Sales Process Who Benefits?

I engage with sales executives every day in the C level suite. Many of the Leaders have been through some sort of CRM rollout and understand the importance of tracking leads and conversions of leads to qualified opportunities and ultimately closes/wins.

I dare say that many hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on an internal sales process yet I don't see an equa amount of investment being made in the customer and THEIR buying process. Say what? That's right. I said it. Its on the table now.

I spoke with an "accomplished" VP of sales recently who changed jobs and went from a "name brand" provider of networking/system monitoring applications to a relatively little known start up. The sales force is small- around 6-10 sales people and the supporting cast of tech wizzards who are the ones that get brought in to "sell the deal ... I mean technology". After all, do you really think we sales managers and sales reps did all the selling ourselves? No. But most of the time the sales person with the quota gets the credit and therefore they start believing their own press! Ha! (Just read some resumes of these overachievers sometime. You'd think they put a rocket on Mars already).

Anyway, I asked the VP who travels quite a bit around the country, "What role do you play when you are asked to go on custoer calls with your reps?". You will not be surprised by his response. He said, "... I sniff the deal to make sure its real and then I sell the prospect on our young company and its viability".

Now that the door was wide open (and his pants were clearly down to his ankles) I asked him why he had to sniff out the deal if his reps were such "senior high flying eagles"? He said his butt was on the line and he wanted to see for himself first hand. Argh!

Next I asked him what prep he requires of his rep to make the most of his customer visit. Again you can guess.... none. The 20 minute ride from the airport to the account was all the time they use. So much for sales process that actually could be valued by the customer.

My point is this, if he would have taken the time to understand the customer's business challenges, not just for his product/solution but really understood how the economic indicators and industry dynamics and financial conditions drive the priorities of his customer, he might have been abe to compete on a different level rather than doing sand box studies and proofs of concept. The times have changes but I am afraid the sales profession has for the most part- not. Still internally focused with its CRM and sales proess and account planning and no customer value. Shameful.