Best Practices for Sales Automation Projects
By Liz Roche

With dismal success rates compromising the reputation of sales operations teams and IT groups alike, sales automation projects are among the riskiest of all the CRM domains to get right. Organizations can avoid embarrassing and costly mistakes by recognizing that the technology is not the hard part — the process change is.

Consider a Success Story. ABC Company, a small-medium sized business (SMB) in the high tech services industry (number 2 player in the market, 20 percent the size of the market leader), recently overhauled a lackluster SA implementation which had been languishing in various stages of completion and usage for the past six years. This turn-around serves as an excellent demonstration of what could have been done to get it right the first time and certainly that it's never too late to salvage a dog. As a backdrop for these results, ABC Company started sales process training in January for managers and in February for sales reps, concurrently churning 40 percent of its reps and moving 30 percent of its managers. As a direct result of applying best practices for SA, ABC Company experienced these results:

• Revenue increased 16 percent YOY:The market was essentially flat based on a number of indicators, including revenue of the number 1 player, which increased 3 percent.
• Sales pipeline decreased by 50+ percent between Q1 and Q3 while the win rate increased substantially. The implication is that what was once a huge pipeline full of un- and under-qualified leads had become quite lean, but populated with only highly qualified leads. Sales reps were better able to focus their time on those deals that could actually close
• Consulting backlog increased by 75 pecent from Q2-Q4
• In Q105, the consulting organization delivered its biggest revenue quarter in company history JUST from the backlog

How'd They Do That?
ABC Company had replaced an aging client management system with XYZ Sales Software in 1999 with miserable results (in terms of adoption and utilization).A reinvigorated effort spurred by a change in sales management took place in 2002 with marginally improved usage and better customer information, but there was still general disappointment in benefits attained.The catalyst for finally applying best practices came in Q403 with another sales management change on the heels of an organizational restructuring.The recently formalized sales operations team in partnership with a new SVP of Sales understood that the “system” was not the issue and set about the task of turning an ineffective software tool into a critical management system.

Here are the best practices:

Adopt a Shared Sales Methodology — There is no SA system on the planet that can mitigate inconsistent or non-existent sales processes.A sales methodology serves as the sales team's lingua franca and defines the underlying process “workflow" (e.g., sales stages, account/opportunity planning). The mistakes are predictable: organizations either have too many methodologies (which are applied in stovepipes, if applied at all); or don't have any methodology at all (and “homegrown” methodology if undocumented and unstructured falls into this category).

Design the System for Adoption —The SA system must have the methodology workflow and associated artifacts designed in to the technology. Usability is a key issue, and the system must be vetted by sales reps in the field.Note that it is critical to have a bag-carrying rep or sales manager with recent field experience on the technology selection team.The reporting capabilities are critical and pre-packaging as may reports as possible is the key to success.

Train Sales to Use System-Enabled Processes, Not the System — Providing pure system training (e.g., sit in a classroom and learn how to navigate, create a report) is fairly useless. Organizations must approach training from a process point of view, where the technology is baked directly into the DNA of the new sales processes.Organizations must make a significant (cultural) investment in training by having sales reps themselves do the training, not a stand-up IT trainer.I recommend pulling a well-respected, technology savvy sales rep out of the field temporarily to design a “Day in the Life Of” training program, where training is conducted either one-on-one or in very small groups, and this sales rep trainer teaches sales reps how to be better sales professionals using the new processes, enabled by the new system.In this way, process and technology is inextricably linked.

Develop Success Metrics and Regularly Take Measurements — “What gets measured gets done.” Metrics must be defined in advance of an implementation (both success of the system as well as success of the new processes) and then measurements must be regularly taken and analyzed.These measurements must be periodically published to the field in rank order, so sales reps can see their performance relative to their peers. While some sales organizations culturally shy away from public rankings, we have found that competition and self-motivation is a critical element of adoption. Useful metrics include pipeline breadth and depth, number of opportunities in sales stage n (i.e., unqualified leads in pipeline), win/loss ratios et al. Pipeline is a great one, because it requires sales reps to regularly visit the system to document and move their opportunities along.

Create an Environment of Criticality and Extreme Visibility — Sales reps must be prepared to have their pipelines interrogated on a number of levels:

• Field/District Management: Regular account discussions using the system's data as a backdrop
• Regional Management: Regular discussions with field management regarding rolled-up territory progress; ad hoc account status checks with sales reps directly using system as a backdrop
• VP/Sales: Ad hoc account status checks with sales reps directly using system as a backdrop
• CEO:The most critical element to system adoption is for the CEO to periodically call field sales reps and discuss accounts or express interest in the metrics/rankings

Remember, organizations can avoid embarrassing and costly mistakes by applying sure-fire best practices for success to sales automation implementations.

Liz Roche, formerly vice president, CRM with META Group, is the founder and managing partner of ETFS Partners, LLC, a CRM business and technology consulting firm.Contact Liz at liz_roche2002@yahoo.com or 203-978-1677.