Understanding the Sales Force

One of the things I pay attention to is the day each year that leaves appear on the trees. In Central Massachusetts, where I live, it usually occurs right around May 11. This year, thanks to some unusually prolonged warm weather, the buds have popped, the fruit trees have flowered and there are leaves appearing on the trees. They’re not full-size yet but will be in a matter of days. May 11 came early.

Prospects and customers have become more resilient to salespeople, while sale cycles are taking longer.

Introducing my Rule of Conflicting Sales Realities: Weak sales organizations have little awareness of their ineffectiveness which instills a false sense of greatness.  I believe that this is why generally ineffective sales forces remain that way.

Selling to a major company, as in large, multi-site, Billion Dollar plus accounts, is very different from selling to a small or medium sized company.  Among the many differences you will find, the biggest difference is the myth of calling at the top. 

Salesperson number one shows up, fails to develop a relationship, assumes he (or she) knows everything, makes a presentation that the prospect doesn’t care about and leaves, believing he did a good job.  The prospect has eliminated this salesperson.

Last night, as I’ve done a couple of times before, I had the opportunity to speak to the sales class at Clark University. The class was significantly larger than the one from last semester so the professor, Ron Ranauro, CEO of Genome Quest, is clearly succeeding, creating a buzz about the program.

Today, Seth Godin’s post, Would We Miss You?, got me thinking about one of the very important qualities possessed by great salespeople but one of the few characteristics that we can’t measure in an assessment.  Are your salespeople memorable?

More than a year ago I posted this article about how United Airlines was selling their customers on not choosing their airline by the way they handled people.  They weren’t doing it on purpose, it was just poor training.  Today, at the US Airways check-in line at Laguardia, the experience wasn’t just poor training, it was downright shocking!  Here’s what happened. 

On April 24, the Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM) will hold an all day consortium on sales excellence.  The event, to be held at the Philadelphia office of Deloitte Consulting, should be a great day for attendees.  I will speak on the Keys to Recruiting STARS.  You can learn more about the event and you can register here.

I received an email today that describes How to Sing and Play the Blues. It was very funny but unfortunately, I don’t know who wrote it so I can’t give proper credit.  I forwarded it to a few music lovers and musicians and one of them, Ken Stark, Owner of Stark & Associates, a St. Louis sales development firm, replied back in less than five minutes with his original lyrics to “Too Much Pretendin’ Blues”. Next time your salespeople are singin’ the blues, have them sing this instead!