1) Do you monitor and manage tasks or do you identify and train to essential competencies?

Do you want to know the big difference between due diligence and a core competency?

Here’s a classic example:

Collecting 50 business cards per day is an act of data procurement, while training to a 60% conversation to appointment ratio is focusing on an essential component to ensure your sales team’s success.

Don’t focus on accountability to tasks but enlighten to identification. It’s much more important to teach your people the “business” of the business they’re in.

If you currently have your sales team accountable to tasks, then you’re merely “managing” tasks. In order to become more effective – you should be training on measurement of competencies so your people can ‘run their own business.’

2) You measure details not directly related to performance and results.

A telecommunications sales manager proudly told me he requires his sales reps to document ‘100 dials per day.’

I was shocked when I heard this. I asked him if he was in the ‘dialing’ business or the ‘communication’ business.

Think about it for a minute. What does the measurement of ‘dials’ have to do with performance or results? Can you ever improve your dialing skills?

It’s insane to waste time and energy measuring that type of stuff when there are so many other “valuable” things to measure.

The focusing of measurement not related to “performance and results” takes you away from the real deal…essential competencies.

In the X2 system ‘Show Time’ begins with the actual conversation, a measurable competency that we can attach to systems and training for critical improvement. By measuring these competencies you’ll spend less time documenting insignificant information and more time analyzing meaningful business metrics.
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1) Is it an essential component to your sales mission or just an ingredient in the recipe?

List 10 actions, routines or tasks that are part of your sales day and considered essential components of your sales process.

Now, ask yourself. How many of these are essential components to my sales mission are just ingredients in the recipe?

Think about a professional golfer’s essential competencies from tee-off to last putt. Is the ball and club a core competency, or is it the golf swing and putting stroke? What about a basketball player with the essential competency of passing, dribbling, and shooting?

2) Can it be measured routinely and accurately?

A Core Competency is a definable entity that is related to performance and results.

Ask yourself. Can I measure this with a napkin, pencil, and calculator? Can I put it on one piece of paper and be able to evaluate the status of my business? Do this first. You can always transfer it later to the million-dollar sales automation system.

Can you apply a universal performance benchmark that is realistic and assures revenue goals individually and collectively?

3) You know you have achieved this when you can tell a sales recruit during the interview process the (3) simple numbers that will assure them success.

Have you identified the ‘Key Performance Indicators’ in your sales process?

A good KPI example in the sales process might be how many times you advance the first sales appointment to the next phase, whether that’s a demonstration, a site visit, a survey or a proposal. Another KPI is how many times you gain a new customer once the first gateway is passed. And when you do gain a new customer, what’s the average revenue you achieve? That’s certainly an important KPI. Because if your average revenue per sale is 40% less than the average peer KPI, you might want to find out why and take focused action to improve it, as you’re leaving money on the table.
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1) Identify Your Essential Competencies and Performance Metrics

If I asked you to list all the essential competencies that YOU are in control of – the ones that are absolutely critical for you to be successful in your sales position…could you do it?

For example…

Essential Competency or not?

” Converting conversations to appointments? (yes it is)
” What about filling out paperwork? No! (That’s a related task)
” What about closing ratio? (Sure it is.)
” Degree of success in turning a first appointment into an opportunity? (absolutely)

Get the picture?

Now, if you truly want to adopt a self-management system that will work FOR you – not against you, you first have to “access” what is an essential competency and what’s merely a related competency.

To do this, sit down and list any sales metrics and performance numbers inter-related to your competency numbers and your desired revenue results. (Hint: “Sales Cycle” and “Average Revenue” per sale are two.)

2) Diagnose Your Business on a Single Sheet of Paper

If I ran into you on a train or in an elevator, would you be prepared to tell me what you do (and how it benefits me or those I know) – in under 1 minute…

That’s called your 30-second commercial. Most people don’t have one, yet everybody needs one.

One way to understand more of the obvious benefits your products and services bring to the table is to start to view and diagnose your business more scientifically. You will also see how the numbers work and which areas are most important to your short and long-term success.

Ask yourself…What happens if your closing ratio reduces by 30% and your average revenue per sale increases by $2500? How does that affect your desired results?

Write your competency measurements and sales metrics on a sheet of paper. Calculate ratios in line with competencies and average numbers in line with your sales metrics. Assign your revenue object or quota. Play with the numbers and ratios to see how they are inter-related and how they affect each other.
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In the 25 + years of working with some of the best people in Business Development within the power generation industry, we have found some unique characteristics that separate these individuals from the rest. It doesn’t seem to matter what organization they work for, or the services, the client base or the economic climate. We find that these individuals are in fact the top 3% of the professionals in their field. In addition to learning to think as CEO’s, Presidents, entrepreneurial leaders of Business Development units, we’ve discovered they have acquired the behavioral characteristics of a leader. They have learned how to set strategic and operational objectives in putting together plans, how to be visionaries and see opportunities for their organizations that other individuals may miss, and in the role of Business Development, they have mastered the 12 Core Competencies, a benchmark to measure leaders.

One of the most compelling definitions of a leader is an individual whose mere presence inspires the desire to follow. When asked if leaders are born or bred, the general consensus is that leadership can be taught. While few of us have had the opportunity to be formally trained or mentored in leadership, all of us are called to be a leader at different times and circumstances in our lives. Leadership is first about who you are as an individual, not what you do, and the term character best describes the core characteristic of a leader. It is this part of an individual that inspires other to follow, so we see character as the summation of an individual’s principles and values, core beliefs by which one anchors and measures their behavior in all roles in life. Principles and values of a positive leader include loyalty, respect, integrity, courage, fairness, honesty, duty, honor and commitment.
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