With changed go-to-market strategies and extended selling cycles, there have been seismic shifts in sales rep priorities over the last year. Today, organizations are emphasizing retention and penetration selling efforts over new logo acquisition. And more organizations are moving away from direct sales to web- and tele-based roles.
As a result, historical sales roles and structures may no longer be fit for purpose. And for those organizations that may have implemented pandemic-driven temporary fixes to their sales teams, there’s a need to switch to more holistic, future-focused changes to make long-term sales transformation successful.
In this guide we identify the five areas that sales organizations often find the most challenging when defining their sales roles. You’ll gain a set of questions in each of these five areas to set you on the right path.
Armed with this information, you’ll be able to better tailor your roles to your sales strategy and go-to-market approach. Then you’ll also be able to focus on the skills and competencies required for success in each role, to set the right targets and incentives for your sellers and sales managers, and ultimately deliver on your promise to customers.
Most companies expect 2021 to be a year of transition. As the economy begins to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, companies are likely to continue feeling aftershocks that, in turn, will spark organizational change.
Many sales organizations have, after analyzing their quantitative and qualitative sales metrics, created new roadmaps for the future. To attain these goals, many have planned overall sales transformations, with a particular focus on four things.
How well your organization has designed each sales job’s priorities and goals will affect how well you’re able to implement your sales transformation strategy. For example, in sales organizations with clearly defined sales roles, leaders and managers can drive specific behaviors and results through performance management tactics and, ultimately, through compensation and reward strategies. But most sales organizations struggle to clearly define their sales roles, which can hamper their transformation progress.
Who are the target prospects and customers?
What sales strategy do they use?
What role do they play in the organizational hierarchy?
What sales process does the role follow?
How do different product and service offers affect sales reps’ effort?
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But first, let’s discuss what we mean by a sales role.
In the last five years, the sales process has become much more complex.
This added complexity means that individual sales roles have had to become more specialized. In response to these trends, many sales organizations have created new positions, but not all of these roles truly fall within the sales realm. As you evaluate your existing roles, or as you consider whether to add a new role, ask these questions to determine whether the position truly belongs under the umbrella of your sales organization.
Spend significant time on direct customer contact?
Have a specific set of assigned accounts?
Have a strong impact on the customer’s buying decision?
Have the ability or expectation to upsell to customers?
Influence customer retention or acquisition directly?
Have sales results that tie directly to performance?
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Participate in the key phases of the sales process?
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Get involved with numerous transactions per year?
If the answer to most of these questions is yes, then the position likely fits in the sales organization. But, if most of your answers are no, the position may belong elsewhere in your company. After deciding that the role fits in the sales organization, walk through the five following sets of questions to ensure that you’ve clearly defined each role.
The first step in defining a sales role is understanding who your sellers’ customers are.
When you segment your customers, you likely categorize them by size, type, strategic importance, geography, or a variety of other criteria. Different types of accounts require different skill sets and selling techniques. When you understand your customer segment, you can pinpoint the right sales strategy to address your customers’ needs, and you can also discover what skill sets your sellers need to excel in their role. In other words, you learn how hard the seller’s job is and how hard it is for them to serve their assigned customer segment.
Who are the role’s assigned customers?
Does the role generate leads or receive leads to pursue?
How many accounts are current, dormant, or potential targets?
How often do sales reps call on each category of customers?
Within the customer organization, who is the targeted purchaser?
How do you define the sales role’s focus: by geography, major accounts, etc.?
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Next, you need to understand the strategic seller’s primary sales strategy: penetration, acquisition, or retention.
The sales strategy determines the job’s focus, because each sales strategy requires a different skill set. If the focus is acquisition, sellers are hunting for new customers, which means they have to create awareness of and stimulate interest in a product or service. If the focus is retention, the customer already knows the account manager and the company’s offerings, so the seller’s role is to simply maintain the relationship. And if the focus is penetration, the seller must seek out new opportunities with a customer to broaden and deepen their relationship.
Organizations typically compensate their sellers based on the difficulty of the sales strategies they employ. Most sales jobs ask sellers to use all three strategies, with primary emphasis on penetration and retention. Acquisition, however, is generally considered the hardest and most valuable role, followed by penetration. Retention, because it simply requires holding on to earned business, is often the most streamlined sales strategy and, therefore, the most cost-effective for sales organizations.
Here, consider the supporting structure around the seller.
Do your sellers collaborate with others, or do they operate on their own? Are they individual contributors without direct reports, or do they manage others in the sales organization? For example, a strategic account manager typically oversees all sales activity for an account and is supported by a sales team. In other cases, sellers often oversee smaller accounts independently. If your sales organization and sales strategy are highly complex, you may need to consider other external, non-customer personnel who are involved in a transaction, such as resellers, distributors, marketing partners, or fulfillment houses.
What company resources (human and other) does the seller have available or use throughout the selling process?
How do you allocate resources to the seller?
What other supporting roles should be considered for incentive pay?
How should supporting roles affect each seller’s pay (e.g., double credit, split credit, etc.)?
A sales process includes the strategic steps that sellers use to close a deal. These steps span the entire transaction, from identification to qualification, proposals, closing, and fulfillment.
Many strategic sellers cover the entire sales process, while some sales reps only participate in a few of the steps. Those with greater responsibility for more steps in the process and the steps that are most valuable should earn more than those who are engaged in fewer, easier, or less valuable steps. But compensation will depend on how you’ve organized your accounts and your industry and market.
What steps do your account managers and sellers use to complete a transaction? Do your typical transactions involve all of these steps?
Are certain transactions more valuable than others?
How long is your sales cycle? How long does a seller spend in each step of the sales process? How long does it take to complete a sale from the initial lead?
What is the average sale amount for the role?
Are transactions typically a one-time exchange or ongoing?
What range of products or services does the seller represent?
Does the seller sell the same products or services to every customer, or do they differ?
Does the seller sell the products or services “as is” or must they customize them to your customers’ needs?
How do you measure sales results (e.g., units, sales value, revenue, margin dollars, or margin percent)?
Do you set individual quotas for your products or services?
Before you can rework your sales team structure, you have to know your sales roles inside and out. And that knowledge begins with a fundamental understanding of every position in your sales organization. Consider each role from these five perspectives as you embark on your transformation.
About us
We work with you to build the right organization structure to support your strategy, identifying how many people you need, what roles you need and build dynamic job profiles that predict success in each role. Then we work with you to set the right quotas, build the right compensation plan and design your performance management approach. The result? A sales organization that is aligned to your business goals and flexible enough to respond to market pressure and changes in buyer behavior.
Contact us to get started today
Joseph DiMisa
Senior Client Partner, Global Sales Force Effectiveness & Rewards Advisory Leader