Communicating a plan

The communication of a plan is as important, if not more important, than the plan itself. It doesn't matter if we talk about a project plan, a business plan or any other plan. As long as you need other people to achieve your plan it is key to make sure others understand what you are trying to achieve and why they should be interested to help you. Note that this applies to everyone! Good communication is not limited to a specific audience.
When you communicate your plan make sure that you do that in the most interactive format. This means whenever possible do this face-to-face. If that isn't possible that doesn't mean it can't work it just means you have to work harder to get what you are looking for. Do not try to do this in writing though! The risk that you don't get your point across is too big. If a face-to-face isn't possible try a "Skype-Meeting". If that doesn't work either you can maybe try a phone meeting if you know the people very well. In any case I think the only really acceptable format for important meetings are face-to-face or maybe a Video/Audio ("Skype") meeting.
It is a good idea to handout notes or slides at the end of your meeting so that people remember exactly what you were saying.
Keep the following points in mind for your face-to-face meeting and for your notes/presentations

• WHY
• Why do you want to achieve a specific goal?
• Keep in mind that people need to buy into this goal. Prepare the meeting and address critical questions as much as possible. Ask for help to come up with critical questions!
• Why should people be interested to help you? What is in it for them?
• If you want to achieve the maximum benefit you need people to own the goal. Make it their goal. Show them the benefit they get when they pursue/achieve this goal. Don't do this to manipulate people but to create a true win/win situation
• WHAT
• What is the goal?
• Can the goal be measured? How often will you measure it? Who will measure it?
• What do you need from the participants/team?
• WHO
• Who needs to provide what by when?
• WHEN
• When do you want/need to achieve your goal?
• How critical is it to achieve the goal/milestones?
• HOW:
• How will you measure the success?
• How do you know if you achieved the goal?

You will achieve the highest success when people understand why you ask for something and they buy into your reasoning. Keep in mind that good communication is an ongoing process. You can and will improve when you pay attention to your communication.

Efficient Sales Force (sharing an idea)

How does an efficient Sales Force operate? This is a topic that could easily fill a couple of books. So I want to restrict my idea here to a very short list of tasks that I think a small to medium size Sales Force in the IT Industry should perform. Do they perform tasks like account planning, opportunity management, quote preparation etc. by themselves or do they have to have Support Personnel to do these tasks for them? 
My answer is yes they should do most of these tasks themselves because it is beneficial for the Sales Team to be self reliant. It's also fosters a more dynamic culture. The less teams/people are involved in the Sales Process the less points of failure we have. This requires a good and clear partnership between the appropriate business and IT resources/departments.
Asking the Sales Force to perform more tasks by themselves requires the Sales Team to have an "allrounder" mindset. This is only possible when the tools and processes are manageable for one person. To find an environment where the system and process landscape is manageable by one person is more likely in newer and smaller companies. Example: If every product (Hardware, Software, Services) an IT company is selling can be quoted in one process and tool then one Sales Person needs to be trained (in <= 1 day excl. Product training) to use that tool and they are good to go. The good thing about this is that the Sales Reps feel responsible for these tasks. They "own" the process and tools and don't hide behind other teams. Many newer small to midsize company Sales Teams seem to be more self reliant than older/bigger companies.What I mean with self reliant is that the Sales Reps do more tasks themselves. Is that good or bad? Is this approach scaleable once the companies become bigger or not? How can this work for companies that have hundreds of systems and different systems in each part of the world? I don't have the answer and I don't pretent there is an easy solution but it is worth thinking about these and similar questions because the correct answer for your company could potentially yield large benefits.

Here is what I would consider an ideal example of a small to midsize Sales Force (assuming we are beyond the opportunity phase).

1. Prepare the customer visit (determine what Customers to visit, determine products that these customers would benefit from, determine contacts at company etc.)
• Sales Rep uses one tool to access information
• What products at what price did we sell to the customer before?
• What competitor products are out there? How are they different from the products our company offers?
• Who is the contact person in that company?
• Is there any cross or up sell opportunity?
• special notes about company contacts (e.g. upcoming birthday, lunch/dinner preferences etc.)
2. Go to the customer and build a mutually beneficial relationship
• Capture Opportunities (e.g. current issues with xyz ...customer might benefit from our product/service abc)
3. Prepare a quote for your customer
• Sales Rep should be able to prepare one (preliminary) quote for all products in one system
• Configure complex products in configuration tool (e.g. SAP Variant Configuration, Big Machines etc.)
• Show cross and upsell opportunities
• Tools shows what products/services this customer bought from us before
• Determine VSOE compliant Price with applicable Discounts for customer (based on Sales Rep authorization levels)
• Show price on header/item level to Sales Rep (to determine potential discounts)
• If additional price approvals are needed a workflow routes it via email to the correct people
• Prepare customer presentable quote
4. Turn the quote into an order
• typical ERP functionality (e.g. Credit Check, Global Trade Checks etc are performed)
• trigger sales compensation for Sales Reps that they can follow

This list could obviously be much longer and much more detailed (!) but for the Blog Post this should suffice. Note that there are many different situations and circumstances and hence the "ideal" answer I describe above does very clearly not apply to everyone.
How can you make your Sales Force more efficient? Think about it! There are improvement opportunities in EVERY companies. What can YOU do in YOUR company today?

Complicated Systems and Training

Does your company have a complicated IT system environment? Let's look at an example, does your company have one system to create quotes and orders for your sales force worldwide or do you have a myriad of standalone systems, spreadsheets and processes that all need to be integrated? If you work for a multinational company you probably have different systems (some integrated and some are standalone) in different parts of the world (e.g. In North America you use one system for your Sales Force while you use another system for your team in Europe or Asia). The complexity gets even higher when various regional business and IT teams for these systems need to work together and agree on any changes. In this environment it is pretty obvious that a high quality training for your Sales Teams is key to being successful. Don't get me wrong the system complexity needs to be addressed (!) but that can't happen overnight in most cases and in the meantime you still have a business to run and therefore to make the best out of what you got.
Many systems have a a lot of functionality that most Sales Teams don't use. How do you train your Sales Force on the essential functions (while you work on getting better systems!) of your systems?
Does the Sales Force get appropriate product training? Do they know how you approach your customers? Do they know your systems and processes once the Sales Process starts? Can they create a quote or order themselves or do they need support from anyone?
In any case you should spend the time to put together a solid training schedule that every Sales Rep should go through. Yes, this is an investment and if it is done well it will pay back dividends. If you have a simpler system the training will be shorter and if you have a more complex system the training will be longer. Face-to-face meetings are the most efficient while you can use webinars or other audio/video options as alternatives. Because of budget concerns the cheaper options are mostly preferred but they require a different approach (e.g. an assessment at the end of the class). A good training includes a business case example in the system, a reference document that every particpant gets with the key lessons and a questionnaire at the end to evaluate the class and presenter. Once you have this all together you can bridge some system gaps and shortcomings until your systems catch up. Not ideal but practical.

Executive Communications

What you have to keep in mind when you communicate with Executive and Senior Management is that they usually don't have a lot of time. What I mean by Executive and Senior Management is a manager that manages more than 100+ people.  If you are not at the peer level with them you will have to schedule a meeting ahead of time with their Admin. When you schedule this meeting treat their Admin like you would treat the Executive or Senior Manager themselves! Explain clearly what the purpose of the meeting is. Why do you need to meet with them? What do you expect to get out of the meeting? How can the Executive or Senior Manager help? Don't ask for more time than you really need. These people are busy and if you ask for too much you might not get anything at all. So keep the meeting request to the minimum amount of time because in that case you might get a chance to present your case.
Expect that even the Admin might not be very patient and friendly. There are many people who would like to spend some time with these Managers so they might not always be as patient as you would like.
Once the meeting comes it can happen that the meeting is shorter than you expected. So if you have scheduled 30 minutes for your discussion, plan to finish it in 15min or less. Note that I mentioned discussion and not a PowerPoint slide presentation! If you have to have a Slide Deck than just use it to guide the conversation. Keep the slides to a minimum --> don't use any font size smaller than 14 (the bigger the better). Don't add more than 3 bullets on a slide etc. Test the communication (if possible) with someone before you have the real discussion! This will help you to improve your communication and to have a higher chance to get what you are looking for.
Make also sure that you don't present details! These people are used to work on a higher level and will not appreciate if you bring up topics that they don't understand. Their job is to connect the dots and to lead the organization in the right direction, not to understand each and every single dot in detail! This obviously means they can't afford to get lost in details. So don't go there! If they ask for it (and you should plan ahead of time for these potential questions) give them just as much information as they need but don't give in to the temptation to show off your Subject Matter Expert knowledge. Short, clear, precise and goal focused communication is the key to any success on that level.
Last but not least keep in mind who you are talking to and prepare accordingly. If it is a Finance person then they will most likely look for numbers to verify the information you're presenting.
Even though this list sounds probably somewhat long and frighting it is well worth the investment. If you get on the same page with an Executive or Senior Manager that can have career changing implications! So yes, it's tough but well worth the effort if you do it right. Put some effort in it and prepare these communciations well and they will pay off!.
Good luck with your Executive and Senior Management conversations.