- August 4, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
During our very first conversation with a CEO, the talking path is determined by whether their company is analog or digital.
Digital companies are typically on the cutting edge in their thinking and actions, their CEO’s read content like this, are active on LinkedIn and Twitter, they are aware that selling has changed dramatically, they already have inside sales teams, playbooks, demo decks, sales enablement, online tools beyond CRM and in true digital fashion, they live by their KPI’s which count the elements of their work flow.
Analog companies are old school. Analog salespeople still pound the phones to find opportunities, and visit their prospects to close sales. Their CEO’s may have a LinkedIn account, but it probably isn’t used much, they don’t tweet, read online content like this, and most importantly, have little clue about how dramatically selling has changed in the past 5 years. They may not be aware of the migration to inside sales, typically make little use of selling tools, don’t know what a sales playbook is, and in true analog fashion, measure work product, not flow.
The difference between work flow in a digital company versus work product in the analog company is dramatic too.
Work flow represents a series or flow of actions. With inbound marketing for example, a company might use a combination of landing pages, email templates and rules to generate the flow of contacts, leads and opportunities, all of which are counted.
Work product represents outcomes. Analog companies are more likely to measure how hard their salespeople work. Analog versus digital. Counting versus measuring.
Digital companies usually think that they have it all figured out because they read free content like this, make use of the latest tools, have millennials working their inbound marketing effort, have inside and outside sales, hire expensive sales leaders, and together they built a sales machine. But when it’s not generating enough revenue, the sales machine is broken.
Analog companies aren’t really aware that they are old school, but they have recognized that what used to work doesn’t appear to be generating the same results today. Their salespeople struggle to close new business, they are losing important accounts, margins are slipping because their salespeople are unable sell value, and their veteran salespeople are in denial. Their ability to generate sales by pounding the phones and managing their territories has become inefficient and ineffective. You can even recognize an analog sales force by looking at them. With rare exceptions, it’s a group of fat, aging, white guys.
In the end, it simply doesn’t matter whether a company is analog or digital. The commonality between them is that their sales organizations are not bringing in enough business and there are several reasons for this – or more!
One of the many reasons for less than stellar revenue is that these companies – both analog and digital – often fail to hire the right salespeople for the role. That’s the easiest of all things in sales to correct. A simple change to your selection criteria and an accurate and predictive sales tool will drive up your rate of success and consistency with hiring very quickly!
If you are interested in learning how we use *digital magic* to help companies hire the right salespeople, then you might enjoy spending 30 minutes with me next month. On September 28, I will lead a fast-paced behind the scenes online tour of the magic behind OMG’s award-winning sales selection tools. You can join me by registering here.