Why Should Sales be the Last to Adopt a Selling Process?
By Michael Green, Chairman, Landslide Technologies Inc.
I have proudly been in sales and sales management for 27 years. It is a profession that I am honored to be a part of. Far too often, salesmen have been thought of in a negative light, being the brunt of jokes and ugly caricatures. Frankly, I resent that. The salespeople I have known in my career for the most part have been intelligent, hard-working, honest and professional. I am proud to be in sales!
Most salespeople view themselves as consultants, whose primary job is to provide information to prospects and clients, and hopefully match their company’s product or service to the needs of the prospective buyer. Great companies do not create a product and then go aimlessly into the market searching for a customer. Great salespeople do not simply charge into the marketplace and just start selling to anyone who will listen to them. Great salespeople have a plan and a methodology and seek buyers who have issues, needs and pain which match up with their company’s product or service. Great salespeople are great listeners who methodically determine whether their prospect is indeed one who could benefit from his or her product or service. Also, great salespeople also know when their product or service will NOT meet the needs of the prospect and are quick to move on to other potential buyers. Great salespeople can identify with their buyers, are empathetic and are great communicators.
In most companies, every department, except sales, has well documented, agreed upon, sometimes statutory processes and procedures. Imagine a Human Resources Department without clear documented hiring practices? What would happen if Engineering had no specifications as to how to build a product or service? What if your Marketing Department had no plans for advertising, public relations or image building? Uh oh, what if your CFO didn’t follow appropriate accounting rules and failed to meet government reporting requirements?
Companies must have a defined and documented sales methodology, one that is accepted by and then followed by EVERYONE on the sales team. Far too often, many deals require the involvement of Senior Management or are deals closed by a small but elite group of super-salespeople (we call them the unconscious competent) who instinctively know how to close a deal. Just imagine the advantages of defining and documenting a proven path process that your company knows will work. New hires will quickly learn more than just what the company’s product or service does, but they will, for the first time, have a guide as to how to actually sell that product or service.
Receive a free copy of CustomerCentric Selling!
Register
and view a 20 minute live demo of Landslide, a sales workstyle technology
that helps you implement the principles of “CustomerCentric
Selling” to build stronger sales team.
Offer expires July31st, 2007
Copyright © 2007 Bizlogx, LLC.
