As sales executives nationwide wrap up their 2012 this week and prepare for the New Year of selling, in addition to putting a bull’s eye on their “number”, they’re also putting a framework around how their organizations will approach, improve upon and execute their sales plan. In our discussions with sales executives the past few weeks going through the planning process, the following five themes have come up most often:
1. Efficiency
Sales leaders are worried that their reps are being asked to do more and more in executing their sales process, and therefore aren’t as efficient and effective as they could be. Some of this is about narrowing their focus, but it’s also about giving them tools to do things faster, in bulk, in parallel and generally in a way that increases speed without impacting quality and results. More activity isn’t always the answer. The right activity, at the right time, is.
2. Consistency
This includes both consistency of execution, process and delivery across teams and reps, but also across prospects being worked in an individual rep’s pipeline. This does not mean you treat every prospect the same, but rather that a consistent strategy and methodology, chosen because it provides maximum sales conversion potential, should be leveraged and executed consistently on a daily basis.
3. Training
World-class sales organizations are increasing their commitment and resources to training. This includes online and offline resources surrounding their sales staff to help them better understand their products, their customers and their market, plus generally and consistently increase their sales skills and execution.
4. Automation
Top sales leaders generally realize that too many of the steps their reps follow on a regular basis are repeatable yet manual. These steps – which help the reps follow up with prospects, research new opportunities, identify buying signals and more – can be automated with new tools & technology in the New Year. Automation is certainly a component of driving efficiency, but is being separated out as a focus by sales leaders in an effort to not just help their reps do more faster, but have a bigger market and pipeline impact with their efforts.
5. Value
This is a catch-all, of sorts, representing sales leaders’ desire to help their teams focus less on tactical benefits and more on the aspirational, outcome-oriented impact of what their product and service enables. The more sales reps focus on communicating, defining and delivering value, the more likely the prospect will act.
