Value Added Inspection - YOUR Difference as an Effective Sales Manager

Doing the thing right: Value added inspection skills.

Value added inspection is the "ART" part of Effective Sales Managers : It starts by setting expectations, and then by inspecting what you expect. We will focus here on the inspection part, and mostly on the « value added » part of these inspections.

The value added inspection, whether it is performed during the forecast process, during a one2one process, or during a deal review process, relies on one very simple tool :  your questions.

The same way you want your reps to ask better questions from your customers, you need to ask great question from your reps. You need to find the "holes in their cheese", and then you need to help them fill these holes thanks to your own value add.

The choice of your questions will mainly depend on what you are trying to achieve and who you are trying to influence.

A struggling Sales Manager  will handle business in a way that  is unpredictable, and is reflected, in the long term, by consistent  inaccurate forecast (too optimistic or too pessimistic, either way reflects poor control of the business). Because he does not ask the right questions.

A better Sales manager  will handle business in a better way so as to provide a more accurate forecast, but consistently below goal, which reflects good “drill down” skills, and good scrubbing of his Reps’s own forecast, but also can reflect  little influence on his people by coaching them into filling the gap with the revenue goal. He asks better questions, but provides little help and leaves his reps alone with their cheese full of holes.

An Effective Sales Manager does both by identifying gaps between forecast & goal, and then by getting her people to act at filling this gap and eventually making things happen to make/beat goal. She does it thanks to her value added inspection skills.

Value added Inspection skills are   a unique tool & technique, for a Sales Manager to get control of his business and of his people. This is a skill, when applied to the right processes, that can make the sales manager/sales rep relationship a WIN/WIN situation for them and for their district .

A good use of this technique can lead to empowerment of your people, and then to district success at beating goal. 

This is therefore a very important skill  and technique that every Sales Manager learns usually from his manager (by being inspected this way, you get to inspect the same way, it becomes part of the family ties…). You can be better prepared for your 121 with your  reps, by asking better questions, by driving consistent behavior change from your team.

A value added inspection question cannot easily be defined, but here are a few tips when you prepare those questions :

it is often an open question (What, when, where, who, etc…)

it is a question that is meant first and foremost at provoking reflexion by the recipient ( the deeper the reflexion, the better)

it is a question that is uncomfortable to answer and often can not be answered quickly 

it is a question which main goal is actually not to get an answer, but to transfer the question into the recipient’s head, for him to think, to change his way of looking at things, and to act upon it

It is a behavior changing tool, more than an “answer getting” tool

Examples : 

When did they last call you ?

Why would they buy from us ?

What would make them decide to buy now ?

...

So ...

what are your questions for your next meeting ?

and

...why these questions ?