My best wishes to all of you for a safe and Happy Holiday Season.

Effective CRO’s typically invest 10-20% of their time with new hire talent – more at the front end dealing with performance metrics like new contacts per week, new qualified opportunities per the 4 Aces, etc. It is not a situation where new hunters can’t figure out management’s expectations – they will just launch faster with focused CRO leadership.

1. Cannot describe a successful sales campaign against a larger competitor in a major new account.

2. Wants to know if the base compensation is upgraded annually.

3. Wants to know more about the benefits program and PTO (paid time off).

4. Asks if travel is required and if overnight stays qualify for comp time off.

5. Expect marketing to provide all the leads.

6. Wants to be measured on proposal quality and number of quoted issued.

7. Wants to know how often s/he has to make quota.

8. Specifically confirms the workday is 8-5.

9. Believes top sales performers are just lucky.

10. Wants to know if quotas can negotiated.

And a bonus 2 for you:

1. Believes quotes are the best way to qualify a new opportunity.

2. Believes quality, service and support are the only ways to grow revenue.

“If you think it is expensive to hire a professional to do the job wait until you hire an amateur.”

That about sums up what goes on in many companies today when it comes to staffing decisions. It doesn’t mean you have to pay the most but it does mean you have to know the template of skills, talents, motivations and behaviors that are critical for success in each position so you can separate amateurs from professionals before you make a hiring decision. If your team doesn’t have the time to do the template and the separation process, give us a call. Without the right people, success if just a virtual concept.

The process of selling (prospecting, qualifying and closing) and the responsibilities of sales management (coaching, accountability, incenting and staffing) have not changed – the tools are advancing but the end game is still the same – make the numbers. These new tools are interesting, some totally entertaining, and the global computer and communications technology industries are enjoying substantial revenue uplifts trying to convince you these are ‘must have’ resources but tools alone won’t make the business successful. Time to get your head out of the ‘cloud’ (yes, another technology must have) and back to the blocking and tackling basics for making the numbers.

An excerpt:

When you take a close look at how companies utilize their sales staffs, there are two clear reasons for Zero Visibility Sales Forecasts:

1. Salespeople are allowed to create their own forecast process
2. The forecast process aligns perfectly with the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Sales Model

Left to their own devices, sales reps will routinely forecast optimistic numbers for business that will most likely never close. This spells revenue roulette for the Chief Revenue Officer.

As they say, please read the entire thing.

The short answer is:  Leadership teams strategize systems – not tactics.

My experience suggests most companies will strategically plan and develop their infrastructure systems (lean manufacturing systems, global IT systems, ISO 9000 systems, etc.) as core assets of the business but invest little time on their revenue processes.  That is not surprising when you consider sales is not a college degree discipline (in sales, you earn your PhD on the street) so the typical planning discussion for sales ends up being a series of tactical decisions like attending more trade shows, increasing promotions, upgrading the web site, adding social networking, etc.   Once leadership teams realize how the 4 core processes of a closed-loop Revenue System can be integrated into a system that actually supports the business vision, the roadmap for growth becomes much less virtual.

–T.S. Eliot, from The Rock

There was a time in the evolution of computer when this concept was believed to be just a few clicks away. Well, decades later, we are still a few clicks away but the journey has been productive. E-commerce has certainly ‘evolutionized’ B2C sales models with some crossover into B2B segments involving commodity items like airline tickets, office supplies, etc. However, if you are in B2B and not positioning your business as a commodity player, then it’s back to work on your Revenue as a System (RaaS) program. A systems level approach can certainly help good employees improve performance but we are still a few clicks away from “so perfect no one will need to be good.”