Time Enough for Selling

I often have conversations with people regarding their sales targets. If you have been in the sales and marketing game long enough, you will recognize these simple rules: 

• Next years targets are always higher than this years.
• These targets will be achieved by increasing the quota of every sales person.
• To ensure that sales knows we are serious, there will be a process of tracking the sales person's progress. This process will take up the time of the sales person, leaving them LESS time to pursue the increased sales goals.
• To ensure we are getting the most profit from our sales, we will approve all quotes at headquarters. We can't trust our sales team to make the right decisions.

In summary, the strategy is by making life difficult for the sales team we will achieve increased sales.

Sounds crazy? If you want to be horrified, find out what percentage of time your sales team actually spends selling. If you ask your sales team you will hear a number from 25% to 50%. If you do some actual research, you will find out the number is closer to 10%. What are the biggest time wasters? Administration and problem solving. Together the can eat up more than 45% of a sales persons time. That great new process you implemented that has the sales person filling out forms, building spreadsheets, reporting, etc. just ate up 30% of available time. Add another 15% for the time a sales person spends on trying to find out the status of the order they have already closed. Go down the list and add up all the time wasters.

Are there ways of getting more out of your sales team? Of course there are. But if your sales team doesn't have the time to learn and implement them, they are all for naught.

Step 1. Ask you sales team what the time wasters plaguing them are.

Step 2. Eliminate them.

This may seem simple, but it likely won't be. Things that waste time have a way of justifying themselves. Question anyone who says something is necessary. Force them to prove it. Opinion doesn't count here.

"What are the facts? Again and again and again -- what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" -- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!"

- Robert Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long, from Time Enough for Love

Tithing for Marketing

This is a story about the power of tithing. Tithing is the process of giving 10% of your gross or net pay to your church, or other religious institution. This practice is done by many Christians. My brother is a minister at a church in Fresno, California. I don't know how many of his flock tithe, but I know he does.

A number of years ago, when my brother was an assistant pastor in another church, he and his wife found out she was pregnant. It was a very happy surprise to them. There was only one problem, for my sister-in-law to stay home with their new born child, she would have to quit her job. They would lose her income stream. My brother would need a 30% pay increase to make ends meet. (Assisant pastors always have to work a "real job" to support their families.) Faced with this challenge, what did my brother, Brother Tim do? Most people would cut back on their expenses to save-up some cash for the new-baby expenses and the loss of income. Not Brother Tim. He began tithing at the salary he wanted to make. That's right, he calculated what 10% was at his target salary, and tithed that. He believed and was investing in his future.

What happened? At his annual performance review at the electrical wholesaler where he worked, he was moved to an outside sales/support position, given a 30% pay increase and a company vehicle. Unbelievable. Yet, it happened.

What does this have to do with business? In a economic downturn, one of the first things cut is the marketing budget. To those of us who are marketing professionals, this makes little sense. "Sales are down so we should stop trying to sell" seems to be the offical wisdom. A major issue marketing managers face, especially in capital equipment markets, is the sales cycle is longer than any given fiscal year - eighteen to twenty-four months is not unusual. It is very difficult to link this year's marketing programs to this years sales. The only way to defend the marketing budget is to link it to potential sales, i.e. leads. If you don't have an automated marketing process, you are, frankly, doomed. The need for automating sales and marketing processes is a topic for discussion in a future blog.

Back to the topic at hand. Marketing budgets and the programs funded by them need to be based on what the sales target is xx months out. The spend is established by the target, not current market conditions. The benefit of this strategy, especially in a down market, is that while your competition is cutting their marketing budget, you are pushing ahead. Maintaining a consistent market presence provides your company with a healthy financial image. Your marketing programs impact is increased with each cut by a competitor. Moreover, marketing outlets, websites, direct marketing companies, magazines with lists of your target customers and others, are more willing to deal. The overall effectiveness of the monies you have go farther.

Now, some people will say, of course their marketing budgets are based on sales targets! Those of us who have weathered other economic storms, or senior management strategies, know this is not so. "You can bullshit the fans, you can't bullshit the players." What we need to argue and push for is tithing for the target. That does not mean 10% of revenues go to marketing, but rather the marketing spend is based upon creating xxx amount of sales leads, of which xx% will be turned into actual sales.

Perhaps the hardest thing for people to accept is gaining new customers costs money. It can be seen as a lot of money. This is where the marketing professional must be able to state the facts. There is hard, empirical data on just what it takes to create customer interest and sales leads. Use it. Push back on the belief that your company's customers are somehow different than the rest of the world. Use case studies of successful companies, how they plan and execute successful marketing programs; how they track and measure success. It's just math. Calculate your marketing tithe, and go to the mat for it. If your company does not believe in its own future success, you probably shouldn't be working there anyway.

What The World Doesn't Need Now

A few months ago I sat through a one hour "Go-To-Meeting" from a marketing firm in New York. It was a very good presentation, from what was a top-notch agency.

I did, however, squirm in my seat for most of the presentation. I really don't have the time to sit though a presentation that I have seen many times from many agencies. I was being "nice." When the presentation was over, the asked for my thoughts. I told them that their business model was wrong for the current economy. No one has the budget for a full-blown agency, doing extensive market studies, customer focus groups, long term market planning, or complete end-to-end services. Not only do we not have the budget, we don't have the time.

They question I ask myself everyday, is "What I am going to do TODAY to generate customer interest in my product, a lead, or a sale?" It's about today, and tomorrow, and maybe next week. Most companies are living literally day to day. Businesses are being shuttered everyday. We need sales, we need them now. How can I find the customer who is wants to buy, but needs to feel very good about a decision to buy, today? What can I do to help the sales force make one more call, today?

You could call this guerrilla marketing, tactical marketing, ninja marketing, or even TODAY marketing. The point is we as marketers have to try a series of small strikes to see what works. Better to try five things fast and one of them stick, than try one for ninety days and see it fail. We don't have ninety days. No one does.

Regardless of the recent Wall Street ups and downs this isn't over yet. We need to keep operating like the lives of our companies and careers are hanging by a thread. Because, they are.

What are you going to do, today? More importantly, what am I going to do?