Came down on a Monday
Somewhere in the midlands
Tasted man, tasted flea
Couldn’t tell the difference
As we continue in some form of lockdown, the biggest challenge for the remainder of this year and into next, isn’t necessarily getting everybody back into the office, it’s covering the revenue shortfall as a result of the significant reduction in economic activity of the past few months. For some organisations, this will sadly be terminal. For others, (and I get the need to be bullish) it feels optimistic to say the least. Estimates vary, but the consensus range is a revenue drop of between 25-35%. The fall in EBITDA is likely to be less as costs have been significantly curteiled: furlough, little or negligible travel expenses, cuts in marketing spend, salary reductions, hire freezes and of course redundancies.
The pandemic lens has magnified issues some organisations already had. The restaurants that have reduced their number of sites or even closed altogether, already had existing problems, ditto the High Street beomoths like Debenhams and House of Fraser.
Asked around on Tuesday
Got nothing from a tree
In SME and Enterprise Sales, many businesses had a fantastic Q1 in the frenzy to get things done before the “shutters came down”. Q2 remained “good to fair” as projects continued and sales cycles were 3-9 months anyway. Q3 though is a challenge, and Q4 well, it might feel like a long way off, but in reality, it starts in 18 working days time!
There has been a huge amount of commentry about the “new paradign” of WFH. Everybody’s doing it apparently. (except Train drivers, plumbers, builders, doctors et al). As a result, we’re all re-locating to Yorkshire, The Peak District, Lake District… anywhere except urban areas it seems. Public Transport loadings steadfastly refuse to move above 40% of pre-pandemic loadings. Daily wall to wall zoom/teams/hangout calls have become the new normal and everybody is loving it. What could be better than attending a forecast call or opportunity review with Pen-y-ghent, Ullswater, Salcome Bay or even the River Humber as the backdrop. Who knew life could be so good? So, productivity remains high, Right? Well no, actually.
I am sure sales people are working (from home), some organisations have implemented [snooping] apps to manage remote workers, but are they working effectively? The average sales leader won’t know, particularly if they had an office based “command and control” culture before 23rd March, the day the earth stood still. Sure, you can manage and excel spreadsheet or Salesforce report from the moon I would imagine, but managing sales people, remotely and effectively is a whole new ball game. A “new normal” some are undoubtedly struggling with it seems.
So, what if your organisation no longer has the right Sales Leader in these dark, challenging times? Do you twist or stick? If results weren’t spectacular before we all stopped commuting, they certainly won’t be now. If you decide to replace your esteemed leader it will take you 6 months to find, negotiate with and then hire the right person. In the meantime, revenues are unlikely to miraculously have started to recover by themselves. The truth is the downward curve is already likely to have started. So if you stick (for the time being at least) at can you do to improve matters? Decisions, decisions.
Looked around on Wednesday
Took in all the sights
The promised land they’d left to man
Been ruined over night
The solution is ordinarily the same: get temporary help. Arise the interim CRO/CSO or the contracted Sales Transformation consultant, both can make short term gains but with sustainable benefits. There is a fairly healthy interim market in the UK for CFOs, HRDs even CEOs, but not it seems the CRO/CSO. Speaking to PE Firms and Executive Headhunters over the summer, nobody is quite sure why. But the obession to have a permanent Senior Responsible Officer for Revenue is not always the right answer, especially if short term expediency is the driver.
When do you deploy each? The Sales Transformation Consultant can objectively assess your Sales and Marketing Organisation. They can evaluate the current position against best practice, identify the inhibitors and make recommendations to alleviate them. I use a 10 x 10 Sales Competency Assessment Grid and I can do this within 25 working days, alongside your existing Sales Leader. I look at everything from leadership and culture, through forecasting regime and process; account and opportunity management together with customer segmentation and how you use social media to generate sales and underlying technologies. By the end of this first phase, not only will you understand where your organisation is, but you will have some pretty tangible recommendations to get your commercial performance back on track. In Phase II (the fix phase), deliverables can be focused on the physical output of activities and processes to roll out the recommendations.
The interim CSO/CRO can be a master stroke, particularly if that individual has already completed the Transformation Consulting exercise described above. Some Sales Leaders thrive on change. Those first, critical 3-6 months are sometimes when they are the most effective. If you like effecting change, that early period can also be the most rewarding. Appointing an interim can be a try before you buy or it can give you breathing space to hire the right person, but still engineer change whilst you undertake the search.
I found being an interim CRO hugely reawarding. I was able to be bolder in my challenge; I remained fresh and vibrant at all times and I believe I made an impact. Best of all though, because I had a good understanding of the organisation’s culture and indeed challenges, I was also able to make a meaningful contribution to the hire of my full time successor.
Being an interim CRO is not for the majority of sales leaders. “There are lots of ex VPs of Sales doing Sales Consultancy work” a potential client said to me last week. Indeed there are. But few have had to manage change repeatedly in a myriad of different organisations and situations. If you have managed change often over the years, you tend to know where to look and what to prioritise on during those critical first few weeks. That doesn’t come from a couple of similar roles in a large Technology organisation. Ability to manage change is directly proportional to that individual’s experience of doing so in other organisations. In short, you need to have lived it elsewhere first if you are going to make an early and sustainable impact.
For those in the Private Equity community facing a challenging couple of Quarters, a different approach may yield the short term improvements you demand. If sales feels broken now, trust me, it will be a whole lot worse in December, even if you start looking to change your leadership now. Help can be at hand, but you need to do things differently. Whilst you contemplate whether to undertake a search for a new CSO, a Sales Transformation engagement can be completed with tangible benefits. Equally, if the situation is more urgent and a change in direction is required for your Sales Organisation, an Interim can make a huge short term impact.
DWSL provides both Sales Transformation using a structured methodology and Interim Chief Sales Leadership by experienced and well versed executives.
Who wants the world?
All quotes copyright Cornwell/Burnel/Greenfield/Duffy
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