Six truths about agile sales that your organization needs to understand

Last week, I talked about implementing lean process in sales organizations. This week, I want to look at a concept that is often confused for lean selling, but that is actually very different and equally important: Agile selling.

Agile methodology shares some qualities with lean methodology, which helps to explain the common confusion. It tends to reduce wasteful activities, and the result is faster delivery of products and services.

Ultimately, however, that is where the similarity ends.

A useful analogy is to consider the same words as applied to an animal. A lean animal does not carry excess fat. It uses energy efficiently, thus needing less input to achieve the same output.

An agile animal is characterized by its ability to move quickly and to adjust nimbly to changes in direction or immediate environment. A lean animal may find it easier to be agile, but leanness is not a necessary condition for agility.

Likewise, a lean process removes excess “fat” in the form of waste, using inputs efficiently in order to achieve outcomes with the least amount of “energy” (time, money, resources). An agile process is one that can adjust quickly and nimbly to changes in direction and the immediate environment.

Here are six things you need to know to make the most of agile methodology for your sales organization.

1. What an agile approach means

While the concept of lean process comes out of the manufacturing industry (Toyota, to be specific), agile process comes out of the software development industry. Agile was developed as a reaction against top-heavy and cumbersome software development methods that require massive up-front investment followed by a major launch on the basis of which the software either sinks or swims.

Agile software development involves an iterative process that encourages the launch of a minimum viable product (MVP), and then the testing and continuous improvement of that product in the marketplace. Instead of a single sink-or-swim launch, agile allows organizations to quickly launch, test, optimize, and iterate.

The agile software approach greatly reduces the cost to develop software, while simultaneously improving the quality of delivery. Its widespread implementation has resulted in the current explosion of high quality, low-cost software options for every sector of both consumer and business marketplaces.

2. Why agile matters for sales process

At the risk of gnawing a tired old bone, it bears noting that the current sales effectiveness crisis is underpinned by a widespread lack of formal process inside sales organizations. Underlying that lack of process is the fact that most organizations believe that building a sales process must be a major, behemoth undertaking that will be both costly and massively time consuming.

An agile approach can make it possible for sales organizations to begin realizing the benefits of a formal sales process quickly, even if they don’t have all the issues ironed out up front.

3. What a minimum viable product (MVP) is and why it matters to sales

One of the primary concepts of agile software development is the importance of releasing product quickly so it can be tested and optimized in the real world. At the core of this concept lies the “minimum viable product” or “MVP.”

A minimum viable product is a small, complete unit of software that can realistically be marketed in the real world. To use a concrete example, an MVP vehicle might have wheels, an engine, a seat, a steering mechanism, a gas pedal, and a brake. Once released, this MVP would be improved based on real world feedback—perhaps by adding a body, a windshield, and other “features.”

In sales process, a similar concept can be used by the same acronym: Minimum Viable Process. In this scenario, a sales organization, having identified the need for a process and taken the time to understand the customer’s journey, can map out a basic “skeleton” process—an MVP—and build it into a system.

When this is done with the right tools, sales executives and leaders can launch the MVP and then use the data that comes out of it to identify weaknesses, learn where improvements can be made, and build onto the parts that perform well.

4. What an MVP is not

It’s important to note that the MVP concept does not mean putting shoddy work out into the world. The “viable” in MVP means that the product/process must meet minimum standards for successful performance. In process, this means that the organization’s leadership must understand what they’re trying to accomplish, and what the basic elements of their process are or should be. It also means understanding what the customer needs, so that the MVP can be mapped against those needs.

A poorly conceived MVP will not provide the information and learning that the organization needs in order to optimize toward a high-performing team.

5. Agile requires continuous improvement

An agile system not only launches quickly, but also responds to learning and market conditions quickly. An agile selling system must be built in such a fashion that feedback from the sales team, the data in the system, and the market can be understood and applied across the board quickly and seamlessly.

6. How Membrain supports agile selling

Membrain is the only platform that easily supports agile selling. Membrain allows organizations to build a simple MVP (a skeleton process) into the system, and then it delivers detailed information that permits leaders and executives to see exactly where problems in the system arise. Coaches and executives can use that insight to build additional data collection mechanisms to dive deeper into the problem, or to initiate tweaks to the system that can be applied and tested organization-wide.

Together, the concepts of lean and agile can be combined to create a powerful process for building a world-class organization. Download this case study to see how Scania Mining used Membrain to create a process that is both lean and agile, and realized a 50% increase in profitability, or contact us today to schedule a demo.