Brent Adamson's Blog, page 6

The Best Interview Questions to Ask

It’s certainly an area that many senior sales executives and managers are focused on: finding the “right” rep. And, in many cases, it’s finding Challenger reps to fill an opening. While we’ve provided guidance on questions to ask candidates specific to Challenger behaviors, this Mashable article got me thinking: regardless of the role you’re trying to fill: what are your favorite interview questions to ask?

I like a few from the Mashable article to get us started:

What is your passion? I think we can all agree, if we don’t know what makes our people passionate (in life and in work), then it’s going to be tough to match the job to the right person.  The most successful people out there are passionate about what they do.


Who do you most admire and why? I really enjoy this one. First, it’s just really insightful to hear who people select and their answers for why. A variation that I’ve heard that I also like is “If you could have dinner with one person, deceased or living, who would it be and why?” It gives you a good sense of their perspective and you never know where this will take the conversation.  I think it provides a great deal of personal insight (and makes the candidate think hard).

Here’s a few I’ve heard or comes across and like:

What do you think is the most useful business knowledge to making great decisions, and when was a time that you used that knowledge? This has to be #1 on my personal list, mainly because of what it’s probing for – business acumen. We all know business acumen is a critical skill, but too long in sales, it’s been relatively ignored (or at least de-prioritized). This question gets to not only what the person knows, but what he or she uses to make decisions.


Describe a time you faced difficulty in completing an assignment/project/deal?  How did you go about overcoming it?  Certainly a behavioral question here; I enjoy this because it’s very action-oriented. You’re going to get a story. You get to see how resourceful this person is, how they process a challenge and come to a successful outcome. We know any role (especially sales) can be complex and relies heavily on others, so this type of question can get to the heart of uncovering their ability to deal with that complexity.

That’s just a few that I wanted to share.  Of course, if you’re hiring for Challengers, be sure that you utilize our hiring tools available (SLC members can access them here).

What questions would you add to this list that you find powerful?  We’d love to hear them!

What’s Your Favorite Interview Question?

It’s certainly an area that many senior sales executives and managers are focused on: finding the “right” rep. And, in many cases, it’s finding Challenger reps to fill an opening. While we’ve provided guidance on questions to ask candidates specific to Challenger behaviors, this Mashable article got me thinking: regardless of the role you’re trying to fill: what are your favorite interview questions to ask?

I like a few from the Mashable article to get us started:

What is your passion? I think we can all agree, if we don’t know what makes our people passionate (in life and in work), then it’s going to be tough to match the job to the right person.  The most successful people out there are passionate about what they do.


Who do you most admire and why? I really enjoy this one. First, it’s just really insightful to hear who people select and their answers for why. A variation that I’ve heard that I also like is “If you could have dinner with one person, deceased or living, who would it be and why?” It gives you a good sense of their perspective and you never know where this will take the conversation.  I think it provides a great deal of personal insight (and makes the candidate think hard).

Here’s a few I’ve heard or comes across and like:

What do you think is the most useful business knowledge to making great decisions, and when was a time that you used that knowledge? This has to be #1 on my personal list, mainly because of what it’s probing for – business acumen. We all know business acumen is a critical skill, but too long in sales, it’s been relatively ignored (or at least de-prioritized). This question gets to not only what the person knows, but what he or she uses to make decisions.


Describe a time you faced difficulty in completing an assignment/project/deal?  How did you go about overcoming it?  Certainly a behavioral question here; I enjoy this because it’s very action-oriented. You’re going to get a story. You get to see how resourceful this person is, how they process a challenge and come to a successful outcome. We know any role (especially sales) can be complex and relies heavily on others, so this type of question can get to the heart of uncovering their ability to deal with that complexity.

That’s just a few that I wanted to share.  Of course, if you’re hiring for Challengers, be sure that you utilize our hiring tools available (SLC members can access them here).

What questions would you add to this list that you find powerful?  We’d love to hear them!

4 Steps to Being an All Star Negotiator

Recent shifts in customer buying behavior still have suppliers playing a seemingly endless game of catch up with buyers as they try to manage the ongoing implications these changes have on B2B sales. In previous posts we’ve discussed how today’s informed buyers are leaving little for our reps to compete on beyond price and how the best reps combat this by embracing Challenger rep behaviors in order to reframe how customers think about their business and to take control of the buying process.

But all too often reps take the opposite approach when facing price-driven commercial conversations. In an attempt to make negotiations more amicable and to encourage collaboration, many reps will err on the side of being too passive and avoid creating tension at all costs. And, given what we know about today’s world of sales, it should not come as surprise that this strategy only leads to customers controlling the interaction which means indecision, lost deals, or at best, marginless business.

The natural question that arises is: “How can we scalably equip our reps to be more assertive in negotiations and better take control of the sale?” To help their reps confidently broaden customers’ perspectives and shift conversations away from price and back to value, DuPont developed a clever tool for reps to use when preparing for upcoming negotiations. Not only does DuPont’s Controlled Negotiation Roadmap guide reps on how negotiations should unfold, it also helps them prepare to maintain an assertive posture in front of prospects without appearing too inflexible or aggressive. 

At a high-level, the roadmap follows these four principles:

Create an Action Plan—A simple template structures reps’ negotiation preparation and helps them visualize a path to closure ahead of time, removing the burden of thinking in-the-moment during the actual customer interaction.
Shift Discussion to Value—Providing reps with guidance makes them feel more comfortable postponing customer requests that may create tension.
Refocus and Explore Priorities—Identifying additional customer needs and solution components allows reps to expand negotiables away from just price, creating better outcomes for both parties.
Exchange Value…Don’t Give It Away—Understanding how different concession patterns impact customers helps reps maintain negotiation control without harming long-term relationships.

CEB Sales members, to learn more about how DuPont helps reps manage constructive tension in sales negotiations, be sure check out the case study and listen to the podcast. Also visit our Challenger Selling and Taking Control resources to learn more about how you can arm your sales force to challenge customers.

One Way to Take Control of Price-Driven Sales

Recent shifts in customer buying behavior still have suppliers playing a seemingly endless game of catch up with buyers as they try to manage the ongoing implications these changes have on B2B sales. In previous posts we’ve discussed how today’s informed buyers are leaving little for our reps to compete on beyond price and how the best reps combat this by embracing Challenger rep behaviors in order to reframe how customers think about their business and to take control of the buying process.

But all too often reps take the opposite approach when facing price-driven commercial conversations. In an attempt to make negotiations more amicable and to encourage collaboration, many reps will err on the side of being too passive and avoid creating tension at all costs. And, given what we know about today’s world of sales, it should not come as surprise that this strategy only leads to customers controlling the interaction which means indecision, lost deals, or at best, marginless business.

The natural question that arises is: “How can we scalably equip our reps to be more assertive in negotiations and better take control of the sale?” To help their reps confidently broaden customers’ perspectives and shift conversations away from price and back to value, DuPont developed a clever tool for reps to use when preparing for upcoming negotiations. Not only does DuPont’s Controlled Negotiation Roadmap guide reps on how negotiations should unfold, it also helps them prepare to maintain an assertive posture in front of prospects without appearing too inflexible or aggressive. 

At a high-level, the roadmap follows these four principles:

Create an Action Plan—A simple template structures reps’ negotiation preparation and helps them visualize a path to closure ahead of time, removing the burden of thinking in-the-moment during the actual customer interaction.
Shift Discussion to Value—Providing reps with guidance makes them feel more comfortable postponing customer requests that may create tension.
Refocus and Explore Priorities—Identifying additional customer needs and solution components allows reps to expand negotiables away from just price, creating better outcomes for both parties.
Exchange Value…Don’t Give It Away—Understanding how different concession patterns impact customers helps reps maintain negotiation control without harming long-term relationships.

CEB Sales members, to learn more about how DuPont helps reps manage constructive tension in sales negotiations, be sure check out the case study and listen to the podcast. Also visit our Challenger Selling and Taking Control resources to learn more about how you can arm your sales force to challenge customers.

8 Tips to Help You Get Promoted in 2014

As you begin to set your performance goals for 2014, what are some ways that you can start to think, act, and communicate like a leader to help you get that promotion you’ve been looking for? In her article titled, “Act Like a Leader Before You Are One,” Amy Gallo, contributing editor at Harvard Business Review, says it’s never too early – even if you are still several levels away from your dream promotion, there are numerous ways that you can start to successfully carve your path to success.

Amy provides eight tips below to help you get where you want:

Knock your responsibilities out of the park – Don’t let your ambitions get in the way of excelling at your current role. Focus on the present as much as, or more than the future so that no one can question your performance.
Help your boss succeed – If you can make your boss look good, then you look good. Find out what challenges he or she is struggling with, and come up with solutions for those problems. When asked to help with something, lean more towards yes than no.
Seize leadership opportunities no matter what – Find activities, big and small, within your team and with others, inside your organization and outside, to help signal that you have the right kind of leadership potential.
Look for the white space – Look for projects in the ‘white space’ – problems that others either don’t know exist or aren’t willing to take on.
Don’t be a jerk – There’s a fine line between ambition and arrogance – don’t cross the line. What you should aim for is “humble confidence”, says Jen Su, co-author of Own the Room.
Be cautious when sharing your ambitions – Share your ambitions with a manager you trust and make sure to focus on what’s best for the company. Engage in a two-way conversation and gain feedback on how you can continue to make strategic contributions to the business.
Find role models – Learn from other’s successes and failures – find individuals who have the roles that you want, and learn from them. But don’t forget to look at those who are stuck in their career as a lesson of what not to do.
Build relationships – At all times be prepared to answer the question, “What are you up to?” –not just to your boss, but to any senior executive at your organization. You need to build the right relationships, you need to know who your supporters are across the organization, folks who are aware of the work you’re doing – this will help your manager make an easier decision while evaluating you for a promotion.

What other tips would you include in this list? Use the comments section below.

Note: This post was originally written by Gowri Jaisinghani for our sister program, the CEB Market Insights Leadership Council. You can read the original here.

4 Ways to Reward Consistent President’s Club Winners

Just how valuable are your high-performing reps? Twice as much as core performers. For sales organizations, that’s good news. The bad news is that star reps if not engaged are also more likely to leave the organization. Given their value in driving sales growth, organizations must use a combination of recognition and incentive programs to motivate and retain top talent.

It’s no wonder sales organizations consider President’s Club as vital to motivating, recognizing, and retaining star sales talent. But, do companies reward consistent President’s Club winners any differently? The short answer is yes, many sales organizations do. Below are some of the most common approaches to rewarding year-on-year President’s Club winners (CEB Sales members, visit the Sales Ops forum to read the full set of member responses to this question):

Public Recognition—The simplest way to recognize consistent winners is to highlight their achievements among peers. You can do this by announcing the number of times they’ve won the President’s Club entry or by having the Head of Sales laud their achievements at the next Annual Sales Meeting. Another approach is to offer “Legacy Awards” to reward consistent winners.
Special Privileges—Add an additional layer of exclusivity to the President’s Club by creating “The Inner Circle” for consistent President’s Club winners with its own set of rewards and benefits. However, exercise caution when creating further exclusive groups to ensure other President’s Club winners don’t feel left out.
Monetary Rewards—Incentivize consistent winners with cash bonuses. One member company gives an “excellence bonus” to reps that have qualified for President’s Club in two out of three consecutive years. You can choose to keep the bonus fixed or give an incremental bonus for the number of consecutive years the rep has been a winner; for instance, for two consecutive years give a 20% bonus, for three consecutive years give a 30% bonus, etc.
Hybrid Rewards—Finally, use a combination of incentives and recognition to motivate reps. One member company cites giving consistent winners a mix of incremental bonuses and gifts in increasing order of worth for the number of consecutive years the rep has been a winner.

What strategies have you employed to reward consistent winners? Share your ideas below.

CEB Sales Members, visit our President’s Club topic center for more guidance on how to design and manage a President’s Club program. In addition, listen to our latest webinar on the topic on how to motivate and reward your top performers using President’s Club.

5 Goal-Tracking Apps Every Rep Must Have

With 2014 well underway, and the fourth quarter frenzy behind us, we turn our attention to new sales goals for the year ahead. Want to know how the most progressive sales organizations are leveraging technology to help sellers stay ahead of the curve and on track to exceed performance expectations?

Our research suggests that a growing number of CEB member organizations are using tablet technology to deliver better customer interactions, and most organizations are investing in four areas of mobile-enablement capabilities to improve seller effectiveness. Also, progressive organizations are enabling sellers to leverage social media to get in early and shape demand.

But, we bet that your best reps are also using mobile technology to build new work habits and stay on top of their 2014 personal goals. So what Apps are they using?

Author and consultant Michael Hyatt recently published his list of the best goal-tracking Apps in the market. Here are the 5 Apps from Hyatt’s list that we predict will make the biggest splash in sales:

GoalsOnTrack – Supported by all major mobile platforms, this very popular app helps users write their goals in “SMART” form (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely), create action plans and track progress. It contains a goal journal to help users reinforce goals and record lessons learned along the way. On top of that, it links to Google Calendars and Outlook.
Strides – This app is designed to be an iPhone goal tracker. It has three types of trackers: a target tracker, a habit tracker, and a milestone tracker. Users can select which tracker best suits their personal goals, and the displays are easy to read and beautifully designed.
Lift – Lift is a goal planning and tracking app based around community support functionality, which provides accountability and motivation for users. Once a user creates a goal plan, she can share it with the community and receive positive reinforcement for milestones achieved.
irunurun – What is different about this app is that it “gamifies” goal tracking, providing real-time scoring based on completed actions.  It also enables team/friends functionality that helps users build accountability.
Nozbe – A very functional task-management app that sets users up to create goal projects that can be tracked and measured. It supports most mobile platforms and has a very neat web app version available for multiple browsers.

CEB Sales members, visit our Mobile Enablement research center to see our list of most popular apps for task management and other sales-specific usages, and review the results from our Mobile Sales Capabilities Trends report.

What Apps do you think will be hot this year? Share your thoughts with us here.

4 Ways to Reward Year-on-Year President’s Club Winners

Just how valuable are high-performing reps? Twice as much as core performers. For sales organizations, that’s good news. The bad news is that star reps if not engaged are more likely to leave the organization and seek better opportunities. Given their value in driving sales growth, sales organizations should use a combination of recognition and incentive programs to motivate and retain their top talent.

It’s no wonder President’s Club make for such a popular reward and recognition program—rewarding the crème-de-la-crème of the sales organization, and pushing reps to outdo each other. What’s more, the rewards of being a President’s Club winner can vary from monetary rewards to vacation trips to Hawaii and the Caribbean, to art works, sunglasses, travel gear, and apparels as gifts.

But, do sales organizations reward consistent President’s Club Winners (for over two years) any differently? This question got a varied set of responses on our Sales Ops forum—the following were the most common approaches to rewarding and motivating consistent President’s Club winners:

Public Recognition—The simplest way to recognize consistent winners is to highlight their achievements among peers. You can do this by announcing the number of times they’ve won the President’s Club entry or by having your Head of Sales laud them at your next Annual Sales Meeting. Another approach is to give “Legacy Awards” to reward consistent winners.
Special Privileges—Add an additional layer of exclusivity to the President’s Club by creating “The Inner Circle” for consistent President’s Club winners over five years with its own set of rewards and benefits. However, exercise a little caution while creating further exclusive groups to ensure other President’s Club Winners don’t feel left out.
Monetary Rewards—Incentivize consistent winners with cash bonuses for their efforts. A member company gives an “Excellence bonus” to reps that have been winners for two-out-of three consecutive years. You can either keep the bonus fixed or give an incremental bonus for the number of consecutive years the rep has been a winner; for instance, for two consecutive years give a 20% bonus, for three consecutive years give a 30% bonus, etc.
Hybrid Rewards—Finally, use a combination of incentives and recognition to motivate reps. A member company cites giving consistent winners a mix of incremental bonuses and gifts in increasing order of worth for the number of consecutive years the rep has been a winner.

What strategies have you employed to reward consistent winners? Share your ideas below.

CEB Sales Members, visit our President’s Club topic center for more guidance on how to design and manage a President’s Club Program. In addition, listen to our latest webinar on the topic on how to motivate and reward your top performers using President’s Club.

Managing Channel Conflict: Get Reps to Play Nice

At the start of each year, sales organizations often look to reevaluate their channel strategy to better align resources—ensuring they are not overinvesting in some customers and under-investing in others. That said, despite the organization’s best efforts, reps often run into channel conflicts that risk harming existing customer relationships, lowering deal profitability, and resulting in lost sales.

We recently spoke to three member companies about their strategies to mitigate cross-channel sales conflict, and while there were no consensus or silver-bullet answers on how to eliminate discord between channels and create a harmonious sales force, we heard several creative approaches and ideas.

First, what causes conflict between sales channels? Our members point to two main factors:

Overlapping territories—Reps from different channels sharing territories
Misaligned incentives—Compensation structures that don’t align with larger sales strategy

While member companies experienced conflict between channels (inside vs. field sales, field sales vs. strategic accounts, direct sales vs. strategic accounts), all agreed that reps will act in whatever manner yields the highest compensation. Put another way, if your compensation structure rewards collaboration — reps will collaborate, but they will also act alone if they can garner larger payouts by going solo. Thus, the most effective way to head off conflict between sales channels is by altering your compensation structure.

The member companies we spoke with offer several ways to do so:

Double compensate reps on all deals that require teamwork in a shared territory
Double compensate reps on collaborative deals but raise their goals to offset higher payouts
Deemphasize individual performance in reps’ incentive compensation

Two things jump out when studying the list above: the costs of double compensating reps and the contradictory nature of deemphasizing individual performance. In response to the first point, yes, this strategy can get a little expensive. Organizations that are double compensating reps have come up with strategies to limit the dollar damage. On the second point, we have long heard that sales reps are competitive beings and tapping into this fundamental truth will bring out the best in your sales force. While the profiled company deemphasizing individual performance didn’t dismiss the archetype of the competitive salesperson, they also emphasized that “people like to be part of a team” and that this competitive nature can be channeled into a team environment.

Overall, the members we spoke with characterize their strategies to mitigate cross-channel sales conflict as successful, pointing to revenue growth and positive feedback from the sales force as the main indicators of success.

CEB Sales Members, review the Indirect Channel Sales topic center. To learn more about how the profiled organizations alleviate channel conflict, check out the full report: Mitigating Cross-Channel Conflict.

Why Individuals No Longer Rule on Sales Teams

Note: This post was written by Brent Adamson, Matt Dixon, and Nick Toman for the Harvard Business Review.

Companies have long developed and managed their sales people differently from other employees, placing great emphasis on individual performance. To foster it, they often give sales its own learning and development team, recruiting specialists, compensation plan, and management and IT systems — but now they’re finding that those differences can hinder success as much as they support it.

Our colleagues in CEB’s HR practice have documented an extraordinary shift in the relationship between individual achievement and business unit profitability, both across the enterprise and within the sales function. From 2002 to 2012, the impact of individuals’ task performance on unit profitability companywide decreased, on average, from 78% to 51%. But the impact of employees’ “network performance” — that is, how much people give to and take from their coworkers — increased from 22% to 49%. Even in sales, network performance now accounts for about 44% of the impact.

On the most effective sales teams, particularly B2B, the individual no longer reigns supreme. Strong sellers don’t merely execute their day-to-day tasks well; they also engage with their colleagues to marshal resources, wrangle involvement, and coordinate people’s capabilities. As we discuss in our recent HBR article, “Dismantling the Sales Machine,” they rely on collective, even crowd-sourced, skills in ways that weren’t possible just a few short years ago.

Take, for example, a large media company we work with that invested in an internal social-networking platform for the commercial organization. The goal was to help sales reps exchange information about complex accounts. In the few years since the system has been in place, cross-sales have increased, cycle times have declined, and conversion rates have gone up. In one account alone, the improvements have driven $3.5 million in incremental revenue. Collaboration is better not only among the reps selling into different parts of that customer organization but also across the product and marketing teams charged with building and positioning broader solutions for the customer. Because sales reps are more directly networked with their colleagues through technology, they more easily aggregate skills, knowledge, and experience to uncover new opportunities and to debate tactics for generating business.

Click here to read the rest of this post on HBR.