Times are tough, customers are delaying decisions, business is very competitive, customers are more purchasing savvy than at any time and they really don’t want to be sold to by sales people. But no-one told you that selling was easy!

So what is the standard response from sales leaders (VPs/Directors/managers) to this situation? Unfortunately it is often to focus on the wrong things, let’s try an analogy using golf. The sales person is on the tee, driver in hand and the sales leader is nowhere to be seen. The sales person can drive it straight (unlikely in my experience), slice it into the rough or pull it out of bounds. Whatever the outcome the sales leader probably has no idea what has taken place.

The good news is that we got lucky; we are in the light rough on the right and take a long iron for our second shot. Again no sales leader is watching and we have similar potential outcomes except this time we hit it into the bunker at the side of the green. As we reach our ball the sales leader wanders past and says that they need it down in three from there, and could we do it in the next five minutes (something about quarter end).

We splash out to 18 feet and the sales leader is now standing over the putt with us giving advice and coaching us with phrases like “Remember, whatever you do don’t screw up!”. We putt to 3 feet, always a tricky one, and notice the sales leader is now joined by their boss – great we are getting plenty of advice now.

The good news is that we make the putt, the sales leader and their boss leave without a word, and you go to the next tee by yourself. OK, so it’s an analogy, but it works for me on a number of levels. Firstly, the sales leaders only got involved in the dying moments of the sale and had little understanding of what has gone on in previous meetings with the customer. In fact, the first meeting you had may have been so bad that you went out of bounds and never got a second shot. Secondly, we are focusing on outputs from previous work rather than shaping the business development efforts of the sales team by coming up with a clear set of practical strategies that can drive results. There are other parts to the analogy – and can you get it in the hole for quarter end – which I am sure you understand from your own personal experience, so I won’t labour the point.

In the next four posts I am going to explore what steps I believe sales leaders can take that will impact medium and long term business, and create a solid platform for business development. The four areas are:

– Creating meaningful value propositions

– Fishing where the fish are – segmentation

– Knowing your metrics – driving the pipeline

– Coaching for sales success

I hope you enjoy the rest of the articles.

John is an executive coach, sales and management trainer who has worked with many companies in the field of selling services and solutions to corporate clients. Contact John and his site is Sales Training Consultants

John is an executive coach, sales and management trainer who has worked with many companies in the field of selling services and solutions to corporate clients. Contact john@sales-training-consultants.co.uk and his site is http://www.sales-training-consultants.co.uk

Author Bio: John is an executive coach, sales and management trainer who has worked with many companies in the field of selling services and solutions to corporate clients. Contact John and his site is Sales Training Consultants

Category: Business Management
Keywords: business development, sales, strategy