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”.