|
The HR Chally Group completed Study 2 of The World Class Sales Excellence Award Research. The project was sponsored by 10 major Chally customers including:
- ACDelco
- Brown-Forman Beverages Worldwide
- Mark IV Industrial, DAYCO Industrial Division
- Exxon Chemical
- Lucent Technologies, Inc.
- Pepsi-Cola Company
- Reynolds & Reynolds
- Steelcase, Inc.
- United Parcel Service
- Zellerbach
Awards to the top 5 sales forces who were named by corporate customers were presented at a joint seminar and award ceremony in Atlanta in September 1997. The sponsoring companies and the top 5 companies were the cover story of the Jan.-Feb. 1998 issue of Selling Power Magazine.
The results of the research project have been organized into a comprehensive report "The Manual of World Class Sales," and a half day seminar "The World Class Sales Excellence Award Research."
This report is an executive summary of the research findings.
WHAT CUSTOMERS WANT
FROM SELLERS
In-depth interviews with over 1,100 corporate customers established three major needs customers expected vendors and sellers to address, even though they were not confident they could get them.
- Customers wish to focus on their core competencies and "outsource" the balance of their business needs.
- Suppliers are sought that understand the customer’s business well enough to provide solutions in addition to the products and services they sell.
- Suppliers must substantiate the presence of the "added-value" they provide.
CRITICAL
SALESPERSON SKILLS
To evaluate a vendor or seller’s potential to fulfill these three needs, these corporate customers specifically judged sales forces on combinations of only seven factors. These seven, listed in descending order of the frequency they were cited, are:
- Personally manages customer satisfaction
- Understands customer’s business
- Acts as a customer advocate
- Is knowledgeable of applications as well as products/services
- Is locally or, at least, easily accessible
- Solves problems
- Is innovative in responding to customer needs
Customers believe that sales forces who excel at these seven factors can best fill their three basic business needs.
It’s significant to note that an in-depth understanding of the customers’ business is the most important underlying requirement, and significantly drives the training and development of top sales people.
Our interviews with these corporate customers resulted in their "voting" a group of sellers as "best" or "World Class." While none of them were viewed as perfect, they have committed themselves to the goal of meeting all three of these major customer needs.
The world class sellers cited as "best" were:
- AT&T Middle Markets
- Allegiance Healthcare Corporation
- Boise Cascade Office Products
- GE Industrial Control Systems
- IBM Corporation
- 3M *
- MCI Telecommunications Corporation *
- PPG Industries *
- Rockwell Automation *
- Xerox Corporation *
*Did Not Participate in the World Class Sales Excellence Research
By comprehensively benchmarking 5 of these sales forces we identified the critical success factors for "World Class" sales, and the standards or metrics of sales excellence.
This benchmarking research pinpoints how world class sales forces manage customer satisfaction, understand their customers’ business, and deliver the other critical benefits.
Five of the top 10 World Class Sales forces agreed to provide access and information to the benchmark research. Top sales executives, key sales managers, and salespeople were interviewed. On-site visits were conducted and metrics of performance standards collected. Results were organized into 8 benchmark best practice categories.
THE BASICS OF
WORLD CLASS SALES
The overriding philosophy of these best sales forces, simply stated is: "Be the outsource of preference." The basic priority, therefore, is to add value to the customers' business.
- For Allegiance ... "partnering with customers, we share risk as well as savings."
- For AT&T ... "we are not telephones; we are communications."
- For Boise Cascade Office Products this means "we're not an office products company or a supplies company, we're your purchasing department."
- For GE ... "the application of TQM to the sales process keeps the internal culture customer-focused."
- For IBM ... "we are not computers or even information; we are decision analysis or problem solving."
Adding value requires at least three critical elements:
- Measure (identify) the business needs of customers;
- Develop the added services to wrap around our products which will guarantee the customers' business improvement; and
- Measure again both continuous improvement refinements as well as proof for customers that their business was improved.
Often, the top sellers have had to make tough choices. Boise Cascade gave up a distribution system that accounted for 40% of its sales in order to develop a direct sales force that could add more value and increase margins.
IBM revolutionized its culture and reduced management and staff to get decision-making back to the field in order to more tightly manage customer interactions and satisfaction.
Changes at all the world class sales forces are still in process. Customers did not credit these top sales forces with perfection -- just being closer to it than their competitors.
An examination of the actual sales figures, or "metrics" produces some show-stopping surprises. For example: since the salesperson is the key contact point between seller and buyer, the most important skill is that of the sales manager who coaches and develops the salesperson. However, most sales managers are more administrator than coach. The surprise finding: salespeople who get at least one full day a week, one on one, with their managers are more than 20 times more productive than other salespeople. This means a manager can not be fully effective managing more than four or five salespeople. The results clearly demonstrate that a sales manager having a span control of more than 4 or 5 to 1 can't compensate, no matter how much formal training is provided or how powerful the compensation plan is.
While the requirements are changing and many of the solutions are new, the approach top sellers use is remarkably consistent, either intentionally by benchmarking others, through partnerships, or coincidentally by just attacking their own needs. Through a "total quality" styled approach they are investigating and analyzing their customer needs and problems. They are reorganizing their processes, developing new skills, creating new measures and new standards and, most of all, committing to the need for continuous improvement.
THE WORLD CLASS SALES EXCELLENCE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
1100+ corporate customers interviewed
Sample distributed by:
- Size
- Industry
- Geography
- Type of decision-maker
- Public or privately held
Information provided:
- Best salespeople/sales forces that service them
- Criteria in selecting/evaluating sales/service providers to buy from
- Most important salesperson traits to service them
Information categorized by:
- Salesperson criteria (7 factors)
- Best "world class" sales forces (10 identified)
THE EIGHT PROCESSES FOR
WORLD CLASS SALES EXCELLENCE
While in summary, people and information are the major focus, we found eight distinct process areas that could be described as critical benchmarks. All of the top-ranked sales companies have rigorously addressed at least six of the eight. The process areas they have not focused on were either less critical, due to the nature of their product or service, or -- more likely -- because they had first focused on the most critical processes, they just haven't gotten to the others -- yet!
More importantly, because of the diversity of products, channels of distribution, and needs of customers across the best in class sales companies, an organized review of why and how they approached each area establishes a valuable decision analysis guideline beyond the solutions established by any one sales force.
The eight sales excellence process areas are:
- Establishing a Customer Driven Culture
- Market Segmentation
- Market Adaptability
- Information Technology
- Customer Feedback and Measuring Customer Satisfaction
- Sales, Service and Technical Support Systems
- Recruiting and Selecting Salespeople
- Training and Development
The priority and type of solution on each of these eight process areas varies according to the specifics of the product and market. For example, market segmentation is a priority when different customers or customer groups require specialized added values that are not appropriate for other customer groups. The more dramatically added value needs vary, the more critical market segmentation becomes.
More importantly, and a greater source of error in sales management, is the choice of options to approach the need. For example, a seller who identifies a need to segment markets still must decide how to segment: by customer industry, by customer size, by geography, or perhaps by product or service offered. The difficult challenges include: Can we afford more than one salesperson in the same geographic territory? Will customers accept multiple contact from the same vendor, each representing a different product or service? Can a salesperson afford to specialize and still cover all the accounts assigned? In how many different areas can a salesperson become expert?
By analyzing the very different options that the best sales companies selected, and the rationale and effectiveness of the solution, we can establish a more comprehensive set of criteria that essentially documents the "technology" of market segmentation. The same is true for each of the other seven benchmark areas. Now, rather than intuit or deduce a solution based on previous and perhaps inappropriate experience, informed sales and corporate executives can apply established guidelines that help analyze and prioritize the options evaluated. The best sales practice companies in aggregate provide a manual of best practice options and appropriate application criteria.
Report Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
METHODOLOGY
PHASE I EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
BEST PRACTICES
Establishing a Customer-Driven Culture
Market Segmentation
Market Adaptability
Information Technology
Sales, Service and Technical Support Systems
Customer Feedback and Measuring Customer Satisfaction
Recruiting and Selecting Salespeople
Training and development
COMPANY AND ORGANIZATION OPERATING PROCESSES
Allegiance Healthcare Corporation
AT&T Middle Market
Boise Cascade Office Products
GE Industrial Control Systems
IBM Corporation
SALES METRICS
Overview
Benchmarking Sales Metrics Tables
Benchmarking Sales Metrics Letter
Benchmarking Sales Metrics Procedural Legend
APPENDICES
Benchmark Interview
Interviewed Participants
Interviewed Participants by Industry
Hardbound; 155 pages
Study 2 has been revised as
The Customer-Selected World Class Sales Excellence
Ten Year Research Report
Back to World Class Sales main page
|
