Chapter 2: Planning For Today and TomorrowOverview
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do. —EPICTETUS Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 23
Without a plan, you are left with only a vague concept of past tactics, a desire to do better, and uneasiness about your ability to succeed. Lacking a plan, you have no definable goals or objectives, no means of evaluating progress, and no ability to measure your advancements against your team’s potential or against those with whom you are competing.
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do. —EPICTETUS Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 23
Without a plan, you are left with only a vague concept of past tactics, a desire to do better, and uneasiness about your ability to succeed. Lacking a plan, you have no definable goals or objectives, no means of evaluating progress, and no ability to measure your advancements against your team’s potential or against those with whom you are competing.
The Value of Planning
Imagine an Olympic sailor positioning the sailboat in the water wherever she or he feels like it. Continue to imagine the sailor dashing off in any old direction, regardless of the starting time, position, buoy placement, crosswinds or currents, or even where the finish line might be found. This mess could, and probably would, result in very little likelihood of winning. Truth be told, a competitor like this might not even be asked back to compete in future races. Ask yourself: Do you wish to compete in future races?
A sales manager’s primary function is to collect all available information, determine the relative value of the data, and then develop and deploy a well-thought-out plan for achieving the results that will best support the organizational or corporate goal(s). With well-thought-out plans, you will be able to count on internal support, external supplier and partner support, management support, cross-organizational support, sales team support, and even the support of your key customers or target markets
Imagine an Olympic sailor positioning the sailboat in the water wherever she or he feels like it. Continue to imagine the sailor dashing off in any old direction, regardless of the starting time, position, buoy placement, crosswinds or currents, or even where the finish line might be found. This mess could, and probably would, result in very little likelihood of winning. Truth be told, a competitor like this might not even be asked back to compete in future races. Ask yourself: Do you wish to compete in future races?
A sales manager’s primary function is to collect all available information, determine the relative value of the data, and then develop and deploy a well-thought-out plan for achieving the results that will best support the organizational or corporate goal(s). With well-thought-out plans, you will be able to count on internal support, external supplier and partner support, management support, cross-organizational support, sales team support, and even the support of your key customers or target markets
A Snapshot of Today
One of the greatest challenges for a sales manager to overcome is the temptation to construct plans based solely on egocentric ambition or antiquated historical data. Yes, it is true that if you are unaware of history’s mistakes, you are doomed to repeat them. But it is even more important to understand the current changes or trends unfolding across the venue in which you are striving to succeed. The starting point is to construct a clear image of ‘‘today.’’ Later you will put these images into motion through trend analysis, but for now, let’s just think about the current environment. There are several contributing perspectives you could review, but let’s focus on the following:
Technology (Hardware and/or Software). The accelerating evolution of technology is placing a great deal of stress on business planning for two reasons. First, technology is expensive, so it’s of great concern to all as to how long any selected generation of technology will be applicable before it becomes out of date. Second, an effective planner attempts to predict future directions, but that’s amazingly difficult to do when one tries to picture a technology that hasn’t been invented yet and lacks standards that will align the field of potential providers. One only has to think about the history of Beta versus VHS, the current battles over wireless and voice recognition models, or (perhaps) the coming standards setting requirements of quantum computing, hologram imaging, and implanted proximity biochips to understand why decision makers are so concerned.
Globalization. The world is not actually getting smaller, but it sure seems that way. Just turn your laptop computer over and look at all the countries that have contributed to its design, construction, and approval. The natural contributors that come to mind might include China, Japan, or Taiwan. But take a closer look. In addition to those countries, you might be surprised to see Turkey, Malaysia, Singapore, Israel, Argentina, Croatia, India, Cyprus, Lithuania, Latvia, the Philippines, or Slovenia. We have practiced international trade for thousands of years, but it has taken technology to allow a true, real-time global economy to function. That presents two challenges for the sales manager/planner. First, you must now prepare to compete against new global players who come into your home market, often from a well-protected home market of their own that gives them some economic advantage. This is challenging in that you often do not know enough about them to create an effective counter-competitive strategy. Second, your own domestic customers are going global, and they expect you to support them, in some manner, around the world. Going global may sound exciting, but be careful what you wish for—you just might get it. Going global can be a lot more challenging than most organizations believe.
Competition. In the past, you probably knew a great deal about the competition because your competitors lived in the same ‘‘neighborhood’’ as you did. In those smaller, geographically contiguous markets, our rivals often looked, walked, and talked like you. But that has all changed as the result of the growth of technology and globalization. You now find yourselves competing against virtual rivals that pop up out of nowhere and present an impressive face, via a Web site, to the customers you had thought were your most protected. Your virtual rivals may look as big as IBM, but are actually just three people working out of a garage in Brazil. Thanks to the Internet and FedEx, they can provide offerings to customers anywhere in the world overnight—just like us (maybe)!
So what do you know about them? Are they partially owned by a foreign government or considered a protected national treasure, making it very hard, in either case, to collect competitive information about them? How important is their competing product to their overall business? How do they view themselves, and how do they make decisions? What is their competing cost? Their structure and distribution model? How do they view us? To put it in terms you’ve already discussed, what’s their S.W.O.T.?
Customers. About 100 years ago, Henry Ford deployed the concept of mass production. I’m sure he wasn’t really the first, but he certainly got credit for it in the new industrial age that was blossoming at the time. Up until Mr. Ford’s time, automobiles were the playthings of the rich, who were the only ones who could afford them. In being able to apply the golden age of manufacturing to the benefit of the average consumer, Ford and his peers required absolute consistency in processes to deliver the exciting new offerings at a reasonable price. He best exemplified the need by stating that buyers could have any color Ford they wanted as long as it was black. He was in control!
As America grew, and changed, people like Henry Ford found it harder and harder to control the requirements of a consumer who was moving out of the cities and into the pasture lands—better known as the suburbs. Intermediaries were needed to cover this broader, more distributed marketplace. Ford deployed dealers. Others chose to sell through retailers, wholesalers, and distributors. Subtly, the power shifted in the supply chain from the manufacturers to the retailers. Consumers began to care more about where they bought it than about who manufactured it. They wanted convenience in purchasing, and outlets like Sears, Graybar, and, later, Home Depot gained the upper hand. As soon as these intermediaries recognized their new power, they demanded that the manufacturers design and create the products the way they wanted to sell them or they would go to a no-name producer to make them the way they wanted. Americans moved away from mass production and toward mass customization. They even went so far as to demand their own branded labels on products produced by others (e.g., Albert-sons private labels, Gap, and CVS).
Over the last decade, though, the shift has occurred again. Now, thanks to technology and globalization, consumers are no longer bound by the offerings of outlets within their geographic area. If prospective buyers don’t see their pet’s favorite rice and lamb stew at a local pet-food store, they can go online and find someone in the world who does have what they want. And, thanks again to overnight shipping, they can have it in their homes or offices the next day. With this new-found power, consumers are telling the world they no longer want to be treated like everyone else; they want to be sold to in a manner that is unique to them. Not like their relatives and not like their neighbors. They are now demanding that they be treated as a market of one. The problem for a planner is to understand how that market of one views value and how it goes about making purchase decisions.
Demographics. It is nearly impossible for a business to integrate the advantages of mass production, the variations of mass customization, and the diversity of markets of one into a competitive sales strategy. Somehow you have to find enough markets of one, even if they are not contiguously located, to take advantage of state-of-the-art production techniques. The problem is that old models of market demographics are based on mass customization models and can’t account for the diversity within a group or category. For example, the fastest growing demographic group (and largest minority) in the United States is a grouping entitled ‘‘Hispanic.’’ In the past, businesses produced Hispanic-oriented advertising to cover this targeted market. But ask yourself about the similarities and differences among Hispanics born and raised in Tucson, those born and raised in Miami, and those born and raised in Brooklyn. The differences between them need to be explored as much as their similarities. In addition to cultures, you must consider gender, age, education, hobbies, interests, professions, and so much more.
What do you really know about your customers? How do they make decisions? What knowledge must they have to make a decision in your favor? Values, belief systems, and judgment paradigms are not the exclusive realm of the end consumer; they are well entrenched in corporate offices, too.
Lifestyles. Once you decide what your perfect customers look like, you need to recognize the changes that are going on in lifestyles, not just in the United States, but around the world. Of course, people are more mobile and distributed. That reality may have already sunk in as you manage a virtual home office salesperson in another time zone. But think about this lifestyle change: people are living longer. The question that presents itself to us is, what part of life are you extending? Certainly not childhood or adolescence or even early adulthood. Old age has certainly been extended, but there seems to be another focus these days. When I was a child, you retired at age 65 because you were burnt out. By 70, you were in a retirement or convalescent home because you could no longer care for yourself. Not very good golden years, were they? One of the greatest changes in lifestyles these days is the expansion of the upper-middle-age bracket. How many sixty-five- or seventy-year-olds do you still find actively contributing to an organization or even starting their own new business? A whole lot of them! But if that is the current trend, how will it impact your sales plan? Also a whole lot!
Psychographics (Consumer Sentiment). There are a lot of variations around this terminology, but I like to consider it the mood of the consumer. How consumers feel about ‘‘things’’ is extremely important to the supply chain. If they aren’t happy, in most cases they aren’t spending money. Some experts contend that there are only two groups that are not affected by the end consumer—the military and the government. I believe that those two groups are also affected because politicians know consumers vote with their emotional feelings about issues they perceive as affecting them, so they had better manage spending in line with the majority of consumer expectations.
Firmographics (Business Sentiment). Another trend to consider is that of the mood of business, or more correctly, of the business leadership. Often times, this mood is out of alignment with the mood of the consumer mentioned previously. For example, when the economic bubble began to burst toward the end of the twentieth century, consumers thought it was a momentary snag and kept on spending. Business leaders—at least the intelligent ones—knew immediately that they were in trouble. They had built an organizational or corporate infrastructure designed to support the needs of the bubble economy. When the bubble burst, businesses were too big and too expensive to run in the lean and mean economy. What followed were layoffs, restructurings, and bankruptcies (in addition to the broken promises made to employees and shareholders). The businesses you sell to or through will not buy or buy more until their sentiment improves and is once again in alignment with consumer sentiment.
Economy. Quick, which economy was better? The bubble economy of the 1990s or the bottomed-out economy of the early 2000s? Not sure? Neither am I. As this book is being written, the current state of the economy is tough. There does seem to be a turnaround on the horizon, but if it comes, it will be slow due to a lack of trust generated from so many false promises by pseudoexperts espousing unethical, forged financial forecasts. The bubble economy might have appeared to be better, but it was doomed to failure because of poor attention to detail, including bad or nonexistent business plans.
As a sales manager, either way you look at it, it is challenging to figure out where the current trend in the economy is going and what it might mean to your strategic sales plans.
Regulatory Practices. No matter what your political leanings are, you seem to be living in an increasingly regulated world. From consumers through manufacturers, every day brings new guidelines, regulations, and standards. To top if off, thanks to globalization, you may find your products, market approach, or personnel being regulated by governments or industry committees from halfway around the world. Just look at the raging controversy over genetically modified foods or the trade barrier wars at the World Trade Organization.
Business Practices. Based on what you have just reviewed, there are a lot of pressures on the marketplace that you are trying to sell into. There are also pressures on the company you work for, your suppliers, your partners, your distributors, your competitors, and your customers. As these pressures, from technological to regulatory, have evolved, businesses have attempted to address the changes with adaptations to the way they practice their profession. You now have such things as laptop and desktop computers, pooled resource networks, personal digital assistants, e-mail, voice mail, wireless links, global pagers and walkie-talkies, tele-conferences, contract employees, and virtual or home offices. The struggle has been to incorporate these new practices into traditional practices. Unfortunately, most businesses have responded to this practice change by relying more on activity-based measurements than on performance measurements.
One of the greatest challenges for a sales manager to overcome is the temptation to construct plans based solely on egocentric ambition or antiquated historical data. Yes, it is true that if you are unaware of history’s mistakes, you are doomed to repeat them. But it is even more important to understand the current changes or trends unfolding across the venue in which you are striving to succeed. The starting point is to construct a clear image of ‘‘today.’’ Later you will put these images into motion through trend analysis, but for now, let’s just think about the current environment. There are several contributing perspectives you could review, but let’s focus on the following:
Technology (Hardware and/or Software). The accelerating evolution of technology is placing a great deal of stress on business planning for two reasons. First, technology is expensive, so it’s of great concern to all as to how long any selected generation of technology will be applicable before it becomes out of date. Second, an effective planner attempts to predict future directions, but that’s amazingly difficult to do when one tries to picture a technology that hasn’t been invented yet and lacks standards that will align the field of potential providers. One only has to think about the history of Beta versus VHS, the current battles over wireless and voice recognition models, or (perhaps) the coming standards setting requirements of quantum computing, hologram imaging, and implanted proximity biochips to understand why decision makers are so concerned.
Globalization. The world is not actually getting smaller, but it sure seems that way. Just turn your laptop computer over and look at all the countries that have contributed to its design, construction, and approval. The natural contributors that come to mind might include China, Japan, or Taiwan. But take a closer look. In addition to those countries, you might be surprised to see Turkey, Malaysia, Singapore, Israel, Argentina, Croatia, India, Cyprus, Lithuania, Latvia, the Philippines, or Slovenia. We have practiced international trade for thousands of years, but it has taken technology to allow a true, real-time global economy to function. That presents two challenges for the sales manager/planner. First, you must now prepare to compete against new global players who come into your home market, often from a well-protected home market of their own that gives them some economic advantage. This is challenging in that you often do not know enough about them to create an effective counter-competitive strategy. Second, your own domestic customers are going global, and they expect you to support them, in some manner, around the world. Going global may sound exciting, but be careful what you wish for—you just might get it. Going global can be a lot more challenging than most organizations believe.
Competition. In the past, you probably knew a great deal about the competition because your competitors lived in the same ‘‘neighborhood’’ as you did. In those smaller, geographically contiguous markets, our rivals often looked, walked, and talked like you. But that has all changed as the result of the growth of technology and globalization. You now find yourselves competing against virtual rivals that pop up out of nowhere and present an impressive face, via a Web site, to the customers you had thought were your most protected. Your virtual rivals may look as big as IBM, but are actually just three people working out of a garage in Brazil. Thanks to the Internet and FedEx, they can provide offerings to customers anywhere in the world overnight—just like us (maybe)!
So what do you know about them? Are they partially owned by a foreign government or considered a protected national treasure, making it very hard, in either case, to collect competitive information about them? How important is their competing product to their overall business? How do they view themselves, and how do they make decisions? What is their competing cost? Their structure and distribution model? How do they view us? To put it in terms you’ve already discussed, what’s their S.W.O.T.?
Customers. About 100 years ago, Henry Ford deployed the concept of mass production. I’m sure he wasn’t really the first, but he certainly got credit for it in the new industrial age that was blossoming at the time. Up until Mr. Ford’s time, automobiles were the playthings of the rich, who were the only ones who could afford them. In being able to apply the golden age of manufacturing to the benefit of the average consumer, Ford and his peers required absolute consistency in processes to deliver the exciting new offerings at a reasonable price. He best exemplified the need by stating that buyers could have any color Ford they wanted as long as it was black. He was in control!
As America grew, and changed, people like Henry Ford found it harder and harder to control the requirements of a consumer who was moving out of the cities and into the pasture lands—better known as the suburbs. Intermediaries were needed to cover this broader, more distributed marketplace. Ford deployed dealers. Others chose to sell through retailers, wholesalers, and distributors. Subtly, the power shifted in the supply chain from the manufacturers to the retailers. Consumers began to care more about where they bought it than about who manufactured it. They wanted convenience in purchasing, and outlets like Sears, Graybar, and, later, Home Depot gained the upper hand. As soon as these intermediaries recognized their new power, they demanded that the manufacturers design and create the products the way they wanted to sell them or they would go to a no-name producer to make them the way they wanted. Americans moved away from mass production and toward mass customization. They even went so far as to demand their own branded labels on products produced by others (e.g., Albert-sons private labels, Gap, and CVS).
Over the last decade, though, the shift has occurred again. Now, thanks to technology and globalization, consumers are no longer bound by the offerings of outlets within their geographic area. If prospective buyers don’t see their pet’s favorite rice and lamb stew at a local pet-food store, they can go online and find someone in the world who does have what they want. And, thanks again to overnight shipping, they can have it in their homes or offices the next day. With this new-found power, consumers are telling the world they no longer want to be treated like everyone else; they want to be sold to in a manner that is unique to them. Not like their relatives and not like their neighbors. They are now demanding that they be treated as a market of one. The problem for a planner is to understand how that market of one views value and how it goes about making purchase decisions.
Demographics. It is nearly impossible for a business to integrate the advantages of mass production, the variations of mass customization, and the diversity of markets of one into a competitive sales strategy. Somehow you have to find enough markets of one, even if they are not contiguously located, to take advantage of state-of-the-art production techniques. The problem is that old models of market demographics are based on mass customization models and can’t account for the diversity within a group or category. For example, the fastest growing demographic group (and largest minority) in the United States is a grouping entitled ‘‘Hispanic.’’ In the past, businesses produced Hispanic-oriented advertising to cover this targeted market. But ask yourself about the similarities and differences among Hispanics born and raised in Tucson, those born and raised in Miami, and those born and raised in Brooklyn. The differences between them need to be explored as much as their similarities. In addition to cultures, you must consider gender, age, education, hobbies, interests, professions, and so much more.
What do you really know about your customers? How do they make decisions? What knowledge must they have to make a decision in your favor? Values, belief systems, and judgment paradigms are not the exclusive realm of the end consumer; they are well entrenched in corporate offices, too.
Lifestyles. Once you decide what your perfect customers look like, you need to recognize the changes that are going on in lifestyles, not just in the United States, but around the world. Of course, people are more mobile and distributed. That reality may have already sunk in as you manage a virtual home office salesperson in another time zone. But think about this lifestyle change: people are living longer. The question that presents itself to us is, what part of life are you extending? Certainly not childhood or adolescence or even early adulthood. Old age has certainly been extended, but there seems to be another focus these days. When I was a child, you retired at age 65 because you were burnt out. By 70, you were in a retirement or convalescent home because you could no longer care for yourself. Not very good golden years, were they? One of the greatest changes in lifestyles these days is the expansion of the upper-middle-age bracket. How many sixty-five- or seventy-year-olds do you still find actively contributing to an organization or even starting their own new business? A whole lot of them! But if that is the current trend, how will it impact your sales plan? Also a whole lot!
Psychographics (Consumer Sentiment). There are a lot of variations around this terminology, but I like to consider it the mood of the consumer. How consumers feel about ‘‘things’’ is extremely important to the supply chain. If they aren’t happy, in most cases they aren’t spending money. Some experts contend that there are only two groups that are not affected by the end consumer—the military and the government. I believe that those two groups are also affected because politicians know consumers vote with their emotional feelings about issues they perceive as affecting them, so they had better manage spending in line with the majority of consumer expectations.
Firmographics (Business Sentiment). Another trend to consider is that of the mood of business, or more correctly, of the business leadership. Often times, this mood is out of alignment with the mood of the consumer mentioned previously. For example, when the economic bubble began to burst toward the end of the twentieth century, consumers thought it was a momentary snag and kept on spending. Business leaders—at least the intelligent ones—knew immediately that they were in trouble. They had built an organizational or corporate infrastructure designed to support the needs of the bubble economy. When the bubble burst, businesses were too big and too expensive to run in the lean and mean economy. What followed were layoffs, restructurings, and bankruptcies (in addition to the broken promises made to employees and shareholders). The businesses you sell to or through will not buy or buy more until their sentiment improves and is once again in alignment with consumer sentiment.
Economy. Quick, which economy was better? The bubble economy of the 1990s or the bottomed-out economy of the early 2000s? Not sure? Neither am I. As this book is being written, the current state of the economy is tough. There does seem to be a turnaround on the horizon, but if it comes, it will be slow due to a lack of trust generated from so many false promises by pseudoexperts espousing unethical, forged financial forecasts. The bubble economy might have appeared to be better, but it was doomed to failure because of poor attention to detail, including bad or nonexistent business plans.
As a sales manager, either way you look at it, it is challenging to figure out where the current trend in the economy is going and what it might mean to your strategic sales plans.
Regulatory Practices. No matter what your political leanings are, you seem to be living in an increasingly regulated world. From consumers through manufacturers, every day brings new guidelines, regulations, and standards. To top if off, thanks to globalization, you may find your products, market approach, or personnel being regulated by governments or industry committees from halfway around the world. Just look at the raging controversy over genetically modified foods or the trade barrier wars at the World Trade Organization.
Business Practices. Based on what you have just reviewed, there are a lot of pressures on the marketplace that you are trying to sell into. There are also pressures on the company you work for, your suppliers, your partners, your distributors, your competitors, and your customers. As these pressures, from technological to regulatory, have evolved, businesses have attempted to address the changes with adaptations to the way they practice their profession. You now have such things as laptop and desktop computers, pooled resource networks, personal digital assistants, e-mail, voice mail, wireless links, global pagers and walkie-talkies, tele-conferences, contract employees, and virtual or home offices. The struggle has been to incorporate these new practices into traditional practices. Unfortunately, most businesses have responded to this practice change by relying more on activity-based measurements than on performance measurements.
Scenario and Simulation Planning
Once you have estimated where a contributor to sales success currently is, you must now put that contributor in motion. Certainly snapshots are valuable, but they don’t tell you where the contributor has been or where it is going. Consider psychographics. To say that the mood of the consumer is slightly ‘‘negative’’ about the economy doesn’t help much. Only by looking at previous data and trending out the changes can you determine whether this current mood is a growing negativity or an improvement in attitude. Once you have a history-to-present trend for any contributor, you can project that trend out into the future. You can also incorporate future alternative events that may have an impact on your plans. There are two excellent, and easy to apply, trend projection techniques that you can use with your sales team. Remember, the more diverse the input, the better the results.
Scenario Planning
This tool is based on the concept that there is more than one possible future. A skilled planner must uncover the most likely scenarios and find the environmental indicators that announce which one seems to be the unfolding future. Start by having your diverse planning team brainstorm current trends and develop a reasonably clear picture of a future business environment about five years out. Next, have the team identify several significant indicators that demonstrate that the environment is truly moving in the imagined direction.
Example
Scenario 1: Five years from now, the business environment will be stronger than today, with very large and very small competitors driving the markets based on control and management of information that support a focus on a ‘‘market-of-one’’ approach.
Indicators for Scenario 1: Sustained improvement of major economic indicators, reduction of medium-size businesses, increase in venture capital funded start-ups, focus on smaller and smaller market segments, increase in data mining and manipulation software, increased electronic customer interface channels based on individual preferences, blurring of the distinction between sales and marketing organizations due to the need for greater ‘‘customer intimacy.’’
Once your team has created a single vision for the future and defined some of the indicators that demonstrate that your future world is truly unfolding, you’ve only completed part of the exercise. You must now place those indicators in logical sequence and create a timeline map for the five-year period.
Don’t relax too soon. You now need to create three to four alternative, yet realistic and attainable, futures. They need to be different from your first ones, and each will have its own set of indicators.
Example
Scenario 2: Five years from now, the business environment will be weaker and more chaotic than today, with major industries moving to offshore locations resulting in loss of intellectual capabilities and technological leadership.
Indicators for Scenario 2: No improvement in the major economic indicators, increasing loss of service industry jobs, increase in global competition, new technology standards being driven and set by countries such as China and India, decline in foreign-born student enrollment in American colleges, and shrinkage of previous industry leaders based in the United States.
The final result is that you can now begin to construct your plans around a trended future, know what indicators to watch for, and be prepared when different events require you to alter your plans.
Simulation Planning
This form of ‘‘future’’ trending is somewhat similar to the scenario process, but it segments out the primary drivers for analysis before combining them for some specific period in the future. Let’s start by taking another look at your eleven identified drivers that impact sales success:
Technology (hardware and/or software)
Globalization
Competition
Customers
Demographics
Lifestyles
Psychographics (consumer sentiment)
Firmographics (business sentiment)
Economy
Regulatory practices
Business practices
Break your planning group into eleven individual teams with each one focusing on only one of the drivers listed above. It is best to select members for a particular team who are subject matter experts in the field. For example, bring some IT folks into your session to concentrate on technology or some government affairs personnel to focus on regulatory practices.
Separate the groups into different planning locations and ask each to determine where their driver has been, where it is currently, and (if the trend continues) where it might most likely be in five years.
Finally, bring the teams back together again and overlay the drivers to create a vision of some specific time in the future. You and your team will be amazed at how clear an image develops. The pace of change is speeding up to the point where the future will not be a bigger, faster, shinier version of today.
Although you are not fortune-tellers, you must try to grasp a view of tomorrow to do better planning today.
Once you have estimated where a contributor to sales success currently is, you must now put that contributor in motion. Certainly snapshots are valuable, but they don’t tell you where the contributor has been or where it is going. Consider psychographics. To say that the mood of the consumer is slightly ‘‘negative’’ about the economy doesn’t help much. Only by looking at previous data and trending out the changes can you determine whether this current mood is a growing negativity or an improvement in attitude. Once you have a history-to-present trend for any contributor, you can project that trend out into the future. You can also incorporate future alternative events that may have an impact on your plans. There are two excellent, and easy to apply, trend projection techniques that you can use with your sales team. Remember, the more diverse the input, the better the results.
Scenario Planning
This tool is based on the concept that there is more than one possible future. A skilled planner must uncover the most likely scenarios and find the environmental indicators that announce which one seems to be the unfolding future. Start by having your diverse planning team brainstorm current trends and develop a reasonably clear picture of a future business environment about five years out. Next, have the team identify several significant indicators that demonstrate that the environment is truly moving in the imagined direction.
Example
Scenario 1: Five years from now, the business environment will be stronger than today, with very large and very small competitors driving the markets based on control and management of information that support a focus on a ‘‘market-of-one’’ approach.
Indicators for Scenario 1: Sustained improvement of major economic indicators, reduction of medium-size businesses, increase in venture capital funded start-ups, focus on smaller and smaller market segments, increase in data mining and manipulation software, increased electronic customer interface channels based on individual preferences, blurring of the distinction between sales and marketing organizations due to the need for greater ‘‘customer intimacy.’’
Once your team has created a single vision for the future and defined some of the indicators that demonstrate that your future world is truly unfolding, you’ve only completed part of the exercise. You must now place those indicators in logical sequence and create a timeline map for the five-year period.
Don’t relax too soon. You now need to create three to four alternative, yet realistic and attainable, futures. They need to be different from your first ones, and each will have its own set of indicators.
Example
Scenario 2: Five years from now, the business environment will be weaker and more chaotic than today, with major industries moving to offshore locations resulting in loss of intellectual capabilities and technological leadership.
Indicators for Scenario 2: No improvement in the major economic indicators, increasing loss of service industry jobs, increase in global competition, new technology standards being driven and set by countries such as China and India, decline in foreign-born student enrollment in American colleges, and shrinkage of previous industry leaders based in the United States.
The final result is that you can now begin to construct your plans around a trended future, know what indicators to watch for, and be prepared when different events require you to alter your plans.
Simulation Planning
This form of ‘‘future’’ trending is somewhat similar to the scenario process, but it segments out the primary drivers for analysis before combining them for some specific period in the future. Let’s start by taking another look at your eleven identified drivers that impact sales success:
Technology (hardware and/or software)
Globalization
Competition
Customers
Demographics
Lifestyles
Psychographics (consumer sentiment)
Firmographics (business sentiment)
Economy
Regulatory practices
Business practices
Break your planning group into eleven individual teams with each one focusing on only one of the drivers listed above. It is best to select members for a particular team who are subject matter experts in the field. For example, bring some IT folks into your session to concentrate on technology or some government affairs personnel to focus on regulatory practices.
Separate the groups into different planning locations and ask each to determine where their driver has been, where it is currently, and (if the trend continues) where it might most likely be in five years.
Finally, bring the teams back together again and overlay the drivers to create a vision of some specific time in the future. You and your team will be amazed at how clear an image develops. The pace of change is speeding up to the point where the future will not be a bigger, faster, shinier version of today.
Although you are not fortune-tellers, you must try to grasp a view of tomorrow to do better planning today.
Determining Prioritized Corporate Objectives
Many sales managers become so entrapped in their own team’s goals that they forget that the primary objective of a sales department is to help the overall organization meet its goals. You serve a specific purpose: to sell the company’s products or services through strong and effective customer interactions. But you are only one piece of the overall puzzle, and you need to recognize the larger objectives of your organization.
Often sales managers and their sales team members talk about the company only wanting more sales or revenue. In fact, increased sales are often only one component of some larger objectives of the organization. What is your organization’s vision of what would be gained from increased sales? Let’s look at a few examples:
Profitability improvement
Increased shareholder value
Strengthening brand identity
Increased geographic coverage
New market-segment expansion
Deterrent to growing competition
Acquisitions
Increased professionalism
Broadening product or service lines
?What else
Corporate objectives are usually much clearer than you think. Consider developing a few questions you might like to ask your leadership. Here are a few ideas:
What are the greatest opportunities in the organization’s future?
What are the greatest challenges to the organization’s future?
Who is creating long-term strategic plans for the organization? (This can be, and probably is, more than one person.)
What are their stated short- and long-term objectives?
How could their objectives be prioritized?
What do they see as the sales organization’s contribution to these objectives? (Make sure they are as specific as possible.)
Spend time with your senior management and executives to get answers to these questions. Remember, you are looking for answers pertaining to the organization as a whole. It will be your job to narrow the required action down to a sales plan. Approach such a discovery interview just as you did when you were out selling. Listen for the emotions and intent behind the words, not just the words themselves
Many sales managers become so entrapped in their own team’s goals that they forget that the primary objective of a sales department is to help the overall organization meet its goals. You serve a specific purpose: to sell the company’s products or services through strong and effective customer interactions. But you are only one piece of the overall puzzle, and you need to recognize the larger objectives of your organization.
Often sales managers and their sales team members talk about the company only wanting more sales or revenue. In fact, increased sales are often only one component of some larger objectives of the organization. What is your organization’s vision of what would be gained from increased sales? Let’s look at a few examples:
Profitability improvement
Increased shareholder value
Strengthening brand identity
Increased geographic coverage
New market-segment expansion
Deterrent to growing competition
Acquisitions
Increased professionalism
Broadening product or service lines
?What else
Corporate objectives are usually much clearer than you think. Consider developing a few questions you might like to ask your leadership. Here are a few ideas:
What are the greatest opportunities in the organization’s future?
What are the greatest challenges to the organization’s future?
Who is creating long-term strategic plans for the organization? (This can be, and probably is, more than one person.)
What are their stated short- and long-term objectives?
How could their objectives be prioritized?
What do they see as the sales organization’s contribution to these objectives? (Make sure they are as specific as possible.)
Spend time with your senior management and executives to get answers to these questions. Remember, you are looking for answers pertaining to the organization as a whole. It will be your job to narrow the required action down to a sales plan. Approach such a discovery interview just as you did when you were out selling. Listen for the emotions and intent behind the words, not just the words themselves
Clarifying Short-Term, Intermediate, and Long-Term Goals
What you have just discovered are the prioritized goals of your organization as a whole. You have also defined what your team’s contribution to the attainment of these goals might and should be. You must now develop some short-term, intermediate, and long-term goals for your sales team.
Short-term goals are defined as those results that can be achieved in twelve months or less. They are often stated as your team’s sales quotas, but they are also there to support your organization’s yearly objectives, as created and viewed by the leadership, the investors and, of course, the capital markets or capital markets community. They generate immediate cash flow for the company that will, hopefully, exceed expenditures and justify your organization’s approach to contributing to the strategic plan. Short-term goals can usually be achieved with existing resources with only minor modifications to personnel, products, support, or the customer base.Many sales managers find themselves in difficulty because they focus only on longer-term objectives for their team. If you look closely at the first items on the list of your organization’s prioritized goals for the organization as a whole, you will recognize that there are some that must be achieved right away. They may be:
Increased sales revenue
Increased profitability or margin on the average sale
Improved order entry quality to reduce returns
Costs control and/or staff reductions
New product or service acceptance by the targeted market
New geographic expansion
What else? (Must be attainable in under twelve months)
Long-term goals are usually defined as those results that can be achieved only over a longer period of time, say five to seven years. They tend to be linked with the long-term vision of the organization as a whole, and several complex changes and steps must be made to attain these goals. Some of these changes are dramatic and can cause instability to a sales organization. The best way to prevent this is to have clear, concise, and measurable pathways to achieve these long-term goals. They may be:
New market penetration
Strategic sales alliances
Cross-organizational team selling
Complete change of customer’s brand perception
What else? (Must require a period of time to attain)
Intermediate goals are those that fall somewhere between the short- and long-term goals, usually around three years. They could be called milestones because they are often used to sustain support for the long-term goals. Nothing succeeds like success, and these goals are used to persuade senior management and executives that your ideas and reasoning are sound and that significant advances toward your long-term goals are being made. They must link the short- and long-term goals, and they might include such areas as:
Sales competency training curriculums
Sustained sales growth
New electronic connectivity platforms
What else? (Must require a period of time to attain)
Are they S.M.A.R.T. Goals?
Specific,
Measurable,
Attainable,
What you have just discovered are the prioritized goals of your organization as a whole. You have also defined what your team’s contribution to the attainment of these goals might and should be. You must now develop some short-term, intermediate, and long-term goals for your sales team.
Short-term goals are defined as those results that can be achieved in twelve months or less. They are often stated as your team’s sales quotas, but they are also there to support your organization’s yearly objectives, as created and viewed by the leadership, the investors and, of course, the capital markets or capital markets community. They generate immediate cash flow for the company that will, hopefully, exceed expenditures and justify your organization’s approach to contributing to the strategic plan. Short-term goals can usually be achieved with existing resources with only minor modifications to personnel, products, support, or the customer base.Many sales managers find themselves in difficulty because they focus only on longer-term objectives for their team. If you look closely at the first items on the list of your organization’s prioritized goals for the organization as a whole, you will recognize that there are some that must be achieved right away. They may be:
Increased sales revenue
Increased profitability or margin on the average sale
Improved order entry quality to reduce returns
Costs control and/or staff reductions
New product or service acceptance by the targeted market
New geographic expansion
What else? (Must be attainable in under twelve months)
Long-term goals are usually defined as those results that can be achieved only over a longer period of time, say five to seven years. They tend to be linked with the long-term vision of the organization as a whole, and several complex changes and steps must be made to attain these goals. Some of these changes are dramatic and can cause instability to a sales organization. The best way to prevent this is to have clear, concise, and measurable pathways to achieve these long-term goals. They may be:
New market penetration
Strategic sales alliances
Cross-organizational team selling
Complete change of customer’s brand perception
What else? (Must require a period of time to attain)
Intermediate goals are those that fall somewhere between the short- and long-term goals, usually around three years. They could be called milestones because they are often used to sustain support for the long-term goals. Nothing succeeds like success, and these goals are used to persuade senior management and executives that your ideas and reasoning are sound and that significant advances toward your long-term goals are being made. They must link the short- and long-term goals, and they might include such areas as:
Sales competency training curriculums
Sustained sales growth
New electronic connectivity platforms
What else? (Must require a period of time to attain)
Are they S.M.A.R.T. Goals?
Specific,
Measurable,
Attainable,
, andTime Framed
Creating Directional Statements for Your Sales Team
Do you know where you need to take your team in the near and long-term future? If called upon, could you easily and clearly communicate these goals to any and all interested parties? Let’s take a look at some sales management tools to do just that.
Mission and Vision Statements
In essence, you have just constructed the foundation of a mission statement and a vision statement for your sales organization. Surprised that you need them? You may have thought that these directional statements are only for the organization as a whole. The truth is, exceptionally well-run companies have a mission statement and a vision statement for every department. There are two important considerations when constructing directional statements. First, they must be aligned from your sales organization up through the overall corporate statements. Second, they must support the coordinated long-term approach to a vision of success. Let’s take a look at these two powerful statements.
Mission Statement
A mission statement is intended to reach the same audience as the short-term goals. It should influence your senior management and executives, all required immediate support organizations, investors, and the capital markets community. One of the simplest ways of creating a mission statement is to ask the following question:
Being the best you can be, with the resources you currently have available, how would you like your sales team to be described?
Notice that this does not ask for a description of your current sales team. It asks for a description of how the team might appear after you have maximized the potential of your total resources. The answer can be a single paragraph or a sentence with bullet points. Either way, keep it simple and use clear, concise, and measurable terms.
Vision Statement
A vision statement is a directional statement intended to create a motivational environment by giving the personnel a view of the future that they can enthusiastically support. Like a good sales presentation, the vision statement must meet both the wants and the needs of your sales team and all supporting departments. In other words, it must reach the mind and the heart—particularly in this day of fragile corporate– employee relationships.
Although there are many ways to look at this directional statement, a good way to arrive at a vision statement might simply be to ask:
Making changes into the future, how would you like your sales team to be described at some definable future date?
Notice, here we are talking about making changes. Not simply living with what we have or making minor modifications to our current sales team, but making changes. The vision statement has no destination point; it is considered a direction or pathway. You always want to be moving toward a future vision. This must also align well both with the long-term goals of your sales team and with the overall vision for the organization as a whole. Once again, keep it simple and use clear and concise words, not interpretative words. You shouldn’t have to explain or translate it.
Do you know where you need to take your team in the near and long-term future? If called upon, could you easily and clearly communicate these goals to any and all interested parties? Let’s take a look at some sales management tools to do just that.
Mission and Vision Statements
In essence, you have just constructed the foundation of a mission statement and a vision statement for your sales organization. Surprised that you need them? You may have thought that these directional statements are only for the organization as a whole. The truth is, exceptionally well-run companies have a mission statement and a vision statement for every department. There are two important considerations when constructing directional statements. First, they must be aligned from your sales organization up through the overall corporate statements. Second, they must support the coordinated long-term approach to a vision of success. Let’s take a look at these two powerful statements.
Mission Statement
A mission statement is intended to reach the same audience as the short-term goals. It should influence your senior management and executives, all required immediate support organizations, investors, and the capital markets community. One of the simplest ways of creating a mission statement is to ask the following question:
Being the best you can be, with the resources you currently have available, how would you like your sales team to be described?
Notice that this does not ask for a description of your current sales team. It asks for a description of how the team might appear after you have maximized the potential of your total resources. The answer can be a single paragraph or a sentence with bullet points. Either way, keep it simple and use clear, concise, and measurable terms.
Vision Statement
A vision statement is a directional statement intended to create a motivational environment by giving the personnel a view of the future that they can enthusiastically support. Like a good sales presentation, the vision statement must meet both the wants and the needs of your sales team and all supporting departments. In other words, it must reach the mind and the heart—particularly in this day of fragile corporate– employee relationships.
Although there are many ways to look at this directional statement, a good way to arrive at a vision statement might simply be to ask:
Making changes into the future, how would you like your sales team to be described at some definable future date?
Notice, here we are talking about making changes. Not simply living with what we have or making minor modifications to our current sales team, but making changes. The vision statement has no destination point; it is considered a direction or pathway. You always want to be moving toward a future vision. This must also align well both with the long-term goals of your sales team and with the overall vision for the organization as a whole. Once again, keep it simple and use clear and concise words, not interpretative words. You shouldn’t have to explain or translate it.
Determining Resource Requirements and Availability
You have now completed some key documents involved in successful sales force planning. So far, you have:
Developed a snapshot of the current environment
Applied trend analysis to your snapshot to give you a vision of the future
Determined prioritized corporate objectives
Clarified short-term, intermediate, and long-term goals
Created directional statements for your sales team
Identifying Key Players and Their Motivators
Now you are getting down to the wire in planning documentations. The next step is to realize that you can’t achieve all these wonderful goals by yourself or with only your sales team. You will need internal and external resources, and you will need to ‘‘name names.’’ For example, if you plan to increase customer acceptance of new products or services, you might need the following:
Product management: To change pricing strategy
Advertising: To provide effective push-pull marketing
Finance: To develop some long-term, low-interest financing
Order processing: To expedite orders for this product
Customer service: To handle inquiries and service calls more effectively
But knowing which department to call upon will not lead to goal success. You will need to establish a relationship with key individuals within the department to gain their support. Consider specifically whom you might need now and in the future. This can often be more than one individual or function. For example, you may need an outbound telemarketing representative. But if you borrow this person from his or her current assignment, you’ll be impacting the measurements placed on that person and department by his or her manager. Always spend time getting to know the evaluators of the person or function you need. Remember, when you make even a minor modification, you are altering an entire web of linkages.
After you’ve identified the departments and key players, you need to discover what it is that drives their performance. In most cases, it will be the measurements with which they are evaluated at the end of the year. If you are to gain their total support, you must be willing to support their efforts, too.
Rechecking Prioritized Corporate Objectives
One final planning note. Your organization is always changing. The environment changes, the leadership changes, the customer base changes, the technology changes, and the needs of investors change. As you have seen in the scenario planning discussion earlier, the future may turn out to be very different than you had planned.
Schedule time to regularly recheck your short-term, intermediate, and long-term goals to assure that they are in complete alignment with ever changing business realities. Watch for the indicators that will tell you when a shift in direction is taking place and adjust accordingly. The last thing you want to do is find yourself traveling down the wrong path.
Key Rechecks
Annual reports
Quarterly reports
Press releases
Internal and external speeches by key individuals
Outside evaluators (financial community and auditors)
Changes in organizational mission and vision statements
Your managers
Your leaders
Other department heads
Relevant
You have now completed some key documents involved in successful sales force planning. So far, you have:
Developed a snapshot of the current environment
Applied trend analysis to your snapshot to give you a vision of the future
Determined prioritized corporate objectives
Clarified short-term, intermediate, and long-term goals
Created directional statements for your sales team
Identifying Key Players and Their Motivators
Now you are getting down to the wire in planning documentations. The next step is to realize that you can’t achieve all these wonderful goals by yourself or with only your sales team. You will need internal and external resources, and you will need to ‘‘name names.’’ For example, if you plan to increase customer acceptance of new products or services, you might need the following:
Product management: To change pricing strategy
Advertising: To provide effective push-pull marketing
Finance: To develop some long-term, low-interest financing
Order processing: To expedite orders for this product
Customer service: To handle inquiries and service calls more effectively
But knowing which department to call upon will not lead to goal success. You will need to establish a relationship with key individuals within the department to gain their support. Consider specifically whom you might need now and in the future. This can often be more than one individual or function. For example, you may need an outbound telemarketing representative. But if you borrow this person from his or her current assignment, you’ll be impacting the measurements placed on that person and department by his or her manager. Always spend time getting to know the evaluators of the person or function you need. Remember, when you make even a minor modification, you are altering an entire web of linkages.
After you’ve identified the departments and key players, you need to discover what it is that drives their performance. In most cases, it will be the measurements with which they are evaluated at the end of the year. If you are to gain their total support, you must be willing to support their efforts, too.
Rechecking Prioritized Corporate Objectives
One final planning note. Your organization is always changing. The environment changes, the leadership changes, the customer base changes, the technology changes, and the needs of investors change. As you have seen in the scenario planning discussion earlier, the future may turn out to be very different than you had planned.
Schedule time to regularly recheck your short-term, intermediate, and long-term goals to assure that they are in complete alignment with ever changing business realities. Watch for the indicators that will tell you when a shift in direction is taking place and adjust accordingly. The last thing you want to do is find yourself traveling down the wrong path.
Key Rechecks
Annual reports
Quarterly reports
Press releases
Internal and external speeches by key individuals
Outside evaluators (financial community and auditors)
Changes in organizational mission and vision statements
Your managers
Your leaders
Other department heads
Relevant
Chapter Summary
In this chapter, we talked about the value of planning for both short- and long-term goals. Without a solid plan, you cannot set directions, establish and manage to measurements, or recognize when the situation is changing. Your plan may not always be exactly right, but without it you have nothing with which to benchmark your progress.
You start with giving serious thought to current trends, and then through scenario or simulation planning, project these trends into the future to estimate future requirements.
Equally important is the need to clarify organizational objectives before you set your own sales department goals. Once you have done that, an effective sales manager sets short-term goals to meet immediate needs of the organization, long-term goals to lead to future success, and intermediate goals to measure success. This important direction is often captured in a strong mission and vision statement.
The final step in planning is to determine resource requirements to help you meet your goals: Decide which key players need to be engaged, recognize what their motivation might be to help you be successful, and continually recheck the corporate goals to do the necessary fine-tuning of your plans.
In this chapter, we talked about the value of planning for both short- and long-term goals. Without a solid plan, you cannot set directions, establish and manage to measurements, or recognize when the situation is changing. Your plan may not always be exactly right, but without it you have nothing with which to benchmark your progress.
You start with giving serious thought to current trends, and then through scenario or simulation planning, project these trends into the future to estimate future requirements.
Equally important is the need to clarify organizational objectives before you set your own sales department goals. Once you have done that, an effective sales manager sets short-term goals to meet immediate needs of the organization, long-term goals to lead to future success, and intermediate goals to measure success. This important direction is often captured in a strong mission and vision statement.
The final step in planning is to determine resource requirements to help you meet your goals: Decide which key players need to be engaged, recognize what their motivation might be to help you be successful, and continually recheck the corporate goals to do the necessary fine-tuning of your plans.
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