Let me start by saying that I have been traveling and haven’t posted for 2 weeks. I am back now and have plenty of new sales experiences to write about. Thank you all that have sent me e- mails and notes asking if I was OK. I am GREAT!
I have been in meetings and training classes over the last 2 weeks and have been working a lot with some awesome reps. As I have been talking to them to find some solid common traits that define “success” I was elated to find the high percentage of the reps ALWAYS walk into a sales call with something in their hands.
My elation quickly subsided as we talked further. I first asked them WHAT they carried in. I was really hoping that they would tell me about literature, pitch books, samples, demo tools, laptops, ipads, or things that I have never thought of. NOPE, no such luck, the vast majority told me they carried in their business card.
Now don’t get me wrong, a business card is a good solid business tool in and it is important that you leave one behind (I will do another post as to when to use your business card) but a business card isn’t much of a SALES TOOL unless you happen to be selling business cards!
As I was talking to the reps either individually or in groups I asked them what they use to SELL with. Some told me they had demos on YouTube that they logged onto to show their customers what they had to offer. This is a GREAT idea but one that can sometimes backfire. Several of the reps that talked about YouTube had stories about customers with no internet, or connections so slow that YouTube didn’t run. One rep told me about a prospect that went ballistic when he asked to use his computer to show his product.
In the end, every one of these reps agreed that they should carry in their laptop or “pad” to avoid these problems.
There were some other methods of showing products that some of the other reps told me about. One used his “smart phone” another had a portable DVD player he used with a DVD he made for himself.
Like I said before, these were the exception, the majority of the reps carried only their business card into the presentation with them. When I asked these reps how they did their presentation I got the answer I expected. They all said they TALK the prospect through the presentation. They describe their product and “PAINT VERBAL PICTURES” for their customers.
As I was talking to the reps that only carried in cards I asked them if there was something that they could carry in other than their business card that would make their presentation more effective. EVERY ONE OF THEM SAID YES! My next question was, “WHY DON”T YOU?” I got the 2 answers I expected from this question. #1) “I don’t want to look like a sales rep” #2) “I look less threatening if I have nothing in my hands”
I tried to explain that at some point the prospect is going to catch on to the fact that they are there to sell something. They all agreed I was right. I then tried to explain that when the time comes to do the selling they were at a disadvantage because they didn’t have the BEST tools to get the job done with them. Again they all agreed. So now when I asked them, “If you know all this, then WHY do you still go in empty handed?” the unanimous answer was “If we had something in our hands we wouldn’t even get to the presentation, the customer would throw us out immediately”
It was at this point that I realized the true problem, it really had nothing to do with the tools they carried in, and it was all about how prepared they were to start the sale. It was about their introduction, their elevator speech, their attitude and confidence in their ability to get the customers attention and keep it.
I found a great training opportunity for these reps. We worked on their introductions and their elevator speeches. They now have an elevator speech that compels the prospect to ask you for more information. They have a presentation ready and are all on their “A” game! They all agreed to bring in ALL the tools they will need to WOW the prospect.
At the end of each meeting I asked the reps why they thought it was so easy to change their minds about carrying in sales tools. All but 3 of them answered, “I knew what I was doing wasn’t right, I was just afraid to do something different”.
Like most problems in sales FEAR is the root cause and confidence, knowledge, and practice is the cure!
Lorin
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