Managing Change

By Mike Fogel, Partner (Chicago Office)

Companies have a tendency to undertake a wide variety of projects based on strategic initiatives to improve competitive advantage, reduce costs, or increase topline revenue. In fact, as the import and tatus of being on project teams has increase over the past 15 years, the average Fortune 500 company may have as many as 150 or more internal projects underway simultaneously. However, the assumption that each project team is focused on the right long-term path to be successful is precarious at best and often wrong. As a consequence, project teams frequently find themselves paving the cow path instead of building a new, more effective expressway while end users believe that the technology, the team or the strategies failed to meet expectations.

However, a range of value-added approaches to develop a clear vision of the future have emerged. These tools help both management and project teams understand what they must do to leverage strengths, identify opportunities, and implement changes necessary to profitably grow their businesses. One example of the expanding array of market-driven strategic tools is Transformation Mapping.

A Transformation Map is a simple but powerful framework for charting the future direction of a company. It integrates disparate functional and business unit initiatives into a unified framework. The map provides management with a dynamic overview of the entire business in terms of what must change, how it must change, and when it must change.

The benefits of transformation mapping are twofold. First, it provides a tangible “roadmap”to guide the corporation as it changes. Farsighted companies use the map as a primary communication vehicle to ensure every employee understands the company’s path forward. Second, transformation mapping provides projects teams with the opportunity to work intimately to develop a shared vision of the future, a vision in which each function is a significant contributor. From this perspective, transformation mapping is an ideal precursor to strategic or organizational change.

The first step in building a transformation map is to identify the key areas that focus on becoming or remaining competitive. The initial selection process may use conventional measures and functional criteria or more sophisticated techniques such as balanced scorecard. Either way, each component is visualized as a linear path connecting the “As-Is” or current situation over time to the “To-Be” or the end result desired. Using this approach, management develops the high level tactics necessary to transform the organization. By combining the individual functional areas or scorecard components into a single map, management has a robust tool to use in developing, implementing, and monitoring a master change program. Current and planned initiatives are plotted against the map to identify potential strengths, opportunities, and gaps, as well as duplicated or unproductive activities.

High Level Corporate Transformation Map

After developing an enterprise-wide map, the same technique is used within each functional area to map out action steps and activities. However, the technique is quite flexible. Transformation mapping can be adapted easily to suit the needs of multiple perspectives. For example, one might construct two transformation maps. The first would be based on the company performing activities A, B, and C internally while the second assumes these activities are out-sourced. Comparison of the maps would provide a ready device for understanding how the internal/external sourcing decision will affect existing strategies, competencies, and resource requirements.

Timeframes for completing a transformational map vary. A high level map focused on key objectives and strategies can be completed by the company’s executive management committee in single afternoon. A detailed, task-oriented map designed to guide a variety of functional managers and supporting consultants through implementation of several inter-related project initiatives (i.e., reengineer financial, manufacturing, and business planning processes in support of SAP installation) might take one to two weeks.

Transformation mapping fosters the ability for project teams to function in a non-threatening, noncompetitive manner. From the management’s perspective, transformation mapping provides a concrete and realistic vision for the future that provides a unique means to communicate the company’s strategic vision throughout the organization. Additionally, the stronger the company’s vision and understanding of what it requires to be competitive, the more likely an enterprise is to select and implement initiatives that provide long-term competitive advantage.

The Perfect Swing for the Perfect Prospect — Part I

By Arnie Valenzuela, Partner (Seattle Office)

This begins a series about a methodology for prospecting that I’ve developed. I call this methodology 3P.

In the game of golf there isn’t a greater feeling than hitting the perfect shot at the perfect time, hitting it right where you want it. It is an exhilarating experience that is etched in your mind for a lifetime. I had this experience as the sun was setting and as I was preparing for my shot to the 18th green. As I was poised over the ball my confidence in hitting the shot grew even though I had several hazards guarding a pin placement. How could I have such confidence in such dire circumstances? It was because I had the one club in my hand that had hit that distance over and over and over and knew I could do it.

Now if I were you, I would ask myself what this illustration has to do with selling. This illustration describes one of the easiest ways to accelerate revenue. I call it 3P©. It stands for Perfect Prospect Profile and is foundational to creating a scalable, repeatable, predictable revenue engine that will sustain itself.

Now before I go further, I need to use another golf illustration. Earlier that day I hit what I thought be the shot of the day to a par 3. The swing felt great, the contact was perfect, the ball flight was right at the pin, and I thought for sure I would be putting for a birdie. Instead the ball fell short of the hole into the hazard and I ended up with a double bogey.

Why? Because I had the wrong club in my hand.

The same result occurs everyday in all parts of the world of selling when companies have great hiring practices, hire excellent salespeople, conduct stellar sales training, craft awesome sales tools, construct crisp value propositions, design sharp prospecting scripts, create incredible marketing material, build beautiful showrooms, deliver exquisite packaging, provide unmatched advertising but aim it at the wrong customer profile. You land in the hazard and take a double bogey.

For the 3P© system to work, you need to do four things:

• Develop a keen understanding of your solutions sets from the customer’s viewpoint.
• Develop a process to validate whether your suspects are prospects.
• Determine intangibles within your clients.
• Conduct research to determine who are your most profitable customers.

On our web site, I dive into these topics a bit more and provide some tips to make sure your team can have sales success with the right club in the right place at the right time.

Combating Complacency in Sales People — Part I

By Cory Smith, Partner (Vancouver B.C. Office)

One of the common issues faced by a sales organization is complacency that often develops in the sales force. A conversation I had with a CEO of a manufacturing company sums up this problem well: “Once our sales people reach $XYZ in earnings and sales, they coast. I’ll pay them more commission if they sell above that level, but they seem to get stuck. They essentially sell at a minimum level of income and don’t push for more. I don’t get it.” This two part article will review some of the tactics that your organization can use to counter this tendency.

Complacency can occur at an individual, team and organizational level. For example, an individual’s sales and personal income will tend to be the same each year once they reach a certain level. Ironically, a sales person will achieve his/her best month only to follow it with his/her worst month. The result is that she/he earns ends up with the same average performance.

An illustration from the game of golf gives us some insight into this. Let’s say your typical score is 90. If you hit 40 on the front nine, chances are that you hit 50 on the back nine for a total of 90. Conversely, if you didn’t hit well on the front nine, you will tend to “catch-up” and end somewhere around 90.

The primary reason for this tendency has to do with the concept of comfort zone. People tend to settle into a comfort zone which places limits on the low and high end of their performance. They generally won’t perform above or below this range. If increased/decreased performance occurs during a certain time period, chances are they will unconsciously act (or ’self correct’), ending with results within their range of acceptable results at some point in their sales cycle.

Short-term strategies that are not usually successful include changing commission structure, firing the bottom 10% and other negative motivation tactics. At best, these ideas cause your team to react in fear with some additional short-lived focus. At worst, morale, retention and sales results will trend downward.

The key is to move the comfort zone to a higher level. This first article will focus on elevating the upper level of the comfort zone, with part two focusing on ideas to move up the lower zone.

Here are some easy to implement ideas to increase the upper range of your sales force comfort zone:

1. Take the dollars out
   Financial results can sometime change people’s perceptions. For example, you might have a sales person who believes that a million dollars in sales is ‘a lot’ and certainly beyond their grasp. However, if you convert the dollars of sales to some kind of unit, you’ll get a different response. For example, one hundred thousand in sales might be worth 20 units. One million in sales is now a nonintimidating 200 units. This strategy is so simple and also very powerful to overcome the ceiling that salespeople can create for themselves.
2. Raise the team’s expectations
   You and your team can produce great results and have a lot of fun by gearing up for a recordbreaking week or month. Using a weekly reporting period as an example, choose a specific week at least 6 weeks into the future. Set-up a team contest based on the achievement of a new weekly record. Promote the week well in advance. Provide some kind of incentive for your customers. This new record week will raise the team’s expectations and give them a new collective comfort zone.
3. Raise each individual’s expectations
   One of the ways to raise each salesperson’s expectations is to build on their previous achievements. Every salesperson has had a ‘best week’ where everything seems to go well and they achieved their best results. Take this ‘best week’ and multiply this by 52 weeks of the year. This will demonstrate the ‘best’ that is currently possible for them if everything went well 52 weeks in a row. The next step is to help them to understand the minor adjustments in closing percentage, number of presentations or proposal and other adjustments that can be made to perform at that level consistently. The most important element of this exercise is to raise the person’s sights as to what is individually possible for them!

Experiment with these ideas and your team will begin to move out of complacency. In the next issue, we will focus on strategies to increase the lower end of the sales comfort zone.

OneAccord Success Story

• Client Company: Privately Held
• Industry: Manufacturing
• Size: $75m annual revenues

The Business Situation

The Client Company is a 50+ year-old family-owned entity that has built an industry leading reputation in contract manufacturing with some of the largest and most admired companies today: Motorola, Dell, Nokia, Boeing, Rockwell, Baxter, Hewlett-Packard, & Stryker, to name a few. The average home in North America has 16 products of which the client company has helped produce.

Market shifts, primarily due to globalization, caused declines in domestic sales for many key customers, which has been reflected in client company sales. The sales force, at that time, was predominately manufacturer’s representatives focused on the electronics industry, supplemented by direct sales representatives who were focused on geographic territories. After decades of growth, the company was on a downward trend & forecasts predicted a similar trend.

The OneAccord Solution

The focus was on where the client company should make changes to align strategies with the shifts in the marketplace in order increase revenues. Several members of the OneAccord staff were involved where their experience complemented the respective phase of the project. Several initiatives were presented to help the client company grow profitable business domestically. OneAccord provided the various skills that were needed and consistency in the initiatives through the year-long engagement.

Engagement Highlights

• Initiated and executed annual territory goal setting process based on available market and product line.
• Shifted to industry versus geographic focus for sales coverage. A sales & marketing effort aligned to geographies versus the specific messages, processes, and buying patterns needed for identified vertical markets was a major strategic shift in the revenue strategy of the business.
• Began tracking and supporting target opportunities throughout the entire organization. Quotas were initiated, where previously they were not in place and resulting accountabilities were implanted.
• Implemented and refined 30-60-90 day forecasting process.
• Conducted sales skill and industry training for entire sales force. First was the moving of a team from a geographic coverage model to vertical markets. Following was the development of a demand generation strategy versus the historical response to just the RFP/RFQ process.
• Developed job scoping and descriptions.
• Implemented performance metrics for each market, by sales team. This included both the direct & manufacturer’s rep groups.

Results

Quotes from executive sponsor at the client company:

“We have much stronger sales operations to support our goals and drive growth.”

“The appropriate processes and accountability are in place to execute effectively.”

“Initiatives were implemented fast, to move towards alignment with our goals and objectives.”

The OneAccord Partner continues to engage with the client company in an interim sales leadership role.