Sales is like the beer wagons we see in the commercials
during the last football game of the year. You need four big strong Clydesdales
to pull your beer wagon. Three horses or even three horses and a pony will not
successfully pull your wagon. Like the beer wagon, your sales program has four
components that work as a team and are co-dependent and interrelated.
The first
component is a quality product.
Quality is defined as a product that meets the needs and expectations of the
consumer. If you are selling a car to a college student whose primary concern
is that he does not need to put too much of his beer money in the gas tank and
it will get him home once a month to see his girlfriend, then a 3-year-old
economy car is a quality product. But if you are selling a car to a wealthy
doctor who wants to impress his friends, neighbors, colleagues and even himself,
then you likely need to offer an imported luxury car.
Obviously,
the "quality" level is different in a 3-year-old economy car and a
new imported luxury car but each is quality to the consumer. Not only do you
need to offer the right level of quality to the right customer but to maintain
your sales program long term, you need to be honest with your customer and
yourself about what you are selling. You cannot offer an economy car and sell
it as a luxury car. It might work once but not in the long term. When I was
selling homes, we had a saying: "Sell the sizzle not the steak."
However, if you sell the sizzle you still have to make sure you have a steak.
Selling the sizzle without a steak to back it up is fraud.
The second
component of your sales program is a good
sales attitude and company culture. Sales is a necessary process. Without
sales, there will be no product to make, no books to keep and no products to
purchase. The company will fail and all production staff, bookkeeper,
purchasing agent and all the rest of employees will lose their jobs.
Not only do
the salespeople have to have a good attitude, but everyone who works for the
company must understand that they are part of the sales process and need to
work together on sales. If the salespeople come back to production with a
quality or fashion issue, the production staff must be open to making changes
or adjustments. If they take the attitude that they have made widgets the same
way for 10 years without making improvements along the way, then it will impact
quality and sales.
What can you
do about improving your sales attitude and company culture?
· Keep
the customer's interest your highest priority. If your product is not the right
product for the customer or you cannot meet their needs, do not proceed. If you
keep the customer's interest first, two magical things happen;
o
First, you feel better about the process
and your position as a salesperson.
o
And second, you will generate more sales.
· Understand
that sales is a honorable profession. Nearly every book, CD or seminar on sales
includes a chapter dedicated to convincing the reader, listener or attendee
that sales is an honorable profession. No other group of employees,
bookkeepers, purchasing agents or production staff needs to be convinced their
job is honorable. Sales is not an option and if done right, it is both
honorable and rewarding. Without sales, the bookkeeper, the purchasing agent
and production staff will all lose their jobs and the company will fail.
· Realize
that if you have a quality product that meets your customers’ needs, it is your
duty to get it into the hands of the people it will most likely benefit. Of
course, you first need to make sure you have a quality product. There is no way
to feel good about selling a product your customer does not need or want.
· Make
sales a full-time activity. You do not ask your production staff to do the
bookkeeping or answer the phones. Why would you ask the bookkeeper or
receptionist to do sales? If your bookkeeper is doing sales, then sales is an
interruption from the activities that the bookkeeper uses to define himself or
herself. If an employee has the choice between routine easy tasks such as
entering invoices into a computer and hard necessary tasks such as cold calling
and follow-up calls, the employee will always do the routine easy tasks that
he/she defines as part of their job. If they start entering a stack of bills
into a computer, by the end of the day they will have accomplished something.
If they make the cold calls or follow up calls, he/she might be rejected, told
no or otherwise reach unsuccessful results. This bookkeeper or other employee
will likely have a poor attitude toward sales.
· And
finally, you need to identify the weak parts of your sales process so you can
work to improve them. If you shore up the weak parts, all employees involved in
the process will feel more comfortable and perform better. Success will then,
in turn, improve attitude.
The third
component of your sales program is sales
skills. You need to know how to prospect, build rapport, determine needs,
make sales presentations, close the sale and more. From the most basic to the
subtle the skills are available if you are willing to go out and find them. It
takes work not because they are hard
to find, but because there is so much information available that you need to
find the skills that are right for your industry and your personality.
There are
books, CDs, seminars and videos by some giants in the sales training field such
as Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, Brian Tracy and many others. Find the method of
delivery that is most effective for you.
You do not
need to spend a fortune. I started with a local library. For me, the best way
to pass the many hours I spend staring at my windshield is listening to
recordings of books and seminars. You can find many of these available on
YouTube for free. I download them, convert to audio and listen as I travel.
You need to
listen over and over because each time you will hear something you missed before
or understand something you heard in a new way. The third or fourth time, you
may understand something and how it applies to you, your customers or your
industry that you missed before.
Motivational
recordings are also important to salespeople. It is hard to stay motivated.
Listening to a motivational recording each morning can help you be where you
need to be. Even listening to upbeat music on the way to a difficult sales call
can be very helpful to get you in a mood for success.
The final
component of a great sales program is a sales
process. When you produce your product or service, it is likely you have a
process that you follow. Even if it is not written down, you can likely
describe what it takes to make your product. If you are building a house, you
have a construction schedule to follow. If you are repairing cars, you have a
process for diagnosing each problem, ordering the parts, making the repair and
double checking to make sure the repair was done correctly and solved the
problem.
Sales is
just like that. You need to have a process to follow. If you have a process,
you know what to do next and you can identify what is working, continue to use
the technique. You will also be able to identify where your procedure is weak
or nonexistent and you can create what you are missing or work on what is weak.
A process will also help keep you on track and ensure you are not skipping the
parts with which you are uncomfortable.
