Win Your Customer Through Consultative Selling

As a Regional Manager-Sales, North , Sandeep leads a team of Key Account Managers at a consumer durable & electronics major. Besides being responsible for his region’s performance, he also handles few key clients directly. One among them is a multi brand retail major in the country – Citylife Retail. The client has been facing a major slowdown in the brick and mortar model business from online sellers. With the foray of new brands and sellers based on digital technology model, the competition is fierce. Although Citylife Retail is a huge brand in North, it is losing its market share to perceivably newer brands and sellers for their novelty factors. Sandeep is known to be an expert in consultative selling by virtue of his training and experience he has supported many clients to win in the marketplace. In the recent past he has supported his clients to transform through new media solutions. His current challenge is to transform Citylife Retail.  

How does Sandeep understand Citylife’s problems?

Sandeep meets the director- sales &marketing of Citylife – Swati Pal – to understand the issues, challenges and reasons for the dip in sales numbers. Over several meetings with Swati he learns more about the brand proposition and gains insights about the needs of Citylife’s customers. The meetings help Sandeep to infer that apart from other factors, digital boom has been instrumental in creating tough business environment for Citylife. The philosophy of consultative selling is found on understanding a customer’s needs and position the solution to those identified needs.

In today’s VUCA environment when the complexity in the ecosystem of business is ever growing, enterprises look for trusted and worthy advisors to guide them to better results. It can be inferred with reasonable certainty that this business environment is only going to become more complex in the future. The most significant reason for the same has been the internet. Digital has facilitated the decision-makers (customers) to research, analyze and assess the various offerings of the sellers online. By the time the customers start talking to a potential seller, they are already on the decision-making journey and this makes ‘consultative selling’ even more relevant.

What does Sandeep infer? 

Citylife’s current customer demographic profile was skewed towards the older loyalist and they were not able to attract new customers owing to lack of novelty in brand experience. Also, they had no online platform for the millennials who comprised the chunk of new buyers. Sandeep also learns that at the shop floor level there was an urgent need to engage the sales staff and for the back-end corporate team it was pertinent to understand new consumer trends and experiences. In consultative selling, the focus is on comprehending customer’s needs and educating the customer simultaneously. To render this, the sales professional often requires strong sapiential authority which is essentially possession of a high-level knowledge and insight that can be used to influence the customer. Today, what customers are looking from sales professionals is not merely defining their needs, but also educating and partnering with them for innovative ideas and solutions that will help their business to perform in dynamic environment.  

Sandeep concluded that if Citylife had to be relevant in the face of new market dynamics and customer expectations it first needed to change the internal customers. With experience, he knew that any successful change begins with an organizational culture change. Also, Citylife had to find a new way to reach the new customers who had a discerning preference for online shopping. Consultative Selling focuses not only on defining customer needs but also redefining how the customer perceives those needs. He communicated to them that it will take effort on their part to change and inspire them to take both strategic and tactical actions, thereby driving organizational change in the process.

What was advised by Sandeep ? 

Considering the fact that Citylife was already an established player in the traditional brick and mortar business model, Sandeep did not want to turn their apple cart. Hence he came up with a hybrid approach for Swati. Besides organization culture change and other solutions the first proposition included ‘consultative selling’ approach as a key to address the loyal customer base. At the same time his second proposition was the launch of an online portal with competitive pricing. Both were necessary to be relevant in the minds of existing loyalist while building a high perception brand value to attract the new consumers.  

With multiple online media, there is plethora of information on the web, and most customers and /or decision makers know how to find and construe it. This leads to tough competition giving multiple options to the customer to choose from. Almost invariably this leads to a situation where several competing players offer comparable approaches to solving the same problem of the customer. Customers are pampered with multiple options which allows them to compare different sellers against similar parameters thereby funneling it all down to price wars and discounting. The opportunity with consultative selling is to vivify the differentiated offerings in the minds of the customers.  Consultative selling is an opportunity to share tacit knowledge and build greater perceived value. The seller with higher perceived ‘value’ wins in the market place through consultative approach.  

‘Value’ is defined as the perception of something of worth. Since it is based on perception ‘value’, it is determined differently by every individual. Buyers examine ‘value’ as what they get, versus what ‘price’ they pay. Hence Sandeep made Citylife understand that they will need to ‘create’ value as well as ‘communicate’ value to affect tangible business impact for themselves. This was a clear case of consultative selling to create sustainable brand value.

Why did Sandeep advise what he did?

The rise of the internet and social media has contributed to the acceleration of change in the sales approach and methodology. The belief is that in the future, this trend of internet usage and social media will continue to proliferate. Therefore, Citylife’s sales efforts will need to adapt ‘go-to-market’ strategies and new methods to support and fit the immensely increased knowledge power of consumers to see greater success. Social media has made everything transparent and brands who have a strong “digital presence” are more empowered to deliver value via new modes of digital media for a better customer experience.  

Sandeep knows that the path of change was difficult; however, it is deemed to be a mandate for impacting business results in future. As a consultative seller, Sandeep has had a record of transforming the businesses of many of his clients to the path of success through collaboration. His solutions approach is multi-dimensional and much broader in its scope and nature. Even his customers are often pleasantly surprised at his creative abilities in providing solutions to impact business performance. His past collaborations with his clients have had a high success rate. This time too his solution to transform Citylife through his multipronged advice looks promising.   

However, only time will testify about Citylife’s success and if Sandeep would succeed once again through ‘Consultative Selling’.

What is your prediction– will Sandeep create another successful business transformation?

Know more about InspireOne Sales Development Solutions

Is the Sales Team enabled for Dynamic Business World?

It is an annual sales conference and sales leaders, at various levels, from length and breadth of the country have arrived. The atmosphere is staid and all the participants look serious. Sergio, the business head plans to do 360-degree assessment of past year and chart out a robust future direction to meet the business environment challenges. He has met the HR and Sales head few weeks back to map engagement levels and sales performance of the sales leaders and their team. So, what is the verdict?

The sales team is engaged but their performance enablement scores are low

The sales team is engaged but their performance enablement scores are low as per the recent Organization Employee Engagement Surveys. Performance Engagement Index (PEI) showed low levels of customer service and product quality. The sales team’s capability to close a business opportunity right in the moment was poor due to low involvement and varied collaboration efforts. Further even Sr. sales Leadership team’s PEI was found abysmal. A correlation was established between the sales team and their sales leader’s low PEI.

Empower sales leaders to empower sales team

As the top level results were shared, Sergio knew that if the senior sales leadership challenges could be understood and addressed then the entire sales team could be aligned and business be led on to the growth trajectory.

Sergio wanted to find out if the organization structure was empowering the sales leaders.

The EES results showed low PEI for Sr. Leadership team because they were not empowered sufficiently to lead their teams. They were operating at a managerial role rather than assuming a more leadership role. Instead of focusing on the bigger picture and accordingly taking decisions, they were occupied with executing activities. What could have been the reason(s)? Was there a training gap? Or was it the old organizational structure which no longer supported the dynamic business environment?

As per IBM’s research on Leadership and engagement in tomorrow’s organization the old leadership behaviors, once rewarded are no longer relevant. To improve the organization’s bottom – line business results, specific new leadership behaviors are required. One needs to learn from the high performing leaders and understand how to be effective in the dynamic business environment.

What skills and behaviors will the sales leaders need to meet the Business results in the dynamic environment?

In today’s modern Business world, having a culture that is customer-centric ( SCCC Link) is essential. To ensure the right service skills in the business, the business needs to be structured in a way that enables great service experiences, and the right systems and processes support it.

To Sergio it was clear that Sales Leadership was not able to leverage an engaged Salesforce due to their inability to share the right signals (TMI 5 box Model) – alignment between aspiration to be customer-focused and ability to deliver it. The ‘Big Picture’ of the organization was not percolated well amongst the sales teams, if at all done.

The service culture can only flourish if leaders display the right service behaviors – and so signal the genuine intent. It is estimated that about 40% of the success of an organization is due to the capabilities of its leaders.

Becoming inspiring Sales Leaders to inspire Performance

Sales leaders needed to move away from operational role to a leadership role. Sergio knew this would involve setting up processes and structures which will finally drive the various PEI factors, and in turn drive business results. An organization’s success depends upon motivated sales team who achieve their goals driven by inspiring sales leadership at all levels.

Creating inspiring Sales leaders

Sergio with the help of his HR leader reviewed the sales leaders and put in place programs  to develop the necessary skills and behaviors. To evaluate the sales leaders three metrics of – team engagement / motivation, customer satisfaction and financial business performance –  were put in place. Finally, through sales leader’s own walk–the-talk attitude, the entire sales team was transformed. This lead to monumental and encouraging business results.

Next year during the Annual Sales conference, the year was declared the best business growth year of the decade with the highest sales employee engagement rate ever.

Create your organization’s success story through inspiring sales leadership

All businesses depend upon their leaders. This is especially true for the sales team, who rely upon their sales leader to be the harbinger for finding the vision, valuing their contribution and providing them the right support. To perform in the modern business world means to strengthen your sales team through inspiring sales leadership. Sergio created a success story for his organization through sales leadership. Are you ready to create yours?

Assessments Outcome - InspireOne

When including assessments into the recruitment process, most clients we speak to are keen to know the outcomes and often focus on reduced time to hire and lesser turnover.

As a consequence of introducing assessments, other improvements such as consistency in the process and a better idea of which sourcing channel is identifying better candidates are also very much possible.

We like to think of these as Tier 1 metrics or the ‘non-negotiables’. Unfortunately, most organizations do not build up on those improvements to realize possible improvements in business outcomes. We define these as Tier 2 metrics and they largely vary based on the job role.

For instance, for sales roles, what is the improvement in sales productivity as a result of introducing new organization assessment solutions? Or for quality & product development roles, has selecting the right employee translated into better brand quality?

In order to realize this, it’s important to view assessments as a long term (5 to 10 year) investment decision. That in turn enables organizations to view immediate and long term benefits that result from the out-years and are correlated with business performance.

The best starting point for implementing such a strategy is to first identify the most critical job role in any organization or industry. This could be a Store Manager or Assistant Store Manager in Retail, a Branch Manager for Financial Services firms, a Developer for Software or IT organizations or a Warehouse Manager for eCommerce companies.

So how long term & strategic is your assessment approach?

What Is The ‘Right’ Frequency For Conducting An Employee Engagement Survey?

When considering an employee engagement survey initiative, one of the first questions that comes to mind is ‘How frequently should my organization conduct the survey?’. This is a basic but critical question, and organizations must have a clear answer to it before formalizing their employee engagement survey.

The thing with engagement surveys is that, every organization has to set its own right frequency. In case the surveys are launched in quick succession, say every 6 months, then that could lead to several issues. Firstly, surveys that are too frequent do not allow an organization adequate time to create and execute on their action plans based on the findings of the previous survey. The second challenge of too frequent surveys stems from this first point. Given that organizations have little time to implement any of the changes, employees tend to perceive the initiative as a ‘tick in the box’, and start believing that nothing really comes out of them. Thus, employee engagement surveys lose their credibility among employees. Finally, frequent engagement surveys lead to ‘survey fatigue’. Employees simply get tired of answering surveys every few months. This becomes further frustrating if the high frequency of these surveys is not complemented by an equally fast implementation of changes and constant communication. Thus, having engagement surveys too frequently may not be beneficial.

Now let’s look at the other side. What happens if we have a huge time gaps between our employee engagement surveys? In this scenario, an organization runs the risk of not identifying critical issues that the employees, and the organization at large, is grappling with. This can pose a serious threat to the health and performance of the organization and oftentimes could result in a challenge turning into crisis.

For instance, imagine the future state of a fast growing consumer goods company, that is growing at 30% year on year but unable to identify telltale signs of fatigue in the workforce due to an overexerted work environment?

Imagine the savings of both performance and health of Carnegie Steel Company back in 1892 if the working conditions of the steelworkers’ union were highlighted as a red flag had the company conducted a workforce survey! It could have prevented the Homestead strike or massacre altogether!

So what is the ideal frequency to run engagement surveys? The answer would depend on various factors such as company size, nature of work, company context, business & industry performance, among others. However, drawing from our experience across industries, we recommend that organizations should ideally conduct employee engagement surveys once a year. An annual employee engagement survey will help the organization to align the survey with the overall business cycle and signal to its workforce as an important annual initiative. Since most organizations plan or realign their business strategy annually, findings from the survey can become inputs for this annual strategy and thereby form a major input to the overall workforce strategy. Furthermore, organizations can utilize the 12 months to frame & execute on action plans across all levels of its workforce. Short term plans that are implemented during the course of the year build credibility for the survey as employees see changes and continuous progress, based on their feedback.

Regardless of the frequency, conducting an employee engagement survey is likely to be beneficial to an organization and its workforce. However, studies suggest that an annual survey has greater impact on employee engagement. For example, a study conducted among 105 companies revealed that 64 percent of the companies that surveyed every year noticed improvement to engagement scores, compared to 56 percent of organizations that surveyed biennially.

So when you decide to do an employee engagement employee survey, it’s best to think through the ultimate goals that you wish to achieve, and when & how you should launch the survey to meet these goals.

Making The Feedback Process Simpler

One of the key themes of the recently concluded IBM Kenexa India Summit 2016was the importance of giving feedback. Several imminent speakers from companies like IBM & ITC Infotech spoke passionately about the various initiatives they have undertaken in their organizations to facilitate the exchange of feedback between their employees and their managers, and vice versa.

While the importance of sharing feedback is known to everyone, what these speakers emphasized was the impact of giving that feedback instantly. On many occasions, managers tend to wait till the annual appraisal to share their detailed feedback with their teammates. Even if not till the appraisal, a large proportion of managers assume feedback needs to be something which is formal and needs at least an ‘appointment’ to share.

However, that should not be the case. Feedback is something that works best if shared regularly. A point to clarify here is that, feedback doesn’t mean simply saying ‘good job’ or ‘this report was not up to my expectations’. Feedback needs to be more detailed, and specific. The yardstick to measure a good feedback can be that, after it has been shared whether or not an individual has some clarity on what he/she should work upon/leverage.

Again, the importance of regular feedback might also be not unknown to most managers. Then why is it that most of them do not practice this? The hindrance here is the method to share feedback. Today’s business world is extremely demanding, and employees are constantly struggling to meet their KRAs. In this situation, giving feedback features low on any employee’s ‘to-do’ list.

So how does one overcome this challenge? By offering employees & managers a platform to share their feedback in a hassle-free manner! For instance, IBM has introduced a mobile friendly performance management system. Managers can share their feedback on the go, using a mobile app. When priorities are constantly piling up, this platform helps managers share key developmental inputs with their team members whenever they get a breather.

As important it is for managers to share their feedback, it is equally important for the organization to take feedback from their employees. Accordingly, an annual employee engagement survey to understand what drives the employees, while what the organization can do better becomes of paramount importance. Moreover, as with downward feedback, it is also a best practice to keep asking for employee feedback more regularly in the form of pulse surveys. Platforms like the one offered by IBM Employee Engagement Survey can also be accessed on the go on mobiles, and tabs, making it very user friendly.

The idea is simple. Both the employees and the management need feedback to grow. Hence the organization should do its best to facilitate this exchange. Business exigencies force employees to focus on their KRAs instead of sharing feedback. In this light, Uber serves as a good example which doesn’t allow its customers to book another ride till the time they share their feedback. This ensures that Uber constantly has data to draw insights from, for it to travel the distance.

InpireOne’s employee engagement survey, in partnership with IBM Smarter Workforce, empowers organizations to drive business performance through in-depth insights on the pulse of the organization.

Does Performance Management System Really Improve Performance?

Most Performance Management practices turn out to damage the performance they are intended to improve. In the context of neuroscience research this is based on fundamentally flawed understanding of human responses, as revealed in recurring patterns of mental activity.

Failings of Traditional Performance Management system

Labelling people with any form of numerical rating automatically generates an overwhelming “fight or flight” response that impairs good judgment, and leads to disengagement. The employee then ignores the feedback, the push back against stretch goals and rejects the example of positive role models. In contrast to ‘the growth mind-set’ model which holds that people learn, grow, and improve all their lives most organizations promote the fixed mind-set of human growth and learning which is reinforced by Performance Management systems.

Performance Management in the Dynamic Environment

In the context of rapid change; where organizations become obsolete in no time; the pressure on the organizations is to re-innovate and re-invent to survive.  To cope with the external demand, organizations are focusing on creating internal flexibility; and strengthening agility of its internal processes.

To breed innovation, organizations are shifting from hierarchical to more networked cross functional work groups; where the individual is working on multiple projects within different teams. Millennials entering the workforce has further created complexed structures with multi-generational workforce. More than ever before, the organizations are facing a greater need to align individual goals with organization goals. With periodical goal and role changes, insufficient performance data availability to allow managers to compare them with each other and most importantly difficulty in identifying employee’s career development plans are few major challenges that arise within organizations.

Organizations have felt challenged with the inability of current performance management process to support the business objective. The Performance Management System has repeatedly failed to inspire performance with multiple causes like single year- end performance review, end of year rating, one time performance conversation and being goal centric versus development focused. All this has been evident through low engagement scores which has pushed the HR strategist to re-design the Performance Management System based upon the need of the customer (employees).

Dynamic Performance Management System for Dynamic Environment

What is the new and dynamic performance management system? Compared tothe traditional evaluation in which employees usually receive performance feedback about how well they did against their goals and peers, employees in the new system receive feedback beyond work performance. They also receive feedback about their expertise levels and potential for growth. That is, the feedback employees receive in the new system provides more insight into their strengths and opportunities for advancement.

Employees are assessed on both work performance and new dimensions of expertise and potential and are rated individually without comparison to other following an ‘absolute’ approach vs. ‘relative’ approach. In traditional relative rating, managers usually compared employee performance against others and sort all employees into pre-determined performance categories. In contrast, the new evaluation is based on an independent assessment of each employee’s performance.

In the new performance management system, there are frequent conversations with the line manager where 360 review feedback from multiple stakeholders including peer, team leaders, juniors is taken. The new performance management system complements the new dynamic and innovation cultures within the organisation which inspires performance to achieve business results.

Improving Performance through New Performance Management System

The success of the new Performance Management system depends upon its successful execution. The inability of line managers to hold great performance conversations coupled with lack of feedback, coaching behaviours and continuous communication in real time will need to be addressed for a seamless execution of the new performance management systems.A 2013 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management asked HR professionals about the quality of their own Performance Management systems; and only 23 percent said their company was above average in the way it conducted them.

Currently the owner of Performance Management within the organization is Human Resource. However, the new process needs to be led and owned by business to drive performance while Human Resource acting as a support instead of the owner. The success of the new Performance Management System lies in the ownership along with skills of the line managers to drive quality performance conversation. In the new system, managers are urged to use their judgment about a conversation frequency that best supports employee performance. Managers are required to display everyday leadership; ongoing conversations around goals to be achieved, review of past, feedback and coaching centered on development.

The conversations should allow employees to feel autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Due recognition of the work and alignment with employee career aspiration are other important element that conversations need to address. To build structure and objectivity in the performance conversations; many organizations are collecting real time data, making the check-in conversations more accurate than annual reviews.

To drive the new Performance Management System with success; organizations need to prepare their line managers with essential skills of conversations, feedback, coaching and more. Here is where InspireOne through its solutions support the organizations in the entire change initiative through well-developed global processes. InspireOne supports organizations with different interventions at different stages which considers the support around change process, performance and development to successfully implement the new Performance Management System and inspire Business Performance. Know more about our Performance Management Solutions.

Leadership Assessments: New Practices

Scientific and predictive validity seem to be the mantra for organizations today as they look at building rigor and objectivity in their hiring process. Instead of merely hiring the ‘right person for the right job’, organizations have become more appreciative of charting out a career graph for new hire hires even as they are being considered for the job.

We appreciate the importance of choosing candidates who possess the capacity and orientation to take on strong leadership roles tomorrow. Investing to select future leaders at the level of hiring itself presents multiple benefits to the organization concerned.

1. The decision of hiring individuals is based on well-researched assessment tools, which show a strong correlation between scores on the assessment and performance in leadership roles. Hence, the organization is trusted to make a sound hiring decision.

2. The assessment can throw up some very insightful data with respect to the candidate’s strengths and opportunities keeping in mind a specific role. By providing a career graph to the individual along with a development plan at the time of joining, the organization provides confidence to the candidate that the right efforts are being invested in making him or her successful.

3. Many times hiring technically sound individuals may prove costly at a later stage when the individual is being considered for promotion. Because candidates have been accepted purely on the basis of their technical or behavioral skills, they may not necessarily make the best people managers. Assessing candidates on their leadership capacities helps organizations in planning ahead of time.

CASE IN POINT

Our client, part of the USD 3 billion Indian conglomerate, is engaged in sales and servicing of luxury cars through state-of-the-art showrooms in Southern India. It is one of the world's leading premium brands and is amongst the most admired car brands across the world.

To achieve its vision to acquire and maintain global leadership position in the automobile space, the Company recognized the significance of having the right leaders spearheading the business. Through ongoing and structured deliberations with the Capability Building and Senior Leadership Team, and in partnership with InspireOne, the company came up with a rigorous Leadership Assessment exercise for the hiring of college graduates.

The hires were selected to go through an internally-led Leadership Acceleration Program (LAP) which focused on a fast-track job rotation program of 9-12 months. By the end of the program, these newly hired recruits were designated leadership positions with teams reporting into them. 

Hiring Process:

The Company’s selection panel visited tier 1 and tier 2 Indian business schools for a pre-placement interview. All students who choose to go through the selection procedure went through 5 stages and candidates were filtered as they moved through stages:

Analytical Test: This was a short paper and pen test, which contained 10 questions on Logical Reasoning. A time-bound test, approximately 1 minute was designated to solve each question. All students who cleared this test were moved to the next level.

Group Discussion: A case study of the companywas provided to a group of 6-7 candidates. The candidates were judged on how they were able to take decisions as the CEO of the organization around various situational challenges that cropped up in year 2006.

Personal Application: Candidates were asked to fill a personal application form which provided an insight into their personality. The questions pertained to the personal experiences that the candidate may have gone through. 

Personal Interview: The selection panel conducted a one-on-one interview with the candidate for roughly 20-30 minutes. The candidate was primarily judged on the 4 E's i.e. positive Energy, ability to Enthuse, Edge, Execution power and passion.

Evaluation of Leadership Capacity: This was the last and most critical filter to determine selection of a candidate. In line with the vision to select future leaders, the company partnered with InspireOne. The objective of this online questionnaire was to identify the natural leadership orientations, leadership styles and career anchors of the candidate. Based on the outcome of the questionnaire, the selection panel took a decision of 'hire' or 'no hire'.

Customization:

Keeping in mind the values and ethos that the organization aimed to promote as part of its culture, the team came up with following 13 behavioral requirements for a candidate to be selected.

1. Self motivation

2. Execution orientation

3. Analytical

4. Ability to work under pressure

5. Goal orientation

6. Passion to serve

7. Nurture Talent

8. Creativity

9. Accountability & Ownership

10. Collaboration

11. Decisiveness

12. Passionate

13. Seeks Quality

To meet the requirements of the organization, we mapped the leadership orientations to each behavioral requirement. A measurement scale was designed in order to evaluate the candidate on the 13 parameters. Each parameter could gain a maximum of 5 points for a candidate. Hence, a candidate could score a maximum of 65 on the overall scale. Defined by the purpose of the exercise and the background of the candidates, the range defined for hire was approximately 15 - 25.

In addition to the measurement outcomes, we analyzed the report and provided a brief summary for each candidate based on his or her strengths and areas of development. The scoring and analysis was conducted keeping in mind the specific role that the candidate was being considered for.

Assessing success:

Using the aforementioned assessment process, the organization has hired 56% of the candidates from the total applied. In order to assess the success the organization may be recommended to use the following measures:

Performance appraisal data at the end of the Leadership Acceleration Program is an effective way to determine accuracy of the results from the assessment exercise. 100% candidates must successfully complete the Leadership Acceleration Program and are deemed ready to take on leadership responsibilities.

Engagement surveys conducted within respective teams after 6 months of taking on leadership role should produce sufficient data.

Minimal attrition rate from amongst the candidates hired through the new assessment exercise to be documented on yearly basis.