Most of the work I do is based around the training and development of sales people and sales managers who have specifically decided that sales is the career for them. Occasionally I am asked to provide sales training for groups whose main role is not to sell but to provide a service in a profession that they have chosen to follow for example law, accountancy or management consultancy – and that’s when the fun starts.
The first rule of training is not to have prisoners in the room – you know the people who just don’t want to be there – well; I now have a room full of professional prisoners. Their body language is particularly striking, if not in the foetal position, they certainly wish they were. So, why is this, why is sales training such an anathema to the professions? As I hand out their copies of the value based, consultative selling program it is as if I was offering the “Del Boy” manual of dodgy car dealer selling. But this is how many professionals view selling – an arm twisting exercise using barely ethical means to coerce the customer into buying something they never wanted in the first place.
The truth about good consultative sales practice couldn’t be farther from this description.
• Working with the customer to help them solve complex business problems thereby adding value to their businesses.
• Becoming their trusted advisor – an independent business mind to be sought out for advice in challenging situations.
• An engaging and knowledgeable industry professional, regularly keeping them up to date with key developments and competitive information.
So, there is obviously a psychological aspect to the professions distaste for sale, and this does permeate throughout the activities that go with selling. As an aside, if you think you can avoid selling, think again. Most professionals have to do more and more selling as they rise up the organization and an inability to be proficient in this element of the role will become a serious block to further progress. So any sales training for professionals must include some work on beliefs and values as related to selling. Without this work, what follows next – up skilling in sales competence – will never be implemented, there will be no behavioural change. And without a behavioural change, there is nothing to show after the sales workshop.
Assuming we have laid the foundations for the behavioural change, how can we make the actual sales skills parts more relevant and acceptable to professional people? Well, as a mathematician, I am probably not from a background of your normal sales person and I certainly struggled with some of the techniques used by sale trainers to get me to sell. Especially excruciating is the role play done at the front of the class in plain view of all your peers. Think Christians, lions and Rome – you get the picture I have seen grown men reduced to tears by aggressive sales trainers looking for blood.
So the approach I take is based on a logical flow, with plenty of discussion and reflection with the aim of each participant building their own personal action plan to succeed. And what does success look like? Firstly, there has to be a financial benefit, otherwise organizations wouldn’t pay for the training. But there are other ways that success can be measured for instance new client contacts, new areas of business and more opportunities to bid for work. Being able to set milestones and monitor progress towards more business is an important part of ensuring success in the training program. And what happens if some people are succeeding and some just cannot seem to drive additional business? What is the organizational response to the problem – more training, a stern warning or are there better ways to drive success (more of this later).
Back to the logical flow and the types topics that need to be covered in any selling skills program. The basics tend to be customer contact and building rapport, questioning and listening skills, presenting a proposal for change, objection handling, negotiating and closing. But here’s a piece of good news, closing is just part of the logical progression of a sale and doesn’t need too much work if the building blocks are in place earlier in the discussions.
The parts of sales training, often ignored, are around planning and really understanding the value you bring to your customers. In terms of planning, I like to think of it in four levels:
• Portfolio planning – looking at all your potential customers, how do you decide where to spend your time? Since as professionals we can only sell an hour of our time once (in theory, but I do understand that some professionals are Time Lords and can create multiple hours from a single hour!)
• At an account or individual customer level – what knowledge do you need to approach them, what areas of potential business could you expect and who do you contact?
• Opportunity level – so you have found a specific opportunity for your services, how do you manage this through to a successful conclusion, what strategy and tactics can you use?
• Call level – yes, even professional need to pick up the phone! How can you structure the call and how do you measure success when you put the phone down?
Most professionals I have spoken to don’t think like this, but at this point sales skills are as important as your professional skills, maybe more so.
Looking at the question of what value you bring to your customers, try answering these questions:
• Why you (you/your practice) – why should the customer use your services or not those of the competition.
• What’s your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) – can you crispy and clearly define this to your potential customers. How does this differ to the USP of your main competitors?
• How does your customer buy professional services – what parameters do they use to measure your offer?
• What value do your professional services give the customer’s business – all business purchases are driven by a business initiative created by a business need/problem. How clearly can you articulate the value you offering and the problem you are solving?
The question of value often comes back to the whole distaste for selling, normally covered by two approaches under the heading of marketing:
• If we get our branding right, and ensure all the literature has consistent colours, logos and messages, the customer will come to us.
• We don’t need to sell, we network at events and hand our business cards out.
Both ideas are fine, but at the end of the day someone still has to pick up the phone and talk to people. There is no getting away from this painful truth. And by the way, when you are on the phone or face to face with the customer, you will need to be selling!
The whole question of selling also encompasses the way practices are often organized in silos, with specific practice areas/individual professionals owning the customer. In presentations to groups of partners, I often ask “Who owns your customers”. Interestingly, they will often claim it is the practice, but actually this isn’t the case and leads to many problems around cross selling services into companies. I have often heard an individual in, say, litigation state that they won’t let their Intellectual Property people into their customers. Furthermore, what happens when someone leaves (where does the customer go?) and when recruiting are you expecting people to bring customers with them? This then opens into how CRM (Customer Relationship management) tools are use, if at all, to track potential customers over time.
In summary, professionals certainly have to sell, especially as they rise up the organization but they themselves are not well served by most sales training. Earlier in the article, I posed the question “what happens if some people are succeeding and some just cannot seem to drive additional business? What is the organizational response to the problem – more training, a stern warning or are there better ways to drive success.” My belief is that different professionals need to be treated as individuals and “one size fits all training is not appropriate”. IT is absolutely fine to cover the basics of the sales approach in a workshop, but the fine tuning of an individual’s approach has to take place in one to one coaching sessions following the training workshop. If professional practices are serious about developing their people (and hence their revenue streams), money spent on coaching is money well spent.
If you would like to discuss a different approach to the problem then please contact me, John Fowler, john@executive coaching services.co.uk for further details.
Author Resource:
John is an executive coach, sales and management trainer who has worked with many companies in the field of selling services and solutions to corporate clients. John can be contacted at john@executive-coaching-services.co.uk and his site is http://www.executive-coaching-services.co.uk
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