There is no easy way!
I had a great conversation with a sales leader this week of a great corporation. He is working his way through reframing the reconstruction of his team. There is no easy way to do this. And he is doing ALL the right things. And he will forever transform his BIG company if his leadership can just “buy-in”. I believe they will in this case.
What does making that shift look like?
Start with understanding your WHY (see Simon Sinek – YouTube videos galore). Make sure that you have a clear picture of what your corporation is working to accomplish. Think big picture “humankind” type of objectives. Then make sure that what your own team does to fit into that bigger picture. Not a revenue contribution discussion. A true understanding of PURPOSE. AND to work, it all must be outward centric. About the world, the clients, the people outside of your own team. No silly euphemisms about “world-class”, “number one”, “biggest”….all “meisms”.
Now that you slog your way through that minefield you have to dig into WHAT it is that your team will DO to truly “make a difference” with your clients. You don’t get to simply deliver “different”, your focus must be on the co-creation of value that the client recognizes is UNIQUE. Not something that everyone else is ever going to attempt. That’s a deep well. Keep digging till you hit true paydirt on this one.
Ok, we’ve got it figured out and we need to dive into structural discussions about roles, responsibilities, and compensation. Here is where almost everyone struggles…. The compensation. Many times in conversations with sales leaders working to pull all this together their true struggle is with the variable compensation part of the rebuild. I won’t go into the discussion about Commission POISON here (see my prior blogs). EXCEPT there is an “out” that folks try to use. Instead of paying individual compensation based on performance to quota etc, the idea pops up that “hey, we will pay commission based on team/client results”. That sounds reasonable, and they head down that path all excited that they have neutralized the poison. Nope… just changed how the poison will get manipulated and injected. Let’s examine that a bit. The harsh reality is that leaving any sort of variable compensation that is this narrowly focused will still have all the same effects as a personal commission, it simply redirects the focus of how the outcome will be manipulated for the good of the compensation. Any remaining element of such a measure will still taint the service to the client and defocus the team from pure service. So how do we lead these strange folks called salespeople? If not by money…how? See my blogs on Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose by Dan Pink. In short, you must coach and lead them just like you should do with every other person in your corporation. And that’s where most often this move to rebuild a team and have them focus on the client and not their compensation dies…. When sales leadership suddenly realizes that they will lose their compensation “control” and manipulation of people and actually have to do the hard work of coaching and leading they freak out and proclaim that this can never work here…. NEVER.
As I said at the beginning… there is no easy way. We create greatness through a lot of hard work, not by manipulating people, but by helping them grow.
In Satya Nadella’s book (Hit Refresh) about the transformation of Microsoft, he talks about creating a company driven by a sense of empathy and a desire to empower others. He goes on to talk about his passion to put empathy at the center of everything he pursues. He writes about the culture that they are building that has a “growth mindset”. Critical to note here is that his reference it to “growth” of the individual, not the bottom line. Where in any of this brilliance is there room for the manipulation of people through their back pocket?
For a bit of a twist, however…
There IS room for a variable comp part of the plan. And it works GREAT. We have been doing this for more than 2 decades. Fundamentally, everyone, including sales, has a small percentage of their compensation tied to a handful of global corporate goals. These should be something that everyone can relate to and see that they can have contributed towards. A few examples would be corporate revenue growth quarter over quarter; corporate gross margin (you want to have salespeople stop lowering prices, teach them gross margin). You can include revenue growth of specific areas of focus for the corporation, cost controls in specific ways. Many different metrics can be deployed. I suggest that they be consistent across the entire corporation. It helps greatly if you truly want to get everyone rowing the boat in the same direction.
And to not leave you without answers to coaching and leading… Here are the 2 best in our space.
Hendre Coetzee is the world’s best coaching coach… www.hendrecoetzee.com
Dave Brock is the best sales leader that you will ever see… partnersinexcellenceblog.com
There is no easy way to create the BEST!
So let’s go do the work!
Mitch Little
And in the beginning, there was “stuff”. Folks made “stuff”. Other folks used that “stuff”. And it was pretty direct. Then the world evolved and the people that made “stuff” wanted more income so they hired a new breed of a person called a “salesperson” whose job was to go out and find additional people to buy the “stuff” they were selling. For the most part, it appears that this all started with the barter system as early as 6000 BC. Trading goods for goods or service worked pretty directly but did not scale well. Somewhere around 3000 BC, basic product selling started to take a foothold. That seems to have stayed pretty stable for a LONG time…
In the mid-1800’s we morphed into an influential way of talking folks into what we wanted them to believe, and buy…. Some have called this the “snake oil” era. In the 1900’s we worked our way through fundamentals driven by brilliance by Dale Carnegie and onto offerings like PSS, Solution selling, LAMP, Value selling, etc, etc, etc, and on to Challenger. And every one of those had value and taught us a great deal. Social media now seems to drive the world for good and bad and now we need to figure out what that looks like in the brand new B2B world. Considering the events of 2020 I can say that we do not really have an idea of how this will all unfold, AND it will be different than what we view today in many respects.
I do also believe that the guiding client elements that we need to stay focused on, going forward, are the same BIG3 client elements that have always been key.
We define the BIG3 as helping the client…
We know from serving 120,000 clients around the world that regardless of role, country, or business model, the BIG3 is critical to every person we serve.
If you can put what you DO into one of those 3 elements you can have great 2-way conversations with people that make a difference to them and that matters to us both. Products, technologies, hardware, and software, are all vital, and if you don’t have world-class in those, you should consider your options. However, all of them are now table stakes, the price of entry into the game, the starting point for the race. They are absolutely critical and we had all better know our “stuff” very well.
And yet that is not enough. Not really. The real battle is in the mind of the client and what we each DO to help them make a difference in their world and with their clients. Stuff is great. Stuff is needed. Stuff is not enough. YOU are the differentiator!
There are a great number of new things that dealing with COVID-19 has taught us, or more accurately, reminded us of the importance of. To me, the ONE thing that will stick out and that I will work to make sure we all keep is the value of PLANNING. Preparation before every call, planning before every conversation, every email, every video. The time that we have with people is precious. We have been way too casual about wasting other's time and that has been reflected to us over the years as we study what clients value, or don’t when we work with them. Making sure that we value other's time and ensure that every interaction we have makes a difference is what we owe those that we serve. It takes serious planning to accomplish that. Where I work we use the thinking of….
PLAN/DO/REVIEW
Prepare well for everything. Execute according to plan, which seldom gets to happen. Review and learn from every action. The after-action review is not a new concept. We just need to live it!
Be well, stay safe, make a difference!
- Mitch
The message below is what I sent out to our Global team today. I thought it might be of value to an even broader audience.
Thank you so very much for caring.
Mitch
------------------------------------------------
To the WW Client Engagement Team;
A quote that I had seen before rang loudly in my mind this week as I saw it again. It is from Edward Everett Hale, a 19th-century social reformer and minister.
“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”
As we have discussed before, many times, our way to serve is to help others “make a difference”, in any way we can.
I am also reminded of a story that I have heard Steve Sanghi tell many times…..
[/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src="https://mitchlittle.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/starfish_story.png" title_text="starfish_story" _builder_version="4.4.7"][/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label="Starfish Story" _builder_version="4.4.7" text_font="Source Sans Pro||||||||" custom_margin="45px|||||"]
My thanks to each of you for making a difference in the lives around us each and every day!
Mitch
Has it all really gone full circle, or did it just never change? Selling that is.
Interesting question and a lot of assumptions. I have been in a B2B technology selling environment for more than 4 decades. And yes, I did start at the age of 12…NOT. My first sales territory covered 475 miles of highway from Las Vegas, Nevada to Nogales, Arizona. In those days we did not have a WFH (work from home) style… we had a WFA (work from anywhere) style. No cell phones in “those” days, but you did know where the best client lobbies were based on bathrooms and payphones. We made it into the office on Monday afternoons for “product” training supported by beer and pizza later. In those days there was a lot of emphasis, by many people, placed on entertaining clients and “relationships” based on who you knew. It was a pretty common way of viewing the world of selling. And oftentimes pretty sleazy, at least in my opinion.
I had the amazing good fortune of having a gentleman by the name of Chic Blum as my first outside sales leader and coach. His words to me in those days have followed me for a lifetime and are even more critical today it seems.
His guidance was not too complex and after more than 40 years of this journey, it has become the simplified heart of what I strive to do on a daily basis.
His words were varied, yet came down to the central theme of….
“Help other people succeed!”
I am combining a lot of specific thoughts that he left me with… like “always do the right thing.. you know what that is”, and “we have to earn the right to serve, not buy it”. His overriding theme to me was “help other people succeed.”
In those days, the men and women selling were the Queens and Kings of DATA. We were the source of all data that a client needed to understand anything about the products that they were trying to use… And in those days that data came in the form of DATABOOKS… I know, what’s a DATABOOK? Well, its hundreds of printed pages of product specifications. Every manufacturer had their own, often several different ones. And the clients wanted that data. So as stewards of the data we all drove around with trunk loads of data books and doled them out to our selected deserving clients. We were in control and we loved it.
We added great value to the client’s business world. And those that focused on that pure aspect thrived through every evolution that was to come.
During the decades that passed since then, we have grown, learned, experimented and failed in a variety of “ways” to sell. There was once an IBM sales process, and a Xerox Selling process. We worked our way through 7-step selling, 8-step selling, and back to a 6-step process. Most of us participated in Target Account Selling, Spin Selling, Solution Selling, and on to Value Selling. Later years brought Strategic Selling, Conceptual Selling, the Sandler Selling System, and Challenger. (a personal note: Challenger, as it is truly built and worked by Brent Adamson, is still near perfection, you need to know the “master” to really get it).
Through all of the variations to the theme of selling that can be imagined, Chic’s words still work the best for me. I have learned, executed, and taught nearly every one of the methods above. They all have had their place and their time. They can all be supported by the proper evolution of a well-designed coaching system (normally called a CRM). What normally matters more than anything is that you use one or create your own that you commit to and use. And stay with it over time.
What has become more true over time is the singular importance of focus on serving the client. Anything that distracts from that will lessen your time and energy spent on helping your client succeed, as individuals. Where I work today we have created a Client Engagement Process. With a heart of serving our clients and helping them succeed. Our “system” has lots of detail to it, and as it is used daily by a global team of engineers, it may be a bit too complex…. Maybe! But it is clear to all is that it is driven by CUSP.
Care greatly, about the people that you serve in the clients that you call on.
Understand deeply, all that they care about, and is critical to them as individuals.
Serve endlessly, in every way that you can and never stop. Serve without reserve!
with Purpose, by knowing what matters to them and to their team and serving their need.
CUSP is simple to state and requires great leadership to execute well… or you can just poison everyone with commission and not bother with the high-value tough stuff (sorry, could not help myself with that plug for my past blog on the Poison Known as Commission).
This all comes out to pretty much what we have all learned at Sunday School. It seems the basics in life apply to selling just as well…. Who woulda thunk it? Sounds like it's time for another selling process… The Ten Commandments of Selling. Oops… never mind, that one is already out there too.
Thanks so much all for caring enough to stay engaged.
- Mitch
Nearly every week I sit down to put some thoughts out on “paper” to our WW Client Engagement Team (about 1700 people). I cover a variety of topics, with of course today’s general focus being on thriving in a chaos driven world. The text below is one of those weekly messages. In parentheses you will see the explanation of some internal terms that I use that need external explanation. Not all of this may make sense to you as it is heavily internally focused. Hopefully it still provides some value… you tell me.
----------------------------------------------------
To the WW Client Engagement team,
I believe that in the next 2 years we will see more change than we have in the last 2 decades. As we unfurl the flag of hope and execute into creating our future all of the things that we once did and were so proud of MUST be looked at with a whole new lens of understanding. For the last 20 years WE have all been in a transitionary stage of evolution. I’m sure that you recall a message from me, of several weeks ago where I called upon us for a client engagement process REVOLUTION. VIVA LA REVOLUTION! Little did any of us know, most certainly I did not, that we were about to be shown the door of revolution and that we were going to have two choices, go through it or not, survive by radical change or not. Thrive or not. REVOLUTION or NOT. As always, it would be OUR choice.
WE choose to serve our clients in ways that help THEM thrive. We choose REVOLUTION!
There has always been a term around our world that we used to highlight great examples of things done. It was called ‘best practices”. From the CEO of Korn Ferry I heard a great new term that frames our new challenge perfectly… BEST THINKING. This is the challenge. Where will all of the ideas for excellence and service come from in these next 2 years? They will come from the front lines of our world that are intimately engaged with the individuals that we label “clients”. You will bring us our new BEST THINKING. These ideas will reflect the changing environment that our clients are facing and their need for solutions to challenges that they are just now grasping. There is a ton of what we don’t know that we don’t know. REVOLUTION comes from the rapid execution of radical ideas that make a difference… to the client!
As we reframed our challenges for this time we faced recently we spoke about the BIG PIVOT (an “annual” operating plan ripped apart and turned into a “daily” operating style) and the power of AND. As we engage with the people around us we must open the doors to BEST THINKING and that comes from starting with a position of EMPATHY. In past boot camps (our internal 2 weeks in-person training that has now gone for good) many of you have heard me say that the greatest strength that a person can have is a natural sense of humility. Right now our 2-way conversations must start with an understanding that we do not know all that we need to know, to best serve those we choose to serve. To root out BEST THINKING we must, as Stephen Covey wrote, “we must seek to understand before being understood”. A natural sense of humility will open up the doors to understanding AND then we can examine the possibility of ALL of the possible answers needed to THRIVE. And that all starts in the mind of the client… with empathy on our part. You have all done your homework, as asked by Hendre (Hendre Coetzee is our external coach and my co-author of SHIFTABILITY). The power of understanding through the filter of empathy is becoming quite clear as I watch the many examples in COMPASS (our tool that coaches client engagement). Thank you! You are brilliant!
In the next days, weeks, and months we will rapidly reexamine all that we need to do NOW, in this brave new world, to excel in helping our clients MAKE A DIFFERENCE. The doors are wide open for those of us that choose to execute to the backside of our “challenge coin”… DRIVE CHANGE (search on “challenge coin”, we made one for boot camp grads)! Each of you own this one. Each of you can bring NEW THINKING to light for all to see. There are no bad ideas or wrong ways as we create LA REVOLUTION. Only silence is deadly. Ideas shared, developed, and brought to our world will ensure that we SERVE ENDLESSLY with PURPOSE.
This is OUR time. We ARE built to THRIVE in these conditions. Our best opportunity to serve is right now.
As a little kid in the mountains of Montana our family would many times take camping trips in the family pick up. To this day I can still hear my father launch each one of these journeys with his last call to get in the truck and hit the road… he would simply, loudly, and with passion, say…. OK, LET’s ROLL! And we were off. So my request to you is…..
LET’s ROLL!
Mitch
