Home | Login | Recent Changes | Search | All Pages | Help

CanWeDefineBehaviors

See StuartScott.

Can we define a profile of behaviors, motivations, and know-how that correlate to solution-selling success in our business? How can we measure these characteristics in a sales team, a management team, a services team? How can we move individuals and teams toward stronger profiles?

StuartScott 2004.06.11

I suggest that we assume that Stuart's company is sincere.

SteveSmith 2004.06.14

So assuming everyone is sincere, you need a common understanding of how the product works (or will work) and no promises made on the spot without internal consultation on the feasability. Can we reward the sales team for asking questions instead of for making sales? As long as you reward sales without ensuring that the solution works, you are encouraging empty promises. SherryHeinze 2004.06.14

So can we define pain/behaviour such that we can concretely measure these (& be universally acceptable)? Sounds a familiar problem right :-)

CherDevey 2004.06.15

• With whom does this person work?
• what activities and deliverables does this person do?
• In order to succeed at those activities and deliverables, are there qualities, preferences or skills that you've seen other successful people in that position exhibit? Some possibilities are: goal orientation, collaboration (or is independence necessary?) able to develop multiple alternatives, ability to persevere... I'm sure these are wrong, but I don't know what's right, because I don't know the activities and deliverables.

I've heard that effective salespeople solve a client's pain. I have no idea what that means in reality :-) -- JohannaRothman 2004.06.15

You've gone and done it now. Is there a difference between "sincere" and "helpful"? The helpful model says "No matter how it looks, everyone is trying to be helpbul". I was involved in technical sales ?25 years ago?, and believe this was true for me. Over the years, I've implemented all sorts of "helpful" systems. Some were even used (and are still being used).

I do like your question, "What is success? For whom?" There are so many possible answers.

The current yardstick for sales success is $$$. The difficulty is that technical products have long sales cycles, and generally require rapport between the salesperson and the client. Very hard to measure rapport.

DonGray 2004.06.15

Sometimes the best solution for the client, if I am really being sincere, is not to implement anything, or only something cheap and simple. If $$$ is the yardstick for success, I need to sell something expensive (or repestedly) to be successful. That's why I wonder what you can reward sales for other than number of sales or value of sales.

SherryHeinze 2004.06.15

As an external consultant my goal is what?s best for the client, subject to my boundaries. As Sherry says, that may mean proposing an inexpensive solution or recommending someone who can help them in ways I cannot.

Is this a success for my client? Hopefully.

Is this a success for me? Not if I, for example, define my success in terms of making enough money from a limited set of clients.

Stuart, I think we need to know more about whose success you're talking about, and how you define success to say more.

AdrianSegar 2004.06.15

Sure, a group somewhere in your organization can define those qualities. But is that an appropriate initiative?

I'm uncomfortable with defining people's behavior and especially their motivations. Whoever defines behavior and motivation needs to be omniscient. And I haven't met any group or person who has that quality.

I believe that every person bring unique behavior and motivation, which, if effectively managed, create a vibrant organization.

Perhaps a good starting point is to define successful solution-selling. The following is a list of elements of that definition that come to mind:

• Explore customer's predicaments with them, which requires complete rapport
• Transform predicaments into defined problems, which requires expert consultative skill
• Explore customer problems with them, which requires trust
• Agree on written definitions for the problems
• Agree on the value for solving a problem
• Propose a solution to the problem, which may already be defined
• Refine and agree on the solution
• Agree on expectations
• Close the business
• Manage risks throughout the implementation
• Book the revenue
• Review things that went well and things that didn't
• Share results with the other solution-selling teams

SteveSmith 2004.06.16

• when I started working fo a consulting firm several years ago, that company and at least some of the others had both sales people and account reps. Account reps were expected to understand both the client's business and the company's products / abilities. Now I usually only see sales people everywhere. Solution-selling would be better done by account reps.
• beware of places which have the problem, or worse yet the solution defined.
• use teams with mixed skill sets.

SherryHeinze 2004.06.16

I occasionally experience this. Often my clients help expand my skill set. If there isn't a good chance of success (happy ending for the client) I refer the work to someone else. Johanna talks about this in her article "Collaborating with Other Consultants". http://www.ayeconference.com/Articles/Collaborating.html I wonder if there's enough interest for a BoF ... DonGray 2004.06.16

I think anything that keeps coming back up (the Collaboration thread has entries for 2002 and 2004) probably has enough interest for a BOF. SherryHeinze 2004.06.17

• "Tell me about a time you explored a customer's problem..." Ask about times when the exploration was easy, when it was challenging.
• Tell me about a time it was easy to develop rapport with a potential customer...
• Tell me about a time it was difficult to develop rapport with a potential customer...

Does that make sense? -- JohannaRothman 2004.06.18

Steve, as you suggest, let's assume we're sincere. Not that everyone in the company believes it -- we have our own cynics. I've heard endless silly discussions of what constitutes a "solution". Your simple definition of solution selling works fine for me.

Sherry, I like the thought behind your question: "Can we reward the sales team for asking questions instead of for making sales?" I don't think we can, directly. But our most successful sales people, the ones who help clients solve significant problems, and make a lot of money for us in the process, DO ask questions. So let's put "Good at asking questions" as an element of a behavior model.

But why are some sales people good at asking questions, why are they motivated to be good at it, when others are not? I'll come back to that.

Johanna suggested: "are there qualities, preferences or skills that you've seen other successful people in that position exhibit? Some possibilities are: goal orientation, collaboration (or is independence necessary?) able to develop multiple alternatives, ability to persevere..."

Absolutely! Some of the behaviors that crop up over and over in the people who produce sales to satisfied customers are:

• Strategic thinking. The ability to take longer-term implications into account while responding to short-term needs and opportunities
• Structure. You can't execute strategy if you're not organized, nor can you collaborate effectively across a sales team
• Team Player. We still have a few highly productive product salespeople who only know how to work alone, but most of our growth comes from selling complex and unique solutions that require a lot of teamwork. There's less and less room for the lone rangers in our business.
• Production, by which I mean setting and pursuing high standards and working hard. This maps to your "ability to persevere."

These are just some of the behaviors we've been focusing on.

Steve says he's uncomfortable with defining people's behavior and motivations. I'd like to explore that more. When I ran a pilot project with our Brazilian organization recently, the sales people said they really appreciated having a clear model of behaviors to aim for. We assessed their behaviors in terms of a model, so that they could decide where they wanted to focus on self-improvement. They said it was the first time that sales training helped them help themselves.

More later... Stuart Scott 2004.06.20

StuartScott 2004.06.23