Customers are no longer interested in the pain game.
I know that many times in my 25 years in selling, particularly when I led multiple sales teams, I would have given a lot to unlock the heads of certain sales people. You know the ones I mean. The ones you just can’t seem to click with, the ones who you don’t know whether to use the stick or the carrot on.
We have all at various times had good, poor and average members of our teams. It is easy to know what to do with the first two groups; the challenge has always been to manage and develop the average performers so that they improve. This is the group that can be the difference, that can take you over the numbers. They will have the biggest impact on the bottom line. So the question has always been what would unlock that potential and make them have an impact? I come back to the carrot and the stick.
As the Directors and Managers of sales teams, the temptation is to react in a one-dimensional way when we really know we need to use all the tools at our disposal to drive revenue.
In today’s market it is even more important to find the way to have every member of the team make that impact. A 10% – 15% improvement will go straight to the bottom line. However, even if we think we found ways of making that impact in the past, are we sure it will work now?
Customers’ expectations are changing and we must change to meet them.
Customers are no longer interested in the pain game. They don’t have time to tell us about their business and its challenges.
They expect us to know what drives them, to understand their market and to offer them solutions that will positively impact their bottom line. More and more, customers expect the sales person to know their business, to have done the research and to be proactive in using that knowledge to their advantage.
To any sales person in 2009, knowledge truly is KING.
Knowledge of your customers’ market, of your customers’ customer and the options and solutions you can offer that will positively impact your customers’ bottom line.Customers face the same challenges that we do. They are looking for value, just as their customers are looking for value from them and if that is what they want, we as sales people must respond to their demands if we expect them to do business with us.
In order to meet these demands and have an impact we must be able to open that door to the customer so that they will listen.
To do that sales people need to be able to pitch three things to get that audience:
- Does it meet the CEO’s “keeps me up at night” threshold? If it does, does this problem seriously jeopardize the organization’s ability to compete?
- Is it being ignored, neglected, or ineffectively addressed by existing processes, systems, or services?
- Are you a credible source of advice on the issue? Is your organization’s track record better than your competitors’ when it comes to helping others in the customer’s industry solve related problems? Or, if your company is a start-up, do you have employees with prior experience doing this?
If you have done your research and have the knowledge and can confidently pitch how you manage these key criteria, congratulations, you are on the way to making a sale.
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