Ain’t Got No Rap
WMMM #075 - This week I respond to a request for more details from The Fighting Chair.
Jeff Keplar Newsletter August 31, 2024 10 min read
Last month, I wrote about taking tough assignments in "The Fighting Chair."
That edition received plenty of feedback.
Thank you.
A former colleague, a real pro at selling applications software and leading apps sales teams, sent me a note that drove a phone call.
Carrie asked if I could discuss the skills required to orchestrate large enterprise deals when managing large account teams.
"Of course, happy to do so," was my response.
I hope you enjoy the tips.
Ain't Got No Rap, Ain't Got No Line…
"I'll give it to you straight and look you in the eye."
While the sample size of large enterprise deals is sufficiently large (nearly 15 years of 3-5 per year), it remains my body of work and, therefore, contains my bias.
Sales and sales leadership is situational.
There is no single technique or process to follow.
We can identify best practices we want to apply, but it always seems that a wrinkle presents itself, and we must improvise.
Selling enterprise technology is also humbling.
I made mistakes, overcame obstacles, and solved problems as I went.
I will do my best to provide my views on the best practices that have helped us succeed.
I'll give it to you straight and look you in the eye.
Empathy
Understand what it's like to walk in the shoes of our peers, colleagues, and the extended sales team outside our direct reporting structure.
Treat others as we would want to be treated.
After 2003, Oracle organized its sales teams around product families.
Gone were the account managers who were responsible for the overall account.
In the largest accounts, the Oracle Database teams were usually the account leads.
We were responsible for the Oracle Database and the rest of the system software (versus application software) in Oracle's vast software library.
We were the account leads and led these large deals in the Enterprise Account segment.
A large account sales team was populated with individual contributors from several other product sales teams.
At Oracle, these individuals and their teams were known as overlays when it came to these large account teams.
Each overlay sales team was staffed with accomplished salespeople with their own sales management chains.
Their opinions could not and should not be merely dismissed.
It required advanced skill by the account lead to sort out those opinions contrary to their own and determine if they were helpful to Oracle and the success of the deal or if they were cloaking a self-serving agenda for that particular individual or product team.
Part of developing that skill involves understanding all aspects of the scenario in which we find ourselves.
Starting with the account, it was very common for its sourcing team to view the individual account team members as "one Oracle."
These sourcing teams also preferred to limit the transactions with Oracle to one per year, written against a single master agreement.
If they were spending money with Oracle, they expected to leverage all of that money toward concessions in that single contract negotiation.
When it came to budgeting and planning, Oracle often received a single line item.
It was also popular for the sourcing teams to identify the account lead for Oracle and attempt to control the narrative for the account.
This strategy could minimize the effectiveness of sales cycles created by the overlays and silence the voices of their customer champions.
Moving our view from external to internal (from the account to the account team), let's start with the Oracle sales organization.
Typically, the account lead was assigned to only a single account.
The overlay product sales teams' sales reps were usually assigned to a named account territory.
That means that each of those reps had approximately six (6) accounts.
And, if one has six accounts, their risk is reduced.
All of their eggs are not in a single basket like the account leads.
But, in each of those six accounts, that overlay isn't the lead and does not control their destiny.
However, every salesperson on every account team is carrying a "stretch" quota.
Moving to the money.
If the account has budgeted a single line item amount for Oracle, unless we are able to get that changed, there is one bucket of money.
All of the Oracle product sales teams compete with one another for that money.
This is where it could feel like Oracle hired five (5) lions but only threw enough meat in the den to feed three (3).
Take Extraordinary Measures
Think customer first, team second, and everything else a distant third, even when that is complicated.
Scenario #1
Our management needs us to move that "one transaction per year" from 4th qtr to 2nd qtr.
The Apps team needs nine months to complete their sales cycle.
It cannot be rushed.
They need to "lead the client over the bridge."
Discounting won't speed up this process; it is just as likely to spook the client and delay the process.
Doing what your management wants will cause Oracle to miss an opportunity to capture a strategic piece of your account's business.
It will also eliminate an entire product sales team from having a chance at a sale with the account that year.
Missing a chance at winning an Apps deal is more than missing a sale.
Once Apps decisions are made, there may not be another chance at that business for more than 10 years.
Enterprises rarely replace their ERP, Supply Chain, or CRM systems.
Missing a single opportunity could mean a competitor, offering a suite of applications and using a land-and-expand strategy, could block Oracle on future opportunities.
Apps also "dragged" other Oracle software with it: database, middleware, and business intelligence.
The best way to solve this problem was to identify all of the opportunities in the account through the team account planning process.
Communicate the intricacies around the timing with one another.
Then, if you encounter your leadership wanting you to do something that will likely impact others and have severe consequences, you push back.
Of course, when we push back, we explain and justify our resistance.
The lead position comes with responsibilities, and this is one of them.
Have the Ability to See Around Corners
Scenario #2
Customers will always expect the discount they negotiate to apply to all Oracle software on the order.
That seems totally reasonable.
But if we merely apply that at face value, several members of your account team will be crushed.
It would not be unusual, for example, for one of these big deals to include $30M in database (at a 90% discount), $7M in ERP apps (at an 80% discount), and $3M in CRM apps (at a 60% discount.)
That means the list price of the CRM software was around $8M.
When the transaction reaches negotiation, individual product sales positioning is thrown out the window.
The account will bundle all of the opportunities and drive to the single largest discount they can get.
Software is software to them.
They won't pay different discounts for different products in the same transaction.
We sell the value of going "all Oracle," and they see economies of scale in a single negotiation.
The deal lands at a 92% discount, and that CRM team will only get $640k, versus the $3M they estimated they would get if they sold it without "the rest of Oracle getting in the way."
How does one solve this problem?
I have heard this skill called "the ability to see around corners."
Transparency and Communication
From experience, I knew this was a possible outcome.
I would share it with the entire team.
Here is why.
At the beginning of each year, every salesperson wants their products to be part of the significant transaction.
At least, they think so or have been told by their management to do so.
Many do not know how these big deals play out.
If we pick up one end of a stick, we better know what's on the other end.
I saw it as my role to inform them of what was on the other end of that stick.
I put myself in their shoes because I had been there early in my Oracle career.
We need to consider our options and make an informed decision on how we'd like to approach selling to this account.
If we want to sell something this year, we now know how this could work out for us.
If we choose not to sell to this account, hoping to avoid being included in this large deal, we should know the risks.
If the account is already aware of our product line and believes it could deliver value, they may choose to include it in the large deal whether we want to sell it to them or not.
Oracle would not allow the interests of a single product line, a $3M component of a $40M deal, to stand in the way of getting that deal.
We do not control that outcome.
If we want to control the outcome, we can choose to work closely with the account and the account team to reveal the value of our product line to the account.
If we become victims of the bundling and single discount scenario, so be it.
We have five (5) other accounts in our Named Account territory to make the rest of our quota.
All wasn't lost.
The annual quotas for many of these overlay sales teams were much smaller than those of the Database or ERP teams.
If we got $600k from each of our six (6) accounts, we wouldn't crush it, but we'd be okay.
Take Extraordinary Measures - Part 2
I recall a period when Oracle would allow sales leadership to minimize the inequity of how these large deals affected the smaller overlay teams.
I also remember when we closed that door, but here is how it worked while it was open.
A few of the sales leaders knew about this, but it was not broadcast to the sales teams.
I'm referring to the ability to alter sales credit after the deal was signed but before it was booked.
And while I wouldn't say I like the concept of a few people, behind closed doors, deciding compensation after the deal was in, it worked for the most part.
However, with compensation being the most sensitive of topics regarding people management, this solution introduced bias into these decisions.
That's what I did not like.
The skill required of the leader is to make ourselves aware of how the transaction affected everyone on the team, not just those in our direct reporting structure.
If we find anyone where the complexities of the situation inflicted unintended consequences, take the extraordinary measure of championing their cause to leadership.
One approach involved the management of the account lead working with leadership and sales operations to adjust sales credit to mimic a fantasy scenario that had the account purchasing each product separately from Oracle, with isolated negotiation processes that resulted in multiple orders with different discounts.
We would then total all of these conceptual orders and compare that total with the deal that was just closed.
If the conceptual total was greater than the deal amount just closed (it always was), we would apply the gap proportionately, not equally, to each product line until the gap was zero.
Other approaches had less precision and more swag.
The account lead would end up with less sales credit nearly every time.
It was "the other end of the stick" for leading the deal.
That did not seem right for all of the extra work and responsibility that fell on the lead.
But it mitigated the damage done to others on the team.
No one ever promised "fair."
We must focus on what we can control and not let things out of our control derail us.
We could control the opportunity to manage the expectations of our own team and management chain by communicating.
Best Practices
1-Account Planning - Each sales team participates. It's a good idea to enlist the help of a moderator chosen from outside of the direct sales team. It is also a best practice to allocate a couple of hours early in the session for a "Voice of the Customer." Invite a couple of different executives from the account to share their views on what is important for their employer, how best your company can serve them, and any advice for navigating their employer as an external partner.
Every sales team must come to the meeting having informed themselves of all relevant public information such as financial reports, the most current 10k, news releases, executive interviews, posts on social media, etc.
Ask every team to bring a piece of information about the account that cannot be found on the web.
Highlight the account's key business objectives in the near term.
Map our employer's solutions to the account's key business objectives.
Develop value propositions for every solution.
Have an organization chart for the account. Get one from one of their employees as a first choice. Use a subscription for a service that provides them as a second choice.
Run through Influence Mapping with the entire team. Identify the key influencers for everything we might want to sell this account. Conduct an analysis of each individual's disposition toward our company and then map the appropriate account team member to each.
Choose an executive sponsor for the account.
Select a management sponsor for the account.
Assign actions to each sponsor to build relationships and trust to grow.
2-Quarterly Account Reviews - track the team's progress on the account plan.
3-Weekly Account Team Calls - keep team members in sync with each other's progress.
4-Annual Executive Briefing - use our executives with theirs.
Acquiring and Developing the Necessary Skills
Knowing what it feels like to be on one of the other teams is one thing; doing something about it is another.
1-In order to do something about it, we have to have the trust of leadership as well as the account team.
Trust is earned.
It is not bestowed.
It is not acquired.
If we want to earn someone's trust, solve a problem for them.
Defend those who are absent.
Act selflessly, not selfishly.
2-The devil is in the details, so immerse ourselves in the details.
Find a way to perform every task we ask others to do.
This may take time, so patience is another skill we must acquire.
3-Take the Tough Assignments
Nothing prepares us better than taking on a role that requires us to do difficult things we have not done before.
Adversity is a great teacher.
Hundreds of skills are required to be an accomplished seller of enterprise tech.
The same goes for managing sellers of enterprise tech.
We need to be good at managing before we can be good at leading.
Mastering each of these roles requires thousands of repetitions of these hundreds of skills.
This requires a growth mindset.
We need to be lifelong learners because It takes a lifetime.
That's why I cringe when I hear that a rep closed a large deal and was given a skip-level promotion to a sales leadership position.
They have been set up for failure.
4-Do Nothing
What if I admitted to you that advising my clients "what not to do" provides just as much value as delivering "how-tos?"
It's true.
Sales is situational.
Assessing a situation and quickly knowing what not to do sounds simple.
You'd be surprised.
We need to acquire the skill, through experience, of quickly knowing when not to act, not to react.
Sidekick
My sales story, unfortunately, cannot fit into this edition.
It would make this edition too long and inconvenient to read.
Please accept my apologies.
It was not my intent to tease or bait you.
I will publish Sidekick next week as a real-life example that connects this edition to The Fighting Chair.
Lessons Learned
1) Treat others as we would want to be treated.
2) Take extraordinary measures to serve the account and protect the team's interests.
3) Look around corners.
4) Immerse ourselves in the details.
Thank you for reading.
Jeff
When you think “sales leader,” I hope you think of me.
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I offer my help to investors, founders, sales leaders, and their teams.
I possess the skills identified in this article and share them as part of my service.
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