I am proud to be a sales professional, and proud to be training and coaching others to become successful sales professionals themselves. However, I find myself spending a lot of time thinking and talking about the tight spot our profession seems to have got itself into.
| I'm Richard Lane -Proud Sales Professional. You? |
I can understand why. For one there has been, and continues to be, much malpractice – people selling unscrupulously – and poor practice, only interested in a fast buck with no interest in their customer or long-term partnership; other people selling without enough knowledge of their products, services or customers.
Additionally I don’t believe the sales industry has done a great job of becoming a profession and has fallen behind the buying community when it comes to education and skills development.
I think this is changing. I believe there is a better way – something we at Durham Lane call Selling at a Higher Level.
Value your time
Feedback from training and coaching sessions, seminars and conversations tell me too few sales people appreciate or value their own time. I have drawn the conclusion that we are told so often that we are an interruption or that our call has not come at a good time that we become passive observers. We start to think of ourselves as interrupters rather than business professionals trying to provide an answer that will lead to improved business results.
This has to change.
"Business fit. Business value. Developing long-term relationships."
This mantra of mine will change your approach to sales overnight. No longer will you feel like you are interrupting someone. No longer will you feel like you are making a cold sales call. Everything you do will be focused on trying to identify whether business fit and business value is possible. Your aim is to help the people you want to serve, to build rapport and dialogue with those you know you can support, to design and deliver that make a positive and measurable difference to your customers.
Positive spirals
The power of this mindset change is extraordinary and can lead to many positive spirals. You see, in order to approach a client with this new mindset embedded, it is imperative that research has been done so that you can identify where a potential business fit might exist. Without any pre-work it will not be possible to estimate where we can potentially add value. If we are armed with this information we can set about validating our estimates, always with the intention of developing long-term relationships. We are investing our precious time to see if a win-win situation can be nurtured.
Professional - Humble - Courteous - Pro-active - Hungry - Ambitious.
When you approach a client this way they cannot fail to be impressed. You are no longer having a sales conversation; you’re having a business conversation focused on building value.
Which would you rather have?
Questions & Comments
So what do you think?
Thanks to Neil for getting this article sorted and up on modernselling.com.
Please take a moment to let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Richard.
Posted by Richard Lane on
I suggest LinkedIn is the only future option
Not regarding your wider questions of pride in our professionalism Richard, but just for passing readers who do want to join you in a discussion here, may I suggest that all go for the "log in with LinkedIn" option, which saves all that messing about building new accounts and profiles each time, and will automatically post a name / profile link too.
And we've got a LOT more of this kind of connections and networking coming down the pipeline too, which does start to help build trust and relationships and so on, as you say.
Posted by Neil Warren on
"can a sales person be 100% honest"?
A good friend of mine mentioned someone had asked him this a while ago and he thought it would be a good title for a blog post. It is and I have one written and waiting in the aisle to be published once I get back to my laptop (can't seem to get the formatting sorted in my Christmas iPad 2)!
In case your wondering I think the answer is an overwhelming "YES" but with some interesting caveats.
I'll put a link to the article once published.
In the meantime wishing you all an awesome 2012!
Regards,
Richard.
Posted by Richard Lane on
Here's the link
As promised, here is the link to the post mentioned above. Please take a moment to read and to comment:
http://bit.ly/100percentsales
Posted by Richard Lane on
Lorraine Agnew wants to give you an Award Richard...
Crazy mixed-up multi-media world that we live in, produced a telephone call from Lorraine Agnew a minute ago Richard, this being she...
http://www.linkedin.com/in/219000
And she mentioned that she'd seen you here, and was impressed enough to incorporate the thought into a monster new top-secret something, coming very soon to a modern selling hub somewhere near you / us / the crowd / tribe / profession or whatever we are!
And I haven't even had a chance to broadcast this page yet - but will, now that we have some other thought leaders on board...
http://www.modernselling.com/news-and-events/sales-editorial-comment/CIM-SLA-Sales-Leadership-Alliance-Marketing-Sales-Fusion-discussion-Neil-Warren-20124057.aspx
...such that we can also maybe take a pride in actually making some changes. Tomorrow - promise - and you can trust me, I'm a salesman!
Posted by Neil Warren on
COMMENT on "Are you proud to be a sales professional?"
Hi Richard a nice article. One thing you said caught my eye in particular "Additionally I don?t believe the sales industry has done a great job of becoming a profession ..." You might not have said this if writing the article 30 years ago when every large company had its own intensive training and development program for sales people. While working for Olivetti for 7 years I attended almost a man year of training and development. When I left and started my first business I came to realise I had almost completed an MBA and I was certainly a complete professional. It is a great shame that so few companies have their own sales schools these days. In fact, it is more than a shame, it is a direct hit on their bottom lines.
Posted by Phil Shipperlee on
That Log in with LinkedIn thing...
Can I just nip in quickly here Phil and, assuming this is you...
http://www.linkedin.com/in/philshipperlee
...ask you to have a go with the log in button using LinkedIn, which should now give you the option to overwrite an existing account, but then allow the two-way and multi-way connections we need back and forth between us all, so we can see who's who etc.?
Encourages the others too, if us "veterans" can hack it - and apologies that it whisks you back to the Home Page too, that's on my "to do" list.
Posted by Neil Warren on
How many professionals do you need to be professional?
Hi Phil,
Firstly - thanks for taking the time to write and for your positive feedback - much appreciated.
Your comment is interesting and made me think about percentages - e.g. unfortunately the sort of training you mention is/was only available via large companies. When we consider how many sales people work outside of this domain then the challenge of poor practice leading to an overall view/perception is great.
At durhamlane we focus on helping sales (and non sales people) develop their mindsets in order to operate as 'business professionals' - having "conversations with purpose". I am not convinced a years-worth of training is essential (or even viable any longer) to achieve an appropriate level of skill and professionalism to be successful in sales. However, seeing sales as a profession and a life-long journey of personal development will certainly make the difference.
Love the idea of 'Sales School'. With a corporate background in online learning I believe in a blended approach where skills are taught and behaviours are reinforced and adapted in the workplace - workshops, coaching, online resources etc.
Thanks again for taking the time to comment.
Regards,
Richard.
Posted by Richard Lane on
Professional selling
Again, we are in fierce agreement albeit with some slight nuances.
We design, deliver and, if required, fully manage sales schools for companies who are too small, or who simply do not have the skills or time, to do it for themselves and this utilises a fully blended approach.
However, before we do anything with the attitudes or skills of the people we help the customer to get the environment right. This will cover their; proposition & market, selling methodology and processes and the way information and selling tools are used to empower the selling processes. Once the environment is right then it is safe to recruit and induct new people and to invest time and effort developing the skills and techniques of the whole team.
The great strength of the Olivetti approach was that training was delivered within the context of the actual working environment. So, as soon as we got off a course, the lessons were being reinforced by managers and peers. Our approach is to create the context for our customers by establishing a defined selling environment then we train and develop the people to work within it.
Posted by Phil Shipperlee on
Dominic Lawson tarnishes sales profession
Hello Gents - and apologies for any time-lags as I continue to work to get the main site here integrated with users who have functioning LinkedIn profiles.
In the meantime though, one of my other "media" reads is The Sunday Times, with which I escape for a few pints and a catch up read, Sundays and Thursdays, mostly. And last night got me to ex-Chancellor Dominic Lawson's opinion piece.
He was musing on whether or not it would be a good thing if we knew what all our leaders (politicians mostly) actually earned and how much of that they paid in tax, like the Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone Great Mayoral Exposure going on just now.
Anyway, one of his killer points "against", was (and I quote)...
"Besides which, would it make for a more harmonious society, as [Polly] Toynbee seems to suppose - rather than one that merely panders to the fiscal peeping toms among us, or to salesmen wanting to know how much cash the little old lady at no 41 has to spare..."
Following hard(ish) on the heels of Gordon Brown accusing David Cameron of being "a shallow salesman", I'm getting angry enough to start mentioning pots and kettles on a new blog page myself, but thought I'd share with you defenders of our integrity first.
Of course Lawson might be thinking of some of his erstwhile City chums, like this lot...
http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi751502873/
...being after that little old lady's wealth, or possibly even the nearly public sector B2C "sales people" like Homeserve here...
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4267204/Homeserve-fined-750000-over-cold-calling.html
But we were never very proud of that type of company and sales organisation in the first place, were we?
Posted by Neil Warren on
My Question / Comment Is...
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