Ashraf Osman

Competitive Economy Challenges

• Exclusive representation is a thing of the past

• Effects of global economy changes are felt faster and more

profoundly

• Product supremacy is short lived.

• Short product life cycle – products fall in commodity trap

• The sales person is not the only conduit of Information

• Competition drives price wars

• Shareholders’ expectations are higher than ever

Does This Sound Familiar?

• Unqualified hires & inherited sales reps •Train, evaluate and decide!

•Extended sales cycles •Heaviest cause of financial bleeding

• Bad forecasts & inflated pipelines • Cause last minute losses and disappointment

• Unqualified prospects and bad proposals •Premature proposals

• Proposals for unqualified opportunities

• Few companies know the actual cost of developing a proposal

•Free services • They will like you, but they might not buy from you.

•Activity, but no productivity • Sales persons do not act like entrepreneurs

• Unnecessary discounts! • Need I say more?

• Dead horse!

Does This Sound Familiar?

1. Performance measures are not set OR not communicated

• Quota (revenue + profit).

• Key Sales Objectives (KSO)

• Quota attainment review (annual, quarterly, monthly)

• Average deal size, LTR and RTR (lead to revenue & revenue to

remittance)

• Closing & conversion ratios

2. New sales person ramp up takes a long time

3. Productive selling time is less than desirable

4. Sales managers spend a lot of time validating pipeline

information

Typical Sales Management Challenges

5. Sales managers’ decisions re territory assignment is not built on

facts due to lack of information

6. Forecasting based on unrealistic optimism or historical figures

7. Market trends are not detected until they affect revenue

Typical Sales Management Challenges

(cont’d)

Sales Force Challenges

– No or low training, coaching & mentoring.

– Lack of standard sales process.

• “Show Up & Throw Up”: more product presentations than

listening

• Little time spent on prospecting , research, and qualification

• Building value proposition

• Always resort to price cuts

• Mapping products to customers’ problems

• Time management

CXO Challenges

– Eroding revenues and profits

– Unpredictable results

– Unreliable forecasts

– Declining margins

– Accounts receivables

– Etc.

What Do We Do?

Push sales people to sell more?

=

Do the same thing and expect different results

OR

Review your Sales Ecosystem

“Performance is a function of individual and

environmental variables”

Douglas McGregor author of Y theory

Sales Ecosystem

• Sales human capital

• Internal processes

• Supporting infrastructure admin

• Supporting infrastructure HR

• Supporting infrastructure accounting

• Marketing and product management

• Sales management leadership

• Customers’ segment circumstances

• Offerings

Sales success

Sales Ecosystem Assessment

Sales Ecosystem Assessment

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Sales HumanCapital

Internal processes

Supportinginfrastructure

Admin

Supportinginfrastructure

Accounting HR

SupportinginfrastructureAccounting

Marketing & PrductManagement

Customers'segment

circumstances

Sales Leadership

Offerings

Your company

Initial

Repeated

Defined

Managed

Optimized

Conclusion

• Evaluate and tune your Sales Ecosystem

• Get everyone on the same page

• Nurture entrepreneurship

• Communicate.

• Motivate and compensate performers

• Continually optimize what you do

Ashraf Osman