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11/20/2008

A thoughtful post on Salespodder asks the question, "Has anyone ever mapped CRM adoption?" and wonders what the effectiveness of Salesforce.com's "Adoption Dashboard" has been. Count us among those who would like to hear your answer.

One trend that Salespodder makes clear is that CRM investments no longer have to be "big bets" - huge infrastructure investments that, once made, have enormous pressure from the CFO or CIO to justify.

Times have changed. Firms no longer pay huge sums upfront for software. The ability to ‘rent’ databases that require potentially no internal IT resource has meant many companies are trying a new system with every new regime, or even financial year, to pinpoint one that works for them. Of course, as the industry knows, none of the systems ends up working for them. CRM adoption is on the floor.

(Emphasis added)

This has both good and bad connotations for CRM adoption - yes, there are lower costs of failure, but the high degree of experimentation and the sheer number of changes creates the danger of fatiguing your salesforce.

No matter how many "benefits" you put in front of users, you have to recognize that you are asking for change and change is never easy. Process change initiatives should be handled with care. The good news about this environment is that is allows you to pilot a program for relatively low cost, to fully vet it with a small group before unleashing your broad CRM adoption initiative.

Perhaps the most important step to this pilot program is an intensive study of your existing sales process, to ensure that your chosen CRM solution will fully map to and support your sales management. As Jonathan Farrington said on CRM-Daily.com, "The first step for any company deciding to make a change in their sales approach is always an assessment of the situation."

Related topic: I attended a TechRepublic webcast featuring a Microsoft CRM implementer named Mark Kovalcson, who was asked the question: "How hard is it to transition from one CRM solution to another?"

His answer, roughly, was "It's actually easier to transition if you already have a CRM system, because you've already done the work to consolidate and organize your data." Additionally, hopefully it means that you have gone through the step of deeply understanding the sales process that your CRM solution should be built around.

Posted at 10:54 AM by Will Horton | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

11/13/2008

Microsoft Dynamics CRM targeting user adoption issues.

A recent interview at CIO.com with Microsoft's Chris Caren reveals that he and PACE both recognize the same issue in the CRM marketplace: user adoption.
We view business applications—and I'd say this both applies to ERP and CRM—as long-existing categories of software that are woefully underutilized and underused inside of organizations....

AMR did a poll and found on average about 10 percent of employees are licensed to use a business application, and of those 10 percent, only about half actually access the application as part of their job.

Caren's take is to increase the use of CRM and ERP by making these applications easier to use, and more broadly integrated into Microsoft Office, which is used by a much broader horizontal segment. In essence, they're viewing this as an opportunity to expand the market for CRM.

What's interesting is that even though Microsoft developers can make their product's user interface easier to use, they really can't address the core problem for the ultimate users: a lack of willingness to adopt.

And this isn't their fault, nor is it the fault of any CRM application developer. The breakdown happens between sales managers and salespeople - if sales managers aren't bought into the vision and value of CRM that the CIO has paid for, it will not get adopted and it will not provide value to the organization.

What PACE has found as a common objection is that salespeople and managers both struggle with the idea that adding CRM means "adding a new process." They're busy enough, why add work? However, this is mostly a mental block. Whether they recognize it or not, they are already practicing a sales process. A proper CRM initiative is meant to compliment and strengthen that process, not weigh it down.

The measurement and intelligence that CRM can deliver is a necessary building block toward becoming a world class selling organization .

Original link via crmdynamics.net

Posted at 1:43 PM by Will Horton | Category: Sales Process | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

8/5/2008

Do you have a Paula Radcliffe Sweat Test?

More and more evidence is emerging telling us that sales process is not getting adopted. Sales teams are amongst the most resistant within an organization to adopt new methods, new processes, and new ways to engage with customers. The first step to take in understanding why your sales process is not getting adopted is to make an assessment of the level of adoption you have. You may consider this to be time consuming and end up telling you what you already know. But any athlete will tell you those regular assessments that measure the progress they are making towards maximizing their performance are critical. How do you know how far you are from your end goal if you don’t know where you are today?

Take Paula Radcliffe for example. In 2003 Paula Radcliffe became the fastest women’s road runner on earth. She set 5k, 10k, half marathon world records and in April 2003 in London she ran a marathon in a mind blowing 2:15:25. Breaking world records is no accident for Paula Radcliffe she carries out a punishing daily routine of running, stretching, plyometric (exercise designed to produce fast, powerful movements) and strength-building sessions. No detail is left unturned in assessing Paula Radcliffe by her team of coaches. They even look at how much sweat she is losing-How much salt, potassium, magnesium, and how many calcium ions are being lost in that sweat. They get very scientific and calculate that she needs to take in say four fluid ounces of liquid and what she needs in the liquid at the aid stations along the routes of her marathon races.

Adopting Sales Process should be envisioned as a marathon. It’s definitely not a sprint. Companies that sprint through the early adoption regimes of workshop style training sessions and sit back and say “Job done” are usually in for a rude awakening. In most cases we find that only about 10 -20% of the job has actually been done (see the PACE Cone of Adoption model at www.itsstillnotworking.com for more insight into this). Companies on the other hand that view sales process adoption more as a marathon race and understand the importance of establishing regular “sweat test” style assessments are best placed for success.

At PACE we view the equivalent of the “sweat test” as being an “adoption assessment”. The adoption assessment is the way that sales process implementers can measure the progress they have made towards achieving their goals. A quick version of the PACE sales process adoption assessment can be found at www.itsstillnotworking.com. The goal of the assessment is to measure to what extent the required sales capabilities and associated competencies are being adopted and mastered by the sales teams. For example, a required capability might be the capability to track and codify sales opportunities according to a standard set of criteria. The associated competency might relate to the level of skill each seller has in effectively diagnosing the business issues of customers so that they can suggest relevant solutions. Each of the required capabilities are categorized and then a series of questions are asked aimed at measuring the progress the sales team is making towards mastery.

Think of the assessment as being the equivalent of the Paula Radcliffe “sweat test”. The reason why it is completed individually is because each of your sellers is going to be at different levels of performance in sales process adoption. They will have very different experiences and backgrounds and therefore the adjustments required will vary right down to the individual level. One Sales person might require more work on diagnosing customer business issues whilst another may require more work in developing value propositions or return on investment calculations. Understanding adoption issues and developing individualized responses is part of what it takes to be successful.

Obviously sales process implementers should not solely rely on self assessments by each sales person. Sales Managers have an important role to play in assessing the performance of their teams. Paula Radcliffe is not left to self assess herself. Her team of coaches assess her every step of the way. For example one of her coaches determined that she was losing a huge amount of energy through the exaggerated nodding of her head when she was running. It turned out on close examination that a lot of the musculature around her shoulders and her neck was actually under-developed. They started doing very specific exercises on her shoulders and neck, and now she has straightened up so much better, and her running poise and her posture is so much better. She is not wasting energy like she was doing.

The very same approach is true for Sales Managers as it is for Paul Radcliff’s coaches. Sales Managers should regularly assess their sales people against a benchmark of mastery. The PACE assessment enables Sales Managers to do exactly this. The outcome of the assessment is a maturity index that defines the level of mastery each of the sales people has relative to the benchmark of excellence defined by the managers and the sales process. The assessment goes on to make recommendations with regard to areas that require corrective actions in order to move the seller to the next level of mastery.

Paula Radcliffe has consistently invested at least 10 percent of her annual earnings in making sure that she has a full support and assessment team in place. Some athletes have a weakness in their nutrition. They may feel that they are eating well but then if what they are eating is analyzed, it emerges that they are not getting enough nutrients or trace minerals this impacts their performance. At PACE we recommend sales process implementers earmark 10% of their budgets to making sure that they are able to regularly assess the progress they are making with adoption of their sales process.

If you do not assess you must confess to not knowing how far you are from your end goal.

Posted at 7:01 PM by Alan Dowzall | Category: Sales Process | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Are you anal about analyzing what went wrong?

The final whistle goes and we have lost the game. The customer called to say “Another company won the deal because they added more value than you did”. You know what; we never even knew there was another company involved. So, what went wrong? Selling is much easier after the game isn’t it? Actually the sale process shouldn’t end at the final whistle. A good sales process is anal about understanding what went wrong. A good sales manager is anal about coaching sellers to assess what went wrong and adopt a different game plan next time around. The old adage of the biggest mistake you can make it not to learn from your mistakes, is never more applicable than at the final whistle of a lost sales game.

Research tells us that as many as half of all sales process initiatives are failing due to poor take-up by the sales teams. Sales are probably the hardest part of an organization to adopt new behaviors. Their current behaviors are routed in many years of experience in selling and as such they have a sense for how to play the game. “No one needs to tell me how to play the game; I’ve been playing it for years.”

So today’s sales managers have the hardest job of all because they are the change agents, they are responsible for driving through the changes to make sure the sales process gets adopted. So what are the best moments within a sales process for a sales manager to coach towards the new behaviors required by the new sales process?

Of course there are many moments but probably the one that has the most impact is at the final whistle or once the emotion of losing a game subsides, to sit down and lead a coaching session orientated around what we can learn from the losing game plan we had.

Selling is much like playing a game of Soccer. There is an opposing team and we need to develop our game plan around how we are going to beat them. The difference is that in selling we may never actually see or meet the opposition team. The customer is like the referee. There job is to make sure the game gets played out, letting the game flow and blowing-up if either team commits a foul. In the case of selling the buyer blows up when they ultimately believe either one of the teams has met them at the point of their need and they are sure of the value they will receive.

Real Experience

How many games have you played in where the opposing team played a great game and at the final whistle they won the game and you lost. Why did you lose and what could you have done to play a better game but more over as a sales manager what types of questions could have been posed to facilitate a lessons learnt coaching session making the connection back to how the sales process could have helped develop a winning not losing game plan.

Key Coaching Questions to ask after the Final Whistle

1.    Who was the person who actually made the decision?

2.    Did we meet with this person? Did we have any relationships with this person?

3.    What value did we offer-up through the game as demonstrable evidence of the value we could deliver?

4.    In hindsight did the customer give us any clues that we were losing the game?

5.    Did we have a game plan? By this I mean did we have a plan for how we were going to address this opportunity and beat the opposing team?

Coaching Moments

Sales Managers who ask these questions understand that one of the prime opportunities for coaching is after the final whistle is blown. No other moment through a sales process has as much potential impact as the time after the game is over and the dust has settled on a lost game.

However that said there is also learning here on the side of the sales manager for if the sales manager has to ask these types of questions after the game it shows that they themselves were probably not playing the game. Most probably they were passively watching from the side lines. Good sales managers play every game with their sales teams. They recognize that whilst the most impactful coaching moment towards the sales process comes at the end of the game that they can also have impact before the game as they help to establish a winning game plan and midway through the game, at half time, when the team needs to evaluate how well the game plan is going and whether any adjustments are required.

The very best sales managers engage in frequent coaching throughout the game, before the kick-off, at half time and at the end of each game.

Rewarding Sales Managers Coaching

The sales manager is charged with driving the adoption of the company’s new sales process. Rewarding the progress he is making with this important challenge should be a key metric on the scorecard for that sales manager. An ideal way to assess the coaching role is to ask the question “How many win/loss reviews did we do this last period?” “As a consequence of the win/loss reviews that we ran what important learning’s did we take away that will help us for the next game?” Reward sales manager performance based on the richness of the information that comes back from asking these critical questions. Make sure that the answers relate back to the sales process and incorporate ideas as to how the sales process could have been more effectively leveraged.

The Pathway to Lifting the Trophy

Lifting the trophy, a euphemism in this case for sales process adoption lies to a large extent in the behaviors adopted by the sales managers as much as it does in the behaviors of the sales teams. Successful sales managers understand the importance of their role and make sure that the pre-game talk, the half time talk and the end of game talk are the most opportune moments they have to coach the team towards the adoption of winning behaviors and the adoption of sales process.

Posted at 6:54 PM by Alan Dowzall | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Have your sales team rejected the call to become automated?

More and more evidence is emerging telling us that sales process is not getting adopted. Sales teams are amongst the most resistant within an organization to adopt new methods, new processes, and new ways to engage with customers. As much as half of all sales force automation initiatives are in danger of failure due to the sales team rejecting the call to become automated. The voice we are hearing from sales is “This new process is not working for me” or “Our business is different, this doesn’t apply here” or “This new system is too hard to use”.

The question therefore is “What does it take to get Sales Process adopted?” Clearly a different approach is required; a different perspective is needed that breaks the mold away from thinking that sales process is simply a tax on the seller.

The first step is to add context for the Sales teams. Sellers if nothing else are competitors at heart. The best sellers thrive on competition. For followers of a great British tradition “The Boat Race” - a yearly rowing race between Oxford and Cambridge Universities where two teams pit their wits against one another charting a winning multi-mile route along the choppy waters of the river Thames in London – is a good metaphor for the race sellers are in to win the hearts and minds of their customers, racing against their competitors.

Winning the race starts with each individual rower establishing a disciplined routine of practice each and every day. A world class seller makes it his or her business to understand the customers business. Each and every day sellers start with a review of the business press to pick up anything that may be relevant to the customer and might impact their business. Every stroke taken is based on delivering business value to the customer and demonstrating how their products can help the customer improve efficiencies, improve competitiveness by differentiating themselves in the market or drive better performance. The oars of selling; Account Plans, Partner Plans, Conditions of Satisfaction are used as the tools to drive deeper relationships with customers.

Second it’s about process. World class sellers view the sales process, the associated diagnostic and negotiating methodologies, sales tools containing the customer evidence and proof points as the stroke techniques they learn to help them navigate choppy waters. These tools help them engage more deeply with the customer and are not perceived as an irritating requirement from management or simply something that needs to be completed only if an Executive from the corporate office happens to be in town.

World Class Sellers also understand that the sales force automation system enables them to capture information about their journey that aggregated with the very same from their fellow rowers helps them to be more effective next time around and most importantly helps them to converse with other parts of the organization with integrity and precision about the progress they are making and the help they need from them to improve.

Third rowing is a team sport. World Class sellers build strong virtual teams that come together in pursuit of meeting customer needs and solving customer problems. They do this by taking the time to understand the details of the important information that each member of the team has to offer on the customer and views other team members as his fellow oarsman who can help increase the speed and velocity of the boat going forwards.

The World Class rowing team needs a Cox, whose role is to navigate the course, motivating the team and shouting instructions as and when appropriate to help steer the boat across the winning line. World Class sales managers understand that they are in the boat with the team charting the course as against passively standing on the shore monitoring progress from a distance with little scope to impact the result. Every successful crew needs a strong mentor, someone who understands what motivates each team member and has the experience and know-how to dedicate a good portion of their time to help each member of the team to achieve their goals.

Impacting the 50% of sales process initiatives that are at risk of failing is about having the ability to bring these characteristics of world class selling into a framework, a world class selling roadmap that becomes a vision for the sales team of how they are going to more deeply understand the needs of their customers. It’s about changing the mindset away from thinking of sales process and sales force automation as a burden towards one that is focused on leveraging the tools of sales process as the oars that will enable us as a sales team to navigate our journey and row the boat more quickly, such that we can arrive at the finishing line quicker than our competitors.

Posted at 6:51 PM by Alan Dowzall | Category: Sales Process | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

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