The Sales Performance Suite

Hey Dude, Your ‘Tude is Showing!

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Believe it or not and although some won't admit it, your sales reps are human!

And as humans, their approach to situations, people and events is formed by prior experience.

A good example is a story we heard about a fellow and a gas station air pump. The air pump had a defective pressure indicator and he overinflated his tire to the point where the tire burst and knocked him over. Although not seriously injured, for a very long time after the incident he was wary and suspicious of all air pumps and avoided them. He drove his car on underinflated tires and when the risks were pointed out to him, he would have somebody else put air in the tires of his car. Finally, a friend wisely suggested that he invest in a good tire pressure gauge so he could properly monitor his tires' pressure.

While the story is an extreme case and the solution is obvious, it does illustrate how experience impacts behavior.

"Big deal, I knew that!" you're thinking.  "What does this have to do with sales and sales reps?"

If you manage reps who've been selling for any length of time you must be aware their actions and performance are impacted by the accumulation of their experiences. Those experiences can be very beneficial to their ability to build rapport, establish specific industry/segment credibility, and incorporate best practices for future success. After all, experience results in seasoning and strength.

But a rep's prior experiences can be an obstacle to their success, too. In the case of favorable experiences, such as winning a string of opportunities, they're acknowledged and awarded for their strong performance by you and their peers.

Based upon that experience, your rep may decide that a "one size fits all" approach will work when calling on the next prospect. Although the environment, circumstances, and the players have all changed, your rep may take an inappropriate strategy that will result in lost deals instead of closed ones.  Prospects shut down when they're being called on by a rep who claims to "really know their business" before the first question is asked.

One rep we know - who'd been very successful in selling to IT - fell to that very flaw.  After closing a series of deals, he assumed all he had to do was to follow a formula which was to impress upon his prospects the significance of what he'd done for others. That strategy can be an effective one, but not in all cases as the rep failed to recognize the differences in the varying needs between his prospects. As a result, his sales went into a tailspin.

What do you do to avoid this happening to one of your reps?

Obviously, you can't be on every call; both geography and time limit your ability to do that.  An effective tool in your sales manager's toolbox would be to mandate pre-call planning. You can then review calls before they occur and perform some very useful managerial diagnostics. A few pointers for you to look for are:

• Patterns. Look for patterns that tell you your reps are not just following a formula. Sample your reps plans to verify they are tailoring their approach on upcoming calls which should reflect the differences between each prospect and customer. If you continually read the same questions on every plan, it's time for some field coaching sessions.
• Innovation: Get your best reps to share their successful plans and share them to build your team's bench strength and to incorporate best practices, emphasizing the "whys" of the techniques and not just merely duplicating content.

You can get started by downloading our free guide to pre-call planning.

Photo credit: jantik