Why Do Sales Teams Struggle to Get Consistent Results?
Many sales managers and executives treat sales as an inscrutable art and salespeople as mini-CEO’s of their own businesses, focusing only on the results each seller gets, rather than the processes they use and their overall impact on the company.
As a result, the team’s sales tools and processes are often inconsistent, underdeveloped, and/or nonexistent. With this foundation missing, these sales leaders struggle to get predictable, intentional results from their teams.
Consider some of the issues that arise from this approach. Does any of the following sound familiar?
Many sales managers and executives treat sales as an inscrutable art and salespeople as mini-CEO’s of their own businesses, focusing only on the results each seller gets, rather than the processes they use and their overall impact on the company.
As a result, the team’s sales tools and processes are often inconsistent, underdeveloped, and/or nonexistent. With this foundation missing, these sales leaders struggle to get predictable, intentional results from their teams.
Consider some of the issues that arise from this approach. Does any of the following sound familiar?
- You know there should be some consistency in your team’s sales process, but you’re not sure what it should entail or how to create it.
- You’ve seen best practices utilized in other organizations and recognize they’re missing in your team, but you don’t know how to implement them.
- You recognize that tools like CRM systems could help streamline communications and create some of the missing consistency, but you’ve also heard that 75% of CRM implementations fail, so you hesitate to invest in one.
- Your margins are slipping because your salespeople’s interests are not properly aligned with what brings profitability and success to your company. And no matter how much you explain the issues or adjust their commission plan, behavior doesn’t change.
- You feel the sting when top sales people exit the team and take their strategies and tools with them, leaving a definite hole in your organization’s knowledge base for sales success.
If you’re facing these kinds of issues, we’re here to help with sales consulting for recruiting, hiring, strategy management, and more.
With decades of on-the-ground experience, we can guide you and your team to overcome these common challenges and more with expert sales consulting. We’ll infuse your sales organization with strategy, alignment, and consistency while allowing your salespeople to do what they do best.
Our goal is to identify, customize, and implement the core components that will help your organization and the people in it achieve predictable sales success.
Build the Foundation
Although most sales leaders agree you shouldn’t take a knife to a gunfight, many still send out their salespeople with limited tools and incomplete processes. While some salespeople can have some success making it up as they go or developing their own tools, this limits both the individual and the organization.
Consistent, team-wide use of a sales process and tools that help uncover customer challenges and build your value proposition ensures that all of your salespeople can get better results while contributing to the organization’s long-term success.
Our sales consulting services utilize workshops guided by our experience in building hundreds of sales organizations to cull the best insights from your team and leadership. The end result is simple yet powerful documentation and implementation of best practices.
Conformed to You
Consultants sometimes get a bad reputation for swooping in with what appear to be great ideas and then exiting while the team is still grappling with how to apply them. We refuse to play that game! Until the process and tools are fully customized to your industry, company, and team, all we have is theory.
Not until we work together to perfectly align best practice principles with your unique target audience, your company culture, and your team’s specific abilities, can we begin the process of implementation.
And implementation is not complete until we are sure that the way we designed everything in the boardroom actually works on the ground.
The Value of Simplicity
While it is very important to cover all the details when putting together tools and processes for the sales team, the end results need to be simple in order to be effective. For example, take the principle that “compensation drives behavior.”
This can be true, but, if a compensation plan is too complex to be easily estimated by salespeople in the field at the time they are actually delivering estimates, then the plan is not actually affecting behavior.
The same can be said about a sales process that cannot be easily committed to memory or a sales tool that seems intimidating to use. Sometimes the hardest work is taking the complex and boiling it down to its essence. However, keeping things as simple as possible is the only way to bring real value.
Build the Foundation
Although most sales leaders agree you shouldn’t take a knife to a gunfight, many still send out their salespeople with limited tools and incomplete processes. While some salespeople can have some success making it up as they go or developing their own tools, this limits both the individual and the organization.
Consistent, team-wide use of a sales process and tools that help uncover customer challenges and build your value proposition ensures that all of your salespeople can get better results while contributing to the organization’s long-term success.
Our consulting services utilize workshops guided by our experience in building hundreds of sales organizations to cull the best insights from your team and leadership. The end result is simple yet powerful documentation and implementation of best practices.
Conformed to You
Consultants sometimes get a bad reputation for swooping in with what appear to be great ideas and then exiting while the team is still grappling with how to apply them. We refuse to play that game! Until the process and tools are fully customized to your industry, company, and team, all we have is theory.
Not until we work together to perfectly align best practice principles with your unique target audience, your company culture, and your team’s specific abilities, can we begin the process of implementation.
And sales consulting implementation is not complete until we are sure that the way we designed everything in the boardroom actually works on the ground.
The Value of Simplicity
While it is very important to cover all the details when putting together tools and processes for the sales team, the end results need to be simple in order to be effective. For example, take the principle that “compensation drives behavior.”
This can be true, but, if a compensation plan is too complex to be easily estimated by salespeople in the field at the time they are actually delivering estimates, then the plan is not actually affecting behavior.
The same can be said about a sales process that cannot be easily committed to memory or a sales tool that seems intimidating to use. Sometimes the hardest work is taking the complex and boiling it down to its essence. However, keeping things as simple as possible is the only way to bring real value.
Consulting Offerings
1. Organizational Structure Consulting
There is no such thing as a perfect salesperson, but there can be a best-fit salesperson for a specific role in a specific company. We help you determine where you may have the wrong person for a given role, or where you may be missing a role altogether that could be a key to sales turnaround. Together we decide what sales roles are needed and what the measurable responsibilities of each entail, and we sketch out a persona of the ideal person for the job.
1. Organizational Structure Consulting
There is no such thing as a perfect salesperson, but there can be a best-fit salesperson for a specific role in a specific company. We help you determine where you may have the wrong person for a given role, or where you may be missing a role altogether that could be a key to sales turnaround. Together we decide what sales roles are needed and what the measurable responsibilities of each entail, and we sketch out a persona of the ideal person for the job.
2. Compensation Consulting
An effective sales compensation system motivates the salesperson not only to get results, but to obtain them by using the processes and best practices established by the organization. We guide sales managers and executives in developing compensation plans that drive desired behaviors. Thus we ensure both individual success for team members and overall results for the company.
2. Compensation Consulting
An effective sales compensation system motivates the salesperson not only to get results, but to obtain them by using the processes and best practices established by the organization. We guide sales managers and executives in developing compensation plans that drive desired behaviors. Thus we ensure both individual success for team members and overall results for the company.
3. CRM Implementation
CRM can be a dirty word for salespeople—they often see it as an intrusive instrument that management uses to keep tabs on them. But with a thoughtful approach, salesperson buy-in is achievable, and CRM can be highly beneficial. With 15 years of experience starting and growing one of the largest CRM implementation companies in North America, Michael has seen first-hand what works and what leads to CRM investments failing. The key is understanding that the technology alone isn’t enough—the people who are meant to use it must be willing and able to do so. We’ll make sure that the human component of your CRM plan goes as smoothly as the tech side, so you get the high ROI you anticipate.
3. CRM Implementation
CRM can be a dirty word for salespeople—they often see it as an intrusive instrument that management uses to keep tabs on them. But with a thoughtful approach, salesperson buy-in is achievable, and CRM can be highly beneficial. With 15 years of experience starting and growing one of the largest CRM implementation companies in North America, Michael has seen first-hand what works and what leads to CRM investments failing. The key is understanding that the technology alone isn’t enough—the people who are meant to use it must be willing and able to do so. We’ll make sure that the human component of your CRM plan goes as smoothly as the tech side, so you get the high ROI you anticipate.
4. Sales Process Consulting
Using our Client Builder Sales™ system as a foundation, we help you create a highly customized, detailed sales process that puts your whole team on the same page about how to develop a sale. Including steps, procedures, definitions, gates, and references to tools and aids for specific stages, the process fits on a single page for easy reference. Like a pilot’s checklist, the sales process document helps salespeople and managers track the progress and true status of a sale, maximizing the success of closing each deal.
4. Sales Process Consulting
Using our Client Builder Sales™ system as a foundation, we help you create a highly customized, detailed sales process that puts your whole team on the same page about how to develop a sale. Including steps, procedures, definitions, gates, and references to tools and aids for specific stages, the process fits on a single page for easy reference. Like a pilot’s checklist, the sales process document helps salespeople and managers track the progress and true status of a sale, maximizing the success of closing each deal.
5. Sales Go-to-Market Strategy Consulting
Supporting an optimized Sales Process, a well-honed Sales Strategy guides the development of key tools and best practices that sales teams will use in their daily activities. For example, we create an ideal client profile and determine the methods to reach and address that audience. We articulate the unique value proposition that will entice them, and we position it against the competition. We identify potential objections and the best practices to overcome them. The list of deliverables goes on. As the source of all the processes and tools your team will utilize for generating strong, predictable results, your go-to-market strategy comprises the quintessential sales asset.
5. Sales Go-to-Market Strategy Consulting
Supporting an optimized Sales Process, a well-honed Sales Strategy guides the development of key tools and best practices that sales teams will use in their daily activities. For example, we create an ideal client profile and determine the methods to reach and address that audience. We articulate the unique value proposition that will entice them, and we position it against the competition. We identify potential objections and the best practices to overcome them. The list of deliverables goes on. As the source of all the processes and tools your team will utilize for generating strong, predictable results, your go-to-market strategy comprises the quintessential sales asset.
Michael Andersen’s new book, A Culture of Predictable Sales: One Sales Manager’s Journey, offers an entertaining and insightful overview of key concepts from our Intentional Sales Management™ training system. Written in novel form with easy-to-digest takeaway sections for each chapter, the book illuminates sales management best practices by showing them at play within relatable contexts.
Additionally, we offer a collection of courses and tools, as well as a growing, curated library of free resources all designed to help sales professionals grow and succeed, with practical insights, methods, and best practices they can use immediately to improve their results.
Michael Andersen’s new book, A Culture of Predictable Sales: One Sales Manager’s Journey, offers an entertaining and insightful overview of key concepts from our Intentional Sales Management training system. Written in novel form with easy-to-digest takeaway sections for each chapter, the book illuminates sales management best practices by showing them at play within relatable contexts.
Additionally, we offer a collection of courses and tools, as well as a growing, curated library of free resources all designed to help sales professionals grow and succeed, with practical insights, methods, and best practices they can use immediately to improve their results.
Ways to Ignite Your Sales
Sales Assessments
Identify strengths and key opportunities of your sales team and organization.
Sales Assessments
Identify strengths and key opportunities of your sales team and organization.