It’s time that CEOs focus on sales strategy and effectiveness. These questions require serious consideration.
My colleagues and I are in the process of surveying about 50 CEOs of companies ranging from 10 to 1 000 employees. About half the results are in so far. At the moment, can you guess the number one thing keeping CEOs up at night? So far, it’s how to optimise the sales channel.
If you and your team are assessing your organisation’s sales effectiveness, here are eight common questions that I hear CEOs ask each other in peer groups:
1. “Ok, tell us again, what’s your value proposition? Why should customers choose you over the competitors?”
It’s so basic, isn’t it? Yet, I continue to be amazed at how difficult it is to answer this question well.
With the constantly changing competitive landscapes and customer needs, every company should take a second look at what they are pitching and why it still resonates today. I’m sure, for most, the value proposition needs a facelift.
2. “What is your sales process and how does your organisational structure map to it?”
3. “Do you think your overall cost of sales is where it should be?”
What makes you think that? Are you comparing to an industry standard or mapping to a projected financial model?
4. “What key measures are you using to track sales effectiveness? Do you have a sales dashboard?”
Is it cost of sales as a percentage of revenue, close ratio, sales person productivity? Something else? You can’t really optimise if you don’t know which lever you want to move.
5. “If you believe there are two ways to drive sales – increase the funnel and/or increase the close ratio – what are you doing to achieve those increases?”
6. “Is your sales compensation plan driving the right behaviours?”
Is there enough of a variable compensation component to make a difference?
7. “It’s a new world, how are you taking advantage of it?”
Partners are willing to talk, new talent is on the street, customers are looking for high ROI offerings, social media is changing how people communicate. Are you experimenting?
8. “Do you have the right people?”
Test Your Sales Model
Have you built a fairly predictable and repeatable sales process? If so, what will happen if you simply put more resources against it – will you yield a greater result? If not, why? If so, why not do that?
Other common questions centre around the model and what works – hunters, farmers, key account reps, independent reps – does your model still make sense in this economy? Do you need to be more aggressive or take a different tack? Is there a model that will yield a better result given the cost?
Having grown up in sales, I understand the complexities of running large sales organisations. I don’t mean to minimise the challenges that come with changing sales channel strategies and structures. My intention here is to encourage leaders to hold up the mirror and ask again some of the fundamental questions. CEOs need sharp axes, but they also need to know which trees to chop at.
