A basic overview of some of the issues facing sales management professionals today.

1. A basic overview of some of the issues facing sales management
professionals today.
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2. When asked to define a Sales Rep (complete the sentence, “A sales rep is…”), I find
many many sales management professionals will answer with “what a sales rep
DOES”, not “who as sales rep IS.” I have heard hundreds of the most elaborate and
detailed descriptions outlining all of the tasks a sales rep is to execute as well as
approaches a rep is to use with prospects and customers. All good and true concepts.
But, that is not who a sales rep is, that is what they do. There is a difference. One is
the make up of the person, the other is what they do with that make up.
One of the problems with confusing these two simple concepts about a sales rep is
we too often then write commission structures and policies trying to motivate tasks
instead of trying to motivate people. If we understand WHO a sales rep is by their
nature / “wiring”, then we can better manage them, write better commission structures
& policies for them and do a much better job at hiring them in the first place. We
should simply look for people that have these traits. This will save ourselves a lot of
training after the hire, trying to get staff to “do” something they are not cut out for in
the first place because that is not “who” they are.
This single ideas has side tracked far too many sales organizations and caused
companies and stockholders to spend needless dollars hiring and re-hiring the wrong
staff.
Knowing what a sales rep does or should do is great stuff, but we should be very
careful to not confuse the two concepts. First, we should know who they are.
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3. Traditionally, transactional selling has always been less effective than solution selling
approaches with many government & business to business products or services.
This difference is now magnified with the use of the internet. With products and
services that can now be sold over the internet, customers and government officals
are conducting their own “transaction” sale / purchase over the web and not even
accepting appointments for traditional “in office” sales calls. This makes it difficult for
the transactional sales professional who once was a consistent over quota producer
to keep up. There are two major areas that need attention or change today from
traditional selling models:
1) Training to transition the career transactional selling rep to a solution selling style
or approach.
2) Training on appointment setting that demonstrates to the prospect a consultative
approach. The rep must build trust and respect from the very beginning.
I find a great approach to getting this started is to gain the reps attention by showing
how a solution selling approach will secure less objections during the closing process.
The above slide is positioned to demonstrate this concept. Once the rep has a
handle on what to do differently by discussing this slide, then we need to cover the
ideas above on Why they need to continue to evolve their sales skills.
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4. Vertical selling can become a buzz word that really has little or no meaning to
some selling professionals.
Once a clear plan like the one above is laid out for a team to follow, much less
time is spent on “general selling activities” and more time can be spent on
focused work designed to methodically approach a government or corporate
market.
One of the keys here is to match the companies offerings in an particular
vertical with the prospects / clients currently in your market area. Simply put,
match the capabilities with the needs by category. Learn to do one vertical
completely first, introduction to close, then branch out with a purpose to
additional verticals.
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5. This slide is just for thought. These are some of the attributes that are
expected of a quality professional sales manager. Sales managers are
expected to operate in each of these disciplines daily. The more successful
sales managers are able to multitask these skills. A persons greatest strength
can be come a weekness if over used. Balance is the key. Skills need to be
developed in all areas.
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