SalesSquawk

Care and Feeding of a Sales Rep - Rules 4-7

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:

1. Industry Knowledge
2. Product Knowledge
3. Selling Skills
4. 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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Care and Feeding of a Sales Rep - The First Three Rules

The document attached to a brand-new appliance reads, "Follow these instructions and your appliance should provide many years of enjoyment." Hmm…what a great tag to send along with any newly hired sales rep, don't you think? I mean, come on, how many of us rising through the ranks of sales remember our "worst" organization to which it seemed we gave our lives and souls—only to feel like we were used and abused worse than a widow when buying a new car?

It started me thinking: If salespeople came with instructions and a warranty, how would the little booklet read? Well, in all honesty, I have to believe if it were written well, it would be about the size of a Manhattan phonebook. So, rather than enumerating all the ways to take care of your sales professional for maximum performance, I thought I would just provide a top ten list.  

1. Salespeople are not necessarily marketing people.

Some folks hire salespeople thinking that they can get the salesperson to create whatever marketing materials they need. They can, but that approach may not be the best one. Do you really want your logo designed by a third-grader with crayons? No matter how well you screen your salesperson for success in sales, it doesn't mean he will have the real marketing knowledge to generate art, write marketing copy, research competitors, create and support a brand identity, or do other tasks outside of his expertise area. Okay, if you hired and screened him for that job, then those skills should be natural, but do you know how many companies simply underserve the marketing needs of their salesperson? Every day, hundreds of salespeople are hired and shown to a cubicle with a computer and telephone and given the loose direction to "go sell something." The fact is, if you think your salespeople are really good marketing people, you are putting your corporate face at risk—and all your marketing materials in the hands of a person you probably are not taking care of well enough to stay. If you annoy your salesperson enough, what do you really think she is going to do with your marketing materials when she leaves?

2. Feed them. Really.

Just as with a man, the way to a salesperson’s heart is through his stomach. While a trip to the local “gentlemen’s club” may not be a legitimate sales expense (unless, of course, in your business it is), a good meal should always be a fair expense. If you think you can maintain a per diem that causes them to starve, think again. I know sales folks who have forced the customers to pay for their meals on sales calls. Do you think that really leaves a good impression?  

3. Pay them. Really!

One would think this point is overly obvious, right? One would be wrong. I am not just talking about the lunacy in most instances of trying build your business on the back of some poor schmuck you talked into working for commissions only because you were too broke to build your business like you knew what you were doing. Instead, I am talking about the under-capitalized companies that write payroll checks that bounce. If I ever hear, "Here's your check. Can you just hold it a week while we get some money in?" again, it will be an eon too soon. Some folks get this wild idea they can start a business with the latest, greatest idea in their head, and because they are so enamored with themselves for thinking of it, they presume everyone else will be just as enamored. Multiplying that arrogance with continued stupidity, they then run around trying to talk salespeople into working for free or "commission only." While I certainly understand that there are commission-based sales positions (I am not really talking about those), the abusive entrepreneurs who think the sun rises and sets on the strength of their own ideas. For them, I have one little piece of data: "Yes, your ‘stuff’ stinks too." If you can't afford a sales professional, quit crying about it and find a way to fund your business.

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Solomon Says: Communication is Capital!

Right in the middle of the sales cycle, within the structure of sales lives this one little phase called "communicate." and while seemingly innocent sitting there is the kick in the pants that drives all things sales.  Done well, it drives joy and happiness throughout the customers world, and the sales persons company.  Done poorly, it creates anger, distrust and bad reviews for the "no longer a prospect," and causes the sales person to hang his head low in shame and guilt.

Communicate is the collection of meetings and presentations after discovering some value to the prospect that invites the sales interaction.  It is where we as sales professionals earn our keep as people who can help our prospects recognize our value to them or we recognize we cannot and disqualify them gracefully and move on.  It is where we spend the most effort managing their natural inclination to ensure they are getting the best value for their purpose and not being taken advantage of, AKA, their defenses.

The only mindset that matters here as a sales professional is one that believes, " I must help my customer discover they have more value than cost in going forward with me, or I must help them decide not to go there."  That mindset operates with dignity, integrity and value for the customer, and fosters long term relationships and a huge referral base. Failure to do so costs the salesperson and everyone else in the sales community.

So look around at the sales people in your office.  If there is a rep who is consistently on top of the leader board and has been for a long time, watch how he/she does it.  My bet is their customers love them.  This is why.

Next, the Holy Grail on how you do it.

Respectfully submitted,
Michael D Goodman

Solomon Says: "The Structure of Sales Matters"

Solomon Says: "Structure of Sales = Mental Preparation, Finding, Engaging, Advancing, Qualify, Communicate, Commit, Implement, Satisfy, & Repeat"

All sales efforts are not created equal.  

Neither are sales people, sales managers, sales organizations, products or buyers.  

Because of this, the sales effort that worked in one company will not necessarily work in another.  Unfortunately, the training a sales professional received in one organization will often not translate well either.  In fact, the best spend a company can make in training is one that is customized to their own product or service!  While more expensive to start, the long term reduction in "cost of sales", and "time to money" from a new sales person is far more impressive than a bank executives bonus!

Rather than purchase a one size fits all sales training program, either for the company or the sales professional, the most effective path is to understand the structure of sales, and then build your companies sales process, and sales education around the structure you actually operate in.

To create the greatest possible efficiency in sales, Solomon offers the following structure as the fastest path to money with the lowest effort and cost.  

    

Mental and Emotional Preparation
3 Major Sales Phases
Opportunity Discovery	Sales Prosecution	Post - Sale
Find	Qualify	Implement
Engage	Communicate	Satisfy
Advance	Commit	Repeat / Referral

If I can help you with this, give a shout.  Your career in sales matters!

Respectfully submitted,
Solomon

The Selling Moment

Someone once asked me "what is the selling moment?"  I had probably used it in a discussion without much thought but it triggered him wanting to know the exact moment a buyer makes a decision to go ahead with a transaction.  The thinking I had to do around that question triggered much of the sales curriculum I have written and has really become a key in helping companies make a good sales force better.   The curriculum is called the Solomon Sales System, named after the smartest of the "Judges" in the Old Testament.

Solomon Says: "All of sales is a Return On Investment equation.  The sale happens when the buyers perception of return, exceeds the investment."  When you think about it, that is really all sales is.  Helping a buyer discover enough value for them in what you are bringing to the table to outweigh what it will cost them.  Simple isn't it?  But simple does not at all mean easy.

Early career sales people often make the mistake that if they simply lower the price, the teeter totter will tip in favor of the sale and the buyer will buy from them.  Many times this is true though always to the detriment of the selling company and even the market as a whole.  Lowering the price to make this sale has damaged the company brand, it has reduced the profit margin of the company and it has hurt the capacity to sell at a more effective price in the future.  It has set in the buyer's mind an expectation of cost that may be inconsistent with the marketplace but in all events, devalues the product.  If this continues to happen, the long term effects are never good.  The companies investors want to know why their profits are down and they put pressure on the CEO or President.  The President puts pressure on the Vice President of Sales who puts pressure on the sales managers who put pressure on the sales people.  Guess who the sales people put pressure on?  Yep.  The buyers.

Wanna know why people have so much trouble with sales people?  Too many companies do not know how to hire or train their sales people.

A seasoned sales professional however will get to know the customer.  They will develop a relationship of trust and credibility and will listen with good ears to the buyer.  More importantly, they will strive to understand the ROI to the buyer.  Then, when they have the conversation about a product, they will match the features and benefits their product has to the needs of the buyer as well as possible.  They will help the buyer recognize how the buyer will look good to as many people as possible and how the savings over the long term will support the mission of the buyer.  They will do all this because they understand their own product and the needs of their buyer and the buyer will be happy to make a decision to spend a few more dollars to get what matches their needs more effectively.  In technology, the Total Cost of Ownership has been reduced to an acronym that most understand, TCO.  In sales, when the buyer understands how a product reduces the TCO, they have a much easier time spending a few more bucks for it.  The customer is happier, the selling company is happier and the sales person has done a better job.

So normally I am a bundle of laughs and I'm having a hard time seeing anything remotely humorous here.  I do see a number of very important points that I am predisposed to expound on at greater length over the next few posts.  If you want to make sure not to miss them, subscribe via email below.  They will be on Management Responsibiltiy for sales, The ROI model, Growing sales skills, and a model for understanding how to build a sales effort.  Probably a few other things time will allow my mind to find.

I'll tell a few jokes too.  Really!  Meantime, here is an image to burn indelibly into your sales brain.

Respectfully Submitted,

Michael Goodman
Executive Director
AzSalesPros, International Sales Pros Association
www.gosalespros.com