Rahul Jain, a highly successful business coach who has worked with several CEOs to help them effectively scale their businesses, asks some tough questions that helps a business owner evaluate their effectiveness in achieving business results:

• Is your business growing at the rate you wish it to grow?
• Are you and your business making the kind of money that you wish to make from the business?
• Do you still find time to do things you enjoy doing or your business is taking away all your time, leaving no free time?
• Do you spend most of your time working IN your business or are you working ON your business. (Are you spending most of your time solving the same every-day problems or are you investing your time uncovering new ways to grow your business.)
• Do you spend most of your time dealing with emergencies and fire fighting?
• Are you enjoying and having fun running your business or is it a cause for constant stress
• Are your employees working for you or are you working for them?
• Are you in control of your business, taking your business where you want it to go, or is the business driving you?
• Do you have self-sustaining systems in place that manage your business even in your absence?

Most business owners and manager may easily identify their situation with the above. But being caught in the trap of micromanagement, the solutions seems far from easy.

Nahid Casazza, another business coach who effectively combines her background in psychology and business expertise explains the root cause of micromanagement:

…micromanaging behavior is driven by the positive characteristics of conscientiousness, diligence, and responsibility; it’s just that they have been taken to an extreme. People often confuse themselves with the quality of the work they produce. As long as they can control the quality of their work, they are ok, but as soon as they have to depend on others for results, they are faced with the fear of representing sloppy or substandard output. Since putting out less than excellent work is SO personally humiliating, they need constant reassurance that the team is performing.

One way to escape this trap of micromanagement is to create a process documentation system that captures everything that is going on in your business and allows you to keep track of it from the outside.

Like Rahul says:

Documenting and setting up the required systems, -moving the business from people dependency to systems dependency. (It also ensures that when an employee leaves the organization, another person can quickly fit into the place, because of the systems.) A step by step program to take any function in your business and turn it into a scalable, replicable, reliable process, complete with checklists and full documentation so that anyone in your company can do it just as well, by following directions. (Putting it on Auto Pilot) having the business ‘work’…even when you’re not there, resulting in the biggest freedom which you have always dreamed of- the freedom of time.

Sounds simple. But implementing systems is by no means easy. As any business owner or manager who has tried to implement any business tracking software can verify, the biggest problem in maintaining a system is to get people to enter data in it.

The difficulty lies in the decision of how much data to capture. If you ask a manager to decide what to capture, you will tend to get an answer close to “everything”. From a manager’s perspective, the more data the better. And most software systems aim to please the manager by providing more features meaning more data to enter. This inevitably leads to a situation where over 90% of software implementation projects fail.

The approach that works is to provide systems that capture the progress of the business process automatically, without requiring people to separately enter any data. This can be achieved by providing a customized template that acts as a checklist for all tasks that are to be performed, and the person who finishes the task merely has to check off the tasks completed. The system should then automatically register the person who completed the task, the time spent, the next steps required etc. based on a pre-determined logic.

Process template - a simple checklist to track the progress of a business case

The adjoining sample screenshot is part of a process template designed for a subscription based software business. The template shared on the web and is available to all persons working on the specific business case, project or order. The process is broken down into milestones, where each milestone could have an associated set of questions that need to be answered or sub-tasks that need to be performed. The person responsible has to merely check off the tasks completed.

The system then automatically tracks the progress of all business cases, projects or orders and provides a summary to the manager. The following are two sample reports that the manager can see:

Live feed of ongoing business activity

The first screenshot is of a live feed of all ongoing business activity. This report picks up all live business cases, and lists all ongoing activity including milestones completed, messages exchanged, documents prepared or tasks completed.

This report is available for viewing from anywhere via the web, and is useful for the business owner to remotely track the business process. All activities are directly linked to the corresponding business case or project, allowing the manager to view the complete context of the specific activity.

Process Pipeline Report

The second screenshot is a performance summary report. This shows the pipeline of all business cases or orders, and tracks the velocity of movement of cases through the list of milestones in the process template.

This report provides a valuable feedback to the business owner or manager to identify possible bottlenecks or stumbling blocks. Any order that is not moving ahead in the milestones is highlighted, allowing the manager to investigate by simply clicking on the inactive projects and drilling down from the report to the list of projects and then to the individual project.

This simple strategy promises to provide the business owner or manager an effective tool to help manage the business by remote control, thereby creating more time to work on strategy to grow the business.

Related posts:

1. Case Study: Insurance and Financial Products Sales
2. Using the sales pipeline report for key performance indicators
3. Why do you need a CRM or Sales Force Management System?

Anand Shrikhande is the owner, who wants to expand his business & wants to have a
professional setup for his general insurance business. He expects that once he’s successful in implementing this with general insurance business, then he’ll expand it to his other businesses.

Ace Money has a team of tele-sales executives who make calls to customers when their insurance is due to expire, and then give them options of various Insurance products just in time to consider new and better options. If the customer decides to opt for any of the proposals, then they send a field sales executive to complete the transaction.

So far in On2Biz, we have handled primarily field sales operations. This was a new and interesting case that would challenge the SaaS model, and we were keen to rise up to the challenge.

Expected Challenges

When our consulting partner, Arun from Solution Enterprises referred the case to us, we were concerned about the following challenges:

1. Transaction Load – So far in On2Biz, we have been handling companies who primarily have field sales executives. Even there are tele-sales executives, there are very few calls made per day. In this case, the tele-sales executives make an average of 20 calls per hour! We were concerned about how our system could handle such a large load and continue to serve existing users without affecting response time.
2. Connectivity – The company in question has multiple offices spread across A and B-level cities. We were concerned about whether we could manage enough last mile connectivity at all locations.
3. Leads Data Importing – Leads were to be captured from various source databases. This included purchased leads, external databases and spreadsheets.
4. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) – Previously, the tele-sales team operated on a manually recorded spreadsheet, and with rented computers. They were now planning to purchase new computers – in fact, they planned to purchase laptops for each user. Hence in addition to the monthly usage charges of On2Biz, the TCO would include the cost of the hardware, networking, Internet connectivity, and software for the operating system, web browser and for managing office documents.

Following our standard implementation process, our first step was to map the sales process into our workflow template.

The Current Process

The tele-sales team’s current working procedure was as follows:

1. Open the call sheet (spreadsheet). Check whether there are any follow-up calls to be done
2. If no follow-up call is due at that time, look at the list of fresh calls
3. Look up the phone number of the customer to be called from the contacts sheet
4. Call the customer
5. Discuss the offer (as per call script)
6. Capture data about the vehicle, such as the age, cubic capacity, seating capacity etc. and record into call sheet
7. Look up a Insurance premium calculation sheets (one for each option)
8. Prepare premium quotation using the calculators. If necessary, offer more than one insurance package for comparison
9. If any follow-up call is required, record the date and time for the follow-up call in the call sheet
10. After the call is over, update the status of the call in the call sheet

On2Biz workflow objects

1. Sales Project or Opportunity – a sales project or an opportunity is a single case of selling something to a customer. For example, an insurance policy. We may have more than one sales project for the same customer. Hence, it is important to differentiate between a customer and a sales opportunity.
2. Sales Milestones – Each sales project or opportunity goes through several stages of selling. Starting with a fresh call, the project may go through several follow-up calls and stages, including visits by field sales, and finally till the payment is collected and the order is closed. The project may also get aborted at any stage, with an unsuccessful outcome. Each stage of the sales process, where there is a easily measurable outcome, is called a milestone.
3. Sales Projects Pipeline – a list of sales projects at various stages of the sales process, is called a sales pipeline. A sales person’s primary responsibility is to move projects ahead in the sales pipeline from one milestone to another, till the order is closed.
4. Tasks and Appointments – the activity that a sales person carries out so as to move the project from one milestone to another is a set of tasks, phone calls or personal visits. The phone calls and personal visits are termed as appointments, while other types of activity which need to be done are called tasks.
5. Notes – these are remarks that can be added be anyone associated with a sales project. It could be remarks added by the sales person to record any important information regarding the project, or can be added by a manager to record suggestions to the sales person.

The new process using On2Biz workflow

The new operating procedure using On2Biz was designed as follows:

1. Check whether there are any follow-up calls to be done by looking at the “Pending Appointments”
2. If no follow-up call appointment is due at that time, look at the list of projects in the “Projects Pipeline”
3. In the project pipeline, click on the project title to open the Project page. The project page shows the entire case history of the sales project
4. Look up the phone number of the customer to be called by clicking on the contact name.
5. Call the customer
6. Discuss the offer (as per call script)
7. Select the type of policy to be offered by editing the Value section of the project. Then select the policy to be offered by selecting the checkbox on the left. It will also open the form to capture data about the vehicle, such as the age, cubic capacity, seating capacity etc.
8. Look up reference spreadsheet to get the IDV of the vehicle by clicking on the link “IDV Lookup”
9. Click on the “Premium Calculator” to prepare premium quotation using the calculators. If necessary, offer more than one insurance package for comparison
10. If any follow-up call is required, go to the Activity section, and add a new appointment to record the date and time for the follow-up call
11. After the call is over, update the status of the call in the milestone section.

The Infrastructure

Connectivity – They were able to arrange for a 512 Kbps Internet connection for every location

Computers – Each user was provided with a low-end laptop with a Celeron processor and 512Mb RAM. A Server was configured as a gateway and proxy at each location.

Operating System – All laptops and servers were equipped with Suse Linux.

Web Browser – Firefox

Documents Manager – Open Office

Read more about the setup at Arun’s blog

The Result

Ace Money is now using On2Biz for all their sales executives. Managers are able to monitor the flow of opportunities through the pipeline of every sales executive, and measure the sales effectiveness at every stage of the sales process.

Screenshots of Dashboard

Sales Performance in November 2007

Sales Performance in March 2008

Related posts:

1. Customer / Partner Relationship Management facilities in On2Biz
2. Why do you need a CRM or Sales Force Management System?
3. How effective is your sales process?

Across the tech vendor community, approximately 50% of marketing investment is allocated to demand generation and about one-third of that investment is ear-marked to directly support the sales force. New research from IDC shows that, for most vendors, this complex and expensive intersection of marketing and sales remains very much a “work in process.”

What are the main bottlenecks in managing this escalating cost of sales?
What are the best practices being followed? What systems and processes need to be put in place?

As the IDC’s CMO Advisory Practice points out and which resonates with our experience from the On2Biz community:

1. A consistent, global definition of a lead – We have seen with each business that begins to use On2Biz, that sales teams are often clueless on what a lead is. Some sales persons tend to consider every visiting card they collect as leads. While other more skeptical sales persons only register a lead when they are confident that the order will come through. This inconsistency in definition of what a lead is can only be corrected by a globally communicated definition of a lead, established as a standard company policy.
2. Lead Capture, Lead Qualification and Assignment to Sales – Leads could be captured from multiple sources. There needs to be a well defined qualification process, where certain minimum requirements for qualification are verified by the lead capturing team. Only qualified leads should be forwarded to the sales team. Bad quality leads wastes costly sales resources. And qualification done centrally keeps the leads qualification process under control.
3. Sales Performance Measurement – As we have discussed previously in various posts under “Sales Pipeline Management“, performance management is really the first step towards managing sales costs. In On2Biz implementations, we insist that our first users are managers and not sales persons. Unless managers are able to measure sales performance by using a clearly defined set of key performance indicators, sales effectiveness will never improve.

Carl quotes the recommendations offered in this study:

• CMOs must dedicate a lead management individual or team to develop and govern a marketing lead management process across the organization, ideally in collaboration with a similarly tasked sales lead manager. Senior management buy-in and support is required at process development, roll-out, and governance.
• Providing quality leads and establishing the ability to track leads will only be possible once marketers and other system users understand the need for a lead management process and its impact on the success of the marketing function. Many leading sales organizations tie use of their CRM system with compensation; it’s time for marketing to follow suit.
• Performance measurement in the lead generation process will enable marketing to quantify its true impact on the sales pipeline (e.g., marketing-generated and marketing-enhanced leads and deals) and lead velocity. This will also enable marketing to establish a direct feedback loop to improve its campaign effectiveness along the entire customer development lifecycle – from awareness through advocacy.

Related posts:

1. Lead Management: What is a lead and how to qualify leads?
2. The Secret behind Effective Sales Management
3. Using the sales pipeline report for key performance indicators

• Perceived simplicity can often conflict with actual simplicity of usage – Users initially associate simplicity by the lack of options. A ’simple’ interface is perceived to be one where there are very few options. However, that is not necessarily easy to use. An interface that provides ready access to features that may otherwise be difficult to access greatly simplifies the usability of the system. Managing this balance is one of the most difficult skills in designing user interfaces
• Actions that provide real value — and drive revenue — often have formidable learning curves – It is evident that users who learn to use all the features of the the tool deliver higher performance. But the learning curve required to become power users is steep. Hence the interface has to manage users at all stages of this learning curve. And this balance is a moving target, because as we add more features to On2Biz, experienced users will move ahead, while making the initial jump higher for new users. This is what makes our job difficult, but interesting
• Gradual engagement, the most frequently cited solution for managing complexity, is actually quite difficult to design and build – The approach that On2Biz uses is to gradually get users accustomed to the various features available. Initially, users are expected to only manage their pipelines, then gradually move on to managing their tasks and appointments, then move ahead to task optimization and improving throughput. Managing this gradual engagement of the user is one of the challenges for the On2Biz development team. As Luke says, “In order to present the right user interface to the right user at the right time, designers must track multiple types of users and their various states, then map those contexts to an appropriate presentation of features and content. This, of course, is a non-trivial challenge and, as a result, is often done poorly. If the logic is not thought through completely, some users end up with too many options, while others feel they have too few”

Another issue with simplicity is the perceived value of the solution by prospective customers of On2Biz. Often, the simplicity is mistaken for lack of features. Customers evaluating a business management solution often look for the most features in the system they buy. But often, the result is that nobody uses the system!

In another post titled “The sweet spot for buying“, Luke refers to a Harward Business Review article which describes how:

“Before using a product, people will judge its desirability and quality based on ‘what it does’ (i.e. the number of features). Even though they may be aware that usability is likely to suffer, they will mostly choose products with many features. After having used these products however, usability will start to matter more than features and people will choose easy-to-use products over products with many features. The dilemma is that in order to maximize initial sales one needs to build products with many features, products that do lots of “stuff”. But in order to maximize repeat sales, customer satisfaction and retention one needs to prioritize ease-of-use over features.”

The accompanying graph also summarizes this very well:

Our major effort in On2Biz is to manage this optimal level of features that ensures we have all the “bells and whistles” that new customers will look for in choosing a system, as well as keep the fluff out for regular users who are only concerned about productivity.

Related posts:

1. Feature Changes: Workspace dashboard menu with Activity List and Pipeline

To handle a growing number of customers, businesses hire more sales persons. This increases the available time and resources. And in India where salaries are affordable, this is the easiest way to facilitate growth. So most small businesses have a much larger sales force compared to their sales revenues. However, you cannot continue this strategy beyond a certain point, because good sales persons are not easy to find. To make average sales persons work with the same efficiency, you need to work as a team. And as the team size increases, managing the team becomes expensive and cumbersome, leading to loss of sales effectiveness. Hence sales effectiveness is not scalable

I recently read an article on Roy Gough’s blog about this issue. Roy is a successful CRM professional who has implemented CRM systems for companies in the US. He lists the following problems commonly faced by sales teams that try to grow without a system.

• Promised return phone calls not made, and information not sent
• Not being informed of possible delays or problems
• That call to tell you when your order is ready – promised but not made.
• One department in the company having no idea what another department said to you in the last call or letter.
• No one bothering to call to make sure the goods arrived, or are satisfactory. Probably no calls at all – until of course they want to sell you something else
• No one knowing what they last sold to you – or when
• No one knowing enough about you to offer you items or services that would enhance or compliment your purchase. Frequently only one person in the company seems to know anything about you! And if they’re not available…?

The answer is a CRM or sales management system like On2Biz gives you scalable sales effectiveness. The system works

1. by enhancing the efficiency of every individual sales person
2. as well as improving team management capabilities.

For an individual sales person, the system works like a personal secretary who never forgets, and who allows the individual to handle more customers within the same available time and resources. For a team, the system becomes the communication platform that allows a large team to work together without communication gaps, forgotten tasks, and incomplete briefs. So adding a CRM or sales management system is almost like doubling your sales force, but without the high cost and loss of effectiveness.

But the challenge in using a CRM or sales management system is in getting your sales force to adapt their working style to a more structured process, where information is recorded systematically and accurately. This additional responsibility is often viewed as an unnecessary overhead by individual sales persons. Sales persons initially tend to view the system as a way for managers to keep tabs on their activity. They consider it as a burden that hampers them rather than serving to enhance their productivity.

That is where On2Biz differs from other such systems available. On2Biz has been designed to minimize the pain involved in adopting a system that requires individuals to work in a structured process. Based on the years of experience in implementation of workflow management systems in India, Reach1to1 has created a business management system specifically for ensuring successful user adoption of sales management systems.

Contact the On2Biz team for creating an evaluation account for your sales team today!

Related posts:

1. How effective is your sales process?
2. The Secret behind Effective Sales Management
3. Customer / Partner Relationship Management facilities in On2Biz