Building A Successful Managed Services Business
(Part 6 of a 6 Part Series)
This article describes how to design an execution plan to successfully transform your company and sales organization to include strategic services such as managed print and/or managed IT deliverables. I will assume that you’re familiar with the steps defined in the five previous monthly issues of ENX magazine.
I don’t know which is more difficult, a start up or transforming an existing business model towards newer and higher-valued deliverables. One might guess the existing business would be easier because of its years of business and success. And don’t forget all those customers who provide today’s revenue. But, I can tell you one of the most difficult and painful tasks I do is getting a dealer to rethink and rebuild their market strategy and execution plan for their future. It’s like starting the business all over again, and most dealers are out of practice for this type of analysis. Yet, it is vitally important to get this right! I tell them; your future matters today! Many have executed on a crisis-to-crisis basis for so long, they’ve simply forgotten the importance of planning and strategy execution.
Developing a Plan
Developing a strategic plan for any business is not easy. Our current reviews of sales operations continually find that without an execution road map, the sales team is “making it up as they go along.” You may have heard the old saying, “The tail wags the dog.” I’d love to tell you that it’s not true, but very often I find that key business objectives are unknown, a market strategy does not exist, and rarely will I find a value proposition described the same way by any two individuals in the company. That is, if they even know who their target is or what values they would find desirable.
The important thing to understand here is if you don’t really know what you are today, it’s probable that your market doesn’t know you well either. And if your desire is to transform your market profile to be something more and/or different than you are today, you MUST BE CAREFUL not to injure your current reputation or following. That said, without key business objectives and a weak market strategy, we must first discover “what you are today” to then plan the path for “what you want to be tomorrow!” Obviously, well-defined and well-known companies are easier to transform towards future services and destinations.
Timing and Precision
I don’t know if you’ve ever been to an Enduro dirt bike race, but these races are more about strategy and timing than speed and who finishes first. That’s right; it’s more about mastering the different terrain and executing the race to stay on time with the least deviation. You’ll lose more points if you’ve run the race too fast instead of precisely zeroing in on each check point. Your best chance of winning the race comes from defining your objectives, setting the right pace, strategizing, and precise plan execution. Your business is just like that; you have to execute several equally important tasks at the same time based on solid objectives and strategy. It’s not how fast you get there; it’s that you do get there successfully by proper timing and execution.
So, your objectives are set; your sales team understands your market strategy, your target and value proposition are defined, and your marketing team (internal or external) has developed the proper steps and processes to transform your company from “who you are today” to “who you want to be tomorrow.” Remember, this plan has to change the organization you are today; no fast break plays down the court if you can’t dribble!
Stumbling Blocks to Avoid
I see two significant obstacles in making a successful transformation to managed services. First, the dealer principal must engage and LEAD the transformation from the top down, driving authority and direction through their sales leader. This delivers the appropriate management a solidarity platform that will prevent “end-a-rounds,” thereby stopping anyone from bypassing your sales leader when they don’t like changes you’re implementing. They’ll see you as one and the same! However, once you are sure the transformation, activity, and accountability processes are moving in the right direction, hand the reigns to the sales leader. Just as the sales reps are accountable to the sales leader, the sales leader is now accountable to you.
From a distance, keep your eyes and ears engaged. If you have successfully launched your sales team toward transformation without your direct daily involvement, you’ve just accomplished something rare. If you can create a plan that grows into a successful, self-propelled sales organization, you can create anything.
A second killer to great strategy execution is when management fails to appropriately identify and deal with rogue sales reps that aren’t team players. With this out of control element, the transformation simply won’t happen. Everyone knows who these reps are, and this anchor to the past will not only kill transformation, but destroy any opportunity to move your company forward. If one person is allowed to skip the dance, it will ultimately spread through your sales team, and no one will dance. Solve this issue in advance at the planning stage, NOT on execution day. Compensation plans built correctly can be a great friend. Change compensation plans to promote your transformation, and help any rogue sales reps see the light. It will either help them out, or help them OUT…if you get my drift.
This is most important for successful execution: The amount of time and effort a company spends on trying to please those who can’t be pleased is a massive distraction to forward momentum. If not addressed, it can wear down or even chase away other talent, especially if rogue sales reps are allowed to get away with things forbidden to others. Remember, you OWN the company! It’s YOUR transformation plan, and you and your sales leader OWN the responsibility to execute YOUR PLAN.
Measuring
There are many components to consider when measuring anything. One absolute is, if you do not base your plan on reality, set an appropriate timeline for success, and acquire the necessary tools for measuring effectiveness, you might as well not do anything at all. There is value in increasing sales activity and momentum, but it’s not an immediate cash value. Often, I’m asked: “Where is my return on investment?” “When do I see the cash benefit from this transformation process?” The simple answer is— there is no simple answer. There are as many business profiles out there as there are fingerprints. Some businesses have the needed components in place and are very easy to transform and accelerate, while other businesses are in terrible shape and may take two years to reach a successful transformation. The question you have to ask yourself is, if you don’t transform, what is the cost, and where’s the cash then?
What should we measure that creates real accountability for the team? Again, with the assumption that we have the right sales leader and sales team, and all of the necessary marketing strategies are set and ready, you can see this isn’t just sales prospecting in play here. We are transforming your brand and adding value to your marketplace. If we want your targets to see you with the exact values they desire, we must track and measure our effectiveness to deliver that message at high volume and in a superior way.
Effective Tools
Traditionally, the use of, and discipline around, sales support tools like a CRM are low and sometimes non-existent. I continually find few sales leaders who understand the connection between the valuable data gathered in a CRM and it being the nucleus for driving excellent communication and sales process (execution). Most sales reps consider a CRM a waste of their time, judging from comments like “Everything’s 100% personally entered by me so why keystroke what I already know in my head?”
Are they wrong? Maybe not. Just because you have a “CRM” doesn’t mean anyone’s using it! In most cases, my sales ops reviews find very little information going into the CRM, and they’re too expensive to let that happen. This fact alone helps me UNDERSTAND the skillset and current practices of the entire sales process. You see, it doesn’t matter how successful you are if you don’t manage the sales execution process. Because if you don’t, I promise you’re not selling as much as you could!
How do we get the sales organization to embrace a CRM tool and also get out of it what the business needs for success? Your CRM must have attributes that invite and attract your sales organization to WANT TO embrace it, while delivering the data you NEED for measuring performance and results. I’ve mentioned Funnelmaker.com in past articles. What I like about this unique tool is that through marketing campaigns and automation, it tracks and identifies all customers and prospects that are most active and interested in your company’s products and services. When they click through email campaigns or on your website, watch your company or product videos or give you feedback through surveys, all of this is automatically logged and immediately sent to the sales rep. THIS ATTRACTS THE SALES TEAM and you get the critical data needed to manage sales execution along the way. It’s very affordable and works extremely well for those trying to reach the highest level of sales execution success.
What to Measure
Now, your team is ready, they’re engaged, and they understand everything they need to do. So, what do we measure? This isn’t just:
· how many dials equals how many conversations
· how many conversations equals how many 1st appointments
· how many 1st appointments equals how many funnel candidates
· how many funnel candidates equals how many deals
· a deal is worth how many dollars.
It’s much more than that! It’s measuring the balance between the health of your current transactional business while expanding your offerings to include service deliverables. It’s properly merging the number of transactional opportunities (short sales cycles) with the number of managed service opportunities (longer sales cycles) to ensure you are protecting your businesses cash flow while also accomplishing a safe transition to managed services. You’re measuring the existing accounts and new market penetration as well as all marketing campaigns’ effectiveness. It’s very important to define everything and yet manage and adjust to ensure the strongest opportunity for success.
Manage and Adjust
I have to bring this up; I’ve never known anyone who would keep their hand on a hot stove or intentionally hold on to a wire that shocks them. However, I do encounter companies that hold on to crazy, destructive, disconnected policies, compensation plans, etc. These situations are, at best, not helpful toward a successful transformation or sales acceleration program and typically cause more harm than good. Don’t let anyone hang on to ideas that don’t positively promote the sales team and your plan. Your job is to create an extremely positive, very motivating experience for your sales organization. So much so that they don’t want to go home at the end of the day. They have enough competitors out in the field; be a good General and clear the way for successful execution.
There are many moving parts to consider when you’re looking at changing your market strategy toward strategic services. When part of your plan fails to perform the way you designed it, manage and adjust immediately.
Don’t push stupidly forward! Anything that fails to deliver as planned, however small, needs to be worked through to a positive position. Most importantly, allow yourself enough time for your sales team’s training to show results, as they’ll need time for gaining expertise for calling on the C-Suite and learning how to share an appropriate value proposition to a strategic target. If your plan is right, your team is accountable to you and you to them. Manage and adjust where needed, and you’ll start to see an amazing transformation rarely experienced in our industry, and for that matter, any industry.
