A few weeks ago, I jumped into the compensation discussion with a post about commissions.  My opinion is that heavily and solely incentivizing a sales professional for their selling results might not be the most effective compensation model.  There are aspects of the sales process that involve the expertise, support, and follow-through of others in bringing new business and retaining existing business.  Providing a large portion of the rewards to the sales professional for these results diminishes the significant and valued contributions of others in supporting these outcomes.

The purpose of this post is to offer a follow-up to the commission conversation.  And, provide a little more perspective into what is rapidly becoming the organizational and process trend for most businesses.

While there are still businesses where the sales person is solely responsible for finding, identifying, qualifying, positioning, closing and supporting a client, that model is likely the exception, not the rule.  In today’s business environment marketing, telemarketing, inside sales, account management, professional resources, etc. are all actively involved in the process of attracting, closing, retaining, and expanding client relationships.  Today’s sales professionals cannot and do not engage in the sales process alone.  They are completely dependent upon the support and expertise of others.  The compensation model and the organizational model is outdated, to the point of broken, if the sales person is viewed as solely or primarily responsible for growing or increasing revenues.

Clearly the sales process is touched and supported by many aspects of an organization.  Understanding the sales process, leveraging the necessary expertise at the ideal time in the process, and creating, implementing a strategy that positions the value of the team –knowledge, experience, commitment — in relationship to the client is where business opportunities turn into revenue.

Sales is not the simple, single act of one person simply selling, it is a comprehensive, organizational commitment to:

1. Relationship building: Connecting into existing at future client organizations at multiple, valued levels throughout the organization.

2. Leveraged expertise: Introducing subject matter experts to the clients, as needed, to fulfill needs, meet expectations, and solve problems.

3. Delivering solutions: Providing answers and solutions to the challenges presented and being proactively engaged in adding value and expertise to the relationship in an ongoing fashion.

4. Great customer experience: From the beginning of the sales process through to the maintenance of an ongoing relationship delivering a consistently positive and unified commitment to delighting and engaging the customer.

It is the effective management of both behavioral and strategic components that drives growth.   These components cannot and do not simply exist completely in the functional arena of the sales department.  These outcomes are dependent upon the coordinated cross-functional expertise and support of the entire organization.  The process of executing a selling strategy involves and requires the engagement of more than a sales team or an individual sales professional.

When defining the process and structure for your sales activities, one can look at the sales professional as the quarterback responsible for coordinating and directing a comprehensive, strategic team effort.  However, the sales person is not the only person involved in the process, the primary resource for success, or the person who deserves the most accolades for success in the growth process.

Sales is a team sport and the organizations that builds strong, collaborative, strategically organized teams committed to the growth initiative will win more often than those who work in their functional, old school silos.

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“Put yourself in a position to give your clients opportunities to say ‘yes’ rather than reasons to say ‘no.”  – Chris Still

How many times have you been in that sales call where the sales professional started talking about all the wonderful aspects of the product they wanted to talk with you about?  And, in the course of this conversation, they are sharing all the really cool features and benefits of which — they are hoping — you will find one feature that is of interest to you.

Effective sales behaviors and great selling outcomes are not dependent upon your ability to sell, position, or extol the wonderful products you are offering.  In reality, your ability to make your product compelling is the effectiveness with which you concisely focus a particular benefit of the product on a very specific customer driven problem and solution.

Effective product positioning is a process of knowledge, learning, discovery, and application.  Unfortunately, too many selling professionals are overly enthusiastic about their product knowledge (as if that is the most important component of the sales process–it is not). As a result, they find themselves sharing information that is of little interest or value to anyone but you and leads your prospect to say “no” more than “yes” in the sales discourse.

When it comes to presenting product and creating a “yes” environment the following process results in a more productive outcome:

1. Knowledge: Product knowledge can be a good thing.  It is a necessary tool.  However, product knowledge is less dependent upon “what it is” and “what it does” than on what type of problems the product provides solutions to.
2. Learning: From the knowledge perspective, your product knowledge skills are dependent upon how well you know how to listen for and learn to solve problems with your product.  When you understand what problems your product solves and know how to listen for customer cues regarding specific problems or issues, you are on your way to creating a “yes” environment.
3. Discovery: This is the most important piece.  You have nothing to solve for unless you discover an opportunity, issue, or challenge.  Discovery requires your ears are open, that you ask great leading questions, and your customer is talking about their interests, habits, behaviors, and challenges.  Simply hearing for an opportunity to offer a solution is not enough, you must also understand the challenge in the priority of context – importance, motivation, concern.  Your product knowledge skill is demonstrated by your ability to effectively facilitate discovery through this open-ended dialogue.
4. Application: The final step in the process is applying a feature of your product as a very viable option.  The challenge is to avoid advocating your product as a solution; but, presenting it as an option and how it can potentially resolve or address the problem.

Products are what our client ultimately receives.  Products are what we provide them when they purchase from us. However, the key to an efficient sales outcome is not found in all the wonderful aspects of your products; but, it is completely dependent upon how effectively you create an environment that connects a customer defined need to a product driven solution.  Avoid creating an environment of disinterest by reciting all the wonderful features of your product and concentrate on facilitating a receptive, interested one through your ability to go engage in a discovery process that enables you to focus your conversation on what the client wants, not all you know about the product.

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I have long been a passionate proponent of commission only sales programs (including draw against commissions).  While revisiting the wide ranging reality of the sales professionals’ role and interactions with their organizations as they produce and help grow the business, I have had a significant change of heart.

The notion that most sales professionals are solely responsible for their growth efforts is, in many cases, outdated and misapplied.  In most businesses, the salesperson now relies on a team of resources to assist them with the client acquisition and management.  That they act in concert with the commitment, support, and dependence of a team does not make them solely responsible for, or deserving of, a compensation system that rewards merely one aspect of their role — results.

This is not to say that all commission only or commission intensive compensation programs are inherently outdated.  I am merely articulating an altered philosophical and business perspective that recognizes that sales professionals are not the only people participating in the growth process.  Further, their role is often merely not dependent upon or limited solely to new business activities or results.  If that is the case in your sales model, exclusively or significantly rewarding them for bringing in new business is financially inappropriate.  Hence, your compensation model is likely giving undue credit or overemphasizing a desired behavior  or expected outcome.

Defining what the compensation model is for a sales professional in your organization, I would examine and understand the following first:

1. What the sales process is:  Map out the entire sales process from lead generation through qualification activities to proposal generation to strategic development and planning to close.

2. Who else gets involved:  Understanding those people that have become part of the process is a required informational piece.  Before you can reward anyone for the results of the organization, you need to know what their specific roles, accountabilities, contributions were in relationship to the sales process.

3. What the post-sales relationship looks like: After a prospect becomes a client how does the organization supports and nurtures that relationship.   Again, take a close look at roles and process to understand the responsibilities and contributions of the various individuals or groups are in association with that process.

4. Define the financial allocation for new business and retention: In other words, assign the variable compensation the organization is willing to allocate to the results associated with both growth and retention. This figure is usually derived from a component of the percentage of gross profits associated with growth and retention.

5. Create a financial model that provides incentives to everyone: I am a firm and passionate advocate for the highly interactive, engaged and empowered team.  Compensating a lone-wolf sales professional solely on production that is dependent upon others does not bring strategies and teams together — it divides them.  Offer performance-based, performance-related compensation models to the team and reward the team for their outcomes.  This puts the sales professional in a leadership role to manage strategy, process, and the internal/external relationships necessary to steadily grow revenues.

While some compensation models may be perfectly suited for a commission only program, I do not embrace the notion that one-style fits all in the ever-changing sales arena.  Before you start drawing up a compensation plan understand your process, know who plays a critical roles in your growth model, and reward your team for the successful contributions for both growth and retention.

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You know your sales machine is working in the right direction when you have people coming to your business more than you are  reaching out to them to bring them into your business.  Once the demand cycle swings your way and most of your growth related activity is spent following up on leads you now are in the enviable position of responding to demand, not creating it.  Unfortunately, until your business reaches this exciting level of nirvana, your sales machine is responsible for driving and creating demand.  And, once you successfully create demand, the other challenge is maintaining and developing it.

At its fundamental core, the most important component of the demand process is knowledge.  For it is through the application of knowledge from our successful experiences that we are able to examine, understand, duplicate, and repeat those accomplishments.

Every single successful sales engagement is a lesson.

If you do not treat each of your selling successes as an isolated incident, you miss out on the opportunity to identify and understand the components of the sales process that worked; and, when laid out next to your other successes, recognize the repeating patterns in your successful experiences.  Though some success may, in fact, be an accident or blind luck; repeatable success defined by a process that has been designed through experience and knowledge.

As you begin to explore the question of what do we need to do to create demand and build a stable, reliable growth machine there are several components that you must examine and understand in order to create something that systematically drives demand and improves revenues:

1. Know who buys from you and why.
2. Know the process that was followed to turn people from cold prospect to passionate client.
3. Know what your best clients value and what they continue to expect and look for.
4. Know where other businesses like your best clients are.
5. Know how to connect into that market or group.
6. Know what tools, tactics, and resources are necessary to generate information and awareness with those future clients.
7. Know how to communicate in a consistent manner with your market using the language of the lessons of your successful experiences.
8. Know your clients’ story – what they loved, why they value your business, why they value the relationship.
9. Know how to share your clients’ story with others.
10. Know how to integrate your functional activities of sales and marketing into a collaborative, supportive process.
11. Know how to continually measure and track your success.
12. Know how to modify your strategy to reflect new and valid knowledge.
13. Know how to educate your sales team and incorporate into their daily activities the behaviors that reflects and supports success.

The success of your growth strategy requires the necessary information, knowledge, feedback, and understanding to make your accomplishments repeatable.  The challenge for most organizations is instilling the discipline to learn, understand and indentify what works, why it works, and how to make it repeatable.  The next step is incorporating this knowledge into a management and educational philosophy and process that puts into practice.

Driving demand is not rocket science.  There is no fancy formula or secret.  All it really takes is a fundamental commitment to discovering the most efficient way to be productively successful and convert that into a process that empowers the organization to be repeatedly successful.

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For the first time ever, there are as many as four different generations engaged in our workplace — Traditionalists, Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y (Millenials).  Besides the increased ethnic diversity of our global economy, our workforce is proliferated with an incredible mix of generational cultures, as well.  As effective communication is at the foundation of our relationship building behaviors, educating sales teams on the best approaches to connect with these various groups is not simply a one-style fits all solution.

When discussing the first phase of any relationship building activity, I encourage everyone to pay close attention to everything.  The old school methodology of mirroring or matching is antiquated, overused, over-applied, and known to all.  The worst thing you can do is begin to engage someone based on your mirroring and matching techniques.  First, it is rude.  Second, they have seen that show before.  Finally, it is not genuine or authentic.

Instead, pay close attention to everything!  The first phase of the selling cycle is RELATE — the task is to listen, observe, internalize, and understand.  Through this process you will position yourself at a place that enables you to converse with the person at a level, in a manner, and with a style that compliments them.  This is different from simple mirroring and matching in that you actually have to spend some time engaging them in a conversation where they are doing most of the talking and you are doing most of the listening and observing.  Mirroring and matching teaches you to pay attention and then talk, act, and behave like they do.  RELATE emphasizes paying attention to their behaviors so you understand how they like to communicate and you do your best to communicate with them in a manner that demonstrates your respect for their style, their values, their approach, their seniority, and their expectations.  RELATE is not a behavioral game, it is a personal commitment.

Here are the four steps:

1. Listen: Pay close attention to the words being used.  Some people are visual. Some people use negative words.  Some are auditory or use positive phrases.  Some people speak decisively and clearly.  Others struggle to organize a clear thought.  Some people speak very fast, while others are more deliberate.  How they talk, the words they use and how they use them tell you a great deal about how they think, how they view the world, and how they tackle challenges.  The more you listen, the more you pay attention — the more you will know about them.

2. Observe: Body language tells you everything about their behaviors. How they stand, how they sit, whether they look you in the eye, whether they are easily distracted, or impatient provides you all you need to know about how they are emotionally wired.  How they respond to you provides an early indication of trust, credibility, or respect.  Observe how they communicate with their body when talking and listening.  It provides a glimpse at their behavioral mindset.

3. Internalize: All this is worthless if you don’t learn from it.  When you walk out of a meeting and cannot tell me about the person — behaviors, attitudes, likes, dislikes, goals, ambitions, passions, personal style, etc.– you didn’t spend enough time learning.  A thirty minute conversation with anyone will give you a powerful glimpse about them.  The challenge is making certain you spent that thirty minutes focused in a determined-to-learn mindset.

4. Understand: Once you understand what someone is like, communicating at their level is quite fundamental.  Learn to recognize the words that are most important.  Understand where they are used and how they are used.  And, start to use those words in the same appropriate, passionate way.  This is not mimicking or matching — this is demonstrating respect and understanding.  People do not want to build relationships with people who are phony, fake, or game players.  However, they appreciate it when you demonstrate the ability to honor and respect their behaviors, their vocabulary, and their values.  You do not have to agree with any of them – you simply need to be able to demonstrate your awareness and respect the existence of them.

Communication is all about how well you pay attention — words, behaviors, body language, etc.  The better you are at paying attention in order to respect and understand what is important to your client, the more effective you will be in communicating with them. Remember, this not a generational thing as much as it is a personality thing!  Do the work!!

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In several presentations I have talked about impact of the shift in our economy on business relationships.  To that end, there are three aspects of the business relationship that are critical in the formation of them: personalization, authenticity, and community.  

Virtually no one has the time, the desire, or the patience to be pitched, sold, manipulated, or coerced into making purchasing decisions.  Most every organization, and the people in them, have serious issues and challenges that they are working on solving or fixing.  They only have enough time or energy to discover those reliable and committed professionals who can provide the resources to helping them with these issues.

While many organizations continue to push their sales teams to hit their numbers by meeting more people in an attempt to get them to buy and close more deals, let me be the first to say — STOP IT!

I have been reading a great deal about the commentary of many sales trainers and sales educators. There are a lot of creative terms and phrases and styles out there that emphasize relationships based and solutions oriented selling.  And, while many of the values in these programs start out in the direction of demonstrating these commitments; in the end, they really teach sales professionals how to act and play the roles of a relationship and solution based professional — they do not educate them on effective behaviors to actually be committed to that behavior.

Sincerely engaging in a relationship where you are interested in helping a client with their issues, challenges, goals, and problems mean that you cannot be thinking about how to “get them to buy from you.”  That is disingenuous behavior.  If that is your goal, you are merely an actor on stage pretending to care.

In a previous post, I talk about the behaviors associated with Selfless Listening™.  Selfless Listening™ is a commitment to your client or prospective client that you are listening for opportunities to be a resource to them in dealing with their issues without inserting your wants, needs, desires, or goals into the conversation.  You are selflessly discovering how to be a reliable, committed and professional resource to them without an agenda to sell your stuff.

In an age where people are looking to discover personal, authentic and connected (community) resource to readily and effectively fix what’s broken or enhance what needs improving, walking in acting like you care as long they can buy from you is insincere and “salesy.”

Think about this in a different light.  This is an age of word-of-mouth marketing and the power of referrals and relationship based leads.  How many times have people said,

“You need to meet…He did a really great job of selling me XYZ.”

Or, do you desire to have people say,

“You would really enjoy connecting with…He has been a valuable resource to me and my organization.  Every time we meet, he provides great insights and ideas and he has helped with many of my business issues.”

Think about this:  When your prospective clients are singing your praises and introducing you to their valued contacts as a professional and trusted resource, you are going to have a lot more meetings than if they introduced you as a great sales guy.

To get there, you have to make the commitment to be authentically and sincerely committed to the relationship without regard to what is in it for you (read selfless).  First step in the process — shoot the actor — you are not winning any awards playing that insincere role.

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