Quality of Sales

What is Quality of Sales and How Can You Leverage It?

As more money chases deals and interest rates rise it's more expensive to get deals done and more challenging to realize the target growth in EBITDA and multiple.

Buyers need more tools to improve due diligence and accelerate lagging investments. Finance, operations, and product due diligence are already well refined. The variable is often the sales team's ability to execute on organic growth, new logos, and margin expansion targets as markets change.

That ability is what Quality of Sales quantifies empirically - for teams you may acquire, for teams you already hold, and for new sales candidates.

Organic Revenue Growth & Margin Expansion

Bain projects that 65% of value creation will result from revenue growth and margin expansion.

But traditional Quality of Earnings due diligence is focused retrospectively. Are contracts enforceable? Are renewals consistent? etc.

As margin for error decreases as deals become more expensive, buyers need more. They need a detailed understanding of:

a target investment's sales teams ability to execute on the thesis
what personnel changes will be necessary
what the ramp up time will be
how to identify root causes of underperformance in currently owned sales teams
how to accurately identify 2nd & 3rd standard deviation sales talent when hiring

Source: Zorian Rotenberg via LinkedIn

quality-of-sales-team-evaluation-due-dilligence

Like a Sales Team "MRI"

Quantitative and Qualitative Insights

Yesterday's rainmakers may well be today's sales laggards as markets evolve.

It's critical to understand empirically, with statistically significant predictive accuracy:

who WILL sell in your specific market
who WILL successfully manage a sales team to hit their goals
whether existing organizational sales systems and processes will support growth
what training is required to unlock the full potential of the current team
how much the current team can improve and how long it will take
what root causes underlie underperformance

That's what we deliver with high predictive accuracy and with only about 45 min investment per team member using Objective Management Group's Award Winning diagnostic tools.

1. Prospective Deals

There's a smaller and smaller margin for error in your financial modeling and assumptions. You can build in timelines for training, replacements, etc., as long as you know up front.

That's precisely what a QoS Sales Team Evaluation does.

The evaluation will identify strengths, weaknesses and potential for each individual and the sales team in aggregate.

You'll know:

how much revenue they can add, over what time frame, with the right training
who's in the right (or wrong) role for their sales capability
who will chronically underperform
how to improve management and coaching to drive results
what will be required to implement price increases and to make them stick
what will be required to build a team that can deliver new logo organic growth.

2. Current Portfolio Companies

How often does it happen that you buy a company. Invest 3 years in streamlining operations, and then discover that the sales team can't deliver growth to fill your new operational capacity? Frustrated at the lack of new logo deals closing? Struggling to push through price increases and get them to stick?

And then you have the turmoil of turnover, the delay of recruiting and onboarding, then the sell cycle.

And all the while you hope your new hires will succeed to avoid repeating the cycle.

When realizing the investment thesis depends on quickly and accurately diagnosing the root causes of current underperformance, a QoS Sales Team evaluation is the answer.

3. Hiring with Confidence

Whether you go into a deal with certain replacements and hiring additions in mind, or are trying to fix an underperforming portfolio company, you'll need to hire talent of a caliber that matches your expectations.

An effective recruiting and hiring process, built around an accurate and sales-specific candidate assessment significantly increases the ability to consistently identify and hire 2nd and rd standard deviation sales talent who is well suited for your specific market situation.

How Quality of Sales Works - Theory and Execution

If you want to decrease product defects or shorten the cycle of monthly financial closing, you instinctively understand how to measure the current process, evaluate the current systems and people, and implement a PDCA cycle to improve.

Quality of Sales will help you do the same with sales teams and new sales hires.

Predictive Accuracy
Customizable
Sales Specific
Actionable
Multi-Level

Sales is different than any other role. It's the only one where people get out of bed in the morning hoping you'll fail! Nobody wants to be "sold."

That means that to be accurate and meaningful, an evaluation must be sales specific - Quality of Sales is.

We look at 21 sales specific competencies from hunting to presentation, from motivation to qualification, and from resilience to coachability.

These aren't personality of behavioral surveys recast for sales - but purpose built sales evaluations.

Learn more

Ed Marsh Consulting and Objective Management Group

Ed works with mid-size industrial manufacturers and capital equipment companies. He helps them adapt strategy and revenue growth approaches to meet changing buyer expectations and leverage new technology. Ed has carried an industrial company P&L and worked in multiple phases of industrial manufacturing and sales channel.

Ed is a Bronze Certified Objective Management Group partner.

Additionally, Ed is:

Comfortable with sponsors and portcos
Certificate in Private Company Governance from the Private Directors Association®
Directorship® Certified by the National Association of Corporate Directors
Former Army Airborne Infantry Officer
Graduate of Johns Hopkins University
Creator of the ORE™ (Overall Revenue Effectiveness) Framework that brings manufacturing and operational mindset and best practice to governance, strategy, marketing, sales and customer success

How long does it take?

You typically have the full "MRI" results in 3-5 weeks.

Management invests about 6-10 hours total (configuration, participation & debrief.)

Each individual spends about 45 min, online at their convenience.

What does it cost?

That depends entirely on the cost of the team. In most middle market cases the total investment is $20-35K for the full sales team MRI including the reports, data and debrief.

Obviously a rounding error compared to a faulty model, slow start or underperforming team.

How accurate is the data?

The results are built on observations of nearly 3,000,000 sales reps, managers and leaders.

The methodology is independently confirmed every two years and documented in a technical manual.

The most compelling confirmation of accuracy is feedback from frustrated teams who consistently say "Now we finally understand...."

why new hires haven't worked
why integration has been so slow
why they're not able to raise prices
why new logo growth is so problematic

What's next?

That depends on the findings and your goals. It might be a management coaching plan, or creation of an effective sales process, or additions/replacements, or a number of other outcomes.

Whatever you decide is appropriate is built on empirical data rather than gut feeling.

How is this different than sales training?

It may feel more efficient to just jump straight to improvement. After all, time is money.

But what needs to be improved?

Who can actually execute?

How long will it take?

What systems impede individual success?

In my experience training may indeed make sense, but just like financial reporting helps to guide action, this MRI identifies where immediate opportunities can be unlocked and what's required to advance the organization.

Buy Smarter | Grow Faster | Exit Stronger

What is Quality of Sales and How Can You Leverage It?

Organic Revenue Growth & Margin Expansion

Like a Sales Team "MRI"

Quantitative and Qualitative Insights

1. Prospective Deals

2. Current Portfolio Companies

3. Hiring with Confidence

How Quality of Sales Works - Theory and Execution

Predictive Accuracy

Customizable

Sales Specific

Actionable

Multi-Level

Ed Marsh Consulting and Objective Management Group

Who Benefits? In What Scenarios?

Diligence

Integration

Current Portcos

Talent

Sponsors & Execs

Owners & Bankers

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take?

What does it cost?

How accurate is the data?

What's next?

How is this different than sales training?

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