Another 'Leaky Bucket' KSI Lens
As the Century motored in, I was loving helping Enterprise salesteams get what was in the head of their top rep for any particular tactic, into the mouths of all the others.
My clients began in the range of around a dozen to two-dozen solution sellers.
Pretty soon that expanded. Encompassing the handful to the hundred-plus.
Then the readjustment phase. Upon realising sales leaders were only allowed by their bean counting overlords to pay less than the salary of an admin person for such services. Yet would sign-off literally ten-times that for extra crm that they could never use. Go figure.
Still, having invented, bootstrapped and grown my idea into what
I aimed to be a world-class small business, I became deeply ingrained with what solution salesteams sought.
Chief among such, was plugging the so-called leaky bucket.
What's the point of scrambling to fill it, only for a hole draining out the bottom?
I was reminded of this over the festive season with a surfeit of articles along the lines of 'signs of dementia to look for in your relatives this Christmas Lunch'. A rather distasteful yet harrowingly pertinent serving for many families I fear.
For the record, one such piece offered the following nine; Forgetfulness, Repeating questions, Difficulty carrying out familiar daily tasks, Difficulty with tech, Difficulty following a conversation, Spatial and temporal awareness, Difficulty controlling emotions, Inappropriate behaviour, Being suddenly suspicious.
Regardless of their veracity, this is in remarkably similar vein to sessions I recall from two-decades-plus back. 'Signs to look out for prefacing customer churn'.
Attrition became a key driver. The alert of it at the earliest opportunity a major aim. One of the more forward-thinking of my clients asked me to help them track what they'd termed Key Security Indicators.
At that time KPIs, and to a lesser extent KSOs, were new found toys all-the-rage across dashboards. Here they'd brought KSIs.
I instantly saw the power in this.
In my own client lifespan extension ambitions, I applied a flavour too.
Prime time given to what we must do to ensure what I was unleashing was actually being actively sought out and used to make more sales, in less time, at higher calibre.
I would know by each seller who'd looked, how often and how long, at any killer piece of intel, uniquely found through me.
When I spotted a glaring gap, I'd raise it. Have a regular monitoring chat lined up to do so. Especially when it involved an initiative close to the boss's heart, the response was immediate. And often brutal.
For instance, a new product was often in play. All eyes on its numbers. Anyone not having viewed the amassed way to best pitch it, regardless of standing, got a call.
How do you intro it? What's your pushback from [objection]? Which reference story do you use for [situation]?
They always floundered. The typical trail I witnessed was they'd blag it. Yet that'd only get them one or two questions in. It always revealed they were not in any way properly trying to engage the market in the new shiny wares.
All for the sake of less than ten minutes reading time. Followed up with in-field testing, refining and repeating.
Where lie nine devastating yuletide signs of dementia, there's a similar list of alarms that can give rise to your client's affinity to your services waning.
Start off with a top three. Get to grips with knowing when they emerge. Get on top of them. Fix them. Fix your leaky bucket.