The Random Thought Generator (RTG)

There is no doubt that at this stage of the economic cycle, smart investments in sales effectiveness can pay excellent dividends. Let's start with the premise that your board of directors has given the green light to discrete, strategic spending for 2010. The CEO has come to you or your boss and asked for a business plan on growing sales so that he or she can determine the payback if some of that strategic budget is sent your way.

What is your plan?

Before the recession started, you may have spent dearly on sales training, CRM and other productivity tools, but the combination of economic panic and resulting market pressures have conspired against your making real headway. Meanwhile, you believe that your products and services can deliver excellent value for your customers - right now, in this economy. So how do you set up an environment where your salespeople can get a big bump in sales before your competitors get the jump on you?

First, answer these three questions:

1. How much new revenue did the last sales training class deliver?
2. How much new revenue has your CRM delivered in the last 18 months?
3. How much new revenue did "non-selling" departments in your organization deliver in the last year?

If the answers to any of these three questions, or others you may have thought of, are underwhelming, perhaps the problem isn't a specific training, technology or process issue, but how these things integrate and work together. Study after study bears out that the best training in the world is worthless if your organization can't support it with reinforcement, process change, and peer-to-peer knowledge exchange. A great CRM system doesn't help close deals if people can't figure out how to access all the great stuff it contains. At the end of the day, were dashboards and forecasts what you were really after? And, if all of your "non-selling" departments aren't actively participating in creating value for new (and current) customers, it's unlikely your salespeople can carry your company to success on their shoulders alone. These are just three elements out of a multitude that affect sales organizations.

What should you do to to get the most out of discrete investments? Here are three tips:

1. Leverage. Unless you're very lucky, you don't have a blank check. Instead of searching for yet another magic bullet, think about how can you integrate your people, work processes and technology through a knowlege management system so the end result is an environment that makes it easier for salespeople to sell. After all, it's the ability to close deals, not create forecast data that matters most right now.
2. Plan. Keep your scorecard balanced. Your customers, people, finances and processes all matter. Limit your objectives to the critical few and within a time scope that is relevant to this economy - very few people know where we're actually headed yet. Make sure that your accompanying strategies and action plans address only these critical few objectives.
3. Communicate. A beautifully articulated plan does nothing if it sits in a file on your desktop. Engage and enroll your team in the process, let them know where you're headed, and let them help you create the ROI your CEO has asked for.