Weitere ähnliche Inhalte Kürzlich hochgeladen (20) Sales White Paper: Establishing Lasting Changes In The Sales And Marketing Enterprise2. Share this White Paper! Copyright ©TheTAS Group. All rights reserved. 1
DEVELOPING GUIDELINES FOR
IMPLEMENTING A NEW SALES AND
MARKETING METHODOLOGY
Although it seems counterintuitive—because we always
think of change as chaotic—change is a manageable
process that has a definite structure and outcomes that you
can reliably anticipate. If you attempt to implement major
corporate change without understanding this process, you’ll
be confused by reactions that are a natural part of the process.
Implementation guidelines can help managers anticipate the
unexpected and manage the outcomes of major corporate
change.
Establishing Lasting Changes in the
Sales and Marketing Enterprise
INTRODUCTION
Your organization has decided that you must develop
new processes, methodologies and technologies to
increase the effectiveness of your sales force.Those
you have, the ones that used to bring you great results,
are not working in today’s economy.You know that
if you do not change and adapt, your organization
will become a follower, not a leader in your industry.
Maybe your situation is not quite as drastic as this, but
you know that your current approach will only have
limited effectiveness in the current economy. How can
you ensure a successful change in selling behavior, a
winning cultural transformation?
The Current Atmosphere of Change
Fast evolving technology and a perennially challenged
global economy are forcing businesses to significantly
change the way they operate. Delivering goods
and services is becoming increasingly complex.
Businesses have to use advanced information systems,
organizational structures, improved production
methods, and ultimately new ways of thinking to
meet the increasingly sophisticated and complicated
demands of the customer.
To keep pace with the changes in the marketplace,
companies are always in a state of change.
Organizations must understand how to manage
change. If you change your sales and marketing
methodologies without understanding how to execute
the change, your initiatives will not be sustained.
As with any of ourWhite Papers, there will be a
big variance in the seniority and experience of
the readership. ThisWhite Paper aims to provide
something for the complete range of requirements,
but if you want to dig deeper or move wider, we urge
you to get in touch with us individually. You can do this
via email to: info@thetasgroup.com.
Based on our experience in implementing our sales and
marketing processes in hundreds of organizations around the
world,TheTAS Group has developed a consistent and highly
effective change management process for implementing
large-scale process changes in sales and marketing
organizations.We call this our change Execution Process,
and the process diagrammed below covers the phases of a
successful sales and marketing process change initiative:
3. Share this White Paper! Copyright ©TheTAS Group. All rights reserved. 2
Learn
Manage
ApplyMeasure
& Coach
DELIVER SOLUTION
Design
Solution
Align
Stakeholders
Deploy
Dealmaker
Define
Objectives
AD
OPTSOLUTION
REALIZEBENEF
IT
PLAN SUCCESS
• Create commitment and motivation for the project
among all managers and employees
• Sustain the change initiative withoutTheTAS Group’s
continued involvement
• Achieve a measurable and significant return on your
investment in sales and marketing effectiveness
• Create business value, which you can trace directly to
the approach and solution
Our Change Execution Process helps ensure that your sales
and marketing changes do not get lost in the shuffle of
change but instead become a priority to management and
your sales and marketing teams.TheTAS Group’s process
ensures that your change initiative is successful by helping
you:
• Align your change initiatives with your business
imperatives
• Integrate change initiatives with existing company
processes
4. Share this White Paper! Copyright ©TheTAS Group. All rights reserved. 3
Our goal is to help you achieve organizational effectiveness
by putting in place the people, processes, and technology to
help you meet your sales goals.We will work with you to train
your people, establish best practices, and put in place the
technology to support the two.
Speed is key to achieving success
Every additional month that you add to the implementation
of a new process dilutes its effectiveness and increases your
opportunity cost. Condensing the implementation time
window helps embed the process because everyone starts
using the process simultaneously, which creates momentum
for change. By rolling out a structured change program you
can ensure that teams start using consistent and manageable
processes. Generally, but not always, the smaller the
organization and the simpler its structure, the speedier the
implementation.
TheTAS Group rolled out a new sales methodology at one
of the world’s largest software companies.The company’s
sales force had traditionally been an individualized,
almost maverick sales force, but the company needed to
implement a consistent sales methodology for their entire
worldwide sales force.This was a major culture change for
the company, which required a structured approach for rapid
implementation. If the change limped over several months,
the existing culture would have absorbed the change. Our
Change Execution Process allowed a rapid implementation,
which, in turn, gave the company an immediate return on
their investment while achieving the culture change they
needed.
Achieving organizational effectiveness
The traditional model of training focuses on training as an
‘event’, not a process. Using the traditional model for training
people, Sharon, theVice President of Sales, would inform
Keith, the Director ofTraining, that she wanted the entire
sales force to receive sales training to improve their account
planning. Keith or Sharon would then select the best supplier
to deliver the training and schedule the times for the training
courses. After lining up the classes, Keith would send a memo
to all sales personnel informing them that they must take the
class and ask them to enroll.The sales force can sign up for
any class at any time they want.
Mike, a sales person in Atlanta, took one of the first account
planning classes, but the rest of his team didn’t attend class
until several weeks later. After the class, Mike had several
questions about applying what he learned to his current
accounts, but he had no one to ask since his sales manager
was too busy to attend the training. Mike also tried to
integrate the information from his new account plan into
the Company’s current CRM system, but there was no place
on the screen to add the information. And, when he asked
technical support why, they didn’t seem to know what he was
talking about.
Mike was consequently very frustrated about taking several
days of selling time to learn a process of which he was
only able to use a small fraction in his daily activities. He
communicated his perception that the new process was
“pretty much useless”to the rest of his team, so by the time
they took the class, many had little motivation to learn
or apply the new process. Eventually the rest of the team
was trained and Mike’s sales manager had the knowledge
he needed to coach and support Mike but it was too late
to change Mike’s perception. In the end, the sales force
employed some of the techniques, but overall the company
didn’t receive the maximum value from their training
investment.They could have achieved a much greater ROI
by using a change execution process that ensured the new
process was institutionalized and embedded into everyone’s
daily work habits.
5. Share this White Paper! Copyright ©TheTAS Group. All rights reserved. 4
Sponsors will:
• Decide which changes to make
• Communicate the new priorities to the organization
• Provide the proper reinforcement to ensure success
Major change will not occur unless the appropriate sponsors
demonstrate sufficient commitment and the first-line sales
managers and coaches buy into the change and manage to it.
ANALYZINGYOUR BUSINESS NEEDS
You must analyze your business to determine what changes
your organization requires. If you do not start with solid plans,
your initiative will fail.
Determining the root cause of your problems
Business analysis helps identify all problems in order to tailor
the sales effectiveness solution. Often, the apparent problem
is a symptom of a more serious underlying problem. An in-
depth analysis determines the root cause.
Organizations that have successfully created effective
changes do an in-depth analysis to determine:
• What they should change
• How they should change
• What the change will cost them (not just in financial
terms)
They always understand that anything could go wrong
at anytime, and they take that into consideration when
evaluating the cost of change.You must analyze your business
and identify the problems that change might cause, and then
make plans for circumventing or lessening the problems.You
have to answer questions such as,“Where will this change
have its greatest impact and at what speed?”“Should we
proceed?”“Who is going to absorb it first?”“How do I prepare
that part of the organization for what will happen?”“What
resistance am I going to encounter?”
During the business analysis you should identify:
• Business issues, problems, and opportunities inherent
in accomplishing the change
• Key people involved in securing the necessary support
for the change to succeed
• Key constituencies affected by the change
• Metrics that you can use to measure success
Selecting sponsors of change
During the business analysis phase, you must identify the
people who thoroughly understand the inner workings
of the affected organizations and gain their support and
commitment to the change. Sponsors are typically people
who have this intimate knowledge as well as the power to
initiate and legitimize change.
Good sponsors must have the following characteristics:
Power
The organizational change to legitimize the change
with the target population
Pain
The power to legitimize a sufficient degree of pain
regarding the status quo
Vision A clear definition of what change must occur
Resources
A thorough understanding of the organizational
resources needed for a successful implementation, and
the ability and willingness to commit what is necessary
to the project
Organizational
Impact
A thorough understanding of the effect the change will
have on the organization
Human Impact
The capacity to fully appreciate and empathize with
what the employees are being asked to change about
the way they operate
Scope
The capacity to thoroughly understand the size of the
group to be affected by the change
Public Role
The ability and willingness to demonstrate the
type of public support necessary to convey strong
organizational commitment to the change
Private Role
The ability and willingness to meet privately with key
individuals or groups to convey their strong personal
support for the change
Consequence
Management
Be prepared to promptly reward those who facilitate
the implementation process or express displeasure
with those who inhibit acceptance to the change
Monitoring
Activities
The determination to ensure that monitoring
procedures are established that will track progress or
problems that may occur during the implementation
process
Sacrifice
The commitment to pursue the task knowing that a
personal, political, or organizational price may be paid
for implementing the change
Sustained
Support
The capacity to demonstrate consistent, sustained
support for the change and reject any course of action
with short-term benefits if it is inconsistent with the
implementation process
6. Share this White Paper! Copyright ©TheTAS Group. All rights reserved. 5
INTEGRATINGTHE CHANGE INTO
EXISTING PROCESSES AND SYSTEMS
TheTAS Group implementation team helps you to develop a
detailed implementation plan that schedules and assigns all
the critical components of a successful implementation.
Most processes don’t operate in a vacuum – they are
linked to other processes in some way.You must identify
how the change affects all the linked processes, clear up
inconsistencies in the processes, and integrate the new
terminology, methods, and models with your existing
processes.
You should thoroughly test your changes to make sure that
your employees will accept them. In larger organizations, you
can do such a test by rolling out the change to a test group
and by running pilot programs.This phase will allow you to
find the holes in your planning and repair them before you
take the change to the whole organization. During this phase
you should take steps to:
• Adjust your current processes
• Lower the resistance to change
• Personalize the change
Adjusting your current processes
During the testing of the change, you will be able to see how
the change affects and is affected by the current conditions
in the organization.The most obvious effects of the change
are in current processes and technology.Will changing
your sales and marketing methodology affect your sales
forecasting?Will you need to adjust your CRM system to
accommodate the new methodology and technology?You
can make the necessary adjustments to processes relatively
simply compared to the effort it will take for you to adjust the
corporate culture that created the need for those processes in
the first place.
Your processes and technology will need to work together.
You may need to adapt your technology to fit the new
methodology.We specialize in technology that encapsulates
your new methods and integrates seamlessly within your
CRM system. We can also configure our technology to fit your
sales processes.
ALIGNING MANAGEMENTWITH
THE NEW SALES AND MARKETING
METHODOLOGY
For the change to be truly successful, you need your
managers who are down in the trenches to become your
agents of change.They need to be the managers your
salespeople and sales support staff answer to daily.
Management alignment is the most critical part of the
process. Management must understand and actively support
the sales force training by, for instance, explaining the
purpose and content of the training and the encompassing
technology to the sales force. After the training is over,
management must measure, use, speak to, coach to and
reward based on the new technology and methodology
– if they do not, the sales force will revert back to the old
methods.
The sales force won’t make changes if no one pushes them
and then reinforces the training through the technology,
until they see how the new way benefits them financially.
If an individual goes to a manager for help with the new
process, and the manager can’t or won’t help them, then the
employee will be less likely to continue the change effort.To
sustain the change, management must learn and use the new
technology and methodology.
Managers must also show their organization that they
support the change and that the change is a priority by
taking a leadership role in initiating the change. If employees
perceive that the change is unimportant or even less
important than other initiatives, then the change will not
stick.The management alignment phase helps elevate the
importance of the change in the mind of management.
During implementation you need to make allies of your
managers; they must understand and commit to being
sustaining sponsors of change.Your initiating sponsors of
change, executive management, must commit to continually
demonstrate to managers the importance of the change.
7. Share this White Paper! Copyright ©TheTAS Group. All rights reserved. 6
INSTALLINGTHE NEW SALES AND
MARKETING METHODOLOGY AND
TECHNOLOGY
Now the time has come for you to put all the pre-planning
to the test.You have analyzed your business to make sure
that the new methodology was right for your sales and
marketing organization.Then you brought management on
board and showed them the importance of implementing a
new sales and marketing methodology.You then integrated
the methodology into your existing processes and culture.
Now you must deploy the change to your entire sales and
marketing organizations through the underlying technology.
To effectively implement change you must:
• Strategize. Make sure all steps are specific, measurable
and goal oriented
• Monitor and reinforce.You should oversee the
progress, offer solutions to problems that arise, and
apply the correct consequences to behavior
• Remain team focused. Remain sensitive to the needs
of individuals in the team, the team as a group, and the
organization
Successful implementations make employees feel that they
have input into the change.You must provide them a forum
for expressing their opinions and then take those opinions
seriously.You should also involve them in solving problems
that arise from change, making decisions about the change,
planning the change project, and evaluating the results of
change.They have to feel that they are an essential part of
the change, not just one of many spokes in the wheel. No one
enjoys carrying out orders when they have no input into the
orders.
Training teams and not just individuals
To embed the change, you must rapidly train everyone the
new process and technology touches. Entire teams will
receive training together, either in classrooms or virtually, and
all teams within each business unit will receive training during
the same time frame. Installing the process like this will help
ensure that management can reinforce their teams’training.
Lowering resistance to change
Even in the best circumstances employees will meet change
with resistance. Resistance is a human response to any event
that disrupts a person’s expectations. People are not resisting
the change but the ambiguity that comes with change.To
successfully change, employees must be willing and able to
change.They must have the required skills, know how to use
them, and want to use them. Employees who are willing and
able to address change will feel less resistant to change. If
they fear that they cannot adequately address the problem
or opportunity, then they will resist change.To help lower
employees’resistance to change you need to:
• Encourage open resistance
• Explain the cost of change
You can minimize negative effects of resistance by
encouraging employees to express their fear openly instead
of secretly.You can hear and address open resistance, but
covert resistance can go unnoticed until it destroys a change
project. Knowing how your people feel will allow you to
address their fears.
Personalizing the change
So far in the integration process, you have done things
to help the organization as a whole accept the new sales
and marketing methodology, as well as the underpinning
technology. Now you must start targeting your efforts
to smaller groups. During the integration phase, you will
personalize the change process for each group.You must use
the integration phase to show employees their importance in
the initiative while reassuring them of their security within the
organization.
Through good communication, you can show employees
that they are important in the change process and that you
empathize with their situation. Major problems in change
initiatives stem mainly from a lack of communication with
the people the change impacts personally.To avoid getting
trapped in a self-destructive cycle of misunderstanding, you
must effectively communicate with employees.
8. Share this White Paper! Copyright ©TheTAS Group. All rights reserved. 7
• Reject ideas that promise short-term benefits but are
not in line with the ultimate goal
• Stand fast in the face of adversity, remaining
determined and focused in the quest of the goal
• Apply creativity and ingenuity when resolving
problems or issues that would block the goal
The transfer of ownership is complete when each of your
managers can support, reinforce and coach the process
with his or her employees.TheTAS Group’s consultants
ensure that the managers are willing and able to sustain the
change.To prepare managers, we include them in specific
activities throughout the change execution process. Before
the training programs, our technology helps your managers
prepare for the program, which they will attend with their
employees. During the programs, our consultants introduce
your managers to their coaching role and support them
throughout the event. And, finally, after the programs, our
technology provides ongoing intelligence and support until
your managers are not only fully equipped to sustain the
change, but also can refresh and reinforce it.
TRANSFERRING OWNERSHIP
OFTHE CHANGE
To successfully implement a new sales and marketing
methodology, all managers must be able to support,
reinforce, and coach the process with their employees,
through the technology.The transfer of ownership begins
during the management phase. In all phases you are showing
managers their importance in implementing the new
methodology and technology and showing them how to
implement it and use it. During this phase, your sponsors
must continue to provide the support that they gave to
managers during the previous phases.
During the transfer of ownership phase, managers must
make sure that their people feel comfortable with the new
sales and marketing methodology and do not revert back to
the old ways.You must continue your effort to build strong
teams.You must also reinforce your commitment to the new
methodology and technology.Your commitment to change is
evident when you:
• Invest resources to insure the desired outcome
• Consistently pursue the goal, even when under stress
and with the passage of time
REVIEWINGTHE SUCCESS OFTHE
IMPLEMENTATION
At the very beginning of the change project we
help your executive management determine the
appropriate success metrics for the project.These
success metrics are often linked to your critical success
factors.
We will also help identify any issues or inhibitors
preventing full implementation of the new
methodology and technology.
After implementation, the analytics components of our
technology provide you with the vital measurement
capability to accurately assess the impact of the project
at pre-defined anniversaries and coach or course-
correct where necessary.
We’d be delighted to discuss your specific needs
further, and explore how Dealmaker can drive
sustained sales performance improvement in your
organization. If you wish to find out more, please
contact us at info@thetasgroup.com.
9. ABOUTTHETAS GROUP
TheTAS Group helps progressive sales organizations increase their sales velocity resulting in higher win rates, bigger
deals, shorter sales cycles, and more qualified deals in the pipeline. Our unique value is deep methodology embedded
within intelligent Dealmaker software, 100% native in Salesforce. Smart coaching, delivered just-in-time, improves
sales performance and accelerates sales results.We have changed the paradigm of improving sales effectiveness from
traditional sales training to delivering sales methodology and insights when and where the sales person is working a
sales opportunity.
For more information visit www.thetasgroup.com
Copyright ©TheTAS Group. All rights reserved.This briefing is for customer use only and no usage rights are conveyed. Nothing herein may be reproduced in any form without written permission ofTheTAS Group.