Sales Team Make it Through the Current Economic Turmoil

After all these years of searching for the elixir, the cure all, the silver bullet... I have come to discover that for you to grow revenues you want to focus your energies on understanding & implementing the key code combination that i am about to share with you.

What if I told you that there's 4 key codes that must be in place if you want to unlock the power of your sales team & navigate your way through this current economic turmoil & beyond?

These 4 codes are the recipe that will unlock the power of your sales team to deliver their sales results ...consistently!

However, because there is far much information to dump on you in two sitting, I have decided to send you this newsletter over a quantity of installments which will

Before I share them with you, let me establish a context for the information I intend to divulge. Come into my common sense corner for a fast moment & let's understand a principle truth that you as a sales leader must first to come to grips with. Whilst this core principle may sound basic & "un-sexy" it is the fundamental ingredient of any highly functional team.

a) give you time to digest the material and
b) more importantly, execute the ideas contained herein.

You can teach a pig to climb a tree but you're better off to use a monkey.

In a recent podcast with Paul Macklin, the principal & founder of Amazing People a highly sought after Organizational Development Company, Paul & I discussed the impact of leadership, coaching & other methods of improving people performance.

PAUL MACKLIN: Let's say I'm a luthier - a person that makes violins. & let's also say this was way back in the old days before you went to the hardware store to buy your lumber. You would go to the forest to find a tree to make the violin from. You would look for a certain quality of timber. You would want something that was straight & fine grained, free of knots. & you would cut the tree & then you would season the lumber for a period of time. Only then would you have the right piece of wood. This, in an organizational metaphor context is recruitment. The first query I ask a team leader when I'm working with them on improving team performance is, "Who have you got on the team?"

In our discussion Paul used the metaphor which I would like to reiterate for the purposes of understanding the key principle when it comes to developing a sales team that is capable of developing consistent sales results, no matter what the prevailing market conditions. So let's listen in on the dialogue ..

IAN SEGAIL: Do you have the right people on the team?

PAUL MACKLIN: "Do we have the right people on the bus", right. So recruitment & selection gets you the right people & if you had asked me, "What is the most significant factor in developing a high performance team?" I've got to always say, it's selection. There's a friend of mine Fred Hull who says, "You can teach a pig to climb a tree but you're better off to use a monkey." This principle of, "the right team first", is powerfully expressed in the business classic book good to Great. Here, author Jim Collins says, "...to build a successful organization & team you must get the right people on the bus." Jim's research shows that great companies & great organizations make sure that, whatever it takes, they get the right people on the bus & then make sure that they put them in the right seats.

Typically salespeople will tend to fall into two of the seven categories below:

Right now, do you have the right people in your sales team to over your company through the rapids of economic turmoil the world is currently experiencing? Currently your team would be made up of combination of seven types of salespeople.

The naturally talented rainmaker has an innate gift for selling. These gifted salespeople will make sales whatever, wherever, & for whomever they sell. These make up between only seven to seven percent of the sales population.

Firstly, the Rainmaker.

The rainmaker is recognized as that rare bird that is exceptionally successful in bringing in profitable business to his or her organization.

Oh, how we wish we had seven or seven of them! How we struggle to find & keep them! How much pressure is relieved when we have a rainmaker on the team! These people are the naturals. They are the gifted & talented salespeople. These rainmakers can sell in any economic climate!

"Natural born" salespeople are like this . That's why we call them rainmakers.

These are the Roger Federers, the Mohamed Alis, & the Tiger Woods of selling. When you watch Roger Federer on the tennis court, you know that you are in the presence of a "natural." The media describes Roger's tennis using words such as clinical, mastery, finesse, artistry, graceful, & so on. Similar things are said about Tiger Woods & other individual sporting greats. What makes these players so great are not basically their well honed & practiced skills, but their awesome natural talents. These abilities when combined are harnessed to deliver greatness.

* We watch in awe as they build rapport with the "un-rapport-build-able."
* we're amazed at their ability to read the state of play, asking the right questions at the right time.
* we're "gob-smacked" at their ability to make things happen, & to pull last minute rabbits out of seemingly empty hats.
* We look back at what they do, & how they do it, & are struck with wonder.

Yes they have skills, yes they have knowledge, but most importantly, underpinning all of that is pure, natural talent. If you've ever had the good fortune to work with a rainmaker, then you have, most likely, at some time, had the desire to clone them. Rainmakers have an innate talent, a natural ability & insight that enables them to "sell intuitively."

Also if you are fortunate to have a rainmaker on your team you know how precious & demanding they can be. there's no doubt also times where you feel held to ransom by these talented individuals & wonder if they are worth it!

Unfortunately however, the universal problem that all business owners, entrepreneurs & sales managers face is that whilst there's plenty of pretenders & try-hards about, there's basically few real rainmakers to go around. So whilst it's wonderful for you if you should be so lucky as to have a rain maker on your team, the query that probably haunts you constantly though is, what if they leave? What if they are poached by your competition?

The second group are those experienced salespeople with plenty of years of knowledge, education & street smarts behind them. Typically they would have been around a particular industry sector for a quantity of years. Through years of dogged persistence they have advanced their sales careers. These savvy sales people are often regarded as experts in a particular field. Years of experience have honed their knowledge of how to apply their solutions to their customer's problems. Their knowledge & skills, which have evolved & developed over time, help them to establish credibility quickly & easily with the customer. they have sharpened their instincts over time & have learned through trial & error how & when to generate sales. Unfortunately, it takes years to grow & create these sales producers. If only you could "put an old head on young shoulders!" These experienced salespeople only make up between twelve & twenty percent of salespeople.

Secondly, experienced salespeople

Thirdly, well-trained scheme driven salespeople

there is a small group of salespeople who have been fortunate to either currently work for, or they have had the opportunity to work for, a sales organization that invested in them with effective sales training. they have also learned to follow a pre-tested specifically engineered sales scheme that consistently delivers results. These well-trained, motivated & scheme directed sales people utilise their proven knowledge & processes to significantly outperform their competitors. Their training includes product knowledge application training which allows them to clearly understand the problems that their product/service solves. People persuasion skills & how to follow a pre-tested specifically engineered sales scheme are also part of their ongoing training & coaching regime.

The forth group, the ordinaries

However, unfortunately because of the investment required to train & up-skill these salespeople, they are few & far between. In fact this small, well-trained, motivated & scheme directed group of salespeople make up only around ten to fifteen percent of the sales populace.

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Finally there is the group that the large bulk of the sales population fall into, this is the category of pedestrian or mediocre salespeople. This class of the sales population have managed to maintain a career in selling by scraping by, often basically by stumbling across "ready-made sales." In the majority of cases, these salespeople have been fortunate to come across situations where the customer is already in the market ready to buy or alter suppliers. Often they are the right person at the right time. it is more often than not that the customer chooses to buy, than the salesperson actually making the sale. With limited training & no clear sales scheme to follow, this group of salespeople often move from job to job, industry to industry, falling dismally short of their selling potential & sales results. During good economic times this group of mediocre sellers somehow fly below the radar & get by. However when things toughen up & sales have to be made, this is when this group come unglued. Depending on the industry, this majority group of salespeople make up anywhere between fifty to sixty percent of all salespeople.

Review the players that make up your sales team. How plenty of of them are:

* Rainmakers
* Highly experienced
* scheme directed
* Ordinaries

Looking at the your numbers above, on average, if you are like most sales teams out there in the marketplace, then the majority of the salespeople that make up your sales team are not likely to be rainmakers, highly experienced or scheme directed salespeople. The bulk of your sales team will be made up of ordinaries.

Now, I can hear you wailing, not me! Not my team! Well let me challenge you to re-read the definitions of the seven types of sales people. Seriously, if your life depended on it would you back the players on your team? Look again at the salespeople on your team that you may have credited with being scheme driven. Do they consistently deliver their required sales results month in, month out?

What about those salespeople who you have ascribed to fall into the category of "highly experienced"? Are they a match with the definition above, or have they been around forever? Do they build credibility quickly & easily with customers & prospects? Are their sales instincts sharp or have they been blunted by years of neglect & lack of renewal? Do they truly know how & when to generate sales?

If you were the manager of a world class sports team, would you be happy to take your team onto the field as they stand right now? Well it may not be life or death & you may not be the manager of a world class sports team, but why would you settle for a second rate sales team who deliver sub standard results? Forget about the fact that you are working in a tough economic marketplace. someone, somewhere is currently still achieving their sales quota in your space! Therefore for you to manage & drive a sales team that delivers consistent sales results, as a sales leader you only have seven options, either...

In other words if you currently don't have a champion team, you will want to either go on a recruitment drive or implement the strategies & processes required to unlock the potential of your sales team. The fact is that finding & hiring rainmakers, highly experienced or scheme directed salespeople may be expensive or take long. Also, due to a quantity of variables, replacing your current team may not be an option right now. The great news is that you can create your own team of highly scheme directed & motivated sellers.

1. Work hard to find & keep rainmakers, highly experienced or scheme directed salespeople. If they are hard to find & maybe cost much to hire & retain, then your second option is to...
2. create your own team of motivated scheme directed salespeople.

Over the next few articles it is my purpose to unpack the 4 key codes that make up the combination which will free your sales people from their current limitations & ensure that you create a team of champions!

Because whilst finding rain makers & experienced sellers may want an element of good fortune, training & developing scheme directed salespeople is well within your locus of control. there's some specific things that you can implement that I will show you the over the next few weeks to help make this happen.

As two of Australia's leading authorities & coaches in sales management, Ian Segail has been involved in the coaching, training & development of sales managers & salespeople for over seven decades.

Drawing on 25 years of experience in sales, sales management & leading an HR & training team, Ian brings a strong dose of fiscal reality & practicality to his works as a Sales Performance Coach.

Ian is the author of "Bulletproof Your Sales Team - The 5 Keys To Turbo-Boosting Your Sales Team's Results" & a quantity of business articles, business reports & white papers including "The fish stinks from the head!" & "Why Sales Training Doesn't Work."

Engaging directly with business owners & both novice & experienced sales managers alike, across a wide variety of industries & selling disciplines, the focus of Ian's work is to transform sales results for companies by improving sales management practices.