The evolution of sales management, too much focus on process and data?

I’ve been writing the HammerLetter for 18 years and thought it would be a nice change of pace to have one of the many respected sales leaders I know provide some of their wisdom and write some content. 

The article below was written by one of my favorite sales leaders I’ve ever met and somebody I respect a great deal. He has a unique combination of intellect, hard work, sense of humor, great leadership, and outstanding sales skills. His track record speaks for itself. He launched the region for a then small Data Management and grew it from 1M to 40M in under 5 years. At another Data Management company, he grew revenues from 10m to 50m. 

He is currently open to new opportunities as well. If you’re looking for a sales leader that exhibits the traits and with the skills mentioned above, please contact me and I will facilitate an introduction. A segment written my him below:

True leaders understand that sales are more than numbers and dashboards – it’s about people engaging meaningfully with people. 

I’ve been part of Silicon Valley sales organizations since the early 90s, and of course have seen a lot of change during that time.  (I can recall my excitement at finally being able to print out COLOR slides to flop onto my customer’s overhead projector during my next sales presentation, but that’s another story.)  But over the past decade I have seen a trend in sales organizations that concerns me because it’s counterproductive and is also frustrating the best salespeople and driving them away unnecessarily.  There is an increasing focus on managing process and metrics at the expense of focusing on what really makes selling effective.  Let me explain. 

When I was a cub salesperson, my manager handed me a product catalog, the latest presentation from Marketing, a (hard copy) list of customer and prospect contacts and shooed me out the door.  A Monday morning sales meeting helped get me and my peers moving in generally the right direction, and I was responsible for updating my manager Friday afternoon regarding my opportunities and forecast.  During the rest of the week, it was assumed that I was doing the hard work of selling our solutions, and I was definitely working hard.  As I gained experience, that hard work increasingly translated into productivity.  (I didn’t grow up at Xerox or IBM, so I had to learn on the fly….but I did learn!)  The assumption was, the company had hired people who were capable of doing the job, understood how to be successful, and were highly motivated to drive as much revenue in the door as they possibly could. 

In the intervening years, tech companies have augmented sales organizations with all kinds of highly useful tools – CRM tools, just in time product information, deep intelligence about every customer, tools to track every step in the sales process, and analytics dashboards that can give sales leaders real time insight into the health of their business.  But I have seen sales leaders over rotate to an excessive focus on process and data and the fundamentals of sales are getting lost in the milieu.  Selling a complex technology solution to a large organization happens when a talented salesperson influences key decision makers to do something different than they were planning to do.  And while that sounds simple, it’s one of the most difficult tasks in the modern business world, involving research, preparation, mastery of interpersonal dynamics and a ton of insight.  Salespeople are very highly paid because most people simply can’t do the job. 

It’s seductive to focus on process and data.  These are tangible things that can be measured.  But they can trick the manager into believing that they are in command of something that is devilishly tricky to manage.  In the past year I have heard horror stories about the outcomes of this approach.  One software company requires their salespeople to make a certain number of customer calls each week.  But the salespeople have to make those calls from their computers, not their mobile phones, because the app that lets the company track their activity only runs on a laptop.  A security company is so committed to their sales process that partners and customers complain that they are being unnaturally forced into conforming to the particulars of the stage of the process the deal is supposed to be in.  But the salespeople are evaluated based on adherence to the process, so these things get forced.  Another company focuses on measuring deal pipeline growth every week, which can be challenging if your customer base is small and the deal sizes are quite large.  The temptation is to pad the pipeline with bad data to keep your manager off your back.  And every sales person who has spent time pursuing the largest white space enterprise accounts has dealt with managers who ask them to win new accounts that involve sales cycles that are at a minimum of 18 months…..but then punish the salespeople when they’ve been in the territory for a quarter and haven’t produced revenue.  And let’s not even talk about the technocrat CEO that makes hiring and firing decisions based on whether cells are red or green on The Dashboard. 

The truth is a world class sales organization needs both operational excellence as well as room for great talent to do their job; it’s the yin and yang that defines our world.  But technology has made it too easy to focus on the data, and it is seductive.  It creates the illusion of control, and managers like to feel that they’re in control.  True leaders understand that sales are more than numbers and dashboards – it’s about people engaging meaningfully with people. 

Hot roles: 

Senior Account Executive role with a hyper growth IT Consulting/Managed Services company. Huge opportunity that has a very good chance to evolve into a VP of Sales role within 18 months. 400K+ opportunity with potential equity. There is a defined exit strategy in place. We know the CEO personally and he took his previous IT services company from 0-50m to acquisition. Potential candidates must have IT consulting/Managed Services/Outsourcing background. Location – anywhere in the US. 

Kent Hammer

President

Hammer Consulting, Inc

Kent@hammerconsulting.net

(651) 247-4738