While driving to a meeting today I was on the phone with an old training partner of mine. Last week he was at a trade show and ran into a rep that he and I had trained several years ago. My friend relayed this story to me and I thought it is worth sharing.
The rep has long since left the company that my friend and I trained him at and was talking about the company he is with now. He told my friend that when he went to work with his new company they showed him their sales process. The rep immediately questioned many of their basic concepts.
I found this very funny when I was told this because I know how I feel when a sales rep questions what I am teaching them. However in this case I found that the basics of selling were stronger than the concepts of the company.
The rep was told to walk in empty handed. When my friend and I teach we tell reps to ALWAYS have something in your hand to show. One of my friends favorite saying is, “Show a lot of “stuff” to a lot of people”.
This rep said that he started bringing in one of the products with him. He said his manager questioned him from the start why he was bringing it in. All he told my friend was that he remembered hearing over and over, “Show a lot of stuff to a lot of people” so he told his manager that. The rep said his manager thought he was crazy but let him do it.
After delivering his sales presentation on the very first call the customer said, “Let me see that thing”. In about 5 minutes the sale was made. His sales manager was stunned to say the least. The rep then said he brought the sample in with him the rest of the day and had the best day the sales manager had ever seen a new rep have making 3 sales.
To make a long story short (and it was a long story, my friend and I were on the phone for over an hour) the rep continued to carry his product in and his sales were off the charts. He said that after only 3 weeks with the company he had made his quarterly quota. All this as a new rep!
After the first month the sales manager started showing all his reps how to carry the product in and use it to make sales. It only took a short time before the manager had the top producing team in the country.
Needless to say I was feeling pretty good as my friend was telling me all this. But then he told me the rep was asked to speak at their national meeting about how he was taught to carry in the products and use them as sales tools. The best part of all is he told us that he mentioned my friend and me by name as the trainers that changed his life.
I don’t know what product or service you sell, I do know selling. A customer likes to see what they are buying, it may just be a stack of papers as with an insurance policy or it may be a small nut and bolt from a findings company. Showing what you have makes your product REAL to the customer. Spending money on a description is a lot harder than spending money on something you can see and feel.
If you are walking in empty handed, try filling your hands with products or handouts, or a pitch book. Something that a customer can relate to better than just air being forced over vocal cords resulting in sounds that we form into words!
Lorin
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