The CEO and Boardroom can handle the truth on sales performance

By ForceLogix CEO Patrick Stakenas

One aspect of being a senior sales leader or vice president just does not seem to change.

Each month or quarter when senior sales leaders meet with the CEO or get invited into the boardroom, substantiating why the number was missed or why the number was made is always a difficult challenge. The challenge becomes even more difficult when the conversation shifts from process and deals to salespeople and sales management teams.

CEOs and boardrooms have little choice but to trust what is often the vice president’s opinion or what is a consolidated opinion based on conversations with sales management. While having subjective input is necessary, facts speak much louder in sales.

Senior sales leaders must track both the facts (objective) and the gut/emotion (subjective) and have a succinct operating plan with backup data to support the direction they are providing.

CEOs and boardrooms are under immense pressure to deliver to shareholders and investors. It’s in the best interest of the senior sales leader to deliver the truth. The key, however, is that senior sales leaders really have to know what the truth is related to sales performance and their salespeople and be able to stand behind it.

In a recent article published by MarketingProfs.com headlined “Lies, Damn Lies and Dashboards,” it was sighted how CRM and business intelligence dashboards are often manipulated by managers and marketing to present a positive outcome that doesn’t necessarily promote the truth.

This can happen understandably as the person delivering the message wants to find the positive in the situation and the data is typically delivered to the manager level in Excel spreadsheets. These are easily manipulated.

The key is putting in the process and technology to lock down the truth about how a representative or team is doing against expectations and locking down the process and technology that tracks, measures and reports on both the leading and trailing indicators to achieving set goals.

Providing this information in an easy-to-use fashion is extremely important. If it adds work to a manager, they will not use it.

The process and technology have to eliminate tasks, reduce downtime and provide actionable insight into what is happening. It also must allow a manager to input how a salesperson is progressing against coaching and training. The data must roll up to senior sales management untouched by mid-level management.

As the business sets organization goals and revenue requirements, there is an assumption that sales will just deliver it. This is often a disconnect between what the CEO feels they must have and what the vice president can deliver.

However, senior sales vice presidents can manage what happens between the two points. If the proper process and tools are in place to manage sales and the people who must deliver, it is possible to connect the sales function to the rest of the organization in strategic terms and create a common format through which the sales process is formulated, executed and monitored.

Organizations must have a mechanism that can create a cohesive sales team. This should be managed by the same set of messages and reinforced through coaching. Senior sales leaders must be able to identify, communicate and respond to the needs of the organization.

This is not possible without an ongoing process that defines, measures and analyzes salespeople.

In order to gain trust with CEOs, senior sales leaders can no longer deliver smoke-and-mirror communications from the sales department. CEOs make the connection between fluff and what matters. You must have a system in place for understanding, refining and measuring your sales process and tracking your salespeople.

Done properly, senior sales leaders can deliver the truth that CEOs can and want to handle.

If things are going well, the vice president should be able to explain why and what is driving the success and how it will be sustained. If it is a rebuilding model, the same applies. The vice president must be able to show where the good news is, what is happening and why and the plan to correct the situation.