4C The Future
4C THE FUTURE
Foresee the future, that’s what your customers expect, that’s
what you need to deliver.
In an ever increasing global marketplace, the degree to which
companies can deliver ongoing value to their customers’ evolving
needs, determines their continued success. Value is a personal
thing and successful companies discover what value means to
their customers quickly, effectively and continuously. The
challenge is great and meeting that challenge requires companies
to recruit, train, develop and reward their people to deliver
current and future value. Skills, knowledge, behaviours and
thinking need to be uncovered and honed to enable people to
deliver their best for the company and their customers.
If that is true, what implication does that have for leadership
and senior management teams? The strategies that enable a
company to gain and maintain customers are only as effective as
the people that implement them; so recruiting, training,
developing and rewarding those people effectively, is crucial. A
phrase commonly used is the war on talent; but should it be a
battle? What if a company’s talent strategy was such that the
right people were attracted to rather than fought for?
At the frontline of any company is its salesforce. The
salesforce of the future will need to reconsider the way it
“sells”. “Tomorrow’s customers won’t just be looking for
products they’ll be looking for solutions and services. In order
to deliver them, companies will have to know everything about
their customer’s organisation and how their products and
services touch them… not only will companies have to figure out
their customer’s current needs but they will have to work hard
to anticipate their future needs as well….it will mean changing
people’s mindsets from product centric to customer -
service-centric” (1)
Building relationships to sell products is no longer enough. The
salesperson of the 21@ needs to be a solutions provider and
business partner for their customer. The increasing availability
and usability of technology by companies means that there is
greater transparency of price and product, so companies looking
to develop and maintain long term customer loyalty need to
transform their saleforces into customer advocates.
Traditional selling methods and their associated skills, will be
less relevant, and more emphasis on building trust and rapport,
creative thinking, needs analysis and partnership management
will deliver the value customers expect. In a global context,
these skills are even more critical as there are added
dimensions of managing global strategies in local markets,
understanding cultural differences and dealing with location,
time and technological variations. One person may live in UK,
have their HQ in Germany and their client base in EMEA, another
may live in USA have their HQ in France and their client base in
Asia. Effectively managing people and strategies in this context
increases the need for having the right people in the right jobs
to best serve those differently located customer bases.
“Companies will have to burst out of their traditional habits to
become true learning organisations.” (1)
To prepare customer advocates of the future and evolve current
salespeople into customer advocates, there are 4 key areas that
companies should focus on
CAPABILITY, COMPATIBILITY, CONNECTIVITY AND CREATIVITY.
CAPABILITY “Skills, knowledge and talents are distinct elements
of a person’s performance. The distinction being, that skills
and knowledge can be taught whereas talents cannot… Talents are
recurring patterns of thought, feeling or behaviour that can be
productively applied.” (2) They are a person’s mental filters.
This has implications when recruiting and developing
salespeople. In order to identify the skills and knowledge a
customer advocate needs may mean approaching recruitment and
training in a different way. If you can’t train talents e.g.
being proactive, you need to select for it. Assuming you have
selected salespeople with talent and potential how do you
determine the training, and development that will optimise their
talents and uncover their potential.
Firstly identify the business outcomes you need your salespeople
to achieve. Without business orientated outcomes training and
development becomes a “so what?” activity adding no value to the
individual, the company or the customer. Secondly, create
individual learning paths to optimise current skill and
knowledge strengths, minimise weaknesses, develop potential and
utilise talent. This may mean no more “sheep dip” training
programmes. This may mean no more performance reviews constantly
telling someone they need to be more proactive.
The insight of great managers is that “People don’t change that
much. Don’t waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try
to draw out what was left in. That is hard enough” (2)
COMPATIBILITY
Sales managers or directors need their teams to deliver for
their company and their customers. They need their teams to
collaborate effectively. Often this is interpreted, as we need
people who are XYZ and who can do ABC i.e. a team of like minded
individuals equally capable and equipped. Great managers say,
“excellent teams are built around individual excellence. The
manager’s role is to make sure that each individual is
positioned in the right role…to balance the strengths and
weaknesses of each individual so that they complement each
other” (2)
Having a team with diverse skills and talents adds strength, as
there are opportunities for flexibility and adaptability. As
markets change, a company’s speed of reaction becomes paramount
to maintaining competitive advantage. This may mean creating ad
hoc teams or to use a military term “rapid reaction forces”
These teams may consist of people who don’t know each other,
aren’t located together and have no experience of the
task/market or product they are being asked to deliver. However,
through their diverse capabilities, talents, nationality and
cultural awareness, as a compatible team, they can
collaboratively determine their goal, plan and implement a
strategy to deliver successfully much quicker and effectively
than could a like minded group, who all think and act the same.
Imagine a soccer team with 11 goalkeepers!
CONNECTIVITY
“…the reason for virtual team failure is directly related to the
difficulties of building trusting, positive relationships across
the three boundaries of geographical distance, time zones and
cultural differences.” (3)
Where a company is a global player, the nature of its sales
teams is different. A salesperson may have to manage a
multi-site and/or multi-country customer and become a global
account manager. They need to manage a global strategy in local
markets and deal with the differences of time, location and
culture. They need to think and communicate differently to
ensure their customer, their team, their manager and their HQ
and support areas are kept informed and aware of what they are
doing for and with their customers. Providing and using
appropriate resources to manage this connectivity issue will
often be a key factor in effectiveness. To truly share
information and learn from it to benefit the customer e.g.
develop new products, takes well developed communication
structure and processes.
“If one part of the company learns something important about a
process or market or customer, it has to be communicate to
all…Sharing knowledge avoids re-inventing the wheel and with all
players up to speed, less explanation is required to make
changes and become more nimble in the market. That is the core
of a learning organisation” (1)
As such sales managers will take the role of conductor and
orchestrator ensuring that all the players keep in time, play
the same tune and complete on cue together to give an
unforgettable performance for their audience.
CREATIVITY
Inside the successful organisations of the future, product
developers must translate the customer’s changing needs onto new
products and services. Tomorrow’s corporate leaders will have to
discover new ways to make sure that everyone in the
organisation… keep their eyes on one thing; the customer” (1) If
they don’t their competitors will.
If a more intimate relationship between company/salesperson and
the customer is needed, the traditional selling methods of
“selling” features and benefits won’t work. A more
consultative/partnership approach needs to be adopted. This will
involve salespeople being industry, market and customer
specialists. Only then can innovative or creative solutions be
discovered. Maintaining the edge is crucial to succeed Taking
this one step further, means that companies need to create
processes for dealing with change and having the will, resources
and structure to exploit it ahead of their rivals.
Delivering global value to customers has a variety of
implications for salesforces. To keep ahead of the competition
requires capable people, compatible teams, connectivity networks
and creative solutions. The task for company leaders is to
provide the structure and resources for mangers to deliver these
for their people.
1 - The Great Business Challenges of the New Millennium - HR
Chally 2002 2 - First Break All The Rules - Marcus Buckingham
and Curt Coffman 3 - Grovewell - www.grovewell-global.com