When is the right time to develop sales performance?
Author Tapio Nissilä
Published on May 4th in categories Blog.
When it comes to developing sales performance, one comment I hear every so often is “the time is not right”, “we’ll invest into sales performance improvement when sales is up again etc”. Of course, our customers know when the timing is correct for new projects. Never the less, let’s think about this for a moment as this is very important question.
I have had number of discussions on this topic during past years, and I’d like to sum up some of those discussions here. When is the right time for improving sales performance?
What is needed to develop processes?
To develop any function or process in an organisation, one needs resources, time and money. Basically you must have at least two of these components in order to identify problems, create solutions and roll those across the organisation for improved performance.
Companies and markets are never is status quo; there are always lots of things going on, both internally and externally. Long story short, businesses are either growing, stable or in decline. So when should one spend time and energy on sales management and processes?
The trap of correct timing
If we relate this question to individual sales people, it becomes easier to answer: If a sales person is doing well, there is no need for management to push new tools and approaches on him or her. If a sales person is doing ok, it still might make sense for management to wait and see if the performance miraculously goes up. But when a sales person has a personal crisis and does not perform, then it is time for management to step in and propose new approaches and force change. The question is, however, should change happen only in a crisis situation?
Let’s go through the same thinking process on company level. If business is good, there is no need to develop management or processes. If business is doing ok, should we intervene or wait for results? However, if the results are not achieved, we have wasted time waiting. When a company is in a crisis, then management must make changes quickly. But, here lies the caveat: To develop processes, one must have resources, time and money. In the time of crisis, however, there is shortage of resources, time and money. Crisis is the most difficult time to develop anything. So what can you do to avoid the trap of being forced to improve performance in times of crisis?
Do I really need to change now?
Changes in the market happen slowly, one small change at a time. Customers’ requirements change every day just a little. The customer base is consolidated one company at a time and big, industry wide changes are few. Competitors introduce new offerings and business models, one by one. If everything happens slowly, is there a problem? Do I really need to change now?
But if you accumulate all the small changes, they become a major change. The challenge is to make the small changes visible and understandable within the organisation so that people can act on them. One cannot justify change if there is not a visible need for change (nor should one wait for change to build up and cause crisis!).
Everyone I have discussed with agree that it is easier to make radical changes as opposed to minor changes due to the need for change and momentum in change efforts. When one begins a development process, it is easier to tackle a number of things at once. It is much more difficult to introduce minor changes such as on-going performance improvement. This seems counterintuitive to me! Couldn’t one implement continuous improvement in sales and win business through a solid improvement-oriented culture?
A common question is that if there is not a case for change, why bother? But believe me, there is a case for change. As discussed earlier, markets change continuously and one must lead the change (or at least follow quickly).Otherwise you wake up one day in the middle of a crisis with no resources for development. Hence, I encourage you to act before small changes in the markets force you to make large changes in crisis.
So I suggest you take a piece of paper and write down all the small changes in your markets during the past year and think about them, really.