9 Mistakes to Easily Avoid When Building a Government Sales Team

A fellow named Mark Roberge wrote a book called The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology and Inbound Selling to Go from Zero to a hundred million dollars. The book is not focused on government contracting or local, state and federal markets like we are. But, holy moly, his concepts apply to the government space and to the work we do. 

We’re always talking about sales acceleration. By now, you’re likely familiar with our sales acceleration formula that identifies the traits of top government sales performers. If not, check out some of our previous Myths of Selling Government episodes or send me an email to rick-at-gov-selling-dot-com and I’ll send you a copy of the white paper. Or better yet, go to the Gov Selling Dot Com website and schedule a time for a brief chat. No charge.

In his book, Roberge cites nine mistakes companies make when building their sales teams. And, we’ve seen them all in the government space. They all apply.

Number one {{swoosh}}:  Hiring salespeople with your gut.  Roberge says you need to give thought to what really works in your organization…then, use those thoughts to establish the right criteria and how you’ll identify folks who fit. In other words, don’t wing it.

We agree. That’s one of the reasons we spent the resources to develop our survey of top performers in the government space. Yes, we agree with Roberge that it takes time and effort to develop your criteria. In fact, it’s an ongoing process. You have to work at it. But again, don’t wing it.

Number two {{swoosh}}:  Roberge says a big mistake is under-utilizing the sales compensation plan. We couldn’t agree more. If you want to get salespeople to move strategically, make your compensation plan reflect what you’re trying to accomplish. 

In the government space, we think you have to take into consideration the long sales cycle and the nature of the business. Perhaps consider adding other elements than sales closings to your compensation plan like pipeline growth. With government sales cycles being as long as they are, you may not want to wait until a deal closes to compensate. Look for ways to measure other activities that may be worth adding to the compensation formula. Perhaps you’ll want to make the closing a major…but, not the only…factor in your compensation plan.

Again, make your compensation plan reflect what you want the sales team to accomplish.

Number three {{swoosh}}}.  We love this one. Mistake number three is mis-aligning sales and marketing. You’ve heard us talk about this before. Sales and marketing must work together. What you don’t know is that this belief led to creation of two businesses, a book and now a podcast…this one. 

Lorin Bristow and I met each other when he was head of marketing and I was head of government sales for a company. When he and I arrived, sales and marketing not only didn’t work well together; they really didn’t like each other. We changed that. Lorin and I worked exceptionally well together, and we really liked each other. Still do. We changed the climate…and the results…in that company. And, have done the same for other companies since. That led to our book, Seven Myths of Selling to Government, which has a chapter devoted to the sales and marketing relationship, which led to this Myths of Selling to Government podcast.

Back to Roberge’s book. He talks about how they created sales and marketing alignment at HubSpot, where he was Chief Revenue Officer, through a Sales and Marketing Service Level Service Level Agreement. Marketing commits to certain things, like production of leads, and sales commits to certain things, like following up on those leads quickly. Results are measured and discussed.

Mistake number four {{swoosh}}:  

Not planning far enough in advance. I suspect this one is more important in the government space than many others. Roberge talks about outcomes of today being the result of what happened months ago.  Now, imagine how true this is in the government space where sales cycles are so blasted long. It’s not unusual for a potential client to ask for a commitment from us on when they’ll see increased sales from our efforts. We don’t mind projecting that, but it might not be what they want to hear. 

It takes time for your efforts to pay off in sales…especially in government sales. That’s one of the reasons you have to be very deliberate in what you do, and establish measurements along the way.

Mistake five {{swoosh}}:  Making forecasting, rather than coaching, the sales manager’s primary focus. Ah, good one.  The way I look at it, you need to establish process and procedure that helps facilitate forecasting. You need to put aside a bit of time to go through the forecast with your team members. But, all of this should be routine work…once you figure out the routine.

The creative work is looking for and seizing coaching opportunities for each individual. What does a specific person need to hear or learn at a particular moment? 

And, by all means, don’t forget about your top performers. They may be particularly good at what they’re doing, but they need coaching attention, too. It should be different than the type of attention you give the newbies or weaker performers, but coaching, they should get. If you’re one of the those top performers, talk to your bosses about what you think you need and help them help you.

Mistake number six {{swoosh}} 

Motivating through fear rather than metrics. You want to run off a potential top performer? Then micro-manage them and use fear. That doesn’t work, certainly doesn’t work these days…probably never has. Roberge says create an automated dashboard that shows every day accomplishment of metrics for all to see. You’ll see that the metrics will provide motivation and discipline. Motivating through fear is not necessary.

This reminds me of a study I read many years ago in Harvard Business Review. It compared motivators to de-motivators, and showed a list of things that motivate people compared to a list of things that de-motivate people. The lists were significantly different. The study found that the opposite of the things that motivated people didn’t necessarily de-motivate them…and vice versa.

It said the number one motivator was to put people in a position to achieve and recognize them for their achievement. It made the point that trophies and award trips may be fine, but sometimes just a mention of something specific they had done well, will do the trick. But, first, you have to make sure you’re doing everything possible to put them in a position to achieve.

Now, here’s the interesting part: The top de-motivator was not an absence of ability to achieve, and recognition for it. It was on the list, but well down the list. The top de-motivator, according to this list, was relationship with immediate supervisor. Think about it. It’s hard to overcome the many obstacles we all face in doing our work when we feel like we’re working for a jerk…particularly one who uses fear to attempt to motivate.

In our survey of top government sales performers, we found that the best in the business don’t like to be micro-managed. They get real frustrated when asked to explain the ins and outs of a complex government sales opportunity, only to be told that they need to do better. They’d rather be coached than micro-managed. 

Mistake number seven {{swoosh}}.  

In his book Roberge, says it’s a mistake to let new salespeople shadow top performers. Top performers have their own unique reasons…their super power… for being at the top and the newbie may have other super powers that can make them a top performer. 

Instead, says, Roberge, make sure you have a sales process and measure how each person does on each stage of the process. Provide guidance, but not too much, lest the newbie won’t discover their own super power.

Mistake eight {{swoosh}}:  Buying technology for management rather than the front-line salespeople. Roberge says, there’s been an explosion of technology that benefits the salesperson, while capturing data management needs to run the business. (Um, perhaps he was referring to HubSpot, where he worked.) 

I don’t know much about this, other than seeing a demo of a new approach for CRM recently. I would welcome knowing more, and would be glad to share what I find out. Contact me at rick at govselling dot-com.

And, mistake nine {{swoosh}}:  not experimenting enough. Roberge says devise and execute experiments. Iterate and improve. 

Sounds good to me. In the government space, expect those experiments to take longer. Meantime, in our opinion, you develop a plan, work it, adjust as necessary. You can see quick results, as long as you’re realistic about what results you’re looking for.

Mr. Roberge. This is really good stuff, and most appreciated.

Thanks to Dave Kerpen of Inc magazine for bringing Mark Roberge and his book, The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology and Inbound Selling to Go from Zero to 100-million. 

And, thank you for your attention. If you haven’t already, please subscribe and let me know at rick at govselling dot com what you think.

We thank you.

Video Clip Script

A few months back, we did a podcast episode on 9 mistakes made when setting up sales teams. The list came from Mark Roberge, author of the best-seller The Sales Acceleration Formula. We adapted it a bit to relate to winning government contracts. In this excerpt, on the section of the mistake of motivating through fear rather than metrics, I thought back….
This reminds me of a study I read many years ago in Harvard Business Review. It compared motivators to de-motivators, and showed a list of things that motivate people compared to a list of things that de-motivate people. The lists were significantly different. The study found that the opposite of the things that motivated people didn’t necessarily de-motivate them…and vice versa. It said the number one motivator was to put people in a position to achieve and recognize them for their achievement. It made the point that trophies and award trips may be fine, but sometimes just a mention of something specific they had done well, will do the trick. But, first, you have to make sure you’re doing everything possible to put them in a position to achieve.

Now, here’s the interesting part: The top de-motivator was not an absence of ability to achieve, and recognition for it. It was on the list, but well down the list. The top de-motivator, according to this list, was relationship with immediate supervisor. Think about it. It’s hard to overcome the many obstacles we all face in doing our work when we feel like we’re working for a jerk…particularly one who uses fear to attempt to motivate. In our survey of top government sales performers, we found that the best in the business don’t like to be micro-managed. They get real frustrated when asked to explain the ins and outs of a complex government sales opportunity, only to be told that they need to do better. They’d rather be coached than micro-managed. 

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No doubt about, I like to coach and teach. So, I was delighted to see an article about Mark Roberge, author of The Sales Acceleration Formula, and his list of mistakes companies make when building sales teams. One of them in particular resonated and became a part of Episode 2-3 of Myths of Selling to Government. It was the mistake we see where companies hold their sales managers more accountable for forecasting, rather than coaching. Here’s the clip. Ah, good one.  The way I look at it, you need to establish process and procedure that helps facilitate forecasting. You need to put aside a bit of time to go through the forecast with your team members. But, all of this should be routine work…once you figure out the routine. The creative work is looking for and seizing coaching opportunities for each individual. What does a specific person need to hear or learn at a particular moment? And, by all means, don’t forget about your top performers. They may be particularly good at what they’re doing, but they need coaching attention, too. It should be different than the type of attention you give the newbies or weaker performers, but coaching, they should get. If you’re one of the those top performers, talk to your bosses about what you think you need and help them help you.