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How to Overcome Sales Failures

Guest post by: Drew Stevens Ph.D.

Article Overview: Every team has their ups and downs in fact. A sale by nature is a volatile profession and represents riding and organizational roller coaster. It is not about the peaks and valleys but understanding the marginality of riding them. By this I mean learning from your mistakes and organizing your day to live not only in the moment but to learn each day.

How to Overcome Sales Failures

Every team has their ups and downs in fact. A sale by nature is a volatile profession and represents riding and organizational roller coaster. It is not about the peaks and valleys but understanding the marginality of riding them. By this I mean learning from your mistakes and organizing your day to live not only in the moment but to learn each day. My mentor has an expression "I cannot believe how stupid I was two weeks ago". I wholeheartedly agree. We learn each day on the job. In fact for 29 years this is what I have loved about selling turning each opportunity into a learning opportunity. I learn with each phone call, client interaction etc. That is the value of selling the ability to improve each time. I believe that sales people are like musicians, doctors and athletes that practice each day. We practice each day to get better so that when we need to perform we do so like an athlete in competition.

What are the types of things that sales managers can teach their staff?

This include:

• Client interaction -this includes working with managers to determine what to say before during and after hello. What questions might be asked to ensure that we keep the client engaged and ask them questions so that we deeply understand their business. In addition we might get better trained in telephone interactions, face to face communication and understanding body language. Finally one of the best client interactions is getting coached for proposals and documentation. Many make errors here so getting better each time you are with a client helps with sales closing rates.

• Initial Client engagement. - One might review the methods used to create relationship and become a trusted advisor. This includes asking better questions. I am reminded of my first sales coach Norm Strauss who was a master at asking a question with a question. He received so much from the client.

• Client research - managers should review sources and current events to ensure that staff truly understood client issues and manners in which to aid the client. Read papers and getting a better feel for current events is exceptional helpful for confidence.

• Client Profile - Managers must ensure that sales agents have developed a client profile and understand objectives, measurements of success and value of the organization.

• Buyer Profile - Too many individuals spend time with gatekeepers and recommenders and not enough time with economic buyers. Managers should work with staff so that when buyers misrepresent or sellers are unfamiliar leading to wasted time managers can help place staff on the road to success. Better pre call planning is very helpful to understanding client issues and closing business quicker.

• Handing Difficult customers - Every Company has them and every sales managers has enough stories of bad customers to fill the size of the old phone books. The resolution is not about resolving the issue but learning from it so that it does not happen again.

• Misdirection - Many selling professionals will spend incredible amounts of time chasing dream accounts and dream clients only to become disillusioned. This is where the relationship between sales manager and staff becomes so important. Do you remember the movie Wall Street? Bud Fox played by the actor Charlie Sheen wanted to become the millionaire stock broker and would do anything to get the account of his dreams - Gordon Gecko. The most unethical and unprofessional day trader on Wall Street. If only Bud had a good manager who could help him stop wasting needless time and attention developing accounts that could develop his career. Sales people stray and that is okay but managers must help them from doing so too far and too fast and most importantly too often.

Truly the best managers are Coach's, they constantly counsel and mentor their staff so that they create a life long learning environment. All sales departments are real time learning environments. Yet like any library you need a good resource librarian to show you where to gain the best information.

© 2011Drew Stevens PhD. All rights reserved.

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Article Tags: sales best practices, sales skills, sales techniques, sales ups and downs



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