Operational Command of the Message

Operational Command of the Message

So many heads of sales complain to me about unwelcome end-of-quarter surprises: deals they forecast to close that only slip or (worse) end up as close-lost.

The top reason is that their sales team fails to identify and build champions, gain access to economic buyers, and execute the other crucial aspects of Command of the Message/Value-based selling.

Why? Because it’s really hard

Most first-line leaders out there don’t have the coaching or mentoring skills to teach their salespeople how to identify and build champions. Mediocre salespeople are really good at talking themselves and their leaders into believing that the person who filled out a ‘demo request’ on the corporate site is the champion. They’ll even, shamefully, use ChatGPT (or other generic AI tools in their CRM or other sales tools) to back up their story.

How do most organizations address this?

Well, you can, and probably should, pay elite training firms a pile of money to come in, build out your value framework, and train your sales teams in Command of the Message—and you should do that. Great companies out there do good work.

However, after they leave, we find salespeople pretty much go back to their default operating system and slap a new vocabulary on it. In other words, they don’t use the training.

But it’s really just a case of everyone deluding themselves, unfortunately.

What’s really the answer?

What leaders need is an operational system to know, day by day and call by call, how their teams are executing on Command of the Message and MEDDPICC, and how to coach them in weekly one-to-ones. Change can only occur through accountability and daily/weekly attention to detail.

How do we do that?

Well, your leaders can listen to every call, read every transcript, or throw it into AI.

That’s not going to work.

First off, it's impractical. They can’t read every transcript. Cherry-picking doesn’t provide enough fine-level detail. Unfortunately, your AI has never sold a single deal (except for more AI?), so it's never id’d a Champion, built one, or gained access to an economic buyer.

So, what’s the solution?

We built an operational capability that reviews every single call your team makes at pretty much every important sales stage.

It then gives you a readout of:

• How well the rep identified a champion. Did they even try?
• How they may have tested the champion.
• Did they gain access to—or even ask about—an economic buyer?
• Was pain identified and quantified?
• How well they identified the biggest pain that the most influential and powerful people in the prospect account care about.

And enables your leaders to coach their salespeople in weekly 1:1s, track improvement, and course-correct.

These details matter and make the difference between a world-class sales team and everyone else.

The sales results of a world-class sales team will be far and away greater than the results of the average team.

If you’d like help with this or have any questions, Contact Us. We’d be happy to help you strengthen your team’s execution.

Otherwise, you can certainly build this capability on your own. Start with the discipline and consistency this work requires.

Good luck out there, and happy selling.