There are differing schools of thought on what makes a successful sales person;
Tenacity – never taking no for an answer
Curiosity – willing and wanting to know everything about potential customers
Likeability – getting people to buy them before they buy their Company
Credibility – knowing what they are talking about and understanding your products or services and being able to fit those with the Customer needs
But is about far more than all of these qualities.
A natural born seller is someone who wants to take every meeting, every interaction through to a closed sale and doesn’t give up until they have.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how charming, or likeable, or empathic a sales person is - unless they can convert it through to a sale within a reasonable timescale.
So why is it that many Sales People demand high salaries?
In my experience across twenty years of Business, I have found one fact to be true; any fully dedicated sales person worth their salt will know that they can sell – be confident that they can close – and in knowing this will be happy to accept a low basic and a higher rate of commission as they know they will make it on the sales.
I have had many conversations with many Clients about this single fact and it has always proved to be true. Those Sales people who came in promising the earth and wanting a high basic to justify it NEVER delivered.
Here’s how you to get the most out of your Sales Team
- Offer them a low basic and a much higher rate of commission or bonus linked to (profitable) sales. The best case of this I have seen was a client who had a direct sales product where he paid 100% commission to his “agents” instead of ANY salary. All his “agents” came out with £100k plus every year.
- Ensure you set a range of prices for your sales people so you know what you expect them to “walk away” at – it is pointless making sales as loss leaders – turnover is vanity, profit is sanity
- Ensure they are covering their costs before you offer commission; normally you would expect a sales person to bring in between 3 and 5 times their total costs. Total costs include fully salary, benefits, cars, phones, entertainment, petrol etc.
- Measure their activity, sales people are notoriously disorganised so get them to report to you weekly on people seen & spoken to, appointments made and taken, outcomes, number of phone calls, new prospects; make them focus on the right activity
- Ensure they are logging all of their information – contact, outcomes, conversations – on a central electronic database or contact management system – you need to be able to monitor and control this at all times.
- Ensure your sales people have time to sell – don’t use them as Account Managers because if you want new sales then a) a successful account manager will rarely be able to hunt effectively and b) they will use it as a reason not to sell. A Sales Person is by definition a HUNTER not a FARMER
- Define their role from a competency based perspective and appraise them regularly on it. Use Standard Industry Competencies such as Customer Orientation, Planning & Organising, Technical & Professional Knowledge, Initiative & Impact etc…ask me if you want more information on these.
- Define their goals and targets. These are two different areas. Targets are usually sales targets and measured in £. Goals are number of calls, appointments, how fast you expect them to get proposals out after meetings, how soon they must return calls and emails.
Defining the role gives advantages beyond the obvious; it sends a message that you want them to be dedicated to the role and what your expectations are. It clearly defines the parameters they are expected to operate within – and highlights where you would like them to exceed these.
From a HR perspective it also enables you to identify where they are falling down and address the area rather than say “you are not doing the job” you can say”you are building strong relationships but you are letting yourself down because you fail to send your reports in on time and don’t get back to Clients when you say you will”. This ultimately allows you to focus them – and if that fails – discipline or terminate where necessary.
Your Sales Team are the best investment you can make in your Business for the future – not only financially but strategically – so make sure the people representing your Business out there in the market place are EXACTLY the ones you would choose to be seen as Brand “YOU”!
Anyway, I'm signing off for the weekend now just wanted to leave any of you that do actually bother to read my ramblings with a little bit of food for thought.
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