dangletech

There are a vast array of sales processes, methods and books on the market place.  There are also numerous evangelists and trainers ready to provide their sales expertise to organizations for a fee.  However, just because you need to mature your Sales approach and Sales team, and bring onboard more rigorous processes and procedures, is this really the right way to go?

One of the most common mistakes I’ve seen in organizations is in thinking that you can buy the expertise, get that quick fix, and suddenly improve Sales overnight.  In reality this isn’t possible.  Adopting a new Sales process and methodology takes planning, time and effort, and it is not something that you’re going to buy off the shelf.  It takes buy-in across the Sales team, and with all of the parts of the organization that Sales touches.  And it takes commitment from the executive team.

That said there are a lot of things out there on the marketplace that can prove beneficial to an organization - the key is to adopt the pieces that make the most sense, and fix the specifics that are causing you the most pain today.

Let’s start with Sales processes and methodologies.  The fundamental problem here is that there is not a one size fits all methodology on the market for any organization.  Some methods are very good at helping an organization manage their pipeline, and provide more clarity and direction for assessing Sales opportunities.  Some methods are very good for customer organizational understanding, and assist in strategizing customer relationship management.  Other methods are very good in providing guidance for the Sales call, setting actions and outcomes, and determining how to progress a meeting to an appropriate closure point (while maximizing the information obtained from the customer during the call).  Still others can provide guidelines and approaches for major account planning.  But none of them do it all.  In fact outside of the things they are good at, most methods are generally very poor, or gloss over many areas of the Sales process.

Now to Sales training.  There are some very good Sales trainers out there, but most of the good ones are very specialized and focused in what they deliver to their clients.  Areas that I’ve seen trainers handle very well in an organization during a 1 or 2 day focused program are negotiation, account planning, and maximizing results from a telesales call.  So you get the idea - get specific training aimed at a specific outcome.  And follow through on it after the program ends.

But every all purpose Sales training program that I have ever attended has been a bust.  All of these programs have tried to cover too much, and there has been insufficient expertise from the trainer to cover it all.  And most of these all purpose programs are in themselves Sales pitches for the methodology that they go hand in hand with.  And thus the trap that I highlighted above with Sales methods.

Lastly Sales evangelists.  Most of them have written books, and made recordings and videos.  And they put on great performances.  They will certainly shop all of their stuff at their events and seminars - maybe they’ll even give you something for free if you smile nicely or answer a question.  Not sure how many of said evangelists have ever really sold anything (other than their books etc.), or certainly ever sold anything complex.  I attended one such evangelist event several months ago and I was entertained.  Did I walk away with anything useful?  Honestly nothing that I can think of.  I think my retention of anything had pretty much evaporated by the time I got back in my car in the parking lot.  I do recall that this individual really thought you could make a big difference and change who you are as a Salesperson by radically moving away from the standard business card for your identification mechanism.  Go figure.