The Dumb Guys Simple Sales Enablement
You hear a lot about “PKM” and Personal Knowledge Management in the productivity space. I have developed a PKM for sales enablement. Read on to understand more.
The number one question in sales enablement:
What do we want them to do?
All of the rest is just bullshit window-dressing that makes others feel good.
Do we want them to ask questions? Great, let’s get them practicing the questions they need to ask to be better sellers.
Do we want them to practice certain parts of their sales call they need to get better at? Fucking awesome. Give them 15 mins every day on their calendars that allow them to work with another salesperson to role play and get better at the shit they need to get better at.
Do we want managers to be better coaches? That’s cool too. Spend 30 mins a week working with them directly to become a better coach. Forget their numbers for that half hour. They are not doing what needs to be done and it is your fault for not giving them access to resources to grow.
Do we want them to become more efficient with their daily work? There are two ways to go about making that happen. Provide them with the tools to be more efficient, and stop creating lazy salespeople by automating everything.
If you spoon-feed these folks all of the time all they will expect to happen is that you solve all of their problems and they do not need to grow. Not to mention that every bit of work will magically get done for them without them having to think.
If you create lazy robot salespeople you and your company will suffer the greatest.
Not them.
Do not create sales robots.
Hell, they agreed to work for you because they knew the base salary (and if they made any bit of commission) would be enough for them to live on.
Get back to the basics.
Instead of PKM: Personal Knowledge Management. It is Practice, Knowledge & Measurement.
PRACTICE
KNOWLEDGE
MEASUREMENT
Practice:
This is the core of any behavior change that needs to take place. 99% (made-up stat) is about getting people in a position to DO something different, or better.
If you are not setting aside time to practice with your team, well, they are practicing on live prospects only. No wonder win rates are below average.
10-15 minutes three to five times a week will help your team outperform that one-pager you are relying on to get a deal across the line. Don’t believe me. Then don’t practice at your own peril.
Knowledge:
Give your team the knowledge to perform better. What are the standards and expectations, be clear on the level of skill they need to be excellent.
Believe it or not, they need to be product experts. Here’s why. If they are relying on bringing in Solutions Engineers for a product that is not that complicated, the sales rep is giving away the perceived notion they are not experts by the customer, and cannot be an “agent” for the buyer to make a confident recommendation.
(Take a look at the chapter about being a buyer’s agent in The Jolt Effect by Matt Dixon. Amazon link)
Measurement:
If you do not have a way to measure the skills your team members need to be successful, you are screwed.
You have no basis to fire, train, or coach your team.
IT. IS. THAT. SIMPLE.
Care less about closing the sale. That is the end result of measuring their skill growth over time.
How do you measure skills?
Define.
Deploy.
Track.
Define:
Defining is not hard. It just takes a lot of time and discipline to get the outputs you need to deploy.
Work with your sales leaders.
Define each stage in the sales process. What are the entrance & exit criteria.
What are the actions the sales team needs to take at every stage in the sales process?
What does good, better & best look like for each of those actions and skills.
Deploy:
Communicate in no uncertain terms what skills the team needs to master and what managers should be coaching towards.
If you are using a sales framework, no matter what acronym-based framework you choose, share examples of what acceptable and excellent look like.
Managers and sales leaders coach toward excellence in each one of those skills.
1:1 meetings, group conversations, shared examples in slack, gong, or whatever tools you have in place.
Managers, if you are too busy to do this on the regular, your focus is in the wrong place. It is that simple.
If all that you care about is which deals are going to close, you are screwing over your team now and for the long haul.
Track:
Tracking is the hard part. But it doesn’t have to be complicated
Get simple if you have to for your company. Use a spreadsheet if that is all you have.
If you are fortunate enough to have a more complex performance management tool , customize it to the point where it fits within your needs. Almost break that shit if you need to.
In its’ simplest form, have a spreadsheet with the top five skills you and the team have determined will improve the chances of winning more deals, and be steadfast in coaching.
Use simple numbers. 1 through 3 if you have to.
Over time you will be able to see trends on your whole team and where skills are lacking.
Then work with your enablement team to develop practice-based training that helps improve the data.
Don’t come to your enablement team with “I think.”
“I think” means absolutely nothing if you do not have data to back it up and it is a waste of everyone’s time.
All of the ROI calculators, customer stories, blog posts, and podcast episodes will not save your salespeople from underperforming if they cannot perform the basic skills you have defined as important.
Summary:
Practice- Give the team time and space to practice with each other.
Knowledge- Share with the team the knowledge they need to be successful
Measure- Find the easiest way to measure the growth of the skills that are the most important.
Then:
Define- The top 5 skills you need to be successful in your role.
Deploy- Communicate with the team the skills or knowledge they need and make it easily accessible.
Track- Make sure you have a way to track over time, from spreadsheets to complicated skill-tracking systems.