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How to Conduct Sales Representative and Employee Focus Groups

By George Silverman,
President
Market Navigation

If your employees -- especially your sales reps -- are not sold, how are they going to sell anyone else?

Your first sales are with your own salespeople, customer relations people, agents, distributors, store clerks and similar people acting on your behalf to make and keep customers. If they're not sold, you're dead in the water. If they are subtly undercutting your efforts, they will put up all sorts of smokescreens, blaming the lack of sales on everything imaginable, doing a lot of damage before you penetrate the fog.

You must continually keep track of what's really on their minds. You are at their mercy.

Lately, it seems that many companies are just discovering the value of focus groups of their salespeople. I've been doing these kinds of groups for several decades, so I thought I'd summarize some of my thoughts on the value of these sessions. For brevity, I'll talk mostly about sales reps, but this research obviously applies to other kinds of employees, as well as distributors, independent agents, and the like. I have included some material which may not be new to market researchers, but which has been useful when passed along to sales management, whose first reaction is sometimes, "There is no way you are going to do focus groups of my sales reps. No one but sales management communicates with them.\" After they think about the value, and realize that it's a tool, not an intrusion, they are usually most enthusiastic.

Why conduct salesperson research?

After all, there is a regular reporting chain in most companies. Managers talk to their salespeople on a regular basis.

Paradoxically, while there are many formal mechanisms for monitoring the field force, salespeople's inputs are also sadly neglected in most organizations. It is very difficult for management to spend enough time in the field, and very costly to bring salespeople in from the field. Often, when information goes up the formal ladder, it gets filtered and distorted. That's why generals can get so much (especially about morale) out of inspecting the troops, but they are rarely able to get out into the field as often as they would like.

But sales and product managers spend time in the field with sales reps all the time.

When a sales manager does go into the field with a rep, the focus is usually on the rep's performance, or on the sales process itself, with little time for broader product issues. Almost totally neglected are advertising themes, sales materials, competitive issues, product positioning or even widespread morale issues. The reps are on their best behavior. If there are problems caused by sales management itself, or product management, it is unlikely that a sales manager or product manager will be able to spot them or correct them. For the same reason that you don't send salespeople out to do marketing research on your customers, you shouldn't send management out to do research on your salespeople.

Yet sales reps are a gold mine of information and creativity. It is crucial that you research them. They are part of marketing just as much as your product mix, your advertising, your packaging, your pricing and your distribution. In fact, salespeople and their associated materials, sales aids, handouts, and sales strategy are usually the most important force in the marketplace, next to word of mouth (how to research word of mouth is the subject of another article). Salespeople are on the front line interacting with your customers and prospects all the time. They often know more about what is going on in the marketplace than anybody. However, they don't always know that they know it, and are not always eager to communicate it.

OK. Salespeople are important and management is not equipped to research them. But what exactly is it that you can learn from them?

Find out what's working

A successful salesperson rarely does exactly what the home office has told him or her to do. The successful salesperson tailors his interactions to the client, selects the materials he will use, often making up his own, and emphasizes different aspects of the product to different people. The personality of the salesperson, while important, is highly overrated as the overriding factor in making the sale. The successful salesperson is doing something different than the person who is making only average sales. He/she has usually found an important key. The ones that are disproportionately successful on one product, have found the key for that product. If they are successful across the board, they have found something that works in their general approach. It is crucially important to identify these winning approaches to each product, so that it can be spread to others in the sales force.

Find out what's not working

Conversely, there are many salespeople who are excellent, but not doing well on a given product. Unless there is something unusual about their territory, they are probably falling into a trap. The right kind of research can uncover these traps.

Pre-test sales materials

Before you put sales materials out into the field, it is not only cheap insurance to have a couple of groups of salespeople review the rough drafts for problems, but the process usually results in substantial improvement.

Find out how they are positioning your product

Salespeople may be undoing the positioning of your product, even while they are being successful in the short run. This is crucially important to know, because they may be killing your product in the long run, even while your sales are temporarily going up, or they may be using the right positioning while the over-all strategy for the product is not supporting them. I have seen just as many times when the salespeople were inadvertently (or intentionally) undoing the product strategy, as times when they were supporting it.

Get their creative input

Salespeople are on a very fast feedback loop. They say something, and the prospect either shows interest, or his eyes glaze over. A rep's income usually depends on his sales. So, salespeople learn fast, make quick adjustments, and are always trying new things until they find something that works, or decide the product can't be sold, at least by them. They are quick to get excited, quick to get demoralized, and expert at hiding both. I have almost always found salespeople, in every project, who have developed approaches that were more creative than the home office developed (sometimes building on what the home office has sent out). There are always comments like, "I've taken out page 4 from the X brochure, page 1 from Y and page 32 from the training materials, copied a competitor's ad from 4 years ago, went to the library and copied a paper from the leading expert, circling the paragraph on the top of page 5, taken samples of our product and the competitors, glued them into a presentation binder and that's what works." It's not that they are better than the product manager, they are just in a situation where necessity is the mother of invention. Besides, most product managers are ex star salespeople.

Assess their morale

Salespeople are always complaining: Not enough support, not enough of the materials that work, too many materials that don't, too many pressures, too much paperwork, an information glut, but no answers when they really need them, etc. I've never met a sales force that thinks the home office is responsive enough. On the other hand, there are sales forces who are truly demoralized. They are too clever to show it to management, they put up a good front and put up some very inventive smokescreens about the product, the materials, the prospects, etc., but the signs are there for an experienced researcher to see. They may only be demoralized about one product, or across the board.

Demoralization is a feeling of powerlessness in the face of demanding and unresponsive authority. It's a feeling "I'm unequipped to do it under the present circumstances, but I am going to be held accountable for doing it, and no one is going to understand why I am not going to be able to do it." It may be localized in something as mundane as a sales aid which makes claims that the salesperson does not believe. Or it may be as widespread as a reaction to being always ignored in their requests.

Obviously, it is crucially important to spot the nature, degree and sources of their demoralization. In one situation, I spotted a major source of demoralization in the amount of memos they were getting and sending -- multiples of what other sales forces were required to cope with. The result was a voice message system, coupled with strong guidelines for what was to be written and what was to be oral. The morale and productivity jumped dramatically. It is not unusual to spot demoralizing product positionings which are totally impossible in the real world, but which reflect the wishful thinking of management. Salespeople may also be demoralized by rumors, misinformation, bad publicity, and many other factors. In another situation, I sensed a great deal of resistance to a particular sales leave-behind intended for physicians, but the salespeople would offer no specific criticism. Further probing unearthed a paragraph near the end of the material that was written in a way that could be interpreted in two very different ways. The salespeople were interpreting it in a way that they believed was not only deceptive, but could result in patient deaths. They felt outraged, and felt that their entire credibility was at stake. But each felt that they were the only one to notice the problem. Everyone was claiming to be leaving the material. Once one person said she was "a little uncomfortable" with some of the statements, the floodgates opened, the problem was identified, the situation clarified in an immediate voice mail message, the paragraph re-written, and the resistance turned into enthusiasm for an otherwise powerfully persuasive sales piece. Management tends to hear about major issues through conventional channels, but there are many easily correctable issues that can fester and do great damage unless they are discovered quickly.

Sometimes, the very act of researching salespeople can have a very positive effect on morale, especially if their input is responded to.

Competitive Intelligence

Salespeople are hypersensitive to what the competition is doing. They get such information every day, right between the eyes, in the form of objections from prospects, and by talking with salespeople from other companies. They are continually picking up competitive literature. If you ask a group of salespeople what the competition is saying about them, officially and unofficially, they know right away, and often think of things they forgot to tell their sales manager. They can tell you what countermeasures worked, or would work, so that you can spread it across the whole sales force quickly. I know one company, that calls on hospitals, which has a regular conference call each week with a rotating group of district managers. They have been doing so for at least 15 years. They have also become the dominant force in their segment of the marketplace. Other companies are continually scratching their heads and trying to find out how this company is so responsive to pricing changes, packaging changes, new products and new claims. This company will hear about a little test being done in Atlanta, and issue a way to counter what is being done if it goes national. Some of their competitors must think their offices are bugged! Incidentally, I also know that several of their competitors think that the idea of salesperson research is bizarre.

Market intelligence from salespeople is often the secret weapon which can tip the balance. I have seen several situations in which much smaller sales forces have outgunned larger ones with a fast feedback loop between salespeople and management.

How should this research be conducted?

The same considerations govern salesperson research as any other kind of marketing research. You do surveys (quantitative research) when you know what to ask and when you need to know something that has to be counted. You do qualitative research when the issues are more open-ended. Most salesperson research of the type I have been describing should be qualitative.

Should it be done individually, or in groups? Here, the focus group is definitely the method of choice. Individually, salespeople are often reluctant to reveal their secrets. In groups, they try to outdo each other. The very competitiveness that can shut down some groups (e.g., local physicians or local drugstore owners), makes salespeople open up. They want to show that they have a better way, they see that others have the same difficulties and are suddenly willing to talk about them, and they build on each others' ideas.

But these groups should not contain salespeople from the same district (unless you are zeroing in on the peculiarities of that district). If the salespeople are from the same district, they will be participating with the same people they are in meetings with all the time, they have certain roles to maintain, they are competitors, they all have the same boss, and they are very worried that what they say will do them damage. Unless they are from different districts, the atmosphere of psychological safety that is a necessary condition to any focus group is usually destroyed. But how do you get salespeople from far-flung areas to focus groups without pulling them out of the field?

The best way to conduct groups of salespeople from a widespread geographical area is by conducting telephone focus groups. If you don't already have it, I invite you to send for my paper Questions and Answers about Telephone Focus Groups - and Answers From the Man Who Invented Them. Through PhoneFocusTM groups, salespeople can be brought together from a wide geographical area, in the early morning or in the evening, without losing travel time, or even time from selling! The fact that they can't see each other creates additional psychological safety, further opening them up. The feeling of anonymity and informality is enhanced by the use of first names. Imagine doing groups of salespeople during a critical period -- a product launch, a product recall, a competitive threat, adverse publicity -- without losing a minute of sales time!

In most cases, it is crucial to have an outsider do the sessions, with a market research person from the company listening in. An outsider not only brings objectivity, but further enhances psychological safety. Salespeople do not want to challenge management. They want to tell an outsider their difficulties, ideas and suggestions, and have him/her transmit it to management in stronger language than they themselves could use. I continually hear remarks like, "I wouldn't dare tell management this, but put into your report that..." As a third party, I can distance myself from management and get them to tell me about all sorts of things that they will not tell a company person. The outsider can bring the experience that comes from talking with dozens of different sales forces and can often spot morale issues, or other problems that an insider might miss. For instance, in role playing sales interactions in many different situations, I often discover that the message the salespeople and management think they are communicating is not the message being received by the prospect.

I'm continually amazed at how salespeople will openly discuss morale issues that I know they would not otherwise discuss. Also, as an outsider, I can get them to see things from the perspective of management that they would otherwise interpret as excuse-making from a company source, and get them to engage in constructive problem solving rather than argument.

Of course, a researcher has to be very experienced in talking with many different types of salespeople, and should have had sales experience himself. I have spent much time in the field going around with clients' salespeople, calling on customers. By doing so, one gains an appreciation for the realities of the sales situation.

Under the proper conditions, an independent researcher will have salespeople falling all over themselves to make sure that management has a clear picture of what is going on.

What are some of the different kinds of groups that can be run?

The following are several research designs which I have found most productive over the years:

The Stars Design

In most sales forces, 20% of the salespeople make 80% of the sales, so imagine how terrific the top 1 or 2% must be! In this design, I conduct groups of the salespeople who are the sales leaders with respect to a given product. Some are superstars who are sales leaders in every product. But often the most revealing are the "average" salespeople who are doing unusually well with respect to a particular product. These average people have usually found an approach that can be taught to other salespeople, or can be incorporated into sales aids, brochures and/or advertising. I have seen many situations where only a handful of salespeople out of several hundred have been selling a newly introduced product. Management had been calling them, and going around with them, but couldn't discover any ways that they were different. They chalked it up to 'that's Harry, he can sell anything.' You can bet that Harry and the other product stars are ignoring the sales training and doing something different. You can also bet that even Harry's approach can be improved. Get him and the others into a group, and watch the approach come out.

Almost always, the approaches will be very similar and will reflect a fundamental product positioning or crucial argument that was overlooked. They won't be able to hide it from each other, and together they will refine the approach into something even more powerful (if the moderator encourages them to do so). For example, I once discovered that a bunch of pharmaceutical salespeople who were thousands of miles away from each other had independently done library research and come across several papers which documented the importance of a phenomenon which physicians were not taking seriously, which had to be taken seriously before anyone would take the product seriously. The company had not picked up these papers in its computerized scan of the worldwide product-specific literature. These salespeople were secretly distributing unauthorized, poor photocopies of the papers. Once the company found out what was going on, they were able to get permission to reprint the studies in a more responsible way, with full prescribing information. It also led to a worldwide symposium and the publication of a monograph. A disastrous product launch was turned into a success. While this case was unusual, it is not unusual to find examples of homemade brochures which are remarkably similar, being used successfully by geographically dispersed salespeople. I have even invited certain sales stars back to another session for the purpose of cutting a tape to be distributed to the rest of the sales force. Hearing how other salespeople are doing something is a lot more motivating than hearing how management would do it. You can't argue with success.

Stars + People Having Difficulty

Here you bring together sales stars with people who are not doing well with the product. Often it is best to pick average salespeople who are doing unusually well and unusually poorly on a given product. The selection process is very important. You want to identify people who are truly typical of the vast majority of the sales force, but who are doing unusually well or poorly in a product, but not because of any peculiarity in their territory. They don't have one customer who is responsible for all of his/her business, or a local center of influence which is publicly against your product, or a predecessor who ran off with the town mayor's daughter. It must be done delicately, but you can get the people who are doing well to 'help out' the people who are not. Not only do you hear what works, but you hear what the unsuccessful people erroneously think is working, and what their resistance is likely to be.

Peer Training Sessions

This is very close to the previous design. You can conduct sessions in which the purpose is to bring together the 'old hands' and 'greenhorns,' in a sort of a mentor seminar, so that the newer people can learn from the more experienced people. This can even be done on a regular basis. The more experienced salespeople coach the newer salespeople on how to present the product and cope with various difficulties. This is a cross between marketing research and training.

Launch Monitor(tm)

You can't take salespeople out of the field during a major product launch, but you can monitor the launch closely by bringing together groups during the pre-launch period (to understand their expectations) and the entire period during launch. I have never seen a perfectly smooth product launch. Mid-course corrections are always necessary, and LaunchMonitor can quickly identify what is needed. I have seen all too many situations where management was being told 'It's too early to tell, sales will take a while,' where a disaster is in the making. After all, you conduct focus groups of your customers and prospects during launches (I hope). How about salespeople?

Division Managers

Don't neglect division managers. They often have a unique perspective and can often report things that they didn't think to report through ordinary channels.

Quasi-salespeople

In many distribution chains, there are important people who are not your salespeople, but who strongly influence your customers. These can be wholesalers; distributors; store buyers, managers and clerks; pharmacists; specifiers such as purchasing agents, administrators, and engineers; nurses; and technicians. I have often seen situations where a company is inadvertently pursuing a policy, often by default, that is hurting these people, or the competition is doing something that should be countered, but the company does not find out until it is too late.

Specific techniques

Creating an atmosphere of psychological safety is most important. The telephone goes a long way toward setting it up automatically, but there are many additional things that can be done to intensify it. I distance myself from the company, and tell the reps why the company has hired an independent third party to 'tell it like it is.' I make sure I tell the reps exactly how the findings will be reported (written report, tape, etc.), whether I am taping, who will listen in to the tape, and who is listening in right now. If I anticipate a difficult situation, I do not let anyone from sales management listen in, and don't make a tape, or hold the tape for my own reference. Most often, only a marketing research person from my client listens in, and the salespeople are informed of this. They are assured that confidentiality will be maintained, and that their remarks will not be identified to sales management. We then make a transcript from which we delete all identifying data, such as names and cities. We print the transcripts in three column newspaper style, much like my newsletter, so that 60 pages of double spaced transcript becomes 9 pages of small newspaper. Upper management reads it eagerly, but the salespeople are protected.

It is also important to make the purpose of the research clear. Reps often think that I am trying to find out what's wrong with what they are doing. If they believe this, they are going to be defensive and paint a distorted picture. I make it clear that I want their ideas and suggestions for sales aids, brochures and other materials, as well as what is working and not working in their sales interactions, so that training and other material can be developed.

One of my favorite ways of accomplishing much of the above is to explain that I am an independent researcher hired by the company because salespeople are more open with me than they would be with management, that I pledge to 'tell it like it is' to management, that I have been hired for my frankness, I do this for many different companies, so my business does not depend on any one client, so I can afford to be very direct and not pull my punches. I also make a remark to the effect that I have been talking with salespeople for 23 years, and I have never seen a sales force that does exactly what the home office has told them to do, thank God. So, I hope they will be willing to openly share what they are doing, even if it isn't what they were told to do. That way, I can recommend changes in strategies and policy, so that it will be all right to do it. Of course, the manner in which all of this is said is more important than the content.

The most rapport-building technique I know of is to demonstrate to them that I understand them, take them seriously and will be communicating their thoughts to management. This is accomplished by summarizing, in the person's own words, and adding an implication to show them that I not only heard, but also understand the significance of what was said. For instance, in a recent session, a salesperson described how her prospects were saying that it was too bad that she had lost a winning product which had been transferred over to another company and she had gained a product which the other company was not able to sell. The other salespeople started to describe similar remarks. I said, 'So, it seems like I should report to the home office (1) that your prospects are offering their condolences and (2) the company had better develop ways to counteract the image of the product as a loser'? The instant chorus of 'Yeah, right on, that's right' made the relief and rapport almost palpable. I went on to ask what ways they thought this could be accomplished, thereby turning a potential gripe session into constructive suggestions.

Often even experienced moderators do things that accomplish the opposite of the intended effects. Often, moderators say, 'There are no right or wrong answers.' This brings up the whole issue of right and wrong, implies that they are being judged, and is incredibly condescending. It's also untrue. Obviously, there are wrong answers, such as product misconceptions, incorrect information and lies. Everyone knows, 'that's just the moderator's way of conning me into feeling free to say anything that comes into my head.' Another misguided way of trying to encourage salespeople is to say 'good' after most remarks. Salespeople are extremely tuned in to people and will generally spot anything contrived. If the moderator says 'good,' they will feel judged. If it is said after every remark, it's phony. If it's said after some remarks, how about the remarks after which it was not said? Are they bad? I guarantee you that the liberal use of the word 'good,' or its equivalent will shut down the conversation. There are much better ways to direct the conversation, and to make everyone feel that their offerings are valued.

How to avoid bitch sessions

The worst fear of management in conducting these sessions is that the discussion will degenerate into a 'bitch session.' I will discuss this more fully in another article on moderating, but here are a few suggestions that ought to hold you until then: Of course, you must listen to negatives and demonstrate that you heard, and will report, the negatives. This often turns a bad situation around. But how do you avoid a session in which everyone is reinforcing each others' negativity and implying that nothing can be done? Keep asking constructive questions, instead of questions which focus on what is wrong with something. Continually ask for their suggestions, ideas, what they would like to see, etc. If they get critical, pessimistic, negative and cynical, pointedly ask them to begin each sentence with, 'I'd like to find a way to...' or 'How can we develop a way to...' Turn it into a problem solving session, if that's appropriate, or summarize and move on. I can virtually guarantee that a session will not degenerate into a bitch session if handled in these ways.

Another technique that is useful with salespeople is role-playing. It is overused, artificial and threatening, but it still can be useful. Don't announce that 'now we will do some role-playing.' Drift into it naturally, by starting to play the part of a prospect, e.g. 'what if I were a prospect and said...' What would you say to that'? They will usually respond by describing the approach they would take. Respond with, 'Yes, but what would you say, what words would you use? If they still won't fall naturally into role playing, let them describe what they would do, then ask if anyone else can tell you what they say, when a prospects says... An even better role play than the obvious and overused customer or prospect is that of a new salesperson. Ask them to tell you what they would advise you to say if you were a salesperson who were just starting out to sell this product.

Logistics

You identify your salespeople or other type of employee or agent, and you send them an invitation by voice mail or in writing, from the Sales Vice President or marketing research person, explaining why this research is being done, giving them the date and time (adjusted for their time zone) and a number to call for confirmation, usually our 800 number. We will write the memo for you, to insure that we all avoid the several pitfalls that can be fallen into. The letter also describes how to call into the conference and what to expect. The sessions usually take place at 8:00 AM Eastern Time, for people in the Eastern and Central Time Zones, and at 10:00 AM Eastern Time for people in the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones. They can also take place in the evenings, although every time we have taken a poll of a sales force, morning was preferred. On the day and time of the conference, the salesperson calls into our conference system number, from whatever phone he/she is at. They put the cost of the call on their expense account, or use their company phone credit card if they have one, or call our 800 number, depending upon the logistics that we have agreed to. They are greeted, hear music for a couple of minutes and the moderator starts the session. The conversation is extremely spontaneous and natural (see my paper Q & A About Telephone Focus Groups...). That's all there is to it.

I recommend two to four sessions on a particular product or issue. Be careful to keep things focused by not including too much in the session, so that you can get the rich information that you need. Resist being like a kid in a candy store, trying to grab everything you could possibly get your hands on. The natural tendency is to try to include too many products and too many issues. Resist.

Without exception, every client, no matter how initially skeptical, has felt that these kinds of focus groups have been a revelation. Several clients conduct these groups on a regular basis, often quarterly, to keep responsive to the sales force and other employees, and to head off any problems quickly.

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