7-14-2014
These days, you can find a quick fix for almost anything. There?s the 21-day fad diet, the three-step skin care plan, and the 24-hour credit card repair. We?re impatient by nature, and we want the kind of solution that turns everything around now. But while some of these quick fixes may work in the short run, most are not sustainable and will leave you needing more.
The best solutions combine a jump-start plan to deliver immediate results with a long-term plan to ensure sustainability. And the long-term plan must include three fundamentals:
Sales Performance = Talent + Training + Tactics
Think of sales performance as a three-legged stool. When all the legs are strong, there is nothing sturdier. But if one leg weakens, the stool falls. Your talent, training, and tactics must all be strong.
Talent
Let?s launch our discussion of the ?three T?s? with talent, because that is where organizational success begins. You can?t pull the average Joe off the street, teach him the business, and expect him to be wildly successful in sales. It takes talent to be successful ? and, as with athletic or musical talent, not everyone has a talent for sales. To be great, you must have that ?certain something,? or all the practice in the world will just make you average.
When hiring, you need to be able to spot talent, and there is an entire industry of researchers, interviewers, and talent analysts available to help you do that. I recommend you find a company that specializes in administering standardized talent interviews and has a sales interview that is a strong match for the specific talents you need. Be sure that they will go beyond just identifying talent to provide you with specific coaching strategies you can use to maximize an individual?s strengths and work around their non-strengths.
Training
With talent on board, we turn our focus to the next ?T,? training. Business, ever-evolving, is different today than it was even a couple of years ago. If you are still selling the same way you did then, you are behind. Salespeople need frequent opportunities to learn and practice in order to stay current, relevant, and responsive to the needs of the businesses on which they call.
In most professions, training ? or practice ? is considered part of the job. Every great athlete, pilot, musician, actor, and surgeon will tell you that it?s all about the practice. Training allows us to build good habits, break bad habits, and polish our craft. A strong training program will guide your salespeople to steer clear of ?Why to buy? conversations, and will instead lead their clients to consider ?How to use.?
But how to train? And how often? I recommend that you lead a sales training at least once a week, but don?t stop there. You should also ride with your sellers and watch them in action. You can?t be a coach in the office any more than a football coach can develop the talents of his left tackle without leaving the locker room. There is only so much development that can be done without seeing sellers perform. Everyone?s strengths are different, so make sure you create an individualized development plan for each seller.
Tactics
So you?ve hired talented people and developed their talents with training ? a great foundation But it?s still not enough to achieve the sustainable sales performance you seek.
We still need the final ?T? of our three-legged stool, tactics. A sales organization with a high-level strategy to meet and exceed budgets may still fail if they don?t employ the right tactics to reach ambitious goals in a competitive marketplace. The best organizations are both strategic and tactical; they build an overarching sales strategy and integrate specific tactics that support and enhance that strategy.
A sales organization might use an account-list management strategy to delineate their key accounts (best customers) and their target accounts (best prospects), then add a tactic to focus sellers on converting targets to keys, or incentivize salespeople to grow their key account revenue.
So there it is, the Holy Grail of long-term, sustainable sales performance: talent, training, and tactics. Don?t be enticed by the quick fix that will serve only to distract you. You can do it quick, or you can do it right.
Interested in learning more about this sales performance formula and specifically how it has worked in other sales organizations? Go to info.csscenter.com/radioinksales performance and download the free white paper.
Matt Sunshine is EVP of the Center for Sales Strategy.
E-mail: mattsunshine@csscenter.com
(7/14/2014 2:27:18 PM)
Plus, when those ungrateful, nosey newbies have the gall to ask what they are going to be supplying to the advertiser's audience - in terms of messaging & stuff - just remember to tell 'em not to worry about it - that we've got it all covered and we are the "solution providers".
(Jeez... the nerve of some people's kids...)
(7/14/2014 9:56:00 AM)
You have got to be kidding! Hiring people who might actually succeed costs money! We're only interested in the bottom line this week. Soon we will only be interested in the bottom line today! Besides, training costs money, as well. Let's just hire anyone dumb enough to believe our line of BS; maybe it will work this time. NOT!!
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