As a continuation of my post from earlier this morning, I came across another Selling Power article that complements the point about the importance of asking the right questions.  The Sales Intelligence Imperative provides detailed statistics regarding the point at which many sales stall.  Interestingly enough, the researchers found that prospects were dropping out at a surprising time:

New research from CSO Insights shows an €œalarming erosion€ in sales reps€™ ability to move the sale forward from that initial conversation. Specifically, 57.6 percent of companies in 2005 said more than half of their initial conversations progressed further into the sell cycle.

There will always be salespeople who approach the wrong prospects due to a lack of prequalifying.  Some salespeople prefer any call instead of no call.

CSO managing partners Jim Dickie and Barry Trailer say the reason companies are struggling to move prospects past initial conversations is that today€™s ultra-informed prospects want reps to demonstrate a value-add beyond product knowledge during the initial meeting. When a rep can€™t do this, prospects shun further meetings.

That is exactly correct.  We have completed sales opportunity post-mortems for our clients and found this lack of value-add to be the top reason an opportunity is terminated before moving through the selling system.

Prospects can research your product or service through the web at a level that has not existed in days past.  Heck, I remember thumbing through old Thomas Registers to find information about manufacturing companies.  In those days, a salesperson spent much of their time explaining their product or service offering and that was a perceived value.

Today, those types of salespeople see “alarming erosion” in their forecasts.

(and my apologies for the title of this post – I simply have a weakness for that old saying)

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Simple thought here for anyone who hires or manages salespeople.  We always recommend reimbursing outside salespeople through mileage as opposed to a monthly allowance. 

Simple psychology here:

Allowance Reimbursement – you are paying the salesperson a set amount of money every month regardless of their travels.  Now the salesperson may look at travel as an expense the dilutes their personal profit margin.  They make more money by traveling less which is anathema to selling.  Yes, it is good to encourage them to be frugal in their travel so they don’t go on a shake-and-howdy bender – better to qualify prospects thoroughly before scheduling a visit. 

I don’t like the subtle reinforcement of limiting their travel (and thereby their prospect visits) in order for them to pocket more money.

Mileage Reimbursement – you are paying the salesperson for every mile they drive.  If they drive more (hopefully visit more prospects and customers), you pay them more.  Yes, they can game the system, but it is simple to verify where the salesperson has been if needed.

I like the subtle reinforcement of encouraging them to see more prospects.

I could be wrong but these are the strong points that resonate with me when we are helping our clients craft a sales compensation plan.  Still, we have clients who prefer the allowance approach.

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Selling Power provides an excellent article regarding a sales ability that is often overlooked – The Art of Asking Great Questions.  Listening is an important sales skill that leads to qualifying success.  But as the article points out, listening ability it not worth much if you cannot ask the right question.

You can€™t simply walk in a prospect€™s door and say, €œWhat are the issues you are struggling with?€ or €œWhat keeps you up at night?€ Today, you€™d be jettisoned out of the office by savvy executives who demand more researched, intelligent, and thought-provoking questions.

This approach is true no matter what you sell.  The ability to ask good questions comes from good preparation and research.  The days of “learning” about a prospect’s business in person are long gone.  Prospects expect salespeople to have a general understanding of their current needs before the initial meeting (sometimes even before the initial approach or call).

This ability is quite evident when sourcing salespeople too.  Some candidates respond to an ad yet do not recall any specifics from the ad.  When asked about their fit to the position, they often regurgitate common talking points or simply state they do not remember the ad . . . at all.  Red flag.

My favorite wisdom from this short article is found in point #3:

Don€™t assume anything. Don€™t assume you know what€™s important to customers. Even if you€™re right, you still need to provoke thought to make the sale. Witness what happened at IBM. Years ago, the company found new sales reps were growing their business for about 20 months and then they€™d plateau. In examining the problem, managers discovered that after 20 months, reps had so much product knowledge and customer experience, they could walk into an account and immediately tell the customer what would solve their problems. €œThey could diagnose a problem quickly, but they didn€™t give the customer a chance to talk,€ says Acuff. So even though their diagnoses were spot-on, they weren€™t closing sales. The lesson: even if you€™ve seen it all before, it€™s still critical to ask the questions.

One axiom we always live by is that prospects buy for their reasons, not ours.

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