A solid sales team is the cornerstone to any successful sales organization. In today’s financial climate, salespeople are facing obstacles that have impacted their income and their success for the last few years. We recently interviewed sales managers to find out what were their “TOP 3″ priorities for their sales teams. Here is a brief summary of their answers:
- The top priority mentioned in the survey was for their sales teams to have and maintain a positive attitude in spite of a tough market.
- Priority #2 was the desire for their sales teams to learn to ask better questions to build trust, find out prospect’s needs, and probe to find out the “question behind the question.” Many expressed the need for their teams to learn to dig deeper in the questioning process. This skill helps uncover problems that the average salesperson is not aware of.
- The third most frequent answer was getting new business. The sales managers see a need for their teams to learn to prospect more effectively to fill their pipelines. One of the largest obstacles facing these teams is learning to get past gatekeepers and setting appointments with the right person.
15 – 20% of the managers we interviewed expressed that their teams were doing well.
The rest of the sales managers polled said their business was flat or up slightly. The
felt they were headed in the right direction. Many companies are still struggling.
Below are actual comments from sales managers we interviewed in the following
industries: automotive, manufacturing, software, construction, advertising, financial,
insurance, defense contractor, retail, commercial and residential real estate, pest
control, telecommunications and professional services,
1. Having a positive attitude: specific comments from the managers.
- “Our salespeople must be positive about self and life, confident in their abilities, motivated.”
- “Our sales staff is resistant to change.”
- “Our salesforce needs to find the courage to contact prospects; they must take the first step and go beyond ‘customer service’.”
- “20% of our staff makes 80% of the sales. They have the positive attitude. The rest struggle.”
- “Our salesforce must have the right mindset to succeed. Attitude is 90% of the deal.”
- “Our industry has been hit hard. We’ve lost a lot of our sales staff. It is difficult to hire new people. It’s very hard to make money in our business today.”
- “Our sales team must have an attitude of a “trusted advisor” not just a salesperson.”
- “Our salespeople must have a positive attitude and WANT to sell.”
- “Our industry is down. We have to work on our attitude daily.”
- “Our industry has been down the last few years. People have a negative view of our industry. We sell ‘intangibles’ and it’s tough ‘fighting the battle’ every day.”
- “Having a positive attitude consistently is our #1 issue. Our industry is down and we have to be up.”
- “Our staff needs more courage to call on new prospects
2. Asking Questions:
- “Our people have to be able to “create pain” by asking the right questions.”
- “We have to determine the different roles of the prospects and adjust our presentation to each person.”
- “Our salespeople must get better at asking questions to build rapport and trust so the customer will invite us into their home. We used to “just sell furniture,” Now we help a customer with the ‘look of a room.’ When we get to this level of discussion our sale is 5 – 7 times greater than when they buy a piece of furniture in our showroom.”
- “Our salesforce needs to understand the customer buying criteria. We must do research online. We have to build trust with prospect to understand how their business decisions are made.”
- “We must use a consultative approach. Because all prospects are different, our presentations are different. Each prospect has different needs, wants and problems. We need to ask in-depth questions. We have to ask the ‘question behind the question.’ We have to probe their responses to us.”
- “Our route people say they ‘don’t have time to sell’. They are too busy delivering. They lack the confidence and skills to connect with our customers.”
- “Our conversations have changed from selling furniture to helping a customer ‘utilize space.’ We have to get better at asking questions to determine their needs, wants and desires. We must go beyond the obvious when doing this.”
- “We have to get better at asking questions and LISTEN to the answers. We talk too much. We must listen to UNDERSTAND.”
3. Getting new business
- “Our biggest challenge is getting past the gatekeeper.”
- “My sales team should spend 50% of their time prospecting, 40% of their time following through with the sales process, and 10% on paperwork.”
- “We have to increase market share and find new business. We must get better at EARNING referrals.”
- “Our salesforce has to keep the prospects coming into the funnel and through our pipeline.”
- “We are in a niche market and focus on select prospects. We have to be really good at how we approach people because we have a limited audience to call on.”
- “Our image with many people is that we are more expensive than our competition. As a result, prospects buy from our competition and don’t even check us out. We have to convince them to give us a chance.”
- “We sell a commodity. People can buy what we sell from a lot of companies. Our staff must get better at selling value AND relationships up front, so we can get quality appointments. We have to get our prospects out of a transaction mentality.”
The companies that were doing the best were helping their people “fine tune” their sales skills. These folks were doing well financially. The majority of these companies had a sales process in place that was constantly being practiced and reinforced.
The companies that had no formal training in place, were far more likely to be
struggling. These companies spent a larger part of their time working on the attitude of their staff, and much less time on skills training.
How are the SALES MANAGERS doing??? Look forward to Part 2 of this survey in
next week’s newsletter, where I share the sales manager’s responses to: “What are
your biggest challenges today?”
