Sales Planning and Sales Consulting Articles
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Alan McAnally, the president and founder of Commonwealth Sales Consulting, knows how to break down a sales process to its barest essence. The 30-year corporate vet says a lack of focus on the fundamentals lies at the heart of many problematic processes.
"What I've found is the core basics and foundations of selling and management are really not widely acknowledged," he says. "People read about them but they don't do them. They say, "Yeah, we have TQM (total quality management) at our company. We paint it that color every day."
His Andover, Massachusetts-based firm (in association with two other specialty consultancies in Boston and Philadelphia) has provided solutions to a wide array of sales management dilemmas for both small companies and multi-national firms. McAnally has developed a powerful methodology to address these problems - a set of methods that most sales managers will find of use at some point in their organizations. Finding answers begins with surveying the sales process.
"When you have a potential problem, in most cases, there may be some flaws in the process," maintains McAnally. "The first step is taking a look at the process - a wide view, if you will. Managers need to stand back from the process to evaluate the problem and target the cause."
Once the big picture is attained, the task of breaking a process down can begin.
"I map out flow charts, taking each stage of the sales process and analyzing the steps," says McAnally. "Sometimes I end up with 15 or 20 pages, encompassing all aspects of the company. Once the process is laid out, you begin to find the chinks in the armor."
McAnally finds that the sales process extends through a much wider swath of a corporation than most people realize.
"What the analysis invariably reveals is every part of that company is involved in a sale, whether or not they actively want to be there - from manufacturing to quality control, all the way up to the sales teams that move the product and service." points out McAnally. "The sales arm may only be one part of the company, but the managers in other departments have a vested interest not only in the results of sales, but in the way that they're carried out."
To keep everyone better informed, McAnally compiles what he calls a "sales bible", a compendium which details the organization's sales process and the roles each member of the company plays in that process.
"The key is to take the standards and methodologies and procedures and put it together in a formalized document." he explains. "It lays down in solid terms how the selling process is accomplished in the framework of the company. The CEO signs off on it, but everyone up the ladder looks at it and must understand their roles in it. Now you have a document that reflects the way you do business."
The "sales bible" establishes acceptable standards, guidelines and procedures to be implemented in myriad ways within the organization. "That document becomes not only the reference for new hires in orientation, it becomes the basis for training, planning and territory management," says McAnally. "You can discuss it in sales meetings. How many sales meetings are called just to run the numbers, without much else to talk about? Now a manager can take out the "sales bible" and say "Let's talk about credit checks" or something like that, and you're given a framework for discussion.
McAnally's methods are culled from three decades of working in various sales-related capacities, for companies such as the food services giant Sodexho Marriott. He also finds himself calling upon his training in the U.S. Navy to get a client back in shape.
"In the Navy, I never studied management. I studied leadership," he recalls. "When I'm called in to help a client, I find that there are a lot of good intentions, but a lack of coherence. This happens a lot as a result of mergers and acquisitions and the changes they bring to the company."
Again, McAnally points out many of his clients' business problems stem from forgetting very fundamental things, or substituting fundamentals with supposedly easy fixes. Technology, for example, often supplants sales force development with grave consequences.
"There seems to be a prevalent attitude that you can bring in men and women to a sales force, give them access to laptops, access to technology, and you've done your work as a manager." He explains. "You have managers who say, "Look, you've got your phone, your car, your computer, you've got your background (and) we're paying you well. Now go out there and sell." Somewhere in the jumble of electronic communication, people handling big territories, and the expansion of international sales forces, I don't see a whole lot of basic training."
That lack of training eventually comes back to haunt companies and their reps. "There's a need, whether they're 25 years old or 50 years old, to have that mentoring, coaching and communication that dignifies their position with real solid knowledge training," maintains McAnally.
"I find that a lot of well-intentioned sales managers have a lot of people spread out around the country who don't have the motivational support they should have. That's not a (run of the mill), soft benefit thing. It's an important part of sales management. If it's not important one year, it will be important in the next two or three."
McAnally implores his clients to analyze training as closely as they would research an annual forecast, creating a "rep forecast" of sorts.
"Project your sales force ahead a few years." He instructs. "Stop to think - "Where are these people going to be? Who will leave, who shouldn't? Who are the people who will be moving up into management roles? Who are the real professional who need real development, the advanced training and exposure?"
"In a busy world, sales managers and VPs don't look at that because they're looking at their numbers. Somewhere along the line, that becomes an issue."
McAnally stresses core competencies, introduced at the outset of the rep's career and reaffirmed through the performance review process.
"I don't know anybody who has a performance appraisal for salespeople," he complains. "I suppose they exist. What are the tasks, skills (and) knowledge you need? Forget the numbers for a second. Anyone can have a bad year or a really good year. In the industry I was in - and I see it all the time in other places - the salesperson was judged on their quota, and when the performance evaluation came up, sales managers will say "Oh, scratch that out, it doesn't apply to you."
"They're giving them the same appraisals as they would, for example, an administrative person," continues McAnally. "That doesn't key into the traits and attributes required to properly develop a professional salesperson. And then when they have a high turnover, they look back and can't figure out why they lost so many people. It's because they didn't develop them properly."
"Technology comes and goes, but successful salespeople, by definition, are motivated enough to look for different ways of development (and) different avenues of moving up in their company.
"So don't lose them," he concludes. "Evaluate their development now!"
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