As I have written before, the third guarantee of life (the two most people know are death and taxes) and of business is that Change Is A Constant.

Life changes often enough. Sometimes in ways you want, many times in ways you wish it didn’t. That’s life. It’s fluid. It’s water that is flowing and moving constantly, not a rock that could sit in one place for eons.

In business, the only thing you can rely on is change.

Why Change Is Necessary in Business

To succeed, you must change. Your customers’ desires will change. Your market will change. The competitive landscape will change. A whole laundry list of things will cause you to change throughout the lifespan of your business.

If you don’t change, adapt, and/or evolve – you will lose long term.

So, from a sales operational perspective, what should you change? And when should you change it?

As is my answer for most everything, it depends.

Where is your biggest bottleneck in:

• Your sales process?
• Your conversion effectiveness through the various stages of your sales/pipeline?
• The technology you are using (and most likely have compiled together in a patchwork of solutions)?
• Your team’s effectiveness?

Identifying Bottlenecks in Your Business

If you step back far enough, what would be obvious to an observer?

• Do you have your managers still selling, which means they aren’t actually managing, coaching, and leading their team?
• Is your CRM the one that worked at $5 million per year, but isn’t capable of everything you need at $15 million per year? (Think of that like a starter house that you bought with your spouse, but now that you have kids, the small 2-bedroom 1-bath house no longer works like it did when it was just the two of you. Nothing wrong with the house, just not capable enough anymore.)
• Is your training program capable of helping new hires get up to competency in the timeline you need?
• Is your compensation plan still incentivizing your team to achieve the results that the company needs at its current level?

When Should You Change?

For the when, the time is always now. It’s always the best time to work on changing something. Not everything, but something.

What would be the biggest lever for the revenue operation? What is the answer to:
“If we changed ________, that would give us a big return on investment and set us up for the longer term?”

I realize I have been writing often about this topic – change and change management. There is a good reason – this is the one, universal area that would help most companies short and long-term.

And keep in mind this important aspect (especially if you are resisting the principle of change at an operational/leadership level), the first change you might need to make isn’t about changing something that is in place.

What do I mean by that?

Well, it’s possible that you have a lot of good systems, processes, and technology tools in place. But no one is using them or following the process.

For example, it is very very (did I say very?) possible that your sales process doesn’t need to change. You just need your team to actually follow it. The process isn’t the problem. It’s about adherence.

The CRM Dilemma: Changing Tools Isn’t Always the Answer

Your CRM could very well be a good choice for your company. But what I see most of the time is that the team is not using it as intended.

So, what does leadership do? Go on a hunt for a better CRM. One that the team will use.

Guess what – there is no magic, ideal CRM. There is no CRM (despite what CRM salespeople will tell you) that does 100% of everything for the reps without them being required to do a single input or take a single action. The technology isn’t there yet. And if it does get there, salespeople should be really afraid – because it probably means we aren’t far off from having AI sell to a buyer’s AI.

Conclusion

There is no magic tool, script, sales process, system, or lead that will not require a person to conduct an action. Keep in mind the change you think you need might not be about something new, but rather in the category of do your job.