Top 10 Sales Lessons Learned – Report from 100 Companies & Sales Teams

Few teams function as well as they could.  Team building, process re-engineering, and technology attempt to help teams come together and accomplish business objectives.  The challenge is pulling together the pieces and achieving a successful outcome in a high stakes game.

We have learned valuable lessons throughout the economic downturn, and are now challenged by management to optimize all parts of the business and focus on productivity.  Traditionally this thinking has been applied to operations teams but the focus is now on sales teams.  Sales teams need to generate more revenue and reduce the cost of acquisition.  Management is pushing their sales teams to pull together to achieve greater success.  The top 2,000 companies in the world are finding this difficult to achieve and are realizing less than 5% of their sales force can consistently and reliably accomplish critical growth objectives on their own.  In the high-stakes sales game sales teams need an edge.  They need sophisticated communications technology, well-designed & practical CRM, proven & scalable sales processes, and a force to push them to close more business.

Smart Sales set-out to more clearly understand the barriers enterprises face when challenging their sales force to deliver more value.  We interviewed sales leadership and management in more than 100 leading multinational companies and revealed critical insights into their businesses.  Sales leadership and executives in these firms pointed out 10 lessons they have learned.

Lesson 1 –There are 2 types of sales teams:  “get it done” and “help me!”   

In our discussions with sales leadership and executives it became clear there are more “help me” teams than “get it done” teams.   “Help me” teams require hand-holding, constant interaction, and monitoring.  If left to their own devises they would not achieve their targets.  The rare “get it done” sales team is often unwieldy and present management with the ‘herding cats’ challenge because such teams do not typically conform to information sharing or disciplined sales process rigor.  This group can be equally difficult to manage but deliver new sales more consistently than the “help me” group.

Lesson 2 –Most sales professionals are usually not thought leaders, and do not know how to meaningfully engage with prospective clients as an educator.

They are likely nuts-and-bolts/tactically oriented, and do not make the time (or simply lack the skills) to engage in their customers’ situations.  They talk about pain points, but do not have the ability to educate or meaningfully advise them on best-practices or pitfalls relative to their current approach.  Management tries to solve this problem by forcing sales to engage with solution managers that talk about the marketplace, and suggest,  in general,  how one might approach the challenges your target might be facing.

Lesson 3 –Companies that want to achieve high sales growth targets are not aware of the total cost of the sales effort. 

Most organizations believe that harder work will pay-off with exponential growth, and fail to realize that organizations that want to increase sales by more than 45% per annum generally need to increase resource allocation by 25-40%.

Lesson 4 –CRM is not a productivity tool. 

The most productive sales people dislike CRM because it is a tracking device that takes valuable time away from selling (i.e. one-to-one connection time with prospects).  They will input their data, but it usually is incomplete and gets updated right before the weekly sales meeting.  The majority of CRM data is inaccurate or reflects some level of activity that never occurred.  Our studies have found that sales professionals with the most robust and accurate CRM data records are the lowest-producing members of the team while conversely, the strongest revenue producers spend the least amount of time on the CRM...and in turn, often have the clout to demand that inside sales support or sales administration perform the required CRM & pipeline management tasks.

Lesson 5 – There is a strong correlation between sales process and ability to achieve revenue growth.

Businesses that use a “shotgun” approach perform well for a short period of time, but results typically level out quickly.  Businesses that achieve consistent growth have rigorous sales process that every team member adopts and follows.  In more than 75% of situations where revenue sluggishness or revenue decrease was reported, the results could be tied to inadequate sales processes.

Lesson 6 – Mass marketing does not work unless you are selling a known product to retail consumers.

Sales organizations that are selling to businesses require “mass customization.”  They require the ability to consistently reach out and connect in a personal and customized way to each target; making them feel like they are special and different.  Unfocused email blasts and social media efforts typically result in a false-positive, providing businesses with the sense that they are engaging the market and doing something to promote their business.  In most cases mass marketing has a negative to neutral outcome to direct, measurable revenue production.

Lesson 7 – Identifying target markets and creating messaging is both difficult and costly.

Over 80% of businesses do not know the total population of potential buyers for their products and services.  When management is asked to identify their potential customers they often refer to demographics, and cannot point to a specific, complete and accurate list of targets, nor are processes in place to keep their incomplete lists current.  Of the 80% that do not have this information developed, about half do not know how to go about producing or acquiring the information, and resort to data houses like D&B and Hoovers.

Lesson 8 – “Elite sales teams” (those sales teams that deliver consistent results) are prevalent in less than 25% of the mid-to-large corporate space and are usually found in family owned businesses that demand high growth. 

These sales teams are elite because they understand the level of effort and investment required to achieve consistent targets.  Management is committed to providing a culture of collaboration and incentive, but is not afraid to tie - and hold - their sales team to performance goals.  Other similarities amongst elite sales teams include daily activity review calls, a commitment to back-office support, and a focus on utilizing technology to outperform the competition.

Lesson 9 – Strategy consultants and sales trainers have good ideas, but most cannot execute them.

More than 65% of businesses use consultants and trainers to drive productivity.  The majority of management understands the of with engaging these types of professionals but struggle with the execution and integration link to increased revenue.   Strategy consultants and sales trainers should be able to cost-effectively and efficiently implement their theories and ideas, and engage in migrating strategies and tactics from "best-practice" to revenue production.

Lesson 10 – The cost of new customer acquisition falls into 3 ranges. 

One:  For companies that have done little prospecting and have a new sales team the cost of acquisition will range from 25 to 33% of revenue. 

Two:  For businesses that have an experienced sales team and market accepted products or services, acquisition cost will range from 15-25% of revenue.  And finally...  

Three:  businesses that have an established brand, proven sales process, and experienced sales team can manage new customer acquisition cost between 5-15% of revenue.  Experienced organizations with the strong brand equity will typically spend the least on customer acquisition.