Picking the Right Partner for Your Sales Transformation Initiative
Categories: Sales Transformation
What sales leader doesn’t want his or her organization to sell larger deals more quickly? If you’re leading a large complex B2B sales organization, choosing a partner who helps you build on your own best practices may be the fastest way to not only reach but exceed your numbers this year.
An outside perspective can drive the measurable results you, as a sales leader, are trying to achieve. Often sales training services that are provided by an outside party are more likely to gain buy-in and impact since the company is making a large investment in the initiative. In other words, they want to make sure they get their money's worth.
Your Success is Their Success
A third party needs you to thrive in order to sustain their own success. If they can’t provide references or proof of results, they aren’t going to be able to drive new business. They also have the benefits of executing patterns of success. They know what needs to be done to replicate the success they’ve achieved in other companies. True transformation partners are committed to your results.
When it comes to seeking an outside perspective, the stumbling block often is a belief that no outside expert could adequately understand the industry or company culture well enough to successfully execute. That’s why it’s important to find the right outside perspective. Here are four ways to find the right partner for customized sales transformation:
1. Don’t Fix What Isn’t Broken
A true sales transformation partner should help you build on what you are already doing well, and at the same time, be able to draft-in to your current initiatives. Solutions that are customized and tailored will help build on your company’s current best practices and drive change in the areas with the greatest potential in your organization.
2. Have A Plan for Alignment
The greatest sales transformation success comes when there is cross-functional alignment with strategy. Seek a methodology that will gather leaders from various departments within your organization at the onset, planting the seeds for buy-in and participation across the organization. Assembling a cross-functional team early will foster a vested interest in results, which in turn drives consistency of the overall transformation process.
3. Secure Executive Process Ownership
When executives own the process, they can drive the necessary results. Executives and managers should play an integral role in the content and planning that surrounds the initiative. This ownership also allows company sales leaders to analyze the value of the partnership on an ongoing basis while ensuring continued engagements match your organization's culture and contribute to overall goals. Your sales transformation partner should help drive success, but the ownership of the initiative should remain with internal sales leadership.
4. Build in Measurement Benchmarks
Define how you are going to measure success with your initiative. Measurement should be built into the offered methodology to ensure you receive a comprehensive program that continually provides necessary feedback to benchmark success. If you’ve got a plan to measure results, you lay the groundwork for implementing true change and not one-off success.
The Benefits of Impartiality
The benefit of impartiality can also help drive your organization to greater success. As a sales leader, you may be so close to your organization's short-falls, it becomes difficult to pinpoint the areas where you can make the greatest impact. Or, you may know exactly what needs to happen, but have difficulty making the sell internally to your own managers.
Outside experts bring impartiality to the process. Their subject matter expertise can help identify and address problems without any hidden agendas or biases, conditions nearly impossible to replicate in-house.
Remember though, the key to the successful adoption of any sales strategy is a mindset, rather than a single action. The right mindset—or the wrong one— will affect your sales organization'sss reaction to the design, development, delivery and reinforcement of any initiative. Do the work on the front end to find the right partner for your revenue goals. This due diligence will ensure you improve revenue and drive measurable results.
