Sales Manager Part Two
Hiring salespeople is only the first step. As a sales manager I have to determine what tools and skills each salesperson in my charge needs to be better equipped to sell and close sales than he or she is now. When you analyze the sales process you’ll find that the following qualities are essential to be successful.
- Prospecting skills – There is an old saying, “Things come to he who waits.” However, in sales I believe the balance of the saying should be, “Only those things left behind by those who hustle.” A salesperson that can develop his or her own leads will almost always be more successful than one who depends on the company to furnish leads. We know this salesperson as a “Lead Junkie.” Like any junkie, the more we feed him leads, the more dependent he becomes on the leads. So we create lead junkies.
There is another saying that is also applicable, “Give a man a fish and he has food for a day. Teach a man to fish and he has food for a lifetime.” Teaching salespeople to develop their own leads does a number of things for the company and the salesperson. First, it makes the salesperson more successful if for no other reason than giving him more swings at bat. When salespeople sell more it improves salesperson retention. No doubt self generated leads reduce creation cost, improving overall profitability. And it enables the company to grow.
Does that mean you shouldn’t provide leads to your salespeople? No, that is not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is you shouldn’t provide all of the leads to the salespeople. Once they are trained to develop their own leads I would reward the self-generating salespeople with the leads the company generates. You pick the ratio, but one company furnished lead for every two self generated leads seems like a good place to start.
- Presentation skills – Once the salesperson gets in front of a prospect, regardless how the lead is generated, how well they present themselves, your company, your product, the problem the prospect is facing, the solution to the problem, and conduct a professional selling survey will impact how successful they are. So obviously, as a sales manager, I need to focus on how each individual salesperson presents all of the above.
I could go to any sales office anywhere in the US, or the world for that matter, and there will be one salesperson whose presentation skills are better than all the rest. Therefore, my goal as a sales manager should be to help each and every salesperson develop their presentation skills so that they too can be as good as the top salesperson which will help them be more successful selling. The effort I put into that task will produce dividends.
- Closing skills – Here is an absolute fact. The best closers will make the most sales. Are you shocked? I didn’t think so. However, few companies I’ve worked with invested time training their salespeople on how to become better closers.
Over the years I have conducted hundreds of seminars and workshops on the subject of closing. Early on in the seminar/workshop I always ask the same question of the attendees, “What are the common objections you hear when selling?” And, not surprisingly, the answers I get are, with minor exception, always the same. Here are the top ten objections heard.
1.) I want to think about it. Or, we never make a decision without sleeping on it.
2.) We plan to shop around and get other prices
3.) The price is higher than I expected.
4.) We can’t afford it.
5.) We’ve never had a problem. This is a safe neighborhood.
6.) We have great insurance. So if something is stolen we’ll get a new one.
7.) We have a great watch dog.
8.) We have a gun, we’ll shoot the burglar.
9.) We have a nosey neighbor next door who watches everything.
10) We have nothing to steal
The above objections are the top ten I’ve heard and the top ten I’ve faced when I sold security systems.
The next time you have a sales meeting, without showing this list to your salespeople, ask them to tell you the objections they encounter on a regular basis. Write their answers on a white board or a flip chart where all can see. My guess is you will hear 7 or 8 if not 10 out of the top ten I just listed as the objections they routinely hear.
Lou Sepulveda Consulting & Training
985-778-1571
Book Titles by Lou
The Formula for selling Alarm Systems
Surviving in the Security Alarm Business
Managing to Sell
Gerencia de Ventas Efectiva
Order Lou’s New CD – Handling Objections & Closing the Sale
