Do you know what I find baffling?
The number of Sales Managers that believe the short cut to improved sales productivity and effectiveness is to only hire candidates with a lot of industry experience and a great track record.
I know your staring at your computer screen with that RCA dog look thinking. Ok, Martice finally snapped, he's lost it.
Stay with me and hear me out.
Why on earth would I question a practice that is obviously true. After all, isn't that what we're suppose to do?
Yes and No!
Of course, we should develop our selection criterion to identify candidates that have the most industry experience and track record. That's not my issue. What I find bewildering are the Managers that believe that this is the secret, magic bullet that relieves them of their responsibility to train and coach new hires.
These Managers tell me (with great pride I might add), "We don't need to train beyond covering the obvious differences in the product or service we sell". They bring these hot shots in, give them a little product training, tell them they're at the forefront of building a great company, so go forth and prosper.
Then six to eight months later they wonder why a good portion of them die on the vine and the ones that make it don't produce a super abundance of fruit (pressed down, shaken together and running over).
How about you?
- Have you ever hired a person that had all the "right stuff" and they failed miserably?
- Does each member of your sales team (and I use that term loosely) apply different sales processes, strategies, methodologies and techniques they learned somewhere else? A mixture of:
- Huthwaite's SPIN Selling,
- TAS Group's Target Account Selling,
- The Complex Sale's R.A.D.A.R Winning Opportunities
- Miller Heiman Sales System (Blue Sheets)
- Sandler Sales
- Richardson's Consultative Selling
- And to further exasperate the situation were you trained in a totally different system?
How can this lack of standardization have a positive impact on sales productivity and effectiveness?
I remember a passage from the book of Genesis (11:6) about the Tower of Babel. The Lord said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have done all this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them."
Now I'm not trying to get all religious on you, and your objectives are probably not as ambitious as the Babylonians. I'm making the point that if working as one and speaking the same language got God's attention back in the day. Then working together more effectively by standardizing the sales process, methodologies and having a common language will get your clients and prospects attention today.
But Martice, "We can't standardize the process. You know how difficult it is to get experienced sales people to change their habits".
I know, I know, I've heard it all before and there's only one response to that. To hell with what the salesperson wants. This is about what your clients and prospects want.
They want the selling process to match their buying process. Which means they're receiving what they value at each stage. The buying process creates a solid business case for change and keeps the deal moving forward at its optimum pace.
A well designed sales process that delivers value at each stage will move prospects through the pipeline quicker and once that starts happening your salespeople will whole heartedly embrace it. That requires agreement on what the process is, how each stage is defined, and a common terminology to describe it.
As a Sales Manager you should have an initial training program that defines your company's sales process, strategy, methodology, and terminology to optimize your team's sales productivity and effectiveness.
7 comments:
These Managers tell me (with great pride I might add), "We don't need to train beyond covering the obvious differences in the product or service we sell". They bring these hot shots in, give them a little product training, tell them they're at the forefront of building a great company, so go forth and prosper.
I LOVED this! I think that the training should be an ongoing everlasting process, we are always learning, there are new curves thrown into any job and we can not just let them loose, support is a key factor in success.
Great blog! I got ya bookmarked! I also see ya stopped in at the art blog! Thanks!
Great blog! Having held sales positions in my life, I could not agree with you more. In fact, I have addressed that issue in my own practice.
I will keep reading your blog.
Susie, I could not agree with you more about the life long learning. I wrote about it in a previous blog
Your Sales Productivity Depends on Whether Sales is A Job or Profession
Thank you Debbie.
Great post... I had never noticed I follow your advice but I do. I have had terrible luck with sales reps from my competition because they so rarely want to sell the way I want them to. Bad habits can be hard to break especially if you have been successful using them someplace else. I hardly ever hire reps with direct industry experience. I prefer to find GREAT people and then train them to be successful. myself.
-Brad
From my experience in hiring, the staff I've hired with less experience in the general niche we sell in has done better than those with more experience. The ones with more experience quickly "die on the vine" as you've said, and become way too know-it-all and unproductive. The less experienced ones can be trained from ground up, nurtured and molded the way you want them to be.
Fantastic article. This could apply to practically any hire in any department.
I also think that companies also error in not learning from the experience that their new hires bring with them. Often times they have the attitude that "well we don't do it that way here", and that limits their creativity, moral, and profits.
Post a Comment