Get ready to be sheared. Mohawk haircuts for everyone. Dunked in bath tubs of purple dye. Stained that way, head to toe, for weeks. Wading through a pool of mud and god knows what. Climb to the top of the grease pole, a football goal post from a rival university. These were just a few of the rituals, the rights of passage for first year engineering students at my alma mater. 

The one event that intrigued me the most was ‘Thunder Mugs’. Aspiring engineers would build a Thunder Mug - a toilet mounted on a make-shift platform where a Nursing teammate would ride out the race. Run they would through a gauntlet of upper classmate engineers cheering, throwing handfuls of 'Thunder Sludge' a heavy mix of oatmeal mixed with glue. The farther the teams went, the harder it got, as the thick goo piled up upon them. A race few of us would ever want to win, let alone enter.

As I journey through my career, I end up thinking time and again about Thunder Mugs. Business is tough slugging. Especially Sales. Run the corporate gauntlet. Get that deal through. Then comes volley after volley of delays, diversions and roadblocks. It's a wonder any deals go through. Yet on Sales people go, ever optimistic, carrying their deals, pressing through the mud, oatmeal and glue with the fearless belief that somehow, someday they will indeed win.

Even with Salesforce.com and other technologies, the barriers and challenges to efficient growth are numerous. It's a wonder any new sales are generated at all. Tracking sales opportunities through the full cycle, it is incredible to see what it takes to generate a win. Despite Sales being 100% accountable for revenue in many companies, the reality is that fewer than 20% of all critical activities in generating new sales revenue are actually under the control of Sales. So with all that control elsewhere - in marketing, product management, finance and with suppliers, an important question to ask is: 

• “Why does sales have to be so difficult?”

A quick Google search on sales productivity, or exploration of your own company experience will invariably confirm that sales people spend far too much time on unproductive tasks. Most show that well over 50% of Sales time is lost in admin activities that could easily be reduced or eliminated.

Many executives and managers quickly dismiss the problem as belly-aching. “Sales people are always complaining about something. There’s always something slowing them down.” But here’s the key point:

• If 'the sale' is what yields revenue, why wouldn’t a company do everything possible, as fast as possible, to make the sale?

Answering this question, companies can only go down 1 of 2 paths: (1) continue to stall, block and defeat sales; or (2) break down barriers to growth. Take it as a given that people complain. Take it as given that checks and balances are always needed. But, when companies choose path 2, they quickly find significant revenues - real growth - stalled, trapped inside the corporate machine.

The economics of fixing the machine are extremely compelling:

• Effectiveness - Winning more deals at higher value

• Efficiency - Delivering more revenue per Sales FTE and hour

• Lower Revenue Risk - Increased sales visibility and predictability

In our experience, upwards of 2-5 percentage points of real top-line revenue growth are locked up, delayed and lost in companies where the journey through the corporation is too long and too hard. On your way to any growth target, the causes of lost sales productivity should be viewed as 'make-or-break' problems to solve in achieving revenue plans. Any company that puts 50% admin load on Sales, could be cutting effective channel capacity in half. Imagine, a company has 1,000 sales people, but with all the hoops and lost time they're put through, it really only has 500 productive sales people. What a loss.

Even with Salesforce.com and other technologies, major barriers to optimal growth and sales productivity remain, particularly when sales are large, complex or require customization. Salesforce.com clears many problems, but more often than not, we see sales suffering from the excessive complexity and administration associated with workflows beyond their control. Here are just a few to consider:

1. Having to sift through marketing leads that aren't leads at all, or have already been won;

2. Having to scavenge or create sales materials because the standard collateral is too generic or simplistic to use with sophisticated customers;

3. Having to get price quotes again and again only to finish with the same competitive price Sales advocated for in the first place;

4. Needing to confirm inventory is available before making a proposal to customers, only to find out that inventory is no longer available at closing because the sale took so long;

5. Having to chase operations and suppliers to deliver on time, even though Sales had to go through the process of establishing a firm commit date with them in the first place;

6. Having to attend extended funnel reviews to explain why sales are taking so darn long.

These aren't the substance of belly-aches. These are real, solvable problems that slow sales and impair growth. They're also a big reason top performing sales people decide to leave. The good news is that these problems and most other causes of sales productivity can be easily discovered, valued and eliminated. Importantly, they must also be monitored and checked to ensure that they do not re-emerge in different forms, under ever-changing management structures and leadership.

* * * * *

I recently caught up with old friends from my alma mater. We laughed and reminisced about the good old days. Thunder Mugs a great memory. With all its severity, Thunder Mugs is something I always thought would go by the way-side. Yet, as I learned, the tradition is alive and well, stronger than ever. Traditions are hard to change. Companies are hard to change. But it doesn't have to be that way. We've fixed these problems, and would love to talk to you about how we can do it together.

Thanks for reading.