Is this the simplest sales training tip ever?

What makes a great sales effort? What blasts one company into the sales superstar league and leaves another bogged down in the quagmire of also-rans? What sales skills and sales strategies do you need to make sure that 2009 is a great year for you?

Great questions all of them and the answers, though you may think otherwise, are often not complicated. Sales and business people consistently overestimate the difference between winning and losing, between sales success and sales failure, between doing the deal and not doing the deal. They assume that the gap is h-u-g-e, but often times it’s not. As a motivational speaker I am constantly reminding people how simple is often better…

I remember being at a business networking meeting some years ago and I met one of the business coaches from a well-known, coaching network. He said that he undertook sales consultancy on clients’ businesses and cited some impressive sales results. I asked him to tell me about his most impressive result ever and he told me about a coach hire company who, when he first consulted with them, were getting lots of enquiries but few of these enquiries were being closed and becoming sales.

When I asked him what he had advised his client to do that had got such great sales results he said that he had noticed that the client spent large amounts of money advertising and marketing to get the phone to ring but that when the phone rang the sales staff were less than helpful. Many calls went like this…

Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring!

Salesperson: “Hello, XYZ coaches.”
Prospect: “I’m wondering if you can help me, I’d like to know how much a 60 seater coach costs to hire for a day.”
Salesperson: “Is it just the one day?”
Prospect: “Yes.”
Salesperson: “£X.”
Prospect: “Thanks. I’ll have to think about it and get back to you.”
Salesperson: “Bye.”

The poor sales figures bore out that this approach was not very successful. Less than 1 in 10 prospects were ringing back and becoming clients!
Our intrepid sales consultant advised, not surprisingly, that this approach was lacking in basic rapport, did not use names of either the prospect or the salesperson, did not ask any questions to find out about needs or wants and, perhaps most tellingly, did not get the clients name and details so that the salesperson could follow up with them later on.

With a few simple tweaks and a small ammount of sales training, the sales consultant was able to increase the closing ratios of the sales team to over 1 in 3. This was a significant increase and one which was easily achieved.

So what sales training tips can we learn from this?

The difference between sales success and sales failure is often small. The gap between making sales and not making sales is often down to a few seemingly trivial actions. The paths of the sales superhero and the sales loser are often no more than a few feet apart. Little actions make a big difference.

It would be fair to counter my argument by saying that in today’s challenging markets, no company seeking to be competitive would behave in this way.

You’d think…

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but I’d say that the car manufacturers are having a tough time of it at the moment. The sales figures for new car sales look gloomy to say the least and second hand car sales over the last few months bear more than a passing resemblance to something you’d ride in on a Blackpool roller coaster. Car dealers are making redundancies and, in some cases, shutting down. They are flat out, doing all they can right…?

Wrong.

Sunday afternoon I walked into a BMW dealership not far from my home. After wandering around the showroom for a few minutes a member of the sales team came up and asked if he could help me. I said that he could and asked about a particular new model. He said that it was not out yet and that he had no details on that car. I pointed out that it was due out imminently and he replied that he had only been with BMW three months.

Three months. Three months. How long does it take to learn a line up of about 10 cars? I mean really, it’s not hard is it? 3 days tops I reckon. Anyway, after an awkward 20 seconds silence I asked if he could find out for me and he disappeared into the back office where I could see 3 more sales sloths. After a short conversation he came out and gave me a rough date for the launch of the car. I asked him what price the car would list at or if he had any paperwork. “No” came back the reply.

He then stood there looking at me in a way that seemed to say, “Is there anything else I can do for you or are you just disturbing me from finishing my chat / tea / paperwork / dream world?”  I said, “Well thanks.” At no point did he ask for my name. At no point did he offer to send me any literature when the cars arrive.

These chaps desperately need some sales training!

On the way out I saw a form for the car asking me to fill in my name and address and hand it to a member of the “sales team”. I didn’t bother, the sale was made. I’m buying a Porsche.

But back to BMW, I’m guessing, that the senior management of this garage wouldn’t want to pay me a sales consultancy fee for the simple advice of taking names. I’m guessing they’d say that sales advice like this wouldn’t be worth the money I’d charge them for sales training or consultancy. I’m guessing that if I was to have offered this sales advice to the salesman he would have been defensive. I’m also guessing that he would have told me that I was teaching him to suck eggs…

But in a few weeks time when the brochures and the demo cars arrive in the garage and he has a sales target to sell several cars, what value would he put on a list of hot prospects to ring up and offer test drives to?

Maybe the value of his job, that’s what.

I run an exercise in sales seminars where I ask the audience to “reach up as high as they can”. Many members of the audience simply raise their hands up above their heads, lazily. After a few seconds, a few sit up straighter in their chairs and stretch higher with their arms. Then a few delegates will stand up. Finally, one or two will stand up on their chairs and really reach for the stars.

The question I then ask is, “Where else in your life and your career do you act in this way? Where else is it that you settle for just getting by? Where else is it that you don’t give 100%? And what’s that costing you… in the short term, in the medium term and in the long term?”

In 2009, selling is proving to be challenging for many businesses and in many markets. “Good enough” is no longer good enough. If you want to succeed you have to sharpen the saw in every area of your business, particularly sales. The good news is that this doesn’t have to be complicated. The bad news is that you have to identify these areas for tightening up and tighten them up yourself, no-one else will do it for you.

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