{"id":144,"date":"2020-01-16T15:25:47","date_gmt":"2020-01-16T22:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/articles.thescpgroup.ca\/?p=144"},"modified":"2020-09-07T08:27:28","modified_gmt":"2020-09-07T14:27:28","slug":"why-cant-my-sales-team-deliver-more-deals-and-better-market-share","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scpg.ca\/worthreading\/2020\/01\/16\/why-cant-my-sales-team-deliver-more-deals-and-better-market-share\/","title":{"rendered":"Why can\u2019t my Sales Team deliver more deals and better Market Share?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>When you speak to most \u201cDealer Principals\u201d and ask\nthem, \u201cwhat area of your business has the most room for improvement?\u201d, it\u2019s\nusually the Sales Department.&nbsp; After many\nyears of leading equipment dealer organizations, the root causes of these\nfrustrations and average or poor results are almost always the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A little while ago I had this exact conversation with the\nDealer Principal of a fairly large multi-store operation.&nbsp; They were preforming at a low single digit\nmarket share and the sales team had not generated a profit in several years.&nbsp; My first recommendation to them, was to get a\nvery clear understanding of the current Strategy, Sales Leadership, Sales Team\nand Sales Operations.&nbsp; If we were going\nto grow this team and get results, we needed to know where we were starting\nfrom.&nbsp; Here is how it unfolded and some\nof the insights and results from the process we used:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Step 1:&nbsp;\nCritical Assessment.<\/strong>&nbsp; Our first step\nwas to interview the Dealer Principals, Sales Leadership Team, a few Top Sales\nPerformers, a few Lower Performers, the Sales Operations Team, Service Manager\nand the Parts Manager.&nbsp; To allow for rich\nconversations we provided each interviewee with a list of twenty-two focused\nquestions that covered all areas of the business.&nbsp; This approach allowed each person to give\neach question considerable thought prior to the interviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Step 2:&nbsp; The\nCritical Assessment Report.<\/strong>&nbsp; The insight\nprovide by the interviews were prepared in a report and presented to the entire\nDealership Senior Team.&nbsp; The findings\nwere eye opening and, in some cases, shocking to the team but they laid the\nfoundation for a new strategy to get the team unstuck.&nbsp; Here are some of the findings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<ul><li>\u25b8 There was no documented sales strategy that was leading the team, nor was anyone communicating a direction to the sales team<\/li><li>\u25b8 The lack of clear strategy put doubts around what was being measured, what is not and what should be<\/li><li>\u25b8 Sales Team and Sales Management compensation was not aligned to a designed strategy and may not be designed properly or driving the right behaviors and results<\/li><li>\u25b8 Recruiting and hiring of sales team members is mostly done on a gut check relational assessment.&nbsp; No process was in place to hire the best resulting in high turnover<\/li><li>\u25b8 There is no well thought out training and onboarding program which greatly hinders sales team retention, development and success<\/li><li>\u25b8 The lack of experience and professional training within the sales management group was a constraint to moving the organization to a higher level of performance.<\/li><li>\u25b8 The current manual system for managing inventory and processing sales is very time consuming and creates a bottle next and major constraint to future growth<\/li><li>\u25b8 There is a leadership and relationship disconnect between sales and aftermarket that is hindering growth and hurting the reputation we put forward<\/li><\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>These are just a few of the critical gaps identified\nin the interview assessment process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Step 3:&nbsp; A New\nDay, A New Strategy.<\/strong>&nbsp; Once we had\nreviewed the findings with the team our next step was to take the entire team\nthrough a two day \u201cSales Strategy Session\u201d.&nbsp;\nWithin these two days we brainstormed the \u201cSales Organization of\nTomorrow\u201d.&nbsp; We had very robust\ndiscussions on who we wanted to be and what success would look like when we\narrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Step 4:&nbsp;\nIdentify and Bridge the Gaps.<\/strong>&nbsp; Our next\nexercise with the team was to revisit the current state of the team and the\nsales operations.&nbsp; In this process we\nidentified with honest critical assessment and discussions what we need to keep\ndoing, what we will need to change, and what new things we will need to start\ndoing to build this sales organization of tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Step 5:&nbsp; The\nStrategy, The Execution.<\/strong>&nbsp; From all this\nwork we were able to build and document a new Strategy, identify the Strategic\nPillars and Strategic Action Items that if executed well, would build a high\nperforming and engaged sales organization that would double market share and\nfinally produce a profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Step 6: The Accountability and The Results.<\/strong>&nbsp; Once \u201cThe Sales Leadership Team and Dealer\nPrincipals\u201d fully bought in and committed to the Strategy, the processes where\nput in place to ensure accountability and results.&nbsp; While there were lots of growing pains,\nbackwards steps, some changes on the team and lots of wins, the results did\ncome.&nbsp; Two years out and market share has\ntripled and for the first time in many years the sales operations have\ncontributed a decent profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In all areas of business, it is critically important\nthat the teams know where they are trying to go.&nbsp; They need to know how they will get there and\nwhat resources and support the leadership will give them to get there.&nbsp; That\u2019s the power of a \u201cClear Strategy\u201d and yes\neven \u201cThe Sales Department\u201d needs one, if their journey is to be a successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><em>If you\u2019d like to discuss how we can assist you and your business, get in touch with John Higgins, the author of this article, at jhiggins@scpg.ca<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img src=\"\" alt=\"A drawing of a face\n\nDescription automatically generated\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you speak to most \u201cDealer Principals\u201d and ask them, \u201cwhat area of your business has the most room for improvement?\u201d, it\u2019s usually the Sales Department.&nbsp; After many years of leading equipment dealer organizations, the root causes of these frustrations and average or poor results are almost always the same.<span class=\"more-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/scpg.ca\/worthreading\/2020\/01\/16\/why-cant-my-sales-team-deliver-more-deals-and-better-market-share\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,9,14,17,19],"tags":[20,89,113,118,120,134],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scpg.ca\/worthreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scpg.ca\/worthreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scpg.ca\/worthreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scpg.ca\/worthreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scpg.ca\/worthreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/scpg.ca\/worthreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317,"href":"https:\/\/scpg.ca\/worthreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scpg.ca\/worthreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scpg.ca\/worthreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scpg.ca\/worthreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scpg.ca\/worthreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}