Sales Operations Excellence is the science of streamlining processes and operations within the sales organization. Sales Operation Excellence is much more complicated than just introducing a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software solution.
Change Management especially within the Sales Team is the critical piece of the puzzle. All humans tend to be afraid or leery of change. Change Management isn’t just demanding change or convincing your sales team.
You must design your Sales Operations in a manner that will support and deliver assistance to your sales team. Your sales team will embrace Sales Automation only once they see real not perceive value from that automation.
At Upland Sales, we help our clients identify tasks that slow down and frustrates your sales team. Then we ask your sales team to prioritize which of these tasks are critical for their success. Our goal is to automate task that generates pain points for your sales team. By doing so they will thank you and embrace new sales tools and approaches.
Pay careful attention to self-inflicted processes or tasks
which were added in the past and do not bring value to your team. Ask tough questions about the reason such tasks or processes are in place. Work towards eliminating those tasks and process which add little or no value to your organization.
The K.I.S.S. method works very well at this stage. Simplifying your Sales Operations towards increasing face forward time with clients or potential clients should be your goal. By doing so you will improve your sales team performance while reducing their frustration level.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. – Aristotle
300+ years BC, Aristotle provided a foundation for Excellence. A habit or in Sales Operations Excellence, a repeatable task or process which can be automated leads to improved results. We humans, are error-prone and therefore, if we can’t automate a task we must train to form a habit.
Sales Operations Excellence must include the human aspects of the processes put in place. With this in mind, a Sales Leader must take into account those processes and determine how best to deliver sales
processes. Then they must institutionalize these human tasks or processes so good habits are formed. In many instances the proper human tasks and or processes are identified and well documented, but in the end, fail. The high rate of failure is again based on poorly executed change management.
Change management for human-based task requires individuals to understand the Why, What and How of tasks and processes. Then those processes must be implemented by rigorous and frequent training.
These changes must be reinforced and can’t be left to circumstance. You must train, Train, TRAIN and then start the training over again.
How do you make it stick?
Making the human and automated processes and task stick within your organization is ultimately the responsibility of its leaders. The expression “You can not expect if you don’t inspect” applies in the situation. Inspect by paying attention to the details and making it very known by your actions that you are doing so.
Find ways to publicly reward those who are early embracers of the changes. Then privately coach those who are struggling. Make certain to ask them why they believe they are struggle, then ask them what you can do to help them improve.
