by Hank Trisler
As a sales trainer, a question I'm sometimes asked is, "Are you one of those motivational speakers?"
The answer is, "Probably not. Motivation occurs internally and is not something one person normally does to another. If I were to motivate your people, what, specifically, would you like me to motivate them to do?"
"Go out and just sell the hell out of my Doogers. Man, we're up to our hips in Doogers and I need my sales critters to make 'em go away, pronto."
Well, I suppose that would be dandy if that's the way it worked, but if you inspire people without some clear direction of what they are to do, they just get all pumped up and run out in the parking lot looking for something to kill. Can't find their car.
Before I begin to design any sales training program, I need the clear answers to four basic questions. When, and only when, the management team and I are in agreement on these questions am I able to help them direct their people. The questions are:
1. What are your people doing well now? The hippocratic oath tells doctors, "If you can do no good, at least do no harm. " Good advice for those of us attempting to increase performance levels.
As a young man, I inherited a sales team heavily reliant on "canned pitches." They had every word memorized and lists of objections with the answers thereto. I HATE canned pitches. I think they sound phony and make one look like the negative perception people hold of salespeople. Accordingly, I banned the use of canned pitches. I told them to go forth and ask intelligent questions and offer logical solutions to the customers, based the their perceived needs.
It was a blood bath. I abolished a system that was working, though not as well as I might have desired, but working nevertheless. Without it, they were lost.
2. What should they be doing better? Let's focus on the specific activities of the sales force. Do they need more prospects? Need to do a better job of need finding? Need better questions? Should they be more persistent in asking for the order?
3. What should they be doing that they are not doing at all? This is fairly straightforward. This is probably what management has been haranguing them about for years. List the desired specific behaviors.
4, Why aren't they doing those things now? Could they do them if their lives depended on it? Pay close attention, as this is where your training exercise is created. If they don't know how to do the desired activities, education is the key. More often, there are other reasons than lack of knowledge. They know how, but they just don't want to do them, or they want to do other things more.
Posts
Hank,
ReplyDeleteOne of the issues that you and I have talked about before, is that although the management team has their idea of what is right/wrong about the sales team, their opinion might not have a lot to do with selling. Lot's of times upper management (and, I've been "upper" for a while now) wants the sales team to execute on activities that THEY feel will "fix" any suspected sales production issues. When one takes a total view of the situation, you find that U. M. wants to make their reporting life easier via Corporate CRM tools that for many pure sales animals falls into the "more to do" bin. That said, your own selling effort to the client is in fact to the management team, so it's hard to tell them this about themselves. :-)
If we could, it would be great to ask the four questions of every member of the sales force, the sales support staff, marketing, and - in the case of high-tech sales - the applications engineers. It would really make for a three D picture and provide the other tensions that keep the whole process running, or not, as the case may be. It would really pinpoint the likely issues from the view of those who actually know what happens.
Best always,
Paul
Hank... as though it was yesterday, I hearken back to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when out of the West came the hoofbeats......WAIT, that's something else.
ReplyDeleteNo, after traveling to hear you, and the instant you blasted "canned pitches", and I said : "YESSSS!... but wait, YESSS! wasn't commonplace in those days, except when uttered by those fortunate women who were married to considerate and passionate Irishmen........at that instant I knew that you were the one I wanted to teach my "guys and gals" as well.
I used to have those old cassette tapes rolling most of the time.......in between Creedence Clearwater...
But at any rate, when you went into that routine of a typical..."just give me the address of the listing" with the old crap answer, that nearly always began with : "You see, under the terms of our listing agreement, blah blah blah........and you gave it the old Hank answer, much like "Are you looking to buy a home? and taking it from there, I knew that you had a friend for life.
Come to think of it, you do.
For that was 1976, and I brought you up to Placerville for my super stars the year after.
Is that check still in the mail?
LOL
Bob
Thanks, Paul and Bob, for your unique and valuable points of view. I just don't see anything with which to argue.
ReplyDeleteHank