Dear Farillio member,

You asked our wonderful guest Bill Eckstrom on the Go Far Fast Show:

“My company is stuck in a bit of a sales rut, and we're just not winning any new deals, no matter what we try. We've bought new CRM software. We changed the way we report our sales data so that we understand a little bit better and we're still stuck. I know you work with lots of businesses to improve their sales success. Can you give me any advice? I'm really keen to hear if we're missing something obvious.”

And Bill said:

Be mighty always, Farillio

Transcript:

“Well, all right. So, I'm just going to be really blunt. And when CRM is mentioned in the same breath, or reporting is mentioned in the same breath, as wanting to grow sales, we're probably looking in the wrong direction. A CRM is not about increasing sales; reports is not about increasing sales. If you're finding sales are flat, you have to really get to the root cause.

What we typically see is that the number one obstacle to sales growth is the leadership. And so again, I'm going to use that advice ‘go look in the mirror, what are you doing or not doing to promote sales? Are your leaders spending time with the salespeople in the field? Do they understand what they do well? Do they understand what their gaps are?’ You’ve got to look beyond technology, because performance by and large it always begins with being a people issue. So, the root cause analysis would begin with understanding what your leaders are doing, not only what your salespeople are doing, because what they're doing is a reflection of how they're coached.

So, begin there. Find out what they're doing, find out how much time they're spending with their people. Find out if they're acting as super salespeople instead of coaches. There's a lot of analysis you can do. That's where I'd begin. And the other thing you can do is survey your salespeople to understand that dynamic that's occurring between the coach and the salesperson. Long answer to a short question Aaron.”

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