The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

January creates challenges and opportunities all rolled into one. It's challenging to leave the holiday break in the rearview mirror and get back to business. It wouldn’t be so tough if you just wanted to get back into your normal routine. But you know that just getting back to your routine isn’t enough. You have new ideas that you believe will lead to stronger sales performance, and January is the time to put those plans in motion.      

Our recent release of The Biggest Challenges of Media Salespeople and Sales Managers has attracted a lot of attention and drawn a lot of comment. One thing people are chatting about is what sellers and managers agree on, and where they see the world differently.

If you read a lot of blogs and do some writing yourself, you are very familiar with headlines like “The two things a business owner should never do,” “Five reasons why Facebook is a bad investment,” or “Six steps to success.”

I use titles like those all the time. I do it for the same reasons others do it, to gain attention. Given the volume of information coming at all of us, we make split second decisions to engage or not.  A good title can make all the difference. Sometimes these intriguing titles are supported with great information. Those are my favorite blogs. Other times, these pithy titles turn out to the best part of the blog (like a great trailer for a bad movie). 

All of us here at The Center for Sales Strategy have much to celebrate as we close out the year. We celebrated our 30th Anniversary in 2013 with much to be thankful for. We appreciate all of the clients who allow us to play a part in their success. We are particularly gratified when we have a chance to play a role in helping someone improve—because they come to understand more clearly the importance of talent or the power of a sales process focused on creating specific value for clients.

If you work for a media company that sells digital advertising, you no doubt are following the buzz around Native Ads. There is an important point for all salespeople related to Native Ads that I don’t want you to miss. The dictionary shows several definitions for the word native. A few that are relevant for this conversation are; belonging to a person since birth, living or growing naturally in a particular region. 

“Every artist was first an amateur” …Ralph Waldo Emerson. This quote perfectly describes how anyone achieves greatness in sales—or in life. You can't be a great artist, unless you have artistic talent. But we all start as amateurs, even in areas where we have natural ability. We need to develop our talents so that they become strengths.

To become an extraordinary leader, you must appreciate the importance of natural talent and also the power of developing that talent. I have seen managers who have little regard for the importance of sales talent. They tend to think they can hire anyone and just show them what to do and if that person works hard, they will be successful. That's not true.  Not if you are trying to shoot for excellence. It works to some degree, if you are shooting for average or slightly above average. Conversely, you can't hire great talent and then do nothing to develop them and expect greatness.  Again, you will likely get average.

Anyone paying attention to the news these days can find both encouraging and discouraging signs all around us.  The same is true in business. I see this in the conversations I have with sales managers about how to drive performance in their sales departments.

“Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable,” Mark Twain. An interesting quote I chose to reinforce the importance of metrics and accountability. It made me laugh because of some of the funny math I have seen sales managers use over the years. You know what I’m talking about!  Facts are stubborn and that’s a good thing for all of us. As you look ahead to the coming year, be sure you are clear on what is most important to measure and then avoid the practice of funny math. 

I bet you’re pretty busy right now. Seems like everyone I am talking to is slammed. You have pressing things to do to wrap-up 2013 and at the same time do what is necessary to get 2014 off to a great start.

The point you press, the importance of thorough organization, is felt, and appreciated by our friends everywhere. And yet it involves so much more of the dry, and irksome labor, that most of them shrink from it... from a September 1, 1860 Letter to Henry Wilson.

I love the way Lincoln spoke. He is clearly acknowledging the importance of organization and yet laments that many will not have the resolve to do it. This principle of course holds true in many areas beyond organization. Deficiency of execution will more often cause you trouble, not the deficiency of knowledge. Planning for the coming year and having the discipline to take a look at your sales structure and process are good examples of things that are easy to talk about, but take some resolve to actually do.

Planning for Next Year

This is the second in a series of four blogs designed to help you work on your planning for the coming year. The concept I introduced in the first blog was our Performance Prism.

You will see things more clearly in your sales department if you break down the components or disciplines that lead to strong sales performance—in the same way that a prism breaks a light beam into its various colors. There is great value in looking at each area separately.  

The four components of the Performance Prism are: