10 Points all Entrepreneurs must know about Sales

1. Define your TG (Target Group) as clearly as possible in terms of Income graphics, Demographics, Psychographics & Firmographics .

2. Demand Forecasting and Target Setting is a scientific sales growth process and should not be done under an euphoric outburst.

3. Tactical planning and Strategic thinking cannot be done by sitting in offices. Data obtained first hand on the field is the only way to prepare a Go-To market plan.

4. Salespersons are not magicians who can do what you cannot do. Please do it yourself before you ask your salesperson to do it. e.g. If you give a monthly target of 30 units of sales training per month for a specific salesperson , you should be able to sell at least 2 units per day before doing so.

5. Sales Teams need a Sales Manager to be managed. In a start up , the CEO has to perform this role. Learn Sales Management be fore you venture to do so.

6. Support your sales person by actively investing in Lead Generation , Complaint handling, Reference Selling, Supply Chain Logistics, Customer Service and Quality Assurance.

7. Ensure that you have statutory budget for Marketing in terms of percentage of gross sales performance management done. Brand building is a conscious exercise and cannot be taken up after one has earned enough money.

8. Rub shoulders with Salespersons on the field. Do everything possible to ensure that the salesperson is coached.

9. Empower the salesperson to take some decision on the field rather than moving up and down ever since.

10. Believe in the religion of sales.

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Customer Satisfaction and Content

Wife , Girlfriend and Customers are never satisfied. They love you so much that they always expect something better and new from you. While they do appreciate your last service, they immediately compare your next service with something else new that they see in the market and always wish that you should be the best!

It is important for Customer Service Professional not to feel frustrated on this syndrome.

What should one do to ensure Customer Satisfaction? Or

Should we go for Customer Contention first. Customer Satisfaction will follow.

Customer Contention sounds like a more practical concept to me. Contention is for the moment and satisfaction is the sum total of contentions over a period of time.

Customer Satisfaction = Sum( Contention 1 + Contention 2+ ……. + Contention “n”)

In a nut shell , Customer contention is a journey which culminates into customer satisfaction. We are all looking for a life time value from a customer and hence would not like the journey of contention to end. Whenever it does end, if it has to, let the customer decide whether they were satisfied or not!

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Unleash the Power of your Sales Team

Powerful Sales Team dissipate a lot of their positive energy in squandering their focus over multiple market segments and scattered prospect maps. The term “Unleash” means that somewhere the management is hindering the process of their realizing their full potential. The question is how to unleash?

Let us look at the following steps:

1. Right Person for the Right Job
2. Hunt in packs. All alone you can never catch your prey
3. Do not allow your sales team to die of indigestion
4. Be a mother to your sales team every morning and a father to them every evening.
5. Celebrate small victories with your sales team

Right person for the Right Job

Sales is a generic world which demands one or more of the following competencies:

Prospecting, Sales Presentation, Sales Negotiation, Tele calling, Digital marketing, Branding, Sales Metrics Planning, Sales Closing, Lead Generation, CRM, Sales Funnel Management, Sales Dashboard Management, Sales MIS, Complaint Handling, When we employ someone in Sales Dept, let us allocate their specific function rather than expecting them to do everything in sales.

Hunt in Packs.

It is very difficult to catch your prey when you go to the jungle all alone. Build a Sales Team and not a bunch of salespersons only.

Do not allow your sales team to die of indigestion.

Indigestion rather than starvation is the cause of death of most salespersons today. There is so much information in the market and so many types of prospects that many new salespersons lose focus and track in trying to satisfy all possible market segments.

Be a mother and father to your sales team

A sales team which does not see their sales manager everyday at least twice is bound to either get indisciplined or lose their track of work. The Sales Manager is very caring like a mother in the morning and very demanding like a father in the evenings.

Celebrate small victories with your sales team

It is important that you celebrate every small achievement of sales teams. Do not wait for the big day because you may lose many of them by that time. Budgets may vary but victory celebrations should be omnipresent with a sales team.

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Discuss, Dialogue & Deal with Customers

Salespersons must understand that if they want to deal with customers successfully they should initiate a discussion through a process of dialogue rather than debate and for sure derail a sales training!

What happens if you debate with a customer?

1. You win the debate. ( Customer will develop an ego problem and will never buy from you)
2. Customer wins the debate. (Customer will never buy from you)

So it is clear that debating with customers does not lead you anywhere in life even if you have very strong points in your favour in the said debate.

What is the advantage if salesperson enters into a discussion through a dialogue and avoids the debate?

Example:

Customer – I am sure that your product is not of the right quality. The look and feel itself tells me everything.

Bad salesperson – Sir, let me prove to you that my product is of the highest quality sales audit due to the following reasons : a) ISO certified b) ISI mark from govt of India c) Customer installed base of 2000 d) Complaint history is zero e) so many good features in my product.

Good Salesperson – Sir, you are such an experienced person. You must be right in your judgement. What kind of look and feel are you looking at? For fulfilling the need in question, what kind of product are you using right now? How is its performance? etc etc These questions will make the customer talking and you have already started a dialogue with the customer market penetration strategy.

Advantage :

When customer talks

1. It helps the salesperson conduct his “Need Analysis”.
2. Customer raises objections and the salesperson gets an opportunity to handle the “Objections”.
3. Salesperson gets an opportunity to understand the customers perspective so that he can explain / demo his product with the right perspective. e.g. A customer buying washing machine has little space in his balcony to use the front loading option and the salesperson starts lauding the advantage of a front loading washing machine because there was no dialogue. Finally the salesperson lost the sale.
4. Salesperson will get an opportunity to close the sale.
5. Sales management training call will not get derailed.

As a fresher in Eureka Forbes, where I started my career in Sales, we were made to take an oath: ” Thou shall never debate with a customer. Your job is to discuss with the customer through a dialogue.!”

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10 Points all Entrepreneurs must know about Sales

1. Define your TG (Target Group) as clearly as possible in terms of Income graphics, Demographics, Psychographics & Firmographics .

2. Demand Forecasting and Target Setting is a scientific process and should not be done under an euphoric outburst.

3. Tactical planning and Strategic thinking cannot be done by sit ting in offices. Data obtained first hand on the field is the only way to prepare a Go-To market plan.

4. Salespersons are not magicians who can do what you cannot do. Please do it yourself before you ask your salesperson to do it. e.g. If you give a monthly target of 30 units of sales per month for a specific salesperson , you should be able to sell at least 2 units per day before doing so.

5. Sales Teams need a Sales Manager to be managed. In a start up , the CEO has to perform this role. Learn Sales Management be fore you venture to do so.

6. Support your sales person by actively investing in Lead Genera tion , Complaint handling, Reference Selling, Supply Chain Lo gistics, Customer Service and Quality Assurance.

7. Ensure that you have statutory budget for Marketing in terms of percentage of gross sales done. Brand building is a conscious ex ercise and cannot be taken up after one has earned enough money.

8. Rub shoulders with Salespersons on the field. Do everything possible to ensure that the salesperson is coached.

9. Empower the salesperson to take some decision on the field rather than moving up and down ever since.

10. Believe in the religion of sales.

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5 Pre requisites in a Salesperson

Small and Medium Enterprises often fail to solve the problem of recruiting the right salesperson who can be retained in the system to give right sales growth results first time, every time. This makes the whole process of forming a sales team so much more painful and expensive.

What are the minimum qualities that we should look for in a new sales person?

1. Listening Skills : My salesperson should not be a great talker. He should have the capability to make the customer talk and listen well.
2. Story Telling: Customers like to listen “Facts” weaved in a story. Blank facts, if not laced in a story, sounds very boring to customers.
3. Organized in life: Salespersons must be very organized with their data and information.
4. Self Discipline: This is of paramount importance. Self discipline in life with time, papers, documents etc is very important for a salesperson.
5. Wall-Climber: The tenacity and sagacity to look for solutions even when you are facing a wall so that you are able to climb the “wall” and get over it to move on is very important for a salesperson with good sales strategy.

What are the qualities that the HR dept is supposed to induce in a sales person after they join your organization?

 A sales belief system which will “install” the following :

• Lead Generation
• Lead Engagement
• Sales Negotiations
• Sales Funnel Management
• Customer Satisfaction Index
• Customer Service
• Customer Service Recovery
• Customer Relationship Management
• Farming a customer transaction into a Life Time Value

When we look for all this in a salesperson even before he or she is inducted into the system , one of the following two will happen:

1. You will get a salesperson with a very strong belief system which may or may not be aligned to your organizations belief system.
2. You will never be satisfied with the kind of salesperson that you get because even Lord Krishna will not be able to exhibit all the qualities that you look for in a salesperson.

Let us be more pragmatic and ask ourselves as to what we want before we go out to advertise and interview for new talent.

If you are still perplexed on this issue, please feel free to call us through our URL: htttp//www.consult4sales.com

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A Sales Trainer should Know

A professional sales trainer cannot bask in the glory of past performance and train people on the art of selling without leading by example.

  

You can either do it or not do it. “Climb the Wall!”

These days I find many sales trainers in the market who train on Selling skills by reading a few books of the subject matter and lacing the same up with good English and Oratory skills. Channel sales management This is a farce. Neither can you learn swimming and definitely you cannot teach swimming to someone by reading books. You gonna go to the water to experience what swimming is all about. Sales is also something similar.

The other day I met a retired Colonel from Indian Army imparting a program on Selling Skills. When I encountered him with this query of mine, he replied : ” If I can sell death to my soldiers, I do understand selling”. I ,really seek your response to this.

On another instance I met an Action Coach, an ex-banker and a prolific trainer in General Management. He was also taking a session on Sales and his reply to my query was : “What is the big deal man? I have handled things which are much more difficult, what is there in Sales!” . I felt hurt and then pity at those who get trained on sales under this Action Coach sales funnel management.

Let me give you a check list to select your Sales Trainer:

1. Must have hands on experience of the relevant form of selling for at least 10 years. ( Relevant forms: Direct, Key Account Mgt., Channel Sales, Institutional Sales, Modern Retail Trade)
2. Should be able to practice whatever the trainer preaches at least in a pilot program Sales Performance Management .
3. Should have at least 1000 hours plus of training exposure in corporate. This claim should be backed up by evidence.
4. Should share tool kits and selling aids with salespersons being trained.
5. Should track KRA’s of the training program for at least 3 months after the sales training programs

I am writing this blog with no malice towards anyone. This is purely an observation which is being documented for the benefit of those HR professionals who do the job of choosing the sales trainer for their sales teams.

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This and That will lead to Those

In Sales Management, like any other profession, focus is of paramount importance. Every sales professional has to continuously think of new ways of doing the same things differently. It is not about competing with others, it is all about creating new ways of doing things what others continue doing in the same old fashion.

I often find even successful brands which choose from a bit of “This” and a bit of “That” from the market. Such choices between “This” and “That” have never evolved from their DNA so the same will never apply to them just because they have suitably evolved for their competitors. Lets learn to focus on our customers , listen to their voice and customize solutions which suits them rather than copy a bit of “This” and “That” from the market.

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“Jab we Meet” our Dealer

In Channel of Distribution mode of selling, very often the Sales Manager is not very clear on his precise role when he visits the dealer. The following checklist will help you conduct your dealer visits well:

1. Check physical stock to calculate “Tertiary Sale” at the given counter and ensure that the next “Secondary” sale to the dealer is at least equivalent to the “Tertiary” just calculated.
2. Visual Merchandising status
3. “Counter share” for your brand vis a vis other competitors (Category wise and SKU wise)
4. The counter boy should be well trained on your products and its USP.
5. Collect all possible secondary data from the dealer. e.g. a CP and bathroom fitting dealer should be able to give list of plumbers, architects, builders and civil contractors
6. Discuss and assess dealers involvement in your business. If his mindset is not there, he will never do good business for your products.
7. Collaborate with dealer to understand ways and means of increasing your business at his counter in this quarter. He knows it best!
8. Listen to all the dealers outstanding woes.e.g. pending credit notes etc
9. BTL activities status for your brand and also for competing brands.
10. ATL plans of the company in future.

When you are in the mode of Channel of Distribution Selling, beyond a point that you have already established your dealer network, it is more a function of regularly meeting your dealer (channel partner) and ensuring that your goods and services are made available for further distribution to the consumer.

Next time you visit your dealer, keep this checklist in mind and intimate to me whether it helped. You are free to further add or delete to this list so that all of us in Channel Sales learn from the same.

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The 4 Needs of a Customer

1. Need to be heard

All customers feel that they should be heard by the brand owner, irrespective of the fact whether the brand owner will act on the same or not sales training.

2. Need to be understood

Customers feel good when their perspective is understood by the brand owner.

3. Need to matter

If the marketer implements any feedback from the customer, the latter feels happy to realise that his views matter to the marketer. It is therefore a good idea to send a Thank you SMS or email or letter to all such customers who send their suggestions to the marketer, irrespective of the fact whether one implements them or not Sales Performance Management. 

4. Need to be emancipated

This is the highest level of customer expectation wherein he now wants to become a member of the think tank of the brand and feels great to be consulted on any brand issue.

It is now important for everyone to ask themselves whether their business plans taken into consideration these 4 needs of a customer cold calls training.

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