Living Sales Excellence - Dennis Connelly's Blog

Having just returned from training over 60 sales leaders this past week in Central America, one of the subjects covered was recruiting and specifically how important on-boarding is to the success of new hires. Working with leaders (CEOs, General Managers, VPs, and other heads) from all seven Central American countries, there was consensus that one of the most important missing components to their current recruiting process was on-boarding and that they were struggling as a result. In fact, none of the executives thought that they had an adequate process to get new hires up to speed to collaborate with their managers and with each other with competence and full commitment. What they wanted was a plan that avoided unnecessary failures due to on-boarding mistakes. I will share with you now the key elements of that plan.

Part of the problem these executives face, and perhaps this sounds familiar, is that their managers tend to hire people when they are down a person, meaning that there is a territory left wide open and they need someone fast. They don't have personnel to cover the area in a manner consistent with the expected level of service and they are anxious to get someone in there right away to do the job and cover the void. In an emergency hiring situation, the manager is too stretched and justifiably too busy managing to sell the territory on an interim basis. If they try to cover it, often there are negative consequences in all the territories, not just the one they are covering.

When they finally hire someone, it's trial by fire. "Get out there and sell something." The managers are too busy to bring the new person up to speed and the salesperson is too busy putting out fires and coping with urgent time requests to stop and learn what they need to know about the company much less work on their selling skills. So they do the best they can. Those with a solid ability to learn quickly, or who have what we call a high Figure It Out Factor (FIOF) hang on with a tight enough grip to get through the first 6 months and those that don't, don't make it. This approach has problems, of course, as follows:

Top 5 Consequences of Poor Salesperson On-Boarding

1. New hires who need more time to learn the products and processes don't last.
2. Customers are underserved
3. New hires don't feel supported
4. Puts pressure on veteran salespeople to cover for mistakes and weaknesses
5. Devalues the sales organization

A well executed on-boarding program ensures that the market is covered with competent, trained salespeople. The primary strategy is to recruit ahead of your needs. Maintain a people pipeline. Always be recruiting. When you need someone fast, you already have candidates. Once the company embraces this strategy, recruiting becomes an expected competency of all sales managers. Yes, HR plays a significant role, but sales managers must interview and make the final call on sales candidates. This means the organization, in cooperation with HR, must be able to do the following:

Top 7 Recruiting Capabilities

1. Write a killer ad that attracts the best candidates
2. Assess candidates prior to meeting them (except when searching for candidates who aren't looking)
3. Use a candidate assessment tool that draws conclusions only within the context of sales (such as OMG)
4. Screen candidates in under five minutes
5. Conduct first interviews in less than 45 minutes that tell you everything you need to know
6. Offer candidates the position in such a way that they take it
7. Provide a comprehensive and complete plan for the first 90 days of on-boarding

On-boarding is complete when the following statements are true about new hires.

Top 10 On-Boarding Must-Have Outcomes

1. New hires are able to have an intelligent conversation with a prospect
2. They understand the full spectrum of product and service offerings
3. They know how products and services are delivered (and made, if applicable)
4. They know why people buy from them
5. They can differentiate themselves from the competition
6. They understand their value proposition
7. They can start a conversation properly with any prospect
8. They can position the products and services on the basis of the value proposition
9. They can lead a sales discussion toward finding a compelling reason to buy from them
10. The follow a formal, structured, staged, milestone-centric sales process

The first 90 days of any on-boarding program are the most critical. The overall length of on-boarding depends on the complexity of the sale and how quickly (FIOF) the salesperson ramps up. If we master the 7 recruiting capabilities and the 10 on-boarding must haves described above, we never worry about scrambling to fill a void. We stay ahead of our hiring needs so we can bring people into the company the right way. As a result, whether you're from Central America, northern Europe or the mountains of Tennessee, your new hires value the job, appreciate the company, and are inspired to be their best.

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Book Dennis Connelly to speak at your event.

Photo Credit: Roman Samborskyi (123 RF)

Sales managers have two choices. It's still the first quarter of the year and you can improve your success and go flying past your targets in this very year by choosing one of them. The first option is as follows: 

1. Convince your team to reach out to more people than they did last year
2. Make incremental improvements to your skills as a manager
3. Tell your people to reach out to customers who haven't done business with you in over a year
4. Spend more time with your people understanding their needs and motivations
5. Reduce time-wasting activities
6. Read two sales management blog articles per week (make sure this is one of them!)
7. Look for ways to help each of your people improve skills and remove success barriers
8. Create a no-excuse culture of responsibility
9. Reexamine why do what you do and re-associate to it to motivate yourself
10. Develop your coaching skills 
11. Work on holding your people accountable
12. Make recruiting a core competency and upgrade the bottom of your team

If you do all that, you will have a better year than last year. You'll be turning your amp all the way up to 10, the highest number on the dial.

But you have another choice, don't you? Buy a new amp that goes to 11. Get excited to have the best year of your entire career. Choose to be legendary. Make your number one goal to be the very best. The best manager. The best coach. The best motivator. The one boss that everyone mentions during an interview that had the most influence on their career and their success. The most outstanding sales manager you can be - just that much better than great.

Turn your game all the way up to 11. Commit to a year of making your own improvement in your role a top priority so your team will get the most from you, perform at their best, and sail past their numbers like it was easy, almost as if they had been sandbagging. Decide once and for all that you going to stop dabbling, stop trying, and stop merely thinking about getting the training you deserve and coming to the renowned Kurlan Sales Leadership Intensive on March 19th and 20th, and actually do it!

Because you got this far in article, by clicking here you will receive $100 discount to secure your place in our limited capacity training center for two very intense days that will elevate your sales management game permanently - all the way to 11.

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Book Dennis Connelly to speak at your event.

Photo Credit: Really? This article is in no way affiliated with the exceedingly funny movie, This is Spinal Tap. While I can't imagine the owners of the film would willingly promote an actual sales blog, unless it was a mock blog that maybe they wrote and that I would happily read, I'm sure they wouldn't pass up the chance to have one more voice proliferating the enormously important phrase they have added to our pop cultural lexicon. I know I'm taking a risk using their movie image, but sometimes you have to go outside of your comfort zone. That's what I'm asking you to do. See you on the 19th, if it hasn't already sold out.

There is sales coaching and there is sales coaching. Let’s talk about the latter. The most important skill to master for sales leadership and effective sales managment is this one. As a sales coach for sales managers, sales VPs, and CEOs, I see what works and what doesn't work when working with salespeople. I have watched sales managers push through to a find a new, more effective way of coaching their people to greater success, even when coaching a seasoned veteran who is already successful.

The best analogy I can use for this skill set is exercise. Practice, as you may already know, does not make perfect; it makes permanent. So to achieve more effective sales coaching, we have to know what better is, and then take it one incremental step further with every session.

To do this well, one must spend at least three times per week for 30 minutes coaching salespeople. Help them push through a problem to gain better understanding. A formal, structured, planned coaching session every day is even better. The session must go deep enough to tax the brain a little. And the result is growth.

Are you ready to hear two surprising truths about coaching? Okay.

Surprising Truth #1: The best managers spend 50% of their time coaching.

The company grows through improvements from the their team. That could mean adding territories, adding sales people, and/or making the existing people better. It is the sales manager’s job to grow the company through sales. Read my earlier article on how sales management is the most important job in the company.

Companies suffer without creating a sense of urgency among their team. Therefore, regardless of other growth strategies, managers must be working on improving the existing team. Executives must help clear a path for managers to spend their time coaching, motivating, and holding people accountable. Coaching is the number one priority, however.

Surprising Truth #2: Ongoing daily interactions with salespeople about their opportunities is not coaching.

Many managers believe that because they are frequently interacting with their team about all of the different opportunities and deals that they are working on, that they are coaching. But this is like saying that because I walk around all day and walk up the stairs occasionally, I’m exercising. Rather, this ad hoc interaction maintains current abilities, and does not lead to improvement.

So let’s get back to our analogy.

1. Three times per week minimum: Exercising twice per week maintains current levels of fitness; exercising three times per week or more creates growth. Properly coaching three times per week leads to improvements and mastery.
2. High Intensity: Exercising with intensity leads to growth; exercising at low levels maintains current fitness. The equivalent to "intensity" in coaching is to dive in more deeply, digging in to find the root issues, and finding the sometimes hidden diversions from sales process resulting in more “aha” moments, even for veterans and top sales people. I’ve witnessed this over and over. Our best people benefit from coaching.
3. Variations: Mixing it up leads to better all around fitness and less injuries. Working the whole body is critical to long-term health. In sales coaching, work on the pre-call strategy one day, a post-call debrief the next day, sales process another day, and identifying and working on hidden weaknesses yet another day. The consummate sales person is a whole person who is able to listen, respond, show curiosity, and bring all of his or her character to the conversation.

Can your people coach effectively? Can they help all of your people to be even just one increment better every day? Do they tolerate non-performers too long? Will they take a discussion deep enough to find a lesson? Do they have the trust of their people? Are they seen as a master? Do they create a sales environment conducive to growth, energy, and enthusiasm? Are they in the right role? (Read Chris Mott's article on this subject here.) Are they building a culture of constant improvement?

What’s working well in your sales organization? What could make it better? Click here if you'd like to find out if your managers can achieve the level of skill required to meet your corporate objectives. And here is a link to a case study of a real sales force evaluation. A sales force evaluation will give you the action steps required to achieve your vision of success. If you are selling into a sales channel, you might be interested in reading Part 1 of my ongoing series on channel sales management.