Understanding the Sales Force

Genius.com has announced a contest that your salespeople may be interested in as they can vie for some great prizes and have some fun recalling their sales nightmares. It’s called “The Worst Cold Call Contest” (www.worstcoldcall.com) where sales professionals can compete with their peers for the worst sales call experience by submitting their story online.

I took up Golf last summer so this month marks a year at this frustrating, humiliating, challenging, and surprisingly addictive game. I’ve made great strides in just a year but I still haven’t broken 100, still hit balls with amazing inconsistency and still can’t tolerate my performance on the course. That’s just the way I am. Saturday, I took my 25th lesson, hoping to ‘straighten’ out my recent woes. It turned out to be a very simple adjustment to get me hitting the ball straight again. I had developed a bad habit with my grip – ironic since that was the very first thing I learned. Back to basics.

When prospects attempt to determine who they should buy from and what exactly they should buy, it usually requires more than a phone call and a proposal.

Would you like to get sick? Try this exercise. Have your salespeople write down the exact words they use when transitioning out of rapport and into the first sales call. What exactly do they say to their prospects to position themselves for the first appointment.

Don’t let your salespeople behave like government employees. Make them take some responsibility or tell them they can go and work for the government where their behavior will be appreciated.

In this article, my one-liners are exactly that. MY ONE LINERS – favorite originals I challenge my audiences with. Here are my top ten:

Management must do a better job reviewing what is said by their salespeople to ensure consistency, impact, the integrity of the value proposition and revenue.  Be sure your messaging is consistent!