The Day I Knew I Was Committed to Management Processes

by Michael W. Lodato, Ph.D.

One July day in the mid 1980s, after I had been consulting for about five years, I got a call from Roger, a fine executive for whom I had done several consulting engagements. Roger was Vice President of Sales for a banking software company.

His company was not meeting its sales goals. He asked that I put on a sales skills training program for his sales people. I had conducted many such programs for companies such as his.

Consultants can always use a little extra revenue, so I was tempted to do the program for him even though I knew it wasn't what he really needed. There was time to do something for him that would be much more effective and lasting.

I knew many of his salespeople. Their selling skills were fine, but a well-defined sales management process didn't guide their actions. They continued to fall short of their goals even though they had talent and experience. They were like players on a football team who could block and tackle but didn't have a formal game plan they all could follow.

In my mind, more training on blocking and tackling (sales skills training) wasn't what was needed. They needed a formal plan, a playbook if you will, for winning the game. These talented salespeople needed to define the events (sales steps) they take with prospects to move them to incremental levels of commitment to the point where they agree to buy the product. They needed a sales process.

So I was sure that sales skills training alone would not help enough. I had reached a conviction, long before that day, that the effectiveness of generic sales training dwindles day-by-day. To me, generic sales training is like mowing the lawn. When you have finished, it looks great, but in a couple of weeks you have to do it all over again. Motivational training is worse. It is like shaving, or putting on makeup. It too looks great, but you have to do it all over again tomorrow.

Nothing wrong with these types of training to keep the talents of the sales professionals sharp, but more was needed to focus the talents of the sales people to be able to win consistently.

So I told Roger that what he really needed to do was analyze why sales were lower than planned and develop and install a sales management process, a game plan that the salespeople could follow to fix the problem permanently. I said that sales skill training would be a quick fix, at best. His company wouldn't win consistently just because it had salespeople (players) with good skills. Consistently winning comes from superior strategy and tactics—from how the salespeople participate in sales events (plays) that are linked for success.

I told him that I could help him do this and, because I had done it so many times before and had basic templates to start from, we could complete the job in just three weeks. Salespeople would be left with a formal process to follow and importantly an understanding of why their sales efforts had improved.

What I had done, up to that point in my career, was simplify complex management processes by reducing them to well-defined tasks, guidebooks, forms, checklists and other tools. These templates were in a form that could easily be tailored to the markets, products and culture of a client. Since all companies have to play the game of sales, and all salespeople need to keep their talents in top form, having a sales process to follow allows them to leverage their strengths and take advantage of the competitors' weaknesses. Not having a process to follow puts them in a defensive position in competitive situations with little chance to win.

Once the process was defined, the salesperson training would be about the structure of the sales cycle, the specifics of each sales step, and how to move prospects to higher levels of commitment. Some reinforcement of sales skills would be included. They would know more precisely what to do as well as how to do it.

The resulting sales management process would give Roger a structure for providing them with the coaching they might need from time to time, just as a football coach would call the quarterback aside and tell him that the reason he is getting tackled on pass plays was because he wasn't staying in the pocket —because he wasn't following the play (step) the way it was designed. The sales management process would also shorten the duration of the sales cycle, which in turn would accelerate revenues, give Roger better visibility of the pipeline, give more accurate forecasts, and a host of other things.

Roger still insisted that I concentrate on sales skills training and said that if I wouldn't do that he would get another consultant to train his salespeople. I said that I just couldn't do something that I was convinced would not be as effective or lasting as implementing a sales management process and suggested that he have someone else do the training and let me know how it worked out. This was not as confrontational as it sounds. We both knew and respected each other. Someone else did the training and I worked on my golf game.

I sacrificed some consulting revenue for a principle and I felt good about it. I still feel good about it.

The rest of the story, (using a Paul Harvey phrase), is that Roger called me again right after the first of the year and said: "You were right, the training wasn't as effective as we had hoped and we ended up the year well behind plan. Let's do your process thing." It didn't take all that long to do the sales effectiveness audit and construct and install the sales management process. That next year, Roger's company did much better and continued to do so. From time to time, I hear from some of those salespeople, who may be working somewhere else, and they tell me: "I'm still using your stuff."

Think about it, it's the process isn't it?