The Obstacle is the Way
WMMM #081 - This week I share a perspective on handling adversity.
Jeff Keplar Newsletter October 19, 2024 6 min read
After The Fall
Are you feeling stressed, anxious, or challenged?
As we pass the midpoint of October, many of us have a pretty good idea of how we will finish for 2024.
Recent data suggests that over 70% of salespeople will not achieve their 2024 quota.
How does that compare with what you are experiencing?
When the going gets tough, how do we respond?
It is human nature to find someone or something to blame.
We often select the path of least resistance for moving forward.
My advice is don't.
Resist.
"The obstacle is the way."
Marcus Aurelius was a respected Roman emperor and a proponent of stoicism.
Great things never come from a comfort zone.
Quota Too High?
What was the biggest obstacle for us in 2024?
"Unrealistic quota?"
That's a given.
Aren't quotas, as a rule, seemingly unmakeable?
It is common for employers to assign quotas beyond our reach.
Why?
It's one way of implementing stretch management.
That's a strategy for accelerating a company's growth.
Stretch the expectations of your salesforce in order to get them to perform beyond what they think is possible.
It's also a way to control costs.
Assign unmakeable quotas, and the company will not pay its salespeople what it advertised to them as "on target earnings."
If it dangled what appeared to be lucrative incentives for exceeding quota in the sales incentive compensation plan, it wouldn't be paying those either.
It's a way for some employers to lower their CAC - customer acquisition costs.
This scenario is more likely to take place at larger companies with sizable sales forces.
Providing meaningful incentives to drive sales is not a priority.
They do not feel their quarterly revenue targets are at risk.
They possess a significant customer base, which they draw upon for incremental orders.
When they miss a quarter or two, they begin to feel pain.
That's when we see them change their behavior back to reflect a hunger for more orders.
Not Enough Leads?
Do we depend on someone else for our leads?
SDR?
Marketing?
We don't have to.
How many leads do we need to make our annual quota?
If we had twice as many leads, would that solve the problem?
What makes a good lead "good?"
How involved are we in the process that generates our leads?
Do we have an outbound process?
This is an area we can do something about.
Too Many "No Decisions?"
How do we view a "No Decision?"
Do we blame:
Our champion for being indecisive?
The politics at play in their organization for delaying the decision?
The economy for creating uncertainty in our prospective buyer's executive suite?
Do we have a sales process?
Do we ask for and receive an agreement from the prospective buyer on what will happen next?
This is another area we can do something about.
Pick Up the Phone and Start Dialin'
The role of salesperson used to require prospecting.
We created our leads.
We developed a list of suspects:
Companies that owned computers that could run the software we were selling
Ones that had IT departments staffed with programmers.
We developed a list of names:
Data Processing Managers responsible for those computers
Their phone numbers and addresses.
We typed introductory letters and mailed them.
We made phone calls.
We rented "Salon B" meeting space in the local hotel and hosted breakfast seminars.
We created the invitations and delivered them.
We followed up with the gatekeepers.
We delivered the keynote message at the seminar.
We did the follow-up:
Typed or hand-wrote and mailed the thank-you notes
Prioritized the leads we developed at the seminar
Scheduled visits to the offices of those agreeable to next steps.
A lot has changed since then.
Hunters or Farmers
Somewhere along the journey, it became a best practice to split the responsibilities of the salesperson in half.
Half the sales force would focus on prospecting, and the other half on closing.
This followed a popular concept back then called "stratification."
Break down the role into definable components.
The smaller the role, the easier to perform.
The easier it is to perform a role, the easier it is to find someone to do it.
This reduces risk to the employer - it's easy to grow, and everyone is replaceable.
This worked for a while.
In a hot economy with low interest rates, growth was easier.
Was the growth because of this setup?
Maybe.
A lot has changed since then.
We learned that it was easier to persuade people with little or no sales experience to take the prospecting role.
We called them SDRs - Sales Development Representatives.
The job became known as the entry-level position in the sales profession.
They received training in prospecting because the position was entry-level.
They were evaluated on how many appointments they booked.
The pay was less.
What is an appointment worth?
The SDR role was an excellent way to get into sales.
However, most SDRs had to change jobs to get promoted to Account Executive.
Even if they were promoted from within, most companies still saw them for what they were doing the prior year and did not raise their pay commensurate with the promotion.
Even more problematic was the lack of training provided for Account Executives.
SDRs "graduating" to AEs received no training on how to run a sales cycle.
Meanwhile, the experienced salespeople were assigned the role of closing business.
We called them Account Executives (AEs).
They were evaluated on how much revenue they closed on an annual basis.
The pay was higher.
The revenue they drove typically exceeded $2M.
They were valuable to the company.
Because of their value and their years of experience, most companies did not see the need for sales training.
The AEs' time was far too valuable to take them out of the field for sales training.
And why would they need sales training?
They were getting paid over $250K annually and already had sales experience.
Oh, many of these companies conducted training sessions they called "sales training."
But they weren't.
Those sessions increased the sales force's knowledge of the product.
Nothing could be further from sales training.
How Do We Explain Over 70% Missing Their 2024 Quota?
So now we have AEs with little or no prospecting skills.
Whatever outbound skills they had have atrophied.
Most haven't received sales training in years.
We have former SDRs who were promoted to AEs and trained only in prospecting skills, which they don't use anymore.
Their outbound skills have atrophied since they became AEs.
Even worse, their employer has not helped them learn how to run a professional sales cycle.
Finally, we have the current SDRs whose jobs increase in difficulty with every passing year.
COVID-19 accelerated the WFH solution.
It's harder to reach someone by phone now.
The number of emails being sent is increasing at an exponential rate.
Email service providers are using AI to help crack down on SPAM, increasing the level of sophistication required to be successful at using email for prospecting.
It also appears we may be coming full circle regarding the salesperson's role.
With changes in how technology is licensed (subscription versus perpetual license,) the initial deal size has dropped significantly in the last ten years.
The industry is struggling to justify the sales model it created not that long ago.
If a company isn't one of the billion-dollar-plus tech behemoths, how can it afford to pay a team of individuals consisting of SDR, AE, CSM, SE, and their management to pursue a $50K ARR deal?
Hunt and Harvest
It may be back to the future.
The current thinking is that the salesperson should be able to perform the duties required to drive revenue from start to finish.
Prospecting and closing.
End-to-end selling.
Hunt and harvest.
Wish Things Were Easier? Try Making Ourselves Better
With our industry's current state, most of us have a lot to learn.
The outbound process has gotten highly sophisticated.
How well do you understand:
The first 7 seconds of a cold call
Targeting
Personalization
Sequencing
A/B testing
Scoring and signals
Look-alike domains
Reverse voicemails
Video messaging?
The traditional sales process hasn't gotten any simpler.
What is the latest technique for Discovery?
How do I navigate the buying process of a large enterprise?
Which sales methodology works best in 2024? 2025?
Is there a technique for asking questions that works best?
Is there a process for Negotiation?
What tools do I need, and which ones work best together?
Being a complete, accomplished end-to-end salesperson requires an investment.
Training is required to get it right.
Practice is required to get it right every time.
As with being the best in anything, having a coach is ideal.
Sales has always required a lifelong learning mentality to be the best.
It is even more so today.
The opportunity is infinite.
There is no finish line.
Lessons Learned
1) The obstacle is the way - great things never come from a comfort zone.
2) Calling a complete stranger to book a 30-minute meeting with you is a life skill.
3) Getting agreement for what will happen next is a life skill.
4) Being a complete, accomplished end-to-end salesperson requires an investment.
Thank you for reading.
Jeff
When you think “sales leader,” I hope you think of me.
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