Hiring a Sales Force That Sells
Hiring a Sales Force That Sells
It is no exaggeration to say the world has changed dramatically for salespeople. Not only has the information era radically changed the products we sell, but the sales function is subject to market forces that push up costs while eroding profit margins.
The old travelling or door-to-door salesman model hardly exists anymore. Much of the sales done today is or business-to-business, and these sales teams face unprecedented change due to a number of convergent factors:
1. The commoditisation of products. Competitors can copy any product and service in a short space of time, and offer it at a reduced price.
2. Global competition. Many companies are looking overseas for cheaper manufacturing and services such as IT.
3. Mergers and acquisitions. As companies’ structures change, so does the contact list. Mergers and acquisitions also shrink the potential customer pool.
4. Professional procurement officers are, increasingly, in charge of all buying. Their relationship with suppliers is less personal and their priority is to negotiate ever larger discounts.
5. A shrinking supplier base as companies prefer to deal with fewer suppliers.
6. Boundary blurring as companies offer services outside their traditional business -- for example, Pick ‘n Pay’s offering financial services.
7. The high cost of selling. Many companies are selling their goods via the Internet, which offers a compelling alternative to costly sales teams.
In this business environment, aligning your sales team with the forces of change, and ensuring you have a team that can sell, are not simply nice-to-haves: they are essential. Realising the impact on their bottom line, forward-thinking companies have transformed their sales recruitment and training practices to address change.
There has been much speculation about what makes a good salesperson. Is selling a talent one is born with, or can you train someone to be a great salesperson? Research carried out by the HR Chally Group, based in Dayton, Ohio, shows that sales is mainly talent-driven. It is a talent that emerges at an early age – these are the kids making deals during break while others play – and has an inverse correlation to academic achievement. Yet many companies demand a certain academic level of their salespeople, effectively excluding many who could significantly increase their profit. Another traditional view is that a good salesperson is one who can close the deal. Yet studies show the most successful salespeople are good communicators and listeners; they add value to their customers’ businesses. Selling, after all, is making your customer successful. So, while a “closer” may be good in some situations, others – like buying a computer system – require a consultative style which emphasises relationship-building. Here the foot-in-the door approach would be ineffective and unwelcome.
In a study called The Benchmarks of World Class Sales Forces, which surveyed 1 000 corporate customers, the Chally group established three major needs customers expected vendors and sellers to address:
1. Customers want to narrow their own focus to the few things they do best and outsource the rest without the added overhead costs of supervising suppliers.
2. Customers want sellers to know their business well enough to create products and services they wouldn’t have been able to design or create themselves.
3. Customers want proof that their supplier has added value in excess of price.
To evaluate a vendor’s or seller’s potential to fulfil these needs, these corporate customers specifically judged sales forces on seven factors:
1. Managing our satisfaction personally
2. Understanding our business
3. Recommending products and applications expertly
4. Providing technical and training support
5. Acting as a customer advocate
6. Solving logistical and political problems
7. Finding innovative solutions to our needs.
Chally devised its Self-Descriptive Index questionnaire to measure sales staff on the crucial characteristics needed to be a “hunter”, or new business developer, and a “farmer”, who maintains accounts. Hunter skills include lead development; problem-solving; time commitment; closing skills and opportunism. Farmer skills include goal orientation; desire to increase business; willingness to work the system for the customer; commitment to explain and clarify customer issues; customer relations and willingness to respond at any hour.
How would your sales staff measure up? Identifying areas of weakness is invaluable for assessing training needs. But, most importantly – because it can predict future performance results -- the analysis shows whether the candidate is cut out for sales. If he is a natural with some rough edges, there is no damage done. But if he has no aptitude for sales, he could be damaging your business. That is a risk no company can afford to take.
Hiring a Sales Force That Sells - To learn more about this author, visit Peter Gilbert's Website.
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It’s a harsh world for sales teams: does yours measures up?
It is no exaggeration to say the world has changed dramatically for salespeople. Not only has the information era radically changed the products we sell, but the sales function is subject to market forces that push up costs while eroding profit margins.
The old travelling or door-to-door salesman model hardly exists anymore. Much of the sales done today is or business-to-business, and these sales teams face unprecedented change due to a number of convergent factors:
1. The commoditisation of products. Competitors can copy any product and service in a short space of time, and offer it at a reduced price.
2. Global competition. Many companies are looking overseas for cheaper manufacturing and services such as IT.
3. Mergers and acquisitions. As companies’ structures change, so does the contact list. Mergers and acquisitions also shrink the potential customer pool.
4. Professional procurement officers are, increasingly, in charge of all buying. Their relationship with suppliers is less personal and their priority is to negotiate ever larger discounts.
5. A shrinking supplier base as companies prefer to deal with fewer suppliers.
6. Boundary blurring as companies offer services outside their traditional business -- for example, Pick ‘n Pay’s offering financial services.
7. The high cost of selling. Many companies are selling their goods via the Internet, which offers a compelling alternative to costly sales teams.
In this business environment, aligning your sales team with the forces of change, and ensuring you have a team that can sell, are not simply nice-to-haves: they are essential. Realising the impact on their bottom line, forward-thinking companies have transformed their sales recruitment and training practices to address change.
There has been much speculation about what makes a good salesperson. Is selling a talent one is born with, or can you train someone to be a great salesperson? Research carried out by the HR Chally Group, based in Dayton, Ohio, shows that sales is mainly talent-driven. It is a talent that emerges at an early age – these are the kids making deals during break while others play – and has an inverse correlation to academic achievement. Yet many companies demand a certain academic level of their salespeople, effectively excluding many who could significantly increase their profit. Another traditional view is that a good salesperson is one who can close the deal. Yet studies show the most successful salespeople are good communicators and listeners; they add value to their customers’ businesses. Selling, after all, is making your customer successful. So, while a “closer” may be good in some situations, others – like buying a computer system – require a consultative style which emphasises relationship-building. Here the foot-in-the door approach would be ineffective and unwelcome.
In a study called The Benchmarks of World Class Sales Forces, which surveyed 1 000 corporate customers, the Chally group established three major needs customers expected vendors and sellers to address:
1. Customers want to narrow their own focus to the few things they do best and outsource the rest without the added overhead costs of supervising suppliers.
2. Customers want sellers to know their business well enough to create products and services they wouldn’t have been able to design or create themselves.
3. Customers want proof that their supplier has added value in excess of price.
To evaluate a vendor’s or seller’s potential to fulfil these needs, these corporate customers specifically judged sales forces on seven factors:
1. Managing our satisfaction personally
2. Understanding our business
3. Recommending products and applications expertly
4. Providing technical and training support
5. Acting as a customer advocate
6. Solving logistical and political problems
7. Finding innovative solutions to our needs.
Chally devised its Self-Descriptive Index questionnaire to measure sales staff on the crucial characteristics needed to be a “hunter”, or new business developer, and a “farmer”, who maintains accounts. Hunter skills include lead development; problem-solving; time commitment; closing skills and opportunism. Farmer skills include goal orientation; desire to increase business; willingness to work the system for the customer; commitment to explain and clarify customer issues; customer relations and willingness to respond at any hour.
How would your sales staff measure up? Identifying areas of weakness is invaluable for assessing training needs. But, most importantly – because it can predict future performance results -- the analysis shows whether the candidate is cut out for sales. If he is a natural with some rough edges, there is no damage done. But if he has no aptitude for sales, he could be damaging your business. That is a risk no company can afford to take.
Hiring a Sales Force That Sells - To learn more about this author, visit Peter Gilbert's Website.
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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Dr. John OdaJohn Oda Ph.D NLP is a business peak performance expert, an author, and speaker frequently called upon to provide corporate training, workshops and seminars for many companies in the United States. He is an expert in coaching sales and business professionals in overcoming the behaviors and obstacles that may impede their sales results and affect their bottom line. Since 1995, John has created a speaking bureau such topics, which include: time management, sales training, human diversity, leadership programs and etc. He provides companies with a strategic plan to increase their bottom line by over 25 percent yearly. - Visit Dr. John Oda's Website |
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Michel NerayMichel Neray has over 25 years of experience as an award-winning copywriter, an Internet pioneer, a tradeshow pitchman and a senior sales and marketing executive. An online pioneer, he was one of the first marketing professionals to embrace the Internet by building websites as early as 1993. In 1994, Michel co-authored a book entitled "The Great Crossover: Personal Confidence in the Age of the Microchip", which made it to Jack Canfield's Achiever's Recommended Reading List. Michel founded Portfolios.com in 1995, the world's first online source directory for creative professionals and one of the first websites based on community generated content. Since creating The Essential Message in 2003, Michel has helped thousands of independent professionals and entrepreneurs as well as growing corporations find a better way to differentiate, position and brand themselves. In 2005, his chapter "Everything Starts With A Conversation" was selected as the lead for the book, "Sales Gurus Speak Out" and re-published in 2008 for 'Awakening The Workplace Volume 3'. He is also a co-author of "In the Company of Leaders" (2008) with 40 top North American leadership experts. - Visit Michel Neray's Website |
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Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
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 Peter Gilbert (Visit Peter's Website) Peter began his sales career with Ecolab Inc in South Africa.He spent 14 years with the company in a variety of technical and sales roles, with his final assignment being as CEO of the South African operation. He then founded the South African affiliate of Philip Crosby Associates, and fulfilled the role of Sales Director for 7 years, during which period the company became the largest TQM consultancy in the southern hemisphere. When the Company was bought by Proudfoot Consulting, he assumed the role of Sales Director for three years, before leaving to establish Chally SA, specialising in sales assessment and recruitment
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