Author: Sienna Anderson

Being in sales is a very tricky business.

The formulas often change, skills need to be acquired, strategies formed and planned.

How many of us have been accosted by a sales person and we got so turned off the moment he uttered his first two sentences? How many of us have actually been lured slowly and find ourselves purchasing without planning to?

This has happened countless times to some of us and perhaps a few times to others. Let us face it. We often tend to avoid sales people like the plague. Why? Because we have encountered really bad sales people and do not want to have the same experience.

So, what are they doing wrong? Sales, indeed, is a tricky business. One wrong word out of your mouth and there goes your potential customer. How can that be avoided? By learning the skills of a good sales person and that is to avoid the 3Ps.

In any sales talk, these 3Ps will eventually surface. You will eventually let your potential customer know about the product, the price and then you will have to make a proposal at some point. But unskilled sales persons do this at the very beginning of a conversation. An exceptional sales person will never get to the 3Ps immediately.

The reason why many sales people are unsuccessful is because they make blunders like this. The moment they spot a potential customer, they start talking about their products. They go on and on about how great the product is and how it could actually benefit a lot of people if they have it. Afterwards, they go on and let the potential customer know how cheap it is and how they are giving such great discounts and then they go on and give their proposals.

The difference with successful sales people is that you will not hear them speak almost at all.

Great sales people will be actually just asking potential customers about their life and their problems and then provide solutions to these problems.

Selling a product is ineffective when you do not even get to know your customer. You need to know what their needs are and you get to know how they think. The way to sell a product is to make your potential customer realize that they actually need your product so that it may solve some of their problems.

How can you sell to your customers if you do not know what they need? Before you actually approach someone with a proposal, you need to carefully plan. Avoid the 3Ps as much as you can in the first meeting and just get to know your customer.

Build a relationship. Spend time with them because you will eventually reap the benefits.

Are your managers any good at managing people? If not, have you given them the tools to do so?

Broadly speaking managers do two things. They manage the running of the section of a business they are looking after, including information, systems and numbers. The other is the people that report to them, which is a very different skill.

If you were to mark all of your managers at their competence in understanding the two areas they look after, how would they score? In my experience, the understanding of people will usually come off worst.

I was having a conversation with a contact recently, and the old adage came out that you join a company, but you leave a manager. Meaning that it is the organisation that draws you in, the product or service you represent rarely lets you down, it is the manager that will bring you to leave.

Many managers get their job as a result of being good at what they do for a long time. Sales for example, if you are good at what you do, eventually your experience and perceived seniority will create a situation where the discussion of leadership arises.

But management is a specialised skill, and very different set of tools are required.

What so many of these managers need is a tool to be able to manage their teams properly. Rather than hoping they excel naturally, if you use a good quality profiling tool like DISC (the classic 4 quadrant assessing tool – Driver, Influencer, Steadiness and Compliance) you have a full report on every member of the team. It is not a judgement or a scoring system, but a guide to productivity for the individual and for the manager to know exactly how to manage the individual.

The report I use identifies –

• Natural Style
• Adjusted Style – (How they are currently changing themselves in their current role – Great discussion to have with a direct report.)
• Strength on different workplace tasks.
• Decision making
• Communication style
• Motivations and situations that reduce them
• How others perceive them
• Primary role in a team

Gone are the days of ticking some boxes and finding out if you are one of 4 styles, D, I, S or C. The theory is the same, but sophisticated reports read like a manual to how you work and how you can manage people effectively.

Give your managers the blueprint so they can manage their people with full knowledge of themselves and more importantly, a full knowledge of what is required by the people reporting to them.

For a sample report and an explanation of its uses, please contact us.