If only customers and prospects went to ‘buying school’

During sales training sessions I have often asked why it is that customers and prospects rarely if ever complain to companies about the unprofessional, unbusinesslike, unproductive behaviour of their sales people. After all, if they did then the chances of improvement taking place would rise considerably. The point is though that they don’t, and so company managers and sales people simply do not benefit from market feedback about selling efforts, mistakes, opportunities for doing things better, comparisons with other suppliers, etc. I have also made the point when covering this angle that most prospects and customers have not been to any form of buying school, and so they are unable to judge the efforts of sales people against what they know to be first class conduct. But what if they did go to buying school, what would they learn?

Here is a list of lessons that I believe business people would be taught, if they attended ‘buying school’…all of which should also be learned by sales people:

• Unless your company is critically affected by the products you buy, as with an importing business for example, spend as little as just 2% of time available on accessing products and appointing suppliers. And within the 2% timeframe spend most time on buying products that keep your company ‘growing’, and less time on buying products that keep your company ‘going’

• When buying products and services that will help to keep your company ‘going’, be sure to appoint suppliers that offer good products…at consistently best prices and convenience, supported by reliable service. It is also advisable that when suppliers have been appointed and buying arrangements are in place, staff with less influence on the creation of image and income for the company should be invited to manage product purchases on an ongoing basis • When faced with many phone calls, emails and letters from ‘new’ suppliers who want to sell products or services to you that are already covered by your existing supplier arrangements, the key to dealing with such suppliers without wasting time is to create a simple process for the suppliers to respond to. For instance, you may say or email this response to them: ‘As you will appreciate, we already have one or more suppliers in the product/service area you cover, and you should also know that each supplier appointed is performing satisfactorily at this time. However, we are always interested to test and improve our purchasing and business performance, and so we invite you to email or fax us with a brief overview of your proposition to win all or part of our purchases in future, along with any questions you may wish to ask. If the proposition is of interest in terms of its consistent impact on our business results, we will invite you to meet with us to present your story in more detail…along with evidence of how you have helped other companies to improve their business performance.’ The idea is not to enter into any other form of dialogue other than what your ‘process’ demands; in other words let the aspiring suppliers respond to your initiative.

• If you receive initial responses from would-be suppliers (for some reason most will not have the staying power to comply!) then sort the communications into these categories: ‘general’ and ‘generative’. General refers to a rearrangement of what you already have, with little or no discernable or sustainable benefits, and generative offers a serious improvement in cost, service, convenience or contribution that will help to achieve improved business performance for the company. General suppliers help to keep your company ‘going’ (offering no difference in business performance) while generative suppliers help to keep your company ‘growing’ (creating an improvement in business performance)

• If you receive initial responses that appear to be generative in nature, then arrange a meeting and request that information be provided that offers proof of how the supplier has ‘generated’ improved business results for other businesses. Also, in observing the behaviour of the would-be suppliers at such meetings, note the extent to which they ‘work backwards’ in talking about ‘what they get done’ for businesses, versus ‘working forwards’ from ‘what they do’ as a business. Also determine the extent to which they are respectful of your current supplier relationships and arrangements, or disrespectful…or negligent in not even mentioning them. Take into consideration the extent to which they ‘talk business’ or ‘talk products’, and the quality of questions they ask that relate to your business or just your purchasing history. In the final analysis the aspiring supplier can either prove in a professional manner that his company can provide a better and sustained business result for your business or he can’t • If you are impressed with the story of an aspiring supplier, it is a good idea to ‘test’ their capacity to deliver as promised by arranging to use their service for a short period of time • If you move to the point of wanting to test a new supplier, it is also a good idea to notify your incumbent supplier (s) of what you are planning to do, so that they can have the opportunity to respond with an improved proposition • If you appoint a new supplier, it is also a good idea to insist that a ‘service promise’ be issued by the supplier concerning all that they will do as a service provider…complete with information about how they will ‘make good’ if failure is experienced in any area of the ‘service promise’

All of the ‘lessons’ for sales people in this hypothetical exercise apply obviously to prospects, and less obviously to customers when we are ‘prospecting’ for additional business.

Although there is little or no chance of a ‘buying school’ eventuating, except for people involved in professional procurement management, there is evidence of customers exerting positive pressure on suppliers to behave more effectively. Here are two such examples, at both the micro and macro levels…

? The micro case. When I got started as a sales rep in Sydney many years ago, one of my retail customers refused to accept a ‘product deal’ my company was offering…until I sat down with him and discussed how ‘we’ were going to make the idea succeed with his customers. No one had ever asked this question before, I just used to recite the product story and that was that…with fingers crossed concerning ‘sell through’. In this case we discussed which of his customers would need the product, how we should promote the product opportunity, etc. ‘We’ decided that his best prospects were nurses (he ran a retail store near a major hospital) and so it was suggested that I put some promotional material and a sales message in the 3 apartment blocks the nurses occupied. I was not exactly an expert in generating such marketing moves, but I did…and to this day in one sense I am embarrassed at the lousy job I did. I say ‘in one sense’ because he called me at home the same night to say that all of his stock had sold, and that he needed much more. He bought so many deals off me that week and I was handed two significant lessons about selling: engage the customer in discussing ideas about creating mutual success…because it is amazing at how much customers and prospects can bring to the table in these matters, and how such a simple and generative process can get more positive action out of general sales people ? The macro case. I spoke this year at an American international meeting of sales directors for a major consumer food manufacturer, and I just happened to mention the ‘buying school’ point. At the coffee break one of the directors told me that in America ‘Wal-Mart’ behaved as if they had been to buying school. Apparently they insist on key suppliers entering into specific sales and profit goals, agreeing on sales and promotional strategies, and discussing progress and future objectives. No other customer in this company’s buying world exerts such positive pressure on the company (most just demand more $)…so if the company were to exert such pressure the possibilities are endless If, as a manager, you knew that customers and prospects were entitled to a certain standard of sales conduct, and you also knew that they would respond to nothing less than that standard, how would you arrange for the promise of such behaviour to be provided to the market? Such a promise would equal the promise, or guarantee, of product quality and service performance…which apparently must be offered in these times. In which times will a promise of sales conduct be offered? I was once involved in such a promise at the company where I was marketing and sales director, Schwarzkopf.

We had built an outright leadership position for Schwarzkopf in the Australian market, however in New Zealand our company had been allowed to languish to an astonishing extent. When the NZ operation came under the control of our management team in Australia, we arranged 16 seminars for customers throughout the North and South Islands, in the course of 2 weeks. At these events we showed what we had done in Australia and ‘promised’ that this form of unique contribution was available to all NZ salons. Aside from whatever impact this ‘move’ had on customers and prospects, and believe me the impact was considerable, the positive effect on our NZ sales team and their results was incredible For the first time they had access to stories that really impressed customers and prospects, which in turn meant that they personally became more valuable to the market at large. Additionally, the NZ sales team became eligible for rewards such as commissions for sales over monthly budget, and for travel incentives for sustained achievement well in advance of budget…over 6 monthly periods. The top performers also got to meet other high-achievers on a regular basis, from both countries, so that their collective efforts were spread as far as possible.

Schwarzkopf at that time also had a ‘board of customers’ in both countries, to offer feedback on all aspects of ‘company contact’…and for the purpose of investigating how we could contribute to mutual success even more in the future. That is a separate story and another article is dedicated to that subject if you wish to examine the idea in more detail. I mention this unique development here because the two ‘boards’, aside from many other issues, helped our company to view selling from the customer standpoint, and to make improvements and to solve problems as needed.

One last example worth mentioning is the time I spent consulting for one of Australia’s largest pharmaceutical companies (Faulding, now part of the Mayne Group). As just one part of the company’s special marketing service to pharmacists, as recommended and largely conducted by myself (known as the ‘Zenith Programme’), a concept was created that I called ‘Succeeding with suppliers’. This was a programme aimed at helping pharmacists and their appointed ‘buyers’ to look for and to obtain the best possible contribution from leading suppliers. ‘Price’ was never the issue with this initiative; instead the emphasis was on these issues:

• What is the customer opportunity with this marketing/product activity?

• What is the pharmacy business opportunity with this marketing/product activity?

• What potential exists in our pharmacy for this opportunity?

• How should the opportunity be managed in terms of goals, strategies, training, etc.?

• How will the success of this project be measured?

Again, this example reminds us of what points should be covered by sales people with customers. To conclude, while it is obvious that customers and prospects will not go to buying school, it should also be obvious that we in sales must be the ones to learn the lessons that such a school could offer!



If only customers and prospects went to ‘buying school’ - To learn more about this author, visit John Lees's Website.

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