About SPC, Inc.

SPC, Inc., helps B2B companies extend operational excellence to sales and marketing, to systematically increase revenue, loyalty, and margin while wasting less time and money.

Sales and marketing is not a “soft” or unmeasurable function (contrary to popular belief). Companies who believe it is unmeasurable have no choice but to constantly ask their people to “just work harder.” They attract and depend on high-pressure, results-only personalities. They believe growth comes from finding more of the “right” people, promotions, prospecting, and proposals. Success doesn’t get easier, because no one is focusing on how to change the things that could make them easier.  

I lived this life in several different industries over about 25 years. Then, after being in the audience watching the “Red Bead Experiment“, which depicted the life of my sales team perfectly. No matter how hard we worked, making quota was a crap-shoot. Nothing ever got better or easier. I was hooked … I knew the future was in process thinking. I studied everything I could find on the subject. I became a sales trainer and field coach with IMPAX Corporation for seven years. Gradually, I realized that traditional sales management overlooked crucial issues. It ignored variation and systems thinking, among other things.

The first breakthrough was Sales and Marketing the Six Sigma Way. That book demonstrated two things: First, that data and evidence existed in sales and marketing. Second, that understanding these variations could enable the process to be improved. The book attracted company presidents who wanted me to help give their teams better sales processes.

Although those engagements were successful, they still resembled traditional kinds of consulting and training engagements. That is, they were based on the assumption that improvement could be injected from outside the client’s company.  Once I realized this, it lead to the second major breakthrough, Sales Process Excellence, winner of the Shingo Research Award. 

This book demonstrates that changing people’s behaviors is more about understanding how they think than it is about the tools or processes you give them. Executives who understand this can enable their teams to work smarter, instead of harder. Process excellence gives them a framework for relentless improvement. It drives improvement from the bottom up with their team’s personal and professional ambitions, while guiding it from the top down with shared observations and systems thinking.

Far from taking away salespeople’s freedom, this approach empowers the team and integrates the business. It puts the data generated by sellers and marketers in the driver’s seat. It aligns sales and the rest of the company around a common approach to problem-solving. It meets the challenges of highly distributed sales teams, global markets, and complex channel environments. it provides a path through the weeds  of content marketing, qualification, professional selling practices, and forecasting. It works best with companies that have an “evidence driven” heritage and belief system, and a respect for people. 

Philosophy

Peter Drucker said, “The purpose of a business is to create a customer.” When sales and marketing helps customers solve their problems faster, mutual value is created. 

Of course process excellence reduces waste, like brochures that go unread and proposals that are not sold. However, the real power is in creating new value for customers. For example, demonstrating greater possibilities, reducing their risks, and saving their time all create value for customers.

Prospects and customers go through predictable stages as they work toward solving their problems. This is called the customer’s journey, and it is a value stream. The quantity and quality of flow can be identified and measured, enabling it to be managed and improved, just as in any production system.    

Applying evidence-based philosophies to sales and marketing produces higher revenue, higher margin, increased predictability, for both the buyer and the seller. For more than 15 years, we have been developing, testing, and improving our collaborative approach for continuous improvement in sales. 

Although I am an experienced B2B sales trainer, SPC., Inc.’s primary deliverable is not a better sales process injected from the out side. It is a means of stabilizing, improving, and sustaining the process you already have. 

  • checkMake waste and value visible by mapping the sales value stream and applying the Voice of the Customer. 
  • checkEnabling sales and marketing teams to align, identify their value, develop standard work, and sustain improvement via PDSA
  • checkOperationally defining sales qualification criteria to increase forecast accuracy dramatically.

Presenting Needs of Typical Clients

  • checkFlat or declining sales in core businesses
  • checkHighly variable sales results to plan
  • checkMarket share erosion
  • checkGrowth initiatives faltering or failing in deployment
  • checkNew market opportunities, but inadequate sales processes for that market
  • checkSales training not working; limited, fleeting effect
  • checkCRM systems not living up to productivity expectations
  • checkCannot determine root causes of sales wins and losses
  • checkCannot execute well with distributors and channel partners
  • checkPoor sales measurement systems; lack of actionable data
  • checkGaps in voice of customer data collection or translation into improvement

Next: Working With SPC

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