What Is the Top Driver of Lean Process Excellence Success in Sales?

What Is the Top Driver of Lean Process Excellence Success in Sales?: by Michael Webb
A Global Sales Director asks:

•  What is the top driver of LeanA well-developed business management philosophy that seeks to create more value for customers faster and with fewer resources. ProcessA set of activities, through which work flows, aimed at a common result. The purpose of a process is to enable learning and improvement. Excellence success in sales? 

 I would say the main driver is the focus on data and evidence from the customerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner). gembaJapanese term for "the place where truth is found"; In customerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner).-facing work, it is where the customerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner). interacts with you (e.g., a website, customerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner).'s office, construction site, sales floor, etc.) (i.e., field sales activities).
(Since you used “LeanA well-developed business management philosophy that seeks to create more value for customers faster and with fewer resources. ProcessA set of activities, through which work flows, aimed at a common result. The purpose of a process is to enable learning and improvement. Excellence” in the question, I’m going to assume you are familiar with the lingo, so if I use some jargon you are not familiar with please ask in the comments and I’ll explain.)
Most B2B companies do not have the ability to see what is working/not working in the field with salespeople, which is a key issue. (By the way, it is quite interesting and useful to ask senior executives Why?-Why?-Why? on that, because they typically don’t realize how crucial being able to identify what is working/not working in the field really is to the business. This exercise helps them learn that.)
To use processA set of activities, through which work flows, aimed at a common result. The purpose of a process is to enable learning and improvement. language: Sales ProcessA set of activities, through which work flows, aimed at a common result. The purpose of a process is to enable learning and improvement.The standard work required for finding, winning, and keeping customers. "What salespeople do" in the sales processA set of activities, through which work flows, aimed at a common result. The purpose of a process is to enable learning and improvement. should be distinguished from what the rest of the organization does. Both need to be aligned to the customerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner).'s needs. ExcellenceCommonly, the name given to the internal initiative that continuously improves your company's ability to find, win, and keep customers. requires the customerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner).-facing functions (not just sales) to develop and agree on operating definitions around their “units of production” (terms like “customerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner).,” “lead/inquiry,” “qualified sales opportunity,” etc.) Believe me; they do get highly motivated by this when they realize the company is actually listening!
The reason this drives substantive changes is that it enables management to identify the bottleneck based on data and evidence rather than on gut feel and the opinions of HIPPOs (highest paid persons in the organization). Usually, this new evidence enables them to hypothesize root causes and develop workable countermeasures far more effectively.
For example, one division president’s gut emotion told him the “national account managers are a bunch of farmers, and we need hunters instead.” A proper kaizenThe Japanese term for continuous improvement of a value stream or individual processA set of activities, through which work flows, aimed at a common result. The purpose of a process is to enable learning and improvement. (AKA continuous improvement) enabled the national account teams to collect VOC(Voice of CustomerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner).) Data or evidence indicating what the customerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner). wants or values. Can be structured or unstructured, verbal or written communications, or observations of their actions., define the stages of the customerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner). journeyStages the customerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner). goes through from the time they do not realize they have a problem/need to the time they are spending time and money to solve that problem/need., and prove with data that most of their time (80 %!) was devoted to chasing down and solving problems with customerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner). orders they already won.
Now, why were they were so intent on farming? Turns out the national accounts were not generated by any kind of intentional sales processA set of activities, through which work flows, aimed at a common result. The purpose of a process is to enable learning and improvement.The standard work required for finding, winning, and keeping customers. "What salespeople do" in the sales processA set of activities, through which work flows, aimed at a common result. The purpose of a process is to enable learning and improvement. should be distinguished from what the rest of the organization does. Both need to be aligned to the customerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner).'s needs., but grew out of the needs of some of the larger customers in the industry. Since the company had grown its business by depending on the distribution channel to handle customerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner). needs and these national accounts were direct business, by definition there was no customerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner). service infrastructure to enable the right combination of products and services to arrive at the right time in the right customerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner). location. Maybe this was not something the senior executive wanted to hear, but it was a reality that needed to be faced for sure!  Only after this was solved could the Sales VP and his national account team have a chance at succeeding in finding new national accounts.
Typically, sales processA set of activities, through which work flows, aimed at a common result. The purpose of a process is to enable learning and improvement.The standard work required for finding, winning, and keeping customers. "What salespeople do" in the sales processA set of activities, through which work flows, aimed at a common result. The purpose of a process is to enable learning and improvement. should be distinguished from what the rest of the organization does. Both need to be aligned to the customerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner).'s needs. excellenceCommonly, the name given to the internal initiative that continuously improves your company's ability to find, win, and keep customers. initiatives enable companies to go from unmeasured to measured in crucial performance indicators such as:

• Visitors to the company’s website who find what they are looking for
• Channel partnerAny person or business that participates in how goods and services get to the ultimate end-user.’s ability to achieve their business growth objectives with the company
• Flow (quantity over time) of prospects and customers through the sales valueThat which one (i.e., the customerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner).) acts to gain and/or keep. Also, that which our own company acts to gain and/or keep. stream (and ability to identify the bottleneck)
• Conversion of sales opportunities (qualityThe science of defining what the customer wants, and enabling your organization to provide it to them. of leads, opportunities, and deals which dramatically improves accuracy of the sales forecast)
• CustomerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner). satisfaction and/or net promoter scores

Remember the old story of the blind men and the elephant? One blind man believes an elephant is like a tree trunk, another that it is like a snake, etc. This is exactly what happens when the company president thinks the problem with the sales force is training, while the sales VP thinks it is lead generation, and the Marketing VP thinks it is poor branding. Until you go through the effort to define your terms and make the flow visible, you can’t begin to really understand the nature of the complex production system you are dealing with.
Imagine how shocked those old blind men would be if suddenly they could see the smelly, ugly elephant they were dealing with! Sales processA set of activities, through which work flows, aimed at a common result. The purpose of a process is to enable learning and improvement.The standard work required for finding, winning, and keeping customers. "What salespeople do" in the sales processA set of activities, through which work flows, aimed at a common result. The purpose of a process is to enable learning and improvement. should be distinguished from what the rest of the organization does. Both need to be aligned to the customerThe person who pays for and/or uses your products and services. Also known as the "end user" (as opposed to channel partner).'s needs. excellenceCommonly, the name given to the internal initiative that continuously improves your company's ability to find, win, and keep customers. is like that. What you see might be might be scary or wonderful at first. But if your goal is to build a sales dynasty in your industry, you can’t do it without first being able to see what you are actually dealing with.