Sales careers are attractive for a variety of reasons.
Early along my journey as an adult I recognized that the sales profession would suit me just fine. Trained as an electronics technician, the lack of employment opportunities after leaving the military caused me to explore and consider other options. What I learned made my decision to pursue selling as a career. And what a terrific career it has been.
No Practical Limits
Over almost four decades in the field, I have yet to hear a sales manager or business owner say “Slow down, you are selling too much”. It just never and should never happen. As a salesperson, you can work hard while applying the sales skills and product expertise you’ve acquired to sell a lot and make a great living.
A Great Living
Productive salespeople make a lot of money. Check out the top earners and you’ll find that productive sales professionals’ compensation is on par with Physicians, Attorneys and Accountants…the good ones. Physicians, Attorneys, Accountants…those are my neighbors.
Freedom
Having no practical limits and making a great living are excellent reasons to pursue a career in sales. Another terrific attribute of selling is the freedom enjoyed by most salespeople, the outside variety. Sitting at a desk for a career would have been torture. Traveling from prospect to customer to wherever is a blessing that I’ve been aware of and appreciated all of these years.
Challenge
Did I forget to say that selling is a challenge? That is somewhat of an understatement. Real selling requires the will to engage with customers while outworking and outwitting competitors. While doing so understanding that failure is normal and success is an exception. For example, make 100 sales phone calls; connect with 10 prospects, book 3 appointments and make one sale. These numbers aren’t unusual. Any way you want to cut it failure and rejection are common outcomes for salespeople.
Rewards
The obvious rewards successful salespeople enjoy are financial. There are other important rewards earned by sales professionals, including respect and recognition from employers, peers, clients and within their industry. But, in my opinion, an equally important reward is the satisfaction gained by helping clients solves business problems as a result of purchasing your products or services. Providing value causes lots of good career things to happen and delivers real satisfaction.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
A Winning Formula for Sales Career Success
Sometimes simple truths evade us.
I recently wrote about effort. It is an absolute truth that lack of effort will prevent a sales person from achieving their potential for success. Remember, no sales calls equals no sales.
Twenty years ago, or so, I became interested in learning if there was indeed a simple formula for sales success.
As a student of selling I have tried to learn as much as possible about my profession. I have been hungry to learn secrets that give me a competitive edge. I attend seminars, reads books, listens to tapes and learns lessons from the winners and losers around me. Many of the ideas and practices taught are complex, quirky and not for me, but much of what I know and how I practice the art and science of selling is the sum of ideas and practices gleaned from these lessons and from the lessons of a career in the field, on the street, fighting for business day in and day out.
On a nutty side bar: I am fascinated by a Doctor who claims to be able to create sales stars through hypnotism. That concept is a little too edgy for me. If I endorse it I may earn “kook” status with my peers. We’ll save hypnotizing salespeople for a later date.
Back to the basics…I employed a young man who came to me with little product knowledge and limited sales skills. I instructed him to engage in a lot of sales activities ever day, without fail, while learning the ropes in our industry. He quickly began to sell more information systems than the other more experienced members on my sales team. It didn’t take long to recognize that his advantage was simply that he outworked everyone else. He made dozens of phone calls every morning, sent out dozens of letters every day, made a dozen, or so, cold calls (in person) daily, scheduled 2 – 4 product demonstrations per week and sold 2 -4 information systems a month. In reality, he neither had much product knowledge nor was he a smooth operator. He was a selling machine anyway because of his relentless effort.
Just A.S.K.
After much observation and thought. I became convinced that the following is the absolute and simple truth about the sales profession. As much as I believe that effort or "sales activity" is a key sales success element, sales skills and product knowledge are equally important elements in a successful selling career.
If all three elements are equal in value, things are probably going well for the seller. In reality, most salespeople, particularly the new bee’s have less product knowledge or selling skills than their more experienced peers. This is a normal, recurring situation that has an answer.
Just A.S.K. Dave…the simple truth
Picture a circle (or pie) with three equal pieces. These pieces are Activity, Skill and Knowledge. Let’s call this a sales career circle. If one piece is smaller than the other there is a gap that represents potential job or career failure. Not good.
The great news and hope for new, upcoming or struggling salespeople is that any area of the formula that is impeding your success can be fixed by filling the gap with another element.
If your product knowledge is limited, you can compensate for it (while you are learning the product, of course) by increasing your sales activities. What is even more encouraging is that as your product knowledge or sales skills increase, and if you maintain a high and steady number of sales activities, your theoretical career circle will expand and you will be on your way to a very successful and profitable career.
I recently wrote about effort. It is an absolute truth that lack of effort will prevent a sales person from achieving their potential for success. Remember, no sales calls equals no sales.
Twenty years ago, or so, I became interested in learning if there was indeed a simple formula for sales success.
As a student of selling I have tried to learn as much as possible about my profession. I have been hungry to learn secrets that give me a competitive edge. I attend seminars, reads books, listens to tapes and learns lessons from the winners and losers around me. Many of the ideas and practices taught are complex, quirky and not for me, but much of what I know and how I practice the art and science of selling is the sum of ideas and practices gleaned from these lessons and from the lessons of a career in the field, on the street, fighting for business day in and day out.
On a nutty side bar: I am fascinated by a Doctor who claims to be able to create sales stars through hypnotism. That concept is a little too edgy for me. If I endorse it I may earn “kook” status with my peers. We’ll save hypnotizing salespeople for a later date.
Back to the basics…I employed a young man who came to me with little product knowledge and limited sales skills. I instructed him to engage in a lot of sales activities ever day, without fail, while learning the ropes in our industry. He quickly began to sell more information systems than the other more experienced members on my sales team. It didn’t take long to recognize that his advantage was simply that he outworked everyone else. He made dozens of phone calls every morning, sent out dozens of letters every day, made a dozen, or so, cold calls (in person) daily, scheduled 2 – 4 product demonstrations per week and sold 2 -4 information systems a month. In reality, he neither had much product knowledge nor was he a smooth operator. He was a selling machine anyway because of his relentless effort.
Just A.S.K.
After much observation and thought. I became convinced that the following is the absolute and simple truth about the sales profession. As much as I believe that effort or "sales activity" is a key sales success element, sales skills and product knowledge are equally important elements in a successful selling career.
If all three elements are equal in value, things are probably going well for the seller. In reality, most salespeople, particularly the new bee’s have less product knowledge or selling skills than their more experienced peers. This is a normal, recurring situation that has an answer.
Just A.S.K. Dave…the simple truth
Picture a circle (or pie) with three equal pieces. These pieces are Activity, Skill and Knowledge. Let’s call this a sales career circle. If one piece is smaller than the other there is a gap that represents potential job or career failure. Not good.
The great news and hope for new, upcoming or struggling salespeople is that any area of the formula that is impeding your success can be fixed by filling the gap with another element.
If your product knowledge is limited, you can compensate for it (while you are learning the product, of course) by increasing your sales activities. What is even more encouraging is that as your product knowledge or sales skills increase, and if you maintain a high and steady number of sales activities, your theoretical career circle will expand and you will be on your way to a very successful and profitable career.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Effort
You would think that I wouldn’t have to start with a topic that we assume is covered. Effort is a non topic. Effort is a default check off. It’s not…really. I’m not sure that there is an element of selling that is more important than effort…trying.
I’m not a trained mental health provider nor am I a mind reader, but I am acutely aware that there are a lot of salespeople who don’t give their best effort. Their “try” meter is floating somewhere between zeros and unacceptable.
I’ll give you that there are circumstances that get in the way of doing one’s best. A salesperson could be overmatched by their subject, the market, the competition, or by a bad environment at work or home. I am inclined to be sympathetic to salespeople who can’t perform because circumstances out of their control.
The good news for salespeople with out of control issues that interfere with selling is that they can get in control of their circumstances. Identify, isolate and fix the problems. If it means changing employers or industry focus, just do it. It’s probably best to go easy on the personal side, but to still identify, isolate and fix what’s hurting your career and interfering with your ability to give your best effort.
I can’t be too easy on salespeople who don’t try. I don’t understand them. They almost certainly have a laundry list of excuses.
There is an 80/20 rule in this world. If you take a good look at your organization, you’ll see that a minority of your staff are delivering the best results. In the sales world, some of the people are making most of the money, awards and recognition. The others wonder why. Many of them are aware of their own barriers to success.
A salesperson doesn’t have to be a racehorse to win. A calm deliberate execution of a sales plan and process with a sufficient number of sales activities using acquired knowledge and skills and the tools of the trade will produce excellent results for anyone in the business. They just need to care. They need to try.
Mark Thelen was one of my favorite sales trainers. I went to see Mark quite a few times. He reduced the lessons of selling to the lowest common denominators. On effort his take was simple…”No sales calls equal no sales, some sales calls equal some sales, lots of sales calls equal lots of sales”. Thank you for your wisdom Mark. I couldn’t have said it better.
I’m not a trained mental health provider nor am I a mind reader, but I am acutely aware that there are a lot of salespeople who don’t give their best effort. Their “try” meter is floating somewhere between zeros and unacceptable.
I’ll give you that there are circumstances that get in the way of doing one’s best. A salesperson could be overmatched by their subject, the market, the competition, or by a bad environment at work or home. I am inclined to be sympathetic to salespeople who can’t perform because circumstances out of their control.
The good news for salespeople with out of control issues that interfere with selling is that they can get in control of their circumstances. Identify, isolate and fix the problems. If it means changing employers or industry focus, just do it. It’s probably best to go easy on the personal side, but to still identify, isolate and fix what’s hurting your career and interfering with your ability to give your best effort.
I can’t be too easy on salespeople who don’t try. I don’t understand them. They almost certainly have a laundry list of excuses.
There is an 80/20 rule in this world. If you take a good look at your organization, you’ll see that a minority of your staff are delivering the best results. In the sales world, some of the people are making most of the money, awards and recognition. The others wonder why. Many of them are aware of their own barriers to success.
A salesperson doesn’t have to be a racehorse to win. A calm deliberate execution of a sales plan and process with a sufficient number of sales activities using acquired knowledge and skills and the tools of the trade will produce excellent results for anyone in the business. They just need to care. They need to try.
Mark Thelen was one of my favorite sales trainers. I went to see Mark quite a few times. He reduced the lessons of selling to the lowest common denominators. On effort his take was simple…”No sales calls equal no sales, some sales calls equal some sales, lots of sales calls equal lots of sales”. Thank you for your wisdom Mark. I couldn’t have said it better.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
My first blog
My first blog. Isn't it a hoot?
It was just a few years ago that Ned Barnett introduced me to blogging, He has been very successful blogging. Ned knows a lot about a lot of things and has done a terrific job of not only getting his thoughts out to his followers but while doing so has established himself as a noted expert on a variety of topics.
So, four years later I start my own blog. My thanks to Ned for his leadership, and to Brian Austin for introducing me to Ned. I also would like to tip my hat to Dana Cadman for giving me the nudge I needed to begin my blogging journey and for Steven Graff's support of the idea. I guess I can't be accused of being spontaneous.
My topic is everything related to selling. I have ideas and opinions on everything having to do with the sales profession and am looking forward to sharing my thoughts with those who are interested, over time. Thus the title BilbreyOnSelling.
Tune in once in a while for some good stuff.
It was just a few years ago that Ned Barnett introduced me to blogging, He has been very successful blogging. Ned knows a lot about a lot of things and has done a terrific job of not only getting his thoughts out to his followers but while doing so has established himself as a noted expert on a variety of topics.
So, four years later I start my own blog. My thanks to Ned for his leadership, and to Brian Austin for introducing me to Ned. I also would like to tip my hat to Dana Cadman for giving me the nudge I needed to begin my blogging journey and for Steven Graff's support of the idea. I guess I can't be accused of being spontaneous.
My topic is everything related to selling. I have ideas and opinions on everything having to do with the sales profession and am looking forward to sharing my thoughts with those who are interested, over time. Thus the title BilbreyOnSelling.
Tune in once in a while for some good stuff.
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