PromoKitchen

Adages in sales have existed as long as salespeople.

• Plan your work, work your plan
• Inspect what you expect.
• Fail to plan, plan to fail.

Adages like these are ingrained in the minds of most sales professionals, and many a sales manager rightly employ them as an integral aspect of their professional belief system.

Salespeople and managers alike agree that successful selling is an activity-based endeavor.  Without consistent and effective activity, sales do not follow.  Activity review remains the single best predictor of success for any salesperson, and any effective sales manager integrates some method of activity review as a part of their salesperson dashboarding.

While there is very little room for discussion about the need for activity, there is significant debate afoot about what should be considered as acceptable activity in a salespersons workday, and much of the debate has to do with social media.

Granted, the opportunity for time spent unproductively on social media sites is extraordinary, and it is difficult to differentiate between active prospecting using these tools and the umpteenth view of an angry cat video without micromanagement, but, social media has proven itself to be an effective and efficient means of acquiring information pertinent to any salespersons selling efforts.

So, what’s a sales manager to do?  This is where the demographic challenge of social media starts to reveal itself.

It’s not a stretch to assume that sales managers are generally older than the salespeople they manage.  While this age-gap is not usually considered a hindrance to the manager-employee relationship, it’s a huge issue when the manager doesn’t have a solid understanding of the correct and effective use of social as a part of their salespersons toolkit.  This is most frequently the result of a manager not personally and/or actively participating on these platforms; many managers can coach a salesperson on the finer points of the hugely ineffective cold-call, precious few are able to identify a buying prospect and craft an effective LinkedIn InMail message for their salespeople to deliver, much less determine the appropriate social listening schedule for their salesperson to follow for a target prospect.

Consequently, a quiet bullpen, often the bane of any selling organization, is commonplace more and more often, as salespeople use tools other than the telephone to achieve their activity targets.  When these results don’t equate to revenue, the knee-jerk reaction is to surmise that the quiet bullpen has been the result of a lack of activity.

Until this older segment of sales managers evolve their skill set or are ultimately replaced by younger, more social savvy leaders, sales organizations will continue to struggle with effective activity creation and management, as expecting your salespeople to be more effective by making more cold calls is merely a path that will lead to a merry-go-round of firing and hiring.

The following article was written by Steve Pons, vice president – national sales, at Accolade Promotion Group (APG), a division of Golf Town Canada Inc.

We all agree that good people are what differentiate a good business from an exceptional business. Jim Collins’ widely read book Good to Great talks a lot about getting the “right people on the bus” and the “wrong people off the bus.”

But what I find myself often struggling with is accurately identifying who the “right people” truly are.

This is nothing new. Companies spend a ton of time and energy on evaluating talent and determining if potential employees have the proper skills and are the right fit culturally. We all know about candidate filtering methods such as the Zappos’ famous “Offer” that actually pays people to quit before they start. We also know of many companies that ask people to complete a questionnaire to see if their aptitudes and personality traits match the values and personality of the organization. (At APG, we utilize such a tool in combination with getting people to meet several colleagues and managers throughout the business to see if there is a good fit)

Even with employee screening and interesting sociological methods such as “The Offer” companies still say their number one challenge is finding and retaining the right people…the best people.

I used to believe that the only indicator for someone being successful in any business was if they were well organized and if they displayed a confidence in themselves, what they were talking about, what their passion was, etc. I’ve realized however that those are only the traits that appear when someone has a much more important quality: Self-Awareness.

When reading stories about business success involving people such as Isadore Sharp, Tony Heish, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffet, all of them in my mind have one consistent trait. They are very self-aware and adapt their business approach to not only their client audience but to those who work with them or for them.

Over the years, I’ve seen a handful of people in the corporate merchandise services business (all of whom I would classify as successful) adapt their style to suit a variety of situations: C-level client conversations, asking team members to work extra hours to meet a deadline and negotiating win-win results with challenging clients or suppliers. In each circumstance the person was not only aware of who they were speaking with and what they were trying to achieve but also how to diffuse tension, instil confidence and make the other party feel comfortable that the salesperson was in control of the situation.

As Matt Dixon speaks of in his book The Challenger Sale, customers respond to confidence and integrity. Salespeople that are confident in sharing what they know (and how that will bring real value to the client’s business) and have the integrity to admit where they are not experts often win over sales reps that unilaterally say “we can do anything!” A self-aware salesperson identifies their shortcomings and proactively seeks out ways to either learn what they feel they should know or to ask others to be a resource for them. They seek to become a greater expert to help teach their clients and provide real insights they may not have considered.

Gone are the days that salespeople could use their greater knowledge of the products, supply chain, partnerships, etc. to demand a higher price. Clients can (and do) all their research often before the sales interaction starts. Virtually every sales rep has already seen this transition in our business over the last 5 years. A self-aware rep has recognized and adapted to this change and has evolved their approach. They seek out guidance and coaching when presented with any challenge but don’t rely on training to be provided by the organization before they take action.

In short, many people may pride themselves on being excellent judges of character and indeed many of you may have had excellent success in hiring and developing talent. But I offer you this test: ask your salespeople to rank their strengths and weaknesses while you independently do the same for them. How do you feel both results would compare? In my experience the reps with the greatest alignment with their manager’s assessment are usually the most successful. (In fact, they are often harder on themselves than their managers are on them!)

While many in the promotional products business feel that growing their salesforce (with a book of business the rep brings with them of course) is their best way to success, I would take an eager self-aware salesperson any day of the week.

Bonus link: Why hasn’t “The Offer” caught on in business?