{"id":7918,"date":"2012-05-24T14:33:07","date_gmt":"2012-05-24T14:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/?p=7918"},"modified":"2014-10-06T01:26:11","modified_gmt":"2014-10-06T01:26:11","slug":"reinventing-your-sales-model-is-a-overdue-b-impossible-c-mandatory-for-survival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/?p=7918","title":{"rendered":"Reinventing Your Sales Model Is A) Overdue, B) Impossible, C) Mandatory for Survival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Unless you are the rare CEO or Chief Sales Officer with a B2B sales force that is knocking it out of the park, you likely fall into either the A or B answer to our question of changing your selling model.\u00a0\u00a0 If you\u2019re in that lucky club then we graciously give you back the two minutes it would have taken you to skim this blog post.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Everyone Else Searching for a Sales Model That Really Works \u2013 This Message is For You!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We see first hand a lot of struggling sales models (and that includes demand generation as well).\u00a0 It\u2019s usually why we are hired in the first place since CEOs and Sales Leaders engage sales consultants when they need to improve results \u2013 not when things are going gangbusters.\u00a0 A big part of what we do is help company leaders define the extent of their challenge by giving them both perspective and tools to measure themselves against their goals AND their peers.\u00a0\u00a0 When they see the gap, many realize it\u2019s time for dramatic changes to the selling model.<\/p>\n<p>That brings us to the <strong>Lessons Learned on Managing B2B Sales Transformation<\/strong> that we\u2019d like to share.\u00a0\u00a0 These are things you should know BEFORE you tackle the tough challenge of reinventing your sales model (or demand generation model) \u2013 not three months into it.\u00a0\u00a0 These examples are taken straight from actual prior engagements and hopefully help prepare those of you considering your own sales transformation for what you might face.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Leading a B2B Sales Transformation Project \u2013 Lessons Learned From Those Who\u2019ve Been There<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Don\u2019t hang on to old leaders you know were part of the problem.\u00a0 Make them available to your competition before you get started so you don\u2019t have to argue with them about why things must change.<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t design new positions to accommodate existing staff <em>if they too are part of the problem.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Build for speed and efficiency \u2013 the complexity can come later.<\/li>\n<li>Get the help you need.\u00a0 Don\u2019t count on internal expertise to suddenly have the experience and knowledge to do something they would have started a long time previously \u2013 were they the right people to begin with.<\/li>\n<li>Once you commit to transforming your sales model go full speed ahead.<\/li>\n<li>Focus on ROI, not cost.\u00a0 We\u2019ve seen way too many companies act penny-wise and pound foolish when it comes to making needed investments.<\/li>\n<li>Identify your weak spots and over-resource those areas at the beginning.<\/li>\n<li>Include constituents from all critical functions when designing and implementing big changes.\u00a0\u00a0 Excluding key groups from developing the new model is inviting them to challenge and subvert the program once it launches.<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t loose sight of the forest for the trees.\u00a0 Transforming sales and demand generation to be successful in today\u2019s Google-ized buying process and intensely competitive market is a complicated undertaking, but keeping your \u201cchange team\u201d focused on the objective will help put the smaller roadblocks in perspective.<\/li>\n<li>Prepare to adjust course as needed.\u00a0 Even months after launching your new model you will continue to tweak the program, add resource where needed and even shed elements you thought would be critical.\u00a0 Count on it!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Transforming how they sell is way overdue for many company leaders.\u00a0\u00a0 Selling models running on status quo will only continue to fall further behind and never generate the results that are necessary.\u00a0\u00a0 We have helped many companies execute sales transformation projects and are glad to talk about the unique challenges you might face within your own company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unless you are the rare CEO or Chief Sales Officer with a B2B sales force that is knocking it out [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7918"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7918"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8166,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7918\/revisions\/8166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-j-smith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}