VPs of Marketing and Sales should “have a pint”

People who work to generate revenue for companies understand the long-standing friction between marketing and sales departments. Often the relationship is at best cordial, at worst outright subversive. But the growing consensus, at least among top management, is that the two should be inextricably linked to the same accountability, metrics, and goals. 

A few years back I ran a US company that we moved to Dublin, Ireland lock, stock and barrel. We were a brazen Internet start-up with the requisite start-uppity employees; young, smart and passionate. Work was everything to us and, as Americans do, we personalized and internalized our work life.

Our approach to work puzzled our new Irish employees. They did not understand the heated debates and arguments among our American group. I remember hearing ”Why don’t they just go to the pub and have a pint?”

“Having a pint” as communications platform has stuck with me as a great solution to aligning goals and teams. Regular  off-campus one-on-ones do wonders for relationships and results.

Grab a pint and get over it, as they would tell us in Dublin. Perhaps you’ll forge closer relationships with those whose fortunes are so closely linked to your own.

Should your next sales hire be a “Tweener”?

Continuing the hot topic of Sales 2.0, I had a wonderful conversation today with Sales 2.0 author and expert Anneke Seley, CEO of Bay-area sales consultancy PhoneWorks. Anneke is well-versed in the shift in technique and approach that is disrupting the business development profession.

Checking Anneke’s blog uncovers a interesting interview with a sales vice president Bill Lohr who describes the new “hybrid” sales role he employs at his software services company he calls a “Tweener”: 50% inside and 50% field.

So, the logic goes, opportunities under $500k are managed with clients via phone and Webex, and more complex deals are handled in person — with the same account exec.

Seems to make sense, and it works well for Mr. Lohr. But what would widespread adoption of this new model mean for the profession?

For one, it requires a new sales personality profile. I can’t see many of the attention-deficient outside sales guys I know sitting behind a desk half the time, and I have trouble envisioning an inside rep with all the skills necessary to close larger deals. These are, in general, two different people.

However if technology and customer demands are indeed colliding, business development professionals must adapt. Like they always have. They could even gain real benefits. Half the travel? A great start. A little deal variety? That’s a plus. 

The economy’s troubles are forcing companies to find new ways of buying and selling. The most important thing for sales professionals to do today is to remain relevant to their customers and employers in an increasingly networked and information-rich marketplace.

Give the Gift of Truly Caring About Your Customers

Over the past few weeks I have been seeking something to give my best clients as a token of my appreciation. The holidays come once a year and are a great opportunity to give to, rather than ask from, our paying customers.

Having decided against cookie bouquets or those squeezie toys that look like computers, I thought about what I could do or say personally that would actually mean something to my clients. I tried to think of gestures or remarks that demonstrate to my customer “I truly care about you and your business.”

I finally settled on exactly that. I called each of my important contacts and left a sincere, personal voice message telling them I really care and thanking them for their business and their friendship over the months/years.

Surprising to me was my clients’ response in a busy holiday season: Many actually called me back and expressed to me things I hadn’t heard before from them, things like their appreciation for helping them in their business, my personal service and other kind remarks. A nice gift for me!

For customer-facing professionals, there’s no better feeling than delivering a solution that really improves the well-being of a customer and being paid a decent wage for it. When you truly believe that your products and services can help people better themselves, their co-workers and employers, you end up doing better yourself. Similar in concept to my recent post on “Business Karma”, really caring for your customers pays dividends beyond the financial. It actually helps you prospect better and enjoy your job.

So don’t forget to show you care through word and deed. You may be re-inspired by reciprocal affirmations which may turn out to be your best executive gifts of the season.

Getting to VITO in the downturn

In the good times it was quite difficult to reach VITO (Very Important Top Officer). Seemed he, or she, was always so very busy.

So what’s his excuse now?

Unfortunately VITO’s even busier now. He’s lost the people he used to delegate to. Downsizing has given him two or three more jobs to do, with less budget and more time pressure than ever. So why should he talk with you?

This is our challenge: how do we make ourselves and our offerings relevant in this environment?

First, review your value proposition. What you are offering should be directly impactful in the short term to VITO’s bottom line. Really cool technology with a two year return scenario just won’t get anyone’s attention when they’re worried about making their quarterlies. The only kind of messages that are heard are ones that will lift revenue or reduce cost in the near term.

Next, research research research. Calls and meetings with decision makers must be well-researched and show you have paid the price of admission. Focus on quality and demonstrate you have done your homework.

Touch early and often. You need 8-10 touches, calls email, webinars, etc. to raise your visibility and become a viable resource. Don’t nag, but stay in front. Look for events and announcements that give you an inroad to problem solving.

Be more productive. Sales cycles are extending and budgets are being cut. Use social networking and online technologies that are quite good at cutting pursuit time. Broaden your focus to include more prospects.

Become your customer’s conscience. He is overwhelmed and needs to get things done. Show him he can rely on you to come through, efficiently, with targeted solutions for his problems.

Let VITO know you’ve got his back.

3 Top Questions For Good Business Karma

I recently found myself on the receiving end of a pitch from a potential ‘referral-friend’ at a coffee shop and, though I liked the guys, they spent very little time getting to know me, instantly relegating them in my mind to “Vendor I Know” rather than a trusted advisor whom I would feel comfortable sending to my clients. They even sparked up some slides (Uh…more coffee please!?)

In fairness, they were new to networking and the “give-and-give” of modern business relationship-building. They just went at it as if they had a lot of information to spew and little time to spew it in.

Most successful executives understand the value of “karmatic goodness”. They tend to have highly evolved empathic skills and seek out ways to help others in business. Thus they are generally more successful than those who merely seek out opportunity. (Ironically, opportunists wind up with fewer opportunities.)

Before (or preferably, instead of) launching into a pitch, here are three good questions you should ask potential referral partners:

1: “How exactly do you provide value to your customers?”

2. “Who (title, company type) is your ideal target customer?”

3. “How can I help you?”

To step it up a notch, come up with one prospect/lead for the person and help make a meeting happen. Though it may feel funny at first to help business people when “they’ve never done anything for you”, but rest assured, more likely than not they will eagerly reciprocate if they know what’s good for them. Conversely, you are almost guaranteed a wasted meeting if you trust that just because someone knows who you are they will refer leads to you.

Nothing builds a relationship faster than true service coupled with energetic follow-through. Make serving others your number one priority and you will find karma to be very kind to your business.

Beware the trade show guy offering beer

Before you man your company’s booth at the big industry shin-dig, you might have a shot of paranoia to go with your company’s Koolaid…

I’m in D.C. today meeting with the other charter members of the International Business Development Council. One of my fellow leaders is Ken Garrison, CEO of the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP). The first thing Ken hands me when we meet is SCIP’s fascinating book, “Conference And Trade Show Intelligence” which essentially maps out how you, yes YOU! can outflank your rivals by chatting up trade show booth monkeys and getting them to blab.

Trade shows are tremendous sources of information. You can learn about new products, customer feedback, competitor strategy and all sorts of juicy info. SCIP recommends planning and strategizing information gathering, right down to pre-show recon and wearing clothes that “blend in.” The younger and more enthusiastic your target’s booth attendant, the better.

Among tips for successful intelligence sourcing? Feign boredom, don’t drink, dress down and just be plain so people don’t take notice of you… Sounds like most of the conferences I’ve been to!

Please come fire all my salespeople!

With the start of the fall season, many new sales and business development advisory opportunities seem to be crossing my desk. This year, however, they seem to share a pattern: the CEO or VP Sales is “frustrated” with their sales teams (expletives deleted) and would I please come fire them all. They complain that their people “just don’t have it in them” to constantly cold call and keep a high rate of activity which of course will make everyone successful forever. “If only they’d do it my way!” I hear. 

Everyone wants to hire that nearly-deranged person who lives for cold calling and rips through a call list just for the adrenaline rush. But even if you can find candidates with the right mix of experience, the good ones are prohibitively expensive and can be a management hassle. In my experience, someone who gets off to cold calling 100 times a day is usually deficit in other areas and can’t do much else.  And they churn quickly.

Fine! you say. That’s what you want. But think about who your prospects are. If they are more than just meat for a boiler-room phone center, I suggest that you look at the way you currently go to market.

The days of picking up the phone and convincing a stranger to spend large sums of money with you are simply dead. The environment has changed. What buyer in their right mind (especially in IT) actually picks up random phone calls these days? Caller ID and email filters mean never having to speak to a salesperson. 

Update your sales strategy and move your company into the age of collaborative new business acquisition. Utilize the amazing new sales and web 2.0 tools and hire awesome service-oriented sales talent – not phone weasels. This takes a new set of skills, new hiring approach, management style, which of course, starts at the top. 

Next (related) post: “Generation Y Joins the Sales Team” (or “Sally Get Your Gun”)

Thanks for Not Applying, It Was Nice Not Knowing You

Why Pre-Interview Sales Skills Assessments Are a Bad Idea.

In our slowing economy, companies are ever-focused on reducing ancillary costs and expenses. The recruiting function, inherently time-consuming and often expensive, is an easy mark for consultants offering to automate tasks and reduce risk.

Queue the latest trend, the online “front-door quiz,” or sales skills assessment, offered by Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) consulting firms in an attempt to pare down the top end of the hiring funnel via online testing and assessments to gauge the suitability of potential candidates.

Certainly skills and capabilities assessments, when used correctly, can save time by telling you in advance what you need to know about someone, before you hire them. We use them in our business to hire our Partners and for our clients, once we have determined they are a good fit.

However in a new twist, the idea is to require all potential candidates who might be interested in working for you to take an hour long bubble test from an outside firm via the Internet at the front end of the hiring cycle, before any additional communication takes place.

The approach has spread fast but results are mixed. Some maintain the tests are counter-productive and could actually hurt the companies using them by eroding their brand and turning up lowest common denominator candidates over the long term.

First there is the philosophical problem of requiring that all candidates fill out a psychological assessment offered by a third-party, with no assurance of privacy, without the hiring company ever even knowing who is at their door.

More importantly, there is a diminishing return, and eventually your quality and quantity of candidates decays. Ultimately the only beneficiaries are the consulting and assessment companies whose success depends on the position staying open.

Smart companies also realize that their valuable brands extend to the talent department, and they know that forcing all potential candidates to take an hour long “qualifying assessment” is comparable to telling a customer “here, before you buy my product, please waste your precious time and tell me if I want to sell it to you.” How many of your best customers will put up with that?

So what’s the big deal? Well, it might save you time on the front end, but of course, you will eventually pay in the quality of your people and the strength of your corporate culture:

1. “A” Players will look past your opportunity to the ones that are more human-focused. Quizzes are insulting to the candidate, and a self-respecting professional will likely balk at the notion that their potential contribution can be bubble-sheeted.

2. They are easily gamed. Many times, these assessments have what is called ‘high face validity’. This means that it is easy for the test taker to know why a question is being asked and if they are so inclined, fake the answer to create a certain impressions they may want to give about themselves.

3. They don’t predict performance. Most “pre-interview” tests are DISC-based. DISC tests have been around 80 years, but vendors continue to repackage and revise and charge unwitting companies a premium. The DISC assessment is a ‘descriptive’ and not a ‘predictive’ tool, therefore, any claims made by consultants selling the DISC tool that it can ‘predict’ how someone will perform on a specific job are suspect at best. Ask for a Technical Manual to understand the test basis.

4. It presents a poor image of your company to the talent market. Pre-interview quizzes tell the world that your company addresses its most important success factors in a predictable, cookie-cutter way, ahead of the human element, creative element and in lieu of your “competitive edge”

5. Candidates “burn-out” after completing a only a few tests. The likelihood of continuing to complete similar quizzes has diminishing returns. After a few of these taken at other companies, many candidates will simply pass. Eventually, the only candidates you interview are the desperate ones.

6. One-size-fits-all doesn’t work. The tests don’t apply to the variables of experience and perspectives that come with lifetimes and careers. They may also not differentiate roles, asking the same questions of say, a sales manager, as a front line salesperson, two very different skills sets and personalities.

7. They’re rude. In most instances, after the candidate gives up an hour of being with their family or other valuable time, they get rejection auto-email from the hiring company, and most often the results of their assessment are not even shared. This is not only discourteous, it borders on unethical.

8. Privacy and liability concerns. What happens to the data from this quasi-psychological test? Does their rampant use expose the employer to lawsuits?

9. Not all tests are the same. Many sales assessments are written by former sales consultants and others who believe they have the “magic formula” to sales but have little credibility or scientific background. Most are DISC-based, old technology but inexpensive for companies to “refine” and call their own. A valuable assessment should be developed based on science with a strong body of knowledge behind it.

10. They do not account for other important skills. A candidate who scores in the middle of the pack as a sales manager on the test may get a rejection message, but he or she could be a phenomenal strategist or perhaps have industry contacts that would be invaluable for your organization. But you’ll never know…

11. The more assessments the better – for the consultant. Unlike a recruiter or your hiring managers, the consultants’ success is tied is to keeping a position open. Your business can wither away while you wait for the right test-taker to pass the consultants’ screening, and they continue to collect fees.

Yes, the recruiting process is expensive and yes, it takes time and effort to hire the right people. Using questionable online quizzes to sort out wheat from chaff is a bad idea for companies seeking to build a diversified, creative and people-oriented environment.

The advantage of all this for your company? Smart managers can take advantage of this trend by snapping up all the great talent falling through the cracks of their lame, quizzing competitors.

Welcome to BusinessDevelopments(tm)!

Hello! This is the first of what I hope will be many posts on my blog, BusinessDevelopments(tm).

Having followed the work of my business partner and marketing mad scientist Chuck Besondy, I decided to take the plunge and create my little area to discuss the latest and greatest in the world of Corporate Sales and Business Development.

I hope you enjoy my observations about the business world, sales, opinions, or whatever else I hope will be interesting and useful to you.

Please feel free to contact me with questions, suggestions, comment, rants, or anything else!

Jonathan