Listen to the Voices In Your Head: It's Your Customer

Is that little voice in your head telling you something? Maybe you should listen.

I am not talking about the voices who tell you that you are really and alien prince or that you want to be a vampire and spend your life playing ball with Edward….

I am talking about the little voice that comes over your headset when you are doing monitoring with your reps. It’s the customer and he’s telling you something.

We all do monitoring, although not nearly enough. Most of the time it is to help coach reps on how to improve their calling techniques. We focus on openings. Did they get past the gate keeper? Did they talk too much about features and not benefits? Did they advance the process forward or just let it languish? This is great, but don’t miss the opportunity to hear what your customers are telling you.

Take time to listen to the customer. Listen to a series of calls on a campaign or call blitz and don’t listen for the rep, but listen to the customer. Is he telling you that cash is tight and there is no budget? Did he tell you that if he could only reduce the time it takes for raw materials and components to become shipped goods by 10 percent he’d be a hero?

Did the customer give you hints about how he perceives your product or service? Is it as a commodity: He knows what he wants and what he should pay? Or, does he need you to help him understand what he needs and what it will cost? Is he telling you something about your competition or lack thereof?

All this is great information, but what do you do with it. I suggest a three stage approach.

First, just start listening to calls yourself or with your team leads. Weed out the good, the bad and the ugly. Figure out what information is helpful and what is just customer rantings. Try some small tests with your team in a controlled environment to see what happens.

Take it to the next level: Build a process. It doesn’t need to be a complicated 5 level Visio document supported by a $100K software implementation. A simple one that gathers specific information and shares it with key stakeholders is most effective. It should be repeatable and adjustable.

For example, at my previous company one of my top Sales Managers led a weekly review with the Demand Gen and Marketing teams of key calls relating to the campaigns that were in play. It was scheduled for every Wednesday at a specific time. The manager prepared a set of 5 to 10 calls they could listen to and the team reviewed them and discussed the implications to messaging strategy, offers and potential next steps. The result was a drastic improvement in quality of campaigns, campaign messaging and alignment around goals and objectives.

Third step: add more structure by looking at what specific elements you want to review. Week 1 could be competitive information: Week 2 offers; Week 3 messaging. Invite the stakeholders from marketing, vendor management, demand gen or vendors themselves, to help improve calls and messaging. Make sure that stakeholders have accountability for improving something and bringing something to the table. There can be no passive players. Marketing should come with specific questions around messaging: Demand Gen Services about tactics and vendor management about the quality of leads adherence to BANT. Everyone is an owner, no benchwarmers.

I strongly recommend linking it to any learning plans or systematic improvement initiatives you might have in place. Have a road map and direction in mind and use these reviews as a check of progress. Document progress and share with other organizations to replicate the best practices.

Now what? Get started. Take the initiative and have a pizza lunch to listen to calls. Learn about what those little voices are trying to tell you and build a systematic way to share it with your colleagues. No one will think you are crazy for listening to voices – you may even become and evil genius customer advocate!!!!

The 4 M’s Monitor, Motivate, Mentor or Manage

What will you do this week to help someone on your team move forward? Remember the 4 M’s: Monitor, Motivate, Mentor or Manage.
Monitor someone on the team and decide if they need to be motivated, mentored or managed. If they lack the will, see if you can motivate them with coaching.
If it is a skill issue, perhaps some mentoring from you or a team leader will help. If you chose a leader, make sure you have identified the behaviors you want to encourage and that the “mentor” has them. Talk with the mentor so they know what you expect and hook them both up.
If neither mentoring/training or motivation will work, then you may need to manage the person. Have a candid conversation about where they stand and what needs to happen. You must also be clear about the consequences of not performing. You may find the other person knows they aren’t a fit and you can come to some agreement on a amicable parting.So, what will it be this week, manage, motivate or mentor

Lost on the Road to Tele Success

Imagine you are driving on I10 doing 75 mph (alright really 85 to 90). You have plenty of fuel and you are making good time having not stopped for even one bathroom break in over 3 hours. But, you have a sneaking suspicion all is not right. You see a sign up ahead that says “Los Angeles 100 miles”. You curse yourself because you really wanted to go to San Diego a few hundred miles south.

Everything was going so smoothly. What could have happened?

You either didn’t have a map (Plan) or more likely haven’t been checking it along the way.
So often, organizations create exhaustive upfront plans that include waterfall charts, time lines, and milestones that are reviewed with senior management and executed to every detail. And, over the first six months strict adherence is paid to the plan and milestones. Then something happens.

Our teams hit quota and 70 percent of the sales reps hit their targets. Quotas are raised. The team buckles down and overachieves. The next year rolls around and again, the quotas are set and the team is driving towards them. Everyone is happy….

Except, E:R is above target and your are still not achieving the volume and velocity model you needed. Your lead sources are unclear and you have a consistent feeling the “incremental” revenue, really isn’t.

The answer: consult the map. Go back to your original plan and determine if you are meeting the milestones you set for yourself. Ask yourself a few questions around these areas.

Financials:
· Has the really field shifted lower complexity transactions to the Inside Sales team?
· Have you eliminated double compensation for field and inside sales or balanced it so each one is doing what he is supposed to?
· Are you still using the same systems and sales processes that the field uses in an effort to “Consolidate”? Most sales processes weren’t designed for volume and velocity.
· Are you still hiring at the original higher salaries or have you scaled back as intended? (Often teams will hire on the high side initially to get seasoned talent and scale back later)

Routes to Market (or as I like to say customer route to company XYZ)
· Who owns what customers?
· Who manages partners? And, what is the role of Inside Sales in supporting them?
· Are there products/markets that are exclusively tele or have you failed to get there yet?
· Are the inside sales teams still qualifying leads and handing off to the field?
· What is the appropriate balance of cold calling, lead qualification and selling?


Organization
· Where does your tele team report?
· Have you established it as a separate channel? Or, is it still sitting in the Strategy or Operations team that was designed to be the incubator organization?
· Is it in marketing and focused on leads?
· Is it in sales and taking direction from the regional sales teams and thus not achieving the economies of scale and flexibility you intended?
· Are you top heavy and haven’t achieved the span of control you expected? Or vice versa, to maintain costs the managers have too many direct reports and can’t spend enough time monitoring, mentoring and managing?
· Is Inside Sales really turning into your “farm team”? Is there a career path for ISE’s to the field?

Answers to these questions will provide you with some insights around where your opportunities lie. But more importantly, by examining these areas you will be forced to revisit your original business plan. Then take the following steps:

1. Diagnose where you went off track and why. Focus on determining the crucial few behaviors and influencers of those behaviors
2. Re-evaluate your Tele Business and Strategy plan and update it to reflect current situation
3. Re-engage your change management process and ensure your key stakeholders are aligned and remain committed.
4. Create a learning plan/map and determine the two or three key goals you want to achieve (outside hitting revenue target) and use the plan to drive a systematic improvement process with specific measures of success, timelines and milestones
5. Set up reward and recognition systems and management processes that reinforce desired behaviors and outcomes
6. Hold regular reviews of strategy and direction to ensure you remain on the road to success

By executing these simple steps you can focus your energies on the things that really matter and drive the results you wanted to achieve. Like the driver who missed his exit on the way to San Diego you can now get back on track and reach your destination on the “Road to Tele Success”.