A short walk around the corner from SAVO’s office in London’s SoHo district, you’ll find a plain, brown brick building lost in a sea of other buildings. The subtle feature distinguishing this building from the rest is a small blue plaque marking this as the former home of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – where he lived, played, and composed for a single year of his short 35 year lifespan.
I stumbled across this house after attending a lengthy webinar that stressed the importance of a reinforced sales process for enhanced forecast accuracy. After an hour of hearing terms like “verifiable outcomes”, “stage gates”, “forecast accuracy scores”, “pipeline inspection”, and overall putting “more science, less art into sales”… I was ready for a proper pint.
Equally inspired by the webinar, Mozart’s house, and my pint, I began to wonder if Mozart’s skills and accomplishments should be attributed to science or art. So, as embarrassing as it is, I began a conversation of searches with Google that led me to the insights to write this post.
Mozart’s take on science…
Mozart began composing at the age of 5, and created over 626 pieces including requiems, operas, symphonies, etc. until his death 30 years later. Quick bar napkin math tells us he composed about 21 pieces a year, or about 1.75 musical obras a month. What makes this more impressive is he spent the majority of each day training, performing, and caring for his wife and 6 children, and generally only had time to write music early in the morning and late at night.
He might have been a musical genius, but with only 24 hours in the day, he must have had a succinct, repeatable, and predictable composition process that allowed him to meet the demands of kings, queens, lords and church clergy. Yes, it’s likely the world’s most famous musical artist followed a scientific process to make his quota.
Another Pint…
Mozart’s take on art…
Now, for his time, Mozart was considered a global performing artist who held concerts all over Europe. Without the luxury of commercial flight, trains, or cars, I imagine he had to manage complicated travel logistics of boat, horse, and carriage – while still somehow managing to meet unwavering timelines set by the king himself. He couldn’t simply tell the king that the deal was slipping to next month.
Even though he had a scientific, succinct, repeatable, and predictable process that yielded high productivity, musical historians have found many of his transcripts to be incomplete, containing bars and even pages of staves without notes – even in those scripts he used for concerts. That’s right, to meet the high demands placed upon him, Mozart had to use his artistic ability to improvise when even the most scientific approach didn’t get him there.
This all tells me that Mozart’s success came from a successful management of science and art.
Another Pint…
Here’s how this is relevant to you as a sales and/or marketing leader:
Regardless of tenure, sellers need scientific processes to fully embrace their artistic ability to sell.
Your sellers take pride in their artistic ability to sell and sometimes shelve the science that would help them achieve higher productivity. Referring to Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers and his adaptation of the less famous “expertise” study by K. Anders Ericsson, it takes approximately 10k hours before you are a leading expert at something. With the average tenure of sales reps equaling 2 years, I doubt your sellers are experts at selling your solution, no matter how long they’ve been honing their sales craft. Putting the right tools and processes to in place is an important way to help reps follow a scientific sales approach – and master their artistic abilities – so they can achieve optimal results selling your products.
At best you only have 5 to 8% of “Mozart’s” on your selling team:
For the most part, the Mozart’s of your sales team have already mastered the art and science of selling. They’ve likely already created a process to yield the productivity that earns them the label of “A” player and an annual ticket to club. It’s the job of the sales and marketing organizations to help all those on your team that sit back wonder how in the hell your Mozart’s consistently achieve their quota. They are the middle 65% of your sales performers who may not have the knowledge base, intuition, or skill set to do it themselves. These are the folks that would greatly benefit from a prescriptive sales enablement tool that serves up the content, coaching, and process needed to achieve replicable sales results.
Hire, Ramp, and Retain future Mozart’s:
Again, focusing on that larger 65% of your lagging salesforce, you might not be able to give them the talent God granted Mozart, but if you begin their enablement on the first day of their on-boarding, you can greatly influence their ability to come close.
New sales hires generally progress through a “hierarchy of competence” where they begin as incompetent newbies and eventually become competent pros, as outlined below. Sales and marketing can promote a successful progression through this hierarchy by providing the right tools and processes to guide sellers through the phases of competency:
- Seller is unconsciously incompetent – Regardless of tenure, sellers in this stage are examining the culture of your sales organization. Often, sellers in this stage are new to the company. In this phase, it’s important to put to pasture their old bad habits and show them what skills and knowledge they need to be successful in your organization.
- Seller is consciously incompetent – Sellers are on their path to becoming competent, but they still haven’t learned everything there is to know about your company and products. The smart ones realize they need to dig in deeper, learn more about the domain, and put in the hours to be successful. Your future poor performers get scared by what they don’t know and can quickly revert back to their comfort zone selling that helped them be mediocre their entire career. In this phase, managers need insight into what sellers are doing so they can continue guiding their actions and help build good habits.
- Seller is consciously competent – You’re starting to see early indication of Mozart capabilities with your future “A” players. If you’ve set up the right infrastructure to help reps to master the science of selling, their productivity is increasing and they’re beginning to dip their toe into the art. Meanwhile, your poor performers are complaining about the market, the leads, the message, and becoming venomous. In this phase, it’s important to capture what high-performing sellers are saying and showing to customers and use this information to coach lower-performing sellers.
- Seller is unconscious competent – You can validate that you have a Mozart on your hands, when sellers have fully mastered the art and science of selling. Your poor performers have already left your company in true from of their <2 year expected tenure, and Mozart’s are continuing to spread their wings. Now, more than ever, it’s important to provide inspiration and refreshers on new products, updated messaging, and changing market conditions
Understanding each phase of sales competence, and what resources sellers need to be most effective throughout each stage, is important to get the best return on your sales hires.
Final pint…
We all strive to achieve productivity levels that rival those of Mozart in our own chosen careers. In sales and marketing, as in all other professions, we must find the right proportions of science and art.
Cheers!
Jason Keever
SAVO Country Manager – UK
The post Mozart’s Requiem for the Art of Selling appeared first on SAVO Sales Enablement.