The ability to lead change can make or break your sales team’s success. Change management skills have never been more important, especially for companies rolling out new products, processes, training, or technology.
It won’t be the first—or last—time you’ll use these skills. Sales transformation is a major trend for sales teams today. Sales organizations face significant shifts in the way they work, sell, and engage with buyers. This means rethinking old habits and adapting to meet new demands.
Sales leaders who are comfortable with change management can steer more effectively and have better results. Proactive change management can reduce the risk of failure and increase your odds of successful liftoff.
The potential for payoff is high. If you can implement new tools, processes, and plans well, your team will be using the most up-to-date approaches to stay competitive.
Sales transformation comes with unique challenges. Whether you’re transitioning from a legacy software system or adopting a new sales process, selecting the right solution is only half of the battle.
Your biggest hurdle still looms: implementation. Without a comprehensive plan for launching the new approach, your sales professionals won’t use it to its fullest potential. This will impact revenue down the road.
Start by answering these questions:
- How can I get from my current state to successful implementation?
- How can I ensure maximum engagement and adoption of the new approach?
- How can I demonstrate behavior change and true value?
Effective change management can help ensure a successful sales transformation. This post dives into the five steps of change management with sales leadership tips to help ensure success.
Watch On-Demand: Change Management Strategies for Leaders featuring Mack Trucks’ and Volvo Trucks’ Director of Competence Development Steve Parkins.
Change Management Process Step 1: Understanding Change
Identify the core issue: To implement change, pinpoint the opportunity you want to take advantage of or the challenge you want to solve. Every organization faces multiple scenarios and priorities. It’s important to identify the core issue clearly.
For example, are you facing low quota attainment? Can sellers negotiate the best terms? Does it take too long for new hires to ramp up? If so, your sales training might not be focusing on the right sales skills.
Define your objective: Determine your outcomes. Your goal could be to train sales professionals, introduce new products or processes, cut costs, minimize complexity, and/or improve productivity. Walk through your team’s current approach to understand any bottlenecks.
Involve stakeholders: Involve sales, marketing, and enablement teams, as well as internal sales operations, other departments, and partners in the process. Solicit their input, address their concerns, and keep them informed throughout the transition.
Conduct a thorough needs analysis: Identify skills, knowledge, or technology required to adopt the new approach. This will help you identify internal resources and/or select the right vendor to ensure you can meet your organization’s specific needs.
Sales Leader Tip: Time your rollout thoughtfully. Every quarter has specific challenges. What else are you asking your sales professionals to do? Consider other demands they face.
Change Management Process Step 2: Planning Change
Plan the transition: Include scope, timeline, deliverables, resources, and metrics for success. Ensure the plan is aligned with the organization’s sales strategy and objectives. Identify key milestones and tasks that need to be completed, and assign responsibilities to team members.
Create a training and communication plan: Include both self-guided and instructor-led training sessions as well as communication channels for ongoing support. This will help ensure sellers and managers are comfortable using the new approach and that any issues are addressed in a timely manner.
Research and compare providers: Decide whether you will use internal or external expertise (or a combination) to roll out the new approach. Research possible solution providers and the advantages and disadvantages of each.
Choose the right partner: Evaluate multiple options and select one with a proven track record. Consider factors such as product and services, pricing, and customer support.
Sales Leader Tip: Take a look at how you incentivize your team. Make sure nothing prevents or disincentivizes sellers from adopting the new approach.
Change Management Process Step 3: Communicating Change
Communicate rationale: The best practice for change management is to communicate early and often. Emphasize the benefits of the new approach as well as the impact it will have on sellers, managers, and the organization. Provide a compelling vision of the future state to motivate and inspire team members.
Be transparent: Build trust and lay the groundwork for adoption by communicating openly with stakeholders—leadership, sellers, sales ops, and any other impacted teams—about what needs to change and, more importantly, why it needs to change.
Understand impact: It’s natural for people to resist change. Anticipate how the change will impact each stakeholder. Think about priorities of each so you can address specific benefits for them and their role.
Line up champions: Identify company leaders and high-performing sales professionals who can act as early adopters and evangelists. Let them know why this change is important. Their peers will look to them for guidance and support.
Sales Leader Tip: Generate excitement with a clear message about the change. Use a “what’s in it for me” pitch that motivates sellers and dispels any initial resistance.
Change Management Process Step 4: Implementing Change
Create new content: Update your sales process, training materials, product content, and systems so everything is ready prior to rollout.
Test and evaluate: Try out the new approach to identify any issues before rolling it out to all sales professionals. Once the new process, tool, or system is in place, evaluate success regularly to identify areas for improvement and ensure it continues to meet the needs of your organization.
Train and support employees: Provide self-directed and instructor-led training to ensure team members have the skills and knowledge needed to use the new approach effectively. Offer ongoing support as needed to address any issues or questions that arise.
Manage resistance: Anticipate and manage resistance to change by addressing concerns, providing regular updates, and communicating the benefits of the new approach.
Sales Leader Tip: Recognize successes and tie those wins to the new approach. Others will realize it’s a way for them to mirror the success of top performers.
Change Management Process Step 5: Measuring Change
Monitor progress: Adjust the plan as needed to ensure the organization is on track to achieve its goals. Use metrics to track the success of the transition and make data-driven decisions to optimize the process.
Record benchmarks: Think back to the goals established when you identified the initial issue. Record your baseline and make sure you can measure the impact of your solution on these goals. Set up a data collection process so you have the information you need to monitor and evaluate success.
Set a timeline: Establish when you’d like to hit certain benchmarks to keep moving forward. For example, if you’re measuring sales rep adoption of a new tool, check in every week to see what percentage of your sales reps are using the tool. Ideally, there will be increased adoption every week. But if adoption starts to decline, you can address the issue in a timely manner.
Consider key metrics: Aside from seller adoption rates, track other relevant sales metrics such as selling time, deal velocity, or quota attainment. These metrics might take longer to see results, so recording the most current numbers prior to the change will give you something to benchmark against.
Gather feedback: Gather qualitative feedback from your sales team about the change using surveys, polls, meetings, and/or focus groups to determine how to make further improvements. Feedback from your sellers will give you insight into any modifications, reinforcement, or training needed.
Sales Leader Tip: Reward early adopters so they continue to support the new approach. Help resisters be pulled along by their peers.
Leave the Status Quo Behind
Rolling out a new approach takes effort. Most people don’t like change. But it doesn’t have to be difficult. With the right change management skills, you can ease the way, overcome your team’s resistance to change, and drive long-lasting improvement.
Not sure where to start? Get expert advice on change management from The Brooks Group Sales Consulting Services.
Learn More
Watch On-Demand: Change Management Strategies for Leaders featuring Mack Trucks’ and Volvo Trucks’ Director of Competence Development Steve Parkins.
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Change Management Success Checklist
Leave the status quo behind and accelerate the new normal for your sales professionals. Use this step-by-step plan to drive adoption of new skills, products, processes, and technology.
