In last month’s newsletter feature, we discussed how developing a sales culture in which everyone in an organization becomes part of the virtual sales team can help create overwhelming success. We also introduced the two basic types of team roles – sales representatives and sales professionals. In this second article of our six-part series on building sales culture, we focus on the essential set of sales skills needed by both sales representatives and sales professionals. 

Are You a Sales Rep or a Sales Professional?
The answer to that question depends on what role you’re playing in the sales process at any given time and what skill set you’re using. To build a truly powerful sales culture within your organization, nurturing the sets of skills of both sales reps and sales professionals is important. So is understanding that we all use them regardless of our roles. I’ve said in my Sales Culture Workshops that “we’re all in sales,” and often that means simply thinking differently about what you’re doing.

Here we discuss the five basic sales rep skills needed by both sales reps and sales professionals:

1. Product Knowledge
   Having a deep knowledge about the products or services you sell is the most fundamental sales skill needed. You should understand not only the features and benefits of your products, but also how they can add value to individual customers’ situations.
   A smart customer will often challenge your products and services. So be sure to anticipate their questions – and have the answers ready – to justify the value of your products.
2. Prospect Identification
   Prospect identification and targeting (creating a target list) are complementary activities. Typically, you’ll start with a target list of prospects to pursue. Using this list, sales reps and sales professionals should do some initial research to determine whether the companies on the list have a need for your products or services. This will help provide you with a starting point for phone contacts and other sales outreach activities.
   Once you have made the phone call or cold call and detect a level of interest, you can begin to build your pipeline. Your pipeline is made up of organizations that may be interested in your products or services – they become your prospects.
3. Discovery
   While prospecting involves making initial contact with an organization, discovery is asking the right questions to qualify prospects. Qualifying your prospects – determining if they are indeed potential customers – requires additional discovery (asking more questions) to help you better understand their full potential to purchase from your company. When prospects become potential customers, they are now in your pipeline.
4. Effective Pipeline Management
   Your pipeline of potential customers is your path to success. Do you have a pipeline? Do you look at your pipeline every day and determine what you need to do to move each potential customer down the funnel toward closure?
   Once potential customers are in your pipeline, you need to:

   • Demonstrate the value in your products or services.
   • Communicate why they should purchase your products or services.
   • Help them understand the trade off between price and the value they’ll get.
   • Provide a contract for closing the sale.
   Understanding the mindset of your potential customers—as well as finding the best way to accommodate their needs—is critical for progressing to the next stage in the pipeline of the sales process and, ultimately, closing the sale.
5. Handling Objections
   Handling objections is a regular part of the sales process. Although many sales reps may view objections as obstacles, they can actually be used as catalysts to help you learn more about potential customers’ needs. Objections give insight as to why a potential customer isn’t making a purchase. In addition, objections are reasons to keep moving ahead with potential customers, develop a better relationship with them, hone your offerings, and, of course, sell.
   If you understand why a potential customer says no, you can then find a way to remove the obstacle and complete the sale. This is a vital part of the success of every sales campaign. Be sure not to let objections end a sales campaign unnecessarily. Instead, use objections to conduct more discovery and showcase the value you provide.

In next month’s newsletter, we’ll talk about the additional skills you need to progress from sales rep to sales professional.

If you would like training tailored to your organization to help develop your sales team, contact me today about my course Great Sales Rep to Genius Sales Professional. Plus, my new book Never Sell Alone is now available. Click here to learn more about how you can get your copy and help your organization build a sales culture of its own.

How can your organization sell more and sell smarter? By creating a powerful sales culture – an environment that inspires and engages everyone in the organization to become part of the virtual sales team and support the sales efforts. In this first article of our six-part series on how to build a sales culture, we focus on the different sales skills and roles required of not only your sales team, but also across your entire organization. 

What Is Sales Culture?
Sales culture is the concept that everyone in an organization is in sales – including CEOs, accountants, lawyers, administrative assistants, as well as sales team members. Organizations with a sales culture are full of sales professionals – people who embrace the concept that they have a role in sales, whether they are directly or indirectly involved with the sales transaction. Companies with a sales culture have discovered that by mobilizing and harnessing the power of the entire organization they can effectively boost overall revenues, profitability, and growth.

The Roles of Sales Professionals Versus Sales Reps
When it comes to sales organizations, there are two basic types of team roles – sales representatives and sales professionals. We’re not necessarily talking about two different people, though. Depending upon what role an individual is playing in the sales process at any particular time, that person could be using the skills of a sales rep or a sales professional. In fact, it’s important for everyone in an organization to be aware of these roles and when and why they need to exhibit behavior of a sales rep versus a sales professional. Nurturing both sets of skills across the entire organization is what builds a truly powerful sales culture.

Both of these basic roles share the same basic set of skills needed to be successful. These skills include the ability to:

• Represent a company’s products and services to potential clients and prospects
• Develop expertise in an industry niche
• Know the value proposition and competition cold
• Know when to leverage other people to help bring a deal to closure
• Handle objections
• Do a great job at qualifying prospects
• Know when to ask for the business to close the deal.

So then, what differentiates a sales professional from a sales representative? Sales representatives are primarily focused on the present, their individual roles, and the here and now of a specific sale. They become fully engaged in providing product information to each customer with their primary goal set at getting a contract signed. A good sales rep is very effective in this type of situation.

On the other hand, while sales professionals also need to encompass the roles of a sales rep, they exhibit an important, additional set of skills. Sales professionals must take a step beyond their individual roles and the immediate sale to also consider the bigger picture. They are constantly aware of the overall sales campaign and the virtual team of supporters that contributes expertise to the close of each sale. They do a great job of developing high “Relationship Portability“™ – building strong, long-term business relationships that extend beyond their current day-to-day sales.

Sales Professionals – The Key to Building a Strong Sales Culture
Although sales professionals may at times also need to focus on the daily details of their jobs and closing each sale, they continually create a culture that engages all relevant players in the sales process. When dealing directly with a customer, they can operate as a sales rep focused on the sale – doing great discovery and managing their target list. Yet they never lose sight of the importance of creating a system that brings everyone’s best efforts to the forefront of the sales campaign. Sales professionals are the primary players in an organization who “rally the troops” to build a strong overall sales culture. And, a strong sales culture ultimately drives more sales.

As you look at your own organization, does everyone understand when and how to perform like a sales professional versus a sales rep? In future articles in this series, we’ll show you how to build the important sales rep skills as well as how to nurture the critical sales professional roles necessary to build a strong sales culture and achieve sales success.

For more information about how to build a sales culture in your organization, contact Todd Cohen today. Plus, Todd’s new book Never Sell Alone is now available. Click here to learn more about how you can get your copy and help your organization build a sales culture of its own.

Seriously – regardless of what job you do – you must be able to be able to specifically and absolutely trace what you do to the client saying “yes” and signing a deal.  This is the true essence of building a Sales Culture and creating amazing virtual teams.

In other words, you must have a “line of sight” to the deal!

I have said and written many times that the most basic element of a sales culture is that “everyone is in sales” It’s true – everything we do and every interaction is a selling situation.  You have the amazing and exciting opportunity to make what you do a vital part of the sales campaign – or not.

In the organization we all have a job to do and ultimately it all has an eventual and downstream effect on the client making a purchase and revenue being delivered to your company!  No one can or should sit in a silo and profess any lack of interest or understanding of how the role that they play in the creation of business and profits. If you embrace this then it is easy to see what you do can actually accelerate the sales campaign in many ways.

For example, if you are in finance you have the chance to work with the sales team and the client to create terms that are acceptable to both parties and close the deal.  If you are in marketing, you are in an exquisite position to see and listen to the clients and produce products and services that they will buy!

So, take a breath, and ask yourself – “can I see the revenue”?

I have seen many great sales professionals and I can say a common trait amongst all of them is that they do not go through there careers thinking they are entitled or anyone owes them a single thing.  These people come to work every day and give it their all.  There are no expectations and no sense of “you owe me”.  Their attitude screams of getting the job done and done well!  They leverage their virtual teams as best as they can.

The downfall of the sales rep is acting or think you they are entitled.  Here is a simple maxim I try and instill on my clients and sales culture students: if you want to see continued success and be the best sales professional you can be, then make sure the job you do and the sales culture you build is about the client and doing the right thing.  It’s not about you.

Don’t act entitled and you will be a great sales professional.  It IS that simple.

Good Selling!

-Todd

What is your relationship portability index or you’re RPi?  Try this exercise.  Make a list of all of your business relationships.  Then rate them this way this handy PDF worksheet.

1. Reliable and Available. They will always refer you, and they believe in you as a selling professional. They will make it a priority to introduce you to people in their organization without question. They are consistently available to you and are strong advocates for you as a sales professional and as a business professional.
2. Available but not Reliable. They are available and will take your call and refer you, but not without some concern. Not consistently reliable to be a part of your virtual team.  Personal trust may be an issue.
3. Neither Reliable nor Available.  They see you as just a part of their business and not at all extendable.
4. Nonexistent. These are people you know – maybe from a community organization or your social group – that you have never thought of as a possible business associate. These are RP possibilities waiting to happen.

A sales culture is powered by the virtual team and, by extension, your RPi.  The virtual team is powered by your RPi.  Make no mistake – if you can transport and leverage your business relationships with you throughout your professional career, you have a high degree of RP and the potential to be more successful is obvious.  If not, you will become stuck as you change and grow and find yourself starting over often.

***

Fox School of Business, Temple University
Established in 1918, the Fox School of Business, Temple University, has a distinguished tradition of preparing business leaders, professionals and entrepreneurs for successful careers. Today, it is the largest, most comprehensive business school in the greater Philadelphia region, and among the largest in the world, with nearly 6,500 students, 155 full-time faculty and more than 52,000 alumni. For more information, visit www.fox.temple.edu and www.fox.temple.edu/iei (Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute).

SalesLeader LLC and Todd Cohen
SalesLeader LLC advises and builds high-per¬formance sales teams that produce outstanding results.  The firm also provides strategic oversight for sales teams and provides executive sales coaching and advising to clients ranging from small, rapidly growing start-ups to well-established, large corpora¬tions.  SalesLeader LLC bridges the gap between the sales training you may already be doing and your next level of sales performance, firmly built on a sales culture designed to multiply your results and magnify your invest¬ment in traditional sales training. Please visit www.toddcohen.com for more information.

How strong are your business relationships? Do your business relationships extend beyond the sales transactions you complete every day? If you changed careers would you ever hear from those people in your database again?

The real question is this: Do you have RP – Relationship Portability?

RP is a key differentiating factor that separates sales reps from great sales professionals. A strong sales culture is made of sales professionals who have the ability to cultivate long term relationships and continually build on them. A sales professional with great relationship portability knows that those relationships will stay with him or her as careers and jobs change over time.

In any business climate, good or bad, change is inevitable. Products evolve, become obsolete, are replaced by newer, better products. Sometimes companies go out of business, are bought out or merge. You may be offered new opportunities. When all these changes happen, the strongest asset you have is your RP.

Here is an example of a sales professional who understood RP.  Jim sold paper to companies in a large metropolitan area. Even though we keep hearing promises of becoming a paperless society, it hasn’t happened yet. So someone has to fill the need for all the paper that cranks through printers and gets turned into business letters, direct marketing mailers, and award certificates. That was Jim – until a friend offered him the position of Vice President of Sales for his specialized software development company.

Jim had a great relationship portability index (RPi). His relationships went far beyond just filling his customers need for paper. He had become part of his customers’ virtual teams. He anticipated their needs. He talked with them about the evolution of their businesses. He was an honest sounding board about the changes in the market place. He referred business to them and introduced them to other professionals in his network.

When Jim needed to start making connections to learn about companies’ software needs, he didn’t have to make cold calls. With his high RPi, Jim could call the people who had bought paper from him.

If you have a decent business relationship with a paper buyer, he or she can probably give you the name of a colleague who is in a position to buy customized software. Because Jim had a great RPi, his customers were willing to go far beyond that. They would call a buddy in the right department and introduce Jim. They would say, “If you need anything, just call Jim. He’ll take good care of you.”

They would tell Jim about someone from their Rotary or Lions club who might need software. They kept in touch with Jim as their careers changed as well.

I see examples of effective virtual teams and sales cultures everywhere I go. I see so many examples, but still not enough to think that the sales culture practices are commonplace and clearly understood by sales organizations. When the sales professionals thoroughly understand what they have to do and know how to engage people, the organizational managers say, “Yes, go to work and be on the team.” No distractions on competing priorities are presented by different levels of functional bosses.

The virtual team members’ biggest challenge might be time management. The balancing of functional responsibilities and virtual team responsibilities to the customer can be tricky. One way to bring clarity to this challenge is to think of the customer and his needs first. What will help to satisfy the customer? How urgent is the customer’s need for my service? What works best for the customer? How can I help to move the sales campaign to a successful close?

Functional managers and sales professionals who are leading the virtual teams can help team members prioritize their work in ways that contribute to customer satisfaction and company success. Whatever affects a customer comes first.

Organizational managers can look at activities in two categories: customer issues and internal issues. If the environment or culture of the company is one that prioritizes the customer before all else, then everyone knows how to manage their time according to these guidelines. The internal issues need to be managed to best respond to the customer issues.

A sales professional should see every situation as a unique opportunity to reinforce a sales culture. The sales professional needs to recognize the different needs in each sales opportunity to build his sales culture and success. Money in the emotional bank account comes first. This account is built by developing relationships with customers and virtual team members, who can help with the customer relationships.

I was having breakfast with my friend Dr. Richard Marcus today and he had the most amazing thing to say.

Richard is a consulting psychologist and is highly regarded in his field – and after our conversation I am again reminded why.  We were talking about networking and how that is truly the lifeblood of how business moves.  Richard asked me if  ”I knew the 5 most important words of networking” ?  The answer is simple.  Get out your pen and get ready…

” I received your name from” and the SECOND most important 5 words are ”  I am giving your name to….”

Networking is all about being proactive. Listening to what people do and making sure that when you have a reason to refer someone to someone else you DO IT.  Too often people think networking is about collecting cards.  Wrong.  Networking is about truly taking the time to “get what someone does and going out of your way to make a referral and when you make it, you add your comments and endorsement.  Period.

When you are known as someone who refers and does it the right way, you then build your sales culture-and you have armies of proxy sales people who will be passionate about returning the networking favor.  Then you will be hearing those 5 amazing words.

Good Selling!

-Todd

I have been a little slow to get my blogging back online, because I have been working on my book  – but I have to share this story of some amazing sales professionals I encountered yesterday!  Are  you ready?  I was in the supermarket and as I was leaving, I was treated to one of the best sales pitches I have ever seen.  It was by a group of adorable 7 year old girls selling Girl Scout Cookies!

Let me tell you why they were awesome.  They asked me if I “had a moment”.  They asked me how I was doing and “did I like cookies?”  They took the time to explain the different kinds of cookies and one of them never took her eyes off me.  She asked me what “my favorite was” and then proceeded to make a recommendation!  One young lady was very concerned that I got my favorite kind ( Thin Mint) and when it seemed like they were out, asked me very politely if she could ask her mother to go to the car and see if there were any left ( there were….whew!)

Finally…..they asked me to buy!  They put the close on me and I did!  They earned the right to close me because they were patient, passionate and made me feel like they wanted to make sure I had the cookies I wanted.  These young ladies educated me, listened to my needs and asked me to buy!  Wait, then they asked me to send my friends – a referral!  True sales professionals creating sales culture.  I love it.  Lessons to be learned for all of us.

Good Selling!

-Todd