Monthly Archives: November 2011

Business Intelligence – How Sales Leaders WIN with CRM Data

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Business leaders find their CRM system filling with data, especially if sales reps use a voice-based CRM data entry system to report all sales meeting information. Many of these busy leaders are overwhelmed with the volume of data and wonder how to get any value from them. When based on a voice-based data gathering practice, CRM systems can be tremendously valuable tools for gathering current, accurate, and timely information. However, the problem remains for the sales leader: “What do I do with it? How can I use it? I don’t have time to read it all and try to make sense of it. What good is any more information?”

For many, the solution is neither less information nor a shift from explanation to numbers or short notes or tweets or smart phones and tablets. They need intelligent explanatory (textual) information.

What is needed is a simple analytical step. The analytical step outlined below is what sales leaders are searching for, and it makes all of the difference in the value of CRM information.

Prepare the Sales Team. First, focus yourself and your team on just three subjects: Product, Pricing, and Competition. We have found that focusing intently on these three subjects is “sufficient” to get a reliable and valid picture what is going on in the competitive sales environment. Along with other activity-oriented information they usually give, ask the sales reps to speak briefly to these three subjects in every sales call. What is said or what do you observe concerning our PRODUCTS? PRICING? COMPETITION?

Build the Sales Team and Report. Now, devote 30 minutes in your weekly sales meeting to an open discussion of the findings on these three subjects. This is a natural sharing activity that involves everyone and has the high energy of a typical brainstorming activity. (The analytics and reporting involved here can be automated with systems like SalesKinect.)

Sales reps come to the sales meeting with paragraphs from their reports over the month with noteworthy information, where there is an open discussion of them. A listing, then, is made of the 10 Top issues or observations distilled from everyone’s reports for the week (using flip chart or computer w/ projector). This is a tremendously valuable learning/training exercise for the sales reps in learning with and from you as to what to look for and how to report what they find as ways to increase their effectiveness and increase their sales.

These Top 10 items are then prepared into a short (email) report that is given to senior management (CEO, Marketing (business development), Product Development, Customer Services, Finance, etc.). Watching these lists over time is an incredibly informative view of the progressive development of the sales organization capability and performance.

Based on an efficient voice-based CRM data entry system, this analytical activity is simple to understand and natural to implement, with a few minutes eliminating the hours of worry, frustration, and distress associated with dealing with the deluge of information continuously building up in the CRM system.

Current, Accurate, Timely Information Ensures Good Decisions

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When good information is scarce, all of the worst biases and bad influences destroy the value of information and its use in general. Excessive egos, nasty politics, hidden agenda, false inferences drawn from unsupportable assertions – there are many forces for destruction of data validity out there, and without current, accurate, and timely information flowing into the system, all of these destructive forces are activated.

All thinking is situated in the power environment in which it takes place. Those who have the power control the conversation. If an organization is to have a vibrant, robust, and uplifting capability, the negative forces that come from an “information poor” or “information starved” environment must be managed away.

Here is a very insightful comment about “negative information cascades” made by a man who studies crowds and decision making:

“… ‘negative information cascades’ are kept going by people valuing public information more highly than their private information…. In a cascade, peoples’ decisions are not made independently, but are profoundly influenced – in some cases even determined – by those around them, … The cascade becomes a sequence of uninformed choices [based on social influence and greed not fact], so that collectively [as the numbers of participants merely imitating others increases] the group ends up making a bad decision.” Surowiecki (2004). The Wisdom of Crowds, 55-61.

The value of a simple and fast voice-based sales reporting system cannot be overemphasized as a correcting force against these “negative information cascades.” Continuous, immediate, complete information from sales reps from their work in the field, on the ground, is critical for correct understanding, sound decision making, and effective action. Every rep, every meeting, all of the details called into the system immediately following the activity. Everyone has the information, everyone then feeds back and wonderful “virtuous cycles” blossom. The sales rep is the POINT of organizational contact with customers, the marketplace, competitors, industry peers, academic leaders, politicians, and many others, so their feedback is the life blood to any organization. An assumed part of their job is robust communication back to the organization.

We cannot believe that some organizations do not require their sales reps to report their meeting and travel experience information. We sometimes ask, “If your top sales person (revenue generator) does not report his work, would you fire him/her?” If the answer is no, then we have an organizational environment at great risk. What if the sales rep walks one day? What if a major account is in trouble and the ego of the rep is keeping him/her from saying anything about it to management or others who could help? What is the sales rep seeing as far as the competition goes, with innovation and creative new products into the marketplace? The questions of danger and risk go on and on. This is a major warning sign. When management values short term revenue more than long term organizational vitality, they are on the path to destruction. When the economy is good and revenues are easy and ample, sloppy management of the sales rep asset is hidden; however, when the economy turns down and the guts of the organization are exposed, heaven help the organization whose revenues are built on one sales rep who will not share information and communicate! Information Starved!

A Grammar and Spelling Caution for Sales Reps

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Looking like a professional, educated person is important in sales, as we try to make a good impression on our customers and potential customers. The way we look, the cars we drive, the watches and other accessories we wear or carry, having clean teeth and hands, having our phones and computers the lastest and the best – many things mark us as people to include and trust with important and costly transactions.

A very quick way, however, to betray casualness towards this professional image is incorrect grammar and spelling mistakes. In reports, quotes, audits, emails, memos, letters, and many other kinds of correspondence and communication, the sales rep exhibits his/her attention to the common code of language accuracy that we all expect in professional business. These errors do not show up in spoken language, usually, but when the sales rep has to write the errors jump out with neon coloring.

Misspelling “their/they’re/there” is a very common error for sales reps who aren’t paying attention. The spell checker will not help because all of these words can be spelled correctly and be the wrong word for the usage. The spell checker, thank heaven, will not allow us to misspell “receive,” a sure marker of ignorance of acceptable language competence. We cannot err in our use of “it’s/its,” “sight/site/cite,” “number/amount,” “can/may,” “affect/effect,” “principle/principal,” and commas in joining and separating standard “coordinate/subordinate” clauses.

Why should a sales rep care? Why should a sales rep who did not pay attention in high school and college English classes go back now to figure these things out and learn them?

In the book In Search of Excellence of years ago, Tom Peters gives this interesting situation. You are sitting on the airplane and you pull your tray table down in front of you. On the tray table are coffee stains, the remains of food of various kinds, and other unpleasant and uncleaned leavings. The mind at that moment has the tendency to jump and say, “If the tray tables haven’t been taken care of, I wonder if the Captain is competent and if the airplane is operating properly.” In other words, when we see a small mistake, our minds jump to the potential for much larger mistakes, putting doubt in our minds that was not there before.

Will a sales rep misspelling a word lose a contract? It very well might. Will a sales rep using “principle” for “principal” in a proposal make a difference in the decision? Yes, it very well might. We expect educated people who profess professionalism to be up to that standard in all that they do – even language. Some people at the senior management level, who are often the ones making decisions and reading proposals, care far more about these things than most sales reps can imagine. Perhaps it is time for some sales reps to realize that these details are part of the professional image.

‘Questions Chains’ – The Key to CRM Analytics

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One of the most powerful means a sales rep has to make sense of anything is to ask questions – lots of questions. Using what are called QUESTION CHAINS, one question after another to understand or analyze or expose, is a very powerful means to gain understanding and clarity.

One writer says of the Socratic Method, “The Socratic method of philosophical inquiry thrives on the question. They never run out of questions, or out of new ways to question.” Questioning is at the heart of analytics – analyzing what is happening and why.
Questioning is a method of inquiry open to all of us because our minds take to it naturally – we know how to ask questions to get answers. In sales work, the use of a simple and fast voice-based sales reporting system is a powerful way to seek understanding and to share the details of inquiry with others, so they join in the seeking of understanding. When a sales rep talks through a situation by asking and answering questions in his/her sales report, then his/her manager and others in reading the report participate in the inquiry and can help form the solutions. This is CRM analytics at its very best!

Notice how natural questions come in chains to the human mind –

Why did that happen?
Were you involved?
Who are the key players and their names, titles, and companies?
What, exactly and in detail, happened?
What is the chain of events that transpired?
What are the parties proposing as the solution?
What are the “gives and takes” involved for each party?

Or, consider this chain of questions –

When did our client first begin using the competitor product?
Did you know about it?
How good is our contract?
When did you first notice competitor products on the shelf?
What did you do?
What did the customer say?
What happened then?
What is the competitor doing or saying about our contract?

Speak in all of the questions and answers to the voice-based sales reporting system, so all of that information is recorded and entered into the CRM database for the reading and responding of others who have a stake in the solutions. This form of analytical information sharing was one of the main reasons CRM was developed in the first place – seeking ways (the analytics) to improve and manage customer relations.

‘Thinking Out Loud’ – How Talking Helps Make Sense of Things

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We often hear the suggestion, when someone has a difficult task or is troubled with something, “Talk to me. Let me hear what it is you are thinking. Maybe just talking about it will help. Talk it out.”

Talking as a way of thinking is a common and proven way to work out a problem or a task in the mind. We often seek a friend or a colleague, a family member or a mentor to talk to when we need to think out loud and, thereby, hear what it is that is trying to form in our minds. One psychologist said that, if you just stand someone near a post and tell them to talk to it and explain to it the issues, it helps tremendously in working the things in the mind out and into understandable form. Of course, talking to another human is much better (invaluable feedback).

We sometimes talk about “explicit” information, the kind that is easily spoken or written, that makes good sense, and comes out of our minds easily. This is the kind of information that is very comfortable for us to talk about and explain. It makes good sense to us. On the other hand, we also talk about “implicit” information, the kind that is forming in our minds, the kind that is unstructured and unformed. These are feelings, impressions, instinctual reactions, and perceptions that are not easily articulated and made good sense of. These are the ones we struggle to express, the ones that we try to say one way, stop, try another way, stop, and then go at it another way. Sometimes expressing “implicit” information is very frustrating. Finally, and especially if a friend will help by restating or rephrasing the ideas in different ways, we begin to get the “implicit” information to transition into “explicit” information where it is understandable and easily expressible.

Some people like to walk when they talk as they think things through. They Talk-Walk. We hear often of poets and writers, of philosophers and administrators who walk by themselves and talk to themselves, around and around the block, up and down the stairs, up and down the long hall way. Sometimes they do this with a friend or while walking or jogging. Also, some people like to draw when they are trying to think. They Talk-Draw. They draw diagrams, pictures, charts, doodles, mockups, and other sorts of free flow art as they talk to themselves. Often walking or drawing as a complement to talking is very powerful in getting “implicit” information to form such that it can be “explicitly” stated to others.

A simple voice-based sales planning and reporting system, where a person can talk out the planning information as best as he/she can at the moment, get the information transcribed quickly and back, and then when reading it, start talking again and recording it. This process of talking/recording, reading, talking/recording again, reading, and then doing it again is one of the most powerful ways to cause the mind to come to see what is trying to be expressed and to form the “implicit” into a “explicit” communication. It is a great way to prepare an important presentation or to think through a difficulty with an important customer or challenge from a competitor.

The voice and the ears form a powerful thinking tool.

Voice-Based Sales Communication – the ‘See-All Drone’ in the Competitive Marketplace Sky

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Up high, above all of problems of typical organizations as they struggle to know “what is going on out there,” the voice-based sales communication ‘See-All Drone’ (the sales team) perceives what is happening in the marketplace with pricing, products, and competition. It sees it all and then reports the strategic information back to organization management for proper understanding, good decision making, and decisive action.

Just as with military drones and the power of the ‘See-All Drones’ in the sky that have such strategic value for the battlespace leaders, so too, in the business and marketplace environment, the sales team, using a voice-based sales communication system, sees and reports to organization management the critical strategic information they encounter “out there” on the ground – feet on the street information.

For the first time in business (a dream and goal sought by all buyers of CRM software), (1) the needs of organization management can be communicated directly to the front-line sales team (like the ‘See-All Drones’), in clarity and with specifics, and (2) the sales team (seeing everything from their specific perspective) can, therefore, go out into the marketplace on a mission, with specific objectives (specifically regarding pricing, products, and competition), meeting with customers, watching competitor actions, sensing customer interests in things new and different – and reporting back to organization management what they see immediately – accurate, complete, and timely communication of strategic information. A strategic, voice-based sales communication system has strong double feedback loops running between organization management and the sales team, which encourages “virtuous cycles” of ever-increasing proper understanding, good decision making, and decisive action.

The Essential Paper Trail – When Sales Reporting Wins the Day!

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Often the sales reporting needed is not merely to keep track of activity or to make short notes; very often what is needed is more extensive and explanatory discussion and description of occurrences with long-term consequences. Yes, the sales rep visited the client on a certain day, they talked about these two products, and this was the immediate follow-up step. But now, three months later, we are having problems and we need to know what else was talked about in that meeting. With no documentation, all we have is “he said, she said” and a lot of hot air and bad feelings, perhaps even litigation.

Voice-based sales reporting, because it is simple and fast, in a few minutes can document accurately and completely the entire 360-degree range of the information discussed in a meeting. Thus, such a report becomes part of the “fact pattern” or “paper trail” of a sequence of events. Such a fact pattern establishes, from the sales rep’s point of view, what exactly happened such that future discussions and additional reports can build on the basic facts of this event.

Consider situations in meetings such as these, where voice-based sales reporting can make all of the difference between “noise” and “fact”:

- Meetings where promises are made, where commitments are agreed to.
- Moments in meetings where decisions are agreed upon, with the language of those agreements spoken into the report and documented.
- Discussions where differing perceptions are noted and discussed – and documented, with the names of the perception holders given and the nuances of the differences noted.
- Specific moments where disagreements arise, with their causes, the position advocates, and the potential areas of agreement or decisive disagreement noted.
- Moments when calendars come out and schedules are discussed and agreed upon, with all of the agreed upon schedule events and participants noted.
- Discussions of “next steps” and “action items,” with the exact nature of those steps spoken into the voice-based reporting system and, therefore, entered into the formal report.
- Summaries of issues discussed during the meeting, with as much detail as possible to identify each one.

The sales rep takes good notes during the meeting, and then, immediately after, as soon as he/she can find a quiet place and good cell, he/she calls into the voice-based reporting system and speaks in the textual information in detail from the notes. A 3-5 minute call, with information spoken, is the equivalent of 60-120 minutes of keyboarding/writing, and (1) we actually get the detailed information rather than having it lost through reporting procrastination, and (2) the sales rep now has that task off his/her shoulders and is free to put his/her mind to other things. The essential paper trail is now laid for this event and this documentation is an essential “fact” in all future discussions.

Talk it! The Strategic Benefits of Quick-Start Sales Reporting

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Quick! Immediately! Just as soon as possible! Right now! One of the most significant benefits of a voice-based sales communication system is the capturing of EXPLANATORY information. Often, if a sales rep has to type his or her sales reports, the activity is delayed, procrastinated, put off, sometimes for hours, sometimes for days.

When a lot of other activity, with a lot of additional information, comes between the moment of the sales meeting and the reporting of the information, most of the QUALITATIVE information is lost – the feelings, impressions, insights, perceptions, random or gut realizations that occurred during the meeting. Hours later, days later, mostly under duress and with very negative feelings, the person just accounts for the basics of the activity and forgets the rest. Often these oppressive reports are typed in the hotel room, at night in the office, or over the weekend – a tremendous loss of quality time for hobbies, golf, family, and other rejuvenating and personally rewarding activity.

This loss of explanatory, background, and contextual information about a customer and a customer face-to-face meeting is tragic for strategic thinking for the many managers and leaders in the organization who could benefit from knowing. What are the customers saying about our products? How does our quality compare to that of our competitors? How about our pricing, are our competitors working out deals, are our customers looking off-shore or on the gray market instead of buying from us? What impressions and feelings are you getting regarding the buying interests and longer term plans of our customers? Are our competitors involved in our customers’ planning? What are you hearing about potential projects that might involve us? Why are customer buying numbers up or down?

CRM that only tracks activity is a terrible waste of sales people, software investments, and management/leadership time. The only thing more terribly wasteful is an organization that does not even demand that its sales people report at all (very poor-to-no user adoption!) – “the tail is wagging the dog!” A sales team that reports quickly and regularly, that uses a voice-based sales communication system to make sure it is easy and fast to record explanatory or qualitative information will feed a stream of current, accurate, and complete strategic knowledge to organization leaders to strengthen competitive understanding, wise decision making, and decisive action.

ISN’T THAT WHAT EVERYONE IS SPENDING ALL OF THAT MONEY ON CRM TO GET?

The Winning Skill for New Sales Reps

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As with many things, sales is a matter of getting started right. It is a matter of learning very early on what skills or competencies make the biggest difference in career growth and success.

Consider laying carpet, for instance. After learning all about the preparation, the most important thing to learn for implementation is how to set a “starting corner.” How to get the carpet straight to the room and tacked down, so all of the subsequent installation is correct. One person has said, “Improper carpet installation can bedevil facility managers for years. Getting a carpet installation project right from the very beginning is the foundation for long carpet life.” Sloppy, crooked, imprecise beginning work “bedevils” the entire operation. Likewise, sloppy, crooked, imprecise sales tool learning and acquisition results in a short sales career or a lifetime of fighting against bad information and skills.

Also, consider ship building and laying the keel. As Wikipedia tells us, “The importance and integrity of the keel was understood by the ancients….Nowadays, laying the keel is the first milestone in the history of a vessel….The keel is the structural beam around which the hull is built. The keel acts as the spine of the ship, keeping it upright by providing ballast to counteract the lateral forces on the sail from the wind, and generating lift to “convert the sideways motion of the wind when it is abeam into forward motion. A ship won’t sail upright or straightforwardly unless it has a proper keel.” Too many sales people lay no keel – they just start at random to grunge together a career. They don’t stop to lay a proper keel for their work.

And what is the very best “starting corner” or “keel” for a new sales person? Voice-based reporting skill and absolute commitment to good communication.– Voice-based reporting is simple and fast. It allows a person to be accurate and complete. And it enables a person to be timely and constant in reporting. A conscientious, voice-reporting professional keeps colleagues and leaders and customers informed. He or she keeps track of promises and commitments and documents the keeping of them. He or she learns the very best uses of CRM tools and new hardware advances and stays on top of what is most practical and useful.

Most of all, everyone around this person learns to trust and rely on him or her to know what is going on, to have the proper paper trail of events and discussions, decisions and commitments to keep everyone moving forward properly. This is the person who has the skill to be a great manager and executive because through simple voice-based reporting this person, and those around him or her who are also committed to communication, know what is going on and have trustworthy information upon which to base understandings, decisions, and actions.