It's
Still the Wild, Wild West for Technology Sales Vice Presidents
by
Marie Warner, Consultant, CustomerCentric Selling®
For Vice Presidents of Sales in technology firms, the pressure
to hit revenue targets has never been greater. With reduced
sales staff, and the demand to accurately forecast revenues
quarterly, monthly (or even weekly), the top sales executive
must feel like the lone sheriff in a final shoot-out with
Billy the Kid. But the calvary can come to their aid - if
the Vice President adopts process-based sales methodology
and implements these best practices with his/her sales managers
throughout the sales team.
How wild is the sales frontier? A recently released 2002
survey of technology Sales Vice Presidents shows continued
and increased pressure placed on the "Chief Revenue Officer."
The average tenure of the Sales Vice President was only 12
months - down from an18 month average in the prior year's
survey results. No Vice President surveyed had been in his/her
position longer than 3 years - down from 4 years in the prior
survey. On average, revenue targets and prices had decreased
slightly, by an average of 7%. But this decrease comes off
of a whopping 94% average increase in quota targets in the
prior year.
Forecasting and meeting revenue targets will continue to
be the most important job for even the roughest, toughest
senior sales executive. Forecasting revenue targets and communicating
revenue expectations (especially revenue shortfall!) is too
important a task for the Sales Vice President to delegate
down to the individual sales rep - particularly if that Vice
President of Sales wishes to beat that 12-month average tenure.
In fact, rolling up sales reps' forecasts is like a high-stakes
card game in Dodge City. Here are the high-stakes players
and their forecasting styles:
"Close-to-the-Vest" Chester - Chester plays
his cards very, very close. He wants no one (especially his
Sales VP) to know what Aces or Deuces he's holding, whether
these are terrific revenue opportunities or unqualified tire-kickers.
Chester will never willingly update a pipeline report, and
is very unlikely to invite any support staff or senior sales
manager on a key call. Chester mistakenly thinks that sharing
his cards with his Sales Manager will put more pressure on
him to actually win a hand.
"The Joker's Wild" Jesse - Jesse
plays each card as though it were a take-the-pot winner -
even if he's holding a hand of losers. Poor Jesse forecasts
even unreturned voice-mail messages at 50% of closure. Jesse's
outrageously optimistic sales forecasts grossly pad the Sales
VP's overall rolled-up revenue number, resulting in missed
revenue targets and mistakenly set expectations. As Jesse's
wild-eyed guesses on closure dates for unqualified deals continue
to slip, the unfortunate Sales Vice President struggles to
explain a dramatically lengthening sales cycle to the Board.
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