Sales Laundry

Posts Tagged ‘sales methodology’

Early into my sales career I found myself working in a regional electronics and appliance store trying to figure out how to sell the stuff I was surrounded by but had ignored my whole life growing up, appliances.

The #1 reason I wanted to know how to sell appliances was not for the noble purpose of being a knowledgeable source of information for customers; it was for a far more selfish reason, I wanted to beat Davis.

Even on my first day as a trusty new representative, I could see Davis was not a man to be trusted. He had shifty eyes, a smirk like he knew something you didn’t, and a good decade of experience on the rest of us. Picture Snidely Whiplash without the top hat.

Davis was the number one sales rep my first month at the store. He was also number one each and every month he had ever worked there. He was a selling machine and was being paid stupid money compared to the rest of the sales team.

How could a guy that looked about as trustworthy as a snake in a cage full of furry mice continually outsell every other guy on the floor? Why didn’t the customers see right through that stupid grin?

Trying to figure it out, I asked each and every other rep what they thought his secret was before my first two months was at an end.

“He just lies and tells them stuff to get the sale.”

“He has been here so long he has repeat customers that wait for him.”

“He steals sales on your day off.”

“The owner throws extra special customers his way.”

“Customers just don’t understand what a shyster he is.”

“He has good product knowledge.”

And finally…

“He is just good.”

It seemed easy to believe the repeat customer part, or that he had built up a client base that would come back to see him, but that did not make sense if he was lying to every customer he sold to.

The only thing I could see as a tangible difference was his product knowledge, so I set about learning about every item in the store. Anytime a manufacturer’s rep would come in the store I would quiz him about every feature and benefit to every box in the building that we carried.

I studied owner’s manuals (this was long before the Internet) and product sales literature. I watched the TV commercials to see how they were pitching the products. I even went to other appliance stores to watch reps, ask questions, and in general try to be an information sponge.

Finally, after six months of careful painstaking study I knew the story and feature set behind every product in the building and I thought for certain the very next month would spell the end of Davis’ streak of consecutive months at being number one.

I beamed with pride the first day of the month because I crushed Davis’ totals. I sold $2000 worth of merchandise, Davis sold $359 worth. Of course, it was a hollow victory, as that had been Davis’ day off and his one sale was a customer coming back with his card to buy a TV.

Day two, though, I was ready. I had a two pronged attack planned. I had massive product knowledge and I was fast, so I could out run Davis to the customers. I was certain with knowledge and speed combined, Davis would be doomed.

Davis crushed me.

Day 3. Davis crushed me.

Day 4. I was off. Davis crushed me.

Day 5. I was working. Davis crushed me.

With few moments of triumph, which I had already accomplished a time or two before I set my new strategy in play, that is how the entire month played out.

Finally, I decided Davis must have access to product knowledge through his experience I just did not know, so I decided to ask him how to sell Maytag washing machines, because Davis sold them better than anybody and they were expensive compared to the other brands for the most part.

What Davis said that day changed my perception of sales every subsequent day for the rest of my sales life.

He said “When a customer likes the Maytag’s, I sell them a Maytag. When a customer likes the Kitchenaid, I sell them a Kitchenaid.”

Don’t worry; it took me a bit of thinking to unlock the brilliance of that statement as well, so I followed up his statement with a very succinct question.

“Huh?” David laughed at me, looking at me like I was a little boy playing a game for the grownups.

“When the customer likes the Maytag, I tell them about how the small agitator in the Maytag washer is easy on their cloths, because friction with the agitator makes the cloths wear out more quickly. Maytag moves the water through the cloths, not the clothes through the water. Plus they are easy to repair yourself with front access and pieces that are user serviceable.” He said. “When a customer likes the Kitchenaids, I explain how the large agitator in the washer does a fantastic job of churning the cloths and scrubbing them clean as Kitchenaids move the cloths through the water and there are no belts that need replacing like there are on the Maytag’s. Get it?”

“Yes.” I said. I lied. It took even more thinking that night to figure out what he just said then it hit me like, like, like a truckload of Maytag washing machines.

I realized I had done all the research; from Consumer Reports to vendor reps and manuals, etc. and I had decided, based on my expert opinion, which products were the best and those were the ones I tried to sell everyone. If they did not see the brilliance of my logic, I would continue to whack them over the head with facts demonstrating why I was smarter than them and why they should pick the product I was recommending.

As a result I only sold customers I could shoehorn into what I thought was best, and I was taking way too long with the ones that were not listening, meaning Davis was selling more and getting to more customers.

Davis would steal a sale or two on your day off if you would let him, but he never tried to swim upstream with a customer unnecessarily to get them to buy what he thought was best. To his credit, the one the customer bought was the best one because that was the one that got him paid, not the guy at the appliance store across the street.

If you are selling multiple brands of essentially the same basic product, try to understand what each individual brand of that product type is trying to hang their hat on, so to speak.

There will be products selling on no other value than being the lowest price in the category, there will be products that try to offer a unique feature or service that they will try to differentiate themselves with and there will be the top of the line, feature rich models.

Which one should you sell? All of them. Ask your qualifying questions and listen to the answers. Let their needs and wants drive what you sell, not some preconceived notion of what you think is best.

Listen then educate, never dictate or pontificate.

I love cheesy sales one liners.

Image courtesy of newsday.com

Q&A’s are excerpts of questions I have answered as part of Sales Laundry or other forums that I am apart of.  If there is a relevant sales message for the masses I post it here to share, gather feedback and discuss.

Q:  Help!  I am marketing a new sports bat training device through independent sales reps, sales are improving, but slowly, and I need to speed up the process.  Any suggestions?

A:  Congratulations on getting from patent to production.  That is no small accomplishment. 

It sounds like sales are happening, but each sale is happening in a vacuum, and not having much of an impact on overall sales velocity. 

Pick a niche in your target market. Maybe it is college baseball, high school baseball, or pro, maybe it is rehab facilities, or possibly coaches, and put your available resources toward owning that niche (ala Crossing the Chasm) to begin to create some leverage out of each sale, that will make the next sale just a little bit easier. 

That should start to give you the multiplier on existing sales you are looking for. 

The next key is finding the right individuals in your selected niche that can add another multiplier to your existing sales with their credibility and influence. 

Look at that niche market and find the people who have influence over the potential customers in that niche. Instead of focusing your sales on anyone that will buy one, focus on the handful of guys that carry enough influence to multiply the leverage benefit of each individual sale. 

Where do you find these guys? Look at trade organizations, governing organizations, boards of directors and consultants for major baseball sporting goods manufacturers. Or it could be as simple as finding that old guy that everybody knows who has been around the game forever and knows everybody who is or was anybody in the game. Look to one of the statesmen of the game along the lines of the late Buck O’Neil as a fine example. 

I would also look to entrepreneurial ex-baseball players with hall of fame reputations. Look for the guys that are out of the game, have the contacts you need and are building business empires of their own. Nolan Ryan is one that comes to mind. 

I had to make a lot of assumptions here, but I hope that helps. 

Negotiating a strong compensation package for yourself in any role, but especially business development, can be a two edged sword.

On one hand you have sliced yourself a nice slice of base with a healthy heaping of commission, but on the downside if you have trouble putting your money where your mouth is, your compensation package could make you a particular juicy target when your company is looking to trim the fat.

 What should you do about it?  You should avoid becoming a target in the first place

If your mouth and sales skills have landed a particularly rich compensation package above and beyond some of your peers you darn sure better produce to a standard beyond yours peers as well.

 You might also want to make sure the level of production you need hit is even possible with your existing sales methodology.

 Many years ago I made that mistake.  I managed to work myself into an exceptional compensation package, and managed to lose sight of reality just long enough to agree to some stratospheric sales targets.

 I completely missed the fact that using my current sales strategy those new targets were a mathematical impossibility.  In retrospect, if I could have suspended the rule that there are only 24 hours in a day or my occasional need for sleep and a good bath, I MIGHT have been able to pull it off.

 While I am smarter today, I am still not smart enough to bend time and space to meet my sales objectives.  Sure, I could have gone the safe route and negotiated a smaller compensation package but that would have taken a large degree of the challenge and fun out of the journey.

 Placed in that situation today I would work backward from my lofty goals and determine what changes I would need to make on a daily basis to make sure my goal was well in line at year end.   Those changes could be as simple as making a few more calls each day or as difficult as pulling a Tiger Woods and completely revamping my sales swing so to speak.

 Either way, the experience would make me better at what I do and earn me a heady title typically reserved for laundry detergent, such as “new and improved” or “new more powerful formula!“

  The only draw back I see from this line of thinking is that by hitting those crazy numbers, next years’ budget will be crazy number + 10% and it will be time to revamp that swing again.

Image courtesy of www.consumerwarningnetwork.com