I am a big
fan of sales activities. One of my favorite sales trainers nailed the value of
sales activities in very simple terms. “More sales calls equal more sales” and
“No sales calls equal no sales”. It seems simple enough.
The sales
landscape has changed a lot in the last forty five years. New tools and tactics
have emerged to throw a wider net aimed at getting our message out and attracting
customers (orders). The Internet, for instance, is a great sales tool. However,
it is just a tool. No meaningful business to business sales are generated on
the Internet. Ok, I purchased ink toner online last week. I would never buy a
machine tool or a car online.
Companies
invest a lot in their websites, literature, e-mail marketing, direct mail
marketing, pay-per-click advertising, trade shows, and lunch and learn
presentations and, finally, good old person to person sales calls. For many,
these investments produce results. If they didn’t work, these tools and tactics
would go away. But they do produce and are here to stay until the next generation
of gadgets and gizmos emerge.
So, my
question is: “Why do some salespeople thrive while others struggle to survive?”
It is easy
to point to lack of activity, lack of product knowledge or lack of sales skills
as the reasons for underperformance or non-performance. It also could be easy
to decide that an individual salesperson is in the wrong profession, a bad fit.
These are all good and viable reasons for failure.
What has me
mulling this topic over is a salesperson who works for a client of mine. In
spite of years of experience in the industry, a mastery of current sales tools,
well documented sales activities and a great personality, he routinely under
performs. He does not make his sales quota, ever, and once in a while doesn’t
even sell enough to cover his expenses, let alone his base salary.
The logical
thing to do is to fire him.
After some
deliberation, I have decided that he has every reason to succeed. He may have
me hoodwinked, but it occurred to me that this fellow spends a whole lot of
time on his journey without reaching his destination. He doesn’t seem to
understand that the only measurements of a salesperson are the sales he or she
books and the profit margin earned.
I am going
to try and get him on board with the program. If he needs sales training, so be
it. If he still can’t close business, in spite of all of the things he does, he
will have to move on.
