Category: Sales Management

Want to buy a pencil is a story I have told a thousand times.

It’s a story about an IBM executive who passed a young man standing on a street corner in the city and asked every person whose attention he could catch, “Want to buy a pencil?”

The IBM executive is impressed with the young man’s persistence in trying to sell him a pencil daily on his way to work. He believes that anyone with that degree of perseverance would have been successful if only he had been given the proper training and product to sell.

When asked the following morning if he wanted to buy a pencil, the IBM executive asked the young man if he was interested in working for IBM.

The young man asked in response how much would a job like this pay, to which the IBM executive said a starting salary would be between $75,000 and $85,000 a year and could if he demonstrated the same perseverance, allow you to earn over $200,000, a year with bonuses.

The young man asked if he could have a day to consider the offer, and the IBM executive agreed.

The next day, at the usual time, the IBM executive was greeted with the same question: “Want to buy a pencil?” The IBM executive asked the young man if he had considered a job offer they had discussed.

The young man paused for a minute, thanked the IBM executive for the job offer, and gave him the following response.

Firstly, I would like to thank you for your very generous offer. I have given it considerable thought. I even ran the numbers through an Excel spreadsheet, factoring in all the possible tax advantages, and I concluded that I just could not afford to take that bigger pay cut. Want to Buy a Pencil?

The story’s moral is that perseverance is essential to achieving your goals and ambitions.

This story came to me after reading a book by Jia Jiang called Rejection Proof.

In the book, Jia overcomes his fear of rejection by setting himself the task of approaching people with a request or proposition that will result in rejection. The book details several of his attempts to solicit rejection over 100 days.

Jia’s journey resulted in a manager for a Crispy Cream outlet being asked if they would make a special order of doughnuts in the shape and colour of the Olympic Rings. He recorded the request and posted it on a blog he was writing to record this 100-day journey.

The recording went viral, resulting in Jia being approached by most of the major networks for interviews and the value of Crispy Cream shares increasing.

In another attempt at rejection, Jia visited his local airport and approached a pilot, asking if he would allow Jia to fly his plane, given that he did not have a pilot’s license or any experience in flying. By the way, the pilot said yes rather than reject the request.

These are just two examples from his 100 Days of Rejection explicitly designed to solicit rejection; the insights he gained into understanding rejection and how all of us struggle with it are fundamental lessons for people from all walks of life, but salespeople, the lessons stand out like stars on a dark moonless night.

The book available to be read online Free of Charge.

---

With an expanding list of communication tools, sales staff must constantly work on their Sales Skills Development while adapting their communications appropriately, ensuring the right message is delivered to the prospective customer.

Communication must focus on bringing the prospect closer to a buying decision. So, allow your sales team to use videos of themselves practising their demonstration techniques and communication skills or present product demonstrations to their peers.

The belief that the prospect will benefit from using your product/solution is a persuasive tool salespeople often use to close business. Our selling process at 3M Australia used cost justification with ROI (Return on Investment) and Payback calculations, so we knew in advance the financial gain a prospect would achieve by using our solution.

The easiest way to make a sale is to give customers what they want and need. But how do you know what they want and need? You have two ears and one mouth, and if you use them in direct proportion to God’s gift, you will always know. Ask questions and listen to the answers as they will beget more questions.

So, it is essential that your Sales Skills Development training includes lessons on active listening. In other words, teach your sales team to listen, acknowledge, validate, and only then respond to customers or answer their questions/objections.

Since the number of meetings/discussions to close a sale has doubled in the last ten years, time management has become a priority for all salespeople. Yet, it is often not reflected in their training.

They are not even spending that long selling. According to a 2018 Forbes study that surveyed 721 respondents, salespeople spent 35.2% of their total time selling and the other 65% doing everything else.

The study also reports that sales reps who actively practice time management skills spend nearly 19% more time selling than those who do not. More time selling means increased sales and a higher probability of achieving and consistently exceeding sales forecast.

Lack of time management is more likely a passive habit than a deliberate action, so it is a sales training and development objective worth pursuing.

Salespeople consistently follow up with potential leads, so when a potential customer cancels a meeting or a call at the last minute, your sales reps have to be willing to reschedule at the customer’s convenience without adversely affecting their time and territory management goals.

According to a 2018 study conducted by the Sales Management Association, 80% of companies launched a new product or service in the last year. So, make sure information flows from you to them and vice versa regarding new products and competitive product information. When launching new products, make sure your salespeople are brought up to speed on the features, advantages, and benefits of both your products and your significant competitors.

The book is available to be read online for Free of Charge.

---

Compare the following 10 characteristics buyers look for in a salesperson to the characteristics Sales Managers look for when they hire, and you might come to the same conclusion I have: Are you Hiring the Wrong Salespeople?

What the Customer is looking for in a salesperson.

1. Problem-Solving
2. Active Listening
3. Relationship Building
4. Confidence
5. Years of Experience
6. Technology Proficient
7. Critical Thinking
8. Expertise
9. Charisma
10. Empathy

What the Sales Manager is looking for in a salesperson

1. Critical Thinking
2. Relationship Building
3. Active Listening
4. Problem-Solving
5. Confidence
6. Technology Proficient
7. Oral  Communication    
8. Creativity
9. Persuasiveness
10. Years of Experience

Like all reports of this nature, it summarises the findings across many different markets and industries and may or may not be relevant to your circumstances or hiring practices.

However, it does suggest that knowledge of the best characteristics associated with your industry would be a decided advantage when looking to hire a new salesperson.

So, the big question is how you, as a Sales Manager, can develop that list of characteristics pertinent to your industry and market.

Knowledge of what buyers are looking for from salespeople could be developed by conducting a survey of existing customers or by a Sales Manager’s first-hand observation of several different salespeople during actual sales calls.

While a first-hand understanding of relevant characteristics is important, it is also essential to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each salesperson in relation to these characteristics.

This is also an excellent opportunity to understand “WHY” sales are either won, lost, or delayed. “WHY is the glue that holds the qualification processes together. It is ultimately an accurate projection of the sales process’s outcome and an overall measure of the entire sales team’s performance.

Micro-selling skills are like gold nuggets, just waiting to be discovered.

Facts to Consider

“A 10% improvement in Micro Selling Skills will deliver a 30% increase in sales.“

The book is available to be read online for Free of Charge.

Survey results I have seen in recent months show a vast difference between the acceptance of Emerging Sales Management Trends and the implementation of Technology that is transforming sales methodologies.

One survey reported that 58% of salespeople use collaborative tools and 65% use CRM, yet 98% of managers surveyed believe technology is either “important” or “very important” in achieving sales growth.

Application of The Lesions Learnt from Technology and Emerging Sales Management Trends

Just under 50% of respondents say their companies are using data to assess the performance of salespeople, while 44% say they are using this data to evaluate patterns between business won and business lost so they can apply these learnings to future deals and win more business.

While technology is transforming sales methodologies and providing management with a better understanding of why business is either won or lost, Technology does not know, nor will it ever be able to evaluate and correct what happens in the processes of any sale.

Why? Because it’s a scoreboard, not a monitor that reviews the play-by-play action that provided an outcome, the scoreboard can report.

So here is my point, which I have made a thousand times before.

Sales Management is not about checking the scoreboard, and no matter what technology is used, it will never give management the play-by-play analysis that will let them apply the lessons learnt from Technology to win new business.

If you’re a Sales Manager and you don’t spend 60% or more of your working hours with your salespeople on sales calls observing play-by-play (Micro Selling Skills), you need to rethink how you use your time.

If you’re a senior manager to whom the Sales Manager reports and your Sales Manager doesn’t spend 60% or more of your working hours with your salespeople on sales calls, then you need to work with that Sales Manager to ensure the Microselling Skills of each salesperson are measured and that your Sales Manager has a plan in place to improve those Microselling Skills.

A 10% improvement in Micro Selling Skills will deliver a 30% increase in sales and a better ROI than any Technology you can implement.

Coaching Salespeople: How Far Should You Go, and what are the limitations? The answer is only as far as the salesperson will allow you to go.

It’s never easy, but if you have the right attitude and focus on the individual and what’s best for them, it can be an advantageous experience.

Let me give you one example of a Sales Manager and their story that inspires me to believe the art of Sales Management is still alive and well.

One of my colleagues had a salesperson regarded by many as an underachiever. This person was in danger of losing their job because the previous manager had lost faith in them completely.

My colleague spent time with this person and, after winning their confidence, allowed this person time to talk about what was happening in their life that could explain why their confidence and achievement were suffering.

A household is under some pressure due to a lack of confidence on the part of the salesperson and a young child being bullied to the point of self-harm.

Options were discussed openly, including the possibility of selling the family home, relocating to another area, and starting a new school.

Six months later, things looked different: the family home had been sold, a new house had been purchased, there was no mortgage stress, money was in the bank, and a child was making new friends in a new school.

That same month, this previously underperforming salesperson was the branch’s top salesperson, had turned the confidence corner, and was on the way to becoming a Sales Champion.

The phone call from this salesperson to their manager, thanking them for going the extra mile and for caring about them instead of pressuring them for a sales result, confirmed that Performance Coaching is all about Coaching Salespeople Into Sales Champions.

It will deliver results and rewards that managers will cherish for years to come.