Each month or quarter when senior sales leaders meet with the CEO or get invited into the boardroom, substantiating why the number was missed or why the number was made is always a difficult challenge. The challenge becomes even more difficult when the conversation shifts from process and deals to salespeople and sales management teams.

CEOs and boardrooms have little choice but to trust what is often the vice president’s opinion or what is a consolidated opinion based on conversations with sales management. While having subjective input is necessary, facts speak much louder in sales.

In a recent article published by MarketingProfs.com headlined “Lies, Damn Lies and Dashboards,” it was sighted how CRM and business intelligence dashboards are often manipulated by managers and marketing to present a positive outcome that doesn’t necessarily promote the truth.

The key is putting in the process and technology to lock down the truth about how a representative or team is doing against expectations and locking down the process and technology that tracks, measures and reports on both the leading and trailing indicators to achieving set goals.

As the business sets organization goals and revenue requirements, there is an assumption that sales will just deliver it. This is often a disconnect between what the CEO feels they must have and what the vice president can deliver.

In order to gain trust with CEOs, senior sales leaders can no longer deliver smoke-and-mirror communications from the sales department. CEOs make the connection between fluff and what matters. You must have a system in place for understanding, refining and measuring your sales process and tracking your salespeople.

Done properly, senior sales leaders can deliver the truth that CEOs can and want to handle.

If things are going well, the vice president should be able to explain why and what is driving the success and how it will be sustained. If it is a rebuilding model, the same applies. The vice president must be able to show where the good news is, what is happening and why and the plan to correct the situation.


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Patrick Stakenas is president and CEO ForceLogix, which is a Chicago-based company that builds on-demand sales performance management solutions.