Inside Our Head

People in sales should know the importance of making a good impression: without it you can't earn the right to do business with people. Each customer contact provides us as sales people the opportunity to make a good impression. Remember the maxim in sales and marketing: the prospect must be touched five to ten times with high-quality, compelling messages before business is transacted.

If you don't make a good first impression, what makes you think your prospect will want to see you again?

Business letters--to ask for an appointment or other reasons--are so important in making good impressions. Make sure your sales proposals are well-written. Take time to check for spelling and grammatical errors. Ask your sales manager or a colleague to proof your letter. Often times someone else can see errors the writer often misses. Even Hemingway needed an editor!

Sales proposals and business letters are critical. Think of ways of making your communications shine. Remember, every contact you have with your sales prospect is an impression.

Make a good impression every time you "touch" your client, and you will close more sales.

Inexperienced sales managers assume that if they solve the problems salespeople bring to them then sales reps will automatically sell more. Not true.

Sales managers must expect salespeople to solve their own problems instead of doing their thinking for them. When a salesperson comes to the manager with "a monkey on his back" it is the manager’s duty to:

a) Ask the sales rep how the problem should be solved.
b) See that the rep leaves with the monkey!

The next step is to follow-up. A lot of untrained sales managers make suggestions to their sales reps on how to improve sales, then assume salespeople will implement their suggestions. After all, when the manager was a salesperson, he/she implemented the boss' suggestions. Sales managers who fail to follow-up create a team culture that lacks accountability.

Without sales team accountability there can be no team excellence.

Hanging on to low producing salespeople is detrimental to your sales team!

Untrained sales managers aren't coaching reps on a consistent basis. This leads to the manager not understanding why the sales rep continues to turn in a poor performance. The sales manager then reacts to a rep's poor production by "buying" the rep's excuses, assuming the rep will turn it around soon. But by this time the problem is too old to fix. The opportunity to correct this problem occurred months ago, and the sales coaching opportunity was missed.

Most sales managers know this. She blames herself for the rep's continued failure to perform and, out of guilt, gives the rep even more time on the job to fail some more. The manager's acceptance of one salesperson's mediocrity brings the entire team down.

If you sell to businesses, somewhere during the sales process your prospects may send out a Request for Proposal or ask you to make a formal sales presentation.

Here's an important tip: if the RFP is the first you've heard about the opportunity, it means you're entering the game late (whether or not there are other competitors) and the odds of winning are low.

The way I handle the situation is to call up the customer and say, "Thank you for sending the RFP. I need an hour of your time to ask some questions and fully understand your needs." If the customer says no, I know there is little chance I can make a sale. If they are unwilling to give me one hour of their time, why should I spend 20 hours responding to an RFP?

If you are a sales manager, your sales training must include this important tip.

In this time of economic struggle, creating a unified sales force with a common sales language and single sales message becomes imperative if your company is to achieve its goals.

When you bring together different sales cultures and levels of sophistication within a newly-merged organization the result is often reduced sales, erosion of trust with customers and ineffective sales coaching of the sales process.

Your sales force is your frontline of contact with your customer. They carry your corporate message, your philosophy, and deliver the value you offer. They are the implementers of your marketing strategy. It doesn't matter who you are, if your sales team is giving conflicting signals, rather than a consistent message, you erode your name and what you stand for.

Without a common selling language, companies may find they are fielding "bands of selling nomads," salespeople that complicate, rather than simplify clients' lives.

This is particularly true if your company has national accounts with multiple client locations, and multiple salespeople calling on that account. Varying communication styles, standards, and levels of expertise can cause clients to go elsewhere if another firm is more coherent and efficient in its sales approach.

Look for opportunities to show interest in all team members. Ask about their life outside of work. Make an effort to learn about their families, their hobbies, their recent vacation, etc. Inquire but never pry. Keep track of names, dates, and events that are important to them, such as birthdays and anniversaries of employment with your company. Showing your team that you care about them as people is one more way to build team sprit. When the sprit is strong, the motivation follows right along.

Create an individual development plan for each employee. Work with your sales managers to create development plans that are customized to each person. The plans should identify things like: current and desired skill strengths; job interests; areas for development and enhancement; and strategies (sales training, assignments, coaching, etc.) for achieving the next step.

Involve your best sales people in hiring decisions. Ask team members to participate in interviewing new-hire candidates, when appropriate. This gives your producer a say in how the team works – a significant involvement in something that truly matters. Make sure you provide pre-training on effective interviewing. Such preparation not only gives team members a new skill, but also helps them to help you choose the right candidates for the sales team.

Hire for attitude, train for skill. It can be tempting to fill a vacancy with someone who has the required technical skills but has questionable attitudes and behaviors. Do not give in to the temptation of adding this "warm body" to your team. Bad hires drag down the entire team.

By following these simple steps, you will be on your way to developing a winning sales team!

The best Sales Managers turn failures into teaching lessons. A failure is a failure only when we don’t learn from it. When people make mistakes, encourage them to share their experiences in order to help others avoid similar problems. This can be a great motivational tool because you focus on learning rather than assigning blame. Just remember that it takes guts to admit mistakes – especially in front of others. So be certain to thank each person for his or her courage.

Sales leadership is easy when your stock price is high. Be tough during tough times. As Vince Lombardi said: "It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up again." To keep your team motivated, you need to show resilience, recovery, and "contagious enthusiasm" for the mission of your team – especially when your job challenges are significant.

Help others on your sales team develop by delegating the lead on certain activities and projects. Most of us like "being in charge" – at least some of the time.

Listen to others. Listening shows respect... that people and their ideas are important to you. When people know you're willing to listen, they will share their ideas as well as their frustrations. Listening enables you to build trust, which is essential for creating an elite, high-performance team.



Clarify your expectations. Meet with your individual sales people and ask each to describe his or her understanding of your sales performance expectations (as well as behavior and activity expectations). Confirm and clarify, as appropriate, to ensure that you're "on the same page" with the employee.

The more people know what you expect, the better they'll be able to contribute and help the team succeed... and the fewer de-motivating surprises there will be for both you and your employees down the road.

Get in the habit of inviting team members to challenge your ideas. Encourage them to constructively (and positively) criticize your plans. Make it okay for people to disagree with you.

This lets people know you value their input, and ensures that implemented ideas will be well thought out. By giving your sales people permission to disagree encourages teamwork, which, in turn, helps motivate everyone on the team.

Do remember, however, when someone disagrees with you he/she should raise the issue with you in private, instead of blurting it out during a team meeting.