A few weeks ago, I conducted a survey of sales people, asking what the hardest part of their role was. I received lots of different responses, which I attempted to categorise. Lead generation and long sales cycles dominated and were discussed in more detail in Part One of this blog post. This is part two of my analysis and starts with a surprising (at least to me) problem.
Internal problems were a significant problem for a number of people. This included managing co-workers, both upwards and downwards. The majority of people work as part of a team and it is important that they are all focussed on the same goal which would appear to not always be the case. There can also be conflicts of interest internally, such as account distribution and resource allocation which can be frustrating.
“Complying” with the sales process was also mentioned a number of times. This does not refer to the general sales process but to the internal requirements of a company such as updating management, CRM updates, forecasting and general admin requirements all of which take time away from getting deals done. While these are important to the overall benefit of the company, for a sales person, they can often seem to get in the way of getting on with the job.
I do believe that these things are important but need to be arranged to the benefit of everyone, not just management. They always seem very one sided to everyone in sales and there has to be a better way of delivering this for everyone’s benefit.
Another internal issue is the balance between longer term strategic sales engagements and closing deals this quarter. Deals are taking longer to close so this is becoming more of an issue because of that as well. In some cases, it may be more effective to focus one group of people on the longer-term sales and another on shorter engagements. However, it is necessary to find a suitable way of compensating those working on the longer engagements.
Another significant difficulty was persuading customers to spend the time reviewing what you have to offer. With so much technology to choose from and so many deadlines to meet, taking the time to make improvements can sometimes seem too much effort. Many companies are more focussed on cost control than process improvement, on short term financial gain rather than multiple long-term benefits. They are also averse to change which any new product requires as this can be seen to be risky. This is why it is so important to focus on change rather than your product.
The last significant grouping of problems relates to the difficulty of doing all aspects of the sales process, from getting to see new customers, developing ideas that can be sold and closing deals. Working on all aspects of the sales process can be difficult to do at all times and sometimes it can be better to focus different people on different aspects of the process. Further to that, if you are selling a diverse range of products across a wide range of customers, working with all of those differences can be all consuming.
I do not believe that any of these problems are insurmountable. With the right training and coaching, many of the “personal” difficulties can be supported and improved. With regards internal issues, these can also be improved through process improvements and change within an organisation.
If you would like to discuss ways that you can improve your skills or processes, please get in touch.