Largely inspired by the work of Frederick Winslow Taylor, and made real by Henry Ford and others, the age of mass production introduced the concept of role specialisation in the pursuit of manufacturing efficiency.
And for a considerable period of time his idea that there was “one best way” had the desired effect - as long as the customer was prepared to accept a standardised product, and often at considerable cost to the job satisfaction of the workers involved.
It also had no need to take account of the feelings of the inanimate objects being produced. A Ford Model-T is unaware of the number of workers that have been involved in its production, or of the hand-offs between them.
The idea of role specialisation appears to have obvious attraction when applied to the sales function, as exemplified by the number of organisations that separate the SDR, sales and account management functions.
But there’s a real problem in taking this concept of role specialisation too far when applying it to sales - because our “production line” (or sales pipeline) isn’t an inanimate, uncaring collection of parts, but a group of sentient human beings who expect and deserve to be treated with respect...
As Amy Volas points out in a LinkedIn article, whilst today’s segmented SDR model might seem to offer operational efficiencies, it often ignores or runs roughshod over the feelings of the most important components in the whole process - our potential customers.
Our potential customers hate being treated like a clumsily-handled baton in a relay race. And just as in a relay race, every time a handover is required, there is a clear and present danger that the baton will be dropped, rather than smoothly transferred.
At one level, there is the risk that the positive relationship the SDR has just established is going to be disrupted by passing the customer on to someone who may have a completely different personality and be incapable of establishing the same rapport.
Potential customers hate being treated like a clumsily-handled baton in a relay race.
But it’s not just about personality or style: the issue is compounded if the customer is subjected to questions they have already been asked or answered, or if the new salesperson appears to be ignorant of things the SDR had previously discussed.
These faulty handovers are not just inefficient, they are deeply disrespectful of the customer and their precious time. It’s hardly a surprise that many apparently promising opportunities fail to make any further progress after a fumbled handover.
Amy offers a number of thoughtful recommendations in her article. I’d like to highlight a few of my own:
The same respect-for-the-customer thinking also needs to be applied to the handover between the sales and customer success functions:
I hope that my message is clear, and that you see my recommendations as both sensible and actionable:
So - how many times might your teams have dropped the customer baton this year? And what are you going to do to ensure that they stop doing it in the future?
Bob Apollo is the CEO at Inflexion-Point, the UK-based B2B sales and marketing performance improvement specialists. Inflexion-Point helps B2B organisations to design and implement highly effective customer acquisition systems based on a combination of the winning habits of their top sales performers and the latest industry best practices.
Inflexion-Point are the designers of the Outcome-Centric Selling Edition - a pre-configured Membrain version with sales process, methodology, and enablement embedded. This Edition will help your salespeople to make your way of selling into a competitive advantage.
Find out more about Bob Apollo on LinkedIn
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