Morgan and Zytek work on high performance electric vehicle

Morgan and Zytek work on high performance electric vehicle | Ubergizmo window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({ appId : '139683546053659', status : true, // check login status cookie : true, // enable cookies to allow the server to access the session xfbml : true // parse XFBML }); }; (function() { var e = document.createElement('script'); e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js'; e.async = true; document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e); }()); Network:Ubergizmo English, French, SpanishUberphones Subscribe to RSS Ubergizmo ReviewsMobileGamingAndroidAppleComputersGadgetsConceptsPhoto/VideoEvents |  Jobs Home > Green > Morgan and Zytek work on high performance electric vehicle Morgan and Zytek work on high performance electric vehicle Edwin Kee 09/29/2011 23:01 PDT

Electric vehicles are great as they’re zero emissions vehicles, but then again there is the problem of how long the batteries are able to last, and not to mention the fact that charging points are few and far in between – even more so when you want to drive to the outskirts. Well, having said that, electric vehicles also aren’t known to be performance on the asphalt, but Morgan and Zytek intends to change that with a new high performance electric vehicle.

We’re talking about a lightweight aluminum body that you see above with a 70kW electric motor inside – where this people mover has been dubbed as the Electric Morgan +E. It is going to be an extremely rare vehicle since only two of them will be made, but assuming the experience ends up in a favorable manner, “further developments” might be in the pipeline.

It is nice to know that the +E shall retain the original motor-powered SuperSports’ manual transmission, so that energy will be used in a far more efficient manner that directly results in an increase in the vehicle’s range. Not only that, it will also pave the way for lower gearing for rapid acceleration from pull-away and higher gearing for top speed.

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Critical Skills For Sales Leaders - Improving Performance by Sharpening Sales Skills

Corporate Executives are always looking for ways to boost revenue. That usually means turning up the heat on the sales team to produce better numbers. Research shows that increasing the pressure to perform on the sales team doesn't necessarily increase revenue. Pressure to perform might bring in a few short-term sales, but at the end of the day, customers don't respond well when they feel pressured into buying.

If you want your sales team to produce 20% more, the question you have to ask yourself is, are they 20% better? The best sales leaders don't only increase the pressure to perform on the sales team; they set about making the individual salesperson more effective.

Building the selling capability of your salespeople to sell and build relationships is a very effective tool for gaining competitive advantage. A well trained sales team will set you apart from most of your competitors simply because most sales organisations don't really invest the time, effort and resources required to effectively train their sales teams.

Most companies will invest some time and resources to train their salespeople on their particular products/services. However, salespeople that rely on their product/service's capabilities to win business will, more often than not, leave sales opportunities lying on the table.

Companies that only train their salespeople on their particular products/services leave sales opportunities lying on the table The right sales performance improvement training, that is, sales training specific to your industry and market segment, assists salespeople to master the skills, tools and techniques, concepts and behaviours and attitudes required to enhance their persuasiveness, influencing the buyer to make purchasing decisions in your favour.

An effective sales performance improvement training program can reduce sales personnel turnover as well as enabling salespeople to:

Understand their customer's underlying buying motivations and maximise their effectiveness with each customer encounter
Qualify and prioritise genuine selling opportunities more efficiently, improving the cost effectiveness of their selling activities
Deal more effectively with customer concerns and objections
Plan, use and manage their time more efficiently
Maintain a positive mental attitude when things are not going their way

Salespeople who lack confidence in their ability to market your company's products and services may experience frustration and low morale resulting in unmet sales quotas and revenue goals.

There is absolutely no substitute for a well-trained and highly motivated sales team!

Effective sales training benefits new and seasoned salespeople alike Training is critically important for both the new and seasoned salesperson alike. Experienced sales leaders place a high premium on both product and selling skills training and purposefully design their programs to be timely, relevant, and ongoing. An effective program should:

Train your sales team to engage new prospects and how to sell based on value without simply dropping your margin
Train them how to effectively listen and diagnose the needs of your customers
Train them how to effectively ask the "hard" questions up front and qualify sales opportunities so they won't waste time and resources with prospects who can't/won't buy
Engage multiple decision makers
Train the team what to do to ensure they bring home the sale
And much more.

There are no shortages of skills in which you could be training your sales team. Extensive research has identified the five Mission Critical Selling Skills that a sales professional must master to effectively move beyond their current limitations and to achieve your sales goals. When understood and mastered, these five skills will dramatically help you to increase your salespeople's productivity and get them to sell more, more often.

The 5 Mission Critical Skills of Outstanding Salespeople are:

Time and Self Management
Business Development
Diagnostic Acuity
Engage All Parties
Wrap Up

In his best selling book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Dr. Stephen Covey makes a strong case for the fundamental importance of training, or as he calls it, "sharpening the saw". What often happens is that over time, the sales team becomes less productive because sales managers are reluctant to invest the time away from their busy schedules as well as the resources it takes to effectively train their salespeople. So train, train, train and continue to build the capability of your sales team. The result will show up in your "bottom line".

As one of Australia's leading authorities and coaches in sales management, Ian Segail has been involved in the coaching, training and development of sales managers and salespeople for over two decades.

Drawing on 25 years of experience in sales, sales management and leading an HR and training team, Ian brings a strong dose of fiscal reality and practicality to his works as a Sales Performance Coach.

Engaging directly with business owners and both novice and experienced sales managers alike, across a wide variety of industries and selling disciplines, the focus of Ian's work is to transform sales results for companies by improving sales management practices. Ian is the author of "Bulletproof Your Sales Team - The 5 Keys To Turbo - Boosting Your Sales Team's Results" and a number of business articles, business reports and white papers including "The fish stinks from the head!" and "Why Sales Training Doesn't Work."

Ian has an insatiable hunger for studying selling and people management and has passionately pursued answers to the question "How come some people can sell and most can't?"

He can be reached via http://www.iansegail.com

Read Ian's latest free report - "The 7 Most Costly Mistakes Sales Managers Make" here http://www.bulletproofyoursalesteam.com [http://bulletproofyoursalesteam.com/free-report/7costlymistakes.html]

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Critical Skills For Sales Leaders - Sales Performance Planning to Increase Revenue

How do you get your sales team to generate the greatest amount of revenue, consistently, year after year? Most sales managers think the answer lies in being aggressive, doing more sales activity, proactive business development, keeping the pipeline full and increasing the abilities of your salespeople so that they are more effective on the ground.

What about the value of better planning? World-class sales organisations establish aggressive sales objectives to achieve the best possible results. To accomplish these aggressive targets, they develop clear and effective sales strategy and Performance Plans. The Sales Performance Plan guides the sales leader's Sales Performance Coaching efforts, providing both them and the salesperson with a clear track to follow.

An effective Sales-Performance Plan can work to reduce your sales revenue peaks and valleys.

Generally the Sales-Performance Plan is an offshoot of the marketing plan, which is a critical component of the overall company business plan. Simply stated, the marketing plan defines your target market and outlines specific strategies which will attract, promote and sell your product or service. The Sales-Performance Plan details the essential steps that are required in order to retain the existing customer base, along with the specifics of how to reach potential customers and convert them from prospects into paying customers.

These plans should include execution details. Specifically featuring: who is doing what, by when, how and with what resources. The plan may also include details on how to deal with roadblocks and other obstacles. An effective Sales Performance Plan anticipates and create contingency plans against competitive threats, delays, etc

Leading sales managers have a healthy obsession with planning to ensure they reach their targets and better planning is the key to producing consistent and predictable sales numbers. An effective Sales-Performance Plan is made up of a variety of issues depending on your own individual sales environment.

Elements of a Sales-Performance Plan

A well constructed Sales-Performance Plan will not deliver sales results on its own. As with any plan, it must be actioned in order to produce a result. However, a well developed Sales-Performance Plan will direct every sales activity, greatly increasing the likelihood of the salesperson achieving their sales goals. The Sales-Performance Plan details the key objectives and the actions required to achieve the salesperson's goals.

o More effective Sales-Performance Plans will create, build and nurture a healthy sales pipeline.

o A well thought out and well-managed Sales-Performance Plan ensures your salespeople meet revenue goals and attain their sales quotas.

o A good Sales-Performance Plan will also include development and up-skilling objectives that you and your individual salespeople have determined to be lacking in order for them to achieve their sales goals.

The Sales-Performance Plan contains a brief description of the actions required in order to achieve the goals. The Sales-Performance Plan must briefly specify the following:

Who: Who are the individuals responsible for achieving what needs to be done?

What: What is required to be done to achieve the goal?

When: By when must the required actions be done?

Tactics: What tactics will be required to achieve the goal?

Resources: What resources will be required to achieve the goal?

Measures: How will success be measured, by whom and when?

None of your salespeople should ever begin their year, month or sales week without a clearly specified sales plan. The plan must lay out and detail their key objectives and action plans to achieve their desired results. Once the plan is submitted and agreed upon, it needs to be reviewed on a regular basis.

Target elements to plan for may include:

o Increase $ volume

o Increase the % in sales volume year over year

o Increase sales of specific products/services

o Increase average deal size

o Decrease average length of sale

o Increase $ volume by customer

o Opening new accounts targets

o Margin

o Ratio improvement

o Key account increases in existing product purchases

o Key account new product purchases

o Customer retention goals

o New product objectives

The Sales-Performance Plan needs to be split up into 4 X 90 DAY ACTION PLANS with set dates and strategies for their execution. The plan must be simply broken down and laid out for easy reference and follow up by you as the sales leader. Territory Sales-Performance Plans may also include some of the above measures as well as other goals for growing the territory.

Territory Sales-Performance Plans Territory Planning (a mix of customers or key accounts and prospects in a specified geographic location) is the process a sales team uses to analyze and plan around key accounts and opportunities within their assigned sales territory. For a Territory plan to effectively drive revenue, it must include both strategy and tactics and detailed actions for delivery of each objective.

A typical Territory Plan may include:

o Analysis and objective setting around the company's products and services, market segments, competition, trends, and profiles of key accounts.

o Specific key objectives

o Opportunity/threat analysis

o Account identification and estimates of account potential

o Account situational analysis and account strategy

o Detail on territory/account tactics - What to sell, for what price and by when?

o Key account increases in existing product purchases

o Key account new product purchases

o Customer retention goals

o Channel development

o Deeper key account penetration

o Re-establishing abandoned customers

Developing, reviewing and regularly updating your Sales Plan is critical to consistent sales success.

As one of Australia's leading authorities and coaches in sales management, Ian Segail has been involved in the coaching, training and development of sales managers and salespeople for over two decades.

Drawing on 25 years of experience in sales, sales management and leading an HR and training team, Ian brings a strong dose of fiscal reality and practicality to his works as a Sales Performance Coach.

Engaging directly with business owners and both novice and experienced sales managers alike, across a wide variety of industries and selling disciplines, the focus of Ian's work is to transform sales results for companies by improving sales management practices.

Ian is the author of "Bulletproof Your Sales Team The 5 Keys To Turbo Boosting Your Sales Team's Results" and a number of business articles, business reports and white papers including "The fish stinks from the head!" and "Why Sales Training Doesn't Work."

Ian has an insatiable hunger for studying selling and people management and has passionately pursued answers to the question "How come some people can sell and most can't?"

Access great tools and resources produced by Ian at http://www.salestutor.com.au/Content_Common/pg-tools-and-resources.seo

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Critical Skills For Sales Leaders - Sales Performance Coaching For People Development

Sales Performance Coaching is a function of 4 core practices of people development

1. Tuition This involves providing the salesperson with the direction, instruction and the knowledge they require in an effort to help them understand what they need to know in order to change their current approach.

2. Consultation involves identifying and analysing the specific issue or situation at hand and assist the sales person to clearly define the goal and map out a plan for their accomplishment

3. Coaching involves helping the salesperson to effect a change by self discovering the answers and thereby make adjustments to their current behaviour or approach. The Sales Performance Coach does this by providing them with regular guidance, feedback, insight and direction to ensure successful execution

4. Performance Management This involves ensuring the salesperson stays on track and holding them accountable to the measurable performance activities required to achieve the goal.

In addition to applying the above 4 core practices of people development there are 8 steps you as the sales leader need to take to implement and become an effective Sales Performance Coach:

The 8 Step Sales Performance Coaching Process

1. An execution focused plan.

Ensure you have a clear and well laid out tactical sales plan to achieve the required sales goals. The plan needs to specifically detail: who is doing what, by when, how, and with what resources.

2. Set clear performance expectations.

Before you as a sales leader can expect your salespeople to deliver what you expect of them, your first step is to be absolutely sure that, in your own mind and on paper, that you have clearly established what it is specifically that you expect of them. Once you have determined what you expect, now you need to have the expectation discussion with each of your salespeople.

3. Identify core behaviors for development.

Identify the key behaviors you and your individual salesperson have determined to be lacking in order for them to meet your expectations and execute their sales plan. These will provide you with the basis for and focus of your one on one coaching.

There are 5 Mission Critical Skills of Outstanding Salespeople. If you want your sales team to produce 20% more, the question you have to ask yourself is...are they 20% better?

Extensive research has identified the five Mission Critical Selling Skills that a sales professional must master to effectively move beyond their current limitations and to achieve your sales goals. When understood and mastered, these five skills will dramatically help you to increase your sales productivity and sell more, more often.

The 5 Mission Critical Skills of Outstanding Salespeople are:

1. Time and Self Management

2. Business Development

3. Diagnostic Acuity

4. Engage All Parties

5. Wrap Up

4. Set aside quality time weekly to debrief the week that was and the week that's coming up.

The fact is, that if you will invest the time to conduct a weekly debrief the week that was and the week that's coming up, over the next ninety days, you will completely turn your sales around.

5. Set specific behavioral goals, measure progress regularly

Change is a process, not an event and therefore you cannot expect to send your salespeople on a training course and have them instantly change behavior. Once you have determined the specific dysfunctional behaviors and strategies that are road-blocking an individual salesperson, set joint goals to improve and change the areas of greatest impact.

6. Collect Sales person behavioral data by engaging in joint sales calls and provide honest and data specific feedback.

70% of learning happens on the job. The most effective method for you to observe behavioral change is to witness the individual salesperson perform in their role. By careful observation you can gather specific data to provide them with accurate feedback. Now you can effectively challenge and guide them to improve their sales performance and behavior.

7. Offer training where applicable

- Demonstrate the 'ideal" way. Provide the salesperson with resources, books, CD's, online tools, seminars and workshops to accelerate their learning and reinforce your message.

8. Follow up; follow up; follow up.

There is one skill that as a sales leader you absolutely have to develop. If you haven't done so already, this skill will greatly determine your success or failure as a manager of others. This incredibly simple and yet powerful skill is the ability to effectively follow up. When your sales team knows what needs to be done and when it needs to be done by and when they can ABSOLUTELY count on you to follow up on their commitments to you....then you will achieve results that up and until now you have only dreamed of!

As one of Australia's leading authorities and coaches in sales management, Ian Segail has been involved in the coaching, training and development of sales managers and salespeople for over two decades.

Drawing on 25 years of experience in sales, sales management and leading an HR and training team, Ian brings a strong dose of fiscal reality and practicality to his works as a Sales Performance Coach.

Engaging directly with business owners and both novice and experienced sales managers alike, across a wide variety of industries and selling disciplines, the focus of Ian's work is to transform sales results for companies by improving sales management practices.

Ian is the author of "Bulletproof Your Sales Team - The 5 Keys To Turbo Boosting Your Sales Team's Results" and a number of business articles, business reports and white papers including "The fish stinks from the head!" and "Why Sales Training Doesn't Work." Ian has an insatiable hunger for studying selling and people management and has passionately pursued answers to the question "How come some people can sell and most can't?"

He can be reached via http://www.iansegail.com

Read Ian's latest free report - "The 7 Most Costly Mistakes Sales Managers Make" here http://www.bulletproofyoursalesteam.com [http://bulletproofyoursalesteam.com/free-report/7costlymistakes.html]

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Sales Performance - Choosing the Right Tools

Recently we interviewed fourteen sales executives to learn what they think really contributes to improved sales performance. We asked them the following question: what is the correlation between the tools they provide to their sales teams, and the results those sales teams achieve? Our colleagues told us that the way management goes about selecting, designing, and implementing sales practices, processes and software applications makes the difference in sales performance, not the tools themselves.

Our colleagues all represented major corporations in the B2B sector, with large sales organizations, major or national account teams, and well over a hundred years of combined field experience. They included senior executives, sales managers, and individual contributors. But overall, they agreed on four key points, with a bonus point thrown in for good measure:

1. If they build it, they will use it. In other words, if sales people who will use the sales tools have a say in building or selecting them, those sales people are much more likely to adopt and use the tools.

2. They will use it if they understand it. In the world of sales, ease of use seems to mean rate of adoption. If the tools make sense to sales people, if they produce useful insights without imposing a lot of data entry overhead, then sales people will use the tools.

3. If they use it, they are more likely to get desirable results. Once sales people have easy access to tools, methods, training programs, or technology that they had a hand in building, they use the tools. Then both sales and management can measure results. And once you measure the results you can manage them pretty well.

4. Once they get results, they want more and better results. So it was worth the effort to get the right technology, training and business processes in place, in the first place.

And the bonus: if you don't let them build it, and they don't adopt it, you probably won't get the results you want.

Ease of Use vs. Rate of Adoption

The first thing we discovered was ease of use doesn't really mean ease of use at all. It means "did you guys come up with something that makes sense to us sales people and makes it easier to do our jobs? Because if you did, we'll use it. If you didn't, forget it."

Of the fourteen people we interviewed, one thing was absolutely consistent, regardless of the size of business, industry sector, experience level of the sales team, or anything else. The sales team simply won't use any processes, methodologies, training programs or technology tools if they don't make sense and provide meaningful feedback no matter how elegant, popular, powerful or fashionable they may be.

In our limited sample, those who reported the greatest success and the happiest outcomes said that their sales force had had direct input into the choice or design of the tools, understood what they were designed to accomplish, or both. Further, several interviewees reported a correlation between the narrowness or specificity of the problem to be addressed, and the success of the tools chosen to address it. In other words, solving a small and easily identifiable problem had more success than sweeping change.

Examples:


A high-tech manufacturing firm sought and obtained sales input to design a new CRM solution to replace their outdated investment. Result: a streamlined system with significant increases in adoption followed by improved employee engagement and measurable growth in sales dollars.
At a transportation company, the account managers had a hard time managing their pipeline, so they chose a web-hosted software package to simplify pipeline management, and do nothing else. Result: high adoption, greater sales control, increases in business and virtually no budget impact on the IT department.
A provider of commodity products wanted to change from a product/channel focus to a market-segment focus. To make it easy for the sales force to adopt the new approach they invested in a formal change-management process that engages the people involved in the change. Result: a sales organization that has renewed motivation and is showing positive early results.
A large communications company maintains its competitive advantage with a consistent focus on customer retention and executive sponsorship based on carefully documented processes and policies. Sales people find it easy to engage a senior executive, even a C-level person, in account campaigns and visits. Result: commanding market share. Sales people in this company really know that Sales is king.


On the other hand, those reporting lower rates of success believed that management seemed not to understand or appreciate the realities of the sales mission, function and organization. As a result, sales people were less likely to be included in designing the desired tools and methods, or in identifying the need for change in the first place.

Examples:


An otherwise successful company provided all kinds of useful tools to its sales force, with high levels of adoption and success, but management decided not to address the need for mid-tier sales support. So those senior sales people must do their own "administrivia" at the cost of hours of productive face-time with customers.
One large industrial firm has spent years changing the business model from product focus to industry focus to account focus and back again, producing the response of "duck, here comes another initiative!" from sales people. Sales reps distrust management and are reluctant to adopt the next iteration. It's tough for this company to improve results in a systematic fashion.
A group of technical experts, none of whom had field sales experience, launched a successful business. But when they decided to launch a national account team, they failed to provide effective sales-force automation or rational sales processes. The national account team now spends a considerable amount of its time making the internal sale, again cutting into productive face-time with customers and prospects.

Sales Performance and the Right Tools

So what's the relationship between sales performance and the right tools? The answer lies not in the tools themselves, but in the strategies by which those tools are selected, designed and deployed.

When sales people are equipped with the right tools, they have two advantages. First, the right tools capture pertinent information and data that helps sales people to make consistently good decisions, contributing to predictable and consistent sales results. Second, and even more important, good tools, methods, and processes make the sales job less time-consuming, more efficient and less costly. And that means that sales people can devote MORE time to selecting the most qualified prospects, cultivating high-potential relationships, offering the most beneficial solutions, and winning the most profitable deals. Those are the sales tools that predict success, no matter what the state of the economy.

Ellen Bristol is the founder and driving force behind Bristol Strategy Group, the Miami-based sales-force productivity company, and developer of Selling the SMART Way®, BSG's flagship solution for productive sales teams. BSG's latest offering is the SMART Way® Scorecard, web-hosted toolkit for improving sales-force productivity. Visit the BSG website http://www.bristolstrategygroup.com email her at ellen@bristolstrategygroup.com or phone 305-935-6676.

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Sales Performance Analysis

Sales Performance Analysis closes the gap on your entire Sales Cycle. Essentially, performance analysis is a deep look back over certain elements of your sales cycle, from Opportunity Management to Account Planning. Looking at the numbers, ratios, and time frames of your sales cycle provides many useful benefits.

To begin with, analysis allows you to question the entire cycle - and adjust it accordingly. You can determine if sales goals are too high or too low. Analysis gives you an accurate picture of your forecast - is it realistic or does it need to be adjusted? You can also decide if the time and money spent on clients in Opportunity Management was worthwhile - as opposed to the profit gained from the sale. But consider the effects of analysis from the human resources point of view: a thorough analysis gives you hard data that can be used to coach and train the workforce more effectively. Let's look at how to use sales analysis to close the gap on SCM.

First, you must know the close rate. Out of all of the probable clients in Opportunity Management over a particular time period, which ones actually ended up with a closed sale? Can you convert the number into a ratio? Once you've taken a good look at the close rate, go further and look at each sale. How much time was spent on each sale, through each point in the cycle? You can break this down into key milestones, such as presentation to proposal to contract to signed contract. When you've got this number for each sale, take an average and determine if that number is realistic for the next sales cycle. While you're examining the numbers of your cycle, think about ways you can shorten the time frame from lead to closed sale. Take the time to analyze where lags occur and determine if you've got a problem in the sales force, the process, manufacturing, or delivery.

Next, examine the leads that come in to the sales force. Technically, leads are not part of SCM, but they comprise what eventually comes to Opportunity Management. Where do leads come from? Do you have external leads generated by marketing, or is the sales force responsible for finding their own leads? Perhaps you find the leads yourself. Consider grouping leads by common denominators, such as product needs, industry type, or organization size. When you have your groups, take the time to determine which groups had higher close rates, shorter time cycles, or better cost. Another good way to look at leads is to define a lead for each product and service on offer. When you've invested in the investigation of your leads, you can make judgments about their quality - and adjust as necessary. Now it's time to take a look at the salespeople.

Analyzing the performance of the sales force may be one of the most important components of sales performance analysis. First, you must look at actual performance versus goal. You've already taken a close look at other aspects of the sale - when you examine the productivity of the salespeople, you can make a final determination about goals. Look at the close rates per product and break this down by sales person. Do some salespeople have lower close rates than others? Not only can you get a good picture of the sales force, you can also discover who the high performers are. The high performers can help you create a profile to use in coaching and training. Investigate the salespeople's record keeping and reporting, as well. You may find they are spending unnecessary time on certain points in the cycle. The good thing about analyzing a salesperson's performance is that it can be done regularly, during routine sales meetings, and not all at once. Correction can be made as you go along.

Finally, analyze the profit margin for each sale - and communicate the profit margin to the sales force. Look at the time and money spent on each sale as compared to the actual profit, keeping in mind the opportunity costs associated with each sale. Are there extra activities, expenses, or even personnel on each sale? Is there a way to increase efficiency and lower cost in order to raise the profit margin? Whatever the results, be sure to communicate them to the sales force. Each salesperson should know the average cost of the sale versus profit.

Diving into your numbers may take time, but you'll find that the results of sales performance analysis help you to manage and target your entire sales cycle.

Copyright 2007-2008 Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved.

Bryant Nielson - National Corporate Sales Trainer - assists executives, business owners, and top performing sales executives in taking the leap from the ordinary to extraordinary. Bryant is a trainer, business & leadership coach, and strategic planner for many sales organizations. Bryant's 27 year business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering.

Subscribe to his blog at: http://www.BryantNielson.com

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Choosing The Right Sales Speaker For Your Performance Objectives

Considering hiring a top sales speaker for your next sales meeting or conference? Bringing in an outside authority can complement a sales manager's own efforts in pursuit of improved performance and productivity. A sales speaker can help a sales force meet and exceed quotas and meet and exceed customer expectations. Sales speakers are not of the one-size-fits-all variety, though. To gain the maximum benefit from scheduling a sales speaker to address your sales force, you must understand a few things about sales speakers and about your sales force.

Are all sales speakers created equal?

In general, there are two types of sales speakers: motivational sales speakers and educational sales speakers. (And contrary to some preconceived notions, educational sales speakers do not equate to boring sales speakers.)

Motivational sales speakers serve much the same purpose as motivational speakers in general, except their presentations are geared more specifically toward sales activities. A motivational sales speaker is typically engaged to generate an immediate response among presentation participants, boosting enthusiasm and energy while delivering relevant, practical content.

Educational sales speakers are also motivational, but rather than focus on attitude or emotion, they equip their audience with new skills or information which leaves sales professionals energized to put their newly acquired lessons into practice. Whereas motivation alone will fade over time and need to be renewed, education yields longer-lasting benefits.

How do I determine what type of sales speaker is best for my sales force?

There are a number of factors a sales manager must take into consideration to determine what type of sales speaker will generate the best results with his or her sales force. If morale is waning, then a motivational sales speaker who can re-ignite passion and purpose among the sales team may be the perfect solution to boost performance. It is important to determine the reason for the deficiency in morale, though, to determine what specific issues need to be addressed to remedy the situation.

If a sales manager determines that the sales force is lacking in the skills necessary to compete in today's ever-changing marketplace, then a sales speaker who can impart wisdom and insights for practical application may be most beneficial. (This type of presentation alone may boost morale.) A speaker with particular expertise in a given industry may yield even more positive results.

Another important consideration in selecting a sales speaker is whether your sales force engages in consultative sales or transactional sales. Scheduling a speaker with expertise in transactional sales to address a sales force that engages in consultative sales could have extremely adverse effects, and vice-versa if scheduling a consultative authority for a transactional sales force.

Who are some of the most popular sales speakers?

Among the most popular sales speakers today are best-selling authors and authorities including Jeffrey Gitomer, Neil Rackham, Tony Alessandra, Mike Marchev, and Jim Cathcart. Of course, there are hundreds of outstanding sales speakers from which to find the best match for your unique needs and objectives.

How do I decide which speaker is right for my sales force?

By reading articles and books on selling, you'll be able to get a good idea for which speakers and authors seem to best understand issues that are relevant to your industry and your sales force. You may also contact a speakers bureau to discuss your goals and receive suggestions of speakers who have proven successful in situations similar to yours. Once you find the right fit, the voice of an outsider can be one of your greatest assets in leading your sales force to the next level.

Shawn Ellis is founder and president of The Speakers Group, a speakers bureau based in Nashville, Tennessee. With nearly a decade of experience helping organizational leaders secure renowned keynote speakers and authors for their programs, Shawn has earned a reputation as a friendly, reliable and knowledgeable event partner. For more resources to help you in your meeting planning efforts, visit The Speakers Group's meeting planner article library [http://www.thespeakersgroup.com/article_library.htm] and speaker reference guide [http://www.thespeakersgroup.com/reference_guide.htm] on their web site at http://www.thespeakersgroup.com

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Six Steps To Sales Performance Management

In today's day and age a lot of senior managers and sales managers struggle with maintaining their top line growth performance because they neglect their fundamental duties when it comes to managing the performance of their sales team.

If you want to take your team to the next level, consider developing a sales performance management system that includes the following elements;

First of all, assess your current sales team to understand the performance of your individuals and objectively analyze which of your people are capable of producing their numbers and which aren't, and then prune and tune that existing organization to make sure that you weed out poor performers and take corrective action of those who do have a chance of performing well.

Second, learn how to hire and recruit "A" players for your sales team. This requires a rigorous attention to detail as it relates to specifying your job description, developing a recruiting process, broadcasting your job postings to available candidates and then going through a very rigorous interviewing, screening and reference checking methodology.

The third element in effective sales performance management system is to establish good measurements and to measure and monitor the performance of your sales teams. With today's CRM tools and sales force automation tools it's very easy for you to get clear and concise activity and pipeline metrics that you can evaluate on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Developing those measurements and then integrating them into regular meetings with your sales teams, both collectively and individually will help you to develop a sales performance management expectation with your employees and a culture of accountability.

Fourth, work on developing a standard corrective action plan for under-performers on your sales team. A corrective action plan should be a standard approach to correcting sales performance that is well understood and documented and accepted by everybody on your team. Sales people should know that when they fail to hit their numbers or achieve their sales quotas for a defined period that they will be put on corrective action, which will define a series of steps that are required in order to improve performance within a finite period of time, with a clear understanding of what the consequences are for not improving sales performance.

Fifth, make sure that you have the proper investments going on in sales training both product as well as sales technique. Also, make sure that you have a sales training system that is systematic and ongoing with your sales team.

Sixth, make sure that you understand the importance of coaching your sales team to success. The CEO or sales manager's job is to develop a coaching system to make sure that sales people are well attuned to. It is important that the CEO or sales manager has an engaged active relationship with each team member and that each team member receives regular honest open feedback on their performance, and suggestions on how to improve. Sales people need attention just like anybody else on your company's team, and so part of your sales performance management system should focus on coaching your people and making sure that they understand where they stand in your organization.

Finally, a good sales performance management system includes incentives and rewards; those include commission / bonuses, financial incentives as well as recognition programs. Many companies fail to recognize the power of non-cash incentives when it comes to motivating their sales team. Sales people come to work just like everybody else, for both financial wages as well as psychic wages. It's important to recognize the non-cash component when it comes to recognition. It's easy to recognize the efforts of your sales team through contests, awards, atta-boy's, regular hi-fives with people who've just closed deals, recognition in front of company meetings, all of those things can add a powerful component of recognition and incentives to your overall incentive program. So, if your company is interested in accelerating its sales and taking its sales team's performance to the next level, consider building a formalized sales performance management system that includes all of the elements that I've just mentioned about.

Cube Management helps companies accelerate their sales, by providing the Sales & Marketing talent they need to grow their business. Cube is a leading recruiting and consulting partner to mid-market and emerging growth companies in the technology, manufacturing, healthcare and business service sectors. We work across the spectrum of Sales, Marketing and Business Development, providing holistic solutions that drive revenue and profit success. Cube Management combines Strategy, Process and People, to produce great results. Download the Cube Management Recruiting Guide and the Cube Management Inside Sales Guide.

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Adopt the 'T' Method to Sales Performance Improvement

What's your approach to sales training? Do you have a process that defines which sales performance competency to train to and what impact it will have on selected performance silos if the training objective is successfully met? Or do you rely on 'field feedback' not associated with actual performance numbers and related ROI to decide where to put your training dollars?

Here's a simple blueprint to gain more revenue in less time while maintaining fiscal accountability to the 'Top-floor'.

At JDH Group, our go-to-market strategy is to understand a sales organization's revenue goals and define what key results are needed in performance improvement. To illustrate it, we produce diagnostic performance solution 'Blueprints' for sales organizations that utilize the 'T' method; both vertical and horizontal.

Horizontally, we look at each KPI and help companies understand how to identify, train to, improve and measure competencies in each of the critical performance indicators.

The 'T' method of training evaluation is a process that utilizes both a horizontal approach to key sales performance indicators (KPI) and a vertical examination to calculate the impact, or 'Return on Training Investment' (ROTI). Aligning the two will not only give you the path of least resistance to your overall revenue objective but will point to performance silos that will produce more revenue and/or recover unnecessary costs from sub-par sales performance.

Horizontal Examination

Here's an example of sales organization KPI's that sells business solutions to small and medium size companies:

o 1st Appointment to Proposal ratio (60%)

o Closing ratio (40%)

o Average Revenue per Sale ($3500)

o Sales cycle (38 Days)

o Revenue goal ($25,000)

o Average New appointments generated per rep (5)

This model represents a sales team that statistically has an opportunity to reach 67% of their revenue goal. So let's take a closer look at which KPI performance training could achieve the required result the quickest.

One way would be to focus on front-end activity. Improving the average appointment generation to 7 new appointments would achieve the revenue goal, all other factors remaining the same.

Option 1: Establish a Prospecting Methodology; a single, documented and agreed upon prospecting method across all sales regions. The training objective should be to spend less time to gain more 'Targeted' business appointments to initiate your current sales process.

Another choice might be to evaluate your current sales methodology to understand if there is any room for improvement in your current closing ratio of 40%. As an example, improving this KPI to 60% would secure the monthly revenue target with no other KPI changes. Or splitting the difference; improving the 1st appointment to proposal ratio by 10% and the closing ratio by 10% would achieve the same result while maintaining the necessary new appointments at (5).

Option 2: Initially, choose a 'Top-down' approach versus a bottom up; target and initiate your sales process with a fiscal level of authority. Develop a diagnostic sales process that points to the prospect company's business objectives parallel to you product/service solution. Speak in terms of Return on Investment, Soft and Hard Dollar recovery and Investment Payback Period. Sell the diagnostic parts to your process in line with the prospect's annual business objectives; don't rely on 'Features & benefits'. Then customize your proposal as a hypothetical case study with measurable results.

Vertical Sales Performance 'Impact Silo' Examination

Whether you are initiating sales performance training internally or outsourcing a niche training organization, most folks sitting on the 'Top-floor' now require accountability in line with budget expenditures.

Another way to say it is the CFO knows he's wasting half the sales training budget, he just doesn't know which half.

Approaching sales training expenditures with a Vertical 'Silo' inspection will help score points to the fiscal authorities within your own organization.

Let's take a look at this same sales organization's vertical performance silos:

o Average New-hire Ramp-to-Quota (5 months) (35 hires per year)

o Sales employee Turnover due to low appointment activity (30)

o Percent of sales reps at or above Quota (70%)

First, calculate your 'sub-par' average revenue. This number reflects the average monthly revenue a new-hire achieves before they achieve quota attainment.

As an example, if your current Average Ramp-to-Quota is 5 months, take the average total Revenue sold in the first 4 months of a new hires routine and divide it by 4. That will give you the average 'Sub-Quota' Revenue per Month during Ramp.

In this example, we will use $8,000 as the average 'sub-par' revenue.

One of the overall training objectives could be to improve the New-hire Ramp-to-Quota. So you consider the training result and impact as it relates to revenue recovery by selecting a ramp-to-quota goal that's more efficient than the 'status quo' of 5 months. In this case a 1 month ramp-to-quota reduction would recover $595,000 in additional new sales. That equates to $17,000 per new-hire. And if you have determined that the performance training Cost-per-head is $2500, there's your internal training ROI; 680%.

And we're not done yet.

You have defined that 30 sales reps per year go out the door directly related to low activity, not setting enough new business appointments to justify the required revenue result.

Let's take a closer look at it pertains to related costs and potential recovery. Here are your expense breakdowns relating to a new-hire sales rep:

o Average Salary: $28,000

o Recruiting Costs: $1,200

o Training Costs per Rep: $2500

o Monthly Sales Quota: $25,000

If the focused KPI training initiative reduces your sales rep turnover by 50% (15 reps), that recovers $1,953,500 in measurable dollars, something everyone can actually put their finger on.

That's over $130,000 of real return for every rep that learns how to effectively set new business appointments.

Considering this cause and circumstance versus the realistic training benefit as a ROI factor, you choose Option 1 to establish a Prospecting Methodology across all sales regions. And in this case, that also justifies the training investment to the "Top-floor'.

In the 3rd Vertical Sales Performance 'Impact Silo' we determined that an average of 70% of the sales reps are achieving quota per month. And the average month 'sub-quota' revenue achieved for the 30% of reps not reaching quota is found to be $16,000.

We also determined the average new appointments generated per week is (5), but

by improving the 1st appointment to proposal ratio by 10% and the closing ratio by 10% we would achieve Quota consistently.

Next, let's determine our Return on Training Investment if we meet our training objective of improving the 70% team Quota 'water-mark' up to 90%.

o 1st Appointment to Proposal ratio (Improve to 70%)

o Closing ratio (Improve to 50%)

o Average Revenue per Sale ($3500)

o Sales cycle (38 Days)

o Average New appointments generated (5)

o 100 sales reps

Implementing a focused performance improvement system to advance our middle KPI's in supporting an additional 20 sales reps per month to achieve Quota would increase our monthly revenue results by $180,000.

That's an annual return of $2,160,000 or a training ROI of 864% based on a $2500 cost-per-head training investment. And with a 38-day sales cycle, the training investment 'break-even' point would be approximately 80 days.

Because of this cause and circumstance versus the realistic training benefit as a ROI factor, you choose Option 2 to establish a 'Business acumen' sales methodology, develop supporting diagnostic tools to establish financial business metrics parallel to your prospect's initiatives and your product/service solution.

Adopting this 'T' method to sales performance training will allow you to determine the shortest path to your revenue goals, determine and implement 'Best Practice' sales performance training and justify the training investment to the "Top-floor'.

Because at the end of the day... it's all about Return on Investment.

Jeff Hardesty is president of JDH Group Inc., a sales performance training company based in Powell, Ohio. He can be reached at jeff@convertmoresales.com

Calculate your sales team?s ?Sales Performance Competencies? here http://convertmoresales.com/marketing_blitz.php

Submit your numbers for a complimentary 30-minute performance consultation with Jeff Hardesty http://convertmoresales.com/roi_survey.php

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Does Your Sales Training Program Address Your Sales Performance Issues? Part 1

Sales training programs encompass a variety of necessary components; things like company policies, sales paperwork, CRM/sales force automation orientation, sales processes, company services, sales skill training and product features and benefits.

But when I ask Sales executives and Sales trainers how their current sales training program is aligned with their sales performance issues I get the look of "No speak English'.

Let's first categorize 'Sales performance issues'. There are (4) distinct sales performance silos that will effect the overall outcome of any sales team, year in and year out. They are:

o % of Sales reps to Quota

o Average New-hire Ramp-to-Quota in months

o Sales Employee Turnover rate

o Time spent versus Result achieved

This is a good place to start in determining what sales skill training to implement to achieve a measurable return on investment. But here's what will set you apart when you walk the request up to the front office. Start out with the NUMBERS.

That's right. Take a diagnostic view of your current sales performance silos, one by one.

Let's look at a real sales performance issue example of 'Average New-hire Ramp-to-Quota'. I recently conducted a 'Sales Performance Improvement Blueprint' web-cast for this sales organization.

The company was hiring 155 sales reps per year. The ultimate objective of any new-hire sales training program is to ramp the new sales rep to Quota. Simply, give them everything they need to effectively reach their monthly sales goal.

So how was this company doing? They were obtaining this ultimate sales training program objective in 7 months. So how does one determine if that training outcome is a 'Sales Performance Issue'? Let's take a look.

Step 1: 'Run the Numbers' for any realistic ROI opportunity

o Each new-hire rep had an ultimate quota of $3500

o Sales Cycle was 17 days

o Average customer term agreement of 36 months

o Average 'Sub-Quota' revenue per month during ramp of $1300 (This number reflects the average monthly revenue a new-hire achieves before they achieve quota attainment)

Step 2: 'Run the Numbers' hypothetically for a 'Specific' improvement

In this case, I showed the sales management team what return on investment they would get by helping just 1 sales rep achieve full sales quota in 6 months versus 7 months. Based on their numbers my diagnostic X2 Evaluator(TM) system showed them a ROI of $79,200 just by trimming off 30 days. If they did that for all 155 of their annual new-hires, they could realize $12,276,000.

And that got their attention. So, is it now a worthy sales performance issue to attach pin-point sales training to? Not quite yet.

Step 3: 'Run the Numbers' for a 'Reality Check'

The most successful businesses -- and certainly, sales departments -- have identified their Key Performance Indicators (KPI); individual gateways that directly effect the outcome of a particular process. Then they measure the competency ratios in line with them.

A good KPI example in the sales process might be how many times you advance the first sales appointment to the next phase, whether that's a demonstration, a site visit, a survey or a proposal. Another KPI is how many times you gain a new customer once the first gateway is passed. And when you do gain a new customer, what's the average revenue you achieve? And how long does it take to gain a new customer on average; i.e. sales cycle?

How about how long it takes you to gain 1 new sales appointment, defined by sales prospect 'conversation'? And as a by-product of all this, how many new appointments are needed each week?

We ran these numbers in the X2 Evaluator(TM) system to see 'if and where' there were some leaks in the 'KPI ship'. And here's what we discovered; not a leak, but a big 'ole fire hose.

Two 'KPI issues' were apparent. First, why does the ramp-to-quota for a new-hire take 7 months when the average sales cycle is 17 days? Second, they were only setting 3 new appointments per week when they needed to set 6, based on their other KPIs. So their sales appointment 'activity barometer' was only running at 50%. And that will dictate a longer ramp-to-quota.

Dig a bit deeper in the X2 Evaluator(TM) system and out popped a 6% conversation-to-appointment ratio; they had to conduct 15 prospect conversations to get 1 new appointment.

OK, back to the 'Reality Check'. Is it realistic to focus on reducing the new-hire ramp-to-quota from 7 months to 6 months for a sales training ROI of $12,276,000 or $79,200 per rep?

You bet it is. These folks needed to address the front-end of their sales process; setting targeted sales appointments. To do that, they needed (1) establish an activity standard to reach quota by month six and (2) develop a sales prospecting methodology and supporting X2 Evaluator(TM) system to spend less time in achieving it.

Then they needed to plug their sales prospecting 'system' into their current sales training program and work to a weekly sales appointment activity goal to assure a monthly revenue result by month 6.

Step 4: Set the Goal and 'Train to It'

A sales training ROI goal of $12,276,000 or $79,200 per rep is for sure a worthy one. And the diagnostic system showed us they would meet this goal just by setting 3 additional sales appointment per week per rep; 6 appointments versus 3.

Actually, I lied. The X2 Evaluator system showed an even brighter picture if the sales appointment activity standard of 6 new appointments per week was met. If they could support their new-hires with a sales prospecting system that could help them achieve 6 new sales appointments per week, they would actually cut their new-hire Ramp-to-Quota by 4 months; from the current 7 months down to 3 months.

And that sales training ROI would be $316,800 per rep or a whopping $49,104,000.

One of the reasons why sales training fails is a failure to define a useful objective. In this case, our diagnostic method has defined a single useful objective for them to train to. And this same diagnostic method can be utilized if you have a 'Sales Performance Issue' of an unacceptable percentage of Sales reps reaching Quota each month.

In Part 2, we will take a look at (2) other sales performance issues, 'Sales Employee Turnover rate' and 'Time spent versus Result achieved' with this same sales management team and see what our diagnostic method to sales performance improvement and ROI turns up.

Jeff Hardesty is President of JDH Group, Inc. and the Developer of the X2 Sales System®, a blended training system that teaches sales professionals the competency of setting C-level business appointments. Jeff can be reached at jeff@convertmoresales.com.

Calculate your sales team?s ?Sales Performance Competencies? here =>http://convertmoresales.com/marketing_blitz.php

Submit your numbers for a complimentary 30-minute performance consultation with Jeff Hardesty =>http://convertmoresales.com/roi_survey.php

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How to Recognize Your "True" Sales Performance Competencies

Let's first define what we mean by a "core competency." We will then introduce the 3 Core Competencies, and spend our time understanding how they can dramatically increase your success.

The term Core Competencies refers to those essential elements in the sales process that most directly impact your success. These elements are controllable and measurable, and sales professionals can be trained to be proficient in these areas. Unfortunately, many sales organizations and individuals lose focus - distracted by peripheral activities or sophisticated systems that track dozens of different activities when only a handful really matters.

Without a foundation built upon these essential elements or Core Competencies, and because of all the distractions and roadblocks an organization is susceptible to today, results can be mediocre or less.

Take a look at the following list of items that are prevalent in the sales cycle, and select the items that you believe are absolutely essential to your success.

- Closing Sales

- Developing Prospect Lists

- Setting Appointments

- Running 1st Appointments

- Working Qualified Prospects through the Sales Pipeline

- Post-Sale Marketing

- Developing Referrals

- Reporting and Paperwork

- Documenting Testimonials

Many of these tasks are important, but they are not all sales performance competencies. Yes, it is important and useful to ask for referrals and develop testimonials from satisfied customers, but your success hinges mostly on the mastery of - and attention to - the Core sales Competencies.

One simple way to determine whether an activity, routine or task is truly a core sales competency is to ask what activities are directly linked to revenue.

After all, revenue is how we sales people measure success. That's our scorecard at the end of the month.

We can do that through a series of questions listed below.

Is it an essential component to the sales mission or is it just an ingredient in the recipe?

Separate necessary tasks in your sales day from key competencies.

Consider a golfer's essential competencies from tee-off to last putt. Is the core competency the ball - or the club? Or is it the golf swing and putting stroke?

As an example, Prospecting for new business is a necessary sales system to put in place for routine success. Within your Prospecting system are individual components for lead generation; things like customer referral programs, vendor collaboration programs, affinity programs, target information seminars and association programs. These are not authentic sales competencies but tactical vehicles for lead generation.

The actual sales competency is the 'Act of communicating the Business Reason to Meet' once you are given the opportunity to have a face-to-face or telephone conversation with your intended target prospect.

And the measurement of that competency, or key performance indicator, is the 'Conversation-to-appointment' ratio; how many times you ask for the business appointment versus how many times you achieve it.

Can it be measured routinely and accurately with a napkin, pencil, and calculator?

Just as measuring your 'Conversation-to-appointment' ratio; how many times you ask for the business appointment versus how many times you achieve it, your first appointment to proposal ration is a key performance indicator which make it also an essential sales performance competency, because the objective of your first appointment is advancing your sales process to the next step. That might be a demonstration, a site visit, a survey or a proposal.

The degree that you perform your 1st appointment sales process to achieve your 'Next Step' objective is measurable and will give you diagnostic feedback to your competency level parallel to your 1st appointment methodology and process.

Can you set a realistic performance benchmark tied to revenue goals?

Let's say you have diagnosed your sales performance competencies as converting target prospect conversations to appointments, converting 1st appointments to the 'next step' in your sales process and then closing the business from there. So that's (3) sales performance competencies; Conversation-to-appointment ratio, 1st appointment to proposal ratio and closing ratio.

How would you go about setting realistic performance benchmarks that the team can aspire to and measure themselves against?

To do so you need (3) more sales performance numbers; your average revenue per sale, your monthly revenue objective and your weekly activity number. Your weekly activity number is a derivative of your (3) sales performance competencies and your average revenue per sale parallel to your monthly revenue objective.

Here's an example of a sales manager in the document management industry. Her team's average revenue per sale is $3400. She calculates she needs to maintain a 1st appointment to proposal ratio of 65%. The closing ratio is set at 40%. Their individual monthly revenue goal is $25,000.

The derivative of these performance numbers is a weekly activity goal of (7) new appointments per rep, on average.

Next is the reality check. Are these performance numbers realistic to meet? Do they have the necessary skill-set and supporting tools to meet all the benchmarks and achieve the performance ratios and activity goal?

If not, what adjustments are needed in line with the benchmarks and what training is needed to achieve them?

Can you apply "Pin-point Training" and "Powerful Routines" around each core competency?

We know what training is, but do we understand why training fails? Timely training is NOT a seminar or one-time event. It requires appropriate structures for learning and application, defining useful short-term objectives, measuring progress, working closely with qualified trainers for follow-up and support, and most importantly, organizational commitment from the 'Top' down.

'Timely training' is focused on one sales performance competency at a time until the appropriate benchmark of performance is realized.

So if you can say it is directly tied to revenue (or your end result), is a skill set that can be trained to for improvement, and can be easily measured, it is a Sales Performance Competency.

Perhaps a golf analogy will help illustrate the power of the Business of Core Competencies. A self-professed "poor" golfer with a chronic slice might attempt to correct the problem by adjusting his stance - actually aiming away from the fairway so that the slice hopefully lands the ball in the middle.

In contrast, a low handicap golfer with a persistent slice might address the problem by adjusting their grip, rotating their hips, or the adjusting the arc of their swing. In other words, the good golfers address the core competencies of the swing vs. adjusting peripheral elements.

Off the golf course, in the sales arena, the opportunity for you is to identify, train to and measure sales performance competencies and performance metrics, and not just chase after quota.

Jeff Hardesty is President of JDH Group, Inc. and the Developer of the X2 Sales System®, a blended training system that teaches sales professionals the competency of setting C-level business appointments.

Jeff's sales performance improvement articles has been featured in numerous National publications such as Business First, Dartnell?s SELL!NG, Chief Learning Officer and Training Magazine with reference to ROI Blended Learning Systems and improving sales teams Key Performance Indicators.

He travels the country conducting live X2 Appointment setting ?Boot Camps? and Train-the-trainer sessions helping sales organizations get more reps to Quota in less time, shorten new-hire ?Ramp-to-Quota?, accelerate new product roll-outs and eliminate Turnover costs due to low sales activity.

Jeff can be reached at jeff@convertmoresales.com. To view a complimentary suite of sales training ROI calculators and determine your sales team?s Key Performance Indicators in line with your sales objectives visit http://convertmoresales.com/roi_calculators.php

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Magic Number Calculator - A Diagnostic Approach to Sales Performance

We discussed the most overlooked Key Performance Indicator is the "magic number," which refers to how many new appointments a sales rep must generate each week in order to achieve their revenue goal.

In early 2000 I walked into a VP of Sales mission with a sales organization consisting of 120 reps spread out over 12 sales regions. They were running at 38% of revenue goal for over 2 years. I ran a KPI study and determined they were running 2 new appointments per week/rep, but their KPI's dictated they needed to achieve 7. So I announced a training objective to enable them to do it effectively, (now branded the X2 Sales System®) and threw quota out the window for 90 days. But I replaced the monthly quota with the weekly 'magic number'.

8 months later sales units sold increased by 520%.

Calculate your sales team's 'Magic Number' here:

http://convertmoresales.com/marketing_blitz.php

A rep's magic number is determined by looking at several of her other KPIs. Say, for example, that your company sells copiers (for which an average sales cycle is 45 days) and that a rep's monthly sales revenue goal is $15,000. Her average revenue per sale, meanwhile, is $2,500; her current first-appointment-to-proposal ratio is 60 percent; and her closing ratio is 40 percent. What's her magic number? In other words, how many new appointments does she need to set each week in order to achieve her sales revenue goal of $15,000 per month?

The Magic Number Formula

Monthly sales revenue objective: $15,000

Divided by (/)

Average revenue per sale: $2,500

/

First-appointment-to-proposal ratio: 60%

(What percentage of the time do reps gain commitment from prospective clients to "take the next step" in the sales process after the first appointment?)

/

Closing ratio: 40%

(Proposal to close--measures proposals submitted vs. new business achieved.)

/

Weeks in the month: 4

=

Magic number: (approximately) 6 new appointments each week

Once you have identified the magic number, the next step is to determine how many new appointments a rep is currently generating each week. If she is falling short of her six-appointments-per-week goal, your job as a sales trainer is to find ways--through targeted KPI training--to help her bridge that gap and achieve her "magic number."

Here are some tips for doing just that:

1. As an organization, announce that the ability to convert conversations into appointments will become a KPI of the sales process.

2. Define an appointment-setting objective and train to that objective. For example, if the average weekly amount of time that sales reps devote to prospecting new clients is 22.5 hours (out of a 45-hour workweek), your organization's objective might be to cut that prospecting time in half (to 11.25 hours per week) while simultaneously exceeding current appointment-setting levels. With your objective in place, it's now time to break down and document the steps in the prospecting process and train reps on how to make better use of their prospecting time during each step.

3. Map out all possible scenarios that might occur during the prospecting process. Once you have done so--and documented best-practice strategies for handling each scenario--create mini training modules and/or job aids that show reps how to handle each scenario effectively.

4. In addition to enhancing reps' prospecting skills, another way to ensure that they achieve their "magic number" is to help them improve other KPIs in the "magic number" formula, such as their closing and first-appointment-to-proposal ratios.

> To increase their first-appointment-to-proposal ratio, for example, your training might encourage reps to start at the "top" with those who have fiscal authority and can "call the shots." Training might also pinpoint ways for reps to avoid "selling" products during the first appointment by providing them with an outline of the diagnostic steps they should follow in order to evaluate the fit between their solution and a prospective client's business objectives.

>To increase reps' closing ratio, meanwhile, the training you develop might show reps how to ask pertinent questions to determine what a prospective client's decision-making process entails, what the client's internal criteria for change include and which players need to be involved in the sales process in order for proper evaluation of a product to occur. In addition, your training might show reps how to catalog risk factors (e.g., possible objections or reservations a client might have regarding purchasing a product or service from your organization) for each player involved in the decision-making process and then provide reps with strategies, tactics, and tools for direct communication with clients based on those risk factors.

In the end, targeted, effective sales training can make a critical difference to your bottom line, and so can effective goal-setting. In today's high-performance sales culture, it's up to trainers and sales management to work together to focus more on daily and weekly goals and less on monthly or quarterly quotas. Success in doing so rests on the ability to switch paradigms from looking merely at required end results to also determining the necessary KPIs it takes to get there--and then building supporting tools and training to help sales reps along the way.

And, above all, don't forget your magic number!

Jeff Hardesty is president of JDH Group Inc., a sales training company based in Powell, Ohio. He can be reached at jeff@convertmoresales.com or visit http://www.convertmoresales.com.

Calculate your sales team's 'Magic Number' here: http://convertmoresales.com/marketing_blitz.php

Jeff Hardesty is President of JDH Group, Inc. and the Developer of the X2 Sales System®, a blended training system that teaches sales professionals the competency of setting C-level business appointments.

Jeff's sales performance improvement articles has been featured in numerous National publications such as Business First, Dartnell?s SELL!NG, Chief Learning Officer and Training Magazine with reference to ROI Blended Learning Systems and improving sales teams Key Performance Indicators.

He travels the country conducting live X2 Appointment setting ?Boot Camps? and Train-the-trainer sessions helping sales organizations get more reps to Quota in less time, shorten new-hire ?Ramp-to-Quota?, accelerate new product roll-outs and eliminate Turnover costs due to low sales activity.

Jeff can be reached at jeff@convertmoresales.com. To view a complimentary suite of sales training ROI calculators and determine your sales team?s Key Performance Indicators in line with your sales objectives visit http://convertmoresales.com/roi_calculators.php.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Sales Competence Isn't About Quota Performance!

If you stop any sales person on the street and ask them if they are good at what they do, chances are, they will all say "yes!" But ask their manager, marketing department, customer service area, human resources department (or any other function of the firm), and chances are the answer is "no." The difference in defining sales competence is a matter of perspective.

Compounding the problem are two myths regarding measures of competency in sales.

Myth#1: Quota performance does not equate to sales competency - A salesperson's quota is usually determined by management. More often than not, the quota is set as a way to attain a goal of an increased share price or its just pulled out of the air as a "nice-to-have-number" that is bigger than last year. It's a rare organization that can articulate how a quota was set. It's even rarer to find an organization that sits down to do the sales math and determine the realistic quota and stretch quota for their salespeople. Without this understanding, how do you know if the quota is too high? How do you know if it is too low? You don't! Therefore the salesperson that hits quota in an organization that doesn't know how to set one is not proving his or her competence.

Myth#2: Activity level does not equate to sales competency - Many organizations set sales activity goals. They will ask their salespeople to accomplish X sales calls, X phone calls, and X proposals a day. These types of measurements, and constantly hitting them, do not mean the person can sell. Sure, there is a positive correlation between activity and selling, but if I play the lottery every single day I probably won't win. If I play X lottery games, in X states, and with X amount of money, it doesn't mean I'm driving towards a win. It simply means I'm increasing my chances. I'd rather have someone that knows exactly what they are doing and not playing the lottery with their sales territory.

So what exactly is sales competency? Competence is defined as someone's knowledge, skill and internal motivation. Knowledge is the building block of competence. Effective sales professionals are continuously learning and they have developed a framework and process for accessing their knowledge. They have a solid knowledge foundation and they understand their strengths and weaknesses. Skill is determined by the knowledge a salesperson has gained plus their experience level. The most skilled sales professionals have stayed in one vertical market or industry for a longer period of time. They have also stayed in the same sales role for a longer length of time (such as outside sales). They have also followed a defined career path with increasing levels of responsibility and complexity of sale. Internal motivation is someone's self talk, drive, and purpose. Their passion for the product, zeal for the organization where they work, and their positive attitude form the cornerstone for the ability to overcome objections, handle rejection, or deal with poorly set sales quotas.

A competent sales person has the ability to move into any organization and gain the trust of the decision-makers. They work to create a situation where buying can occur within an ethical environment at a fair price. They have the knowledge to speak to a CEO, the front-line manager, or the newest employee about what issues and challenges they face. Most of all they strive to increase their knowledge, skill, and motivation so they can be the best at what they do.

Brian Lambert is the Director of Sales Development and Performance at the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD). In this role, he is responsible for meeting the unique challenges of performance professionals focused on the sales profession. He is responsible for conducting primary research and creating resources, articles, and other custom content that helps individuals design and deliver sales training, manage and develop high performing sales talent, and improve salesperson performance. Brian has fifteen years of experience in sales, sales management, sales training, and sales consulting and is an internationally recognized expert on the state of the sales profession as well as current trends in transforming sales team systems, processes, and people.

Brian is a highly sought after world-wide speaker, author, and trainer on sales competency, sales performance, sales process, sales professionalism, sales ethics, and sales process.

Find out about Brian at http://www.salestrainingdrivers.com
Visit ASTD's Sales Training Initiative at: http://www.astd.org/communities/salestraining

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Business to Business Sales Acid Test: How Could You Improve Sales Performance?

What could you do to improve sales performance in these very demanding times? An important first step in your b2b sales strategy is to identify the primary skills and attitude issues that are having a negative impact on your company's sales performance. The majority of these will be associated with what I often refer to as "comfort zone selling". This article is primarily aimed at companies selling business to business solutions, services or consultancy.

Do You Have An Effective Business to Business Sales Strategy?

Many b2b salespeople go through the same tired old sales process time and again, without every really understanding the psychology or dynamics behind the complex buying decisions that involve value add or business critical solutions or services. Sometimes they get lucky and very often they don't. Yet there is another breed of b2b salespeople who would seem to experience more sustained "luck" in this area. The reality of course is that they make their own luck through a more intelligent and strategic approach to complex sales scenarios.

This sales acid test looks at the top 20 business to business sales growth killers that tend to defy a company's efforts to improve sales performance and it applies as much to large corporates as it does to small or medium enterprise (SME). Engaging an experienced sales coach can bring a valuable external view with fresh ideas to catalyse your sales strategy.

Business to Business Sales Acid Test - A Health Warning

This b2b sales acid test sets out to highlight only those business growth killers that are directly sales related. A separate article will focus on other "people related" business growth killers. These two areas are obviously closely related with many interdependencies and it may be beneficial to consider them collectively for your sales strategy to succeed. Some of the sales issues described here will have a direct impact on other business areas and vice versa.

There is a health warning with this b2b sales acid test in that any changes it may inspire you to make are best carried out as a sales evolution, rather than a sales revolution. In other words, beware of trying to address too much too soon or you may end up with a confused and revolting sales team (pun intended). It is advised that you consider engaging an external b2b sales coach with relevant experience to assist you in determining what to tackle (importance), when to tackle it (urgency), and how to tackle it (best approach).

Salespeople Are at the Heart of Both the Problem and the Solution

The market tends to place expectations on the role and function of a salesperson and how they should and shouldn't behave and weaker or less experienced salespeople largely tend to conform to this unfortunate stereotype. Therein lies the core challenge as conformance will ensure mediocrity at the very best. No key influencer or decision maker wants to spend time in the company of the stereotype salesperson as they recognise that there is little value in engaging with such people. Many will however choose to spend time with that rare b2b salesperson that really brings value as a trusted advisor.

There are strategies and approaches that may work for retail sales, business to consumer (b2c) sales and others that may work for business to business (b2b) commodity sales. However these are all guaranteed to fail miserably when selling b2b value-add or business critical solutions, services or consultancy. When a key influencer or decision maker knows their career may depend on the supplier selection they make, there is no room for a salesperson whose primary interest is in trying to flog them something. Such complex scenarios require a far more credible and considered b2b sales strategy, winning credibility and the confidence of senior players in order to create a decent chance of success.

Some b2b salespeople will be more receptive to change and have the potential to modify their attitudes and behaviours, learn new skills or adopt new approaches. These people are more likely to be worth investing in as you seek to raise the bar on sales performance. However, there will always be others that will either lack the potential or be unwilling to move out of their comfort zones. It would help to improve sales performance if the latter were to be encouraged to pursue their sales careers elsewhere, being replaced by those more willing and able.

And Now to the Sales Acid Test Itself

What follows is a summary of the top 20 "sales related" growth killers that I have come across in recent years. Any one of these will impact a company's overall sales potential and many companies suffer a combination that tends to exacerbate the negative impact, causing the sales growth of some to slow down, stand still or even recede. It's all too easy to hope such things will simply go away and many managers may want to avoid any potential confrontation that might arise if they tried to address such issues. That's where the support of an experienced external b2b sales coach comes in.

Top 20 Business to Business Sales Growth Killers (in no specific order)

Concerning Prospective or Existing Customers: Note: "client" is used below to represent prospects or customers.


Poor returns from presentations, demos, trials, proposals or bids.
Regular sales forecast slippage or forecast order value reduction.
Suffering late stage disappointments with key forecast opportunities.
Some clients become unresponsive after proposals are submitted.
Being used for free consultancy by people with no intention of buying.
Investing time bidding on client projects that fail to gain funding.
Difficulty getting in front of key influencers or decision makers.
Difficulty in gaining client commitment to progress to next steps.
Clients holding us at arm's length preventing any real relationship.
Clients not keeping us well-informed of changes that might impact us.
Clients not being straight with us by withholding information or lying.
Clients see us more as a product supplier than a strategic partner.
Clients expecting our key value-add at little or no additional cost.
Our pricing or terms are too often compromised in sales negotiations.
Salespeople too frequently requesting client discounts or concessions.
Reluctance of existing clients to meet us on a regular enough basis.
Sales reluctance to involve management in key client relationships.
Inconsistent or weak sales strategy failing to gain enough traction.
Some salespeople failing to meet expectations or hit sales targets.
Inconsistent overall sales performance leading to feast or famine.

Relating the B2B Sales Acid Test to Your Company

Your sales entity may suffer a combination of these issues that will serve to weaken any strategy you might implement to improve sales performance. No company is or ever will be perfect and in reality most of these sales issues will apply in some degree or other to every business. Therefore it's important to focus on those proving most detrimental to your company's sales strategy rather than shooting for overall sales perfection.

You may benefit significantly from taking a pragmatic look to understand how many of these sales issues apply to your business and don't despair if its more than one. At least you will have started the process of sales evolution by identifying these as key change focus areas. If we first identify and then look to address the most important and urgent and aim to do this over a period of months rather than weeks or days, we will have a far greater chance of success. Engaging an experienced external sales coach may be critical if you are serious about evolving your b2b sales strategy for growth.

More sales and business articles by Harry Hayden

About the Author

Harry Hayden provides sales management training and sales coaching. In his previous career he led multinational sales groups across Europe for several large and medium sized corporates. He now helps SME business leaders and sales managers with the development and execution of their sales management strategy.

Harry is MD of Perform Business Coaching and can be reached directly at harry@pbc-hh.com or through the website above.

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Elements Of A Successful Sales Performance Management System

The components of a successful sales performance management system include first of all having well defined revenue plans and revenue and margin objectives. Often times, this includes having bookings objectives for your individual sales people. Having well defined sales territories relating to those targets. And of course, having a strong, well documented plan, in terms of who your target markets and customers are within your territories.

In addition to having a revenue plan, other components of the sales performance management system include a job description that is expectation based where the outcomes are clearly defined are very important in terms of overall requirements for success in the job.

The next component of successful sales performance management system is actually having individual revenue margin and booking objectives for each of your people. Typically, this is done an annualize basis with your people going through a planning cycle once you've defined your overall company's revenue plans. You should put together targets, annual revenue and bookings goals for each of your salespeople that are tied to that overall revenue plan. And often times you'll be doing a measuring and monitoring of performance relative to those actual revenue goals systematically on a monthly or quarterly basis in addition to that.

The next element of a successful sales performance management system is having an annual territory plan that your salespeople are working towards. This territory plan should be developed in concert with sales management in your sales people and it should list not only your major objects but also key accounts that you're targeting, the strategies to get into those accounts, should probably have a section about both new business development as well as account maintenance or account management and also have a section related to actual channel management strategies that your sales people are going to be carrying out. This is a once page document that can be put together in a template and passed out to your sales people and used as a tool for them to conduct annual sales planning.

Again, having a plan in place allows you to use that plan as a tool for measuring and monitoring performance against that plan and having ongoing discussions with your sales people related to how they're progressing against the objectives and the overall plan that they've set at the outset of the year.

The next element of a successful sales performance management system has nothing to do with actual goals objectives or plans, but everything to do with sales management's role in working with individuals on the sales team. This is the most critical element. Sales people are only as good as they are being managed by sales management. A lot of companies expect sales people to be left at their own devices, but just like any other team, sales people need to be managed and the foundation for that, of course, is having somebody in place in your sales management function who is willing to work closely with their people.

The role of sales management in developing and using a sales performance management system is probably most principally based upon the notion of sales management working closely with sales team members on an on going basis and establishing a relationship of trust, confidence, and mentorship. And that relationship built between sales management and its team is fundamental to empowering sales people to be successful in their jobs.

The role of sales management is to track sales activity and measure and monitor performance and to coach sales people to success. Tracking activity can be done very easily when your company has a successful CRM implementation. We use salesforce.com to develop customized dashboards that give management a quick snapshot of each of their sales people's activity in terms of amount of prospecting, amount of actual account qualification and actually being able to measure and track the activity of the sales people as it relates to moving deals through the actual sales process towards close.

Measuring and monitoring performance isn't just about really tracking activity but in a deeper sense, getting behind the activity to understand what it is that's working and what's not working with each sales person's territory. A good example of that is working with accounts. Is the sales person doing a good job of mapping out an actual customer prospect, in terms of people, decision makers, influencers and decision making processa and then working hard in order to touch all the bases to develop and advance the sale with all of the different constituents inside a specific account. This is where sales management needs to work deeply to measure and monitor sales performance and this is not a trivial task. It requires active engagement from sales management in order to do this.

Another foundation of good sales management, of course, is coaching your people to success. There is all sorts of schools of thoughts out there about how to best work with people but in this day and age, which is one of empowerment, people want to feel like they're involved in the decision making processes of their job. They want to feel like their opinion is heard by management. So a more enlightened approach to coaching your people today in today's management environment is really working with sales people to help them to understand and reach their own conclusions about how they can improve their sales performance.

Coaching requires active engagement which requires in turn, time spent seriously involved in a sales person's day to day, week to week routine activities. There's a number of different ways to do this, of course. The most effective way is spending one on one time with your sales people in the field actually visiting accounts, strategizing them, talking about and preparing for sales calls, going on those sales calls and then debriefing after those sales calls to talk about what happened, what was learned and how could the sales call have been improved. Most sales people learn by doing, and so the active coaching is the art of getting out with your people into the field and then actually working with them to help them to understand how they can enhance their sales performance and their sales technique.

Another element, in addition to regular sales visits, is frequent phone contact with your sales people just to check in with them to find out how things are going, and frequent informal discussions with sales people to just show them that you care and also giving them feedback on problems and challenges that they are facing on specific accounts as they raise those issues to you. Knowing which accounts your sales people are working on is the foundation for asking them questions on a regular basis about how things are going on those accounts and showing your sales people that you are actually engaged with them in an active relationship and are interested in helping them to find ways to win. When your sales people win, your company wins.

Yet another element is holding regular sales meetings. Some companies only do this on a very infrequent basis and the sales meeting should be a primary component of your sales performance management system. By formalizing sales meetings and holding them on a regular basis, you're showing your sales team that you're creating an environment of accountability and information exchange. Sales meetings can be used for a number of purposes including information gathering, finding out how your sales team members are performing.

Providing training for your sales people which is very important. Providing ongoing sales training is a way to make sure that your sales people are always sharpening their saw and that you're giving them the latest tools in order to improve their sales performance. So typically, we work on sales technique training as well as product training and customer and market training as well. Other things to do in sales meetings include providing recognition incentives and rewards, taking time in your sales meetings to praise and celebrate the successes of your people is a great way of showing them that you really do care about their performance and you're willing to celebrate those success and give them recognition and rewards as appropriate for the successes that they have. So holding sales meetings is an important part of making sure that you have a motivated, high performance sales team that's working together and is accountable for its activities.

The more that sales people understand that they are accountable for producing themselves and are held accountable through these different vehicles that we've talked about the better your sales performance is going to be from your people. So building and deploying a successful sales performance management system is something that a company cannot live without and needs to be taken very seriously.

Of course the best sales performance system is only as good as the people who are running it and when it comes right down to it, running a high performance sales team is all about good leadership. What is good leadership? That's not the subject that I want to cover here but I certainly do want to say this: Leadership is about passion, about vision, about connectedness, about motivating people, about finding out what it is that unlocks the door to people's special performance and help8ing them to realize, open that door and go there. So in some way, building a successful sales performance management system is a key to accelerating your company's sales and as your organization continues to grow, it becomes more important in order to achieve high performance scalability and repeatability in your processes.

Cube Management helps companies accelerate their sales, by providing the Sales & Marketing talent they need to grow their business. Cube is a leading recruiting and consulting partner to mid-market and emerging growth companies in the technology, manufacturing, healthcare and business service sectors. We work across the spectrum of Sales, Marketing and Business Development, providing holistic solutions that drive revenue and profit success. Cube Management combines Strategy, Process and People, to produce great results. Download the Cube Management Recruiting Guide and the Cube Management Inside Sales Guide.

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