Sales Rants
I’m sure I’m going to have new things to say about
selling as well as including and editing the things I’ve already written about.
So here’s your starter
Do
You Use What You Sell?, Get The
Meeting?, Implementing
Sales Training and not CRM, Benefits not Features, or is it?, Two Types of Salespeople, Generating Leads.
Coming Soon; Mathematical Progressions
Sunday 1st June 2003
Sitting with two
other salespeople the other day, and I realised something, which is nothing
new, that most salespeople don’t use the product or service they sell.
This is
particularly true of e-learning. Do the
salespeople who sell e-learning use the product that they sell? I’ll bet you 98% have never completed any
e-learning module that they themselves sell.
You know why? Because e-learning
is dull as shit! People don’t learn that
way, but they’re happy to sell it to someone else to use!
E-learning does
work in some areas and is improving, especially in technical areas, where you
can use diagrams and show flows of packets around a network, or how something
is constructed. But for soft skills,
with the exception of Video Arts/John Cleese type videos, it’s really really
dull. How many of you can/could sit at a
PC and watch a Negotiation Skills video for several hours or in chunks of 20
minutes, and then be tested on it.
And like a lot of
testing, the answers are open to interpretation. Soft skills don’t always have a precise
answer.
Sometimes it’s
too expensive to train face to face in the classroom, so there is a need for
on-line training, but would you sit through all of an on-line course.
My point is, that
salespeople more often than not don’t use the product they sell.
No wonder selling
has a bad reputation.
And a nice touch
today, when I was recharging my phone card, the guy on the phone asked me how
the service was.
I told him that
over the last 6 months the service had been dropping out in the middle of an
overseas call.
He
empathised. We had a short talk. He couldn’t do much about it, but at least he
asked, he engaged me, rather than try and get me off the phone as soon as
possible.
Wednesday 30th April 2003
They always tell
you to “Get The Meeting?”
That seems to be
the aim of most sales phone calls.
But I’ve been
thinking about this.
Most meetings are
1-2 hours, unless you’re looking for “just 20 minutes of your time”.
It depends on
what type of product and marketplace you’re in, but from my experience most
meetings are 1+ hours.
If you add in
travel time then that’s nearly half a day.
One way to
overcome this use of time is to book several meetings in the same area on the
same day.
I don’t know
about you, but my maximum number of meetings is about 4 in a day, and that’s
very very rare.
Maybe you’re
better than me at getting a number of meetings in the same day, but anything
more than 4 meetings and my head is spinning with what I’ve said to whom, and
what the follow up is with each of the people I’ve met with.
So what I’m
saying is that each meeting is a precious use of your time, and could use up to
half a day, just for one meeting, so you’d better make sure that that meeting
is worth it, even for a speculative first time meeting.
In other words,
you need to qualify a bit, even before you have the meeting, and whilst you’re
on the phone talking to them.
You don’t ask
them this, but you have to work it out for yourself.
I had a meeting
today, which on the face of it doesn’t meet these criteria, but my experience
and gut feel tell me that the meeting is/was worth it.
I have a call to
make to get some business – a 2 day training course. Will it lead to more business? Probably not.
Will it have a wider impact – probably not. So do I need to have a meeting? Probably not.
So if the person
I phone says no thanks, then I’m not going to push it hard, and accept that I’m
saving my time.
If they are
interested, I’m not going to push for a meeting unless I can see likely
immediate business.
It’s not the be
all and end all to get the meeting, if it’s going to use your time up that
could be better spent working on better things and having better meetings.
On the other
hand, if all you’re going to do is fritter the time you’ve saved by not having
the meeting, you might as well get out there, have the meeting and see who else
you can talk to as a result of the meeting.
Referrals.
You decide.
Friday 21st Feb 2003
I can’t decide if
this article is the usual load of bollocks dressed up in a different way or is
good sense.
http://www.insightexec.com/bti/media/insight_filename1045673720.doc
I guess from my
own experience, it’s not good enough to train salespeople and rely on good
feedback from the training to suffice.
It’s true as the
article points out that training and projects in sales fail because of the lack
of support from the frontline managers.
But what I mean
by this is lack of support for the salespeople, not support for senior
management decisions being handed down.
And why do most
of these solutions fail?
Because they’re
crap.
CRM is crap not
because of the salesforce's lack of support for it but because it’s crap.
If salespeople
can’t see why something is good either for them, the client or the company then
they won’t support it.
If they can see
why it’s good then they’re usually intelligent enough to support it.
They key is that
senior management think, good selling = lots of process, as being the key.
On the front line
qualifying and activity is key.
Oh and a good
product/service well marketed would help!
Also, is the
company easy to do business with?
This ain’t down
to some fancy CRM system or process.
My view.
Processes in
selling have to be adequate.
A good enough
forecasting system, aggregated spreadsheets are probably good enough and the
most flexible.
Account Planning
that isn’t laborious and is mainly based on Vision and Action, and cut out the
crap in the middle which nobody bothers to read.
Opportunity
Planning that is good enough to generate actions and contact activity.
Risk Management
that simply states what are the chances of it going wrong and how much will it
cost to put right if it does go wrong.
This is a small
part of the sales function.
The rest should
be put into Sales Skills, basic skills, advanced skills, and most of all
qualifying and activity.
Knowing which
business to go for and the activity to support winning the business.
Most important as
the good article says, is a culture of supporting the processes and skills.
This is the most
difficult challenge, especially to change a culture that has got sloppy.
The one thing I
don’t usually see are people asking the salesforce what they want to make them
work better and sell more, and bigger and better.
The trouble with
asking the salesforce is that they often come up with the usual excuses.
We need a better
product/service, better marketed.
We need more
support people.
We need fewer
processes!
So much for
asking the salesforce! But if you take
the level of excuses away, the reality is that most salespeople want coaching
and support from their manager.
I’d take a more
radical view. What is it the client/customer wants as an interface to your company? How do they want to be sold to?
Do they want to
deal with salespeople?
Can salespeople
be done away with altogether?
What type of
person does the client want to deal with?
If you answer
those questions then the rest will fall in place.
Since when did a
CRM system help a client?
Oh sure it’s
about the Utopia of a “single client/patient record” but CRM or whatever other
bollocks they come up with is an attempt at an age old problem.
Stop making the
poor old saleforce through the processes have to deal with what any company and
its I.T have failed to solve in the last 40 years.
The problem is
bigger than loading the salesperson down with crap.
If people sat
down and talked to each other more instead of wasting time on processes and
forecasting then it would be solved very quickly.
I got a bit off
track there, but it’s my rant and you know what I mean!
Wednesday 5th Feb 2003
Frog Kissing
How many Frogs do
you have to kiss to meet a Prince or Princess?
The more Frogs you
kiss, the better your chances of meeting a Prince or Princess?
Of course, you
don’t want to kiss any ugly Frogs, so you may qualify to kiss only good looking
Frogs!
On the other
hand, the Frogs that stay Frogs, may know some other Frogs you can kiss.
The point is that
we often don’t kiss enough Frogs when networking or selling.
We rely on the
same Frogs we’ve kissed before instead of meeting a few new Frogs.
Earning What
You’re Worth
Wednesday 29th January 2003
One of the
classic pieces of selling skills is to sell the Benefits not the Features of a
product.
The Features are
what a product does, but the benefits are what you gain from using a product.
To move from a
Feature to a Benefit, you ask the question “So What?”
Benefits come in
three forms. The save you Time or Money,
or you buy on Emotion.
When salespeople
are new to selling, they tend to sell Features.
In fact much
Sales and Marketing literature focuses on Features instead of telling you what
the Benefits of the product are.
I used to sell on
Features but experience has taught me to be better at selling Benefits (when I
put my mind to it!)
But I’ve had a
realisation today.
I as a customer
tend to buy on Features!
Call me shallow
but I’m often not interested in the Benefits – The cost, the savings etc.
I like the
function of a product or service.
So now wonder
I’ve always struggled to remember to point out the Benefits of something,
because I’m a features/function kinda guy!
So after 20 years
of trying to sell Benefits, to hell with it, I’m going back to Features!!
“It’s a 3.06 GHz
Pentium 4 Processor with 512KB ON-DIE L2
Cache”
Ah, that feels
better.
No wonder Dell
are so successful!
To hell with
benefits, give me features and lots of them!
Friday 25th January 2003
I’ve noticed
something over this last week about people who sell.
They seem to fall
into two categories.
Those who have a
high activity rate and rely on that to generate successful sales, and those who
have a lower activity rate but a better quality of relationship with people,
and use networking to overcome their low activity rate.
I don’t want to
over generalise but those who don’t seem to have such good relationships with
clients seem to make up for it by raising the activity.
Of course you can
be good at both, but if you’re good at getting sales from just a few contacts,
you tend to have a lower activity rate.
At least that’s
how I justify my complete idleness, lack of activity, and call reluctance!!
Tuesday 7th January 2003
People generally work in one of two ways.
They're either focused, task and action driven, or they're more
organic, last minute, waiting for divine intervention.
I guess it's the difference between Judging and Perceiving in Myers
Briggs terms.
Some telesales call centres have measurable metrics, 100 calls per
day, 25 contacts, 4 positive outcomes, 1 sale. 100-25-4-1, and they want people
who can stick to that. But that's not for everyone.
I think you have to apply the 80/20 rule that 80% of your business comes from
20% of your clients, so go for the big and easy business with the clients you
already do business with.
In terms of new leads, you can buy leads from telesales companies, or you can
get better at getting quicker outcomes from those you network with.
I've never believed mailshots, advertising or even trade shows work. Others
will disagree with me on that.
I'm going through the same process of generating leads for myself. So how am I
going about it? Firstly, I'm going back to the clients I've done business with
over the last year, to see if there's any more business or business in other
parts of their company. Next, I'm talking to other channels who may have better
contacts than me, so rather than me going direct, I might know a sales
recruiter or a consultant who can put me in touch with someone who wants my
sales training services.
Speaking to people is the best way (although there are methods for building low
cost websites that attract lots of business, see www.marketingtips.com ). At the end of the
day it's about activity. Success is based on the number of contacts made on a
consistent basis. If you add a level of qualifying then you don't have to
randomly contact everyone in the world. Successful people have 3 things in
common. They Network, They Persist and stick at it, and They have a Memorable
Style.
If you give a top salesperson a $10m target, the first thing they will do is
qualify, they’ll ask themselves, how many do I need to sell, is it 1x$10m or
10millionx$1, so in other words they qualify before they do anything else
There are a few other means of generating business which include doing talks
and presentations to groups. CEO organisations such as TEC International are
always looking for good speakers. That’s often a good way of generating leads
and business.
Networking and asking the direct question, “Who do you know who would be
interested in our service/product?” or asking your network as you’re asking me
who they think would be a good person to talk to.
Here endeth the lesson for today!