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Your sales force should be focused

Focus your sales force on closing more qualified leads. Too often, businesses demand that salespeople just “do the numbers” in terms of calls, appointments and demonstrations.

I’ve been there and done it myself, for years. How frustrating it is to sit in front of some middle manager who has no intention of buying what you’re selling.

Dan Kennedy says that your sales force should not get involved in telephone calls or meetings unless the prospect is already 80-100% committed to buying from their company. I think Dan is over-stretching the point, but it’s a well-made point. If your company needs salespeople to close the deals, then your marketing systems should drive a continuous stream of well-qualified leads.

Let’s assume that all the other techniques on this site are doing just that! What can we do to ensure the sales force does the best possible job in closing these leads?

  • Salespeople in the same company often perform very differently. The products and service are the same. The marketplace is the same. There may be geographical or territorial differences. But that cannot explain the often wide variation in results. So what is it, then? Put simply, most salespeople don’t know how to perform like the top performer. Why? Because no-one’s ever told them how the top performer does it!

  • Capture the secrets of your top performers. Tell everyone else how they do it. Persuade them all to do it the same way. Watch their performances improve overnight.

  • Your top performers may not even know how they do it. Go on sales calls with them. Observe how they do it for yourself. Listen to your sales force on the telephone. How do they create a rapport with the prospect? What do they say? How do they sound? How do they respond to questions? How do they handle objections? How do they close the sale? When do they close the sale?

  • You can’t sell to someone if you don’t have rapport with them. One of the best ways to establish rapport is to speak the same way they do. Speak at the same volume and speed and if you want to have some real fun, breathe at the same rate they’re breathing. Sounds weird? That’s why most people don’t do it and just get average results.

  • Ask questions. It’s the best way to establish your customers’ wants and needs – and meeting wants and needs is the key to good selling. Don’t start telling people about what’s great about your product or service until you’ve asked questions to find out what’s important to them about what you’re selling.

  • Learn to love objections. If someone says that what you’re offering is too expensive or they can’t afford it, you’ve virtually sold it to them. Why? Because they’re telling you they want it. But there's an objection – money. You just need to re-establish the value of what you’re offering. Get together with your colleagues and come up with the most frequent objections that you all hear. Prepare great answers to them. This can increase sales by 20-40%.


A Low-cost Action Plan for Your Sales Force

1. Identify the one or two top performers in your sales force.

2. Spend an hour with each, going over exactly what they say and how they say it with their prospects. Opening statements, gathering information, identifying ‘hot buttons’ and benefits, trial closing, objection handling, closing. Whatever they do and however they do it.

3. If they can’t give you the whole process because “it just happens”, then arrange to go on a couple of sales calls with each. Observe how they do it, how the prospects respond, how they handle each situation.

4. Create a ‘script book’ of the key phrases they use.

5. Arrange a session with your whole sales force to run through the script book. Explain this is not so they can do it ‘parrot fashion’. Say that you’ve uncovered some key phrases which have worked well recently. You want to share this with everyone. It will help everyone to succeed. Put it all across as a positive thing, not a criticism of past performance.

6. Make sure your sales force leaves the session committed to putting it into practice. Make it easy for them by giving them a laminated card version of the script book to keep and use.


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