I had a sales manager many years ago whom I really disliked. We had little in common, he went out of his way to annoy and he was cheap. I mean really cheap. Anyway, he did one thing that changed me as a salesperson – he asked me for qualified information on any prospect I put on my forecast.
It sounds simple, but trust me, it was effective. He wanted to know why they were on the forecast, who was the decision maker, what was their budget, what was their time-frame and who was our competition. I was selling high-tech, capital equipment so this information was crucial to advancing a sale.
I remember my first few forecast meetings where I tried to shine him on with my jewel of a forecast. I was quickly shredded in front of the group. Being slow-witted, I tried one more time in the next forecast meeting. Shredded again. Then I decided to qualify prospects which I soon learned was far more lucrative.
In that vein, SMT’s Trainer Talk enewsletter provides an excellent article for sales managers titled Coaching Sales Strategy: A Cornerstone for Improving Sales Productivity. The article provides 6 tips to sales managers for coaching your salespeople through a complex sale. All of the points build upon the previous one, but this one stands out to me:
Establish Expectations. There is no such thing as a generic winning strategy when selling in a complex market. For an effective and efficient strategy coaching session, Sales Managers must establish the expectation that the Account Executive will, at a minimum, come to the strategy coaching session with a foundational business understanding of the customer. The Account Executive should have an understanding of the business environment, the account€™s business objectives, and a good sense about the buying process and players €“ plus some initial thoughts about the value proposition. Capturing the business is not about selecting a strategy; it€™s about formulating a strategy. And formulating a winning strategy is all about having a comprehensive understanding of the customer.
As a salesperson who has been on the “coached” side of that advice, I can promise you that having a “foundational business understanding of the customer” is mission-critical to successful selling.