Creating Unique Value by Engaging With Employees_White Paper

8/14/2019 Creating Unique Value by Engaging With Employees_White Paper

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2010 Realpoint Consultingwww.real-point.co.uk 1

Engagement is Key to Creating CompetitiveAdvantage

IntroductionFor most sales teams, the last 12 months of difficult sales conditions is manifest in

delayed decisions, tightening of buying processes, and higher levels of approval

than previously needed. These changes will very likely become a permanent part of

doing business as we pull ourselves out of recession in 2010.

Your own organisation may be going through change and your customers’

organisations may also be restructuring to meet different demands on its business.

As a result, customers are often looking to extract greater value from suppliers, find

better and more cost effective ways to do things and use resources in a more

focused way than before. For sales managers and leaders, navigating any change

and at the same time focusing efforts on improving business performance is a tough

challenge.

Over the past decade or so there has been a shift to a service and knowledge-

based economy, where people have been one the most important elements to

creating difference and value. We know from the vast wealth of written material and

our own experience that people who feel engaged and communicated with perform

better and produce greater results. Of course leadership is a key element here and

although you may believe though times need decisive and authoritative leadership,

the most successful leaders are self aware and engage with people to releaseenergy and enthusiasm. In this paper we’ll be talking about the importance engaged

and skilled employees are in creating competitive advantage, and an account

management model that can be used to build strong customer relationships.

Realpoint paper on sales performance




Engagement creates competitive advantage

The spotlight under which many managers, not only front line sales managers, but

all customer-facing managers, must operate today can become very hot. Managers

are required to focus on internal and external goals, such as motivate and engage

stretched teams, pull them together to execute organisational strategy and meet

their individual goals and objectives. In addition, the external goals of hitting quota,

and managing customer relations – with changing buying process and delayed

decision making - makes life tough! However, the reason managers and leaders

need to be effective at employee engagement is because enthusiastic and

motivated employees can help drive business results. We’re not talking here just

about the benefits of engaged staff when it comes to lean organisations, but also

about the influence and image engaged employees, from all customer-facing

departments and business units, have on customers’ perceptions of us. Running a

lean organisation with motivated staff can mean your business is able to deliver on

time when customers are expecting shorter lead times, built-in quality, and

consistent product delivery, service and support. But creating a real difference and

strong competitive advantage requires a bit more.

Customers demand more than product or service from their supplier relationships,

they seek value through consultative and problem solving skills, with need-based

conversations instead of sales pitches, and often a long-term relationship.

Maintaining credibility, customer satisfaction and your own profitability requires

ongoing attention to the skill sets, attitudes and behaviour of your company’s front

line people in order to assure the highest degree of sales effectiveness in managing

the customer relationship. Sales organisations are looking to make the verbal

conversations between sales people and customers more meaningful and the highly

individualised and personal skills of communications, questioning, influencing, andnurturing are directly linked with this. The relationship between seller and buyer is

still the most significant contributing factor to winning or losing the sale.

Sell ValueWhen customer-facing employees are genuinely enthusiastic and motivated it’s

evident to customers and it’s infectious. The social intelligence behind this is quite

compelling and shows that being ‘connected’ is key to gaining a strong relationship.

Customers will likewise be more enthusiastic when dealing with your people and will

tell you more and listen more when with you. This will help you define value for your

customer and put in you in a stronger competitive position.

When selling value there are several things to understand and do, and they all

matter:

• Understand customers definitions of value received

• Understand their financial performance measures

• Construct your value proposition based on above

• Find all your buying influences(1)

and sell to all of them

• Understand what the customer is trying to fix achieve or avoid(2)

(1) ‘Buying Influences’ is a

term use in by Miller Heiman

to represent all of the

individuals that have an

influence, large or small, on

the sale.

(2) Every potential buyer will

have a ‘concept’ of what your

product or service can do for

them. Buyers are looking to

either fix, achieve or avoid

something, they are not

interested in your product or

service per se, but what it can

do for them. Miller Heiman’s

Conceptual Selling ®

Notes




Relationships, Culture and ValuesWe all know that price is only one element in the decision to buy and often not the

most important one. However, when products and services become commoditised,

it can become the only way buyers differentiate your offer from the next one. In

complex sales the entire supply chain will usually be taken into consideration, so if

you have great products and services that demonstrate benefits, and you have a

proven sales process for developing and closing the deal, there is a good chance

you may get the business.

However, sales organisations have to fight against commoditisation. Declining

product and or service differentiation is a big factor and even great products and

services finally succumb to price competition. You can fight commoditisation by

building a genuine perception of uniqueness if you engage with customers in a

different way. The sales organisation that orients their operations to match their

customer’s, will be in a better position to understand their customer’s values, and

thereby make a difference to their business strategy.

The process of creating value for a single customer can involve the whole of your

organisation and covers not only products and services but your total capability.

Providing clear financial benefit is immediately recognisable and is determined by

your products and/or services. Your expertise and knowledge, Brand and company

values, although difficult to quantify, will have perceived value in your customer’s

mind. The most difficult value to put your finger on, and yet probably the most

powerful, is the personal experience your customer’s get when they deal with you. It

goes beyond the Service Level Agreement and contract and is manifest in the

empathy created by people from both sides in the relationship. When you are able

to build this kind of relationship you are helping to build the forward strategy withyour customer. This position is very strong and results in selling based on defined

value rather than price.

It’s no great surprise that, without an active plan to do otherwise, customer contacts

tend to settle down to a few regular meetings with the same faces. The feeling of

comfort and stability this can bring is dangerously illusory and when the face

changes so can your fortune. Genuine security is usually the result of deep

relationships with as broad a range of contacts as possible. Tightening buying

processes are involving C-Level executives in buying decisions that would have

typically been done at a lower level in the past. Your organisation’s executives

therefore need to be engaged with customer’s executives to utilise executive-to-

executive selling. Just like other traditional sales practices, it’s much more efficient

and reliable when you have in place a formalised process to do this(3).

Account Management Relationship ModelYou may have come across the ‘diamond’ approach to relationship selling where

‘partnering’ between customer and supplier opens up access to internal people and

processes on both sides(4)

. The main advantage of the ‘diamond’ relationship is

Notes

Notes

(3) Given the variety of tasks

and roles which executives fill

within an organisation, as well

as the limited amount of time

that they can devout to any

one subject, it makes sensethat he majority of

organisations who have

executive-to-executive sales

processes in place are World-

Class Organisations. Miller

Heiman reported in their 2009

Sales Best Practice Study,

that 75% of World-Class

sales organisations utilised

executive-to-executive

selling, whereas only 25% of

other organisations do, which

is a large (3X) difference.

2009 Miller Heiman Sales

Best Practice Study

(4) Key Account Management

3rd

Edition, Peter Cheverton




seen with the channels of communications and understanding opening up as a more

open and honest transfer of information establishes. This has the potential for

competitive advantage. However, there is a word of warning here though, as

contacts proliferate, so does the speed of activity and the risk of saying or doing

something wrong. People without the level of experience and training of ‘sales’ willbe put in front of customers and who knows what might be said or happen! If people

don’t have the skills or aren’t trained to have the required skills, then there’s the

potential for losing control, resulting in well meaning but misdirected individuals.

Without clarity or objectives and shared understanding you could just be about to

race down some blind alleys. Your very enthusiastic IT expert, working with their

equally keen customer counterpart, might just take you down some very unwelcome

paths.

The business benefits of a customer relationship of this nature can result in a strong

and long lasting relationship, and all the people involved and potentially involved

from product development, customer services, marketing and sales need to becomfortable with communicating at all levels and understand how this is done.

The diamond approach to relationship selling requires a multi function approach. It’s

possible to have multiple sales people, perhaps from different regions or territories,

or different business units or product lines, involved with the customer. Clearly, the

need for organisation should be obvious and if there are multiple sales units trying to

manage the same account, there will be confusion. One solution is to form Diamond

Teams of different sales professionals, each responsible for their own area or

expertise and targeted at specific business units, within an over arching strategy for

the customer as a whole. Clearly, account management models like this can have

significant advantage, but also require a clear account management strategy.

Diamond Account Relationship Model




The Skills RequiredAsking the sales or relationship managers what skills are required for account

management at this level will often get a mixed and somewhat unreliable response.

This is sometimes the case because they will greatly emphasis there own skills and

their perception of what is required may be skewed. Instead of selling skills,

negotiating skills, presentation skills and the like, the customer will value integrity,

trust, honesty, and the ability to get things done in the account manager’s own

organisation.

It may be difficult for some to let go of the beliefs and attitudes they have around the

value of hard closing techniques and hard bargaining to get what they want,

particularly if it’s served well for them in the past. However, the skills of the

traditional sales task compared with those of the high level relationship account

manager differ in a number of areas. Although it’s possible to find the skills for the

traditional sales task all within one person, the relationship account management

approach will require a team to execute tasks effectively. The key competenciesrequired to manage major accounts like this can vary between organisations. They

following are ideas around capabilities for consideration:

• Managing virtual selling teams – the capability to form, motivate, and direct

a team of people from all quarters of the organisation, while those people

probably do not work directly for them, and will in some instances be more

senior, and certainly more expert in their own area.

• Consultative style - This involves an ability to assess complex decision

making processes, ask relevant and deep questions, and the ability to work

in a cooperative way.

• Creative business developer – creating value for the customer by seeing

opportunities, marshalling internal resources to meet these, and presenting

powerful propositions.

• The ability to enhance profitability to their own organisation

The challenge of new skills and abilities does not stop with the account manager/s.

The whole team will have their challenges. If people from traditional ‘back room’

functions are to be involved with the customer on an increasingly independent basis

then they too will have to develop a range of new skills and abilities:

• Communications and influencing skills

• Presentation and negotiating skills

• Confidence and assertiveness

• Commercial understanding, cultural awareness

More often we are seeing sales strategies involving ‘back office’ people being used

in pre-sales activities and post-sales customer facing meetings. The value they bring




to the sales process is their deep expertise and perspective in technical matters.

They effectively become part of the virtual sales team, but not all back office people

will want to be put in this position, and we have to recognise the challenge this can

make on both the individual and the organisation. We are dealing with more than

just skills, but with people’s attitudes and behaviours.

Attitudes and Behaviours

Attitudes and behaviours are deeply entrenched and rarely respond to simple

requirements to change. A skill can be taught, but it will have none or little effect if it

isn’t aligned with the individual’s attitude or behaviour. Our attitudes can be

changed but, will require a reason to do so and motivation to adopt new behaviours.

For example, when we here a message from the CEO and think seriously about it

the power of that message can sway us by the strength or quality of the argument.

It requires us to be receptive in the first place to take in the message and our feeling

of being involved (or engaged) can change an attitude and resulting behaviour. The

feeling of being involved is quite crucial and is enhanced by the perceived credibilityof the communicator. In our example, if the CEO is perceived as competent,

knowledgeable, trustworthy, expert, astute, etc., then we are more likely to take

notice of what they say. Our involvement with that message will keep us motivated

and engaged. It’s upon the basis of an engaged and motivated individual that you

gain the most effect from building skills.

Aberdeen in their report Learning and Development: Arming Front-line and Mid-lineManagers to Deliver People and Performance Results October 2009, stated that the

“top three skill or knowledge areas for both groups focus on people development,

giving and receiving feedback, and writing/conducting performance reviews.”

Aberdeen went on to say that “where we start see some difference between the

skills being addressed for front-line and mid-line managers is the priority placed on

personal leadership skill and communications skills…”

Aberdeen Group

Developing Manager Skillsand Knowledge

“..it’s all about the skill tomanage the perfoamnce anddevelopment of their teams.”

Learning and Development: Arming Front-line and Mid-level Managers to Deliver People and Performance Results. AberdeenGroup, October 2009

“…is the priority placed onpersonal leadership skill andcommunications skills…”




Conclusions

As organisations look for growth over the next 12 months or so, they will be

expecting their managers and leaders to deliver on goals and organisational

objectives. Key to bringing enthusiastic individuals along will be managers who can

communicate, coach and lead their people to do great things. We said in the

introduction that there’s a vast wealth of material that shows employees who feel

engaged and communicated with perform better and provide greater results.

Although, sales people are employed because they are generally self motivated

individuals, the principles of engagement still apply.

When we consider the wider ‘virtual’ sales team the appeal of engaged, motivated

employees is obvious. We’re in a service and knowledge-based economy and it’s

the people we have in our organisation that make the difference. By evaluating our

full capability as an organisation we can create real competitive strengths to offer

our customers. It’s by engaging with customers in a different way that we canestablish value for them that is long lasting and helps to build their forward strategy.

It’s by this process that we create our own security and longevity by becoming a

strategic partner rather just a supplier of good products and services.

About the author

Steve Hemmings is owner of Realpoint Consulting and veteran of Cisco Systems,

Lucent Technologies and VeriSign. He helps companies deliver strategic change to

the processes and behaviours required to grow in challenging and complex markets.

The focus is on developing performance in sales organisations and at leadership

levels. This is often achieved by implementing sales processes that change

individual selling behaviour from a transactional to a consultative and relationship

style. He also works with leaders in developing top team effectiveness, composition

and structure. Steve has been in consultative and relationship sales for over 25

years and has wealth of experience and knowledge.

www.real-point.co.uk

Documents

Creating Unique Value by Engaging With Employees_White Paper