4. Train them.
If you are really paying your sales professionals, you pretty much have a right to ask for and expect results. You can expedite time-to-money with your sales professionals if you train them. There are four basic items of training that any proud, well-organized sales division should have available to reduce the time-to-money for its sales team. These are:
- Industry Knowledge
- Product Knowledge
- Selling Skills
- Emotional Strengths
You likely hired a sales professional with industry knowledge, didn't you? (If not, please call me; I would like to explain the facts of sales to you personally.) However, all industries change often. Remember that marketing person we alluded to you needing who is not a salesperson? That guy should be feeding your sales team regular updates on the industry, and if he is really good, how your product/service can best be sold in that changing environment.
Product knowledge is likely changing regularly too, but even if it is as staid as an IBM mainframe, you still want to ensure your sales team members are well versed in how those products offer value to your prospective customers. This is the kind of thing that changes daily too, so make sure your sales folks know the facts before you beat them for not closing more deals.
Selling skills are kind of similar. Of course, your salespeople know how to sell, don't they? (Again, if you’re scratching your head here, call me!) But if you are noble enough to hire less-than-skilled sales professionals who require additional training (not a bad strategy really; they are less expensive and more loyal), you will want to make sure they know how to have an effective and dignified conversation with your prospects to appropriately manage defenses and identify the value you provide. Because your products change regularly—and, more importantly, because your products really ARE different than your competitors’, even if they are a commodity—you will want your salespeople as skilled as possible at exploiting those differences to discover the best possible value you can provide to your prospects.
5. Tell them what you want, specifically.
Another apparent no brainer, right? I can only hope for the day this is true. A ton of people hire a sales team, point them at a phone and computer, and just say, "Do some of that sales stuff, Maverick." It is really the responsibility of the hiring company to know what kinds of activity will
generally bring about what kind of result in what approximate timeline. Most of you don't and cannot convey it to save your lives, but if you were operating at top-notch efficiency, you would be able to convey to your sales professional how you expected her to find new prospects, what has proven effective at converting those prospects into opportunities, and then how and with whom to speak, thereby maximizing the likelihood of closing that opportunity successfully.
6. Give them the tools they need.
This is one of the places where we tend to do best, but it still bears saying. If a sales pro doesn't have a telephone, don't expect him to prospect on the phone. If she doesn't have a car, you really won’t need her to drive to appointments, will you? Okay, you don't necessarily have to buy her a car, but you will want to reimburse your sales professionals for mileage or otherwise accommodate their needs pertinent to legitimate selling activity.
7. Show some respect.
I know salespeople can be some of the most arrogant, self-serving buggers you ever came across after the age of four, but in many ways that is kind of what makes them good at their jobs. While I would never condone miscreant behavior, you really do want to respect the job they do.
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