August 2nd, 2011
The graveyard of fallen enterprises is littered with well-conceived plans that never quite came to life at the implementation stage. Understanding this business reality, Holden International equips its client organizations with a series of specific action steps, designed to help them make a successful transition from simple Product selling to customer-conscious Compete selling.
An ongoing process, not a single event
Describing a new way of thinking is easy. Making it the organization’s new standard is a process—one that involves changing habits, learning new ways of working, and putting them into practice until they become second nature. At Holden, we’ve found that if that transformation is to succeed, it has to take root within the first three months after the initial training.
Window of Opportunity: The 3 Critical Months
So, if it’s a hazardous journey and one that must make progress quickly, what’s the way to get there? Holden has quantified that migration into a 10-step process divided into three basic parts.
Holden’s 10 Steps to Driving Impact
Level 1: Reaction & Relevance
Unsurprisingly, the first step in making sure that sales training sticks with the sellers is to make sure they’re getting the right sales training. This doesn’t just refer to one brand of training over another. It means that in a force of 10,000 sales professionals, there are individual differences as well as different subcultures within a company, and they need to be spoken to in an individualized way for best results. “Effective content” means different things to different sellers; one size does not fit all.
Level 2: Behavior & Adoption
Level 2 is the critical three-month window after the initial training. As with any sea change in a corporate culture, this one depends not only on hiring excellent instructors, but on management methods that embrace the changeover.
As you can see from chart items #3 through #8, there are many vital functions that must be attended to. But particular attention should be paid to #8, Compensation/Recognition. To instill the desired behaviors and attitudes, you must institutionalize and reward them by measuring the behaviors we call Leading Indicators.
Leading Indicators are the behaviors that precede the closing of a successful Compete sale. Are your sellers using specific tools to evaluate the Power Base® Compete and identify the Fox? Are your sales managers able to coach insight? Can your sellers succinctly articulate Value Statements, Political Support Base Maps and Competitive Strategy Statements? Remember, the behavior you reward is the behavior you will get—which is why the most successful Compete Selling organizations base their compensation on their people’s diligence in observing these Leading Indicators. Exercise those correctly, and the Lagging Indicator of successfully closed deals will follow.
Level 3: Business Impact
The process of driving impact in your sales organization is a never-ending one. In addition to the expected steps of striving to exceed the chosen metrics, best practices include ongoing, systematic tracking of process observance, evangelism of these behavioral principles by management, and specific checkpoints to ensure continued progress.
Conclusion
Unsuccessful gardeners stick a plant in the ground. Successful ones prep the soil, situate the plant in a sunny spot, fertilize and water it, and fence it off to prevent stray footfalls. A Compete Selling culture only flourishes when management nurtures its development with the same level of vigilance. When you know HOW to formalize those necessary steps, monitor them through formal statistics, and see them through to completion, you and your organization are well on the way to outselling your competition.
