8-1-2012
By Wayne Ens
Are great salespeople born or are the top performers groomed and trained to be the best at their craft? It's an age-old question that's bound to spark debate and a wide variety of opinions.
But increasingly, the hue and cry of struggling sales managers is, "Where are the good salespeople?" or "How do I find good salespeople?"
My experience has been that top performers are not "born" that way. They may be born with the right attitude and work ethic, but the skills that separate them from those who fail at selling are more acquired than inherent.
In an industry as complex and rapidly evolving as media sales, it boggles my mind to think that many people who have been hired with the right attitude and work ethic, are deemed "failures" in a relatively short period.
When we're selling advertising, we'll tell our advertisers that the desire for instant gratification is one of the causes of advertising failure, yet we often expect a return on our investment in salespeople in 120 days, 90 days, or even less.
Advertising sales is a profession. Other professions and trades give their recruits years to learn the tricks to the trade. A carpenter who hammers nails in blanks can take four years to serve their apprenticeship, and lawyers and doctors require 10 years of education and interning before they are recognized as practicing professionals.
Our profession is no less complex.
For example, to master something as apparently simple as making a presentation to a locally owned and operated business we must:
-- Get past the gatekeepers and make an appointment.
-- Complete a CNA (Customer Needs Analysis) or SWOT Analysis (Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats).
-- Learn the strengths and weaknesses of our various competitors.
-- Understand how to communicate with various buyer styles.
-- Learn and identify the correct creative and scheduling strategies for each client.
-- Create a customer-focused presentation that stands out from all of the other presentations the prospect sees.
-- Learn how to handle objections, negotiate, and close.
I could make the list much longer, but you get the point. Everything our sales professionals do requires knowledge, preparation, follow-up, and an ever-changing skill set that takes time to master.
In case you haven't noticed, it's a lot tougher to sell radio today than it was when most radio sales managers began their careers. Most sales managers only had to compete against newspapers, yellow pages, and perhaps television during their formative years.
And most local advertisers believed they had to advertise.
Today, the appeal of free exposure on "earned media" over paid advertising is luring many away from paid advertising altogether.
Today, new recruits face all of the same traditional competitors their managers faced, plus shiny new players in search engines, online directories, Web malls, social media, daily deal sites, Web designers, mobile apps, and more.
If you are having difficulty finding and keeping good people, don't automatically blame your recruiting skills. More often than not, the cause of new-recruit turnover or perceived failure is not in the raw material you acquired, but rather in the tools and time you didn't invest in polishing that raw material.
Ask yourself: "Is it reasonable to pit my new recruit against a seasoned competitor with the time and training I've given them?" When they hit the street, are they equipped to compete against someone with the same experience and skills you have?
If not, you are destined to have the continuing high costs of sales rep turnover, and the accompanying faltering sales.
I once heard a manager say, "What if I make an investment in time and training for a new recruit and they leave my company?" My answer was, "What if you don't invest in creating better salespeople and they stay with the company?"
For more articles from Wayne Ens go HERE
Wayne Ens is President of ENS Media Inc and can be reached via e-mail Wayne Ens wayne@wensmedia.com
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