Sales Pitch: Are You Prepared for Change?

David Ramos

Many companies struggle to be efficient and effective in implementing new strategies, approaches, and initiatives. Companies faced with increasing customer requirements, multi-product and vendor proliferation, shorter product lifecycles, increasing customer buying cycles, and industry consolidation combine to make it difficult to increase sales productivity.  Throw in the trend that is rapidly moving your sales force away from hardware-centric transactions to services-led sales strategies and it is no wonder companies are challenged with meeting productivity requirements.  My point?  Your company is bombarded with change on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself, “How effective am I at preparing my people to manage change?”

Change management is a term that is bandied about freely. Sometimes it’s a scapegoat for less than stellar results: “That initiative failed because we didn’t focus enough on change management.”

And it’s often used as a catch-all for project activities that might otherwise get overlooked: “When we implement that new process, let’s not forget about the change management.”

It’s a noun: “Change management is key to the project.” 
It’s a verb: “We really need to change manage that process.” 
It’s an adjective: “My change management skills are improving.” 
It’s an expletive: “Change management!”

But what exactly is it?

Change management is a structured approach for ensuring that changes are thoroughly and smoothly implemented, and that the lasting benefits of change are achieved.

The focus is on the wider impacts of change, particularly on people and how they, as individuals and teams, move from the current situation to the new one. The change in question could range from a simple process change, to major changes in compensation, policy or strategy needed if the organization is to achieve its full potential.

Understanding Change Management

Theories about how organizations change draw on many disciplines, from psychology and behavioral science to engineering and systems thinking. The underlying principle is that change does not happen in isolation – it impacts the whole organization (system) around it, and all the people touched by it.

In order to manage change successfully, it is necessary to attend to the wider impacts of the changes. As well as considering the tangible impacts of change, it’s important to consider the personal impact on those affected, and their journey towards working and behaving in new ways to support the change.

Therefore change management is a very broad field, and change management approaches vary widely, from organization to organization and from project to project. Many organizations and consultants subscribe to formal change management methodologies. These provide toolkits, checklists, and outline plans of what needs to be done to manage changes successfully.

When you are tasked with “managing change” (irrespective of whether or not you subscribe to a particular change management approach), the first question to consider is what change management actually means in your dealerships situation. Change management focuses on people, and is about ensuring change is thoroughly, smoothly and lastingly implemented. And to know what that means exactly in your situation, you must dig down further to define your specific change management objectives.

Typically, these will cover:

• Sponsorship: Ensuring there is active sponsorship for the change at an ownership or senior executive level within the organization, and engaging this sponsorship to achieve the desired results.
• Buy-in: Gaining buy-in for the changes from those involved and affected, directly or indirectly.
• Involvement: Involving the right people in the design and implementation of changes, to make sure the right changes are made.
• Impact: Assessing and addressing how the changes will affect people.
• Communication: Telling everyone who’s affected about the changes.
• Readiness: Getting people ready to adapt to the changes, by ensuring they have the right information, training and help.

Change Management Activities

Once you have considered the change management objectives and scope, you’ll also need to consider the specific tasks. Again, the range of possible change management activities is broad. It’s a question of working out what will best help you meet the change management challenge in hand, as you have defined it in your objectives and scope, and how to work alongside other people’s and projects’ activities and responsibilities.

The essence of this is to identify the tasks that are necessary if you’re going to give change the greatest chance of success.

 Coming from this, the activities involved in managing change can include:

Ensuring there is clear expression of the reasons for change, and helping the sponsor communicate this. Think about it, nobody likes to be dictated to, so how will the sponsor deliver the message?

• Identifying “change agents” and other people who need to be involved in specific change activities, such as design, testing, and problem solving, and who can then act as ambassadors for change. 
  • Will this be your sales, service, administration and HR leaders?  Do you want input from the stakeholders that will have to ultimately implement this change?
  • Assessing all the stakeholders and defining the nature of sponsorship, involvement and communication that will be required. 
    • You have to make sure everyone is on the same page
    • Planning the involvement and project activities of the sponsor(s).
      • Planning how and when the changes will be communicated, and organizing and/or delivering the communications messages. 
      • This requires project management skills, so maybe an assessment of your people with the most talent and experience in managing projects is necessary.
      • Assessing the impact of the changes on people and the organization’s structure.
      • Planning activities needed to address the impacts of the change.
      • Ensuring that people involved and affected by the change understand the process change.
      • Making sure those involved or affected have help and support during times of uncertainty and upheaval.
      • Assessing training needs driven by the change, and planning when and how this will be implemented.
      • Identifying and agreeing the success indicators for change, and ensure they are regularly measured and reported on.

Remember, these are just some typical change management activities. Others may be required in your specific situation.

Change management is a broad discipline that involves ensuring change is implemented smoothly and with lasting benefits, by considering its wider impact on your organization and people within it. Each change initiative you manage or encounter will have its own unique set of objectives and activities, all of which must be coordinated. As someone who manages change in your organization, your role is to ease the journey towards new ways of working, and you’ll need great planning skills to help you along the way.

About the author: David Ramos is sales operations consultant for Strategy Development, an industry management consulting and advance sales training firm providing sales, service & MPS information, including workshops for the BTA as well as a MPS Sales eLearning program with InfoTrends. He also instructs a selling skills workshop called “Sell With Success”. You can reach him at www.strategydevelopment.com or ramos@strategydevelopment.com.