Brent Adamson's Blog, page 2

The Reason Sales Cycles Are Getting Longer

This is the second in a series of blog posts on our latest research: Creating Customer Consensus . To read more, click here.

Over the past 8 months, the CEB Sales Leadership Council has been researching the answers to the most pressing challenge faced by sales organizations today: influencing the purchasing decisions of the increasing number of diverse stakeholders involved in B2B sales deliberations today. When we asked 80 of the world’s prominent sales leaders, as part of research interviews conducted with CEB Sales member organizations, to describe the biggest challenge facing their function today, the overwhelming response was to point to two forces that are dramatically reducing the influence of sales teams today:

Customers armed with more information are delaying supplier involvement, and
The growing number of very diverse stakeholders weighing on purchasing decisions that is significantly increasing the requirements for building consensus.

So what strategies are sales teams around the world employing in order to sell to diverse stakeholders and build consensus? It turns out that selling to groups of stakeholders mostly requires a lot of hard work. Essentially, the traditional approach can be boiled down to two things:

Gaining Access to Individuals—the first challenge most sellers encounter is identifying who is even part of the buying group and finding a way to get in front of each and every one of those individuals.
Closing Individuals—in order to win over all individual stakeholders, sellers need to identify individuals’ needs and ensure that their messaging and offering are positioned to strongly resonate with each individual part of the buying group.

However, what our research revealed is that those individual conversations with stakeholders are becoming harder as decision making groups become more diverse. For one thing, most core sellers are ill equipped to call on CFOs. But more troubling is the fact that tracking down more stakeholders and personalizing our offering to meet their needs simply takes longer. In fact, our data analyses showed that on average stakeholder diversity accounts for a full 20% increase in sales cycle time.

Ultimately however, the real pain of consensus selling is not only that deals take longer but also that it is costing a lot of money. Sales leaders report that even when their sellers do manage to gain access and position their offering to meet stakeholder needs, they are winning smaller deals at compressed margins. Why? Well that is precisely the question that CEB Sales set out to answer with this year’s research: how do diverse customer groups buy, and how do they reach consensus?

Want to learn what CEB Sales learned? Stay tuned for our next post on this series.

CEB Sales members, register to attend one of our upcoming Annual Executive Retreats near you to learn more about the results of our study: Creating Customer Consensus. Also, listen to Brent Adamson discuss the main findings from our research in this webinar.

Please share with us below how consensus requirements are impacting your business.

The Reason for Increasing Sales Cycle Length

This is the second in a series of blog posts on our latest research: Creating Customer Consensus . To read more, click here.

Over the past 8 months, the CEB Sales Leadership Council has been researching the answers to the most pressing challenge faced by sales organizations today: influencing the purchasing decisions of the increasing number of diverse stakeholders involved in B2B sales deliberations today. When we asked 80 of the world’s prominent sales leaders, as part of research interviews conducted with CEB Sales member organizations, to describe the biggest challenge facing their function today, the overwhelming response was to point to two forces that are dramatically reducing the influence of sales teams today:

Customers armed with more information are delaying supplier involvement, and
The growing number of very diverse stakeholders weighing on purchasing decisions that is significantly increasing the requirements for building consensus.

So what strategies are sales teams around the world employing in order to sell to diverse stakeholders and build consensus? It turns out that selling to groups of stakeholders mostly requires a lot of hard work. Essentially, the traditional approach can be boiled down to two things:

Gaining Access to Individuals—the first challenge most sellers encounter is identifying who is even part of the buying group and finding a way to get in front of each and every one of those individuals.
Closing Individuals—in order to win over all individual stakeholders, sellers need to identify individuals’ needs and ensure that their messaging and offering are positioned to strongly resonate with each individual part of the buying group.

However, what our research revealed is that those individual conversations with stakeholders are becoming harder as decision making groups become more diverse. For one thing, most core sellers are ill equipped to call on CFOs. But more troubling is the fact that tracking down more stakeholders and personalizing our offering to meet their needs simply takes longer. In fact, our data analyses showed that on average stakeholder diversity accounts for a full 20% increase in sales cycle time.

Ultimately however, the real pain of consensus selling is not only that deals take longer but also that it is costing a lot of money. Sales leaders report that even when their sellers do manage to gain access and position their offering to meet stakeholder needs, they are winning smaller deals at compressed margins. Why? Well that is precisely the question that CEB Sales set out to answer with this year’s research: how do diverse customer groups buy, and how do they reach consensus?

Want to learn what CEB Sales learned? Stay tuned for our next post on this series.

CEB Sales members, register to attend one of our upcoming Annual Executive Retreats near you to learn more about the results of our study: Creating Customer Consensus. Also, listen to Brent Adamson discuss the main findings from our research in this webinar.

Please share with us below how consensus requirements are impacting your business.

The Reason for Increased Sales Cycle Lengths

This is the second in a series of blog posts on our latest research: Creating Customer Consensus . Click here to read the first .

Over the past 8 months, the CEB Sales Leadership Council has been researching the answers to the most pressing challenge faced by sales organizations today: influencing the purchasing decisions of the increasing number of diverse stakeholders involved in B2B sales deliberations today. When we asked 80 of the world’s prominent sales leaders, as part of research interviews conducted with CEB Sales member organizations, to describe the biggest challenge facing their function today, the overwhelming response was to point to two forces that are dramatically reducing the influence of sales teams today:

Customers armed with more information are delaying supplier involvement, and
The growing number of very diverse stakeholders weighing on purchasing decisions that is significantly increasing the requirements for building consensus.

So what strategies are sales teams around the world employing in order to sell to diverse stakeholders and build consensus? It turns out that selling to groups of stakeholders mostly requires a lot of hard work. Essentially, the traditional approach can be boiled down to two things:

Gaining Access to Individuals—the first challenge most sellers encounter is identifying who is even part of the buying group and finding a way to get in front of each and every one of those individuals.
Closing Individuals—in order to win over all individual stakeholders, sellers need to identify individuals’ needs and ensure that their messaging and offering are positioned to strongly resonate with each individual part of the buying group.

However, what our research revealed is that those individual conversations with stakeholders are becoming harder as decision making groups become more diverse. For one thing, most core sellers are ill equipped to call on CFOs. But more troubling is the fact that tracking down more stakeholders and personalizing our offering to meet their needs simply takes longer. In fact, our data analyses showed that on average stakeholder diversity accounts for a full 20% increase in sales cycle time.

Ultimately however, the real pain of consensus selling is not only that deals take longer but also that it is costing a lot of money. Sales leaders report that even when their sellers do manage to gain access and position their offering to meet stakeholder needs, they are winning smaller deals at compressed margins. Why? Well that is precisely the question that CEB Sales set out to answer with this year’s research: how do diverse customer groups buy, and how do they reach consensus?

Want to learn what CEB Sales learned? Stay tuned for our next post on this series.

CEB Sales members, register to attend one of our upcoming Annual Executive Retreats near you to learn more about the results of our study: Creating Customer Consensus. Also, listen to Brent Adamson discuss the main findings from our research in this webinar.

Please share with us below how consensus requirements are impacting your business.

5 Books All Salespeople Should Read This Summer

Whether you’re on the beach, at the airport, or just relaxing in your favorite chair at home, these five books—some sales-specific, others not so much—will provide a trove of new and interesting insights all summer long.

Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by John J. Ratey

I want to share this one, not only because its fresh in my mind, but I truly think we could all learn from what Dr. Ratey has to say in this book, backed by solid research. The book connects exercise and activity to our ability to LEARN. And if there’s one thing that we are constantly doing as sales professionals and sales leaders, it’s learning—learning about our customers, their businesses, their marketplaces; learning new or better skills we need to be successful in the market place. And so why shouldn’t we do something that helps us learn and retain information better? As you enjoy your summer, now that exercising isn’t just to get (or keep) that beach body, it’s also allowing you to learn more effectively!

Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All  by Tom and David Kelley

This one is on my list and here’s why: this is a skill more of us need (including me), especially in sales management today. Some of you may already know this, but CEB research has found that one critical skill of sales manager effectiveness is one’s ability to innovate, creatively, at the deal-level.  And that takes a very different approach than what most of us do in “deal reviews.”  From my initial glances, this seems to be a great primer on how to unlock your innate creativity. It also shares the skills and mindset we need to have creative problem solving.

Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen Dubner

Building on the previous book’s theme, this book dives into the skill of problem solving.  And who doesn’t like the sound of “thinking like a freak”? This is one on my list that I hope to tackle soon, but the previous books from these two have been enlightening. And one step that I know you all will agree with as sales professionals: “Take a master class in incentives, because for better or worse, incentives rule our world.”

To Sell is Human by Daniel Pink

I’ve recently blogged about Daniel’s message, so I won’t go back into it.  But he’s got a few great insights as he brings together a variety of past research. And he’s revised the ABCs to no longer be “Always Be Closing.”

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis

First off, in my opinion, anything by Michael Lewis (author of Moneyball, Liar’s Poker, The Big Short and many more) is worth reading. I’m sure at one point this year you’ve heard about the book at these “dark pools” within some of the largest banks. This book digs into what is going on in the financial markets and the impact of “high-frequency trading.” If you’ve got your money in the market, it’s worth a read. I found it informative and, honestly, scary.

And of course, if you haven’t read it, please get with it already and read The Challenger Sale by my colleagues Matt Dixon and Brent Adamson.

What will you be reading this summer?  What would you suggest others read?  Add to the list!

Related Blog Posts:

What Salespeople Should Read This Summer (2013)
What Salespeople Should Read This Summer (2012)
What Salespeople Should Read This Summer (2011)

Be Assertive, Not Aggressive

We get a lot of questions about Take Control, one of the three Challenger Rep competency skills. What does Take Control actually mean? How do we help our reps navigate these waters without coming off as too aggressive? Isn’t Taking Control simply good negotiation skills? We’d like to offer some insights for you and your sales organization because there’s a lot of complexity in getting Taking Control right.

The first step is to understand what Take Control actually means.

Taking Control is about being comfortable with applying what you know about a situation to drive a desired outcome; it’s about managing conversations and proactively putting commercial insight in front of customers and prospects. It means determining what customers need to understand and finding ways to show it to them despite their focus on price. It also has a strong component in pushing back (diplomatically) on objections and identifying and coaching Mobilizers, those customer stakeholders who can mobilize their organization around a purchase. It’s about suggesting to customers ways to more effectively build consensus and buy your solutions, something we started researching with Commercial Coaching and expanding on this year with our newest study on Creating Customer Consensus.

What about negotiation? Where does that fit into the equation?

For many people, negotiating is the most obvious and tactical example of Taking Control. Negotiation is about our reps exhibiting the unflinching nerves of steel to push back on customer objections and build constructive tension. We find that during customer interactions, reps often err on the side of being too passive, avoiding tension at any cost to make situations more amicable. This, however, allows the customer to control the interaction and it often relegates the conversation to price, or delaying decision making (perhaps to a no-decision scenario).

Our job is to focus the conversation on value, not price. Since customers often have a limited set of negotiables—mostly driven by price—Challengers are charged with broadening the customer perspective. But, there’s a common fear that, when allowed, reps might take that pressure too far and risk coming off as overly aggressive.

In order to help our members better navigate these waters, we’ve profiled DuPont on how they created a negotiation roadmap to mitigate reps’ potential aggressiveness and help them maintain an assertive posture without appearing too inflexible. The roadmap guides reps on how negotiations should unfold and follows four key principles: 1) create an action plan, 2) shift discussion to value, 3) refocus and explore priorities, and 4) exchange value… don’t give it away.

To learn more about how DuPont did it, click here . We’ve also created a webinar on the topic: Harnessing Constructive Tension in Sales Negotiations: A Discussion with DuPont .

Like other Challenger skills, Taking Control can be learned and improved upon with proper training and preparation. At some level it comes back to projecting confidence (something to consider looking for in candidates during the hiring process) and it’s best developed through application and reinforcing opportunities (i.e., coaching). 

Clearly, there are many moving parts to getting Take Control right and many opportunities to steer the boat astray. If you’d like more information about any of the concepts above please contact your Account Manager and we’d be happy to set up a conversation with you.

Related Blog Posts:

·         Four Ways to Say NO to a Customer
·         4 Steps to Being an All Star Negotiator
·         The Way to Negotiate? ZOPA!

Related CEB Sales Resources:

Take Control of the Buying Process
Get Reps to Assert Control of Sales Interactions
Controlled Negotiation Roadmap (DuPont)

When to Quit Your Job

It’s graduation season!  Thousands of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, 20-somethings will be starting new jobs this summer.

Only 1 in 5 will stay.

Gone are the days when people stayed at a company for 25+ years.  The next generation of talent will job-hop as new opportunities arise if it means they’ll be one step closer to their dream career. 

CEB Sales Members, a differentiated, sales-specific EVP helps organizations not just attract high caliber talent, but also increases the engagement and retention of current sales employees. See how the best companies build an effective sales employee value proposition .

Some people scoff at this and call them naive.  Others view it as an unstable way of living and question their corporate loyalty. But there’s something to learn from this millennial mentality.  When should you tough it out and when should you pursue other opportunities?  Is your bad day really just a bad day or is it an excuse?  Do you even know the difference anymore?  Below are signs you should quit your job:

Your job won’t help you fulfill your personal mission.  Think about who you are.  Are you a family-guy but you’ve missed your kid’s clarinet concert for the third year in a row due to work travel?  Are you really ambitious but upward mobility is impossible?  Are your skills even being tapped?  You know what’s important to you and what isn’t; if your job is standing in the way of the principles that define your character then consider other options.
You’ve stopped learning.  When your development stalls, then you’ve hit a dead end.  Your career shouldn’t be completely one-sided: the amount of time and energy you put in should be given back in ways other than monetary compensation.  You’re never too old to learn something new.
You can’t picture yourself there in a year.  This one is difficult to spot correctly.  This doesn’t mean you got a bad assignment and you’re so miserable you need to get out.  Everyone is going to get a bad assignment, a boring project or a huge crisis.  This is inertia.  If you picture the future and you’re not excited about it, then get out.
The fit is all wrong.  You don’t like the work.  You don’t fit in with your co-workers.  You hate your boss.  The stress and environment is affecting your home life or your health.  These are all reasons to leave.
Your company is a sinking ship.  That doesn’t mean you need to go down with it.  If your company is experiencing some tough financial problems or a merger is about to happen that can affect the existence of your department, don’t wait to find out what happens.and finally…
Your responsibilities have increased but your pay hasn’t.  If it’s not due to downsizing, then upper management is taking advantage of you.  Don’t let them.

Note: This post was originally written by Nicole Barbuto for the CEB Marketing Leadership Council, our sister program for marketing professionals. Visit the original here .

Related Blog Posts:

The Top Reason Why People Quit
Your Best Reps Are Leaving
When High Performers Stop Performing

Related Resources:

The Voice of the Sales Force: Engagement and Retention Trends
Steps for Building an Effective Sales Employee Value Proposition
FLSM Center: Employee Engagement

Why Reps Struggle to Build Consensus

(This is the first in a series of blog posts on our latest research: Creating Customer Consensus.)

There is an increasing number of customer stakeholders involved in a purchase decision. And that’s the reality all of us in sales live with almost on a daily basis—of building consensus amongst an ever increasing list of stakeholders. Admittedly, it is not a new challenge. We have been dealing with a dramatic rise in decision-makers and influencers for a while now, exacerbated by the increased scrutiny brought about by the economic downturn. But with the economy better (arguable still), how has this changed? That’s the question we set out to answer this year and here is what we found:

Despite the improved economy, number of stakeholders involved continues to rise. In a recent member poll, nearly 80% of sales leaders report that the number of customer stakeholders involved in a typical deal continues to rise. The average B2B decision-making group includes 5.4 buyers. And salespeople need to get a “yes” from each of these stakeholders to be able to close a deal. Aggravating that challenge is the fact that at times you don’t even know who these 5.4 stakeholders are and what they care about.
It is not just the number of stakeholders that makes consensus hard. It is also the diversity of stakeholders. 75% of respondents in our recent poll indicate that in any given purchase decision, the stakeholders involved come from a wide variety of roles, teams, and locations. This means that not only are there 5.4 people involved, there are 5.4 different perspectives. So if you sell IT solutions, you used to sell to the CIO and his or her team. But as most IT solutions today touch other parts of the business, your reps now have to sell to CMOs, COOs, Heads of HR, and more, depending on who’s using the system. Plus, the broader scope and bigger footprint of your solution probably means talking to the CFO, Procurement, and almost certainly legal. Each of these stakeholders is different from each other in terms of their priorities, goals, perspectives, and even has different levels of knowledge about your proposed solution.

And that’s the challenge of customer consensus today. It isn’t so much a quantity problem. It’s a diversity problem.

So how do you resolve this challenge? Stay tuned as we reveal solutions and best practices in our forthcoming blogs!

CEB Sales members, be among the first to learn more about this research by registering for one of our upcoming sessions. Also, listen to the event replay that highlights the study’s key findings.

5 Ways to Deal With a Horrible Boss

Everyone complains about their boss from time-to-time. In fact some in the U.S. consider it a national workplace pastime. But there’s a difference between everyday griping and stressful dissatisfaction, just as there is a clear distinction between a flawed manager and a truly horrible boss.

Difficult bosses come in lots of different flavors. Your manager might be overly controlling, giving you little to no autonomy. Or perhaps she rarely shows up at the office, doesn’t give you direction or feedback, and has no idea what you do all day. Bad bosses may be insecure, incompetent, or simply new and inexperienced. First-time managers are often more likely to hinder than enhance employee performance and potential. A study by CEB’s CLC Learning and Development Roundtable found that nearly 60% of first-time managers underperform in their role. (CEB Sales members, visit the Frontline Sales Manager Center for tools and resources to improve manager effectiveness.)

Working for a bad boss has a large effect on your work experience. Managers have a direct effect on how you perform and whether you want to stay in your job. They are the conduit between you, the organization, the team, and your job. This goes both ways. Not all bosses are bad of course and great bosses can inspire people to do more. Our sister program, CLC Human Resources, found that managers are increasingly important for improving discretionary effort: the impact of manager quality on whether employees go above and beyond the call of duty has jumped by 50% since the recession began. On the flip side, bad bosses sap motivation, kill productivity and drive everyone crazy.

If you work for someone you wish you didn’t, consider this:

 If it’s truly bad, speak up and/or leave. If you have a boss who is harassing you, bullying you or violating other workplace laws and policies, document as much as you can. If you feel you can have a direct conversation with your boss, then do that. If not, then take your case to HR or your boss’ superior. If nothing is done, you need to ask yourself if you want to continue working for a company that tolerates such behavior; it may be prudent to move somewhere that will treat you better.
Accept it don’t fight it. If you’re dealing with more run-of-the-mill incompetence, there are other things you can do. Don’t continually rail against your boss. Accept that he has flaws and that you need to work with them. In fact, there may be ways that you can help compensate for them. It is always in your best interest to help your boss achieve his goals. Find out what he cares most about and focus your efforts on making him successful.
Commiserate. One of the most helpful things you can do is seek out corroborators among your peers or others in the company. This will allow you to blow off steam by venting with others who understand the situation. You can also rely on these alliances to help you develop strategies for dealing with the situation. Perhaps someone else has figured out how to approach your boss when she’s in a bad mood, or to circumvent her if she continually gets in the way.
Adapt where possible. It may be not be that your boss is truly a bad manager but that he is a bad fit for you. Take a good look at yourself and see if there are things you can change about your own behavior that will make the working relationship easier. Remember the goal is to succeed not to be right.
Look after yourself. Working for someone difficult will take its toll on your health as well as your productivity and performance. Since many people spend more time with their manager than they do with their spouse, it’s helpful to take breaks and carve out work time when you don’t need to interact with the boss. This may be a lunch break outside of the office or a side project that allows you to work elsewhere in the company. Also, bad management can be contagious; if you are being micromanaged you are more likely to try to control those around you. Try to stay true to your own values rather than succumb to passing on bad behavior.

CEB Sales members, check out our Developing Managers topic center to understand what distinguishes top performing sales managers. Also, download our Insight Selling Manager Competency Grid that encompasses the differentiated manager actions necessary for Insight Selling.

Note: This post was originally written by Amy Gallo for our CEB Finance and Strategy Practice.

What Stresses Out Business Travelers the Most

Well, sure enough, I’m writing this blog on an airplane at 30,000 feet, on my way to sit down with a sales leadership team on building a Challenger Selling organization. And as I’m on Wi-Fi, I came across a great piece of data from a Harvard Business Review article about The 7 Stages of Business Travel Stress that tracked the stressfulness of business travel by organizational role and gender.

It was actually weird reading this, ON A PLANE no less, since it charts our stress levels though several stages of travel: pre-trip, trip prep, departure, flight, landing, destination and post-trip. Take a look at the full interactive chart here. I looked at the levels and thought to myself, did they get me right? I’m betting you’re asking yourself the same thing based on your role. So what did I learn?

Well, for starters this research is pretty close. What the data suggests for “Directors” is some of the following:

They travel a lot: almost two-thirds of Directors take 10 or more business trips a year
They’re very concerned with timeliness: Directors are the most stressed of all business travelers about the departure of the flight
They want to work efficiently while traveling: cramped seats and lack of Wi-Fi create high levels of stress

I’d say this data is right on for me. I’m well above 10 trips a year and I definitely care about seating comfort/location and access to strong Wi-Fi. But it’s the second one that truly defines my stress when traveling. I can’t afford NOT to get to CEB Sales members’ meetings and locations. When delays, cancellations, and last minute changes arise, my stress levels go through the roof. Even when I start sniffing the possibility of something, I start getting ready to put Plan B into action. I’ll listen closely to the flight crews talking on the planes, I’ll look for signs at the gate, I’ll be checking for updates on my United iPhone app and FlightAware app like crazy, and I’ll be constantly checking the weather. I’ll freely admit that it borders on compulsion.

Knowing this about me and seeing the data that corroborates it has made me a bit more aware of how I react and face frequent business travel. While the research confirms what I go through on a near weekly basis, it comes down to how do we, as business travelers, cope with our stress.

For me, technology provided by the airlines, rental companies, and travel agencies (such as Concur) all allow me to better deal with that departure stress. I have also found great value in club lounge access (although I can’t seem to get myself to pay for those airport massages that I see).

What I have also learned to do, and continue to try and do, is to simply plan for the worst. Having those backup plans and building in additional time for travel brings that departure stress down for me. And when I’m less stressed, I am more productive and better able to serve you, the CEB Sales membership.

What about you?  Is this data on point for you?  How do you deal with the peak moments of business travel stress?

The Key to Improving Your Reps’ Productivity

Sales executives know that their reps need to deliver compelling commercial insights to differentiate themselves in today’s complex selling environment. And with all these shiny new commercial insights comes lots of new sales collateral. For it to be useful though, sales reps need this collateral to be well organized and easily searchable.

Over the last few months, we spoke with several member executives that have purchased a sales enablement tool, and every one of these members said they are using their tools to better manage and deliver collateral to sales reps. But that’s not all! Member organizations are now using sales enablement tools to manage other aspects of the sales process as well.

Of the members we spoke with, all but one are using their sales enablement tools to support multiple aspects of the sales process. Tellingly, the one organization that used the sales enablement tool solely for collateral management has moved on, saying the tool is too costly when only used for this single purpose.

Purchasing a sales enablement tool is an expensive proposition, and any organization should put considerable thought into why they are purchasing the tool, what they will use it for, and how to prepare reps to get the most out of it.

So, how can organizations ensure they are getting the most out of a sales enablement tool? In our conversations with members, communication and training were recurring themes, and a few of the tactics member organizations used included:

Establishing designated points of contact (e.g., sales enablement managers) for all questions related to the sales enablement tool
Announcing the launch of the sales enablement tool and providing the necessary training to sales reps at regional sales meetings
Employing a dedicated sales tools trainer to provide training to salespeople via group training events and one-on-one sessions

CEB Sales members, read the full brief on Implementing a Sales Enablement Tool to learn which tools the companies we spoke with purchased, and how they are using them to streamline the sales process. To learn more about creating commercial insights, visit our topic center on Commercial Teaching.