Operational overload is robbing sales teams of 50% of their selling time
Join us on a TeamX™ Adventure – Newsletter July 2024
Operational overload has been a hot topic for us at Amplified Group for quite some time and we’ve decided to include it in our July 2024 newsletter. We have long debated if the challenge of lost customer facing time is too obvious to call it out, but the consistency across every organisation (both in tech and non tech) is now too much for us to ignore, so we are tentatively broaching the topic.
Putting the customer at the heart of everything an organisation does, isn’t just a nice thing to do – it’s crucial for business survival.
And yet our data driven insights and experience from working with tech scale up organisations tells us that operational overload is robbing sales teams of time with customers. Not just a little bit of time, but up to TWO and a HALF DAYS a week of sales time is being wasted on internal complexity.
This should be a red flag for any business. How can sales revenue numbers be achieved when teams are constantly hit with significantly less customer facing time while receiving YoY increasing revenue goals?
There are many organisational factors that need to be addressed but we want to focus on one specific area.
The BIG DIVIDE
Front office v back office – that external/internal battle of salespeople doing the best for the customer versus the inertia caused by business processes, internal deal negotiation, order processing, right through to the ongoing management of complex SaaS deals.
So, what can be done to reduce internal battles and sales admin time?
In one word, inclusivity.
It’s time to unite and put the customer at the heart of everything we do, of every decision.
Why we should put our focus on an outside-in approach
If everyone across the cross-functional teams understands, if everyone is customer-centric, if the end-user is at the heart of everything we do and if everyone understands the implications of what they’re doing then surely this will have a positive impact on the joint success of the customer and the business?
Back office (sales operations) are trying to mitigate risk. Front office (sales) will do whatever they need to do to win a customer, even if that means doing what they deem to be right and ask for forgiveness later. BUT both sides need to know the parameters to work within. Problems arise when we don’t know the boundaries.
Agree the boundaries together – keeping the customer front and centre. This begins with creating a very tight alignment around a compelling vision of what good looks like for customers and defining the 3-5 key and non-negotiable ways in which it will be delivered.
This alignment must begin at the very top at leadership levels to avoid degrees of separation fanning out across the organisation and silos which block growth.
Remember: we only exist because of our customers
It’s time to make the change:
1. Identify cross-functional team members
2. Develop a joint understanding of each department’s (absolute) requirements
- Invite sales ops to ‘listen-in’ to customer calls
- Educate sales managers on risk
3. Establish healthy conversations
- Switch on your listen mode: Once you understand front and back-office requirements and challenges, agree the decision-making parameters for all teams
- What steps can be taken to streamline the sales process? (Do you really need 3 levels of sign-off?)
4. Review what’s working and what’s not
- Where are the bright spots? Are some sales teams and ops working better together? What are they doing differently?
Lastly and here is your killer question . . .
5. What is the risk of not changing anything?
We need to thank Dr Mark Baker for this question. Mark specialises in Risk and Governance and we can’t wait for him to be a guest on Get Amplified podcast as we learn something every time we talk to him.
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LinkedIn Article Comment
Paul Wiefels – MD & Co-Founder, Chasm Group LLP / Advisor /Speaker:
Good insights. One of my partners worked with a client where the engagement included a detailed white board mapping of CPQ functions, contract administration, fulfilment, and so on. The leadership team identified approximately 17 separate steps and/or processes that started with a customer saying “yes”–to that customer actually taking possession of the product. Upon review with one of the team’s direct reports, that number increased to approximately 21. The CEO of the company put his head in his hands for a moment, then looked at his team, and said “Fix this. Now.” and walked out of the conference room. We talk to sales teams frequently as part of our discovery process. They almost universally report three chief complaints:
- variations on the theme above;
- micro-management and process reporting overload;
- obvious disconnects between the stated product value, and what the customer expects the actual value to be.
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