Sales Blog with Sales Tips

In some of my earlier sales tips blog posts I’ve referred to the media (i.e. press) as “psychological competitors” to sales professionals. Unfortunately, they haven’t stopped their nonsense in order to garner more viewers and readers.

What the media continue to do is paint an abysmal picture of the world. The sky is always falling.

If we’re not careful, this can demotivate us – consciously or unconsciously – as sales professionals.

Setup To An Example
The best way for me to demonstrate why we must listen critically to what we hear from the media is to examine a current example of their reporting.

I’m going to use the BP oil spill disaster (i.e. Deepwater Horizon, gulf oil spill) as my example.

Please understand that I share in everyone’s frustration and sadness regarding the loss of life and the impact this is having on the people and businesses of the gulf coast states. The environmental impact alone is devastating. There is no question BP should compensate the victims and conduct an environmental cleanup.

But let’s look more closely at what the press is choosing not to cover about this story.

An Inconvenient Other-Side-Of-The-Story
I was recently talking to an independent petroleum engineer and asked him what he thought of the BP oil spill. He has 32 years of experience in his field. He started to rattle off facts about the spill I had never heard from any media source. I was completely intrigued and started taking notes.

See how many of these you’ve heard from the press:

• The BP oil spill may not end up as the worst oil spill the Gulf of Mexico has experienced. In 1979, the undersea Ixtoc 1 oil well in the Gulf of Mexico blew out. Mexico’s government-owned oil company, Pemex, was managing the well.

• Ixtoc 1’s initial flow rate was comparable to the BP oil spill flow rate. The significant difference between these two wells is that Ixtoc 1 spewed oil for 10 months before finally being stopped. The BP oil spill has been flowing for about two months and should be completely stopped by August with the completion of the relief wells.  Relief wells are virtually 100% effective.

• Seawater is extremely toxic and is loaded with petroleum destroying bacteria, especially in the summer months. Oil oozes from the ocean floor naturally (i.e. no intervention from man) and this bacteria is what eliminates it before we see it. The bulk of Ixtoc 1’s cleanup was accomplished over time by this same natural process.

• There have been other oil spills in history that dwarf the size of the BP and Ixtoc 1 oil spills.

Sales Blog Conclusion
My concern is that the press is responsible for diminishing the motivation of many sales professionals. Of blinding them to possibilities. It’s hard not to listen to and internalize their siren song of universal catastrophe on every front.

They’re selling nothing but bad news and partial information; you’re selling something of value.

Don’t buy everything they’re selling.

Instead, focus on what you’re selling.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

Find a New Sales Job

There are only a few things that really matter to sales management. Let me present them in order of importance:

1. How much you’re selling (specifically, your last month/quarter).

2. The quantity and quality of what’s in your pipeline.

3. Your sales forecast.

Why Does The Sales Forecast Come In Last?
Conventional sales forecasting comes in last because we all know it’s a fairly worthless exercise. We also know it’s a bad habit the sales profession can’t seem to replace with something that works.

The TAS Group recently completed a survey of 200 companies that showed the average sales professional spends 2.5 hours per week on sales forecasting.

For the majority of companies in that study, their sales forecasts had an error rate of 25%+. Does it make sense for sales professionals to spend almost 11 hours per month on sales forecasting when the accuracy is less than 75%?

Why This Matters
Poor sales forecasting practices can negatively influence organizations in many ways:

• It wastes the sales professional’s time.
• There is no real feedback loop for sales professionals and their managers to prioritize and channel their efforts.
• Accurate allocation and planning of resources (e.g. sales support, operations, marketing) is compromised.
• Every sales professional’s forecast is moved upstream in the sales management food chain. His or her forecast is touched (i.e. manipulated) many times. The time wasted each month extends well beyond the time investment from just the sales force.

Is CRM (Customer Relationship Management) The Answer?
Large companies that use CRM systems list the ability to accurately forecast sales as number two on their wish list for their CRM software.  Isn’t this supposed to be a key functionality built into CRM systems?  I’m confused.

The TSA Group states that the majority of CRM companies don’t use their own software for sales forecasting. Sobering thought.

CRM, in its current form, is not getting the job done. It’s simply not seen as a provider of accurate sales forecasting.

How Things Might Be Improved
Organizations need to simplify their sales forecasting process. Most sales forecasting systems (CRM and non-CRM) put too much emphasis on the “who, when and why” instead of the “what and how.”

Sales management is frequently guilty of forgetting that the primary benefactor of a good sales forecasting process is the sales professional.

CRM providers need to start over. The complexity of these systems is beyond ridiculous. No sales professional (or anyone in sales management for that matter) is going to seriously deal with all the data entry, drop downs and radio buttons involved in these systems masquerading as forecasting tools.

I feel that dozens of people designed each of these systems and all of them got their way.

Most salespeople bang in the minimum amount of information the CRM system requires and quickly move on to something important – like selling. The information coming out of the CRM system is unreliable as a result.

Sales Tips Conclusion
Sales forecasting is important in sales. I’m surprised that most sales organizations still operate without the accurate metrics they need.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

Let’s face it; most of us hear what we want to hear and see what we want to see. In sales, this can be a killer.

There are some not-so-nice aspects of sales that we have to manage – or they will manage us.

Below are six of the more important ones. Give yourself a self-examination. Are you aware of and managing these realities? They are presented in no particular order.

Reality #1
Your competitors are calling on your accounts. The intensity of their activity has a 100% positive correlation to how valuable the account is to you and your company.

Don’t lull yourself into thinking your great relationships within your top accounts represent some kind of absolute shield from competitive inroads.

Reality #2
For a million different reasons, sales professionals have shorter tenures at their employers than other professionals. Don’t see your current sales job as a “permanent” position. This will cause you to get sloppy with your customers and your career.

Make “sales” your job. Be a student of the sales profession.

Reality #3
Organization, reporting, dress, office politics, etc. are factors in your success as a sales professional. However, compared to how you’re performing against your sales budget, these things are meaningless to sales management.

Reality #3a
I’m calling this “Reality #3a” because it is a corollary of #3.

Sales leaders have their own sales budget they’re aiming for. It’s always higher than the one they’ve been assigned.

Reality #4
When it comes to specific customers and prospects, your sales manager may not be providing the best sales tips.

Since sales managers don’t know your customers like you do, they will sometimes unknowingly ask you to do things that move you backwards in an account.

It’s your responsibility to be pilot-in-command of your customers. Don’t mindlessly do things that don’t make sense.

Reality #5
Stop prospecting and you’ll eventually wither away and die – or be killed by your employer. Customer attrition is a certainty for every sales professional.

Reality #6
The best predictor of future sales is how full your pipeline is. Sales forecasting has been shown over multiple studies – and in my own experience – to be nothing better than a well-dressed guesstimate.

The quantity of quality prospects you have in your funnel is your best indicator of future sales.

Sales Tips Blog Conclusion
Everyone is born with fully developed skills in the area of selective observation.

It’s foolish to be blindsided by something you know exists.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer