The Collaborative Sale

by Keith M Eades

  Autonomy. People need to feel in control of their own behaviors and goals rather than feeling they are being controlled by someone else. The three personae of The Collaborative Sale support this aspect of intrinsic motivation. The Micro-Marketer, the Visualizer, and the Value Driver are empowering character parts that sellers must play in selling to Buyer 2.0. Each persona supports the seller's need for autonomy and independence.

  Sales managers and coaches should be happy to know that developing sellers' intrinsic motivations is not their responsibility. It is, in fact, the responsibility of every individual. However, sales managers do have a responsibility to create the supporting environment that enables internal motivation to thrive. Reliance upon external rewards does not provide lasting results. Sales managers must balance this by creating a work environment that allows sellers' intrinsic motivations—their sense of competence, connection, and autonomy—to flourish. Coaching and reinforcing the principles of The Collaborative Sale appeal to all of these intrinsic motivations, and can help to sustain long-term improvement in sales team results. That is the essence of effective sales leadership.

  1 Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, “Self-Determination Theory,” University of Rochester Motivation Research Group. Accessed December 1, 2013, at www.selfdeterminationtheory.org.

  2 Ibid.

  Chapter 9

  Implementing the Collaborative Sale

  Our instant gratification mind-set society likes immediate improvements in productivity. Many sales executives often look for so-called silver bullets, such as a new technology, a new compensation and reward system, a new training program, and so forth, to make an immediate and positive improvement in their team's performance. Unfortunately, the results of these kinds of tactical fixes are inevitably lackluster, because they individually fail to address all obstacles to sales growth and success.

  Successful implementation of the Collaborative Sale is based on a holistic approach, which includes people, process, methods, and tools to enable individual sellers and entire organizations to achieve sustainable improvement in performance, now and into the future. This implementation approach makes it possible to accelerate time to improved results, such as:

  Improved customer satisfaction, as a result of better collaboration

  More sales revenues, as a result of higher win rates

  Larger opportunities, as sellers develop broader visions of solutions with buyers

  More opportunities, as sellers learn to find and develop latent buyers

  Better margins, as a result of quantifying and proving value throughout the buying process—proven value that translates into lower price discounts and other concessions

  Figure 9.1 Sales Performance Optimization Cycle

  In 2013, AberdeenGroup studied more than 300 global companies to learn about their deployments of sales performance improvement training.1 They discovered that the best-performing companies not only provided training, but also supported organizational behavior change in three key areas, illustrated in Figure 9.1.

  Right process. The best-performing companies develop world-class capabilities by aligning sales process, methods, and continual learning to buyer behaviors.

  Right people. They assess the specific talent requirements for their sales models and align hiring and development to those profiles.

  Right tools. They enable effective, consistent application of best practices by integrating supporting tools and technologies.

  We refer to the proper alignment of process, people, and tools as the Sales Performance Optimization Cycle. Each of these factors contributes to the success of the others. When all three are incorporated into an implementation plan, they maximize the adoption and consistent application of selling best practices, and thereby produce sustainable improvement in results. If any one of these factors is missing or disproportionate to the others, then the success of the sales performance improvement initiative is at risk. An effective implementation of the Collaborative Sale requires thoughtful inclusion and alignment of all three components.

  Right Process: Buyer-Aligned Learning and Development

  An effective learning and development strategy is an important part of implementing the Collaborative Sale, and it entails three key components, shown in Figure 9.2.

  Figure 9.2 Three Key Components for Right Process for the Collaborative Sale

  Using Dynamic Sales Processes

  Sellers will need coaching and guidance in order to master the three personae of The Collaborative Sale. By defining dynamic buyer-aligned sales processes, you provide a standard of excellence for effective coaching and skills development. A definition of dynamic sales processes also enables the establishment of critical competencies needed to find and develop the right people. For these reasons, the first major step in successfully implementing the Collaborative Sale is conducting an assessment of typical buying scenarios and establishing definitions of dynamic sales processes that align to buyer preferences.

  Aligning Training

  After establishing dynamic sales process definitions and conducting assessments for each sales role, identifying the most relevant training, coaching, and skills development requirements becomes much easier. Training for developing necessary situational fluency, for execution of each of the three sales personae (i.e., Micro-Marketer, Visualizer, and Value Driver), and for use of enabling technologies, job aids, and tools can be constructed into a focused curriculum by role.

  We are strong proponents of formal certification of sales mastery—a defined program where sellers demonstrate they've fully understood and can execute required competencies consistently, as evaluated by their managers out in the field. The use of a learning management system to track and manage achievement of sales mastery certification can facilitate administration and encourage broad adoption.

  Top-performing sales organizations enable their sellers to receive “prioritized competency infusion.” By this we mean they are providing exactly what each seller needs at the exact time the seller needs it to fully develop mastery of essential competencies for the selling role. Compare this approach to traditional monolithic method training, which gathers everyone in a generic training event where they are bombarded with topics in hope that some of it will sink in and make a difference . . . eventually. It is certainly easier to use monolithic, one-size-fits-all training approaches, but they are not very efficient. Learning and development that are tuned to the specific needs of each individual seller are more relevant to the learner and more likely to be put into practice, which is the first step toward mastery.

  Learning as Transformation

  Organizations that treat training as an individually transformative experience employ a 10-20-70 philosophy—that is, 10 percent of content in a training program is provided through formal instruction, 20 percent is from observing and giving feedback to peers, and 70 percent is experiential through real-world application.

  Ideally, the 10 percent for instruction should be a blended learning program, combining some prework, live instructor-led sessions, and follow-up content reinforcement using online resources. The 20 percent for social learning is an opportunity to learn from peers and share best practices and results. The 70 percent for experiential learning is characterized by on-the-job application of concepts, where desired behavior changes should be observed by either trainers, management, or both and measured against how they contribute to specific business results.

  Right People: Talent Assessment and Analytics

  Organizations achieve optimal results when they embrace standards for how to engage with customers, as defined in dynamic sales processes. Before you can assess, develop, or enable your team, you must define what the gold standard looks like for each sales or supporting role that plays a part in your dynamic sales process. You can formulate a gold standard by asking, for each of the roles in your sales organization, what skills, attitudes, and behaviors do they need to demonstrate? How good do they have to be at each?

  An effective
sales talent assessment strategy is essential to implementing the Collaborative Sale—and it entails four key components, illustrated in Figure 9.3.

  Figure 9.3 Four Key Components for Right People for the Collaborative Sale

  Defining Sales Competencies

  In Part II of this book, we introduced the essential competencies required for each of the three personae of The Collaborative Sale. While these competencies provide an excellent baseline, each organization will also need to consider types of sales and management roles, and refine definitions of what the gold standard looks like for each role and persona. Different sales positions will require different competencies and levels of proficiency for each. Developing a complete graphic profile of the essential competencies and mastery levels—also called a competency skyline—makes it easier to understand what kinds of abilities are needed for each sales-related job, as illustrated in Figure 9.4.

  Figure 9.4 Example of a Competency Skyline for a Business Development Manager Position

  Assessing Sales Teams

  With defined gold standards for each sales role and persona, you can then assess the current sales team relative to the standards. This will identify competencies that need to be improved in order to support a successful transition to the Collaborative Sale. Some sellers might be gold, but most will be silver or bronze. By focusing specific learning and enablement capabilities to develop and enhance needed competencies, the highest return on investment can be realized.

  When assessing the sales team, we recommend measuring four sets of key factors for each person:

  Potential as measured by innate traits and behaviors (sales DNA) specific to the role and personae.

  Knowledge as measured by understanding of the competencies necessary for the role.

  Application as measured by an individual's ability to use his or her knowledge to perform functions required by the role and personae.

  Performance as measured by how the personae has historically performed against the gold-standard benchmarks.

  Taken together, these four factors enable the identification of any gaps that would inhibit achievement of a successful implementation of the Collaborative Sale, at both individual and collective levels. Our advice is not to assess once; rather, assess periodically to track progress and determine if any new remediation actions are required to close any gaps.

  Assessing Sales Candidates

  When recruiting and selecting new sales talent, managers should use the established gold standards for each sales role and persona for evaluation of candidates. Too often, a company's hiring process relies heavily on subjective information with little to no objective data. Instead, this process should leverage quantitative measures of the four key factors (i.e., potential, knowledge, application, and performance) to identify individuals who meet the gold standard—or demonstrate the potential to meet it. By assessing qualified sales candidates, you will better understand what kind of training and development investment will be needed to bring that seller to gold standard performance.

  Establishing a consistent structure for sales talent evaluation and selection can also help to maintain objectivity in the hiring process.

  Using Analytics to Connect Competencies to Business Results

  By measuring individual seller results and comparing them against seller competency levels, the linkage between performance and specific knowledge, skills, and abilities can be confirmed. This provides another data set to drive improvements in learning and development curricula and related reinforcement resources and for refinement of role profiles for use in sales talent selection.

  Figure 9.5 outlines the relationships between competency levels of required sales knowledge or skill, associated behaviors, and relevant outcomes (i.e., both leading and lagging indicators of sales performance). With advanced analytics, these assumptions can be tested and quantified, thus facilitating decisions based on facts, instead of on assumptions.

  Figure 9.5 Using Sales Talent Analytics to Connect to Results

  Recent advances in data capture and storage technologies and statistical analysis have culminated in the application of “big data” analytical methods across many industries. Using more advanced statistical analysis methodologies, it is possible not only to create predictive models (i.e., regression analysis) but even to draw cause-and-effect inferences using more advanced structural equations modeling (SEM).

  Practically speaking, SEM allows for a much higher level of confidence above and beyond what a correlation can show. For example, shark attacks and ice cream sales are correlated but have nothing to do with each other—and ice cream company executives could make horrible strategic decisions based on that correlation analysis. An argument for investment carries much more weight in the boardroom using SEM versus a correlation. By using these advanced analytics, organizations can make better strategic decisions about prioritization and investments in its sales force (e.g., hiring, training).

  Right Tools: Focused Enablement

  The right tools can help sellers to execute the Collaborative Sale more effectively. More importantly, they can also help sellers to differentiate themselves with buyers.

  For example, collaborative interaction with Buyer 2.0 can be encouraged and facilitated by providing a secure online collaboration site, reserved for that particular buyer organization. This site may be a secure wiki, a Microsoft SharePoint page, a dedicated customer portal, or similar technology—all designed to encourage transparency and sharing of relevant information between sellers and buyers.

  A secure online collaboration site differentiates the seller, as it provides full transparency over every aspect of the buyer-seller interaction. In short, it makes the collaborative seller of higher value to the buyer, and much easier to do business with.

  We agree with Forrester Research's concern about “random acts of sales support”2

  —the practice of essentially throwing enablement tools at sales forces to see which ones stick. This is surprisingly common as the number of affordable “Sales 2.0” tools and applications,3 designed to assist sellers with connecting to and engaging with buyers, has increased dramatically since 2009.4

  In our experience with global companies, applying a coherent approach to sales enablement is more critical to successful implementation, as measured by seller adoption and usage, than the actual technologies introduced. Sales organizations can improve the utility gained from sales enablement tools investments by establishing an implementation framework organized into five key components, shown in Figure 9.6.

  Figure 9.6 Five Key Components for Right Tools for the Collaborative Sale

  Implementing Adaptive Process and Methodology Automation

  One way to help sellers apply the personae of The Collaborative Sale consistently is to make the tools of the methodology easy to access and reflexive for daily use. To accomplish this, providing the right tools at the right times can make consistent use of the methodology more intuitive and natural for sellers. With integrated support of a dynamic sales process within a customer relationship management (CRM) application, sellers can use the system as a source of guidance and useful job aids, as well as a standard record of opportunity status for management.

  Many CRM systems handle sales opportunity management using automated work flows that can be cumbersome and difficult to understand, and therefore require significant amounts of user training. We have found that if the CRM user interface provides a visual reference for dynamic sales process—literally, a picture of the process and an indication of the seller's progression through it—it is much easier for sellers to understand. Just as shopping malls use maps to help shoppers navigate to stores, sellers and managers need to see a clear “You are here” indicator in sales opportunities. With this kind of user interface, use of the dynamic sales process becomes a natural aspect of every opportunity. Figure 9.7 shows an example of this approach.

  Figure 9.7 Example of a Visual Dynamic Sales Process

  This example illustra
tes how automation of a dynamic sales process within CRM can provide seller guidance with relevant playbooks—in this case, using the Revegy application platform.

  Providing Knowledge in Context, Aligned with Process

  In the sport of American football, every team has a book containing its strategies and tactics for each play of the game, defined for different scenarios. These playbooks are visual diagrams and explanations of who needs to do what tasks where and in what sequence, in order for the team to succeed. Similarly, sales teams can use visual playbooks to better understand the buyer's state and what the seller should do in that situation. There is one major difference between a sports team's playbook and a sales team's playbook, however—the seller is not competing with the buyer, but seeking to engage and collaborate with the buyer to enable mutual success.

  CRM systems can be repositories for dynamic sales process playbooks that describe effective seller practices for different situations, and within the buying stages reflected in each. While most organizations simply define sales process stages within their CRM so they can classify opportunity progress, more is needed. A dynamic sales process playbook provides more practical guidance and utility to sellers, as it helps them know what to do to better align with Buyer 2.0.

  Sales organizations should augment mainstream CRM systems with intuitive, dynamic sales process playbooks that reinforce both the learning and the application of effective sales methodology, such as the Collaborative Sale. Ideally, such an enhancement enables each seller and manager to mutually agree where each opportunity is within a dynamic sales process. The playbook should describe recommended actions for each stage, including seller activities, verifiable outcomes, and job aids that will be useful for continued development of the opportunity. Sellers and managers can use this approach to facilitate regular opportunity and pipeline reviews and subsequent coaching sessions.