There is no question that the original principles underpinning the establishment of rigourous sales methodologies over 15 years ago were and remain sound.
We should also be reminded that these programmes were all training based, with electronic knowledge management systems a secondary issue. Paper “reporting” to sales management was the foundation of the sales professionals’ antipathy towards the whole idea.

The training of sales professionals in these disciplines once entailed up to 5 days off the road! Added to the very high instruction tariff demanded by the methodology vendor, it became increasing difficult to measure the true return on this double investment.

Pressure from users of these formal disciplines pushed vendors to reduce their instruction cost and clients’ time commitment required to justify the investment. Most vendors offered sales management training and orientation in addition to workshops for field sales personnel. Take up of the former was nothing like as popular as the latter.

However, there were and are many highly professional sales managers who are prepared to coach their teams in the rigour demanded of those methodologies, if these are built on sound reasoning and relevant, current, research and empirical data.

Still, no ROI measurement, using the rigour of, say, the 4-step Kirkpatrick principle, has been published to any meaningful extent by those organisations who have spent the most time and money on their chosen sales methodology. On investigation, it is clear that is hampered by the lack of original objectives based on business results. The “happy sheets” completed by delegates on the training workshops gave a false impression of the true impact of the programme on the health of the business.

There are, amongst others, four main, glaring, omissions in the history of the failure of sales methodology to deliver results:

1. The absence of a link between the chosen sales methodology and the wider business process in order to gain visibility at the highest executive levels.

2. The lack of objectivity to enable ROI measurement and thereby continous improvement in performance that matters to the business.

3. The absence of obvious benefits for the field sales professional to encourage the continuous, dynamic application of the disciplines embodied in the methodology.

4. Reliable knowledge management systems which encourage the harvesting and secure archiving of any company’s
key asset – after its people – knowledge.

All is not lost, however. These four challenges are fixable:

1. Embed the methodology into the business process by encouraging cross-functioal executives to engage with the sales executive in recognising the benefits of this approach to the wider corporation e.g.

a) Reveal potential of under-lying revenue headroom
b) Clearer understanding of market and customer
penetration
c) Augment future budgeting accuracy, resource and cost
allocation
d) Dramatically improved forecasting accuracy across
the business.

2. Set and communicate clear, measurable business
objectives with milestones for reviewing progress,
using disciplines like the Kirkpatrick ROI formula and
professional analytics.

3. Ensure that field sales professionals are coached to
target a return on their own time investment by using
using the methodology and its associatd knowledge
management system to:

a) Win more deals by focusing them and their virtual
team’s efforts on the right opportunity at the
right time.

b) Ensure rigorous bid qualification enabling tighter
time management.

c) Shorten sales cycles: protecting their position
against competition.

d) Build robust value propositions: build convincing
competitive differentiation.

e) Strengthen client relationships: securing future
commitment to more business.

f) Providing continual skill development: encouraging
personal growth in capability.

4. Ensure that the knowledge management system is used as
a secure,dynamic, single, record of ongoing sales
activity and not merely an archive of reporting data.

All this is well within the reach of most organisations who have elected to adopt a formal CRM like Salesforce.com and a rigourous sales methodolgy as a native application.

Dr John Heaford