One of the most frustrating things, both for you in the Home Office and for us in the field, is waiting for stuff to happen. But it's frustrating in different ways: for the field rep, once a problem has been identified or a procedure needs to be changed, well, just fix it and lets move on. Naturally, you know, I know, anyone who's ever had to actually fix a corporate problem or change a procedure and probably the rep herself, knows that it's usually just not that easy. Most of the time the issue is around either money or how to fix this one issue without breaking everything else.
To the rep, where everything has to be done right now (calls, sales, closes) waiting sucks and since reps for the most part run their own little shows, when something needs to be tweaked we can just do it on the fly. We just don't understand what takes so long, especially when the solution is obvious.
Two ways to combat this are to : 1) as often as possible, fix the little problems as soon as possible, immediately if you can, so that it doesn't appear as if the organization is paralyzed and 2) take a little time to explain what's involved in solving the problem. If the rep's proposed fix would break something else that's near and dear to her (the comp system?), that should definitely be pointed out.
The really frustrating part from the Home Offices perspective is the fact that, God Forbid, you rush the fix and get it wrong. The complaining will be unbearable.
So the trick is to make everyone understand that you, as a company, would rather do it right than fast but also disabuse us of the notion that Home Office folks spend all their time in meetings, accomplishing little.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Thursday, November 16, 2006
We sell - What?
Do you remember Donald Rumsfeld's "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want"? Please remember that saying when you're hiring sales reps. My point - don't hire sales reps for things you want to sell, hire reps for things you actually do sell. More than once, I've been interviewed for sales positions and been told that the company wants to go after "Fortune 500" size clients and we have this and that product and/or capability. However, after doing a little DD, it became apparent that there was no way either of these companies had the capabilities required for those size clients.
The two firms had different reasons for their actions and so in the interest of clarity, I'll explain them.
The first was a recently-acquired subsidiary of a huge corporation and, naturally, the bug was placed in someone's ear that cross-selling was a good thing and ought to be pursued. As it turns out, the subsidiary that was going to hire me was once a company that specialized in small business, but had been bought by a larger firm and in turn the two of them were both swallowed by a huge multi-national. Since the mother ship had always dealt with firms it's own size, they just naturally assumed that it's new acquisitions would be able to do the same. Unfortunately all the employees of this subsidiary, their training, mindset, and more importantly their systems were all geared for small clients. It's not that they were never going to get there but they needed to do a lot of infrastructure work and employee training in order to do it. They did, in fact, do some elephant-hunting in conjunction with their larger brethren for a while and failed miserably. Cross-selling has been tabled for now.
The second firm was moving into a different facet of it's business with a different client base and didn't do enough research to find out product differences that were industry standard among it's new prospects. When you are a new player in an industry and show that you don't really know what every one else is doing, or why, or how the client is affected, it makes the whole sales process a horrible sight. Worse, they didn't know what they didn't know and so the new reps were led to believe that the company had it's act together. When the skin was peeled back on procedures and processes, it was "WTF?",
Now maybe you're just saying that these are isolated instances. I don't think so; there is much anecdotal information about firms entering markets and failing miserably because they were unprepared to handle the needs of that market.
Hiring a rep to sell to clients you have no business going after does a disservice to the rep, damage to their reputation and to the credibility to your firm. Yes, there are always new markets we would like to get into but before you hire someone to crack them, make sure you do your homework to make sure you have the systems and deliverables to make your foray a success. If you do hire a rep that's knowledgeable in a market you want to get into and want them to help you do it, make sure to adjust their sales quota until you are ready to deliver the goods.
The two firms had different reasons for their actions and so in the interest of clarity, I'll explain them.
The first was a recently-acquired subsidiary of a huge corporation and, naturally, the bug was placed in someone's ear that cross-selling was a good thing and ought to be pursued. As it turns out, the subsidiary that was going to hire me was once a company that specialized in small business, but had been bought by a larger firm and in turn the two of them were both swallowed by a huge multi-national. Since the mother ship had always dealt with firms it's own size, they just naturally assumed that it's new acquisitions would be able to do the same. Unfortunately all the employees of this subsidiary, their training, mindset, and more importantly their systems were all geared for small clients. It's not that they were never going to get there but they needed to do a lot of infrastructure work and employee training in order to do it. They did, in fact, do some elephant-hunting in conjunction with their larger brethren for a while and failed miserably. Cross-selling has been tabled for now.
The second firm was moving into a different facet of it's business with a different client base and didn't do enough research to find out product differences that were industry standard among it's new prospects. When you are a new player in an industry and show that you don't really know what every one else is doing, or why, or how the client is affected, it makes the whole sales process a horrible sight. Worse, they didn't know what they didn't know and so the new reps were led to believe that the company had it's act together. When the skin was peeled back on procedures and processes, it was "WTF?",
Now maybe you're just saying that these are isolated instances. I don't think so; there is much anecdotal information about firms entering markets and failing miserably because they were unprepared to handle the needs of that market.
Hiring a rep to sell to clients you have no business going after does a disservice to the rep, damage to their reputation and to the credibility to your firm. Yes, there are always new markets we would like to get into but before you hire someone to crack them, make sure you do your homework to make sure you have the systems and deliverables to make your foray a success. If you do hire a rep that's knowledgeable in a market you want to get into and want them to help you do it, make sure to adjust their sales quota until you are ready to deliver the goods.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Everybody knows Sales, right?
Everybody knows Salespeople – they’re everywhere, and everybody thinks they know what Salespeople do. Now your experience with Salespeople probably depends on what sort of experiences you’ve had with them. Everybody’s got a Bad Car Salesperson experience, and a boring Insurance Salesperson experience and I’m pretty sure nobody likes telemarketers. Having been in Sales for a really long time, I dislike sleazy Sales folks as much as, maybe more than, the next guy. But if you deal with professional Salespeople in your working life you know that Sales is what makes the business world go ‘round.
In business, the problem is that everybody knows Salespeople, but very few people who aren’t in Sales don’t know what Salespeople really do. Since, as someone much smarter than me once said, “Nothing happens in business until someone sells something”, not knowing how that happens is a problem.
If you went to Business School, you learned about lots of interesting things and one of those things was Revenue (often referred to as the “Top Line”) and obviously, Profit (the “Bottom Line”) and one of the big items between those two Lines is something called the “Cost of Sales”. Now your Salesforce isn’t all of that line item but it can be, and usually is, a big chunk. My question (and Tom Peter’s question and a bunch of other folks question) is – since the Sales job is both the major driver of Revenue and a large chunk of Cost, how come they don’t take more time explaining what, exactly, the job of Sales is? And I don’t mean “the job of Sales is to produce Revenue”, I mean “what do Salespeople do and how does one help them better produce Revenue”. I mean if, as a businessperson, your job is to maximize Revenue & Profits, how can you not know, intimately, how those things are produced?
This blog is an outline of a textbook that will attempt to rectify some of the shortcomings of the b-school curriculum by providing a firm appreciation of what Salespeople bring to an organization.
Because, like it or not, businesses live or die by the sales force.
In business, the problem is that everybody knows Salespeople, but very few people who aren’t in Sales don’t know what Salespeople really do. Since, as someone much smarter than me once said, “Nothing happens in business until someone sells something”, not knowing how that happens is a problem.
If you went to Business School, you learned about lots of interesting things and one of those things was Revenue (often referred to as the “Top Line”) and obviously, Profit (the “Bottom Line”) and one of the big items between those two Lines is something called the “Cost of Sales”. Now your Salesforce isn’t all of that line item but it can be, and usually is, a big chunk. My question (and Tom Peter’s question and a bunch of other folks question) is – since the Sales job is both the major driver of Revenue and a large chunk of Cost, how come they don’t take more time explaining what, exactly, the job of Sales is? And I don’t mean “the job of Sales is to produce Revenue”, I mean “what do Salespeople do and how does one help them better produce Revenue”. I mean if, as a businessperson, your job is to maximize Revenue & Profits, how can you not know, intimately, how those things are produced?
This blog is an outline of a textbook that will attempt to rectify some of the shortcomings of the b-school curriculum by providing a firm appreciation of what Salespeople bring to an organization.
Because, like it or not, businesses live or die by the sales force.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
The 7 Types of Sales People
It’s a mistake to assume that a sales force is homogeneous, since sales people come in unlimited flavors but they can be generally classified into a few discernible categories:
• the Sales Pro – this is what people think of as the prototypical “can sell ice to Eskimos” sales person. They are sociable, aggressive, energetic and can remember names, faces & birthdays. They will ask the CEO’s secretary about her daughter’s soccer game and be interested in the answer. This type of rep is also why many people think they can’t be in sales. They generally know enough about the products to make the high points sing in a particular sales situation, but aren’t usually all that technically proficient, and will call in an expert to explain the details. To these reps the Sale is the thing, the bigger the better, and they can be extremely tenacious on both sides of the desk. They tend to have very good relationships with rank & file workers inside the company and usually only unload on the higher ups (you).
• the Marriage Broker – this type of rep is an expert at discerning the needs of the buyer and finding just the right person or people to pair them with to address their particular requirements. Rather than being any type of product specialist, they tend to have a good grasp of the company as a whole, your products, strengths and weaknesses and, most importantly, potential market opportunities. These are usually the reps who bring in the largest but most complicated deals. “I’ve got a guy over at GM who can hook us up if we can figure out how to give him 2 million 2 3/16” glommets in 3 days.”
• the Technician – Technicians know the product inside and out, what it can and cannot do and what all their competitor’s products can & cannot do. Many technicians are the experts in the product line for their location, help the others in their office and often get calls from people even if they don’t own (or want) your particular brand. These folks often come from the ranks of engineers, underwriters or other internal product specialists. Technical sales reps are successful because their clients know and trust them to have the best and most current information to address their needs.
• the Schmoozer – generally, the exact opposite of the Technician. This is a pure people person tending to be light on in-depth product knowledge but pretty good at golf and knowing where to eat. These folks are very good at putting clients at ease, getting to know the movers and shakers and zeroing in on decision-makers. Unfortunately, Schmoozers can sometimes over-promise in an effort to make the client like them.
• the Service Pro - often comes from the ranks of those they’re selling to. They know the pain of implementation, of using products that don’t perform as advertised and most importantly the job pressures faced by the person using the product. They empathize, they research, they explain, they hand-hold. Service pros are successful because buyers believe that the rep will make sure that the product does what it’s promised to do or die trying.
• Sad Sack – “Woe is me!”. Nothing is ever this person’s fault – the product is lousy, the Customer is an idiot, the guys on the factory floor screwed up the order, it’s raining. Not to be confused with:
• the Annoying Ass – unfortunately, at any given time every organization has one (hopefully not more than one) of these. The main characteristic of this type of rep is his inability to take “No” for an answer, constantly calling folks who have no interest in buying your product (or at least in buying from this rep) and offering little to the purchasing community save tenacity. This person generally doesn’t know a lot except product specifications and doesn’t know how the product can help the particular customer, but does know that he needs the sale. The general sales approach of the Annoying Ass is “show up and throw up” where the rep unloads a litany of product features and specifications, rather than spend any time actually, you know, finding out what the client needs or wants.
Any others you can think of?
• the Sales Pro – this is what people think of as the prototypical “can sell ice to Eskimos” sales person. They are sociable, aggressive, energetic and can remember names, faces & birthdays. They will ask the CEO’s secretary about her daughter’s soccer game and be interested in the answer. This type of rep is also why many people think they can’t be in sales. They generally know enough about the products to make the high points sing in a particular sales situation, but aren’t usually all that technically proficient, and will call in an expert to explain the details. To these reps the Sale is the thing, the bigger the better, and they can be extremely tenacious on both sides of the desk. They tend to have very good relationships with rank & file workers inside the company and usually only unload on the higher ups (you).
• the Marriage Broker – this type of rep is an expert at discerning the needs of the buyer and finding just the right person or people to pair them with to address their particular requirements. Rather than being any type of product specialist, they tend to have a good grasp of the company as a whole, your products, strengths and weaknesses and, most importantly, potential market opportunities. These are usually the reps who bring in the largest but most complicated deals. “I’ve got a guy over at GM who can hook us up if we can figure out how to give him 2 million 2 3/16” glommets in 3 days.”
• the Technician – Technicians know the product inside and out, what it can and cannot do and what all their competitor’s products can & cannot do. Many technicians are the experts in the product line for their location, help the others in their office and often get calls from people even if they don’t own (or want) your particular brand. These folks often come from the ranks of engineers, underwriters or other internal product specialists. Technical sales reps are successful because their clients know and trust them to have the best and most current information to address their needs.
• the Schmoozer – generally, the exact opposite of the Technician. This is a pure people person tending to be light on in-depth product knowledge but pretty good at golf and knowing where to eat. These folks are very good at putting clients at ease, getting to know the movers and shakers and zeroing in on decision-makers. Unfortunately, Schmoozers can sometimes over-promise in an effort to make the client like them.
• the Service Pro - often comes from the ranks of those they’re selling to. They know the pain of implementation, of using products that don’t perform as advertised and most importantly the job pressures faced by the person using the product. They empathize, they research, they explain, they hand-hold. Service pros are successful because buyers believe that the rep will make sure that the product does what it’s promised to do or die trying.
• Sad Sack – “Woe is me!”. Nothing is ever this person’s fault – the product is lousy, the Customer is an idiot, the guys on the factory floor screwed up the order, it’s raining. Not to be confused with:
• the Annoying Ass – unfortunately, at any given time every organization has one (hopefully not more than one) of these. The main characteristic of this type of rep is his inability to take “No” for an answer, constantly calling folks who have no interest in buying your product (or at least in buying from this rep) and offering little to the purchasing community save tenacity. This person generally doesn’t know a lot except product specifications and doesn’t know how the product can help the particular customer, but does know that he needs the sale. The general sales approach of the Annoying Ass is “show up and throw up” where the rep unloads a litany of product features and specifications, rather than spend any time actually, you know, finding out what the client needs or wants.
Any others you can think of?
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