Yur leadership may be smoking Crack!
I get many emails regarding “Dilbert like” moments in Sales execution.
This week’s submission came from an Account executive who was beyond tired and fed up with his sales leadership’s lack of focus on what really mattered.
He shared with me that a special conference call was scheduled (during the sales day), to review some areas the needed critical attention.
The main area of focus was on something called “success story reporting”. They introduced a new report called the “Success story compliance report”.
Apparently, this organization, in all of their infinite wisdom, had created a special report (and actually used man hours to create it) that detailed which areas down to the AE detail were submitting success stories. It would be one thing if these successes, shared best practices, or help for other sales people, but they don’t. They same useless phrases are cut and paste to satisfy someone’s insatiable appetite for activity…
Never mind the fact that this organization had CRM systems that already captured the same detail, including sales funnel movement, it seemed to be a critical business priority that a separate report be created for the Neanderthals that actually run the sales organizations, and can’t use the systems already in place. Somehow they think nothing of the hours (multiplied exponentially by your number of resources) that go into these non-value added endeavors!
My tip in this area is direct.
Does anyone actually read or do anything with the information you are being requested to provide? Here’s a shocker question- How does this report actually help you reach your goals, or even the organization?
If that question cannot easily be answered, then the report should be eliminated. Fight and rage against the machine. Life if to short…Just do it! Stop sending it out immediately, and recognize that at a minimum you have just saved your people some time.
Driving improved results in anything including sales is about relentless focus on those activities that help us achieve our goals. An additional benefit to eliminating unnecessary reporting will also be improved morale, as well as overall productivity.
While probably a discussion for a different time, overall productivity and its measurement should always be centered on the activities in the most important areas.
Measurement loses impact when it is applied to everything.
The people that are most effective are those that spend more of their time and effort in the areas that yield the highest results.
This week’s submission came from an Account executive who was beyond tired and fed up with his sales leadership’s lack of focus on what really mattered.
He shared with me that a special conference call was scheduled (during the sales day), to review some areas the needed critical attention.
The main area of focus was on something called “success story reporting”. They introduced a new report called the “Success story compliance report”.
Apparently, this organization, in all of their infinite wisdom, had created a special report (and actually used man hours to create it) that detailed which areas down to the AE detail were submitting success stories. It would be one thing if these successes, shared best practices, or help for other sales people, but they don’t. They same useless phrases are cut and paste to satisfy someone’s insatiable appetite for activity…
Never mind the fact that this organization had CRM systems that already captured the same detail, including sales funnel movement, it seemed to be a critical business priority that a separate report be created for the Neanderthals that actually run the sales organizations, and can’t use the systems already in place. Somehow they think nothing of the hours (multiplied exponentially by your number of resources) that go into these non-value added endeavors!
My tip in this area is direct.
Does anyone actually read or do anything with the information you are being requested to provide? Here’s a shocker question- How does this report actually help you reach your goals, or even the organization?
If that question cannot easily be answered, then the report should be eliminated. Fight and rage against the machine. Life if to short…Just do it! Stop sending it out immediately, and recognize that at a minimum you have just saved your people some time.
Driving improved results in anything including sales is about relentless focus on those activities that help us achieve our goals. An additional benefit to eliminating unnecessary reporting will also be improved morale, as well as overall productivity.
While probably a discussion for a different time, overall productivity and its measurement should always be centered on the activities in the most important areas.
Measurement loses impact when it is applied to everything.
The people that are most effective are those that spend more of their time and effort in the areas that yield the highest results.
posted by Curt at 7:24 AM
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