Your Operating Rhythm for Selling

A few years ago I wrote an article called “How to create an operating rhythm to improve productivity”, which created a bit of a following; over 10,000 views at last count.

As someone in a business development role, I felt that with the economic headwinds circulating, it would be worthwhile to review the article through the lens of the most critical aspect of any business: selling.

The original article defined an operating rhythm as: The regular activities that exist across and within a business, that are performed to a high standard. The article referred to 7 steps which are summarised below, along with their application to the sales side of things.

Please note that the focus of the article is about the “what” to do.?The “how”, equally as important, is about the capability of your sales team. The two are therefore inextricably intertwined.

Step 1.?Determine why you wish to create an operating rhythm.

• It’s about improving the overall sales performance of your team and reducing the variation between the best performer, and the one who is most struggling. You achieve this having your salespeople work to a set standard, daily. The standard you set must be so granular that it includes a detailed “day in the life of” the normal salesperson, with examples of how to undertake each specific task.
• Many sales teams work more as individuals rather than leveraging each other strengths. Often these individuals find their own way to achieve success. However, the principles of success will be the same across your team and it’s about leveraging these (see Jim Collins and his “Flywheel” concept).
• Creating an operating rhythm identifies all the key components of success for this flywheel. Team members do not recreate their own wheel but put their energies into refining your team’s success principles. Leveraging each other’s strengths in different components of the same wheel brings the opportunity for team synergy, where their efforts are multiplied, and engagement thrives. “Big things happen because you do a bunch of small things supremely well.”?Jim Collins

Step 2.?Determine the key activities needed to underpin the objective.

• Working with existing clients. When it comes to existing clients, what’s the standard you have set when it comes to ongoing contact??Are there set weekly, monthly and/or quarterly meetings, over and above any ongoing contact, where such meetings are strategic in nature, with a set agenda, that look towards “partnering” over the next 24 to 36 months?
• Prospecting for new clients. When prospecting, have you mapped out in detail the lead generation process for your industry (eg from connecting on LinkedIn to an introductory email, to having a series of emails and insights that take the individual on a journey over a 6 month process, where there are set scripts for client facing staff to leverage. Are there for example, set times each day, the “big rocks”, where prospecting is expected.
• Have you identified your key “lead measure” that drives sales performance (ie that one activity that is most predictable of identifying new opportunities), and therefore the key actions/commitments needed each week that will underpin your lead measure?

Step 3.?Determine a “common way” about how these activities should occur.

• There are no shortage of sales programs available, indeed, most sales professionals will have attended numerous such sessions in their careers. Such programs are important, however ongoing refresher sessions are more important, and ongoing learning is vital. Weekly refreshers on a core skill should be non-negotiable. Scripting is important, if only to bullet point key messages that individuals make their own. Role playing is a must. Working to a rhythm essential.
• Many sales activities require preparation. When your team align their activities, the same preparation can be shared across the team. For instance, if your “customer touch points” include sending regular emails or ‘Insights’ then the team can share the load of writing these emails or insights.

Step 4.?Determine how often you wish these activities to occur

• This is as obvious as it sounds – what's the frequency of each activity you wish to see??Daily, weekly, or monthly? The “test” is quite simply whether or not a new salesperson can pick up your “playbook” (that outlines in detail each activity and the frequency of when it should occur) and run with it on Day 2 in the role to make them as productive as possible, as quickly as possible.

Step 5.?Allow flexibility in the way these common activities are run

• Whilst you don't?want to mandate?an approach; it is important to understand that your best performers will work to a standard.?Your role as a leader is to encourage others to see the benefit of the approach. The more granular the framework you create, and the more detail you provide, the less room you allow for variation within your sales process.?Given your framework is based on a standard of excellence, your best performers will in turn sharpen their skills and their process to perform at a higher level, bringing the team with them.
• Scripts for example create clarity of what success looks like, but this should be balanced with individual style. They should be a foundation to work from, not recited word for word. They are also time savers – it’s much easier to modify a script rather than start from scratch each time.
• The individual modifications can then be shared across the team to test the success of ongoing refinements and inspire continuous new improvements.

Step 6.?Demonstrate the standard to all stakeholders.

• If you are a sales leader, we strongly suggest that you retain clients that you manage to the very framework you set your team.?Great leaders produce results. They produce results from the actions they take with their actions driven by how they think.?How they think is influenced by the habits and principles they apply.?So, as a leader, if you truly wish to lead, you need to demonstrate the very habits of success that are part and parcel of the detailed sales framework you create for your team.

Step 7.?Reinforce these activities through ongoing communication and activity.

• Recognise that salespeople need more support in their role than others. Invest in systems, processes, procedures, product training, positioning, scripting, customer insights and role playing. Support them by providing access to world standard learning content, pushing insights out weekly to continually remind them of the framework they have helped create, and how to improve. Your salespeople make you money – invest in them, weekly.
• Ongoing communications, reinforcement, coaching of all the activities is a project itself.

If the above sounds of interest and you’d like to learn more, we’ve created a detailed slide-deck that summarises the above, down to a “day in the life of”. We developed this deck leveraging the very principle of “highly successful people”.?Please let me know if you’d like a closer look.

“Big things happen because you do a bunch of small things supremely well.”