Approach to Successful Sales Transformation Initiatives

Introduction

The world of B2B sales has never experienced the rate of change that is occurring today due to COVID-19. Since the pandemic interrupted business as usual earlier in the year, companies immediately sent their work forces home, and for the first time ever, the vast majority of businesses are now operating remotely. We are all aware of this but sales organizations and their supporting functional groups like sales enablement, finance, marketing, etc., began using communication tools like Zoom, email, texts, social media, and other collaboration solutions in an effort to not lose the momentum they had gained since the first of the year. These frequent, yet disjointed efforts to communicate resulted in sales organizations actually taking their eye off the ball and the new sales transformation initiatives that were in place during Q1 that were intended to improve the effectiveness of the sales organization began experiencing poor adoption rates as sellers reverted to their old way of selling.

Four Pillars to Implementing Sales Transformation Initiatives

Studies have shown that the most effective approach to implementing new sales transformation initiatives into the sales organization consists of four pillars.

  • Pillar I – Communication and Messaging
  • Pillar II – Engagement
  • Pillar III – Adoption
  • Pillar IV – Best Practice

Pillar I – Communication and Messaging

To remain competitive, companies need to continually evolve. New sales transformation initiatives are essential to help companies adjust to new market dynamics and opportunities. Effective communication and messaging are critical in implementing new strategic initiatives. When there is alignment in communications, revenue has been shown to increase in double digits. In a more decentralized environment, the question becomes how can we increase communications effectiveness and what is the optimal number of times to communicate and message to an audience to elicit a response. This is known as “effective frequency.” Marketing’s Rule of 7 states that people need to “hear” the message at least 7 times before taking some type of action. However, a frequency beyond 7 has cumulative benefits; the point of diminishing returns doesn’t occur for a good period of time. Microsoft conducted a study where they found the effective frequency to be upwards of 20. While 20 may seem excessive, the first several communications are “heard” as background noise. It’s not until the 9th or 10th time that the recipient becomes aware of the message. And It’s not until a few more interactions that the person engages or responds to the communication. The effective frequency depends on the type and level of engagement. E.g., text, email, LinkedIn, webinar.

Pillar II – Engagement

Engagement is where the sales organization begins to practice and use the new sales transformation initiative in their day-to-day workflows. A good example of this is sales training. Attending sales training programs, whether in person or virtually, is the communication and messaging piece. It usually one and done. Research has shown that only 30% of information demonstrated during training is retained. However, this number increases to 75% when sellers return to the office and practice the new ideas communicated during their training. This number can be further increased when sales managers reinforce training concepts through coaching and mentoring. After a period of time, the benefits and results of the new selling approach becomes apparent to a majority of the sales organization. This is when the company enters the adoption phase. Most teams have not been able to measure these engagement and adoption touchpoints until now.

Pillar III – Adoption

To continue with the sales training analogy, adoption is when the sales organization has embraced the new approach to a new initiative and the likelihood of sellers and sales managers reverting back to their old way of selling becomes slimmer as time goes on and the benefits and results continue to improve.

Pillar IV – Best Practices

The last pillar is the final stage in successfully implementing a new sales transformation initiative(s). This is where the new initiative becomes “how we do business.” Again, to continue with the sales training example, everyone in the sales organization, whether they are a seasoned veteran, a new seller, or an experienced seller that is new to the organization knows that this is the selling approach used and this is what you do to be successful in your role as a salesperson and/or sales manager. Additionally, when sellers model top-tier performers, the entire organization benefits financially.

Implementing Successful Sales Transformation Initiatives

Sales transformation initiatives vary from company to company and depend entirely on the strategic goals the company is committed to attaining over a certain period of time. It may be that several initiatives must be implemented in order to achieve a long-term strategic goal. For example, onboarding new sellers to be effective with a new initiative in days, not months takes a coordinated effort.

When it comes to effectively implementing new sales transformation initiatives, the Gig Economy Group (GEG), founded by Dave Toole, is a sales transformation company that delivers results through their Adaptive Sales as a Service platform. Their expertise in sales transformation is unparalleled on a global basis and GEG’s supporting software ensures strategic initiatives are effectively implemented using the four pillars as a framework.

For more information, contact Dave Toole, CEO of The Gig Economy Group.

Work and Life in the 21st Century — Untapped Data Opportunities

This Wednesday at 1:30 PM Pacific we will be hosting the 4th in our series of Work and Life in the 21st century. John Hagel, a world renowned management thought leader from Deloitte will be sharing his views and what he believes is the core in shaping our interactions long-term around Untapped Data Opportunities. It is important to consider as we go through the “Great Reset” as has been advocated by Gary Bolles, Chairman of the Future of Work at Singularity University. This also reflects the “Great Phase Shift” in what Bill Davidow and Michael Malone advocate in Autonomous Revolution. What is at the core challenges our ability to Innovate our way out of this pause we have because of the pandemic.

History has shown that when you try to hold on to the past and in many cases what got you here and contributed to your success, you become blinded to what is going on around you as people are innovating in redefining how things get done as we move into the future. Having done this over a dozen generations of Moore’s law in helping to build Advanced Technology Factories around the Globe, I found that when it is dark, unsure, the future is cloudy, it was the time that you must first maintain your support for your existing customers, but it also is a time where you need to take a bit of your bandwidth and apply it to figuring out what it would take to innovate in the present situation which has definitely changed most all of our lives. Something small that can scale.

As we are challenged with how we might leverage technology to better serve humanity, many times we permit it to overwhelm us, whether email, whether too much social media, whether too much news on television, whether with all of the information that is coming at us, it is easy to lose sight that technology should better serve us. So many of these things that now are so easily accessible to us should be here to serve us. At the core of this in our present technology relationship is Data, which has primarily been used to optimize how we did things in the past. We optimized how we surveil people who might buy our products and services, or be influenced by our political position. It has not yet been defined in a way that it can best serve individuals, those around them, corporations as we move from Shareholders to Stakeholders in society. As we continue to explore what we have available to us to Design the Future of Work we should consider this is a very important time to innovate and redefine our relationships both personally as well as with technology. Please join us Wednesday.

In The Mix and Getting In the Pocket — Aligning and Synchronizing

The best leaders and teams that get alignment around their Purpose and North Star will determine the winners and losers coming out of the great transition we are going through in 2020. That is a tough calling, even for the best. We thought this was the year to see how Vision 2020 was conveyed 5–10 years ago to rally people around a vision. We wanted to communicate how all the pieces would come together in new ways. Now we have a world that is turned upside down. For the few that aren’t struggling with feeding their families and the survival needs of their livelihood, there are many that are trying to determine what our socio-economic relationships might look like on the other side of this.

While most of history has found those leaders with great vision would do better than most, now is a time for the present moment. This is of urrgent importance coming from a technology background and living on the front lines of the roll out of Moore’s Law. We have gone from a linear path to a vision that took us to a destination and now is one that you need to get in the mix and iterate to a better place with a direction in mind. Adding capabilities you and a network of people can build will create new services for the new economy.

This brings us to what “Being in the Pocket” means. As a professional musician in my day, the greatest experience was when the rhythm section was all connecting, bringing a pace that the audience resonated with while collaborating and improvising with band members. This created a flow of sounds that expressed a movement. The Beatles, Symphonies, Jazz and most of the musical greats have experienced the highest level of capability when different people with different skills can come together and create greatness. It does not need just to be the greats, but it will be those that come out of this with a new capability to synchronize with teams that are not in the same room but believe in a common cause. This is “In the Pocket” Commercial or Social.

There is starting to be more people talking about the fact we are defining the future of work as we are all distanced from each other. I’m working with a great group of people exploring this and sharing experiences of what you can do to work through this challenging time as we are now adjusting to a new work and home life experience. There are three drivers that we must keep our eyes on and participate in. Stabilizing where we are, pivoting to a unique advantage and normalizing to a new normal.

There are organizations with a mission that need to be preserved for shareholders with many existing organizations, some recognize this needs to be improved upon, we can’t walk away from what has served us before. We must build a bridge from the old Industrial World to the new Information Age (this is how we surface new valued interactions) and in many ways will require us to redefine our purpose around stakeholders. There is the interworking of stakeholders that moves our society to a better place. This is not easy and new approaches to evolve our collective advantage will be tested at scale.

If we focus on where stakeholders are coming together to move socio-economic interests along we will find a way to get “in the pocket” as we mix it up. We will better align and synchronize to serve a broader middle class. This is the core to the survival of society.

4 ways to manage remote workers when you don’t know how long they’ll be working from home

ORIGINAL ARTICLE BY CHRISTINE TRODELLA @ FAST COMPANY

Christine Trodella of Workplace from Facebook notes that while we can’t predict what will happen with the world in a few months, weeks, or days, remote workers aren’t going anywhere, and companies need to adapt to remain competitive.

The remote worker is almost as old as the internet itself, so we’ve had more than a couple of decades to learn how to manage employees who aren’t physically present. But as we see this trend increase, it’s clear that effectively managing an employee whose “office” is in their home with an internet connection and a computer doesn’t mean that there’s a truly symbiotic relationship between a manager and their remote, work-from-home reports. It’s a lot more complicated than that. In fact, the learning curve has turned out to be steeper than any of us anticipated, and this specific employee group continues to be severely underrepresented despite their very unique needs.

A recent survey of 2,000 frontline workers and 2,000 managers in the U.S. and the U.K. shows that there is a major disconnect between workers on the front lines and business leaders. In fact, almost 90% of these employees feel connected to direct coworkers, but less than 15% feel connected to HQ. Worse, just 3% feel connected to their C-suite. That disconnect is affecting the bottom line. Less than half of workers say they share ideas with senior team members, and more than half say they feel voiceless. That can contribute to an environment where suggestions go unsaid and innovative ideas are stifled.

These numbers provide some important food for thought. Are you at risk of losing exceptional remote-based talent because you’re unclear on how to best manage and retain those workers, especially if your “work from home” policy extends longer than previously anticipated? (Which we know many companies are facing now, with COVID-19 impacting businesses worldwide.) During a crisis—or if someone is at home with family, or sick, etc.—people may need to take a more flexible approach. To better accommodate families and work in general during these times, have frequent team check-ins to understand your team’s needs and be sensitive to their well-being.

It’s time to meet these challenges head-on because the future is only getting more distributed. Here’s how leadership can navigate this evolving modern work environment and create an organization that values each employee.

ONBOARDING, TRAINING, AND MANAGING REMOTE WORKERS

For an in-office worker, the first day on the job is usually filled with introductions, new equipment, and the crucial first lunch. But the first day for remote workers looks very different.

Just because a remote or deskless worker isn’t at the office doesn’t mean they don’t deserve the same onboarding experience and training as the rest of your team. Send a welcome package in the mail along with necessary equipment (where applicable) and include a training schedule as well as some introductory instructions (login information for work accounts, for example). Also include handbooks and style guides. Assign a work mentor to whom the new employee can turn for help and advice. Better yet, take advantage of the tools at your disposal, like creating a bot that will automate monthly check-ins, or create a direct chat where you can take advantage of immediate, one-on-one feedback. Entire businesses can also benefit from newer technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and more. We must be open to these ideas and be unafraid of pushing the boundaries of innovation that enable greater and more interesting connections.

From the beginning, managers of remote and distributed employees should be asking questions about preferences for minor things that make a big difference, such as feedback style and meeting preferences (for example, do they prefer videoconferencing for one-on-ones or group catch-ups?). Create a “How I Work” document and ask your direct reports to fill it out. You can capture very important information, and it shows you’re being mindful, thoughtful, and preferential to what works for them. It’s also important to regularly communicate and check for context. When teams are dispersed, it is difficult to know who has been exposed to project knowledge and updates, so reinforcing context in writing, during one-on-ones, and team meetings is important.

Managers should also make a list of where remote employees can find helpful resources, from important company updates to how to reach IT for technical issues. Ensure your organization has enterprise tools that are available on mobile devices and have little barrier to entry for frontline employees who may not be in a home office.

ENCOURAGE ENGAGEMENT WHILE YOUR WORKFORCE IS DISTRIBUTED

The old saying “Out of sight, out of mind” can certainly apply to those not in the office. It’s easy for remote workers to feel they aren’t heard, and it can be difficult to collaborate with people who aren’t physically present.

It would seem obvious that the correct way to address this disconnect would be to invest heavily in collaboration tools. But the same survey shows that while 95% of business leaders recognize the value of collaboration tools, only 56% have rolled them out.

If your organization is serious about tapping into the potential of remote workers, it needs to invest in the best technologies to make sure collaboration tools are not just suggested but are incorporated into all processes to ensure that all workers, remote or at HQ, can have their contributions equally seen and heard.

So why not make this a fun process for your workforce while they work distributed? Perhaps make a company-wide “work where you want” day and have your workers send a photo to your HR team for them to post on a company forum somewhere to showcase all the different places and ways that your colleagues work, best practices, or work-from-home hacks that colleagues can share with each other.

Remote workers also need to be included in things such as all-hands meetings hosted by the CEO via videoconferencing and Q&As that can be watched live or bookmarked to view later in local time zones.

ADAPTING TO CHANGING ENVIRONMENTS AND WORK CULTURE

As organizations become more global and increasingly mobile, leaders need new ways to build, scale, and sustain culture across their organizations. Technology is the key to creating an open, transparent culture. After all, when you connect people and give them access to information, you can change culture and transform your business. It’s no surprise that working alone can be isolating, so it’s important to leverage the right technology that not only connects everyone, but makes them feel physically present.

However, technology is only one influential part here. The people make the largest impact. If you have your mission and vision written on your website, provide some swag for your remote workers to keep on their desks at home—for instance, printed on a calendar, a water bottle, a notepad, etc. Remote workers aren’t just looking for a connection to each other but to the very vision they believed in when accepting their current role.

HELPING CHANGE MANAGERS’ MINDSETS ABOUT DISTRIBUTED/REMOTE ORGANIZATIONS

Managers, executives, and C-suite leaders should focus on where the best talent resides and realize that those employees may not always be located in the corporate headquarters or local office. Alternatively, as the world changes, it may be a safety precaution or requirement that must be taken and may be prolonged due to unexpected conditions.

This means understanding that what’s best for your organization may mean enabling workers across the globe who are best suited to meet your bottom line, assist your customers, and serve your business, from a desk or the front line. Leadership must embrace this as well and ensure that employees know that the quality of their work will remain more important than the location they’re getting their work done. As leadership encourages a forward-thinking organization, you will retain and attract like-minded employees who end up being great colleagues.

When there are annual meetings, remote and distributed employees need to be there. And if they can’t attend holiday functions, make sure to make them feel seen and valued by sending a treat (cookies can do wonders). Remember that all the perks of being an in-office employee extend to distributed and remote employees.

When it comes to being a distributed organization, the benefits far outweigh the challenges. The trick is to get strategic about the tools at your disposal and ensure your leadership team is equipped with a set of tools to best manage their direct reports, whether in-office or online. You’ll also need to shift the organization’s mindset to recognize that teams extend beyond just the people in the office.

Leadership teams and managers also need to ensure they’re collecting feedback and sentiment about the distributed employees they manage. That will ensure that corporate offices are aware of pain points and how to best incorporate and provide feedback with the goal of creating a unified, collaborative environment that prioritizes open communication and support.

While we can’t predict what will happen with the world in a few months, weeks, or days, we can follow the trends that point to the fact that remote workers aren’t going anywhere, and companies need to adapt to remain competitive. Hopefully, leadership teams will equip managers with tools to feel heard, gather feedback, celebrate wins, understand work preferences, and ensure connection to global headquarters.

Lifting up to your Potential

This is about Lift. The desire to lift the potential of those around us. I chose this “Gig” as my attempt to lift the performance of Independent Business Owners as a start. We believe that we can bring best in class performance to tens of thousands that lift up those that have not had the time as they say “in tall grass.” Another words, they haven’t had the time to build the experience. What if you had the expert next to you to help lift you up in real time?

For so long in business we used sports metaphors to help employee’s relate to business success stories. I will take a different approach and use music to relate to business success. Sport appeals to mostly men and music appeals to us all, including woman. What a novel concept. I hope I can do justice to this. That’s not to say I have not used or been involved in many sports stories for business. I worked on a project called “The Winning Spirit” with Joe Montana the legendary quarterback. He preached repetition of your goal to get there faster and with better quality. We’ll take a tour on how to help Gig Economy Networks thrive in the new economy and how being able to have real time recommendations can take you to a higher level.

The greatest maturity in providing lift is when it happens between people, not by directives from management. The best musical performances are when people with different backgrounds come together and make something happen that they would not be able to on their own. Think of the Beatles and how they were able to work with each other to produce so many unique songs. They were produced by George Martin, some say the 5th Beatle. He was able to lift them up to greater heights. Lifting up. As an Independent Business Owner we don’t typically have a producer, coach, mentor at our side. We now have the tools to do this in real time.

The Gig Economy is new. There are good things about it as it is now employing tens of millions of workers and it is also untested in how the policies should be administered to make sure there is a fair balance in the relationship between companies that see the opportunity and the labor practices that we are accustomed to. This will take some ups and downs before it settles down. I get excited about the opportunity to help contribute to this.

Do you remember when you were a teenager you had some stand out moments that you still remember today? I first came across the term “gig” when I was a teenager and learned that I could make some extra money playing a gig with my band. Meeting girls was an added benefit, but making money playing music could bring in some income was a cool proposition. It worked out well as we found ourselves in the middle of the Bay Area music explosion and got some pretty nice “gigs”

The word Gig today has many connotations. A “side hustle” can bring in extra income and is easier to line up from what has come before. The downside is that many networks have been launched on the backs of freelance workers. We are at a point historically that we need to define the role of gig workers and their relationship with the networks they perform in. This is not easy and has been a struggle over many generations.

Today is Labor Day. It acknowledges the hard work that goes into making our nation what it is. We have had the good fortune of having some of the brightest people and the greatest amount of opportunities that surround us. This has distinguished the U.S. in many ways. We should take a moment and appreciate the opportunity for someone to become successful if they so desire.
There are so many stories of those that had little, that rose up the ranks with their internal drive and support from those around them to step into a better place.

We have lost the upward mobility of the masses. Other countries like China are able to lift up the standard of living to a far greater number of people from what we can. Is it technology, competitiveness, policy or we’ve just had it so good over the years? We need to talk about this and find a way to lift up once again.

We need to define what would serve us the most in the Gig Economy. We are in the midst of redefining the Future of Work and for that matter how we spend our time on a daily basis. The new digital capabilities create a lot of change in how we all relate. From work to play. We hope to contribute to future success stories as to how the Gig Economy can lift the Labor market in new ways. Please join us on this journey.

 

Gig Economy Group Launches with New AI-Driven Business Process Management Platform to Drive Higher Sales and Profitability

New sales enablement technology changes the way companies and associations can engage and support sales teams and members in a time of digital transformation

SAN MATEO, California. – April 19, 2018 – Gig Economy Group (GEG), a Business Process Management (BPM) Platform designed to enable direct sales businesses and membership organizations to create and support a more informed and successful independent sales force, today announced the launch of the company’s new technology and website. GEG uses proprietary AI (artificial intelligence) technology to help sales forces know “what to do next” to increase speed of on-boarding, increase engagement, retention and productivity of sales forces.

With the digitization of sales becoming more prevalent, sales teams look towards optimizing their strategies to become even more effective, efficient and productive. Sales enablement platforms need to continuously evolve along with digital transformation and have access to emerging technologies that improve productivity and speed administrative tasks in real time to dynamically deliver the most effective content to support each customer interaction.

Machine learning and a unique approach to AI enables GEG to harness the power of human knowledge and experience to proactively surface and present the most appropriate content or action for each individual user in every situation that they face. GEG uses this technology to help address the uniquely human and personal challenges of on-ramping into a new position, building momentum and confidence, and moving successfully toward business goals. This value enables sales, service and marketing teams to work more effectively to grow their pipelines, collaborate more effectively, move deals through the sales process faster, and increase win rates.

“We are proud to announce the release of a platform that empowers independent sales professionals an experience that helps them determine what to do next in the sales process to increase revenue generation”, said Dave Toole, Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Gig Economy Group. “We combine machine learning and content marketing with our proprietary artificial intelligence workflow engine to optimize the sales journey. Imagine if you could determine which attributes would drive larger deal sizes, longer-term lifetime value and greater loyalty. This would change how a company assign territories, prioritize prospects and drive customer success management for existing clients. This is precisely why we developed the GEG platform.”

GEG Business Process Management Platform Features

  • Sales Enablement Technology: GEG leverages machine learning to proactively deliver sales training, consumer-facing content, and recommended next action steps that align with customer needs and drive more sales. The platform continuously learns, evolves, and becomes more powerful as the result of the human intelligence and actual sales data that it gathers and analyzes from across the entire organization.
  • Rapid Onboarding Meets Sales Effectiveness: Sales reps must acquire significant company and product-specific knowledge before they can successfully use their sales skills, which takes time and hinders their speed to market. GEG allows a sales rep to interact with the market immediately by bringing content and training to each sales rep, before they need ask for it. This dramatically decreases onboarding time and significantly increases sales effectiveness to drive revenue growth.
  • Proactive Next Steps for Every Sales Situation: The typical tool set for a sales rep is a portal for training, and another for content, which they must navigate to find the proper piece of content before continuing their journey. This process slows down sales momentum and frustrates your frontline. The GEG platform empowers sales teams by proactively delivering the content and training required prior to each next step in the sales cycle, aligning the company’s product with the customers interests and needs.
  • Data-Driven Insights from Machine Learning + Human Intelligence: GEG uses data-driven insights, machine learning, and ‘augmented emotional intelligence’ to harness the power of an organization’s human intelligence and experience in order to proactively surface and delivers the right information (consumer-facing content and sales training) and recommended next action steps for each individual user to take to maximize their opportunity for successful outcomes.
  • Measurable Business Results: By providing the content and training that aligns and supports a diverse sales team (in-house or remote), executives can immediately see the impact as related to their most important business metrics. With GEG’s AI-powered platform that minimizes time to market, sales rep enthusiasm and commitment increase, turnover falls, and sales and revenues increase.

For more information about the GEG platform, please visit our website at: www.gigeconomygroup.com or request a demo by emailing us at support@gigeconomygroup.com.  Stay updated on GEG’s developments and news by visiting our social channels at: Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

 

About Gig Economy Group:

Gig Economy Group’s Business Process Management (BPM) Platform enables direct sales businesses (and membership organizations) to create and support a more informed and successful independent sales force.

The company’s software proactively delivers the customer content and sales training information that individual reps require at the moment they need it at any point in the sales cycle. To determine what content, coaching, and recommended next steps to present, GEG uses data-driven insights, machine learning, and ‘augmented emotional intelligence’ to harness an organization’s own collective human intelligence and experience. Through use of the Gig Economy Group platform, reps become more confident, productive, and successful, while companies experience faster onboarding, greater retention, increased overall performance, and growth in sales revenue.

Media Contact:
Beth Trier, Trier & Company for Gig Economy Group
beth@triercompany.com, 415-285-6147