In 1891, a wealthy Frenchwoman named Anne Emilie Clara Goguet died, leaving behind a will with a highly unusual clause. It established a prize, named after her son Pierre Guzman. It would award 100,000 francs to the first person who found a means of “communicating with a star (planet or otherwise) and of receiving a response.”
Now, the search for extraterrestrial life isn’t the thing that makes this will so interesting. Plenty of dead rich people have left their money to bizarre causes.
No, what makes the Guzman prize so interesting is that Mme Gaudet specifically excluded anyone from winning for communicating with Mars. She included that exception because she thought it was so obvious that Mars was inhabited that it didn’t seem like enough of a challenge to warrant the prize money.
As hilarious as this notion is, those of us in sales ops often do something a little bit similar. We make faulty assumptions that lead us to misguided strategies and wasted effort. In particular, erroneous beliefs in three key areas can have dire consequences:
- Sales Forecasting: It’s easy to look at a trend line and assume sales are going to continue moving up. But you might not be accounting for market trends or other realities that will hamper continued growth. Forecasts that aren’t based on complete, accurate data, can lead to missed targets, poor resource allocation, and frustrated leadership and shareholders.
- Account Planning: We’ve seen plenty of account plans based on sweeping generalizations—like every account should grow by 5% every year. To be realistic, plans need to be tailored to specific accounts. And they need to be based on real data about customer behavior, market demand, and competitor actions.
- Sales Compensation Plans: You can never assume that the sales team will behave the way you expect. If your comp plan has even the tiniest loophole, you can be certain that your savvy salespeople will find a way to exploit it. Make sure you account for potential downsides—no matter how unlikely they seem—or you might accidentally incentivize the sales team to take actions you’ll regret.
Whether you’re looking for life on other planets or just trying set some sales targets, false assumptions can quickly lead you astray. To avoid falling into this trap, sales ops teams must rigorously test their suppositions and make sure they are supported by evidence. For guidance on how to do that, we recommend the following resources from the SellingBrew library:
- Developing Better Forecasts
- Improving Sales Compensation to Boost Results
- Leading Edge Account & Territory Planning
We still haven’t found alien life or even fully explored Mars, but someone did win the Guzman Prize. Remember—the specific terms of the award didn’t require someone to actually find extraterrestrial life, only to create a means of communicating and getting a response. In 1969, the crew of Apollo 11 received the prize after having successfully reached the moon and returning to earth.
Developing Better Forecasts
In this on-demand webinar, learn about the seven major ways in which leading teams are approaching sales forecasting very differently to boost speed, accuracy, and overall performance and results.
Improving Sales Compensation to Boost Results
It's hard to devise a comp plan that nails the objectives without a bunch of unintended consequences. In this webinar, learn about strategies and tactics for more effective sales incentives and compensation plans.
Leading Edge Account & Territory Planning
Sales planning is often perceived as not much more than tactical busywork. In this on-demand training session, you'll learn how innovative sales operations are taking a radically different approach to identify untapped growth opportunities and develop prescriptive account and territory plans.
