together.

Sales 2.0 is developing fast and there is plenty of scope for in-tegration of further automated tools such as business intelligence solutions from established giants like Dow Jones or lead-qualifica-tion tools, designed to help sales teams decide whether or not a particular sales opportunity is worth pursuing, from fledgling companies like Qmatrix. Throw into this heady mix a new genera-tion of collaboration software, re-mote conferencing, presentation technology and online multime-dia, and we are presented with a powerful battery of new tools and methodologies which is begin-ning to change the way the best organisations sell.

There are challenges ahead for sales professionals thrown up by the Sales 2.0 approach, not least the need to communicate in writing, (the default medium for social net-working at the moment), the ability to understand marketing commu-nications, and the absolute require-ment to adhere to online protocols and etiquette.

Old Willy Loman would un-doubtedly feel like a fish out of water in the 21st century Sales 2.0 environment. Yet, once he had ac-quired the necessary new skills, the job would probably seem just like selling in the old days. I fancy he would still have his finger on the pulse: “A salesman’s got to dream boy. It comes with the territory.”

Join in the debate on the effectiveness of Sales 2.0 at www.ModernSelling.com

Sales dream for a hi-tech teamNETWORKS The social networking revolution is smoothing relationships with buyers and helping salespeople get back to basics. Welcome to the new world of Sales 2.0 technology. Nick de Cent investigates

LinkedIn: online networking with business in mind

Times and selling have changed

Sales 2.0 increases internal

communication, and collaboration between sellers and buyers too

SALES PERFORMANCE 5

G rowth does not happen without someone selling something. UK Plc needs

a dynamic sales force to invigorate our economic recovery. But where are these commercial heroes going to come from?

More than half the employers in a UK skills consultation in 2008 perceived a skills gap in sales. Ac-cording to the Marketing and Sales Standards Setting Board, employers also reported widespread difficulty in recruiting salespeople, and a shortage of high-quality sales man-agement and account management candidates from the UK.

At more junior levels, a combina-tion of poor attitude, limited expe-rience and a lack of skills resulted in salespeople focused on discounting rather than value.

If, in the UK, we do not acceler-ate our ability to develop world-class sales professionals at all levels, where will long-term economic recovery come from? Selling harder might produce some shallow re-sults in the short-term. Sustained growth needs sustainable skills.

How fantastic it would be for the UK to be leading the world in creating and communicating value. After all,

we are never going to be the cheapest at making or servicing anything and, if we are to be an innovation econo-my, everything we invent needs to be sold. And tough international com-petition is only likely to get tougher.

PEAK PERFORMERSAccording to research in the United States, ongoing sales training results in companies being ten times more likely to produce peak performers, adding to the professional sales-ac-count management elite described by CNNMoney.com as “part diplomat, part entrepreneur, part inventor”.

Can UK salespeople learn the value approach? There is some good news. Many large companies have developed extensive sales academies incorporat-ing a wide portfolio of professional sales practice, including input from professional institutes and universities.

The way a company sells is an important statement of brand val-ues. As Karen Dunn, retail opera-tional learning manager at E.ON, explains: “E.ON has invested signif-icantly in developing salespeople as consistent customer experience is regarded as critical to competitive

advantage in both B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) markets. The Market-ing, Sales and Service Academy is a centre of excellence supporting all business units in the group.”

FORECASTSIt makes perfect sense to invest in high-quality sales skills. Surely it is important that every salesperson understands how to forecast accu-rately? It is very important, if you want efficient production and sup-ply forecasts. What value can you

add to business relationships if the salesperson can plan from the customer’s point of view? How much easier can you sleep at night if eve-

ry salesperson knows how to protect the company’s repu-tation when working in a va-riety of business and national

cultures? It is also vital to ensure that

sales leaders have the opportu-

nity to learn a b o u t transfor-

m a t i o n a l leadership and can coach their

teams to success.

Investment in sales skills development not only helps companies which make that commitment but also aids the

national economy. For example, in the last financial year, Yorkshire Forward’s Key Account Manage-ment Programme supported and assisted 455 companies in Yorkshire and Humberside to create 1,732 jobs and safeguard a further 3,855. The programme has also attracted investment from domestic and for-

eign-owned businesses, and helped them access funding opportunities.

There are lots of excuses for not investing in the development of salespeople, from entrenched views that selling harder is all that mat-ters, to fears about the poaching of high performers. If you take the “no-training” approach to its logical conclusion, you end up with high staff turnover, high risks of mis-representation and loss of potential business. All of these are more ex-pensive than training. Even compa-nies on limited budgets can make a start by using the freely available UK National Occupational Standards as a benchmark for sales recruitment and development. Professional in-stitutes and colleges offer qualifica-tions linked to this skills framework.

To get the payback from training and education, care needs to be tak-en to ensure the knowledge acquired is also applied. One of the advan-tages of the education route – work-based “top-up” degrees, for example – is that coursework can reinforce that link. If sales skills development is well-planned and thorough, pay-backs are considerable. The compa-nies that invested early in making the way they sell part of their differ-entiation have not looked back.

In the depths of economic gloom, it is easy to forget that the UK has enjoyed periods of trade-led growth throughout its history. Where were the great British sales-people? Everywhere: presenting ideas and meeting needs. Our sales force can lead us out of economic uncertainty. As the saying goes: “Nothing happens until someone sells something.”

Beth Rogers leads the MA in Sales Management at University of Portsmouth Business School and is the author of Rethinking Sales Management.

Elixir of vitaleconomic growthEDUCATION Education and training to enhance and develop sales skills can drive the UK’s recovery in the face of stiff competition from overseas, writes Beth Rogers

Imagine a £100-million sales team of 100 people £80 million of sales comes from just 20 people – that’s £4 million each So £20 million is delivered by 80 people or £250,000 each How much of that business just happens? How would you feel if you could increase sales by 37 per cent by converting ten of the low-performers to high performers? Do you realise that if five of your high-performers leave, your sales could reduce by 20 per cent?

Understanding who is going to help you succeed – Many sales managers spend time with their weakest sales people or dealing with the problems they create. Think about the opportunity cost.Look beneath headline sales figures. They are sometimes not a good guide to performance and perhaps no guide at all to potential. There is no substi-tute to spending time in the field, of-fice or call centre on a regular basis. This will yield immediate benefits but is also the crucial first step in an approach to sales management that puts objective performance analysis, coaching and development at the cen-tre of the role. Maximising the effectiveness of eve-ry customer engagement – This is no problem for those intuitive sales-people or those who have internalised their approach through experience. For the majority, it’s hard work, which requires regular observation, analysis, feedback and coaching by well-sup-ported managers. Not just once, but as part of the core management process.Isn’t this what sales managers are meant to be doing? – why would they need any help? Because in practice, we

know that this is sadly not the case. The solution is to define good behaviour and make a plan of observation, feedback, coaching and development that puts the emphasis where it needs to be – on those that are going to make you a success.

This is really not difficult and it shows immediate results. Let us show you how.

Get your managers to coach and en-courage individual sales reps to own their personal development. Remem-ber success is not learning new things, but applying them habitually.

As we emerge from the recession, opportunities will start to appear, don’t miss out on them. Accredit is al-ready helping household names such as BT and Lenovo to improve their sales performance and we could be helping you.

Contact Mark Savinson on 0161 980 2818 to see how this can work for youwww.sales-accredit.com

PROMOTIONAL FEATURE

Unlock sales success

The best sales teams are successful not because of the sales methodology but because they have the best sales managers

If sales skills development is well-

planned and thorough, paybacks are considerable

UK economic growth could be rooted in sales

All sorts of people are paid bonuses: it is not only bankers, City trad-ers, top company bosses

and civil servants, but also traffic wardens and footballers. For sales-people, dealers and many retail as-sistants, bonuses and commission payments are part of the routine.

Fairness is the key to any successful bonus or commission scheme. In-deed, so emotive is the issue of bonus payments, particularly if they are seen to be undeserved, that it can provoke violence and even death threats. Con-troversial ex-Royal Bank of Scotland boss Sir Fred Goodwin was the sub-ject of a menacing email campaign criticising his lavish lifestyle, while the windows of his luxury Edinburgh home and £100,000 Mercedes were vandalised, following the bank’s en-forced rescue by the British taxpayer.

Across the pond, the situation at in-surance giant AIG, which was bailed out with government loans, pro-voked even more extreme emotions. When former chief executive Edward Liddy, who had been brought in to help rescue the group, gave evidence to Congress, he revealed that com-pany executives had received death threats. One read: “All the executives and their families should be executed with piano wire around their necks.”

JOLLY JAUNT H o w e v e r , Mr Liddy also attracted national head-lines when, at the height of the finan-cial crisis in October 2008 and shortly after the rescue, he defended a controversial £290,000 (US$440,000) jaunt for top-performing insurance salespeo-ple at the luxury St Regis Resort, Monarch Beach, California. In testi-mony before the US House of Rep-resentatives Committee on Over-sight and Government Reform, he described the jolly as “stand-ard practice in our industry”.

On the other side of the coin, underpayment of commis-

sion and bonuses can become an equally in-

cendiary issue. One of the worst things that can happen is for companies to fail to pay bo-nuses due to staff or business part-ners even though they have met their targets. It

affects motivation and morale – for

ordinary employees a commission pay-

ment can be the differ-ence between scraping by

and making a comfortable wage – and can even land a

company in court. This is exactly what happened to US telecoms gi-ant Sprint, which was on the receiv-ing end of a class-action lawsuit on behalf of thousands of retail store employees, who accused the com-pany of failing to pay them proper commission amounting to more than £3.3 million ($5 million). One disgruntled employee alleged the amount claimed was just the tip of the iceberg, with the real figure be-ing ten times higher.

Because bonuses are so impor-tant to people, commission schemes and their proper management and administration represents an area of the business which organi-sations cannot afford to get wrong. An effective commis-sion and bonus policy drives the right kind of revenue and conse-quent profitability; a poorly set up scheme skews the direction in which

an organisation travels and plays havoc with staff motivation.

No wonder, then, that with so much at stake, companies are not only nervous about discussing bonus payments to staff but are also putting in place a relatively new breed of soft-ware known as a sales performance management solution or SPM for short. Big names like ING, npower, Vodafone, O2, Standard Life, Hy-undai and Kia have all implemented systems; there are many others in the pharmaceutical and hi-tech arenas.

HUGE SAVINGSOpenSymmetry is an independent consultancy specialising in help-ing clients implement SPM systems among their sales, customer service and indirect sales organisations. Ac-cording to a survey conducted on its behalf by Vanson Bourne at the end of 2008, companies have been los-ing large sums of money – some as much as £5 million a year – as a result of badly managed sales-commission plans, so there is potential for huge savings to be made by organisations looking to tighten up the way they pay their incentives. Almost a quarter of those surveyed said they regularly saw errors of more than ten per cent of the total commission paid, with more than one in four spending more than £50 million on commission an-nually. Another 20 per cent said they did not know what errors occurred when paying out sales commissions.

The figures make a compelling case for adopting SPM, with one supplier claiming systems can more than pay for themselves within a year. Callidus, which has its global headquarters in San Jose, California, but is also the largest specialist SPM player in Europe, says that a typi-cal SPM investment is paid back in

terms of cost-savings within six to nine months, a figure which is guar-anteed to bring a smile to the face of any hard-bitten finance director.

The company says its clients typically see a rapid recovery of be-tween two to eight per cent of the total commission paid out, through elimination of overpayments when an SPM solution is deployed. So, for a large organisation which spends say £20 million on commis-sion payments a year, just getting the commission sums right poten-tially adds £1.6 million to the bot-tom line, a figure not to be sneezed at in these tough economic times.

SPM pioneer, the US-based com-pany Synygy specialises in offering managed solutions to companies with larger sales forces and com-plex commission structures. Presi-dent Mark Stiffler confirms that sales compensation management offers a “very provable return on investment”. He says: “SPM is all about managing all of the processes a sales force needs to be successful.”

Human nature being what it is, salespeople, dealers and other incentivised staff are usually ex-tremely vocal if they feel they have not been paid the full amount owed to them, but tend to keep quiet when over-payments are made. So much so, that so-called “shadow accounting” is a major problem among groups of staff reliant on commission payments to top up their salaries. Analysts confirm that sales forces typi-cally spend 20 per cent of their time recalculating their pay and que-rying payments, which means less sales time and

6 SALES PERFORMANCE

BONUSES Commissions and bonuses are guaranteed to trigger extreme reactions. Nick de Cent reports on how sales performance management (SPM) software is helping companies get the payments right

Fair incentives are genuine bonus to sales

SPM can increase revenue

Ringing up bonuses to boost staff morale and sales productivity

When BT Business needed to create bo-nus plans across a range of 40,000 prod-ucts and 2,000 employees, it called on sales and service performance manage-ment specialist Merced Systems.

The aim was to create a bonus environ-ment conducive to boosting sales produc-tivity and staff morale.

BT Business wanted to cut operating costs without compromising its business strategy and was also looking for improved bonus modelling together with compre-hensive sales reporting capabilities. It chose Merced System’s Incentive Com-

pensation Management (ICM) because the system addressed these requirements, could be rapidly deployed and promised a quick return on investment.

Before implementation, BT had little vis-ibility into pre-pay plans. Now, it is able to respond rapidly through a scalable solution capable of flexing to meet changes in plans and increases in the number of employees and business volume. The solution tracks individual, team and departmental sales performance, as well as forecasted com-pensation costs, while offering staff access to automatic compensation statements.

In addition, the implementation offered BT an opportunity to solve its maintenance issues, including the annual cost overhead associated with the old sales bonus sys-tem, decreasing overpayments and bonus inaccuracies, and freed up valuable bonus administration team time. It integrated easily with BT’s legacy software and Siebel CRM application.

A division of BT Retail, BT Business pro-vides small and medium-sized businesses with traditional telephone services and mobile technology, as well as internet ac-cess and web-based services.

So emotive is the issue of bonus payments,

particularly if they are seen to be undeserved, that it can provoke violence and even death threats

potentially lost revenue. An SPM solution, on the other hand, en-sures salespeople are paid accu-rately and on-time; it also brings transparency to the situation with an audit trail to follow in the case of any disputes.

The Vanson Bourne research supported these findings, conclud-ing that more than half of UK sales directors admitted they regularly had to deal with queries and com-plaints from the sales force, while 63 per cent said they worried “occa-sionally” or “frequently” about the accuracy of their sales commission payments. Callidus says its clients typically see up to an 80 per cent reduction in commission disputes after SPM has been implemented.

BENEFITSSPM brings with it a number of motivational and business benefits, says Callidus vice-president Barry Carson. “The sales team is able to see all commission earned in real-time so they can monitor their tar-get throughout the month and push themselves to hit target and over-achieve. Not only is this motivation-al but it builds trust in the company when pay is accurate and on time.”

Most importantly for a busi-ness, SPM allows new incentive plans to be deployed quickly. This is particularly effective at focus-ing the sales force and indirect-sales channels on selling the most

profitable items, new product or pushing old stock as required. SPM helps sales leaders drive behaviour in line with company objectives rather than letting the sales force dictate what they want to sell; these systems can also mo-tivate customer service staff and employees like bank tellers to cross-sell and up-sell.

There are a number of specialist vendors offering SPM in Europe, of which Callidus is the leader. Cana-dian-based Varicent is also a major player with a solution based on Mi-crosoft architecture; an advantage is that the system is reputedly slightly faster to adopt than Callidus.

Varicent’s marketing vice-presi-dent Brian Hartlen says that there is real value if a company can easily change its commission plan to mo-

tivate people to sell different prod-ucts, while the individual sales-people also benefit if commission statements are out in “four days rather than eight”. A key benefit of SPM solutions, according to Mr Hartlen, is “more selling time”.

Merced Systems is based in San Francisco and Reading, and is par-ticularly strong in the call-centre arena, offering what it calls sales and service performance manage-

ment tools. It numbers BT, O2 and Orange among its customers. Xact-ly offers a software-as-a-service (cloud-based) solution; customers include Salesforce.com. Positioned more at the medium- end of the market, it has seen exponential growth in the UK and Europe. Ex-centive is a French Microsoft part-ner and a significant player in its home country but has yet to break into markets outside France.

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Payback time with SPM brings a smile to bosses’ faces

Imagine a computer system that not only keeps the finance director happy by saving millions of pounds a year in overpaid com-mission and administration overheads but can also bring a smile to the sales director’s face by helping to drive revenue. Sales Performance Management (SPM) systems promise to prune commission costs, and help manage and moti-vate the sales force, among others.

Estimates suggest companies overpay by 5 to 12 per cent on annual compensation budg-ets. Some large organisations have been los-ing as much as £5 million a year through badly managed commission plans, according to a sur-vey of UK sales directors by Vanson Bourne. Al-most a quarter said they regularly saw commis-sion errors top 10 per cent with over a quarter spending more than £50 million on commission annually. A separate study by technology ana-lyst Gartner Group found that companies tend to overpay commission by 3 to 8 per cent.

An SPM system can reduce overpayments by 80 to 90 per cent, meaning a typical implementation should pay back, in terms of cost savings, in six to nine months, offering a return on investment (ROI) of more than 100 per cent in the first year. Benefits on the sales side include the facility for a company to modify compensation plans to motivate people to sell different products, while individual sales-people receive more accurate and timely commis-sion statements. A key factor is more time spent selling and less spent on administration.

A report from the Aberdeen Group, Optimis-ing Sales Performance Management Through Data Integration and Analytics, looked at 150 sales organisations. It found the best calculated bonuses were paid through a combination of goal-related operational and financial results; 82 per cent had the ability to store and retrieve historical commission payouts, while 78 per cent followed a structured approach to provid-ing regular feedback to their salespeople.

SALES PERFORMANCE 7

AIG former chief executive Edward Liddy: “Jolly standard practice?”

8 SALES PERFORMANCE

When I started my sell-ing career, I received the three-part sales training programme

common to most companies in America: here are your cards, here are your brochures, there’s the door!

Some 70 per cent of professional sales people have not been trained, beyond product knowledge. Many people running businesses have not been in the sales trenches and they do not appreciate how essential it is for sales people to be thoroughly trained in every aspect of the profession be-fore they are sent out the first time.

No one would ever expect a car-penter to begin building without an apprenticeship when they learn to use every tool and acquire every skill of the craft. No one would expect a person to walk into a kitchen and become a professional chef without having undergone several years of careful training under a master chef to learn the skills of cooking.

But salespeople, sent out with lit-tle or no training, are then aston-ished by the amount of negativity and rejection they get from pro-spective customers.

The turning point in my life was when I learned that sales is both and art and a science. It requires ambition and personality along with specific, proven sales skills. One without the other makes it impossible for a sales person to achieve full potential.

It is estimated that 50 per cent of new salespeople quit within the first year be-cause they cannot stand the incredible amount of rejection they receive.

However, even though the rejection rate in sales is often as high as 90 per cent or more, if you could be guaran-teed of one sale for every ten people that you spoke to, you would soon be rich.

CONTESTOne company I worked for starts eve-ryone off every morning with a con-test. The contest is to see who can get rejected ten times before anyone else.

Like runners at the starting line, everyone gets ready with their tel-ephone in front of them and then the sales manager rings a bell. Who-ever can get rejected ten times first wins a prize. All the sales reps im-mediately start smiling and dialing.

And you know what happens? Because they are so positive and often laughing during this contest, they lose all fear of rejection. Be-cause they sound so positive, pro-spective customers want to talk to them more about their offerings. Over and over again, sales people “lose” this contest because they are too busy processing new sales.

Try it for yourself. From now on, start first thing in the morning and make it a game to see how fast you can get rejected ten times.

Some years ago, I worked with a salesman who was about to quit his job because of the amount of rejec-tion he was getting. The market was tough and he was making twenty

calls to get a single sale. That was nineteen rejections for every accept-ance. He was becoming discouraged.

Then his boss sat him down and asked: “How much do you earn in commission from each sale that you make?”

He had been trained to track his average commissions and he knew the answer immediately: US$500.

His sales manager then asked him to divide twenty into $500 to get an av-erage amount that he earned per call, whether the person bought or not. The easy answer was $25 per call. His sales manager then asked him; “In what oth-er line of work could you get $25 for every person you call on the phone?”

EARNINGSuddenly, the salesman’s eyes were opened. He realised that he was earning $25 every single time he phoned someone, whether they were polite or rude, friendly or hostile. He merely collected the $25 when he actually made a sale.

From that day onward, he tel-ephoned eagerly, all day long. After each call, if the person had said they were not interested, he would say to himself: “Thank you for the $25!”

All his fear of rejection was gone. From that day forward, he was eager to make as many phone calls and see as many people as he possibly could, every single day. And do you know what happened? The more people he phoned, the better he got at prospect-ing. The more people he spoke to per-sonally, the better he got at presenting. The more people he saw, the better he got at selling. The more people he presented to, the better he got at an-swering objections and closing sales.

That year, his sales ratios from contact to close improved from 20:1 to 15:1. They then improved from 15:1 to 10:1 to 5:1 to 3:1. His income increased almost 700 per cent, he be-came the top salesperson in his branch and, eventually, in his company.

Some years later, he retired as a self-made millionaire to a ranch in New Mexico where he lives to this day.

Here is my point: make it a game to get rejected as many times as you can, first thing every day. The more rejec-tions you get, the sooner it will be be-fore rejection does not bother you at all. At that point, if you are lucky, the dam will break. You will become a prospecting machine. You will be call-ing everyone and at every moment. You will have more appointments than you can handle and you will be mak-ing more money than you can spend.

Remember, every top salesper-son started at the bottom. Everyone who is doing well was once doing poorly. Everyone who is at the front of the line started at the back and had to work their way forward and up through hard, hard work.

There is no profession in the world like sales. You can start off in sales, at any level, and soon enjoy one of the highest standards of liv-ing in our society. All you need to do is work hard, continually upgrade your skills and talk to lots of people.

See page 10 for our exclusive offer to see Brain Tracy live in London

PSYCHOLOGY Rejection can be demoralising but, as Brian Tracy explains, if you brush off defeat, victory is within your grasp

Transforming the lives of millions

Brian Tracy: smart sales

Brian Tracy is one of the world’s foremost thought-leaders on personal and business success.

In the past 30 years, he has consulted for more than 1,000 companies, and has spoken to more than five million people worldwide on the subjects of personal and professional devel-opment. He has travelled and worked in more than 80 coun-tries, and speaks four languages.

He is the top-selling author of more than 50 books, which have been translated into dozens of languages. He has writ-ten and produced more than 300 audio and video learning programmes, including the worldwide best-selling Psychology of Achievement, and has recently launched an online business training programme for small to medium- size business owners, entitled Business Growth Strategies.

He is one of the most sought-after success coaches and has transformed the lives of millions.

It is estimated that 50 per cent of new

salespeople quit within the first year because they cannot stand the incredible amount of rejection they receive

Play the long game to win the bottom line

SALES PERFORMANCE 9

Large and small businesses are reaping the benefits of the assisted Train to Gain programme which funds

a wide range of training, includ-ing sales and marketing. Leader-ship and management courses are also available.

Business bosses taking part have hailed the government flag-ship service, saying it has helped provide vital staff training as

companies battle to survive the economic slowdown.

Employers may be eligible for full or partial funding for NVQ staff training and businesses with fewer than 50 employees may be able to get a contribution to their wage bill to cover the cost of time off to train.

More than a million people have already gained a qualification which has helped them at work and profited their company or firm.

“Train to Gain has been hugely effective, and both learners and employers have seen the benefits,” says Skills Minister Kevin Brennan.

During 2010-11, the government plans to invest nearly £1 billion in the scheme. For their part, employ-ers are currently spending some £38 million on training a year.

CONTACTThe Train to Gain service is de-signed to make it easy to access spe-cific training needs. Contact a skills adviser from Business Link, the free government “one-stop-shop” busi-ness advice and support service, ei-ther online at Businesslink.gov.uk/traintogain or by calling the helpline

on 0845 600 9 006. The impartial adviser, linked to local colleges and other training providers, will help organise a full training package tai-lored to your business needs.

The programme incorporates approved colleges and training pro-viders of all kinds, from universities to private training companies and individual business experts.

The government message through-out is invest in training. Experience has shown that employers who do not train their workforce are twice as likely to fail than those who do.

Users are discouraged from view-ing the service as simply govern-ment funding for training – there is some limited subsidy available to eligible organisations – but instead are encouraged to recognise the tangible and quantifiable benefits of investing in skills and training.

More than 175,000 employers have so far been engaged through Train to Gain brokerage services.

In a survey, published in Janu-ary, of employers who had used the service, 80 per cent said they were likely to recommend it to others and use it again themselves.

A significant number of em-ployers (41 per cent) said Train to Gain had helped them cope with the recession.

A survey of learners found employees’ satisfaction with the scheme remained high, with more than 90 per cent saying they were pleased with their training. Nearly 90 per cent said they hoped to get a qualification at the end of training.

The survey also reported that the downturn was having a positive im-pact on employee attitudes towards training, making them keen to boost their employment chances in an un-predictable economic climate.

According to the Skills Minister: “These reports show that business-es value the chance to offer staff high-quality training that they oth-erwise may not have been able to.

“Thousands of businesses and tens of thousands of employees have benefited from the improved skills delivered by our Train to Gain programme. This is crucial for the long-term strength of the economy and the ability of individuals to ful-fil their potential.”

SMEs can receive Train to Gain funding to see Brian Tracy live in London, see page 11 for more information

Employers may be eligible for full or

partial funding for NVQ staff training

Training helps business meet tough sales targets

Cloudspotting, a digital marketing agency, provides online solutions in website design, internet sales campaigns and strategic con-sultation. Faced with increasingly tough mar-ket conditions, founder and managing di-rector Jon Swales was conscious he needed strong leadership skills to steer his business through hard times.

“While our existing clients were still spend-ing, potential new clients were deferring the decision to work with us, due to fears about the economic downturn,” says Mr Swales. “The challenge of converting new business opportu-

nities was a further incentive to take Cloudspot-ting in a new direction.”

Through Train to Gain, Mr Swales enrolled in a part-time, 12-week leadership and management training course, which strengthened his manage-rial role and has led to business rewards.

“As a consultant, I am dealing with clients more effectively, having learnt to manage ex-pectations rather than just agreeing with what-ever the client wants,” he says.

Mr Swales now plans to continue to invest in training for members of his staff, to broaden their skills set and bring in more business.

Train to Gain is attractive offerTRAINING A government-backed training programme may not sound particularly attractive, but factor in possible funding and the proposition begins to appeal. Peter Archer reports

A helping hand for Britain’s future

Train to Gain has notched up a million...

Facing increasing global competition, later com-pounded by economic slowdown at home, Wil-liam Blythe Ltd refocused its business and invested in training for the workforce.

Founded in 1845, the company manufactures in-organic chemicals for use in pharmaceuticals, elec-tronics, glass production, food stuffs and biocidal preparations, from its base in Church near Accrington, Lancashire. Part of the Yule Catto chemicals group, it employs 80 people.

The company wanted to create a common culture within the organisation for continuous improvement, which was identified as a crucial element if it was to realise its ambition to refo-cus on higher value, knowl-edge-based products.

Management decided to improve the core compe-tencies of the workforce to support their market am-bitions. As a result of this strategy William Blythe is weathering the economic storm and developing its business as an increasingly specialised manufacturer and supplier to worldwide markets.

After seeking advice, the company was able to access Train to Gain funding and support, which made the re-organisation possible.

Putting the majority of the workforce through Level 2 NVQ in Business Improve-ment Techniques (BIT) has given employees the ability to work as effective teams in problem- solving and im-proving performance. Man-agers have witnessed closer team spirit and greater flex-ibility, resulting in a more productive operation.

Chris Scott, a process operator, was the one mil-lionth person to benefit from the Train to Gain pro-gramme. “Learning new skills on the job and work-ing on projects in teams has helped to us to quickly make improvements to the way we work,” he says.

“Training our workforce in this way has been a good business decision,” says managing director Tim Hughes. “All business-es are increasingly going to rely on the skills of their employees if they are to compete effectively.”

Your speakers

10 SALES PERFORMANCE

T his corporate training event is the place where the UK’s top executives will gather to see top international business “guru” Brian Tracy LIVE

for the only time in the UK this year. At this seminar you’ll learn essential skills to make more sales, in-crease your profits and realise your potential.

Brian is well-known for delivering high-quality train-ing that is not only informative and interactive, but also loaded with both funny and motivational content.

Here’s a breakdown of just some of what you’ll dis-cover over the course of these 3 days:

24TH MAY: ADVANCED SELLING STRATEGIESOn the opening day of ILSG 2010 Brian will be reveal-ing the most effective strategies employed by some of the world’s leading salespeople to win more business, and get more customers to take action more often!Including: n Proven trust-building rapport skills – Guaranteed to

improve sales conversions both over the phone AND in person (N.B. This is completely different than any rapport skills you’ll have learned before on other ‘personal development’ courses)

n How to MASTER the arts of Influence and Persua-sion – once you’ve learned how to do this you’ll never need to “sell” again!

n The two ‘R’s – and how to use them to DOUBLE your sales instantly!

n Advanced Selling for the 21st Century: The key skills used by the top sales professionals in the world!

n How to speak your customers language so they don’t just understand what you offer, but also FEEL the benefits

25TH MAY: HIGH-PERFORMANCE LEADERSHIPOn day 2 you’ll be learning some of the key attributes of successful business leaders – and how you can start to use them in your business immediately.Including: n How to create a step-by-step strategy that will guar-

antee success for your business in the next 12 monthsn Effective Management: Discover the leadership tech-

niques Brian has shared with some of the world’s leading executives (he currently charges up to $10,000 A DAY for corporate coaching, and has worked with companies such as Pepsi, HSBC and Nissan, as well as countless small and medium-sized businesses.)

n How to inspire and motivate your team to maximize their performance – and therefore their results – eve-ry single day

n …And the number one key focus you must have for you and your business in 2010!

26TH MAY: EFFECTIVE TOOLS FOR BUSINESS GROWTH The third and final day of this exciting programme will focus on how to expand and grow your business in today’s turbulent economy.You’ll discover:n The ONLY three ways to expand your business – do just

one of these and you’re GUARANTEED to see an in-crease in your profits

n The BIG REASON why most businesses are strug-gling during the recession (and will continue to do so even afterwards)

n How to make money in ANY economy (Brian has personally started, managed, built and turned around 22 different businesses in EVERY eco-nomic climate)

n How to diversify your business and uncover hidden income streams within your business

PLEASE NOTE: This is just a taster of what you’ll experience at ILSG 2010… by the time you leave this event you’ll be inspired, excited, and fully-prepared to drive your business forward!

PLUS, Brian is also being joined by THREE other millionaire business experts…

Discover cutting-edge sales and leadership secrets to rapidly grow your business in 2010!Announcing: the ultimate business conference for business leaders, managers, and owners… n INNOVATION n LEADERSHIP n SALES n GROWTHILSG: 24TH – 26TH MAY, THE ExCEL CENTRE, LONDON

SPONSORED FEATURE

MICHELLE MONE is the co-owner of MJM International and creator of Ultimo, the UK’s leading designer lingerie brand. Over the years Michelle’s business has gone from strength-to-strength, developing new brands and supplying UK and European lingerie market. Listed as one of the top three fe-male entrepreneurs in the UK, Michelle has built a hugely suc-cessful career on an incredibly simple concept: giving today’s women what they want. In 2000 Michelle won the coveted ‘World Young Business Achiever Award’ in US and ‘Business Woman of the Year’ at the Corporate Elite Awards in UK. Ul-timo was the first UK lingerie brand to debut on the catwalk at

New York Fashion Week while more recently Michelle opened

20 ‘shop in shops’ within Debenhams through-

out the UK and landed a mammoth deal with Tesco clothing to sell ‘Diamond Boutique’ lingerie brand.

PETER THOMSON Now regarded as one of the UK’s leading strategists on business and personal growth. Starting in business in 1972 he built 3 successful com-panies – selling the last to a public company, after only 5 years trading, for £4.2M enabling him to semi retire at age 42. Since that time Peter has concentrated on sharing his proven methods for business and person-al success via audio and video programmes, books, seminars and conference speeches As Nightingale Conant’s leading UK author Peter has written/recorded over 100 audio programmes, over 100 DVDs plus 3 books and 7 tips booklets. He’s the au-thor and publisher of The Achievers Edge and his weekly ezine tgiMondays.com If you need down to earth methods to in-crease your turnover and profits and per-sonal cash – then Peter Thomson is the person you must meet.

KARREN BRADY Karren is now known as the first wom-an in football. Since 1993 she was Managing Director

of Birmingham City Football Club and has turned the Club’s fortunes around. In 2007

her business was valued at over £60 mil-lion. Karren has attracted much media attention in her position. She has host-ed her own TV show, Brady Bunch, and has also presented both Loose Wom-en and Live Talk on ITV and Central Weekend Live. Karren has written four books since. Her current positions in-clude: a judge of the Cosmopolitan Women of Achievement Awards, Chairman of Kerrang! And member of the Board Director of Mothercare PLC. Now Karren is to replace Mar-

garet Mountford as Sir Alan’s right-hand woman in the forthcoming Series 6 of the popular BBC show ‘The Apprentice’. Her awards include: Cosmopolitan Woman of the Year in November 2006 and Business Woman of the Year in Octo-

ber 2007

SALES PERFORMANCE 11

BRIAN TRACY Internationally recognised and spea-cialised in training and development of individuals and organisations, Brian Tracy will lead the event with his ex-tensive expertise in sales and growth. Brian Tracy has:n Consulted more than 1000 companies, including Pepsi,

HSBC, Nissan, Toyota, Mobil, Johnson & Johnson;n Addresses more than 5,000,000 people worldwide;n Delivered more than 4000 seminars;n Presented to approximately 250,000 people each year;n Been the top selling author of more than 45 books.

ILSG 2010Full Event DetailsDates: Monday 24th – Wednesday 26th May 2010Times: 8.00am – 7.30pmVenue: ExCeL Centre, Docklands. Situated 10 minutes from Canary Wharf and within easy reach of central London, the venue is served by Dockland Light Railway, the Jubilee Line and London City Airport. A choice of 5 hotels are available on-site.Price: £1,500 for three daysHow to book: Call 0845 423 0845 or go to www.ilsg2010.com

ACT FAST AND YOU COULD ALSO QUALIFY FOR TWO SPECIAL BONUSES WITH A COMBINED VALUE OF £590!

If you’re one of the first 200 people to book online at www.ilsg2010.com you’ll get a free copy of Brian Tracy’s “Unbreakable Laws Of Self Confidence” DVD (worth £90)

AND…

You could also receive up to £500 off your travel and accommodation!

All you need to do is provide receipts for your travel and accommodation and we’ll refund you 100% of your costs – up to the value of £500.Ensure you quote ‘ILSGTIMES’ to receive this special bonus offer

TRAIN TO GAIN FUNDING

We are pleased to announce that ILSG 2010 is supported by the “Train to Gain” programme, which provides businesses, public sectors and charitable organisations with employees between 5 and 249 a grant to subsidise the training of senior managers and key decision makers.

For ILSG 2010, Train to Gain have agreed to provide a £1,000 grant for successful applicants, meaning you could attend all 3 days for as little as £500.

*Organisations who have accessed previous Leadership and Management funding initiatives from the LSC are not eligible. 4 SIMPLE STEPS TO BOOK YOUR PLACE:

Step 1: Go to www.ilsg2010.com or call us on 0845 423 0845.Step 2: Fill in the short application form and make your payment on debit or credit card. Alternatively, if you’re paying through your business you may request an invoice which we will send to you immediately.Step 3: quote promotional code: ILSGTIMES to receive the special bonus offer.Step 4: If applicable, complete the Train to Gain application form and get your £1,000 contribution towards the cost your ticket.

GO TO www.ilsg2010.com OR CALL 0845 423 0845 TO BOOK YOUR PLACE NOW!

ExCLUSIVE

READER OFFER

12 SALES PERFORMANCE

What is typically involved in sales training offered by providers and what impact can it have on performance?Tony Gower: Themajority of train-

ing offered is focused on enhancing the skill set of the individual salesper-son. Miller Heiman’s approach is to drive sales effectiveness through the education of the sales organisation in the application of a common meth-odology and language. In contrast to skills development programmes, process and methodology-based de-velopment initiatives can provide a measurable and sustainable return on investment, which has become the key decision-factor in personnel development investment decisions. Miller Heiman’s mantra is ‘helping our clients improve sales perform-ance’. In addition to running business workshops, using real sales opportu-nities as the learning vehicle, we offer team management coaching sessions, reinforcement and adoption mecha-nisms, the opportunity to integrate our tools into their customer rela-tionship management (CRM) system and bespoke consultative support.Richard Barkey: Most sales train-ing follows a similar format: two or three days in a classroom (or the equivalent online) with a mixture

of teaching, exercises and role-plays. All employers care about the quality of the methodology and of the trainers, but the more sophisti-cated ones will judge a provider on the impact they create.Shaun Thomson: Typically most sales training offered is short-term impact training lasting from half a day to two days. What most em-ployers want are results, mean-ing increased sales. Unfortunately, these two situations are opposites, as impact training does not consist-ently deliver results.Hugh Stafford-Smith: Training can have a very significant impact on performance. Hard financial measures of improvement can now be evidenced, providing a baseline from which performance improve-ment can be delivered. This can be done through quantifiable, objec-tive and role-specific means, before and after measurement of skills-behaviour at the individual level, with results mapped against a high-achiever benchmark for that role.

How much can training be tailored around the needs of employers? Richard Barkey: The role-plays, exercises and examples used in the training need to be tailored to the industry context to make application easier. In addition, the skills required do vary from role to role, such as between telesales, field sales and ac-count management. Tailoring should focus on developing the ‘dominant competencies’ for each role – the skills that will have the greatest impact on performance – while also creating a common language and philosophy across the whole sales force.Hugh Stafford-Smith: Training can be significantly tailored, pro-vided the needs of the individual and of the team are clearly ana-

lysed, and there is a simple-to-use ‘development action planner’ pro-duced by the needs-analysis tool. Requirements of employers do differ significantly, but research by SalesAssessment.com shows the variances are not significant for different companies operating within any given geographical re-gion, sector or role.Mark Savinson: The key reason for tailoring has to be around the im-plementation of skills taught and how these become useful habits for the sales team. Where the sales enablement material from market-ing aligns to the habits being driven

Question time fortop sales mentorsROUNDTABLE What do some of the UK’s leading providers of sales training, analysis and performance solutions advise as the economy struggles to recover? Iain Martin asks the questions

Sequam, solles ex eicidus ad quatus, verio. Cid quiducil is magnati

Sales Training. The Sandler Selling System.

You shouldn’t have to settle for a lemon when you can have lemonade. Sandler Training® utilizes continual reinforcement through ongoing training and individual coaching sessions not only to help you learn but also to ensure your success. With over 200 training centres worldwide to provide support, you won’t fail…because we won’t let you.

www.uk.sandler.com • 01608 611211ukinfo@sandler.com

Sandler Selling System, S Sandler Training Finding Power In Reinforcement (with design) and Sandler Training are registered service marks of Sandler Systems, Inc. © 2008 Sandler Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

TONY GOWER managing director

for Europe, the Middle East and Africa with Miller Heiman, a global

leader in sales performance

solutions

RICHARD BARKEY founder and chief executive of Imparta, a worldwide sales-effectiveness company

by the training, then the likelihood of success increases manifold, com-bining the market message with the ‘right’ sales behaviour.Tony Gower: Our workshops are all based upon the real-life sales and account management issues encountered by our client’s teams. Each attendee is required to bring their business opportunities or account relationships to our pro-grammes, applying the concepts they learn in the workshop. This approach enables us to ensure the concepts are understood, that each attendee is able to apply them within their own sales environ-ment and that the impact of the workshop is immediate.

How competitive is the sales-training market and what differentiates providers?Mark Savinson: It is a highly com-petitive marketplace made up of hundreds of small providers, typi-cally ex-sales managers selling to their personal contacts, and a limited number of large methodology-led sales companies, which are often franchises. Key differentiators are methodology, turning new skills into habits and ongoing coaching.Richard Barkey: The sales train-ing market is very fragmented, with only a few leading players. The main things that differentiate providers are how well their methodologies work in real life, (as opposed to in a text book), how effective the actual train-ing is, the quality of the trainers and, most importantly, how good the re-inforcement is. Our research suggests that, without reinforcement, 85 per cent of all sales training is wasted, so the best providers offer sales acade-

mies which embed better selling skills into ‘the way we work around here’. The very best providers do that on an international basis.Shaun Thomson: Although Sandler Training is the largest sales training company in the world, there is no dominant leader. Industries tend to rely on one or two ‘specialists’ from their world and, as a result, every-one sounds the same. Companies wanting to implement change, growth and innovation should look for providers offering a process that can be measured, monitored and ad-justed to fit the company’s culture. So, think gym membership with a personal trainer rather than a crash diet from a magazine.Tony Gower: The Miller Heiman brand is about process definition and the implementation of a com-mon language and methodology. This capability is available via a glo-bal organisation of sales practition-ers. The combination of our tried-and-tested intellectual properties, which are applicable in every in-dustry sector and can be delivered consistently across the globe in 20 different languages, is well known. When you then consider the client-base and the number of blue-chip

SHAUN THOMSON chief executive of Sandler Training (UK), a global leader in sales and management training

SALES PERFORMANCE 13

companies which can attest to the impact and the business benefits they have enjoyed from our engage-ment, we can provide prospective clients with some very compelling reasons why they should invest in Miller Heiman.Hugh Stafford-Smith: Real dif-ferentiation comes from being able to objectively evidence the revenue change that has taken place following training. Perhaps even more impor-tant is showing that the investment being made by the customer is being spent on areas which will drive rev-enue growth, rather than simply ‘for another training programme’.

How has the importance of the sales force changed due to the current tough economic conditions?Mark Savinson: I would argue that their importance has not changed. The difference is that, prior to the recession, many sales forces did not have, or did not need to have, the best skills, as clients were buying. Selling was more a process of man-aging the client as they bought, as opposed to identifying and qualify-ing opportunities, selling the value of your offering and managing the sale through to a close.

Shaun Thomson: Companies ur-gently need to make their sales process more effective and more ef-ficient. This means they need to see the real reasons for buying and iden-tify, early in the sales process, people who are not potential buyers. In short, sales forces need to radically change their approach and proc-ess if they are to achieve growth with often smaller teams.Tony Gower: The top performing sales organisations have safeguard-ed their market position by keep-ing non-productive spend or roles to a minimum, maintaining their discipline around the sales process, having sales people who stay closer to their prospects, having account managers who stay closer to their clients to ensure they truly under-stand the value they are delivering, as well as analysing how and why they win business, and adapt to the changing needs of their clients.Hugh Stafford-Smith: Customers expect more. The Dow Jones 2010 Sales Productivity Report shows that one of the biggest factors influencing sales success through 2008-09 has been the rate of change in the cus-tomer’s markets, which has driven unprecedented change in the way they have to do business. This has re-sulted in a gulf opening up for many salespeople between what customer’s now require of them to perform their role and what their capabilities enable them to do. Also, despite rec-ognising the dramatic changes in the market place, companies have failed to support their sales teams with training costs being cut in 2009 and expected to be cut again this year. It is no wonder that the number of sales-people making target fell from 58.8 per cent in 2008 to 51.8 per cent in 2009, according to Dow Jones.

What changes do you expect to see in the types of training offered and its effectiveness to improve productivity?Shaun Thomson: To make a long-term difference to a company’s sales performance, the sales train-ing on offer needs to be long-term

with ongoing reinforcement. We see a move towards a blended ap-proach of face-to-face and online training. Technology has its place in reinforcement but it’s no substi-tute for real face-to-face interac-tion. Sales training has to become so much more than just learning about new techniques.Mark Savinson: I believe the key change will be a shift in focus towards programmes which concentrate on outcomes as opposed to inputs. This means there will be an increase in helping sales managers assess the capabilities of their teams and then coaching them, using a range of learning interventions. Organisations will insist that all salespeople have their own development plans, but that the individual will take greater responsibility over how they learn.Richard Barkey: Sales training will continue to move towards ‘learning by doing’, either through experien-tial learning, such as simulations, or through coaching around real-life situations. This will also be a driver for further growth in continu-ous, informal, social learning. Pro-ductivity can be improved by not ‘sheep dipping’ everyone through the same training, focusing instead on the most important skills for each role, and by using virtual class-rooms. These are now sophisticated enough to create a good learning environment without travel and ac-commodation costs.Tony Gower: Sales process auto-mation is recognised as being much more effective when introduced af-ter the sales process is defined. The benefits which automation deliver are in both the reinforcement and adoption phases of our engage-

ments, and in helping executive sales leadership get greater visibility into the efficiency of the organisa-tion. Investment decisions into the development of the sales organisa-tion’s structure, size or capability would now be based on accurate and current data generated by the sales organisation itself.

Hugh Stafford-Smith: If the ar-gument for training is about de-veloping talent, because talented people drive more revenue, then training will need to become very focused on the needs of each in-dividual, rather than the usual ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. This will drive training providers to consider how they improve ar-eas not classically part of their programme and drive a mandate for focus on each individual. The sales world is at the beginning of a momentous upheaval, led by new access to hard, objective inescapa-ble data on the calibre of sales talent, and the impact this has on a firm’s ability to deliver revenue and competi-tive advantage.

Multi-million-pound annual UK sales training market

Across all UK industries, there are thought to be around 600,000 salespeople who could benefit from training or associated services.

The total market for external sales training and related services is thought to be worth between £300 and £400 million annually, with the biggest ten providers accounting for around half.

Training from external providers often supple-ments internal training, although the balance be-tween the two varies greatly. Larger companies are thought to spend at least a quarter of their total sales training budgets on external providers, while small companies tend to rely on internal training.

Consultants McKinsey & Company claim that by converting an “average” salesperson into a

“high performer”, the employee’s annual gen-erated revenues soar by some 67 per cent. The payback from training includes retaining and acquiring more customers, meeting targets more often and improved sales leads.

Companies are increasingly finding the benchmarking results offered by trainers useful as a way of gauging the effectiveness of their sales force and learning from best practice.

Some leading external training providers claim people who score well on sales competencies out-perform people who score less well by up to 40 per cent, (they sell 40 per cent more against targets). In exceptional cases, a salesperson’s win-rate for competitive sales pitches increases three-fold.

HUGH STAFFORD-SMITH sales

vice-president with Sales

Assessment.com

MARK SAVINSON founder of Accredit, which aims to improve sales teams

Sales forces need to radically change their

approach and process if they are to achieve growth

59% Proportion of sales reps meeting or exceeding target in 2008

52% Proportion of sales reps meeting or exceeding target in 2009

62% Proportion of total sales targets achieved by top-fifth of sales reps

50% Share of UK market by top 20 providers

25% Average of total training budget devoted to sales

£400m Annual size of UK sales training market

14 SALES PERFORMANCE

How well do you know your sales force? Ask most company leaders that question and they

will probably tell you that they are up-to-speed on its strengths and weaknesses. After all, they have a pretty good idea of who is perform-ing well and who is performing badly.

That is not good enough, ac-cording to Hugh Stafford-Smith, vice president of sales at salesas-sessment.com, a company that pro-vides online sales assessment tools. Most sales managers, he says, spend the majority of their time manag-ing the top 10 per cent and the bot-tom 10 per cent of their workforce. The remaining 80 per cent of sales staff are managed by exception; in other words, they only receive recognition on those occasions when they get something right or, conversely, when they get it really wrong. The rest of the time, they are pretty anonymous, and often fall below the radar when it comes to training and development.

As Mr Stafford-Smith puts it: “You don’t really know your sales force if the guys in the middle have to be unusually powerful or unusu-ally awful in order to get your time and attention.”

At many companies, however, the recent economic slowdown has shone a spotlight on that “anonymous major-ity”, according to Carol Kelly, founder of KSA Sales Solutions, a company that specialises in sales training for the con-struction industry. Skills weaknesses that previously went undiscovered, or were simply tolerated, have come to management’s attention during cost-cutting and restructuring exercises, and many are starting to recognise that on-going training and development needs to be provided to the entire sales force, not just to those who are struggling.

RECESSION“In a buoyant market, the phones just ring, salespeople answer them and deals are made,” she says. “But in tough times, the challenge is to get the phones ringing in the first place, and for salespeople who haven’t been through a recession before, that comes as a shock.”

When there is less business to go around, she says, salespeople have to be more effective than ever to beat the competition and win it. “And that takes training, regardless of experience levels. Sales staff may need to learn en-tirely new skills for the first time or they may need to ‘brush up’ and re-view the techniques they already use.”

So how can a business get a more precise view of the skills and short-comings of its sales force? Shelly Gallagher, head of training at sales recruitment and training specialist Pareto Law, is a strong believer in direct observation of sales staff in

action. “Managers can get a huge amount of really valuable insight simply by listening to the calls sales staff make or accompanying them on customer visits and sales presen-tations. Witnessing how they handle particular situations, as they occur, is one of the best ways to identify ar-eas where their skills could use some improvement,” she says.

But cold, hard data is useful too. Smart companies use management information and, in particular, key performance indicators (KPIs), to benchmark staff, both against each other and against the targets their employer sets for them, says Ms Gallagher. “If a particular salesper-son is working on new business, for example, managers will need to know how many cold calls they

make, how many appointments they book and the conversion rate for appointments to sales.”

QUESTIONNAIRESSalesassessment.com approaches the challenge from a slightly different an-gle, by asking salespeople themselves how they think they are performing, through a series of online question-naires. That shifts the subsequent conversation between a salesper-son and their manager in a subtle but valuable way, says Mr Stafford-Smith. “No longer is it the manager telling the salesperson where their shortcomings lie. It’s the salesperson telling the management where they need training and mentoring, which is very powerful,” he says.

In fact, listening to what sales staff feel they need in order to develop is more effective than simply impos-ing sales training on them, because it provides a closer “fit” between overall business goals and personal aspira-tions, says founder and managing di-rector of Egostream Paul Stephenson, who works with technology compa-nies on developing their sales teams.

There is one area, however, where most sales teams could improve: negotiation. In a recent survey con-ducted by sales performance im-provement company Huthwaite International and the International Association for Contract and Com-mercial Management, four out of five companies surveyed said that their company had no formal nego-tiation process in place. The result is a general lack of preparation for bargaining among salespeople, says David Freedman, Huthwaite’s sales director. “Even when a salesperson wins a deal, it’s likely that they leave a load of extra money behind which they could have bagged for their company. I see a widespread need for training in this area, in companies of every size and across every industry.”

Taking the guesswork out of sales trainingASSESSMENT Measuring the skills and shortcomings of salespeople is a tricky business and can be crucial to a company’s balance sheet, as Jessica Twentyman discovers

Most sales managers spend the majority of

their time managing the top 10 per cent and the bottom 10 per cent of their workforce

See the light and get to know your

staff

SALES PERFORMANCE 15

In addition to “emotional intel-ligence”, a good sales leader needs a keen analytical mind and an en-thusiasm for exploring the proc-esses and methodologies that get the best results, as well as a propen-sity for sticking to them, monitoring their progress, according to Helen Boothby, a senior consultant at sales recruitment and training company Pareto Law. For many would-be sales leaders, she says, training in strategy and planning techniques is required so that, when they are finally pro-moted to a top job, they are able to accurately match the resources at

their disposal – in terms of budget, people, time and so on – to the sales opportunties their team encounters.

No wonder then that strategy and planning, along with coaching, ranked high on the list of sales train-ing needs in a survey of UK business-es conducted last year by the Institute of Sales & Marketing Management (ISMM). One in four companies said formal training in these areas was needed; recognition, perhaps, that while sales leaders may indeed be born with the inherent skills to man-age, most could do with a little help and guidance along the way.

I t is an easy mistake to make. Your current sales director is moving on and your company

urgently needs to appoint a new manager to lead the team. Where better to look for a successor than within that team itself? And who better to pluck from the ranks than the current top performer?

According to Tony Gower, manag-ing director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) at Miller Hei-man, that kind of logic is common-place, but flawed. While it often makes sense for a company to promote from within, he says, its best sales repre-sentative may not be the best bet to become the new sales director.

“Sales leadership roles require a very specific set of skills and tal-ents,” he says. “The person who brings the most revenue into your company is, without a doubt, a real asset to your business, but there’s no guarantee that they’ll deliver the goods in a leadership role.”

This point of view is echoed by other experts in the sales train-ing industry. In fact, says Sean McPheat, founder and managing director of MTD Sales Training, nine out of ten salespeople do not have what it takes to be a truly great manager. And the exception-al 10 per cent who do have man-

agement potential will still need to be prepared for a leadership role. “No one becomes a good man-ager overnight and it’s not fair to expect it. Sales leadership candi-dates need coaching and mentor-ing, and they need to be drip-fed skills and techniques way ahead of time and long before they step into management shoes.”

FRONT LINEShaun Thompson, UK chief execu-tive at Sandler Training, says there is a good case for keeping high-achiev-ers on the front line, where they boost revenue and motivate their colleagues by example. “If you make them a manager, the company suf-fers; it’s a real double whammy. The business loses revenue, because that person is no longer out there talking to customers and driving deals. And the sales team loses focus, because it’s led by a person who may not be ideally suited to the role.”

So what is the role of the sales leader and how can companies choose the best person to fill it?

Above all, the right candidate will be an excellent coach and mentor, says Dean Forbes, former-ly a global vice-president of sales at software company Oracle – the £15 billion-company’s youngest

vice-president in 29 years – and now executive vice-president of commercial operations at software provider KDS. “Salespeople can be quite selfish, which is a good thing out in the field, because they’re passionate about their own suc-cess and achievements. But a sales leadership role is about focusing on others, on bringing other peo-ple on and helping them to fulfill their ambitions, to the benefit of the business,” he says.

“A problem I see in too many sales leaders is too much stick and not enough carrot,” says Mark Savinson, managing director of Sales Accredit. “A good sales leader is a master of the one-to-one. They don’t just launch in by telling un-der-performing sales people what they’re doing wrong. They take the time to listen and help the em-ployee to see and understand how they might change their habits and behaviours in order to get better results. Coaching is about creat-ing the required environment for change to happen and it’s a skill where most leaders can benefit from training,” he says.

What – and who – makes a good sales director?MANAGEMENT Leaders may be born but they need proper management training to get the best from their sales teams, writes Jessica Twentyman

A problem I see in too many sales leaders is

too much stick and not enough carrot

Many business owners and sales managers believe sales training doesn’t work. What would you say to that?Not all sales training does work! Two-day impact training is often a waste of money. Training needs to be a process not an event. To ensure a good return on investment the management team has to be involved and the sales team has to be teachable, trainable and coachable. Results may not happen over overnight but with ongoing reinforce-ment training you get sustained incremen-tal growth over time which is measurable, now that is worth having.

With the recent economic instability, do people really need to invest in sales or sales management training?Training is probably more relevant in a challenging market than in a buoyant

one. With sales people losing confidence there is a necessity to do something dif-ferent. At Sandler we believe a change in sales strategy needs to go hand-in-hand with training that changes attitudes, tactics and techniques. Change can be difficult, mastering new skills and ideas requires fine-tuning, reinforcement and coaching all of which must be moni-tored so that progress can be measured.

How is an international training company as relevant to a global company as it is to SME? Let me give you an example, Provisur Technologies is a multi-national man-ufacturer which relies on our Selling System for its sales teams in Chicago, Amsterdam and in the UK. Sandler delivers a simultaneous training pro-gramme through its 250 international locations ensuring consistency of de-

livery and content. Heath Jepson, sales manager for UK and Ireland, com-ments: “Consistency is very important to us, whether in Europe or the US, we use the Sandler Selling System to ena-ble us to have a better understanding of our client’s needs, wherever they are.”

An example on the SME side is EOM. A progressive management consultancy specialising in high haz-ard safety arrangements and lean manufacturing, they are growing steadily and are too busy to have con-sultants out of the field for days at a time. Each consultant attends the training centre nearest to them for an hour and a half each week. They are now using the same process through-out their company and are reaping the benefits of a skilled and motivated team which is resulting in measurable growth for the business.

For more details or to attend a “taster” workshop visit www.uk.sandler.com or phone 01608 611211 ukinfo@sandler.com

PROMOTIONAL FEATURE

Would you rather make excuses or sales?An interview with Shaun Thomson, chief executive of Sandler Training in the UK

Too much stick and not enough carrot

Capability Building Across Sales, Marketing & Service

Never Trust a Thin Chef...or a sales training company that doesn’t sell the way it teaches.

Imparta is ranked by ES Research as one of the top 3 global sales training companies*. Our Sales Academies generate up to £150m in incremental revenue.

So, of course, we also run a Sales Academy for our own people. And unlike many training companies, we grew through the recession.

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And because we cover sales, marketing and service, we can help you align the rest of the organisation around your customers’ needs.

Benchmark your sales team. Join our free Global Sales Competency Study: www.imparta.com/study

* Based on effectiveness and depth of solutions.

16 SALES PERFORMANCE

Customer relationship management (CRM) is used to describe a wide variety of software solu-

tions, from a personal contact manag-er to closed-loop business intelligence driven by mining a data warehouse. For simplicity, it can be split into op-erational and analytical software, al-though the two are inter-related.

Operational CRM software is a “front-office” application that must embrace all points of contact with customers, including sales force, sales office, call centre, technical support desk, marketing, account-ing and website. The sales force automation software records all de-tails of existing customers, product information, sales diaries, details of leads, meeting reports, identified opportunities, to-do lists, remind-ers, sales pipeline, orders and so on. Its purpose is to provide, capture

and share day-to-day information. Links to other departments ensure that everybody is up to date on each contact with the customer.

“You give sales people a lead to work on and let them weave their magic,” says David Beard, pre-sales manager for CRM at Sage UK. “They record customer information in one place, you make it easy for the rest of the company to share it and suddenly you have decent intelli-gence, such as sales conversion rates and sales cycles in different areas.”

Analytical CRM is a “back-office” application that is part of the wider business intelligence (BI) area. It can be based on a data warehouse, which is a single accurate database of individual customer transac-tions, integrated from multiple operational systems. This provides a “single version of the truth” that can be queried to produce lists of

customers, filtered on a wide range of factors, which can be transferred into the operational CRM system.

It can also be “mined” by using complex mathematical algorithms that find hidden patterns within the customer data. It might segment customers by identifying groups with similar behaviour, identify hid-den trends or predict what products customers will buy next or which customers are about to be lost.

Summarised information is transferred into a multi-dimen-sional online analytical processing (OLAP) database that allows “slic-ing and dicing”. This is an interac-tive process that allows managers to review sales performance by

product, territory, sales executive, customer, volume, value, currency, legal entity, and so on, against tar-gets, budgets and forecasts.

“The need changes as you go up the organisational pyramid,” says Clive Longbottom, a director at market analyst Quocirca. “The sales manager will want to see what their salespeople are up to, the sales director will want to be able to ag-gregate it all up by product, by geography and by sales manager. Marketing will want an overview, and the chief operating officer and chief financial officer will want to know the financial performance.”

As a data warehouse can cost millions of pounds, organisations

that do not need detailed data can transfer summarised data directly into the OLAP software from the operational CRM system. The re-sults of the analysis are also fed back into the operational system.

“Sales force automation software gives you a snapshot of what is hap-pening at a point in time,” says Mar-tin Richmond-Coggan, European lead for performance management and analytic applications at IBM. “It will tell a salesman the current state of his deals, the pipeline, how long something has been in the pipeline and so on. You need analytical CRM to give a time-based perspective to performance management. You have to see how pipelines move over

SOFTWARE Smart computer software can transform a business and generate sales. Rod Newing reviews how software can revolutionise selling

Getting technical with CRM as a sales tool

Computers can help

predict what a client is thinking

time or to analyse changes in com-plex ratios between pipeline devel-opment and closing success.”

The best use of the two sets of software is to create a closed loop. The analytical software is used to define a strategy and set overall tar-gets that are translated into detailed targets and transferred into the operational systems. Actual results are recorded in the operational systems and transferred back into the analytical system for monitor-ing and analysis to close the loop. If any targets are not being met, small changes can be made to the strategy and sent through the loop again to monitor their impact.

STRATEGY“You link the strategy to the execu-tion layer that operates and runs the sales process,” says Chris Darvill, a business intelligence specialist at SAP. “Strategy looks at sources of new business, ‘farming’ existing cus-tomers and cross-selling opportuni-ties. You need to be able to monitor how you are performing against that strategy and make any changes in your operational processes in or-der to make it become a reality. You monitor what is happening in the sales organisation using dashboards and analytics, and make any changes to deliver your strategy.”

Analytical CRM is very powerful for pro-active cross-selling, by predicting what product a customer is likely to buy and when. This allows a relevant “personalised” offer to be made to the customer at the right time, building on past knowledge, increasing customer profitability and creating a barrier to switching to a competitor. It can even prompt call centre staff with a suggest-ed offer as a customer rings in.

“There is no clear line between BI and the operational CRM process side,” says Kris McKenzie, head of CRM at SAP. “The two are interwoven and you can’t have one without the other.”

He points out that in many organi-sations marketing only generates 20

to 30 per cent of the opportunities in the sales pipeline. Field salespeo-ple are out on the road, knocking on doors making cold calls and generat-ing their own leads, so mobile CRM is becoming increasingly important.

“Websites like Salesforce.com and web-enabled tools in the

CRM system work with BlackBer-ries and iPhones,” says Quocirca’s Clive Longbottom. “The sales-person finds it a lot easier to use a centralised system if they don’t need to fire up a laptop, so we have a lucky ‘sweet spot’.”

DAILY FLOWMartin Schneider, product market-ing director at software vendor Sug-arCRM, advises customers not to try to recreate their entire system on a BlackBerry screen, which will in-evitably lead to disaster. The system should provide just the data, screens and forms that a salesperson needs, without interrupting their daily flow, as they go about business on the road.

“In the old days, salespeople in-sisted on doing their own thing and ploughing their own furrow, the

business was compartmentalised and people didn’t talk to each other,” says Sage UK’s David Beard. “Sales-people are important and expensive, so what they do and what they find out must be kept in a good system, to stop the fragmentation, and must be used right across the business.”

Sales performance management is all about deal and funnel progression, says IBM’s Martin Richmond-Cog-gan. “You need to know things like how many times target each sales-person needs in their pipeline, how long the sales cycle takes and whether it varies by deal size. You need to track individual performance, pipe-line generation, closing rates and the proportion of salesman-generated pipeline over time, and measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns against their costs.”

SALES PERFORMANCE 17

Field salespeople are out on the road,

knocking on doors making cold calls and generating their own leads, so mobile CRM is becoming increasingly important

By Martin Schneider, director of product marketing at SugarCRM, www.sugarcrm.com

Governments worldwide have begun mandating technology deployments be based partially or wholly on open source software (OSS). Germany has long been a proponent of Linux, with more than 500 government departments running open source software. Even less devel-oped nations like Venezuela have opted to run government IT systems on OSS.

The move towards OSS in government is so prominent that industry research firm Gartner predicts at least 25 per cent of domain-specific software in govern-ment offices around the world will be at least partially open source by 2011.

The result of governments embracing OSS and cloud computing is an Open Cloud environment that government agencies can tap into. Among the ben-

efits are reduced operating costs, lower risk, greater access to data and an en-hanced inter-operability that can span not only government departments, but whole governments themselves.

OSS and cloud technologies are an attractive and cost-effective model for

several reasons. If a government can create a cloud-based operations envi-ronment leveraging open source com-ponents it can then push technology tools and features to both its own de-partments and its citizens over the web. A central, cloud-modelled data centre

means that fewer hard resources are being used (servers, firewalls, security, databases, etc). Through virtualisation and a web-based delivery platform, many offices and departments (and millions of citizens) can be served from only a handful of locations.

The open source components of cloud environments are less expensive to maintain than proprietary systems and cloud environments require lower

personnel costs since there are far fewer stacks of technology for administrators to monitor. Think of it this way: if a na-tional government has hundreds of de-partments, but their IT needs are met from only a handful of data centres versus hundreds, the staffing needs and costs will be reduced, creating a highly efficient IT model.

While many nations are opening up when it comes to their technology stacks, many countries lag behind. The UK is just one of several coun-tries which has yet to consider the ad-vantages of OSS and cloud computing technologies for their internal and citizen-facing systems. And it begs the question – why not?

Security concerns top the list in surveys of government organisations. But as the concept of the private cloud emerges and as fast, inexpensive and open software offerings proliferate, the promise of the Open Cloud pow-ering an integrated, open framework inside and in between government IT systems is a vision for the near future.

PROMOTIONAL FEATURE

Open Source and government...

Strong heartbeat keeps healthy business ticking over

Duplo International provides finishing equip-ment to commercial printers across Europe. It has been using Sage SalesLogix CRM software for ten years and now has 65 users.

“We envisaged that it would be a shared da-tabase,” says Peter Jolly, marketing manager at Duplo UK. “But as time has gone on we have found more benefits. It is now the backbone of all the sales and marketing that we do and has grown in importance in the business.”

His ten sales staff use SalesLogix on their laptops on a daily basis to manage their geo-graphical territories, which may have up to 3,000 companies. They can prioritise their key accounts and visit new prospects nearby to make the best use of their time on the road.

The system covers all touch points with cus-tomers, including the service and customer support teams and marketing, which handle event invitations. “We need everybody to know the latest information so we don’t look silly in front of the customer,” says Mr Jolly.

Although the system can spot poor perform-ance, Mr Jolly is more interested in the strategic information, such as if the sales team is talking to enough customers or the ratio of new busi-ness to existing accounts. It has also enabled the company to train and manage the sales team better, and share best practice with the weaker members of the team.

Mr Jolly believes that the system has made the sales force more efficient, which has made a massive contribution to sales dou-bling in seven years. He also believes that better targeting has increased the return on the company’s marketing budget by 20 to 25 per cent by hitting the right people with the right messages at the right time.

“There is no way you can grow as a business without CRM,” he says. “It has become more relevant because of the need for efficiency and getting the best out of your sales team and marketing spend. It is the heartbeat that keeps our business ticking over.”

Total CRM software revenue market share in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 2006-08 (millions of Euros)Vendor Share 2006 Share 2007 Share 2008 2007 growth 2008 growth

SAP 30.4% 29.9% 27.4% 14.9% -5.1%Oracle 14.8% 15.2% 15.2% 19.7% 3.9%Microsoft 2.8% 4.3% 6.8% 76.8% 63.6%salesforce.com 2.9% 3.8% 5.3% 54.9% 41.9%SAS Institute 4.2% 3.9% 3.7% 9.0% -0.9%Other vendors 44.8% 42.9% 41.6% 11.9% 0.6%Total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 16.9% 3.6%

Source: Gartner (June 2009)

Top five CRM software companies: the winners and losers

18 SALES PERFORMANCE

There is a fine line between providing potential cus-tomers with all the infor-mation they need to sign

on the dotted line and simply bor-ing them to death.

According to Nick Oulton, man-aging director of professional pres-entation development company m62 and the author of Killer Pres-entations: Power the Imagination to Visualise Your Point, salespeo-ple could have a lot to learn. “Most presentations are ineffective and quite often they’re not very impres-sive either,” he says.

His particular bugbear is the use of bullet points in PowerPoint pres-entations. On average, bullet-point slides yield, at best, a 15 to 20 per cent recall in audiences after just five minutes and can be positively coun-ter-productive, Mr Oulton claims.

“Your audience can read for them-selves. If they’re reading, they’re not paying attention to you. And, be-cause they can read silently quicker than you can out loud, they’re go-ing to get bored waiting for you to catch up,” he says. Compelling visu-als – pictures, diagrams, videos – are far more effective in getting an idea lodged in the minds of an audience.

Another common trap that sales-people fall into is spending too much time focusing on their own

company. “The prospect doesn’t want to spend 20 minutes listening to you telling them how great your employer is. They’re only interested in what your company can do for them,” says Mr Oulton.

WASTED EFFORTIn other words, the 20 minutes a salesperson spends outlining their company’s credentials, its values, its impressive customer base and its stellar financial performance in the last quarter may well be wasted effort. Most of the information a prospect needs about a would-be supplier, says Mr Oulton, can be comfortably condensed into two to three minutes. “You’ve already won the right to speak to them. Now’s your opportunity to tell them what you can do for them. A subtle shift in language needs to take place: less ‘us’ and more ‘you’,” he says.

Nor should salespeople linger on how they will deliver a solu-tion. The customer, he says, is more interested in why that solu-tion will be good for their busi-ness. And they will also be look-ing for substantive evidence of the benefits it will bring.

That is a point echoed by many sales professionals, including Matthew Parker, sales director at internet service provider Clar-anet. “Sales presentations should be the explanation or evidence for a proposed solution,” he says. “They must prove the point, not just support it.”

Perhaps it is time to get more creative when thinking about pres-entations and the reliance of sales-people on PowerPoint slides. At channel marketing company Birch

Worldwide, for example, managing director Tony White has equipped his sales team with mind-mapping software from MindGenius to en-ergise the creative process behind building sales presentations. “We have all been victims of ‘death by PowerPoint’,” he says.

The mind-mapping approach, Mr White explains, allows Birch Worldwide’s sales staff in the UK, Singapore and California to col-laborate on building a visual rep-resentation of the major and minor topics that need to be included in a sales presentation, and the ways in which these topics relate to each other. Topics are collected in the so-called “mind map” and can be accompanied by illustrations, video clips and documents that substanti-ate the proposal and bring it to life. In this way, Mr White says, his com-pany’s sales staff can concentrate on ideas and themes that are likely to prove most relevant and appeal-ing to a specific prospect, and leave the formatting until the presenta-tion content and key messages are complete. Then, with one click, the mind map can be exported to Mi-crosoft PowerPoint, if required. But Birch Worldwide’s sales staff often prefer to present the prospect with the mind map itself. Not only are clients intrigued by the different approach, but their comments and observations on the pitch can be captured on the mind map as well.

Not every organisation will be ready to take a step away from PowerPoint, after all its author Mi-crosoft estimates that the applica-tion is used to give some 30 million presentations worldwide every day. But, at the very least, most com-panies need to make more effort to regularly review and refresh the

content of their PowerPoint slides, according to research from presen-tation specialist Eyeful Presenta-tions. In its 2009 survey of 100 UK businesses, ranging in size from one to 1,000 employees, almost three-quarters (72 per cent) saw PowerPoint as a “key sales tool” for presenting to prospects, but the same proportion also admitted that they only review and update presentations on an ad-hoc basis.

Whether presentation slides are old and stale, or admirably fresh and new, they still should not take up too much of the time a sales-person has with a prospect, ac-cording to Andy Hardy, managing director of international sales at computer storage company Com-pellent. To him, a generic product presentation is not just a waste of time, it is a “mortal sin”. The aim of a meeting should be to connect to the customer as a person, “not hide behind a series of slides”. He says the smart salesperson spends most of their time asking ques-tions about the customer’s chal-lenges and needs, and listening carefully to the answers.

Nick Oulton agrees. The worst thing a salesperson can do, he says, is “show up and throw up”: in oth-er words, they get face-to-face with a prospect, throw open the laptop and present everything they have to say without stopping to find out about the customer. “Psycho-logically, this may be easy to do, but it isn’t effective,” Mr Oulton says. “Instead, think of your sales presentation as just one part of a broader conversation, and con-sider making the presentation in-teractive to ensure you address the interests and concerns of each and every audience member.”

PRESENTATION How do you devise a compelling sales presentation, the kind that stands out, captivates and convinces prospective clients to buy? Jessica Twentyman finds out

Selling: presentingrights and wrongs?

We have all been victims of death

by PowerPoint

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