3 Themes from Fractional Sales Leadership Engagements

I’m sharing with you my week in the life of a fractional sales leader and my work and fitness balance.

3 themes emerged during my past week as a fractional sales leader;

1. CRM hygiene
2. Coaching sales teams
3. Agreeing on a Sales Process

Each day I managed 25 situps and 10 pushups, combined with either a 6Km walk or +20Km bike ride.

Anyway back to my themes from the week;

1.CRM hygiene

Salespeople must record and manage all their sales opportunities in a CRM. Not in spreadsheets, notebooks, memory, or emails. As I mentioned in my Linkedin post earlier in the week “Sales KPI's aren’t there to police sales teams. They’re there to protect them and support them.” Sales KPI’s are driven by CRM activities and progression.

Pipeline build, pipeline progression from lead to win and everything in between. Pipeline should be built from both inbound and outbound leads. Once qualified the business can plan and support the sales team to closing the new client wins.

Disciplined CRM hygiene each week or whenever an opportunity progresses or changes in the pipeline is important. Kill opportunities too, don’t let them linger and consume unnecessary time.

2.Coaching sales teams

I have always enjoyed being coached. Learning from others experiences. Hearing their stories. No one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. Coaching can be a great sounding board too. Trust is inherent with coaching because if honesty isn’t there, then trust is broken and no one learns.

I coach sales teams regularly. I don’t know everything. I still learn from the sales teams. I still learn coaching from reading and research too. If you have an opportunity coach or be coached, say yes. Its rewarding whichever side you are on.

3.Agreeing on a sales process and documenting this.

A CRM can be and can look unwieldy until you see and understand why the sales process from, most probably, sales qualified lead or SQL, through to closed won or lost on some occasions. Then there is usually a discovery followed by demo. Don’t do discovery during demo. There may be artifacts that arise from the demo, but don’t detract from the demo session which your prospects has prepared for and expects to watch and engage on. Next step is usually proposal. If at all costs, present the proposal before leaving the proposal with the prospect. Otherwise you lose total control of the proposal and you may have made a mistake or the prospect misunderstands the proposal and rejects your proposal, without any opportunity for you to remedy the situation. Prospects are busy and don’t or won’t give you a second chance. But when you have them in person presenting or on Teams or Zoom, you can correct their interpretation or your error before sending them a copy following the meeting.

Negotiation should take place following the agreed and accepted proposal, not before. Always be prepared to negotiate, but make sure if you give something then you get something back. A give get scenario.

Closing the opportunity as a win is the final stage in CRM, however you still have one final step outside of CRM and that is having a meeting with the, now client, to review the win.

Let me know if you would like to discuss any of my observed themes.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Steve-Victor

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