You're not alone. That's no surprise. What is surprising companies everywhere is how ill equipped they are to handle the situation. There are only two ways to increase sales, and for some keeping the same level of sales as 08 would be success. Those two ways are do more business with your existing customers or go find new ones. Sounds simple but the devil is in the details, or should I say behavior?
You see most companies have a relationship culture. The culture serves them well when times are good. They keep their customers happy and occasionally find new ones. It's comfortable and predictable and everyone sleeps well at night. But what do they do when the existing customers cut their buying by 25%? After the initial shock, they decide they need to go out and find new customers, new markets and new industries to serve. But there's a problem with this new strategy. They don't have the proper support structure in place to enable success in the behaviors they're asking the sales people to commit to. And, one of the hardest lessons to face ' they may not have the right people, or the people may not have the right skill sets for this new urgent prospecting need.
Let's talk about the structure. Traditional relationship based companies usually have some sort of high base salary and a very low commission rate if at all, and often no real reward for finding new customers. So the compensation system is structured to keep the existing customers happy. Furthermore the sales support required for the new hunting behaviors usually does not include goal setting for behaviors like cold calls, cultivating referrals etc. The meetings with the sales manager (not always a full time duty for the person in charge of it) are not based on pre-call planning and post-call debriefing to ensure success or at least growth in the skills. Another piece of the prospecting success puzzle is accountability. There generally is none and if it's implemented it's done in a way that is seen as punishment rather than and enabling system for success.
The next piece is the people themselves. In general, farmers ' the folks that do such a great job of account management are not good at hunting ' going out and finding things to kill and actually killing them. Sorry to be so graphic. Let's call it closing business. On the other hand the best hunters are generally lousy at account management. Can they get better, probably. I'm in the sales force development business and it would be foolish for me to say they can't. But the best hunter will never be the best farmer and vice versa.
Finally you need to consider the skill sets. Making cold calls for farmers is a high anxiety activity and done the wrong way (which it usually is) it's not effective so they find themselves in a downward spiral. Now they have to deal with voice mail, gatekeepers and obstacles they're not use to. And when they do get it, it's often not with the right people, and they find themselves selling based price and not the "value proposition' or true pain. So the new opportunities have a low close rate. To increase that rate the salespeople who were put in the sales position because of their technical expertise do their best to show the new prospect how good their solution is and they become unpaid consultants.
So what do you do? Take a look at your structure and how you can change it to help them succeed. And it's not all about compensation. Changing the compensation structure alone will not turn a farmer into a hunter. Spend time with the salespeople and determine what new behaviors are needed to be successful and measure the behaviors not just results. Without the first, the later will not occur. Take an honest look at your people and see if you're putting a square peg into a round hole. Finally, go on some sales meetings with them and watch the prospect as the salesperson goes through the qualifying process of asking why they would do business with you, what kind of budget they have and how they make decisions on vendor selection. My guess is you'll learn a lot.
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About Sandler Training: The company teaches sales development systems, processes and techniques at both the sales level and the sales management level. The company is a leader in innovative sales and sales management training. For more than 40 years, Sandler has taught its distinctive, non-traditional selling system and highly effective sales training methodology, which has helped salespeople and sales managers take charge of the process.
Sandler Training is designed to create lasting "performance improvement'. Sandler provides "reinforcement training,' a system that combines quality materials along with access to ongoing training workshops and individual coaching sessions.
To contact the author:
Roger Wentworth, President, Roger@Sandler.com
Phone: 937-320-9234
One the web: www.rwg.sandler.com
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