Ram Charan may not (yet) be a household name in business, but he’s not far from it. Consider him, “the man behind the man.” He’s advised iconic leaders like Jack Welch and countless other CEOs from Fortune 500 companies for the past couple of decades. Ram’s guidance tends to be well respected, so I really tuned in when he wrote his most recent book on sales, “What the Customer Wants You to Know: How Everybody Needs to Think Differently About Sales“, instead of another treatise on management or leadership.
The Wall Street Journal caught up with Ram and captured his thoughts on what he feels is a need for the “reinvention of sales.” I beg to differ. This is a brief point/counterpoint on Ram’s view of sales and the reality of the sales departments for the vast majority of MarketingProfs readers. At the end of the day, Ram’s view on sales takes some pretty low shots at the past couple of decades worth of advances in the sales realm.
Ram’s point: “I found many companies had focused on the back end of the business: operations, accounting, finance, overhead. But the sales force had been neglected. I got horrified.”
Counterpoint: Sales being neglected? Seriously. One only has to delve into the first chapter of Marketing Champions to realize that it’s marketing that’s often in need of some TLC and attention. Further, according to a survey and report from the Economist Intelligence Unit sponsored by UK Trade & Investment on the corporate priorities for 2007 and beyond, sales (and marketing) were the areas that most were voted as the areas that CEOs could commit the most incremental resources to in 2007!
Ram’s point: “…salespeople should not sell the product any more. They should find out what the customer needs, which will be a combination of products and services and thought leadership.”
Counterpoint: As a small business owner over 15 years ago (I owned a bicycle shop in rural Wisconsin), all of the books that I read on sales (thanks Tom Hopkins!) told me that I needed to ask my customer questions and provide a unique solution to their problem. Don’t just sell them a bicycle, offer then a complete fitness solution to help meet their health goals. I was in high school then, and no one ever left my store with “just a bicycle”. We moved out of the era of “product as marketing” decades ago.
Ram’s point: “The old salesperson: gregarious personality, very sociable. Plays golf. Goes to ballgames. Quick to link with people. Highly motivated. Long hours. Very perceptive in reading other people. The more successful ones know how to close the deal. It’s still useful.
Going forward, the salesperson must build trust with the customers’ people that’s deeper than before and sustained over time. You cannot design a solution without information from the customer. And if the customer does not trust you, he or she will not give you information.”
Counterpoint: The three martini lunch went of style in the 80’s. By the time I got my first sales job selling capital goods in 1999, there were no ballgames, no golf and little socializing. Sales was (and is, even more so now) built on trust, partnerships, understanding each other’s business (it’s not just a one-way street!) and selling solutions not widgets.
I could go on, but let’s not. At the end of the day, and likely at the end of the book (I’ve not read it, but after this WSJ article, I can’t say that I intend to either) you’ll be right back in the sales department of the 1970’s. Other prominent sales authors like Neil Rackham have advanced the thinking on solution and relationship based sales that Charan’s account of the “broken” sales department is little more than a bad reminder of times gone by.
My real concern in all of this, however, is that Ram’s next target might be marketing. Let’s just hope that he teams up with a good co-author if he decides to set his sights on the “broken marketing process”!
Tags: Ram Charan, relationship selling, Sales, solution selling, Tom Hopkins
Dana, enjoyed your commentary. Ram is, as you point out, an advisor to many Global 3000 CEOs. He is on the road more than 200 days a year. He gets a unique perspective because his insights are cross industry and he hears directly from CEOs in many countries. I’d say his views aren’t from 30,000 feet, but probably from 50,000.
That said, when he talks, it may sound like generalities and platitudes, but sometimes there are some real nuggets to be had. Take for example his first comment about sales being neglected. In this instance, he’s probably referring to the past 2-3 years where companies focused on operational efficiences at a detriment to investing in sales.
In many large companies, sales people are a dime a dozen and only as good as their last day or month. I cannot read his mind, but I’d say he was thinking a shift needs to occur back to the customer and back to salespeople who can fulfill their needs.
Dana -
I’ve not read the book but as a sales professional I’d have to agree with Paul – there are nuggets in some of his statements. I think it all depends on the sales leaders within an organization – they need to sell internally to the top brass to get what’s needed. I do believe that sales and marketing has suffered and will continue to do so within many companies. Firms that tend to pay attention have top sales management expertise, are more nimble,have learned the hard way and or have an affinity towards marketing and sales. You’ll find that many are successful tech companies who place a significant amount of attention on training, collaboration between marketing and sales and new technologies such as Web 2.0 type products/services to aid in generating revenue.
I once worked at a tech company where the CEO said,”Give me a $50,000 marketing budget and I’ll give you 2 sales people for a year”. Who is going to generate you more money?
Thanks for the early commentary!
I think the comments are spot on, in many instances sales (and often marketing) gets ‘ignored’ in the face of larger, more seemingly measurable initiatives (not that sales isn’t measurable, but operational & financial sectors of the business often get a lot of love) or because the executive leadership have not come up through sales (as if many ever have). Where I still feel that Ram falls short is that the advice is dated. Perhaps I’ve been lucky to work in and with some really forward thinking sales orgs, but much of what he says (though I have yet to get through the whole book) are things that we’ve been doing for at least 2/3 of the decade. Ram’s view of sales is not a perspective (reality) that I’ve seen since the 90’s in some of the most lagging organizations.
Dana, I am not a 100% for what you say as ‘falling short’ of Ram Charan in his rendition. But again it is alright that certain things, even ‘dated’ matters are repeated. If the importance of Sales is not stressed often enough, it will keep getting the second fiddle status it gets in many orgs.
And yes, Your comments on the book will be a lot more credible and worthy if you could ‘finish’ reading his book and THEN critique it.
“My real concern in all of this, however, is that Ram’s next target might be marketing. Let’s just hope that he teams up with a good co-author if he decides to set his sights on the “broken marketing process”!
Your concern and wish has been realized: The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation Ram Charan and A.G. Lafley.
Sales is very measurable. The points are dollars and you can count them. It is fairly simple to measure sales performance over other functions.
Ram is of course generalising but sadly there are still many organisations that have no meaningful budgets for development of sales other than staffing. If you aren’t in a sexy industry, attracting the top sales professionals, how is the sales function to keep up with the changes we are seeing demanded by information power shifts? And marketing should not be too comfortable either – its often the marketers who don’t support sales channels with meaningful knowledge or material.
What is the reason companies do not take sales and marketing as seriously as they should (if this is true)?
I suspect it is true of some companies and not others but, the question remains, why would you not take these functions very, very seriously? They bring in the money!