Each client company should measure and evaluate CSS against their own internally-developed goals and motivations for having invested in the program in the first place. Many clients have multiple reasons for investing in CSS... for example, to develop new revenue, to make the company’s revenue less dependent on audience size, to help in the development and retention of top sales and management talent, or to establish a marketing-oriented corporate culture.
What follows below is a set of suggested hard measures and soft measures. Each CSS client should select those yardsticks that best reflect their own goals and motivations, or should devise other specific measures (and should share them with us!).
The key hard measure: Conversions
In nearly every industry we work with, there are measures to show how effectively the company is converting the audience they have into revenue. This is the key hard measure to evaluate. We invite you to share your audience-to-revenue conversion goals with us; and work with us on a plan to increase performance here.
Other hard measures
Each of the following is something you can count, measure, or specify. Therefore, you can set objective goals and compare performance.
- Conversion of Target Accounts to Key.
Increase in online revenue.More exclusive business, in accounts and in dollars.More non-traditional accounts and categories, when compared with competitors.Bigger base of larger, more-satisfied customers.Your revenues increase faster than market revenue.Average rate improves where needed.Retention of talented salespeople improves.Performance in Sales Perceptual surveys improves.
The key soft measure: Usage
There are many selling systems and training programs that offer potential benefits. The one that works—that pays you back—is simply the one people actually use. Analogies to other businesses make this point clear. Ask any competent fitness instructor, “Which is the best exercise?” and he is sure to respond, “The best exercise is the one you will do.” If a selling/training system is actually being implemented, if it changes behavior, if it provides an efficient common language among salespeople and their managers, the program is a success.
Other soft measures
- Evolution in the job description of the individuals the salespeople are calling on: more people at the client,
fewer agency buyers and planners.Evolution in how clients are using you: from a narrow use, just for your medium... to a broad use, for marketing help, ideas, and solutions.Evolution in how salespeople view their role: from ones who merely represent a great audience advertisers can reach... to ones who represent a system of capabilities and resources to help clients move their businesses forward.More office talk about advertisers, less about agencies.Losing fewer buys than before, due to a tough rating book.Improvement in quality of written proposals.Feeling less impact from audience losses.Greater sense of fulfillment and contribution felt by salespeople and most other staff; feeling a stronger sense of purpose in their work; a greater sense of self-esteem.
Hard or soft—what is actually being evaluated?
A philosophical question: Whether it’s conversion or any other hard or soft measure... just what is being evaluated? Some might say it is CSS, but many more—when asked this very question—responded that these measures provide an evaluation not of the program but of the quality of implementation and the commitment of those who facilitate the implementation.
Again an analogy: Nobody ever blamed the Nautilus equipment to explain why they still don’t have big muscles. Clearly, the equipment works. The only question is: Are you working it?
Here’s one that strikes closer to home. Advertisers are forever wanting to ‘test’ various advertising media. You know your medium works. When they ‘test’ us, what they’re actually testing is not the medium itself, but rather their use of it.
A Sales Manager at a client once described the CSS program as being like a rubber raft. “We managers have to breathe life into it, or it doesn’t mean anything at all,” he said. Performance doesn’t result from attending a training program. It results from daily execution.
How CSS evaluates its own service
We have lots of methods, of course, ranging from formal questionnaires to corridor conversations to field observations.
But our ‘proof is in the pudding’ method for reality-checking ourselves is our rate of renewal.
Many CSS Clients have been with us for many years; renewing their service agreement time and time again. They certainly don’t re-up because the service is so inexpensive; it must be because our service is providing the benefits clients expect.
Some ways to improve your CSS ROI
- Settle for nothing less than the best talent for every position you have in sales and sales management.
Be open with us about your needs and problems, challenges and opportunities. The more we know, the more help we can provide. The bigger our picture, the better our advice.Commit yourself to an aggressive program of implementation. Evaluate the system and its components after you’ve put them into practice, not before. Don’t treat this program with kid gloves; roll up your sleeves and get dirty with it.Provide feedback to us on what seems to be working and what seems not to be. Expect us to assist you in developing the means to making all of it effective. Plan market visits carefully in advance, so as to make the best possible use of the time we spend together. Pepper us with questions. Challenge us.Take full advantage of our offer of reasonably unlimited telephone consultation. Consider setting up a regularly- scheduled conference call between us and your sales management team.When your people are scheduled to attend a CSS training workshop, whether in your home city or elsewhere, relieve them of the daily press of business so as to allow them to concentrate fully on the program.Remember that battles are won in the pursuit, not in the attack. Make a long-term commitment to the development of your sales organization, and anticipate a 3- to 5-year evolution.
Not a mere vendor relationship
The CSS clients who enjoy the best results do not consider us as a vendor or a supplier. Rather, they see us as a partner. Just as marriage partners must work to keep their marriage successful, so too must both we and you work hard to make this partnership as successful as it can be. We maintain a low consultant-to-client ratio, specifically so that we can have a genuine partnership with each and every client in the Family.