Sales Performance

“KappaEast and their forecasting methodology has had a profound impact on the reliability and accuracy of sales forecasts and sales management and has been an essential tool for me first at Sybase and now at Commerce One. It is simple and straightforward and most importantly it gets sales force buy in. These guys have spent years looking at these problems and have figured it out.”

Mark B. Hoffman – CEO, President and Chairman of the Board, Commerce One

Sales execs and CEO’s invariably, at one time or another, experience the awareness that -“We need to increaseour sales performance, our sales productivity.” This awareness is always accompanied by one or more of the following: “we need more deals, bigger deals, shorter sales cycle or higher hit rates”. The challenge is not to succumb to the knee-jerk reaction for more activity – more calls, more proposals, etc. or the allure of quick, surgical remedies such as fire/hire the VP Sales or the reps and/or re-org and/or increase incentives (!?) and/or SFA and/or the latest sales methodology training and/or more.

While all the above have a place in increasing sales performance, the KappaEast approach to making radical and sustainable improvement in sales performance begins at a more fundamental level, and invokes an optimal, ordered process to building hi-level, reliable, predictable sales performance, to building a Sales Engine.

The Sales Engine

That process has three stages, examined sequentially with each stage a critical element in the examination of the next. The purpose of the examination is the identification of salient opportunities for increased performance. The three stages are:

1. Sales Strategy

2. Sales Process/Methodology

3. Sales Skills, Competencies, Knowledge

Sales Strategy

Sales strategy is the cornerstone of successful sales performance and yet it is an often ignored or underemphasized component. A complete, comprehensive and substantive strategy is a must. See “On Strategy” in Tools & Concepts.

Sales Process/Methodology

Sales Process is the terminology, methodology and tools used to execute and manage the business of selling. Sales professionals everywhere constantly strive to increase sales performance. That effort always includes the never-ending search for answers to the seemingly unanswerable:

Are we going to make the quarter?

Do we have enough leads?

How long is the sales cycle?

How did you get this forecast?

Is the funnel full?

How can we increase our hit rate, what is our hit rate?

Was it a good call?

Are we going to get this deal?

Effective selling is all about taking action to get better answers, not searching for, or guessing at, the answers. A clear, pervasive Sales Operations Management Process (SOMP) can:

Provide the answers, the leading indicators of sales performance

Enable/facilitate the implementation of the sales strategy

Turn the focus toward crisper execution rather than looking for answers

Shorten the sales cycle and improve the hit rate

Sales Skills, Competencies, Knowledge

With the strategy and process determined, the final step in building your sales engine is identifying the critical skills, competencies and knowledge that are required to implement the strategy and process, and developing a training/recruiting initiative to start your engine!