5 Myths That Slow Down Sales and How to Avoid Them

In spite of the thousands of words that have been written about the value of selling to the right prospects, sales managers still tend to assess their reps' performance on volume, not potential. They act like activity is more important than results. So what happens? Salespeople turn in lots of activity. Too bad that activity comes with a $1,100/hour price tag. The simple truth is that "everybody" is not your customer, nor mine, nor that of the business down the street. Only the customers who want our stuff, and are willing to pay our price for it, need to apply. But if sales managers don't provide a benchmark for selecting those opportunities, a simple prospect profile, then salespeople will do what comes naturally and call on anybody with a pulse and an address.

This myth may be the most damaging of all five since it actually encourages salespeople to waste their very expensive selling hours on DOAs, prospects who are "dead on arrival" and whose business you probably don't want in the first place.

In other words, sell what you do well to the businesses and people who want it. Sales managers have a simple solution to this dilemma if they choose to take it: write down the criteria that characterize a qualified prospect. Give it to every salesperson. And hold them accountable for using it.

Finally, make sure each representative uses the profile as a selection tool. Train salespeople to ask probing questions that reveal whether the prospect is a reasonable match to the criteria. During sales meetings and individual coaching sessions, query the extent to which a particular prospect matches the profile. Guide the team to investing in prospects with a higher potential for lifetime customer value.

Myth #2 has been growing like kudzu ever since the recession of 2008. And like kudzu, it tends to choke out the beneficial growth we all seek. Whenever a business is slow, unused capacity and idle labor (including idle salespeople) drive anxiety levels through the roof. An easy, but not very wise, response is to chase smaller and smaller deals, without recognizing that the costs for winning these deals may outweigh the CRM benefits of profit and reputation.

There's no getting around the fact that most businesses suffer painful losses during serious recessionary periods. But that doesn't excuse the fact that even then, some sales are simply better than others, and some are simply worse. A "good" sale should produce at least three positive outcomes for the seller: financial profit, positive resolution of a customer problem or issue, and new learning for the selling company. And for the CRM buyer's guide, a "good" sale must resolve their defined business problem with a solution that costs less than the cost of having the problem.

Now that you have a definition of your ideal customer, add the definition of a ‘good sale.' Write down the margin you have to earn to achieve basic profitability, and don't violate it. Add other characteristics that define a ‘good' sales pipeline, such as evidence of customer satisfaction. Praise sales people when they decline business that is unprofitable or likely to disappoint the customer's expectations. The qualitative criteria of your Ideal Customer Profile should include the exchange of value between buyer and seller; for example, a good criterion for a company selling warehouse management software and services might be "Customer values optimum efficiency in warehouse operations and is willing to invest in it."

Seems simple, doesn't it? Remember this rule. Sell what you do well to customers who want it, at your price and in your style.

This myth is one of the most difficult to identify and therefore to uproot. After all, our society prizes this attitude; we build monuments to it. But think about it. Refusing to take "No" goes hand in hand with ‘everybody is our customer' and ‘every sale is a good sale.' If you never take NO for an answer, then you encourage your sales people to misuse their scarce and costly time.

Always remember that a sale is not a one-way transaction. If it isn't right for one of the parties, then it is probably wrong for both. And if it's wrong, then don't keep throwing good money (i.e. Opportunity Risk) after bad.

Adopt an analytical attitude. Qualify each prospect, and each opportunity, carefully, to learn if the deal is in fact going to be (a) profitable and (b) satisfying to the customer. Assess the investment costs of the continued sales effort, always remembering that your selling time is probably worth $1,000 an hour or more. At some point, the deal passes the point of diminishing returns. Let a CRM guide your sales people to more effective use of their time. Remind them that you, and by extension they, seek a high return on their hourly selling effort, usually around $1,100 an hour. And maybe much more.

Sales people thrive when they have the facts at their command. They need to know how much income is at risk for every hour of selling time. They need to have clear-cut criteria for assessing whether a given prospect justifies the investment of their time and effort. And they need to have the facts at hand to know when to bow out.

If they're going to lose anyway, they should lose early.

This myth comes into play when the sales team is focused on the activity instead of the results. But it's a dangerous practice. First of all, there isn't much more time left to make sales calls. If the average sales person has only 100 days (900 hours) of selling time in a year or less, where is that time going to come from - sleep, sick time, training, keeping reports up to date?

Selling is hard work. To do well at it, sales people have to be on their game, physically and mentally. When sales people are burned out, physically tired, or in need of a break, they should take down time. They need it. And they're vulnerable when they don't get it.

When sales people without a CRM solution go after the wrong prospects, pursue unprofitable projects, or waste time on unproductive leads, then "more sales calls" may not equate to more sales. So the sales manager's job is to ensure that four things occur:

• Sales people know which prospects justify the lead pursuit
• Sales people know how to qualify prospects to rule out those that have a low potential for lifetime value
• Sales people know their Opportunity Risk value.
• Sales people know that their manager will reward and encourage them based on their results, and not their activity.

In order for sales managers to use leads effectively and coach properly, they too must have access to the right information. The Ideal Customer Profile and the Opportunity Risk value are two important landmarks for effective sales management. A third one is a way the sales manager defines sales stages. When the sales manager knows the sales person's Opportunity Risk factor, the extent to which the prospect matches the Ideal Customer Profile, and the current stage of the opportunity, that sales manager is equipped to be a powerful coach, and to ensure optimum sales performance.

It's true that plenty of sales people get paid on a straight commission, so it seems as if they can pay their own way. But it's not so simple. Sales people may earn compensation from a share of the profits, but their true costs include impact on customer satisfaction, market presence and awareness, lost opportunity, and perhaps other considerations such as internal efficiency.

The Sales department funds the entire business operation. So sales people have to do much more than pay for themselves. They have to pay everybody's salaries, fund R&D, underwrite CRM marketing expenditures, and put enough reserves on the books to justify investments in capital equipment. And they can't do that if they don't have the right support and guidance.

Selling is probably the single most important contributor to the health of a business, even more important than products and services. It's a difficult art to master. So it pays to develop good mechanisms to support and guide the sales effort. Here are five Best Practices that help sweep away the myths and make the Five Mythbusters come alive. They are:

Create an Ideal Customer Profile.

Develop this profile on customers with whom you have had success in the past. Detail not only the facts (demographics, company size, annual revenues, SIC codes), but the qualitative characteristics as well, those elements that represent the value they seek when doing business with your company. Craft the criteria, document them, ensure that all sales people have easy access to them, and then mandate that they are used to select for the higher-potential opportunity, and downplay low-potential or no-potential deals.

Set Clear Expectations.

Give your salespeople clear and quantifiable performance expectations for all stages of the sales process. Don't simply throw a quota and a territory map at them. Tell them you expect them to convert so many leads to suspects, suspects to prospects, prospects to contracts, contracts to repeat business. And follow up with them. Regularly.

Track Performance and Share the Data.

Stop managing your sales force by anecdote, those traditional sales meetings where each sales person fills up time telling about why this or that deal hasn't closed yet. Instead, focus on collective performance against those expectations you laid out above. Build sales meetings around a review of the data. Now you're dealing with facts.

Work on the Process to Improve Results.

If sales are down this month, don't panic. Instead, examine the underlying processes to see where the slowdown occurred and why. Maybe sales are down because there's an operational glitch or an unexpected trend in the local market. Modest changes 'up-stream' in a process may make profound changes 'down-stream.'

Give Great Support.

Everybody likes nice bosses better than mean bosses, but great sales support means more than that. It means removing obstacles to performance wherever possible, smoothing the way, and leaving people alone when that's appropriate.