The Five Hallmarks of High-Performing Sales Organizations. With Norman Behar [Episode 565]

Norman Behar, CEO & Managing Director at Sales Readiness Group, joins me for the second time on this episode of #Accelerate! Also listen to Norman’s first episode, #318.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Norman says the single biggest challenge facing sales teams today is ‘qualification.’ There is a disconnect between the leads generated and the opportunities going into the sales funnel. Norman explains how lead qualification has changed.

There is a high percentage of leads not being followed up. So many leads are based on content marketing, and those leads are often not market-qualified. Some companies have a team to follow up these leads, and a team for qualified leads.

Sales Readiness Group, with Selling Power, released the “2017 Sales Management Research Report: The Five Hallmarks of High-Impact Sales Organizations.” It covers responsibilities of sales managers. A survey was sent to find best practices.

Norman discusses the data from the survey. 17% of organizations have fewer than 25% of reps meeting quota. Assuming the quotas were set right, their managers are not as well-skilled or trained as managers are in the other groups.

Sales managers at high-impact sales organizations spend more time coaching. There are two types of coaching: opportunity and skills. Skills coaching is harder for coaches promoted from sales. They haven’t learned the right skills.

Survey questions included: Do they make coaching a collaborative process? Do they assess the sales person’s knowledge and skill levels? Are they developing personalized coaching plans for each one of their sales people?

Do they plan and maintain an organized coaching schedule? Do they follow a defined coaching program? Respondents noted how important they felt these skills were, and how well they rated themselves on these skills.

In high-impact groups, managers spent a higher percentage of their time coaching. Norman offers a suggestion for the ideal percentage of time for managers to spend on coaching, depending on the size and nature of the sales team.

73% of all sales managers receive no training on coaching. This is a missed opportunity. What is more important than training the trainers? Norman always first recommends sales manager coaching training.

High-impact organizations are proficient at recruiting and hiring salespeople. Managers need to be trained how to hire. It is critical to know what behaviors are wanted, and how to ask questions to reveal them. Learn to ask great questions.

Interviews are more effective if everyone interviewing asks the same questions of each candidate. You can compare consistent data points from each interviewer.

High-impact organizations invest more to develop their sales managers, but they may not yet be spending enough. The lower groups are spending much less, if anything, on training their managers. A good program is $1,500 to $3,000.