Sales performance management and operations is on the tail end of the technology transformation, a journey which is just beginning for Procurement. The positive aspects of such transformations are well established, but there are many unstated challenges that are worth noting. In particular, David Brock’s comments on the 2020 Survival Guide for Sales Managers podcast Sales Enablement with Andy Paul podcast are very illuminating.
The Sales Experts:
Andy Paul has written two award-winning sales books, Zero-Time Selling and Amp Up Your Sales, is ranked #8 on LinkedIn’s list of Top 50 Global Sales Experts, and has consulted with some of the biggest businesses in the world including Square, Philips, Grubhub and more, making him one of the leading voices in the sales industry today.
David Brock is the CEO of Partners In Excellence. He has worked with sales and marketing organizations of Global 50 through early stage companies around the world. David is a recognized expert in sales productivity/effectiveness, channel development, strategic alliances/partnering, value proposition development, leadership and business strategy. Partners In Excellence has a global consulting practice, supporting clients and individuals in every continent, with experience spanning many industries, including technology industries, industrial products, basic materials, financial and professional services, consumer products, retail, not for profit and other sectors.
Lessons Learned By Sales:
Survey after survey, show that B2B sales are seeing declining performance results. CSO Insights research shows salespeople are less productive (fewer are making quota) and Sales is experiencing higher turnover.
Brock and Paul argue that much of what afflicts sales is the shift away from basics. That Sales, as a profession, has gotten through miracle cures, but has found they aren’t producing results. Brock states that Sales (salespeople and sales management) have taken their eye off the ball quite a bit. He states that Salespeople get intensely focused on one area, without realizing that the parts of the Sales process are connected, and that success requires execution on all of parts of the job. Brock goes on to say that there is huge amount of wishful thinking
… if we just had AI capability, then we don’t need to do anything … the tools give us the answer. There is a lot of dumbing-down the Sales organization, and not giving the team the capability to do the critical thinking / problem solving that they need to do. Relying on the latest technology, the latest fad, or just copying what everyone else is doing, and not doing that very well. There is too much focus on bright, shiny objects.
Brock advises that Sales needs to get back to fundamentals on how to create value, where should we be spending time and how to do this in the most effective way. Focusing on the fundamentals can create results amazing quickly. And, technology can help to do some things, but technology often distracts from focus on fundamentals, and the need to execute basics repetitively.
If you are not doing the fundamentals and basics well, technology will not help you. Technology will enable you to create crap at the speed of light. If you are executing basic well, then technology on top of that will make you more efficient.
Part of the problem for Sales is that incremental cost of phone call or email is negligible; so the answer for a Salesperson missing quota is always to just double the number of emails or phone calls. And if that doesn’t work, double it again. Not enough time and effort is spent evaluating why the current course of action is not working and thoughtfully adjusting the approach.
Insights for Procurement:
All this sounds very familiar to us in the world of Procurement. The newest, shiniest object envy is very real in Procurement. The promise that technology will solve every problem is increasing. This false sense that technology will do our work for us is dumbing-down Procurement. The presumption that AI will solve all our problems is increasing; while the HI (Human Intelligence) factor is ignored. The answer to fixing all problems in Procurement too often requires yet another technology solution, rather than a thoughtful assessment of the root cause and the identification and execution of specific tactical steps needed to correct.
Will Procurement take to heart the lessons-learned by Sales organizations?