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Auto Analytics: Measuring Sales Behaviors

You can’t manage metrics, only behaviors. Auto-analytics captures sales behaviors by measuring and monitoring sales system usage. These metrics give sales leaders access to the next level of transparency and provide the foundation for fact-based best practices for the entire sales organization.

Sales Enablement: Strategic Issues 2014

Sales enablement is evolving into a crucial role for the sales organization. Sales enablement aligns sales and marketing and is the linchpin for collaboration and transparency across the organization. In 2014, sales organizations will look to sales enablement to provide the systems and structure needed for success.

Inside Sales: Teleprospecting

World-Class Sales Organizations maximize the time their salespeople spend in front of customers. Teleprospecting drives sales productivity by freeing the field salesperson from the time-consuming task of generating and qualifying opportunities. Teleprospecting also maximizes marketing’s output by ensuring no qualified leads slip through the cracks.

2014 Sales Performance Summit

The annual Miller Heiman Sales Performance Summit allows you to connect with fellow Miller Heiman clients as well as our Executives on key trends and best practices in driving sales productivity. Register by December 31 to take advantage of early registration rates for this event held September 16 – 17, 2014 at the Four Seasons Hotel Denver. Register Now >

Thought Leading Blogs

Keep up with the perspectives offered by Miller Heiman in our blog that is showcased as part of our website. Stay connected with key insights offered by our executives. Read Now >

Perspectives on Productivity: Strategic Issues of Sales EnablementIn the analogue days of yesteryear, sales people would search the marketing shelves

for brochures, case studies or other customer facing knowledge assets. They could

always tell what others were using because those were the empty shelves. They

would ask their fellow sales people what worked and informally share different

assets. In today’s digital world, content exists everywhere and is freely exchanged.

The downside for the sales person is they can no longer see what’s being used and

the amount of content they have to distil is overwhelming.

The role of sales enablement continues to gain strategic importance as the amount

of information sales people have to manage escalates. In addition to the details

describing their capabilities, position in the market and unique value proposition,

they must be able to connect with knowledge resources, technical experts or market

specialists. Collaboration has taken on a whole new importance as connecting and

engaging with expertise within their company becomes foundation for providing

their customers with a respected, credible perspective on their business.

The evolution of the information portal to a knowledge exchange sets the stage

for an entirely different level of visibility to the behaviors of sales people. Drawn

by the information, data and resources available in the knowledge exchange and

powered by their own use of technology, a digital footprint of behaviors emerges.

Monitoring and connecting the content, activities and behaviors used by successful

sales people creates the next level of transparency.

In our Research Note, Sales Enablement: Strategic Issues 2014, we explore

the issues and opportunities faced with empowering today’s technology driven

sales professional. Replacing the analogue information networks and physical

marketing shelves with a social platform for the digital sales rep will not only

increase their productivity, but give unprecedented visibility to their behaviors.

Joe Galvin

http://www.millerheiman.com/workshops_events/client_summit/SanDiego_USA/Advanced-Registration/

http://www.millerheiman.com/blog/Miller-Heiman-Blog/

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Strategic Issue: How will auto analytics give sales leaders access to the next level

of transparency?

Strategic Issue: A complex question that

requires research, data, perspective,

knowledge and context to answer

Auto Analytics: Measuring Sales Behaviors Joe Galvin Volume 2, Edition 36

Strategic Decision Auto analytics captures the activities, behaviors and best

practices of sales professionals by monitoring their usage

and application of sales technologies. Connected sales

professionals use email, knowledge management,

productivity applications and customer relationship

management (CRM) systems to access the information

they need, develop strategies and messages, connect to

internal resources and interact with customers. Measuring and analyzing these behaviors

enables sales leaders to replace their subjective judgment of what works with fact-based

productivity data.

Healthy Data

Wearable technology is here. Smart watches monitor your heart rate. Workout chronometers gauge caloric burn and cardio

range. There are even devices that measure our sleep patterns. All of these devices provide us with data that supplements what

we believe with facts. We believe that working out five days a week is part of a healthy lifestyle. By monitoring our workouts,

we can now track our 30 minutes in our personalized cardio zone and correlate it to our fitness level. We still have to do the

workout, but access to the data ensures we maximize the value and reduce the risks. What if every sales professional wore a

Google Glass that allowed us to see what they see, watch what they do and hear what they hear and say? Analysis of this “big

data” source would convert what we believe about sales behaviors and performance into actionable information.

Just Do It

Sales professionals do lots of things. They make calls, send

emails, build strategies and create proposals. Salespeople

research potential opportunities, collaborate with subject

matter experts and their manager and manage current

opportunities as well as their existing customer relationships.

They communicate with their customers via multiple

mediums while they work their internal networks to gather

information and access the resources they need. Any of these

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sales activities, no matter how mundane, might contribute to a successful

outcome. The challenge is to determine which activities and behaviors

contribute the most.

Frontline Sales Managers (FSMs) spend time with salespeople, coaching

and inspecting to ensure they are not just doing enough of the right

activities, but doing them right. FSMs observe customer interactions and

look for ways to improve results. They identify behaviors in the field that

lead to success, creating the basis for sales best practices. Unfortunately, the

data gathered by the FSMs is anecdotal, and their limited bandwidth

prevents them from spending enough time with enough salespeople to fully

understand which behaviors have the greatest impact on performance.

Meanwhile, sales professionals also recalibrate their perception of what does

and doesn’t work based on experience. To improve outcomes, they adjust

how they spend their time, reprioritize their focus, adapt their strategies and

prepare for the next interaction. They vary their prospecting methods using

different tactics and messages. They build their knowledge networks to

improve access to information and resources. They refine their interaction

strategies for managing and developing existing customer relationships.

Consciously or instinctively, salespeople just do it.

Auto Analytics

Auto analytics is the automated collection and analysis of sales behavioral

data. Without asking the salesperson to do anything outside of their normal

sales routine, auto analytics measures their utilization of sales technologies

such as email, voice mail, knowledge systems, opportunity management

systems and CRM systems. Auto analytics also monitors other technologies

used during the sales process: prospecting tools, proposal management

systems, ROI calculators and other sales productivity applications. Further

monitoring of social media platforms used for prospecting and social selling allows the organization to capture massive

amounts of behavioral data.

This analysis of technology utilization provides a glimpse into best-practice behavioral data. The topics searched, the

documents viewed and the presentations downloaded most frequently by high-performing sales professionals can be extracted

from knowledge management systems. The customer communications that occur in successful pursuits are captured in email

systems. The tactics and messages that generate more qualified opportunities can be distilled from email and knowledge

management systems. With the growth of social communications, voice mail and email interactions can be captured,

World-Class Sales Organizations

All Respondents

“We know why our top performers are successful.”

“We leverage the best practices of top performers to improve everybody else.”

World-Class Sales Organizations recognize that repeatable, sustainable revenue growth is fueled by the analysis and understanding of the strategies, tactics and behaviors of their top performers. They proactively use this understanding to improve the performance of the entire organization.

SOURCE: 2013 Miller Heiman Sales Best Practices Study

93% 34%

89% 21%

Strategic Data

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synthesized and analyzed, allowing knowledge sources and influencers to be identified and promoted. Analysis of “who is using

what” begins to develop the digital profile of the highly productive sales professional.

Productivity Redefined

Auto analytics will redefine sales productivity. Most

organizations use financial applications such as order entry,

expense management, incentive compensation and territory

management to measure the economic productivity of the

sales organization by connecting costs with revenue and

resources. Metrics like cost of sales, average deal size or

revenue per salesperson measure sales results. However,

without an analysis of how these results were achieved, the

picture is incomplete.

Tying behaviors to productivity replaces the purely

judgmental and political assessments of FSMs and sales

leaders with analytics. Aggregating opportunity data from

CRM systems and connecting it with behavioral data from

sales applications and knowledge management systems

creates a holistic image of sales activities over the lifecycle of

the opportunity. Data points connect sales cycle length to

account strategy and message as well as sales call strategies

such as obtaining action commitments from customers and

achieving opportunity milestone conversions. Data points for

time spent in each sales phase and conversion rate by sales

phase and opportunity type provide facts to replace

perceptions.

Connecting Behaviors with Outcomes

Connecting sales behaviors with customer outcomes

provides the next level of transparency for the sales

organization. Completing an activity is not a substitute for

obtaining a customer action commitment, and verified

customer outcomes are the prerequisite for advancing an

opportunity. The consistent application of customer

management strategies allows the organization to capture

opportunity details, strategy and status in the sales force

automation system. With credible data, the organization has

a new, more effective foundation for establishing sales

behaviors and best practices.

This new level of visibility into behaviors and best practices

also allows sales leaders to radically improve their ability to

predict sales performance. In addition, they are better able to

influence sales behaviors by rewarding, recognizing and

promoting the right behaviors and by establishing training

priorities and targeting sales enablement investments more

effectively.

For the sales professional, behavioral data accelerates

learning by tapping into a collective knowledge that far

exceeds their own. Instead of building up their own

“experience database,” they can tap into the collective

experiences of top performers, substantially shortening the

time it takes for them to join the ranks of the successful.

Analytics also allows the sales professional to gain an

advantage by anticipating the activities, strategic issues and

customer behaviors typical of the customer decision-making

process. This allows them to isolate and reprioritize those

opportunities that may only consume time and resources.

Auto analytics is the technology that brings “big data” to

sales and science to the art of sales management. The

compilation and analysis of data from a variety of sales

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systems creates a digital profile of what sales professionals

actually do and how they do it. As auto analytics evolves, ever

faster and more powerful computing technologies will

become capable of capturing and processing every

technology touch point, customer interaction and message.

Speech/text analytics, cognitive computing and machine

learning will produce even more powerful behavioral

analytics. World-Class Sales Organizations are already head

and shoulders above their peers at connecting behaviors with

outcomes to improve performance. Auto analytics will widen

that gap.

About the Miller Heiman Research Institute: MHRI is a research organization dedicated to improving the performance and

productivity of complex B2B sales organizations. We help members develop and hone sales strategies by providing thought-

leading research, critical analysis, benchmarking against World-Class Sales Organizations and customized insight into their

strategic issues through our advisory services. Through our extensive research into the best practices, strategies and decision

frameworks of World-Class Sales Organizations, we help our clients apply these insights to their organization through

published research, keynotes and presentations as well as analyst inquiry.

Contact our Director of Member Experience or call 775-284-9035.

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Sales Enablement: Strategic Issues 2014 Joe Galvin Volume 2, Edition 35

Strategic Decision To connect to the customer’s concept, sales professionals

need to quickly access, filter and adapt a variety of content

and messages. As buyers’ needs increase in complexity, the

value of having relevant information, data and messages at

their fingertips increases. Sales enablement’s strategic

value increases with its ability to improve the relevance,

volume and velocity of the knowledge available to the sales

professional.

Making the Connection

The switchboard was the hub of the early telephone system. When a call was placed, operators had to manually connect the

dialer with the receiver. As the number of phones and volume of calls exploded, switching technology advanced and evolved to

manage the increased workload. Sales enablement must advance and evolve as well. Satisfying the increasing information

demands of the sales professional requires sales enablement to leverage technology that provides sales with quick access to the

document, data point, presentation or knowledge resource that will help them connect to their customer’s concept.

This Research Note outlines four strategic issues that sales enablement must consider as they seek to meet the increasing

demand for relevant, timely sales assets in 2014.

Knowledge Exchange

Strategic Issue: How does the salesperson access and

exchange knowledge?

At a minimum, salespeople need access to a single, go-to

source for customer-ready content and data. Without a

trusted, respected, single source of knowledge, sales will

revert to their informal, personal knowledge networks where

the information they gather may be stale, incomplete or

incorrect. It is sales enablement’s responsibility to provide,

at a minimum, an information portal that is consolidated,

synthesized and categorized to allow a salesperson to quickly

find the information they need to connect with their

customers. In the knowledge access or information portal

phase, customer-facing content such as presentations, case

Strategic Issue: How will sales enablement tap into and harness the collective

knowledge of the sales organization?




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studies and white papers is generic. As customers move through the buying

process and information needs change, sales enablement must rise to the

challenge and provide deeper, richer levels of information.

Knowledge transfer takes the sales information portal to the next level

where marketing and sales enablement teams collaborate to develop and

map messaging, content and support resources to each stage of the buying

cycle. To ensure only current content is used with prospects, they develop

alert mechanisms such as icons, links or emails that notify sales when a

document has been added or revised. By leveraging sales portal metrics such

as views and downloads, marketing and sales enablement assess usability,

consumption and effectiveness of the content. Continual evaluation of sales

asset usage allows marketing to create new assets or update old ones to

increase their effectiveness.

Knowledge exchange, the final stage, extends knowledge access and transfer

onto a platform where salespeople acquire information and exchange field

intelligence through two-way communication with peers, managers and

subject matter experts (SMEs). This knowledge platform takes advantage of

social technologies, which further enable the exchange of information

between salespeople, within the sales organization and with the various

knowledge resources that support sales.

Collaboration

Strategic Issue: How does social collaboration change the knowledge

management platform?

Collaboration happens naturally in sales. Salespeople exchange information

daily within their personal knowledge networks. They connect with their

manager or a corporate resource for strategy or product detail. They talk

with peers, exchanging bits of client experience, product insights, value

messages and competitive tips. The spirit of collaboration is ignited in the knowledge transfer phase when SMEs, sales trainers,

sales leaders, content leaders, product managers and others make domain-specific knowledge and content available to all on a

social collaboration platform. Sales enablement uses the platform to push time-based content such as new product launch

information, cross-sell opportunities or sales programs. This concentration of content draws the salesperson to the platform.

The accessibility and quality of content brings them back. As salespeople begin to “follow” meaningful knowledge sources, sales

enablement is able to analyze their behaviors and help content owners sharpen and prioritize the types of content they create.


All Respondents

“Our organization collaborates across all departments to pursue large deals.”

“Our CRM system is highly effective for enabling our organization to collaborate across departments.”

The ability to effectively collaborate across the organization in pursuit of large deals sets World-Class Sales Organizations apart from their less successful peers. Sales enablement plays a vital role by providing the platform that enables this collaboration.


93% 43%

67% 19%

Strategic Data

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Knowledge exchange elevates the informal exchange of

information from phone calls and private emails onto an

open, public collaboration platform that makes the

knowledge available to all.

Most salespeople will at least explore what’s available on the

knowledge exchange platform, but sharing is not easy for

some people. It may take time for the highly competitive

salesperson to be comfortable contributing. The more open

salesperson will be quick to adopt the technology, rating

content and providing constructive comments based on their

experience in the field. These early adopters often use social

technologies like Chatter or Jive to gather knowledge and

information and communicate with SMEs through blogging

and discussion forums.

Knowledge exchange requires interactivity. Salespeople

collaborate when they rate a document or webinar, sharing

their opinion on value and relevance. The postings of

comments or feedback capture sales sentiment, allowing for

content requests, improvement or direction. Discussion

forums, moderated blogs or micro-blogging allow the

salesperson to comment, question or contribute to a dialogue

they have an interest in. Sales force automation (SFA)

captures some of this, but standalone text boxes aren’t

conducive to a flowing, real-time dialogue. For World-Class

Sales Organizations, the ability to quickly acquire and share

knowledge is the secret to responding to changing market

conditions, outselling the competition and connecting to

customers.

Marketing Alignment

Strategic Issue: How are your messages connected to your

customer management strategy?

To advance the sale, salespeople must be able to

communicate value messages effectively. Everyone involved

in the sales process needs to know what happens at each

stage of the sales cycle, and ensuring alignment often

requires marketing teams, SMEs and other specialists to

attend sales methodology training. By learning the

methodology, language, process and actions taken during the

course of an opportunity, they are better equipped to develop

and deliver the content, messages and support required at

each stage of the sales cycle.

Aligning messaging to customer management strategies can

be tough, and marketing plays a key role. Today’s buyers are

doing more up-front research on products and services,

changing the discussion basis when engaging sales resources.

As a result, marketing must deliver messages that are

relevant and timely before initial customer contact. Once the

prospect engages with sales and as opportunities advance,

marketing must develop additional levels of messaging detail

to address changing information needs. Vertical market

messaging, buyer persona value points and objection

handling intelligence all increase in importance. Aligning

messaging with the sales methodology provides for a more

consistent delivery of core value propositions and gives

marketing the opportunity to measure which messages are

most effective at different points in the process. It also

promotes more effective team selling as salespeople,

mangers, product specialists and other team members work

from the same set of messages and materials. World-Class

Organizations integrate knowledge management to their

CRM system to provide relevant content at each step in the

sales process.

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The Next Level of Transparency

Strategic Issue: How does behavioral data contribute new

insights into sales productivity?

Selling is becoming more complex as buyer dynamics evolve.

Time spent searching for information or creating ad hoc

content drains sales productivity. The knowledge exchange

platform provides salespeople with a one-stop-shop for

current and relevant content and is the starting point for

productivity improvement initiatives.

This knowledge exchange also makes it possible for the

organization to gather behavioral data. This new form of data

identifies the content salespeople use and the messages they

deliver by harnessing real-time intelligence gained from

every interaction, both internal and with customers.

Elevating collaboration from “water cooler” conversations,

personal knowledge networks and email chains to a

structured, social environment further enables the capture

and analysis of the knowledge exchanged. Connecting the

activities, messages and behaviors of salespeople with the

outcomes of customer interactions provides a new

perspective on sales productivity and the behaviors that

promote it.

Unlike SFA systems where the salesperson is required to

enter data, behavioral data is automatically extracted from

the knowledge exchange platform by monitoring and

cataloging what the salesperson does. Analysis of this

behavioral data creates an entirely new level of transparency

by replacing the subjective, field-gathered, “experiential”

data that sales leaders have always relied on.

At the most basic level, sales enablement plays a vital role by

connecting marketing to sales and ensuring messages are

aligned with the sales methodology. Their strategic value

increases as they gather feedback that helps improve the

effectiveness of the sales assets available on the portal. As

sales enablement evolves even further, they become the

linchpin for collaboration and transparency across the

organization.








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Inside Sales: Teleprospecting Donna Walker Volume 2, Edition 34

Strategic Decision Many salespeople spend precious time filtering and

qualifying leads generated by marketing. This drains

productivity because it takes them away from what they do

best – selling. World-Class Sales Organizations employ

teleprospecting teams to qualify and deliver sales-ready

leads, leaving salespeople more time to spend in front of

customers.

Looking for Gold

During the California Gold Rush, prospectors lined up next to each other along shallow streams, sifting through rocks and sand

in search of gold nuggets that could be quickly converted to cash. Those who processed the most rocks and sand found the

most gold. Today, digital demand creation and inbound inquires have dramatically increased the volume of potential leads.

The role of the teleprospector is to filter the rocks and sand from the lead list and pass on the golden opportunity nuggets for

sales to convert to revenue.

Maximizing Sales Productivity

Due to an increasing emphasis on revenue production,

salespeople are under immense pressure to make their

numbers. Generally, if they are not in the field, they are not

generating revenue for the company. Furthermore, with time

at a premium, it only makes sense for sales to put effort into

those opportunities they think they can close. This means

that today’s marketers are being asked to consider the best

use of a salesperson’s time and send them only “sales-ready”

leads that are worthy of follow up.

Marketing continues to generate demand through campaigns

and inbound programs, but many organizations also employ

teleprospectors to reduce the need for salespeople to spend

valuable selling time qualifying these opportunities.

Teleprospecting also frees up salespeople to concentrate on

the job they have been specifically trained to do as opposed

to sitting on the phone “dialing for dollars.” In addition, this

steady flow of new, qualified opportunities can soften the

usual peaks and valleys that are typical in sales and allow for

a more predictable sales forecast. Teleprospecting provides a

Strategic Issue: How can a teleprospector

increase revenue and productivity for salespeople?




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measurable contribution to revenue, and many successful B2B sales

organizations are building repeatable, systematic, demand-creation engines

with teleprospecting as a key component.

Teleprospecting is the use of a technology-enabled, inside resource to

qualify and/or generate leads based on a pre-determined definition of a

sales-ready opportunity. The goal of teleprospecting is to glean out the few

"nuggets of gold" from the hundreds of unqualified leads in the prospect

database and allow your salespeople to focus on closing those deals. But, like

the prospectors during the California Gold Rush, your teleprospectors must

be trained to identify those nuggets. Clearly defining what a qualified lead

looks like is a vital step in leveraging teleprospecting to maximize

productivity.

While the criteria for a lead will vary from organization to organization,

teleprospectors must identify BANT (budget-authority-need-timeline)

characteristics before a lead can be classified as sales ready. Trained

teleprospectors utilize a detailed call guide, which includes lead criteria, to

engage executives in a high-level conversation about their company's needs

with respect to a particular trend, product or service. They also try to gauge

the company's pain and plans to implement a solution. If the information

they receive matches the defined criteria for a sales-ready lead, they pass the

opportunity on to sales. If the lead does not meet the sales-ready criteria, it

should be nurtured through a structured, multi-touch program that includes

timely emails containing relevant content such as articles, white papers,

success stories and webinars. This allows marketing to build an opt-in

database and keep prospects informed and engaged until they meet the

sales-ready criteria.

Critical Elements

Building a strong teleprospecting team requires four critical elements:

Metrics: The right set of metrics tracks both the behavior and performance

of the teleprospector. Behaviors are the activities that teleprospectors do

every day to achieve their goals. These behaviors can be influenced and

coached through training and oversight.

Examples of behavior metrics include:


All Respondents

“Specific criteria have been established to define an acceptable prospect for our company.”

“Sales and Marketing are aligned in what our customers want and need.”

Qualifying, rating and tracking leads enables an organization to measure and maximize the ROI of their demand generation programs. World-Class Sales Organizations start by establishing a set of criteria that defines a qualified lead. Both sales and marketing need to agree upon the criteria and any other information vital to sales performance. This “sales ready” designation ensures that sales spends more time selling and less time generating and qualifying opportunities.


87% 32%

89% 26%

Strategic Data

3

Dials per day - the number of calls a teleprospector makes per day

Connects per day – the number of calls per day resulting in a conversation

Conversations per day – the amount of time per day a teleprospector spends articulating the value proposition

Performance metrics track the impact of teleprospecting and depend on the quality of leads funneled from marketing as well as

the teleprospector’s skill at qualifying opportunities.

Examples of performance metrics include:

Leads per week – the number of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) the teleprospector passes to sales

Sales acceptance – the number of MQLs that sales has accepted

Opportunities won – the number of opportunities closed by sales that started out as an MQL from the teleprospecting

team

Compensation: In most cases, the teleprospector is considered a non-exempt employee and paid an hourly base rate.

Teleprospectors usually have a variable compensation component that is tied to performance metrics. The division between

base and variable compensation ranges from a 50/50 split to 80 percent base and 20 percent variable. The amount of variable

compensation is often tied to the level of experience desired and the complexity of the product or solution offered.

Training: The teleprospector must be able to effectively build rapport, identify a qualified lead, discover buyer motivation and

transition quality leads into opportunities for sales. They also need to master internal systems such as marketing automation

and customer relationship management (CRM) so they can track and manage leads until they are ready to be assigned to the

sales team. The teleprospecting training curriculum must be designed with both of these skills in mind.

Technology: New technology designed to help salespeople connect with customers is emerging every day. Marketing

automation tools such as Eloqua and Marketo do a great job of helping marketers develop, implement and track campaigns.

Leads from these campaigns are scored based on pre-defined criteria and integrated into CRM as an MQL. In addition to

gathering information against the BANT criteria, teleprospectors must also determine if the lead contact is an influencer or a

decision maker, their role in the company, their information requirements and their buying process. This information must

also be entered into the system so it can be passed on to sales.

Partnering for Results

Sales and marketing need to reach a consensus on what

constitutes a qualified lead. With a unified vision of a sales-

ready lead, teleprospecting can be the crucial bridge between

upstream marketing campaigns and downstream sales teams.

From sales, teleprospecting receives first-hand feedback that

can help the team improve its practices and qualifying skills.

Teleprospecting can also provide marketing with clarity on

how to better tune media, messaging and tactics to improve

upstream yields. Empathy and integration between teams

combined with insight into the downstream sales funnel is a

vital ingredient in maximizing productivity.

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World-Class Sales Organizations maximize the time their

salespeople spend in front of customers. They also ensure

that marketing provides sales with enough fresh, qualified

opportunities to meet their goals. A well-trained

teleprospecting team enables both sales and marketing to

operate at peak performance. By qualifying leads from

marketing, they see that no nuggets of opportunity are

overlooked, and they ensure that sales doesn’t need to waste

valuable selling time sifting through rocks and sand for

potential revenue.








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