5 Simple steps towards Sales Innovation Success

It is never too late to reflect and react

"There is one thing separating those who are successful and others who are merely surviving. It’s the desire to learn and the curiosity that fires that desire. Successful salespeople never stop moving and learning, and they translate their new understandings into innovative ideas for their customers. They’re the ones who leap ahead. That is the power behind curiosity and innovation." - Jen (Why Curiosity is at the Heart of Sales Innovation)

You have been doing business for years, in the same way, head down with the wind head-on. But the way you have been doing business doesn't deliver the same results anymore, the environment changed so drastically so that you need to take action.

But innovation does not have to be this dramatic, it can be incremental as well. You might want to "revamp" your approach rather than a complete turn around of the way you have been organized in sales. Therefore, it does not need to be that sort of a "mind-blowing out of this world" - kind of change. Sometimes it is even better to have a continuous process of innovation running than a transformational program. I would certainly prefer to implement, steer and live continuous improvement over dramatic change.

Innovation is not the same as following the latest sales "trend"

Richard Langham, in his article "Sales Innovation Is Only as Good as Its Impact" on Highspot, states: "In the race for revenue, sales leaders and their teams need the most direct route to closing deals and wowing customers. Therefore, we must be diligent in evaluating the latest craze and its potential to make a tangible difference for the business."

Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. - Walt Disney

Curiosity Breeds Innovation

"Become passionately curious." In her article "Why Curiosity is at the Heart of Sales Innovation" on Natural Training, Jen closes off with the following: "When you stop being curious about everything around you, you turn to your default mode of thinking. Recycling old ideas won’t help you reach your sales goals or satisfy your customers’ needs. Real curiosity can cure that. When you cultivate curiosity, you’re filling your mind with a broad scope of knowledge. Innovation comes when you use that knowledge to tie two unrelated thoughts into one stunning solution. You can’t make those connections if you’re not constantly filling your mind."

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. - Einstein

"When you attend to your natural curiosity, the more you’ll notice about your customers, their business and industry, and the issues facing them. Despite the old saying, “curiosity killed the cat,” curiosity leads to new ideas and new adventures. In that way, curiosity is just a part of being smart. And curiosity can lead to world-shattering, breakthrough ideas."

Alun Maxwell, Sales Trainer at Natural Training, says: "Curiosity creates opportunity. Opportunity creates innovation. Innovation creates success."

Innovation creates success, but what exactly is "innovation"?

Innovation is about finding a problem and creating an approach that changes the way the problem is solved today. Then, when you want to take that approach from concept to reality, you have many means to do so: processes, methodologies, technology, education, training, skills,...

That is why your focus towards sales innovation can be in many areas: sales enablement, new processes, a new way to better push your product in the market, a supporting technology ranging from CRM over content messaging tools to AI, a completely revamped sales methodology, newly revamped customer intimacy programs or a combination (or all) of the above. There are many, many areas that can positively impact your sales performance, but (as stated in the article above) - every innovation will be measured by its impact.

Everything starts at the beginning

What exactly is the problem? What is the impact? What is the perception? Is it a company-wide perception or are some people shouting a bit louder than others, while the silent ones may have a major issue (but are not aware of it, or are working in silence in the background?).

Innovation requires many ideas

State the problem clearly, but take off your organization's spectacles to prevent bias. Be open and ready to start collecting many ideas, as many as possible. Why? In the article "How to integrate sales staff in the innovation process", Franz Emprechtinger there are similarities to make between sales innovation projects and R&D projects, and states that "around 100 R&D projects are required to place twelve successful innovations on the market. The number of ideas needed to start 100 projects is much higher. Successful innovation management can only work if you get lots of ideas."

Just as in these type of product innovation projects, proximity to the innovation area is key. "Naturally, there is a discrepancy between the sales department and the R&D department of a company in terms of time and proximity to the customer. A company's sales force is the direct interface to the customer and is very close to the customer." Innovation will draw in resources, budgets and require planning.

Another parallel can be drawn, and some good advice can be almost copy/pasted to a pure sales innovation project: "Budget and planning are usually planned for one year. In contrast, the development of innovative products requires a long-term orientation.

In the end, and in order to be successful, you need to triage the many ideas around three main topics. My advice is to focus on three well-defined areas:

1. "for whom" you want to innovate,
2. how "your near/ideal future" needs to look like,
3. and "who are the drivers" that will be at the center of your innovation cycle.

5 simple steps to drive innovation sales success

1. Set up your A-team whose sole mission is to reinvent & innovate. The goal of the changes should be well-articulated and communicated so that both the senior leadership team and your organization can together keep pace in the same direction.

2. Give your team the authority to create a whole new way of doing business. You will still need to be standing at the center of transformation, as you as a senior management team have the responsibility to engage, work and collaborate with other BU leaders in order to upgrade the organization.

3. Isolate the team members from the basic operations of the company and your core business. The goal is to form an organizational structure that will break down silos and leverage people in a matrix of different skill sets.

4. Let them start small and explore new initiatives that can start in a greenhouse mode. There’s no need to shift the whole organization at once in the case where your organization is business is still doing relatively well. What you need is a "system" that exposes people to both old and new practices, so they can see what is best and incrementally adapt.

5. Once they’re more successful or show promise, you can scale up and can either come back into the business or be developed as a separate, radically different enterprise. The most difficult time to steer innovation is when things are "relatively well". Moving forward requires a very thorough and clear articulation of the need for change, and leveraging your innovative ideas to a larger scale can be very cumbersome.

Install a culture of ownership

You need to push forward, help to initiate programs that can create a real sense of ownership. Employees with an ownership mindset are likelier to tap into their creativity and be more willing to participate and make positive transformation happen. Ownership fuels commitment, and vice versa. Make it visible, as you might want that spark of commitment & ownership to spread through your organization. It will make sure that change is more broadly accepted with a team of "champions" that carry the project further.

How does your leadership look like when innovating?

Leadership, capability and culture are three key areas to monitor as to drive for optimal results. On the one hand, your organization needs to stay competitive and develop data and insights to keep up with the quickening pace of change. On the other hand, you need to think about how to live up to your role as a leader role by really helping to lead change, but not to steer it too much.

Making your sales organization more innovative starts with you, but is still a team activity. Top leadership (levels above, cross-functional, ...) need to be bought in and aligned on the end goal. As managers, you can help create a culture of innovation by making changes such as the creation of teams with different skill sets, shift behaviors through practices that imbue a sense of experimentation, learning and improvement.

Together with your core team, you need to select the right timing and speed for a change. It may not be necessary to always be moving fast. It is much better to be more strategic in your approach - adopting new ideas and practices. Take the time to test, experience, implement and then learn quickly from the pros and cons.

Communication

Communication is key. Open and transparent discussions can help build understanding and power a sense of ownership during the change. As a leader, you need to articulate the threats and opportunities ahead, but as well create drivers for the individuals in the organization who want to make positive change driven by dreams (fear can as well be a driver but more difficult to use).

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!